New Series: Things That Distract Me

Soon, I'll be starting a new series. As you can see, it'll be all about things that distract me. And as a high school student that has a knack for avoiding homework by any means possible, I'm sure you can guess that like many other high school students, there are a whole lot of things that I'm easily distracted by. Whenever I'm feeling particularly distracted, I'd argue that my go-to is either entertaining myself with YouTube videos or napping for an hour (or two).

I won't go into too much detail about how this new series of posts will be formatted, but if you can think of something that distracts you, chances are that it distracts me as well (perhaps to an even greater extent.)

However, these posts won't only cover what distracts me, but why it distracts me as well. And I'd argue that the list of reasons is longer than the list of distracting things. So this post isn't going to be some extravagant explanation or description, but it is important just to kind of set things up. So there you go. And I hope you're as excited for this new series as I am. (Although I admit, I'm not really all that excited.)

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Fined Out the Truth

Today I remembered something and I don't know why. It's quite common of me to forget why I've entered a room, only to remember upon exiting, and other things of that sort, but something important slipped my mind the past few weeks. I suppose I've been preoccupied with projects and whatnot, but as soon as I remembered, I knew exactly what would be awaiting me.

A fine. And a big one too.

A while back I went to the local library to stock up on reading material. And sure, I felt accomplished and motivated, thinking that I'd burn through my collection of books even with other things to do. So I did finish the books I had checked out. And I applaud myself on that. Now what I don't applaud myself on was neatly stacking these books in a corner of my room, at an angle they weren't really visible, and forgetting about them.

I had several opportunities to return these books, but since I couldn't see my neat stack save from a specific vantage point, I didn't bother. Unfortunately, my lack of remembrance caused an unpleasant surprise to build up, that is, a fine of over twenty dollars. And I know that doesn't seem like a lot of money (and it isn't), but that's what my lifetime supply of gathered pennies and loose change just about amounts to, and I'm not ready to throw my life savings away to an overdue library fine. Now the local library is quite clever with their fine policy, because if a library-goer has a fine of over ten dollars, (that's me), they are no longer able to check out books.

Which means I can't. (I'm assuming other libraries have a similar policy?)

Now what can I do to scrap together those twenty dollars? I have a few options:

And with that decision, I'll either be neglecting my brain by not reading, be on the run from the local police, or just loan books from one of my sibling's library accounts instead. I'm probably going to go with the latter, but if for whatever reason you ever catch me in the local prison, you'll know why.

What's the biggest library (or other) fine you've had? Let me in the comments below!

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Election Selection

This week we had student elections and let me tell you, some speeches were quite amusing. The student elections at my particular high school vary from those at other high schools in the regard that whereas many student elections are pretty serious, the election we just had was overflowing with self-deprecating jokes and humor. Consequently, the candidates elected at my high school aren't necessarily the most qualified or experienced, but the funniest (and perhaps strangest). As I mentioned, I guess it's a new electoral strategy or something to emphasize any unappealing personality or physical qualities while neglecting to highlight any redeemable traits.

For example, the only speech I remember from last year was one in which some kid explained to the audience that because he had the biggest ears around, and I quote, "we're talking bigger than Dumbo's ears, as in, [I] can fly with these ears", he should be elected for some offhand student government position. And I guess in the end it worked because a year later I remember it. And on top of that, although that comment threw me off during my decision-making last year, I ended up voting not for the candidate, (but for the candidate's ears), and apparently so did everyone else, because he won and that was it.

The Voting Process:
So my school is obsessed with being "tech savvy," so rather than just printing off ballots and having us fill them out, we were all sent a Google Form to complete. Now I have the easiest time remembering names, but since the majority of human beings do not, there was some conflict with this voting process when no pictures were included of the candidates last year, just plain black and white names. (They weren't even bold.) Fortunately, this year it had been decided that pictures would be included with the names so that lack of remembrance wouldn't be an issue. Again.

My Experience:
Now to my experience running for student government. I was in sixth grade and I was so excited to be Secretary. (And since I was the only candidate running I won.) But it required a whole lot of work and effort not only to get elected, but to be Secretary. I had to type out weekly minutes (which mind you, no one except me read.) And although I certainly enjoyed my time as tyrant, after my year of being Secretary, my political conquest had been abruptly cut short when I ran for Vice President in seventh grade and lost. And even though practically everyone was certain I'd win, I didn't. (I attribute that loss not to the fact that I was less popular, (okay maybe I was), but I mainly attribute it to the fact that for my speech I read off an acrostic I wrote which spelled out Vice President. Which in the end amounted to too much speaking. So there you go.)

On top of that, my dad had guessed that my speech was far too long, suggesting that I instead spell out just "Vice Prez." But being the adamant child I was, I opted to spell out the entire word and suffer the disappointment of losing. Well I know now that if I ever decide to run for "Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives" not to spell out the word for my speech.

Consequently, with my political career over before I had even gotten to high school, I had to cross "Become President of the United States" off of my bucket list. No worries. I'll settle for being governor. Or mayor. Whichever comes first.

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Extreme Memory Challenge

Let's break down the name of this test, shall we?
Extreme - This test certainly did test the capacity of my memory to the highest degree. In fact, I felt quite helpless while taking it.
Memory - This is pretty self-explanatory. You remember things with your memories and your memory that you remember in your memory, if that makes sense. (I know it doesn't.)
Challenge - To call this test a simple "Challenge" would be an understatement. Then again, my results (contrary to my experience with remembering names) stated that "9293 of the 14359 people that have so far completed this task have performed worse than you did." With simple math that means that 5066 people performed better than me and that I scored in the 64.7 percentile. And wow, those statistics sound pretty poor out loud.

I first noticed  this lil' test when I saw an advertisement for the "extreme memory challenge." I've always considered my memory to be impeccable. I seemingly never forget names, even after first greetings. So even when I'm not friends with someone or I don't know them personally, I usually know both their first and last names, which I can tell you makes for some interesting interactions when we finally are introduced. And because I remember names so well, I started to take this test with the expectation that it would be quite easy.

However, after reading the general guidelines, I soon realized that this test was called the "Extreme Memory Challenge" for good reason. The first few minutes of the test consist of the presentation of a face and a name which you are apparently supposed to memorize and somehow associate within ten seconds. And sure, it might be easy to pick up a few names and faces within that limited timeframe, but after I saw around twenty names and faces I just looked at the pictures without any recognition or retention in my short term memory.

And understandably, to make the test a lot more difficult, the pictures were in black and white. That's right, so if the people in the pictures did have any distinguishing features (blue eyes, distinct hair color, etc.), remembering such features wouldn't help you when taking the test since they were never displayed to begin with.

Here's a sampling of profiles from the actual challenge. For the test, the pictures and names that were individually presented in the beginning of the test were reorganized into grids with a name and a face you were (supposed) to pair together. Apparently I wasn't that great at it since I only got sixty percent correct.

So this test certainly was interesting, and in my case, (hopefully) inaccurate since I pride myself on my memory. But if these test results don't lie, don't bet on me remembering your name.

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A New Obsession

As I may have mentioned, I maintain the policy of not having any, and I mean any games on any of my devices. Mainly because I know that once I've downloaded a game, I've already passed the point of no return. As in, once-I-download-it-that-is-all-I'm-ever-going-to-do. Quite frankly, I already have too many things available to distract me from any homework that I should be doing, including eating (my personal favorite), sleeping (only naps though), lounging (now that's what I'm talking about), and of course, the infamous YouTube.

As you may have guessed, YouTube is the greatest distraction of all. The main reason YouTube is such a struggle is because whenever a teacher of links a video related to a homework assignment that opens in YouTube... Well, that's just asking for it because once YouTube has been opened, it certainly isn't closing. And the worst (or best, depends on how you look at it) part of YouTube is the fact that once you've watched a few videos related to a certain topic, more and more videos related to the same topic appear on the side panels and the second the video is finished.

Essentially, I could waste several hours mindlessly entertaining myself with videos.

Now, dealing with YouTube is one thing, dealing with a game on a device is a completely different situation. And although I have thus far maintained a strict policy of not having any games on my devices, I decided today was the day for a petty indulgence. So, with reluctance but also relief, I download the absolute best game ever,
                              ,

a glorious game that is arguably educational. I mean, the basic premise is that you make words. And words are educational right?

In a single day, I've become so engrossed in this game (which I wanted to prevent all along), to the extent that I've been screenshotting ghe "highlights" of my endeavors as if this is a sport. So now I clearly see the point that parents and teachers share regarding games: they're distracting. And I testify that yes, in fact they are. Here's the evidence to prove it:

2.7 Hours! Or, when converted into minutes: a lot. And when also converted into time wasted: a lot. Worth it though. (Not really I'm just trying to convince myself that it was.)

 And here comes the "highlight" reel we've all been waiting for. (And by all I mean no one). 

My first ever Tournament victory:

                                               

And that's about it. Sorry to bore you. That's all for now. (Look, I was desperate for posting content and this is the best I've got so that's how it's going to be unfortunately.)

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D's All Around

What a nightmare. I had an AP Chemistry test  - yes, I know, it all comes back to this class - a few days ago, and let me tell you, equlibrium or whatever it was on is my weakness. A perfect analogy for the struggle I had with the concepts of this previous chapter is accurately summed up in the SAT style analogy:

Complete the comparison
Heel is to Achilles as Equilibrium is to ________.

(A) Me, but maybe someone else
(B) My teacher
(C) (I thought) everyone else in my class - at least before I found out what everyone actually got
(D) Really just me

Answer: If you guessed D, you're right! D is the correct answer because after I discovered how everyone else performed on that nightmare, I soon realized that it wasn't a problem with the material or anything else, the problem was me. And my utter lack of understanding.

Whaddya know? Well that's mildly amusing. (Because the answer to the question was the letter "D" and I got a "D" on my test. Get it? Get it?)

I thought I had it together for that test, but apparently I didn't. As you can see:
a D and a D-, glorious. Probably the worst test I've had in years. My grade only dropped THREE percent, not a big deal. No sweat.

Who am I kidding? Yes big deal! And yes? sweat! The next test though, I'll be getting one hundred percent. You keep waiting for it. It's coming. I might be horrible at equilibrium, but I think that the analogy above is slightly inaccurate because it's not just equilibrium that's my weakness, it's the entirety of chemistry. (Now prepare for some serious digression) Unfortunately, because this is an AP class, there's an AP test. And because there's an AP test, in order to receive credit I'm required to take it.

And yeah sure, you don't have to do well. I mean, it won't affect my grade (well it certainly can't get any lower at this point), but it still would be nice to earn a 5 on the AP exam. To "help" us all do well on the AP test, my teacher has decided to give the AP Chemistry final before the AP exam. And I agree that that does make some sense. What doesn't make sense is the fact that the final is the day that we got back from Spring Break.

Not the end of the week we got back.
Not the second day back so we have a day to review.
No, but the day we get back from break. And it's a Monday.

So all that means is that although I may be on break from physically being in school, in the end, school is all that I really have during spring break. And the break is about ten days, plenty of time to leisurely but effectively study the material before the final and the AP test. Wrong. The AP Chemistry book was written by a group of people who had nothing better to do and decided to compile every specific granule of information humanly possible and stashed into a massive volume with three or four point font. And sure, the book's "only" a thousand pages long. But considering I only have about ten days of break and that I'm most likely NOT going to be effectively studying everyday, it's safe to say that I'll be burning through that book the night before the final.

 Well, if that's not something to look forward to I don't know what is.

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Track and Field Blues

Alright, alright. Now I know that it's been a while, but I assure you that I will be busting out posts for the remainder of this month. I am sure of it. Almost. Well, actually, not really. But let's just see how it goes, shall we?

First order of business: Track has started. And on top of that, I'm already out of it. It hasn't even been two full weeks and I've basically lost it at this point. I have no idea how I am going to endure four months of such pain. Well, I'll just have to deal with it later.

There is a long list of negatives to running track. But one of the biggest ones is the mob mentality. My coach always goes out of his way to stress how important it is to "run in groups." Well, you see, when I can't run more than a couple miles without collapsing and everyone else is jogging some unnecessary number of miles, well, if everyone running track was in a herd, I would have been left to die. Several times. Per day. And yes I am passed when the eight-milers are returning. And once one of them makes a comment, "Come on man, quit walking." The mob mentality kicks in and they all find it necessary to chime in as well.

Furthermore, after that practice, I have homework to deal with. The homework that took me a long time even when I wasn't doing something after school. So that's that.

Now the apex of issues is the uniforms. And the t-shirts.

The uniforms consists of two skimpy articles of clothing I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would ever wear. The top (if you can even call it that), is a tank top that's basically missing any thickness. It's like wearing a layer of toilet paper that really doesn't cover anything up. I might as well  wear strings of yarn at that point. And now to the shorts. When you think of "shorts," I'm sure you imagine something like this:




Well, for running, they provide with a complementary pair of these abominations:

First off, what's the deal with the length. I mean, my undergarments are longer than that piece. And second, why are they cut slanted? Hmm?
And I understand these shorts are, I don't know, more "aerodynamic" or something but when it comes down to it. No thanks. And sure, a lot of runners appreciate the style of these shorts. But me, I'm a humble walker of the mile that could probably move just as fast in khaki pants than in these shorts. But that's just me. And I certainly have no issue with people that wear these shorts, but I still think they're unnecessary.

Well, that's the update for now. But trust me, in the next few weeks, I have plenty planned.
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