http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internaut

So anyway, plans for prom and where I’m going to live and stuff are coming together well. My english projects are not. The french presentation is taken care of, and at some point in mid-June I’ll make a post summarizing everything so you don’t have to read the same article six times (unfortunately, there’s only so much info to go around when one single woman is doing all the research) and that’ll be cool.

Though I have found a costume to go with my presentation about propaganda in the People’s Republic of China (fun fact: the Chinese word for propaganda has no negative connotations, so they have a Propaganda Department and everyone’s cool with that) and that’s great. The valedictorian speech has yet to start existing. I might start it by finishing the following sentence, for which I would welcome suggestions: Grads of 2010, I’m really happy for you, and Imma let you graduate, but…?

www1.asknlearn.com4

We read this after learning about logical fallacies in english class, when we were doing Animal Farm and wanted to pick out bad logic. I’ve got a big sheet of them that I’ll tape next to my computer if I ever find I’m getting into a lot of internet arguments. A guy in our AP group was telling me about how he used that sheet to rip apart some guy’s youtube video about how gay marriage is wrong and horrible.

I sent it to vael and he liked it a whole lot more than anyone in our class did, so he told me to tumbl it and now I have. Yay!

Lessee… Link dump first. Found a group of people doing music reviews on Destructoid and found some stuff, thus:

http://www.myspace.com/periphery

http://www.metalsucks.net/2010/05/11/periphery-mastermind-misha-bulb-mansoor-talks-the-future-of-the-music-industry/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Corrigan

        First link is obvious, and I think I like them. I’m not sure. I think they’ll go into the same category as Lostprophet’s first album - something I like to listen to, but that I can’t in good conscience call “good” or tell people to listen to.

        Second link is an interview with their main man, who recorded the album in his apartment, which doesn’t show at all in the music. Then he takes it to the record labels and says “hey, I’ve got this here album, want to distribute it for me? no? fine, I’ll find someone else” and ends up signing five different record deals without any bullshit attached. Seems like a pretty smart guy, though he does say that “all of this is affecting the music industry in ways we can’t even predict because of all the ripples that it causes.” What an empty sentence.

        Last time I read a useless sentence like that was reading an article about Tim Hortons basically getting screwed out of a bunch of money by some wonderfully opportunistic businessmen. “‘We consider the uncertainties surrounding this announcement to be a negative development,’ Peter Sklar, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said in a report Friday.”

        We consider the uncertainties to be a negative development? Thank you. Your eloquence astounds me.

        Third link: Someone, somewhere on the internet, recommended this. I skipped through the first volume or issue or whatever and could not understand why. On every given page was something that made me depressed. One features our sad, middle-aged protagonist going to the grocery store in the middle of summer with a heavy coat, and teenagers accost him saying it’s “too warm for that fucking shit!” He feebly replies “but it gets cold in the grocery store…”

        Anyway, back to my post, which consists of things I completely forgot from my last post. The other thing making life horrible was a cold I got from my grandmother, who sounded like she was dying for three days then got better just as I started getting sick. But then I got better last night! Exercise and plenty of fluids seem to have cured me.

        Now this part is kinda weird. Thursday night, when I managed to fall asleep by accident in between blowing my nose and breathing through my mouth, I had a dream that I was hanging out with a handful of french immersion people. We all pretty much know eachother from different classes over the years. Many of us are in french immersion because we have smart parents who push us to be smart and have opportunities and stuff, and so we’re in all the science courses and advanced english and etc. So these are the people with lockers beside mine, who talk to me about our teachers/homework/whatever, who are freaking out about their grades and scholarships and spending $20k a year on some local bullshit “elite” university, all that stuff. As far as I’m concerned, they can have all the scholarships I’m busy not snapping up because I’ve already got plenty of money.

        So I’m hanging out with these people I’m not really friends with, but that I’ve always kinda known, and I’m acting like I usually do to make sure people like me because that just makes life easy for everyone. We’re walking around and hanging out and stuff, and that was cool I think except it was like a fast-forward music-less montage. Near the end of the dream, we’re at an intersection that basically leads to nowhere, except a really, really, long road that kinda leads back to my place, or a different long road that circles around town and has an ice cream place on it. We’re waiting for a few cars to go by, and this really attractive, outgoing girl turns around and says “you know, Matt, you’re pretty fake.”

        How exactly she would notice that during our brief conversations at our lockers and whatever happened during the dream was completely beyond me, and so it took me entirely by surprise. Normally I’d agree, because clearly I wasn’t being myself since that might not go over as well, but it surprised me so much that I kinda stammered and said that I’d better head home and went up the long road home, while they went off the other way for reasons unknown. If we wanted to guess, the dairy bar would be a good reason. Then I wake up.

        Remember how I said it was kinda weird? Yesterday in calculus, a friend was telling me that he was going to go see The Undertaker this weekend, and I asked him what year he thought it was as a joke, and he told me The Undertaker was undefeated at something or another three times in a row or something, so I laughed and told him it’s all fake and planned out anyway. The bell rings, we get up to go, and what does he come back with?

        “You’re fake!”

Terribly crowded to-do list

Things to do:

  • May 17th: Calculus homework (a few questions), chemistry homework (a few questions + some notes to take)
  • May 21st: Typed summary of our 20 minute presentation (as if we’d actually stick to a script, or ever manage to write one 20 minutes long… honestly, I could talk about this for 20 minutes, but I can’t write it all out)
  • May 22nd: Prom
  • May 31st: Presentation about propaganda in the People’s Republic of China, move out of my house and live who knows where for a month. Packing everything up goes before here, somewhere.
  • June 1st: Surprise awesome things for our english teacher, if anyone has the time to do something awesome for her
  • June 2nd: Mock valedictorian speech to serve as our english exam
  • June 14th: Calculus exam. Studying goes before here, somewhere.
  • June 15th: Chemistry exam. Studying goes before here, somewhere.

Net effect on me: fear that time is running out, feelings of inadequacy, panic, stress, etc. So, basically, the usual.

Who’s up for another four (or more) years of this? Anyone?

Depth Charge - Stand Out Riot

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! I present to you, the eighth wonder of the world! A terrifying fantasy, from the most twisted of imaginations! I give you the Carnival Militia!

Have we really dropped that low, that we spend our Friday evenings watching Z-listers making fools of themselves? And what about this kinda time, a racial slur or tart opinion, will make a mega-star and gain a fond fairwell.

When did we become a nation of idiots, thinking yogurt has magical properties? I think it’s about time we found some self respect.

Depth charge, the moron revolution. Before I explode, the media confusion. This attitude has got to go.

Have we really dropped that low, that we spend our lunch break reading about who’s dieting, and who’s gotten fat. And 60 useless things, for 60 hard-earned pence, and this is what you’ve got to say in your defence: “And now I’ve got my face, on the cover of some fancy magazine, the tears and tales of death-threats are all part of the routine.”

When did we become a nation of idiots, thinking yogurt has magical properties? I think it’s about time we found some self respect.

Nutrisse doesn’t mean nourish, and grease ain’t the word I’m looking for, a consonant Carol, this one’s a ’D’ for…

Depth charge, the moron revolution. Before I explode, the media confusion. This attitude has got to go.

We’ve reached a stage where fashion dictates, and overweight makes profit from their mistakes, my conscience is a ticking time bomb. We need a world where passion negates; a statement of our tolerance, where greed depreciates.

Don’t believe what you’re told!

Really, really, really liked Stand Out Riot’s album, Carnival Militia. It’s fun to listen to, it’s smart, it’s aggressive, it’s well worth the $7 I paid for it. Let me know if you’d like the whole thing.

I feel like my post about Iron Man 2 yesterday was inadequate, so here’s a bit more information. The plot is pretty simple: there is a bad guy, he does what Tony Stark does (science, building things, hitting people, tricking people) pretty well. The action is cool but never over the top. The dialogue is great, especially everything Robert Downey Jr. says. There’s a sexy spy, and of course she takes off her clothes. Tony Stark has a briefcase that unfolds into the Iron Man suit. He also insists that “he is Iron Man” repeatedly, but curiously, the song Iron Man never plays. I don’t have complete knowledge of Black Sabbath’s discography, but I don’t think there’s any of theirs songs in it at all.

If you watched Transformers 2 hoping for a cool movie where robots fight eachother, then you’ll want to watch Iron Man 2. The bad guy uses electric whips, he builds drones to fight Iron Man, and they’re pretty sweet. I don’t regret spending money to see it, and I doubt anyone would unless they just don’t like action movies.

I’ve mentioned my english teacher, Ms. Barrett, a number of times here already, and I guess after doing the AP exam is as good a time as any to write about her. At the start of the year, when I wasn’t taking english seriously, my marks were pretty bad and I got super discouraged about my skills as a writer. Now that I’ve learned more about writing and my marks are better, I’m a lot more confident and kinda inspired by the fact that I can get 80-90% on a university level grading scale.

        I’ve got a lot of admiration for Ms. Barrett, or whatever you want to call the grown up version of kids who have a crush on their teachers in first grade. I only really know one person in our class, and I’m usually the one helping him, so I’ve got nobody to check over my stuff and validate my effort except for her. When it comes to class discussions and everybody is just throwing their ideas out there and I don’t want to interrupt anybody, I end up just telling her things directly and if it’s insightful she’ll repeat it to the class, or if I missed the point she’ll correct me. Which really goes against the idea of a class discussion, but I feel really awkward when I’m surrounded by people and they’re all looking at me and stuff.

        It’s like, I don’t want to stare at my desk and mumble and be obviously aloof, but I can’t just stare off into the distance because then people think I’m staring at them. Given that I’m not close to anybody in the class, that’s weird.

        To get back to my original point about her, rather than english class in general, she’s really casual with us, rather than just being a teacher. Let’s see… Last week, we spent an entire class telling her where we were going for university and getting her to guess what she thought we’d do for a living. Yesterday, we spent half the class talking about her life in high school and trying to guess the name of the guy she liked when she went here. By the time she decided we should get back to work, she couldn’t remember how we even managed to start talking about that stuff in the first place.

        When we went in for our AP exam this morning, she left us all cards, although I’m not sure if everyone had something different on theirs because nobody wanted to share theirs. At a guess, I’d say she did write each of us our own personal notes, but here’s what mine said:

        “Matt,

        You are in good hands - your own! Do you best, because you are brilliant. Take your time and show how much you know. All the best today; you don’t need luck.”

        I was super touched. I think I did pretty well on the multiple choice, but the essays were a bit iffy. I wrote the third one in about 20 minutes, and the rest probably aren’t wonderful either. Passable, but not going to win any awards. Apparently, I can’t say any more than that, because I’m under a legally binding agreement to never tell anyone anything about the test, or else they’ll nullify it XD We weren’t supposed to tell Ms. Barrett anything either, but she came in with pizza for us when we were finished, and of course we spent half an hour talking about it with her. She also bought us cookies and pop and stuff to drink during our ten minute break, as well as supplying us with pens, sharpened pencils, and water bottles.

        The problem with AP english vs other AP subjects is that there’s no set curriculum. In AP biology, they know they only covered about 10% of the material, so their teacher told them they’re going to fail. With us, the goal is to know some stuff well enough to be prepared for anything. Anyone can write an essay in two weeks, but it takes skill to sit down and pop one out in forty minutes.  Unfortunately, you can’t study for that. You can do practice tests, and you can think about strategies to do better, but that’s about it.

        Yeah so I had to leave in the middle of making this, and I forgot everything else I meant to write. Five hours away can do that. I did remember my original motivation to make this post, however, and so we have another story!

        It was one of Ms. Barrett’s fancy dress-up days, so she was all decked out in heels and a dress and all that good stuff. She doesn’t need to make a good impression on us, though, so she’ll just take off her high heels and go barefoot because who cares? So we’re taking notes and she’s just explaining stuff, then the principal comes to ask her something and she’s like uh oh I don’t have time to grab my shoes! So she’s standing in the hallway barefoot having a chat with her boss, then she comes back in and tells us how embarrassing it is to have your boss catch you with no shoes on.

        Kinda tired now so that story doesn’t seem as funny anymore. It was great at the time though.

        I’m going to bed.

Grandmother: We can make macaroni casserole with this sauce here.

Me: Nope, that’s salsa. You’d want to use something more like this.

*I grab a can of spaghetti sauce*

Her: Oh, ok.

*she grabs a handful of raw hamburger with her bare hands, and I know she won’t be washing them*

Me: Actually, I think I’ll microwave one of these things of rice, since I don’t need to save them for work anymore.

Excessive cursing reduces the meaning of a sentence for both the speaker and the listener.

Translated from my Sociology book. This section seems like it’ll be pretty lame, despite the incredibly interesting possibilities available for discussing linguistics in the context of socialization and culture.

So anyway, I’ve gotten all my supplies for thursday.

  • 2 L of cranberry juice
  • Vector protein bar things
  • Milk chocolate
  • Gum

Ideally, these things should keep me awake/focused/able to remember things. Now I just need to sleep well and not freak out. I got an 8 on my free response answer, which is like a 90-95% mark in university, which is very good. Didn’t do as well on the other two (6 on a poorly organized essay about some religious allegory poem, 7 on a decently done essay about a girl on a farm looking at cows), but I know what I did wrong so I’ll avoid it on the real exam.

In other news, I’m kinda re-considering this whole university thing. I dunno. I’d like to be happy, and I don’t know if I’ll be happy there.

In other other news, just as a plan was being concocted to kidnap me and get me incredibly drunk at some party after prom, plans have been made expressly to keep me safe from that. Hooray!