Data Burnout

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Data Burnout

                I got my iPhone about thirty days ago, as today is the last day of my data plan for the month.  My plan allows me to use two gigabytes of 3G data per month, and at the beginning of today I had only used about six hundred megabytes, so I had 1.4 more gigabytes that I could burn through before I get two more tomorrow.  So far, I have used about 250 megabytes today, basically from downloading tens of apps just because I could.  For example, I downloaded six free tuners from the app store, and eventually deleted all of them after buying a high quality one for $3.99.  I also downloaded a dog whistle, the YouTube app, doodle jump full version, fall down, and blogger. 

                I see myself being left with incredible amounts of data at the end of each month, so this mass downloading to finish off the month will probably become an addicting habit for me.  This small usage of data on my part also tells me that I can afford to watch some YouTube videos, which I was initially very wary of because of the large amounts of data they consume.  Honestly, my parents could save ten bucks a month by only getting me one gigabyte per month, but I don’t think they especially care.  Besides, my sister also gets her own two gigabytes per month, but a few days ago my mom actually got an email saying that she had surpassed fifty percent of her monthly allowance, and this is because she downloads gobs of stupid games.

                I actually end up deleting at least half the apps I download, because I either get a better one that does the same thing, or the app doesn’t do what I expected it to.  Another thing to take into consideration when getting apps is that the iPhone only has a certain amount of memory, for mine it is eight gigabytes, the smallest amount.  For the new iPhone 5, I believe that the smallest one is sixteen gigabytes, but it may actually be thirty-two.  A lot of this is used for the software and such, so my iPhone 4 only started with 6.37 gigabytes of available memory.  I still have 5.1 gigabytes leftover, and I don’t think I’ll ever use the full eight gigabytes.  My largest memory consumer is my music, which I currently have 104 megabytes of, followed by twitter with 84.9 MB and facebook with 74.4 MB.

                Anyway, I am really looking forward to using more of my data next month, and I feel like I am bathing luxuriously in my incredible amount of data.  I find it quite excessive that some people feel that they need ten gigabytes of data per month.  I mean, you have got to be totally attached to the thing, downloading loads of YouTube videos, movies, TV shows, music videos, Pandora, etc.  I guess if you did all those things you could get to ten gigabytes.  That’s probably why there is also the unlimited data plan for an extreme price!

TV Troubles

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TV Troubles

                After Mediacom jacked up their prices after the first two years, we switched TV providers again, this time choosing DirecTV, which uses a satellite dish, which may or may not be relevant to this situation.  Anyway, our box isn’t working, so we can’t watch TV.  As it is Sunday night, a new episode of Boardwalk Empire, my family’s favorite show, is on.  My mom is devastated that we aren’t going to be able to watch it, even though they’re going to be replaying it all week.  Anyway, we can determine that she is quite rattled, because she has resorted to cleaning the house.  She is cleaning the house.  She is rattled. 

                I don’t understand why we always seem to be the ones having all the TV problems.  Whenever there’s a weather-related issue or just out-of-the-blue problems, it always affects us.  Oh well, enough complaining.  I just wish we could get I’m On for internet in our area, because everyone else is always raving about how amazing and cheap it is.  And the worst thing is that the repair guys always take at least a couple days to come fix it, and when they do it’s always a good five or six hours late.  I wish we could just get a good cable company in our area that never gets screwed up and needs to get fixed, like the other ninety percent of the population.  Whatever, we could definitely have worse problems.

                Generally, TV providers that use a satellite dish are more shaky, as the weather can easily screw it up, and the dish is just finicky to start with.  With cable companies, sometimes the cable gets cut by underground animals miles away, and after the company gets a couple hundred calls, they haul it and get out to fix it right away.  For this reason, I prefer cable over satellite, but Mediacom is the only cable provider that serves my area, and after the first two years their prices go absolutely through the roof. 

                Hopefully the DirecTV guy gets here to fix our crap by tomorrow, because that way we’ll be able to watch the reruns of Boardwalk Empire as early as possible.

Electoral Catastrophe

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Electoral Catastrophe

                The Electoral College was a good idea a couple hundred years ago, but in the modern world it is totally unnecessary and unreasonable, and should be dramatically altered or totally scrapped.  The way the Electoral College is that there are 538 seats in Congress, and each district throughout the country gets one Electoral vote.  Each state gets the same number of Electoral votes as it has seats in Congress, and Washington, D.C. also gets three votes.  However, in most states, whichever candidate wins the most Electoral votes in that states takes credit for all the Electoral votes in the state, thus ‘winning’ the entire state.  When votes had to be counted by hand, and there was a great deal of human error, intentional or unintentional, this was a better system create a buffer between the candidates and the public.  However, nowadays, votes can be made and counted electronically, so I believe it would make more sense for the public and the popular vote to have a greater impact on whom gets elected.

                Many people would argue that it’s not that big of a deal, because usually the candidate that wins the Electoral vote is the same one that wins the popular vote.  However, four times in history, most recently the election of 2000, the winner of the popular vote has lost the Electoral vote, and therefore lost the election.  This is nonsense, because as stated in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and whatever else is that every man is created equal.  I take that to mean that every American citizen’s vote should be counted equally, meaning that the popular vote should be the decider of the election, as the greatest percentage of citizens wants it that way.  Many of the elections in our country’s history were pretty lopsided, especially during times of unipartisan domination, making the Electoral College a very efficient and easier alternative to counting every last vote.  However, as the last few elections have all been totally down to the wire, and the popular vote winner sometimes loses the election, the Electoral College simply isn’t acceptable any longer.

                I believe there are two ways to fix this.  The first way would be to simply base the election off the popular vote, as this would directly represent every voter equally.  The second would be to divide up each state’s Electoral votes, as is already somewhat the case in Maine and Nebraska.  I think this second way would also be an acceptable alternative.  If you couldn’t already guess, I wasn’t thrilled when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore, despite Al Gore winning the popular vote.  We wouldn’t be talking about things like the economy or Afghanistan if that wouldn’t have happened.

中文 (Zhongwen)

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中文 (Zhongwen)

                I go to one of the two high schools in Iowa that offers Chinese as a foreign language.  I feel very blessed that I have the opportunity to take it, but I have to say that I am a bit puzzled by the way it is set up.  The first three years of Chinese to me were quite easy; I could basically show up and learn everything, getting perfect grades along the way.  However, now, in AP Chinese, there is a considerable amount of homework each night, and it just makes me wonder:  why couldn’t this have been more spread out over the four years?  If you’re wondering how I’m taking AP Chinese as a junior, it’s because I took Chinese 2 in the summer between freshman and sophomore year to increase the numbers in the class above me, by my teachers’ request. 

               The thing is, the first three years of Chinese we do follow the same series of textbook, so we do Chinese 1, 2, and 3.  After this, there are books for Chinese 4 and AP Chinese in that same series.  However, we go into the book that is used at most colleges and universities in the U.S., but level two of that book, so really, we are skipping the books for Chinese 4, Chinese Level 1 Part 1, and Chinese Level 1 Part 2, and are now in Chinese Level 2 Part 1.  Basically, we skipped three levels.  That probably accounts for the amount of work we have to do to make up for it.  The reason we go to this book is that this is how far the material on the AP exam tests. 

                Overall, in my school and across the nation, AP exam scores for all foreign languages are quite poor, almost to the point where you have to be a near-native speaker in order to get a 5 on the exam.  There are different parts of each exam for reading, writing, speaking and listening.  Reading is usually the easiest, as you must just interpret and integrate.  However, speaking and writing are a bit harder, as you must generate your own content and make it grammatically correct and fluent, and in my opinion, listening is the hardest, because the test uses voices that speak extremely quickly and use different sounding accents to keep students on their toes.  Even though all the odds seem to be against me, it is my goal to get a 5 on the AP Chinese exam when I finally take it.

Caesar Is Home

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Caesar Is Home

                We recently switched to DirecTV for our TV, and we have several movie channels that just play movies that have recently came out of theaters and are no longer new releases at movie rental stores.  One of my favorites of these movies is Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is about a scientist who creates a virus that can cause neurogenesis, the growth of new brain cells.  He tests it on his pet chimpanzee, who is eventually taken to animal control for beating the hell out of one of the neighbors.  Later, the chimpanzee, named Caesar, unleashes the virus on all the apes in the facility, and they proceed to take over the city of Oakland. 

                Although this situation probably is impossible within the next few centuries, I still am very intrigued by the whole idea.  I am amazed by the strength of these apes, and I wish that I had that kind of strength.  I often joke with my friends that if I had my brain in a chimpanzee’s body, I could easily take over the world.  One of the most obvious advantages that apes have over humans is their incredible hand and arm strength.  As shown in the movie, chimpanzees can easily climb up a giant redwood tree, while an extremely fit human would take somewhere from thirty minutes to an hour to do this.  Another clear strength that we humans lack is their jaw.  Humans still have extremely powerful jaw muscles, which are pound-for-pound the strongest muscles in our bodies, but apes’ jaws are tens of times stronger, and are valuable tools and weapons in the wild.

                In fact, one theory of humans’ divergence from apes throughout evolution is that a mutation in a gene for jaw strength allowed humans’ skulls to grow much bigger as they were no longer held down by the powerful jaw muscles, and this led to larger brains and dramatically increased intelligence.  I would like to have this, but then have the gene replaced with that of our ancestors, so that my jaw muscles would be as powerful as an ape’s.  In Planet of the Apes, the chimpanzees’, orangutans’ and gorillas’ intelligence increased exponentially in a very short period of time, and this is simply unrealistic.  There is no way that this fast of a neurological change could happen in any species on Earth.  However, I still am a big fan of the movie.

Napoli's

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Napoli's

                Last night, I went to a new restaurant for the first time called Napoli’s.  It is an Italian restaurant, and we decided to try it out instead of going to Olive Garden.  I don’t think I’m going to go to Olive Garden ever again.  Napoli’s is now, without a doubt, my favorite restaurant. 

                It is somewhat similar to Olive Garden in the sense that they bring you an unlimited supply of bread, but instead of breadsticks, they bring these amazing rolls that are hands-down the best bread that has ever entered my mouth.  Also, in contrast to Olive Garden, Napoli’s has raspberry iced tea, my favorite drink, and it is very high quality.  I ordered spaghetti, as I am a very boring, monotonous eater, and it was absolutely delicious. 

                The service at Napoli’s is also incredible.  It isn’t a huge restaurant, so you don’t have to wait forever for the server to come around to check on everything.  Our waitress literally was giving us refills or more bread about every two minutes.  Also, there was a guy with a heavy Italian accent that seemed to be just walking around to all the tables, as if he was assigned to every table in the whole place.  Then, the manager came through, asking how everything was, an occurrence that only happens about one out of every ten times that I go to other restaurants. 

                I wasn’t fortunate enough to need to use the restroom facilities, so I don’t have any information about those, but based on the rest of the restaurant, they were probably extremely clean and nice.  The restaurant had soft, dim lighting, which I thought was pleasant and peaceful.  As this is a very genuine Italian restaurant, it served a wide variety of wines, but it is still a very family-friendly environment.  Napoli’s is a nice, quiet restaurant, and there is no bar scene to contribute to chaos and noise. 

                I’m not sure whether there are other Napoli’s’ in the United States or the rest of the world, but I doubt it, as it seems like a family-owned, high-quality small restaurant.  As more and more people try it out, I definitely see them needing to expand or move to a larger building to accommodate the thriving business.  Again, Napoli’s is now my favorite restaurant, and I can’t wait until the next time I get to go there.  Anyone that lives in the Cedar Rapids metropolitan area, I would definitely recommend going to Napoli’s.

PSAT

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PSAT

                This morning, I took the PSAT, which is the test that you take as a junior to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship.  This entire scholarship is based on your score for this one test, and you only get one chance.  Is it fair to base so much financial compensation on a single test?  What if someone is having a bad day, or maybe they just didn’t do their best on this one test?  Maybe someone isn’t in good test-taking ‘shape,’ and they become fatigued and worn down throughout the long, gruesome test. 

                I think the answer is yes, this system is fair.  Even though it isn’t appealing to most people, everyone gets the same chance, and no one really has any real advantages, so I think there isn’t anything unfair about it.  If you don’t get the score you want, oh well!  It’s not the end of the world, and the National Merit Scholarship is only about $2500, a relatively small amount compared to other scholarships that are widely available.  For me, I just want to be a National Merit Scholar for the prestige, as I plan to get numerous other scholarships already. 

                I used to grow very tired throughout the course of this type of test, but after having more experience taking these tests, I can now do them with little stress or mental fatigue.  One thing that I really like about the PSAT and SAT is that the only areas tested are math, reading and writing.  Or, readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic.  On other tests such as the ACT, science is also tested, but really it is just interpretation of studies.  On the Iowa Assessments and ITEDs, numerous other subjects are included, such as social studies, reference materials, punctuation, etc.  I think that the SAT system better measures intelligence with its more centralized, core testing areas. 

                My only weakness on the test is vocabulary, but I don’t mean that my vocabulary is bad by any stretch.  It’s just that they use very complicated, learned words that don’t very often slip into everyday conversation or even formal writing and textbooks.  Believe me, if I don’t know these words, nobody does.  However, I think that the math sections of all high school standardized tests are far too easy, and that they don’t distinguish between good, great, and the very top.  Anyone that is a relatively good math student should score extremely well on the math portions of these tests, if not perfect.

                I believe that though standardized tests have some disadvantages, they are overall the quickest and most efficient way to measure the intelligence of high school students.  That’s why they are so widely used.



#RHONJ

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#RHONJ

                Since my mom basically rules the house, we watch her shows on TV every night.  One of her favorite shows to watch is Real Housewives of New Jersey/New York/Orange County/Whatever.  She likes to watch it because she has a pretty stressful life, and watching that ‘trash’ helps her unwind and relax.  I used to absolutely hate these shows, but now that I have watched them for so long, I actually kind of enjoy them.  Because I watch it so much, I know what’s going on, and watching these crazy people and their ridiculous problems amuse me. 

                Although we watch all the different cities of Real Housewives, the one we most often watch is New Jersey.  I used to think Caroline was the most reasonable of the housewives, but now I’m just tired of her crap, and she annoys the hell out of me.  Now, I think that Jacqueline’s husband is the most reasonable person on the show, because he knows when to keep his mouth shut, and he isn’t constantly looking for unnecessary drama.  Theresa is obviously the craziest person on the show, and no one will ever forget her table flip a few seasons ago.  I really don’t like her kids either; they just seem like a bunch of spoiled brats.

                I find Richie very funny, just because he is a total goofball and always seems to be semi-drunk.  I also think Joe Giudice’s ‘who cares’ antics are hilarious.  I used to think Jacqueline was okay, but recently she seems to be very emotionally fragile and is losing her mind, so now I’m not a very big fan of her.  Her daughter is probably the most low-life character on the entire show, which doesn’t make much sense because her parents are overall pretty decent people.

                Anyway, I don’t enjoy watching Real Housewives because I like the drama, but rather because I just find it relaxing to watch other people’s problems.  I know that sounds a bit evil, but these people signed up for this; what do they expect to happen?  No matter what kind of turmoil they’re going through, they’re still making gobs of money, so they can’t be that upset.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Real Housewives is one of my favorite TV shows of all time.  Go figure.

It Gets Better

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It Gets Better

                If you’ve ever gone to high school, you know that there are obvious stereotypes that most people fit into.  One of these stereotypes is ‘the populars.’  I have to say that they are my least favorite, and about ninety percent of people probably agree with me.  They think they are popular and cool, but what they don’t realize is that they are only popular among themselves.  Seriously, no one else gives a damn.  I especially hate how they think they are better than everyone else, when in reality, they will be the ones working minimum wage jobs their entire life.

                Another big group present in the high school atmosphere is ‘the nerds.’  Ten percent of these people have no social life, and waste their life on their computer that they built in their basement.  However, unfortunately for the other ninety percent, people identify this entire group by the description of the ten percent, and it is assumed that all the other ‘nerds’ are exactly the same.  This isn’t true, obviously.  It needs to be clarified whether 1) nerds are only the ten percent that spend their life in front of their self-built computers, never interacting with another human, or 2)nerds are people that are at the upper end of the intelligence spectrum, deserve more respect than anyone else, and will grow up to run the entire world, bitch.

                The point that I’m trying to make is that how others perceive you in high school has nothing to do with how successful you will be in your adult life.  People that think they are cooler and better than you will be the ones making your McDonald’s burgers and cleaning up your puke on the floor, and the poor nerds will probably be the billionaires that all the women cling to.  Don’t try to be cool, just be yourself.  You’ll get a lot farther that way, and people that you went to high school with will fall out of your life completely.

                The people that I feel bad for are the high school kids that take their own life.  Despite those airheads that say “High school is the best time of your life,” in reality, it is probably the worst time of your life.  One really awesome teacher that I respect said, “I feel bad for people that think high school is the best time of your life.”  It shouldn’t be!  For any normal person, your life will probably continue to improve from when graduate from high school to the end of your life.  Therefore, taking your own life before even finishing high school is just giving up to the adversity that everyone has to go through.

My Truck

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My Truck

                I was driving with my sister in the car to our first band competition of the season, totally excited and ready to go.  It was a little before seven o’ clock in the morning, and dew was plastered all over my beautiful black 1990 Nissan truck.  I turned on the windshield wipers to get it off, but it stayed fogged up as a result of our warm breath condensing on the inside of the car.  I pulled out of the driveway, and the brilliant sun was directly in line with my path down the street, going through the micro-droplets on the windshield, making it very hard to see.  I started down the road.  The thought just started going through my mind:  “I hope nothing’s in the w-” BOOM.  I had totally missed the giant white trailer right in front of me, and smashed right into it at about twenty miles per hour. 

                My truck is now sitting in the driveway, a few weeks later, with its front totally crushed in.  The coolant tank evidently was punctured in the crash, and the bluish-green coolant juice spilled all over the concrete, making a glowing green stain.  The truck was my first car, and I really loved it, despite its age and bumpiness.  I actually almost started crying in my dad’s car on the way to school in preparation for the band competition.  I still cringe every time I go out the front door and see the bashed-in face of my truck.

                The even worse part is that the guy that we bought the truck from loves the truck even more than I do, and he came over to our house to look at it, and I felt absolutely terrible.  It was his dad’s truck, who lived in Texas on a cattle farm.  He bought it back from us and is going to have it fixed up again (it has already been in multiple wrecks), but it is currently still sitting in our driveway. 

                No matter what kind of new nice cars I get throughout my life, there will always be a place in my heart for my truck, and I think I will probably eventually buy another one that is just like it.  I don’t know why I can get so attached to something like a car, but I guess it’s just because I really care for my possessions.  My parents bought me a bright blue Mazda 3, and if anything can adequately replace my truck, that’s it. :)

The Zombie

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The Zombie

                A couple weeks ago, between a Monday and a Tuesday, I stayed up until three o’ clock in the morning writing four essays for my AP U.S. History class which were due on the Tuesday.  I got them done, but this started my course of sleep deprivation which continued through last week.  That night was when I got totally thrown off, and for the next three or four days, I was only able to get five or six hours of sleep each night, and felt like a total zombie during the day.  I skipped classes and went home at lunch a couple times just to take a nap.  I have not gotten enough sleep and felt quite tired many times before, but I believe this was the first time that my serious lack of sleep had started to degrade my health.

                In addition to all the common symptoms of tiredness, such as drowsiness, slowed reactions, irritation and physical fatigue, I went into a considerable depression and started to see things that weren’t really there.  For the first four to five hours after waking up in the morning, I was literally fighting to stay awake, let alone concentrate normally in school.  I started having severe mood swings that caused my parents to start forcing me to skip classes to come home to sleep.  Also, in AP Psychology, we also happened to be learning about sleeping and sleep debt, which I was accumulating a lot of, and I was regrettably informed that the brain hangs on to this ‘sleep debt’ for at least two weeks, negatively affecting the body and mind in numerous ways.

                Now, on the Sunday almost two weeks after the Monday-Tuesday marathon, I think I am finally feeling better, but as I didn’t go to sleep until 1:30 or two o’ clock last night due to a marching band competition, I still don’t think I am very close to one hundred percent.  Until this recent stretch, I haven’t really taken sleep loss seriously, but now that I can see its effects very clearly, I will probably avoid it at all costs in the future.  I don’t think I’m going to forget anytime soon the terrible feeling that goes along with it, not to mention the strange dreams, random sounds, and the humans and animals that aren’t really there when you try to talk to or touch them.

Meoooowwww

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Meoooowwww

                I can’t remember how many times my doctor has told me, “Get rid of those cats; you won’t get sick anymore!”  Despite my allergy to cats, my family owns two cats, both of which shed incredible amounts of hair all over the house, often making my life miserable.  For this reason, we must keep the door to my room closed at all times, because if they get on my bed, I’m a few hours of sleep away from a sinus infection.  Any time we forget and leave the door open, they luxuriate on my bed, rolling around with hair flying through the air. 

                The thing about pet allergies is that people aren’t allergic to the pets’ fur, but rather are allergic to their saliva.  However, since cats bathe by licking themselves all over their body, their saliva therefore gets all over their hair, which falls out and gives people allergies.  One way to take care of this problem would be to give the cats baths every few days, but after my mom did went through that experience many years ago, we have decided that it’s just not worth it.  I can just live with having some pretty nasty allergy problems once in a while.  When the cats get into my room, we just change the sheets, and this happens more often than a normal person would normally change their sheets. 

                Anyway, the reason I keep my cats despite being allergic to them is because they are comforting little animals; little friends.  They feel like they are a part of our family, and they respond to their name by meowing and getting all excited.  When I’m stressed out with schoolwork or whatever, they come by me and start purring.  I think they can tell our feelings by the smells we give off.  It’s similar to the ‘fear scent’ that they can pick up from each other.  I also prefer cats over dogs, partially because they are fastidious enough to go to the bathroom in a litter box, as opposed to dogs, which you must walk and then pick up their poop. 

                I think pets are a healthy addition to any family, because they are generally more beneficial than detrimental.  They provide a source of exercise, and are very soothing in times of discomfort.  Even in families with pet allergies, I would sometimes still recommend having pets because of the many advantages they bring.