Ok so this week I’m pushing toward finishing homework and getting new things I need for school. Spent yesterday cleaning up, buying some supplies from Staples, and went running with Dave at 6pm. We did one FWBW in 8:07(him)/8:15(me)…because we were playing a game in which we had to try and pass at least 10 groups. For every group that passed us back, we had to do 5 hill repeats. We did 5 hill repeats (his version are short 15 second strides up the hill though, rather than mccaff’s long minute ones). Then we did 5 mile trail and went home. This was an annoying run. I was originally planning to do an hour or so. My hips and knees are feeling it though, so I guess it was all for the best?

Today was my last day of work, marking the end of money making fun and the beginning of sorrowful homework. I am really loathe to begin math homework. The only thing I look forward to doing this weekend is finishing “On Writing Well.” In fact it has even inspired me to read Writing Forward by Melissa Donovan again, because some of the tips in the book match what Melissa writes in her blog. I almost feel like beginning an English major, though I know I want to do tech/business when I grow up. Oh well, we can’t win them all.

Running was very fail today. I went with Dave Sun up the start hill…stretched…and down the start hill. He already did it once with Aaron also. So he ran the most out of the three of us today. I guess it wasn’t a running kind of day, not when I worked an hour more than usual.

My laptop got delayed by 2 weeks because the color is backordered. I think I might actually get a refund and wait to buy my laptop because this one is functional again. I updated some drivers and it started working well all of a sudden.

So yesterday Staniforth and I went biking at 7pm down this cool trail that goes along route 36 (almost to Sandy Hook-ish) and it was the first time I’ve biked this summer without incident: before this a screw popped my rear tire, a gear dérailleur broke, and I later deflated my new rear, wheel which I found requires an adapter to inflate. Retarded, no?

Today I biked to the park at about 6:45pm, ran about 45 minutes (one and a half toploops, part of 5 mile trail, then frontwoods backwoods). The frontwoods backwoods I picked up quite a bit. Then I biked back. Overall an easy but decent run because I’m trying to ease my shins back into things after last week. They were miserable. I’ve been doing my exercises and all though, which is good. I don’t want to fall behind those folks at running camp! Speaking of which it is getting lonely here in Holmdel, with everyone on last minute vacations and all.

Tomorrow is the last day of work for me; I’m gonna miss it because I love making websites, but I really need the last week of summer to catch up on sorely neglected homework. After this job, I will be able to pay for prom, get a keyboard and then have roughly 12 tanks of gas. Or if I neglect the keyboard, I can get 24 tanks of gas.

Oh I forgot to talk about the Olympics. History was made these last few days. Usain Bolt won both 100m and 200m golds, and he broke the 100m world record while patting his chest. Misty May and Kerri Walsh became the first Olympic volleyball back-to-back gold medal winners with over 100 consecutive winning sets — they were undefeated for nearly a year! Both USA 4×100m teams were DQ’ed for dropping the baton. The Jamaican teams won first in both also, for the semifinals. China’s Roulin Wang (sp?) beat out a Canadian diver by 10 points for gold in women’s platform diving, making their total diving gold run almost complete.

Things progress rather quickly.

So this Monday I started the book “On Writing Well.” It is…amazing. I love it! I feel this extremely strong urge to write and rewrite old things I’ve written. I see beautiful writing everywhere, and sloppy writing where I didn’t notice it before. My word choice has improved from just reading this book. Priority #1 as of now: write in active voice.

Unfortunately this makes blogging every day more of a chore, now that I’m reading and re-reading everything I write.

Work has been the same as always. I went in late twice this week already though, because I overslept both Tuesday and today thanks to the Monday long run and the run yesterday. Monday we did 75 minutes in the nature trails. Yesterday was a breezy 45 minute run through the open woods in Thompson and a little bit of the reservoir trail. All in all, sore-fying, if thats a word.

Okay so maybe my word choice hasn’t improved all that much. But I’ll learn, you’ll see.

I do agree with Zinsser that exclamation marks are not to be used cheaply. Freaking typetards.

OK wow the past weeks have been….crazy. My NB826 dont seem to be holding up my legs well enough, so today my Defyance arrived to change that. My SAT II scores came in too, 770 on hist, 690 on Math II. Pisses me off with the Math II score. Thats what I get for studying 1 day for it. Gah. Well, I had other things keeping me occupied. Hmm Velociraptors disbanded after 2 months of tomfoolery. I knew it couldnt last long, not after we lost 3 competitions and lost interest. Gah. Soilshey and Ro want to join a new crew called Endorphine. I’m taking Josiah’s advice and just not doing this anymore haha.

Hmm oh and my laptop is fixed, motherboard and all. The screen is a Seiko-Epson LCD brand new and it looks a lot better than my old screen for some reason. I also got to replace the entire motherboard and get a new graphics card (still a Geforce FX Go1400 but its a new one so its really crisp right now) cause Dell techs are incompetent and replaced the wrong parts 3 times (I didn’t really need a new LCD or gfx card, they wouldnt listen to me that my motherboard was the basic source of the problem haha cause what does a teen know about computers?)

Yeah so thats that, I’m back in business. Oh funny thing, one of the techs who came was like …its a laptop? The note says WORKSTATION. I’m like dude, ITS A MOBILE WORKSTATION.

Yeah.

There was a huge dustball in my left fan. No wonder my fan was like sputtering. haha.

Physics and math tmrw. Time for some serious thought to all this…I’m not sure what I have in either class, so I’ll play it safe and aim for 100% on both.

Eh, I had a relatively good day. Econ final was pretty good, I probably got a high A on it. I’m not sure if it will save my grade though, I did pretty bad 4th MP. I think I got like an 86 or 87…gah. So even if my 91 from mp before that offsets 1 point…the final doesn’t do that much. Grrr. I got a 93 on the accounting final (he graded it then and there). Hmm…when I got home all I recall doing is playing some piano, eating a little and going to sleep. Its like 11pm now. So I think its a good day to do a code binge. I’ll see y’all at the other end of the tunnel.

Midterms I Care About / Need to study for
—————
1) [ ] Econ (ahh I screwed up 4th mp and now I’m paying for it) — Friday June 13
2) [ ] Math (I need to maintain my grade in tran.) — Tuesday June 17
3) [ ] Physics (a 100 on my final gets me an A. wish me luck.) — Tuesday June 17
4) [ ] English (a 100 on my final guarantees me my A. I think. wish me luck also.) — Wednesday June 18

Friday - Econ/Accounting. (1) final to care about. I can afford a 40 in accounting for the A.
Monday - Gym and Spanish. (0) finals to care about. I can afford zeros on both. Spanish for a B, Gym for an A.
Tuesday - Math and Physics: (1) final to really care about.. I need a 50 on the math to get a B so I’m ok there…I’m just annoyed I wasn’t able to manage an A due to 3rd MP fail. Oh and I need a 100 on physics for an A (probably I only need something lower than that, but I am aiming for 100 to be safe).
Wednesday: APUSH and English. (1) final to really care about. APUSH I’m set for the A. English I need a 100 to guarantee my A, but it all depends on my mp4 grade…

Best case scenario: Come out this year with B’s in Spanish and Math. Spanish because its impossible to get an A. Math because I went from a 94 average 2nd marking period to a 69 average 3rd marking period. Don’t ask.

Worst case scenario: Screw up the econ final to get a B in Microeconomics. Screw up the physics final and get a B in that. Screw up the English final and get a B for the year. Come out this year with 4 and 1/2 B’s, in English Physics Spanish Math and Econ.

No way I’m letting that worst case scenario happen.

Best case GPA: 4.6
Worst case GPA: 4.38

Most probable GPA as a result of this: 4.4x

Sometimes I feel like my life is too extreme. One moment happier than a frickin puppy, the next moment more depressed than Ken Chin looks. Though, hes not depressed. Apparently, he just like black. Thats cool too.

Anyway. so today was SAT IIs. History was awesome. I prolly got an 800. 90 Questions, I finished in 20 minutes and checked twice with 30 minutes to spare. Math was notably harder. I skipped 5 questions…probably got another 3-4 wrong. Hopefully only 3-4 wrong…so I can get a 780 or higher! Then again, knowing me, I probably made a bajillion stupid mistakes and ended up with like 10-15 wrong…which could be really bad.

Ah the end of school is rapidly approaching, with the only things bugging me being my Physics, Math and English grades. Math I’m struggling to keep my B, Physics I’m hanging on with my A, and English I REALLY REALLY WANT AN A but I don’t know if my grades this MP will cut it… (I need a 92 this mp. A 92. Is that so much to ask?!!??)