Pumpkin Carving Party

Yesterday, I hosted a pumpkin carving party in anticipation of Halloween. I haven't carved a pumpkin since I was about seven years old, and even then, I don't remember doing the actual carving part. I think I decided what pattern I wanted and then let my dad do all the work.
So I wanted to carve a pumpkin this year, and I invited some friends over so I could do that.
28.57% of the people I invited actually showed up. I was a little disappointed of corse, but I was determined to have fun with the two who could actually come. Summer and Akeyo came over at around noon, and we ate. At around one, we started to get around to the carving part. I decided to do a pattern that had three pumpkins sitting on top of one another. Summer wanted to carve a wolf, and Akeyo decided to carve a face.
Considering the size of the actual pumpkin, I noticed that there's not much stuff in the inside. I was surprised that the actual amount of innards that I took out of mine was relatively small.
Summer finished her pumpkin in about half an hour. And when it was done, it looked really really nice. The carving part was all even an smooth. Akeyo's pumpkin is really cool too, especially when you put the candle in it. In this picture it looks especially cool because you can see the candle right in the middle of the nose, and its awesome.

The party was a lot of fun. It got me into the spirit of Halloween.
I just got a message about half an hour ago that said we wouldn't be having school tomorrow because of the "anticipated effects of Hurricane Sandy." I hope it's not as bad as people are planning for it to be. I'm glad they cancelled school (even though it was on a day that I have three free periods). Mr. Maione, the orchestra teacher said that sometimes the orchestra room floods when there's a lot of rain. I dearly hope that doesn't happen, because some of the instruments that are in there would get destroyed. The electric pianos are actually pretty nice in there, so it would be a shame if they were ruined.
But the good part is I get to sleep in tomorrow!! Huzzah!

The Bear Mascot

So I had an experience the other day that made me think.
The WT soccer team had a playoff game yesterday. It's kind of a big deal, apparently, when any sports team goes to the playoff, and it's the only time this year when I've seen that much school spirit in a school so small. In order to get the WT community pumped up about this game, one member of the soccer team dressed up in a bear mascot costume and went around school giving people hugs and high fives.
The thing that interested me the most about this, was that everyone was trying to figure out who was in the costume. For about forty minutes, the whole school was guessing and talking about who they thought was in the costume. I myself was curious about this. I thought it was Matthieu, but apparently it wasn't.
Once we did find out who was inside the bear mascot (the person's name shall remain anonymous) some people were very disappointed. The person who was actually in the bear costume is in a sort of "click," you could say, for guys. They call themselves the E8, which is a name I don't really understand, but I just accept it.  They don't have the kindest reputation, from what I've heard, mostly because they don't talk to anyone but the members of the group and their girlfriends. I don't have much contact with them, so I really can't judge. I'm not saying that this person is bad, but I am just gathering data from what I heard from the people who were around me.
So I thought that it was interesting that we care about who the mascot is on the inside, but once we do know what is on the inside, we are disappointed. If we think that about a person in a mascot costume, then we must think that about a person and the personality of that person. We have one opinion about the person, and then once we know their true colors, we act like we know exactly who they are. Sometimes we do, and sometimes, we don't. I don't know. It was just interesting to me.

Internet, Come Back!!

One of the reasons that I haven't been blogging much lately is because of the internet. More specifically, it's because of the lack of internet. My mother has this view that we in this household are too attached to the internet and we need less of it. So now she's turning it off at 8pm and then only turning it back on when she comes downstairs in the morning at around 6am.
I think that she has part of a point. Not a whole point, but some of it. In this day, we spend a lot of time online. I don't think that I would be so opposed to it if I didn't have work that I need to do.
For example, yesterday, I came home, ate a snack, and then was promptly whisked off to the gym for about an hour workout. I got home at around 6, then had to eat and shower. So then I finally got around to getting my homework done. Homework takes a while. I'm not saying that I need the internet for the whole time that I'm working, but wikipedia is very useful in times of trouble. I was studying chemistry ( I have a test on Friday) when the internet got turned off, and I was very annoyed, because I needed to know what Joseph Priestly did and it wasn't in my notes, so I had to look him up, but of corse, when I got to the internet page, safari said "safari is not connected to the internet." Sink me.
Then, the next morning, the internet was turned on at 6am, and my phone started to buzz. Unless my alarm on my phone is going off, my phone is NOT allowed to buzz. Especially early in the morning. That woke me up half an hour before I would have normally gotten up. Half an hour is a LONG time in sleep land. I could have had a very nice dream during that time. It turns out that my phone was giving me iMessage texts from the night before that didn't get to me because the internet was turned off.  Needless to say, that was not my happiest morning.
The thing is, my dad agrees with me. My mother's the one who's enforcing this rule.
So I'm irritated. I can't blog before 8pm, and 8pm was usually when I started my posts. I'm adjusting my plan. I just really really hope that this will not be a long time thing.

SALTIMBANCO!!!

On Saturday night, my mother and I went to see the Cirque du Soleil show Saltimbanco!!! It was truly amazing.
I've seen three Cirque du Soleil shows that I remember, including Saltimbanco. I saw Totem when I was in eighth grade, and then saw Quidam last year. I love Cirque du Soleil shows, because everything is amazing. The tricks are amazing, the music is amazing, and the costumes are amazing.
So you can imagine my absolute joy when I found out that I would be attending the show showing in Pittsburgh, Saltimbanco.
Have I said yet that it was amazing?
Saltimbanco is about a metropolis. A city where people are happy and everything is colorful. Its a show about the city, but it also pays attention to the individual. They also spoke during this show in a language that I can only describe as a mix of Irish, Italian, and gibberish.
The first act that I really really enjoyed (like, extra really enjoyed, because I really enjoyed all of them) was the chinese poles. There were four poles, standing vertically and about 20 people would climb it and jump from one pole to another. Everybody was really in sync, which I really liked. Another act that I extra enjoyed was the boleadores act. It was basically two people, a man and a woman, swinging around two pieces of string with a ball at the end. They were also in sync, and when the balls would hit the ground, they would make a loud noise, and it was really cool.
During the whole entire show, my mother was sitting next to me, and every time something amazing happened (which was like every ten seconds) she would lean over an say "how can they do that? They're not human." She said this a lot in this act, where these two men lifted each other and made statures out of themselves. I realize that that sounds weird, but there was one move where the smaller of the two extremely buff men had his feet in the air, and his shoulders were balancing on the back of the other man, who was standing on the ground. It looked like a very long human being in the air. It's especially amazing considering how buff these men were and how heavy they must have been.
I really also enjoyed the costumes in this show. They were colorful, the makeup was colorful, and I really want to live in a city where people can wear clothing to make them look like a rainbow.
The show was again, really really good. I now have to listen to the music and memorize the words.

Icons, Son, and PSYCH!!!

There have been three major excitements in my life recently.
1. Icon factory 2. Son 3. PSYCH SEASON 7 PROMO!!!

1. Icon factory is an amazing place where I can get little pictures to replace my icons on my computer. My dad told me about this last week, and I checked it out, and it is awesome!!! I immediately changed practically ALL of my icons on my computer.  I changed the safari icon (a compass) to the TARDIS from Dr. Who, I changed my Spotify icon to Totoro, and most importantly, I changed my 1Password icon to BATMAN!!! I did a lot of other ones too, but now on my dock on the bottom of my screen, I have a mini TARDIS, a TARDIS key, Totoro, a beach ball of doom, Batman, and the little bell from Polar Express. Now anyone who wants to use my computer will be extremely confused and not be able to navigate on my computer. But it is awesome.

2. So I read The Giver by Lois Lowry three times. I read it in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, and occasionally pick it off of my bookshelf to skim through. It's an amazing book, and is currently ranked at #5 on my Top 25 Favorite Books list. This book has two "companion books," which means the books, Gathering Blue and The Messenger, take place in the same world and cross paths with the main character of The Giver, but it doesn't really continue the story of Jonas and Gabe. What I didn't know, was that there was another book that takes place in this world, and it came out two weeks ago. It's called Son. I read the free sample that Barnes and Noble gave me on my nook, and it's pretty good so far. I've read some reviews, and they have been pretty positive, so I am really excited to start reading it, but I have to finish the current book I'm working on, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. There used to be a time when I could read five books at the same time, but I really want to finish The Book Thief, and don't really want anything to come in between me finishing it.

3. Today wasn't really the best of days, mostly because it's Wednesday, and I don't particularly care for my Wednesday schedule. Also, I had an English in-class essay. It was lunchtime, and I had just come back from writing a lot about what I think a hero is (that was our prompt), and I came downstairs to grab my lunch. Then, Jacob showed me that THE PSYCH SEASON 7 PROMO VIDEO IS OUT!!!! I was absolutely positively so excited. I have been waiting for this for about six months. And the cliffhanger at the end of season 6 didn't help either. Psych is one of my favorite shows (I say one of my favorite, because, you know, Downton Abbey, Big Bang Theory, and Dr. Who are good too). Though they did ruin the cliffhanger because they showed a clip where Henry was alive and well. Admittedly, I knew he would be alright, but come on!

Those are the exciting things that are going on in my life right now. There's another thing coming up, but I'm going to save that one for another time. I'm drumming my fingers together in front of my face and saying "hehehe" like an evil person right now. But you'll just have to wait and see....it's rather exciting!!

The Glory of Autumn

On Saturday, my family and I went to Oakland, Maryland for the town's annual Autumn Glory Festival.  My dad apparently attended the festival once when he was a small child, and remembered really enjoying it, so we decided to go back this year.
The day was absolutely beautiful. The sky was blue, it was about 60 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside, and the leaves on the trees were turning red and orange and yellow. It takes about three hours to get to Oakland, and I thought that I would be watching Downton Abbey during the car ride, but instead, I decided to look out at the beautiful view of the woods that were bright with autumn colors and listen to music. Though I was very irritated because my iTunes on my iPod was broken and I couldn't listen to the music that I wanted to listen to, so half the time I listened to my new purchases, Fireflies of Montreal and Permafrost by Laurena Segura.
We got to Oakland at around noon, and ate lunch at a pizza place that I had apparently eaten at before, but don't remember. The pizza was square and good though.
At one, it was time for the parade!!! I don't really have any memories of going to parades as a child, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It started out with a person, who I think had been crowned Miss Maryland or something, and then proceeded to a marching band. Then there was the army of people with bouncy balls. They were all dressed in a green t-shirt and black pants, and were dancing along to a song that I can't remember the name of. There were about 150 people or so, and they would take the bouncy ball, which, I should note, was probably a yoga ball or something, but I don't know. They would dance with it, and sit on it and bounce up the hill with it, and it was very odd, and a bit unnerving.
The best part of the parade, by far, were the SHRINERS!!!! The Shriners are an organization that help children in need of hospital care. I can't take people wearing fezzes seriously anyway, but after this...by golly, it was so much fun!! There were some Shriners in nice, big cars, waving to the public, but then...then, all of the fun happened. A group of Shriners-there must have been at least twenty- came around the corner in little yellow go-carts, and sped around making figure-eights in the street. They must have practiced a lot, because it was truly really really cool. It was awesome. That was a demonstration, that even 70-year old men (wearing fezzes) can still act like children, and, as my dad pointed out, do it legally.
We also spotted a relative of my dad's in the parade (my great-grandfather lived in Oakland, so there's some family and friends around). Please don't ask me to tell you his relation to me, but I know that his name was Jeff, and he's a nice person.
After the parade, my mother and I went around the antique shops in Oakland. My favorite part of the antique shops that we went in were the hats-I love hats, especially ones from the 1930's.
When we started out car ride home, it was about 7 at night. It was peaceful, and you could see the stars in the sky. We went home after a really nice day in Oakland. This time, I did choose to watch Downton Abbey, but was still thinking about how nice the day had been-the weather, the parade, the Shriners, and of course, the colors and the glory of autumn.

Why Batman Wins at Life

I am of the belief that Batman is the best superhero out there. 

Calm down you Hulk and X-Men lovers! I said he is the best superhero out there, Not the best comic book (personally, I think Spiderman is the best comic book) and I will explain why I think that this is so. 

It's because no matter how minute the possibility, anyone can become Batman. 

There is no scientific phenomenon that allows Bruce Wayne to become Batman. In Spiderman, Peter Parker is bitten by a spider and takes on some of its abilities. In Fantastic Four, the Fantastic Four are exposed to some cosmic radiation and something happens to them so they have special abilities.

Bruce Wayne is rich. That's why he can have all of those fancy gadgets. That's why he has amazing technology to help him fight his nemeses. Other than that, if I want to become Batman (which would be awesome), I just have to go get some intense martial arts training, build a lot of muscle, and learn how to have two different personalities at the same time. That's possible. It's just a lot of work. It would be hard. It would be difficult, but it's possible.

We all had people in our lives that we wanted to become. Personally, I wanted to become Hermione Granger and Laura Ingalls Wilder at the same time. But no matter how hard I try, I can't use magic, and I can't travel back in time to live on the prairie. 

Little children want to become Wolverine and Spiderman, but there's no chance. I'm sorry. It's very sad. 

So that's why I say, if you want to become a superhero, become Batman (or Ironman, but Batman's just better). Become rich (or inherit the money), go to all the martial arts training sessions you can go to, and acquire the best technology out there. Then go around and save cities from crime. 

My Planet

I decided that it would be fun to create my own planet. Please understand that there is no science to what I'm going to write. It's just what I think would be a very nice place to go visit sometime.  So here I go!

The planet is named Iskyra, and it lies somewhere not in out solar system, but out there in a place where we humans haven't discovered yet. The sky during the day would be the color of autumn leaves. There would be no clouds. There would be no sun. However, during the night, the sky would turn a deep velvety blue and two moons would hang in the sky. One, the large one, would be a creamy yellow and cover a third of the sky and light the nighttime world. The other moon would be small and a color in-between orange and yellow. This small moon would circle around the big moon throughout the night.
The landscape of the planet would be magical. There would be forests of trees as tall as redwoods and with branches that would spread the distance of five school buses. The trees would all have flowers on the end, which would flower every day no matter what time of year it is. The water would be crystal clear. There would be one ocean that extends from the mountains as far as the eye can see, but then after that, all the water goes over a cliff and pours into the biggest lake in the planet, which spreads into rivers traveling throughout the Iskyra. There would be no fish in that huge ocean, but there would be very colorful fish living in the rivers and streams. They would all be light colors like baby pink and baby purple, though there would be the few exceptions. There would be huge fish (ancient dinosaur-type fish) living in the huge lake. There would even be sections of the huge forest of trees that was flooded by this crystal-like water. In sections of the forest, there would be little lilies that would open up every morning in what we call "slow motion," and that would mark the time when the planet would come to life and the day would begin.
The short mountains on Iskyra would be the size of Mount Everest. There are of course, much taller ones throughout the planet. They would be covered in flowers of all colors no matter how high you climbed, and would stand tall and bold against the orange sky.
Gravity would work differently on Iskyra. Rain would fall, but it wouldn't fall like it falls on Earth. It would fall slower, the raindrops would be a bit bigger and fall less often, and it would be beautiful.

Are We Fearless?

This past weekend, I went SCUBA diving with my mother and father. We went to a place called Gilboa Quarry, and I would tell you where that is, except that I don't really know. All that I know is that it is in Ohio, and is in the middle of nowhere.
The quarry itself is quite large. On the surface, it looks very serene and peaceful, but it's underwater where the fun happens. On Friday night, it was raining really hard, and it was about 9:30 pm. We decided that we didn't want to camp that night, which had been our original plan, so we stayed in a hotel. The next night though, we camped.
Before I describe the actual diving part, let me stress that the land was very very very cold. The temperature was barely above freezing level during the day. Saturday night, I was wearing six layers of clothing and snuggled in a pretty thick sleeping bag, and was still very cold.
So now knowing that part, imagine having to change into a bathing suit, then struggle for about ten minutes to put on a thick rubber wet suit. Not a pretty picture, eh? But we got through it and my mother and I headed to the docks to gear up.
The water itself was warm. Compared to the land temperature, the quarry felt like a big, large, warm bathtub. Our dive master, Dick, took us to a platform about sixteen feet down, and we showed him our  mastery of skills like taking our masks off and sharing our extra regulator with our dive partner. He then took us around a bit, and we saw what underwater life was like. For starters, there were fish!! There was also a bunch of stuff that had been sunk to make the quarry a bit more interesting. There was an airplane, a motorcycle, and a school bus all covered in slime and surrounded by fish. It was actually very cool.
Now at this point, you may be wondering what the title has to do with it all. Don't worry! I'm about to tell you.
This past weekend was a charity fund raiser for brain cancer research. Since Halloween is coming up, the underwater life is decorated with "scary stuff" like rubber snakes and creepy looking clowns. The idea is, that on Saturday night, you go night diving, and you get freaked out by all this stuff.
I was excited for the night dive. I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. My mom and I decided that we were going to do it. A couple of weeks ago, we bought some flashlights to prepare us for this dive.
It was night, and people were already in the water when my mom and I got down to the docks. I was going to dive with a very gentle dive instructor named Jim, and my mom was going to dive with Dick. This way, we were one on one with an instructor. It was my second dive ever.
I got into the water, and honestly, it was nothing like I was expecting. You can't see anything down there. This fact might be obvious to some people, but it's completely different from anything you'll ever imagine. This fact that I couldn't see anything somehow freaked me out a lot. I didn't know how deep I was going, and I didn't know if I was going to bump into anything, and my dive computer wasn't lighting up like it was supposed to so it wouldn't tell me if I was deep or not. The first time I tried to go down, I failed miserably. I didn't know where I was, and had no sense of direction, and I kept on shining my light into Jim's face, and it was not a fun time. I went up and tried again, but going down the second time was just as bad as the first. Then Jim gave me another 3 pound weight because he thought that I wasn't sinking enough, and then the third time, I was able to stay down longer.
I got down, and was still really freaked out. Not by the stuff, but by the loss of my sense of direction. Jim held my hand, and that made it a little better, but not that much, because the added weight was making me sink more and I couldn't control my buoyancy (though, afterward, my mother pointed out that I could have inflated my BCD). I kept on having to kick a lot, and that was terrible because SCUBA is supposed to be a not-kicking-a-lot activity. Since my weight was pulling me down, I kept on hitting the top of the plane and the bus. Then my mask started to flood, making it harder to see the blackness, and it was awful. I was also breathing really really fast. I couldn't see, I had no sense of where I was, I kept on sinking, I couldn't control my buoyancy, I kept on running into things, and my mask was flooding. It was scary. It was frightning. I was starting to panic, and the thought of oh God, if you're going to take me please do it as fast as you can was entering my mind, when I signaled to Jim that I wanted to go to the surface.
I actually started crying on my way up because I was so disappointed in myself. I couldn't do it. I was scared, so I couldn't do it. I didn't like the thought of fear keeping me from something that I really wanted to do. I got out of the water, and started to cry even harder, and all the while, people were coming up to me saying that it was ok, and telling me that they hadn't lasted as long as I had on their first night dive, and there were professional divers who wouldn't go night diving. I took off my stuff, and got dressed in my six layers of clothing, all the while thinking about fear.
I think that sometimes, we humans like to think that we're fearless. We see characters in books who do brave things and who seem like they have no fear whatsoever. They have fears too. We see people climb Mount Everest, and go to the deepest parts of the ocean, and we think that in some magical way, we are fearless. But we're not. At some point, we are reminded of what we fear. I was reminded of what I fear. I fear loss of control, loss of direction, and that's part of a list that includes fear of regret and fear of lionfish. I don't like fear though. I don't think anyone does. But the thing that I don't like about fear is that it limits us. It limits us to what we know, and doesn't let us "expand our horizons." How can we grow if we aren't brave?
So, no. We aren't fearless. But conquering our fears, isn't that what we've been taught ever since we were little and afraid of the dark? I was scared of that night dive. I'm still scared of some stuff to do with SCUBA. I'm determined to get back in though, and I'm excited for my next night dive, whenever it is. I'm excited to prove to fear that I'm not scared of night dives anymore, and I'm excited to see what fear's next challenge for me is.

Book #32 The Road from Coorain

So, apparently I was a liar. A really really big liar. I'm sorry!!! I am so so so sorry!!!
I told you that I would finish reading the extensive amount of 6 pages from The Road from Coorain. Instead, I had a sudden desire to create a stop motion movie using silly bands.
I did finish the book though! I finished it on Wednesday morning, but being the kind of person who likes to procrastinate, I am writing this now, during my free period.
The Road from Coorain (written by Jill Kerr Conway) was a book that was different from anything else that I've ever read. It's  a memoir of a woman who grew up in the bush of Australia and the emotional battles she went through throughout her life. There were battles when her father and brother died, there were countless numbers of emotional thoughts that went through her head as she learned about bias against women who wanted to establish themselves in the educational world.
I loved the writing in the book. The narrative was amazingly clear. She expressed her emotions perfectly. I got angry when she was angry. I became frustrated when she was frustrated. I love that kind of writing.
I don't know what I would do if I was in Conway's situation. I don't think that I could stand to just watch other people learn while I was supposed to sit and not be educated. It was incredibly frustrating for Conway, and it would be incredibly frustrating for me. Thankfully I go to a school and live in a time where education is highly valued (though apparently Governor Corbett doesn't want to pay for the education of the young people in Pennsylvania). Though, in the end, Conway became the first woman president of Smith College, so she sort of shoved that in the faces of the people who tried to limit her education.
Then there was the incredibly sad part of Conway's relationship with her mother. I loved the mother in the beginning. She was kind and caring, but as Conway became older, her mother became crankier and crankier. In the end, I could feel Conway's frustration with her mother's ideas and worries. I felt sorry for her though. She was a person scarred with emotion from her husband and son's deaths, but I didn't like how she reacted to the deaths, and how the deaths seemed haunt her throughout her life, and she never got over them.
The Road from Coorain gets a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I apologize for my lack of blogging. I will try to blog more starting on Monday. I won't be able to blog this weekend because I'm going SCUBA DIVING!!!!!! I'm soooo excited!!!!!! We will be diving 4 times, one of which is a night dive. We're going to Ohio, the state that is full of nothing but cornfields. We'll also be camping overnight, and woods don't get internet access, so that's why I won't be able to blog. I promise though, that I will get back on track on Monday!

Ms. Reed Told Me to Read It

I've been reading this book called The Road from Coorain lately (by lately I mean for the last month or so). I have about six pages left, and I'll probably finish reading it tonight, but before I finish it and write a review of the book, I thought that I would give you a little background about how I decided to read this particular book.
When I was in fifth grade, I lived in Tokyo, and attended the American School In Japan (ASIJ for short). It was a pretty large school, containing about 130 kids in a grade, all the way from Kindergarden to 12th grade. I loved ASIJ. There was a HUGE playground, the classes were fun, and the people were really nice. I had a teacher called Ms. Reed, the greatest teacher that I've ever had. She made everything fun. She was energetic, fair, and loved to read. There would be times where she would sit at the front of the class and read us great books like The Giver and Tuck Everlasting. Every day, she would give us a whole period to write, which was, naturally, my favorite class.
One day as the year was coming to an end, Ms. Reed stood up in front of the class and held up The Road from Coorain. She told us that she had just finished reading it. She told us that she thought that we, especially the girls, should read it sometime in our futures. It was an inspiring book, she said, could teach anyone where determination could take you. When a girl named Ann asked when we should read it, she told us that we should read it when we were in eighth grade. Not now, because we were a bit too young to appreciate it, yes, eighth grade. I never wrote the name of the book down, and I thought that I would forget about it, but somehow, I've remembered to read it.
So when I was in eighth grade, I borrowed The Road from Coorain from the library. I read it for a month, but never had the chance to finish it, so I returned it, having only read the first half of the book. A couple of months ago, I decided that I would read the book again. This time, I decided, I would finish the whole thing. So instead of checking it out from the library, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought it. It sat on my nightstand for about two months before I picked it up and started to read it.

PANIC TIME!!!

I made the wonderful mistake of leaving my chemistry notebook at school over the weekend. This is ill advised, especially when you have a chem lab due Monday after lunch.
I realized that I had forgot my chem notebook on Saturday, when I opened my backpack to start my homework. I immediately thought that there must have been a mistake. I distinctly remembered thinking Aki, don't forget your chem notebook on Friday, and I remembered that I had put the notebook in my backpack. So on Saturday, I was very confused when I realized that it was not there, and I was starting to wonder if inanimate objects could teleport, when I had the wonderful idea of e-mailing my lab partner to get the data that we had collected together. I sent her the e-mail, and then sat at my desk staring at the little mail icon that shows up on the computer, refreshing my inbox every couple of seconds to see if she would respond. But she didn't, so I did the parts of the lab that I could complete, and then went to bed.
Yesterday, I checked my e-mail in the morning, and my lab partner still hadn't e-mailed me back, so I began to worry a bit. After I came back from the Ren Fest, she had e-mailed me saying that she too had forgotten her lab notebook. Then, I became even more stressed out than I already was. WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO!!!???????? I can't turn it in late, that would just be...terrible. I don't think that I would actually physically be able turn in an assignment late. Or turn in an assignment half completed. I've never done that before. But thankfully, I remembered that I had a free period before lunch. Whew. I could finish it then.
I got to school this morning, opened my locker, and saw that my notebook was NOT in my locker. Great. I lost my lab notebook with all the data in it. Now it was PANIC TIME!!!!! I was mentally banging my head against my locker. So I went to my lab partner and got the data from her.
Then, during math class (I think my teacher was talking about the London Eye and a bigger ferris wheel that New York City is trying to build and a bigger one that Las Vegas is trying to build....because that's what people should be concerned about right now. Building ferris wheels, and not be concerned about the economy or all the other problems in the world.) I did the calculations for the lab, and then after I was done, I payed attention in class and took really good notes.
After, sculpture class (a class that is really really fun, but I'm terrible at making 3-D objects), the librarian, Mr. S., told me I had left my chem notebook in the library over the weekend. I am told this NOW??? Not that Mr. S. should have told me earlier, but......I was mentally banging my head against my locker again.
During my free, I feverishly finished the lab in about half an hour. I had fifteen minutes left, and I was feeling really really good about myself when I realized that I had graphed something wrong. I HAD SWITCHED THE X AND Y-AXES AND HAD TO DO THE WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN!! GARRRRRR. My heart was racing so fast it could have run a marathon. So then I franticly did the whole graph over again, which meant hand drawing it again, making a line of best fit, and then calculating slope, etc. Don't worry, the math was right and everything. The whole table that I was working on in the library was covered with papers, and things were flying out of my backpack, and it was a very hectic time. I finally got everything done, everything printed, and I piled all the papers up in a very neat stack. It was ready to be handed in. I finished one minute before lunchtime.
This whole wave of relief swept over me as I headed to lunch. I never thought that chemistry would give me that much stress. But I have learned, as I (mostly) always learn from my mistakes, never ever EVER to repeat what I did today. I'm never going to do that. Ever.