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Ok, this wasn’t my best week.  Wasn’t that great.  Tuesday, I took a nap after badminton class, but I woke up about 15 minutes before my government class started.  I usually like to get a seat near the front of the lecture hall, and actually I like to be there 15 minutes before class starts.  Though I had it timed well, when I got down to Balch, a bus showed up, and I shaved about 4 or 5 minutes off my walk, and got to class on time.

Wednesday wasn’t so great.  I had an essay to write about females and computers for my writing seminar for Thursday, and my computer decides to get a virus.  Well I suppose it was trying to watch the Colony. So I spent a few hours in the RPCC computer lab to get programs (yes I do have antivirus) and run them off a flash drive.  Anyways, it ended up well – but meant for a late night on my essay.

So Thursday was probably the low. I woke up about 10 minutes before my Chinese class started and ran down – and missed a bus.  So by Balch, I missed a step on the way down and did a nice rollover. Which could have been really awesome. If I didn’t rip off a good chunk of skin off my leg and arm.  And bled throughout my Chinese discussion.  Though I cleaned it out with sanitizer (that stuff has a lot of alcohol in it, stung a bunch), and washed it out later and put on a bandage when I got back after the writing seminar.

Friday was better.  Had lunch with Professor Kramnick down on West Campus, along with some other students.  It was great getting to know some of the other students better, and listening to Professor Kramnick’s insights.  I think it’s wonderful that he takes the time to get to know students better, especially in a large government class, and though he has no obligation to have to actually talk with us.  So that was a good lunch.

And today was homecoming! There was First Years on the Field – which I thought would be crazy with freshmen sprinting over the football field. And it wasn’t. More like standing on the side, splitting, and coming together, and cheering when the team entered.  Oh well.  I got a free t shirt and thunder sticks out of it.  Went with Stephen and watched most of it.  Watched the band half time show.  Cool stuff, though there’s a difference when shows are for competition or for a fun football game.  But they played the Olympic Spirit and MacGyver theme in the stands, so they’re awesome!  After that was CUPB’s Donald Glover show.  I went with Sam and Susanne to Wegmen’s! (working hospo) Wow, what a store.  It’s so beautiful inside! I wish Albertson’s and Stater Bros looked like that! Great store.  Then a stop at CTB (my first time – got a California Dreamin Sandwich – yay guacamole) for crew food.  Then setting up the green room, then I got switched over to ushering to replace someone who couldn’t make it (on Anthony’s team!).  Got a CUPB shirt, and a show pass! Fun stuff, I really enjoyed it and felt I got to know people more – I guess this is what it would have been like to run in ASB shows? Anyways, it was really cool, Joe Mande and Donald Glover were great, and we got to meet them afterwards! Perks of CUPB I suppose.  Lots of fun tonight.  Could have gone and partied with them, or with the girls down the hall, but I have a lot of work to do – and tomorrow’s a really busy day.  Bad week, but a pretty awesome way to finish it off.

TV Quickies:

No time for reviews today, but this week was season premieres! Glee, 30 Rock, The Office, Outsourced.  Also watched Community, and The Colony (season finale next week!)

#worldslongestmarathon stuff:

     ·  #worldslongestmarathon - 9/21, day 20 - short day! band practice!
     ·  #worldslongestmarathon, day 21 - first math club meeting! wanna go to sleep. and watch #sgu
     ·  #worldslongestmarathon day 22 - band practice, a physics class full of boys, and HOT (104!) for the 1st day of fall. hopefully cools by #sgu
     ·  #worldslongestmarathon day 22, 9.24.09 - a fun (crazy?) 20th century class, and thanks to everyone who came to the math club comp!!
     ·  #worldslongestmarathon day 24, 9.25.09 - found a spider in my locker. i tried to kill it and forgot to take my spanish binder to class =(

Day 20 – short day and band practice. Don’t remember much in particular, but short days were better than late starts – no showing up at 7 am for practice!

Day 21 – yay math club meeting! I forget what we talked about, but I was quite nervous. But I had a great board and great year with the club.

Day 22 – Apparently, Helen wasn’t there, and the day was really hot. It might have been another Wednesday night band practice, or just a sectional day. Don’t remember that either. But it was hot – welcome to Southern California fall. Conan O’Brien’s jokes about putting away summer shorts and bringing out fall shorts are right.  Looks like Stargate Universe premiered around this time as well.  As for 20th century, maybe this was the day Bryan and the rest of the class started laughing uncontrollably during announcements. I’m not sure. But that class was a lot of fun.  Fall start up competition was pretty cool too.  I’m going to miss those math club competitions!

Day 24 – I remember the spider! It freaked me out, and I didn’t have my Spanish homework. And I couldn’t turn it in late. And I tried explaining what happened to Sra. Robles afterward in Spanish, when I figured I didn’t know how to say spider in Spanish. But it was all good – even though I couldn’t turn it in, she understood, and it was all good.  Anyways, that became a pretty good class too – though the spider in my locker freaked me out! One bad thing about outside lockers.  And having lots of holes in them. Oh well, one assignment didn’t hurt me too bad.
 
What did I do this week...not a whole lot. Just a normal week. Brought my laptop to government class for the first time - I think I stayed more alert in the class. I also got my music instrument locker! I played with pep band at a club hockey game, which was a lot of fun - lots of traditions and cheers and whatnot, but I felt a bit like an outsider since the majority of the kids are from marching band. I think I got a lot of homework done, so that's good.  And I went to a (somewhat long) MUN training session, and helped publicize with CUPB for the Donald Glover show next week, which should be fun. And we started CSS with the deb design class. 

#worldslongestmarathon:
  • day 15 of the #worldslongestmarathon - in class english essay...well...i know i didn't get a zero! =) snippets tomorrow - oh the joy!
  • day 16 of the #worldslongestmarathon - i did my snippet! i hope i owned =) and tonnes of spanish hw...
  • #worldslongestmarathon day 16. getting ready for quizzes. and math club IS NOT a nerd club!!
  • #worldslongestmarathon - woops, the last one should be day 17, not 16 =) falling asleep doing homework......
  • #worldslongestmarathon day 18 - same old, same old. called to the principal's office again! - thank goodness its for something good =)
  • i just realized - i missed #worldslongestmarathon day 19, 9/18/09 - uh...had a spanish test. OH and football game & last first performance!!
Ok, I had an essay on the Sound of Waves in english class - I think I got an 8 out of 9! It was interesting...though I don't remember what I wrote about! I do remember my snippet talking about lights and civilization and society and what not. I did pretty well on that too! Day 16, I don't remember particularly, but I do remember that AP Spanish had  A LOT of homework - a lot more than Spanish 1-3. Almost like Chinese homework here!  And I think Helen probably called math club a nerd club. But we're so much cooler than that! I remember getting called to Mr. Brunyer's office - I don't remember the dates, but once was for student of the month and one was for national merit. I remember Mr. Dawdy talking about himself getting called to the office and getting a juice box and a cookie - the quintessential American school boy! (that's what I said). Sadly, I got neither a juice box or cookie. Though I was delighted that the principal knew who I am! In a large school, it's easy to get lost in the mass of thousands, and I never thought I'd be as well known on campus as I was - especially by the administration. So that was pretty cool. And Friday was a football game! Fun times - good nights sitting with Lauren, Priscilla, and Annie. And sometimes with Anthony and James, or Lawrence and Jeremy's little brother who had...great chemistry with Lawrence. I miss football games! Though hockey over here isn't half bad...
 
So at first today there's sun. Then gray clouds. Next, some lightning and thunder in the distance. Then a light sprinkle. Alright. Then 5 minutes, later, it's a HEAVY DOWNPOUR and I'll swear 40MPH winds. Like a mini hurricane. My umbrella almost turned inside out. And then 10 minutes later, it's a light sprinkle, with the sun breaking through and a rainbow. Welcome to Ithaca.
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That's the facebook version. So the somewhat longer one. I was coming out of Uris Library to gray skies in the afternoon, about 4ish.  It had been sunnier early in the day, during Chinese class, when we learned to talk about good weather. A lot of good that would do now.  But actually, the gray made me think of the 3rd Harry Potter movie - very much like that sort of mood, with gray skies all the time. Good for a movie - a little depressing in life. So I was crossing the bridge when there was thunder and lightning off in the distance (maybe a couple miles). And I thought it'd be really much more interesting if there was some rain, and people were running around to find shelter - something a little more exciting.  It started sprinkling a little bit, and the girl next to me pulled out her umbrella. I looked at her and asked, "do you think it's really worth it? We're like less than 5 minutes from north [campus, where the freshmen dorms are]."  And she said yeah. So I went ahead and pulled out my umbrella.  And then, less than 100 yards from my building it starts POURING. The change was like a light switch had been turned from off to hurricane. The winds were blowing like crazy, maybe 40mph. And thus, there was rain, and people were scrambling to get in buildings. I got what I asked for I suppose? People's umbrellas were going inside out - the wind was so strong that an umbrella didn't do much to help anyways.  But I enjoyed it! It was crazy - almost like being in a hurricane, but I loved it! I tried to go out on the balcony with my raincoat in the skylounge, but by the time I had grabbed my coat, the big storm clouds had moved on, and it was a medium rain again. Though there was beautiful rainbow to the east, against the gray of the storm wandering on.  And in a couple hours, the sun broke through the clouds once again, providing a nice sunset (I think. I was eating dinner and facing east...so there were nice shadows to watch!). Anyways, welcome to Ithaca, welcome to Cornell.
 
Ok quick blog entry for the week.

It’s only been four days! Tuesday I had my first badminton class, which was pretty cool.  That one was just free play. Also had a government lecture and my second writing seminar essay assigned.  Wednesday was more on Chinese grammar, and more XHTML tags in info.  Had a programming board meeting, discussing the upcoming Donald Glover visit (hopefully I’ll get to work!) and some other things.  Seems like a good group.  I tabled for a bit around the lunch hour on Wednesday and met some upperclassmen from CUPB. Thursday was back to badminton (got a sore arm that day!) and a cancelled government lecture.  So I got some time for homework – or procrastination , however you want to look at it.  But during Wind Symphony practice, I got bumped up to second clarinet, since one of the seconds switched to bass. Which is pretty cool, but all new music to learn now – and less rests too! That night I went up to the FIR for their open house. They have a really nice apartment – seems like something out of Manhattan rather than a dorm! Saw Grace up there, which was pretty cool.  Friday was a pretty easy day, and the first government discussion section.  Interesting group of people there…you need to be able to work with all times in life though, right? But based on our discussions, it sure seems like it will be a lively class at the very least.  Today, I went to an Alumni Student Mentoring Program brunch, which was cool for free food, meeting alum, and seeing Han again.  Also went to see Toy Story 3 with Barrett.  A second time with the emotional roller coaster ride! Though there were some jokes I didn’t notice the first time! It was great fun. And there were a lot more people tonight, unlike Iron Man 2 which had like 20. Tonight was probably closer to 200. Though to be fair, tonight was an earlier showing, which would include families, Ithaca residents, and Cornell kids for their preparty festivities.  Earlier, I went to the Computer Reuse Association to get some basic training in how to reformat their computers – which was similar to Rincon, except they have more preloaded disks! Anyways, if I have time this semester, that will be a good cause to work on.

I’ve also started on a new script this week about anthropomorphic books…we’ll see where that goes. I'm resuming my West Wing rewatch marathon from where I left off in season 3 over spring break, an

Anyways, time for #worldslongestmarathon redux!
•    #worldslongestmarathon day 11 culminated in a nap! and the colony is on tonight! and...3? more weeks until NCIS! YAY!!
•    throughthegate: day 12 of the #worldslongestmarathon was a 15 hour stretch. i should have printed my own set of drill charts for band. =(
•    #worldslongestmarathon day 13! not bad, finally got to watch obama's school speech! saw part of last night's health care speech also
•    day 14 of the #worldslongestmarathon - back to school assembly! spanish essay!

Tuesday (11) I took a nap when I got home – something I’d do more often as the year went on.  I’m still watching the colony this year (on discovery), though I stopped watching NCIS.  Just too many things to keep track of! Though this year I might get back in. Wednesday, was my 15 hour stretch because we had band practice on Wednesday because of Labor Day.  I believe I printed drill sheets but not the charts – which I find useful.  So I printed those later on I believe. Though I don’t remember what we did that night! I think the same thing happened this year.  Day 13 we got to watch a recorded version of Obama’s school speech in Mrs. Loza’s class, because the school didn’t want to use up too much bandwidth on Wednesday.  And then the back to school assembly! With the heroes! I remember that! I got to sit up in the stands instead of being down on the field with band or a club – the first time in all 4 years! That was pretty fun, though it was sunny.  It was really sad when some kids thought it’d be cool to boo Mr. Brunyer when he came on. Can you say disrespectful? But I’m glad things got better in the year. I also remember the hero theme somewhat. I know the history teachers were villains! With cool black tshirts, haha. And the firefighters were there as real heroes! But they were called to an emergency in the middle of the assembly and ran off through the field in a coordinated line! (I have a video somewhere, and put some pictures up on facebook recently). Anyways, great production put on by ASB last year!
 
Ok, quick rundown of the past week!

This week, I’ve found some quick ways to get to class using my iPod.

  1.  Listen to music at about a 120-160 tempo. Any Way You Want It works pretty well, so do some other songs.
  2. Listen to Jimmy Fallon sing from the Emmys and pretend you’re him and dance your way across campus. Ok, maybe not the second part, but he does walk pretty fast down the hallway in the beginning, so trying to emulate that works pretty well. And a fist pump at the right moment doesn’t hurt either.
  3. Listen to Paul Eugene’s Chair Aerobics or Dance Fitness. Really.

Friday, August 29 was bowling with Chinese Student Association – that was a lot of fun! Though it’s somewhat funny how all these Chinese kids are engineers…and a lot of them can’t bowl that well. Not that I can either. But one would think they could “calculate” it! Anyways, it was great fun, and I’m looking forward to getting to do some other events with them. 

Sunday, August 30. First I watched the finale of Persons Unknown – while it was an open ending…VERY open, I wanted more closure! Or a second season! Or the producer who now works on Stargate Universe should tell us what would have happened!!  Anyways, went to clubfest in Barton– walked there with Alex. Like Rowland’s Club Fair Day. But WAY bigger!!! Aisles of performing groups, cultural groups, environmental groups, media groups, sports groups. Forensics, Cornell Republicans and Democrats, the Daily Sun, Dance groups, astronomy, engineering, sustainability, service…you get the idea. Along with the same “get too close to the booth or make eye contact and you have to hear my spiel,” and all the craziness associated with these types of things!

Sunday, August 31. EMMYS. OH MY GOODNESS, I FELT ELATED WATCHING THE OPENING. IT WAS LIKE…

Omg Jimmy Fallon is awesome! Omg GLEE!! HAHA I can’t believe he brought his 6Bee Skit to the Emmys!!!!! TINA FEY!!! BETTY WHITE!!!!! OMG SLUSHIE JIMMY FALLON!!!! OMG SLUSHIE TINA FEY!!!!! AND NOW THEY’RE SINGING!!!!!!! JOE MCHALE!!!!!  RANDY JACKSON!!!!  CLAPPING AND SINGING ON STAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I’ve got the song and video on my ipod, and know part of the dance. I’m not obsessed.

Then the week passes in a blur, I’ll pick out some highlights though.
  •  Government class is covering Plato. I’m finding a lot of things we did in TOK apply – things like art and censorship, and stuff. And more in this week’s reading – the line and cave allegories! (So any IB seniors out there, pay attention to what you’re learning!)
  • ·I sent an email to my professor about the use of the word “Republic” and the lack of any thing republicanlike in Plato’s work – it got mentioned in class in front of the big lecture hall! Name omitted of course, but it’s still cool! (It’s a translation problem by the way)
  • ·I love Professor Kramnick’s lecutres (intro to political philosophy), and his intros about student life through the paper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Some comments about how students are “meeting behind closed doors” and “plotting” in response to administration crackdowns on fraternities and drinking. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that…other opinion column…is published biweekly.
  • ·I’m not going to be able to audit that science fiction course, too many things on my plate!
  • ·         Attended meetings for Mock Trial (don’t think it’s for me), MUN (maybe!), Cornell U. Planning Board (plans/coordinates/produces guest speakers on campus – probably), Student Innovation Group (most likely), Cornell Daily Sun (probably not really for me), Cornell Quidditch (maybe – depends who else joins and how many hours we need to practice).
  • Had our first 2 Wind Symphony rehearsals! I’m on 3rd clarinet, but I think the difficulty is a good match for me.  Funny how much we get done when there’s no talking during rehearsal. We can go through A LOT of things. It’s strange sitting with new people though! But it’s fun! It’s like high school but fancier. Much nicer room. Wood floors, nice chairs, enough stands for everyone, double story, looks like a sound system too. It feels bigger, but maybe that’s because there aren’t 150 people stuffed in there.  Though we have to put chairs/stands away at the end just like high school!
  • Ate some dinners with Stephen this week, had a great time talking with him! We went to Casino night last week and lost all our (free) chips, but made good use of the free food and drinks! And “mocktails.” With wonderful names. Like ‘safe sex on the beach.’ Which tasted pretty good actually. And a chocolate fountain!
  • ·         Saw Iron Man 2 with Barrett. It was pretty cool. Lots of explosions. But better than doing homework! Probably will see Toy Story 3 in the next few weeks. Cornell Cinema looks like my weekend “partying.”  After that, hung out in Graces/Natali’s room with Elizabeth, kenzie, and her boyfriend. Good night.

When I don’t do a week review, I’ll throw in some thoughts about being in college, what I like about the campus, and other general-er things.

Ok, I promised I’d do some reflection…or major reflection every week, so here’s week 2 of the #worldslongestmarathon:
  • OMG i didn't fail my english quiz!!!!! but tons (or tonnes!) of homework tonight...just day 6 in the #worldslongestmarathon
  • day 7 of the #worldslongestmarathon and doesn't seem like the homework is letting up.......gee, it makes it sound like rain, haha
  • OH! forgot to mention day 8 of school, or the #worldslongestmarathon - long day, at school from 6:45-9:45. 15 hours,not 3.
  • Day 9 of the #worldslongestmarathon - and it aint over yet - i'm back there again for 4 hours tonight!
  • yay, finished the 10th part of the #worldslongestmarathon - now it's time for homework. and college apps. and work stuff.
Ok, day 6 – English quiz on Sound of Waves – which I did not fail! Which was the first time in high school I did not fail the summer reading test. Because usually I am not a person who remembers the details of books that well – themes and analysis, sure, but not how the blueberries were cooked (stewed, I did know that one because I thought it was strange. But not other questions – and that was junior year!) So that was a happy moment. I don’t remember what I got on it (probably a B), but I was happy to pass! Day 7…typical. Day 8 – band practice because we didn’t do Monday night, so we had an extra long day. Day 9, back to school night. Not that my parents really needed to go – but they always like to meet the teachers and what not, and it’s a way for me to say hi to all the ASB people in yellow ASK ME shirts! And I always bring along homework to do without ever really doing it as we go from class to class… And Day 10, typical again.

Mailbag:

Yongjin writes:  Sure, "dab". yeah, "dab". We call, "wiping our face and hair with the bagel" - "dabbing" now. Interesting.

Answer: It was more “dab” than “wipe!” It didn’t really soak up that much though. That’s a good tip to tell people – bagels aren’t that good at dabbing your face with. Maybe a piece of sourdough would do better next time.