School's Out! - Kind Of

My semester officially ended yesterday at about 1:10 pm after finished my Organic 1 Final. On Wednesday I took my JS final.

Now we crack into the writing and other unfinished portions of my college application. . .

And I do massive amounts of home-school work over winter intersession. . .

And then work starts again in January. . .

And then the Spring Semester begins February with Organic 2 and Calculus 1!!!

The Haircut - Before and After - And During

On Wednesday I got my pony tail cut off to donate to Locks of Love at A Razor's Edge in Kingston. This may be the only time my hair grows/I let it grow long enough to do so. I ended up getting my first ever salon haircut (nothing fancy). I hadn't actually had my hair cut for at least a year and it had grown very quickly in the last few months. It seems that I can do relatively short hair when the front is left longer. Here are some picture (not the greatest, mind you) from before and after - and during.

Before - With a braid

Before - Just plain
(it's curly because of the braid)

Before - With a ponytail

Before - With a bun

And Here It Comes:

Ta-Da!

And Just After:

Maybe I'll add some pictures of what I can do with my short hair later. It feels pretty nice and I wonder if it will have an impact on headache frequency. No more getting my hair stuck in under my backpack straps and zipping it into coats! I might have to start saving up money for haircuts if I like it so much. Some day I need to figure out how to fix my posture, too. Up next, we'll see how people react to the new look - I didn't tell anyone other than my family.

- Silvie

What I Did Over Thanksgiving Break

Here are the main things I did over what I considered my main Thanksgiving break:

- Read a 2015 article in Nature about human utilization of honeybees as measured by the presence of A. mellifera wax detected by GCMS analysis of potsherds

- Took the Bard Math Placement Diagnostic

- Totally didn't touch any school work for two entire days

- Slept in and, somewhat sadly, stayed up late too

- Got my haircut

- Read a 2009 World Allergy Organization Journal article on the pathology of nonallergic rhinitis

- Looked up genealogical records for my family

- Kind of watched part of the Macy's parade on TV

- Ate Thanksgiving Dinner!

- Ate Thanksgiving Dessert!

- Watched Inside Out

Now I am getting on to preparing for my last three weeks of the semester. I have reading, a paper, and chemistry study to work on.

:  )

- Silvie

Счастливого Дня Благодарения!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We indeed have much to be grateful for.

4 weeks to go!

Incredibly, the semester already is drawing to a close - only four weeks remain, entailing some classes, two quizzes, a lab, a paper, a chemistry exam, a Jewish studies final exam, and several concerts. After that - college application material, home school, and lots of other stuff (I hope that will include getting extra sleep). Currently, we are in midst of the pre-Thanksgiving shuffle - we have a quiz and a lab report due before Turkey Break!

I'll try to at least make something for the Chanukah art show.

: )

- Silvie

The Weather

It has rained quite a bit this week. A few minutes ago some really huge raindrops were falling. A couple mornings I have walked out the door not realizing it was wet outside.

SAT, plus

So today I took my second (and most likely last) SAT. You never really know how you did when you leave the test, but the essay and math felt better than last time, and the passage based English felt harder. I am hoping that I got a higher math score but I do not care as much about the reading and writing sections. No more SAT to work for...

I have a lab worksheet due on Monday, my second organic chemistry exam on Thursday, a lab on the 19th, and I have a paper and a lab report due on the 18th and the 20th. I didn't realize how soon that was. No worries - I just need to do what I have to do (it does feel a bit worrisome, though).

Cheers!
- Silvie

Why?

It makes very little sense to me that Halloween is a United States federal holiday. There.

10/18/2015

Weather: Last night we had our first frost and today we had our first snow (just flurries). The road now is bordered with piles of crunchy, colorful leaves.

School: After this week we will have reached the halfway point. Tests coming quickly, interesting labs, interesting readings. . .

Health: I officially caught one of the colds that seem to be going around, not sure when it started though and I seem to be in the worst stages now. Most of the people I know have been sick.

- Silvie

The Weather 9/21

Today's temperature was mostly under 21 degrees Celsius (under 70 F). It felt rather cold. Weather Underground forecasts that we will not reach a temperature above 24.5 degrees Celsius (76 F) this week, with lows in the 8 - 11 degree Celsius range (47 - 52 F).

*In case you did not notice earlier, I have begun to go metric (a.k.a., to use the units of the Système International d'Unités). I am currently teaching my brain to recognize the meaning of values given in grams and degrees Celsius.

An Original Joke of Rather Terrible Quality

Joke:

Person 1 (reading a book of poetry): Aargh, I can't stand all the footnotes in these poems!

Person 2 (innocent bystander): How come?

Person 1: They just make the poems so hard to read - they're so subversive.

End Joke

What may be funnier than the joke itself is that I thought it up while reading my organic chemistry textbook, not a poetry book. I have absolutely no clue what made me think of it.

You will have to let me know whether or not you find it to be funny.

Cheers,
Silvie


Edit: By the way, I remembered why I thought of it. The part of the chemistry book I was reading contained a footnote.

Time and School

Did you know that 18.75% of the semester has already passed? 3/10 of the lab sessions have also already been held. Sometimes if I think about just making it from one week to the next without letting things really get out of hand it seems much more like the semester won't be a disaster, especially considering that there aren't so many weeks to go by (16 for a whole semester). Our experience of time is so subjective, isn't it? Speaking of time, I have not started my papers yet and they are due in about 11 days, not all of which are days that I can use to do school work. Somebody needs to quickly learn to be efficient and not procrastinate too much.

9/16/2015

I am not feeling so well today. I have been feeling like I might be getting sick for about two weeks now, but today I felt pretty generally awful.

Recap of Week 2 (and other stuff)

My first solo lab procedure last Thursday went okay - I did take much longer than everyone to clean up, but I'll probably get better at that. I did not break or spill anything, so that was a plus. A few of us in the lab actually worked together some, asking each other questions and checking on things. I will not receive my huge assignment for this lab until next time (Thursday) since this lab is two weeks long. After that we have our first lab for a full lab report (also a two week lab).
     For JS 101 I have two 4-page papers due when we have class again on September 30th. About two weeks are left for that (aaaugh!), which means I need to get started and work on that while still keeping up on my chemistry.
     Today we had our first Orgo quiz. I think that it went pretty well except for at least three small mistakes I know that I made in one part. I will get that back on Thursday, too. I am starting to get a better idea of what I should concentrate on in the textbook. I will be making lots of review/guide sheets summarizing everything. Maybe I will take pictures of some stuff to share.
      Two Saturdays ago we came home to find what seemed to be a lithobates sylvaticus metamorph sitting on our screen door. It was very adorable. On Friday I went for a short walk and stepped on my first acorn of the season. I also found five baby snapping turtles on the road; sadly, only one was alive. We took pictures of it and then I brought it to the stream. The other four presumably were run over while trying to cross the road to reach the stream. I love frogs and turtles. The turtle's nostrils looked like a miniature version of a puppy-dog nose. It was also cute and very strong, though very clumsy when walking over fallen leaves. It would put its legs up onto a leaf and accidentally flip upside-down, ambling laboriously to the water like a newborn kitten. On Sunday, I think, when I went for a walk I saw a black snake, about 3 cm wide and a meter long.
     I got up only six minutes after sunrise today (6:30). Pretty soon I will be getting up while it is still dark outside. It was rather cold this morning but the height of the day reached about 27 degrees C.
     I have lots of work to do and am very tired, but I am hopeful that I will gain more balance soon.

Best wishes,
Silvie

!שנה טובה ומתוקה

Wishing you a happy and sweet new year,
Silvie

9/8/2015

The first full lab has not happened yet, but things are staring to feel a little more like they are actually happening. Today I had my first office-hour help session, which was very helpful all around. I have some friends in my class and lab sections from last year.

I will stick with string ensemble at least until the show concert on October 14th, the same week that I expect work at the gymnastic club will start (assuming that it will start). Symphonic chorus begins tonight.

I picked more peaches today and when I went in the backyard I saw that the maple leaves had begun to fall.

Second Lab Coming Up

I just found the info for the second lab on Moodle2 and there is plenty of background reading, so that answers that question. Doing a whole experiment by myself will be a very new experience.

First Week of School

So, I have had an entire week of school now.

When I opened the email with my organic chemistry syllabus in it on August 30th before I went to bed, it felt a little like someone had dropped a bomb on me. Class material has started pretty slow and I anticipate it picking up speed very soon. I have three chapters (very long chapters) of background material and concepts we are supposed to know which I need to work on while also working on our current class chapter. I also had to read quite a bit in preparation for the first lab on September 3rd - I don't know if I will always have as much prep reading to do for lab. For the first lab we did not have an actual experiment, but we have a large assignment for analyzing IR and GC/MS data which also made me feel overwhelmed and which I will need help with. For organic chemistry we have to write pre-labs in our special duplicate paged notebooks which include an abstract, information about any chemicals to be used, and a clear outline of the procedure and any special arrangements of equipment (for the first lab we did not need to do this, so I do not yet know how hard that might be). The pre-lab is considered in our lab grade along with notes taken throughout the experiment, technique, safety, and post-lab assignment. We also do not have lab partners anymore. I have permission from the Learning Commons to access tutoring, so I applied for a "one-on-one" tutor since drop-in tutoring (which I have gone to in the past) happens during symphonic chorus and I will see if that works out.

Intro to Jewish Studies will probably be less labor intensive than the Holocaust class.

I do not know if I will be able to keep playing in String Ensemble; I will hopefully make it until the show concert on October 14th. Gymnastics and chorus have not started yet. I expect to eventually acclimate, but I will not know how much time or effort everything will take for a while as my routine settles.