Sunday, June 22, 2008
Everyone here in Washington DC is nice and trusting. The teachers are Brian and Melissa from Australia; and Cindy is from Texas. The crew is made up of gorgeous people. Christine bought me a pizza and I shared it with Lindsay. Then Christine started to make a game with beanie babies, it was a very dynamic game in which we had to work in teams and use the brainstorming technique.
After that we walked to the Einstein monument. I didn't know much about him, even though I learned that his formula is used for nuclear bombs and other nuclear science, also that he related matter and energy. Jackie (from California) knew a lot about him, she is very smart. Anthony (from North Carolina) said Einstein could be happy with his discoveries, even though some people used them for bad purposes. In my opinion Einstein should feel happy because he made a great discovery that could be used for good purposes.
We walked to an Italian restaurant. I ate a delicious fettuccini with chicken strips, but it was so much I felt full. After that we went for ice cream, we had a really fun time talking. We met some people from JASON including the president. He told us the change we want to see in the world starts in each one of us, as Gandhi said, because we are the change.
It started to rain, yes, back to the dorms. I see how important it is to work as a team respecting others' ideas to make the solution for the problem. We agreed we would be positive, team working, enthusiastic, eager to learn from others, from mistakes and trust in each other etc.
Trust lets someone express ideas to others without the fear of being oppressed in any way. I had a wonderful day and I'm sure all week will be the same. Peter and Whitney gave us our backpacks, T-shirts, bottle, cap, and a vest.
And just 6 days later…..
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Today was our graduation, I was sent on Mission 3 which takes place in West Virginia, it is about new alternatives for energy resources. We are visiting the NETL again but now with a more profound explanation of the theme. My teammates are Melissa (as a Teacher Argonaut), Tim West, and Jackie Martin (asSstudent Argonauts).
I'm thinking in a title for Bootcamp, maybe Energetic Revolution, the rest of the people said Dynamic Universe was good. I had an interview; Janet said I was pretty good on camera. I'll miss the crew a lot.
Tomorrow we fly, I'm so sad I won't see Lindsay, Hannah, Madhu, Toba, Anthony, Joey, Bryan, and Cindy again. I love all of the Argos and I'm really going to miss them. We ate dinner at a restaurant; Madhu was picked up by her parents because she needed to go today. We gave the wranglers the play of the week. Whitney and Christine received a beanie baby and chocolates. Peter received a cutting hair machine.
Q&A with Argonaut Hiyam:
Did you ever think you'd learn so much about energy in one day?
No way, for example, just today I learned:
- A pallet of uranium can produce as much energy as 1 ton of coal, 17, 000 ft3 of natural gas, and 149 gallons of oil.
- Mexico has two nuclear power plants.
- Australia produces lots of uranium.
- Coal has many advantages such as being easily available, plenty of it, and cheap, but has disadvantages such as producing CO2.
- I saw momentum at the baseball game = action and reaction (Newton's third law).
The Argos studied Physics at Six Flags, did you ever think physics could be so much fun?
It was great! I had Cindy on the first roller coaster called ROAR it was an amazing experience I rode it three or four times. We made some physics problems and then we went to the next teacher which was Melissa, the roller coaster was called GO WILD, but before we rode it the camera crew made some filming and we were in privileged seats. We saw other physics problems. This helped me review my physics problems I saw in school, this was a good day for me.