Being Homeschooled

I'm realizing more and more how fortunate I am to be homeschooled. It's pretty school stuff.

Socially, homeschooling has advantages. Because there is so much interaction with students of all age groups, we have a broader spectrum of social interaction. My friend group is comprised of highschoolers of all grades (and even some junior highers too). In addition, I am pleased to say that I have many friends who happen to be ten or more years younger than me. Little kids, who other high schoolers might scoff at. Being in a particular "class" has less meaning. In addition to that, the way that homeschooling deals with socializing avoids many pitfalls that happen all the time in the public school system. From what I've heard, the majority of schools have a tier system. The "cool" kids. The kids who are friends with the cool kids. The nerds. And then there are the rejects, the kids who don't have any friends at all. For many highschoolers, school is a living nightmare. Yet I don't see that in homeschooling. Sure, there are the kids who are more shy, but I really don't know anyone who has no friends. I mean, I know they have to be somewhere. I just don't see them. Perhaps that means something.

Then there is the issue of such things as drugs and alcohol. I know that not every highschooler in public school drinks all the time or is addicted to every drug imaginable, but I know that it happens. In homeschooling, at least where I live, that it virtually impossible. Even private school suffers from this. I have one friend who goes to a private christian school. To quote her, "The only difference between my school and a public school is that there is maybe less drugs. Maybe". Call me sheltered to be happy that I don't have to deal with that stuff, but things like that only make me more glad that I am homeschooled.

You probably are aware that homeschoolers score significantly higher than either public schoolers or private schoolers on the ACT, and many other standardized tests. So obviously there is the educational advantage of being homeschooled. The education is often just a step above.

Now much of this is assuming that you are in a Homeschool Assistance Program, or HSAP. This takes care of many of the initial drawbacks of hoemschooling (not being around other students except for siblings, learning subjects that your parents aren't very good at, and participating in such things as drama or band that require a sizable amount of people).

Just because you are homeschooled does not guarantee that you necessarily will be socially nonawkward, or really smart. After all, much of that differs from person to person. But the thing is, in my (humble) opinion homeschooling offers a better environment for nurturing those traits then the public (or private) school system.

What Do I Want to Do When I Grow Up?

One of the most common questions children of all ages are asked is "what do you want to be when you grow up"? Over the years, I've had many different aspirations. I went from wanting to be a robot (don't judge), to an author, to a chemist (for most of my childhood wanting to be a chemist stood out compared to my other ideas). During junior high and early highschool, I was at a loss, just waiting for something amazing to come my way.
And it did, during the summer and for most of my junior year I developed a love for computers. I greatly enjoy using them, working with them, and programming for them. A degree in Computer Science just seemed to be natural, and that was exactly what I was planning on.

But then several days ago I watched these videos.

In case you are too lazy to watch them, those two videos are actually auto tuned songs of brilliant Theoretical Physicists, Biologists, Astronomers, and Scientists of all types talking about..... Sciencey things (Morgan Freeman might be an exception to "brilliant Scientist" , but he's cool enough that he counts anyway). As I do with every song I hear about Science, I listen to them over, and over, and over again. And quite honestly, it is inspiring listening to such geniuses as Stephen Hawkings and Richard Feynman, even if it is only a phrase or two. To stare into the faces of some of the greatest Scientific minds our world has ever known. So now I'm thinking about going to college for a degree in Science instead. Now I know that it is quite silly to want to drastically change the direction of your life just because of a song or two (Even if Morgan Freeman was in one), but there is more to it. What the songs have done really is just get me thinking. I think that though I love Computer Science, I might be capable of more. I've always been fairly adept at any Science courses I've taken (probably being married to Science had something to do with that), and I must say that I enjoy it. I'm even starting to feel like my eight year old Chemistry-obsessed self again.

Now if I do end up studying Science, what would be my plans? Well, I would like to aim for the highest form of education possible: a PhD. Yeah, I know that it is a bit of a ridiculous plan to go to college with the sole intention of getting a doctorate. I mean, PhD's are by no means easy to obtain, or cheap to pay for the schooling either. For all I know, I might end up failing every Science course I take once I get into college. But nonetheless, I feel like it would be something worth working for. At least attempting anyway.

Now if that doesn't sound even the least bit naive, what about having no idea which field I actually want to go into? Well, having no idea isn't exactly true. Both Physics and Chemistry look to be viable options. There is one interesting thing if I chose Physics though. My grandfather actually was a Scientist, and he received his PhD in Physics. My dad meanwhile ended up getting a Master's in Physics. So if I got at least a Master's in Physics, that would be three generations of Sawatzky's doing so. Though that fact holds little weight regarding which field I will eventually choose, it would be kind of cool.

The thing is, I'm kind of indecisive right now. Do I really want to give up coding as a career (though I would probably at least keep it as a hobby)? Would I be able to pay for all of the schooling it would take to receive a doctorate? Am I capable? And if I am indeed capable, would I be able to stay focused? This really is a very big decision, and I will for sure be giving it a lot more thought. After some more Skyrim, anyway.

My Attempt At An E. E. Cummings-Like Poem

I hate love E. E. Cummings a lot. I think he is despicable and a pathetic excuse for a poet really cool. I even wrote a brief little poem which serves to mockingly illustrate how awful his poems were celebrate how neat he was. Enjoy.


The
      startling
                  appearance
                                    of
                                       my
                                            friend
                                                     Fred,
destroyed
               my
                    previous
                                 conclusion
                                                 that
                                                       he
                                                          was
                                                                dead.
Perhaps
             if
               he
                   had
                         given
                                 me
                                     more
                                             chocolate
                                                            sauce,
it
  would
            have
                   seemed
                               less
                                     of
                                        a
                                          loss.

Why Do We Allow Words To Lose Meaning?

You've probably been scolded once or twice when you used the word "hate" in a scenario where you could have simply used "dislike". "Hate is a strong word" those people would say, and I was one of them, trying to hold on to the meaning which came with that word. Sadly, that is actually incorrect. "Hate" is no longer a strong word. Each time we used it improperly, it became a little more mellow, until, no matter what the dictionary might tell you, it devolved into a synonym for "dislike".  So now when we come into situations where we need to profess a strong detestment of something, we have to scrounge around for other words, if we can find them at all.

I think that part of it is that as a society, we want to use strong words all the time in normal conversation. Take "hell". It has taken the place of a swear word, or we use it as a comparison to things we don't like very much. But truly, when we think about the word and all that in entails, those things are nothing like eternal damnation in writhing agony. The one time that I can understand the use of the word is when it describes war. And not by someone like me, but someone who actually experienced war as a soldier on the front lines. Someone who actually knows about the horrors of war first hand. Those people can say "war is hell", and they are not swearing or making the word lose meaning. But really, even in this situation, hell is much more awful than anything we can experience here on Earth, even if war is the closest thing.

But what about other words that we in America use on a regular basis, such as human feces? Honestly, especially for us teenagers, is there truly ANYTHING in our lives which happens to us personally which bring to mind the disgustingness and sheer primitiveness of human feces? If you answer yes, unless you have a very good explanation, you probably aren't being honest with yourself. And even if you are, I doubt that such things are so common that they happen everyday that they warrant the use of such words. Truly, the vast majority of us live pretty cushy lives here in America, even in the good times. We honestly are not worthy to use words which hold a certain rawness that we have never experienced.

Negative words are not the only ones that can lose meaning though. What about positive words? Consider the word "awesome". I myself use it quite regularly, but I've heard of people who refuse to use the word "awesome" unless they are referring to something which truly is worthy of our awe, such as God. I know that it is these days merely the equivalent of "especially cool", but what if instead it was reserved, or set aside for our creator? Wouldn't "Our God Is An Awesome God" hold so much more meaning if we weren't referring to someone who is just pretty cool, but instead the One who is worthy of our praise?

Sincerity

Sincerity. It's not something we think about a lot, but it is in my opinion one of the most important virtues that is often overlooked.

The bane of sincerity is doubt, both purposely deceitful and otherwise. I will begin with the non deceitful variety. Let's consider a somewhat competitive activity which requires a good deal of skill, such as Mock Trial. Say that I do absolutely horrible on a cross examination. I completely flubbed it up. How do I know that I for sure did a mediocre job? If immediately afterwards my team mates say "good job". Don't get me wrong, compliments are great. But if you know for a fact that you didn't do very well, and you hear a "good job", that only further cements in the despair. This is where doubt comes in. How can you ever really know for sure if a compliment is sincere? Someone might just be saying that to make you feel better. A nice thought, sure, but in affect it only serves to do the opposite of the intent.

When you think about it, how many of the compliments we give are actually truly sincere? When someone asks you what you think of something, you almost never just say "terrible", even if it truly is terrible. Oh sure, we might give some constructive criticism, but it almost always ends up being "it's good but....". The word "good" is still in there. It just seems that the word has so little meaning now. Of course, the alternative would often just lead to meaningless nonconstructive criticism, which one could argue is much worse. I guess the point is that we should take care that, when we compliment someone for something amazing, to make it stand out. Not necessarily by using tons of words such as "awesome" and "amazing", although they can be good, but to actually describe why we think something is cool. That way it is easier to discern insincere comments from the sincere.

What about doubt with purposeful deceit present? Google something like "fake lottery prize winners" and you'll see numerous videos show up of people screaming in joy, only later to find out that it wasn't real. See, practical jokes in general, though they can be funny at times, bring unnecessary doubt into our lives. You ever heard the saying "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"? Of course you have. In fact, you would probably be pretty weary of something like someone winning a lottery ticket just like that too. It's because we've been conditioned to doubt the improbable, so that we don't end up looking silly when it proves to be fake later. In a way this is very good: it keeps us all from being too gullible, and we avoid a lot of embarrassment. But imagine, wouldn't it be great if we could trust EVERYTHING that our friends say? I'm not even including complete strangers or acquaintances here, I mean close friends. We wouldn't have to worry if we were being the focus of some sort of joke. Relationships with friends would go to a whole new level.

To close, here is a quote from David Foster Wallace. I have no idea who the guy is, but it is a good quote.

“An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.”

There Is No Such Thing as "Just A Game"

I was recently talking with a friend of mine on Facebook chat, and knowing that we both played Minecraft he suggested that we should go grief a random server. In case you are unfamiliar with the term, to grief on the internet means to annoy or aggravate others for no reason besides one's personal pleasure. Think of this as internet terrorism, causing as much mayhem as possible. For Minecraft, this often means to go to a server and destroy as many creations made by other players as possible, thus eliminating all the hard work they put into the building. As you might expect, I have more than a few problems with griefing. But what was especially surprising was that this good Christian friend of mine had no problems with it whatsoever. In fact, he found it funny. Now to be precise, to the best of my knowledge he hasn't actually griefed anyone. Although if I had agreed to do so with him, then he would have surely had went ahead and griefed without hesitation. (Dear Friend, if you ever happen to read this, which is unlikely. No hard feelings for mentioning you in my blog? At least I didn't say your name...)

Now what sort of excuse did my friend offer to why he saw no problems with griefing on Minecraft? That it was only a game. Now this is what I have my main problem with, and what I will direct the attention of this post to. Imagine that a young child built a sandcastle on a beach. He had spent the entire duration of his stay at the beach working on the castle, and the hours of hard work resulted in a magnificent castle. But then I came along and kicked it down just because I felt like it. There would be a public outrage all among the beach, and I would have been thought of as a completely despicable person. How can you get lower than that? Now imagine that the same child signed in on a Minecraft server and again spent quite a few hours building a detailed castle. Then I come along and destroy it. Now some people on the server would get mad at me, any admins would for sure ban me. But some people would find it funny. Now I ask you, what difference is there between these two examples? Absolutely none.

To those of you who kind of dozed off the second I mentioned "Minecraft" (*cough*Abby*cough*), don't worry, this stuff affects you too. Think about the internet, truly a wonderful and fantastic place (I should know, I live here). The thing is, it is almost entirely devoid of responsibility or real consequences. But as I showed in my last example (is it okay if I keep mention the sandcastle example? I'm sort of proud of it), the virtual world isn't all that different from this supposed "real one". It is never "just a game" or "just the internet". It's true, you can get away with a lot of things on the internet. But just because there isn't always immediate consequences doesn't mean that it isn't wrong. Being on the internet doesn't give anyone an excuse to swear, spam, or generally be immature. Many people would disagree with me on this point, though.

I did a bit of research on this topic just for fun, and I noticed something. The griefer movement does in fact exist, and it isn't entirely made up of 12 year olds being immature just for the sake of being immature. Look at this, a youtube channel devoted to making Minecraft griefing videos. They have over 118,000 subscribers, and their videos have only slight margin more dislikes than you would expect of a popular youtube channel, which was quite depressing. Right on their channel page they wrote this: "We like to make people angry in games. It's hilarious, trust me". Why in the world is it that we the internet, as a community, are showing support to a channel such as this?

To go back to my main point, it is never "just a game". Who we are on the internet or in any online game is a reflection of who were are in "real life". A bully on the internet is a bully in real life, period. We shouldn't adjust our character or moral values just depending on what sort of situation we are in.

Iowa Mock Trial State Competition 2012 Part 2

It's been almost two weeks since State, and I've had some to think about the entire Mock Trial experience. Really, each year Mock Trial affects me deeply. I seriously don't know what my personality and character would be like without it. Even though I know technically we still have a celebration party, in truth Mock Trial is done for this year. And that is depressing. But that doesn't take away from how it all affected me.

One of the more infamous parts of this year was the "um bell". Basically, whenever someone said any filler word like "um" or "uh", someone else would ring the um bell. The point of it all being that if everyone was made aware of their frequent "ums", they would be able to control them in the future. Even though I personally haven't ever had a problem with saying "um" (trust me, I have more than enough other problems to compensate), I, along with the rest of my team, are extremely conscience of whenever anyone says "um", even if it be a family member of friend, and it be in an informal situation. An "um" cannot be said without warning bells going off in my head.

Another thing that Mock Trial helped me with: being able to calmly, confidently, and intelligently talk on the fly (such as ad libbing some questions or answering an unexpected objection). I've never had problems with public speaking, but I think we can all agree that thinking quickly in high pressure situations is not the sort of thing that comes naturally. After Mock Trial, any sort of off-the-cuff speaking seems easy in comparison.

And of course, the thing I love about Mock Trial the most is friends. I only got to really know some of my closer friends because of Mock Trial, and each year I get the opportunity to become friends with more and more people. What I've learned about my current group of friends is this: no matter what we do together, it is guaranteed to be enjoyable. So even in the most boring times, just being around everyone was all that I could ask for.

Iowa Mock Trial State Competition 2012 Part 1

Well, I just got back from the Mock Trial State competition in Des Moines yesterday. It was quite truly a wonderful experience.

It was different from last year in a lot of ways, though. First of all, we were much better prepared and thus we actually did fairly well. Sebastian and Cole both got astounding witness awards, and Ryan got an astounding attorney award. In addition, the other team got seventh place over all and an award for being civil and sportsmanlike. Out of all the schools that competed this year, Marion was one of the most decorated, if not THE most decorated (in terms of number of awards, anyway). Compare this with last year, where didn't get a single award and where we didn't actually win a single round. Some of this came from putting a lot more work into Mock Trial, and some of it came from a fundamental change in coaching philosophy. The point is, Mock Trial was the life of everyone on the team.

So the first round at State was an extremely close match against Harlan. We did Government, which was our stronger side. In many ways it was a good easing into the unfamiliar territory of State. Nervousness began to fade and everyone on our two teams were pumped up for the next day. Back at the hotel, both teams had team meetings where we "talked about our feelings", after which we all went straight to bed (more or less, anyway). I luckily was in the same room as Gabe, who is pretty much the most mature person on either team. So unlike a few of the other more crowded rooms, we managed to get quite a bit of sleep.

Day two brought forth two more trials. In the second round we were matched against Urbandale, which just so happened to be the second best team in the state. Suffice to say that we lost, but I'm happy to say not too badly. For some reason, when we were against the best team we had ever faced, I think we ourselves did the very best that we had ever done. By the third round we were all exhausted after a long day of trial, but we managed to pick up another win against Wappello (which by the way won third place at State last year).

Now the thing about going to State is never about winning, because our skill isn't at that caliber yet. Instead, it's about the experience. Both in knowledge gained from competing against strong teams, and the great fun that comes with hanging out with friends. The thing is, due to the fact that some of my favorite people in the world being on my team, good times are guaranteed. In fact, virtually any time spent with these people almost always becomes a treasured memory. I mean, let's look at all of the reminiscing throughout this year I've had about last year's team. And I wasn't nearly as close to everyone as I am now! Here's hoping that the team from Marion Homeschool (or Highschool, if you want to be politically correct) will be just as good next year! And why don't we have another sentence with an exclamation point! Because exclamation points are cool! Seriously, I can't stop! Please help me!

Not Excluding New Friends

Currently, I'm fairly close with my group of friends. Not close as is in talking about personal problems (not for me, anyway. Perhaps one of these days?), or stopping from being awkward, but enough that if we are doing something I'm probably going to be invited. I don't have to worry about feeling "left out" or things like that. But I've beginning to wonder lately, have I been extending the same luxury to people I'm not as close to. If I'm starting to feel restricted to not let people into my "group of friends" who aren't in there already. If perhaps I should start inviting people to hang out with the "gang" even if I'm not best friends with them already.

Don't get me wrong, there is a BIG difference between thinking "that person is alone all the time. I should try to do this for them because they are an obviously miserable person that I should pity" and "I should be careful to not leave this super special awesome person from all this fun". Basically, any pity in this situation sort of ruins it. But still, it's kind of a big deal to try to extend beyond a defined group of "friends" to perhaps some other people who have been somewhat excluded. Okay, many of my "close" friends are in Mock Trial, and often we will get together during times convenient to Mock Trial, such as before. But for an example, let's take Cole. He's a pretty cool guy to hang around with, and he's on our Mock Trial team. But with the exception of today, we haven't really thought to ask him to hang out. Why not? I have no excuse. And what about Steven? The only time we really hanged around with him was when he tagged along with us to McDonalds to work on Mock Trial with Mark. But I can't give you a reason for why we don't do that more often.

I'm not so presumptuous to think that I am the only option some people have for social opportunities. All I know is that I should do my best to be the sort of person who reaches out to others. You know, a friendly person. Oh wait, that might be going too far. Does that mean I have to be optimistic too? Nice? Polite? Gah, I can't stand the thought.

I think back to when I was younger, such as ninth grade. I craved socializing with friends, and I would have snapped up opportunities such as these without hesitation. And yet I really didn't "hang" around with people much, just for the point of hanging out. Why? Because I hadn't gotten to know people at Marion very well. In the same way, people hadn't really gotten to know me. What if things had been different? What if this group of friends I have now had joined together two years ago instead of mostly just this year? We would have gained so many memories.

Socializing

I'm a nerd, so it is my responsibility to over think absolutely everything. Today the thing in question will be socializing.

Although you probably don't think of it this way, one of the most important things, if not the most important skill thing in high school is learning social skills. It's kind of a big deal. The silly thing is that how I act has a direct result on pretty much everything in my life. If I act up a lot when Mrs. Flatland is around, then she probably won't think I'm mature enough to get a good part in the next play (in case you are wondering, I've pretty much put aside all thought of getting any half-way decent part in the next play). If I'm super annoying, even more so then I already am, then the natural consequence that I will be less enjoyable to be around. And let's face it, bad things stand out a lot more than good. This isn't anything new, of course. It's mere common sense and probably isn't even worth mentioning.

I think that relationships with friends would get a lot deeper if we could figure out how to deal with annoyances. It seems that we seem to be so focused on not offending or annoying others we miss out on great opportunities. You might think of this silly, but I've actually come up with a system for facebook messaging. If I've been the first one to initiate a conversation with a person several times in a row,  I wait a good amount of time before starting a conversation again, even if the person in question is online and I feel liking talking to them. Actually this is more of an idea that I had and forget to implement because I'm so caught up in the thought of social interaction over the internet, but it shows that I am a little hesitant about bothering people all the time. But then take a person that I am a really, really good friend with: Ryan. With Ryan, if I see him on Facebook I'll message him instantly without a second thought. Why? Because I know Ryan well enough that I know that there is virtually nothing I could do to annoy him. As such, probably the main reason that we've become such good friends is BECAUSE of Facebook chat (so far we've had around 22,500 messages. And that's not counting all the times we've chatted on Gmail either!). Not to use Facebook as another example, but, well, to use Facebook as another example, Facebook wall posts are very similar. There are a few people I know (Ryan, Abby, Allie, Ben etc.) who I write on their walls about anything, even if it is somewhat frivolous. This is because I know that these people enjoy wall posts as much as I do, and they don't consider wall posts spam (unless I go overboard, which I probably have a few times). The point is, I can do one of the most awesome things about Facebook  (writing on people's walls) often because I know that it is very unlikely that they would get annoyed. If we don't have to worry about annoying others, then we can reap much more benefits (in this case, more facebook wall posts!). In case you are wondering, this doesn't mean that I'm not social with other people who I perhaps don't know quite as well. What I'm saying here is that when we don't have to worry as much about discretion, socializing is much more enjoyable.

In case you are wondering, no, I'm not particularly self-conscious when it comes to socializing. In fact, I probably should learn to be a little more so in the future. Actually, the point of this post was to over-analyze something that we probably don't put to much thought into.

The Messy Mondays Guy

On Youtube there is a channel called Blimey Cow with a regular show called Messy Mondays. You've probably seen some of his videos; people mention them on Facebook a lot. But the problem is, well, the videos just aren't that good....

I guess I just don't understand him. In The Three Types Of Churches he'll go from talking about how we should worship God through not just through music, but who we are, to ridiculing people who say "Lord" or "Father God" multiple times in a prayer. Even going as far as asking if these people think that God forgot his name and needs to be reminded and that they need to "get his attention". Excuse me bud, but last I checked it is going WAY out of line to make fun of someone just because of the way that they pray. He does a very similar thing in Ten Ways to Get Girls to Like You (yes, the things I will force myself to watch for the sake of a well-researched post). He'll switch from saying things that are idiotic to things that are in fact very wise. At #9 on his countdown he mocks girls who like photography even if they aren't very good at it. He even says that 98% of girls have no business uploading photos to Facebook. And the worst of it? He encourages guys to "encourage" these photo taking enthusiast females by deceiving said girl into thinking that they enjoy their pictures. And the whole point? To encourage her to keep on taking photographs. Woah, let's take a step back here. It's true that not every girl is a super special awesome photographer, but I don't think you should go around making fun of them for it. But then #3 on his countdown is "Keep your hands to yourself". Not only is this a wise statement, but he gives a nice example too. I just don't understand why there has to be such a big difference between the things he says.

It's just that the nature of his videos is such that he just throws opinions out there on everything. Look at this video about Facebook changes. Regarding those who complain about Facebook on he Facebook, he said that "there is not even a word for how stupid you are". He continually degrades and ridicules these people, calling them "dumb" over and over again.

Yes, I understand that he uses sarcasm a ton. I also realize that the entire point of the videos is for humour. But if you ask me, even if it is sometimes in jest, throwing out words like "hate", "idiot", and "dumb" literally all the time while describing those who don't agree with you? Excuse me if that isn't funny.

Yup, Mock Trial

Mock Trial. Yes, I realize that Mock Trial has been the subject of more than a few of my previous posts, and I know that it isn't as fancy as the posts my competitions has been doing lately (well, technically she isn't my "competition", but it feels weird to just say "Abby"). But, I don't believe that either of us have actually posted about Mock Trial since it started for this year.

At the beginning of the year, I wasn't quite sure what to think about Mock Trial. Neither of my coached from my first year were still here, and in fact the main coach from last year wasn't here either. Things were so different from last year. A lot of people had graduated, and others just didn't come back (I miss my Teleckies). But I was excited for a lot of the new people (such as Sebastian and Allie), and they turned out to be pretty awesome at Mock Trial. There were some other new people, I have one person in mind right now who I'm not going to name but I can bet you guess, who weren't quite as willing to make a commitment, but we won't get into that.

I must admit, I was disappointed for several reasons when we got the role assignments near the start of the year. First, I wasn't on the same team as Ryan. That was depressing. Second, I only had two roles, and they were some of the shortest roles that I could have possibly have received. It wasn't like it was a major calamity or anything. It was truly a really minor thing, but even those end up working out in the end. Assuming that nothing else changes, I'm going to to not only have a full four parts, but one of those will be a closing. You know, it was probably better that it turned out this way. I might have been a tiny bit too confident before, so I guess being humbled a little bit was probably a good thing.

Anyway, each year has been unique so far. But this year, I honestly think that we have a very good chance of going to state without relying on luck like last year. We've heard do so much from not only college mock trial teams, but actual attorneys who were willing to talk a bit now and then. We seem to be putting proper focus on what counts now (such as making the witnesses more than bland machines who spurt information). With a little bit of spit and polish (minus the spit. This needs to be sanitary), I foresee both our teams very well this year. I mean, it isn't all about winning. Just kidding, yes it is. Kind of a big deal.

I'm excited to see how things will turn out. Mock Trial, as always, is more awesome than I could have thought beforehand. Regionals will be in almost a bit less than half a month. That's a little bit scary, although I honestly think that our team will be ready by then.

It's Only Sexist When A Guy Does It

Before and even during the early 19th century, sexism was a major problem. Woman were regarded as lesser beings, and that was kind of a big problem. But these days the entire situation is reversed. Suddenly it is politically correct to make sure that nothing is "sexist". You would think from the word that by definition it would be being discriminatory based on gender. But for some reason it only applies to males.

The thing that just can't seem to be understood is that men and women are different. That's just a fact of life. One gender isn't necessarily better or worse, and neither is more intelligent. We're just wired differently. That's okay. So why do we as a culture have to be so focused on making everything, and I mean everything "equal"? Take video games. From what I have observed, more boys are into video games than girls. When I start talking about the new free to play League of Legends roster or the best FPS of all time, boys are usually more interested in such subjects than girls. In the same way, most boys (hipsters excluded) aren't going to get super excited about shopping for clothes. Now this doesn't mean that ALL males are into video games, and that ALL females love to shop (PS, girls who aren't addicted to shopping, you have my respect).

Of course, I'm not saying that all boys fit into the "male" stereotype, and that all girls fit into the "female" stereotype. Remember the video game example? Well, there are plenty of exceptions to that general rule. I know several girls who are almost as hardcore gamers as me, which is saying something. This doesn't mean that they are less "female" than any other girl (although they just might be a little more awesome). In the same way, there are a hoard of girls who are into more casual gaming, like a bit of Mario Kart here or there. Of course, playing video games in moderation might just be an example of increased intelligence, but you can be rest assured that I won't go there.... The point is that everyone is truly and wonderfully unique. Lumping people together into one group is only useful in extremely broad situations.

Let's take a moment to look at the family structure in movies and television. If the family is of a more traditional sort, then it is usually portrayed with the parents both being idiots, the mother being smart and the dad being an idiot, or both parents being knowledgeable people who should be respected. Admittedly there is quite a bit of the first going around, yet one of the only places that you can see the third is through reruns of "Leave it to Beaver". So why do we have all these "dumb dads"? Because if the dad was smart and the mother was an idiot then feminists would scream "sexist". <sarcasm> And of course we couldn't have BOTH parents be smart. That wouldn't be interesting! </sarcasm>

Because of this mentality, chivalry is dying. Dear feminists: when we open doors for you we aren't doing it because we have exterior motives. We aren't doing it because we think you are too weak to open the door for yourself. We don't think that you are too dumb to understand how to operate a door. We just do it because we are trying to respect you by being gentlemen. Is that so bad? Now admittedly, I don't usually have the aforementioned opportunity very often, and when I open a door it's usually because I'm near the front of a group and it's just common courtesy to everyone in said group, and if a girl is in the front of the group she would probably do the exact same thing. But you can still see my point.

An Ode To A Legendary Reddit Comment

Dear Redditer: I saw a comment of yours tonight. In a sea of blackness: profanity, improper grammar, and trolling, your comment stood out with a blinding light. It was truly beautiful, you see, the sarcasm was well formed and sharply pointed. You reached the very heart of the subject at hand, Redditer. You did not tally in other matters, but instead diligently and honestly made your point. Your comment was sincere, you see. A rare sight on the internet of today. Your comment was neither so short that I missed it, or so long that I forgot what I was reading. No, it was three sentences. Three sentences that I began to think were not formed of mere words, but of pure power. Yes Redditer, you might not have realized it, but there is great power in your words. I was honoured to read your words Redditer, as if I was looking at a great ancient power. From what time I cannot even guess. Were your words prompted by a supernatural event, Redditer? Although it might seem absurd, perhaps something is at work here besides the possibility of birds committing copyright infringement. Perhaps this is actually a sign.

But something is wrong here. So far you have only had two upvotes. Two? Two thousand is a more pleasing number. Or twenty thousand. Or two hundred thousand. Two is a disgrace. But do not despair yet; I have a theory of how this came about. The air that we are currently are breathing has been tainted. Whenever "normal" people read your comment, it is replaced in their minds with a nonsensical piece about unicorns. Make no mistake, there are dark powers at work here. They realize if everyone was to read your comment, there would be a revolution on the Earth. People everywhere would  realize the truth; they would break the deception. And that would not do, no, that would not do at all. How do I know this, you ask? I live in a windowless sterile room with the finest of air filters. I plan ahead.

Alright, sorry about this post. You see, this is what happens when I see a hilarious comment on reddit, but am unable to do anything about it except for one lousy upvote. I couldn't exactly do anything else because no one would understand. But perhaps now I've laid enough background information that you, dear reader, can take a glimpse of the awesomeness.

Yes, they'll be tweeting angrily about the potential infringement per bird in USA that's causing job losses and profit losses for hard-working Americans and artists.
Birds should pay the periodic protection fee like the others. They also demand the right to send notices to the local government to have trees be taken down and burnt within 24 hours since some of them are venues for blatant infringements. They will give gold records to the group with the first 1000 venues cut down.

Trust me, it was better in context.

Dancing

 As you probably know, I was at an Anime Convention called Anime Spark this weekend (if you are slightly freaked out by "anime", just read it as "nerd"). I'll probably end up writing something about that tomorrow, but that's not what I'm talking about here (although I'll have to give a little bit of background anyway). Alright, here is the sweet and short of it (not really, but I wanted to use that phrase). Because my good friends Aubrey and Sara live relatively close to me (they're twins by the way; kind of cool), we carpooled for traveling back and forth from the convention. Now I'm in the video game room most of the time on Friday, because that is kind of what I do. But in the evening there was a dance in the larger panel room. Because I had never been to anything remotely like this before, I foolishly left my video game controller behind me and went into the dance anyway, purely for observational purposes, of course. While all the silly people danced I was perfectly content to stand and watch the shiny lights which were shining all over the place (seriously, have you seen all those bright colours? Fancy).

It was ballroom dancing, of course, with the songs being from anime which I had never heard of before (no surprise there). Aubrey and Sara ended getting a prize for being awesome, and that somehow activated a thing called "snowball". Basically this archaic law meant that they could choose whoever they wanted to dance with them. Sara, who was just trying to be nice and obviously was not aware of my hermit tendencies, used this rule on me. Not wanting to disrupt the flow of the dance (though my first urge was to run screaming for the exit), I went ahead and actually danced. In a ballroom setting. With a girl. Please take a second look at that last statement. Now go off and guarantee that I wasn't hacked and someone else is actually writing this. You done? Cool. Sara, who actually knew what was going on, placed my left hand on her shoulder and we danced for a few steps (I clumsily, of course, because I always was trying to go the wrong direction). After about twenty seconds it was over with and I retreated back to my fortress of solitude, namely the pillar which I was standing next to while staring at the pretty lights going all over the room.

To a lot of highschoolers this wouldn't seem like a weird thing at all. But remember, this is me we're talking about **list a large number of reasons why I'm not interested in this sort of thing**. But for about twenty seconds I was touching a girl's shoulder. That's kind of like a rebellion against all I am and all that I've ever stood for. Now, again, this by itself might not be a bad thing. Forget the scarring experience and move on. But this is the worst part of all: I didn't actually mind. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH. Not a good thing at all. Even for nerds, this shouldn't be a big deal. A small incident, forget about it. Move on. Go kill some orcs, or something.

And here it gets even better (note my sarcastic tone of voice back there. For you slow ones in the audience who just so happen to be keeping track, this means that things actually got worse.): I considered dancing of my own free will with either Aubrey or Sara after that first one. Now I'm not only not considering the practice of dancing as completely foul, but I actually wanted to try again. Goodness, that sounds dangerously close to something that normal people would want to do (and of course we wouldn't want that, right?). In fact, I went so far as to think the blasphemous thought that it might actually be cool to dance all evening. It's not like I had anything to prove.

I've recently been making a somewhat concentrated effort to be more mature, or at least try not to be immature on purpose. But this is different. Without even realizing it, I've broken the moral code on which I've stood for forever. Kind of a big deal. Yeah, the dance in itself was nothing. A pin drop, so to speak. But not despising every second, as I had only a few months before with the Pride and Prejudice play? That's a problem. A really, really large problem.  Don't get me wrong, even now I still don't think that I would like to be in dance for the play. In fact, I'm not sure how I was okay with that short little dance. Perhaps the convention air somehow changed how my brain functions? That's a scary, and yet not totally implausible thought.

So it seems like the logical thing to do in this situation would be for me to make a choice. Either give in that dancing isn't as bad as I had thought, or go play lots of video games. Suffice to say that I will always choose the latter. So yes, that short string of unhermit likeness is behind me. I've regained my composure, and I will continue on normally. I'm not changing my philosophical opinions at all on the matter. If I was given the opportunity to go dancing right now, I would run screaming for the hills. But still, it was weird, for a second, to not be myself.

The Crucible

In Literature Class this week we read through the Crucible. In case you aren't familiar with it, The Cruible was a play written in 1952 by Arthur Miller about the Salem Witch trials. I was completely unfamiliar with the book, and thus it caught me off guard in two ways. First, the style. I haven't read much in the way of plays as literature, except for a little bit of Hamlet (and let me assure you, that was scarring). At first I was weirded out with how different plays are to conventional literature. I wasn't given much of opportunity to get into the characters head, or to get a description of the surrounding area and the circumstances. Not to mention I had always subconsciously thought of repeated dialogue like that similar to a lot of bad writing out there made by little children, you know, the type of writing where there seems to only be uninteresting dialogue and the words "said", "told", "asked", and "answered". But the more I read, the more I realized how powerful a tool it was. Some of the scenes, though they only used the talking between characters, were quite frankly intense. More so than a lot of other books I have read with vivid descriptions of epic battles and that sort of thing. Also, because of the style it was perfectly suited for reading out loud as a group. We started doing this last week, and I had the role of Mrs. Putnam. Although it was quite alright, though slightly awkward to do the voice of a girl when it was just the the Literature group, it got really awkward when the guy who was doing a series about Homeschoolers for Iowa Public Radio came in. And of course he wanted to keep on going for awhile, which was really, really weird on my part.

The second way that the book caught me off guard so to speak was with the ending. By the way, if you haven't read the book, I would suggest that you go ahead and do so. Anyway, the ending. As I was reading through quite fast, it almost passed right over my head. Suddenly there was this affair thing with Abigail and the wife didn't know to tell the court the truth regarding it, and the next thing I know OH MY ANVIL PROCTOR IS ABOUT TO BE HANGED. Oh wait, he is going to confess that he was a witch, which of course means that he'll be free to go (colonial laws are weird). But for some reason he doesn't want it be hung on the door. Wait, what is the difference? Now he's dead. End of book. So after just reading through that section I was kind of understandably confused. But after watching that part of the movie, it all got a lot clearer. Proctor was willing to give up his pride for his life. He was willing to lie for his life. He was willing to give in to this ridiculous system just so that he could live. Under the circumstances, this seemed perfectly normal. But then there is this section, possibly the most powerful few sentences in the whole book

Proctor: Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; Leave me my name!

Even just reading the words you can feel how desperate Proctor is. But in the movie? Oh my goodness gracious. I can still hear his words ringing in my words. The words of a man who could not sacrifice one thing: his name. The name he had spent a lifetime building a reputation for. The name that his unborn child would one day be proud to own. But this was more than just pride, though not everyone present realized that.

Danforth: Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for these weeps for corruption.

Hale: Go to him, Goody Proctor! There is yet time! Woman, plead with him! Woman! It is pride, it is vanity. Be his helper! What profit him to bleed? Shall the dust praise him? Shall the worms declare his truth? Go to him, take his shame away!

Elizabeth: He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!

Wow. Just wow.

The Best Browser Of Them All?

As I'm sure that you are aware, I use the internet a lot. So my choice of a web browser is kind of a big deal. I want a browser that is fast, reliable, and gives me cookies on a regular basis (technically all of them do that already. You know? Cookies? Yeah? I make myself laugh. Admittedly no one else, but that still has to count for something). No browser is perfect, yet some are certainly better than others. So the purpose of this blog post will be for me to share my own personal opinion, as I have observed from using each browser extensively. Now I won't be focusing on graphs or benchmarks, so if I say something is "fast" that is a completely relative term. After all, it can really depend on what system you are using the browser on. For example, most browsers work better on Windows than they do on Macs. I've also noticed some differences between how Firefox works on Linux compared to how it works on Windows. Thus, without actual figures, whatever I say in regards to things like speed is from my own experiences and might differ from your's. I'll try to cover as many cross-platform things instead.

Firefox

Firefox is probably the browser that I've spent the most time on. I've always appreciated the solid speed and modest memory use.

Tab Management:
One of the most important things for me in a browser is tab management. Sadly, Firefox doesn't handle this particularly well. After you reach a limit of eight tabs the rest disappear off the screen and you have to press an arrow button to access them. Though this might work if you have relatively few tabs, for me when I usually have 9 times as many tabs as what appears on the screen it isn't very fun.

History Management:
Because in my travels around the web I will undoubtedly need to go back to pages I have already visited, I like my browser history to be quick and easy. In this aspect Firefox works very well: with the click of the "history" button near the top left hand side of the screen you can see the last few pages that you have visited. If you need a more complete look you can press "all history" and a small window pops up that shows all of the recorded browsing history on that computer. One nice thing about Firefox is that not only does it allow you to delete specific pages from your browsing history, but it lets your forget specific sites too.

Bookmark Management:
The bookmark management in Firefox is handled much the same as the history: a quick press of a button and a dropdown menu appears. But what else is nice is that in addition Firefox lets you put your bookmarks on the tab bar as well.

Download Management:
Downloads in Firefox appear in a second window, and will download normally. Nothing special here, although it is nice that it doesn't take up another of my valuable tabs like some other browsers.

Do Web Pages Actually Work?
Because Firefox is the second most common browser behind Internet Explorer, web developers usually develop with Firefox in mind. I for one have yet to have found a page which did not fully support Firefox.

Closing Comments:
Firefox truly is a jewel of an Open-Source browser. It is fast, efficient, extremely customizable, and easy to use. In addition, it is developed by the Mozilla Corporation, and ultimately the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. So unlike some of its competitors, such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple, Mozilla isn't trying to further corporate gains.

Internet Explorer:

I must admit, I have a lot of bias against Internet Explorer. For versions 7 and 8 I've found it to be slow and in general not worth my time. But despite that deep resentment, I've tried to be unbiased when it comes to my examination of version 9. After all, despite that fact that pretty much the only people who switched to it were the silly people who used Internet Explorer anyway and didn't know any better, many geeks are begrudgingly being okay with it.

Tab Management:
In this regard IE really fails. The way that it comes out of the box is with the address bar on the same line as the tabs, effectively halving how much space the tabs have. Once you have nine tabs IE does the same thing as Firefox and puts them off the screen, so to access them you have to press an arrow. Now the redeemable thing about this with Firefox is that the tabs were still large enough that you could still read the title. But with IE they are already so small that pretty much the only thing you can see is the Favicion and the first letter of the title of the page. Okay, okay, I'll admit. It is very simple to put the tabs on their own row. So for people like me this is a non-issue. But for a lot of the people using Internet Explorer, AKA internet illiterate people, this is going to be a problem. So what if you put the tabs on their own row? Well, then the limit before the tabs go off the page is 23. So there is a bit of a tradeoff here: the tabs are too small to read anything of the title except the first letter, but so many tabs fit on a page that you can navigate even a large number easily. One more thing  about IE's tab management in Windows 7: when you make a new tab for all intents and purposes outside of the window the tab is a window. When you click the IE icon, where for other browser it shows the number of windows up, for IE it shows the tabs. So it is more laborious to find a different window.

History Management:
For the viewing history Internet Explorer 9 uses a fairly bulky sidebar (although technically you can make it smaller, that only makes it even more unwieldy). Because you aren't going to be leaving up your history sidebar for very long anyway, this is pretty much a non issue.

Bookmark Management:
Pretty normal. Nothing special of note.

Download Management:
Again, not much to talk about here. When you download a file it shows up at a small bar at the bottom. If you  have multiple files running you can click a button to show them all. Pretty standard.

Do The Pages Actually Work?
Depends. Because IE holds so much market share, web developers make a special effort so that the pages show up right. The problem with this is that it usually involves spending a lot of time trying to write HTML code that works correctly in IE. You see, Internet Explorer is notorious for not being HTML5 compliant. If you are not familiar with the term, basically there is a standard in what code should work in a browser, and HOW it should work in a browser. The problem is that IE is quirky and makes its own rules, causing much frustration for developers. Although I must admit that IE9 is much better at this than the previous versions, the other modern browsers are so much better it is ridiculous.

Conclusion:
Disregard Internet Explorer. It only runs on the Windows operating system, and it just doesn't work that well.

Safari

Your experience with Safari is quite different depending if you are on a Mac or a computer running Windows. Safari runs much quicker on it's native Mac, otherwise its speed is down around that of IE, which I can tell you right now is not a good thing. 

Tab Management:

Safari's tab management is pretty much a clone of Firefox's.

History Management:
Safari's History management is pretty much a clone of Firefox's. Although I do appreciate that it goes all the way down the page.

Download Management:
Safari's download management is pretty much a clone of Firefox's.

Do The Pages Work?
Yup.

Conclusion:
As you can see, despite running on the same engine as Chrome (WebKit), Safari's design is similar to Firefox's in many ways. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But negative points for not running on Linux.

Chrome

Whenever you talk about Google Chrome, one thing that is certain to come up is the speed. Chrome really flies in this regard (no lame pun intended).

Tab Management:
After spanning from the left side of the page to the right, Google Chrome tabs just get smaller instead of going off the page. Though this is great for a decent amount of tabs, say 30, but once you get 39 tabs the favicons disappear. Favicons, by the way, are the little 16px x 16px images which are the symbol of a website. Like the white "F" on a blue background for Facebook. So once you have 39 tabs it is unbearable to keep track of them anymore. This is probably Chrome's greatest failing, in my sight anyway.

History Management:
Managing history in Chrome isn't alright, but not great. Ctrl + H will make a new tab for the history, a method which I don't like very much. Still, if you are okay with a brand new tab just for history then it is quite fluid in its handling.

Bookmark Management:
Chrome does this like most browsers. You have a toolbar at the top of the page under the address bar where you can put all your bookmarks. If you have more than can fit than you can access them by pressing a button.  Nothing special here.

Download Management:
I think that Chrome's download management is the best out of the five browsers. A very discreet bar appears at the bottom of the page with the different downloads. I don't know what happens if you have a lot of downloads, because I've never had more than two or three running at the same time. And because I doubt there is many people out there who would be in a situation where they had to download a lot of different files at the same time, it is a moot point.

Do The Pages Work?
They do indeed. Google Chrome is an extremely HTML5 compliant browser. No problems here.

Conclusion:
If you want a reliable and super quick browser, then Chrome is a good choice. Not quite as customizable as say, Firefox, but it still has quite a few extensions.

Opera

Opera, Opera, Opera. I had always taken this particular browser for granted. I had seen its stats in the past, and it always just seemed to be an average browser. Nothing special, just did its job. But after I actually tried out the browser myself I fell in love with it (not literally, after all me and Science are still together). Sure, it isn't a perfect browser. But the things that I use the most, the things I need, Opera does them quite admirably.

Tab Management:
To start off with, Opera was actually the first browser ever to incorporate tabs, so bonus points for that. But really, Opera is in my opinion the best browser for tab management. You can group similar tabs together, hiding all but one of them out of view. If you want to see what tabs are inside all you have to do is hover and you'll see the screenshot and name of each tab. You wouldn't believe how nice this is. It makes tab organization really, really easy. But what if you get too many tabs anyway? Well, unlike Chrome it is virtually impossible for the tabs to get so small that you can no longer see the favicon. Sure, they can get so small that it is extremely easy to click the "x" by mistake, but with the tab groups that never happens anyway. Oh, and one more very cool and super convenient feature that Opera has is the ability to clone individual tabs. The other option which I had always done in the past was copy the URL and paste it into a new tab, but this is much more efficient.

History Management:
The history management is in a separate tab, which is normally annoying, but because the tab management is so good in Opera it makes up for it.

Bookmark Management:
Standard. Move along.

Do The Pages Work?
Sadly, this is one of the problems with Opera. Because it not many people use the browser, many web developers will just ignore it when they go about developing their pages. A real shame.

Conclusion:
Opera isn't a perfect browser. It isn't the fastest or most popular. But depending on your needs, Opera could be for you. It is an innovate browser, often the cool features in many of the other browsers originated from Opera. Actually, Opera has 220 million users worldwide, which isn't a number to scoff at. The problem is that not many of those people are from North America.

Now remember, all of these browsers are customizable. In fact, if you looked hard enough you could probably find ways to replicate the features of your favorite browser on any of the other browsers. But because this often involves addons, and addons slow down your browser, this isn't always a good idea.

An Example Of A PHP Script

I got around to thinking that it might be interesting to post an example PHP script. So, yup, that's what this post is about. The script in question is supposed to take the information a user supplies on a different page, and create a brand new page for the data. I made it for the Rumpus Family website not because it would actually be that useful, but because I thought it would be kind of cool.
A few things to remember: all comments will be prefixed by two slashes "//". In programming if something is commented then it doesn't affect the script in any way, so it is useful for explaining certain parts of the code. To make it even more readable, I made all comments this colour. Also, even though I spend a good amount of time making sure that invalid information isn't entered, this actually isn't a good example security. Because mostly only people I know go to the Rumpus Family website, I don't really have to worry about things like XSS injections. But if someone really wanted they could probably mess with this pretty badly. Oh, and the code I have here isn't on the "make your own page" page. Because all that is really there is the form that takes the information typed by the user, it  isn't necessary to put it here. This is just the external script that does all the work. Finally, this script is really, really short. Most scripts will be quite a bit larger than this one.

<?php
// Gathers the IP address of the user. That way if necessary I can ban those who abuse the form.
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
// These two variable take the data collected from the previous HTML page
$data = $_POST['science'];
$Pagename = $_POST['pagename'];
// These three functions will remove any whitespace and capital letters from the file name. The last one will also add an ".html" at the end.
$filename= ereg_replace( ' +', '', $Pagename );
$ToLower = strtolower($filename);
$Filename = trim($ToLower . ".html");
// Here I place the data collected in two of the previous variables. This information will later be written to another file so that it can be placed in the navigation of the site. Basically, this is the link that you will click from the menu to access the newly formed page.
$menu = <<< END
<li><a href="$Filename">$Pagename</a></li>
END;
// This is mostly just the HTML code that will make the new page, so I greyed out everything but the PHP variables. The HTML is important, I'm just not getting into that right now.
$pagedata = <<< ENDING<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="index.css" />
<title>$Pagename</title>
<style>
body {
background: #A5D8F6;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<?php include("header.php"); ?>

<br>
<br>
<div id="c">
$data
</div>

<?php include("menu.php"); ?>
<center>
<div id="why">
Chuck Testa does not taxidermize pets. If someone who claims to be Chuck Testa offers to taxidermize your pet, then that person is a dirty, rotten liar. Chuck Testa never, and I mean <em>never</em> performs a taxidermization on a pet. Unless the pet is living.
</div>
</center>
</body>
</html>
ENDING;
// Pretty much self-explanatory. If there isn't anything entered in either of the two fields then a message is written and the script doesn't continue.
if (empty($Pagename)) {
echo "Not all of the fields are filled in. Please go back and enter the necessary information";
}
elseif (empty($data)) {
echo "Not all of the fields are filled in. Please go back and enter the necessary information";
// Because the file name will be made into a URL I don't allow any characters that aren't alphanumeric. Plus, this helps ensure that the file name isn't spam.
}
elseif (eregi('[^a-z][^A-Z][^0-9][.]', $Filename)) {
echo 'Sorry, that page name is not valid. Please only use letters and number for the file name.';
}
// Makes sure that there isn't already a page that has the same name as the one that the user wants to make.
 elseif (file_exists("$Filename")) {
echo 'Sorry, that file name is already in use. Please choose another one.';
}
// Checks to see how long the file name is. If it is larger than twelve characters then the script does not continue.
elseif (strlen($Pagename) > "12") {
echo 'Sorry, your file name was too large. Please go back and shorten it.';
}
// Finally! This part of the script actually makes the new page.
else {
echo "Hey, it worked! Your page should be up and running now. If not, please let me know and I'll see if I can fix it";
// Mails myself the IP address of the user and the initial information entered on the page.
mail("ultraswat@gmail.com", "$ip", "$data");
// Writes the name of the file to the menu.
$namepages = fopen("pagenames.txt", "a");
fwrite($namepages, "$menu");
fclose($namepages);
// Makes the new page and places all the HTML code there.
$F = fopen("$Filename", "w+");
fwrite($F, "$pagedata");
fclose($F);
}
?>


Sorry that I'm not very good at explaining things. It really is simpler than this.

A Day Of Near-Silence

To speed up those who haven't heard yet (which would be basically no one), I have spoken roughly 280 words today, not counting time spent in class or words exchanged for education motives. But even considering that, because this is the busiest day of the week for me there was quite a lot of time spent forcing myself to be quiet. Why did I go through this, and what did I mean to prove? Well, it was partially because I'm starting to get the feeling that I talk a little bit too much, and that it starts to get annoying if I use repetitive phrases all the time over and over again. It wasn't that big of a deal even, but I got thinking about how to remedy the situation. That's when I came across the thought of being quiet for a full day. It was a very interesting idea to test out (see? Testing? It's Science!). I wanted to see if I had the self-control to stop myself from talking needlessly. It was a way to kind of mix up the day. I could have just went through the day normally, and it probably would have ended up being amazing anyway. Or, I could make everything different, for me at least.

Now looking back at it, I can say that some things succeeded and others didn't. Although I was able to avoid using tons of overused expressions repeatedly like I usually do, I ended up talking in fractured sentences quite a bit. Another purpose of the experiment was to see how it affected the conversation among my friends. Usually, I end up in almost every conversation, and I give my two cents on any subject that I have any sort of knowledge. I was curious to see if I was stifling other people So would my friends end up talking a whole lot more without me talking instead? From what I could see, not having my voice kind of restricted the total conversation. This was not quite as much because my friends don't know how to have lively conversations without me (quite the opposite, in fact). Instead, it The point from the beginning was to not talk too much. But it began to shift to use as little words as possible. This challenge was different from my original intent, but it ended up working alright.

The whole incident was actually quite nice. Every time I considered say something, saying anything, I had to make sure that not only was the sentence necessary, but that it was efficient, using as few words as possible. In this effect it succeeded completely: I began to develop the habit of thinking before talking. What are the chances that I will continue to do this in future days? Very unlikely. But hey, it was nice while it lasted.

Entertainment And Our Lives

Last tuesday I decided to write a blog post. I did absolutely everything in my power to make it a very shameful, stressful, and embarrassing situation if I did not blog in a timely manner. I knew ahead of time that I needed a substitute for the motivation I had during the competition, yet my plans backfired. Despite numerous reminders, I kept on getting distracted by coding or by the Hunger Games (great book, by the way). In fact, I feel kind of disrespectful for in a sense ignoring my reminders. That wasn't a good feeling. Anyway, here it is tuesday and I only just finished. To make up for it, I made the post extra-long. Please forgive any rambling.

I wrote the above section of text this morning. I intended to finish this post before writing my paper, but the good thing is that it didn't happen (otherwise I would have never finished the paper). I don't know what it is about this post. Even though it isn't as lengthy as I envisioned, it seems to take so many thoughts and give it form. And yeah, even though it's lame that it took so long, though in the competition I would have easily finished in a day, it is kind of nice to be able to take a long time for something. And not just make it good, but make it great. The sad thing is that I read this over again and actually this wasn't really that good of a post. Oh well. At least it is done!

Movies, television, video games, books, etc. They all tell a story, usually one which is either completely fictional or heavily modified. I'm not denouncing these mediums of entertainment, after all I use each one liberally myself (let's be honest, probably too liberally). In fact, I undoubtedly have more experience with versions of society as presented in these mediums compared to that of reality. Okay, we all know that these stories are fabricated. Fake. They were written by people for the sole purpose of providing entertainment to people like me who don't like having actual lives. Okay, duh. Everyone knows that. Whenever we watch a movie, we know that it isn't real (one of the many reasons being that Hollywood has no idea how technology or guns work).

But whether it be rational thought or not, our daily lives seem to be tainted with the idea that we aren't doing things right (this is completely unrelated, but I'm feeling fancy because I used <em> instead of <i> for those italics back there. Also, the semantics meaning makes more sense, but no one really cares about that anyway).

Entertainment often attempts to imitate real life. And often they do a pretty good job of it too. And yet at the same time the entire structure of real life is so different.

In movies and tv shows, especially from when we were younger, a common example of "being nice" was to reach out to those who are lonely. A classic case of this is a school cafeteria (yeah, yeah, I know. We're homeschooled so we wouldn't have to even think about this) where a lonely person sits by himself day after day. Finally the person who is being nice decided to sit down next to this lonely person. This is presented as being a very good thing to do. And yet, this lesson which we've been taught so many times is fundamentally wrong. There was at least one time (I was in either in ninth or tenth grade) when I was in a circumstance in which I didn't know very many people very well (most were a few years older than me). But when people I didn't know talked to me, it was like it was charitable act. Here is this lonely person over here and I need to help him. Now I wasn't lonely or anything. I don't think there has ever been a time in my life when I was "lonely". So I didn't need help at all, I was quite fine as it was. Sure, a person being friendly is one thing (I personally love friendly people). But to be given the feeling that I needed the help of someone else to socialize? That was kind of harmful to the old pride. Of course, it is hard to blame said people. They were just trying to be kind. But I think it is a good example of something that is ground into our head's as being a nice thing to do, but ends up going the wrong way.
(P.S. I hate the thought that I have to clarify the above paragraph, but I probably should. If you reading this, you probably don't know said people, and it really wasn't a big deal at all. It was very forgettable, yet I've remembered anyway so that I myself won't fall for the same blunder)

In Literature Club we sometimes talk about habitual character traits. Because it is very difficult to relay efficiently every aspect of a character, an author might focus on a few certain traits or habits and repeat them often in the text. Thus, when you think about the character, those will often be the first thing you think of. Now in a story this is all well and good, but not exactly in real life. People can't really be defined to easily. You see, that's why I don't like talking negatively about people when they aren't around. Not only are they unable to defend themselves, but the person is confined to a few sentences.

And what is up with the distorted views on friendship? If a boy and a girl are together for any period of time, they fall in love. No exceptions. Seriously, none. Kind of really lame.

Most tv shows seem to follow the same tired-out formulas. No matter how desperate the situation, it's probable that by the time the episode finishes it will have all been tied up in a neat little bundle. The following episodes aren't affected, and everyone forgets about the whole thing. And even if there is lasting consequences (such as someone dieing), it is all to further the plot.

Not to mention the fact that everything has to be "exciting". The bar goes higher and higher all the time, until it is impossible for the main character to take a nap without waking up with aliens all over the place. Yeah, yeah, I know. It is all entertainment. But have you noticed the cultural shift? Our lives become "boring" in comparison to these fantastic worlds we see in our entertainment. This isn't necessarily bad, I just don't think we have enough perspective.

I read through everything again (don't you love how I'm spending as much time talking about blogging as I do actually blogging?). You'll notice how I have paragraphs which are are only a sentence or two long. Those are the ideas that I wrote down quickly, and then went on to the next one before they got finished. And now these nuggets of ideas will never enter full bloom. Kind of depressing.

Looking Back At 2011

Step one: go to this link.
Step two: add Tag Team, replace Allie with Ryan, and take away anything that I wasn't actually part of.

And there you have it, my New Year's post!