The Finite

Okay, I accept my nomination as the worst driver of the senior class. Recent events have… transpired. I’ll spare you most all of the details, but in my defense, the car does veer by itself due to poor tire alignment.

My fears are a little, just a little, allayed for the chem and psych exams on Tuesday. Today was the finals for each. 68/75 for psych and 64.25/75 for chem. But I still didn’t beat Junyong’s score. (P.S. I hate you.)

That leaves me freer focus on the physics test on Monday. I recently learned that I need to get fives on both AP Physics exams or they’re all for naught. I get no credit for fours. That ups the ante a little. Especially since on the practice exams, I got a four for mechanics and a two on electricity and magnetism.

I’ve also recently had problems with sleep. It’s all because of the damn sunlight. My house doesn’t have any drapes or curtains. So when the sun rises at about 5:36 AM, my closed white blinds illuminate the room with a cold blue glow. This, in combination with me being a light sleeper, makes it hard to study late. In fact I tried to go to sleep extra-early on Wednesday night (for the English Lit AP exam) at 8:30. I ended up sleeping only six hours, laying awake in bed from 3 AM to 5, when I decided to start sparknoting every novel I had read in preparation.

So if you remember my earlier post about my daily 6 PM mental crash, you can predict what happened since my day was time-shifted 3 hours. I crashed at 3 PM right in time for the physics review, which explains my worry-inducing behavior. Don’t worry, people. That’s normal. Usually happens everyday but no one ever sees it. I don’t think I’m not going completely uninsane.

I’ve remedied my window problem by putting some old cardboard over them to block out the light. I get a few extra minutes of sleep and the neighbors get treated to my seventh grade science project board.

Too early. That’s what kept people from coming. Of all the team members, Rushil and John Magz weren’t willing to show up at 6:45 AM to get in an ice cream van to Niles North for the Science Olympiad Regionals. The biggie. The Higgs.

Here I am, quietly reading about alternating current and men’s shoe size (not in that order), when all of a sudden a loud voice announces that I am the recipient of a medal. “WHAT THE HELL!?!”, I exclaim. As I awkwardly scramble over a metal handrail to the aisle to accept fifth place for Chemistry Lab, I think to myself, “Does this have anything to do with that teacher I saw Baker dangling over the second floor balcony?”

Minutes later, I’m finishing reading that same Wikipedia article about alternating current when I’m interrupted again. This time, it was second place for Rocks and Minerals. Pretty good for 17 guesses being “halite”. The trick is to pick the mineral sample that is the cheapest and most widely available to science teachers.

As you probably guessed, when the final team trophies were distributed, I was intently reading that same article, hoping for its magic to work again. Alas, no. We were but seventh, when sixth place and down gets to go to state. Oh well. At least most of the team won medals. And I’ve stumbled upon the secret to victory. I only need to print out that Wikipedia article and have every mathlete read it during awards.

The bad news they had for us was that there were no hotel rooms available at state because of that accursed Mathletes. Damn them and their state competition!