Alex’s Awesome Anecdotes

Seventh grade have given me many fun memories, but here are three. The best memory of this school year has to be the chess tournament. I’ve been playing chess on and off for the last 7 years. I joined the chess club, and in this tournament, I came out on top. My first match was against someone who, was a beginner. I was on top easily after the opening. My second game was against Adam B. I know him through cub scouts in elementary school, and as Graham’s brother. I beat him relatively easily. Next was Elijah R. I met him last year, and we’ve been friends for a while. I’m 2-1 against him online, but I managed to get on top. Finally, the championship game. I was against Leo S. I’ve known him since elementary school. This game, was head to head. The stress was high, as I didn’t practice over the weekend, and a few people were watching. As we entered the endgame, with me up a pawn, I saw an opportunity. I used a pin, and won a knight. Using this advantage, I won the game. My 2nd favorite memory, was in Home Economics. Mrs. Gonzalez was absent, and the sub let us play games in the class. We opened up Exploding Kittens, and went to work. The players were Andrew, Eddie, Leo, and myself. The game started off hot, with Eddie being eliminated off the bat, with me getting the defuse. Andrew then got out, leading to a rematch versus you know it, Leo S. The game went back and forth, with me getting all 5 defuses. However, I used most of my cards, which turned out to be a fatal mistake. One by one, he used his cards, exploding kittens, and every tactic he had, slowly losing me defuse after defuse. Finally, I pulled the final exploding kitten, ending the game. My 3rd favorite memory, has to be making our Feudal people for Knight at the Museum. I was with Graham, which led to a crazy duo. After the writing, we had to make our noble. None of ur were good at art, so the mistakes, the jokes, and laughs made the experience lovely. This includes after folding the person, this created a sort of butt, which Graham may or may not have drawn a crack in, also failing to make hair around thirty times, nd laughing at Jack’s and Hunter’s person.

Hello, this week I just tried to use the videos I found to make solves. I haven’t memorized all of the algorithms, but I believe half is good. I’d also maybe use a few of the sneaky ones that would help me a little bit in an opportunity. I didn’t start my trifold this week, but we will be working on it this week. This week’s success was getting some practice and trying to improve my memory of algorithms, and also coming up with a plan. I didn’t really have a huge struggle, but I believe I was a little ambitious with learning a completely different method. I adjusted by changing my final times method. I’ll only use F2L, and not OLL or PLL unless an opportunity rises. This is the final blog, and I am doing my in class presentation/speech on Monday the 22nd. I’ll be working on the speech, trifold, and the presentation in class this week. I learned about myself that I can learn new things easily if you keep on practicing.

The children in this image has very different reactions. Everyone on Earth has grown up differently. Some have grown up with a lot, some little. No matter how you were raised, or with what, the more you were given, the more you wanted. Everyone wants things, and we set goals based on what we already can do. You don’t give yourself a goal of ten push-ups when you can do twenty. You give yourself a goal of 25, so you can try to achieve or get it. The person on the left has a lot, but because they are just human, they want more. They aren’t satisfied with what they have. The person on the right had nothing, so something is fine. They don’t want more, because they know that it’s better than nothing. The other one hasn’t had nothing, they don’t know what they have is enough.

This month I read the book The Length of a String by Elissa Brent Weissman. In this book, you learn about Imani, an adopted child. She was raised Jewish, and about to have her Bat Mitzvah, for which she was granted a birthday wish. For this wish, she knows that she wants to find her birthparents. Recently, her great grandma passed away, and after the funeral, Imani gets all of the books in her house. Imani finds her old diary, during World War II, and shares this with her friend Madeline. In this diary, we learn about Anna, how she was sent away from her family in Luxembourg. She was moved to Brooklyn, and lived with Max and Hannah, who she was “Cousins” with. My favorite character was Imani, because I felt a small connection since I’m Jewish. One of Imani’s character traits was passionate, and caring. “I thought nothing could deter from my decision not even if it crushed my parents, but all this time, they were more resilient than I realized, and now I was the one hesitating.” She was still passionate about finding her birthparents, but she cares about her adoptive parents feelings and opinions about it more. My favorite line was, “I remembered the first day Anna went to that factory, the buyer asking her to model the coat.” In this part, Anna is about to try on the coat that Anna wore all the way in that diary. I love this line because it connects Anna and Imani together, who to me seemed very similar, and fit perfectly.

Hello, it’s Alex again, and this week I mainly worked on learning OLL and PLL. OLL stands for Orienting Last Layer, and works by completing the yellow cross, and having the corners facing up. OLL was tricky, with needing 10 algorithms to memorize. I was just mainly trying to do attempts with it using the video. PLL stands for Permutation of Last Layer, and only has 6 algorithms. It matches up the corners and matches up the edges in one step. I used videos by J Perm, a speed cuber youtuber. I’ve been doing 2-look, which makes it so that you have to memorize way less algorithms. You basically have to figure out which algorithm to do, twice. The success was understanding the videos. The videos are very complicated, and since I’m not the best at notation still, I have to follow the hand movements. My main struggle this week was the time pressure. I’ll have to work extra hard to be able to meet my goal, but I’ll be proud just if I learn this new method, as that will make it way easier to improve later on. I didn’t adjust anything, and next week I will work on my trifold, and way more practice with hopefully 5-10 times.

My favorite room in my home is the kitchen. The kitchen for me is where I eat food, bake, sit, and I also do games there. First of all, I have a lot of memories in the kitchen, memorable dinners with family, spending time with family, and everything in between. Second, I spend a lot of time in this room whether eating, typing assignments, games, or all at the same time. Third, the kitchen is where we charge everything. Phones, kindles, and pretty much everything you can imagine. If we didn’t have this room, I wouldn’t know what we’d do. Finally, my kitchen has no door, and to the right has the refrigerator, freezer, island, stove, oven, knives (in a wooden block), and a dishwasher. More to 3 O’Clock, is a sink, a microwave, and all of the silverware, plates, and cups, To the left is the pantry. Straight ahead is a little circular area with a clear, round table, a small chandelier, a bowl with fruit, and in a little corner is a computer.

Hello, it’s Alex again, and this week was a relatively boring one. This week was mainly practicing technique, and I managed nineteen solves this week. Unfortunately, I didn’t save or memorize 2, so those didn’t count. I also did some wolves during math testing, without any timer. I’ve gradually started to do random solves in extra time such as right before class ends. This weeks success was getting an average time under 2 minutes! I averaged 1:40.91 My best time was 54.04, and my worst was 2:28.95. I mainly struggled with consistency, as depending on the scramble, my times varied. But over time, I managed to get more consistent with practice. I won’t list all of my times, but most of them were between 1:15 and 2 minutes. I didn’t change or adjust anything this week. I’ll probably work on more parts of CFOP next week, and also keep on practicing F2L so I can be almost as fast as my old technique.

Hello, It’s Alex again and I’m working on my Rubik’s Cube project. My main goal is to get an average time under 40 seconds. This week I practiced F2L, which is first 2 layers. This week I tried to improve my speed. My main success was being able to do it without any video or help. I struggled with changing impossible set ups to use F2L to possible ones. You have to get it into 5 different set ups, which have been hard for me to remember. I adjusted by changing most things to the one I find easiest, which is with the white corner on top. I also adjusted my final goal from thiry-five seconds to forty seconds for an more reasonable goal, and more rounded as a multiple of ten. I haven’t worked on timing my F2L, but I will try to this next week, after I continue to improve it.

Hello, it’s Alex and this week I worked on learning F2L, a method in cubing. F2L is apart of CFOP, (the F) and stands for first two layers. It allows you to solve the corners and edge pieces at the same time, increasing speed. You basically got to convert a matching corner and edge piece, into five easy positions, each with a different algorithm. This week went pretty well, and I fully learnt it, however very slowly. One struggle I experienced this week, was finding a good video, I used J Perm’s originally, but found a different video by paradox cubing, which worked better for me. My second struggle, was remembering the cubing notation. I felt like I did it right, so I used a scramble from the video, and it didn’t match. I’ll hopefully improve by next time. So, because I found a new video, I adjusted to the other one. Next week I will be working on OLL and PLL, and work on CFOP step by step instead of all at the same time. I will also work on finding out my time with F2L versus not with F2L, and improving the method.

This month I read the book Verify by Joelle Charbonneau. This book is about a dystopian future in which Meri’s mom dies of suspicious causes. Meri’s dad becomes an alcoholic, trying to get better to care for his daughter. Meri discovers her moms past, as she explores what her mom was apart of. It turns out she was apart of an organization called “Verify” after Meri traces clues. This organization is a resistance group about preventing the censorship the government uses. It turns out the government was removing words that would cause resistance to what they were doing. They removed words such as verify, so that nobody verified the truth.
I loved the world building of the different world, learning about it and the history. I also liked how Meri and her dad slowly grows and heal over the past wounds of Meri’s mom. My favorite character was Atlas, he has his own backstory that is slowly unveiled when Atlas guides Meri to the organization. He understand’s Meri and what she’s doing to avenge her mother. One of Atlas’s character traits is understanding he tells Meri to, “Get some sleep. Read. Then think about what you knew before you saw the word ‘verify’ and what you know now.” Atlas understands that Meri needs time to think about it, because this changes everything that she knows about the government. Her mother was apart of a “criminal” organization and now she suspiciously died. He understands. His father died too. My favorite line was, “My mother was murdered.” This sudden revelation, a product of realizing the government is lying, is all summarized in this line.