Judgment Day

Rain. Rain fell. Rain fell from the sky. It had stopped though by the time I slipped on my red and blue sweater and ran out the door. Average day at school. Easy day at work. No troubles really. No troubles. Just strutting around in red and blue.

But that was what I was afraid of.

Checked Penn first for obvious reasons. Starting. Skimming. No need. I've familiarized myself with that first sentence that comes in all these letters.

Denied.
Silence.
I wanted to, but they didn't come.
No tears to wipe on red and blue.

Checked Brown next.

Denied.
This didn't surprise me though.

Tried to check Columbia but couldn't figure out how.

My last chance. It was okay to hold onto it, right?

Ate while watching the last episode of a show I've been following. Turns out the main guy ends up with the girl I wasn't rooting for, thus ending on a note I didn't think was right. How ironic that the girl I was rooting for finally managed to cry.

What's next? Hillary loses the nomination? Actually, about the Texas primacaucus...

Practiced my piano piece because I had to perform tonight in front of a judge. Still not perfect. Still not perfect. Still no tears. No tears to wipe on red and blue.

By chance, figured out how to check Columbia before I left. Surprise, surprise. Not.

Denied.

My last hope shattered before my eyes. Eyes still dry. No tears on red and blue.

Listened to a recording of the piece once more. Played the piece once more. Got in the car.

Rain fell. Almost fell. Rain almost fell from the sky. From my face.

Tears. Tears to wipe on red and blue.

To think I wore red and blue. My last chance to wear those colors in hope. What a fool I am, what a fool...

Waiting, waiting, wanting to cry as I waited my turn to play. I held it back though. No more tears on red and blue.

Somewhat randomly saw the Pig (who I've mentally acknowledged and reconciled with and shall now call the Engineer), who actually seemed like she was trying to avoid the conversation, but due to my own damned persistence told me that she herself got into Penn.

Wondered if someone hated me.

Eyes twitching. Body shaking, shivering in red and blue.

My turn came. Played scales. Played the piece. Chopin's Nocturne in E minor.

Wondered if all this sadness gave real emotion to the piece.

Played well. Thought it was a good ending. Then got sightreading.

May have as well been blindfolded... no exaggeration.

Came home. Time for rain? Time for tears?

I wanted to.

But I couldn't.

Took off the sweater.

No more tears on red and blue.

Good Student, Smart Student

So even though this has been glaringly obvious in all our lives, the thought of putting it into words has only just popped into my mind. What I'm referring to is the idea of being a good student and the idea of being a smart student. Really, all it really comes down to is having street smarts or having book smarts, but I thought I'd apply it to a strictly school setting.

I mean honestly...

In Math:
The good student finds answers in order to figure out hard problems on his/her own.
The smart student finds answers... and is done.

In Science:
The good student actually carries out a science project.
The smart student actually realizes that school science fairs mean sh**, and that forging data is perfectly fine since it's not a legit contest anyway. (Yet he/she will then win the fair altogether.)

In History:
The good student writes his/her essay about actual facts.
The smart student writes his/her essay about total BS since he/she realizes that it's all the same anyway. (Yet he/she will still get a perfect score.)

And of course, the classic...

In English:
The good student reads the book.
The smart student reads Sparknotes.

"Because any book that's 300 pages long and can be summed up in 5 pages is obviously not worth reading." - Physics Teacher

Honestly! If school has taught me anything, it's that you need to learn how to cut corners and/or BS things in life. The goal is no longer to learn (how can anyone do so under such demanding and stressful standards?), but rather to simply get through things, and that's EXACTLY what BSing things allows a person to do. If it's a matter of choosing, I'd rather be the smart student since life seems to have proven that both people end up in the same place anyway.

Yet still I work hard, still I perfect things, and still I struggle... I must really like stressing myself out after all.

More News

So I received a letter from Bowdoin College today stating that I got waitlisted. That doesn't really surprise me though since I got waitlisted at Barnard College too. Unlike the latter though, I don't intend on remaining on the waiting list, and hopefully someone who really does want to go to this school will get in. My hopes are with them.

I also received the official Duke letter, but of course that wasn't anything new.

In other news, politically, even though I haven't been voicing my opinion about it here, I've been quite upset at the resurgence of calls on Hillary to drop out of the race...

... which is why I was delighted to find these articles here, about Obama saying himself that Hillary should not drop out and Hillary standing her ground. The first article addresses the fact that there is no justified reason for Hillary to drop out and no provable claim that she is tearing apart the Democratic Party. She is only narrowly behind Obama, and honestly, it takes two to tango. As for the second article, the residents of the remaining states are indeed entitled to have their say, and no party bosses are going to stop Hillary from running her race!

I also found this article about love and literary taste, which I found rather interesting.

Love Me, Love Me Not

So by some slim chance, unless it was just being screwy, earlier as I was checking my e-mail I just happened to receive letters from a couple of schools.

STANFORD - Rejected, which was of course disappointing, but I was convinced that if I did happen to get in, it would surely be an act of God or something of that nature. I thought this bit of the letter was entertaining though:

"We know this is disappointing news to receive; for that reason, and to be environmentally conscious, you will not be sent a paper copy of this letter by mail unless you instruct us otherwise."

I admire their sensible concern for the environment (22,000 rejection letters and envelopes DOES mean a lot of dead trees), but as my brother put it, "You're not even worth a piece of paper."

BU - Accepted! But I didn't get the trustee's scholarship (which was a full-ride), and the amount I did get still renders the final cost at around $30,000 (not as bad, but still). So if there really aren't that many benefits, I might just go with...

BINGHAMTON - Accepted... but no special offers as of now. Still, at $18,000ish a year, it's still cheaper than BU, and in terms of education I don't think it will make so much of a difference.

Of course I'm still waiting on the Ivies and Bowdoin College, so that's four schools I've yet to hear from. So far I've been accepted to three, rejected from two, and waitlisted at one (not counting my ED at Penn). The way things are going though, I'm wondering if I'll really have any other options to choose from.

Rejected

So after five minutes of waiting for webpages to load, I found out that I got rejected from Duke.

That really doesn't surprise me since I sort of half-assed my application anyway, and that said, I'm really not disappointed at all. Of course it sucks to get rejected from anything, but I probably would have felt bad if I got in and made a waitlisted kid agonizingly wait another month. You know, because I know how that feels. Really.

Well, I think that's it until the 31st... and that's when all the things I really do care about start rolling in. Let's hope that there's at least some good news awaiting me.

I Hate Waitlists

Scholarship went out. Everything went smoothly.

Found out today though that I got waitlisted AGAIN.

Why shoot me in the heart when you can shoot me in the head?

Dammit... am I not good enough?

What the hell do they look for anyway?

Who the hell do they want?

Not me, obviously.

Not me.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter. Hope you're all having a nice day. I'm doing pretty well myself. I mean, I spent the whole day on the scholarship, but everything is going smoothly so that's good. I just need to burn the powerpoint and video onto CDs and DVDs respectively (this is the part I'm praying will work) and then I'll be ready to pull everything together for tomorrow.

So since that's rather boring, for entertainment purposes, here's a short conversation that occurred yesterday at work (my other workplace that is, not the lab):

[This is in the presence of my manager's six(ish)-year old, Ben, so things are being said in a playful tone.]

Coworker: Ben can't wait for the Easter Bunny to bring him eggs.

Manager's Husband: Wait a second. Bunnies don't lay eggs...

Coworker: They lay chocolate eggs.

Manager's Husband: Hah... don't try telling me that the stuff that comes out of there is chocolate.

Solving Problems

So I actually had a pretty good day today. No school first of all, which is always a major plus in my life. I went to work, but since nothing actually had to get done (just overhauling labs and making them super-clean), FatMan and I were pretty relaxed and were having fun with really random things we found (ex: balloons).

We also had an intern meeting, which went exceedingly well. All the problems a couple of the other interns and I addressed in a [really long] e-mail were all addressed at the meeting (in fact, she kept referring to a piece of paper with text on it), so hopefully the situation at the lab that's been driving me crazy the past few months will improve.

I also got some not-so-good news when I got home, but since I didn't really care about it, I'm not sure if it can really be classified as "not-so-good news" or if it should just be "news." Or since I knew what the outcome would be from the start, if it could even be called news at all. Anyway, what happened was that I found out about another science competition and of course I didn't win anything. But since it specifically said, "Do NOT attempt to create another means of treating a disease" and that's EXACTLY what I did, you can understand why I'm not disappointed in the least.

I'm also concentrating on a huge scholarship now (which I do care about), so I'm not letting anything bother me. I'm still writing essays, and I need to videotape myself speaking about my project for about 15 minutes, but hopefully I can be done before the weekend, pull it all together Saturday night and Sunday, and send it out Monday...

Then I can worry about the s***load of work that was assigned to me from school. Hooray.

Tuesdays and Testosterone

Well, life is sort of sucking right now. Today was a long day [as usual]. School sucked [as usual]. I especially didn't have a problem falling asleep in English and Biology today except it was apparently worse than usual since I left class not recalling anything we learned (though my best friend who was awake apparently couldn't recall anything either so maybe it wasn't me after all). Drivers Ed lecture REALLY sucked too, but that's also nothing new.

As for here at home, I've been cooped up in my room the past two days and three nights. I usually am anyway, but at least I can keep my door open and use my bathroom whenever I feel like it. Instead, my pseudo-clean room is beginning to smell like watermelon Trident again because I have the door closed all the time and my bladder has been stretched unnecessarily the past few days since the four boys all take showers at night. Yeah, with my father, brother, lack of mother, and them in my house (not to mention my other cousin who was here Sunday night, for a grand total of seven), I have been surrounded by WAY too much testosterone. Even this past Saturday, when I'm usually surrounded by girls, the fill-ins for my two coworkers were both guys (and my other friend came in late that day, making me the only girl in a room of guys, opposite of what it usually is), and yesterday while I was doing my homework in the science research room I was once again surrounded.

I feel bad, but they don't really speak English that well so I can't really talk to them. Anyway, they are leaving tomorrow, so I'll have the house to myself again soon enough. In fact, after tomorrow, break starts and I'll have a week to just catch up on sleep and other things. That doesn't mean I have less work to do (in fact I have a lot of projects to do over break... wait, what the hell?), but at least I don't have to worry about school or Drivers Ed or anything like that.

There's a long list of events coming up though, and I've already been talking to FatMan about which ones will have good results and which ones will have bad results. Don't worry though; I'll fill you all in on everything when the time comes.

Green with... Anger

Happy St. Patrick's Day. I'm not Irish but 96% of the population at school at least partially is so I wore green anyway.

Today sucked though (yeah, about yesterday's post, I think it's time for life to collect on its interest, to be paid in the currency of misery and pain...). School wasn't absolutely horrible, but work really was. Remember what I was saying in this post about my coworker messing up and how everyone who sets up for that lab now has to do an extra step? Well guess who got that job today. Yep, you bet. Yours truly.

I probably wasted time complaining about it but can you blame me? Here's a list of things that made it oh-so-much worse:

1 - Coworker X was originally assigned to this wretched lab, however, his name was crossed out and replaced with mine. I suppose I would have been less mad if he was actually sick, but no -

2 - Coworker X was just home doing school work... Honestly, he must be a hypochondriac if he's going around preaching about the joys of Senioritis when he CLEARLY doesn't have it.

3 - Since my fellow coworkers didn't tell anyone that they used up some materials, I didn't have buffer OR DNA to work with. Neither! Therefore I had to spend an hour diluting stock solutions myself... a whole bloody hour!

4 - They didn't make labels for the tubes either! So guess who had to go print more?

5 - Didn't help that the lab I was setting up for was left a mess by today's class.

6 - Yeah, this experiment takes a good amount of time to do. Luckily my supervisor offered to take care of it for me otherwise I might have been there until 6.

Seriously, this isn't even half of the problems I've been having lately, and it really has gone on too long and too far. I'm really going to have to do something about this if I want to keep my sanity.

Sweet Retribution?

I really hope that this weekend was just retribution for getting sick this past week and that there isn't bad news to come. Because this weekend was seriously the best time I've had in a while...

Recapping because I can. Grammar mode: OFF!

FRIDAY: Skipped out on own school event. Met up with a friend/coworker instead and hopped on the 7 train to Downtown where I met up with more friends/coworkers and watched some of them perform in their school musical thing that seriously blew my mind. I'm not going to lie; Stuyvesant High School's got some serious talent. Yeah, it wasn't Broadway or anything, but the whole idea doesn't cease to amaze me. Three student-written, student-run, student-performed musicals that double as a competition between grades? So jealous! Why can't I have school spirit like that? Centered around each other rather than a single football team... Oh yeah, their football team sucks. Oh wait, so does ours! ... Wanted to go out for dinner afterwards but it got too late. Trainride back with friends was nice though.

SATURDAY: Work, but work has been fun lately. Few friends not there but fill-ins were pretty cool. Got to eat the pan fried noodles I've been craving for a week. So good, so good. Went snack-shopping afterwards with a coworker and bought more seaweed, apple gummies, and a grass-jelly drink. Realized that I should have drank the drink with a straw when I couldn't get the bits of jelly out of the can. Sucking it out afterwards with a straw gave me a stomachache but I slept it off... for 10 or 11 hours.

SUNDAY: Work again. Kids in the morning were bad, but you can't complain when you're essentially getting paid to do nothing. (It's what test proctors do!) Went out with same coworker to go snack shopping again, but didn't buy as much. Bought just a box of Pocky and this weird orange seltzer drink that opens by pushing down on a marble. Entertained my coworker and me for about an hour. Nice weather. A little cold and rainy, but it almost feels like Spring!

Anyway, I ought to get to work. Nothing's due tomorrow, but tomorrow will be hell if I don't do something about it. Plus my cousin from Thailand who I've never met before is coming soon, so since that's exciting I'm probably going to be distracted. So off to work... smiling for the first time in ages.

Incompetency Strikes Again

So I just got this e-mail from my supervisor at work. Apparently, someone messed up yesterday when preparing the aliquots (little tubes of chemicals/reagents/enzymes/whatever), so today the lab didn't work at all. Therefore, my supervisor has proclaimed that from now on, we all need to make an extra set of aliquots and actually run the experiment ourselves.

Yeah, so... all I can say is WOW. Way to screw up everything for the rest of us. (After finding out who works on Tuesdays too, all I can do is roll my eyes.) Those experiments aren't two minute things either. They actually take TIME, time I don't usually have if I'm thoroughly overhauling the lab I'm working on (which, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't have to do as often if everyone just kept up the lab everyday like they're supposed to).

I'm not going to lie. I've messed up on aliquots for this lab myself, specifically by using a stronger buffer than what was called for. Yes, I've been called out for not reading things carefully enough (in this case I mistook the tube labeled [in size 6 font or so by the way] 5xR buffer for the correct tube of 2xR buffer). What I don't understand, however, is how this person mistook a [clear] tube of buffer for [colored] tubes of enzymes. Mixing up the two types of enzymes, I've seen it happen before and I've almost done it myself at times too. But who mixes up the buffer and the enzymes?

(I know by this point you're probably lost or wondering why this is such a big deal, but believe me. It definitely is more difficult to confuse the buffer with the enzymes than with anything else a person is dealing with when preparing for this lab.)

And while I know this doesn't even compare to the huge mistake that got ME in trouble a little over year ago** (which I still claim wasn't entirely my fault), which also happens to be inconsequential nowadays anyway, at least my mistake got us OUT of doing work and not into it. (Alas, it was at the expense of that poor kid, but he should be alright by now.) I know that's not something to be proud of, but it's true.

Anyway, the point is that this only reaffirms my belief that the quality of interns is really going downhill. I know I don't compare to the interns before me, but at least things weren't getting neglected back then like they are now.

I wonder if it would seem too obvious if I talked to them about quitting now. Imagine if they found this post too. Though the chance of it happening is one in infinity, it definitely would entertain me for some time if I actually got dooced or something of that sort.

**We used to have to put saline (salt) solution in tubes, the same type of tube that was also used to hold ethanol (smart, I know). After covering my coworker's ass (again), I happened to get the second round of leftover aliquots that this same coworker herself had gone through, and in a frenzy to finish on time I failed to notice that these four particular tubes of clear liquid were not labeled "Saline" like the others were. Turns out that it was ethanol (how they ended up in the same rack in the first place is beyond me), and the poor kid who discovered this had his mouthed burned. (Did I mention that his mother is a lawyer?) She didn't sue, but all the blame was pinned on me. From that point on, we no longer had to aliquot saline solution, but nowadays, since it was deemed unsafe for the instructors to be making saline solution out of the sodium chloride that sat with the other chemicals used in the lab, the lab orders saline solution as it is anyway.

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i (P-r-i-m-a-r-y)

I find it interesting how it's only 9:30, only 14% of the votes have been reported, yet Yahoo! is able to proclaim that "Obama coasts to victory in Mississippi primary." Projected winner, sure. "Coasts to victory?" On what grounds?

I also found this article interesting. Here's a few quotes:

"Mississippi voters were strongly polarized by race, the A.P. reported. That was even more than in most other states that voted this year. Seven in 10 whites voted for Mrs. Clinton, while 9 in 10 blacks voted for Mr. Obama."

MY TAKE: Wow. Can we please learn to rise above our races, people?

"One in five whites said race was important to their votes, and nearly all voted for Mrs. Clinton. Four in 10 blacks said race was important to their votes and nearly all voted for Mr. Obama."

MY TAKE: Same deal.

"Six in 10 Obama voters said he should pick Mrs. Clinton for vice president if he wins the nomination, while 4 in 10 Clinton voters said she should pick Mr. Obama as her running mate if she wins, the A.P. reported."

MY TAKE: You know what that says to me? To me, this implies that these voters either didn't find much of a difference between the two candidates and/or they based their decision on race. Since blacks have been overwhelmingly supporting Obama, I think the fact that 6 in 10 voters are willing to have Hillary as V.P. show that they do indeed support her... but they just like Obama more because he's black. As for the Clinton supporters here, I'm afraid that shows a bit of racism on their part, but anyone should know that they could never run on the same ticket. After all, they've been at each other's throat for months now.

I also thought this comment made by Geraldine Ferraro (1984 V.P. candidate) in defense of her first statement ("If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position, and if he was a woman of any color he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept") was amusing:

"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up,” Ms. Ferraro said. “Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?"

Aftermath

So apparently, Hillary still has less delegates than Obama, but the Clinton camp is still celebrating nonetheless because hey, she did what the whole bloody Democratic coalition told her she couldn't do and won Texas and Ohio anyway. Who's telling whom to drop out? She ain't done yet, misters!

Yeah so, now it's as much "momentum vs. math" as it was "experience vs. change." Clinton camp is celebrating their ability to persevere while Obama camp insists that Clinton camp didn't do anything significant and that the difference between delegates remains the same.

Do I smell a tinge of bitterness in their voices? Clinton may still be trailing by about 100 delegates (less than that actually), but she's the one pulling off the big wins that Obama can't seem to muster. Yes, that winning streak Obama had was notable, and he has won more states overall, but I wonder what the populations of those states were? If winning more states meant any more than the ability to win big states, then there would be a clear delegate lead. Indeed, Clinton's ability to carry the big states is a skill Obama doesn't seem to have... and they're jealous. Think she's "cherry-picking?" If I'm not mistaken, Obama has been concentrating most of his resources in the same places Clinton has. Hm, what now?

Anyway, ever since those SNL skits aired I feel like the media has backed off of Hillary, or at least they're being more critical of Obama. It's probably just in my head, and maybe it's just because this past week Obama has been caught in a rare instance of controversy (regarding his purported claim to the Canadians that his stance of NAFTA was only a political maneuver, as well as his connections to some sort of corrupt deal), but I do feel like the media is being fairer. Even though Obama still holds a delegate edge, he seems to have been pushed back on the defense which the media has picked up on. Despite all the reports about those urging her to drop out, journalists reported her wins with no reserve and no unjust criticism. I did read something about how the only reason Hillary seems to be criticized more is because there's more to criticize her about, which is true to an extent, but my argument to this is, "Yes, because pointing out things about her hair, her face, her tears are just things we notice as the years pass, right?"

Another thing I found interesting was the exit polls and which demographic voted for which candidate. It reminded me of what Tina Fey said that went something like, "And yet, women have come so far as feminists that they don't feel obligated to vote for candidate just because she's a woman. Women today feel perfectly free to make whatever choice Oprah tells them to." In fact, I found it interesting how white women were split among candidates, but how both black men and black women were skewed towards Obama. Hm... it makes me wonder.

Super Tuesday Replay!

Note: By the way, I fixed the link in my last post. My bad... It should lead you to the game now, if you still care of course.

Anyway, McCain obviously won so that's all I'm going to say about that. As for the Democrats, the race will certainly continue as Obama wins Vermont, while Hillary wins Rhode Island and [likely] Ohio. Texas is more or less fifty-fifty right now, but at this very moment Hillary appears to have a slight edge. Of course, this doesn't take into account that this is only the primary part of the primacaucus Texas holds, which should be noted.

Is it just me though or does this picture seem a little off?


Are those areas Obama won really worth that much? No wonder they need a primacaucus system. Those city areas REALLY overtake the rest of the state.

Hooray for Hillary though!

In other news, I found this article about binge drinking interesting.

Closing Doors

While procrastinating, I found a very interesting article about how people have the tendency to keep too many options open in life. This hit off on me immediately, but I think everyone should have a look at it him or herself as well.

Before you read, play this game first.

Then you may proceed to the article.

And don't cheat by doing it vice versa (like I did). It's probably [definitely] more enlightening if you don't know what's going on.

But anyway, I feel compelled to take these findings to heart. Even though I've always tried to be a well-rounded person for my own sake and in admiration of Benjamin Franklin (yes, I am a dork), I have previously realized myself that my life is really quite impractical in the scheme of things. I don't know how realistically I can force myself to concentrate on, oh let's say, writing, but maybe I should really try to give it a shot. I've complained and complained that everything I do never comes to fruition, and I even knew why, but I've never done anything about it before. So maybe, just maybe, I should take this as a sign and take charge of my life now, before it's too late.

I think I might buy this book, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Even though I still have to read Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason which I bought last week (and Voltaire's Candide which I decided on for my recently assigned research paper), I'm really quite curious about the content of Ariely's book.

Or maybe I'm just desperate for some serious enlightenment.