Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Review, College, and Adventure!

 Good afternoon everyone! 

I hope everyone here had a happy holiday, I know I did! 

I would have liked to post much earlier, but a lot had happened recently, so I couldn't find the time. Let's start with Christmas. 

This year was much like any other; we get up, open presents, then go to my grandparents the next day. 

This year, my parents got me new winter boots, which will really come in handy later (I'll explain later in this post)! I also got a new laptop, which is what I am writing this on as of now. It's a really nice Dell Laptop, so Dad, when you read this, thanks again. There is only one issue with it: the OS is Windows 10. While I still despise Windows 10, I really don't like Edge! I need to set Chrome up on this laptop, but I just haven't got around to it. One of the gifts I did not expect was a multimeter! It's a really nice Fluke 117! I try to use it whenever I can, since its nice to practice and experiment with. All in all, the multimeter is most certainly my favorite present. 

So like I said, we went to my grandparents the next day, and it was nice to see everyone. Well, mostly everyone. My one cousin has COVID-19, and therefore could not attend the get-together. That makes him the second one in my family to have become infected by the virus. He seems to just have a cold, and will most likely be just fine thankfully. Anyway, another one of my many cousins, a Lance Corporal in the Marines, was there with his girlfriend, and it was nice to see him too, but that's not why I brought him up. I think it was one of my aunts who offered him the task of opening the wine bottle. Well, I'm not sure if he's never done this before, but it didn't go well. He took the bottle in one hand, and the corkscrew in the other, and really, really pulled on the screw. In fact, he pulled so hard on both components that he dropped the wine bottle. As you would expect, my entire family started screaming at him. His father, grandmother, and brother were the most furious. He kind of just stood there chuckling in shock and surprise. Naturally his brother and I then turned to his girlfriend to rightfully welcome her to the family! 

His brother doesn't serve in the military and instead works for a mortgage company. He's really kind and enjoys writing stories. I don't mean your typical novels; I'm talking really odd, but interesting, science fiction stories and the liking. He does this on the side, and even gets some published! He and I talked for almost the entire time at the family gathering. He typically likes to go on and on about this table top roll playing game called Vampire: The Masquerade. It's like D&D but with vampires. And it's not like I don't enjoy listening to his explanations and stories; in fact, as a fan of D&D, I find this alternative really interesting! 

Now that I have discussed the gathering, I suppose I'll move forward in chronological order. Next up, would be my college decision. Oh, I should mention, I got accepted into Penn State University Park! I finally decided to commit to a college once I found out how competitive Penn State dorms were. I also figured, what's going to change between now and January when I planned on deciding. 

After consideration for many months, I decided on: Michigan Technological University. 

Why? Well, let me start by discussing my insecurities with high school. While progressing through high school, especially in 10th grade, I learned that I was not like everyone else. 

I did not take interest in athletics like most people, nor was I good at them. I got into bad training habits and that really disappointed me. While most of my classmates were focused on their looks, relationships, and athletics, I was focused on my grades and not much else. Throughout this, I kind of blindsided what everyone else thought of me. 

This is how its been for a very long time. Like a very long time. For crying out loud, my best friend was my teacher in 3rd grade. I absolutely hate looking back on this, but I still recall standing next to her for the entire duration of recess for many days. I don't know why I never caught on like most people, but like I said this tunnel vision of mine remained for many years. 

When I reached tenth grade, I realized all of this and rapidly became more and more self-conscious and insecure. I became much more quiet. I considered very few people friends. I looked more and more towards my robotics team for support. 

This is when I learned that a lot of people on the robotics team appreciated and liked me, the old me. The one who naturally fit in, and didn't go into this depressed hiding state. I feel like I can revisit that old me at MTU. 

Now, how does this relate to my college decision? Well, I feel as though Penn State is a larger school and it will therefore be more difficult to find out where I fit in. I also distinctly remember, both my faculty advisor and student contact saying that no one is trying to impress anyone at MTU. There are no cliques, and everyone gets together as one. That unity sounds amazing, and that sounds like the college experience, I not only want, but the one my mental state needs. 

MTU is also an adventure. I have been up there once, and I have never experienced that much snow! I want to travel and see the world, and I figured it would be nice to knock one out in college too! This interest in traveling probably came from my father, and it really grew after we road tripped out West!

The campus is also really beautiful. Here are two screenshots that I just took while writing this actually!

 

Side note, I applied for a private bathroom in the dorm on the right that looks like a right bracket from above (]). It's called Wadsworth Hall. 

Lastly, the education is just as good as Penn State. I get more hands-on experience, which is rare at a school as large as PSU. I also got a scholarship worth $80,000, and I think its nice that they recognized my hard work. 

The only concern I have is with my dad, and the younger me. As a child, I always grew up wanting to go to Penn State Main Campus, and now that I finally can, I don't want to let my younger self down. I don't think I will though. I was naïve and did not look at any other school. I also feel like Penn State has changed ever since they closed Ye Old College Diner! I kind of took this as a sign that this might not be the school for me. Although the campus is beautiful, the community just doesn't suit me. But like I said, I don't want my dad to be disappointed that I'm not going to his Alma Mater. He has said many times that he isn't and I do believe him now, but will it always be that way? I hope so!

So there you have it. That's my college plan. Oh, I majoring in electrical engineering if I haven't mentioned that. 

Now, time to move onto the 29th. On the 29th, we went skiing at Elk Mountain! I was ecstatic because we just bought some gear and everything the night before! I also can say that I went on an intermediate, or a blue (it was labelled as green; I think that was a mistake!). It didn't go very well to say the least! But I conquered the bunny hill with ease, as well as a kind of long and steep hill called the West Slope. I had a lot of fun flying down that hill with my dad. We also brought Noah, who had never really gone skiing before. He focused on the bunny hill while we were there, and resorted to falling as a way of stopping! By the end of the day however, he seemed to have got the basic concepts down pat. Skiing involves a lot of confidence in your speed and ability to stop yourself in my opinion. Here's a photo of me at the top of West!

Yesterday, the 30th, I also managed to finish writing a Reddit reply bot! The bot simply insults people upon command, and you can find the open source code here! I need a server to actually get it working, but right now, it uses another API to generate evil insults and will insult whenever its name is called upon someone in a reply or comment. But like I said, it will only work, when I'm running the program on my computer! Here is the link to the code on my GitHub. I surely think this is living up to my alias!

Today is New Years, and I have my younger cousins coming over soon. They want to celebrate New Years with us they said, and I was really surprised because I don't think they know we don't do anything special!

Anyway, thanks for reading whatever I'm going to call this. This is probably my longest post yet, and am surely exhausted now. I think I spent an hour and a half writing this. But nevertheless, it's nice to vent here sometimes.

Thanks for reading,

The Questionable Programmer

Snowmobiling!

 Good morning to my readers,

First, I want to apologize for the lack of posts recently. I truly try to post often, however I do have a lot of work and school work nowadays. In fact, I have work later today! Anyway, let me get into today's topic: snowmobiling! 

I had never been snowmobiling until yesterday. One of my robotics mentors owns four snowmobiles, and has ever since I joined the team. Or at least four. I'm not exactly sure. Anyway, yesterday, he pulls up outside our house in one and asks my brother if we'd like a ride. After a quick, suspiciously quick, tutorial on how they work, we had our helmets on and our butts on the seat. 

We took off down a small path, across a road, and into a large basin. As soon as I got moving, I fell in love with it. It was the coolest experience I have had in a long time! The highest speed I could get the one to was 55 miles per hour or so. This is really fast for a snowmobile in my opinion! My brother and I did this for a large period of time that afternoon. 

We liked it so much however, that we decided to do it again that weekend! As long as our mentor allowed it of course (which he did). This time, we got our dad to try it! After he drove several laps, I think it's safe to say that he liked it! We also convinced a few of our friends to come over and go snowmobiling with us! Unfortunately, the day ended in tragedy and bloodshed . . . not really, but there was some tragedy. 

When our three friends arrived, we gave a quick demonstration and tutorial, and then threw them on it! One of them did not like to go fast at first, one found the acceleration of the vehicle the best part, and the last one only cared about drifting. I eventually named him the "Drift King"; this youngster was well-known for his high speed turns and drifts, earning him this name. He continued to prove himself worthy of this title, until we had an accident. The accident came while using a small sleigh that was meant to be pulled along by a snowmobile that does not like to perform insane turns paralleled with incredible speed. I was the first one to ride in this sleigh with him, since nobody else really trusted him after riding on a snowmobile with him. I figured, "Why not? More space and I'm not going to fall off, right?". Wrong. He does one lap at a decent pace, and then decides to pick it up and go nuts. A little past our halfway point, he does too sharp of a turn too fast, and the sleigh flips while moving thirty some miles per hour. Note that the snowmobile suffers no damage and does not flip. The driver is quick to slam on the breaks once he hears the rolling of the sleigh, but he was not quick enough. I skidded a little bit on the ice, but was able to crawl out and pull myself up. Thankfully, I escaped with only a few bruises and a lot of snow covered body parts. If you're wondering how I did not get a head injury, it's because I was wearing a helmet. In fact, my head is what hit the ground first! 

So, as I just stated, I crawled away with nothing too serious. The sleigh however suffered damage to its windshield; by this, I mean it broke! So, the driver and I are paying for the part replacement, which isn't too bad since its just about $32. Our mentor is a very handy guy, and will surely be able to fix it right up once we pay him!

You might be thinking this brought a screeching halt to the activities, but it did not. Rather, I climbed back on the speedy snowmobile and accelerated down my hill, doing some more drifting and driving. 

We wrapped up once it got dark out. We drove the sleds back to our mentor's house, gave him some gas money, and hiked back through the snow. When I went inside, my parents said someone called the HOA, and said we had gotten too close to kids. I panicked after hearing we had a $100 fine, and quickly went to tell my friends. I stated that I would pay 3/4 of it, since it was typically me who went over there. What can I say, I liked speed. But then, my mom walks out and said it was a joke. We weren't charged, nor did anyone have a problem with us. I took a sigh of relief, and then collapsed in the snow! We all then said our farewells, and that was the end of this adventure. Hopefully we'll be able to do this some other time!

This also made me look at Michigan Tech a little more closely. Michigan Tech is a school that gets a lot of snow, and I have been considering them my number one pick for a long time. They participate in and host the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge, a challenge that focuses on redesigning a snowmobile to be cleaner, quieter, and more efficient. This is the place to be if you love snowmobiles! They used to make a 100% electric snowmobile, and I wish they would bring that back, but it's alright. Ideally, I'd be able to do some electrical work on the team if that is were I choose to go and that is the team I choose to join. 

But that discussion is one for a later date. 

I hope you enjoyed reading, although I know my stories and blogs aren't the most exciting. 

Now, I have to get back to class!

Thanks for reading, 

The Questionable Programmer

Hannah Montana Linux?

 Hello all!

As many of you know, I am a big fan of Linux, especially Arch and Manjaro, but there has been one distribution that has really caught my attention lately: Hannah Montana Linux!

Now, to make things clear, I do NOT watch Hannah Montana, nor do I follow Miley Cyrus! But this Linux distro was produced to get younger students interested in Linux, which I think is awesome. 

You can find more information about this OS at its website, located here. Hopefully, I'll be able to put this on a computer soon. If I do, I will certainly post a review on my experience with its installation and operability. 

I don't think many of my followers watch or no much about Hannah Montana, and neither do I, so I'm going to go do a little research during AP Physics. 

Thanks for reading,

The Questionable Programmer

Happy Thanksgiving and the Impossible Whopper

 Hello all,

I know this post is a little late, but I have gotten very caught up in work and Christmas! 

My youngest brother and I are making a "decoration" for my parents. He needs my help since it does require a little woodwork! It was his idea, and I am really enthusiastic about it; I'll post an image on or around Christmas. 

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! I know I did! Noah and I spent 8 hours putting up lights. We have so many lights up, even more than last year. I must say, we really have outdone ourselves. I also had a little white wine on Thanksgiving. It was absolutely disgusting. I don't know how people stand that stuff. I think I'll stick to my diet coke!

Yesterday, we stayed late at robotics and I decided to go out and grab the stuff for Luke's and mine's gift. I also went to Burger King; allow me to explain. 

One day, on Xbox, we (Noah, Tory, Ezra, and I) were playing Minecraft, and Ezra happened to be eating an Impossible Whopper. He claimed that it was very delicious, and he couldn't tell the difference. Tory and I challenged this statement, but said that we'd be willing to try it. So, Noah called off work, and we all took a break to eat some Burger King. I learned two things: one, it is very hard to transport five fast food meals to your car by yourself (I called BK and asked if the dining room was open for pickup and told them I would hit their drive-thru if it wasn't!); and two, you can both see and taste the difference. It definitely looked a little thinner, and certainly less variable than a standard patty. 

Nevertheless, it was not awful, nor was it completely different. They did a good job in my opinion, but you will not see me buying one of them ever again! 

Thanks for reading,

The Questionable Programmer

Teaching Time

 Hello all!

Nothing too much has happened since my last post but I have been getting a lot more teaching in a robots. I got a kid fully capable of writing advanced autos and another one wrote four commands with little to no guidance last night! I'll continue to teach now that I have the time. There has always been a lack of strong teaching in the programming department, as most of the leads prior to me have done everything themselves. I'm looking to change that and make the department more welcoming and engaging. 

I took a lot of criticism for my lack of teaching in 2020, and I truly think that people need to step back and realize that one programmer in a very busy season and just as busy offseason cannot teach everything at once. People seem to forget that if the one capable programmer is teaching, nothing would get done. This can appear to be very selfish on the student's part, even if unintended. I taught myself by looking at the code again and again each timed I learned a new python concept. The way the robot code works is very theoretical, and I can't just present a clean explanation. It is critical in my opinion that students do independent work, like homework, and review the language, the theory behind the framework, and how those two concepts tie together. 

Anyway, pardon my rant above. Just wanted to vent somewhere, and I suppose that's one of the reasons I continue this blog! 

But we must not fear, for the time has come to teach! With the current robot as programmatically competitive as it can be, I now have plenty of time until January. No competitions, no major modifications, nothing. We obviously don't have time like this any other year, so I figured now is the time to teach! So, I sat down with the future programming team and reviewed a lot of different concepts. Some more complicated topics have yet to come, but the students who consistently show up now have a decent understanding of their subsystem. As I said, I got one writing simple commands by himself, and will try to get him writing more commands next Thursday! He has also gotten very comfortable with version control by the looks of things, and I certainly hope he continues to explore Linux! The other, our newest member, is now capable of interpreting and writing complex autonomous' programs. He is learning at a remarkable rate! 

All in all, I think the entire programmer team is developing well and quickly! Dare I say it has something to do with the implementation of the scrum board? Not going to lie, I really like the concept of it. It makes tracking and distributing projects much easier. 

To close, I think I will share my senior quote with you guys! You ready? Here it is!

+++++++ [ > ++++++++++ < - ] > + . < +++++ [ > ++++++++ < - ] > . <
++++++++++++++++ [ > ----- < - ] > + . < ++++ [ > +++++++++++++ < -
] > . < +++ [ > +++++ < - ] > ++ . ---- . < ++++++ [ > ++ < - ] > .
+ < ++++++++ [ > ---------- < - ] > ++ . < +++ [ > ++++++ < - ] > .
+++ . -- . ++++++ . < ++++++ [ > ---- < - ] > .

That's right! It's in Brainf**k! I'd love it if someone, some where could figure it out. It is very much school appropriate, but I still am unsure if I'll be allowed to use it. 

Thanks for reading!

"We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it." 

- Barack Obama

Nothing Too Interesting, But I Did Get Assassin's Creed: Valhalla!

 Hello everyone!

I am currently sitting in AP Comp Sci, watching previous video projects, and waiting to see if Randy will be in my group. I'm hoping to do something creative with the robot(s). I got the smart motion working on the drivetrain, and now all that needs to be done is speed it up. 

Shawn and I were talking about this one cool/beneficial command last week, and neither of us can remember it too!

Anyway, I probably have to go finish this boring half-day. I got Assassin's Creed: Valhalla for my birthday, and I love it! Going to go home and play it as soon as I can!

Thanks for reading!

Forwarding a Blog

Hello, readers!

This is going to be an incredibly short post, as I only want to share the link to a blog post.

For background information, I was scrolling through Chief Delphi, and found this awesome page after passing through a few links. I'll leave it here, since it is a good source of laughs. 

I encourage you to check it out!

Link to Post

See you next time!

First Day of my Adulthood

 Hello readers,

I am currently sitting in HACC US History, and am awfully bored. We are supposed to be watching a video, but Mr. Hey trailed off onto something else. Good guy though. Anyway, I am 18!

It feels good to be an adult, but other than the fact that my age went up a year, it feels the same as it did yesterday. Which I suppose makes sense, since I age a little every day, and it's not like I turn 18 and suddenly get gray hair. 

Anyway, I have robotics tonight, and I'm super excited; there will probably be a lot of talk about the election (which Trump appears to be losing. It's all up to Nevada, and it ain't looking good), my birthday, and the CNC. I don't now if I have talked about the CNC. Very exciting! A high-quality machine, all setup and ready to use. We did most of it Tuesday; for example, I setup some stuff on the computer, hung a whiteboard and moved the CNC to its table. 

My teacher just called on me. Thankfully, I knew the answer (all I had to do was describe John Marshall) and could get back to fake note-taking. I don't know what I'll do tonight at robotics, but I'm sure there is something. 

Spotify finally recommended me a song I like. It's called Sky Blue and Black by Jackson Browne. Highly recommend it; it's a rather slow, peaceful song. 

Anyway, gotta get back to class now. Talk to you later!

Thanks for reading!

Last Day of my Childhood

Good evening readers,

Today's the day, folks. My last day as a child. Man, that title felt weird to write. 

I'm not going to talk about my childhood or anything cringey so don't get excited. 

I will say that I have an odd, rather sad feeling right now though. It seems like my childhood flew by, and now I get to look back at it. I feel like I'm waiting for someone to say, "Alright, start it over again", and I go back. I can't imagine what the future is going to look like.

I don't know. That's my thoughts on this thing. 

Now I have to study for this calculus test tomorrow!

Wish forever-young-me good luck!

Thanks for reading.

November Has Arrived!

 Hello all!

Wow! What a busy week. I worked a lot this weekend, so that's why I am blogging today instead. First things first, my birthday is the fifth of November, and now my parents expect me to know what I want. the audacity of these people! 

I'm kidding of course; I have a good idea of what I want actually. I either want a small ski trip to a local ski hill, or about two thousand dollars to help me buy my friend's car. Of course I would also sacrifice my Christmas gifts for this, as this is rather expensive. My birthday present will not be winning Ramp Riot this year unfortunately, but I'll live!

I don't remember if I ever blogged about my quest to earn the Leading Scholar Scholarship either. Well, I am an out-of-state finalist! This means $20,000 off tuition, as well as a chance to receive free tuition! I am so grateful that my local representative could write me a LOR. Not done yet however. Still have to finish my FRC one. That's almost done, just need to do some revisions. 

College decisions are not fun by the way. Super stressful trying to decide where you want to spend +$100,000 and four years of the primetime of your life. 

Anyway, I think I covered most stuff. Now I gotta go finish my Christmas music playlist and study for a test tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Brainf**k Adventures

 Hello readers!

Looking through my posts, I notice how few people look at these. I think it would be fun if people find this here years later. Anyway. 

This week was nice, as I only had to go into school twice! Robotics is going well, and I'm working out most of the issues in the code. Today I got to work on more scholarship stuff, so I'm pretty exhausted. 

However, I finally did something this week that I've wanted to do for a long time: learn Brainf**k. I think it is rather obvious what the title is, an its called that for good reason; the language is complex and hurts your brain! Here is the Wikipedia page. As you can see, the language has eight commands, and is Turing-complete. 

See why it's called that? Anyway, I'm working on gaining a deeper understanding of the language! I really enjoy it, and its a lot of fun writing in that language and succeeding. It shocks some people! I even made my own interpreter for the language. I wrote it in Python, and it appears to be fully functional. 

For those who are wondering, here is what the "Hello, World!" program looks like it. I doubt this is most efficient, but this is how I did it. Believe it or not, this version is rather simple. 

Easy, right? I'll leave that there I guess. 

Alrighty, I'm exhausted and have to go do some stuff.

Thanks for reading, stay safe!

The Questionable Programmer

Long and Fun Day With Schoolmates

 Good evening! 

Just wanted to pop in and give a quick update on this week. First, my stress levels have gone down. So that's good! 

But today I really exhausted myself. First, I get up at 7 AM to go climb Governor Dick Tower to fund my brother's trip to Camp Swatara, an outdoor education program my school does. I will say, it was a beautiful day however. It was a lot of fun, and I got to see one friend who I haven't seen in a good while. He's actually Chilean, and my brother's 'child'. I was also really impressed by my one, less masculine and courageous friend, who climbed the tower with ease, even though he complained a bit! Eventually, the Chilean kid called him, "more useless than Mongolia's navy"! I have no idea what it meant, but boy was that funny. We kinda got lost, but we made it back once we found the road. Of course we looked like lost hitchhikers but that's ok!

After that fun experience, I went to robotics and put Arch on another computer in a record time for me! I love doing these Linux OS installation speed runs! I also submitted an essay, requesting a beta tester position for the FRC 2021 software. We'll see what happens. We're getting a CNC machine, which is really exciting, because this is our first major piece of equipment that we actually own. 

Lastly, I went to work around 4:30 with one of the five attendees at the climb/hike today. It was a long, tough day. I stood at the door and counted people, limiting the occupancy of my store to 18. My one supervisor also said that I had to do be ready to do returns across our area, which isn't my job, as they were incredibly busy, and I was the only other one who was qualified to return items. She said to think of it as practice for being a coach! I really hope I get promoted, but at this point it is still pure speculation. Did not make many friends with people today though; apparently, people don't like waiting in forty degree weather. These inconsiderate guests unfortunately forget that I've been out there 20 times longer than them, and I was just trying to do my job :(. 

This isn't super common, and I try not to let it get to me, but it's definitely frustrating. 

Anyway, that's all for tonight I think. I'm awfully tired, but I'm gonna go play R6 Siege I think. 

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!

I Got My License!

 Hello readers!

Just recently, last Friday as a matter of fact, I passed my drivers test!

I now can legally operate a vehicle, and boy does it feel great! The power you feel when you receive your license is like nothing I've ever felt before! Maybe it's because I'm really into cars! I used to take photos of older cars and make them look like comic books! Unfortunately, I don't think I have any on my computer. 

My place of employment, an amusement park, was incredibly busy for a pandemic yesterday. We had about 20,000 guests at one time yesterday! That's nearly half of the park's max occupancy (53,000). 

Anyway, I have a lot of homework this weekend, so I best get to work. I do have off tomorrow though which will be nice. 

Thanks for reading!

My Time in Cross Country

 Hello everyone!

Look at me, being consistent! Good schedule so far. 

Anyways, because I'm sitting in class right now, I cannot write too much, nor do I have much to write about. 

However, I did just have my final cross country (XC) meet yesterday, and I was rather pleased with myself. Ever since my liver issues last year, which I might need to explain at some point, I have not been in as good of shape. So this year, my times were a little disappointing, but I did improve over the season, and that's what I focus on. 

I'm not the fastest kid on the team, nor am I anywhere near them. I don't expect to be, nor does it bother me. I do try my best however, and that's all that matters in my opinion. 

I was middle to upper JV this year, but my friends and I have always called ourselves JJV, or junior junior varsity! We would call ourselves this just for fun, even though most of us were decent. Here was our chant: 

Leader: "Who are we?" 

JJV: "JJV!" 

Leader: "What do we do?"

JJV: "Average!"

Leader: "JJV for life on nine!"

JJV: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! JJV for life!" 

It was a fun, satirical chant we used to hype up before races. I don't know why we count to nine, all I know is that it's tradition! 

JJV had some good times when I was there. I remember one practice where some of the boys wore spandex and shoes. Just, spandex and shoes. Now, I'm sure some of the ladies loved it, but I certainly found it creepy, even though it was very funny looking at the pedestrian's faces when we ran by!

There was another time where we threw corn and pinecones at the varsity team, and some other JJV members. Unfortunately, JJV was experiencing a 'civil war' during that time. 

One time, we even went to the palmyra public pool, and did practice in the pool! It was awfully cold, and we didn't change into bathing suits, so I think everyone put some hair on their chest during that practice!

The typical Karaoke Fridays, Thigh-Touch Thursday, Windmill Wednesday (I'll let you imagine what we did), Tender-Touch Tuesday, and Mix-it-up Monday were always a ton of fun! Also, XC teams love speed traps! I can't remember the exact number of times we did this, but almost every time we saw a speed trap, we stopped and ran against it! It was so much fun racing each other there and hopelessly trying to break the speed limit!

To be honest, if I could not take place on my robotics team, I certainly would have prioritized building a stronger relationship with all these guys. I had some great experiences there!

I still plan on taking part in track and field however, so I'll see most again there. I also plan on staying in shape in college and after college. 

Here's a photo from my final home meet. This is the JV team, and it includes most of the JJV members of my senior year. We'll always miss Danny and Luke!

I know this was a rather short post, but I just wanted to provide a final update on my XC career. If I remember more humorous events, I'll consider posting them. 

Alrighty, well that's it for now.

Stay safe, and I'll see you next time!

"Run often. Run long. But never outrun your joy of running."

- Julie Isphording

How Many of These Posts Am I Gonna Have to Make?

No, no, I'm not dead; just incredibly busy and a little stressed. I guess it's been over a year since I've last posted. Well...

For starters, I am now a senior in high school, and still take part in my robotics team. We've been doing really well recently, and I am super stoked for 2021, no matter what happens! Final, season gotta go out with a bang. 

As most of my few readers know, 2020 was a bust and it was a rather painful experience for me and some of my teammates. We started the season well; we had the resources we needed and the experience we desired. We went on through the build season, building a competitive robot that certainly had a lot of potential if we made a few tweaks here and there. But then our DE rolled around, and in my opinion, I kinda screwed the pooch. 

Let me start out by saying that the qualifying matches had its ups as well as its downs. Due to this, we did not qualify super well, and in consequence, we were picked by the eighth alliance. Now, do not get me wrong, these two teams were awesome, and we had actually won our most recent offseason event with one of them! But as the eighth alliance, we had to face the number one seeded alliance there first. 

The quarterfinals started off poorly when we lost control of the robot due to an unsecured ethernet cable. We quickly identified the issue, and decided to stop our systems checks, as it seemed to only be hurting us. To the amazement of the entire event, we won the next match against them, becoming the one and only alliance to beat them at that DE. The record was now 1-1. We proceeded into the next match with our heads held high, and excitement burning in our stomach. I was ecstatic, much like the rest of the team, but my celebration only lasted so long. We began scoring early on in the match, and we had a fantastic outlook. I of course did not know this, as I was driving and not focusing on the score. 

And then it happened. I remember it as clear as day. The Infinite Recharge game has a strict climbing rule; the rule states that you may raise your climber up in the end game, and if you raise it any earlier, you will be dealt a penalty of 15 points. 

And of course with me being the stupid klutz that I am, I raised it too early. This certainly wasn't the first time this happened for me, which made this that more depressing. Now here's what makes this the most sad: we would have won that match by one point if I did not commit that violation. One point. Let me be clear: one point. The first alliance versus the eighth alliance. This would have been the upset of the season! Now surely there were other factors at play. For example, our captain, our defense robot, received a 15 point penalty as well due to an illegal hit. But because I am who I am, I naturally placed the blame completely on myself and lost a lot of self-confidence. Still working on it, but I'll talk about that later. 

So that was the DE. Now, I'm sure everyone around the world knows of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the entire season was cancelled to prevent jeopardizing the participants, judges, and spectators. 

However, FIRST Robotics Competition did indeed decide to replay the game in 2021. My senior year. A game that brings back awful memories, and simply a game that I did not enjoy as much as the years before. 

Over the quarantining, I of course had to keep up with school work and maintain my grades. The robotics team decided that it was appropriate to halt meetings for some time, although we did resume eventually. One of the things we must cherish is the ability to actually work on our robot however; many teams could not and still cannot access their robots to due online schooling, or the lack of school-supported extracurriculars. 

We decided to rebuild the robot, almost from scratch. After a long, gruesome couple of weeks, a few students, including myself, finally pulled a design together and began planning and executing. We are still tweaking this robot as of now, and are closely watching FIRST, as they have begun to release expectations for the 2021 season. As of now, they're looking at an online competition that also allows students who may not have access to their robot to compete. It's certainly different and disappointing, as the hotel and overnight experience makes it that much better! My team is still unsure on whether we should participate, as there is currently a $2000 registration fee.

Anyway, I'm sure most readers know this, so let's get back to the questionable programmer here. First off, my future!

As a senior, it is time for me to select my next path and my goals. What have I decided so far? Well.

I have already been accepted into what is currently my number one school, Michigan Tech. I plan on applying to Penn State in the next few days, as I'll receive my most recent SAT scores on Friday. I still have to decide if I want to leave my home state of PA of course. 

I have also chosen what I will be studying in college. I will be majoring in electrical engineering, and minoring in mathematical sciences. Why? For those who do not know, I love math. I love it because it takes away whatever is on my mind and forces it to focus. Basically, it clears my stressful and saddened mind. I don't want to become glorified IT or deal with data manipulation all day long, which is why I do not want to go into computer science. Computer engineering? Looked at it, and frankly, I think I would enjoy more careers in the EE field than the CS field, so I figured, why not go all in?

So that's my future as of now. Still partake on my high school's cross country team and the track and field team. I unfortunately had to stop XC last season due to bacteria and damage to my liver. Lot's of antibiotics and medicines have got me up and going again however. But, because of a multitude of issues including my liver, the pandemic, and a focus on robotics, it pains me to say that I have gotten really out of shape for XC. It is rather disheartening to compete poorly in comparison to your younger self, and this makes my life this much more stressful. That being said, my last meet is tomorrow (yes, it's 11 o'clock, and I'm still up before a meet) so I am happy to get this off my plate. 

I don't know if I ever discussed my current employment. Well, I am currently an assistant supervisor at a local amusement park, and I love it there! The benefits and the pay are great, but the coworkers are even better! The customers however, well, I won't talk about them. 

And lastly, I have my drivers license test this Friday! I am super excited, apart from one concern: parallel parking. I personally feel underprepared, although I have done it before. This has made me very stressful recently, and I wish I could just keep practicing. I'll probably skip robotics tomorrow to practice, but we'll see what happens. 

Why did I come back to write this you may be wondering? This blog offers me a place to "talk" to someone, which is really comforting. At school I am a bit socially-awkward, and don't like talking to people. I typically feel like I'm being judged all the time and that other kids think I'm an annoying dork. So, I try to talk as little as possible, unless I'm in a comfortable environment. Robotics has been becoming more and more dramatic as well, which is very, very frustrating. Personally, I don't believe that the robotics team is the place to discuss relationships or attend for social hour. You wouldn't attend soccer practice just to talk, would you? Actually, I hate soccer; make it football instead. Anyway, the point still stands. This has also made it harder for me to talk to people, as the people here aren't the same people that used to be here one or two years ago. It's odd trying to relate to them especially when your views on things are so different. 

So, to sum that up, I returned to this blog because I wanted to talk to someone about my stresses. I would be shocked if anyone gets this far into this however, or just simply reads any of it!

So, my schedule? Well I'm gonna try to post at least once a week now, because I think I'm finding it rather helpful and relaxing right about now. 

I also plan on posting my journey through college here!

I hope this post doesn't look like a pile of words on a page, and you can instead understand what's happening with me and in me. 

Well. 

Here's hoping to another week! 

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week.

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." 

- Albert Einstein