Banquet[o]

I feel like every week that I post, I'll be asking why it isn't Friday yet. 

Honestly, though, could Friday come any slower? 

Not only do we have to endure five entire school days before Friday every week, but we have more things to worry about now that finals season has returned.

Gagh. <-- segue

Our dear Thaichicken [she's in college (which means she's on summer vacation already)] joined our Latin class this week to explore the marvelous rituals of dead people in Ancient Rome.

Yeah. 

Sadly, today was her last day (although I'm sure she has had enough of us by now). 

SPEAKING OF LATIN <-- segue

Every year, Latin students from 9th-12th grade are invited to this marvelous thing called Banquet[o]. 

That done been happened yesterday.

All students who are either freshmen (that's us) or first time banqueters (banqueteers?) get to be slaves while everyone else gets to be a master.

I had probably the most innovative slave masters of them all.

Having an innovative master is not always the best thing.

My master thought very hard about how to keep herself entertained all night. 

Most of the slaves only had to wear silly costumes and doing silly tasks. House and Virgil, for example, had to color a teddy bear in five minutes. T

My master made me hop around in a pillow case.

I got to fill a bucket up with water with a Styrofoam cup that was covered with holes. Most of the water landed on the floor.

I got to write a three act play with the topics of orange, "the magnificent vegetable eggplant", and a man who lost his blimp/zeppelin. 

The play had to flow nicely, had to be a musical, and it was written in 9 minutes.

I also had very specific food orders in which I had to fight for a bottle of apple juice, sort the fruit salad so my master only got apples, no food could touch the other foods, and if I spilled (which was easy since I was hopping all night) I had to start again.

All of these things might sound horrible, but it was the most fun and memorable Latin event since convention.

We all got awards for the National Latin/Greek Exams, good food, and prizes like "power" bracelets and pinwheels.  

Also, at the end, I organized a slave revolt and we got to attack our masters with water guns.

*sigh*

I love Latin. Best Language Ever

-Momo

I am a nerd, but I need to practice!

I plan to write an alternate ending
For the play Romeo and Juliet,
So I must practice writing in meter.

I am not good at writing in meters,
I can hardly make a decent haiku.
But forsooth! This post will hence be written
In iambic pentameter, like so.
(Omitting those certain stressed syllables 
Of course, because they are such a hassle,
And Shakespeare doesn't always adhere thus.)


I think that this meter is so oft' used
Because humans have ten fingers, not nine
Or eight or fourteen or seventy-two - 
Ten have we, and so we count in base ten
And write in iambic pentameter.

The music of the moment is pleasant,
Or rather, that is, peasant not pleasant;
It is Poet and Peasant Overture!
Which we hath sight-read in Wind Ensemble,
Much to my utter excitement inside
(Though not expressed outwardly at the time,
For fear I would be singled out by he,
Who is the most fearsome band director
In the kingdom, or at least in the state.)
 I love Poet and Peasant Overture;
It features in a cartoon of my youth
Which is called Hep Cat Symphony, behold: 

What a wonder that this film which I loved
Contained so much great classical music,
Which I have later grown to greatly love!

And now, moving onto relevant things
(Perhaps sealing wax, cabbages, and kings?)
No, I chide, I was merely making rhyme
(Yet Wonderland is always relevant!) 
Banqueto is tomorrow, I can't wait! 
We are slaves to the elders, oh such joy!
It will be fun, in spite of our bondage
For I am sure that the feast will be grand!


This gets easy as I keep going on,
Although I still must count on my fingers,
It is somehow becoming rather fun.
And though I wish to revert to normal,
I seem to be unable to stop this
Madness, forever I shall always write 
Alas, in iambic pentameter. 


I believe I am done here. This was fun!
DFTBA, with love from Virgil. 

I really really really want to bite my nails, but I shouldn'ttttt DX

"Where do I go/If not disappear/Oh, where do I go from here?"

—Relient K*

Hi hi, everyone.

So, this week should be interesting... the Latin Club is having this annual banquet thing this Wednesday, which is gonna be like super exciting :)

*Everything looks so much more legit in italics.

Tomorrow is this dedication of our Chinese class to the Confucius Institute. It's this big assembly thing that Virgil, Momo, xiy, Lynda, and I {Chinese Club lol} are gonna be a tiny part of. As a reminder, we're lip-syncing to ourselves singing {'singing'} to the hit pop sensation of the last few years, 北京欢迎你 [Beijing Welcomes You]。It should be fun. We get to wear matching shirts :D :D :D

I wish my fishie was purple and covered in Alaskan fur. 

And something that doesn't directly pertain to our age group but is still shiny:

The old kids went to their prom this weekend!!!!! (Including Momo's older sister ^.^) Hooray for pretty dresses and corsages and the end of school. And the end of school like so totally pertains to us. Because it's really soon. Yayayayayay.

 "Inertia is a property of matter." 

Um, yeah.

The only other thing of note is I'm trying to stop biting my nails. (Agh the temptation.)

My teddy bear is named Chuckles and playing softball with pineapple is his favourite.

A'ight. Time for me to start homework now and go eat dinner.

Hope Lynda gives you guys a more legit post tomorrow. Sorry for my short one...

With all due respect,

House.

lol fun with italics is fun.

it's a frick-tastic Friday

"Sometimes I feel like we've been unfair to the giraffes, John. I think that we can make it up to them." -Hank Green

Hey ya'll. ^_^


We didn't have school today (that's what presidents are good for, apparently), which is really exciting because it means that I have time to write a semi-good quality post, which doesn't always happen.
I miss being at school, though. *sigh* It's part of being Asian, I guess. 

Latin Convention is in a week. I've got to work on a project. Crap.
It's also exciting because I get to see EZ in a toga, which is SUCH a turn-on ;)
Today's agenda is to further discuss the theme of politeness, which is especially relevant this time of year:
It's the middle of February - that month when everybody coughs and sneezes and gets everybody else sick. Here are some guidelines for disease-related etiquette in February:

1. Say "bless you" when somebody near you sneezes. It's common courtesy. 
2. If you're the one sneezing or coughing, do the people around you a favor and COVER YOUR FRICKING MOUTH. I don't care if you're deathly ill or whatever - politeness>life.
3. Don't cover your mouth with your hand. That's gross. Do you plan to wash that hand before touching anything else?
4. Use the inside of your elbow, for everyone else's sake.
5. If you're so sick that you cannot stop sneezing, please just don't come to school. You're interrupting my learning, which is oh-so-important.

Ah, I do so very much enjoy criticizing other people. It's a lifestyle choice.

With all due respect,
House's parody-er

CONVENTION IS IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS ZOMG

I'm so excited! Latin Convention is quickly approaching, and I can't wait. It's so great that we have something to look forward to in February, which is, overall, a terrible month.

A list of reasons why I don't like February:

10. So much homework. Teachers feel obligated to make second semester harder than first semester, because that way it seems like we're making progress.

9. It' so cold. The temperature this time of year makes me want to curl up in my bed and refuse to get up until April.

8. The cold makes me fat because I eat chocolate when I'm cold.

7. Ice. It's not fun. It's cold (see #9 and #8) and it's slippery and therefore is the source of many bruises on Virgil's poor posterior. Ice = bad.

6. Snow. It's nice in December when it's all white and fluffy, but now that it's been sitting there for a couple months it's all brown and gross and gets all over everything. 

5. There's so much pink everywhere because of Valentine's Day. I don't mind Valentine's Day, but I HATE PINK.

4. The sun hardly ever comes out in February. The sun came out today, and it was probably the first time all month. That is sad. Which leads to #3:

3. The lack of sunshine and blue sky makes people depressed, like legit - clinical depression gets worse, which leads to #2:

2. More people commit suicide. Suicide = not good. It is very sad.

1. Did I already mention the COLD?

So yeah, now I'm done complaining.

Here are some things that I like about February:

4. Valentine's Day = <3

3. Sledding! (I haven't been sledding in ages, but it makes chilluns happy, and happy chilluns = good)

2. People who keep their Christmas lights up make me happy.

1. LATIN CONVENTION YAYY!!!!

So that's a 5:2 ratio of things that I don't like about February : things that I do like.

For most months, that ratio is more like 1:3, which is a much happier ratio.

Therefore, I have mathematically proved that February = bad. Even the Romans thought so! They named it after the word for fever, and fever is bad.

Now I'm going to talk about parody week, which shall be next week. 6LCF - you have all received the email which assigned you your Curly Fry whom you shall parody. Here is your assignment:

1. On your assigned person's day, you shall post. (The person who has Momo will post on Monday, etc.)

2. Post in that person's color.

3. Write it like a stereotypical post of said person - make fun of her, but DON'T BE MEAN. >:(

4. People can guess who wrote said post, but we will NOT be revealing who is who until the end of the week, or else it'll be no fun for the people at the end of the week.

Um, that's about it. Anyone else have rules they feel should be added? Leave them in the comments and I'll edit them in.

I think tomorrow (Sunday) we're doing a joint group-post for Valentine's Day, even though the holiday is actually Monday - unless the person who is Momo has an idea for a Valentine's Day post. If you are that person, please comment anonymously and let us know that you want to do the Valentine's Day post.

In other news - I'm starting a new novel called The Second Star to the Right, and xiy and/or House and/or anyone else who wants to (besides my immediate family, who are not allowed to read anything I write) are invited to be my Official Editors.

This is a long post. I hope it didn't take too much effort for you to read it. Kudos if you stuck with me 'til* the end!

Happy Valentine's Day in advance!

Virgil

*I hate it when people say "till" when they mean "until" because it sounds like they're saying, "Xanthias, till the soil, for the field is small but the work is large" so I always say 'til.

It's Saturday and si nihil aliud nisi de...

I've memorized the first five words of the Latin recitation for Convention. Yay!

I usually post earlier than this, but I kind of forgot that today was Saturday until I checked the blog and wondered why there wasn't a new post up yet. 

In other news, you should all know that Fuzzy (previously Poofy) posted on his blog for the first time in months, and you should all go read it. 

Hmm, what should I talk about today? While I think of something to write, I'll just play the theme song for ya'll.

La la la la, la la la la, Virgil's world! La la la la, la la la la, Virgil's world! Virgil loves Convention and projects too! That's Virgil's worrrllldd!!!

[You can go ahead and skip the really long paragraph below, if you want. It's just me ranting.]

Si nihil aliud nisi de...

So, uh, I guess I'll talk about Latin Convention. But because I do that, I want to point out that House, Momo, Lynda, and xiy were all at a Science Olympiad competition today and they beasted. I was not there because I am a butt, and Carrie was not there because she's too cool for that sort of thing. To explain myself further - I originally thought that I wouldn't be able to do Science Olympiad this year because of the crazy logistics involved and the fact that I wouldn't be able to make it to half of the competitions, but then the thing that was supposed to be today got canceled and I thought about contacting Shcience Guy to say that yeah, I could do one of the competitions, but then I realized that all of the events that I was good in last year are either no longer existent or they've changed, so I would have to start from scratch for getting prepared which would just suck. Also, he's probably assigned my would-be events to other people because I originally thought I wouldn't be able to do it, so if I rejoined it would probably be an unwanted intrusion. But I'm still really sad about not going because Science Olympiad competitions were always really fun. :'(

ANYWAYS Latin Convention is in less than three weeks, which is really exciting. I've only done one project so far, but I want to do one or two more. I'm still trying to come up with ideas.

I'm sorry this post couldn't be more entertaining. I'm sorry that I didn't go to Science Olympiad. I am very sad right now. :(

Virgil

Virgil's new favorite animal & the use of Latin in daily life

SHABBAT SHALOM, EVERYBODY!!!

La la la la, la la la la, Virgil's world! La la la la, la la la la, Virgil's world! Virgil loves her dragons, and Latin too! That's Virgil's worrrlldd!!!!

Okay, I have three things to cover in today's post. Here's Thing 1 and Thing 2:

Just kidding. That's not what I'm talking about today. But look - aren't they adorable?

Okay, here's the second (third?) thing I'd like to discuss.

This is not just any dinosaur, my friends. This is a reconstructed skeleton of the dracorex hogwartsia, my new favorite animal. 

According to Wikipedia (and of course, everything on Wikipedia is 100% true):

Dracorex is a dinosaur genus of the family Pachycephalosauridae , from the Late Cretaceous of North America. The type (and only) species is Dracorex hogwartsia, meaning "dragon king of Hogwarts."

Get the reference? You're a winner.

It's just the most epic thing I've ever seen. 

OK so earlier today I was at a bat mitzvah, and we were talking about teachers' tenures.
Someone said, "I don't get what 'tenure' means. Why is it called tenure? What does it come from, Greek?"
Me: "It probably comes from the Latin teneo, to hold."
Person: "That can't be right. Why's the 'u' in there, then?"
Me: "Maybe it's derived from the third principal part, tenui."
Person: "Oh. I guess that makes sense."

LATIN WIN!! We're going to beast at the Certamen invitational tomorrow.
:) 

Byeeeee!!!!!
Virgil

The Significance of Numbers

Hello, readers! Today's post isn't going to be about what I did today, even though it was a very interesting array of reasonably good flute-playing, certamen, and then extremely bad flute-playing. No: today's post is going to be about Virgil's love of numbers!!

*theme music*

La la la la, la la la la, Virgil's world! La la la la, la la la la, Virgil's world! Virgil loves Certamen and numbers, too! That's Virgil's woorrrrrlddd!!!!!

As you may have noticed, today is October 9, 2010. Also known as 10/9/10 (in every country other than the US, this would be written as 9/10/10). This means that tomorrow will be the auspicious day of 10/10/10, which only happens every 1,000 years.

Quoth Poofy: " 'Tomorrow is 10/10/10; this day will only come every 1,000 years'... Oh yeah? Well, today is 10/9/10 and it will also only come once every 1,000 years, and no one is making groups about it.... -.-"
Admittedly, I changed up the grammar in the quote a bit >.> but that's basically what he said.

This Facebook status inspired my topic for today's post, which is: why do we have such an obsession with numbers such as 10/10/10, and why are these days more auspicious than every other day?
1. People like patterns. They are pleasing to the eye! This is why people enjoy looking at things such as marching band shows. Marching band drills are written in patterns. Therefore, they are pretty. Six packs are arranged in patterns, and people like six packs.
2. People, for some unknown reason, enjoy glorifying things that do not deserve to be glorified. These things include:
- professional athletes
- film actors
- the Twilight franchise


Yeah, actually, I only have two things. But they're pretty legit.



Um... I don't have much else to say. I'm going to draw a picture, because a picture is worth a thousand words. 

It's Dumbledore!!! Yayyyy!!!!


Peace,
Virgil

Marching

Busy day. I marched in a parade with the Latin Club. Our float was the best, even though German Club won. Then I marched in the marching band at a football game. In the rain. A lot of marching today. It was fun. 

It's October!!! Yayy!!!

DFTBA,

Virgil

This is a Picture We Drew

 

^This is the picture w/o text

^w/ text

Drawn originally by Momo.

Digital version by House.

(I'm noticing now that the black and white and grey and dark red make this look very xkcd-esque... cool.) 

IT'S FRIDDAYYYY HOLLAAAA

"Looked me up and down/I don't make a sound/There's a lesson that I want you to learn/It's if you're gonna play with fire, than you're gonna get burned." 

—The lovely Lily Allen, "Friday Night"

"I could bake a chocolate cake for you with tiers up to the moon"

—Alex Day <3 <3 <3


". . . let me give you some advice: when you want to use 'effect' as a verb, don't. Ever."
—John Green, professional G, yo

 

Hello :)

Lotsa stuff to say tonight, but I'll get through it fast, promise.

1) IT'S FRIDAYYYY!!! I mostly chose Friday because I loveee Fridays, especially after a particularly endless week. There's that lovely feeling when you think "Oh shoo, I've got homework-" and then realise that "-but that can wait 'till Sunday night, yo! :D "

2) Homecoming!!!!!!! Tomorrow's Hooomeeeeecominngggg for our dear school. Most of the 6LCF are too antisocial/lame/whatever to go. I think the only one of us that might is Carrie. Because she actually, like, has a life. Yay. Tomorrow is also the Homecoming football/marching band game and parade! Yay! Latin Club is marching, so let's all hope we can't feel our throats after tomorrow's cheering :) (id est, for Latin, not the football team. They kinda suck, but we're playing our rivals, so hopefully that will be enough motivation.)

3) A'ight, so they're all mad at me for not posting before. And they're just absolutely drooling over the idea of punishing me, so we'll see how that turns out. Virgil's idea is that I have to write 10,000 words (1/5 of NaNo) and share it with y'all. So... yeah.

4) I just got back from Hospice with our school's community work group thing, Youth Ending Hunger (Interact). That was pretty cool. Like, bad because it being hospice and all, but it was still like nice. They've got the most kick-a view of our lake, like, ever.

5) I SAW WAY TOO MANY SKINNY PALE LITTLE BOY LEGS TODAY. OHHH MYYY GAWWWDDD SOMEONE SAVE ME. Like, there was a boys' cross country meet today, so they all wore their uniforms to school. "Uniforms" = little jerseys and tiny shorts (with their boxers on display to the world) that'd give the California girls a dang good run for their money. Holy crap.

6) Our country is a failure. We took these standardized tests this week. In the language section, there was suchhh a low expectation for grammar and stuff like that. (Question one: Which is incorrect? A) I went to the store. B) I have been to the store. C) They have not yet gone to the store. D) We hadn't been done there to it the store. [*die* {Okay, it wasn't that bad. But the punctuation could have been so much better. Like, there might have been one colon[/semi colon?], and that was it. (Oh, and this lovely rant is totally correctly punctuated, yeah...)}]) [<- lol]

And... yeah. That's it, I think.

With all due respect,

House