"Great Expectations"

(...which, I should mention, is the most boring book in the world)
---
The leap from middle to high school is certainly a big one, especially in a school district such as mine. I honestly don't think they do enough to prepare us for high school, but I guess they assume that we can learn from our own mistakes (but sometimes making mistakes aren't enough. What if there's that one kid who just doesn't realize they're doing something wrong?! They need someone to bluntly put it to them: YOU'RE WRONG. Ah, anyway...).

The typical freshman usually enters high school with some preconceived notions about the first year, myself included. Obviously I'm not going to tell you exactly what I thought about how 9th grade year would be, but let's just say that we've only been in school for one month and everything I expected have proven to be mostly false, for better or for worse.

The biggest jump I've noticed is the dramatic increase in workload. There's more homework, long-term assignments, frequent tests, a profusion of writing AND reading assignments for English and even other subjects, you name 'em. I've personally never been a big fan of expending my efforts in vigorous studying and working (I look to optimize what little time I have each day, and yet I still feel pressed for time); therefore I have never really studied for tests and the such. That could possibly have been the biggest mistake I've made in my middle school years of habit-building. As soon as high school arrived, I began to see the effects of my slacking off. I now literally see papers flying at my face left and right, forcing me to smash my previous loose schedules and abandon the free time I used to take enjoyment in. And, as the world works, I find it necessary to study, or flunk. But of course, I shall take the higher being's path and look into the future, realizing that all this will HELP me in the future (eh... yeah right)!

After proofreading (yeah I know, who proofreads their blog entries? ME!) the above paragraph, I realized that it was all just a jumbled block of mixed thoughts. I'm thinking of deleting it all and rewriting it, but you blog readers will just have to deal with it, since it's 11PM already and I WANT TO SLEEP. You too, no?

5 days down, 2 to go!

3 Tips When Typing an Assignment...

1. Always, always, ALWAYS ALWAYS NEVER NOT SAVE YOUR WORK PERIODICALLY.
(When I say periodically, I mean every 2 minutes as if you're a paranoid schizophrenic)
2. Make sure that u dont randomly add ch4tsp33k into your essays. Teachers hate it. Not that I would evar do something liek dat...
3. Play Typer Shark. It'll improve your average wpm. (I swear, that's how I got my 120 wpm!)
4. Just kidding about number 3.

So you probably want to know the reason why I'm offering such helpful advice without a request first (as you know, I usually don't readily spew my vast knowledge to just any ol' person... Ahahaha, no. Just kidding, again. Why am I writing this all in parentheses? Oh well, probably just another subconscious effort to make this post longer). Well let's just say I had, oh, an assignment for school in which I had to type an entire email in French. As is obvious, French is not my first language. Heck, it's not even my second or third. (Sarcasm is my third language, obviously) Yes, that means it takes a great deal of effort to type in said language, especially when you want to throw in all the proper accents.

Of course, I spent a good 30 or so minutes working on this email, hoping that my French pen pal would appreciate that I typed more than two sentences, as mostly everyone else in my class did. Proud of my work, I hastily clicked the "send" button... and just as the thought of "Gee, I should really copy and paste this entire email into a word document, just in case..." crossed my mind...


The page refreshed.

And my session timed out.

Meaning I had lost all of my work.

At this point I was ready to smash my desk in half with my forehead. The only place I had written this email was, of course, on my email processor. Naturally they had the "save as draft" function, which again, I was careless enough to not use. So guess what I had to do?

...Yep, type the whole darn thing over again. What a great way to spend another 20 minutes (which according to my schedule, should have been used for math homework).

So the moral of this story is? Always save your work before you do anything else, folks!

P.S. Day *4* of unofficial blogging week. More than halfway there now...! Sorry for such late updates.

A new layout?!

So I've decided that my plain green-themed default blog layout was quite boring, so I'm going to try something NEW! This current one is only temporary, as I am currently searching for one that is more to my liking. However, this one isn't bad, and if it seems that people actually are fine with it then I might just keep it. Keep me updated on any suggestions you might find though!

On a note completely unrelated to the topic title, it is now officially day 2 of my insane friend's unofficial holiday of "Update your blog every day of the week week," and I have yet to blog about something useful and/or interesting. I assure you, I shall find something of moderate interest tomorrow. Really.

...I think.

Phoenix Wright

I needed something to distract myself, so I thought of the one-and-only, amazing Phoenix Wright. Despite first appearances of a rather silly yet strategical game, he, as well as his rivals and allies give amazingly insightful quotes. Again, the only purpose of this post is to steer myself away from my problems in the world outside of games... and for entertainment purposes. Here are some of my favorites. Some may be humorous, others may be serious, and others yet are actually quite insightful and might actually make you think. Without further ado:

• "Just my luck... An assassin with a conscience. Who would've figured...?" --Phoenix Wright
• "And their fate is to live with the knowledge of their guilt on their shoulders." --Shelly De Killer (the assassin with a conscience)
  
• "Sink or swim... The only way through is forward!" --Phoenix Wright
• "Your... precious... UUUUURNNN!!" --Adrian Andrews (oh wow)
  
• "Life doesn't end with the closing of a case." --Lana Skye
• "And even though the weather outside is gorgeous today, it's raining inside my heart..." --Phoenix Wright
• "I am not totally confident here, but I know I must press on, no matter what!" --Phoenix Wright
• "I know the path I have walked. You don't need to tell me." --Miles Edgeworth
• "There's a sad feeling in the air, now that the party's over..." --Phoenix Wright
• "Even if the whole world turns against me, this is one fight I can't give up on!" --Phoenix Wright
• "But have I just run out of luck this time...? Is all our hope for naught...?" --Phoenix Wright
• "Why are you speaking in riddles all of a sudden...?" --Phoenix Wright (to Mia Fey)
  
• "OBJECTION!" --Self explanatory
• "I feel as if... Something inside me has died." --Miles Edgeworth
• "I can't forgive myself for what I've done... And no one else should forgive me either!" --Miles Edgeworth
• "...Zvarri! The truth has once again been elegantly revealed to me!" --Luke Atmey
  
• "I am sorry to learn you are no longer that person." --Judge
• "Why is it... That all I want to do lately is cry?" --Phoenix Wright
• "Why is it... I suddenly feel like I want to scream?" --Phoenix Wright
• "I set my ATM card's number to '0001' because I'm number one!" --Manfred von Karma
• "...and the world just got a whole lot crueler..." --Phoenix Wright
• "...I ate it." --Phoenix Wright
• "I'm such a fool... It took me all this time to realize it." --Lana Skye
• "No one can change the past. The only thing we can do is strive to make up for our mistakes. Why must we make up for our mistakes, you ask? Because in doing so... we can find the way back to our path. And once we've found our path, we can move on from our past mistakes toward a brighter future." --Phoenix Wright (this is my favorite)

I've accumulated a list far longer than this, but these are the highlights and among some of my favorites. Now here comes my testimonial/rant... zomgphoenixwrightisanamazinggameandithinkallofyoushouldgetitandplayit,becauseitwillgiveyourperpectionoftheworldawholedifferentangle, andyoumightstartevenapproachingsituationswithalittlemorerationalitythanbefore, andthinkthingsthroughfirst,asihavelearnedfromthis. SOGOPLAYPHOENIXWRIGHT! [/addiction]

Irony.

So, lately I've been doing a lot of thinking. When someone is given a long time to think, think harder, and rethink, they start to notice many smaller details of life that they may not have registered before. I've always found a fascination with the stranger half of life, namely, irony in its pure, most ironic form. I would insert some lame pun about iron (Fe) and irony due to our current science unit about the Periodic Table of Elements, but the inspiration is repelling me like same-pole magnets. (Whoops I think I made that one too vague. Fe Co Ni ring any bells? If it doesn't then good... now you know that I'm the only one going insane.)

Anyway, so... about irony. I've began to notice so much of it nowadays that I feel as if it's always been around me; I've just never taken the time to think about it. I don't know the official definition of irony, but it goes something like this: A form of "humor" (humor as some may call it... I personally don't find it funny at all; simply intriguing to notice and quite amus-ing. Ahh stupid science unit.) that occurs as a result of something else that is contrary to that other thing. I really don't know how to explain it... You really have to experience it yourself. Since this is a public blog (that no one reads anyway, but that's off the point), I can't go into my usual violent rants about irony. But I will say the following: Iron[y] is all around you... And if you ever happen to have the time to go searching for it, you don't have to look very far. Just think of what's happened in the past few hours, or days, or weeks... You're bound to find tons of examples.

My final words of nonsense (I've thought of way too many of these lately)-- Take an iron, add a why, and you have irony.

ANYWAY VS. ANYWAYS

Warning: This entry may contain a large amount of ranting. If you were not expecting a rant, it's not too late to turn back and go to some other page... This is your last chance... Okay, here goes:

Why must the human nature be so... stubborn? As you can already infer from this title, this is about how people never change their old ways, either because they are too used to it, or they purposely do it, simply for the pleasure of seeing how others react. Now, before I go off on a tangent and start ranting about cheese or something, I'll steer myself back on topic by saying: just what exactly am I ranting about? Well, there's an easy answer:

One. Simple. Word.

"Anyways."

For those who are going, "What?! 'Anyways' isn't a real word..?! Q.Q" Well, tough luck. It's not a word, and never will be (I hope... -gulp-). Really, in order to be grammatically correct, you must use the real form of this imaginary word, "anyway." NOTICE, THERE IS NO "S." YOU HEAR ME...?!Now, if this is news to you, do not despair! For I too, used to be a fan of the word "anyways." But alas, that was before I found out, that this word, despite its popularity, does not exist! From that point on, I made it my goal to correct those poor souls who still believe that such a word exists! You would not believe how many times I come across such popular usage of this word on a daily basis. I have already made it clear of my intolerance for this word to my friends and acquaintances-- And yet, they instead, have seen it as my main pet peeve, and have now turned it to their advantage! Oh, the horror of it all! (YOU KNOW WHO I'M TALKING TO...)

So be it. If they choose to use such a nonexistent word, then I shall not give more of a rat's cheese worth of thought on it. My opinion: Continuing to use the nonexistent word "anyways" in everyday life, whether because of old habit or for personal entertainment, shows immaturity and lack of true understanding of such a complicated language as English. Now, I can not say that I know everything there is to such a diverse language, but I do know this:

"ANYWAYS" DOES NOT EXIST.

But whatever. "It's your future."
("itz ur brain." Only a few select people will actually understand the reference... But ANYWAY...)

Disclaimer: No, I usually don't make my rants this short. I wouldn't even call this a "rant..." But it will have to suffice.