Brettia

After checking up on the recently crippled ScYtHRadio website, I found that perhaps the planets really did align four nights ago. ScYtH coincidentially posted a news brief with the same theme…a miracle, according to him. Not a miracle, says I. It’s all about the dust. Since we seem to share content a bit here, I “stole” some graphics off his site (not really, just borrowed without asking). They’re edited screenshots taken using a program called Celestia, available by clicking the ScYtHRadio button under the Affiliates section of the Sidepanel (there ya go, ScYtH, free visitors). The only reason the screenshots are edited is because I compressed them so that they’d load a bit faster. A 3.5 Mb file is a bit high even on a cable modem, and I still remember the pain of dial-up, so I had to get the size down some.

Screenshot One (Source):
Screenshot Two (Cloud):
There were images here, once. Just use your “imaaaginaaation.”
Why did I ruin this perfectly good computer-generated photo of our solar system with my greenness? Because I used this greenness to circle (or oval, if you want to be technical) a large dust cloud thing that seems to be moving toward us. Being a scientific type of person, I just had to come up with an explanation for this phenomenon. Most would say it’s the asteroid belt. Nay, says I. This is no belt. It is missing a buckle, if it is. And who would wear it? Nay, this is a cloud of dust, sent to us by troglodytic, shriveled creatures from afar.
This dust is a rare delicacy in their world, and it has been sent via UniSex (not the bathroom, Universal Express) to our solar system as a greeting from their race. FedEx and UPS combined didn’t have the trucks to carry it this far, so they had to rely on the stars to guide it. And so, this dust traveled millions of lightyears, finally reaching its destination two days ahead of schedule. For this, UniSex demanded an extra payment. When the aliens refused to pay the $3.96 on the invoice, UniSex was outraged and called a workers’ strike, where the workers actually strike things with rocks. This wiped out the aliens, and no one cared. Except them.

With its debts settled, UniSex merged with our beloved (or not) Microsoft, wrongly called Microshaft or M$ by antisocial Linux forumlurkers. Microsoft took UniSex and made it into a new operating system for dog leashes, enabling owners to pay more money to Microsoft, making them happy, or so they thought.

The dust cloud, which has reached our solar system and now sits right at our front door, as promised by UniSex in its guarantee. Sadly, we are too weak to open this door, for we are confined to our Internet to give us solace when we fail, and so we become addicted. The dust gift remains unreceived, a violation of the policy signed between the aliens and UniSex. Now angry, the single troglodyte left after the massacre has pressed charges under the name Tomatito Pennfeld Yakson and will soon begin another anti-trust suit to attempt to cripple the American economy and be generally annoying, like the last one.

And as the dust settles after this case (metaphorically and literally), the gift dust will settle around Earth, knocking out satellites like a solar flare when the magnetic field flurps. We, the dust people, people of the dust, dust settlers, dust enjoyment beings, or, humans, will revel in the mysteries of this dust that is so abundant in Arizona, the long forgotten province of lore.

The above text was written on a whim. I have no logical reason for its existence, other than that it explains a lot. About what, I do not know. That, my friend, is for future generations to discover. Until that time, when enlightenment is brought to all, and I no longer need to gain inspiration from movies like Apollo 13 and aritists like Dali and musicians like U2, I shall wait. And the dust shall continue to envelop me.

Today, Pluto’s favorable position relative to Saturn caused me to have a good day. Or not. Though the fact that I am homework-less is such a rare occurrence that it seems that the planets must align for it to be possible. And what did I devote my extra time to? Breaking my code. In programming, code is “broken” when you do something to make it not work anymore. Most of the time, some intense debugging can stablize the code again, but I’m too frustrated to do that just yet. I tried to object-orient my card collection system with classes and functions, rewriting my earlier linear design to be more flexible and stable. All this while integrating a new database abstraction layer for data storage and a few name changes caused massive problems. I don’t have huge knowledge of OOP (object-oriented programming) yet, so I really have no idea how to fix things. I have a feeling this will mean another five hours of pain.

School was great today because it was generally easy and no teacher assigned much work. In health we watched a corny video on fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. No homework there. In English we went over our homework from Thursday night and talked amongst ourselves. No homework there but to study for tomorrow’s vocabulary test. In math we did our homework in class after some incredibly boring notes. No homework, obviously. In social studies I did my homework in class, in biology there was none, and in Spanish we had an easy test.

I had planned on writing a longer entry, but various interruptions prevented this from happening. I’ll end this one for now.

I’ve chucked the frooty “windowed” look that I had before; it was too complicated and much more colorful than necessary. Somehow I always end up reverting to the standard blue and white color scheme, and I have in this case too. Today is Sunday and I should be studying for three tests tomorrow, but I’m really not worried about my grade on them. One is for social studies, in a class into which I was recently switched. There is almost no hope for me to cram knowledge of major religions into my incapacious brain by tomorrow; I have pretty much given up on studying at this point. Another test is in Spanish, which I am remarkably good at, even though I haven’t had a Spanish course since December of 2002 and have forgotten much of whatever I learned. Studying is unnecessary because I know ser/estar pretty well at this point. The final test is in…er…oh. I guess there is no third test. I had two already on Friday…that must have confused me. Oh well.

Not to mention that, but I have to compose a corny song based on the rhythm of “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad.” Seriously, how many people actually know the entire song? Not many. I’ll have to look it up on the Internet or something.

The computer fund hasn’t grown. Tyler complains of his own technology woes in the entry before the entry before this one, but he’s got one advantage over me: $1700 in offshore accounts. Actually, they’re probably not offshore, but it makes it sound more interesting. He might not have a nice computer, but one of his families is supposed to be getting a new one, and he has this cash pile, so he doesn’t have much reason to complain. I had close to $400 once, but Europe claimed it (and $50 more), to my everlasting unhappiness. The fact is, I NEED MONEY! Yet I have none. And might not have any until I’m old enough to work. My mom is against me having a job; she says I’ll have to work for my entire life anyway, so why start early. Then I say I’ll not work if she’ll give me $50 a week in allowance. She hands me the Want-Ads and tells me to get looking.

Even at $50 per week, it would take nearly a year to buy a dream PC. At my current $20 (this is for doing chores and such on Saturday, not for free), it will take two-and-a-half years. If I can invest my income after every $80 and make 12% a year on that, I’d have $1,014.60 after the first year. The 12% didn’t help much only getting me an extra $60. This is equivalent to three weeks of work, however, not bad. The odds of this are about as good as those of winning the lottery. Maybe I can virus my own computer to force my parents to buy a new one. No, that would be mean, and financially draining.

Urf.

Now there’s a title! “Not Happy”: one of my best ever! All right, it sucks, but at least it gets the point across. I’m currently in the worst mood that I have been in since before starting school. I got a random schedule shoved at me by some girl in Biology, supposedly from the office, which said that my third and fourth periods were switched around and the change takes effect tomorrow. Thanks for giving me so much time to adjust. Now I have to rearrange my binder. But that’s not really why I care. My friend Jim, who is the only person I know who has any of the same classes as I do, is in my current third period, which, if switched, I will no longer be in. So I’m only in one of Jim’s classes now. Not only that, but I actually know and like some of the people in my fourth hour, geometry, and now I’ve lost that block too. I wouldn’t have minded switching other periods, but these were my favorites out of all so far. I also liked Geometry because the teacher and students reminded me of what it was like in math last year, and I got that wonderful feeling of the good old days, when I was carefree and happy. But alas, my cheerful existence came to an abrupt end August 13th. And now the memories are all that is left of that time.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg: my biggest problem right now is that just about everyone in my biology class thinks my friend Kyle and I are Jedi, all because of some sarcastic comment I made. Kyle isn’t helping - I think he kind of likes the attention. The Jedi thing has spread to everyone except the teacher; we did a lab today and the two girls in Kyle and I’s group protested having to work with us because of our “Jedi powers.” I don’t get it. The whole thing is so dumb it would be funny were it not my friend and I who are getting shunned and made fun of. Eventually they’ll go too far and I’ll yell at them (or not), but until then I must endure the pain. And to think it was all started by some “Ashton” kid who I don’t even know and who also looks like a sixth grader, along with most of the other kids in the class. Combined with Miss Drechsler, who is the identical not-twin sister of a teacher at my middle school, I actually feel like I’m in eighth grade again. Hopefully the Jedi name will wear off; I really don’t want to end up being ridiculed like the “Star Wars Kid” whose humiliating video entertained the Internet community with its patheticness back in May.

In other news (I don’t know why I put it that way, it just sounds best), I have a ton of homework which I am currently not doing. Also, one of the few highlights of the day, I changed bus routes so I don’t have to be the third person in the seat every morning or the last stop in the evening. I just have to walk a bit farther.

The last item for today, Brettia has recovered from a near-death state to about 80% of its former self, with everyone coming back on except one major player who is desperately needed. Otherwise, things are going fine there. I’ve been trying to post, but the recent uptick in homework load has kept me from being able to do all I want to. I have to “kidsit” my friend Coleman from Friday to Saturday while his dad is out of town, so there won’t be much in the way of posting on Brettia or Organon for a while.

*I have virtually no money in my computer fund right now. It will be tracked as the amount grows (hopefully) in the side column.

Microsoft, I command you to weep. You hate Linux. You hate open source software. You hate it because it is an obstacle blocking you from making more money. You hate it because it is faster, stabler, better than any software you make. You wish it had never been born. But Linux is here to stay and no matter how much you try to avoid it, no matter how much you try to keep its name from being mentioned, no matter how many lawsuits and legal battles you start, publicly or privately, with RedHat and Mandrake and SuSE, you can never make it go away. And now you are worried. You have $46 billion in cash and cash-equivalents, but you don’t know what to do with it. You give some to shareholders. You invest some in stocks. But the rest just sits there, like it always has. Your stream of revenue hasn’t slowed to a trickle, but you know it will. You just don’t know when.

Now your programmers lie awake at night, dreaming up the next version of Windows, Longhorn. You codename it that because you’ve used up all the good ones on the countless unnecessary incremental releases of your products (which you made billions of dollars from). They call Longhorn a “bet-the-company” move. But you haven’t bet anything. No, it’s not a bet, it’s a robbery. Linux is robbing you of all you once had: credibility, users, and money. Now you’re desperate to get it back, and you throw all your chips on the table, pull out all the stops, give it everything you’ve got.
You think your staff of 50,000 will be able to pull it off. But Linux has a community of two million - and it’s growing. Microsoft’s clan of giants is outnumbered by Linux’s army of ants. The ants can win, outmaneuvering, outpacing the slow, lumbering giants. In the end, when all is said and done, the giants will fall, their size and cruelty catching up to them. The ants, the hard-working survivors, will go on forever after the conflict, and will fight off new threats with suprising ease because of their superiority.

Wow…I wrote that. A unique way to bash Microsoft, don’t you think? Yes, you say, but what’s wrong with Microsoft? Why do you hate Windows? I hate Windows because I have seen what a real operating system is. I have seen the true beauty of Linux, and Windows pales in comparison to it. Linux lacks the resource-hogging frills and happy interface of Windows, for its beauty comes from its superior design and strength at its core.

Now you think I’m some computer-obsessed freak. Well, you’re half right. I like technology because it’s something I’m good at working with. I have the mentality and logic for dealing with it. Normally, people like to do the things they’re good at. So I program, I install, I tinker. I do this because the manuals are too complex to make sense to anyone and because I’m a hands-on person. I need to be able to touch and work things to figure them out. This tinkering takes a long time, especially when doing it on a computer as obsolete as mine. That’s why I spend so much time on computers. Besides, one day I’ll come up with some great new concept or program and figure out how to sell it to people. Then I’ll be rich. Of course, that would be going against the whole idea of free software, but “free” does not always mean cost-free, but rather restriction-free.

If I’m only half computer-obsessed, what else do I do? All the normal kid things. I watch TV, I go to school, I hang out with friends (sometimes), I do homework. I don’t devote my entire life to computers, just a large portion of it.

Schedule (Weekdays):
6:30-7:15 Get ready for school, watch TV
7:15-7:40 Ride to school (bus), read
7:40-2:25 School
2:25-3:05 Ride home, read
3:05-4:00 Watch TV
4:00-5:30 Check bookmarked websites for updates
5:30-6:00 Tinker
6:00-6:45 Dinner
6:45-7:30 Tinker
7:30-9:00 Homework
9:00-9:30 Blog
9:30-6:30 Sleep
Notice that only about an hour of my day is spent tinkering. On the weekends, though, that might jump to six or seven hours, if I get sucked into something. It’s not like I have anything better to do.

This weekend was one of those weekends where I got sucked in. I got PartitionMagic 8 in the mail Friday so that I can partition my hard drive and run Linux and Windows at the same time (normally you have to uninstall one to use the other). Then I installed RedHat Linux 9 on the second partition (Windows is on the first) and booted to Linux. Finding my installation unsatisfactory for various reasons (too complicated to describe), I wiped the Linux partition and started over. I quickly went through several Linux installations of different distributions, from RedHat to Mandrake to Slackware. It took all of Saturday and the early hours of Sunday to get to what I have now: RedHat Linux 9 - Minimalist. Normally, RedHat comes installed with lots of useful software, but this can become more of a curse than a blessing when you want to build programs from source code and bypass RedHat’s package system of installing things.

With Linux installed, I used today to build and compile PHP, MySQL, and Apache so that I can run a development server from my computer. I’ve been having problems with a card trading PHP script that produces different results depending on who uses it for some reason. I wanted a test server so I could compare the results of running it on Linux to running it on Windows.

So I did that and it took a long time, but I got it all running (the script still doesn’t work - that’s my next project). And now I’m both frustrated and happy at the same time: happy that I could get it going, but frustrated that I couldn’t do it until after summer vacation had ended. If only I’d had two more weeks…

I’m back again. And I’m not dead, nor have I been pounded into the floor by a drug-influenced, testosterone-packed teenager. Actually, things are looking up for me.

I should begin at the beginning. First, I successfully dropped AP World History but was unable to get into any of Tyler’s classes. That’s okay, I guess. My teachers have proved to be fairly nice and/or good. And I don’t have PE until second quarter (Health, for now), so I don’t have that to think about, either. Other than the fact that I am the last stop on my bus route and my bus is always full, everything is fine.

Yep. And I changed the layout, as you can see. I got frooty. I’ll change it again soon, so watch out.

There’s really nothing else to report. Tyler came over to my house today for no specific reason. We talked about school and random things a bit and then he left.
My only worry or problem at this point is with my other website, Brettia. The forum has all but died and no one posts, nor does anyone care about posting or continuing the RPs that are going on right now. I’ve contemplated shutting the board down, but what would I replace it with? What else is there to do?

In a way, the downfall of Brettia is probably a good thing. I found last year that I was spending way too much time posting, and that was getting in the way of my homework and stuff. I began to procrastinate, and my grades didn’t suffer, because I got everything in on time, but I still felt guilty. Being in high school now means I don’t have that much room to procrastinate or slack off, especially at the beginning of the school year.

So I’ll give them until September 1st. Anytime after that and it’s gone. Frankly, I’m tired of waiting for posts and I’m tired of wasting my hosting, which I actually paid for. An entire month without posts usually means it’s over. Even if Tyler reads this and starts posting to keep me from shutting the board down, it won’t work, because no one will reply. I want to see things as they used to be, like they were back when the first Algebraic War was full on and people posted ten thousand words a day.

You know the full Benelucian compilation of the Algebraic war is nearly 100,000 words? Or something like that. That’s the most I’ve ever written in my life. I feel proud. That could be a book. It does need major editing and reworking, but no one ever has the time to do it.

(Before I continue, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, go to http://www.brettia.com for answers.)

It’s sad really, but all good things must die eventually, and trying to push them along with a stick in the hope of getting things started again doesn’t help.

I have six months of hosting for brettia.com left, and the domain doesn’t expire until 2005. What do I do? I have built a pretty good card trade and collection system for Magi-Nation, except it doesn’t seem to work for some reason on my host’s servers, while it works perfectly on my own development server at home. I think the problem must lie in my host’s inability to upgrade their software. They still run PHP 4.2.2, while the latest version is 4.3.2, and there are RC versions for 4.3.3 and beta versions for PHP 5. The jump from 4.2.2 to 4.3.3 is not a small upgrade, either. There are some major differences between the two, which is the likely cause of the problems. (I run 4.3.2 on my dev server.)

So to use this great application I have I must switch webhosts. I found one for $60/year which is quite nice, but I don’t know if I want that kind of commitment. Even with a refund for the rest of my service with my current host, totaling $18, I’d still need $42 more to pay for the new package, and there’s a chance I wouldn’t even use it all. (I might take down my new application before the year is up.)

The last option here is to host my own website. I know it can be done, but I don’t know how. I also don’t have access to an OC-3 or even a T1 connection line, so the bandwidth would be quite narrow and the connection slow, even over my 3 MBps cable modem. I could also try to port my application to work on my host’s servers, but that would require extra, unnecessary work that I don’t want to have to do.

I just sent a support ticket to my webhost’s helpdesk stating the problem, but I will more than likely get a response saying the error was mine and that I should be ashamed for contacting them at all. How helpful.

And now I am unceremoniously yelled off to bed. It’s only 9:00! C’mon, please! Can’t I stay up? No! Go to bed! Urf. Okay, I only had one more thing to say. Tomorrow I get two things via UPS: PartitionMagic 8.0, and a new watch. I’ll describe them when I’m not being threatened with death by salt or claymore.

I should have blogged earlier. Yet another week-long absence by Brett…so shameful. Um…yeah, anyway, school starts Wednesday, as is noted by the countdown clock at left which I am thinking of deleting. I don’ wonna go back t’ skool! I be 2 stoopede 2 lurn antythin. And I don’t want to work like a good kid. A week ago it seemed like summer would never end and now I need another week to be ready to go back. To make things worse, I’m not really “going back” at all, since I’ll be at a new school this year - high school. The horror of all horrors strikes all unknowing children at some point in their lives, and my time has come. Great.

Supposedly everyone at the high school is nice. Supposedly they all want to help you. That’s just a load of crap the teachers and counselors and peer mediators cram into you during the final weeks of 8th grade to give you a false sense of security. Then you get seven hours of homework and a beating by some evil senior on the first day and your opinion changes. My thinking is that if I expect things like that to happen, and they don’t, then I’ll be happier overall because it will turn out better than expected. If I get my hopes up, then they’re dashed to pieces after only a single period. A bleak outlook might be good in this situation.

I can imagine a senior reading this and shaking his head, chuckling at the fearful freshman as he worries over nothing. I am quite sure my worries are unfounded, but you never know. Some of the jerk children (the jocks, populars, and idiots) can be quite vicious when they want to be. Others just tease you or slap you around for the fun of it. But it’s not them I worry about, it’s the DAMS jerk children. (DAMS is Desert Arroyo Middle School, whose kids also go to Cactus Shadows after 8th grade.) DAMS is notorious (at least at Sonoran Trails, my middle school) for being a haven for drug addicts and kleptomaniac children. This may or may not be true, but the abundance of mullets, mohawks, and gothic clothing seen at DAMS cannot be ignored.

Most likely, I’ll revert to my usual strategy (the do-whatever-you-want-’cause-you-won’t-get-a-reaction-from-me attitude) and be left alone. The jerk children will soon realize that it takes a lot to get on my nerves.
Now I wonder, though, if the jerk children themselves are feeling insecure because they now have to compete with the DAMS students for attention. It will certainly be much harder for them to get any laughs from anyone but their close friends, but they never did much better than that anyway. They will probably be more nervous/anxious than I am since they stand to lose their popularity while I don’t have to do anything to retain my niche in the social hierarchy. People just think of me as that nice smart kid they can go to for help and answers. At least they know who I am, which can be both good and bad. I should open up a 1-900 number or a pay-par-visit website for homework help. I could charge $950 an hour and grin maliciously as the jerk children wallow in beds of worksheets and textbook photocopies.

Yes, that would be the life. But that will come sooner than they or I think, because the minute we reach college and then the workplace, I’m going to be the one on top and they’ll all be slaving under a hot coffee maker in the ghetto branch of Circle K. Up with the geeks, down with the jocks!

And now I’ve come to careers and all that crud. It seems like someone asks me every day what I want to be when I “grow up.” That or what college I want to go to. The problem is, there are too many possibilities I could choose and I suck at making decisions. I know I want to go to a prestigious, out-of-state school like MIT or Stanford, and I know I want to get into some kind of technology or business field. That’s about it. Someday I’ll read this weblog again and laugh because I’ll be the CEO of some Fortune 500 company or something. I’ll be amazed that I thought about this stuff when I was fourteen. And I’ll wonder why I didn’t have a life.

Career Possibilities
Web Designer/Developer
Application/Operating System Programmer
IT Director
SysAdmin
etc.

I kind of think the best thing for me would be to have my own small business, something I run out of my garage or apartment. Who knows, maybe I’ll be the next Bill Gates (Microsoft) or Michael Dell (Dell) or Larry Page (Google) or Linus Torvalds (Linux). Or not.

(Wow….that was one of the saddest entries I’ve ever scrawled on a piece of torn Kleenex. Urf.)

Nothing to read here. It probably isn’t good form to start a blog entry with a negative statement, but I really don’t care. I’m undecided on the class issue; one part of me says to step up to the challenge and take the class, and the other part keeps reminding me of the horror and pain of the immense homework load I will have. This probably seems like a stupid thing to worry myself about to anyone else. Most people would drop the class, right? Then why can’t I? Maybe because I’m just not like most people. I don’t like to feel like I didn’t do my best. But if doing my best means risking unbearable stress…

What a great way to start out the school year. Things always get better, though.

In other news, I’m thinking of starting my own e-magazine for writers. It would feature techniques and stories and literature and stuff, sort of like FanFiction.net, but in a magazine format. There seems to be an absence of those kind of publications on the Internet, anyway. It would be hard to get far with no money or members, though…perhaps I can get people at school to join. I don’t know, the idea is sounding less good every time I think about it.

Urf.

I went to the Louvre Museum while in Paris. I saw the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, and all that good, fun stuff. When pronounced phonetically, Louvre sounds like the name of a vacuum company. And so the Louvre vacuum was born. It really sucks. (Did you catch that?)

Like Louvre vacuums, school sucks. Especially when you are trapped in a room of smart kids with none of your friends. And you have a lot of “smart” homework. In eleven days, I get to journey to Cactus Shadows High School for the first time. Yay. Sounds like fun. (Wink, wink.) Normally, I wouldn’t care that much. But this year, I am in only one class with either Tyler or Jim in it. And that class is PE. Furthermore, I took AP World History, a painfully hard and brutally tough class with pounds of summer homework I still haven’t done. Also, this class is the reason that I’m not in any of my friends’ classes. Tyler took the same classes as I did except for AP WH, and we would have been together in almost everything had it not been for that little gap.

Now, I’m seriously considering dropping AP WH and moving down to regular WH, in the hope of having at least a few classes with people I know. The problem is, moving down also means being in a class with a large concentration of jerk children (jerks, populars, jocks, idiots). Being with friends is worth this sacrifice, but then I also have to think about the fact that the AP course is worth college credit. One less class to take later, right?
A list of reasons to drop and keep AP WH:
Keep:

Drop:

1. Less homework
2. No need to finish summer homework
3. Might be with best friends
4. More free time
5. Easier means I can focus on other classes like Spanish 3/4 and Honors English
6. Taking 3 other advanced classes…why need 4?
7. More time for clubs and sports (!)
8. More time for Brettia
9. Less chance of burnout/breakdown
10. Really hate WH at this point
11. Tired of being the smart kid
12. Not all about grades…be well-rounded
13. Much more confident with less to worry about

There seem to be good points on both sides of the issue, but I’m leaning toward dropping it. I am one of the few kids who had a good enough relationship with their parents to be able to talk over things like this, so I guess I’ll see what they think first. I think Mom would see it my way, but my dad might be a little disappointed. I just…don’t think it’s worth killing myself socially and mentally over a single class. I know I probably won’t see any of my friends again after high school, but it really helps to have them with you during school to give you a boost and keep you from falling over the edge. So I’ll ask Mom first, and then we’ll ask Dad, and I’ll see what happens. I just don’t know what else I can do. I don’t even know if I can switch out of AP WH. Perhps not. Oh well, though. I’ll tell you the result of my lobbying tomorrow.

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Um…yeah. I really felt like writing, once I got into it. Even with the depressing two-week intermission between writings, I still feel proud of myself for blogging continually for a full month. I know that may sound sad to experienced bloggers, but I can’t help it. Hopefully I will find time during the school months to keep you updated…but it won’t be easy. I went in for late registration today, since I had missed Falcon Prep Week while in Europe. Only the bookstore was open, so I get to do everything else on the first day of school. Great.

You know what else is great? The amount of summer homework I have left to do in the next twelve days. Here’s a list, with estimated time needed for completion.

Journey to the Center of the Earth/Journal Entry - 10 hours
4 Chapters of World History Reading - 5 hours
5 Outlines for Said Chapters - 5 hours
250 Test Questions for Said Chapters - 5 hours
Oliver Twist Reading - 10 hours
Around the World in 80 Days Reading - 7 hours
Book Critiques for Above Two Books - 5 hours
Total - 47 hours
Twelve days is equivalent to 288 hours. If I sleep nine hours a day, then I have 180 waking hours. Then I only work from about 10 AM to 5 PM, so I’ll have 84 hours, roughly. So half of all of my time must be devoted to school. That sucks. So I’ll get to work, I guess.

And now Mom says I should go to bed to get back onto a normal schedule, though it’s probably been two years since I went to bed at a normal hour and got up early. I only get up early during school. I never do things in the morning, so why get up. I’m one of those people you’d call a night owl. I might stay up until 5 AM just to be awake. So I do. Is it right to disobey might parents? (Bad me says: Yes, if they don’t know about it. Good me says: It’s for your own good.) Since when did I care about my own good? I’ll go to bed when I feel like it, and now is nowhere near that time. I kind of think sometimes that my parents are just jealous that they have to work while I get to sit around all day and want to make me at least adhere to their sleeping hours. Sorry, but no.

I think I’ve ranted enough, now. I was going to tell you about how all my hopes and dreams are dashed since I was forced to spend all my money in Europe (and $50 more, besides) on expensive food and ice cream. No computer for me. I need some long-lost uncle to die and leave me a few million dollars in inheritance. Screw the uncle, I just want the money. He can rot.