Chatting with the Jabberwacky

In my quest to learn a bit more about artificial intelligence over break, I've discovered something really fun to play with. If you go to Jabberwacky, then you'll be able to chat with a rather "intelligent" bot. Give it a try, it's a lot of fun! Here's my favorite part of our first conversation:

Me: I'm studying computer science and cognitive science.

Computer: How funny, a half grapefruit studying computer science.

M: Am I a half grapefruit?

C: Half grapefruit?

M: You're the one who brought it up.

C: No you brought it up.

(after a bit of arguing)

M: Computers are dumb. They're only as smart as the person who programs them.

C: How stupid are the people that programmed you?

So, it's probably my best friend after that remark. Hey, I thought it was clever and cute :) And we did make up after our argument.

I'm back

I passed Calculus II, which means I'll be taking Linear Algebra next semester. I did well in all of my other classes too, which makes me happy.
I spent a few days at Paul's house during Thanksgiving break. His sister, Anne, had her fiance, Harrison, over as well. It was fun, but Anne was distraught because now it's even harder for her to get Harrison away from playing video games. Paul, Harrison, and I would play Halo and Smash Brothers Brawl for hours each night and wake up early to keep on playing. I thought it was funny :D
Paul has the cutest cat. His name is Mittens, and he's a Ragdoll cat. Mittens is very furry and very talkative. When they put up the Christmas tree, I got to see Mittens running around the house and hiding under the tree. One day, Mittens chose ME to feed him. He came over to me and kept meowing until Paul told me what he wanted and showed me how to feed him. It was really cute.

Squeak?

The computer science department Christmas party is this Friday, and I'm going with Mr. Paul :) It's going to be so much fun! I've been looking forward to this since I declared.
I've made it through 220 and I'm almost 100% certain I've got a nice A to reward me for lots of hard programming work. It was a fun class, though, and I can't wait for 230. I hear that it's hard, but I think I'll be fine.
Discrete Math is going well too. I never did proofs in geometry (Er, I basically didn't take geometry. Or any other high-school level math. I told you that.), so I had to learn them for the class. It seemed like I'd alternate between thinking the class was too easy and stumbling over silly stuff. It wasn't all bad, but I'm kinda glad it's over.
Calculus II. Oh, Calculus II. It was really easy in the beginning. Hey, I knew how to do a lot of that stuff already. The sad thing is, I did pretty well on my first two tests and sorta blew the third one (which counts a whole lot more than the first two combined...). I studied so hard. I thought I did really, really well. I was expecting an A, perhaps a very high B. That's why it hurt so bad when I finally got my test back. It was sort of like being back in Algebra II again, completely confidence-shattering. I did pass it, but I honestly think I'm going to get a C in the class and I don't want a C. I'm very upset, but I'm doing all I can do.
I'm angry with my Latin class. Well, not exactly angry, but I'm not thrilled with it. It's better now that we're doing Catullus. I LOVE Catullus. His work makes me so happy. It's just that my linguistics professor told me that it's unlikely I'll be able to count this particular class towards my Linguistics/Cognitive Science major that I'm working on. I do so much work for this one class (more than most of the others, really) and I'm only getting a speaking-intensive credit for it. I have enjoyed getting some practice with public speaking. Dr. Houghtalin's comments are very helpful. I gave a good presentation on Catullus 101 today. I did it almost entirely from a few scribbled-out notes and a beautiful translation that I prepared. Being the cunning linguist that I am, I discussed mostly grammar in my presentation. My posture and stance were awful and I could tell it. I kept shifting my weight and crossing my legs, but I made an effort to correct it each time I noticed.
My linguistics class has been pretty good. I like it. Two weeks ago, one kid in there picked up her laptop by the screen. I was absolutely shocked. It was a really expensive computer, too, and the computer scientist in me really wanted to scold her. That, and one girl in the class described an esh as "the derivative sign." Pfft, at least I'm not that terrible with calculus... Er, integrals, anyone? (BTW, I'm still stuck trying to sort out in my brain when it's appropriate to make a "ssssss" sound and when it's appropriate to find an antiderivative. And why does my spell check say that antiderivative isn't a word? Ugh.
My computer science professor said that sometimes her job is like telling people that Santa, the Tooth Faerie, and magic don't exist. I thought that was hilarious, because sometimes learning about how computers actually work does take away some of the "Ooooh, magic!" feel. I still get excited when my programs work, though, and I usually end by whispering to myself as I skim the source code: "That's beautiful." Not really my work, but the fact that computers do what they do.
I can't wait for that party on Friday :)

Are you sure you want me to start writing again?

I haven't had much time to update my blogs for almost a month. That makes me very sad.
I'm working on a programming project that is due at midnight tonight... It's a pretty complex program and I completely forgot about it until last night. I've got most of it finished, though. I just started typing this because I've been at the program for a few hours and I need a break.
So...
I'm dating Paul.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.
Hahahahaha.
Mmmmmmmm, Java.
How's that for an entry? :P

I'm glad I'm not a dog.

Because then I wouldn't be able to play Halo :) That's possibly the best thing I heard all week. That, and the thing someone said during the first GALL meeting.
This past week was pretty good. My linguistics professor said that I can add the class, and I really enjoy what we're learning. I'm dropping my classics class as soon as possible because I don't enjoy what we're learning. I love the language, but history isn't my thing. I hated history almost more than I hated math in high school. Unfortunately, I haven't made a turnaround in the history department.
I actually had the gall to raise my hand and volunteer an answer in calculus the other day. As soon as I raised my hand, I thought I'd made a huge mistake. I was absolutely terrified; I haven't done that since I first wanted to be a Computer Science major. I got the right answer, though. Calculus II isn't hard so far, and Dr. Helmstutler is very nice. I also like his teaching style.
I was wrong. Yes, I have a terrible history with math teachers--but math itself is actually quite pleasant.
There was a GALL meeting on Tuesday night. We met in my favorite academic building instead of in our normal spot. I did manage to add the new members to the e-mail list, and we had a whole lot of new members. Hopefully they'll continue to come to meetings. We went around in our circle and gave our names, years, majors, and spirit animals. Someone just randomly suggested that we share our spirit animals, so we did. That's GALL for you. We ended up folding sheets of paper into three parts and drawing the legs, torso, or head of a "monster." After one person drew the legs, he would pass it on to the next person. That person would draw the torso (without having seen the legs) and then she would pass it on to the final person, who would do the head. Some of the drawings were freakish and grotesque, just the way we like it. We did it just as a sort of icebreaking group activity, but Sara said that we should tape them up all over campus.
We did :) I taped one on a sign where it fit in perfectly, and I taped another inside the building's elevator. I love screwing with that elevator :D None of the pictures were around in the morning, but that was okay. It was so much fun. While we were taping the papers around campus, a random passerby stopped and asked, "Is this the monster club?" We laughed out loud and someone told her that WE are the monsters :)
My allergies were really bothering me for most of this week. It was terrible. I was coughing so much, and my nose alternated between stuffy and runny. My chest would start hurting a lot when I had coughing fits, and I finally had to cave and buy some allergy medicine at Wal-Mart. Paul and I made brownies after I got my medicine. Since we improvised a lot while mixing the batter (We put in all the right stuff, but we also fished around in the eggs for a piece of eggshell, had a hard time mixing everything because we didn't have a bowl that was big enough, and couldn't even tell if they were cooked when we took them out of the oven since we didn't have toothpicks.) and I got to taste the brownies first, I decided to do something a little devious. I put a piece of my brownie into my mouth and made a face like it was disgusting, making sure it didn't go unnoticed. Paul seemed a little surprised and asked me if the brownies were okay. I immediately told him that they were good and that I was just joking around--they were actually very good brownies.
I ended up not going to the ACM meeting on Thursday, but all of you computer scientists out there who are reading this and scoffing might be a little more understanding once I explain myself. Ina and I went to visit Paul in his room, where we all started playing Halo 3. Both Ina and Paul are quite experienced Halo players, but I'd never actually played myself. I was given a few minutes to play by myself before we launched into a three-player shooting game where Ina and Paul killed me over and over and over and over and over again. I'm serious. It gives a whole new meaning to the term "epic fail." I was able to escape humiliating defeat by running off to my discrete math class for an hour. We had planned to order some Chinese food and play Halo until my class, after which we would resume play until my ACM meeting, after which we probably would have continued to play until we all collapsed from sleep deprivation. We realized that we really wouldn't have time for me to eat before I had to go to class, however, so we decided to get food later on. When I came back, Ina had already left, so Paul and I got some dinner and Paul was thoroughly entertained by watching me play Halo very badly.
"Am I supposed to shoot him?" (After chasing and attempting to murder the alien guy who was on my side.)
"Oh nooooooo." (After accidentally killing myself with a grenade for the, what, twentieth time? I'm not exaggerating, either.)
"AGGGGHHHHHHHHHH." (After I kept running into the walls and couldn't even manage to go up some stairs.)
"I wasn't supposed to do that." (After jumping off a cliff into some water and dying.)
"Stop moving so I can shoot you." and "Stop shooting me!" (Both of those are self-explanatory...)
It was very sad. Very, very sad. I started to get the hang of it, though, and now I can at least move around without running into too much. Meh, maybe I'll get some more practice this week so I won't suck so much.
The dog quote at the beginning came from a conversation where I revealed that I wanted to grow up to be a dog when I was really little. I don't remember what brought that into the conversation, but I was reminded that I wouldn't be able to play Halo if I were a dog. So I guess it's good that I'm a person? :P

Kicking off the second week :)

The week has started off pretty well. I was hungry this morning and really tired, so it was difficult to focus in my computer science class. I ate a quick lunch and then played Guitar Hero in Paul's room until Latin. I didn't do a great job with my sight translation today in Latin, but it was good enough. I also had a nice ride and I ate dinner with Amber and Heather. Amber is in my riding class this semester and she was in it with me last semester. Heather rode with me during the first semester. We had a nice, long talk about horses over our dinners :)
I went home this weekend to judge a therapeutic riding barn's horse show. I got back to school around 7:15 last night. Paul called me and asked me if I wanted to come over and see him, so I stopped on campus and made a quick run to the computer science department while he was coming back from dinner. I was going to do a little reconnaissance work (By now you should know that means I'm up to no good with some sort of ridiculous practical joke...), but there was someone down there and it just seemed awkward to have someone around me while I was in sketch mode. I don't know if I'll pull it off, but the idea is there in case I ever decide to do it. Perhaps later in the semester ;)
I stepped out onto the front porch of the building where I saw Paul. I came up behind him, walked beside him for several moments, then passed him. I greeted him, but I guess he didn't hear me. I finally sent him a text message and told him to look up. It was pretty amusing.
We went to his room for a while and watched a movie. It was a funny movie, but I can't remember the name of it. It'll come in time. Then, we went walking around town. We came to a park, but kept on walking. We walked all the way back to his car, which he drove to another park that was a short distance away from campus. We walked around and talked. It was hard to see where the path was in the dark, and I was worried that we were going to get lost. It wasn't so much the "getting lost" part as it was the "I have class at 10 AM tomorrow and I want to get some sleep and do my homework" part. I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm a nerd :P We took a few different paths. One led to a huge field. We walked through the field until we came to a fence. The fence would've been easy enough to jump, but we didn't know if it was the property of the public park or not. We turned around and took a different path, which led us to some water. We couldn't tell much about the water because it was so dark. We tossed pebbles to see where it started, but even then we weren't sure. I got my leg wrapped in some fishing line, but fortunately there wasn't a hook attached to it. Maybe one day we can go back when we can actually see the water. I bet it would be gorgeous.
After all of the trails were explored, we went back up to the parking lot. There was a playground near the parking lot, so we played on it for a while. Swinging was very fun. Going down the slide was not. I climbed up a little metal ladder with my wet, slippery shoes and wasn't sure if I was actually going to make it up or not. I went down one of the curvy slides, which was where I made a huge mistake.
The slides were designed for small children, not tall college students. When I reached the bend in the slide, one side of my hips banged into the side of the slide. I kept going and the other side of my hips banged up against the side. It was definitely not a pleasant ride, but I'm happy to report that they were more slide-y than the slide at the park near my house. I can't slide down the one near my house. I always have to jump off halfway down because it just isn't slick enough.
So, that little adventure was the reason why I had to wear my riding boots all day today and why I just got finished with blow-drying my shoes. They were still absolutely soaked when I got ready to put them on this morning, even though I unlaced them and took the arch supports and the little base cushions out. In case you didn't know, I have a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of riding boots here with me at school. So much for stereotypical female behavior :)
There should be a GALL meeting tomorrow night, so I'm extremely excited about that. I added all of the new members to the e-mail list early this morning, so hopefully Mike will send out the e-mail soon if he hasn't already. I want to do some crazy stunt on our first night, so I hope someone else has an idea for something. I'm dry right now.
The PERL meetings are, unfortunately, during my linguistics class. I'm still not sure if I got into the linguistics class or not, but the odds are definitely in my favor. The professor told me to come to this week's class having done the assignment, so I assume that means she's pretty sure I'll get in.
The ACM meetings are on Thursday nights, however, so I'm going to go to them to make up for it. I guess there will be a lot of overlap between PERL and ACM (but PERL is all girls, haha), so I'll still get to meet lots of the members and maybe I'll attend some of PERL's special events. ACM is supposedly having a water balloon fight, and the thought of that makes me very happy. If it's anything like playing with a frisbee at the spring picnic, it'll be very amusing indeed :)

Friday.

Today was a great day.
I only had my Latin class today, so I didn't have to go to school until one. I decided to go a little earlier, however, because I wanted to see Dr. Helmstutler (my new Calculus II professor) and I had to meet with Sara and have my lunch before class. The "meeting" with Dr. Helmstutler was uneventful--it didn't happen. He was cozied up in his office chair and I actually think he was sleeping. There was no way I was going to wake him up just to tell him that I was actually able to get into the class and to ask him if I could have a syllabus.
I simply went downstairs to the computer science department. I translated my Latin for a little bit, but I got a cramp in my hand and I didn't really feel like doing any more. After I put my notebook away, I alternated between staring off into space and putting my head down on the table. I watched people walk by and listened to them. One guy rolled down a small "hill" in one of the halls and came flying past me in a rolling chair. I thought that was funny and I kind of wanted to try it, but I didn't want the whole department to be taken over by rolling-chair races. The place looks a whole lot bigger now that it got those new lab doors and some of the tables were removed, but it's still the narrow hallway that it's always been. Later on, I heard Stephen talking to a more advanced CS major about the "clueless 110 students." (And just so Dr. Davies doesn't sound mean--because he isn't--he also added that everyone is there at one point :))
It is pretty funny to think about just how clueless we all were. I really shouldn't say "were." Most of the class didn't continue with computer science, but the ones who did still are quite clueless--yes, I'm including myself in that statement. It's humbling to think about just how much I don't know yet. I made a lot of ridiculous mistakes in 110, a whole lot, but I honestly feel like I'm learning a lot of new stuff. It's an exciting process, one which isn't complete without screwing up a few good times.
That was my personal thought for the day. I basically turned that over in my head for the rest of my time in the department today.
After I left the basement, I went to wait for Sara. Sara is one of the co-presidents who will be taking over GALL after Mike graduates, and I think we're going to consider her the "main" president because most of the forms only allow a single president. She told me that she'd meet me in front of one of the buildings in order for me to give her the list of new GALL members that we got at Club Carnival. To make a long story short, it started pouring down rain while I waited half an hour for her. She never showed, but she just sent me a message, apologizing profusely and telling me that she completely forgot. I'm really not bothered at all; I just wish that someone else had the list so that we could go ahead and get an e-mail out to everyone about the upcoming meeting. It was actually kind of fun. I sat on one of the tables on the patio in front of the building and stayed under the umbrella. My shoes got wet, but it was okay. Mike actually ran out of the building, frolicking and shouting something about the rain, which made me laugh. I didn't even realize until after he was out of yelling distance that I could've just given him the list. I felt dumb :P
I did have lunch though, and it was very good. I had some delicious tofu stir fry. I always love a good tofu stir fry.
Latin class was also very good. I DID A GOOD SIGHT TRANSLATION. It was a fairly simple sentence, but I read it quickly and easily. It's almost like old times :) I miss being able to read Latin like that. I used to be really good with sight translations, but I guess I got out of practice once I left Mr. Wimer's class. AP Latin did nothing for me; in fact, it might've hurt me. And, of course, I couldn't take any Latin during my senior year. Maybe I'll get good enough to take the Latin Composition class. I would love that.

Blahhhhhh. Good blahhhhhh.

I am absolutely dead. Today was brutal.
I woke up at 6 AM today to translate a whole bunch of screwy Latin because I still hadn't finished it. The "passages" were scattered throughout a nine-page packet that was typed in ridiculously small print. To make matters worse, the Latin that I had to translate was mixed with lines of English and German. And to make matters even worse, it was super-archaic Latin and I couldn't recognize half of the words--neither could the dictionary. My only consolation was that I finished a lot of it and everyone else in the class told me that they had had a terrible time with it too. I felt really dumb at first, but I was so glad to hear that I wasn't the only person who thought that the assignment was ridiculously hard.
I also had my computer science class this morning. It was a lot of fun again. We learned about Unix commands. Stephen already taught us a whole lot of really cool ones last semester, as well as many of the ones we learned about today. I did learn a lot of new ones, though, and I didn't even mind that the class is about two hours long. Normally I hate classes that run longer than an hour because my attention gradually starts to decline.
Dr. Zaidman was talking about how we should save important things in two different locations. She gave an example of keeping a copy of a term paper saved on our hard drive and on a jump drive, but she told us that we don't have to do that for "trivial things," such as a letter to our parents. I couldn't help it. I started laughing, which made the guy behind me start laughing too. Dr. Zaidman smiled and told us that she didn't mean that sending a letter to our parents is a trivial matter. I know what she meant, but I still found it very amusing :D
I don't know if she likes me or not yet, but I hope that she does. Life is so much easier when your professors like you (or at least don't hate you). I also think she was talking to me when she stopped in the middle of the lecture and said, "You look very thoughtful and focused," or something like that. I was in my normal "Thinker" pose, with my chin nestled in my fingers and hand and my brow furrowed because of all the stuff bumping around in my brain. I was most certainly paying attention, so she wasn't being sarcastic. It didn't sound sarcastic anyway. I guess it was a compliment...?
Discrete math was a real treat last night. We started out by learning about binary, octal, and hexadecimal numbers. I knew that all three of them existed, and I already knew how to go from binary to decimal. I also knew how to go from decimal to binary, but I only knew the slow way. We learned the dividing by two method, and life is so much easier now. Did I ever mention that I think binary numbers are beautiful? There's just something very aesthetically pleasing about rows upon rows of ones and zeros. I know I'm weird, but I like to think that I'm capable of seeing beauty in lots of places, things, and events that most people don't notice.
I don't know why I just started to discuss discrete math when I haven't even finished writing about my hectic day yet. Sorry?
So, after Latin, I went to my first riding class of the semester. It was great except for the fact that I nearly passed out from heat exhaustion. I don't drink much. I'm also hypotensive. The two are a dangerous combination, particularly in the heat or during most postural changes. Sometimes when I stand up, there's an overwhelming pressure in my head. My vision blacks out, I lose my balance, I have to support myself on any nearby objects, and sometimes my whole body goes numb. I've fallen down because of it and I've even had some sort of weird spasm because of it. I understand that the pressure comes from the constriction of blood vessels (an attempt to raise my blood pressure when it plummets), and I want to think that my vision blacks out because the blood wants to rush where it's more necessary--my brain instead of my eyes. I'm not sure if that's true, but it makes sense to me. Is there a casual reader who wants to confirm or correct this in the comments?
I went in the barn and chugged water from the hose until I nearly felt sick from binge drinking :P Then I went back outside and finished riding.
As soon as I got back on campus from riding, I went out to the club carnival to make sure that someone had taken over the GALL table--or that there was even a GALL table. Sure enough, a few members had already put out our flyers and a poster. They were holding their own, so I browsed the other tables for a bit. I hadn't been in the middle of the mayhem for more than a few seconds when I was accosted by two random computer science majors who were representing the campus chapter of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). They were just bothering random people in hopes that some idiot would at least sign up (and never come), so they were extremely surprised when I told them that I'm a CS major. They informed me that I was practically required to put my name on their list after revealing that interesting fact, and they told me that Stephen would love me. I laughed at them too. They were funny guys.
I also found the PERL table, which was where I also signed up for the "girls' computer science club." I guess I'll make it to one or the other, perhaps both if I'm really lucky. I just can't miss GALL or any of my night classes (more on that later), and I don't know when they meet yet.
After I signed up for a few new clubs, I went to the GALL table to see if they needed any help. Sure enough, everyone who was there had other tables to tend, so I took over for an hour or so. It was fun to have people come over and ask me what GALL does. I gave them vivid descriptions of our most exciting projects. A couple of people asked me if GALL is like Improv Everywhere. It is; in fact, it's basically a local chapter of Improv Everywhere. Plenty of people asked me about guerrilla art, so I did my best to explain our activities to them. One girl approached and asked me what we do, but she stopped me after I described our April Fools' Day prank. She said that she didn't need to hear anything else because she was definitely in. One girl saw me in my riding clothes and asked if GALL is about riding. I told her that it isn't, but I gave her a lot of information about the riding classes at the school. She was very grateful for the information because she told me that she'd really love to ride one day. I was glad to help. Shanita, a wonderful girl who went to high school with me, even stopped by the table to talk to me. I asked her if she wanted to join GALL, but she told me that she doesn't do art anymore. She learned to dislike art in high school, which is a shame because she's an absolutely brilliant painter. I told her that she might like GALL because it's the kind of art we never would have done in high school. I gave her a pamphlet and I sure hope she comes :) I'm not much into drawing and painting anymore, but GALL makes me happy.
Shin splints, on the other hand, do not make me happy. I've been walking a whole lot. I didn't even wear my knee braces one day. Yeah. I've got shin splints now. It sucks because the fronts and sides of my calves hurt. I get shin splints pretty easily; I read somewhere that people whose ankles roll inward tend to get them more often. The chiropractor told me that mine do that a little, which is why my knees are so screwed up. I don't have an arch in my foot, which is why I need to wear supports in my shoes too. Hah, I wasn't sorry!
So...
After doing my duty for GALL, I rushed to the Intro to Linguistics class that I was hoping to get into. The professor told us in the beginning of the class that she doesn't normally do force-adds, so several people got up and left. I stayed, however. I figured I could at least enjoy the class and perhaps chat with her about a possible Linguistics/Latin special major. I'm so glad I did.
After the class was over, I approached the professor by telling her that I was hoping to create a major. She told me that she would be glad to help me. Then, she asked the obligatory year and credits question. I told her that I'm a sophomore and that I'm already declared Computer Science and Latin. She thought I was interested in combining computer science and linguistics for a Computational Linguistics major, but I quickly told her that I want to combine Latin with linguistics for a Linguistics/Latin (That title is actually short enough, so I'm either going to go with that or simply call it Linguistics.) major. The professor told me to come back next week--it's only on Wednesday nights, once a week--to sit in on the class and she'd know by then whether she could let me in or not. She told me that it was likely considering two people didn't show up for the first class meeting and no other students had approached her to force-add (read: She got all of the non-serious ones to leave and the stubborn one stayed.).
All in all, it was an exhausting but excellent day. I also got my Calculus I class approved--YES!--and I think I'm going to go to the class tomorrow and get the professor to add me even though the class is technically not on my transcripts yet. He was actually the one who approved the class since he's the one who teaches it, and he'd probably let me in if I just talk to him. Wooooooo :) I'm excited for this semester.

Get ready for blog post overload--school is back in session.

I just finished with my classes for the day. I only had two actual classes along with a riding meeting, so it wasn't too much.
I left early for campus because I wanted breakfast and I assumed it would take forever for me to find a parking space. I got lost, re-oriented myself after finding my way out of a set of one-way streets that was obviously some sort of practical joke on the part of the planners, and finally went to the campus police station and demanded a commuter pass. For now, since I'm living off campus in some apartments that the college is renting out for us, I'm technically a commuting student. There were NO parking spaces available for me in any of the lots behind the dorms, and I finally took advantage of my temporary commuter pass to park in a special area of the college apartments (no, not where I live) lot. It honestly took 45 minutes of driving around, including the "infinite loop" that I got myself caught in.
Speaking of infinite loops, I did manage to have a little bit of breakfast before heading over to the computer science department for my first class. I even managed to get there early and look around.
Over the summer, the department got a major renovation. The computer lab got leveled out so that no one has to trip on their way in or out anymore. The lab got new doors that are glass, and the whole place got repainted to a creamy yellow. It looks much more open and spacious now. They even got some new furniture in the rooms, and I'm sure they were able to get some new equipment too. It was "very wow."
I sat down at one of the tables off to the side of the elevator and started to think. I mostly thought about my upcoming class as I stared into the freshly-painted walls of the basement. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard the familiar, friendly voice of Dr. Davies. We chatted for just a few moments; he seemed like he was busy, so I was happy to let him go back to his office.
A girl approached me and sat down beside me. She asked me if I'm enrolled in 220, so we started talking about the class. She's also a Computer Science major. I was actually really happy when I looked around the hall at all of the tables and saw...four girls and two guys :D I realized just how odd (read: amazing) the school actually is when I realized that about half of the class consisted of female students. That's pretty much unheard of. I had thought that I might be one of only a few (or the only) female student in the class, but I was very pleased to discover that I was wrong.
The class went very well. The professor was very nice. She's the department head, the lady I visited when I declared the major. I sat through the normal first-day speech on classroom procedures. We also went through the syllabus. I'm not terribly worried about it. We did a little bit of learning today. I didn't know some of the stuff I thought that I should have already known, but I was able to follow the discussions easily. I'll get there in time; Dr. Zaidman wouldn't be teaching it if we were expected to know it already. In fact, I've already cracked the book once today.
I went to Latin after lunch. There were actually 12 people in the class, which I was definitely not expecting.
I'll finish updating after I have dinner.

It's almost time.

I go back to school on August 23rd. I'm very, very excited about it, too :)
I've got a lot of my things packed, but I've still got a lot left to do. I'm going to be in temporary apartment housing until further notice. I don't even know if we'll be provided with a desk and chair, a refrigerator, seating in the living area, or anything else. I know they're providing us with beds that are similar to the ones at school, so I don't have to buy any new sheets. I'm just worried that I'll have to set up my computer on some of my packing boxes and sit in the floor to use it until I can get a desk and chair. I also really want a refrigerator--chocolate soymilk and Mountain Dew are best served cold.
I bought my two computer science books the day before yesterday. I'm so excited to get them. I got them off of eBay because they were both about $100--used--online at the school bookstore. CPSC 220 is, in fact, a Java class (hahaha). I already have a good Java compiler on my computer, so I won't have to search around and find one that works well with OS X. I have had a ridiculously hard time getting XCode to work, but I hope that I can. I'm going to keep trying because I hear that it's brilliant. The other book is a discrete mathematics and computer science text. I could only find one on eBay, but it was a whole lot less expensive than the one in the school's bookstore and it said that it was in good condition. The Java book was in brand new condition and saved me about $70 off of the used book price. I'm happy and I hope I get them soon. I still need to buy my Latin books. I didn't buy the books for my Classics class yet because I don't want to remain in the class. I want to switch out for a linguistics course and Calculus II.
I need to make sure that the community college sent my updated transcript to school for me. And I'm hoping that the school will take it. I'm hoping with everything I have.

Fireman's Carnival

Tonight was the first night of the local fireman's carnival. My sister was begging me to take her, so I conceded and we went for a couple of hours. As soon as we arrived, she split off with her friends, leaving me alone.
I headed over to the bingo table, where I found a chair and put down a dollar for a card. I ended up winning on my second round, earning more than I managed to spend in the subsequent rounds of bingo and for my "dinner" (french fries and a watermelon snow cone, heh). I thought I'd spend most of my money, but I came out with more than I had going in :)
I didn't ride any rides because I didn't have anyone to ride with. I didn't play any games because the aquarium game (where you toss ping pong balls into tiny fishbowls and win a prize--I was glad to see that they've stopped the awful practice of giving away live fish to people who are just going to let them die) didn't have any stuffed lobsters like they've had for the past two or three years. I'm pretty good at the aquarium game, so I've gotten quite a collection of lobsters. I just ate and played bingo.
I did see Drew and Cassie. Cassie reminded me that I have to go to her grandma's house to help get the 4-H yard sale ready. Drew gave me his new phone number and updated me on his life; we haven't seen one another in a while. I saw a lot of people that I recognized from when I was in high school, but I didn't talk to most of them. I didn't care to talk to most of them.

Yes.

I'm feeling quite content right about now. A little unnerved in a few areas, but still content.
I just got my Calculus I grade. I got my A, alright :) I got a 93.96%, which I round up to a 94. The college is on a 10-point scale, so I didn't "just" make it, either. I just hope it transfers to UMW easily! I posted something on my Facebook status about my success in Calculus--"...swore she wouldn't take math in college, got an A in Calculus I, and can't wait for Calculus II." Mrs. Weddle "liked" my status. I miss her so much. I wish I could send her an e-mail telling her that I'd declared myself an English major (so many of her other students have), but she would be disappointed in me knowing that I hadn't followed my dream. In my senior yearbook, she gave me my "final" homework assignment. I have to go out into the world and make a difference. I haven't failed to complete a single homework assignment for her yet, and I hope to keep my record clean.
I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish in this coming school year. I want to start using a planner. I've never bothered to use one because I've always been pretty good at keeping track of assignments and dates in my head. I just feel like I should start, though. I want to stay fairly organized. My side of the dorm room was always clean, as in my clothes were in the hamper and my dishes were washed on a daily basis. My desk, however, was a mountain of papers, books, and art supplies just begging to be stapled or otherwise contained. I'd like to improve on that. I want to get out and be more social. If nothing else, I really want that. I've come to realize that socializing with people and making contacts is going to be one of the most beneficial things I can do in college, even though it's proving to be quite difficult for me. I'm just naturally quiet; I don't assume that people want to talk to me and hear what I have to say. I hate that aspect of myself and I hope to continue working on it for the next few years. I want to go to all of the department picnics, all of the department parties, all of the random department activities (even the Video Game Olympics, even though I'd just make a fool of myself when I have to play Guitar Hero on easy), and all of the guest lectures. I would really like to see if there are any professors (particularly Stephen, because he's so nice and I think he's into artificial intelligence) who would be willing to let me help them do some research. It would be a lot of fun, and it'll be a big bonus on my resume if I decide to apply for graduate school. I want to join PERL, the computer science club, and I want to work really hard as one of the co-presidents of GALL.
Speaking of GALL, I made a pretty sweet slideshow about all of our activities from last year. I gathered up all of the pictures I'd saved on my computer and I snitched a few from the club's Photobucket account. For the background of each of the title slides, I used a photo that I took in the library of a sign that asks library patrons to report any "disruptive" or "suspicious" activity to the front desk. I thought it was appropriate :) The first title slide says "THIS IS GALL," then there's a gorgeous picture of the campus that I took from the balcony of the gym early one morning, and then it starts into the other events--Bottlecap Bead Curtain, Masky Flashmobby, Body Canvas, "Anatomical" Origami, Live Snake, Lightbulb Garden, Wacky Warnings, and Happy April Fools' Day. To top it all off, the whole seven minutes and 33 seconds is set to the equally-long "Corona Radiata," by Nine Inch Nails of course :) "Corona Radiata" is a spine-tingling industrial instrumental piece, and I thought the creepy-yet-beautiful feel of the piece reminded me a lot of GALL. I still don't know if I'll upload it on Youtube, but I might put in on Facebook. I didn't take all of the pictures (maybe 93%, but still). I heard that "Corona Radiata" is free for our use because Trent Reznor gave out free downloads of "The Slip," the album that the piece is on, and he's no longer on a big label. I dunno, maybe I'll put it on Facebook first and then put it on Youtube. I'm very proud of it, after all.

Scammer Grammar

I checked my school e-mail today, hoping to hear more about my housing, something from my roommate, perhaps a scholarship or something fun from GALL or the CompSci department. I didn't get any of those, but I did get a good laugh from an e-mail that I received from the "help desk." It said that the message contained "urgent information" in the title, so I opened it up to take a peek.
They asked for my password, so I immediately took it as a scam. Come on, guys. Not only did I grow up using computers and protecting my own personal information, but I also happen to have some common sense. And the spelling and grammatical errors in the body--oooooh, they drive me absolutely insane!

Here are the winners from this particular message--

"You are adviced to send us your account details." -- "Adviced." Really, if you're going to try to scam passwords off of people, then at least have the decency to spell-check your stupid little e-mail that everyone laughs at and deletes (and possibly takes the time to blog about).

"All Staff/Student" -- "Staff" is plural. "Student" is not. Seriously.

"Further more be informed that we will not hesitate to delete all email accounts that are not functioning, to create more space for new user." -- "User" should be plural. Furthermore, "furthermore" is one word. I won't even get into comma placement...

"After upgrading, a password reset link will be sent to your email for new
password." -- First of all, that's just strange. And the latter half of that sentence is also strange.

"Once it is confirmed you will have no problem signing into your account." -- I just find this one hysterical because, well...if you fall for this scam, you WILL have a problem signing into your account.

"This is a scheduled maintenance period that will be occuring each month, due to the amount of junk email our staff/student are receiving." -- It's "occurring." Getting people to reset their passwords each month would be ridiculously inconvenient. And they made the "staff/student" error AGAIN. And...okay, I said I wouldn't start with the commas... :P

I'm not normally the kind of person who will call someone out for their poor grammar and spelling (even though it eats me up on the inside), but I'm willing to make exceptions for the idiots out there who make a poor attempt at scamming uninformed people out of their passwords. I just wonder if the people who write these types of e-mails are actually stupid or if they're just lazy.
I also have to admit that I've always wanted to respond to one of these e-mails with a fake username and password that are completely vulgar and disturbing, just for laughs. That's my sense of humor for you.
In case you didn't know and didn't figure it out from reading this, an e-mail asking for your password is a scam. I can't think of a single situation where it wouldn't be. Although the e-mail looks legit, it's NOT. There's a way to make a sender's plain old free e-mail account look like a university or company e-mail. Yes, the message is going to tell you that your account is going to be deleted and whatnot. Don't worry about it. I've gotten literally dozens of these e-mails throughout my life--haven't responded to a single one--and I haven't had a single account deleted yet. If you do respond to the message and share your account details, the person who sent the e-mail will have complete control over your account and any personal information that comes with it. And the first thing those people do when they access your account? Change the password so that YOU can't get in. So treat your password like your toothbrush and don't share it with anyone. And change it every few months. :P :P :P

Latin, Linguistics, and Computer Science

I've been doing some hard thinking for the past few days. I don't know what I should do. I've been thinking for a while now about ultimately working in the field of artificial intelligence. It certainly sounds like an ideal career path for me. I'm interested in computer science, language, and the human mind. It would be fun!
With those thoughts came the idea of a major in Linguistics. The university that I attend doesn't offer a Linguistics major, but there are several linguistics courses offered that go along with the English and Communications majors. The university also offers the opportunity to design a special major that includes courses from two or more disciplines. I don't want to drop my Latin major completely. Rather, I'd like to create a hybrid Latin/Linguistics major that will give me a leg-up in a future career and excuse me from all of the mythology and Roman history courses that I don't really want to take. The school's "special major" page on their site even suggested combining linguistics courses with a language to form the Linguistics major. I think they were hoping students would choose a modern foreign language to create their own Linguistics major, but the only good language is a dead language :) (Programming languages are good too, but my favorite shirt doesn't agree.)
I think that creating the Latin/Linguistics major will help me graduate on time. I also think I'll be happier. I love Latin, but I love the language. I've always been into grammar and language over analyzing literature, studying mythology, and learning about history.
This isn't set in stone yet, but it's definitely something I'm thinking about. The only thing is that I feel like a bad Latin student for not pursuing the major in its entirety. But I'm silly, I guess.
In other news, I e-mailed my roommate for the coming year. Her name is Jasmine, and she sounds very nice and interesting. She told me that she likes animals, which is always a winner with me. She also doesn't smoke or drink, which also makes me happy. We share a few interests so far, and I'm really excited to hear more from her. The information that I got tells me that we're still in hotel housing, so we may not be together at all. They might find space for us on campus, which means they'll stick us wherever there are two open spots, together or not. I would love a great roommate, but I also really want to be on campus. I don't know, and I'm not going to worry about it. If we're together, great. Jasmine sounds wonderful. If we're not, so it goes. It's always nice to meet people to have as friends.
I also got an e-mail from Mike, the current president of GALL. He's graduating in the coming year, so he sent out a message to all of the current members of GALL asking for someone who is willing to be trained as his replacement. I hesitated to respond because I figured that someone else would want to take the three open positions, but I was worried that, if no one else responded either, GALL would die. I sent Mike a response telling him that I'd take a position if one still needed to be filled, and he told me that a co-presidency seemed to be forming and that I was welcome to be a part of it. I honestly love the idea, partly because I think it suits GALL more, and partly because I was worried that Mike's response was going to be something along the lines of, "No one responded, so you get to be president by yourself."
I've been trying to be more social and get myself out there a little more, and volunteering to help lead GALL seemed like a good way to take a few steps. It'll require me to get out and talk to people in order to get some great stuff done--and getting great stuff done with GALL is definitely worth it.

Mm, slushies.

So, 7-11 was giving out free slushies today. I was really excited and all. I think they're great, especially that weird Mutant Berry stuff. I stopped in one of the stores and made a beeline for the slushie station, where I grabbed a cup and examined my options. There was a Coke slushie--yummy, but rather boring. There was a cherry slushie, but artificial cherry flavoring is disgusting. There were two orange slushies, but they were both diet. Diet slushies (and drinks in general) are completely undrinkable under normal circumstances. There was a watermelon slushie, which instantly attracted me.
I waited in the long line with my paper cup and purple straw in hand while people made their decisions and filled their cups with frosty goodness. I noticed that a few people were having trouble getting the watermelon slushie dispenser to work, and I was very worried that I'd have to settle for a Coke slushie.
I decided that I wasn't going to settle for a Coke slushie, however. I placed my cup down under the dispenser and turned the knob. Nothing came out. I was irked, but I held up the line and kept on trying. I really wanted the watermelon slushie. I pushed and pulled and forced and slammed on the little lever-knob to make the slushie come out, and, man, did it come out! Suddenly, the dam (probably a chunk of ice) broke and a cold, pink flood exploded out on everything in the vicinity.
The floor was splattered with little piles of slushie. My small slushie cup was overflowing, and the overflow catcher thing was, well, overflowing. There were streaks of reddish-pink running down my arms because I was holding the cup when the thing let loose. I even had some on my face and shirt. The two people who happened to be behind me just stared--didn't even crack a smile!--but I couldn't do anything but laugh hysterically as I carried my dripping mess over to the nearest napkin container and tried to clean up the mess. I did, in fact, clean myself, the cup, and the floor thoroughly before leaving the store.
The slushie was very good and totally worth being all sticky and cleaning up such a big mess. I didn't even get a brain freeze! I wonder if they'll dare to offer free slushies again next year. I wonder if they'll let me have one. Because I am SO ready if they are :)

Visiting Robert

I talked to Robert last night. He suggested that we do a Free Hugs kind of thing at the next farmer's market, which is August 1st. The idea immediately took my interest; I do love stuff like that :) Hopefully his idea will be very successful!
I also went to go visit Robert tonight. We were going to go canoeing, but the marina was closed by the time I was able to come to his house after I'd finished all of my work at the barn. We played Guitar Hero instead, which was a lot of fun. I'd only played guitar and bass, never vocals.
I usually don't sing in front of other people. I sang for Mac right before he died. Sometimes I sing for Stella. I sing in the car sometimes. I do quite well singing with Morrissey, even though I can't always hit the high notes with him. I attempt to sing with Mr. Reznor, but I'm not very good at it. Usually, I'll get halfway through a NIN song and burst into laughter because I know I must sound ridiculous. Most people probably think that I'm completely incapable of yelling, yet I'm driving down the road screaming the lyrics of "Gave Up" at the top of my lungs. Sometimes I sing with the radio, but most of the time my car won't pick up any good stations and I have to stick with CDs.
For a while, Robert and I switched between guitar and bass. The bass was a lot easier for me to play (I still need to play on the easy level, but Robert plays on the expert level.), so I mostly did that. Then, Robert got me to sing while he continued with the guitar. I was completely unfamiliar with all of the songs I had to sing, which made the task very difficult. Being unable to see the tiny print also increased the level of difficulty... I really needed my glasses. I couldn't get the hang of it and it was very embarrassing, but it was still pretty fun. Robert also had his turn at the microphone. Despite his assertion that he sucks at doing the vocals, I thought his singing voice was quite nice.
It was really late by the time we decided that we'd had enough. I met Robert's cat, Karuna, and she is gorgeous. Then I went out onto the porch and almost fell flat on my face because I couldn't judge distances in the dark. Hehehe.
I have other stuff to write about, but I'm really tired and I think I should go to bed.

Reese's for breakfast!

I woke up late this morning. I really just needed the extra sleep, so even when I woke up at 6:30 and started to climb out of bed, I made myself lie back down. I noticed that I was very distracted and weaved a lot when I was driving yesterday, and I really don't want to do something dangerous like that again. I eventually woke up at 9:00 and decided that I'd had enough.
I almost always have to have breakfast right after I wake up. Of course, I didn't do that on Monday. I had a small bag of peanuts and a can of Mountain Dew from the vending machines when I was working on the calculus project with Joshua, and that was after noon. Before that, I didn't have anything to eat or drink :( Ah, but I digress...
I had Reese's for breakfast. While I was rooting around in the box (I like my cereal dry.) for each handful, I looked at the back of the box. This box had a list of "18 Things To Do Before You're 18". Since I'm 19, I've kinda lost my chance at completing the list. But...what have I done?

#1. Ride the world's biggest rollercoaster.
I've been on some rollercoasters, yes. I've been on ones with loops. I've been on some really fast ones, ones with fairly large drops, all sorts of stuff. I'll get on just about anything as long as it has a sitting car. I've seen some of them let you hang, and the thought of that just freaks me out. I usually do close my eyes and hang on, though. I'm terribly scared of heights :)
I googled the "world's biggest rollercoaster" and didn't find anything useful. What makes it the "biggest"? Length? Height? Something else? I don't know. But maybe I'll get up the gall to go on one of those hanging roller coasters now that I've thought about it

#2. Bungee jump.
Uh...NO. Never. I'd bungee jump before I tried skydiving, but...no.

#3. Score the winning goal/basket.
Is the equestrian equivalent winning a blue ribbon? If so, I've got this one completed. I was usually picked last in gym class because I'm pathetic when it comes to all of those sports :P

#4. Win an award, trophy, or prize.
I got a certificate for a high score on the National Latin Exam twice (and I've taken the test twice). I won the "word processing award" in high school for being the only person who ever got my stuff done. I've won classes and prizes at horse shows. Yay me?

#5. Learn an instrument.
I attempted this one. I really did. But I can't help it that my middle school music teacher taught us how to play chess (I'm forever grateful.) instead of teaching us how to read sheet music. I attempted to learn to play the piano, and I can play a couple of things. I figured out the presidential march thing all by myself. I can play part of "Teardrop" by Massive Attack (Think of the "House" theme.) and the very beginning of "Blue" by Eiffel 65. I can play parts of "Something I Can Never Have," "The Frail," "Zero Sum," and a handful of other Nine Inch Nails songs. I have a very, very hard time playing with both hands, however, and I don't think I'll ever be a successful musician.

#6. Go backstage at a gig.
Let's work on "go to first major concert" first, and then we'll try this one. I've been to small concerts with local bands at school, but that's all. I would LOVE to go to a NIN concert one day, mostly because it's my favorite band that's still together. After all, Morrissey isn't as great without Marr by his side :(

#7. Meet your idol.
My idol? No clue. There are lots of people I'd love to meet, though. Most of them are dead. So it goes.

#8. Play a part in your favorite TV show.
I do play a part in "House." I try to analyze medical symptoms and make a diagnosis before the great Dr. Gregory House does. Hahaha. I also do that when my mom and I watch medical shows on the Discovery Health channel.

#9. Meet someone with your own name.
According to a Facebook application that I tried a few weeks ago, I'm the only person in the world with my first and last name and that there are probably around 100 people in the world with my last name. My dad and I have the same middle and last name, though, so I guess that's as close as I'll get.

#10. Make a discovery.
Hmmmm...

#11. Get away with the perfect practical joke.
I've pulled lots of fun practical jokes, both on friends and the general public. I plan to get away with lots more. I do love a good practical joke.
I don't think I ever revealed what I did on April Fool's Day this year. I cut lots of circles out of fluorescent copy paper, and then I taped them to the walls of the elevator in my favorite academic building. I figured that it would brighten everyone's dull elevator ride (The walls are an ugly, puke-y pink color.) and make people wonder who the perpetrator was (It did--someone actually asked me if I did it.), and it made for a fun, harmless thing to do on such a wonderful day.

#12. Own a pointless collection.
I collect...er, what do I collect? I could say that I collect pictures and video that I've taken. Is that pointless? Maybe.

#13. Invent a word that makes it into the dictionary.
When "wootle" makes it into the Merriam-Webster's, I'll let you guys know. But we need a definition for it, first.

#14. Conquer your biggest fear.
In some ways, I've definitely worked on it. As I said, I've gone on lots of roller coasters, and I actually like the view as long as I'm sitting securely and sure that I won't fall. A few months ago, I climbed up into the tree stand in the back field behind the barn. It was twenty feet or so off the ground and I was scared to death, but the view was great. I also helped Larry, my riding instructor, work when I was on winter break. I accepted the job offer on the condition that I would only be picking up the old shingles that he threw on the ground, but then Larry needed help with something on the roof. He knew that I was scared of heights, but he really needed me and called me to climb up the ladder. I freaked out but did it anyway. I think I would've been okay if I'd been on a flat roof, but the steep slope made me feel like I was going to fall. I did survive, however, and I guess I'm a little less afraid of heights because of it.

#15. Raise money for charity.
I've done lots of work for charity. I love to help the local therapeutic riding school. I judged a class for them at a local horse show about two weeks ago. I've helped them with their student horse show, and I've cleaned stalls for them. I haven't really given money to any charities, though. Maybe I'll do something one day...

#16. Pass your driving test the first time.
I actually did, believe it or not. I passed the learner's and license tests the first time around.

#17. Complete a road trip coast to coast.
I flew. Check.

#18. Reach 18 years of age--yes!!!
The cereal says that I'm old.

Food for thought. Yummy. I guess that's all for today.

Project Calculus

I've been working hard at this calculus stuff, and it's paying off. I've got an 86 average, and I think I can get it up to an A by the end of the semester if I study a little harder. Perhaps if I'd known that we were actually supposed to submit our worksheets, I'd already have that A. Ah, so it goes :)
I still don't know whether this class will count as Calculus I and II or just the first one. At this point, I'm no longer afraid of Calculus II. My issues with math from high school math are fading away and, well, I actually smiled today when my professor was explaining a difficult problem to my group in her office.
Our big class project is due tomorrow, but we managed to turn it in this afternoon. The professor divided the class into groups. She put me in a group with a girl named Rachel and a guy named Josh. Rachel and Josh met a few days ago, and Josh and I met today. Josh worked on the first problem while I worked on the second. Mrs. Lee, our professor, came to her office for a while, so we ambushed her and asked her for a little help. The second problem was significantly more difficult than the first (The concept was actually a little easier for me to understand, but the numbers were terribly difficult to manipulate.), so I ultimately had to go to the office three or four times. We worked on the final part of the first problem together. Josh was surprised when he used my calculator and it gave him an answer in scientific notation. He knew what it was, he was just taken aback for a few seconds. Talking about scientific notation sent me into chemistry mode. The question had something to do with profit, and when we got one of several answers Mrs. Lee asked us how many decimal places the answer would have. I started mumbling out loud about sig figs, and then Mrs. Lee smiled and reminded me that we were talking about money. She has a degree in chemistry, so she definitely knew what I was talking about. I was a little red in the face, but I still thought that my cross-discipline blunder was very amusing.
We were in the library for about three hours when Josh finally finished and decided he was going home. I walked down to the student lounge and got myself some breakfast and lunch--a Mountain Dew and a small bag of peanuts. I've been running on a few hours of sleep each night since Wednesday because I've been off at a horse show, and I woke up at 4:30 AM this morning to work on some calculus. I needed the caffeine...
After a ridonkulously long time in the library, I was ready to head home. I need to study for my test tomorrow, but instead I'm listening to Nine Inch Nails (as I often do) and typing this (as I often do when I'm at school).
I guess I'd better get started.

Yay, my first game!

I know it's lame beyond belief, but I did finish my game right after I finished that last blog post. It has been a constant source of entertainment for me: playing, coercing family members into playing ("Isn't this AWESOME!?" "Oh, yes...uh, that's...nice..."), tweaking, hoping that I might be able to think of new games to make.
I'm already considering an attempt at a "24" kind of game, where the object is to roll four dice and get as close to 24 total points as possible. I guess I could make it so the user could play against the computer, and I think I've got a way for the computer to "decide" that it "wants" to try a roll again. I need more ideas for fun games. I'd like to have a whole collection of games eventually. Maybe one day I'll actually make cool games for me to play, instead of a bunch of lame Javascript games. I want to make my own version of Minesweeper and Snake. Mm, yes... And a horsey jumping game. At the rate I'm going, I'll probably end up as a game programmer. I don't think I want to do that, but I'm bored and I can't think of anything better to code than a bunch of silly games. At least they're useful right now. I can still access some of the stuff I did in 110, but none of them are currently that useful or entertaining.
Oh, yeah, and I got new shoelaces. Pretty black ones with red on the sides. They look pretty sweet on my old riding boots. And...it's sad when I start writing about my shoelaces.
When I go back to college, I won't be as boring. I promise.

INFINITE LOOP...FAIL.

I found some inspiration, and now I'm writing a Javascript program for a number guessing game. I would be able to finish it before I go to bed, but I'm not all that willing to stay up past midnight when I have to get up early tomorrow morning to study calculus. I'm having fun though :) The whole Java thing is not working out that well for me right now, mostly because I can't find a decent online tutorial to help me out. I'm thinking about changing focus and working on C++ for a bit. I know there are lots of tutorials floating around for that. The Java tutorials just seem...scattered.
Eh, so my program did incorporate an infinite loop because, in the two seconds it took me to refresh the page, I realized that I had inadvertently forgotten to add the all-important "i++;", which condemned the poor prompt to repeat itself over and over and over and over and over and over again until I could convince Internet Explorer (My mom is allergic to foxes.) to close.
My calculus test went well on Tuesday. It was fairly easy. I think I got an A on it. I got a B on my first test, but that's because it's the first test. They're always "harder" because no one ever knows how they're going to be. The test was all about limits and derivatives, and some marginal profit thing that I didn't pay much attention to. While calculating interest rates might come in handy someday, I seriously doubt I'm going to be using most of this business stuff at any point in my life. I'm focusing on the things I think I'm going to need for Calculus II, and ultimately the computer science classes that have it as a prerequisite.
Ooooh! I think I finished my game! :)
(Seriously, my life is boring. But maybe the game will make my life more exciting...)

Even more computer and college stuffs. (Have you died of boredom yet?)

My life consists solely of studying calculus, mucking stalls, and screwing around with computers. Mm, and a little Latin. I'm boring. Sigh...
Today I played around with my Java hello world program. I wrote it and debugged it (Debugging a hello world program... Hahaha, that's a little embarrassing.) a while back, but I never tried to run it. I opened up Terminal, did the whole command-line thing, and had about fifteen minutes of sheer SQUEE while running it over and over again.
Hello, world!
Hello, world!
Hello, world!
Hello, world!
Yeah, that entertained me. I was happy :)
I studied my calculus today. I did lots of stuff with limits and continuity. It wasn't too bad. Limits are supposed to be really important, so I've been studying them extra hard. For the most part, I'm getting all of the practice problems right.
I studied Latin last night. I opened up my good old Wheelock's book and made some vocab flashcards. My vocabulary isn't as good as it should be. I was driving down the road the other day and trying to compose Latin sentences in my head. I couldn't think of any good words. It made me sad, so now I'm rebuilding my vocabulary so it's strong and healthy.
I worked on my old computer a few nights ago. It's about seven years old, running Windows XP, and, according to the guy at the computer shop, the slowest computer anyone's ever had the displeasure of booting up. No joke, it takes almost twenty minutes to be able to click anything, and almost twenty more before anything starts to work. After a while it runs almost as quickly as the Mighty Mac, but I can't use it without a little desktop fan blowing on it. It'll overheat in a matter of minutes without the fan. At this point, replacing the fan would probably cost more than the computer is worth. For a while, I've been thinking about cleaning everything off of it, hopefully making it run faster, and then trying Ubuntu on it as a fun project until the thing finally gives out. (Then it'll be my little "dissection" project, but--shhh!--don't tell it.) I've started the whole "cleaning everything off of it" part, and I've actually accomplished a lot. I took notes the other night because I knew it would keep me entertained while I was waiting around for everything. Maybe I'll type them out here later. They're kind of amusing, in an odd sort of way.
I went to go see Robert about a week ago. That was great. I dropped by around 8:30 and we played a spaceship video game. It was so much fun, but I don't think I was very good at it. I died a whole lot. I think it was after 10 before I left to go home. I've missed Robert.
Mm, I've got about an hour before I should go to bed. Calculus? Nah. Too late for that. I'll find something to do.

More computer and college stuffs

I never found that disk (Does it even exist? I read about it somewhere, and I swear I haven't lost it.), so I'm trying to find a Java compiler. Evidently, I can't ssh into the school's server to work on my Javascript project that I was so hoping to tinker with over the summer :( So it goes. The page is still available, so I'll probably just "steal" my work from the source and maybe find some way to play with it. I still have my old Freewebs site that I don't touch anymore, so maybe I'll find a way to devote a page to my Latin Composition Tutor.
That meant nothing to anyone but me, I'm sure. Hahahaha.
I've been working on my calculus class. It's not that bad yet. I hope it never gets to a point where I think it's "bad." I think I'm the only traditional college student in the class. Most of the people who've posted their introductions on the message board are adult learners, which isn't a bad thing by any means. The teacher seems really nice just judging from our short meeting at the community college. I walked into the room and sat down, and she asked me to come to the front to get a syllabus. I looked at both of them and realized that both of them were for a basic arithmetic class, not calculus. She must've seen the confusion on my face because she walked over to assist me. I asked her about the calculus class and she told me that I didn't have to attend the meeting. I sat through it anyway because she was going over something we'd be using in class, and I realized that I had to use something similar for my chemistry classes. For the most part, my whole distance learning orientation wasn't very useful. I bought my books, and that was about it. I wouldn't be taking an online learning class if I didn't know how to use a computer, and I most certainly wouldn't be taking calculus if I weren't in a major that involved learning even more about computers. I was, fortunately, spared the annoyance of not being in the library computers already. I took many, many dual-enrollment courses in high school, all through this community college. I just had to have my picture taken (I looked silly, and I just happened to be wearing a shirt that was almost identical in color to the background so I looked like a floating head and neck. Hehehe.) and get an actual card. They messed up my last name once, so I had to do the whole thing again. So it goes.
My life is even more boring now that I'm home from school. Bleh.

Calculus owns me.

The orientation for my online Calculus class is this afternoon, and I'm a little nervous. Sure, I looked at the syllabus. That made me feel a little better because the first unit is stuff that I already know and stuff that I will easily remember once I look it over. But I'm still nervous.
I need to buy the book and the required software tonight. Hopefully the software will be compatible with my computer. I always, always, always worry about that. I might have to switch computers with my family for a bit.
I've also got to find the "developer's disk" that came with my computer. Supposedly there's a disk with a compiler specifically for my computer on it. I'd like to go into 220 with as much knowledge of C++ and/or Java as I had of Javascript when I went into 110. Frankly, my knowledge wasn't great, but it did make life a whole lot easier. I guess, however, that once you understand the concept of programming in one language, it shouldn't be too much harder to learn a second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on.
In more amusing news, I went to the chiropractor yesterday. We were talking about math and computer science, engineering and anatomy as the cracks from my vertebrae made me cringe. He asked me what languages they teach at school. I told him that they teach all sorts, but then told him that I only know Javascript so far. He went off on a tangent about HTML and Fortran. It made me smile :) I dunno, I just thought it was humorous to see him standing over me, simultaneously snapping my neck and lecturing me on how HTML is not an actual language. I think lots of things are funny.
In not-so-amusing-yet-absolutely-amazing news, I OWNED CHEMISTRY THIS SEMESTER.
I had something else to write about, but I forgot it.

I went a little crazy with these things, but I'm bored.

You Are a Mac

You are creative, stylish, and super trendy. You are a bit obsessed with gadgets, and you like owning the newest devices. You aren't the type of person who separates work from pleasure. In your opinion, all work should be fun. You love creating. Aesthetics are very important to you. You like to be surrounded by beautiful, sleek things. You demand the best - even if it costs an arm and a leg.

Are You a Mac or a PC?

I don't consider myself stylish or trendy (I still have and wear clothes from 6th grade, no joke.), but I definitely need to make my work fun. I like beautiful things, particularly those that lead me to create even more beautiful things.
This would be a perfect time for me to tell the story about how Windows made me cry the first time I ever used a computer, but... I'll save that one :)

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

Ha! That proves it! I am HALF a woman. Screw you all :D

There Are 0 Gaps in Your Knowledge

Where you have gaps in your knowledge: No Gaps! Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge: Philosophy Religion Economics Literature History Science Art

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

Wow. Uhm... I guessed a lot.

Your Word is "Think"

You see life as an amazing mix of possibilities, ideas, and fascinations. And sometimes you feel like you don't have enough time to take it all in. You love learning. Whether you're in school or not, you're probably immersed in several subjects right now. When you're not learning, you're busy reflecting. You think a lot about the people you know and the things you've experienced.

What's Your Word?

This one describes me quite well, in my opinion.

Yeah, I'll write about why I use a Mac on another day. Usually I forgive and forget, but first impressions last a long time... :) (I'm just kidding, I still use Windows occasionally--like when I sneak attack and install Firefox in place of IE on the family computer, muahahaha!)

Panicking solves nothing...or everything.

After I posted that last bit, I went on a mad hunt through all of my college boxes. I didn't find my notebook. I was seriously flustered by that point, so I went up to my bedroom to peruse my PreCal text. I got bored, nodded off, woke up, and started hunting again. This time, I rummaged through all of my typical hiding spots. Ooooh, doesn't that make me sound shady? :P
I eventually found my notebook, and I was so relieved. Seriously, I'm so glad I found it. *sigh*

Oh no. Ohhhhh no.

My notebook is missing. The one I write all of my dreams in. I'm almost panicking. First of all, I've been keeping it for almost a year and a half. If it's lost, there's all of that "research" down the drain. And if someone else finds it before I do... Oh man. "Embarrassing" can't even begin to describe it. I don't want anyone else to read some of what I've written in there. I forced myself to be completely open and honest with everything in that notebook, and I'm just not comfortable with being that open with most people.
This is bad. Really bad. But there's some good news, too.
I checked my school e-mail today just to see if I'd gotten any new mail. Stephen sent me my project and exam grades. I got 11.5 out of 10 on my project (because of the extra credit) and a 94% on my exam. He also added that I'm a natural, which really meant a whole lot to me. I'm still worried about calculus. The class starts in about a week, and I'm getting more nervous by the day. I'm going to try to believe that I can do it, though :)

Screwing around with my computer :)

I've been having a lot of fun with my computer today. I changed my desktop background back to a picture of me riding Stella. I also changed it so that the dock (I'm a Mac user) hides unless I mouse over at the bottom of the screen, which gives me a lot more work space. Then, I was daring and changed my keyboard to Dvorak. I'm picking it up quickly, but I'm not using it right now for the sake of time. I still mess up a whole lot (I can't help but switch back to Qwerty out of habit) and sometimes I have to sit and stare at the keyboard to remember which key is which. I thought about taping pieces of paper with the new letters onto each key until I learn, but I don't think I will. I'm still slow and inaccurate, but I'm getting it.
There was a computer science study session tonight. It was fun just like class usually is, and we talked about the stuff that will be on the exam. I'm sad because 110 is going to be done with, but I'm excited for 220 and 125--CompSci I and Discrete Math. I looked at some study material online for Discrete Math, and I already know a whole lot of it. I don't think it's gonna hurt too much. I might even be able to take Calculus II next semester, which is what I'd like to do. I'm also excited about my Classics class and my Latin literature class.
Latin lit has Catullus on the syllabus!!! Catullus is my favorite, just because he's vulgar and witty and funny and sweet all at the same time.
I'll see about taking Calculus II next semester. I guess it'll all depend on how well Calculus I goes. I'll do anything to pass both of those classes, though. I'm taking one over the summer. Seriously, does that not scream, "I really want to be a Computer Science major!" ? :D

Sometimes I think I should post cool links and stuff here, just because my life is boring and no one cares about me and I do find a lot of cool (maybe?) things. So...
Here's an amazing video of a dressage test ridden by Isabell Werth. The music is all by Nine Inch Nails, one of my favorite bands in the whole world. Dressage and NIN--can it get much better?



Enjoy. I've got a date with Aeneas. Sorry Dido, you should go jump in a fire or something.

EDIT: I just posted that video to my other blog and... I attempted to save the entry by pressing escape, then typing ":wq" I don't know what to say to that.
Sigh. Nerdiness FTW.

The things I think of while brushing my teeth...

I'm not studying for my chemistry exam that's tomorrow morning.
Why?
I was brushing my teeth this morning when I had an idea for a fun program to write. It's a "Latin composition tutor," and I'm already having fun with it. I think it's going to evolve into a summer project, mostly because I need to be studying and it's going to require a lot of Latin as well as a lot of programming--and surely a lot of debugging.
I'm excited.
...And hungry.
...And going to fail my chemistry exam if I don't quit doing this and start studying.

It's time to crack down

I just got back from the Computer Science department picnic, which was awesome. I explored new lands, took shots of Liquid Javascript, chatted with CompSci and Chem majors, tossed around a frisbee, and even made an attempt at volleyball.
I kinda got lost on the way over there because I didn't know where the school's apartment complex is. Finding the buildings was easy enough, but finding the courtyard was difficult. I wandered about for a while until I spotted a bunch of people gathered under a tree. I asked a girl about it, and she confirmed that I'd made it to the right picnic. Her name was Becky (or some variation of it--I'm terrible with names) and we talked. She told me that she's a Chemistry major, which I think is pretty impressive. I also talked to a lot of actual CompSci majors, which makes me feel accomplished. One of my goals for this year was to be more social, and I think I've made some progress. We started tossing a frisbee around the courtyard, which was pretty funny considering how clumsy we all were. The disc frequently deviated from its intended path, flew right past the recipient, and even hit some unamused sunbathers. We had a good time with it.
Then, the "superstar of the CompSci department," Stephen, showed up and people started to eat. I gnawed on some Nutter Butter cookies, nasty vanilla wafer crisp cookies (I liked 'em when I was a kid...), and lettuce leaves from the burger toppings plate. I started with some Hawaiian Punch, then moved on to a hybrid Punch-Lemonade mix, then had way too much Mountain Dew, and finally made a smart choice to stick with water.
I was recruited for a game of volleyball, which wasn't too much of an epic failure. When we were practicing before the game, someone bumped the ball to me and I did a beautiful, ballet-like, jumping-on-one-foot number. It was pretty funny. I'm not good at volleyball at all, but it sure was fun to try. The team I was on lost, but it was all good. There were lots of awesome games afterward, and it was also lots of fun to watch.
The whole time they were setting up, I had one thing on my mind: "How many people does it take to set up a volleyball net?" The answer is... A Chem major, a handful of CompSci majors (One is required to wear a kilt.), and a professor.
There were lots of computer science discussions--people talking about the projects they're finishing, people discussing different programming languages, people talking about what classes they're in and what they're taking next semester. I don't know any programming languages other than Javascript, so I didn't have much to say even though I had a nice time listening. I've looked at Java, Python, and C++, but I definitely can't say I know anything about them. I think my next computer science class is a Java class, which is exciting. We talked about the way computer scientists start "slinking" around, which was really funny because it's kinda true :) Stephen's kid sat beside me and stuck a cup over my ear. At first I was confused because the kid was out of my peripheral vision and I had no idea what was happening to the side of my head. Then I thought it was pretty funny because I like most kids and think they're really funny. The title of "nerd" was officially bestowed upon me once Becky(?) read the front of my shirt ("Lingua mortua sola lingua bona est!") and found out about my double major. Now that I think about it... Aggh :P
All in all, I had a great time. I got all socially anxious and stuff, but I sucked it up and went anyway. I'm working on myself, and I'm making progress little by little.
Amber and I went to dinner tonight. The dining hall's food SUCKED. Most of the rooms are closed on the weekends. I started out with a PB&J, then had a salad, which consisted of romaine lettuce and some Italian dressing. I also made some plain oatmeal and added some hazelnut coffee syrup to it. It would've been quite tasty except the syrup made it taste slightly alcoholic, kind of like tasting artificial vanilla flavoring straight from the bottle. It took a few bites for me to determine that it was disgusting, and then my dinner was finished. We went to the Nest, a cafe on campus, because I have a whole lot of dining plan "dollars" that don't roll over to the next school year. I got a few things to snack on and a big scoop of the most amazing ice cream in the whole world.
Normally I don't eat ice cream. I just don't. But one day I realized that they had something called "birthday cake" ice cream. It tastes like a birthday cake. OHHHHHHHH IT'S GOOOOOOOOOD. That is one thing I will definitely miss over break :P

Yay life (no sarcasm this time).

I got so much accomplished today. I'm feeling full of myself :)
I went to Professor Houghtalin's office hours today to get some help with scanning poetry. I was doing all of the lines correctly by the time I left.
In Latin, I "won" the "sack of Troy award" simply because I was the final person to translate for the semester. The clock was ticking by and I was a little sad because I didn't think I would get a chance to read today. I got called on for a single sentence, the final line of Book II, and I gave the class quite a nice sight translation. Now I'm ready for Latin 305 next semester!
I also finished my final computer science project for the year thanks to Stephen. His office hours were packed, so everyone went to the lab and worked in there. I had a few undefined arrays that I fixed myself and a few that Stephen had to fix for me. I was absolutely ebullient when my save and load functions finally worked once they were fixed. I was even happier when the whole thing worked. I felt pretty dumb when Stephen pointed out that I was missing a curlybrace at the end of two different functions, but at least they were easy to fix!
Javascript is crazy, but it's so worth it in the end.
Stephen tried to assure me that not all computer science is like Javascript. I thought that was funny. The debugging and high level of anal-ness doesn't bother me all that much. I actually think that's what attracts me to it. Debugging is like a game. I'm patient. Sure, I need a "victory" every once in a while, even if it's just adding a little CSS to the page to make it look good. But it's fun to dig through everything and sniff out problems. It helps that I'm crazy about misspellings and similar errors.
I was working on my chemistry project late last night, and one member of my group asked me what I'm majoring in. I got a few surprised, awkward looks and a half a laugh when I told them. It's a little strange at first glance, but I really do see a relationship between Latin and computer science.
The chemistry project work session was a little weird last night. We did get some stuff done, but we need to bust butt tonight in order to finish for tomorrow. I drew a diagram of the battery setup for the electroplating experiment, and the whole group was impressed. I hope they like the finished product! The work session was also where I discovered the Liquid Javascript that wouldn't let me sleep last night.
I should be working. I've been productive so far, so I shouldn't slack off now.

OMG CAFFEINE.

I swallowed my pride and used Firebug last night to help me debug some Javascript for the project. Actually, this was the first time I was able to make it work, but... Hey, it's nice. Just sayin'.
I also discovered the wonderful thing called Mountain Dew. It has this thing in it called caffeine, which is a stimulant drug. Mountain Dew now has a new name:
Liquid Javascript.
As you can tell, this project is beating me.
Short post this morning. It's just after 6 AM, and I'm doing computer science, Latin, and chemistry from sunup to sundown. Yay life.

Wonderful day

I'm currently listening to some Nine Inch Nails that's just loud enough to hear, a heavy rain, and the joyous laughter of a group of people who are frolicking in that rain. I'd love to be out there as well, but I've got to do Latin. I'll definitely try to complete this later, as I've had a wonderful day. It always makes me happy to write about wonderful days.

Success!

I just finished my presentation for my Human Animal class--the powerpoint, the presentation, the paper, the blog, everything.
The guy who went before me had the same topic that I did. He did an excellent job, and he was obviously pro-vegetarianism. He defended the position that humans are actually herbivores and opportunistically omnivorous. I'm not sure I totally agree with that; I'm more along the line of thinking that we're slightly omnivorous, that we're well-suited to a vegetarian diet but that we can definitely eat some meat if we desire. I personally have never been comfortable with the idea of eating animals.
My presentation explained that we've evolved to be omnivores, but we should ultimately choose the diet that best suits us as individuals. For example, I eat about twice the recommended amount of sodium and my blood pressure is STILL through the floor. Yes, through the floor. I've even hit the floor on several occasions because I've blacked out and collapsed from orthostatic hypotension. Most people would be on blood pressure medication if they ate what I have to. I'm also perfectly happy and healthy as a vegetarian, but my presentation highlighted the Inuits as a group that simply couldn't be.
The presentation went very well. I got a little nervous at the very beginning, mostly just when I was walking up to the computer and starting with the introduction. As usual, however, my tension melted away as I got going. I did stumble over a few things, particularly when I couldn't differentiate my left from my right while discussing pictures on the screen and flat-out stating that herbivores are adapted to eat meat, but it's all good. I simply reoriented my thinking for the former and corrected my rather obvious stumble for the latter. I honestly don't mind public speaking after I'm settled and going with my presentation. I also didn't pick up on too many nervous things--no plucking today--except that I shifted my weight every once in a while and I said "um" a few times. I wonder if anyone saw how I knew the URL of my blog. I walked up to the computer desk, opened Firefox, and yanked my sleeve up to reveal the address to my blog written in gigantic letters along the inside of my forearm. My habits are so amusing.
Chemistry went pretty well today. We did a practice test for the ACS final, round two. Mike also gave us our quiz scores from Wednesday. I got a B, which was very exciting. I never thought I'd reach a point where I'd be getting satisfactory grades in chemistry, but I did it. The best thing of all, though, is that Mike complimented the lab project that we designed last week and are supposed to conduct today. Last Friday, he wasn't so sure that it was a good idea, but he later told our group that it was an amazing project, something he would even consider graduate-level. We all actually planned something together that's worthy of his praise, and we haven't even done it yet. Wow.
Mike is keeping me in check, though. I also went to see him for some help on a lab last Friday. When he looked at my lab sheet, he said, "Oh, wow, you actually almost got that one right." I wanted to laugh out loud because I thought what he said was really funny, but I didn't.
He's so brutally honest. I love it. Sometimes I go to his office hours and leave feeling pretty accomplished, like the day I finally mastered stoichiometry. Sometimes I leave and feel terribly stupid, and not even in the "haha-that-was-a-silly-mistake" way. I guess it all balances out, though. I've made lots of progress in chemistry since the beginning of last semester, but I'm never going to be truly good at it, nor will I ever be able to say that I love it. Ergo...not pursuing chemistry any further :)
I really don't go to office hours for any of my other professors, with the exception of my computer science professor. Sometimes I can't figure out how to upload images (I never would've figured that one out by myself.), or Javascript is being wonky, or invisible typos and logic errors undermine my entire beautiful program and I just need a little push in the right direction. Stephen's a really nice person, though, and I can't imagine leaving his office feeling like an idiot. I often leave having been reminded that I'm perfectly capable of making very silly mistakes, but it's always a positive kind of thing.
I need to go to office hours with Dr. Houghtalin in the very near future. I have meter issues. She claims that it's fun, so I guess I'll wait and see how it goes. She's really nice, and I really, really would like to finally learn how to scan poetry. How bad could it be?
I dunno, but I'm hungry.
Meh, I have lots more to talk about, but I'll do it later.

Progress

I just got back from the Speaking Center. Dr. Dolby required all of us to visit at some point during the semester, and it seemed most logical to go for our first actual speaking assignment. I feel sorry for anyone else who wanted to make an appointment after me. They were basically booked when I got there. The session wasn't terribly mortifying, not that I expected it to be. In fact, I think my previous teaching experience has helped my public speaking skills. The girl who helped me said that I had decent eye contact, and she didn't mention anything about my volume even when I asked her to pay special attention to that. Everyone else's normal makes me feel like I'm screaming at people. I got a "louder" hand signal from Sara at GALL the other night. So, I "yelled" at the girl today and everything was good.
Public speaking doesn't send me into a panic, but I did have a few nervous things that I did during the presentation today. I started plucking at the side of the podium, which I noticed but didn't care to stop. It gave me something to do with my hands. I tend to gesticulate wildly during public speaking events, but not quite as much during normal conversation. When I wasn't plucking at the podium and relishing the loud, woody "plick," I was waving my hands around under the podium. I kind of wish I'd asked her to videotape me now. The only time I've ever seen myself speak was early in my teaching class, during the speech that I had to cut short because I had an averse reaction to the topic. All I had to do was talk about myself, so I printed out a picture of me kissing Mac and decided to talk about the horses. When I was standing in front of the class, I pulled out the picture and realized that I wasn't yet comfortable talking about my dead horse. The whole class got to watch me pause, close my eyes, mumble a little, and abruptly end my speech then and there--twice. So now, whenever I have to do a public speaking project, I just think about that and don't worry because that's about as awful as it gets. I completely blew it twice in that class. That was the first time, and then I lost my train of thought in the middle of a lesson on verbs. The rest of the class helped me out by being especially cooperative and volunteering to play the verb game for a majority of the lesson :) One of the first public speaking tips that Mrs. Weddle gave us in that class: people would rather see you succeed. I tell myself that before every single speaking assignment I've done since.
Ah, but I do wish I'd asked her to videotape me. I can't think of anything that can make a person feel as awkward, uncomfortable, and self-conscious, but nothing really compares when it comes to correcting those little things. Plus, I think it would've been funny to watch my hands.
I still need to work on my programming project, but I can't do it now. My problem is that I have to leave for Latin in less than half an hour. If I go in and start working on stuff, I'll consider skipping Latin because I can't force myself to quit. The same thing happens when I try to do some work before my computer science class. The same thing happens when I'm translating.

All GALL (A collective poem)

We did writing exercises in GALL tonight. It was really fun, and the products of our labors were wonderful. My favorite exercise was the collective poetry, where each person wrote two lines, AB, and someone else wrote two more. It ended up as an ABAB rhyme scheme. The catch was that we could only see two lines of what was already written. We got some really wacky (and very GALL-like) poems, so I'll share the one that I started and ended.

ALL GALL
A poem by...all of GALL.

Squirrels play in the tree
And then one falls out.
When falling he felt free,
Twirling and spinning about.
When midair he met a bee,
That stinky, slimy lout.
And they copulated free
From self-consciousness and doubt.
Though no one suspected there'd be a fee
Which changed their expressions to a pout.
All the white men met at first tee,
Except the oldest, plagued with gout.
The youngest was infested with fleas.
They were so sad, they had to pout.
They weren't allowed to have their peas.
They went without.

That wasn't the best one, but I still like it. I just love the idea of everyone almost-blindly writing something together to make something. Squee :D
I might write some more here later on, but I'm really busy and I have to get some work done. My Human Animal project is the most pressing thing right now, though I'd much prefer working on my computer science project. Meh, actually I need to do some Chemistry. AGGGH. CHEM QUIZ. NOOOOOO! TOMORROW.
G'night.