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In.

States.

Monday.  'Twas quite a normal day, except for one thing.  I went to Japanese class.  What!? I do, indeed, take German as my language at school, but that's not gonna stop me from going to Japanese, nor did it.  The Japanese II students leave for class at about 20 after (4th hour, lunch).  Why do they wait so long?  Kids from other schools get bussed over to Ford to take Japanese, so they have to wait for them to get there before they can start class, makes sense right?  Well, Nate, Tim, Zach, and Ed were getting ready to leave, and Nate asked Ben and me if we wanted to go with them.  Nate said they had a sub today and that it'd be alright (i.e. the sub wouldn't know).  So, we went. 

We went to the back of the class, cause apparently that's where Nate & Co. sit.  So.. yea.  The sub called roll, Ben and I didn't say anything, the sub didn't even notice...  The class already had these review packets or something, so Ben and I went up and grabbed some, to make it look like we were actually working (though I had no idea what to do, I just started tracing the symbols).  Ben left a little after that, I guess he had to leave early or something.  I took the seat that Ben was in, because it was closer to the corner, and farther back.  There was an empty seat in front of me, so I put my feet up to relax.  Apparently it was Tim's seat, so he sat on my feet.  I managed to get my feet out, but the same couldn't be said for my shoes.  Both shoes fell to the floor, and this chick (Girl sounds too... young?) in front of Tim picked up my right shoe and tossed it to the front of the room.  Surprised, I put my left shoe on and walked up to the front and got my other shoe and walked back before I put it on.  I dunno who the chick is, though she does know my name...  She kept looking at me and waving..  Once she even hid behind my chair because Adam must've scared her or something.  The kids in Japanese are... weird (not necessarily in a bad way though).  The 5th hour bell finally rang, so I walked up to the sub and said I had to go to MST.  He let me out, and I happily went on my way to German.  I'll only regret one thing from that day: not finding out that chick's name (dangit, Nate's use of the word "chick" must be rubbing off on me).

Tuesday.  Um.  Yea.  Nothing really special. 

Same with Wednesday.

Thursday, in Chem Lecture, Nate said something quite.. odd...  Emily was asking me for help on some of the math problems we had to do, so I was helping her through them, though I'm not sure if I explained to all to well, I'm not good at that kind of thing..  Anyway.  She went to check the answer to one of them (the answers are on a sheet of paper at the front of the room), though Nate had already confirmed it was the right answer, he already checked.  So, when she was up there, Nate leaned forward (He sits behind me, Emily in front) and said "I think she likes you!"  That was kinda weird...  But it did make me think for a bit...  It's kinda hard to explain what went through my mind, I'm not even really sure what went through my mind at that moment anymore, but I did remember once thing...  8th grade, 1st hour Science, 2nd hour drafting/communications (3rd hour history too!?), Emily was in all of those classes.  9th grade, 1st hour german, 8th hour honors english.  Emily was in those classes as well.  10th grade.  1st hour honors english, 5th hour german, 6th hour chem. lecture (second semester only), she's also in THOSE classes too!  She's been in at least two of my classes since 8th grade!  And will continue to be in two of them for the next two years... (german and honors english) That's just kinda weird...

Friday.  Nothing special.

Saturday.  I can't get FFXI just yet, I'm not even entirely sure why..  But I do remember my mom saying something to the effect of "and we know brian doesn't have time for something like that."  What the hell?  He hasn't expressed much, if any, interest in FFXI!  I'll pay for all of it!  It doesn't matter whether brian has time for it not, considering he doesn't even want it that much!  oi...

For some reason I feel as if my writing has been going downhill as of late...  I don't know what it is exactly, or why, but it seems different, and that bothers me...  Maybe my style of writing is changing, but wouldn't I know if it was?  I mean, afterall, it is my style of writing, right?  Oh well, there's too much stuff going on that may be distracting me from my writing...: Renee (or could that be seen as a lack of something going on?), Emily (or at least Nate's comment..), suspension/no credit on my report card (did you know that!?  I get NO CREDIT for this marking period!  Mr. Hall placed me on Credit Review and said it'd be fine if I wasn't a skipper, but what the hell is this NO CREDIT shit?  That jackass!  He's probably sitting at home right now laughing at me, nuckfut.), and other things...

BAM!!!  ::rattle rattle rattle, crash bang boom, and other onomatopoeias::..!!!...  Thunder, at 5 in the morning.  Gotta love it (no, seriously, it's awesome).  There were several big booms that shook the house (either the house really did shake, or I was just too tired to differentiate between reality and dream), and then I went back to sleep, only to wake up at 6.  Got ready, did all the usual stuff I normally would for a school day, and left.  But instead of going to school, my destination this time was Macomb Community College, for the annual regional Science Olympiad competition! YAYAY!!  The car ride was anywhere from half-an-hour to an hour.  I don't quite remember, again I was tired.  Mom dropped us (me and Brian) as close as she could to the building where our team would be staying.  She had to get home so David wouldn't be home alone for too long.  It was raining, but it was nice rain.  So we walked in it.  It was about 7:25AM.

We got to the room at about 7:30AM, only to find that practically everyone was already there, except for Sheldon, Chris, and Charlie.  Our first event (Write it Do it^*, of which Brian and I were partners for) was in the first time block (don't ask me to remember the times for each event, cause I won't).  There was almost an hour until the event though, so Brian went to scout out where his other events would be.  I, on the other hand, decided to stay around the room and get some more sleep/study/talk to people.  So when the time for the event finally did roll around...  Brian wasn't there (in the holding room).  Well, since they did the writers first and the doers later, I decided to go on without him, only to find out he was already waiting for me...

After Write it Do it, I went back to the room.  Brian still had to build it, so that's what he was doing when I left.  Well, a little while later (maybe after 10 minutes or so), Chris came in, looking for Brian.  They were partners in Qual^*, and Chris couldn't find Brian.  So, I ran down to the Write it Do it room (not knowing how much time had passed, not realizing he'd already be out), he wasn't there.  Well, I ran to the Qual room, and he was there, and so was Chris.  All was good, I went back to the room.  About 5 minutes later, Chris came rushing in, "Why couldn't she have packed the right goggles?"  They needed OSHA approved goggles for the event ('tis a chemistry event), and apparently Ms. F hadn't packed the right ones in the bag that contained all the event's materials.

My next event was Polymer Detectives^*, in the time block after Qual.  Elyse also had Astronomy at the same time, in almost the same building too, so we walked together to our events.  Alex, her partner, was nowhere to be found (he also ran late because of Wright Stuff).  She had none of the reference material, Alex had it all, but Alex eventually showed up after the event started.  After talking to Elyse a bit, I went to the Polymers room, but Pat, my partner, was nowhere to be found.  He eventually showed up, 5 minutes after the event started due to Wright Stuff (make you're own plane, see how long it flies) running late...  Well, we got the identification part right, but the history part was evil.  I did have a sheet to study, but how am I supposed to remember what year Teflon was discovered in?  And we (or should I say Pat?) got one of the polymer structures wrong (he did the structure stuff.  I was responsible for history and the sink/float chart, which I DID memorize, perfectly).

Well, after Polymers, I had quite a bit of free time till Experimental Design^*.  Elyse and I went back to the holding room for some lunch (Charlie's mom brought home-made subs, they were awesome).  Jason and Dad were talking about programming and stuff, I kinda listened, but mostly ate.  Elyse wanted to check out the Trebuchet and Robot events, so we (Jason, Elyse, and I) went down to the Sports Expo Center (SEC) to watch them.  Though the catapult had been disqualified (I'll get into this a bit later, it'll take up too much room to put it here), Charlie and Marc still competed.  They didn't land in the box once, but they came close each time.  After their three shots were up, I looked around and found where Robot was being held.  Quickly we raced over there to cheer them on, but we were too late, they had just finished.  Ms. F, Chris, Alex, and those watching said they did very well, not at all like last year.  Last year there was interference when they were piloting the robot, so the robot turned just before it was about to drop its payload into the container, costing them points. 

After watching Alex screw around with the robot, picking up Jason's pepsi bottle and trying to hump peoples' legs, Elyse and I had to get to Experimental Design.  It was on the second floor of the K building, and Stephanie was already waiting for us when we got there.  It took maybe another ten minutes of standing around before they finally let us in.  On the tables, as we walked in, were none other than... FOUR SUGAR CUBES!!!  Now, you must know the history behind the sugar cube.. thing.  Elyse and I only had one practice for ED, the Monday before competition.  We were given 4 sugar cubes, two beakers, a stirring rod, and some push pins and such.  The experiment we devisied was to see how the temperature of water affected the rate of dissolving of the sugar cube.  Mrs. Joliff said that it would be very unlikely for them to provide water at the compeition because the event took place in a carpeted room (which it did).  Well, there WAS water too!  Hot AND Cold!  And three dixie cups too.  Booyah!  How lucky could we have been?  So, we did the experiment and all, set up the lab report (procedure, materials list, analysis, conclusion, and the almighty hypothesis), etc.  We had to explain a bit of it to Stephanie because she wasn't with us when Elyse and I practiced, but it all turned out well 'cause she knew what she was doing. 

So, after the �bercool sugar cube experiment, Stephanie had to rush off to her next event, I think it was Sounds of Music, not sure though (I'm not even sure if that's what it's called).  Elyse and I went back to the K building as quickly as possible to give Mrs. Joliff a list of the materials so she could keep them for reference next year.  When we said "sugar cubes," she was dumbfounded.  She asked if they provided water, and was even more shocked that they did.  We wouldn't see Ms. F for another couple of hours to tell her; though we did try to call her, she didn't pick up.  After sitting around for a while, the three of us (Jason, Eylse, and me) went to go wander around for a bit... accompanied by my dad...  So, we went to the game room in the K building and watched these guys play DDR.  Damn they were good, but Alex (there's two in the SO, this isn't the same one as before) V. would have owned them, it's just too bad he wasn't there to play.  While watching them, Jason decided to tell Dad about my.. phallic lighter (if you'll recall)...  Yea, 'twas embarassing, for both of us...

Blah blah blah, skip ahead to Pizza Hut.

I guess its tradition to walk to Pizza Hut from campus, but Jason, Brian, and I just didn't feel like walking.  So Dad drove us.  As each of the coaches came in (we all got there before they did) we cheered and clapped and such, as if they were some big celebrity.  And when Ms. F finally came in we let it all out, the Eppler team that was also at Pizza Hut must've though we were crazy or something.  It was awesome.  Nothing special really happened at Pizza Hut.. 

When it was time to leave, the whole team left to walk again, but Jason and I decided to have Dad drive us home.  He got engaged in a discussion with the coaches/teachers though, so we walked back on our own.  (Thus resulting in us missing the congo line the team formed...  That woulda been cool) When we finally got back, about 10 them (the team) were playing Hacky Sack.  I got pulled in, though I had no idea what to do, so I just stood still watching the sack thingy.  Then Elyse sat down, saying "Duck Duck Goose!"  Karolyn was next, then eventually we were all playing Duck Duck Goose.  Never thought it was such a physical sport, did you?  We were running all around the SEC place thingy trying to evade eachother, and we even dove though the circle a couple of times to get to sit down (if you've never played Duck Duck Goose, and have no idea what I'm talking about, go find a truck and put yourself under its wheel).  It was great fun.  Then the ceremonies started, a lot of useless thank yous and we've been doing this for so long.. blah blah blah, get on with the medals!  This year they did them in no specific order and switched back and forth between Division B (Juinor High) and C (High School).  Last year they were at least alphabetical.  Well, I don't remember the exact medals and places, but I'll do my best:

Brian got a first place in Qualitative Analysis, and a fifth place in Remote Sensing.
Elyse, Stephanie, and I got a third place in Experimental Design.
Jen got a fourth, fifth, and sixth place in her three events.
Chris got a first place and a first place in Qual and Robot.
Marc got fifth in Remote Sensing.
Alex V. and Jason got fourth in the Time event.
Alex S. got first in Robot also.

That's all I remember.  We, as a school, ranked 7th place total (which we later got bumped up to 6th place due to various things that's two places better than last year!  Go us!).

So, yea, it was pretty fun, I can only hope we go to states next year (5th and higher go to states), too bad Ms. F won't be there next year though...  She's going back to school or something, so she won't be teaching anymore...  'Tis sad, but what can ya do?

*You know what?  Screw it, no explanations of the events.  I'm too lazy and I want to get this darn write-up off of my mind.

(sorry for unleashing scroll-zilla upon your unsuspecting browsers..)

1284-First mention of Horners Company
1820-Thomas Hancock (Britain) discovers that, if strongly masticated, rubber becomes plastic and can flow, develops method of milling rubber.
1835-Regnault reports first production of vinyl chloride monomer.
1839-Charles Goodyear (USA) discovers process of mixing natural rubber with sulphur to make stronger and more resilient product --Vulcanization
1843-Hancock (Britain) patents vulcanization
1844-Charles Goodyear (USA) patents vulcanization
1845-Thompson invents rubber tyre.
1851-Ebonite patented by Nelson Goodyear (not Charles)
1856-First patent for nitrocellulose products granted to Alexander Parkes
1859-Butlerov describes formaldehyde products
1861-First of Parkes' patents for Parkesine
1865-Cellulose acetate discovered
1869-John Wesley Hyatt (USA) develops Celluloid, replaces Parkesine
1870- Hyatt brothers patent use of cellulose nitrate and camphor to form horn-like material
1872-Celluloid registered as trademark by Hyatt
          -Adolph Bayer (Germany) reports reactions of phenols and aldehydes to give resinous substance
          -Hyatt brothers patent first injection mouldling machine
1876-77-Seeds of Brazilian rubber trees smuggled out of Brazil by Sir Henry Wickham, later sent to Asia where they form the basis of world's rubber industry.
1977-84-Legal cases between Hyatt and Spill over invention of Celluloid -result: no restriction on use of processes
1879-Carbon fibers first used by Edison in lights
          -Gray obtains patent for first screw extruder
1880-Shellac used by Berliner label to produce phonograph records because of ability to reproduce fine detail-used until 1952, PVC then used
1884-Louis Bernigaud produces artificial silk fibers from cellulose, Rayon
1885-George Eastman Kodak patents machine for producing continuous photographic film
1887-Goodwin invents celluloid photo film and production process
1894-Cross and Bevan develop industrial process for cellulose acetate after research into cellulose esters to avoid flammability concerns with celluloid (cellulose nitrate)
1899-Kritsche and Spitteler (Bavaria) discover and patent casein plastics- become available as "Galalith"
1903-Stern and Charles Topham develop method for producing artificial silk
1905-Brandenburger invents "Cellophane"
1907-Baekeland (USA) mixes Phenol and Formaldehyde to produce phenol formaldehyde resins
1908-Cross invents "cellophane" (cellulose acetate and viscose rayon)
1909-Baekeland patents Bakelite, first widely used thermo-set to replace traditional materials like wood, ivory, Ebonite
1910-Rayon stocking first manufactured in Germany
1912-Ostromislensky (Russia) patents polymerization of vinyl chloride to give PVC.  Decomposition during processing prevents commercial development
1915-first production of synthetic methyl rubber at Leverkusen
1920-Longhair fashion leads to cellulose replacing horn as material of choice for combs
1922-Staudinger (Germany) synthesizes rubber
1924-Rossiter (Britain) develops urea thiourea formaldehyde for British Cyanides Company- first water-white, transparent, thermosetting moulding powder
1926-Staudinger starts work on "macromolecules," shows polymers are long chains of monomers joined together.  It was previously thought that polymers were rings of linked molecules.
1927-Otto Rohm (Germany) develops poly(methyl methacrylate) and limited production begins at Darmstadt
1928-Carothers starts work on polymers and polymerization
1929-Dunlop Rubber Co. (Britain) produces first foam rubber
1930-I.G. Farben (Germany) develops PS (polystyrene) and Dow Chemicals Co. (USA) starts to develop PS- commercial production takes another 7 years
1931-Carothers develops Neoprene
1932-Improvements to urea thiourea formaldehyde products at British Cyanides Co. give urea formaldehyde resins
1933-ICI workers start to develop commercial synthesis of poly(methyl methacrylate), PMMA- also known as Perspex, Lucite, Plexiglas
1934-Wallace Hume Carothers at Du Pont (USA) develops nylon, originally as a fiber
          -First commercial production of Perspex (PMMA)
1935-Carothers and Du Point patent Nylon
          -Henkel patents production of resins based on melamine
1936-ICI patents polymerization of ehylene to give polyethylene and develops large volume compressor to commercially produce polyethylene
1937-Carothers dies (suicide) before nylon is released to the public in 1938-9 as Exton
1938-Plunkett (Du Pont) accidentally discovers PTFE
          -Schlack develops "perlon"
1939-ICI patents chlorination of polyethylene to give PE-C
          -ICI (Britain) commercializes production of polyethylene
1940-PMMA becomes widely used for aircraft glazing
          -First production of PVC in UK
1941-I.G. Farbenindustrie (Germany) starts to produce polyurethanes
          -PTFE patented by Kinetic Chemical Ltd.
          -First commercial PET polymer announced
1943-First pilot plant for PTFE, later called "Teflon"
1947-Formica first introduced to British market
1948-George de Mestral (Switzerland) invents Velcro, patented in 1950
1949-Silly Putty invented by James Wright (GE Engineer), found by mixing with silicone oil with boric acid
         -Lycra invented by Joe Shivers (Chemist) working for Du Pont
1950-High impact PS (polystyrene) introduced as commercial plastic
1952-First long playing records and singles manufactured from PVC
1953-HDPE first produced
          -Staudinger wins Nobel Prize for Chemistry for study of polymers
          -Schnell at Bayer first synthesizes PC (polycarbonate) at Bayer Uerdingen Plant
1955-HDPE produced and marketed
1957-PP (polypropylene) commercially produced and marketed by Montecatini as "Moplen"
1958-Commercial production of PC resins produced in Germany (Bayer) and USA (GE)
1962-Polymides introduced by Du Pont (USA)
1963-Zeighart and Notta share Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the synthesis of polymers
1976-Du Pont releases Zytel ST (PA 6,6)
1977-PEEK first prepared by ICI (Britain)
1990-Warner Lambert develops Novon- starch that is also injection mouldable plastic
2000-Emphasis now on compounding existing polymers to create composites, instead of making new polymers
          -PP described as "the new mild steel" by Alan Griffiths
2002-Formica company seeks Chapter 11