I Haven't Forgotten This Blog Here

It's just that with life going on I kind of put this on the back burner (I think?) while I engaged in other activities such as reading a 150+ pages long play on a silly middle-class guy who wants to be a noble. Which reminds me, there is a new Noblesse update today, and darn it, Yuma, you have me hooked on it so now I cry, "OH WHY ARE YOU SO FICKLE YOU CLIFFHANGERS?!" every Tuesday night.

Not my favorite way to spend any evening. But I'll cope.

Because it is now 11:24pm and I don't have anything immediately interesting to say since act three of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme has 16 scenes and I am only on the 7th (and I need to finish the entire play by Monday), I will instead pull up old things I have written as an offering to the Blogging Deities to secretly bribe wish for more posts to come.


HOW TO FIX THE ECONOMY 101:

1. Find “THE ECONOMY.”
2. Whack it with a hammer called “BUBBLE CRASH.”
3. “THE ECONOMY” should now be spiraling into a “RECESSION” which may result in a “DEPRESSION.”
4. Report to higher-ups of the “RECESSION.” Assign all blame to the shortest guy.
5. Watch as higher-ups fire the shortest guy. Propose “SOLUTIONS” to the higher-ups. Do not worry about what kind of “SOLUTIONS” to propose--they do not have to work.
6. Once approval comes from higher-ups, ditch “SOLUTIONS” and instead use money to buy lots of new “LUXURY ITEMS.”
7. The sale of “LUXURY ITEMS” will naturally result in a boost in “THE ECONOMY,” thus kicking it out of the “RECESSION” and sending it off to a new “BUBBLE.”
8. Sit back and receive praise from higher-ups and “MAIN STREET CITIZENS” for your wonderful “SOLUTIONS” to save “THE ECONOMY” from the “RECESSION” and imminent “DEPRESSION.” Everyone will have forgotten that you caused the “BUBBLE CRASH” in the first place because they will be enamored with you and will think you can never cause any harm. (Until the bloggers start picking you apart.)

HOW TO FIX THE ECONOMY THE HARD WAY:

1. Study economics throughout college and into graduate school, poring over numerous volumes of advanced economical studies and historical graphs and assorted other material.
2. Attempt to use knowledge in current circumstances.
3. Realize all is futile because you are the shortest guy in your group of economic advisors. (Decide to hide behind online personas instead.)

HOW TO FIX THE ECONOMY THE LAZY WAY:

1. Watch the “CLEVER ECONOMIST” and the “STUDIOUS ECONOMIST” fix “THE ECONOMY.”
2. Add yourself as a co-author in their final report.

What You Should Never Do

If you're unlike me and wish to not fall into awkward situations, that is. (If the previous statement does not hold true for you, by all means, do whatever you want.)

Never, ever find yourself in a compromising position five minutes before the bell rings for the end of school. Near a door that many, many people use to exit school grounds.

Or, you know, be in any compromising position, ever. Especially not in your econ class.

But I digress.

Anyway. I had a much more emotional post, but I thought that would bring a damper onto an already much-depressed blog, so I will sum it up in one sentence, "My parents think I'm rather apathetic but that's okay." There was much more detailed analysis that went into that post, but said analysis made everything too melancholy for my tastes, so you, as my wonderful reader, now have the watered down version.

Also did you know I am extremely ticklish in all but the only two places people would probably never tickle me in? I never knew that before. Just goes to show you learn new things every day.

Since we're already on random idea-jumping topics, I have decided that I am going to wear a math/science/tech-related shirt every day of the week this week. So far I've worn the varsity math shirt and the robotics shirt, and I have the shirts for the rest of the week all planned out now! I also never knew I had access to so many geeky shirts. This is amazing.

And since we are talking about geeky things, there is a math meet tomorrow! I am so excited. And I will promise that this time I will not skimp out on the descriptions and I will try to actually talk about what happened, instead of simply going over vague things. Although math meets aren't as generalizing-hilarious now that both Mario and Irving aren't here anymore.

No more "Irving, BATHROOM?" jokes. Such a pity.

Funny How It Just Is Like That

I walked upstairs to put my coat in my locker this morning and heard the bell ring for the 10-minute warning. My bus had been relatively early (compared to the past few days), and I still had time to go to the Chinese thing Dora asked me to go to yesterday. I thought about going, but in the end, I decided on not going. Not with what I had been musing over for the past few days, anyway.

I went down the hall, hoping to see someone else I had in mind, even though I knew he would not be there. He had never been there on Fridays. And even as I walked past the door, I thought, "No way. I'm deluding myself."

And there he was.

I backtracked a few steps and went in, said hi. Made all the formal and non-formal greetings. It was such a normal conversation, on such a trivial thing, and it was just so relieving. I wanted that—I had missed that. He left when the 5-minute bell rang, and I left too, after a while, and I saw Micro and we talked about social studies (and our shared social studies teacher).

Yesterday, I moped about not knowing what I wanted. Confusion, yes. It is still muddled. But I do know, at least in part, what the things I want feels like. And being able to talk to Micro about the most ridiculous and pointless things felt like one of those moments.

The eyes too. I can't forget the eyes, and yes, it's the other stuff that counts, but I can't forget the eyes.

Not feeling guilty, that helps too.

Our greetings are less awkward now. A small improvement. And it somehow meant all the world to me. (Although it's still in less-than-ideal situations, where we find ourselves, that is. It always is, for some reason.)

In French, I knew I had lost it again. Any semblance to rational thought. A prelude, to when I would have to pull up those rusty French skills because I could not stop at the door. I should have known better, but when invited, I just could not stop.

The insane. I don't like insanity, because it is so infuriating most of the times, but I would rather be insane than nothing at all.

I asked Clay about California, wanted to know what it was like. More laid-back, he said. Northern California, at least, especially San Francisco. He is more of a west coast person. I always think I am more of an east coast girl, not just because I have lived here for the longest, but also because I dream of letting go and being free, but I never quite am. Tied back by traditions, you might say. The good old South Carolina, maybe even Charleston, made (more) famous by homeboy Rhett Butler.

I am getting a normal backpack for Monday. No more of this nonsense. I wish I could have some more time to talk to Argon, because I miss those moments dearly, and I even miss the illogical logic Reese always sprouts. His hand-motions. The way he always manages to exasperate and amuse me at the same time. And even as I am writing this, I know this is an easily solved problem. I shall just have to spend more time with them, all other consequences be damned.

Meanwhile, I am glad for Fridays, for how it just turned out like that.

. . .

No story update today. I'm bad, I know, it's only been the third day, but I really need to finish homework as well, and do lots of other things I promised myself I would.

. . .

On a more cheerful note, we worked on proofs in multi today, as Gretchen has already mentioned. Proof by mathematical induction. Number theory. Argon has a number theory binder full of really interesting notes, and I had borrowed it for a long while but never cracked down on any of it. For an entire year. I just said to myself, "I'll get to it one day, one of these days," and it never happened.

But now we are learning about it, and I am happy.

I also need to stop turning my back to Mercle in econ (also, who came up with such a name?). That I need to remember. I like him a lot, so he should not be ignored, even if it was unintentional. From now on I propose to sit properly in my seat, unless Mr. Wollen is going to write on the board behind me. In econ, we also compared water bottle designs and the demographic/socioeconomic group each design targeted. I volunteered my Hint water bottle, and Mr. Wollen said, "See, that's the exact same product, but packaged so it'll sell for more."

"No, it's not the same," Ali said. "That water's flavored."

"Oh," Mr. Wollen said. "Then you can justify paying more for it."

Not really. It doesn't taste that good. Not enough sugar. But I guess I should have known, since it does say on the label that it is unsweetened.

Oh, there was also frisbee today. I had considered not going, but I went anyway. There were only five of us, but it was still fun. Elaine came too, although she could not stay for too long, and she left before a real game actually began, but we threw frisbees around for a while.

. . .

Pandora is getting better at predicting my preferences now.

And that is the end for today.

Honesty First

On the online application for any retail job at a Stop&Shop store, it asks (something along these lines), "Have you ever taken supplies from the store (minor office supplies not included) without telling your store manager?"

Then you get to choose how much you took or, if you didn't take anything, the "none" option.

For the ShopRite application, not only does it warn you that the application will take around 45-60 minutes, it also makes you sign up for an account so you can save your information prior to submitting. I don't understand why they can't just make the applications shorter and cut out some of the stupid questions. Like, have you stolen money from your previous employer?

Seriously? If I had, would I be telling you?

Anyway. Bryant today tried to tell me about his woeful Friday, when he has five tests, and I nodded along, trying to pretend I was paying attention. Honestly, Bryant, I don't care how many tests you have. Stop complaining to me. I've got enough to worry about for myself.

But of course, instead of saying that out loud, I listened to him speculate that we would have a multi test within this week. And whine about his utexas. Among numerous other things I would not have expected to come from him, but since I never really sat close to him for extended periods of time, maybe I've just not been exposed to his more, uh, not content side.

In other (more interesting, perhaps) news, the Penn representative who was supposed to come to our school today did not show up. Or at least, I think she did not show up. The bell rang fifteen minutes after she was supposed to come, and I had an econ test next, so I told myself, "Oh, I'll wait a few more minutes." Then I saw Mr. Wollen walk by the door, so I decided, oh well, econ test is more important than listening to something I probably know already anyway.

I got an email later from my counselor saying that the rep is coming on Thursday. During my free.

A little sacrifice, but I can deal with that. I mean, I'm applying ED to this school, I should be able to sacrifice some things.

Which reminds me, yesterday, after I asked Bryant if he had a blue tie (he doesn't, but he has a red one and gold one), he randomly asked, "Just out of curiosity, where are you applying early?"

I wonder how long he's been waiting to ask me that?

I asked Dino too (about the tie), and he said, "I don't have any ties," and refused to answer my question as to why his profile picture clearly shows him in a tie. Then, as I elaborated that I'd like stripes on that tie, he asked, "Are you kidding?" Way to trust my totally legitimate inquiries.

Later on, he told me that Tybalt had such a tie, which is a complete lie.

School Again, What A Surprise

Proper titling rules dictate that I should not capitalize the "A," but I am ignoring that for aesthetic purposes only. Anyway, after a long three-day weekend (yay for Columbus Day), I am back into the school routine. Which, thankfully, means reduced time for annoying college things, but unfortunately, also means increased time for schoolwork.

Since my morning was rather uneventful (we watched this "how to turn a sphere inside out" video and a few Old Spice commercials during communication time, but that was mostly it), I will skip right to French, where our teacher, who I shall now call Mme Pottery, spent most of the class showing us this music video (in French, of course) whose main ideas are "Why do we have to go to school and do all this work?" and "Oh, leave it to Charlemagne, he's to blame." Then we listened to this music video by the same singer who performed at the 1967 or 1965 Eurovision contest, and it's a song about a doll who complains that since she's so pretty she should be able to have so much, but she can't have boys falling in love with her. Or that was what I got out of it, anyway.

Great use of over an hour's worth of time.

I spent a good part of econ figuring out the tax graphs and how to draw producer and consumer burdens. Now I have the concepts down, so the graphs are easier. Yay! Unfortunately, we have a test on Monday, which means I will actually have to look over the practice test (it's quite a heavy bundle), and I am not looking forward to that.

I also spent a good part of my free convincing Yuma that math team was more important than frisbee. I'm not sure how well that went. But I did get to print out all the stuff I needed to print out (except the Naviance sheet), and then tomorrow morning I will have to schedule various meetings, but I think all is going well (so far). Clay took my computer (which reminds me, I hope he logged me off), so I got my envelopes written out and reformatted my lab, and Yuma and I folded paper airplanes according to that tutorial he found online, and we spent ten minutes or so throwing paper airplanes in the hallway. Archie, who was at the corner table, stared at us weirdly. When Clay came out, I finally managed to throw a successful, airborne, non-circling-back plane. I was really proud of myself.

Then I got all of my earlies letter envelopes settled, including seeing Tea and Kathrya multiple times in the process. After that, we (although Kathrya was just in it for the walk and the Gretchen-glomping time) went to math team, where everyone was already there. To our horrendous dismay, there was only one of the round 5 and 6 practice problems each left. Oh no! So we each took one and will now have to settle for next time.

Argon came over a while later and asked Tea about RSI. It was a long, rather drawn-out conversation, by the end of which we found ourselves all sitting on tables. Ms. Sherbert looked over at us and asked, "Are you guys practicing?"

Haha. I tried one of the geometry questions, but because I was too lazy to square numbers in my head, I didn't go further.

After math team, I went to the library, where I saw Zephy and Reese. Zephy was doing her physics homework (oh, utexas, how I loathe you so), and Reese was figuring out other people's chicken-scratch handwriting, because he got a huge list of rejects from his email list for tech club or something. So I sat down and tried to figure out said handwriting with him, and I think we got a couple of the emails (Reese's way of testing to see if the emails were valid was to send out an email with the subject line "test" and nothing else). We didn't get Superman though.

Pity.

How's Life?

I have been asked that question so many times today, I'm wondering if my face says, "Ask me how my life is going?" If you're curious, it's going by really well, although I would prefer a few hours more of sleep and a good 40% decrease in workload.

Sleep. Is. Good. And I'm not having enough of it lately.

I saw Mr. Coffee today, who asked me if econ was in the math department or social studies. I sometimes wish econ was in math. Then we'd get a smartboard, and, if we're lucky, we can shift the graphs like Mr. Booth does, and the econ graphs would make so much more sense.

Then, as I made my way over to econ after the bell, I saw Clay's French class outside the language lab, blocking the way. I think there is something about world language teachers (or at least the French ones) not arriving to class on time. Or maybe it's just classes that require stairs-climbing.

And I saw Joss too, who asked me, "How's life?"

Gah.

In econ, Yuma and I played go because I was too not motivated to do any work. Yuma won, of course, and then we started playing connect-five, and Joss then joined in, and Joss and I started playing connect-five except with gravity (like the connect-four game with the checker-like pieces). I won that game, surprisingly.

Somewhere in the middle of the class, Ali asked me, "Are you going to the Pink dance?" Which was really random, and kind of freaked me out because people are already talking about it.

Seriously. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. Stop making me more stressed.

Anyway, fast-forward after econ, multi, and some random wandering around the school. There was ultimate frisbee after school today, which Tea and I joined, except the running lasted much longer than I could handle, so after Tea left, I just used some random guy's backpack as a pillow and watched people play. Or mostly watched one person play, but whatever.

Then Brian started talking about how some sci-fi book claimed that humans are inefficient because we're intolerant, or something to that effect. We were in the courtyard at that time, searching for any abandoned frisbees (because Yuma could not find his). Then we looked up and saw Clay waving from a window on the second floor. We also saw Mrs. Pointy, but I don't remember if she waved at us or not.

We saw them again as they left out the side door while we waited for Brian's mom.

If you were to ask me how my life is right now, I think you'd know the answer.

(P.s. I left out the more creepy parts. To at least make myself appear more, uh, normal, if only on the Internet.)

October: A Prelude

I have found it increasingly harder to write about things that haven't happened at all, and much easier to write about things that have at least happened in part. I am not sure why—the other day, I was trying to write a story to keep my mind off upcoming college essays (because that is all I think about now), and I just couldn't do it. The beginning sounded weird, and I just couldn't go on from there.

I am exhausted, too, from all the work. I had a test in bio (yay for organelles), which took half an hour, and for the next fifteen minutes it was so hard to focus. It could also be because I don't have my chapter 7 notes, or that I just find it hard to focus in bio in general. The powerpoints make me drowsy, and there is so little math right now (I don't know if this will change). Also, I wish that this one girl in my class would just stop asking questions. I mean, I know, questions are good, but a question every other slide? Is that really necessary?

I also find it really hard to focus in econ, but I think I can manage bursts of attentiveness, so I use the lapses in-between to doodle on Yuma's or Joss's (again with the possessives) notebook. It has so far worked out really well. I am also participating a lot more, so I think Mr. Wollen has not realized my periodic lack of attention.

Anyway, I mentioned all of this (with every paragraph starting with an "I") to state what I think will be the pace for the rest of October. So, yes, I am mostly done with my common app, I am mostly done with my Penn essay, and I am half done with my Chicago essays, but there is still so much more to do. Plus I have to remember that I have two umbrellas left in my locker. I keep forgetting them.

There are, of course, happy bits stuck in-between. Relaxing times. There is math team (first meet of the year this Wednesday! can't wait), and science bowl is very, very exciting too. There is all this stuff that I can get done in my free, even though I have so much fun too. I am reading my daily dose of webcomics (both nerdy and not). Following tons of blogs. Reading lots of Middle East news (the class is doing wonders for my awareness of the area).

(This list of "relaxing" things is probably not very relaxing to many people.)

Regardless. I think I'm having a lot of fun. If I were metaphorical (and I am, but I'm not very good with music so I can't think of much to connect this back to the "prelude"), I would be talking about some musical piece right now. About how the sad, solemn pieces are broken apart by franticly happy parts. Or maybe my music of life is just set at a really fast tempo right now. Reminds me of that tango music we played back in grade eight (the one with all that plucking that gave my thumb blisters). Or maybe even "Amadeus." Don't remember much, though. I was rather glad to be rid of my music classes.

And amidst all of these musical analogies, let's hope Thursdays come by quickly. (Well, I'm also hoping 1st semester never ends, but I don't think many people hold that same hope.)

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).

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!

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.

UBS Is Uber-Huge (and assorted other adventures)

To sum up the UBS building I visited yesterday as part of my job shadowing program into two words, I would have to pick huge and fancy. If I could have a third, I would probably pick high-tech. In fact, it's been so huge and fancy and high-tech that I don't even know where to start, but I'll try.

The building was tall (and huge, although not more so than an ordinary big concrete building can be), concrete and glass, and by the main entrance, there were two fountain-esque features. They weren't exactly fountains, because they were more like several inches of flat water, but they were calming in a strange way. Then inside, they've got this long, long hallway, which leads to an elevator set, and then, going up the elevator, we (the "supervisor" that I was supposed to shadow and I, but most everyone else as well) walk into this huge, huge, huge room that's around three stories tall and with suspended glass offices at the edges (or so I think, anyway), lots of screens with stock indexes and international times posted everywhere. It was a dizzying experience, trying to take all of it in.

My supervisor, whom I shall call Bob for now for ease of referring to him, took me to his desk, and, as he needed to make several business calls (which were all in a foreign language, so I understood nothing), he gave me a huge booklet on the history of the American stock market ever since the pre-(Teddy) Roosevelt era. I tried to follow some of the business-y news, but instead, I found myself attracted to tidbits such as "Johnson stunned Democrats by declaring not to run for office" and that despite what CNN had told me during the 2008 elections (forgive me if I've remembered this wrong), the Bush administration actually oversaw quite a length of economic expansion (granted, the book ended at 2004, so it did not take into account the catastrophe of the later years).

Then Bob showed me to an ETF trader (and if the terminology sounds bizarre, it's because I only remember some of what he does, since he showed me so much stuff). I was there before the markets opened, so he had plenty of time to explain a lot of the things behind what he did. It was all Excel-heavy and he himself said that he had been a computer engineer major, and, during an internship at UBS in IT, fell in love with the excitement on the trading floor. I bet the multiple monitors each person had was a huge plus as well. They've got about three monitors per person, and sometimes even more, and all those screens were filled with charts and tables and other cool things.

After that, I met with several people involved in futures (whatever that means, I still have not found out). All I managed to figure out was that whenever something happened, there was this really cool sound effect that sounded like cars zooming past, and then sometimes a cash register sound, and sometimes a glass object breaking sound. I tried staring at the monitors, figuring out what was causing the sounds, but everything was flashing, and there were so many of them, and so many bright, ever-changing colors. It was exciting, extremely exciting.

Bob led me to the equity traders next, where I learned a short crash-course on inflation and more importantly, that the international equity traders often woke up at ungodly hours (going to work at 5:30am, or, if you were in Hong Kong, apparently going to work at 7am and still working at 11pm) and that they were assigned specific regions, but they were experts in their region, and knew all the news and such.

Then came the analysts, and one of the head analysts had a son who went to Paperclip. He asked me about my math classes and math team, and relayed the rumor/myth/maybe-true tale of how for several years, MIT only accepted one student per year from Paperclip. Well, I hope the spell's been broken, because there are so many people applying to MIT next year, and it would be awful if they only accepted one. Anyway, then we talked about analyses that contained t-tests and regression lines and r-values. It was statistics in real life, and it was amazing.

I went to an options trader later, but she was busy, so then I went to the economists' back row (the entire room's rather organized, and maybe if I feel like it I'll draw a picture later). I got a ten-minute crash-course of the US economy in the past, oh, 100 years or so (crash-courses seem very popular here, or maybe it's just me). The guy who was explaining everything to me then joked that he would be offering a crash-course in physics next.

I had to leave after that, but it was still quite an experience. Sorta left me speechless (except the always present "thank you") for a while. Yeah. Perhaps an analysis of this experience will come later. Maybe.

In GWTW (my abbreviation for the book I'm reading now) news, I'm extremely saddened. And frustrated. Rhett Bulter is, as Scarlett says, "no gentleman at all," but I had not expected him to be so irritating. I never found Catcher in the Rye frustrating, but I am now finding GWTW the most annoying thing I have ever read, and one of the saddest one as well, all at the same time. I can't believe it's not on some English curriculum at our school. It definitely should be—except that it's over 1000 pages long and most people in my English class right now would probably only Sparknote half of it, if that.

As it is, Othello will have to tide me over for now.

MID—
Rhett: 1.5
Scarlett: 2.5