Golden State Warriors defeat the Miami Heat to go 5-0 on the road!

The Golden State Warriors are now 5-0 on their road trip, including an exhilarating 97-95 victory over the Miami Heat. With less than 5 seconds on the shot clock, point guard Jarret Jack finds rookie and hustler Draymond Green for the game-winning layup on a miss communication by Shane Battier and Ray Allen. Draymond and Lebron James had been talking trash for most of the game; this time the rookie of the Golden State Warriors gets the last laugh!

Favorite Golden Quote

My favorite quote is taken from the character Yoda of the Star Wars Trilogy. I never really gave this saying much thought until my English teacher Mrs. Gest, who was one of the most inspiring and caring teachers I have ever had the honor of learning from:

"...Try not. Do or do not. There is no try..."

It means that by saying you will "try" to do something, you are facing an obstacle with a negative attitude; that you believe you will fail. The only choice we should make, in short, is 'Yes' or 'No.' I believe in this saying and it has helped me make better choices.

Blake Griffin Destroys Kendrick Perkins

The above is a piece of art by Blake Griffin, NBA star Power Forward of the Los Angeles Clippers.

 In one of the most electrifying and humiliating (for Kendrick Perkins) dunks in recent history, 2011 Sprite Slam Dunk Champion Blake Griffin runs a perfect pick-and-roll play with NBA star Point Guard Chris Paul on Oklahoma City Thunder Guard Russel Westbrook and Power Forward Serge Ibaka, leaving Center Kendrick Perkins to brace the impact of what many players and fans have called the "best dunk EVER."

Andrew Bynum Injury: Updates on 76ers Star's Knee Injury

This article from BleacherReport first started covering the status of NBA star and franchise center Andrew Bynum of the Philadelphia 76ers early October. It has updated its users on the injury status of Bynum every two or three days, starting when the “minor” right knee injury was first released to the press to the serious “arthritis” and missing cartilage in BOTH knees. The 76ers organization first tried to keep the injury from being released into the public, then continued to downplay its seriousness. To add to this, the player (Bynum) worsened his injury by neglecting recommendations from the team doctor and logic.

Book Review: The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

I chose this book because I have read (minimally in high school) Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History in Time and am very intrigued in physics and the way the universe works. I came across this when I searched for other books written by Mr. Hawking, and was told by reviewers that this book had much less mathematics and was more suited for beginners wanting to learn more about quantum physics and the M-theory. I found this book to be incredibly interesting, though it contained too much information for me to understand without having to reread certain chapters multiple times.  

   The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

The Grand Design, written by Stephen Hawking, one of the most accomplished theoretical physicists and author of the bestseller A Brief History in Time, and Leonard Mlodinow, a Caltech physicist and screenwriter, is the latest installment of Hawking’s infamous attempt to explain the (recent) progress of cosmology and fundamental physics- without the mathematics -to a wide audience. Several sub-topics include alternative histories, Feyman’s formulation of quantum mechanics, and the widely excepted M-theory. Stephen Hawking explains in detail the progression of scientific knowledge (from the ancient Greeks to modern cosmology) and also attempts to give an in-depth answer to the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" through the following questions:

“Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why do we exist?

Why this particular set of laws and not some other?” (p10)

Research Paper on Internet Piracy and its Effects on the Economy

This assignment was a research paper of our own choosing for my English 1A class at Berkeley City College. Being someone who frequently uses the internet both socially and for entertainment, I have come across many websites that host free, illegal downloads of another persons work. It has become a growing issue and has been a direct cause of the weakening American market. In this paper, I discuss the origin of Internet piracy, how it has grown throughout the world, why it must be stopped, and what we can do to limit it.

                                                    The Fight Against Internet Piracy

The ongoing dispute over illegal Internet-based file sharing between the entertainment and software industries and the vast, online pirating community has been one of the most debated upon topics that has gripped public attention for the past decade. What was once a single public website created by a college dropout has become an empire of trafficking communities, used by hundreds of millions of people, that robs billions in revenue each year. Although these rogue websites claim to strictly serve only as hosts for illegal file sharing, the United States government must take action to eliminate Internet piracy and protect copyright by implementing digital encryption technologies and strict laws that prohibit tampering these encryptions. The trafficking of copyrighted goods must be put to an end because it promotes illegal transactions of an owner’s intellectual property, causing sales in the entertainment and software industries to plummet and thereby restricts the growth of the economy.

Reflection on Personal Statement

Here is what I thought after writing my Personal Statement and having it reviewed by my classmates. I definitely learned to be more confident about my writing and that it is important to understand what a reader might think when they look at my paper.

Reflection

            Writing this personal statement called for a grueling, step-by-step process that took several days to accomplish. Not only because I was sharing personal experiences to another person, but also because I had a hard time choosing what to write about. I have written personal statements before, primarily for English classes and college, but I have never had to read my essay out loud to a group of classmates. The most “peer review” I had experienced before this class was an obscure and unhelpful “pass-your-essay-to-the-person-behind-you” type of outside opinion. It certainly made me think more about what I should and shouldn’t say. I guess it’s because the personal statements that I turned in before were sent to school officials I might never see or meet, so I was able to write more freely.

Personal Statement

A personal statement that I wrote for my English 1A class at Berkeley City College. This paper really helped me understand myself and my interests:

A Universe of Possibilities

            The universe began as a single hot, dense state billion years ago. There were no solar systems, no stars, no planets, and there were no human beings. Through a process known as the “Big Bang,” the universe suddenly expanded. Things that had never existed until that very moment, such as electrons and nuclei, unexpectedly formed. Even now the universe continues to expand infinitely. Similarly, I think of myself as what many physicists think of the universe: full of unexpected surprises with no definite direction. From the time I was an elementary student to the time I graduated middle school, my answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” has never been absolute. I have always lived in the moment, never thinking about the future. From one day to the next my goals can change just like the stocks on Wall Street: on Tuesday I might want to become a professional basketball player; Wednesday, a lawyer; Thursday, the President of the United States. Though I may set a goal for myself, I cannot yet put a definite statement on whom or what I will become. What I can do, however, is try my best no matter what obstacles may stand before me.

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