The many faces of "okay"

So, texting.  Also, Facebook or Gmail chat or whatever.  We've all had that time, like the common situation I illustrate below, when you have nothing to say but "okay."  But how to do it?  Do you use "ok?" Or maybe just "k?"  Today, I solve the conundrum!

Let's get down to it, then!

Option One: "Okay"
It's simple.  It's classic.  What more to say?

Pros:
- Classy
- Traditional
- Makes you sound British.  Not that British people say "okay" any more than any other people, just that saying the full "okay" makes you sound like the kind of person who sips tea by the fire wearing a bow tie.

Cons:
- Long.  I mean, four letters is a lot to type when I'm such an important person
- Makes you sound formal, like a stuffy penguin who never has any fun.

This penguin is clearly stuck-up and unfriendly.  Don't be like this penguin.

Option Two: "'kay"
A nice abbreviation that lets you skip a whole letter, sort of.

Pros:
- The apostrophe in 'kay makes you sound kind of like Hagrid.  And half-giants are cool.  What's that?  You're just big-boned?  I didn't mean to offend you.
- Sounds kinda ghetto.  'kay, man, fo' shizzle.

Cons:
- Sounds kinda ghetto.
- Apostrophes are hard on most phones.  And skipping the apostrophe and just saying "kay" is just wrong.  I mean, what if it's someone's name?

Gangsta penguins (like this bad guys) say 'kay

Option Three: "k"
One of the most scorned abbreviations on the internet

Pros:

- Short and simple

- Can be used interchangeably with "potassium," to the confusion of all your non-nerd friends

Cons:

- Could get you scorned or killed slowly with a blunt weapon

Option Four: "kk"

For those who want to sound cute, and don't want to open themselves to the derision of the "k" users.

Pros:

Can't think of any

Cons:

- sounds dumb

- could be accidentally mistyped as "kkk," leading to many potentially awkward situations.

This is the penguin that "kk" reminds me of

Option Five: "OK" or "ok" or "Ok"

I use OK because that's what my phone corrects it to.  You might use ok.  "Ok" makes me thing of the alot.  I think that the Ok would would be a cross between an oxen and a kangaroo, and it is summoned in awkward conversations when the only thing left to say is "Ok."

Pros:

- Simple.

- Socially acceptable

Cons:

- From this point on, whenever you see the word "Ok," you will now have the image of the terrifying ox-kangaroo cross-breed I have created.  I am very sorry.

That came out looking much less cool and much more demented-centaur
than I was intending.  I apologize.

Wait, what's that you say?  This post needs more penguin pictures?  All right.  I comply with your demands.

I urge you to watch this video. 

The nerdiness of this post is slightly overwhelming

So I'm at a program at WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute - college in Massachusetts) and it's pretty freaking awesome.  Just thought you should know.

So here's how this goes down: 200 nerds from across the globe gathered together to be awesome and learn things.  I'm in physics, so we're learning about astronomy and black holes and quantum mechanics and special relativity and all that mind-blowing theoretical craziness.  I'm also in creative writing, since we're required to take one main STEM class (physics) and also one Humanities and Arts class, for this camp that I'm at.

Basically, it's amazing.  We've played countless games of Magic the Gathering and Settlers of Catan and Egyptian Rat-Screw.  We've held many Rubik's Cube competitions.  We've broken out into Disney medleys on the bus.  We've had light saber duels on the quad (nerf guns are, quite unfortuantely, forbidden at WPI).  We've played Ninja, quite a bit.  We've had multi-hour-long debates about quantum physics and how one would survive the eventual collapse of the universe (including detailed plans on how to become a cyborg-human and create an alternate universe within a quantum computer).  We've eaten ice cream cake at 8AM. 

The best part is, we're all crazy nerds here.  Not only do they understand my nerdy t-shirts, we can have awesome debates about Legend of Korra or Death Note or Nerdfighteria.  We all understand the internet jokes that everyone makes.

The funny thing is, every morning, the Program Assistants slip an announcement sheet under your dorm door, listing out the day's schedule and announcements.  And on the back, they put a comic.  For the past three days, its been an xkcd comic, and about 80% of the camp was talking about how they'd seen that comic before.  It's great.

Anyways, just letting you know that I'm not dead, and that I'm actually being awesome, just not online.  I have real-life nerd friends too!  Be proud of me.

I cleaned out my backpack today

My mom always nags me about how heavy my backpack is, and I always insist that I need everything that's in it.  Well, since school's over tomorrow, I cleaned it out today.  Here's what I found.  You can tell me if you think I really need it all, but I swear: it's all necessary.

Things I Found In My Backpack (Besides, you know, actual schoolwork and things)

• 2 books (I, Lucifer and Virals)
• 1 planner (unused since February)
• 3 Rubik's cubes (one normal, one from the Mathworks, one hell cube)
• 1 Book Sock (cupcake design)
• 1 HUGE binder clip (like three inches wide)
• 10 erasable gel pens (my favorite things in the world)
• 1 bottle of White-Out
• 2 calculators (scientific and graphing)
• 2 zombie finger puppets (necessary-I swear)
• 1 school ID card (squashed beneath my math textbook)
• 1 Vera Bradley change purse
• 1 yellow highlighter
• 1 silver Sharpie
• 1 dinosaur rubber ducky (Again, this was completely necessary to carry to school every day)
• 18 buttons (like the pin type that I stick on my backpack)
• 2 CDs
• 1 DVD (thankfully in a case)
• Approximately 400 vocab notecards (I didn't count, sorry)
• 5 chopsticks (not sure where the 5th one's partner went)
• 1 tube of body lotion (made everything in my backpack smell like pomegranate)
• 1 hairbrush
• 2 necklaces

You never know when you might need these things, okay?  I like to be prepared!

So...Nathaniel Hawthorne was Sicilian?

I think the thing that made my day was when I discovered that Nathaniel Hawthorne used the word "inconceivable" in The Scarlet Letter.

We had a sub in English, and were assigned to read chapters 10 and 11.  Being the good, dutiful students that we are, my friends and I did the work.  We read in a happy reading circle: we sat criss-cross applesauce on the floor and switched off every sentence.

People looked at us strangely, which was the best part, but the sub pretended not to notice.  Then we came across the part with "inconceivable" and my friend shouted it, since we're all big Princess Bride fans.  The sub looks up and stares right at us, says "I do not think it means what you think it means."  Then she kept doing work like nothing had happened.

Made my day.

So, tonight, I have a presentation night for something called Humanities Scholar's Collaborative.  A bunch of students apply, and you get to be part of the group that meets with HSC groups at other schools, and goes to local colleges to hear professors talk about something in relation to the year's theme, which this year is "the family in America."  Tonight is the culminating night, in which each group performs a skit about the American family structure in an assigned decade.  We're doing the 1990s.

I get to play a neighborhood gossip woman.  I also get to wear a visor, scrunchie, and fanny pack - classic stereotypical suburban 90s mom.  This shall be exciting.

Finally, the only other noteworthy news is that Relay For Life was last Friday.  My friend and I set a goal to walk 100 laps - our track is 1/4 miles so that's 25 miles.  Originally, we actually wanted 105 laps so we could say we walked a marathon, but we ran out of time.  We actually had to sprint the last few laps so we could finish before they kicked everyone out at 6am.  We were sprinting after having walked 24 miles.

Yeah, I could hardly move my legs for the rest of the weekend.

I've started Pottermore-ing

Is that a word?  Now it is.

But before I can talk rationally and coherently discuss this new development, if you will please excuse the following:

OH MY ROWLING!  ZOMG!  YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
*happy dance*


It's official, guys.  I mean, I have a Gryffindor patch on my backpack, and my penpal made me a Gryffindor bracelet, but now J.K. ROWLING has confirmed it!

*ahem*

I have regained my composure and would like to inform the world that I have joined Pottermore.  After not getting into the Beta testing in October and clicking back every week since then to see if it was finally open to the public yet.

And finally my labors were rewarded.

Friends, my name is NifflerCauldron2980 (add me as a friend!) and I am a Gryffindor!  My wand is cedar and unicorn hair, 11 inches, unbending.  And so far I have contributed a great 14 points to my House (but I'm not sure how I did that).

Basically, Pottermore is pretty cool.  My favorite part is reading J.K. Rowling's little notes and backstories about the characters and plotlines and how it all came together.  The extra stuff, where it lets you duel people and brew potions and things, is fun as well.

But, WOW brewing potions is hard.  And stressful.  All these thoughts were going through my head:

• Which of these little bags of ingredients is snake fangs?  TELL ME NOW.
• Where the freak is my wand??!
• Who knew heating cauldrons to the right temperature was so hard? 
• I'm really good at grinding bezoars.
• What am I supposed to do for the three minutes that my potion brews?  Just stare at the screen and hope that I didn't add too many porcupine quills?

I have tried, and failed, to brew the Antidote to Common Poisons at least six times.  All of these failures are because I let my cauldron overheat while it is cooking for five seconds.

Potions are hard.  How was Lily so good at it??

Also, there's one, easily remedied issue that makes me sad:

However, all I see is:

Alas.  I shall stay with my friend-less-ness and continue to fail at brewing potions.  Wish me luck!

There has been too much action in reaction to political scandals. Please write to your congressman to repeal Newton's third law.

Ahh, physics.

So, I have a physics project that I have to do.  It's meant to help us learn about torque.  Basically, we have to make a mobile.  You know, those things with sticks and objects hanging from them, most often seen above baby cribs?  We have to use the laws of torque to create a mobile out of any objects we want, and make sure that it balances.

So originally, my friend and I planned to use fuzzy dice (those things people hang from their rearview mirrors) as our hanging objects, because fuzzy dice are sort of a running inside joke in our physics class.  But I told my circus teacher (yeah, I take circus classes) about the project, and he suggested that I make my mobile out of people.

It was great.  We had these 20-foot metal Chinese poles lying around, and we weighed everyone, and did the calculations, and spliced ropes, and constructed this enormous mobile.  And we put people on it.  The surprising part was that it actually balanced, and we didn't all die.

But yeah.  I wasn't sure how my teacher would react to my, erm, creative project. (Especially since the assignment sheet said a) that the mobile should be less than 100 cm tall and b) you should not use fragile or valuable objects.  I'm honestly not sure whether humans count as valuable or fragile.) But I showed him the video and he freaking loved it.

Here it is.  I'm the one in yellow, though I'm sure you didn't need me to tell you that.  It's obvious that I'm the awesome one.

That's all, folks.  May the mass times acceleration be with you.

I'm a sucker for nerd jokes.

I'm REALLY bad at days of the week

This week has been a mess.  I thought it was Friday this morning, probably because I forgot to turn off my alarm.  So, bright and early at 5:55 AM on a Saturday morning, I wake to that lovely noise.

It was a fantastic start to the weekend.  Not.

The point of that was to say, I'm sorry.  But it's okay to post this on Saturday, because my head is screwy anyways.  I liked the idea of it.

So here, you go.  This is the Friday 56 (on a Saturday)!

Hosted by Freda's Voice

Rules:

- Grab a book, any book

- Turn to page 56

- Find any sentence that's interesting

- Post it

- Add link of Freda's site

"Another time, on the country estate of Monserrate in Santa Fe de Bogota, he woke up screaming because he dreamed that while they were having lunch together, General Santander plucked out his own eyeballs because they interfered with his eating and placed them on the table."
-- The General in His Labyrinth

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

That's certainly interesting, especially taken out of context.  I haven't finished this book yet, but it's quite good.  It's about the South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar, which is funny because I have to play him in a AP World History presentation next week.

I like this.  I try to do it every Friday.  Though in that regard, I'm not off to a great start.

The urban dwelling resembling the village of York in England (and SCIENCE!)

My title is a cryptogram.  Can you solve it?

(Hint: It means I went to New York City.)

Didja figure it out?  It means "New York City!"  You must be so smart.

It was pretty darn epic.  I mean, it was a school trip, to go to Columbia University for a publications conference. It was a school trip, and they basically gave us free reign to wander anywhere we wanted in Manhattan.  Crazy fun things went down.

However, as cool as it was to watch my English teachers sing karaoke to Lady Gaga, I doubt it interests you.  And I would like to keep you interested.  I think the most interesting thing is my Science Olympiad competition on Saturday.  I mean, New York is way too boring.  But science?  Now THAT'S exciting.


 I mean, you can even write "science" in a science-y way:

Sorry it's blurry; it's my friend's cell phone camera.  I wrote it.  I'll tell you what each letter is, because I'm REALLY proud of this thing.  Took me ages.
S - DNA strand
C - magnet
I - test tube
E - It says mc^2 because E=mc^2
N - a bunch of rulers
C - It says 3.0x10^8 because that's the speed of light, represented by "C"
E - Not sure what the name of this molecule is, my AP Chem friend made it

O - gear
L - fingers (you know, physiology!)
Y - inverted lungs.  Yes, inverted lungs.  Quit laughing, it was hard to draw lungs upside down.
M - triangles with angles
P - phosphorus
I - rad -1.  i
A - deathly hallows symbol.  This was an object of controversy, but my argument was that it related.  Harry Potter is geeky, science is geeky.  It works.
D - atom. In a D shape (I was running out of ideas by the end)

You'll notice that we had a chalkboard in our "home base" classroom, where we relaxed between rounds.  So what did we do? Play games!

First, chalkboard chess.  This was easy, we just made up symbols for each piece (pawn was circle, bishop was triangle, etc).  I was shaded, my friend's pieces were open.  And we erased each piece and redrew it to move.  Simple.  I won after an hour, when I cornered her king and she had no more moves.

Second, chalkboard Monopoly.  This was far more complicated.  First, we redrew the board and simplified the rent amounts and property prices.  We used the random integer function on the graphing calculator as dice, and kept track of money on the side.  It was really complicated.  For chance cards, we had a friend make up things to say.  That was how I ended up losing $2000 in one turn.  The chance cards were all mean.

Third, Pictionary.  This was exciting because I instituted the rule of "abstract Pictionary," stolen from the idea of Metaphysical I Spy in Paper Towns.  Basically, it had to be abstract.  No physical objects allowed.  That's how we ended up trying to draw things like "Neo-Confucianism," "schizophrenia," and a "Mongolian Death Worm."  Yes, we are awesomely nerdy like that.  Let's see YOU draw the "Harvard Sailing Team."

It's a nice thought, but...

So I happened upon this comic:

It's a nice thought.  Aww, how sweet.  Math love.  The only problem is, it's a nerdy joke that wouldn't actually work on real nerds.  I read it, and I couldn't help visualizing the scene that would play out if anyone ever tried this trick on me:

...Yeah.  Not quite the intended result.

In other news, I spent the weekend on a ski trip in Vermont.  A great deal of the weekend was based on this comic, which I find hilarious:

So my friends and I would break out in song on the chairlifts (often freaking out the strangers riding with us) and throw our palms in each other's faces.

Um...Yeah...

I SET FIIIIIIIIRE TO THE RAIN, WATCHED IT POUR, AS I TOUCHED YOUR FACE

*virtually touches your face*

Snow Day!

This is what I put on Facebook yesterday, when it started snowing, and people were predicting the statistical likelihood of a snow day:

After that, I did notice there were fewer statuses that looked something like "It's snowinngggg!"  or "Guyz, its lyk snowing rite now!!!1!111!"

But whatever.  I'm not here to criticize annoying Facebookers.  I'm here to share the results of my snow day with you.

Did I start my history essay?  No.  Did I finish my history outlining?  No.  Did I research my forestry topics?  No.  Did I call my Gold Award project adviser?  No.

I had a great list of all the things I would do today.  Very few got done.  However, I made this!  IT'S A SNOW DALEK!

Who says I'm unproductive?  Psshh.

I enjoy messing with people

I went to the bank to get money the other day, and the bank teller guy asked me how I wanted the bills.  I said "Um...how about in two-dollar bills?"

He paused, and looked at me with a face vaguely resembling this:

But he didn't say anything, and proceeded to pull out a little official-looking envelope from a little cabinet, and counted out a whole bunch of $2 bills.  The other tellers sort of looked at him weirdly, and he didn't say anything, just handed me my stack of two-dollar bills.

Great.  My bank thinks I'm a freak.

But this doesn't matter, because I am dancing around with my fresh stack of two-dollar bills.  I love these things so much, for several reasons.

1) Sometimes, people don't know that you can just ask for them at a bank.  They think $2 bills are rare.  Therefore, if you're convincing enough, you can persuade your friends to buy them off you for $3 or so.  I haven't had any success yet, but I'm working on it.

2) My brother likes to spend them all the time because he says he's "trying to bring them back into circulation."  I love spending them too, but for a different reason.  First, the cashier always looks at me, and the bill, really weirdly.  In some cases, I've heard that cashiers vehemently accuse you of counterfeit (or just refuse it), because they don't believe there's such thing as a two-dollar bill.  Hasn't happened to me, though.  But here's my favorite part.  See, cash register have specific slots for different types of bills and coins, and they don;t have a $2 bill slot.  So their hand sort of hovers between the $1 and $5 slots, trying to figure out what to do with it.  It reminds me delightfully of the spork scene in Wall-E.

It makes me crack up every time.

HAPPY Washington, Adams (Sr), Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams (Jr), Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson (Andy), Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Roosevelt (Teddy), Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt (Frank), Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson (Lyndon), Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush (Sr), Clinton, Bush (Jr), Obama DAY!

Yes, that was from memory.

No, I am not sorry for having such a long title.  Blame our abundance of presidents.  Now, for some...drumroll...PRESIDENTIAL TRIVIA!

I'm sorry, I just really, really love trivia.  Especially about the presidents.  The following are facts I just happen to know:

• John Tyler (president 1841-1845) currently has 2 living grandchildren.
• James Garfield (president 1881) could write in Greek with one hand and in Latin with the other - simultaneously.
• Milliard Fillmore (president 1850-1853) is the only U.S. president whose first language was not English - it was Dutch.
• Milliard Fillmore's last words were "The nourishment is palatable."
• Teddy Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out the light."
• JFK's last words were "That's obvious."
• Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826.  Adam's last words were "Thomas Jefferson still survives," which is incorrect because Jefferson had actually died a few hours earlier.  Jefferson's last words were "It is the Fourth?"
• William Henry Harrison died after 31 days in office because he refused to wear a jacket during his inaugural speech and caught pneumonia.  His campaign slogan was "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," which, in my opinion, is far more catchy than "Yes We Can."  On that note, James K. Polk's slogan was "54-40 or Fight," which had to do with claiming Oregon territory.  I vote Romney's slogan to be "Romney or Fight." So much more interesting!
• Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms.
• JFK was not actually the youngest president ever.  He was the youngest elected president.  Teddy Roosevelt was younger when he took office after McKinley was assassinated, and by the time he was re-elected, he was older than JFK.
• Rutherford B. Hayes (whose election ended Reconstruction) was the first president to have a telephone.  His phone number was 1.
• Lincoln ($5 and 1 cent), Jefferson (5 cents and $2), Franklin Roosevelt (10 cents), Kennedy (50 cents), Eisenhower ($1 coin, no longer in circulation), Washington ($1), Jackson ($20), Grant ($50), McKinley ($500, no longer in circulation), Cleveland ($1000, no longer in circulation), Madison ($5000, no longer in circulation), and Wilson ($100000, no longer in circulation) are all portrayed on U.S. currency.
• Speaking of which, the only people on U.S. currency who were never presidents are Susan B. Anthony ($1 coin), Sacagawea ($1 coin), Alexander Hamilton ($10), Benjamin Franklin ($100), and Samuel Chase ($10000, no longer in circulation).

Yeah...so I just realized that was a lot of facts (I never knew that I knew this much! And I know SO MUCH MORE too!), so I won't keep going on, or go look up other facts.  I mean, I just spent half an hour poring over Presidential Fun Facts.  Jeez, I like knowing this stuff.

But, yeah.  All of the above was stuff I already knew, though I Google-checked some of it to make sure I was right.  Happy President's Day!

P.S. If you don't live in the USA, I apologize.  Feel free to leave angry comments, which I will ignore.  Good'ay!

My friends and I are really cool

However, blogger isn't making my image easy to see.  Find it here http://imgur.com/lhUMs

Yes, this is my friend and I on Facebook.  Yes, we are really awesome.

The State of the Blog

Since my title is sort of a reference to the State of the Union address, here's a random tidbit - do you know state governor also make an address, called "State of the State" addresses?  Is that not hilarious?

No?  Just me?  Darn.

In other news, I'm sure you noticed that my background is like, whoa!  OH MY ROWLING WHAT DID SHE DO?  What is wrong with your background??  It's not right.

Basically, I've been playing around with new backgrounds recently, because I felt like the old one was too busy and distracting from other, more important things, like my hilarious jokes.

Did I ever tell you guys the Heisenberg/Schrodinger joke?

So Heisenberg is driving in the car, with Schrodinger in the passenger seat.  They get pulled over by a cop.
"Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"  The cop asks.
"No," replies Heisenberg, "but I can tell you where I was!"

So the police officer takes that as a suspicious comment and searches the car.  In the trunk, he finds a dead cat in a box.
"Sir, did you know you have a dead cat in your trunk?"  The cop asks, bewildered.
"Well,"  says Schrodinger, "I do now."

So, what was I talking about?  Oh yes, backgrounds.  It was distracting from my wonderful jokes.  So I changed it to this lovely thing with lots of awesome nerdy pictures.  However, I suck and all the pictures were blurry and pixely and it looked very un-lovely.  So I've been playing around, and this green boring thing that you see on your screen before you is the result.

Clearly, I'm not very good at this.  I'd love some suggestions on what backgrounds are good and which ones suck and all that.  Also, let me know your preference, because I have no idea what you peeps like.  I'm an awesome person, not a mind reader, okay?

So, yeah.  Leave a comment and let me know.  Or answer the survey, I guess, but it's not as cool, because it's anonymous, and then I can't go and crush anyone who criticizes me.

Kidding!  I love criticism.  Seriously, please tell me what you think, honestly.  I'm lost here.

Best wishes, peeps.
(I need a better name for you guys than "peeps."  Must deliberate.  Farewell.)

Happy Alaska Young Day!

This message brought to you from 6th Period Marketing class.  Just to let you know that I am awesome.  You must admit, it's an important fact to note.

Happy Alaska Young Day!  If you don't know who that is, go straight to your local library and check out "Looking for Alaska" (in your pants) by John Green.

Do you know how I'm going to celebrate Alaska Young Day?  That's right, I'm going to meet John and Hank Green!

You have no idea how difficult it is for me to stay coherent at this moment, and not dissolve into a fit of babbling.

You see, for those non-Nerdfighters amongst you, today is not only Alaska Young Day, but the release date of John Green's new novel, "The Fault in Our Stars."  And I, flyergirl13, will be attending the first stop on John's book tour, the Tour De Nerdfighting, which is right here in Massachusetts in about 5 hours.

Yes, you are all very, very jealous.  

Whoops, class is almost over.  Have fun with your mundane evening plans!  DFTBA, yo.


UPDATE:
I'm sorry if you didn't understand that, I was slightly crazed with excitement when I wrote it.  John Green is one of my favorite authors, and I went to the book signing for the release of his new book, The Fault in Our Stars (which I already finished and is absolutely incredible.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.)
What I liked best about the event was, obviously, John and Hank, but also all the other people there. Imagine an auditorium of over 800 people, and you could (and we did) walk up to ANYONE (literally) and start a conversation, and become friends.  And don't get me started on the vast number of awesome, infinitely nerdy t-shirts present.
This is getting to be a long update, so I won't go into the details (you know, Hank in a tutu, TFiOS waving, all that jazz) so peace out, dudes.

Luck of the Jeans

So I have a pair of Lucky brand jeans.  I love them because they're comfy.  However, there is one other reason I love them as well.  They have a sense of humor!

I see you staring at me, whispering to your friends.  "Haha, she thinks her jeans have a sense of humor...know any good mental institutions nearby?"

I swear I'm not crazy, just mildly wacky.  But that's okay.  Weirdness is in direct proportion with awesomeness.

My jeans have a sense of humor.  If you're wearing jeans, look down at your crotch  (this is an awkward command).

You know that little flap of fabric behind the zipper?  Looks like this:

Pretty normal-looking flap of fabric, right?  Nothing particularly noteworthy.  However, my Lucky jeans took it a step further.  Because what's the first thing you see when you unzip the pants?  That fabric flap.  So...

It makes me laugh every time I take off my jeans.

New favorite Greek letter

It used to be pi, because it was cool and you could memorize it and all, but pi ain't got nothin' on phi.

No, not because it is the golden ratio (1.61803399...) or anything.  For something far more exciting than that (at least to me.)

Consider the following:
See that thingy over to the side there?  That's phi.  It's nice and Greek-looking, correct?  Well, it's better than what your first glance may let on...

In physics, we used phi to represent angle measure (for when we have multiple angles and theta is already taken).  So, please note the fantastic things that can be done with phi:

Phi, plus the crappy triangle (I'm not very good with straight lines).

What does this equal?  No, not phi-delta.  It equals....drumroll...

I hope my teacher doesn't mind that I replaced all the phis on my quiz with Deathly Hallow symbols...

WINNING

It's like losing, except more fun.

I have 50,003 words, but my novel isn't quite down yet.  I'll probably need another thousand or so to wrap things up.  But regardless, I WON.

I can write fifty freaking thousand words in a month.  Friends, I do believe I am invincible.
Go ahead, shoot me, the bullet will bounce off because vampires have an extra chromosome and because Edward loves Bella and because I have my 50,000 word novel to use as a shield.

Out of random curiousity, now that I'm on the subject of novels protecting against bullets, how many sheets of paper could stop a bullet from going through?

I suddenly really want to know this.  Google, here I come.

Google is conflicted on the answer.  Apparently depends on type of paper, type of gun, type of bullet, and so on.  I just want to KNOW, Google!  How could you fail me?  *headkeyboard* sdfhnkjKsdhn

Someone, please test this for me and discover the answer.

MIT is surprisingly surprising

Taking classes at MIT is fun, but roaming around campus for a while, exploring?  Even better.

First, my friend and I climbed every abstract/modern art sculpture we could find.  Yeah, there were a lot.

Next, we climbed a wall outside a building and, using the foor-wide edge along the windows, around twenty feet off the ground, walked around the entire building peering into window and freaking out the students.

Yes, Mr. Professor, I was looking in your twenty-foot high office window and watching you on Facebook.

That sounds extremely creepy.  But it was fun when the teachers were facing away from the window, so the students saw us and pointed, and when the teachers turned, we were gone.  Good times to be had.

Next, we tried to find a way onto the roof from one of the inside staircases, but all the doors were locked.  Bummer.

Next, we found a staircase that led into the "secret" tunnel system between buildings, and had good fun poking around.  I kept count, and ended up with 16 doors marked with a sign that read something along the lines of "DANGER: Radioactive materials.  You will likely die if you open this door."

Finally, I'd like the summarize the awesomeness of MIT by simply listing three acapella group names I found on flyers:

• Logarhythms
• Chorollaries
• Asymptones

And, last of all, one completely unrelated image that I felt like sharing:

Wow, we are so nerdy

As a opener at the Science Olympiad Club, we got a bunch of brain teasers to warm up.  A bunch of standard ones, you know about the farmer crossing the river with the fox and rabbit and carrots and whatever, that kind of thing.  Simple stuff.  But there was one problem that threw us.

"Turn this roman numeral into 6 using only one line."

So we worked on it.  My first idea was something like this:

You will note that it is all one line.  However, it wasn't the right answer (sad face).  So we kept experimenting.  Next came:

That says "- 3" using only one line, in case you couldn't tell.  But, weirdly enough, our amazing solution was still wrong.

We decided that using roman or arabic numerals wouldn't work, so we tried other options.  First: Greek numbers.  Failure.  Then came our epiphany:  maybe we had to write it in binary!  9 in binary is 1001, so maybe if we subtracted a 3 (11 in binary) we'd get 990 in decimal form, which in roman numerals is XM, so maybe if we flipped the whole thing upside down so it looked like XI then turned the I into an M....

We went on like this for a while.  I came up with the glorious solution that 6 was 110 in binary.  So if we let "X" represent 0, then all we had to do was add another line at the beginning.  I was so proud for having figured it out.

I was wrong.

At this point, we'd worked on it for about ten minutes, trying every combination of binary and decimal and roman numerals we could find.  Nothing yielded.  The teacher hinted that the answer was painfully obvious.  And it hit me like a brick wall, disregarding the fact that brick walls are inanimate and incapable of motion, let alone hitting someone.  If I really wanted to be in contact with a brick wall, it's I who would have to do the hitting.  Just sayin'

So the answer hit me (the answer is also inanimate.  See above).  I knew it.  I danced around the room mocking those poor fools attempting to use Braille.  Just kidding.  I politely mentioned that I knew the answer.

Are you ready?  I'll give you time to shield your eyes by presenting you with this picture of Matthew Lewis/Neville Longbottom

Ok.  Are you ready now?

You'd better be.

I kind of love how we spent time converting it to binary and trying to solve that way.  I love being nerdy.  DFTBA <3