JOIN ME

even geeks are making fun of my club. damn them. they'll just have to see how damn cool it is when we launch our weather balloon, right? it'll be tight. i talked to a bunch of teachers to promote it.

spent like 14 hours at school today. eighth grade night. that was pretty uneventful. they do it over two nights to avoid large crowds like they used to have, and i did two information sessions. i was in room 75, an art room. haven't been down there since sophomore year and ms. kramer's wonderful little torture sessions. fortunately, she's retired now. i was with david luong, who i don't really know that well. the first info session was like talking to a bunch of cement blocks. they asked no questions, so i answered ones i knew they had. then david talked. then i talked some more. finally someone asked a question. i answer it. the bell rang. everyone left quickly. during the break i went to talk to nancy who was in the room next door, and we played frisbee with our ugly beanies. at least there's a use for them. ms. macdonald (the teacher in my room) and ms. gallo were talking to us, and nancy brought up my so-called date with james. (i figure everyone knows by now of this. rumors spread within minutes. it's funny.) and they gave me advice about how i should have asked him or something. that was humorous. the second info session went better.

i need to be less socially inept.
22:33

ACTION=RXN

so i was briefly walking through a room with a television and i caught my first preview of a beautiful mind with russell crowe. how is it possible to turn a biography about a schizophrenic mathematician into a thriller-looking movie?
22:11

YOU SLIP INTO THE SHADE

sorry about not writing yesterday, dear followers. i got caught up in writing a term paper i put off until the last minute. i have to learn not to procrastinate, right? except i do. all the time. anyway, i went over to berkeley today, heard about ice cores a bit and some dude named dave at ohio state who was not doing well but then came up with the idea of taking ice samples from the andes, and poof, he became a celebrity among people who travel in those circles. like the professor, who seemed very excited about all this. it's a shame when some people are more excited about certain subjects than others.

i talked to shapiro today a bit more about a physics club and we will have an informational meeting either next week or the following week. i have to get an announcement out. i am confident that at least one person wants to be my minion. i just don't know who that will be next. if it's someone reading this, i will entice you with the thought of the opportunity to send expensive equipment up to take measurements in a weather balloon. doesn't that sound cool? of course it does. now i only need to find time in my busy schedule for meetings. dr. hill made science bowl a twice-weekly activity, and i can make it, but i don't necessarily have to go both days. i'd like to so i could see everyone, if possible, and get to know them better, but still. not everything is possible. the fall semester at berkeley ends next friday, so i have a week or two after that to do stuff at lowell. yay.

we had our last meeting of prof. ferris' class tonight at his house. his t.a. likes to send stuff the day of the meetings, which is inconvenient for me, because then of course i don't get the information in time. so i arrived an hour early. it was pretty fun. we watched "life beyond earth", the pbs documentary he did around 1999. evidently i had seen it and completely forgotten until one particular scene in which he describes the fermi paradox using the hypothetical situation of waiting for a lobster to show up on his dinner plate. then i remembered it. it's a rather striking analogy. i don't remember having seen freeman dyson's interview, though. he resembles an alien in some way.
21:37

SHNI 7

another day. julie is bugging me about the fact that my computers are named. i thought laterally tonite.
22:37

SCREENING

so i went to work today but left early in order to come home and do stuff, which of course i didn't do, except for a little. i did some homework and some application stuff, but not nearly enough. i need to learn to use my time wisely. organizers don't help. i still need a real live secretary to walk around after me and tap me on the shoulder with her pencil. not like parents, because i could tell her to go away or i would fire her.

mr. cohen visited today. i was working in mathematica and i saw him. i'm not sure if he knows who i am, but i have talked to him multiple times when he is always living in shapiro's office at school. he decided to inform me that one of the captions for this one display could have been written better. i agree, because after he explained it to me it made sense, but the problem is that we don't have control of the captions. that is up to whoever owns the exhibit. plus not very much has been changed since it was first built like, decades ago. i also had this dude come up to me when i was at info and tell me that the urinal deodorant we use is toxic. he gave me the chemical name. well, i never would have known. i passed this information along accordingly.
22:32

YIPPEE SKIPPEE

so after that long period of having reblogger blogback lock my comments, i am now on my third system of comments. not many users. thank god for snorcomments, no?

please, please, comment on my stuff. it makes me feel good.
22:07

everything looks cooler on an lsd lcd monitor.
21:43

ANOTHER LIST

females

• Celery Hortense
  
• Carbonica Levelier
  
• Trudy Euglena Simone
  
• Ira Spree
  
• Rattana Lemoneesa
  
• Alma Parsley
  
• Quartz Dew
  
• Veronica Krispi
  
• Leticia Lurvi Curvi
  
• Deoxyribose Heather
  
• Britni Ann Citronella
  
• Virginia Angelica Chastity Heavin
  
• Etherythytha Layith Taylor

males

• Davenport James
  
• Tertius Portly
  
• Billy Joe Bob Davey Tucker
  
• Mario Testosterone
  
• Bilbo Andrew
  
• Xalyridgh Ytrium
  
• Kick-a-Hole-in-the-Soup
  
• Thom Thumb
  
• David X
  
• Albert George Patrick Ralph Undecided
  
• Fred Igneous Superman
  
• ALH84001
  
• Hell Jr.

that is a list of baby names i came up with last year around this time. isn't it wonderful? karin found it when she cleaned the office earlier.
20:55

NOTHING COMPLETED

i feel like i got nothing done today.

which isn't true. i accomplished a lot. i wrote most of an essay. i did my physics homework. i did my english. i went to the library and reserved some books. (i can get them on monday, after i return some overdue stuff. they thought i lost it. i had it in my locker and was too lazy to return it.)

so now all i have to do is my journals for english, write my paper, and do my econ. i can do the last thing at work tomorrow, and the journals when i get home.

the problem is my dad is on my case about finishing my applications, and he seems to want me to put everything else after those. well, i tell him, there's no point in my applying to college if i don't do my work for school; my grades will suck and then i won't get into college. so i have to prioritize. and he wants me to finish everything before december 15, which is unreasonable, as i have to take the sat in math next weekend, and i have to study for that. plus these applications require some number of essays. i have a holiday break. can i take advantage of that? evidently not. because then he'll remember that i have schoolwork and i have to do that, so basically, i never get to have fun. ever. i'm stressed out right now, because every time he sees me doing anything remotely fun, he tells me i should do my essays. i can't read, i can't watch tv, i can't make phone calls longer than five minutes, i can't even do my physics. or do anything else other than these stupid applications. except when they want a family activity, like watching some dumb movie.

the stress is starting to get to me. i couldn't sleep last night because i was trying to make a plan of how to properly utilize my time. everything seems to take so long. i get easily distracted. even when i can't go online or play solitaire or do something dumb like that, i end up playing with an eraser or staring at the wall. i don't know what's wrong. i have to sleep with gloves on, not because my hands get cold like i tell people, but because otherwise i scratch myself because it's something to do. i look awful. i wish i could wear the gloves all the time.
22:40

TURKEY

well, thanksgiving was fun. got to see all my relatives get drunk and tell weird stories around the table. i also got to see baby katie, denisen's baby, again. she's grown a lot since i saw her a few months ago. almost a year old now. everyone made a big fuss over her. she was cute, but for some reason, i don't like holding babies and playing with them and stuff. i'll look at them from a distance. i'm not terribly maternal. i like cats better than babies, i suppose. they clean themselves and are potty trained and they usually don't drool.

this morning i got up and we joined the mad rush of shoppers at the gilroy outlet mall. never again will i do that. each store's line was over half an hour long, and there were too many people. and then we went to in-n-out burger, which would be better described as "people waiting in and out of the restaurant for their burgers". that took about as long as each store. all in all, i prefer shopping in san francisco because you don't have to park, the stores are better and closer together, and it isn't such a pain in the arm.

wednesday andrea and i saw harry potter, so i was saved from the embarassment of having an extra ticket. i won't say how my parents suggested i use the extra one. i thought the movie was good, although i didn't remember the book that well. i think they left parts out. but then karin reminded me that i had read it in spanish earlier that year, so that explains why i remebered stuff that i thought was in a later book. i like the accents. they are cool.
23:27

THANK GOODNESS FOR THE SMALL THINGS

i have my first solid a in english since freshman year. this never, ever happens. if only i can hold that grade, i will be the happiest woman alive. it would be a miracle. period. end of sentence.

today i feel selfish. i had an argument with the parents over some stupid arrangement. it was really no one's fault that i didn't want to go to the movie tomorrow, just poor planning.
23:05

IN GREAT BIG BOXES

chaz arrived in the mail today. we set him up on the table in the living room and turned him on. he's so quiet! the fan hardly makes any noise at all, and he runs very smoothly with hardly any problems. plus he has a flat screen. which is really cool, as i've always wanted one of those. now i just have to install a bunch of stuff and plug him into a modem and stuff. !!!!!

speaking of my little computer family, dumb object, who i'm using right now, turns 6 later this month. happy birthday to him. he's the most antique of the bunch we have set up currently, the second-oldest in the house (the unplugged rusty being older, with parts dating back to 1987.) anyway, as a p1 100, he is 7 times slower than hal, and 17 times slower than chaz. and he still runs pretty well, imho. so that means that chaz is just hella fast.
18:18

SO DOES THIS

war trading cards
17:18

THIS AMUSES ME

I am 72% EMO.

Emo Kid. Well.. I've made the cut! Now I'll go buy some promise rings and knit myself a sweater. Take the EMO Test at Fuali.com!

heh. i actually like emo, but not on purpose. and i'm not really an emo kid. or maybe i am, but i hide it well.

i have to go work at the musical tonight. not that i mind, because working as an usher means getting into the show for free. so i don't mind having been roped into this job by some organization i dislike. (i've been telling applicants not to bother. but you didn't hear it from me.) so that means i have to leave soon. and find my beanie. stupidity.

this weekend is the big game. cal vs. stanford. we are 0-9 and they are #1 in the pac-10. it's pathetic. we're going to lose, as the cal team is currently 0-9, but i am still rooting for them. if i were a football fan i would be, though. i told schmidt to give 'em an extra cheer for me. he's heading down to palo alto to cheer. he practiced the cheers yesterday. it was amusing.
17:05

I JUST CAN'T DO ENOUGH

so i had the wonderful experience of math hell this morning. it was a physics/calculus test. that is, each contained a little of the other. however, despite expectations, i think i did better on the calc test than the physics test. here's why: i can't interpret data to save my life. i look at a table full of numbers and i can't come up with an equation. from an equation, i can do everything. and i can look at something happening and find a basic equation, but i can't play instrument. maybe this isn't a good sign. but anyway, what's done is done. the math test was only good because i expected something horrible and bad; i finished everything but the last part of the first essay. wonderful for me.

22:39

THE TALK

okay, i feel pathetic. is it better for your parents to give you the talk because they think you're mature or something, or for them not to talk about it even when you're approaching 18 years? because never have my parents sat me down and told me about the birds and the bees. not that i care, because they tend to be uninformed, and i learn more in the many times i've had sex/health ed. plus i put together a webcast on it. anyway, i thought i'd share a humorous conversation:

mother [looking at my course catalog]: they have a seminar in sex?
me: what's it called?
mother [reading]: demography 24: human reproductive technologies. birth control...sperm donations...frozen embryos...stem cells...cloning.
me: hey, i'm signed up for that class.
mother [shocked]: you are??
me: you know, it doesn't explicitly mention sex anywhere. in fact, it's all about making babies without having to go through the inefficiencies of sex.
mother: okay.
me: it's not like i'm taking a class called "reproduction 10: sexual practices" that involves a lab section.
mother [still reading]: "the homoerotic in ancient greece"?
me: besides, the most extensive physical contact i've had with a guy since i reached puberty probably involved accidentally touching someone's hand while handing him an eraser.
mother: that's pathetic.
me: yeah, i know. anyway, i'm going to go share an intimate moment with my calculus book.

17:59

IF YOU STRETCH YOUR IMAGINATION

so in my evolution seminar the professor is really fond of me because i actually remember biology, unlike the rest of the people. he always tells me how great it is that people paid attention and stuff. so then one day he asked me if i was majoring in biology or premed or something, and i told him no, if i were majoring in anything it would be physics. so now he resents me being there. so today he decided to do this thing, math vs. biology, trying to prove some point. and he asked "who in here is good at math?" and of course, i was the one he turned to. the only person who wanted to defend the wonderful study of mathematics.

anyway. i was walking by the plant genetics building and i saw this guy who was walking his cat. on a leash. i've never tried to do that one.
19:37

TWO PATS ON THE BACK FOR ME

1.
2. i avoided telling any useful information to nosy freshmen.
22:58

VSIN(X) WHERE V=VELOCITY IN M/S

i hear things from my spies. these things make me happy.

so anyway, i thought i wasn't going to do anythign after school today, but i ended up staying forever because i'm a loser. or whatever. we had a rather animated science bowl meeting without tommy and stephanie. i'm happier with the team dynamics this year than last year, where basically i only talked to stephanie, and not to the seniors. or rather, they discussed things among themselves and chose not to speak to me. so this year i've made a point in talking to everyone. and it seems to be working well, but we may get along too well. we discussed all the bonuses rather animatedly. i didn't realize that one guy was jennifer's brother. (what relation that has to anything at all is not clear to me.)

xp is a nice enough os. it's making hal happy. he's running more smoothly. the only function i dislike is the increased presence of multiple users. this malfunctions often for me. and it's slow to switch. other than that, i like the idea, i suppose. i also hate the 3d cursors.
21:24

THE SAD STATE OF MY SOCIAL LIFE
i am being given advice by freshmen.

angelally007: have u had a boyfriend?
pailblusea: let's not go there :)
angelally007: KATE\
pailblusea: I am philosophically opposed to the idea of dating people
angelally007: uve never had a boyfriend???????????
pailblusea: well, technically....
angelally007: kate! go up to a hott guy in ur 1-2 class tomorrow and ask if he wants 2 see a movie....
angelally007: asnd then u will have had a boyfriend.................well donchas wanna get married>??
pailblusea: no
pailblusea: I am going to grow up to become an old woman with cats
angelally007: KATE thas jus patheicly scary

22:34

HAL GETS THE TREATMENT

like windows xp. good for him. i hope he is "faster and more reliable" like the tag says.
22:31

IT'S LIKE TEN THOUSAND SPOONS

well, it's not ironic, as much as alanis would like us to believe. karin and i revised the lyrics to "and doesn't it stink, don't you think?"

anyway, it does. i find it amusing that i spent four hours of my life going to berkeley and back only to find out that it's the only holiday they seem to honor. it's not on the schedule listed as a day off. so i hiked half a mile through the pouring rain to find the doors of leconte hall locked, with no one inside and obviously no class. i proceeded to call my mom, who laughed. then i gave five bucks to a bum on my way back to the train.
16:41

WHEN THE RAIN COMES, YOU RUN AND HIDE YOUR HEAD

i don't want to go to class today. it takes too long to get there and back, and it's raining. the station at civic center is flooded. the overhead wires on the n line keep falling down. i have a ton of calculus to do.

it is just not looking good for me today.

x-files was..interesting last night. i hate the new credits. what inspired them to change them from the classics in the last season of its existence? i don't like the brad dude that agent reyes was involved with, and i really don't like kersh. i liked it that he was absent for all of season 7, so why did they have to reintroduce his role during season 8? and 9? he just needs to die. they shouldn't have killed the consortium, because without smoking man and krycek and mulder, the show lacks a purpose.
11:53

I AM THE WEAKEST LINK

visitors piss me off. i was walking around mathematica today, and this guy and his girlfriend come up to me and point at a model. "can you explain to us what the riemannian zeta function is and what relevance it has to anything?" they ask me. well, i know very little about it, other than something about holes that lie in a line, and this hypothesis has remained unproven since like 150 years ago. and of course they already knew what it was, or else they wouldn't have looked at me so smugly.

bah. the only good thing that happened was that i beat ronnie, aaron and andrew at dueces. they thought i couldn't play just because they never play against girls. and they think lowell kids are dumb. but yeah, i beat them, so that made me happy.
19:48

WHEE

i get a new computer. it is being shipped from dell sometime this week. and i'm getting an lcd monitor, which totally rocks. i don't know what i'll name it. maybe i'll name it after one of my sims. i should make a list of possible names that i like:

• hecka kewliezzz
  
• chairman toast
  
• rico suave
  
• boris
  
• etc.

17:55

AND I FEEL LIKE A DISCO BALL

sparklehorse is doing a show at bimbo's on sunday, but as luck would have it, it's 21 and over. so i've waited this long and then they pull one of those on me. then, today, i found out they're going to be at amoeba tomorrow, which isn't helpful, as the amoeba website has no listings for time. the band website doesn't have that appearance listed at all, and the chronicle has the day, but not the time. i could call tomorrow, but chances are i won't be able to make it. senior bowling night is tomorrow and i really want to attend a class event for once.

so earlier i tried to sign up for classes. it makes no sense. i must have missed my period 1 appointment because everything seems to be full, but it wouldn't let me add any classes at all until 5pm tonight. so i tried then, and it was frustrating to the extreme. i wanted psych 2, which is about the only lecture class i can take. it said no, most of the seats are reserved for juniors and seniors, but the catalog description says...grrr...f/s only. so what the hell. there are 215 seats in the class, 200 available, and a 3-person wait-list, which i cannot get on. what do i have to do to actually get into a class? how am i supposed to continue in this program if to do so, i need at least 3 units, but i can't sign up for more than 2? (i finally found 2 seminars at the right time, but i want a real class.) not to mention all the good seminars are full and the wait-lists are long. i must have missed something. i need an advisor. for reals.
23:54

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

chickclick is dying. it's about to not exist. i honestly don't know what to say.

this is the community that supported me in the year i wasn't speaking to my other online friends. (the year i suddenly had a spat with those at dew, for no particular reason, and needed somewhere to go.) it's where i used to spend so much time trying to control the hormones and teenybopping madness in that forum. it caused so much contention among the residents that i eventually left. i was sick of bickering on the new boards and people getting fired and having no power as a mod anymore. but i met people i won't forget, even if they forget me. hey people, if you're reading, i used to be pailblusea/alienne, or, to those of my little x-files cult, 'blu the phantom shipper.

it's weird when things die like this. there's no archaelogical remains to be dug up years later. it just disappears. just like dew (no pun intended) and speakeasy and such. it's not as sad as those breakups, i suppose. it lives on in the minds of the people who left, who went to she-net and estrov2, and in the buddy lists and links pages of people. there are no reunions years later. no one wants them.

and i still have my t-shirt and lunchbox and stickers and such i got for x-mas from ellen that one year. i think i'll keep it.

off to class now.
14:31

OH JOY OF JOYS

so this is amazing. after a year and a half of not being able to access this server, i have finally gotten the password again. this rocks the casbah. it really made my day. now i don't have to deal with stupid banners on every page and evil stuff put there by the hosts. no, i get my bang for my buck now.

so today i paid attention to that guy in the white house. i supported the national economy. i went shopping. and i got this pair of pants that may actually right, but probably not. and i got this jacket. and a got a watch for $7.50, which makes me extremely happy. it lights up and is motion-sensitive. so it has little constellations. could anything be more kewliezzz? of course not.

anyway. no meeting today. edelman was sick or something? i didn't know that until i metan empty library and no one in the office.

i am getting my very own personal computer this weekend. it will be my first. or, that is, it will be my own when i go off to college. for now i have to share. but i don't mind. i was thinking about this the other day. what does one bring with them when going far away? i could drive my stuff to berkeley if i went there, but if i don't, what do i do? do i have to drive across the country in a u-haul or ship it via ups, hoping that nothing will break. i don't want all my cd cases to crack.
19:16

BURN NEXT WEEKEND

so i got back this pop math quiz i had last week. he took 8 points off (out of 24) because i didn't write the answers the way he wanted me to. why do i have so many issues with this in math? i can do the math, but then i screw up one thing or don't know how i'm supposed to format it and thus lose a lot. and shouldn't the math count more than the formatting anyway? my main problem is that i should take the opportunity to learn, like a good student, but the next chance i get, it's different, and it's another thing to screw up.

needless to say i didn't perform well on my second chance today. was doing fine until i discovered i had taken the wrong derivative in the first part. one minute before the end. figured it out in my head and then had no time to write it down. things like this happen and you understand why people dislike math.

oh, and then another thing to go wrong: at lunch, i was trying to finish a take-home test for econ and diane knocked over my soda. and didn't really help clean it up, so then i was rushed for the rest. and i had no lunch. shitty day in general.
16:07

TURN OFF THE LIGHT

so dar wants to get us all pagers(!) this makes me so excited. because of course we all need to be in communication at all times of the world, you know? just in case they decide to blow us all up. i met the new people for real this time, and they seem like a decent bunch, except for one or two who are good friends with marlene and thus seem preoccupied with stupidity.

that was a mean-spirited thing for me to say. marlene was pissing me off today. i'll stop talking.

i had this dream about mexican soda last night.
20:50

HELLO MINIONS

so i've been doing physics all day. well, not straight. i've taken quite a few breaks. woke up rather late, made a pancake, then watched a bit of tv i recorded last night. it was like a dream. well, for the main character. i have to say that my halloween may have been better than having to chase a headless body around a post-apocalyptic city.

so james and i had a physics party over the phone. and i watched on the waterfront. i don't know which was the highlight of my day.


23:34

BAH..

i haven't had much time. i meant to write something yesterday, but got caught up in a fight with my parents. they are being obnoxious about my college applications.

what?, you ask. they were due yesterday. well, folks, it is almost entirely certain that i won't get into the college i submitted to yesterday, due to reasons including my refusal to take the sat 2 this saturday and improve my math score. i didn't know it was tomorrow until yesterday, and needless to say studying now won't do me any good. so that, of course, pisses my dad off for numerous reasons. this is coming from someone who has a "job" and probably didn't take trig in high school.

let me tell a story. i went to school for 11 hours yesterday, on senior cut day. i attended twice as much school as most people skipped. no one was there, and the whole reason i was staying for so long was so i could ta later in the day, so schmidt would mail my recommendation. anyway, when i saw him at 1:30, he told me he didn't need me for anything that day, and he still had to write my letter. he got it postmarked, because i asked him today, but that was more sitting around time for me. then no one else showed up for science bowl practice, leaving me to do econ in the hall. i talked to shimmon about five times during that period, and he was wondering why the hell i had showed up for his class and why i was still there, among other things. talked to jenny for a while, and mr. ross and made fun of the math club for a while until the aca-deca meeting. that was somewhat productive since all the loud people weren't around (re: diane, who is in l.a. for an oxford interview.) but then ben told me that he had been listening to the news and gray davis was telling about the threats made to west coast suspension bridges. wow, well, that made me feel oh-so-great, considering that there was no mail delivered in sf yesterday due to anthrax suspection or something of the sort. and since i work next to one and cross one a few times a week. that's two of the four on the hit list, so to speak.

so today at school i was freaked out about having to go to berkeley and cross the bridge or go in the transbay tunnel. colin the asshole was no help, he just talked about how it wouldn't fall over since it was made of steel and such, and then i reminded him that the wtc was also, and look where it is now. blah blah. i found out what makes him so annoying. he used to live somewhere on the east coast and now in pacific heights, which is weird. people in pacific heights don't go to public school; they go to private ones. but i digress.

so last night my parents were on my case about getting together my other applications. i have two months. the teachers want a month to do recommendations. of course, they all wait until the day they're due to actually write them. i don't know why they want so long to procrastinate.

what i really want is a counselor who i can actually talk to, one who i know isn't temporary and leaving soon (within the next few months.) this is supposed to be the best public school in the state and yet i feel lost and unaccounted for in my senior year. meredith and ahn were telling me the other day that i shouldn't expect for mr. cheng to know me. i disagree. i think that by the time we're seniors, he should have at least visited all the senior registries and seen us. maybe more than once a year as a mass during class meetings. i've talked to him on the phone quite a few times when my dad wasn't available. and i know he knows my name. so shouldn't he at least give a look of recognition when i see him in the hall?
18:38