A trip to Sheboygan and Milwaukee

Yesterday night, my family and I left for Sheboygan, where my maternal grandfather lives. We stayed the night at his house and talked to him and ate with him. We left this morning and headed south to Milwaukee.

In Milwaukee, we toured the Milwaukee Public Museum, looking over many of the exhibits that we had seen in times before: the geology exhibits, the rainforest exhibit, the butterfly exhibit, the insect exhibit, and the botany exhibit. Afterward we quickly toured the gift shop, not buying anything, and then headed to the IMAX theater, where we had bought tickets for the show about lions of the Kalahari, which I enjoyed. We then headed back home.

Upon arriving, I recieved my first letter of rejection from a college: Carleton. This had been my first choice of college up until now, but as I have not been accepted, I guess I will set my plans elsewhere. It is not a total loss: I have already been accepted at Lawrence University in Appleton, which is a fine college with a conservatory of music where I could continue playing my horn for concerts. As well, there are still three other colleges from which I have yet to recieve letters. Perhaps the responses I recieve will be better from these colleges.

The first day of Spring Break

Today was the first day of Spring Break, but it wasn't very exciting. I attended a "Sportsman's Breakfast" even for my Venturing Crew at a local conservative church. Somehow thinking it to be some sort of charity event last night, I decided to come. I found it to be incredibly boring. We set up a table with climbing gear and a kayak to the side, with a labtop playing a slide show on the table to the left of the climbing gear. There were also other stands from various venders: a scuba diving organization, a paintball group, a boating group, a bike shop, an outdoor's shop, and an archery group among others. The breakfast was attended mainly by men and their sons. Besides the two girls at our stand, I saw one other female in the room (which was a gymnasium) out of about a hundred or more.

I arrived around 6:50 and we set up around 7:15. People started filtering in at 7:50. Breakfast was at 9:00 and an evangelistic speaker who preached that Jesus was a "man's man" spoke at 10:15. The whole thing was rather boring and ridiculous and I was glad to leave. When I got home, I worked on a tower for the Science Olympiad competition at UW-Stout on April 2. I completed my first one last night, but I am trying a different design and comparing the two.

Tonight, my family and I watched The Incredibles, which I thought was a pretty good movie.

Spring Break at last!

Today was the last school day before Spring Break. Unfortunately, it was not an easy day. Upon arriving at school today, I found that many kids were carrying around posters with various music sayings on them. This could only mean one thing: I had forgotten completely about my assignment for band due today. The assignment was to either write an essay or make a poster with a theme chosen from a list of four. As I didn't have the materials to make a poster, I wrote an essay on the "Music is Contagious" theme. Beyond my band assignment, I also had to finish my Chemistry homework. Luckily I got everything done, but it was certainly stressful. However, looking on the bright side, today will make spring break even more of a relief.

An orchestra concert and an acceptance letter

Today's school day was fairly normal. In European History class, we took part in our "termfest" competition, where the class is divided into two teams that each send up one player at a time to guess what term our teacher is describing. Each competition the list of terms grows with the terms from the current unit. Today's match was a decisive 25-10 victory for the seniors over the sophomores and the one junior of the class. In Spanish, we reviewed vocabulary, learned some idioms, and took some AP practice tests. In Human Biology, we learned about muscle and neural tissue. In Band we sight read a few new pieces that we may or may not play at our next concert. Finally, in chemistry we finished up our lab by weighing the precipitate, which had more or less dried (in my case, it was less).

When I got home, though, I found that I had recieved a letter in the mail. I opened it and found that I had been accepted to Lawrence University. They said that They really liked my essay and that I would be recieving a $5000 a year merit scholarship on top of need-based aid, should I decide to attend Lawrence. I will decide once I recieve letters of acceptance or decline from a few other colleges and take a final tour of those to which I have been accepted.

I then watched a wrestling match of my brother, Kit. He seems to be an unlikely wrestler, as he is quite a bit smaller than most middle schoolers. However, he was able to get a pin on his opponent in the first match, but he lost the second match. This was the first wrestling match that I have seen, but I must admit that I was a bit bored watching middle schoolers wrestle, which was probably not helped by the fact that I am a bit tired from missing some sleep.

After the match, I had a bit of supper and got ready for the String Festival, which is the all-city orchestra concert. The concert starts with fifth graders playing violin in the Suzuki style. The sixth graders were the first actual orchestra. Each group played two or three pieces. As this concert was really an event for the parents's sakes, I found it to be a bit boring and was half asleep by the time the eighth graders had finished. However, I was ready to play when we started with Pirates of the Caribbean followed by Lord of the Dance. The music was actually pretty fun, despite the lack of melody in the third horn part and past experiences from Symphony.

A day of chemistry

Today was truly a day of chemistry for me. After a late wake-up and an emergency ride to school from my neighbor across the street, I took the ACS "US National Chemistry Olympiad" test, which ran from 8:00 to 9:50. I had participated in the same contest in 2003 as a sophomore who had just completed "Chem-Study", our school's first level advanced chemistry course. I did very well that time; I and my fellow classmate, Toby Heyn, scored first and second respectively in the region out of both first and second year chemistry students. Feeling pretty good, we progressed to the next round, where we found that many of the questions pertained to areas of chemistry that we had not yet studied.

However, this time around, I found myself at the disadvantage of not having taken Chem-Study for two whole years. While I have started Advanced Chemistry, which is actually a UW-Oshkosh General Chemistry course, we are only a week and a half into the material, which is complete review. However, as I took the test, I found that I remembered many of the concepts, though some were still a little fuzzy. Even with my disadvantage, I think I did fairly well; perhaps even well enough to progress to the next round.

After the test, I worked on a bit of homework for my Human Biology class. When the bell signifying the end of second period rang, my schedule went back to normal. I had lunch with a friend of mine from Cross Country, and while eating I worked on filling in some of the preparatory information for today's Advanced Chemistry lab, the first real lab of the class. I went through Human Biology and Band (though today was a Symphony practice day for a concert tomorrow).

The Lab proved to be quite long. It involved the gravimetric determination of phosphorous levels in common gardin fertilizers. This meant that we had to dissolved the fertilizer in water, which we ran through a filter to remove chunks. Then, we added aqueous magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) and and aqueous ammonia (NH3) to the mixture to form a hydrated magnesium ammonium phosphate (MgNH4PO4) precipitate, which we let sit for about fifteen minutes. After that fifteen minutes was up, we then had to filter out the precipitate. Unfortunately, there were only enough resources so that one person of every two could filter at a time. Of my lab partner and I, she went first. Even more unfortuante for me was the fact that the filtration at our station was one of the slowest, meaning some groups had had two sets of precipitate filtered by the time my partner was finished. This meant that I was the last to leave, and I left at 5:15, over two hours after school was over, and over and hour after the predicted finishing time for the lab. None the less, I got my preciptate filtered and I was able to catch a ride with my mother home.

Sack it to Goodwill

Today was the day that community groups collected the bags that were sent in the newspaper last week with the "Sack it to Goodwill" logo and a brief explanation on the front. This week, they were full of clothing and other household items given freely by local residents. Sack it to Goodwill is a program where residents give items to Goodwill by leaving bags full of items to be collected by community groups such as the boy scouts.

I was collecting bags with the Venturing crew this week. We were given an area of moderate size that had few houses, and most of the houses on our route did not have bags. However, the houses that did typically left more bags than the one that had been sent in the newspaper; so, by the time we were finished collecting, the back of the SUV we were riding in was full.

What a week!

Well, this week started off quite well. I had all my new classes, and I found out that I will have considerably more homework this trimester than I did last trimester, though my schedule did not change much. However, the two classes that are different this trimester, Human Biology in Place of AP Biology II and Advanced Chemistry in place of Keyboarding I, produce most of the honework load.

While AP Biology II may seem like it would be a challenging class, the challenge ended up being in the concepts which I already understood to some extent before entering the class, not in the homework. Human Biology will not be incredibly difficult, but there is considerably more homework. For one, there are diagrams that we need to color (with either colored pencils or marker), and for another, there a study guides that need to be completed each unit. As well, there are more labs, and more memorization required in Human Biology.

Advanced Chemistry, which is actually contains every part of UW-Oshkosh's General Chemistry class as well as some extra material, is understandably more difficult than Keyboarding I, which had no work outside of class. In Chemistry, there are homework assignments almost every night, as well as labs and quizzes that run past class time. Today we had our first set of quizzes, the Chapter 1 quiz as well as the Safty Masterquiz. School normally gets out at 3:10. We started these quizzes at 3:05. I was finished at 3:30 and subsequently missed my bus. Though Advanced Chemistry is undoubtably my most difficult class this trimester, I think that I will enjoy it the most.

Beyond a new set of classes this week, I had a string of activities. They started Monday night with the last math meet of the season. I knew that I just had to do fairly well to get a place on the All League Team of the Fox Valley Math League. This is chosen by ranking the top 8 students (regardless of grade level) by the combined score of their top four meet results. Students who attend all five meets have a buffer score, which I did not have since I missed the first meet. The Second Team All League takes the next 5 of each grade division (senior, junior, and freshman/sophomore). All of those who are on the All League Team recieve plaques, while those on the Second Team All League recieve much smaller silver medals. I have been a part of the Second Team All League for the past two years.

At the meet I scored 31 out of 40, which tied me for first place for the senior division. The top score overall was a 38 by Nick Wage and Yichen Hu. This meant that my total score from my top four meet scores was tied with Eric Heywood, a fellow teammate from Neenah at 119. We both were on the All League Team. This success set contrast to my performances at the Solo and Ensemble competition on Saturday.

The next day at 7:00 in the morning, I took the AIME math contest. It is given out to those who score high enough on the AMC test, which is given out earlier in the school year. It consists of 15 questions that are multiple choice. However, the catch is that there are 1000 choices for every problem and they are every integer between 000 and 999. I had taken the AIME test my sophomore year, and I did fairly poorly. However, that year I had taken the AMC 10 test (the one that can be taken by anyone in 10th grade or lower) and scored the highest in the state, so I won a plaque anyway.

This year, I felt that I did much better. I weas able to solve most of the problems within the three hour time limit, but I was forced to guess on about three of them. After taking the test, I recieved a book of math riddles called Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions, which was the prize given out to the top scorer of the MAA math competition at each school.

Wednesday was perhaps the most interesting of the days this week. Last month, I was chosen to participate in the FVA South Honors Band, which was created this year by the band teachers from Oshkosh West, Oshkosh North, Neenah, and Menasha High Schools. Each of the teachers selected 15-30 of their best music students from each band to form the FVA South Honors Band. We received our music on Monday in Symphonic Band class and spent the class sightreading, as we also did on Tuesday. On Wednesday, however, we spent the day rehearsing at UW-Oshkosh under the direction of Dr. McWilliams, the director there. Here is our schedule:

8:00.......Arrival
8:30.......Full Band Rehearsal
9:30.......Break
9:45.......Full Band Rehearsal
11:10.....Break
11:30.....Master Class divided by section (mine was with Dr. Atwell, the Horn professor)
12:30.....Lunch
1:45.......Full Band Rehearsal
2:45.......Break
3:00......Full Band Rehearsal
4:00......End of Rehearsal

So, I was in rehearsal for over four hours as well as a one hour horn class. It was definitely fun and I loved the pieces of music that we played; they were much better than those that we tend to play in band class. But these rehearsals were held for a reason: we had a concert at 8:00 that very night. Amazingly, after only three days of having the music, the concert came off better than a normal band concert, for which we normally have more than a month to prepare.

On Thursday, I had a meeting for our Science Olympiad Competition at UW-Stout on April 2. I have signed up for five events: Astronomy, Forestry, Chem Lab, Physics Lab, and Chemical ID. I also started working on a tower for the tower building events. I finished the base of the tower and got some of the glue stuck to my hand, which I removed using ascetone and alcohol at home.

That brings me to today, which was for the most part, a normal day, except for the quizzes in Chemistry class. I finally have some free time to write this entry for my blog and to relax a bit after a long, fun week.

Venturing Crew

I mentioned in an earlier entry that I participate in a kayak rolling class on Sundays. However, today, after this class, my Venturing Crew held a meeting where we talked about upcoming events..which included a trip to Florida in 2006, a kayaking camp, climbing at Devil's Lake, and a potential trip to the boundary waters in Minnesota. Afterward, I recieved a little coaching on my Eagle Scout project, which is based around planting some prarie plants on a 5,000 square foot plot of land and making a viewing platform in the center.

Solo and Ensemble

Today, the Solo and Ensemble Competition was held at Oshkosh West High School, which is about ten miles south of Neenah. I was scheduled to play my solo at 9:42 but ended up playing it at about 10:42, since the room where I was to play was behind schedule by about 40 minutes and then my accompianist had a schedule conflict, and I had to sit through the two horn performances that were scheduled after mine. I was hoping to play marvelously, but instead, my mouth was dry and I played the solo at about the level I was playing it within the first or second week of deciding what to play. The judge scored me at a 2, which says that I did a mediocre job. I am inclined to agree with the judge. I played the solo 100% in every one of my practice sessions in the two weeks before the competition.

At 3:42, my horn choir was scheduled to play. The actual perrformance happened at around, 3:50, which wasn't as bad. We played through the three movements, and then our lively judge asked us some questions about our horn playing. She acted incredibly inthusiastic, but near the end, she gave some hints that our performance was sub-par. She told us that class A pieces were very difficult (they are the hardest class) and they take much more work than horn in band and that we probably should have started practicing earllier. While our band does perform more difficult horn music than what she was suggesting, she is right about our practicing: we only practiced in the morning before school, which didn't yield much time and only in the last two weeks before the competition. Judging by her comments, I think we will recieve a 2 rating as well.

So, overall, it was not the best Solo and Ensemble competition that I've performed at, and it was the last one, but I think I will get over it.

The end of the second trimester

Today, I had three final exams: one in Spanish, one in Biology, and one in AP European History. I think each of the tests went rather well. As, the other two periods (for me, Band and Keyboarding) had their finals yesterday, there were only seventy minute periods in the day and no lunch, meaning that we got out at 11:40 in the morning. I barely missed the bus, but by chance got a ride home with a neighbor. As the second trimester is over, I can breathe a sigh of relief as I start with a clean slate in the last term of high school. My schedule for this next trimester is:

Mod 1 (7:50-9:00) AP European History
Mod 2 (9:10-10:20) Spanish V
Lunch (10:30-10:55)
Mod 3 (11:00-12:30) Human Biology
Mod 4 (12:40-1:50) Symphonic Band
Mod 5 (2:00-3:10) Advanced Chemistry

The schedule's a bit harder, but I look forward to a more exciting trimester to close up high school.

The first day of second trimester final exams

Today was the first day of second trimester final examinations at Neenah High School. The first half of the day consisted of shortened thirty-minute classes. So, I went to spanish, biology, band, and keyboarding in the first half of the day. The third hour class was placed at its normal time (10:30-12:30) in order to have a normal lunch schedule. Afterwards, the fourth and fifth hour final exams were offered. This meant that I went to band, where we simply practiced our chamber music pieces for the Solo and Ensemble competition on Saturday. Then, I had Keyboarding, which consisted of a scantron and four typed documents.

Dissecting a rat

Today's biology class consisted of dissecting rats. In my dissection, opened up the rat's skull to expose the brain. The brain was rather soft and was easily cut with a razor, so I had to use some caution. The rats were dipped in a formaldehyde-like substance that gave the rats a yellow color and made them smell bad. Unfortunately, despite wearing gloves, I got some of that substance on my hands, and despite repeated hand washing, my fingers still smelled like the dissected rat. This was rather annoying at lunch for whenever I brought my sandwich to my mouth, I could smell the preservative, which reminded me of the cut up rat. Not very appetizing...

The Young People's Concert

Every year, the Neenah High School Band hosts a Young People's concert, where elementary schoolers across Neenah come to Pickard Auditorium and watch a performance. This year, however, it was a performance of the entire music program, and actually, most of the band did not participate. Those that were there were those in senior choir and senior symphony. When it came time to showcase band instruments, the directors simply used symphony wind instrument players. As I am in symphony, that includes me.

The concert started with the entire symphony (no choir) playing a piece that is actually a medly of themes from Pirates of the Carribean. The next part of the concert was themed around the development of music over the years, so as the choir performed, they started with a Gregorian chant and moved to a madrigal piece. Then the "band" began its section of the concert. I played along with our first piece, Ronde, a renaissance piece played by brass. Next, the woodwinds played a piece. Third, we played a Sousa march known as "The Thunderer." Then, a Jazz Combo played. At that point I left the concert, as I was no longer needed.