There and Back Again: A Hobbit's Tale
Wow. So much has happened since I last posted. So let's just start off with the good and juicy. So on Friday, the other smart kids and I left school before block 3 to go to the Science Olympiad State competition at West Point. So we rode on the bus for a while, like 2 or so hours or something. I helped Mike Chow master the finer qualities of circuits on the bus, while I unsuccessfully attempted to study some thermodynamics. Mike Chow was borrowing his sister's camera (in lieu of buying his own), and started taking pictures like a Chinese tourist fiend. Samascott told us a (quite possibly made-up) story about George Washington and the Revolutionary War and eyeglasses or something. I dunno. All I remember is that everyone was crying at the end of the story. (Not us, the people in the story). After a thoroughly long bus ride (on ridiculously uncomfortable seats), we arrived at the hotel we were staying at, dropped off our stuff, and headed to West Point.
Entering West Point was a cool thing. We had to take this mountain road that went alongside of a cliff. I think we were almost close to falling off the edge. Like three times. Then we had to pass through this security checkpoint to enter onto the campus. This security guy came on the bus and checked our driver's ID, and then we passed under this giant overhang thing and over this other device designed to restrict traffic flow. I think I might be easier to escape from Fox River State Penitentiary than get into that place. Shrug.
So we drove/walked around the campus to get to our building, and let me say, West Point has some amazing architecture. It's very castle-y feeling. There's all these ornamental windows, and LOTS of brick, some gargoyle things, massive wooden doors, a bridge, a turret, and even a PORTCULLIS?! (Fallgitter). After we got all settled into our room, we went over to the auditorium to hear what was probably the most boring and worst public speaker alive. But apparently he runs the whole state competition, so we have to be nice to him. Shrug. Afterward, we returned to the hotel. On the bus, Samascott gave us the "Follow Through" speech again, (Gavin DeGraw anyone?), and Mr. Victoria/(Mr. Alejandro if you're Mrs. Sherman) told us that he was on a soccer team. At the hotel we had some dinner (pizza), watched Deal or No Deal, and had a long studyfest of blood, fingerprints, chemicals, thermodynamics, and other such things.
A new day dawned, and with it came an alarm clock ringing at 5:30 in the morning and Mike Chow taking pictures of Ben and Conlon in bed together. And let me mention here, Conlon was not wearing pants :S. Good thing Ben brought his big con.. I mean sleaping bag. I'm sure you'll see the pictures soon, if you haven't seen them already. They're great. Perfect blackmail material...
Competition time dawned on the kids from Nisky, and we set out to do what we do best: Dominate. I had 4 straight events in a row (B/D days, anyone?). First was Forensics, next was Practical Problem Solving, next was Physics Lab, and finally I had Chem Lab. Afterward Mike Chow, Matt Law, and a select few underlings (whose names I have no idea how to spell, so I won't even attempt it) went to lunch, and then walked around the West Point grounds looking for tennis balls interesting vistas for Mike Chow to take pictures of to look at.
So blah, a couple hours passed by, and then we all went to watch Ben's tower in the auditorium. It broke.
A few more hours of faulenzen, and then came the awards ceremony. We medaled in five events: Designer Genes - (2nd), Disease Detectives - (5th), Forensics - (3rd, mine), Geocaching - (4th), and Practical Problem Solving - (3rd, mine). I think I did pretty well for a first-time States-goer. Two medals for me, both valid ones! Nisky came in 7th overall, which was good. At least we still beat Columbia (our Capital District regional rivals who we walloped (for the first time in 12 years) in February.
Then the long ride home to Nisky. Sherman read us all the other scores that weren't in the top five. Mike Chow stated captioning his more than 650 pictures, we watched some of The Office on my iPod, and then I rocked out to German songs/band music for the rest of the way home. It was sad to come back to Nisky, it's a pretty boring place. It was nice to be let out of the cage for a little while.
So then I get home, right. I'm there explaining my stellar medal-winning performances to my parents, when my dad turns the TV on. WHOA! WHO PUT THE LCD TV IN OUR HOUSE! I had almost forgotted. On Thursday night, Dad mentioned possibly getting one from BestBuy over the weekend; I guess he did. Anyways, it's really neat. And digital kabel is coming on Friday, just in time for PRISON BREAK! YAY! Mensch. I can also hook my computer up to it (DVI inputs, yeah), so I'll be having some fun with that this weekend. the USB charger kit I ordered also came this week, so I totally syched to build. I don't think I'll have any time during the week, but I'll attempt it on Friday I think.
Ok, now on to more recent news. So today in gym, I overheard an interesting conversation between two of our more diverse classmates. It went a little something like this:
Gorilla: I'm kind of getting sick of pillow polo.
Bartholomew: I don't. It's fun.
Gorilla: I can't wait to start playing badminton. That's really fun.
Bartholomew: Eh, I don't really like badminton that much.
Gorilla: You don't? C'mon man, you have to like badminton, have some pride in your nationality. You asians are always good at badminton...
So that's the daily quip from gym class. There never ceases to be something interesting. Oh and Joyce left today, which is sad, because I think he was really starting to warm up to us (aka pseudo-hit Mike Chow with a pillow polo thing)/we were getting to our climax of inside jokes at his expense. Oh well. Vorgang's new intern looks mean. We'll have to see.
Governomics was more boring stuff. We read two articles for pretty much the entire class. I ended up zoning out 1/3 the way through the second one. Eventually, it didn't really matter, since what we were doing never applies to the coursework anyway. Shrug.
Band was actually a BLAST today. How much do I love Neubet? THIS MUCH ::holds out hands:: What an intriguing human being. He definitely takes the cake when it comes to interesting stories (especially about Vaclav Nelhybel).
Hmm, afterschool we tried to take the math quiz we missed, but Monahan was either mad at us or being silly, because he told us to come take in tomorrow morning.
Oh and get this. This is crazy. So my dad's out of town at a business meeting or something, and guess where he went? WEST POINT!?! Yeah I know. Smells like conspiracy. So hence, the rest of the family went out to Friendly's (the quintessential dad's-out-of-town-so-let's-eat-out spot). And THAT was my weekend + today. I hope you enjoyed it. Now I better get doing some homework, considering I've been writing this thing for like the past hour. :S
Entering West Point was a cool thing. We had to take this mountain road that went alongside of a cliff. I think we were almost close to falling off the edge. Like three times. Then we had to pass through this security checkpoint to enter onto the campus. This security guy came on the bus and checked our driver's ID, and then we passed under this giant overhang thing and over this other device designed to restrict traffic flow. I think I might be easier to escape from Fox River State Penitentiary than get into that place. Shrug.
So we drove/walked around the campus to get to our building, and let me say, West Point has some amazing architecture. It's very castle-y feeling. There's all these ornamental windows, and LOTS of brick, some gargoyle things, massive wooden doors, a bridge, a turret, and even a PORTCULLIS?! (Fallgitter). After we got all settled into our room, we went over to the auditorium to hear what was probably the most boring and worst public speaker alive. But apparently he runs the whole state competition, so we have to be nice to him. Shrug. Afterward, we returned to the hotel. On the bus, Samascott gave us the "Follow Through" speech again, (Gavin DeGraw anyone?), and Mr. Victoria/(Mr. Alejandro if you're Mrs. Sherman) told us that he was on a soccer team. At the hotel we had some dinner (pizza), watched Deal or No Deal, and had a long studyfest of blood, fingerprints, chemicals, thermodynamics, and other such things.
A new day dawned, and with it came an alarm clock ringing at 5:30 in the morning and Mike Chow taking pictures of Ben and Conlon in bed together. And let me mention here, Conlon was not wearing pants :S. Good thing Ben brought his big con.. I mean sleaping bag. I'm sure you'll see the pictures soon, if you haven't seen them already. They're great. Perfect blackmail material...
Competition time dawned on the kids from Nisky, and we set out to do what we do best: Dominate. I had 4 straight events in a row (B/D days, anyone?). First was Forensics, next was Practical Problem Solving, next was Physics Lab, and finally I had Chem Lab. Afterward Mike Chow, Matt Law, and a select few underlings (whose names I have no idea how to spell, so I won't even attempt it) went to lunch, and then walked around the West Point grounds looking for tennis balls interesting vistas for Mike Chow to take pictures of to look at.
So blah, a couple hours passed by, and then we all went to watch Ben's tower in the auditorium. It broke.
A few more hours of faulenzen, and then came the awards ceremony. We medaled in five events: Designer Genes - (2nd), Disease Detectives - (5th), Forensics - (3rd, mine), Geocaching - (4th), and Practical Problem Solving - (3rd, mine). I think I did pretty well for a first-time States-goer. Two medals for me, both valid ones! Nisky came in 7th overall, which was good. At least we still beat Columbia (our Capital District regional rivals who we walloped (for the first time in 12 years) in February.
Then the long ride home to Nisky. Sherman read us all the other scores that weren't in the top five. Mike Chow stated captioning his more than 650 pictures, we watched some of The Office on my iPod, and then I rocked out to German songs/band music for the rest of the way home. It was sad to come back to Nisky, it's a pretty boring place. It was nice to be let out of the cage for a little while.
So then I get home, right. I'm there explaining my stellar medal-winning performances to my parents, when my dad turns the TV on. WHOA! WHO PUT THE LCD TV IN OUR HOUSE! I had almost forgotted. On Thursday night, Dad mentioned possibly getting one from BestBuy over the weekend; I guess he did. Anyways, it's really neat. And digital kabel is coming on Friday, just in time for PRISON BREAK! YAY! Mensch. I can also hook my computer up to it (DVI inputs, yeah), so I'll be having some fun with that this weekend. the USB charger kit I ordered also came this week, so I totally syched to build. I don't think I'll have any time during the week, but I'll attempt it on Friday I think.
Ok, now on to more recent news. So today in gym, I overheard an interesting conversation between two of our more diverse classmates. It went a little something like this:
Gorilla: I'm kind of getting sick of pillow polo.
Bartholomew: I don't. It's fun.
Gorilla: I can't wait to start playing badminton. That's really fun.
Bartholomew: Eh, I don't really like badminton that much.
Gorilla: You don't? C'mon man, you have to like badminton, have some pride in your nationality. You asians are always good at badminton...
So that's the daily quip from gym class. There never ceases to be something interesting. Oh and Joyce left today, which is sad, because I think he was really starting to warm up to us (aka pseudo-hit Mike Chow with a pillow polo thing)/we were getting to our climax of inside jokes at his expense. Oh well. Vorgang's new intern looks mean. We'll have to see.
Governomics was more boring stuff. We read two articles for pretty much the entire class. I ended up zoning out 1/3 the way through the second one. Eventually, it didn't really matter, since what we were doing never applies to the coursework anyway. Shrug.
Band was actually a BLAST today. How much do I love Neubet? THIS MUCH ::holds out hands:: What an intriguing human being. He definitely takes the cake when it comes to interesting stories (especially about Vaclav Nelhybel).
Hmm, afterschool we tried to take the math quiz we missed, but Monahan was either mad at us or being silly, because he told us to come take in tomorrow morning.
Oh and get this. This is crazy. So my dad's out of town at a business meeting or something, and guess where he went? WEST POINT!?! Yeah I know. Smells like conspiracy. So hence, the rest of the family went out to Friendly's (the quintessential dad's-out-of-town-so-let's-eat-out spot). And THAT was my weekend + today. I hope you enjoyed it. Now I better get doing some homework, considering I've been writing this thing for like the past hour. :S