College

The time has finally come.

I begin college tomorrow, September 8th of 2014, at Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale, California. College.

/At least I have some friends/

I'm pursuing my dream of becoming an animator, specifically through a 3D Modeling and Computer Animation major. I've never been so excited to go to school.

See, Elemenatary school was great... I was nervous the first days, didn't know anybody there, but I'm a somewhat outgoing person so I introduced myself.
And then moving into Middle school, I didn't know anybody because I was moving to a school close to my house and where everything was new. It was especially different since it was a public school, and I went to a private elementary school. And the first couple of months I suffered from lack of friends, and I became more of a nervous person.
But by the end of middle school I had a load of friends who were all moving to the same High school as me. So I was excited for school because of my friends, but the school itself wasn't exciting. My first year felt just the same as middle school: work that wasn't interesting, homework that felt boring, stuff like that. Sure, I had a lot of friends and slowly gained a social life, but it was all math and english and history and tests and homework (although I will admit that I do appreciate history, in fact history is my favorite subject of all the general education).
College, however, is something I'm actually genuinely excited for. It isn't general education, at least not 100%, but focuses more on the things I'm interested in. My interests feature mainly arts, like painting and photography and sketching and animation. So going into a college that features and upholds those same interests makes me so excited for the coming years, even when I look at the classes I have to take (general education-wise--but only 14 general education classes doesn't really seem all that much when I look at all the classes I have to take under my major).

Granted, I did take two years of photography in high school. However, that was the only art I took besides band. To graduate high school, the student has to take 4 years of english, at least 2 years of math (but often people go to at least 3, because UCs require at least 3), 2 years of science (but again, UCs require at least 3), 2 years of PE, and then extra electives (like world history, US history, US government/economics). If the student only takes six classes a year, that student only gets ONE elective until senior year, and most people with choose language (i.e. Spanish, French, Mandarin, etc) because some UCs require years of a language. That's what I did--first two years I took Spanish 2 and 3 (because I took Spanish 1 in middle school), and that took up my elective. If I'd looked ahead and noticed that graduating HIGH SCHOOL only required 3 classes of ARTS (in general), I could have skipped the Spanish classes and taken Art 1 and 2 instead, and then Junior year done Art 3 so by senior year I could be in AP Art. That being said, I really did enjoy my Spanish classes because of the teacher--Ms Fig, who also taught life-lessons in her classes. However, I feel like I missed out because I never got to take an art class in high school...

So going into college, especially Cogswell, is the most exciting prospect. During my senior year of high school, I kept thinking to myself, 'when will this year be over so I can start college?' 'I'm so done with high school, I just want college to start.' 'I really want college to come faster because high school is so boring.'

And one of my favorite friends is going to Cogswell with me. I couldn't be more excited right now. :)

College... Boyfriend... Car... Job... AW YISS.

Relevent and Irrelevent Tidbits of Knowledge

Throughout my life, I've watched and read hundreds of movies and books and listened to even more songs. And I must say, I've learned many, many things from them. Some of them are more relevant than others, some more like life lessons and others like little inside jokes of knowledge, and some just little facts that may or may not be important.

• Heroes can come from unexpected places and unexpected people.
• Iron and salt ward off ghosts and demons.
• Anyone can cook.
• Just because you're not important to the world doesn't mean you're not important to anybody. (the Doctor has never met anyone who wasn't important)
• Magic with good intentions does not make good magic.
• Life has a funny way of going in a ring. Or...
• What comes around goes around.
• Don't eat yellow snow.
• If you find a fork in the road, take it. You might need it later.
• Green is not a creative color.
• Expect anyone anywhere is going to do something unexpected or stupid, that way you're always prepared.
• If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you ever tried.
• If life hands you lemons,  
• Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
• Cats.
• No dogs in the Impala, and don't take joints from a guy named Don.
• The only way to kill a vampire is by beheading it.
• You only live once, but that doesn't mean you should do anything extreme. You will most likely get hurt.
• Demon traps are generally ineffective if you monologue too much.
• Swearing makes you sound stupid/uneducated.
• There are always at least five ghost butts touching you at any given time. Like right now.
• It's dangerous to go alone, you should take this with you:
• Do try not to install a reactor magnet into your chest. In fact, try not to be near an exploding missile, especially your own.
•  

And finally...

• Never go against a Cicilian when death is on the line.

Ahahaha! Hahaha! Haha--

Why Relationships Are Hard

I wrote a post back in April titled "Talking To Sarah" in which I mentioned talking to the people you like WITH the people you like. When I wrote that, I intentionally left it hanging like that because I didn't want to address the actual topic but I did want to throw the idea out there... Well, here I am addressing the topic.

Back in April, I liked a boy who I couldn't tell if he liked me back. I saw him every day and talked with him every day, and a couple of days before I created that post in April, I actually did talk with him about people I like. I left out names, but I was talking about him. I was talking about him to him without telling him who "he" was.

And then we were going to a school thing and he asked me about the idea of "us" and I went along with it. Because I had been thinking the same thing. In fact, when he asked me, I'd been thinking about how nice it would be if he asked me.

And then about a month later I broke up with him for no other reason than I was too stressed over our relationship, which wasn't even going anywhere much. Granted, this school year for me has been the most stressful I've ever had, but I don't know why I... I just did...

Relationships are hard. I don't know about you, but I think about them too much. My first relationship was so easy because we didn't really do anything. We hung out at school, went on movie dates, held hands... The simple stuff.

But my second relationship... I was always too busy to do any movie dates... He was too busy with a school project during school to hang out... We barely saw much of each other.

And I started stressing because I wasn't actually sure if I liked him anymore. I had liked him months before for sure, came extremely close to asking him out back then...

And he's a year below me. I know that shouldn't matter, but to me he's always gonna be my freshman friend.

I don't know.

Expectations for relationships are the weirdest things

Sequels

Sequels: the movies that come after the first movie. Plenty of sequels are excellent, even better than the originals, but how many sequels are out there that suck? Or that nobody liked because the first movie, the original movie, was so excellent?

Iron Man 2.

Toy Story 2.

Cars 2.

The Lion King 2.

The Little Mermaid 2.

Peter Pan 2: Return to Neverland.

Mulan 2.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder.

Spider-Man 2.

The Matrix Reloaded.

Legally Blonde 2.

Revenge of the Nerds 2.

Caddyshack II.

etc.

Granted, some of the movies aren't actually that bad (personally, I like Iron Man 2 and Toy Story 2 and Die Hard 2 wasn't terrible and I really liked The Matrix trilogy). And I haven't even seen all of the movies I listed. But enough sequels don't live up to the same expectations of the first or just aren't as good as the first one. In fact, I doubt you've even heard of some of those sequels (especially the older ones).

I saw Wreck-It Ralph finally two days ago and I started thinking about how great a movie it was, but then I remembered it was a DISNEY movie, NOT a Pixar movie, and that got me to thinking about how many sequels Disney makes that don't live up to the first one (cough see most of the list above cough). And that made me fear it's possible future. What if Disney created a sequel for Wreck-It Ralph? I hope not, because I loved the movie just as it was.

All this sequel talk has gotten me to thinking about other sequels that people want or don't want... The Incredibles 2. I hang out on tumblr a lot, and tons of people want a sequel to that movie but tons also don't want a sequel. Me? I think that movie is fine without a sequel. I mean, they wrapped up the whole movie really well, even with the introduction of the weird mole thing. Like, that's gonna get handled, why do we need to know how it happens? The super family is back to doing what they do, and that's that. I don't think it needs a sequel that might ruin it. Or it might not ruin it. Let's just take our chances and stick with the first one.

Monsters' University. Okay, so technically that's a prequel, but I've heard mixed reviews about it. Some people are excited and over-the-moon for it (cough my mom cough) but the reviews from the paper are like "oh it's nice yeah sure but blah blah." Of course, who trusts the reviewers?

Despicable Me 2. The first movie, I've heard, went in and out of production because they couldn't get enough funding for it or something, but when it finally came out, wasn't it really good? So how do you think the sequel will succeed? So far it looks good, but no promises, right? Let's just cross our fingers and hope for the best. (below is a trailer for DM2 so you can judge it for yourself)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will appear sometime in the next year or two. Unfortunately for this movie, I heard a couple critics disapprove of the first one, and a LOT more people who were like "Oh Andrew Garfield is a terrible Peter Parker, Toby Macguire all the way" blah blah blah. They give me the impression they didn't appreciate that movie. BUT! Hopefully TAS-M2 will be better, at least for those people.

THE AVENGERS 2!! I don't know about you, but as soon as The Avengers came out I was in a theatre to watch it. In fact, I saw it twice. I mean, what person who loves Firefly and Dr Horrible DOESN'T go out to watch Joss Whedon's newest creation? Now I'm just rambling though... I'm DEFINITELY excited for The Avengers 2, but another thing: will it live up to its predecessor? The Avengers was top notch, one of the best movies (I think it actually was best movie of the year that year... if not the other movie should be shot and The Avengers can take its place)... so can a sequel beat it? Especially with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor 2: The Dark World coming out... Also Iron Man 3, I mean who can forget such a brilliant piece of work? (btw if you haven't listened to the soundtrack for that, you really must, because Brian Tyler is a brilliant composer and the IM3 soundtrack is my favorite soundtrack to date. Listen here for a sample of the closing credits and opening credits!)
Speaking of which...

Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor 2: The Dark World.
There's a bit of hype for these two, if you ask me, especially CA. In fact, I'm super excited for both. But will they be better than the first ones? In my expert opinion, Thor 2 will definitely beat out Thor for better movie, because I personally didn't like Thor very much -- the story dragged, and I know Thor's backstory is probably really important, but I got bored watching it, and for a superhero movie that is NOT a good thing. And although I would like to say Captain America: The First Avenger was an awesome movie and can't be beaten, I don't think I can... The more I think about it, the more I feel like The First Avenger was just an introduction to Cap, and can definitely be outdone as long as The Winter Soldier doesn't follow the same kind of introduction sort of story. Which I doubt it will, because we already know who Cap is!

So there's a bunch of movies with sequels coming out, some of which were kind of being expected but some of which were not at all one of the things people were expecting. I mean, who knew about Monsters' University, right?

Anyway, I kind of got off topic once I started talking about MU, but some movies don't need sequels, and yet are given sequels anyway just because the producer or the director or blah blah thought the first movie did well. "What? The first movie did well, you say? Let's make another!" Yayyyy--NO.

Make a sequel, they said.
It will do good, they said.
Fans will love it, they said.
Ha ha ha nope.

The Plural of Octopus

http://www.heracliteanriver.com/?p=240

My friend Sarah and I have argued (kind of; we both agree we're both right and we haven't disputed it much) over what the real plural of the word octopus is. The link above leads to an article which analyzes the three possible plurals of octopus, octopi, octopuses, and octopodes. Sarah claims the real plural is octopoden (I honestly don't know where she got the -oden part because that would make it a plural of a plural... hmm) and I read on several websites supporting octopus' that the plural is really octopuses.

"Generally speaking, most people probably progress through these categories over the course of their lives.  At first, they chose octopuses, because English words ending in -s form a natural English plural with -es. Then, at some point, someone corrected their use of words in -us to employ the common Latin plural of -i, so they learned octopi either by being corrected from octopuses or else by assuming that octopus would follow that rule.

The author of the article begins talking about octopuses and octopi and how the two came out of English. He then goes to talk about how octopodes comes from Greek/Latin because of the roots of the word octopus. 

"They learn that Latin is more complicated, and octopus is apparently from Greek, hence octopodes is supposedly more correct than octopi.

 There's a lot of inside analysis of the rest, which I won't go into detail on (but be my guest and read the article, it's really informative!) and at the end, the author says which of the three is the best because he claims technically all three of them are correct.

"Well, octopus has one undisputed plural, namely octopuses, which is the native plural using -es.  As far as my recommendations go, this is the only plural you should ever use...

"For those who use octopodes, stop being so smug.  You have the “rules” of Latinized Greek words on your side...  Claiming that octopodes is the only correct plural would be like claiming that foots is the only correct plural of foot because it follows the English “rules.” 

"For those who use octopi, be aware that you are too on shaky ground.  You are going against the “rules,” and your form goes against the historical precedent set by the guy who coined the word himself, who clearly preferred the standard Greek form of the Latin plural. 

"In the end, just use octopuses. ... But they have absolutely no basis for calling your octopuses wrong, since there are plenty of historical reasons why their forms are also potentially wrong.  In almost all cases, the native English plural is never an incorrect choice.  

The author chooses octopuses as the best plural of the word octopus. While technically all three are correct, octopuses is the best. So ha, Sarah. And everyone else who laughs at me when I say octopuses.

Now here are some cute pictures of octopuses! :D

Octopus! :D

This is the Blue-Ringed Octopus, the only lethally poisonous octopus. This is my favorite octopus because of the vibrant blue rings that appear when the octopus is threatened. It also is relatively small and can fit in the palm of your hand! (Although you shouldn't hold it because of the poison) 

 

See how cute they are? :D

The Giant Pacific Octopus or North Pacific Giant Octopus is the largest known octopus and have arm spans of about 14 feet. There have been documents of Giant octopuses weighing 600 pounds with an arm span of 30 feet though!

The Octopus Wolfi is the smallest octopus in the world and most are only 0.6 inches in length!

The Common Octopus is, as the name suggests, the most common octopus in the world. It is most commonly found in the Atlantic Ocean. 

End

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: Huge success.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

My name is Andi.
I do what I must because I can.
For the good of all of us

EXCEPT THE ONES WHO ARE DEAD.



So anyway.
The school year is ending. This week is my last week. In fact, today is my last zero-period class and I couldn't be happier. (UGH Don't take AP Comp Sci at Westmont guys, it's not fun)

Just kidding I could be happier. :b

Finals are this week and I have projects for my finals and I haven't finished all of them yet. D: And they're due tomorrow.
In fact I haven't even started one.
Oops. :/