What are some good house rules for UNO?

Here are some ideas:

• Every time a certain number is placed, everyone must slap the discard pile. The last one to slap the pile must draw two cards.

• Any time that you draw a cool colored card (blue and green), you must say “ooohhhh” and any time you draw a warm colored card (red or yellow), you must say “ahhhhh.”

• When someone calls out “Uno,” the next person to correctly say the number of cards he has left (in Spanish, of course) gets to discard any one card.

• Every time a wild card (or a different card if you want) is placed, you pass your cards to the person to your left (and receive them from the person on your right).

Advice for finals?

Hopefully this article will come out in time to do some good. I’ve been through five finals weeks now, and coming up on my sixth; there are a few things I’ve learned.

Firstly, scheduling is really important. As soon as you get the final schedule, memorize it. Put it on all your walls. Write it down in your assignment books. This schedule will help you determine how long you have to study for each of your subjects. Keep an eye out for the times of your most difficult classes.

Secondly, if you are a caffeine person, have tea or coffee or chocolate at the ready at all times. For me, at least, it doesn’t always matter how much time you’ve already spent studying on any one thing because the stress of the test makes me stay up late to study more. Unfortunately, caffeine doesn’t really work on me, so I just slap myself every now and then or jam (quietly with headphones on so as not to disturb other sleepers) to some Queen or Aerosmith. Music is a saving grace for staying up.

Thirdly, work out your study system. Everybody has a way in which he studies the best and it’s a good plan to know what kind of studying works best for you. If you’re an auditory learner, get someone to read your notes to you. Visual? Get out your highlighters and sketch some pictures too. Like more hands-on learning? Talk to your teacher about practicing some examples of what you’re learning in class or out.

When you’ve gotten your type of studying down, get your system sorted out. Decide when the best times for you to study will be. If you’re a morning person, get ready for some four a.m. hardcore sessions with Algebra. Night owls, most of us teenagers, get your coffee or Coke or cocoa and settle down under piles of not-too-comfy blankets and get going. Afternoon peeps, as soon as school is done, make as much time as you can to study. Decide how much time you want to spend on each subject and stick to it. Quizlet is a great tool at your disposal for studying, and so are the subjects of my next tip.

Finals week is a stressful time for us all. That’s why above most other things, I’d like you all to remember to still make time for your friends. They can help you study, they can get you coffee if they can drive, they can give you hugs when math decides to give imaginary numbers to work with. And school is only for this small portion of your lives, your friends can be for all the rest. So don’t forget to not forget them and love them and share some emotional support.

Good luck, everybody! I know you’ll all do an amazing job. God bless your finals!

Since kinetic energy is converted into thermal energy, how hard would I need to slap a chicken to cook it?

Well, the specific heat of chicken is 3.22 kJ/kg degrees Celsius. The chicken should be heated to 75 degrees Celsius, and normally starts at about room temperature (according to some sources, meat cooks best when it starts at room temperature), so about 20 degrees Celsius. Let’s also assume it is one kilogram of chicken. When you plug those into the energy transfer equation, the equation is energy transferred= (1 kg)(3.22 kJ/kg(degrees Celsius))(55 [change in temp]). When multiplied, that would equal 177.1. That means, assuming I did all this right, it would take 177.1 kJ of energy to cook a chicken, also assuming that all the energy is transferred into thermal energy. Also, fun fact I learned trying to answer this question: Chickens that are raised for food are called broilers.

Why is the sky blue?

Just so we’re clear: the ocean does not make the sky blue, as our teacher had to tell us back in sixth grade (I feel we took a few years off his life, or at least his years of teaching, just from that discussion). The sky is blue, in short, because sunlight is scattered by molecules in the air. The color blue is scattered more than others, giving the sky a blue color, because it moves in short waves.

Freshman’s opinions on the year/seniors?

First of all, the year. I don’t know how much I really believed everything that people have been telling me about high school since my first Visitors’ Day, such as how fast these four years go, how close you can be with both students and faculty, and how great having a God-centered high school is. I look back at this year, and it feels like just yesterday I was sitting in Prof. Rodebaugh’s room listening to his advice for the year, yet it feels like I’ve been at Immanuel for such a long time. I’ve met so many amazing people from all over, all of whom made this year great, and I’ll be sad to see some of them go, like the seniors. I may not know all of them, but I do know that the school will be lacking without them here next year. I know I’ll miss Megan’s funny comments, car rides with Lily, and Seth’s skits before choir. Even in sports, it was great having seniors willing to help guide us freshmen when we needed it (most of the time). While I’m sure they’re ready to leave, next year will definitely be different without them here, and they’ll be missed (even if some Profs won’t admit it).