Cleaning

It's both a blessing and a curse how cleaning can allow me to put off homework.

I admit that my room needed to be cleaned, but I also reorganized my bookshelves and cleaned out my closet, including the three giant bags of sheet music left over from when I played the cello.

I did not write my "statement of intent" for our Lit pastiche (which was supposed to be done tonight because my group is coming over to rehearse. We're doing "The Lottery" in the style of Chekhov. It's actually really funny. But anyway. I was supposed to take the notes prepared by a group member and turn them into an essay. And memorize my lines.

Neither have been done.

But my room is clean.

How fitting.

I don't have time now to go back through the archives, but I can't remember if I ever wrote a post about the Ledbetter case. I certainly meant to.

It's something that, as a woman, I feel strongly about. And, as a person, I was absolutely sickened by the way Alito spun the facts to make it sound like Ledbetter was at fault for not figuring out earlier that she had been ripped off.

The president is taking steps, with the very first bill he's signed, to correct the discrimination that has not only been allowed, but encouraged by the last administration. We're not just talking about women, here, either: who do you think is affected more by restrictions on abortions? The white, educated, upper middle class? I'm not going to begin my diatribe on LGBT rights--I had enough of that at MUN this weekend.

Obama summed up the meaning of the moment far better than I ever could:

“It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness.”

We are all created equal. If you think about it, every single one of us has been victimized at one point or another for something beyond our control. Even if it was just a joke on the playground in third grade. Everyone has been hurt.

This bill is the kind of step that our country needs to take. We need to lower our tolerance for discrimination at every level: representation in Congress and the White House, executives in business, rights to marriage, privacy, and choice, and all the way down to the playground comments that we still remember, years later.

Test

This is a test post.

But anyway, do you like the new layout?  I was bored of polka dots.

S'mores for dessert

Courtesy of my sister's flamethrower.

There's nothing like a face full of goopy sugary goodness to put me in a better mood.

I heart Gmail labs

I can have chat on the right! And a google calendar box-thing! Exciting!

Yes, this is what I do on snow days instead of catching up on my mountains of work.

Wow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27well.html?_r=1&8dpc

So, teenagers are having less sex but more babies. Because fewer of them are using contraceptives.

Abstinence-only sex ed is obviously working.

"how do you say always learning in latin"

Google search.

Answer: Semper discens.

You're welcome.

Wallaby

Does anyone else find it amusing that "wallaby" is the OED's word of the day?

In other news, I got best delegate at model UN in the SCOTUS committee! And our school won Best Large Delegation!

At Model UN.

I am a Supreme Court justice.

EPIC awesomeness.

None of my colleagues nor the attorneys have heard of the cases I cite. It's hilarious.

Today we switch from justices to attorneys to argue a hypothetical case about the nationalization of the auto industry.

I get to show my Socialist roots :P

One question.

I had a miserable evening last night. An essay to write, a quiz to study for, and packing to do. Plus, the looming History Day paper that is too far from completion.

So I stayed up very late. How very? Well, let's just say that I required two servings of ice cream, a few truffles, about five pieces of gum, and three glasses of juice. Late.

I woke up this morning to my mother coming into my room to say goodbye and promptly tripping over my (completely packed) suitcase. And then cursing and giving me a glare. Um, sorry? I put my suitcase in the middle of my room? So I could pack it? Yeah. Totally inexcusable.

I then didn't have time for breakfast, and made a complete fool of myself trying to get onto the bus. I had a backpack, a shopping bag (with my magic book and other nerdy things in it) and the aforementioned suitcase. And I already suck at getting on the bus because I'm clumsy and have no sense of balance while wearing a backpack.

I get to school, I finish the lit essay, cram for the quiz, and almost fall asleep multiple times.

I feel like I'm wading through mud. Everything takes more effort than it should, and my brain isn't at its best.

But then, in my second hour chem class, my teacher asked me how I was doing as he handed out worksheets. This teacher is one of the most sadistic and cynical teachers I've had.

I told him I was tired.

He said something somewhat sympathetic then went up and taught. I feel so much better now.

Teachers care. I must remember that, because it keeps me from becoming a basket case.

I'm still a nerd.

I watched the beginning of this movie, which shows a guy enriching plutonium for a nuclear weapon, and all I could think about were the zillions of inaccuracies.

• The plutonium was a lime-green LIQUID.
• They bombarded the plutonium with electrons. Whaaaattt??????
• Enough static electricity was created in the air to make visible sparks between fingers and metal objects.
• There was a magnet involved??
• There was a laser involved--even now, laser techniques for enrichment aren't viable.
• Nitrogen triiodide would have made a bigger boom and been more red, less blue.

Sigh.

Argh.

My sister is having friends over to study for midterms.

This annoys me for two reasons.

First, they're loud. I can hear them from my room with music on.

Second, they're way more productive than I am. And I'm supposed to be the studious one.

But I'm happy because 1) they have midterms and I don't, and 2) now my sister can't bother me every five seconds!!

Hmm.

I can't chew gum, listen to music, and write my paper at the same time.

But I can't write the paper without doing one of the others.

Odd. This is a bad habit, right?

Procrastinating.

This is not good.

I have to write 1700 words by tomorrow night.

I think I'm averaging like 20 words written per hour at the computer.

Why?

BECAUSE ITUNES IS REFUSING TO PLAY MUSIC. (Which actually does make me work better.)

WHY?????

This is so true.

Your Word is "Why"

You see life as complicated and intriguing. The only thing you know for sure is that you haven't figured it all out yet. You question everything and believe very little. And whatever you believe is likely to change. You are interested in theories, philosophies, and religions... even if you don't buy into any of them. You are also fascinated by how things work. You'd like to understand as much in the world as possible.

What's Your Word?

How does the internets summarize my life better than I can?

OMGZ!! Less sleep=more colds????

Really? You needed to publish an article about this?

From the NY Times:

People who got less than seven hours of sleep a night were almost three times more likely than those who slept eight hours or more to get sick after exposure to a cold virus, a new study has found.

Adults who spent a lot of time in bed tossing and turning were even more vulnerable, the researchers reported.

“The poorer your sleep, the worse off you are,” said Sheldon Cohen, a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and first author of the study, which was published on Monday in The Archives of Internal Medicine. “That was the surprise.”

So my lack of sleep + fidgety-ness means that I shall get a cold.

And yes, I toss and turn ALL FREAKING NIGHT. The kids I have to share with at Model UN hate it. And it's a pain, because it means that more often than not, I wake up two minutes before my alarm goes off because I've kicked off my blankets.

But look:

Unfortunately, [some professor] said, people don’t have much control over their sleep efficiency.

That's superhelpful. Thanks. I'm more likely to get sick than someone who sleeps just as much as me, but I can do NOTHING about it. Wonderful.

No joke.

I fell asleep reading MY OWN ESSAY.

I need a break.

Last night I was up late studying for chem and writing a lit essay.

Today I was exhausted and sick.

My dad picked me up after my last class (an hour early). I came home, and slept for two hours. I then ate dinner and got together the stuff I need for tomorrow.

Next I shall make my lunch, write a little of my Sam Adams paper and/or my Model UN position papers, and go to bed.

I have a post brewing.

It's actually a thoughtful post. But it's about something that, if I'm going to write about, I need to do it fully and well.

So it might be awhile before that post gets up.

But today I heard a teacher telling a student something in the hallway that just made me feel good about my school and reminded me that, to me, school feels like home:

"Hey, whatever you need, just ask. We'll take care of it. We're here to help you."

I think that gets lost sometimes. I'm always incredibly nervous about interrupting teachers, or asking them to take time away from their grading, etc, to explain concepts that I'm confused by, especially if the topics are relatively simplistic. But I've never once had a teacher turn me away when I needed help. And I've often had teachers willingly help me with other classes' work, or things for activities, or just things I'm curious about. I've had quick on-topic questions turn into twenty-minute conversations about whether the Amazon Kindle and products like it will ever completely take over the market (the verdict: no, and both the teacher and I would be distraught if it did). And today, when a friend and I needed help with an assignment and none of the teachers we knew in the department were in school, we asked another teacher, who pulled out three reference books and was glad to help us.

I don't know if this is common to all schools, or common to well-funded schools, or special to schools like mine where over sixty percent of faculty hold a master's degree or higher in their field and often worked in that field before starting to teach. But I need to remember that most teachers probably don't mind answering "stupid" questions all that much. They want to help me learn and be the best student I can be.

January

January is a pretty big month for me. My History Day paper is due at the end of the month, I have a IB Lit practice comparison to write, plus eventually the actual IB paper, and there's a Model UN Conference starting on the twenty-ninth. Plus I take my driving test on Friday.

So I have all this stuff to do.

One thing that I find helps me to get stuff done is having a to-do list. It's odd, because I always have in my head what I need to get done anyway, but having the physical list, ordered by priority, doesn't give me a chance to wander around the house indecisive about what comes first.

Here are my goals for today:

1) Write at least two paragraphs of the Lit paper. In theory, this should not be difficult, because I already have a very detailed outline to work from. I've always found, though, that writing the paper takes longer than I expect it to.

2) Write one of the briefs for my Model UN committee. I'm on the Supreme Court. A friend, for Christmas, gave me Chemerinsky's Con Law tome. So my research consists of looking up the relevant sections in his book, skimming the Federalist Paper that deals with the issue, and reading the statue that applies. Notice that reading the actual Constitution isn't really part of that.

3) Try to figure out my focus for the History Day paper is going to be.

4) LEARN TO PARALLEL PARK.

If I focus, this should be doable. If I spend two hours reading the New York Times like I did last night at one a.m., I won't even come close to finishing.

The non-required things I want to do at some point, not necessarily today or tomorrow:

1) Read more Ibsen. I read Ghosts and A Doll's House while I was away. I want to reread Ghosts and possibly read the other plays in the book I have. Ibsen is a really cool writer. His characters are as dysfunctional as real people.

2) Finish Much Ado About Nothing. So far, it's not as funny as, say, Twelfth Night, but it is funny.

3) Catch up on The New Yorker? I'm two weeks behind, as usual.

I have a feeling that I'll be able to finish the Shakespeare this weekend, but I'm not sure about the others.

And by the way, people? I checked my analytics and I have at least twice as many visitors as I have commenters. Which kind of creeps me out.