Friday the 13^th

 

By Mandar

 

Friday the 13^th was always known as an unlucky day. People who are afraid the Friday 13^th suffer paraskavedekatriaphobia. 21 million American suffer this.  Some people don’t go to restaurants, while others don’t go to work, and some just stay in bed so they don’t have to face the day!  It has been estimated that $800 or $900 million dollars is lost in this day because they don’t go to work.

 

People who suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia most likely consider themselves unlucky. But did you wonder how Friday the 13^th got unlucky?  Well there are many reasons to this. In numerology 12 is considered completeness such as, 12 months equal a year however 13 is considered irregular. Another reason there have also been strange events on the Friday 13^th.  That also makes people afraid the Friday the 13^th. 13 and Friday was considered unlucky making Friday the 13^th unlucky. Why is 13 unlucky? Here is why 13 is considered unlucky.  The fear of 13^th goes back to ancient history about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked an uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Loki arranged Hoder, the blind god of darkness to shot Blader the beautiful, the god of joy and gladness with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.  Blader died and the earth got dark. It is a bad, unlucky day. From that day on 13 was considered unlucky.

 

Do you believe in Friday the 13^th?

 

Ranger’s Apprentice

By: Eric Wu


Hi room 24! Do any of you guys read Ranger’s Apprentice? I do! It is a really awesome book series about these people called “rangers” who defend the kingdom. They are kind of like a medieval FBI of CIA. They are a special police force sent to do missions for the king and to drive out or kill evil people. They each have a long bow (a re-curve bow if you are an apprentice), a throwing knife, and a saxe knife. One of the main characters is Halt who is a legendary ranger and another is Halt’s apprentice, Will, who eventually becomes a legendary ranger too. Will’s best friend, Horace, becomes a legendary knight (wow, all of them are legendary). These are only some of the main characters in the series. There are 10 books in the series. In the first one, Will saves Halt and kills these creatures who were thought to be extinct that tried to kill Halt. In the second book, Horace kills an evil person called Morgorath when they do a one-on-one duel (and Horace was only a knight apprentice!) In the third book… Well, you get the idea. I would recommend this series to anyone. Do any of you guys read Ranger’s Apprentice? If so, do you like it? If you don’t read it, will you try it out?

Mario- By Dyson

          The video game character Mario is a pudgy mustachioed plumber who always saves a woman, no matter who that woman is. I think some of you know Mario, right? Well, here are some things that you probably don’t know about him. Please allow me to tell you:

·         In the game Super Princess Peach, Mario, Luigi and Toad are captured and Princess Peach has to save them.

·         Mario’s power-ups are: hammer, mega mushroom, Tanuki suit, wing cap, feather cape, fire flower, ice flower, metal cap, invincible star, invincibility cap, invisibility cap, penguin suit, cloud mushroom, starman, super mushroom, Boo Mario, Spring Mario, propeller mushroom, 1-up mushroom, Hover FLUDD, Rocket FLUDD, Turbo FLUDD, and Spray FLUDD.

·         Princess Peach has a talking parasol named “Perry”.

·         Mario’s house is called Mario’s Pad.

·         Characters with big noses and hands and grass skirts are called “Pianta” which means “plant”.

·         Super Mario Sunshine is the hardest Mario game to come out in history.

·         In Super Mario RPG, Bowser joins Mario in an attempt to get his castle back after his army is destroyed.

·         Bowser has eight children: seven of them are the Koopalings, and his other son is Bowser Jr.

·         Bowser Jr. believed that Princess Peach was his mother.

·         The turtles are called Koopas, and they are one of the most loyal kinds to Bowser.

·         Super Mario RPG is like the only game where Bowser cries like a baby.

·         Yoshi is a non-playable character in Super Mario 63 since he appears once in the game.

·         Yoshi’s Power-ups are the dash pepper, blimp fruit, and bulb berry.

·         Yoshi raised Bowser from a baby.

·         Bowser could ground pound at age one.

·         Yoshi’s rival is a dinosaur named Boshi.

·         Mario’s enemies are Donkey Kong, Wario, and Bowser.

·         In Super Princess Peach, Princess Peach has infinite lives.

·         Mario originally was a carpenter.

·         Mario became a plumber after being a character that was underground for a long time.

·         Princess Peach used to be Mario’s girlfriend, Pauline, and then Princess Toadstool.

·         In Super Mario Defense, you have to defeat Mario and Luigi before they take over Bowser’s Castle.

·         Bowser has four generals: Goomba, Koopa, Kamek, and MagiKoopa.

·         Mario’s three aged friends are Toadsworth, Frogfucius, and Grandpa Penguin.

·         Fish, also known as Cheep Cheep, can usually hurt Mario.

·         In Super Luigi Galaxy, spinning underwater can greatly decrease Luigi’s air supply.

·         Luigi is younger than Mario.

·         The Poison Mushroom causes Mario to shrink or die.

·         Mario can stand on clouds.

Another thing I'd like to share is that Mario‘s brother Luigi is very clumsy. Although Luigi has saved Mario more than once, Luigi is usually the one in trouble besides Princess Peach.

I hope that you have learned something you didn’t know before about Mario. If you know something about Mario that I didn’t mention, please share.

Don’t Eat at Fast Food Restaurants!
                        By- Annie Pan

Pull open the glass door and feel the rush of cool air. Step inside. Look at the color pictures of food above the counter, look at the cardboard advertisement for the latest Disney movie, get in line, and place your order. Hand over some money. Put the change back in your pocket. Watch teenagers in blue-and-gold uniforms busy working in the kitchen. Moments later, grab the plastic tray with your food, find an empty table, and sit down. Unwrap the burger, squirt ketchup on the fries, stick the plastic straw through the hole in the lid of your drink. Pick up the burger and dig in.

The whole experience of eating at a fast-food restaurant has become so familiar, so routine, that we take it for granted. It has become just another habit, like brushing your teeth before bed. We do it without even thinking about it — and that’s the problem. The

food you eat enters your body and literally becomes part of you. It helps determine whether you’ll be short or tall, weak or strong, thin or fat. It helps determine whether you will enjoy a long, healthy life or die young. Food is of fundamental importance. So why is it that most people don’t think about fast food and don’t know much about it? The simple answer is this: the companies that sell fast food don’t want you to think about it. They don’t want you to know where it comes from and how it’s made. They just want you to buy it.

50% of kids are obese because of fast food. French fries at fast food restaurants have “partially hydrogenated” oils in them. Don’t let an advertisement guide you around. You are the one deciding if you are taking the hard way of living where you eat junk food and like a shorter and unhealthy life, or if you want to have a healthy life where you can live happy and longer with no problems. Eating fast food restaurants can cause serious diseases and cancer. They contain many calories in meals. Even one meal can really bother your health. That’s how unhealthy fast food restaurants have. And we should now stop eating it.

Just think about all the oil and fat you’ll be eating once you open a new bought bag of junk food. Does it tastes well? What does it taste like? It tastes good, right? Well, it might taste better than regular food. That’s because hey have flavors added to the food. It’s not real food. That’s why most foods are cheap. Even some expensive ones have artificial flavors in them. It’s not real! It may look real, but the real ingredient is this: Junk! Just save your money! Cook your own food would be much better! You don’t even need money to buy them!Many and most places have chemicals in food that make them look real, but they are actually fake. Don’t count places like subway as your choice of junk food. That’s healthy. You have the choice for many vegetables and healthy things. But the drink and bag of chips may not be very healthy. Some foods are rotten and were put into chemicals to make them look yummy. Eating fast food can really turn you into an obese person. 50% of kids are obese because of fast food. Just don’t do it the simple way if it’s just the bad things that will get into your body.

• Pack your own lunch at school. Hot lunch may have expired food
• At home, don’t go to any fast food restaurants you know that has bad food
• Eat less oils, meat, poultry, and sweets
• Stay healthy!

After this passage, I will probably think you will not eat any more fast food restaurants. Search on the internet, read books about it, or even look in the magazine about fast foods. At the library, check out the video called Food Inc. It tells all about how you need to stay healthy and all those bad food products at many fast food restaurants.

Q&A of the Blog: 

Do you eat a lot of junk food? If you ever ate any junk food, did it ever make you feel sick? Will you ever eat junk food again? Why or why not?

Northern Lights

by Aishwarya

Hi Room 24! Have you ever read about colorful skies in the night? They are called the ‘Northern lights’ or ‘Aurora Borealis’. They are natural lights in the sky during long dark periods of time near the equinoxes.

Northern Lights as the name suggests happen in the Polar Regions. They are caused due to charged solar wind particles collision with oxygen and nitrogen in the earth’s ionosphere in the presence of strong magnetic field at North Pole. They are typically red or green but sometimes are blue. I  t was discovered that Jupiter and Saturn also had Auroras. In Antarctica there are southern lights and they are called Aurora Australis. Next time you plan to visit Europe, Go to Norway to see the Northern Lights !

Can you share a natural wonder of the world?