Scouting Helps

    Many things in my life are important to me. My family, my Clash of Clans account, and my eggs are all essential . But the one thing that has changed my way of life the most is Boy Scouts. Not only has this extracurricular program taught me ways of survival, but also good working habits.

    To me, one of the greatest lessons that scouting gives is survival skills. Knowing how to start fires, how to carry and use the ten essentials, and how to build shelters is knowledge safely stored in my brain. These skills could come in handy one day, during an unexpected occurrence on some camping trip with family or friends. But scouting doesn’t only teach us how to sustain ourselves in the wilderness. Survival in the competitive society is emphasized strongly in Boy Scouts. We get many chances to practice our leadership skills by filling troop leadership positions. Practicing being a leader will help us gain experience, strengthen our responsibility and communication skills, and will lead us to success.

    It almost seems as if Boy Scouts was designed especially for me, because it always targets my weaknesses and makes them strengths. Apart from communication skills, the one thing I really lacked was consistency. Before Boy Scouts, I was just a chubby, lazy boy. It would take me more than two hours to memorize twenty Chinese characters back then because I would always have eraser fights and daydream, the perfect example of inconsistent. As fun as Boy Scouts is, it also has some of the hardest challenges I’ve come across in my life. The ranks that I need to constantly advance, the merit badges I need to get, and the leadership I need to show in every meeting forces me to be consistent. This consistency will become of use when the homework amounts get overwhelming, when I have a pressing deadline during work, and when I have to deal with a group member who’s being fat-and-lazy-Justin.

   Probably the most enjoyable life lesson from BSA has been learning the ways of camp cooking, creating a variety of dishes, both simple and complex. I thought this was a good lesson because I do not know anyone who can last long without food. I certainly can’t! With the Cooking Merit Badge, I was able to figure out the correct foods that I should consume in order to stay healthy. For now, I am content with my mom’s way-too-bland-diet, but there will be a time when I need to strike out on my own. When I do, I need to have the knowledge of how not to starve.

    Boy Scouts has become an integral part of my life in a few short years. It has taught me much, and apart from all those things I’ve talked about, another has been the caring for the community and most of all, family. As great as Boy Scouts is, family is immensely important too.

We Love Grading Teachers!

             Ever since I started school, I’ve had at least one bad teacher a year. For Kindergarten and 1st grade in China, both of my English teachers were monsters, yelling and giving time-outs every other minute at the smallest sounds that we made. Through elementary school, my even number grade teachers were awesome, while the odd number teachers were not satisfactory at all. For example, my 5th grade teacher gossiped for at least an hour everyday about the opening premieres of the Hunger Games, Twilight, and  about another dozen movies. In 7th grade, my English teacher was very unproductive throughout the school year. Although some people loved her, I have to confess, I think that free days every week and around 40 total assignments for this class at the end of the year didn’t seem to meet my standards of a good teacher. If these kinds of teachers get to criticize our work, then I, along with many other students, believe we have the right to criticize their work, too.

All of the teachers in my education experience had small faults that could have been easily changed. If we had been given the chance to critique our teachers, it would have been so easy for them to recognize their mistakes and correct them. In making changes to their old teaching technique, their original experience and knowledge would be allowed to resurface, giving the future classes a better learning experience. This will lead to a better foundation and better overall test scores. Future students will have teachers who are constantly improving and who will provide more productive educational experiences year after year.

Teachers need to be professional about their jobs, and they need to match the standard criteria to stay in their positions. So schools need an efficient system of evaluating teachers’ performances. Yes, the principal, vice principal, and superintendent come occasionally and judge the teachers’ classes for about 10 minutes, but they usually don’t see the whole picture. We students do. We are in their classes every day and understand their teaching style. Overall, I think that students’ evaluations of teachers will be much more effective than administrative ones.

Some protesting teachers will definitely counter with, “What if the students just hate me for no reason and comment on me very unfairly?”  I suggest that the teachers look through their evaluations carefully and take note of the points that the students raise. You might find our comments very helpful, making you a better and more productive teacher.

             Please consider allowing us students to evaluate our teachers at the end of each grade cycle. We can help them grow professionally, like they have helped us improve throughout the year. Help us support this cause!

Late; Loot; Food; Cold

    As a very contented and simple child, I really have no huge pet peeve. After painfully racking my brain for almost half an hour, I was able to come up with a couple of small things that irritate me a little.

    Have you ever noticed that when some adults reach the age of around 40, their memory goes into a sudden rapid downfall? Well, my mom is the perfect example of very short-term memory loss. And that’s also what gets on my nerves, making this my number one pet peeve. Usually, it’s when we’re almost late to someplace that my mom’s memory loss is triggered. The most common example is, when it’s already 7:50, and we are just getting ready to leave our house for school. I’m already irritated at how long it takes my mom to be done with her iPad business (downloading Korean drama videos). After Mom’s been driving for a couple minutes, she suddenly gasps, turning to look at me. “Did I close the garage door?” I usually roll my eyes and reply, “I don’t know, just drive.” She’s already forgotten if she closed the  garage door after two minutes. When Mom isn’t sure, she always goes back to check, but every time, it’s closed. And every time she finds the garage door closed, I yell, “See? It’s closed! Now step on the gas!” When we get back on the road, we only have 5 minutes before the first bell, making me very “peeved.”

    Another peeve of mine is shrimp - a small free-swimming crustacean with an elongated body, typically marine and frequently harvested for food. That’s the definition I got from Google. This is the definition of shrimp (the correct one) I found in Mister Justino Wei’s brain engine: a squirming ball of disgustingness. This exact definition is what goes through my mind every time my mom forces me to eat shrimp. This “peeves” me off  because shrimp and my stomach have very big disagreements. When two pieces of shrimp are placed on my plate, and mom gives me “the eye,” it’s like the end of the world for my poor belly. Mom’s saying, “It’s healthy for your body! Eat it!” makes me even more sick. As if the spoiled seafood smell and squishy appearance that reach my two senses don’t scare me, the taste makes something primitive in my belly want to come up and see the outside world. This pet peeve, the most annoying on the physical scale, definitely drives me mad.

    My third and not last pet peeve, most likely shared by millions of people around the world, is losing large amounts of precious loot. After spending hours and hours on a game, gaining loot by breaking other players’ hearts and taking their loot, it irritates me to have all the hard work in gaining the loot destroyed. Although the game isn’t real, and it’s a small thing to lose virtual money, it still annoys me greatly.

    Finally, my last pet peeve is having a cold toilet seat. Our toilet seats all have warmers, but my mom always turns them off, saying it “wastes electricity.” The freezing seat tortures my sensitive buttocks, which send signals to my brain, telling it the huge discomfort that my bottom is feeling. The sensitive skin of my bum freezing up destroys the otherwise comfortable feeling of getting rid of body waste.

    Overall, my four pet peeves are all very small things, with no lasting negative effects. Still, they are very irritating, making my good mood crash down. For a thorough list of my pet peeves, please go to www.justinosbrain.com.   

Sanamluang=Best Thai Restaurant in L.A.

    People who actually know my mom will definitely say that she is a good cook. But only the people of the Wei family know that she also gets very lazy when told to cook during the weekends. That’s how my mom and I ended up at my favorite Thai restaurant in Claremont, Sanamluang. After almost four hours of “showing love” to our Boy Scout supply shed (organizing equipment and cleaning up) on Valentine’s morning, I was at zero percent on belly juice. My mom said she was tired too, even though all she did was sit there with the other parents and drink coffee. Mom didn’t want to cook lunch, so I was getting myself ready for a hard afternoon of loud stomach thunder. But going past the 10 freeway on Indian Hill, something in my guts told my eyes to look to the right, I made solid eye contact with Sanamluang, a great restaurant that we found a couple months before. Ever since, our family’s been going once or twice every month or so. My mom seemed to notice it a second before I did and pulled into the plaza before I could say anything. At first I was surprised, but after I got out of the car I figured my mom was pretty hungry too. Two hours later, feeling delightfully sleepy and contented, we walked out of the restaurant.

    The best part about Sanamluang is the rich and flavorful food. My favorite side dish is the fried pork ribs. Marinated to the perfect savory taste, the outer layer is crunchy, while the inside flesh seems to melt on my tongue, sending the juice down to fill my mind and body. Combo fried rice is also a course that we never miss. Filled with squid, shrimp, chicken strips and eggs, the rice seems to take on the seafood’s flavor, easily sending our taste buds into overdrive. I like the rice with a little traditional fish sauce that’s usually on the side of the table, adding to the already complex taste. Although General Noodles is an aromatic noodle soup that has good ingredients, the soup’s taste seems very unnatural, contrasting with the mild flavors of the other dishes we ordered, which makes me wonder what was needed to make that........ My favorite noodle dish at Sanamluang is the Pad-Thai, a flat rice noodle that is stir fried with eggs, chicken, shrimp, and different veggies. It is served dry, even though the need for water never arose for me when consuming these peculiar flat noodles. With the food alone, I would definitely not regret taking time from Clash of Clans to eat at Sanamluang.

    The greatest thing about Sanamluang after the food is probably the welcoming environment. No matter what time you go, the noise is never over a moderate tone. Although some people disagree with me, I think the food service is great. The dishes come quickly every time I’ve been there, and the servers are always there for us when we need them. The interior design of the restaurant is a perfect mix of modern and traditional.

   Although this may sound weird, an important factor that allows me to enjoy my time at a restaurant is having clean restrooms. When using the restroom, any sort of graffiti, stalls that are plugged up, and/or lumpy blobs of toilet paper on the floor make me nervous, causing me to get distracted and not do my necessities. Toilets are important to me, so I appreciate it when they are nice and clean. Sanamluang’s restrooms, with their gleaming stalls, purely white toilet seats, and shiny mirrors, set the perfect precedent for my expectations of future restaurant restrooms.

    Even after visiting Sanamluang almost half a dozen times, it still never bores me to see the awesome dishes being served and the Asian style of the restaurant as I relish every bite. Even though some of the dishes aren’t the healthiest for your body, they won’t hurt you too much. I recommend Sanamluang to anyone of any ethnicity 10,000%. Please try it out. You won’t regret it.

Burmese Python (continued)

               The invasion of the Burmese Python is now a gigantic worry for the federal government, and the citizens of Florida. Many ideas have been proposed and disputed. The two main points of view are whether to kill the pythons or capture them.

              After a search team has captured a python, what actions should they take? Should they kill it, or bring it back to animal centers for lab tests and maybe return it to its native habitat? The “killers” argue that killing the pythons on the spot would save a lot of time and  money in transportation. As for bringing them back for lab tests, “killers” say that scientists already have more than enough Burmese Pythons for testing. Capturing the snakes and killing them allows the search teams to track down and dispose of more pythons in a day. Without a heavy load of pythons, the teams can move and search more quickly. But even with these arguments, the action taken by most teams is still capturing, instead of killing.

              “Capturers” have a strong stand of their own. They say it wasn’t the Burmese Pythons’ fault for escaping into the wild; they were just trying to survive. So these people think that it is the right thing to capture them, and bring them back where they belong. The “capturers” maintain that although these predators should be stopped, bloodshed should be avoided, for these reptiles are just innocent animals surviving in the environment. Also, if there were bloodshed, other predators or scavengers could be attracted to the scene. That definitely would not help the search teams.

               Some of the ideas that crossed my mind regarding the control of the Burmese Python population included inventing robotic machines that could work day and night to capture and deliver pythons. These robots could be programmed to sense Burmese Pythons with their acute computers. They definitely would work faster than humans, because they have no need to sleep or eat, and don’t get tired. But after a couple seconds, I knew that idea was impossible with the technology we have right now.

Another idea that came to mind was getting rid of  the pythons’ eggs. As Burmese Pythons are able to lay up to 50 eggs at a time, the reproduction rate is a huge factor of the snakes’ growing population. By getting rid of the pythons at the base is probably a good idea. But after more thought, I became pretty sure that the idea had already been put into action.

              But one idea appealed to me: introducing a new species to balance out the whole food chain. Environmentalists and scientists could go to Asia to find species there that are able to keep the number of Burmese Pythons low. Perhaps the species they find can become prey to the alligators of Florida. That way, the new food chain would be complete, with the new species controlling the pythons, and alligators controlling the new species.

             Something that I only recently learned about invasive species was that all these were started by something small: Burmese Python pets released, or a storm that freed a couple of misplaced 20-inch-long pythons. All these things were small, yet after 20 or 30 years, this instability in the environment that could cause extinction is the result.

           The experience of writing this article taught me how fragile the environment is, and how small actions can have huge consequences. The environment is delicate, so treat it delicately.

Burmese Python Part 1

             Of all the invasive species in the world, one that I found especially intriguing was the Burmese Python. I wanted to learn more about it the moment I saw that this huge reptile could eat alligators. Also, the reptile VS reptile fight seemed pretty interesting.

The Burmese Python, already one of the largest snakes in the world, can easily grow up to five meters in Southern Florida. Although these pythons are interesting, I shake about the thought of meeting an agitated or hungry one that could quickly snap me in half and consume me. The python is tan in color, with dark puzzle-like blotches, similar to a giraffe’s. Its head is a typical snake shape, wide at the neck and tapering to form a rough triangle, ending at the nose. With jaw structures that can be disconnected, this python can fit any animal into its mouth that is about five times the length of its head.

    The Burmese Python’s natural habitats are the semi-aquatic areas of India, lower China, the East Indies, and the Malay Peninsula. Being a good climber and swimmer, this type of python is able to hunt for a variety of prey, making it a formidable hunter.

    Every invasive species in the world is caused by a small mistake. A citizen of Southern Florida bought a small Burmese Python as a pet. After about two years, the python had grown so much that its master thought it took up too much space. So he released the gigantic snake into the wild, thinking that it wouldn’t do any harm to the environment. But that one snake survived and probably found another python, probably displaced from a conservatory after a hurricane, and mated. Since then, Burmese Pythons have reproduced madly, setting a deep anchor in South Florida’s Everglades. Since the marshy environment is similar to its original home, there was no real need for these pythons to adapt, making it even easier for them to survive.

    The main problem of almost every invasive species is the same. They offset the delicate balance of the environment, and cause extinction in some cases. It is the same with the Burmese Python. Because of their big size and great agility, along with the huge mouth, these fearsome reptiles eat almost anything, such as a variety of birds and mammals, and even alligators. Burmese Pythons have been caught eating endangered Key Largo wood rats and grasshopper sparrows. As a foreign species, no large predator has moved to Southern Florida that has the ability to take on the job of controlling the number of pythons yet. Even the alligators have trouble with these pythons, suffering casualties among the young and inexperienced, and sometimes even the adult ones. Apart from humans and adult alligators, the Burmese Python is invincible.

    Environmentalists, scientists, and local park rangers are hard at work to control the number of Burmese Pythons. Like the lionfish issue, the pythons have such a stronghold in Southern Florida that destroying all the snakes is Mission Impossible.

Some things that the people have been doing are limiting the import of Burmese Pythons as household pets. There have also been human and dog search teams responsible for tracking down and killing Burmese Pythons. Another not-so-successful idea was trapping. But since pythons do not move around extensively, trapping was not as useful. Another idea that was considered was the use of gas specifically targeting Burmese Pythons as a biological control. The action was not performed, because the risk of killing other endangered species was too high. Having python catching contests didn’t prove too successful. As cunning reptiles, pythons are hard to catch. A month-long contest of 1,600 participants only resulted in 68 pythons caught. Hunting Burmese Pythons for food was also not a great idea, unless some crazy person wants to be poisoned by high amounts of mercury, as most high-level predators, including pythons, have a preponderance of this element in their bodies.

               So far, there has been no overly successful way of controlling the number of Burmese

 Pythons. But we humans are intelligent creatures, and I believe that we will find a solution some day

in the near future.

My Grandparents’ House

There are just so many places on the Earth I enjoy being in. But if I had to choose my favorite place, it would be my grandparents house, in Shanghai.

Although not too big, the house gives me many wonders. My favorite part is the kitchen, with its constant mouth-watering smell of frying eggs, and grilled chicken. Holding within it a huge supply of snacks, enough to last me a month, my grandparents’ kitchen can give me a good feeling of satisfaction nowhere else can provide. Another good reason are all the great comforts of my grandparents’ house. Their strong AC’s installed separately all over the house keep the house nice and cool. A greater comfort is the actually “Hi Speed Wifi” that they have, allowing me to watch movies smoothly without downloading it. Probably the most important reason is that my grandparents are always there, ready to accompany me in almost any sort of fun activity, like playing video games, swimming, biking, and so many other things. While grandpa likes joining me in the more active things, grandma gives me awesome company by playing cards and teaching me good family recipes.

           These are only some of the reasons why my grandparents’ house is the favorite to be for me; there are more reasons that will always remain a mystery to others.