Annoyance

Today in math class my math teacher announced that we would have a math test on next Friday, and this meant that like last week, I will have three tests on the same day (along with chemistry and physics tests).

Obviously, having three tests on the same day is not particularly pleasant. Not only do you have to organize your time better and make sure that you allocate some time to study for each of the tests, you also have to make sure that you eat more and sleep better, for your brain will use up more energy on that day.

A Convenient Mistake

Occasionally, when I check out items from the library, an item would not be properly scanned and would appear on the library system as "in library" even though it is actually in my bag.

 Usually when such an event occurs, I would still return the book in a week or two, depending on when I finish it; I wouldn't intentionally not return the book just because I don't have to.

Today, however, is different. The novel in question is the novel that I will use for my English final project, and I will need it until the end of December. This means that I can just conveniently "forget" to return the book until three months later!

I am so fortunate that the staff has made this kind of mistake at the right time.

Grade 11 English ISP Book List

Today I got my English ISP, for which I have to read a Canadian novel, write five reading responses about the novel, and write a literary essay on it.

I also got to choose my ISP novel. The choices were as follows:

Title	Author
Oryx and Crake	Margaret Atwood
Year of the Flood	Margaret Atwood
Green Grass Running Water	Thomas King
The Concubine’s Children	Denise Chong
Life of Pi	Yanna Martel
A Fine Balance	Rohinton Mistry
Lullabies for Little Criminals	Heather O’Neil
Funny Boy	Shyam Selvaduri
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz	Mordecai Richler
The Romantic	Babara Gowdy

Even though there were only 10 choices, it was hard for me to decide on my ISP book: none of them aroused  my interest. However, since there was a limit of five people per novel, I had to choose mine quickly, for the good ones may easily become unavailable. In a way it was like a huge sale in a store, where you needed to quickly grab an item before all the better ones got taken away by other people.

So I chose Oryx and Crake, for it was a dystopian novel and its description sounded more interesting than most others.

Added Note: ISP stands for Independent Study Project

Too Busy

Grade 11 is much harder than I had expected. Not only does it have a lot more assignments and tests than grade 10, each individual assignment is also a lot more demanding. As a result, three weeks into school and I am already struggling to finish everything on time!

With this kind of work load, I don't think I'll be able to update this blog very often. Besides posting my study notes (to prepare for quizzes or tests), I would probably only update this blog at most once per week.

So yeah, I hope things wouldn't get any worse.

Random Memory?

Ever since I started using the new computer, I have been carefully watching the available memory of my hard drive. Therefore, I can confidently say that during the past week or so, the amount of memory left has always been about 405 or 406 GB.

Then, today I downloaded some software needed for my printers, so naturally the amount of available memory should only decrease. However, when I checked the number, it actually increased to 411 GB!

I know, this increase in memory probably didn't have anything to deal with the printers. Still, it was strange that it had just suddenly increase. Perhaps it was because some temporary files got deleted, or...?

What's The Problem?

For some reason, the seats that we chose in math class are never permanent. You can sit at spot A on one day, then on spot B and spot C for the next two days.

Anyway, yesterday, I arrived at math class slightly earlier and chose a seat that was closer to the board. Then, some ten seconds later, student M—  who was on friendly terms with me— asked me if I could move to another seat. Since he asked me very nicely, and I knew that he had always sat in that seat, I agreed to move. I didn't care about where I sat anyway, so there really was no reason for me not to give the seat to him.

So I moved back by two rows, from row three to row five. Then, a few moments later, student S, who sat in front of me (in row four), asked me why I had moved from row three to row five. I told him what happened, and suddenly he yelled "Why didn't you just stay there?"

Really, what was wrong with him? We were in no way friends, so that yell was definitely not meant as a joke. And, I really don't see how this switching spot thing was any of his business, and why he should care at all. So, this incident just confirmed that he was obnoxious, and made me dislike him even more.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

This novel is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which the earth is almost uninhabitable because of a recent nuclear war. A lot of animals are extinct or nearly extinct, and a lot of humans have emigrated to Mars to ensure that the human race would not die of radiation. And, as an incentive for people to emigrate to Mars, the governments promised to give them free androids that would be their servants on Mars.

However, some androids have killed their masters and have secretly travelled back to earth, where they disguise themselves as regular humans. They are physically undistinguishable from real humans, and the only ways to tell them apart from real humans are to give them empathy-tests (robots are not empathetic) or to run tests using their bone marrows. Thus, it becomes very difficult for the police to hunt down these escaped robots.

The novel focuses on Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter whose job is to hunt the androids and "retire" (i.e., kill) them. He has to track these robots down, give them the empathy test (to make sure that they're robots), and then kill them using his laser gun. At the end,