Firestorm '07

Wow, well it sure has been a long time since I was last on here. The fire effected all of us in San Diego, and being one with numerous relatives and friends who were being evacuated or effected by these relentless fires, school was very low on my thought priority list. Over the week off I voluteered seven hours of my time to the evacuees and also worked on my Spanish project. Today I had a bomb dropped on my head when Spencer reminded us that the entire Mexico project was due in less than a week. My group and I are going to have to work like crazy to crank this out. Right now Jessica and Guadalupe are working on the flash, I have not seen it since the beginning and hope that they do a decent job on it. Meanwhile, I am working or the arrangement of the interview in Vegas and hope to start voice recording in the booth tomorrow. We are going to have to schedule some time in to film the main part of the interview.

I think that we will be able to do a good job by the time its due.

Enrique

Yesterday on Wednesday the man who started the human rights group "border angels." He came in and shared his views with us on the border issue and what he thought about it. His group started when he first discovered that illegals were living down in the Carlsbad and he decided to bring them food and water and wanted our government to do something about this. Then later he found out that after 1994 when the border fence was constructed, that illegals were dieing off out in the desert and he felt bad so he put out water and food stations all over the place in an effort to try and bring them safety.

Unfortunatly his arguements for his reasoning were bogus and were full of off the cuff comments that made him seem like "of course he was right" and that anyone who dissagreed was a racist or "mis-guided". I was dissapointed that he brought up such poor points that usually dissagreed with each other. Although I was highly dissapointed with his extremist viewpoints that he tried to persuade his argument with by throwing them in, I was more dissapointed that his other points that he brought up weren't ligit. Our interviewee was against the border as well but luckily she brought up points that were logical and made since.

Overall I think we could have had a better representative of the con side, one that wasn't so extremist. But at the same time it was good that he was able to fully show his opinions unlike the border patrol agent who said that his beliefs didn't matter.

Water Update

Today at the very end of class I managed to find a link that just might save my grade for this project. Up until then I had no idea that we had to have chemical information for everybody's topics. So thank you FAQs for saving my day. Their site talks about how water is a chemical solute for nutrients in your body and how it helps carry different nutrients throughout your body into vital areas. Up until now the information hadn't been very chemically enduced but thanks to the site I am ready to present tomorrow!

Water Powerpoint

Well today I finshed working on my Peru PP and started my Water PP. I think that the research that I conducted helped me in writing it. I finished the rough a couple of minutes ago and hope to edit and revise tomorrow during class with my group moreso. Now I am off to Borders to get "I am America and so can you!"

Our Presentation!

Well, Adrian and I presented on Peru today and killed it (in a good way). We did really good and got the best grade in the class (a 23/25). Plus right now I am working on my powerpoint for the water project and should be finished with that by tonight!

Powerpoint Presentations

Sometime this week my group (Adrian White and I) are going to present on the independence movement of Peru in the 19th century. This should be very interesting due to the fact that Spencer has now upped the anty and wants all of the groups presenting after today to do much better.

I hope Adrian and I will be able to pull this off because I have been studying my topics very hard!

Water Update

Today while finding more sources, I found this neat one that offers alot more about how the body uses water and what signs can be shown if it is not getting enough.

On the site they say that scientists can't say for sure how much water you need (although you lose 250 mL just from breathing!) due to the fact that it depends on what sort of climate you are living and excersizing in. But most agree that at least 8 cups (2 liters) will keep your body healthy.

You can not go for over a week without water and the best way to rehydrate is straight up water. They also say that thinigs like juice, non-caffinated beverages, fruit, and milk will help rehydrate but that things like: alchohol and caffinated drinks, while they do supply water at first, actually have diuretics that cause the body to lose water.

Common symptoms for dehydration include:

• Headaches
• Poor concentration
• Tiredness
• Increased risk of developing kidney infections, and
  Constipation.

Water Update

While perusing the web I found this great link. It informes me that the total human body is made up of approximately 67% water. Even a 2 percent drop of water from the body will cause you to feel fatigued. 10 percent could be extremely bad for your body and cause serious health issues.

The body uses H2O for various different vital tasks.

• Improves oxygen delivery to the cells
• Transports nutrients
• Enables cellular hydration
• Moistens oxygen for eaiser breathing
• Cushions bones and joints
• Regulates body temperature
• Removes wastes
• Flushes toxins
• Prevents tissues from sticking
• Lubricates joints
• Improves cell to cell communications
• Maintains normal electrical properties of cells
• Empowers the body's natural healing process

According to this website, not everyone should drink the same amount of water. The amount you should drink is based on your physical condition. If you are: very young, very old, in warm climate, exerting physical force, people with illness or injury, and anyone on fat or high protein diets should all drink a more than normal amount of water.

The more and more that I dig into this, seemingly obvious question, the more that I learn about the most popular liquid.

Balboa Park

Today at Balboa Park we visited numerous different exhibits at the museum of man. The first one that our group went into was the exhibit of copper. This was in a very small room seperate from the main museum. Inside I spent a while looking mainly at the area that educated us about the smealting process. This really caught my attention as I read about how they would take a bamboo stick, slap some clay on the end of it, and everyone would sit in a ring around the fire taking turns blowing through it. This process would smealt the metals. Some other cool things were that they had little tools and figureens that they made the copper into. Some of these were used for maces while others could just be considered art. One thing new that I learned was that copper, when found in areas where it had been oxidizing such as in the earth, is turqoise rather than its bronze normal color.

The next exhibit we explored was the Mayans. The first thing I saw when I walked in was the giant pillars that were used as art works of gods, calendars and other carvings of importance. I also learned more about the Mayan Ball game which I had origionally planned to do for my articfact. The exhibit about the ball game talked about how it was sometimes used as warfare but usually for entertainment purposes. I found the "entertainment" part very interesting because the loser of the game was killed and savrificed to the gods.

The Mayan exhibit also had small figureens, but instead of them being made of copper it was clay (due to the fact that their regionn did not have copper). When archeologists found these, it helped them understand more about the society, culture, worship, and clothing.

Overall our trip to Balboa Park was enlightening and fun. I'm glad we were able to go out and explore rather than be in the classroom!

Water Project

Today I found out that my topic was going to be "life without water" for our water mini-project. I started out some basic research on it by checking out Wikipedia really quick to get some background knowledge including:

• Men contain 55% water inside of their bodies while women contain 51% due to their higher average of body fat.
• Body water is contained in four different compartments of the human body: the muscle tissue (75%), Blood (83%), Body fat (25%), and bone (22%).
• The human body relies on water to be able to funciton and live. Without it, it could not survive.

Another article that I read in "ScienceDaily" talked about what would happen to the human body if it were denied its need for water. It claims that its need for hunger would shut down and eventually starve itself.

Overall I think I got a good start for today and more research is still to come.

Goals

1. Finish Water Project by Friday
2. Research more on Body water
3. Do Work!

Border Patrol Agent

Sergent Moffitt of the Border Patrol agency came into our class today to talk about the agency and his experiances in the field. His seven minute presentation video went over things like "border break" clips that showed huge amounts of illegal immigrants going straight through customs in broad daylight. Other clips go over their intense new equipment that they use in the field now including pressure sensors (in the ground), thermoglasses that help out alot when they are on stakeouts during the night.

1. Border Patrol Site

After he was done with his presentation he took numerous questions for the rest of the hour. Everything from "What is the craziest thing you have ever seen?" to more serious questions like "What happens to the baby if the mother gives birth on the run?" One of my group members asked him about the length of the fence which will help us recieve more background information on the subject. Other than that the questions didn't directly help us but were very insightful.

Goals

1. Help group on Flash
2. Interview by Thurday