Warren Buffett

Background:

Warren Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, in Omaha Nebraska, to a comfortable Caucasian family. In 1942, his family moved to Washington DC after his father was elected to the House of Representatives. Being the son of a stockbroker and then a member of the House, he had many opportunities while growing up. At age 11, he was able to buy three stock shares which he earned a small profit from. After moving to DC, he bought a pinball machine to set up in a barbershop and earned enough profit to expand the business to other machines.

Buffett began college at age 16 at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated at age 20 from the University of Nebraska. He then attended Columbia University for graduate school.

Contributions:

Immediately out of school, Benjamin Graham, a professor at Columbia University denied Buffett a job. He went back to Nebraska and his father’s stockbrokerage. However, after a time, Graham was willing to give Buffett a job, so he returned to New York.

When Buffett returned to Omaha, he started Buffett Associates, Ltd. By the age of thirty, he was a millionaire. He partnered with Charlie Munger. Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway, a dying textile mill. He used the profits to fund investments which eventually grew into billions. In 1985, Buffett shut down the textile business, but the name remained.

Although he has been the richest person in America, Buffett still chooses to live frugally and be generous. He has put together a system to continually donate money to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Buffett changed investing by developing Graham’s investing concepts and his success with them. Many people look to him not only as a great investor, but as a great person because of his generosity. I see how he has been immensely successful both because of his opportunities and work. I am impressed by how despite his success, people still talk about him as a person worth respect: generous, humorous, and kind.

HUNT Acronym:

Harness your vision: Buffett turned Berkshire Hathaway into an investment giant. He began by buying out two insurance companies, and then he led it to invest in many more companies, and it owns many successful companies.

Underestimate roadblocks: At different points, Buffett went through difficulties but still kept going and pulled himself back out. At the beginning of his career, before he worked for Graham, his investments were failing. Immediately after he bought Berkshire Hathaway, the company faced major challenges, but it turned out to become the source of much of his future riches.

Network: Buffett was born into a network, which he continued to grow. At Columbia, Buffett studied under Benjamin Graham, who later hired him. This relationship was key both because of what Buffett learned, and the opportunities of building on his work.

Take the first step: Buffett wasted no time. At the age of 11, he was already buying stocks. At age 13, he had already started a business.

Sources:

Bibliography

A&E Television Networks. “Warren Edward Buffett.”

Livy, Julian. “Warren Buffett: a short biography.” Warren Buffett Secrets.

Smith, Lisa. “Warren Buffett: The Road to Riches.” Investopedia.

Snowflake

Jun4

Waiting in the wings
Waiting for my moment
Counting, listening, watching
Carefully, but most of all,
Feeling.
I’m no longer me,
I’m not even a ballerina now,
I’m a snowflake,
Soaring
High
Blown by the wind
Swirling
Flying
Above the world just for a moment
And gently
floating
down.
And now I’m me, a dancer, in the wings,
Waiting to become a snowflake again.

Tips for Girls Interested in Science

Mar24

1. Just don’t listen to discouragement.

“Too pretty for science” is a regrettable misconception. Women are sometimes told that they can’t succeed in science because they’re too pretty: too pretty to be interested, or too pretty to stick with it. Yet that isn’t how it is. No level of beauty qualifies– or disqualifies– someone for a job in science, or any STEM field.

Teachers, boys, or even parents will sometimes claim that girls can’t succeed as well as a boy. Girls may not even realize they are being discouraged. Often, girls are unconsciously influenced to believe that it isn’t socially acceptable for them to be good at or enjoy math and sciences. Female elementary school teachers often had a negative view of math in elementary school and pass that on. Don’t let how women in general view math and sciences decide your view of them. You aren’t them, and they aren’t you. You can succeed in areas in which they didn’t even try.

Sometimes the boys show off how much more they are succeeding. Don’t worry. “If there are some male students in the class that seem to know more than you do, ignore it because they tend to show it off more,” says Maria Klawe. You can likely do as well as they are doing. Perhaps they did get a head start; maybe they will always be ahead. That’s no reason to give up. Believe you can; know you will.

Ignore discouragement and lies about your capabilities and abilities.

2. Ignore the boys who appear better.

Remember what Maria Klawe said: “If there are some male students in the class that seem to know more than you do, ignore it because they tend to show it off more.”

Most of the time, there will be someone better at something than you. Does that mean you should give up? No!

Maybe they are merely showing off, and maybe they do know more than you do. Maybe the answer will change.

3. Find out what a career in a STEM field could be.

This exploration could take many different forms. It could be applying many of the other tips. When you have the chance, ask questions. You could also actively research by finding a blog or other writing by a female scientist and hear what they have to say on the subject. Attend workshops given by area colleges or career groups. Interview a woman in the a field of interest. Find a way to volunteer, even if it means stuffing envelopes just to be around that type of business.

4. Go to camp.

Many colleges offer summer camps either for only girls, or open to both genders. These come in the form of either day or overnight camps. The University of Michigan has both options for many types of science. Calvin and Hope Colleges both offer day camps.

5. Try it.

Take one step out and try something. If you never go and try something, you’ll never know if you would have liked it.

If you think it’s only going to be boys, it might not be. If it is, that’s okay. If you still feel that you can’t do it with only boys, find a friend and do it together.

What is this “it”? “It” is whatever you find interesting but hesitate to do. Maybe “it”’s a team, or a class. Just go, do it.

“It” could be:

Science Olympiad

Robotics Team

A high school class.

A summer day camp

Anything!

Chrysalids Ending

Nov12

I loved the book, but was dissatisfied with the ending. There are two different possible endings that can be possibly “happy” for a book such as this. The characters can simply escape, or they can fix their society. Either one is easy to make cheesy. I would rather a book have hope for the overall society than a personal happiness for the main characters. They’re going to simply go and live happily ever after now that all of the people coming after them are suffocated in some stuff. The Chrysalids is a very happy book. Characters die, but nobody who the reader has become attached to. You feel pity for the deaths, but no particular wishing they would have stayed because they are favorite characters. Even the very darkness of the Sealand woman’s statement that amounts to, “We’re better than them, we can just kill all of those people, it doesn’t matter.” Even that darkness in the book is hidden.

After reading the other two, I am even less satisfied with the ending. The Giver gives material to think about. What happens? You can look at it happily, or it can be death for him and Gabriel. We’re supposed to care about the poor people left in the society without choice or color. The Chrysalids only lets the reader care about those who can share thoughts. They escape, and live happily ever after leaving everyone else with more obvious flaws, and those coming in the future to fend for themselves.

Fahrenheit 451 gives the character death of those who give the society hope, and have a possibility of change. The neighbor girl has disappeared, and Montag’s wife is dying. We don’t even know what happened to the other friend. There are questions left unanswered, and there is still hope.

In the past I would have been thrilled with an ending like The Chrysalids. Now, I would rather be left with a couple of questions. I would rather be allowed to think. It doesn’t work right for the main characters to have friends come in and take them away from all problems. The society is still messed up, and short many people who were killed since the Sealand people believe they are the only people worth anything.

Right and Wrong

Nov8

The Chrysalids is a great book in my opinion. It can be discussed on a hundred different levels. What would it be like to have their power of telepathy? What is the right choice for them to make? How is our world like theirs? What must we do to prevent a world like theirs? Most of these questions fit these types of books, the science-fiction with a warning in there.

The people truly believe that they’re doing right, but they are just so wrong. At times, are we that wrong? Do we put that much work into something completely useless and meaningless? Even something as harmful as they do?

Then there is the simple act of judgement. We don’t murder those that are different, but is it very harmful just to reject them in other ways?

This is the beautiful type of book that thinking about doesn’t answer the questions it raises. No; thinking causes more and deeper questions.

Better Pointe Shoes

Nov3

http://www.dancer.com

These pointe shoes are awesome because they aren’t made out of the old fashioned stuff that most pointe shoes are made out of. Paste and cardboard have been replaced by elastrometrics. I don’t even know what that means, but it’s got to be better than cardboard. Would any sort of athlete wear shoes made out of cardboard? I don’t think so. Ballerinas shouldn’t either. Buy Gaynor Mindens. Or you can buy them for me, I won’t mind.

Operation: Take Away Freedom

Nov1

A day in the world described by The Chrysalids, on the very surface sounds incredibly awful and difficult. A little more thought reveals that maybe it would be extremely easy to simply follow directions with everyone else and never know a better way. Even more thought makes a person realize that going through specific activities would be simply, but overall, it would be awful.

Every day would consist of getting up, likely making, helping with, and eating breakfast. Then I’d be working on whatever needed to be done that day. However I was asked to do the task, I’d have to do it that way. No one would appreciate a simpler or better way of going about it. I would just want to get away back to where people I would consider reasonable were. Whenever I had the chance, I would want to get out of there and do what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it. If there was no plausible way out, I’d just go be by myself. Otherwise, I would do what I could to escape. After awhile, a matter of days, I would want to completely defy and turn their world on it’s head. I would plan statements they would consider completely heretic. Statements suggesting choices, freedom, a better way of doing everything that had been done the same way always.

I’d probably get killed fairly quickly in a world like that.

You Can Sail!

Oct17

“There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” – Kenneth Grahame. How true, sailing is a pastime for millions of people. It may look intimidating, but it’s not nearly as difficult as you might think at first. Even without someone to teach you, you can learn to sail.

1. Preparation and Planning
Before even going to the water with your sailboat, you must prepare. First of all, you need a plan. While this cannot be set in stone, it can merely be a guide. Jamie says to “know what you’re doing before you even go to the boat.” Know the parts of your particular boat. Find a diagram of the pieces and know what is what. You also need to know where you’re going. For a first sail, you need a balance between having big enough, but not too big a body of water, and enough wind, but not so much you lose control. “Big open waters are so much fun,” says Jamie.

2. Setting Up
Knowing how to set everything up is one thing; now you’ve got to do it. Once you’re at the water, you’re best off having someone show you how, but if that’s not possible, a diagram would be the second choice. The first few times I sailed, my dad did all of the setting up. I learned to do it by watching him. Included is a rigging manual for a Sunfish. Study it beforehand, and bring it with you to the water.
http://www.myc.org/Lasers/Sunfish%20Rigging%20Guide%20by%20Vanguard.pdf

3. Beginning to Sail

You’re ready to start sailing. The boat is floating in your perfect piece of water, and you can feel the wind all around you. You can’t go anywhere yet if you don’t know how to use the wind. Before you leave shore, you should find where the wind is coming from, but occasionally it will feel different from when you are out on the water, particularly on very small bodies of water. The only direction that you can’t sail is right into the wind. Start pushing the boat farther into the water, then hop in, try and catch some wind. When you’re out far enough, push the daggerboard down. You’re sailing!

4. Control
Once you are out on the water sailing, you need to be able to control where you’re going and how fast. To move faster, you pull the sail in, to slow down, you let it out a little. The steering on sailboats is backward; you have to push the tiller the opposite direction from where you plan to go. The piece of the rudder in the water is what really controls the direction. When you want to go into the wind, you need to tack. Tacking is zig-zagging along in the intended direction by coming about often.

5. Coming About
Coming about is essentially turning all the way around into a direction you can’t turn to without losing the wind. The sail is to one side of the boat at first, and after it will be on the other. You push the tiller as far as you can so that you turn into the wind. Be sure to duck because the sail comes flying over your head, or into it! You might need to catch the wind again.

6. Coming In
When you’re trying to come in, you simply need to head for where you’re trying to go back to. This might include coming about, or tacking. On my little Sunfish, I can simply sail right onto the shore, jump out, and pull the boat up. When you get to the shallow water, the daggerboard should pop up, otherwise you’ll need to pull it up.

7. Packing Up
Back on shore, how to pack up differs by the boat. On Sunfish, you need detach all of the pieces you attached at the beginning: sail, daggerboard, rudder and tiller. Be sure to wrap the sail up neatly, it’s so much more fun to go back to something neatly put away. Keep the sail, the rudder, and the daggerboard near the boat, where you can easily find them later. I have my sail hanging from the ceiling, and the rudder and tiller lean against the wall of the garage.

Sailing is not nearly as hard as it might appear to be. With a boat and a little research, it is within your capabilities. All that’s left is enjoying your first sailing trip!