Winter is Here

Today marks the first day of Winter...wait, what is that? It still feels the same as September here in Florida. Nonetheless, I will not have to wake up at 5am for another 2 weeks, and for that alone I am greatly relieved. Christmas is four days away. (That should have been an exclamation point, but I would have been lying about my enthusiasm.) Perhaps it is a sign of getting old or growing up that Christmas is so close and I am showing such a lack of eagerness for such a once highly anticipated holiday. It still feels so strange that it is December so soon. I'll be 17 in 41 days, which makes me 16 and 324/365, or 16.88767. Tomorrow it'll round to a nicer fraction of 65/73. I don't know why using a calculator gives me such a thrill...especially that Math>Frac function. We've been using the TI-89 Titaniums in Calc for the past few weeks. I want one!

Academically, I ended the year pretty solid. Not straight A's, but I feel comfortable with my level of accomplishment and how much material I've learned and comprehended. I learned a lot in 2 classes alone for this half of the year, which means that is a lot of information that I can forget in 2 little weeks. I still have to work on my Interactive Design project, but I think I'll crack open the Calculus textbook and my AP Psych notebook in between Guitar Hero breaks [again, just assumptions and wishful thinking ;)]. This has been an interesting week of ups and downs with my ACT and PSAT scores being released only one day apart. I improved 16 points on the PSAT, but I am probably still more than 20 points short of qualifying for National Merit Semifinalist status, or even National Achievement Scholar. Oh well. My ACT scores are "fantastic" according to guidance counselors, national averages, and Dillard's population, but they're still not good enough for me. I've decided that I'll retest on the June test date, so I'll have had time to get up my English skills with AP English. I haven't had time to read a book for pleasure for almost 6 months now, but my reading comprehension scores are still the highest? What's done is done, now I must focus on making the most of my summer program apps regardless of silly numbers that supposedly determine my artificial-on-paper-intelligence.

Getting past all of that serious school-related nonsense, today was an awesome day at school. It seemed like it couldn't end fast enough, but it brought back those feelings that I had on the last day before break in elementary school. Too much candy, no work gets done, it's pretty much a pointless day to show up. In first block we actually did work, some problems from past AP exams, but nothing was too difficult. Second block was party hour. It seemed like every classroom across the school was having some sort of unofficial party. In our class and the one across the hall there was Halo 3 going on, people were bringing in food from various sources, and one probably would not believe that this was a school, an institution of learning, if they were to randomly walk in. I wasn't too into Halo, so I made a short stop-motion film of a paper folding itself. I plan on working on a more interesting and complex one over the break. In AP Psych, Mr. Lacroix offered 1 whole point of extra credit to anyone that would get up in front of the class and sing holiday songs, so of course everyone did it -- heck, even I did. Yes, I have video. Check for all of them on my YouTube channel later on tonight. Later in 4th block most people left to go play Halo elsewhere, while Young Frankenstein was playing in our class. It seemed like 4th block couldn't end soon enough!

So now, I'm free to do absolutely nothing until January 5th. DJ's LAN party is tomorrow, so that should be interesting. I'm not much of a gamer, but it should be fun anyway, and we'll be making our extra credit AP Psych video. FIRST just released a second game hint. I'm not even going to bother with the speculation this year. I'll wait until about 10:30am on Jan. 5 to find out.

Happy Holidays!

edit - videos are up on my channel