The Evolution of the Thrill Ride

The roller coaster originates from St. Petersburg, Russia as a simple machine that allowed the joy seeker to slide down a icy ramp to create thrills. The thrill ride was released to the American public in 1884 in the form of LaMarcus Adna Thompson's Switchback Railway. The ride was 10 ft. high, 600 ft. long and went at a top speed of 10 mph and featured several hills. With Thompson's instant success came instant competition and Thompson's thrill ride was eventually made obsolete by his competitors faster and larger coasters. Today, you will be hard pressed to find a roller coaster that is slower than 30 mph and doesn't feature at least one curve around a bend.
                     
                        Russian Ice Slides(Thought to be first roller coasters).

                                             

                                           LaMarcus Thompson's Thrill Ride
                                       
                                        
                     
                                 The Shambhala in Salou, Catalonia, Spain
                                   

The Reason for my Insanity

Since my wonder years I've always loved to read.

 The main influence for my reading was the fact that at home I was usually quiet and I would sit by myself because I wasn't very interested in what was on T.V.. Thus, to fill the empty space in between school and sleep I would pick up a book. From there, until my eyes would start to blur I would read and the time would seem to blow past. The couple of hours after homework that I have, during extensive bus rides, or the occasional breaks at school I have found time to crawl my way through novels, articles, and book series.

How I feel when I have to stop reading:

My Favorite Activity

This is Your Brain on Life

I can't possibly begin to describe the general goings on of my brain on a daily basis.
There are the general worries of modern teenagers: grades, the future, appearance, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Then there are my worries. My family, my mom and dad, money. Then there are the trivial worries, whether Barcelona will ever return to top of the La Liga table, how How to Get Away with Murder will pan out, and everything that has to do with the Baby Dream Team of the class of '87.

Halloween Tradition

Halloween is probably my most anticipated holiday after Christmas and before Thanksgiving. In elementary school my Halloween costumes were exactly a witch (2 years) and a clown. I walked around my neighborhood which in my earlier years only reached the corner and then branched out to near the subway and trick-or-treated.

 

In middle school I trick-or-treated only in the seventh grade with a friend. We ventured around her neighborhood with her big sister and her boyfriend in tow( her big sister's boyfriend not her boyfriend...anyways). That was the last time I trick-or-treated. Now I just buy all the candy I want because I'm a big kid now and watch scary movies until the wee hours of the morning. This Halloween will be no different, I presume.

My favorite thing about Halloween, above even watching my classic horror films, has to be stuffing myself full of sweets.

Early American Imprints

In Early American Imprints one can use the Fairy Tales section to write about the impact of tales on the common people of society and how they manipulated their situation into a folksy tale to lighten the severity of the events.

Source Analysis

A valuable primary resource for the spread of Ebola in the USA is "Prevention" because it lists the appropriate methods one should undertake to prevent themselves from contracting Ebola from people that are directly on the scene.

An example of a secondary source about cyber bullying is the article, "Cyberbullying is rife" which shares interviews from teachers who have  had direct contact with students who have experienced bullying.
A reputable source for information on Edward Snowden  and his actions would be the video "Lawrence Lessig interviews Edward Snowden" because Snowden himself discusses his actions and their reasons.

A bad source for a post about President Obama and his achievements as POTUS would be "12 reasons Why Obama is One of the Best Presidents Ever". It could be considered a "bad" source because even though it lists examples it doesn't cite sources and it's kind of biased by an opinion the author already had.
My favorite leisure time activity is reading. A "good" source on reading is "Reading a Novel Triggers Lasting Changes in the Brain" because those quoted conducted experiments on graduate students to demonstrate the effect that reading can have on the brain. A "bad" source would be "Against YA" because it is opinionated and sort of rude and it does not list legitimate evidence to support her statements.