10. The internet broadens your mind, offering different perspectives and increasing tolerance.
-10. The internet narrows your focus, allowing you the opportunity to insulate yourself with those who agree with you.
9. The internet is a egalitarian, it gives a voice to the silent, the downtrodden, and the quietly insightful.
-9. The internet is unregulated, it gives a voice to the extremists, the petty, and the zealously hateful.
8. The internet opens channels of communication for those of us who, whether by virtue of location, time constraints, or social awkwardness, would not otherwise find them.
-8. The internet cloisters us in an autistic society, neglecting normal, human methods of interaction until they become shriveled from disuse.
7. The internet provides mass distribution of petitions, manifestos, research, opinions, facts, news stories, and information.
-7. The internet provides mass distribution of rumors, lies, hate speech, propaganda, and pornography.
6. The internet allows for the interactive consumption of previously passive forms of media, such as television and radio, giving the listener more choice and less advertising, more multi-tasking and more time to enjoy.
-6. The internet's encouragement of "info-snacking," taking in media in bite-sized (byte-sized?) chunks pushes us to ever shorter attention spans and an even more ADHD society.
5. Every minute spent on the internet is a minute not spent in front of the television, in a gang, on the streets, doing drugs, loitering, shoplifting, drinking, partying wildly, or burning books.
-5. Every minute spent on the internet is a minute not spent playing an instrument, doing homework, dancing, philosophizing, teaching, eating, or reading a book.
4. The internet is bringing political protest, voting, involvement in the democratic process, and news to an entirely new generation and in an entirely new way.
-4. The internet is substituting virtual involvement for community involvement, idle talking for action.
3. The internet is new, constantly evolving, increasingly credible, and gains more power every day.
-3. The internet is vast, almost unregulated, and gains more power every day.
2. The internet creates a place for all of us who don't exactly fit in where we are.
-2. The internet discourages us from assimilating normally into our situations and lives.
1. The internet is unstoppable.
-1. The internet is unstoppable.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Great Haircutting Experiment...
View my new haircut adventures on Flickr.
Before:
After:
Initial results, as of yesterday.
Discarded results, of yesterday.
(There's the address of Locks of Love, on the post-it. My mother won't want to send it, but nothing's persuasive like, as House would say, bald cancer kids.)
(This is me when I rolled out of bed this morning, brushed it twice, and took a picture. In other words, how it'll look every day.)
Initial appearance, Day 2.
No products used.
Preparation: Took a shower, duration of 5 minutes.
Materials: (1) bottle of curly shampoo that smelled vaguely of citrus
(1) bottle of something oily supposed to help with the hairdrying
(1) bottle of mother's hairspray
(1) straight brush
(1) round brush
(1) hairdryer
Result after 10-15 minutes with hairdryer and brushes.
Hairdryer temperature = hot. Hairdryer setting = low; or so it claimed.
Result after application of hairspray and weird gel-like substance.
Conclusion: I like it. <3
Before:
After:
Initial results, as of yesterday.
Discarded results, of yesterday.
(There's the address of Locks of Love, on the post-it. My mother won't want to send it, but nothing's persuasive like, as House would say, bald cancer kids.)
(This is me when I rolled out of bed this morning, brushed it twice, and took a picture. In other words, how it'll look every day.)
Initial appearance, Day 2.
No products used.
Preparation: Took a shower, duration of 5 minutes.
Materials: (1) bottle of curly shampoo that smelled vaguely of citrus
(1) bottle of something oily supposed to help with the hairdrying
(1) bottle of mother's hairspray
(1) straight brush
(1) round brush
(1) hairdryer
Result after 10-15 minutes with hairdryer and brushes.
Hairdryer temperature = hot. Hairdryer setting = low; or so it claimed.
Result after application of hairspray and weird gel-like substance.
Conclusion: I like it. <3
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Stand and Deliver.
AP Calc test is tomorrow; I've been eschewing the (multiple) study parties, review sessions, and morale-boosting pizza-movie nights, despite the tempting allure of extra credit (and, well, pizza), pleading that I learn best alone. And by alone, I mean hardcore alone: solitary confinement in my room, papers and notebooks strewn about, four hours of problems and throwing practice tests at the walls as my scores get successively lower.
"I study best alone," I tell people, when they invite me to such studying soirées. It's half a truth, at best. I have no idea how I learn most effectively; whether these cram-sessions make any difference; whether it's sitting in class talking about the upcoming Harry Potter movie that subconsciously deposits information; whether I should consider sleeping on my books and letting it osmosize into my brain.
(My sister commented, at this, that unless there's water and a semipermeable membrane involved, nothing can osmosize at all. If it's something else, I should say diffusion.
Well, osmosize isn't a word anyway, I retorted brilliantly. I may or may not have stuck out my tongue.)
Tonight, though, after staying home to study all day, my ability to learn and retain is reaching a limit even as time t approaches infinity; so I thought, why not? And thus I sauntered over to the Calc Tune-Up study session at Borders.
That's only half a truth, as well. I went because (1) I needed to give Louise flashcards and a practice book I had sitting around; (2) I needed to get from Ashley my notes; (3) I needed to purchase a physics book for this weekend's cram-fest--and for summer study, embarrassingly enough; and (4) I wanted Mr. Guzik to answer a couple questions I had regarding intractable problems on the practice test.
Here is how that went:
(1) Check.
(2) No check, she left them at home--she offered to swing by but I told her no biggie, I probably had studied as much as humanly possible anyway.
(3) Check. I had a choice between a thin one and a thick one. I took the thick one, because I am a masochist.
(4) No check. Haha, he had no idea either--well, that's unkind of me, he had no idea on two, he helped me on one, and I figured out the other while explaining to him what I didn't understand.
But that is sort of beside the point, anyway; that's only half the reason I went. I sort of...wanted to see. If I actually did learn best solo.
They told us, at Caltech (and at everywhere else) that the first thing you do, if you don't want to die, is form a study group. Find people, get together, and put your collective mind to work on those hellish problem sets the teachers apparently dish out so cheerfully. Sometimes there's one genius kid who can do it on their own, the Caltechers said, but for the rest of us mortals we need help. I know I'm not a genius, and I certainly won't be anything close to a genius there, so no fear of that anomaly.
This made me sort of afraid. I've done things in groups, before, but I almost never learn anything in a group. We accomplish tasks in groups, do paired projects, edit each others' essays, present lectures together, but we don't...learn together. Or at least I don't. Even when we go places to study together--I feel like I'm talking and explaining and nodding too much and not asking enough questions. I don't want to sound like an ass. I sure as heck don't know everything, and I'm sure I don't know everything better than those in my study groups. I'm just...academically assertive? Bossy, probably. Bossy like Hermione, but without the redeeming ability to remember esoteric facts about Hogwarts history at key moments.
So yeah, I went to this today. To see. It's not an ideal situation to test it out in, really--I'm in BC, everyone else there was in AB. (I took that last year; my test covers that material and some additional stuff). So there weren't really any peers to help me, although man could I have used the help. God, I started forgetting trigonometric identities. You know you're bad off...
Anyway. I went. And you know what? It might just work.
I went and pulled up a table in the little Borders coffee-section, sat smack in the middle of about 10 kids with whom I have only the barest acquaintance (my closer friends were at a farther table), and just sort of observed. And did some problems of course. And chimed in with a bit of help whenever they needed me (not often, though I offered).
What an odd collection we must have been! Odd and annoying, probably, as our noise got progressively noisier. Ten people, all talking over and around and with each other, in numbers. Snatches, half a problem here, half a problem there; cutting in with a "No no no, d/dx [lnu] is u' / u...;" hoots of triumph at reaching a solution; groans of despair at comparing answers and not matching; anxious, wry comments about the upcoming test.
Yeah, I learned something. No, it wasn't math (although I did figure out what I was doing wrong in a couple of cases; thanks, Mr. Guzik.). I figured out that with the right circumstances, a motivated and bright group of people, everybody bringing something to the table, free samples of apple pie, and a bloody lot of scratch paper, it could work. It could really work for me. God, it's too bad I didn't go last year, or too bad I'm not in AB this year, or too bad more kids don't take BC, or something.
(It's always something like that. I'm like the only one I know of taking physics, so that'll be a lonely party no matter what. For government, Louise and I did a rapid-fire back-and-forth Q-and-A over the computer, but you know--the internet, right there, so tempting...haha.)
But, in any case, it reassures me. A lot. College is going to be so much harder that this, and this is already so hard. I feel sometimes like nothing is done in class and the homework teaches me nothing and it's just me, really, and the material to be learned, and what's wrong with me that I can't just learn it? Sometimes. Well, calculus is like that sorta all the time because it is just me, in essence.
I don't mean to mope. I found out something important and heartening today and I'm happy. Even if I have an AP test tomorrow, haha.
* * *
42 points if you catch this entry's title reference.
"I study best alone," I tell people, when they invite me to such studying soirées. It's half a truth, at best. I have no idea how I learn most effectively; whether these cram-sessions make any difference; whether it's sitting in class talking about the upcoming Harry Potter movie that subconsciously deposits information; whether I should consider sleeping on my books and letting it osmosize into my brain.
(My sister commented, at this, that unless there's water and a semipermeable membrane involved, nothing can osmosize at all. If it's something else, I should say diffusion.
Well, osmosize isn't a word anyway, I retorted brilliantly. I may or may not have stuck out my tongue.)
Tonight, though, after staying home to study all day, my ability to learn and retain is reaching a limit even as time t approaches infinity; so I thought, why not? And thus I sauntered over to the Calc Tune-Up study session at Borders.
That's only half a truth, as well. I went because (1) I needed to give Louise flashcards and a practice book I had sitting around; (2) I needed to get from Ashley my notes; (3) I needed to purchase a physics book for this weekend's cram-fest--and for summer study, embarrassingly enough; and (4) I wanted Mr. Guzik to answer a couple questions I had regarding intractable problems on the practice test.
Here is how that went:
(1) Check.
(2) No check, she left them at home--she offered to swing by but I told her no biggie, I probably had studied as much as humanly possible anyway.
(3) Check. I had a choice between a thin one and a thick one. I took the thick one, because I am a masochist.
(4) No check. Haha, he had no idea either--well, that's unkind of me, he had no idea on two, he helped me on one, and I figured out the other while explaining to him what I didn't understand.
But that is sort of beside the point, anyway; that's only half the reason I went. I sort of...wanted to see. If I actually did learn best solo.
They told us, at Caltech (and at everywhere else) that the first thing you do, if you don't want to die, is form a study group. Find people, get together, and put your collective mind to work on those hellish problem sets the teachers apparently dish out so cheerfully. Sometimes there's one genius kid who can do it on their own, the Caltechers said, but for the rest of us mortals we need help. I know I'm not a genius, and I certainly won't be anything close to a genius there, so no fear of that anomaly.
This made me sort of afraid. I've done things in groups, before, but I almost never learn anything in a group. We accomplish tasks in groups, do paired projects, edit each others' essays, present lectures together, but we don't...learn together. Or at least I don't. Even when we go places to study together--I feel like I'm talking and explaining and nodding too much and not asking enough questions. I don't want to sound like an ass. I sure as heck don't know everything, and I'm sure I don't know everything better than those in my study groups. I'm just...academically assertive? Bossy, probably. Bossy like Hermione, but without the redeeming ability to remember esoteric facts about Hogwarts history at key moments.
So yeah, I went to this today. To see. It's not an ideal situation to test it out in, really--I'm in BC, everyone else there was in AB. (I took that last year; my test covers that material and some additional stuff). So there weren't really any peers to help me, although man could I have used the help. God, I started forgetting trigonometric identities. You know you're bad off...
Anyway. I went. And you know what? It might just work.
I went and pulled up a table in the little Borders coffee-section, sat smack in the middle of about 10 kids with whom I have only the barest acquaintance (my closer friends were at a farther table), and just sort of observed. And did some problems of course. And chimed in with a bit of help whenever they needed me (not often, though I offered).
What an odd collection we must have been! Odd and annoying, probably, as our noise got progressively noisier. Ten people, all talking over and around and with each other, in numbers. Snatches, half a problem here, half a problem there; cutting in with a "No no no, d/dx [lnu] is u' / u...;" hoots of triumph at reaching a solution; groans of despair at comparing answers and not matching; anxious, wry comments about the upcoming test.
Yeah, I learned something. No, it wasn't math (although I did figure out what I was doing wrong in a couple of cases; thanks, Mr. Guzik.). I figured out that with the right circumstances, a motivated and bright group of people, everybody bringing something to the table, free samples of apple pie, and a bloody lot of scratch paper, it could work. It could really work for me. God, it's too bad I didn't go last year, or too bad I'm not in AB this year, or too bad more kids don't take BC, or something.
(It's always something like that. I'm like the only one I know of taking physics, so that'll be a lonely party no matter what. For government, Louise and I did a rapid-fire back-and-forth Q-and-A over the computer, but you know--the internet, right there, so tempting...haha.)
But, in any case, it reassures me. A lot. College is going to be so much harder that this, and this is already so hard. I feel sometimes like nothing is done in class and the homework teaches me nothing and it's just me, really, and the material to be learned, and what's wrong with me that I can't just learn it? Sometimes. Well, calculus is like that sorta all the time because it is just me, in essence.
I don't mean to mope. I found out something important and heartening today and I'm happy. Even if I have an AP test tomorrow, haha.
* * *
42 points if you catch this entry's title reference.
Monday, May 07, 2007
si tu veux que ma joie revienne...
Olbermann is talking on the television six inches from my head. I can't make out the words but the sound is soothing.
I couldn't tell you what the first two AP tests were like, even if I weren't legally bound not to mention any specifics on the essays for several weeks, and not to mention ANYTHING about the multiple choice EVER. (That's the capslock of faint mocking, not the capslock of grave seriousness, btw. It might be self-evident but then it might not and my irony filters are completely closed for today. ) My brain is too fried to really remember.
I seared through the government test at speeds upwards of way too fast. Really, though, why did I bother studying about writs of mandamus and all the specifics of FDR's New Deal? When I finished the free response section with 40 minutes to spare I figured...well. Last night was a real waste, then.
Afterward, while waiting for everyone else to finish, me and Louise took the little white squares the seals came on (they make you seal the sections) and folded them into little flapping origami birds. Hers was, of course, quite perfect; mine had a wonky wing so it sort of limped along instead of flapping.
"It's a lame duck," proclaimed Louise, and I laughed more than is probably sane.
* * *
The French test was a nutella-and-cracker fueled marathon of listening and reading comprehension, essai-writing, and verb conjugations. Many completely stupid mistakes happened, some mine and some others', some that I can't divulge because they'd get me in trouble, others that I can't because they'd probably get my school in trouble.
Just kidding, AP board. Please don't invalidate my test. Totally just kidding.
I skated back and forth in my rolly-chair and craned my neck at the ceiling every time they told us to write our name and then look up. Childish, but one has to get through the time somehow. Then finally, after roughly 7 hours of AP testing (8 if you count breaks) they let us out of that freezing room into the burning sunlight and I hurried off to band practice.
ahh, I'm not going to miss this at all, dear high school.
I couldn't tell you what the first two AP tests were like, even if I weren't legally bound not to mention any specifics on the essays for several weeks, and not to mention ANYTHING about the multiple choice EVER. (That's the capslock of faint mocking, not the capslock of grave seriousness, btw. It might be self-evident but then it might not and my irony filters are completely closed for today. ) My brain is too fried to really remember.
I seared through the government test at speeds upwards of way too fast. Really, though, why did I bother studying about writs of mandamus and all the specifics of FDR's New Deal? When I finished the free response section with 40 minutes to spare I figured...well. Last night was a real waste, then.
Afterward, while waiting for everyone else to finish, me and Louise took the little white squares the seals came on (they make you seal the sections) and folded them into little flapping origami birds. Hers was, of course, quite perfect; mine had a wonky wing so it sort of limped along instead of flapping.
"It's a lame duck," proclaimed Louise, and I laughed more than is probably sane.
* * *
The French test was a nutella-and-cracker fueled marathon of listening and reading comprehension, essai-writing, and verb conjugations. Many completely stupid mistakes happened, some mine and some others', some that I can't divulge because they'd get me in trouble, others that I can't because they'd probably get my school in trouble.
Just kidding, AP board. Please don't invalidate my test. Totally just kidding.
I skated back and forth in my rolly-chair and craned my neck at the ceiling every time they told us to write our name and then look up. Childish, but one has to get through the time somehow. Then finally, after roughly 7 hours of AP testing (8 if you count breaks) they let us out of that freezing room into the burning sunlight and I hurried off to band practice.
ahh, I'm not going to miss this at all, dear high school.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Dead Week
Dead week for overachieving high school students, unlike college students, is not a well-defined week-long period of finals, but merely the nebulous roughly-two-week-long period which occurs in early May. It consists, of course, of AP tests, and studying for them; a costly pasttime which consists of much head-scratching and remarks like "I paid for this torture?" thus, preparing us all for college.
Myself, I have two tests on Monday, US Government and French, alors, j'ai beaucoup étudié le français aujourd'hui; aussi j'ai lu un article sur la course presidentialle française pour aider un peu avec le gouvernement...
Wednesday is Calculus; Thursday, Eng Lit; next Monday, Physics; that Thursday, Econ. The order is close to ideal, really, save that first marathon-day on Monday--seven hours of testing, three hours of band rehearsal, and nary a stop for meals in-between: but I can figure that one out, people are fairly understanding, really, if you phrase it nicely.
I really have nothing to say, I just needed to take a break for a while, but I find the motions of typing very soothing. I've gone from being one of those people who loves the sound of her own voice to one of those people who loves the sound of her own voice AND the pleasant clicky-clack of her laptop keyboard. Damn the backspace key, full speed ahead!
You'll pardon the rambling, I hope. Anything to keep me from trying to figure out Campaign Finance Reform. I have a hunch that might be an essay question, and I usually trust my hunches--I was right about the xylem and phloem question in 10th grade, after all.
I understand there's a new book out, by the way, about hunches and why they're good, Blink, or something? It was on Colbert.
Okay okay, I must go. I'm not sure when to use the subjonctif and I don't remember what Engel v. Vitale was and I feel like I need to review, er, integral calculus. HEAVENS, haha.
Myself, I have two tests on Monday, US Government and French, alors, j'ai beaucoup étudié le français aujourd'hui; aussi j'ai lu un article sur la course presidentialle française pour aider un peu avec le gouvernement...
Wednesday is Calculus; Thursday, Eng Lit; next Monday, Physics; that Thursday, Econ. The order is close to ideal, really, save that first marathon-day on Monday--seven hours of testing, three hours of band rehearsal, and nary a stop for meals in-between: but I can figure that one out, people are fairly understanding, really, if you phrase it nicely.
I really have nothing to say, I just needed to take a break for a while, but I find the motions of typing very soothing. I've gone from being one of those people who loves the sound of her own voice to one of those people who loves the sound of her own voice AND the pleasant clicky-clack of her laptop keyboard. Damn the backspace key, full speed ahead!
You'll pardon the rambling, I hope. Anything to keep me from trying to figure out Campaign Finance Reform. I have a hunch that might be an essay question, and I usually trust my hunches--I was right about the xylem and phloem question in 10th grade, after all.
I understand there's a new book out, by the way, about hunches and why they're good, Blink, or something? It was on Colbert.
Okay okay, I must go. I'm not sure when to use the subjonctif and I don't remember what Engel v. Vitale was and I feel like I need to review, er, integral calculus. HEAVENS, haha.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
15 minutes...14 minutes 59 seconds...
A story and a picture in the paper today, about me; I am pleased and only sort of embarrassed, haha. :)
Although I'm not sure what the proper response to "I saw you in the paper today!" is. Thank you? I suppose it's thank you. I was busy today trying to remember to make eye contact when shaking hands. And with denying people signatures on the newspapers which were suddenly everywhere. COME COME now, I can't become a Lockhart with my momentary fame.
Now, I must off to study: glowing newspaper articles aside, I am not some sort of genius that does not need to read over my notes before AP testing starts next week. :P
Although I'm not sure what the proper response to "I saw you in the paper today!" is. Thank you? I suppose it's thank you. I was busy today trying to remember to make eye contact when shaking hands. And with denying people signatures on the newspapers which were suddenly everywhere. COME COME now, I can't become a Lockhart with my momentary fame.
Now, I must off to study: glowing newspaper articles aside, I am not some sort of genius that does not need to read over my notes before AP testing starts next week. :P
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