Break Work

Good morning world!
I wanted to post a non-polyphasic sleeping update, just about what the holidays probably look like for the more normal IBs who are not trying to mess up their internal clocks. We've got no homework in French or History, and in English, all we have to do is read halfway through Frankenstein, which is a rather small book as is. Not much work at all, it seems. But we also have a Math Task to do, and this one gets sent into "IB World". Once I'm better adapted to polyphasic, I'll probably talk more about this all.

I was speaking with my friend, who had a very funny story to tell me yesterday. With permission, I post it here:

But hey, listen to this.
Somehow, I got the idea into my head that...[our math teacher] said we had to go to school on Monday to take a math test.
Like...because we didn't have enough time to finish and shit.
...and I really really thought this.
When I woke up this morning.
I was totally in sleepy panic mode
(don't know how that works)
it was all, A:LKgj:LKDGJ NOT READY NOT READY MUST STUDY [FORGET] HOLIDAYS AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MEEEE? ;__;

I replied with, "My friend, you are IB."

That's all I have for you right now, keep checking back for Polyphasic Updates!

Polyphasic Sleeping

All my polyphasic posts have been moved to thepolyphasicjourney.tk.

Check it out, and enjoy,
Ace

A New Level of ibness

About a dozen of us were racing down the halls to the math room today. Gleefully running to be first in line for a Graphing Calculator (GDC). It was said that we have reached a new level of "IB-ness". I mean, how many people do you know who would do a breakneck sprint for math? None who are non-IB (or go to the school of Math)! Anyway, the reason we were running is because we needed to get our GDCs to use over the Break for our big IB Math Task and somebody had said there was a limited number of the CDs for doing screenshots of the GDC.

In other news, NO HOMEWORK over the Break! Except our math task. And reading half of Frankenstein. Which, compared to what was expected, is pretty light.

Our workload this week was pretty light. Our Historical Investigations were handed in, some people had their IOP presentation today on 1984, and we had to get the good copy of our 1984 essay done. We also had a math test on Matrices today, which I felt was pretty simple. I know I would have been better prepared had I done my homework, but I still think I did pretty well on it. Tomorrow is expected to be a snow-day and there were a lot of people planning not to come any way. I myself won't go if the roads are too dangerous.

I'm excited about the break.I only officially have 4 full nights of sleep left! Monday I'm starting my switch to Polyphasic Sleeping. I'm considering doing a video log on YouTube and linking it, or doing both a written and video log. Tell me what you think. And also, should I start a new blog and link back here or should I do my Polyphasic logs on here too? I'm cutting my previous poll short and putting this up instead. :)

Results:
Do you know where you want to go after high school?
... Yes, I have one school in mind. 0 (0%)
... Yes, I have a list of "top three" (or more) schools. 3 (30%)
... I've got some idea of where I might apply. 4 (40%)
... No. 2 (20%)
... I'm not worrying about that yet. 1 (10%)
... I'm not planing on pursuing further studies. 0 (0%)

Reports, Waterloo, and Poll

I just returned from Waterloo with the School of Math. It was amazing! But more on that later in the entry.

I spent a good 15 hours on my Historical Investigation for IB this weekend. Friday from 7pm to midnight I did my Summary of Evidence, which is arguably the most difficult part of it. Saturday 10am until 2pm I did the Evaluation of Sources and took a break until 5 to shop for gifts. Then until about 11pm I wrote the Analysis and Conclusion and got it peer-edited for about an hour. It turned out pretty well actually, and I'm really proud of it. I would post it, but I doubt I'm allowed to until it actually gets sent in to the "IB World", so I'll withhold for now.

Sunday morning I woke at 8am and set right to work on my essay for English on 1984. I really put thought into it, but I wrote it very rushedly because it was just a rough copy and I still needed to pack for the Waterloo trip. It was supposed to be around 1000 words, which really threw me off; my introduction and first paragraph alone were almost 500 words, and I still needed to fit 3 more full paragraphs in there. I had to cut some stuff out, so it probably ended up rather choppy-sounding because I didn't really have time to proof read it. Around noon I started getting ready to go.

We left about 2pm and didn't get into the hotel until 6:30pm, with a stop for dinner around 4:30. Then, we went to the South Campus at the University of Waterloo for a Q&A with past Math School grads and a Game Theory workshop. I learned some fun stuff, including some interesting pirate facts. Then we ordered pizza up to our room and watched CSI: Miami until almost 1am.

We woke up around 6:30am and went down to breakfast. One of my roommates and I were too lazy to change, so we just went down in our PJs. We left the hotel at 8:30am and got two Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science recruitment presentations. Then we divided up into smaller groups and had a little Q&A with people in charge of specific departments, like Computer Science, Business, Engineering, etc. After that we were let loose for lunch and boarded the bus at 12:30 to go the the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics.

THE PLACE WAS AMAZING. I won't go into details, but lets just say it (pleasantly) blew my mind. I can sorta prove that 1+2+3+4... etc. = -1/12. Crazy right!? Anyway, maybe later. After that, we came back home.

And, in other news, the poll is done!
What do you want to see more of?
... Curriculum: 8 (36%)
... IBO stuff: 1 (4%)
... Personal stuff: 9 (40%)
... Another point of view: 8 (36%)
... More frequent posts: 2 (9%)
... More frequent polls: 3 (13%)

So it looks like you want to see more personal stuff, like my social life or employment situation. This actually surprised me, seeing as I started this site to be all about IB, not about me. But I guess it applies to include my social life in here. It is a common stereotype that IB leaves you with no free time, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to truthfully report on that, either to prove or combat the theory. As is, I seem to have sufficient free time to fulfill my needs. Sometimes it's tough to schedule hangout times due to everyone's job or projects or whatever, but that is no different than it would be in a normal high school.

Anyway, I've already written enough for tonight. I'll probably post more this week due to the impending holidays, so we probably won't be doing too, too much and I'll have the time. Plus, there probably will be stuff to write about.

Good night,
Ace

Trig Study Sheet

Trigonometry test tomorrow! I've promised to get a study sheet up before 7PM, at which time I have to be back at school for the "Grade 8 IB Info Night". More on that tomorrow, here's the study sheet. I am following the order in our textbook, Mathematics for the international student: Mathematics SL, not necessarily the order we did in class. Anything discussed in class that isn't in chapters 10-13 of the book, I've added at the end of the sheet.

Chapter 10: Right-Angle Trigonometry

Pythagoras

• a²+b²=c² (where c is the hypotenuse)
• this deals with sides, not angles
• often used twice in 3D problems (eg. diagonal of a box)

"soh-cah-toa"

• sin A = Opposite/Hypotenuse (soh)
• cos A = Adjacent/Hypotenuse (cah)
• tan A = Opposite/Adjacent (toa)

Solving (sides, angles, chords, and tangents)

• Isosceles Triangles: drop an altitude from the base so that you have two identical right-angled triangles
• Chords (right) can be made into isosceles triangles by subtending it from the centre (connect radii to both ends for the chord)
• "A chord subtends an angle of 112 degrees at it's centre" means that angle AOB is 112 degrees
• A radius can be drawn from the point a tangent touches the circle to form a right angle
• Remeber that you can find right angles in other figures too, usually by drawing altitudes or diagonals
• Angle of elevation is the angle formed between the horizontal and the up-ward line, angle of depression is the horizontal and the down-ward line.

Slope of a line (the dotted lines are the axes)

• slope x = tan a
• slope x = rise/run
• tan a = opposite/adjacent
• (drop a perpendicular from line x to the axis, this forms a right-angled triangle)

The two most important triangles ever

Chapter 11: The Unit Circle

You only really need to know the first quarter of the Unit Circle, and the transformations associated with the other quadrants.

• for any point on the circle: P(cos a, sin a) when angle a is measured from the positive x-axis
• the equation of this circle is x² + y² = 1 or
  cos² a + sin² a = 1

CAST Rule
S A All trig ratios are positive in
TC quadrant A, only sin is positive in quadrant
S, etc.
We know they are negative because of the coordinates for each angle.

Corresponding angles
quad A ~ quad S ~ quad T ~ quad C
sin x = sin (180-x) = - sin (180+x) = - sin (360-x)
cos x = - cos (180-x) = - cos (180+x) = cos (360-x)
tan x = - tan (180-x) = tan (180+x) = - tan (360-x)

Chapter 12: Non-Right Angled Triangle Trigonometry

• Area of Triangle = (1/2)ab sin C [where cappital letters are angles and lowercase letters are their opposite sides]
• Area of Triangle = root of [s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)] where s= (a+b+c)/2

• length of an arc = (θ/360)2πr
• area of a sector = (θ/360)πr²

• Cosine Rule: a²=b²+c²-2bc cos A
• also: cos A = (b² + c² -a²)/(2bc)
• Sine Rule:
  sin A = sin B = sin C
  a b c

Chapter 13: Periodic Phenomena

• Periodic function: f(x) = f(x+p)
• "over some interval of x, the y is repeating"
• p = period
• A = amplitude (half dist between max and min
• principal axis = the line between max and min

Radians

• (θ degrees)(π/180) = radian measure
  (θ radians)(180/π) = degree measure
• length of arc = rθ
  Area=(1/2)r²θ
• A radian is the length of an arc that is equal to the radius of the circle.
• since the formula for the circumferance of a circle is 2πr, when we use the unit circle (radius of 1) we get a circumferance of 2π.
• 2π is the distance once around the circle (360 degrees)
• π is the distance travelled around half the circle (180 degrees)
• π/2 is a quarter distance around the circle (90 degrees)
• π/3 is the length traveled when the angle that subtends that arc is 60 degrees
• π/4 is the length traveled when the angle that subtends that arc is 45 degrees
• π/6 is the length traveled when the angle that subtends that arc is 30 degrees

General Sinusodal Functions

• f(x) = A sin [B(x-C)]+D (works for both sin and cos)
• period= (2π)/B
• Transformations
  • A is the amplitude or vertical stretch, when negative it is a reflection in the x-axis
  • B helps to find the period (see above), it is the horizontal compression, if negative it is a reflection in the y-axis
  • C in the horizontal shift or "phase shift"
  • D is the principal axis or vertical shift
• Graphing a wavelength
  sin: o-max-0-min-0
  cos: max-0-min-0-max

Trig Modeling

• Examples: tides, monthly temperature, Feris wheels
• identify the max and min
• find the principal axis (D) and Amplitude (A)
• find the period and B value
• decide whether to use a sine of cosine graph
• make the appropriate phase shift (eg. if high tide is at noon and you have to use a sine function, shift so that noon is on your y-axis to make things easy to work with)

Simplifying/Proving Expresssions

• make the left side equal the right side
• do NOT "multiply both sides by4" or move anything over
• use trig identities to simplify to one variable (all sin x instead of both sin x and cos x)

Identities

Quotient identities

• tan θ = (sin θ)/(cos θ)
• cot θ = (co θ)/(sin θ)

Reciprocal identities

• csc θ = 1/(sin θ)
• sec θ = 1/(cos θ)
• cot θ = 1/(tan θ)

Pythagorian identities

• sin² θ + cos² θ =1
• if you divide the above by sin²θ, you get: 1 + cot² θ= csc² θ
• if you divide the above by cos² θ, you get: tan² θ + 1 = sec² θ

All of the identities are things we have learned before. We learned what tan was in Grade 9 (or 10). The reciprocal identities are just reciprocals, the only new thing is the names (secant is the reciprocal of cosine, cosecant is the reciprocal of sine, and cotan is the reciprocal of tan). We learned the basic pythagorian identity ages ago, and the others are just different versions of it by division and application of the other identity names. When solving the identity questions, just

Addition Formulas

• sin (a+b) = sin(a)cos(b) + sin(b)cos(a)
  sin (a-b) = sin(a)cos(b) - sin(b)cos(a)
  sin (2a) = 2sin(a)cos(a) = sin (a+a)
• cos (a+b) = cos(a)cos(b) - sin(a)sin(b)
  cos (a-b) = cos(a)cos(b) + sin(a)sin(b)
  cos (2a) = cos²(a) - sin²(a) = cos (a+a) =1-2sin²(a) =2cos²(a)-1
• the final two in the line above used the pythagorean identity to replace one of the values so as to simplify

There are only really two formulas, just different instances of them. The first is sin(a+b) and the second is cos(a+b). The italicised ones are just the simplified form of sin or cos of (a+a). Remember that to fully simplify and solve you should be using the Trig Identities to replace things you notice. for example, if you see cos²(a), recall the pythagorian identity of cos²(a) + sin²(a) = 1. You can rearrange this to cos²(a) = 1 - sin²(a) and then replace cos²(a) with it. This may help you to reduce the equation since you only need to solve for sin(a) now!

I hope this has helped! I've already received some positive feedback, and thank you very much for stopping by.

Good luck,
Ace

History, Hebdomad, and Hyperspace

Today was a releif for many people. Quite a few handed in their Historical Investigations because today was the early deadline and I heard many scattered, "Phew, I'm done!"'s. I didn't hand mine in yet, mainly because I was relaxing after my IOP (procrastinating again) and I had still to read through some sources I have. I don't know how I'll get to writing those 1500-2000 words this week (or hebdomad) though: tomorrow I'm helping out with our Can Drive until 9pm, Wednesday I have Art Club and Night Math, and Sunday and Monday I'm in Waterloo, so I wont' be able to hand it in Monday. I'm thinking of either doing it Thursday night and handing it in Friday (but that leaves me too little time) or doing it Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and getting one of my friends to hand it in, which is probably what I'll end up doing.

This weekend I was working on quite a few web-based things! Firstly I want to reccomend StevePavlina.com, it's an awesome site about a bunch of stuff. I find his personal experiments entertaining, well thought-out and rigorously reported on. Just click "blog" in the top nav bar or scroll down and find an interesting topic in the sidebar. I first found his site while researching Polyphasic Sleeping and ended up clicking around some more. It's pretty awesome and a better waste of time than other things on the web.

I also decided to get a domain name for this blog! You may have noticed, ibjourney.tk is now the official address of this blog! As you may know Dot.tk gives away free domain names, and that's obviously where I got mine. As much as I love giving the world information about IB, I'm not willing to spend $4 a month or more for a ".com" or a ".info" etc. domain name. I think ".tk" works just as well and it's free!. I was also thinking of moving off Blogger to another blog hosting site, and I did reserve the username "ibjourney" with both Livejournal and WordPress in case I ever want to switch, but for now I'm sticking with Blogger because it's a lot less hassle. I may also in the future flesh this out into a full website, not a blog, and I want to have the versatility for that. I don't know which blog host will allow that best, but until I commit to that, I'm going to stick with the easiest way and stay here.

I've also decided to start building custom websites. I'll just be building a portfolio for the first little while, so I won't be charging anything, but if you're interested in a website for anything at all, feel free to contact me at ace.ibjourney@gmail.com and let me know what you want! I'm experienced with HTML and CSS, can create custom graphics and am learning Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I will be able to find a free host for your site that meets your storage and bandwith needs, and of course I'll get you a domain name at Dot.tk. If you do want to pay for a ".com" or other domain name, I'll do what I can to find you the most affordable registrar.

PS. Yes, I have gone link-crazy!
Regards,
Ace

Individual Oral Presentation

I presented my IOP today in class! I had decided to do a dramatic monologue as Liesl discussing Faustus Legrand's transformation into Magnus. I had written it last weekend and got some peer editing done by a couple of friends in my class. I left it at that, even though I still needed to rewrite the intro and the conclusiion. Unfortunately, I pushed it off until last night, so I rewrote those parts of it and edited the rest. I got some more peer editing, this time from someone who did the IOP last year. And when I was finally done, it was about midnight, so I stayed up until two in the morning to memorize it, and now I'm tuckered out. I actually had to make cold tea (recipie: put a tea bag into a water bottle, close and shake vigorously), because my mom was asleep and our kettle has a whistle, to keep me awake and focused.

I wasn't nervous before hand, I rarely am, but when the presentations started I began to feel a little uneasy. The first was really good, incorporating visuals, group discussion, and analysis, and I was afraid mine would not be sufficiently formal. Once I got up there I introduced what I was doing and went right into it. I had a shakey start and had to keep reffering to my script. I realize now that I should not have brought it up with me. I'm always tempted to read when I can, instead of talking from memory, even if I know it down pat. So I moved away from the podium, and that really helped. I didn't have the crutch of the script, and I really grew in confidence. I did ocassionaly refer back to it, but not as much as I had to begin. Despite the fact that I've been with the same 40 or so students for over two years in the IB, I was still shaking up there. But I feel it went well overall and I'm glad I've got it over with.

Now I can focus on my Historical Investigation! All I've done so far is read the Communist Manifesto and written my Plan of Investigation. I've got a lot more work ahead of me and the early deadline is Monday. We've got a week after that before the final deadline, but we won't get the bonus marks. I'm still aiming for the final deadline, as this is officially being sent out to the IBO and the bonus marks are only for the course, not for anything in the "IB world". I do hope to get a lot done this weekend though.

Actually, on that day (Dec. 15th), I'm going to be at the University of Waterloo. Sunday afternoon we're leaving and comming back Monday afternoon. The teacher at Night Math invited me and I'm all signed up and ready to go. The trip is open to all the students who attend the School of the Mustangs (as I have mentioned previously, I'm not posting school names) which is famous in the city for their math. I'm the only Raider going, though there might be students from a few other schools going. In any case, I only know a handful of people at that school, so it may be a little akward.

In any case, that's all I have to report for now.
Goodbye,
Ace

Projects, Rubric, Polyphasic

Okay, so it's Monday and time for an update! I spent a few hours over the weekend writing the monologue for my IOP. I've got about four minutes, which I could stretch to five when reading "in character" (dramatic pauses, appropriate emotional reactions, etc.). I read Part II of the Communist Manifesto, which was actually exciting; you could picture a stout Russian man, wearing red of course, standing at a podium emotionally delivering it as a speech. It's written almost conversationally, and it's a good read. However, Part III isn't. I barely got through the first section before I switched to another book.

We got another assignment today. Two actually, in French class. Our first is an on-the-spot discussion of a small book we will be reading, L'homme qui plantait des arbres, or something like that. We got a random topic and a random partner, and some of the pairings were pretty funny. The next (and our course ISU by Ontario Secondary School Diploma requirements) is an individual, 4-ish minute oral presentation on any topic related to French culture. It's sort of our practice version of the actual French Oral that will be sent off to "IB World" as our teacher put it. Everyone was pretty excited about that, just as we were for our History Project, which has pretty much the same lack of restriction.

We had a Math test today on Trigonometry, and it was easier than I thought, though I know I made a few mistakes. It was only three pages and most of us actually finished within the period, so our History teacher didn't have to get angry about it.

I'm finding IB likes to be open-ended. "Historical Investigation: it's 2000 words and has to be on something over a decade old." "English IOP: it's max 10 minutes long and has to be based on on of the book we've read." "French Oral: it's 4 minutes max and got to be global and related somehow to French culture." So few restrictions, and those aren't really on the topic, just the length. Even the format is left up in the air. The rubrics also, are rather vague. For example, below is a portion of the rubric for IB Labs (Science classes):

Design
Levels/Marks	Aspect 1	Aspect 2	Aspect 3
	Defining the problem and selecting variables	Controlling Variables	Developing a method for collection of data
Complete/2	Formulates a focused problem/research question and identifies the relevant variables.	Designs a method for the effective control of the variables.	Develops a method that allows for the collection of sufficient relevant data.
Partial/1	Formulates a problem/research question that is incomplete or identifies only some relevant variables.	Designs a method that makes some attempt to control of the variables.	Develops a method that allows for the collection of in sufficient relevant data.
Not At All/0	Does not identify a problem/research question and does not identify any relevant variables.	Designs a method that does not control of the variables.	Develops a method that does not allow for any relevant data to be collected.

In other news, December is here! I went shopping for gifts over the weekend (and I'm a little disgusted that I did it so early) and even wrapped a few of them. I also started thinking about my Polyphasic Sleeping experiment. I need at least a week to adapt to the new schedule and by two weeks I should be physically fine to go on with school and life as usual. So Winter Break is the perfect time to start and it's less then a month away. A friend encouraged me to do a little more research than just blogs, so I did. Here are the best sources I've found so far:

• Steve Pavlina's Polyphasic Sleep Log: the most comprehensive online blog of direct experience switching to a polyphasic schedule and maintaining it.
• Polyphasic sleep strategies improve prolonged sustained performance: A field study on 99 sailors: A scientific journal article on studying how cross-Atlantic sailors naturally fall into a polyphasic schedule when racing.
• Why We Nap: a book about polyphasic sleeping, how it's natural, etc. The only book on the subject, as far as I know.

That's it mostly. Oh, and the poll ended a couple weeks ago, so here are the results and a new poll:

Which class is your favourite?
... Math: 4 (36%)
... English (or your primary language): 1 (9%)
... History: 1 (9%)
... French (or other "secondary language"): 1 (9%)
... Any of the Sciences (Bio, Chem, Physics): 1 (9%)
... Any of the Arts (Visual, Music, Drama/Dance): 3 (27%)
... Philosophy (TOK, Anthro): 0 (0%)