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.

First Quarter

Well, the first battle is over. I'm a quarter of the way through the semester and I have achieved fairly good grades through a series of miracles. Here are some areas I still need to work on:

1. Turning reports in on time. (Phys Lab)
2. Making papers longer (Phys Lab + Science Writing)
3. More studying before tests (Physics, and probably Genetics too)

Now I'm going to delve into teratomas for my paper due next friday. Although teratomas are super awesome cool, some of the information on them is neither easy to read or easy to get a hold of. Oh yeah, the Armawhatzit chirgiwhatever was actually written by a second guy with the same name, Johannes Sceltetus. The Johannes Sceltetus who was the first doctor to document a teratoma wrote a paper called Trichiasis Admiranda, which means "The Amazing Hairy Monster." Unfortunately it is in Latin, there's no translation, and there are only ten copies in existence, most of which are kept in Paris. America has two: One is in Harvard and one is in the National Library of Medicine in Maryland, so it doesn't look like I'll be getting a gander at it any time soon.

Teratomas

In one week I'm supposed to have fifteen sources on a topic that I haven't picked yet. Recently I selected teratomas as my subject so today I began searching in earnest for sources. Oh yeah, these can't be any sources, they have to be "pioneering" sources. Each source has to show a different milestone for whatever my topic is. OK. Whatever, I shrugged. I typed in "first teratoma" in google search. There was nothing about the first teratoma. I have a bunch of new milestones: First cystic teratoma, first teratoma in males, first teratoma in muscle, teratoma riding his first bike (kidding, kidding), etc. No first teratoma.

After refining my searches a bazillion times, I discovered the name of the person to detail the first teratoma. The problem was that nobody had any idea how to spell it. Johannes Scholz, Johan Scultata, Johans Schultz, etc. It made searching for him very difficult. I also discovered the name of his book: Armamentarium chirurgicum. There are two problems: The book was originally in German, and there is no place online to find free information about it. The original source would be ideal but, since it is a book, it costs money and that is a pain. Also I'm still not 100% sure whether "Armamentarium chirurgicum" is the book that contains information on the first teratoma or whether J.S. wrote a book about some stuff and then published a lab report about a teratoma he found later. O me miserum!!

Curves

You know, I've never really cared about the existence of grade curves. They never really mattered. Ever. I'd get an 'A' and then after the curve, I would have an 'A'. Today in Physics I learned the importance of curves.

For example, if your test only has four questions and you run out of time before you have time to address one, you will probably get a very bad score, theoretically a 29.75/40. Gasp! You're thinking '73% is a C! AAAH!' But A-ha! What if, theoretically, the rest of the class sucked worse? What if the class average was 19/40! Then A-ha! Your score is suddenly and magically a 90.5%.

Guess what! That theory is a reality! Who could have guessed! My Physics teacher was extremely steamed and spent the first fifty minutes of class going over the first question on the test. (One which I got perfectly right.) Anyway, I have resolved that I will NEVER EVER get a score that bad on a test again. Failing this test has taught me more than passing all the other tests has combined. The silver lining is that it didn't matter that I failed the test: POWER TO THE CURVES! I get all the benefit of failing combined with all the benefit of passing the class! Yay!

Ethics...?

On Friday, we are having an in-class writing assignment on "ethics." Dr. Jackson made it sound like we'd be selecting some sort of controversial topic and writing on it. Oh no... Anyway, she told us to read chapter 9, "Ethics and Scientific Communication" to prepare. I read it. It was all about Professional Ethics, as in honesty in reporting and not messing up your statistics on purpose to skew data one direction. That's a totally different type of ethics! So what kind of ethics are we supposed to be writing on, Social or Professional!? O me miserum...

Fix-A-Flat

On Saturday, Carlock came down with a flat. (Carlock is the name of Alexie's car. She named it.) I was busy shooting the neighbor's kids (Bang!) when Dad called me and told me that today was the day I was going to learn to fix a flat.
Dad: Now, pay close attention Duncan. First shake this can of Fix-A-Flat vigorously (he demonstrates) and attach it the wheel. Then press this button.
We stared at the can for a while as it made noise like someone trying really hard to hold his breath.
Dad: Duncan, does it look like it's going in?
Duncan: Oh, sure Dad. (It wasn't, but hey. It was my first time. How should I know what fix-a-flat stuff going through a tube should look like?)
Dad: Hmm...
Dad then decided to take the tube off the tire and that was when the can erupted. Yellow fix-a-flat stuff was splurting out both the end of the tube and the base of the tube. Dad kept trying to reattach it, but it was too late. After all the air and all the chemical was out of the can, Dad depressedly stared at the mess of yellow goop all over Carlock's front tire and the garage floor.
If I were Thomas Edison, I would say, "It's not that I failed to learn how to fix a flat tire, it is that I learned one way not to fix a flat tire!"
Although... I still don't know exactly what was keeping the fix-a-flat foam from going through the tube...

Practice MCAT

Two nights ago I performed the practice MCAT. My results surprised me: My score for Physical Sciences (Physics and Chemistry) was twice my score for Biological Sciences (Biology and OChem). Dad pointed out that this was probably because I only took half of my biological sciences courses so far. However, I am amazed that I even got what I did on biology. I only knew the answers to two of the seventy questions: the one on directional selection and the one about genetics. (I had actually just done a question just like that one earlier that day. He he.) Somehow all the biology that was talked about in the MCAT was completely missing from my general biology course. I feel totally cheated. What I need to take is some sort of enzyme course and some cellular biology before I take the MCAT. I will probably take this into account when planning my actual schedule for next semester.

Crusty Computer

Right now I'm sitting at the internet computer at home that no one uses. There are two computers that access the internet, both in Mom's room. Sometimes when Mom doesn't want to go to the trouble of using the other computer, she uses this one. Since it doesn't load websites, she quickly gives up. Recently, she called Alexie and Andrew down to take a look at the computer and figure out why the internet is running so slowly. Both of them had no idea what was going on and moaned endlessly about their uselessness. (Teenagers tend to plead ignorance whenever their parents want them to work. I know since I am one.) They aren't scientists, you see, rocket or otherwise.

Any good scientist, or any person with an ounce of logic, would have noticed that the internet will work if you are logged in to the username Teaching Tools, but not if you are logged into David. The reason? The username David has dozens of viruses and updater agents running every second you are logged in. The viruses don't slow down the computer because of sinister design, they slow it down because there are so many of them clogging up the computer's circuits. The reason I know this is when I log off of "David" so that I can use the internet, half a dozen programs with names like "BLGOFGupdateragent.exe" and "COMPUTERAIDS.exe" all have problems shutting down and so therefore each pop up errors that require you to press "end now" to move through them all. If I were trying to fix the problem, I'd start there. It is a problem when your computer is so old, even its viruses are decrepit.

So depressed

Today I got my first paper back in Scientific Writing. Where there should have been a grade, I got a little sentence that said "see me." What happened was that I did not have enough pages, therefore my paper was no good. Fortunately, the grading system works in that you only get your grades from the finished product. You turn it in to your teacher, she hands it back, you hand it back in at mid-term, then you get your actual grade. This is very depressing because my last two Physics Lab reports also had points taken off for being too short. The problem is that Physics Reports are always assigned Wednesday and are always due Friday. I literally wrote my most recent paper and my Physics Report yesterday in the one hour between Parking Appeals and the practice MCAT. This new paper isn't due until Monday so Saturday is going to be a day of Maximum Overhaul.

But this is a new revelation for me: I always thought my problem was that I was too wordy. Now the glove is on the other foot!

Unwelcome Love

I was working on my Physics Report and my appetite in the computer lab when I received a call from my Dad.
"Hey ho buddy! Heather has made a delicious dinner especially for you so if you want to come home, you may!"
Now, I knew that if I left campus, I wasn't coming back. Naturally I declined. The only problem being that I was extremely and ravishingly hungry and all I had to eat were two sandwiches with peanut butter that had gone bad that morning. (I knew it had since the one I ate before my Genetics Test tasted really funny.) Unfortunately, knowing that there is good food somewhere only makes bad food taste worse. I'm going to have to eat these monstrocities at some point, but I'm holding off because I hear that hunger is the best sauce. I'm trying to drown the sandwiches in it.

Oh yeah, my Physics Report still sucks and it is only one page long. The last two reports have had points taken off for being too short so I literally copied the same sentence and pasted it 12 times with all my different results plugged in. (You do the same experiment twelve times in this lab. Oh the pain.) Yes, even with all that it is still only a single page long. AAAH!

Study Strategy

You should try this sometime: To study for your test, program a program that will generate questions for you that you think will be on the test. After the test, you'll probably be very angry because your program didn't prep you properly, but whatever. Make any necessary adjustments. At the end of the semester, as you study for your cumulative final, open your program and relearn the stuff. I've done this once for Chemistry 122, and I think that was the most helpful of all my study strategies, since you get the benefit of teaching and learning. I'm going to repeat this with Genetics, and hopefully I'll be able to use it to up my Physics grade.

Banner Schedule

Hmm. Probably no one cares about this, but I am going to post my fake schedule anyway. It is a pretty good indicator of what I want to take in the fall. I want to tweak it a bit so I have at least one class on Tuesday and Thursday. I'll probably drop Ecology if the only section crosses Random Fun so take this as a tentative "Hey! Check out this fake schedule!" type thing.

Tuesday-Thursday:
...nothing. Gotta fix that.

Monday-Wednesday-Friday:
8:00: O-Chem with Dr. Mebane. Yes, I know how everyone out there hates 8:00 classes and if Megan says she absolutely refuses to have a class at 8:00, I'll change sections to be with her. But according to just about everyone, Mebane is the person to take. He is the head of the O-Chem teachers so taking with him is a pretty big honor. That's probably why he scheduled his classes at 8:00.

9:00: Logic, Language, and Evidence with Dr. Plaisted. I know Dr. Santiago told us not to pile on a bunch of random classes we don't need, but I think a college-level grasp on Logic will be a really big help in the verbal reasoning section of the MCATs. Not only that, it is with Dr. Plaisted. Double plus!

10:00: Ecology with Dr. Boyd. She seems like a liberal nutter and the only lab section available is on Friday during Random Fun so it will probably fall through. Otherwise, I like it. Ecology is a fascinating topic, when not done too Democratically, and it fulfills the "Ecology and Evolution" requirement. It sounds more interesting and less controversial than "Evolution," "Systematics," and "Biodiversity," that's for sure.

11:00: Bio-ethics with Dr. Plaisted. It is the most fascinating course that fills my remaining FA/HU, and since it is only offered in the fall, I want to hop on it. And it is with Dr. Plaisted AGAIN. Woo hoo. Another double plus! Do you think medical schools would be impressed by a recommendation from a Philosophy teacher?

12:00: LUNCH!! LEAVE IT OPEN, BABY!

1:00: Ecology Lab on Friday. Boo hiss. Last semester they opened another surprise section for Ecology so I'm hoping they'll do the same thing this semester so I won't have to choose between Ecology and Random Fun.

2:00: O Chem Lab on Monday. I could put this on Tuesday at 8:00, but I have no real preference. I'm just going to follow my friends' leads on this one.

That about wraps it all up! Now that you are all bored stiff, what do you think?

... Shoot.

Groan. I am currently overcome by a vast depression. Today is the first time in my entire life that I have run out of time on a test. I was so ashamed. I was furiously scribbling away at the last question when my Physics Teacher said "This is my first call for papers." Since I didn't want to be thought of as the kind of student who ignores his teacher and finishes his test anyway I handed it in. Alexie said that whenever she hands hers in unfinished she gets a 'B' so that is probably what I'm going to get. Siiiiiiiigh... Perhaps if I hadn't taken so long to remember Kirkhoff's law during the last question... or maybe if my calculator hadn't been acting up during the first question. Alas. All is vanity.

Groundhog Day... 2!

Recently I wrote a blog post about Feb. 2. Hoorah. It's today. My Physics test was pushed back so it is today. I discovered I have a Genetics test today, until it was pushed back as well. The pro-life club meeting isn't happening. I think the Lacrosse meeting will be overcome by the Pre-Med society meeting... unless Alexie doesn't drive me to school at all. If that happens, I'll miss fencing as well. *blubber*

Also... BANNER! WOO HOO! Right now I'm in the library waiting for the clock to strike ten so I can pretend to sign in to classes. Hooray~! I am going to sign in to the best classes. :D

Slippers

You know, I've never had slippers before. Until yesterday, of course. After Mom had detailed the plight of my poor feet and their beloved chillblains, Grandma went shopping the next morning. When she got home she dropped a pair of slippers at my feet and told me to put them on. The good thing about my slippers is that they keep my feet warm and make me feel comfortable. The bad thing about them is that shuffling around my house to make sure my slippers don't fall off makes me feel like an old man. I guess I'll just have to deal with it. It's better than losing circulation in my feet.

Trapped

It is just as well that we didn't have Random Fun last Friday. If we had, it would probably have resulted in our friends becoming trapped by the snow. The road in our neighborhood was completely iced within a few hours. We couldn't even get to Wal-Mart. Our out-of-town relatives were planning to arrive Friday and leave Sunday. They left this morning. Not only that, but the roads in Jacksonville (a dinky little town they have to pass through) are closed so they have to go down to Atlanta and then up to Raleigh to get home. Alas for circuitous routes. Now we are just praying that they don't get trapped in Atlanta.

Danny

For the past week, and for a few days more, we've had another member in the McPherson Family. His name is Danny and he is about Andrew's age. He eats a ton of breakfast, goes to McCallie for the entire day, returns about dinner time, and then eats a ton of dinner. Although he eats great quantities, he does discriminate in his tastes. A few days ago, he came in to dinner and we were eating some sort of meat. Anyway, Alexie was the only person still eating at that time so the interchange was very entertaining:

Danny: Hey, Lexie. What's the protein value in this?

Alexie: Who cares?

Danny: No, I just really want to know. Can I see the case this came in?

Alexie: No. I threw it away.

Danny: Oh.

...

Danny: Can I see a case of the same type of meat?

Alexie: GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Recently, we were all having a drawing contest to see who could draw Danny the best. Alexie won. I scanned in the picture and if I can figure out how to attach it it will be below:

I was going to post this to Facebook so his sisters could enjoy it but I couldn't figure out how to upload pictures to Facebook so I gave up. Ah well. At least it is online!

Bureaucracy

Yesterday I heard a story from my parents' youth which was so funny, I decided to post it here. When Mom and Dad were dating, Mom came over to Dad's family's apartment to visit. Dad's apartment was on the third floor. Anyway, while visiting Grandma asked Mom to run a letter out to the mail chute. Mom sprinted over, tried to put the mail in, but the mail chute was full. She couldn't stuff it in. She reported back so then Grandma called the front desk. They went to check what was up and it turned out that the chute was full of mail up to third floor. At this point they were thinking, "What the heck? Where is that mailman?" As it turned out the mailman had died and the postal service hadn't noticed. The postal service quickly fixed the error by hiring a new guy and the day was saved. Isn't the federal government incredible? To run a business that doesn't even notice when one of its employees dies and therefore stops reporting in to work?

Amnesty

Yesterday, during Physics Lab, my teacher walked up to me with last week's report.

"Mr. McPherson, vere is your report?" Dr. Allen asked, glaring.

"Ah... Last week I forgot to turn it in until it was 5:00 and since it was late I figured I just wouldn't turn it in..." I muttered. Dr. Allen glared at me for a while and then straightened up.

"For zis veek only, amnesty!" She yelled for the benefit of the entire class. "No more. Just zis veek. You may turn in last veek's lab report today, but from now on, you must turn it in Friday! Zis veek only!!"

I don't think anybody cared, seeing as I was probably the only one dumb enough to forget the deadline.

Penmanship

Today I was sitting in Latin class when Dr. Davies entered the room. He always picks about half a dozen students to write the answers up on the whiteboard. I wrote 1-3. After all the answers were written down. Dr. Davies was surveying them.

"Sam!" Dr. Davies exclaimed. "This is incredible penmanship! The best in class!"

Sam tried to look like she didn't exist, or at least that Dr. Davies must have been talking to some other Sam. Then Dr. Davies thoughtfully observed the board some more.

"Duncan!" Dr. Davies exclaimed again. "Are you going to be a doctor?"

The moment he said it I realized why he was asking.

"Yes," I said, "I have awful penmanship."

Dr. Davies nodded sagely, "My dad was a doctor and I couldn't ever read anything he wrote."

Of course, people usually figure out my major based on the fact that I'm an insufferable know-it-all and am at the top of all my classes. Hm. Weird.

Alexie

Alexie said I should make a blog post about how awesome she is. She followed it up by advising that I don't actually do so because every time I mention her online, you lovely blog readers start talking to her about stuff you read on the blog while she tries to figure out how you know these things. Well, now you can creep her out some more with some random trivia that may or may not be true.

1) Last semester she gave her teacher, Dr. Covino a piece of yummy yellow cake that was left over from Classics Club. This might or might not be the only reason she got an 'A' in this class.

2) A few days ago she tried to get a picture of Dr. Davies on her phone. He got mad and rebuked her. Anyway, she now has a picture of Dr. Davies on her phone, but you can't see his face because he put his hand up to block it.

3) She decided that someday in her future she will become a teacher and include in her syllabus "Cake... 3%" She will remind her students not to put this off to the last second, because if she gets a rush of cake in the last week of the semester she might not be able to eat it all immediately and the students won't get their grade.

I know two of these fun trivia facts are about cake, but that was what we were talking about on the way home, so tough.

Newsprint Hand

I have a super awesome strategy for remembering stuff: Write whatever you need to do on your arm and every time it fades, rewrite it until you no longer need to do it. Ha! The only problem is that it makes my hand look like I fell asleep reading a newspaper and got print all over my hand. Sigh. Anyways, currently I have notes to find a bionic article (done) and finish Genetics Homework (not done, aah!) on my hand so I suppose I'll get stop blogging and get back to those.

Groundhog Day

I actually have so many commitments on Feb 2. that I have e-mailed all of them to myself. I have the Banner test, Fencing, Lacrosse (I wanted to swing by and see what was up and since they sent out a UTC memo pleading for members, I figured it was now or never.), and a possible Pro-life club meeting (It looks like it will fall through, but I decided to remind myself anyway.) Also, Groundhog Day could be the day of my first test if my Physics Teacher decides to move the test back because of the snow day at the beginning of the year. Sigh. Looks like it is going to be a long winter.

Be Prepared

Ha! Last week Alexie never came with my dinner so I spent six hours suffering from teenage male scale hunger. (On the richter scale, that would be a 6.) Today I planned ahead! I have brought with me six sandwiches and two liters of soda. Ha ha! Now I'll never go hungry! Hooray!

The downside is that carrying this much food makes my bag almost as heavy as Ariel's. (It still isn't comparable to Megan's, but whatever.) If I do this every Thursday, I will end up with some severe spondylosis in my old age. *shudder*

I've been wondering throughout the day... which is heavier - a cubic meter of paper or a cubic meter of peanut butter sandwiches and soda? Hmmmm...

On the other hand, this means that my friends study about as much as I eat.

Mail Order

Tomorrow in Science Writing there will be a discussion about the first chapter of the book. Unfortunately for me the book has not arrived yet. It is somewhere between Amazon and my house. Mom suggested I go to the bookstore and stand there reading it, but I think there is probably a rule against that. Also, last time I was there, the entire section with the books was roped off and you could only get books by requesting them. And a third problem is that the one in the bookstore is not the book we'll be discussing tomorrow. Our teacher told us the first day of class that due to a miscommunication the book in the bookstore was the wrong book. Alas. All the variables seem stacked. I'm just going to hope that because I never shut up usually, the teacher will not call on me to answer questions.

Oh the Stinks you can Stink

Last night at RUF, the entire gym had just been cleaned and the entire building reeked of cleanness. I always thought the chemicals that Mom made us use on our house were bad, but this was 100 times more powerful. Dad could even smell it on me when he picked me up last night. John Craft was broken-hearted. Apparently, the church didn't think they'd have RUF tonight. (Maybe they suspected all the RUFers would be at the basketball game. Ha.) The way the guys who witnessed it described it made it sound like a truck full of ammonia was driven up and they hosed down the gym in it. Anyways, there were some seriously heavy fumes in that building. It was further complicated by the fact that none of the windows in the building can open and there are only two doors: both at the entrance. It felt like someone was trying to fumigate us.

Doing What You Are Told

Today in Parking Appeals I had a unique dilemma: For the first time since I started someone had gotten a doctor's note. Usually someone writes in and says something like: "Oh, I broke my leg and I haven't been able to walk more than ten feet without intense suffering so I parked here." Usually we just scoff and say that they were supposed to get a doctor's note for permission to park in someone else's lot. Unfortunately, someone finally did. It is outlined in the parking rules that you may park in handicapped spaces if you have a doctor's note. The weird thing was that they didn't park in handicapped spaces: They parked in WUTC lots. So what were we supposed to do? In the end they were all sustained, but it was really weird.

Vanishing Meals

It is the most mysterious thing. Today I am on campus all day starting at 9:00 a.m and ending at 10:00 p.m. I have classes, Parking Appeals Committee, and then RUF. So naturally I packed twice as much food for twice as many meals. But all four of my sandwiches are already gone and I'm still hungry. Grr. Fortunately, Alexie is coming back to campus for Classics Club and I have called home and requested that she pack a dinner for me. It's just so odd that my lunch disappears twice as fast on the day I need a meal for dinner. Sigh.

Genetically Engineered Pikachus

For Scientific Writing, our homework assignment is to find an article about bioengineering. The article I've actually found is about genetically modified mosquitoes, because the article about Pikachus wasn't actually an article, it was just a blog post about a guy selling engineered pikachus on an auction site. Still, I thought it was cool, although most speculation says that they are just mice with yellow make-up and a bit of rouge. I found the article while typing "Genetically Engineered Pigs" into the google search engine. Oh the things you can find on the internet!

I think we are all in agreement that it would be a lot more awesome to have more pikachus in this world than mosquitoes. Although rats that can send out electric shocks might become very destructive pests...

Banner Project

I got a UTC memo today which says, and I do not quote: "If you help us test this thing, we will give you priority registration for Fall 2010." This made my heart go PING!!! A~HA! No more being beaten out by honor students for me! I'm going to test this new Banner Project thing and I will have all the classes I want! I will have the best classes... IN THE WORLD!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Of course, it could be someone trying to hack my mocs account using my name and UTC ID or maybe UTC performing evil experiments to conquer the world using unsuspecting college students, but hey! This is Priority Registration we're talking about!!

Driving

Today Andrew is off to get his Driver's Permit. I asked Dad if I could get my license today, but the weather shut me down by icing all the roads. Curses. I don't think ice is all that dangerous and I could really impress my proctor by driving safely in dangerous conditions, but Dad would not hear it. Now Andrew and I will have our permits at the same time and I will have to suffer the inferiority complex of having a younger brother at the same stage of driving as I am. O me miseram!

Reasons Not To Like Snow

Ha ha. I love snow. But today I was thinking about a couple of things I don't like about snow:

1) It cancels everything. Bam. No Physics. No RUF. Nothing. It is so depressing. Now all I can do is work on my homework. That "Find a Scientific Magazine" assignment has turned out to be a boar. The section of the library my teacher advised us to search holds nothing but Scientific Journals with names like "The University of Nebraska's Coallition of Professors' Work on Abnormal Microbiology." Not only that, but the school library was closed by the snow. Groan.

2) There will invariably be someone who will loudly proclaim "What is everyone getting so worked up about! Back home in Michigan/New York/Canada the school wouldn't close for snow unless it was buried! And it certainly wouldn't close for this pathetic flurry!"
Although I tend to agree with them that flurries shouldn't stop the schools, I wish they would shut up.

3) When it snows, it is cold. I recently developed sores on my feet called "Chillblains." The name is far cooler than this ailment deserves. It makes your feet itch when you aren't touching them and scream bloody murder when you bump them against something or walk around campus. It also makes them swollen and purple. I hate the cold.

Back To School

Does anybody besides me have any problem with the first day of school being on a Wednesday? Being a rather compulsive person, I have this nagging buzz in my brain that says that this is not the way it should be. It has manifested in several ways including, but not limited to: Forgetting that today was Wednesday and thinking it was Monday, panicking and thinking that I've missed the first day of class, and wondering whether UTC Chemistry Labs policy is to skip the first Monday or to skip the first Week. This last one is a problem because I'm sure that if I don't show up to the Chemistry Labs on the right days, I'll be fired if I haven't already been fired and assuming that they hired me in the first place. (I'm not even sure that I have the job and I'm already worried about losing it.)

Not only that but I've only had two classes and I already have a load of homework: I have to find a scientific journal that uses academic language at a level that I can understand, create an index card outlining my writing strengths and weaknesses, and translate two pages of Latin. (I'll be done with all of this in about thirty minutes of actual work, but it never hurts to gripe!)

Top Topics

After much clicking and studying, I've found out my top five topics of blogging this year. The winner was Andrew with 28, which is unfortunate because I usually badmouth Andrew in posts about him. The next three topics all clocked in at 27: Alexie (posts where Alexie comes in and says something either snide or hilarious), Mom (posts where Mom comes in and either tell me something I don't want to hear or worries about me too much), and School (whining). The last one, Politics with 26 posts, was probably bolstered by my trip to North Carolina as 16 of my 26 posts on this topic were written there. I have 223 posts overall since I started on March 30th. This amounts to about 5.78 posts a week, or 0.83 posts a day. Although I would have been much happier to have a round 1.00 posts a day, I guess I'll just have to make do with my lack of insight. (or I could just publish 77 more posts, including this one.)

Douglas Has Arrived

Status Report: After four days delay for snow and a missed flight in Texas, Douglas has arrived. Heather is much quieter this morning: She's probably more talkative online than in person when it comes to Douglas. Alexie has not come downstairs yet. Since Douglas was lain over in Texas for a while, he bought Emily a Sheriff's Badge, which is really great since we got Bang for Christmas and Emily and Luke have been really loving it. Dad loves it and plays it whenever we have five players, but the older kids minus myself are uncooperative and unenthusiastic. The problem is that Bang is not a game for kids under the age of five and the subtle intrigue often proves elusive for kids with the mental capacity of Emily, Luke, and Andrew. Maybe Douglas would play...

Shakespeare

This question was brought up a few posts ago and since it is of General Interest, I will answer it. What happened to Henry V? (I don't know what actually happened to Henry V, since I haven't read the play, but I suppose if he didn't die at the end of the play, he had to eventually die later, right?)

At first, Mom had As You Like It and Henry V as the two plays we were going to do. Suddenly, Mom discovered that no adults besides herself were going to help out with Shakespeare camp. This was entirely predictable because anyone who has ever coached one Shakespeare camp knows what an insanely boorish hassle it is and quits the next year. Therefore, although interest among youths who want to participate has swelled, participation among parents who want to help has all but vanished.

Anyway, Mom declared that we were only doing one play next year. She selected As You Like It as the play we were going to do. We pointed out that we were certainly going to have more than twenty kids interested so she entered a period of deep meditation and thought. At last she called Mrs. Stewart. Her husband picked up and had no idea who the heck she was or what the heck "Shakespeare camp" was so it was with great hesitation that he handed the phone to Mrs. Stewart.

Mom: Mrs. Stewart, I really need someone to help me next year. I was hoping that you would be the head coach for the second play. We have several college students returning to help. Please please please please please.

Mrs. Stewart: Ah...

Mom: And I'll let you pick the play! Pick any one of the plays I've already abridged (and she listed them) and we'll do it!

So after much considerable consideration, Mrs. Stewart agreed to coach Merchant of Venice. And THAT is why we are doing Merchant of Venice. Ha ha! Now all mysteries and all knowledge have been made known!

New Years Dithering

I've put a request into the Party Czar (Dad) to have a New Years Eve party authorized, but it doesn't look like it'll happen. It'll probably be delayed for decision until Jan 2 if I know Dad. Dad says last time it ran too late and the little kids needed to sleep. (I think he's the one who wants the sleep most, actually.) I promised we'd keep it down to a dull roar. Nada. Heather suddenly bounced up and suggested that since New Years' Day is a Friday we could have a New Years' Fun. Ha. Who parties on New Years' Day besides college football fans? Puh-lease. Anyway, Dad really liked that idea and every time I bring up a New Years' Eve party he parries with a New Years' Day party. Ahhhh man.

Starcrossed Lovers

It is the most unfortunate news that I have to report today: Douglas is not coming into America today. Britain had the most violent snowstorm it has seen for many a year. All flights were cancelled. The soonest Douglas can get here by is the 27th. You can tell Britain is a socialist country because when flights are cancelled one day, flights are backed up for four days. Maybe more.

I haven't seen Heather today yet, and I don't intend to. Heather will be very snappish and short-tempered since she's been looking forward to this for so long. I'm planning mostly to either hide in my room or in Mom's room where the internet is. Anyway, Heather only leaves her room for meals so it shouldn't be too hard to evade her.

Puzzle Addict

It has been really incredible having all this free time. Of course, all I've done is sit and home and do jigsaw puzzles. Here's the general run-down of how the McPhersons do puzzles:

1. We all open the puzzle together as a huge happy family and begin snapping pieces together. Someone does the spine, someone else does the huge title in the center, someone does an enormous face/country, etc. We all grab a huge project and do it.

2. After we've finished each of our huge projects we stick them into the middle of the spine and then have a tenuously square puzzle with a cross of pieces through the center.

3. Everyone leaves except me. Mom and Dad usually have a Netflix to watch, Heather goes upstairs to talk to her boyfriend who is either just getting up or just going to bed, and Alexie and the boys either have "intelligent conversation" in the living room or go to sleep. I continue to place pieces into the puzzle deep into the night.

4. Next morning I wake up and begin work on the puzzle. Dad, being off for an entire week for Christmas, helps too. When we get down to about fifty pieces, kids come out of the woodwork and begin stuffing pieces into their pockets so they can be the person to put the last piece into the puzzle.

5. The puzzle ends. I exhaustedly stare at it thinking how I would never like to do that again. Mom takes a picture of me and the puzzle and then promptly sweeps it into the box and gets out a new one. Then the whole thing starts all over again! Aah!

Somehow I can't stop. I guess this is what it is like to be addicted to something. At least it is something harmless like puzzles instead of something extremely deadly and dangerous like drugs, alcohol, or online gaming.

Mysterious Black Eye

I've developed a mysterious black eye. This is impressive because I have been remarkably peaceful for the past few days. I haven't punched anyone (hard) or been punched by anyone back. I suspect that I just slept on a lego or something. Dad says it might be something like cellulitis and Alexie says it is face cancer. Mom's put me on an antibiotic circuit. Anyway, I'll just wait for it to deflate. It's probably something innocent and harmless like an evil spirit or a parasitic alien.

Finally!

Yahoo! Finals are over! I'm done! I haven't seen my report card yet but I have the 4.0 feeling in my gut. Yay! It would be very heart-breaking to find a B on my next report card with all this optimism in the air. Anyways, I'm done for the winter. There's lots of rejoicing and celebrating going on in our house. God celebrated by having it snow this morning. :D

Thank you God for all the beautiful snow.

Lazy

AAAAAAAAAH!!! He did it again! That Dr. Davies slipped another obscure adjective onto his test! This time it was the word for "lazy." Considering that over the entire course we have only covered three adjectives, happy, angry, and miraculous, I would think that the adjectives on the test would be slightly more predictable! The last one was "clever." We hadn't even used clever yet! It turned up in the next chapter! Of course, we had already done lazy by the time of the final, but I don't think it turned up in more than one chapter.

Perhaps if I hadn't been so ignavus, I would have studied more adjectives. Although I would have to be pretty callidus to figure out which obscure adjective he was going to put on the test.

Portfolio Power!

Hoorah! The Portfolio for the English class has my stomach turning loops since you have to turn it in on Wednesday before 4:00 to him personally or you get a 0! It's like some sort of ninja trial: Find me before sunset and give me the sacred manilla envelope or you will not learn the secret art of English! Fortunately I have a hint: He will be in his office all day, though he may run out for a few minutes to get lunch.

I was writing the "cover letter" for the portfolio, which is pretty much two paragraphs about what you learned over the semester, and it felt like I was writing a blog post about English class. Although I used bigger words and fancier sentence structure and less "Hoorah!"s.

Scottish Tournament

Yay! Tournament on Wednesday! Starts at 2:00 instead of 3:00! Just in case any of you were about to show up an hour late to our tournament! Hooray! I don't know why, but Heather is calling it the Scottish Tournament. I mean, if she doesn't want to get teased mercilessly about her new hubby, why suddenly transform into a Scottish stereotype? She lives and breathes Scotland now! And she's still in America! Aagh! Anyway, show up to the tournament. It is one hour earlier than usual so don't show up on time because if you do, you will be late.

The Excel spreadsheet I created for the purpose of digitally recording and calculating scores does not look in the slightest bit Scotland-y. It is all bright colors and rainbows. I think I'm going to change it to Scottish type color schemes, but all Scottish colors are ugly: Forest greens with dark blues with burnt oranges. Yuck. Gag me with a spoon.

Grade Counter

I developed a system for counting my grades. Every time you get a test grade back, subtract 90 and there is your score for that test. For example, if I've gotten a 96 and a 97 in Economics, I have a +6 and a +7. Therefore I can tell that for my final I can afford to get a -13. Of course, this method doesn't factor in that the final is usually weighted differently than the other tests. Fortunately most of my classes have finals that aren't heavier than the normal tests so this method actually works! Hooray!

P.S. When I told my Mom about my genius new counter scheme, she told me just to get an A on every test and then I would get an A for the course. Hmph. Mothers.

Too Many Breaks

Tomorrow is the first day of Thanksgiving Break. This means that I only have two days of school this week. Then when I come back to school I only have one day of class and then finals. What is up with that!? Not only that but every class is going to be doing "Test Review" because they don't want to cover anything new on the final. What's the point of even coming back? What we should do is combine Fall Break, Thanksgiving Break, and Christmas Break and just have an uber long advent.

Abandoned

Boo hoo. I was abandoned at school today. Physics ended fifteen minutes late so when I showed up at the UC turnaround, no one was there. I walked down to the parking lot but our car was gone. I called home twice. Finally, Mom called back and told me that Alexie had gotten home and then taken Andrew to driving class. Groan. A friend called and told me that Alexie had left a message telling me to wait in the UC turnaround. I did that for about ten minutes until I got bored of people coming up to me to check to see if I was alright. Mlah! I can't believe Alexie gave up on me when I have spent the past two Fridays lying on top of the car as people come up to me and ask if I was locked out of my car. How come it seems that lately all I do is sit around, wait for Alexie, and stare at people as they ask if I need help!?

Agenda Bust

Every day when I go to school I always have a plan for things I want to get done. Today at 3:30 I asked Mom if I could go to the RUF flag football "cereal bowl" to play some flag football. She said that would be fine. For the cereal bowl, you are supposed to bring a box of cereal to donate to the Chattanooga Food Bank and then you play.

Anyways, I brought three boxes of cereal: All banana nut cheerios. Dad had bought them because they were on sale months ago and we were trying very hard to get rid of them. Anyways, Dad drove me over to Challenger Field. The place was deserted. I then suggested that they might be on the new intramural fields. Being the trooper that he is, Dad drove me over there. Of course, I had no idea where it was since I had never been there but I had Carl Ware's "directions." (Note: Don't trust college interns bearing directions.) We finally found the intramural fields after accosting Trip, who also had no idea but gave us some more vague directions. So we arrived. No one. We asked a security officer who was sitting in his car at the field where there would be flag football. He called his buddy and then told us Challenger. We went back to Challenger: still no one. Anyway, my last hope was Chamberlain so Dad dropped me off and I ran there. No one. I decided to check the computer lab and re-read the facebook message from Carl telling me when it would be. The Computer Lab is closed on Saturdays.

Anyways, I was dejectedly trudging through the UC trying to call Carl when I saw this huge banner in the cafeteria that said: "CEREAL BOWL! RUF VS. THE HOUSE VS. WESLEY VS. THE OTHER HOUSE VS. THE CHRISTIAN STUDENT CENTER!! FRIDAY, NOV 20th!" So I realized that I was exactly 24 hours late. Bummer. And Dad was gone. And I tried to turn my paperwork for becoming a TA in to Mrs. Tolar but the Chemistry Annex is also closed on Saturdays. Ugh. So I called Dad. Fortunately he was at Choices so I ran over there, watered the daisies, and went home.

Maybe God just wanted me to water the daisies.

(Or maybe He wanted the Criminal Justice club to have at least one donor to their pathetic non-perishable food drive. Ha ha! Goodbye Banana Nut Cheerios!)

Anon(ymous)

Tonight I'm going to see a play! Hoorah! I've been doing Parking Appeals Committee for an hour and a half (longest meeting I've had yet), so a play will be a welcome change of pace. It'll be Anon(ymous) and starts at 7:30, about two hours from now. I lent Alexie all the cash in my backpack so that she could go see it and then realized I didn't have enough cash so that I could go see it. Supposedly we have money from work, but liquid assets (cash) are hard to come by.

P.S. To Grandma: If you are reading this blog post, the money I got from the thanksgiving card this morning really helped!

You know what I'm talking about

This morning I woke up to the dulcet tones of my sister telling me that Emily had dropped what amounted to an entire roll of toilet paper into the girls toilet and tried to flush it. Multiple times. Anyways, being the best plumber guy in the world besides Mario (and he's busy), I'm always the go-to guy in these situations. I got out of bed and promptly stepped on a toy. The toy slipped out from under me and I fell, smacking my head on the table. If it was brighter I would have been able to tell what toy I had tripped over and therefore know who to kill. Unfortunately it was dark so I had to resign myself to swearing to track down whoever left that toy there and then tie them to the pear trees near UTC campus that give off the dead fish smell. Then, I hear a sigh from one of the loft beds. Luke's voice wafts down, clearly disgusted, "That's not very funny, Duncan." Oh. Sorry, your majesty. Guess I'll have to try harder to amuse you the next time I trip. Anyways, grumbling I unstuffed the toilet and then came downstairs for morning devotions. Not a very good start to the day of my first final. (Whatever.)

Physics Applied

I was jamming through my Physics test today when I suddenly hit upon the extra credit question:
Extra Credit (3): For each chapter name how a concept from that chapter applies to either biology or medicine.

GASP!! Oh no! Physics are mathematical concepts! They don't apply to real life! So my head started throbbing like a car with its bass line volume turned to obliterate as I tried to think of something as fast as I could.

I think Dr. Marlowe was very worried for me since I was clutching my head and glaring at my paper. We made eye contact and he gave me a reassuring smile.
Anyways, I quickly made something up about how trees blowing in the wind and hormones working best at certain temperatures and blood running through veins and stuff. I don't think he's going to give me that extra credit.

Anyway, I was weeping tears of blood on the way home and explaining my woes to Alexie when she interrupted, "Why didn't you just think of a way you could kill someone using each of the principles you needed to apply? That would have been easy to remember."

That Alexie is one smart cookie, I'm telling you. Just out of curiosity I've been trying to follow her advice but simple harmonic motion (swaying trees) has got me stumped. Perhaps you could shoot waves at someone's brain causing it to vibrate and when it reaches resonance, it pops! or something...

SOB

When helping my dad read x-rays, I get to see all sorts of moronic idiosyncracies. One of which is shortening everything AMAP (As much as possible, LOL.) For example, if you wanted to say "no acute changes" you would say "rho acute delta." (By rho and delta I mean the Greek symbols, not the actual words.)

Anyway, we came upon one X-ray today and in the "Chief Complaint's:" section it read "SOB." I instantly wondered to myself whether this guy was a SOB or he knew a SOB. Either way, it wasn't a chest x-ray he was needing. So, being the immature guy that I am, I pointed it out and laughed. Dad ignored me for a while and then said "It stands for Shortness of Breath." These people need to find acronyms that don't already have meanings.

UTC's Red Tide

I'm not sure why UTC randomly stinks every couple of days. It just does. When I step outside and take a deep breath, I suddenly realize that people aren't paying too close attention to the "No Smoking Within 40 Feet of an UTC door" rule. So I hold my breath and run a couple yards until I step outside the 40 feet of the door mark, because after all who would smoke in such a faraway inconvenient place like that? Anyways, I take a huge breath since I had nearly been killed by second-hand smoke and realize the entire air smells like dead fish. Aaagh! I suppose we are near a river, so occasional river stink should be typical, but why does this only happen every now and then? Blech. It smells like the Red Tide always did back in Florida. Makes me gag. Perhaps instead of dying of second-hand smoke, I'll die of second-hand dead fish.

Force

We all know by now that F=ma, right? If that's the case, what is the best way to force add a class? I have a pretty low mass, so maybe I should eat some more to prepare? Maybe I should be more dense, since m = pV, I could increase my mass directly. I'm not dense in the slightest although my sister does often say that my volume is too high... Hm, Physics really is hard.

Worst part is, I can pour energy into this until I'm blue in the face, but it only counts as work if it takes me somewhere.

Latin Skits

For the past few weeks we've been performing Latin Skits that we wrote ourselves. Dr. Davies is holding out on giving us our tests back because the best skit will receive extra test credit. My group wrote a skit entitled "Sweenus Toddus, Daemon Tonsor Viae Fleetae." Ha ha! It's better than "Scoobus Doobus" anyway. He he. Anyways Dr. Davies came in to class yesterday and said "Hey everyone, apparently this Sweeney Todd guy is famous! I was explaining your skit to the other class and they said 'Hey! That sounds like Sweeney Todd!' Isn't that amazing?" We all laughed at his expense. Ha ha!

Why do we need to experience writing Roman Comedy when Latin class is so hilarious?

Human Nature

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch reading my UTC catalog while Emily sat next to me talking. If you don't know already, Emily is the thing that never shuts up. I listen to her jabber for a couple minutes and whenever there is a pause I will nod and say, "uh-huh..." Yesterday I discovered that Emily was actually saying something interesting. She was explaining to me who exactly her favorite baseball team was. Now this surprised me because we McPhersons only talk about baseball to be polite. I know only the smallest handful of baseball teams and they are only the ones that people really love because they win all the time or the ones that people really hate because they lose all the time. Anyway, any bets on who Emily's favorite baseball team was?

No seriously, guess.

Whatever you guessed, you were wrong. Emily's favorite baseball team is "The team that always beats Charlie Brown's team." This strikes me as odd because the only person on that team that actually has a name is Peppermint Patty. When I asked her why this was her favorite team she said, "Because they always win." Ta-da! Now we have some idea why the Yankees are so popular.

Lack of Insight

For some reason Dad has not been psyching me up about the MCAT. After I came back from the first Pre-Med meeting I was all like "Here is my plan for the next four years! a-HA!" But then, because I am indecisive, I was all like "Hmmm. Maybe I should get some advice from someone who has actually done this before." Today was the second time I asked "Hey Dad, what classes would you advise for the MCAT?" and he gave the same response: "Biology, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics." I asked "What Else?" and he responded "Get a good night's sleep." I asked about Histology. "Nope. No histology on the MCAT." I asked what class he would advise to minimally improve my chances on the MCAT. "Ahhh. Physiology would round off your Biology quite nicely." So after about an hour of weedling, I have one class recommendation and a pretty boring one at that. (Of course Histology looks so boring that if I don't have to take it for the MCAT, I'm going to take something like Mammalogy or Herpetology instead.)

Decisive Action

AAARHGHGHH!! You know the worst thing about being indecisive? The worst part about being indecisive is that you never know what you are going to do!! Everything sounds good and something else always sounds better but when you've finally got up enough nerve to decide to follow grass-greener-on-the-other-side plan B, the class fills up and your left with hey-this-isn't-grass,-these-are-weeds plan C. I've decided to take Genetics, Microbiology, Latin, Scientific Writing and Physics next semester. Yes, this will require me to grow enough nerve endings to force add a class AND it will mean I will be taking three labs.

Of course, what has REALLY got me by the moustache is the fact that the 9:00-9:50 section of Scientific Writing FILLED UP!!!! AAAGHH! Now my MWF days start at 8:00 and end at 10:00 EXCEPT on Wednesday when I have two labs so my day ends just in time for fencing at 3:00. This means I will be lounging around for two hours on Monday and Friday so that I can have lunch with my friends. Good news: I can have lunch on Wednesday because the Physics lab ends at 12:00 and the Genetics lab starts at 1:00. Heh heh heh.

P.S. I was never intending to eat lunch on Tuesday and Thursday, lo and behold even though I removed the perpetrator (Philosophy), it was instantly replaced by a new bothersome class. (Genetics.) Aaagh! Actually the real problem child is Physics because it runs from 12:05 to 1:20, but it is given by the teacher I love, Dr. Marlowe, so I refuse to drop it! Even if it means no lunch for a semester!

More Option Play

Isn't it frustrating how many forks in the road of life there are? It seems like only last month I was deciding whether I wanted to take this route or that route. Then I chose route two and hit a road block: The class filled up instantaneously. So here are a couple of options:

Option 1: Go back to the last fork in the road and take Option 1, Anatomy etc.
Option 2: Force Add my way into Microbiology. (According to the schedule of classes, two people have already done this.)
Option 3: Move my plan ahead a semester and take Genetics. (I wanted to take it with friends in case it was Evolutionary.)
Option 4: Go totally nuts and take two Gen Ed. courses. (Probably PHIL 101 and 102 in one semester.)

So input. Option 4 would take me a while to create and I would have to probably make some sacrifices. (Like lunch on Wednesday.) Option 3 is the most appealing because the Genetics course is at 8:00 in the morning so I won't have any classes during lunch break. On the other hand, the Genetics course is at 8:00 in the morning which compromises breakfast. What is it with classes and mealtimes!? (Maybe I just eat too many meals...)

Uhon Students

GARGH! Both sections of Microbiology have filled up and the Seniors aren't even signing up yet!! I don't think even the graduate students are signing up yet! It's only the Uhon students! Come on, you pasty nerds! What is so exciting about Microbiology that it is in such high demand!? Now, I'm going to have to FORCE ADD my way into this class which is irritating because it requires paperwork and people skills! GARGH!!!

I'm melting! MELTING!!!

Master of Interrogation

Yesterday while I was preparing my college lunch and Andrew was cleaning breakfast a great ruckus suddenly broke out upstairs.

"Hooray! Luke has tied his first shoe!" Heather exclaimed. Then Mom got excited and made an even bigger deal out of it and the upstairs rooms became very calamitous.

"Mark my words," Andrew said to me, "Luke brought an already tied shoe upstairs and told Heather he had tied it." Ha ha. Good luck, I thought. Every time I have sufficient proof that one of my younger brothers is lying, he will deny it and Mom accepts his word for it. Anyways Luke meandered downstairs as happy as a clam. "Hey Luke," said Andrew, "Did you take an already-tied shoe upstairs and tell Heather you had tied it?"

"How did you guess!?" Luke squealed. Andrew shrugged. Luke walked away. The end.

Really, nothing ever came from this encounter but a blog post.

Oh the Humanities!

Since I've already taken a Fine Arts course I'd like my other FA/HU course to be in the Humanities. Especially since I am so bad at art. I think I'm just unappreciative or something. (And who needs to take an UTC art class when they've already taken Mrs. K's in depth American Art class?) Anyways, while sitting in the library debating whether Intro to Judaism sounded more interesting than Biblical Literature, Luke pointed out a course on the next page called "Bio-ethics." Now that sounds cool. Also, if I remember correctly, Bioethics is the course that Mrs. Plaisted shamelessly plugged when I mentioned that I went to UTC. (Her husband teaches it.) I don't think I'll take it next semester, though. I'll wait half a semester so I can take Anatomy (Biology), Organic Chemistry (Chemistry), Bio-Ethics (Humanities), and Latin/Greek Roots in Medicine (Classics) in one semester. Isn't it amazing how you can take science courses for every general education requirement? (Really, I love science.)

20 hours

Yesterday I asked my Mom if I could take 20 hours next semester.

"Uh... Ask your father when he gets home," she said. Recently she hasn't been looking up from whatever she's doing when I address her. I bet she was planning a certain someone's wedding.

Later, when Dad walked in I asked him if I could take 20 hours next semester.

"Ho ho ho! No way, my beloved son in whom I am well pleased! I could not possibly let you work that hard!" Dad said, laughed for a bit and then left. (Disclaimer: Not exact quote. Approximation.) I'm still trying to figure out whether he would let me take 20 hours or not. Sigh. Sometimes being related to people with senses of humor can be a pain.

Option Play

Well, I thought I would be taking World Civilizations but Mom set me straight on that one. I'm taking Western Philosophy II next semester. PHIL 102 to be precise. What happened was that my GEOG course is a NW course. Since NW stands for Non-Western I assumed that NW courses were counted as WC (World Civilization) courses instead of Western Humanities. As it turns out, option 1 requires 2 WH courses and 1 NW course so the NW course was for option 1. Therefore I'm on option 1 and NOT taking World Civ. next semester. Hmph. So much for all my teacher research. Well, now I'm going to go research Western Phil. teachers. Goodbye.

Bomb Threat

Today there was a bomb threat on campus directed at the EMCS. I had gotten myself psyched up about a Physics test for nothing. I hope it really is cancelled because otherwise I'm skipping it and I've led many of my classmates who asked me if class was cancelled astray.

That brings me to my second point. The only thing creepier than the fact that the EMCS gets bomb threats is the fact that the entire class knows my name. Some blond chick I didn't know from Adam shouted "Duncan! Don't go in there! There's a bomb threat!" Apparently she's in my Physics class.

Then while sitting under a tree another blond chick came up and asked me whether I had talked to Bob Marlowe about whether class was still on. (Yes, people probably assume that because I speak in class the teacher and I are best buds.) I told her that I hadn't spoken to Dr. Marlowe but that he would probably not blame her for not attending class during a bomb threat.

Lastly I was walking along the street to the UC when another chick (brunette this time) asked whether I had heard about the bomb threat. I told her I had and that class was cancelled. The freaky thing is that every single one of these girls addressed me by first name and I, even though I've now spoken to all of them, still don't know their names.

Even stranger is that everyone in the first and second rows know my name and address me by first name for questions even though the only thing I know about them is where they sit! Weirder still is that the guy directly behind me (who might or might not be named Rob) refers to me as "Big D" like Matthew. I must have given my name out at some point during Physics... hmm.

Well, this post was labeled "bomb threat" but it was actually about my Physics class. Improperly named posts should be outlawed.

Phyyyyyysics...

Today, I prepared for tomorrow's Physics test with five hours of Physics problems. By the end of it I was nearly cross-eyed. One of my problems with excessive studying is that I begin to interpret everything in the terms of that subject. Every time I look around I see impulses, momentums, rotational movements, accelerations (centripetal, translational and tangential), etc. etc. I can't stop thinking about Physics. I keep wondering if I jump up will I be going the same speed when I land as when I jump? If so, how far could I jump? How long would it take me? What if I added in some rotation!? AAAGH!

I hope this means I'll get a high grade on tommorrow's test. Otherwise I will feel royally ripped off.

Class Schedule is Up!

Finally! The day you've all been waiting for! The day when the classes offered in Spring '10 at UTC are announced! Hurrah! I've gone ahead and made two potential battle plans. When I showed them to Andrew he said that I didn't need to choose immediately, that I could wait until Mom comes home. Shows what he knows. Ha. Here are the plans with the classes listed in the order that I take them on that day.

Plan 1:
MWF: (starting at 8:00) Scientific Writing, Microbiology, Latin. Microbio lab on Monday, Physics lab on Wednesday.
TT: (starting at 12:00) Physics, Western Civ

Plan 2:
MWF: (starting at 8:00) Anatomy, Scientific Writing, Latin. Physics Lab on Wednesday
TT: (starting at 8:00) Western Civ, Physics. Anatomy Lab on Tuesday.

Both plans clock in at seventeen hours.

Physics!

The first thing I find striking about Physics is how convenient it is. We all know how you can drop a watermelon and a ping-pong ball and they will hit the ground at the same time. Well today's homework has an extra-credit question about a marble rolling down a slope and a cube sliding down the same slope. It is amazing how closely tied rotational motion and translational motion were. As it was it the mass, the velocities, the height of the slope, the slope of the slope, the radius of the marble, the radius of the cube, etc. were all irrelevant. The ratio of the velocities at the bottom of the ramp as long as they were dropped from rest at the same height would never vary.

The second thing I find striking about Physics is how inconvenient it is. You can't use it for any practical purpose. Sure I could find the force exerted on the keyboard by my fingers, but would it really matter? The force exerted by a basketball on a court? Even if I knew how much force I had to put behind a basketball to make it arc with the proper displacement and angle into the net, would my mind even know what I was saying? Push the ball at 150 N at an angle 36.5 degrees above the lateral. Useless!

Easy to solve, impossible to use: Physics!

Bah, Rain.

Last night was the second time in a row that flag football has been canceled for rain. It is starting to become very problematic! I haven't even played one game yet because the only game that wasn't canceled started at 10:00 pm. I don't think my parents/drivers are as bummed about the run of cancellations as I am, however. Hm.

Rape Aggression Defense Class

When I first read the UTC e-mail announcing that this class would be available, my eyes got shiny and I thought to myself "boy oh boy! I would love to do this!" Then I read the byword "FEMALES ONLY!" Bah. Self-defense is so cool. Now I have to figure out a way to sneak into this class. Here are all my possible routes:

1. Dress in drag
2. Set up a camera and film this class
3. Show up day of and see if they'll let me in
4. Write an e-mail and see if they would let a guy participate anyway
5. Build a female robot
6. Pretend I'm a transsexual and decry the sexism of not letting me participate

I'll let you guys vote. Of course, Phantom Thief Duncan has already broken into the ARC (where it is being held) once before... hm hm hm.

The Cake was a Lie

Psych. I'm not actually playing flag football tonight. I thought I was when I wrote the last post but then I checked my e-mail and found out that it was cancelled. The only four-letter word strong enough to describe this situation is Cake.

FIRST GA-A-A-A-A-AME!

Tonight is the Amazing Duncan's Super Uber Duper Debut of Fantastical Flag Footballness. Last year I signed up for the flag football team on the most random of whims but I never went to a single game because my drivers lacked motivation. They still lack motivation but now I am focused! Of course during the practices I've had trouble reaching the quarterback in time to stop him from throwing the ball. Carl is just being nice when he says all that stuff about fencing reflexes. It is a literary device better known as "gross exaggeration." To be blunt, our team will probably be killed out there but we will never give up! We will never surrender! Fight RUFfians! (Disclaimer: RUFfians is not the actual team name but it should be. When I find out what our name actally is I'll tell you.)

Subjective Truth vs. Subjective Value

Recently our Economics Professor, Dr. Giffin was talking about why demand curves are always negative and in so doing explained utilitarian philosophy of "utils." Utils are units of happiness caused by something. For example a coke might give me five utils and wrapping my brother in a blanket and dangling him over a chin-up bar might give me 100 utils. However, he said something very interesting: That truth was subjective because people derive different amounts of utils from different activities. Of course, this statement is not true at all. I was just thinking about it this morning in this light:

Yesterday Mom said it would be OK if I went on to Netflix and streamed shows that I wanted to see. Naturally I took advantage of this generous offer and began streaming a show. The show was "Heroes." While taking a break so that someone else could use the computer (The computer is very highly demanded which is why I'm not using it now.) I ate some snack with Alexie. Alexie asked me why I was watching "Heroes" because according to all her research the show was lame and not worth watching. So is "Heroes" lame or not lame? Subjective truth!? No! It is objectively true that Alexie derives -100 utils from watching this show but it is equally true that I derive +100 utils from watching this show. My enjoyment of a show is not subjective. It won't change even if my sister can't believe it. Pleasure is just as objective as all other truths. The only thing that is subjective is the value that people place on objects, not the truth about the object or the truth about the values.

Organization

Ha ha ha. There are so many things in this world to organize! Entropy really is increasing! Trying to contact Megan to ask her if she'll help with the AAA banquet so that Molly (AAA intern) will know how many people are coming has been really tough. I haven't seen Megan face to face since Friday. (Except for a short stint before my Political Science class but I was in such a rush I forgot to mention it.) Also, the UTC people denied my claim to a room for the Vintage Dance Club because no such club exists. Grumble. I'm going to have to fix this. Right now I have so many notes on my arm it is starting to look like I was involved in a very painful typewriter accident.

The Problem with Jokes in Poor Taste

Hoorah! Ann Coulter came to our campus and talked!!! It was fully awesome. But! There was a problem. When I was driving home Alexie asked me what she talked about.

"Gah! I don't know," I replied, "Just Democrats, really." Ann Coulter was supposedly talking about the state of the nation, but with Democrats controlling the government, Democrats are the state of the nation.

"That sounds really boring," Lexie said.

"Ooh! But there were a lot of really funny jokes!" I said.

"Hm?"

"Well, there was one about how David Letterman subjugates his employees into sex items!"

"That is not funny."

"Well, no it's not. But I laughed!"

There's the problem with Jokes in Poor Taste. (I capitalize random things like C.S. Lewis does.) If you weren't there, it isn't funny. TBQH, I really shouldn't laugh at those jokes anyway.

Yam Kippur (At least, that's how I think you spell it)

Today, my Physics teacher was noticeably absent. He was replaced by a lady who sounded Russian, but could have been from anywhere from the Soviet Union. My old Physics teacher being a Jew, I am naturally suspicious when he goes missing and the only person's word I have that he is safe is his Russian substitute, but nevermind. Anyway, she isn't a very good teacher. I hardly understood a thing she said. It was kind of cool when she said "Very good," in her Russian accent but other than that the class was a bust. There were several people who walked out half way through (which was ironic because I was talking about people walking out of class at lunch that morning.) Anyways, happy Yam Kippur, or however it is you spell it.

Slave of Justice

Yes, that's me. The new parking ticket appeals person. My new boss is named "Brittany Justice" which is kind of ironic and kind of creepy, no? So here are some tips of what not to do when appealing a parking ticket: (Alright! Now I'm John Tash!)

1. Don't say "I'm a new student and didn't know the parking regulations." Ignorance is no excuse. We denied many appeals with that weak excuse.

2. "I saw other people doing it so I figured it was OK." If it is a college student doing it, it is always a bad idea. Don't copy them. We got this excuse a lot too.

3. "I didn't see a sign/I couldn't see any white lines." Alright people, you've just been fined for parking in an unmarked space and you have the gall to say it wasn't marked well enough!? The reason it is an unmarked space is because it isn't marked! And the reason you couldn't see any white lines was because there weren't any! Duh!

So now you know. If you are ever misparked on campus you will have to taste my iron fist. I am now a slave of Justice!

Flu Shots

Just the other day, Grace had to go get a flu shot to keep from getting the French Flu when she goes to Paris. I guess all the frenchies are swine or something, who knows? Anyways she was absolutely terrified, and predictably she overreacted and said that she didn't want to go to Paris anymore because she hated learning French and getting shots.

How learning French was brought into it, I don't know, but by now Grace should be smart enough to realize that even if she wasn't going to France she'd be learning French.

But, being the theologically minded guy that I am, I thought to myself that Grace's hyperventilation is exactly what we sound like to God when we start speculating about heaven. You know when you start to ask how you could possibly enjoy heaven if we didn't have our unchristian friends and families with us or if we were in stasis? (reference to an UTC professor whose lecture Lexie had to endure since she takes humanities.)

I mean, the answer is "Just chill. Paris' going to be great and there is no use saying that you don't want to go just because it doesn't sound perfect. You'll love it, I assure you." Same goes for Heaven. Just think of self-sacrifice as a Heaven Shot.

Stern Letter

Alright, this is the last straw. When I asked Lexie what she was doing what she was doing with the Latin people before lunch she answered, "Oh, we were preparing our skit for Latin." Hey! I don't do skits in Latin class! I feel ripped off! I have sent Dr. Davies a VERY STERN LETTER politely asking him why our class doesn't do any of the fun things Lexie's class is doing. We'll see what comes of this...

5:00 Blog Post

The trouble with having to wake up early to go help Angel Food is that you have to get up at 5:00. I was having a fairly pleasant dream when my alarm rang. I quickly sat up and hit the snooze button. At about 5:05 I realized that sitting there staring at the clock and wishing I could go back to sleep would not help me at all so I hopped up and came down. Then I realized there were 30 minutes until I actually had to leave and the parents were out of town. So, logical conclusion: Make a blog post. There's not much to blog about at the moment since my brain is still alternating between off and on, so I decided to blog about why I blogged. Pretty boring.

Picture Day

Today is picture day for the McPherson's. We're going to go take a family portrait somewhere. Hopefully it will replace that picture in the living room that has become somewhat outdated (est. 5 years.) I mean, it's great that I didn't have a single family picture of me during my angsty ugly teenage years, but it is kind of distressing that the newest family portrait of me has me when I'm twelve years old. I mean, I've even changed my hair since then! (This is saying something, really. Boys only change their hairstyle once every twelve years or so. I combed my hair forward every day for thirteen and some years, and then it became too rowdy so I began combing it backward every day. I have Mom's word for it that it helps.) Anyways, hopefully I won't be slanted, blinking, grinning like the joker, have my eyes as wide as deer in the headlights, look dumb, blah, blah, blah. It always falls out that two or three children are sacrificed for the good of the picture. (Meaning: We let them look dumb because the baby was smiling. Although, without a baby...) I just hope it isn't me.

OH NO SCHOOLWORK!

Grumble. It appears that everything has gotten harder. My Physics class is still a breeze, but my Physics Lab is killing me. I got my first paper back and it was an F!!! I know what you're all thinking: Wait a minute! Duncan is way too smart to get an F! I thought so too. Apparently I was wrong. What happened was I summarized our experiment it when he said to analyze it. There were three "discussion questions" he wanted answered which I totally overlooked. Minus 10! Minus 10! Minus 10! Minus 10 for some other stuff! etc! etc! etc! AAAAH!

Anyways, I am allowed to drop my lowest lab grade. This will DEFINITELY be it. I'm going to make A's on everything else.

This dropping a grade has really helped me in past semesters. There was one time that I totally spaced and showed up to lab an hour late. Ugh.

The results are in!

The results for the happy birthday poem contest of all time/September 09 are in! And it was A COMPLETE UPSET VICTORY!! Here's first place:

Torchics are red
Mudkips are sexy
Happy birthday to
David and Lexie
--Duncan McPherson

And the judges decided that this haiku deserved an honorable mention:

MUDKIP MUDKIP MUD
KIP MUDKIP MUDKIP MUDKIP
WE WANT MOAR MUDKIPS
--Luke McPherson

Conflicting messages

Yesterday we had a really good sermon at our church on 1 Samuel 16. I think it was 16, anyway. It was the chapter where David is anointed. Anyways, the main idea of the sermon was that 1 Samuel was not a self-help manual. If you are asking the question "Am I a David person or a Saul person?" you are asking the wrong question. God's plan is bigger than you. It's for you, but it's not about you and it fortunately does not depend on you. 1 Samuel points more to the king we need rather than the people we should be. Really good sermon. Agreed completely. Anyways, my kid brother got back from Sunday School and naturally our parents asked him what he learned in Sunday School. Andrew said that his teacher wanted the class to find something in David to emulate every week. (Although in 1 Samuel 16 the only traits of David that are shown were that he was ruddy and handsome.) Wait a minute! Wasn't that the question our pastor told us not to ask? And this was Senior High Sunday School! I think this was probably due to a communication failure between the pastor and the youth pastor. It'll probably be cleared up by next week. Hopefully.

Bible Bee is DONE~!

Ta-da! Bible bee is finally finished. I jammed through the written test and pretty much skipped the oral segment. I had to pass on every single verse because I hadn't studied them. Anyway this is neat: If you count up the number of verses I had memorized and the number of verses there were and then factor in the number of verses on the test, there was only a 47.2% chance that I would know at least one of the verses on the test. Pretty low odds. Anyways, it means I'm probably not going to nationals but WHATEVER!! At least I don't have to study any more. Phew. Although studying bible verses has been so much fun that I've been thinking of learning bible verses in a freelance manner now. Of course, with my motivational drive powers, I doubt it will ever amount to anything.

Corpora

Today I had a Latin quiz. Dr. Davies told us about it via email last night, so it wasn't a pop quiz, though I had no idea it was coming. Anyway, I got all the answers right except one: What is the accusative plural of the latin word for "body." Since it was third declension I ran through it in my mind and got "Corpores," but that isn't right because it's a neuter word and therefore its nominative and accusative plural are "Corpora." Got that? Good. Anyways, it means I no longer have an 100% in Latin. Boo boo schmoo boo.

Birthday Blues

Boo hoo. None of my friends remora'd their way to my brother's birthday party. I am so sad. So I got them back by listening to their moms talk about them behind their back. Ha ha ha! There's some motivation for you: If you don't show up, I'm going to sit with your moms and listen to embarassing childhood anecdotes! That'll teach you not to go to classes when you could be spending time with me!

P.S. He he. Just kidding. I understand how much more important classes are than friendship.

Ode to David

Today is David's birthday! Hooray for David! This calls for a song! This calls for poetry! This calls for dancing! This calls for a party! This is the most fantastic day of this half of the week! (The most fantastic day of the week was Lexie's birthday. Sorry David. Better luck next year. Maybe your birthdays won't be so close.)

Anyways, so now begins the poetry contest. Write a poem about how great David is (or if you can't think of any admirable traits for David, you can write it about Lexie since her birthday was earlier this week. Even better yet, write one about mudkips.)

So here's the winning entry:

David is awesome!
He's swinging and hip!
He's rad, sweet, and cherry,
and cool as Mudkip!

--Duncan McP.

Judging will begin sometime next week.

Yes/100

Yesterday I got my Political Science test back. I had to answer five essay questions of varying lengths and point amounts. When I got it back it said "A" on the top and had a checkmark next to each essay. So on the first essay, out of fifty possible points I got "check" and then on my next essay worth 40 points I got a "check" and on the 30 pointer, and on the 20 pointer, and the ten pointer, and the two extra credit 20 pointers, check, check, check, check, check. So after he summed up all the 'checks' the total came to A/100 possible points. Makes sense I guess.

P.S. The guy next to me complained about not knowing how many checks he could afford not to get on the next test. This made me realize that the only reason you would need to know your score was if you were planning to fail the next test.

Nausea-induced starvation

I've always wondered why Ariel always refuses to take the food I offer her, even though it was always free and I'm only giving it to her because I selfishly took too much and can't eat it. Well I finally figured it out. Yesterday, Dad took me aside when I was at home massaging my aching legs and said "Hey Duncan. I didn't want to say anything, but your table manners are disgusting. Your mouth was open as you chewed. It made me feel sick."

So now I figured out why my friends don't eat while I'm eating. They feel ill. Now I'm going to have to do some actual work and fix these sordid table manners of mine. Grumble grumble grumble. Otherwise, my friends might die of low blood sugar caused by nausea-induced starvation.

Plant Army

If all the plants of the world decided to rebel against the establishment and overthrow the animals, the movement would be centered in our yard. We have the meanest and cruelest plants under the heavens, although we keep them for the most part under check.

Like our Morning Glories. Every fall we take them off our mailbox and discover that the plants have yet again snapped the mailbox off of its post. The only reason it stayed up all summer was because the plants were so thick that they were holding it there.

And Dad expressed worries about whether our daisies would survive in their new habitat. Well, I won't be surprised if by Friday those daisies have replaced all living organisms in the area. They multipy like rabbits. Soon, Choices will be manned by daisies. It will be seriously scary.

Replay Value

Isn't it amazing how quickly games lose their replay value? Like Quelf. It is amazing how many times cards you saw last game pop up. I think Quelf just printed three cards a thousand times to make it look like they were selling you a full deck of embarrassing things to watch your friends do. What a bunch of sneaks. Also, I can't play cranium without seeing the same cards over and over. I can recall figuring out "March of the Penguins" as soon as the person who was about to start acting it out lowered their head. It's troublesome. Albeit, I could get up on pop culture and then all the cards we skip could be used but... too much trouble...

Anyways, the way we fix Cranium is that we pick a topic and then write our own cards. Since we've played Cranium so much we have a very firm handle on what type of words are used. When I was playing Quelf and thinking how absolutely bizarre the cards were, I figured we could do the same thing there. It would be fun to write Quelf cards. Heh heh.

Ann Coulter is SELLING OUT!

All right, so admittedly Ann Coulter can't sell out because it is a free event, but just this morning I got an UTC-MEMO stating that because interest has been booming, they need people to send in an e-mail stating that they will be there. One e-mail per person so that the secretary can just count the e-mails or something. If you are going, make sure to send in your e-mail to sarah-gard@utc.edu!

Strength

Alright, confession time. I'm no good at fencing. My form is awful, my point control is garbage, my footwork is sloppy, I'm not really fast, my power is low, though I am agressive (which isn't really a strength in all honesty), my reflexes are pretty poor, my disengages are too wide, my feints are too obvious, I never fully extend my arm, not to mention how often I pull it back, my back foot always comes up when I lunge, my hand still instinctively covers target area, otherwise I let it hang by my side like a dead animal, I hunch over while I fence, I lean in to my attacks making me totally vulnerable, but not quite as vulnerable I am when I jump, which I do with lots of regularity because I am stupid, I lose my balance when I attack and just barely manage to catch myself, I lose focus as the duel progresses, I am neither gifted nor hard-working, I don't exercise or practice often, in total I only fence an average of two hours a week.

I do have one strength however! Winning. For some inexplicable reason I win a lot. I think the reason is because I don't do what people expect me to do (which pretty much sums up my life.) In short, I don't do the right thing, therefore I win. It's a pretty sweet deal. In actuality, when the rubber hits the road, I don't really care whether I'm a good fencer or not. I only re-started fencing so I could see my friends often and I don't really have any desire to excel competitively. It would eat up my time, my life, and my money, all of which I value more than excelling in competitive fencing. As long as I have enough skill to enjoy it, I'm content.

Garlic Breath!

Today, I dined with Methodists with a bunch of my friends. I actually received an e-mail from Megan that told me that they would NOT meet at the Methodist center. Fortunately, I ignored it. I met them at the door. Well, the Methodists gave us some yummy lasagna that I ate a whole lot of (Ariel couldn't finish hers, ha.) and garlic bread that left you tasting garlic for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, this did not stop me from being a complete GENIUS in Physics class. I did the first quiz and got a 15/10 for a score. And he handed me back the extra credit today. I was the ONLY PERSON who actually did it. So my scores are through the roof in Physics. And I haven't even had my first test yet. Hooray!

First Test

Oh boy, oh boy. First test of the season is tonight. I get to show my wowwy dowwy pizzazz know how of politics to the world. He's told us what two of the huge essay questions will be. See how hard you think they are:

1) Explain how the Declaration of Independence was cribbed off of John Locke.

2) Is America a Republic or a Democracy? Explain the differences.

Well, luckily I said "rabbit rabbit" first thing this morning, so luck will be on my side. Yay!