The Topic of Great Randomness

[Emi]

Congratulations Seabiscut!! Hope more acceptances are coming your way!! I haven't read the Golden Compass, but the trailers to the movie looks really interesting! I'm excited to see what it'll turn out when it comes out. Not sure if that makes sense.... And I've never listened to HIM... but if you think his voice sounds good.. I'll look them up. I'm always willing to try new things.

Oh and Neo, I like your siggy as well it's very funny and ponderable. If that is even a word. *looks up in dictionary* Yes! It is!

Um, first game of the season is today. Very exciting. It's home as well so hopefully there will be people there to cheer us on. A lot of people are sick on my team though, so let's hope that doesn't effect(affect?) our chances. Okay, well I'm off to do some shopping before I have to get ready for the game!!

[Gryphon]

Wowwww, congrats, Hungry Aiiie, I'm almost done with my first application. All I need is to run through my essay another time and submit. I submitted common apps to my common app schools, but they all have supplements. As for the other two, it's slower progress. Also, I am turning in my transcript requests tomorrow. I meant to turn them in today, but I was in such a rush this morning, organizing for my obligations (like art club <3), that I forgot. And then I was pulled out of school for another early dismissal that I didn't know about(...), so I didn't have a chance to later during the day. And uhhnn, my calc teacher is upset because this is the third time I've missed her class recently, and we have a test coming up this Thursday. So as soon as I got home, I worked on my calc homework. I could have gone back to school, but... eh. I was planning on going back and maybe staying after, even if I couldn't make it in time for calc, but I haven't had any trouble on the work yet, so... *shrugs* It's velocity and related rates, a subject from last year.

Anyway, I missed anatomy, my fav class. We do case studies in a group. I'm in a group w/ S and T. T is adorable. XD I love him. And S is a racist/sexist butt, but whatever. It's not something you can change easily, so you tolerate it. Like this one time, for a demonstration, out teacher passed out four word searches to four people and told them to look for the word "cat." The two guys finished right away, and then K took much longer, and M didn't find it at all. S muttered something about girls and how they were stupid, but we then found out that the first guy had a word search made only of the word cat, the second guy had something only slightly harder. K's only had a few, and M's didn't have it at all. S is just a judgmental idiot. He told us that he even hated his own race, which was Indian, and he was like, "well, when you think of Indian, you think of..." and he listed a few things, but I shook my head because I didn't think of that at all. And then he would always complain about how we would have to take up our work to the teacher and then be criticized and interrogated, and he didn't like that. For me, I acknowledged that we would inevitably make mistakes, and so those mistakes would have to be corrected, but S said that he hated how the teacher always had to make us feel like we were stupid. That wasn't the impression that I got, but I understand what he's saying. He's prejudiced, but I mean, if you take it within context of his personality, you can see why he feels the way he does or why he develops those views. I don't agree with it, but until there's an opportunity to change something, then all I can do is tolerate it. *shrugs*

That was a tangent... Anyway, how many colleges are high school seniors here applying to? At the moment, I have 8, even after taking a few off my list, but it still feels like a lot... phh And even the application fees are expensive. $50-70. ><

Kathy isn't naming names, but I know who they were ^^ ((And I bet Neo does too :P))

((I miss them >< ))

I saw the first two episodes of Heroes! (We've been renting tv series via Blockbuster) I like. XD

*cheers on nano finalists!* I dropped out XD Anyway, I have something of a decent story (maybe 1/5 of my 32k XD) that I could continue later. But not until college apps are submitted and this calc test is over, and heh. Whatever. For a while, I felt like I had too much free time; maybe it'll happen again.

I was trying to find a teacher to host art club this morning, and I went to my physics teacher (lol, the usuals had other obligations), and I asked him to sign the announcement. He read on my slip that we were going to do watercolors, and he was like, "you do actual art?" I think the teachers believe we just call it art club and then hang out. XD We honestly do art. We're doing water colors. We've done observation. We're in the process of planning to paint a teacher's wall with the theme of the running of the bulls, if you've ever heard of it. She's a Latin/Spanish teacher. Anyway, yes, we are amazing.

Last night, I wrote an entire essay about genetics. Telomeres, to be specific. I love them. ^^ I hope this college does too. Anyway, that's what they get for being my least favorite college *and* demanding a second essay (about an academic subject). If I had the nerve, I would have written it as a narrative, but it's one of the cheaper universities, so... *shrugs*


Yuuup. Telomeres are my friend.

[Tuttle]

Am having issues in one of my classes, its not fun . Though its odd, because I emailed the prof being like, 'this is what I don't like about your class' and he replied being like 'you know you're doing well in this class right?' and I'm like, yes, but that's not the point. I'm really feeling like this class is one which you cannot learn anything from if he's teaching it the way he is. He's teaching an ethics related class extremely algorthmatically (Is that a word? I used the word formulaic in the email.) There's also issues with how to write the papers he wants us to write is pretty much following an algorithm, and if you actually put thought into the paper its actually harder to write the paper and harder to get a good grade. That's what's really bothering me. I've been getting good grades, but I know I've been putting way more effort than the rest of the class because I think its actually a good idea to think. It is so much more interesting to have a good class discussion where you don't get the most possible credit for class discussion but are talking about something which you have to think about. That happened once in this class, and I don't think it would have happened that time if I didn't bring up the idea of talking about grey hat hackers. There was this interesting story I read about some hackers hacking into a government agancy, reading their emails, and posting them on the website because they knew that the government agancy had planted evidence against an ISP so that they could convict them of something or other. So how ethical was what the hackers did? They were doing it to expose what was going on, but they were hacking into stuff which they shouldnt have. And in general with hacking its easy to have something go wrong which you don't want it to. So how do you view that ethically. But usually the class is sitting there mentioning little things from the book because if you mention stuff from the book you get full credit for the class discussion that day. It's annoying. I feel like he's teaching us not to think. I feel like that's the problem with most schools, especially a lot of public schools. There are exceptions at both the school and teacher level, but in general schools are too focused on grades and not on learning. If you focus on learning then you'll learn. If you focus on grades then you'll train sheep. Yes the motivated people do think some, but they're always being limited by the rest of the class. It hurts to be held back from your potential because you want to think rather than do something which is literally following an algorithm.

That's actually really related to majoring in math in college I've found. The math department for the rest of the majors trains people to follow algorithms, for the math majors, its not that at all. The point of being a math major (though not an actuarial, 'cause they don't need to think as much) is learning how to think. How do you connect these things which we know to get other stuff we know? How do you prove this thing? How do you work in absolutes and be sure you know, and not just suspect what you're doing is right? And what's the way to think that allows you to do that. My math class this term (Rings and Fields, an abstract algebra class) is really interesting. Its interesting to think beyond what we usually work in and figure out what the patterns are and how they work and how do you know they work that way. It's also really interesting how the prof's grading it, 'cause she's so very much not numerical. We get stuff marked wrong on homework, no numbers. We get a number on the midterm, but she told us she wasn't expecting people to finish the whole thing.And its not that she's curving, its that she's just looking to see, do people know what's going on. If someone can't test it doesn't matter. She actually after the midterm said we could solve any of the problems we wanted (there were 5) over the weekend and hand them into her monday. Because the point isn't the grade, its the learning.

Which goes back to what I was saying before. I feel like in many schools they teach you to get good grades, not to learn. I don't know how to teach to learn. I know the essential school format worked a lot better for me because of that even with horrible peers (it was an inner city school with a combination of people who wanted a challenge and people who the inner city normal schools wanted to get rid of mostly, plus a few who needed a different way to learn and it fit amazing and they were awesome people...like the person who didn't know how to read really going into 9th grade but did good on the standarized testing because he was able to be taught what he needed here but not in his old school). I know that I'm also a lot more on the homeschooled side than normal people. My boyfriend was homeschooled (up through 10th grade, then went to an advanced high school, but meh) and has developed the sense of based how someone functions, if they're a homeschooler or not. A good amount is that the type of person functions so much better in the homeschool environment that they end up being homeschooled (even if not formally as I'll get to) and some of the way the training is different. He tried to apply this to me and got confused. I fit so perfectly with the model of a homeschooler but always went to public schools even if after 7th grade I started going to different types of school than the normal. But I would go out of my way to learn at home. I had actually learned most of the math I know by being taught by my dad's friend who taught me at my level rather than the level of a class. And this is part of what was noticed. I wouldn't limit myself to the classroom.

And this still connects back. If people are limiting themselves to grades, then they don't care to learn. And if they are given the ability to limit themselves to grades, its harder to have them learn. So what do we do? I don't know. We need to keep alternative schooling is a definite though because there are people who can't function in a classroom where people are being taught to limit themselves to grades. There are people who can and still learn to think, but that seems to be not many to me.

This actually also connects back to one of my complaints about the CS department at my school in general. It turns out code monkeys. Yes, this is mostly because most of the people going into the CS department want to be trained to be code monkeys (and they do have classes for the non-code monkeys) but most of the people want to be that. It's depressing. The people in a good deal of my classes are depressing. It's sad to see how much some can't succeed in the theory tree (which all CS majors are required to take at least one class in). Last term, as I think I mentioned before, I took Foundations of Computer Science. the class on regular languages, DFAs, NFAs, context-free langauges, PDAs, recursive languages, recursively ennumerable languages, and turing machines. I found that an amazingly fun class, and well, easy, but I know that has to do with how I think. Msot of the class didn't like it and found it really hard. Some liked it and found it hard. Those I fully respect. I also respect the people who hated it, but its like, why. I know its because most of the CS majors here don't want to learn CS, they want to learn Software engineering, but its still depressing to know how little people like thinking. Because that's why people had issues in that class, was because it was related to thinking about stuff.
I'm so strongly a theory CS person not a soft eng person that its amusing though. I'm going to take every theory class offered here. I'll probably take one of the senior level ones next time its offered. Which reminds me I need to check if its offered in the last term this year. If it is I want to sign up for that. Because a class named Theory of Computation sounds interesting.

I'm rambling so much about school now. I think most of that has to do with the fact that I'm tired of being around people who are code monkeys instead of people who want to think. It's part of why I couldn't be at this school and not be a math major. But at the same time it felt like math couldn't be my only major. It took a while to decide on CS as my secondary, but it fits. Other than the fact I don't consider myself a good programmer. I don't know many languages, and what draws a lot of people to the program here is what I don't have. I don't want to be a code monkey. Which is why I'm going for CS and not just the CS major.

Because really the CS department here has two major parts. The bigger one of software engineering, how do you code, lets train you to be good coders. And the smaller but more interesting part which is actually CS. Because real CS is a subfield of math. It's focused, and not like how normal people view math, but its math. It's related to logic and how you think and how do you figure out what's going to happen. And how do you know you're not going to hit the halting problem. And that side. The side that's related to what we hear about in math classes. The idea of NP-complete has actually came up in one of my math classes before (graph theory). It's fun.

I'm probably scaring people away from mewith my ramblings about school, but I don't care. I want to learn. I am here to learn not to do well. I want to get good grades, but they don't matter to beyond things like, if you don't get a good GPA its hard to get a job. I want to graduate with highest honors, but I'd be fine without doing so. I'm actually someone who if I had the option to do an easy assignment and be guaranteed an A in the class, or do a assignment which required alot of thought and your grade was up in the air, would take the second. Because that's the point of school.
Okay, fine I'm also one of those insane people who would not be able to stop school after a Bachlor's degree and will probably go for a PhD, but that's beside the point. Its fun to learn new stuff.

And if you say I'm insane, I say I'm dating someone who's goal is to learn all of engineering. Like he's a CS/ME double major who'd be tripling with ECE if the school let him. He's a blacksmith, and he is learing ECE stuff out of school. His goal seems to be (and he's said yeah, it kinda is) to a) have a unified theory of engineering and teach engineering as a whole, not the bits relavent to different parts (he loved the class which was this works for everything, its the same stuff, yes you apply it slightly different, but it comes down to the same laws), and b) if most of the world died out to jumpstart all of the engineering side of things. We were talking about him wanting to make metal plates that were basically books that were math, physics, chemistry (which is basically special physics it feels like but its still separate), biology (which is special chemistry even more so than chemistry is physics), and all of engineering. The math would need to go first because it's easier to explain the other stuff with a higher level of math than most people bother learning .Also math is a more universal language. (Oh yeah, this is also the person who wants to create his own language that is more logical than lojban because lojban failed at what it wanted to do and English is a horrible language).

So maybe I am crazy, but I'm not alone. And I like it this way. And it seems appropriate to be in love with someone who's similar in the wanting to learn and wanting to always learn.



Why I actually started this post was to answer Gryph's question. I applied to 3 schools. I knew I was going to get into 2 of them though (state school, and school which has accepted someone from my high school with an incomplete application (they've never denied one of us, but there's reason for that)). I ended up going to one of those because it seemed most appropriate for me and gave me the better of the two finanical aids in schools I'd even think about going to. One of my friends who's currently applying is applying for 8. I've heard of people applying for 12. It's a range. Don't go more than 10 is what I usually heard as a guide. And 5 is usually a good number, but don't apply for less than 3 really, and don't go above 10 unless you have absolute reason to, or it gets rediculous.



What else do I want to say. I should probably put this above my reply to Gryph so people who want to see that can see it. My boyfriend asked me to teach him how to write like my 9th and 10th grade humanities teacher taught me. It amused me kinda. I'm going to do so though, its a nice default and is the type which you learn this to have something to default to and once you know the rules and know how they work your writing is stronger when you break them. (There was a good example with his rule of 'no 'to be' verbs'. I wrote a paper which had I think 1 in the entire paper. I was writing about explaining what a real woman was. I wrote a paragraph explaining why Eowyn was a real woman, and ended it with the sentance "Eowyn is a real woman" and his reply was baiscally that's exactly what I'm going for with the no 'to be' verbs. If you had used them regularly that would have been a really weak statement. But as you did avoid them usually it is extremely powerful.)

I need to write a paper about Open Source Software and the positives and negetives of it. I'm looking forward to this paper. I'm also one of those 'silly linux people' though. This computer only has open source stuff on it. The other system (my main laptop which is messed up currently) has one non-open source program- Mathematica. So it'll be interesting. Also because I totally understand the arguments against free software as well.

I should probably actually work on homework. I don't want to research libraries and intellectual property laws now. And I don't want to make an ethical timeline of the decisions of the main characters in 1984. But oh well, it needs to be done. Well the second one needs to, the first I'm only doing because I'm curious and the rest of the class is curious. It doesn't actually help my grade at all, but I'll do it anyways. Also need to do the paper on Open Source software for thursday and a pile of math questions for friday. But I need to learn the math stuff better before I can do the problems. I missed that class yesterday which was painful.

I've been sick for the past almost month, and health services doesn't know why. I went last week and they were like, we can't think of anything that matches your symptoms. It actually matches allergies better than anything we can think of. Here's allergy medicine, take it daily, and don't have dairy products over the weekend and if you don't feel better come back next week. They need to try to figure out what's wrong with me now. Luckily they're pretty sure its not Mono. My boyfriends sister has mono and other sister had it and they're both big in cooking at his house.

Anyways I think I go now. Byes.

Oh, but one last thing. Yay hungry that's awesome.

[wolf_wizard]

Dai. I'm new here, so no one's heard of me, but I'd like to congradulate Seabiscut for getting into college. I'm happy to see there's actually a YW forum where you can discuss the books!!!!

[Neo]

Ack. I am soo so so tempted to write a nice longish reply to Tuttle's message cause there's lots in there I agree/want to comment on...but I must start my homework!! Yes it's 11:30 and I haven't started yet. Shut up! Ok well if I really feel up to it I might come and reply when I'm done.

Meh, I can at least welcome Wolf Wizard. Welcome! In case you hadn't noticed some of us love faces. Don't post a bunch of them or you will get in trouble. Anyway, you'll soon discover the amazing awesomeness (mostly we're all a bunch of weird people :P) of this website, and you'll notice that even though TOGR (Topic of Great Randomness) exists, being off topic is extremely popular here in any of the topics. (Gryph, that's still "in," right?? Last time I was here (looooooooooooong time ago) it was normal for no one to hardly ever be on topic in anyplace) Lol anyway if you have any questions please don't ask me I myself just returned from a 6+ month break from this website, and I don't know much about the current runnings of things, though I suspect they haven't changed much. And I do know that the chat is not running anymore. Anyway I Must be off, so Wolf Wizard have fun exploring the most fantastic place of your life! (haha jk) Goodnight everyone!

[Rhi]

Welcome to the forums wolf_wizard!

Neo-
being off topic is extremely popular here in any of the topics. (Gryph, that's still "in," right?? Last time I was here (looooooooooooong time ago) it was normal for no one to hardly ever be on topic in anyplace)

Technically, in the other topics besides TOGR you're supposed to stay on topic, but we all know how hard that is But please try to stay in some relevance to the topics being discussed, and if you can't find a thread for the topic you want to talk about, make one! Yes, chat doesn't run full time anymore (because of certain stupid actions by members who were not stupid themselves but made stupid choices on what to talk about, i.e. flirting and other such actions) but it can be opened as long as a mod like Kathy or Garrett can supervise the room. Also there's an IRC chat for YoungWizards- go to <STRIKE>IRC.com and put in youngwizards</STRIKE> http://www.afternet.org/chat/full?channel=youngwizards (I think, I'll edit this later if that's not right so don't kill me please!)

Got it for you :-) - gf

[EricG1793]

Wow, the forums have been WICKED fast for the past couple days! Let's keep it up! I got about 30 Email notifications in two days from Youngwizards.... That's a ton.

OK, well Monday, I stayed after school for the Science Fair project (see page 545 of TTOGR, towards the bottom)

Tuesday, I stayed after again. In this time I made a graph and typed out a title for the backboard. I made a lovely blue background on the graph that perfectly matches the backboard color. I made it on the school computer. I used the laser color printer there so ours doesn't have the strain of printing out an entire paper full of color ink. Seven full pages of pictures of the pills dissolving were enough....

When I got home, I printed EVERYTHING out, and glued everything on the backboard. My sister has that matte black stuff, that kinda makes the papers elevate off the board and pop out at you? She helped me cut that out. She also picked me up from my after-school session with my seventh grade Science teacher. Oh, she also helped me judge the percentage of the pills degraded after the time was up. She helped me a lot. However I was up until about nine doing this... on top of my regular homework.... I don't think I'll be seeing my former Science teacher for a couple weeks. (I normally go and visit her every Tuesday morning) But the project came out fabulous.... It really is magnificent. It's really easy on the eyes. It looks nice and simple, yet very detailed and complex in a different way of looking at it.... Too bad I wasn't graded on it. It was just an extra thing she asked me to do.

So, yeah, that's why I haven't been around much for the past few days. Especially yesterday. I'm off to work down the rest of the pile o' Emails.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

*pouts*

Fine, next time I won't bother posting an MP3 of the first part of a Diane Duane non-YW story, if nobody's even going to click the link...

*sulks in a corner*

[Neo]

Garrett I'm listening to it now

Tuttle: I don't think I'm ever going to get around to writing a nice long reply this week, and my mind will be stale if I try to remember what i wanted to say on the weekend. So I'll give a nice little reply right now. First of all I really agree with you about the school system...I'm not in college yet so I can't say I necessarily know all about the system but from where I see it now (11th grade) it kinda sucks...most of the teachers at my school don't seem to me to be very interested in helping students learn material, they just want them to get good grades in their class, some cases in which the teacher is selfish and doesn't want to be known for having students with low grades. There are some exceptions but in my opinion they are few. So yes I'm annoyed with that...but the more annoying thing to me is the people who don't want to learn! Ok sure I get really tired of my classes sometimes, but that is only because I don't feel like being in the class is helpful to expanding my mind and truly learning things, whether because of the students or the teacher, and because I don't feel like what I want to do in life requires me to learn about whatever subject. Which, isn't really an excuse in high school...but what can I say? I'm taking AP History classes because I want to try and get away from my lazy self and push forward but I honestly will never use that knowledge in any career paths I ever think about...But these students who just don't care at all...I can't understand it. I can't understand how someone could possibly hate to read so much that he doesn't do any assignments for english, I don't understand how someone can think that nothing the teachers are trying to teach them will be useful in life and that it doesn't matter later in life (I know that's slightly contradictory because I was just talking about grades not mattering so much but it's true grades do matter to get into college). It just seems to me, like, people are asleep to the world and they need to wake up and see what the challenge really is.
So, tuttle if I was like totally off the point of your message then let me know :P but I feel that I was hitting the general points well enough. Oh, and, an essay with no verb to be?? That seems as though it would be...no, difficulties would occur in the attempt of writing such an essay. Yay sentence without verb to be!

Garret what story was that?

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

That was the beginning of "Midnight Snack", from the anthology Sixteen, published in 1984. Diane's website reports that it's been republished in various textbooks, so maybe you'll run across it that way, if you can't find the original.

Since I also see on her site that there's an award-winning audio version already out, I'll probably just leave it where I left it: I mostly wanted to try it to see how it would work. If I feel the need to do more audiobooks, I'll just stroll over to http://librivox.org/. :-)

[Emi]

Oh Garret I would have listened to the mp3 but my computer is slow, and I'm impatient. I'll try again later, when it's not like a couple minutes from my bedtime.

Oh, Tuttle and Neo, I agree with you 100%. I'm in the 11th grade as well, and I have one class that's absolutely impossible to grasp anything. That's my chemistry class. I think it's the cross between my teacher and some of the people in my class. There are some girls that sit in the back and not to be stereotypical, they're cheerleaders. They always goof around in class and then act really dumb. "I don't get it." and we haven't even started on the lab! Ugh, my teacher gets so frustrated sometimes that she just teaches only half of what she wanted to do. So by the time we have a test on the chapter no one knows what the heck is going on. I swear I feel like I lose brain cells everyday from that class. And then my English teacher! Oh my gosh, she's so rude sometimes. Like, we're watching this movie and then something happens, so we all laugh or say a comment.. about the movie mind you... And then she'll be all "SHHH! Oh my, I can't wait to see how you guys do on the test!" We are paying attention to the movie. *Shakes head* I don't think that I can deal with this stuff much longer. Thank goodness it's almost the end of this semester! I'm not really sure I'm staying on to the topic, but really I get what you're trying to say. It's annoying. I just want to learn, get in to college, and become successful. Is that so much to ask?

Oh great, no it's past my bedtime! Haha... Oh! Before I go, this is kind of neat. Tomorrow my chemistry class and all the other chem classes are going on a field trip to the Boston Museum of Science. Not really sure how many of you guys have been there but it's wicked awesome! There's a CSI exhibit!! I'm so excited, I just can't wait. So, tomorrow, I'm going to solve a crime! Haha, even though it's fake...

Then I have a game an hour away from home, so as soon as I get back from the trip I'm hopping on another bus to go there. Exciting day tomorrow!

Goodnight all!

P.S. Not really sure if there's any spelling or grammatical mistakes. Sorry in advance.

[seabiscuit1009]

Hmm...this year, I got lucky; only one of my teachers is a maniac who doesn't teach. The unlucky part of this is that she's my math teacher, which also happens to be my least favorite subject. And it's first period. And she won't let me drink coffee in her room. And I've got no friends in the class at all. As a result, I hate that class. I should have dropped it; I don't need another math to graduate, I've already got 4 and you only need 3 here. Oh well...

I had my first basketball practice of the season tonight...and it was like deja vu. I'm on a high school CYO team at my old grade school (CYO=Catholic Youth Organiztion). I walk into the gym-there are 3 of my old teammates and my 8th grade coach there. There's a bunch of little 8th grade boys running around without shirts on. Only difference now is that I don't find the 8th grade boys attractive at all, luckily. It's good; we'll have a fun year. We may not be undefeated, like my old team was, but we know how to practice, and we've also got speed and natural talent. My old team had natural talent...and that's about it. I can't wait until we play them...we are going to beat them. It'll be great. XD

I listened to the Midnight Snack thingy once it downloaded. XD I think I'll have to go listen again though, since my brain was a bit addled and I couldn't pay attention to what was going on. Ooooh, I like that librivox website thing, by the way. It has Shakespeare, which actually will come in handy for AP English tomorrow, as it happens. We're reading Hamlet, and right now are studying the "To be or not to be..." speech. For homework, we had to write out how we would say those immortal lines (yep, my teacher is nuts. But in a good way) and I found a recording of the speech that is how I think it should be said. So thanks Garrett! You made my homework easier.

Right now I'm reading Boccacio's Decameron, which is this really old text that is sort of set up like the Canterbury Tales. It is basically a bunch of short stories within one story about people who escaped a city in Italy to hide from the black plague. I LOVE it. It is hilarious; but then again, I like this kind of thing. I'm about to start reading Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice for my Science-Fiction/Supernatural class (we've moved into the Supernatural part of the class, and vampires are part of the supernatural.) Ehnn...I don't know about it. It sounds good, but right now I don't really feel like reading about vampires...besides that, I saw the movie (which is no excuse, I know, but I really don't feel like reading the book right now! I do want to read it though. Just not now.)

Oh, college. I got into a smaller state school around here (which you don't know where "here" is, but that's ok.) I like it enough there; they have good food, and today I got notice that if I go there, I get their highest amount of merit based scholarships, which is cool. I'm still holding out for my favorite school though. I won't hear from them until February probably. I don't know if I can wait that long...grr. I do love the school a lot though, so I'm going to keep on waiting. However, if I go there, I'm probably going to accumulate a load of student loans, which will be...fun. My mom and I had a long discussion about it last night, and here's the way she put it: while people complain about students loans, they often go out and get a loan that's the same amount or more than their student loans to be able to buy a car. She put it this way: what's more important, a nice car or a good education? So...I'm going for the education. And I'm smart...I'll get a job somewhere and will pay them off a little bit at a time, until they're gone. Then, I'll stupidly decide to go back to school to get my master's, and it will start all over again.

Once again, people brought up prom. They don't seem to understand that I'm having a hard time with prom, even though it's 6 months away. My friends all either have boyfriends, or are just boy magnets. I should tell them to spread the magnetism. XD

Meh. I want Christmas break. I'm just tired of school already...senioritis is setting in. I'm still doing my homework though, so that's good. I'm just doing it at the absolute last minute more and more (case in point: in World Literature today, we had to turn in a story about a place that embodies magical realism. I wrote a story 5 minutes before it was due, during class, about turtles and a stream that glittered like diamonds in the woods near a cabin. If you knew the entire assignment, you'd know that this fits it perfectly. However, I did this in the class it was due during, right in front of the teacher's desk which he was sitting in. And he loved the story, by the way. XD I love it when that happens.) Ok, I guess it's time to finish homework or shower or something...probably shower. I'll finish the homework during lunch (which is the period before it's due. Senioritis strikes again!)

[EricG1793]

Originally posted by seabiscuit1009:
Hmm...this year, I got lucky; only one of my teachers is a maniac who doesn't teach

Have I ever told you about my Science teacher? I have now found a great way to describe her.

Randomness, randomness.... Well, my mom's side of the family, including my mom, all her sisters, and her mother, and my father, and my mom's brother and his wife, are going to see a play tomorrow. Meanwhile, Precious (have I told you all that's what I call my dog when he's being a good boy? Well, he's sleeping on the other side of the room and looks SO innocent ) will be going to the kennel, and I will be going to my grandfather's as usual. However it'll have to be before noon, because my parent's have to be at my grandmother's at eleven in the morning....

[vashmata]

So what's a good way to describe her?

Anyways, I was bored with just watching anime in Japanese with English subtitles, so during the theme songs (which are shown translated, transliterated, and in Japanese), I tried to figure out a few of the letters. So far, I have a list of...29 letters/words. Meanwhile, I'm still learning Japanese words, but I still don't know how to conjugate verbs (The one annoying subject in every single language).

Learning this stuff is especially hard, because in school I learn three languages still-english (obviously), french (because I live in a bilingual province), and hebrew (because I'm Jewish, and go to a Jewish school). Then, I also have my other classes: Math, Science, Art, Computers, Gym/Phys Ed, Geography+History (in french), and the three Hebrew classes-hebrew, tanach (bible)+Moreshet (customs), and Jewish History.

See y'all later!

Candyman Jr, Master Procrastinator, Joe Green (pen name), Vashmata

[Mel]

okaaaay. So, it's been about a month since I've posted, but you've gotta know, not really 'cause I accidentally kept shooting of trigger words without actually knowing what I typed (and I'm usually okay, more so than most teens my age), so it's kinda funky.

But anyway.

In the past month, I've made a new best friend, confused other new ones for not-friends, and then realized they were again, become more confident (at least with singing around other people), worked hard for and tied for first for a poetry recitation contest (meggga fun. round two's coming up soon!), flunked a Latin test completely on the first day of Second Quarter, but managed to bring it up to not only a passing but to an 86 so far, secured a piano piece, felt terrible, felt amazing, felt ugly, and felt beautiful, discovered what it means to be a true friend, ate enough pears to choke a horse, and read some really good books.

Yay!

So, now onward to other business...

Hungry! Congrats! That's really, really cool.
And Gryph, you too, good luck to the both of you in you college conquest, haha. Applications are stttinky.

What else?

Oh yeah

Tut, I completely agree with your non-learning thing. It's like...some teachers have lost the zest for teaching, or perhaps never had it at all. I was lucky enough to go to a private Catholic school (and still do) where the teachers get paid so little that you know they love what they do.

Okay, that sort of sounded wrong. Don't mistake us for stingy, it's just that we have to pay tuition and don't get everyone else paying for us. There's only so much you can ask people to pay to go to school! Besides, we've got a lot of constant stuff going on. And you have to be either smart or rich to get into my school, so scholarships are another thing to consider.

But anyway.

Speaking of money and schools, tomorrow we're having a school fundraiser that promises to be fun: Fashion Show!! There'll be lots of music (Jazz Band, Orchestra, Jazz Chorus, Chorus, Chorale, Soloists, etc., etc.) and baskets of prizes, and...*drumroll* dresses from..well...a very, very expensive dress store with the most gorgeous dresses in the area.

So, s'all good, all in all.

Oh, and I'm reading "The House of the Seven Gables" and "Jane Eyre" at the same time. I <3 the Brontes!

:P

Well, I think that's about all. I've got to go decide on a second poem to memorize. Fun!!

Ahh, the green smilie never gets old.



(sorry, Kathy, XD)