Thanksgiving Chronicles

There most definitely is no better way to celebrate the end of first trimester than with Thanksgiving break! After PUMaC, I was happily looking forward to break, praying that the last two test-ridden days of the trimester would fly by. Well, the last two days of hell went by, and here we are! BRAKE TIEM!

Wednesday afternoon was mostly prep for Thursday's party. I made sure I had all the materials for my quiche. I had bought the crust and light cream on Sunday, but made one more trip today to pick up the cheeses and the onion. Unfortunately, when I was looking at the frozen pie crusts, I realized I bought the wrong kind of pastry crust. Fortunately, it was not a bad mistake.

Thursday was the day of the party. It was an annual event among my family friends. Usually, we don't host the party, but since I'm moving to MA, we would have one last get-together. After setting up the hot-pot, washing all the veggies, and tidying the place a bit, our guests came! They all brought delicious desserts, including a chocolate cake, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. Because we couldn't fit twenty people at the dining table, the kids ate first. I had a little bit of turkey, some mashed potatoes, and a piece of pizza! During dinner, we all gave thanks for about five seconds each, so I thanked the AAST math team (my random number generator picked it XD).

Here is my corny-copia of thanks:

[A/N: Be prepared for the onslaught of Japanese [and Naruto] references >:D]

(0) Parents: I must thank my parents for all their efforts in supporting me throughout life. They deliberately sacrificed their work days to be with me when I was sick. They took their time to train me in math, physics, and programming and bore with me during my countless stupid moments. They sent me to math team every Saturday, even when they strongly believed that it was a waste of time. Most importantly, they were willing to lease an apartment in Bergen County so I could get a world class high school education (turns out it's not very ``world class'' XD). Though I don't regret not being their ``ideal child''. =]

(1) My antisocialness/math team friends: I definitely could not have become what I am today without my general aversion to socializing. During my first two years at the Academies, my friends were mostly the top math kids in my grade (A/N: it turns out that they are the top computer kids, as well) and they didn't seem to care about IM, etc., so I didn't care either. I took that time to train and investigate in math, programming, and physics, so I wouldn't seem inferior and incompetent when compared to them. As a result of using them as my benchmarks, I got tremendously better at those subjects and I was acknowledged by my peers and teachers ^_^ Surprisingly, my [lame] programming skills is good enough to be the #1 high school female in programming. o_O. what the hell, I'm so incompetent in class…

Also, I have to thank Pavel and Sam for teaching me bridge ^_^ otherwise my life wouldn't be as great [and weird] as it is ;)

(2) Mr. Holbrook: There is no more important figure at the Academies than Holbrook-sama, the coach of the AAST Math Team. Ever since I met him on the first day of BCA Math Camp, he has given me endless opportunities to grow mathematically. He gave me plenty of materials to take home, including two USAMO/IMO packets, In Polya's Footsteps, The Art and Craft of Problem Solving, and of course, the two volumes of Art of Problem Solving (which I had already purchased, but oh well). He has supported me through my four years at the Academies and encouraged me to train and compete with the best of my grade. He also gave me many chances to represent the school at many competitions, including Duke, Princeton, HMMT, Stanford, and ARML. As one of his most prized shinobi, he has let me become the captain of the math team =] Even though we disagree on a few things and that I did not turn out to be his ideal shinobi, I am grateful of his support and guidance during my four years at the Academies.

I would also like to thank (in no specific order) my teachers at the Academies for making my experience at the Academies the best it could be, Math Boosters for graciously assisting me with the BCA Math Competition, Masashi Kishimoto for writing the bestest manga ever :D, Brian Hamrick, Hannah Huan, Matt Mayers, Arthur Safira, Jenny Yung, Julia Zhu, billions of other people and natural phenomenon for making my life the awesome way it is. :D

Arigatou gozaimasu~

MOVING ON.

After dinner, we played some combination of Brawl and Mario Kart. That didn't last long, however, because the other girls sucked at it and just didn't like video games in general. T_T So then they played palace while I listened to music and played Sudoku on my iPhone XD I also texted Jenny for some amusement, but stopped after a while. (why am I developing such bad habits now; Facebook, IM, texting >_<;;) Oh, then I watched the Duke and PUMaC awards ceremonies on Kelley's (AAST '13) iPhone XDDD (Yes, he recorded them. the PUMaC video was ~25min long and 500MB O_O. Also, we were so fucking loud when the Duke people announced "from the small polluted state…" that his iPhone speakers almost died XD) So I think that's what happened for the rest of the night…

On Friday, I woke up and sat around for a while. Then my dad took me to the mall (bad idea) to see what kind of sales there were. I got a sweater from Aeropoatale, but nothing from Apple. -sad face- But I did get to try vim maximized on the 27" iMac! 2560x1440 pixels of glory… Anyway. Since one of my family friends was hosting a party tonight, I wanted to do something special, so I made a quiche. Unfortunately, I lost the recipe, so I had to look it up on my dad's phone via EDGE. D: I made everything, put it into the oven, and waited…and waited…and waited for about an hour until it was done. :O Then, we had to depart.

At dinner, I served my quiche! I was eager to have everyone taste it. Surprisingly, everyone liked it! I was indeedly happy ^_^ When I tasted it, I thought it was awesome too :D More surprisingly, the crust I bought complemented to the taste. I loved the quiche so much that I had a second slice :D Then I had some xiao long bao and lobster. It was OK, nothing bad, but nothing great. =/

Unfortunately, I couldn't eat in peace because the hostess had to bother me about some trigonometry concepts that she didn't get. And she didn't even know what concepts she didn't understand. wtf. Though I had fun redirecting her to Kelley, who claims that he sucks at trig (which is prolly true anyway) XD

After that, we played more Wii (Kevin and Kelley brought theirs because the hostess doesn't have one). Peoples got bored of it again ._. so they played Palace. Luckily, there was a working internets so I could amuse myself :) I read the latest Naruto chapter :D (OMG HOW COULD I FORGET THAT) Then Kelley was trying to get Chicken Invaders, but failed, so I had to torrent + install + crack it for him. Why am I always the math/tech guru D: We played Chicken Invaders 2 for a while, and I got to Level 60! :O Then I watched the parents play zhaopengyou for the rest of the night.

Saturday was pretty routine. I did more USACO and physics. My dad let me drive to Micro Center and I bought a battery for my laptop :D Oh, the joy of refurbishing your [4 year old] computer. Then I went home and life became more routine.

END

Moral of the story? Break is boring without the relevant friends and relevant training materials.

I didn't get to play bridge T_T

Also, early action/decision results come out in ~2 weeks!! :O