Day 1- Doctor Who challenge

I know this was supposed to span over 30 days, but that seemed like way too long when I could easily answer all of the questions right now (:

1. Favorite Doctor- David Tennant
2. Favorite companion- Amy
3. Least favorite companion- Martha
4. Favorite villain- Dalek, weeping angel
5. Favorite aliens- the Face of Boe, Silurian, weeping angel
6. Favorite special episode- The Christmas Invasion
7. Favorite season- 5
8. Least favorite season- 7 part 1
9. Favorite Master- John Simm
10. Saddest episode- Van Gogh
11. Funniest episode- New Earth
12. Episode that scared you the most- The Empty Child
13. Favorite theme song- Matt Smith
14. Character you like that everyone else hates- Rose
15. Most annoying character- Mickey
16. Favorite actor- Arthur Darville
17. Least favorite actor- Noel Clarke (Mickey)
18. Favorite actress- Karen Gillan
19. Least favorite actress- Freema Agyeman (Martha)
20. Favorite writer- Moffat
21. Favorite couple- Amy and Rory
22. Favorite friendship- 11 and Amy
23. Favorite doctor who spin-off- Torchwood
24. Favorite quote-

"Look at the sky. It's not dark and black and without character. The black is, in fact deep blue. And over there: lighter blue and blowing through the blues and blackness the winds swirling through the air and then shining, burning, bursting through: the stars! And you see how they roar their light. Everywhere we look, the complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes."

25. Favorite doctor who catchphrase- I'm sorry, i'm so sorry
26. Favorite doctor gadget- sonic screwdriver
27. Favorite interview- I honestly can't narrow it down
28. Favorite gif-

29. Favorite guest star- Carey Mulligan (Sally Sparrow)
30. When did you become a fan of doctor who? When one of my friends showed it to me, I immediately got hooked, and have been a Whovian ever since.

30 Day Challenge

I'm going to be trying my hardest to post these every day, but forgive me if I have to do 2 a day because I'll be in the great state of Colorado next week, and Kansas in 3 weeks, so I may not have the time or internet access to do that. 

Here's what you've got coming for you:

1. Doctor Who challenge

2. Weird things you do when you're alone

3. How have you changed in the past 2 years?

4. What do you wear to bed?

5. What kind of person attracts you?

6. 5 things that irritate you about the opposite/same sex. 

7. Play the iPod shuffle game

8. Something you're currently worrying about

9. Your opinion on cheating on people

10. Top 5 TV shows that you like

11. Your current relationship, if single discuss the single life

12. Your views on drugs and alcohol

13. Concerts you've attended

14. A date you'd love to go on

15. The best things to happen to you this week

16. 3 things you're proud of about your personality

17. Things that make you scared

18. Disrespecting parents

19. Something that never fails to make you feel better

20. The last argument you had

21. Something you can't seem to get over

22. 10 things about you people don't really expect

23. Something you always think "what if..." about. 

24. Things you want to say to 5 different people

25. 10 ways to win your heart

26. Your religious beliefs

27. Talk about your siblings

28. The month you were happiest this year and why

29. A picture of yourself

30. Your middle name and how you feel about it

Finals

That post finals haze. When you're so brain dead from trying to recover the information that you somehow swept the cobwebs off of just in time to take the test. That time when you realize how close you are to summer, no matter how much it doesn't feel like June.

Side note- when its the beginning of June and the weather is still 50, cloudy, and rainy, it doesn't tend to inspire many feelings of summertime, at least not to me.... #thanksobama. 

In the spirit of finals season, I used all of the powers of the interweb (well, google) to find some information about all night study sessions.

According to UCLA researchers, increased study time does lead to overall better academics, but not when sleep is forfeit.

I admit to having my fair share of late school nights, although not always for academic reasons. One instance in particular I remember was staying up late to finish the new season of arrested development, which I convinced myself that I HAD to finish right that moment. I wound up hitting the hay around 3 am, generously giving my brain a whole 3 hours to recover before having to function fully again. The next day was hazy and unfocused, fueled by the diet coke I had to drink with breakfast to be able to walk out the door.

Oh yeah, and I had completely forgotten about the math final that day. I walked into math - I'm a good student, don't get me wrong- and started my final. I stared at problems for a few minutes before the problem would actually sink into my brain. Simple problems seemed x10 more difficult.  Needless to say, it wasn't my proudest moment as a student.

According to these same researchers, keeping a consistent sleep schedule and study schedule helps students to learn better and to stay more focused.

If you're in school, good luck with finals, and what are your best and worst study habits? Leave a comment and I'll be sure to respond. 

If you're interested in reading the article, here's the link!!

Http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/UCLA/cramming-for-a-test-don-t-do-it-237733.aspx

Music-

Hello, hello- Missy Higgins

That wasn't me- Brandi Carlile

Nobody knows me at all- The Weepies

Until next time, 

Yours,

Sami

Summertime Blues

At this time of year, there are actually a lot of reasons to be sad. If you're a high school senior, maybe you're saying goodbye to a lot of people you know you will never see again. Maybe that's something you're actually happy about. But if you're like me, a lot of your closest friends are going off in their own directions, whether that be off to college to continue their lives or off to summer camp, where they'll undoubtedly have the best time of their life, without you.

But there are plenty of ways to cure the summertime blues. You could make a summertime checklist (I refuse to call it a bucket list, because that's for when you're going to kick the bucket, and I don't plan to kick the bucket by the end of the summer, but i'd love to finish this list, incomplete as it is), and see who you can rope into completing it with you. The most important thing when creating a bucket list is make things manageable, and make a good amount of them things you can do for free (it makes it a lot easier to do them all). Also I don't claim to have made any of these lists, I found most of them on tumblr.

Or you could sit inside by yourself all day enjoying one of the following shows (all of which are on netflix).
~The Office
~Parks and Recreation
~Merlin
~Doctor Who
~Arrested Development
~Glee
~Heroes
~Saturday Night Live (past episodes)
~The Walking Dead
~Lost
~Supernatural
~Futurama
~Weeds





Lastly, you could read some of these books, they're all on my summer reading list so far.
~Looking for Alaska- John Green
~Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
~ The Sword of Truth (series)- Terry Goodkind
~ Witch World- Christopher Pike
~ World War Z- Max Brooks
~ Ender's Game- Orson Scott Card
~ An Abundance of Katherines- John Green
~Will Grayson, Will Grayson- John Green
~The Hobbit- JRR Toklien
~Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister- Gregory Maguire
~The Wicked Years (series)- Gregory Maguire
~Delirium (series)- Lauren Oliver

Any other ideas for beating the summer blues? Leave a comment and i'll be sure to respond!

Standardized Testing

Having just taken the Math MCA and the ACT, and being in the process of taking the Science MCA, I've had a lot of thinking to do about standardized testing, and have come to the conclusion that it's not always representative of what a student actually knows.

Let's take the ACT, for example. In my school district in particular, a majority of students preparing to take the ACT hire private tutors to teach them how to take the test. People who aren't fast readers are taught the skills to help them read a little faster to help them get through the test easier, which makes complete sense to me. Even the people who hire tutors to help them review materials they learned in previous years that they may have forgotten make sense. It's those who have tutors that teach them how to take the test. There are plenty of helpful tips for completing the ACT, including "every fourth question is a hard analysis one in the math section" and "go back to the contrasting viewpoints in the science section" (not that either of these is actually true, I completely made them up). 

In my opinion, to truly test a student's knowledge, and not how expensive of a tutor they can pay for, the test shouldn't be as predictable. The average ACT score at my high school is a 26.1, compared to the state average of 22.1, and the nationwide average of 21.1.Personally, I got a 33 going in and only reviewing for math for 3 days before the test, although if I'm being honest, I think I got pretty lucky guess-wise. After hitting my goal score on round 1, I decided to just be done with taking it, because it opens me up for plenty of scholarships in the future. 

On another note, the MCA's are intended to help districts get funding if their students do well on these comprehensive assessments, but they're very basic, baseline things for students to learn, and oftentimes aren't taken seriously at all.

Overall, the idea of standard testing to see where students rank against each other is a brilliant idea, I just think that in this day and age, its becoming less about how smart a student is, and more about how much work they put into studying and how much money they put into tutoring.

On a lighter note, if anyone's been having an awful week like I have, here's a few pictures of synchronized swimmers that are sure to cheer you up. (PS mad props to synchro I would never be able to do any of this...)

Obliteration

I recently read The Fault in our Stars by John Greene, which is quite honestly one of the most well-written books I've read in a long time. Hazel Grace (the main character) is a girl who suffers from cancer, but always refers to it almost flippantly, as if it's just a small aspect of her life. At one point during the novel, Hazel is at a support group for kids going through similar things, and this passage comes up: 

“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.” 

This resonated with me soundly the first time I read it, because it reflects a lot of the same feelings that I have about the purpose of life. In reality, everything will be forgotten eventually, so what's the point in trying to leave a footprint on history when there will be a time when history will be completely erased? To me, this redefines the meaning of life. To me, the purpose of us being alive is to help each other out. If I were to die, I would die happy knowing that I've changed the lives of the people who know me, hopefully for the better. If all that means is that my friends have a better sense of self worth because of things I've said to them in the past, then that's good enough. What's important isn't leaving our footprints on history, it's leaving footprints on each other's souls. 

My Life is Crazy!

It's been such a long time since I've posted, but I ran into an extra half hour tonight, so I decided to write. Scratch that, I don't actually have an extra half hour, but i'm willing to procrastinate even further on my homework in order to write.
Anyways, damn my life is crazy! My ski season started up a few weeks ago, and so I haven't been getting home until around 6 or 630 every night. Add that to the craziness of trying to do homework while completely exhausted, it's quite a handful. I'm managing pretty well though.

I decided to write today to talk about the amazing day that is today. It's 12/12/12, and it's the last day like this in a century! The next repeat day will be in 100 years, which most of us alive now won't be alive to see. I was reading a Facebook post that one of my friends posted about today, and it was inspiring and true.

"For those that say 12/12/12 and dates like it don't matter, that's cool i guess...say what you want, but consider this first. There's so many days of celebration, but how often can absolutely everyone believe and celebrate the same thing? Independence days and religious holidays only effect some people. This is a day we can all celebrate together. There's no "i don't believe in it" or "hooray we lost a war." So if you still think its not a big deal. Fine."

It's just cool because it's a day that everyone can celebrate, no matter their religion or beliefs. I wasn't very appreciative of this before I read this, but it gave me a little bit more respect for people that get really excited about this kind of thing.

Anyways, i'm not sure when i'll be able to post again, so keep calm and carry on (:

Busy Busy

Life in high school is CRAZY busy! I looked at my schedule this week, and with my extracurricular activities  I have 2 every day for the week, and it doesn't look like my winter will be getting much easier.
Monday: Nordic practice and tutoring for the ACT
Tuesday: Nordic practice and my first indoor pitching practice
Wednesday: Nordic practice and my pick up date for the books for my Girl Scout book drive
Thursday: Nordic practice and my sister's band concert
Friday: Nordic practice and the Sadie Hawkin's dance
Somehow, I need to make a Minnie Mouse patterned skirt, study for a 200 word Spanish vocab test, do my homework, and try to get enough sleep before Friday. Add to that the fact that I'm basically addicted to Weeds (the TV show, which I highly recommend).

Wish me luck....

There's only one queen, and that's Madonna

I went and saw Madonna last night, and it was the most entertaining concert I've ever been to. Being 16 years old, I wasn't familiar with a lot of her songs. My friend Sydney and I were some of the youngest people in the audience by far. Madonna's stage presence was undeniably the best I've seen so far. Even at 54, she can still move around and sing tremendously. She spent the whole 3 hours she was onstage singing and showing off some dance moves. It was hard for me to believe that she was 54 as I was watching her run around the stage for so long. Even better than her performance were her fans. There were so many impersonators in the audience that just made my day. There was this one guy in what was essentially a black one piece swimsuit, heels, fishnets, and a big blonde wig. It was overall a really great show, and if she ever comes back, I highly recommend that you go see her show.

Junior Year :(

People have always told me that junior year in high school is the hardest year, and that I should buckle down and get ready for the homework load. I've never truly understood that until this past week. As the end of the quarter nears, it feels like my stress levels have been increasing at exactly the same rate. I've had to memorize 500 vocab words in Spanish over the past few weeks, and the cumulative test is tomorrow. I would study for that, but I had to do identifications (basically definitions  and a study question of AP US history. To give you some perspective, doing all of my IDs took me a solid 2 hours. I managed to turn it in 15 minutes before the deadline. Worse, we have to be out of our music tomorrow in Concert Choir. Our teacher, Doctor Henderson (DH) can be a real hard ass sometimes, but i'm sure he can whip us into shape. The bummer is that I didn't have time to look over my music. Along with the stress of needing to get good grades, I have to start to think about what college I want to attend, and need to start scheduling visits to these colleges. Another thing adding to my stress bundle is thinking about the Sadie Hawkin's dance. I need to ask sort of soon, the dance is in a month. If I needed to choose a picture that represented my feelings right now, this would definitely sum it up.