Another Month Begins

February. It's almost Shelby's birthday (I have bought her nothing). Nyx's has already passed. Mine is coming up. I'll be 18. Old. Very old. But only two years after I started this blog.

It feels like longer. But then, so does the time since I've been in high school, the weeks since I got into college, the months since this summer. My perception of time is horribly skewed.

Part of that, though, is that I don't do anything with it. My computer and I are very well acquainted, but there's not much aside from that. Especially given that the current weather is keeping me from getting out of the house.

Stupid snow, pretty though it is.

Sniper No Sniping!

So I nerd sniped myself last night in the middle of dinner by derailing to entire conversation to prove that twin primes always surround multiples of six (answer: in a given set of three numbers, one will be a multiple of three, and this cannot be one of the primes, so it's the middle value. Additionally, primes are odd, but odds and evens alternate so the middle number must be even. Even multiples of three are multiples of six. Proof made).

Last night I also didn't sleep enough (shocker) because it was my beloved Cammie's birthday. Well, birthday party, but it amounts to the same thing. We had a Harry Potter role-playing battle at the park, then went back to her house, watched Moulin Rouge (or however it's spelled), and stayed up until 3 am talking. In our defense, we thought daylight savings time was applied, and it was actually 2 am, but this turned out not to be the case.

Aside from that, MIT applications are due tomorrow, but I already finished mine, so this doesn't really matter. I ought to be studying for my chem test, and I think I need to read Candide this weekend, and I should figure out where I'm going with my Lit X, and write my college essays, and do a thousand other things on my to do list.

They'll get done. Someday.

What I've Found Under My Desk

Because I'm cleaning, despite my possibly broken but probably just badly bruised pinky toe.

• Notes, in Spanglish, from a debate in Spanish (ex: niños have a right to choose what they see.") Written on the bottom, in Tea-ish is "why care."
• The second page of my Rockefeller application, an essay about PHD finger proteins that is covered in black scribbles.
• Practice Intel essays from October regarding my promise as a scientist, mathematician, or engineer.
• a torn piece of paper with nothing written on it
• An outline, in pencil, of the essay about PHD fingers, written on the bottom of a Nature paper.
• Fallen, the Sturken paper, printed with only every other line because the printer is running our of ink.
• All four pages of Dr. Verona's resume.
• The first page of the PHD finger article, with exactly two 'annotations.' The first is a box around Hox and a note, "hox = important." The second is a circle around "A control group of mice" and a note, "the importance of a control."
• Oh, wait, just found another page of Dr. Verona's resume. I guess it had five pages.
• The envelope that Nyx's birthday present came in.
• Introduction to Anthropology worksheet.
• First page of Spanish dialogo, with corrections.
• The schedule for the first day of school. As in, Tuesday, September 1, 2009.
• An AP math problem about a diver.
• Our entire Super Student Challenge paper.
• the first page of the Rockefeller essay with scribbles all over it
• The Rockefeller personal statement, without any scribbles.
• A middle page of the outline of my research paper.
• A piece of notepaper with "PLAN" written on the top, followed by a roman numeral I with "Batteries" next to it. The rest of the paper is blank.
• The entire contents of my Anthropology binder, minus the actual binder.
• A black sock that is actually dirty.
• Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson.
• Two separate miniature notebooks
• Some Anthropology notes that never actually made it into the binder.
• A letter from Duke University
• A Paperclip High School Directory.
• A void railroad ticket
• 8 index cards covered in Utexas calculations
• Two bank receipts. The first says I have $1,011,01, the second says $1145.16. I'm assuming that the second is more recent.
• My $18 SAT score report that I didn't look at.

Now, time to cover the rest of the floorspace...

On Turning 17

I missed my own birth time this evening. Whoops.

Oh, well. I'm not that distressed. I mean, it's cool to turn a year older, to have another year of memories behind you. It's just, I have this big moment of "growing older many times a year"- when I start the school year, finish the school year, Christmas, New Years, my birthday...it adds up.

This does, however, mark a year from when I decided to start blogging. Well, as I'm sure you're aware, it's not like I actually did, but we can ignore that fact.

I think that's enough musing for a day. Who wants to hear about Mario?

Well, today in science research I went over to the computer right away, with Julie, but the one on the end didn't work, so I switched over her, and ended up sitting between Julie and Mario. On the other side of the bank of computers, her feet propped up on the table next to the printer, sat Krystal.

Aside from asking Mario if he was going to class tomorrow (as of right now, yes, but if anything changes he'll text me) and noting that he got a haircut ("it looks nice." "Thanks.) I mostly stared at my powerpoint and occasionally chattered with Julie about birthdays and Fridays and other information of some interest but not interesting enough to repeat.

At some point, somehow, we got to talking about gym, or being late, or something to the effect of Mario showing up half an hour late for gym this morning.

"Was that actually half an hour?" I asked.

"Yeah, about."

"Remind me again how you still have credit in gym?"

"Oh, all the absences are excused."

"How do you manage that?"

"I woo the woman at the front desk."

"You know Patty?!?" interjected Krystal (assume that all of her dialogue is in all caps with multiple punctuative symbols at the end).

"That's her name?" said Mario.

"I don't understand this whole wooing business," I said again.

"Well, I basically convinced her that if she gave me an excused note, that was all she had to do, but if she gave me an unexcused, she would need to go online, and fill out a form, and it would really just be far too much trouble."

"And that actually worked?"

"Once."

"So what'd you do today?"

"I said I had to pick up my brother."

"Because your brother doesn't live with you..."

"I go to the gym before school."

"Ah." I crinkled my eyebrows, thinking, as always.

"Wait, you go to the gym before school?" said Krystal, loudly, as always.

"Yes."

"Do you shower?"

"What?"

"Don't you smell bad?"

"Um."

"Do you shower when you go to the gym."

He looked at her.

"Wouldn't you smell bad?"

"What, do you want to smell me or something?"

Krystal, taking him entirely at his word, stood up and walked around the desks. She started leaning towards him and he stood up, using what height he has to his advantage. She put her nose near his arm and sniffed.

Mario looked rather confused as she continued sniffing up his arm. Julie and I were, by this time, in near-hysterics.

"I can't smell anything," announced Krystal.

"Um," said Mario.

"Lemme try your hair," she said, unsuccessfully attempting to bring her nose close enough to his hair to smell it. She then brought a stool over.

Mario tensed and leaned back slightly, his eyes all screwed up. His face looked like one a small child would make before getting a shot, something of an anticipatory wince.

Dr. Verona caught sight of Krystal on the chair and said "Krystal, demerit."

"He made me do it!"

Mario snorted but returned to his work, which seemed to consist of repeatedly highlighting the same words on a UPenn website.

"When you scroll over a person, it highlights the fields they work in, and when you scroll over a field, it highlights the people."

"That's handy."

"I suppose so." He then proceeded to give the computer monitor that oddly intent stare of his, and Krystal returned to her seat, and the conversation ended.

Purity Lost: Female Vampires in Dracula

A synopsis.

Victorian women were well behaved, unlike Vicky (Happy Birthday!) who wears pants. They also were very pure and chaste, eschewing sexual contact (Vicky merely eschews hugs). When "Dracula" was published, these scary things called feminists were beginning to emerge from the shadows. Actually, they weren't called feminists, just "new women," but the basic idea is the same. In "Dracula," all of these semi-feminists are monstrous, bloody vampires. They want to suck your blood.

For instance, Lucy Westerna. Before being vampirized, she's pure and blonde. Afterwards, she is voluptuous and wanton. Wanton, for all concerned, is not pronounced like the delicious segment of Asian cuisine. This is particularly directed at Jeff, who mispronounced it during English the other day. Also, when Lucy has been stabbed through the heart and killed, she is pure and sweet, not a bloody mess, which is nuts, because she should have turned into a relatively decomposed human body.

Also, the other vampire chicks are ridiculous sluts who make Harker into a mess, because, clearly, he can't retain control of his own sexuality because he is a thirteen year old boy, or something.

So vampires=sex=evil! According to Bram Stoker, anywho.

Love, Tea

Bring Out Your Yarmulke

It's almost time to celebrate Hanukkah. I feel like that means that Vicky's birthday is soon. But I'm not positive. My memory is rather spotty, after all.

The one unfortunate aspect of Hannukah is the lack of really good music. Other than Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, we're pretty much screwed. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah is trying to stop that. He may be a conservative Mormon from Utah, but he promises, he's Jewish on the inside.

An exact quote from the article: Orrin Hatch of Utah loves Jews, songwriting, and Hanukkah. He also calls Barbara Streisand his idol. I tried to find a link to a song I always hear on PLJ about a jew and a gentile where the Jew says he loves Barbara Streisand.

I have a feeling this reporters personal dislike of Hatch made him/her a wee bit more tongue in cheek than is probably proper.

Fun facts- Hatch worked on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court in a case whose syllabus I read for Government. What a coinkydink!

Also, Hatch tried to create a bill which allowed companies to seize your computer if you were found to possess pirated music or other materials. Very scary.

Anywho, here's Hatch's video, and here's the Adam Sandler Happy Hanukkah song, which I haven't heard yet this season, but really consider a necessity.

Overheard

Today, during extended Health, I slipped out of class to go use the bathroom. There were two girls, probably sophomores, standing in front of the sinks and talking. There was a short, talkative one, and a larger, heavier one. I'll call them L and B, respectively.

L: Nice iphone.

B: Thanks.

L: My parents are getting me an itouch for my birthday.

B: Cool.

L: Know what's great about itouches?

B: No.

L:You can use the internet on them.

B: Yeah.

L: Emily has an itouch. She uses the internet on it.

B: Huh.

L: She looks at porn on it.

B: Wow.

L: Sometimes, I look at porn on it with her.

B: Oh.

L: It's kind of weird.

B: Yeah.

L: Don't tell anyone I said that.

B: That it's weird?

L: No, that I look at porn.

B: Sure.

L, speaking to me as I dried my hands: That includes you.

Tea: I don't know you anyways. Even if I told someone, they wouldn't know what I was talking about.

L: Good.

I, of course, promptly told both Red and Kathrya the entire story after I got back to health class. Kathrya and I agreed that even though we don't watch porn ourselves, it really doesn't seem like the sort of thing you want to do with a friend. I mean, seriously, that just seems like a recipe for either severe awkwardness or clandestine lesbian hookups.

On a completely unrelated note, we're writing essays on gender in English. Here are the theses of my group:

Margot: Girls wear clothes that are really uncomfortable.

Carter: Being a guy sucks because, like, we have to fit into expectations and stuff.

Brian: I have great female role models in my family, and we've now studied this so excessively I feel that my brain my spontaneously combust. It's all just empty talk that isn't going to do anything to stop sexism; that takes actions.

Tea: Femininity is an insurmountable obstacle preventing me from controlling my own life.

Rob: What Brian said.

Renna: Being a woman means not knowing what you actually want. Also, is it a problem if I write a synthesis essay using only personal anecdotes?

Birthdays, Once Again

As Julie so kindly reminded us on Sunday, Mario's birthday was this weekend. He was standing with Melissa and I and talking to Mr. Booth (civil war joke! speaking of which, check out this webcomic) about being seventeen.

"I'm seventeen, now," said Mario. "I can go to R rated movies and buy cigarettes."

"Actually," said Mr. Booth, "you can't buy cigarettes."

"I can buy porn, then, right?"

"No, I don't think so," said Melissa.

"Oh. Seventeen is kind of disappointing really. Sixteen you get to drive, and eighteen you're an adult-"

"And you can vote," I added.

"-and you can vote, and then twenty-one..." he trailed off.

"I still have to register to vote," Melissa said. "Because we have such a big election this year."

"Do you even get to vote for anything?"

"First selectman and planning and zoning, I think."

"Ooh!" I said. "I'll ask my dad about planning and zoning, since he'll actually care."

"Good plan."

Biographical Poem

We had to write these for health class. Our teacher, Ms. Martie, is a recent college graduate and she's trying to use 'fun' curriculum. However, I'm pretty sure the curriculum was designed for elementary school students. Not that I'm complaining- last class, all we did was draw giant flowers that had our similarities in the middle and our differences on the petals. I was labeled "Math geek," since other people in the group had my standard plays piano, plays guitar, likes art, loves science, hates sports, and rarely watches TV.

Tea, Tea is her name

Tall, unique, yet entirely the same,

Loves her sisters, Genie and Shelby,

Feels emotions, sad and happy,

Needs her food and gives birthday presents,

Shares the planet with foxes and pheasants,

Fears the bloodsucking violent mosquitoes,

Likes to see movies and concerts and shows...

The last two lines are about my town and last name, but I figured that I ought to take them out. I'm so fabulously creative, no?

Also, speaking of our town, as you may or may not know, we have our own magazine. Well, I can't find the article online, but Dino is on the cover (along with 9 other students, including his older brother). I may have to bring it in and show it around a bit. Were you aware that he's a rising star of Paperclip High School? And his academic record is such that we should already know of him?

Whoever was researching clearly didn't realize the sheer number of students at PHS with academic records just as good as Dino's.

100!

This is my hundredth blog post. To commemorate, I thought I'd share some highlights of the past 100 posts.

In February, I had my first emo-ish introspective semi-rant. As far as I know, nobody bothered to read it, because, at that point, I had no readers.

Until.....Catering, written a few days after my 16th birthday, when Vicky first became a regular reader, at the time, my only reader. My birthday also marked when I began posting daily. Soon thereafter, I got my permit and began terrorizing the roads. I was also terrorized by high schoolers who lacked physical contact boundaries.

Then, in May, two important events occurred. Firstly, Mario became a regular character, and Nyx and Gretchen joined the club, with Gretch even starting her own blog. I also shared both dirty jokes and nerdy jokes. We also discovered both the Debrahs and the Jillians of cyberspace. We also learned about tampons and my subconscious.

It has been, to say the least, a very eventful 100 posts.

NOW, just for kicks, I looked up 100 random questions. I'm going to post the questions here, then answer them in a comment.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can, What can you touch?

3. Before you started this survey, what were you doing?

4. What is the last thing you watched on TV?

5. Without looking, guess what time it is

6. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?

7. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

8. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

9. Did you dream last night?

10. Do you remember your dreams?

11. When did you last laugh?

12. Do you remember why / at what?

13. What is on the walls of the room you are in?

14. Seen anything weird lately?

15. What do you think of this quiz?

16. What is the last film you saw?

17. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

18. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?

19. Tell me something about you that most people don't know.

20. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?

21. Do you like to dance?

22. Would you ever consider living abroad?

23. Does your name make any interesting anagrams?

24. Who made the last incoming call on your phone?

25. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer?

26. Last time you swam in a pool?

27. Type of music you like most?

28. Type of music you dislike most?

29. Are you listening to music right now?

30. What color is your bedroom carpet?

31. If you could change something about your home, without worry about expense or mess, what would you do?

32. What was the last thing you bought?

33. Have you ever ridden on a motorbike?

34. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving?

35. Do you have a garden?

36. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem?

37. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning?

38. If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be?

39. Who sent the last text message you received?

40. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?

41. What time is bed time?

42. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant?

43. How many tattoos do you have?

44. If you don't have any, have you ever thought of getting one?

45. What did you do for your last birthday?

46. Do you carry a donor card?

47. Who was the last person you ate dinner with?

48. Is the glass half empty or half full?

49. What's the farthest-away place you've been?

50. When's the last time you ate a homegrown tomato?

51. Have you ever won a trophy?

52. Are you a good cook?

53. Do you know how to pump your own gas?

54. If you could meet any one person (from history or currently alive), who would it be?

55. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school?

56. Do you touch-type?

57. What's under your bed?

58. Do you believe in love at first sight?

59. Think fast, what do you like right now?

60. Where were you on Valentine's day?

61. What time do you get up?

62. What was the name of your first pet?

63. Who is the second to last person to call you?

64. Is there anything going on this weekend?

65. How are you feeling right now?

66. What do you think about the most?

67. What time do you get up in the morning?

68. If you had A Big Win in the Lottery, how long would you wait to tell people?

69. Who would you tell first?

70. What is the last movie that you saw at the cinema?

71. Do you sing in the shower?

72. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?

73. What do you do most when you are bored?

74. What do you do for a living?

75. Do you love your job?

76. What did you want to be when you grew up?

77. If you could have any job, what would you want to do/be?

78. Which came first the chicken or the egg?

79. How many keys on your key ring?

80. Where would you retire to?

81. What kind of car do you drive?

82. What are your best physical features?

83. What are your best characteristics?

84. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go?

85. What kind of books do you like to read?

86. Where would you want to retire to?

87. What is your favorite time of the day?

88. Where did you grow up?

89. How far away from your birthplace do you live now?

90. What are you reading now?

91. Are you a morning person or a night owl?

92. Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

93. Can you close your eyes and raise your eyebrows?

94. Do you have pets?

95. How many rings before you answer the phone?

96. What is your best childhood memory?

97. What are some of the different jobs that you have had in your life?

98. Any new and exciting things that you would like to share?

99. What is most important in life?

100. What Inspires You?

Feel free to participate.

Vacation

I don't have school this week, and while the respite has been utterly blissful, I have been somewhat neglecting of this blog. Instead, I've been reading a lot (Speaker for the Dead, Epic, Saga, Sovay, and a couple more that were so horrific I won't mention them here). I've also been practicing guitar a lot. I got this gorgeous slim-body acoustic electric for my birthday, so now I have to learn to play it a little better. So far, I've got my A, D, E, C, and G chords down, and I'm working on F, A minor, D minor, and an E dominant seventh. For piano, I've just begun the final page of Beethoven's Pastorale Sonata, and it is, of course, the hardest part of the piece. This is quite an accomplishment, considering the face that the piece is 25 minutes long when performed at tempo. It takes me FOREVER to practice, but I love it.

Birthdays!

I turned 16 today, which mainly involved a lot of my friends saying "happy birthday!" and me squealing "thanks!" and enveloping them in high-velocity hugs. These high velocity hugs pose a bit of an issue, as my lack of kinesthetic awareness leaves me rather accident prone. I managed to shoulder Red in the neck, and when I hugged Avon, my long, ungainly arms managed to knock into the blonde boy behind her. He gave us a very pissed off look. It was, all in all, rather comical.

The other thing I wanted to address today was a silly exercise in probability brought up by Kahuna, a boy in my United States History class. He claimed that if you have a 1/3 chance of being hit by a car, and a 1/3 chance of thinking about the car, then you should think about the car, because the chance of both thinking and being hit is only one ninth. I said that probability said so, but that didn't mean it would make a difference. Jeremy calmly informed us both that they were independent events with independent probabilities.

However, this still let me somewhat confused. Well before I was born, my father was in a plane crash. He was in a little airplane in Alaska, and since he had a pilot's license, he was sitting in the cockpit with the captain, who was showing off. Well, the showoff of a captain ended up crashing the plane into a mountain, breaking some bone in my father's girlfriend's back (she blamed my Dad, and immediately broke-up with him). However, the probability of him being in more than one plane accident is extremely small. Therefor, it makes sense for me to travel on airplanes with him, because the chance of a crash is reduced.

Clearly, probability is screwed.