MILES to GO || before I sleep

Whoo-hoo! I finished my five quizzes for Environmental Geology (chapters 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13) and my Exam (cumulative for all of those chapters) and I KICKED ASS! I got As or Bs on all of the quizzes, and an A or A- on my exam (I got a 96%, that's an A or A-, right?). Last exam, I missed 6 questions, this time, I only missed 3! :) :)

But the fun never ends, oh no. I still have a biology quiz due tomorrow morning at 10am, my flood insurance rate map assignment due for geology tomorrow night (but I want to get it in earlier so I'm not thinking about it when I'm out with the gals... STALKING RPATTZ! I am kidding. Sort of. More on that later.), and a paper on war (or something like that) for my gender and women's studies class.

So yeah, no shortage of school work here. But I seem to perform best under pressure, so, armed with some delicious Green Tea flavored with honey and ginseng (iced, of course) and some freshly made fudge walnut brownies I SHALL EMBARK UPON THE NOBLE QUEST OF EDUCATION!

And caps-lock of rage, too. Except it's not rage, it's something completely different and bizarre.

This month is just non-stop. Aside from already having missed my deadline for my environmental lifestyle audit for my Recreation and Tourism Management class, I've also failed to update WDKY26 within one year. *hangdog face* I'm quite ashamed, but seriously, looking at all this school work and all the drama I've had in the past year, does it surprise anyone? I'll get that damn thing done... if it kills me. HA HA I MADE A FUNNY! -_-

Coming up: thinking about getting the new T-Mobile G1, since my contract with T-Mobile is just about up, I think, and I'm due for an upgrade. Plus, I wanna get my PSP. Of course, both of those involve spending money I DO NOT HAVE but... minor detail, seriously. Also: possible Bangra dancing on the 15th, Thanksgiving coming up (Dad is mysteriously and suddenly okay with me having a room of my own at the Hilton we're staying at in San Diego. I wonder what he did? He won't tell me), HOPEFULLY a new baby cousin (Brooke said last night there's no baby yet, which means she's kinda overdue at this point afaik) and Scott (and his twin brother Ryan)'s 29th birthday! Whew. Oh, and then Alcatraz in early December, because WHY NOT!? :D

Don't get me started on all those other personal projects I've got lined up, like getting my stuff on Fanworks Finder, working on Epiphany, changing the layout for BEA and the Secret Society Girl fanlistings, adding my stuff to AnimeXX, working on the RPGClassics Star Ocean 3 shrine, fixing my laptop iTunes library, working on all my fics, and, and, and...! I've probably forgotten a few. My brain feels like it might "asplode." But I guess that's better than FURSPLODE! Ha, ha.

Oh, I'm going to love it when this semester is over. Only two more to go. And then what? I have no freakin' clue, but I imagine at least a little bit of relief will be involved. Even if I love learning.

I think I just threw up a pill. For the first time in... god knows how long, actually. When I was younger, I used to be afraid of swallowing pills. I don't know why, exactly, but I hated the idea of something WHOLE and not chewed up or liquid going down my pipes. One time I was horribly sick with a fever, and the only remedy was in pill form. Dad had to SIT on me (keep in mind, he's 140+ lbs. and I've always been a feather-weight) and pour grape juice down my throat while he kept the pill in my mouth with his finger (and I hate grape juice now, too, in case you're wondering). I don't think it worked, but Dad refused to let me out of my room unless I took the pill. So I took the juice, the pill, and stared at myself in the mirror until I could swallow it. And I did, and ever since then, it hasn't been such a big deal.

Admittedly, I'm taking more meds lately-- but only 2 are pills, and one is so small, I hardly ever notice it. The other one... well, it's no horse pill, but it's no cute Flinstones vitamin, either. And I usually take a handful of water (as in, I cup my hands under the faucet and drink) and knock back whatever I need to. No big deal, right?

Except tonight, I was sitting here reading email when I felt this choking sensation, like the pill hadn't gone down all the way, and where it had gotten to -midway through my esophagus, if that- wasn't a good spot. It felt like the pill exploded, and the powder got all over my throat, and it STUNG like hell. So I tried to wash the feeling away with water, but after just a few sips, I kept choking until I threw up.

... :( Great. It still burns, too. And this had to happen AFTER I brushed my teeth. How's that for irony?

And to top it off, when I called the Kaiser dermatology department, the doctor with my biopsy results was busy with a patient (as usual), so I couldn't get them. And even though the receptionist told me she'd have him call back, I didn't hear from him, and probably won't until Tuesday.

That's part of the growing list of mishaps to start out my summer-- this morning I went to the Saturday morning prep session for the Upper Division Writing Proficiency Exam, only to find all of Bayramian Hall (where it was supposed to take place) LOCKED DOWN AND CLOSED. I called the campus police, talked to people in the library, looked for signs or a single open door, talked to the custodians... NOTHING. After an hour, I got fed up (along with the rest of the would-be prep people) and left. When I got home, I sent a polite-but-scathing email to the UDWPE, and they told me there was a "miscommunication" because a workshop (which is what I called it a few times) is not the same as a "prep session," and had I/we (meaning the other people that had shown up and waited just like me-- and there were a fair number of us) signed up in the office (instead of over the phone, as I did, relying on the office's oh-so-kind receptionist), we would have seen the appropriate date, time, and location. I don't know if that means the prep session DID take place someplace else, but I was pretty much relying on what I'd been told BY the people staging the whole event. I woke up extra early for it, too. And since I wasn't the only one to have made that mistake AND the campus police said they had NO record whatsoever of anything starting at 9:30am *OR* being called an "Upper Division Writing" anything, I don't think I was at fault in the slightest.

The UDWPE lady who got back to me said she'd forward my message to the people at the Learning Resource Center, who are the ones that actually stage the prep sessions, and they'll see (if I call on Tuesday) if next week prior to the exam (on one of the twice-weekly workshop days) I can get some quick preparation for the exam before it actually happens next Saturday. So yay, but blech.

Onto another subject... I've been working on WikiFic lately, but my desire to add infoboxes required the Parser Function extension, which I had to find the backdated version of for MediaWiki 1.6 (which I have to run, because my Surpass server won't upgrade to PHP 5), BUT the extension may be conflicting with the Cite extension, which means... I may never get it to work. Anyway, WikiFic's down at the moment. I apologize for any inconvenience... but then again, I feel like I'm the only one who ever writes articles there, anyway. Sometimes activity from anyone BUT me seems so scant... but then, it's not like I can do a whole lot about it NOW anyway!

Also:
* Got a bit of a haircut. It's now all nice and even-length.
* Room's still a huge mess. Haven't gotten my replacement bookcase yet. I need a huge bag... and possibly a taller file cabinet. Does it count as organized when all you do is shove your mess into pretty boxes?
* Beat the Ruin Depths in FFX-2 (of course). I have to go back to Oversoul a few more fiends, but I think I have only around 20 left before I complete the list and *FINALLY* get "THE END" garment grid. I also want to swing back to Mt. Gagazet and see if that statue really does end up as Yuna... what's weird is, I swore the statue ended up as Kimahri, since you see that whole scene and everything, but then I got lost on Gagazet and found the artisan still hard at work! Go figure. So that plus Sphere Break and Publicity, and then this game'll be SET and MATCH!

Well, this is an interesting day. For starters, the weather here by the bay is oddly hot-- and by hot, I mean we actually passed the 78 degree record high for this time of year. Yesterday, according to the usually-wrong and oh-so-snooty weatherman, we actually reached 88 degrees!

In other news, though, I got my STAR 9 test results back. What are STAR 9 tests? Well, it's California's standardized test that they give to grades 2-11. It stands for Stanford-9, or Standardized Testing And Reporting.

Being a journalist, these type of things come up frequently in arguments-- why are we assigning numbers to people, comparing them to kids around the nation? If every standardized test is different, then what good does comparing one kid in one huge city (with 18,000 high school students in it ANYWAY) to the kids living in Kansas do? You can see where I'm going with this.

I consider myself an intelligent young woman, and I always have been-- but two things annoy me. The first is putting total faith in one's "intelligence" as labeled by a test. The second is rating someone's ability to perform in a given situation or environment on a number. I may have gotten a 1450 on my SATs, but that doesn't mean I know how to figure out 15% tip on a $63.54 dinner off the top of my head.

I'm sure plenty of people will call me hypocritical for saying this-- but here are my scores, and even though there were some portions where I didn't even TRY (like I've been saying, junior year SUCKED)-- and you'll be able to tell which ones they are, I still did rather well. So here goes:

Total Reading: 99th percentile
Vocab: 99th percentile
Reading Comprehension: 97th percentile (O.O WHAT!?)
Mathematics (get ready to laugh): 20th percentile

-I'm disappointed in myself-- and I know my mom would be too, knowing that 80% of all 11th graders in this country are better than me at math. I can't excuse this, but I can explain it-- the "Integrated 3" questions had nothing to do with the Interactive Math I'd been in-- the class moved rather slowly, and there were high and low periods in which I did/understood the work. They were so confusing (and they didn't let us use a calculator, either) that I wanted to cry-- but I gave up, instead choosing to sleep for the rest of the test.

Language: 99th percentile
Language Mechanics: 99th percentile
Language Expression: 98th percentile
Science: 86th percentile (O.o This is amazing. I thought I left in the middle of the chem test... and my chem teacher, who had been gone for the first three months of the school year, wasn't that great of a teacher. I still passed her class with a C, but THIS IS AMAZING!)
Social Science (History): 99th percentile (WAHAHAHA! And I got a 3 on the AP test! EAT THAT, MR. M! Are you telling me I deserve that F now!?)

I was labeled as "Advanced" (the highest possible target zone for scores) in US History, and English-Language Arts, but Far Below Basic for Integrated Math, and Basic (one off from the State Target of "Proficient") for Chemistry. Go figure.

Students have to take these tests to get out of high school. I've heard colleges look at them. Based on your scores, you can get $1000 Governor's Scholarships-- I got one last year. We also have to take the HSEE (class of 2004 and beyond, which isn't me, but now it applies to 75% of the school) or High School Exit Exam-- the Golden State exam in history, English, math, and science... plus schools encourage you to take the PSAT in 10th grade, or sign up for PPSAT classes. There's just so many tests and so many labels they slap onto students that it's no wonder that there are kids like me who ae intelligent, but lack the motivation necessary to oust themselves out of the 20th percentile.

What state governments and school districts need to do is focus on the student's individual needs-- and if it costs them more money to do so, so be it. It'll be worth it in the long run.