School? Oh yeah. That.

As I sit here reading every entertaining Cracked list I can find with my as of yet unfinished homework sitting a few feet away from me, I come to the realization that the last few weeks of this school year is going to be a battle of attrition that I may very well lose. Soon, AP tests will be over. Which will be a plus. But really, it will likely just remove the little pressure which keeps me mentally engaged. At least there will still be Euro and Lit, which I usually enjoy and can probably focus on despite the lack of tests. But everything else will probably receive very little attention. For instance, Spanish. You're a wonderful language in your own way, I suppose, but I'm really done with all the busy work. I know it's pretty much the only way schools teach languages... but that doesn't make it any less crazily irritating.

 Somehow I've actually managed to stay afloat during the last few months and really haven't seen significant grade drops. It is quite baffling to me, but I'll take it. I've kept up enough just enough to keep things going, and it's very sad. Except for Euro, because I'm actually interested in those things. But even Euro is hard to just sit down and do. It's pretty frustrating, actually. But only a little ways to go, and then I can hopefully regain all the motivation I used to have. I think I've been in high school a little too long now; it's time for a change.

In other news, prom is coming up. So that's.... exciting. I have work in the afternoon, so I may not make it to pictures. I wouldn't really care, except for other people probably want me there. Not that anyone will look at these pictures 5 years down the line and really care that I was missing. Possible, I suppose, but improbable. And plus, there will be other pictures that night that don't involve standing around for 10 minutes in every possible formation while a million parents take pictures. This is what the internet is for, people. Have one person take pictures. Everyone else can get them, I promise.

You can tell I'm not hugely excited. That's my general feeling towards a lot of things recently, that of total ambivalence. Which I guess might be considered a bad thing. But at least I'm not panicking, right?
End of rant. Euro Thursday post may or may not happen, depending on a number of factors.

Dragon Age 2. Good times.

Somehow this week got entirely away from me. I did no writing, little homework, didn't see many people. It was very sad. However, I did finish Dragon Age 2, which I must say was entirely worthy of my time. The improvements on the first game were too numerous to list, but I think the one that added most to the immersion was the actual use of a voice for the main character. It was understandably absent in the first game, since there were 6 different race/gender options for the character. Making the elaborate dialog tree that this kind of game required for every one of them would have taken a lot more time and money than they probably wanted to commit to the game. There was only incidental dialog during fights which amounted to "I'm going to kill some stuff". It made it difficult to really relate to the main character and, since he/she is the vessel through which we viewed to game world, almost as difficult to relate to all the other characters. Blocks of text don't have the same feel as actual spoken words.
Limiting the main character to one race and only giving male/female and class options (keeping the same three class system of the first game with rogue/warrior/mage) may have seemed limiting at first, but it really did aid in the whole immersion thing and kept the storyline more cohesive feeling. In the first, the beginning of the game was really the only part affected by the race and origin story selected anyways, apart from the occasional comment. It made the game feel a little blocky.
Overall experience was great, other than the ending which seemed a little rushed. Of course, that's probably because they're planning another sequel. If they are, it'll be interesting to see how everything from the first two games will affect it. Events in Dragon Age 2 seemed to have much larger consequences than in the first game, since it takes place over a decade and even the smallest action will eventually come back if not resolved. For instance, there was a young mage having bad dreams about demons at one part of the story and I didn't help him. Three years down the line, he was a crazed guy killing bunches of people. It gives a much greater weight to things the previous title, where only the immediate consequences were ever faced.
If the Dragon Age franchise is done in a trilogy in the same way as Mass Effect, I eagerly await the final installment. BioWare has made significant strides with its titles over the years, and I can't wait for them to impress me more.

It was glorious

Anyways, now that I'm finished with the game (and not yet in the process of replaying it with a different character) I have time to do other, actually useful things. Like... blog. Alright, not entirely useful.

I was recently trained to be an usher at the theater I work at. It's amazingly exciting. I sweep stuff and deal with hooligans. It's significantly better than working in the box office or concessions. Yesterday I had my first shift as an usher, which would have been great had I not been sleep deprived and exhausted from the 6 hour musical rehearsal I had been at earlier in the day. Needless to say, I feel asleep quite promptly upon getting home at around 1 in the morning last night. One of the best nights of sleeping I've had in a long time.
Other than that? Nothing too exciting going on. I have to work on my poetry presentation for Lit class. Somehow I have to fill up 10 minutes with talking about a poem. I hate poetry. Blech. I might present tomorrow, but I hope I don't. That would suck.
Do not go gently into that good night, dear reader.

A Lack of Posts

The one act play is now over, meaning I have some semblance of a life outside of theater now. It's a bit weird, actually. So much free time. I spent the majority of it so far watching all the Dr. Who specials, and I've now officially caught up on the series up to season 5. Which isn't on Netflix yet. That is a problem. Although when I think about it, it's probably a good thing. Otherwise it would consume every free moment I have. My friends and family would probably get a little irate.
One act ended fairly well. Our score was a lot lower than I think we should have gotten, but it hardly matters. The last performance went phenomenally and the audience loved it. We got superior awards in a lot of things, including staged fighting. We did the best we could and, to be honest, another week of one act would see a lot of burning out with a lot of the cast and crew. It would have been totally awesome to make it to states, but it would have been stressful as well.
Other recent news... well, there was Valentine's Day. I didn't do anything particularly out of the ordinary. Just hung out with my significant other and watched some movies and talked. Really, I think those moments are the best. Relaxing and fulfilling, along with giving you the chance to vent or discuss or geek out about whatever you want. Some people like their elaborate plans, but I like just being there.
Swim unit in gym. Ergghhh. It's not awful, I suppose, but it just brings out all those little insecurities you have about your own image. You realize just how skinny, pale, and awkward looking you are in comparison to the other boys. I've never been hugely worried about my image and even now it's not a huge concern. It's just one of those wonderful little things about high school and adolescence in general; it's nearly impossible to be comfortable with one's own body. We get over that eventually though. The main concern of mine is that it's rather cold when I get out of the pool, and people steal my towels.
Musical is starting. How excited am I? Really frickin' excited. I love musical. It's a whole bunch of fun and almost as much in the way of jazzhands. Life gets no better.
More regular posts from here on out, I think. Until hell week cometh, when I will post pretty much nothing.
Sing on, dear readers.

Bracing for the Snowpocolypse

Evidently we are supposed to get a massive amount of snow this week. That's quite exciting. It's been awhile since I've gotten really worked up about a huge storm, probably in the summer sometime. And this huge storm has the added bonus of getting us off of school for a day or two, which will be awesome. I'll probably spend the day watching Dr. Who and Across the Universe. It'll be awesome. Guilt-free sitting around the house with a fire going? Yes.
The new semester started today and, I must say, I am a big fan of my classes. Lit and Euro are both especially good. The one problem I do have is that I need to take gym to graduate and it's not on my schedule. And I want to stay in newspaper. Hrmm. I'm thinking that I'll drop AP stats. I might be able to pull off a decent grade in it, but it's adding more stress than necessary to my life. Newspaper is a good amount of time to dedicate to a class, but at least it's with things I'm good at, namely writing and taking pictures. I have the math credit I need, and I don't really feel like doing more than that. And I'll at least have a good foundation for taking it in college. Solid.
I'll probably have a really awesome post on Wednesday. Until then, farewell, dear readers.

I'm very proud of you all.

This week marked the first time that Chrome has been the dominant browser used to view this here blog. Now, it could be just one crazy person with a very good taste in browser refreshing a bunch of times. But I like to have faith in people and believe that all of you took the initiative to browse the wonderful and fantastic world of the internet without the shit-plastered window that is internet explorer. Firefox and Safari users are excused (Safari is pushing it), since those are both legit web browsers. Congrats on restoring a small portion of my faith in humanity. For those of you still using IE.... you better be on a non-personal computer at the library or something where you can't change the browser. Or be a time traveler who just came from the 90's.*

One Act is going very well. The fight scene went of with only minimal hitches and the effect was definitely there. It'll be awesome. I need to be more ridiculous when the awkward thigh pick-up thing happens. Pique your interest? It should.

Part of my AP Stats midterm was today and, despite arriving just 15 minutes after waking up and running across the school to get there on time, it seemed to go quite well.** Other finals start tomorrow. Lit shouldn't be too bad, and the multiple choice for Stats will end up being a crap shoot regardless of the amount I study. So we'll see how that goes.

*In this case I am so, so sorry for you. The music scene gets much better in a few years, I promise. Don't lose hope.
**A loose term. Pretty well means that I finished it with at least some idea of what I was doing. I still could have boarded the failboat to screwup town.

'Twas the Weekend before finals...

Finals start tomorrow and, as I have been struck with a massive case of senioritis, I find myself not really giving a damn. I probably will do a bit of studying, but only because I hate the feeling of looking at a question and literally having no idea what to do or where to start. Grades are just sort of a byproduct of that. I've realized that no matter what I do at this point, I really can't improve my grades significantly enough to get anything in the ways of scholarships and I'm already into the school I want to go to. So at this point, I just need to sort of maintain airspeed velocity and not crash. I'll be all good as long as I can manage that. This will be possibly be the most agonizingly dull and annoying several months of my life so far. Musical will be fun. One Act will be fun. School will make me want to kill something. It's a good thing that I have access to a whole closet full of swords.

Next semester will put me into the first gym class I've been in since 8th grade. That seems like a different life to me, so it's basically the first gym class ever. That'll be fun. I'm slightly more athletic than I was back in middle school, but I can only really attribute that to natural adolescence things and not really any amount of work on my part. And saying that I'm more athletic than I was in middle school is approximately equivalent to saying I'm a bit better now at speaking than I was at 2 months old. Not really impressive at all, and even a little sad. I might be able to actually do a pull up and run more than 20 feet without stopping now, but I won't be impressing anyone with my physical abilities during gym. And then there'll be the swim unit. I caution anyone in my class to bring sunglasses. My skin is almost radiant in its whiteness.
That's no moon... it's Derek's torso. 

Week Two

This is now the second week of 2011. It still doesn't feel any different than last year. Probably because, in a lot of ways, it isn't really that different. There are several notable improvements from last year, but those sort of happened gradually through all of last year and not suddenly when the giant ball dropped in all its sparkly glory. I'm still the same old procrastinating, stubborn, and kind of mean person that I was last year. I have, at least, gotten better at doing all three of those. I suppose that in contrast I am also the same clever, enthusiastic, and open minded person that I was last year as well. The problem is, I hate acknowledging the good qualities about myself. Because doing that makes me feel all conceited and what not, and that's the way it's often viewed. But only acknowledging the bad things makes one looks sad and desperate for compliments. You can never win, dear reader. So you might as well look sort of conceited and boost your self confidence.
Genetics project is finally under way. Not the video, though I have started mapping out a script in my head. The website itself, however, is going fairly well. I have the general layout all done, and I know several of the movies and books that I'm going to cover. I think it'll get done before it's due. No it won't, that's a lie. But it's at least underway before it's due, so that's better than usual.

*

This is a picture from my genetics website, expertly crafted using only the finest MS paint.

I listened to an episode of Radiolab yesterday, for the first time in a long time. For anyone who hasn't listened to it and is even remotely interested in really cool topics such as sleep, the human mind, evolution, space, and tons of other things, I highly recommend going and checking it out. It has a free podcast. Listen to one that looks interesting to you before bed sometime. It will blow your mind. Like, bits of brain matter splattered on the wall kind of thing. So well done, so intriguing. That's basically the moral of this story. I could explain what the episode was about to you, but it wouldn't do it justice. Go listen.
Gulliver's Travels was sparknoted. I really tried to read it, I did. I just.... couldn't. It's awful, I know. But I'll accept the karmic backlash in exchange for maintaining a decent grade in lit.
Warmest regards on this cold night, dear reader.

*Also, Hulk smash the careers of any and all directors/actors who try to make decent hulk movie! ARGH!

It's 10 o' clock. Yep.

Not one of my finest titles, I'll admit. Oh well.
Break is over. It's back to school. In some ways, I welcome the return of my usual schedule. My break wasn't much of a break, for the most part, and so it really isn't that big of a change, business wise. I worked a lot, did lots of cleaning, attended family events. Not all the most fun things. The one thing I really hate about being back is homework. The break sapped all remaining will to get things done from me. I literally have no drive whatsoever to get things done. It's awful. I feel terrible about it, but I really don't care anymore. It's a weird, contradictory feeling. I might explode from it. In which case, I apologize for the mess I will make wherever I decide to finally burst. It'll probably be quite disgusting.
I still have to finish my Nano. But now that rehearsals and school are back up and running, there's a rather slim chance for that happening soon. But that's ok. Eventually it'll get done. The main thing is that the 50,000 words got done and I know how I write better than I did before. Next year's Nano, if I have time for it, will be drastically improved as a result. Maybe I'll go for a more realistic setting next year. That could be fun. Then I can rely soley on characters for the story's quirks rather than just the odd world which it takes place in. Maybe it'll be a realistic-ish novel. I can't really do totally normal things. I can't make them all that exciting. Some people are good at taking a thoroughly average place and turning it into something magical. I, saddly, don't expect to find this talent. Still, one must at least try to do these things. Even if they seem doomed to failure.
That was an unexpected tangent. Back to business.
It's surprising how much you can miss someone after only a short time. Astonishing, actually. One of the main reasons why I wasn't too crushed about break being over was the fact that I can see friends on a regular basis again. Well, most of them. Some of them have yet to actually return from break, and others simply aren't in my classes and I don't see them. But it is better, having regular social interactions. I was getting a bit stir crazy sitting by myself at home. Or working in a rather soul-crushing minimum wage job. Neither of those was particularly great for my mental state. When a lot of mind numbing drudgery confronts me, I usually just put my mind somewhere else. And that somewhere else usually involves far too much thinking for my own good. It usually leads to angst. No fun. I have far too many unfortunate jokes and quirky phrases stored up in my head. It's a good thing my usual outlet, the lunch table, has returned to me.
I missed you.
Until my next uneventful night, farewell, readers.