Grades and Such

Well...progress reports dropped and things were less than spectacular. Bs in Physics and Calc, though the latter should be doing better once I get corrections in and when he gets around to grading our last little test, 'cause I did well on that. And I've got this Physics unit down, too, which should help. A- in Am Lit, but the whole research paper thing should jack my grade up nicely, as will the Dickinson Essay, inshallah. Hrm, well, everything else was cheery, though my Chem grade will likely take a bit of a dip after our first exam. Multiple choice was alright...if I guessed well on a few key questions I think I'll have come out quite well; lost a few points on the second free response section, but overall that was good too. First free response, though, ate my lunch. If I'm lucky, I'll get around half points for that section total, in which case my grade wouldn't be awful, really, but that would be a best case scenario, and, well, we saw what happened last time I was hoping for on of those.

Finished Assassin's Creed today (finally). Enjoyed it. The fights with Robert de Salle and his goons were annoying, though throwing him around and then stabbing him in the throat when I was on the verge of getting killed myself was exhilarating. Haven't thoroughly enjoyed a game and played through it so completely since BioShock. I'm not sure I'm totally down with the criticism of the ending...it was interesting, and yes it was a cliffhanger, but it's setting up the rest of the series nicely, and I'm looking forward to more good stuff in the future. What else...played Guitar Hero quite a bit and I've got most of the stuff on medium down pat, but hard is beyond me...the whole having to move your hand thing is just asking too much. Oh, and I am quite looking forward to getting Sins of a Solar Empire. It always looked interesting and has turned into quite the RTS darling, apparently, so I am quite excited to throw away countless hours on that (read: terrified).

Let's see...and then there's that other thing...Most certainly not something for even accidental public consumption, so check out the Other Book if you can. If not, well, then don't worry about it.

Tata, now.
~Mr. Sam'ich
"it's raining blood!!!"

Achy

Hrm...Latin Convention was most certainly interesting, for a number of reasons. Primarily, because everyone was well behaved, which was actually quite enjoyable - it is entirely possible to have fun hanging out and playing Halo, Guitar Hero, and the like (we quite seriously had about 4 or 5 360s spread out throughout the juniors and seniors). We all displayed some vague modicum of school spirit, which was quite nice, though it did involve me doing a lot of yelling and now my voice is rather raspy, though I think I shall describe it as "sultry" as that is more amusing. I have also justified not buying eitherHalo 3 or Call of Duty 4, for several reasons. I also perfectly understand the "tightness" of the Halo 3 controls and why reviewers love it so much - I just don't. If nothing else, the grass visibly popping in constantly is maddening. I hate CoD4 for all of the reasons that make me love games like Team Fortress 2. Guitar Hero was interesting...I was very bad at it, but it was also intensely entertaining, and I am very tempted to purchase it. I won first in some category...derivatives, I think, though I thought that I heard that is was Greek derivatives, which would be very odd as I didn't take that test, but at the same time the odds of me checking the wrong test bubble and yet having an answer pattern that was perfect seem close to nil, so perhaps I just wasn't paying attention. We also won (as a school) second in the overall qualitative category, which was both very surprising and entertaining.



I feel like perhaps I would like to write something moving or personal or whatever, but I don't know that I have the words for something singularly eloquent at present. Suffice it to say, I have found that I am still in love with some of my memories, quite specifically, one of them. I was thinking about it on the way home from Convention, and then reading Eliot's minibio for my AmLit research paper seemed to crystalize a lot of these feelings as he seemed to do the same sort of thing, though for entirely different reasons. Frustrating, yet interesting and perhaps not entirely unexpected, yet its still something that I have to deal with. Well, its not so much the attachment to the memories as it is the implication that that attachment brings with it. But I've already resigned myself to that sort of thinking, so perhaps its not so bad.

Tried to get started writing my new story; not sure how it's going to come out, but we'll see.

I'm hunting around for summer writing programs and have found one at Stanford that is very interesting, but also rather expensive. As I said, interesting, though, and I really would like to do it. Though part of me would worry about the whole getting attached to a place like that before I get in. I would provide good motivation for that last semester of high school, though. If it matters.

Tata.