Boom Goes The Cucumber

Yes, there is such a thing as life after, and as a side note, those of you who are freaking out because the world around you isn’t MSA, well… go make it MSA.

Ever since I got home I haven’t really stopped. Today is the first day I have just relaxed and had timed to blog a bit. I like it though, no time to think about stuff, or get sad. It doesn’t bother me at all that I’m not still at MSA. I’m happy to have my life back. Being at MSA was too limiting, I couldn’t get anything done socially or with my web design. But its all well. It was well worth my time to go and has changed alot about the way I look at things.

The fourth of July I went with Lisa Jess and Gabe to the pool and watched the fireworks show. It was quite. neat, the fireworks were alot closer than I thought. There was one dud that went off right at the ground. It was a big one too. I never heard about anyone getting hurt though. Afterwords we went and got some of Gabe’s fireworks and shot them off at Jess’, then played with sparklers. Me and Lisa swing danced for a while then everyone went home.

I have been to weightlifting every day this week (go me) and, though I did drop alot on my maxes, I’m happy to feel sore again. Me and Nick have been hanging out, which we never used to do so that is cool. We eat all the ripe blackberries every day after weightlifting, and there are quite a few of them.

I have talked to Kay a couple times since I got back. I miss having her to hang out with, but I’m not freaking out about it anymore. She got me tea from England (yay for kayleigh) but she still hasn’t mailed it (boo for kayleigh).

July 14th I am having a party at my grandparents’. from noon till midnight, mainly for MSA people. It will be fun, I dont know if many people will come, but a couple of my friends are so it will be good.

I think I need to not blog my entire life and only blog things that are really cool. I’ll figure it out though. My websites are taking off, 3k page views a day… I love swing dancing… See yall later.

We did this during PSD, they called it a “Dream List” to me, these are my incomplete life goals.

-Live in each of the 50 states for at least 2 weeks apiece
-Visit every continent except maybe antartica
-Live on each coast for 6 months apiece
-Visit specifically: Japan, Greece, Italy, Canada, The Googleplex, E3, Broadway, The Daytona 500, A Poetry Slam, Cornerstone Music Festival
-Own a harley
-Not Kill My Next Bonsai Tree
-Make A Forest Green Cloak & Visit Renasiance Festivals In It
-Work At Google For Some Period Of Time
-Own Google Stock
-Find A Good Compassionate Person To Share My Life With
—Have Children With Them
-Live In Town, Yet Surrounded By Trees and Nature (see my grandparents house) and have a hottub, pool, soundsystem, lots of honeysuckle, and lots of blackberries.
-Learn my guitar notes on the fretboard
-Learn to sing 8_
-Record A Song
-Build A successful webdesign/software-engineering buisness
-Be a good witness to others
-Get a picture on a bottle of jones soda
-Write a good poem
-Learny to fly an airplane
-Learn to dance!
-Stay in touch with…. People

During PSD we also had to write a passion speach, a list of what we love and what makes us go. Mine was like this.

I believe that watermelon with seeds always tastes better than that without. I believe in friends who are always there, even when they aren’t, and in firsbee and fun. I believe that Christ rocked my world and that computer geeks are cooler than jocks. I believe that Google will someday take over the world (and at that time I will own it) I believe in the compassion of the human race and in the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. I also believe that compassion is my new favorite word. I believe in the value of the sound of nature and the peace it bestows. I believe that cats rule dogs and in late night swimming with friends. I believe in the company of your own company and having fun doing nothing. I believe in the trickel of the creek and the rush of a waterfall.
I believe in goodbyes that mean see you in a bit and the silent screaming lights of june floating in the dusky meadow. I believe in Hope, I believe in Believing, and I believe in Fireflies.

This was possibly the most moving experience I had ever been a part of. I must say, that until that moment I did not truely understand what they called MSA. By the end of our last gathering together, I had realized what had happened in the time I had spent there, at MSA. But that is all for another bloglet.

The event began with a couple of awards and a skit put on by the acting for non-actors class. Then it started getting sad. The choir sang, well, everyone sang “A Chance to Soar”, our anthem. Then we got to see our slideshow, which actually had good music to it. Then it was our RAs turn. They each shared a quote that had some relevance to our lives, it was nice. After the quotes it really broke down. Under our seats were baggies of beads, we each got 2, a ketchup colored and a mustard colored. You were supposed to give a bead to the one person that meant the most to you at MSA.

They walked us out to the quad in silence, probably the only time we were silent at all of MSA. There were hugs all around, a couple of people were crying. As we walked out to the quad we picked up a candle in a cup. We made a circle on the quad, keep in mind that its 10:00 at night and dark. You could just barely see the person across from you. Ted proceeded to tell us how great we were, and explain what was going to happen. Ted and another, walked to the center of the circle and lit their candles. The RAs then walked to the center and lit theirs from Ted’s. Then each of our candles was lit by the RAs. I don’t really know how to describe it all.

We were told to wonder about and find our minor classes. After finding them and talking a bit we all gave each other hugs. After I had hugged Gina, I thought I heard someone running through the sprinklers with an umbrella, you know the crackling sound. I looked and didn’t see the sprinklers… I think, sprinklers? Look, no… hair?… no, Sprinklers… no… hair!!! It turns out that Gina had lit my hair on fire with her candle. It was a bit ironic too, because I had been saying earlier that I had never smelled burning hair. Wow.

We then found our major classes, and then our houses. Zup showed us his “Not Not” shirt and we had fun lighting our cups on fire. After that we all wondered around giving people beads and hugs. I lost Kate so I had to go back to Twain and find her to give her a hug. It was alright though, it really made me realize that there are awesome people in the world.

—nathan

Hehe, if you thought I was done with dry-ice bombs… you were wrong. Though, it took some convincing of our teacher we got him to let us make some bombs for our physics presentation. Almost every class showed somethign they had accomplished, our demonstrations ranged from making ice cream out of liquid nitrogen to blowing up bottles.

A week before, I had blown up a bottle using dry-ice during physics. That started our obsession. We started hording bottles, eventually having over 70, and bugging steve to let us. Finally, the day of the demonstrations, we were testing out what we were going to do. He said we could! We went out to an “empty” area of campus to test our plan. We got out rocket launcher from the other day and a small soda bottle filled with water. We taped the small bottle on the top of the rocket and got the rocket up to pressure. As soon as we hit 60 psi Inaam dropped in a bunch of ice, capped the small bottle, and pulled the launch pin. The first two rockets launched fine, quite well actually, but the bottles didnt explode… 8( after waiting on them for 5 mins Inaam, the poor soul, went and unscrewed the caps. He got soaked.

Finally, our last try… Steve is ready to leave, our spotters say its all clear even though people are walking. We launch it, its in the air…. it hits the ground… ok, so were not going to get it to blow in the air. 30 seconds later, BOOM. It blows. All I notice is the grey streak that flies past my head. Garrett, the smart guy he is, goes to grab the mangled remains of the bottle before Steve sees it. I run and grab the top which had blown off, heading straight at us. It traveled a good 30 yards. Boy did this thing blow, the inside is the outside, you cant really tell it was a bottle because the cap is off. Luckily Steve didn’t see it.

That night we did it, after two that didnt explode we got one that did. This was our biggest explosion yet. We gave the tattered remains to Bret. Everyone there cheered, it was awesome. Later, at the closing ceremony of MSA we presented the bottle to Steve. On it we had written “Note the shrapnel”. Steve was horrified and the rest of the day all he could say was, “I fear for your eyesight”. We love you Steve!

—nathan

Now this was quite a fun activity. Not being an actor, when we got into it and actually found out what it was I began to get a bit nervous, but after I let that go, and rememberd that no one cared I had alot of fun. We floated around in the pool for a while before beginning. We had lamenated scripts, the first fight in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. We were doing stage combat!

Now i don’t have any pictures from this activity because of the water (water+ digi camera = bad) but it was fun all the same. We each had a partner, and with them we learned how to fall into the pool, slap, pull hair, swing and dodge, and basically act out that scene. I can definatley say acting is not my strong point but I’m glad I did this. I even got to throw my partner over my head!

–nathan

Hello Mr. Blunt,

My name is Nathaniel Mahieu and I attended the Missouri Scholars Academy during the summer of 2005. I am writing to say how this experience has affected me and to display my full support of the continuation of this program. I had read about funding cuts for this program before I attended it and felt that it would be a loss to our educational systems but I didn’t think much of it. To me, it was just another state program. This view is nowhere near the truth of what MSA is like. After attending this program for almost three weeks I must say that the benefits I have received from it reach far beyond that of physics and poetry, these were the two classes I took. By this I do not mean that the classes were less than satisfactory, but to fully appreciate this program it must be understood that it is not only academics that are taught. I have learned much about myself and others, communicating with the rest of the world, cultures, along with physics and poetry.

In my eyes I find that the greatest benefit bestowed by this program is that of being able to explore yourself and others. By allowing us, the scholars, to take three weeks out of our normal lives and look back into it allows us to possibly change things about ourselves or see things we need to change. I believe that many gifted children have more emotionally unstable lives, and this program for the gifted allows us to see and deal with some of the emotions. This is helped along by something called Personal and Social Dynamics. PSD is a class which allows us to discuss our views and personalities with others from similar situations. It is very helpful and really allows those who may be a bit introverted a time to talk freely.

Along with the social benefits we also get a good taste of some challenging school type work. From physics to poetry to Japanese culture, the exposure we receive here in three weeks far surpasses that which I had received in my entire life. The curriculum we covered in my physics class appeared to be that of a semester and a half, covered in only three weeks here. To me, this is very impressive and to lose this opportunity would be losing a lot of future potential from us scholars. The program is so diverse and packed full, after attending it is quite obvious that Missouri is preparing a great future for its self.

Please, if the funding of this program is ever questioned again, know that this program is supported by many, myself included, and I would hope that you would support it too.

Sincerely,
Nathaniel Mahieu

The jazz artist that came to speak with us was by far the best speaker I attended at MSA. His name was Eugene Lowry and if you ever have a chance to go see him, do. He is very talented and has very intelligent and well researched opinions.

He covered the history of Jazz in a very fun and very very intersting way. He introduced himself and explained what he was going to tell us about. This probably wouldn’t have been very interesting to begin with, but the way he approached it was very flexible, I guess you could say it was like Jazz. Even then, it was well put together, after he explained something he would sit down and show us on the piano. He covered how Jazz was born in the church, a little bit of chord theory on accident, and a little bit of biography of himself.

He was a Methodist preacher, and from what I could tell, he had a very firm grasp on the world. I just had to brag about him, and if he ever sees this, consider it my thank you.

–nathan

First, off topic, I fixed your name in my posts, Kate, because I heard you were sad because I had spelled it wrong.

Yesterday we had our swing dancing lesson and it was aweosme. My friend, Jessica, had gone to the academy two years before me and thats where she learned to swing dance. At prom and a couple dances she taught me what she knew and we had a pretty awesome time. Ever since she told me that she learned to swing dance here, it had been on my minda as one of my goals of MSA: learn to swing dance.

I love swing dancing, probably because its the only kind of dancing I can actually do. I got the main step down and the basic spin quite easily. Our teachers were quite good. Laura and James demonstrated the moves and then we tried them out. Luckily I had good partners that knew what they were doing, that helped alot in my learning.

So far my move count includes: The step, a spin, the cradle, the crossover, and the pretzel. The pretzel, sounds intimidating doesn’t it. Yes, well it is. Me and my partner both wanted to learn it, but simply could not get it. We stayed at least 30 minuites after the normal session trying to figure it out. Finally, after James helped us about 4 times, we got it down. We were messing up on one part and thats it. It was awesome after we could do it though.

That night Grace and I had a little swing dance session on the quad. Shes pretty good and swing dancing is aweosme. 8D

–nathan

Woah! I have a full week’s worth of things to blog, talk about alot. I wish I hadn’t stopped blogging in the middle of MSA.

So, because of my lazyness I did not ever decide to invite a teacher to teacher appreciation day. I do wish I would have because I felt bad wasting that honor, but it all worked out in the end. Before the teachers showed up the RAs began lining us up along the columns, making us easier to find I suppose. I was playing frisbee with a couple others biding my time without a teacher. As the RAs begin to herd us into Jesse I see grace and drew and go over to stand with them. Grace has her teacher but Drew doesn’t.

As we walk up the steps Grace notices I have no teacher and jokingly says that I can be her student, pointing. Well, I decided that was quite a good idea and turned around to find a nice lady whom I would befriend for the rest of the night. She was from Chicago and had come with Grace’s teacher to see what the program was like. She was very nice and hospitable and she helped me get some punch without the line 8D. Quite a nice spirit, she definately made my night better. We sat with Grace, Lily, Drew, and Rob, and their teachers. We enjoyed some halfway good punch (no competition with the college fair’s), great brownies, and some dessert I hadn’t seen before.

I just found it quite humorus I played student to someone I had never met before.

–nathan

Wow, there has been so much happening in the last couple days and I haven’t had a chance to blog any of it. I told you how we made our “Not MSA Approved” stickers (layout avaliable at bottom) and all but the better part that hadn’t happened at that time is what has happened with them. We christened our floor with one as our first which went over well, we also stuck them on our stuff, I personally think they look sweet, but that is probably becuase I designed them.

The next day we spread a couple, we put one on the floor above us, the fourth, by the elevators (because guys can’t ride on them). Later that day we went to look and it had gone. Oh well, not a big loss. But what had happened to it was totally unexpected and very awesome. From what I understand, one of the RAs, Petie I believe, had taken it and stuck it to Cait’s back. Sorry, no pictures of this, I wasn’t there. It’s hillarious though, even the RAs like our stickers.

Last night at the alumni dance everyone loved them aswell. All the old MSAers wanted them, we didnt give any out though. After the dance got underway it was pretty fun, took a while to get there though. The worst and best part was when the DJ started playing Disco Inferno (50 Cent) and cut it after 30 seconds because it was inappropriate! That inspired me to give the DJ a sticker seeing as he was obviously not MSA approved. Everyone cheered, the stickers rocked. MSA is awesome, I just hope no one thinks the stickers are negative, they were made in a sarcasticly-humorus light.

—nathan

Laundry, Beer, and Rockets: all in a MSA-day’s work. I must say that this day was quite awesome. I did my laundry for the first, and hopefully only, time during MSA. I got up at my normal time, shoved the stuff in the washer, and went to have breakfast. It wasn’t too hard. The only problem was I was late to physics. No giant clothing catastrophes like throwing a box of Bob’s dryer sheets in the washer…. cough….

After that I made my way top physics. I was late but no one noticed, all of our class was set building their rockets for later that day. On my rocket I opted to put some drag streamer things to stabilize it as opposed to fins. They stabilized it quite well I must say, though, I think they slowed it down a bit. Mine almost landed on the columns twice (our goal by the way) though, it never stuck. These rockets flew alot better than I expected. They could probably make it twice the height of the columns, which isnt saying much until you personally see how tall these things are. This was really fun, though, I think my dry ice bomb was more exciting

While we were shooting off our rockets Vince and Chris stopped by, they are RAs. Chris is the camera guy, his site is here. Earlier on the quad we found an empty four pack of beer so we decided to put that into use. They had left their golf cart parked on the other side of the columns, unatteded. Some of the other guys put the beer and the carton in the cart and stuck a sticker on it. Of course, I took pictures. It was hillarious. When they got back in the cart they just looked at it for a second and drove off. Bad RAs, no alchohol on MSA campus! I plan on putting that picture on the candid camera board. 8D

—nathan

Pics: Rocket Group
Beer Buddies
Rocket Inaam

Rave parties at MSA! Who woulda thought? The past couple of days our house has boken out into mini raves at certain times. Theyr quite fun, we get a mouth beat going and flash our little flashlights for a while, basically look stupid and freak people out. Well last night after house meeting we truned it on. We went crazy to techno music in a room for about half an hour. It was tight, though, it got really hot and smelled of… icky… after we finished. I have movies which I will post later.

–nathan

Now this was fun. I think the Holi festival was the most fun I have had at MSA so far, too bad I didn’t bring my camera. I’ll definatly post pictures later though. The festival went like this.

We walked down to peace park, a kind of wide open grassy area near Twain. When we got there we found hundreds of small plastic baggies with powdered paint in them. Along with those there were lots of water balloons in mail crates. You can see where this is going.

As soon as they turned us loose mass chaos erupted. The goal was to have fun, we ran around dusting each other with dry paints at very high speeds (I’m sure this wasn’t MSA approved, If Ultimate is a “contact” sport, then this definately was). After we were thoroughly dusted we started in on the water balloons. I will make sure to find pictures of this later cuz they are sure to be awesome. I managed to get a good technique going. If you can get ahold of a corner of the baggie you can flick it and itll fly out in a concentrated cloud. I only got ahold of one waterballoon though.

By the end, everyone was covered head to toe in every color from blue to oarnge. Apparently my hair looked like a clown’s. We will see though, when I get the pictures. I took a shower and turned my washcloth pink aswell. I couldnt get all the orange off my neck though, it looks like I tried some bad self-tanner. 8D something to remember MSA by!

—nathan

Picture: Me Trying to scare Chris the camera man (The picture is about 40 from the left

Yet again, I fall to the lure of girls straightening my hair. This time we had about 4 girls, 3 brushes and 3 straighteners. Talk about painful! I hadn’t brushed my hair since the last time it was straightened, over 6 months ago! Since that time it had worked its self into mini dreds of knots, It looked pretty cool. Those knots… well, there were alot of them, and by the time we had finished they were all gone. I don’t know how much hair I lost through this experience and I don’t think I want to. All I know is that it hurt worse than the first time. It took about the same amount of time though, 2 hours. I had more hair, but also more girls 8).

By the end of the ordeal we had quite a crowd, music, chairs gathered around, someone even popped popcorn 8_. It was allright. I know they must have been thinking “wtf” while they were straightening it, but when it was done it looked awesome. The only problem is that it is too long to hold itself up anymore, so it was kinda flat on top. I am the white boy with a fro!

After many pictures with people I didn’t really know (I’m famous!) I headed off to the quad to suprise Jess, one of my best friends, and alumni who came back. She couldnt believe I did it again. It sure got me attention though, I don’t know if that was a plus.

So it’s supposed to go back to normal after I wash it right? Well, it didn’t. I get up sunday morning, parents day, and I’m going to church with my dad. Now, my church is a traditional lutheran church, not the best place for a fro, so I go and take a shower. I wash my hair a couple times and get out, thinking its normal. Turns out, its not. Its still super big, just not flat on top anymore! Uh oh, church plus fro does not equal good. It all worked out though, it went down alot after it dried and no one really noticed, It was fun.

–nathan

I must write about this just to explain to those who follow my postings why no more pictures are being added. The other day, Kate stopped me as I walked in from minors and asked to speak with me. I said “sure” and followed her into her room. She proceeded to ask me if I knew why I was talkign with her. In all truth I didn’t, but I mentioned the stickers, and then my pictures and blog. It ended up being my laptop, really the last thing on my mind. She asked me to surrendur it to her until the end of MSA and I was happy to, there were just some things that bothered me about this.

When she was asking me about my laptop, and why I had it she brought up an email I had sent to Ted. First, she claimed that he had told me not to being it, which was not true, here is the quote from the email:
“There really is no reason to bring your lap-top. We’ve got lots of
stuff. Besides that, you’re going to be so active in MSA classes and
activities that you’re not going to have much time to sit soqn w/ your lap
top.”
The email had not been directly sent to her, and I think that she thought I didn’t know she had seen it so when she brought it up she was very snide about it, and seemed to take great pleasure in what she saw as suprising me. Well, the CC: field is quite visible and I’m really not stupid. I enjoy knowing who has read what I have said. The way she brought this up to me was the one thing that really bothered me. It was this voice that I did not appreciate at all, and something I think could have been handled better.

All the email says is that I wouldn’t have time to use it, and thats the truth. The only times I used my laptop was to play a Carbon Leaf song for a freind, and to drop my pictures down from my camera onto it. It provided no distraction or harm to anyone at all whatsoever. Quite the contrary actually. I also would like to mention my pictures once more. I love photography for one, and two, I have a horrible memory. I believe this blog to be helping me to keep my memories but pictures are entirely different. Thats a reason this is bothering me so much, I have a horrible memory. In two months I wont remember MSA at all. I can read about it and everything but I wont remember it. Thats why I have taken so many pictures, they are worth alot more than my writings. Gah!

I believe this action has taken away from my MSA experience at no gains to anyone, or anything else.

Edit I invite everyone to post your comments on my blog. I know that some RAs and other “In charges” read it but I hear nothing out of you. You dont have to limit your comments to this post either.

Well now our house name and sign have been banned for most of the day. We can still show our stuff on our floor, but we no longer have a way of showing our house unity to the outside world! I thought MSA was about building community. Oh well. We are planning to reappear in a couple days. It’ll be all good.

–nathan

Pics:
Team 4
Team 4 Sign
Strength In Numbers
SOme Fun Intimidation

Edit Some content has been removed because it was unimportant opinions.

With all this brainpower, wasted on guys, there will always be some kind of fun going on. It all started with frisbee. We arent allowed to do lots of things, to name a few… talk to people not in MSA, have laptops cough, take pictures after 11:30 (another post), and play contact sports. 8( MSA, in an effort to protect us, they have banned Ultimate frisbee aswell, a non-contact sport I might add. To make the “sport” of tossing a frisbee a bit more exciting, I have invented a “MSA approved” layout. Basically you catch the frisbee, and after about a second of not moving you carefully lay down on the ground. But that is beside the point.

Mr Garrett, inspired by our wonderfully safe layouts, has forged the idea of a sticker and shirt company. The stickers will be like passport stamps that say “Not MSA Approved” and the shirts on the front will say “I Am…” and back: “Not MSA Approved”. It is a wonderous idea, bringing memory to all of jests at the rules. 8D

–nathan

Pics: Frisbee
Notebook
Boards

Here is the layout for more stickers: Label Layout (for use with avery 1503 style white mailing labels (avaliable at brady))

Edit Some stuff removed because it may be considered offensive? (Upon Request)

Edit 2 For future reference, my laptop was cruelly confiscated and tortured upon the enemy finding this text. Be weary, they have eyes everywhere

I must say that stargazing was awesome. Not only were the people I went with awesome, but as soon as I stepped out onto the roof I felt content, moreso than I have since… stuff happened. Though, it did make me think of some things I wish I could have done, I was definately happy with the experience.

We walked over to the physics building (it was quite hot so that wasn’t very enjoyable) but it was wonderfully peaceful in Memorial Union. When we got there we had to take the stairs to the top. There were 102 steps from the ground level, not too bad though. When we got up there and I stepped outside all I noticed was the skyline. To the left was Stank, and the Jesse hall framed by the coal towers, and then twords the right was Memorial Union and the rest of Columbia. I dont know why but just looking at all of that made me think of alot of stuff and then sit down and relax. It did make me a bit sad though. I miss downtown.

Up there I saw plenty of stars and Jupiter. We also saw a satellite pass overhead and project an image of the sun down to us. In the end all it looked like was a dot but it was cool none the less. A very good experience; if I can I’m going to go back sometime after MSA is over.

Pics: Us
Memorial Union (not the best pic)

So last night we had a college fair as our required activity. Each house had to stay for at least an hour in Memorial Union, which is where the fair was. To ease our getting information from colleges we scholars we supplied with a full sheet of labels with our name and address on them, you know, meant to be put on “Send Me Spam Cards.” Well our house was one of the first to arrive at the fair and I must say I had no idea what I was to do. The punch was great by the way, oarnge, good choice. I wandered around the fair, taking pens and hundreds of brochurs. One table I stopped at and was browsing over apparently was a women’s college. It only took then 5 minutes to tell me this though 8_.

So after I stick as many of my stickers on cards as I can, and ask stupid questions about computers to the reps there I set off to find my friends. They, like me, have nothing to do and we still havent spent our entire hour at the fair. So, with my boredom and the hundreds of stickers around me I set out on a misson to collect people’s free labels. As I stood by the door I just asked everyone who came by to give me one of their stickers. The result was my shirt covered in exactly 60 stickers. It was wonderful. I will post pictures later.

Now I own some slightly large number of girl’s addresses, just a perk. I hope they put me in the paper for that. Not that having girls poke me all night wasn’t enough.

–nathan

The greatest event of yesterday is probably going to be the high for my entire week. I had been a little weary of physics because I haven’t had most of the concepts, and alot of the other people in my class have, (or maybe im just not smart enough to be here, who knows) so it gets a little confusing. We have also been doing alof of math lately so when I heard we were going outside it was kinda a pick-me-up. We go out side and we have been working on projectile motion so we attempt to build make-shift cannons from 2 liter bottles, water/dry ice as propulsion, and fruit as our projectile. That didnt really work, seeing as the fruid didnt seal against the mouth of the bottle well enough to build up pressure.

So after our group fails and others are trying I’m standing there with my OJ and it dawns on me, maybe it would be cool to drink it carbonated. So I ask our teacher, Steve, and he drops a piece of dry ice in there. It bubbles and foams… hey cool. So after I finish off my OJ I go back inside and fill it up with water. By the time I come back outside everyone is picking up and getting ready to go back in. I walk to where Steve is with the dry ice and ask him for some more. He says sure and starts dropping pieces in my bottle. (this is a 250mL bottle, not a 2 liter) By the time he was done I had at least 1/4 a bottle of dry ice. (I really dont think he realized what he was doing at this time.) So I capped the bottle and held it for a while, thinking… should I? Should I? Luckily I decided “Yes” and tossed it in a corner because about 2 seconds later it exploded. Quite a nice one too, loud and everything. Steve just looks up with the “wtf happened” look on his face, probably thinking I just killed someone. I walk over and pick up the bottle, it had split on the bottom between every little indentation and halfway up one side. Now thats cool.

Steve just began to rush us all back into the classroom. Everyone was laughing, It was fun. That was the extent of my wonderful physics experience. I hope to do it again sometime.

Pics:
Bottle Remains
Bottle Remains

–nathan

I am proud to announce that my suggestion was one incorporated into out house name. It has been choosen to be: “Team 4, By Default.” I suggested Team 4 when our name discussion first began…. what a long house meeting. No one could decide on our name because they were all inappropriate. We went through about 3 real possibilities. These were The Second String Scholars, Mario’s Plungers (For reasons not to be mentioned here), and Neurosies Anonomous……………..Awesome! The seventeen periods were to represent each person in our house, including our resident assistant, Zup. I rather like our name though, always a classic.

–nathan

Hello All!
Here is where I plan to record my adventure into what is called MSA. MSA stands for Missouri Scholars Academy and is a three-week-long program during the summer for selected sophomores going into their junior year. I was one such sophomore and tomorrow is the first day of the academy. I am really looking forward to it. I’ll start by telling about what led up to this eventful post!

Back when school was in session, I recieved notification by our school counselor that I had been nominated by the faculty, along with 5 other students, to write some essays for some crazy thing called MSA. I was up for that and decided to do so. A couple of the other students decided to be lazy and didnt turn in essays… hey, less competition for me. The essays we wrote were reviewed by the staff and the writer of the best essays was to be our school’s nomination for MSA. It turns out that was me. My essays were then sent to another review board where the attendees of the academy were selected. Then we wait.

After a while, it was near the end of school, I recieved a letter saying that I could attend the Academy if I wished. That was cool I guess, I had no idea what to expect so I wasn’t too very excited about it. Well as it turns out this “MSA” is quite a big deal. When I go and tell my family about this thing the first thing my mathy-grandpa does is calculate the odds that I would get into this Academy (these were random hat pick odds) and its 1 in ?(remind me to get this number from him later). Then at our school awards thing they made me stand up and everything. Ok, so this is a big deal… I’m trying to tell you that if you have a chance at this thing go for it. You get your name out, its a great deal in the long run, and I havent even been to the thing yet! It makes me wonder if all this spam I’m getting is because of this… oh well.

So I’m talking to my friend one day and I mention MSA and she flips out. It turns out she attended MSA two years before I did. Since I still hadn’t fully decided to spend three weeeks of my summer on this I asked her if I should and I got back a definant yes. I trust my friend so that basically decided for me that I would attend. She told me that it sounds very school-like but its alot more fun than that. I can only hope so… I mean… this is my summer!

So in the middle of my packing I get the idea to blog this, maybe to help me remember it all, or to help some possible scholar decided to go. I am hoping to blog each day of my stay there and hopefully by the end I will have made a resource that future MSA scholars will find useful, and something I can remember it all by.

See you at MSA!

–nathanielguy

All pictures will be posted here, with permission of course: My Picserv

Nathaniel Mahieu, a student at Centralia High School in Centralia, has been selected as one of 330 students to attend the 2005 Missouri Scholars Academy. Nathaniel, son of Martin Mahieu and Kara Mahieu, will attend the three-week residential program from June 12 – July 2 on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus. Nathaniel plays football, runs track, and plays ultimate frisbee through the Columbia Summer League. His interests focus mainly on computer and web development, but also include sociology. Nathaniel is a member of FFA, Interact, and a class officer, as well as a member of Centralia 4-H and the Good Shepherd Lutheran church.

The Missouri Scholars Academy (MSA) will celebrate its twenty-first year this summer. The goals of the Academy are to help gifted students achieve their full potential and motivate them to use their gifted abilities to attain high standards of achievement, to encourage local schools to improve and expand gifted education programs; and to assist in providing the state with experienced faculty and specialized curriculum for such students. The Academy is supported by state funds and is sponsored by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in cooperation with the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Every public and private high school is allowed to nominate at least one student for the Academy. Academically, students represent the top one-half of one percent of the state’s sophomore class. No grades or credits will be awarded through the program.

Students attending MSA will be exposed to a wide range of activities as well as to intensive instruction in their chosen area of specialization. The faculty is composed of outstanding teachers from high schools throughout the state. Guest speakers, performers, discussions, and career education will be combined with extracurricular and social activities to round out the curriculum.

By the end of the 2005 Academy more than 7,000 Missouri high school students and teachers will have participated in MSA since its inception in 1985.

Intelligence. It can be called many things and displayed in many ways. I agree with a statement made by Albert Einstein saying “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” This is displayed many times by history’s “greats” including Einstein himself. Many of us percieve intelligence differently. I see it as something that is obtained only through hard work. It is not hard to recieve knowledge, what is hard is creating knowledge. That is what requires imagination.

How hard is it to learn what other people have allready thought out? The truth is, it’s not hard at all. What is hard is discovering new concepts and building on those discoveries to create knowledge. The knowledge of others can easily be taught and learned. It takes those with imagination to interpret and apply that knowledge. The application of knowledge is what breeds “intelligence.”

The so called “great minds” in history, those we consider intelligent, sometimes had very little knowledge. For example, Einstein was a drop out. Being such forced him to rely on his imagination to create the knowledge he needed, some of which had not been explored before. Knowledge is the spawn of imagination; imagination is the grandfather of intelligence, without imagination there would not be intelligence.

How could a kid, only twelve years old, have any type of success or independance at such an age? The answer I found to that question was a venture into the internet, more specifically web development. The creation of web pages was something I could control, something I could learn with almost no limitations because of my age. More importantly I found I enjoyed doing it. These factors have led me onto a path with many places to travel, while giving me the oppertunity to earn some money and enjoy myself, all while creating a bright future as a twelve-year-old.

There were many different things affecting my choice of web development as a hobby, some of which include how enjoyable it was, the potential for massive audiences to see my work and ideas, and the very low cost. It is relatively inexpensive to develop sites and publish them on the web for the entire world to see, and they can be very profitable as well. Developing web pages and applications has been a venue for displaying some of my other hobbies. Websites containing my football stats and digital photography have been well recieved by those who find them.

Because users from other countries around the world have viewed and interacted with my work I have met some very ineresting people, most of whom, have offered me their constructive criticsm. Those I meet through my sites generally teach me something, either about life or coding. This encounter is an adventure in itself, making it all the more rewarding to share my work. In the end many of my online-acquaintances ask me to design a page, or sometimes even a site for them; I do, normally for a fee. This is where my idea leaves me now, with many possible adventures in the future and many under my belt aswell.

This was definitely the high point of my entire MSA experience. You have hopefully read about the stickers and how they came about, but in the end they became more than we had hoped for. By the way, if you haven’t already, go read those two articles.

As we neared the end of MSA our stickers were in full flow, we had distributed almost all of them, and everywhere you looked you saw one. It was all in good humor though, almost everyone loved them. Well the day before we went home came, and during the closing ceremony we got to watch the slide show that Chris and Vince put together. This show was amazing by the way, they knew what they were doing. Near the very end of the slides a picture came up, and everyone went crazy. It was all of the RAs and Kate, they were in white shirts, like the ones we made, but on them was the opposite. On the front of their shirts it said “Not Not MSA Approved”. Talk about awesome, we will be remembered forever. Later that night during the ceremony our RA showed us the shirts. They were quite nice, Vince the gfx design guy had made them, though, they werent as good as my design. 8P

We talked to Kate about them later, she asked us if we liked her shout-out to us. Of course we did. Kate, you rock!

The day went home, The fantastic four, Me, Drew, Garrett, and Rob, all signed the stencil design we had for our shirts and gave it to Kate. She kept smiling. It was awesome. We had alot of fun, Thanks Kate!

—nathan

No girls showed up to bowl for the second day in a row. It got boring bowling and now my upper back hurts like heck. After we bowled for 4 hours we had to go to the square dance… we were late, the dance was fun yet boring. I must say though, I broke 100 bowling yesterday and was very proud of myself. 8D My goal now is to get a turkey. Good luck to me. MSA rocks, later.

–nathan