Whistler Band Trip

For the past few days, I was at the Whistler Band Festival. I had a lot of fun, and on the last day about 2000 students played two pieces at the same time. The sound was amazing.

171

Today I finished packing for the Whistler trip. Surprisingly, my luggage is extremely light: even lighter than my backpack.
I also have do some of the homework that are due the days I wont' be here, and hand them in tomorrow.

170

Today wasn't interesting at all. I'm starting to pack for the Whistler band trip.

169

Currentlly watching game 7 between vancouver and dallas right now. The game's just started.
Today's mentorship session was ok. I got to meet my mentees, and also started sketching out the project with them. I managed to interest them with my superficial knowledge of HTML programming, and now i've got pressure because they're trying to get me to teach them more about making webpages. Then I made an awesome connection, and told them that we could make a webpage to present our project. That really got them interested in the otherwise quite rigorous subject of DNA and Biotechnology.
I also found out about the new Google Earth version 4 beta. This version of google earth is SO AWESOME. It's got different layers that can be created and shared by the community, simulated tours, and directions. I used this software to track a whale's position, get a general cloud view of the earth (updated every minute), and read about currently events happening in various geographical locations. I even looked up the route we'll be taking to go to the Whistler Band festival. Google Earth gave me a highlighted and outlined route plus a video tour so that I seemed as though I was driving to Whistler myself. There are tons of other great features that I can't possibly elaborate on right now.

168

Today wasn't all that interesting. I watched the baseball game between the Red Sox and Yankees. It was really exciting, and the Sox pulled out a victory over the Yankees, which I thought was awesome, because I see the Yankees as the evil team in baseball. Yanks are "cheap" because they overspend too much, and have an unfair advantage to all the other teams.
The big hockey game today was between the NJ Devils and Tampa Bay Lightning. I was disappointed to see the Lightning get eliminated from the first round of the playoffs because I personally thought that the Lightning had more talent than the Devils did.
I look forward to game 7 between Vancouver and Dallas tomorrow.

167

On Friday, we dissected the uterus of a pig. The uterus had an elongated, zigzag shape, and we actually extracted about 15 undeveloped piglets. Then we dissected the piglets to see their undeveloped organs and anatomical structure. It was a really interesting dissection session.
Yep, now i'm done with my two piano festivals. I got second place in both of them, and exactly the same mark for both of them. Nevertheless, I am extremely pleased with my mark because I never really practiced that much in preparation for it.

166

Today I went to the Kiwanis music festival, and was delighted to have won second place in the Grade 9 Baroque repertoire. I think I did extremely well, a lot better than my usual practicing. I always tend to overperform during concerts. I look forward to my next performance which is going to be this saturday.

165

Today I wrote the Euclid Contest in the morning, and missed out on all the fun of the mentorship party. I had Jason "babysit" my mentees, and Jason told me that my mentee seemingly has some knowledge about my topic as well. That's a relief.
In the afternoon, after P.E. class, I thought school was over, before realizing that the block rotation made Math my new last block.

THE CANUCKS WON THE GAME AT DALLAS TONIGHT!! WE NOW LEAD THE SERIES 3-1!!

164

Today we had a French test first thing in the morning. It tested very basic stuff, but nevertheless was not the ideal start of the week. Then we had band, in which we changed our seating plan and played alongside different instruments. This made things more interesting as we had to concentrate more on our part and to block out the interference created by other instruments.
In the afternoon, we finished reading the play in English (that, of course, took the entire class) and did some assigned questions in Science (that, of course, also took the entire class).

161

Today I ran the SUN RUN in the morning. It was a good thing that I brought a jacket, because we had to wait in the shadows of the skycrapers for about an hour before the start of the run. I have never run 10km before, but today's run was surprisingly unfatiguing for me. Of course, my muscles are going to feel very sore tonight and tomorrow, but the exercise was still a good experience. I look forward to checking my time in tomorrow's SUN.

161

Today I ran the SUN RUN in the morning. It was a good thing that I brought a jacket, because we had to wait in the shadows of the skycrapers for about an hour before the start of the run. I have never run 10km before, but today's run was surprisingly unfatiguing for me. Of course, my muscles are going to feel very sore tonight and tomorrow, but the exercise was still a good experience. I look forward to checking my time in tomorrow's SUN.

161

Today I ran the SUN RUN in the morning. It was a good thing that I brought a jacket, because we had to wait in the shadows of the skycrapers for about an hour before the start of the run. I have never run 10km before, but today's run was surprisingly unfatiguing for me. Of course, my muscles are going to feel very sore tonight and tomorrow, but the exercise was still a good experience. I look forward to checking my time in tomorrow's SUN.

160

Today I went to the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair awards ceremony. I got a gold medal and a UBC statistics special award. I am extremely pleased with my achievement because I had improved from my silver medal last year, and almost made it into the Canada-Wide Science Fair. The thing is, the Fair committee had to give the seniors priority when choosing who qualifies for the National fair. Nevertheless, I am still extremely happy, and look forward to next year's fair.

The SUN RUN is tomorrow, and I got to get some sleep.

159

Today we went ice skating at Sunset again, and I thought the one-hour ice time wasn't enough. Maybe there should a skating field trip for the entire day. That would be awesome.

Then we learned about conics in Math class. We had finally moved on from circular geometry to a more challenging concept: graphing circle and ellipses algebraically.

A highlight in the afternoon was the finishing of the Field of Dreams movie. I thought it had a really poignant ending and that the director's master stroke was at the end.

158

Today's highlight was the woodwind quintet concert in the auditorium at lunch. This quintet has been performing annually at Churchill for 6 years now. The five players were extremely talented, and I learned a lot from their playing technique. This concert will hopefully inspire all band students, and teach everyone somethign about playing.

157

Today I finished the demanding English homework. It calls for us to analyse different types of characters in Silas Marner for 10 characters. Even though the task sounds quite simple, there are only a handful major characters in the novel. I had to stretch the qualities of some minor characters a bit too far to accomodate the criteria.
I also played street hockey outside with Jason, and that basically it for today. Can't wait for school to start tomorrow...

156

Today I tried out Joost. It was a really good piece of software, and the user interface was just so smooth and seamless. The only fault I can find in Joost is its current lack of channels. The only channels I find interesting are the National Geographic Channels. I'm sure Joost will grow exponentially like YouTube did and revolutionize the way we watch TV.

155

We started badminton in PE today. I haven't played for a long time, and my right arm was really sore after class.
Then, in math, we simply re-proved several theorems, and prepared for a "test" next class. The proofs were really boring and easy.
Then, we got to our film study in AS, in which Mr. Lattimer gave us a thought-provoking session on the "Field of dreams" movie. I personally thought it to be amazing that the director had so many meaningful nuances in his technique.
In SS, we had a debate, which was AWESOME because I had wanted a debate ever since grade 8 and it never happened. We debated on issues regarding how technology is changing us for the good or for the bad. We were divided into two large opposing groups and were given a few minutes to organize ourselves. Seeing that our group was really stagnant, I took the initiative and organized everybody into groups and gave them assignments. Apparently, my arrangements were really effective because we won the debate 12-8, mainly because the other group was poorly organized.

154

Today we had a free block in English, and we took advantage of the time to prepare for our science presentations next block. My group didn't present because time ran out, but it was interesting to see some other presentation on the planets of the solar system.

155

Today I simply stayed home and finished my reasonable load of homework. I also printed out the entire version of the YPI booklet because I find it easier looking a paper instead of a computer screen.