Warning: the title is a lie, I actually quite like some aspects of highschool life.
Well glad to be back to blogging, no really, I am!
I would rather blog then say, do 3 full essay rewrites in one week.
Darn you, PreAP World History! >:O
Anyways, I've come back. I'm alive I tell you, ALIVE!!!
There's so much to tell, so don't be surprised to see several blog posts soon. Don't worry, the night is still young. Besides, I'm not really the type of person to post several things consecutively. Today is just my way of apologizing for my somewhat long hiatus <3 Yes, I love you guys <3
So on to more thoughts....
HIGHSCHOOL
If you've read my latest blog post, then you should've have learned that I just started highschool this year. I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone when I say that I was actually pretty psyched for highschool. "Just think about it, greater freedom, cellphones, all the good sh!t"
Well I'm here to tell you, that they are not as good as it all seemed at that time. In highschool, they raise the bar. High, too. Pretty soon you'll realize that they treated us like babies in Middle School-- one step at a time. Oh and it get's better! They guide you using baby steps during 8th grade, give you a fantabulous end of the year dance, then a super awesome graduation! so now you're in highschool and the moment you decide to walk back into the middle school, you're rejected by the staff in its entirety. WTF!!! I mean, I get that we're technically not supposed to be there anymore, but seriously, just when we had some of the best years of our life there, we're treated like foreigners, like we never even existed. It just saddens me :(
And to top it all off, the teachers in highschool don't give a poop about you. Well that's what I feel like, at least. What I mean is, they treated us so specially in Middle School, and the teachers were basically our friends.... then someone rips off the bandage and you find out that you're in this school with ten times the students, and you're just another body in a group of hundreds. The teachers are either too busy to chat with, or just not approachable.
Oh and the walking in the school is not so delectable either. On certain days, I have to cut through over 2 floors AND half the school in 4 minutes in a crowded hallway/stairs and open a locker to get things out just to get to my orchestra class! WHY!!!! >:O
Then at the end of the day, I'm so physically tired from the walking and the combined weight of my back pack (about 20-30 lbs varying from day to day) that I can nap for hours before I do my homework... And sometimes homework keeps me up until 11 pm (I wake up at 5:30am).
I'm gonna have to get used to this.... and quick!
Luckily, tho, I am at Rosh Hashannah (Im pretty sure I spelt that wrong) break right now and I'm gonna enjoy the next 4 days in style.... that's right! I'm gonna be sleepin in and catching up all the lost hours of sleep <3
It's been a long time since I came around,
It's been a long time, but I'm back in town ;)
Who got the Lady Gaga reference? HA! YOU SIR (or ma'am) ARE EPIC!!! >:D
Anyways back on topic :)
It's been a while since you've heard from me and that's only because school started last Wednesday and I've been uber busy and tired since. Last week, I began my tread down the Highschool road :3
Needless to say, I made a huge mistake on the first day as a freshman. I missed an entire period. That's right. AN ENTIRE PERIOD. Only because my schedule sucks eggs and is too stingy to spare me a lunch time daily :< Well at least I straightened everything out with my teacher at the beginning of the next period. *sigh*
I tend to sigh a lot, huh?
*sigh*
Well, today I got to manage some free time and went ahead outside to hang out with Frei and friends :D
Man it feels so good to feel the fresh air! <3
Oh and I mixed in some pics of forgotten indoor shoots ^w^
Hurricane Irene passed Long Island on August 28, 2011, a Sunday. However, we were quite lucky that 1) The hurricane had downgraded to a category 1 from a 3 and 2) we only had two trees fall in my area.
No one was hurt. No one had to evacuate.
But we had no electricity. We haven't had it since early Sunday morning (2AM) 'till about 10 AM this morning. That's roughly 4-5 days of no electricity. We survived on candlelight and flashlights at night, and most of our food in the fridge spoiled. But we're all alright, and that's the only thing that matters to me.
P.S. I almost forgot what the bathroom looked like with the lights on O.o
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THOUGHTS ON PORTAL:
If you go a couple of blog posts back (Want You Gone - Poetry Inspired from Portal by BJV), I wrote a small summary of a particular game called Portal. I, literally, just finished the game an hour ago and I thought that it might be exciting to share the story behind its plot because I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT <3. By the way, the Portal series have just become one of my favorite games. It's up there with Kingdom Hearts and Zelda series ^w^
First off, Portal is a puzzle game. If you're good at puzzle solving, then this is the game for you. And if you're not, its still the game for you. I hold on to the belief that anyone can like this game because of its extremely unique gameplay and plot.
Second, this game can be traumatizing at parts. An evil robot trying to kill you might be scary (I'll admit that I was scared at times, too). Otherwise, it's a pretty addicting game.
Third, Portal can make you very dizzy. It might also cause strain to your eyes if you play in the dark (or maybe that was just because I was playing too close to the screen lol).
All of the simple stuff aside, let's talk about plot!
Portal is a game with many MANY different components and characters. And, if you're anything like me, then you like complex plots with a strange gratifying outcome.
First the backstory:
Cave Johnson, founder and creator of Aperture Science Innovators, has a knack and thirst for science. He started out by selling shower curtains; quite a bit back before he turned evil scientist. From his growing business of shower curtains, he bought a large salt mine which had a bevy of connected caves. This was to set the stage for the future Aperture Science Laboratories that we all know and love.
Soon, Aperture Labs began to coduct experiments on various objects such as gels that they created, inventions that propel mass, robots, and of course, the portal gun. One of their most infamous creations is known as GlaDOS, an AI designed to put test subjects through courses that test their products and also has control over the whole facility. They also mass recruited many people off of the streets as test subjects; one of them known as Chell, the person you are playing as (pictured above).
But GlaDOS had a flaw, and that was that she turns rogue and often had to be shut down so as to keep her from killing everyone. To try to fix this flaw, Cave Johnson and all of the Aperture Science innovators installed conscience spheres into her to try to keep her from malfunctioning.
A little bit before or after this, Cave Johnson became very sick because of his contact with one of his products known as conversion gel, a substance that makes it possible to have portal surfaces, but is also apparently made of ground up moon rocks. Cave Johnson had a companion in his endeavors, a woman named Caroline who has an even crazier thirst for science than Mr. Johnson. As he was dying, he requested for his "being" to be programmed into a robot. He died before the staff could do this so instead they put Caroline into GlaDOS successfully.
/fast forward
At the beginning of Portal 1, you wake up in a cell to GlaDOS' talking. She then teaches you the basics: how to create portals, how to use the objects in the game, how to use momentum and whatnot. There are 19 levels of problem solving. Along the way, she compliments you about how well you are doing and even offers you cake in the end at your achievement party; and so from there is coined the popular term "The cake is a lie".
heh. So you're at the last test and you finish it. Great. Awesome. Wonderful. Congrats. Except that now that you're no good anymore, and GlaDOS wants to kill you off! But you escape and run through behind the scenes where she can't see you. Eventually you reach GlaDOS, evil robot and all, and you disable her.
At the end of Portal 1, GlaDOS is disabled (you "killed" her) and the facility explodes which rockets you up into the surface. The ending cutscenes show fading wisps of you being dragged back into the remains by a robot. The credits at the end shows GlaDOS singing a song for you:
Some 50 years later, you are woken up by another robot. A core named Wheatley. Wheatley is a sort of talkative sphere robot that tries to get you out of the facility. In the process of doing so, he made the mistake of waking up GlaDOS. Being only able to remember the last two minutes of her life, GlaDOS bore a sarcastic (funny) hatred towards Chell (you). She then crushes Wheatley and proceeds to continue the tests for "old times sake". In the middle of testing, Wheatley shows up again, apparently unscathed from the GlaDOS' attack earlier, and he helps you to get to her main system to disable her again. When you solve your way through her test chambers, Wheatley asked you to put him into GlaDOS' body (oh grow up!).
Wheatley then exclaims with the power that he has just attained: the power to run the ENTIRE Aperture Laboratories establishment. Apparently though, he rationalized that "he put his life at risk for you, but you didn't do a thing for him", and he got angry. He then transfers GlaDOS (you know what I'll just call her G from now on cuz its easier) into a potato and dumps both of you down... WAAAAY DOWN the incinerator tube.
You land in a place that's been abandoned, way below the surface, where they used to create and invent different products. You then navigate your way up through a series of SERIOUSLY mind numbing puzzles. Along the way, G helps you and even confesses that she doesn't hold a grudge anymore. Eventually find Wheatley in G's body. You disable him (quite like how you disabled her) and succesfully put G back into her body.
The end of Portal 2 shows G talking to you as if she were Caroline. She tells you that she "gives up" and that you can "have your freedom" because you have "been replaced" by testing robots which were built by her so that she can test without them killing her *coughcough*
So then she calls an elevator to bring you up to the surface, and you are never seen again. She sings you another song in the credits, one that I COMPLETELY misunderstood as I was writing the poem. Please excuse my stupidity.
The game in itself is a masterpiece for geeks of all ages! I truly and whole heartedly recommend it to anyone and everyone I know. Please note that I tried to limit what I say so that you will still enjoy the game. I don't want to spoil much of its majesty. Well, yea thats the end of it, I guess. Have your cake.
P.S.
Go play it. Now. Go. Stop reading this crap. GO PLAY PORTAL.
