Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone's having a good holiday! I'm Jewish, but that's no reason why I can't share a bit of Christmas-themed musical genius with all of you!

I have a dream

I love this song...

Writing Contest!

Young Writers' Contest

Maryland students: ages  14-18

Cash Prizes: 1st $150, 2nd $100, 3rd $50

The three winners shall also receive complimentary registrations for the Balticon Science Fiction Convention for themselves and their parents or one guest each and a free Balticon T-Shirt.

a. The deadline is March 31, 2010.

Submissions must be in the field of science fiction or fantasy.

Contest Website for information: www.bsfs.org/bsfsywc<http://www.bsfs.org/bsfsywc>

b. Submissions shall be no more than 2,500 words in length.

c. All submissions should include a title page with the title of the story, the entrant's name or note Home schooled, home address, evening phone number, and e-mail address if possible. Also, please include your English teacher's name.

d. Paper submissions must have numbered pages - all submissions must have a footer with the title and page number. They should not have the entrants name or other identifying information on the individual pages. Paper submissions should be typed or printed, double-spaced, on 8.5 x 11" paper.

e. Electronic submissions must be sent as an attachment to email in either Microsoft Word or Word perfect format. Otherwise they must be printed out and submitted on paper. One contestant may submit multiple entries, but only one prize may be won by any one entrant.

f. The winners will be contacted before the convention and their names will be announced to the public at the next Balticon on Memorial Day Weekend just before the Masquerade at 8:30 PM. Winners need not be present to receive their prizes.

g. Paper submissions should be addressed to:

Balticon Young Writers' Contest

BSFS, Inc.

PO Box 686 , Baltimore, MD 21203-0686


h. Electronic submissions should be addressed to: "ywc at balticon dot org"


i. Judges shall be drawn from the membership of BSFS, Inc. All submissions become the property of Baltimore Science Fiction Society Inc. (BSFS, Inc.), and may be published in Society publications.


For additional information, call the BSFS Building @ 410-563-2737 or the coordinator at 410-823-8913, or send e-mail to: "ywc at balticon dot org," Convention website www.balticon.org<http://www.balticon.org/> 


General organization information and science fiction resources check www.bsfs.org<http://www.bsfs.org/> 

Inspirational Speech From a 12-year-old

Truly inspirational speech from a 12-year-old girl. We ALL need to listen to her.

Concert this Sunday

Hey guys, here's a post by Aurora, about a concert this Sunday!


Please come and hear kids/teens perform with the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras at Strathmore Hall!
When: Sunday December 6
At: The Music Center at Strathmore
What time: Junior Orchestras and Harpists will play at three PM; Senior Orchestras will perform at 7 PM
There will also be a guest pianist (Lura Johnson) from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra who will solo during the evening concert
Tickets are $8 for kids and seniors, $20 for adults.
I am a TLCI highschooler who will be playing the violin in the evening concert. It will be a very exciting program! Happy Holidays! Aurora Wheeland

Loads of online writing resources!

    I've been finding a lot of online writing resources recently, and I though I'd share them with you!
    The first one is an ezine called Teen Inklings that comes out once a month and covers a different topic on how to make your writing better in each one. It is written by a 16 year old with the pen name Christian Miles, and can be found at teeninklings.blogspot.com 
    Next is the Advanced Fiction Writing Ezine, which can be found at www.advancedfictionwriting.com/ezine I haven't looked at it much since I don't like the style of the website, but that's just me ;) There's a bunch of other stuff on the website as well, including the "Snowflake Method" for creating a plot outline.
    Where The Map Ends (wherethemapends.com) is a website on writing Christian fiction, but there's a lot of good stuff on there for anyone! My favorite is the Tip of the Week column (You'll have to skim through a lot of Christian stuff if that's not what you want to read). 
    Teenage Authors is a GREAT website with loads of tips that unfortunately seems to have not been updated for a while. It can be found at teenageauthor.wordpress.com Make sure to check out the "Get Published" page, even if you're not looking to be published, since it's a great list of ezines and magazines!
    www.sfwa.org also has some good tips, mostly at the "Writing Tips " and "The Craft of Writing " pages.
    That's about it... There's also NaNoWriMo, but that's finished for the year.
For an offline resource, Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine is absolutely amazing. Unlike most writing books, the exercises in it are both interesting and helpful. Plus you might get a really good bit of writing out of it!
    And this one's just for fun :) As I was finding all the links for this post I ran across this typing speed test. speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com
    I hope you found this useful!
    If I left out any resources that you know of, leave it in a comment.
    Sara

Hunch

Hello everybody, once again this is Natalie Moyer, this message is going out to all those who enjoy taking quizzes and getting personalized answers. I recently discovered a website called "hunch". This website has quizzes that deal with everything from baby names to what to eat for dinner tonight all captured in the form of fun, easygoing quizzes! I found a quiz about dog breeds and what animal personality I have just by typing in the word "dog" to the search bar.
Anyway this website is really fun and might just give you a couple insightful answers as well as fun ones, (I haven't had one yet however). Here's the link www.hunch.com, have fun quizzing!
Natalie Moyer

Maryland Engineering Challenges

Hi, I just wanted to tell you guys about a really fun engineering opportunity, the Maryland Engineering Challenges. They are hosted by the Baltimore Museum of Industry, and there are many different challenges all the way from 1st to 12th grade level. Teams work on their projects for a few months, then compete against the other teams at the museum. Most of the challenges include a written report, oral report, a model, and performance testing. The challenges are hard, but also very fun, and in my opinion, worth it. I have competed in the straw bridge challenge twice, and loved it both times.


This year the high school challenges are:
Cargo Airplane
Cargo Ship
Robot
Wood Bridge

Middle school challenges:
Cargo Airplane
Eco-Power
Hovercraft
Green Environment
Straw Bridge


Unfortunately registration for the Future City competition has closed, but if you are interested in competing a different year, let me just warn you, it is a lot of work! Very fun though :)
As far as I know, registration for the other challenges are still open.


The website for the challenges is http://www.thebmi.org/index.cfm/cID/630 


If you have competed in one of the challenges before, or are competing this year, leave a comment sharing your experience!

I need advice

Hi everybody following this blog! This is Author #2, Natalie Moyer, writing here. I actually am doing this because I need advice on a fairly important point. So here it goes, if you had an acquaintance who was moving to a third-world country and was too proud to accept any advice verbally, what would you do?
A. Ignore her utter obstinance and let her be, accepting that she's just going to plunge into this country headfirst with no idea of what she's in for or,

B. Create a little guide book on how to live in a third world country, give it to her and tell her not to throw it out just look at it when she's ready.

I think if I give this acquaintance a guide book than she won't feel pressed to learn it all right away, she'll have it with her for a long time and she can look at it when she needs to.
I have lived in a third world country before so i know a thing or two about it, unfortunately I don't know how to communicate that to this acquaintance without sounding.....bossy.
Anyway, what would you do? Any ideas welcome, thanks for listening, Natalie Moyer.

Great Math Opportunity!

Hi guys!

I wanted to let you all know about a great FREE math resource for those who can get to UMBC once or twice a month :)

The Baltimore Area Math Circle (organized by Steven Southall, TLCI high schooler) is for high school level students, and meets twice a month.

One of the meetings is a lecture from a professional mathematician, scientist, or engineer. In the past we have had lectures on digital communications, algorithims for networks, and the mathematics and physics of navigation.

The second meeting each month is a problem solving session, led by professional mathematicians. We have only had one problem session so far, but it was a lot of fun!

We meet in room 204 of the Public Policy building on the UMBC campus. Meetings are on Wednesday evenings at 6:30. Lectures run until 7:30, problem sessions until 8:00.

Upcoming problem sessions are November 18 (this Wednesday!) and December 16. There is also a lecture coming up, on December 9. The speaker will be Victor Sanchez, an antenna engineer an Northrop Grumman.

Although mostly homeschoolers attend the meetings, they are open to the public. So if you have a friend who goes to school who wants to come, bring them along!

If you have any questions just leave them in a comment, and I'll forward them to Steven.

Hope to see some of you there!

Welcome!

Hello!


This is a blog FOR and BY the teens of TLCI.


This is where we can share poems, stories, and artwork. This is where we can get advice, and give advice. This is where we can share things that we find interesting. This is where we can learn about opportunities that we never would have heard of otherwise.


So, if you are a teen in TLCI, and you want to contribute, e-mail me at homeschoolsara@gmail.com, and I will send you an invite to become an author (we can have up to 100 authors so don't be shy!). You will need a blogger account, which is easy and free to make.
If you don't want to become an author, but want to contribute, e-mail me your posts and I will post them for you. Make sure to tell me who to say the post is by.


You can post about absolutely anything you want, just as long as it's appropriate. If you know of any good resources, classes, opportunities, ect., please post them! (Parents - please e-mail me if you know of any, and I will post them.)
If you have questions about anything homeschool (or not homeschool!) related, this is the place to ask!
Or if you just want to post a funny youtube video you found, that's fine too :)


If you want to contribute, or have any questions, please e-mail me and we'll get this blog up and running!