Blog: Articles filed under school

Hello September. I have missed you. You might be my favourite among all months, but don’t tell the others. And no, it’s not because my birthday is in September (although that helps). Nor is it because September signals the start of fall television, with new episodes of Castle, Chuck, House, Stargate Universe, etc. More than any other month, even that notorious January, September is a month of changes and new beginnings. For those of us biased in our perceptions by our position in the northern hemisphere, summer will soon be a memory; the leaves will change colour; and I’ll be back in school, where I belong.

I spent this summer doing research and quite enjoyed it. We didn’t make as much progress toward a solution as I had hoped, but I learned a lot, both about mathematics and research in general. I’m comfortable using LaTeX (which is sexy) and have had some experience with Macaulay2 (also pretty hot). I even went to a conference, something that surprised me.

With my research finished, I have these two weeks off before school begins on September 13. Next week I return to work at the art gallery. I don’t look forward to returning to the job that much; my relative solitude of this summer has left me even less eager to interact with people in a customer-service-based position. But I do miss my coworkers, my fellow front desk attendants, so I look forward to returning to them.

I anticipate another great year of school as well. This is my honours year for my math degree, and the Honours Seminar will consist of a sort of research-based project supervised by a prof. We’ll have to write a math paper and give a talk. This is a nice departure from lecture-based courses (I don’t much care for lectures); also, having done research, read papers, and written up results for the past four months, I feel somewhat prepared.

And with summer endings and fall beginnings come changes. My site last had a major redesign over two years ago. I’m still happy with the design in general; however, there have always been certain rough edges I wanted to correct. Now I‘ve done so. A few weeks ago, I rolled out tweaks to the design and significant changes to the backend.

I’ve reorganized the content on the home page. It’s my portal on the Web, something that lets people access my content whether it’s on this site or elsewhere. I‘ve tried to lay it out so that everything is on offer.

You’ll also notice that I have a new background image. Now that is definitely tea. The other image was tea, but ambiguously so, and the berries were an odd addition—it was a very Christmas-like cup of tea. It was the best photo I could find at the time. This new photo is exactly what I envisioned when I originally decided to use a cup of tea as my background image, and I‘m very happy with it.

For a long time, the only real content on this site has been my blog and the About section. Everything else consists of links and a little aggregated content. I have plans to change that soon and add more pages dedicated to original content (or specific aggregated content). For example, you’ll notice that my home page no longer displays my most recent book review from Goodreads. I want to keep my home page compact, and you can easily access my 15 most recent reviews from the books on the sidebar. Instead, I intend to create a new section of the site devoted to my reading habits—not just reviews, but top 10 lists, statistics, etc.

This sort of flexibility is thanks to the new backend. I’ve finally gone over to the dark side and started using a CMS—but not just any CMS. It’s Symphony, an XSLT-based CMS that is both minimalist and developer-friendly. The custom-coded backend I was using was rubbish, and I don’t need anything as powerful as an entire framework. Symphony is exactly what I need, and I highly recommend it.

Tonight Stargate Universe premiered, and I wanted to share my thoughts on it. However, I feel guilty blogging about a television show when I haven’t blogged about arguably more important matters, such as life.

With a month behind me, I feel good about the school year so far. I only have four courses this year: Introductory Analysis, Partial Differential Equations (PDEs), Introduction to Mathematical Probability, and Speculative Fiction. Three math courses and an English course. All of my math courses are interesting, and I was excited to take the English course the moment I saw it offered. I’ll discuss it first, since the rest of the post will be about math.

My Speculative Fiction course is covering only science fiction this section—which is fine. Although I love literature in general and would gladly have taken something like Victorian Literature if this course hadn’t been offered, the chance to read and discuss science fiction for credit is not something I was going to overlook! We’re reading The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, The Left Hand of Darkness, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Neuromancer, Dawn, and Singularity Sky. We also have to watch Blade Runner (a film based on Do Androids Dream).

Of my math courses, Introductory Analysis is my favourite because it comprises my favourite aspect of math: proofs. Specifically, I love algebraic proofs—the more abstract the better. I love math but don’t like numbers so much. PDEs are fascinating and challenging as well; the course is very much oriented toward application, however, whereas I‘m more interested in theory. Unfortunately, my ardour doesn’t quite extend to probability, but I think I’ll survive—so far it hasn’t tripped me up too much.

My involvement in math at the university extends far beyond courses! Last term I marked assignments for a first-year calculus course; this fall I‘m marking a second-year linear algebra course. Moreover, I’m tutoring in the new Lakehead Math Assistance Centre (LUMAC for short). Both of these jobs are paid positions, which is a nice income in addition to my gallery job while also providing me with relevant experience for my future career.

Having spent a few sessions tutoring, I can already say that I enjoy it. We’ll see if it stays that way once the flood of people arrives the week before midterms! For now, however, it’s fulfilling. Plus, it gives me a nice review of first-year courses, like basic calculus, that contain skills I’ll always be needing but don’t always practise as I should.

So I have a very math-filled term, it appears. I like to use the phrase “inundated by math—and I love it.”

Sometime between November and … now … it became now. I’m not quite sure when this happened, or how it happened¹ … but it happened. Now that it’s now and no longer then, that which was must become what was going to be when then became now—which is now.

In that same spirit, the university felt it right and proper to commence a second term of classes following on the heels of the first term. I have six courses this term, three math courses, two philosophy courses, and an English course masquerading under the horribly ambiguous name of “Advanced Rhetoric.”

Two of my math courses, Linear Algebra II and Group Theory, are continuations of two of the courses I took last term. Linear Algebra II is, unsurprisingly, the conclusion to Linear Algebra I. We‘re learning about eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and diagonalization. I’m finding this course easier than the first part, in which I struggled somewhat. Group Theory and Ring Theory are related areas of abstract algebra. “Group theory” always sounds to me like some sort of bizarre sociological phenomenon, but I assure you, it’s a math course—complete with dusty chalkboard, incomprehensible symbols, and theorems named after dead white guys.

The third math course is Vector Calculus, which appears to be the answer to the question, “What happens when you design an art course for mathematicians?”² Not only do we learn about parametric equations, polar curves, vectors, lines, and planes—we get to draw them too! I signed up to write down incomprehensible symbols, not draw them! :P

I’m taking both Logic and Critical Thinking, which complement each other nicely. Logic also comes in handy with math, and my background in math means the symbolic aspect of the course is easy.

Also complementary to logic is rhetoric, embodied in my “Advanced Rhetoric” course. The name is ambiguous because the particular topic is left to the professor. This year, the prof teaching the course specializes in classical rhetoric, so that’s what we’re learning. We’re starting with the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and rhetoricians, particularly Aristotle³ In keeping with the course material, all of our assignments come from the progymnasmata, which is a sequence of fourteen assignments that students would begin at a young age and complete throughout their education. We’re doing a fable, a refutation, an encomium, and an argument. Additionally, we have to keep a “commonplace book.” At the beginning of every class, the prof dictates passages from a book of his choice—we‘ve done Virgil’s Aeneid, Tacitus’ Agricola, and even some I Corinthians. One of the not-so-secret consequences of this exercise will be an improvement in our ability to take down dictation, an ability that was integral to students in ancient Greece and has significantly lapsed since the 19th century.

Edit: Forgot to add my favourite quotation so far from my rhetoric prof:

Aristotle loved to classify things. A platypus would have really messed him up.

Win.

But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you for a moment. Did you know that you may just be a hologram? No? But wait, there’s more! The entire universe may just be a hologram. How unbelievably awesome yet intensely weird is that?

Hoping, as always, to post more regularly—I have some interesting ideas! I just need to find a good, routine spot in my weekly schedule where I can write blog posts.

• [ 1 ] If you know, please do explain it to me.
• [ 2 ] The real answer should be: DON’T.
• [ 3 ] He wrote an entire book called Rhetoric, dontcha know!

Last updated Friday, January 23, 2009 at 7:27 PM

So I was going to write this entry in French, but I discovered along the way that I’ve forgotten my simple past tense. This disturbs me.

I took French from grade 1 until grade 11 in school (this was before the provincial government postponed mandatory French until grade 4). It’s only compulsory until grade 9, but I liked my teachers, and the courses were interesting and academic. Plus, being able to speak another language is a plus. Except I can’t really speak it now, can I?

Part of me thinks I don’t have an ear for languages. I excelled at reading and writing French. However, even at the height of my proficiency, I was never too hot at pronunciation or comprehension of spoken French. Nevertheless, I feel bad that I live in a bilingual country yet I only speak English. There’s this whole other culture that’s an integral part of my country’s history and current events, yet I ignore it. I feel like an elitist anglophone snob!

This week’s episode of Spark includes a segment about the French-English digital divide. That’s what got me thinking about this, although it was also tonight’s French-language debate amongst the federal party leaders. I recorded it, even though my French is rusty. Luckily I was able to catch the gist of what I watched—I didn’t watch it all, because it is rather long, and most of the issues will be covered again in Thursday’s English-langauge debate.

Of course, no amount of wanting my French to improve will magically make it improve. I‘d actually have to do something about it. My chances of doing this in my free time are virtually nil. Maybe next year, if it’s offered, I’ll take Lakehead University’s Elementary French course—it accepts my grade 11 French class as a prerequisite, and that will provide the classroom-directed motivation I need to re-engage myself in French. I guess I could also try reading for leisure in French. Maybe some Camus? I wonder if I could get my hands on Douglas Coupland in French…. :P

For those of you who speak multiple languages, what was your experience in learning languages other than your first? If you went through immersion (either in school or just by living in a different country), did you find that conducive or challenging?

After a weekend of work, Mondays are refreshing. I don’t work on Mondays, and I get to go back to school and learn.

I’ve been back for over a week now, and I’m enjoying it. This is my easy term; I only have five courses: Foundations and Issues in Education, Educational Technology in the Classroom, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra I, and Ring Theory with Applications. Yes, two education courses and three maths. I love math.

Of the education courses, the technology one is online. I knew going into it that it would be easy, but as it stands right now, it’s rather inane: for the first four weeks all we have to do is read, then we get a test. Then we have to work in groups to create a blog about teaching technologies, theories that apply to these technologies, etc. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that the reading material is full of typos, passive voice, prepositions at the end of the sentence—I‘m very glad that I don’t have to buy a textbook, but this is almost torture. Spellcheck, please!

My other education course looks like it’ll be more interesting. At least it’s mostly discussion-based. That makes it easier to sit through those hour-and-a-half classes.

Did I mention I love math? The university atmosphere works well for me. I like when someone who knows more than I do challenges me (i.e., with an assignment), then I go and teach myself what’s required to figure out the assignment. If I have trouble, I ask for help. I know that many people don’t learn this way, so the lectures are helpful too. However, I‘m glad that university gives me the opportunity to learn in the way I want to learn.

Of my three math courses, linear algebra is the easiest. It’s basically computation: vectors, matrices, and of course, linear systems. Differential equations are slightly harder. I ordered my textbook from the United States in order to get a cheaper price, and it still hasn’t arrived. That will make doing this first assignment problematic.

Ring theory interests me the most. We haven’t started discussing rings yet; last week we covered divisibility and prime numbers, and this week we are working on modular arithmetic and congruence classes. Rings are in the next chapter. This area of math fascinates me because it involves constructing the basic operations of math from scratch, allowing us to define new mathematical systems (presumably to tackle certain problems). That’s rather exciting. And there’s nothing quite like the feeling I get after figuring out a nifty proof.

I’m trying to blog more regularly—not once a day, but at least a couple of times a week. I‘d planned to blog over the weekend, but I was very tired. I found that the major reason I wouldn’t blog (other than being tired) is that I had no compelling idea for a post. Now I’m keeping a list of potential topics in Todoist, so that should generate more posts.

The back to school ads have landed.

Going back to university is different from going back to high school. For one thing, I‘m not in school all day, so it feels like I have more free time. In general my schedule is more flexible. Since I’m in a fairly academic program, my school supplies are limited to notebooks, pens, and pencils. I can otherwise ignore the exhortations of sneakers, markers, pencil crayons, and whatnot. Give me something on which to scribble my equations, and I’m happy.

I certainly learned a lot in my first year of university; reflection on this knowledge has led me to make a few resolutions about this year. Firstly, I‘m going to try and establish a more consistent schedule in terms of sleeping, when I do homework, writing, working on my computer stuff, etc. While I still need to be flexible, hopefully this will help me manage my time better. I have four math courses in the fall term, all of which will have weekly assignments, I’m sure. Compared to my two full-year math courses last year, this will make things more complicated.

Secondly, I’m going to try harder. I did well last year, but I could do better if I tried a little harder. For math this means taking better notes (I tend not to take notes sometimes ) and really practising a concept if it gives me trouble. For English … okay, I don’t think I can really try harder in English and improve my grade. I won’t brag. But English is much more subjective when it comes to grading assignments anyway. All I have to do is continue to produce insightful essays. Otherwise, it’s for my own erudition (and the course credit).

School is still a month away, of course. The back-to-school ads merely got me thinking on the subject. I have my courses scheduled. The accounts office should send me a correct invoice someday, hopefully before I graduate. Now I just have to survive the rest of this summer, and it’s back to robbing the Ivory Tower for me!

Tuesday had my last two exams. I’m officially finished my first year of university: no more homework, no more studying. I have four months to relax. Or, you know, not.

I leave for Ohio in 15 days and have a ton of stuff I need to finish before then. I really want to finish VSNS Lemon before that happens, even though I‘m not optimistic enough to think I’ll have time to complete the redesign of my site. But that will happen. Stay tuned!

So how was my first year of university? It was good. Pretty similar to what I expected. It took me longer to settle into it than I had hoped; those first few months were somewhat rocky. However, by the end of the year, I felt more comfortable. Next year I want to work on my time management. My schedule this year was light because I took three online courses, one each term and then one the full year, which left me with a lot of free time each day because I wasn’t in class at the campus. Next year I probably won’t take any online courses—since nothing I need or want will be offered online—so I’ll be spending more time in class. I’ll have to keep up with the workload, especially because I hear education courses aren’t difficult but full of work.

I’m so glad exams are done too. I go stircrazy sitting in the fieldhouse for more than hour; after that, I go from “doing well” on the exam to “just finishing so I can get out of here.” Luckily with math, the two are usually one and the same. With English, my responses tend to start out long and then get shorter and shorter—which may not be a bad thing, as verbosity is seldom all it’s cracked up to be.

But now I’m going to stop blogging and start coding. Don’t worry—I have plenty of more blogging to do before I leave for Ohio.

This is mostly for my dad, who has been bugging me about how I‘m doing in school but doesn’t understand that I feel more comfortable writing about such matters in front of several million strangers instead of actually talking out loud about it to a parent. Curse you, modern society!

I have one more day to go, and then we‘ve got Reading Week. It’s our version of “spring break” for universities. I don’t have anything special planned. I just want to enjoy the time off. I’ll read, work on my own stuff, try not to think about school … And work, of course. Work has been very hectic this month. I’ve had a lot of extra shifts added to my calendar as the month progressed, special event type shifts which can be stressful because of their unusual times and the amount of preparation we have to do (like cleaning, moving tables, etc.). I hope March calms down.

When it comes to school, this is midterm season. I only have three classes in which I have midterms, however. My sociology midterm is this week; it’s online, so I can do it anytime from today until Saturday night. The catch is that you only get 60 minutes once you log in, and you can’t log in twice. So first I will study, then I’ll do the test … I did well on the last midterm, so this one should go okay too. My calculus midterm is March 3. In discrete math we’ve got four midterms because the professor broke up each midterm into two different tests. I like this system better, since it means you have to study less for each test. So my next test is March 7.

My first of two English essays was due today. It was pretty easy, just a close reading of Sonnet 138. There’s one other, slightly longer essay due at the end of the term, but otherwise I just have to read enough that I can talk about our course material when I get to the final exam.

Rhetoric (online) is almost as easy as composition was! Actually, I’m getting better marks in this class than I did with composition—it’s the same professor, as the two courses rather go together. He’s a hard but fair marker, so when I say “better marks”, I mean one or two more marks. So I am doing very well in that class and have no worries about it.

So that’s how my schooling is going, Dad. Now all of you, stay tuned for a post later today about my shiny new camera.

Tomorrow is my first day of my first year of university. I‘m both excited and nervous. Today I went shopping for school supplies. Notebooks, pens, that sort of thing.

I have two math classes, so I’ll be doing a lot of pencil work. I love wooden pencils and have eschewed their mechanical counterparts up until now. However, since the spacial organization of lecture-style seating makes pencil sharpening more of an Olympic sport than useful utility, I‘ve decided to make the leap to mechanical pencils. But, being who I am, I couldn’t just stop there. Oh no. It’s never that simple.

Wal-Mart presented me with a good, but not dazzling, selection of pencils from which to choose. Being a last minute vulture meant I only had the leftovers, but they still presented me with a poser. Firstly, mechanical pencils come in different diameters of lead! So naturally I had to buy one type of pencil that uses 0.7 mm lead and one that uses 0.5 mm lead in order to compare the two. Secondly, if I‘m going to be using the same pencil for hours a day, I want one that’s comfortable; I ignored the cheaper mechanical pencils and went for two brands that came with grips. The 0.7 one is thinner; the 0.5 one is thicker and has a more durable grip.

So to summarize: yes, I bought two different types of mechanical pencils in order to analyse how I like them and decide which one I prefer based on lead diameter and grip comfort. Go me.

School is not over yet; exams have yet to come, but tonight I went through the complicated tribulation of the graduation ceremony and emerged (although somewhat tired) unscathed. The ceremony was long, and at times dull, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. I cried when our teachers sang, because not only did they sing well, but I thought about all they‘ve done for us during our schooling. It’s part of the reason I’m going into teaching, I think—not to sing, but just to affect others‘ lives in such a profound manner. I’ve been lucky to have a great number of dedicated teachers who do more than impart facts. They‘ve supported me and shaped me as a person. Similarly, valedictorian Cassie Graham’s speech was moving and flawlessly delivered. I mean, Dr. Seuss?! That alone deserves mucho kudos—there are very few people wiser than that man, and the quotation that Cassie chose was spot-on. But it was much more than that. It was personal. There was something in there that let everyone stop and nod and say, “That was me.”

It was surreal, in a sense, as I walked away from the stage, proceeding out the auditorium doors and into the much-needed fresh air. I‘ve graduated high school. It’s one of these seminal moments that define our culture, the kind of special ceremony portrayed with honour and reverence in TV shows and movies. It is our coming of age. I‘m also so focused on the future that I forget the present. I’m a seventeen-year-old who has just graduated high school.

Whoa.

I‘m scared. I’ve been coddled for the last 17 years. Now I’m on the cusp of adulthood; now I have to make my own choices and actually guide my own life. While I am intellectually ready to move on to higher learning, I’m going to miss the social setting of high school. I am not a terribly social person, but I still have my little group of close friends, and they mean a lot to me—and I‘m not sure if I express that enough.

I’m going to Lakehead University next year, so I won’t even be leaving the city. My goal is to become a high school teacher. Rather simple, eh? But it’s what I want to do (and write novels!). Many of my friends are staying here to go to LU or Confederation College, so I will still see them. Two of my closest friends, Cortney and Vivike, are leaving for southern Ontario to pursue their goals, and I’m going to miss them so much—and this is an awareness that has only quickened recently as the end of the year approaches.

For you see, I am afraid of change. A basic aspect of my personal philosophy has and always will be that change is good. Change is a fundamental aspect to humanity without which we would not survive. We should embrace change. Yet I‘m afraid of it all the same. I’m scared of what’s out there, this big unknown in front of me. What am I going to do?

This isn’t unique, I know. And right now, that’s the only thing keeping me on track: the fact that I know I’m not alone. It’s just an expression of what everyone goes through at multiple points of their life, when they reach this crucial turning point that will define a new portion of their story. It’s not even poignant or profound, but give me a break—after all, I just sat through a three hour ceremony. My diction isn’t exactly well-rested.

I’m not even sure what I wanted to say anymore. I just wanted to collect my thoughts about this whole graduation experience. After all—now we‘re people. And I just wanted to say how immeasurably proud I am of my peers, and especially of my friends, for all of our accomplishments, and for our bright prospects.

I’m going to miss high school, and I‘m going to love university. I’m sad to go and happy to move on…. I don’t know. I’m going to stop now, because I‘m not making any sense, I don’t think. There’s just too many emotions clashing in my heart right now to talk about any particular feeling. I’ve done my best, too, to avoid as many of these cliches that seem to dogmatically follow graduation (although I‘m sure there’s a few in here somewhere).

Here’s a random thought! We’re six billion apes crammed onto a moist rock hurtling through the vast expanse of space. No steering wheel, no brakes. We think we‘re special because we’ve got fire and a stick.

And yeah, I think that digital watches are a neat idea. I‘m Ben Babcock, and I just graduated high school. Now someone gimme a stick. It’s my turn to make fire.

I got to miss the entire day of school for a math competition at the university.

The individual competition was in the morning, so I sat in the lecture theatre with a hundred or so other kids and answered 15 multiple choice and 5 full solution questions (or attempted to answer, I guess). It was pretty hard, but not as bad as last year. I did well on the multiple choice, I think, although not so well on the full solution.

Then we got a free lunch, which is always a nice break. Pasta, chicken wings. Nanaimo bars for dessert. Mmm. After lunch those of us from Westgate tossed a Frisbee around for a little, since it was so nice outside. They gave away free Frisbees, coffee mugs, and of course, the annual t-shirt.

Then there was the team competition. That went better than the individual one. I was partnered with two other fairly smart kids, so we did fine.

I‘m not sure why I love this math competition so much, except that I do. Well, it was cool to get a day off school and a free lunch just for doing math. And the t-shirt is nice.

Not that I’m materialistic or anything…

Note that f(x) must be the same over this interval. Silly me.

(My only consolation is that not only did my two classmates fail to spot this, but the student teacher was the one who tried to do this with different functions and led us into the incorrect solution. )

I’m nearing the end of the first week back (-ish). So far it feels … the same, yet different. The same in the sense that I’m used to it; there aren’t many surprises. However, being a grade 12 feels different. I‘ve been doing this for three years. I can look around and see the grade 9s and wonder if I was ever like that. The friends I have beside me I’ve known for three or four years (and some even longer), and we’ve all gone through similar experiences. Now that this is my last year, the sense that it is all coming to a close becomes more obvious.

Westgate seems a lot more crowded this year, in class size and hallway congestion. This could be an illusion; it could be normal and I just need to readjust after the break.

My geometry class has about 25 people. It isn’t that bad, except that geometry has always been one of my weaker points in math, simply because I am not a visual person; I don’t learn visually. I prefer more algebra with equations. We’ve already delved into vectors, and although I grasp most of the key concepts, drawing the diagrams can elude me. Hopefully, however, this is just a byproduct of back-to-school jetlag.

After only two physics classes I already remember the problem I had last year: it’s so mind-numbingly slow. And this is not to insult Mr. Andrews at all—he is both funny and a great guy. But we spend most of the period with example problems, which we get an insane amount of time to do. I can understand that some people need longer amounts of time, but I dislike how the AP students have been combined with the regular grade 12 physics students. Now there’s 34 bodies squished into the room. I still need review in physics, but I am ready to go through it quickly and start learning new stuff.

On the flip side, my AP Calculus class has only six people. I already like it; the math is more to my liking (with equations and fun stuff). I think I’m going to buy a graphing calculator, however; it will help me both in my math courses this year and in my math major to come!

Last class of the day is drama. Ah, wubbly drama. How many different ways can I say “best class ever”?! Need I list the reasons? Mrs. Vieira is teaching it once again, so we shall have a blast. There are only thirteen people, including myself, and I love small classes. Bonus points: we are all from the first semester drama class, save one person, whom I know from working on The Outsiders production last semester anyway. Since we‘re such a tightly-knit group, we already know how to work well together and still have a good time. Of all my classes, drama is the one that most feels like I just put school on pause and can step back into it right away. Plus it’s comforting to relax and goof off (er, I mean, work hard at drama!) at the end of the day.

To sum up: grade 12 is a tingly feeling that comes with the anticipation of escaping; math is craziness; drama is the best thing since sliced bread landing butter side up.

Here’s just a random distillation of the thoughts swirling around in my head today (happy Labour Day, everyone). Maybe after doing this I can actually get some writing done before I go to bed.

Speaking of which, I have school tomorrow. Yes, grade 12, my last year of high school. For those who would like to pretend to be interested in my course schedule:

First semester: Geometry/Discrete Math, AP Physics, AP Calculus, and Drama
Second semester: AP English, Chemistry, History, and Data Management

Yes, I have three math (physics is basically math-on-a-stick) courses in a row. There is a theory that lunch will sneak in between physics and calculus, but it’s a fringe theory at best.

For those of you whom I haven’t told, I originally wanted to take Writer’s Craft, but that was only offered once, at the same time as Geometry. :/ But by not taking it, I wouldn’t get a group 1 credit, which I need to graduate. Enter History class, say goodbye to my spare period. My workload shall be intense. But I don’t feel too bad, because I don’t deserve to—my friend Viv is getting royally screwed over in her schedule, which is quite messed up and will require some creative solutions to fix it. It’ll work out though.

Er, Steve Irwin died. In other news, the Department of Homeland Security has now banned stingrays from carry-on luggage. In a recent press release, a source revealed that $50 million has been allocated for the installation of stingray-detection technology at all major airports in the continental U.S.

I’ve spent most of the day putting off writing (not-writing, as I like to call it). I wasted a good half hour to hour browsing Wikipedia. Do you know how addictive that is? Oh sure, one article to fulfill curiosity seems harmless enough. But there are so many tantalising links to other articles! And before you know it, entire hours pass while you hop from article to article, never finishing one because you‘re going on to the next. It’s madness, I tell you! Madness!

I spent most of my time there browsing idly through the Sailor Moon articles, as well as taking a glance at the Big Bad Beetleborgs—whose name I’ve been trying to remember for ages; I can picture the costumes clearly in my head but had completely forgotten the name. Remember when those shows, and others, were on TV after school when we were young‘uns? I don’t know if they‘re just too old and have been replaced by fresher shows, or if I’m just too old to watch them in their time slots nowadays, but I do miss them, as poor as they were. I was a fan of Sailor Moon but only vaguely remember it nowadays (ironically I now watch no anime whatsoever, even though Sailor Moon was one of the first animes to migrate from Japan to North America). The Big Bad Beetleborgs were my substitute to Power Rangers (which I could never fully enjoy for some reason).

So yeah, I wasted time reading Wikipedia articles. And now I‘m wasting time doing this. But it’s worth it, no? It means I will avoid writing.

Stargate Atlantis Season 3 premieres in a week! I watched Episode 19 of Season 2, “Inferno”, tonight. The Movie Network is airing the Season 2 finale right before Season 3’s premiere next week, so I can catch it then. I also can’t wait for Battlestar Galactica (October 7), Doctor Who (Thanksgiving), and Stargate SG-1 (dunno when). And I‘m reasonably enthused for Smallville’s return, since the season finale was interesting, plus I will give Eureka a try, I think. Yes, folks, September is upon us, and that means that television is back in full swing.

And the promise of plenty of procrastination.

One more exam to go. My French exam today was very easy, and I found out that I did quite well on both Math and Chemistry! Just Computer Science is left.

On the last day of classes, I asked Mr. Dubyk, my math/Computer Science teacher, where he got the nifty cover bag for his laptop. It’s essentially a cover into which you slide the laptop and then velcro the top closed with two straps. I was intrigued because it looked durable and easy to carry. My laptop bag is bulky, and its strap just broke recently, so I’m thinking that I’ll buy a backpack (especially if I’m going to ride my bike more) and just carry my laptop in there amongst other things. A cover to keep my laptop clean would help though, so I asked him from where he got the bag, and he said that is wife made it—then he offered to have her make me one!

Just goes to show that karma works quite well—if you do good things for people, they do good things for you, and sometimes you get your own little laptop bag out of the deal. He gave it to me this morning when I ran into him and asked for my math mark:

In a different vein, I just got an email from A Small Orange. The server that hosts my site will be moved to their AtlantaNAP datacentre on Wednesday, which means some downtime:

Next Wednesday, June 28th at 8PM EST…we’ll be physically moving the servers your site is currently located on. The allocated time is one (1) hour and the specific servers to be moved are Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, and Charlie along with 3 dedicated servers. They will all be moved to our new datacenter cage in AtlantaNAP. It takes approximately 15-20 minutes to physically drive between the two facilities, but there is also time needed to turn off the servers properly, package them up, unpackage them, and plug everything back in. We don’t expect to take the full hour, but are allocating it just in case.

So in case you can’t get to my site on Wednesday for an hour or two, that’s why.

Went to tonight’s Border Cats game! It was excellent. Final score was 7-4 for the Cats, and the game itself was fun to watch. The first few innings were slow, and the Lacrosse Loggers were up by 4. But we scored several times and were tied by the eighth. The bottom of the eighth was amazing: stolen bases, errors on the part of the other team, the type of runs that make you cheer because they’re so improbable and extraordinary!

The Snowbirds were flying tonight too, and I regret forgetting to take my camera along—they flew quite low, and I probably could have caught a few good photos. Oh well. I’ll take some photos of the next baseball game if I can remember my camera.

It was also graduation night for Westgate. Congratulations to those of my friends who graduated and good luck on your future endeavors. I’m going to still be in school for another year, toiling away.

My French presentation is tomorrow. I was supposed to go Friday, second last, but I switched with my friend because she had to play in the band at grad tonight and had to go first tomorrow. I don’t mind, although apparently my teacher forgot to book the projector, which means that I probably won’t be able to accompany my presentation with my slideshow. It’s not a big deal, but she likes visual aids and it probably would have made my presentation more interesting. Oh well. C’est la vie, non? I should probably work on that essay before I go to bed.

Only 12 more days of school left!

I can’t believe I’m counting down, but I‘m just that ready for school to finish. Things are going so slowly. The only class in which I really do much work anymore is French anyway, so I’m ready for things to end. This week should be easy, but next week I have a lot of extra-curricular activities going on, including a Black Light production and the school’s Outsiders production—on the same day!

Baseball game tomorrow. First one of the season.

Vanilla Guestbook goes nicely. This weekend’s goal was to skin it. I will give you guys a preview of it quite soon—it is not the world’s best skin, but it is okay. (Think of it as incentive to customize it for your site ). I’m just finalizing a few features and then it needs documentation and smilies! Which means that if you can make smilies, please send me an e-mail or otherwise contact me! I would be much obliged, because graphics aren’t my strong suit.

I‘m helping out with the backstage portion of my school’s production of The Outsiders. Today after school, we needed to paint a set of stairs grey as a piece of the set. The tech department had graciously attached a railing to the stairs (which are just white pieces of wood), and then deposited them on the stage. We planned to carry it into the drama room, which is relatively adjacent to the stage (separated only by a hallway) and paint in there. Easy, right?

Wrong. There’s a ladder up to the lighting booth in between the stage proper and the door on stage right that leads to the hallway. As a result, the stairs were too wide to fit through either gap around the ladder, and we had to carry them down the steps at the front of the stage, across the entire length of the gym, into the main hallway, up another set of steps into the cafeteria, and then across the entire cafeteria to another set of doors.

This is where we encountered our biggest problem—apparently the stairs wouldn’t fit through those doors either. We even tried to jam it through using brute force, but no such luck. We did, however, manage to get it wedged between the door and the pole that goes between the two double doors.

We ended up having to remove the railing (without which the stairs were narrow enough to fit) and carry them into the drama room as two components. It was still quite an…interesting experience. But I‘m quite tired now, especially after having walked home.

Oh, and happy birthday to my friend Neil, who’s seventeen today!

Today I participated in the TD Canada Trust Math Competition at LU. I went last year too, although it was at the college then because of a strike at the university.

I don’t think I did too well at the individual portion. Part of the reason was that some of the questions involved stuff I simply haven’t learned yet. As for the team competition…I think we did reasonably well. Again, I felt a bit useless because I was on a team with two grade 12s (the grade above me) and I didn’t know half as much as they did. Plus, there was nothing on conic sections! That was my “thing”, since I had just finished learning it, whereas the grade 12s had forgotten it. Oh, there were sequences and series all right (another grade 11 subject that I haven’t learned), but no conics whatsoever!

So yeah…we did get down an answer for every question, but we used the horrendous method of guess-and-check for nearly every one, and our proofs were quite flimsy. The answers will be posted online sometime this weekend, so I’ll get a link up to them later.

Lunch was quite good. There was pasta, caesar salad, buns, and lots of little pieces of cakes and sundaes for dessert. I enjoyed it muchly. Oh, and I got a t-shirt.

So it wasn’t a bad day; I wish I could have done better, but I did get the day off school and I think I acquitted myself as well as I could have. I’m tired now and feel burdened by all the stuff I have to do. None of it is marked “urgent”, so I don’t do it. I’m so lazy.

I did type this up, so I guess that’s today’s accomplishment.

My French class went on a field trip today. We went to “Kingfisher Outdoor Education Centre”. It’s a place down near Kingfisher Lake where they teach students about biology and the environment and stuff, and it’s a neat place to visit. Our French teacher, Mme. Ben Sari, arranged for us to take the trip so that we could practice our French (the guides don’t speak French, but we could speak in French to each other about what we saw and such). Let me say right now that it was a really cool idea.

We got on the bus at the start of the day and drove for half an hour to Kingfisher, which is slightly out of the way. Now, before I go on, I should explain what I mean by “slightly out of the way”. For those of you who have never been to Northwestern Ontario, Canada, or even the northern part of the United States, then you must realise that we are smack dab in the middle of the boreal forest. Basically you drive either east or west along the highway, otherwise you are in the bush. Looking out the window of the bus, I would see: “Trees”, “Trees”, “Trees”, “Rocks”, “Trees”, “Trees”, “Bait shop”, “Trees”, “Trees”, “Trees”, “House”, “Trees” … and so on and so forth, with many, many more trees.

We arrived at Kingfisher around 10:00. The bus couldn’t go all the way up to the cabins, so we had to walk up the road to the cabins; it was a good way to start our adventure. We met our guides, and we went into classroom-like place for our pre-hike briefing. Having been to Kingfisher before, I already knew a lot about it.

Before embarking on the hike, we took a picture of our French class (bonus points if you can identify who I am in the picture). On the hike we saw such things as evidence of woodpeckers (you naysayers were wrong; they do exist!), moss (ooooh), a bog (yummeh), and a pitcher plant. Our guides, (left to right) Jenny, Shelly, and Lisa were quite nice, and interesting.

After the hike, we had lunch, cooking hot dogs and sausages and such. Mme. Ben Sari even had some French songs on CD. She put them on; they were kind of jig-like. She urged most of us to dance, and a few did, including myself (the rest of you guys were yeller! ).

After lunch we got to play what must be the coolest game in the universe. It is called the “survival game”. Each person gets an animal. They are either a herbivore, carnivore, or an omnivore, identified by a coloured headband. The goal of the game is to survive in a section of the forest near Kingfisher whilst getting essentials: food, water, shelter. Herbivores have seven lives and must collect 5 foods (5 hole punches out of 15 specially marked cans hanging from trees in the area) and 5 waters (the cans are blue). Carnivores have three lives and must collect 5 herbivore lives for food, and 5 waters. Omnivores have three lives and need 5 waters, but they can eat either herbivores or they can get food from the food can things. The adults get to play various natural disasters that can kill any type of animal, such as fire, flood, a hunter, disease, et cetera.

I was a deer (a herbivore, for those who don’t know ) and I was okay. Not great, but okay. I had trouble finding enough cans; I kept on coming back to the same can! I was caught thrice, but I gave each carnivore a good chase, and I even fell down once or twice and hurt myself. But it all turned out all right, and by the end of the game I was exhausted.

Realise that I’m not an outdoors person to begin with; I am sedentary and enjoy my computer. So the fact that I had fun on this outdoors trip was really quite something, and it was fantastic. I guess I‘m just very, very lucky.

Anyway, that was about it. It was by far a great way to spend my day, and very exhausting. In fact, I’m surprised I managed to type so much about it, but it was that good—I just had to document it so that I would never forget it, eh.

I went driving for my first time today after Black Light!

I didn’t crash the car into anything, though, so we’ll call it a success. My dad took me to a subdivision where there’s no traffic. Basically I tried to get comfortable with the car—which still scares me—and get a feel for using the steering wheel, gas, brakes, etc. I bemoan my lack of spatial sense and find it very difficult to know just how hard to press a pedal or turn the wheel. But I’ll learn.

Like I said, I didn’t break anything, and I did pretty well. Now I just have to find a driving school. I’ve put that on hold for a bit because Black Light practices have been my weekend focus. We present on April 10 and today (er, Saturday) was our first actual practice with the entire set assembled. Unsurprisingly, the play makes much more sense with a set around it than without! We have one more practice next week, a dress rehearsal, and then…show time! I think we’ll be ready.

My “project” this weekend has been programming Snake in Turing (what we’ve been using for computer science). I have it all done except for one bug with the high score feature that causes the game to crash. Darn inconveniences.

And I just realised that Daylight Savings Time kicked in—I glance at my clock: 1:59. I look again, 3:05. :blink: Either DST snuck up on me, or I blacked out. Now I have to go to bed because I’ve just lost an hour.

I’ve learned a life lesson today: People will give you cell phones if you take English classes.

Go back and read that sentence. Yeah. Crazy, eh? You see, my brother is in grade 8 and shall be going into grade 9, so he has his option sheets for next year. He originally intended on taking several applied-level courses (if you don’t live in Ontario, you probably don’t understand this part, but you’ll get the gist of it). We managed to talk him into everything at the academic level, save for English. My parents finally got him to take academic English (on the theory that it’s easier to drop down into applied than it is to move into academic) by promising to get him a cell phone.

Society triumphs again. I think.

So yeah. My plan is pretty simple: send me a cell phone and I shall do your English homework. Not that I actually want a cell phone (it’s not like I’d use it). But the money you lose buying me a cell phone can be considered the just punishment for even thinking about getting someone else to do your work for you. Only politicians can get away with that.

I did say that I wouldn’t make any decisions until 3:30. Well, it’s 4:32 right now, and I already have a pretty good idea of how this semester will be.

I finally figured out what the computer course is about: “Introduction to Computer Science”. Basically programming and stuff. We’re going to start off with Turing, then move into XHTML—but only so we can display the output from our final units, creating dynamically driven websites using databases and PHP.

So in other words, I already know most of this stuff (except Turing). I don’t think I’ll learn a lot coding-wise, although I hope I’ll emerge with an improved understanding of OOP and maybe regex. But Mr. Dubyk (the teacher) told me he’d help get rid of our bad habits, of which I have accumulated quite a lot. The major focus of the course, however, is on planning one’s programs using flow charts and such before one even starts coding them. I really think that this will help me, since I am terrible when it comes to planning. I really should plan, but I just can’t stand doing it. Being forced to do it will help, though, since it’ll make my life easier in the long run. So all I have to make sure is that I don’t step on any toes.

Mr. Dubyk’s a pretty cool guy though. I start the day with him too, in Math, which I think will be fine. He talked to us about how 20% of our mark consists of the communication portion, which involves knowing what the symbols are and how to translate them into comprehensible English. He really appreciates that part of the course, and English in general, so I think he’s just what I need: someone who likes me as a person, and who knows that I can go ahead and learn at my own fast pace myself, but who is available to help me with the organisational and applicational skills that I often neglect in my quest for knowledge.

Chemistry is, well, chemistry. I think I’ll learn a lot but it won’t really be that hard. And French will be fine; a lot of my friends are in it. Mme. Melanson teaches it now instead of Mlle. Kukko, at least for the first half. I really wanted Kukko as my teacher, because she’s fun and helpful, but I feel so sorry for her because she’s been overloaded by her semester one courses. So I hope she feels better soon.

That’s about it. I’m going to just relax now after my first day. Hardest academic course will be French, because vocabulary is difficult. Chemistry will have the most intense workload, math will be fun, and computers will be interesting. Let’s see how my predictions match up in 90 days or so.

Tomorrow I go back to school. Mixed feelings, eh, which I kind of regret, since I want to like school. Westgate makes that incredibly difficult, however. The atmosphere is just not wubbly like it was back at FWCI.

But I harp on that enough. I‘m going into this semester with a fresh slate: no preconceived notions until 3:30 PM tomorrow. Then I can make irrational decisions if I want, but only then. Maybe it won’t be so bad. I supposedly get a teacher from FWCI for two of my classes.

Speaking of classes, I have math, chemistry, French, and a computer course. I have no clue what the computer course is about—I signed up for it last year but have completely forgotten what it involves. So tomorrow will indeed be an interesting day. Everything is still really up in the air, of course, since my schedule could have changed.

Anyway I should get to bed, as I have to wake up in about seven hours and eat and go to school. I’m glad to be going back, even though the week could have been a bit longer.

P.S. Sorry if those leftovers I ate before going to bed were supposed to be your lunch, Dad.

What a wild ride! Got up, ate breakfast, went to school, set up for drama. It was interesting, to say the least. I love the controlled chaos of setting up for a drama production.

As you may recall, last week’s drama exam was moved to this week.

The order of the docudramas were: “Genocide”, “Hurricane Katrina”, “Life in the Fast Lane” (my group!), and “War for Peace”. They were all brilliant, considering that we hadn’t practiced them for a week. Every group had its share of mistakes (such as me forgetting to do portions of a chase scene) but every group had its strong points too. I think that, visually, “Genocide” was the most effective. They had an awesome array of visual icons. “War for Peace” presented the most meaningful message (all of the topics are meaningful, but I loved how they used “In Flander’s Fields” for one portion; it was quite moving). “Hurricane Katrina” had awesome music! And my group, aside from the great chase scene, had the benefit of being a slightly lighter topic—not necessarily in nature, but in the way we presented it.

Overall I think it worked out wonderfully. Cleaning up wasn’t that bad either. Now I just have to wonder what I got for a mark.

I’ll put pictures up later. They mostly didn’t turn out well because of the lighting, so there’s a lot of glare on my classmates‘ eyes, and I’m too lazy to do some glare removal right now. Eventually.

Thanks to Dave for doing the curtains, Vivike for doing the slideshow stuff, Cora for the lighting, and Mrs. Vieira did the sound.

The entire class was awesome. I’m going to miss drama next semester, because it was without a doubt the best part of this year.

I apologise for the language in the title, but it’s rather fitting. I was all ready, all hyper, to do our drama exam … and then it was cancelled.

Mrs. Vieira’s apparently sick. I’m not angry; I‘ve been sick before too. I’m just very disheartened, disappointed, and basically I feel like I‘ve been punched in the gut. I was ready, and now I have to wait until next Wednesday. I don’t even know what time.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t so disorganised. The groups were running around today, snapping at each other, trying to get things done, even with Mrs. Vieira absent. My group is pretty well organised, but I still feel very uneasy. If we had more guidance, if we knew when our exam might be, that would be better. :/

And I got an 88% for our group English seminar on The Plague. Apparently it was “too complicated” for our audience; we should have “simplified” it. olleyes:

So I didn’t have a good day today. But it was the last day of the semester, so hopefully the week will improve.

Last updated Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 1:14 AM

It was rat dissection day in biology class! (Tomorrow too).

Yes, my friends, large preserved white rats from Boreal Laboratories shipped from Toronto to Thunder Bay for the use in our fun fun dissection.

It was absoutely repulsive. Not so much the whole cutting into a dead rat part, I can stomach that. It was the squishy consistency of the internal organs and ugly colour of the liver that made me pause. That, and the fact that no matter how many times I wash my hands, it’s like I’ll never be able to get the smell out. Lady Macbeth: Out out, damn spot!

I was thinking as we cut into the musculature, “It’s like one of those small cereal boxes with the flaps that you open up so you can pour milk into it.” I didn’t want to bring it up, however, because that would be gross—but another group member vocalised my thought.

Election night, eh. I’ll probably do another post in an hour or two, and then one more after the results are announced.

Since the dawn of time, Man himself has puzzled over this very question. How does one stop a moving school bus? Well, take it from me: running at side of the bus wildly with a laptop satchel over one shoulder and a schoolbag over the other, waving papers in the air, is not the way to do it. Trust me, I know. Throwing oneself into traffic may work for Gonzo, but it doesn’t work too well for me.

It started like this: my friends, Vivike and Crystal, and myself were heading for the bus turnaround, where we would wait for our bus. At the turnaround, Vivike picks up a few scattered pieces of lined paper and remarks that it looks like her project. She, Crystal, and our friend Cortney had an English project, and Cortney was supposed to take said papers home over the weekend.

We look up, and lo and behold, Cortney’s bus is pulling around to leave. This is where I take the papers and sort of charge at the side of the bus as it turns out of the turnaround. It literally passes next to me, so I turn to try and avoid it, and I fall in the snow (with two bags).

As I trudge back, defeated, Viv points out that the bus has, in fact, stopped. So Crystal takes the papers onto the bus and gives them to Cortney, after which the bus starts moving again. I walk back to Viv, who is standing there (thanks for picking up my water bottle, Viv!), and who remarks, “Isn’t Crystal still on the bus?” Cortney’s bus takes her all the way out to Kakabeka, which is a rather long drive.

Luckily the bus stopped a few metres down the road and let Crystal off. After which we proceeded to discuss how that entire episode had made our day (if not our week) while waiting for and while on our own bus.

Note to self: next time, ditch bags before attempting to stop a moving vehicle with wild arm movements.

The inclement weather, consisting mostly of snow, made the highways too difficult for the buses to traverse today, so most rural kids did not go to school. That’s okay, small classes are good. Then, during period two, the principal announced that rural buses would be leaving at noon, so most rural kids who were at school left at noon (some stayed).

So we didn’t do much during drama (which was cut short by a drinking and driving assembly that was okay). And then there were only seven kids in physics class, so we did nothing there. I played Yahtzee! with my physics teacher, my biology teacher, a chemistry teacher, and another student. (And I won )

I had an awesome day. You can tell, because I only use the word “awesome” when I’m in a good mood, and then I tend to overuse it.

It was raining all today and the rural buses were cancelled, stranding a few peers out in the country. Some got rides to school (whew … good thing too) but a few people couldn’t make it. As a result, my English class was virtually barren, and we did zero work. After those wasted 75 minutes, it was down to the drama room to haul all of our stuff out to the waiting bus.

We went to an elementary school and set up in their gym. It was, frankly, awesome. I mean, everyone had their little mistakes … such as performing an entire scene out of order. But other than that, I think that the performances were all done quite well. Each group had its strong points and weaker points, but the kids, I’m sure, loved it. Good job, guys!

Now tomorrow we have to clean up and do the post-performance evaluation stuff. Joy.

Cabaret was awesome!

My friends who were in it kept on insisting that it was worse than last year. Well, I did not go last year (nor the year before that, ad infinitum), but I’m sure they were pretty good even by those standards. It was non-stop fun, and by the time I got home, I was pretty tired.

Muwahahahaha. Good job Neil, Cassie, Cortney, Vivike, Ally, Crystal, Robbie, Ricky, Andrew, and um … anyone whose name I‘m too tired to remember.

Yes, it’s a Friday morning. I have school. And I‘m dead tired. I think this will be an unproductive school day and then work after that. My weekend is also surprisingly busy, due to the fact that I have two unplanned excursions to go on top of the two I knew about. Suddenly it seems like I’ve been catapulted from no life to a very busy life… .

I don’t like bragging. And I don’t like seeming like an elitist egotistical person, even though sometimes I think I come off that way.

But yeah … I have 100% in biology class as of today. So unless I do fantastically badly on our mitosis / meiosis quiz tomorrow, my mark will most likely be 99-100% for midterm next week. Sickening, eh?

As if I don’t already attract enough attention in class, what with my crazy dancing, reading, question-answering, question-asking, and other atypical behaviour. I‘m beginning to think that reputations are a lot more trouble than they’re worth, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how I could get rid of mine without completely changing my apparent lifestyle (and I’m just too lazy). I think people care way too much about what other people are doing.

To offset my elation, however, I do have an 89% only in drama. It’s up 1 per cent, but I‘m still a little miffed. I don’t blame the teacher or the class, both are excellent, so I‘ve only my own stubborn inflexibility to refuse. I think it’s my writing that has brought my mark down. Oh well, I still have half a semester to go (I‘d like it to be above ninety).

Anyway, trot off to deviantART and read my friend’s poem, My Eden". It’s quite amazing and, frankly, made my day.

I got my laptop back last Thursday, which was great. It works way better now that they’ve replaced the broken components, and I can run Ubuntu without the computer shutting down on me. I should have blogged about it but I was too lazy.

Hmm … what else. Oh yes, apparently we‘re doing Fifth Business in our English class instead of A Separate Peace. This is good because a) I’ve read Fifth Business and b) it’s a great novel. So it’s a win-win scenario for me.

The title of today’s article is brought to you by: A Bus Ride. We were discussing pie on the way to school. Indeed… .

Oh, and happy birthday, Google.

A bell rings, buzzing in your ear so that all you can hear are the people around you and its incessant tone. It stops, but already the pulsating mass of flesh around you is moving, struggling against itself as the herd becomes one and two and three—no, four! directions at once. The dynamics are on an impossible scale, yet you manage to cope anyway.

Welcome to life in the madhouse. In some places, also known as high school.

After one day, I‘ve already decided I don’t like big schools. Apparently Westgate now has a population of over 1300. That’s nice, except that the building really can’t support that many. Take the cafeteria, for example: it’s smaller than the one at FWCI, and as such, they cannot fit every student into it at lunch. So some students have to eat elsewhere. I didn’t even try to get into the cafeteria to buy milk, I made straight for the courtyard rather than enter the maddest part of the sanitarium.

Class sizes are larger than I‘m used to, but overall the classes themselves are as usual. I’ve already received the “we expect you to be more mature because you’re seniors now” maxim from my English teacher (and she’s right, but they do say it every year). After two years of English, I’m ready for whatever they throw at me. We’re doing The Taming of the Shrew as our play, which I have not read but have seen, and A Separate Peace as our novel study. Ironically, we were supposed to do Lord of the Flies, but students such as myself who came from FWCI already did that in Grade 10. So we’ll do a different novel even though the rest of the course thematically fits with Lord of the Flies.

Anyway, I digress. Classes are fine, between them is not. The hallways are way more crowded than I ever expected. There are so many people! It’s times like that when I realise I really am not a person who enjoys crowds. It’s not just the physical feeling (although that is unsettling) but the noise that accompanies it.

To end the day, my bus was late. It was supposedly arriving at 4 PM, but lo and behold it was past 4:15 before it arrived. Considering that I can get out at 3:30 and that I‘ve timed the walk home at about half an hour, this means that I can theoretically walk home on the nice days. And I could use the exercise (it’s not needed, but it’s nice to get some anyway).

I arrived home tired and burnt out again, I’m glad I don’t have homework (although that will be marginally better once I get my laptop back). Hopefully this entire week, maybe month, is just my physical adjustment back to school, and it will all become commonplace. If not, I will have to bend reality until it suits my will. MUWAHAHAHAHA.

So, it has finally arrived. I think it can be summed up like so: I love school; I hate going back to school. School as itself is a tolerable entity, it’s the process of reacquainting myself with school that’s difficult. And the bureaucratic hegemony doesn’t make it easier.

That said, I found my homeroom easily enough (stairs, not so much) and waited the half hour left until school started today (they change the schedule, but not the buses!). Westgate isn’t as different from FWCI as it seems on the outside, it has smaller hallways in my opinion and perhaps even smaller classrooms, just more of them.

School was over before it even began. The buses were going to pick us up at 3. My mom was coming at 1. I was done at slightly after 11. So what did I do? I walked home. It isn’t that far a walk, just down one street for several long blocks. It took about 25 minutes, and I worked up quite a sweat. So for those of you out there who want to stalk me, beware that walking home from my school is possible, but not advisable.

My classes are as follows:

• English
• Biology
• Drama
• Physics

I don’t know any of my teachers for this semester, but next semester I have two teachers from FWCI: Mr. Dubyk for Math and a computer course of some sort, and Mlle. Kukko, who shall teach me French for the third year in a row.

Even with only about an hour of school, I’m still quite burned out. I went to the bank to set up a separate account for university savings (this assumes I’ll find a job). Well, being absent minded and culturally sheltered, it’s not surprising that I forgot to bring ID. This resulted in about fifteen minutes of driving back home to get ID and returning to the bank. Fun fun. But I eventually got the account set up (even if their slow computers use Windows 2000!). Now I need to find a job.

My computer … is problematic. Unfortunately, it seems that the fan isn’t pulling its weight and is neglecting to properly cool the rest of the computer. As a result, I’ve had to send it in for repairs (maybe they can fix my speaker problem while they‘re at it). I’m typing this from the family computer, which reminds me how small 800x600 resolution really is, and makes me grateful that my website is designed to fit in it.

I don’t see this as a setback, however, but an opportunity. The only drawback is that I’m without my nice, shiny, portable, addictive laptop for a week. Other than that, it means many good things: my computer will work better, I can use it without it getting too hot, my battery will last longer, and I may even be able to run Ubuntu! So cross your fingers and smile.

Tomorrow marks exactly two weeks until the start of school … first day back will be right after Labour Day. Kind of depressing when I think about it, since it seems like the summer has gone by amazingly quickly. And no matter how much I do during the vacation, it always seems like it’s not enough time to get everything done. Admittedly, it’s probably because I like the hours: stay up late into the night and early into the morning on the computer and reading, then sleeping 10 hours and waking up during the day. I can’t do that once school begins.

I’ll have to make up a list of school supplies I need … figure out if I need more clothes (oh my won’t, that be fun) and then comes the day when I actually go to school. This is my first year that I will be busing, which will be a new experience… . I haven’t received a time table yet, which goes to show how increasingly disorganised and incompetent the school Board is becoming during this “integration” process.

I can’t say that it’s all bad. I really like school and enjoy most of it, it will be nice to see friends again whom I‘ve not seen since the end of June. And then I’ll settle into the fall routine, get up at 7 AM each morning, go to bed at 10 or 11.

I need to stop thinking so much … and find that French dictionary… .

Lots of updates. Every day I say I’ll write an update, then I go off and do something else… .

Unfortunately, my school is closing. I’m understandably distraught. My marks are good though: 98% in all four classes, making a nice average of … you guessed it, 98%!

Not much else to talk about … um … I got promoted today at InvisionFree Support. I’m now Tachyon, a Support Team member.

Which means I’m off to answer support tickets and other such things….

Lots of updates (the site moved servers).

I installed Ubuntu Linux on my computer. Now it is a dual boot Unbuntu/Win XP laptop. There are some hardware issues with the CPU and heating, but otherwise it is pretty cool. Ubuntu has almost everything that I need, including the GIMP and a functional word processor. I‘m still a Linux newbie, but I’m learning as I go.

School continues to wind down. The schedule continues to be affected by our impending closure. My exams, mostly held in-class, are going pretty well (100 in English and 97 in Science). I took the second part of my English exam on Tuesday but have yet to receive a mark, I think I’ll get it on next Thursday. My History exam is on Monday, followed by the second part of my Science exam on Wednesday.

The impending closure continues to loom. We had a “Blue Bear Bash” on Wednesday. We got to see pictures of our school and its students through various decades. FWCI has been around for 107 years, since 1898. It’s seen two World Wars, the Cold War, the invention of the radio, television, computer… . What saddens me the most about the closure is not what we lose, but what we will lose. Ten years from now, no one will be sitting in my place, learning about my friends and I.

All hope is not yet lost. The independent facilitator sent by the provincial Ministry of Education has released his recommendation on the school closures — and recommends the FWCI stays open! He says that it does not make much sense to close a school that has such high athletic and academic performances. The Ministry will offer funding for renovations, but not for a new high school as our local Board of Education wants. The report recommends that our school remain open for two more years, then be more thoroughly reevaluated in 2007. I am absolutely ecstatic about this news, and I hope FWCI remains open for a long time to come!

For the past um … month or so, I‘ve been meeting at lunch with a group of kids from my English class, along with my English teacher, Ms. Sukalo, and reading King Lear. It’s a pretty good play, I like watching Lear become increasingly insane. We‘ve decided to continue our Shakespearean experiences after school is over, meeting somewhere during the summer. We even have a name: The Shakespeare Seven. Here’s to the summer!

Well, there’s been a few changes. I got the random quote up, although due to some FreeType library problems, it is in a text version rather than an image. Also, I’ve added a background-image, a starfield. It was created by me, using the GIMP and a convenient tutorial.

To go with the starfield, I released a new logo. Those of you using Internet Explorer on a Windows platform will probably now be wondering why it has a blueish background that doesn’t look very nice. Well, I explain that in a special section of my About page.

More mundane updates now … well, in school every class is beginning to wind down but accelerate as teachers hurry to finish things by the end of the year. Matters are further complicated by closure issues. In order to make more time for packing and moving, they cut our exam days to two, so many teachers are holding in-class exams.

In drama, we had our Drama Improv-O-Rama. It was awesome! However, I think that improv is more fun when we were not competing. Now I‘m depressed because the school year is ending, and my school is closing. It would be not as bad if my school were open next year, but this means that I will never again experience classes at FWCI. Which is sad, because I’ve done more in this last semester than I did in my previous 1.5 years in high school.

Also in drama, we started our culminating activity, a miniature play (playlet?). I wrote most of the script, which my group then tweaked together. It’s called The Five People You Meet in Hell, a pun off the title of Mitch Albom’s novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, but that’s where the similarity ends.

Interesting day, overall. I had an interview for Student Trustee, which is essentially the student representative who goes to the Board Trustee meetings. It was … awkward. I learned that the questions included with the application were for preparation only, and that I wasn’t actually supposed to fill them out. I’m understandably nervous about what sort of impression I made. Either way, I think I will be happy with the outcome: if I get the position, then it is a great opportunity. If I do not, then it will be a great relief anyway.

I watched the CBC’s premiere of the BBC’s new Doctor Who series last night. Sadly, I’ve never had the opportunity to see any of the previous series, but I do think this one is … okay. I haven’t really seen a lot of British television before, so it was a little surprising. But overall I did like the storyline, if the episode itself wasn’t that great. The teaser for next week does look interesting, so I’ll be watching that.

Hmm … well, I got to borrow hair spray from my principal today. Indeed, that was first. I made a propaganda poster for history class, and because I used chalk my history teacher suggested I spray it with hair spray to prevent smudging. Thus, I borrowed someone’s hairspray (and the poster didn’t smudge!).

This isn’t the first time. In Grade 7, my elementary school closed, so I went to my present school (which is a 7-12 school) for Grade 8. That turned out to be a blessing in disguised, I quite like my present school. Due to the mismanagement of the Ontario government with education funding, and an unfortunate decision on the part of my city’s board of education, my school has been slated for closure at the end of the school year. That’s it, a done deal, goodbye. So that means I need to find another school to complete my last two years of high school. My first alternative happens to be across the city, but I really wouldn’t mind busing every day if it was necessary. Unfortunately, it is slated for closure in June 2007—that happens to be the year I graduate, so I‘m not extremely worried, but little do I know that the board might try to close it earlier, to ’save money‘ or something like that. I can see their reasoning, but I don’t have to like it.

Well … as Ghanima says in Children of Dune: “One door closes, but another door opens. And behind it: our future.”