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But I have other excuses, including finals, Pokemon tournaments, SATs, school in general, and college.

This is little more than a quick update; I need to be packing and showering for an unexpected trip to Oregon, where I will be taking a second shot at a state championships title with a new and improved deck and strategy. Who knows if it’ll actually work, but hey, it’ll probably be better!

My SAT scores came in a while back. I don’t remember them off the top of my head, but where 2400 is the highest possible score, I scored 2100. Apparently that’s very good, because my CBC counselor says she has never seen scores so high. It wasn’t like the test was all that hard, either - a few questions that had me confused and the writing section was difficult to really put effort into, but otherwise, not that bad.

Armed with those scores and some other information about my wants, last weekend Craig and I took a field trip to Seattle to talk to an admissions officer at Digipen. I wish I had more time to describe the place (I will quite soon), but the very idea of it is simply fascinating. One of the most well-known and famous games of our current video game culture, called Portal, was designed by Digipen students. Not graduates - students. They designed it in school. It will be exciting to go there in a few years!

And finally, a little more elaboration about my status as a Pokemon player.  I’m ranked somewhere in the top… 60…? of players in Washington in my age bracket (out of a couple hundred, I think). Trying to go for higher.

States championships aren’t too important, although they are very fun. It gets important at the Regional level (April). In Regionals, the top finishers get a travel award and invite to Nationals - and the top finishers at Nationals get invites and travel awards to Worlds, in San Diego. Winners at Nationals and Worlds also get scholarships; last year the top finishers won between $2000 and $5000 in scholarships.

Anyway, that’s my status. I need to hurry and pack so we can go, so, bye, viewers!

I say “another” game of tag because I’m waiting on a couple of things before I finish my 25 random things post, which was the first pointless game of tag. (more…)

In six days’ time, I will be enjoying a bit of BK lunch in Richland while people around me, including myself, open six booster packs of Pokemon Cards from a set that hasn’t come out yet - then we’ll make a small deck out of those cards and play a tournament for fun. For you guys, this doesn’t make a whole lot of set, so I figured that while I’m thinking about prereleases, I’ll “prerelease” a little bit of information from my Thunderlight post for the Trading Card Game. (more…)

It’s a very simple concept - it includes a vocabulary game in which it gives you a word, and you must select another word whose definition is close to it. For each answer you get right, you earn enough money for the site to buy ten grains of rice, which it then donates to the UN’s efforts to end world hunger. As you answer more and more of their questions correctly the vocabulary gets extremely advanced; they have sixty levels of English vocabulary. They say it is very rare to get above level 50, and I myself haven’t passed level 35.

I’m going to be donating about 2000 grains a day to help study for the SAT, which is coming up this Saturday. I encourage everyone to try it, just for 100 grains or so a day, just for fun.  According to the statistics on their site, FreeRice has - since its creation in 2007 - donated enough rice to feed 100,000 people for a month. That’s pretty cool. In actual distribution FreeRice has fed just over a million people for, in some cases, up to two months.  It feels nice to be a part of that.

Thanksgiving, I think, was originally intended to honor and celebrate the Native Americans’ kindness in helping us found this nation. Although I’m a little less inclined to like our country some than people think I should be, I’m certainly all for Thanksgiving’s patriotic little theme (if only because I’m there for the food, followin’ behind Dad over there). Either way, though, I think our current definition for Thanksgiving, while entirely unrelated to its original, is a little better, a little more realistic and more relevant; it’s a day to remind ourselves that we have so much, and that it can be reduced to so little in a heartbeat. So savor it, and be appreciative! (more…)

I’ve never had the privelege of hearing what my mother ’sounds like’ in text, in an extended format as a blog would present. I know that I’m considerably more articulate in this kind of medium, when I have time to consider and revise my words rather than having to write everything mentally on the fly and hope it means what I think it means. I’m sure Kris is no stranger to this feeling, and I’m excited to read what she has to say when given the time to say it in its full, appropriate construction.

In her introductory post Kris (Uh… mom) gives a bit of elaboration to the name Defying Sunshine, and specifically the idea that she doesn’t really know or particularly care what it means. It’s, somehow, very fitting for her; it seems difficult to pin any single meaning or metaphor onto it that really defines why it fits her. I think this is because there are so many different comparisons that can be made.

Sunlight, to us, is life. It’s energy, goodness, and light all in one great ball of searing-hot plasma. Qualities that are supposedly good and attractive to the less mature of us seem to be symbolized in that ball - we don’t look on the ‘dark side’ of the sun and its meanings. We might not be here without its light and heat, but perhaps it’s doing as much harm as it is good. Or maybe even more. Isn’t it killing us just as quickly, in radiation and in overheating?

Or perhaps we think metaphorically instead. The sun is happiness - do you ever see an angry sun? (Outside of the realm of video games, I should clarify.) We could compare this to ignorance easily, for we all know ignorance is bliss… but not for everyone around you. There are a good many times we’d rather not let the idiots around us control the majority of the world.

I think the most valid comparison is the simplest of all, and is embodied in her (brilliant) top header.  I think she is a calm, happy snowman that refuses to let a little sunshine ruin her day.

I love you, Mom. Sun be damned.