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I think that I have seventeen-year-old-itis. As in I like cars.
As you may know, I have a car, a 1990 honda civic hatchback. Well, I have always thought of it as a pretty crappy car, but now I am putting more time and money in to it, it is becoming my dream car. (Well, technically I share it with my sister, but I want to change that). A while ago, James and I took apart the engine more so than I ever had before on any car. I had never really seen the inside of any engine, so it was a bit interesting. Well, since it is such a simple car, I have been thinking about doing something to it to "work on" it. Today was that day. After school, I went out and got some new spark plugs and a new distributor cap. These, apparently, are the things needed for a standard tune up, so I went ahead and taught myself how to install them (it's not that hard, really) and just got back from taking the car on a 'test drive' with the new components. Well, the car... purrs. That is the best I can put it. It is so cool to be able to make the car better, run better. I am still shaking from attempting to find the car's new top speed. All I can say is that I know it is above what is was this morning. If you know what it used to be, don't tell my parents :)
Anyway, the next step for me is to get an amplifier and some new speakers. By the end of the summer, I plan on having my car just the way I want it. Okay, now take another deep breath, David.
There are times in my life when I feel as if my life is being led by someone other than myself. As if I am no longer in control of my actions, but I sit back and watch my life as it is led by some anonymous being and I am unable - or unaware - of it. The worst part is that I have no desire to take the wheel and steer so to speak.
They say that making no decision is making a decision. Taking no action is taking action. Well, I don't know if that is true or not, but what I have figured out now is that I am indeed controlling my life and I alone can make my own decisions.
And that's all I have to say about that.
heh, got a few things in the mail today. One was my SAT scores, the other a CD ROM full of pictures from my trip to guatemala in march. To start with the CD ROM...
It is actually really cool. The guy who runs the trip collected a bunch of pictures from everyone who went and compiled the good ones on a cd. This made for 550 megs of pure memories :) There are some great shots of me performing surgery, my friend holding an M-16 machine gun, a satellite internet broadcast, et cetera. I am so glad I got to go on that trip because in my opinion it is a once in a lifetime thing to be able to have that kind of experience. Especially now with all this HIPPA stuff going on (as usual) kids can't even go to work with their dad's if they are a doctor. They can't go anywhere where a patients name is visible, anyway, which pretty much covers the entire hospital. Hmm... and my sisters both got to watch surgerys. Anyway, if you are interested, you can see a few pics that I took and compiled, some of which are in the collection i was just sent.
Now on to the SAT scores... I know you are just DYING to know what I got. :) Well, I got a 630 on the verbal and a 650 on the math, for a combined total of 1280. Not too bad, but I think I can do better next time. We shall see. If you know me, I'm sure you know how I feel about grades and test scores, and how they don't represent what people REALLY know or how smart they are. But I actually enjoyed taking the test and I am excited to take it again. I just want to break 1300 at least. But again, we shall see...
Where to start? Wow. I am overwhelmed with things to say, really. I am in summer school it seems now, which has it's ups and downs, mostly downs. As in I have to get up and be at school by 7:50 every weekday. Plus the classes I am taking are the freshmen classes I never took, so I am in a room full of all the people that failed the classes in their freshmen year. Yeah, I will be a senior this fall. hmmm. There are a handful of people that make the classes bearable, but other than that I will just have to tough it out for four weeks. We DO, however, get to watch The Breakfast Club tomorrow in class, which is not exactly what I had in mind when I thought of "personal growth". Oh well, it is an awsome movie.
And I also got a cell phone. it is nice. Color screen, speakerphone, even one of those little cameras that attaches to it... Number available only on request :)
new blogger is running, summer school started, i got a cell phone, and i might get a new car.
i missed you, blogger.
my life has to be at an all time low right now. but at the same time it is at an all time high. i just had the most productive night of my life i do believe, and everything is right with the world. even if midnight marked the beginning of day 3 with the whole fiasco with my father. even if my gpa sucks. even if i dont know where my life is taking me. even if. even if.
i have never felt so happy and free in my life. i floated home it seems like. i love life right now. i love it. i'm just so happy to be alive and human. thank you people who touched my life today (you know who you are). thank you.
what a day. i wish i could just crawl into a hole and curl up and understand life. for just a split second. i just want to know why things happen the way they do. if only i knew. if only i knew.
this is the internet. therefore i must watch what i say for who knows who may be reading even as i type. i wish i could spill what was on my mind. my thoughts... my true thoughts. i have just had too many bad experiences with the internet like that though. if i post what i know, what i think, what is on my mind, i become vulnerable. my parents could read it. my teachers, counselors, and worst of all: friends would be reading. or maybe friends would be the best of all. i don't know. i wish i knew.
i just realized i make no sense. you are probably wondering what happened to me. am i on drugs? no. am i depressed? no. am i alive? yes. then what is going on? i only wish i could say. i want to, but i can't. if you want to know, call me. please. something is going on.
pigeonrank
wtf?
sigh. my dad might come home. I am not terrified, but hopeful. hopeful that something might happen.
I guess I should start at the beginning. well, my report card came yesterday, and my dad found out today. my mom told him about an hour ago. she told him my grades. my failing grades that haunt me day and night. I guess I deserve what I have coming, but I want to know what is going to happen. my dad is going to be pissed enough to do anything, and I want to make the most of it. I want to run away. I want to do something. I want him to see. I don't know what is going to happen, but I guarantee that something will. whether my dad comes home or not. we shall see waht happens. I want to decide what path my life is going to take today, though. I want to get my GED and go to community college in San Luis Obispo. that's what I want, i think. either that or stay at home and go to high school, but I am pretty sure that that is out of the picture already. i just don't know where my life will take me these next few days as I sort my life out. it sucks, you know? getting bad grades, whether on purpose or not, when your dad is a type a+++ person; doctor, multiple degrees and residencies, etc... is not the way to go. but you know what? i am immune to him for the most part. he will come home, be it today or tomorrow or next week, and i will not care what he says. i realize that i need to stand up for myself. i can't keep letting him run my life. i need to argue, put up a fight. not just let him take me to military school or whatever it is he wants me to do. i have so many frustrations. the only way i can escape them is when i am driving or when i am with my friends. (you know who you are) or on a computer. that too. but all i know is that my life is going to change in the next few days, and it is exciting, but scares the fuck out of me.
potential. I almost hate the word. How can I have so much of it yet not utilize it to it's full... well, potential. Every single person I meet it seems like says I have so much of it, yet I almost don't know what to do with it. My life is not reflected in anything I do except with computers. Any class I have taken is for crap, my high school career has been sabotaged by myself. Every counselor, teacher, mentor, EVERYone I know thinks I should be doing better. Oh well. life sucks then you die, right?
You know what today was! The last day of school! All I can say is wow. It has been a crazy year, ups and downs.... and downs... but yeah, it is over. The sad part is that this may be my last day as an ANTHS student. Ever. Actually, I have it all figured out already. I want to move to southern california this fall and go to cuesta college or whatever they call it. All I gotta do now is run that one by my parents. :) But anywho, I am out of school. It is officially summer right now, and don't it feel good!
Well, guess what happened today? Here, see for yourself:
Yeah, need I say more other than... I GOT A SATELLITE!!!!!
I have so much homework to make up by tomorrow it aint funny. I have done so much already, but it still feels like I have done nothing. School is so overwhelming right now, and there are only 3 days left in the entire year!!! Well, I need to study, but I will post how things went tomorrow, I am sure :)
new movie online! okay, I will leave the quality of filmmaking up to you, but I try :)
Before you watch:
It is a remake/parody on the movie pi
it was filmed and edited in less than a week
it was a last minute school project
it is a little over 5 megs
it is in windows media streaming format (*.wmv)
Okay, here is a link [+]
screenshots [+] [+] [+] [+]
Okay, I know nothing about cars, so I feel *really* dumb. We just got a car, right? [+] Well, it is supposed to have four gears, that model of the car is. (1990 civic hatchback) Well, we got the transmission replaced, but now I think that it has five gears. From four to five. I used to think it was a 'ghost' third gear, but today I was feeling daring and adventurous, so I deceided to shift into it while on the highway. It worked and felt just like a fifth gear, so I think it is a fifth gear, but I am scared to drive in it because it might be bad or even worse, not exist. If anyone knows anything about this, feel free to email me... Thanks. It would put me at ease greatly. yeah. cars are not my strong point. (ask me about that new hypertext preprocessor script linked to the sql database and I will tell you all you need to know though).
Well, blog version 1.0 is out. I think it is fairly well written (for my first project anywho) so I decided to release a final version after 3 beta versions. I am still working on the search script, but I wouldn't expect that to be used yet anyway. Thank you everyone for all your input!
blog 1.0
Finding Nemo...
I went and saw Finding Nemo tonight and have to say that I laughed out loud watching it than I do watching most comedies. I mean, it is a disney movie, so my expectations going in to it were pretty low, but when I left, I knew it was definately more pixar than disney, you know? I wish I could just quote the entire movie here it was so good (but then I remember all that stuff about disney's copyrights, so I must hold back). It was a movie you could get into the plot of even though it was cheesy and lame as most animated movies are. I knew it was good when one of the protagonists met a fish with memento-style short term memory loss (you can only imagine... "Hey, have you seen a boat go overhead?" "Yeah, I saw a boat..... Guess what I just saw?! A BOAT!!! Follow me! .... Hey, man, why are you following me?!?!"
Anyway, you just have to see it. There are so many jokes I can't remember half of them, so jus go see it. I give it four stars. Yes, I am talking about the animated film. Yes, the disney one. Yeah, I know, four stars. What can I say? If you don't want to see the movie, buy a ticket anyway. Then give it to me, because I want to go see it again :)
BE A BETA TESTER!
How would you like to be a beta tester? For me? Well, I wrote a blogger program in PHP/MySQL and I need help debugging it. Go to http://www.stilldavid.com/blog0.9b2/ to see the beta version. I would appreciate any bug reports to go to me at destillman@yahoo.com So far, I have noticed that the date is off by a few hours, plus I have found that I can *extremely* simplify my date functions. Any other suggestions are appreciated! Please also feel free to comment on what I have to test the comment feature! Thank you all!
