Sunday, February 24, 2008

So smile.

At the end of lunch, many of us waited in Freed's room, ready to abandon our afternoon classes to sit on a bus for about four or five hours. We traveled to the same hotel as last year and the same mall (Universal Mall). It was nice to
::EDIT:: I forgot to finish this post. No wonder.
relax and almost forget about school. I suppose our shirts were constant reminders. We played a bit of ping pong, which translated into one-sided domination. At this point, I don't remember all the fine details of the trip because it's Thursday.
Blahblahblah, good experience, glad to have gone, passed around Erinma's cell phone so Jack ended up talking to about six people in one phone conversation and was told that he would fail his tennis tournament.
Walking around the mall... and walking... and walking... Got confronted by two women, one of whom was using sign language that I definitely could not understand, and the other explained that they were learning Chinese. She gave me a Chinese magazine about something. I really don't know what it was about because I didn't pay enough attention to what she was saying, and cannot really read my first language fluently. I slightly conversed in Chinese, and walked away with Anna. Oh, we were surprised.
The actual competition wasn't so bad. Hilary and I finally found a room that wasn't entirely occupied, and were the only two Chiles people in that room. Waved to You-jin. Team round was very relaxed. Somehow, Ryan and I answered more questions than William did. The ones we both confirmed proved to have a 100% correctness rate. Not bad. Really, if it were a regional we would have pwned to no end. But it wasn't.
A substantially large number of people were in each division, and schools like Middleton and Buchholz definitely showed us how challenged we were.
Chiles Regional is next.
Peace out.
::END EDIT 02/28/08::

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Lunar Eclipse

It's really only just begun. I've never seen something like this in the past because I always managed to forget about it until too late. There seemed to be an orb of brightness around the moon. A dark mass was enveloping the southwest side of the moon. I would have stared at it for a longer period of time if I had not wanted to get cold. I'll look again in about an hour.
Gets me thinking.

Don't Cry.

Maybe my posts are going to be too depressing to upload to The Quirky Quintet.
I've been thinking about my little situation, and it's pretty much gotten worse. Getting further into it, anything that might go against what I really want is a clear indicator of a severe drop in happiness. There is one way to make that go away, but it's not worth the trouble. It's time to grit your teeth and get through it with no more regrets.
Are you ready? No, not really.
Because the whole time, there is a little question. What if?
What if you're not as pathetic as you thought?
Oh, right. You are.

By the way, someone out there is waiting for you to say...

Sunday, February 17, 2008

JETS/TEAMS

It was too good not to write about it.
At about 7:00am, my mother decided that she wanted me to slowly eat the sandwich that she had made. This would sound normal, but this is a Chinese mother who almost never makes breakfast because there is no need. It was two slightly toasted pieces of white bread with honey ham and cheese inside. Very plain, but I wouldn't get picky over it. In addition, she actually made hot chocolate. I was pleasantly surprised, and late to get into the car at about 7:41am, but first following my father out of the garage.
Driving downtown was slightly nerve racking because it was blatantly obvious that we were not going to arrive at the Challenger Learning Center by 8:00am. My father accidentally missed a street, and since it was one-way and at one point he was going the wrong way until I said "You're going to the wrong way," and he say a car coming the correct way, so he had to back into a driveway to a parking lot (the wrong way) and assumed the correct way eventually.
I pretty much ran into the building, where I found an assortment of Chiles upperclassmen, including Clara and Carolyn. All of us stood around the lobby sort of area, and someone I didn't know took pictures of Chiles Team A (Clara, Carolyn, Kavita, Won, Gaku, Ann, Roland, Patrick) and Chiles Team B (Brandon, Jerrod, Jinoo, Tom, Peter, Calvin, Nelson, Epsieanniishct).
Each team was given four rectangular tables, which were placed in squares. Nelson and Calvin removed the plastic covering for Part I, and distributed the eight scenarios. Each scenario began with a few paragraphs, and gave a multiple choice question that we calculated for the answers. A couple paragraphs were added, and another question was given. This was basically the format for each scenario, which included things like baseballs, soccer, the Beijing Olympics, architecture, and multi-channel communication. Brandon stole my scenario after a while because his was pretty much impossible. I felt really special for solving a problem or two on Jerrod's, and before we knew it, we had guessed "C" for all the problems we hadn't finished, and submitted our answers.
Most of us had hot dogs for lunch, a bag of chips, and some soda. We ate in the planetarium, where I accidentally spilled my soda... The water bottle in my bag really helped. The show was about the possibility of discovering an earth-like planet in space, and the simplified explanation about how they would do this.
We sat back down to do Part II, in which four of the eight scenarios had "extensions." This provided more paragraphs to read, and a few free response questions. I received the extension for Scenario 8, the multi-channel communication one. Brandon tried reading it too, and we basically realized how screwed we were about it. He left early for something band and tuba-related. Jinoo and Jerrod took turns in futile attempts to understand the concept better than me. Nelson and Calvin finished their scenario early, so they tried to make some sense of the concept too. Peter ended up "fluffing it up" by using our words to gather some English into a short paragraph. Nelson sketched an extremely rough graph of a cosine wave, which I quickly reminded him was a sine wave, so he had to draw another one. And another one. I really have a headache from reading about analog systems and bandwidth.
Later, Gaku said he also had to read about Scenario 8, and he didn't have a clue what was going on.
After standing near the entrance to the planetarium for a short time frame, we walked to the awards ceremony, which was basically the lobby with a table and t-shirts and trophies on it a few feet away. Soon, it was announced that 2nd place varsity went to Chiles Team B ("Chile's", according to the labeling of our tables). Oh we were happy. After that, it was announced that Chiles Team A got 1st place, so you can imagine the relief of those seniors. The t-shirts were all large, some of our certificates said things like "Jarrod" and "Jang," but it was all good. We were all surprised, and "Coach Johnson" was proud of us.
And we lived happily ever after.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Woke up with some nagging feelings.

Well actually, as soon as I woke up, a chill ran down my neck reminding me that I'm going to die one day. It wasn't very nice. I told myself to think of something else, and the first thing or person who popped into my mind wasn't exactly anything I wanted to ponder. I pushed the morbid feeling out of my mind.
Tomorrow will hopefully be mildly exciting because of JETS. Logan is going to be scoring for Cobb, though. And getting ridiculously paid.
Today is actually International That's What She Said Day.
And nothing else. Nothing has really changed, improved, or been altered dramatically.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Wooooohhh.

I really shouldn't have gone, but I really thought I was getting better. We stood outside some doors for a while. By the way, I feel really dizzy and might stop making sense which I probably don't already. Dehydration. Possibly. Won and I were high-fiving each other, and after a little while, I reached my hand back and accidentally whacked Gaku in the face. During team round, I was basically captain and ripper for team 2. Blair, Caroline and Ariane were really supportive. They didn't really do much but it was all good. Actually, we (or I) scored a few times. I don't know how I survived through it. We ended up getting an honorable mention. According to Diana that means we would've placed but school's teams can only place once... So too bad. Dude, I'm such a beast at team. Individual was really bad because I started feeling even worse. Diana gave me some pills before the test began, but they didn't really do anything. The test. Gosh, it was horrifying. The highest score ended up being a 70-something. It's pretty certain that the number of points I scored on the team round was higher than my indie score. My "BFF" (Brianna) and I sat on the grass in the sun for a little bit, and then I sort of walked around within a small area as people scored their tests. At lunch, we ran across a really busy and fast-paced street twice. The awards ceremony was exactly like last year, but I think last year some sort of hydraulic problem happened and they had to get another coach... (I feel really out of it right now.) On the bus we made paper airplanes. A lot of them. By the end of the trip my fever was getting really bad again. I must have gone to bed before 7pm or something. Woke up with a fever, I'm wondering how choppy my sentences can get today, and took a shower which felt a little better but not really, and right now I think the fever went away but I feel really really really dizzy or something. Maybe I'm just that dehydrated.
Gina told me, "I love you!" so I said "I love you more!" and she said "I love you more!" and the funny thing is, she ended up saying "I LOVE YOU MORE! See? I said it louder than you. Oh, don't say it back! Your throat hurts." It was hilarious.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Oh double, you see.

Tomorrow is the OWC Regional. My mother tried to convince me to stay at home, but I'm getting better, so hopefully I'll be at the front of the school at 5:15am, courtesy of my father's insane talent for getting up early when he feels like it. Actually, he rarely stays up past about 7am.
Today, I found out about JETS, and from Logan through Jerrod, found out that I'm on Team 2! So the world is ending and what not, but I'm really excited about the opportunity. 2010 represent! (Brandon, Logan, Jerrod, Jinoo, Calvin, Nelson, Tom) Hopefully I don't get kicked off before next Saturday. It basically made my day.
I've been trying to cram some MAO into my head during the past few hours, with absolutely no idea how effective it has been. My throat hurts a lot today, but it's slowly getting better. The fever, thank goodness gracious, has abandoned me. I've never wanted to get up at 5:15am so badly.
I guess I'm captain of Pre-Calc Team 2. I'm so excited. Gonna have to fix that.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Go... whoever.

Apparently, the Super Bowl is tonight. I'm still not over being bitter towards the Giants for beating the Packers in really cold weather. However, I can't go rooting for the "Patriots."
Yesterday, I wrote about seven MS Word pages worth of notes, severely breaking the rule of 10-15 important bullet facts per source. I still don't have my last source, which should come in the form of a physical book, but hopefully the crate that Mrs. Winsett said she'd get will come before Wednesday. Nothing is due on Monday, so it's going to take some sort of incentive to start doing a lot of this work.
One of my not-so-new favorite activities is defeating opponents in ping-pong by slamming it down in a sort of spike so they have no chance.
After reading this, I feel like they were talking about my family. http://www.theonion.com/content/news/cia_america_may_have_an_unknown
I need to go biking some time soon.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

SupremacĂ­a

Today was the JCL regional at Leon High School. So all of the cool non-Latin kids didn't go, like me. I pretty much sat and did homework all day, and occasionally played some piano and my forearms felt ripped after doing so.
Interims were moved a few weeks earlier so they wouldn't intervene with FCAT Writing, or something ridiculous like that. Walking into Chem every school day, all I can really think about is, "Oh yeah, I'm going to be doing this next year, too." That is, I'm going to be walking into that classroom next year.
Ketan and I have been slightly bitter lately. In addition to Ryan and perhaps a few other people, we wanted to join JCL but the sponsors said that we couldn't join because we weren't taking Latin. It might be traitorous to want to join the club, but it sounded like such a good idea at the beginning of the school year. Of course, Ketan has an ulterior motive, which can be translated into "distracting Vicky and himself throughout the competition so they both fail." Actually, that is precisely what they managed to do at the Lee County Invitational.
My brother is going to be in the Howard Wilson piano competition next Saturday when the MAO people are at Okaloosa Walton College for the MAO regional. It would be nice to know who's on the Pre-Calc teams at this point, but apparently we bombed the last one so badly that Freed is at lost with what to do to us.
My life is sprinkled happily with entirely Spanish conversations. Es beatitud.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Remember these?

Jack and the Hug Monsters
Hwritten by Hwilliam Dunn, Spelling corrections and typing by the CEO
Jack heard a knock at the back door, so he hwent to the front door and opened it. Nobody hwas there! Then Jack looked at the story about him and realized that the knock came from… the BACK door! This hwas indeed a very strange phenomenon, because Jack lived in a shack hwith only a front door. Consequently, Jack hwent to Kejing’s house and realized that the knock hwas coming from her back door. Jack asked Kejing, “I hwonder hwho that could be?” Kejing said, “I don’t know.”
Jack hwalked to the back door of her house. He opened the door, and outside hwere a thousand angry girls picketing the house! They hwere carrying signs such as, “Hugs not Drugs,” and “Hugs for Jack!” Before he noticed anything, the lead girl pounced on him and gave him a great big hug. Now, as everyone knows, hugs are Jack’s hworst fear (besides starvation). Luckily, there hwere so many girls to hug him and hold him down that Kejing had time to get her camera and take several pictures. Hwhile Jack hwas busy, she also called Ryan, Hwilliam, June, Diana, and Brendan to come and hwatch. Diana brought a diamond-encrusted solid platinum digital video camera so they could record the entire thing and put it on YouTube.
Jack managed to break free and run, but the mob of girls hwas hot on his trail. The ever-present video recorders got in Diana’s private jet limousine to follow him. Jack ran as fast as he could all the hway to PARis, France to get away from the savage hug monsters. He climbed the Eiffel Tower hwith hopes that his pursuers hwoudn’t look up. However they did and Jack hwas forced to slide down their giant hwhite flag to escape. Jack kept running until he got all the hway around the hworld again, pursued relentlessly by the demons of hugland and the Gator-fil-A entourage hwith a video camera. Hwhen they got home, the private jet limo landed and June got out. All the girls’ June-senses immediately turned on, and they pounced upon him. Jack thought, “Man, oh man I just got my bacon saved… bacon!?” Our good hugophobe had forgotten lunch in his fear! To redeem himself and improve his karma, Jack had to eat 10 meals for each day the rest of the hweek instead of the usual eight. In the meantime, Kejing, Hwilliam, and Ryan locked June and his um… followers in a nice dark room; Brendan left to go spike his hair, and Diana left to go find Eagle. Hwhat now?

THE END


RYAN AND THE COMMUNISTS
05-07-07
Ryan and the Communists
Hwritten by Hwilliam the Dunn, EIA
Typed and edited by your omnipotent CEO
One day, Ryan hwas rocking out to Hollaback Girl in his room hwhen all of a sudden, his Communist Alert siren started flashing. Ryan knew his duty. He changed into his secret agent tux and s-hwitched his TV to Channel 007. The CIA director came on. "Special Agent Par, hwe need your help. Hwe have recently gained information that two Communist spies are actively scheming and plotting against America in your locality. Find them and arrest them, and disarm their nuclear hweapons. Here are their pictures." Pictures of Diana and Kejing flashed on the screen. Ryan thought, "I know them. This should be easy!" So he jumped into his $24 Ferrari (on lease from Diana) and drove over to get Jack and Hwilliam to join him in the fight against the Commies. Special Agent Par drove to Kejing's house, and then planted American flags all over. Kejing knew she hwas being attacked, so she packed up her grenades and got into her stalker helicopter and flew to-hwards Wisconsinland. She landed, but Agent Par hwas hot on her trail. Par invited her to dinner to discuss and negotiate. However, at the meal Kejing ate some crepes, and Ryan forced her to surrender. After she had surrendered, Ryan rocketed in his #24 Ferrari back to Tallahassee to overtake Diana. This time, he needed Jack's help. To break into Diana's house, he dressed Jack up as a 1,000,000 dollar bill and dropped him on the ground. Immediately, Diana ran out, picked him up, and ran back inside. Hwonce inside, Jack ate the security system so Ryan and Hwilliam could get in. They carried a lot of American flags to establish their dominance. Also, Ryan brought a trick dollar bill to attract Diana's attention. They three ran to the elevator to climb g floors up to Diana's penthouse. Once insdie, they made all of her Frenchmen surrender and then hwere face to face hwith Half Pint herself. Ryan gave her the trick dollar bill. As soon as she had it in her hand, the dollar bill unfolded into a hwhite flag and she surrendered. Victory America!