Funny How It Just Is Like That

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

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

And there he was.

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

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

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

Not feeling guilty, that helps too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

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

. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

Pandora is getting better at predicting my preferences now.

And that is the end for today.

It's Been A While

Since I've written anything. I have been busy with a lot things, such as college applications (most obviously), but also homework and general procrastination. Very, very busy, so much so that I missed the last day to post in October and must now start in November.

What a tragedy.

Anyway, since I have fuzzy memory I will recount things in reverse order. Bear with me as we travel back in warped time.

Tuesday, Nov. 2nd:


Election day! Which means three things: a) no school tomorrow; b) going over to Tea's house to bake donuts with Yuma; and c) checking out how accurate Nate Silver's predictions are. Excitement levels in that order. My mom had no idea there was no school tomorrow, so I wonder what would have happened if I went out at 6:50 and walked to the library and spent my day there? Oh well, she knows now, so that's not possible.

Also, I am very excited to see how baked donuts will look like. And taste like, too. I am so glad I subscribed to, uh... around 109293874 food blogs while I was working on my college essays (i.e. procrastinating), because I would never have found the recipe without it.

Then, of course, actual election results! That, too, is exciting, but I guess it's not as exciting as listening to PM-wannabes dissing each other in French and gluing their hands into their pockets. But I suppose that is a purely Canadian thing.

Monday, Nov. 1st:


ED/EA applications are due today, and guess what? I don't have to worry about them, because I finished them! Yay! Other than that, the day went by fairly boringly. Oh, right, I fell asleep in French today, which was bad, because I was in the middle of a listening test. Luckily, I got through the first trial effectively, and I couldn't understand most of it anyway, so I guess a second listen-through wouldn't have helped much.

But I told my partner-in-crime-in-the-business-of-staying-up-late that I should probably set a bedtime, and he suggested, "11pm?"

Then I told him that I fell asleep in class, so he immediately changed it to 9pm.

Haha. As if. I barely get any work done before 9pm. But I do need to get to bed earlier, and preferably not spend half an hour trying to say "goodbye" in Welsh. Or Portuguese. Or Macedonian. Anyway, now we've set it at around 10-11pmish, which is a good time, I suppose. If only I can remember that, along with the fact that I need to bring lunch money (and money I owe Tea).

Also, NaNoWriMo is starting today! Anyone interested in starting a full-fledged novel (or, really, does anyone have the time to do that)?

Sunday, Oct. 31st:


Halloween! My parents and I went out to buy a printer/fax/scanner/copier/whatever-else-is-there machine. We went to Best Buy, and once there, my mom told me, "Can you look for some whiteout?"

"Mom, we're at Best Buy. Why would there be whiteout here?"

"Why not?" My mom said. "I'm sure they have some."

No, mom, they don't. I asked the guy at the front desk anyway, and he said he has never seen whiteout in the store. Ever.

Then I went to check out the iPads, and started playing Plants vs. Zombies, which is my favorite game of all iPad games. My dad came over and checked out the MacBook Pro to the side. I must say, I'm not a fan. Seriously, Apple. You were great a couple years ago with all those really colorful computers, but these days you're all white and black and silver. So monochrome. Even shuffles have color. Why not laptops?

Anyway, we also checked out several Sony laptops, and we wanted to see a few Lenovo ones too, but Best Buy didn't have any. Oh well. I'm hoping to get a new laptop soon, if only because I'm really, really tired of all the white (yeah, this laptop's white too) and I want to be able to bring it in to school to work on stuff.

Saturday, Oct. 30th:


We (my parents and I) went to the border early this morning (read: we left at around midnight) to sort out our visas, once again. It was fairly successful, and I even finished a lot of my reading/listening homework. Very productive. Then we came back and went to a Chinese supermarket in West Hartford, where I discovered supermarket-porn.

Well, okay, not really porn, but they were selling the herbal version of Viagra, except they call it deer's tail, so I had no idea what it was, and when I looked at the pictures they showed people in very... fascinating positions.

Ahem. Yeah.

When I came home I worked on my Chicago app, and I finished very late into the night (around 9pm, I believe). But Cammie's birthday/Halloween party was today, so I went over and shared in the movie-watching (Moulin Rouge), gossip-sharing fun with everyone else there.

Where, yes, major stuff were revealed, but at least on this blog that is as far as I'll go with it.

And in the morning (which is technically the next day, but oh well) there was chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream! Yay!

Monday, Oct. 25th to Friday, Oct. 29th:


I don't remember what happened here, except for a haze of college apps and late-night chatting with Yuma and maybe other things, such as, oh, Clay repeatedly asking Yuma and me whether we were going to frisbee. I got the message on Wednesday, thank you very much. I didn't really need the reminders on Thursday and Friday as well. But I think I'm just snappy because I am so exhausted by college apps and not sleeping nearly enough.

But that is all I remember, and all I can recall right now. Time to do homework and maybe, maybe, catching up on some sleep.

Turn On The Sun, Please

[Title concept from Pickles author/artist Brian Crane.]

Mrs. Leon complained today that I always leave before class officially starts, so I promised her I'll stay for third lunch next week (hopefully, but as previously mentioned, I'm not too good with promises). Maybe I will be there in time for sonnet readings. I don't know what else I could do with an extra half-hour of English class, especially since I'm probably not reading the same things (although my class is starting Brave New World, which Mrs. Leon's class has already read).

(Additionally, Clay told me he read nearly 150 pages of BNW in around two hours. Since it's, so far, taken me five days, more or less, I will probably need to dedicate a lot more time to reading. I'm past the first part—if there are any more, I don't know yet—of the everyone-is-talking-at-once pages right now.)

Other things of interest: I went over 10 pages of metabolism bio notes last night at around midnight (so also technically this morning), and have now come up with a really condensed, analogy-ladened version of metabolism, which I will add to the end of this, because I think I want to make more of these to prepare for the midterms (Mme Pottery mentioned midterms today, which set off a wave of panic).

Also, despite the cold, and the wind, and the general misery, there was frisbee today. There is another girl now, and she is pretty good at frisbee too (a great catcher, even in this wind). I ran around too (which almost never happens, mind you), but then my stomach started hurting, so I sat down and borrowed both Yuma's and Cameron's jackets (I wanted to borrow Tobey's too, since he wasn't wearing it at first, but by the time I'd gotten around to being too cold he was cold too and took the jacket) and tried to read more books (especially my LitEx book, which I have barely started).

Then a golden retriever came along and proceeded to sit on me despite my protests. Someone called out, "Be careful, he's a pervert," and with that the dog turned around and tackled me to the ground.

On that note, here is my version of metabolism:

• metabolism = energy vs. matter
• pathways: catapults tear down for boten anna to build up
• enzymes just float around for fun
• laws of thermodynamics: 
• energy is immortal; 
• entropy reproduces like bunnies
• ⌂G (free energy) = ♥
• likes to roll down hills and pull on wheelbarrows full of stuff
• must push it to make it go up hills
• said hill is a step-ladder hill
• In this analogy, "guy" is the substrate:
• guy wants to go over hill
• hill too high, guy too lazy, doesn't happen
• enzyme bulldozes hill, guy goes over
• enzyme only falls in love with one guy & his clones
• enzyme thus only bulldozes hills for guy & his clones
• when going over hill, enzyme and guy link hands
• their hands fit together like gloves
• at the top, enzyme pulls hard in excitement
• guy's arm falls off
• new products = guy + arm!
• then enzyme says, "eww, wtf?"
• enzyme ditches guy for clone #1209841
• other little-known facts of enzyme-drama:
• if guy is too hot/cold or brings H2SO4/HCl/HNO3, he gets slapped, enzyme says, "Get lost," and no hills are bulldozed
• cofactors/coenzymes: the bulldozer (the machine)
• inhibitors: the 3rd wheel
• either steals enzyme away (competitive)
• or kills enzyme and laughs maniacally (noncompetitive)
• allosteric site: door for 3rd wheel, except 3rd wheel is guy's arm
• arm can help or hurt
• too many arms will distract enzyme and result in no more bulldozed hills
• cooperativity: guy1 holds hands = guy2 can hold hands too
• many enzymes + many hills + many bulldozers = metabolic pathway (multi-enzyme complex)
• all these pathways come together to form . . . THE METABOLISM WORLD.
• dun dun dunnn...

This also effectively supports my argument that love/relationships can be a metaphor for anything.

How's Life?

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

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

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

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

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

Gah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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