There was a hectic event at Bina Bangsa School as it celebrated the Chinese New Year. The colours red and yellow danced everywhere you looked. Whether it was from the decorations or the clothing we wore. On the stage, students who learnt Chinese instruments were up there interpreting wonderful Chinese songs. There were bangs from a drum and high pitched noises from flutes and many other wonderful sounds that could not be identified. Seeing friends up there filled me with joy as they played the songs. The songs they played were foreign yet they sounded so familiar when played by our friends.

After the symphony had ended, three long tables were put together in the middle of the hall. Armed with special brushes and paint, numerous Chinese calligraphers approached the table. It was a booth! These people were obviously professionals as they moved the brush with such accuracy and swiftness over the soft and very delicate paper. They knew too much ink would stain the back of the paper, yet too little would not give off such a bold aura, so they used the exact amount of ink. A skill which can only be learnt from experience.

As the event ended, I passed and touched a spare calligraphy paper. It was as soft as a baby’s skin with such small weight and thickness. The Chinese New Year event was a blast and my anticipation for the next one has grown exponentially. I feel that others too think that way.

Before the story starts, I must say that I am writing this because I must practice my descriptive writing for an upcoming English test in my school.

My school

The school was large, around three acres complete with a underground parking area, two basketball courts and two soccer fields. It was seven floors tall, my classroom was on the third floor.

The classroom itself was not that great, a bad schooler was made when they linked the classroom light switch on the adjacent rooms instead of the room where the lights are. My classroom was cramped, for multiple reasons. My class had the highest concentration of students than any class with a total of 28 students. Then there was a large hollow pillar at the middle of the very back area which gave us less space. We also had to take into consideration for everyone to be able to see the board.

The school also had a variety of subject related rooms, we have around twenty to thirty specific rooms for each instrument because everyone was required to play an instrument or sing in choir. We also have an art room and three halls. Overall the school was a great place to be.

It’s a color and fruit. The fruit is orange and the color has the color of an orange. Therefore, orange is the best color out there and fruit. It’s also possible for an orange to be other colors but still be an orange so all colors are therefore orange which does not make sense because orange is only one color out of many. So……… what is an orange.

From the last blog, I said that creating a chess machine was just a matter of tedious work which is taking into account every possible move in chess. Sadly, this “tedious” work is actually impossible. I shall explain in the form of a tree. A tree grows and starts growing branches, these “branches” in our case are chess moves. The first move has 20 possible moves, so 20 branches are grown. The next, also 20 for each branch which already gives us a total of 200 possibilities. The third move makes each branch grow more branches (I can’t specify because I couldn’t find how many but it’s a lot) and those branches off branches grow more branches and more and more. For every possible moves, more possible moves follow.

The fastest possible win or loss is in 4 moves and by then we would have over a thousand possible moves, and the longest possible win or loss is in 155. Sadly after running the numbers, there is no possible way a human can complete it in a lifetime. Maybe if 1000 generation of humans all commit their whole life to writing every possible chess move, only them maybe a chess machine can exist that is created by humans by scratch.

I don’t want to end the blog on a bad vibe though. Because I came up with an acceptable way to create a chess machine. What we change this time though, is that we only take into account every possible move for each chesspiece. This way, we don’t have to take into account every possible move after every possible move that will come before or after. And we can replace the color indicator with numbers (and or brails for people who are blind #thinkoftheblinds) because I realized that using colors might be a problem for colorblind people. (#thinkofthecolorblinds)

This is also more ecofriendly cause you don’t need many resources, just a random number generator (from a device) (#thinkoftheenvironment). And if that move is unavailable we just generate another random number.

Aside from being good at English, I am also obsessed with math. I recently created a draft on how to create a “computer” to beat Chess by learning from multiple games from the opponent.

Firstly, a “computer” does not need to be filled with technological pieces to, by definition, a computer. The technical definition of a computer is something that processes inputted data and outputs the, well output. In this case the inputted data is the opponents move, processes it by randomly picking a random possible move and out puts it. This setup can be done with a actual computer or by hand. First we need a lot of containers, like plastic bags or matchboxes. With pictures of the turn move and the layout of the board. It must also show the possible moves the “computer” can do marked by colored arrows. In the container there should be some indicator of color that is randomly taken out correcponding to the current board layout. When that color is chosen, move the piece the color corresponds to to the place where that colored arrow points to. Every time the “computer” loses, take out the previous color indicator which made it lose. When every color indicator for a chess layout is taken out, also take out another color indicator, the one which got the piece in the losing area in the first place. This way the “computer” learns the more it is played against.

You will need to know every possible chess move and draw that layout on the containers.

This setup was inspired by a similar game called hexapawn, which is a more simple way of playing chess. The idea is that you play on a 3 by 3 tiles area with 3 pawns and the enemy with 3 pawns as well. To win the game you are supposed to either, get a stalemate, kill every piece or get one of the pawns to the other side. Making a “computer” set up to win this would be easier because there are less possible moves.

“Right now,” the news reporter said, “in this very hall, the flat earth theory would either be proven or busted. I am Tony of Chanel 12 giving you an inside look at the argument at hand.”

The judge hammered the gavel on the table shouting, “order in the court, the argument on the flat earth theory is about to begin.” He looks around the council, ” Representative of Harvard University?” “Present,” said a young bearded man. “Representative of the Flat Earth society.” The judge said. “Present.” “Let the argument begin,” he hammered his gavel, “representative of Flat Earth society, your opening statement?” “So we flat earthers believe that the earth is flat, our first argument is the fact of the world map. If you ever seen one, you would see only one side of the earth and it seems everything is present there, if the earth really was flat then why can we only see one side instead of all.” “The opposing representative may now begin his argument.” The judge said.

“We believe that the earth is round and we even have evidence for it.” He projected pictures of multiple deep holes, “if the earth were flat then how would these holes exist, and for your information, there are people living on the other side.” “It seems this is a pretty open and shut case then,” The judge said, “representative of Flat Earth how will you reply to that?”

“Currently the flat earth society has a camera orbiting around earth and we have the footage right here,” he took out a USB drive, “to prove me and the rest of our society’s point, we will allow you to see the footage. If that is fine by you Judge?” “Approved.” He said. The representative of Harvard though seems anxious, “objection!” He yelled, “I demand to have a copy and hand it to my team if he had doctored them and if so change it to an original.” “You can do that later,” Judge said, “I want to see where this leads.” The Flat Earth representative uses the projector and projects the image.”

Only an hour after the debate ended the Channel 12 headquarters was infiltrated. “Where is the footage?” A man with a black mask asked. Sam was nowhere to be seen. He was missing for a while now. “Don’t threaten them,” I said with chinese, it was our way of communicating so others didn’t understand , “we are here to find the footage and destroy it without any damage. Besides a ‘friend’ found the recordings.”

“So basically,” Sam said, “the government lied about the shape of the earth because on the other side of earth there are thousands worth of iron which they sell to be wealthy.” He was in a secret room behind a bookshelf where there were foam boards with pictures connected by pins and string. The first place you imagined when you say “conspiracy theories”. “Yes, we have a spy in the government that gives us information on their latest moves.” One of the guys said. He then places a finger on his ear and says, “We gotta move they are coming. Maybe we will be able to show that clip on the news.” Luckily the news station was only a block away.

They jumped out the window and landed on a soft matress. The station was right across the street and they ran there. A man with a black mask looked at them. He spoke into a microphone, “they are in.”

I was at the lobby when I heard that message and signaled the others, “they just ziplined through the window on the top floor, go get them.” Right when they went up I used another microphone and whispered, “the coast is clear.” Sam and the others went in and we went to the broadcast. “Thanks for the assist, Sam meet Rel, our undercover spy. Now go broadcast that video.” The Representative of Flat Earth said. Sam nodded and started broadcasting the video live. Now the world knew who was right.

The Earth was a pyramid the whole time.

I realized it after I saw the old photograph. It was old, tattered and black and white but there was no mistaking that cowboy hat or the badge that was on the man’s coat, this was my grandfather twenty years ago.

I ran as swift as possible, carrying the photo with me. “If I run continuously at this pace”, I began to think, “maybe I could hear grandpa’s explanation and make it to school on time.” I quickly spotted his house, an old shack in the most rural of all rural places. Nobody knew why he wanted to stay there, my parents always offered him a room in our cozy house but he refused.

I opened the door as slowly as possible for if the door is opened too abruptly, the hole on the roof will enrage, I called out, “Grandpa, are you there?” A pause, “Davey? Is that you? Please come up,” called Grandpas voice. I went up the fragile stairs, they were fragile as they were actually a few cardboard boxes stacked to create a makeshift stairway. When I saw him, he was reading old 90’s comics, this time he was reading Spider-Man volume 3. His room and frankly shack was filled with things from his day. Today those relics would cost 400-700 dollars each. Grandpa cherished them as he could put no price tag over those items.

Grandpa grinned at me, putting his Spider-Man comic down. He then asked, “So I assume you are curious of the picture.” I was flabbergasted, how had he known? I tried to ask but he replied, “The picture stands out from the rest of your hands.” “Oh, yeah what happened?” He chuckled, “it seems like aeons when it happened and it happened right here,” he pointed around us. He got up and grabbed the same cowboy hat and badge from the photograph off a cabinet. “I was a sheriff around here when I saw an odd person. He said he would provide me house” “This one right?” I interrupted. “Yes but on terms, he only gave it to me when he asked if I was a collector and told me I had to keep the building and live in it for my lifetime which I as a poor sheriff accepted without turning a blind eye. I still live here even if he has gone ages ago because to me that promise is binding no matter what, to just abandon it now just proves how unloyal I am to promises.” “Wow grandpa I don’t know what to say.” I said. “Maybe ‘I have to go to school I am late.’” He smiled. “Wait,” I looked at my watch, “blinking knickers I have to go grandpa I am late.” I ran out of the door and to my school.

◦

My life flashed before my eyes. The wind on my face, I could have sworn my nose touched part of the metal. Although the truck did not turn me into roadkill, my body was in pain as if it was on fire. Maybe I was supposed to die in the accident. Yet as I cheated death, my body punished me. I fell face first on the road with excruciating pain. I closed my eyes wishing to pass out and stop the pain. Luckily, my wish came true.

I awoke in a place I thought was heaven, unfortunately it was just the infirmary. The pain had gone, I moved a little. “Ouch!” I cried out, the pain returned. Perhaps I should have just sat still. A doctor came in and gave me an injection. I closed my mouth as the needle was inserted and removed, I tried moving. I felt no pain. The doctor spoke in an alien language which I presumed to be Spanish, when he realized I didn’t understand he took out his phone and translated his speech.

He showed me his phone and I read the text, many medical terms like “triglycerides” and “phospholipids” but I got the gist of it. The fear from the incident gave me a full body cramp. I was carried by a trio of strangers who were generous enough to pay for the bills. The doctor gave me a look that said “you can leave”. I got out and expected the trio to be repayed for the bills, however, nobody was there. I checked my wallet and saw nothing was stolen. I was touched and decided to donate to charity.

I am currently (at the year 2019) 12 years old turning to 13. My parents and teachers sometimes compliment me on my story writing and my parents told me I should should make use of that talent. They advised me to create a blog to show my work to others. I hope you will enjoy this blog.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton