Andrew Jackson Foster

 Andrew Jackson Foster was the first African American to get a bachelor's degree from Gallaudet University. He was also the first African American to earn a master's degree from Eastern Megan University. He used this education to provide Deaf education in many countries in Africa. He was born On June 27th, 1925. When he was about eleven, he and his brother got spinal meningitis, which caused both of them to become deaf. In the years following, He received six years of Education At the Alabama School of coloured death people. He would have had more but during that time racial segregation was still going on in Alabama, so any African American could not get more than six years of education. He moved to Michigan and got two more years of schooling while living with his Aunt. Then, he took classes with the American Correspondence School while working multiple jobs.  A short time after the war, Eric Malzkuhn, who was a teacher at Gallaudet University, told him on multiple accounts that he should attend Gallaudet University He attempted multiple times but was rejected because of his race. He received a diploma to be an accountant in 1950 and high school diploma from The American School in Chicago. After earning these awards, Gallaudet University finally accepted him. He then moved to Africa and started preaching about God and the ways that he helped him through the tough times of being a deaf African American. He died on December 3, 1987, at age 62. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Foster_(educator) 

Track meet

On Friday the 26th me, my mom, my brother and a friend went to the annual HCOS track meet.  We had to wake up extremely early to get there on time.  The first activity that we had was the 100m dash.  Then we had shot put, disqus and then took a break until the 400m and ended with long jump.  I got 2 4ths, 5th, 8th, and participation.  There were 16 people in our age group.  I accidentally raced in the grade 9 race and got a 4th.  

I trade my higher ribbons to get lower ones because I liked the colour better.

 

Jeff Kinney

 In 2020 I did a research project on Jeff Kinney. During that research project, I sent him a letter.

 I just got the letter back this week! Here are some pictures of it.

I also got his signature

The Mystery Challenge

 

Zach sat in the clammy, spider-infested corner and thought to himself that he had to find a way out before they caught him. To understand how we got to this point, we have to start a couple of hours before. Zach was doing his daily routine right before he began recording for his video blog. He noticed that his keys still felt sticky from the Coke he had spelled on his keyboard the day prior, but that would not keep him from reading the comments of his last video. Today he was extra careful and put the Coke in a water bottle. In the previous video, he said he would do whatever the most liked comment said. The most liked comment said to explore the closest abandoned building to his apartment. The closest abandoned building was a rundown prison right next to a deep brown alligator-infested swamp, thus making the ground extremely uneven and making it way too easy for prisoners to escape. However, few prisoners tried because of the swarms of mosquitoes, making it hard to see. It was about 1.5 miles away. The road going through had multiple times where you couldn't even drive because the swamp overran it.

Zach decided that he would get a good sleep before he headed out the next day because it was getting late.  During the night, he had a nightmare of being surrounded by shadowed figures that he couldn’t make any distinctive features out of.  He woke up in a cold sweat but still decided to head out.  As he started driving, about three minutes into the drive, he came into the first patch of undrivable swamp.  He parked his car and started walking through the putrid and humid swamp while being attacked by swarms of mosquitos.  It was at this point that he was glad that he brought mosquito repellent.

After walking for about twenty minutes, he made it to the prison and started walking towards the front door.  The only problem was that the front door had been chained and boarded up.  So, he walked around and found one door hidden by vines and alligator nests that seemed to have been pried open recently.  As he started walking in, he took out his camera and started to record.  He had done some research the prior night about the prison, so as he was walking, he was explaining all about the prison.  Just as he made it out to the first courtyard at the center of the prison, he heard a strange noise coming from the smelliest room that smelled like years of decomposing feces.  As he walked in, he realized it was the bathrooms, and one of the stalls had been broken open to reveal a giant press used for pressing alligator leather.  When he saw that, the first thing that came into his mind was the law that was passed about six months before that said no killing or selling the leather of the alligators in the swamp because they had begun to become endangered.  It seemed that these people here were continuing to press down the leather.  It smelled of a strange oil.  Just as he went to exit the bathrooms, he heard footsteps coming his way.  He immediately went to hide in one of the bathroom stalls.

 

As he bolted towards the nearest bathroom stall, he heard their footsteps get closer and closer.  While he was closing the door, they stepped foot into the bathroom.  Surprisingly, they did not notice, but it was enough time for him to get a glance at them.  The guy closest to him had a pale, foggy cataract and a surprising lack of a jawline.  The white cataract explained why they hadn’t seen him.  They both seemed to be wearing different fast-food uniforms.  One was Subway, and one was Burger King.  The second guy reminded him a lot of his grandfather with a long beard and a short mustache that didn’t fit him all that well.  As they were walking in, they were talking about the Blue Jays and the Mariners.  They walked right out and through the bathroom into the press room.  Zach thought to himself that there had to be some way to escape. Just then, he heard one of the men run out of the room and down the hall.  The other guy ran the opposite way.  He had been awfully confused but thought it was the perfect time to make a break.  As he was running, he heard an engine start-up and get louder and louder and louder until it was all he could hear.  He was trying to run, find an exit, and escape the horrific noise.  Just as it started to get dimmer, he turned a corner and ran face-first into a bright green wall.

 

He felt arms quickly wrap around him as the guy dressed for Subway loomed down and stared at him.  The man first asked, “What are you doing here?”  in a raspy but light voice.  Zach immediately started rushing through ideas on what to say and whether or not to tell the truth or try to come up with some sort of lie.    Zach said the first thing that came to mind, “I was lost.” This seemed to surprise the man, and he loosened his grip just enough for Zach to shimmy out.  He immediately bolted down through the mazes of hallways and rooms with the fading light shining through the windows.  He finally stopped to rest about 100 feet from where he came in.  But just sitting there and about to turn the corner was the other man.  Zach immediately darted into the closest room, which happened to be one of the jail cells.  This jail cell seemed to have been used for some sort of escape because there was a hole about a foot into the wall.  Instead of making a risky break towards the man, Zach attempted to call the police.  The moment he pulled out his phone, he noticed there was no cell service, meaning he couldn’t call anyone.  Just then, the sound of the machine cut to an abrupt stop, and the other man started heading back toward the machinery.  Zach immediately made a break for it and made his way out of the building.

As Zach was running, he heard a strange grunting noise coming from behind him.  He looked behind him, and there was an alligator chasing him because of the placement of the door, which led right to its nest.  This fueled the adrenaline already rushing through Zach’s body to push him to move even faster.  This entire time, Zach had been trying to get any type of cell service he could.  Just as he got a bar, he dropped his phone and tried to stop, but he kept sliding forward through the mud.  When he had finished sliding and looked behind him, the alligator stopped on top of the phone and stared him down.  After multiple painstaking moments of the two of them exchanging stares, the alligator turned around.  Just as Zach picked up his phone, he heard noises coming back from the way he came, so he booked it back to his car.  Then Zach started calling 9-1-1.  After a quick explanation to the operator, there was one police car sent out, and he was told just to go home and rest.  The next day, the news was filled with some of the video footage Zach had taken and the story of the alligator lether ring in their little town.  After getting permission to use some of his footage for his YouTube video, he posted it and decided that he would just stick to posting videos about his normal life for a bit.

 

Iqbal

 Iqbal Was a 13-year-old born in Muridke, Pakistan. Just like millions of kids there, his parents had fallen into debt, and they had to sell him to a Carpet maker to help pay off his parent's debt. He worked from dawn untill dusk with a very short lunch break in the middle. One day, he escaped when he was ten and went into the village where he found an organization of people who saved slaves because it was illegal for the kids to be working. He went there and told the organization about the carpet maker and helped shut down his first carpet factory. Instead of deciding to go back and live with his parents again, he decided to stay with the organization to help many more slaves. After two years, he saved 3000 kids from these carpet factors, and brick factories but when he was visiting his parents he ended up getting shot when he was only 13.

I really enjoyed this book that was based off of real events.  I would definitely recommend it.  It was quite moving and through the help of Iqbal many more kids have found out about this organization and helped free more slaves.

Visible Disabilities

 This is a project about famous people with disabilities.  We were talking about the differences between hidden and visible disabilities.  Jordan is doing a poster about a hidden disability and I did a visible one.  I think that hidden disabilities can be harder for people because there are many people that believe that those disabilities are just made up.  Meanwhile, it's harder to argue that visible disabilities aren't real.

 For Techlab the past couple of weeks we have been working on a tinker game that we can show to the class I did a tinker class about gravity, so I decided to make our platform with jumping physicists I think I did really good on it I even made the boss fight able to make the physics goal weird I have published it to Tinker so I can have other people who play the game and make remakes Here is the link to my game in case you would like to try it   https://www.tynker.com/ide/v3?type=diy&p=65b3f842006e2879811f11f4

Update on violin

 My violin Playing is Going really well lately and I have been able to learn a lot more songs. Sadly, my teacher is retiring this year, so I won't have a teacher, and that is making me wonder if I should get new teacher or try a new instrument or go back to an old instrument. All that I know is I have really enjoyed trying the violin if I do choose to continue I will know I will continue to only get better

  Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as ADHD, makes it so I have a tough time focusing, and I am constantly active even if I am tired. This makes doing certain things a lot harder and other things easier. Things that are easier for me are things I enjoy doing, like video games, because I can hyper-focus on those things. Things that are harder are things I do not want to do like, like math, and my Brain just chooses to tune all of that out. I take meds that help me focus, but the problem is the current ones we take are the best ones, but they make me feel really sick when I take them. My doctor is getting us new pills so we can try them. Some strategies we use are 20-10.  You work for 20 minutes, then take a ten-minute break.  It's also helpful to get all the hard subjects done first while my brain is fresh.

energy

A force is a push or a pull.

Energy is the ability to do work.

work = force x distance.

Kinetic energy can move something with a force.

This energy of position is called potential energy.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, But it changes from one form of energy to another..

Buzzer Experiment

chemical = electrical = sound energy.

Solar Car Experiment

This is an old draft I decided to post

Health Goal

 For Techlab this year, the first main project that we have to work on is setting a smart goal. The goal I set is to eat healthier with more vegetables and fruits, more foods with vitamins, and two bottles of water a day. I have set this time the smart goal to and is on February 15th at exactly 1:20 pm for when it ends.

- need more water

- need more fruits and veggies

- need more vitamins and minerals

Mexico

 We went to Mexico for the first week in January. In total, it was 10 hours of travel time just to get there.  It would have been a lot longer if we had chosen to drive! We spent five hours on the plane and 5 hours driving. When we did get to Mexico, it was nighttime because of the two-hour difference. When we made it to our resort, our dad got us an upgrade to the family side. The family side gave us access to an entirely other pool and to reserve restaurants whenever we wanted. It was a lot of fun and there was a lot of cool stuff that they had including a game room. It was right next to the beach, and they had free paddle boards, pools with swim-up bars, and free room service. We only left the resort once to go to a farmers market and I bought a ring. We ended up having a lot of fun!

                                                     This is us after eating at a Mexican restaurant

                                           This is me and Jordan at the game room

                                           

                                                     This is me eating lunch by the pool

                                             I'm the one behind Jordan.