It was a truly heinous experience.

to quote E. my guts hate my guts, and are duking it out, which means uncontrollable retching. and i learned what the bananas and rice meant- its two out of the four things you're allowed to eat, if you can. i wonder why water isnt allowed... but anyway, this means i just have to do the same amount of stuff, but with less time. i would skip the Mathcounts practice, but everyone would be mad... i'm getting a little better, tho.

my sister plays music whenever she's home, so by the time i'm feeling well enough to do practice tests, i cant concentrate. i would ask her to turn it off, but its not like i'd understand them anyway.

weakest link, therefore, captain

because the captain spends the last five minutes making sure the answers are in the right form. And the smarter team members need the extra time to do the problems. since i dont know HOW to do the problems, i'm the captain. not exactly a compliment... but at least they're practical. They're not exactly mean, but it's so clear they're so much smarter than me that it's worse. The caffeine was not enough. But i have half a Vault and more coffee beans, which will last me thru my 5 hours of hw.

o, and Red Bull is weird. tangy, but ok. it may have made me more sick, all the caffeine, but i was pretty carsick anyway.

they practice 9-14 hours a week, all year. so its not my fault i'm not that smart? yea right. i'd say they have the wrong "Isabella," but i wouldnt wish this on Pretzel. i needed those 9 hours. for other things.

*gulp*

Somebody tell me it'll be ok if i fail the Nationals?

I have the practice tomarrow, in Exedor, and- i don't know if i can do this. it's not even the real thing, but it's with the coach and all- and they'll find out i'm fake, that i don't know what i'm doing, that i shouldn't be there. My only hope is to be so caffeinated i don't notice it all falling apart.

caffeine

just spent all the money i made babysitting on caffiene and other lovely junk- i think my parents will reimburse me for the toothbruth tho lol. Except i'll have to steal the money, because if they see the receipt, i'll have to explain the RedBull- my first. Saving it for mathcunts practice tomarrow- i think i'll need it. It "improves performance, especially during increased stress or strain" and "increases concentration and improves reaction time" all very good, i need any improvement i can get. Also bought a huge bag of coffee beans- nest week is the huge I-Search week, and i dont think sleep will be much of an option.

Quote of the day:
If you're dealing with someone who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them, you know perfectly well they wont give up. they'll get you in the end.
~~~~~~~~~~~
:edit: doing caffeine research: in Canada, Red Bull has this on its label-
"Cautions: Contains caffeine. Not recommended for children, caffeine sensitive persons or to be mixed with alcohol. Do not consume more than 500 ml per day."
Red Bull has 80 ml, but also lots of drugs that inhance that. However,
"Many people drink coffee for its ability to increase short term recall and increase IQ"

on the other hand, "caffeine poisoning" "mimics organic mental disorders, such as panic disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia"
now why is that? that could be part of my research.

meth and truth

"Methamphetamine:
-releases high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which stimulates brain cells
-damages brain cells that contain dopamine and serotonin, another neurotransmitter.
-over time, causes reduced levels of dopamine, which can result in symptoms of severe movement disorders."

conflicting information, which is confusing, because i'm studying (iin part) dopamine and serotonin. So at first, it makes more dopamine, but then causes lower levels. Too much dopamine appears to be a cause of schizophrenia (along with a lot of other things) So what does that have to do with movement and stimulation? Schizophrenics aren't usually maniac.

and serotonin: its levels are increased by antidepressents, serotonin gives you energy. so that makes sense that too little will cause movement disorders. maybe i should divert my topic to neurophysiology (study of the nervous system) and how that is affected by drugs in general. but i'm getting interested in the mental illness part, so i think i'll just keep going.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thought for the day: "Truth means trust. trusting someone to tell the truth."

Few More I-Search Thoughts

Yea, i really like my topic, and i think it's really interesting- i only wish i had more of the scientific background to really undertand it. The more i read, the more i see how bio and chem are really connected to it- sodium and potassium are mentioned over and over, and just the scientific concepts in general. I'm having fun- think my Of Mice and Men trial obsession, but on an even larger scale- but I think i'll want to come back to this later, after high school. It's too early for career choices, but neurophysiology (another field i didnt even mention before) is really cool.

There's this one thing that's bugging me, that i have to say, because it's about the mind AND about language. (yay for woosle, who's sparked my interest) there's this thing called potential, which i have like seven articles about (resting potential, electrical potential, postsyaptic potential) which is basically stored energy. (except action potential, which is actually being used) But the word potential doesnt register that with me, it doesnt seem scientific at all, especially if i use it to mean voltage. It takes me half a second every time to replace "potential" with "energy" and THEN i understand what they're saying. It's weird. I'm starting to get it, but the "magnitude propagating signal" stuff doesnt help.

for a while i was scared i was researching two parallel subjects: neural structure and biomedical psychiatry. but then i realized i need to know how the brain works to understand what the drugs do to it. Like, anti-depressents block the reuptake of serotonin. I wouldnt have understood reuptake at al if i didnt know about synapses... which are really cool. If you do the same synaptic process enough, these molecules start making random proteins and changing the whole structure of the receiver neutron. And THAT'S how you remember stuff, maybe. so how did that guy lose all his short-term memory? maybe something blocked the molecules from making proteins. It's cool, all the connections.
It also amazes me what they forgot to tell us about the brain in 6th grade science. I hd thought the brain was completely neurons... glial cells outnumber them 50 to 1! they do almost everything neurons do, and other stuff that keeps neurons working.
Also, they used to think neurons couldnt repair themselves, or make new ones, but now they can, and it'll change everything. of course, they found this out in 1999, so i need to find an up-to-date article, but this means our brain isnt a one-strike deal. and seeing what we do to our brains, drug-wise, that's not a bad thing... supposed medical drugs can hurt, too. side-effects, anyone?
speaking of drugs, cocaine makes you schizophrenic. seriously. they think schizoprenia is when you have too much dopamine, and cocaine blocks the process that gets rid of dopamine once it's done its job... so it does it over and over.

the Choking Game

do teens really not know that, if you strangle yourself for long enough, you will end up dead? That's why so many of these "accidents" look like suicide. Somehow this public service announcement should be totally unnecessary....

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Witholding from your body substances and conditions crucial to its survival, whatever the period of time, can and probably will cause bodily harm and/or death. This includes
•oxygen (at the proper level)
•water (at proper intervals)
•nutrients (at proper intervals)
•healthy body temperature

if you are not trying to risk your life or attempting suicide, it is inadvisable in the EXTREME to abstain from any of the above. (It is inadvisable to do this anyway, but at least this way you won't die when you dont want to.) All one needs is a few resources (the above) and your common sense, and the will to live. I would put that above, but it is redundant to say that you should keep your will to live if you want to live. Anyway, thanks for reading, and stay safe- unless you really do want to strangle yourself. Live free or die...

i'm going to be coming back to an I-Search and a lab report, but taking another day off will make it worse. *coughs violently* is some demon trying to make me hack up my soul? i could have saved it the trouble by telling it i dont have one. maybe that's why i'm obsessing over wings...




just the pictures makes studying neurology worth it.

my apocalypse is coming for me... at first it was vague and blurry, so i struggled to decide whether it was an angel or a gargoyle. But i realise my mistake: it is both. If it is going to come, let it come soon?

Semi-formal

my sister's sweet sixteen is semi-formal. NOW she tells me. an hour before. and i thought i had fifteen seconds. normally i dont care about things like that, but now i have to find something in my meagre wardrobe that wont embarass Her Diva-ness. i have a feeling this foofy skirt isn't semi-formal enough, but it's nice, and the shirt is semi-formal-esque. And its only for an hour. but i still thought i would be able to skip all this nonsense...
:edit:
well, turns out its spring already, which means Katy's friends were wearing the sort of thing we'll be wearing to 8th grade graduation. but it was cold, and it didnt really matter, and one other girl was wearing a (shorter) foofy skirt. But the weird part was just landing in a high school world for an hour. It was a two year age difference. I knew some of them- would have known a lot more if it was the freshmen- but i had really nothing to do. except take pictures. sometimes my sister would shake her head at me not to- she was... dancing with her boyfriend, and we dont want my dad to hate him. One girl i used to know pretty well was acting very weird... but my sister said there was only caffeine, no liquor. i'm not exactly a good test of the punch content, seeing i was feeling weird anyway. there were a few who werent dancing, which made me feel less weird, but i didnt know them, so it wasnt like it helped me much. it was probably a good thing i had to go home early. my sister was really nice to me- a bit too nice, pulled me over to dance with her more was needed- so it wasnt that bad.

life-death

wasnt well enough for school, but a bit better now. Not sure about softball...

I may take a leaf out of Rachel's book and do a post with some thinking in it. She's been writing about theists, atheists, and agnostics. Even if i'm not sure if there's a God or not, i do know there's good and evil, and, to some extent, "forces" of them. Not Star Wars forces... The thing is, some religions think life=good and death=bad. Seeing that death is simply another half of the world (in my opinion) like the yin-yang concept, why are people so sure that everything should be done to prevent it? Are people in "deathworld" doing everything possible to stop people from coming alive? Like, if there was reincarnation, but a step between death and the next life. A continuing circle of life and death. But anyway, i think people can make decisions without knowing if good and bad and divine power are personified or not. It makes sense that there could be some sort of power that made the world, but not a "father who art in heaven" I can't belong to a specific religion, because they're run by dogmatic, literal, old men who are afraid of death. Which means they're afraid of life. but that's for another day.

delirium

burning-freezing-both-dizzy-tired-headache-groan-ugggggg

anyone else have really weird dreams when they're sick?

Blinking in and fading out,
Consciousness is high in doubt.
Swimming in a sea of fog,
Sight gives out but not for long.
Waking in a drug-like daze
Darkness captured in your gaze.
Room is spinning, round and round-
Limp, weak body hits the ground.
(found it on xanga)

will probably be in school tomarrow tho. its my sister's sweet sixteen party then... but there's a softball clinic, and i have difficulties standing for more than ten seconds...

Nationals tests

well i'm making progress. I know the names of two of my teammates *inner groan* it feels so weird to call them that... i have to go take a Nationals practice test. At least i'll know what i need to know... even if i never end up knowing it.

my iSearch is neuroloy- i only decided it first period english. I was going to combine it with psychology, but i like to stay as far away from mind-crackers as possible- tho my mom was a child psychiatrist. Someday i need to burn her books- you look at them, and wonder how badly the children they were used on were damaged.

ummm time to take that test. I still dont feel well. And its a different sick than last week: evil sore throaght and being very cold and sometimes too warm. I slept for two hours when i came home. it was weird... great i still havent done zips. mabe i'll do the targets tomarrow...

bio

"The National Competition consists of three exciting segments: the Written Competition; the Fun Round, a high energy session consisting of questions developed from students’ bios and the Countdown Round, a fast-paced, one-on-one competition, where students go head to head and put their mathematical expertise to the test. The winner of this round takes home the title of MATCOUNTS National Champion."

Wow. now i actually need good answers for my bio. Someone tell me:

whom do i admire most and why?
if i could travel anywhere, where would it be and why?

but still: fun round? okkkk...

and now i will stop talking about matcounts. but if anyone has ideas about whom i admire the most... my sister says i should put herself.

SETI

I'm going to try to stop talking about Matcounts, because it doesnt help me and it would get even more annoying to read about than it was already. What else do i have to talk about... nothing really, i still have two social studies assignments, an ISearch to decide, and a skit to fix (we still havent gone) ages ago i wanted to do my iSearch on pro-ana, something weird i found on the internet. but it would get a me a ton of weird looks, so it will stay unmutilated by a childish paper. There's also the posibility i would be completely insulting the world by doing it, it's neurology or SETI.

flashback

"WE want trophies!"
what we said LAST year. when some kids were getting doubles and maybe triples. now i'd like to give mine back... except i dont HAVE it to give back. they didnt order the right ones. hmph.

*finds washington nationals buddy icon* not gonna use it tho... but anyway i have to poison the one of the Asian kids** so Pretzel can come! how to work that...

**i'm calling them the Asian kids because
-i dont rememeber their names (except one is David)
-i wouldnt be able to spell them anyway
-and i cant say the "rest of the team" because i dont feel like part of it.

somebody obviously graded the tests wrong

so i get up at 5:30 to be at RMS by seven. spend an hour or two focusing on both NOT being carsick and math problems. then we get there, sit around for 15 minutes, eat coffee beans, take the test (i SO need to learn how to read directions!) and have a break. after coffee (i wouldve thrown up if i had eaten) me and Pretzel went outside. Half an hour, we start walking back- and one of the alternates greets me with "Congratulations- you're going to the Nationals."

I'm like, haha very funny. He's like, no, i'm serious, you're fourth, Pretzel was fifth. I'm like, PLEASE tell me you're kidding. He's like, nope. I'm like PLEEEEEEZE. i walk up that stupid ramp, go inside, and there it is. I start majorly shaking, and i have to decide whether to do the Masters or not. I'm like, unless i change my mind, i'm NOT going too. Way too scary. and then Pretzel wouldnt have either, and then it would go to someone else. who would understand it. (not that Pretzel wouldnt have, but she didnt want to.) But i'm STILL freaking, and Hannah came with her mom to watch, and i go up to hannah and say, "tell me its ok if i dont do it!" being the helpful person she is, she says "its ok, you can do it!" excellent... i realize i would regret it forever if i didnt do it- like how i still regret messing up at the chapter countdown. with a celtic knot around my neck, i set out to do the Masters round.

i start to look at it and say, well it's chords- there was a formula somewhere bout that... but then i realize i dont need it. i just draw lines. (incorrectly, yes, but still.) then they talk about recursive formulas, which my SISTER just learned. wth? i dont get it. i skip it, go on to the one part i got right, the part i totally didnt understand, and the easy part- which i bombed. So i thought i understood it, and did an ok job explaining, but my answers sucked. so i didnt get a Masters trophy. who wants one?

the bad thing is, the top three- the rest of the team- are Asian boys who are waaaays smarter. and now i have to go to WEEKEND PRACTICES IN MANCHESTER to get ready for nationals. f***! i'm not that smart! Here my analogy: you have a box pins, with a picture of a needle on it, and you want needles. you assume that because the pins were in the needle box, they're needles. You test the one pin that happens to be sharp, and assume it's a needle. but then you try to use it as a needle- and it doesnt work. i cant do Nationals math! take Pretzel instead!

because, you see, we got the same score. but i got two easier problems where she got one harder one, so apparently that breaks the tie. Not that she wants to go either, but still. I feel like poisoning one of the boys so i can take her with me... me no wanna go!

Nostalgia, disiplinary limits

it would probly be more useful for me to read my math text than Ellegirl. especially since i'm not in thinking mode, after missing school so much. but i did spend a few seconds looking at the matcounts packet, and my old papers. how can i be such a nostalgic packrat over something i dislike? i suppose its just scary math, with good memories. there are even specific problems i remember... its weird. but i am going. i promised, remember? and i dont want to just stay home. PLUS, i remembered Savanah didnt place last year. and she's freakishly smart. she's TWO years above average (like, took Alg 2 H in 8th grade.)

my brother skipped dinner because he was mad at our dysfunctional family, so now he's not allowed to eat at all. I'm going on a hunger strike with him. And of course i'm not sneaking him food... but that's not really the point. i know he's been fighting with my parents a lot, but you dont stop them from eating. My dad says he *can* eat, but he has to at dinner. its crazy. not technically illegal, but crazy.

perseverence

Neither snow nor rain nor sickness nor gloom of night shall stay me from the swift completion of State Competition rounds.

although there actually is no offical motto for the US Postal Service. they just made that up in new york.

ehhhhhhh

Ugh. Sick again. I want to throw up. and then find a nice, dark hole to crawl into. And then maybe die there? but there be Matcounts. another good reason to crawl into a hole, but I did promise Pretzel I would make it there. such is my luck...

A while ago i posted about a differnt kind of illness- borderline. After reading a book that describes several examples, i have come to the conclusion that it is more serious than i thought, and i probly do not have it. I have many symptoms of many mental illnesses, but not enough to be actually crazy. Semi-sanity is weird...

Also on the illness subject, Blair is back. not that anyone remembers or was ever able to be involved, but i thought i'd mention it. its the last time i will do so.

Noise: my sister is blasting KISS fm on the living room stereo. It is unbearable even through the wall. Especially Toxic. But you know that song that starts with the maniac laugh? Feel Good Inc. i guess? The laugh is creepy-cool at full blast. but my ears hurt. and my brother was also playing our electric piano at top volume. randomly pummeling it. i am annoyed.

and my brothers were fighting over the piano. which leads to the bet: if James can go from Midnight to Midnight without fighting with Robbie, I will do one night of chores for him. It is obvious i will win. Not that i get anything out of it if I win. But im about to change that.

*coughs*

i'm sick. bleg. my sister as well. and it was her sweet sixteen on Sunday too. ah well....

quotes

I'm in the middled of making another blog, quotesland.blogspot.com I'm not going to do much with it, but i have tons of quotes from Alice in Wonderland that i wanted to type up, and i thought i might as well make a blog with it. It's not done at all. I was typing up the weirder quotes first, so they would be last on the list, but as is, they're the only ones there.

Xanga

my next featured site is www.xanga.com- now hear me out, there's a good reason: icons. there are so many, and they're really cool, and there are quote sites too.
(For anyone i havent told, or hasnt heard, xanga is a blogsite-like blogger- but its more about communities, if you want it to be, and its a lot cooler)
if you just go and use the search thing- well, i'm addicted to quotes and icons. and i am spreading the addiction. yeah, some people have weird blogs. but weird can be cool. and there's other stuff too.

Rhapsody

a random site i found, it has free music and stuff. basically you sign up with an e-mail address and get 25 songs a month. the easiest way to get around that is by giving it a fake address. you never need to go to your email and confirm it or anything. it's not like iTunes or anything. but its still free music.

sorry about the surveys that were here before. they were poorly edited. so now they're gone, because i'm too lazy to finish editing. i dont think anyone cares, anyhow.

male stupidity

not only do i have an unusually large s***load of hw, my brother stole my flashdrive. with all my controversy corrections on it. well it's his flashdrive, but i've been using it forever, and i need my report. so that's why i feel like swearing. he'll give it back eventually, but i'm mad. freakishly mad.

sweet sixteen, effort, marx

umm i dont really have anything to say. the chickens are still stupid, and i would rent more O.C. episodes- except i need to save my $ for my sister's sweet sixteen present. i always seem to have a lot of homework, but i never really fail anything- its surreal. i should have failed a long time ago, judging by the amount of effort i put into things. which means i probably shouldnt try to take a four-year latin thing in three years. but i need electives... ah well. ho hum. got out marx's book for school, not sure if im going to read it. i know, why would i, but its large print lol. and that makes it easier to read.