News

1. I am officially a student at FCS for the summer. I sent in all my materials and got my student ID number and everything. Now, all that remains is for me to convince my parents to let me fly there on my own.

2. I have lots of tests tomorrow, but then I'm pretty much done until spring break, which starts next Friday. Knock on wood, of course.

3. I got to spend over an hour today mixing together solutions and making colorful precipitates. Next week, I will hopefully have some more salts of transition metals to play with so I can make even prettier colors.

4. Report cards for second trimester were mailed today. The only grade I'm sad about is in chemistry, and I should be able to get a high average third trimester so my grade for the year will be an A.

5. I got an honorable mention award at GWU Model UN.

Less than a week until SAT scores are released. I'm hoping that my confidence after the test translates into high scores.

Why do I bother?

I had a math test on Friday. I studied integrals of polar functions for HOURS...only to find that they weren't on the test. The stuff I didn't study, assuming that he wouldn't test us on it since he had just taught it the day before? Yeah, that stuff made up more than two-thirds of the test. Fun.

I walked out of that room really upset. My teacher is famous for using incredibly difficult questions, only about a third of which can really be answered. But this test was photocopied from an actual AP test prep book. So I figured that everyone else, who I thought had studied more than I did, had done much better.

There were two sets of questions I couldn't understand, each based around a premise.

The first was whether the sum of 1/n converges. Don't make fun of me, I now know that this is basic (it diverges, for the normal people out there). But the test was the day after we had learned all the material, and I adn't had time to let it sink in.

The second was about bounds. My memory of my confusion is unclear, because I honestly don't see how I didn't get this. Basically, bounded series are not necessarily convergent. (see the sine function. any sine function.) But I did not know this, because I had no idea what bounded meant. I know, I know, but at the time it felt like there were options.

Together, there were between five and ten questions based around these two facts that I did not know. On a twenty-nine-question test.

I guessed correctly. For both of them.

And got the top score in the class.

I also got a 92 on that Lit presentation--the one during which I had a freaking panic attack.

Seriously. WHY DO I BOTHER.

Procrastination pays off

I had to do a Lit presentation today. I had the thing mostly written, but this morning before school realized that it had no organization whatsoever and was just generally terrible.

The project was to pick a poem relating to the book we just finished reading, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (oh how I love that book), and talk about how it relates thematically. It was a five-minute presentation, including the time we took to read the poem aloud.

I worked on it throughout the day and finished it during the class prior to Lit. I whispered the whole thing once through, and then went to class.

I was SO NERVOUS. Lit is probably the class that I stress about the most, because I always feel like I have no idea what I'm talking about. I sat through two of my classmates' presentation and tried to discreetly review my notes, but couldn't bring myself to totally ignore what they were saying.

Then it was my turn.

I started to freak out a little bit as I handed out copies of my poem, "It Was All Very Tidy" by Robert Graves. I made it through my introduction, but my heart started POUNDING as I began to panic about my unpreparedness. So when I started to read my poem, I read it ridiculously slowly. I figured that the points I would lose for reading my poem too slowly would be fewer than the points I would lose for being completely incoherent over the course of the entire presentation.

Reading slowly calmed me down, so I was fine for the rest of the presentation, even though I still had basically no clue what I was talking about. I threw in random references to the book that came to my head as I was speaking, but afterwards I thought I had done terribly.

I sat down. I can't even imagine how red my face had been.

My teacher looked over at me and said "I thought the way you read your poem was very effective...almost creepy, the way you went really slowly. It worked really well."

My classmates chimed in, agreeing with her, and telling me how well I had read the poem.

In the hallway after class, someone came up to me and told me they were impressed by how well-organized my presentation was.

Moral of the story: Have a panic attack in the middle of the presentation after not rehearsing, then throw in random facts whenever you feel like it. And people will think you are smart.

Math is hard.

I have used two full erasers on math today.

I am still nowhere near ready for my trimester final on Tuesday.

I still have no topic for my Lit presentation.

BUT! Tomorrow I am going to see The Cherry Orchard in the city! And it will be fun! And I am excited!

And the Lit presentation is on a book I am in love with, by an author I am in love with! Which you should read, if you haven't yet: The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro.

And I can sort of do integrals!

In love

With my IB Lit paper topic.

I love it.

I'm actually enjoying writing a paper at midnight the night before it's due.*

The unfortunate consequence of this is that it is taking forever to write, for some reason. I stop and think waaaay more often than when I'm writing about topics I hate.


*If you want to go all technical, it's a day and a half after it was due. Because it was due on Monday. Which was a snow day. And we have no class on Tuesdays.

You know you go to nerd school when...

You have a snow day, and all everyone is talking about on facebook is how they now have time to write their IB Lit papers.

And then you talk about meeting to study for chemistry on the snow day with a friend.

I love my school.

Math classes.

I'm taking easy math next year.

It was hard for me to not take the highest level I placed into. Hard, as in I interrogated random people about what class they thought I should take. As in not deciding until ten minutes before the deadline.

But I know I made the right decision.

After I hit the "logout" button on the registration page, a huge wave of relief washed over me. And I've been happier all day.

In the end the choice was between being miserable or not being miserable. And boiled down to those terms, it wasn't much of a choice at all.

Lists. Probably boring.

What I wanted to get done, vs. what I actually did. Keep in mind that I have every intention of finishing certain things today.

• SAT: I wanted to take a full practice test. I did study a bit for the math, but it occurred to me that I have two weekends before the test and I didn't want to sit still for four hours.
• Math: I wanted to finish all the homework that I haven't done. I did one of the two assignments. I tried the second but had no idea where to begin with the problems.
  
• Latin: The one subject I actually did! I wanted to study and take some practice tests for the NLE. I studied, took a practice test, and did well. Yay!
• Medical Microbiology: I NEED to write my paper. It is supposedly due Tuesday, although the teacher only mentioned this once and half the class has probably forgotten. Five pages of writing in the first person from the perspective of a virus. I have about two sentences done. This is going to eat my time today.
• Lit: I wanted to do the reading, and I did. I wanted to start my paper, and I probably will, because Lit is more enjoyable than Microbiology.
• Apps: I wanted to write both essays. I wrote 25% of one. Oh well. Maybe later?
• AP Chem. I planned to start studying. This was one of those plans that I made at the beginning of break when I had all the time in the world to study. In reality, there's no need to study before the morning of the test (Thursday).
• History: Starting the project would have been a good idea. I'll send out an email to my group members later.

I have a checklist written out on my desk. Of the ten items listed, I completely finished two, at least started four, and barely touched four. That's not terrible productivity for a break, right?

*excited*

The Model UN conference held at my school begins tomorrow.

I have put a fair amount of work into this. Nametags. Sorting flags. Counting folders. Moving boxes. Finding room numbers.

I am so freaking excited.

But nervous.

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.

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.

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.

Latin at my school

My school is a magnet school that's supposed to produce the leaders of the twenty-first century, or something like that. We have an electron microscope, with a second on the way, and more computers than students, and plasma TVs lining the hallways that play what are essentially infomercials about our school. We've won awards and gotten many, many grants and are actually too smart to be included in the Newsweek high school rankings. (No joke. We feel very excluded.)

But the curriculum office has decided to phase out our Latin program, and offer Mandarin instead. (Viviana has a post about the meeting the principal held with our angry parents.)

I nearly cried when I heard about this. The curriculum office made their decision without asking the students what we thought, and they made the wrong choice.

I love it when people say, "Oh, you go to [your school], you must be so smart!" It's awkward and a pain a lot of the time, because, seriously, how do you answer that? (Say yes and you look arrogant, but say no and you're being kind of dishonest. I just smile and laugh usually. People don't know how to respond to that.) But I love that people recognize that our school is a great place to get an education, and I'm proud to represent that. Sometimes people tell me about their niece or nephew or friend who didn't get in. I rarely hear about kids who got in and decided to remain in their home districts. Not because there aren't many of them (remember my sister??), but because that's nothing to brag about.

Next year, when people start saying to me "My son/daughter/niece/nephew/friend got in, but didn't go, because they don't offer Latin," I don't know what I'm going to do. All I know for sure is that I won't be proud--I'll be ashamed.

Ahh.

Two teachers in a row were absent today, which gave me lots of time to work and procrastinate. Again, I seem to be keeping up fairly well with my workload this year. I was able to finish AP Chem, start thinking about my history essay, outline my answers for Model UN Specialized Committee apps, and figure out a way for my parents to visit all my teachers on back-to-school-night without walking for miles. I also played a few hands of bridge with the nerd crew :)

At tennis, I played first doubles and won in straight sets, 6-0, 6-1.

(That's a good thing, for you non tennis people.)

Tonight:

• History essay detailed outline and/or rough draft.
• MUN apps
• Continue to study for physiology test and figure out what to draw with the essay questions.

Plus, there's a rerun of House on at eight :)

Very unproductive

I slept until 12:30 yesterday, which basically ate up my time. I worked on my debate speech and finished my history reading and started prepping for the physiology test, but didn't finish prepping or finish the speech. On Friday, I worked on physics.

I still have to do my lit reading and do some Latin and finish my speech and work on physiology. And I left my stuff for my history essay and AP Chem at school, so I can't put off physiology or lit to work on them...

And on top of everything, I have a splitting headache.

I have the day "off"

No school! The teachers ave meetings! And best of all, my sister has school!!

Last year, I was talking to a teacher about half-days and days like these. He told me that he liked to imagine students sleeping in and going out for lunch or brunch, then spending the afternoon relaxing with a good book.

Ha.

Here's what's on the agenda for this weekend:

• Practice test.
• Prepare for physiology test. (I would tell you more about how hard this is going to be, but it's google-able. Sorry.)
• Study for physics.
• Finish writing debate speech.
• Do Lit reading.
• Do Bio reading.
• Start history essay.
• Do history reading.
  
• Tennis?

Bad afternoon.

Too frustrated to write.

About Sleep

I agree, my sleep habits are totally screwy. Ever since I was a baby, I've had trouble sleeping. My parents blame it on my pediatrician, who told them to wake me up EVERY TWO HOURS to feed me so that I would gain weight. I think another part of it is that my dad has the same natural sleep cycle that I do--genetically, I may just not be an early person. During the summer, we go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time.

I get up at sixish and go to school. I'm fairly alert until around lunchtime, when the hunger kicks in and I'm a bit more tired. I eat lunch and then I feel fine. I get tired again about an hour and a half before going to tennis. Then I go to tennis, where, once again, I'm happy and awake and active.

If I played at tennis, I'm awake through dinner until about eleven. On those days, I can get into bed and fall asleep within an hour fairly easily.

If I didn't play, my brain shuts down earlier. My personal non-scientific theory about why this occurs is that since I love tennis, it's like the equivalent of ice cream to my brain. It makes me happy and cheers me up. The problem is that then my body is ridiculously jumpy until about twelve-thirty. If I go to bed before then, I toss and turn and fidget for hours. (I think my record is about four hours of jumping around. That night, I finally gave in, and got up and did some crunches or something. Worked like a charm.)

I think that this happens because I'm not getting nearly as much physical activity as I used to. During the summer and early in the tennis season, I would be playing tennis for an absolute minimum of two hours a day. So now, my body thinks it needs to be awake--my metabolism has adjusted to make that amount of energy which I now don't need, since I mostly just watch.

I've been meaning to make some exercise plan for days I don't play, and I think that the sleep issue may force me to find time to run or play paddle tennis or at least force myself through some core work.

This should help. But it might not. Because, quite frankly, it's one hundred percent true that teenagers genuinely aren't meant to go to bed at ten p.m. Yeah, I can do my best to work around that. But I've tried so many things that supposedly help sleeping--dim lights and warm drinks before bed, soothing music, avoiding my computer, not eating any sugar (that one was hard, let me tell you.). None of them worked.

I've been having a bit of an issue lately with one of my friends as well as my mother lecturing me constantly about the amount I sleep. I think the worst thing that was said to me was "Since you're so tired, you don't know that you're tired! Sleep!!!!!"

Gee, thanks. I think it should go without saying that a) I definitely know my body way better than either of them do and b) unless I'm doing something that legitimately inconveniences them, it's absolutely none of their business.

I've been really upset by this for the past couple of days (don't even get me started on this), for two main reasons. First, I am a very private person. I don't like it when people tell other people anything I said, even if it was completely innocuous. (I have a half-written post about how much it sucks to be as shy as I am. I'm sort of fifty-fifty on whether or not I'll post it, because some of the stuff in their is rather personal. I may do an abridged version, because I think that my shyness is probably the most important part of me that needs to be understood) Second, I'm finding myself completely incapable of making my mom and my friend stop without resorting to walking away or yelling.

The ending to the post is horrible because I got sidetracked reading about immunology (have I written about how much I loooovvvve my physiology class??). Sorry.

Good day.

My first class was canceled, so I had free until 11:40, during which time I did SAT prep. (I got one more question right on critical reading! That brings my projected score to like a...710? 720? The funny thing is, I totally own the sentence completions. I did fifty and only got three wrong, all of which were ones that I guessed on. So it's not that I think I'm sure about something and then turn out to be wrong, but I know most of the material.

I played second doubles at my match today and won. I think the match deserves a post of its own, but I only have seventeen minutes to get my crap together so I'll get downstairs in time for house reruns on USA :P

I got a decent amount of work done during my frees.

I didn't completely fail the quiz I got back today.

I played bridge with the Nerd Club again (sorry guys. but you take nerd as a compliment. So w/e)

Tired, in a good way, I think.

Whoa, only eight minutes to go. :)