Late Night Ramblings

5:03 am EDIT: Something suddenly moved me to check Pinnacle. Exam grades are up. I got an A on my AP English final!!!!! At the beginning, I didn't think it was possible. Too bad it didn't help my grade, but I'm still happy

It's 3:46am and I think the Internet has gone to sleep. No new forum posts, everyone's status is 'away' or offline.

I've been listening to a lot of Flobots lately. I heard Handlebars quite a while back and thought it was interesting, and a few days ago I heard another one of their songs and was hooked.

Pizza Hut's Tuscani pastas are delicious. Especially the Meaty Marinara. It's fast food, but its real -- amazing!

Friday the 13th passed by without me noticing that it was Friday the 13th. Adult Swim had commercials about it for days, some how I managed to forget...

I feel the need to rearrange my room again. I probably shouldn't. I probably won't.

I'm babbling. And I made two posts less than an hour apart. Time to stop.

It's Over

Spring Break is official over. It's Monday. I have to go to school in a few hours. Boo.

It seems impossible to get through this APUSH work. I know I hate history and the way this book is written in certain sections, but this has been the worse ever. I'm using my Princeton Review guidebook to sum up what the chapter has covered, but then the American Pageant Guidebook asks so many weird nitpicky questions that I then have to go and hunt for within the chapter. I can't win. I'll finish eventually... Maybe I'll take a break from this and flashcardize some English stuff.

Flashcardize: to take words from the Poetry & Prose vocabulary packet or other novel vocabulary sheets of Mrs. Dinlocker's class and tranfer them into self-created Microsoft Word based flashcard templates to be printed, cut, and memorized.

From Noelle's Made-Up-Words, Vol. 2

Yesterday I went out with a few friends to Sawgrass. Usually this place is packed with teenagers in front of the movie theater and sprinkled throughout the Oasis, food court, and the rest of the mall. For a Saturday night during Spring Break, it was relatively empty. It was a bit late, but I expected more. Where did all the teenagers go?! We went to Gameworks, where we played DDR, only to get extremely tired, and then to the movies to see 21 finally. It wasn't as bad as some have said it is, but now I want to play blackjack (I knew how to play before the movie though).

4.5 hours to get 2 chapters of APUSH and a page of English vocab done... Is there a way to temporarily block myself from YouTube, Chief Delphi, College Confidential, and Facebook?

EDIT: 3:41am, DONE!!

4AM

It's 4am...where did the time go? Where did my Spring Break go? I vividly remember when it was last Thursday and I was relieved to be home from school for a week. I remember when it was 1am and The Boondocks ended and I was planning on going to sleep within the hour. How the hell did it get to be 4am Friday morning?

Looking at the clock and shockingly seeing 4 there reminded me of a TED Talk we watched in Interactive Design last semester about 4am. It's one of my favorites...



Apparently 4am is the new midnight, the most ungodly hour known to man. Midnight is nothing now! I love the "Coincidence? No, it's creepy!" lol.

Today I finally purchased my AP US History review book (Princeton Review is a lifesaver) so that I won't fail the AP exam. All of my other AP classes have been progressing fine, and I feel as if I'll be prepared for the exam, but this one is insanely far behind. I found out from some people online that most classes in the United States are around Ch. 30ish in the American Pageant; we're on 13 =/. There are 41 chapters worth of stuff that need to be shoved into my brain, and I only have 12! So now I have to cram with PR's summaries instead of learning everything the right way. Talk about poor course planning. Sucks for the rest of my class, though they probably don't care anyway. I'm hoping for a 3 or 4.

Spring Break!

No school until April 7th...yay! Thursday was a pretty awesome day of school. I really thought that I failed my AP Lang exam. Not finishing an essay seemed like a huge deal, but luckily she averaged the two essay scores and the 6 short responses (B+) and then averaged that to the Vocab/Reading Comp. score (B), which magically turned my grade into a B! Phhheeeww. I don't think I've ever been so excited to have a C in a class, and a B on the exam. Same with APUSH (except I have higher than a C in the class). The DBQ didn't quite make sense to me, so I kind of BSed the essay. Also, I've never gotten a grade higher than a C on any exam in that class (I suck with dates) and magically, on the midterm, I get a B. I'm pretty satisfied with mediocrity for once (even though most of the class failed). But honestly, I didn't work that hard this semester since I was distracted with something else, so I know I'll do tons better 4th quarter.

Now that that boring school stuff is out of the way, on to Spring Break. So far I have absolutely nothing to do but work on Physics. I've played more Guitar Hero in the last 4 days than I have since I've had the game. It's fun, but I reeaaalllly want Rock Band. Which is expensive. But not for the PS2. Which means I need a 360. Which is expensive. Which means I won't get Rock Band. :( After playing once, it's like you're hooked forever.

I spend all of today watching robotics regionals on GameDay. It was pretty awesome toggling between Bayou, Greater Toronto, and Boston throughout the day, and it almost felt like I was there during some parts. Even behind my computer, it was so exciting! The Bayou finals were pretty intense, with 118 and 148 on the same alliance, though 148 died a few times, and 118 missed a few shots. I was cheering for the Krunchy Bacon (1902-79-?) alliance, but they weren't doing to hot. Of course 1114 dominated at GTR, no surprise there. The Blue Man Group played at the Boston regional, and the show was pretty um, interesting, though cool nonetheless. What was more awesome was Woodie Flowers' entrance from the second level of the area by rope down to the field level. I watched a bit of the Hawaii regional, but it was clear that Pink and 254 were gonna win it. I think the NYC regional is the only one next week, hopefully it'll be exciting -- all eyes on them.

I can't wait for the Championship! We've had a pretty successful season, and now this is the big show. We were originally staying at the Omni, but due to that Tornado that wrecked downtown ATL, the Omni is no longer available to teams during that time, so we got relocated to the Westin again. The Westin's not too bad, I mean it's a wonderful hotel, but the elevator situation is ridiculous. With 72 floors, 6 elevators does not cut it, especially during peak hours (6:45am - 8am) when teams are leaving and (6pm - 8pm) when teams are getting back. Oh well. Meyers said he asked the travel agent to try to book lower floors (where the view sucks and you'll probably get a view of a parking lot), but I hope for higher floors with an amazing view (since it really doesn't make a difference with the elevators). Whoa, I used a lot of parenthetical phrases there.

Back to the Championship, I'm already pumped and sure it'll be a blast. I'm really anxious about divisions, since as soon as they are released we can start to scout. Most of the dominant forces have been made apparent since practically all of the regionals have been played out, so now we're all just hanging in there until mid-April. From what I've seen in Atlanta, nothing can be guaranteed, and no one can ensure a spot on Einstein. I don't know why I'm still rambling on...

Today (yesterday rather) there was an energy conservation effort, Earth Hour, where you were supposed to turn off your lights between 8-9pm to conserve energy. I found out about it this morning from the blackened Google homepage, which explained the event. I participated, because I happened to be taking a nap during that time. Apparently entire cities and corporate facilities are doing so also. Pretty cool...