It really has been quite a while since I last blogged! So much has accumulated since the last a month or so ago, so prepare yourself for a lengthy post. I'll start chronologically... First up is our Science Olympiad State Competition at the Michigan State University campus. The day was quite enjoyable, even though I was running from event to event with little to no break in between. Of course, though the day before had been beautiful and the next day was as well, the day of the event was not as nice. It wasn't raining or anything, but it would have been nice if the sun had peaked out of the cloud cover and it warmed up past 50 degrees. C'est la vie. In the end, we place one better than last year - 15th place. Because the sheet of scores was weirdly formatted, at first, my mom thought that we had placed 33rd, and we were all freaking out. Luckily, that was not the case. I don't think we could have lived such a bad rank down. In my individual events, I placed pretty well (teens to twenties) in Anatomy, Optics, Water Quality, and Chemistry Lab. I wasn't carrying the team, but I didn't drag it down, either. My one disappointment was that I only placed 30th in Sounds of Music, where we played the instruments we built from scratch. This is even after we practiced for tons of hours. Except for one mess up on my part during Hallelujah, I thought our songs were perfect, and our answers to the questions not too shabby. But apparently not. My parents tried to console me and said that it was the end of the day and the proctors of the event were stressed out, but I wasn't buying it. Other than that (and the disaster that was the Optics test), the day was great.
Next up on the calender was my AP tests, which I had two - AP Chemistry and AP Biology. These tests were quite daunting, seeing as the entire year of studying and stress culminated in this one moment, but after taking a few practice tests, I wasn't so stressed out. I even went in on a Saturday morning to take what was supposed to be the correct testing environment (but didn't turn out to be because of an ill-timed fire alarm that wasted 40 minutes of our time). So, unlike my friends, I wasn't completely freaking out on the morning of the test. The multiple choice section of the test wasn't that bad, though I didn't have enough time to check everything. But that is to be expected in the stressful environment of test day. Then I got to the free response. I opened to the first question, and didn't know how to do a certain question, and of course all the subsequent parts of that question were based on that one question. After hyperventilating a little, I wrote some random answer down, which hopefully was even partially correct. Similarly, in my second test a week later, biology, the multiple choice was a breeze, but then I got to the first question of the free response, and was thrown for a loop because that was the exact topic my teacher specifically said would not be on the test. Luckily, I had glanced at it while studying, and wasn't completely lost. I won't find out my score until July, but I hope those difficulties don't adversely affect my score. Until I get the results, I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.
The Thursday after my AP Biology exam, I joined the AP Literature class (of which I am not a part) and went to Stratford, Canada to see Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing. The drive there was a disaster; first the TVs stopped working and then our bus broke down for a minute or so on the highway. When we finally got to the Canadian border, I was surprised that it didn't take that long to get across. All they did was walk through the bus and check our passports, and then we were through. We ate lunch when we got there - fast food for my friends, packed lunch for me. Then we went to the actual location that the play was taking place. The theater itself was pretty cool looking, appearing almost like a crown. In the short time before the play started, we went into the gift shop, and I got a Stratford t-shirt and button that said "To be, or not to be." I even bumped into someone on accident, and they said sorry in a Canadian accent, which made my day. While I have some complaints about the handling of the trip, I have nothing bad to say about the play. Though I have already seen it on my trip out west a few years ago, this one was just as good, if not better. The chemistry between the actors who played Beatrice and Benedict was palpable, the insults and sexual innuendos hilarious. At one point some shirtless guy came out and started dancing with two women, which I am pretty sure was not in the adaptation I saw before. Once the play ended, the trouble started. Apparently whoever planned the trip didn't know that it was 3 hours long, and didn't plan out our trip accordingly, so we didn't actually get to go to downtown Stratford, which looked quite quaint from the bus windows. That was my only disappointment - we drove all the way to Canada and all we ate was fast food. Hopefully next year will be better.
I had a quick respite from my hectic schedule on my Dad's birthday, where we ate this very tasty lava cakes, but then it was homework and projects for the next two weekends. Last weekend (not memorial) I worked on my portfolio the entire time. The hardest part for me was choosing which pictures of Kingsley, my theme of the portfolio, to choose. He looks so cute in all of them! I narrowed it down to 50, and somehow, but cutting and putting pictures on both side of the dividers, I fit them all. This memorial weekend, I worked on my independent reading project, which was a book trailer on The Grapes of Wrath. This was especially tough on my since the weather was so beautiful. Luckily this torture will soon be over, and I will be free to do whatever. While on the topic of reading, in addition to The Grapes of Wrath, I have also read Jane Eyre and Lord of the Flies in this time interval. All three novels were quite interesting, and I would recommend them (if you can stand stuffy unfeeling people who can't pronounce their name as it looks *cough* St. John).
Lastly, just today, in AP Chem, we did an egg drop off the press box of our football field. Not only did mine look awesome and colorful, but it also survived one drop, and two chucks at the ground. Most were not so lucky...
