A four hour decision that's done

So three and a half hours later...

I think I've finally chosen my classes for next year. I'm feeling relieved and doubtful and regretful. Because there are so many classes that I realize I won't be able to take. This is it.

That makes me sad.

But this scheduling problem has been gnawing at the back of my mind for weeks, so I'm also glad that it's over. My decision is final.

But...since I have no one else to talk to...I'm gonna just run the list by you. I think typing it all out will make me feel better. [I don't remember doubting the last 3 times I picked classes...]

AP English Literature: English is required. AP means that I have a 50% chance of getting one of two awesome teachers [one that is confirmed, the other that is hearsay but from a very reliable source]

Advanced Topics: My third required math credit, since this year's doesn't count. Project based, supposedly laid back. But interesting, because it involves computers [which I spend a lot of time with] and math [which I rant about but has really been good to me] and art and community service [which should be good for me. And the community. I don't completely believe in true altruism, okay?] And it's not AP Statistics. Which sounds ugly. The only benefit is it's "real world applications." But let's be honest. I don't care about standard deviation. Poo on stats and yay for conceptual calculus projects.

AP Government/AP Macro Economics: They are required. Originally I was just going to take them as APs because it seemed "fun" and a "good idea." But also, because I want to learn more about governments and the economy because I pretty much know nothing about those two topics. Apparently they're wickedly difficult. But I took AP Chemistry, which gets the "hardest class in the school" award. [And you got a C...] But then...my current history teacher mentioned that regular Economics is Micro Economics, something about personal finances, while AP Economics is more about economic theory and national economies and the grand scheme of things. And now I'm uber-excited. One semester each...no problem.

AP Physics C: Probably the most no-brainer course selection on this list. Suceeds AP Physics B. Which I am currently taking. And C comes after B.

AP Biology: This one made me cringe a bit. Because I am scared. It is probably the closest class to AP Chemistry [though Erin says it's so much easier. Though she truly loves biology. And I don't love anything. Unconditionally. With regards to classes, of course.] But I think my brave side beat up my wimpy, I-don't-want-to-do-homework side. Or perhaps I just duct-taped all of the little voices in my head and I made the decision when I was brain dead.

Intro to Law: New course. Mystery. But seems to involve law, and speaking to real people. Face to face. It should be good for me.

Classes I now kinda want to take but will probably not get the chance to take:
AP Art History
AP Music Theory
AP Psychology [I console myself with the fact that the teachers aren't very good anyways]
Sculpture.

I think I made a well-balanced schedule. I picked classes I was interested in, right? I'm being reasonable.

Let's just say, hypothetically, that I didn't. That next year is going to be a nightmare.

Well, it is my senior year of high school.

Last chance for free public education.

Just do it.

Yeah, go for it.

Well, you only live once. :)

I struggle with a faint conscience

Do you know those moments where your mind registers one thing, zeros in...and then nothing else matters?

Well, that just happened to me.

I was washing my hands, like I do every half-hour. I turned, reached for the towel, and froze.

O. M. G. [Sadly, my exact thoughts]

There were gummy worms on the counter.

Yes, it's late...
Yes, I should do some homework...
Yes, I could do the resposible thing and wait to eat them, like I waited for everthing else...

Or I could just eat them all. Uncontested. [My brother just went to bed.]

Okay, that would be stupid. I'm taking five. But they'd better be the red kind.

Make one more wrong turn tonight

I should stop taking hiatuses after bad posts. This one isn't much better.

But at least it's a change in scenery. Have a picture.

Cute, huh? I saw it on the boat in Alaska. We're on a boat!

Forgive my song references and lame attempts at humor. I am having issues with my subjective definition essay. What word's important to you?

What's said, who says it, why?

I'm alright, and even amused when my English teacher saying that our essays suck, but irked when my history teacher says virtually the same thing.

I guess it really does matter who says things. Or maybe it was the way the words were being said. It's not fair, really, I know. Yet it's how I feel.

Some people just have the persona and reputations to pull things off.

Distractions x6

It is, unfortunately, all too easy to waste time. I convince myself to continue listening to music/reading/not doing homework for just five more minutes, ten more minutes, until the end of the hour.

And then my mind is in such a vegetative state that I can't even think of anything to write.

And thus, I don my identity

One last thought before I go off to homework-land. I like the username ShineforLife. But I need a name. Like a normal one. I like my given name but I've always been fascinated by pseudonames. It's not to be creepy. It's partially inspired by paranoia, and the fact that I like my real name too much to expose it to cyberspace. I've had a few before, but I think I want to choose a new one.

Something nice. Probably Greek. I'm not Greek, but we do live in a salad bowl, so why not?

Something like....

Asia

Like it? It means resurrection. It's pithy and funnily encompassing of everything I wanted it to encompass. Just imagine confetti fluttering around. I must do homework. The sun's fire has long been quenched in wine-dark sea.

I think to myself and sigh

I just went back and put labels on a bunch of posts. It's funny how I'm too sick and too tired to do my homework, but not too much that I can't blog. Not really. This is just typical.

Wanna know what hydrographia means? Hydrographia: Creating an illusion of reality through vivid description of water.

There's a bunch of these enargia-like rhetorical devices. There's one that creates an illusion of ditto through a vivid description of a tree.

I don't understand how that would work. Would it be like a metaphor? What is meant by "an illusion of reality"?

All I can think of is "the moonlit bark glistened in the night air. sprawling branches pierced velvet sky, mirroring roots that grasped crumbling earth"

But that's just normal description, isn't it? Is it that in describing the tree, the rest of reality is revealed? Is dendrographia just a more specific description? Should I be confused by this?

My eating habits need serious help

I'm having a food problem. You know that saying, "eat breakfast like a king, eat lunch like a prince, eat supper like a pauper"?

Well, it's not working for me. Most mornings my dad turns on the lights to my room and I drag myself out of bed to brush my teeth and dress and eat. I usually reserve 10-20 minutes for eating and packing lunch, so while I do get breakfast, it's not usually very healthy.

Then I go to school. Lunch varies. Sometimes, if my dad makes it or I find something to make a sandwich with [or I just pop a lean pocket in the microwave], it's good.

Then I go home and eat a snack. My snack is usually lunch sized. After snack comes an assortment of scattered meals. Imagine Hansel and Gretel leaving their trail of crumbs. At first, they drop chunks of bread. Then after a certain point [say, 4:30], the discernable chunks become a constant stream of bread.

First there's dinner around 6:30. Then every half and hour after that, a parent pops by the desk where I'm trying to do homework.

"Want more dinner?"

"Want to eat oranges?"

"Want to eat cake?"

And then I pop into the kitchen to refill my cup of water and I spot my dad spooning this dark jelly into a bowl.

Me: "Ooh, can I have some?"

Dad: "Sure."

And I spend twenty minutes slurping down condensed milk and a mysterious grass jelly that resembles obsidian.

I'm surprised I'm not obese.

I think it's the Calculus. I read once that difficult math problems burn calories.

"All alone, it's a sorry sight"

I'm not quite sure what to say, except that I don't have much homework tonight. And Lights is definetely getting stuck in my head.

Something that kind of annoys me: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_university_diversity_calif;_ylt=AtAg9YYeqk9cgG87_5CgMIkUewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTNpZ2xhbHRuBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMjE3L3VzX3VuaXZlcnNpdHlfZGl2ZXJzaXR5X2NhbGlmBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDNwRwb3MDNwRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2NhbGlmcmFjZS1iYQ--

The law that bars the University of California from considering race in student
admissions violates the civil rights of black, Latino and Native American
students who are underrepresented at the state's most prestigious campuses and
blocked from seeking redress through the school's governing board, a
class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges.

No, it doesn't violate any civil rights. Race not being a consideration is a good thing. It means we're looking past such superficial things and moving towards merit.

Okay, there are concerns that there aren't enough black and latino students at universities. But there is a higher pecentage enrolled than in 1996. It's getting better.

I was going to write more here, but it ended up being very rant-like and desperate.

*sigh* Now how to end this?

I want to go to college. I want to learn. And I want colleges to like my resume and accept me[-which they won't, because your GPA sucks. -Be quiet]. So it would be against my personal interests if colleges are forced into pumping more other students in soley based on race. It's not fair. [-Life sucks, get over it. -Well, we don't have to make it worse.]

I wish we could just get over the race thing. I'm neither white nor black nor [read all over] hispanic. I'm asian. But more than that [yeah, yeah, I'm a human being.]

Sorry about the side comments. My head voices are bouncing all over my brain.

Reach a-little more; we love anyway

I find myself composing blog posts in my head - really, it makes me cringe when I think about how much time I devote to what's in my head rather than what's in front of my face. I think I have had at least 3-4 different posts worked out. But I've forgotten those now, and this blog thing really should be unplanned.

I can't keep hiding. My instincts tell me to just curl up in a ball and remain motionless. Maybe then this gigantic destructive monster will not notice me. But that's not going to happen, because the monster has me on radar. If I stood up and faced the monster [wow, this is very cliche-y] I might survive. Might being the key word here because I am weak [my golf coaches have been harping at me to work out for years. But no. I sit and read.]

It's hard to break out of a passive shell when the mere thought of leaving the house with no objective or talking to a grocery store clerk makes me break out in cold sweat.

I know that I can't keep heading down this road to nowhere. I can't just sit at my desk and my computer and plough on through my homework and pretend that everything will stay exactly the same. This may well be the time that things do not work out by themselves.

Don't I want a voice? Don't I want to "suceed"? Don't I want to make a difference? Of course I do.

Maybe I just don't want it enough?

Careful -Paramore
Light- Next to Normal

Should've left prep book at home

Our family has problems packing for trip. No, we never underpack.

When someone says, "Hey, where's the lotion?"

They won't get a "I have no idea."

It's more like, "Do you want Aveeno, SPF 15, or the scented kind?"

And that's why we have 6 bags of luggage for a 1 day trip.

Throat is sore, mind the pop

The sore throats are really annoying. They make me sweat. Like a cold sweat. So that my face feels like it's burning up even as the rest of my body is cold and clammy. And then when the sore throat fades, sometimes it is replaced by a dry cough, and runny nose. And if I don't blow my nose often enough, my cough becomes phelgmy and throaty.

...

Did you know they now have cough medicine in little packets where you can twist off the top and drink it like soda pop?

I can't believe I just said "soda pop."

That's a nappe - I said cone!

Math jokes crack me up

So I guess I'm on an upswing now. Maybe it's a combination of resolution and hearing Breakfast at Tiffany's on the radio this morning and math. Some english classes are doing six word memoirs, so I thought I'd actually start having titles to my posts, and make them six words long.

I'm probably going to rant and rave about math for a little while, because I have a sore throat and I can't for the life of me focus on writing my subjective definition for English.

My math teacher is awesome. We're learning about surfaces in 3-D, and during notes, she gave us an example where we had to find the curve created by the intersection of an ellipsoid and a parabolic cylinder. And she used her awesome Mathematica program to graph it all and when she showed us the curve someone was like, "It's a Pringle!" And it was - I'd post a picture, but I'm way too lazy right now. Maybe later. Anyways, she then proceeded to hand out little cartons of Pringles and we each got one, even though food is forbidden in classrooms. But it was okay, because they were "instructional materials," and we couldn't eat them, of course. But she let us keep our Pringles, and then she covered her eyes for about two seconds and ignored the collective crunch. Ah, yes. She called it the power of advertising - that kids could look at a curve and immediately recognize it as Pringle-shaped. She told us that it really was a saddle shape, or a hyperbolic paraboloid.

That Pringle was good. Now I wish she brought snacks when she told us that cones are not actually a typical cone like an ice cream cone, but in fact, two of them, with the pointy ends connected. One of them is technically a "nappe." Or even that other time when she called donuts "dough-naughts" - zeroes made of dough.

...

I'm hungry now.

Shopping list:
- Salted hyperbolic paraboloids
- vanilla nappes
- dough-naughts

So I got a Naviance.

It's this thing where you sign up and it creepily already knows your gpa and sat scores and then you can click on schools and graph yourself with other people who applied and got accepted or rejected. So you can see how you rank. So you can see yourself as a circle on a graph with green squares and red x's. The green squares are thick envelopes, elation [or smugness, or "oh, I already expected that."] The red x's are people who took a deep breath and moved on, or were crushed. The bland, black circle is me, staring at the x's and squares and trying to determine how safe - or how close I am.

But of course Naviance doesn't tell you that. Naviance is just a statistical machine - and we are the data.

Apparently sleep deprivation is linked to depression.

I'm not particularly sleep deprived, though.

Great.

It's raining.

Hehe, I just ordered two boxes of thin mints.



And I'm doing my math homework again. But on time. Yay.



Funny thing. I often quote my favorite teachers. My parents may not know what classes I'm taking, but they know that if I say, "Mr./Mrs. ___ said/says that ...." I like that teacher. I liked my 9th grade English teacher, and I think I did quote her. But there's one thing that she said that stuck with me that I never mentioned to anyone.

I forget what book we had been discussing. But all of a sudden she began to talk about her and her sister's relationship, how they had been close before, how it had taken a back seat when her sister got married. Because the significant other becomes the priority, and the family unit that perhaps results from that is the main focus.

As a teenager, girls like say that friends come before boys, always. But I don't think that's true for older, married people. Even now the conviction of the people that say that is doubtful. Because, after all, your spouse is your true best friend.

It's raining!

And I am going to write. All is good. :)

One of these days I should think of a topic before I blog



Maybe then my blog posts wouldn't be a sprawling mess of words and sugar-induced ideas.



I'll write about the future

----5:21----
[Yes, I'm kind of obessive about dating and putting times on my writings now. Well, the time thing can be reined back. I really like knowing the date, though.]

I feel like my emotions are like a sine graph that drank too much tea. Just a little while ago I felt myself slipping into depression and loneliness. And now I feel perfectly fine, if a little tired. I wonder how often my moods do fluctuate. Because I distinctly remember times when I just wanted to sit alone and wallow in music and misery. Then times when I desperately wanted someone to call and talk to me even though only about two people besides my family and my golf teammates knows my cell phone number. And then there's euphoria, giddiness bubbling up and filling the world with spontaneous laugher. My favorite is contentment, because it's when I'm proud or working [I like the feeling that I get when I accomplish something, or even when I'm working to accomplish something. I feel that, "hey, I'm not a bane one society, I have worth, here's me showing that." I don't mean that in a self-deprecating way. It's one thing to know you're part of something, quite another to feel like it.] or spending time with friends [These moments are the best - they're the ones I'm afraid to lose most, when we grow up and move apart and have our own budding, separate lives.].

Anyways, I should draw a graph plotting emotions - for two months. And see what happens.

10:52 I feel my resolve crumbling. I want to go to sleep. Not because I'm particularly tired [though I am] but because I just don't want to do this anymore. I want to give up. I. Must. Not. Stop. Doing. Math.

10:56 It's cold. I can't believe I forgot how cold it is at night.

11:12 I'm afraid to write much - I'm switching to the first assignment. If I get that done, I can concentrate on the new one. Thunder by Boys Like Girls, piano cover.

11:30 Apparently a 4.5 isn't a decent gpa. Go figure.

11:38 Tired. Sluggish. Wants to quit no longer. Getting closer. Will be happy about this come morning. Used to be able to stay up easily into the am. Last year. What happened?

11:54 Foggy...it goes away when I go to type on the computer. Global warming good for trees; bad for ducks; http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100203/sc_afp/usclimateenvironmentforestry

12:03 Officially thursday. Won't have 4 posts from the same day. River Flows in You by Yiruma.

12:09 Facebook group - I don't want to stop talking to you but I don't know what to say. I have that problem, sometimes. But I won't join the group. I think I may be able to fix it by trying to learn the art of conversation.

12:14 Giant sculpture http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/108752/giacometti-sculpture-becomes-most-expensive-work-ever-to-sell-at-auction Don't worry, still working on math...slowly.

12:31 Done with assignment #2 [#1 was done, just need to finish #3] Oh my goodness. 9 more. Want to sleep???? Well, can't.

12:33 The piano seems too loud. Keep turning the volume down.

1:16 Ha. I did it. Done, done done. Thank you, blog. Thank you New Years Resolution. Thank you, grumpy bitterness that kept me going...

Now I'll try to catch some sleep.

9:27 I'm just going to keep this open...

Because ideas/thoughts keep popping into my head and it's annoying... I think I'm the kind of person who thinks that kittens are cute from a distance but freezes up when they're shoved in my face. Yeah. This post is just going to be the Australia for my stray thoughts.

9:30 That thought popped up when I was looking at a graph with two vectors and a bunch of phis. This isn't even supposed to be that hard. Why can't I do any of it???

9:45 Ha I figured out what I was missing. Bad news: I'm an idiot.

9:49 Person on fb...I'll call him Bud...is feeling depressed because he wants to be around people. I can relate. I'm not much of an advice giver though. I hope I made him feel better and not worse. Haven't seen him in a while, actually. [He sits at lunch] Then again, he never really fit in.

9:53 I want girl scout cookies. Not now though. After I finish math hw.

10:01 Making some progress. I feel like I'm bothering people on facebook. So I'm here, bothering my blog that no one reads. Except Gadi. But Gadi's here by choice.

10:12 Talked to Erin briefly. But she had to leave. Now I'm alone. With my math homework. Again.

10:20 Halfway gone- Lifehouse change from Zzzzz- the Cab. I'll always love Zzzzz. Halfway gone's just a novelty right now.

10:22 I get my highs from staying up late and writing and laughing at things in my head and then laughing some more because I'm laughing at things in my head that no one else can hear. I also have this strange rash on my left arm, where I usually wear my watch. So I'm thinking about switching my watch to my right arm so that I can try to get it to go away. It's been here for weeks. I thought it was getting better, but it just got redder the past two days. At first I was afraid I'd been bitten by a spider. There some scary pictures where an innocent looking red mark turns into a gaping black hole that's eaten into the skin.

10:27 I feel like I should stop. I feel like I'm not using my poor blog properly. I feel like a baby that's banging their precious heirlooms against the floor, and my mom needs to step in and be like, "oookay, sweetie. Nappie time." Except I can't nap because I need to finish my math homework.

In an effort to avoid facing my failure at Calculus III, [Yes, I'm insecure to the point that I'm doing that thing where I throw out the name of the course - oh so casually - in the hopes of impressing someone. That used to annoy me. It still does. I should delete it. But I want someone, somewhere, to tell me that I'm not a potato-head.] I read some of my earliest posts.

And boy, was I an angry kid...

That was just last year, almost exactly! Was I that angry? Did AP Chem destroy me that much??

Perhaps. It was stressful.

I think the fun I had was documented in the doodles Erin and I made, where we drew a stick figure and one person tried to draw things to kill it and one tried to draw things to save it. Or maybe that was just us being sadistic.

I see people doing chemistry now and I laugh.

My point - I'm much happier [and less sadistic] now. But my only homework is basically math and english and I don't even feel bothered when it's 9:02 pm and I haven't made a significant dent in math homework. That's really sad.

Although, I guess the tradeoff is impending college applications and SATs and ACTs and SAT II subject stuff. Whatever it is Collegeboard mandates. Hey. I've done one SAT. But apparently it's not good enough. -.-" At least Erin says it's good. But probably not enough to make up for my GPA. Gr....

Stupid AP Chem. Again.

*zen moment*

I really should do my math homework. Because I made a vow on my gmail status that "I AM NOT GOING TO SLEEP UNTIL I FINISH THIS STUPID MATH." And, you know, gmail statuses are law.

Can't I keep blogging? It's so much easier. And funner. Even though 1 person reads this.

No. No you may not.

*SIGH* You're mean. *sniff*

I hate you, orthogonal trajectories.

I hate vectors. I hate scalar projection and vector projection and scalars and space and planes and symmetric equations and intersections of planes in 3-D space.

They say ignorance breeds hate.

Well, it's true.