Yale: Yes, I've Run Out of Alliterations

[We (my parents and I) went to Yale on Labor Day. I don't know why I didn't blog immediately about it, but I guess I got caught up with work. Anyway. This is what I remember now.]

We left pretty late, I don't remember exactly when, but it was definitely late (because I remember eating brunch). The drive to New Haven was not too bad, although it wasn't too exciting either. We had already been there once, during winter (maybe it was the holiday break?), and needless to say, a New England winter is not the prettiest thing in the world, not when the snow is day old and half-molten and icky black. Since it was so cold, we did not get to explore the campus either.

This time, we came (more) prepared. At least it was a nice day, not too cold but not too hot, and we had plenty of time to explore. There were no info sessions, but as we arrived on campus, there were lots of students everywhere. Walking. Chatting. Going to class.

They had classes on Labor Day. I was surprised, because I thought everyone (within reason) took the day off. But it was also a good thing, because we were able to see what the school was like when there are actual people there (yes, they were normal people, doing normal-people-things except for that one person with the banners condemning animal cruelty, but I don't think you can do normal things when you're advocating for a cause). We also slipped into one of their dining halls, where we got a glimpse of the food (average). My dad complained, but he doesn't like anything except Chinese food (and only some regions of Chinese food at that) so I am not surprised he was complaining. I thought it was okay—if you go by our school's cafeteria food standards.

When we left the dining hall (Hogwarts-style, I'd say, except that is overrated among colleges, it seems), I paused and tried to figure out where I wanted to go. Some friendly (albeit somewhat creepy, I have to admit) man in his mid-50s to 60s came up to us and asked, "Are you applying to Yale?"

After some introductions and explanations, I learned that this man lives around New Haven and has a Chinese wife (and stepson), so somehow this means that he stops and questions any Chinese person he sees. His stepson also went to Columbia (graduated a few years ago) and now works on Wall Street. He is an ardent fan of the Ivy League, and not so much of UConn, the state school. He believes all Chinese people are smart (my mom later said to us, "that's because it's so hard to get a visa here and usually only the smart people can come"). He also gave me some advice about schools (who knew fencing would be a good way to get into the Ivies? Now if only I wasn't so inept at all sports...) and, uh, he talked for almost two hours.

My parents eventually got his number, although they haven't called him yet.

Then we went to see the engineering and science buildings, but we detoured into the MBA building instead. There wasn't much there, just empty rooms with comfy-looking chairs, so we left. I led my parents up a hill, where we saw a floating lily/other-plants pond, which was really cool, and we even saw some fish. The rest I don't remember much. I think by this time I was tired and I wanted to leave because we couldn't get into the biology tower anyway. On our way back we saw a professor and his class sitting outside, on the grass, discussing something. Reminded me of after the AP test, when Mrs. James took us outside and we sat on the pavement while we talked about crazy things and I just tried to finish my homework (that I didn't do at home any longer). We also went into one of those buildings that is probably a residential hall, because it is really, really tall (or so the old-fashioned elevator with the iron gates that you can pull claims), and not exactly in the best condition in terms of paint. It really needs a fresh coat of paint.

So, anyway, my summary:

Overall, it's a beautiful school, if you're into antique buildings and everything (this also means possible lack of central A/C in some buildings, but hey, this is in New England, if you're not staying over the summer then it doesn't matter too much). Outdoor space is good (above Columbia, on par with Cornell when you're nowhere near a river), although it's not extremely big. City campus, after all. There are plenty of trees. Busy campus, lots of people, centralized—everything's close together. Definitely urban setting, and part of the campus is integrated into New Haven.

I liked it. I wouldn't go as far as to say I loved it—I didn't come home with a "wow, that's where I want to go" feeling—but it wasn't anything bad or even average. Maybe the peeling paint killed the mood.

The Long-Awaited Math Team Runoffs (Again)

There are so many little froshies at math team this year! I don’t know how long they’ll last (I’m hoping they’ll stick it out until at least states roll around), but it’s still very exciting. They’re so itty-bitty-small and semi-adorable! I don’t know their personality, so I can’t say completely adorable though.

Other than that, we had our expected run-offs. I did rounds 3, 5, and 6, as expected, and I have at least 10 points. Well, at least I passed! And since I’m doing harder rounds this year, that is a vast improvement. I attribute this to the lack of algebra. Algebra is weird (no matter what you say, Tea). Geometry is awesome.

Argon and I had a talk about how we never talk anymore, except during math team. This is an extremely sad situation. I need to remedy that pronto. On the other hand, I am seeing much more of Joss (who thinks he will be on the C team by himself), most likely because we share econ together and he is often with Reese, who I am trying to see more of as well. The end of HUSH has done horrors for keeping up with my sophomore/now-junior friends.

I do have some reservations about our “goal of the year,” which is, as always, “beat Treeburg.” Without Irving, this may get harder, but who knows? Maybe Treeburg has lost three of their really mathy people, and so we have a better shot this year.

But enough about math team. I’m sure next Wednesday will be even more exciting, so I’ll leave this for now. Oh, and, I now know how Mr. Booth got his nickname, thanks to ScriptShadow (my newest blog obsession that reviews movie scripts).

Interesting things of today:

• We did the coffee filter drag force lab today in physics! Really exciting, except for the fact that it's really hard to measure motion when the coffee filter is really light and drifty. Ali wanted Bryant to be in her group (less work for all those involved except Bryant), but Bryant flipped a coin (or maybe he flipped a coin in his calculator, not sure) and decided to go with Dan's group instead. Emmeline had a free before physics, so she made a really cool data chart and it was so exciting to fill it in (not so exciting to drop a coffee filter 45 times though).
• In bio we killed algae! Okay, so we left three bottles of algae alive (but two are wrapped up in foil and mesh, so I'm not sure how long they'll live either), but the last bottle we fixed with sulfates and all those cool chemicals that fix oxygen and burns the hand and so obviously have destroyed the poor little algae cells.
• For French, we went downstairs to listen to the violin guy (Alexander something? I forgot) in the library. As I was listening (and turning away when the sounds got too screeching), I spotted Mario. He now sports a very, very ugly hairstyle. As I was telling Gretchen, it seems that haircuts work opposite for girls and guys. For girls, haircuts usually mean prettier. For guys, they usually mean uglier. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe they need to train haircutters (that's not a word, I know) to learn better boy-hair styles.
• In econ, Mr. Wollen wasn't here, and Yuma, Joss and I drew on the whiteboard, creating quite an (xkcd-inspired) adventure. With chess pieces falling from the sky, nuclear clouds, and lots of angels with big, bouncy heads. There was also an integral composed of smiley faces, flowers, double-square-roots, and brains. Julie got a picture of that one on her phone.

And uninteresting things? All that work I've got to do, plus I'm reading Suicide Note right now, and it's 1905 pages long (almost twice as long as GWTW), so that will most likely take me a while (I'm also taking notes, and I don't have a lot of time to spare, so it's definitely taking me a long time to even read the first 20+ pages, when the first 10 or so pages are the table of contents).

Magically Mundane Mondays

Here is the start of another week, and the foreshadowing of a busy week to be. Or maybe it’s just because my free is in the mornings on Monday, so I am not actually getting any substantial work done, and the day just feels tremendously long.

There is a utexas due for Friday, and although at least we do not have 40 questions long utexases (what would the plural of utexas be?) anymore, they are getting harder (no more concepts MCs), so they also take quite some time. The lab for bio from last week is now due next week, because there is a part II (yay for growing algae!) upcoming tomorrow and Wednesday. I have 12 CDs worth of a novel to burn through (well, okay, I am not really burning anything because I have nothing to burn on CDs anyway), within the next month or so. Times like these I wish I had a portable CD-player (this has only happened once before, when I wanted a CD-player for the SAT IIs).

But those things are boring. I mean, I have to do them, yes, but that doesn’t make them any more interesting to listen to. So, onwards to the exciting things in life!

Math run-offs tomorrow! As I was telling Gretchen (and Sonny, although I am not sure how much he was paying attention and how much he just didn’t want to run up the stairs and away from us) this morning, I have been waiting for this day for almost a month. Really. Ever since we got our packets. I need to go over some of the coordinate geometry stuff still, but the regular geometry is good, and trig (this month anyway) is also pretty easy.

Also looking forward to seeing who’s going to (most likely) make the A-team roster (for most of the time). Bryant, definitely, and probably Tybalt too. Then there’s Mario (he says he’s going to take the run-offs during some time on his own, although he might presumably drop by—that is, if he goes to school, because I haven’t seen him in class in days). Dino and Tea and Gretchen and Yuma? Are there any more seniors now?

Non-seniors, there’s definitely Argon, although I am not sure about Joss. Micro, yes (he’s pretty much guaranteed for this round unless he flunks). Summer and Cheryl and Reno and the others? Well, we need at least one more person. Might as well be one of them.

Math team speculation is always fun. You know what this reminds me of? Fantasy sports. Maybe we can make a fantasy math team and bet on it?

Other exciting/fun things. Okay, this is in the past tense, but my dad hosted a semi-party yesterday (they called it “lunch,” as the little eight-year-old girl who came over said her mom told her, but as we—Onion and I—aptly remarked, “lunch” with company usually means a meal that spans until 7PM). My dad and some of the others started playing this weird card game that involves +10 points and “fishing for the suits,” whatever that means. So the three of us (Onion, little girl, and me) started playing some card game that I know how to play but have no idea what it’s called, while two other little girls sat/jumped on my bed. Then we went to play “Playing with Fire” on my laptop, then a few Orisinal games (they are the cutest ever), then slime tennis (which I won multiple times because Onion did not know how to serve), then Silversphere.

Then, when the little girls left, we started watching Youtube videos, most notably the Back Dorm Boys, Ultimate Showdown, Hamster Dance, and the Shamwoohoo. Onion then said that Taylor Swift’s music videos are weird (he is basing this off Love Story and the one where Swift plays the girl who’s got a million outfits in her closet and writes on a notepad her messages to her neighbor crush). All I can say is he has never been exposed to the world of weird music videos. Really.

So I showed/dissected-for him Rain’s Love Story for starters (guy in black suit wiggling his butt and having a girl vacuum all over him), then DBSK’s videos (Wrong Number—dipping phone in a glass of wine; O—semi-fantasy world where all five guys go, “Oooh, look at the birdies!” while everyone else vanishes; Triangle—bunch of fantasy fighters dancing and then some angel descends from the sky amongst a crowd in tin-foil hats), then Big Bang’s videos (Lies—girl kills boy-who-she-doesn’t-really-like with pineapple; Haru Haru—guy gets rejected by long-term girlfriend so he goes smashing things and tearing pillows apart).

We then decided we had enough of weird music videos (pity, I haven’t gotten to SHINee’s rainbow prism dance one yet), so we searched up Harry Potter versions of Tik Tok and ended with some quality OceanLab (you can’t beat OceanLab, really).

And when my Youtube minutes ran out on Chrome, we played Crazy Eights. It lasted well over an hour and when his parents finally ended the card game with my dad, we still had not finished. But it was too late (past midnight) so we never got to finish that game. Oh well. I was losing anyway.

Then this morning I thought I had missed the bus, because I woke up two minutes before the bus was supposed to come, but then I realized my clock is five minutes early, so I quickly got dressed and ran out the door, effectively waking up my parents (although I didn’t know that then).

For entertainment purposes, I suggest you go through all of the Youtube videos I’ve suggested (well, maybe not the weird MVs) unless you’ve seen them before. Especially the Back Dorm Boys. The one where they lip-synch to “We Will Rock You.” I’d link, but: a) it’s really hard to miss; and b) if I search it up I’ll get distracted and I won’t get anything done tonight.

Once Upon an Autumn

Everything wonderful. And everything painful, all at once.

. . .

My youngest cousin (who is three years older than I am) was a huge romance novel reader when she was fourteen (and I was eleven). On Chinese New Year’s, we snuck out of her condo and walked to the closest bookstore, and we spent my money that I had gotten from my relatives (in the red bags) on lots of Korean romance novels (she couldn’t buy them, of course, because my aunt would get mad at her, but no one would get mad at me since they weren’t my parents and technically did not have a right to punish me severely). My favorite was a tragedy, a story about a guy who falls in love with his half-sister and dies of some unknown illness.

At the end of the story (which my cousin read first), the half-sister and her boyfriend and her little sister and brother went to visit his grave, and the heavens poured, and the boyfriend said, “We’re here now, so you shouldn’t be crying.”

And miraculously, the skies cleared.

My cousin said that when she wrote a tragedy, she would end it with a funeral with rain as well, except she would keep the rain falling.

I thought rain was a fair tribute to the dead. A gracious gesture that they were not forgotten, and even the skies mourned for them.

In one of my prior stories, I wrote, “Heaven has always hated me. I am not lying. Every time something good happens, Heaven always takes it away from me. Every time I want to cry, Heaven makes sure only the brightest sunshine falls on my head. I want to make this perfect for you, because you only get one chance at it, you know? No rewind button. No undo key combo. We all have only this one chance, and I want to make it worthy of you. But Heaven hates me, and I can't call forth the rain I want.”

I am now reconsidering. Maybe it is not so bad to have sunshine when I feel like crying. That golden lining on the leaves as we waited outside the church makes me wonder if I had been wrong all along, that sunshine and melancholy are two very interrelated things.

. . .

Sometimes there are no words to describe emotions. Sometimes I find it hard to find the words. So I tell myself I will be short, and I start describing things, and somehow it ends up long and convoluted all the same. As if the words had a mind of their own, and they just spilled out of me (using me as their medium, rather than me using them as a medium).

I don’t know if I am supposed to write a lot or only a little, or none at all, nor do I know exactly what I am writing, but I do know that writing makes things more manageable for me, whether there is an audience or not. Whether what I am writing is logical or not. Whether it even matters.

Whether anything matters, anymore, does not matter.

Remotely, there are the faint hummings of things I should be doing, and places I should be going, and even words I should be writing (or at least I think I should be writing). It is happening a lot lately, although that is a slight stretch of the truth, because it has always happened frequently, only it hasn’t gone away yet. This sudden feeling that I no longer know what I am doing, or why I am doing it, and all that is left is a ghost of reason that only gradually makes its way to my consciousness.

And even when it does, I think I am missing the most important part of it.

. . .

The yellow flowers I thought were nice. They were a little blurred—perhaps because my glasses kept sliding off, perhaps because there was something in my eye, perhaps because I wanted fall to into that trance-like glaze that made things blurry by default.

The sunlight made it seem almost real. Like I was sitting there, plucking at the petals. Talking, perhaps. Joking. Laughing—and I had done my fair share of that—and maybe just smiling. Singing—I am awful at that, decidedly awful, not the least because I stare at notes and think they make less sense than commas. The sun made what was not reality real.

And then I reverted back to literature, to the books we read this summer, to the books I am reading now, and it is all about Reality vs. Real, as if they were two outlaws with guns cocked and tumbleweed twirling past them, each ready to shoot the other and claim its importance in the world of perception.

And then I remember that someone once said, “The two most trite subjects that generate the most crappy writing are love and death,” or something to that effect. It was a response to a newspaper article about a girl who wished someone in her family had died so she could write about it for her college essay.

So literature was out of the picture. There are times when I would rather write than read, when I would rather write tragedies and read comedies, because when I write the ideas are already there, and they hurt less because they are predictable, because I know where the knife is going to plunge and have tensed my muscles in preparation. When I read, I am always hoping for the best, and that does not always happen, and when I fall short it is a stab that, if exaggerated, may be similar to what Caesar felt when Marcus Brutus stabbed him and Caesar said, “Et tu, Brute?” (Or he did not actually say that, and it was another exaggeration of the truth by Shakespeare or whoever else it was, but that is another literature-related story.)

Anyway. I loved the serenade, but I thought the violin was too high-pitched at parts. Nothing is truly perfect. The viola is lower in pitch, but it uses a clef that is oft-ignored. The cello and bass are too low. Piano does not resound enough—it is too mellow. Flute is nice but too crisp. Saxophone has a buzzing sound. Along with trumpet and trombone and tuba, and all the brass instruments. Percussions are of course out of the picture. The organ has its redeeming qualities too, but it is too sombre at times, too formal, and evokes too many memories that should not be evoked.

And I think I am picking fault with these instruments because they are not perfect, because I am trying to find fault with the small things so as not to think about the big things. Or maybe I just really do not like raw instruments. I would not be surprised. I usually listen to heavily remixed and electronically vamped music anyway. Mostly trance. I am a huge trance fan.

Of course, then there were the golden leaves. Golden green. That is a color in a box of 64 Crayola crayons, or Yellow Green anyway. It is different from Green Yellow, so green golden must also be a different color from golden green. I am not sure which color the leaves were. Half golden, half green. Molten gold flanked with pools of emeralds.

And whoever Nick Frost is, he was also a part of the golden-green-green-golden. As were the zombies, of course. Even if autotext does not recognize it as a word.

. . .

Holding hands, we formed a circle. Layers of a circle, anyway. A mass of bulging, quivering black. The lady across from me was crying but trying not to cry. Her sunglasses hid her eyes, but her mouth was pulled tight into a frown. I stared at her, although it was probably impolite. I stared at her because I could not bear to stare at the tips of more flowers, or black-dyed cotton, or the tips of my mom’s shoes.

. . .

The little sandwiches and cupcakes were incredibly cute. Bite-sized. Of course, it depended on how big your bite was, but the cupcakes were definitely bite-sized. The egg sandwiches were okay—one had weird bread, one had weird filling. The turkey somethings were good, as were the turkey cucumber somethings. The cheese and olives and peppers on flatbread was also good. I didn’t like the white-icing-covered one.

All of this reminded me of The Gathering, where Veronica’s older brother died and the family was gathered at their old house, and everyone ate the “funeral meats,” which were anything ranging from fruits to crackers smeared with cheese (or hummus, for the vegetarian of the week) to the inevitable wine and vodka and gin and whatever else can make them drunk, even though they held the pretense of not drinking. But I am not talking literature.

The ledge is nice on the feet. Red feet that have seen much trails of gravel and asphalt. Feet with blisters.

I should have taken another bite-sized cupcake, I think now, as I am sitting in front of a too-white, too-bright screen. I really should have.

. . .

I received an email from one of Mr. Coffee’s students regarding AP chem tutoring, and I searched her name up on Google. Half of what came up was from her collab portfolio sophomore year. The other half was from our school’s theater group (is there a nickname for it?) site, and when I clicked the link and scrolled down I saw his pictures.

There is nowhere to run.

And I have a confession. I have a confession started in those white plastic chairs and solidified by Nyx’s status. And perhaps now is not the best time to make it, but it never will be, I think. With time it will disappear and perhaps will never be mentioned at all.

My confession involves fourteenth floors, balconies too high for sanity, and chocolate and knives. It involves the Grand Canyon, although it could just as easily involve the Golden Gate Bridge. It has been a part of me since (and perhaps before) I read those Korean novels, and it has continued and is a part of why I drift with the winds easier than I root myself to the ground.

It has no words. Words would distort its essence. But I think about it sometimes, and I think that I should have been there, because it is such an ingrained part of me, and I think I should have taken the role, and sometimes I think I would, if I could, and sometimes I think when faced with the reality of it I would panic and run.

Not to mention how much it would hurt them.

. . .

Everything I have not mentioned, of course, is everything that actually matters. But I have no words for those, or else I am not adequate enough to say those words, or else other people have already said them and I would be merely redundant.

Here, then, are the words that may have been missed that I am trying to write, insh'allah.

Titleless But Not Contentless

I had econ first period this morning, and we had a test (which coincided with Mrs. Pointy’s classes’ tests as well). I thought it was easy, and I told Joss so at lunch, to which he replied, “You thought it was easy? It was easy.” Well, it’s all in the word choices.

Then Reese asked, “Do you remember your first test in calc? The limits test?”

Bad memories. Very bad memories. But yes, I did remember that particular test (and numerous calc tests after that).

Reese went on to ask, “How did you do on it?”

“Pretty well,” I said. “After the curve, of course. I think I got either 91 or 95 after the curve.”

“What did you get before the curve?” Argon asked.

“I don’t remember,” I said. “Somewhere in the 70s? Maybe lower. I don’t remember. I do remember getting a 67 before the curve and having that curved up to a 91 though.”

Ah, the ridiculous AP calc curves. At least those were good memories.

That was all during first lunch. Second (and third) lunch I went to the English/social studies learning center with Yuma, and we found Clay already there. He was working on his physics homework (oh, the woes of UTexas), and after that he started to watch this video on limits for calc. The video gives this definition for a limit: “A limit is the intended height of a function.” And then it asks, “Why is this a difficult concept?”

No duh. If you word it like that, of course people are going to be confused.

I finished my Student Activity Sheet in this lunch period, and then I went off to multi with Yuma, and lots of fascinating things happened (including everyone’s discovery that we had a syllabus four weeks into the course), but I’ll just fast forward to after school, when I met up with Mrs. Grindel for my teacher recs. It was a short and very informative talk—I now know that I should probably get self-adhesive envelopes for her and Mrs. MacDonald (my other recs teacher). I hadn’t thought of that before.

I saw Clay again and we talked about frisbee (tomorrow after school, if anyone is interested), and then I went upstairs, where I saw Noah. He asked me where I was headed.

“Oh, nowhere, really,” I said. “I’m trying to find a place to go to.”

We then talked about homework (or not doing homework at home). Noah said he does all of his homework at school, and then when he goes home he just doesn’t want to do anything. I told him that I don’t feel like doing anything most of the time, but during my free Yuma’s always typing away and working so diligently, so I feel pressured to work hard as well.

I guess it’s a good thing Yuma’s in my free. I don’t know how much work I’d get done without him. I mean, he’s even figured out which learning center is most productive. He really is serious about his work.

And I should be too. First prewrite for English due tomorrow, and I should be working on that pronto.

Oh, Commenters

First of all, the Universal Online Spellcheck (whatever spellcheck Firefox and Chrome both use) does not accept "commenters" as a word, although "commenter" is a word. Seriously? What do they think the plural of "commenter" is?

Anyway, I was writing "commenters" because I was reading today's DWT email-post, and someone had asked the difference between "commenter" and "commentator," and one of the examples of a sentence using "commenter" (or "commentor," actually) is "The 6 Types of Commentors—Do You Know Them? I searched the title in Google, and I also found "10 Types of Blog Comments" which is similar.

And of course, I read the comments, and Mark Shea recommended Flame Warriors, which I will now recommend to you. It is a pretty accurate depiction of the many types of people in the Vast World of Forums.

But things about me. Because evidently I have an absolute advantage (and possibly a comparative advantage too) at talking about things about me, since no one else can really do that. I've pretty psyched for the first econ test, not because I know I'll do well (I am hoping that though), but because econ is also amazingly fun and I love it. I am not so much looking forward to the "12 Golden Labs of AP Bio," because one of these labs will end up as an essay question on the AP test, and I would rather not have to worry about AP tests this early.

(We played with sulfamic acid today though! I had no idea sulfamic acid—molecular formula: H3NSO3—even existed before now, but according to Wikipedia it's when you replace an -OH group on sulfuric acid with -NH2, and that is pretty cool.)

There was also another Bryant-lapse in physics today (I am calling all those times when Bryant misses something "Bryant-lapses"). They are becoming rather common in physics, and they're not even tricky questions. He's still well-above coherent in multi (which reminds me, what was our multi homework, if any? was it the figuring out the second derivative with respect to t question?), so it's probably just in physics.

Weird.

On a side note, we're getting our first physics test back on Friday! I can't wait to see who's going to get the first yellow pencil. And if it's not Bryant, then I'll get to see who else I need to keep tabs on as a "potential pencil competitor." Yay!

Decisions, decisions...

I am deciding between two topics for my common app essay. I have one that I have already shown Gretchen (or the basic framework of it anyway), and that one is about my physical journey from China to the US to Canada to China to Canada to the US again. This is what I shall henceforth call the “concrete” one, because, well, you’ll see.

Halfway through this essay, and many “this is bad you should change it this-way-and-that-way” remarks from my parents later, I started on my Chicago extended essay. The weird one. I chose the first prompt, “Find x,” and I wrote something that used a road trip as a metaphor for life. I really like this one as well, so I’m calling it the “abstract.” And of course, I am not sure which one I should go with, because both have their merits and, of course, their pitfalls.

The concrete is my experiences, and it is physically real, but it is also somewhat complicated (because life is complicated, I know) and somewhat too serious and grandiose for my liking. I feel like I am trying to say, “This is what I went through, this is what happened as a result of that, and this is who I am now.” That is, of course, part of the point, but it seems too focused on things I am not focused on, because although my past is important, I would rather look to the future.

The abstract captures that part of me, the future. It has plenty of really cool metaphors (or so I think, anyway), and there is a lot of self-searching and adventure-trekking. It, however, does not speak much about my past except for one line about how many places I have lived in or visited, and so it may seem not quite rooted in reality. It was, after all, originally my essay for Chicago and therefore based on the assumption that whoever reads this essay has read my common app essay as well.

Of course, being the indecisive person I am, I couldn’t decide. I asked Dino if he would choose the concrete or the abstract (in those exact words, without mentioning my essay), and he said, “I’m a big concrete fan. Like 2+2=4 all the time.” Not surprising, coming from him.

So that is—

Concrete: 1
Abstract: 0

Any other votes? A sample size of one is definitely too small for any tests of statistical importance.

It's a Small, Small World

My parents went out today to get my dad's passport photos taken, but since we have Canadian passports, he had to get specific pictures that have to abide by a host of rules. Like certain size requirements, no hands in pictures, no tilted faces, and of course, no smiles. I don't know why, but these requirements somehow makes for ugly pictures. I have always hated my passport photos with a passion.

Anyway, because his photo had to follow those rules, he couldn't get them from the post office (which normally takes photos for US passports). Instead, my parents went to find a professional photographer, and I presume explain the rules to take a custom picture.

They came back an hour or so later, and as my mom walked in she asked, "Was there a freshman in your English class sophomore year?"

I, obviously confused, said, "No. Why?"

"The son of our photographer said he was in your English class freshman year. What's his name again—Camet—wait, let's see if you recognize the last name from the business card."

She took the card out, and I realized it was Cameron. We never shared an English class together, but I was in his French class, so perhaps he confused the two. I mean, English, French. Big difference.

But speaking of Cameron. (I guess this is the pitfall of having nicknames that resemble real names.)

I had this typed up already.

. . .


Again with the thoughts.

. . .

I spent my car ride to the border (a good five or six hours, not including food time) and back thinking, as usual.

We left at 11 the night before, because my dad was intent on having me come back on time to finish my homework and other things I need to write. I was bringing the pillows and blankets out to the car, and I stared up at the sky, and it was breath-taking. I can’t see very well (I need new prescriptions for my glasses), but I could still make out a lot of the stars twinkling in the sky. (Although I have read somewhere, but I forgot where, that “twinkling” is not the best word to use in these situations because it implies happiness.) Silver-diamonds against a soft, satiny night.

I wanted to cry. I think I did.

There were a lot of things I wanted to say, but instead we drove towards that small Vermont town with the funny name and lies half-here, half-there. I slept for most of the way there, sat in a small room trying to eavesdrop on two people speaking French in front of me, then stared out the window on the way back. I thought I’d read awhile, but decided not to at the last minute.

There are some things you can’t say out loud.

. . .

These nights, I dream about running. I am running away from something—I don’t know what. I am just running, and someone, or something, is chasing me, and I must run as fast as I can and climb over fences and jump across rivers. I am fleeing, fleeing, and I am not fleeing fast enough. I am a goner, I think, I am going to die. I am in the panic between running and giving up, I want to scream, to shield myself from the inevitable, and then, and then, and then I wake up.

There is a lurching in my stomach, and maybe my heart, but that is it. The feeling fades. No more. Until the next time I am running, but I do not see the pattern until several nights in, when I wake up and there is a déjà vu moment, and I realize that I have been dreaming the same things all these nights.

. . .

I saw Cammie Thursday. At lunch, with Yuma. Upset over English, and many other things, and suddenly, she was there. In a black skirt.

I called out her name. She came and sat with us. We talked about some things. English, I think. Guidance stuff. Yuma asked about math. I am not sure how well I handled the situation. I was afraid to say anything beyond the trivial. Wasn’t sure what she wanted. Wasn’t sure if I could give it to her.

I would have wanted to forget, but that is because I am constantly running away from reality. I am not sure that is what everyone would want. I am not sure if that is even the best thing. If I make the best decisions. If it even matters, because I am not as rational as I would like to be (despite Mr. Wollen’s claims that we are all rational beings).

. . .

I cut across the the narrow gap between the two cars, and as I was walking, someone called, “What’s up?” I spun around, trying to look at who was talking, and tripped over the curb and fell. The car full of boys—no doubt it was them—laughed. I had never seen them before, but they were probably seniors (or maybe juniors, but then they would be conducting illegal business in driving each other around).

Thank you. I hadn’t realized I was so clumsy before. Thank you so much for reminding me.

They drove off. I do not know if they will remember me. I don’t think I’ll remember them. I was always bad with faces.

It’s a good thing. I wouldn’t know what to say even if I did see them again.

. . .

Gretchen said that Tea looked nerdy. And that I looked smart. And that Bryant looked both nerdy and smart. I would say that Bryant always looks like he can read my mind. Every time I am doing something, and I catch his gaze, he looks like he can see some deep, dark secret I have (and I don’t have any, or at least I’m not thinking of any when I happen to be around him), and I freak out and look away.

It is getting on my nerves. He needs to stop staring at people like that. Unless he does it on purpose, to make people think he knows more than he actually does. Or he can actually read my mind, and oh my god that is not good.

I am considering transferring into his English class (not the best decision, according to him, but the other choice is Brit Lit and there is someone there I would rather not be with right now). I don’t think I will—Caribbean is not my favorite style of writing—and I don’t really want to leave my English class right now either.

But if I did, and I changed my bio class into period 8 (because then it would be free), then I would share 3.5 classes with Bryant, and maybe 4 if I changed my area studies. It is all possible, although all unlikely. With Bryant, I am unwilling to sacrifice too much. Or maybe I am, in general, unwilling to sacrifice too much now. Because there is too much pain associated with sacrificing. And it won't always end well.

. . .

This week was awful. Beyond awful, but I don't have words to describe it. But I have figured out both equations to my take-home portion of the multi test, and that is due next week, so I am grasping onto hope (even if I only have a few strands of it). I am hoping tomorrow (and the next week, and the next month, and the next year) will be better.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

I never knew him.

I have heard about him, yes. But I have only known him as Cammie’s brother, or something to that effect. Never tried to know more about him. Never really knew him. Never even began to know him.

Never will. I'll regret that, even as I try hard not to regret.

And Fate, I know you hate me. I know you’re cruel, and you’re apathetic, and you smile when I twist and turn in the middle of nowhere and you take the hope away from me, piece by piece.

But please.

Let him be. I think he deserves at least that.

Never Make Promises You Can't Keep

Or, in my case, never make promises, period. Apparently I'm really good at attracting last-minute change in plans, because this has happened to me quite often in the past week. There was Tuesday, when I promised to get math packets for Summer and Cheryl, and then conveniently Ms. Sherbert ran out of packets. Then today, when I told Zephy that: a) I can go to fashion/jewelry/whatever-it-is-now club on Wednesday, and b) I'll be able to give her a ride home tomorrow.

Guess what?

My dad has a dentist's appointment tomorrow, all the way in New York (the state), and it's in the afternoon and my mom is going as well, so they're coming back later at night. If the weather's nice tomorrow, though, I won't mind walking. It's just—

My mom also told me today that we're going all the way up to Vermont on Wednesday to get our visas straightened out (since my dad is planning to move to Florida and everything). That is going to be fun. I'll be missing extended multi, which is rather sad, but I'll also be missing crucial review-day-before-first-test physics, which is not good at all since I'm aiming for that pencil. And I'll be missing a bio lab, which is also not good, because I am rather bad at reading bio labs. The actual labs themselves make sense. The boggy text, not so much.

But enough about my future. Today, in econ, we talked about the classic guns and butter, otherwise known as the production possibilities frontier. It was pretty easy to understand (especially the part about cows making guns), and I loved the graphs. Graphs are so nice when I don't have to draw them by hand. After econ was French, and since that was uneventful (my French teacher is almost always late to class, probably because she has to go from the first floor to the third floor, so I spend the extra time trying to look into Mrs. Cumulonimbus's class), then I went to English. Cammie wasn't here today, and we had an in-class essay.

I was freaking out (a little) about the in-class essay, because I usually don't finish those on time (or I write not so much compared to other people), but this time I actually finished ahead of time with a neat conclusion and everything. So I am surprised and not quite sure where this newfound skill in essay-writing came from, but I will assume it's because we're writing more in class now (we get free-write minutes before every class, which is really cool).

Then, on the bus, I discussed the chem test with Yuma (something about X and F, and I remember that remotely but definitely not enough to know the answer without doing the question out). I still miss chem. A lot. I wish there was a period 7 chem class, so I can drop by and say hi and everything. Oh well. Can't have everything in life.

Not Now, Professor Snape

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are in a room that looks suspiciously like my living room, except with more red cushions scattered everywhere. They are discussing something, but I (if I even exist, at this point) can’t hear what they are saying. No matter. Snape to the rescue! He barges into the room and asks, “Where is your wand, Potter?”

“Here, Professor,” Harry says, while pulling out something that looks like the end (that you hold) of those wooden things people use with honey. I’m not sure what they are called. Ron and Hermione both pull out these weird wooden rods as well.

“What are these?” Snape asks. I am surprised he has not exploded and docked 100 points each from Gryffindor for their insolence.

“They’re wands, Professor,” Hermione says, as though it were the most obvious thing since the Basilisk killed people. “We bought them. There’s even a review questionnaire we can fill out on how well these wands work.”

“So do they work?”

Hermione used her wand and tapped at the paper. Nothing happened. “Well,” she says, “it sometimes works if you tilt it the right angle. But the makers respect customers’ privacy, so we gave it an F+.”

“It doesn’t work,” Snape says. “I’m giving it an F-. But how will you protect yourselves when the Death Eaters come?”

“Oh, we have a plan.”

And they call out some white-haired girl, and Snape is about to ask, “How is she going to help you?” But the Death Eaters come at this moment, and they shout, “YOU TRAITOR, SNAPE!!!”

Well. I don’t think he’s going to be asking many questions right now.

They run up to punch Snape (uh, what about wands, people?) but the white-haired girl does some really cool magic trick (finally! magic...) and repels the Death Eaters. Snape sighs in relief. And then—

I woke up. Yeah. Not too exciting anymore. I hate it when I wake up right in the middle of some really cool action. But I guess it’s out of my control. REM periods are only so long.

Anyway, I have decided upon a new approach for my Penn essay (this one is actually going well), and while I was doing research, I came across their food vendor’s map. Below, they have notes on where to find different restaurants and such, and I saw:

3. Original Le Anh Chinese Food,

and

5. The Real Le Anh Chinese Food.

Gee. I never knew Le Anh Chinese Food was so popular. Does that mean that #3 is a fake and #5 is a copycat that copied #3? But that would be a paradox, because then #5 wouldn’t be real either, so it’s not “The Real” anymore. And if it’s not “The Real” anymore, then #3 wouldn’t have to be fake, and then #5 wouldn’t have to be fake either, and—

Complicated. I am so glad #3 Fruit Salad and #4 Fruit Salad did not decide to add prefixes as well.

A 250-Word Fortune (Cookie Slip)

I don’t know what the admissions people are thinking.

Even the fact that I’m referring to them as “the admissions people” prove that I am out of tune with them. I am sure they are individuals with vibrant personalities and a love for their school, but it’s hard to imagine that when I’m imagining them reading my essay. All I can imagine is a room lit with some overhead lamp and a wooden desk with tons of qualified students’ essays in a pile, and my essay is being read, and there’s no face associated with that person. I just can’t do it.

I am having trouble writing my Penn essay. The essay people at CC say is just a revamped (and more specific) version of the traditional “Why Penn” essay. I beg to differ. In my (truthful) “Why Penn” essay, I would write, “I fell in love with Penn from the first day I heard of it, which was in a crossword puzzle from the New York Times.” And that would most likely not go well, but that is what I think when I hear, “Why Penn?”

In this new essay, I am supposed to explain what I am going to do when (if) I go to Penn. Honestly? I don’t think I can tell you that, and if I did, it’ll most likely be a lie. Two years ago I thought I’d be taking precalc this year, not to mention two frees and (if I was lucky) maybe stat. And you know how that one turned out. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think I can appreciate all of what Penn is like just from their website and a rainy-day tour (which I haven’t written about yet). I know there are things that I am going to find fascinating that I don’t even know about yet. And I know I’m supposed to write with what I know now, but it just doesn’t feel real.

It’s all too trite, I think.

I’m writing about how I love math (isn’t that one obvious?) and how I want to major in math. But there’s only so far I can go with this. I’m talking applied, and connections, and fundamental skills, and they’re rolling on my tongue but they’re so detached I don’t think this is what I really want. I mean, I want the math, yes. But I want to experience moments of, “Aha! I can solve this problem using that technique I learned in math class!” I want those moments, not just talks of theory and abstract problems. I guess that’s also a reason I never quite liked algebra. Too abstract and intangible, unlike geometry (well, the geometry we’re learning, anyway).

This essay isn’t really tangible, either. It’s asking me to imagine the intangible, conditional future. For one, I have to be accepted first (and that, in turn, depends in part on this essay). I’m afraid to imagine that (in case I jinx it) but I could if I had to. Then I have to not change my mind, because if I do I don’t know what I’ll change it to (and if I did know I think I’d change my mind right now). And then, I’ve got to imagine a limited, lackluster Penn, because a few lines of text and some blurry pictures don’t quite capture the spirit of things, and I’ve got to imagine what I’m going to do in this toned-down version of the school.

I’m also sad they took away the autobiography optional essay. I rather liked that one. Yes, it can also be about the future (and its intangible qualities), but it’s more creative. I know everyone wants to know if these applicants (myself included) are best suited for the schools, but they have got to realize that people are applying to lots of schools that ask the same question, and beyond the first school (that gut-feeling school) I don’t think anyone can really say too many passionate things (there must be a reason why these schools weren’t chosen as “the one”).

Yes, I am frustrated. I can write hundreds of words for this post, and for my Chicago extended essay, and even for MIT, but those 250 words Penn is asking me to write is eluding me. And I wish I knew how to get over this semi-writer’s block (or would it be an essayist’s block?) and just finish writing my essays and be done with it. I wish I knew.

So, basically, I want to know both what the admissions people are thinking, and also what my subconscious mind is thinking. I guess the latter is easier to achieve, because I really want to go into researching neuroscience and especially the subconscious mind and dreams. As for the former, perhaps that will happen after I am accepted into college and when (if) I help out with the admissions people.

Matters of the Heart

My faithful readers, I have a confession to make. I don't know how my heart works (okay, this is very obvious, I admit). I am also an awkwardness magnet, or, as Faith from Sparknotes said, "full of awkwardsauce." In more practical terms, I (and this is a rather open admission to a sea of who-knows-who Internet readers—I mean, who are you, really, Java reader? I'd like to know) happen to not really like any guy who seems to like me.

This, of course, is problematic. And I, of course, have no solution whatsoever.

So I don't know why I'm writing this, except to basically put this out there and get it over with.

Anyway, today was really nice. I learned another month of calculus in one day, some more basic chem, and discussed our (Cammie and my) discovery that the "Welcome Home, Our Sophie Mol" play is remarkably similar to the musical the twins went to see (they both started out happy, happened because of Sophie Mol, had something tragic happen in-between, and never truly ended). Well, we had also tried really hard not to say, "It's interesting that..." whenever we're talking about something interesting, and that didn't really work (Mr. Littney also happened to write "interesting" on Cammie's poem thesis). And, of course, multi was really fun and, as always, too short. After multi, I saw Argon (who just had calc), and he asked me, "When is the pace of the class the fastest?" To which I replied, "All the time." I guess I should have added "before May 5th," or whatever the new AP day is, but I think he got the general idea.

I think I can conclude that I like Fridays. Thursdays too, those are nice. And so are Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. And, well, I'm sure Mondays are fantastic too. And I don't know if there's a day in the week I don't like anymore, and that is a little unnerving but I guess it can't be bad.

Also, I have less homework this year than I did last year (so far), so I've been spending lots of time reading random things, such as this NYT article that makes me think my habit of procrastinating (and therefore studying in various corners of the school) is actually more productive than I thought it would be. Who would've guessed?

What Are The Chances (if all variables are independent)?

This morning, in homeroom, as we were getting out planners (completely black, which is boring, but that means colors will show up better in it), I took a seat near the front because there were only a few people there at the time. I waited in line, got everything I needed, and sat down to write my bio lab, when Lauretta walked in.

Apparently, her friend was sitting in front of me, because she took the chair next to mine and sat down. The two of them then went on lengthy discussions of colleges (while coloring in college names with fluorescent pens), including Washington University (the St. Louis one), where Lauretta wants to go. Or maybe it was one of the schools she wanted to go to. It’s kind of hard to pick up information when you’re not part of the conversation.

It was awkward, I suppose, but it was also really weird because our last homeroom (a week ago), I sat in the very back, and Lauretta still managed to sit next to me. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that she was doing this on purpose, but that can’t be because I can’t imagine why she’d do such a thing.

I did manage to finish most of my bio lab, and I finished everything I could do in physics, while the new-to-calculus people learned another month’s worth of calculus in 50 minutes (I also realized that most of the new-calc people were in my algebra class sophomore year, which is kind of neat). Then I started on my math packets (they’re going surprisingly well, considering they’re the harder rounds this time), and one of the questions mentioned a dilated triangle, and I had no idea what that was. I asked Bryant, and he didn’t know either. (He also incorrectly calculated 6^3/3, which was shocking. Perhaps he’s too stressed right now for some reason.)

Yuma searched online and found out that dilated triangles just mean that you multiply the coordinates by whatever the dilation constant is. I would provide a link, but he found it on his iPod, so I didn’t get to see the web address. I don’t get this whole dilation thing, and it sounds a lot like dialysis, which was what we were doing in bio today (shortened lab period). All sugary goodness.

During my free, Yuma and I tried to find other people with our frees, and failed miserably. So we played a round of go, in which I threw magnetic go pieces at the board and miraculously managed to attack some of Yuma’s pieces (even if I failed later), a round of connect-five (which I also lost), and then we walked down the art wing, where the lights were out for some reason, and it was nice and spooky. Then, at the end of the period, I saw Archie and Noah on the bridge, so I asked them, “Do you have a free right now?”

“Yes,” Archie said. “Why?”

“Well, I’m compiling a stalker list of a lot of people and their schedules, and I’m trying to figure the schedules out.”

That was probably not the best thing to say, but they weren’t really freaked out, and Archie supplied that he dropped period 2 physics (my physics class) for AP chem with Dr. Cans. I guess that’s why we didn’t see him in physics today. I never would have guessed (or realized, I suppose, until a few weeks later, which just goes to show how well I observe things).

Raining Down

This is way too long to be anything near my Williams supplement essay (nor is it going to be anything near what my final essay will look like in terms of subject, because this is not really reality), but it is a start. I have not (extensively) proofread this, and there definitely will be mistakes. This is merely my exploratory take on the subject, because exploratory works are all the rage lately.

. . .

My fingers are millimeters away from the rain.

I can feel their coolness on the tips of my fingers, feel them drip past my skin, into my bones. A trickling sensation. Spatter-spatter-splot. I hear the drumming of the raindrops and hear them against my skin. Goodness rain.

Outside, the grass is a saturated green. Long, wispy strands reaching out to a solemn grey sky. “Do you know the time?” The grass asks. “Five-after-two,” the sky replies.

The grass nods. Happy. The rain splashes on. They are singing some tune, a drum affair, with a scattering of xylophone notes and the occasional flute. I trace the rain as they dance across the sky, their footsteps light. A free-style salsa in a funeral. With only harmony and no melody, or only rhythm without harmony.

I reach out, trying to bridge the last few millimeters, and everything turns mute. The rain is merely a humming now. The green washed with silvery-grey. The cold, the wind, it is all gone, except for the vents blowing cold air into my elbows.

It is ten-after-two, or fifteen-after-two. I do not know—I cannot know unless I turn the key in the ignition, and if I do that then I will lose the quiet. And as I think that, I know I have already lost it. I am back where I was. In a Ford Taurus station-wagon at some service area on Interstate 90. Behind the windshield, overlooking the rain, the grass, and the cars zooming past, ghosts of what they are.

I do not know how I had missed the cars before. They are there, in the parking lot, blues and reds and blacks. People running by under umbrellas, under coats, under backpacks slung over their heads. And I do not know how I had missed the people. They are going somewhere, with their iced coffees and Happy Meals and cigarettes soaked through the box but only damp inside. They are turning keys. Lights. Motors. Plates from Tennessee and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Indiana. The rare one from New Hampshire. The one from Florida that is everywhere. The bright red California—no, that is a Massachusetts.

I sit in my car, my feet cold from the rain, my arms cold from the air conditioning. The key is in my hand, waiting to settle. It is at least fifteen-after-two now. I should be leaving. It is late.

The grass shouts, “You do not belong here.” The sky agrees. “You have places to be. Things to see. People to meet.” Their voices are muted. Muffled screaming.

I know. I know.

I am on the crossroads. I came from a past of wandering, of staking out new territories and discovering new adventures. Years of searching and floating, fleeting “Hi how are you?” and “Sorry I have to go.” And now I am driving. I am in control of the steering wheel, with twenty bottles of water in the trunk and a box of energy bars on the backseat. A small bag with two sets of clothes. Toothbrushes, toothpaste. Soap. Shampoo. An umbrella thrown in that I will probably never use except to poke at things stacked on tall ledges.

Goodness rain. I am almost there.

Ten years of waiting. Of plotting. Of knowing I want to go somewhere, wherever it is.

I want a coffee. I suddenly want a coffee so badly I shove the keys into my pocket and grab a few dollars’ worth of change. One third coffee, one third cream, and one third milk and hot cocoa. Cinnamon hazelnut coffee. With a sprinkle of oatmeal, and tapioca pearls too, if possible. But I am okay with just the coffee and cream and milk and hot cocoa.

I am about to leave when my cell rings. I pick it up. Private caller. “Hello?”

“Hi, Ginny, it’s me,” my mother says. “Where are you now?”

Somewhere. Nowhere. In the middle of nowhere. “I’m on I-90 right now,” I say. “At some service area.”

“How much further?” Because I have a destination. Somewhere. I look at the map sprawled on the seat next to me. Count the increments. Ten miles. Twenty. Fifty.

“Sixty miles,” I say. “I think. I don’t really remember what the last sign said.”

“You’re only there?”

“I stopped for lunch,” I said. I did not mention that I went off the highway for an hour, driving through town after town in the misty rain, trying to envision a destination somewhere in the heart of this land.

“Oh, okay,” my mother says. “Don’t drive too fast.” Her way of saying, “Drive safely.”

As she hangs up I put my hand against the glass, fingers splayed. It is half-past-two. I remember I have more clothes in the trunk. An entire suitcase of them. My mother and I had packed them a few days ago, before she left for China with my father and I left for wherever it is I am going. I have other things, too. A blanket. Two pillows. Several bedsheets. Some books salvaged from the tag sale.

And I remember. I have a destination. I am going somewhere. Not nowhere. Sixty miles away.

I am going off to college. Going, going. To be places, see things, meet people. Break through this windshield-mute. Listen to the rain on my hands, on my nose, on my lips. Drumming. Coolness seeping into my bones. Soaking into my blood.

I think I am ready.

. . .

Or not. I don’t think I am ready. Not yet, anyway, although I will have to be soon. Meadow’s Walk (I don’t really know her real name) has a blog, in which she said yesterday, “Remember when you were a freshman in high school, you walked down the hall in a blur of strangers, lost in the wilderness? And remember when you were a senior, and you could not go 5 steps without saying hi to someone you knew. Then you knew it was time to move on. It's like that.”

It really is like that. I can’t go by a single hallway without knowing someone, and in passing time alone, I’ll be able to talk with someone while I’m walking to my classes, all the time. I still remember my sophomore year (because I missed out on the whole freshman experience) when I didn’t know anyone, and I really thought I’d get lost in so huge a school, and now I know where I’m going without even thinking about it. I know where I’m going and I know how long it’ll take me and I know how much time I have to linger out in the halls, talking with people before class.

So it’s time to move on, almost, but not yet, and I’ll be damned if I let some college essay stop me from enjoying my last year of high school.

A New Year, A New... Math Team?

I thought that an explanation of math team rules would be good for anyone who is not familiar with the system, because it can be confusing. However, it appears that a readily available version of the rules online is hard to find, because on my first try all I found was this Massachusetts Mathematics League (MML) site, which mentions:

MML follows the guidelines set forth by MIAA/MSSAA (www.miaa.net).

MIAA is the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. Fitting, considering it's been proven before that math is definitely a sport.

Of course, I found the rules on Choate's site later (why does their school have a website for math team and we don't? I think this is one of the reasons why we have so few underclassmen). As it mentions, NEAML's rules are the same as the CSAML rules, which are the same as our rules (except for no calculators on team round and we follow small-school rules regardless of size). As it also mentions, "Postgraduates are not permitted to compete in the NEAML contest."

This is apparently very important, because in 1989, one school had no idea such an unwritten rule (at the time) existed and brought a postgraduate, so they won 89 points as opposed to the 50+ points the next best school had. And this rule was only enforced since 2005.

Yay for math team trivia!

Anyway, I am talking about all of this because we had math team today! I had no idea, though, until I met with Argon during lunch and he said that Micro told him. Apparently either Bryant or Tybalt was supposed to call me (this is from Ms. Sherbert, so I am not sure how well that was executed), but that is probably impossible because: a) they do not have my phone number, and b) I am not in the directory, so they can't even find me if they wanted to. Which they most likely did not, because I saw Bryant and/or Tybalt multiple times today, and they mentioned no such thing.

This lack of information also spread to "the girls," as they are now called, so at least it's not just me. And, of course, because they were not there, Argon and Micro were the only non-seniors, and that is problematic, because we can only have three seniors.

On round sign-up, so many people chose the latter rounds, so competition will probably be tough. Not that it was any surprise—there's Bryant (who will most likely always go), Tybalt, and then there's I-don't-know-about-Mario. I saw him earlier, so maybe he did not get the message either. I am aiming for geometry, as always (I don't understand why people don't like that round), and I am slightly better at coordinate geometry now. Slightly. I did one of the problems relatively quickly. Mass improvement.

I just hope the run-off questions won't be picked from past NEAML questions. Those tend to be significantly harder.

Of course, math team is also a social event. I got to see Yuma (okay, so I did share a free with him right before), Tea, Gretchen, Argon, and even Micro (who did not know that Yuma was called Yuma—he just knew what Yuma looked like). Dino also has a new, purple shirt. I like purple, and I guess it looks nice on him (although this is highly biased because by now I think anything not navy looks nice on him). Yuma also had a purple shirt, on Friday, and he had a new, grey shirt today. I like the new wardrobe change (well, I really, really like purple dress shirts and the like), which I think came from his trip to Taiwan. He also has a lot of new, cute things. Amazingly cute things.

Now why doesn't Bryant follow suit and get some new, non-back-full-of-distracting-designs shirts?

A Little Nonsense

I usually don't write one-liner paragraphs (sentences?) in consecutive order, but I wanted to give it a try.

I only sing for Nate.

I don't know if he ever hears me singing, but I do sing for him, and I only sing for him.

There are a lot more things I only do for Nate.

Such as writing about Nephria.

Yes, Nephria really is a place.

Nate did not come from Nephria—he is from Kaniol—but he and Nephria are the same to me.

So I write for Nate, and I write about Nephria.

I think Nate reads what I write, and I think it hurts us both when he reads.

About Allie, I mean, and the edge, and not being able to stop my precarious wanderings.

We are always an eternity apart.

So I write.

And he sings.

I can always hear him singing—he has a beautiful, fountain-clear voice.

He sings what I write, and I write what he sings.

It is not intentional, of course—we just happen to think about the same things.

The things that keep us apart, and bring us together, and make us realize how ridiculous we are.

Because I love him, if only I could say that.

I can't.

And so we are an eternity apart, and while I can still hear his voice resounding in my ears, I am writing. This.

I know what valence means, thank you for asking

Okay, so I know that a significant portion of my class are sophomores who have never taken chem before, or have only started taking chem. I think it's a huge loss for them, but, alas, our school's system is such that we learn biology first, then chemistry, then physics, which makes little sense because you use physics to explain chemistry, and you use chemistry to explain biology.

Anyway. I acknowledge that. I know most people don't have "metal oxide + water = base" in their heads, and the majority of my class probably does not know that all nitrates are soluble, but hydroxides are only soluble with alkali metals and the heavier alkaloid metals. I don't expect them to know that. I didn't even know that until last year.

Still. To be talking about "Na + Cl = NaCl!" is, well, really mind-blowing. In the bad way. Every single science textbook that I have ever, ever read (except for the physics one) mentions sodium and chloride, and, guess what? Sodium chloride. Every single one. I really don't think it's that hard to realize that, whoa, a metal and a gas comes together to form the stuff you over-sprinkle on your food.

I guess I am overreacting a little, because I spent 45 minutes doing absolutely nothing (well, okay, not nothing, I did draw a few pictures) while everyone else talked about basic chemistry. We are having a test on this thing in a week. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen (not in that order, of course). Trace elements. And a good dose of electron shells and elements and compounds and I'll bet organic chemistry.

FON, FON, FON. (It's a chem joke Mr. Turkey shared with us one day.)

In physics, Mrs. Cumulonimbus (back from sending her daughter off to college) said we would be learning basic calculus next week, which means derivatives, integrals, and u-sub. The last one got quite a few groans (well, there were groans for all of them from the people who were just starting to take calc). I always forget if u-sub is the LIPET one, or if it's the other one. They both involve u's.

But the physics calculus, so far, is easy. I've already finished the utexas due next Friday, and it's basic stuff. Nothing harder than integration of polynomials. I'm a little sad that we're not going to see shells, but I can live with that. Maybe.

After that, in English, Cammie and I discussed our Creeper Lists, among other things, like how I am horrible at music (I'm tone-deaf and therefore I can never tell if I'm playing something right or not when I'm playing harmony—which is almost always with the bass—unless someone kindly tells me). I would mention more, but this would involve adding people to labels and I would rather not do that.

So. Instead. I shall end this here and get back to my French and econ homework, and perhaps figure out how to approach the subject of my many, many clubs. I can't believe it's Friday already. (I also can't believe I missed yesterday's Project Runway review. I must be really out of it.)

Quand nous étions en classe d'anglais

Mario insisted on talking about math.

There are, of course, plenty of Mario stories I can tell from today's English class. In fact, being in Mario's English class may prove to be a unique experience altogether, but I digress. These stories start, obviously, with Mario's arrival into the classroom, fashionably late, with a cup of coffee in his hand.

Then, during self-introduction/name-a-book time, he said, "I really like the Redwall books. The mice books. It's about a lot of—rodents—and, uh, then there's the part where you get to read about rodents killing each other."

Or something to that effect. I forgot his exact words. I think everyone was busy laughing at him, anyway.

After the introduction round, Mr. Littney tried to recite everyone's name. He came to Mario and couldn't remember his name. Mario replied, "It's a plain vanilla name," which obviously helped. Then, Mr. Littney confused Mario with Lyle, which I am not sure how that happened, but luckily Lyle had arrived late with a pink note, so Mr. Littney just referred to the note.

During discussion time, we were talking about the Aciman article, and Archie said he felt cheated because the author eventually revealed that not all that he write about (even supposedly non-fiction and memoirs) is real. Mario sprung into a detailed discussion that can, to the best of my ability, be broken down into the following points:

• people fit into templates
• different people think in different ways
• these different ways can be described as a 3D space, where the real is on a line, and the not-so-real is on some plane
• of course, this 3D space is only an analogy, and analogies don't really work all the time

This soliloquy took around 5-10 minutes, and English class promptly ended soon afterwards. I would have gladly reminded him of real/imaginary/complex numbers in a Cartesian plane to further his analogy, but I'm not sure Mr. Littney could have stood any more Mario-talk for at least half an hour (if not more). He even started to half-interrupt near the end of Mario's soliloquy.

At lunch, I saw Argon (and I finally returned his number theory notes), Gretchen, Yuma (well, okay, so we had a free together), Tea, Nyx, and numerous other people (I remember Kathrya, but not who else was there). Yuma and I played a game of go, in which I lost miserably, and then Yuma played Nyx, in which she also lost miserably. And there really isn't any purpose to bringing these people up, I suppose, except to promote equality among the number-count it was a great day, complex multi problem included. Lovely day.

A New Beginning

I think this was the title to one of my blog posts. Not this one, of course, but one of my WordPress blogs, or something similar, back when I was still a careless blogger and my blogs had fewer than four posts in total.

So. First day of school. Semantics, really (as compared to syntax, which requires more careful thought, but I think comparing school to linguistic terms would probably draw plenty of blank eyes). A lot of "this is what we're going to teach you," and a lot more of "this is what we expect from you." I have four syllabi (which is not a word, according to Blogger spellcheck) already, all pretty much useless because I will never, ever refer to them, ever.

And even if I did, I would do so online, not flip through several sheets of paper. But that is another story.

My French class went well (as well as it can go when I was only there for the last 15 minutes), and so did physics, which is right next door to my French classroom. I saw Dino as I went in, and he said, "Ginny," to which I responded, "Bonjour," because I was still in a French mindset (plus I was kind of shocked he was talking to me—he usually doesn't do that unless necessary). Nyx is across the hall from me (during French, that is), and so we both have very short distances to travel when going to physics, but alas that won't happen anymore because periods 1 and 7 have switched. Pity. (At least we can still walk together from multi on Thursdays.)

All of my other classes were also pretty good as well. Lots of people I know for most of my classes (I don't know about biology or middle east yet), and Yuma is in my free for the entire year! So I guess even with the not-so-good arena time, all of my classes are splendid, and I am so excited about the rest of the year. Especially because I don't have lab lunches anymore. I love regular lunches.

On the other spectrum (the one oft talked about and most dreaded), I talked with Mrs. MacDonald today, and we'll have to be talking soon about teacher recs. That means I have to hunt down Mrs. Tallchief as well, unless I want to ask someone else (I'm still not sure yet). Fun. Not really.

Well, at least I finished most of my homework (I still have to read and annotate the Aciman article for English—or at least I think it's that article, I didn't really hear Mr. Littney that clearly), and all my binders are (so far) organized, which is a good start.

I'll hope for the best.