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

On Wednesday morning, a problem presented itself when I was about to leave for school. Every weekday, I go to school by carpooling with one or both of my parents. I was ready to leave, but my mother told me that she couldn't find the car keys! She said that perhaps my father had taken them with him. I tried to help her look for the keys, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Eventually, my mom said, "You'll have to walk." I balked at the idea. "What?! It takes at least twenty minutes to get there! I'll never make it in time!" "Oh, yes you will." I suggested using the bike, but that was an impractical idea considering that I would probably need to register my bike at the school office or something along those lines, and anyways, the roller backpack is rather heavy.

So eventually I set off for school, in a panicked state of mind, breaking into a run out of paranoia. I tried to run as much of the way as I could, but I tired after awhile, and I saw some other students walking. I wasn't sure whether they were Kennedy students until I walked a bit faster and caught up (and quickly overpassed - I walk faster than the average person, or maybe I was just in a rush) and saw two people that I recognized. At this point I decided I didn't have to run anymore. And when I got closer to the school I realized Zero Period PE was still going on, so I wasn't late at all. I had arrived in good time.

I heard from my mother that my dad had driven home so he could take my mom to work. (Without the keys, you can't unlock the car or even get it moving. There is another car in the garage, but my mom doesn't know how to drive it - my dad was the only one who drove that car, and we haven't used it recently - and anyways there was no way we could get it out of the driveway without crashing into the car that we were supposed to use.) It turned out my dad really had taken the car keys with him. My mom said she wants to have a copy of the keys made (and I bet I'll be the one keeping the spares. I am quite scatterbrained, but it would still be safer with me in the future).

It mildly annoyed me that when I went to school, no one seemed to notice the minor trauma that I had just experienced that morning. My mom insists it wasn't that big of a deal, or at least I wasn't showing that much outward instability. I mean, I could have easily been late for school because of my need to improvise on transportation. (There wasn't really someone else who could take me to school...I know a few people on my street go to my middle school, but I believe they probably bike or walk) But I suppose it's just as well, because it didn't happen, and so I should let the past (even if it is only the very recent past) be the past.

In my history class, we had been working on a group project, where we were to present people and parts of the lifestyle (like farming, food, architecture, laws, entertainment, and so on). My group wanted to get more practice in, so we were going to meet up at the library. I was very worried about this because I really don't have any way to get there. My parents are both working, so I don't have a ride, and I'm not allowed to walk or bike all the way there by myself. One of the other people in my group offered to stop by and pick me up, so I ended up riding in her car.

At the library, I was surprised to see so many people there. There were quite a few young children. Many of them were captivated by the big fish tank near the children's section. They would peer into the tank and say, "Oh! Nemo!" and things like that. And their mothers would eventually try to pull them away. I think perhaps I did that, too, when I was younger and the library was very new. It's kind of nice to see that the fish tank is still there. I'm not too fond of change; I like familiarity, and having things in my life that I can always depend on.

I saw a lot of teenagers at the library. Some of them, like my group, were there to work on homework (I saw a few girls with a big poster), but others seemed not to be doing anything in particular. I saw some people outside climbing on the statues. Do people really have nothing to do? I guess they're still young, after all. It must be nice to be so blithe and carefree.

Labels: car keys, carefree, children, driving, finding nemo, forgetful, library, lost and found, normal, nothing to do, panic, people, project, running, tank, teenagers, transportation, walking to school

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