Officially a Senior

And with that comes senioritis! School starts on Wednesday and I'm still not done with my summer homework! Half of my APES homework left and the most annoying part of the lit reports... Plus I should probably study for the quizzes/essays/whatever I'll have on these summer assignments... But studying can wait until later. xP

I guess I'm ready for a whole new year of excitement - put junior year behind me, senior year here I come! Yay for a whole new episode of love, hate, stress, drama, and teen angst! It'll be fun... Plus balancing all of the club responsibilities I have (oh what have I gotten myself in to?) - I think I have officer positions in six clubs? Captain, two president positions, two vice president positions, and a treasurer position. Jeez...

Well anyways, life's good and busy and stress-filled already, but I always love a challenge! ;D

Professional Cello Rack Assembler

Ross, Courtney, and I stayed behind for like two hours assembling a cello rack for Mr. J. It started out with, "Hey, do you guys want to throw that stuff away for us?" and ended with "Mr. J! Look at how pretty it is!" xD I failed a lot. But hey, it was fun and it ended up looking nice! Now we know that if the three of us ever drop out of college, we can start a cello rack assembly company together! No high school diploma needed!

We had try-outs for rifle/flag today. Sneakily but not really. Basically, Elaine told us she wanted to see it, so we did it. She didn't mention that they were the auditions, but whatever. Chloe's little brother came to teach us some rifle stuff too; he's a sophomore and CRAZY good. He's been spinning since elementary school though, so that's to be expected...

Anyways, band camp is fun. =P Lots of sun, lots of sweat. Yay planks and pushups. No concussions yet, so that's always good. Three more days (and registration tomorrow)! =]

Steal the Bacon!!!

The first day of band camp wasn't too bad. Except for the fact that after running two laps, I felt light-headed and had blurry vision for a few minutes... I'm so out of shape... -sighs-

We played Steal the Bacon with a shoe today. xD I got two points (yay go me!) in a row (w00t! =P) then I tried to go for three and got completely tackled to the floor. Consecutive rounds included me being in the middle of a huge mob trying to get the shoe, me being dragged around, me being chased around the room, and me chasing people around the room. Basically, I ended up with lots of rug burns, some bruises, and a loose tooth. Don't underestimate the power of band geeks when put to a task like stealing bacon... =P
Ross also learned to ski today. xP He got dragged around SO MUCH during that game, sometimes on his feet, sometimes not. It was absolutely hilarious to watch - he's either gotten a lot more outgoing or I just haven't really been paying attention.

Also got a ride home from Ross today, even though it's technically not legal yet. What a gentleman. xD

MIT + Harvard

Late posts, so I'll keep them short!


What can I say, MIT is very technical. Our info dude was AMAZING. Absolutely hilarious. PE credits can be satisfied through pistolry, archery, and fencing. Dorm rooms are huge. Buildings are connected (no struggling through snow!).

Harvard is... big. Grand. Impressive. Not as intimidating as I'd think, but not as magnificent either. Very nice campus, nice people. =]

Statue of the Three Lies

[Not] John Harvard
[Not the] Founder
1638 [But really 1636]

Columbia + Yale

Yay NYC! We didn't really do much; just checked out the good old Statue of Liberty and drove through Times Square. Saw a Verizon strike going on...

I didn't really like Columbia's campus all that much. After Penn and Princeton, it just seemed sort of lacking in comparison. Stifling, almost. I didn't stay for the info session or tour because I needed to rush off to Yale, so I still don't know much about the place. The science facilities are pretty awesome though, and they're doing some funky stuff with quantum dots that's rather intriguing.


Yale is slightly intimidating in it's structure. It's amazingly pretty, but very gothic and sort of has an edge. I don't really like the academic structure all that much, just in terms of majors/minors. Minors aren't even offered and it's strongly discouraged to double major. I feel like that's a bit limiting for me, since I'd love to learn a ton about more things, but of course, freedom with the courses is still afforded.

Penn + Princeton

Penn seems like an amazing environment, very cohesive as a unit, albeit slightly isolated from the outside world. VIPLM is definitely something to check out, seems like it would fit my ideals perfectly...

Princeton on the other hand, is slightly intimidating with the junior paper and senior thesis, but the campus is absolutely GORGEOUS. Plus the relationship and proximity with the town (as well as Philly and NYC) are pretty awesome.

See You On the Other Side

I'm off to the East Coast for a week! (Well, more like 4 days...) The sucky thing is that I'll be in NYC but won't be able to browse and sightsee. -sighs- Nah, I'll be off visiting UPenn and Princeton, Columbia and Yale, MIT and Harvard. Yay.

Keep me company on AIM/Facebook/e-mail and help me not go insane during this period of excessive college touring!

And COSMOS 2011 Ends...

It's been so long since I last posted... We've "graduated" from COSMOS! It's been one hell of an adventure. I'll definitely cherish every single one of the memories I've made. It's been an absolutely amazing month.

*****

Leesaw/Ysa/Suna - Thanks for all the late night tea parties and friendletting. I didn't hang out with you guys as much as I would have liked to, but you definitely made my stay here enjoyable. Reading circles, going to World Market... I couldn't have asked for better roomies.

*****

Go5 - I absolutely love you guys... Bowling and pool, "silver in motion" and other chem jokes, knocking random stuff over, bashing cheerleaders, cutting each other off on bikes, playing "Where's Toto?," making weird facial expressions to make one another laugh, bus rides with human pillows and epic games of 99, bubbles!, breaking curfew to play cards, semi-failing at labs, out-of-context things that I rarely understood, stressing like hell to save Brandon's ass, and all of the epic daily fails that come with being us.

Chris (aka Mr. Literal) - "All day baby, all day!"
Brandon (aka Dr./Mr./The Fro) - "SOUR!"
Erica (aka Shorty/Child/Vicious Little Asian Woman) - "OH SHIT!"
Shiori (aka Shiori) - "... -smiles-"
Ryan (aka Toto) - "Caw caw!"

-thump thump- ♥

*****

All we see is Cluster 8!

Biking One-Handed, Hell Yeah!

We had a guest lecture this morning on x-ray crystallography. It was sort of interesting, but I was just so tired for no reason... Ah well.

I took charge of compiling all the pictures to be color printed for posters; sort of disorganized but whatever. Turned out fine.

Distinguished speaker series lecture on baculoviruses and genetic engineering. I completely tuned out since I was exhausted for no particular reason, so I'm not really sure what was said. The dude's PPT was crazy bright colors and all caps though; it was rather annoying. Oh well.

The solar cell lab today turned out pretty nicely - 348 millivolts generated for the win! Apparently I'm very good at scraping off carbon coating in straight lines. Yay me?

I biked from Annex back to the dorms pretty much all one-handed since we had to bring back posters for our project. I'm rather proud of myself, although braking is a pain and I always seem to brake hard when I bike one-handed...

Went bowling and played more Pump - they had KPop and stuff, it was pretty awesome. Watched Chris and Brandon battle it out over the air hockey table, which was funny because it'd be really intense and the puck would just fly off the table.

Finished my project PPT tonight. I was going to work on the poster until I realized I didn't have anything printed out for it... Fail.

*****

My blog posts are always just a random jumble of events now. I think it's a combination of being busy and being tired/lazy. I can't believe there are only 2 days left in COSMOS... The first week passed by so slowly. This is so depressing... -sniffles- Probably not too much of the gang of five any more either, since Shiori's in Palo Alto and Toto's in San Diego... -sighs-

Domo and Gummy Bears!

1) Chris got 8 different Domos in a row from one of those mini toy things that you see everywhere. Oh, and there were only eight ones to collect. What are the odds?! Then we all got one that matched our personality, with only one blip in the middle (we got a repeat). Chris gave me the devil Domo. Figures. xD It was either that or Godzilla because I go around destroying everything, but Godzilla is big, and I'm not... xD

2) Professor Allen set off the fire alarm today. We did the elephant toothpaste demo, which was awesome, then he did the potassium chlorate + gummy bears one. Which produces lots of light and smoke. So he put two gummy bears in, and it was AWESOME, and then the next 3 minutes were spent with people holding books and binders trying to fan the smoke away from the fire detector. It didn't work. xD Professor Allen also burned a few holes in the carpet, because one of the gummy bears like jumped out of the test tube.

3) Just because I never said, I'm now proficient enough at biking to cut Brandon off. I do it to Chris occasionally, but he still bikes to fast for me to want to expend the energy to cut him off. But Brandon, yes. Many times. It's fun.

4) I'm pretty much finished with my research paper, and it's pretty nice. Fifteen pages total, one title page, about 3 for works cited, and around 2-3 for pictures. So I have about 8 pages of text, double spaced. Not too shabby... Might need to go back and edit though. Thursday is a complete project day - posters and PPT for the win...

5) Chimchar. =P

6) We spend way too much time at the MU. Bowling (Shiori OWNED today), pool, Time Crisis, DDR thing (called Pump -shrugs-), and air hockey. Amazing. We were supposed to leave at 7:45... We actually left at like 8:30. xP

We Broke a Bus!

It took us a total of 5 hours to get to the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (in Nevada!). Reason? Our bus broke down for approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes due to overheated brakes or something or the other. We stopped at like 9-ish, and the replacement bus arrived at like 10:45. We stopped by this Indian tribal site or something; it was sort of weird, but there was also a Burger King... o.O It was pretty awesome though, because Chris, Brandon, Toto, Shiori, and I just played a crapload of 99 and walked around and stuff. We were supposed to get there around 10-10:30 and we ended up getting there at like 12:40... Oh well.

Our bus driver Steve was AMAZING. For one, he had a crazy sense of humor, like when he was explaining the emergency exits. He got to the ones on the ceiling and was like, "For your convenience, I'll actually lean the bus on its side!" He was just really chill. =]

The actual research center was pretty cool too - it was way better than the other recent field trips we'd been on at least. We actually did a legitimate lab too. It was like the arsenic testing one for Professor Guo, except it was testing for phosphorous this time, and our results actually WORKED.

We visited the beach (the water was absolutely FILTHY), but only for a few minutes. Pretty much enough to take a few pictures and fool around a bit. And visit the 7-Eleven across the street.

Played more 99 on the way back, then completely conked out. Like always. And, like always, I was apparently rather hard to wake up. We got back way too late to go to the DC to eat, so we just ordered a crapton of pizza and ate in the first floor lounge/conference room. It was a pretty awesome day, definitely way more fun than if we had gotten there on time and stuff. I think a large part of it is just being able to hang out with people and do completely random, pointless stuff...

*****

COSMOS is more than half over... It's so depressing - I would totally stay here forever if I could... Who am I going to find that brings out the fail in me as well as Brandon and Chris? I'm completely getting used to the freedom and doing random crap with people every day just because.

Thrift Stores ROCK!

I went to a thrift store with Leesaw, Suna, and Ysa and got 4 really nice hardcover books for 80 cents. Total. Then we biked to the Dollar Tree and got little plastic pinwheels that we tied onto our bikes, so now they spin! It made me completely entirely ecstatic.

Brandon, Shiori, and I met Chris's dad and grandparents today. It was hilarious because Brandon brought a mug of coffee to "look sophisticated," but managed to laugh and spill it over his glasses (yes, glasses) while saying hi to them. So sad... Daily fails persist.

Watching some Louis CK, which was hilarious. Plus Brandon sent this link, it's freaking amazingggg!!! ♥

Highlights!

1) Golfland/Sunsplash was super fun. Lines were way too long though; I only ended up being able to go on a handful of rides. And Chris was a loser and didn't even go on any water rides... I also suck at minigolf.

2) I completely tripped over a rock outside of the DC. Like a HUGE boulder thing that goes up to my knees (at least). I was talking to people and just didn't see it, crashed into it, and flipped over it. It was amazing, because this guy from the other cluster was standing there awkwardly while Shiori had a "Oh, not again..." face, and Chris/Brandon were both rolling on the floor out of laughter (literally).

3) I went to recharge my laundry card but only had a single dollar bill, so since I wasn't planning on doing laundry today, I sort of went, screw it, whatever. Chris, however, apparently thought I was doing it today, and went like, "What, so you're just going to wash it and not dry it?" This random guy in line behind us just burst out laughing...
Oh. And I completely got rejected by the machine the first time around. It spat my dollar back at me. It literally SPAT it back at me.

4) Talked to Leesaw, Suna, and Ysa about random stuff, like stalking guys. Very interesting.

5) Jamba Juice. Yum.

Close Call

Professor Guo never has enough time to finish his lectures... He seriously spent an hour on a single slide of a PPT show. ONE SLIDE. He's awesome though - I brought up a rather stupid/just-for-kicks simile and he used it throughout the rest of the class. =]

Cheerleaders are invading Davis for some competition or some crap. It's sad, because now the DC needs people to serve them, make them ice cream cones, and put their dishes away because of their insane incompetence. They also cut people in line, expect bikers to magically get out of their way while they're walking on the wrong side of the road or veering towards us, and are just troublesome in general. It was funny though; I told the lady serving ice cream that "I can do this myself; I'm slightly more competent than them," and she looks at them, looks at me, smiles and nods. Then the cheerleader behind me said she could do it herself, and the lady went, "No, it's okay, I got it."
Chris mentioned that we should get shirts that say, "It's a science thing, you'll never understand it," because the cheerleaders have shirts with, "It's a cheer thing, you wouldn't understand it."

Speaking of Chris, he almost killed me today (or at least given me a concussion). We were hella rushing back from the MU, so I put my helmet on and was bending over my bike to unlock it. Chris gets his bike lock key from his bag, then while putting it back on, manages to swing it. Now, his backpack is one of those string-close ones. And he has a padlock on the string. So the padlock swung into my helmet and made a pretty scary sound, and I could feel the vibration. Basically, if I had put on my helmet after unlocking my bike, like I normally do, I would, at the very least, have a pretty bad head injury. I feel like I endanger my life every day here...

Bowling was fun - I got a 67! Pretty consistent with last time. I completely sucked at pool though; Chris freaking demolished me in 1v1, although I sort of got close to catching up at the end... Played Time Crisis and the random basketball free throw game too. I spend so much money on snacks and games here, it's ridiculous.

*****

We went star-gazing - Saturn through a telescope is freaking amazing. It's super pretty outside; I wish I could do that every day...

Ivan also told us how he asked a girl to prom - he apparently got the administrators involved. So he got an iPod from a friend, put it in the girl's bag, and then reported it missing. So the administrators call the girl in based on a "tip" that she stole an iPod, check her bag, and find the thing. She almost starts crying, then they bring in the suspension papers and say, "You can either get expelled today, or you can go to prom with Ivan." Then he walks in with flowers. =D
It's so cute! I would be absolutely terrified if I were the girl, but I though that was amazing...

Golfland/Sunsplash tomorrow! Yay!