First, class. Class has been a mixed experience. The material itself is very good, being all stuff I don’t know (Granted, I know very little, but still, at least it’s not counting, right?). The thing is, there’s a large part of the class that doesn’t have any interest whatsoever in learning German. I have no idea why they came, but they hold the class back with chitchat. Very annoying.

Second, exploring. They have these ‘activities’ that we go out on, seeing one sight or another. Among the activities of last week were the Reichstag, Brandenburger Tor, Treiptower Park, a mosque and a German palace.

Note: Being who I am, I forgot to bring a camera, so there will be very few pictures. Oops!

Reichstag: The Reichstag is the German parliament. Very pretty and very big. Was wrapped in silver fabric for two weeks to commemorate the end of the Cold War (Don’t ask me why.).

Treiptower Park: Very beautiful and tranquil park which is a memorial to Russian lives lost in liberating Germany. One of the biggest and most peaceful memorials I have ever been to.

Mosque: We visited a beautiful mosque. There was a guide who told us all about Islam. Technically, the mosque is Turkish, like an embassy! The people were the most friendly and explanative about their religon I have ever seen.

 Schloss–Charlottenburg: A beautiful palace commissioned by Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich III. After her death, Friedrich III named it Charlottenburg, after her. Terribly damaged in WWII, but reconstructed.

It’s very obvious in several of the sights that we go to, that WWII took its toll on the historical remnants. It’s a shame.

Well, I fly to Pays Basque next Sunday to see my French family. Until later!

Tycho Toothaker

I’m in Bordeaux, on vacation. I arrived right after nationals, and I’ll be back in September.

We just got back from our visit to Cognac. Thibaud’s English cousins are there. We took the Henessy tour, one of the many places they make cognac. It was very interesting. What I have understood is that they ferment the grape juice A LOT, giving it a high alcohol content. Then they let it age, and test each batch each year, to see if the taste is still changing. They mix these batches together very precisely, to make a consistent product. They are so precise in their making of cognac that have different uses for different barrels. New barrels give their contents a lot of aromas, where old barrels do not have as much aroma.

Then, obviously, they sell it. The U.S. is the biggest buyer of cognac in quantity. The Chinese buy less, but it’s pricier, so they are Henessy’s biggest customers.

Until the next post!

Tycho Toothaker (Taco Paco)

Tycho Toothaker

Tycho Toothaker

I went to the Nationals  (The big final tournament of the fencing season, for those who don’t know) in Atlanta.  In fencing I didn’t do that well, being cut after pools in Cadet (the under 16 event), placing in top 32 in Y 14, and top 64 in Junior (Under 20 event). I refereed the other seven days, and in general, all went well there as well.

The day after I returned from Atlanta, we left to visit my grandparents in Montana. Montana was great. We went rafting, we went to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. We went rafting as well. We went kayaking twice, both of which were very fun. We also went swimming. In Yellowstone, we saw two moose and a black bear. We hiked a little, but not that much, due to my knee. We played games with my uncle Scott and aunt Mary, who I haven’t seen in a while. It was a very relaxing trip altogether. The only annoying thing was the fact that I had to work on my online Health class, which is not exactly what I wanted to do during vacation.

After that, Thibaud, my french exchange student, came to Portland for a month. I wasn’t there for all of it (more like half of it) as I was in Atlanta and Montana, but we had a good time. My aunt and uncle, along with my cousin, came to visit at the same time. We played a lot of games, and it was very fun. I worked on my French as much as possible, but it was a little atrophied, as I had been studying Spanish for the last year, with no French.

I also attended a fencing camp in Portland, during the beginning of August. It was wonderful. We had world cup level coaches there, and I learned a lot. It was very stressing on my knee, which was a problem, with the affect that I could not fence the entire time. Training with such high level coaches and fencing such high level fencers was a great experience.

So, a week after Thibaud returned to France, I went there myself. I transferred in Amsterdam, arriving 9 in the morning. Of course, they lost my baggage. I was reinbursed 100 euros to buy clothes for the 3–4 days that I would be without my baggage. That day, we left the Pays Basque, in the south of France and northern Spain, where we spent a week on vacation. It was wonderful. I saw a Basque strength competition, which is a sport in which teams compete in various activities, such as carrying a heavy sack on the back, as a relay. In one such activity one must lift a heavy sack using a pulley as many times as possible in one minute. There are many of these activities. We saw about 8 of these activities.  It was a very nice trip. We went hiking, though not much, due to my knee. We played a lot of game with my French exchange student and his friend.

The next week was a week in Bordeaux. We went to the doctor, as my French exchange student and I had been ill (I still I am), and acquired a medley of medications. We saw the cathedral here in Bordeaux, which was amazing. Last year, we saw the Notre Dame from the outside only, as it was closed. Inside, it’s even more amazing. It’s amazingly beautiful with the stain glass windows, and the ceiling appears even higher from the inside. It was incredible. Historically, the St. Andras Cathedral is important because Eleanor of Aquitaine was married to the King of France within it.

This third week, I am in a French class at the Alliance Française here in Bordeaux. This first week, we are learning, regarding vocabulary, the press and cinema. Gramatically, we are learning how to use the plus que parfait and the passive form. It’s a very good class, and I am learning a lot of vocabulary.

Yesterday, I went on the “Discover Bordeaux” tour, given by the Alliance Française. It was very interesting, and I learned some  Bordeaux history. Apparently, Bordeaux grew mostly in the 1700′s, due to the “Black Triangle” of trade. Luxury items left Bordeaux, bound for Africa. There, these items were exchanged for slaves. The vessel then left for North America. There, the slaves were sold and the vessel took on North American products, which were then transported to Europe. It was due to this trade that Bordeaux grew. I also learned that Bordeaux is lucky, in a sense. Many French cities were bombarded during WWII, and many historical monuments destroyed. As Bordeaux was well in Nazi control, it was not bombarded, and, compared to other cities, it is well preserved. The rest of what I learned was mostly practical, such where the supermarket was, the theatre, etc. It was a very interesting and nice tour, and it was not too hot.

I will write soon.

Tycho Toothaker

Other academic notes of interest: In choir, we are singing “Not While I’m Around” from Sweeney Todd. It’s a great song, but hard to sing the higher notes.

In English, we are reading Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. WHAT A WONDERFUL BOOK!!!!!!!!!! I care about all of the characters, and it is extremely sad but endearing. Definitely better than Romeo & Juliet.

In Biology, we are just about to take our chapter test on evolution. I feel okay about it, but definitely not wonderful. For Honors Biology, I am growing slime mold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold for images and more detailed description. I love Wikipedia.). I will not go into length here, but PLEASE go look at the page provided. It’s a very interesting species. My experiment is simplistic but efficient, and according to my research, slime mold prefers light to dark. Interesting. I see possibilities, limitless possibilities….

In Modern World History, we have a student teacher. She is a very good teacher and has definitely taught us a lot, albeit in a sometimes roundabout fashion. We have basically just finished a unit on WWI and we are now writing a paper on the Treaty of Versailles.

Geometry…. Is extremely boring. No offense, my unnamed Geometry teacher, but it is extremely boring, and can sometimes be a little tedious. If you want to know more, email me (everyone who reads my blog knows my email).

Fencing is going wonderfully. I have great coaches, and my Osgood Schlatter’s in my knee is completely gone. The downside is that I compensated by changing my lunge, with is a) bad for me and b) makes for a horrible and painful lunge. I am going to Summer Nationals to fence Junior, Cadet, and Y-14. I will also be refereeing at Nationals as well.

Tycho Toothaker, Taco Paco

Tycho Toothaker, Referee

One interesting thing about it is that certain nouns always have certain adjectives attached to them, such as “grey-eyed Athena (or “daughter of Zeus”), “Rosy-fingered dawn”, among others. This is because it was written to be recited orally, so they had to have some way to help the bards memorize it. This is one of the methods Homer used.

Tycho

Our school gives out tickets to lectures for free. Oh, and then they give you extra credit for going.  So, I went to this Freeman Dyson lecture. He talked about two main things: Nuclear weapons and biotechnology.

What he said about nuclear weapons was much better than what he said about biotech. He said that since nuclear weapons are SO useless militarily, you are actually safer getting rid of your own nuclear weapons and let you adversaries keep theirs, because the chance that they would be used is less than the chance of an accident or leak. I found this amazing. This was the same case with biological weapons, and that’s why our military does not use them.

Do you know the #1. person who has rid the world of nuclear weapons? George Bush Sr. You wouldn’t think so.

What he said about biotech was not good. He said that it would be ‘domesticated’ like computers. Computers used to be as big as a room, horrifyingly expensive, and as slow as a snail. The people building the first computer in the US thought that there would be a demand for 18 computers in the US. Then they got smaller, cheaper, and faster, and now most families can afford one or even two or three.

He thinks that is going to happen with biotech. He had no specifics except “kits” where you grow your own plants and animals.

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Mahatma Ghandi

Al Gore’s lecture was definitely very enlightening on climate change.  He said basically that we have all the necessaries to turn this around, and could probably turn around 3 more with our current resources. The only problem, he said, was political will. This made my view of climate change much more optimistic, as I have always heard that it is irreversible and that we will die by flooding, and I dare say that this was much more pessimistic than Al Gore was. Another thing was that Portland is more liberal than Al Gore. Apparently, there were protesters saying that Al Gore was not doing enough. Wow. We  really are REALLY liberal here.

Mycology. I don’t even know that much about mushrooms, and I am SURE that there was WAY more knowledge about mushrooms then I absorbed, but I will tell you as much as possible. The typical sentence was something along the lines of  ”The Ickaflora Ramaria has green stems with a white body. The spore size is 10-12 microns, and reacts with a magenta when exposed to carbon monoxide”. It was, to say in other words, a very technical speech.

Quote of the Post:

“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

–John F. Kennedy