Procrastination My Old Friend

I was supposed to meet Terry at 11 last morning, but I woke up to Damian messaging me at 11 instead... Since I had set my alarm for 9 to get ready on time, naturally I ended up on campus at 1. We met up in the 90s computer lab under the architecture building, where we promptly checked our emails, played Hearthstone, and calculated the minimum grade we'd need on our final to get a C and pass the class. Five years ago, in the final stretches of my senior year of high school (with the same case of senioritis), I would have never imagined myself saying that. I had some lofty plans, misguided maybe, but nevertheless I had only known competitiveness and overachieving so they were my plans.

"Here," I pointed to Terry. "This is where my life took a nosedive."

I was pointing at my transcript, which we had pulled out in our distractions. My second year, first semester, where I had only taken four classes but gotten a C in every single one. I think I even deferred one of the exams. Back then, it was fairly devastating. Now I am just glad it didn't get worse until later.

We finally got around to our lecture slides, and I had just finished reading the first lecture (the introduction), when I got a frantic text from Zach, my lab partner.

"Are you on campus? I'm trying to return the lab kit but I forgot my ID card at home!"

Typical Zach. He'd literally forget his brain if he could, and honestly sometimes it feels like he does.

"Yeah," I texted back. "I'll be there in a bit."

"You have to hurry the office closes in 20 minutes!"

Terry and I had two other lab kits from other classes to return too, so we decided to go together. We practically ran up the hill, and when we get there Zach looks at me sheepishly and says, "Oh, I think they're not closing for another half hour."

We gather up our stuff and the Guardian of Lab Materials (the snarky one, unfortunately, who once asked me where in China I was from and got huffy when I only gave him a vague answer) crossed off each item down the list as we handed them to him. I took out the resistors on our breadboard, the last remnants of the microprocessor lab that had us pull so many all-nighters this semester. We gave back the half-broken breadboard that made our microelectronics lab a nightmare (how does a single resistor oscillate? why did our "ground" have a huge resistance?). I said goodbye to the "graphical programming" torture of NI's myRIO.

It was finally all over.

Zach and I went upstairs to return the last of our parts (by dumping them into the mess already on the table), then we parted ways, probably for the last time. At the beginning of this semester I had had a huge crush on him, which actually finalized my breaking up with my last boyfriend, who I just now realize I had never come up with a nickname for. I kind of knew I wanted to break up with him all along, deep inside my heart, however cruel that sounds. Just like with Yuma, there was that sinking feeling that I didn't want the rest of my life to be like this.

It's a bit hard to explain, but like I had said to JJ, when I'm alone, trying to sleep, I imagine all sorts of adventures and all the flawed, moody, damsel-in-distress (or the male version, anyway) kind of men I'd share these adventures with. Warm, garrulous, sarcastic. All sorts of fantastical situations. With Yuma, with my ex, though in the day they kept me company and kept me distracted, when I settled down for the night I always imagined something more. Something else, something different. I only really realized this after I broke up with Khajiit, that when we were together I didn't dream before I slept.

My ex had asked why I was so determined to break up, why he couldn't change to be the person I want him to be. I couldn't say it back then, and I don't know if I ever can. It really is something intangible, something I can't explain fully but know deep down in my heart.

Well, anyway, back to Zach. At the beginning of the semester I had all sorts of plans to tell him how I felt about him after our lab ended (so that it wasn't awkward). Funny how it all ended up. He is great fun to be with and he really gets my morbid obsession, but knowing him more now I think it's better that it ended up this way.

Terry and I tried to study some more but we soon gave in to our hunger. We texted Seth and met up to check out the smoked meat place he raved about so much. We talked a lot about school, jobs, and girls (for some reason these are always the three topics that come up when we chat).

About school:

"Hey, do you want some ketchup?" Terry said, jabbing at the bottle with his iron ring pinky. Seth was the only one of us not graduating yet, and predictably he faked a dramatic sob.

About jobs:

"You're going to refer me at Big Software Company, right?" Terry asked me. Seth had recently gotten a job offer at the place he's interning at, so now Terry feels left out and discouraged.

About girls:

"Summer is coming," Seth said. "Then I can start dating."

"Why summer?" I asked. "Why not start now?"

"I still need to work out more, I'm not quite there yet."

Our food eventually came (after an order mishap and some extra fries to placate us). I had ordered a smoked meat sandwich with Swiss cheese in a sesame brioche bun, and it was absolutely delicious. Seth also shared some of his barbeque chicken pizza, which was also really good but kind of reminded me of Domino's pizza. The sandwich itself wasn't a lot of food, but after two trays of fries I was absolutely stuffed.

"Let's go get bubble tea after!" I declared.

Terry and Seth agreed, so we set off for our usual bubble tea joint. I usually only get jasmine tea, but lately Terry convinced me to try some new flavors. Last time I had gotten hazelnut, which was pretty good. This time he suggested strawberry, and I gave it a spin, but it was way too sweet even with no extra sugar added and tasted like artificial strawberry syrup. Would not recommend.

We went upstairs to enjoy our drinks, and like typical millennials we all went straight on our phones. Seth had recently bought a new Samsung phone (the one where the screen is a bit curved around the edges, I don't know what it's called), and he downloaded a few games to try. The Google Play store recommended this game called "That Level Again," which ended up being really fun. The three of us spent hours trying to figure out each level, and by the time we finally decided to leave it was already 10.

Technically, we were supposed to study today.

Oops.

A Bag Of Bananas

I went to Chinatown with Marie yesterday, because groceries were cheaper there than our local supermarket, and also because we wanted to go to a bakery. I don't know why I did not get my egg tart fill in Flushing, where the bubble tea was $3 for two compared to the bakery's $3.50 for one, but I bought some anyway and Marie bought a large green tea cake and I came back to the office with three bags of groceries.

Now I have bananas for breakfast for the next few days, so I won't starve in the mornings because I never wake up in time to both chat with Khajiit before one of us leaves and go somewhere to buy breakfast. The smart alternative would be to cook, but since I don't know who is using my only pot (the last time I checked it was full of this weird mushroom-like thing that I am pretty sure was not mine) and the fridge is full, this alternative is not very practical.

Some other things that happened in the past few days include:

• Marie, Violet, Henderson and I played Team Fortress 2, which means I have played one more game on the list of games our computer club's recent LAN game tournament hosted (now there is only SCII and DotA to go).
• In order to friend Marie on Steam, I got Khajiit to buy me a cheap $1 game, and of course he chose to buy this game called Puzzler World that had over 500 brainteaser puzzles resembling those of gbrainy which Khajiit and I played a lot on bus rides to several states (apparently there is a Windows version of gbrainy, so I no longer have to only play it on Linux, although why I would want to I have no idea).
• Violet and I picked up several green bean, squash, and pea plants from some guy who was giving them away. One of the green beans is dying though, so Violet took it home to give it some sunlight, and hopefully it will live happily ever after.
• The guy who lives next to me, #26 (as Khajiit calls him), decided his room was too hot and moved all his furniture aside from his loft bed to the kitchen and dragged his mattress onto the ground. Now whenever I walk by his room I can see his feet poking out from behind the door, and whenever I go into the kitchen there is a bookshelf.

I should sleep now, before it gets too late and I won't be able to wake up tomorrow again, and my bananas all rot like the frozen black bananas I found once in the freezer (partially why I don't ever cook anymore).

On The Other Side Of Oblivion

"I have this aunt," Violet said, in her I-have-this-crazy-story voice. "She had chickens as pets. She bought these pedigree chicken eggs—yes, pedigree chicken—and she wanted to hatch them into chicken and have those chicken lay eggs to sell. Except they're pedigree chicken, so they get sick really easily, so she had to buy expensive medicine to keep them alive. She would stab the chickens with needles one by one and force-feed them pills."

We were in the computer lab, eating our large boxes of poutine with extravagant toppings. Violet's boyfriend, Henderson, stole a particularly large piece of smoked meat, and Rosemary turned her attentions towards him again.

Just yesterday, Violet and I were talking about our futures, what little we knew of it. She and Henderson both wanted to be in academia, like her father. Their dream was to get tenure together in the same university. I told her my future was to see if Khajiit would graduate in the next ten years. We both laughed.

. . .

When I first went to Fish Wings, I won't deny this: I thought it was beneath me. I had gotten in without trying, and a scholarship to boot that had seemed to have fallen into my lap. There were smart people here, of course, but I was just as smart as them, if not more.

This past year has been a lot, and I have met so many people who have changed my mind about that. There is Flynn, who could rival Bryant on anything math and physics related (and who infuriatingly calls everything from triple integrals to advanced algebra "easy shit"). Aishan, who programs with three monitors and will be going off to Microsoft this summer (hopefully with no chair-throwing incidents). Sandra, who works multiple jobs and learned French from a retail job so she can support her way through university. Jessica, who is involved in everything from residence council to engineering teams to student society representative.

What had I to be so scornful about?

. . .

In his spare time, Khajiit works on his beloved programs and websites. He works on them when there is work due soon and he does not want to do it. When there is an assignment due in two days he would fix the scrollbars on the a small portion of the computer club's website, or make a Java program more Windows native, or something, anything, that is not his assignment. He says that his procrastination is never time wasted. He is always productive, especially when he procrastinates.

It used to frustrate me a lot. It still frustrates me sometimes. The new meds will probably help, but we both know he has to work hard too. Some days I want to tell him I believe in him, and I know he will pull through, one way or another. Other days I wish he could do it right now, because with every setback I can feel him slipping away.

Khajiit is not someone my parents would approve of. They asked where he was from, what he was studying, all the usual questions. For once they did not ask if he was a good student. Afterwards, when Khajiit told me to take deep breaths so I wouldn't fall into a state of panic, I wondered if it was merely an oversight.

. . .

Khajiit's dad recently asked me, "Do you like it here? No regrets?"

Maybe it is because his own daughter has chosen a college, and he is curious to make a comparison. Or maybe he knows. He has always known things about me before I do myself.

. . .

They smile when I fix the paper jams. They thank me when help them with their computer issues. The other day, I heard a girl explain to her friend the way the printing system worked, and I grinned. I could not have done it better.

There is something refreshing about swinging the keys attached to the network cards, going off to fix a ghost paper jam and hearing people talk about why they need to print so urgently. Sometimes it's an assignment due in ten minutes. Sometimes it's a document they need to file their taxes. Once it was a girl who needed her transcript to apply to grad school.

Maybe that's why when someone knocks on the door I tend to get up to open it. I hold the record for most printing money sold last semester, and although there is no prize or recognition for it, it's surprisingly satisfying. All those hours I've put in this computer lab make me happy.

I had first joined because I saw Flynn at the front desk, and I knew him because he was friends with Sam and Denise. I had stayed because it was fun, dizzying fun, all the late night laughing and crazy antics and large group outings. We are all good friends, I want to say, or maybe we are family. We are a family complete with wise, mature ones and scream-in-your-face immature ones, and the one or two people no one likes and the one or two people everyone likes. Lots of outside drama. Lots of inside tension.

My residence advisor said that living in residence was supposed to give us a feel of home, to make long-lasting friends and to feel like you belong in a group. I never got that from my residence (going home at 2am all the time probably did not help), but it's nice that I found it elsewhere.

. . .

Today is Mother's Day. I should call my parents. I have been putting it off, and the more I do so the more I want to, the harder it is to pick up the phone.

. . .

The title was sentimental me thinking I had sentimental things to write about. It is too late for me to think much, although I have had a four-hour nap today, and should not need to sleep too much, even if sleeping patterns for me are too elusive.

Tentative Steps

On CNN, Kirsten Haglund, the winner of the title Miss America in 2008, says, "I remember the first day I decided to throw away my lunch, and I drank a Coke instead. I felt really good. I remember that day and the choice I made. And it was a choice made out of fear, not logic."

Maybe that is why I took out that bottle of diet coke Khajiit got for free from the vending machine. We are chronic Nestea drinkers, and when we are not drinking it we're drinking Lipton tea, or another latte from Tim Hortons. When I took a sip from the bottle, the fizzy drink caught in my throat and burned. But I kept on going. It is addicting, this heady mix of aspartame and carbonated water.

We have our reasons for choosing the drinks we do. Years ago, Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar wrote, "My wife and I have both been addicted to soda for many years. On an average day, I would drink six cans of soda and my wife would drink four cans, meaning we would go through ten cans a day at our house." General Duck prefers his soda sparingly, but the bottle in his hand has still become a part of his persona.

For me, picking a drink has much to do with the mood I want to convey in my life. Coffee in those ambivalent preteen years when public transit gave us a freedom I haven't tasted until recently (not surprisingly, I have adopted a new caffeine habit lately as well). Bubble tea to soothe a nostalgia that seeps through the edges of my vision so that there is always something there, something in the corner of my eye.

Hot chocolate? Well, because I wanted to roll up the rim. Not that I won anything.

. . .

Islandtown's metro line is asking people to name their new train. One of the names was related to the Greek god of time, Chronos. I told Khajiit that one of my characters was called Chronos. He said, "Everyone has a character called Chronos."

I have tried to read more lately. I checked out Middlemarch from the library, and Khajiit and I read the first chapter (and a very wordy prelude). There is something special about the way a book can make you laugh, but I had never quite experienced it until now. So I think George Eliot is something special, critics of her other life be damned.

On the radio we hear Adele over and over again. They are tragic songs, completely not fit for a coffeehouse with bright red and yellow banners promoting its new jalapeño and asiago cheese bagels. On her YouTube videos people says things like, "She's pretty inside and out," or, "She's not fat, too many celebrities today are too skinny." They remind me of the "compare her to Marilyn Monroe" posters, of the idea that arguing men like women who are not bone-skinny is still objectifying women, because the standard-holders are still men.

When Adele said she wasn't "some blonde, skinny, fake boob, white teeth" girl, there is something sad in that statement. Something that sits uncomfortably in my stomach, even though I am not sure what it is.

A few nights ago, Veronica and Khajiit were working on our web design company (which reminds me, I need to get going on that), when they came across a photo of a group of students posing for what looked like a case competition. Veronica said, "Those girls look more natural, because girls take more photos of themselves."

Little things like that hurt. They hurt on a personal level, so to me they grate on my heart.

. . .

I stood in front of a class of one hundred on Friday. Made a public announcement about the film my environmental club was screening. I have not done something like this for a long while, especially not when I could see every single face and recognize people in the crowd.

The film itself was a success, if not a haunting one. We saw lovely paintings made of aluminum cans stacked on top of each other and baby albatrosses dead, bellies splayed open to reveal all the plastic inside.

Why must it be so sentimental?

I sleep at night panicked, tossing around, half-starting when I am about to fall asleep. There is something about the night, how still it is, that makes me uneasy. My body is failing me, or I am failing it, whichever one explains the aches and pains and dull anxiety.

Yesterday, in a fit of curiosity-laden panic, I looked up whether our house was likely to flood in 2100. The site says that if it does, it will be because of some harbor in the city near our house, or the beach, or the river. On SMBC, Zach Weiner describes a superior race that falls because of its impeccable ethics. I jaywalked across the street bordering my university today, against my usual rules of strictly following the roads.

. . .

In the depths of my blankets and shaking, I am lonely. I don't fully understand it, because I am not alone—I am far from alone—but I am still lonely.

. . .

When I wake up these days, it is usually to realize I have missed another class, or that it is now late afternoon and I have been sleeping all day. Khajiit, woken by my frantic prodding, would say, "We knew this was going to happen," to our promising ourselves the night before that we would wake up early. Then I would roll over and he would wrap his arm around me, and that would be my favorite part of the day.

These days it has been getting warmer in Islandtown. I pulled out my pair of red tights, paired them with the ridiculously high heels I bought from China, and got out a red shirt I had almost forgotten I owned. The lady at the food court eyed my outfit as I stood up next to her to throw away my cup.

Cosmic Gate is playing on my Pandora station. The other day Khajiit showed me how to set up a proxy so I could access Pandora from his server-in-a-closet. I took a jab at it yesterday and wondered if I had done something wrong when a firewall message popped up. Today, after a few changes to the procedure, I bypassed the firewall prompt. I don't know what triggered it though.

I was reading this very, very sad site that made me almost cry.

Somewhat unrelated, I had always thought that being an activist in one group made you much more likely to sympathize with activists in another group. My university, my city, and my province has proven me otherwise.

. . .

Maybe I have just been cooped up inside for too long.

Down The River Valley

It seems so long ago. The other day I painted Khajiit's nails a gorgeous sonic bloom color, although I have no idea what a sonic bloom is (I think it's a type of flower). We brought my rice cooker to the office, along with some canned food, and at the meeting Khajiit pointed to the rice cooker.

"Don't do that," our chair said. "Your nails, when you wave your hands. It's so distracting."

Something about sexism came to mind, sexism against men in this case but also against women, because who is to say nail polish (or anything "feminine") has to be for women? At the very least it is stifling, if not borderline deriding the practice not worthy for men. But I am not as brave in a group as I am alone, so it went unsaid.

Later, Sarah brought her bag of nail products. She plopped down in front of a computer and looked up rental cars. We sat around as she made the calls.

"What's the minimum age for car rentals? —Oh, okay. Yeah, no problem. Thanks. Good bye."

Khajiit started looking up buses. His dad had called earlier. We could have five in our party. There are talks about seeing musicals—"The Book of Mormon," for Sarah, who is Mormon—and buying shoes—Veronica is a shoe addict. We considered contacting the guy behind the sketchy van that left for the city every week.

It is so surreal. Only two weeks ago, I was in another office three doors down listening to a Veronica I barely knew cry about her relationship problems. The next day, Sarah confessed that she was really stressed out because of school troubles. As Khajiit puts it, "We're all failures." That was the day I slept through most of my classes. Somewhere amongst the snarky, angry jabs at ex-boyfriends, we decided to go to Khajiit's house over spring break.

We are a group of teenagers, Veronica included. I once remarked that Khajiit, in the car, suddenly possessed teenage qualities he lacked out of the car. On the streets, or in a room, or when we are sipping lattes at the coffee shop across the road, he is either a middle-schooler or an adult. But in the car, he is a teenager. This impromptu decision on all of our parts make us all reckless to some degree. When I signed up for college I did not think I would be signing up for this.

It's an exhilarating sort of freedom, one that has me up at three in the morning in a sketchy corner of the city where people have been known to be stabbed, drinking white hot chocolate from a mug and eating ranch-flavored potato chips. The buses at Islandtown run all night, one every hour or so, in a grid-like pattern. Khajiit and I took one that snaked through the northern part of the city. We sat in the back seat, munching on rainbow rice krispies and drinking iced lemon tea, and joked about staying at seedy motels because we were so tired.

We are always tired these days, sleep-deprived, because I have my games and Khajiit has his games (to program). Late at night we do crazy things, like walk in sub-freezing temperatures just so we can sleep on a futon instead of a single bed, or go to the coffee shop we always frequent late at night, so often that the night shift cashier greets us with, "Hey, it's you guys again."

The next day is sometimes full of regret. Why did we stay up so late? Why did we go to the apartment half an hour away from campus, when we had another one five minutes away? Khajiit regretted his bright red nails and took them off with acetone, although he painted them again in dark blue. A more "manly" color, he claimed. Some guy we didn't know with access to the office said, "Nice nails."

Overloaded

I knew, going into this semester, that taking six classes was going to be a hefty amount of work. That, along with my commitments to all of my other activities, should have taken up most of my time. If I were being completely logical with my time-budgeting and I adhered to the schedule, I probably wouldn't have time to write here right now.

But I'm here right now, while my Java code runs through its cycle comparing 1,000,000-sized lists, so technically I am doing work. What I really should be doing is finish my base-conversion assignment, or get started on my integrate-acceleration-into-velocity program, or really a thousand other things than this.

At least I'm getting some work done, which is more than what Khajiit can say, because he is currently sitting in an armchair with his headphones on reading My Little Pony fanfiction. A fanfiction that uses underlines for emphasis, rather than italics.

My dad said I should be involved in only one extracurricular activity, or at most two. It makes a lot of sense, but I'm just getting to the good parts of programming for the robot (although it is basically a netbook on a fancy frame so it's not that ultra-fancy), and I got approved for my funding application for the environmental documentary that we'll now be screening in March, so I'll definitely have to work more on that, and I've signed up for at least three hours' worth of office hours commitment to the computer club, plus the new environmental committee that I am half-heading which will definitely be exciting.

How could I possibly choose?

So I am going into this semester with so much work, already, and I have been barely maintaining above that 3.7 I needed for my scholarship (thanks to linear algebra), and there will be so much more to do. But I am postponing all of that because I have just been tempted with at least $100 worth of Lego products, and so I will instead go to New York this weekend (among other things, likely possibly visiting Paperclip, although that is rather tenuous right now).

Also, I have been drinking so much Nestea and lattes. I need to find new sugary drinks to replace them before I grow tired of them and run out of suitable water-replacements.

"You think this is cold? This is nothing!"

I had been pretty hopeful, these past few months, that this winter was going to be different. That there would be none of those bone-chilling, wind-takes-your-breath-away-just-so-you-lose-more-body-heat days. The day I got back from Texas, everything was fine. There was snow on the ground, yes, and it was a bit chilly, but it was also dark and it wasn't anything I hadn't experienced before.

The next morning, I decided to go out shopping for groceries, and the moment I step out of the house I think, "Oh. Fuck. Cold."

Ever since then I haven't gone outside. I lugged a ton of groceries back and I am living off of frozen dinners, eggs, bacon, cheese, and almond milk until I have to go out again, and if things go as planned that won't be until Saturday morning. Which, according to the weather forecast, will be snowing.

Why did I ever choose to live in this city again?

In happier news I have finally rolled out of bed today (I even cooked!), and I will finally get around to making the Christmas present for Khajiit that I'd been saying I would for the past two weeks or so. If he didn't read this blog I would also probably say what it is, but since he does I'll just save it for later.

I also got my calendar fixed up, my bills paid, and my expenses recorded. So accomplished.

Now about my room.

The First More-Than-Five-Hours Of Consecutive Sleep In A Long Long While

Also the first very long title in a long long while. I used to do this a lot and then title habits changed. Did anyone notice the comma streak I had a while back? Things like that happen here. I need to blog more.

Anyway, I thought I wouldn't have wifi here, because I have always been used to cheap hotels, but this one is actually really nice. My dad and I got a two-bed room, which also happened to be a two-bedroom suite, with televisions and phones in each room (and the living room), a full-sized kitchen, and two bathrooms. Two real bathrooms. Now all we need is a decent view.

But as I was saying, wifi, which means: a) I can finally go on Pandora again, and b) I can now chat with Khajiit all day long (also his name makes me miss Skyrim).

Yesterday's plane rides were pretty bumpy, or so I heard from the captain, but I fell asleep for most of it. On the first one, I woke up when the attendant came with drinks, asked for a cup of water, drank some, and fell right back to sleep. Trying to stay awake during the connection time was really, really hard. Good thing I was also really hungry, and in my 6am sleepiness I forgot to bring any US money.

But! I got off the airport, got picked up by my dad (after a while of him calling me trying to figure out where I was), and then he sent me off to a sushi buffet place while he went back to make conference calls to his workplace back in China. I got to eat a creme brulee for the first time!

Not much else happened though. I talked to Khajiit more, and today too, and now I'll be going out, as my dad says, to "see places," which upon further probing is going to be "Best Buy and maybe Walmart."

Shopping time!

Two Birds With One Very Linear Stick

Here is the problem: whenever I have about more work than I can handle reasonably (or when I think I do), I want to procrastinate. Aside from RSS and Gaia and about a bunch of other things blogging is the next one.

But! I can make this productive! I have a linear algebra quiz in about two and a half hours, and I can take notes here while I blog (and/or mindlessly type).

This is inspired by Yuma's rather nonfunctional blog now, and I would link, but it contains his real name and mine, which would make all of these nicknames rather silly and pointless.

Anyway.

Determinants and eigenvalues. The chapter where I actually learned new things.

• The most generic way of finding the determinant of a matrix is to take one row/column and add all the (entry * cofactor of entry) for that row/column.
• Cofactor = (-1)^(row# + column# of entry) det (matrix without entry's row and column)
• This technically works with 2 x 2 matrices, but what you're essentially doing is ad - cb anyway.
• This process is officially called the cofactor expansion. I always think of it as the "reduce the matrix the determinant way."
• SPECIAL CASES:
• if one row/column is all 0, then obviously expand along that row/column = det(matrix) = 0
• if the matrix is an upper/lower triangular matrix, multiply entries along diagonal (this one's easy to see)
• det(k*matrix) = k^n * det(matrix)
• det(transpose of matrix) = det(matrix) since rows/columns preserve
• det(matrix A * matrix B) = det(A) * det(B); and the extrapolation of det(matrix^k) = det(matrix)^k
• Row operations & determinants:
• 1. interchanging = -det(matrix)
• 2. multiplying one row by k = k det(matrix)
• 3. adding mults of one row to another = det(matrix)
• 1 because of signs of cofactors; 2 because of factoring; 3 because of same entries in two rows
• If det(A) = 0, no inverse (gasp!) and otherwise, yes inverse where det(A^-1) = 1/det(A) (sort of like the "inverse" of a number).
• Matrices can be blocked off to make calculations easier (if applicable). Only helps if you can make a square block of 0s.
• Adjoint of a matrix is the transpose of the cofactors matrix (matrix with cofactor of each entry in place of the corresponding entry).
• For matrix A: A * adj(A) = det(A) * I = adj(A) * A and adj(A) / det(A) = A^-1, where the proof of the second comes from the dividing everything by det(A).
• det(adj(A)) = detA^(n-1) where A is n x n; derived from above formula
• Cramer's Rule: so confusing to write... (to find nth x, replace nth column with constant column in coefficient matrix then find det (that) / det(A)) however it's more difficult to calculate for larger matrices and therefore only useful in theory
• Diagonalization is useful for calculating powers of square matrices (that can be diagonalized).
• If a square matrix can be diagonalized, then P^-1 * A * P = D, where P is an invertible "diagonalizing" matrix (so many terms) and D is the "diagonalized" matrix.
• P = eigenvectors of A and D = eigenvalues of A, in respective order (eigenvalue 1 matches with eigenvector 1 in column location).
• Eigenvalues: AX = xX where x is a constant (the eigenvalue) that is usually lambda but I can't type it easily.
• Generally, eigenvalues are found by solving the characteristic polynomial, which is det(xI - A) = 0.
• The eigenvectors are found by solving for X when the eigenvalues are plugged in for (xI - A) * X = 0.
• side note: tr(A) is the trace of A and is the sum of all diagonal entries
• For P to exist, # of eigenvectors = # of columns in A (or the total multiplicity of the eigenvalues, or the # of rows in P)
• Similar matrices are similar (no pun intended) to A and D pairs, but the other matrix need not be D.
• if A ~ B (~ = is similar to):  A^-1, A^T, A^k ~ B^-1, B^T, B^k for k >= 0 respectively
• if A ~ B: det(A), c(x) of A, and eigenvalues of A = those of B; by this the matrix A has similar properties to the eigenvalues of A, e.g. if x^2 (the eigenvalue of A) = 5x, then A^2 = 5A.
• if A ~ B and B ~ C then A ~ C

 The rest is just stuff from before.

My other work consists of writing the two paragraphs I have blocked out for my paper today (I have the topic sentences and the research, so that should be easy), as well as another location-specific paragraph that I need to do a bit more research on that hopefully won't take too long, and hopefully I can tackle another part of my paper (bring it to three full pages) as well.

Then I have reviewing for my Java midterm, so I need to start on my assignment as well, since it's been said that having that done before the midterm is good review.

My mom suggested I listen to French radio, so I could do that in my spare time. I also need to start researching for Robot On Moon (hey, ROM is also Royal Ontario Museum!), and sign up for a project for FSAE, and talk with the person in charge of notes, and review at least calc and hopefully physics too, and finish my letter and send out the food, and write my story, and fit in all my Halloween parties, and figure out my linear algebra assignment eventually, and stop typing "assignmnet" every time I mean "assignment" because terminal doesn't recognize it and spits at me every time I do so.

But. First. Fooooood.

The Past Few Weeks

I have been going to my classes every other class. Sometimes it is intentional, like today, when I skipped my linear algebra class to attend a soldering tutorial that was probably more informative and productive than any single lecture I have gone to for linalg. (I stripped wires and made pretty twists with them and soldered them together with decent speed! That has to be one of the more productive hours I have ever spent in a long time).

Other times it is accidental, like today (again), when I woke up in the morning and it was 9:45 and my java class started at 9:35, and I was groggy and on the top bunk without any proper outdoors clothes on or any breakfast in my stomach, and the earliest I can have all of that done would be by 10, and then 5-10 minutes of walking to class would leave me with 15 minutes of lecture time left. So I promptly fell back asleep.

I asked Jessica later on about what the prof talked about in class today, and she said, "Calling a private property in another class with a public method." Which is, well, what we learned on Monday. I even have rather nice notes for that day.

I think it was on Monday, too, that I left my java class and, after buying yogurt and granola for breakfast, hurried to my linalg class and read the part in the textbook where I thought we had gone over the class before. And I went into class an hour later and proceeded to hear about the same things I had just read.

As Yuma puts it, "Why are your classes so useless?"

I like to believe that it is only so because I am in this limbo mode right now where I can't actually take the exciting classes. But I do have some neat classes next semester, like intro to computer engineering and engineering economy, as well as differential equations which I've heard is actually tough (or maybe they are making it up just like they are making up how difficult linear algebra was going to be). Also I will have no more English classes next semester and, as long as my 93% fixed schedule (based on rough approximations) is not changed by the higher beings who design the electrical engineering curriculum here, I will never have an official English class again.

Or maybe they do this English thing at grad school too. Who knows. I think they should do it every year but I suppose the workload (essay-writing) does add up.

. . .

I found a couple of tunnels under my school. This would sound so much cooler if I also put in, "I sneaked past -insert integer here- security guards and ducked under the camera and picked the lock on the grate and lowered myself into the tunnels," but alas, that was not the case. These tunnels are university-sanctioned, opened for the special purpose of allowing us to get to our classes without freezing ourselves to death when it is -40 degrees Celsius outside and the snow is piled higher than your head.

On the bright side, some of these are steam tunnels, which means they'll be extra-cozy in winter. On the not so bright side, they have operating hours, unlike the buildings themselves, so any late-night cramming session during finals time will necessarily involve walking through the snow.

I am not sure if our school has drains, which I have heard is also a good place to explore in the winter, but those are definitely not sanctioned and will require a lot of time and effort and luck to discover.

Roofs, however, are open (free?) to people who find the doors open at the right time. It is apparently not a rare occurrence. I have yet to be on a roof but that should be fun too.

. . .

Boys are weird creatures. I am sure this has been stated before (I vaguely remember this particular statement or a variation of it on my blog, and possibly on Kathrya's blog too although I can't remember if either is true), and I am aware it is a gross generalization, so I will restate this. Some of the boys I have encountered lately are weird.

The other day I went to the basement of the math and science building, and these two guys were selling white coffee to fundraise for some student group (I think it was Malaysian or some other Southeast Asian group, the guys told me but I don't quite remember). I asked them what white coffee was, and one of the guys explained (different coffee brewing process + condensed milk), and then took off the "$1" sign and said that they were running low anyway, so he gave me a free sample. Then they packed up so quickly and left the table before I even left.

Today, as I was walking down the escalator, one of the guys in my class walked past me, obviously in a hurry. He then held the door open for me, even though I was not even close to the door, so I half-ran to get the door so he wouldn't wait too long.

Maybe the midterms are addling with their brains.

I would love to extend this to girls too so this doesn't resemble a gender stereotype, but unfortunately I am not meeting enough previously-not-well-known-and-probably-will-never-know-well girls to have any concrete examples.

. . .

Thanksgiving weekend was good. It involved lots of fish (alive, raw, microwaved, hot-potted, stuffed-toy-ified), a trip to the depths of Chinatown, friend-visiting, mall-bridge-hopping, movies (some good, some dreadfully slow), and a variety of other things that may or may not be appropriate to put on here. A blackboard was acquired, kitties were petted, and a bunch of pretty much useless RAMs and hard drives were lugged back up the hill.

I might write about it, but definitely not from my perspective and not with any clear-defined names.

And we can also definitely glaze over the late-night drunk on deliriousness hours of insanity.

It was apparently also Denise's birthday on Thanksgiving weekend. It was a rather sad event for her, at least on the day of her birthday, because none of us were there (Sam went to her cottage, other people were otherwise occupied with their families) and she was sick. To make matters worse she spent the weekend at the studio working on one of her many, many projects.

Sam organized a belated celebration for her by taking her to a dumpling place (and inviting all of us). They were really good dumplings (I haven't really had a vegetarian dumpling in a long while, and the ones there were delicious), and Denise and Sam ate two platefuls. I would have ordered a plate myself, but earlier that day I had gone to the-dorm-with-a-good-caf and had gotten myself onion rings and cheesecake and chicken and noodles and broccoli and iced tea, and normally I could have dealt with the main meal but the combo of onion rings and cheesecake was rather filling already, so I was stuffed by the end of the meal.

So not many dumplings for me. So sad.

. . .

I am really tired now. I slept at 4 in the morning, because I wanted Yuma to read me a chapter from a story and he didn't want to, so I stayed up doing silly things. This is probably directly related to my inability to attend my java class this morning, which apparently was pretty silly too, so it all balances out.

I bought four books from the book fair yesterday, all on math and science, and I can't wait to read them. I also signed up for about a million email lists from various clubs around my school, and plotted them all on my calendar in hopes that by virtue of them being there, I will do them.

So far I have not gone to the computer-recycling club, nor the outdoors excursions club, but I have asked Jessica about the two competitions I was interested in (both require teams).

Maybe if I sleep more...

Weekends

Last weekend (it seems so far away even though it's only Tuesday), I went on a camping trip with a group of fellow engineers (and other people, who were mainly engineers' girlfriends/boyfriends). We left on what must be one of the most awful days to leave for a camping trip: it was rainy and cold. But luckily, we had plenty of firewood (and people bought even more after they got drunk), lots of food, and enough alcohol to put a liquor store to shame (we had plenty of cases of all sorts of beer, and other things people brought like rum and gin and vodka, and our coordinator brought boxes of wine).

I was probably one of the few (if not only) people who did not drink, but the food was really good. Our coordinator made chili, and we roasted spider weenies over the fire (and accidentally dropped what was probably an entire pack of hot dogs into the fire) and made s'mores until we ran out of chocolate and biscuits. Someone even roasted a pepper (and said, "It smells really good!" so everyone took turns smelling it).

I had way too much food for the night (I think maybe 4 or 5 hot dogs plus a ton of marshmallows and a tub of chili), but it was so good I couldn't stop eating. I probably burned all of the excess calories off during the night though, when I was freezing so badly I had a blanket wrapped around me, a down jacket on, and was still shivering through much of the night.

We talked about a bunch of silly things, like previous trips the other people had gone on, air force experience (a lot of people in our group had been in the army in some way), and generally Islandtown and other places. Then people started making up really dirty limericks and singing lewd songs, and cigars got passed around. I didn't like the smoke, plus I had drank too much lemonade, so I joined the bathroom excursion.

We hiked down the road, through many, many puddles (my boots are all disgusting now), and arrived at the bathrooms. When we got out, we saw that there was a playground nearby, so our temporarily appointed VP Acquisitions (we had VPs for almost everything, from VP Fire to VP Innuendo) decided it was a great idea to steal two of the kiddie cars in the playground (apparently the goal of VP Acquisitions was to get a golf cart, but that was too difficult), so two of the girls hauled the cars to our campfire.

I spent the rest of the night warming myself by the fire and stopping myself from eating more food. So obviously when I got up in the morning I went right back to the fire and, as the bacon was the only thing ready, I ate bacon. We had all forgotten to turn off the propane stove the night before, so we only had a little bit of propane left. Someone suggested we cook bacon over the fire, so we did that (in a pan and not on a stick, sadly). There was also instant oatmeal made in such huge batches that it looked almost homemade.

I must have ate 8 strips of bacon. So. Much. Food.

Then the group of girls I shared a tent with (and one of their friends and her boyfriend) decided to take a walk to the lake, and when we got there we wanted to walk around the lake. So we hiked through mountains of trash and sand and long reeds, and got to see the lake from all angles. When we got back, there was spaghetti cooking on the fire (food was definitely one of our themes), and it was delicious too. Too bad we had to leave soon after, but not before we finished the rest of the marshmallows, all of the beer, and someone roasted a banana.

On our way back, we talked about more trips (including a skiing trip that I'd love to go on), deteriorating bridges ("please don't stop under the bridge!"), and people who drank too much beer and needed to go to the bathroom (one guy was almost desperate enough to emulate Mario). If it were any warmer and drier I would have wished it lasted longer. As it were though, I was plenty glad to return to my warm, cozy room and actually sleep on a proper bed.

. . .

Next weekend I am going on another trip, except this time I am going to Beavertown (I had bought the tickets last weekend, and I am so excited). I already have my outfits planned out, because, obviously, this is the most important part. Well, also because Yuma said he would be in charge of planning the events, so that does not leave me with much left to plan for.

I told this to a guy I had met online a couple weeks ago (who knew about my situation with Yuma), and he said, "Bring pepper spray."

I hope I won't ever have to use that.

That aside, I am really, really excited. I'm hoping I will finish all of my homework before Friday, and then maybe skip out of my last class on Friday so I don't need to be at the bus station at 12 in the morning (although that is also a feasible option, if I had to), and then I'll skip my Tuesday tutorial so I can have three and a half days (and four nights!) in Beavertown.

But that means I have to work now, so off I'll be.

Electronics

As Nathan puts it, "Electronics always fail. Don't just take it from me. The guys who go on to become CEOs at Ford and [some other big car company whose name I have already forgotten] all say that they know shit-all about electronics and electronics always fail."

Very encouraging.

He then proceeded to show us a network problem he was having with the black box on the car. We spent a good hour there watching him put things together, and it was pretty fascinating (I never knew about breadboards before but they are the neatest things ever). Then we watched as he ran the program and explained that, once again, it was not working and he was not getting the data he needed.

Not to mention that the team is going on a pre-race event at Lakeside in a week, and he needs to get it working by then so the other teams working on the car can have the data they need.

I have a sort-of-like-SWE group mixer tomorrow evening, and there is the tech fair all day tomorrow, so I might go there on Wednesday night, if I'm not going to other companies' info sessions. I do want to check out the other parts of the car, and maybe do some data analysis, since that is always fun.

The rest of the meeting went by pretty uneventfully. I was hoping to see Peter so I could ask him where we were supposed to be on Wednesday for our English class, since we're starting on our research topics already, but he wasn't there (probably because there wasn't anything very important going on for those who are already on the team). I did see someone else from my English class though (what is with my English class and cars? I now know four people aside from me who is/will be on the team, out of a total of 25).

In other news:

• Today marks the first day I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a school cafeteria. I had an egg and blt English muffin sandwich and milk for breakfast, smoked salmon and shrimp sushi and peach yogurt for lunch, and pizza and lemonade for dinner (all the fancy stuff ran out by the time I got there). I am still $22 behind my spending schedule for the day. Tomorrow I will be $37 behind. I really, really need to increase my food intake and quality somehow without overeating. Or maybe, as Yuma says, I should exercise more. Maybe I could go up and down the hill every day like I used to?
• I found this really neat math genealogy website, and when I traced my math history professor, it went all the way back to Heisenberg and Gauss and Möbius and Copernicus and lots of other cool mathematicians. Also a really interesting thing was that when I started going really really far back (like 1400s) I would find that a lot people studied under the same people and then taught the same people and other mixed-up things like that. It's less common now because of all the people who are able to study math at a high level, but I suppose back then when learning was still a privileged thing to do, it was more common.
• I have, through some crazy notion, signed up to be part of a debate team in one of my 200-people-large classes. Only 20 people are debating in total. That is crazy, considering I usually never volunteer for anything even when 10 people are called for in a 25 people class. And it's on a topic I never did any research on. But I have lots and lots of time, I suppose. Which reminds me:
• I want to somehow pick up physics again, because I really don't know all that much about it and I believe it is rather necessary to know physics as an engineer. I have been telling myself that I need to get onto that but it's not happening yet, so I think I need to actually assign a fixed schedule, sort of like a class time, so I can get it done. Maybe two hours a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then an extra hour for reviewing calc. I could get that fitted into my calendar easily.

Also. People. Talking. About. Midterms.

Already.

I feel kind of silly because the past few posts have all contained some mentioning of grades, and while I do care I don't want to care too much to the extent that I won't get to do all the cool things I want to do on campus (EWB, FSAE, SWE-like group, youth outreach groups). Maybe all of this can be solved by writing shorter blog posts. These things take quite a bit of time.

Samosa Fridays

During dinner on Friday (at this retro diner-like place mixed in with a convenience store), Denise and I split a vegetarian dish that included stir-fried eggplants and other veggies, chickpea and pasta salad, hummus, and pita bread. I punched in my portion of the cost into my budget manager (the one I rediscovered today while cleaning out apps on my phone) and said, "I'm over my limit for food today already."

"What did you buy?"

"Well," I said. "I bought an omelet in the morning at the café, and it was really expensive, but it had really good Swiss cheese and—uh—what did I have for lunch?"

It took me a good five minutes to remember. "Samosas. I bought samosas. Three for $2. That's what I ate."

I still have over $1000 left in my meal plan for the semester, and I have to use it up or else it will expire. The problem is I don't wake up early enough to eat breakfast (or if I do it's a quick bowl of cereal), and sometimes I would go out to eat. Islandtown makes that really easy, especially since Fish Wings is located downtown and there are so many good restaurants around. The other day Denise and I went to this pub and they served the best jalapeno poppers I have ever had.

And the poutine here is heavenly.

Also I don't really eat on the weekends, because I hold crazy schedules and sleep in the early mornings and wake up at around 5 or 6 in the afternoon. Then I make bacon and onion and eggs and whatever else is really easy to cook.

I think I need to buy a bunch of pre-made meals from one of the cafeterias and stash them away for the weekends.

Also, as I was walking back from the metro, I heard the tell-tale party music of our engineering weekly drinking party. The last time I was there they had this really complicated drinking game involving a map of the world, except with bizarre names for the countries. I wonder if anyone (if there is anyone, that is) who is reading this can tell me what the name of that game is?

My mom called me later that night, and among other things, said, "Why are you eating out? You should eat as much as possible from your meal plan." Which is very logical, and would have been easy to do back home, but when you walk down a street and it's filled with all sorts of restaurants and eateries, and you're really hungry because you haven't ate anything for hours and all you've had was a glass of wine, it's not that easy.

Plus I would have needed to sneak into another dorm's cafeteria, since mine does not have one and the engineering one closes early on Fridays, and I didn't want to go through the extra effort.

So I really need to get the planning for food part down.

My mom also said, "I don't except you to get a 4.0 (she was talking about GPAs), that requires too much effort and it's not worth it, but you should aim for above a 3.9."

Gee, mom, there is such a huge difference between a 4.0 and a 3.95.

Ridiculousness aside, I still miss her. We talked for over an hour over Skype (and was interrupted twice by Yuma trying to video-chat me on gchat), and we probably would have kept going if it weren't so late and my mom was at her parents' place, where internet is limited. I won't be able to see her in person until summer comes around, and if anything does happen to me it will at least take her a couple of days to get here. That is something I still cannot wrap my head around.

I talked with Nora last night and she said she was at Gaussianville, which is around 7 hours away from Islandtown. A lot of my friends back from Lakeside are going to Lakeside University, and they are 6 hours away. Beavertown is 6 hours away.

This distance isn't too far. But it is far enough.

Since I slept most of the day away, I don't have much to say about my day. But Zephy sent me an email a few days ago (or was that yesterday? I can't remember) saying that her tag will be forevermore small because I will never have an  occasion to talk about her. So here I am, mentioning her so her tag might grow a bit.

Yuma will be back in a few minutes. He is such a silly, strange boy. I don't know what he wants anymore, but I'll take his happy days one day at a time.

Another Lazy Tuesday

I had set my alarm to 7:30, but seeing as I had slept only five hours earlier, I ended up barely dragging myself out of bed at 8:30, skipping breakfast to run to my meeting with my counselor.

Who, after asking me a bunch of questions including ones I had already filled out on a questionnaire, proceeded to tell me, "I think you're better off seeing [that other group of] counselors."

So I thanked him, left, and spent a good fifteen minutes figuring out where the engineering library was, because I was supposed to meet with Jessica to do our math history homework. I would link to the actual assignment, but that happens to be hosted on Fish Wings' official website, which would totally make the name "Fish Wings" obsolete, so I will describe the questions instead:

1. Multiply one mixed fraction by another mixed fraction using the ancient Egyptian way of doubling.
2. Solve an arbitrary algebra problem without using modern algebra and instead using false position.
3. Multiply two numbers in base 60 together in the Babylonian way. Divide two numbers in base 60 using the Babylonian reciprocal way. Ignore the fact that they had tables and therefore did not actually do that much math (not including time needed to make the tables, of course).
4. Solve a quadratic formula using geometry.
5. Solve a more complex algebra problem using false position again.

These questions took us a good hour (and I had already worked on some of them ahead of time), but they were also really interesting, especially the one where geometry was used to solve an algebra problem. I loved the proofs our teacher did in class. Maybe if I have time I can scan in a version of my own, but the internet probably does a better job of that.

After being productive, I went to the fancy-shmancy computer science building, which I will now call FSCS, and got an egg salad sandwich. It wasn't the best sandwich in the world, but it was alright. I liked the smoked meat one much better.

I also saw the new student lounge with plenty of people inside playing foosball, and I'll have to check that out one day.

I brought my lunch over to the architecture studio, just as Sam and Denise were coming out. We, along with two other people, May and Ralph, went to this deserted windowsill half a level below a lower tier of the roof, and after twenty minutes of debating and a lots of texts, we figured out that the windows facing us were those of Sam, Denise, and May's studio. Some guy inside waved at us, and we waved frantically back, but he got bored soon and left the window.

We then all went to get ice cream (Toonie Tuesdays!) and all chose the same base flavor coincidentally. I had maple walnut again with my base flavor, espresso, and it was really, really good. I don't think I'll ever buy ice cream anywhere else.

After that I went to my math tutorial, where we learned more about REF and RREF and my TA commented on my math shirt (and thought I was a math major). Some time after that I helped this middle-aged guy with both linear algebra and calculus, then got back to my dorm, decided to work, and ended up on RSS again. Oh, the wonderful life of internet.

This Is Why No Work Ever Gets Done

When I am on the computer. Because really, the computer is my greatest source of procrastination, and that is saying a lot, since I procrastinate a lot.

But here are the computer-related reasons why I haven't been getting any substantial work done lately (these are all approximates):

• In a mix of marketing genius and sheer cuteness, Mozilla has most likely killed hundreds of thousands of "productivity minutes" by adopting two firefox cubs and, sadly, naming them "cub #1" and "cub #2." I mean, seriously? I know they're temporary names, but still. The overhead cam is by far the best, because you get to see them in their entirety no matter where they happen to drop and nap. [Productivity minutes wasted: 20]
• Every time I see an article (or anything, really) on math that I know a little bit about I get really excited. So guess how I spent a lot of my time? P.S.: That last one I have not read through completely, but it sounds really cool and it also mentions times when other regression models (such as chi-squared) should be used instead, which is really helpful. [Productivity minutes wasted: 250; including the other math and science articles that I have not linked to because there are too many of them]
• After much consideration, I have decided that my next blog will be on food. Or at least taking pictures of food. Because food is so, so good and I don't know how I can ever live without it. Also, Yuma, if you're reading this, can we make the second-to-last recipe? [Productivity minutes wasted: 400]
• There is so much I do not know about Toronto, despite having lived there for three years. Did you know I had never heard of Transit City? But I have to say, if costs were not in consideration (I can't comment on that because I haven't researched into how much either project will cost), I like the idea of Transit City better than Ford's idea of expanded subway lines, if only because I think more light will be good for otherwise already probably pretty frustrated commuters. [Productivity minutes wasted: 120]
• I am a sucker for pretty graphs and other pictures. Always. 100% of the time. [Productivity minutes wasted: 45]
• This blog. [Productivity minutes wasted: 180]

Total time wasted spent: 1015 minutes, or nearly 17 hours.

Generalizations And My Inherent Laziness

When I say "I don't know," half the time I do know, but I feel disinclined to say what I know out loud. It has been a point of contention between my parents and me. They have been trying to get me to say every thought I have, instead of keeping them all within my head.

It doesn't work that way, I want to tell them, but that would require actually saying the words out loud, and that is exactly the problem.

A vicious cycle.

I have been wondering lately if I have been turning this blog into a diary. There are so many "thoughts" posts, and not enough "events" posts or "story" posts. So much inner monologue. Like Hamlet.

So to make amends I will talk about math team, as I have promised (many, many times).

. . .

Since our last math meet was also Argon's birthday, Yuma and I tried out this really cool cake mix and whipped cream cookies recipe. Except it turned out to be more like cake. I think it was because we put all the batter on one tray, because we were running out of time, so the resulting glob of stuff was too thick and therefore did not have cookie chewy/crunchy consistency.

Oh well. It was still really delicious.

On the bus ride to Spearheadville, Bryant, Tybalt, and Dino started talking about college. Which reminds me, Penn's ED results are out next Friday! Can you believe it? Less than a week away! It is both exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time, and I don't know (really) which one is winning right now.

Anyway, college has definitely overtaken our lives. Perhaps things will get better in a month or so?

Once there, we found our normal banished-to-the-corner tables, and started our normal soda-talk, commonly known as, "Did you know there is partially brominated fats in opaque-looking sodas?" And then everyone at the table deciding to drink only the transparent sodas. And then Grob coming over and grabbing the one soda with said fats in it.

We had a short-lived discussion on whether Grob will turn out okay after freshman year, as Micro had. I sure hope so. And maybe he will start taking those headphones out of his ears, because he is missing crucial advice (we did warn him about the soda, but he didn't hear).

Then came the actual competition (and food). I did rather horribly this time, but the questions (matrices aside) were really fun. Team round too, although I didn't really like the geometry question this time. Too much guessing and checking.

I did my French homework after that, so I missed out on lots of conversation (but I did catch Tybalt showing Argon, Reno, and Summer the projectile launch lab—the one with the moving car—because they were doing stationary target launches).

That is all I really remember for now. Oh, and the bus ride home, but that was self-explanatory and I actually don't remember much from it anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for a lot of things I don't really say out loud. Like I am thankful for the fact that I lost my blue and green pen. And I am thankful for my lack of balance when performing simple tasks such as walking in a straight line.

Oh, wait. I'm supposed to be thankful for good things, right?

Well. I am thankful for all of my wonderful friends (and ex-friends made not-current friends solely due to the lack of ease of communicating back in a pre-Internet era). I am thankful for my parents and their awesome sense of humor (even if I don't understand it half the times because they are very heavy on Chinese proverbs/idioms/folk lores/whatever else). I am thankful for Yuma for killing my sleep monsters (they have, unfortunately, been revived as of late).

I am also thankful for the delicious lemon meringue mini pie I helped to make yesterday. And by help I mean "force mini pie crusts into cupcake pan." It was good. Even though I don't really like lemon filling, or meringue.

I am thankful for my wonderfully hard bed because it is really huge and can fit two people on it even though there is only one of me. (I am also thankful that my window is really, really low large, but that is another story.)

And I am thankful that I will be getting a new laptop soon. Sony. Hopefully bright blue.

Obviously, It's The Mustache

This is why Ophelia loves Hamlet so much, even though she knows Hamlet, as the prince of Denmark, will most likely marry one of his cousins instead of a "commoner" like her (she can be an aristocrat to some extent, though, as her father serves the King).

Because Hamlet has such a hot mustache.

At least that was the reason Mr. Littney gave us, as we were watching our version of Hamlet today (it's apparently the best DVD version that adheres to the text, although I am not sure which version it is except that the guy who plays Hamlet also plays Iago in the version of Othello that I watched last year).

I have to say, the whole premise of Hamlet requires a lot of willingness to accept otherwise rather ridiculous events. It does make the play rather humorous, and maybe Shakespeare was aiming for that, but honestly I would never believe it if someone told me, "Hey, that ghost won't talk to me, but he'll probably talk to the other guy."

Also, I saw way too many sex scenes from the movie for my comfort. Way too many.

I still love my English class. We had bagels yesterday, thanks to the wonderful efforts of Tabby and someone else (I forgot who). Food is always good, especially in the mornings, and especially bagels.

Plus, talking about whether Gertrude is an idiot or a whore is always fascinating (I think that she would have had no choice in the matter of her marriage, especially if she wanted to stay alive, although it can be argued that if she hated her situation she could have gotten Hamlet to just kill the king, so I don't know).

I would love to talk about my English class all day, but I did promise I will be productive, so I shall have to go back to work.

Organized? Me?

One of the math teachers who was also a club advisor of mine once said that she tutored a kid in middle school who was really disorganized, so she also taught him organization skills. She then went on to say, "I'm sure you're really organized. Girls usually are."

The other variation I've often heard is, "You must be really organized, since you're doing so well in school."

Both of which, I will prove to you today, are completely untrue. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Proof #1: I have a huge stack of papers that consists of notes and handouts from all seven classes that I take this year. In no particular order. It has been steadily growing, despite my attempts to throw away things that are no longer relevant (i.e. tests and notes from a month ago).

Proof #2: I use the empty spaces in my assignment book as scrap paper for math and physics problems. Even if I have a notebook. Needless to say, I never write my homework in said assignment book.

Proof #3: I just cleaned out my blue backpack a while ago, and in one of the pockets, I found dry bread.

I don't even know where that came from, or why it hasn't turned moldy yet (I haven't used that backpack in almost two years, so the bread must have been there for at least that long), or what it's doing in my backpack, of all places. I dumped everything into the garbage can, but it took forever to get the crumbs out. Well, at least after half an hour's work, I have transferred everything from my original bag to my new backpack.

Of course, the laws of entropy will soon ruin all of the energy I've invested, but at least for now, everything is good. Neat. And too heavy, so I will probably have to return a few books to lighten the weight.

Anyway, my point was, not all girls and/or all people who are doing well in school are organized. Simply untrue. I am living proof.

(Also, yes, this entire post was mostly written just to talk about the elaborate process of cleaning out my backpack. And to also mention that I have bought two new bottles of nail polish—East Village blue and Prince purple—so I am very excited to start decorating my other binder.)

. . .

Unfortunately, no story tonight, because I need to study for the cell communication (I keep on envisioning cells using cellphones) and mitosis test tomorrow. Or more like, at least finish the homework.

Hindsight Is A Spiteful Kid

The main problem with wanting to prop up your vanity (or just being over-eager in general) is, well, sometimes you wish you hadn't. Really. Not that, I, uh, have any experience in this field or anything. Uh-huh.

But I would like to take this opportunity to note that my ankle does not like me. I was walking from the dining counter to the kitchen counter when my left ankle decided to writhe in pain, and naturally I almost toppled over. Needless to say, it was not fun and resulted in me hobbling on the other leg for a long time (because I was afraid to see if my ankle was okay afterwards).

I have weird joint problems (as Tea nicely pointed out). That I will admit. This ankle thing could be related to my habit of sitting on my ankles, although it does not explain the relative lack of pain in my other ankle, unless I usually only sit on one ankle. I don't know—and I don't want to find out, because that would mean more ankle-sitting and possibly more pain.

Anyway. My mom and I went to Crumbs today, because two of my interviews to come (the early decision/action ones) will occur there. My mom's theory was that we should have a "mock interview" there and see how things go, since I am generally not good around strangers. Instead, the entire journey turned into a "What do you want to do in the future?" talk, but this time with a delicious apple pie cupcake, as opposed to the ordinary talks. My mom's idea of my future (and probably my dad's too, since they think remarkably alike) is that I have three choices: financial whatever, engineer, or doctor. (Okay, so I could have expanded upon the "financial whatever," but then it wouldn't rhyme.)

She is leaning towards doctor. Something about stability and lack of need for aggression.

We are going to Starbucks tomorrow (did you know I have never been to Starbucks, ever?) and figuring out what the second floor will mean for awkwardness in terms of interviews (Ariadne said it was pretty awkward since no one else was talking). I think I will get a hot chocolate tomorrow. Or whatever looks good. Any recommendations?

Also, in light of all the issues going on (primarily mine, but also everyone else's), I have decided that I need to take on a more optimistic, plan-oriented way of approaching things. Of course, I know it's not going to work out that way (I should know, the last few times I tried planning something always just happened), but I am setting some basic guidelines and then letting things roam. I have a December plan (if it ever will happen, that is). And plans are at least something to go by, when everything else is just so chaotic.

. . .

Allie's All About Apathy (part III)

"You are Rena," he said, without any charm. Charm was not needed for those who were desperate enough to see him. "Changed, no doubt. How is the family?"

"Good," I replied. "Everyone who is alive is good."

"You mean yourself?"

So he knew. It should not have been surprising—after all, Allison Saint-Cross knew everything—but a part of me still wished he had not known, that I would be able to bring some shock into his hardened composure. I took his outstretched hand and allowed him to guide me inside the house out of habit. I knew the house better than he did, I had in owned this place with my childhood dreams. But habits, too ingrained in the mind, were hard to break.

"I thought I saw him the other day," he continued. "In a silver robe so characteristically his style. I thought, for once, I was wrong."

The unspoken words stung. Allison was never wrong. It could not have been Ciel. Ciel was—he was—I stared into Allison's eyes. "He came to you last, he must have wanted something from you."

"If he did, he did not tell me."

"Liar! You know very well what he wanted, you probably even gave it to him!"

"No," Allison said. "I meant, he did not come to see me. Not on that day."

"But he said he would," I said. "He told me that was where he was going. And everyone saw him in town, on Bayon Street, and everyone knows that if he was on Bayon Street then he must be—"

"Fate is here too, why don't you ask him?"

He was angry now. He had to be. Allison never mentioned Fate unless he was upset—he always preferred to ignore Fate's existence, as much as possible. I took my hand from his and leaned against the wall. "Fate. Is that why? Because you think Fate has to do with this?"