A Leisurely Summer Should Be Done With Precaution...

Bad news guys: I think I might be contracting a case of Premature Senioritis!

Although I don't really know the depth of the feeling because I haven't started my senior year yet, I really feel lazy about everything. I approach every single project, work, or request with utter hesitance. I don't know if this is what it's supposed to feel like to be sixteen or if it's an extreme reaction/mechanism to stress about the upcoming Junior year, or what! Whatever it is, it's been getting me into a lot of trouble lately. For instance, I promised myself this summer to complete all my volunteer hours for a special college enrichment program I am in so that I wouldn't have to worry about it during the year. Now, I have been to the library this summer and I always left my house before going there with the intention of asking the librarians if they need any help with anything. However, each time I step through the doors, I run straight to the computers (or to the graphic novels section) and procrastinate all my time away, telling myself that it's okay for me to "take a break". That mantra has been what I've been living by since I finished one-fourth of the summer homework I was given from my future teacher.

It's strange how just a few weeks ago I was the anxiety-ridden, stressed out teenager I usually am. Yet when summer started, I just got all chill and crap. But everything feels great! I love not having to worry about how I'm going to finish an essay on the same night of a performance or a math final or anything else that is school related. I FEEL FREE! But I can't help feeling guilty because I know that in a few weeks, I will regret the freedom I have been giving myself because school starts NEXT MONTH and I haven't worked on much of my homework, like I said before. I know that everything will start to catch up with me and I can't bear to think about the consequences I'll suffer if I don't stop milling around...

Anyway, let's speak on the brighter side of the things I have done this summer:

I finished 3 books: The Crucible by Arthur Miller (school reading), The Giver by Lois Lowry, and Maus I & II by Art Speigleman.

To you avid book readers out there, this might not seem like much, but to me it's a lot. I don't usually spend a lot of time reading books because I never give myself time to do so. It feels really good and is especially self-gratifying when I finish a book because I am a scatterbrain (I've mentioned this before), so you know that I can't stick with one thing for a long time. Luckily, I forced myself to stick to one thing while reading these books and I realized that by doing so, I got a lot more out of than I usually do from most books.

Also, I want to say that my reading style is different. I'll pick up a book and power read the first few chapters and then put it down for a few days to ponder its significance and depth (or to just use the computer and play video games). Then I'll pick it back up and read non-stop for a while and repeat the aforementioned step. I am starting to get through most things that way...

Anyway, the books I read were really, really good. They were very thought-provoking, and inspiring. They made me think out some things and learn some things that I have never before imagined, thus I've obtained  a slightly different eye to the way some things are in my life. One message I got from The Giver was that sometimes things cannot be changed and some things that may seem bad to one person is really just for the better and it sucks to know that nothing can be done to make it better. That's really the plot of the story (didn't I tell you I was bad at extracting themes from literature?) but that's some of what I got from it.

What I also did over this summer was buy (and download) some new books! I've been really into classics lately so I bought some good books, such as The Scarlet Letter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (I'm not really looking forward to that last one).

I've downloaded some cool books such as: The Unsocial Socialist. This one has gotten some bad reviews, but I don't have much to say about the book yet because I have only read a few pages of it! However, I am not always the type of person who has a strong opinion about things-- which is why I will not join Debate Club at my school. I am an easily swayed  person too, but I think reading more has been shaping me into a person with a few opinions like I mentioned the books before.

I'll come back later to talk about the other books I downloaded. Thanks for reading!

A Thoughtful Quote of mine.

Albert Einstein was not "Albert Einstein" when he was born...

Finals Flashback

It's three in the morning right now but for some reason I felt I needed to post something else on this here blog for you all. I am supposed to be somewhere at nine in the morning. This shows you how crazy I am.

I scrolled through my posts and as I was scrolling, I realized that I never updated you on how I did on my finals! I shall do that soon but before I get to that, I want to "get some things straight":

I will never, EVER post about information about my actual grade markings in school. 

I might talk about how I get what I will perceive as a  bad score on an essay or a high score on a math test (I will the day that happens) but I cannot talk about any final grades I receive (as in semester grades or marking period grades) because I believe that piece of information to something for me to keep to myself-- like my name, number, address, blood type, etc. This "promise" to myself will be hard to follow though. I might occasionally have a few blurbs but please, I don't want things like this to be shared with people I am not that close to. Don't take it personally; you'd do the same thing if you were in my condition. Also, although this is a blog, I am not comfortable--nor do I have to--share every single detail of my life with you. Blogging is a form of journaling, but it isn't my very own journal.

I got this idea from another blogger on here. I am not going to say who because I think that I would have to ask permission to put their name out there. That doesn't make any sense because they are a blogger and there should be no reason why the wouldn't want their name "out there". Anyway, screw logic for now and just try to follow what I am saying. It's three-- four o' clock in the morning. 

Now for that update on how I think I did on my finals. 

Well, finals last semester were... serious. I don't mean that they weren't serious before, but I mean that I actually took them more seriously than I did last year. How and why did this happen, you ask? Well, this year (Sophomore Year) was the year my teacher became more serious about school and started to crack down on the laggers. I sometimes call this year the nitty-gritty year because it's the year where puppy dog eyes and lame excuses won't get you an A in your class (I've tried the puppy dog method numerous times on my teachers this year and it never worked) and the work you do actually does matter to the colleges. It is the year of developing GOOD HABITS and sticking with them or finding out which methods of going about things works for you. 

The finals my Sophomore Year were not challenging, but they were difficult to get through because they required a lot of previously acquired and absorbed knowledge in order to be worked through thoroughly. What I mean is that whatever we learned in class ended up on the Finals. The most annoying part about some of my finals were some of the questions had been about things that we had learned at the very beginning of the semester for about five minutes. The teachers inserted questions like those because they like to see children suffer sometimes. At least they aren't like the Collegeboard-- my teachers didn't insert any trick questions that they made up out of dust about a subject no one has ever learned about before. 

I had a bad habit this Sophomore Year. I never studied everyday. I always crammed the information into my head the night before the tests. I don't know if I have mentioned this before but I am a HUGE procrastinator, and I can't help it. Putting things off to side is just what I do. I can't help stopping my procrastination nor can help stop my extreme laziness. I like lying down all day and letting things pile up. It's not very often that I get to do that. So, with that, my habit of cramming most things the night before helped me but only barely. I liked how fresh the memory of information for my classes was in mind but doing such things makes me feel incomplete. 

So, I think I did well on my finals this year.I did do well on my finals this year although I crammed everything and even that wasn't enough. My grades averaged out from previous marking periods and they were so-so. Like I said before, I wasn't expecting much out of them, but knowing this little unsatisfied Taurean, I really was expecting more than I wasn't expecting. 

Just think of me thinking that I am going to get a 3.5GPA. Think of me being happy and satisfied with whatever grades I get. Now think of my getting a 3.89GPA. Now think of me being upset because this entire time, I had been really dreaming of a 4.0GPA. 

This is a hypothetical/pretending. The previous statement doesn't match my current condition with grades. 

A "Formal" Introduction

I have read this blog and realized that I have never "formally" introduced myself! I wrote some stuff in the 'About Me' section of this blog which you can find...

Here, is a bit of information about me. I added some stuff to the About Me section. Find the About Me section about me.

About Me

Hello, I am Anonymous Cow! This is a blog a write in my spare time. Its purpose is to help me with my writing in general because I plan on doing AMAZING THINGS WITH WRITING IN THE FUTURE such as becoming an author of (possibly) a memoir! *fingers crossed* Either way, I really just love to write and I think that this form of writing is a great way for me to express my passion. I also write other things, such as short stories, and novels (that have yet to be finished). I might post a link to my stories in the future. Keep an eye out on that. 

I myself am a normal teenager-- at least I hope I am-- and this blog will and is mostly about random stuff I find on the interwebz and charting my stressful journey on the road to college. If you haven't noticed already, I am very, very enthralled with the entire college process and I have very big plans for myself. I thought that it would be interesting to log this process somewhere and share it with people. So I really hope you enjoy my blog. Now, get to readin'!

*The intentions of this blog is for personal and mildly educational purpose only. It was created to harm or offend people physically or mentally.

Cell Phones and Youtube

So yesterday there was a verbal confrontation between these two guys on MUNI and one of them was obviously drunk (go figure). The two guys were shouting at each other and sending each other death threats and such. It escalated and when the bus stopped at their stop, the drunk guy, who was standing right next to my sister and I, bumrushed people through the aisle, --including a couple of kids-- while smacking a few people with his beer bottle and brown paper bag along the way allthewhile trying to catch up with the guy he was arguing with. They tumbled off the bus and fell to the ground, and the seemingly sober man pulled out his "weapon" and apparently hit the other guy with it, which caused him to bleed. Now, the people off the bus who witnessed this altercation instinctively pulled out their cellphones, however, they didn't do what one would assume should be the correct response. They instead recorded the fight and let the two guys beat each other to death, or what seemed like death. I thought that was strange. Also, my actions weren't just either, I just sat and let adrenaline pump through me as I watched, and not once thought about pulling out my phone to call 911. Eventually, the bus driver drove us away and called the police when we were about a block away. My sister and I talked about this, and she brought up an interesting point: why didn't anyone call the police once they saw what was happening? I know, that at least a few people did dial them up but when I saw so many phones pointed at the two men it made me wonder even more. Is this where our society is headed? Are we approaching the times where an emergency will be responded to by a bunch of commenters on a socializing website? Or was it the fact that humans always need a leader or someone to depend on that some people did not call 911? What I wrote is all a bunch of jumbled and perfectly justifiable.mess, I know. And I also know that I might be wrong about some things. But I wonder about these things.  What are your thoughts? Please be respectful.

Random Scrawlins From Davvy Jones' Locker

It's amazing how our world has become accostemed to using items that we would never think twice about because they have been with us for so long. But haven't you ever wondered where or how such a overlooked yet much needed item like the pencil came from? Or how it got its vibrant yellow color?

I am a scatterbrain; I admit it. But sometimes having so many unorganized thoughts actually pays off. I scrounge around the interwebs and find websites that talk about useless facts that I think are very entertaining. Here are some of the sites I look at while I am not stuffing my nose in between a book or making some random scriblings on my homework. I hope you enjoy them, I find some of the facts fascinating and sometimes daunting. Enjoy

didyouknowblog.com: Very interesting, tumblr format website.

snopes.com: My favorite website. It isn't necessarily about random facts but about proving (or disproving) rumors you may have heard in your life. *Warning: It's got pop-ups, but clicking the red "x" on the top left or right hand corner of your browser is worth it!

factmonster.com : I literally went on this website yesterday. It doesn't have many facts on the website but it is very interesting.

omg-facts.com: This is my second favorite website. I believe they gather their facts from users on the website and have other people (us) verify them by, "liking" them. They have a lot of stuff on there about WW2, which is also quite interesing... in a way.

Published: 1 July 2013

Edited: 2 July 2013