First day of school all over

Mood: Tired (yeah what's new)
What's on: "Extraordinary Machine"- Fiona Apple


Today didn't turn out as bad as I had imagined, but still boringly long. I left my house around 7:50; the usual; I got the school a little after the first bell. As I stood in front of my locker, I completely forgot my combo. Great, but I should be able to manage French without my book... Granted, I left my locker and headed into first hour..

French
Our class now has 14 people compared to 24 some from last semester---oh what a surprise. Fortunately, there was an anecdote today to the usual boring class: As we worked in groups to learn vocabs of random products Eagin gave us, Timmerman decided take a match from the "une boite d'allumettes " and lit it after much disclaimer from the rest of our group. Rest assure, the potassium chlorate made its mark. As he tried to fan away and disperse the odor, Madame walked over to check on our progress. I'm pretty sure she was really bad at realizing a match was just lit. But Maria, from the table next to us, was smart enough to state, "Okay...who lit the matches?" Thanks Maria, you're really smart. Madam ended up confiscating the matches with a dumbfound smile on her face.

I was smart enough to find the slip of paper with my locker combo printed on it, which saved me a trip to the office.

Film Lit.
There're a bunch of random people in my class, none I'm really acquainted with. The class felt long even though we watched clips from movies with Shaffer's lens commentaries in the background. I'm hoping the class will go well for the rest of the year. I truly do enjoy directing and filming, so I want to make the best experience out of this class.

Computer Science
I was fairly content with my final and semester grades. We're starting a crazy Marine Biology study project soon, so not really looking forward to that. Oh, facebook was finally blocked under the school network; Sad I know.

Calculus
4th hour is not where all the cool kids are at. Apparently, all the other classes hates/hated our period. A lot of my friends switched out of the class, so it's not as exciting as it used to be. The class itself is getting more and more boring. I had begun to doze off during Klumpe's lectures about 4 weeks ago. I guess I'm not particularly fond of what we're learning right now, but I suspect Sodoku has something to do with it too.(Somehow they make you sleepy?) As for the good new, I aced the final and made the cut for a borderline A for the semester. 2 down, 3 to go.

Band
I have to say, the new band room is pretty slick. Mr. C gave us a tour of all the "hidden rooms" spread out around the main area. There are actually 2 well hidden doors that leads to the outside, but the school was smart enough to install alarms and surveillances on them. Weak.

International Relations
So I can't really draw a conclusion as to whether if painting was worth dropping for this class. Mr. Meister seems okay so far, apart from talking in the whispering range. This class is again a conglomerate of random people, but luckily with more I know this time.

Government
Why does class sizes keep on surprisingly me today? Government: 17. Pretty astonishing for a social study class if I may say. Again, random people I don't know.
Nonetheless, I am glad to be in Pugh's class again after my short stay in his World History class 2 years ago. He's the usual sarcastic, ADD, and anal-about-plagiarism kind of guy. For some reason, I remember his questioning on the autheticity of my Punic War paper out of all the other "memorable" moments from World History. Basically, he was like: 'your ending to this paper sounds too cool thus probably plagiarized'. So me: "Um..no."
What can I say, my awesome writing skillz from 2 years ago.

Robo and school

Mood: =/
What's on:"Howl"- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club


It's somewhat hard to believe that school is tomorrow. Winter break has been a pleasantly good experience even with college applications. (But seriously, I will never be done with them) The past week has gone by relatively fast, mostly because my afternoons were nonexistent due to my extensive hours of sleep. Friday was about the first time I've woken up before noon becayse of my doctor's appointment at 1 for sitch removal. The day was also long as I only spent 10% of the day, excluding sleep,at my house. The day included a series of unfortunate and fortunate events. But fortunately, the latter out weighted the former.

Saturday
Oh kick-off. I can't say I was very excited about a new season of Robotics due to my general dissatisfaction with the team--- IT in particular. I left my house around 9:20 AM and spent nearly 30 mins trying to find the CL50 building on campus. But I didn't miss much, since the broadcast didn't commence till 10.
Overall, I came out of it feeling more or less apathetic. Could be because I was tired (excuse for everything), but I do like this year's game more than last year's. After a few hours of discussion, I got home around 1; It was only 1 in the afternoon, but it was feeling like a long day already...sadly.

I was looking through the robotics website today as I spent nearly 7 hours working on a new layout. I found the article I wrote about last year's kick-off. It was not surprisingly apathetic and made some good laugh. As quoted by Emil: "Wow, did I not proof read this? This is definately not in the spirit of FIRST."
Snap, no wonder we didn't win.

The 2005 kick-off: a rookie perspective by Elaine L.
A first-hand account of the robot kickoff

9:00 AM- I woke up this morning to the sound of my usual alarm. It was January eight, the date for the F.I.R.S.T. robotics kick-off of the new season. I was debating whether I should go. After all, was it really necessary for me to attend, considering I’m on IT? Besides, the snowstorm from the night before has left the whole town in a white oblivion. How many people would actually go?
I convinced myself to leave the confinement of my bed and headed to the meeting. This is my first year on team 461, and I wanted to do my best as a rookie.

9:45 AM- There weren’t many people when I arrived at school, but it was still early. Team 1555(North White, Pulse) and Team 1646 (Jefferson, Boiler Precision Guessworks) had arrived to watch the broadcast with us. Our meeting room seemed incredibly crowded as the people filed in around ten o’clock. We tuned in to a local channel, which was suppose to broadcast the kick-off, and waited eagerly for it to start.

10:15 AM- Everyone’s patience was running low; the show had yet to begin. Was this going to be a repeat from last year, when broadcast was delayed and later cut off by another program? Indeed, it was the same this year, except the broadcast never made it into our TV. We resorted to watching the stream video from the FIRST website…

10:30 AM- We tuned in to see Mr. Abele delivering his speech in a high school gymnasium. For me, this was very different from what I had in mind for kick-offs. When I think about the word “kick-off”, I imagine a big celebration party with balloons, ribbons, and cheers. I was also thinking of a sunny outdoors setting, but these imaginings were just the opposite of this kick-off.

Unfortunately, stream video doesn’t have the best graphics. Many times during the broadcast, the video would stalls for as long as half a minute. This became a nuisance after awhile. Unfortunately, the video would often stop right before the speaker announced something important. This always was followed by heavy sighs and jeers from the room. We did get to watch the revealing of this year’s game.

Impressions on the Kick-off

It’s hard to describe my first hand experience. I was somewhat excited to learn what new concept F.I.R.S.T. could come up with, but I’m sure the Tech people were a lot more enthusiastic then I.
We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon discussing the game and dissecting the game play. To be honest, it wasn’t exactly the best three hours talking about something that really doesn’t concern me. So what if I know how the game works? So what if I know our strategies? Does it benefit me to benefit the team later on? I still don’t know the answer, but hopefully it’s there within my grasp once the season ends.

Pretty much. My awesome writting skillz from a year ago.

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So to not elaborate on ranting, school is going to suck.

2006

Mood: Content
What's on: "Ladies and Gentlemen"- Hot Hot Heat

The past week has gone by slow yet fast. My recollection of my days were spent in bed with my laptop. Often the hours would pass quickly due to various distractions and food breaks, but in some cases it did not as I painfully tried to squeeze words out of my already dried-up brain. The only time this week I found myself actually semily enjoying writing essays was when I was at Vienna's. Unfortunately Connie provided to be a source of distraction, and I only worked for about an hour.
Though the majority of my application has been submitted, I don't feel much accomplished largely due to my dissatisfaction with my cornell essays. Then again, I can't really expect too much for putting them off till the last moment and rushing to meet the midnight deadline.

---
I was woken up today at 2 PM by a call from Connie: She wanted to play tennis at 3 because it was warm outside. I reluctantly agreed despite laziness, because it has been awhile since I last played. Though I should have gotten up to get ready, I stayed in bed and started playing MG Acid. About 30 mins later, Kevin called me to play Halo2 with the guys. After a few phone exchanged between him and Connie, tennis was postponed till tomorrow due to rain ( it did start raining at 3), and I headed out to Kevin's after finishing up a mission on MGA.
After I arrived, I watched the guys play Soul Caliber for awhile, then we headed out to the Purdue Math lab for CS after a quick food stop at Taco Bell's. We had a 2 on 2 lan for about two hours. I can't even recall when was the last time I touched the game , or PC games in general due to studying, so the lan was a refreshing and enjoyable experience. I returned home at 6 for dinner and headed into my study afterwards as usual. I spent the rest of the night "looking" for music + various other activities; Nothing exciting, but effortless.

I was asked about my New Year's resolution today, and I realized I haven't really thought about it. New years went by this year just like Christmas, as in not being very significant. I spent eve abit different this year. I'm definitely glad it wasn't like 2 years ago (see entry), but not so much approve of some parts either. Thinking back to resolutions, I don't have anything in particular. But for one, I probably should be more diligent/procrastinate less. I also feel like I'm losing interest in a lot things I enjoy doing. The cause is most likely college apps, but I hope to get back on track now that apps are being finished up. Oh and lastly, I really need to get a job.