The Gaudyspuds Blog

Hey, first, I want to wish a family member a very happy birthday. They’ve helped me get as far as I am now with my actual website, which isn’t up yet for the public. Though, no one can see it, so I better come up with something better. They’ve helped me throughout my journey, that fits it. Anyway, I have a lot to tell about my day.

First, today at school, every other Wednesday of the month, during CCP (like a study hall - the last period of the day) we have clubs, or a separate activity to “meet” others. Really, it’s just done so the school can say that they do actually try to do something to stop bullies and let you meet peopl,e you wouldn’t otherwise. Oh yeah, the other Wednesdays during CCP, we have a bullying program! Yeah, great fun for the school.

Anyway, since I seem to have something for writing, I choose to go out for the school newspaper. And let me tell you, that was a big mistake. Here’s what a normal period, or 45 minutes of my life, would be like.

First 5 minutes - Wonder around the school for a minute, remembering that I never really knew which classroom to meet in. Once I remember that we actually meet in the “Computer Lab”, attendance is taken.

Next 10 - I now remember that I have nothing to do, so while staring at a blank screen for a few minutes, I wait for the instructor to finish talking to some other people.

Final 30 minutes - After completing the task that’s needed, I can just check the spelling, yawn, clean my glasses, and tie my shoes for about 15. Finally, I contradict whether I should log of my computer this minute, or wait another.

See, so every other Wednesday for a period I must battle wasting time. So, that part of my day was pretty wasted. Aside from that, nothing else really worth talking about happened. So, see you later. More meat tomorrow.

- Gaudyspuds

Hey, I seem to have become more popular, I’ve added a hit counter which is invisible to all but me, and even a counter for how many people are on at what time. So far the maximum is 1 person on at the same time! Wow, that sounds really weird. Even though that may be some juicy information, other than that, I don’t really have any stories to tell. Though, I do have a lot going on in my mind.

It seems like most students don’t really do much with writing. Sure, you might write a report once and a while, but it never seems like students really have the motive to write what their opinions on different topics are. While, on the other side, teachers always seem to stress how much the writing section of all the standardized tests counts, while they don’t spend all of that time working on that. So, I was thinking that it would be so genius to come up with a program to get students blogging. Some might think that this might mean that there should be boundaries set, but I think that they would be more creative if they could do whatever they wanted. They would just say what’s on their mind.

I think this could also help those who have social boundaries or  problems. They would be able to meet others like them. The students would be able to interact, and meet others without discrimination. Everyone would be the same, and learn.

Maybe you would think that this would mean another costly project for the schools, but it isn’t that hard. Either they could use www.wordpress.com, which would work great for their purposes, or they could try to use their own hosting, and use the free open-source software of Wordpress or say MovableType.

Now, wordpress.com would be great because it’s free, and there is no limit to the number of blogs you can have, great if even a whole classroom wants to get into it. It would almost be as good as having a school buy a server for the whole school to have privately owned domains and blogs. It wouln’t cost that much, and the students could have their own slice of the web.

Even though this all sounds great, even fantastic on paper,  getting it out there and able to be up and running could be more challenging. So, I guess this would mean that I should try to take it into my own hands. I know most teachers or instructors would be iffy or concerned about this technology. A good way is if my idea was to become more popular, I could have guest “editors” post stories or articles. It would be a great way for new bloggers to become more well know. Comment about what you think about, tell me if you could help. Thanks!

- Gaudyspuds

Hey, already I have an audience, and everyone seems so supportive. Wow, this makes it a lot different than before, but I’ll try to keep it cool. Anyway, time for me to start.

As I’ve said in my first post, I was going to talk more about a Neurological condition called

“Synesthesia”. Now, you may think that this would be really boring, but I think that it’s so extraordinary. Seriously, we don’t even know very much about ourselves, and we’re going out and trying to explore the universe. All these amazing people are really just like us. But, that’s enough of an introduction, time to find out what I’m talking about. This artical is one I wrote for my Science Fair project, when I was quite young. Here it is;

‘Synesthesia’

The condition called synesthesia is a neurological occurrence in which two senses work at the same time, together. For example, a person with color-graphemic synesthesia may see a bright light when hearing a certain number. In one of the most common types of synesthesia, a synesthete will see a word as a certain color in their mind. Many people see different colors or hear different sounds depending on what type of synesthesia they have. It had been shown through studies that synesthetes almost never agree on what color they may see or their “reaction”. Some people can even experience three senses at once, but this is an extreme case. Scientists aren’t sure of the number of people with synesthesia, with estimates from 1 in 200 to 1 in 100,000. It is possible that many synesthetes go undiagnosed.

A person most likely to be a synesthete would be a woman, left handed, or someone with a synesthetic family member. Even though there has been written evidence on this condition for about 200 years, still not much is known about it. One reason for the slow progress is because scientists have been debating over the importance of the subject for years. Some think that there is no importance in going farther with research, while others are amazed and curious. Still, there has been recent progress and scientific research showing some characteristics, such as synesthetes have a special way of viewing different symbols.

One recent study done by the psychology section of the University of California (San Diego) had one test that showed synesthetes could point out a shape in a matrix of identically colored 5’s and 2’s. Although in the test below the numbers were colored the same, this picture shows what the image might look like to a synesthete.

The scientific consensus on this topic is this synesthesia is in fact a real condition for a small percentage of the human population.

And that is what makes it truly magical.

Well, I hope that sparked a little bit of interest into you, I’m Gaudyspuds, and tomorrow I’m going to have something about

Savant Syndrome, another interesting (I hope) condition. If you have the time, please comment and come back later!

- Gaudyspuds