Origin XT Blog

Today in my 3rd period English class with Ms. Jankowski, I presented an ad I found yesterday in Time magazine. It said:

We’re not testing your eyes, we’re testing your heart (which by the way is a run-on)
Donating your eyes can save someone from blindness.
You don’t need perfect vision, you just need a good heart. (another run-on)
Be a donor and visit The Eye-Bank at www.eyedonation.org

The World’s First Eye Bank

Nowhere in the ad did it mention that they take the eyes out of dead corpses. “Visit” sounds active, as if the ad wants you to go immediately and pop out your eyes. It was kind of disgusting and amusing at the same time. How to say that? Bizarre?
So I asked someone So, did my ad appeal to you? “Visit the Eye bank” now and donate to “save someone from blindness”? “You don’t need perfect vision! You just need a good heart!” to which she replied Yeah (apparently sarcasm).

Anyone donating eyes?

Today’s lecture was the worst one I’ve heard in a while, mainly because I could not trust any of the numbers given, most importantly, the reparations Germany had to pay.

MM said that Germany was forced to pay 56 million pounds to her enemies. I thought she meant billion, because obviously 56 million is very little. Hitler, the fuhrer, would not have created such a furor (ha) over a measly 56 million, which is worth about 800 million dollars today. Compare that to the 2.7 TRILLION dollars the US federal government spends YEARLY (mostly on health care).

So I went online and googled the Treaty of Versailles, and on article 235 (Hey, it reminds me of Uranium-235, the weapons-grade uranium!), it said:

In order to enable the Allied and Associated Powers to proceed at once to the restoration of their industrial and economic life, pending the full determination of their claims, Germany shall pay in such installments and in such manner (whether in gold, commodities, ships, securities or otherwise) as the Reparation Commission may fix, during 1919, 1920 and the first four months Of 1921 , the equivalent of 20,000,000,000 gold marks.

20 billion marks in 1921 is around 33 billion dollars at that time.

In addition to that in Article 232:

In accordance with Germany’s pledges, already given, as to complete restoration for Belgium, Germany undertakes, in addition to the compensation for damage elsewhere in this Part provided for, as a consequence of the violation of the Treaty of 1839, to make reimbursement of all sums which Belgium has borrowed from the Allied and Associated Governments up to November 11, 1918, together with interest at the rate of five per cent (5%) per annum on such sums.

That’s a lot of burdens on Germany that MM didn’t mention. C’mon, 56 million pounds? Pfft

Extraversion	||||||||||||||	56%
Stability	||||||||||||	43%
Orderliness	||||||||||||||	60%
Accommodation	||||||	30%
Interdependence	||||||||||	36%
Intellectual	||||||||||||||||	70%
Mystical	||||||||||||	43%
Artistic	||||||	30%
Religious	||||	16%
Hedonism	||||	16%
Materialism	||||||||||||||||	70%
Narcissism	||||||||||||	50%
Adventurousness	||||||||||||	43%
Work ethic	||||||||||	36%
Self absorbed	||||||||||||||||	63%
Conflict seeking	||||||||||||	50%
Need to dominate	||||||||||||||||	63%
Romantic	||||||||||||||||	70%
Avoidant	||||||||||||||	56%
Anti-authority	||||||||||||||||	70%
Wealth	||||||||||||	50%
Dependency	||||||	30%
Change averse	||||||||||||	50%
Cautiousness	||||||||||||||||	70%
Individuality	||||||||||||||||	63%
Sexuality	||||||||||||	43%
Peter pan complex	||||||||||||||||	63%
Physical security	||||||||||||||||	70%
Physical Fitness	||||||||||	37%
Histrionic	||||||||||||||	56%
Paranoia	||||||||||||||||	70%
Vanity	||||||||||	36%
Hypersensitivity	||||||||||||	50%
Female cliche	||||||	30%

Stole this from Kat again. Guess what Katherine? I’m more romantic than you Ha! Beat that! Romantic (70%) was the highest on my list! (as are Intellectual, Materialism, Anti-authority, Cautiousness, Physical security and Paranoia)

43% sexuality? Ok, maybe something is wrong with this And what? Katherine’s less religious than I am?

Yesterday at 4:45 PM I had the Panel (because there’s a “panel” of judges) in the theory room in Stanford’s Braun Center. Needless to say, I screwed up.

Let me defend myself before things get too severe. First of all, although the tone of the piano was decent, it still had numerous inherent problems.

1. The most obvious to me was the amount of dust on the flank keys. I mean, come on. I was the last person to use the piano on that day, yet there were more dust on the edges than on my table here. And as you know, dust makes the keys slippery, so naturally I slipped a little on the Haydn Sonata and the Chopin Etude, both of which had tons of 32nd notes jumping up and down, sliding back and forth between octaves. I tried to ameliorate the situation by blowing and wiping off some dust while I was waiting for the judge to finish writing critiques. Still, it was unbearable.
2. Secondly, the pedals were too high. Those pedal on, off, on, off passages were hard to do considering whenever I pressed on it, my foot slid backwards and off the pedal. Quite simply, I cannot keep moving my foot onto the pedal while concentrating on the ups and downs of the Etude.
3. Thirdly, the sostenuto pedal was weird. For my Prokofiev (”Montagues and Capulets”, a dance I think) I tried in vain for five seconds to press the damn sostenuto pedal (the middle one, which retains the sound of the keys already pressed, and does not exist for upright pianos so I couldn’t practice this at home), and I realized that the damper pedal was just too damn fat, unlike the one at my home which is kind of skinny. Anyway, this bothered me.
4. And lastly of the problems with the piano itself, the lower registers were much louder than the higher ones, and that made all my pieces sound somewhat unbalanced. I tried to play the upper notes louder, but the 12-foot Steinway was just not very nice.

I think I made my case clear about the problems of the piano itself. Now, onto other factors that screwed me up:

1. Obviously those problems listed above procured psychological problems. I could not focus, not that I could normally I think I may have ADD, not as severe as Joe’s, but still quite. And the thing is, the occurance is completely unpredictable.
2. …

I’ll finish my complaint tomorrow.

I did the MC too quickly, I think. I did 50 in 20 minutes. Or maybe it was because I didn’t read the review text, or maybe because I didn’t look at my lecture notes. Or maybe because I didn’t even look at the 10 pages of reading notes I took. Or maybe I’m just too distracted. But I ended up with a 90% exactly.

I set my alarm to seven so I can get up and look at my LP in the 30 minutes before I eat breakfast. But instead, the alarm didn’t go off and my dad yelled at me at 7:40, when I realized I had no time to eat breakfast.

But I swear, next time I’m either going to sue Sony (yes, they make alarm clocks O_o) or figure out how my alarm clock works before I sleep. Or maybe I should do the above early, as in before the day of midterm. Damn you fifth period people who always get the random questions right!

How did you guys do?

03/01 17:56:21 Me: why is prude and prudent so similar
03/01 17:56:40 Joey: because prudes are nt prudent
03/01 17:56:46 Me: lol

I realize my messages are getting progressively shorter and boring.

prude

prude [prood] (plural prudes) noun
somebody easily shocked by sex: somebody who is easily shocked by sex or nudity and who pays a great deal of attention to proper social behavior (disapproving)

[Early 18th century. From French, back-formation from Old French prudefemme, (misunderstood as “virtuous woman”), feminine of prud’homme, from assumed pro de ome, literally “fine (thing) of a man.”]

—prud·er·y, noun
—prud·ish, adjective
—prud·ish·ly, adverb
—prud·ish·ness, noun

Encarta® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1999,2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Evidence!