Close, but no cigar

That's probably the expression my math teacher used the most.
Summer school's doooooone, I had my exam yesterday (if you can't tell, I'm writing this entry at 5:30 am), the exam was -easier- than the practice exam that he gave us the day before to complete. I answered all the questions (I'd say 95% of them right) that didn't have to do with Trigonometry, and, as for trigonometry, well, I answered about 50% of those. I hate Trig. It's awful. The identities. The formulas. The definitions. The endless barrage of possible answers, and the ever-so-annoying "special triangles".

But luckily, the Trig section was very small! So yay, I know I'm getting a good mark on the exam, hence a good mark on the course.

As for Virtual Summer School, that's working out nicely, it gives me something productive to do on the computer instead of browsing 4chan, youtube, XKCD forums etc.

Oh. And the biggest announcement of all, which I almost forgot at this primitively early hour:

Katimavik destinations. I got the package in the mail today.

From September 17th-January 7th, I'll be in Strathroy, ON (it's a small town 40 km west of London!). Between January 7th-March 25th, I'll be in Sainte-Marie, QC, a small town south of Quebec city. And... drumroll... Between March 25th-June 27th... I'll be in VANCOUVER, BC!

I was really hoping for a BC destination, and I get the best for last! And Vancouver is just totally awesome! Yaaaay.!

I think the tuffest part of the program will be in Quebec (though it'll even be harder for the people in my group who aren't bilingual, I'll admit), because, despite global warming, the snow is still going strong during the winter in Quebec. My parental units gave me a little speech on how I'd finally experience the true Canadian winter. It so happens that my mother lived in a town very close to Sainte-Marie, and I have relatives just about everywhere in Quebec, so no doubt I'll be seeing someone at some time or another.

I am currently haggling with my parents to buy myself a laptop, and I admit, reader, that part of the want of this laptop is so that you can stay updated on my adventures through this very blog. I know it's a bit sad, but I would find it very hard to live without a computer (rather, the Internet) for extended periods of time.

More details to come, I've already saturated this blog with enough stuff.

Goodnight.

Last edited April 15th 2019: Added exclamation point, barred the full stop. GH

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The Real 50th

Well it turns out that my last blog post was a sham - my earlier collaborator, K473z 7h3 m4gnific3n7, seemed to have forgotten to take out a draft of one of her posts, which counted into the 50 post count. Now, I've double checked, and I'm positive this is the 50th blog post written on this blog, and the 47th written by me. I'm a bit of hypocrite, because I'm always saying stuff like "what makes the 100th anniversary so important, why not 101?". The answer to that is that people like nice numbers, not ugly ones like 37. Some things that make me happy/comfort me

• Beating Evan at Super Smash Bros. Melee/Brawl
• Beating people at Guitar Hero
• Walks in the night
• Truth confidence
• Curry (aka comfort food)
• The first match in a badminton tournament, and winning the tournament (obv.)
• Being owed something
• Compliments about my hair
• Beauty's Cantata
• Pachelbel's Canon in D
• Fish puns
• Happy surprises

Some things that make me sad/depress me

• Critically acclaimed movies
• Nightwish
• Truth disappearance
• Lonely wanderings at night
• Insomnia
• Trigonometry
• The 4 am blues
• Sunrise after an all-nighter
• Loss of communication with a friend
• Others' miseries
• Waking up with less than 8 hours of sleep

Edit: Edited for simple privacy 2022/09/03

Cinquantième

Fiftieth blog post. I've come a long way. But guess what? This blog post won't be commemorative.

Si seulement la princesse au long cheveux comprenait que si le sauveur est lui même très troublé, il ne peut rien faire pour elle, car dès qu'il esseyerait d'escalader ses cheveux, il tomberait. Et si la princesse comprend cela, je ne peux rien faire d'autre que m'excuser pour le moment. Et si je me fous les pieds dans le plat en écrivant ceci, je m'en fout.

I won't check the grammar on that, but I don't think anyone will be able to call me out on it.

Happy 50th...

...

I'm so sad sometimes, I miss ________.
I miss ________ so much.

I don't even think I have much of a right to miss ________, but I do. I'm sure there are some people out there who miss ________ way more than I do, but I still miss ________.

Also sometimes I just can't stop thinking about ________. It contributes to a partial insomnia. But why does it do that? Do I obsess over things which shouldn't be so obsessive? The answer is yes, I do, not over too many things, but a few. Enough for it to be noticeable.

What happened to ________? I wonder a lot about what happened to ________, I mean I dig in my memories, and I got some highs, not many, but a few. And there was a consistent high when I was able to be around ________, I felt so special.

But ________ has parted ways with me, a little more than a month ago. I've seen ________ since then, but I know it's not the same. And still I think, what's going to happen to ________? Will anything ever happen again?

Oh gawd I hope something happens again before 9 months of my life are spent truly away from home.

I miss ________.

:C.

Amused to Death

"Years later, I saw Bill Hubbard's name on the memorial to the missing at Aras. And I...when I saw his name I was absolutely transfixed; it was as though he...he was now a human being instead of some sort of nightmarish memory of how I had to leave him, all those years ago. And I felt relieved, and ever since then I've felt happier about it, because always before, whenever I thought of him, I said to myself, 'Was there something else that I could have done? And that always sort of worried me. And having seen him, and his name in the register - as you know in the memorials there's a little safe, there's a register in there with every name - and seeing his name and his name on the memorial; it sort of lightened m... heart, if you like."
"When was it that you saw his name on the memorial?"
"Ah, when I was eighty-seven, that would be the year, ninete...eighty-four, nineteen eighty-four."

The Ballad of Bill Hubbard

"Two things that have haunted me most are the days when I
had to collect the paybooks; and when I left Bill Hubbard in
no-man's-land.

"I was picked up and taken into their trench. And I'd no
sooner taken two or three steps down the trench when I heard a
call, 'Hello Razz, I'm glad to see you. This is my second night
here,' and he said 'I'm feeling bad,' and it was Bill Hubbard,
one of the men we'd trained in England, one of the original
battalion. I had a look at his wound, rolled him over; I could
see it was probably a fatal wound. You could imagine what pain
he was in, he was dripping with sweat; and after I'd gone about
three shellholes, traversed that, had it been...had there been a
path or a road I could have done better. He pummeled me, 'Put
me down, put me down, I'd rather die, I'd rather die, put me
down.' I was hoping he would faint. He said 'I can't go any
further, let me die.' I said 'If I leave you here Bill you won't
be found, let's have another go.' He said 'All right then.' And
the same thing happened; he couldn't stand it any more, and I had
to leave him there, in no-man's-land."

My Curse

DragonForce @ Downsview Park August 8th.
Sonata Arctica and Nightwish @ The Docks September 2nd.

I will definitely go see Sonata Arctica & Nightwish, as they're right up there with my favourite bands.

DragonForce, I'm iffy about. I know I'm very snobbish with my music, but that DF concert seems disconcerting to me. Firstly, the tickets are 50 bucks, jacked up from 20 dollars when I went to go see them two years ago with my friend Danielle at the Opera House. That was one hell of a concert, it was fantastic, and hilarious, I'll try and spare you most of the details. There were these people in mail armor with a foam warhammer that they were waving about, that sort of thing. And hell, the band had so much friggin energy. I was tired from just standing the whole time, but they were jumping around flailing on their guitars and all. They were damn cool.

The thing I don't like about this concert that they're doing is that I have no doubt that there will be a bunch of flavour-of-the-month kids present who just happened to discover DragonForce with the song Through the Fire and the Flames on Guitar Hero, and they thought it sounded cool and decided "hell I'll go to this concert". I know I should feel fine about them going to a concert in which they shelled out their money for and that they should be allowed to enjoy Herman Li's shreddin' too, but it still annoys me.

As for Nightwish and Sonata Arctica, oh that will just be fantastic. The Sonata Arctica concert I went to back in September was effing awesome, they are one hell of a good band. Plus, they're not so totally mainstream that they still allow me to feel as though the music is for their fans, and not purely for the music industry. (I was sickened when I saw DragonForce on MTV the other day).

Alright, I didn't want to make a long post.

Bye.

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Just summer

Okay, well, since I got a couple questions, I figured I'd elaborate a bit on summer school.

It's at Earl Haig, a nice, behemoth of a school. It's huge. Not massive, but huge, with big windows and an Eaton Centre feel to the place. It took me forever to find my classroom on the first day. In the morning, I hear it's like an oven, but since my classes run from 12:30 to 3:15, it's nicely AC'ed by the time I arrive to the classroom.

The classroom is rather bland, nothing special.

The teacher is, simply said, a good math teacher. He's sort of an older version of Mr. Budnik (if you know him, he makes lots of corny references in whatever he teaches). Notable corny quotes from Mr. Neiderhauser(sp) include: "The Factor Theorem is applicable everywhere, in calculus, in engineering, with your girlfriend." and some others I can't remember, though some are cringers for sure.

He's very passionate about math, that's for sure. IMHO he's a better teacher than the one I had at Vaughan, but it doesn't matter too much now.

As for the course itself, it feels nice to be at the forefront of the class, after spending three annoying years in IB always being meh and near the bottom most of the time. I got a 92% on my math test today. Let me tell you, I haven't seen those beautiful numbers on a test in four friggin' years.

I distincly remember Grade Eight math, where I got highest mark on this exponents test, and hell I was surprised, because everyone else just did reallllllyyyy bad on it. It was wonderful, everyone had to retake it, but I didn't need to.

That's a bit of how I feel at summer school.

Like I said, summer school isn't bad at all. Though the commute is like 50 minutes, and I just stick to my own little desk in the class barely talking to anyone at all for a solid three hours, I don't mind.

The thing that does bother me is when I come back home and waste away. At least I don't have to deal with insomnia anymore though, that's an upgrade, but I have the feeling of wasting my last high school summer, much the same way I wasted all my other summers. It's not a cool feeling. And then there's the interpersonal troubles I gotta deal with too, but I'd rather not bring that up on a simple routine blog.

Barely two weeks before summer school's done, a month and a bit till Fan Expo, and I'll be receiving my travel destinations for September anytime now!

I'm excited for all those things, but dreading some other things, naturally.

Toodemeddles.

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Deffo Summer School

Yeaaaaaah summer school. Alright, I know I don't rant enough on this blog (really, I don't do it that much), and I'm not about to start. Summer school isn't that bad. It's a small part of my summer (three hours per day, 15 hours per week). I hardly notice it. Besides, it's easy mode, and it's there because I got to slack off all year long. Now I must pay for it.

Basic format so far, is a quiz a day, test on tuesday and friday. Aced the last test. But the stuff, I mean, after having it done twice already, three time's a charm right?

The funny thing is, I passed the grade eleven IB math course with a low 70, and that shiz was harder than the stuff I did in grade twelve. And the stuff I did in grade twelve, I failed. Wonderful no?

Summer's chillz so far, deffo looking better than last year's where I was signed up on a raid four nights out of seven with my guild, Retaliation (may they R.I.P.).

And it seems I'm sleeping... just fine.

It has been a very, very long time since I can actually go to my bed, and sleep. The past five nights have been quite... wow. I fall asleep within ten minutes of closing my eyes, somewhere around there. That hasn't happened in months. I don't quite understand it. Maybe it's my summer school schedule (I haven't skipped anything yet!).

Well, it's about time I went to sleep, doncha think? Summer school in twelve hours :^).

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