Aurora X

I might be treasurer of my sophomore class. Yays! More stuff for college.

I never did post my new schedule, did I? Okay, well, here it is:

Red Day (A.K.A. Day 1)

Block 1: Chemistry with Dr. Patel

Block 2: Study Hall (Or ‘Free’) with Mr. Mills (My American Government/World History teacher last year!)

Block 3: Trigonometry with Ms Petkova

Block 4: First Half: AP Environmental Science, Second Half: AP Statistics

Blue Day (A.K.A. Day 2)

Block 1: AP European History with Ms Cubano

Block 2: English II with Ms Dickerson

Block 3: French II with Ms Chestnut (Same as last year… unfortunately)

Block 4: Same as Red Day

At home, I’m taking AP Macroeconomics, which I constantly forget to do, resulting in my temporary suspension for not submitting enough assignments (!!! I WAS AHEAD BY, LIKE, TWO WEEKS!!! GIMME A BREAK!), and I’m worried about the final exam, which is suppose to be a practice AP exam, which I KNOW I’m not prepared for.

My new schedule is pretty balanced. Except for that Study Hall every-other-day thing. It’s inconvenient, because the classes I don’t have much homework in are on the days I have Study Hall, so I still have to finish the majority of my homework at home.

And my ballet classes are still from 8-9:30 PM, and somehow I never make it to bed before 11:30.

But at least my body is getting used to six hours a night. I’m not getting sick from sleep deprivation anymore, yay!

Spoke too soon. My laptop privileges were taken away not too long ago. Well, looks like the only time I’m going to have my own high-tech electronic devices is when I can afford them. I mean, the only nice electronics I own are my iPod and my cell phone, and that iPod isn’t even mine, because my dad sometimes shares it (although nowadays I think he just gave up on it), and my cell phone has a whopping five hundred prepaid minutes.

FOR THIS ENTIRE YEAR.

That’s right. For those of you who think that my parents are more frugal instead of cheap, this’ll prove you wrong. Jason gets a thousand minutes A MONTH while I get half that amount for TWELVE TIMES that cell phone plan period. I even asked Sean on his viewpoints of my mom’s fiscal habits, and he said (and I quote), “Cheap. If she was frugal, she would repair the broken handle on her car door.”

And the sad part is, he’s not even exaggerating. The left passenger (from the rear end of the car) door’s inside handle had been ripped out of the car, so now you have two choices if you’re too lazy to go out the other side: 1) Roll down the window and open the door from the outside, or 2) have someone else get their uptight tush off their seat and open the darn door for you. Like a really pissed off chauffer.

So, if you still don’t think my parents are stereotypical Asians, you have got one of the densest minds I have ever seen.

Obama is no longer the celebrity of this year’s election. The media has now moved onto Palin, McCain’s vice presidential candidate, whom has brought back support for the Republican party, whether it’s because a) she’s a woman, b) she has a pregnant teenage daughter, or c) her inexperience and therefore her stupidity.

Sean’s dad argued in favor of Palin (Partly because he himself is a very right-wing Republican), saying that her daughter is seventeen or eighteen years old, and therefore old enough to make her own decisions, so if she went and got pregnant, it isn’t Palin’s fault.

But I just think that Palin should take some responsibility, because, after all, she is the mother of the pregnant teenager, and while she may legally be an adult, she may not actually be one. It’s better than Jamie Lynn Spears, who got pregnant at 15, but to modern society’s standards, pregnant at 17 is still not a good choice, and with successful, (mostly) intellectual parents like Palin, I think that maybe her teenage daughter might’ve been raised to make better decisions.

But that’s just my opinion. Which is biased, because my mom controls every aspect of my life.

Anyway! I’ve found a few hilarious comments on Time’s Middle East Blog, which posted a summary of an ABC interview on Palin’s foreign policy views:

September 12, 2008 9:28

Palin Foreign Policy: Eyes Wide Shut?

Posted by Scott MacLeod

Other vice presidents and even presidents have been relatively inexperienced in foreign affairs, but Palin’s limitations are laughable for someone seeking the second highest office in the free world. She said that until she traveled to Kuwait and Germany to visit Alaska national guardsmen last year, her previous foreign travels were only to Canada and Mexico. Until recently, Americans were not even required to obtain a passport to visit those bordering countries… Palin had obviously never heard of the “Bush Doctrine”–the justification for launching unilateral, preemptive wars. You’d expect even an ordinary hockey mom would know about that, especially if, as Palin proudly noted in the interview, that very day she was sending “my first born, my teenage son” to the war in Iraq launched under the self-same Bush Doctrine. She committed a faux pas concerning the Cold War in claiming that America had defeated Communism “without a shot fired.” The prospective vice president seems unaware that the Cold War involved hot proxy wars throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Latin America during a span of 45 long years. The U.S. alone lost 58,000 troops in Vietnam, and the Cold War nearly led to nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What I find more worrying than Palin’s lack of experience is her lack of humility about it. “I’m ready,” she declared, after Gibson challenged her to “look the country in the eye and say ‘I have the experience and I have the ability’.”… Palin had duly rehearsed the pronunciations of difficult foreign names like Ahmadinejad and Saakashvili. Very good! Then she sounded sophomoric, as McCain has done, in straining to argue that Alaska’s close geographical proximity to Russia was tantamount to providing her with foreign policy expertise. When Gibson asked her what insights into Russia the proximity gave her, she replied, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.” (I wonder if she can look inside Putin’s soul from that distance–Bush didn’t do so well in that regard, and he was standing right next to the Russian president.) Nearly as bad, Palin argued that her support for developing Alaska’s oil and gas reserves was another foreign policy “credential.” Maybe we should ask Bill Gates: does owning a computer, or even having seen one once, while shopping at Best Buy, qualify someone to be the next vice president of Microsoft?

This is the same type of genius present at the local Model UN convention center that I endured last year in April (I regretted it so much), where the participants were, like politicians, all talk and no substance. Did I tell you that on the issue of blood diamonds in the General Assembly, one of the representatives wanted the UN to put tracking devices in every single illegal diamond in Africa, and actually sounded serious while he was presenting his ideas?

The rest of the article is pretty interesting, too. I just don’t understand enough about the Iraqi conflict to comment about it.

(But honestly, you don’t need to know that much to understand the message of the article.)

There was a few good things that Palin did, though, that brought the election back for the elephant party. I just can’t remember what they were…

Also, in one last effort to save myself, I have decided that I will try mom’s way of doing things for awhile and see if maybe it’ll cure my depression and anger (which I have treated with gluttony for the past year, much to the displeasure of my mom). It’s hard to adjust to such an ascetic lifestyle. It’s even harder to accept that at the end of the second semester, I’m going to willingly go to that state piano competition and win something against everything a rebellious teenager stands for.

I thought I was the only one who had teeth dreams. Then I went to www.philsproof.com, and found out that the majority of people have those. You know, the dreams where your teeth fall out for no reason? Even if you’ve already lost all your baby teeth? Yeah, apparently they’re a sign of insecurity or something, and since I haven’t had one in about a year, that’s a good thing, right?

In my dreams, I think I lost more teeth than I actually had. It was like my oral anatomy suddenly turned from homo sapien to Great White Shark. Then I wake up, surprised to find that my pearly yellow teeth are still intact.

I will make a personal header for this blog, soon. Well, when I get access to the Adobe Photoshop computer.

Speaking of which, I think I finally have my own laptop! Okay, it’s not my own, it’s my dad’s company’s, but my mom nor my dad have been barking at me to give it up to them to watch their movies/DVDs on, and now I can do my homework (And update my blog) from the privacy of my room, FINALLY.

Although, I do need to save everything on a flash drive, because I don’t have my own printer… yet. But one day, I’m going to be printing out twenty-page papers every other day, and it’s going to annoy the heck out of my dad because the ink runs out whenever he or my mom tries to print something. And then I can safely argue for them to either move one of our printers into my room or buy a new one just for me.

This laptop does have a downside, though–it’s harder for me to get my work done. I mean, there’s that lovely little blue ‘e’ button right on the desktop, and of course that looks more appealing than the Church Reformation of the sixteenth century that I’m typing about on Word.

But I will NEVER EVER set up a firewall to restrict my Internet access while I’m doing homework. What idiot tortures him/herself like that?

Oh-ho, I think we have a breakthrough here:

Google Enters the Browser Wars

Tuesday, Sep. 02, 2008 By JOSH QUITTNER

A new superpower just entered the long-simmering browser war: today, after years of secret work, Google, the world’s most popular search engine, will unveil its own browser, called Chrome.

“On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple,” Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, wrote on the official Google blog on Monday afternoon… “Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.”

Chrome looks like a “best of” browser, incorporating — and in some cases, improving upon — a few of the most popular features of its competitors…

… With a 72% share of the browser market, Microsoft is the real target here. Far from sinking into irrelevance, desktop computer browsers have continued to evolve and become even more integral to how we use the Web. Whoever controls that experience can leverage it to the detriment of website owners — and in ways that must keep the Google guys up at night. For instance, IE 8 makes it far easier to find something without going through a Google search. When you search within IE 8, you’re presented with a number of buttons, such as Search Yahoo! or Search Wikipedia…

I checked out the cartoon the article linked to. It said the cartoon was leaked in an email, I think, and it has all the boring junk about what Chrome improves on, does, blah blah blah. Stuff I don’t really understand, but somehow, it comes up useful anyway.

All I was hoping is that it wouldn’t end up a disaster like Vista.

Then I stumbled across the page were Google claimed that with Chrome, when you close a tab, it ends the application immediately.

!!!

And that’s when the built-in ’Hallelujah’ chorus (that everyone has in their heads) went off. After years and years of having Microsoft IE freeze up on me because it couldn’t end an unresponding process when I wanted it to, I was about ready to hack into Google headquarters and steal a beta version myself. Do you know how much time I would’ve saved over the years if the Internet applications closed LIKE I WANTED THEM TO?! It’s like trying to train Rover the bad dog to stop chewing up the good futon, and one day, when I switched his dog food from IE Munch to Chrome Crunch, he suddenly decides to sharpen his nails on the scratching post and chew up the rubber bones like you want him to.

Okay, bad metaphor, but I’m trying to explain how anxious I am to see if Chrome is really all that great.

And maybe we’ll have to switch from JavaScript to this new thing called ‘V8,’ but it’ll be worth it, right? I mean, I could probably write an AP Euro analysis in the time stalled everyday when my dad’s stupid old computers freeze up from a few too many applications.

Wait. Wasn’t V8 the name of that vegetable soda…?

From the China Blog on the Time magazine website:

“But in all the discussion of the car ban there are some positive signs. People care about Beijing’s air quality and are looking for ways to improve it. While continuing the car ban isn’t a long-term fix, it might not be so hard to get people behind further improving mass transit, which unlike a car ban could actually make getting around easier.”

Um. Okay, if you say so. But I’d like to point out one little detail: THE MASS TRANSITS ARE ALREADY CROWDED ENOUGH AS IT IS.

And I think that I personally have a voice in this, because my combined vacation time in China over the years probably adds up to about half a year, and I know that the buses are about as crowded as a New York subway station in morning rush hour. The Chinese subways aren’t any better, although I did come across a couple of stations that didn’t have a whole lot of people in them.

Okay, so they aren’t as bad as the Japanese city stations, where policemen lurk around to actually push people in subways that already have passengers pretty much sitting on top of one another (See Youtube for more info). But did you see what Beijing mass transportation was like during the Olympics, when most cars had to be reluctantly parked in front of the high-rise apartments? The buses looked like they were about to explode from all of the people inside. It was like the only possible way for riders to exit was through the windows or something, because the doorways were completely blocked with people. And if that’s what the buses are like, I don’t even want to know how crowded the subways were. It’s not like the government can build more subways to accomodate, either, because there’s already a sub around every corner, and if there were anymore, entire blocks would probably start sinking into the ground. Or they would meet their fate with a giant wrecking ball, as most run-down homes and street stores did during the games.

So I don’t know if Beijingers care that much to sacrifice more of their thin veil of personal space to keep the air clean. And I thought that the bloggers would feel the same, too, because most of them live in Beijing, after all. They should know what the state of mass transit is in the heart of the capital.

Cactus Thieves Running Amok

Friday, Aug. 29, 2008 By HILARY HYLTON

They look sturdy, even hostile, but cactus plants in the southwestern United States and Mexico are under attack. According to wildlife conservationists, cactuses are being dug up and smuggled away at an alarming rate by over-zealous collectors looking for rare species and “narco-tourists” mining the desert for the small, psychotropic peyote plant.

I think I about died from laughter. It’s not a funny story, but when I get a mental image of old Western cowboys running across the desert, uprooting cactuses, and then fleeing back to their little shacks holding the plants like precious babies, I can’t help but giggle. It’s too silly.

Sophomore year is supposedly the easiest out of all four years of IB high school. If that’s the case, then my motivation for losing my procrastinating habits will hit rock-bottom, because the less work I have, the more I feel like lazing around.

Of course, since I’ll be taking four AP exams in May, I shouldn’t really slack off. ‘Cause from what I heard, AP exams are hard. Especially if you’ve got either: a) an online teacher, so you basically have to teach yourself, or b) a brand-new AP teacher that doesn’t teach. At all.

In both cases, you’re on your own.

Which means I’m burnt toast.

Why didn’t I get into Law Studies?! I wanted to take that course soooo bad! But nooooo, they put me in AP Environmental Science instead. The boring class, where all we do is copy Powerpoints or do worksheets and I feel like my chances of scoring at least a three on the exam is slipping away day by day.

Oh, and did I mention that walking into traditional AP classes was awkward? Nothing against the people, and I’m blaming myself for this because I should be used to traditional electives since I took that Creative Writing class in ninth grade, but IB and traditional students are so segregated that if you put us in the same room, it’s definitely going to be tensive for the first few classes. All the trads are thinking, “Oh God, there’s those nerdy IB kids,” while we IBers are going, “They’re gonna shoot me” or something.

Okay, fine, most IB students don’t think that. But we’re kinda… apprehensive about approaching regular students. And this is going to make me a hypocrite, but we’ve really gotta open up to the rest of the school.

Well, it’s not really hypocritical in my case, because I had no trouble fitting in with the Creative Writing class. In fact, one guy even developed a certain… affection for me during my second semester as a ninth-grader. See? I totally belong with them!

… Fine, I don’t. Make me look hypocritical.

But there is one AP class I do like: AP Euro. Everyone keeps saying that my teacher, Ms Cubano, is a slave-driver, but she actually teaches, and I’m actually awake during her class.

Yeah, you can tell how interested kids are by counting how many pairs of eyes are actually open.

I totally love AP European History. Well, that’s probably because I haven’t had my first test yet, but I did have a quiz, and do you know how relieved I was to find out that it wasn’t as detail-grinding as Mr. Mills’s World History quizzes? To pass last semester, you’d have to have memorized the entire book, word for word. And I’m (mostly) not kidding. All of the people in that class who managed to grab onto that precious ‘A’ confessed that they spent hours and hours memorizing the textbook. Like I did. If you asked us what was the second paragraph of the ninth chapter in the World History textbook, we’d probably have given you an exact answer, plus thrown in a small analysis just for the heck of it. But now, we’re back to a normal course where comprehending the main ideas of each chapter is prime and memorizing word-for-word is for idiots. Yay!