Resplendencia.net

filed in academia at 9:39 pm | leave a comment?

If you want to know why I’ve been missing for the past month or so, just look at the title. Um, that might actually be a lie, since I only started studying last week; the actual reason is I just haven’t felt like blogging, but I’m forcing myself to blog right now since my site has been horribly neglected and I’m so brain-dead right now (from all the tests, of course) that I don’t feel like doing much else. Or, as my chem teacher apparently likes to say, right about now, my brain is thoroughly Swiss cheese.

It’s a little pathetic, since I’m only taking 3 AP tests, which makes me feel inadequate compared to all the IB people who have to take a million papers, but it doesn’t matter since IB people suck anyway (hehe). Spanish was on Tuesday and Euro was today. I’m crossing my fingers for a 5 on both but it seems a little improbable, considering how badly I did on the Spanish listening. Then again, I don’t think anyone else I know actually completely understood the people who were talking 5000 miles per hour in a foreign language, so maybe I did okay. The AP people actually added static to the listening CD to simulate a radio/phone interview and it covered up the actual speech (which, of course, was barely understandable as it was since it was so fast—almost faster than I’ve ever heard anyone talk in English)…was that really necessary? Also, I think the girl sitting next to me cheated on the exam, but I can’t be sure. Blah.

European history went okay; I was in a daze for the multiple-choice section, but I actually knew what I was talking about on the DBQ! That’s a huge improvement from the APUSH DBQ last year, where I had no idea what I was talking about since it was about populism and farmers, which I didn’t bother to study because no one cares about them anyway.

AP Chem is this coming Tuesday. *dies*

filed in general at 4:33 pm | leave a comment?

You know what my new hobby is? Driving.

There’s just something exciting about driving around aimlessly with no idea where you’re going. Maybe it’s because the novelty of being a “new driver” (I’ve only been on the road…five times? I was supposed to get my license last September, but that didn’t exactly happen; procrastination got in the way) hasn’t worn off yet, but driving is so incredibly fun.

I think I’m a pretty good driver, if I do say so myself. My parents no longer fear for their lives when they sit in the passenger seat while I’m driving, and that’s something. I can’t wait until I actually get my driver’s license, because then I won’t have to rely on my friends and my perpetually late parents to give me rides. Seriously, whenever I tell my parents to pick me up at a specific time, they show up anywhere between ten minutes to half an hour later. When I get my license, that won’t happen anymore! I’ll finally be independent!

P.S. Cutest video ever. Red pandas are my favorite animal.

filed in rants at 6:57 pm | leave a comment?

…for a few reasons:

1. It’s easy to overlook and forget to fill in things. For me, at least. I recently applied for a summer program scholarship, and only after I’d already submitted the application did I look back and realize I’d forgotten to write a short 200-word blurb on a certain topic I’m not going to mention here. It wasn’t required, but I had it planned out and almost written already, and it probably would have increased my chances of receiving the scholarship. Sure, this can be attributed to my own carelessness, but I maintain that I would not have overlooked anything if I had been filling out a paper application.
2. Sometimes the input and text areas stretch allllll the way across the page because whoever it is hasn’t coded them correctly. (I don’t know how that happens; I’ve never been able to make the textareas on my site stretch that far, even when I set the width to 100%.) This makes it impossible to see even a decent amount of the text that you’re typing. Plus, you have to scroll horizontally for about a year.
3. It’s eye-straining to stare at the computer screen for a prolonged period of time. :(

All of this is going to be problematic when I have to fill out college applications next year. I’m going to be the person who kills a few hundred trees by requesting paper applications.

I can’t be the only one who would rather not do everything on the computer and/or online, right? Right?

P.S. It’s taking a while to get used to, but WP 2.5 is hawt. I’d like it even more if I didn’t have to tweak a few plugins and edit out the narsty orange color (arrgh, I just typed “colour”; what’s wrong with me?!).