Another Day, More Work

I've almost (almost almost) got the patent finished up. Just have to rewrite the claims and do a final figure description. I'm rather looking forward to getting it all submitted.

I also finished Summer Reading Book #3, also known as Tess of the Deubervilles. This adds on with 1984 and Lolita, and now I've just got to get through God of Small Things. At the moment, my biggest topic linking the three books is something regarding perceptions of purity and attractiveness, because, for some reason, all big books seem to come back to sex.

Today, I did some (but not enough) cleaning, some (but not enough) talking, and a fairly reasonable quantity of work, although, like I said, I have the figure description to write up, and I think I might try to make a bit of a dent in the summer chemistry work, and I'd like to do another one of my RSI blog posts (I must remember ALL!!!!!)

Anyways, that's today's update. Sorry it's brief, but I'm pouring my energy into far too many things at the moment.

Oh, right, last night I hung out with Nyx, and then Dad got mad at me for how much crap I still had in his office. Tonight, Gretchen is coming over. Tomorrow, Kathrya and Nia are coming over. I am in no way listing these to increase the number of tags held by particular individuals. No sirree, I wouldn't dream of it.

Hatred and the Physics SAT-II

It's almost enough to make me hate physics.

You know, the whole studying for the SAT-II thing. I'm so behind; I need to get through the whole book in the next five days, because I've forgotten far, far too much. I realize that this will mean a difference of about fifty points in my score, so it's a lot of work for a minimal payoff, but I want those points, so I'm making the effort.

Speaking of physics...*obsessively checks snapgrades.* Oh, look, it's been over a week and Mubbles still has not graded our tests. Oh, how woeful I am, how much I wish to know the truth. I know it will change nothing, but I've never really been a huge fan of suspense.

Some good kinds of suspense: looking forward to RSI, looking forward to being done with my SAT-IIs, looking forward to knowing physics, looking forward to the World Science Festival next weekend. You know, nice, fun things.

I washed three cars today. Granted, it was with Dad's help, and I ended up being the hose-offer, as I was a rather pathetically slow scrubber. At some point during this, I was reminded of a prom event, which, of course, I had never really gotten around to sharing.

I rode to prom in Cormac's car, along with Cammie and Nia. We were driving along, rocking out to the Beatles, when, much to our surprise, we saw a small tree in the middle of the road. The car in front of us swerved massively into the other side of the road and then continued.

"Gosh," we said to ourselves. "That sure does look mighty dangerous."

"We could go move it."

"We should go move it."

"Let's."

"One, two, three, GO!" said Cormac, of course, and the four of us, in rather impressive synchrony, leapt from the minivan. This is particularly impressive when one considers the facts that a) the minivan has rather sticky sliding doors and b) half of our party was wearing high heels. Regardless, leapt we did, and, in quick, effective motions, we cleared the tree to the side of the road and reloaded the car before driving off to the dance.

We spent the remainder of the ride discussing how awesome the aforementioned event was.

Electonic-Related Disasters

My bedroom appears to have eaten my sister's camera's download wire. She came in looking for it, so I started to dig around, looking from suspicious suspects.

I found three black wires with one tiny end and one USB--I think they're called firewires--despite the fact that I don't have a camera that those wires could have come with. She tried all three; none fit.

So, we have three mysterious black wires, and a camera that can't download pictures.

In the words of Shelby, "greeeeaaaaat."

Another unfortunate electronic adventure: my cell phone has been completely nonfunctional for about a month, due to the fact that my charger vanished mysteriously from the floor next to my bed (and no, it's not under the bed). After three weeks of "it'll turn up eventually"s, I caved and ordered a new charger on Amazon. Actually, I ordered two new chargers, since my model of phone is so old that there are literally bazillions of charges lying around, unused, unplugged, powerless and ignored.

My new charger came on Thursday, so I plugged in and, on Friday, when I went shopping with Kathrya, I was fully plugged in. I checked the time obsessively, worried about it accidentally falling out of my pocket, and was pleased to discover that I had missed neither calls nor texts. While in one store, as I ignored the salesteen who had poked fun at me for tripping over a table and waited while Kathrya tried on pants, I sent Nia a "Happy Birthday" text and Rube a "is text message persuasion going to get you to come build sand castles tomorrow?"

I felt both sociable and accomplished, almost as accomplished as I felt after successfully flipped a fedora up my arm before putting it on (salesboy's response: "niiiiice." Weird-ass skaters...). Then Rube called and I completely ineffectively dropped the hat while attempting to juggle two bags, my phone, my wallet, my jacket, and my keys, trying to get outside of the store to somewhere where I could actually hear.

Unfortunately, it was actually louder outside, so I ended up leaning against a wall near the front of the store, curled around the phone as Rube said in a voice that was far too tired, "I can't hear you, we'll talk later."

That was the phone call with the highest effort to talk time ratio in the history of humanity.

Regardless, I used my phone, didn't worry about my parents being able to reach me, and generally had a grand old time. To continue my phone-using habits, I brought it to Castles in the Sand the next day, which was not a smart move. Somebody--I have no idea who, although it may have been me--spilled water all over the bag, and, despite the fact that there were three phones in said bag, only mine short circuited.

It has been sitting in my kitchen for over twenty four hours, innards removed, searching for sunlight, but thus far, no luck. My only hope is that merely the batteries are dead, and that I can utilize a replacement battery to access the contacts and whatnot. However, you may rest assured that I will not create a facebook group dedicated to my phone, because, really, that is just poor form.

Well, Ginny covered ride there

here, so I figured I'd take care of the next bit.

Despite the tardiness of three of the eight paperclips, we still arrived at the high school early, and, due to the absurdly tight arrival schedule, waited for about five minutes outside of the parking lot before getting dropped off.

As we drove over, a pair of decidedly math-geek looking boys were playing frisbee on the tennis courts. Mario and Irving derided their skill. While I can accept that Mario is probably decent as frisbee, since he does seem to be relatively athletic, as far as math team people go, I highly doubt that Irving could have done much better.

Regardless, we walked into the school to a separate area from Mr. Booth, so we had to take a few minutes to make extra certain that everybody was equipped with a TI-84 for the team round (which was completely useless, as I don't think I even touched mine) and hear a last minute "down with Treeburg" reminder before we filed off to the cafeteria.

I went to the bathroom soon after arriving, bringing Ginny along with me. This detail is not relevant at this point in the story, but it is foreshadowing. Note the foreshadowing.

Moving along. The four present members of the dream team sat on one side of out little section of bleachers, and we sat on the other. Our group, consisting of Ginny, Micro, Argon and I, discussed the relative visible nerdiness of the various students. For instance, the girl who was clad entirely in purple, including a too-tight-weirdly-cut-oddly-long purple dress, leggings of the same shade and purple sneakers: nerdy. Blonde guy in cargos with a long blonde ponytail: nerdy. Short guy doing handstands without tucking his shirt: very nerdy. Tall, otherwise reasonable looking guy wearing a t-shirt that said "I failed the Turing test": nerdy. Team of guys wearing sunglasses like Nia's normal ones and carrying a boombox: trying too hard to not be nerdy, but failing when they turned on the boombox at a not ear-shattering volume.

There was then a supremely horrific degree of disorganization of us trying to find our rooms, but we did eventually do so. I met a girl from my cousin's hometown who looked extremely not nerdy, but I have a feeling that this is more because she is black, and my image of a nerd is either asian or white or occasionally indian, than anything else. Midway through the first round, when "TWO MINUTES" was called (I realize that that is technically not midway. Forgive me), I jumped and said "oh my god," then mentally congratulated myself for not swearing, although I'm fairly certain that I did manage to get a big fat 0 on that round, unfortunately. Honestly, I would feel so much more secure with myself if I'd just gotten that one three-point negative sign....

Ah, well, c'est la vie. I need to get back to calculus. Ginny, if you want to continue this, please do.

Me? Obsessed? Nah...

I finally turned on my phone last night to find the following:

From a texter who I still don't know who is, on Feb. 23rd: I know you don't text but ski cross is on now. i thought you should know.

From Mario, on Thursday night: I sent you an email. Did you get it?, referencing, of course, his Moody's related email.

And from another number I didn't know, but figured was Nia: Did the bus come yet?

I, in turn, sent out three text messages. To the ski crosser, I wrote "I don't know who this is from but im very sad that i didn't get this until now"

To the probable Nia I wrote: I don't know who this is but you should know that I rarely have my phone on me.

To Mario I wrote: As you now know I did get said email its just that i go to sleep at ten so you cant expect a prompt response after that. Also if u didnt see no class tomorrow.

For anyone who's interested, although I smiled way too much while typing it, I didn't agonize over my response at all. Both of them, despite the late hour (almost 11!) responded promptly.

From Nia, two minutes later: it's Nia lol

From Mario, three minutes later: I will take note of both.

Julie told me the next day that she was the ski-crosser.

The "I will take note of both" made me squee, so I immediately called Kathrya to tell her about it, because that's just the sort of person I am. It particularly helped as I was rather grumpy that class had been canceled due to snow. After all, I love SHP, and I enjoy the train rides a good bit more than I should, and I didn't see why a little snow should stop me.

I may have possibly gone to Starbucks today with the sole goal of appeasing my grumpiness over not seeing a certain somebody. However, I hadn't had a latte in two weeks, and I needed to get out of the house to study for the ACTs, as I just can't really focus when I'm in my room and my computer is about ten feet away.

I went to Barnes and Nobles to buy the ACT book first. I may have possibly checked the Barnes and Nobles Starbucks three times to make extra certain he wasn't there.

I think we all know who he is.

I turned the wrong way on Rt. 1 when leaving B&N, and took the most circuitous route ever, but did eventually arrive. I debated texting Vicky to tell her I was in Starbucks studying ACTs, cause it seemed like something she would be doing already. Lo and behold, I saw a telltale glimpse of glowingly orange hair (it actually wasn't glowing orange, it was more of a copper-y orange-red, but I just like the way glowingly orange sounds) and had a nice chat about ACTs with Vicky while her mother nodded along. Once my latte arrived, I spilled some coffee on my prep book while trying to remove the cap, and I'm fairly certain they both laughed, and Vicky made fun of my two packets of sugar.

I still contend that the presence of actual coffee in the drink makes it require more sugar. And I still don't get how a Starbuck's addict doesn't drink coffee.

I settled down at a little table in the sunlight and pulled out Beloved, by Toni Morrison, which I'm reading for A.P. English. I'm glad I wasn't at home alone in my room while reading it, because it was disturbing. Ghosts, rape, bestiality, and slavery in one chapter was a little bit more than I could handle. The bit about abusing calves still makes my insides squirm. I was about midway through the chapter when Vicky and her mother left, Vicky taking a moment to point out the fact that despite my brand new ACT book, I was not actually studying for the ACTs.

"It's for English!" I retorted as she walked out the door.

A bit after I finished the chapter one of the big comfy armchairs freed up, so I moved over there and dug into the ACT book. It was a lot of "this is worth this many points, that is worth that many points, this section tests your understanding of grammar, what is the capital of Swahili?"

I'm kidding on the last one.

I may have possibly looked up every time the door opened. Well, I definitely didn't, as I didn't notice Mario and brother (who is another always angry looking person, in case you (Ginny) were wondering) until they were in line.

Mario gave me "the nod." I nodded back. I have no clue what his brother did because, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't looking. Mario accepted one of those awful sandwiches with a patty of scrambled eggs in them and whatever sort of coffee he's drinking these days. His brother did the same and went to sit down, and Mario walked over towards me.

"So this is what you do when you aren't in class," he said.

"Oh, I hadn't had coffee in two weeks, and I just felt like..." I trailed off, and he nodded. I think it's the sort of sentiment a caffeine addict can understand. "Oh, and we actually did have class, apparently. Like, it was canceled, but it still happened, for the people who showed up, you know?"

He frowned. "I doubt they'll penalize us for not showing up, then."

"I suppose, but I still would've liked to have gone. I enjoy it," I shrugged.

"Me too. I think I like the routine of it."

"It's nice to get out."

This time he shrugged. We kept talking for a while. About the Challenge, about ACTs verses SATs, about SAT subject tests, about Moody's. Unlike Dino, he gave absolutely no indication that he thought our team was bad. He seemed confident, and excited, and felt like it would be more fun than the Green Super Student Challenge, or whatever it was called. We'd stop and pause every so often, and he'd sometimes start to step away, but I wouldn't look down and away the way I always do when I got nervous from talking- I mean I did sometimes, but, to be perfectly honest, he's a hell of a lot more riveting than my ACT book- and he'd just say something else and we'd keep going. By the time he left- I feel like it was about ten minutes, but it may have been far less or a bit more- I had a feeling that his sandwich was cold.

Good riddance. Anything involving bacon inside of bread is, in my opinion, better off not ingested.

Beware of Bad Drivers

Today, I went for a walk. I went down along the beach, squinting and looking at the ground directly in front of my feet the entire time.

I made it all the way around, smiling awkwardly at the exercise walkers and other passer-byes, and headed down the home stretch away from the statue towards my street. I was getting a bit tired, so I stopped, switched my ipod to something marginally peppier, and continued walking, since I lack to coordination to choose a song and walk at the same time.

I looked up into the oncoming traffic and saw a car swerving sideways, straight towards me. "Wow, that's odd," I thought to myself, having no apparent regard for my own life and limb. The car pulled to a stop right next to me and rolled down a window.

"Tea!" called an interior voice.

I bent down and peered through the car window. "Kathrya!"

"Do you need a ride? What are you doing walking?"

"I went for a walk. I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh, well, that does make sense."

"Were you at Nyx's house?" I asked, since she had come from that direction.

"No, I was dropping of Nia after going to the mall," Kathrya said. She kept talking, and I recollected some vague memory of Nia's gift cards for some store she wanted to go to, so I nodded along. "I should probably go," she finished.

"Well, if the offer of a ride still stands, I'm kind of tired, and I'd like to go home."

"Get in." She unlocked the door and I sat down. I suppose she must have done a u-turn, but I wasn't really paying attention. "You look exhausted. I saw you standing there, and my first thought was 'is that Tea?' followed immediately by 'is she going to pass out?'"

"I didn't realize I looked that tired," I said.

She made a half-hearted effort to stop at the stop sign, then decided not to and sped up.

"That was a horrible stop," I said, ever the annoying backseat driver.

"There wasn't anybody there. There really is no point in stopping if there aren't any other cars."

I shrugged. "I suppose."

We chattered about the niceness of her car and the glories of an automatic temperature control system until we reached my house. She let me out behind a clump of bushes so that my parents wouldn't know that I bummed a ride, then drove around the culdesac and away.

There was no real point to that story.

I guess I should tell it again.

Happy Weekend

As Nia passed me when getting off the bus, she said, "Bye!"

I called up towards her "Have a nice weekend!"

"You too," responded both Nia and the random sophomore who I've actually never talked to.

Genie and I were in hysterics for a good few minutes.

The Breakfast Club

Today in health, Ms. Martie unsuccessfully attempted to get the class to do yoga. She ended up getting so fed up that she had as do coloring book pages of mandalas. It was surprisingly fun, but all of the quiet and time to think made Kathrya really grumpy, to the point where she actually snapped at Nia.

Last year in health, we watched The Breakfast Club. Here are some highlights from my write-up about it.

• Andrew got detention because he attacked another boy and taped his butt together.
• Socially, I am a follower. When I’m with a group of friends, I rarely come up with ideas of what we should do. I’ll trail along after people rather than forging my own path. Also, even when I do want to try something on my own, I feel that need to bring a friend along with me, so that I don’t feel like I am exposing myself in any way.
• I think that although you could never find exact replicas of the students, I could definitely find basic outlines. I know plenty of brains, myself included. I know a kid who devotes hours of time to playing football despite the fact that he says he doesn’t even know why. I know a girl, slightly messed up, like Allison, who hates her parents. I’ve heard about a boy whose parents are awful and who has been smoking pot since sixth grade, and in a town with this much money, princesses are not difficult to locate. However, all of these students have their own depths and thoughts, as well as their own personal reasons for being the way they are. Also, there are plenty of students at Paperclip who, while fitting archetypes, would not click directly into those of the movie.

In other news, Harry has reached an acceptable level of conversation. He seems to have become acclimated to my general awkwardness, extreme paranoia, and tendency to fall over. We even managed to bond over out inability to remember the names of freshmen. However, Harry will probably continue to avoid all eye contact in the hallway. Weird dude, I guess.

Suffering

I am currently suffering from extensive eye make-up damage from being all dolled up as an emo for our health PSA. Nia may be really good with make-up, but I still consider it majorly unfun. Maybe I'm just oversensitive.

Of course, being oversensitive would make me emo by nature, no?

Nerds Don't Get Any

This is, as we're all aware, a sad but true fact. And it only makes things worse to hear about all of the people who we considered totally beneath us in middle school, back before we moved to the higher level classes where one could, potentially, find a room in which the only person who's had sex is the teacher, are out there hooking up and doing god knows what else. (Forgive me the run-on sentence. Incomprehensibility seems to be my buzzword for the week). For instance, take Grant, who apparently hooked up with a girl and then called her "Isabel" by accident. I personally don't know anyone named Isabel, so who knows what he was thinking, but regardless, I think I'm going to break into another round of pouting along the theme of what-do-they-have-that-I-don't.

This should make for a highly enjoyable evening.

The whole bit about nerds not getting any is a stereotype. It's a true stereotype as far as e the nerds I know go, but it is a stereotype. This week in Health, Kathrya, Nia and I are making a public service announcement about stereotypes in which we film a representation of a stereotype, then demonstrate how this person subverts it. For nerd, Kathrya got all dolled up in high-waisted cords with a TI-85 in the pocket, a tucked in, baggy white tee, and overlarge glasses. We were debating what subversion to use while Nia got the camera working. My vote was for an STD. Kathrya, however, didn't respond favorably to my pleas to tell the health class that she has gonorrhea.

A few minutes later, Mr. Booth walked by, and Kathrya and I both waved and said hi. He walked over to us.

Mr. Booth: So what are you doing?

Tea: We're making a public service announcement for health.

Kathrya: I'm dressed as a nerd. I don't normally look like this, I promise!

Mr. Booth laughs before saying: Nice calculator.

Kathrya: Haha, thanks.

Mr. Booth: So what is this about?

Tea: Stereotypes.

Kathrya: We're dressing up as them and then subverting them.

Mr. Booth: So how are you subverting nerd?

Kathrya: We're not sure yet. Tea wants to say I have STDs, but-

At that, Mr. Booth's entire head, including the top of it, turned red, and he covered up the his face.

Tea: Honestly, it's health class, I don't see what's wrong with it!

Mr. Booth: It really doesn't seem like the best idea.

Nia: Maybe you party a lot or something?

Mr. Booth: Or she could play sports. You still have the whole jock divide, right?

Tea, musing: What sport, though?

Mr. Booth: How about chess club. Would that work?

Tea, puzzled: No.

Kathrya: Probably not.

Tea blinked a few times, confused.

At that point, Tawny emerged from the bathroom in hippy regalia, and we had to end the conversation to go film her.

My Schedule

I got my first choice, after well over an hour of standing next to the English table. By the way, Margot (her twin sister's name is a flower) probably hates me at this point. Arena was about to close, and the department head was willing to give one of us period 8, but the other would have to take period 1, and I said I'd have to switch four or five classes, and Margot said she was just to confused, so the woman handing them out gave it to me. Avon later told me that Margot knew perfectly well that she'd only have to switch one class, she was faking it to get period 8. Ah well, I won in the end.

I hate how nasty everyone gets, though. For instance, Lily (and yes, that is a nickname) spent was continually saying nice things about the teachers she didn't want, trying to talk others into taking them. It just felt so underhanded.

Ah, well.

1 physics h

2 calculus b.c.

3 gym (with Nia and Kathrya and Ali!)

4 adv. drawing/anthropology

5 ASR

6 spanish h

7 gov (with the teacher whose name has two syllables)/oil painting

8 english

The Dodgeball Vendetta

I feel that the best way to start a post about this as-of-yet-unintroduced character is a four word sentence about him: Berk is a jerk.

Well, Berk isn't always a total jerk, but he sure as hell is annoying. We've been playing dodgeball in gym for the past week, and Berk (run in through a translator of the language that Nyx's mom speaks (I think) to English for his last name) has embarked on an extremely personal and rude quest to destroy any of my already meager dodgeballing abilities.

The first day of dodgeball, he did nothing against me, and I contentedly hung out in the back with Kathrya, Chelsea, and Nia. The second day, however, Berk immediately began attacking me, following shouts of "TEAAAAA" with a poorly aimed dodgeball. The situation was made more ridiculous by the fact that I'm fairly certain that he could have thrown a lot harder, he was just enjoying the theatrical effect of making me squirm. Chelsea says that her favorite part of this day was when Nia was standing in front of me (not that she blocks much, considering our height difference) and Berk yelled "Duck! I'm trying to hit Tea!" The numerous attempts continued the next day, which Berk finished by going in for some strange sort of handshake that is understood only by him, involving some sort of hands to elbows to high fives to a whole lot of confused Tea.

Today, we played the juniors, but he politely announced that, even though we were on the same team, he would find some way to hit me. He accomplished this be grabbing my shoulders and ducking behind me, distracting me enough that I got hit with a dodgeball that wasn't even going that fast. This injury, however, was not as bad as the one sustained when Eli dodged out from in front of me and the high velocity ball going after him slammed into my leg, resulting in a strange bullseye pattern that took hours to fade.

In other news, this video is entirely hilarious

Watch Font Conference on CollegeHumor