That's how I've been feeling, at least up until about now. Having no 1st period did give me a little more time to sleep, though unfortunately the last few days my insomnia has returned and I've been tired all over again. Now that I have a presentation coming up for history class, various tests next week, and a small (but still annoying) project for literature, things are starting to go downhill. But at least I've been finding tiny things to entertain me lately.

I bumped into one of my friends after school the other day and we went over to her house for a while. I figured I'd do some homework, but when she suggested that we play some Super Smash Bros. Brawl, well, the paper and pencils went away and the Wii controls came out. It's been ages since I played it, and for some reason I find it as pleasurable as ever to kick, punch, slash, and blow up other people (or creatures, depending on the character). Guess I didn't have as many temper tantrums when I was younger because I satisfied all my violent urges while playing video games. It eventually got pretty chaotic while we were playing Brawl, though, because we set up a special game in it where all the players were:

- Clear (in other words, transparent, so we were pretty much invisible on stage)
- Flame-breathing
- Flowers on our heads (these flowers continuously make us suffer "damage")
- Super huge It was all I could do just to stay alive. I didn't even know where I was half the time and I died about every five seconds. My friend was quite good at the Special Brawl and survived to the very end.

While I was returning home from her house, I saw an interesting bumper sticker on someone's car. It read:

"Sarah Palin 2012 The world's going to end anyways"
...Well, if it wasn't going to end before, it certainly will now.

And then today something pretty funny happened at lunchtime. A girl was sitting on a bench, just minding her own business, and then two guys ran over. One of them showed her his school photos and said, "This is a scientific survey. We need your response. Are these stupid or sexy? She didn't say anything and went back to doing her homework. The guy holding the pictures said to the other guy, "See? Did you hear that? Sexy!" as they walked away.

There's one thing that really has NOT amused me recently, though, and that's the clubs at my school. Almost all of them have club meetings on Thursday at lunchtime. Since one of my friends already managed to convince me to join the business club she's in, and it meets on Thursday, I am now severely limited when it comes to the clubs I can join. Of course, I could still join the guitar club, gay/straight alliance, and French honor society like I wanted to, but how in the world could I go to all those meetings? Just attend one club meeting per month so I can go to every club? I think that's too much trouble. Thank goodness the photo club meets at brunch and the art club has meetings on Tuesdays, so at least I might be able to participate in those.

Anyways, I feel like sharing some of the music I've heard lately, so here's a recent VY1 song that I've liked a lot.

 

 Oh, and a singer on Nico Nico Douga recently covered the song. I can't decide whether I like the song better when it's sung by a Vocaloid or by a real person.

 

 Also, here's some songs from the band Supercell. I didn't find about "Perfect Day" until recently even though apparently the video was already out as early as March...Then again, I was never really actively following Supercell and only really listened to some of their older songs, such as the Miku songs Ryo composed years ago ("World is Mine", "Black Rock Shooter", and "Love is War") and "Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari" (ending theme to Bakemonogatari. Has anyone seen that anime? What did you think of it? I've been meaning to watch).

 

 Ryo used Miku again recently to make the song "Sekiranun Graffiti". I have no idea what Miku's doing flying around the sky and what's up with that Niagara Falls type thing, but here, enjoy the video anyways.

 

 By the way, I read somewhere that Nagi, Supercell's vocalist, was actually the Nico Nico Douga singer called "Gazelle". Is that true?

Labels: clubs, gazelle, music, nagi, nico nico douga, perfect day, sarah palin, sekiranun graffiti, super smash bros brawl, supercell, video games, vocaloid

Lately, in my science class, we've been dealing with explosives. We learned how to make uranium bombs in class. The process starts with getting ahold of uranium, which can be obtained by digging up ore from the ground, separating the uranium from the...other stuff, and making it into a powder called yellowcake. (Oddly enough, yellowcake was something I saw in the movie Get Smart.) Then the uranium is exposed to fluorine and is heated up to 56 degrees Celsius, where it becomes a gas called uranium hexafluoride. The gas is pumped into a centrifuge, which works like a merry-go-round/carousel... The heavier uranium atoms move to the outside and the lighter ones are gathered more around the inside/center. The lighter ones are the ones that are wanted for blowing things up. They are unstable and more fissionable than your regular old uranium atoms.

The uranium gets put into a bunch of centrifuges (in fact, about 1500 of them) so that it eventually reaches 90% purity (meaning the lighter and heavier atoms separated well and the uranium is easier to blow up), which is considered "weapons grade". The uranium is molded into a sphere which can be put into a weapon...As for actually setting off a bomb, that's not something I know or am allowed to be taught. o_o;; Otherwise we might not have a school anymore if some student was curious or vengeful. I mean, I think I heard someone suggest burning textbooks in the past.

I heard that you can't mention bombs at the airport, or some other place with security. I'm kind of curious what will happen if I do but at the same time I don't want to get in trouble when I have no intention of being a terrorist.

Anyways, we also watched some of a film called Kaboom! made by Nova. It talked about how explosives were discovered and developed over the ages. I hadn't known before that Alfred Nobel had bought a company that made guns or something like that. People thought he was being a hypocrite since he called himself a pacifist but made explosives, which served to kill people. Actually, he was hoping he could make a perfect weapon that would make war meaningless, but that didn't happen. And Alfred Nobel was haunted by the negative feelings coming from other people.

This kind of reminds me of the situation with Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, but he wrote against slavery. This led to people considering him a hypocrite. But if he hadn't owned slaves, and had been an abolitionist, people would say, "You don't get it because you haven't had slaves." So it was either people didn't listen to him or they thought of him as a hypocrite. Not the greatest choices.

I haven't done much exploding in my life. Probably the most has been the typical experiment with vinegar and baking soda. Explosions are somehow captivating but are at the same time so devastating. They spread out so quickly.

Actually, I always think the adventure in the video game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which is called "The Subspace Emissary". You'll see a lot of blowing up of areas there. It was pretty fun playing that, actually. I remember I got stuck on a part where you have to figure out where to move and jump or you'll die. I ended up having to look up how to do it on the Internet...Ugh. I try to figure things out on my own at first, but at the first sign of trouble I turn for help (I cheat like crazy in some games, like Starcraft and the Sims). I used to be so proud because I learned how to find my way around web sites and other things all by myself. I wonder if I'm becoming more dependent as I age, not less.

Labels: alfred nobel, atomic, bomb, cheat, dependent, explosive, get smart, guilt, hypocrite, movie, school, science, super smash bros brawl, the subspace emissary, thomas jefferson, uranium, video games

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