This Side of the Universe

A Letter to My High School Self

2010-03-20T01:50:00.002-04:00

There's a thread on College Confidential (yeah I still go there sometimes, don't judge me) about writing a letter to your high school self. The responses are pretty interesting, I've decided to extend my post here:

Dear HS Me,

You probably think you're pretty awesome and doing all the right things, right? Wrong. Stop obsessing over that institute up north, you know which one I'm talking about. Hate to crush all your hopes and dreams, but you're going to get deferred and then ultimately rejected. You'll meet some cool folks along the way, so don't give up on the process. You'll get over it and eventually end up happy at the popular State U that you detest. Go ahead and load up on dual-enrollment courses at the local CC the summer between 11th-12th as you planned. You'll be glad to have all those easy As and Gen Eds out the way once you get to college and you'll deeply regret it if you don't. DO NOT let the deadline for that 2008 summer program/internship slip by; you really aren't too busy, just lazy.

Speaking of lazy, you're REALLY lazy. That needs to stop because old habits die hard and will kick your ass in college. The serious weight gain between 9th and 12th grade can be prevented. Your grades can be better. Effort, Noelle, effort! Your natural intelligence and ability to work quickly are nice to have, but you'll be a lot less stressed out if you procrastinate less and persevere.

Be more vocal about your ideas in robotics, especially in the last two years. Some of your ideas are excellent. Those half-completed CAD files sitting on your hard drive? Finish them and show someone at the beginning of the season.

As much as you hate being lectured because you think you already have it all figured out, just listen to me and digest all of this. I am the amazing you after all.

Quickies: buy that DSLR while you still have a job at a place where you can get a discount, the t-shirts with the witty sayings -- ditch them after 9th grade, go to all of those parties you were invited to, don't take having the beach 20 minutes away for granted, South Florida isn't all that bad, appreciate it.

Stop being such a prude. Just...stop. I can't say exactly what, but a lot of your views are skewed and narrow-minded. Maturity will come in due time. Loosen up socially, be more approachable and friendly. Explore and spend more time on those little creative outlets that you started to get into. Love yourself, no need to be so critical. Chill out about everything and stop stressing so much, it'll all work out in the end :)

Much Love,

The Future You

Want

2010-03-04T14:04:00.004-05:00

Not-dirt-poor-but-not-rich college student budget doesn't allow. Noelle wants, insanely.

Spring 2010 - Getting It Together

2010-01-11T15:30:00.003-05:00

Usually when I've placed myself into some sort of horrible situation, I sometimes tell myself "Noelle, get it together!"; somewhat serious, somewhat jokingly. We're not going to talk about Fall 2009 since that's behind us. Mistakes were made, lessons have been learned. With a new year and a new semester upon us, it's a perfect time for a refresh.

HOLD ON, doesn't this sound too sappy and pleasant to be coming from me? Let's get real...

To be completely honest, I didn't really like the way my first semester of college went. I'm not going to go too far into detail about everything, but I passed all of my classes, the living sitch and my roomies (only 2 now! woohoo!) are cool, and I managed to squeeze some fun in here and there. Moving on.

I had mixed feelings about the new semester approaching, but alas, it's here. My workload is more intensive, as I have a math course, a science course, a real engineering class, and German as well. Oddly enough, I look forward to it. I learned last semester that I'm barely productive when I have too much free time. Keeping my schedule loaded (within reason) should keep me on my toes. Even with a more difficult courseload, I feel that I'll be more successful this semester because my motivation has changed...well, I have motivation period this time around. Though the future is such a great unknown, I can't help but to get excited about it. Despite seeming so far out of reach, it always seems better than the present. Yadda yadda, kids these days wanting to grow up too fast, I know, I know, I'll savor the moment.

I would say something about me needing to improve socially, but it's still not that big of a deal to me. I've come to accept that I'm a loner. I find it incredibly funny that it doesn't really phase me unless I think about. Don't be mistaken, I do enjoy my time spent with others, but I also treasure personal space; to remain unchallenged, unrestricted, to think, to move, to function independently. I've already made too many accessory "friends" -- the type that seem super buddy buddy bffs forever when you first meet them, but will barely acknowledge your presence in passing a month later. Perhaps that's why I sometimes come off as standoffish, because I refuse to be vulnerable to superficial friendships. The conventional college socialization methods (ie. wild parties, clubs, etc.) are unappealing to me so it may take longer to find worthwhile, lasting friendships. Maybe it's better that way.

With a more positive outlook, I look forward to the rest of this semester, my college career, and my life, and hope for the absolute best. (What am I on with all this cheesiness I'm spouting?) I don't blog much when depressed, so let's hope the good mood sticks around and I'll keep steadily pumping out the blogs and vlogs (<-- heh, that rhymes!).

Goodbye, 2009!

2009-12-31T05:57:00.005-05:00

You kinda sucked.

Even though I experienced a few milestones and some great memories, as a whole, this year wasn't all that great. I don't even blog that regularly anymore, but I've done a post like this for the last two years, so why break tradition? Here goes, 2009 in review:

January: blah

February: 18th birthday, quit job at Circuit City, Buckeye (Cleveland) Regional, UF Acceptance

March: FL Regional, MIT rejection, started tweeting more actively

April: Laser Quest all-nighter

May: AP Exams, Grad Bash, Graduation

June: blah

July: UF Preview

August: Rapids Water Park, left home, moved into apartment, started college

September: first Gator football game

October: Gator Growl (saw Jabbawockeez, O.A.R., Dana Carvey)

November: first Gator basketball game, resolution of roommate issues, amazing Leonid meteor shower

December: Kid Cudi/Common Concert

I'm not one to make resolutions, but I just hope for a better 2010; academic, health, and social success. One different thing I do plan on doing is refrain from getting a relaxer. I'm just going to let my hair continue to grow naturally, just because it's something new. We'll see how it goes.

Since this also brings the first decade of the 21st century to a close, perhaps I'll do another review post on that...it should be more interesting than the one about this laaaame year.

Happy Year Ending! GTFO 2009, Welcome 2010!

Expected.

2009-11-19T02:07:00.008-05:00

Yep.

My last post was right.

It's a fact, Twitter killed the blog (at least this one).

It's been over a month since I've updated, shame on me? Eventually something will come along moving enough that I can only express it in words and I can breathe life back into this here chunk of space on the Internets, but until then, I'm relinquishing myself from any guilt I had associated with not blogging and have come to accept the effects of evolution of social networking. <-- That was quite a run on. I still enjoy writing, I just can't seem to motivate myself to do it enough. But I've gotten over my little issue with talking in front of a camera and then listening to myself again, so I bought a Flip MinoHD and started vlogging (woohoo!).

♫ Vlog me, tweet me if you wanna reach me, when you wanna page me it's okay

(+10 points to whomever can guess the reference)

Twitter Killed the Blog?

2009-10-02T12:14:00.004-04:00

It's true.

I feel guilty about not blogging as regularly since I have experienced so many blogworthy events in the past few weeks. Blame Twitter, since I've been updating on there wayyyy more than here and Facebook. I like that I have a different audience that may not hang on to my every word, yet I can still interact with people on an immediate level.

With the frequency that I update on Twitter and the content matter, it seems that it would be redundant to post a blog entry about things that I have already mentioned on Twitter. Though Twitter is considered to be microblogging, a collection of a day's tweets don't form a coherent blog post. I feel as if I'm drawn between the two. Even though I blog and tweet for myself mostly, I feel that I do have an obligation to my very few blog readers and followers not to be redundant and to produce worthwhile content, whether it be something humorous or a reflection. It is significantly more convenient to tweet from my phone, iPod, or computer wherever I am about an occurrence than to blog about it, though I feel that because I'm not blogging as often I don't get a chance to express as much as I normally would. Sometimes blogging is therapeutic, and I think Twitter sometimes removes that aspect of expression when limited to 140 characters.

I have a bone to pick with the Twitter-haters. Though it definitely isn't for everyone, don't knock it until you've tried it. And if you have tried it and you don't like it, then fine, but don't criticize others that actually do get something out of it. You might be able to briefly glance at the site and see that you don't like it without trying it, and that's fine too. But just don't be a hater, you're not above anyone else for not using it. There are dozens of uses beyond simple social interaction and the stereotypes of just notifying the world when you are pooping or every minor detail of your day.

This blog definitely isn't dead and I'll try to think of some sort of content to create to keep it breathing instead of just the highlights of my life since Twitter does a great job of keeping up with that. Maybe when I get my new camera (Canon Rebel T1i **HINT HINT SANTAMOMMIPERSON**) I'll turn it into a photoblog. Maybe I'll think of other things to discuss. Maybe I won't do anything different...probably.

In the meantime, if you're on Twitter, follow me if you're not doing so already.

College

2009-09-09T01:18:00.003-04:00

It's the beginning of my third week of college. So much has occurred in such a short period of time, I can't even begin to think of where to start with this entry.

Classes

Big people school hasn't been that hard as of yet, but at 2.5 weeks in I can feel the workload starting to intensify. I'm constantly developing my study habits since this concept of studying is foreign to me. I take notes because I'd be bored in class otherwise. After reading the book and listening to a lecture, reviewing notes seems really redundant. Passing off reading a powerpoint as teaching is annoying, fortunately most of my instructors provide some additional insight every now and then. Regardless, I copy everything in my notebook like everyone else like a good little scribe and digitize it that evening or the next day. I'm really enjoying the concept of being responsible for learning on my own without having jillions of BS worksheets and assignments shoved down my throat to "reinforce" the subject matter. With well-written textbooks, lectures, free tutors, office hours, and the blessing of the Internet, it's pretty hard not to understand something. But I may be eating my words later, so take that with two shakes of salt.

SYG2000, Principles of Sociology, MWF - I took this class not only because it was a Gen. Ed credit, but because it seemed interesting. Taking AP Psychology two years ago really got my ears perked up to a few new topics that I would've otherwise ignored. The course is taught by a really down to earth grad student. It's been interesting so far and will definitely be an easy A. The class isn't as big as I thought with only 40 students and she already knows most of our names.

ENC3254, Professional Writing and Communications for Engineers, MWF - Even though most Engineers dread English classes, I don't. Finally something relevant! This is our instructor's first year teaching, but she's coming straight from the industry, so even though she's not the best teacher she has excellent advice and commentary. There are about 20 in this class and I think I'll leave with a lot of valuable knowledge. We've already written an introductory memo and prepared a rough draft of a cover letter/resume/follow up. To come later are instruction manuals, technical definitions, a research report, and individual and group proposals. Oddly enough I'm looking forward to all of this.

MAC2311, Analytic Geometry and Calculus 1, M(T)WF - oh Calculus, how I missed thee. I'm really rusty at math since it's been over a year, but the gears are being re-oiled and it's coming back to me...slowly. I'm dreading this little segment we're having on Pre-Calculus, but the material ahead is exciting. Professor Edwards is amazing. He's darn funny and manages to teach the concepts well, though very quickly. This guy co-authored the Calculus textbook we used in high school. The lectures on MWF are huge with over 300 students. I didn't even notice the people sitting on the floor in the back until he said one day, "Welcome to Calculus, standing room only". It's one of those classes where if you're early, you're on time, and if you're on time, you're late. I have my discussion group with about 30 others on Tuesday where we go over homework and take quizzes. I adore the TAs accent, he sounds just like Fez from That 70s Show.

LIN3010, Introduction to Linguistics, MWF - Being the huge grammar/language/word nerd that I am, I expected nothing less than enjoyment from this class. The class is a bit larger than I expected with about 200 students. Even though the lecture is sometimes boring on Monday and Wednesday, the subject material is still incredibly interesting. The professor moves pretty quickly so we cover a lot in a short period of time and usually end up leaving early. I'm so glad this class evaluates langauage from a more sciency perspective than a liberal artsy one. Friday's are discussion groups and there are about 15 people in my group. So far it's been a simple reinforcement of some basic concepts, but the TA is cool.

EML2920, Department and Professional Orientation, R -This is the first engineering class in the mechanical engineering track. It's simply a 1-credit introduction to the major, career track, and resources available, with something at the end about Excel. Another huge lecture hall-packing class, and there really isn't much work at all.

CHM1025, Introduction to Chemistry, online - With my past history with online courses, I wouldn't have bet on me taking an online class ever again if I didn't have to. But I have to. Fortunately the interface is much nicer than what I was previously familiar with, even though I still think eBooks are annoying to navigate. I've heard horrible things about this course and the drop rate, but it's not too bad so far, so I just hope that I make it through the semester successfully.

The Living Quarters

I live in an apartment off campus about two miles away. It's a 4/4, so I have three roommates, yet I still have my own bedroom and bathroom. The roomies are cool, not buddies-for-life-amazing-instant-friends, but we'll get along. I moved in on 8/21 and have pretty much everything I need, but my Target wish list is still growing. I'm hating all of these little Walmart trips that I've been making for little necessities because I really can't stand the place, but it's convenient.

My room is getting to be very comfy and I can finally call it home. I'm considering getting a task chair, lamp, and some more wall decorations and then it should feel complete. I got an awesome and cheap Bumble Bee Transformers poster from the Reitz Poster Sale and I have a Wall-E poster on the way. (pictures on Facebook)

This past summer I paid close attention to my mother's cooking and practiced a bit myself in anticipation for having to cook alone and what not. I have a decently stocked kitched and pretty much everything I need to cook anything I would want. Problem: I'm still as shy as ever and the selfish only child in me still hates sharing. I skeptically agreed to share cookware, but I didn't really want to; I did it because it would be incredibly weird if I didn't. I get really upset internally when I see my stuff being used constantly, stuff that I haven't even used yet, but I wouldn't dare bring it up. It's seemingly a non-issue, but really irks me. In the back of my mind I know it's irrational, though I really can't help but to feel this way. I felt that it was necessary for me to be well-prepared, what a coincidence and convenience for everyone else that Noelle has brought cookware and utensils and plates and bowls and a cookie sheet and what not. If I bring a service for two, does it seem like it would be used by four? No. Maybe I wouldn't have as big of a problem if I were sharing with friends and not complete strangers. Maybe I still have some serious issues to work out internally. I understand no one is at fault except for possibly me for not being open about my lack of ability to share with pleasure, so no blame is being placed. I'm really just arguing with myself.

With that said, I've cooked once -- and it's only been rice. I'm not in the mood for conversation or shyly greeting new people everytime I leave my room, so I've been avoiding cooking. I need to get over this because I miss real food.

General

Perhaps the worst part of the beginning of the semester is buying textbooks. I have spent a grand total of $447.78 on textbooks/course codes/lecture notes this semester and it was not fun to part with. I was smart with my shopping, and didn't buy a single book from the UF Bookstore. Two came used from local bookstores and the rest were purchased online. I bought the international edition of Technical Communications for $35 new, opposed to $116 new/$85 used for the US version -- saving on that was a great feeling. I was skeptical of the quality and content at first, but it turned out to be the same exact book, same page numbers, diagrams, everything, except the cover said "India Edition" and the pages weren't glossy.

The bus system is great on the weekdays, as 3 different bus routes pass my apartment complex heading towards campus, so I rarely have to wait more than 5 minutes for a bus. I learned the hard way that 7:50-8:30am is peak time and about 8 or so full buses will pass before one will at least stop at my complex. I've learned to leave around 7:40-7:45, so even though I may get there super early for my 8:30 class, it's better than being late. It's quite inconvenient that the buses have such limited hours on the weekend, only running hourly 7am - 5pm on Saturday and then 10am - 4pm on Sunday.

So with my issues with weekend bus service and hatred towards walking miles upon miles daily, I bought a bike on Sunday. I've become envious of the cyclists, whizzing around campus so quickly, with their own less crowded lanes, with rights similar to pedestrians and vehicles. I've gone out for a short ride every evening since I've had the bike, but my first pedal leaving the store made me realize how out of shape I am. It's been about 8 years since I've been on a bike, so I need to build up some endurance to be able to ride ~3 miles to school. I've roughly calculated going 2 miles up and down the street I live on, so I should be ready to skip the bus in a few days.

I've been a bit of a loner for the past few weeks, and I don't find it strange at all. Living off campus might have a bit to do with it, but I'm not much of a social being or small-talk kinda person, so I'll let the friendships come naturally. I see so many people forcing friendships with those that they live near or see on a daily basis; it's simply not my kinda thing to be friends just because, there has to be some sort of common interest, or personality click at least. In spite of my natural introvertedness, I have been to a few social events and such. I joined NSBE and look forward to being an active member in that and I am going to an event tomorrow for the Freshman Leadership Engineering Group (FLEG), so I'm trying to make myself busier outside of pure academics.

I think my year is off to a great start so far. Gainesville is growing on me, being more southern than I thought, but I'm really liking UF as a whole more and more each day. I've finally embarked upon the journey that I've been anticipating for so long, can't wait for what the future holds...

Summer's Over

2009-08-21T03:24:00.003-04:00

I'm supposed to be sleeping now, but for some unidentifiable reason I'm still awake. I am currently at the Paramount Plaza in Gainesville, awaiting New Student Convocation/Navigating the Swamp at school tomorrow and moving into my apartment. Being that I'm no longer at home and the first day of classes is only three days away, my summer is pretty much over.

I can definitely say this has been the laziest and least productive summer of my life. The transition from high school to college is like a waiting game, and that's all. Sure there's so much "preparation" to do, but that comes and goes quickly and is usually towards the end of the waiting period. A few days of frantic packing, worrying, catching up with friends and family, and then BAM suddenly you're in a new city, new home, new life.

I set out some goals for the summer, but with my summer pretty much down the drain, let's see how much I actually accomplished:

Summer 2009 To-Do List

See Up
~~Go to the beach a few times~~
~~Figure out what classes I want to take~~
~~Do Chem and Calc Readiness Assessments~~
Blog at least twice a week
Mock up some ideas in Inventor
See Away We Go
~~Go to Rapids Water Park~~
~~Get rid of a bunch of old high school crap~~
~~Attend UF Preview July 14-15~~
See Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
~~Cook more often~~
~~Go bowling~~
See Funny People
Go to Miami Metro Zoo, mainly to see/feed giraffes up close
Enter a few video contests
~~Hang out with friends more often~~
~~Brush up on some Calculus~~
Try to pick up Spanish
~~Do something with my website~~ (kinda sorta not really)
See Bruno (maybe)
~~Plan how I'm moving to college in great detail~~
~~Go to another Laser Quest all-nighter~~ (kinda, played a regular game)
Try to take a photo a day

13 out of 24 ain't to shabby. Most of it is just that I didn't get to go to the movies as often as I wanted to and logistics prevented Metro Zoo from working out. Regardless, I'm satisfied with my relaxing summer and time spent with friends and I am finally ready to go back to school for the most part.

Haha it's just so weird that I'm finally here to stay and not going back home. So surreal. I'm experiencing a suppressed version of excitement, weird. Updates on moving in and such later...

To The Hurricane Gods:

2009-08-16T04:38:00.003-04:00

Dear Tropical Storm Ana,

According to the 2 AM advisory of the National Hurricane Center, I see you have made quite some progress since we were first introduced. Moving west at approximately 17mph with maximum sustained winds of 40mph and gaining strength, I've noticed you're on track to come and visit me. Normally, I would have welcomed your visit, but since you have chosen to arrive on such short notice and at such an inconvenient time, I'm afraid I am not too pleased with your anticipated presence.

If you haven't recieved the memo, most schools in the state of Florida will begin classes on Monday, August 24th. It's such a shame that you have chosen to come visit on Wednesday or Thursday, as many will be scurrying to prepare for school, get settled in for college, or finish up summer vacation. My dear Ana, you wouldn't want to interfere with that, would you?

Now I know TS Fay may have started a trend last year among you tropical storms and hurricanes to arrive on the first day of school (yes, I know it's exciting, but unfortunately unacceptable for hurricanes to attend too!), but may I suggest taking a European vacation instead? There's still time to make a sharp turn east and venture out into the Atlantic before you make contact with the beautiful islands of the eastern Caribbean. The journey may be tiring, and you may lose speed and force, but I gaurantee the sights, food, and experiences are worth it. I also suggest you take your buddy TS Bill along as well, and perhaps stop by the Cape Verde islands to warn your budding hurricane/tropical storm pals to steer clear of Florida and the Caribbean this season.

Though I do not look forward to meeting you, if we shall meet, please be kind and gentle to our area. Mediocre rainfall, thunderstorms, and light wind are tolerable, but please withhold the tornadoes, flooding, and intense winds. Thank you for your consideration and have a peaceful trip to your destination.

Sincerely,

Noelle

One Week

2009-08-13T00:59:00.004-04:00

Unrelated note: Doesn't the title of this entry remind you of the awesome Barenaked Ladies song bearing the same name?

Next Thursday I leave home...forever. Sounds powerfully scary, eh? With these 12-month leases, prospects of studying abroad and finding internships, I don't plan on returning home for the summers or for more than two weeks at a time. And then after that, who knows.

Thinking too much is dangerous.

My thoughts are all over the place.

I don't know where my summer went. I barely did anything that I really wanted to do even though I spent so much time being bored and doing nothing. I can definitely say that I know what total relaxation feels like though.

For the past few weeks I've been fretting over stupid shit -- Do I really need to waste time reading this depressing, slow-paced, uninteresting Devil's Highway book? Am I bringing enough stuff? Too much? Will I get along with my roommates? Will my courses be too challenging? Should I wait to buy books? When am I ever going to grow up for real? Will I have too much time? Enough time? Am I really going to go to grocery shopping and cook for myself? Will mountains of laundry bury me? Am I really going to change in the manner that I want to? Will I become a failure?

Typical freshman thoughts, I'm sure.

And as much as these thoughts ping around in my head like those super high-bounce balls, I'm still incredibly relaxed and stress-free about everything, which is abnormal behavior for me since I'm known to worry myself about simple, simple stuff.

I also feel like I'm supposed to feel some kind of way about leaving, but I don't. I'm ecstatic about starting college and living on my own and new social experiences all that good stuff, but for the most part I'm indifferent about leaving home.

I started sorting my clothes yesterday and will probably do some serious laundry today. I realized just how much of my wardrobe I don't wear. I'm almost ashamed to say that it consists of about just as much as the stuff I do wear. There is so much old high school crap to go through and I don't even want to touch it, but it has to be done.

Everyone has been talking about all of the shopping that they're doing for school, but I'm trying to make this transition as minimalistic as possible. I've made so many revisions and streamlined my packing lists so that what I'm taking should fit into a large rolling suitcase, a medium rolling suitcase, a large rolling duffel, a backpack, and a messenger bag. I almost feel like I'm forgetting something really important.

I really don't know what I'm getting at with this entry. I feel like I'm prepared to go, yet it seems like there is so much to do between now and next Thursday. I keep hearing that I'll be missed and there are a few others that I'll miss as well, but I'm trying not to obsess over it. I guess my issue at the moment is I've been waiting for this time to come for quite a while and thought that it would be SUCH a huge deal though now that it's here I feel like I'm just going through the motions. Perhaps feelings will intensify down the road, or maybe I'll just shrug it all off. Sometimes I hate being so apathetic.

Seven days left in Sunrise, sigh.

Noelle in a Nutshell

2009-08-08T04:08:00.004-04:00

I posted this as one of those "25 Things About Me" Facebook notes a few months ago, but I went back and reread it and realized that I did a pretty good job of summarizing myself in 25 not-so-brief lines. If you didn't know...

1. I have a mild addiction to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I take too much enjoyment in slamming people with a bat until they fall in weakness and then stomp them to the death until they bleed and give me money. I don't think there is anything wrong with this at all, and I don't consider it to be an anger release. I'm not a violent person, it's just fun. Just like how I can't dance or play a guitar in real life, I can't smash people with bats or steal cars either.

2. It seems that all of my major plans are failing or becoming unrealistic at the moment. I'm just being pessimistic though. It helps me from becoming saddened if things actually do fail. Yes, I am talking about college and post-college.

3. I'm not really a studious student, but I do well in school. Go figure! The key to being smart is sounding/appearing/acting smart, not actually being a huge book nerd.

4. In spite of #3, I won't doubt that indeed I am a huge knowledge-nerd. I love learning! I love knowing useless facts, like the fact that Burger King uses ~1/2 million pounds of bacon monthly.

5. I'm a huge scaredy-cat. Sometimes I'm afraid of the dark. Sometimes I'm afraid of answering the phone. Most of the time I'm afraid of talking to people that I don't know.

6. I don't like seafood.

7. I want to get a tattoo with the No L symbol. I'm just having a really hard time deciding the location and orientation. (somewhere on the lower-mid arm, but which way? which arm? how big?)

8. I don't have any friends that I've known since early childhood. It feels like everyone else does though

9. Speaking of which, I really don't have many friends at all. There are very few people that I consider to be friends. I hate it when people are like "we're friends!" when I didn't consider them more than a mere acquaintance. Social networking has surely skewed this perception.

10. I love musicals. Almost all of them...

11. I'm a huge 90's Disney/Nickelondeon fan, especially Disney Movies (including the early DCOMs). I know almost all the words to The Lion King/Pocahontas/Aladdin/Mulan/you name it sappy-moral-having flicks and listen to their respective soundtracks daily. I know there is enough of this out there, but Nick and Disney died in the early 00s. Who can replace old awesome shows like Pepper-Ann and Salute Your Shorts and All That and Even Stevens.

12. Blogging is probably the best thing that I've done since [I wish I had some sort of time identifier to mark an enjoyable time in my life]. It's a relief, is entertaining, a creative outlet, a life chronicler, and a cool way to meet new people or find out more about the people you know. Check it out: technol21.blogspot.com

13. Vlogging is equally as cool. I've tried to start on like 3 or 4 occasions, deleting quite a few videos of my own in the process. I'm not quite comfortable with hearing my voice on camera yet, but I'd like to get there.

14. I have a love/hate relationship with robotics. It's interesting.

15. I love airplanes and airports, the entire experience of flying is fascinating. Experiencing new cities only comes second to flying. I just wish I could travel more often.

16. Working in retail has changed my view of many things: people, the shopping experience, life. I've learned lots along the way, but I hope to never go back to retail unless it's somewhere high up in corporate. RIP Circuit City

17. Sometimes I doubt my creativity. For most projects I come up with some ridiculously intricate plan, which I eventually deem a failure and then end up relying on something simple at the last minute that most people love for its simplicity. Why can't I ever choose the simple plan from the get go?

18. I wanted to be an astronaut and ballerina when I was younger.

19. I still would love to go to space. When space travel becomes commercialized and I can afford it, better believe I'll be in line to get my ticket!

20. I have mild interests in photography, film, and tennis. I wish I had more time to dedicate to them.

21. I just watched a 60 Minutes special about lowering the legal drinking age to 18. I totally agree, especially now that I'm 18.

22. I've never been to a concert. Even though there are a few artists I'd be willing to pay to see, the thought of being so closely crammed into a stadium/arena/concert hall with thousands of people is frightening.

23. I did not enjoy high school. Whoever said these would be the best years is greatly mistaken.

24. I have a habit of over-elaborating. Note this note.

25. I like having money, which is perhaps why I'm so cheap. I know when and to what extent to treat myself and others; I'm pretty responsible with money. I like saving. I will be wealthy.

...now you know.

UF Preview (Day 2)

2009-07-17T10:50:00.011-04:00

Read Part 1 first.

From the schedule alone, it looked like Day 2 would be much better than Day 1 -- not as much information to cram in, more things to see and do.

Breakfast was also at Broward Dining, where they have gator imprinted waffles. At 8:05am we met in the Broward Hall basement and were given individualized schedules by our Preview Staffer. The day was pretty much arranged according to your advising appointment time, whether it was morning or afternoon. Mine was at 9:45am. The morning appointment folks were herded over to Pugh Hall to be moved into another hall in even smaller groups. We were supposed to be reading that book they gave us, but most just watched Headline News on the large TV above us. At 9:15am the 9:45am group was moved to the advising center to a small lecture hall to wait for our individual advising appointment.

Speaking one on one with an advisior was great, as the generalized presentations assumed everyone came in with no credit and would basically have the same schedule. The advisor could easily assess your capability from scores and previous experiences and help you to make wise scheduling choices, I guess that's what they're there for. I registered for my critical tracking courses with my preview advisor present (its cool that they can call over somewhere and open up seats in classes if it's a tracking course that you need) and then she went over my chosen Gen. Ed courses and sent me to lab to finish registering. Everything worked out pretty well, except there were no seats open in Chem except for about 500 online, so I had to take that and see if I can change it to the live class in early August when the scheduling system opens up again. Registration is kind of a game -- searching for courses, seeing 1 or 2 seats open in the perfect time slot, rushing to type in your password to add it, finding the right section that fits into your schedule, or dropping courses and hoping your alternative is still available. Here's how my schedule came out for fall:

SYG2000 is Principles of Sociology, ENC3254 is Professional Writing and Communications for Engineers, MAC2311 is Analytic Geometry and Calculus 1, LIN3010 is Introduction to Linguistics, EML2920 is Department and Professional Orientation (Mechanical Engineering), and CHM1025 is Introduction to Chemistry.

After advising the group went one of the smaller recreational centers to hear a presentation about Rec Sports and how to get tickets for games. We toured The Swamp (Ben Hill Griffin Stadium), Heavener Football Complex (where all the championship and Heisman trophies are), and a few buildings and notable areas. I met up for lunch with my mom at the Hub and we had plenty of time to kill after so we headed over to the bookstore to buy official UF merchandise. They must make a killing on Preview days and during games.

Student and parents were separated again and the parents went wandering while students went to the Reitz Union Auditorium to learn some cheers, hear presentations from financial services, financial aid, the student health care center, and Gator 1 Central. After that half of us were herded over to Gator 1 Central on the first floor of the bookstore to get our Gator 1 cards and the other half went to see some more presentations. There was a bit of time to kill after getting my Gator 1 and before the next presentation, so I found my mom and caught up a bit. I also managed to switch around my schedule a bit since a course that I needed opened up. I'm finding more and more practical uses for my iPod every day.

The doors finally opened for the next presentation, which were fortunately more upbeat than the others. We heard about opportunities to get involved, the code of student conduct, and from some hilarious old guy about faculty expectations. After that there were separate presentations from on campus and off campus housing, we grabbed our final schedules from our preview staffer, and were done for the day around 5.

Overall the Preview experience was pretty nice, but there is definitely room for improvement. There is a lot of sitting and waiting, being herded around like cattle, and force feeding of powerpoints and brightly colored sheets of paper. I don't think all of the presentations were necessary since they were VERY redundant and almost everything was covered online. Maybe it was just more boring for me since I read everything they sent me and told me to read online and I guess everyone doesn't do that. Staying in Broward Hall made me more than happy that I have an apartment, since I couldn't imagine living in a tiny, old, decaying hole like that for an entire year. The Preview Staffers and Advisors were great, cheery, and exceptionally helpful though. Day 1 wasn't as exhausting as many may have made it seem, I think it was just a lot of information thrown at you at once, take from it what you wish...not everything was important and required full attention. Day 2 was definitely more engaging with less of being talked at.

So now that that's out the way I'm an official UF student with classes and an ID card and all that good stuff now, so all I have to do is show up and go to class on 8/24. Woohoo!

UF Preview (Day 1)

2009-07-17T08:19:00.012-04:00

Yesterday evening I returned from UF's 2-day Preview (orientation). I've heard really mixed things about it, ranging from fun, exciting, and informative to boring, exhausting, and stressful. After thinking over the whole thing for about a day, I can say most of those feelings are true. There are about 20 different preview sessions through the summer to get 6400 freshmen registered for classes, informed, and ready for UF, so I can see how one may find the system overwhelming or redundant and formulaic.

The trip there was a journey in itself, as we took Amtrak from Fort Lauderdale to Lakeland (4hrs), and then a bus from Lakeland to Gainesville(3.5hrs). Traveling by rail is quite peaceful, but Florida scenery only consists of swamp and trees, so it gets boring after a while, especially since most of central Florida is undeveloped. I definitely prefer air travel, though I still love trains.

Day 1

Everyone arrives and checks in at the Reitz Union, where students are given a lanyard with a name tag screaming "NOOB!" and city of origin, also with a flash drive attached (no one figured out that there was stuff preloaded on these lol). Parents were also given a lanyard with either "New College Family" or "Seasoned College Family" as well as a canvas tote with informational stuff, maps, and what not. Gator alumni parents were cheered for upon arrival. After check in we headed up to the second floor for a quick continental breakfast and then the welcome in the Grand Ballroom. Students were then separated from parents and split into predetermined small random groups of 15 by letter of the alphabet. I was in Group D. Ever get the feeling that you won't like someone from first glance? That's how my entire group was -- just a group of people that I would never, ever see myself associating with. As the day progressed my initial reaction became more and more true. I became worried at one point that this small group would be representative of the population of UF, but thank goodness that thought was quickly dispelled as I met other people of interest.

Each small group was lead by a Preview Staffer, a bubbly UF student of some sort. The groups each went to a small meeting room in the Reitz, while the parents were stuck in the Ballroom and lectured and force fed powerpoints for hours. Each small group also had a Preview Advisor who aided in scheduling and general concerns. We were given a Preview bag like the parents' filled with a spiral workbook, the guide to majors, and some other papers.

After an awkward icebreaker and an introductory powerpoint we split up again to attend a "More Than Just a Major" session of choice, which happened to suck. After that we went to individual college information sessions. The Engineering session was pretty good and for the first time I felt that I was with the right group of people. There was no fluff in the presentation like the others and a few student reps from clubs and departments spoke. I was kind of disappointed that I had to go to another college's session since both of my choices were in the College of Engineering. I chose to go to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences' session, where the rep there basically said that what you major in doesn't matter, so do whatever is interesting to you regardless of the practicality. Yeah...sure. The small groups were combined to form 6 groups for lunch and a quick tutorial on how to register for classes online. I don't really remember what else they went through, but during that time we were also given The Devil's Highway, which is this year's book for the Common Reading Program, mandatory for all freshman. I read Part 1 on the way home and it's kind of depressing and boring, but I'm not going to complain since enough of that is being done enough already.

We met up with our parents for more optional presentations, which were pretty informative. We attended the Study Abroad and Undergrad Research Opportunities sessions. Parents disappeared once again and students broke up into small groups to work with preview staffers and advisors on planning out a schedule individually. I did my research ahead of time and had everything planned out, so I kind of chilled while looking busy for an hour. The preview workbook was helpful though, as there was a worksheet and supplemental information for everything, majors, credit hours, gen eds, etc. I was just shocked at the amount of people that were clueless and had no idea what they wanted to do or what they were remotely interested in.

Parents and students were rejoined and funneled back into the Grand Ballroom for presentations from the Vice President for Student Affairs (snooze), GatorWell(oh noes drugs and alcohol, be healthy!), Victim Services (boring), and UFPD (quite humorous).

After that groups were divided by meal ticket color to check into Broward Hall, eat dinner, and attend the resource fair. Our group went to dinner first, at Broward Dining. After experiencing dining halls at CMU, I was expecting the worst, but thank goodness it was much better. Nothing superior or anything to write home about, but it was decent. I won't be eating here often (or at all) since I won't be needing a meal plan and it's overpriced.

After dinner was the Resource Fair, which consisted of about 10 tables from various organizations and recieved The F Book, which is a student guide and also full of university traditions to be completed. Completing 10, 20, 30, or 40 traditions gets you a Tradition Keeper pin for each level and a medal at graduation for 40. I joined the Student Alumni Association for all of their little perks (free stuff, events, tshirts, etc) and got The Box:

After the Resource Fair I checked into Broward Hall and we headed back over the the Reitz for some skits by the Preview staffers. They were about real issues, both serious and non-serious, and quite entertaining in the cheesiest way possible. I couldn't possibly count the references to Facebook.

Parents left after the skits and we broke back up into small groups to discuss the issues covered in the skit in the form of 4 corners. You had to move to corners designated Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree based on your reaction to the serious or controversial question asked. Questions like "Would you be okay with a gay roomate?" and "Do you consider your area diverse?" came up. Some of the responses were shocking, others not so much. The point was to really stress tolerance and acceptance. We all went back to Broward Hall to finalize our schedule choices and discuss the next day's activities with our preview staffer.

I ran into someone that I knew from 5th grade and we chatted for a bit. It was nice to finally meet someone that I knew after being around strangers for hours. I heard so many weird towns and areas during the day that I never knew existed. It was nice to read a familar city on someone's name tag, as if it was an invisible connection of some sort. Also learned that Central and North Florida are WAY WAY WAY different from South Florida. It's like comparing deep south Mississippi to LA.

After getting my schedule signed off on, I returned to my room to drop off everything and head down to the basement for "Club Swag". That was probably the worst attempt at forced socialization that I've ever seen. Picture this: a dark open area, snacks on a table in the middle of the floor, a guy in the corner with a laptop and speakers, and a few dozen teenagers. Most people grabbed a cookie or drink and left after realizing how lame it was. I did too. Others were in the Broward lobby chatting with newly made friends, scurrying to finish their readiness assessments that were supposed to be done before even coming, working on perfecting their schedules, or hiding in their rooms. I was lame and went back to my room and just browsed around online on my iPod a bit. My roommate was okay, we only engaged in small talk.

Summer Plans

2009-06-24T14:43:00.009-04:00

The title of this blog entry is just about as dull as my summer will probably be. A month of my summer has already passed and a lot of my friends are already going off to college for Summer B. I almost regret starting in the Fall, but I'll enjoy my time to relax. There's a bunch of preparational stuff that I need to do before going to UF that I'll probably put off doing until the first weeks of August, but that still leaves me another whole month of lollygagging and doing absolutely nothing. I'll be moving into my aparment on August 21st, coincidentally the day of New Student Convocation, so I have 57 days (5 of which will be in Gainsville, so 52 really) left in South Florida to do the following:

Summer 2009 To-Do List

See Up
Go to the beach a few times
Figure out what classes I want to take
Do Chem and Calc Readiness Assessments
Blog at least twice a week
Mock up some ideas in Inventor
See Away We Go
Go to Rapids Water Park
Get rid of a bunch of old high school crap
Attend UF Preview July 14-15
See Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Cook more often
Go bowling
See Funny People
Go to Miami Metro Zoo, mainly to see/feed giraffes up close
Enter a few video contests
Hang out with friends more often
Brush up on some Calculus
Try to pick up Spanish
Do something with my website
See Bruno (maybe)
Plan how I'm moving to college in great detail
Go to another Laser Quest all-nighter
Try to take a photo a day

I think what I've planned is pretty manageable and realistic, so we'll see how things turn out in August.

Blog? What Blog?

2009-06-16T15:39:00.005-04:00

Oh yeah...my blog!

For the past month and a half I've abandoned this blogging thing like Key West before a hurricane. Usually I stop blogging due to lack of content, time, or motivation. The past two months have been action-packed, busy, and have whizzed by with unbelivable speed. I have tons of things to talk about, but for some odd reason I avoided blogging about them. Perhaps Twitter is to blame.

In short, I went to Grad Bash at Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure in Orlando, took AP exams, I didn't go to prom, endured a hectic last week of school, high school ended, I graduated, I've managed to completely fuck up my sleeping habits, I signed a lease for my new apartment, ignored the 2nd birthday/anniversary of my blog, spent way to much time on Facebook/Twitter/Youtube, and I've basically been a bum since May 30th.

Graduating high school was quite liberating and I'm incredibly relieved to be out of such an environment. Though college is somewhat distant at two months away, the reality of going away to college is still a lot to take in. Part of me can't wait to go, live on my own (sorta), take interesting, challenging courses, meet new people, and do new things. The other part of me is concerned for the same exact reasons. It's not something that I'm stressing over all the time and I'm sure August 21st will be here soon enough to submerge me in college and all of it's awesomeness (or horribleness?) whether I like it or not.

So it's the last summer before college, supposedly my last free summer until I retire, and apparently this is the year to "live it up". I'll save my summer plans for another post -- they're not that interesting.

I'm hoping I'll be able to keep up with regular blogging throughout the summer until my life picks up with school and interacting with humans on a regular basis again, but I'll aim to update at least once a week.

65 days 'til I say goodbye to Sunrise and hello to Gainesville.

Domino's BreadBowl Pasta

2009-04-25T20:47:00.017-04:00

A few months ago I heard about Domino's coming out with some sort of pasta dish to compete with Pizza Hut's Toscani Pastas, which are delicious btw, and testing it in a few markets first. It sounded interesting, and I was hoping it would do well in the test markets so that I could try it for myself. Finally it was released nationally this week, oddly enough right after the booger incident, with emails, ads online, and commericals everywhere informing everyone about the NEW BreadBowl Pastas. I do admit that their slogan, "Pasta so good, you'll devour the bowl" is pretty clever.

My mom heard about it on Friday as well, so there was no doubt about what would be for dinner tonight. Now I've already raved about the Domino's online ordering experience twice before, but I still think it's far better than all of the other delivery places and deserves a spot of attention yet again. That entry from January of last year surprisingly brought in a lot of traffic since the Pizza Tracker was new back then. Although not as exciting the 23423945th time, it's still pretty darn cool to know the progress of your pizza in realtime (within 60 sec.).

There are five different types of pasta: Three Cheese Mac-N-Cheese, Chicken Carbonara, Italian Sausage Marinara, Pasta Primavera, and Chicken Alfredo, with the choice of it being in the breadbowl or not. This evening I ordered the Italian Sausage Marinara for my mom and the Chicken Alfredo for myself with a Coke (I'm an addict) and timed it so that it would arrive around the time my mom got home (the same exact time, surprisingly!). Ever since the 30-Minutes-or-Less campaign started last year, Domino's has been extremely punctual about their delivery speeds.

5:07PM - Order placed

5:07PM - Order prepared

5:08PM - Order put in oven

5:16PM - Order packaged and put in HeatWave bag

5:25PM - Delivery expert left store with order

5:32PM - Order arrives at my doorstep

25 minutes from 'Place Order' to my doorstep? Amazing. There is new packaging for the BreadBowls, a thicker, squarish, box a little smaller than that of a small-sized pizza. The BreadBowls do look delicious upon first look.

Sure it may look delicious, but we all know that appearance isn't everything. First impression is that its like a bowl of pasta with breadsticks built in. As for taste, Chicken Alfredo is Chicken Alfredo. The chicken was flavorless and barely apparent. It was decent; there's was nothing really special about this one, but it was saucier than Pizza Hut's. I'm not too fond of pastas made with just plain marinara sauce (especially if it's bland like Domino's pizza sauce, Papa Johns' sauce is better), so the Italian Sausage Marinara was a turnoff from the get go. It tasted like what I expected, pasta with pizza sauce and pizza sausage bits. Again, nothing special about the pasta.

The novelty of the whole thing is that it's in an edible bowl. Sure it's just regular pizza crust, but it's softer and topped with butter and garlicky seasonings. The seasonings are also sprinkled over the Chicken Alfredo pasta as well. The 'bowl' isn't very deep, so I often got my fork stuck in the bottom of the bowl when trying to pick up pasta, which was a bit of an annoyance at first. The best part was the bottom of the bowl with the soft,doughy bread covered in Alfredo sauce. The only major downside is that when its prepared everything is just dumped on top in order, so the bottom is a little doughy for those of you that don't like doughy-ness, and its a bit of work to thouroughly distribute the sauce through the pasta. A cool thing is that there are a few ways to eat it. You can eat the pasta and break off pieces of the crust as you go along like I did, you can eat pasta and bread in the same bite, you can eat all of the pasta first and save the crust for last, or you can cut it and eat it like pizza.

Here's what it looks like after stirring and devouring. I could only eat half. The combination of bread and pasta is quite filling. This also can't be the least bit healthy at all. I tried some after leaving it out for a few (since the true test of food is really how it holds up when it's cold) and the pasta does taste a little better, but the crust isn't as good as it was when it was fresh. It'll probably taste better tomorrow when I reheat the leftovers in the oven.

Overall I'd give it a 6/10 for taste (the sauces could've been a lot better), 10/10 for concept, and 8/10 for the overall package. I'd definitely reccomend it if you want to try something interesting and I will probably order it again. Maybe I'll try the Three Cheese Mac-N-Cheese next time.

Compared to Pizza Hut's pasta, the value is about the same, as you get a serving for 4 (and that's generous) and five breadsticks for $12.99, and with Domino's each BreadBowl is $6.99 ($5.99 special now if you order online and $4.99 if you get it without the BreadBowl). A single BreadBowl could easily feed two people if you're not starving. I still think the Pizza Hut pastas taste better overall though. The Domino's BreadBowls are a cool little novelty.

My mom stopped at Target on the way home and brought back two of my favorite goodies. Yay!

The Movie-Going Experience

2009-04-24T00:41:00.003-04:00

*cross-posted with my cinematography blog*

With the improvements and significant price drops of home theater systems in the past few years, the movie-going experience almost appears to be a trivial pastime. It seems like every few months ticket and concession prices are rising. Why do we even bother going to the theaters anymore?

Going to see a movie is more than just going to see a movie. Most often it is a social experience as well. It's a chance to see what's coming next with the previews, it's a chance to get that one snack you can't find anywhere else, it's a chance to enjoy oneself. At the theater, you can immerse yourself in the film, temporarily away from the distractions of the real world.

Watching a movie at the theater definitely has it's perks: huge screens, great sound, company, and sometimes even luxury. Legally, the movie theatre is the only place to see the hottest new flicks, but illegal methods or patience can change that, which brings us to the flipside, the home movie experience.

As mentioned previously, quality is no longer much of an issue with improved home theater systems. Seemingly everyone has a beautiful, widescreen HDTV now, and a halfway decent surround sound system isn't hard to come by either. So now you have a setup in your living room that rivals that of some big expensive theatre. You can view movies at your discretion, from the comfort of your own home, in your pajamas, while an enjoying a delicious meal or reasonably priced snacks at the same time.

Though not as taboo as before, one can even enjoy the same first-run movies at home with bootlegs. No, they're not only sold by sketchy characters in front of the corner store in the hood any more. Besides downloading movies online, there is also a very well organized system if you have the "hook-up". Lists are released weekly of what the movie man has acquired or his full collection, with details on whether it is a studio copy, regular quality, a DVD rip, or an in-movie recording, and even sometimes specials such as 5-for-$20 or buy 3, get one free. The decision to purchase bootlegs pretty much boils down to ethics.

The most apparent difference between the movie-going experience and the home theater experience is the cost. At first, the home theater experience may appear cheaper, but the initial costs are far more expensive and it must be a long-term investment in order to be worthwhile. Ignoring the initial costs for the home-theater system, let's compare the annual costs. For a family of four, an average trip to the movies would cost about $60 ($8/ticket, ~$30 in snacks). This would equate to $720 in movie-going expenses for an entire year. For the price of one movie trip, the family could by three new-release DVDs or 15 bootlegs -- either way, everyone in the family gets something they like. On a monthly basis, the family could buy one new-release movie and order pizza for about $40 and spend $480 annually. Of course DVDs go on sale all the time but never movie tickets. (Sidenote: There are so many factors that contribute to both movie-viewing experiences that it's pretty much impossible to fully evaluate both. Well I could, but I won't.)

So is the movie-going experience still worth it? Yes and no. For some popular, action-packed, must-see movies like Transformers 2 coming out this summer, absolutely. But for other casual films that don't necessarily demand the perks of seeing it in a theater, probably not. Another factor not to be ignored is the reason for watching a movie; is it for the plot, the cinematography, the hype, the actors, the social experience, the message? These also all influence how one physically views a movie.

It is not to by implied that one should abandon one system for the other; actually, the best situation would probably be to have a healthy combination of both. Even though it may be a huge splurge nowadays, who doesn't love staring at 20ft screen while munching on $10 popcorn, $4 candy, and $6 soda?

The Final Countdown

2009-04-17T02:35:00.006-04:00

Kind of bummed about not being at the Championship for the first time in 3 years now, but:

24.5 days of high school left

Grad Bash on May 2nd

AP Exams May 4th & 7th

Final Exams

Not doing the Prom thing

Graduation on May 30th

DONE!

Anyone have a time machine that I can borrow?

Sleep Cycles

2009-04-16T02:40:00.005-04:00

For the past month, my sleep cycles have been wacky to say the least. Some nights I didn't sleep at all, some nights I slept for two hours or 30 minutes, sometimes I slept for 9 hours. This troubled me, as it would often effect my mood for the rest of the day. I didn't quite have a grasp on why I ventured from my normal pattern and it seemed like every night 2am appeared out of nowhere.

During my early childhood I don't recall having a set bedtime, but I do remember falling asleep around the same time everynight with exceptional regularity. Young kids have a tendency to do that, even waking up at 6am on the weekends...just because. (Sidenote: I don't even see the point for kids to get up early anymore since the cartoons suck now. ABC/Disney's One Saturday Morning was the ish in the 90s.) I remember the days where staying up past 11pm was a big deal and extremely tiring.

By my early teenage years the whole "let's sleep all day and forever" thing caught up with me and I did just that. I went to sleep around 10pm every night, had the hardest time waking up in the morning, and slept through the weekends when I could.

At some point, I stopped beliving in a bedtime -- I think it was towards the end of middle school. I was so immersed in whatever I was doing (The Sims, forums, IMs, whatever) that I no longer allowed the clock to dictate my life. It wasn't too bad, as I'd usually be in bed before 12 and not too grumpy at 5:30am when my alarm went off.

In high school, this got worse. Being the procrastinator that I am, I often didn't start my homework until 10pm. I would typically take a nap from 4-7pm, and then have dinner and stick myself in front of the computer until I realized I had homework or something else to do. I'd fall asleep whevenever I was done, but it was usually before 2am unless I had a huge project. I'd wake up at 5am every morning and never miss the bus. On weekends I'd often pull all-nighters just because. This was my routine for 3.5 years.

Suddenly, everything changed. I've overslept and missed the bus on more occasions than I can remember this year. I don't sleep with any regularity. I'm often not tired at all between the hours of 11pm and 2am when one would normally fall asleep at this age. During the first semester I was often overloaded with annoyances such as school, work, standardized tests, and college apps, so I had a legitimate excuse for not sleeping. My life has been a little smoother for the past 2 months (with the exception of robotics), but my habits didn't change at all. I was tired all the time.

Very recently, as in the past week, I've adopted a new sleeping habit unintentionally, and I'm finding that I'm less tired during the day. For the past three weeks I've been going to sleep at 3am or later and waking up at 5am. In the weeks that I didn't take naps, I was definitely the most unhappy person in the world in the mornings and felt as if some great force was pulling me to the bed and my eyelids closed. Now it's not that big of a deal since I make up for it during the rest of the day. On the ride to school I can usually squeeze in about 20-30 minutes of sleep depending on traffic. Depending on how tired I am I can sleep through lunch for 30-45 minutes. Power naps are amazingly refreshing, and I often feel more refreshed after a nap than I do after sleeping for 6-8 hours. The majority of my sleep occurs when I come home from school, from around 5 or 6pm to 9 or 10pm. There is usually a bit of variance depending on what I'm doing that particular day, but most of my days have been like this.

So I'm sure a major question looming in your head is "Why don't you just sleep like normal people?" It's difficult to answer. I just can't now. My schedule is pretty flexible now outside of school, so I have time to do so much more and it's difficult to evaluate when sleep is necessary. Also, I don't get tired at the same points that I used to, like very early in the morning and towards the end of the school day. Now it's more like the middle of 2nd block (around 10am) everyday and the early evening. This multi-powernap system would almost be perfect if I could take another 30 minute nap during the day around the end of 4th block (~2:15pm), but my schedule just doesn't allow for it. I hope to correct this before I head off to college, but it works for now.

Try it!

Wow, did I write that?

2009-04-09T20:08:00.003-04:00

Introspection

Introspection is sometimes difficult
One's personal history is often an insult
It's hard to imagine a perfect life
One without troubles, or a single strife

Many go on a quest of self-discovery
Most often, it's a quest of recovery
Self-realization is a great step
A shocking reality, with no way to prep

A youthful self-journey, a mid-life breakdown
A sudden urge to get out of this dreary town
Looking into ourselves causes a sudden sway
We're all motivated to change in some way

The wise are those that realize this early
You cannot live life insecurely
Evaluating choices, reflecting important issues
Will save the tears shed on those harsh-realization tissues

Opposite of an existentialist point of view
Evaluate what is important to you
Find meaning within your existence
Be kind to yourself, make a difference

I wrote this back in September for the Jonathan Green poetry contest that we had to enter for AP Literature. The topic that had to be written about was self-discovery; I mulled over writing this thing, feeling muse-less when forced to write creatively under time constraints. I didn't win or anything, but I think some students from Dillard did place. I thought it was horrible at the time, and I still don't consider it to be one of my best works, but it certainly is decent and seems like a message to my present self from my past self. Creepy and ironic considering the subject matter.

I should learn to take my own advice, I like the messase. I never cease to amaze myself when I reflect upon my own work, but I try not to be too conceited.

The Evolution of a Blogger

2009-03-30T00:30:00.011-04:00

Just a heads up, this is an extremely long post.

The Beginning

I've been on the blogging scene for a while, since about 2005 with LiveJournal. It started with a few silly late night poems, and then progressed to a "daily/weekly/quarterly update" type of thing. There were many hiatuses. I faux-liveblogged the cruise we went on in the summer of 2006 and that was my last post on LiveJournal. There was a social networking site that was semi-popular before Facebook became popular called Classface, renamed StudyBreakers, that I used to blog a bit on, but after several failed redesigns, the site disappeared completely, and so did my blog (I have personal archives). I went about a year without blogging, but suddenly I had the urge to blog again. I checked out my old LiveJournal to see if I could pick up on there again, but realized that I didn't want to post there because everything I had previously written was incredibly lame (no, you don't need to go find it) and I didn't want to be associated with that middle schooler's/freshman mindset. That's when I created this blog in June 2007.

The Angsty Stage

I blogged a bit before going to SAMS and then about 2-3 times a week while at CMU. I used it as an outlet of expression at the time, but I didn't realize how great of a chronicler of memories and adventures it was. Upon returning home from Pittsburgh, I kept up the blogging habit since I was used to it, and mainly talked about school. Most of my posts between July 2007 and January 2008 were mostly angsty rants about why I didn't like school, people, or whatever was happening in my life at the moment. It was depressing and pointless. These are the posts that make me cringe when I go back to read them because they were just so horrible. I am disappointed with how I thought and handled certain situations, and then had the nerve to complain to my blog about it! I suppose one can call this maturity.

Transition

The second semester of my junior year was pretty stressful due to AP Lang, AP US History, and robotics all occuring at the same time. Because of this I didn't blog much and when I did my posts were simply composed of brief updates on how overloaded I was. I didn't blog much over the summer either because it was incredibly boring. I almost abandoned the thought of blogging all together at one point because I felt like I couldn't come up with any interesting content to supply this blog with life. Eventually I stopped worrying about posting with any consitency and just decided to write when it came naturally. Over the summer I started reviewing some of my older entries and just realized how much I disliked how I wrote in the past. I made a promise to myself to not rant or complain so much and put more thought into determining blogworthy content. Though working August-February and senior year decreased the frequency of posts, I felt those posts accurately expressed how I felt at the time or the events that occured.

Refresh

Today I went through and tagged all of my entries for organizational purposes. In doing so, I managed to briefly read all 153 published posts and evaluate my blogging habits. I primarily talked about school, robotics, and preparing for college. I realize that I ran into so many dry spells while blogging because I had fallen into a habit of making specific types of entries: school happenings (grades, classes, events), robotics (events, build season, competitions), and college prep (standardized tests, summer programs, applications, admissions updates). Other types of entries were rare and came sandwiched between 3 or 4 of the other types of entries. Most of the things that I blogged about in the past are going to soon disappear and I'd like to switch up my style a bit. Many have complimented my style of writing, so I don't plan to change that, but what will change is the type of content and the frequency of posts.

I have been following a few photoblogs for a while and noticed a lot of people are picking up on Project 365. It's pretty cool. I've had some conversations with some other friends/bloggers about how hard it is to come up with content on a regular basis if your blog has no particular theme, and we've all agreed that no one blogs as much as they'd like to. Project 365 is a neat way to preserve a snapshot of your life, as well as breathe life and interesting content into your blog. I encouraged Dom to do it and hers is coming out great so far. I've been carrying my camera around with me almost all the time, but I haven't taken many photos. I'd like to start a photo-a-day journey of my own, but I'm not sure when...keep an eye open.

Influences
I aim for my entries to capture a snapshot of my life. Posts are the result of me either pouring my heart out, making quick bullet updates, or carefully crafting an entry. My style has been influenced in many ways, from the classes I take (this was the only place I could write informally when taking AP Lang/Lit), the news feeds I read, other bloggers, and comments.

Readership

I'll come out and admit it now, I'm a backwards stalker. I know almost every one of you out there reading my blog, your IP, browser, operating system, Internet provider, city, state, and frequency and length of visits. Statcounter is a wonderful tool, almost better than Google Analytics in many ways. I use both, but that's not what this is about. In many ways, my audience has greatly influenced the type of posts that I make.

When I first started, there was no audience, it was just me and the Google spiders. My family was the main audience in Summer 2007 so that they could keep up with me while I was at SAMS. Eventually I asked some friends to read my blog and we'd exchange comments every so often. I grew out of being so blog shy and started linking my comments/user accounts elsewhere to my blog as well. This generated a lot of traffic. Perhaps the greatest influx of readers came when I started linking my blog to my comments on the MIT Admissions Blogs. I found other interesting people through their blog-linked comments, other interesting people discovered me -- it was great. A ring of bloggers, of all different ages, interests, and nationalities, was created as a result of this common interest. Even though my journey with MIT has come to an end, I will probably still keep up with a few of the blogs that I've come to love over the two years.

As more people started reading and commenting on my blog, the more encouraged I was to write. Occasionally I'll rethink entries since I know which eyes are watching, but I usually don't let that stop me from expressing myself freely. I've had the "oh yeah, this is MY blog" aha moment quite a few times.

Noelle, The Blogger Evangelist

Ever since I started blogging, I've encouraged others to do the same. I can testify to the stress relief, reflective, and network effects blogging has, but many others don't see the benefit. I definitely understand that it's not for everyone, whether the issue is time, writing skill, lack of interest or whatever. I've gotten a few of my friends to start blogs or resucitate their old ones, and they've appreciated the annoying push later on down the line. Many others have found theirselves eager to blog after being inspired by other popular blogs or seeing the many networks and webrings formed that they're being left out of. A mild case of nosiness may have something to do with this, as many will share feelings on their blog that would never be expressed in normal conversation. It seems like there was a sudden spike in blogging activity recently, even before everyone started their cinematography blogs for school. At one point, it seemed like EVERYONE had a blog (heck, even my grandmother does). Sure I felt a little less special for a moment, but then I realized how cool it was knowing so many people that blogged about so many different things; Dom with photography and personal updates, Joseph with his shoe/music/tech news and criticism, Kyle and his opinions, Shawn and his photography, Josue and his reflections. Everyone's different and has a blog for a different purpose, which is how it's supposed to be.

Decisions, Decisions

2009-03-21T21:49:00.007-04:00

Since getting rejected from MIT, I've taken some time to reorganize my thoughts, make some important decisions, and make some baby steps towards preparing for college.

As much as I don't want to stay in-state, I will be attending the University of Florida. I was looking at a few other schools that I could potentially go to, and I found myself constantly shortchanging UF because I didn't want to stay in state and admiring other schools for superficial reasons, though when I compared programs and opportunities, UF stood very solid.

After making my decision, I scoped out some clubs and organizations on campus that I would potentially participate in. Pretty exciting. I'd love to start a FIRST team up there since there isn't one, but it would require an insane amount of effort that I'm not sure I could handle the first year. There's always volunteering for now...

Looking on the bright side, I'll save LOTS of money, will have a few friends on campus, and will get to experience the wildness of the Gator Nation and the #1 Party School...perhaps I'll learn to loosen up a bit (HA!).

Perhaps the only downside to this is the housing situation, which could be both a positive or negative depending on how you look at it. Since I made my decision too late, I will most likely not get on-campus housing. According to the UF Housing Blog, they have 2,700 more contracts than they have space for and 69 (1 = me) on the waitlist. Looking at last year's data, they were only 1,200 over and were able to place all except about 200 by the end of the summer. This year chances look a lot more unrealistic. This brings up the headache of searching for an off-campus location and worrying if the potential scholarships I get will cover rent. The flip side is that the rooms are nicer and more spacious, I'll probably have a private bathroom, and a decently sized kitchen, so no need for a meal plan, and a lot of the complexes cater to students so there are fully-furnished rooms, computer labs, roommate pairings, social areas, individual leases, and all-inclusive rent payments. I've heard from a few that live off campus that it's sometimes cheaper. A lot of the places I've checked out seem like resorts and almost too good to be true for the price. Maybe I can take a trip up to Gainesville during Spring Break.

One awesome thing about the state of Florida is the Bright Futures scholarship. 100% of my tuition will be covered, and I just recieved note of my UF Presidential Scholarship as well. Now I just have to find money for housing and books, which kind of sent me into a panic earlier this week. I suddenly realized that burried within the drone of morning announcements at school was a daily vital message "Seniors, be sure to stop by the BRACE office to check out new scholarship opportunities." Hearing this daily for 3.5 years, I eventually stopped paying attention to it. I've only been to the BRACE office a few times, mostly when summoned by our BRACE advisor. Wednesday I decided to stop by. There were TONS of local scholarships! Many of them seemed within reach, unlike a lot of things posted on FastWebs and other scholarship search engines. I'm not really sure of exactly how much I'll need, but I'm applying for as many as I can right now.

With all that said, I got myself extremely hyped for going to UF and just college in general this week and it's difficult to motivate myself out of bed every morning. That darn curse of senioritis. I've had a weird attitude about high school for a while now, but nothing beats the cynicism I face now. There's no need for competitiveness, no need for extra participation out of my interest, no need for near-perfect attendance, and barely a need to go to school. These last few weeks are going to be tough as I encourage myself not to settle for effortless Bs and high Cs and force myself to wake up at 5am to go to that place every morning.

Another decision that I'm dealing with is if I should get a job again. I promised myself that I wouldn't go back to retail unless dire conditions demanded it, but my savings are dwindling, and as I've said many times, I like having money. A new Staples close to me is hiring and so is the Apple store, which is quite a bit father though, but close to Dillard. I don't have a demanding schedule this last semester, so it might be nice to snag a job before the summer job rush so I can work through the summer and start saving up again.

FAIL

2009-03-14T21:49:00.005-04:00

No MIT

No GaTech (wtf for that one!?)

No Elimination Matches

No Awards

No More FIRST

FAIL.

I'm feeling really great about now.

fml

Time Warp

2009-03-10T18:41:00.004-04:00

Let's use this entry to make up for the entire month that I haven't blogged, shall we.

-I went to Cleveland, Ohio for four days and came back. We performed horribly, but got the robot functional. There was tons of fun, 3-hour delays, science museums, good people, good food, robots, snowstorms, arguments, interesting bus rides, and much, much more.

-I graduate in 2 months and 20 days. HURRY UP AND GET HERE MAY 30TH!

-I have been horribly ill for the past week. Must've picked up some sort of horrible virus on the way back from Ohio, through Atlanta. Monday I was so-so, Tuesday I felt flu-ish, Wednesday I went to school and came back feeling dead with an insanely scratchy throat. Thursday I went to a doctor to get drugs to make me better but instead made me vomit. Friday I threw up about five times and whatever flu-ish virus I had evolved to a menacing stomach virus. Rested most of the weekend, but I still don't feel 100%.

-I'm leaving for Orlando tomorrow. I still don't know how I'm getting there. Murphy's Law has made it's presence clear for everything involving this trip.

-MIT decisions are coming out on Pi day, 3/14 (Saturday at 2pm). OH MY FUCKING GOSH! I'm not really getting myself too worked up over it, but I can't say I'm not excited. We should be finding out sometime during the eliminations of the Florida Regional, which depending on the outcome of the event and our admission status will make us either very happy or very disappointed campers, or maybe some odd combination of both. Our entire drive team has applied to MIT and has been deferred, this should be interesting...

-Circuit City just gave me 20 hours worth of pay. I quit over a month ago. I read they're not taking it back. Sweet! Sidenote: There is no more Circuit City.

-My bookbag is really heavy, but its surprisingly streamlined this year. I only have one organized 1" binder. It's just that darn AP Gov't textbook and German 3 workbook that I have to lug around.

-I'm know I'm late at mentioning this, but Kunio Kato had the best Oscar acceptance speech ever, hands down.

-We played Mafia at school today during AP Gov't after taking a test since we were stuck in class for 4 hours due to the FCAT. It's awesome.

-I'm noticing a trend on Facebook where a lot of people (seemingly just Dillard people at the moment) are writing all of these wannabe profound notes analyzing their perspective on life or the way others think/act. It's like all of the sudden "OMG, random thoughts guys -- I'm probably like the only one to realize this, but I've just figured out that..." improperly infusing all sorts of lofty language, "big words", and interesting, to say the least, sentence structure. I can't say any of my close friends have done this, thank goodness.

-Speaking of Facebook, the trends that are going on currently are all getting extremely annoying. The tagging in the stupid cartoon characteristic pictures, the chain survey notes, and jillions of app requests are totally bringing down the environment. Regardless, I still like Facebook and will enjoy my little corner there, it's still better than MySpace.

-My laptop is kaput. It's the HD, quite unfortunately. I did do a backup a few weeks ago, but lost all of my pics from the robotics season and some other recent files. I might be able to recover the data but I don't have much time at the moment. I don't want to get a new laptop just yet since there will probably be better back-to-school sales or a deal affilated with which ever college I end up going to. I've been using my mother's and grandmother's computers for now when I can get on and my iPod doesn't cut it, hopefully I can get a replacement HD soon. This sucks.

-Season 13 of South Park starts Wednesday! Too bad I'll be on my way to Orlando; hopefully they'll replay it at midnight.

Accepted!

2009-02-13T17:40:00.003-05:00

Finally got in somewhere! 1 down 6 to go!

Congratulations! You have been admitted to the 2009 Fall University of Florida freshman class!
Your official notification and additional materials will be mailed to you in the next few days.
Until then, and on behalf of the Office of Admissions and the University of Florida, welcome to the Gator Nation!
Sincerely,
Office of Admissions
University of Florida

GO GATORS!

"Yes, I'm Sure!"

2009-02-08T03:13:00.005-05:00

The people that ask the following questions probably don't read my blog, but it is definitely something that ticks me a bit after a while. Probably several times a week I get questions about my hair or race, most of which are very predictable. Most of the time I'm polite and just try to get through the conversation as quickly as possible. It typically goes something like this:

"Oh your hair is nice, kinda different"

"Thanks"

"Are you mixed?"

"No"

"Are you sure?"

WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?! Am I unsure of my race? Of course not. Continuing...

"Yeah, I'm sure"

"Well what are you then? There is no way you can be just black with hair like that!"

"Um...yeah"

"Where are your parents from?"

"They were born here in the US, and so were their parents"

"Oh, so you're just regular black? Are you sure?"

Actually, I was lying before and I was unsure. Now I'll actually tell you the truth since I see you're so interested in a complete stranger's life. NOT.

"Regular black? Yeah I guess."

"Oh."

If this didn't happen so often, I wouldn't be so disturbed by it, but WHY?! I've only gotten this from other black people that assume I'm this weird exotic being because my hair is of a different color and texture. My skin isn't extremely light or dark by any means, just brown. You can't tell what part of the country I'm from by the way I speak. There are really no indicators that point to another race except for my hair. Why such great inquisition about my ancestry? I guess because this is South Florida, someone that is just "regular black" is hard to come by. Speaking of which, that term bothers me. Regular black? As opposed to irregular black? I'm not completely denying any other backgrounds since I think we all understand that everyone has a bit of a jumbled background, its just that they are not as relevant since I'm not going to rattle off an entire family tree to explain my hair color and texture.

Another similar situation is when people assume that I'm hispanic, or just because I live in South Florida I speak Spanish. No! Being bilingual is not a requirement for just living in S. Florida. This happens at work more than anywhere else where I think a majority of our customers are South American tourists. (Heh, I wrote this before I quit)

"You speak Spanish?"

"No"

"You sure?"

There's that "are you sure?" question again! Another common situation features the common are-you-in-denial-of-your-heritage:

"You speak Spanish?"

"No"

"Are you sure? It's ok, you don't have to hide it, you can speak in Spanish with me"

"I don't speak any Spanish"

"Okay" ::look of disapproval, continues to speak in Spanish::

"I'm sorry, I don't understand" ::walks away::

Recently, I've decided to have a bit of fun with the people that are just oh-so interested in my heritage. Now the conversation goes something like this:

"Oh your hair is nice, kinda different"

"Thanks"

"Are you mixed?"

"Yeah, I'm actually half Puerto Rican and Egyptian" [or insert some other exotic blend]

"Really?!"

"Yeah..."

"That's interesting! I knew you couldn't just be regular black!"

I let it marinate with them for a few minutes.

"I was lying a few minutes ago, I'm not really mixed"

"Nu-uh!" ::feels stupid:: "So what are you then?"

"What do you think?"

"So...you're just regular black?"

::sigh::

I wonder if this will change if/when I move up north? My faith in mankind decreases as the days progress. Maybe Idiocracy was right...

Happily Unemployed

2009-02-04T12:55:00.010-05:00

On Monday evening I quit my job at Circuit City.

I planned on doing it before liquidation was over, and indeed I did.

My 18th birthday was on Sunday and I was evaluating the things that make me happy, the stressors in my life, and overall just life in general. I realized that the amount of stress I have decreased significantly after I finished all of my college applications, though there was a ton of stress still lingering. The retail work environment isn't very enticing or encouraging. I don't think I've ever had a day where I realistically thought "it's so great to work here!" I don't think I've ever had a day after the first month where I didn't contemplate just leaving.

I really can't put my finger on why I was so unhappy at Circuit City. I enjoyed helping customers when they weren't complete jerks, I had fun messing around with all the cameras, and most of the people I worked with were pretty cool. OH YEAH, there was monetary compensation for my labor too.

Things didn't change much after liquidation. Although I didn't have to be as pushy about protection plans and providing the best guest experience, I was still always told to "do something!" when there was absolutely nothing to do or be held accountable for mishaps due to the lack of organization in the store. For the last few weeks I was basically getting paid to do nothing. It was an incredible waste of time. These two articles are great and almost exactly convey how I feel about the whole thing.

I realized I was unhappy there quite a while ago, for some reason I just decided that I didn't need to be subject to it anymore. No one was forcing me to stay there, I really didn't need the money (I ended up spending more because I was out all the time), and the ~~customers~~ vultures were starting to get to me. I'd hate to neglect my commitment to robotics and performance in school for something that I barely care about; this was an appropriate time to leave before I got too swamped. Not to mention I never had any time to do anything...now I do!

I'm unemployed. It feels great :D

On a Mission

2009-01-19T12:21:00.004-05:00

Today I'll be gathering supplies to make one of these:

I guess FIRST had some logistics issues this year with the game pieces, as Walmart was the only retailer aside from FIRST directly, and both are completely sold out. Luckily a very wise team managed to create their own and made a video and guide to replicate it perfectly, so now teams have an option to get game pieces to practice with. I'll be working on 1-2 test homemade orbit balls for 108 to work with, and if it goes well we'll make a ton more. I will soon embark on a short journey around town to

1. Home Depot to get some 1/16" polycarbonate and 1/8" rivets

2. Joann Fabrics to get some spandex and padding

3. Maybe to Walmart to see if by chance they have anymore orbit balls left

I would assemble the whole thing at home, but I don't have a bandsaw. So I'll prep the fabric coverings tonight and finish it up tomorrow.

So long

2009-01-19T10:33:00.005-05:00

and thanks for all the fish...

Circuit City couldn't emerge from Ch. 11 banktrupcy, which means goodbye to the country's no. 2 electronics retailer and goodbye to my job. While I'm not too disappointed about being out of a job in 60 days (didn't really need it), I am not looking forward to going through the liquidation process. We could go on and on forever about Circuit City's mistakes over the last few years that lead to its downfall, (oh wait, someone already has) but that's not the point. I wonder how the market will be with a Best Buy monopoly. Will online sales be up? Will the Best Buy haters convert? Will consumers just rely on Walmart, Target, and other brick and mortar retailers? I'm really not disappointed about losing my job at all, it just sucks to see such a huge company go, along with employment for 34,000 others. What a sign of the times...

I still have quite a lengthy post on consumerism coming up, but I still find it hard to believe how people are behaving now. I went to work on Saturday, unofficially known as Black Saturday, the first day of the liquidation sale, and it was worse than Black Friday in my store. Everything is 10%, with 20% off movies/music, and 30% off cables. The deals really weren't that great, but apparently brought traffic into the store in massive droves. Most people weren't making any major purchases, but buying small stuff like DVDs and CDs. Ironically, last week all CDs were 30% off...where were these bargain shoppers then? Ironically, most of our real Black Friday and holiday deals were cheaper than the liquidation prices now...where were these bargain shoppers then? Apparently, despite our bleak economic climate (the term Circuit City loved to use), people suddenly have money to spend!

I didn't expect customers to be polite and friendly; I did expect some rudeness, and I did expect some crazies, but not at the overwhelming level that I witnessed on Saturday. When I came in on Saturday evening, the parking lot was more packed than Best Buy's for once, there were a ton of people in the store, and it looked a complete mess, as if people were shopping like they were at Ross. I jumped into my normal role in imaging, with a positivie attitude. Unfortunately that didn't last for long, especially after being told multiple times "our goal is to sell, sell, sell...just move product out the door!" and running into some of the rudest people ever. I can't even count how many times I've heard "that's why you're going out of business!" (no shit!) or "I can get it cheaper elsewhere" (duh, so buy it there) or "I want you to give me a greater discount" (that would be considered theft) or "I demand to speak to a manager" (like that will help). People have obviously watched the news or read the articles to know that Circuit City ws going out of business, but clearly they didn't pay attention, as most articles and broadcasts clearly stated that we were now owned by liquidation companies and there is really no such thing as Circuit City anymore. We don't even have a website. A lot of media outlets have even publicized the deception and scheming behind liquidation, but a majority of consumers know nothing of that. They hear liquidation and think "omg really cheap stuff must buy now!" Working retail for 6 months, I've come to realize it's often too much to expect a logical thought process out of the average consumer. Most people also don't seem to care that their 10 - 30% discount is also at a result of of 34,000 people losing their jobs. Actually, some people are extremely sympathetic, but that gets annoying after a while too. Most people have no idea that I'm only 17, so they think I have bills or college tuition and a family to take care of or whatever like 80% of the others getting laid off. Luckily, my store is covered under the WARN act, which ensures I have a job or get paid for 60 days as long as I don't do anything stupid.

With what I've experienced on Saturday, I don't think I'll stick it out until closing on March 21st. We currently have a make-your-own schedule thing going on, so I can work as much as I want, whenever I want as long as I don't go over 40 hours, but I can't see myself taking advantage of that. The worse part of the day is recovery at the end. Even though there are no more vultures in the store, it looks like a battlefield, so we have to make it look sparkly and wonderful like a brand new store, just as if it was business as usual. When cleaning up at the end of the night, it sometimes looks like people came, in went shopping, and just said "ah, fuck it" somewhere in the process and just dropped everything they had wherever they were. So this is what working at Walmart must feel like...

I'm not really sure what to expect over the next few weeks, or if I'll even be there. If there was just a rush on Saturday and the hype dies down in the next couple of day, I think I can handle it and will stick around, but if everyday will be like Saturday...adios! No need for that much stress over 8 and change an hour.

Goodbye, Circuit City. It's been an interesting ride...

Multitasking is Bad

2009-01-12T02:31:00.004-05:00

This probably completely goes against everything I've stood for and done for like...ever, but I've come to realize the root of my issue with procrastionation. I used to think I was so awesome for being able to do so many things at once, but a few moments ago, a profound thought struck me -- multitasking is only worse. Having over a dozen tabs open on a dozen subjects, as well as iTunes, gtalk, and some other random program while trying to do an AP Lit assignment is just plain ridiculous. I've found that I'm not really getting work done faster, it's just a lack of self-control. For some reason I feel the need to check my email, Facebook, and Google Reader feeds and YouTube subscriptions every 5 minutes. I get caught up in links to other sites, self reminders to "hey, remember to do/check this!", or weird random questions that suddenly pop into my mind that I have to impulsively Google the answer for. It's the curse and blessing of the Internet.

This is horrible, horrible time management. People think that just because I get good grades I must study all the time and am constantly being productive. Ha! I rarely study or do homework at home, I just happen to be really good at BSing, can usually understand and retain something the first time I read it, and can read/work pretty quickly. I'm more than sure this type of behavior won't cut it in college.

Observing just how busy I was in these last few months with school, work, college apps, robotics, and everything else, I realize now just how precious my time is. There's no room for failure or goofing off, but I do it anyway. Somehow a majority of my work gets done, but the manner in which it gets done is not optimal. Getting only 3 or 4 hours of sleep on a regular basis is not healthy. Nor is bragging about a lack of sleep cool. Today was the first Sunday I've had off since July and I realized just how tired I was.

Back to this multitasking thing, in no way is this an efficient use of time at all. I spend more time switching between activities or looking for something else to do than actually getting work done. Fully dedicating my attention to one task at a time will get more accomplished in a period of time than trying to do 95 billion things at once. Duh!

I just remembered where this idea might've come from. Earlier today I read an article on Lifehacker about multitasking vs. continuous partial attention. Interesting, but doesn't really help me much besides providing a label for another bad habit.

Now that I know the problem, I don't know if I'll be able to solve it. Habits are hard to break. I can't imagine turning on my computer to do work without having my email and reader and music playing in the background. Perhaps I need to part from my computer when doing real work (doesn't quite work well with online classes). Perhaps I should stop lying to myself about being efficient and good with time management first.

Ironically, I'm writing this post while trying to knock out the last essay I'll ever write (except for the final) for AP Lit, looking at robot stuff on Chief Delphi, and organizing music on my iPod. Change is difficult.

Hmmpf, maybe I'll have more time to work with in the near future since I (and 40,000 others) may not have a job after next week...

Goodbye, 2008!

2008-12-31T01:22:00.002-05:00

In an attempt to equally divide my attention between finishing the last of my college apps and financial aid forms and trying to watch Jumanji (I haven't seen this movie in years, it's amazing!), I've realized that it's already the last day of the year. What a year it has been... Last year I wrote a similar post saying goodbye to 2007 with a much more positive mindset. I'm far too swamped at the moment to be that enthusiastic, but I'll get over it. 2009 looks to hold some excitement, let's see what it has to top from '08:

January - FRC Kickoff, FLL @ Hallandale

February - 17th Birthday, NJ Regional (4th seed, GM Industrial Design Award)

March - FL Regional (1st seed, Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control Award), lame spring break

April - FRC Championships in ATL, MITES rejection, intense AP cramming

May - AP exams, '08 Graduation (majority of my friends left)

June - school ends, begin enjoying relaxing summer break

July - find and reconnect with siblings on the Internet, start applying for jobs

August - started working at Circuit City, began last year of high school, started college apps

September - Mission Mayhem (won Powertrain Award)

October - SAT Subject Tests, ACT

November - SAT Subject Tests, historical election that I mildly cared about, got an iPod Touch, PopPop died :(, Black Friday madness

December - got deferred at MIT, crazy holiday hours at work (=more $$ and fatigue), Christmas, finishing last of college apps

I'm looking forward to 2009 with new classes, filing taxes, the robotics season, graduation, summer, and moving on...

On a completely unrelated note, this is an excellent movie night. Jumanji and now Richie Rich, two awesome 90s movies that I haven't seen...since the 90s. They're really making it hard for me to get stuff done. Must persevere!

Goodbye 2008, Hello 2009!

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-26T09:29:00.003-05:00

Even though the big show, Christmas, is over, it's still the holiday season, so I can still get this post out. I've always loved the cartoon holiday specials that air around this time, even if I have watched them multiple times a year for 17 years...

The animated version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, along with A Charlie Brown Christmas and Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! all hold a special place in my heart. Even though I haven't been feeling very merry this Christmas (or the last two for that matter), the songs from these shows still bring on an irresistable smile.

Yesterday was the oh-so-not-anticipated Christmas. I actually got my mom a gift this year, the Canon Powershot SD1100, which we both loved. I've had an inkling for a while that this would be a less fruitful Christmas for me, as I'm used to just about everything under the tree being for me, and it's about time to grow up blah "Christmas is for the kids", but I was still greatly satisfied with what I recieved this year. I got a pair of Bose headphones, a 400GB portable hard drive, Guitar Hero World Tour (game only), and the usual: clothes, money, and other knick knacks. I actually slept through most of Christmas, fully enjoying the break off from work and school.

I don't believe 2008 is practically over.

A Dream Deferred

2008-12-15T23:40:00.005-05:00

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

I don't think this could've been expressed any better than how the guy that shares the same birthday as me did. Just for the record, I'm not that disappointed at all. Relieved not to be rejected but dreading the thought of waiting 3 more months. And the journey continues...

The Final Countdown (Maybe)

2008-12-09T07:20:00.003-05:00

6 days until EA decisions for MIT are released.

Ahhhh...anticipation.

Accepted, deferred, or rejected, look for something here on 12/15/08.

I don't think I'll get in. We'll see on Monday I guess.

That quote "expect the worse and hope for the best" is really becoming more and more applicable to my life.

Note

2008-12-08T00:15:00.002-05:00

Note to self:

Noelle,

You are lactose intolerant. Dairy hurts. Be wise with your food choices. Do not eat large quantities of ice cream and/or cheese without supplements ever again. Don't forget that. It will hurt.

-Your Digestive System

Congratulations! You've been pre-approved for...college?

2008-12-04T22:38:00.005-05:00

Typically you'd expect to see that line on some ridiculous ripoff high-rate credit card application. Somehow they get ahold of your info, prequalify you, so all you have to do is fill out some basic info and you're set. Colleges have taken a hint. In the past 4 months I have gotten about two dozen of these types of applications from colleges, known as "streamlined", "choice", "elite", and "personalized" apps. The schools offer advanced admission and financial aid notices, shorter, less, or no essays, no need for recommendation letters, fewer questions, priority housing, and sometimes a waived fee. Sometimes they throw in a cheesy spiel before getting to the point to make be feel special. Oh gosh and if they happen to know I'm black and a female interested in engineering... I cringe reading "students like you" in that context. I assume the information used to prequalify potential students are solely based on standardized test scores. Most of them are written in the same exact format:

Seems like a great idea, right? It definitely makes applying to safeties easier. Most of these applications I'm getting are unfortunately from generic middle-of-nowhere schools that I've never heard of. Just as I was shortening my college list yet again, I get a few of these from schools that I was actually interested in at some point and now I'm applying to two more schools. Kettering's app only took like 10 minutes and at one point I was seriously interested in WPI. An acceptance letter won't hurt and it'll only cost me postage for transcripts.

It actually almost seems as if schools getting desperate at this point. The first letter is "hey have you heard of XYZ University?", followed by "why don't you apply to XYZ, we like students like you. We even have a streamlined application, aren't we cool and different!", turning to the stalkerish "hey we haven't heard from you. don't you like us? we like you!" and "okay, okay, we'll waive your fee and pretty much almost guarantee admission, just apply dammit!" Perhaps it's not that extreme, but it surely felt that way.

I'm sure none of the major schools will be picking up on this approach to admissions since these types of apps really don't reveal much about the student. I feel that it also cheapens the process and removes the desire to find a suitable connection between the school and the student. I'd definitely prefer for a school to admit me based on a holistic process taking everything in to account, rather than just the numbers. Is it convenient for both me and the school? Absolutely. Best approach? Probably not. I bet with some of these apps one could be admitted by a robot as opposed to a real admissions committee.

Welcome to the 21st century, folks!

Live!

2008-11-07T19:22:00.003-05:00

My personal site/portfolio, noellemanning.com, is now live! It's pretty much done, but I'm still tweaking some files and such before I post them, so there are still a ton of 404s. I was just anxious to get it up. The writing section is the most thorough so far. Go check it out! There will be more content (drawings, CAD, photos, videos, projects, etc.) REALLY soon. I'll post an update when it's done.

Early Christmas Present

2008-11-06T22:50:00.006-05:00

So after all the stress that October brought (testing, apps, exams, school, work, life, ect.) I decided a while back that I would save up and treat myself to something nice after everything blew over.

A few weeks ago, my iPod decided that it didn't want to function anymore, though for the past year it has been randomly deleting all of its contents, faking deaths, and being problematic in general. So for these last few weeks, all of my bus rides and walks have been silent (except for environmental noise, of course) and a bit peaceful at times. This was nice for a while, until I started to miss my music.

I had been eyeing the iPod Touch for a while now. It was cool when it came out, but it seemed like overkill since I thought I only needed my music and had no plans to play videos or use apps. In September when the new iPod lineup was released, the Nano caught my attention, and I was almost set on buying it had I had the money at the time. In the back of my mind I was also considering the Classic too, as the gb/price ratio was the greatest and the screen size was nice. By the end of September I had enough for whatever iPod I wanted, but I was completely undecided. Also, if I had purchased an iPod at that time, I would've almost completely depleted my account, which is no fun...I like having money.

In these last few weeks I fell in love with the iPod Touch. Not only the thin, sleek, multitouch, speaker-having, wifi capable, big, shiny screen goodness, but the apps! I don't know why I completely overlooked them when it first came out, but now I have a laundry list of apps I'd like to download or purchase as soon as I get my Touch. Speaking of getting my Touch, I'm getting an iPod Touch! I realized that the only reason I hadn't purchased it two weeks ago when I officially decided I was going with the Touch was that I was a cheapo. I wanted to hold on to my money for as long as possible. Why? I don't know. I think I was just a bit skeptical about making my first large purchase and parting with the money that I had labored (pfft!) for.

So tonight, I did it. I ordered my 16GB iPod Touch 2G. It went pretty smoothly until payment. "Authorization cannot be completed. Action Required!" WHAT?! I was more than sure that I had enough money and that I had certainly not surpassed my limit. Try again, same answer. I call my bank and apparently they had put a block on my account for making too many Internet purchases, which flags my card for suspicious activitiy. I think the security measures are great (I went through a dozen questions to get to the point) but it might've been embarrasing had I been in a store or needed to do something quickly. I spoke to 3 robots and 2 different operators, but they were all pleasant and it was all cleared up within 15 minutes. I simply reprocessed my order and my iPod should be shipping soon, arriving between Nov. 7-12! I'm excited!

I still need a few accessories for it though **hint hint** stocking stuffers?

Updates

2008-10-19T21:56:00.003-04:00

Okay, so my regular blog readers (anybody out there? ::crickets::) should know that I haven't updated in like 2 weeks. Yeah, shame on me, but I've been busy. REALLY busy. All excuses aside, I'm going to try to summarize some entry-worthy topics of interest, bullet-style. Here goes...

-I'm ready for college application season to be over. This is quite stressful and I haven't even sent off any apps yet! (That's my problem too)

-I'm actually starting to like my job. I actually might be sad to leave in January. More like I'll miss having money on a regular basis.

-Is there ever a time when there aren't any tourists in South Florida?

-School feels like a waste of time. There is really only one worthwhile class that I have this semester, which is AP Lit, and otherwise I feel like I'm wasting a potential day of productivity by being at school doing BS assignments all day (YES, I'm looking at you Robotics/Research I and VCM!). I passed the FCAT already; I don't need anymore practice writing prompts or basic words of the day. Is this senioritis or just a few horrible classes that ruin my day? I thought I'd enjoy these classes, but I'm starting to hate them because of the lack of concentration on the course material and instead on other useless crap.

-Taking the previous bullet into consideration, can I take a week off from school just to catch up with life? I wish I still liked school and that the environment was engaging, challenging, and interesting, and I looked forward to going back, like I remember it being in elementary school. Now I'm content with a laptop in front of me, just about anywhere.

-My iPod is gone. Kaput. I have enough money to buy a new 16GB iPod Touch now, but I feel like holding on to my money for a bit. I don't know why. I really want the Touch and I really miss having my music so readily available. Maybe I'll buy it after my next paycheck. Maybe I'll keep holding on to my money.

-I'm almost done with my website. Making it has been fun, frustrating, exiting, and has kept me up late for several nights. I think I'll be ready for a launch in less than a week. Sidenote: Google Chrome is awesome for web design.

-I have my interview for MIT coming up on Thursday. I'm kinda excited.

-How did it get to be halfway through the first semester of my last year of high school? Seriously, time flies.

-My laptop is falling apart. It's running fine on the inside, but the coating over the metal by the speakers is mostly scratched off, the plastic is lose over the headphone and speaker jacks, and a piece of plastic randomly broke off near the hinge. I'll get a new before college, but I need this to hold up for at least another 6 months. Please?

-I'm tired.

Conquered

2008-10-04T23:35:00.002-04:00

This morning I trekked over to Plantation High to take the SAT Subject Tests. Unlike Caesar, I did not conquer; I was conquered. I'm kinda bummed out that I did so poorly, but there is a reason why. I'm only in the second semester of Physics, I haven't seriously touched math since Calc ended in January, and I didn't have time to prep. Regardless, I would've at least like to have finished the exam! My stamina was horrible. Math II wasn't that hard, it just took me a while to get through the problems, and with Physics there was so much material that I haven't been expose to. I'm pretty confident that I did well in Literature, but those things are always subjective, so who knows... I'm not going to sit back and remain conquered though. I'm going to register for the November 1 exam, study my ass off for the next few weeks, and conquer this mofo!

October is gonna suck. Really bad. I can't even go to TNT because of the ACT (WHY would it be scheduled on a national testing date?!) Grr.

Do You Remember...

2008-09-25T00:36:00.006-04:00

the 21st night of September?

No?

Me neither. I just thought that the first line of September by Earth, Wind, and Fire would make an awesome blog title. The 21st night of September was quite uneventful. For some reason, I didn't sleep the night before, but I got delicious Chex Mix and a Monster in the morning, went to work and sold stuff, played an awesome round of Rock Band during my break, sold more stuff, left, went home, and went to sleep. That's it. But it was the last day of summer, thank goodness, even though seasons mean nothing in South Florida.

I can actually say that I enjoyed school today. In Visual Computer Modeling (VCM) we're working on our mobile device projects, in which we are supposed to design a multipurpose cell phone thing in Rhinoceros. I absolutely loathe Rhino and I have a hard time adjusting to the lack of design features from using Solidworks all summer, but I did manage to come up with something that looks okay. It didn't exactly come out the way I wanted it to, but that's life...and it still looks okay.

But that's not the good part. Sure it looks cool and everything rendered in a fancy 3D modeling program, but what about in real life? Oh yeah! Today we tested out the new rapid prototyping machine with the faceplate of my phone, the Boomerang. I've gotten lots of interesting feedback about it. Some people understand how it looks like a boomerang, some think it looks like a sideways Xbox 360 controller, and others ask "how the heck do you hold that thing?!" The prototyped model actually came out tiny since I wasn't drawing life-sized when we first started the project, but it'll make a cool keychain and my full-scale version will look even cooler. It only took 30 minutes to print the miniature sized faceplate and it was a completely effortless process. Machines are cool! We have so much new equipment in the new robotics lab that I can build almost anything that I want. I definitely have plans for more stuff to make and pictures will be coming soon. The next step of the project is to make an advertisment, but I'm going to take it a step further and make a real commercial.

I want to stay up all night and do stuff, but I can't. I have to sleep so that I can wake up in time to go to school. At least tomorrow is early release. Sleep is so paradoxical. I feel like I'm wasting time, but it feels so good.

At the Moment...

2008-09-10T01:08:00.003-04:00

I have way too much going on. Actually, there isn't really much going on, I'm just thinking about everything that will occur in the next three months at once and it's a bit overwhelming. I haven't been blogging much lately because I don't feel like ranting about the same ol' stuff over and over again. School. Work. College Apps. Sleep. Eat. Breathe.

Okay, so maybe it's not that simple, but my life is definitely getting back into that monotonous routine, which is partially a good thing because I'm more productive when busy.

School sucks and senioritis is definitely kicking in (as if it didn't exist 3 years ago, I can just officially call it that now). Everything is moving too slow, with the exception of AP Lit, which is actually enjoyable this time around. Robotics/Research is going well to be a freshman level class, the NXT platform is really cool, but I'd love to do more with it than the tutorial exercises. VCM is okay, I just absolutely loathe working with Rhino. I hate Anatomy and Physiology, and for some reason I get the vibe that the teacher doesn't like me, which is odd because I finish everything early and barely speak to anyone.

I might quit my job at Circuit City soon. It takes forever to get there on the bus and I'm not really digging the environment. I hate being pressured to hassle customers about buying services or a protection plan when they are clearly disinterested, don't have the money, or are leaving the country soon. Retail is definitely not for me. Hopefully I'll get a call back from one of the other places I recently applied to (hint hint, Laser Quest!) and perhaps I can be happy elsewhere. I guess people calling CC a hell hole and telling me "don't work here!" or "I'm leaving soon" should have been a sign.

I'm disappointed with Hurricane Ike. WHY did you avoid Florida? Pretty sad, but I think I would rather endure no power for 2-4 days rather than go to school and work. I was counting on that little peaceful vacation. You wouldn't expect this coming from me, but I think no electricity (ah, no YouTube!) for a day or two might be relaxing.

Boredom has sparked my creativity, and I've started drawing mazes again. On both Saturday and Sunday there were no customers (maybe 3 or 4) in the morning, so I started drawing detailed, tangly mazes on the back of scrap paper and challenging my coworkers to solve them. Most people thought it was cool, though they were generally confused with the concept, even though it becomes really easy once you begin. Solving one of these mazes is actually more a challenge of focusing than of intellect. I should start a collection if I (or other people!) don't lose them first. I started drawing mazes towards the end of middle school when there was pretty much nothing left that they could teach us. A lot of people liked them just because they looked cool, but a few were too difficult to solve (even I couldn't). Maybe I'll pick this up again. I like having the finished product before my eyes.

The thoughts in this entry were quite disorganized and I don't think I'm too satisfied with the way it came out, but only like 7 people are going to read it, right? I suppose this is just a reminder to my future self not to be disappointed in my writing. Haha I'm going to laugh at this eventually.

Google Chrome

2008-09-03T00:33:00.003-04:00

Yet again, Google has just improved their awesome level by like a zillion points. Today, they have released the beta of their new browser, Google Chrome. It's quite nice -- clean and easy to use interface with faster page loads. The transition from Firefox was effortless, as all of my bookmarks, browsing history, and settings were imported and implemented. Some interesting features I'm looking forward to are incognito mode, integration with existing Google Apps, new apps, the tab page, and whatever else Google wants to give us. Full run down of features is here.

I've been using this browser for about 2 hours, and it will probably become my main browser since I'm sick of crashes and other inconvenient bugs in FF3. I think the only thing that I'll really miss will be extensions, so I won't completely phase out FF. Who knows, extensions may be in the near future?

I'm still waiting for my Google OS!

Late-Summer Mentality

2008-09-02T23:25:00.003-04:00

I've never been to fond of the months of August and September. October isn't that great either, but it's sort of an in-betweener that separates summer from the holidays (there is no such thing as Winter here). This year, it's a bit different. Not only does late summer bring humidity and hurricanes, it also brings the start of this college application, but I'll get to that later. Let's talk about hurricanes.

So it seems as if my wish has already been granted -- a few months ago I hoped that there would be at least 2 hurricane days just for the heck of it (not before school though!) and we did indeed get them for the wimpy TS Fay. Now Hanna is coming, and probably Ike soon after. It feels like 2005 all over again with one storm right after another -- 2006 and 2007 were surprisingly dull in terms of oceanic activity. I'm not stressed out about a major disaster or anything since I feel like I can stick through anything after 2 weeks with no electricity during Wilma, it's just that I would hate for these storms to interrupt anything important that will happen in the coming months.

Speaking of important things happening in the upcoming months, I've been trying to focus on this whole college thing. It's been kind of difficult to organize my thoughts since I have so much on my mind at the moment -- I need to get a planner or thought book or something. I've removed RPI from my list, so now it's down to MIT, Olin, Princeton, Cornell, UF, and GaTech. I've been thinking about the essay topics, but nothing concrete or amazing has popped into my mind yet. I have a feeling that I won't be anywhere close to being finished early. I was registering for the SAT Subject Tests a few minutes ago but Firefox keeps crashing on me, so I guess it's not meant to be today. I did register for the October ACT a while back though. I'm working towards getting my scores in the 32/34ish and 700ish range, so I've got my work cut out. I'm also at a bit of a dilemma with recommendation letters. I'm sure that my teachers will write wonderful evaluations and such, but I can't really trust guidance to do the same. I hope it's not that big of an admissions factor. I've been keeping away from College Confidential for the past few weeks, and those that frequent the site know why. It's not healthy during this time.

Outside of school, I've been working...and that's it. Labor Day weekend was insane with me being there for almost 30 hours. Oh the tales of retail. I have an interesting post on consumerism coming up soon. I was planning to purchase my Nintendo DS after I got paid on Thursday, but it's really hard justifying a relatively expensive purchase when I've actually had to work for it. Every dollar that I spend equates to time now and I'm a lot more money conscious, even though I was a cheapo to begin with. Maybe I'll treat myself to something later, there is really nothing that I would want or have time to enjoy. Sucks. Saving is nice, I guess.

September is kind of a weird month. Summer vacation ends when school starts in mid-August, though the summer season doesn't official end until late-September. This creates a weird extended transitional period where it's not really summer, and not really Fall (Fall doesn't exist here either, there are just a few more cloudier days). My life is going by too quickly at the moment, it may be a good thing?

The Last First Day

2008-08-20T23:31:00.003-04:00

I knew I would be writing and entry like this for a while, I just couldn't figure out how to write it, or of what significance it would be. Many people make a big deal out of the first day of senior year since it is the last year of traditional schooling, so for some reason I hyped myself up too. As summer went on, I realized that I had little to look forward too. All of the typical senior activities such as prom, grad night, skip days, and what not aren't that enticing to me and I have little to look forward to education-wise. Eventually the hype wore off and I found myself completely unconcerned with the beginning of my last K-12 school year. The break that TS Fay provided also suppressed some of my excitement.

Last night as I laced up my new sneakers, packed my backpack with fresh supplied, laid out my clothes for the next day, and began packing my lunch, I didn't get that same feeling that I had each year for 12 years previous. It was just part of the routine...

Regardless of how much I was not anticipating this day, my alarm clock went off at 5am, and it was time to crawl out of bed and start this school thing again. Everything felt so weird and different at school. Barely any familiar faces, I felt alone. The freshmen wandering around with schedules glued to their hands and marveling over their new found "freedom" were amusing.

Enough about the experience, school is about taking classes and learning stuff, right? Let's get to that...

Robotics/Research 1: The new robotics lab is cool, even though its not completely finished yet. Though the class is full of freshmen, I think I'll still learn stuff and have fun. There are 2 other seniors that I know in the class too, so I won't feel that out of place.

Computer Applications 1: SUCKS. I know I'll be switching out of the class, being that I took it during my freshman year and there isn't really much to learn, but the 90 minutes that I spent there were excruciatingly boring and horrible. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but even a wise freshman asked me before the bell rang "what's the point of this class and how can I get out?" I don't know what I'll be switching to or when I can do it, but Visual Computer Modeling (VCM) is offered 2nd block, so I might take it if there's nothing else that I'm interested in.

AP English Lit: Basically our entire AP Lang class + a few from the fall class last year. Picking up right where we left off...

Anatomy & Physiology Honors: I DID NOT know that this would be a GP class. I assumed that half of the students would at least know what the course was about and cared to learn. Wrong. I also expected it to be taught by a different teacher :/ Our teacher, whom I have never heard of before, is actually on vacation or whatever until Monday, so we had a sub and did lame icebreaker worksheets.

I hope this semester flies by and I can't wait until next semester, I really like those classes. Until then, I'm just floating along...

Oh wait, I forgot about all that stress with SAT IIs, retaking the ACT, College Apps, and all that good stuff. Doesn't it sound fun?

Still Waiting

2008-08-18T11:59:00.005-04:00

...for Broward to follow Miami-Dade and close school on Tuesday too. (For those of you not in FL, the first day of school was canceled due to the anticipation of Tropical Storm Fay). Hopefully there will be an update on the 12pm news in a few minutes

EDIT: SCHOOL CLOSED TUESDAY! YAY!

...for this tropical storm/hurricane to decide where it wants to go and get there.

...to start school -- I don't mind relaxing a few more days though. Tuesday off would be perfect since I don't have to work either. But if there's no electricity, eh...

...to fully wake up. I've been physically awake for about 45 minutes, but my brain still isn't functioning properly. Getting out of bed might help. Laptops are so darn convenient.

Courses

2008-08-14T11:56:00.005-04:00

So, according to Virtual Counselor I have 3/4 of a schedule. I assume the rest is still being assigned or there is some weird error? I'm pretty satisfied (for the first time ever!) so hopefully nothing will change...

Semester 1:
1. Research I (yeah I skipped this as a freshman)
2. AP English Lit
3. Anatomy & Physiology Honors
4. ???

Semester 2:
1. AP Gov't
2. Cinematography
3. German III
4. ???

With that being said, school starts on Monday and I'm not even close to being ready to go back. Where did my summer go? I'm not doing any school supply shopping this year since I have a mini Staples at home, and I bought new shoes and clothes a few weeks ago. It's an odd feeling. I'm sure this working thing has something to do with it. I'm kinda glad I'm not out there shopping with all the crazies, but there is still something ritualistic about it. Oddly enough, I still have a slight feeling of excitement for the first day.

That List

2008-08-11T00:45:00.004-04:00

I've finally finalized my list of colleges that I will be applying to this fall. In order of preference:

1. MIT
2. Olin College of Engineering
3. Princeton University
4. University of Florida
4. Cornell University
5. Georgia Tech
6. RPI

I'm predicting that I'll get accepted into three of those schools, the other four are pretty far reaches. Later on I'll detail why I chose each school. I've started a few apps, now I can really begin to focus since I have my finalized list. I won't be surprised if I change my mind in the next few months though.

That 'Working' Stuff

2008-08-10T23:45:00.004-04:00

It still hasn't set in that I have a job, I'm working, and they're paying me to do it. I don't feel like writing long paragraphs that have to flow together, so I'm gonna do that quick thought thing again since that seems to work well at getting everything out...

-The art of selling things is really interesting. I think I currently suck at it, but I'm getting better. People are intimidating.

-Despite what those silly e-learnings said, I can categorize customers into several basic groups: the people that need to have their hands held along 110% of the way, the people that know what they want, the people that think they know what they want but are really clueless, and the browsers. After three days on the selling floor, I'm starting to like the first two a lot. I also like international customers too, they tend to spend quite a bit.

-Shockingly, almost 50% of the people that walk into the store speak Spanish, and about half of those only speak Spanish.

-I still get extremely nervous when people shove money or a credit card in my face after a transaction. "Duh Noelle, you work here!"

-Customers that use the salespeople efficiently are awesome. I don't mind being your personal shopping assistant for an hour if you're gonna spend $2K. Even if you don't spend that much, its still better than standing around ~~doing nothing~~ tidying up. I actually like answering questions. Ask away!

-Speaking of the oh-yeah-I-work-here phenomenon, it's still weird having people coming up to me asking questions...but oh wait, I know the answers, I have a key, I can help!

-No, we do not have any more Wiis!

-I prefer to sell cameras rather than computers. Odd thing is, I know more about the computers, cameras are just easier and more fun to sell.

-An interesting guy came in and schooled me on a few of the higher end cameras. Turns out he used to be a professional photographer. We had an interesting conversation about the tech industry and robotics and all that cool stuff. Turns out he works for Citrix too. He urged me to get out of retail as soon as possible lol. That's definitely on my agenda. This will hopefully be my first and last retail job.

-Public transportation sucks! I've never had a problem with it until I had to rely (NOT reliable, btw) on it daily. I hate waiting and I hate the heat. Screw that, I'm getting a bike.

-The power went out for an hour and a half today when a wannabe hurricane came through. We gathered to the front of the store and did nothing. All the customers left after a half hour. Apparently this happens often, but never for this long. "Free" $12 for me lol.

-I hate downtime. I'd rather be overwhelmingly busy with customers than have to pretend to be productive by re-straightening the same rows over and over again.

-I keep hearing things from employees that the new management sucks, which is why a ton of people are leaving and there are a ton of new hires (like me). Things like "this place is a hell hole" and "why would you ever choose to work here" aren't really comforting. I don't know if I should be worried just yet. Then again, the store's ranking is blah, so it's probably a necessary change.

-A 1-hour lunch break is a really long time when you can't just drive off anywhere. There are always cartoons on in the break room, Spongebob Squarepants has never been so hilarious.

-I can't wait to get paid! I want my Nintendo DS and new iPod already!

Confession

2008-08-08T01:38:00.006-04:00

I don't think this is much of a shocking confession, but it definitely is serious. I have an addiction; a terrible, terrible addiction to YouTube. I'm sure this is fairly common in our digital age -- I hate phrases like that, but it seems appropriate at the moment. I've come to realize that my fascination with Internet videos is becoming detrimental to my lifestyle. I'll watch pretty much anything, music videos, personal vlogs, comedians, random viral videos, educational lessons, school projects, babies laughing, vacation memories, preschool graduations, robot stuff, cooking shows, the list goes on infinitely. I know it hasn't always been like this though. When YouTube first launched, I found it interesting, but would only go on the site if there was a link to a specific video and that was it. Time went on, more content was created, and now I feel a void if I haven't watched at least a few videos a day.

Scenario 1 - Checking Subscriptions: I'm always logged on to my account, so when I go to YouTube, the first thing I see are the latest videos from the 45 channels that I'm subscribed to. That typically takes an hour or so to go through. From there, I usually get sucked into the YT black hole of no return with that 'Related Videos' column, or if the original video that I clicked on was a response to something else, or if there were any responses to the original video.

Scenario 2 - Links: Friends typically share links if they make something or find something cool or funny. Other websites also link to YouTube for a variety of things. Again with the evil 'Related Videos' column...

Scenario 3 - Search: Every so often something interesting will pop into my mind and I'll think "hmm, I wonder if there is anything on YouTube about this..." Begin vicious cycle.

Scenario 4 - Completely Random: There is no explanation to how I got to a video or why I'm still watching it. I just am, and I can't stop.

As much as I enjoy watching videos on YouTube, I lack self-control in this area. I can usually control myself when it comes to stuff like this -- I stopped watching as much TV as I did when I was younger, I don't eat as much as I used to, but I can't kick this YouTube thing! It caused sleepless nights, homework going undone, corny jokes to be made, and a sad dependence on user-created content!

My lack of work in my Calculus class has inspired this entry. I have all the intention of coming online and getting 3-4 assignments done in one sitting, but I get sucked in to YT. I'll look at the little clock in my system tray and set time limits, but I always end up ignoring them. "Ok, I'll start working at 1am" Looks at clock, It's 1:59am. Sigh. I hate that I disappoint myself more than I disappoint others.

Ramblings

2008-08-03T00:20:00.005-04:00

There is really nothing in particular that I want to discuss, but I have this burning urge to blog. So, let's do another one of those random point/story/memory thingamajigs...

-I've been training at Circuit City for the past two days doing e-learning in this tiny room. It's hella boring. I experienced a bit of panic earlier this morning when I thought I would be late to work...only on my second day. By the time the bus reached the Sawgrass area, I was 45 minutes early, so I decided to take the bus around the Sawgrass mall loop and get off at the stop closest to the store on the way back around instead of crossing the big scary Sunrise Blvd. @ Flamingo, plus it would use up some time since I didn't want to arrive too early. I carefully planned everything out with the schedules , but that was to no use! When we got to Sawgrass, the driver said the bus was going back to the garage and not looping around again. WHAT?! The schedule did not say that. Anytime a bus goes out of service, there is a 'G' after the time of the particular stop. There weren't supposed to be any G's until waaaay later in the day. So, it's 8:55am and the next bus is supposed to come at 9:02, leaving at 9:15. That would be cutting it pretty close, being that the buses are rarely reliable nowadays. I am presented with a dilemma; I can wait for the bus, not knowing if it'll show up on time, or I can walk. I ended up waiting until 9:07am and then walking when the bus didn't show. It was a long walk. 1.5 mile walk, in less than 20 minutes, while its 90 degrees outside. I was not a happy camper when I arrived. More like a sweaty and tired camper. I actually made it on time though....but the doors were locked since the store wasn't open yet. Panic ensues yet again. Me being a noob and all, I had no idea how to get in, but luckily someone saw me. 6 hours flew by really quickly, hopefully I'll be able to finish up the training tomorrow.

-MIT's application hasn't been released yet. What's up with that!? I bet they're just teasing us. This was funny. I believed it for about a second until logic kicked in. Princeton's online app hasn't been posted either. Is there some significant national delay?! I know, we're reading too far into this. Someone's reply was also awesome. Whhhhhyy is college admissions so nerve wrecking and unsettling? I wish I could just know sooner so I could try to start liking UF more, but there is still that slight slight chance that I'll be accepted at MIT or Olin, slight. I'll be patient.

-I'm staring at this Guitar Hero controller next to me and realized that I haven't played it in a really long time. I need to find time to play. I miss being hypnotized from the colorful, rhythmic dots flowing at me.

-The reality is setting in that school is starting really soon. Back to school sales are going on like crazy, I have two new pairs of shoes, and Broward Schools' website has changed once again. This is definitely the best thus far. Easier on the eyes, better navigation, and no ugly backgrounds or graphics. Virtual Counselor is also back up and it says that I'm a 12th grader now. I honestly don't care about that class pride 2009 hooha, I just want to know my schedule lol. Maybe once in my high school career the scheduling stars will align and there will be no conflicts and I'll get what I asked for. Maybe? Nah, sounds too good to be true. I want to see what fun course gets stuck on there this year when something I selected is unavailable. Weight Training II? Intensive Reading?

-So this was the first year that my half-birthday passed without me really noticing it (yesterday). Probably because there was another event taking place. I'm not one to celebrate or anything, I just usually take note since I always have to have an accurate mental representation of time and date or else I don't function properly "ah, I need to update my age to 17.5." Last six months of being a minor! Not that its's really important or anything, I can just legally enter a contract (get a credit card!), vote (which I probably won't be doing), buy cigarettes and lotto tickets (no), buy alcohol just about anywhere outside of the US (too bad I don't travel often), and work longer hours (eh, no). I guess 18 isn't really that exciting. I need the media to stop making a big deal about these events, yes I'm looking at you My Super Sweet 16/18/21!

-I need to go to sleep again. Waking up at 7am during the summer, during the weekend is no fun... I guess there won't be as much of a shock when school rolls back around and I have to wake up at an even more ungodly hour.

Yay!

2008-07-30T12:15:00.004-04:00

I got the job! I'll be working in sales at Circuit City selling cameras and the like. I only had one interview, which I thought went horribly, but apparently not since the store manager was impressed by some of the things on my resume and how I "sold" him a stapler that was supposed to be a camera. The interview was really supposed to be yesterday, but it had to be rescheduled. I usually get nervous with these types of things, but I was pretty confident when I went in yesterday. Today for some reason, the nervousness decided to make an appearance about 20 minutes before I went in. It could've just been the greasy McDonalds breakfast I had earlier disagreeing too...

I already have plans to blow my first month's pay, but after that perhaps I can start saving. In the meantime I'll need to come up with a few plans for managing my time with school work (depending on my schedule), applications, and other activities since I'll be working until close most days. That means no more afternoon naps :( Realistically, this will probably help me since I really do suck at efficiently using my time, and I'll need to learn to do that soon, really soon.

This is kind of surreal. Oh noes, growing up.

The Blog Gods Were Listening

2008-07-28T14:15:00.004-04:00

I got a call from Circuit City this morning for an interview! It would be immature of me to think that it had anything to do with the last post, but what a coincidence. My interview is tomorrow at 11, first interview ever. Surprisingly, I'm not nervous at all. I'm actually kind of excited. I really hope this goes well...

HIRE ME!

2008-07-27T00:04:00.005-04:00

In the past three months, I've applied to more than a dozen, probably closer to two dozen, various corporations in hopes that they will accept me to exchange labor for US currency. I have not gotten a single offer or even response yet. Is it because I'm failing their stupid personality tests? Is it because I have no experience? Is it because I'm under 18? Is it because the economy sucks? WHAT IS IT?!

(Actually, I've gotten 2 responses that have said I'm too young, but otherwise nothing.)

I've figured that a lot of people will be quitting their summer jobs soon as school rolls around, but I'm still willing to work. Maybe this will increase my chances of getting an offer? This weekend I applied to four more places, hopefully I'll get a call or some type of response next week.

I'm a bit of the lazy type when I have nothing to do, which is most of the time. But when I do actually have work to accomplish, the laziness goes away and I feel productive, like I am actually earning my spot on the Earth. I decided in early 2008 that working would have several benefits. My main motivator is money...I want to buy things. Interacting with the public should help me in some way or another, whether I enjoy it or not. Also, having something other to do than sleep or goof off on the Internet when I come home from school should help me develop some time management skills, which are supposedly important. Someone hire me! Please?

(Ha, what are the chances of any potential employers reading this?)

Mamma Mia, Here I Go Again...

2008-07-23T00:50:00.008-04:00

I don't know what's so captivating about ordinary movies and plays that just happen to have random outbursts of song and dance, but I absolutely love it. I have yet to see a musical that I have not liked (maybe I just have good taste in what I pick), Mamma Mia was no different!

My mom and I saw Mamma Mia at Sunrise Cinema 11, yes the theater that all the old people go to, on Sunday. I was surprised at how packed it was, wall to wall gray hair, saggy skin. I'm not used to actually sitting next to strangers without a 1-seat separation at the movies. We arrived relatively early, but the theater became packed very quickly. It was opening weekend, so I suppose crowds were to be expected, though it wasn't that crowded when we went to see Hancock on the 4th. The 20 minutes waiting for the lights to dim down seemed like the longest 20 minutes in my life, with the same E! and Coke trivia and celebrity quotes playing over and over and over and over and over again. Eventually the movie began, but there were no previews! Just dumb, really dumb commercials. This isn't how I wanted to start a potentially great movie.

Despite the lame setting, the movie was absolutely awesome! I won't spoil it for anyone that is reading and wants to see it. Unlike all the other musicals turned movies that I had seen previously, I didn't really know the storyline behind this one ahead of time, so it made it even more interesting. I got that same feeling of wanting to dance along while the catchy, upbeat songs were playing, and the jittery sing-along feeling after the movie just as I had after seeing RENT, Dreamgirls, and the good Disney movies from back in the day. The same omg-I-have-to-buy/download-the-soundtrack feeling. I always love a movie that makes me want to cry one moment and laugh the next. Speaking of crying, there was an old guy sitting next to us seriously crying during the wedding scene. I could not get over that. I know, laughing at old people is horrible.

So while we're on the topic of musicals, I was thinking about how awesome it was to see The Lion King, Live! last year when it came to The Broward Center. I don't think I was blogging back in May of 07, but the show was amazing. I might use the word amazing a lot, but this performance was just...woah. I was absolutely blown away and in awe throughout the entire show, from the musical arrangements, to the costumes, to the choreography, to the technical aspects...it was all just marvelous (I'm running out of adjectives). Back from my little aside, I somehow ended up checking The Broward Center's calendar recently to see what's playing, and guess what is...Mamma Mia. I was excited just to see that it was coming next season, but what's even cooler is that the last show is on February 1, which happens to be my 18th birthday! Yay! So I hope no one asks what I want for my birthday/Christmas this year, because I just told you. Thanks! (I hope I don't sound like a brat) For some reason people tend to get upset when they ask me what I want for a gift and I never really have an answer.

Another little aside: Something similar happened 2 years ago when Prince came to town for the Superbowl halftime show. The night before he was having a concert at the Hollywood Hard Rock, which happened to be the day before my birthday. Sounds just perfect, huh? Well, we heard the promo on the radio around Christmas and tickets went on sale the next day. Guess what...the tickets were completely sold out in less than 2 hours...and the cheapie I-can-barely-see-the-stage seats were starting at $100+. Apparently most of the tickets were bought up way before they went on sale to the general public by NFL execs and the like. So that didn't quite work out. Hopefully there won't be such a craze to see Mamma Mia on MY birthday, especially since it'll be here for a few weeks.

♬ dancing queen, young and sweet only seventeen ♪

2008-07-20T01:53:00.005-04:00

I have to go back to school in a month.

Booooooo!

Reminds me of that episode of Arthur where he makes a list of things that he wants to do for summer, the entire summer passes by, and with a week (or is it a weekend?) left, he realizes that he hasn't done anything on the list and rushes to do it before its time to go back. The only difference with me is that I did most of the things that I wanted to do (read: absolutely nothing :) ), and now I still don't want to go back. I still can prep for the SAT IIs, work on college essays, yadda yadda, but that's too much like school.

Just like I have this amazement with airports and planes, I also share the same enthusiasm with trains. Problem is I travel by plane more frequently than I travel by train. Actually, I've only been on the train a few times. Well, I can change that! I decided that sometime in the near future, probably next week, I'm going to take a little journey. I really don't have anywhere to go on a real train (nor do I feel like paying for an "expensive" ticket), so I'm going to go somewhere in the tri-county area on tri-rail. I have always found tri-rail to be pretty cool, being that it stretches from Palm Beach to Miami, the only issue is that it only goes in two directions, North and South, typically east of I-95, so in order to really get somewhere, you'd have to utilize some other method of transportation. The whole "use public transportation to get to work" scenario only works for those that live in the downtown areas. Broward needs to hurry up with that light rail system. I'll be gone by the time its implemented though. It's not like The Sims where I can pause "life" and stick some new features in. Nonetheless, this hinders my destination options a bit, which is why this is just an exploration trip, wandering around just because I can. Perhaps I'll go from the southernmost point of the route to the northernmost point. Perhaps I'll find and interesting place. Perhaps...

I'm really having a hard time believing that it's back-to-school time already. The ads in the Sunday papers were all about new pencils and High School Musical lunchboxes and dull polos and dorm stuff and clean white sneakers and things that are bothering me at the moment because ITS NOT TIME YET. Okay, the caps were unnecessary, but the whole school thing kinda snuck up on me. I had been content doing my FLVS work, but as for real school....nooooooooooooooooo. 30 days is a long time, but I have a feeling it will fly by. This summer is a little weird since I didn't experience the back-to-school rush last year being at CMU, I just went right back to school as soon as I got back and picked up a few new things I needed at the mall that weekend. Maybe if I ignore it I'll just forget and everything will work out somehow on the 18th. Yeah, that sounds good.

My Ears are Happy

2008-07-17T14:15:00.005-04:00

People have been raving about Pandora for a while now. I brushed it off when I first heard about it a while back, as I was satisfied with my current internet radio solution, Deezer, until content started getting blocked to the point where I could only listen to very few songs. So yesterday, I decided to give this Pandora thing a shot. Within minutes I had set up stations featuring my favorite artists and similar artists. Also, within an hour of listening, I discovered a lot of new music that I actually enjoyed in addition to some old favorites that I hadn't heard in a while.

So today, when I logged back on, I wondered what made this music service so much more awesome than all the rest. A few clicks away and I come across info on the Music Genome Project, which basically has focused on extensively categorizing music since 2000. That's what makes Pandora awesomer. I've mixed a few of my favorites together, so now I have this set of awesome music that I can listen to without skipping so often. It's actually better than randomizing my own music on iTunes.

Yeah, I'm sure I sound like they're paying me to advertise, but they're not, and it truly is a great service. I was able to make my ears happy, so quickly, so effortlessly.

Now back to Physics...I'm trying to be a good FLVS student and get back on pace (I've never really been on pace lol, I'm ahead in AP Calc though!).

GROSS

2008-07-14T13:13:00.007-04:00

On Saturday we went out to Ruby Tuesday for dinner. On the way back, we stopped for gas and I ran inside the minimart or whatever it's called to grab a snack. I purchased a Pinapple Fanta, Tropical Skittles, and Rolos. I love Rolos, they're like the perfect blend of caramel and milk chocolate. Well not any more! I opened the paper and carefully opened the gold foil wrapper so that it wouldn't rip. I noticed the chocolate was flaky on the first piece, but I figured it was because of a temperature change or shipping. NOPE. I pulled the first piece away from the second and THERE WAS A LIVE WHITE WORM STARING AND WIGGLING AT ME from my once delicious chocolate candy!!!!!! EWWWWWWWWWWWW! We hadn't pulled off yet, so I ran back inside and the also disgusted cashier gave me my money back and threw away the candy. I regret doing that now because I could've taken a picture. I was thoroughly disgusted for the rest of the evening. I still am.

So being an avid Consumerist reader, I thought the best thing to do was send off an email to Hershey's informing them of their horrible product mishap. I decided to do a little research first though. Apparently, having worms in various chocolate candies is pretty common. In the course of my research, I stumbled upon an FDA report that basically sums up how many bugs, how much of their poop and other crap that shouldn't be in our food is actually in our food. I found out that in chocolate, there is an average of 60 insect fragments per 100 grams of chocolate. A package of Rolos is 48g and there are 8 Rolos in each package. If I'm interpreting the data correctly, that means that there could've been about 10 insect fragments in every bite! YUCK! And this is perfectly legal and "safe". Not for my mental health; I'm not too comfortable with the thought of eating bugs. I've read that the problem stems from the cocoa beans, but I don't understand how the larvae could survive the cooking process and make it out alive in my chocolate, unless it came in somewhere between the factory and the store to my hands. I remember one of the local news stations did a report on worms and larvae in Mars M-Azing candy bars, and they found out that the problem was not limited to only a few incidents. Heat and improper storage had something to do with it, but that wasn't the only problem. I've read that the worms aren't harmful if digested, but still, who wants to something that something else already ate with the something else still inside?!

I still haven't written to Hershey, but I probably will later today. They'll probably send some coupons for more wormy chocolate and apologize for my dissatisfaction, but I wish that memory could be erased. I probably won't be eating chocolate for a while. That was a horrible experience.

Summer Fun

2008-07-10T03:32:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was absolutely awesome. I haven't had so much fun in quite a while. I met up with some friends to see Wall-E, but it was way more than just watching a movie...

Gameworks: while waiting for others to show up, Dom and I went to Gameworks for a quick game of DDR. After playing just one game (3 rounds), we were exhausted. There were some lame kids hogging the "good" machine with the more sensative pads, so we used the other machine and I practically killed my feet/ankles wearing flip flops on the slippery, barely responsive pad.

Mall Wandering: I'm not really used to just wandering around the mall just for the hell of it, so it was kind of strange at first, but eventually I enjoyed not rushing around from store to store like we usually do. After about 30 minutes of walking around my feet started to feel the pain of playing DDR in such horrible conditions and wearing those cheap $3 Old Navy flip flops with absolutely no arch support whatsoever. Luckily there is a Target at Sawgrass and I didn't hesistate to get another pair of comfortable flip flops (I already have a pair of these, but you can never have to many!). I trashed the horrible Old Navy flip flops and our other friends arrived shortly after. We bought our tickets for Wall-E but had some time to spare, so we went back to Gameworks. Over an hour later and the same machine hogs were still there. After abusing my feet before, I was in no mood to play DDR again...but I did.

WALL-E: Is probably up near the top of my favorite movies now. I knew from the moment I saw the first trailer sometime last year that I would probably love this movie, but I had no idea it would be this great. The movie carried a great message about gluttony and the environment with a cute love story. The theme of Buy N' Large in the movie actually reminded me of the principles of the movie Idiocracy. I did sense a bit of irony watching everyone around the theater stuff their faces with oversized and overpriced food...I even had a gigantic wannabe Dr. Pepper. This movie is definitely reccommended and I'll probably have WAAALLL-EEEEE stuck in my head for a while. I'm probably going to see it again with my mom.

sitting on the WALL-E bench after the movie

Food: I haven't had Panda Express in a really long time. It was really good, but they were being cheap with their portions. I've never been able to finish a Panda Bowl in one sitting, except for today. Earlier in the day I had a Lemonade icee from Burger King. Carbonated sugary icee drinks are absolutely delicious. I don't know why I'm so addicted to sweet icy things, carbonation is just a nice extra.

Laser Quest: I've only been to Laser Quest once, and that was with camp about 8 years ago. I vaguely remembered it, but it was definitely 10x better this time around. Dominique works there so she had free passes to share (THANKS!). I chose the name "awesomeness" as an alias, but it somehow got entered as "awesomest" which was equally okay, I guess. We arrived just in time for the last game of the night. Our marshall, who I went to middle school with (just found out!), was very humorous and pretty up to date on Internet culture and kept the jokes coming the whole time. Into the airlock for briefing, strap on the packs, and the game is on! I definitely payed more attention to strategy and detail than when I played before, and it made the game seem so much more fun. 15 minutes felt like 5, but we were all drenched in sweat after the game ended. I ranked 18/29 with 6% accuracy, not tagging everyone that was playing. Regardless of score, it was still a great game and I had an amazing night with cool people.

The odd thing about summer is that I can go hours on end without saying a word or, often days without speaking (in person) to someone my own age, or even leaving the house for that matter ( I think my record was set last year with 10 days). I don't know why verbal communication sucks so much, but this was definitely a nice social break in the monotony of my individualistic summer lifestyle. I blame the Internet...it's too addicting.

I Love the World/ I Love Robots

2008-07-03T02:11:00.005-04:00

If you watch Discovery Channel, you may have noticed this commercial being aired:

Isn't it great? Gustavo and I think so too. So does xkcd. Out of admiration and utter bliss, we decided to write a parody of our own about an hour ago...

I Love Robots

I love robots
I love when sparks fly
I love their colors
I love to discover why
I love all of FIRST
And all its quirky perks!
Boom de Yada Boom de Yada
Boom de Yada Boom de Yada

I love engineers
I love to build things
I love metal gears
I love hurdling
I love all of FIRST
And all the fun emersed
Boom de Yada Boom de Yada
Boom de Yada Boom de Yada

I love to program
I love electronics
I love crazy games
I love physics
I love all of FIRST
And all it does for us
Boom de Yada Boom de Yada
Boom de Yada Boom de Yada

The meter and rhyme scheme are a bit off, but it still sounds okay when you sing it. Perhaps we'll make a recording some day. Thanks Discovery Channel for that awesome commercial and for making me feel happy inside!

The Beginning of an Adventure

2008-07-01T11:29:00.005-04:00

The UF application should be available online in a few hours along with the Common App and a few other schools. I'm still debating on whether I should start with essays and such now or just relax for a bit and wait until later. I suppose this signifies the beginning of my journey in the college application process.

On Friday morning AP scores became available by phone, so I was impatient and paid $8 to call and hear my scores. They were supposed to be available today, but like all of the other exams, scores are usually available a few days earlier. Unfortunately when I called, not all of the scores were available. The verdict...

AP US History: unavailable
AP Lang: 3
AP Psych: 3

I'm still devastated. I know it's not that bad, and I may still get credit at some schools, but it's really disappointing. I also know a 3 is still a pretty good accomplishment and not the end of the world, but I expected to do better, especially in two courses that I thought I had a very firm grasp on. I don't even want to know my APUSH grade now. ::deep sigh::

With scores like these and last semester's grades I'm probably not going to get into MIT unless my SAT Subject Test and ACT retakes are amazing in Sept/Oct. I should learn to like UF more...

Shoobie for a Week

2008-06-24T18:12:00.013-04:00

This past week family was visiting and I got to be a tourist in the city that I live in. From my knowledge of Rocket Power, tourist = shoobie. Sure I'm about 15 minutes away from anything and everything (the beach, Hard Rock, Sawgrass, Indians, etc.), but I never really got to treasure what some people may call paradise. I think for the first time in my 13 years of living here I actually enjoyed Florida. It seemed a bit absurd to take pictures next to things that I see on a regular basis, but someday I'll be able to appreciate these photos.

On Sunday we went to the beach. Fort Lauderdale beach isn't one of my favorite beaches at all, but we chose to go there because of the amenities and shaded areas. Early on, I went on a bit of a lactose overload and decided that I could eat cheese dip. Bad idea. I didn't feel well for most of the time we were there, but soaking in the sun and experiencing the tropical breeze made me feel better. We took a little walk to 7-Eleven since the hot dogs weren't packed, and no trip to 7-Eleven is complete without a slurpee. Actually, the only time I think I've gone to 7-Eleven without getting a slurpee was when we were in New Jersey earlier this year and it was snowing. After coming back from the slurpee superstore, I still wasn't feeling well enough to go in the water so I just sat at the shore and let the waves touch my toes while I watched the boats and parasailers in the distance.

On Tuesday we went to Sawgrass and did the normal shopping thing. For dinner we went to Rainforest Cafe, where I haven't been in ages...I think I was 8 or 9 the last time we were there. When at the mall we usually just walk around Rainforest because there are usually a bunch of tourists taking pictures everywhere, throwing pennies at the fake alligator in the little pond, observing the purple elephant reservation stand, or just crowding the store/playground in general...this time we did all of that. As soon as we were seated, which happened to be right next to the gorillas, a "thunderstorm" began. I forgot how real it all seemed. The rain and thunder sounded real, the lights flickered accordingly in perfect timing, and the animals all reacted. I'm sure my younger cousins enjoyed it more than I did though.

Wednesday we went to the Seminole Paradise (Hollywood Hard Rock) to visit the Okalee Village and Museum. It was horrible. Besides the fact that it was raining, the museum was tiny, so we didn't bother going. The outdoor portion could've been explored in about 10 minutes, but we stretched it out. There were alligators, bears, panthers, birds, skunks, raccoons and all those other animals that they showcase at Florida touristy places. The only plus of that trip was that there was a Wetzel Pretzel and they have the most delicious pizza pretzels and pomogranate lemonade.

more pictures with alligators

Thursday happened to be the most touristy of all. We went on the Jungle Queen Riverboat Cruise, which took us around the Intercostal and New River in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The boats are docked near the Bahia Mar, right across the street from where we were beaching a few days previous. This was my 3rd time on the Jungle Queen, 2nd time during the day. I never had the opportunity to sit on the top deck, so I insisted that we sit up there. We arrived early so we got perfect seats at the front of the boat. I had seen all of this before, but it seemed so much cooler this time around. Regardless, we took pictures of all of the multimillion dollar homes of celebrities and other rich people, listened to the cheesy jokes, learned little tidbits about the area that were forced into memory during 4th grade, and kept hearing about Wayne Huizenga, the guy that apparently owns almost everything in South Florida. We passed by the museum, the prison, the downtown area, the las olas area, and lots of other big, expensive, important places.

The Museum of Science and Discovery + IMAX Theater

After a 45 minute ride we end up at a private island where there are animals, an alligator show, and touristy things to buy. During the night cruise there is an all-you-can-eat barbecue dinner with entertainment. I wasn't too interested in the alligator show since we'd seen alligators the day before and I saw a similar show before last year at Everglades Holiday Park when we went on an airboat ride.

There were iguanas and all types of birds (including peacocks) walking all over the place, but I enjoyed the monkeys most. For the first time ever I actually felt bad for caged animals since they all looked so sad and bored. After about 45 minutes on the island we returned the boat and set sail back to the other side of Fort Lauderdale. On the way back we took an alternate route and passed by Port Everglades to see the the Royal Caribbean [whatever] of the Seas docked. How I miss cruises... Shortly after the port we were back at the dock and it was all over.

just another cloudy day in Fort Lauderdale

On the flip side, yesterday we got a taste of Florida Snow...soot. There were terrible storms in the afternoon and I'm guessing lightening struck a tree out in the Everglades so there might've been a fire(there were no news reports; it might've just been small). We walked out of Walgreens only to see a hazy setting of low thick black clouds and smell smoke in the air. Little white ashes started flowing down, looking almost like snow. It was kind of scary and cool at the same time.

Late Night Ramblings

2008-06-14T03:45:00.005-04:00

5:03 am EDIT: Something suddenly moved me to check Pinnacle. Exam grades are up. I got an A on my AP English final!!!!! At the beginning, I didn't think it was possible. Too bad it didn't help my grade, but I'm still happy

It's 3:46am and I think the Internet has gone to sleep. No new forum posts, everyone's status is 'away' or offline.

I've been listening to a lot of Flobots lately. I heard Handlebars quite a while back and thought it was interesting, and a few days ago I heard another one of their songs and was hooked.

Pizza Hut's Tuscani pastas are delicious. Especially the Meaty Marinara. It's fast food, but its real -- amazing!

Friday the 13th passed by without me noticing that it was Friday the 13th. Adult Swim had commercials about it for days, some how I managed to forget...

I feel the need to rearrange my room again. I probably shouldn't. I probably won't.

I'm babbling. And I made two posts less than an hour apart. Time to stop.

Rewind

2008-06-14T02:40:00.006-04:00

I just ran across a folder of writing pieces that I wrote between late 8th grade and early 9th grade. What an angsty little early-teen I was! Some of it is hilarious, some of it is corny, some stuff just plain horrible that has me thinking "why the heck did I write that!?". This definitely warrants a creative writing blog that I've been putting off for so long. Here's one from early 9th grade:

School has started once again
Time for my brain to go full spin
Summer's not over, but we still go to school
And I think that is just cruel

Got my classes
They weren't that great
Time's like molasses
Speed up for heaven's sake!

Intro to Info Tech
What a pain in the neck
I'm not learning anything
Isn't this supposed to be high tech?

German is a favorite of mine
Auf Wiederzehen is my favorite line
I love to learn about Deutschland
I hope to know it like the back of my hand

Biology Honors seemed like something I'd like
Instead I wish that I could take a hike
And oh how I love Ms. Flip-Zip Crazy
Her presence is the opposite of fresh cut daisies

Gifted English I is a little challenging
But it is very intellectually stimulating
Analyze this, who, what, and why
Not time to think, no time to sigh

Computer Applications
Ha! Must be a joke
It's no fascination
Thought it was a hoax

In Recreation there's nothing to do
Half the time I stare down at my shoe
We play Mancala, Chess, and Connect Four
How much longer 'til I can be out that door?

Concepts of Engineering isn't that hard
We've already learned about memory and sound cards
The thick PC book is what we read from
Just do the questions and test, then you're done

High School isn't all that bad
You can't let the small stuff get you mad
I can see great opportunities ahead
If only I could get out of bed

I'm seriously LOLing at myself now because I was just as pessimistic about school 3 years ago as I am now. For some reason I thought that I used to like school. I still love learning, but just not going to school and doing useless things. Do I really hate school? Or has Dillard made me this way? I completely forgot that we used to call Ms. Miller FlipZip because she used to use the phrase when she was ranting about petty stuff like pages being stapled horizontally instead of diagonally or something. I should write another one of these for this past year...

EDIT: Came up with something really quick. It's sooo cheesy.

Junior year has come to and end
No surprise -- I'm at Dillard again
Same ol' stuff, just for the 3rd time
Next year I should reach my prime

What a year it has been
All the work, I can't seem to win
PSAT, ACT, tests every week
Frantic about if my scores will peak

Calculus, a seemingly challenging class
Luckily it wasn't hard, I managed to pass
I learned how to derive, manipulate pi
And discovered the TI-89 does not lie

Second class was Electronics 2
I learned most of this stuff at CMU
Studied circuits, didn't challenge us
How the heck did I end up with a B+

AP Psych was quite the thrill
Disorders, behaviors, anti-psychotic pills
I learned more about Bio than I did in 9th grade
Loved this class, hope the memories never fade

Interactive Design was really cool
Dealed with a lot of web design tools
Built my first site, all from scratch
I think this course and I were a match

Second semester came too fast
The homework-less nights did not last
I ended up taking Physics online
FLVS from eight 'til nine

AP English was a bit of a shock
So much work, I'm jumping off the dock
I think we were prepared quite well
But only my exam grades shall tell

Robotics again with Research V
We never got to take our ROVs for a dive
Independent projects to wrap up the year
Nothing hands on, didn't touch a gear

AP US History was the class to dread
How was I supposd to cram this all in my head
I was terrified about the exam
The night before, I rushed to cram

Now I'm a Senior, one more year
Nothing more at Dillard that I fear
Apps, tests, graduation, all that fun stuff
High School life -- I've had enough

Happy 1st Birthday!

2008-06-09T03:20:00.003-04:00

...to my blog. It was really on June 1, but I was a little busy then so I forgot.

Now I want cake.

Extended Exhale

2008-06-09T01:53:00.005-04:00

School ended on Thursday, which means I'm officially a senior now, and my summer has begun. I'm a bit ticked that exam grades aren't on Pinnacle (and they probably won't be), so I won't know the final verdict until report cards come out. I felt that I absolutely aced the AP Lang final, but who knows now...

So yeah, I don't think I've ever been at school after school on the last day (picked up last year, out with friends the year before) but this year was pretty crazy. It all started in APUSH (the last exam) when someone came back from the restroom saying that there were people lined up outside of the fence and police cars all over the place. Less than five minutes later, sirens are heard. Hmmm, what happened? A few more minutes pass and loud yelling sounds along with a rush towards the southwest direction is seen/heard. Confused about what is going on, the bell rings at 11:50am and everyone rushes out, DJ and I heading in the opposite direction towards McDonalds...it's an Early Release Day tradition.

It was a surprisingly clear walk, except for the mob of people spontaneously changing direction right outside of school. There were about a dozen police cars outside of the school and tons of traffic. McDonalds was absolutely empty when we walked in. Being that there was 40-50 minutes between the time that school ended when buses left, it was typical to see a ton of people there. Being that we were coming from a relatively far building from the exit, we'd typically not be first...but there was no one there. A few people showed up shortly after, but no where close to the crowd you'd even see on a regular weekday. So we leisurely walk back to school because we didn't have to rush since the typical 20 minute trip only took 10. It was extremely hot though. When we get back to school, there's a bit of a strange site; the gates for cars to enter/exit are both closed, but the pedestrian entry was open. MeanSecurityLady was physically blocking the pedestrian entry. She didn't speak to anyone else, but somehow picked out from the crowd that we were trying to get back to the bus loop. With relief, we scooted to the front of the crowd...to no use!

MeanSecurityLady: "Uh-uh y'all can't come in dis way...y'all gotta walk ALL the way around!"
Us: "ALL the way around?!"
MeanSecurityLady: "Yeah, where the buses come in"
::sigh::

For those of you that don't know the area, it's a pretty long walk. I've actually never walked on that side of the school before. The red line is the extremely long route (did I mention it was HOT!) we took on Thursday, the green line is the route that we typically take.

As we approach the bus entry gate, some other friends are walking back telling us it'll be impossible to get in and that security on that side mentioned that they had to walk around to the main entrance. HA...not going back again. We tried to tell them that they'd be rejected there, but they kept going, and so did we, determined to get back in the school somehow. Just as we're 20ft from the gate, a huge fight breaks out across the street and they begin closing the gates. We ninja our way in JUST as the gate is closing, and security yells at us from the inside "y'all lucky!". You would've had to have seen it to believe how smooth it was. The gate closed less than 4 inches behind me. They would've had to open the gates when the rest of the buses came in anyway...

After that ridiculous journey, you'd think that that was the end of the drama for the day. Nope! We got back to the bus loop around 12:15pm, so there was enough time to chit-chat, say goodbyes, and eat our deliciously fattening fries. A CBS4 helicopter suddenly appears out of nowhere. Now a helicopter is usually no big deal since I-95 is right next to the school and there are always accidents and runaway criminals and whatnot, but this time the copter was hovering directly over the bus loop and circling the perimeter of the school. People start waving and such, I snap a picture (didn't come out too well). No one knows whats going on, by the way. All of the "trouble" is outside of the school. The rest of us were just locked in.

Just when we thought it was over, 2 cops on motorcycles pull up to the bus loop. Why? I don't know. Then, I turn to the left and 2 guys with bullet proof vests just seem to appear out of nowhere. It was weird. A few more buses arrive and then they suddenly take off without any notice. I barely made it (along with everyone else).

Still don't know what happened, if anything happened at all. Just glad to be far away from there.

My Life as Illustrated by PhD Comics

2008-06-04T08:59:00.002-04:00

Thoughts

2008-05-23T12:12:00.003-04:00

-School is practically over. With AP exams over, there is really nothing to do. It's a waste of energy going to that place everyday and then doing pretty much nothing.

-It all came so quickly (referring to the above). I forgot that with the end of the year comes losing another group of friends. Tuesday is the last day for seniors and it's only a half day. I should've made more friends with people my age (or in my grade, rather). Next year is going to be really lonely.

-I need a job. I want things. Things cost money. I don't have money. I should obtain money. I need a job.

-I've solidified and narrowed down all of the schools that I'm applying to in the fall and all of the things I need to do to better myself before then.
Appying to: MIT, Olin, UF, WPI, GaTech, RPI
Need to: Take Math II, Physics, US History, and Lit SAT Subjects Tests, Retake ACT, maybe take SAT, start apps in July/August, be done with everything before November

-Apparently there will be no official closing of the year event/ceremony/picnic or whatever for robotics this year. It's kind of weird. The last meeting was on Thursday, a lot of people are leaving. Next year should be...interesting.

-I think I'm going to get a bike. I feel really immobile and I'd like to go places. A car is out of the question, I don't even know how to drive yet. Also, just riding around for the heck of it seems fun.

-There was an absolute failed attempt at a food fight yesterday. Someone thought it would be brilliant to toss every box of condiments into the air, provoking a tidal wave of students that were waiting in line. Little did the mischievous one know that they'd soon be tackled down to the ground by security and administrators. Quite a site. Even funnier that this came after an announcement that "we know what's going on. don't even try anything! you'll be expelled, not suspended...expelled" said the voice from the back of the cafeteria.

-I talk about school too much.

-TV sucks. With 300+ channels, it's a shame that I can't find anything to watch.

-8 days of school left. Yay!

-It suddenly got really hot. It went from being cool in the mornings and then in the high 70s-mid 80s daily to suddenly being in the mid 90s, hot, sticky, and humid EVERY hour of EVERY day. Oh wait, I forgot that I lived in Florida.

-Guitar Hero IV looks lame. Blatant Rock Band knock off with the drums, mic, etc. The fact that a Lenny Kravitz song is in the trailer and possibly in the game is a appealing, but probably not enough to buy the entire set, maybe just the game. Somehow, I'm getting Guitar Hero Aerosmith when it comes out.

-I have nothing else to say. The end.

15 Minutes

2008-05-18T21:49:00.004-04:00

From AP exams to cheesy award ceremonies to the daily trials and tribulations, this week has been exhausting. I really am beginning to just hate the school I go to. Before it was just a dislike and I blamed myself for choosing to go there, but now I realize this place is seriously dysfunctional. 1 more year...

Tuesday was the AP Psych exam. I haven't really touched the material since January, and I had a brief refresher in mid-April. The morning before the exam I flipped through every single chapter of the book, looking over vocab words and such, which helped a bit. It's quite a coincidence that the single concept that DJ and I would repeatedly quiz our friends on actually appeared on the exam as an FRQ -- Cognitive Dissonance. I think I might've finished that question in 15 minutes...which is good because I spent about 30 on the other.

Me: Hey [person], are you ready for AP Psych?
Person: Yeah, I think so...
Me: What's cognitive dissonance then?
Person: uhhhhh??
Me: [explains]

This happened at least 3 or 4 times with about 3 different people. We joked about it after the exam (of course after the 48-hour limit :P). And no, I knew nothing about any exam materials before I saw them, please do not investigate my exam or call the Office of Testing Integrity. I guess College Board and I are even now for that horrible Vietnam essay in APUSH.

I wasn't really worried about English since I knew that you can't really study for the AP Lang exam. You either know it or you don't, and you pull from everything that you have learned to form logical conclusions. What I was more worried about was actually being able to take the exam. Somehow, there was an error on the school's behalf and they completely forgot to order my exam...only my exam. I have been registered in the course since the beginning of the school year, my teacher rechecked the list back in March, and I even went to the pre-registration. Exam day, I arrive and my name is not on the list. The guidance counselors there were quick to make it seem like it was my fault and turn me away before attempting to come up with a solution. They made it seem like I wouldn't be able to take the exam at all. I was forced to leave my seat and stand by a door while they "sorted things out". While the exam materials were being organized, one counselor went back to the office to check the validity of my enrollment, to no surprise was no different from what I told them. They then called my teacher, attempting to place the blame on her, but she also had the proof that she confirmed my name on an earlier list. Apparently my name magically disappeared somewhere in the process. I was told that I would just have to take the exam on May 21 and there would be a slight chance that someone wouldn't show up and there would be an extra exam, but it seemed unlikely as more people began trickling in. I was absolutely pissed. I didn't have anything for school that day, so I would be screwed in all of the rest of my classes and completely alone in English, besides the fact that I spent the entire night studying. I don't thinking I can accurately describe how I felt at that point. After 15 minutes in limbo, they decided to close the doors and do the official count. LUCKILY, a few people didn't show up and there was an extra exam. I was still a bit on edge and in no mood to take an exam after that scare (I tend to worry a lot), but somehow I calmed myself down as he stated "You may now open Section I and begin working for the next...".

The MC section was quite delightful. MUCH easier than all the practice material that we'd been exposed to, and NO ROMAN NUMERAL QUESTIONS! Hopefully CB outlaws those forever...I have never gotten one of those correct...ever. On most practice exams I'd only get 50-60% correct, but I'm a little more confident about this test. The Free-Response section has been posted if anyone is interested. I didn't have trouble with any of them, but the last one reminded me of an FCAT prompt way too much. It actually forced you to qualify this year for the argument essay, which made the argument a bit forced. Most of the essays seemed quite one-dimensional. I'm thinking 7/7/6 for my scores, though I'll never know.

On Thursday I had to stay after school for a robotics meeting. We were doing interviews for managers/officers for next year, and the last one dragged on waayyyy longer than it should've, isolating all but two people from the discussion. I don't think anyone else cared about the difference between natural and non-natural characters or textures in an animation, but whatever. We eventually got out of there around 4:40pm and made a mad dash to McDonalds in less than 2 minutes (It typically takes around 5 minutes to walk there, longer if you get stopped at the light). There was a promotion going on that day where you got a free Southern Style Chicken Sandwich with the purchase of a medium or large drink. For some reason, they were extremely slow and we didn't get out of there until 4:55pm. Activity buses usually leave exactly at 5:00pm. Uh-oh. We practically ran back to the school to the bus loop, and everyone was walking around so nonchalantly, most of the drivers not even in their buses. After all of that rush, my bus wasn't even there! Actually, it never showed up. Buses began taking off around 5:15pm and soon there was an almost-empty lot. After talking with security and another nice bus driver for 15 minutes, there was a solution. People from my bus were split off to two empty buses with other people that were bus-less that afternoon. There was only one person on my bus, so I got home the same time that I normally would've.

I didn't get to eat anything I had until I got home, but it was pretty good for McDonald's. I was expecting a glorified McChicken, but it was actually real chicken breast with a tasty breading. Clearly a Chik-Fil-A knock-off, it comes close enough to give them a run for their money, but nothing like the original. Now I have something else to eat at McDonald's besides snack wraps. Despite the not-so-awesome week, I still got free food, which is indeed awesome.

Coming Up for Air

2008-05-10T01:26:00.005-04:00

It's been a rough week. Anxiety levels were highest last night when I'm sure my heart rate and blood pressure were way above the levels that they should've been.

I don't want to go into a "Top 10 Reasons Why Dillard Sucks" list, but this next item definitely ranks high. Typically, when there is an issue in the school, tardiness for example, it takes the administration quite a while to figure out a plan to curb the issue. Most of their methods are often counterproductive. Tardiness has been an issue for, I don't know...forever. They decided to target it now, the end of the school year, and the week of AP exams. So as of Monday, teachers are supposed to lock their doors promptly at 7:40am and send all of the scums of the earth that might have happened to be 30 seconds late to the cafeteria to receive a 45-minute lecture from the principal and their punishment. The second day, they made announcements all throughout the morning indicating the status of their tardiness enforcement plan...

7:40am, Male Voice: "Teachers, please lock your doors. Do not allow any students in at this time. Please send all tardy students to the cafeteria."

7:45am: Morning Announcements begin [10 Minutes]

8:35am, Mail Voice: "Teachers, please note that the tardy students have been released from the cafeteria, please allow them back to class on with a swipe pass (?)"

8:40am, Principal: "Teachers and students, please excuse this announcement [goes into 5 minute long speech about how tardiness is detrimental to learning blah blah we need cooperation of everyone blah blah I-like-to-waste-time-and-hear-my-own-voice-and-contradict-myself blah blah] Thank you."

Annoying. Luckily I had headphones on, so I turned up the volume attempting to drown them out, but it was still bothersome being interrupted every 30 minutes or so.

At the end of the day, they usually do afternoon announcements 5 minutes before the bell rings. For most classes, this is a sign to start wrapping everything up, putting away books, materials, logging out etc. For some reason, they decided to start making announcements at 2:25pm, completely disrupting the end of the lesson.

2:25pm, Male Voice: "Teachers and students, please be advised that tardiness is disruptive to the learning environment. Students - please arrive to school on time, and teachers - please lock your doors promptly after the second bell rings."

Hey, you know what else is disruptive to the learning environment!?

2:30pm, Another Male Voice: [random announcement about not bring electronic devices to school or using them; must be in the off position]

2:35pm: Afternoon Announcements

By the time all of this talking was over, it was impossible to finish the assignment, thus forcing us to carry it over to the next day and delay further exam preparation. Thanks, administration for all those useful announcements!

--------------------

So, today was the day that I had to face my greatest fear this year...the AP US History exam. There was a lot of history that we didn't cover in class that I knew would be exam, and I had no idea how I would learn it all in such a short period of time. I spent most of this week reviewing what I could but after taking a practice test on Tuesday/Wednesday and getting only like 20 points, I was devastated. I spent Thursday night reading the entire Princeton Review prep. FOUR hours straight of pure reading. Magically, I was absorbing it all. 100 years of history in four hours. I took one of the practice tests at the back of the book and felt a lot better. I didn't properly score it with penalties and such, but I checked my answers and I was satisfied. Much better than the 20 points I scored the day before. Although I was a little more confident, there was one area of history that I still wasn't sure about and I knew it was my weakness, but it seemed relatively recent, so I doubted it would be prominent on the exam. In the morning, I reviewed material from the AMSCO book to refresh what I learned last night. I still was uncomfortable about the area that I was a little unsure about. Funny little anecdote -- During the county's AP Review back on April 12, DJ and I were both clueless during the APUSH session. For some reason, the instructor kept bringing up The Gilded Age. Having never heard of this and feeling completely lost, we both looked it up as soon as we got back to school. It was still kind of vague since we barely reached the era preceding it, but I fully understood it after last night. this morning, every time I flipped open my book, it opened to "Chapter 19: The Gilded Age, Politics and..." I took it as some sort of omen.

7:50am, we all get seated to take the exam. In typical Dillard fashion, it seemed unorganized, behind schedule, and overall just chaotic. Being my first AP exam, I was a little nervous, yet determined. The MC questions were surprisingly easy...easier than the practice test we took at school, easier than the PR practice tests, and easier than the AMSCO sample questions. I was shocked...and delighted. I only skipped 10 questions, and I predict that I may get a few wrong, so that brings my score to around 65/80 with penalties. I calculated this during the test to figure out how important my essay scores would be. I desperately hoping that that section in history that I didn't know to well wouldn't be on the essay portion, but low and behold, when I opened the book, the DBQ was that one event that I just did not grasp too well. The other FRQs were fine, we actually spent quite a bit of time reviewing it in class the day before, so I was pretty confident. I can't be specific since I'm not allowed to discuss the questions at the moment due to College Board's 48 hour confidentiality agreement. I managed to pull something of worth together for the DBQ, and I ended up being satisfied with the 3 pages I wrote by the time I reread it, especially since I underestimated what I knew. Hopefully I was going in the right direction. I used every minute (except 5 to proofread) of the 1 hours and 55 minutes given! I was exhausted by the time the exam ended, being that I have never sat and just wrote 7 pages worth of...stuff...before. Looking around after the exam, most people had given up, not even attempting the FRQs. Oh well... I used a pre-made worksheet online to figure out my potential score, and it's looking a lot brighter for me than I thought. Wednesday and Thursday, I thought I was ultimately screwed and bound to fail. Today, I'm pretty sure that I passed, and I might be able to pull a 4.

One thing that really ticked me was the interruptions during the exam. I understand that the bell schedules can't be changed since the rest of the school must still function, but the phone rang 4 times, other students interrupted several times during the exam, thinking that their class was still taking place there and then loudly communicating with the guidance counselor from across the room, and oh yeah...another announcement. I was 2/3 through the last FRQ with 15 minutes remaining and an announcement comes on to indicate that there is something going on for Teacher's Appreciation Week. They've been announcing it all week, and no offense to teachers, but that was really annoying and disruptive. It was so unexpected while I was "in the zone" and completely disrupted my thought process, many others agree. A lot of AP teachers called and made complaints all week long, pleading them not to make announcements between 8 and 12, but everyday, there was some useless announcement made during that time. Thanks again for your very useful information, voices behind the intercom!

Now I'm relieved since my hardest exam is over. Psych should be easy and I'm sure I can handle English. I think I'm going to play Guitar Hero, I haven't touched it in weeks.

Busy

2008-05-03T22:12:00.005-04:00

This past week has been crazy. I think I've crammed more English and History into my head than my brain cares to process. I'm sure millions of students across the globe are going through the same thing...preparing for the dreaded AP exams next week and the following week.

Surprisingly, I've managed to effectively use my time this weekend thus far. Yesterday I worked a bit on my site, which I'll speak a bit about later. Today, I goofed around on the Internet a bit, and then did an AP Psych practice test, some AP Lang multiple choice questions, got some physics done, and now I'm taking a little break. I've been doing pretty well on the Psych MCs and I've recognized all of the topics in the previous year's FRQs that I've studied. I still have to study for APUSH, but it just seems so intimidating, with so much more left to learn. The exam is this Friday =/. Somehow I'll force myself to do it....

For a while I've wanted a place to showcase some of the random things I've done and projects that I've worked on, sort of like a portfolio. Its kind of just something I wanted to do for myself to document my past, but then I realized that it could probably be useful for putting in the 'Additional Information' sections of college applications to show more of me than what a few sheets of paper can reveal. I was planning on making it a project for the summer since I have nothing else to do, but I got bored on Tuesday after finding out that I had no homework, so out of the blue I just threw something together. It's coming along rather nicely. I still need to find a host and come up with a domain name. Perhaps I'll include a sneak peak when it has more content.

Yesterday I received my free copy of SolidWorks Student Edition 2007 in the mail, thanks to the Robotics Summer School that SolidWorks is putting together for this summer. The first 2000 to sign up got a free copy (I signed up about a week ago) and I think anyone can participate. Each week from July-August they are going to put up lessons, tutorials, and other stuff in an online learning environment. Sounds cool; I've wanted to learn SolidWorks for a while, especially since I've heard that it's way better than Inventor.

Yay for a productive weekend!

YouTube Weekend

2008-04-26T12:32:00.002-04:00

...I can already feel it coming.

For now I'll leave you with one of my own...

2008 FIRST Robotics Championships

2008-04-22T20:40:00.020-04:00

Two days later, I've finally rested up and resumed normal life (even though I missed school because I overslept today). Here goes...

Wednesday:
We left Fort Lauderdale around 10:30am. I've flown to Atlanta from Fort Lauderdale like a bajillion times, this was no different. We arrived in Atlanta at exactly 11:59am. We were greeted at baggage claim with:

We also had to wait a while for our shuttle to show up, enough time for some cool pictures

This year when we arrived at The Westin, our rooms weren't ready, so we had to store our bags before we parted ways to explore the city. A few of us went to the Georgia Aquarium, others went to The World of Coke and Five Points.

There is one word to describe the aquarium...amazing. I've wanted to go since it opened last year. The fish were really cool and all, but what I was more impressed with was the methods in which they were displayed. A lot of the tanks were surrounded by glass ~5 inches thick, which slightly distorted the image.

these things were the coolest

who doesn't love jellyfish?

and penguins!

There was also a neat part where you could crawl under and stand in a tube-like structure among the penguins. We were entertained. For me, seeing live penguins was totally worth $27 alone. Don't ask how much I'd pay to see or touch a giraffe.

future Gator?At the aquarium, I also got to pet sharks and stingrays, sit on cool modern furniture, and confirm my thoughts about not eating seafood :). Wednesday was a beautiful day in downtown Atlanta. We cut across Centennial Park to get back to our hotel, and it seemed like a scene out of a movie -- kids playing in the playground and in the fountain, people playing football, frisbee, reading books, tanning. That night we went out to Durangos, a steak house, for dinner. It was...eh. Just an overpriced Applebee's/Chili's/Friday's. This year we were on the 62nd floor (only 10 away from the top!) with an amazing view. It was great waking up and going to sleep seeing all (most) of Atlanta beneath you.

Thursday

we have taken over!

Taking up the entire Georgia Dome and 3 parts of the Georgia World Congress Center, the 2008 FIRST Robotics World Championship is underway! We met the New Zealand principal that we would be hosting for the weekend shortly after entering the pits. Since there will be an FRC Regional there in 2009, a few teams were asked to host a visiting group of New Zealanders. They wore hats with kiwis on top, thus a possible nickname for their regional and theme for many teams, the Kiwi Regional. It was great talking to him, explaining a bit of FIRST and the way we do things while hearing about other cultures and school systems at the same time. Our practice matches went pretty well, but didn't work out too well since everyone was interested in testing out their own features instead of playing with the alliance...we didn't get the ball much.

That night we went to Benihana for dinner. It was so highly anticipated, but unfortunately sub-par. Still fun, I guess. Curfews suck. I barely got to use the Internet since it cost $16/day for the room, though free in the lobby, and we were forced into our rooms at 11pm.

Friday
Let the games begin! Officially, at least. Guess who showed up to support FIRST...

Former President George Bush

During his speech, he made the statement that might just as well be the new motto for FIRST. Team 1649 (who just happened to be our alliance partner in the eliminations) even made buttons with the phrase, and Dean Kamen was wearing one the next day.

"FIRST is like the WWF, but for smart people." - George Bush

Qualifying matches started, though they didn't go too well for us. Our robot performed the best it has ever been, averaging over 40 points per match alone, but not so great alliances murdered our ranking. We lost EVERY single match on Friday, more matches than we'd lost in qualifying ALL season long. The mood wasn't that great on the team, though we knew we were performing well, so we still had a chance.

While I was supposed to be eating lunch, I stopped by Scholarship Row to talk to a few colleges and see about some of the new FIRST scholarships being offered. I checked out WPI and RPI, didn't get a chance to get to the MIT table because it was too crowded, but spent a while talking to the nice representative from Olin. I am in love with this school. And guess what, they have admissions blogs too! I think it's #2 on my list now...right below MIT, but more on that later.

I met up with my cousin, Dorienne, that afternoon for a while before heading off to dinner with the team. AZIO! We've gone to this restaurant every year, and it is a pretty darn good Italian restaurant.

Saturday
The Saturday of any robotics competition is always the busiest, except at the championships, it x5 more busier, with 4 divisions running eliminations at the same time, all leading up to the finals on Einstein. We played 2 matches on Saturday, finally winning our last match and reversing our previous regional record of winning all but one match.

We were a bit worried about getting picked for eliminations, so right after our last match, we went back to the pits to "sell" ourselves to other teams. In doing so, we realized that alliance selection had already started, so Jhon and I made a mad dash from the pits back to the dome. Jhon could run faster than I could, so he was there to accept if we were picked, which we were! I suddenly received all types of phone calls from people in the stands "WHERE ARE YOU GUYS!?" lol. He arrived just in time. We were the second pick of the #7 alliance with 1649 and 527. The eliminations didn't go too well, we were up against a tough alliance of 33-45-2337. We didn't think we had much of a chance without great strategy and cooperation from all of our alliance partners, but unfortunately that didn't happen. One of our partners was a bit of a ball hog with a really slow ball-pickup method. It slowed us down a lot, I don't think we even hurdled in the first match. The second match was a bit of a mess too. We played to the best of our abilities given the circumstances, but even still our alliance wasn't tight and we made a few bad decisions as to how we scored. We were done for the season. We packed up the crate and headed out to watch the finals. By no surprise, the HOT alliance won.

After the Curie division finals ended, Gustavo and I left to sit in the students' section where two representatives from each team were to sit in case we won an award. These just happened to be the absolute BEST seats in the house, right in between the main stage and Einstein, so we could see the final matches clearly and see the speakers, Dean, Woody, and all the big wigs up close. The finals were intense. The semifinal matches seem so good that they should've been the finals. The 1114-217-148 alliance was the alliance that everyone had been dreaming of since regionals started, and they came together from Galileo and hurdled (quite literally) their way to the top. Congrats to them! It was quite a show.

The fun didn't end there. After spending a good 15 minutes getting out of the Dome, up the packed escalators, through the crowds, and to Centennial Park, I finally got into the social with a few other team members. The rest of our team was faaar behind, being that they were sitting over by Curie. The food sucked as usual, the entertainment was a little interesting, and the bounce houses, carnival games, prizes, glowsticks and lighty things, and FIRST drag race were all fun, but nothing compared to the karaoke tent. Once we found that, we were there until the end. The request list was pretty long, so we didn't sign up to sing, but we still sang along with everyone else, jumping around in the dry fountain. The last song was "Thanks for the Memories" followed by the fireworks. Pretty nice ending. As usual, the fireworks were great, and the reflections off the sides of the various large downtown buildings were even cooler.

Back at the hotel we continued with the party, turning one of the rooms into a rave, complete with glowsticks and techno! It was more of a one/two-person rave, but we all had fun. I had no intention of falling asleep at 12 because I wanted to pack and take more pictures, but fatigue apparently has more power than intent.

So now it's all over, back to normal life (as if I had one). Pictures from the entire weekend are here, here, and here.

HEY I JUST NOTICED....108th POST! w00t w00t!
awesome coincidence.

Rejection

2008-04-15T16:40:00.002-04:00

I didn't get into MITES.

Sucks =/

Goodbye Procrastination?

2008-04-13T23:57:00.005-04:00

It's a Sunday, minutes before midnight, I have school tomorrow, and all of my homework is done. Amazing. Simply amazing. It's a pretty good feeling knowing that I don't have leftover work to cram in tomorrow.

The AP Review yesterday was pretty helpful. It confirmed that I knew pretty much all that I needed to know for AP English and AP Psych, but also confirmed that I'm absolutely "gescrewed" for AP US History. I was most surprised to hear that I'd previously been told just blatantly wrong information by teachers that could've really affected my score, such statements as "You must use..." or "Never...". Hmmpf. I have no idea how I'm ever going to cram in 150 more years of history in less than a month.

I'm really excited for the Championships this week, but not too excited about all of the stuff I need to do before I leave. I just realized that I only have one day left to do an entire week's worth of work. I honestly planned to get through most of this week's work ahead of time so that I wouldn't have a mountain load of work when I got back. Not gonna happen...

ANXIETY!

2008-04-11T04:29:00.004-04:00

This week has been intense. More work in every class that I could've ever imagined. What an interesting way to start off the semester. Some of the huge loads:

AP Lang: Essays daily, multiple weekly tests, 2 books to read at home, 1 in class, hundred of vocabulary words...ALL AT THE SAME TIME

AP US History: There's no way possible that our class can finish the book. I guarantee most of the students in my class won't pass the exam. Yay for my PR prep book instead! Nonetheless, the workload as still increased like x2 in the past week.

Robotics Research VI: Finally a robotics class that encompasses the 'research' title. We have to pick an Advanced Research Project, with our topic due today and then for the rest of the semester we're doing smaller research projects and other projecty things that will lead up to our ARP. I also have to somehow chronicle my experiences in the tech program for the past 3 years into a newsletter for my final portfolio by the end of school today...

The county's AP Review is this Saturday, so hopefully I'll gain some confidence as to how I'll do in May...or I'll become extremely depressed. Regardless, I'll continue to work my ass off for the next month.

FIRST Championships are next week! Next week this time I'll be in ATL, hopefully sleeping, prepping for the first day of qualifying matches. Divisions came out two days ago also and we're in Curie again. It doesn't look scary like Galileo does, but there is still a share of pretty competitive teams. We leave in 5 days!

But what I'm really most excited about is MITES decisions! According to people on CC that have called or been accepted and what not, decisions were mailed two days ago, which means they should be here REALLY soon! Hopefully I can find out by phone today? I'm flipping out now...

It's Over

2008-04-07T00:20:00.007-04:00

Spring Break is official over. It's Monday. I have to go to school in a few hours. Boo.

It seems impossible to get through this APUSH work. I know I hate history and the way this book is written in certain sections, but this has been the worse ever. I'm using my Princeton Review guidebook to sum up what the chapter has covered, but then the American Pageant Guidebook asks so many weird nitpicky questions that I then have to go and hunt for within the chapter. I can't win. I'll finish eventually... Maybe I'll take a break from this and flashcardize some English stuff.

Flashcardize: to take words from the Poetry & Prose vocabulary packet or other novel vocabulary sheets of Mrs. Dinlocker's class and tranfer them into self-created Microsoft Word based flashcard templates to be printed, cut, and memorized.

From Noelle's Made-Up-Words, Vol. 2

Yesterday I went out with a few friends to Sawgrass. Usually this place is packed with teenagers in front of the movie theater and sprinkled throughout the Oasis, food court, and the rest of the mall. For a Saturday night during Spring Break, it was relatively empty. It was a bit late, but I expected more. Where did all the teenagers go?! We went to Gameworks, where we played DDR, only to get extremely tired, and then to the movies to see 21 finally. It wasn't as bad as some have said it is, but now I want to play blackjack (I knew how to play before the movie though).

4.5 hours to get 2 chapters of APUSH and a page of English vocab done... Is there a way to temporarily block myself from YouTube, Chief Delphi, College Confidential, and Facebook?

EDIT: 3:41am, DONE!!

4AM

2008-04-04T04:09:00.006-04:00

It's 4am...where did the time go? Where did my Spring Break go? I vividly remember when it was last Thursday and I was relieved to be home from school for a week. I remember when it was 1am and The Boondocks ended and I was planning on going to sleep within the hour. How the hell did it get to be 4am Friday morning?

Looking at the clock and shockingly seeing 4 there reminded me of a TED Talk we watched in Interactive Design last semester about 4am. It's one of my favorites...

Apparently 4am is the new midnight, the most ungodly hour known to man. Midnight is nothing now! I love the "Coincidence? No, it's creepy!" lol.

Today I finally purchased my AP US History review book (Princeton Review is a lifesaver) so that I won't fail the AP exam. All of my other AP classes have been progressing fine, and I feel as if I'll be prepared for the exam, but this one is insanely far behind. I found out from some people online that most classes in the United States are around Ch. 30ish in the American Pageant; we're on 13 =/. There are 41 chapters worth of stuff that need to be shoved into my brain, and I only have 12! So now I have to cram with PR's summaries instead of learning everything the right way. Talk about poor course planning. Sucks for the rest of my class, though they probably don't care anyway. I'm hoping for a 3 or 4.

April Fool's 08

2008-04-02T03:12:00.003-04:00

I'm a little late, but I had an awesome day on the Internet looking for Easter Eggs and getting pranked by dozens of sites.

I knew Google had something up their sleeve, so I actually went looking for these around 1am last night. Checked Gmail first, and of course there was something new.

Gmail Custom Time - allows you to send emails from the past.

How does it work? - Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality
Virgle - found it through YouTube in an announcement from Larry Page and Sergey Brin about a settlement on Mars in a partnership with Virgin. Pretty entertaining.

Google Wake Up Kit - sends SMS messages to wake you up, getting more aggressive with each message, ultimately resulting in water-dumping and bed-flipping.

YouTube - linked all videos featured on the front page to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, rickrolling masses of people.

xkcd forwarded to Questionable Content which forwarded to Dinosaur Comics which forwarded to xkcd. Confusing for a second, but I eventually caught on after QC went to Dino Comics.

Think Geek - loads of new items, from a USB Pregnancy Test to Caffeinated Cereal to a Betamax to HD-DVD converter to a new Wii game, Super Pii Pii Brothers.

College Humor - claims that College Humor was bought by some rich guy for his spoiled brat daughter, and College Humor is now her MySpace page.

Even Blogger had to throw something in. When I came to write this entry, there was a new announcement about Google Weblogs. When you click 'Check it out' or something like that, you are forwarded to a YouTube video, not only getting rickrolled, but getting rickrolled by Tay Zonday (the Chocolate Rain guy)!

I know there are tons more out there, but these were some of my favorites. I'm surprised that no hacks have been reported from MIT yet...

Spring Break!

2008-03-30T02:19:00.005-04:00

No school until April 7th...yay! Thursday was a pretty awesome day of school. I really thought that I failed my AP Lang exam. Not finishing an essay seemed like a huge deal, but luckily she averaged the two essay scores and the 6 short responses (B+) and then averaged that to the Vocab/Reading Comp. score (B), which magically turned my grade into a B! Phhheeeww. I don't think I've ever been so excited to have a C in a class, and a B on the exam. Same with APUSH (except I have higher than a C in the class). The DBQ didn't quite make sense to me, so I kind of BSed the essay. Also, I've never gotten a grade higher than a C on any exam in that class (I suck with dates) and magically, on the midterm, I get a B. I'm pretty satisfied with mediocrity for once (even though most of the class failed). But honestly, I didn't work that hard this semester since I was distracted with something else, so I know I'll do tons better 4th quarter.

Now that that boring school stuff is out of the way, on to Spring Break. So far I have absolutely nothing to do but work on Physics. I've played more Guitar Hero in the last 4 days than I have since I've had the game. It's fun, but I reeaaalllly want Rock Band. Which is expensive. But not for the PS2. Which means I need a 360. Which is expensive. Which means I won't get Rock Band. :( After playing once, it's like you're hooked forever.

I spend all of today watching robotics regionals on GameDay. It was pretty awesome toggling between Bayou, Greater Toronto, and Boston throughout the day, and it almost felt like I was there during some parts. Even behind my computer, it was so exciting! The Bayou finals were pretty intense, with 118 and 148 on the same alliance, though 148 died a few times, and 118 missed a few shots. I was cheering for the Krunchy Bacon (1902-79-?) alliance, but they weren't doing to hot. Of course 1114 dominated at GTR, no surprise there. The Blue Man Group played at the Boston regional, and the show was pretty um, interesting, though cool nonetheless. What was more awesome was Woodie Flowers' entrance from the second level of the area by rope down to the field level. I watched a bit of the Hawaii regional, but it was clear that Pink and 254 were gonna win it. I think the NYC regional is the only one next week, hopefully it'll be exciting -- all eyes on them.

I can't wait for the Championship! We've had a pretty successful season, and now this is the big show. We were originally staying at the Omni, but due to that Tornado that wrecked downtown ATL, the Omni is no longer available to teams during that time, so we got relocated to the Westin again. The Westin's not too bad, I mean it's a wonderful hotel, but the elevator situation is ridiculous. With 72 floors, 6 elevators does not cut it, especially during peak hours (6:45am - 8am) when teams are leaving and (6pm - 8pm) when teams are getting back. Oh well. Meyers said he asked the travel agent to try to book lower floors (where the view sucks and you'll probably get a view of a parking lot), but I hope for higher floors with an amazing view (since it really doesn't make a difference with the elevators). Whoa, I used a lot of parenthetical phrases there.

Back to the Championship, I'm already pumped and sure it'll be a blast. I'm really anxious about divisions, since as soon as they are released we can start to scout. Most of the dominant forces have been made apparent since practically all of the regionals have been played out, so now we're all just hanging in there until mid-April. From what I've seen in Atlanta, nothing can be guaranteed, and no one can ensure a spot on Einstein. I don't know why I'm still rambling on...

Today (yesterday rather) there was an energy conservation effort, Earth Hour, where you were supposed to turn off your lights between 8-9pm to conserve energy. I found out about it this morning from the blackened Google homepage, which explained the event. I participated, because I happened to be taking a nap during that time. Apparently entire cities and corporate facilities are doing so also. Pretty cool...

Two More Days!

2008-03-25T22:14:00.004-04:00

Some of the news feeds that I read daily are Lifehacker, Unclutterer, and Zen Habits. I find this type of stuff interesting, but as much as I have pretended to be all organized and such, I really haven't been lately. I realized how pathetic I was, so I decided to optimize my life and get back on track as a good student and a real human being. You can learn quite a bit from those web blogs, and instead of me usually going "hmm, that's interesting" I actually took some of the stuff I read and applied it (oooh!).

Today I read about a neat trick on Lifehacker that allows you to embed a to-do list right into your desktop. I thought it was pretty cool and useful, so I tried it out. Much better than notes jotted down on random sheets of paper in my backpack that rarely see the light.
For the past 5 days, I have gone to sleep at a consistent time. Though 5 hours of sleep isn't really adequate according to blah blah, its WAY better than the 1.5 - 4 hours that I'd been getting for the past month. Going to bed at 12 is still pretty difficult.
In addition to going to sleep at a reasonable hour, in those 5 days, I didn't press the 'Snooze' button on my alarm clock. I found that if I actually wake up on time, and move at a reasonable pace, I won't have to rush to do everything in the last 5 minutes before walking out the door. I also found that my cell phone alarm is a minute or two faster than my alarm clock, so I often end up waiting for my secondary alarm to go off as a signal to "GET UP!"
My backpack has been horrible this entire school year. I thought that cramming a semester's worth of work into 1 or 2 plastic folders would do the trick, but it failed miserably. The result was random pieces of paper in my book bag, getting folded, crushed, and lost. This afternoon, I found a binder, punched holes in everything that needed holes, and neatly organized all of the work that was in those poor folders.

It's a pretty refreshing feeling, being on top of everything and such, but there's still a ton more that I need to work on. I have a really huge problem with falling asleep as soon as I get home, and then I can't wake up until 7pm, and then I can't seem to do anything productive for 2 hours, and then it's like not until 10pm where I actually start working on homework. I wonder what's worse, staying awake and being cranky and tired from 4pm-11pm, or sleeping and being cranky for 1 hour, and then cramming in work from 10pm-1am?

This week is much smoother than last week. With like 4 tests yesterday (before the exams!) and a bajillion and 92 vocabulary words to cram, it didn't seem like this week would shape up too well. Fortunately, it looks to be going a lot better, perhaps because I brought my easy button!

The AP English Lang midterm exam wasn't really that hard. It was the test that I was most concerned about and now it's over! There were about 80 vocabulary words, 6 short-response essays, 6 grammar questions, 8 reading comprehension questions, and 2 essays--one from a passage, and then other from the 2006 AP Exam. I took her suggestion and started with the vocabulary, gaining stamina and whizzing through the 4 or so pages of just vocabulary. I got through the rest of the test with ease, until I realized that I only had the last essay left, with only 25 minutes remaining to read the essay that I was supposed to be analyzing and write my own essay on the rhetorical strategies used. For once, I knew EXACTLY how to write the perfect essay. Unfortunately, this perfect essay was only 3 paragraphs long because I ran out of time. Sucks. My heart was racing by the time the bell rang, because I squeezed in four more awesome sentences in like 30 seconds, but they're all to waste since the essay was missing about 3 more paragraphs to make it awesome. With 10 more minutes I could have finished it up, and in 15 minutes I could have done it beautifully. That was a lot for 2 hours.

One more day of exams to endure (tomorrow), another half-day of school (Thursday), and I'm free for Spring Break! I don't even know why they're making us come to school on Thursday, since that's when the teachers usually grade all of their exams if grades are due that afternoon. Nothing makes sense around here anymore...

Catching Up

2008-03-21T12:18:00.003-04:00

FL Regional
We were seeded first at the end of the qualification matches on Saturday, so that meant we would be the #1 Alliance Captain (first time in 108 history, as so I've heard). As soon as our last qualification match ended, I experienced the most intense scouting that I've ever seen in FIRST. Teams were coming up to us with their data and pleas, we were going around to other teams trying to figure out their agendas, it was insane. Minutes before we had to line up for selections, we figured out how everything was going to play out. Normally, being at the top shouldn't be so tough, we did have all 61 other teams at our fingertips, right...not really, but we knew that we'd get rejected by the #2, #3, and possibly #4 alliances to pair up with. No problem, because we picked them anyway so they couldn't pick each other (I made the mistake of not picking #4 due to other assumptions, but whatever, it's behind us). We ended up with 103 and 395 on our alliance, which was an awesome alliance. Despite trouble with 395's shooter in several matches, we made it through the quarterfinals with no sweat, though meeting quite a battle on the other side with the semifinals. We won our first semifinal match by a penalty, lost the second, and then lost the third by 12 points :(. We were actually attempting the last ball placement, which would've been worth 12 points and could've led us into a tiebreaker match, but it didn't happen... Regardless, I still had a blast and we were very successful (10-3). I can't say much about ATL yet since the divisional lists aren't out yet, but I'm sure we'll be competitive.

School
This last week absolutely sucked to no end. I don't even know where to start in describing the level of suckiness, but it was just horrible. I'm not happy with my grades at all, and I really don't think there was much I could've done to make them better, but whatever, what's done is done. Next week should breeze by with midterms Tuesday and Wednesday, early release Thursday, and no school Friday, and then spring break.

Life
I need something fun to do; I need a hobby.

Florida Regional 2008

2008-03-15T00:51:00.004-04:00

This should be a quickie:

I'm up in Orlando right now for our second competition, our home regional, the Florida Regional. Everything is going great so far. As of right now, we are ranked #1 (5-1), and we also won the Rockwell Automation Leadership in Controls Award this afternoon. It's such an awesome feeling hearing the words you spoke to a judge in the pit transferred to the announcer briefing the features that made your team worthy of the award. I don't know how to describe how I'm feeling at the moment. We're doing really well, and all day, people have been asking "Noelle, are you exicted?!" and I just respond with a simple "Sure." It's just really weird, since as a team, we've never been in this dominant position before, where teams are coming up asking us to pick them, or how we're just able to bring the robot back to the pit, do a few software updates, and then relax. Perhaps I'll be more excited on Saturday afternoon if I have a gold medal around my neck...or even silver. I'm pretty excited now, I just have different ways of showing it, I suppose. (If you couldn't tell, I even danced to like 4 [Cha Cha Slide, Chicken Dance, Cotton Eyed Joe, Macarena] of those dance songs during a field reset/break; SOAP archived the footage, it should be up tomorrow or later this weekend).

If we win our last match tomorrow, we'll most likely be picking. I had a bunch of scouting stuff planned out to walk around the pits and such, but with all the commotion and fast-paced scheduling, it was pretty much impossible until the end of the day. I got a pretty good idea of some robots from waiting in queuing and playing with/against them, but it would've been nice to have had some raw match data. There are enough good teams to form a strong alliance regardless of where we're seeded.

So...it's 1:08am now (NICE!) and I should be sleeping or packing or showering or scouting or not blogging...

PS: I'm really excited for tomorrow

I Suck

2008-03-09T17:55:00.003-04:00

...at getting things done. Why can I not win this battle with procrastination?!

Woke up at 1:30pm, did nothing worth mentioning for 3 hours, and then started to get to work. Less than 30 minutes later, my mind started to wander:

"Hmm, I wonder if [blogger] updated?"
"Hey, there should be a new post on that thread on Chief Delphi!"
"I wonder if anyone is online..."
"I haven't read any webcomics in a while..."
"Oooh, [Person] commented on a photo of me on Facebook?"

I have such a lack of motivation for anything these days. I believe we learned in AP Psychology that this is called avoidance motivation, compared to achievement motivation. I am doing work not because I want to, but because I don't want to fail and I just want an A. I liked it better when I enjoyed learning...

Yesterday I did go to Best Buy, and I did buy SingStar, but it wasn't really the one that I wanted. 80s is pretty fun, but I really wanted SingStar Rocks. I also went to the Party City next year and got some blue hairspray for this weekend...oh yeah, Noelle is jumping on the "FIRST Spirit" bandwagon.

While doing some work this weekend, I realized that I love and hate my music collection, or perhaps the Party Shuffle function. Often, I admire the variety of music that I have and that I could never get bored with all of it, then at other times, I feel as if I'm listening to the same stuff over and over again. Now I want new music, but I can't find anything cool to listen to, nor do I have the time to browse for hours on end like I used to do on weekends.

Awesome! I just realized that I don't have as much APUSH work to do as I thought. Now for all of this English reading and the 80 million vocabulary words to flashcardize...

[Back to Work!]

Space. Money. Time.

2008-03-08T03:45:00.004-05:00

Music: ~20GB
Pictures: ~20GB
Videos: ~10GB
Program Files, Installers, and Random Crap: 34.3GB

Capacity: 84.3GB
Space Available: 1.90GB

SPACE CRISIS! I need to backup and delete a lot of stuff like, now. No wonder why my computer is so slow...videos are going first, the rest will be hard. Having a laptop as your primary computer is no fun :/

I think if I have time this weekend I'll go over to Best Buy and use up that gift card I have to by SingStar Rocks, since I'm getting a little bored with the song selection on SingStar Pop. Originally, I was stuck between Rocks and 80's, but I just looked at the tracklists again and Rocks is definitely lightyears better. I'll get 80's eventually. Should make for some more good fun in Orlando

Speaking of Orlando, I just found out today that the trip will cost $467, sans Islands of Adventure and Disney Quest. Not happy. Apparently, it's cheaper to fly halfway across the country. People suck, especially liars.

With this being the weekend before a regional, lots of stuff to do...again. I have to make sure to get caught up in AP Lang so I won't fall so far behind again when I come back next week like I did this week. Also a ton of APUSH work to do, which I didn't expect, but it's gotta get done. I really promised myself that I would stay on top of my online classwork, but somehow, I managed to push it to the backburner (it's just TOO easy to do with FLVS work), and now I'm behind -- gotta get caught up by Sunday.

I'd like to avoid packing 20 minutes before I leave again too (especially since we leave after school, so I'll have to pack the night before), so hopefully I'll get some stuff done this weekend. And since my suitcase got broken on the flight back from Philly, I'll have to take a smaller bag and pack less.

Somehow, I'd like to find time to squeeze in watching the webcasts for the final day of the NASA/VCU Regional and Arizona. Matt created this cool dashboard program, SOAP GameDay, which is extremely awesome, and allows you to watch all the webcasts at once, check up on the scores, rankings, and other event info, and even has a little ticker with updates -- all in one window!

Knowing myself, I'm sure only half of this will get done. But there's hope!

New Jersey Regional

2008-03-05T08:06:00.008-05:00

My last blog entry lied. I'm definitely not in New Jersey right now, and unfortunately at school instead. Normally I would write an incredibly long entry filled with pictures and video and anything else that appears in my mind. This time around, I just feel like giving a little summary. Eh, maybe not...

EDIT: pics here(you don't need a Facebook account to view)

The trip there was pretty smooth, 40 minute delay, ate crappy food at Ft. Lauderdale Airport, lost a SOAP laptop somewhere in Philly, and then played lots of SingStar and Guitar Hero my room. On Thursday, we learned that this hotel supplied possibly the worst continental breakfast that could ever be served. Also, DJ, Jhon, Gustavo, and I thought it would be an awesome idea to be the first ones to get to the arena. Ha, how clever of us...they ended up opening the doors at 9am, and we had to stand outside in the <20 style="font-style: italic;">I had no control over the arm and it was stuck in this ~90degree position. A miscommunication led to the arm getting snapped because the robot was driven full speed backwards under the overpass with the arm up. At that point, we though we were done for the day. It was even more disappointing since we had won all of our matches, and breaking the arm didn't seem worth 2 points when we were already >20 points ahead. Though in true 108 fashion, the robot got fixed. Our plan was just to remove the arm for our next match and take the position of the lap-bot, but with the help of the NASA Machine Shop (thank goodness they were there) and little parts from the other generous teams, we got the whole thing fixed and in working condition in less than an hour, making our next match. Though everything functioned properly, it was the only match of the regional that we lost. The rest of the day ran smoothly, winning our last match and ranking 3rd, 5-1 by the end of the day.

Anyone in FIRST knows that Friday's rankings don't really mean much if you're in the Top 8, because within the matter of 1 match on Saturday morning, everything can change. We didn't want to be too cocky, so we planned for the case of dropping out of the Top 8 -- doing scouting overnight and making sure to promote our robot to other teams. This wasn't necessary, because we ended up winning our last two matches, thus placing us #4, 7-1, by lunch time Saturday. (Lunchtime? who got to eat lunch...not me =/) As alliance captains, we had to quickly combine all of our scouting data and create a top 8 list of hurdlers, lap-bots, and secondary picks. At the supposedly competitive New Jersey Regional, this was a bit hard to do. On Friday night, we watched all the videos from the matches (exhausting!), and coming up with a list of consistent hurdlers was not easy. I was the representative from our team to pick (a bit nervous), and we selected 223, a pretty good hurdler, and 102, the most awesome lap-bot there. We got owned in the quarterfinals, since we were behind 24 points in hybrid mode each time, so the competition ended there for us. I'm definitely looking forward to FL now, since we have a bit of an advantage!

From the fun side, this trip was pretty awesome, I'd say. We didn't even have to plan out some fancy itinerary; fun in (or outside of) the hotel with the team was enough fun alone. As soon as we arrived on Wednesday, despite it being 11pm when we got there, we played SingStar and Guitar Hero for a few hours. Fun stuff. Thursday night was karaoke night, with Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Edition and SingStar being the highlights of the evening. I have video, but they are too dark to see anything. If you want to see 'em, I'll send/show if you'd like. Friday was the best night of them all. On the way back from dinner at the little Italian restaurant where DJ bought us all cheesecake (Thanks!), snow flurries started to fall. Even though there wasn't enough snow on the ground to form anything that resembled a snow ball, there were piles of snow on the edges of the parking lot from the blizzard a few days before. Let the battle begin! More and more people came out, and eventually we had the whole team outside for a 1.5 hour snowball fight, including an awesome ending with Students vs. Mentors. Guess who won? It ended when a woman complained that since we were playing the parking lot, we might hit her car. Boo her! Another hilarious thing was that we noticed after about an hour that there were 3 hotel windows with the curtains open...the Canadians were just sitting up in their nicely heated rooms laughing at us! "Those silly Floridians!" After the snowball fight, the night wasn't over. We gathered everyone in my room to read the Woodie Flowers Award submission to Diane (almost producing tears), and then headed off to do some scouting. We watched every single match video from Friday, trying to come up with a list of top teams...not easy to do. After that we visited another room to view some freshman-on-freshman pranking. Surprisingly, the freshmen were really cool to be around. Eventually I went to sleep... I don't know how, or when I managed to pack, but Saturday went by incredibly fast. I didn't get a chance to eat until we got to the airport, and realized that I was severely dehydrated sometime during the elimination rounds, making a mad dash to find something before my abilities were hindered. By the time we left on Saturday, most of us had adjusted to the cold, not wearing jackets at all. The entire weekend went by insanely fast, arriving back in Fort Lauderdale around 1am on Sunday.

Return from Brief Blogging Hiatus

2008-02-27T11:02:00.004-05:00

I wouldn't exactly call my lack of blogging over the past two months a hiatus, but it was close enough. I couldn't pull together any reason to write anything quirky or interesting about my pathetic life without it seeming too bitchy or depressing all the time, so I just didn't write anything. As someone's mother said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!"

The last two months have been extremely stressful. I felt as if there was no place to find relief or relaxation, for even a short period of time, not even weekends. It was depressing, as if I was suffering through something beyond my means. I thought that some of the stress would be relieved after the robot shipped, but that was only a naive dream; schoolwork only became a larger burden. Yesterday was insane. I can't even begin to think about all of the excitement (a fire at school), the worry (tornadoes, bad weather, nuclear plant shutdown, widespread power outages), and the confusion (robotics). Usually, the day before a robotics trip is awesome, and we're all horrible at school. Take this typical scenario:

Teacher: ok, Chapters 4-6 are due by Friday, along with 2 essays and a poster
Class: [moans]
Kids on Robotics Team: HAHA WE'RE NOT GONNA BE HERE!
(this doesn't remove any obligation to do the work, it just extends our time a bit)
Class: [dirty looks]

It is such a gratifying experience to be able to do that once in a while -- I mean, not to be a jerk or anything, but PA kids miss tons of schools for their shows and trips and such, athletes always have games and events and stuff to leave early for, so balances out somehow. Unfortunately, I didn't get to do that at all this year. With the AP classes that I have, it's like "hmmm, you're going to be gone? oh well...work's due on Friday...you figure it out." More than any other day, I really couldn't wait for school to be over.

After all of that, I am really looking forward to getting away, kinda. I leave at 4:30 this afternoon to go to New Jersey for our first competition of 2008. It should be around 17° when we get there, with snow flurries. From 70° to 17°...should be interesting. I'm prepared though. I'd love to see snow again. Besides all of the cool traveling and just being away from home with friends stuff, I'm really looking forward to the New Jersey Regional. It's pretty competitive, and I'm not sure how we'll fair in the competition, but I'm sure it'll be a blast anyway.

I'm a bit off as far as my Noelle-like habits. I would've make a packing list by the beginning of last week, did all my laundry over the weekend, and then have been packed by yesterday, spending today relaxing and such. This year? Not quite. I made my list yesterday. I'm doing laundry right now, I still have to pack, shower, and be out of my house by 3:30pm. I should get to that...

Next post will be from New Jersey!

Pumped!

2008-02-19T00:38:00.007-05:00

I'm over my head in school work.

I'm ~~excited~~ ecstatic.

I'm ~~tired~~ exhausted.

I'm running on energy drinks and candy.

I have 2 projects, 4 poems, a major works data sheet, book work, and loads of reading due tomorrow.

I'm the arm operator for the robot this year.

I will not sleep tonight.

I have spent almost 40 hours at Motorola over the past 3 days.

I'm done with build season.

I'm wide awake.

I'm going to New Jersey in 8 days.

I'm PUMPED!

IT ALL JUST SET IN!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
sjfldskfjsdfnsldkfnwemlsknflksnlpwqjqoldnflaliworihqorlkjnflsdfoiquihefl
!!!!!!!!!!1111111!!1!!!11!1!shiftone!!111one!1eleven!!

(more details and less disjointed talk later)

Update

2008-02-06T23:34:00.002-05:00

There's been so much going on this week that I just realized that I haven't blogged in about a week. Oh no, no documentation of my life! No fear, I'll recap (caution, this will be a long, media-enhanced post):

Friday - 17th Birthday
I expected this to be a horrible day. I had a ridiculous amount of of work to turn in, I had to design something for robotics at the last minute that ended up not being used, and most importantly, the MITES application was due. I'm one hell of a procrastinator, so this involved me pulling an all-nighter to get it done, but I was satisfied with my work by the time I had to leave for school at 5:40am. I spread out all of my stuff across the living room floor, and this is what it looked like at some point during the night.

I always get this weird high/rush after staying up for almost 24 hours. Around noon I got extremely tired, and then I suddenly bounced back energetically, as if I just woke up from a 10-hour night sleep. It's really weird how sleep deprivation can lead such a surplus in energy. My mom made me cupcakes around 1am, so that was my first celebration of the day. I really didn't expect anything at all, btw. When I got to school, it was the same as usual, I even forgot that it was my birthday on occasion...that's how much I cared about turning 17, nothing significant. For lunch, Dominique brought cupcakes! I was really surprised, I didn't expect anyone to even remember. We had a little celebration in Mr. Euler's class:

So I had about 2 dozen cupcakes...these in additions to the ones that my mother baked for me! Interestingly enough, I learned to share :o ! DJ and Dom went outside under the garage door to air out the crumbs from the table cloth, little did I know they had a surprise for me when they got back inside. Sure, it looks like they're trying to fold it...

One thing about birthdays that I really happen to dislike is the "Happy Birthday" song. I really, honestly, hate it, and everyone knows that. Did it stop them from singing it? Of course not...

I don't know what it is about that song that just ticks me. It's extremely awkward, with the second verse requiring the "Birthday Boy/Girl" to respond and everyone else to point and stare. Whatever, it's just me. That's the most eventful stuff that happened at school, except for the bus ride back, involving some serious Om-Nom-Noming of the rest of the cupcakes and fun with frosting and sprinkles.

My grandparents always take me out to dinner for my birthday, this year was no different. I decided to go to Benihana, since I've wanted to go for since like forever. I took a short nap in the car and was carrying on like a zombie when we got inside. Not even our flamboyant waiter that served us drinks could wake me up. When we finally got to our table, it was absolutely freezing, though we figured out why once they turned on the grill. The whole dinner was amazing, except for the shrimp, which I don't eat because I don't eat seafood. I definitely woke up when the cheft started tossing and flipping food around on the grill. That was the most amazing fried rice that I've ever had in my entire life, and the teriyaki steak was definitely awesome. Being a restaurant and it being my birthday, there was ice cream and that song again. We also shared a table with another family that was celebrating a birthday, though like 30 or so years older, but it took some of the attention off me. My candle wouldn't stay lit, it was hilarious....

It ended up being not as horrible of a day as I expected it to be, but I was dead tired when I got home and absolutely exhausted on Saturday.

Saturday - Robotics
This weekend signified the end of week 4 and the beginning of week 5, aka crunch time, in no reference to Team 79, Krunch, at all lol. This is where everything starts coming together, almost magically. Perfect proof is when we were working on the base for a few hours, finally got it done for the most part and moved on to the arm. It went up in less than 5 minutes with the turn of only four bolts. When all of the software guys walked back in the shop, they exclaimed "WOW you guys sure got a lot done". I couldn't help but to chuckle. If you look at it now, as a bystander, it looks like we have an almost complete robot, HA!

what does this look like?

There is still a ton of work to be done. Hopefully some more magic will occur this week. Saturday was one of the most productive build days that I've ever experienced since I've been on this team. I even learned how to use the mill and modify a section on our side panels! It was a long day, I was there for almost 12 hours. We have this theory that there are no windows or clocks in there for a reason! It's amazing how you walk outside going "woah, it's dark!" not even keeping track of time until someone mutters that they're hungry or has to leave. When the majority of the work was done for the day, we managed to squeeze a little fun in before we left. I mean, how can you not play with a huge-mongous blue ball? Introducing, EXTREME hacky sac...

NOW - Everything Else
This week has been overloaded with school stuff. We're working on ROVs in Research V for a little competition at FAU in May, which I'll talk some more about later. I can't believe how I've adjusted so quickly to having 2 work-intensive AP classes in addition to build season going on, but I feel as if I can possibly handle a little more load...not that I'll try to juggle anything else. FLVS is having a little science fair. I usually don't enjoy required science fairs, even though I've won numerous, but I actually want to do something for this since it's optional. I'm thinking of building a Van De Graaff Generator and conducting (lol conduction) a few experiments. Even if I don't get to do it in time for the fair, I still want to make once since they're really cool.

My School Is Lame

2008-01-30T20:57:00.001-05:00

At about 9:30am, approximately 20 minutes into AP English Lang, we are discussing the use of rhetoric in literature and various other situations. Out of the blue, the known *beep* of the intercom system is heard. The entire class moans. At Dillard, this can mean several things: word of the day, a message from the principal, an assembly, or lock down. Today it was a little different. After the beep, Mary J. Blige's Just Fine begins playing for 30 seconds. Exchanging stares of confusion with Mrs. Dinlocker and everyone else in the class, it was apparent that no one had any idea what was going on. Finally a voice appears--it is Marvin, the guy from the morning announcements, dubbed the "WDHS Morning Show" a few months ago. He asks for the attention of all juniors, and immediately the thought of assembly pops in my mind (and everyone else around me), but luckily, it wasn't an assembly. Of all classes, this was definitely not the one to be missing for some lame assembly.

Introducing, the Panther Power Card...

So, as a junior, if I score a level 4 or 5 on the science FCAT, I'll get one of these "amazing" Panther Power Cards. What is a Panther Power Card, you ask? (I hate phrasing sentences like that, but it goes along just fine [LOL!] with all of the cheesiness in this entry) Upon earning stellar scores on the science FCAT, eligible juniors, seniors at the time, will receive a Panther Power Card, entitling them to:

a free parking decal for the 2008-2009 school year
free admission to any home game of any sport
free admission to the 2009 Prom
a trip to Grad Night 2009

Sounds cool, I guess, but none of that stuff really applies to me. Also, I doubt that more than 75 of such cards, if that many, will be awarded. I expect to score a level 4, not to sure about the 5, but it really doesn't matter--at all. This is the first year that the science FCAT will count towards graduation, but even still, it doesn't matter. I know I won't fail. So if I do get this card, I probably won't be driving to school, actually, it'll be impossible since I don't even have my learner's permit yet and it'll take a whole year to get my license, and I doubt that I'll have a car. Sports games? HA! Prom? Mmmm, probably not, but still a maybe. Grad Night is probably the only thing that I might take advantage of...it's free after all. But of course, this is all assuming that I get at least a 4...

So now with all of this hype, and really no excitement from the junior class at all, I'd like to flashback to a similar situation my freshman year. Around mid-February of 2006, all of the freshmen were pulled out of class during 2nd block into the gym, where we were given FCAT tips, strategies, and motivation, along with rap music blaring out of the over-blasted speakers. After all of this encouragement and bullshit, the principal came out and made a "promise" to our class after buttering us up with the same ol' story that "blah you were the first class when I got here so this is my favorite blah", we were promised that students that improved 1 level, or maintained a 5, on the reading or math sections would be awarded a free class trip (I think it was to Islands of Adventure??) at the end of the school year. Did this ever happen?! Nope. I actually did both, I went from a 4 to 5 in reading, and also maintained my 5 in math, whatever though...I wouldn't have gone on the trip anyway.

Sophomore year, they stuffed us with pizza on 3 different occasions to bribe us into scoring well on the writing exam. It actually worked, since Dillard had an average score of 4.5/6, which is pretty damn good for a school that still can't get half of the students to pass the Reading FCAT.

[back to today]

After 3 minutes of introducing this as if it was the offer of a lifetime, the announcement cuts out in the middle...gotta love intercom systems. He comes back on about a minute later after 2 failed attempts to reconnect, and then starts talking about the whole thing again from the beginning. For the sake of our education, the announcement finally ends, or so we thought it did. Just Fine continues playing for another 30 seconds, when it finally ends for real, thank goodness! I want my 5 minutes of English back!

Another lame attempt by Dillard to promote higher FCAT scores...

Alive

2008-01-29T21:04:00.001-05:00

So I made it through the past two days...barely, with less than three hours of sleep each night. I just found out today that the terrifying, 47-monster paragraph, double-journal for "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" was one of the worst assignments that she would ever give, thank goodness. That doesn't lessen the intensity of it anymore. I didn't really finish because I found out yesterday that I was doing it completely wrong, so tomorrow, the highest that I can get is a C, oh well. For some reason, I just don't like English at all anymore. I knew AP Lang would be tough, but I didn't expect to suddenly hate English after 4 days :/

AP US History is fine. It's not a hard class at all. The work is simple, and all the material is in the text. I like that I have all the work that I need to do for a unit ahead of time, so when I get some free time (if I ever do!) I can get ahead. There is a lot of work, and she is kinda strict, but that's life I guess.

Other than that, the rest of school is just a buffer for these two classes. I realized this was a really bitchy entry with no point whatsoever, and again, blogging is becoming so counterproductive! My birthday is in 3 days. Don't care. The title of this blog is the only thing that I can be positive about at the moment, I'm alive.

No Sleep Tonight

2008-01-28T00:10:00.000-05:00

Okay, here's the deal. I have a short story due tomorrow. It can be about anything and the only requirement is that it has to be under 1000 words and typed. No problem....IF I HAD SOMETHING TO WRITE ABOUT. People always tell me that I'm a great writer, but I lack motivation to write anything original, as in I have to be prompted by a topic or stricken with a creative buzz. I can't come up with shit right now. It hasn't even been a week of the second semester and I'm already pulling all-nighters. Blogging doesn't help either, this is counterproductive. Ugh this is not going to be a good week, I know it. Fuck!

FLL is Awesome!

2008-01-26T21:10:00.001-05:00

No one ever has to tell me twice that robots are awesome. And I do also believe that Legos are too, indeed awesome. Put the two together and you get amazing, which is why I love the FIRST Lego League (FLL). It's a robotics competition for elementary and middle school kids with Legos. I'm actually extremely jealous that I didn't get to participate in FLL when I was a youngster, and that my 2nd elementary school, Broward Estates, got an FLL team a few years after I left. Even though I wasn't on the team, I was proud to know that they won this year's tournament at Crystal Lake in November. Nevertheless, this brings me to today's events. I have volunteered with FLL since I got involved with robotics in my freshman year of high school. For years, the only FLL tournament in Broward was "Robotic Dimensions" held at Crystal Lake. This year, the RoboColts from Hallandale Elementary hosted a tournament at their school in addition to the Crystal Lake event. I can't say that it was anything but pure success for a rookie event.

This event was my fourth FLL event as a volunteer, and second as a referee. I'm always amazed at what the kids bring out to the field at each competition. Like I mentioned before, even though the parents and coaches are often worse than the kids competitively, its still a cool experience for everyone. At times, I feel as if FLL is more advanced than FRC, which makes it even more amazing. With our level robots, there is only a 15 second autonomous (well, hybrid this year) period, and then the other 2 minutes are completely tele-operated. I could not imagine programming an FRC robot for a full match, besides the fact that I'm not a software person. A lot of the challenges require such precision to score, while some are easy grabs...literally. I really would love to mentor a team, and it would be awesome if Welleby Elementary had one since it's so close, but I have no clue of any other teams that are remotely in the area. For now, I definitely enjoy reffing at the local competitions.

For a new competition, everything ran quite smoothly. I was extremely impressed. I actually skipped out on robot building with my own team...don't ask why...to go today. Hallandale Elementary is beautiful. I think it was renovated or built at a new location this year, but the structure seems more like a high school than an elementary school. Aside from aesthetics, everything was very well organized, and most importantly, everyone was SO NICE. I'm not used to having my efforts acknowledged, or even appreciated to the degree that it was today. Team 108 and some other FIRST events have made me cynical towards certain things, but today my outlook changed. It's amazing how a few very nice people can do that. I'm not sure if it was just that there were so many less experienced people there that changed the atmosphere, or if it's actually me that's changing, but this competition definitely felt different than the one I went to a few months ago. I often second-guessed my own potential and worthiness due to reasons unknown. I was really nervous about being a referee for the first time, especially with coaches and parents watching my every mark and breathing down my back. Today, I didn't care at all about them, the kids knew exactly what they were doing. I was pretty confident, and I think I managed to do a pretty good job. Another interesting twist to this competition from the other was that most of the volunteers were adults, as opposed to an all high-school/college crew at Crystal Lake. There was no major difference between the two, but it was kinda weird at times...sometimes I had to stop and think "woah, these are teachers!" Gustavo and I had an interesting conversation last night about how Elementary teachers were so much less bitchy and so much more friendly. They always seem happy. I don't know what happens to teachers from that point on, but sometimes, I wish that I could have an elementary-personality teacher, without an elementary teaching style. So, aside from all of that sappy reflective stuff (sorry, I just had to get it out), there was lots of fun...

The team that ended up winning the competition had the most amazing robot EVER. I think they were the RoboMonkeys or the MonkeyBots or something. They scored 395/400 points consistently in the last 4 matches, and their kickass robot was pure genius. I was the referee at their table during the Top 8, Final 4, and Final rounds, and I was in awe at how they completely ALL of the missions. ALL of them. The only team that I've seen in the two competitions that I've been to to do that. On top of that, they weren't competitive little jerks either, they were actually really friendly. I need to take their robot, multiply it x20, and use it as our robot for the 2008 game, FIRST Overdrive, this year. It has the perfect forklift elevator system and such precise mechanisms, though we're definitely not putting rack and pinion on our robot again this year.

If you've never been to a robotics competition, you wouldn't know how large of a part music plays into the whole event. It can actually make or break the whole mood. Typically, there is a good share of techno, pop, rock, and whatever other flavor the DJ likes to bring. No robotics competition is complete without Mr. Roboto, some Queen and AC/DC, Cotton Eye Joe, The Cha Cha Slide, Sandstorm, the Macarena, and now...Crank Dat Soulja Boy. When I made the few CDs that I was asked to bring, I didn't think that it would be the only music playing. I didn't think that I could hear the same 45 songs that many times in one day. I didn't think that those little robot-builders had the ability to dance to all of those songs SO MANY TIMES in one day. Oh, but they surely did...

So now I'm not ready to go back to all of this serious engineering and science and physics and complicated robotics stuff that I have to do. I had so much fun today that I just want to do FLL and completely pwn at it forever. Little stress, no cuts and scratches, no heavy lifting...just pure fun! Okay, maybe not...pneumatics and those awesome transmissions are just too cool to give up!

Back to the Ol' Grind

2008-01-22T22:56:00.001-05:00

School starts back up again tomorrow for the 2nd semester. With a 5.5-day weekend after exams, it felt like an actual break, like Spring Break (essentially, this is only 3 days shorter). With the beginning of the new semester comes new classes. It'll probably feel like the first day of school all over again, which is cool -- until all of the work sets in. I found myself looking for my keys, finding the charger for my iPod and cell phone, packing my backpack, resetting my alarm, and suddenly realizing woah, school starts tomorrow! It's amazing how we can do things without noticing why we're doing them, like thinking about The Game without realizing that you have just lost the game. Back to school stuff, I'm ready for a change. Hopefully the robotics competitions sprinkled throughout the Spring will break up some of the monotony of my school year. Here's what I have to face for tomorrow (and the rest of the year):

Multimedia Tech (really taking Physics online instead)
AP English Language & Composition
Research V/VI (Robotics V/VI)
AP US History

I did the welcome call and was activated in my Physics class with FLVS today. Though I'm still a little bummed about not being able to take AP Physics, this class will be a breeze.

I've been behind on new music for quite some time. Daft Punk released Alive 2007 a few months ago, and I had no idea until about a week ago. It's awesome, and I'm using the rest of my iTunes gift cards to buy it. Sucks that I have to upgrade to 7.6 to download anything now, there's always buggy stuff with the latest versions. Gorillaz also recently released D-Sides on iTunes, which I discovered the same day I saw the new Daft Punk stuff. There's some amazing stuff on there that I've been listening to on Deezer. Lenny Kravitz also has a new album coming out in a few weeks. If Prince releases something soon too, I'll die of an amazing musical overload. Too bad I only have $0.78 left in my iTunes account now...

I was hoping to get to bed by 11 tonight so that I'd get six hours of sleep, but it doesn't look like that's happening. I'll shoot for 12...

EDIT: iTunes doesn't want me to have this album. First it tells me I must update to the latest version, then I had to restart my computer. I try to purchase the album again, it tells me I need to reread the license agreement, fine. "Please re-try your purchase". Okay, whatever, retrying... Download starts... "iTunes cannot connect, please check your network connection"...My connection is fine... Downloads resume... So much for 1-click downloading.

Food

2008-01-18T18:37:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I've been lazy today (big surprise!) On these types of days where I'm home all day, I find myself doing the most random and unusual things, like watching lame old movies like Bring It On. I'm almost ashamed that I would watch that movie dozens of times when I was 10 and now I can recall every line. A few minutes ago, I caught myself reciting one of the cheers 'something something something your school has no gymnastics team, this is a last resort!'. Interesting that I didn't get half of the innuendos in this movie when I was 10 either, but I still thought it was awesome. Nonetheless, away from tacky movies...I always find ways to waste time somehow. This wasting time thing is getting to be detrimental, as I've also noticed that I barely eat at all when I'm sitting at home doing absolutely nothing. For example, today:

8am: wake up (very early for me for a day off. I ended up sleeping 13 hours the night before)
8:30am: hmmm, I should eat something; bread and gatorade
12pm: woah I haven't really eaten anything all day, I should eat something to hold me over until I make lunch (why didn't I just have lunch then?); makes nachos, ginger ale
4pm: Paula Deen comes on TV and makes delicious food. I remember again that I still haven't eaten anything of substance, though still continuing to watch Paula lick her fingers and eat butter.

Sidenote: I LOVE Paula Deen. Especially her live show, Paula's Party or something like that. The butter-eating, finger-licking, country-talking, goodness! She always makes delicious food, and even though she has the countriest and most syllable-enhancing accent that I've ever heard, she is still awesome. I would love to be in her live studio audience and eat her butter saturated country food. Normally I'm not a fan of country-style anything...but I mean, how could you resist this? I've never even had corn fritters before, but they just sound so delicious. ::gets hungry again::

[somewhere in between]: My mom calls and tells me that I can order pizza for dinner, again reminded of my lack of nutrition for the day...how am I still alive?
5pm: Rachel Ray comes on TV and I turn it off because she begins to get annoying.
5:15pm: Check my email and Dominos sent me another BFD coupon/promo code, I remember to order my pizza
6:10pm: Finally roll around to ordering pizza (how did I lose an hour? curse you Internetz!)

Dominos has this awesome new Pizza Tracker app, where you can see the progress of your pizza in real-time. No lie. It is awesome.

Now, I've already raved about ordering Domino's Pizza online, but it's still awesome. Ordering pizza online is just n^infinity times better than being on hold and repeating your order 5 times over the phone. They may not have the best pizza I've ever had, but these little feats make it so much more awesome. I managed to catch a few of the steps, since I only checked back to the site every few seconds.

6:12pm: Order Submitted
6:12pm: "Carlos put your pizza in the oven at 6:12pm"
6:19pm: "Carlos took your pizza out the oven at 6:19pm" (it cooked in only 7 minutes?!?!)
6:19pm: "Robert walked out the door with your pizza"
6:32pm: ::KNOCK KNOCK::

My pizza arrived in only 20 minutes? They are amazingly efficient. Google Maps shows that I live 2.4 miles away from this Domino's, so there might be a slight advantage...but wow. TWENTY minutes, from [enter] to my front door? Wow! Don't believe me? Take a look...

It was indeed delicious. Two more awesome facts -- the Cheesy Bread was free, since they have a promotion where you get a free bread side with the purchase of any pizza, and also, I specified that I wanted pepperoni on the right, and where is it? (No, I'm not that nitpicky, you just have to specify online.) Not only do I love free things, but I also love Cheesy Bread. An updated version of that picture would reflect 3/8 of the pizza gone, 1/4 of the Cheesy Bread gone, and 1/3 of the Coke gone. Domino's gets a coolPoint++ in my book now, and it was definitely worth the $20 for efficiency and suspense factor alone. At first I was a little disappointed because the Crispy Melt delicious double-crusted pizza thing was no longer available, but I quickly forgot about that. No lie about their new "You Got 30 Minutes!" slogan.

I'm Free

2008-01-17T14:38:00.001-05:00

At the moment, I am not a student of any classes right now (yet!) and it feels great! I have a 5-day weekend ahead of me with no worries or obligations to anything school-related. It hasn't been this way in a long time. It feels like a huge burden has finally been lifted off of my shoulders. Now I can relax (kinda). The last of exams were today, and I can safely say that everything went well.

Calculus - surprisingly easy exam. He allowed us to use the TI-89s on the exam, which meant that for half of the equations, I could just manipulate the numbers a bit, punch in the equations, and have the correct answer. The free response were pretty easy too, and even though I had to show my work, I could still check my work with the calculator. Also, I brought my easy button to school with me that day, so I Kyle, DJ, several others, and I pressed it before the exam, and also as we each finished. It was hilarious to break the silence and shuffling of papers with "That was easy!" That thing really works!

Electronics - Same stuff as before. The review sheet that he gives us 3 days before the exam is always identical to the actual test, though you can never be sure if your answers are correct. It wasn't too hard. It still sucked that we had to write two BS FCAT essays in addition to it. I don't mind writing essays, but when I'm forced to write them in that horrible format, especially with stupid topics, I just take it as a joke...especially since I'm done with the FCAT -- I've got nothing to prove.

AP Psychology - Can't say it was easy, can't say it was hard. Pretty much what I expected it to be. The essays were the Free-Response Questions from the 2007 AP Exam, and I felt pretty confident about answering them. Also, Mr. Lacroix wore his Freud shirt that DJ and I got him for Christmas.

Interactive Design - Honestly, even though we've had the whole semester, I actually started coding my site only a week ago. I know, shame on me. It still came out great though for the time span that I did it in. I think it looked the best because I took the time to learn CSS and managed to apply it in a simple, not over-doing it manner, but there were some other great concepts out there with more interactivity. All of the pages on the site weren't done, but it was really about the presentation, and I had enough to show something substantial. If I ever decide to host it somewhere perhaps I'll put a link here. It was an accomplishing feeling knowing that I did the whole thing from scratch, regardless of how bland and grey (hey, I like grey) it looks.

Also, since today was an early release day, we kept up our tradition of going to McDonalds as soon as school ended. Proper planning and speed walking ensures that you'll be there first, since half the school seems to show up within the next 15 minutes. It's an awesome feeling being first. We've been doing this for a whole year now. There are stares of jealously walking back into school carrying those delicious fries, while everyone else has school lunch from the typical early release day menu that's been used for the last 11 years. When I got on the bus, we had to wait at Parkway for a few since they didn't get out until 12:40pm. A garbage truck pulled up and we got him to honk his horn. When their school finally ended, you saw kids scattering around the campus like chickens with their heads cut off, as if it was the last day of school or something! I don't recall middle school being like this at all.

So, I've got tomorrow free, Robotics on Saturday, and then Sunday-Tuesday free. I plan on finishing up my MITES and WTP apps (shame on me for wasting away winter break) and then just doing nothing. And by nothing I mean anything.

Procrastination

2008-01-14T22:33:00.000-05:00

It's the last day of the second semester before finals, I have work to do in every class, but for some reason, I can't pull myself to get absolutely anything done. Regardless of if I turn off the TV, computer, music, lights, whatever, I don't feel motivated to do work at all. WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!? I used to actually like school. I mean, the work will definitely get done, and I do have good planning skills, but time management and actually living up to the planned schedule? Hmmpf. It's amazing how people think I spend hours with my nose buried in the books when I rarely crack them open.

Since this design is definitely not going on our robot, I guess I'll show it. It was my first design after kickoff and took me two nights to model, but I'm working on something else now. Admire my mediocre CAD skillz...

starting position

fully extended, scoring position

I know that there are many flaws in this design, besides the fact that it is a complete rip-off of PINK 2K7, so that's why it's not being used. Also, the strategy required to make this an effective robot is too complex. A slight bump while trying to score, or even manipulate the ball would throw us off. Assuming the telescoping portion would extend to 8ft, this robot is bound to tip with a 10lb manipulator + a 10lb ball. There was another part of the gripper that was used to clamp and secure the ball, though Inventor crashed at 2am the night before I was going to present, so I took that as a sign to go to sleep.

So now I'm off to force myself to do work, since I thrive on As (which I only have one of right now!) Procrastination is a bitch, though my best works come from those pressured nights -- winning science fair entries, big projects, essays, applications, etc...maybe I should do an entry on that some day.

EDIT: I just wasted another hour, someone come slap me!

In a Nutshell

2008-01-12T23:45:00.001-05:00

Why this week sucked:

exams are coming up Wednesday - Thursday
I suddenly have an 88 in Electronics that is impossible to change (WTF!)
I had to go back to school
I have to wake up at 5am every morning
being at school seemed like a complete waste of time
no more AP Psych
the end of an "easy" courseload
robotics -- Why can't there ever be peace?

Felix, the most awesome mentor/engineer is leaving soon :(

Why this week was awesome:

Calculus and Electronics are ending
I finally beat Tom Morello and Slash in Guitar Hero 3
I get to go home early Wednesday-Thursday
I discovered new Gorillaz and Daft Punk music
new bed
my Interactive Design site is actually looking like something
robotics -- I learned so much and got stuff accomplished today, quite productive with no parts yet

I could go into detail about all of these little events, but it would be pointless. That was the gist of my week. I always hate the first week back after a long break. I couldn't remember any Calculus for the first day to save my life, yet it seemed like everything else picked right back up, as if it was a 3-day weekend. I'd rather not talk about robotics at the moment. There are a few things that I'm quite upset about, but a rant won't solve anything. Oddly enough, today was also one of the best meetings that I've had since I've been on this team. Weird. Don't know if I'm looking forward to AP English or not yet, I keep hearing too many Dinlocker horror stories. I'm still not registered for Physics with FLVS yet. Boo.

This week was lame.

This Side of the Universe

A Letter to My High School Self

Want

Spring 2010 - Getting It Together

Goodbye, 2009!

Expected.

Twitter Killed the Blog?

College

Summer's Over

To The Hurricane Gods:

One Week

Noelle in a Nutshell

UF Preview (Day 2)

UF Preview (Day 1)

Summer Plans

Blog? What Blog?

Domino's BreadBowl Pasta

The Movie-Going Experience

The Final Countdown

Sleep Cycles

Wow, did I write that?

The Evolution of a Blogger

Decisions, Decisions

FAIL

Time Warp

Accepted!

"Yes, I'm Sure!"

Happily Unemployed

On a Mission

So long

Multitasking is Bad

Goodbye, 2008!

Happy Holidays!

A Dream Deferred

The Final Countdown (Maybe)

Note

Congratulations! You've been pre-approved for...college?

Live!

Early Christmas Present

Updates

Conquered

Do You Remember...

At the Moment...

Google Chrome

Late-Summer Mentality

The Last First Day

Still Waiting

Courses

That List

That 'Working' Stuff

Confession

Ramblings

Yay!

The Blog Gods Were Listening

HIRE ME!

Mamma Mia, Here I Go Again...

My Ears are Happy

GROSS

Summer Fun

I Love the World/ I Love Robots

The Beginning of an Adventure

Shoobie for a Week

Late Night Ramblings

Rewind

Happy 1st Birthday!

Extended Exhale

My Life as Illustrated by PhD Comics

Thoughts

15 Minutes

Coming Up for Air

Busy

YouTube Weekend

2008 FIRST Robotics Championships

Rejection

Goodbye Procrastination?

ANXIETY!

It's Over

4AM

April Fool's 08

How does it work? - Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causalityVirgle - found it through YouTube in an announcement from Larry Page and Sergey Brin about a settlement on Mars in a partnership with Virgin. Pretty entertaining.

How does it work? - Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality
Virgle - found it through YouTube in an announcement from Larry Page and Sergey Brin about a settlement on Mars in a partnership with Virgin. Pretty entertaining.