High larious
I have been sleeping a lot more recently as I wake up at 3pm each afternoon. I have also been having dreams, long dreams, that I remember vividly as I wake up. Sleep is not like homework, though. As I sleep through winter break I will find myself still being tired when I only get a few hours of sleep each weekday in January. As I do homework over winter break, in contrast, I will find myself having to do less work in January. Despite this, sleeping is what I have been doing with most of my time and I haven't done any homework. Why the hell should I do homework over winter break? I don't know, I just feel like I have to do work so I can get ahead. Maybe this is the result of my parents mindlessly badgering me to do work everyday of my life. "Shouldn't you be doing homework?" - "Don't you have something due tomorrow?" - "Why aren't you working?" The extent of the subconscious effects this has on me I don't know but I continuously tell myself I should be working.
Today I was working very soundly on something that doesn't have to do with school. I was making a website of all the Clan Lord screenshots I have on my hard drive (and the HD of the computer in the living room). Actually I was going through all the pictures, renaming them, and then uploading them on to Jeremy's server. Jeremy set up a subdomain (how many people's domains have I mooched off so far?) for me at clmacros.com and thus noah.clmacros.com was born. I uploaded the images which were coveniently in chronological as well as numerical order and so Jeremy made a php script that puts five images on each page. So far there are 240 pages and this is just with the old images I had laying around from years ago. I think the number of images could dramatically increase when I go through all my more recent screenshots. I will do that later today because it is supposed to be stormy and thus destroying any plans of doing something like going to the beach.
The "sketchbook" can be found at http://noah.clmacros.com/sketchbook.php but I highly recommend that you only look at it if you play Clan Lord and if you do look at it DON'T go through all the images page by page or your brain will turn into cocaine. Speaking of which, I CAN smell your brain, it is getting early again, and there is a Sharks game tomorrow.
Noah - 1:54 AM - 2 comments
Wednesday, December 26, 2001
5000 Words to Go or "Maybe we should call that Betelmier guy"
Winter break is nice but January will be the most overwhelming month of my life. I have finals for all my classes (I'm taking 7 this semester) and I take the SAT at the end of the month. It isn't so much as all the tests as the work leading up to them. In January I will have to learn the largest amount of material in the shortest amount of time. I think it would be productive of me to use the rest of winter break doing some much needed improvement of my vocabulary. I found a list of 5000 SAT words that could help. I'm sure I will learn several hundred if I go through it. Maybe I should start researching for Bio. Apparently Sudden Oak Death was not a good topic so Nathan and I have to come up with a new one. He suggested hormones and I did some research on that while he went to LA to visit his grandparents. I found some information on insect phermones and we could research how insects make them, secrete them, and how they effect other insects. For example we could look up something like Bombykol, which is a sex-attractant pheromone in moths and discuss what it is and what it does on a biological level. I e-mailed Mr. Nik to ask if this sounded like a good topic and he said it sounded excellent. He also suggested that we look up human phermones, because it is a controversal topic (do we have pheromones or not is the controversy). I just made a list of what I had to do in the next 8 days but it got deleted when I clicked on the scroll bar. That is one really annoying thing about blogger... my posts keep getting deleted before I publish them. Anyway, here is what I remember that was on the list:
A- Nothing
B- Study for math. Do math homework that I don't know what it is but I probably wrote it down somewhere.
C- Get working [D]elete function for my program from Jeremy.
D- Read Bio and review notes to understand what the b'jesus we're learning about. Do major research on insect pheromones for research paper.
E- Start project for Film Lit (watch war movies).
F- Make a list of words I don't know to give to Se�ora Stroessner. Study subjunctive. Go through Tri�ngulo and make up stories for the series of pictures.
G- Nothing.
H- Study for SAT.
I- Go to Jeremy's house and play Dreamcast games (this will probably happen first, thus making me forget about everything else and then realizing I have stuff to do Sunday night the day before school.
Monday, December 24, 2001
How'd you get so fluffy?
For the past three days my brain has been on a mental vacation. Now, and until the break is over, I have to get back to reality. This mental realization started just ten minutes ago when Hoff called me. He asked me if I wanted to go to the snow this weekend. I was confused at first, then he explained he planned to go to Tahoe and take snowboarding lessons and other things like that. I said I didn't want to go and he told me he would call back at 7. Why don't I want to go? Let's examine this:
�I don't know how to snowboard.
�I won't learn anything from one snowboarding lesson on one day.
�If I did, there would be absolutely no way to use that knowledge because I don't plan to go snowboarding again.
�I would suck at snowboarding no matter what in any case.
�Snowboarding lessons cost money that I don't have.
�I have virtually no warm clothing.
�Buying warm clothing, or any other possible thing I would have to spend money on costs money that I don't have.
�I would probably die.
�I don't want to go.
�It would be crowded as hell. It is Christmas/New Year's for God's sake.
�I would not have any fun and would be cold the entire time.
�It would suck.
Noah - 2:44 PM - 16 comments
Thursday, December 20, 2001
Boredom
My group just did our presentation. We then got another group project assignment and decided to be the same group. I think we're doing a presentation about the genre of war. I am so horribly bored right now. Lunch is in about 30 minutes and then I have G period. Tomorrow is a minimum day so I get out of school at 12:35pm, and then it is Winter break. Mr. Nik said that my topic could be Sudden Oak Death as long as I can find information about what it is biologically. I guess I will look for information on it now. I'm so bored.
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
The Return of the Struct
Yes! I got my Struct/FileIO program to work! The main menu looks as follows:
[A]dd [V]iew [S]ort [W]rite [R]ead [E]dit [D]elete [Q]uit
You can add Structs, View them, Sort them by Name or Age, Write them into a text file, Read them from a text file, Edit them, Delete them (coming soon!) and the most glorious of all, Quit.
You have Windows XP, right?
While walking to my Film Lit I saw someone laying on the ground in the street covered in a blanket with a several people standing around them. They were still wearing a helmet and barely moving. Should I have stood there staring? No, of course not. There was nothing I could do to help, why would I get in the way? I walked by them en route to Film Lit and soon heard an ambulence coming in the distance. I didn't recognize the person who got nailed by a car (that is what I assume happened) so I didn't really think about it in Film Lit. Instead, I observed how a few groups presented their project in hopes to improve the way my group does ours. Only one of us has watched the animated Lord of the Rings movie, and we have to not only present tomorrow but write an essay comparing the movie to the book. I talked to Mrs. Kuiper after class (about 10 mins ago) and she says we can present on Thursday because otherwise we would kill ourselves trying to get this done. That is good, but we still all have to watch the film, so we figured out a plan. Alex is going to take the movie and watch it at home, because he gets out of school at noon today. Once he is done with the movie, he will drop it in my mail box. When I get home, I will wait for Emmon to come so we can watch it at my house. After this, everyone in our group will have seen the movie, and hopefully will understand what the hell they're talking about when we present. Basically what we're going to do (copying the other groups that have presented and have chosen to do the essay as well) is play a specific scene (such as the one in the Prancing Pony Inn in Bree) and stop it every 3 seconds to comment on how the movie or the book differs and what effect that has. One group today did the Shawshank Redemption and I think they did a really good job. Hopefully we can imitate them well enough. Anyway, it doesn't even matter to me. I'm going to get an A in this class no matter what my group gets on the project. Then again, I guess I should try to help the others in my group raise their grade. Hmm...
After Brunch next period is Math where we're doing rotary motions. Then I have Computer Math... then Spanish... and that's it.
If I don't look at what I have to do today NOW, it won't get done:
A: Absolutely nothing... except I just fell off my chair. LOL! That startled the b'jesus out of me. Holy christ. Damn slanty chairs!
B: Some Math assignment from Chapter 4.
C: Nothing (that I am going to do at least).
D: Read Bio. Remember to bring coke to school on Friday for party.
E: Watch LotR and take notes. Write essay. Plan out what my group is going to say during the presentation.
F: Some Spanish assignment that I will probably get today.
G: Nothing.
Monday, December 17, 2001
Everything went wrong today
Let's look at my day by period, shall we?
A: It turns out there are a few things on my groups webpage (the instructional one telling teachers how to use CuteFTP to update their websites) and I don't get time to study for the History test.
B: I get my math test back and because of two problems that I messed up on I get a B, which lowers my test average. My goal in that class is to get an A, and even though a B is a good grade it isn't what I'm aiming for (unlike Bio).
C: I spend the period trying to figure out how to do write, read, and open files containing structs and don't get to study for History.
D: Bio wasn't that bad. I didn't get my Bio test back (which is good) and we spend the period making poems about DNA synthesis (and taking some notes about RNA).
E: I don't have E period on Mondays, but I was supposed to do something after school. I'll get to that soon.
F: We take a practice Spanish SAT II. Immediately after we have a quiz on the vocab words from last week (which I had about 3 minutes to do because the SAT II lasted until the end of the period). Also, I got a practice test to take home with 50 fucking questions that have to do with the use of subjunctive, which makes no sense.
G: US History test. Many questions are from a handout I did not read carefully at all so I did not do good on the test. I was about to turn it in when I changed one of my answers. Immediately after I looked in my notes only to find out that the answer I had initially put was infact correct and the answer I changed it to was wrong. Damnit!
After school: I find Tim and Emmon at the bike racks. Soon we learn that the movie did not yet come to Tim's house. The essay and presentation is due on Wednesday and we don't even have the movie (nor have we seen it) that we're writing it about. Argh!
Now: Watching Sharks game.
Noah - 6:59 PM - 3 comments
File Away an Array of strings
We have a substitute in computer math right now as Mr. Kleinjans appears to be... well I have no idea where he is or what he is doing. I tried to make a program that saves arrays of structs into files when I realized that we were supposed to be saving arrays of strings... Actually, I just realized that three seconds ago. I guess that is why I couldn't get my program to work and gave up to write on my Blog. Then again, I should be able to do it with structs... I get my Bio test back next period and I really don't like thinking about that horrible, stupid test. Mr. Kleinjans just walked in the door which startled me a little bit. I must get back to work.
Saturday, December 15, 2001
When does an obsession become a disorder?
Last night I watched the Sharks shutout the Avs, last season's Stanley Cup Champs, 3-0... on TV of course. I have never been to a Sharks game but I have seen 26 out of their 31 games this season on Fox Sports Net. Tonight, I just watched two movies both directed and written by M. Night Shyamalan and both starring Bruce Willis. How nauseating! The Sixth Sense failed to surprise me. I felt like I was waiting for something while watching it, but that something never came. Unbreakable was not any better, and the ending was really hokey. On Friday I had a math quiz which only consisted of two graphs that we had to draw by composition of ordinates. This quiz can't be worth more than 20 points, but the thing about math quizes in my class is that they are weighted and thus all worth the same. That means, basically, that this quiz counts as much as a 40 point quiz, which takes more than twice the effort to do (which is good if I get a good grade on this quiz). Anyway, this weekend (tomorrow) I have to do math homework, read a chapter or two for Bio (this is very important so that I do not get behind and have to do all the reading the day before the test), do a little research about Sudden Oak Death for my Bio project, do a lot of Spanish homework including a section in Amsco, a diario, and studying for the quiz on monday, and finally I have to study for the history test on Monday. After school on Monday (right after I take the history test) I have to meet up with Tim and Emmon and go to Tim's house to watch the Lord of the Rings (the animated 1978 one) because we have to write an essay comparing it to the book, and do a presentation about that on Wednesday for Film Lit. Too bad the presentation is on the day Fellowship of the Ring is released in movie theaters, because if it was after we could write the essay about the new one instead of the 1978 version. Oh well. Hopefully I can write the essay (yes, it is a group project, but how the hell else will it get done?) at Tim's house so the movie is fresh in my mind.
Friday, December 14, 2001
Friday
It is Friday and there are only five hours of school left. Five painfully slow hours. Brunch is in a few minutes, and then Bio *shudder* It is a good thing we're moving on to the next unit so quickly so I don't have to think about the cell cycle/genetics test. Nathan and I have to decide on a topic for our project and I think he wants to do it about Sudden Oak Death. I have no objections, because I think it is an interesting topic. As long as we can get enough information on it we should do good (because it is currently being researched and thus "cutting-edge"). After Bio is Film Lit and we're going to start Saving Private Ryan... just what I need before lunch. After lunch is Spanish, which reminds me, I have to do the Amsco homework. We were supposed to bring in a blank cassette today and I have no idea why. I hope we're not recording ourselves (come to think of it, I haven't done that in Spanish 7th grade). Senora (I don't know how to do tildas on PCs) Stroessner said we were going to have a practice test today and I have no idea what she means by that. However, judging from the name, it doesn't look like it will change our grade. After Spanish is the last period of the day, US History. I hope we do something interesting so I don't feel exhausted the entire period. I hate the feeling of being really tired and painfully trying to stay awake. I think the bell is going to ring any second.
Thursday, December 13, 2001
AP Bio Test Unfun...
One problem I have noticed about writing posts during Web page design is sitting next to someone who messes with your keyboard thus occasionally quitting applications or worse. I had just wrote a post about the Bio test but Akash randomly hit my keyboard and the browser went back to the previous page, thus deleting my post. Anyway, here are my opinions and an overview of what happened during test, summed up in a list:
*40 minutes is not enough time for me to do 30 multiple choice questions about the cell cycle and genetics as well as 4 essays about stuff that I don't know.
*After finishing the 23 of the 30 multiple choice, 20 minutes had passed, and I moved on to the essays.
*I did not have enough time to organize my thoughts, and I rushed through each essay trying to address a few main points and hopefully get partial credit.
*Each essay is worth 5 points. Thus, in order to get full credit, I needed to have five unique points. I did not have time to think of five different ones for any of the essays.
*Among other things that I confused, I confused the Law of Segregation with something else, making the points I made to show its relation to Mendel's theory on inheritance invalid.
*With 3 minutes left, I scribbled one or two points down for my last essay and did the 5 multiple choice questions I skipped earlier.
*Apparently I didn't see two of the multiple choice questions on the back of the last page.
*I failed.
*40 minutes is not enough time for me to do 30 multiple choice questions about the cell cycle and genetics as well as 4 essays about stuff that I don't know.
Noah - 12:08 PM - 4 comments
AP Bio Test Fun!
I have to take a test for AP Biology in 35 minutes.
I typed a post on Tuesday but as soon as I finished the network took a crap on itself and the internet was down for the entire day. Here is the post from C period computer math on Tuesday:
_______________________________________________
A secret told is no longer a secret
Apparently Jeremy has a LiveJournal that he never told me about until yesterday, and being my bored self I started reading it (because I'm sneaky). The comments on his page had links to other LiveJournals, and I started reading those as well (and posting comments consisting of mindless rambling-- sneaky sneaky).
Right now I am in C period computer math again fooling around with input and output file stream objects. Yay! After this period is lunch and I suppose I will hacky sack with the group that is always near the GRT room.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, now for the second feature of entertainment today," says Mr. Kleinjans while I type this. "Should I show you at this point, should I show you how to do this insertion sort with an algorithm, with fewer copies? Or are you having a good time?" he asks. I'm having a good time! No more work for me... 20 minutes left until lunch. When I get home I have to review for AP Bio like mad. I understood everything up until Mr. Nik started talking about chromosomial linkage and then I just got completely lost. Okay, so maybe I didn't understand everything up that point, but I was able to answer the questions he asked to the class in my head. It annoys me because a lot of this stuff is not in the book (because our book is around 10 years old). On top of studying, I have to do the take-home part of the test. What I would like to do, even though I know it isn't going to happen, is to review EVERYTHING we have studied this unit in Bio so that tomorrow (the day before the test) I won't be so stressed and can concentrate on the things I don't understand.
One GOOD thing about my Biology tests is that they are on Thursday. Since I rarely have homework on Wednesday (due to the arrangement of my schedule which includes not having math or Spanish on Thursday) I can use all my time to review Bio and not have to worry about doing my math or Spanish homework at 2 in the morning (or later). Anyway, I'm going to go back to looking like I'm working now.
Monday, December 10, 2001
Noah Ol vs. Noah
I ended up being able to make it just say "posted by Noah" by changing my profile so that my last name is a space. I also got my take home test for AP Bio, which consists of three questions about genetics. It didn't look so hard at first glance, so I will probably start it today. Other than that I have to write a Film Treatment for the Fellowship of the Ring for Film Lit, do math homework (drawing graphs by composition of ordinates), do some pages in Ansco (Spanish workbook), and read a handout for History. Time for NHL 99!
You don't know Structs
I am currently in C period computer math which basically consists of learning C++ and creating programs that do certain things. I am a little bit ticked off right now because I just wrote a very long post but when I clicked the "post" button it got confused and deleted my message because the network at school right now is screwing up for everyone. Anyway, after Mr. Kleinjans explained to us about selection sort, I realized that I had already completed the "assignment" last week that I was supposed to do today. I made a program that asks the user for certain information (name and age), records them in an array of structs, allows the user to enter more data, see the data, edit the data, and finally sort the data by name (alphabetically) or age (numerically).
Next period is AP Biology and I don't really know if something is due or not. I did half of a worksheet about genetic linkage and recombination but I failed to do any of the reading throughout the entire weekend (due to procrastination). I do know that there is a test on the cell cycle on Thursday and part of it is a take home test that I am supposed to be getting today. I guess that is pretty nifty because I can spend a lot of time on it, but then again it will probably be very hard. After AP Bio is lunch, and then I have Spanish 4AP and US History. What I was about to do, before my post was deleted and I had to retype it from memory, was try to make it say "Noahol" or "Noah" instead of "Noah Ol" when I post my messages. My profile required me to enter a first AND last name so I put "Noah" and "Ol." I guess I will fool around with the template now (if this message isn't deleted again).
A Period
One aspect of blogger.com is the ability to edit my webpage at anytime from any computer. I did not have this ability with geocities.com. Right now I am in my webpage design class and have just been given the assignment of making a webpage explaining to teachers how to download their files from the Gunn (school) server using CuteFTP, edit them, and then upload them back to the server. The webpage needs to contain the following:
1. define what ftp is
2. why do we need this?
3. graphic of ftp interface
4. explain interface
5. make mention of platform
6. write a step by step example: illustration of a teacher modifying their webpage, then uploading to gunn server
I asked our teacher if all the other teachers know their username and password. She told me that was a good question, and then explained that none of them know their usernames or passwords and have to talk to some woman in some room of the school (I have it written down somewhere). Luckily this is a group project (Akash and Brian are in my group) so I only have to do a third of the work. If only this were like my Film Lit class where I know I will end up doing the entire group project about the Fellowship of the Ring by myself.
Sunday, December 09, 2001
A New Beginning
After several months of using geocities.com to host my Blog, it suddenly became extremely incovenient. Because I was simply writing HTML into a text document and uploading it to ftp.geocities.com, everything I did had to be manual. This became very tedious and after awhile I started updating it much less. The initial goal of it was to make a simple website where I could write daily accounts of my day but it turned into something that created a ton of stress like most other webpages I create. Luckily, one day I got an email from Worf (aka Alex Shaffer) making comments on the format of my webpage. I spent an hour or two changing the design until he told me that if I switch to Blogger, he would host me (which would be much better than geocities.com). Thus, I went to www.blogger.com and signed up, and Alex set up a sub domain for me with nosuch.org. This shall be my new Blog, and hopefully it will be much less of a hassal because everything here is very organized and automated (in extreme contrast to my previous Blog).
Noah - 11:06 PM - 2 comments
