Three Months... Oops.

Greetings! The months of April and May having passed us by without a single post on my part, I hope you have not completely given up on checking this blog for updates. And updates there have been, I have just been to busy to document them. Sometime awhile ago, toward the beginning of April, I think, I made a list of "hurdles" that I had to get over. And today I got home from the very final hurdle. So this post is going to be a documentation of the hurdles of the last two months. And judging by how tired I am, it won't be finished until tomorrow. Edit: Ha ha ha ha ha. Make that three weeks later... Seriously. That was on June 4. I am happy to report that I have fully recovered, become very lazy, and am now ready to go to Mathcamp. But here are the hurdles. ------------------------- Piano Recital: I played two songs. I learned the ending of one in like five days before the recital, so it was really slow, but I was pretty pleased. The other one, I never did learn the middle, so I just sort of put it together, but it sounded okay too. One down. ------------------------- Dance Recital #1: This really wasn’t that big of a hurdle. It was fine. I did our jazz dance the best I ever had, and didn’t screw up the others, so that made me happy. Knowledge Bowl State: Ha, not so much. We had one really good round, and I thought we might be in the running, but we bombed the next one. We didn’t lose though. And it was a fun experience. We ate really good pizza, and I saw Mr. Ransome actually eat, which was pretty cool. And I missed two days of school. ------------------------- History Final #1: I took a history class online because it wouldn’t fit into my schedule, and I finally finished the first half in April, after about ten months, with the second half due the beginning of June... Aaah! So I took the final at the library, and it wasn’t awful. I ended up getting a B on the final and an A in the class... Or at least the first half. ------------------------- Dance Recital #2: This one was worse because my group was supposed to do the dances in a different order than we thought, so our teacher made us go back and change and come back, and I was very mad, so I danced horribly. And the music didn’t start at the beginning. And there wasn’t even any music for the opening dance. So it wasn’t great. But I got a rose. And that’s five down. ------------------------- AP Stats Test: OMG. I prepared for this so much. I did stats nonstop for like seven hours one day. And when the test finally came around, I was so nervous. But Mrs. Dobson, my teacher, was amazing, and she gave us breakfast and everything. The test went okay. I screwed up some parts, but I think I did pretty well, all things considering. AP test grades come back in July, so we’ll see. ------------------------- AP Calculus Test: I was less nervous for this one than the stats test, because there were less things to just memorize. I really wanted to do better than I had on our practice, because I screwed up a bunch, although I still easily got a five. It didn’t happen, though, I still screwed up, almost exactly like the practice. But that’s okay. Seven down. Oh. After the test we got to leave campus for lunch, and then we came back to class, Mr. Mara fed us ice cream and then taught us partial fractions. I was like “Ha. I think you’re a little bit crazy...” ------------------------- Semester Project: Yes, I had two AP tests and a semester project on three consecutive days, plus I had gotten a bit sick at the beginning of the week. Not the best week of my life. I ended up with about 540 pages, 100 less than my first time, but I really really enjoyed giving my presentation, and I thought it went well. I made fractal greeting cards for my product, and they were pretty cool (especially since I then used them to thank all my teachers). I didn’t wait until the very last minute to get my expert evaluation, and I used overheads as visual aids, so over all, I think it went better than the first one, except for the research part. I didn’t know whether to expect an A, but after it was over, I decided it didn’t matter in the least. ------------------------- Art Show Opening: This was on the same day as my semester project, and although it was hardly a hurdle, I think it deserves mentioning. The Einstein that I drew and gave to Mr. Mara for Christmas got Honorable Mention in the chalk pastel category, so that was cool. I also entered my Beatles. After this day, May 10, I was finally like, yay! I can breathe again! Nine hurdles down, four to go. ------------------------- Driver’s Test: I was kinda nervous for this, but I passed, and got my license! The instructor guy was like “You did okay, you passed,” so I have no idea what I did wrong or anything, but who cares? Yay! ------------------------- Finals: And then suddenly, school came to an end. I didn’t have a final in stats because of the AP test, or Art, or Calc. The German final wasn’t too bad at all, and nothing Mr. Ransome could give us would be as bad as the Sempro, so I didn’t worry about those. In Gym, we had to jump rope, and I aced that test, so that left Physics. Oh my gosh. I don’t think I have ever hated someone as much as I did that woman. We made ice cream, but she managed to suck all the fun out of it. But I did it, and then I didn’t have to ever see her again. After everything, finals were such a not big deal I just lumped them all together. Eleven down. ------------------------- History Final #2: I managed to get the second half done in like two weeks, so the first day of summer vacation I went to town and took another test. Joy. I did pretty badly on it, I thought, but when the results finally came back, I had gotten a B on the final and an A in the class once again, so that was good. Although it didn’t come back in time to go on my final transcript to Exeter, but I have to take US History again next year anyway, so the whole transaction turned out to be pretty pointless. I guess it gave me an okay introduction to what I’m going to study next year. Whatever. ------------------------- ARML: Second day of summer vacation, I got up bright and early, or rather dark and early, I guess, to go the airport to fly to Las Vegas for the American Regions Mathematics League competition. At first I was like, ugh, why am I doing this, I just want to sleep, but I was really glad I went. I didn’t do super well in the competition, nor did our team, but it was great fun. I had a nice roommate, and I met a bunch of nice people and we stayed up late playing games, so it was like a mini Mathcamp. I left on Friday, flew home on Sunday, and finally had summer vacation really start the next day. So there you go, my thirteen hurdles. I hope I remembered them all here, at the same time as I hope I forget them all soon. I haven’t done anything since:-)

Word a Day

So guess what? Lauren actually made a blog for the purpose of writing like I talked about in my last post, and so far we have been faithful in posting to it daily. We'll see how long that lasts... But check it out! _______________ _________________ living-awordaday.blogspot.com _________________ In other news, I registered for classes for next year today. It looks very interesting. I'm not entirely satisfied with I picked, but there is little hope it will all work out anyway, so I guess it is good to have some flexibility. I'll probably just end up taking what fits. We shall see. What was it? Ah yes. Que sera, sera.

One word

I was on Lauren's blog just now, and I randomly decided to hit the next blog button, something I hadn't done in a while. After a blog about education that appeared to have been started by a college student for a class, I came across another blog, called "Who am I not to say?" The first thing that caught my eye was the quote in the about line. It said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?… There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same." ~M. Williamson. I like this a lot, so I just thought I'd share. The second thing I noticed was the most recent post. The author of the blog asked her readers for a random word, then spent sixty seconds writing whatever came to her mind with the word. It turned out rather well, I thought, and apparently she does it a lot, with a website called oneword.com, that wasn't working at the moment. I think I'll check it out.

Pictures

Aha! I just realized that I said that Mystery Hunt pictures were to follow, so I will put some of my favorites up. I think there are a lot. The incredible cubing Fred. Tim took this picture of me at the team party Thursday night. As of tomorrow it will be on the wall in English. Tim wants you all to remember this when he takes over the world;-) Opening ceremonies. A LOT of people. Puzzling. I don't think I have ever seen so many laptops in one place. So we took a walk around the campus the first night, I think, and came across this really cool, shiny, white, leaning wall. Another cool wall, this one in ESG, which was our team headquarters. That's Lauren, Scott and Katya. I heart Maddie! And the incredible cubing Kara. This is a sweet action photo if ever there was one. This is the dorm I stayed in. Ha ha, I love MIT:-) Sunday! in a random hallway. Great fun. We found this bar and grill called The Miracle of Science and had to eat lunch there. A pile of futons on the fourth floor. There is a story here but I was not a part of it. We were all lying there and then we started singing Nonabelian, which is a spoof on Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkle with much cooler words, just in case you were wondering:-P My friends: Clockwise from bottom left, that's Katya, Me, Tim, Scott, a half-hidden Kara, Lauren, and Maddie, with Yasha in the middle. That's all from Boston, folks. Thanks for watching!

Mystery Hunt

So I switched the title back on a suggestion. This was before we had a Sunday actually. But it was amazing. The Sunday, and, of course, the whole hunt. If you want to know more, feel free to ask. Pictures hopefully to follow, if Maddie ever puts them on Facebook. Saying goodbye was, of course, really hard, but I feel much better about life now actually. Lots of talking and laughing and not sleeping can do that to a person. Yep yep. But it was great.

My Birthday

I took this picture of myself on the way to town on my birthday, and I thought it was really cool. Notice the new elephant earrings my mom made for me for Christmas:-) (You can actually see them if you click to make it larger.)

Boston

Yes, the one in Massachusetts. Far, far away. But guess what!!! I am going there. In 18 days. 18!!!!! It is for this thing called Mystery Hunt, at MIT, which one of my friends called a "shoot-off of Mathcamp" or something like that, which I guess is sort of accurate, but not really. But a lot of my Mathcamp friends will be there. I am very, very excited. But I suppose it will be slightly scary flying alone and everything, although I have done it before. Wow! It doesn't quite seem real. Finally, something interesting in my life:-D

Golf Star: )

Rudy, my little brother, who is mean sometimes, nice often, and good at golf all the time. Although apparently this shot was the only one he messed up on all day. I think this was taken at the Country Club.

Sempro!!

So here I am frantically highlighting. Stupid project. It will not kill me. But it may come close...

Which President am I Most Like?

You Are Most Like John F. Kennedy

You live a fairy tale life that most people envy. And while you may have a few dark secrets, few people know them.

What Modern US President Are You Most Like?

Missing

My lovely rubik's cube. I am sincerely hoping it is somewhere in my house. Otherwise, I will not be a happy camper. Truthfully, I have not had time to look for it. I am considering paying my brother to do so. This is a pretty cool photo, is it not? I, of course, did not take it: (

Apologies...

to everyone who reads this and was not at fault, and the people who I deemed at fault that probably weren't, if there really was even anything wrong at all. I'll attempt to not post any longer when angry. Sorry: )

Life...

Not so great. I'm having issues. And I don't particularly have anyone to talk to. And all you people who read this (which consists of about two regulars, I think), it's your fault. Besides being my own, but, of course, I'm always to blame. So thanks.

Looooove it.