User:OKassim
From MariachiWiki
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Who ARE you?
Hi, my name is Omal-Hoda, but everyone knows me as Oma (yes, I know this means german grandma). I'm going into my senior year at Ward Melville H.S. I love to draw and create art, and I don't go anywhere without my sketchbook. I play the violin, and I am currently working on the Paganini Caprice No. 24 and Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson. I am saving up for two instruments right now - an acoustic guitar and an electric violin.
So, you have hobbies, right?
Sure! Like I said above, I'm an artist and a musician. Here are some of my recent works...
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MARIACHI Journal
Day 1 : The first day! In the first hour, we got to know one another, mostly introducing ourselves and forgetting other people's names. After this, we were told what MARIACHI actually was, what this workshop would teach us, and a few contests happening at MARIACHI. Graham Glynn introduced us to the HP Tablet PC, a nifty computer that acts as the latest high-tech notebook (who needs paper? we have hardrives!). After doodling several times on the Tablet, we moved onto bigger and better things - making a book about Cosmic Rays. I choose to be in the Fictional side of the book, writing about Cosmic Chris and Cosmic Katie (2nd cousins 3 times removed), and their Cosmic dog, Cosmo. After a while, we had a developed plot line with villans and heros, all the things you need for a good book. At noon, I headed out to lunch at the SAC with MRuss and RGallagher. We tried to stop at Starbucks on the way back, however the line was too long and we had little time (we shall try again tomorrow!). Upon entering the lab from lunch, Helio bombarded us with information about Cosmic Rays and particles, an introduction to the subject we will be focusing on for the next 4 days. We soon split into groups, I was stuck with RGallagher, SBryant and BDwyer. We experimented with Harry Stuckey, measuring Muon Flux. We used Scintillators and a voltage box, measuring how many coincidental cosmic rays penetrated the detectors. Well, this is a brief overview of my experience of my first day of MARIACHI. After MARIACHI, MRuss and I journeyed to Ralph's and sucessfully obtained delicious Italian Ices. I will probably come back and fix this up, while I probably have many grammar mistakes and it is currently 1:04 AM. Signing off, see everyone in 7 hours!
Day 2 : This is our second day at MARIACHI, and we started off the day by learning all about Microsoft Excel. Many of us high school students learned about excel when we took computer literacy, however, we discovered that we had forgotten most of what we learned, if we learned anything at all. Half of us got lost through the demonstration, although Rich Gearns told us what we needed to know, but each of us picked up a few tips and tricks about Microsoft Excel and helped us understand this program a little better. Group lab activities came next, I stopped with my group at the Radar Location station, learning about radio waves and had a welcome brain teasing problem (using the location of three detectors to find out where the waves were being transmitted from). It might have been just me, but it felt really good to do some problem solving and math into my summer vacation. Maybe I found myself missing math - just a little. We stopped at the antennae station, Muon speed and Cosmic Chris stations for the rest of the day, stopping in the middle for lunch. (We successfully infiltrated a Starbucks today!) Also, after lunch, we had a great demonstration about liquid nitrogen - awesome stuff there! We ended the day with a loose debate and recollection of what we had learned in the past 48 hours. After the MARIACHI program ended, MRuss, RGallagher, Alamson and I hung out under a tree in front of the Physics building, just talking and casually spending some time with each other, comparing lives. I hope we're allowed to curse on here, because oh crap, it's 2:01 AM.
Summary
Mariachi has changed my life in these 5 days. i met a lot of new people, and we learned an extreme amount in the lab. This workshop was recommended to me by my physics teacher, and i'm so glad that I came for the experience. I really loved working with radio waves. I love Rich's demos, and the ice cream we made at the end (mmmm...). I took physics this year, but when I walked into this workshop, I knew nothing about cosmic rays, however, now i think i have a bit of a better understanding (mayyybeee...). All-in-all, this week was one of my best weeks this summer, i wish mariachi was more than a week : ). Sam and the biologist are fighting now, so i have to go listen : )
