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Inner Peace–call it what you want

February 27, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org Leave a Comment

By Quintus Ni

Photo by Quintus Ni

Inner peace is kinda the beauty of life, with which, the storm outside the window stops and the world of mortals seems not that noisy anymore. Sitting still, we can hear the crystal sound when the raindrops fall down the tiles. Or, we can take the fishing rod and sit quietly beside the river, seeking for the initial peace that we first knew.

Inner peace is kinda unconventional grace.

We are not talking about those converted to Buddhism, but the ones living in this world of mortals. There may be not so many people that could find real inner peace and keep calm all the time in this complicated world.

With inner peace, people won’t be flighty or impetuous, won’t be overambitious, won’t put all efforts in intrigue, and won’t care about fame or success.

With inner peace, one can read books, write poems, or appreciate paintings in the light alone; get packed and travel, approach nature, see grasses and blossoms, or have a drink of wine or a cup of tea while listening to beautiful music and enjoying sweet memories…

Once we get ourselves calmed down, the whole world seems quiet as well. Gently closing our eyes, we can listen to the sound of nature with our hearts, create the colorful world of emotion, and warm everything touchable around us with love.

Inner peace, like the clean spring, though sometimes has ripples in the breeze, can restore its original pure and quiet state finally.

Whenever we lose inner peace, we can go and find a quiet place, to think, lie down on the ground, or look up to the vast sky, and then listen to the breezes and the bug buzz. In this way, we may find the truth of life, purify the soul, and get inner peace back!

In this materialistic world, we could easily drift with the trends if we were trapped in fame and success and desire, which could make us lose ourselves. If we lose the most precious innocence and calmness in our life, the boat of life will become precarious in the bitter life of mankind.

So, no matter who we are or what we are doing, as long as we are alive, we should live contented with our inner world. That’s the only way for us to feel happy.

The rule of life is to grasp appropriate occasions for various kinds of experience, like creatures should adapt to four different seasons: sowing in spring, hoeing in summer, and harvesting in autumn, and reserving in winter. When the official is out of office, he should not look for the feeling of sitting on the podium and giving the command; if the rich become poor, he should not look for the feeling of sitting in luxury cars. Many of us feel upset, just because the changing occasions and environments disturb our mood, which further disturbs our life and happiness. However, when we get over it and let it go, we could also have the opportunity to live a happy life.

With inner peace, we could get rid of lots of worries when talking with others. For example, a calm person always chats about domestic trivia, caring about no theme or tones. This kind of person always treats the past personal experience and the current times with great composure.

Inner peace is so amazing! It allows us live a purer, easier, and more contented life. Call it what you want, it is a enjoyable beauty of life!


Humanity Editor: Doreen Yuan

Filed Under: Humanity Tagged With: Inner Peace--call it what you want, Quintus Ni

The Heyday of Esports Has Come

February 26, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org Leave a Comment

By James Zheng

Esports, as I previously mentioned in one of my posts, has become a modern well-organized industry. Its influence over the world has expanded during the last two years. The heyday of Esports has come. In this post, the main focus is the League of Legend Season 9 Championship Tournament and the Champion team named FunPlus Phoenix, often referred to as FPX from the Chinese region. 

FPX

The Heyday has been extended due to a new participant from China that serves as a dark horse in the competition. This team called Invictus Game, known as IG, unexpectedly defeated most of the well-known strong teams and eventually won the final. All of the players became extremely famous after the final night, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this absolute unexpected winning by this team has shaken the national population in China. Even for the people who know nothing about Esports, they have felt a heavy atmospheric excitement from the internet and neighborhood. It has been proven that LPL (League of Legends Pro League, specifically the Chinese region) has obtained the strength to fight against the outstanding South Korean, European, and American teams. It truly makes other regions start to pay attention to IG; it is an unprecedented surprise to them that such a team nobody has knowledge of could win the championship. 

IG

As Season 9 Tournament climaxes, the best known regions including North America, Europe, South Korea, and China  will send their three qualified teams to fight. It is a great enjoyment for those who know each team well to watch them fight against each other, to give an example, just like the NBA fans watching the Lakers go against the Warriors, or Celtics go against the Rockets. We are not sure which one will win; those teams are exceptionally strong. All this  just builds up the suspense for the fans. 

Coming back to our protagonist, FPX, the team, is considered the new rookie who has not shown anything astonishing until it wins the 2019 League of Legend Rift Rivals and later gains the popularity from forums, blogs, and Esports media outside China. And FPX shows its power again by defeating IG to become the first-seed team from a Chinese region, and then go on fighting in the tournament against IG (champion from 9th tournament), Fnatic (Champion from 1st tournament), G2 (champion from 9th mid-season invitational). FPX prevailed over all of them without pressure, and one of the players even taunted G2 in an after-game interview saying, “I don’t think they are actually playing.” 

The victory of IG and FPX, the two teams used to play the role as minions, now has stood on the apex of the Esports realm. Their effort epitomizes the beginning of a new age, followed by the end of 2019 that ends with FPX’s conquest, more and more fans around the world are seeking more events involving these two teams. The European region and the South Korean region have found their worthy opponents.

Esports may seem trivial and sound like an alien thing to many people. The prosperity of Esports manifests as an emergence of a refreshing concept.

Beginnings/Endings Editor: Katelin Slosky

Filed Under: Year end/New Beginnings Tagged With: James Zheng, The Heyday of Esports Has Come

If you were magic . . .

February 26, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org Leave a Comment

A Wednesday Writing Prompt Ms. Zachik stole from the internet began . . .

“A strange meteor shower lasted for hours before you went to bed. The next day, technology across the earth fails. However, when you snap your fingers in frustration, the lights come on. The Age of Magic has begun.”

Ms. Zachik asked us, “If you were magic, what would it look like? What could you do? And, what would you do?”

Responses compiled and edited by Blog Staffer Renée Vazquez.

Renée responds . . .

“The Leonids meteor shower is coming Sunday night, and peaking during Monday night. Those in New Zealand should have a fair to a good chance at seeing one of the best meteor showers of the year when it peaks. The Leonids are one of the most dazzling meteor showers and every few decades it produces a meteor storm where more than 1,000 meteors can be seen an hour. Cross your fingers for some good luck – the last time the Leonids were that strong was in 2002, lighting up the Yucatan sky. Its parent comet is called Comet-Temple/Tuttle and it orbits the sun every 33 years.”

I was born in the Yucatan peninsula in 2002. During the exact peak of one of the strongest Leonid meteor showers ever seen. I was the only baby born that night, which was strange according to the nurses and doctors, but we lived in a very small, touristy town. They shrugged it off. I was sickly and struggled with my health all my life. Then in 2035, I experienced another meteor shower just like the one 33 years ago. This time I saw it, I was near my home in New Zealand when I saw the meteor shower begin. I felt all my worries slip away. My muscles relaxed. I felt every breath, every internal motion of my body. A comforting heat crept up my heart. And then the power went out. Everywhere. Well, just in New Zealand. But it was still shocking. When my husband and I went home, the power was still out, and after an hour we were getting antsy. I tried, for the 100th time, to flip the light switch on but, of course, it didn’t work. 

“Aw shucks, ” I said snapping my fingers cynically. All of a sudden. The light returned.

Katelin responds . . .

The sky was lit up with the shower of a thousand meteors. We watched in awe of the glory. It lasted hours, and soon we fell asleep to the bright flashes through the window. Clouds came from the meteors and settled down on Earth. They blocked the radio signal, stifled the electricity and power lines, and cut off any form of power. They demagnetized batteries of all kinds, ruining technology as the world knew it. But just as man was about to wake up in a world with no technology, we breathed one final breath before waking up.

Most of the clouds were absorbed into the machines, but some of us breathed in the mist. That is how we got our powers. Not everyone had a power, but those that did were limited to a certain range of them.

One power was the power to control plants. To make them grow as you wished, to manipulate small shrubs to become tall trees, or to grow a year’s worth of crops in a minute.

Another power was the power to control water. To control the tides of water, control the shape, and even draw water and energy from the sky’s vapor.

Another power was the power to control metal. These people could shift metal into any shape or form that they wanted to, forming deadly weapons at a single thought.

There were many more powers, all unique and different with the power to kill. I was with the power of lightning. I could control electricity, and create it too.

Luke responds . . .

First of all, the “Age of Magic” starts with me. Everybody else can snap, sure, but ONLY I CAN CONTROL THE MAGIC. If everyone’s special, nobody’s special, and I want to be special. So, the first thing I do with my magic is figure out how far my magic goes. Ideally, I’m a master of the elements. No, not the typical ice and fire type elements. I will be controlling THE elements. People will tremble as I walk around in my shiny robes and I start shooting PURE and UNMATCHED OXYGEN at them. In one universe of my wizardry, I become a supervillain with my elements. However, my primary element would be helium. It’s the coolest (forming at -269 degrees Celsius). In another universe, I start a school for elemental wizards and we save the world from climate change with the power to control carbon, oxygen, etc. Magic.

Chelsea responds . . . with “The Age of Magic”

As I snapped my fingers, everything stopped. The world was covered with blue hemisphere; golden sparkles rained down onto the ground while I blinked. I could move, but others could not. Thus I knew I had the power to stop time. It was in my wildest dream to do that and once I resumed the time with another snap of my fingers, the world was recovered from the blue hemisphere and the noise of people and cars started to fill my ears with unpleasant feelings. But I could care less, because I had the ability to stop those noises anytime as I want. 

I smiled to myself.

¨I win.¨

If you were magic, what would you do?


Filed Under: Wednesday Writing Prompt Tagged With: If you were magic . . .

Save The Mock Trial Team!

February 14, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org 5 Comments

By Luke Langlois

When Chelsea said the theme was “winter sports,” I figured that I would write up another post about hockey. Unfortunately, the only thing going on in the NHL is the same old regular season of play. There’s nothing particularly interesting about the middle of the season (unless you are an avid fan of hockey, which I still encourage you to be). So, why not write about my other favorite winter sport, MOCK TRIAL?! Yes. It counts. As a participant, I may be biased with this statement, but Mock Trial is easily one of the most underrated clubs at Palm Valley. If you are not sure what exactly Mock Trial is, I encourage you to check out my post linked below that I wrote all the way back in November of 2018. The current problem with Mock Trial at Palm Valley, though, is that seven out of our eleven members are seniors. We only have two juniors, two sophomores, and no freshmen. If something does not change, there will be no team next year. 

Here’s why Mock Trial is great. It’s too late to join this year, as competitions started on February 6th, but keep an eye out for it next year. Here are just a few of the many reasons why Mock Trial should be in your future if you are a 9-12th grader.  

  • The cases are always very well-written and fun to read, from the fact-situation (the stone-cold truths of the case) to the often contradictory witness statements. The committee who writes the cases has to make sure that both a prosecution and defense team can make a solid argument from the case with no side having more power than the other. As such, the cases are never simple and are full of nuance. Every detail is meticulously placed, and it always feels like you’re missing something. Essentially, there is never a dull moment when discussing the case.
  • The “officials” who moderate competitions are real legal professionals. All of the scoring attorneys are bar-certified, and the judges are either active judges or retired judges. A competition will never be presided over by someone who is not expertly qualified to do so. They’re also all voluntarily offering their time, so they usually are not cruel and jaded people who just want to go home. Few other extracurriculars allow you to interact with true experts in the field. 
  • You get to learn about United States law. The core intention of Mock Trial is to teach the students about the law of the United States, court proceedings, what exactly is needed to find someone guilty of alleged crimes, and more. However, this does not mean that Mock Trial is only for students looking for a career in law. Besides learning about the law, you learn some lessons in being an effective public speaker and thinking on your feet when matters don’t go exactly as planned. These are invaluable life skills! While people with theater backgrounds often constitute a big part of the Mock Trial team, that certainly isn’t a requirement, and you can thrive without any knowledge of performance. Plus, with knowledge of the law, you can look at things with a legal eye and not just rely on the often incorrect “court of public opinion.”
  • You get to dress nicely. Palm Valley polos are great and all, but how often do you really get razzle-dazzled up and burst into a courtroom with pride. Not very often, I’d wager. Speaking of courtrooms, in Mock Trial, you get to compete where the magic happens. When you walk into a courtroom, you instantly feel like you have become a person of high status and class. It’s not Disneyland, but the courtrooms are magnificently structured, and the Great Seal of the State of California “looking over” every courtroom makes me even feel a bit patriotic. There’s a lot of history in that Seal! 

Juggling schoolwork, clubs, and sports is already super difficult, so why not add Mock Trial to that mix? Seriously, though, it may be tough to add something else to your schedule, but I can (almost) guarantee that you will not regret joining Mock Trial. Riches in the forms of award medals are also available if you happen to have the talent. . .

Find my previous post “Mock Trial Explained” Below

Mock Trial: EXPLAINED!

Winter Sports Editor: Chelsea

Filed Under: Winter Sports Tagged With: Luke Langlois, Save the Mock Trial Team!

humanity

February 14, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org Leave a Comment

Blogger Philosopher on our Humanity

If we were to kill all the bad people in the world, would the world be a better place, with no bad people, or would we be the bad people? Would killing the people who are evil create a utopia? I mean, no one would ever be evil again, because they would be too scared to be killed, and there would be no other evil people. Or would it be a dystopia? These people are honestly acting on a human instinct. If we suppressed that, or made them not exist, would they still be human? In my opinion, there is a dark side to all of us, and by cutting that out, we would no longer have free will.

What decides whether a person is good or evil? A person could steal, but just be trying to feed their family and friends. A person who has technically done nothing wrong, has committed no crime, could still be an awful person to the people around them. What is the rubric for which people are good and which are evil?

In the end, I believe that you need good to balance out the evil. I think that good would not exist without evil. For example, if someone found a cure for cancer, that would be great for society. However, the cancer needs to exist, for the cure to be made. For every good act, there must be an evil that needs to be fixed. The solution to a problem may be a very good thing, but for that to exist, the problem must exist in the first place.

Humanity Editor: Doreen Yuan

Filed Under: Humanity Tagged With: humanity

The World: How Will it End?

February 13, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org 1 Comment

By Luke Langlois

I know my posts recently have been pretty negative. First, a review of our decade (we can’t get anything done), then, a showcasing of diseases that will kill, and now, you will learn some of the different ways our world could, well, stop turning! 99% of all species that have existed have gone extinct. Eventually, it’ll be our turn (unless we colonize Jupiter). The following are ways the world may end:

  1. Asteroid Impact: Due to Earth’s gravity, an object in freefall accelerates at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. It can be painful to jump out of your bed too quickly, and, if you fall from a height of about 3 meters, you could risk fracturing a bone. Imagine a massive cosmic rock smashing into our planet. The impact and aftereffects could be tremendous enough to end civilization as we know it. . . Shoutout to the dinosaurs.
  2. Black Hole: If a rogue black hole somehow stumbled close to Earth, we would have a bad time. A black hole’s gravity is so powerful that light itself is unable to escape from its grasp (thus the modifier “black”). If Earth even felt a smidgen of that gravity, it could lose its controlled orbit, which would cause extreme climate shifts. Or, Earth could get flung from our solar system and meet an ice-cold death in deep space.   
  3. Climate Change: We would prefer that the oceans do not engulf California, thank you. 
  4. Global Epidemic: Just one itty bitty viral DNA/RNA mutation could indeed spell the end of human civilization as we know it. Prominent outbreaks like the black plague and the Spanish flu have already wiped out tens of millions of us, so if a disease took it just one step further, who knows what could happen?
  5. A Reversal of Earth’s Magnetic Field: Earth has a magnetic field. That would be the reason why compasses work. Surprisingly, there were compasses before the compass app on the iPhone. Anyway, every few hundred thousand years, the Earth’s magnetic field shrinks until it is almost nothing, and it remains that way for a century or so. Then, it FLIPS! The last time this happened was around 780,000 years ago. It may be about that time! Without the magnetic field, we would be more susceptible to cosmic particle strikes on our atmosphere. That is not good news, especially considering the fact that we already are wounding our atmosphere.
  6. Global Warfare: Usually, it is my opinion that the Doomsday “seconds to midnight” Clock does nothing but stir up unnecessary fear. For the purposes of this post, however, let us embrace that fear. We are 100 seconds (closer than ever) to DOOMSDAY! That largely has to do with the fact that we have tens of thousands of nuclear weapons on our planet, more than enough to wipe each other out ten times over (figure not exact). Dear fellow youth, let’s not do that. 
  7. Technological Terror:  As the former governor of California once said, “I’ll be back.” While we certainly are more creative and innovative than our technological counterparts, there is no doubt that computers can store and process information much more effectively than our brains. If we are not careful with our developments and let artificial intelligence learn without boundaries, we may find ourselves up against an unstoppable force. Perhaps there will be no killer robots involved, but our exponentially increasing reliance on our devices may lead us to inevitable doom. I’m watching you, Chromebook. 
  8. Overpopulation: Thomas Malthus warned us about this! According to the United Nations, in the year 2050 the population will be about 9.7 billion. In 2100, it could rise to about 11 billion. This is kind of a given, but that is a LOT of people. We may figure out how to deal with it, but we also may not. This massive population would contribute to our overzealous resource consumption and our continued destruction of the environment.
  9. Supervolcano: If you’ve ever watched a science fiction movie detailing the end of the world, there’s a 50% chance it included a supervolcano. The fear with a supervolcano is similar to that of an asteroid strike. If the volcano is powerful enough, its emitted particles and ash could effectively block out the sun and shatter the ecosystem by freezing us out. 
  10. The Sun Explodes: Once the sun has consumed all of its core hydrogen fuel, it will die out just like any other star. We will be consumed by its supernova and, if anything survives, it will freeze over. This one is actually inevitable, but we have a couple of billion years before it will happen. I’m not making any assumptions on your lifespan, so please do not be offended, but you will probably be dead when the sun explodes. 

Sometimes, life is just out of your control. Life is especially out of your control if a country-sized asteroid lands in your backyard. Thanks for reading.

Sources:

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html
https://phys.org/news/2014-01-sun.html
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/20-ways-the-world-could-end
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/02/earth-magnetic-field-flip-poles-spinning-magnet-alanna-mitchell/

Humanity Editor: Doreen Yuan

Filed Under: Humanity Tagged With: Luke Langlois, The World: How Will it End?

Introspection, or Epistemology?

February 12, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org 3 Comments

By James Zheng

To give a standard explanation of Epistemology, it is the study of the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. To make this statement more general, it is primarily just about how mankind gains knowledge, or perceives everything. It could be the knowledge of knowing how to read and write, or it could be the knowledge of knowing how to walk and run. So, the simple discussion within Epistemology is just a pursuit towards one question: how do we know?

First, what does Immanuel Kant, a German pioneer of philosophy, say about knowing in his Critique of Practical Reason? All knowledge is based on judgment (judgment is a process of knowing). Sometimes, it does not matter whether a single representation or concept is true or not, such as “this is a flower.” Only when two representations or concepts are connected to form a judgment, such as “this flower is red,” there may be a problem on what constitutes knowledge. Judgment can be divided into two categories: one is analytical judgment, and the other is comprehensive judgment. The so-called “analytical judgment” explains what has already been contained in the subject, such as a “triangle has three angles.” Obviously, this kind of judgment has universal necessity, but because the object is only the interpretation of the subject and does not add to the content of knowledge, it is not strictly knowledge. The so-called “comprehensive judgment” refers to such judgment where the object is not included in the subject but is added to the subject through experience, such as “objects have weight.” Obviously, this kind of judgment can expand the content of the world’s knowledge and help the world understand the world, so only comprehensive judgment is the real knowledge. It does not have to be scientific knowledge. 

I do like his sophisticated theory, but I would like to make things easier. Here is a starting point and a basic question: what is knowledge? Let’s consider three sentences:

1) I know my bike is under the building, but my bike is not there.

2) He never believed that she liked him, but he knew that she liked him.

3) He knew he would win the lottery because he thought he was lucky.

All these three sentences make people feel that something is wrong. It makes people feel that the first half of the sentence and the second half of the sentence can not be true or established at the same time. In all three cases, there seems to be no real knowledge. The three sentences that are more intuitive are as follows:

1) I thought my bike was downstairs, but my bike wasn’t there.

2) He didn’t believe it and never knew that she liked him.

3) He thought he would win the lottery because he thought he was lucky.

Or three sentences like this:

1) Now I know my bike is downstairs because I saw it when I went downstairs.

2) He knew she liked him, and he believed that all the time. She does like him.

3) After seeing the winning result, he knew that he had won the lottery.

The above examples contain the most crucial factor of what constructs knowledge and three similar types of analysis of knowledge. They are called justified true beliefs. 

Therefore, how is this simple but incomprehensive post going to relate to “introspection?” If you consider that our process of obtaining knowledge is a type of introspection, it makes sense. Still, the three examples show us the transformation of information in our minds. At the first attempt, we would like to know the knowledge though our intuition, but by receiving some other vague information that may affect the final result, we go to a further stage, which refers to examination. And through introspection, we may question “how do I know” and “how do you know” which is also introspection. That is what makes me think that introspection is linked with Epistemology.  

Sources:

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BC%8A%E6%9B%BC%E5%8A%AA%E5%B0%94%C2%B7%E5%BA%B7%E5%BE%B7/2631177?fromtitle=%E5%BA%B7%E5%BE%B7&fromid=5618&fr=aladdin
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/20451407

Introspection Editor: Luke Langlois

Filed Under: Introspection Tagged With: Introspection, James Zheng, or Epistemology?

If We Were a Full-Course Meal: Me Menu’s

February 12, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org Leave a Comment

Writer Lynne Tillman, in 1975, wrote a story for Wallpaper magazine in which she “wanted to write a story and fit it all on a menu and call it ‘Myself as a Menu.'”

Poets & Writers developed the idea into a writing prompt: Write a story inspired by the menu form, perhaps using a real restaurant menu as a template or launchpad. Create a persona by choosing certain “courses” or “sides” to elaborate on your personality.

The Blog Class responded to the prompt, writing themselves as menu’s. Then, Editor Doreen Yuan compiled the “courses” and “sides” into one menu. The following is her Big Menu o’ Blog Class.

So what’s on the menu? Doreen asks.

*For Appetizers:

Chef Renée brings us an “Assortment of identities” and “Insecurity salad of the day (ask the server for selection).”

Chef Chelsea offers “Pokemon Pancakes” ($10), Dazai Osamu homemade tofu” ($5 no safety guaranteed), and “Sadao Maou fries” ($7).

Chef Katelin features “Mac n cheese because i am childish,” “Issa potato,” “Golden apple,” and a “Strawberry gumball.”

*For our Main Course:

Chef Luke cooks up “Pepperoni Pizza” (because my grandma’s Italian).

Chef James features soup with noodles. You may add “Fish cake,” “Edible fungus,” “Edible seaweed,” “Egg,” “Bamboo shoots,” and Pork slices.”

Chef Doreen features a “Spicy hot pot with enthusiastic soy sauce” ($50), “compassionate glutinous rice cake” ($26.5), “Stir-fried potatoes” ($13.33), “Brave eggplant” ($21), and “Frank lotus root and rib soup” ($16.8).

*For Dessert and Drink:

Our suggested beverages include . . .

Ms. Zachik’s “A Tall Drink of Water”

Ms. Zachik’s “Whine–Red & White”

Quintus’s “1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild”

Quintus’s “Shanghai White Wine”

Quintus’s “Blood Mary”

Luke’s “Root Beer (Because real beer is for undisciplined losers–Luke is a disciplined winner)”

Langlois “Chocolate Milk (Breaking bones is lame. Regular milk is also lame. Have bones that are as strong as Luke’s.)”

For Dessert . . .

Ms. Zachik’s “Desert Sunset Mochi”

Ms. Zachik’s “Scooby Snacks per request”

Doreen’s “Eternally fervent heart” ($0)

*We reserve the right to refuse the wearing of tight-fitting clothes.

Filed Under: Wednesday Writing Prompt

The Science of When You Have a Crush on Someone

February 10, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org Leave a Comment

Editor Quintus loves to talk about love. So, he assigned the staff write about it. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Katelin explains what happens physiologically when we crush.

By Katelin Slosky

Having a crush can be a wonderful thing. Remember the feeling of butterflies, the nervousness when you are around the object of your crush, or the fact that they make you smile? Also, having a crush can be a dangerous thing. Your moods are less likely to be stable; you may make irrational decisions because of them, and you will most likely feel much more anxious. Here are the reasons for these emotions.

Four key chemicals increase or diminish in our bodies when we’re in a state of infatuation:

  1. Cortisol: This is your body’s main stress hormone.
  2. Dopamine: This is one of the chemicals that makes you happily seek out pleasure.
  3. Norepinephrine: This chemical improves your memory and makes you highly excitable.
  4. Serotonin: This stabilizes your mood. A lack of serotonin can cause such things as depression or anxiety

When you have a crush on someone, your serotonin drops, your cortisol increases, your brain makes dopamine, and in return, produces norepinephrine. All the chemicals that make you anxious and energetic flow, and the one that keeps you stable ebbs–which explains why you feel jittery, happy one moment, sad the next, like not getting out of bed, and then like dancing out the door.

Love Editor: Quintus Ni

Filed Under: Love Tagged With: Katelin Slosky

Walt Disney’s Hand-Drawn Animation

February 10, 2020 by szachik@pvs.org Leave a Comment

Editor Chelsea directed the Blog class to write about one of her favorite topics: animation. Katelin combined the directive with the recent hoopla regarding last night’s Academy Awards. Did you know Snow White received an Oscar, and seven miniature ones?

By Katelin Mei

The 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was revolutionary for the film and animation industry. It was the first film ever to make use of a multiplane camera and was awarded a special Oscar, along with seven miniature ones. Here is how this special film was made.

Image result for snow white and the seven dwarfs oscar

First, the writers made a story and illustrated the high points of that story. Then, the story was taken to a music director, where he timed out the score for each scene carefully. Then, the animators drew out each scene carefully using a light table. After, the pencil drawings were sent to the inking department, where they would be traced over with ink on sheets of celluloid.

Afterwards, the pictures were painted. The studio had more than 800 shades of colour carefully made for this purpose. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs required 250,000 celluloids painted in such a way.

In another department, artists painted the backgrounds for every scene using watercolour. Then, the celluloids and backgrounds would be photographed by a camera, one plane at a time. After one photo was finished, the technicians moved on to the next one, until the whole film was photographed. For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, this had to be repeated more than half a million times.

Afterwards, the sound effects were recorded. Finally, an orchestra was recorded, playing the score. Then, the film was featured in Hollywood. After, it was released to theatres, where it made a million and a half dollars.

Source Referenced:

Animation Editor: Chelsea

Filed Under: Animation Tagged With: Katelin Mei

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About

We are the Palm Valley Firebirds of Rancho Mirage, California. Join us in our endeavors. Venture through the school year with us, perusing the artwork of our students, community, and staff. Our goal is to share the poems, stories, drawings and photographs, essays and parodies that come out of our school. Welcome aboard!