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.

TOAST-Math Team Style, take OWEN

I've done this before, but here's the next installment. Sorry for the horrible delay.


NOTE: People represented in here do not closely resemble what they are like in real life. Just saying.

OTHER NOTE: Not edited. Yet. If you find any mistakes, report them to me, and I'll fix them.

Step UN: Choose your character—>

1.) Tea
2.) Owen (which is here)
3.) Argon
4.) Summer
5.) Tybalt

Step DEUX: Read the RULES—>

I. Find the number where your chosen character starts.
II. Read the first part.
III. When prompted, make a choice between either 1 or 2.
IV. After choosing, use ctrl-F to find where the next part goes. (this part may not work as well as thought to be because there are way too many repeating tags. so, uh, just go ctrl-F until something matches. sorry, it's the best I can do in one post.)
V. Have fun!

Step TROIS: Choose your fate—>


2.) Owen

It's Tuesday, and you're making your way to math team, along with Irving. Seriously. You spend so much time with Irving, you wonder what you'll do when you go off to college.

Well, that's still far, far away. And there's still plenty of months to enjoy your almost-extreme case of senioritis.

Down the hall, you see Mario looking distracted, but he has not noticed you or Irving yet.

1. Grab Mario's attention. (AAA.)
2. Ignore him. He'll captivate Irving's attention anyway, and you'll be left out. (AAB.)


AAA.

"Hey," you call out. "Mario!"

Mario looks over at you with a glazed look, as if he had just consumed a dozen sugar-glazed donuts. Actually, from the Starbucks bag he's carrying in one hand, you think your guess may not be that far off from the truth. Of course, you highly doubt Mario eats donuts.

But he's remotely better than Bryant in terms of width, so perhaps he indulges himself at times.

(And you think to yourself that Bryant should be glad intelligence and width are not directly related, but the authoress digress.)

"Hey Owen," Mario replies, still dazed. "Irving."

1. Ask Mario what's wrong. (AAC.)
2. Wait for Irving to ask Mario what's wrong. (AAD.)

AAB.

You ignore Mario. Irving will say something. He always does. If you didn't know any better (and if you hadn't known about the secret relationship Irving has with—wait, why are you even thinking this?), you would have sworn the two of them were infatuated with each other.

Instead, you watch in awe as Mario disintegrates.

Huh?

Then, you watch in more awe as Bryant comes from out of nowhere and says, "I knew this would happen! I told him so, and did he listen? No! Serves him right."

You stare at the thing in Bryant's hand that looks suspiciously like a ray-gun, and you can feel your feet inching backwards. Suddenly, you brush against something furry.

A purple bunny? What?

This is officially weird. (Because the authoress is officially tired of writing this.)

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)

AAC.

"What's wrong, Mario?"

You manage to choke out a sentence before Irving does, and you pride yourself for this achievement. After all, he's an expert at saying things really, really fast.

"Oh," Mario says. "It's nothing."

"What do you mean it's nothing?" Irving asks. "It's always something. Come on, tell us."

"Well... but you promise you won't tell anyone?"

You stare at Mario, who looks rather uneasy. That's strange. You debate whether it's worth it to commit yourself to a lifelong sentence of sworn secrecy, just to indulge your curio--concern.

1. Promise Mario you won't tell anymore. Really. (AAE.)
2. Tell Mario you have to meet with Dino, so you'll be going now. (AAF.)

AAD.

You wait for Irving to ask Mario what's wrong, because you're sure that's what Irving would ask in this situation, but instead Irving smacks Mario on the head and asks, "How many?"

How many what? You want to ask. Of course, Mario knows what, because he replies, "Twenty."

"I told you to cut back, didn't I?" Irving shouts. "Look at you. Look at you!"

"Hey, don't look at me. Bryant had forty, and he's passed out in my car."

"Are you guys, uh," you try to say, "talking about—alcohol?"

It's the only logical solution you can think of, if Bryant has passed out. Or maybe it's drugs. Either way, it's not good.

Irving and Mario stare at you, then both start laughing. Probably at you. Ouch.

1. Ask them what they're laughing at, and hope it's not you. (AAM.)
2. Ignore them. They're not worth your time, anyway. (AAN.)

AAE.

Your curiosity wins. Big surprise. You look Mario in the eye, hold up your hand, and say, "I solemnly swear that whatever happens between us stays between us, and us only."

"Me too," Irving says. Although that's sort of cheating, because he hasn't technically sworn himself to anything.

Mario breaks a weak smile, looks behind his shoulder to make sure no one can overhear him, and then turn to the two of you with a very serious face.

"I'm experimenting on my purple bunnies along with Bryant, but lately, Bryant seems to be too fondly attached towards the smallest one, and I'm afraid he won't let me carry out my experiments anymore."

Uh, what?

1. Try to say something intelligent. Even if you have no idea what Mario just said. (AAG.)
2. Just keep on staring. When in doubt, stare. (AAH.)

AAF.

"I'm sorry, Mario," you say, "but I have to go. Dino's waiting for me."

Mario doesn't even look at you, but Irving drags you back and says, "Come on. This is probably good. You don't want to miss it. Dino can wait a while."

You try to protest. "I really don't think—"

"I love you, Irving," Mario suddenly says. Irving drops your arm. You drop your jaw (hey, you can't drop your own arm). What? Did you just hear that right?

"I was going to give you this bag of donuts," Mario continues, "as a present, you know. But I ate it on my way here."

"I—uh—you—" Irving sputters.

1. Ask Mario, "Are you serious?" (AAK.)
2. Tell Mario, "So are you going to get Irving any other gift now that you've eaten his?" (AAL.)

AAG.

You decide anything is better than plain silence, so you begin to form some words in your throat. Or, more like, you begin to gurgle and babble.

"Uh—well, what—I mean—that—"

Luckily for you, Irving is much more level-headed. "What kind of experiments are you carrying out on these bunnies?"

You think there are much more pressing questions, such as why are you experimenting on bunnies? or why are these bunnies purple? or even why and how is Bryant involved in this craziness? But since Irving is the one with the words, you keep quiet. Perhaps you should reconsider the friends you make, but it doesn't matter now, since you're going off to college soon anyway.

Weren't you just thinking that you're glad college is so far away? You think you might have had a change of heart, because you can't imagine anything more wonderful than college "happening" right now, taking you away from Mario and his purple bunnies.

No offense to him, or Bryant, in any way.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)

AAH.

You can't vocalize your thoughts, so you just stare at Mario. As does Irving. Both of you stare at him, then at each other, then at anywhere but each other.

"Ahem," Mario says. "Anyway, I thought I should bribe Bryant with some donuts (you were right about the contents of the bag) so he'll forget about the bunny, but I accidentally ate all twenty donuts."

Well, twelve, twenty. Big difference. Besides, it's not as if anyone can win their way with Bryant through his stomach.

"What are you going to do now?" Irving asks.

"I don't know," Mario says. "I've been stressed out over it, but I think I'm going to get #4 to steal it while I talk to Bryant so he thinks I'm innocent."

That doesn't work, you want to tell Mario, because you're 95% confident (plus or minus 3%) that Bryant can read minds. But you're more concerned about who this #4 is, and you don't think you really want to know.

1. Ask Mario who #4 is. It can't be that bad, can it? (AAI.)
2. Whatever. It's not like you want to know, anyway. Right? (AAJ.)

(AAI.)

Once again, curiosity gets the better of you, and you decide to ask.

"Mario, who's #4?"

Mario stares at you as if you had just suddenly morphed into Dino. Ew. Bad thoughts. Really bad.

After a long, long silence, in which Irving just stares at the two of you as if you two were really fascinating, which, you would like to take a moment to say, you really are fascinating, Mario suddenly says, "Oh."

Huh?

"You should know #4. He occasionally goes to stat, if #1 can't go for some reason."

You're really confused right now. "Who's #1? Who are these people?"
"Wait, you mean you don't know #1? Oh no, what have I done?!"

Mario runs down the hall, wailing, and leaving both you and Irving possibly forever traumatized. And you still don't know who #4 is. Actually, you're not sure if you really even know Mario by now, and everything seems this huge mix of thoughts and memories.

1. Give up. This is just way too weird. (QQUIT.)
2. I don't have any other options, so if you don't want to quit, then, uh, the end? (THEEND.)

(AAJ.)

Before you can do anything, Irving speaks up. Nervously.

"Oh, hi, Bryant—"

You look over Mario's head. Bryant is there, glaring at the three of you. Or maybe he's just glaring at the back of Mario's head. Mario spins around, stares at Bryant's evil eyes, and stammers, "Uh, hi, Bryant, funny seeing you here."

"You were thinking about killing Cuddles!" Bryant screams.

"Cuddles?" Irving asks. "You named your bunny 'Cuddles'?"

Bryant turns to glare at Irving instead. Which is rather fortunate, because now he is not glaring at you. You slip behind Mario and co. just as Dino pokes his head out of the math team room and asks, "What are you screaming about, Bryant?"

You know you're Dino's brother and all, and you should save him from his fate (or what's left of it, anyway), but your life is at stake as well. You pray that Dino is good enough friends with Bryant, or Tybalt will come out and calm Bryant down, or—

Really. Why think? Just get out of here while you still can. Now.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)

(AAK.)

"Are you serious?" You ask, afraid to hear the answer. It does stop you from looking like a gaping idiot, though, so at least something is good.

"Of course not," Mario says. "I was just going to say that to Bryant, so I can distract him from more important things."

"Like what?" Irving asks, having caught his breath.

"Like how I'm going to be having #4 steal his baby purple bunny away for my experiments."

That is very, very strange. Too strange. You have lots of questions to ask, but perhaps this would also be a good time to get away and find Dino and tell him of this craziness.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Stay for a bit longer. Maybe Mario will spout more nonsense? (AAJ.)

(AAL.)

"Hey, uh, Mario," you say. "Are you going to get Irving any other gifts then? I mean, since you've already—"

Mario looks at you suspiciously. "Maybe," he says. "What's it to you?"

"Nothing. It's just, well—oh, nevermind."

"Are you jealous of me?" Mario asks.

You can still hear Irving sputtering. Maybe he's choking. You hope it's not serious, but you don't dare look at him what with the (deathly) looks Mario is giving you right now.

"No, I'm not!" You defend yourself, silently promising never, ever to get in Mario's way, ever. "I don't even like Irving. I like, uh—I like Melissa!"

Which is a lie, but she was the first person to pop into your head. Probably because she's standing a hundred feet away, looking at you.

Life just doesn't get any better, does it?
1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)


(AAM.)
You decide to get to the bottom of this. "What are you guys laughing at?"

"Ha, alcohol—" Mario laughs, tears forming in his beady eyes (maybe it just looks beady because of the tears). "You thought we were drinking!"

Irving howls. "Come on, Owen! You can do better than that. Think about it. It's Mario. And Bryant. What could they be doing?"

This isn't really funny, and you don't see why they're laughing like this, when—

You can't seem to stop laughing yourself. Everything's hazy, and you're not sure what you're saying anymore, but it makes Mario laugh, which makes Irving laugh, which makes you laugh, which makes Mario laugh even harder, which—

As you start to fall unconscious from lack of oxygen, you think you see Bryant's outline, along with... a purple bunny? You must be dreaming, you think, as everything turns dark.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. you can't breathe). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)


(AAN.)

You ignore the two of them and go into the math team room, where Dino, Tybalt, Argon, Tea, Gretchen, Ginny, and Micro are doing math problems. Not surprisingly, Bryant isn't there.

"What's going on outside?" Dino asks you.

"Nothing," you say. "Just Irving and Mario being—"

You want to say "jerks," but suddenly the laughter stops, and then someone screams. You rush outside, with everyone following you, and you see something purple and a skinny backside that sort of resembles—who was it again?—you can't remember. Mario and Irving are gone, and the skinny back disappears before you can call it to stop.

"Hey, Owen," Tybalt suddenly says, "have you seen Bryant anywhere? He went out with Mario, but he hasn't come back yet."

Bryant—skinny back—yeah right. They can't be related.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)





THEEND.

Yay! You've reached the end of the story, or whatever is left of this story. If you wish, you can: a) leave a comment below; b) go back to the beginning and try again; or c) leave a comment below.


QQUIT.

Oh dear, what happened? Did you fall into a wormhole and lose consciousness while aliens invaded the planet and ate your favorite Hershey's bar? Whatever the reason, it's too late now. Go back to the top and try again, and maybe you'll have better luck this time.

Hey, you! Yes, you.

A while ago (back in April) I wrote a post promoting equality amongst my equivalent of Gretchie's "imaginary friends." I had twenty people, because that was the most number of labels I could include, and since it's pointless if I mention someone but doesn't include their label, I just chose twenty people.

Today's lucky people are:

• Amanda
• Camel
• Dora
• Gretchen
• Irving
• Joss
• Mario
• Matt
• Melissa
• Micro
• Mogley
• Nyx
• Owen
• Reese
• Sonny
• Stella
• Tamir
• Tybalt
• Vincent
• Yuma

(*Zephy: Sorry! I was also going to include you, but you were the 21st, and therefore did not fit. I will dedicate a new post entirely to you later.)

But before all of this, I would like to say that I have started reading the DMV booklet for my permit test, and it's so far going well. I don't know what kind of test they have though, so we'll have to see. And besides, I suck at memorization.

Also... why, why do they use clock hands for steering wheel positions, instead of diagrams? I like my digital clock just as much as the next person, and the only time I use analog clocks are when I'm trying to figure out how much time I have left in a class, and it's become second-nature to me that I don't even know the hours, just the minutes.

Anyway. Let's commence!

Amanda-Amanda's sent out a FB message to me (along with various other people) asking me if I wanted to join her on a NYC trip sometime in the summer. I do, but I have to okay it first with my parents, so I'm holding on responding just for now.

Camel-I don't think I'll ever have another class with Camel. He's being boring and taking Physics B and Calc AB, and somehow I don't think he's going to take AP Lit or any of my other classes. Doesn't sound like him. We don't really talk outside of communicating with Nyx, so I guess we won't really talk ever again.

Dora-Right! Movies, possibly. I still have to get back to her on that as well. So many things happening this summer! I'm glad that summer's finally here. There's definitely less stress right now, which is good, but I think I'm going to be looking forward for school to start, surprisingly.

Gretchen-Can you believe she's behind Irving, of all people, in my tag-list? I can't. Well, I suppose it's because of all the math team things where I mention Irving because he's usually doing something outrageous (but usually less so to some extent) with Mario. Anyway, Gretchen and I need to land in Japan soon. I'm getting a little air-sick right now.

Irving-Mentioned above, and that I probably won't ever see him again, unless I get into Hahvahd (unlikely) or get into MIT (also unlikely) and he happens to bike by because I can't bike by him since I don't know how to bike.

Joss-He still has spiky hair, even though he cut it shorter earlier. I don't know what else to say of him. Not very exciting right now.

Mario-Oh, Mario. What to say of him? I think he's going to have superiority issues next year in math team. To think that he said of Irving's behavior during Moody's, "I think he had trouble realizing who was the real boss. Next year there won't be a question as to who's in charge." No doubt. It's not him.

Matt-Super skinniness aside, he's leaving as well! I somehow cannot process that, even though I could process Irving and Owen and Melissa leaving. I guess it's because he wasn't away on the senior internships, so I haven't really felt him leave. I'm really going to miss him, even if he doesn't talk much.

Melissa-Ambivalent on her leaving. I think things are going to be a lot quieter without her, which is both good and bad. We won't have her cookies anymore as well, so that could be bad.

Micro-I'm trying to communicate to him in sign language, but neither he nor Sonny understands it, so Yuma and I are having a particularly difficult time.

Mogley-Didn't know he was taking Econ next year. Maybe we'll be in the same class again. He had English scheduling problems earlier, and I told him, "Just get AP English," to which he said, "No way, me?" Our English teacher agreed with his sentiment, and not just because of his horrible grammar (I still can't forgive him for writing lists without commas).

Nyx-Has a super early arena time but has no need for it because of her singletons. I'm slightly envious, but then I remember that no matter who I have they're either not bad or they're unavoidable, so I don't care that much either. And I'll probably have physics with Tea (unless it runs out) so it doesn't concern me very, very much.

Owen-Writing about Owen here reminds me of his alpaca. Also my "choose your own adventure" story. Otherwise he doesn't remind me of anything except that I don't know who's going to keep Dino well-oiled in the next year. We might see an increase in system crashes then.

Reese-I'm talking to Reese on Gchat a lot now. He's using Digsby, which is apparently similar to the device that Tea uses except for PCs. I shall have to try that out soon.

Sonny-He's hilarious, even if he doesn't mean it. He also can't understand sign language or exaggerated waving. Also, I found out how freaky he looked while sunbathing with Scott and the like. A row of guys lying down on the ground in the courtyard just looks weird.

Stella-I don't talk to her nearly as much now. I should. In fact, I will talk to her today as soon as I get this Digsby thing working.

Tamir-Why did I even first mention him? Why do I keep on mentioning him? I don't know. Whatever.

Tybalt-From what I've heard from Kathrya lately, he's exceedingly sweet. This disproves my best friend from back before's theory that all guys are jerks. But then again, I knew that a long time ago. Besides, it doesn't disprove the theory that some guys (ambiguity on how many) are jerks.

Vincent-I need to go over to his house more often if it means more Clue time. I'm addicted to the game. It's unhealthy, I think, both physically and emotionally.

Yuma-I never knew he was so good at go, but then again, Yuma is amazing at a lot of things. We definitely need him on our Moody's team next year. Also, Mrs. MacDonald said that she was looking forward to seeing me (and presumably everyone on our team) next year for Moody's. I think that basically guarantees that, if we don't do something stupid and smoke pot in front of the principal or something like that, we're going to be on a team (if not on a team together) next year.

Whew. Now let's see if anything on my "Noteworthy" list looks better now.

Busy, Busy, Really Busy

I decided to tie off some loose ends in my life lately, or at least with regards to school. In particular, I talked to my counselor yesterday about my dysfunctional classes (namely English) during lunch, and then after school I made several trips around the school trying to figure out what I had always told myself I would do, but never got around to it.

Well, I saw Mr. Booth before stat, and I asked him if he would write a college recommendation for me. He asked me to talk to him after school, so I did, and we came to a rather nice agreement (after staring at some funky multi graphs). He also told me that there will be a final math team meeting for the year next Wednesday (note: more on this to come), in the Community room. It is to be a food affair, I gathered, and it's held then so the seniors can come back from their internships (ending this week).

So if anyone was wondering when the last math meet will be, read on.

I then went to find Dr. Moles to discuss my pending AP Bio issue, but I had no idea where his office was. I tried the bio cluster first, but I didn't see him, and instead, I saw Ms. Sherbert, who told me where his office was. She then proceeded to tell me that the math meet was on Tuesday, which confused me a lot. I told her that Mr. Booth had mentioned Wednesday, so now we will have to wait and hear.

I also finally talked to Dr. Moles, who set me on the holy grail towards AP Bio.

After that, I borrowed the required reading for AP English, which is somewhat similar in plot to GWTW, so I will once again be using that as another one of my summer reading material.

Latest update today: math meeting is on Wednesday. No sushi, I suppose (although anyone who wants sushi can drop by the calc classroom early next Tuesday before the party officially starts). Also, Dino has recommended that I bring pudding, although he won't be there so it doesn't matter. I could always bring some pudding on Wednesday as a parting gift for Irving and Owen. I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

Now for things I've still got to do: HUSH portfolios, finish Othello, stat project (but it's coming along nicely because of Fathom's awesomeness), get signed up for bio somehow, and revive my clubs.

Math Team Isn't Math Team Without...

I'll try to recount the math team adventures as well as I can, but it is probably going to be a very difficult task. Especially the more, uh, interesting parts, for lack of a better word.

Anyway, Friday (the day of the New England math meet) was also our school's designated Day of Silence as well, so early Friday morning I met with my fellow DoS'ers outside the auditorium, enjoying our last few minutes of "talking time" before the actual "silence time" started.

Of course, our dismissal was after the first period, so when I came down to the main foyer, where Tea, Argon, Micro, Tybalt, and Bryant (who was in chem with me prior) were already there, I was still silent. We waited a while, and then Irving showed up. So now we were just missing Mario, which was sort of typical. Tea said that she did not see him during gym earlier, which launched speculations of whether we should find someone else to substitute him.

"Mario is probably going to show up right after someone else comes down," Tea said.

Irving went outside to call Mario, and returned with a quoted, "The king is coming." Well, now we were sure that Mario was coming and not stranded at some isolated Starbucks (although if only one of them was stuck, the others would still be able to come if they really wanted).

After another five or ten minutes of holding up three other schools (who were waiting in the bus outside), Mario arrived, and so we all filed out and onto the bus. Tea and I sat together, with Tybalt and Bryant to our left and Mario and Irving behind us. Remember, I was still silent at this time, and Tea, bored with only talking to herself, tried to make me talk. Finally, I drew a "nine" with my finger.

"What is that? A 'P'?" Tea asked. I shook my head and tried again. Tea imitated my motion and then said, "Nine? You're going to talk at nine?" To which I nodded.

"What time is it now?"

After asking Mario, we ascertained that we had twenty minutes to go. I spent those twenty minutes trying to explain a geometry question to Tybalt in pantomime, but it was not very helpful. After what was probably one of the longest twenty minutes of my life (I discovered later that those twenty-minute sections on the SATs are longer), it was finally nine.

Tea and I spent the rest of the bus ride playing word and alphabet games. Well, all the way to Providence anyway. We had trouble finding any sign that had the letter "J," "Q," and "Z," but I got lucky at the very end and found a sign ("Regency Plaza") that had both "Y" and "Z." Of course, Tea had finished long ago, but I had been stuck on the "Q," so I took much, much longer.

We came to a stop at Providence Place for lunch, but the first store we ever went into was the Apple store. There, near the door, were a whole table of iPads. Everyone immediately started playing on the fancy gadgets. Tea and I first played with the air hockey app, then the piano app, then this maze app with a small, silver ball that reminded me of Silversphere. After a while, we decided that food was more important, so we went upstairs (following Irving and everyone else, who seemed to know the way) to the food court.

Here was probably the most difficult part of the entire day: deciding what to eat.

I suggested using a random probability simulator, but then we saw the swivel chairs at this fast food place whose name I have conveniently forgotten, so we got food there instead. We sat on the swivel chair for a while, before one of the people behind the counter said, "The bar's only for full service," and promptly asked us to leave. Whatever "full-service food" meant aside, since we were out-casted by the Mario/Irving/Tybalt/Bryant group anyway, we went and found more high chairs and sat there instead while we ingested what had to be the fattiest food we'd ever eaten in days (if not weeks, but I think weeks is too long for me).

Then we went downstairs to the bookstore, where I bought a (pink, shiny) recorder. The line took a long time, so by the time we got out, everyone else was already in the bus, waiting for us. After we got on the bus, it took off, and then stuff happened here but I should be studying/coming up with the Santiago part of the trip in Chile so I'll stop here for now. I'm thinking of just cutting out everything that happened during the meet (since it wasn't nearly as fascinating) and just jump right to the bus ride back, but we'll see.

The Long-Awaited Math Team Runoffs

Gretchen and I were the first ones in the classroom yesterday. I was really surprised that Dino did not make it here earlier than Gretchen, but then I remembered that he had health now, instead of gym, so he would not be able to get out of class earlier and climb up three flights of stairs before the last bell rang, as he must have done prior.

Melissa came here as well, and said, "I was thinking about not coming, but I had been mean to Owen lately, so he made me come here instead of him."

This Owen-goading was apparently something she and Irving shared with great interest.

Micro also came, although he said that he would be on the team regardless. He did say that he did the practice problems, because he didn't want to get all zeros.

We then heard Kathrya and Genie outside, so Gretchie and I went outside as well. Somewhere here (along the line of time), Tea also shouted out from some random place (I didn't hear her, but Gretchie did), and Dino walked past us as well.

So that was basically the attendance for the last runoff of the year. Irving also came sometime later, as well as Mario and his Princeton sweater.

We started soon afterwards, with Gretchie, Tea, and I (and Dino and Micro, I presume) each taking our 1-2-3/4 rounds. Round one was a miserable existence. There were plenty of mental addition/subtraction math, which I am most horrible at, and, judging by the scores, everyone is also rather horrible at. Round two was okay, but not that much better. Round three (for those who took it) was fair, but I tended to make weird mistakes, and yesterday was one of those days. Round four was surprisingly easy for some reason, although I suppose having known calculus was the only reason why I even knew how to solve the last question (although the concept was mentioned in precalc, and Argon told me today that he also got it right with deductive reasoning).

Dino chose not to do a fourth round, and Irving and Mario only did two rounds each (Mario had taken another round earlier). Melissa disappeared some very long time ago. So by the end of the fourth round, only Gretchie, Micro, Tea and I were left. I went over to the table with the scored rounds to see what I got, and saw that Argon (who had taken the rounds earlier during his semi-free) had gotten the same number of points in rounds one to three, except his round one and two points were the reverse of mine. Dino also had gotten the same score in rounds one and two as us. Micro nearly got a perfect in round three, so he had the highest round three score out of all of us, but he rather miserably failed the first two rounds, thus prompting Gretchie and I to later speculate what would happen if Irving and Bryant (he, along with Tybalt, was also not at the runoffs due to track practice) did the "easiest" rounds one and two instead of their five and six, which right now only they and Mario and Tybalt can do.

Anyway, later yesterday night, while I was writing my English essay, Tea told me on Google chat to "go on Facebook and tell Dino that I do not carry messages" (along with her numerous lines of "Ginny? GINNY? Fine, be that way" that somehow made itself into a separate chat log). I asked her why, and she said something about the runoffs.

Before I had even finished typing "Dino, Tea asked me to tell you that—" Dino asked, "How did you do on the runoffs?"

Strange. He had never cared how I did before, but since we had already established that he was a strange boy, I indulged him and told him my scores. He responded with a single-word response of "nice."

The next day (which is really just today), Tea said that Dino told her that he had gotten a total score of fourteen. Which was absolutely ridiculous, because even though I did not remember how well he did on round four, he had gotten the same as me on the first two rounds, and my total (round four replacing round three) score did not even reach fourteen, despite having gotten a perfect in round four.

(The fact that his supposed score is one point higher than mine is also very suspicious.)

Oh, Dino and his lies.

So, Tea asked me why I like Dino. This piece below was written yesterday, but the theme fits, and I hope it will serve as a sort of explanation.


If I could have one dream and never wake up, please make this a dream, because then it would be all too real and I would not lose a thing, not the happy memories not the tragic moments not the laughter not the pain not one bit not anything.


I am reconsidering what Ritchell means to me. I cannot help it, I am a writer, and I look for the metaphor everywhere I go, and everything I do. I had once thought that if I made everything into an allegory of something else, I would be able to figure out why the good things come and go, and why the bad things always linger in the background.

Likewise, Ritchell became part of my goal to create the ultimate symbol, the epic that would have a real-life meaning that I could comprehend and then pass on. I made a mental list of all of his qualities, some from my memories, some from my imagination, but most from this world that was out of my control. This was the world Fate created and Allison Saint-Cross tried to destroy, and so Ritchell was just as contradicted, just as hard to understand, just as lost.

Ritchell was a combination of the real and the unreal, but to call him anything less than real would be unfair, just as it would be to call him anything less than surreal. I could tell anyone on the street the tangible traits Ritchell possessed, and receive some blank stares along with some hints of recognition. Just as well, I could say, there exists such a person, and describe Ritchell until he could not be any more clear in my head, and no one would have ever heard of him, even if I never bring up his name.

I see traces of Ritchell everywhere, everywhere I go, but he is never quite there.

I thought I had seen Ritchell just the other day, that chilly November. He was standing by the tallest oak tree in the park, and he had those eyes that I instantly knew belonged to Ritchell. I walked over to him, introduced myself, and asked for his name.

"Matt," he said, and that was the end of that. He had Ritchell's voice, and his composure. He was Matt Ritchell, then, I concluded. Names meant nothing anyway, unless you were Allison Saint-Cross, but even then, names meant much less than the ones bearing the names.

We stood in the park, sharing memories as if we had experienced them together and were merely trying to help the other recall the little details, like the fresh basil sprinkled onto the bowls of tomato soup served at the county fair, or the slightly purple-blue flower hanging onto its stem in the middle of December, amidst a blanket of snow. He was my Ritchell, if Ritchell were ever mine to begin with, and I grew confident with every song we sang those wintry months.

But Nephria had a legend as ancient as the walls of its buildings and as enduring as the air and roads and the blood spilt on those roads. It was known as Prescott's curse, and it came every winter with the snow and left every spring when the snow disappeared. If there had to be one reason why Allison Saint-Cross could try to destroy this world and still be honored as a hero, it would be because of Prescott's curse, and it would be because although Fate had no sympathy, Allison was only imperfect.

So April came, with its rainy solemnity and childish stubbornness, and April went, and summer came and summer went, and I thought I saw Ritchell again, many times, but when I looked again he was gone, and I had many times wondered if he had struck a deal with Chronos and could transport himself through time and space as easily as the apathetic redhead could.

Come November again, I met Avery Kanswell, who said he knew Ritchell, knew him by heart, knew everything there was to know about him. I asked him, were we talking about the same Ritchell? And Kanswell replied, "There may be many people called Ritchell, but there is only one Ritchell. You and I both know that."

I nodded, not because I thought he was right, but because I knew this would be the best explanation I would ever have as to why Ritchell could transcend the laws of Fate that even Allison could only envy to achieve. I asked Kanswell if he knew where Ritchell was, and Kanswell said I should know, if only I tried hard enough. I told him I saw Ritchell everywhere, but that did not help me very much, because just as he was everywhere, at the same time, he was nowhere.

And then I saw Ritchell. He had Ritchell's eyes, he had Ritchell's composure, he had Ritchell's air of presence. I wanted to say something to him, but just as I could see him everywhere and know that he was there and not there at the same time, I could see him here and not be able to make him hear a single word I said.

I stood from afar, observing my masterpiece evolve, sure to encompass the symbolism I knew was in his very state of being. I had groaned when I read other writers' papers, with their confusing microcosms and stories within stories that I could not understand, but now I pursued my metaphor with the same vigor, because this would be the one. This would be the classic, the one that would hold true throughout time, the one constant that could transgress every rule and limitation that made all of us keep faith in Fate but still yearn to believe in Allison.

Then one day, I woke up from my reveries and really saw Ritchell, and I realized that I had always been comparing Ritchell to that spectrum between Fate and Allison, and trying my hardest to ensure that Ritchell was perfect, because he was the closest I had to someone as intangible as Fate. But Ritchell was imperfect, just like Allison, just like Prescott, just like Chronos, just like everyone else. It was because Ritchell was imperfect that he could transcend time and space, because he could be everywhere at once, because everywhere was just like him, because everywhere had his essence and state of being. He was, in part, the perfect metaphor I had been searching for, but in part, he was not, because everyone else could just as well be that metaphor and play the role just as well, just as wholeheartedly, just as outstandingly, breathtakingly, tragic.

Ritchell was not the metaphor; he was only a part of this world that was so alike and so different that everything could be a metaphor for everything and describe the situation so fittingly yet be nonconforming enough to not resemble the original.

Ritchell was a metaphor for the dreams and broken memories and feathered hopes and everything else that resided in this world that Fate had created and that Allison had not yet destroyed, and those things were metaphors for Ritchell and everything he said and did and believed.

And somewhere amidst this revelation, I realized that Ritchell was both the fleeting good and the lingering bad, the very mystery I had been trying to unravel. He was not an explanation. He was simply another example of what I had observed a long time ago, and he presented the truth in such a obscured, juxtaposed way that I had no choice but to face it and ignore that cowardice that had accompanied me ever since I had first begun on this journey.

I'm not perfect, but I keep on trying, 'cause that's what I said I would do from the start.

"80, that's definitely a solid B." (Math Adventures—Part IV)

Continued from last time, where we had just finished round one and were going on to round two, but since this has been drawn out for so, so long, I will effectively condense round two and round three (during which Mario and Tybalt tried to find what room Argon and I were in, but failed because they didn't turn around and see me), and this latest edition will begin as Argon, Micro, Dino and I were all back in the cafeteria (basically after round four, so Mario and Tybalt have gone off to do round five).

"How are we doing now?"

"Round two was brutal. We got six points—Treeburg got twenty."

"There's no way Treeburg got twenty points," Dino said, standing up to go over to the score-projector. We followed him and confirmed this sad reality, and then came back to our table again.

"So, there goes 159," Micro said.

"159?" Dino asked, feigning confusion (I was pretty sure he was feigning, because he went on to ask "confusedly" what 162 was, when he was the person who first brought it up).

"Hey, Micro," I said. "Take 162 and multiply it by 0.8 on your calculator."

Micro punched in some numbers and said, "129.6."

"Okay, that's our new goal. 130."

"Why?" Argon asked. "What's 130?"

"That will give us a solid B."

"That's not a solid B," Dino said. "That's a low B."

"80 is definitely a solid B. In the grand scheme of grade-keeping, it doesn't matter what's added to the B at the end."

"Whatever." Dino chose to go back to explaining cos x as a Taylor polynomial to Argon, then added the two together to form the Taylor polynomial of e. After some fiddling and manipulation of numbers, he circles the final result—a degenerate Euler's formula, without the one or zero.

"Whatever," Dino said again as I pointed out his lack of zeros.

"I get how you derived it," Argo said, "but I don't understand how you can take something to the i power. I mean, what does that mean? How do you do it?"

"Well," Dino said. "It just is. You don't ask 'how.'"

Skimming over more trivial events (Micro, Argon, and I testing out more suspicious gelatin-marshmallow candy flavors, Mario claiming that we may still have a chance against Treeburg after seeing their dismal round four scores, and Bryant wondering if he should sneak in a TI-89—not allowed, but unlikely that the proctors would see the difference between that and a TI-84, which is allowed—for the team round questions), this final installment of Math Adventures sees us about to hear who the winners for the state match are. Half the schools (those who figured they would never make top three anyway) had already left, but of course we were not concerned about them. All we cared about was whether we had defeated Treeburg or not.

"And now, in second place for the large schools—"

"If we win," Dino said, "I am going to scream."

"—Paperclip High School!"

Well, so much for hearing him scream. Since the next part(s) is boring, I shall fast forward it. Basically people got their trophies (if any), got on the bus, made lots of noise, Ms. Sherbert asked "all the Paperclip kids to count off and see if everyone's here," to which Mario responded, rather immediately despite his poor view in the back, that yes, we were all here, and then we got back to school. As you can probably see, I have kind of forgotten all the details.

Nevertheless. There is math team tomorrow. The adventures continue!

(UPDATE: Our team made it to the top twelve in the Moody's challenge! YAY! We get a scholarship prize of $1500, which I have no idea how it's going to be even given to us, but nonetheless, top twelve! That is so amazing. As a side note, I am surprised that the Mario-Irving-Owen-Tybalt-Bryant team did not do as well as ours (although they made honorable mention), seeing as their paper seemed much more mathematically based, and ours lacked a conclusion. Perhaps we were so amazing that they overlooked those minor details.

Or so I'd like to believe.)

Soda Is More Important Than Food (Math Adventures—Part III)

Continued from last time, where Micro had taken the last of the green tea candy (thankfully), and people started filing inside. We went through another twisty hallway, and landed in the cafeteria of what I shall call Turkey High School. It's about the same size as Paperclip's cafeteria, except it's circular (instead of the L-shape that seems to be our entire school's motif). On each table was a school's name on a piece of paper. We found our school's table, and everyone sat down, with Irving and Mario at one end and Micro, Argon, and me at the other end.

"I'm hungry," I complained. I really was hungry. I don't think I ate much for lunch.

"There are so many soda machines here," Bryant said, pointing to the soda machines scattered all over the edges of the cafeteria. "But none of them sells food."

"Really?"

"Yeah. There's one that sells ice cream though."

I went off in search of the ice cream machine, which was empty, alas. I also saw a display shelf that I assumed sold snacks, but a piece of paper taped onto the glass said "No snacks sold after 1:00." I circled around and came back to our table again to find Argon working on math packets again.

"So," Micro said, "is anyone going to teach me synthetic division?"

"Bryant," Dino said. Bryant concurred, and started writing numbers and drawing lines.

Argon chose this moment to say, "I still don't understand how you can raise e to the i."

He was referring to Euler's formula, and of course, having learned the derivation of it not a long time ago in calc, Dino said, "It's calculus."

"Oh," Argon said. "Really?"

"Yeah. Look here—" Dino pulled out a sheet of paper and started writing the Taylor series for sin x and explaining it. (Since the notation of all of this is very complicated to type without math type, I will not go in depth about the explanation. Just know that by the time Dino got to cos x, we were called down to go to our rooms to start round one.)

"Smart people on the left," the proctor who was showing us our rooms said. We took a left and went into a relatively empty room. Everyone sat down close to each other, then Micro said, "We can't sit next to people from our school."

Argon, Dino, and I, sitting in a circle-like formation around Micro, got up and moved. After I sat down again, I turned around and asked Micro, "Why did all of us move and you got to stay where you were?"

"I don't know," Micro shrugged.

We were then handed the round one questions, and someone out in the hall called the time so that everyone started and ended at the same time. The questions were all straightforward, since it was, after all, round one, and were basically counting numbers. Ten minutes went by slowly, with me playing with my pencil and checking over my work several times (not that I can usually spot anything that I've done wrong anyway).

When the proctor out the hall said that time was up, we all held our papers up to be collected. Then, I turned around (since everyone else sat behind me, as I was sitting in the very front) and compared answers with the others.

"Wait," Dino said, "the third question is six? I got five." That particular question called for counting perfect cubes that fit a certain criterion.

"Did you count twelve?" I asked. I had almost missed that one myself.

"Yeah, I counted that."

"Did you count one?" Argon asked. "That's a perfect cube."

"Oh." Dino said, realization on his face. "One."

"Hey, at least we still have a chance for 159," Argon said, referring to the "162" goal Dino had set earlier.

At this moment, someone from another school said, "The answer to the last one's five, right?"

"No, six," Micro said. "Did you count one?"

"Yeah, I counted one, two, three, two squared, and two times three..."

"What about twelve?" I asked.

"Oh, dammit! I forgot that one!"

Tricky, tricky. Well, at least we still had hope for a 159 (well, not really, and especially not really since I know what happened next, but since I'm a meanie I will tell the next time I blog.)

That's all for today, folks, and we'll see you next time! Don't forget to call our toll-free hotline, 1-800-NEPHRIA*, for any questions, concerns, or downright rants!


(*Hotline does not exist. Other methods of communication does, though.)

"Oh look, ice cream!" (Math Adventures—Part II)

I left off yesterday at the part where we were all on the bus, doing whatever suited ourselves. In my row's case, I was highlighting US packets while staring out the window, Micro was playing with some fancy gadget, and Argon was trying to sleep. After what seemed like an eternity (since reading article after article about Indian gaming isn't the most fun thing I've ever done in my life), the bus pulled into a plaza.

"Are we here?" Someone from another school asked.

Argon opened his eyes, and, after scanning his surroundings, said, "Oh, yeah, we're going to be taking the test here, at—"

"GameStop," I said. "I wouldn't mind taking it in GameStop. Wait. Is that—ice cream!"

However, it appeared that we were not meant to stay, for the bus then turned around and drove away. We were where we were supposed to be, though, for after five minutes we pulled up into the high school that was the site of our match.

Everyone shuffled off the bus, and, in utter confusion, started walking towards some unknown destination. We found some entrance inside, and shuffled down the hall, then out the door into some place that looked like a courtyard. There were several stone tables and chairs in the courtyard, and Tybalt suggested that we all sit down, so we found an empty table and sat.

"We're getting 162 today," Dino said as soon as we all sat down (except for Irving and Mario, who were talking to Mr. Booth). "162."

There were eight of us, and at 18 points (for a perfect score) each, plus a team round of 18 points, we could get a total of 162 points (theoretically).

"Okay," Tybalt said, pulling out his formula sheets. "I just have to remember these. Hey, Bryant, what's tan of π/8?"

"Square root of two minus one."

I stared at him. "Why would you need to know that?"

"The area formula for a regular polygon. You have to divide π by the number of sides. And that answer's not right," Bryant said, referring to Dino, who was working on a round four question.

"What?"

"The answer on the packet, it's wrong. I tried it and it doesn't work."

"Oh," Dino said. He then proceeded to check his answers using synthetic division. Micro, who was sitting next to him, spotted Dino's work and asked what it was.

"Synthetic division. You don't know synthetic division?"

"Nope."

"And you're doing algebra? You need to know synthetic division!"

"That's the disadvantage of skipping algebra two," Argon said.

"Okay," Dino said. "I'll teach you. It's easy. It's similar to long division. You know long division, right?"

"Well—uh—maybe—no."

By this time, Irving and Mario had already migrated to our table as well. Mario was talking about something math-related when someone from another school several meters away from us started playing the guitar.

"He's horrible at it," Dino said, his mission of teaching Micro synthetic division abandoned.

"Why don't we have someone at our school like that?" Mario asked. "There's always that one guy, you know, who carries a guitar all day long. We should have someone at our school like that."

The group of people around the guitar-playing guy suddenly started singing. We stared at them for a while, then Mario turned around and saw several people throwing a football around.

"They're so bad at throwing."

"They're math nerds," Bryant said. "What do you expect?"

"Hey, Irving," Mario said. "You better polish up your frisbee skills. That's all they do in college."

The conversation subsided into math afterwards ("Quick, Irving, what's secant theta?" "Huh? What do you mean, what's secant theta?" "One over cosine theta."). We stayed outside under the nice weather for a while longer, and I took out a strange bag of candy.

"So, I have weird food today," I said, "since I figured I probably shouldn't cook. Anyone want some?"

Dino stared at me and echoed, "Weird food?"

Argon poked a piece of candy and said, "What is this?"

"I don't know." I opened the bag and took a piece out. "It's not in any language I know."

The packaging was in Japanese, although the character on the piece I had taken resembled the Chinese word for "tea." I told Argon so, and he took a piece as well.

"It tastes like a blend of marshmallows and gelatin," he said after taking a bite. "I don't really like the tea flavor though."

"Me neither," I said. I've never really liked tea-flavored things. Why Micro took this as a cue to take one for himself, I'll never know.

And that's it for today, folks. We'll see you next time!


(A.k.a.: Yeah, I should really be doing work right now, so I'll continue for next time. The entire retelling process may take a very, very, very long time, if this keeps up.)

Math Is Definitely A Sport

I am not much of a sports player (seeing as every sport I play—except maybe for KanJam, which I believe I am quite an expert at because I can aim a frisbee into the tiny slot on those KanJam cans—can be described with the words, "flailing arms everywhere and horrible hand-eye coordination"), so I do not know what a real sports team is like, at least among the players themselves. I cannot claim that solving complex geometry problems is the same as scoring a goal in lacrosse (which I still have no idea how it's played, but I'll probably ask soon).

However, math is most definitely a sport in its own right. It's competitive, we have a team, and we have matches and rivals and most of all, there are different levels of competitions.

In fact, our rivals in math are pretty similar to our rivals in, say, soccer or football.

Anyway, I promised earlier that I would blog about the state math meet, and so, after much homework-tackling and procrastination, here it is, a transcript of (nearly) everything that happened.

When I handed in my permission form on Monday, Ms. Sherbert told me that we would have a dismissal at one. I went on the website that night and checked the schedule (because I only have end-of-class times memorized by the minute hand, not the hour hand), and realized that I would still technically have to go to period 5, my calc class. But everyone was going to be taking a test that I had already taken anyway, so I figured that I wouldn't need to stay. That was what I told Argon (who has half of period 5 free, lucky him) during lunch, and he agreed to come with me upstairs to see Mrs. James and tell her that I was "skipping."

We made it halfway there when we saw Micro wandering down the hall in the opposite direction.

"We have the entire period off, right?" Micro asked as we approached him.

"Well," Argon said, "our dismissal's at one, so you still have to go to period 5."

"Oh, well, I have Spanish, so I'm skipping."

For students who supposedly represented some of the "brightest of Paperclip High," as Mr. Stone said the other day before AIME (while Tybalt stood on a swivel chair trying to dismount a projector, and Mr. Stone commented on what a shame it would be if Tybalt fell off and hit his head), we sure love going to class.

Micro followed my entourage (which expanded from one person to two) upstairs as we debated the world language department. Once we got to the calc classroom, I slipped in and explained the situation to Mrs. James.

"Where is Dino?" Mrs. James asked. "You guys have half an hour. He could have squeezed in part of the test today. Oh, he's such a slacker."

Later on, as we wandered the halls some more, Argon said, "I feel kind of bad for feeling sorry for everyone who's stuck in class while we're out here."

We had just walked past the ASR room, and I suggested that we go back and say hi to Tea and Mario, but this notion was dismissed as soon as we saw Mr. Fisher.

"Hey, Mr. Fisher," said Argon, who had had him for bio last year. Mr. Fisher nodded hi to Argon and I, and then spotted Micro.

"Where were you yesterday? Were you skipping?"

"No," Micro said. "I was sick yesterday."

"Sure you were. You were skipping yesterday, and you're skipping now."

We then made our way to the library, where I spotted Irving, Tybalt, Bryant and Dino sitting at a table together. Looks like everyone (except Mario, who, according to Tea, was in ASR, and Argon, who actually had a free) decided to skip.

After half an hour of basically doing nothing (I printed out all of my US documents, but that was about it), we re-congregated at the front door, where another school was already there waiting. I could not figure out what school it was, although it may have been the high school from the town next to ours. The bus still had not arrived yet, so we loitered in the lobby.

"Dino," I said, turning to him. "Mrs. James said that you're a slacker for not taking the test today."

"Oh, yeah," Tybalt agreed. I'm not sure how he knows this information, as he was in the library for the entire time, but perhaps he has superpowers I am not aware of.

"Come on," Dino said. "Cut me some slack. I'm not going to take half the test today and then take the rest on Thursday. I have a research paper due."

"So do I," I said. "And I took mine already."

"Yeah, well, English is your first language." Right. That made a lot of sense.

"No, it's not," I said.

"Yes, it is. It's not mine."

"What do you speak then?" Bryant asked. "Robot?"

The bus came at this time, so all discussions about Dino's robot status ended. Micro headed the line to go on the bus, which was already filled with people from other schools (I spotted Treeburg's red sweatshirt), and sat down in a random row. Argon sat next to him, and I sat across from Argon. Since there wasn't enough space left for the rest of them to sit together, Mario led the rest of them towards the middle of the bus.

The bus ride itself was rather uneventful, either because I didn't sit anywhere near Mario (and his gossip central), because I sat in front of Treeburg, who were all playing Pokémon loudly for some reason, or because I had lots of work for US that I had to do and I didn't want to be too overburdened. Probably a combination of all three. I did manage to get Argon to promise that he will trim down his backpack by the end of spring break ("You'll be really surprised at the results," or so I've been told), and highlight several documents (except the one that had "centrifugal" forces, which I rejected to the bottom of the pile because centrifugal forces do not exist and is obviously false).

Ladies and gentlemen, we will be right back after I sleep for the night, finish my EOQR, my essays (note the plural) and review for my finals the commercials! Stay tuned to find out what happens next!


(A.k.a.: I am tired now and will go sleep, but I've already written half of this, so I might as well post it now and then be lazy and write the rest later.)

Because We Believe In Equality

This was started yesterday. Anything that mentions "this morning" or "today" means April 1st.

First of all, this post is entirely dedicated to evening out the huge discrepancy in the assignment of labels (or "libellés," as my Blogger page now displays, because I just recently converted it into French as part of an ongoing project to have everything I use be explained in French). Therefore, this page is dedicated to talking about those people who I have mentioned more than once or twice (since those that I only mention once or so I probably won't really talk about anyway, although I might) but have definitely mentioned less than ten times (effectively weeding out those two whom I shall not mention).

So, after scanning my alphabetized label list, these are the people I will blog about today (if this is necessary again, there will be a repeat of this post to some extent) in alphabetical order:

• Camel
• Dora
• Gretchen
• Irving
• Joss
• Mario
• Melissa
• Mogley
• Mrs. James
• Mrs. MacDonald
• Nyx
• Owen
• Reese
• Stella
• Tamir
• Tea
• Tybalt
• Vincent
• Zephy

That's it, really. Any more, and Blogger won't let me label them due to the "maximum 20 labels at a time" rule. Anyway. The tidbits about these people that happened since the last time I talked about them, or whenever, really.

Camel: I think he has a jacket complex as well (first thing that popped into my mind, since nothing really interesting happened in chem today—except Mr. Coffee's friend jumping from the roof into a pool thirty feet below or crawling into a crypt and scaring people for fun). In fact, now that I think of it, a lot of the guys I know seem to have a favorite jacket that they will wear all day week long. Camel has this dark blue jacket, which is not particularly ugly (although I may not be the best judge for fashion), but after seeing it for several months in a row (maybe with the occasional AC/DC shirt in between), I may have permanently associated him with his jacket.

(He is also on my bus, and I have seen him wearing that jacket ever since before I even really knew him, so this may be another reason why.)

(Dino, whom I shall not tag because there is no space anymore, and Jack, not tagged for similar reasons, both also have a jacket they almost always wears. Argon has his sleeping-bag-like thing he carries around with him, although with the warmer weather he has now acquired a new, navy colored jacket which is a tad bit too big for him, but he'll probably grow into it. This morning, at gym, we were standing together and he commented on how he might finally be taller than me, as he always had a notion that he was shorter. We later decided it may have been because of the shoes—his heels were significantly taller, as I had been wearing really, really flat shoes.)

(And I thought this was supposed to be about Camel? Anyway. Next.)

Dora: This is also rather unrelated to Dora, but she was sitting at the table and so this story will be filed under her name. This morning, before class started, Dora and Tierra were already seated at a table in the library. I joined them, and Gretchen (who is below, I know, but there will be another story for her) and Kathrya and Tybalt (wow, this story has a lot of people in it) came as well. Kathrya commented on how her friends were more mature, because "they didn't start singing wedding songs."

Later on, Dino walked in to the library (why does everything have to always include him?), and someone said, "He walks strangely." This was met with a chorus of agreements, and Kathrya's remark, "Now where is Ginny?" before realizing that I was standing right next to her.

(I need to stop making Dino appear in this. The whole point of this was so he wouldn't be mentioned as often compared to the others.)

(I also saw Dora in English today, but we watched a movie—"Death of a Salesman"—so we didn't get to talk to each other.)

Gretchen: I don't know why Gretchen's never broken ten labels. This will probably change with the Chile trips (I'm still working on Easter Island—I really am!), but in the meantime, I will insert a link here to her blog. I'm not certain that my blog sees more traffic than hers, but in the minute event it does, we can pool them just like pooling standard deviations in a difference of means test. Except in this case, Gretch's sample size may be larger than mine, so pooled variances may not be the best bet.

Irving: I must say, I haven't seen Irving around today. Strange. Usually, I see him sauntering down the hallway (well, he doesn't really do that, but he does walk differently in a way), going to a class that's in the opposite direction of mine. Perhaps our constant existence on the third floor is a reason why I see him so much. So instead of a personal recount, I will broadcast the (probably by now commonly known) news that he got into Harvard. Wow. Well, I mean, he deserves it and everything, but that's still very, very amazing.

(Yeah. That's about it. No wonder he isn't tagged so much.)

Joss: Let's see. Joss believes that the secret to teleporting is to throw a smoke bomb and then run really, really fast. He also still needs to pay Reese (or do something else, but I'm not sure what) so Reese can teach me grammar, so I can teach him how to draw clothes. Although, if you ask me, I doubt my pictures of clothes are correct all of the time. I just add folds randomly (or in obvious places). I also don't know how well this whole exchange thing will go. Too many unknown variables, I suppose.

Mario: I don't see Mario that much lately, or maybe I still do but I no longer respond to his appearance. Well, anyway, I saw him during lunch today, along with Tea and Bryant and Boris. He seemed rather preoccupied with his SAT vocab book. Which reminds me, I should probably also study my vocab, if I wish to avoid the same fate as Bryant's. Or just cram Latin roots. Those always help.

Melissa: I didn't see Melissa today—away at a college thing or something, I believe. I still need to get a cupcake recipe from her as well. This may also be the shortest one yet, because I have not talked to Melissa in such a long time. She doesn't really go to math team anymore. Maybe that's why.

Mogley: He is weird. One of the weird guys I know (and by far not the weirdest) but definitely weird. He was attempting yet another 6x6 sudoku in English today. I asked him if he ever tried the 9x9 one (because honestly, 6x6 isn't really sudoku; it's like diluted HCl—isn't quite the same as the original), and he said that he had tried one today, but messed up. Compared to Mogley, Matt is a sudoku whiz. (The extraordinary amount of time Matt devotes to sudoku every day may be the reason though. If this keeps up, I'll begin to fail stat.)

(Also, as compensation for his horrible sudoku skills, Mogley said that he was getting better at the Jumble questions. I guess you can't have everything.)

Mrs. James: I walked into calc today just as Mrs. James said, "I really want a Snapple!" I have no idea how this whole Snapple thing started (which also reminds me of the xkcd strip on the tin apple—I'm reading too much xkcd, it's definitely not good for me).

Jay then said, "I have a Snapple in my bag."

"Really?" Mrs. James asked, all excited.

"Nope, April Fools!"

(This went on for several minutes, in which many people in the class took turns saying they had a Snapple in their bag—Scott said he had over 100 of them at home—and then saying, "April Fools!" Mrs. James retaliated by telling Jay, "Oh, I'm going to give you an A+ for the quarter—wait, April Fools!")

Mrs. MacDonald: Is conducting an experiment on the number of texts people send and receive in an average class period. It's due to begin next week, and will last an entire week. Statistically speaking (although I knew before I ever took stat), if texting in class is so prevalent, I (and Matt) will definitely be outliers. My phone doesn't allow text messages. Matt's too preoccupied by his crosswords and sudokus and Jumbles and word finds to care about texting (he also has an iPhone, which may deter texting as he can't physically touch the keys on his phone to know which letters he's typing if he placed the phone in his pocket or something).

Nyx: Said that her phone's autotexting dictionary does not have the word "zombie." This prompted Camel to say, "What if there was a zombie invasion, and only you knew about it? You have to text people, but then you'd have to type 'zombie' out, and by that time the zombie might have already attacked you!" Also, her phone doesn't have "haha" as a word either. (Tybalt should be glad he doesn't have this phone. He would be seriously crippled in his texting abilities.)

(This also reminds me, Scott is now called "Texty-Pants" in our calc class, because he tried to text under the table, and, when caught by Mrs. James, attempted to deny it.)

Owen: Will be receiving his alpaca soon. Alpacas, according to my research yesterday, likes being in groups of two or more, and around six to eight alpacas can live on one acre of land. I hope Owen's backyard is large enough, because he needs to keep at least two alpacas to ensure that his alpaca doesn't die of loneliness, and so he needs at least 1/4 of an acre of land set aside for this special, special friend (and its girlfriend, but the girlfriend would be much more expensive).

Reese: I have yet to see his shiny new laptop. Among other things, but this is the first that pops up. (Camel supposedly made Reese's old laptop crash via remote accessing, so that's why Reese needed a new one.) I've been promised that this new one is every bit as shiny as the last, except perhaps not red anymore and not the one that underwent SSSC's brutal conditions.

Stella: Is probably on another bout of "I-hate-school-ism." I haven't asked yet, but the past few times I've talked with her, she has complained about the, to quote her words, "the stupid people." She is really the opposite of many people I know. I mean, most people, regardless of what they say, at least care a little about their grades and their futures. Stella just doesn't care anymore.

We talked about our futures for some brief moment before, mostly with me asking her what she would do after high school. She didn't want to talk about it, and I agree with that sentiment. I don't know what I want to with my life after high school. I mean, I obviously want to go to a good college, but why? And which one? Whatever college I go to—that's my future path there. If I go to McGill (which is probably very likely at this point), that means I'll most likely be focusing on pre-med. If I go to UBC or, although very unlikely, Penn, I would be going down the path of economics. If I go to Waterloo (yeah right, I'll be crushed by all the crazy Canadian math geeks, since that's the school for math and science oriented people in Canada) or Cornell (again, unlikely, especially with their financial aid situation), it's probably engineering. And then there are the schools we consider mostly for their prestige—Harvard, Yale, and the rest of the Ivies along with a few other schools. Are they really that much better? We (not including me, because the probability of me getting in those places is very, very, extremely, very slim—statistically speaking), as some of the brightest among our peers, do everything we can in order to get into one of these schools, conforming to their ideals of what is a "perfect" student, just so we can bear the honor of having gone to such a school and gain the privilege of acquiring a good-paying job and the respect of others.

(God, maybe I should just go get a job to paint the Golden Gate Bridge like I've always said I should.)

(Well, there are also the good points, like learning new things with teachers who really know what they're talking about—granted I understand them.)

Tamir: I don't know why I have mentioned him so often. Really. We barely talk. Let's see. I saw Tamir in physics today, and he complained about the magnetism unit. Or maybe that was Alec. Then I saw him in English, but he didn't talk because we were watching a movie.

Yeah, boring. Next.

Tea: I also can't believe I have not talked about Tea very often in my blog. I think it's mostly because everything I know about Tea, she pretty much blog about it anyway. Well, I will insert a link here to promote her blog instead, although I'll bet she doesn't need any promotion from me because her faithful followers are much more numerous than mine. Just in case I have a lurker though.

(Also, as a note to Tea: your "about" page doesn't link to an actual about page. Mine doesn't either—all I've managed to set up was the "contact" part. I think I half started an "about me" page and then forgot about it.)

Tybalt: Just a general question out there (to those who know about it)—does Tybalt know of my, uh, hopefully-will-be-affiliation with Dino? (Once again, Dino is EVERYWHERE. I think I'm getting obsessed.) Otherwise, I have not seen him since this morning with Kathrya, and since Kathrya's story has already been told in Dora's place, I won't repeat it again.

(In his place, I will talk about Bryant, who was barely eliminated because he has exactly ten labels. Today, as I handed in my chem test corrections, I saw Bryant's "test corrections," namely his name, the title, and nothing else on it. Later on, he said that receiving a 3/3 on those test corrections actually brought his grade down. Ugh. He kind of makes me jealous sometimes.)

Vincent: I think I've pretty much covered everything about him before. I don't remember if I've seen him today. Maybe I have.

UPDATE: (from Facebook, my constant source of information) Apparently Vincent's family is moving out of state? He's currently asking if he can board at someone's house for nine months. I seriously doubt this will happen (although you never know), but I do hope he can stay. Who else will I be able to discuss plans for travelling to alternate universes via thousands of giant lasers with?

(There is always Dino—ugh, him again!—but I think he would probably even prefer owning his own alpaca over talking about lasers.)

Zephy: We went Easter egg-hunting today! Zephy's a natural at these things, as she found four or five eggs in the library alone, in under ten minutes. I have no idea why there were eggs everywhere (someone in my calc class said she knew who put them there, but wouldn't tell us). Also, this reminds me, I still need to give her back her chocolate egg, because I was carrying it in my plastic egg container since she had too much candy to fit inside hers. I was supposed to give it back, but I completely forgot about it until after we said goodbye when we got off the bus. Huh. I suppose chocolate won't go stale anytime soon.

(Hmm...)

Actually, considering how long this thing is, I probably will not ever do this again. At least not with so many people. I'll just talk about Dino and Argon less. Maybe.

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.

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