An Exciting(?) Day

Well... today I got my braces off! Or, completed getting them off and got retainers anyways. And I got a load of new music. Which is to say I got: From Here We Go Sublime by The Field (which is my introduction to minimalist music; I must say, it's excellent music to work to, sort of like classical), the complete Death Cab for Cutie discology (5 CDs and 3 EPs, this is probably as close as you get), and Neon Bible by Arcade Fire, which I happily report lives up to all the hype and good reviews it received. It's much better than the other album I have.

C programming final tomorrow, I hope it goes well, because I have not prepared at all. But it should be okay, because I've been doing the stuff for so long anyways. And physics is proving a pain, mostly because capacitance is running circles about my head.

In a bit of awesome Linux terminal usage I finally compiled PMask and Allegro together in the same program, meaning a new era of games which don't concern themselves with collision testing is unfolding. I'm inspired by Odin Sphere, it seems to have pulled off the 2D action rpg very well.

A crazy week

PotD

Yes, I underwent another dramatic makeover. I'm pretty much done.

So, I went to Chicago, and did lots of things that anyone who wasn't there would consider very weird. But anyways, we had an impressive showing, there were like ten people from my highschool, which amounts to about a third of the student population. We explored Chicago, hung around, and did lots of other random stuff. We got lost in the Chicago subway for around half an hour, quite smart I know. And I had bubble tea in Chinatown, so I made sure that I kept up my sacred summer tradition. I also somehow managed to read A Game of Thrones while at Chicago, which is pretty remarkable considering the udder chaos. I also went to Ravinia, which is a sort of outdoor auditorium, and we listened to a bunch of random pianists. This is a stretching of the truth. The truth is closer to "Can someone turn down the music? I can barely hear Jake."

My merry making was cut short by a return home, just in time for the annual Davidson Young scholars gathering. It was a pity that it was right after Chicago, because it felt less fun afterwards. But despite that Magic and Risk and Chess games were won, so it wasn't terrible.

Had a soccer game tonight, tied at 0-0.

Maybe more later, I've committed myself to doing ten hours a day of physics, so we'll have to see how that turns out.

Well... so long, for a time

Hey everyone, just so it doesn't seem like I'm leaving you all in the dark, I'll update you on what I'm doing before I leave.

These past few days I took my history final, which wasn't the hellstorm I thought it would be. And our scrimmage against the rec team had a score of 9-1. And I finished 1/4 of my computer course in two to three days.

Now I am about to leave for Chicago to visit my friend from OHS (amazing isn't it.) I'll be back on Tuesday night, so it's a decently long stay. And of course, it will be fun, because of my presence. Just kidding.

The epic tall will never be recounted now (unless you see me in person and get to reenact it)

POTD

I've heard these are good games, I've never played one however.

Well, I give up on trying to write up my ARML experiences. I will tell you that I won an epic game of Mafia, and that our team came first in the midwest, and 8th in the nation. Go us.

Today I took my philosophy final. Our teacher decided to heed some of philosophies he was teaching, or something, because it really wasn't as scary as we had expected. I did have to write two essays, but he gave out a sheet of expected essay questions, so I had outlines ready.

And we won a very very close soccer game against the Plymouth Titans (I thought they were the Plymouth Tidus for a moment, which cracked me up.) The final score was 2-1, and the winning point was scored within a minute of the end. It was a very good game, I thought. I also managed to collect: a sore should (work of an errant elbow), a ripped up knee (probably someone's cleat as I slide tackled), a large bruise on my thigh (I got kicked in the leg as I slide tackled), and a hurt toe (stepped on by a cleat.) Well, no pain no gain, I suppose.

The chronical will continue some other day

Okay, so I've got about thirty minutes to blog today, and yesterday took me around three hours. So I decided I'll have to continue the ARML story tomorrow or something, and I'll just talk about recent stuff without much detail.

So I got a pet turtle. Obviously a painted turtle, since it's pretty much the only species in Minnesota. I used to have a turtle in Taiwan, I had to leave it when I moved back to the states. Under my friend's watchful eyes my old turtle managed to leap of a six story balcony. Not that I can blame my friend, I frequently found that turtle under my fridge.

Also, I've had an obscenely busy weekend in soccer, in addition to ARML. I played two games with about two hours between them (one of these hours was spent at Greg's graduation party. CONGRATES GREG!.) The result of the two games is that we became the Tonka Splash tournament champions. Then today I had a game against the Plymouth Wings, which were the 2nd team in our league. We are now the 2nd team, because we beat them 1-0. I'll save more detail for later.

The amazing adventures (seriously)

PotD

Well, that guy has a nice row of teeth...

So, I guess I will begin my tale on Friday morning, the day of my departure. Well, umm, we all got on a bus. All 37 or so of us. Mostly I was reading Pride and Prejudice, which was surprisingly okay. In fact so okay that my prejudice against books of that nature. We paused part of the way there to get food. Everyone wanted to walk several hundred feet to the nearest Subway, instead of the Burger King that was three feet away. Of course it's also raining, since it makes a better story. Anyways, I'm waiting by the side of a highway for the light to change, and so I'm standing underneath the traffic light post. Soon large drops of water that had been concentrated on the light post are hitting me on the back. To top it off several cars drove by at high speed through puddles. Whatever. And Subway was, well Subway. I'm not really a fan, and I'm certainly not a fan of Jared. Besides, it is expensive.

So anyways, we get back on the bus after getting soaked. Eventually we arrive in Iowa University (or is it U of I? Who cares, it's Iowa.) When we arrive we find that nearly all the passage ways to out dorm rooms have been blocked by construction. This makes the already labyrinth like building neigh unnavigable. Eventually we found a way to our dorms. Getting back out was another matter. The little group I was with ended up climbing up and down fifteen different flights of stairs. Eventually we emerged in the kitchens of the cafeteria, and the cafeteria cleaning staff had a hearty laugh at our expense. Anyways, the cafeteria had large glass walls that looked into the main lobby, so we finally got out. Then we went and played a game of ultimate frisbee. The field we would normally have played on was being torn apart by around fifty five million ton bulldozers and excavators, so we had to improvise. We ended up playing on a very awkward incline, made even more awkward by the inclusion of several trees. But it was a good game in any case. Mismanagement of time meant that I had fifteen minutes to get all the way back to my dorms, walking up several hills and past the John Pappajohn business building, find my way back to my dorm room (I did finally memorize the route), take a shower, and change into nicer clothes. I somehow managed to do all of this, which I found to be highly improbable.

After all that we went to the Brown Bottle, which was a nice Italian restaurant. During the meal we played a game or two of Fluxx. We went back to the dorms, and I was introduced to the game Sheepshead. Apparently it's a German game, but that still doesn't explain to my mind all the satanic imagery. We also played an intensely modified version of Egyptian Rat Screw (otherwise known as Egyptian Rat Killer, and any number of other names). The new rules were that, in addition to the normal slaps, you can slap two cards if they are congruent mod 7, and three cards if they form an arithmetic or geometric progression. This makes for a crazy amount of slapping, and a crazy amount of mathage. Eventually mod 7 was changed to mod 6 because people memorized the pairs too easily (for example Jack 4 was a big hit.) After all this craziness we went to the team meeting, and got our snazy new T-shirts (I can now go around two weeks wearing only math T-shirts.) At around 11:30 I finally turned in.

I awoke promptly at 6:00. Got breakfast efficiently, and made my tin foil hat. Our entire team of thirty people went into the competition with tinfoil hats. The idea was we'd be obnoxious, conspiracy theoryie, distracting, shiny, and oh, did I mention obnoxious? My hat was closer to a headband than a hat, but it still reflected the sun into people's faces. The originator of the idea wore two tin baking pans on his head. It was surprisingly effective at catching rain. In fact I've never before heard a bus driver say "You're gonna have to empty your hat." Anyways finally the glorious ARML competition!

To be continued... (I'll have more ARML, info on the soccer tournament we won, and more random junk)

Way to end on a cliffhanger, I know. I gotta get you coming back here somehow.