DISCLAIMER: The following is not meant to be taken seriously. The author and her friends do not wish harm upon any animal. Mosquitoes and flies aside.
Anyway.
Zephy and I were on the bus today, and we passed by the dog park. I pointed out that a lot of people were walking dogs, and then I asked Zephy, "If you had a dog would you walk it in the park?"
"Depends on what kind of dog," she said.
"I don't know—a long-haired dog, say."
"Are they hypoallergenic?"
At which point I remembered that I had forgotten that Zephy was allergic to cat and dog fur. So I said, "Probably not a long-haired dog then. What about chihuahuas?"
"My cousin has a chihuahua," she said. "It's named after my other cousin, so it's really confusing when we call its name. But I don't want a chihuahua."
"Hmm. What about—what else are you allergic to?"
"Cats, dogs, and dust. That's what the allergy report said."
"So you're not allergic to gerbils?"
"No, I'm not."
"So you could get a pet gerbil and walk it in the park! In one of those wheel things, except instead of staying still it would roll forward."
"You mean like a sphere?"
"Yeah! Except a wheel would be better, if it was wide enough so it wouldn't tip over. Because you could tie a leash to the side and—uh—walk it. But you probably couldn't really walk it since well—okay, maybe you could. You could pull on the string and then the wheel would roll and uh, the gerbil would just kind of tumble inside."
I guess this is why people "walk" their gerbils in stationary wheels.
. . .
Zephy told me that three people made AIME this year, including me, Tybalt, and some other person whose name she did not hear. But the cutoff score is 93, so maybe that last person was Sonny? It would be a bit annoying if he was the one, since he half-guessed his way there, but it's not like there's a prize for qualifying for AIME, so if he likes doing more math problems then good for him.
But I guess this means I should do more math problems. Instead of reading RSS every night. Although I am very up-to-date on various things such as the pseudo-flooding in Western Ohio, the near-Oscar-sweep for The King's Speech, and the various new functions of Google Docs.
You can't win it all, I guess. Not even golden statuettes that cost $150 each to produce.
. . .
I just realized today that Mr. Wollen's website says "First page you see" when you click his name from the school site.
He also has "First day of Spring!!!" on his March calendar.
I can't wait for spring to start, and for this snow to end. But I suppose I should get used to it, because I have now received both letters of acceptance and scholarship from McGill, and that is most likely where I will be going. So snow, hurrah! Good thing I'll soon be legal to drink, right? Don't they say cider's the best way to warm up on a cold winter night?
Or maybe that was hot chocolate. I like those better anyway.
I also need to choose whether I want to major in biomath or EEE. Yes, those are actual majors. I'm thinking that I'd rather major in biomath, since if McGill hadn't offered it I would most likely have gone for a biology or math major with the other as a minor. But EEE! If I minored in English (no way, but if I were to) it'd abbreviate to EEEE! And if I picked up economics as another minor, EEEEE!
Okay. That is not a good reason.
The real reason is that engineering is a rather fast-changing field, and it's something that generally does not require being in one place for a long time, and that's tempting. Dealing with high-tech is tempting too. As well as this whole "applied" business, because after all applied math goes hand in hand with engineering.
So I will ruminate for a couple of months and decide later.
Showing posts with label AIME. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIME. Show all posts
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, April 5, 2010
Shortness Is Sometimes A Virtue
It is extremely late today. I have a lot of work. I should be doing said work, but I really, really don't feel like it (and it's really long, and really tedious), so instead I will update about my life. Because it is oh-so-interesting, and if I don't, I'll forget all about it and then think that I have nothing to blog about for quite some time.
Not likely, because tomorrow is—gasp!—the states math meet! There will be so much to talk about, and I can't wait to see what the bus trip will be like. Last year, I was with Tybalt and Bryant and Melissa and Jun most of the time, and it was fun (I played connect-five and Monkey with Jun on the way there, or was that New England's?), but I have a feeling it's going to be even better this year.
So yes, I shall blog about that tomorrow or Wednesday, whenever I get around to it. Meanwhile, today.
Second last gym class today, and I can't believe it! We had a new Tae Bo video today, and it was hard (I've noticed that even Billy Blanks doesn't do all of the movements), but it was also fun. Tomorrow, if the guy our gym teacher's been trying to invite comes, we'll probably be going out to the courtyard to do this mix of martial arts and workout. If not, we'll still be outside, and what better way to celebrate our last day of "physical" gym but to go outside in the nice weather?
I still can't believe it's going to end after tomorrow. Wow. Time really flies, even if you're not having fun.
I'm also making a flowchart adventure map, and once I finish it, I'll find a way to scan it (and my notes for my EOQR for US) and I'll put it up here. It's heavily influenced by xkcd. Just to give you a hint of several of the fates that have befallen my friends as they attempted the adventure:
And yes, Easter Island trip is still coming up (I've been saying this for quite some while now). I will have that done by the end of my finals (calc next Monday and Tuesday, then stat Wednesday and Thursday). As for today, it's late, and I'm tired, and I have to wake up early tomorrow, so I'll go to sleep now.
(Was this one shorter than usual? I started it out thinking it will be, but it's turned out rather substantial again. Darn.)
Not likely, because tomorrow is—gasp!—the states math meet! There will be so much to talk about, and I can't wait to see what the bus trip will be like. Last year, I was with Tybalt and Bryant and Melissa and Jun most of the time, and it was fun (I played connect-five and Monkey with Jun on the way there, or was that New England's?), but I have a feeling it's going to be even better this year.
So yes, I shall blog about that tomorrow or Wednesday, whenever I get around to it. Meanwhile, today.
Second last gym class today, and I can't believe it! We had a new Tae Bo video today, and it was hard (I've noticed that even Billy Blanks doesn't do all of the movements), but it was also fun. Tomorrow, if the guy our gym teacher's been trying to invite comes, we'll probably be going out to the courtyard to do this mix of martial arts and workout. If not, we'll still be outside, and what better way to celebrate our last day of "physical" gym but to go outside in the nice weather?
I still can't believe it's going to end after tomorrow. Wow. Time really flies, even if you're not having fun.
I'm also making a flowchart adventure map, and once I finish it, I'll find a way to scan it (and my notes for my EOQR for US) and I'll put it up here. It's heavily influenced by xkcd. Just to give you a hint of several of the fates that have befallen my friends as they attempted the adventure:
- Nyx ended up in the ever-looping Rainbow-Land
- Camel chose a path that did not exist (yet), then after re-routing, got eaten by a raptor
- Zephy was hailed king (or queen?) by a group of robots
And yes, Easter Island trip is still coming up (I've been saying this for quite some while now). I will have that done by the end of my finals (calc next Monday and Tuesday, then stat Wednesday and Thursday). As for today, it's late, and I'm tired, and I have to wake up early tomorrow, so I'll go to sleep now.
(Was this one shorter than usual? I started it out thinking it will be, but it's turned out rather substantial again. Darn.)
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Not Everything's About ARML (but it can be about waving your arms around)
I walked to my bus stop today (which also reminds me, I need to invest in driver's ed some day, preferably soon) and found Zephy already there, holding two plates of what appeared to be baked goods.
"Hold," she said, pointing to the plate of brownies. "One of them is for you."
"What is this for?"
"Sophomore committee. We're having a bake sale today."
So when we got off the bus later on, we headed straight for the math offices to drop off the food. Halfway down the hall, I saw Micro wandering around, looking lost.
"Hey," he said, waving to me. "We're supposed to be in the math department, right?"
"Yeah. I don't think Tybalt's here though."
I was apparently wrong. Tybalt was already inside when we reached the math offices, and he was looking at our school's performance for last year's AIME. Someone—I believe Irving, although I could be wrong, got four questions right last year, and that was the highest anyone from our school achieved. Micro and I lingered in the back of the room as Tybalt and Mr. Stone discussed something. Then, Mr. Stone grabbed some scrap paper, rulers, and pencils, and led us downstairs to finally start the test.
AIME is three hours long.
At first, Tybalt said, "Oh, the questions at the end are really hard, so we probably won't take three hours."
Well, for mathematical minds as ours that are not as well polished (compared to those who say, "I didn't get a 120+ on the AMC, I failed!" If I got a 120, I would be really surprised at myself), we took three hours to do however many questions we each managed to tackle. In Micro's words, "Not a lot." But I'm apparently not allowed to talk about the difficulty of the test until an undetermined time later (or maybe it's only on the forum, I'm not sure), so I won't say how well I did. I'll just say that all of us took the entire three hour period we had, and that, on a Wednesday morning, was very draining.
We couldn't even talk to other people, unlike Moody's (although Moody's was way longer so I suppose it evens out), so I spent half the time listening to one person or another sniffle.
Anyway, Tybalt left first, then Micro, and I left last as I scrambled to bubble in random answers on my answer sheet so it looks like I did something (and increase the chance of me getting the right answer from 0% to 0.1%).
At lunch, I went to find Tybalt to compare answers. Sonny and Dino, who also sat at the table (so did Bryant, but he was on the other end), clamored to see the test.
"Is this ARML?" Sonny asked. I really have no idea why he thinks everything math and competition-related is automatically ARML. Probably because he only knows ARML through Dino.
"No," Dino said. "AIME." (Also, AIME sounds very confusing when you're saying it to someone who doesn't know what it is, because it sounds like Amy. Reese, among others, have asked, "Who is this Amy person?")
"Oh," Sonny said. Tybalt snatched the test back and proceeded to make myself less confident in my answers. I suppose the reverse could also hold true.
On my way back to my table, I saw Micro (who also has lunch, how surprising). I proceeded to plop down next to him and compare answers with him. Let's just say that we (all three of us) haven't reached a consensus yet.
But I mean, it's us. Paperclip. We haven't yet defeated a Massachusetts school in NEML. What's the chances of all three of us doing superbly well and all making it to USAMO?
(Very little, although Micro may have a chance with USAJMO—depending on his guessing skills.)
Later on, in physics, Mr. Stencil finally came through with his promise of pizza for us because our class scored the highest out of all of Mr. Stencil's classes on this "physics concepts" test we took. However, because it was Passover, half the class couldn't eat it. Tamir, obviously not restrained by such rules, loomed over the boxes of pizza as the class debated whether those who could not eat the pizza should get bonus points instead.
In the end, almost everyone gave in to the temptation (Camel after much consideration and only after seeing the mushroom pizza). Jeremy and Scott left the room to control their urges, but when they came back, Scott said, "You can still smell the pizza." It was too late anyway. All three boxes had been scarfed down already.
After physics (which was after school), I went to get my coat. I saw Yuma on my way there, and so I told him to save a seat for me on the bus. When I got on the bus, it was half-empty (probably because of spring sports), but I sat next to Yuma anyway. He sat next to the window, so when I turned to look at him, I saw Micro on the bus next to ours.
"Hey look," I said. "It's Micro!"
Yuma turned to see. "Oh yeah."
I started waving frantically at Micro, trying to get his attention. He didn't notice me, but Sonny, who sat behind Micro on the bus, saw me and waved back.
Not exactly what I was looking for. I tried to wave in a general front-ward direction, in an attempt to tell Sonny to get Micro's attention. Sonny only stared at me and made weird arm gestures as well. Again. Not exactly what I was looking for.
And to end this (instead of blogging about Easter Island, which I will get to, shortly), I'll post something Chile-related. Make of it what you will.
"Hold," she said, pointing to the plate of brownies. "One of them is for you."
"What is this for?"
"Sophomore committee. We're having a bake sale today."
So when we got off the bus later on, we headed straight for the math offices to drop off the food. Halfway down the hall, I saw Micro wandering around, looking lost.
"Hey," he said, waving to me. "We're supposed to be in the math department, right?"
"Yeah. I don't think Tybalt's here though."
I was apparently wrong. Tybalt was already inside when we reached the math offices, and he was looking at our school's performance for last year's AIME. Someone—I believe Irving, although I could be wrong, got four questions right last year, and that was the highest anyone from our school achieved. Micro and I lingered in the back of the room as Tybalt and Mr. Stone discussed something. Then, Mr. Stone grabbed some scrap paper, rulers, and pencils, and led us downstairs to finally start the test.
AIME is three hours long.
At first, Tybalt said, "Oh, the questions at the end are really hard, so we probably won't take three hours."
Well, for mathematical minds as ours that are not as well polished (compared to those who say, "I didn't get a 120+ on the AMC, I failed!" If I got a 120, I would be really surprised at myself), we took three hours to do however many questions we each managed to tackle. In Micro's words, "Not a lot." But I'm apparently not allowed to talk about the difficulty of the test until an undetermined time later (or maybe it's only on the forum, I'm not sure), so I won't say how well I did. I'll just say that all of us took the entire three hour period we had, and that, on a Wednesday morning, was very draining.
We couldn't even talk to other people, unlike Moody's (although Moody's was way longer so I suppose it evens out), so I spent half the time listening to one person or another sniffle.
Anyway, Tybalt left first, then Micro, and I left last as I scrambled to bubble in random answers on my answer sheet so it looks like I did something (and increase the chance of me getting the right answer from 0% to 0.1%).
At lunch, I went to find Tybalt to compare answers. Sonny and Dino, who also sat at the table (so did Bryant, but he was on the other end), clamored to see the test.
"Is this ARML?" Sonny asked. I really have no idea why he thinks everything math and competition-related is automatically ARML. Probably because he only knows ARML through Dino.
"No," Dino said. "AIME." (Also, AIME sounds very confusing when you're saying it to someone who doesn't know what it is, because it sounds like Amy. Reese, among others, have asked, "Who is this Amy person?")
"Oh," Sonny said. Tybalt snatched the test back and proceeded to make myself less confident in my answers. I suppose the reverse could also hold true.
On my way back to my table, I saw Micro (who also has lunch, how surprising). I proceeded to plop down next to him and compare answers with him. Let's just say that we (all three of us) haven't reached a consensus yet.
But I mean, it's us. Paperclip. We haven't yet defeated a Massachusetts school in NEML. What's the chances of all three of us doing superbly well and all making it to USAMO?
(Very little, although Micro may have a chance with USAJMO—depending on his guessing skills.)
Later on, in physics, Mr. Stencil finally came through with his promise of pizza for us because our class scored the highest out of all of Mr. Stencil's classes on this "physics concepts" test we took. However, because it was Passover, half the class couldn't eat it. Tamir, obviously not restrained by such rules, loomed over the boxes of pizza as the class debated whether those who could not eat the pizza should get bonus points instead.
In the end, almost everyone gave in to the temptation (Camel after much consideration and only after seeing the mushroom pizza). Jeremy and Scott left the room to control their urges, but when they came back, Scott said, "You can still smell the pizza." It was too late anyway. All three boxes had been scarfed down already.
After physics (which was after school), I went to get my coat. I saw Yuma on my way there, and so I told him to save a seat for me on the bus. When I got on the bus, it was half-empty (probably because of spring sports), but I sat next to Yuma anyway. He sat next to the window, so when I turned to look at him, I saw Micro on the bus next to ours.
"Hey look," I said. "It's Micro!"
Yuma turned to see. "Oh yeah."
I started waving frantically at Micro, trying to get his attention. He didn't notice me, but Sonny, who sat behind Micro on the bus, saw me and waved back.
Not exactly what I was looking for. I tried to wave in a general front-ward direction, in an attempt to tell Sonny to get Micro's attention. Sonny only stared at me and made weird arm gestures as well. Again. Not exactly what I was looking for.
And to end this (instead of blogging about Easter Island, which I will get to, shortly), I'll post something Chile-related. Make of it what you will.
Ginny
okay
and
tell Owen that his llama is on the way
(hopefully)
17:32Dino
his llama?
17:32Ginny
(if it doesn't get quarantined)
17:32Dino
which Owen?
17:33Ginny
your brother
who else?
17:33Dino
yd u get him a llama?
17:34Ginny
we were going to get a llama for ourselves anyway
Gretchen and I
and he seemed interested
17:34Dino
a stuffed llama?
17:34Ginny
no, one from chile
17:34Dino
a real llama
17:34Ginny
well
real enough
17:35Dino
real enough?
17:35Ginny
sort of like "the things they carried"
17:35Dino
kewl
17:35Ginny
it's summery in chile right now though
so I'm not sure how it'll fare
on the plane
and we also need to find a large enough crate
but those are minor issues
17:36Dino
ur not ACTUALLY getting a llama
17:36Ginny
like I said
"the things they carried"
style
17:37Dino
never read that
17:37Ginny
it's a nice book
and I think it's referenced in the first page
17:39Ginny
also
he's not allergic to llama hair
is he?
17:39Dino
no....
17:40Ginny
okay
good
allergies would pose huge problems
Monday, March 29, 2010
More Adventures (in Chile) + Panic IRL
This was long overdue but necessary in the grand scheme of life this trip. Therefore, it is here, and I will be off to do my homework ("Gasp!") because I just checked the schedule and the CALC FINAL (-cue screaming sound effects-) is in two weeks. (±Math run-offs, AIME's, and an assortment of other things.) Therefore, I probably won't be getting any homework done, and so I might as well post this now so I don't get too distracted.
ALSO YOU GUYS: Ignore tenses in this thing. I don't know what land I'm in, but this land's Laws decree that normal tense situations do not apply here.That, or I'm writing about past/present/future at the same time, so I'm really, really confused.
Today is the first day of our (Gretchie has joined my trip) adventures! After an entire day of packing, we have decided that we have EVERYTHING we could possibly needthat we can think of right now. So, relying upon our trusty RANDOM.ORG random coordinates generator, we have decided to travel to the most coveted—
ALSO YOU GUYS: Ignore tenses in this thing. I don't know what land I'm in, but this land's Laws decree that normal tense situations do not apply here.
Today is the first day of our (Gretchie has joined my trip) adventures! After an entire day of packing, we have decided that we have EVERYTHING we could possibly need
Chile!
But first things first. We need a picture of Gretchie since she's coming along as well.
After quite some time of fiddling with paint the camera once again, here is a picture of Gretch (to the right). (A/N: This picture did not exist prior to this post; however, due to unfortunate media leakage, this picture is now old news and therefore lacks the "wow" factor it was supposed to bring.)
Great, now we can begin!
So, since we're in the middle of nowhere not anywhere near Chile, I ordered tickets from TravelWithUsJerk.com (see bottom of page). They came in the mail yesterday, while we were still packing, and boy, were we excited! I literally jumped up and down until I got tired and had to stop.
Gretchie added a water filter, cards, a Spanish-English dictionary, a Swiss army knife, eating utensils, and walkie-talkies to her bag. I've also last-minutely added a small, hand-held mirror, just in case we're plane-wrecked in the middle of the ocean and we need to flash Morse code signals at planes to make them notice us.
Anyway, at 9:30AM, we decided that we had everything. With a few final checks (making sure we locked the doors and windows and said a teary farewell to our friends for thehour day week possibly eternity), we were ready to depart!
The closest international airport is JFK, and it's a very, very far distance away (anything that can't be tackled reasonably by foot is a very far distance for me), so naturally we rode a taxi! I love yellow taxis—they make me feel happy on the inside, especially if it's raining outside and the water puddles make the road all reflection-y when the yellow taxis drive by.
The ride to the airport was pretty fun, and when we got to the airport, we still had plenty of time left (the plane was scheduled to leave at 2PM—haha, 2PM—and we arrived at 11AM). So we did what normal people do when they're about to embark on a round-the-world voyage.
We jumped up and down (figuratively for Gretchie and literally for me) and ooh'd and ahh'd over everything we saw. Well, of course, we had to get our boarding pass first, go through numerous layers of customs (tricky—I never did like customs), and find our waiting room. Once we got there, however, the realization that the trip was finally happening made both of us giddy. I pulled out my laptop and we went over the itinerary for the next few days, which I will outline below in order topacify you because the actual trip writing may take a long time to solidify give you an idea of what is to come:
So, there you have it! Almost two weeks of fun in Chile, or at least we hope it will be. Alas, time flies when you're rechecking over itineraries (or maybe just when you're having fun in general), and by the time we finished going over the details and planning what we will do after we get off the plane, it was about time to board our plane.
Here's a picture of the plane we're going to board:
Isn't it pretty?
This is a plane owned by Lan Chile Airlines, the major airline company in Chile. It's also the only plane that travels to Easter Island, which is where we're going to go later. (How this hasn't directly attributed to grossly unreasonable fares, I have no idea, but I assume I'll know next year with a year of econ under my figurative belt.)
I found some random picture online took a picture of the landscape as we were about to depart. Can you believe it? We're going to leave the country soon, and then our continent!
South America, here we come!
Of course, for the entire flight, Gretchie and I watched this strange documentary about glaciers in Greenland. I don't really remember much of it, because I was more focused on the beautiful background music they played while showing the films of the glaciers.
It takes around nine hours to go by plane from NYC to Chile, and so by the time we arrived, it was a staggeringly late 11PM by our watches. However, by the Chilean time zone (UTC-04), it was already midnight. Gretchie and I were both pretty tired by now, so our first priority was to find a hotel and rest for the night.
(I think we'll have to push back our schedule for a day, because rest is very, very important and visiting Santiago is also very, very important, and we have plenty of time to spare anyway.)
Gretchie took some pictures of the night-time Santiago as we rode in our taxi and headed toward our hotel. Here's one that we both really liked:
After much sight-seeing through the streets of Santiago, we arrived at our hotelwhich is not named because I have been too lazy to actually find one, duh. Tired as we were, we did not forget to take a picture of our room. So, here it is, and we'll update infinitely later tomorrow on how our first actual day in Santiago goes!
OOH (see earlier posts):
We (both of Mr. Coffee's AP chem classes) got back our acid/base equilibrium test today—or, at least, the multiple choice part. The "bell curve" for test score distributions were one 95+ (Bryant, most likely, as this spot is usually reserved for him), a small cluster of 90+, a huge cluster of 80+ (including 85+), pitifully few in the 70+ (including 75+), and another huge cluster at or below 65+.
On the bright side, this unit is so dubbed, "If you can survive this, you can do anything." So, seeing as I survived the test (with lots of freebie points from Mr. Coffee because he messed up on several questions to help), I must be able to do anything!
(Well, anything except my research paper, it seems, because I almost failed that, and the only reason I didn't fail was because I had clear sentences and good language usage, so the next two weeks will be frantic as I basically rewrite my entire paper.)
I am also awaiting my free response for this unit, which I have my doubts in because I didn't (unlike Bryant and Nyx and basically everyone else who was sane) do any of the AP problems on College Board. Well. On the even brighter side, the next unit is relatively easier (although it also seems that easier units are the ones I perform worse on in tests), so everything should be fine until I start panicking about the calc finals.
Which, if the introduction paragraph haven't warned you yet, CALC FINALS!MAY 5TH IS APPROACHING! APRIL 12TH IS APPROACHING! Ahem. Right.
Our class has yet to panic, it appears, because we spent today discussing what the "ç" was called ("A cedilla." "Oh, Ginny, can you teach me French?") and whether the cardioid looked like a "butt." Dino also spent considerable time persuading Mrs. James to hit the "print" button on the Smartboard so he could go grab a copy of the calc notes he forgot to print out ("We were supposed to bring 10.6? No one told me that!") while Jay used "going to the bathroom" as an excuse to print out a copy of the notes himself but forgot to print out an extra set for Dino.
Not that I did anything in any of my other classes. We had a sub for physics, and Camel, lamenting that the $10 he spent on buying Monty Python was wasted because he couldn't open the file, used his laptop to go on Youtube to watch more Monty Python. I took this time to use an extremely long yard-stick (meter-stick, actually, and they can't be extremely long because they're supposed to be one meter long, but that's not the point) to draw scatterplots for stat. Nevertheless, it wasn't necessary, it seemed, because Mrs. MacDonald wasn't here either, and we had another sub (who suspiciously looked like the sub we had for physics, but I'm bad at recognizing people so I'm not sure). Matt and I worked on another sudoku puzzle, and then later on we (mostly me) worked on some math packets. I can say now with 70% confidence that I can tackle most of the round 1 questions, half of the round 2 questions, and maybe half of the round 3 questions.
Oh, I'm doomed.
But wait, there's more!If you call NOW AIME is coming up, Wednesday. I still have to ask Tybalt what room I'm supposed to be in, and I still have to go over at least some of the problems to see what they're like and what my probability of failing is (very high, although I shall try a Nate Silver-esque approach and conduct some research based on past problem performance).
So. Anyway. Homework.
DISCLAIMER (read the small font): Any hyper-link not "linked" is not true and is merely a figment of the authoress' imagination. There may, however, be a slight chance that such a link exists in real life and therefore accessible. We [Gretchie and I] do not wish to infringe upon the rights of those organizations, and we are not associated with them in any way. We are not liable for any loss, whether financial, physical, laptopial, or any thing else, incurred due to the searching and/or subsequent visiting of said websites. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact us at ginnyofnephria(at)gmail.com or comment below. Please note that we reserve the right to ignore you (within reasonable boundaries of law) or delete your comment as we see fit. For further questions, read the sentence before the sentence before this sentence.
Gretchie added a water filter, cards, a Spanish-English dictionary, a Swiss army knife, eating utensils, and walkie-talkies to her bag. I've also last-minutely added a small, hand-held mirror, just in case we're plane-wrecked in the middle of the ocean and we need to flash Morse code signals at planes to make them notice us.
Anyway, at 9:30AM, we decided that we had everything. With a few final checks (making sure we locked the doors and windows and said a teary farewell to our friends for the
The ride to the airport was pretty fun, and when we got to the airport, we still had plenty of time left (the plane was scheduled to leave at 2PM—haha, 2PM—and we arrived at 11AM). So we did what normal people do when they're about to embark on a round-the-world voyage.
We jumped up and down (figuratively for Gretchie and literally for me) and ooh'd and ahh'd over everything we saw. Well, of course, we had to get our boarding pass first, go through numerous layers of customs (tricky—I never did like customs), and find our waiting room. Once we got there, however, the realization that the trip was finally happening made both of us giddy. I pulled out my laptop and we went over the itinerary for the next few days, which I will outline below in order to
- Day 1: Arrive at Santiago (the capital of Chile and where the major International airport is located), look around, check into a hotel, scream, "WE'RE IN CHILE!!!" (Preferably in Spanish, although that is a feat only Gretchie can accomplish right now.)
- Day 2: Continue tour of Santiago (I've heard that they have amazing food there), in the afternoon take a plane to Atacama Desert and stay the night there.
- Day 3-6: Explore Atacama. Highlights: museums, geysers, beautiful views, adobe hotels! On the last day, take a plane to Easter Island.
- Day 7-11: Explore Easter Island. (More) highlights: Moai (those stone faces Easter Island is famous for), volcanic craters, scuba diving/snorkeling. On the last day/afternoon, take a plane back to Santiago.
- Day 12: Rest a bit, check any really good tourist attractions (or restaurants), then depart for our next destination (undecided as of yet).
So, there you have it! Almost two weeks of fun in Chile, or at least we hope it will be. Alas, time flies when you're rechecking over itineraries (or maybe just when you're having fun in general), and by the time we finished going over the details and planning what we will do after we get off the plane, it was about time to board our plane.
Here's a picture of the plane we're going to board:
Isn't it pretty?
This is a plane owned by Lan Chile Airlines, the major airline company in Chile. It's also the only plane that travels to Easter Island, which is where we're going to go later. (How this hasn't directly attributed to grossly unreasonable fares, I have no idea, but I assume I'll know next year with a year of econ under my figurative belt.)
South America, here we come!
Of course, for the entire flight, Gretchie and I watched this strange documentary about glaciers in Greenland. I don't really remember much of it, because I was more focused on the beautiful background music they played while showing the films of the glaciers.
It takes around nine hours to go by plane from NYC to Chile, and so by the time we arrived, it was a staggeringly late 11PM by our watches. However, by the Chilean time zone (UTC-04), it was already midnight. Gretchie and I were both pretty tired by now, so our first priority was to find a hotel and rest for the night.
(I think we'll have to push back our schedule for a day, because rest is very, very important and visiting Santiago is also very, very important, and we have plenty of time to spare anyway.)
Gretchie took some pictures of the night-time Santiago as we rode in our taxi and headed toward our hotel. Here's one that we both really liked:
After much sight-seeing through the streets of Santiago, we arrived at our hotel
OOH (see earlier posts):
We (both of Mr. Coffee's AP chem classes) got back our acid/base equilibrium test today—or, at least, the multiple choice part. The "bell curve" for test score distributions were one 95+ (Bryant, most likely, as this spot is usually reserved for him), a small cluster of 90+, a huge cluster of 80+ (including 85+), pitifully few in the 70+ (including 75+), and another huge cluster at or below 65+.
On the bright side, this unit is so dubbed, "If you can survive this, you can do anything." So, seeing as I survived the test (with lots of freebie points from Mr. Coffee because he messed up on several questions to help), I must be able to do anything!
(Well, anything except my research paper, it seems, because I almost failed that, and the only reason I didn't fail was because I had clear sentences and good language usage, so the next two weeks will be frantic as I basically rewrite my entire paper.)
I am also awaiting my free response for this unit, which I have my doubts in because I didn't (unlike Bryant and Nyx and basically everyone else who was sane) do any of the AP problems on College Board. Well. On the even brighter side, the next unit is relatively easier (although it also seems that easier units are the ones I perform worse on in tests), so everything should be fine until I start panicking about the calc finals.
Which, if the introduction paragraph haven't warned you yet, CALC FINALS!
Our class has yet to panic, it appears, because we spent today discussing what the "ç" was called ("A cedilla." "Oh, Ginny, can you teach me French?") and whether the cardioid looked like a "butt." Dino also spent considerable time persuading Mrs. James to hit the "print" button on the Smartboard so he could go grab a copy of the calc notes he forgot to print out ("We were supposed to bring 10.6? No one told me that!") while Jay used "going to the bathroom" as an excuse to print out a copy of the notes himself but forgot to print out an extra set for Dino.
Not that I did anything in any of my other classes. We had a sub for physics, and Camel, lamenting that the $10 he spent on buying Monty Python was wasted because he couldn't open the file, used his laptop to go on Youtube to watch more Monty Python. I took this time to use an extremely long yard-stick (meter-stick, actually, and they can't be extremely long because they're supposed to be one meter long, but that's not the point) to draw scatterplots for stat. Nevertheless, it wasn't necessary, it seemed, because Mrs. MacDonald wasn't here either, and we had another sub (who suspiciously looked like the sub we had for physics, but I'm bad at recognizing people so I'm not sure). Matt and I worked on another sudoku puzzle, and then later on we (mostly me) worked on some math packets. I can say now with 70% confidence that I can tackle most of the round 1 questions, half of the round 2 questions, and maybe half of the round 3 questions.
Oh, I'm doomed.
But wait, there's more!
So. Anyway. Homework.
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