This is going to sound w31rd

| h4\/3 4|\| 0dd r614t10|\|sh1p \/\/1th my \/\/r1t1|\|g.

...I write something and I can't decide if I like it. I want to like it, but then again, I don't. I want there to be flaws too, but I still want to like it. I cannot decided if my characters do stuff that in their character. I hate it when people give characters characteristics that are out of their character.

If I write something, I want to rewrite it (usually type it), but then I cannot decide if it's worth the time. If I start to rewrite it, I might start hating it, because I'd be actually doing work. If I don't, I feel like I'm wasting an opportunity.

My only conclusion thus far is that I have a crisis. Does 16 count as midlife? Then I can say I have a midlife-crisis. haha...

Anyway, I have decided that immitating Indian accents is fun. Watched Ghandi in Euro today. I love how the Brits pronounced his name Gan-dee. ^^

Dyed hair, French, & late night writing

On Saturday I put in highlights (reddish brown) but they didn't show! sob. Well, they do a little, but you have to look really closely and it's easier to see if I'm in the sun. But still, my hair looks the same color. I need a bright color if it's going to change my hair.

Then I got into a whole big argument with my mom over printing stuff, and Amber saved my life Sunday morning by letting me use her printer. Now I feel guilty for printing out 12 pages from her printer. But I needed the images for my French project, which I worked on yesterday.

I spent 40 minutes getting lost in Ladera Ranch trying to find Taylor's street. My mom got sooo annoyed. Taylor's dad finally had to drive out to the library, where we were to guide us to their home. Then me, Karla, and Taylor worked until 8. We made three posters, one for each city, and then we made another one on the back of mine to outline our pretend journey. They look really pretty, and I'm glad we used most of the pictures. I only threw away one. God forgive me for wasting ink. (I sound religious. >.<;;)

Then we made fondu, and it was sooo fun! We made the chocolate one and videotaped it! So I'm bringing the tape to school tomorrow to prove we did it. And it tasted reallllly good too. ^^ Then I came home, ate dinner, and after dinner, I had this idea in my head and started writing, and finished at 12:32, but it turned out bad. Not horrible bad, but it doesn't have a point and doesn't go anywhere. So I am thinking of typing it and changing stuff, but I really cannot think of anything to change. There is no point because not everything in life has a point. So I am considering typing to make it better and leaving it pointless.

So that sums up my weekend. Happy Memorial Day, for the two people who read this. I am now going to put off my chem homework and calling the person I tutor and go back to doing nothing.

oh my god

Ignore what I said about the ONE fish. Because my dad bought FIVE fish.

oh god. did hell just freeze over?

someone up there is playing a cruel, cruel joke on me and when I get to the other side, I will let them know that I did not enjoy it. *scowl*

fish. ...

Just finished reading ch. 19 of Little Piece of Heaven (on ff.net). Yay for SasuSaku! (although it is slightly ironic I have never read a chapter of Naruto in my life. sigh.) I went on fictionpress the other day and wrote some reviews. ^^ Some people still post there on a regular basis (regular meaning they've posted at least once from last year -_-;;). And I went back to livejournal and left some comments there too. ^^ I'm not sure if I'll ever post at either of those sites again, but it feels nice knowing I can always go back.

I also watched the videos Denice made! Thank you Denice! <3 (sorry if you cannot comment :[ ) sob. ac dec is over. mr. garrity might never teach it again. stupid freshmen class (of 2010). >:(

Tony won his game yesterday, so his team stays in the tournament. He can still win if they win every game from now on (I think they have to beat 4 or 5 more teams). Once again, my dad promised him fish if he won, so my dad bought another fish from Walmart. I don't like Walmart's policies, but hey, they sell cheap fish (and cheap everything else, but at least fish weren't made by sweatshops in China). Hopefully this one lasts longer than the other two did. And there's only one this time, so I don't have to worry. I am quite sure fish do not reproduce asexually. If it turns out they do...I'll probably be famous for the discovery. ^^

Blah

Tired and bored. Mostly tired right now. My throat hurts. I think that's a sign that I need more sleep. I wish school was over, but I know I'm not done with chem, french, and Eng yet, so it's frustrating half the time. I memorized my strong acids and bases today, though--my first step towards truding the rest of the journey until June 15th. I need to read A Midsummer Night's Dream for my test Friday. sigh.

oh yeah, pumpkin and pickle died last night. Well, that was short.

Cookie Dough Ice Cream <3

I love cookie dough ice cream. ^___^ I just finished eating some.

Ac Dec ended yesterday. I'm glad. I officially have no life again, haha. This means that I should play flute more...meh. Anyway, I went to Walmart with my mom and Tony today and got "Mahogany Vibes: Reddish Brown" hair dye. My brother got two fish because my dad made a bet that he'd buy Tony fish according to the number of home runs he made in his game yesterday. Tony made two, so now my parents got him fish. I personally think rabbits are funner and easier to care for. Fish are NOT pets. They are pests that require tanks, salt water, and food, and die on you before you can name them.

Well, to be fair, we've already named the fish, and they're still alive. But I remain cynicle towards them all the same. I came up with the names--Pumpkin and Pickle...they were inspired by Aubrey and Auburn's lame attempt at coming up with codenames for a certain couple (?). -_-;; Tony liked it because one of the fish is fatter than the other, so that one's Pumpkin, and the skinny one's Pickle. I really hope they're of the same gender. I don't know how you can tell with fish. I don't want fish having sex in my water. >.<

Anyway, back to happy thoughts. Yay, hair dye! I was unsure if I wanted to dye my hair, but I guess I'm going to now. My mom's at Tony's baseball practice right now, but she said she wants to re-dye her hair later, so hopefully she'll help me then. I haven't done the allergy test yet, though. I'll just risk it and assume I'm not allergic to hair dye, heh.

Ac Dec

Ac Dec competition is tomorrow. I haven't even memorized all of my speech yet. I've studied some art, but just the basics. I'm planning to study math with Denice tonight, and I also want to cover literature and maybe music. I'll definately study literature, and I'm hoping I know enough of the basics of music to wing it. Actually, if life was perfect, I'd be winging everything, but since I'm not that smart (sob) I have to study. Anatomy is a lost cause, and super quiz...I'm with Rose and Michele, and I don't know what's going on with them...Shall I leave it at that? Although after yesterday, I got a pretty good idea. :/

The problem with having a public journal is that I can't write about everything and everybody. >.< I could be blunt, but I prefer being tactful. So, I'll just leave Ac Dec at that.

On the other hand, I'm scared that I will meet someone from Irvine this summer. I have no idea how that will go. Thank god I am only taking that class in July, so I'll have all of August off. Maybe I should dye my hair blond. -_-;;

Contemplations on Summer

I miss FictionPress. Not the site, not the writing, not the reviews. But the people. I miss how...united we were when we were trying to find Princess Mulan and how it felt like we were a little family. In my mind, I attribute the breaking up of our little group to the fact that we actually found out Mulan was ok. Then we didn't really have a purpose to come online and come in close touch.

Plus, school started not long after and everyone was busy with stuff. I think I stopped posting a year after that summer...so it should be the summer of 2004, because I remember writing something before I left for San Jose. I still visited last year, off and on, but then I stopped completely. For some reason, my inconsistency makes me feel sad. I know things change and life goes on, and I doubt I'll post at FictionPress again, or if I do, it won't be under the same name. But still, a part of me misses the people and how much I learned about their different cultures. For one thing, British is not the same language as English.

*sigh* Summer makes me feel melancholy...I associate too many things I miss with summer. Like moving from San Jose the summer after 6th grade, and then moving here after 7th grade. Although I don't miss Irvine. Going back there this summer for my SAT prep course is going to be hard. Ugh, there are too many stereotypes and no individuality. I kind of wonder...what if someone I used to know goes to the same course? I have no idea what I'll do. I'll deal with it when I get there. I had better learn something from that class, because I only want to take my SATS once and get a good score. Meh.

Anyway, I think I'm an existentialist. (Weird transition, I know, sorry) I like the story about the monk and the tigers Dr. Corbett told us: There's a monk in a forest and he sees a tiger. The tiger starts chasing him, so the monk runs for his life. Pretty soon, he reaches a cliff. He looks down, and all the way below him is another tiger. So he's trapped between the tiger chasing him and the tiger below him. If he stays, he dies; if he jumps, he dies. He sees a grape vine growing on the face of the cliff. The monk decides to jump and catch the vine. So now he's on the face of the cliff, hanging on the vine. On the grapevine are a couple grapes. Facing death in both directions, the monk swings over and eats the grapes. I like that idea, that life is what you make it.

*sigh* I'm going to miss art history. I know I must have said that a billion time already, but I thought of that again. Today, we watched Citizen Kane, which, according to Corbett, is the greatest movie ever produced by Hollywood for it's framing of the scenes, usage of light, transitions, and other elements. It was mainly hilarious because Kevin kept making dumb comments to mimick Corbett, like "look at the usage of negative space!" "look, the closing of the door is a symbol of fertility!" "look at the positioning of the figures and how each person walks into the space left by the last person!"

Feeling Kind of Sad

I dunno...I just feel kind of sad. I'm listening to Fruits Basket, which is helping a little. You really cannot listen to Fruits Basket and not feel a teeny bit more loved. ^_^

Anyway, went to the spectrum on Friday and had fun. I felt sorry that Mike had to leave though. He put a balloon from Red Robin, where we ate dinner, under his shirt and ran into Craig on purpose in the lobby of the theater. The balloon wasn't that big, it was medium sized, but when it poped, it echoed like crazy. I never want to play a concert in the lobby of a movie theater if that's how the sound will echo. It's the opposite of playing outdoors, the sound totally bounced off everywhere. We saw Just my Luck, which was predictable and cute. Akshar and Mike, who we pretty much dragged in, both said it was alright, but they are sucky liars. -_-; I feel bad they had to see it, but really, they didn't want to split up and see Poseidon with the rest of the guys.

Saturday I read a lot of Memoirs of a Geisha. I think it's an okay account, but the one thing that bugs me is that I can tell a westerner wrote it. I'm not purposely steryotyping, but I can tell Arthur Golden didn't grow up in an Asian culture. The second thing that bugs me is that he put the page about himself at the front of the book rather than the back, where author's pages usually go. How much more can he be screaming "look at me, I went to Harvard and learned how to speak Mandarin Chinese?!" Okay, he's a brilliant guy, who cares? The book matters more than the writer because the book is what actually communicate the writer's ideas. That's why words are important...they communicate ideas.

Speaking of words, I have yet to memorize my Ac Dec speech. Competition is this weekend...sigh. I don't know if I even want to study. I think I should work on math because I got 300 last time, and that's pretty bad. I'm not aiming for a medal, but it'd be nice to know I can still do algebra, geometry, and trig. And I should study literature, I won't mind doing that. I am not studying anatomy, but I should look at art a little. The super quiz is so long, it's ridiculous. I know the basics of the Renaissance from Euro, but I don't know ALL of the names and events.

Meanwhile, my stats projects is fun. I'm working with Rose, Karla, and Denice, and we're going to investigate bar bets! We're comparing the proportions of people who believe they can eat 3 or 4 pretzels under a minute to those who actually can, and see if there's a correlation between weight, amount of water consumed before eating pretzels, and results. I finally made it onto AIM today to do the proposal part.

Tutoring went as usual. The person I'm tutoring is taking Pre-Alg I B, which is messed up because she doesn't just do stuff I did in Alg I, she's also doing stats stuff and Alg II stuff. She worked on dotplots and boxplots, which is stats stuff, and she's doing arithmetic and geometric sequences right now, which is alg II.

I kind of figured out a little of what's going on between Aubrey, Aubrun, Alice, and Tyler. I feel sorry for Aubrey, really. Auburn and Tyler both like Alice. That's sad. And it makes sense that Auburn would like M**. She is in band. She plays practically every instrument there is, but she plays baritone in marching band, which is what Auburn played freshman year. She's a senoir. I probably said too much to people trying to figure this out. I'll shut up now...

AP Art History Exam

Okay, time for some reflections. I guess I'll start off with the test, although there's not much to say.

The first part was 60 minutes--115 multiple choice questions. I didn't even know we'd get that much, and we don't even get all of 60 minutes because the first 30 are slides the proctor shows us, so we can't go on to other questions in that section, because we don't know the images, and we can't go on to the other section because that's not allowed. So I worked really fast through that, and I know I missed a lot, but I'm hoping through the laws of probability that I didn't screw up too badly.

Part two was better, in my opinion. We had 9 questions--an hour for 7 short answer, and 30 minutes each for 2 essays. It's kind of weird, but we did one essay first, then one 5 minute short answer, then four 10 minute short answers, then one 5 minute short answer, then one more 10 minute short answer, and ended with the last 30 minute essay. I answered all the questions and I talked about all the images given. I'm unsure of some of the answers I wrote, but I justified everything, so hopefully it can't be too bad. Even if your answer is wrong, but you justify it, you'll still get points. I like this aspect of the AP grading system. ^_^

Essay 1: was about representation of nature, and it demanded for two specific works, and how and why they represent nature. One had to be from outside the European tradition. I used Fa Kaun's Travelers amoung Mountains and Streams and Thomas Cole's The Oxbow. Fa Kaun was an ancient Chinese painter, so I thought it was rather suiting. ^_^ I talked about how Travelers has huge natural monuments, like the mountain, and how Fa Kaun painted it because he was Buddhist. For Cole, I talked about how The Oxbow puts into question the future of America, and how he was part of the Romantic movement, which rebelled again the Industrial Revolution and was centered around nature.

Short Answers: They were all okay, except for the last one. We were given a quote from Baudelarie and we had to identify which era of art history he was refering to. I really wasn't sure, so I chose Impressionism and I justified it with Mary Cassat and Manet's works, and I synthesized them with the quote.

Essay 2: asked for two works that were allegorical or symbolic, and discuss them. My first choice was the Portinari Alatarpiece, by Hugo van der Goes, and I really couldn't think of another one, so I chose the Hunt fresco from the Tomb of Nebuman. I really could've chosed a better piece, but I didn't want to take too much time on it, so I just went with it. The Portinari Altarpiece is chockful of Christian symbols, and I said that the size of the figures in the Hunt represents the figures' status and power. I also talked about Egyptian belief in the afterlife. It's kind of a stretch there, but hopefully the graders'll go with it.

Multiple choice: there were some vocab I had no idea on, and I didn't know any of the dates of the eras. That cost me a couple of points, but I guessed anyway. Otherwise, I dunno. I guess I'll just leave it at that. Nothing much to think about.

Anyway, now that I'm all done (IT FEELS SOOO GOOD!) I've realized how much I like Art history, and how much I'll miss it. Not just the material, but all the senoirs! Oh my god, it took me FOREVER to come out of my shell and start talking to them! Like all first semester, I sat in the back and said nothing. But I've realized how great they are! They study hard, but they also know how to have fun, and they make the class so much funner. Plus, they're all amazing people, and their happy with their lives. I wanna be like them when I'm a senoir. Dedicated, but not stressed, happy, and inspiring.

I guess the most important thing I've learned this year is how to live. How to study, get good grades, but don't freak out. How to find happiness in everyday life. How not to obssess over stuff as unimportant as grades, because grades don't define who a person is.

♥ ♥ ♥ Art History ♥ ♥ ♥

Cookie Dough & Bananna

I went to the dentists' on Saturday and they gave me cookie dough toothpaste to wash my teeth and bananna flouride to put on them. I might sound weird but it felt really good. The taste wasn't great, but it made me feel nice with cookie dough and bananna on my teeth.

Anyway, studying art history for the test on Thursday. Seriously think I did horribly on the stats test now because we went over some of the answers in class. I can't wait for June...

Oh yeah, had a semi argument with Corbett in art history because I told him I wrote about romanticism in one of my Euro essays when the prompt specified "late 19th century" and romanticism was mainly early 19th century. Corbett said it was late 19th century too, though, and practically yelled at me to stop worrying. Not like that had any affect. -_-;;

There's something going on between Auburn, Aubrey, and Alice, and I want to know what.

AP Euro Exam

Here's the usual breakdown (I am typing a lot here because my poor right hand wrote for 2 hours and 10 minutes, the poor thing):

Multiple choice: It was...alright. I actually had about 7 minutes left over to check all my answers. I made myself go pretty fast because I was afraid I would run out of time. (55 minutes is not a lot of time for 80 questions) I wished I had slowed down a bit and considered some of them more; especially the images. Oh well...I was able to answer most of them, and I had to widly guess on less than a handful, which was good. I could rule out at least one choice on most of the questions. Let's hope I didn't rule out the wrong choice, though, that would suck.

DBQ: There were 12 documents and the question was "How did Europeans percieve organized sports between 1860 and 1940?" I organized the documents into three categories: people played sports because of nationalistic pride and competition, women and colonies used sports as metaphors fight for equal rights and demonstrate their bodies were just as able as men, and people played sports to stay healthy and keep good relationships through friendly competition. I spent more than an hour on it, but I used all the documents.

Essays: My first essay was about art. The prompt asked to compare and contrast relationships between the artist and society in the Renaissance/Reformation to late 19th century relationships. I made an error in talking about romantiscism because romanticism was early 19th century, not late. Ooops...But I got all the other facts right, and I talked about impressionism and realism too, which is late 19th century. So I didn't do great with that; hopefully I passed. My second essay was about why Hitler lost World War II. The prompt asked for economic, diplomatic, and military reasons. I had no idea for economic, so I said that he didn't have financial backup, like the Allies had with the US and the Lend Lease Act. Brian told me it was because he didn't have resources, dang it. Hopefully "no financial backup" will slide by. Diplomatically, he sided with Mussolini, who got stuck in Greece and need Hitler to bail him out, forcing him to attack Russia late in the winter. I also said that if he hadn't broke the Non-Aggression Act, Stalin might never have joined the war against him. Militarily, I talked about how he didn't wait until he had secured Britain and had split his troops to invade Russia rather than waiting. With Britain free, D-Day was launched by the Allies later on. Then I walked about how Hitler declared war on the US when we only joined the war because Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. We had no interest in Germany whatsoever, so it was stupid for him to declare war on us when we only wanted to fight against Japan. When we joined, we launched D-Day, and because he hadn't waited to secure Britain, we got the western front.

The DBQ and essays were done in 2 hours and 10 minutes. The recommended time for DBQ is 45 minutes, and I spent more than an hour, so I wrote my essays in 25 minutes for each. It's kind of amazing how much faster I can write now, when I'm under pressure. Let's just hope they were actually good, heh.

Alright, I've got to go eat dinner now.

AP Stats Exam

Ah...well, it's over.

I'm extremely tired right now. I didn't get any sleep Sunday night because I was so, so stressed out, and I didn't fall asleep until pretty late last night. Because I feel like talking, I'll write down the whole thing from start to finish.

When I got to stats, me and Denice just sat and reviewed; it was mostly me talking and Denice doing something and listening. She taught me the first steps to solving the Rubix cube. That was fun. ^_^ Then a couple hours later, Kucera ordered Costco pizza for us. I only ate one slice because I think it's really quite stupid to eat complete crap before an exam. I also ate an orange from home and some yogurt. I didn't eat my sandwhich because I didn't want to eat too much.

At 12:30, we went to the gym, where we take our test. Kucera had to leave us (she's not allowed to be there while we're testing) and the proctors took over. We filled out a bunch of complete junk for an hour...social security, parent's education, legal name, street adress, do you want your score to be sent to collages? et cetera, et cetera.

Then we did the multiple choice first, and that wasn't so bad. There were a couple I didn't know, and there was one that confused everyone because we all thought we knew what it was suppose to be, but it was none of the choices. It gave 1.3 as the population standard deviation, 12 as a same size, and asked for the sample standard deviation, which should be 1.3/rad 12. I guessed C because it contained a radical, and standard deviation usually does. There were other confusing ones, like one about a t distribution...I narrowed it down and guessed, but I'm not sure if it's correct. Then again, isn't that what guessing is? ^_~

So then we get a 10 minutes break and Kucera provided us with snacks which was really nice. Then, onto the written part. Two words: IT SUCKED! Reeeally bad. Here's my breakdown:
#1 was about launchers and it had to do with dotplots and the spread of them. That one was alright, I answered all parts of the question, and it invovled minimun calculation. I just hope my explaination wasn't totally dumb.

#2 was about a scatter plot and it ASKED US TO INTERPRET S AND SE! THE VERY VARIABLES KUCERA SAID WE DIDN'T NEED TO KNOW!!! ARGHHHH! Obviously, I didn't know it so I made up stuff. I said S was the standard deviation of the data, and my answer for SE was complete BS.

#3 was probability. The first time I read it, I didn't get it at all, so I completely skipped it, and I went back to it at the end, with about 5 minutes left. At first, I made up some stuff because I really couldn't think of the answer, and then with 10 seconds left, it hits me! Right on the head! (Not literally...) But I don't have time to show any work, so I just calculated my answer. I doubt I'll be getting many points for it. I was in the middle of scribbling down the answer for part two when time ran out, and I didn't even fully read part three.

#4 I did. It was about tiger shrimp and designing and experiment. I answer all parts of the question, so that was good.

#5 I also did. It involved a confidence interval. I know I answered all parts of the quesiton, but I don't think I did too well on it in general. I'm totally not sure if I got it right because it had a single sample, but it was broken into two different samples, so I did a two sample t interval even though there weren't technically two samples.

#6 was the weirdest question in the world. Usually 6 is because it's the investagative task and they have us do weird things. First it asked for the null and alternate hypothesis to the problem. The weird thing with that was the problem talked about variance, and at first I thought it was centered around that, but then I changed it to mean because variance isn't something you test for. Mean is. Then it gave a totally weird test statistic and said to run a chi squared test! The problem was NOT a chi squared problem! So I stated that, but then I did it anyway because Kucera always said that if something didn't meet the requirements to run a test, say it, then do it nonetheless. Then it got really weird and asked for the smallest test statistic needed to reject the null hypothesis, and I spent SOOO much time doint trial and error on that! Then there were graphs and we had to work with and interpret some stuff with those.

I don't know what's with me and grades. Yeah, I'm obssessive, but I really had a problem last night, and then I realized, what does it matter if I totally bomb it? Answer: it DOESN'T. A number does NOT change who I am, or my life. And who cares if I don't get into an Ivy League school? I don't. Actually, I would be very honored if I did get in, but I might not accept anyway, haha. I know that'd be a stupid thing to do...but anyway, it's over. The range for a 5 is from 68-100, so that's pretty wide. I mean, in how many other classes can you get the percentile of a D and get a 5?

So yeah, that sums up the exam...now onto Euro on Friday. I'll study tomorrow because I'm wiped out. Oh, wait, speaking of Euro. Someone stole the answers to the midterm that we took on Monday. I CANNOT believe someone would actually do that. How low can you GET? I'm obssessive, and I know it shows, but I would NEVER do something like that. You get what you get. If you're really smart, you learn from what you didn't get. You do not steal the answers and make everyone else suffer. We're going to be doing work for the rest of the year because of this, even after exams. Honestly, though, this is kind of an opportunity for me. I won't be doing anything in Art or Stats after AP exams, so I can fully concentrate on Euro and work on that until school's over.

Anyway...I'll shut up now.