Scene : In a physics classroom. Several students are huddled around a book, gathering answers for physics questions.
Phuong : Determine the velocity of Uranus...
Charles : ...and the momentum of gas ejected...
(laughter)
End scene
This actually happened. Hilarious.
All this english adv homework caught up with me last night and I couldn't blog yesterday as I had planned. This is important following a revelation in Biology. Microwaving food with gladwrap still on can cause demasculation. Armitage revealed that apparently glad wrap has a chemical that is similar to estrogen, the female hormone. So microwaving food, still wrapped in gladwrap causes this chemical to be released and into the food. So bad news for guys. Charles was like "WTF?!" as he has been doing exactly that. What was hilariously funny, but not everyone probably heard, was that Land turned around and said "This explains everything Jimmy!" Yeah it sure does.
Usually I raid the fridge to eat leftovers for breakfast, because at this moment, I just despise cereals. I don't seem to get any energy out of them. Then again, I may be buying the wrong brand of cereal. So what I usually have is chicken coujons, ham and cheese. The coujons are basically a small stick of chicken with crumbly stuff on the outside. Ham is like the ham between sandwiches and cheese...is cheese. Maybe a weird combo for breakfast, but it gets me through the morning without much cooking.
I was going to stay back and do some work in the library, you know, make us of my study period. Instead, I left early to pick up a ball that had gone over the otherside, whilst playing cricket. So I waltzed back to the school, changed my mind and continued to the corner shop to buy a Coke and a hamburger for lunch. That was a good decision.
Can't wait til the weekends. I'm beginning to feel dead tired.
To procrastinate while I'm supposed to be doing work, and thanks to the high-speed nature of broadband, I browse a few webcomics. It's quick and usually hilarious. Well, I was recently reading a comic called Questionable Content, and the author/artist is a bit of a music junkie. He has a recommended list of music albums. One of these was an album called Witching Hour by a band called Ladytron. Here is his description:
If Ellen Allien's amazing Berlinette is the sonic equivalent of a sexy German assasin-cyborg, Witching Hour is the equivalent of an aloof, ironic (and sexy) London murder-droid. Gritty like damaged data, aloof like a girl too hot to associate with the likes of mortal man, melancholy like fog at night. Excellent electro-sex neu-wave rock sneering. Okay I'll stop now, this is getting pretentious.
So seeing that I haven't really updated my music collection, I got my hands on this little album and it turns out that its not to bad at all. It's kind of like electronic meets rock. It's a little weird, but I like it.
Year 11s on camp tomorrow. So we'll have plenty of space at school.
Rushing through chemistry practicals and doing some biology homework. I'll probably wake up early tomorrow to finish off the pracs.
Went to hockey training today, and no one was there. I was dogged. Woodbridge was a little fustrated that no one showed up. Lazy buggers. We're going to lose this year, I know it.
Mae West: Is poker a game of chance?
W.C. Fields: Not the way I play it.
Arrgh, gotta do all this stupid stuff for careers meeting. And there is science prac. Is this careers thing necessary?
Excursions are cool. That's a fact. But it's also true that some are cooler than others. Take this latest Biology to UNSW Muesuem of Disease. It was a great excursion. I pity the people who don't do Biology.
So we leave school and end up at UNSW with a few hours to kill. We go to this lecture hall for a physics demonstration. We were supposed to go to Randwick Children's Hospital, but they kicked us out at the last minute. Bastards. Anyway, the guy starts to demonstrate these little experiments, playing around with electricity and explaining things like voltage, current and electromagnetic induction. One cool demo was the Van der Graff generator, which generates static electricity. If a person with long hair stands on an insulated block and touches the generator, their hair starts to rise. So the guy asks for a volunteer with long hair to touch the generator. Who goes up? Land, obviously. For the simple reason that she has the longest hair. This guy isn't Fearnside, so he didn't want to choose a volunteer, but we pressure Land into doing it. The demo guy kept calling Land "Meriweather". Too bad no one took a photo, because it was absolutely hilarious when Land's hair started to rise. Another really cool demo was passing an electric current through a long chain of people. I was sitting in the third row, so I missed out on getting shocked. Charles had gone through it before at some Open day and described it as "like getting a cramp every second."
The demo ended early because there was a scheduling error and uni students entered for a lecture. Anyway, it was great fun. As usual, it wouldn't be a proper science demo without liquid nitrogen entering the mix. I got to find out how to get some. Liquid nitrogen is just so cool.
After that, we head to the cafeteria for lunch. I say cafeteria, but it was really a food court, with sections selling different types of food; Chinese, fish and ships, sushi, just to name a few. Most of us finished lunch quickly and headed to the UNSW bookshop. What was it like? Heaven. The sheer amount of books on interesting subjects was staggering and I just wanted to pick up a bunch of books and buy them. But they were hella expensive, price ranged from a mere $8 up to $120. Since the good ones were beyond my budget of $20, I had to pass. Land an Kathy discovered a little gem called "Why Do Men have nipples?" which answered a heap of questions in a hilarious manner, including the title question. Land initially didn't want to buy it. It wasn't an issue with the money. both Kathy and I offered to lend money, but Land was more concerned about the actual buying process. A girl buying a book called "Why do men have nipples?" disturbed her. But she bought it anyway, using Kathy as a proxy. They were chuckling on the bus all the way back.
The actual Museum of Disease was very interesting, and had not only actual preserved examples of disease. but also a digital collection of photos, some more disturbing than others. There was a very gruesome picture of a spine that had compressed too much, and it was from the point of view of a surgeon. It had a lot of red flesh and the spine standing out clearly. Some stomachs were turned, but during our free time, Yang, Khoa and Yehson started to search for imades of diseased testes and penises. The results were...intense. That's all I can really say. We spent the rest of the afternoon filling out a worksheet and looking at real specimens, a kidney that had a tumour, the black lungs of a coal miner, and a gall stone the size of an avocado seed.
This excursion had a strong root in medicine, and while I've always been squeamish with the sort of detail and gross things that you'll see in a career in health, I couldn't help but be absolutely fascinated with everthing. Its playing a torturous game in my head about my future carreer. Anyway, a fascinating little trip worth every damn minute.
Just came back from tutoring. This guy was doing planning on doing Chem but after choosing it, decided to drop it and choose Art. My tutor's reaction was priceless. But why art? He's a very decent maths and science guy, why the change of art? When the lesson ended, he made a quick exit, so I couldn't ask him.
And Koreans singers on Paris By Night?!? I come home and my dad is watching it, not that enthused since it's Korean. But I guess that after 80 something PBN events, what else are you going to do?
Arrgh, was it just me but I could not physically stay awake? All those days of waking up late, and now having to wake up early to catch the bus put a dent in me. I felt like I was punched in the face, and then kicked in the face for good measure. Ironically, I woke up to U2's Beautiful Day. It was a beautiful day alright, but the spirit and the body weren't willing to appreciate it.
I guess the only reason I managed to maintain some semblance of consciousness was the fear the Fearnside who ask me something and I would be dead asleep. Maths was probably the worst though. I asked Gough if there was any work due, and he responded in the affirmative, with 5 pracs and 5th dot point summaries. The dot spoint summaries I couldn't care about. But 5 pracs?!?! So I did what I could and copied done the main points of the pracs, totally ignoring what Sharp was talking about. So by the end of the lesson I scratched down some notes on the board and then determined to hand the Chem pracs tomorrow.
It turns out that there were no pracs due today, only the dot point summaries, which are due tomorrow. I was seriously pissed off at Gough for scaring the crap outta me. Still, no pracs are due until at least Monday next week, so I've still got time. What I'm worried about is Bio pracs. Charles has indicated that they are due tomorrow, but Albert and Land didn't confirm (A & L have finished it though). So bio pracs will take an hour or two, with the dot-point summaries taking maybe an hour. So, back to business people!
TV is such a powerful medium. You watch shows, or commercials, and you can be inspired, good or bad. Seeing as the HSC is coming, and we will be entering Uni to study for our careers, it begs the question, what do you want to be?
I have been see-sawing for quite some time. When I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time the ideas and concepts were way beyond me (I was 13 when I first read it) and even now I can only get ~90% of what's going on. So at that time, I really wanted to be an astrophysicist. Study the workings of the universe, theorise a few hypothesises and maybe discover something that puts me on the map, like Einstein. Then I kind of fell out with the astrophysicist idea. It felt boring. That just propelled me onto another track.
Enter House. The drama of the rascally Doctor House hit a nerve. He was like a modern day Sherlock Holmes, and the way he solved his cases with logic really intrigued me. His views and often rude way he solved his cases were hilarious. And for a time, I wanted to be a diagnostician. Like astrophysics, it was a logic thing, but potentially more exciting, if you could call it like that. Life and death in the balance. It comes down to a split-second decision, with the patient's life in your hands. But medical school is something completely different. Just check here. And the blood and gore turn me off. Still, after rewatching season one, I'm not sure. It still intrigues me.
And, not amazingly, another TV show has caught my attention. I'm talking about Hotel Babylon. I', probably not up for the job of manager, but a concierge is mysteriously exciting. Setting up deals, scams to get more money and sourcing everything a discreet guest may require. Hmmm, I'm thinking about that too.
Still Hotel Babylon is still a bit away from the middle of the series, but does it look good? Oh yeah, it does. So now I waiting whether another TV series can offer me another job idea.
Only 11 guys at cricket. The year 12s..I mean...Uni dudes were off at Uni, so we couldn't have a team-vs-team match. So instead we decided that the winners would be the team that got the highest partnership of 8 overs ie 48 balls. Richard and Charles were the winning team, getting 68. Lesley and I managed 42, which was quite respectable. I took first hit of the day. Alwin bowled a speedy ball and it hit just under my kneecap. It hurt.
The drive to KFC for lunch was cool. Bill and Kevin both brought their cars. It was uncomfortable in Kevin's car. Michael, me, Richard and Harry were crammed in the back seat. Considering that both Michael and I are big people, it was squashed. Still the turns hurt Richard and Harry more than me and Michael.
By the time we got back it was too hot to play anything and we were too full anyway.We mucked around a bit, playing in the nets, a bit of soccer, this and that. But the coolest activity was our mini-golf. The objective was to use the cricket bats to hit tennis balls to hit a water bottle in the least number of shots. I know Kevin tooks some shots and record a short video. It was funny, with Alwin ending up as the undisputed champion, navigating the hastily laid-down obstacles to beat several challengers in a row.
Great fun all around. Maybe another time.
Pardon the long abscence. Half-yearlys, of course. I think I might be doing well this time. Except for 3-unit maths. I probably didn't do that well.
So a 3-week holiday. Not sure what I'm going to do. Maybe some revision , but I don't plan on all-out study. My room is a sheer mess, with books, papers and stuff all over the place. I'm always grumbling about the mess, but I don't really have the spirit or willpower to clean it up. It can wait.
Cricket tomorrow. Nothing better than a little sport to get rid of all that stress. And the exercise and fresh air won't hurt me either.
I look at my timetable. Maths 3U, English Adv, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. All these subjects are interesting. I mean, I really like Physics and Chemistry, although Chem could be way better. But there are times when doing the "full science" can get to be a bit of a grind, especially when exams pop up. So I think to myself, haven't I done any subject that was fun? Computer Studies was a bludge. Sit down, turn on computer, zone out. But there is a subject that I enjoyed. Drama. It was fun, I met people whom I would never have met and could act without worrying about other people laughing at me. The drama classes were pretty segregated. I knew what was going on with the other class, but we never actually meet up and talk.
Anyway, the unique aspect of my Drama class was that there was only 3 guys, me, Bill and Lesley. The "trio", although there was a nasty joke, calling us "the threesome". We usually stuck together, and in my opinion worked the best together. Although we did tended split towards the end of the first year, some of our best works were when we worked together. A favourite act of mine was when in Drama, we were learning about miming, acting withour words, and we had to put together an act. Our act basically had Bill and Lesley as theives checking out this place to steal and me as a cop/interrogater/guard. Bill and Lesley were stealing stuff then I came on. Cue some fast-paced jazz, and I was chasing after them. Lesley got away with most of the goods and I caught Bill. Then I was interrogating Bill, pointing my finger, glaring at him, acting in a pissed-off and scary manner (which incidently, was my best act, more on that later). I locked him up, then Lesley came in, tricked me into looking away and then knocked me out, stealing the keys and freeing Bill. They walk off, celebrating with a drink, until I catch them again and throw them both in jail. It was pretty good, and that would be my defining memory of Drama.
Drama exams were relatively easy, except for the first one, constructing a mini-stage. I screwed that up. But the rest were alright, and I got decent marks for most of them. Mostly, the exams would be putting on an act as a group and then receiving individual marks. Another act that I really liked was the "Warren" act. If memory serves me right, me, Bill, Lesley, Sabrina and Phuong were in that and we bascially bullied Lesley, who was "Warren", to the point of suicide. The scene that stands the most clearly, was after Bill and I had finished pummelling Lesley to the ground and Lesley cried out "Why do you do this?" and I replied "Cos it's fun!".
Another time we had to act out a scene from a play and Lesley and I chose this play called "Whose Life is it anyway?" by Brian Clark. It is about a quadraplegic, Ken Harrision whose wanted to end his life, but the hospital prevented it claiming he was depressed, and it went to court and he won. I really wish I kept a copy of the script. But as a component to this project, we had to have a poster advertising the play. This was the first time I actuallyused Photoshop and it was pretty crappy. But it worked well and is now displayed in the Drama room. I believe it's still there on the wall to the right of the entry. And...here it is:
I was the judge presiding over the case and Lesley was Ken. Originally I was going to throw in a window with some light coming in for dramatic effect, but my Photoshop skillz was, and still is, crappy. I remembered that there was nurse who pitied the guy and I threw Phuong in there for emotion. She looks likes she crying or something, but she just covered her face, because she didn't want her picture taken. I made my eye red, as I was playing around with the settings and thought it was cool.
Dammit, I miss Drama. It was so free and secretive. You could do stuff that you know wouldn't spread throughout the school. The rule was "whatever happens in the Drama room, stays in the Drama room." And there were a few funny and embarrassing moments. Near the end of the course (this was the year 9-10 electives year), we wrote our names on paper and we passed it around for people to write stuff about. I notched up as "Most scary actor", due to the amounts of time I acted angry and I could raise my voice loud enough to jolt people.
That was cool. So back to full science revision.
*sigh*
Nothing more to say I think. Credit goes to SomethingAwful.com
For those who are ignorant of the Grand Theft Auto series, click here.
So how goes life my friends? Here we are approaching the midway point of our high school life. Can you imagine it? 13 years of education are over, with say 4 years of Uni afterwards, then our jobs (or careers, if you believe that crap). So that's what? 17 years minimum of education. We would be approximately 22 years old when we enter the workforce. What dreams will we accomplish and how will we change? It only seems like yesterday that I was in the final throes of year 6 and eagerly looking forward to high school and the distan HSC. Now I'm in the death throes of high school, with the HSC becoming alarmingly tangible.
Success, failure, the future and obstacles. All these things weave in and out through my mind. Some issues rush through like a fast-flowing stream, while others are dull and sluggish. The possibilities of success and failure are beginning to haunt me.
Besides all that, there comes about thinking what are YOU going to do? What course will you study? What job do you want to aim for? Those questions are supremely hard for me to answer. I like Chemistry and Physics. I could have moderate success in the workforce, especially Chemistry. I'm interested in Biology, especially after we watched "Prescription for Survival". Medicine floats through my head, mainly du to "House". I flirt with the idea of being a diagnostician. There are always little fragments about being a teacher. But all that marking?
There are only hard paths. If only there was a shortcut. Or two.
So I'm fixing up my notes for the Chemistry assessment tomorrow and what happens? I find something to take my attention away from this important work. In the online game I play, there's a market, where one can buy and sell players. Naturally I wanted to make my team better, so I found a splendid player that would have cost me $50k. But this player was quite good and so a bidding war began. Now I really wanted this player and since the bid ended at around 10:30pm, I decided to throw caution into the wind and go all the way to get this player, even if it meant risking bankruptcy.
In the end, I failed. I simply did not have enough funds to compete. I know Charles has paid in excess over $150k to get a player, but I simply did not have the money. Damn it! I was so close.
Take a look at the screenshot.
So now I have to try my luck at another, slightly crapper player. And finish up organising my Chem notes.
I received a pleasant suprise yesterday. No, not another car accident. My mother bought me an iPod nano. My brother wanted one, and she brought two so it would be fair. Thanks, mom!
I know some people don't really like the iPod, saying that it lacks useful or convienient features. That's probably a fair point, but I think it's popular because it's stylish and easy to use. The click-wheel makes everything so simple that I can't imagine an mp3 player without it. It stores music, files and photos very well. I had some trouble installing it and it took almost all of yesterday to get it working properly, but, well, that's in the past now. So some photos:
So I was lying in bed, half asleep. I was trying to take a nap but not fall into a dark sleep. Anyway, I hear this massive crash and rush out to the kitchen to see what happened. It turns out that this van had tipped over onto its side. Two young Arabs jumped out of the van and bolted away. They either had stolen the van or didn't have a licence and couldn't drive properly. Cops and ambos showed up like 5 minutes later. Ambos weren't needed as there was no one heut. The fire brigade showed up later and they worked on tipping the car back over.
I didn't completely lose my mind. I whipped out the digital camera and snapped off two shots. Here they are.
I have a topic test on log and exponentials tomorrow, but most of my time is taken up with physics homework. Fearnside is alright, but his homework sets require some deep thought. The pissy thing is that there is no answer for you, either in your notes or textbook. It's more like playing connect-the-dots. Like when the Bush Administration played connect-the-dots to determine Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ended up with a jumble of lines. I spent 1 hour to answer 3 questions. And I'm not sure that they are right. Strangely, Google is no realy help. I know the result, but not the why, and the combined, collective knowledge of Google and Wikipedia were unable to explain why.
The only good thing that came from it what that I worked and concentrated like mad to find the stupid answers. I swear the house could have caught on fire, a hurricane could have hit the house outside, or the Day of Judgement could have arrived and I would have sat there tearing my hair, screaming why the hell does the photocurrent depend on light intensity and why does the electron's max kinetic energy depends on the frequency of light.
I have answers, but they are long-winded, messy and uncertain. I'm hoping that there right, if simply for the fact that I would be pissed if I went through all that work just to be wrong by one word, which screws up the entire answer, because of that one word.
*sigh*
As for the earlier failed scam, I'll be doing it again, but much safer and using lower prices. The admins fined me $190k to "even it out", so I'm down to only $123k from $359k. So I'm going to try again. Unless I fail multiple times, and if I did I'd just give up. No use looking like a damned fool.
Previously, I mentioned that I was bending the rules for this scam. In short, it worked, but failed. Details? Well, not too much then.
It is an online text-based simulation game. In this game, I create my main account and put a crap person up for sale. No, it's not some weird prostitution game or anything. Then I created a 2nd account to buy the person. It worked and I was a lot richer. But. There's always a but, eh? Well, I thought I got away, but in my rush to complete the scam I didn't hide myself properly, and the huge amount of money paid for such a crap player drew attention. So I sent some emails, blaming it all on my brother and his selfish ways. I explained away his 2nd account and him buying my crap player to trick me. And I notified them that he possibly attempted to create a 2nd account and for them to delete it. I didn't mention anything about the extra cash or about any possible punishment. Hopefully, they will see me as innocent and won't take action to delete my main account.
This does shatter my plans, as now my next scam is permantly put on hold as I wonder what to do. I can put a crap player up, but buying him straight away for a large sum of money draws attention. I know that they found my 2nd account as I didn't take precautions to hide it properly, but it's still possible that simply hiding won't be enough. I need to think that out more carefully. I could create two accounts and enter in a bidding war over an average player, but that's on hold until I make a decision. Main problem is that there is only a small amount of players and things take time which makes it harder to slip by. Damn, I might have to play by the rules.
Of course, one may ask why try to cheat in the first place. I think that it's natural to find a way to gain an advantage over other people, especially if the method is perceived to be easy with little risk. It all crosses our minds, but not all of us cheat simply because either we lack the means to do so, there is too much risk or it's just not practical. So I'll wait and see. At least I have an idea of what they're capable of.
A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.
-W.C. Fields (1880-1946)
So here I am, it's past 11pm, and I'm making sure a little scam of mine is going to work. I assure you it's nothing illegal, merely...bending the rules a bit.
So what to do to past the time? Study? Nah. Chat on MSN? Not me. Read Wild Swans? Hell no! So instead I opened up my friends' blogs and read them. It strange in a way. To me, most of them seemed a bit like mine. A bit of personal life, what's going on and the odd rant against the world and its injustice. The others are more like cries of anguish and pain, wondering if where is light at the end of the tunnel and even if it exists at all. A different person, with less knowledge of modern school life, may be wondering if the said bloggers are considering suicide. But I know the feeling, if briefly. The feeling that you're out of control, that events control you rather than the other way around. The dark dank despair that gushes up and flickers across your vision, making things murky, making it hard to distinguish between friend and foe.
For me, I seem to have adopted a devil-may-care attitude to the future. In one sense, I'm digging my own grave unless I really start doing something to get decent marks. But I do feel less stressed, less despair. Problems come and go, and I flow with them. Obviously I try my best to avoid getting stuck in problems, but if I'm caught by the storm, then the only thing I can do, or anyone can do for that matter, is to ride out the storm and hope you remain in one piece at the end. But in a situation where time is running out, and there are dark times ahead, can I really afford to be so carefree? Possibly not.
But I really believe that a balance must be achieved in some way. To stress and despair about life is bad for your health in general. Questions are asked that cannot be answered. Going with the flow rather than paddling against the tide seems a much better alternative. Of course that's just me speaking. I hate conflict. It really gets on my nerves and gets in the way of things. That's why, to this day, I have never had a full-blown argument with my parents. I accept my fate as passively as possible. One may think that such passiveness is not such a good characteristic. One needs some fight, some mongrel, in them. To rise up when life pushes us down. Sometimes I dream of what have been if I had been a bit more assertive, a bit more aggressive and a lot less cautious.
But those days are gone. I am who I am. I cannot force myself to be someone else. So I do things my way, avoiding attention, attracting obscurity. Thank god for Wikipedia. It can be such a distracting thing against the flow and ebb of life.
Need to get my new bus pass. The driver busted me for having the old one, but I just told him, the new passes haven't arrived until tomorrow and I still got a ride home. Must pick it up tomorrow, recess, yeah.
I stayed all of lunch and took the bus home. Right now, my mother and brother are stuck, since the car has a flat tyre. Dunno what they will do, but I'm safe at home, so there isn't much I can do except act as support. Maybe I'll get to skip tutor!?!
Science assessments are beginning to pile. That's what happens when you go full science. I'll start physics research on the weekends.
All these things to worry about. *sigh*
