Trick or Meat

It's the week of Halloween

And everyone's scared

Except for my brother,

We're all unprepared

For on this coming Thursday

Many knocks will be heard

From small, dressed-up children

Repeating their words

We'll hear "trick or treat"

Every three seconds or so

We'll give them some cavities

So that they'll just GO

Every year I put up with it

Redeeming money for junk

Forced to give it away

To the high schooler punks

Well this year is different

I'm fighting "The Man"

Instead of free candy,

I'll give them some ham

Handing out lunch meat is great!

They'll be in for a surprise!

They asked for a trick,

So I'll give chicken thighs

Maybe some dino-nuggets

Or a fat leg of lamb

And for the really bad kids,

I'll give them old spam

Bologna and tofu

And frankfurter too

They really should thank me

For the ole' switcheroo

Hot dogs for Hershey's

Roast beef for the Reese's

I'll get a good laugh,

They'll explode into pieces

Oh, this Halloween,

Will be one to remember

If your kid comes to my house,

They'll have meat through November

How to Nerd

5 Steps to Being Attractive in AP Classes

1. Be in an AP Class

This step is probably the most obvious. But, I've seem chainsaws with warning labels that read "Do not attempt to stop blade with hands." That label only exists because somebody actually attempted it. So, I give you a thousand apologies, but unless you're in an AP/CP/IB/Honors/Advanced/Nerdy class, this might not help too much. Or maybe it will! You decide.

2. Have an Interesting Name

My AP calculus class is 75% Asian. No racism, just the facts. Asians are smart people.

One of such Asian girls did a cartwheel down the aisle, and nearly kicked me in the face as I read my book of mathematical principles, theories, and things. Apparently she felt bad about this, so her and her other Asian friends were talking to me (because forced socializing is a reward...?).

My given name is Tylan (pronounced TIE-lan). Over the throng of loud nerds in the classroom, however, their ears heard Thailand. Now, I am the calculus nerd with part of their homeland as a name.

I'm not sure how many different names this will work for, but I'm pretty sure it helps.

3. Let Certain People Grade Your Papers

In a high school of 3,000, my math teacher doesn't want to take the time to grade all of the quizzes himself. In order to take care of this problem, he takes the massive amount of young laborers he has on hand and has them do his dirty work. We trade papers with other people in our class, and that person alone will see your score (aside from the teacher).

This is where you must make a decision. How well do you feel you did on the assignment? If you think you got 80-ish percent, it doesn't matter who grades your paper. If you think you did awesome, such as 117.2%, have a pretty girl grade it.

Carry on.

4. Ask The Right Questions

Every class has the designated brown-noser, generally an overly eager student who sits front-center, clinging to any teacher recognition like a life support.

Do not be that person.

Such students attempt to draw attention to the fact that they poured over the chapter prior to class, and is ready to segway the teacher into whatever message comes next in an overly exasperating manner. By reciting ver batum the material covered in the text, they attempt to impress the teacher by "predicting" what will be covered next.

Do not ask those questions.

Instead, ask questions that you're fairly certain everybody is thinking but not saying. For example, if you're covering derivatives, instead of asking, "Isn't the formula for a derivative 'the limit as h approaches 0 of the function f of a minus h minus f of a all over h'?", ask "Can we do the process... backwards?"

While the second question may have been foreshadowing semester two of high school calculus, it isn't done in as obvious of a manner, and is phrased in a slightly innocent and curious manner.

5. Respond Correctly to Jokes

If you're instructors are anything like mine, they will make corny jokes about their respective fields. These awkward situations must be approached tentatively. Sometimes, the joke is actually funny, in which case it is proper to "laugh out loud."

When the joke is too obscure for the mentality level of the classroom as a whole, respond with little recognition that a joke was made.

If the joke falls in between the two extremes, caution must be taken. The joke was understandable to the whole class, but not exactly Brian Reagan material. It is in this situation where incomprehension and total hysterics must be completely avoided. There is a definitive process for figuring out what to do.

1. Recognize - Did anybody else catch the joke? Look around you and see if people have faces of amusement-disgust (to imagine this particular emotion, imagine a genuinely interesting statement was said by somebody, who then spontaneously exploded into confetti).
2. Analyze - Is the general consensus one of forced enjoyment, or lack of understanding?
3. Vocalize - Once the mood of the classroom has been determined, respond accordingly. 4 times of 5 at my school in this situation, the correct response is to groan slightly loudly, accompanied by a face palm.


You are now on your way to receiving desirable, well-earned respect in your smarty-pants class. Congratulations.

Speech

9 Things To [Never] Say In A Public Speech

1.
"I'd like to thank all of the sidewalks out there for keeping me off the streets!"

2.
"I'm really grateful for all of you cartographers; I don't know where I'd be without you."

3.
"In all reality, you should be thanking ME. Now your Erdős number is only 3."

4.
"Michael Jackson was definitely a big role model for me. He taught me that BIG changes are possible!"

5.
"Sólo estoy aquí para los refrescos."

6.
"You're all probably wondering why I'm wearing this inflatable horse suit."

7.
"...and that is how I became ten cents richer after my colonoscopy."

8.
"Yes, it is all true. I stole the cookie from the cookie jar."

9.
"I suppose you can't ding-dong-ditch the No-bell prize committee, am I right?"


*Note*
I was going to make this list a nice even countdown with 10 things, but as you can tell by my recent lack of posting, I'm too lazy for those shenanigans.

This Post is Meaningless

Alright. Writing to write and hopefully by simply making words come out of my fingers, some sort of post will manifest itself. Allegedly, random writing can increase flow of ideas, since nothing is really stopped up in the brainstorming process. For example, I would never actually use the word brainstorm, but I just did. Weird how that works out, huh?

Onward! Today is my birthday. Not that it matters, or anybody cares. Just another milepost like all of the green signs seen on highways. Mass produced, no value at all to them. It's just weird for me to think that tomorrow at 9:41 PM I'll have been alive for 16 years, according to the Gregorian calendar at least.

It'd probably be a different case using some other dating system. Leap years would be taken out, and I would probably have been 16 for the past 4 days.

Crap. Said my age. Not that it matters. I'm sure my maturity level is pretty self-evident of how old I am, so it probably doesn't matter. In fact, the odds that this completely pointless post will be read by anyone is slim to none, so I could say anything I want here, theoretical. Banana daquiri. I spelled that wrong, and I don't feel like going back to change it.

I always feel like it's a game with incorrect spelling. If that magical red line highlights something I just typed up, I take the hard road. Instead of right-clicking and locating the correct spelling, I'll try as many different spellings as I can until I arrive at the correct one, and the line disappears.

Score.

I don't know, I feel that despite the initial amount of dedication and effort I put forth into this blog, it's going to crash and burn in a tragic death like anything else I start on the internet. I'll end up being a strange online nomad, flitting about between I Waste So Much Time and Facebook comment threads.

Speaking of which, that is another game I pride myself at. Commenting.

I search for newly posted images and pictures that have next to no comments on them, and think of the "perfect" thing to say. Upvotes are the points, and your position in relation to everybody else is your judgement of losing or winning. Hi mom.

Keyboard shortcuts. Just remembered the usefulness of command+tab. Sweeet.

I really don't like it here in Utah. I don't mean to offend anybody here, but I just sort of completely hate it here. I want to go back to Idaho. Again, this is one of those awful things that there is too much on the internet: feelings. Bleh. Sorry to burden you with mine. I just really don't think that I should share them, but again, I'm not putting the plug on whatever is coming out right now.

My mom is staring at me with the weirdest look as I type without looking at the screen or keyboard. Ah hah! This is particularly difficult to type, actually. BUT still entertaining. Only for me, though.

There we go. A post with absolutely no entertainment value whatsoever, minimal effort put into it, and yet probably the only well-written thing on this entire website. That should be an accomplishment in of itself.

Bookmarks

It really is too late to apologize. So, I won't.

I'll skip the boring life updates, school is crap, moving again soon, blah blah blah.

Websites I Have Bookmarked

1. Facebook

I'm on here much more often than I should be. In fact, I have a tab open for it as I write this.

2. Google Voice

Being an unemployed 15-year-old, I do not have a phone, even though many of my peers do. Even without a phone though, I like to stay in contact with people via texting. So, I go the poor-man method of free online-texting.

3. Gmail

I don't think any explanation is necessary for this one.

4. Blogger

Nor this one.

5. Disqus

Disqus is my preferred commenting system, and it's pretty nice to have this website handy to moderate and view comments going on.

6. I Waste So Much Time

Seeing as how I don't use Tumblr or Reddit or any of those blogging things, I Waste So Much Time is the closest thing I can get. You'll commonly find me lurking in the comment section.

7. StumbleUpon

This site is my number one tool for random internet browsing. I highly recommend it to anybody who spends their free time Googling random things. This will turn up much more entertaining and meaningful results most of the time.

8. Pandora

When I'm editing my poorly done comics, Pandora can come in handy to pass the time by.

9. Armor Games

StumbleUpon is my number one go-to, and Armor Games is my second when I just want to directly find a flash game to play.

10-15. Assorted Webcomics

In no particular order of preference, I have The Oatmeal, Loading Artist, Invisible Bread, xkcd, The Dog House Diaries, and Poorly Drawn Lines.

16. Khan Academy

I am one of those odd and few people that thoroughly enjoys doing math in my spare time. Khan pretty much takes that desire and turns it into a game with a reward system.

17. Get-tuned

I'm not that great at tuning my guitar by ear, and something about this site is much better than the fancy accurate program on the Mac.

This doesn't really help anybody, but I just thought I'd let you know.