I wish...

That I had woken up early yesterday to:

1) Move the car
2) Ice my family's toothbrushes
3) Remove the cream from Oreos and replace it with toothpaste.
4) Put plastic wrap on the toilet
5) Put folded up ketchup packets underneath the toilet
6) Superglue a penny to the ground (okay, bad idea... Hardwood floors+superglue?)
7) Duct tape the sink hose into a position where it sprays anyone who turns it on
8) Set everyone's alarm to 4:00 AM, and then pretend like they slept to the afternoon
9) Do something productive (<---Hahahaha.)
10) Actually celebrate April Fool's.

I never do, though. I think it's because I know better than to pull pranks when no one in my family is a morning person... Including myself. Which explains why I didn't wake up early.

Bubbles and Middle School Girls.

Sooooooo, I spent my entire morning at a local university, playing with bubbles, surrounded by middle school girls. It was really entertaining!

But really.

Ever since last year, I've been volunteering at a local festival called the Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival. And honestly, it's really fun. Because I get to build shapes using Zometools, which are like K'nex or Legos for math professors, and dip them in bubble solution (with a touch of glycerin to keep the bubbles alive longer) and teach kids about minimal surfaces and Lagrange's equation without them knowing. And plus, UNC Charlotte has really tasty food.

Working with these middle school girls to build dodecahedrons, tetrahedrons, and other shapes kind of makes me want to do more events similar to the Julia Robinson Festival. I met some of my little brother's friends, and my old teachers who brought their students to the Festival, and it makes me feel happy that I'm contributing to the community that helped raise me.

Debating in Teyuhxas (aka Texas) and 3rd Quarter Drabble

My Public Forum debate partner and I qualified to the National Forensic League's tournament in Texas! I'm very excited--mostly because you have to finish top 2 in your event to qualify (which we technically didn't, because we were the alternates...) but close enough! It's still great! Especially since it means more experience for both me and my partner next year. And also because it was only our second tournament together.

On another note, this same PF (Pofo, Puff, Public Forum) partner and I are the alternates to representing North Carolina in the Catholic Forensic League national tournament, which I'm pretty excited about. I think we'll choose to go to the NFL tournament, though, because it's generally larger and a little more competitive from what I've heard. Either way, I'm really proud of how we did for these two tournaments, and really happy about how well we work together.

On another note, 3rd quarter is wrapping up now. Sleep is a luxury. My mathematics teacher is pregnant, and her due date is next week (I'm also the "godmother" of her unborn child). I have to learn all of Psychology for the upcoming AP Exam (!). I have to thoroughly read and analyze Dante's Inferno by next Wednesday (which I'm not complaining about-- I actually really enjoy the book, no matter how ironic that may be... The only thing I'm not so pleased about is that we have to set a time limit for digesting the book).

Only 10 weeks until summer break!

Pretty optimistic for someone who starts every week wishing it was the weekend.

Unicorns!

I visited the North Carolina School of Science and Math today, and took some aptitude tests in a process of application. It's basically a boarding school for juniors and seniors who have a strong interest in math and science. A self described "breeding ground for geeks". I thought I wouldn't like it. But after today, I am really debating between what I should do for next year... Should I stay at the school I am now, or should I take that risk and go to NCSSM?

I need to take a lot of things into consideration when thinking about my future. Wow, I sound crazily melodramatic, but I'm being completely serious: my future depends on what I do during high school! Because high school determines where I go to college, college determines what I do for a living, my living, quite appropriately, helps determine my life. My friend who goes to NCSSM has just gotten early acceptance into Yale, and won the Morehead scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill. But another from at the school I am attending now is a finalist in both the Benjamin N. Duke scholarship, Robinson scholarship (a dual scholarship to both UNC Chapel Hill and Duke), and to the full ride scholarship to Vanderbilt. Yes, I'm bragging on my friends. But they completely deserve it! It really inspires me to work hard, but at the same time, I can't help but be worried about what I should do...

But, note to self:
Things I don't like about NCSSM...
1) The mascot is a unicorn.
2) The cafeteria is built supposedly on top of a cemetery. Cooooooool.

I hope this doesn't go away...

I just have this burning desire to try my best at everything right now. It is kind of draining, but for some reason, this determination is just blasting through the boundaries that sleep usually sets up for me. I suppose it could be a sort of warped adrenaline rush as my midterm exams approach, in addition to the fact that it is a new year... But I hope it doesn't go away.

Lately, school's been difficult, and it's been even more difficult to motivate myself to keep on trying, to keep on working, to wake up when it's dark, do the things I enjoy doing outside of school, to come home to do homework, go to sleep for however many hours I can get, and wake up and do it all over again.

Though I somewhat enjoy this feeling of potential success (the best way I can describe it), I bet I'll feel some sort of relief after school's over and done again for the summer.

Phew.

And I am resolute.

I've decided that 2011 will be a great year for me.

Not just a great year, but a better year. I've made my resolutions, and I plan to stick to them... I probably said that last year too. But the fact that we have a new year, and a relatively clean, new slate (taking into account that I am 6 minutes away from 1/2/11 typing this post) gives me hope to try and make myself a better person.

But I guess that a New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other... (Pun completely and totally intended.)

But in the words of Edith Lovejoy Pierce: "We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."

I'm looking forward to a new year.

I loathe driver education class.

Okay, not really loathe. This feeling of loathing is probably a mix between exasperation, sleepiness, and anxiousness. Exasperation because there's one girl in my class who always asks questions and tells stories about her father's driving. Exasperation because it took an hour to resolve a conflict between students and the driving instructor. Sleepiness because it is Winter Break, and I should probably be sleeping for at least a couple days straight to make up for what school took away from me... Anxiousness because I would like to finally get my permit (which I should have gotten a while ago)... And because my confidence in driving safely is seriously undermined by the fact that I can and have crashed multiple golf carts.

I really do appreciate that it's free (the first time, at least). I guess that getting a Driver's Permit gives me a pretty legitimate excuse to get a new wallet (which I've been wanting). I also think that showing people (particularly teen people) the right way to drive low-risk, and the consequences of not doing so is a great idea...

It's just that going to Driver Education for 6 hours a day for 5 days a week sounds oddly similar to something I do on a regular basis (that really does wear me out, no matter how much I enjoy it)... Oh, wait. School.

So much for a Winter Break.

Dreaming of a Whiiiiiiiiiite Christmas!

It's the first white Christmas in the city where I live since 1947! Not that you can really call this precipitation 'snow'... But it's definitely better than nothing!

Especially when you're curled up by the electronic heater with a cup of hot herbal tea studying for the midterms that are right after your break. Whoop whoop. Gotta love inconveniently placed holiday breaks.

When I was going through my math binder, I saw some things I did on Koch's Snowflake and it made me happy. But the thing is, if you look at the 'snowflakes' and the Snowflake, you see almost zero similarity (until you get to the later levels I guess). The idea of numbers and fractal curves falling from the sky is also not very romantic... But then again, I guess the idea's comparable to studying for midterms on Christmas.

Oh dear, now I've gone in a circle.


2 math references in one blog post? I've outdone myself.

Merry Christmas!

Sophomore Year?

Hm.

I suppose I'm a sophomore now, but I don't really feel that different from being a freshman. I guess I don't get apples thrown at me anymore (not that I got any thrown at me when I was a freshman), but I'm also not the baby of high school anymore!
I guess sophomore year is a lot of fun.