Filler Journal - 9/30-10/27/19

Yesterday I already wrote about a Technical Journal detailing what I did for the last two weeks in my Caltech STEM program. I went over the Zachary's Karate Club dataset and predicting the members with Kmeans and Spectral Clustering Algorithm. So in substitute for such, I'll just talk about what has been on my mind for the past few weeks.
Image result for zachary's karate club
My APUSH class has not been that stressful but the tests do worry me a lot. Mr. Paccone, my teacher, has recently assigned us large parts of his lesson slideshow and tested us given a short time. And by the time we take the test, I have absorbed nothing from cram sessions with the slides. Thankfully I watched videos from the internet to cope with my lack of understanding.
My English class has been fine with me. We're reading this book called The Crucible which is based on the Salem Witch Trials held in Massachusetts. The purpose of the novel was to address McCarthyism and its obvious problems. I've taken a quiz and test on it, both I think I did well on, mainly because I studied for a long time.
Image result for the crucible
My third period is Chemistry which I find easy to understand both the conceptual ideas and concrete ones. I am not in any trouble for the test which greatly alleviates me from more stress from school. I work hard to understand concepts beforehand so that I don't have to struggle as much a day before a test or quiz. We have barely scratched the surface of chemistry's hard topics but so far I enjoy learning it.

It is the same with my Debate class. I had done debate prior to this class during one of my summer breaks to do something different for once. I can't say I enjoyed it but it did open my eyes to many of the world's issues. This class has indirectly pushed me to learn about China's incredibly puzzling government which has proven itself to be a threat to society. Overall, I like this class and I believe that letting high schoolers explore global concerns definitely matures their mindset.
Image result for hong kong protest
Honors Math Analysis has been quite a struggle for me as I do subpar with my tests and quizzes. I'm thoroughly disappointed in myself with how I do in quizzes because these are supposed to be free points, yet, I manage to trip on even the most basic questions. Same with the tests, I make minor slipups that accumulate big enough to harm my grades. Hopefully, I can turn this around as I enter Quarter 2.

Final ideas left in my brain are the upcoming hackathons that I am participating in. I'm eager to start working but not quite sure what I want to do. That's it, nothing too much. Thanks for reading my journal entry.

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