In physics today, I was painting my pink eraser with an assortment of nail polish colors, when I said to Camel, "I think these fumes are bad for my brain."
"They stink," Camel said, obviously never having had to suffer such atrocious smells before (and if he has, I am not concerned with why).
I kept on painting anyway. Mr. Stencil came in and informed us that the second potential physics teacher candidate (two points here: a) we are going to have a new physics teacher next year because two physics teachers are going to teach the newly created computer classes, and b) the first candidate already "taught" the period 7 class) will be coming tomorrow.
"I won't be here tomorrow," Scott said, "And so won't most of the class. The econ test is tomorrow."
So Mr. Stencil asked those who were taking the AP econ test to raise their hands. A sea of hands went up. Then, he switched tactics and asked those who were not going anywhere to raise their hands. Five hands went up.
We debated (briefly) whether the candidate should come on Friday, since Mr. Stencil won't be in school on that day anyway. I wouldn't mind either way. My Thursday is looking to be pretty awesome so far (it goes like this: calc, extended US, physics, extended stat, English, then health).
After that, since some people were not here because of the English test, we had a clicker day on sound waves. Which was a rather failure for me, since I couldn't do mental math today for some reason (despite having watched Numb3rs in stat the class prior while trying to finish my physics lab, and asking Matt, but he didn't know much about optics either).
In my other science class, chem, we played Jeopardy! almost all period long. Mr. Coffee is amazingly good at these (he got most of them), so it was a great disadvantage for us when he declared that he would compete alongside with us. I got two questions right in total, one on the state tree of Maine (it's pine) and one on which North American capital Queen Victoria picked (Ottawa, and she only saw watercolor pictures of the potential capital cities beforehand—hey, I know my Canadian history).
After two rounds of Jeopardy! (the exclamation mark is totally necessary), we went on Sporcle instead, and Mr. Coffee was busy typing away on a name-that-person-based-on-the-image test when the bell rang. I went down to French (where we had a sub) and so did not see if he passed. Pity.
Then Micro ignored me while we were all on the bus (albeit different ones). But I had Yuma to talk with, and so we talked about something, but it must not have been important, because I don't remember any of it.
Showing posts with label Scott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scott. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
So This Is What It's Like After APs
I had calc first period this morning, and when I walked in, Sonny and Dino were already there (I don't remember seeing Sonny at the library this morning, so either I somehow missed him, or he went straight to class). Since I was on my MID*, I sat down and took out my physics lab, the one that was due today that I was going to do at 2AM, but decided against it after reading three chapters of BDSMN. Interesting how physics labs always have titles with puns and such. I still remember one of our earliest labs, on kinematics and using fans attached onto plastic cars, was called "I'm a Fan of This," and my lab today, on standing waves, was called "Do The Wave."
Anyway, I had already started by drawing the x- and y-axis, and labeled them with Tea's help. That was only question one. I had around five questions in total, and question five had five parts. So I started plotting points and writing down definitions. Mrs. James (along with most of the class who were not away) came in within the next five minutes, and then we promptly started class.
Which was mostly Mrs. James trying to guess what our—oh, wait, I can't say, it's not been 48 hours yet, but it's the last question on the free response, if you know what I'm talking about (and if you don't, it's not a huge loss). Then Scott talked about the AP econ finals scandal, and how one of Mr. Wollen's class will not be getting a curve on their test because of the suspicion of cheating. Mrs. James said we could watch movies for the next week, and then we had to get down to work (the long-awaited project), but it would be nothing too hard. Half-way through the class, Mrs. Pastel came in and talked about how the two period 5 calc classes should compete against each other in outdoorsy activities the week after the seniors are gone.
By the time the bell rang, I had finished four questions, and was on my fifth, and I think that had been one of the most unproductive calc classes I have ever had (except on those days when Mrs. James was out and we played computer games instead of the problem sets she gave us).
I managed to finish my lab by period 4, my physics class, and handed it in (although I would not bet on its accuracy). Then, after a brief review of sound waves (and the promise of another lab tomorrow), Mr. Stencil went on Youtube to find a video of a wine glass breaking when the sound waves from an amplifier is in resonance with the natural waves (at least that's what I think they are) of the crystal/glass. We watched that, which was really cool, because the glass wobbled so much before it actually broke. Then we watched the video where a girl sang to break the wine glass (after many, many tries and many, many deep breaths). After that, we watched this video, which is by far the most amazing one of all of them.
During this time, I read two more chapters of Huck Finn (I needed to read ten by period 6), which was a rather huge accomplishment for me, because I had been watching all of the videos as well. I think my multi-tasking skill is improving. I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
After physics, I had my other post-AP math class, stat. We were watching a movie, 21 (the one where the MIT students count cards in casinos). It was an interesting movie, despite the few bits I managed pull out, because I read six more chapters of Huck Finn during that time as well. Their memorization skills are amazing. But I suppose they're MIT students (the leading guy was supposed to go to Harvard med school, but he didn't have enough money to afford it), so it's not that surprising.
I went to English having two chapter not finished, and the guy who sits next to me told me that I had missed a pop quiz on the reading yesterday. Angry guy and Mogley had also missed it (I never knew angry guy was in calc—I just knew he was in my stat class), so our teacher gave us the quiz, which was supposed to take only five minutes. Despite having skimmed most of the pages, read more than half of them while watching movies and videos, and not reading the last two chapters, I managed to answer with certainty all but two questions (they were multiple choice questions, which made it much easier). I guessed the last two, one of which was that (major spoilers, perhaps) Buck died. I remembered something along the lines of Buck dying back from the first time I read the story (three years ago, I think), and afterwards, I learned that it was right. Yay for super long-term memory!
So what did I learn today? In US I learned (somewhat) that our judicial system is still pretty flawed (why can't the prosecution appeal? That makes no sense at all, at least not to me), but it's been much better than before (when all the jury were white and male). And in health, we learned birth control methods. Did you know that you leave something like NuvaRing in your vagina for 21 days, take it out for 7, then put it back in for another 21?
Yeah. I've learned a lot today.
(Also, after school, as I was walking over to my bus, I saw Owen standing there, looking back at who knows what. Then he went back towards the front entrance, and I got on my bus. Later on, as I sat in the front row, I saw him and Dino getting on the bus next to mine together. So much for Owen driving.)
*Mission: Ignore Dino.
Anyway, I had already started by drawing the x- and y-axis, and labeled them with Tea's help. That was only question one. I had around five questions in total, and question five had five parts. So I started plotting points and writing down definitions. Mrs. James (along with most of the class who were not away) came in within the next five minutes, and then we promptly started class.
Which was mostly Mrs. James trying to guess what our—oh, wait, I can't say, it's not been 48 hours yet, but it's the last question on the free response, if you know what I'm talking about (and if you don't, it's not a huge loss). Then Scott talked about the AP econ finals scandal, and how one of Mr. Wollen's class will not be getting a curve on their test because of the suspicion of cheating. Mrs. James said we could watch movies for the next week, and then we had to get down to work (the long-awaited project), but it would be nothing too hard. Half-way through the class, Mrs. Pastel came in and talked about how the two period 5 calc classes should compete against each other in outdoorsy activities the week after the seniors are gone.
By the time the bell rang, I had finished four questions, and was on my fifth, and I think that had been one of the most unproductive calc classes I have ever had (except on those days when Mrs. James was out and we played computer games instead of the problem sets she gave us).
I managed to finish my lab by period 4, my physics class, and handed it in (although I would not bet on its accuracy). Then, after a brief review of sound waves (and the promise of another lab tomorrow), Mr. Stencil went on Youtube to find a video of a wine glass breaking when the sound waves from an amplifier is in resonance with the natural waves (at least that's what I think they are) of the crystal/glass. We watched that, which was really cool, because the glass wobbled so much before it actually broke. Then we watched the video where a girl sang to break the wine glass (after many, many tries and many, many deep breaths). After that, we watched this video, which is by far the most amazing one of all of them.
During this time, I read two more chapters of Huck Finn (I needed to read ten by period 6), which was a rather huge accomplishment for me, because I had been watching all of the videos as well. I think my multi-tasking skill is improving. I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
After physics, I had my other post-AP math class, stat. We were watching a movie, 21 (the one where the MIT students count cards in casinos). It was an interesting movie, despite the few bits I managed pull out, because I read six more chapters of Huck Finn during that time as well. Their memorization skills are amazing. But I suppose they're MIT students (the leading guy was supposed to go to Harvard med school, but he didn't have enough money to afford it), so it's not that surprising.
I went to English having two chapter not finished, and the guy who sits next to me told me that I had missed a pop quiz on the reading yesterday. Angry guy and Mogley had also missed it (I never knew angry guy was in calc—I just knew he was in my stat class), so our teacher gave us the quiz, which was supposed to take only five minutes. Despite having skimmed most of the pages, read more than half of them while watching movies and videos, and not reading the last two chapters, I managed to answer with certainty all but two questions (they were multiple choice questions, which made it much easier). I guessed the last two, one of which was that (major spoilers, perhaps) Buck died. I remembered something along the lines of Buck dying back from the first time I read the story (three years ago, I think), and afterwards, I learned that it was right. Yay for super long-term memory!
So what did I learn today? In US I learned (somewhat) that our judicial system is still pretty flawed (why can't the prosecution appeal? That makes no sense at all, at least not to me), but it's been much better than before (when all the jury were white and male). And in health, we learned birth control methods. Did you know that you leave something like NuvaRing in your vagina for 21 days, take it out for 7, then put it back in for another 21?
Yeah. I've learned a lot today.
(Also, after school, as I was walking over to my bus, I saw Owen standing there, looking back at who knows what. Then he went back towards the front entrance, and I got on my bus. Later on, as I sat in the front row, I saw him and Dino getting on the bus next to mine together. So much for Owen driving.)
*Mission: Ignore Dino.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Not Everything's About ARML (but it can be about waving your arms around)
I walked to my bus stop today (which also reminds me, I need to invest in driver's ed some day, preferably soon) and found Zephy already there, holding two plates of what appeared to be baked goods.
"Hold," she said, pointing to the plate of brownies. "One of them is for you."
"What is this for?"
"Sophomore committee. We're having a bake sale today."
So when we got off the bus later on, we headed straight for the math offices to drop off the food. Halfway down the hall, I saw Micro wandering around, looking lost.
"Hey," he said, waving to me. "We're supposed to be in the math department, right?"
"Yeah. I don't think Tybalt's here though."
I was apparently wrong. Tybalt was already inside when we reached the math offices, and he was looking at our school's performance for last year's AIME. Someone—I believe Irving, although I could be wrong, got four questions right last year, and that was the highest anyone from our school achieved. Micro and I lingered in the back of the room as Tybalt and Mr. Stone discussed something. Then, Mr. Stone grabbed some scrap paper, rulers, and pencils, and led us downstairs to finally start the test.
AIME is three hours long.
At first, Tybalt said, "Oh, the questions at the end are really hard, so we probably won't take three hours."
Well, for mathematical minds as ours that are not as well polished (compared to those who say, "I didn't get a 120+ on the AMC, I failed!" If I got a 120, I would be really surprised at myself), we took three hours to do however many questions we each managed to tackle. In Micro's words, "Not a lot." But I'm apparently not allowed to talk about the difficulty of the test until an undetermined time later (or maybe it's only on the forum, I'm not sure), so I won't say how well I did. I'll just say that all of us took the entire three hour period we had, and that, on a Wednesday morning, was very draining.
We couldn't even talk to other people, unlike Moody's (although Moody's was way longer so I suppose it evens out), so I spent half the time listening to one person or another sniffle.
Anyway, Tybalt left first, then Micro, and I left last as I scrambled to bubble in random answers on my answer sheet so it looks like I did something (and increase the chance of me getting the right answer from 0% to 0.1%).
At lunch, I went to find Tybalt to compare answers. Sonny and Dino, who also sat at the table (so did Bryant, but he was on the other end), clamored to see the test.
"Is this ARML?" Sonny asked. I really have no idea why he thinks everything math and competition-related is automatically ARML. Probably because he only knows ARML through Dino.
"No," Dino said. "AIME." (Also, AIME sounds very confusing when you're saying it to someone who doesn't know what it is, because it sounds like Amy. Reese, among others, have asked, "Who is this Amy person?")
"Oh," Sonny said. Tybalt snatched the test back and proceeded to make myself less confident in my answers. I suppose the reverse could also hold true.
On my way back to my table, I saw Micro (who also has lunch, how surprising). I proceeded to plop down next to him and compare answers with him. Let's just say that we (all three of us) haven't reached a consensus yet.
But I mean, it's us. Paperclip. We haven't yet defeated a Massachusetts school in NEML. What's the chances of all three of us doing superbly well and all making it to USAMO?
(Very little, although Micro may have a chance with USAJMO—depending on his guessing skills.)
Later on, in physics, Mr. Stencil finally came through with his promise of pizza for us because our class scored the highest out of all of Mr. Stencil's classes on this "physics concepts" test we took. However, because it was Passover, half the class couldn't eat it. Tamir, obviously not restrained by such rules, loomed over the boxes of pizza as the class debated whether those who could not eat the pizza should get bonus points instead.
In the end, almost everyone gave in to the temptation (Camel after much consideration and only after seeing the mushroom pizza). Jeremy and Scott left the room to control their urges, but when they came back, Scott said, "You can still smell the pizza." It was too late anyway. All three boxes had been scarfed down already.
After physics (which was after school), I went to get my coat. I saw Yuma on my way there, and so I told him to save a seat for me on the bus. When I got on the bus, it was half-empty (probably because of spring sports), but I sat next to Yuma anyway. He sat next to the window, so when I turned to look at him, I saw Micro on the bus next to ours.
"Hey look," I said. "It's Micro!"
Yuma turned to see. "Oh yeah."
I started waving frantically at Micro, trying to get his attention. He didn't notice me, but Sonny, who sat behind Micro on the bus, saw me and waved back.
Not exactly what I was looking for. I tried to wave in a general front-ward direction, in an attempt to tell Sonny to get Micro's attention. Sonny only stared at me and made weird arm gestures as well. Again. Not exactly what I was looking for.
And to end this (instead of blogging about Easter Island, which I will get to, shortly), I'll post something Chile-related. Make of it what you will.
"Hold," she said, pointing to the plate of brownies. "One of them is for you."
"What is this for?"
"Sophomore committee. We're having a bake sale today."
So when we got off the bus later on, we headed straight for the math offices to drop off the food. Halfway down the hall, I saw Micro wandering around, looking lost.
"Hey," he said, waving to me. "We're supposed to be in the math department, right?"
"Yeah. I don't think Tybalt's here though."
I was apparently wrong. Tybalt was already inside when we reached the math offices, and he was looking at our school's performance for last year's AIME. Someone—I believe Irving, although I could be wrong, got four questions right last year, and that was the highest anyone from our school achieved. Micro and I lingered in the back of the room as Tybalt and Mr. Stone discussed something. Then, Mr. Stone grabbed some scrap paper, rulers, and pencils, and led us downstairs to finally start the test.
AIME is three hours long.
At first, Tybalt said, "Oh, the questions at the end are really hard, so we probably won't take three hours."
Well, for mathematical minds as ours that are not as well polished (compared to those who say, "I didn't get a 120+ on the AMC, I failed!" If I got a 120, I would be really surprised at myself), we took three hours to do however many questions we each managed to tackle. In Micro's words, "Not a lot." But I'm apparently not allowed to talk about the difficulty of the test until an undetermined time later (or maybe it's only on the forum, I'm not sure), so I won't say how well I did. I'll just say that all of us took the entire three hour period we had, and that, on a Wednesday morning, was very draining.
We couldn't even talk to other people, unlike Moody's (although Moody's was way longer so I suppose it evens out), so I spent half the time listening to one person or another sniffle.
Anyway, Tybalt left first, then Micro, and I left last as I scrambled to bubble in random answers on my answer sheet so it looks like I did something (and increase the chance of me getting the right answer from 0% to 0.1%).
At lunch, I went to find Tybalt to compare answers. Sonny and Dino, who also sat at the table (so did Bryant, but he was on the other end), clamored to see the test.
"Is this ARML?" Sonny asked. I really have no idea why he thinks everything math and competition-related is automatically ARML. Probably because he only knows ARML through Dino.
"No," Dino said. "AIME." (Also, AIME sounds very confusing when you're saying it to someone who doesn't know what it is, because it sounds like Amy. Reese, among others, have asked, "Who is this Amy person?")
"Oh," Sonny said. Tybalt snatched the test back and proceeded to make myself less confident in my answers. I suppose the reverse could also hold true.
On my way back to my table, I saw Micro (who also has lunch, how surprising). I proceeded to plop down next to him and compare answers with him. Let's just say that we (all three of us) haven't reached a consensus yet.
But I mean, it's us. Paperclip. We haven't yet defeated a Massachusetts school in NEML. What's the chances of all three of us doing superbly well and all making it to USAMO?
(Very little, although Micro may have a chance with USAJMO—depending on his guessing skills.)
Later on, in physics, Mr. Stencil finally came through with his promise of pizza for us because our class scored the highest out of all of Mr. Stencil's classes on this "physics concepts" test we took. However, because it was Passover, half the class couldn't eat it. Tamir, obviously not restrained by such rules, loomed over the boxes of pizza as the class debated whether those who could not eat the pizza should get bonus points instead.
In the end, almost everyone gave in to the temptation (Camel after much consideration and only after seeing the mushroom pizza). Jeremy and Scott left the room to control their urges, but when they came back, Scott said, "You can still smell the pizza." It was too late anyway. All three boxes had been scarfed down already.
After physics (which was after school), I went to get my coat. I saw Yuma on my way there, and so I told him to save a seat for me on the bus. When I got on the bus, it was half-empty (probably because of spring sports), but I sat next to Yuma anyway. He sat next to the window, so when I turned to look at him, I saw Micro on the bus next to ours.
"Hey look," I said. "It's Micro!"
Yuma turned to see. "Oh yeah."
I started waving frantically at Micro, trying to get his attention. He didn't notice me, but Sonny, who sat behind Micro on the bus, saw me and waved back.
Not exactly what I was looking for. I tried to wave in a general front-ward direction, in an attempt to tell Sonny to get Micro's attention. Sonny only stared at me and made weird arm gestures as well. Again. Not exactly what I was looking for.
And to end this (instead of blogging about Easter Island, which I will get to, shortly), I'll post something Chile-related. Make of it what you will.
Ginny
okay
and
tell Owen that his llama is on the way
(hopefully)
17:32Dino
his llama?
17:32Ginny
(if it doesn't get quarantined)
17:32Dino
which Owen?
17:33Ginny
your brother
who else?
17:33Dino
yd u get him a llama?
17:34Ginny
we were going to get a llama for ourselves anyway
Gretchen and I
and he seemed interested
17:34Dino
a stuffed llama?
17:34Ginny
no, one from chile
17:34Dino
a real llama
17:34Ginny
well
real enough
17:35Dino
real enough?
17:35Ginny
sort of like "the things they carried"
17:35Dino
kewl
17:35Ginny
it's summery in chile right now though
so I'm not sure how it'll fare
on the plane
and we also need to find a large enough crate
but those are minor issues
17:36Dino
ur not ACTUALLY getting a llama
17:36Ginny
like I said
"the things they carried"
style
17:37Dino
never read that
17:37Ginny
it's a nice book
and I think it's referenced in the first page
17:39Ginny
also
he's not allergic to llama hair
is he?
17:39Dino
no....
17:40Ginny
okay
good
allergies would pose huge problems
