Blog Reflection 11/9/2013

    I cannot believe the trimester is almost over. Junior year flies by. I really don't remember what I've been doing that past three months. My grades are still horrible right now, but next trimester will probably be better since I don't have football. This week of chemistry, we basically just reviewed everything and learned about the different characteristic of phases of matter. It's pretty easy. I just need to review and be ready for the test next week. Next week is going to be stressful because I'll have basically tests in all of my classes, and they determine my grade for the trimester.
    Here is my basic knowledge that I learned from the week. Liquid is basically when the molecules spread out but yet still attracted with one another, allowing liquid to freely flow around and take in any shape. Solid is when molecules are tightly compacted in a volume, the electrons are vibrating like a "sea" which is why it's very electric and heat conductive. Whereas gas, the molecules are way far apart from each other, going everywhere. We also learned about vapor pressure in the past week. The greater the intermolecular bonds the greater the viscosity. As viscosity increases, the boiling point increases because the intermolecular bonds are greater. Lattice energy is all based off form Couloumb's law, so really self explanatory to see the lattice energy of a molecule. Ionic solids is the strongest and trump all of the other kind of solids. Vapor pressure is basically how easily the molecules in liquid can break apart due to the attraction force within the molecule. Vapor pressure and boiling point are inversely related. On the test, I need to focused on how I word my explanation which is really important to show that I know the concept thoroughly. I am a little bit stressed out right now for the finals as well, along with all of my tests coming up. I need to find a stress relief for myself in order for me success in life I guess.
    Overall, these are my general summary of what I learned this week from chemistry. I was sick on Friday, so I didn't really know what we learned on that day. I still have lots of studying to do for all of my other classes. Especially math, I really need to do well on the next test otherwise I'll be in trouble. Although I didn't begin my junior year with a strong start, I am very determined to get good grades for the rest of the years. Lastly, I can't wait for robotics season to start. It's time to put my hands on the machines once again and make cool things. I hope that we will make nationals again this year, where we can skip a week of school and just have fun.

Blog Reflection 11/2/2013

    Over the past week, we finished our test from last week about the basic structures of molecule. Now we transitioned into basically the intramolecular and intermolecular bond in molecules. Since football season is finally over, I can finally go home after school and get some rest. On Monday, I joined a new club that my friend made which was the "rock climbing" club. It was really fun, we had pizza, we climbed and got really sore afterwards. Last weekends, I remembered we were assigned with two moodle quizzes online about the basic inter- and intramolecular forces.
   We did lots of lecture quizzes online and they were really easy. Intramolecular forces are forces that keeps the bond together within a molecule. Whereas internmolcular forces are forces between molecules. We went over lots of pogils in class throughout the week. We discover basically the trend of boiling points of molecules comparing to its molecular size/ charges. We also went over the different kinds of LDFs (London Dispersion Forces) within a molecule. Hydrogen bonds can only happen between hyrdrogen and nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, also known as, NOF. Out of all the LDFs, hydrogen bond is the strongest out of all. Then it moves on to dipole induced to dipole-dipole. Its pretty simple. In simple words, the bigger the size of the molecule, the higher the boiling point. Then, the information is not provided, then we compared the charges of the molecule to see how polarizable the molecule is.
   It all makes sense, if the molecule has a closer together due to its stronger intramolecular force then it would take more energy to dissolve it in water, so higher boiling point. Then over the weekend, we were assigned with a lecture quiz about solids and liquids. It shows basically the intremolecular forces difference between the different kinds of solids, which were molecular solids, covalent network solids, ionic solids and metallic solids. We also went over the viscosity of molecules. The more viscous a molecule is, the thicker it is, the harder it is to boil. I still can't believe the trimester is almost over. Time really flies by, in a blink of an eye and my high school is almost over. One more year, then I am pretty much done. I am really stressed now about all the standardized tests, college, and my grades. My grades are very "disappointing" right now. I am trying to do my best to bring them up. I am now very determined to get all A's next trimester. Also, I am interested in joining the research program that Dr. F sent to us. It's pretty cool though, to live in a college campus over the summer and just study science the whole day. Lastly, I dissected a cow eye on Friday which was pretty excited. It was interesting to see the different structures of our eye. It really is amazing how our body works. 

Blog Reflection 10/25/2013

    At the beginning of the week, my schedule was jammed with tests and projects. I had a math test on Monday, a chemistry test on Tuesday, and a 7 pager English project due on Wednesday. After football practices, I barely have any time to do any of my homework,so there was no way I could prepare for these tests and projects.Monday was mole day in chemistry class, we had cookies and hot chocolate which were amazing for the morning.Also we were assigned with a reading about paintball. Dr. F. instructed us to write a paper about the reading explaining polarity and I really no idea what I was supposed to write, but somehow when I was writing the paper. Ideas just kept flowing at me so I finished it in a really short time.It was really a great way to start off the week then I realized that I have too much homework on that day and I won't be able to finish them. So I decided to skip practice and went back home to study for my chemistry test on the next day. It all went really well.
    Since the past week, I've been starting to skype with my classmate and study together. It's really efficient and helpful. On the next day, I took my chemistry test. The test was a piece of cake. The free response was the easiest test section that I ever taken. The multiple choice, I find them relatively easy when I was taking it. For some reason, the hour right after the chemistry when I turned my chemistry test in. I was discussing the test problems with my classmate and all of a sudden. I realized all of the stupid mistakes that I did on the multiple choice section of the test. They were really stupid! I knew all of the concepts and idea but I guess I just had a "brain fart". I hate it when that kind of things happen. Somehow,all of my tests that I've taken during this trimester I do the same stupid things over and over again.It really makes me mad. I'm not exactly sure why but I think it's because of tiredness from football.
    After all these tests and projects early on the week. I was very tired and drowsy from the stress. During chemistry class on Thursday, we took the pretest. After I finished my pretest,I felt really weak and fatigue all of a sudden.I slept right after the pre-test.Later on that night, I played my last football game of the season. I was really tired and stressed from school.As a result, I performed pretty poorly and coach was upset with me during the game.All I had to say is life is full with memories and regrets.Thursday night was a regret for me. On Friday, we finished a pogil on ionic compounds and we were assigned a lecuture quiz online over the weekend. Everything was easy for me.

Reflective Blog 10/20/2013

    Over the past week, we've focused mainly about the electron domain geometry and molecular domain geometry. First, we had to became very familiar with drawing Lewis structure in order to get our basic foundation down. We then practiced on finding out the polarity and dipole moment. It's pretty simple overall, basically we just find out the lone pair of electron around the central atom, then we can figure out how the atoms in the molecule are bending. Therefore it allows us to know which way the dipole moment is going by finding out the polarity bond between the outer atom to the central atom and which way they are pointing.  
    We spent about two days worth of class time doing both the balloon and gum drops activities, basically building a molecule ourselves. The balloons simply represent and explain the electron domain geometry, as well as the gum-drops activity shows us a visual representation of the molecular domain geometry. Later on the week, Dr. Finnan instructed to do the WebMo program which is simply a computer program that draws the dipole moment and shows the space filling molecule for us. It was a lot of fun! I enjoyed it a lot with the program because you get to physically handle the atoms yourself. We were also assigned to do the HotPot quizzes over the weekend, as well as finishing up the lab report for the WebMo. At that point, I was still very confused between the difference between the electron domain geometry and molecular domain geometry. As a result, on Saturday, I spent almost the entire day searching for online resources and struggling on the quizzes. I still am a little bit confused on some of the concepts but I am a lot better at it now since I spent pretty much the entire weekend studying for chemistry. The WebMo report took forever to finish. I spent about almost 5 hours trying to figure things out on Sunday for the lab report. It's a really simple concept, but the report asks you for a lot of things to do, such as drawing the Lewis structure, which means you have to draw the Lewis structure physically by hand. Then take photos of each one of them, edit, and post them unto your data table. It's really annoying. The most difficult part was typing the paragraphs for all of the thirteen molecules. I'm pretty positive about all of my concepts and answers, but it's just very exhausting trying to explain them typing thirteen paragraphs in a row. Finally, I even had difficulty converting my computer file so overall my entire weekend was taken away by chemistry.
    I also have a math test tomorrow and an English project due on Wednesday, but I have not even started it because I was planning on finishing them up over the weekend then chemistry became a struggle to me. Everything to me right now is just a hassle. I am taking the ACT as well on Saturday. I have no time to study for it and any of my other classes. It really sucks. The good thing is that this week is actually the last week of football, which means by the time this week is over. I finally can have time to come home before night and finish up my studying for school.  

Blog Reflection 10/13/2013

   Over the week, we've done many moodle quizzes and lots of class discussion about the Lewis structure including hypervalency. We also went over the polarity in the shape of our molecule. I find the polarity overall easy, basically if there's a lonely pair then it would "bent" the shape of the molecule due to the change in repulsion. There was also another note on the bond strength, length, and order. Basically, these laws are all based off from the Coulumb's law. As the length of two nuclei increases, the force of attraction decreases so the force of repulsion would be greater because the electrons of the atoms. Also, all of the elements in period 3 or greater can have more the eight electrons around the central atom because of the empty d orbital available for them. Specifically for Boron and Beryillum, the two special cases where boron can only have three covalent bond and beryllium can form two covalent bond.

   I think all of the notes were easy to understand once I am used to what I am doing, but honestly I find the lecture videos extremely hard to interpret because there really that much step-by-step examples shown in the video. In the video, it talks a lot about the theories and laws using these fancy and complicated words, especially in an online setting where students can’t ask about their confusions of the video and everything goes in a really fast paste. So I find it difficult to understand the lecture videos sometimes whereas if the teacher discusses the notes in the classroom, students are able to have a chance to ask questions on the things that they don’t fully understood. This is also the reason why some of the moodle quizzes took me a while to finish and fully understood the material. I find the whiteboard discussions in class very interactive and helpful to my learning style.

Other than that, it's been a great week in fact. I still cannot believe we are halfway done with the trimester. I really need to pick up my grades though. I guess this is the reason why people say junior year is so stressful because all of the stuff just comes on you all at once. Where in one hand, you have all of these extra-curricular activities and the other hand, you have an extra amount of work and studying you have to do for school. Especially the fact that, I'm taking the ACT in less than two weeks puts me onto an enormous amount of stress. I am already lacking a lot of sleep and a little behind in some of my other classes with the fact that I have not yet started my studying for the ACT. I think I'll just have to see how it goes and practice a couple more times. I am really jealous now of the middle school life, no stress and no worry. It's all part of growing up.

Reflective Blog 10/6/2013

    It's been a good week. It all went smooth in all of my classes the past week. We went over the hypervalency theory, where if the central atom is greater or in the third period of the periodic table. The central atom is allowed to have more than eight electrons in its shell due to the empty d-orbital. On the moodle, we also learned about bond order and strength. It's interesting to know the reason why two of the same charged atoms can join together. The reason is that the force of attraction is greater than the repulsive force due to the attraction between the nucleus to the valence electrons overcoming the force of repulsion. We also learned that as bond length increases, the bond strength goes up and vise versa. On the other hand, as bond length increases, the strength decreases. According to Couloumb's law, as distance between two atoms increases, the attraction decreases due to the further distance between the electrons of the two atoms. Coloumb's law explains the relationship between bond order, distance, and strength. By knowing the law, it helps memorizing the relationship and make everything more self-explanatory.
    We also did our second lab of the year as well. This time, we used the colorimeter to measure the mass percent of copper presented in a brass screw. At the beginning of the lab, I really had no idea what I was doing because the procedure was very wordy and confusing. Dr. Finnan on the day before the lab told us to draw a pictograph of the procedure, which is pictures of each steps of the procedure. I didn't know what a pictograph was so I simply summarized the entire procedure using almost the entire page of the lab notebook. The procedure was very complicated and made no sense to me until I saw the my lab partner's pictograph. It was my own fault not following the instruction, but at least now I know what a pictograph is and I won't make the same mistake again in the future. Through out the lab, everything went pretty smooth but the data results were wrong for my group, I guess it all comes down to knowing the procedure well enough before performing a lab. I learned that from now on, I really need to know what I am doing before a lab. I can't just show up to a lab without knowing what I am doing.
    The other exciting thing that I learned was knowing how to use a pipette filler. It's pretty similar to using a micropipette. I learned how to use a micropipette from the health and medicine magnet. I enjoy using laboratory equipment. They are really fun to play with and more importantly needs to be accurate and precise. I personally think that I am pretty good at collecting data dealing with laboratory equipment. Lastly thing that I enjoyed through out the week was that our football team had finally won the city of Ann Arbor for the first time in the history. We beat both Pioneer and Huron which was pretty exciting in my own opinion.

Reflective Blog 9/30/2013

    This week was full will surprises and disappointments. Lately, I've been struggling to keep up with my schedule as school work progressively increases with the year passing by. I did not have enough time to study for classes and at the same time  to have enough sleep. When I get back home from football practices, it's already around seven o'clock at night. With dinner, shower and other things, I really can't start doing my homework by eight. I struggle to manage my tiredness from affecting my academic performance.
    As a result, I did not do that well on multiple tests. In chemistry class, we reviewed the moodle quizzes to prepare for our upcoming test. I did overall pretty good on those quizzes, but for some reason I felt really sick and fatigue on the day of the exam. I thought I did well on the test at first, later when the test was posted. It caught me with surprise. I failed it. Due to the game on Thursday and the film discussion with the coaches on Friday, I did not have a chance yet to go over the test with Dr. Finnan. I really believe that I am capable of doing better on that test. I don't blame others for my own failure, I think it was my lack of concentration and focus that tripped me up. I decided not to do the retake because I deserve the grade that I received for my lack of focus and concentration. Later on the week, we went over the Lewis model and covered the ideas of valence electrons. It's pretty simple but this time I just need to concentrate on not to mess up on the day of the exam. On the other hand, I took a math test last week as well. I did bad on the exam too. I looked over it afterwards, I understood all the problems and am capable of solving them. It was all the small mistakes that I messed up on ending up ruining the entire problem. I really need to focus up.
    Despite all of the disappointments, I got a new phone last week. The phone is awesome. Now I can actually do the moodle quizzes and use other online resources wherever I am. The other big thing happened was our skyline football team beat our cross town rival, Pioneer. We did an excellent job on executing our plays and defensively I did well on my own assignment except for just some small mistakes that I made. I really like the game of football because it relates to not just athleticism but life as well. There are always failures that will beat us to our knees sometimes in life. The test scores discouraged me greatly recently, but that is not the point. More importantly is how we stand back up from our failures, from now on, I am giving out my one hundred and ten percent effort to bring my standards back up.