Seniors’ last day

Today was the last day of school for the class of 2006. It was really sad to see them go. So many of this year’s seniors I’ve gotten to know over the past three years. Okay, well, not very many of them, but enough of them that it made me sad. I didn’t really say goodbye to any of them, you know. Prom is coming up, and then I guess graduation, and with that they’ll be out of here and going off into their own lives, and I’ll probably never see any of them again.

The whole thing also got me thinking about the future. A year from now, my class will be the one standing on the stage, and I’ll be one of the high-school seniors walking along to receive his diploma. And then I’ll move away and be in some college. I’ll need to decide what I want to do with my life then. Because then I’ll get a full-time job, and I’ll keep working and working and working and working for decades until I retire (if I can afford to, because the way things are going…), and after that I’ll die.

Today was the annual award ceremony for the underclassmen. They started, as usual, with the whole big thing: the JROTC presenting the flags, the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem. I was wondering why they go through all that just for an assembly, but then I realized that that’s the sort of stuff that the JROTC does all the time, and this is really their only chance to show it to the school. It’s sort of like the school orchestra in that sense. The orchestra got together to play a few notes before the ceremony started, and then they left.

Anyway, I got an award for being a candidate for the National Merit Scholarship, and that was the only one I was expecting because I had already been told about it. I also got subject awards for English III Honors and AP European History. After the ceremony there were a few minutes left of school, so I went back to American History, where people were finishing the final exam that the teacher decided to give today. I had taken it in the morning so that it wouldn’t conflict with my going to the award ceremony. It wasn’t that hard, luckily, and it was only on the last few things we’ve learned about (the period from World War I to World War II).

A designated survivor, according to Wikipedia, is “a member of the United States Cabinet who stays at a physically distant, secure, undisclosed location when the country’s top leaders, including the president, are gathered at a single location….” So if there’s a nuclear attack where the country’s top leaders are, there will at least be someone left alive. That’s good to know.

It’s kind of scary that China, a country with such an oppressive government, is becoming one of the world’s top powers. (Cold War II, anyone?) Anyway, in my opinion, an oppressive government is one that censors the Internet. Read about the state of Internet censorship in China. And here’s a good article about a group of hackers who are working to circumvent it.

One year ago: “It’s horrible enough that I don’t, but when people in Europe have to rub it in my face…”
Two years ago: “I don’t remember ever writing about reptile birthday plates (#16) or lazy Mexicans on beaches (#20).”

Free calls

Every time the Internet telephony network Skype rolls out a new service or feature, it’s hard to imagine how they could possibly get any better. In the latest beta version of Skype, you can send text messages from your computer, though for US phones it costs €0.09 ($0.1157) per message. (Is that good? Bad? I don’t know. But it’s a lot to spend on sending characters over a network.) The other day, Skype announced that calls from the US or Canada to any US or Canadian landline or cell phone would be absolutely free until at least the end of the year. Now that’s quite a big thing. I can now make calls to the cell phones of my friends across town or to a payphone in a desolate village in, say, the Yukon. And it won’t cost me a thing.

I tried it out yesterday by calling my mom’s cell phone as she was coming home from work. The sound quality was very good, perhaps better than if I had used a phone. (That’s probably because the sound, though low in quality, isn’t coming out of a tinny speaker but rather from my pretty decent headphones.) I found out after I hung up that I had been charged on my account. Apparently other people were having similar difficulties. It seems that Skype was or is having problems recognizing some US and Canadian IP addresses. They say they’ve pretty much fixed it now, so I’m pretty much waiting for a good reason to call someone. Not only will Skype now save us money, but it will also change the way I make calls — no longer will long-distance calls be off-limits or, at best, a rare treat.

I have a feeling that Skype won’t be able to take this service away after the end of the year; it will be too popular among (US and Canadian) users while leaving the competition scrambling to keep up.

Since it’s almost the end of the school year, it’s time for the annual underclassman award ceremony. It’s tomorrow, in fact, and I received a semi-fancy-looking invitation today. I wonder what award(s) I’ll get. They had better be good ones, because I’m going to have to miss my last class of the day, American History. We’re having our final exam in that class tomorrow; it will be harder than the quizzes but easier than the tests, so it’ll probably be about as hard as a test in any other class. Since I can’t do it during the actual class period, I’m going to do it in first block because we’re not doing anything in that class (Programming) anyway.

Escher for Real has photos of models of M.C. Escher’s impossible figures — but you have to look at the models from a certain angle for the illusion to take effect.

With Flood maps, you can see what it would look like if the sea level were to rise. (It’s yet another utility that makes use of Google Maps.)

Two years ago: “At the end, the youth group leader gave me the ‘Bowling Baryshnikov’ award for ‘Most Unique Form.’”

Esper-whaaa?

It’s been nearly a year since I began studying the constructed language Esperanto. So, how’s that Esperanto thingy going? Last summer I studied from a book, and since then I’ve read some literature, magazines, and web sites while listening to videos, music, broadcasts, and podcasts in the language. Even so, I’ve spent little time actually writing in Esperanto and even less time speaking it (to whom am I to write or speak, after all, besides myself?). Skype might be a good way to practice those skills, but it will probably be tough to find good people to talk to if it’s so hard to find people to speak to you in pretty good English. I might start in chat rooms before moving on to voice chat.

Even with this lack of practice, I can speak pretty decently, as I found out the other day in programming class when I started spouting Esperanto for no good reason that I can remember. I was just saying basic things, but Gilbert was floored by my level of fluency (if you could call it that), so that was kind of cool. I still have a long way to go. A cool thing for an Esperantist to do — something that usually grown-up-types with money do — is to attend an Esperanto event and speak with people from around the country or world as equals, often without even knowing where they’re from. And then there’s the Pasporta Servo, a guide for Esperanto-speaking travelers who want to stay at other Esperantists’ homes, thereby saving money, experiencing the area like the locals do, and making friends. A good way to start at all this would be to take one of those summer courses in Vermont. Someday, perhaps.

You know what’s fun? Looking up the names of your teachers at the county’s Clerk of the Courts web site. Many of them are in the database, usually for petty things like traffic tickets. For example, one of my teachers is currently fighting a speeding ticket, and another got a ticket last year for making an “improper left turn.” I also uncovered things I didn’t want to know, such as the fact that one of my former teachers might be a felon. Still, it’s an interesting use of public records. Look to see if your area court has these records on the web. Finding dirt on your friends, family, and coworkers can be fun!

There are times when I really want to use JavaScript to write Greasemonkey user scripts. I knew I should have learned it years ago.

Top 10 Movies That Went Wrong. First on the list is The Conqueror (1956), which was responsible for the deaths of its stars and much of its crew. And it wasn’t even that good, supposedly. Come on… the Duke as Genghis Khan?

Worldmapper is a site with lots of cartograms. These particular cartograms are maps of the world in which the countries are resized on the basis of population or other statistics. Countries with larger populations (or whatever) appear larger on the map.

Two years ago: “What I mean is, what do you say when this mysterious guy who created everything, this guy who you talk to to receive terse but wise answers – they are similar in that sense – wants to drop by your house?”

A turtle (and also the meaning of life)

Today my dad found a rather large turtle on the sidewalk. He went inside to get his camera while I got mine, and when we went outside, we saw that it was crawling on the street. When we approached it, it went into its shell. After taking some photographs (of a turtle hiding in its shell on the street), my dad thought it would be good to move it into the lake (actually a canal) across the street. So he picked it up and set it onto the shore of the canal (which is sort of what makes it like a lake). After lying in the grass for a few moments, the turtle suddenly sped away into the disputably-named body of water. After that I became momentarily preoccupied with a duck that was passing by.

It reminded me of this one time that my sister and I were home alone for whatever reason. It was probably a summer or a holiday or something. We saw a turtle swimming in the pool in the backyard. After taking pictures (history repeats itself), we transported it to the very same lake/canal to set it free… I think. Anyway, later that day the neighbors knocked on the door and asked if we had seen their missing turtle. True story. (I think they found it eventually.) But this one I saw today was a big sucker, probably nobody’s pet.

Apparently the craze of manipulating pictures of me has yet to die down. Here’s a submission from my friend Luke.

Ask Jordon Time… (with a baseball bat?)

elle: what do you think of the two blondes in your AP Euro class?

I think they’re nice, outgoing, friendly, and you.

Luke: What is the meaning of life… from your perspective!?

Tough question, Luke. I’ve been thinking about it. It would seem at first glance that life is a struggle for survival at best and absolutely meaningless at worst. I once came to the conclusion that the meaning of life is to be happy. Suffering is bad; happiness (or at least a lack of suffering) leads to prosperity (survival) and is therefore good. However, taking these ideas together at face value to represent an unrestricted, every-man-for-himself struggle for happiness, if you will, would have disastrous consequences on society, which is why societies have rules against killing, stealing, and so on.

Though human beings are really not much different from other animals, we are unique because we can easily articulate our advanced thoughts and put them into action. Because we are such intelligent beings, there is no excuse for us to ignore the interests of other humans. Indeed, a basic system of rules in the interest of everyone is necessary to keep civilization as we know it intact; otherwise, it would descend into chaos with people murdering each other and all that, and the human species would not survive to the extent it already has. I submit, then, that the meaning of life is to achieve happiness while assuring the same all other members of the human race — a nobler idea of survival. Only then can we feel that life is truly meaningful.

Here’s something I didn’t know: The comic strip “Dennis the Menace” debuted in the US on March 12, 1951, and another comic called “Dennis the Menace” first appeared in the UK on March 15, 1951.

This is a clever idea if you ever find yourself on TV, and it’s also a good way to confuse people in your everyday life. Wear pre-pixelated clothes with supposed brand names or other imagery already obscured.

Two years ago: “It’s a good book, if you really want to know. I was actually reading it today while I was waiting for about five hours for my sister to get off the lousy computer. I was that much into the darn book. I mean it.”

Hmm…

Now that the AP European history exam has passed, I haven’t had to worry about that class anymore. Some teachers keep their AP students working after the test, but since this is a history class, we studied everything chronologically in preparation for the exam. So the only thing we have left is to do European-history-related things. That wasn’t clear immediately, though. When Mr. Miller became our teacher in November, he passed out a schedule he had drawn up for pacing the class. The last three weeks were labelled “hmmmmm…….,” which wasn’t really helpful. I thought a little about what we would do during the “hmm time”; I assumed we would just do nothing.

The main history-related thing we’re doing this week is watching Schindler’s List. It’s probably the saddest movie I’ve ever seen, and I haven’t even seen the whole thing yet. It might have made me go crazy. Next week we’re going to do some research for a final paper that we have to write. We have to write about something European and contemporary: politics, music, sports, anything. Since that doesn’t really narrow anything down, I haven’t thought of a subject to write about yet. Hopefully I will soon. There’s also talk of having a little party now that the year is drawing to a close. We’ve been through a lot together. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true.

Yesterday I got sent to a guidance counselor’s office during class. Apparently I did so well on the PSAT this last time that I’m in the running to get that National Merit Scholarship thingy. Of course, it’s some kind of competition, so I haven’t been guaranteed to get it. I don’t know how the competition takes place (another test? a spelling bee? a poker game?), but I do know that it takes place in the fall. Also, the National Merit Scholarship people say that they will send my scores on some test to any two colleges I want. If any of the aforementioned details is inaccurate, it’s probably because I didn’t really read the letter they gave me yet.

People all the time be asking me: “jordan what collage do u want to go 2.” I’ve never given a straight-out answer, but you heard it here first: I’m thinking of going to the University of Florida. Why? Because it’s the best school in Florida, and my options will probably be limited to this state. It would be convenient to live in the same state, anyway, because then I wouldn’t have to become a resident of another state (and have to get a new driver’s license to replace the one that will have been freshly gotten). Also, I wouldn’t have to worry about snow, which all those rich Ivy League boys have to put up with. And if things got tough I could always cry and run to my aunt’s house in southern Columbia County.

Hey, people, come on and Ask Jordon. I need some more questions.

Renee: whats more slutty shorty shorts or mini skirts? hope u answa it:)

It seems that a disproportionately large number of Ask Jordon questions are from girls asking for advice about boys: “Will we be together forever?” “Will I ever get a boyfriend?” “What are some secrets you need to tell your boyfriend?” “How do you make a guy like you?” I try to answer them the best (or most funnily) I can, but it’s obvious that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’ve never been in a relationship.

Finally, here’s one that’s like that, except that I can answer it. The answer is miniskirts. See, if your desk happens to be facing other students in the classroom… well, you might get a whole lot more than a lesson that day, whether you want to or not. (And I don’t.)

Here’s a video showing some crazy car accidents (Flash video with sound) in a Moscow tunnel. The video is set to inappropriately snappy techno-type music.

Back in the ’60s, technology had advanced to the point that you could have a computer in your kitchen! It could store recipes for you, it came with a cutting board, and it only cost as much as four new cars!

Two years ago: “If a reptile can become an acclaimed artist, so can I.”

You can skip over everything between the asterisks

Asterisks are those little stars like this: *. They are not to be confused with a French comic book character. Anyway, I’m sorry that I ever wrote the following bit of rubbish, so don’t ask me for interpretations on it. It’s only here for two reasons: to serve as filler and to justify the time I spent writing it. So do me a favor and take it all lightly.

* * *

Wearily, he sat down at the computer. He had nothing new to say. He fired up his CD player, having no use for an MP3 player but desiring sonic pleasure from an old disc. After a long hesitation, he began to type.

This is crap, he thought. I have nothing to say today. I had nothing to say yesterday either. Or the day before. What does that show?

Did he really have nothing interesting to say? He could pour out one of his angsty musings one more time, though he was sure that the readers had already tired of it. Still, they were an old standby. It wasn’t that he had it tough; he didn’t. The problem was that he had it too good. He never grew up in adversity. He had worked hard up in school up to this point.

One demerit for no homework. Five demerits would get you a detention. No corporal punishment at school, just at home on that rare occasion. The whole thing stuck with him. “Be a slave to the System,” he was told, “and the System will reward you. Do everything the System tells you, and you will go far. The System knows what is right. So get on your knees for the System. If not, then you, just a boy, will become a lesser man.”

He was freer now. He thought that he had torn apart the walls that formed a labyrinth as an impediment in his mind. But there was another wall, stretching across the reaches of his mind, on which logic had no effect. The stones of the barrier of illogic had been laid long ago when the conditions were just right. Engraved on every single brick was a platitude.

Axe in hand, he could not bring himself to pick away at the wall. For every time he went to take a swing, another platitude would catch his eye: “You can do whatever you want.” “Hard work pays off.” The one he was about to hit would always read: “You’re making a mistake.”

The words haunted him. He had made mistakes: some major, some minor. But his worst fear was not the memories of his past mistakes, but the idea that he was in the process of making mistakes right now. At this very moment, a big mistake was compounding, snowballing, from a tiny mistake that would gradually add on baggage, day after day, week after week, and into the months and years.

The fault lay not with him, but with the System. “Do your best,” said the System, “while finishing everything on your plate. You must honor the System. The system forbids irreverance.” Once again, the foundations of the destroyed walls called back like scars in his brain. He thought that he had rid himself of this. But it had only slipped away and come back in another form, like a cancer.

And what of the future? The System was beating him now. “You must be a jack of all trades,” the System had told him. But every waking hour of every day it became more increasingly, painfully clear that he could not. He could not handle being an intellectual giant, a physical wonder, and the life of the party. There was no room on his plate for all that. More than ever, attempt to fill himself up left him emptier than ever.

He felt as though he had nowhere left to turn. For what he needed most was the peace of mind brought by a bond between souls, or whatever it was that made the body work. But he was undesirable. He had nothing to offer but feelings. No one would consider him, standing in the corner, in the same way as he hoped. Feelings should have been enough, but the prospects — the precious few — demanded too much: biology, security. Things he lacked, either due to his own misfortune or due to the influence of the System on him.

The System’s words repeated themselves in his mind again. “Save it,” it had said. “You’ll be happier later.” Would he? “This is your job.” No, it wasn’t enough. Everyone else knew it somehow. It was enough for them.

It was then that he realized his tragic flaw. No, he was not lucky. No one should envy him. There was nothing there to be envied. For he had never done the things that the System had told him to do. As long as the rest of the world listened to the System, he would have to too. Here his obligation to become a functioning member of society had yet to be fulfilled. He could not bring himself to go and live.

In his mind he could imagine things as they wished to be. He would clear the murky tub of math formulas and historical names. He would make himself attractive, even irresistible. But what was stopping him? Fear. Though it was hard to admit, he yearned for his past even more than he cared about his future. Yes, how he wished to live forever the way things were, with all the love he could get and without a worry in the world. How he wished to crawl back into his bed and sleep.

* * *

And this is my problem in plain English. As much as I want to live out my days in success, I can’t face the hard parts of the future. I’m focusing on living day to day, putting all my effort on school without giving a care about what really matters — my ability to make it in the world. I’m kicking myself in the face by choosing hard classes that are going to inhibit my life in the present more than they will help me in the future. (But of course, it all goes back to my upbringing.) And I’m afraid that the problems that hurt me now will be hard to fix later.

As much as I would like to be in love, I’m probably the worst possible candidate for Boyfriend of the Year Month Week. Girls want security and pampering. I have no job/money and can’t drive. But I don’t want to face the pressure of learning to drive or getting a job. And so, while the world is passing me by, I grow more and more angsty and the need for companionship grows. It’s a goddam vicious cycle. That’s what I’m trying to get at. And you know what it’s from? It’s from me living a sheltered life. Whose fault that is, I don’t know. But does that matter? I don’t know.

I’ll tell you what matters. I’m going to say it here. This is my sad attempt at a barbaric yawp: I, Jordon Kallich, am afraid of growing up.

Feedback from James Joyce’s Submission of Ulysses to His Creative Writing Workshop. It’s probably only funny if you’ve read Ulysses. You know who you are. I don’t intend on tackling the massive work. Ever. Sorry.

How to Anger Telemarketers That Call You at Home. At our home we have a simpler solution: don’t pick up the phone if the caller ID doesn’t give the number. Works every time.

Two tests

The much-anticipated AP European History exam was yesterday. I prepared by eating an uncharacteristically good breakfast (courtesy of my mom) and by do some last-minute studying on writing essays for the test. I arrived at school at 11:30 so that testing could begin at noon. It was good to see my classmates there; I figured that we could provide support to one another. We were supposed to take the test in the cramped internal suspension room (if you get suspended but they still make you go to school, that’s where you have to stay). At the last minute they decided to let us use the more spacious library media center, so that was a relief.

The test consisted of two parts: a multiple choice section and an essay section. For the multiple choice, we had to answer 80 questions in 60 minutes (though I think they only gave 55; I don’t know why there’s a discrepancy, but no one can seem to agree on it). I’m not allowed to give specific details about the content of the questions — ever — but I can probably tell you about one question in vague terms. It was about science — specifically, a scientific topic we had never read about or discussed in class. Luckily, my knowledge from a previous science class gave me the answer. Also, toward the end of the multiple choice questions, I had to erase a few answers when I realized to my horror that the pencil markings only smudged. I erased as hard as I could, but the smudges were indelible. I really hope I don’t get a few questions wrong for some stupid reason like that; it really could impact my score. Overall, I think I did fairly well, but not as well as I hoped I would do.

After a short break, we had the essay section, which took a lot more time. I’ll be able to discuss the content of the essay questions 48 hours after the test, but till then I have to keep quiet. (These rules are really, really stupid, I know.) You probably wouldn’t be interested in specifics anyway. I had been worried about the document-based question (DBQ), the one essay that everyone has to write. Fortunately, it was very easy compared to some of the DBQs I had practiced writing. Reading examples of high-scoring DBQs helped also. In fact, I felt that I had enough time to write it without much of a rush. After the DBQ we had to choose one essay topic out of three from the Renaissance to the Napoleonic era and another topic out of three that covered the post-Napoleonic period. I tried to put effort into the two essays I chose, but I probably didn’t provide enough historical evidence to back up my theses. We’ll see, I guess.

So that was the AP European History test I’ve spent months preparing for. It was a major relief not to have to worry about it anymore (though the worry didn’t pick up until a few weeks ago). I’ll receive my results the third week of July. On July 1, however, the scores will by available by phone at a rate of something like $8 a minute. It’s going to be a long wait till the third week of July.

Last night I went to school again to see the school play, “Alice in Wonderland.” I was pretty excited by the idea of having a school play because the school has never had one as long as I’ve been there. The year before last, they were going to do “Peter Pan,” but it was postponed to last year, when it never materialized. Anyway, I had no idea who I was going to hang out with because my sister didn’t want to go. Luckily, I found Justin and Jonathan from Programming class. We enjoyed the play; well, I did, anyway. I knew some of the people in the play, but it seemed that all of them were well-suited to their parts, especially the girl who played Alice. I don’t know her, but she was good at the whole “Gosh golly gee, mister” thing (and she looked good in that old-fashioned, little-girl-type dress). Of course, the play was filled with popular music and other sorts of zany things. It was a lot of fun; I’m glad I went.

Guess who foolishly scheduled his second SAT the day after his first-ever AP exam? That’s right: meeee. My first SAT turned out to be pretty good, but I felt that I should improve my math score. That took my mind off the stress of the reading and writing sections because people don’t look at the scores you got on each SAT you took; they look at the highest score you ever got on each section of the test. So it doesn’t really matter that I wrote a really vague and unfinished essay in the 25 minutes they gave. (The topic was harder than last time, in my opinion.) Anyway, I think I did better on the math section because I probably skipped fewer questions than I did last time, so that’s good. And since I don’t think I guessed on any of the ones I actually answered, I should (theoretically) have gotten all of those right. But I probably didn’t. We shall see.

After taking a three-hour test and a three-and-half-hour test on consecutive days, my brain has turned into a warm pudding, and I look forward to relaxing to the fullest tomorrow. I was supposed to meet up with Nick, Mark, and Kim so that we could start our band today — today is also Nick’s birthday — but I don’t think that’s happening. Maybe tomorrow. Music and friends count as relaxation.

Coincidentally, here’s a European-history-related link. How many Kings of France were named Louis? Well, not counting Louis XVII, who never reigned, you might think there were 17, the last being Louis XVIII. But apparently Louis XIX reigned for 20 minutes on August 2, 1830.

Airchive.com is “the Webseum of Commercial Aviation.” Yeah, “webseum.” I guess it’s a web museum. It’s probably not a web mausoleum. That would be cool, though. If a little creepy.

L’exam, c’est moi

Today was our last AP European History class before the big exam, which is tomorrow. College credit is at stake. If you don’t score a 3, 4, or 5 on the exam, then you probably won’t get the credit. I figure I’m good for a 4, but I have to strive for the 5. (“Strive for the 5″ — there’s a slogan for you.) Anyway, since the exam is pretty much what the whole class has prepared us for, you can bet that we did a bit of reviewing today. We outlined trends in modern European history and then had a quiz on the dominant figures, ideas, and events of the ages. When the teacher, Mr. Miller, collected the quizzes, he personally wished everyone good luck. After that, we had about fifteen minutes left of class, and I guess he decided to give us a break. So we pretty much talked and stuff.

Mr. Miller sometimes puts a thought-provoking historical quotation on the board, so I thought I would do the same. I was trying to think of a good one from history that would pertain to the challenge that would face us tomorrow. One of us decided to put a spin on Louis XIV’s alleged utterance, “L’état, c’est moi,” which is usually translated as “I am the state,” by suggesting “I am the exam.” So I went up to the board and wrote the pseudo(?)-French, “L’exam, c’est moi.” Other people translated the statement into Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, fake German (“Ich bin der Examen“), and Esperanto. (I was responsible for that last one.)

At the end of the school day, we each got a card from Mr. Miller, again wishing us luck on the exam. That probably made my day. (It might have made my day hands down if it weren’t for the interesting substitute teacher I had in fourth block: he grew up in inner-city Chicago, dropped out of high school, killed people with his bare hands in Vietnam, got addicted to morphine to ease the pain of the shrapnel left in his body, earned a college degree or two, spent 20 years teaching at a tough high school without missing a single day, turned several of his students into businessmen and politicians, married a woman 23 years his junior, scared off a would-be murderer while on the job, and saw one of his students fictionalized in a movie.) But no matter what language it’s said in, our class’s oneness with the AP European History exam is evident. La testo, ĝi estas mi!

The Beeb reports: Sleep position gives personality clue. Sounds like a crock.

The Guardian reports: Simple ways to make yourself far cleverer. Potentially useful.

Two years ago: “So remember, kids: don’t copy off other people’s tests, because you never know when they might be collaborating with the teacher to make you look like a buffoon.”

The imminent exam

The first week of AP testing has begun. The AP English exam was yesterday, so Luke, Brian, and my sister (and probably others) were out of classes to take it. In more important news, the AP European History exam is this Friday. Over last few weeks we’ve been studying the material we’ve covered all year while taking practice tests and things of that nature. The AP Euro test consists of a multiple choice section and a writing section. For the writing, you have a brief amount of time to write a document-based question (DBQ), which is basically an essay with the research already done for you, plus two free response questions. It’s the writing section that I’m more worried about because we haven’t really reviewed it that much and because it requires even more thinking.

For harrowing tests such as these, I like to calculate a “worst-case scenario” score in advance. I don’t know why, but I guess it’s comforting to know the worst I can do, considering I usually do well on such exams despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth while trying to prepare. I figure that if I slip a bit on the multiple choice and do particularly shoddily on all of the essays, I can escape with a 4. (The score is on a scale of 1 to 5, with 3 usually being the minimum to “pass” and receive college credit.) If I do a little better on all of the essays, then I can get a 5, even while still faring not so hot on the multiple choice. So I guess I have nothing to worry about, really. I wish I had known that today when we did a DBQ during class and I nervously fumbled my way through it without really knowing what I was doing till I was already writing the essay. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my mind into the DBQ zone quickly on Friday.

The Day Without Immigrants passed without incident. I didn’t notice that many people absent, but I heard that in a/the AP Spanish class, only three students were present.

Gilbert, who colored me emo the other day, decided to manipulate my photo several more times for comic effect. I don’t know what it is… am I funny-looking? Don’t answer that. Just marvel at his m4d 1337 4rtw0rk 5k1llx0rz.

Some Michigander rants about the local TV news. Though he mentions things like the “vague Michigan connection” and the sensationalization of cold weather, he also mentions things we can all relate to.

In 1964, an up-and-coming British band called the Rolling Stones did a jingle for Rice Krispies cereal. The commercial (Flash video with sound) is definitely entertaining.