If you want to know what makes an exceptional leader, just take the three principles of the Boy Scout honor society known as the Order of the Arrow (which I was recently inducted into). Simply put, they are cheerfulness, service, and brotherhood. All three of these traits help define a good leader.

First up, cheerfulness. No one likes a leader who is pessimistic and tries to evade his duties. A good leader has to keep a smile on his face and do his duty to guide the other people and help out when he has to, even when the task ahead seems daunting. During the Ordeal, which is the ordeal you have to go through before you can get inducted, you have to spend hours in arduous labor and eat tiny amounts of food. This is to test your cheerfulness. All of us Scouts in the Ordeal were tired and hungry when we were working, but we all tried our best to keep a smile on our face and continue.

Service is the second important trait to have in a leader. In other words, will he put aside his personal interests for the sake of other people? If he or she is capable of doing so, that person will make a fine leader. For example, imagine that you’re at a campout. It’s nighttime, it’s about to rain, you could go ahead and sleep cozily in your tent. Then, you notice some people struggling to properly set up their tent. Will you go and assist them, and potentially get a little wet, or leave them to fend for themselves? The choice is yours.

Lastly, there’s brotherhood. A leader must remain friendly to his peers, and guide, help, and work along with them. During the Ordeal, most of us worked together at some point to accomplish some task, be it pulling out a root or cutting down a tree in the middle of the path. If someone needed assistance, we went right there to help them. Once we had completed the task, we high-fived each other for a job well done.

There are numerous other things that help define a leader, though I feel that these are some of the most important. Remember to be active in what ever job or task you’re in, and keep a smile on your face. After all, it’s possible that in the future, you may be the person that everyone relies on to get everything completed.

 

 

“Yeah, try all you can, but not of you mobs will make even a tiny breach in my impregnable fortress!” After the successful construction effort, I glanced at the clock.Oh, I should probably start my project now, I thought. Fortunately, I knew just what program to use. Recreational or educational, here’s a list of my five favorite apps.

1. Steam- An online gaming platform, Steam contains hundreds of games for purchase or for free, especially those made by the awesome game developers at Valve. You can make an infinite falling portal loop (as most people probably know about), build a crazy mechanical contraption and then color it purple, construct a teleporter logistics system along with an impenetrable sentry gun emplacement, or send Mars-sized planets to destroy Earth in a cataclysmic explosion. You can also chat with your friends, trade items and send gifts with them, and make some game recommendations too.

2. Minecraft- This definitely deserves a spot on here, as it’s one of the most creative and enjoyable games to play. You can construct a giant mansion, go on a massive mining operation to drain the area of minerals, build a sniping tower, enchant a diamond sword, or go on a crusade to eliminate the Ender Dragon, the “final” boss. After all that, along with other stuff I haven’t mentioned is done, you can install certain mods and modpacks, like Feed the Beast and Flan’s Mods, to open up an entirely new world. If you can code with Java, you can make your own!

3. Calculator Apps- For those in Pre-AP Algebra who have their calculator license, there may have been several instances in which the calculator saved you from having to write long chains of numbers to solve a problem, or when it involves radicals. While a TI is superior (a crafty person can even code Pong or download Mario on it), a calculator app is easier to access and it’s free.

4. Adobe Reader- While you can’t really edit a PDF, it does eliminate the remote possibility of accidentally deleting everything on it, and it’s a little more secure. Mainly, I use it to print out these files of paper airplane parts, which when assembled together, make amazing paper airplanes in terms of aesthetics and flight quality(I might do a post on this later).

5. WolframAlpha- This app contains the answer to *almost* everything! You can solve complex math equations, look at the periodic table and social studies facts, see the chemical composition of a super complex molecule like titin, or see how atoms in everyday molecules bond together. It also is willing to admit that human stupidity is limitless (but that’s what allows us to learn, right?).

All in all, these are my top five apps. Give them a try, as they are extremely fun and useful, and I think you’ll find them the same way too.

However, there is one special type of computer with apps that no one really acknowledges as a computer, even though it keeps them alive and allows them to think. If you haven’t guessed, it is…

6. The brain and all its parts and lobes- You’re probably thinking, “This isn’t really a type of computer! Why is it here?” Well, the cerebrum is like a computer’s hard drive, CPU, and graphics card, and the cerebellum and brain stem are like the subtle programs on your computer that manages the hardware usage and processes (like involuntary body actions) and keep it from overheating and shutting off (or dying, in terms of organisms). Clicking on Netflix to watch some Star Trek is like the brain sending an impulse to some muscles so that they can move. So, be sure to thank the brain for making sure you are a living, sentient organism, and giving you the ability to write this post!

 

 

 

A light breeze blows. The deep blue sky is dotted with puffy white clouds that look like cotton balls. Light radiates off the verdant green grass. This picturesque paradise is Zilker Park, one of my favorite places to go to in Austin, Texas.

For one thing, the fields in Zilker Park have some of the most lush grasses I’ve ever seen. They’re extremely soft, and perfect for running through or playing a game of soccer. Sometimes, in the early-mid morning, you can see tiny droplets of dew clinging to those green blades, with the light radiantly reflecting off the water drops. When you sprint through them, wearing shoes or not, you can feel the cool dew soak your feet and lower legs, which is one of the most refreshing things I’ve ever felt.

When the Texas heat turns you into a walking popsicle and your internal organs feel like they will get charred like they’re on a rotisserie, Barton Springs Pool is the best place to just dive in and start splashing around. The water is perfectly clear and a great shade of greenish-blue, and it’s extremely cold–but isn’t that what you want when the weather is scorching? Also, another cool thing about Barton Springs Pool is that beneath all those rocks, there’s a special type of exotic blind salamander that only lives here.

Finally, the surrounding trails and Lady Bird(or Town) Lake are an excellent to go jogging and get some exercise, or just walking around and enjoying the scenery. One of my favorite things to do there is to walk to this spot on the shore of the lake, where there are plenty of boulders to sit on. There, you can admire the blue waters and the tiny microcosm of an ecosystem. Usually, you can see some turtles and lots of fish, both tiny or huge. Alternatively, you can continue walking along the trail, enjoying the plants that are busy photosynthesizing and the company of other people. Finally, if you complete one full circle, I suggest you stand on the large bridge over the lake, near the parking areas. There, you can let the forceful yet gentle(and let’s not forget cool) breeze cool you down, while you take in a deep breath and forget all the troubles of the world or the noisiness of the city.

All in all, if you come to Austin, Texas, you must visit Zilker Park. You can enjoy doing plenty of different activities, go swimming in the Barton Springs Pool, and visit a lot of other close-by areas like the Zilker Botanical Gardens, and many other nearby places (there’s a lot, so I’m not going to mention every single one). So, please, visit Zilker Park if you ever come here!

 

“Yes, I finally completed this course under par!” I yelled in victory. “Good morning, class, take out your iPads, we’ll be doing our warm-up on our iPad.” Yaaay, I thought. Well, at least I don’t have to write this on paper. iPads are pretty awesome and useful, or at least for me.

For one thing, they fair pretty well as a resource for research, doing schoolwork, or organizing all your files and games like Super Stickman Golf 2. It’s much easier to look up what you need for that Texas History paper on an iPad, than to take out that lumbering textbook and flip through it. It’s also pretty easy to keep everything organized in places like Google Drive, since one section of my binder is a catastrophic paper mess. For me, it’s also easier to type everything rather than painstakingly write it out on a piece of paper. The only downside to this is the hard-to-work-with and glitchy textboxes in DocAS.

The second and just as important reason is that it’s a great tool for entertainment. You can play such “classics” like Minecraft, Plague Inc., Super Stickman Golf 2, or something really dumb(but entertaining) like Flappy Bird or Ironpants(which is essentially Flappy Bird on performance-enhancing and hallucinogenic drugs). What? Oh, sorry about that. Anyways, when you’re done with all your schoolwork, nothing beats playing a little game on your iPad, provided that you don’t get too distracted by it.

While iPads can be a major distraction for some people, for me they have been great in keeping me organized, able to do my work and research, and entertained.

Now it’s time to hope that iOS 8 can remedy the catastrophic fail that was iOS 7. 

 

 

“DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER, ALL SCHOOLS WILL BE CLOSED TODAY.” For some, that means anything from joy to salvation from some upcoming test. To me, it’s one of the worst days of the year. I really despise snow(well, more like ice) days.

For one thing, they can really screw up the school schedule. For example, an upcoming test can be rescheduled a billion times. While that can be beneficial if it’s like a test that you still need to study for, in other cases, like that science test in which I felt confident I knew everything about it, it was really annoying. Also, I’m pretty sure if you were looking forward to something in school, whatever it may be, I don’t think you’d like to have that rescheduled 10 quadrillion times.

Second of all, is the worst part(get ready)– WE HAVE TO TAKE A REPLACEMENT DAY! It isn’t an extra day off, it’s more like “We decided to celebrate the school-off day from President’s Day right now. When President’s Day does roll around, you’ll have to go to school. Too bad for you!” Ugh. Subsequently, the replacement days are probably going to mess up someone’s summer schedule plan, as we have to take an extra day of school in June! I’m pretty sure barely anyone will show up for that replacement day.

Although we could have a ton of other discussions on this, such as “Why don’t we give our school buses some better tires,” or “Why don’t we find some way to deal with some tiny patch of ice instead freaking out about it,” let’s keep everything simple by just saying that I really really really don’t like snow days, and loathe the replacement days more.