Puntastic Days

Have I mentioned my list of favorite days of the week before? I don't think I have. Anyway, it goes like this: Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Monday, Saturday, Sunday, and Friday.

Yes, Friday is last. It's because I never get anything done on Fridays (no motivation to get anything done), and I have every class so I'm aware that I have a lot of work I have to do, but I still never get anything done. Pretty horrible all-around.

But today is (thankfully) a Wednesday, so it's 3rd on my list, which is pretty good. A fun English class, where Cammie and I came up with very formulated thesis statements, a bio lab where I stared at lactobacteria, and a physics class where my hunger-and-lack-of-sleep-addled brain failed to recognize the direction of a force arrow and subsequently tried to figure out a question for ten minutes. Not fun.

At lunch, I caught up with Argon (a good deal of time we were separated—a full, uh, 20 hours or so), then went over to play go against Yuma. Brian and Clay watched on, while making horrendous go puns. Like, after hearing that there wasn't a go club meeting today, Clay said, "So it's no-go for the go club?" to which Brian said, "Shouldn't go club be 24/7, since you're always on the go?" That kind of horrendous. Although they didn't make any 5 jokes (to be expected, since neither of them know Japanese).

Then I decided I needed to get my recs envelopes settled, so I left the I-am-almost-being-choked-to-death-while-Yuma-is-still-calm-and-winning board to Clay and walked over to guidance with Gretchen and Brunhilda. When I came back to the table (where everyone was), Kathrya, Nyx, and Cammie started making name-puns. And saxophone puns, but I think explaining those would be going overboard (but 80% of my reader-base already knows this, so it's all right). Also, I believe I saw Bryant looking over at us at the peak of the name-puns loudness, which was slightly awkward (did I tell you before that I think his eyes scream, "I CAN READ YOUR MIND"? I must have).

The rest of the day picked up from there. There was a lot of cool vector operations in multi, which I must say was not my absolute favorite, but somewhere up there. And it just all makes sense now! I guess this is why it's so much harder to teach oneself with only a textbook. We're going to find areas of sections of planes in 3D tomorrow, which is exciting, but I have a McGill college rep visit (which reminds me, I've got to pick up the forms) so I'll unfortunately be missing part of it.

After multi was my free, which I spent in the learning center with Yuma and Clay. Clay attempted to do his utexas assignment (I must have also told you before how much I hate utexas), but he couldn't get the first question right (neither could I, as it turned out). After a half-hour consultation with Mrs. Cumulonimbus (I believe, because he has her for physics now), or some other teacher who has this free, he told me that it was because he forgot to add a negative to his answer.

Ugh. I hate utexas.

I also watched Yuma work on his chem lab. Oh, I miss chem so much. We'd considered switching science classes, whereupon I'd take chem again and he'd take physics again, but then I would need to switch my English class and he'd need to switch his design and tech class. Too complicated. Then I forgot that water and ethanol are miscible, which resulted in an "Oh, duh" moment.

Also, Clay's APUSH (I love the acronym) class is in the same hall as mine, so we walked down the hall together. Upon reaching my class, however, I realized that we were supposed to be in the lab, so I walked back again, where I spotted Argon. I convinced him that he had minutes to spare, so we stood in the hall, talking about random things, I'm sure, because I'm not sure what we talked about.

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!

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.

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).

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.)

About Biology

I'm not liking it as much as chemistry. I guess it's inevitable. Chemistry is like, well, using a simile here, my first love. It was the first specific science I'd even gotten into since coming from Canada (where we have clumped sciences until junior year), and it was the first science I'd really, really tried to study. Not to mention I've met some amazing chem teachers along the way (three of our school's most famed teachers, around arena anyway, and in the positive way).

Last year I loved honors chem and thought there'd be nothing better than a continuation of that. This year I went into AP chem, with Mr. Coffee, and I loved loved loved it, even though some areas were shaky for me (and frustratingly, not for Bryant, but that's to be expected). So far I haven't had anything I really hated about chem, not even acids and bases, not even electrochem, not even equations, which felt like rote memorization.

Physics is like that popular, scandalous guy you've always heard of, and you can't believe your luck that he's actually chosen you. My dad's a physics major (albeit chemical and mechanical physics, and my mom and her father are both chemists), and he's always been talking about physics, ever since, well, I started science, probably. Physics is the thing that makes everything else makes sense. I feel like I'm supposed to love it, because it's something so wonderful and so mysterious, and even though I do love it very much and I love making sense of it, I sometimes wonder if it's because of its reputation as much as its mysteriousness.

Doesn't help that when I'm making some "breakthrough" discovery in my physics class, someone else would say, "What is he talking about?"

So what about biology?

Biology is the, uh, rebound guy. Now that I can't possibly take more chemistry classes in high school anymore (although I could try TAing, but I don't know how that will work), I'm kind of in a rut. I want more science classes (I want more math classes too, but, let's face it, I have even less options in math and multi's about the only thing I can take now). Biology's my opportunity to break out and love take a science class again (aside from AP physics).

There's a reason why nobody wants to be that rebound guy. For one, every time I stare into my bio book (granted, the first unit's called "The Chemical Basis of Life") I keep on thinking, "Hey, that's chemistry!" or "That's sooooo easy. Basic chem stuff, duh." And I'm kind of frustrated, because it's not the advanced chem material I'm used to, but I can't skip it either because every now and then there are fancy words I don't know and concepts that aren't explained fully chemically because they're too complex for a high school textbook.

I have to remind myself, this isn't chemistry, this is biology, and I've got to take a step back and reorient myself. I have to remind myself that my first love's really, really gone (at least for now) and I've got to either love the rebound guy (which I will, as soon as I get over this "I don't really want to work now" period) or I've got to reconsider why I'm stuck with him.

Moral of the story: biology is not chemistry, try as I might to think it is. I will have to deal with that.

Light Up My World

Here's for cryptic puzzles:

I recently, with the help of several staunch members of the Confederate, realized that to follow in the footsteps of a blue-coat Yankee who has but all the reasonings of a chicken would not only be extremely foolish, but no longer my intent as well, and therefore I return to Fairhill under the lures of the harp.

Lest you think it is some complicated play on words that has a really fascinating answer, I'll reassure you that: a) it just uses rather obscure references, and b) the answer is related to me, and can be summarized in perhaps one sentence, but expandable at will.

Anyway, today I am beginning to think that I am attracted to morbid things. How else should I explain my tendency for spotting dead (albeit cute had they been alive) critters on the ground? This morning I found a dead, squashed baby bird as I was walking to my bus stop. Then, in the afternoon, as I was coming home from picking up the mail, I saw a dead mouse.

Today, Nyx and I also made esters (they're fats with a COOC component) out of organic acids and alcohols. Esters are supposed to (for the most part) smell good, because they're the stuff that gives fruits and flowers their nice smell, but the stuff they're made out of are supposed to (for the most part) smell awful. Like rotten cheese and smelly socks all blended into one and left on the counter-top under the sun for a week awful.

We succeeded in making esters that smelled like gasoline-laced Jolly Ranchers, nail polish removers, and wintergreen. We also made one that had a white precipitate and stuck to the bottom of the test tube, and we had to use concentrated sulfuric acid to get it out, and because we had water in the tube already, the solution bubbled and spluttered out of the tube.

All in all, not too bad. At least we made one thing that smelled nice (the wintergreen).

Also, another not-so cryptic puzzle:

I'm such a coward, because I'm running away from my problems right now. But I don't know any other way to deal with it, even if this will hurt more than it will heal. Ugh. I thought it was complicated enough already. Why does it have to be even worse than it was before?

I can't wait for summer to start. Now. Wait, no. I can't wait for master schedules to come out, now, and then for arena to be here, and for all of my classes to be perfect (or as perfect as they can be) and everyone else's classes to be perfect (kind of impossible, I know), and then summer to start.

These last few days will be dreadful. Oh, and, when will US portfolios start? I'm beginning to think it's going to be a last-minute cram, and if it is so, then I'll most likely be too busy for my liking.

Slow Down That Dance, Please?

Major spoilers: In the span of 60 pages (yes, I read all of that today during numerous "free periods" that I'm now doubting my capability of staying on task for long periods of time), Scarlett O'Hara has gone from overly optimistic about winning over the love of her life (or so she thinks, anyway) to becoming married to someone else she abhors, to becoming a widow with a child she doesn't really care about. Uh, what? She's not even Scarlett O'Hara anymore, since she's been married already, and obviously not divorced.

That's quite a lot of action (or really, more like drama) in 60 pages. Which, I know, for an ordinary book of 200+ pages, is quite a chunk of text, but for this book of 1000+ pages, is rather small. I can only imagine (as I haven't read it yet, duh) what comes next.

Instead of being the patient reader as I should be, and because I've been rather spoiled already by the movie's famous line ("frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"), I decided to go fanfiction-hunting. It's only made me want to read the book more (despite those annoying "lady-like" callings that goes against almost everything I'm for), and so Amanda suggested that if I read 30 pages per day, I will be able to finish nearly 900 pages, and have only 100 more pages to go, which I can finish up on the horrible Courier New font copy online. I'm not a fan of anything over five pages in that font.

The rest of my day has been quite a daze, as I've been reading for most of it. The other parts, I was mostly worrying about homework (why do these even exist now?) and other things (including building molecules of 1,3-butyne with a glob of oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorus, chlorine, iodine, hydrogen, among other silvery unnamed elements that probably does not have a coherent IUPAC name, although it did have optical isomers). Then, I started worrying about my job shadow tomorrow, especially the dressing "business casual" part. Needless to say, I am not a fashion person, nor someone who frequents the "professional" world as of yet, and therefore my wardrobe consists of little useful garments in this setting. So I'm still on the search for a pair of decent pants (contrary to my dad's opinion that jeans are okay). Other than that, I shall hope to be fine (nervousness aside, but I've always done that).

Also, major traffic jam tomorrow heading on one of the worst highways during rush hour in the country? Yeah. Not fun. I would take the train, but seeing as I haven't maneuvered that before, I'm probably not going to try that tomorrow. But before any of that, I have to figure out how to pronounce the name of the person I'm shadowing. I should try one of those fancy pronouncers that specialize in names such as Mozart and Bach and Beethoven (and other non-musician names, but those are the only few I remember—although there may be a Clinton one).

And of course, homework. This week is turning out to be rather hectic.


MID—
Rhett: 1.5
Scarlett: 1

Rhett Says We're On Everest

Eighty-something pages into Gone With the Wind, I've finally met Rhett (officially), and I have to say, he is a bit of a disappointment. He has a weird mustache, and he's over thirty years old, when Scarlett's only sixteen. It was acceptable back then, and in some places, still acceptable today, but I don't attach any romantic inclinations towards men over twice my age with mustaches and appear "cool" (I'm pretty sure this "cool" does not have the connotations it has now) looking.

However, he's got a cool (modern definition) name, and with a name like Rhett, I will forgive his other faults so far. For the time being. Besides, I do want to see how the drunk Tarleton twins will handle Scarlett's new fancy (if she gets over the cousin-marrying fiend first, that is).

On a more personal level, yesterday, Zephy and I started from Base Camp (our school) and hiked up Mt. Everest to arrive at the peak (our homes). Along the way, we scaled numerous icy paths and lumpy rocks, and made a pit stop at one of the camps along the way.

Zephy rang the doorbell (sophisticated technology), and after a while, Vincent opened the door.

So we went in, took a rest, and watched some adorable mountain critters (kittens) play with each other and running away from us. That last part was kind of sad, but at least one of them liked us, so we mostly played with him while dangling the cat toy (a good distance away from us) for the others to play.

I've also not updated for some time, so a brief recap of things that happened before my outlandish hike up the ever-daunting Everest. Wednesday there was a lab in chem, whereupon we played with super-concentrated HCl (6M, which is half the strength of stock HCl) and vaporized magnesium strips (technically, the magnesium was not vaporized, it merely ionized into Mg+2 and the gas given off was hydrogen, but it sure does look like the magnesium was vaporized). The next day, Argon and Reese and I had a discussion about Reese's awful lab skills, mainly pouring chemicals (which he claims is "in the family," as his sister was awful at that as well). We were all glad that Reese did not participate in the lab I had the day before, because, as Mr. Coffee had said, "One drop of this stuff on your hand, you'll feel fine, and then after a while, you'll say, 'owww.' More than one drop, and you're in serious trouble."

On Thursday, my SAT scores also came out! I'd been waiting for them for, uh, pretty much since I got them over with, and I did way better than I thought I would, so I'm happy. No more icky SATs (not even SAT IIs anymore). I also ran the mile run, with more than a minute over the "health" limit, and half a minute more than what I had accomplished last year, but I blame my current non-activity in health class, instead of gym, as the main culprit.

Today (and tomorrow), all the state parks open for free (most of them are free anyway, as I later realized), so my parents and I went upstate to a place with mountains, streams (with fish), and lots of campsites. We watched a few people fishing for a while, then we went nearby to a waterfall. All in all, it was an eventful day. Plus, I found a few more nice songs from a playlist someone else compiled, so I'm going to listen to those while writing my multiple perspective narrative. (Argon had trouble with the "creative" writing part, so I tried to explain with a complex system of where the input from the surroundings spurred personal output, which altered the environment and thus creates more input, and so the cycle goes on. I think this made it more logical than creative, but oh well.)

MID—
Rhett: 0.5
Scarlett: 1

Deathly Fumes

In physics today, I was painting my pink eraser with an assortment of nail polish colors, when I said to Camel, "I think these fumes are bad for my brain."

"They stink," Camel said, obviously never having had to suffer such atrocious smells before (and if he has, I am not concerned with why).

I kept on painting anyway. Mr. Stencil came in and informed us that the second potential physics teacher candidate (two points here: a) we are going to have a new physics teacher next year because two physics teachers are going to teach the newly created computer classes, and b) the first candidate already "taught" the period 7 class) will be coming tomorrow.

"I won't be here tomorrow," Scott said, "And so won't most of the class. The econ test is tomorrow."

So Mr. Stencil asked those who were taking the AP econ test to raise their hands. A sea of hands went up. Then, he switched tactics and asked those who were not going anywhere to raise their hands. Five hands went up.

We debated (briefly) whether the candidate should come on Friday, since Mr. Stencil won't be in school on that day anyway. I wouldn't mind either way. My Thursday is looking to be pretty awesome so far (it goes like this: calc, extended US, physics, extended stat, English, then health).

After that, since some people were not here because of the English test, we had a clicker day on sound waves. Which was a rather failure for me, since I couldn't do mental math today for some reason (despite having watched Numb3rs in stat the class prior while trying to finish my physics lab, and asking Matt, but he didn't know much about optics either).

In my other science class, chem, we played Jeopardy! almost all period long. Mr. Coffee is amazingly good at these (he got most of them), so it was a great disadvantage for us when he declared that he would compete alongside with us. I got two questions right in total, one on the state tree of Maine (it's pine) and one on which North American capital Queen Victoria picked (Ottawa, and she only saw watercolor pictures of the potential capital cities beforehand—hey, I know my Canadian history).

After two rounds of Jeopardy! (the exclamation mark is totally necessary), we went on Sporcle instead, and Mr. Coffee was busy typing away on a name-that-person-based-on-the-image test when the bell rang. I went down to French (where we had a sub) and so did not see if he passed. Pity.

Then Micro ignored me while we were all on the bus (albeit different ones). But I had Yuma to talk with, and so we talked about something, but it must not have been important, because I don't remember any of it.

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Walk Long Distances In Flip-flops*

(*Also known as: the longest title Nephria has and will ever see. Ever.)

Anyway. I have miraculously (and most unfortunately) discovered almost all of these reasons today. Needless to say, I will not be walking in flip-flops (or high heels, but that's another story) for an extended period of time anymore (until the next time I forget, or whatever). But here is the list:

1. When you walk for more than 45 minutes (or over 4000 steps) your feet will hurt. A lot.
2. Since you will not be anywhere near your intended destination (or home) after 45 minutes or 4000 steps (because if you were, you would not have this problem), you will have to walk even more. And it will hurt. A lot.
3. Because you have been walking despite your feet complaining that perhaps you should not be walking, your feet will retaliate with the suicidal approach of—gasp—growing blisters.
4. Blisters hurt. A lot.
5. After your feet complain/protest/make your life miserable, your flip-flops will decide to be even more harsh on you (or maybe that's just the placebo effect).
6. Since you are wearing flip-flops, you are most likely (although maybe not always) not wearing socks, and so there is nothing to cushion your feet against the hard soles.
7. You will be in a lot of agony. So much that, while others complain of their legs hurting because they have walked over 4000 steps, you will not feel anything in your legs because all of the attention/pain has been hogged by your feet.
8. When you (finally) get home, you will discover that the shoes your mom makes you wear (because the floor is dirty) resembles flip-flops. (This step/reason is not necessary, but may occur.)
9. You will sit down in front of your computer and your feet will still hurt. A lot.
10. Lastly, you will become inspired to write a list of top ten reasons why you should never, ever walk long distances while wearing flip-flops, except you only chose the number "ten" because it forms an alliteration with "top," not because you actually had ten reasons, so you basically made up the other seven.

In other, lighter news, I went to CVS today with Zephy to buy nail polish. I figured it would be too much to ask Melissa to paint my eraser again, so I decided to make it a DIY project. Besides, it's not like I'll be doing anything productive in calc otherwise. (Actually, I lied. I read books for English and US in calc all the time now.)

Elaine had, a very, very long time ago, lent me two bottles of blue nail polish (which I still need to return her), so I went and bought a bottle of pink nail polish and a bottle of silvery one. There were so many I couldn't really decide which ones I wanted, and I didn't find any glitter (to make the shiny effect), but the silvery nail polish had mini-glitter inside, so I suppose that will work (or I can go ask the art department if they have any spare glitter). I plan to paint them (my erasers, that is) on Friday, when Mrs. James is not here. Not that I think she will mind, but I probably will be reading for US on Thursday, and she so happens to not be in school on Friday.

Also, here, I would like to wish all my friends who are taking AP English (and there are quite a few of them) good luck on the test tomorrow. I personally could never write an essay in pen. I would just hate it so much. But you (all of you) will do wonderful and ace the test but will do much, much better than it because I do not have a high opinion of anything that claims to judge your ability with a three hour long test.

I suppose there lies a certain level of ability to the test, however, as Bryant finished his multiple choice section of the AP chem test 45 minutes earlier. Camel (who sat behind Bryant) looked up at the clock with 45 minutes left to go, and saw Bryant sitting upright, with nothing in his hands, just staring ahead. Granted, the test was not hard (and some of the questions were downright ridiculous, but I can't spill them "ever," according to CB), but 45 minutes is a bit absurd when the entire section is 90 minutes long (okay, fine, I had 30 minutes to spare, and I spent them coloring in every one of my bubbles again, but still).

But I have no more excuses to skip class anymore. I must do my homework now (or do them during chem). English vocab/10 chapters of Huck Finn/SAT-type prompt here I come (yay...).

AP Stat—

Is rather boring (just like the SATs). Well, more specifically, statistics, as a subject, is really fascinating, but AP statistics, as a test, is not. Matt and I have been "studying" since early this morning, and so far we've concluded that: a) the equation for the t-distribution is very complicated; b) Schrödinger's cat does not make any sense; and c) we're going to fail the free response section.

The very fact that, at 9:17AM, I am sitting in the library typing up this post, instead of something more productive, such as studying, is testament to the absolute non-attractiveness of the test. Instead, I think I will use the rest of the time to study for calculus, which, albeit also not as fascinating as the subject itself, is much, much harder and thus deserves more attention, especially on my part, as I've been rather miserably failing the series/parametric/polar sections.

Another reason why I'm typing here: I spent so much time making the background to my blog (a.k.a. borrowing it from another blog-making website) that now I'm rather obsessed with it and cannot live for a day without staring at it (granted, I have not yet lived a day since when I first got it, but that's besides the point).

So I've got two hours and a half left, before I see what this year's exam is really like. Then another half-day before the calc exam, then less than a week for my chem exam. Chem is decidedly easy, except maybe acid/base and equations but the rest is so easy that it doesn't matter. Calc, on the other hand—

Perhaps I should study now.

Equations Evaluation

Mr. Coffee had given our AP chem class two packets to "review" over the break, and he had said that they would be on stoichiometry, since that was what we would be tested on the Wednesday we were due to come back. I thought that stoich would be fun to tackle (at least not frustrating), because I was fairly good at it, so I took out the packets today and took a look.

Turns out they're not even remotely related to stoichiometry. Both of them were balancing equations. I didn't do so well with my equations (so many rules), so I spent most of today finishing the two packets.

Out of a grand total of 56 questions, I answered 35 correctly. That's a D, for anyone who's interested. (However, with the AP curve, I am 5% away from a 5.)

Ouch. I am so glad that the test isn't entirely equations-based.

Here are some notes I took in the margins (as you can probably tell by now, I'm bored and have nothing else better to say):

H- + H+ = H2

CuO DOES NOT EXIST (It actually does, but not in any of the equations I tried.)!! Use Cu + O2

ZnO EXISTS and is preferred over Zn + O2 (In this case.)

I2 is a solid, not a gas.

WHAT IS THIS??? (Referring to diamminesilver(I) chloride.)

Well then. I still don't know how much of this I have remembered, but I am glad that I can now look at something like "potassium permanganate in solution" and instantly know that I won't be dealing with the potassium. That's quite an improvement over my earlier days of writing out the complete equation before cancelling out spectator ions.

Maybe I should go back to planning the last stretch in Santiago, plotting out basic routes in Japan, or just doing my English homework (we have to take notes on Huck Finn, one sheet per chapter, and there are forty chapters in total. Not fun.)

This may also be one of my shortest posts ever. Or not.

Beware Of The Email Mafia

Earlier this week, I walked with Mogley to see Dr. Cans. Well, it was more like, Mogley had to see Dr. Cans for super complicated chem problems that Mr. Coffee did not even begin teaching us yet, and I tagged along because I had nothing better to do.

It so happened that Dr. Cans was also Paperclip's chess club's advisor. Upon seeing me, he asked, "Do you know what's going on with chess club now?"

Oh, I don't know. Probably something along the lines of Sonny decided to temporary stop chess club, because I told him I couldn't go, since it was on the same weeks I planned to host my hiking club. I never did talk to him afterwards about chess club, and with break and everything, I guess we just forgot all about it.

So I told Dr. Cans that I will ask Sonny, and later on, Sonny told me that he will send out an email regarding club.

On Wednesday night, I received an email from Sonny, titled "Chess Club" and addressed to the chess club email list.

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the short notice, but I thought it was time to have another meeting. Let's meet tomorrow Thursday March 4 after school in room 1234. Hope you can make it. 

I didn't think much about this email, since I had received similar emails before.

Last night, however, someone by the name of Kirk (an alias which probably won't be mentioned again since I don't know him) replied to the email. It was Friday, a day after the planned meeting, and I really did not see the point in replying so late. So, being curious, I opened it and read.

WHY THE HELL WON'T YOU RESPONG AND TELL ME WHO AND WHAT THE HELL THIS IS

Okay.

That was... interesting.

I figured Sonny had made a separate email just for chess club, because he never responded to me before either. But I mean, the title says "Chess Club." I really don't think it can be any clearer than that.

So I ignored the email again, figuring it wasn't important.

This morning, Livny replied to the reply Kirk had sent.

Dear Kirk;

Here is the respong you were asking for: I am Livny Fancylastname, professional boxer and sharpshooter. "This" is the largest drug trade ever to take place on the East Coast.

Because you obviously care very much about this and are already losing sleep (1:48 AM is pretty early), I will let you off with your rude language just this once. If there is another instance of such an outburst I promise you will never wake up again. Watch your tongue.

Sincerely,

Dr. Livny Fancylastname

I am so glad I am a part of this largest drug trade ever to take place on the East Coast, despite only being aware of this deal early this morning. I am sure my queen and rooks can be bartered for large amounts of illegal substances.

I mean, seriously. Who doesn't want a molded piece of plastic?