The End

This blog has served its purpose, whatever that was. After taking into considerations the opinions of my siblings, who dislike me talking about them online, I have decided it is time to stop. I suppose what finally pushed me over the edge on this one was when we were talking about my blog two nights ago during evening family time. While talking about the different advantages between dating and courting (don't comment) Grandma asked me if I supported courting, how come I blogged. When I asked her what she meant, she said they didn't seem like they belong in the same culture. I sort of see her point: Blogging is quite undignified. The siblings treat my blog like some sort of gossip rag.

So I'm putting down my pen. This is the final post. Au Revoir. C'est la vie. Adios Amigos! And all that lovely french stuff.

Visual Rhyme

While taking the hot smelly garbage can down to the curb, I spotted Dad's garden. It is too bad he's in Scotland right now because his daisies are blooming and they look phenomenal. While I was looking at them, all I could think of was "Hey, I should take a picture. That garden has lots of visual rhyme." It must be because they are planted on a hill, but every daisy leans the same way at the same angle. It's beautiful.

Grandparents

The Grandparents arrived yesterday and have been regaling us with stories of our beloved cousins for the past twenty-four hours. They'll be in town for the entire time that the parents are gone. The parents left about two hours ago. Now is the time to begin plans for world domination. With my parents gone, what dastardly mischief should I get up to first? Hmmmmm...

Pleading the Fifth

The fifth amendment in the McPherson bill of rights must be, "You don't have to help someone if you are an idiot." Otherwise people wouldn't plead ignorance so much. This morning I was having trouble installing an application. I asked Grace how she installed it and she said Mom did it for her so she had no idea. Since Mom is always busy, I figured it would be best not to bother her. After my typical prodding and banging and replacing random important sounding files routine, I discovered that I was lacking "Microsoft.NET 3.5" (I had something like 1.44 B.C.) I took all the files off Grace's computer and replaced all my important looking files with those ones. (That disclaimer in the WINDOWS file that says "IF YOU REPLACE ANY OF THESE FILES YOUR COMPUTER MAY CEASE TO FUNCTION" is obviously nonsense)

Anyway, no cigar. I went downstairs to ask for help. I asked Mom and she naturally asked Andrew, since Andrew is the "smart" computer guy. Anyway after he said that of course I couldn't simply replace some files! This was a Process!! It's not that simple! I therefore asked him how to replace a process. No use. He had apparently heard that dealing with processes was difficult but he couldn't actually give me any useful advice.

Yeah, I eventually figured everything out on my own. After downloading a Microsoft.NET 3.5 installer and finding out it was a "Bootstrapper" (It sounds illegal but it isn't.) I downloaded a different installer and got it to work. Phew. Very exhausting. Just one of many good reasons that I did not go into computer science.

Mystery Show Mystery

As you might all know, I have been doing nothing this summer, which is to say I have been so bored that I have been doing everything I can get my hands on. I've been reading books, programming games I had dropped months ago, and watching every netflix that comes in the house. This means that I have gotten to see several mystery shows, including one that Mom and Dad recently started called "Inspector Lewis." The entire plot of the episode I watched was rather unsavory since it entailed rape and adultery and stuff so I'm not going to go into details. Suffice to say at the end, I had no idea who the rapist was.

Mom and Dad say as a general rule that British mysteries are better than American mysteries because they are more complex. There are so many rabbit trails on top of each other that it is much harder to figure out what had happened. However, I for one say there are too many rabbit trails when you aren't sure at the end who exactly was guilty. I looked up the plot synopsis online and I found out the rapist was one of the murdered parties. Too many murders definitely clog up the clarity machine. I remember Poirot would always explain the entire murder process and how he figured it out before making an arrest. I say that Lewis could take some pointers.

New Poll

I was so bored that I didn't make a new poll last week. But I made a new one this week in honor of the new Twilight coming out! Alright, everyone, the question that everyone's been asking: Edward or Jacob!! Since I haven't read the books (and probably none of my voters have either) there will probably not be much insight in this poll, but give it your best shot.

Eclipse

Here's something I didn't know: Edward and Bella weren't together during the second movie. I found this out when Alexie said: "Eclipse is coming out and everyone's freaking out because it has both a werewolf AND a vampire in it."
"Wait!" said I, "You mean Edward wasn't in the second one?"
"Nope."
"He was only in the first one?"
"Weeell, he was in the second one a little bit. But all he did was dump Bella and then have this dream that Bella died and then decide to hook up with her again when it turned out the dream wasn't real. But Jacob was the main guy for pretty much all of it."
Instead of wondering how she knew this I simply marveled at how much I didn't know. Thing I didn't know number 2: Twilight is a tetralogy. Not a trilogy! Wow!

Nothing New

La. Sorry about the lack of updates. There is really just nothing to say. I also forgot to make a new poll. I guess I just have no questions. (Looking at recent polls, it seemed like I didn't actually have anything to ask anyway.) The problem with summer is that there are no status updates! Nothing happens!

Here's a status update that pretty much sums everything up: I've won 229 out of 241 Freecell games!! Woo hoo! That's over 90%! Yay! I am so bored...

Black and White

Today as I was Dad's transcriptionist for the business I saw an X-ray that looked like its owner had inhaled a ton of smoke. The report was "Stable Fibrosis" since I figured I actually saw this one I pointed at the smoke and asked him if that was the fibrosis.

"Nope." He said, "That's the hilum. The hilum is always busy."

Later, he read one X-ray as "Pleural disease." Since I knew where pleural thickening always happened and I didn't see anything, I asked him where it was. He pointed to a little white stripe in the area. I'd say whatever it was, it couldn't be that bad. It was puny.

Later, he read "Biapical scarring." Now I was absolutely sure that "Biapical" was the top of both lungs, but they both looked perfectly healthy. I asked him again where the abnormality was. He pointed at two little stripes that were immediately next to the collar bone.

Dad said the key to reading X-rays is to know which areas are supposed to be black and which ones are supposed to be white. I don't get it.

Tournament

Whooee. That was exhausting. I only got third place, though. The sad thing was that only 13 people showed up, although 15 were pre-registered and 2 people showed up without pre-registering. Without fifteen people, the tournament was E1, meaning you could get an E if you were first place, although most people were already D's and E's. Imagine signing up online and not showing up. Lame. Oh yeah, and my body cord spontaneously combusted. It was ripped to pieces. It was so unfortunate. It is probably irreparable. I have no idea how to break it to Mom since this is the first tournament it was used in. (My last body cord was ruptured at the last tournament. These things are so short-lived.)

First Sunburn

I've finally gotten the first sunburn of the season. I had forgotten how painful it was. It surprises me that it took so long for the first sunburn to appear: It is already almost the end of June. It must be because our pool visits are normally only one hour but yesterday I swam for four hours. Also the fact that I never had to get out of the water for thunder contributed to my time in the sun. My sunburn is kind of strange because every part of me is tomato colored now except my stomach. I look like a red penguin. I've heard of the farmer's tan, but the penguin's tan? No country music girl is going to go for that!

Politics

What struck me at tonight's political pow-wow was how few people under the age of forty there were. I realized this when the speaker, Judge Mike Carter, was talking about how everything we do is for the future and for our children. If that's so, how come the people with the most vested interest in the matter are the ones lazing about? The people who currently fight the hardest are the people who will be dead before the repercussions of Obama's ludicrous healthcare bill are actually felt! One guy there had been a "tax accessor" for 80 years! This guy isn't even going to live until 2012 when the healthcare bill goes into effect!

I saw two young people there besides myself. They were talking to each other about Facebook and their friend who didn't show up. I was glad to see young blood. Turned out they were Zach Wamp's two children. Please people! Fight the good fight! It's for your future!

Dinner

Alexie and I have been splitting dinners. The problem we've been having recently is how to split them. It was easy during the school year, because our schedules were so routine. I was gone on Wednesdays and Thursdays, she was gone Mondays. Now, however, it seems like no week has the same routine. One week she got together with her friends five days of the week. The next week I go out almost every afternoon. It has become a sort of "Whoever is here cooks" kind of schedule. Not very rigorous, but it suits me just fine since I'm always off to somewhere exciting. Tonight I go to a fuddy-duddy cookout for Zach Wamp, Republican candidate for governor. Hooray! Politics!

Ending Soon

It seems like I just began this job and it is already winding down to an end. Next week there are two labs and a final. Then it is over. What a serious bummer! In a scant seven days I will be unemployed again. I suppose I'll revive my deceased workout program (It died after twenty-six days.) or I'll check out some more books at the library since I've been doing that a lot recently. What to do...

Ambiguous Headline

On the UTC webpage there is a headline that reads "UTC Department of Justice sponsors hate crime forum." What I understood was that "sponsors" was the subject and "hate" was the verb. I clicked on it expecting to see a story about controversy. Alas. "Sponsors" was the verb. "Hate" was just an adjective describing the forum. (Which it probably deserves.) So instead of a story about sponsors hating a forum, I get a story about a department sponsoring a forum. Booooring.

The Extra Digit

Today in lab I had one guy come up to me with his paper and I knew that he had a problem. You can always tell on their faces when they are angry/disgusted.

"Hey, I know that NaOH is a strong base, but the number it is returning according to her chart (I assume he's referring to Dr. Potts. He seems to be pretty bitter ever since she kicked him out of lab for coming 11 minutes late.) this value would show me that it was a weak base."

I assume that he's had it up to here with not getting the required results on his lab report and I can sympathize. Dad once told me that the best thing to do was work backwards: figure out the theoretical answer first and make up "real-life" measurements to match. (When I told two girls that acetic acid was a weak acid not a strong acid and couldn't have a value of 4963, they made up a value: 1234. How obvious was that?)

So I looked at it prepared to tell him that the Verniers were new so we weren't sure they all worked and sometimes the beakers had residue, blah blah blah, etc. However I was shocked to see his value was approximately 24000. He had been reading it as 2400 since the break-off point was 2500 and he naturally assumed that all the values would be within 50 of the break-off point. In reality all the strong acids have five digits and the weak acids have four. Pretty obvious. Anyway I pointed this out and was satisfied to see all his rage against the machine was away. He didn't have any more questions after that. Hooray for learning experiences!

Error

According to the Application of the sample mean to the population, everyone who reads my blog is also an innie. Weird. Let's see if I can think of some logical reasons that this might be so.

Alexie says that only freaks and misfits have outie belly buttons. She says they are exceedingly rare. That's why only David has one. Again Alexie says that David is so tightly tied around the apron strings that his umbilical cord didn't come out until 18 months after he was born. Ha ha ha!

Therefore everyone who reads my blog is clearly not a freak and a misfit. Secondly, David doesn't read my blog...

2.7%

Alright, if there are 10 people playing Mafia three times, what is the probability that one person is Mafia in all three games? Since there are 3 mafia, it comes out to 2.7%. Pretty long odds, but it happened yesterday. My brother Andrew somehow managed to pull an Ace all 3 times. I envy that kind of statistical defiance. I hate being a townsperson.

What I thought of at the time was Interstellar Pig. Andrew must be inextricably linked to a Fate of Mafia.

Library

The library recently reorganized itself making everything hard to find. I was looking in the catalog and the place to find it was "FIC." I kept trying to figure out what it stood for. Since I was so used to "FA" standing for "Fine Arts" I somehow had a firm idea that the "F" standed for "Fine." However after a bit of hmmmming and haaaahing, I realized it stood for "Fiction." Well, duh.

P.S. Alexie, who was once sick and now is better, just told me that FIC was always fiction. Nothing new. Drat.

Overtime

I've always had a basic grasp on the theory of working overtime, but I suppose the closest I've ever gotten to experiencing it was this morning. Today the Chemistry students in my lab were taking a test so I wasn't needed for teaching. Therefore they had me do an organizational bit in one of the storerooms. I had gone in meaning to ask whether I would be working for one hour or two, but my question was answered right away when Mr. Narramore told Luke and me that we were welcome to work until twelve: three and a half hours in all. I punched out at 11:30. Working overtime wasn't as fun as I thought it would be.

Complementary Opposites

There aren't many complementary opposites in the world. In fact, I might even have made the term up. For those of you who don't know Complementary Opposites are opposites that cover everything. For example: Black and White are not complementary opposites because things can be gray, or blue, etc. But Dead and Alive are complementary opposites because you are either one or you are the other. Period. However the poll question: Are you Dead or Alive? would be pretty boring. It would really only tell me how many of you aren't taking my poll questions seriously. (Answer: Most of you, including myself)

Anyways, enjoy your new poll. FYI an Innie is someone whose belly button is sunk into their stomach and an Outie is someone whose belly button sticks out. Don't worry this poll subscribes to the Law of Hippa and the information you give us will not be disclosed to anyone but your personal physicians and interested millionaires.

Demographic Survey

My demographic survey is complete! I have only one human in my entire audience! Who could have guessed! I have mostly elves and orcs (which are technically elves, it is just that they became evil and therefore became hideously ugly. You know, happens all the time in real life.) Surprisingly I don't have any dwarves. Real shocker there. I would think that my brothers were actually dwarves in disguise given their love of everything Dwarf Fortress.

Oh yeah, I'm probably going to take a new tack to polls. I'm going to start using true/false and yes/no questions because I simply don't have as many readers as I have options in Multiple Choice questions.

Homeschool Convention

This morning I was up at 6:00. Mom had signed up to help set up the Annual Used Book Sale of All Homeschoolerness. (Disclaimer: Not actual name) It seems that whenever something homeschooly needs to be organized, Mom is there. And usually there are two or three strong young sons of hers that were somehow roped into helping too. David and I went to help this morning. It wasn't too hard. All we did was tape of some aisles and set up tables. It was kind of like setting up for fencing except exponentially larger. Speaking of fencers, we saw at least five fencing families there. I guess we were filling in as the makeshift security. In addition, we saw Heather's old car that has the bumper sticker "This car is protected by a woman with a sword" still on it. I hope that family bumps into the Colemans' table where Joseph was advertising our fencing group. More members!

Music Camp

Our kids are attending another church's VBS this week. We've all been doing it for years. Every year Covenant Pres puts on a bible musical and the McPhersons join for the ride (despite obvious lack of musical abilities.) I think this year is the story of Gideon, but don't quote me on that. I'm going to find out at the end of the week when I go cheer them on in their little performance. You see? Shakespeare camp isn't the only camp insane enough to put on a play with only one week of practice!

Coincidence: Music Camp was where I first met Josh Grace, when he played Shadrach and I played Abednego. I saw him just last night at fencing. I was going to ask whether his sisters were going to be in it, but didn't find a chance.

Shiny Lab

Grote Hall has been renovated and it looks great! It still reeks of chemicals, but hey, what else would it smell like? Popcorn? Please. Everything in the new lab is shiny. Shiny new hoods. Shiny new whiteboards. In fact, the shiny new counters are covered by a sheet of weird shiny material to protect them from disgusting chemical spills. It is so shiny!

Bimodals

There are very few things that I remember from classes I've taken. One of them is the Bimodal, which I learned about in Statistics. We were learning about different types of curves and situations in which you would see them. The bimodal is the curve that defines the grade distribution in classrooms. What happens is that there are two normal curves right next to each other, one centered over D's and one centered over B's. Dr. Edwards said this is because there are two types of people: Those who try and those who don't. If everyone tried there would be a normal curve, but since there are two types of people there are two normal curves overlapping each other.

Anyway, I have seen two bimodal curves in fencing. First, the percentage of matches that the fencer wins and second the number of matches that the fencer has fought.

The first one starts out as a very drastic bimodal. Everyone either wins their first one or loses their first one. Everyone is either 100% or 0%. Obviously since for every winner there is a loser, there would be a bimodal. Interestingly, the curve become more and more normal as time progresses as people with good first days start having bad days and people with bad first days start having good days.

The second one starts out normal. Everyone fences pretty much the same number the first day. Everyone fights about 1-4 matches. However as time passes it becomes clear the people who fight four the first day will fight four for the rest of the season and people who fight one will only fight one a day for the rest of the season. Therefore in a matter of weeks there is a huge discrepancy in the number of matches and we have our bimodal: People who fence a lot and people who fence a little.

Math Review

Woo hoo! First day at my new job! Hop all around! Hooray! I'm going back tomorrow at 8:00 as well. Goody.

Today we did math review. It was amazing how many people could not convert units. It was stunning. You would think a question that said: "A car travels 10 miles. The car travels 5 miles per gallon. How many gallons does it use?" Would be pretty easy. Alas, no. I had to set up question 7 about lightning strikes for just about every team in the room. If you hear the thunder in 3.5 seconds and sound travels at 1074 feet per second, how many miles away is the lightning strike? No one could grasp that the speed was just another conversion factor. They all went nuts.

Oh yeah, there was one girl who asked me how many inches was in a foot. I responded: "Well, the question assumes that you know that there are 12 inches in a foot." I wonder if she was foreign... but if that were the case she wouldn't have had so much trouble converting centimeters to meters...

Poof

You may have noticed that I removed all the poll gadgets gunking up the side of my blog. You may not have cared. If you ever do care enough to look back at all the polls and poll results posts, they all happen to be labeled "Polls." Just click the label at the bottom of this blog post and a world of useless public opinion information will be made open to you. Whoop.

Consensus

Alright, general consensus states that the word "Carl" has only one syllable in it, but then again general consensus also states that sausages are edible, so you know how much you can trust it.

Also, no one has published a poem containing the word "Carl" in it. For shame. Everyone loses the Poem Contest. I will keep the Grand Prize for myself. It is all mine! I'm not even going to tell any one what it is lest they envy it and seek my life for it! Ha!

Alright. Here's the next poll: If you were a redshirt from Lord of the Rings, what race would you belong to!?!? Man, Elf, Dwarf, Orc.

There are two reasons that "Hobbit" is not a choice. 1) I consider five options to be too many when polling four people. 2) Hobbits generally don't form into armies and get decimated.

Poem Contest

Alright, in celebration of the closing of the poll, write a poem about "Carl." It can be any type of poem: limerick, haiku, you name it. But try to fit "Carl" into your meter and comment on how unbecomingly his name fits into one-syllable slots. Leave your poems in the comment section of this blog post.

If you don't know who Carl is, you can look him up here: http://duncan-oh-yeah.blogspot.com/2009/05/dads-new-friend-carl.html

For some reason Dad can still remember this guy and recently commented on the one year anniversary. Who would have guessed that it would be conveniently immortalized in a blog post!

Programming Error

Alright, most people who read this won't understand how this works, but I'll try my best to explain it. This all began last week when Jared asked me to fence him without it going on to the record. I realized that the reason for this was that he thought that last semester he wasn't promoted because his battles against Green knights hurt his score. To remedy this, I modified it so that matches against knights of two more or less than you wouldn't contribute to your scores. It changed from

If Wcolor > LColor then increase Winner's wins against lowers
If Wcolor < LColor then increase Winner's wins against highers

to

If Wcolo = LColor+1 then increase Winner's wins against lowers
If Wcolor = LColor-1 then increase Winner's wins against highers

All of a sudden there were some random matches that weren't recorded. I was stunned. What could be happening? When I went back to look at the code, I saw it instantly. If you didn't see it, you can look at it above. The variable "Wcolo" does not exist. Therefore if the winner's color was higher than the loser's color, the match wasn't recorded. I went ahead and put them in by hand since they were all recorded in the "Today's Matches" section. And of course I fixed the error.

E-mail Check

I checked my e-mail yesterday and found a message from Matthew M. that said "Hey Duncan! Would tomorrow be a good time to do my lines?" Unfortunately it was sent to me May 28, three days before I harvested it. That's pretty awkward. Now it is so close to the Friday rehearsal, it seems pointless to ask him to practice it. Huh. How tragic.

Ants

Recently Andrew put his retainer in his mouth and felt something odd. You know the feeling: "Oh no!" You think. "My retainer is off by a fraction of a degree and now it is moving my teeth in all sorts of insane directions!" Andrew popped it out and looked at it. He saw the source of his problem: there were ants crawling all over his retainer.

This has gone on quite long enough. According to the parents, the Bug Man has already been called and is on his way. I say that it is time to move beyond these diplomatic tactics. I say we kidnap an ant, brainwash it, give it an ant-sized flamethrower and turn it into Ant Rambo. Then he can go back to his little nest and kill everyone Rambo-style. Then when he turns on us we can just squash him.

Bio-enginnered Soldiers

I have recently been alerted to disturbing news. In my e-mail inbox I discovered that Ohio liberals are constructing human animal hybrids! Now they say that this research will cure many currently incurable diseases. Poppycock, say I! When did human animal hybrids ever cure AIDS? Hm? No. Obviously this medicine mumbo jumbo is just a cover for Obama's construction of an army of bio-engineered human animal soldiers to enslave America!! As a small-government man, I demand that Ohionians put an immediate stop to government's meddling! Imagine someday having your throat ripped out by Jaguar Man or being able to adopt a cute little Puppy Man from the local pound! Disgusting!!!!!

Polls

Phew, I certainly am publishing this late in the day. I am just so lazy on the weekends. Doubly so on weekends in the summer. Anyway, Mexican food is the best food. Not too hard to believe since it is the spiciest of all four options. Oh yeah!

Yeah. The new poll is as follows: How many syllables are in the proper name: "Carl." Pretty dumb poll, right? Well that's just your opinion.

Aliens

My eye has mysteriously re-shaped itself during the night. Mom thinks it is bacterial, but I think it is alien's. After all the new tilt makes my eye look like an alien eye from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Therefore, it is only logical to assume that I was abducted by aliens last night in my sleep and had my eye enhanced by alien technology to be as good as theirs. Unfortunately their Mom called them to dinner before they could start enhancing my left eye and they had to drop me back into my bed half-done. How embarrassing.

Tough

I was helping a neighbor with car troubles by driving with her to the car repair shop in a separate car and driving her back. I came in and looked around and suddenly realized I had picked the wrong shirt to wear today. I was wearing my pink shirt that said, among other things, that I am tough enough to wear pink. However the guys in that shop looked like they could snap axles with their fingers and removed faulty transmissions with their teeth. They were all lanky-haired, grizzly, and buff. It made me very uncomfortable proclaiming that I was tough enough to wear pink. I figured I would get beat up if I stayed there too long. Scary.

Filing

My brother David has finished Calculus and has moved on to something more challenging: Physics. He is using my old Physics book and answering the practice questions in the back each day. I decided to help him out (heh heh) I would dig up my old tests and quizzes that I have filed and I would give them to him so he could do them when he finished the appropriate chapters. Therefore I went to my filing cabinet and pulled out my wad of papers. All assignments, tests, etc. from the past two semesters are shuffled together. So much for organization. Well, I found all my tests and quizzes for 104 but I was missing test 1, quiz 1, and quiz 2 for 103. Crazy... thought I. Where could they be? I double-checked the enormous wad. Nothing. I finally figured that I had not gotten into the habit of "filing" until after test 1 when something caught my eye: A file titled "Physics."

What actually happened was that I was organizing all my papers until test 1, when I got bored and started throwing everything together and telling myself I would file it later. It is like that Calvin and Hobbes' comic where Calvin is running all over the house looking in the sofa and under the beds yelling "Where's my coat!? Where's my coat!?" The last panel has Calvin looking inside the closet saying, "Hey! There it is! Who put it in a dumb place like THAT?"

Bug House

You can tell that it is almost summer when there are bugs everywhere. One thing I like about winter is that all the bugs are dead. Anyways, we've had problems with ants everywhere. Last night our kitchen reeked of anti-ant spray. This morning Luke came to Mom and said "Mom! There's a bug in your room!"

"What is it?" Mom asked.

"I dunno," said Luke. "I think it's an ant. It has wings."

Bugs are really annoying.

Pestering

I've been creating a computer game for Luke based on a computer game that he plays ad nausea. However, Luke isn't one for patience. Every time he sees me, he asks me how I am doing. Often he does not do this directly. For example, he has said all of the following at least once:

"Hey Duncan! What are you going to do on your computer?"

"Hey Duncan! I can't wait for the game to be finished! *wiggles eyebrows*"

"Hey Duncan! You know who my favorite character is?"

It is quite flattering. Saturday night I was walking to my bed at 10:00 when he suddenly sat bolt upright. His face showed me that he was in a state of half-sleep, half-coma. However, he was apparently awake enough to say, "Hey Duncan! Did you work on the game?" I wonder what this kid dreams about...

Dark Basic Pro

I was working on a game that I was making for my brother Luke that was experiencing severe difficulties. Since David was in the room, I asked him for some help.

"Hey David, the sync function isn't working. Why is that?" I asked. He stared at my screen for a while.

"I think it is because you aren't using Dark Basic Pro. You're using just regular Dark Basic." He replied. I figured that was his excuse for having no idea what was wrong with my programming. I decided to simply not use the sync function and get on with my life.

"Hey David!" I said later. "This Set Sprite Priority function isn't working!"

"Hmmm." He said after studying it, "maybe it is only a Dark Basic Pro instruction."

I decided to switch to Dark Basic Pro after that. It worked fine with both sync and sprite priority, although for some reason I has a bug in a for-next loop that I couldn't figure out. I switched it to a do-loop loop and it worked fine. Why are programming languages so retarded?

Yum

Alexie made some delicious Chinese food for dinner. Since Dad was off celebrating his partner's 65th birthday with the younger kids, I got to eat all I wanted. Mmmm. Yummy.

Anyway, it inspired me so much I decided to make a poll determining which country's food is the best: Chinese, Mexican, Italian, or American. Most of you will point out that the only food we've actually tasted is American and if we got spaghetti in Italy or tacos in Mexico we would be extremely surprised by what we get. Probably a dead raw octopus or something. Therefore I don't mean Chinese food from China, I mean Chinese food from America, etc.

I think it is more sensitive to call it Chinese-American food and Mexican-American food, or maybe just Food of Color.

P.S. American food consists of burgers, fried chicken, etc. Just because here in America we typically wouldn't say "American Food," you might be confused as to the label. I really only included it because I prefer polls with four labels rather than three

Exit Poll

The results aren't officially counted yet, but the exit polls indicate that brown has already won by a landslide. Green trails 4-1 and white has no votes at all. So as you can see, there has been a definite improvement in our living room with the addition of these couches. That's always good to know.

I'll add a new poll when this poll officially finishes and when I officially come up with a good idea for a new poll.

Aladdin

If any of you have seen Disney's Aladdin, then you'll have a pretty good idea of how Emily looked this morning. She has a vest and a pants that are both red with a cow pattern. Since she always make sure whatever she wears is a set, she put these on. Unfortunately she didn't put on an undershirt and the vest doesn't have buttons. We grabbed her and put a Walk for Life shirt on her underneath the vest. Now she can advertise and wear her matching cow pattern outfit at the same time.

Identity Crisis

This morning I turned on my computer as usual, but something different happened. Instead of the Windows XP symbol that I know and love with the little blue bar signifying its loading progress, it showed a large ugly "DELL" with a red bar slowly filling up and then going back. I went downstairs, ate breakfast, and came back to check on it. It still hadn't loaded. I pressed the ESC key and it went completely white. It stayed like this for as long as I felt like staring at a blank white screen. Then I just turned it off the painful way and reopened it. It functioned fine. It was odd. I wonder what it was.

P.S.: Super Program worked fine. Hooray!

Summer Lethargy

I've been having some serious summer lethargy this season. This is probably because all I've done since finals finished was play computer games. I think my brain has melted. I'm actually pining for when my summer job starts up so that I can have something to do, something to wake up early for. This early-to-bed-late-to-rise gig has me totally bushed. It seems to knock off my entire day so all I can do is play more mind-melting games.

Medical Terminology

I've been reading a book on Medical Terminology so that I can hit the ground running when I hop back into school. It is fascinating stuff. Reading it makes me think that I could probably make up a few words by just adding a few parts together. Also, some of the ways that the roots have been used are very interesting. For example, I was trying to think up a way to remember "-algia," which means "pain." After all, I thought, there are no English words in common use that use that suffix. Then I remembered "Nostalgia." I'm not really sure, but I'm guessing the "Nost-" comes from the Latin word for "Our," which is "Noster," which would mean that "Nostalgia" means "Our pain" which is kind of funny if you consider how it is commonly used.

PS. This isn't a dictionary definition, but I use Nostalgia as looking back fondly on memories of your long past childhood. Just in case you've never heard/used that particular word before.

Camera Woman

Recently we watched old home videos. They were cute and stuff. Hoorah. However, Mom suddenly realized that she hasn't taken footage of any child younger than David. Now she has started randomly walking into rooms and filming whatever kid happens to be there while asking inane questions. We just answer them while looking awkward and wondering how stupid we'll look when we re-watch these 10 years from now. Alas.

Curve Ball

On Friday we had our first restaurant outing for memorizing Scripture. I noticed however that there was one Bible verse that all the kids chose to memorize that messed them all up. Since they were allowed to pick which verses to memorize out of a given set of 18 (I had to memorize all of them, so I didn't care) I wondered why they didn't select one that was a bit easier.

The verse in question was Romans 11:3. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that was is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (ESV) I bolded the part that all the kids messed up. It doesn't look too hard at first glance, which is probably why the kids picked it. However, the stacking of passive construction, participle phrases, and relative clauses really throws the kids for a loop. For example, Luke simplified it to "what we see is made out of invisible things." True, I say, but that's not exactly what the verse says. Try again, Luke.

Couches

Today we got new couches! Woo hoo! It has been kind of awkward in the Living Room because we had one green couch and one white couch. Oh yeah, and Mom absolutely hated the white couch. The general sentiment was: "Hey! Don't jump on the green couch! Jump on the white couch!" Therefore it was time to get new couches.

Mom and Dad went out to eat earlier this week. Immediately afterward they ran over to the store in order to get there before it closed at 7:00. The employees were closing everything when they showed up. Mom ran around asking the price of couches while the employees went about their work closing the store and answering her questions. Then all of a sudden she said, "Alright. We'll take three of these." Suddenly the employees stopped closing shop. That is how Mom bought three couches in three minutes. The couches in question are brown and comfy. David likes their new wood smell. Alexie tells him to enjoy it while it lasts because it won't last long.

Oh yeah, I promised everyone a new poll didn't I? Well, here's a boring one: What color couches are the best?

Results for the Personal Poll

Wow. Coolest Dude Ever had a ninth hour turn around. I thought for sure it was going to be a tie with only one vote for half of the possible selections. That would be depressing. As it is, the number of votes is still beneath the number of choices, meaning the data is pretty useless. Anyways, two people think I'm super cool and one person thinks I'm super smart. Hooray.

I'm using my psychic powers to think up a poll right now. Wait... It's coming... It's coming... Oooo-ooo-oooo. Nothing yet. Come back later today.

Workout Program

For lack of an ARC, I've set up my own workout program involving the free weights Dad keeps in the bonus room closet. Now I'm sure you are all thinking, "Oh man! I thought when you used the word 'Program' you were referring to an actual computer program!" Well you are absolutely right! For lack of drive I have programmed a program that will tell me what exercises I need to do every day. Gone is the day of workout sheets taped to walls! Now is the Future! I haven't yet set up the part where the program tells me I'm working too hard and tells me to break for ice cream.

I'm so lazy that eventually I will program an executable that will do my workout for me. Yay for executables!

Pharisee

Today during devotions I revealed that I had memorized one of the verses in the passage. Dad had me recite it to prove it. Then after that every time he found a notable verse he would ask me if I had memorized it. There were two more that I had done, but one of them I recited incorrectly: God works all thing together for good for those who love him ~and keep his commandments~. That last part is actually supposed to say ~who are called according to his purpose~. I have absolutely no idea how that little legalist phrase snuck in to this otherwise uplifting piece of scripture. I suspect that I mushed it in from another verse that I had memorized somewhere, though I have no idea where. I'm such a Pharisee :(

Aha! I just googled it and it was another one of my verses: Deuteronomy 7:9! The lord keeps steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. Thanks, Google.

Bribery

This summer my siblings have all been drafted by Mom into the "Resteraunt Club." This means that they have to memorize a certain number of Bible verses and then I will drive them someplace nice to eat. Implied is the fact that I also have to memorize the verses or else I'm just going to have to sit there watching my siblings eat. Oh well, a little Bible memory never hurt anyone. Wish me luck.

Anti-Talent

Recently we had dinner with our old pastor from Florida. He caught us up on all the news of our old friends. One thing Alexie noted afterward was that all our friends from Florida were really really athletic although we were not. Mom then noted that when we moved here we made a lot of musically gifted friends, although we were not. It is kind of weird that we hopped into two cliques that we definitely did not belong in. It got me to wondering... am I worse at athletics or music?

Awed

There are just some words that don't work when you are listening to books being read out loud. Mom is currently reading the third Mysterious Benedict Society book out loud and I have noticed a disgusting overuse of the word "awed." For example: "Wow Constance! You are clearly the smartest person ever!" Sticky said with an awed tone. Not only is this word pretty dull and non-descriptive, it is a homonym for the word "odd." Since both words are adjectives, I always have a double take when I hear this word out loud as I try to figure out what they are saying. Are they saying Sticky is impressed or that he is acting suspicious?

Poll Problems

Frankly, I doubt anyone really cares to read about what I think, especially when most of them know me and anytime there is something really exciting happens we are going to talk about when we next see each other. Therefore I have been scheming up ways to increase blog traffic like some sort of wannabe internet guru or something. I recently told myself that the best way to increase blog traffic was to make a poll at least once a week. However, I have been staring at the screen for five minutes and have still not thought up a decent poll to post on my blog. The thought of a personal poll has occurred to me, like "In all brute honesty, how would you describe me? Coolest Dude Ever, Future President, Mr. Universe, Super Genius" but I have heard that personal polls are unwise, especially when half of your voting population are your little brothers and their friends. Little boys have a tendency to vote with the negative answer, although with this poll I wonder how they would do that?

Shakespeare's Tragedy

Today something unusual happened at Shakespeare practice. One of the kids biking around our driveway rode out into the street and was hit by a car. We called 911 instantly and the ambulance was there really fast. Don't worry, it wasn't that bad... I hope. As far as the emergency team of medics that were on the scene could tell he had a busted lip and a broken leg. They took him in to the hospital to check for concussion. I hope he'll be all right. Anyway, pray for him.

Gilded Cage

Perhaps I've seen one too many bird-in-the-cage analogies on Star Trek. They all have the same plot (and the same scenery). Kirk beams down with a landing party to the beautiful wooded planet and one character, usually either Dr. McCoy or Sulu, say "Gee Jim/Captain, this place must be paradise!" Then they are mind-enslaved and have their every whim catered to by hot space babes. Kirk is then so disgusted that he drags his entire crew back to the ship after shattering the planet's culture and the Prime Directive and flies away.

Me, I suddenly realized that my summer vacation was shaping up pretty much the same way, only with less hot space babes. I got done with finals and was looking down the barrel of three months of nothing but free time. Then I was mind-enslaved by my mother and forced to do all sorts of menial tasks and was given the additional task of "improving the quality of my siblings' lives." This means that I will be driving them to restaurants every week to reward them for memorizing scripture and taking them to places like the aquarium and Lake Winnie, which I will be leaving for in twenty minutes. Yes, I am sure you are all thinking "Being forced to go to amusement parks isn't torture, you drama llama." Alas, it is a gilded cage.

100.63%

A bit overdue, but I just wanted to chronicle my amazing upset victory in Genetics. Contrast this post with my older post 89.984%. Yes, I am sure you are all wondering how my Final managed to bring my total grade up by eleven points. I'll tell you now that the final was worth 150 out of 600 points. I'm sure the more astute of you have already gotten out your calculators and realized that this number combination is impossible. The test simply isn't worth enough.

Well, it turns out that the lowest test grade in Genetics is replaced by your test grade. Since I got an almost perfect score on the Genetics test (159.5/150+10 EC), my lowest grade (80%, ugh) was wiped away like it had never happened! Ha ha ha! It was replaced with an over 100% monstrocity. Pretty cool, right? That's how I got over 100% on my overall grade when my pre-final grade was scraping the underside of an A.

Results

I bet you are all wondering why it took so long to get this post up exclaiming the winner of the last poll. It is because all three losers wanted a recount.

Harry: Wait wait wait. Hold on! Count those again!

Jacob: Yeah, I smell a rat!

Edward: You mean I didn't even get one!?

Yes, so after I counted all seven votes four times, I have concluded that Dr. Sligh is the winner! He is the tweeniest idol of all time! Woo hoo!

I'll make a new poll when I think of one.

Shakespeare Check-ups

I think today I am finally going to get to hear Matthew's lines. I've heard Daniel's lines about a week ago, but Matthew was out of town for a big baseball thing for a week (Yeah, hard to believe anybody would go out of town for a week for baseball, right?) so I didn't get to hear them. It has gotten so far away from the time that I was supposed to do them that I can't even see the e-mail. Sheesh. Anyway, I assume he is going to be terrific, etc. If he didn't know a quarter of his lines by now, he would have to be in big trouble.

4.000

I don't think any of you needs an explanation to know what that number means. Have a lovely life.

Huh, I won

If it seems that I don't post for two days and then all of a sudden I make two posts, you are right. That's just how it is. When I say something, I usually think up a couple more topics I wanted to mention. Anyway, I know you will all be thrilled but I won the 7 extra credit points (that I probably didn't need) in Latin class for my Latin skit. It was dreadfully dull and totally lackluster as a performance, but apparently Dr. Davies liked it. It must have been because we made so few grammatical errors. :)

Now I am probably certainly most definitely going to get an A in this class

Out of sync

Hard to believe, but this is the first time I've used the internet for three days. I was constantly using the internet during my school season, but now I don't. It is ironic that I do less with my free time when I don't have any responsibilities. Alexie and I also noted that we have been waking up early feeling refreshed and ready to go at 6:00 in the morning. During the school season we had to get up at 6:00 to get to school, but now we are free to sleep in. We just don't. What is the matter with us!? However our parents have been putting that pent-up energy to work quite nicely. Just today I took the kids to the Creative Discovery Museum for three hours. My goodness. I'm exhausted.

...Now what?

If you have ever seen the part of the movie Madagascar when the penguins have managed to successfully escape from the New York Zoo and hijack a cruise ship and have made it to Antarctica and are standing around listlessly staring at the permanent blizzard, you will have a pretty good idea of how I feel right now. Freedom is great and all, but it is pretty boring. I just tried to get a game of Bang! going, but every person I asked politely refused. Is there really no one in this house who wants to play Bang!?

Walk for Life!

Today was the Walk for Life. Woo hoo! And guess what? It wasn't cancelled for rain! In fact, it didn't begin raining until after the Walk for Life ended. It was overcast during the walk, but it only started raining when the last people to leave (us) slammed their car door and began to drive away. Neat, right? This year the McPhersons walked away with four door prizes, because there were a ton. I think most people thought it would be cancelled and didn't show up so the door prize to person ratio was all messed up. Anyway, Grace got two pocketknives, Emily got a watch battery, Connor got bread, and I got a box of make-up. Yes, make-up. I traded the entire box for one of Grace's pocketknives. She's a wheeler-dealer, that one. Now she has a knife AND a box of make-up. She made out like a bandit. Oh yeah, don't ask me what Emily is going to do with a watch battery since she doesn't even have a watch let alone a watch that is low on power.

Tween idols

You know what are hilarious? UTC Echo articles about Twilight. There are a lot of them. For example, one I read had this snappy headline: Cullen challenges Potter. There's a boring headline if ever I saw one. Here's a better one: Who is Hotter? Cullen or Potter? Anyways, the most recent article was titled "Men not immune to Twilight's bite." Pfffft. Ha ha ha ha ha. What a bunch of losers. Don't these undergraduate journalist wannabes have anything better to do with their lives? Anyways, the journalist pretty much wandered around asking guys whether they had read twilight and which one would they rather be: a vampire or a werewolf. Here were some answers:

Dr. Sligh: I would be a vampire simply because there is so much history to be learned. (Alexie is taking this guy's British Literature class next semester. Ha!)

J. Blake: Edward scares me and Jacob is a classy dude. I would want to be Jacob because he is ripped, seems cool and is pretty hardcore. (According to them, neither this guy nor Dr. Sligh have actually read Twilight.)

J. Petty: I would defiantly be a werewolf because I think I look like one already. (This guy was in my Latin class. He doesn't actually look all that wolfish.)

Anyway, newest poll: Which totally tween idol would you be? Edward, Jacob, Harry Potter, or Dr. Sligh?

Apocalypse Warning

You know what sucks? Disasters. Tomorrow is the Walk for Life, (ta-da!) but there are several disaster warnings going out in the area. We are purportedly going to get hit by severe thunderstorms, tornados, and zombies. Stay away from windows. Of course, this suggests that there may be some difficulty in walking for life along a pleasant riverpark walkway, since the riverpark walkways will probably not be very pleasant tomorrow. Sigh. We never have natural disasters around here. Why on the day of the Walk for Life?

P.S. Do you know who I do no pity. Dr. Shaw's Taxonomy of Vascular Plants' class has a hike scheduled for tomorrow. It would suck to be in that class during this semester.

Results are In!

Alright, next time you are packing your schoolbags, which for me will be late August, remember these two extremely important items: 1) Food. 2) Nuclear Bomb.

The electors couldn't decide which one was more important, so if you have room for both, pack them. If you have a bit of extra room, you can also consider packing some homework.

Results: Food-3 Homework-1 Shorts-1 Nuclear Bomb-3

Alright! That's awesome! I'll think of a new poll soon and make another post either today or tomorrow about it.

Vulcan Trance

Good afternoon world. I just finished two super hard super critical finals and I'm feeling great. Last Tuesday I began my deep Vulcan trance that it is impossible to wake me from wherein all I do is meditate on my test subjects. You probably wouldn't understand because you are just an emotional human, but it is very important for getting good grades on tests.

I'm now waiting for the results of my finals to start pouring in. I already have two results to share. First, my Physics Lab Final, I got a 96!!! Woo hoo! That makes my grade an A! I'm so happy! My second bit of news is my Genetics test. I know what you're thinking: Hey! You took the Genetics test 3 hours ago! You can't possibly have it back yet!

Shows what you know. Dr. Kovach is probably the most efficient teacher I have ever had. Homework is always handed back really really insanely fast. It is incredible. And the amount of information she can pack into one lecture is mind-blowing. Also, I only have news on half my test: the scantron half. Understand now, humans? Anyway, when I was walking past her office after my Physics test she asked me if I wanted to see my scantron. I said sure. Here it is... 100%! Perfect score! HA HA HA HA HA! I'm going to bust into the heavens of A-dom! Woo hoo!

I mean, how logical.

Volcanic Explosion!

Apparently, there was some sort of volcanic activity in Europe that covered the entire European world in darkness. People have been walking up to me and asking how is Heather. They are very worried. Anyway, yesterday Heather called and asked for a Ginger Snap recipe. (Super emergency right there.) Dad immediately followed up by asking how she was. She was mildly confused and asked him what the heck he was talking about. He told her that a volcano had exploded nearby and she was in critical danger. She told him that yes, they had been ordered to stay inside, but the sky outside was clear and bright. So much for that.

P.S. Douglas and Heather seem to have sustained minor damage to their taste buds. They had an ingenious idea to add oatmeal to ginger snaps. They call them Ginger Oat Snaps. Pray for them.

The Blue Eye Blues

Today I'm writing a paper for my Genetics class. My Scientific Writing class is DONE! OH YEAH! So I don't need to labor over any more papers for that class but it now frees me up to do the five page paper (due tomorrow) for Genetics. Noooooo! I have to write about "My Favorite Gene." (Seriously.) I picked blue eyes. Who knows why. Here's an interesting fact for you: Although brown eyes are caused by a very long string of genes, blue eyes are all caused by the same mutation to the same gene in every person. That's pretty neat. It also makes it easy to write about. I pity the fool who selected a polygenic gene for his topic! Ha!

Oh yeah, one paragraph of the essay has to be why I picked the gene I did. Any suggestions that sound convincing?

Deserted

In honor of Thursday, I'm putting up a poll. Here's the attached scenario:
If you were deserted at school because your sister was taking the Classics Club out to dinner, instead of, oh say, taking you home for dinner, which of the following things would you be sure to have:

1) Food, so you won't starve while waiting for someone to just kill you already.
2) Homework, so at least you can pass otherwise useless time studying for finals! (Pansies)
3) Shorts, so you could go work out in the ARC without being chased away by interns with pitchforks
4) A Nuclear Bomb, so that when you get really bored you can cause the Nuclear Holocaust in Chattanooga (NHC)

Electric Foil

I don't understand the appeal of electric foil. It costs too much and breaks too quickly. That would probably be my fault, but speaking logically, shouldn't swords be constructed to hit people? Sheesh. I was alerted to an electric tournament on Saturday so I took out my neglected, but still pristine electric foil from its ancient sheath of pipe. (cue the Lord of the Rings choir. Laaaaaaaa! OK. Cut the Lord of the Rings choir.) Since I have no idea whether it still works, I gave it to Joseph so he could test it when the Chattanooga Fencing Club. (I use the future tense, but technically at this time it's in the past. Wow!) I still haven't heard back about the condition of my sword. Anyways, if it is working, I fully intend to go whoop Baylor. Oh yeah!

89.984%

I still haven't got the grade back for my Genetics test, but I decided to calculate my grade for Genetics thus far. It is a B! A B! Noooooo! It is kind of depressing that it would be an A significant to any number of digits less than 5. Sigh. Oh well. This means that I just have to get an A on this next test. Unless of course I get a 90. Then I would have something like 89.9882%. I promise I won't go past the fourth decimal place.

Genetics Test

Oh yeah, yesterday I had a painful test. I think I got every question right, which helps deaden the pain slightly. There were two T/F questions that made no sense to me, but I asked Sam what she guessed on the questions and I said the same thing as she did so I think I got them right. Also, question C on the last question, the 5 point bonus question made no sense at all to me. Sam agreed. She had no idea as well. The question had three bacteria, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Alpha used DNA and conservative replication. Beta used RNA and disruptive replication. Gamma used RNA and semiconservative replication. The question asked which one of these could survive high temperatures. 0_0 Oh my goodness. My face is totally blank. What does the manner of replication and the materials that the bacteria is constructed out of have to do with survival at high temperatures? I guessed that DNA was more stable and therefore less likely to degrade. Sam guessed the same thing. Therefore, either we will be right or the teacher will look at both our papers and wonder how we invented identical nonsense. Please oh please be right...

Rate My Professor

Do you want to know what is really fun? Going onto Rate My Professor.com and reading what people said about teachers you already know. I guarantee you there will be one idiot who gives the teacher 1-1-1-1 and say something like "The teacher made absolutely no sense. You'll have to teach yourself. They won't give you an A unless they like you, which is bad because they hate everyone and are mean all the time." If you actually know the teacher you can have a good chuckle at this thorough bred moronicitude and get on with your life. I seldom read rate my professor for teachers I don't know yet, though. Ruins the ride.

Locked Out

Today, Parking Appeals Committee was locked. When I told Ms. Phyllis we couldn't get in, she led us to a petite (by which I mean pathetically small) break room for employees of Parking Services. We could hardly fit four people in there. Anyway, Brittany kept apologizing every time the next person came in and they would invariably give the "no problem" shrug combo. I find it strange that people always make the same shrug and say the same thing when they appear before boards. I've always figured that they are thinking "Ho ho. Now the Parking People have inconvenienced me so they have to let me off!" although they are probably actually thinking something like "Oh please oh please let me get off of this without having to lie."

Thunder vs. Rice

Has it ever stunned you how your younger siblings can't improvise a decent rhyme to save their lives? For example, this morning it was raining and one of my brothers was singing, "Thunder is nice! Thunder is nice! Thunder is awesome! It's better than rice!" Now personally, I prefer rice. On the other hand, thunder and rice have absolutely nothing in common. I'd say it is like comparing apples and oranges, but at least those two are both fruit. Thunder and rice aren't even both edible! Thunder is sound, and rice is food. Two totally different things! Anyways, why bother using "rice" when "nice" isn't even a very good adjective to describe thunder? Thunder is cool! Thunder is awesome! Thunder is NOT nice.

Let-down!

The Genetics Test was put off until Thursday! ARGH! It seems like every time I'm ready for something, it is pushed back. Weather, bomb threats, unknown conflicts of time, everything seems to be against me! I guess this has just been a weird semester, I just hope that all this bouncing around isn't going to adversely affect my ultimate grade. Sigh.

Just three more weeks until Finals. Keep it together for just a bit longer.

Indestructible

Earlier today, I was studying Genetics and suddenly had this insane feeling that I was going to get an 100. It was the most incredible feeling. I think the only word to describe it is Euphoria. It passed after a short time, but it sure made me happy. The last time I felt this Euphoria was the day before my third Chemistry 122 test. I got a 99. I was really sad. I really wanted that 100. Tomorrow, I'm going to take the test and see how indestructible I really am. Woo hoo. This could get depressing. If a 99 makes me sad, what would happen to me if I get another 80?

Happy Hell Day

Hey, everyone. It's Hell Day again, that special time of year when our beloved Savior did some time in the Ultimate Clink. In honor of this momentous occasion, I wrote two papers that I've been procrastinating on for quite some time. And they are still not completely done. I descended into hell and on the third day rose again with my Grant Proposal and my Cochlear Implants paper all done. Anyways, Happy Easter.

Yesterday, my brother Luke asked why we called it Good Friday if it was the day Jesus died. It was very cute so I decided to immortalize his ignorance in a blog post. The reason I gave him was the Great news that Jesus rose just two days later! He is risen! He is risen indeed.

Death by Steve Green

Have you all heard of the artist Steve Green? He puts Bible verses to song and then makes choruses of children sing them, probably on pain of death. Some of them are pretty catchy, but a bunch of them are really dull. Anyway Mom picked the most boring one on the CD that goes something like "Store up for yourseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelves, treeeeeeeasure in heeeaven!" and is now playing it over and over on the computer next to me. Every time it ends, she opens Windows Media Player and plays it again. I'm not going to tell her how the loop button works, or else I might not get these precious short intervals of silence. Anyway, she's either planning her next Sunday School lesson and is planning to include this song, or her next torture session with Osama Bin Laden and she's already given up on trying to get useful information out of him.

Deadlines

This semester I have had the most fluid deadlines I have ever had. It is probably because of the two snow days earlier this year, though. Both my Tuesday/Thursday classes have been moving their tests, quizzes, and homework deadlines around like a game of whack-a-mole. My Scientific Writing class also has extremely loose deadlines, although I think that is the teacher's nature instead of extenuating circumstances. Dr. Davies seems to be the most stable, since his tests are always when he announces them to be, although he only announces them a week in advance.

Internet Course

This fall I'm going to be trying out an internet course. Since Scientific Terminology fell through, I'm going to take Medical Terminology. But when I looked at the class schedule online, all the stats were TBA. I e-mailed the teacher asking what time generally it would be held at, and she said it would be an internet course so you did it on your own time whenever you feel like it. That sounds pretty neat, but I will regret not being able to meet all my classmates, since there is no class. Now I will have no one to commiserate with. Anyway, I'm going to try out this whole internet course and see if I like it. Who knows? I might take another one someday.

By the way, all my blog posts on Medical Terminology will be under the label Ph. Therapy. Just because. Although, I might get more posts out of the poor neglected computers label with this class.

Over and Done

It is an extreme relief to be finished with my 20-page literature review. It was due Monday, but the teacher decided to delay the deadline to Wednesday because so many people weren't done. After thinking about it for a few seconds, I turned it in. After all, it was finished. What was I going to do to it in two more days? Anyways, I can now chill. It will be nice to not have to know so much about teratomas. Ah. A few minutes ago Mom asked me if I had any thing I had to be working on. Besides for a Latin test tomorrow, a Grant Proposal due next Friday, a paper on the Use of Physics in Real Life due next Thursday, a Genetics worksheet due Thursday and a Genetics test on Tuesday, I have almost nothing to do. Ah, sweet blissful rest.

More Work than Completely Necessary

Does it ever seem to you that you do more work than is really necessary? Last Tuesday, MyChelle from Choices sent me a message on Facebook asking me if I could find out for her who puts together the Welcome Packages, the packages that are given to all the people who are getting a dorm for the first time. Anyway, I waited until Thursday so I could ask Tyler, the SGA president who took care of those. He advised I see "Val from the Housing Department" with my questions. Anyways, I struck out from the computer lab today towards the "Stacy Town Center" until I realized I had no direction where it was. I got directions from a random handy passer-by and successfully found the Housing Department, down on the crook of University Street and McCallie. Alas! They told me I had to go the Admissions Department because they were the people who put those together.
"OK," I said, "Where is the Admissions Department."
"Uh, hold on," the lady dialed a number, assumably the Admissions Department's, "Hey, where are you guys at?"
Inaudible speaking from the phone.
"They're in the UC, right across from the computer lab. You know where the UC is, right?"

Groooooooooan... I can't believe I had to walk all the way to McCallie and back when all it took was for me to walk across the lobby. Blaaaaaaaaah.

Petitions

Hey, if any of you haven't heard, I recently bothered Dr. Davies into accepting a petition for Scientific Terminology. It was tough and it was deferred nearly a dozen times. Anyways, today he popped out a petition and said it was for "Classical Mythology." When I was giving my petition, he said there was simply not enough staff to offer the class. However, when a student asked him if he would offer it, he replied, "No not personally, but I'm sure we can find someone to offer it." Blargh! You two-faced little Latin professor! Here's an indirect statement for you: Puto te mendacem esse!

Thrown Under the Bus

Saturday is usually the day when I make sure that all homework for the next week is complete. Alas and Alack, this Saturday shall be, shall we say, otherwise occupied. Therefore, I'm trying to get as much homework done today as possible. I am fortunate that since Physics Lab finished on Wednesday I have no more Physics Lab type homework to do. Also, although I have two papers in the works, neither is due next week. Although it kills my heart to put them off, I fear I must for the sake of my sister. (ha ha, yeah right. Look at me, dying of procrastination!) There is only one thing due next week, that is Genetics Homework due Tuesday. I swear by my beard, I shall have it done today! And as Touchstone might point out, since I have no beard, I am not forsworn! Ha!

David finished Calculus!

This morning, David finished his Calculus book. I figured it was worth noting because:

a) it is not every day you finish calculus, and

b) it is not every day someone finishes calculus before hitting 100 lbs.

As Dad said, David might be the first person to finish Calculus before reaching 100 lbs since Isaac Newton, who was just a puny squirt when he invented calculus. Imagine that. Of course, he was actually about 15 when he finished inventing Calculus and was probably over 100 lbs, but hey. Who really cares?

P.S. I was 15 when I finished Calculus AP, so I was probably over 100 lbs. Alas.

Vintage Dance!

Alright! Last night's vintage dance was a success! Woo hoo! There were circa 30 people there. It was great. I called pretty much every dance. It was a lot of fun. Everything was terrific. For a while, people kept showing up at the wrong room so we had to keep running out there to check the room for lost stragglers. That was A-OK. Of course, even the family who provided the sound was lost. I was quite worried that they wouldn't show up for a while, but fortunately they were just in the other room the whole time. Phew. Anyways, the biggest success of the evening was the Hat Dance. For some reason, everyone really liked it. Anyways, I'm glad it was a humongous success. Hopefully UTC will let us meet over the summer, although I have a feeling there will be some condition preventing this.

Advisement

Well, I have now been advised. I signed up for a time slot 40 minutes long, and I got out before I was even supposed to start. It was very short. In fact, he didn't say anything about any class I was taking except his own. He noticed that I had taken few 300 level biology courses (almost none) and explained to me that in his class you need a knowledge of all sorts of classes from the 300 level or else you won't understand the meaning of some of the words he's saying, and he typically gives sophomores D's and F's because they lack academic maturity, and people think it is such a good idea to take a non-lab class because they'd have to work less but they don't realize they have to work MORE, blah blah blah, etc. The usual kind of teacher warning: Don't take my class unless you are going to work for it.

Of course, I've never intended not to work hard at anything I've ever done, so I think I'll be fine.

Medical Terminology

All semester long I've been trying to get a petition signed to get a class offered called "Scientific Terminology." It covers Latin and Greek roots in Medicine (and assumably a wider variety of science.) Yesterday, a pair of PHYT major girls I was eavesdropping upon were debating whether they should take "Medical Terminology."

"Hold on!" said I, "Medical Terminology? Is that the same thing as Scientific Terminology." Vapid stares and shrugs.

"It's PHYT 302, now PHYT 3020," said one of the girls.

Hmmm, thought I, perhaps Medical Terminology is the class for me!

Anyway, if my petition does get rejected, (right now it is just being ignored), I will sign up for Medical Terminology as long as my schedule fits. Hoorah! That solves my 14 hour dilemma!

Ah! Forgotten!

Usually I wear a watch. In fact, every day I wear a watch. Every morning I wake up and put my watch on immediately. How can I forget to do something I do every day!? Ah! Now I need to use computers and clocks to know what time it is and I can't set an alarm to go off when I need to go to class! Annoying! I just hope I didn't forget anything else, anything more important...

Class Ladder

Well, here are a bunch of classes I'm looking at. I'll pick one for each time slot, hopefully. It won't be too hard because I don't really have any overlaps.
Monday Wednesday Friday:
8:00 - 8:50
Organic Chemistry with Mebane!!! Woo hoo!
9:00 - 9:50
Organic Chemistry with Kim Jisook... Not really, but I am not going to rule it out because Megan might be there.
10:00-10:50
Quantitative Analysis with Lynch, might be too much, but if friends are here, I'm not ruling it out.
11:00-11:50
Bio-ethics with Dr. Plaisted! Happy dancing!
Tuesday Thursday:
10:50-12:05
Biogeography with Dr. Shaw! And Megan! Hoorah!

You might have noticed that this is 14 hours maximum. Yeah. I'm still looking for another class. Of course, the only classes I have left to take are Biology classes and classes that fulfill Western Humanities requirements. If my friends take any classes that fulfill these descriptions, I'm in. Otherwise... 14 hours isn't so bad...

Registration

Today I resolved to find a registration adviser and sign up. Since I am trying to build relationships with the faculty so I'll have someone to ask for a recommendation letter for medical school, I decided to sign up for my Genetics Teacher's registration. Alas! Her entire Monday section was booked up. All that was left was Friday afternoon the week of the wedding. I told her I'd have to think on it and left for two hours. I came back and all the Friday slots were taken too. I have an extremely popular Genetics teacher. I sighed and decided to check out Dr. Shaw, because I'm taking a class from him next semester. He only has three names in half as many slots. Poor guy. I signed up for a choice time on Monday. Perhaps Dr. Shaw will be the perfect professor for me to build a relationship with because he has so few other students demanding his time.

Ode to Mom

Hey hey hey! It seems like I've been doing a ton of Ode to So and So posts lately. That is because there are so many birthdays to celebrate. It is my Mom's birthday today. Happy birthday Mom! I nearly forgot it was and asked Dad what the cake he was making was for. Lexie laughed at me. Also, in honor of Mom's birthday, I was the only student to get over 100% on Tuesday's Physics test. Ping! As it turns out, Physics was the first subject Mom ever almost got a B in. (She went to the teacher and argued it up to an A-) Well, to Mom! May you live a long and happy life with your wonderful college GPA and even more wonderful children! Ping!

Shirts

Sometimes as I wander around campus someone will comment on my shirt and I will only just realize that I have been wearing a statement. For example, right now I am wearing my shirt with a face of Ronald Reagan on it. Earlier in the semester a random guy in my class complimented me for it. It turned out that he was the president of the College Republicans and invited me to join it. Weird coincedences. I haven't taken him up on it and am trying to avoid talking to him because it seems kind of rude not to show up to a club when you are personally invited.

Other shirts I have include shirts with Winston Churchill quotes on the back, dozens of mildly pro-life shirts, one shirt that is rabidly pro-life: As a former fetus, I oppose abortion!, shirts with Republican logos like Don't Tread on Me! and Viva la Revolucion!, etc.

I also noticed that in class I am always acting like there are two sides to the argument. You know, keep your head down, when your teacher says something slightly controversial and some student somewhere in the back makes some sort of moron comment picking a fight with everyone in the room, just ignore them. Or if I am called upon to answer a question that I could totally pick fights on, usually questions on politics and current events, I tend to give measured answers. However my shirts betray me. No matter how measured and reasonable I act I am in truth a Rabid Republican.

P(Moron)

What is the probability that after you flip 7 coins, all of them will be tails? The answer is 1/2^7, which is 0.7% that all coins will show tails. When it comes to true/false questions, the probability is the same. There is a 0.7% chance that a student guessing totally at random will get all seven true/false questions wrong. The percentage should be even lower given that the student actually studied. Well, people, this just goes to show that you can't trust statistics. I got all seven true/false questions on the test wrong. Because I did fairly well on all the other questions, only losing 1.5% on short answer and 6% on the multiple choice questions, I pulled through with a B. I really need to learn how to tell misleading statements that sound true from factual statements that sound false.

P.S. DNA is negatively charged. Who knew!

Excuses

I'm back from Spring Break, which means I'll be blogging again. For all my dedicated fans who checked the blog every two or three minutes to see if I posted, I'm sorry. I really only blog when I'm stuck at school with nothing to do, like I am now. I am going to go to my Genetic Teacher's office to look at the test soon. The B I got has burned inside me all week long nearly causing me to go insane. I need to know what I did wrong so I will never do it again as soon as possible. It is too bad that the teacher doesn't hand back the tests though. Oh well. It would probably be unhealthy to do nothing but stare at a Genetics test beating myself up for as long as I wanted to anyway.

Easy as Cheesecake

I might as well tell all of you this now, I got my driver's license this morning. Don't worry, most of the roads are still safe. My parents have told me that I will not drive to anywhere except for Wal-Mart and Golden Gallon for the first month of having a license. Of course, as previous experiences with Golden Gallon have shown, this doesn't necessarily mean I'll be any safer. Cheers.

The driving test was phenomenally easy, however. I can't believe Alexie failed it. Of course, when she turned left she turned into the wrong lane, so maybe it is slightly understandable. On her second try, she drove around the entire testing site with her trunk open. Sigh. Alas for Alexie. Of course, I'm brilliant, and since she didn't require me to park in front of any gas stations I passed with flying colors.

Bested

Well, this might come as a surprise to some of you, but my ranking system is better than Fiore Dei Liberi's. Ho ho! Well, I guess I've proved how completely awesome I am in a poll that was only taken by five people, one of whom was myself and the other four were friends of mine. It looks like I am totally terrific. I think I should think up more polls like this, just to boost the ole ego some. (Not that it really needs it, though.)

Zanier Mocsnet

I have been religiously checking my mocsnet account every day anticipating the addition for Fall 2010 class registration. Hasn't happened yet. However, if you go to UTC.edu, you will see that they changed the login button to something bright blue, theoretically a computer monitor of some sort. Why they made the login button a computer, I do not know. Anyway, my eye is immediately drawn to it since it is bright and blue and off the norm. As I stare at it, I realize it is too small to replace what was there formerly. At least it is zanier or something.

Retrospect

A couple of weeks ago I had two tests the same week: Physics and Genetics. Genetics test came back and I had a 92. The teacher was really happy and said that the average was a B and since she didn't believe in curves, nothing bad was going to happen to us. She reminded us that all the Mendelian Genetics stuff was review, so don't ease up on studying for the second test just because we did well on the first test, etc. The Physics test on the other hand was very scary. I received a C, but because the class average was an F, not only under 60% but under 50%, I got an A. Well yesterday, I had the second exam on both.

The Physics test was a cakewalk. Everything was so easy. I don't have my grade back but I think I did astronomically! (Get it!? Physics! Astronomy! Ha ha ha! Oh whatever.)

On the Genetics test, however, I suspect that I did worse than on the last test. Because it was multiple choice, I think I managed to use my test taking genius powers to keep myself from dropping too far, but we will have to see. For one thing, I didn't study numbers. For example, how many base pairs are found on DNA or how many nm long is each nucleotide. Those questions were kind of like history questions that said "In what year was Franklin Pierce inaugurated?" And you think to yourself, "Dude! I have that in my notes, but I didn't look at it once!"

But here's the trick. The question was worded like "If there are 1734 strands of DNA, how many nm is that?" And the answers were "1.734, 17,340, 173.4, and 7253." Now, since I knew that nothing in the world was convenient enough to be exactly 10 or 0.001 nm in length. I could tell what the correct answer was. I hope.

PS. DNA is negatively charged, True or False? I said False, because I am now covered just in case DNA isn't charged at all.

Anyway, here's what Dad suggested, when the class does well, the teacher makes the next test harder. When the class bombs, the teacher makes the test easier. This sounds pretty reasonable so I tend to believe it.

Brain Death

I just finished my second test of the day. When I was finished with it, my Physics test looked like a series of scribbles. (Which it was.) At least I feel confident that I didn't make too many careless errors. I'm going to have to get my test back before I know exactly how many algebraic errors were made, but here's an error that I caught: I did the right hand rule... with my left hand. Seriously. Wake up, Duncan! I'm so tired, it is not even funny. And I didn't even stay up past 10:00 last night.

And that Genetics test nearly killed me. There must have been a dozen questions that I took random stabs on. The best part about multiple choice tests is that no teacher can take away my points if I get them all right. The worst part is that they can't give me any credit if I get them all wrong. Sigh.

Confirmed Ball

I got an e-mail this morning asking me to confirm the Chattanooga rooms on March 22nd for the Vintage Dance Club. If anyone has any qualms with it being on the Monday before Heather's wedding... Too late! I confirmed. Now it is definitely happening. So now I'm just throwing around ways of getting the word out: E-mail, UTC-MEMO, Posters, etc.

Oh yeah, and before I forget I booked the room for 5:30 to 10:00 so I can hold an one hour long refresher course/workshop for newbies right before the actual ball begins. I am pumped. I hope I get a million people.

Pumping Physics

Studying for Physics tests is very painful. Last night I began studying at 8:00 with intention to study until 10:00. It happened that by 9:45 I was so sick of Physics and all its variables that I went to sleep with a Physics-induced headache. All night Physics formulas jumbled around in my head. I am now a Physics Robot, which might or might not help with my test.

Right now my head feels like my muscles do a day after lifting weights. Very sore and dully throbbing.

I got a job!!!

Hey, I've heard there is a really bad economic downturn right now. Well, apparently it hasn't hit Chattanooga. I have received a job offer from the Physics department and have already gotten a job as a TA in the Chemistry lab from June 13-July 11. Perhaps nobody applies for this job because it starts at 8:00 in the morning and they don't want to have to wake up their cranky sister on a warm summer day to get her to drive him. That is possible. In my case, however, the economic profit exceeds the economic cost. Then again, this might be a heavy incentive for my parents to get me my driver's license so they won't have to put up with Alexie and me.

Weekly Planner

Recently Mom put her foot down and said I absolutely must clean out my nook. I could see her point: It was beginning to obstruct my access to the bed. So I was sorting through stuff setting aside junk to be thrown away when I came across a Weekly Planner for 2008, never used. That went to the junk heap but I realized that all Mom's attempts to get me to organize myself have come to naught. This morning, I was given an assignment in which I spend two hours on a Saturday asking people why they are using the Riverpark and that I'm supposed to keep abreast of myself because all the students were assigned different dates and locations. Therefore the teacher won't be reminding us when we need to do it. I wrote it on my arm, but I get the feeling it won't last until March 20th. Therefore I will vicariously use my blog to remember a date.

Hear ye, future self, You signed up for the Riverpark Project on Saturday, March 20th, from 11:00 to 1:00 at Amnicola Marsh.

I think that when the teacher said Amnicola Marsh was "Shady" she meant "Having many trees and pavillions to keep off the sun."

Feast Or Famine

Why is it that during the semester you either have a week where you are doing nothing or a week you are doing everything? Last week, everything became due at the same time. This is probably because last week was midterm week and since teachers seem to be as bad procrastinators as their students, all midterm papers and tests happened that week. This week, nothing happened. It was dull dull dull. Sure there was the standard homework, but there were no tests or papers due or anything. It was silence. Next week however, I have two tests: One on Tuesday and one on Thursday. I'm trying to get a jump on studying, but the Thursday test seems to be getting the short end of the stick. I'll probably be cramming on Wednesday, totally exhausted. Sigh.

Status Report

Big News: The modem at our house died. It was actually still alive, but we figured if we didn't get it into intensive care, it would kick the bucket any day now. Its characteristics were sluggishness and failure to operate. Therefore Dad took it in to be repaired.

Anyway, with the modem gone, we have no internet and no printer. (Our printer uses the internet to print. Wha?) Therefore I had to do all my homework that is due next week today. Typically, I do it on Saturday, kind of a last-day-of-the-week-time-to-get-the-ducks-in-a-row type sentiment, but with no modem, that becomes impossible. Anyways, I've done my Physics Homework, Physics Lab Homework, and Scientific Writing Powerpoint Presentation all in the past few hours, racing to fit it all in between classes, Parking committee, and RUF. But I finally got it all done. Phew. Good for Duncan.

Flos Duellatorum

Just for fun, I've been doing research on the crest-a-ma-bob that Heather brought into fencing yesterday. In case you didn't hear or weren't there, Heather dug up an ancient crest (turns out to be from the third oldest martial arts manuscript surviving) and showed it to us. There was a guy divided into seven sections, representing the seven guard positions, and in four sections there were animals: The lynx at the head, the tiger at the sword arm, the lion at the left arm, and the elephant at the feet. As Heather described it, the elephant was strength, the tiger was attack, the lion was defense, and the lynx was cleverness. Before you go any farther, I'll just say which people associated with which animals to give you a general idea of who associated with which characteristic:

Lynxes: Duncan, David, Matthew, Dylan, Kathryn, Grace, and Annie.
Elephants: Luke, Elliot, Aaron, Jacob, Michael
Tigers: Joseph, Connor, Oscar
Lions: Alex, William, Jared, Chris, Andrew V., Phillip

Just as an aside, the Lynxes won the huge battle. He he. Superior planning has always overcome superior force. (Yeah, I thought the Elephants were going to whoop up on everyone too, especially when they made an alliance with the Tigers.)

Oh yeah, now it is time to define what they really mean. I've read up on it and they are most literally fortitude, celerity, audacity, and prudence. Yeah, the lynx is "prudence." Sounds pretty lame right. Since it was translated from latin, I just counted it as a poor translation and changed it to "wisdom" or "intelligence." Oh yeah, as it turns out each animal has a motto that allows you to see exactly what sentiment they are representing:

Lynx: No other creature is able to see so clearly as me, the lynx, and by this I always reckon by compass and by measure
Tiger: I am the tiger. I am very quick to turn and run, that the arrow in the sky can never approach me.
Lion: None bears a more ardent heart than me, and I challenge anyone to battle.
Elephant: I am the Elephant and I have a castle for a burden. Never do I kneel down or lose my true place.

Just saying, the tiger has the wimpiest motto of all time. "I am very quick to turn and run"? Good luck selling that one to a fencer with an ounce of guts. The Lynx also doesn't seem incredibly manly to me. I suppose that's why our team was full of girls.

By the way, a long time ago I wrote a system of organizing fencers that is frightening similar to this and I've tried to apply the animals. Last summer David and I had a long talk about it and here's pretty much how it works: There are four types of fencers, Cunning, Aggressive, Defensive, and Direct. A cunning fencer is creative and uses disengages to defeat his opponent. He's like a baseball pitcher who uses nothing but breaking balls. An aggressive fencer attacks first and attacks repeatedly. A defensive fencer waits for his opponent's attack, parries, and then takes his attack. A direct fencer waits for an opening, and then attacks. I'd say if I apply the animals, Lynx would be cunning, Tiger would be aggressive, Lion would be defensive, and Elephant would be Direct.

Anyways, here's a summary:
Fiore Dei Liberi:
Lynx - A fencer with prudence, characterized by good point control and distance measurement
Tiger - A fencer with speed, characterized by keeping his distance and then moving in and out quickly after his attack
Lion - A fencer with courage, characterized by moving forward and relying on his bladework to defeat his opponent
Elephant - A fencer with endurance, characterized by good footwork and not wasting his energy

Heather:
Lynx - A fencer with intelligence, characterized by using disengages to defeat his opponent
Tiger - A fencer with ferocity, characterized by fast bladework
Lion - A fencer with skill, characterized by moving forward and relying on his bladework to defeat his opponent
Elephant - A fencer with strength, who attacks and doesn't need to fear his line of attack being broken. (As one author described using a pistol grip, he uses a hammer to do the work of a screwdriver.)

Duncan:
Lynx - A fencer with cunning, characterized by using disengages to defeat his opponent
Tiger - A fencer with ferocity, characterized by moving forward and attacking his opponent quickly and repeatedly
Lion - A fencer with patience, characterized by using a parry to open up a spot for attack
Elephant - A fencer with balance, characterized by using point control and footwork to exploit openings.

By the way, I'll put up a poll, just to see which one everyone likes best. If you stopped reading by the third paragraph because it was too much analysis, you don't need to vote.

Latin Midterm

Today we had the first Latin Midterm. There will be a second, but it will be 3/4 of the way through the course. I know. I know. It shouldn't be called a midterm if it isn't at midterms, but that is what it is called on the syllabus. Anyways, I can't really blame Dr. Davies for not giving us our midterm before midterm grades were due last Friday since he was dying of consumption all last week. Sick Semper Tyrannis, and all that jazz. I think I did very well on this final. I'm sure I made at least one careless mistake, but I'm fairly sure that I didn't make two.

Variables

Today's Physics class was a dizzying flurry of variables. We seem to have reached the point where the lecture is pretty much "alright, so if X/T = V and E=delta-V/delta-X, and you know that V=Ad, then how many different variables did you just represent with the single letter V?" The answer is 3, velocity, voltage, and volume. Yes, we have long since run out of letters in both our alphabet and the Greek alphabet. We have even used up all the capital letters of all letters in both alphabets. We have reached out limit. If that is the case, why does science still insist on naming so many variables!? Sometimes I get the feeling that scientists make up variables just so they can name the unit that goes with the variable after themselves!

Well guess what people, the root means squared of the number of electrons in a single area A over change in magnetic flux per unit second is now called the Collective Uselessness of the Data and is described in units of McPherson. Ha ha!

Planning Ahead

Last night, at about 9:00, I asked Andrew whether he was going to his friends' house the next day.
"Oh, I dunno. I haven't heard back from them," he replied.
"Hold on a minute! There is no way you are going to hear back from your friends before I go to school tomorrow at 8:00! They'll still be asleep!" I replied.
"Well, yeah," he said.
"Well, should I ask for a ride from Luke then? Or are they still sick so I should go home with Alexie?" I said.
"I dunno. I'll know tomorrow," he said.
This is not what I needed. I needed some information. As it turned out, Alexie figured that I was hitching a ride so she was going to leave without me without calling. Of course, it wouldn't make any difference because I discovered upon getting to school that Mom had borrowed my cell phone and never returned it. Great! Just when I need a communication route to both Alexie and Andrew, my cell phone goes missing! What good is a cell phone if it isn't around when you need it?

Anyway, I called home using the courtesy landline at UTC and got all pertinent information. Sheesh. So exhausting. I need to plan for communication crises better.

Ode to Emily

Today is Emily's birthday, so this post is all about her. I saw her for the first time at about noon because I was gone at Angel Food starting at 5:00 in the morning. Heather made a cake of a pink poodle out of a lamb-shaped cake mold. Pretty awesome, right? The reason it is a pink poodle is because Emily's Webkinz, which is a type of stuffed animal, is also a pink poodle and she loves it to death. Of course, that is in part because Webkinz have an online site where you play addictive online games with your digital Webkinz. Emily is always agitating to be allowed on the computer to play Webkinz. Since there are only two computers that are connected to the internet, she is typically ignored. That is, on days that aren't her birthday.

Squeaking By

I have all the midterm grades that I'm going to get back. It is scary: all my grades are right on the knife's edge. My Physics Test was offset by my homework and quizzes so I have an A. My Physics Lab reports have been for the most part too short so I have approximately 91 there. My Genetics Homework assignments have been high B's and low A's. My Genetics Test was a 92, so I have an A in that class too. Both the papers I've written for English class were B+, but because of all the extra credit I've done I have an A-. Right now I'm walking along the face of a very scary black precipice that is called 3.999 GPA.

P.S. Latin is a breeze. Hooray! Oh, but Dr. Davies cancelled today again. What the heck.

Oh oh oh

The last time I saw Dr. Davies in class, which was almost a week ago, he brought in a song in Latin "in honor of Valentine's day." It was just about the weirdest thing I ever heard. Dr. Davies apparently loves it. He played it three times in class and according to Alexie, he has done the same thing for every class he's ever had. It goes something like... Oh Oh Oh! Totus Floreo! Iam amore virginali totus ardeo! Novus novus novus amor est quo pereo! QUO PEREO! It only gets weirder if you try to translate it.

Latin Cancellation

This is the second class period in a row that Latin has been cancelled. I mean, it made sense two days ago when the entire campus shut down. Now, however, Dr. Davies is out with a cold or out fighting giant robots or something. Who knows what he does in his spare time? Anyway, I've had the same homework assignment for almost a week now and I finished it on Saturday. On his door, he left a note that said: Latin 102 cancelled. Study for mid-term! So I guess that's what I will be doing. Oh yeah, and finding seven more sources for my paper before Friday. Sigh...

Revenge of the Copper

Yesterday, I helped teach a Chemistry lab wherein we studied copper. The point of the lab was to measure your copper, mix it with a bunch of compounds, unmix it with a bunch of compounds, and then measure it again to see how much of it you lost. Strangely enough I had about a dozen pairs of students who came out with more copper than they started with. How can this be? It appears that we have nearly a dozen individual experiments that disprove the Law of the Conservation of Mass! How can people call it a law!? Wait! Maybe there are some extenuating factors... aha! The copper over time has gotten tired of being mixed and unmixed day in and day out and has evolved into a living organisms that reproduces through mitosis, like bacteria. Probably the reason they only multiply during experiments is because they need zinc to reproduce and they can't synthesize it themselves, being copper. A-ha! It all makes sense now. Watch out students, the copper is coming for you.

Oh no! How can I continue to live!?

Tragedy has struck! The fencing tournament I was going to on Saturday was... cancelled! AGH! I can't believe it! I've been looking forward to it since last semester! I am broken-hearted! I am crestfallen! This is the worst news I've received since I found that all my Monday classes were cancelled for snow! Now how am I supposed to turn in my "Interview!?" Gaaah! The only comfort now is the tournament on Wednesday. If that gets cancelled, I'll be really upset.

Weekend Snow

Hey, is it just me or does it invariably snows on the weekends? Seriously, it starts Friday afternoon and melts sometime on Saturday or Sunday. I think UTC paid whoever controls the snow not to make it snow during the week so no more classes are cancelled. Or maybe there is a really boring awful class on Friday afternoon that whoever controls the snow wants cancelled. That's probably the more likely one.

Fencing Rules

For the tournament next week I'm planning to compile some standards to go by for right of way and stuff like that. That way if conflicts arise, we'll settle them quickly. Unfortunately, standards just tend to make people feel bitter after they finish their match and find in such and such a rulebook section 5 that such and such does not establish right of way after all. I mean, after you've lost, you've lost. What good is it to find out whether you should have won!? Blagh.

Anyway, between that and trying to find 15 sources for my paper due next week (current # of sources: 0), I'm so bushed. It is exhausting.

Oughton...

...

My brain just exploded.

I've been searching for a translation of Triachasis Admiranda and this one name keeps cropping up: Chuck Oughton. First I found a series of lectures that mentioned Triachasis Admiranda. I thought I had lucked out. I even e-mailed the link to myself hoping to mine more information. Alas, it was only the teaser that was put online. Utah State, a series of graduate students sharing information with each other, History - Charles Oughton. Talking about his translation of Triachasis Admiranda. I was so jipped. Later, I was reading an article about two guys in Utah translating Triachasis Admiranda, one latin professor and one graduate student. When I got to the bottom and saw that the paper was published by a newspaper in Utah, I suddenly remembered the flyer that had tormented me with so little information. A-ha! This Oughton guy might be the key.

I googled him and you'd never believe what came up.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/368542/any-questions-on-rules

A how-to forum on how to play Killer Bunnies. This nice guy was explaining to everyone how to play Killer Bunnies (I mean... WHAT!?) and then finished by saying that anyone who got too upset was taking the game too seriously. It was trippy. Anyway, the guy on the forum is from Utah so I think he's the same guy. Other games he's rated include Bang, Powergrid, and Catan. He owns just about every extension of Killer Bunnies, Bang, and Catan I've never heard of. It is incredible.

So what is this super awesome Latin-translating history grad student who has all the answers to all the questions I have doing on some random geek gaming site which would be my guilty pleasure if I knew it existed!? AAAAH! Hey, let's see if we invite him to random fun he would let me have a gander at Triachasis Admiranda.

Not just any Tumors!!

Teratomas!!!

If you want a boring description, Teratomas are tumors that have tissues that are normally derivatives of any of the germ layers. Here's the cool description: They're tumors that have teeth and hair!!! AND EYES!! AND BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS!! (in rare instances, of course.) Yeah, teratomas are bloody awesome. I know that most of you, i.e. all my readers who aren't Luke K, are thinking Eeeeew, why would Duncan want to do a report on something so inherently sick. (Of course, I'm not going to make statements for Luke and he can be perfectly disgusted if he wants to be.)

Mom is bent on changing my mind. I come home and she says "Duncan, when I was in dietary school I studied this really fascinating disorder called PHP (disclaimer: doesn't actually exist. I forgot whatever it was that Mom said.) that causes weight loss! Pretty exciting, right?" Yeah, well a teratoma is definitely cooler. Mom also suggested ulcers, but I vetoed that one because ulcers are the example used over and over in my textbook for the class. Anyway, ulcers are cool, sure, but teratomas are cooler. Alexie gave me some manly advice that she got from a friend: I'd rather write an F paper on something I find interesting than an A paper on something I find dull.

Of course, I totally intend to get an A in this paper.

Hmm... Any more posts on teratomas and I might have to get them their own label.