Happy Halloween!

Oh wait, I missed it. Darn. Why do I stay up so late?! Aargh, happy belatedness then. Well, since I just finished my chemistry and am still in a somewhat Halloweenish mood (note: hyped up on too much sugar) I will write about Halloween at MIT.

Halloween is surprisingly popular here. It is more interesting than my high school was - more than 5 people dressed up. There was a gorilla handing out party invitations out, and I saw a guy wearing a hat with wires taped on indicating i, j, and k (David should have gone and asked him 'What's up?!?!').

This morning, there were some people handing out candy on the front steps of 77 Mass. Ave. They were part of some volunteering service/department of MIT, and so they were all in costume and giving out flyers and candy. And the coolest (scariest?) thing was that the school mascot Tim the Beaver was there!!

Side story about Tim the Beaver: Okay, so I knew that our mascot's name was Tim the Beaver, but I did not actually realize the significance of the name until Wednesday night. It was my first Jiu Jitsu PE class, and we were in this room with a wooden floor and mirrors on the front wall. There was this guy in the back with a MIT shirt on. But I didn't realize what it was at first because I was looking in the mirror. I was thinking, "Why does his shirt say TIM? Is he broadcasting his name or something?" And then I realized, "Oh, duh! Mirror means backwards. That's an MIT shirt." And then I realized.... Oh horrors! MIT is cheesy and sad. Not only is the volleyball team (and probably others as well) called the Engineers, but our mascot's name is our school name spelled backwards! Aagh, I am so slow to notice these things. But now I know... *evil laugh*

Anyway, enough about our buddy Tim. Since I'm thinking about 77 Mass. Ave. I guess I should mention the killer oak tree. There is this set of trees you have to walk under to get to the crosswalk - rather, to get to the whole school building. And one of these trees, I swear, is an oak tree with murderous intent. I was walking under it the other day, when an acorn fell out of the tree really fast and landed with a loud crack on the pavement near me. If that had hit me, I probably would have gotten a concussion or something. I thought it odd, and promptly forgot the strange occurrence. But today, there was a guy walking under the tree and the same thing happened to him! Luckily, the vengeful tree has bad aim and didn't hit the poor person. Still, I figure it's only a moment of time before someone is actually hit by these acorn missles. A bad business all around. I wonder why the tree is so mad in the first place... I will be careful whenever I'm over there, and walk by as quickly as possible.

I have been driven to paranoia. Someone followed me home after I bought my lunch and headed back to my room. I figure if it was a friend, they would have said something. But no, this person said nothing. They were dressed up in a costume - didn't really check what. I figured that once I got into the dorm, maybe they'd give up. But no! The desk captain let her in - obviously, since the pursuer was a girl, the desk captain didn't care. So much for security. So I took off and started climbing the stairs. And this person followed me up! Aargh! I got onto the 4th floor before the other person made it up, and I ran into my room and locked the door. I figure, if it was a friend, she would have come over and knocked on my door or something, and we could have had a good laugh about the whole affair. But no! The person never knocked. So either they didn't know who I was and was just randomly stalking me, or it was a friend with a really demented sense of humor. So now I have decided that I don't like Halloween. Hopefully that will never happen again. I am easily creeped out. Plus, I am a major wimp. Next time, perhaps I should try a confrontation? Hmm.... I am not an aggressive enough person. X_x

- Flykyr Skysong

Rumor of the day: Someone heard that on Halloween you can't buy eggs from any local grocery stores unless you're 30 or over, and you need an i.d. to get any. Can you imagine - being carded for eggs?! What if you had to cook for dinner and needed eggs and were too young? Hahaha... We love rumors. ^_^
Current Song: Zelgadis' Image Song: We Are
Current Mood: Braindead

And tonight's topic is.... webradio! Simply because I am listening to it right now, and feel like talking about it instead of my unfinished math homework. :P

Webradio is, in a word, cool. Seriously! There is so much more variety available online because you aren't limited to the radio stations within broadcasting range. Provided that you have high-speed internet of some sort, you can stream music off the internet, and still use your computer at the same time. Believe me, dialup just doesn't cut it. Still, if you are a lucky college student (like me) internet speed is not a problem. So, I use this website - live365.com - and I can easily search for radio stations in all sorts of different categories, including stuff you won't find on mainstream radio like celtic and anime stations. This is really really nice considering that the only radio stations I can receive on my radio are Kiss 108 and Jammin' 94.5... In other words, a station that plays the same five songs over and over, three of which are hiphop, and another station that plays the same five songs over and over, all of which are hiphop. I guess I could fiddle with my antenna to try to receive Mix 98.5, but why would I, when I have crystal-clear webradio coming in right off my laptop?

So yes, I can enjoy all sorts of different anime stations, celtic, new age, insane European stuff, etc. which you would NEVER EVER hear on your standard radio. I have even found stations dedicated to broadcasting video game music. ^_^ Even commercial-wise, webradio is vastly superior. Take Kiss 108 for instance - they play 50 minutes of music (or so they say... it's a total lie, really), and then proceed to cycle through 10 minutes of commercials. Often they are not even inventive at all and play the same commerical more than once in a single commercial break. On live365.com, there are commercials, but they come one at a time, and only every half-dozen songs or so - rather infrequently. You can even pay to have no commercials at all, which is nice, if you have money to spend, and are really desperate.

Well, now that I've extolled all of webradio's virtues, it's time to mention the downfalls. First of all, many stations are run by private individuals - they set up a playlist and just let it cycle through. Some are very short, and so are very repetitive after a while (read: my fave anime station). For more mainstream genres, this is not such an issue, but it does get rather tedious when I hear the same Gundam Wing song every day at the same time. There are timer-counter things on each radio station choice which supposedly show how many hours of playing time the music on that station takes up, but obviously, some people lie. They probably load up their playlist ten times or something, to make it look like there's more music than there actually is. Another thing is the nature of the advertisements - rather, one advertisement in particular. Aargh!! Just thinking of it makes me mad. Okay, there's this guy talking about a new song by Prodigy called 'Baby's got a Temper' and how it's been banned off radio airwaves and television for being too controversial. Boy, this group must be paying live365.com a lot, because this commercial is played *constantly*. The announcer makes it sound like cool people should watch the music video because it's been forbidden in public, and you are so not cool if you don't go and watch it too. Aargh! I hate his smirky smug voice! I DON'T CARE! I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO IT OR WATCH IT OR ANYTHING! JUST SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!!

*pant pants* Okay, well, you can see that although there are fewer commercials, it doesn't mean that they are any more bearable than normal ones (nyaar, they can be even worse). And now that I'm all riled up, I will try to go to sleep. Goodness knows I need it. I missed my first class today - slept right through it. Oy, now wasn't that a nasty surprise? I sure hope that doesn't happen again. *turns up alarm volume on clock*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Fat Boy Slim - The Rockafellar Skank
Current mood: Annoyed... Darned advertising...

Hmm.... Today was an attempt to catch on physics. Boy, did that not work. I don't understand anything at all. -_-; I need tutorring, but there isn't any until Tuesday, so boo-hoo for me.

Well, we had our first snow a few days ago - the 23rd, I think. Amy and David and all the people from the south were really excited, even though the snow was very light and was interspersed with rain. They'd better get used to snow... they'll probably be sick of it by February. :P Ach, I'll bet there is no such thing as a snow day at MIT seeing as the school building is practically across the street from me. ^_~

I tagged along with some fellow dormmates last night to frat parties - Theta Chi and Sigma Chi, right next door to each other. Talk about room for confusion there! Theta Chi was scary because it was some alumni reunion thing there, and everyone had beer, and I was scared. Needless to say, we didn't stay there for very long. Sigma Chi was scary too because there was LOTS of alcohol and people dressed in horrible, scary outfits. It makes me glad that people like to turn the lights off for parties - I'm sure that it's so you can't really get a good look at anyone else and you don't get as freaked out by how scary everyone is. *sighs* I don't understand parties. All you do is go dance, talk to people, and get drunk. I don't like to dance, I'm horrible at meeting people, and I most certainly don't drink. So there's nothing in it for me. Oh well, I can say I went and survived. And I got to play pool, which I guess is something, though I was quite horrible.... I need practice - badly. Nyah, so that was nice. Plus, the walk across the bridge was nice - it had stopped raining by then, and it wasn't too too cold yet. Someone has repainted the Smoot markers black and orange for Halloween. ^^ For those of you who don't know what Smoots are and what they have to do with the Harvard Bridge, here is the story:

Once upon a time, in 1959, there were some drunk fraternity guys. (Not too unusual around here, I'm sure). Now, they were MIT students, and geez, I don't remember the story at all so this is going to sound really horrible, but anyways, there was this young man named Oliver Smoot, who was a new pledge to their frat. These drunken students decided that it would be fun if they measured the length of the Harvard Bridge, using Smoot as their measuring stick. So they did. They laid him head to toe along the whole length of the bridge, and discovered that the bridge was exactly 364.4 Smoots plus one ear long. So now that frat goes out and repaints all the Smoot measurements on the bridge. ^^ So if you're ever walking across the Harvard Bridge, you'll know what all the numbers stand for. Leave it to MIT students. :P

Actually, my favorite part of the bridge is halfway across. Now, this really only works if you're actually headed toward MIT and not Boston, but someone painted 'Halfway to Hell' with an arrow pointing towards MIT. That just cracks me up. :P

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: BB Mak - September
Current mood: Sleepy (and I even got extra sleep this weekend!)

Heh, as a random somewhat funny, somewhat strange story...... Today in physics recitation, the TA was talking about rotational stuff (fun fun) and I was busy doodling all over my papers because I was bored. The guy sitting next to me obviously glanced over and saw what I was doing, so he said, "I like your doodles." Now, as I was drawing dragons and they are commonly confused with lizards and dinosaurs, I thought he had said, "I like your turtles." I was about to be very insulted, when I figured it out (thank goodness!) Yeah, that's it. Oh well back to work...

- Flykyr Skysong

Currently listening to: Amy telling David about moments of inertia and torque. Ay........

Hahahahaha! I passed 18.01a!!!! It's finally over! Argh, never mind that I didn't pass with flying colors, but.... Gaah. I will have to do better in 18.02a. We started off with vectors. Yuck.... Oh, I hope that I can get over my stupidness this time around. But... I passed, I passed, I passed! D'oh, I've never been this happy about less-than-stellar grades before.

I think my mom's finally doing stuff with email. She tried to email me saying that I had spelled Scorpion wrong in the last entry, but sent it to Dad instead. Oh well, Mom will learn with time, I'm sure. :) After all, she's a black belt now so she can do anything!!!

Heh, thinking back to the Scorpion King (which wasn't quite as horrible as I was afraid it would be) and the random idiosyncrasies that occur in action movies like that... Wouldn't it be great if, when you had been shot in the back with an arrow, you could just pull it out and go on with life? That's pretty gosh darned convenient, isn't it. It makes me very very sad. The Rock should have died. Yes. A happy ending for me! Oh well, whatever. I guess it just goes to show that the good guy is always invincible. Rrrghh.... *slight frustration* Oh well. I'm much more excited about The Two Towers. ^^ Less than 2 months!

Oh yeah. Somehow, Nate finally tracked me down. Heh, I guess he knows someone on the floor below me, who I know vaguely. I tried to locate his contact information online, but Northeastern is not nearly as willing to give out student information as MIT is. MIT is scary... You can search for students' names and find out all sorts of things about them...... o.o; Evil people out there, if you start calling me late at night, I will track you down and EAT you!

Lalala... That over with, I must now start studying for my big chemistry test tomorrow. I hope I do well! I REALLY hope I do all right! Wish me luck, everyone!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None. I'm on lunch break. I don't have time to listen to anything right now.
Current mood: Umm.... None, really. (Is that possible?)

Ahhhh.... Home again. I must say, the food at school can't begin to compare to the stuff my dad cooks. Today was part of Family Weekend, so I heard all sorts of interesting speeches. It reminds me again of how cool it is to be at MIT. There's so much happening here! Wow, I so want to get involved in stuff - the trick is in getting started, I think.

I have figured out the solution to my website problem. I will move everything over onto my MIT account, since every student gets webspace. Coolness! So.... Soon I will have moved everything over and people will have to go elsewhere to look at stuff. Hmm... The next problem will lie in finding a scanner so I can scan in pictures. *ponders* Not like I've drawn that much lately. Ugh.... Bad bad bad me.

Hmph, time to go watch a movie. "The Scorpion King" sounds like it will be really stupid. It probably isn't even worth watching. Oh well. Whatever. It is Theater Night, after all.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None, but I'm listening to my little sister who's watching Final Fantasy Unlimited (scary scary)
Current mood: Headache.... Ouch.

Ugh, I just had the worst week ever, I swear. It was really short - only 3 days, but I had so much work! And 2 tests besides. Math was absolutely rotten. I blanked on several questions, so I'm hoping I passed. Really hoping. Oh, I don't want to get fail mail tonight! :( Life suxxors big time.

Haa.... Well, enough bellyaching for now. My mom's black belt promotion ceremony is on Sunday, so I have to go home and maybe I'll even get to promote her! Ah, I'm so tired. I don't want to do anything. I don't even feel motivated to go to anime club. -_-

A friend of mine got me to start doodling on oekaki boards (that Japanese for doodle/scribble). It's fun, especially since I don't have any graphics program on my comp besides Paint, which really doesn't count. So I drew Flykyr last night. Hmm.... That link will die in a few days. Aarrghh. I need to figure out how to update my own website.

Huh.... Maybe I will watch some of Record of Lodoss War. I downloaded the first 7 episodes already. ^_^ Unfotunately, they're in English, but... oh well, what are you gonna do? Funny, I always thought Deedlit was a guy. Guess I was wrong. She's very cute. Love the pointy ears. ^^

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Gravitation OP - Super Drive
Current mood: Severely depressed

Nooooo! In trying to get my psych paper done last night, I neglected studying for my physics test. Bad idea... I'm pretty sure I failed. How frustrating!

Lol, as I scroll through all my old postings, they all seem to read the same way. First I complain about school, and then I talk about random stuff. So this post doesn't look like it's going to be any different. :P At least I've gotten the rant over with. So now... happy news!

It's a long weekend this weekend! I'm soooooo looking forward to it. My psych paper of evilness is finally handed in, so I feel like I have complete freedom. Of course, that's entirely false, since I have to read many many chapters of psychology to prepare for the midterm on Thursday (a mid-term next week?!) Oy.... Time is just flying by. I'm going home this weekend, so I can get a haircut! Yeah!! Which reminds me that I ought to figure out how I'm going to get home in the first place.... *dreams of homecooked meals* ^_^

Grr! Our room is so cold. There is no heat in the dorm. Seriously. It doesn't get turned on until Tuesday, so until then, everyone has to freeze their tushies off. Including me. Except I'm going home, to a place with heating! Nyahh! :D

Waihoo! I'm done with work, so I can actually get sleep tonight! *conks out in front of computer*

- Flykyr Skysong

Factoid of the day: I was shocked and dismayed by MIT's volleyball team being called the Engineers. I thought it would apply to all of MIT's varsity teams. But.... it is not so! The football team is referred to as the Beavers, so... yeah! All is not lost!
Current song: Fastway - Spacelove O.o;;
Current mood: Hyper in a tired sort of way

I've been too busy to write recently. I have a horrible horrible psychology paper to do for tomorrow, and I'm not even halfway through! Still, I'm proud of myself for actually getting my math done at a reasonable time. If only I didn't have the paper to write, I could get some sleep! Well, next week should be a lot less stressful - especially since I get a 4 day weekend this week!

Well, I did go to Kind Richard's Faire this weekend and it was as lovely as ever. Chilly though... I was silly and left my shawl in the car. Yeah, I dressed up in my Scottish costume. It's really neat to get all dressed up and go to a Renaissance fair where everyone else is dressed up too. ^_^ Interesting outfits this year: a young woman dressed entirely in mint green (ick!), some creepy guy on stilts that had a costume on that made him look like a midget in a high chair, absolutely cute little kids in renaissance garb, and the usual loser teen whose idea of dressing up is wearing ordinary black clothes and carrying a random weapon or two. *sighs* There were several pirates for some reason this year. I'm glad to see that the comedic musical that the 'Royal Court' put on this year was better than last year's - this one was a very brief but amusing rendition of The Oddysey, or rather, The Odd-ysey. Whoever writes these things does a great job - they take lots of well-known songs and totally change the words around to make new songs that go along with the story. For example this year, there was "I want to go to Ithaca", based on "I want to live in America" from West Side Story, and there was also "Boat Sinkers", sung to the tune of "Goldfinger" (from the James Bond movie). I didn't buy anything this year. Come to think of it, I didn't last year either, though I think I should upgrade (yes, upgrade :P) my dragon pendant - it's getting rather battered and old. I've had it since 9th grade! That's all of high school, and I wear it almost every day. Maybe I should invest in a pair of 'dragon wings' and wear them around instead. :P

- Flykyr Skysong

Question of the day: What's the difference between J-pop and Europop?
Answer of the day: Europop is sung in English, but you still can't understand any of it!
Current song: Random Eurobeat songs
Current mood: Psyched out. (Ha ha ha...)

It's the weekend, and I'm doing homework as usual. My family's probably going to King Richard's Faire tomorrow and are going to take me along - yay! But for now, I have to do work.

I received a bid to join WILG last night. Coolness! But I don't know if I want to go through with it. McCormick IS awfully convenient - very close to the Student Center and the gym, and only a 5-10 minute walk to class. WILG is further away - it takes 5-10 minutes just to get to the Infinite Corridor, and then I have to actually get to class. Everything's a bit further away. I guess this would be easier if I lived far away, like in Next House or something. I really like the WILG gals though. I slept over last night. ^_^ That was pretty fun - we played Cranium, which is a fun but difficult game. It's like Charades, Pictionary, and Trivial Pursuit all rolled into one game. We also watched Kate & Leopold - a rather odd movie. And someone baked pumpkin pie! It was really good. :P

D'oh. Back to the psych paper now. I still have to write all of it. Aargh! 6 pages is way too long.

- Flykyr Skysong

Quote of the day: "An elephant eating babies!" - Theresa, in trying to guess what her partner was charading in Cranium - she was actually imitating a missionary.
Current song: Megumi Hayashibara & Masami Okui - Party Night
Current mood: Hungry

Aaauugh! I got my chem test back today (I just took the test yesterday - the people grade fast) and I got a 56. That's what I got on my math test. Grr! At least I'm consistent. :P Well... The class average was a 57, so I'm just a bit below tat. Plus, the people who did the grading made a scale, and 50-60 is considered okay, so I'm okay. Blah. The one bright note about this is that the correctors didn't give me full points for one problem because I did it in the wrong spot and had to draw arrows all over the place - but I got the question right! So I gave my test back and hopefully I'll get full credit for it *crosses fingers*

There is one small ray of hope in my life - today, my psych teacher was trying to cheer us up in recitation since we had just gotten our physics tests back and some people didn't do so hot. So he said something along the lines of "Look, as of this August, you were smart. MIT's water is okay, so nothing has happened between then and now to make you stupid. Unless it's the cranberry muffins." So hopefully I can pull through.

On a MUCH more positive note, I got a 98 on my physics test. It was on kinematics, which I fortunately know pretty well. Kinematics were probably the only thing I learned really well in high school. So now I like physics more than calc or chem. What a frightening thing, me actually liking physics! Still, I'm sure that sentiment will change once I've taken the second test (next Wednesday, urrgh!).

I can't believe tomorrow's Friday. I've been studying and working so much this week that all the days went by without me really noticing. At least I can sleep in! And for the weekend I just have to do a physics p-set and my psych paper. Somehow, it seems like a fairly light load. Well, I guess I can also start on my math if I feel really adventurous. ;)

- Flykyr Skysong

Quote (sorta) of the day:

"What's the difference? 

                                                          Anime   Hollywood

Has cute girls:                                      X             X

Has cute girls with big guns:               X             X

Has cute girls who *are* big guns:     X             -               "

- A sign advertising the anime club ^_^
Current CD:The Celtic Album - The Boston Pops, conducted by Keith Lockhart!
Current mood: Happy and relieved

Wow! I just realized that I've been at MIT for more than a month. Unbelieveable... Although it's still a couple more days until a full month of classes have gone by... Oh, whatever. I am surviviing. Somehow. :P I am longing for another suicide-prevention weekend. Now that's something you'd only find at MIT. Gotta love it! ;)

*sighs* Well, I tried to figure out how to let people add comments to this page, even though I'm sure there's all of two people reading this. Still, it'd be interesting. But I'm too busy and stupid to figure it out, so that idea's going to have to wait. Mwah. So much for being webmistress. I should do some work on that this weekend... But it's only Tuesday... Oh wait, it's Wednesday already. Darn.

Yeah, well, I think I did really well on my physics test. I'm not going to get my score back for another day or two, but we got the answers to the problems and I think I did really well! We'll see if my luck carries over to tomorrow's chem test. Erk! Actually, it's today, only a little later!

I'm having fun downloading Riverdance and Lord of the Dance music - it's a good stress-reliever. Hahaha... Nothing very interesting to write about right now. We baked cookies as a floor-wide study break. Nummy nummy! Yeah, and my little sister IMed me today and told me she got 8 chocolate bars, and she won't share any with me!! :'( Oh well... It would probably be different if I were actually at home. I will live on chocolate chip cookies instead! Ehehehe... Except I already ate mine. So much for that great idea. Okay. Enough blathering. Time to go back to work. I have to present in psychology on Thursday, and I haven't finished reading my topic chapter yet. Aargh! Oh yeah, that reminds me, I got a 9.5/10 on my first psych paper, so go me! :P Of course, I need to write the second one which is due next Thursday... and I haven't started yet! Oh well, gotta get these tests over with. I hope calc doesn't kill me again...

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Michael Flatley's Feet of Flames - Dance Above the Rainbow ^^
Current mood: Stressed and sleepy