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.)

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).

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.

"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.)

Dreamland

The girl beside me wore heels as well, but she seemed to have no trouble navigating the carpeted grounds. We were the last ones trailing a group of women who were examining a house. I had a vague feeling that it was large—larger than any I had ever seen—but I could only see the third floor right now. We were halfway up the stairs leading to another floor when someone in the crowd asked where we were going.

"Upstairs," said a guide. "Those are your rooms."

"Well, then that's not important," one of the women said. "Let's go downstairs."

The group agreed. They turned around and headed down once again, leaving the girl and me stranded on the staircase.

"Do you still want to go up?" She asked me.

"Yeah. I don't really want to go down right now."

I wobbled up the last few steps and landed in a bright, spacious room. It was green, with white carpeting, and it was so beautiful I had to pause for a moment to take it all in.

...

Amanda was by my side, and we were walking down the hallway. I thought that this was our school, but it was too dim and the path too crooked. I also still had my heels on, so I was half-hopping as I tried to move forward.

Not a pleasant sight. I made a mental note to myself to never, ever wear high heels unless absolutely necessary. My reveries were disrupted when I heard someone call out my name.

"Hi, Ginny!"

I looked up and saw Mr. Booth waving to me, in his typical cheerful manner. I waved back, still hobbling around due to lack of stability.

"Are you headed that way?" Mr. Booth asked, pointing down the hall. Well, was I? I had no idea. I did not even know where "that way" was. But I nodded nonetheless. I watched as Mr. Booth magically—and it had to be magically, because there was no way we could have traveled that far in such a short time—arrived at a pair of glass doors.

A group of people in yellow streamers stood on the other side, frantically waving at us. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but Mr. Booth ignored them and slipped through the doors. I was about to follow, but then I saw those yellow-streamered people pushing Mr. Booth aside and trying to shout something at me.

"Uh—I can't hear you," I tried to tell them. To no avail. They kept on waving around frantically.

"You're—no, I don't understand that—oh, wait, there's—huh? There's an infectious disease on the other side?"

Apparently they could hear me, because they nodded. Oh. Uh-oh. I wondered how Mr. Booth was faring, but I wasn't left any time to mull it over.

...

I was walking down another hallway, this time without my heels, thankfully. I didn't know where I was going, but it didn't matter, because Irving saw me halfway and called out to me.

"Hey, Ginny, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure," I said. "What is it?"

"Can you proofread something for me? I've got it here—wait."

Irving pulled out a kindle-like machine and handed it over to me. I saw the first page, which resembled the first page of a novel, except with blood splattered over it.

Hmm...

And then the alarm woke me up.

...

I have read somewhere, in a writer's do-not-do manual, that you should never, ever end a story with "...and then I woke up." Because that's such a no-no. No character growth at all. You end up just as you started.

Well, I guess real life isn't that good of a story-teller, because I have often ended many a story of my life with "and then the alarm woke me up" or "and then I just happened to wake up, despite not wanting to do so." There's never even a sequel.

Oh well. I suppose I'll be off to dream moods to figure out what my dream meant now.

Je ne sais rien dont j'ai besoin!

Translation (in my own, twisted, probably incorrect way): I don't know anything that I need!

Sums up my should-be-panic right now over my French midterms. "Dont" is one of the few pieces of grammar that I actually know, and I have no idea if I've used it correctly or not. In fact, I've been so caught up in my notecards for the past few days that I've only skimmed over some physics problems, and from that "light" (more like nonexistent) skimming, I've come to realize that I know pitifully few formulas.

I'll have to rely upon my close proximity to the kinematics equations on the wall to save the day, I suppose.

So at lunch, today, I decided to go up to the MLC and actually get something done. (Probably all the work I should be doing right now but I'm not. Oh well.) Argon came with me, since the MLC is apparently his favorite place to "hang out" during his free. (The English/SS one comes right after in the rankings, as I've heard.) We walked down the hallway and turned to go through the door when...

I see Mario. Again.

A clarification here may help. I've been, for the past few months, seeing Mario around almost EVERYWHERE. I go to math class, there he is, taking something out of his locker (which is completely unnecessary, in my opinion, since he doesn't carry around anything anyway). I go down to the library for English, and there he is, slouched in a chair or something. I go to chem, and there he is, walking in the opposite direction as I am.

I leave during French class for the last fifteen minutes to print out a lab in the library (note: at a very different time from the aforementioned English class), and there he is, walking ahead of me to go to... the library.

And I don't even share a single class with him.

That is mildly creepy.

So yesterday, as I saw him again while waiting to go to my stat class, I couldn't resist. I had to ask him.

"What class do you have right now?"

"Statistics," he said. Which totally can't be true, since it was period 7, and that's when I have stat. I think I'd know if he was in my class.

But in my awesomeness of reaction, all I said was, "What?"

"Oh, wait, you mean what I have?"

"Yeah," I said. "It's just I've been seeing you everywhere--" my hand motioning to a general area around me "--and it's kind of creeping me out."

"Well, I have a lot of classes on the third floor, so that's probably why. Like I'm coming from ASR right now."

Okay. Let's rephrase that then for further data gathering.

"But I've also seen you in the library, and in the hallways, and everywhere--"

"Yeah," Mario said. "I'm everywhere. You're not going crazy or anything. I am everywhere."

Omnipresent Mario? I'm not sure if that was meant to be reassuring or not. I'm not quite sure how I reacted to that either. (That attitude also remotely reminds me of Tea's post yesterday.)

Well, anyway, as I saw him again today, in the MLC, I was seriously puzzled. But that confusion was short-lived, as I saw the January stats for math team posted on the bulletin board, with the traditional pink highlighter-ness. I love pink highlighters. Have I mentioned that before?

I adore pink highlighters. They come right after blue and green highlighters, and right before orange highlighters.

But yeah. Anyway.

"Isn't it frustrating," Mario spoke to Argon and me as we ogled at the stats. "That Treeburg beats us as a team, and each of their team members beats us as well?"

Huh. I hadn't noticed that. If you put it that way, I suppose it could get a little frustrating.

I wouldn't know. I don't really care about rankings as much as I should, I suppose. The only reason I was even looking at them (besides the pink highlighter-ness) was because my parents always ask me, "How's your school doing?" and I almost never know the answer to that question.

But, as it worked out, looking at the stats was pointless anyway, because later on in math team, Mr. Booth pulled up the stats on the Smartboard and showed it to us anyway.

Of course, with his usual pep talk of, "You can get first place this year, but only if you really want it. We can steal first place from Treeburg this year. I believe we have a shot. Remember last year, when, this one time, we were more than ten points ahead of Treeburg?"

"When was that?" I whispered to Tea.

"It didn't happen," Tea said.

Oh well. I'm happy with our team just getting at least third place (considering we're second now, it shouldn't be too bad), so we can go on more math "field trips" to meets. Just like sports teams. Except we compete with... pencils instead of balls?

So I went over to the window ledge to get myself a new set of problems, making sure on my way back to take advantage of a seated Dino (whose head was now within my reach) and ruffle his hair.