TRICKER TREAT

so this is right up there on my list of pathetic halloweens with three years ago, when becca came over and we watched happy gilmore. yeah. so tonight karin went out to a party, and what did i do? after coming home from class (which no one went to, and the people that were there weren't talking) i carved a pumpkin and then finished my application. seriously, making the due date november 1 is just asking for trouble.

onbart today i was looking out the window. the fog was coming in in sf, but it was clear in oakland/berkeley. it's a pretty sight,watching the sun set over the city. i might miss it if i have to move away. also, later, when i missed my train and had to wait in the station for a while, i saw all these people with kids in costumes. i miss going out. i did it last year, sort of. but it was nice and dark, foggy, as usual, and the strobe from across the street was shining through it. spooky, if you want. we got a total of 7 people at the door tonight, 3 parties total. pathetic. we should live somewhere less boring. stupid terrorists and fundamentalists and school board members and college people want to ruin all the fun.

i forgot to mention my non-costume: i dressed as Y- element 39, yttrium. a somewhat nondescript metallic element. who cares? prolly no one.
21:55

HAVE I BEEN BLIND?

stupid end of daylight savings screws me all up. it's too dark. i almost had to wander about in the dark until i actually got a ride home. that was nice. i'm feeling all great because i got the rest of the materials for aca-deca so i might actually be able to learn something now.

i have a dilemma: senior cut day is thursday. not everyone is cutting. i want to, so i can sleep, but there are those who insist on ruining the fun for everyone. so. i'm still trying to decide whether i should go or not. i mean, i'd still have to go in the afternoon, but that's later. at least i could do stuff during the day like go see a movie or sleep or something.

i think i hate calculus. it makes no sense at all. and it is tedious. i would be happy just taking derivatives of polynomials for the rest of my life.
19:03

PHEW FOR A MINUTE THERE I LOST MYSELF

i am sick right now. i have a cold. the kind that plugs up the sinuses and makes me want to lie in the chair with a blanket and a cat and a lifetime supply of kleenex. so that's what i did yesterday. i didn't go to work today, because that lacks the requisite tissue box every five feet like my house. it is not warm and there are strangers who i could pass my disease to. this is probably a weaker version of whatever diane had last week. anyway, i would like to give thanks for the following items:

• walgreens generic nyquil
  
• orange juice
  
• honey-plant ricola
  
• weekends

anyhey.

the news is: i have finally finished that thing which haunts me day and night. my essays. that leaves me four days until november 1, when i have to press submit and hope that my application ends up in the hands of the admissions people.
14:30

...

i guess a lot has happened. for the past 24 hours since i came home yesterday afternoon, i was worried sick about eric, ever since he was threatening to kill himself again yesterday evening. i left at 6, but couldn't enjoy the concert with that on my mind. i tried, i really did. the concert [phantom planet, remy zero, travis] was good otherwise. went with becca and meredith. i like the warfield as a venue a lot more than big open-air places like shoreline amphitheatre.

evidently konstantin is dropping out of high school because he wants to go to city for the next semester and then go to college. i guess he's too smart or whatever. damn. now we need new members. i asked anna this morning but she hinted (i could only guess by her giggles and bizarre facial expressions) that she was too busy with her other wonderful things to do. who could we possibly ask? i would quit, seriously, if heckman joined, but he's the only other genuisy junior i know of. so that leave seniors. i dunno. keenahn? naira? (i don't think she'd do it if we paid her.) nancy? devin? i seriously don't know.
17:06

SPEAKING OF WHICH

the math club trembles under my total devotion to nerd-dom.

erm. nancy was making fun of me because i wanted to start a physics club. and she is the math club president or something of the sort. and she went to math camp. so if i were here, i wouldn't be talking.
20:51

YOU ARE 79% GEEK.

UBER GEEK! My mad skills would make Linus
Torvalds shake in his boots. But I seldom,
if ever, get laid. Well, there are always the
web-cam girls!

Take the GEEK Test at Fuali.com!

'cept i'm not a guy.
20:50

SHNI

why do people keep reassuring me that i'll get in to every school i apply to? it is so not true. and it is not making me feel any better about anything.
18:28

EASY ON THE EYES

left work early today. sort of met the new people. i think one of them is from school. most of the day was taken up with demonstrations and stuff. did a math demo for a math teacher and an eye dissection for a neurosurgeon. why do i always end up with these people?
22:34

I FEEL SEXY

my hobbit name is: tigerlily bulge of hobbiton
16:30

GOT MILK?

so...anyway. this week has been the epitome of no time to do anything at all. i just got caught up with all my tv-viewing, after having to get up at the ungodly hour of 7am to get to school to sit around all day and do nothing. that is, do my duty as a shield and scroll member. when we weren't doing anything else, we just plotted against the officers. you didn't hear that from me, though. it was really boring. i kept having to leavemy seat in the classroom as a food guard to sub for proctors who needed a break. most of them took longer than they were allowed. they got paid. we didn't. the problem with the morning was having to deal with annoying people like ben, who i seriously wish would just shut up. he knows everyone hates it when he talks, so he must derive some sick pleasure from knowing everyone dislikes him.

yesterday i didn't go to class, because my dad forgot about me. i really do need to learn to drive. and get a life. all i did was stay at school and go to class with andrea for the rest of the day because otherwise i'd just have togo home and do nothing at all. so that's what i did. mr. shapiro was all, "why are you here again?" not that i mind visiting other physics classes. i do indeed like watching them. but still. i also got to play with a geiger counter and stuff. go me.


16:06

GHOTI

yesterday we went on a field trip to timothy ferris' personal observatory in santa rosa. a personal observatory. everyone was impressed enough with that, before donna, the ta, mentioned that his hobby was racing porsches. and he has a house on top of telegraph hill. dude. i don't know how you can make that much money as a science journalist, but it's cool. if he wants to teach one seminar every ten years and buy us dinner at the faculty club next meeting, it's all good with me.

so today everyone waited to find out class ranks. i barely made it into top 10%. that is also all good with me.


21:03

sorry for not posting yesterday. i was on a field trip late. i've been really busy lately.
16:44

BLAH BLAH BLAH FISHCAKES

i had my interview today. i admit it was a lot better than i expected it to be. the guy was about 25, not a dot-commer, and he was pretty conversational. played a lot of sports, i suppose. anyway, it went over the time by about half an hour, so i suppose that's good. i hope it means something good for my application.
19:42

UPDATE

i have just moved to frames. to get into the frameset, click here.

no general progress today. calc test tomorrow. why is it that colleges i am not attracted to want to give me full scholarships?
22:16

this is a test
i am typing this message using bloggerbot, the world's newest and most useful tool. o how it rocks.
22:23

A REMINDER

please remind me not to do stupid things like agree to work at the psat's for shield and scroll. i am not a slave to xi, nor do i want to get up at 7 this saturday.

speaking of whom, xi called me for physics help. i was all helpful and stuff. james called earlier when i wasn't home. julie called also. i should set up a 900 number.
22:20

I WAS PETRIFIED

the schedule sucked today. i don't know who made it, but it involved me doing six demos in a row. three math demos for which i hadn't been trained (and thus had to make up on the spot). while i was doing my last one at 3:30, dar was talking with me and catherine about more ideas for the new demos. i had some ones that she liked. mayhap they will go through. also, i told her we should move the orbital motions thingy downstairs again because it made no sense to have it with the pendulums. it fits so much better with momentum machine and stuff.

hot again today. the wall in the lounge was turning colors.

i forgot to mention: on friday my english teacher handed back some journals. she also gave out copies of one she really liked. (it had no name on it.) that one happened to be mine. yay me. maybe there's hope for me in the humanities after all.
22:17

I'M LOSING NOW

so this is where it all began. just like three months ago, i got up at 6:50am, ate breakfast and left the house to go to school. to take the sat. except this time, for the first time in my life, i was stressing out. i never stress out before tests. normally i'm cool, but today i paced up and down the hall, gripping one of those anti-tension balls.

for the first time in my life, everything has depended upon this stupid test. it's not supposed to happen that way. the fucking college board has betrayed me. i'm not supposed to worry or moan about this kind of thing, and especially not today.

everything was going fine until yesterday. until yesterday, when i was supposed to go actually do something fun after school, due to my lack of having to commute. so while meredith and andrea were finishing their classes, i went to see if schmidt needed any work done. no, he didn't, so instead i went to the vicci center to maybe start on my mods for shield and scroll. what a concept. so i sat down and did some work during 16/17 for ms. glashagel, looking up some juniors' transcripts and putting stickers on them or something. you know, the kind of confidential work they leave to any old student. (i didn't know any of the people, so it didn't make much of a difference.) it was tedious, though, so after a while ms. glashagel left and i finished up. so while i was doing that, david and wayne and someone else started looking at the vicci bible of student statistics. in other words, from last year's senior class, who got into which schools and who didn't, along with their gpas and test scores. no names, but you could pretty much figure it out.

i had heard about this book from andrea, who, earlier in the day, had peeked at it and had been freaking out ever since. out of curiosity, i looked at one page. well, that was a mistake. i've decided never to look at it again. (it didn't last long. i went back about half an hour later.) out of 20 applicants, one got in, and that was dario, who of course, never got a b in his life, took calculus as a freshman, took classes at berkeley for three years, and got an 800 on every test he took. and he didn't even go there. this irks me greatly. i looked at the people who didn't get in. one of them, i think, was sam. also in the top 1%, great guy all around. i decided i had to get an 800 on my math iic, at least. i missed the deadline by two days to sign up, so now i have to show up really early on the november test date to get in.

anyway, today's test was so i could do better on verbal. i think i did that. the few words i didn't know, i guessed correctly, and the passages were less soporific than usual. plus, i learned from the last time i took it. i don't think i did perfectly, but decent is always a good thing. the math was easy, but i screwed upon a problem. it doesn't matter, because they look at the highest score on each section, not highest in one sitting, so a 790 won't screw me up.

speaking of dario, i got an email from bryan talking about what a great school caltech is, how i should apply, and then about his projects this semester. (remind me not to go into chemical engineering, mmkay?) also about how he wants to go do graduate work at berkeley in inorganic chemistry. whatever floats his boat. but he also talked about a freshman in his house who went to lowell who just so happens to know me and says hi. of course, there's only one person that could be. maybe i'll get his email and ask him how he does it. [be brilliant and impressive and stuff. not to mention modest. *grunt*]
16:25

I'M WINNING

i love senior year. the teachers rock. they understand that we're all busy with college and such, so they give us curves that are hella easy in the classes. so the average grade in my physics and econ classes is something like 90%. i have an a+ in physics, according to my grade sheet. that makes me happy. last time i got a grade like that was in spanish in sixth grade.

in other news: survivor! woo! i am placing my bets on maybe carl the dentist, but i hope ethan or linda wins.
17:58

DIE

so karin finds a notebook and says to me, "hey, you do have a journal. and you prove theorems in it. that is so sad." now she is complaining about her teachers to me. it is so kyute.

tonight's dawson's creek: they go to college and continue with their pathetic social lives with twinkling lights in the background. it's special and all. i totally think joey should just get over dawson and go out with the guy from her econ class who doesn't look like a milk carton.

as i was saying...

multiple tests. no more. my current gpa is 4.75. it feels lovely. all i lack is an a in math. but i'm okay with that. all's well with derivatives today. the physics test was not difficult material, which is good, considering my study time amounted to five minutes as i was leaving the house yesterday morning. i finished my climate midterm in 20 minutes. so.

the thing that makes me feel special is this. so because eric cornell went to my high school (class of 1980) and had the same math teacher as i have now (lowell's second nobel prize in physics, the first being michelson), does that mean that colleges will look upon me favorably because i want to study physics also? i hope so.

speaking of which, i went into the vicci center yesterday to get a copy of my transcript. while i was waiting, anna reichardt's mother was holding a rather vehement one-sided conversation with me about college. trying to convince me of the merits of caltech while simultaneously reminding me that two of her sons also did the the high school honors thing at berkeley. (yes, this is anna who took calculus as a sophomore, who has two siblings at harvard and one at princeton and one at caltech or something. meredith, will you check that?)
22:18

AS I WAS SAYING

so after not having a physics text due to the amazing cluelessness of the substitute, i now have a total of three tests tomorrow, including a midterm. and you know how much i enjoy that. that's right. i enjoy it tremendously. plus i have to write a lot for my journal for english. i came up with a great idea for a poem narrated by a successful lawyer who falls in love with a dot-commer on the bus. yes, i know, my literary abilities are just outstandingly brilliant. you don't need to tell me.

so after having entered all mr. schmidt's grades into his little book all the way down in t-16, i trudged back up to the building to look for diane, who had asked me to go to the mall with her earlier and was supposed to wait by the social studies office for me. anyway, i eventually found her, but jessica kidnapped her. so i waited for a while talking to andrea, and diane didn't show up, so i thought it was safe to walk andrea to the bus stop, which happened to be down by t-16, from which i had just come. her bus came quickly, so i proceeded back up to look for diane. yvonne hadn't seen her, but said she might be at the gsa meeting. she wasn't. so i looked some more and then went to the mall by myself because i needed to buy a book. even when i came back, i couldn't find her, so i sat around and did my calculus while waiting for a meeting. (we were supposed to have science bowl today, but of course dr. hill is a flake and forgot to send notices.) xi came up and asked for my phone number. i don't know if i sould be honored because she wants me to help her with physics. wow. i am taking it as a compliment.
19:08

HOW FASCINATING

i don't like the transbay bus very much. by the time it leaves emeryville and goes onto the bridge, there are at most five riders. but it is free, unlike bart. therefore, i continue to use it.

no class on friday! w00t!
19:45

FILL UP THIS SPACE WITH SOMETHING INTERESTING

On one particular occasion a young girl who was more or less six years old happened to have been told by her mother during a family interchange that for all intents and purposes the girl's grandmother had fallen sick and ill. The girl was a person who was named Little Red Riding Hood, due to the fact that her favorite item from her wardrobe was a kind of blood-colored cloak complete with an attached head covering, the sort of cape used during equestrian activities. She wore this piece of clothing on weekdays and usually on weekends as well.

She had a maternal relative, more specifically, a mother whose hobby was creating baked goods in the kitchen. Red was handed a basket that contained a full and complete loaf of bread and some cookies by her mother. It is true that she was also warned, "Do not stop for any period of time to hold a conversation with a person of unknown origin." So Red skipped off with the intention of cheering up her grandmother who lived on the other side of the dark forest of trees.

In a sense, the path was long and winding, and the darkness penetrated the depths of Red's soul. There were sort of branch-like appendages hanging down from the forest canopy, which caused the journey to be rather treacherous. Suddenly, the innocent civilian was met by a very enormous creature of the canine persuasion. The inquiry that the wolf stated was "What is your assigned personal code and your destination?"

"I am called Red Riding Hood. I am headed down this specific path with the hope of bringing this woven container of sweet, carbohydrate-enriched goods to my mother's mother. Hopefully she'll get better. She is so ailing and weak, you see."

Salivating, the wolf, who was kind of ravenous and hungry in particular for humans, slickly told her that he would escort her to the residence of the person whom she was visiting. However, Red, probably full of caution from her mother, refused this offer. Little did she know that in the back of his mind, the really malicious animal was thinking to himself and planning to follow her there.

I have it on good authority that Red continued down the path, meandering in a most winding fashion around the obstacles. It never occurred to her that she had disobeyed her mother's instructions in a most awful manner that compromised her safety. Meanwhile, the wolf used his geometrical knowledge to move across the shortest distance between two points, a line segment, to reach the future location of the caped traveler well before her. That destination was Red's grandmother's house. Upon entering the living quarters belonging to the unsuspecting grandmother, the wolf basically ingested her body, saving the nightclothes for a costume in which to hide his totally awful, hairy self. After finding an exceptionally good cleaning agent to remove all traces and evidence of the homicidal event that took place beforehand, he then proceeded to go into the bedroom and lie, pretending to sleep, in the bed.


The grounds of the late grandmother were soon tread upon by Red, who was arriving after a long and treacherous journey. She was forced to enter the residence through the door, I suppose, because of the fact that the windows were nonexistent or locked, for whatever reason, although I suspect it was because in the olden days there existed a lot of wind in this area. Inside, the silence was deafening. The disguised wolf was found by the girl, but she did not know the tragic fate of her poor relative. "Greetings, Granny, I have come in peace and offer this gift of goodies from my mommy," were the words that emerged from Red's oral cavity. Seeing the presence of two excessively gigantic and really yellow eyes behind Granny's spectacles, a deep disturbance passed over Red. "My, Granny, your eyes are bigger than fried eggs!" she commented.


"In my old age, the sciliary muscles in my eyes fail me, yet there is a yearning in me to see your lovely countenance, Red," was the wolf's reply.


"Granny, your ears are like satellite dishes!"

"Their parabolic nature assists in my hearing your every word, dear."


"Granny, your canines seem to me rather long and shiny, like freshly-hatched maggots!" shrieked the small child.

"They are this way so that I may better masticate your flesh!" was the scream that echoed in the cabin in the woods. The covers were thrown aside as the wolf jumped from the bed and onto poor Red Riding Hood. The final outcome of this terrible tragedy was that Red became the daily meal of the evil wolf.


Moral: As much as possible, one should try to stay away from suspicious animals in the woods, especially if society condemns the nature of such species, and it is of utmost importance that small children do not converse with people like this and reveal any relevant information relating to personal safety and the security of their wellbeing.

19:39

STUPID CALENDAR

so i have today off from lowell due to columbus day/indigenous peoples' day/el dia de la raza. cool beans. but i still have to go to class which involves leaving soon to pick up my contacts, get a new watchband, and catch the train to berkeley. a five-hour trip for a one-hour class.
11:47

*sigh*

well, i thought the stupid server was screwy...which it was. it didn't recognize my account for a day. stupid thing.

this weekend hasn't been particularly fun. i was in a mental bind yesterday. couldn't do anything. i just sat there and stared at the screen and played solitaire. my dad kept pressing me for whatever part of an essay i had, but i had nothing worthwhile. finally i decided a better use of my time would be to do my calculus. i just took my stuff and went into my room. then i sat down. something made me start crying. i just sort of sat there and cried until my parents came wondering what happened. i wanted them to go away. i couldn't explain it. anyway. i didn't really speak to them until today.

today i went to work. mathematica is a kewliezzz exhibit. everyone else thinks it's boring, but it rocks. i like the examples of math jokes, being the little nerd that i am.

currently working on a garbage language of little red riding hood.
22:38

YA

watched tremors 3. turned in my recommendation forms.

and barry got to 72! yay! go giants!
00:17

YEAH

it would royally suck to accidentally fall into a dumpster, have my spleen rupture and then get crushed to bits in a trash compactor.

that is all.
22:28

STUPIDITY

http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=6502

what kind of right does ashcroft have to search student records of anyone without even notifying the student or asking the school permission? i had to sign a waiver to let my parents look at my grades. so why does the attorney general want in there, breaking the family educational rights and privacy act? and what the hell kind of information would he want in there, anyway? it's not like he can't get a person's social security number elsewhere, and why would parking records and such have any relation to terrorism whatsoever?
20:42

W00T

i like this new site because now i can actually have a website instead of just a page or two. make sure you bookmark or something.

i will get around to adding links, etc., soon. like tomorrow. tonight i have to watch the survivor reunion/preview and csi, as well as do a hell of a lot of calculus. and stuff. you know?

dr. hill gave me an application for a scholarship that i actually have a chance at. it is given by nasa ames to a senior who is going to go into science or engineering. and they have to be from the bay area. so i am like, woo! i can do this. and fortunately they don't want it until february. so maybe i'll get some money and my parents won't think so hard about not letting me go to whatever college i get in to. because there's absolutely no use in applying anywhere else if i can't go there. i might as well just continue at berkeley. which is in no way saying that i don't like it there, but i like to have options.

i finally got the damn senior portraits taken today. had to borrow money from meredith as a deposit, due to the fact that i lost my check and the one i had wasn't large enough, so. plus i owe money to diane. i also managed to forget my lunch and have a bad hair day, yet i was still cheery compared to most of yesterday when i was in my physics phunk. of course, borrowing money from meredith entailed having to walk briskly over to lakeshore and back within a mod. that wasn't particularly fun. got back to econ about a minute late.

finally joined csf (had to borrow money to pay dues!) so at least that's done. signed up to tutor for physics, bio and spanish. maybe someone will use me this time. so far i've enjoyed not having to do anything at all.
18:52

THE PERFECT SPIRAL


21:20

UTILS

i find economics to be a hilarious subject. who else measures happiness with units?

so today, for whatever reason, physics was depressing. i don't remember why; i just remember being a bitch for a few hours afterward. i wasn't really in the mood for going over to berkeley, but i had to, so i went.

surprisingly, walking around campus cheered me up. usually a depressant, reading bio was really great. i sat under the campanile and read the article about giardia being the missing link between prokaryotes and eukaryotes and left elated. it was really nice. i have decided that i like the plaza outside leconte very much at about 4pm. the light is great. there aren't many people. you can see beautiful scenery. yeah.
21:14

COMMUTE THIS

tuesdays suck when you have to go all over the city for no reason. i had an eye appointment at 2:30, so i had to leave school, but then i had a meeting at 4:30, so i had to go back. meanwhile, i am extremely annoyed with the optometrist. all of them. i had some guy i had never had before, so he wasn't familiar with my prescriptions.

so i had glasses for ten years, right? and my vision is actually really bad. i can't read ten-point text unless it's like 3 inches away from my face. but the previous optometrist gave me better than 20-20 vision for the last few years. it turns out that what i thought was a bad prescription in my right eye is actually what is supposed to be there, ans my left eye is over[rescribed, which makes me annoyed. i've had this for the past few years and have gotten used to seeing well. if it doesn't give me a headache, and my retina has that resolution power, why not? i like to actually be able to, say, read text on the screen. it really makes me happy. what else does? being able to read street signs from across an intersection, something that may come in handy if i ever learn to drive. but now i have to have my one good eye lowered again, so now i'll never be allowed to see. except when i have my glasses on. my glasses, that make me have good vision, but a completely different power than my contacts. so now my vision will really be messed up. stupid doctors.

so then i went back to school for aca-deca, except that was later, so i looked around for diane. i found her at the karaoke club. we were the only seniors, and we used that power to make people applaud when we sang "baby one more time". hilarious. then in a-d we listened to this year's selected genre of music: country. horrible. the songs were all whiny, or else were waily. i might have appreciated a few. maybe it'll grow on me. at least it's not pop-country, like "she thinks my tractor's sexy". then impromptu speeches. those were fun, as usual. guy and liz got into a philosophical discussion about suicide, which they continued later after diane said something about lack of police making people fear for their lives, which would lessen the number of depressed people in the country. don't ask me how.
20:26

MATH ROX

that is the one time you may hear me say that.

because if you have two functions, hi and ho, then the derivative of hi over ho is ho d hi minus hi d ho over ho ho.

hehe. that seem so much specialer than saying dy/dx f(x)/g(x)= [f'(x)g(x)-(f(x)g'(x)]/[g(x)]²
20:16

LOOKIE

my cubes were of some use to humankind! (sort of).

read.

18:14

I AM SURROUNDED

by people from my school. i just learned that xi lives a few blocks away. katherine lives like a block away from me (i hope i don't run the risk of bumping into one of her 29-year-old boyfriends) and xi told me that brina lives a block away also.

shni.

speaking of shni, talked to becca for a while last night. we are going to go see travis on october 25. w00t. i anticipate this with great joy. and so i call meredith and ask her if she wants to come, sort of in the fashion of:

me: hi, meredith?
meredith: yeah?
me: do you like music?
meredith: um...in what context?

so maybe she'll come, if she deems their music acceptable. i said, "travis is less weird than radiohead, don't worry." i get the feeling sometimes that she is traumatized by my muzak.
17:22