NASA

sooner or later i'll write a post on here about NASA and how AMAZING and sometimes horrible it was.

just letting you know it has been the best summer of my life thus far.

cleaning

i'm bored.
i'm ready to leave and get out of here.
there's only so long that i can stay at my house, "enjoying my free time" before it becomes boring time.
i'm ready for a change or scenery and to be on my own.

it's slowly but surely hitting me that i'll be in college soon.
but i mostly just wanna get out of my house and go to cape canaveral soon. lol

movies to see

not necessarily in this order

[X] superbad *:-)*
[X] juno *:-)*
[X] 27 dresses *:-)*
[X] ps i love you *:-\*
american ganster
walk hard
atonement
[X] good luck chuck *:-)*
[X] definitely, maybe *:-) -though ending was a bit confusing*
hairspray
[X] fool's gold *:-D*
[X] step up 2 *:-)*
[X] micheal clayton *:-) - though probably have to see it again*
there will be blood
no country for old men
[X] 21 *:-)*
[X] the bank job *:-\*
[X] harold and kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay *stupid hilarious*
made of honor
[X] ironman *:-D*
indiana jones: kingdom of the crystal skull
sex and the city


more will be added as i think of them

no words

can describe how awesome this past week/weekend was.

wednesday when we first drove down to lakeland, i was with a bunch of middle schoolers and thought "this will be a loong trip." but it actually turned out amazing.
wednesday night i got to see a bunch of my SSTP friends and hang out with jay back at our hotel.
thursday judging went pretty good. 1st round of judging went alright, and 2nd round was better. this day i was starting to make better friends with the other public school kids i was traveling with, and have a good time with them. i also got to meet some pretty cool people that were around me during judging.
that night was the mixer and had a blast again hanging out with my SSTP friends. and then again with the kids from my region as well. that night was really lax since we were done with judging and all. and rooming with Amy was awesome.
friday morning i got the eat lunch with the capital region and then head over to Orlando for MAO state. it was awesome to see people again once i got there because i hadn't seen them in a while.
i took my first topic and individual tests, which went alright. but i didn't care too much :-\.
then back to Lakeland to go to the awards ceremony for SSEF. i thought it was going to be boring at first but it actually went pretty quickly because i was usually in the line waiting for an award or knew someone in the line, so i was anticipating their award. plus, i still hung out with my region, whom i was pretty close to by then. even the teachers i was close to by then, and they were sooo much fun.
plus then i got my $500 special award from the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, which i didn't even know i was up for! and i got my 4th place finish in engineering. (higher than the other two kids from my region in engineering (who had beat me at the regional competition), including the guy who's going to ISEF for our region (who didn't get anything, btw)).
it was an amazing feeling, knowing that i placed 4th and got a cash award.
plus it was amazing seeing all my friends also place in their categories.
after the award ceremony, the teachers and kids from my region gave amy and i little gifts and cards because we were their "seniors" which was soo sweet of them and they didn't have to do. i really did have an awesome time with my region.

then i got to head back over to Orlando and arrived at the double tree right at the end of the meeting that night, and got to announce to, at least half the kids, that i got 4th place and $500. which was extremely satisfying.
saturday morning we got up early and took our next two topic tests. again, i didn't care for them much, but did decent anyway. it was also fun hanging out with the senior girls inbetween tests, and getting ready for the awards night for like 2 hours. lol. i think we all got closer on this trip. even the guys too. i think the seniors got a bit closer.
plus, us devising a plan that day to prank the guys room from last year. and using our magic and sweet skills to place maxi-pads all over their room :-) and everyone's priceless expression. lol
we got 5th in the state, and freed was kinda mad. but when you looked at the score sheet, you couldn't blame the seniors because mu had placed in their topic tests and individual and bowl round. the blank page was alpha (which, we can see because they are crazy and don't study anyway) though it was fun during the ceremony making fun of all the kids walking up onto the stage and commenting on their outfits. lol
that night was the senior meeting, and really wasn't that bad.. after that all 7 senior girls slept in
the suite and stayed up talking til like 3:30. i enjoyed that a lot.
friday we woke up and went to City Walk for lunch. i went to Hard Rock with patrick, gaku, and jeremy, and had some good pulled-pork sandwich.

never did it really hit me during MAO state that this was my last state, until the bus ride home. Clara got food poisoning from her lunch and for about an hour she was in the bathroom on the bus throwing up. once we got to the rest stop, we all pitched in to try and make her feel better. i felt awful because i knew she felt awful and everyone else was around her and you don't want to show your weakness but you can't help it, and you feel horrible, but you can't do anything about it, and so you just feel worse. so me, kavi, candace, and noli all helped her. by getting her food and soemthing to drink and calling her mom and taking care of her. once we got back onto the bus, kavita and i sat her down, and she just said how grateful she was that we were helping her out and how she's going to miss us, and then the three of us just started crying. and i realized just how much i am going to miss them and the three of us and how close we've become and in any time in need we're always there for each other. and then we started laughing because we were all crying. it was only really at that moment on the bus ride, but i realized i'm going to miss them and us so much.


this weekend i realized how many friends i do have and how no matter how long you haven't talked to someone or hung out with someone, you can still be great friends. like my sstp friends or even some mao friends.
it was an amazing weekend, and definitely needed, and i really don't want it to end. (in addition, i haven't done any school work in 5 days. so i have no idea what i missed or what i'll have to make up when)
i also have 10 days to decide where i'm going to college. i'm following kavi's tip and hopefully looking at some more standings will help me decide. :-\

best of both worlds?

i wonder about who my friends are sometimes..
like..
i enjoy having my friends and that they're smart and that we are all pretty down to earth and not bubbly and flakey - most of the time/most of us.
but that also carries over to other aspects as well.
prom is coming up and people are deciding whether they want to go or not... some people say flat out no. while others are still iffy.. though, there are still more people that don't want to go than that do.
i enjoy being friends with the upper percentage of our class, but i also enjoy having a good time and going to prom or football games or such. however, i don't really have any friends that feel the same, so it's sometimes hard to enjoy myself at those events..

prom is coming up... and i pretty much going (i have a dress and everything). there's a group forming that i was invited into, and it would be pretty fun, but i'm not best friends with them. my hope is that some of the smart people will join the group as well, so that it wouldn't be completely awkward.
most of this plan depends on who's going in the group.. which is still up for grabs because no one knows if they're going!

the point of this entry was saying that it's hard to find the balance of having smart friends but still having friends to have a good time with at like prom and stuff.
nor do i have a person, i realized. a person that if you wanna do something, you can just call them up and they'll go with you. or it's understood that you'll go with each other to weekend things (or prom). boy or girl, i don't have a set person that i can just call up and hang out with.. :-\

things to find:
best of both worlds
a person


-edit-
being bored and searching around facebook and listening to other people's sb stories/looking at their pictures, i realized why i'm not better friends with the crowd that goes to the destin area for spring break.
so my new question is.. can i find friends that i can have with and still have decent morals? i think i might've found them. hopefully they'll be my group for prom. so much drama is now resting on inviting one person.. :-\ hopefully it'll get sorted out and we'll have a good time.

4th 9 weeks Senior

welcome to the 4th 9 weeks. when grades really don't matter.

last 9 weeks i had all-A's until the last week, when i thought 3 of my classes were going to slip to a B. Luckily i got them all back up. but last week i didn't feel like i really did anything. i just casually did my work like normal, and still made A's. the only thing that would've brought me down to a B in those classes was that i was missing assignments that i just hadn't done because i was absent. which is a legit excuse.
mostly i just got them to A's so that my mom wouldn't hassle me about them. Although, this 9 weeks i can get straight B's and still have A's on my report card :-).

So i guess senioristis is settling in more now. i forget about homework i'm suppose to do at home and don't look/write in my planner as much now. most of my classes' homework i don't complete at home though. most of the time i do about half or a little more than half and copy the rest in lit or physics. mostly physics.
i think it is a little funny that now some of the AP teachers are trying to "crack down" on cheating. people go caught copying gov, MWDS, and enviro homework. it's funny that this copying has been happening all 4 years, and it's not until now that they're cracking down. i guess now, we've gotten better about spreading information and cheating is more on a wider scale (with Facebook and emailing attachments).
i also think it's funny that some of the teachers actually realize that copying homework is not that much of an offense as cheating on tests. Brennen even told us that he thought he was taking care of cheating on his worksheets by giving a test. lol. after mrs dunlap told him about the cheating of his homework assignment, he gave us a quiz to check if we were cheating once. and hasn't mentioned it since. which was expected.
while mrs BP went ballistic. won't stop us from cheating though. we'll just paraphrase better. lol

with this, i've also noticed that the classes i'm taking this semester/year don't take much understanding. it's mostly just memorization.
last semester i actually had to understand econ and calc 3 to do well on the tests. but this semester, gov is all memorization and diffeq, we just teach ourselves what we need for the homework and make sure we get the right answer (we've only had one test so far). lit - just pay attention. and enviro - as long as you do the hw, you can make C's on her tests.. oh. and physics we just don't do anything. we had one test last 9 weeks that we already had the answers too.
so this copying thing has become more common because we don't need to learn the material for ourselves if we don't have to.
as i said once to Danielle, we're high achieving minimalists.

although, with all this copying and not doing work and senioritis, you would think, i'd have more time. and there are days when i'm sitting at home wishing i was out hanging out with people, but by the time i'm thinking about it, it's too late to call anyone up or anything.
and then on weekends, i would love to take weekend trips to the beach or to some rivers or whatnot. especially now that it's getting warmer. but i looked at my gcalendar, and i don't have another completely free weekend until the weekend after we get out of school:

this weekend - Anchor thing, Drew's party, Easter; then it's the UF invitational; then it's the weekend in spring break, which i'm thinking i'm going to be in DC; then 4/11-12 is relay for life and it's also the weekend before SSEF, so i'm probably going to be working on that; then it's mao state; then it's prom; then 5/2-4 i have free, but it's the weekend before APs so i'm thinking i'm going to be studying for those; then it's the weekend during APs - still studying; then the weekend after APs is my dance rehearsal and recital; then that wednesday, Seniors leave. (of course the weekend after that is also my dad's birthday, so it's still iffy if i could go anywhere. lol)

so my only solution to this problem of wanting to go to the beach, is skipping school one day. which actually wouldn't be all that bad, since, as i said earlier, i don't do anything anyway.
i'm thinking i should go for sure somewhere that monday after APs because i have all AP classes and TA. so... they're not going to be doing anything those days. lol
it's funny to think that you have so much free time, but really, you're still busy. which is awesome. i mean, all the stuff i have planned i'll enjoy. plus, i have more freedom to go out during the week because i don't have as much worry about homework.

i worked so hard jr year. i'm just kinda disappointed i didn't work as hard/taken as many classes the other years. cuz it doesn't seem like it'd boiled down to much. the two colleges i am deciding between, i could've probably been accepted with As and Bs. and even if i did get into MIT, i probably still wouldn't have been able to go because of the money. i'm thinking i'm going to end up at UF because of the money for Ga Tech. it's a great school and all, but it's just i could've made A's and B's and still be in the same situation i'm in now.
although, it's not that bad that i didn't slack off last year, because as i said earlier, it didn't take a hell of a lot of effort to make those As. so it's all good. i try not to have any regrets and make up for it in the present if i do.


this is really long, so i'll sum up, sorta.
senioritis is setting in. and it's fun in a way because it takes away most of my worries.
the cheating thing is getting kinda on my nerves, but it'll soon pass. besides, we're not going to stop, just going to get better.
even though i'm in the same place i would've been doing less work, i don't regret it. i can still have the pride that i made As in these classes. and plus it looks good for scholarship and program opportunities, not just college.
and even though it seems like i should have more time, i'm still busy. but it's more of a relaxed busy... i like it.

now i just have to find ways to skip school... lol

update - wish list

Sunday, October 21, 2007

wish list

-finish GOOD college app essays on time [~x]
-have people read them [x]
-send college apps on time [x]
-get into good colleges [1/2x]
-go to college i like [we'll see]
-get money for college [not looking so good now]
-get money for life expenses now [almost x, it's promising]
-get all the forms in for Intel STS [x]
-hopefully get at least semifinalist for Intel STS. [no]
-get scholarships (and get them turned in on time) [not yet]
-go down to gainesville and do all i want to do w/o getting caught/in trouble. [maybe some day]
-get good score on SAT [~x]
-have 2nd semester start and 1st one over with [xxxxxxx!]
-live in same town as people [this might change.]
-bf [nope.]
-find more time. [getting there..]