Yesterday I tried out for the musical at my high school: Once Upon a Mattress. Basically the Princess and the Pea as a musical. Anyway, the auditions went great, and I'm pretty sure I nailed at least callbacks, if not ensemble. The part I really want is the Jester, since he has a solo and two other songs which are all really good.
In other news, we now have a Korean foreign exchange student living in our home. It's kind of weird, since I'm so used to getting myself everywhere and being totally independent; not having to tow anyone around or wait for anybody. I think this is some kind of conspiracy between my parents and the Korean government to get me to be more responsible. Like getting home right after school, leaving for school at the right time, getting to bed earlier, etc. Also, I'm always afraid that I'll offend him in someway. Like if I eat my food holding my fork in my left hand or something. I don't know why, but I always feel like I might insult his honor or somesuch.
Apart from that, dance team is going very well, despite being two weeks from our first performance and we still don't have our choreography finished, and we're still waiting on costumes. The best part of the costume is obviously the fedora, which we get to do cool things with.
On to politics/news: Measures 66 & 67 passed. Sad day, more taxes and pressure on businesses and the middle class. Just what we need, right?
This news article caught my eye for the reason that I wrote an LD debate case on this very subject: compulsory vaccination, and my opponent always brought up this guy, and his link of the MMR vaccine to autism. Check it out here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100128/wl_uk_afp/britainhealthvaccinationchildrensocial. Had I known this I might have been able to crush my opponents more easily, even though I never lost an AFF during that resolution. Basically, this doctor took blood samples from children at his son's birthday party for 5 pounds apiece. Ethical? I think not.
I have never studied for a test in my life. I've last-minute crammed, but not studied, and so far that's worked pretty well for me. Throughout the entire semester I haven't failed one test, and gotten A's on at least 3/4 of them, including pretests. I have a huge semester math test tomorrow, comprising of chapters 1-5, and I haven't studied. Probably not the best idea. On the other hand, I had a stem word test in language arts two days ago, comprising of seventy-five stem words, only half of which I even partially knew the day before. My friend's flash cards, last minute cramming, and my incredible ability to memorize important information very quickly saved my grade, and I'm 100% certain I aced the test. Same thing with my Seminary final, my Social Studies final, my German final, my Chapter Five math test, and many more.
It seems odd that I have only ever written this blog at night, between 7:00 and 12:00. Maybe because it's my weird sleeping schedule. go to bed at 11:00 or later, get to sleep at 12:00 or later, wake up at 7:00 for family scripture-prayer, sleep on the couch for 45 minutes, get up, dress, leave for school at 8:00, and repeat the process. I've only had maybe 1-2 pessimistic thoughts in this post, and now I'll try and make it up. One day during a car ride with my family, about a month or so back, my brother and his wife were talking about Ripley's Believe it Or Not. Specifically the cow with one head and two bodies. My brother asked the question: "How does it decide which body gets food when it eats?" and I replied with "It doesn't. Eventually one body will die and the other will have to drag around its dead counterpart for the remainder of its miserable existence." Silence. Laughter. "That's the most pessimistic thing I've ever heard!" I didn't get it. It made sense to me. What strange people those non-pessimists are.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Words v.s. Pictures
The person today is Napoleon Bonaparte. I've found alot of quotes so far that are enjoyable to make fun of, such as these:
"A picture is worth a thousand words."-Napoleon Bonaparte.
"A word is worth a thousand Pictures."-Michael Bruner.
Obviously there's some dispute as to the currency exchange between words and pictures. Both of these two men were optimists (Napoleon thought he could conquer Russia in the wintertime, and Michael Bruner writes for FaithInTheWorkplace.com), so maybe a pessimist should take a look at it. A famous painting could sell for a few million dollars, but so could a signature from some famous not-to-be-named golf players. What some people think is that the worth of both pictures and words are different ways of expressing feeling and emotion, in other words (or pictures), they are two different ways of looking at the same apple. I disagree. Obviously the worth of words and pictures are based on the amount of ink used, the colors used, the time-period it was written/drawn/painted/whatever, the value of the Brazilian real, and whoever wrote/drew/painted/whatever it. Here's the mathematical formula:
W=[i(Milliliters)+C]+t+[CWBR]+A
--------------------------
[0.5]t
W=worth
i=ink amount
C=R+B+Y+G+P+O+P+GR+BR+S+BL
colors=(Red=0, Blue=5, yellow=2, green=5, purple=4, white=2, orange=3, pink=-1, gray=3, brown=2, silver=5, black=8)
CWBR=Current worth of Brazilian Real
A=Author/Artist (for those not mentioned: # of characters in name divided by one sixth of the # of charcters. Bob Herman= 1.5
Exceptions:
Einstein=3.141592653...
Leonardo Da Vinci=6 (cubit=6 palms. According to da Vinci, a man's height is 24 palms. Therefore, Napoleon wasn't a man)
t=Time period.
B.C.=15
Dark Ages=1
Renaissance (1300-1599)=8
The New World (1600-1830)=6
Time of the West (1830-1899)=20 (30 if a cowboy said it)
Industrial age (1900-1938)=5
War(1939-1945)=2
Space Age(1946-1990)=10
Now(2000-2010)=6
Post-Apocalyptic=100
September Ninth=101
Yep, nothing good happened from 1990-1999.
"A picture is worth a thousand words."-Napoleon Bonaparte.
"A word is worth a thousand Pictures."-Michael Bruner.
Obviously there's some dispute as to the currency exchange between words and pictures. Both of these two men were optimists (Napoleon thought he could conquer Russia in the wintertime, and Michael Bruner writes for FaithInTheWorkplace.com), so maybe a pessimist should take a look at it. A famous painting could sell for a few million dollars, but so could a signature from some famous not-to-be-named golf players. What some people think is that the worth of both pictures and words are different ways of expressing feeling and emotion, in other words (or pictures), they are two different ways of looking at the same apple. I disagree. Obviously the worth of words and pictures are based on the amount of ink used, the colors used, the time-period it was written/drawn/painted/whatever, the value of the Brazilian real, and whoever wrote/drew/painted/whatever it. Here's the mathematical formula:
W=[i(Milliliters)+C]+t+[CWBR]+A
--------------------------
[0.5]t
W=worth
i=ink amount
C=R+B+Y+G+P+O+P+GR+BR+S+BL
colors=(Red=0, Blue=5, yellow=2, green=5, purple=4, white=2, orange=3, pink=-1, gray=3, brown=2, silver=5, black=8)
CWBR=Current worth of Brazilian Real
A=Author/Artist (for those not mentioned: # of characters in name divided by one sixth of the # of charcters. Bob Herman= 1.5
Exceptions:
Einstein=3.141592653...
Leonardo Da Vinci=6 (cubit=6 palms. According to da Vinci, a man's height is 24 palms. Therefore, Napoleon wasn't a man)
t=Time period.
B.C.=15
Dark Ages=1
Renaissance (1300-1599)=8
The New World (1600-1830)=6
Time of the West (1830-1899)=20 (30 if a cowboy said it)
Industrial age (1900-1938)=5
War(1939-1945)=2
Space Age(1946-1990)=10
Now(2000-2010)=6
Post-Apocalyptic=100
September Ninth=101
Yep, nothing good happened from 1990-1999.
New Year, New Week, New Lightbulb
I've made one New Year's Resolution this year: Beat Ashland at LD debate. That school monopolizes LD at every tournament. It's not exclusively that they're good (which is true in some cases) but that they bring like 10 LDers to every tournament. I've been beaten by two of them. One beat me in finals and took the novice championship, and the other barely beat me to quarterfinals. Also, the same LDer that beat me in finals beat Glencoe's other LDer TJ even though the ashland guy absolutely should have lost. The reasons would take too long to explain to anyone who hasn't been in debate before. Anyway; beat Ashland at debate.
The start of new weeks are bad for one reason only: Kumon. The most elite math and reading center in the world. Every single day of the year you do a worksheet of either a few really hard problems or a ton of moderate ones. It is EXTREMELY annoying, especially when you're doing like five different extra-curricular activities plus homework. Each one takes 30-60 minutes to do, since you have to do it the first time, mark the problems you've gotten wrong, figure out things by yourself (since my mom has no idea what kind of math I'm doing), correct problems...etc. with everything else I have going on, it's just a pain. Also, the people that work there and are supposed to help you are just really annoying and not really helpful.
It was Sunday night and I was going into my room to sit on my bed and read a book, but as soon as I flip the switch...BOOM! There goes the light bulb. We don't have any extras, so I had to fumble around in the dark for about half an hour to get my clothes, my book, etc. So today I went into my brother's empty room (since he's at college) and cannibalized his light bulb into my ceiling's socket. It's the wrong size, but it works (however dimly).
The start of new weeks are bad for one reason only: Kumon. The most elite math and reading center in the world. Every single day of the year you do a worksheet of either a few really hard problems or a ton of moderate ones. It is EXTREMELY annoying, especially when you're doing like five different extra-curricular activities plus homework. Each one takes 30-60 minutes to do, since you have to do it the first time, mark the problems you've gotten wrong, figure out things by yourself (since my mom has no idea what kind of math I'm doing), correct problems...etc. with everything else I have going on, it's just a pain. Also, the people that work there and are supposed to help you are just really annoying and not really helpful.
It was Sunday night and I was going into my room to sit on my bed and read a book, but as soon as I flip the switch...BOOM! There goes the light bulb. We don't have any extras, so I had to fumble around in the dark for about half an hour to get my clothes, my book, etc. So today I went into my brother's empty room (since he's at college) and cannibalized his light bulb into my ceiling's socket. It's the wrong size, but it works (however dimly).
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Speech and Debate
You might think it odd for a pessimist to be in speech and debate, and not in some dark alleyway off of a ghetto street, but I'm actually pretty good at it. For example, whenever my opponent brings up a plan or a suggestion or something like that, I can immediately see everything that's wrong with it. There are some perks to being a pessimist, despite the fact that they're few and far far far between. you might also think it strange that a pessimist would excel at an ethical form of debate. This form is called Lincoln-Douglas, based on the debates between Abe Lincoln and Steve Douglas. Since most of those debates were on the morality of slavery and such, they named a style of debate after them. Anyway, it's my favorite style, and all of your points (or "contentions") have to have ethical impacts. It's freaking awesome. Erm, most of the time. The thing I hate about LD is that people think that anyone can do it. They can't. One guy I debated at my last tournament was just bad, and almost all the others were only fun because I got to tear their case apart before their very eyes (another link between pessimism and debate). I've only ever had two intelligent LD debates. Finals at one, and a hidden finals at another. I lost the former by a slim 2-1 decision from three judges, and won the latter with both of us sporting perfect speaker points and a compliment from the judge; "you guys should be in Senior Division!" I'm a freshman at my high school, and this is my first year debating. It's been mostly epic so far. MOSTLY.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
One less good thing in the World
Day One (Well, Night One, both physically and mentally), Jan. 5th, 2010
Let's start off with something positive , shall we? Three years until the end of the world. No, wait, there's even less . 1079. One-thousand and seventy-nine days left to live, if you can call it living. Well, at least Presbama won't be able to screw up this country a second time. That's enough national politics right there to keep a pessimist happy for weeks. Um, maybe 'happy' isn't the right word. Anyway, personal experience of the day: I dropped half of a chocolate cupcake onto the sidewalk as I was walking home. Those cupcakes are probably one of the last good things in this world, and they were wasted. Number two, play practice was moved to A-days (my school has a block schedule. It's pretty annoying), so I hung around at school for an hour until someone told me that the rehearsals had been moved. Twenty minutes later I dropped that cupcake!
Time for a quote analysis! My favor...Um, whatever.
"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic."
Well, YOU remember buddy. The Titanic hit an iceberg, barely months after it first left port, and GOD designed the ark. Looks like the 'amateurs' outdid the 'Professionals.' Using logic, we can assume that professionals are amateurs.
“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.” I'm likin' this guy, even though he's probably stolen thousands of pairs of shoes from innocent victims. Strike the innocent part, it's probably not true.
“Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.” I absolutely agree on one condition: It's never worth it.
Let's start off with something positive , shall we? Three years until the end of the world. No, wait, there's even less . 1079. One-thousand and seventy-nine days left to live, if you can call it living. Well, at least Presbama won't be able to screw up this country a second time. That's enough national politics right there to keep a pessimist happy for weeks. Um, maybe 'happy' isn't the right word. Anyway, personal experience of the day: I dropped half of a chocolate cupcake onto the sidewalk as I was walking home. Those cupcakes are probably one of the last good things in this world, and they were wasted. Number two, play practice was moved to A-days (my school has a block schedule. It's pretty annoying), so I hung around at school for an hour until someone told me that the rehearsals had been moved. Twenty minutes later I dropped that cupcake!
Time for a quote analysis! My favor...Um, whatever.
"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic."
Well, YOU remember buddy. The Titanic hit an iceberg, barely months after it first left port, and GOD designed the ark. Looks like the 'amateurs' outdid the 'Professionals.' Using logic, we can assume that professionals are amateurs.
“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.” I'm likin' this guy, even though he's probably stolen thousands of pairs of shoes from innocent victims. Strike the innocent part, it's probably not true.
“Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.” I absolutely agree on one condition: It's never worth it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
