I've recently been learning about logarithms in my math class, and it has not been going well. So far this semester, math had not been as challenging as I'd expected, up until I got to logs. They seemed simple enough, and I thought that I understood them...But I found out during the most recent math quiz that I really don't understand them at all. I couldn't even finish the quiz in time. It was really a slap in the face. I knew I'd been getting overconfident about tests; I studied less and less as the year went on.

It's tempting for me to just blame it on the fact that there weren't the kind of problems on the test in the textbook - nothing to study with. But if I'd actually been trying hard enough to study, maybe I would've realized that. Maybe I would've gone looking for problems, made up my own, just done something. Anything.

I started to write this post before, but I completely forgot about it; my memory hasn't been good for quite a long time, and I haven't been sleeping too well lately. I wake up in the middle of the night, and then I can't get back to sleep again for a long time, if at all. I've been pretty tired during the day, and one of my friends even asked me if I was okay, saying that I seemed out of it. But I guess being sleep-deprived hasn't been as bad I as I expected. I thought I would pass out in the middle of class or something.

People do pass out, though. The reasons are unclear; could be dehydration. A couple of weeks ago, I was minding my own business in science class when I heard a loud thump. One of my classmates had just fallen out of her stool. The teacher called the office, and a woman came into the classroom with a wheelchair to take away my classmate. Thankfully she wasn't badly injured after all and was back to class the next day. Crazy enough for one person to faint, but the teacher said she'd seen it happen before. There was even a student who practically did a backflip when she fell out of the stool.

But even such things are a part of normal life, are they not? I don't know anymore if there is a such thing as normal anymore. You'll see that idea in Durarara!! and in Inception, both of which were (perhaps still are) quite popular, and not without reason. Inception is one of those movies where you have to pay attention - if you're multitasking the way I tend to, then you might look back at the screen and realize you don't know what the people are doing or where they are. Still, it was a riveting movie, and one of the few movies with lots of explosions and guns that I actually liked, seeing as am I'm generally more of a fan of comedies. If you haven't watched it, I definitely recommend Inception.

Labels: algebra, anime, durarara, faint, health, inception, life, logarithm, logs, math, movie, normal, quiz, sleep

This past Monday was my first day back at school. It wouldn't have been much of a concern normally, but this time I was moving up to high school for the first time. I really had no idea what to expect. I knew it would be more tiring, considering that more is expected of a student as they age (and also seeing that I have 7 classes, not 6, this year), but I certainly had not expected it to be THAT bad.

I didn't really take any summer classes this year, nor was I particularly diligent about my studies at home. I did do some work in my geometry textbook, took an SAT practice test, and looked over some vocab cards, but I pretty much didn't touch algebra at all over the summer, and I quickly came to regret it. I couldn't remember much of the operations that had come so easily to me before. I was really frustrated and also angry at myself. I really shouldn't have assumed that I would still remember something that I learned a year or two ago. I thought it was like being able to swim, or ride a bike, that you wouldn't forget it quickly. Boy, was I wrong.

I expected that I would have less free time than before, but that I would at least be able to go on a few websites for a while. Maybe about twenty minutes a day for that. But I found that if I spent time doing things besides homework, I might not finish my homework until past 9 pm, and sometimes even later. I have to focus on my homework without the distractions of the computer or it simply won't get done. The teachers often assign a lot of homework but only give one day to finish it. There hasn't been all that much teaching going on, either. I know that I am expected to become independent eventually and that leaving more work for us to do on our own is a step on the way to that, but I miss having clearer instructions from the teachers and actually getting a reasonable time period to finish homework.

I wonder if perhaps I am the only one, or one of few, who is struggling with it. I guess I'm not used to efficiency (or maybe I never had enough time management skills to begin with) after a summer of relaxation and slacking off. It wasn't until the weekend that I found I had the chance to resume my normal activities on the Internet. And even then I feel uneasy while I am taking such breaks because I feel like I ought to be studying or getting ahead on homework (which I really don't feel like doing). I figure I'll probably get used to it, but I still feel disheartened thinking about the time I still have left in high school. There are still four years to go, and I've already become a hermit who rarely socializes but instead spends lunch, brunch, any free moments in class, and the whole evening doing homework. I'm hoping that either the workload will be lessened or that I'll develop speed as the year goes on (though the former doesn't seem likely, so I suppose I have to hope that I'll learn to manage my time).

Labels: algebra, break, clarity, first day, forget, high school, homework, lazy, socialization, struggle, summer, time management

I'm wondering about this since I am always saying odd things to my friends, and then they stare at me, make a comment, or laugh. And sometimes they are scared of me. Such a thing happened today.
Me: *says something disturbing while trying to coach people on push-ups*
NC(initials for her name): Whoa. I can imagine you with a chainsaw.
Me: Well, yeah! I have one in my backyard. (It's true. I have one in the shed or garage. At least, it's a saw of some sort. I actually have no idea what kind. I only know crosscut, back, and hack saws from Woodshop class)
NC: *eyes widen and backs away*
...Don't worry, I don't bite anymore like I used to do in fourth grade, and I couldn't kill someone, I'm not aggressive enough for that kind of behavior. (But who knows. People can turn out...different when they're older).

It is truly almost the end of the school year. School seems the same, yet different. We're on the last study guide in history class (we do a "study guide", which is a worksheet with questions and you have to write down vocabulary definitions, every chapter of the book. There is a total of 35). I feel like we're finishing too quickly. Then again, my teacher says it is because the superintendent thinks all kids are the same, like cookie cutters, so he expects us all to lower our book standards to match the rest of California. I am upset since we are not learning about the south African kingdoms, like the Congo kingdoms. (I mean, I have to say I don't particularly like Africa because it seems like people are dying and starving there right now from lack of food and medical treatment and clean water, but still, I'm curious.) So my history teacher and the district superintendent don't get along too well. Whenever the superintendent comes to our school and goes by Mr. Blair's classroom, then Mr. Blair talks about something scary to drive away the superintendent.

Also, in math we are on the last chapter out of 12 book chapters. I am both happy and unhappy. I look forward to being finished but that means we'll be doing projects instead of regular homework, I think. I don't like projects since you have to work in a group (and as Shiroi Hime says, if your group won't get along well, then you're in a trouble). You might have to give a speech. Even though my mom signed me up for debate class last summer it just made me lose my self confidence even more. And that means that Geometry in eighth grade is looming not so far ahead. I don't feel prepared. I mean, I don't remember what I learned in Algebra that well.

In science, it is THAT TIME OF YEAR. Nope, not Christmas. Not my birthday. Not Friday the 13th. It's "Human Growth and Development". They don't talk about how babies learn to walk or anything. It's about people going through puberty. Mr. Brown didn't say this out loud but the speech he gave before we really started implied that some families and cultures wouldn't like what we would talk about in class. I read on a sheet of paper sent to our parents that they'll be talking about homosexual people this year. o_O;; Well, I'm pretty sure that's what he meant, because my mom said she knows a person who came from China and then had a child in the USA. The son became a gay when he grew older so his parents were embarrassed of him. I know it must seem unnatural and shameful to the parents since they grew up with different values, but apparently in the USA we are all wild animals in a democracy and it is accepted. I heard there was a fun parade for gay people in San Francisco or something. And you may have heard of someone called Harvey Milk, who was gay but was killed by some spiteful person. (This happens to everyone...John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and some other people.)

Labels: africa, algebra, chainsaw, conversation, culture, gay, geometry, hgad, history, homosexual, projects, saw, school, shame, south, study guide, superintendent, textbook

I don't remember the phrase exactly anymore, except I know Gill (an angelfish) and his gang (other assorted fish, all of them living in a fish tank in a dentist's office in Sydney, Australia) said that when they were making Nemo (one of the main characters, and he's a clownfish with a mutated fin) one of them. If you've watched the movie Finding Nemo, this may ring a bell in your head. For some reason I kept thinking of it lately. I guess it's because when I'm playing a video game, Animal Crossing: Wild World, I keep on catching clownfish when I'm fishing in the ocean. (It's too bad you can't go swimming or own a boat in that game, but oh well.)

Lately my parents are talking to my dad's friends a lot because my family is planning a trip to Australia this summer. We're going for a pretty long time, a couple of weeks, I think. Though it is shallow to think this, I always wonder if I'm going to get Internet access, because I don't want to get behind on role-playing on one of the websites I visit (by the way, role-playing is kind of like writing a book, except each of the characters is controlled by a different person, so basically it's a group effort. Role-plays can be anything from a pack of wolves running from humans, to vampires mingling with humans - sometimes it's too much like Twilight, so I only join ones that aren't using Twilight characters - to depressed people going to a summer camp). Also, I don't want to miss making money on the Internet, even if it's fake money. I guess I am too used to having a computer around all the time. Or maybe I'm just a worrywart.

Something happened on Tuesday in math class that I didn't expect. On the part of the board where the homework assignments are written, the teacher was writing down "No homework" on our side of the section (one part is for the Pre-Algebra 7, or regular math, and the other side is for the Algebra 1, or advanced math). There was a lot of surprise in general since usually we have homework every day, unless it's the day before a long vacation, or we just took a test. It turned out we were taking a test which doesn't affect our grade to judge how much of the Algebra curriculum we knew. I know I must've failed miserably since I didn't remember most of the stuff. So today my teacher said some people scored really high, but some people weren't retaining the things they'd been taught (she must have meant me XD) and she was worried about it. She started talking about how we needed to remember all these things in Geometry, since Geometry is different from most of the other math courses we'll take, and so on, blah blah blah. (Note: I don't mean to offend anyone with the last three words)

In the mail, we received a letter from the BestFriends Animal Society addressed to my mom. It was saying how they were trying to give homeless animals homes, and they wanted her support to help make their goal possible. My dad and I could hardly believe it since my mom is not too fond of animals. She thinks cats are kind of useless and that big dogs are scary. We get all sorts of other weird things in the mail, especially flyers advertising the store called Express, and how it's having sales on women's jeans and things like that. It's always addressed to some random person called Eun M. Ji. (By the way, please don't Google this person or anything like that, or it'll ruin their privacy) I wonder why we keep getting them. Did this "Eun" purposely ask Express to send mail to us?

Labels: algebra, animal crossing, animals, australia, exams, express, finding nemo, geometry, internet, mail, math, movie, roleplaying, RP, vacation

Today has not been such a good day. To begin with, we had a substitute for math. I never like having subs. This teacher had a heavy accent and couldn't pronounce our names when she was trying to take attendance. One kid, Aditya, received a new nickname because of it. We now call him "Adeeya". He said he likes his new nickname, though.

Since she didn't have the answer key (we did homework with a worksheet last night), she just tried to get the answers from students. That worked up until we had different answers for a problem. So, a girl was called up to explain the problem on the board, and then people were still arguing, so now the whole class was in chaos. Somehow, we managed to get through all the answers, but you could tell there was a feeling of unrest in the room. -_-;;

Later on, in PE, it turned out we were doing the mile run for fitness testing. Bad news for me, because I can't run that fast, my fasted mile time still wouldn't be able to get an A. (At least it's not possible to get a 0. That's a comfort.) I ran like a freak today and got my fastest time - around 7:50 - but then I felt like throwing up. Bleeeeeh.

Labels: algebra, answer, math, mile, name, PE class, running, substitute, teacher

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