And the Time Magazine Person of the Year Is...

   ...Barack Obama.
   Seriously?
   I'm not a Mitt Romney fan. I'm not an Obama fan either. I respect him, though, as the president as the United States, as a father, as a man. But Person of the Year? Really?
   It's not so weird, until you consider number 2: Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old girl who was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for advocating education for women. Really? We have a teenage girl who was shot in the head for something she believes in, and we have a politician who has sat in an office for the past 4 years and somehow managed to get re-elected.
   Number 5 in Time Magazine's oh-so-reliable Person of the Year List was Fabiola Gianotti, a particle physicist in charge of the ATLAS experiment. She has a Ph.D. in sub-nuclear physics. Her thesis was on data analysis for the UA2 experiment. And here we have our dear Mr. President saying things like "America is no longer a Christian nation." (By the way, America was founded on Christian principles.)
   I'm not disrespecting our president. I don't love him. But I didn't really like any of the other candidates either. The thing that makes me mad here is Time Magazine. Liberalistic trash.
   Not that I'm overly conservative. I'm not. I consider myself Republican, but I'm not gonna go move out on a farm and hide out with my guns and my 100% straight family. (Interesting factoid: Most people in this world are actually bi, according to recent scientific studies.)
   I just wish they had selected their people of the year with a little less bias. Kinda makes me want to cancel my subscription.

50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind: Part 9

41. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today?
   My lonely great-grandma. My ex-boyfriend that I need to apologize to. My entire immediate family. The boy I've loved for a long time. My best friend Rachel. A woman who I offended sometime last year. A boy whose feelings I really hurt in the 4th grade. That day has stuck with me forever. I'd need to right the wrongs. But I'd also like to make more right the rights.

42. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
   This depends entirely on how long my life expectancy is. Will I live to 110? Then yes. Will I live to 60? Then no. Also, I think I'd like the fame AND the beauty, not just one.

43. What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
   I believe that truly living only comes once you know what you are living for. Until that point, you are just alive. I don't mean that your life is worthless until you are truly living. The period before you know what you are living for is a period of immense growth, as you try to find out what it is you are living for.

44. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
   For me, things are right when the reward outweighs the risk. I suppose sometimes I just get these intense gut feelings, but usually I only take calculated risks.

45. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
   I had to think about this one for a while. I think it is because experience is a very hard teacher-we get the test first and the lessons afterwards. We don't want to make a mistake because although we may learn from it, we still have to face whatever consequences we have inflicted upon ourselves.

Meh....

   I made it into the spring musical. As a chorus girl. In talking to my choir director the reason I didn't get a lead is because one of the shows falls at exactly the same time as districts for speech and debate. Which by the way I'm really good at. And it's going to bring me some serious scholarships in the future, so our director doesn't want to rob me of the opportunity to make it to state, and hopefully nationals.
   My event is called oratory. It's a ten minute persuasive speech following a pattern of "problem-cause-solution". I would post it, but someone might steal it. I've won several 3rd and 2nd places (no 1st yet) so evidently it's a decent speech.
   Yeah, I'm a little cocky. I'll admit it.
   IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS! I finished my Christmas shopping today. I am so excited!

I Haven't Blogged Since May...

...which is kind of insane. At any rate, I thouhgt it'd be a good time to start up again, since I need some sort of creative outlet. Most of the reason I haven't been around is because I worked all summer, and the beginning of this school year has been hard.
   Yeah. I'm a sophomore now. Moving my way up the ladder. I see a lot of freshmen, and I'm like, "Oh gosh. Is that what I was like?" It's frightening, really. There are these three freshmen boys in my Spanish class, and they're always trying to flirt with us girls, who are completely uninterested. It makes me laugh. They think they are so cool. But they're not. :)
   For the most part school is going well....I have A's in all my classes except AP U.S. History, which I have a B in, but it's a 4 point B. And Pre-Calc. I'm failing that.
   My teacher is AWFUL. He doesn't want to teach or help anyone with anything and he's always gone at dentist appointments or  conferences and so we end up with these awful substitutes that don't know the first thing about math.
   On the bright side, it's almost Christmas! I love Christmas. I'm doing all my shopping this weekend. It's just like me to put it all off until the 22nd. :)
   I've had a lot of guy dilemmas at the beginning of this year. My best friend James asked me out, and when I said no, he went all teenage girl on me about how I "don't appreciate him" and stuff like that. He's over it now though. Mostly.
   Another guy decided it was okay to be all "Oh I really really like you" and then go and tell me that we can't be together because his friends don't like me and he "can't betray his friends like that". Idiot.
   Mostly, I've decided to forget about guys until my 16th birthday. I mean, I'll still be friends with them, but that's all.
   And my 16th birthday is in February. So I can do it. :)

Memorial Day Weekend

I am very much in need of this three-day weekend.
For one, I have a bunch of missing assignments in science and geometry. Those need to get finished.
For another, it is supposed to be sunny (at least tomorrow and Sunday are) and my legs are PASTY! All this Oregon winter leaves you looking as white as paper. I need to get my tan back.
Should be a fun weekend. I'm getting ice cream tonight with my home-dogs, and tomorrow night I'm babysitting. Then Monday is Memorial day, and I'm having a barbecue with my family and some friends. Pretty exciting stuff. :)

School is Almost Over

   School is almost almost ALMOST over. And then....NO MORE FRESHMAN YEAR, EEVVVVEEERRRR!!!!!!!
   And then it will be summer. And I have a babysitting job this summer, which is AWESOME! I'll make money, but it's not gonna take up every spare moment I've got, so I still have time to hang with my friends and stuff.
   I'm trying to get all my grades up to A's before the year is over. I'm SO close....but I'm not there yet. Ugh. Math is killing me.
   I tokk my AP Human Geography Exam on Friday. It actually wasn't too hard. The multiple choice was pretty easy, and two of the essay questions were easy, but the last one was hard.
   Here's the link to the essay questions (they release them 48 hours after the test): http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap_frq_human_geo_2012.pdf
   Soon, we will be going to the beach and shopping and doing everything we want to do.
   Aaahhhh.
  

AP Human Geography

   I have my first ever AP test tomorrow. AP Human Geography. I am terrified and yet somewhat excited, for some odd reason.
   Wish me luck!

Yay!

   It is FINALLY the weekend. I'm so happy I could almost cry. It has been the longest week in the history of ever.
   That being said, it's been a pretty good week too. And the weekend is going to be phenomanal. Tonight I am going to watch T.V. to my heart's content, and I will sleep in tomorrow morning. Then tomorrow afternoon I am going shopping with Jasmine and Rachel, and then at night, I'm going to a dance. And guess who's gonna be there? BEN! And with the luck I've been having this week, everything will be perfect.
   Yay!

Space Junk

   If I weren't so bad at physics I would totally be an astrophysicist.
   See, I LOVE space and time and string theory and all that crazy junk. But I am terrible at math. And this poses a problem in physics, which, incidentally, is mostly math.
   I'm planning on going to nursing school after high school, since I love people and medicine and the science that they do is mosly chemistry, which I also love. But all those stars and planets and black holes and dark energy and dark matter....ah. It's enough to make you wish they were still sending people to the moon.
   I fell in love with space when I started watching Star Trek: Voyager with my brother. (This is the series that people claim isn't a real Star Trek because the captain is a woman. Total crap. She's amazing.) This love was reinforced when we had a brief astronomy unit in science last semester. And now I just read everything I can possible find on the subject because I LOVE it.
   Right now I'm trying to understand anti-matter. It really doesn'tmake much sense. I can't seem to wrap my head around the idea that it's not matter or space, and yet it still exists. But that's what makes it so cool.
   And then there's string theory. This is the theory that proposes that there is actually TEN dimensions. There's the three we know to be true (line, flat plane, and three-dimensional space), there's time, and then there's six more. CRAZY! The problem comes with proving their existence. But we can do it. We proved that the world was round when it was thought to be flat. We proved that the earth orbits around the sun. We've proved crazy, AMAZING things. We'll get this eventually.

Songs That Are Inspiring Me Right Now

   Due to the stupidity of my computer, I won't be posting the links for these songs like I usually do. Pathetic, I know.

"Payphone" by Maroon 5
   I am addicted to this song. I am addicted to Maroon 5. Seriously. Legitamitely. (Did I spell that right? I don't think so.)

"Diamonds" by Rob Thomas
   This is a beautiful song. And Rob Thomas has an amazing voice.

"Everybody's Fool" by Evanescance
   This song is an amazing portrayal of how people hide their emotions. Someone can appear perfectly happy to everyone else, but be dying inside. That's why there needs to be a mix of emotions.

"My Front Porch Looking In" by Lonestar
   This is one of the only songs written in the last decade that places value on the family. I personally hold my family very dear to me, and I love this song.

"What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction
   No, I am not a crazy over-the-top One Direction fan. But this is a really good song. I dance whenever it comes on. :)