Seniors

Last week was spirit week at my school, and for the first time in the 4 years I have been at my school, almost everyone was involved. It was the best spirit week/halloween that my school has ever seen, according to come teachers. I hardly dressed up for halloween last year, and this year I did by wearing all the punky clothes I used to wear in 9th grade (my friend and I were our 9th grade selves). Anyways, every Halloween I always end up wishing that I dressed up more, or had a more outrageous costume. The sad thing, is that me classmates and I will never have another Halloween together. We can't collaborate on costume ideas and dress up together any more. And it's really sad! Over the past week I've been realizing how we only have till June to be with these people, and I'm really going to miss a lot of them. I almost cried the other day in AP Calc, when I realized my teacher won't be there next year to help me. The same goes for all my friends. So really all we can do it try to make the most of the months we have left, and be there for each other when our college apps don't make the deadline or when we receive rejection letters. Because really, we don't have enough time to be inconsiderate. I want to have really good memories of High School, as I'm sure other people do too.

Forgive the Lateness

I submitted my MIT app last Tuesday.
It's gone.
I'm so happy!

This weekend has been very uneventful.
Friday night was our NHS Haunted House, and only 4 kids showed up do to lack of advertising, and yesterday was our AP Bio study party. We studied for about 30 minutes playing jeopardy-style with our Bio flashcards, and then moved on to playing 3 round of clue (I won the first two times!). Before I knew it the day was over and I stayed at home, sheltered from the rain watching the House marathon on USA.

In other news, I really want this:

Electron Transport Chains and Admissions

Today's 7th period AP Bio class was possible one of the best period of this year so far. We're starting cellular respiration, which is quite annoying (in my opinion), so the class provided lots of comic relief. I have an amazing bio teacher (I had her in 9th grade as well) with tons of experience and the most exuberant personality of anyone I have ever met. She is absolutely great, and makes everything more fun. She randomly bursts into songs during class, and goes off on silly tangents. Today, while learning about the ETC (electron transport chain) she started singing "Love Train" spurring a majority of my class into a discussion about other songs that the ETC reminds them of. At another point, my teacher pointed out the fact that there so few boys in our class, and also, our grade (my school is about 2/3 girls). Then she goes, "Oh, girl's, you're going to have so much fun in college! There are lots of cute guys! And all the older guys like to go for the freshman girls...just don't have too much fun!"
Heh. I love her. And then my friend goes, "Well, now I REALLY want to go to college!" and it just sent me over the edge.

Since I have the trip to Vassar tomorrow rather than my usual classes, I've set aside half of my homework for tomorrow night, and spent tonight reading old admissions blogs on the MIT website. And all of it has made me SO EXCITED. It's unnerving, but also really thrilling, to know that within the next 17 days I will no longer have any power over my MIT application. I'm scared to be thrown into the huge pool of applicants because even though I feel that I am a strong candidate, I know that MIT simply can't accept everyone. And there are LOTS of great people who apply. Even if I am one of those people, there is no guarantee. And it's frustrating, because there is only so much I can do about it. Hopefully all my efforts so far will pay off, but I won't know for sure until December. Along with all the excitement about admissions, I'm also really looking forward to the next few months. Here are the highlights of the upcoming months:
OCTOBER
-Parent Teacher Conferences (next week)
-NHS Haunted House (A really fun day where NHS members are stuck in the school for 14 hours straight, transforming throughout the day into terrifying creatures and ghouls, left to roam the hall ways in search of any random elementary school kid who crosses our paths...)
-Halloween! (I still don't know what I'm going to be...)
NOVEMBER
-AP Bio field trip to Memorial Sloan Kettering (where I used to voluteer!)
-Begin working on Science Olympiad
-Thanksgiving (yummm)
DECEMBER
-DECISIONS
-Christmas
and finally,
NEW YEAR'S EVE!
In addition, I'm also welcoming all winter weather, and can't wait till I can throw on my Uggs and cashmere sweater!

Ooops.

So I haven't updated, in like, a while, and I'm kind of feeling guilty about it. Anyway, maybe I'll be able to start this up again. Okay, so recent and upcoming happenings:
SUPER HARD AP CALC TEST - Last Friday. Everyone from my Calc class was in a terrible mood afterwards. Apparently, we all still did fairly well (I got a 92) but I've been told I made some stupid mistakes. Eh, so it goes.
HOUSESITTING - All last week. Basically, my neighbors pay me 10 dollars a day to live at their house. Oh, and take care of their four cats. This entails feeding them, loving them, cleaning their litter boxes, etc. And really, it's too much for me to handle. Along with trying to get all my work done, I found myself running out of time almost every night. I'm happier now that I'm back at home.

Tomorrow, since the sophomores and junior are taking the PSAT (yuck!) the seniors get to go on fancy college trips. So tomorrow morning I'll be on a bus heading up to Poughkeepsie to visit Vassar. I've actually been to visit there before, and the campus is really nice, but there's just something that fails to grab my attention about it. Still, it'll be interesting to go on an actual tour and info session, since those are thinks I missed out on while I was there.

Also, I have a big scary Orgo test on Thursday. Oh! I guess I never updated since the summer, but I AM taking both Organic Chem and AP Bio :D

More later.

I love New York!

The weather wasn't bad at all sunday morning, when we left. But still...both plan rides were terrible. I went back into anxiety mode, all after I thought I had gotten through with my fear of flying! But I was so relieved to finally land back in LaGuardia. The first thing we did after getting home to Long Island City was to ride into Manhattan and so to the 5th Ave. apple store to get my computer looked at (my charger was working intermittently all throughout the trip). But of course when we got there it worked fine. And it's working fine now, so I guess there's no problem.

Alabama made me realize how much I really love New York. In Alabama we spent the whole day indoors, hiding from the heat. Whenever we wanted to go anywhere, we just hopped into the car. I don't think I could live like that. I NEED public transportation, I need to walk. I missed my dirty subways and hot city streets. And now we're back and I can go back to my pedestrian lifestyle!

I'm about to go make a visit to my job and tell them I'm going to have to quit. I kind of feel bad about doing it, but I'm going to be so busy during September once school starts that I won't have time to work. I am going to see if they need me to work at all this week though, and then it'll be my last.

Uh oh.

We're flying out tomorrow morning in the middle of Tropical Storm Fay.
I'm nervous.

But once we get back in New York, everything will be fine.
I'm planning on working this week and finishing up some of my summer assignments. Then my parents and I are leaving early Saturday morning to drive up to Cambridge, to visit MIT.
I can't wait!

And then...school!

How you know when you're in the South...

Pictures

Yesterday was actually pretty fun. We started out going to a car repair place appropriately named "Mr. Transmission." It was hot and I was miserable. Once we were done getting our transmission looked at we made our way over to the downtown area, which really made me miss New York. Here are some of the things we saw on the way there:


This was just some big fancy building we saw right before we got into downtown Mobile...


The first tall buildings I've seen since we left New York!

After stopping by a cafe for iced lattes (with coffee ice cubes!) we walked over to the Exploreum, a science museum that I remembered visiting years and years ago. The main exhibit was all about frogs, and they actually had a lot of different types.

They had some nice Poison Dart Frogs...



Really bizarre flat frogs (I'm convinced they're actually dead flat frogs)...


A lot of the frogs liked climbing up the side of the glass and just positioning themselves there...



And a cute little tree frog:



After the frog exhibit, we made our way upstairs to the "Minds On" exhibit. Among the goodies upstairs were:

ROBOTS

CHEMISTRY <3

HEAT SENSORS

It was actually a lot of fun. I think I enjoy science museums even more now than I did when I was a kid.

There was also some maniacal floating head...

Weird.

On our way back from downtown I was able to get a pretty decent picture of this bridge I've been wanting to photograph. Doesn't it look like half of a sine curve!?


Once we got back to the Condo we went for a swim and realized that somehow a sand crab had found its way into the pool. We took it out and released it.

Why it sucks to live in a city

We walked down to the beach last night, and I have never seen so many stars.
It was to the point that I was completely shocked by what I saw when I looked up from the beach on Dauphin Island.

My uncle also decided to be really awesome and lend us his night vision goggles, so when you took those and looked up...SO COOL! It was really amazing. Even when we travel to upstate New York, there aren't as many stars. I'll have to attempt to take some pictures.

I Survived!

Really, the plane ride wasn't so bad. Our flight from New York to Mephis was absolutely PERFECT, there was hardly any turbulence. It was also really cool to be able to look at the city from the plane window, something I've been too scared to do for years now. Our flight from Memphis to Mobile was REALLY turbulent though. Thankfully, it was only about a 40 minute flight.

So my parents and I got picked up at the airport by my aunt, grandma, and cousin. They drove us to my aunt and uncle's house in Fairhope - about a 50 minute ride. Also, you should note: I have 7+ aunts and uncles...so these series of entries may be a little confusing. Anyway, their house is huge. And beautiful. I should probably be taking pictures. So we ate dinner (a nice southern fish fry) and dessert (lemon ice cream pie). It was delicious, but we were all really full, so we took a walk around the neighborhood.

Today we're planning on driving out to Dauphin Island, where we'll be staying. It's a nice little island off the coast of Mobile, located right in the gulf. I was hoping to get some sun during this trip (I'm pale!), but the weather doesn't look so good thanks to Hurricane Fey.

Acrophobia

I am typing now from my room, seeing as we have not left for the airport yet. I'm pretty much ready, so I've been spending the morning stalking the MIT admission blogs and consuming large quantities of caffeine(yum!).

The title of this entry may or may not explain itself, but allow me to elaborate. I'm afraid of heights. It wasn't always this way. I partially blame my fear on my father, but I feel bad for doing that. So instead, I blame it on the ski lift that gave my my first frightening experience.

My family and I had traveled upstate, and were staying at a friend's house. We all went to some fair type thing in the fall, at a mountain that was used for skiing in the Winter. Since there were lots of people, the ski lift was running, bringing people up to the top of the mountain. So my dad and I hopped on, and started our ascent.

I wasn't scared until we were about a fourth of the way through with the ride. The mountain was A LOT steeper than I had realized, and the severe vertigo began to set in. Even worse, there wasn't any snow, so the rough terrain was made even more obvious. I can't remember whether or not I started crying/kicking/screaming (I was young), but I know for a fact I practically ran off the lift when we finally got to the top. Oh, and I refused to take the lift back down.

So that's where my fear originated. I used to love plane rides, but now they just make me anxious to the point of near hyperventilation. I've decided that this plane ride will be different. I'm not going to go into it thinking "OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE" as I normally do. Instead, I'm going to try and just sit back and enjoy the ride, appreciate the fact that it's even possible for us to use any form of air transport. I also have all six Star Wars episodes to entertain me in times of panic.

I've just received an announcement that we'll be leaving in 17 minutes. I should probably finish packing.

The manager of the bagel shop I work at decided it wasn't right for me to receive any sum of money that wasn't an interval of ten. So he gave me some extra money from the tip jar. Woohoo!

Something Strange!

You know when you hear a song, and you feel like it's such an appropriate song for that moment? Or not even for that specific moment, but for something that's about to happen? Maybe that's just me. But it's been happening so often lately. And it's triggered by songs that aren't even new to me, it just seems like now they finally fit. I don't know. It's weird.

I bought a Rubik's cube about a month ago, since I've never solved one, and I know that my chemistry teacher had an algorithm for solving his. And it worked for him, so I figured I wanted to try. Anyways, I met up with a friend and we made our way over to the Toys R Us at Times Square (she lives around there anyway and I had gone into the city to meet with her for dinner). So we get in and this Toys R Us is FRICKING HUGE! There are tourists everywhere and there was just so much going on that we didn't know where to start. We made our way around the main floor, and without much luck, headed upstairs. We got to the top of the escalator and to my surprise (I had never been there before) there was a gigantic Dinosaur robot thing overlooking the Jurassic Park section of the store. So that was awesome. We headed over to the "Classic Games" section and continued our search. We found a bin full of Rubik's cubes, but to my dismay, they were only these kind:

and that wasn't what I wanted!

We dug through the basket to see if we could find any of the regular ones. But it was to no avail. We walked around the store and got distracted in the science toys section, which triggered lots of memories of my childhood. Then we remembered why we came her and started looking again, but then got distracted by CANDYLAND! Candyland occupies about 1/6th of the top floor and hosts all different types of sweets. So we bought some snacks for our search. We returned back to the huge basket of Rubik's Revolution cubes and I spotted something! There was a man walking around with the regular Rubik's cube! I went up to him and asked where he got it, he said something about a basket and kind of flung his hand in some general direction, so I didn't get much of an answer. My friend and I sorted through the basket once more to see if maybe we had missed something. Still no classic cubes to be found. We wound our way around the store, and found a cash register that I personally never remembered seeing. Anyways, lo and behold, right near this mystery cash register was the basket of Rubik's cubes that guy had directed me to. So in total, it took us about TWO HOURS to find that fricking cube. Then I went home and found my algorithm but it took me quite a while to actually get a feel for the cube. Within those next two days I had solved the first row, but I've been afraid to touch it since! I don't want to mess up my 1/3 completed cube! But I may have to start playing with it again...it may be good for the plane ride to Alabama.

A Nice Taste of the End of Summer

So I was hanging out with a friend yesterday up at the Columbia campus. It was really hot, and kind of boring just walking around, so we went to hide in the Columbia bookstore. We ended up staying there for quite a while, before he got a call from one of his friends, inviting us to a party. I have not been to a party at all this entire summer, nor am I especially integrated into the party scene at my school. But I figured, what the hell - I may as well go. Also, the party was being hosted by - get this - the president of the National Honors Society. So I found that humorous.

Anyway, we met up with said friend and also one of my friends. So there were four of us in total, and we had about 2.5 hours to kill before the party. So we went around, got coffee, got food, etc. We showed up at the party and found that in order to be allowed admission we would have to be on "the list". "The list" was simply just a list of all the people who accepted the invite on facebook. Unfortunately, all of us had been invited, but only one of us accepted. Anyway, the host came down and gave us the okay. So we hopped on the elevator and rode up to the penthouse.

I wasn't expecting much. But as soon as those elevator doors parted, we could see the dark party room, with lights flashing, and could feel the bass through the floors. We walked in and got ourselves situated over in a corner, and just hung around there. SO many people from my school showed up, and I had so much fun! I saw so many people I haven't seen since June, and I didn't really realize until now how much I missed them. Of course, there were some obnoxious people from the class above mine, but this would probably be the last I'd see of them anyway, so who cares!

Unfortunately, everyone decided to leave the party around the same time (I'm not sure why) so were were all standing around waiting for the elevators when the host came over demanding our attention. Someone had stolen her wallet, and I felt really bad. It's completely disrespectful to do that, to anyone, but even more so when it's the host. She really didn't deserve it. But in the back of my head I was worrying about getting home. It was around 11:45 when we tried to leave, and I had told my parents I would be home by 11:30! I had been trying to leave a while before, but my friend was busy in her state of confusion (some people just aren't as responsible as I am!), so I had to wait for her since we were planning on taking the train together. Bad situation. To make things worse, I had to travel to a whole other borough!

So I let the host and her posse check my bag so they'd let me leave. My friend and I took the elevator down, and when we got outside the building, we met up with the friend I had been with at the Columbia campus. I made sure she was being watched, then made it clear that I had to leave, NOW. So I walked to an ATM, took out some money and flagged down a cab. I hopped in and rolled down the windows, smiling uncontrollable while I let the wind hit my face. Because all in all, I really had a lot of fun. There are people my age who can be completely irresponsible at parties, and go crazy. But I know my limits. I know that I can have fun socializing, which is what I did.

All in all, it was a pretty cool experience. It was the first time my class came together outside of school and was just like "Holy shit. We're seniors". So I don't know, hopefully more things like this will end up springing up throughout the school year. And I'm sure they will. The bad part though, was that I got home around 12, and didn't get to sleep till about 2:30 in the morning...and I still woke up before 9! So I'll probably pretty tired tonight.

In other news.
I NEED to start packing. I'm not one to wait until the last minute for these things. But I think that's how it may end up this time.
I get paid tomorrow! Granted, it's only for one day of work. But I'm going to try and target it towards my savings for a Wii. I feel like I'm going to need a Wii for this year - just to help blow off some steam. It's also what I plan on doing ALL NIGHT before my early action decisions come out. I haven't mentioned this yet, but any one who knows me knows that I am absolutely in love with MIT. So I'm applying EA there...hopefully things will work out.
I love Luke Skywalker. I'd chose him over Han Solo any day. (Oh god, what has become of me!?)
I'm hungry.
I guess that's all for now.

A Bit of an Explanation

I've added a counter to the bottom of my blog counting down the days till the first day of school. My first day of Senior year.

Most of my other classmates are dreading the start of school, but not me. No, I'm that strange one who's actually excited for September 2nd. I'm counting on this year to be my best year of High School, and I'm completely ready for it to start. I'm taking AP Calculus, AP Bio, and HOPEFULLY Organic Chemistry. The reason I say hopefully is because it hasn't really been confirmed. My school generally only allows each Senior one science class, for some ridiculously stupid reason. I love science, why stop me from pursuing this passion? I'll avoid the ranting. Anyway, during my Junior year I went around the school bothering the hell out of the administration, trying to see if it would be possible for me to take both AP Bio and Organic Chem. And after all my hard work, the only answer I received was: "the scheduling should allow for you to take both". ARG!! I want a real answer!
So I'm left in the dark until we receive our schedules on the first day of school. To make things worse, most of the progress I made was with my Principal, who made the announcement at the end of the school year that she'd be leaving. So now we have a new principal who has never heard of my requests...so hopefully...I just don't know. I'm going to be really upset if I can't take both classes.

So that's just one reason I'm counting down. When that day comes, my question will FINALLY be answered. As much as I kind of love my school, it can be very frustrating.

My school is small. It's new too. My class was the first class to actually complete the school - giving it all 4 grades. So by the end of my freshman year, the first graduating class was set up to graduate. A lot of the time, I feel as though my school deprives me of the typical High School experience. That, along with the fact that I live in the City. We take the train to school. Our gym is smaller than our cafeteria (which was made to fit about 200 people). There is a limited number of sports teams, we have no marching band, it's nothing like the typical High School story. We have a few clubs, but no one really takes them seriously. Since our school is so new, we have the power to create our own clubs, which I must admit is pretty cool. But it would be even cooler if PEOPLE ACTUALLY JOINED THEM! I'm involved in Science Olympiad at my school, and really - we don't stand a chance in the competition. We don't start prepping until about 3 months before the competition, and we only have one team allowed to compete in less than half of the events. And there are actually quite a few people involved in Science Olympiad, but since we can only have so many teams entered, there are about 20+ people who just sit around in our room all day doing nothing. They could be competing! And it's not even like they don't want to compete! We just don't prepare them for the competition. I'm really hoping I can try and fix this this year. I want to try and get more teams in the competition, and start preparing them earlier. I'm going to do this along with starting my school's Math Team and getting them prepared as well.
So yeah, I'm going to be doing a lot this year. And I'm really psyched for it. I'm hoping that my efforts can make a lasting impact on my school, and bring it a little closer to maturity. I'm the type of person that loves to organize, and loves to run things. So, this is what I've chosen to spend my Senior year doing. And I know that even if I may get overwhelmed at times, the payoff will be totally worth it.

Always in motion is the future.

So today consisted of...

Waking up. *groan*
Baking birthday cake for my insistent friend. All the cake baking made me angry and resentful! But in the end it tasted good, and that's all that matters.
Watching Star Wars Episode III. I decided it was about time I succumbed to my nerdiness, so I have made a mental list of things I would like to do (or start doing) before the school year starts. Among these things are:
Watching the entire Star Wars collection (this one was obvious!)
Reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "Trilogy" (One of my favorite teachers of all time had recommended this book to be a long time ago. He said it seemed like something I would like. Interestingly enough, I don't think I would have been into it back when he recommended it. But now - I see what he was talking about! Weird how seemly farsighted that recommendation was...)

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Maybe I'll continue adding to this list as the summer dwindles. But anyway, to the important part...
I absolutely love Yoda. I want him.

I have to find some way to watch the rest of the Star Wars movies!! Hopefully I can get them on my laptop and watch them on my plane ride this Sunday.



I guess there's no denying it now.

Done!

Yay! My paper's finally done!
I love science :)

Now, maybe I'll start getting ready to go out to dinner...

But first...there are only 20 days of summer left before school starts. Really, I don't know what to say (or think). I usually hate summer, since I never have much to do. Now that my program has ended, my summer has become more typical: I stay at home waiting until the hours when my friends are finally available, after they get back from camp or work. On the bright side, this summer has allowed for me to make a lot of progress on my college applications, so hopefully I won't be freaking out as much as everyone else once the school year starts.
At the moment, I'm excited for school to start again. I'm interested to find what classes I'll be taking and who I'll be taking them with. Plus, as a senior, I'm expecting my year to be a lot more interesting. I guess I can only hope that it'll live up to my expectations!

Procrastination

Now, I've never really had a problem with procrastination. Maybe the summer's just setting in, seeing as how this is my first week at home with absolutely NOTHING TO DO. My MechE internship at Cooper Union ended last week, so I have this entire week of freedom before leaving this Sunday for Alabama. I have one last day of work on Saturday, then we leave on Sunday (I'm terrified for the plane ride). We come back on the 24th, then I have 4 more days of freedom and lounging around, then we leave for Cambridge/Boston, where we'll be staying for the weekend to visit MIT and Harvard. I want to visit the aquarium as well...but that's just a side note :D
So anyways, since today is almost my last week where I have nothing to do, I've decided I would spend at least one day finishing up my AP Bio summer assignment. I read the book almost a month ago, and it has taken me FOREVER to actually get everything together to write my paper! I've written about half of it so far, but I need to reread and summarize one last chapter, and then I'll be done! But instead of doing this, I've decided to create a blog and write an entry instead. And now I don't feel like working on the paper at all! Maybe I'll be more motivated after a game of Scrabble...