Technological Evolution

Looking back to last week, I still cannot get the idea of these technological advancements out of my head. The TED video was surprising and shocking at the same time. I have recently been aware of the exponential growth rate of technological improvements. These improvements are occurring more faster and often as time goes on. This is amazing, because robots and other artificial life are becoming more realistic, just like that one robot dog thing. It was able to regain its balance when it was kicked by that one man. What I found even more interesting, was when the robot dog thing was slowly going down the snowy hill. It made a life-like mistake of slipping, but then it regained its footing. I watch a few science fiction movies from time to time thinking that some are completely unrealistic. But, when I saw the robot dog thing, I slowly started to think of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Terminator. Could the "age of machine" really be real? And if so, how close are we to reaching it? This is one thing that scared me.

Another part of the video that we saw, focused on cell research, the duplication of organs and other various body parts. Whatever problems that could not be fixed by replacement, was fixed by technology (such as hearing aids for the deaf). And due to the ever increasing speed of technological advancements, the deaf will be able to hear better and better as time goes on. The man in the video said that possibly in a few technological generations, a deaf man will have a hearing aid that will allow him to hear better than the average human. And from then on, hearing aids will continue to become even better than the one before. He brought up the idea that humans are at such a high level, that they could possibly create their next evolution. Now, I am a Catholic, and I am sort of afraid of the fact that humans will be interfering with a natural cause of nature. Is it right for us to be playing God?. What scares me the most is the thought, what if we mess up? I mean, we're only human. Will there be extreme consequences? Only time will tell if we choose to do such.

Reading

I haven't really been reading on my spare time lately. I believe that due to having harder classes, I usually spend all of my free time with my friends and/or family trying to relax. Due to not reading as much as I did before, I am starting to read slower and become a worse speller. I guess that reading actually is good for your intelligence. Recently, I have not found a "high school reading level" book or series that I have been interested in. I was never really a fan of the Harry Potter book series. I had a bad experience with the first book as a child. Now I just watch the movies instead of reading the books. I kind of gave up on anime and comics. I use to be obsessed with buying the anime books of the Naruto series, but then I slowly drifted away from it. I still read comics a bit whenever I see some at a friend's house or just the ones in the Sunday paper.

The only kind of book series that I really enjoyed reading was the Perseus Jackson and the Olympians. All of my teachers declared it a "middle school reading level" book. I may be in high school, but I still enjoyed reading it. The way that the author, Rick Riordan, incorporates Greek mythology (with all of its violent and action-filled stories) with our current society turns out to be really appealing to a young teenage boy. I can tell that I really liked reading the books because I would sit in the same spot for hours a day reading just to find out what would happen next. Also, whenever I find the topic of something I read interesting, I read a larger amount faster than when I read when I am bored. I fell in love with the series by the time I had gotten to the seventh chapter of the first book. Unfortunately, the first series is over, and it will probably be a while until Riordan can get another one started. Also, I am now in high school, where teachers don't want their students reading "middle school books." So hopefully, I can become interested in another series/author, maybe a young adult one of some sort. But, their is still no denying the child in me the right to read and explore my unstoppable imagination.

Blog Review

Looking back at my blog, I have noticed the large amount that I have written. I wrote about many different (maybe even random) topics. I have done blogs about topics that will probably show up again, and some on things that I might never talk about ever again (i.e. "Random Signs"). At the beginning of the school year, the class wrote a "statement of purpose." In it, we were suppose to write what our goals for writing were. I feel that I have met my goal. Before I was really use to formatted writing (I said this in my "statement of purpose). I was so use to following handouts on how the teacher wanted the paragraphs and essays to look like. By doing these blog posts every week I am able to find my own way of writing and spotting out where topics change and new paragraphs begin. This wasn't really a goal, but doing weekly blog posts allow me to get a better idea of what kind of person I am. To be honest, I think that I am a random child.

Now, I'm not really sure if I have many goals. Now it's just do good in school in general. Not many others are English based. Maybe I should read more often because I have been reading slower lately. But in order to read, I need spare time, and school really seems to get in the way. So much homework is assigned to me every night. When I finish I just want to relax and rest. I have been struggling with math a bit, but I think that I'll get the hang of it eventually. Another goal that I really want to do is to join n organized school sport. I mainly want to join track. I can run pretty good for decent distances. Running can be fun while doing it with friends. I want to join, but it will be quite difficult finding time to do homework about three hours after school when I'm dead exhausted from running. And so this is my major dilemma, I want to join a sport because it will be fun and look good for college, but yearly maintained good grades look good for college as well. I guess that I'm an advanced student (I'm in HP pre- calculus), but I'm not advanced enough to be juggling sports and school.