so I didn't break 700 for Math II either time I took it. I'm so stupid that my SAT I score went down too, the 2nd time. I'm so apathetic now even though college app deadlines are looming and I haven't even finished the common app essay. I wish I could be like Khalil and just go to culinary school. I've recently found that I do like baking...although my opinion of the products seem to differ greatly from everyone else's. Here's a recipe that I want to try from the NYTimes, which I found on the Wednesday Chef's blog:

Recipe: Azo Family Chocolate Cake

Time: 40 minutes, plus 3 hours for cooling

8½ ounces (2 sticks plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, more for greasing pan
7 ounces bittersweet chocolate (50 percent or higher cocoa), chopped
5 large eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
Whipped cream for serving (optional).

1. Place rack in top third of oven and heat to 400 degrees. (For best results, use a separate oven thermometer.) Butter a 9-inch springform pan and set aside. In a double boiler or microwave oven, melt together 8½ ounces butter and the chocolate. Stir to blend.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together egg yolks and sugar. Stir in flour. Add chocolate mixture and stir until smooth. Using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into chocolate mixture just until blended. Pour into cake pan.

3. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove cake from oven and allow to cool for 1 hour. Wrap with foil and refrigerate until cake is firm and cold, at least 2 hours. Two hours before serving, remove cake from refrigerator and bring to room temperature. Slice (center of cake will be fudgy) and serve, if desired, with whipped cream.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

It hurt to be told by someone I respect intellectually that I didn't belong at the Stanford info session especially when I know that he's right and though I have the slimmest of chances when compared nationwide, compared to the school, I'm really at the bottom of the heap. Both Angelica and Rowena have broken down in school sobbing and going though the whole panic attack phase of the college process but strangely I'm so ...bland. Even though I say it hurts, it feels only like a slight ache that is just noticeable and is persistant but not agonizing. It just keeps going through my mind; attending these college sessions where admissions officers are talking about the triple-major concertmasters and the Marine servicemen and all the other extraordinary students finishing in two or fewer years, I feel so unqualified. I don't know where I fit in in this world and to be asked, what have you accomplished that you are most proud of? or what about yourself are you most proud of? is the worst when all my life I've been told to respect my elders and not to be boastful or prideful and that while I'm doing well, it's nothing special because there is always that one person bettersmarterprettier. I feel so dense and heavy most days, like a black hole, like nothing can penetrate and is sucked into a limbo to be lost. It's hard to care and hard not to care when every one is asking how high is your score your GPA your ranking or what school what major what what what. It's all about appearances and to me, the worst of actors, the worst at intuition and subtlety and anything but bluntness, it's so hard to play the game everyone else is when all I wnat to do is to sleep and surround myself in beauty and music. It's so hard to live up to everyone's expectations and preconceptions.

The SAT IIs on Saturday went ok at least, better than last time. USH seems to have a pretty steep curve though Math II does not. I skipped five questions and I know I got more than that wrong. I just hope I break 700. It's so shameful to say that I got a 3 on the Microeconomics AP. I couldn't bear doing so badly on any other test.

Reading my old posts and this one, I realize that I am weak in terms of will, I am a coward, a dullard, an idiot. Too elitist around ordinary teens, too fat and too ugly to fit in, to wear the clothes that would make me ok, at least, to be seen talking to, too stupid compared to other Hunterites. How can I do worse on the math part of the SATs and SAT IIs than someone in the H class? I am too careless, too forgetful, my skull too thick, my mind too full of junk, escapist fantasies and manga storylines. My head always feels full of pressure, but my mind is empty, filled wiht styrofoam fillers but little else. To insult myself and others is so easy but when I hear about or see those extraordinary teenagers who are entrepreneurs and A+ students, who play a dozen instrumetns and speak the smae number of languages, who are beautiful and smart and athletic and musical and artistiic and everything short of perfectiton. How do they do it? How do they keep everything in their minds and not forget a single word or number or note or technique or rule? To sell my soul to someone in return for that near-perfection...it is almost as hard a question to answer as whether i should inflict some injury upon myself. Sometimes I odn't know whether I am alive. Seeing Rowena cry, I ... am not beset by compassion or pity but rather by a curious detached anxiety. I wantetd to hug her, but I did not want to be touched. I wonder what it is like to kiss someone and I ownder how people like Ian and Joe and everyone figured out their sexual inclination by this time in their lives. I am drab, unattractive, standoffish, and touch-avoidant but still I wonder what it feels like not to have to worry about my weight crushing someone when I lean on them or what my awkward bulk feels like when I hug someone. It might be glorious; it might feel exactly as awkward and uncomfortable as it does now when I do either for more than several seconds. I hate my weak will. In elementary, Grace and I were often mistaken for each other. But since then, she lost weight while I put on weight and therein is the difference. She is optimistic, accomplished academically, a leader in the community, reasonably pretty: I am here opposite. I, who despised my brother's lacking achievements, ended up in the same position of being in a lesser position than those we called friend and those we despised.

There is such a thing as having too much control. When I am so frustrated and angry that I feel like hitting the walls, I am held back by the voice in me that screams my parents will be furious and there will be a hole in the wall. I wish there were someplace that I could just scream and let everything out physically. I absolutely HATEHATEHATEHATE it when my mother rearranges things then comes rushing to apologize. MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND! I used to hate that word - fuck. But it's very hard and suits itself to the purpose that people have made for it as a curse.

Then again, with some things, I have no control. I have too much work to do before I can pull my grades up but I've whiled away today doing nothing.
'
I hate my weakness...I am too afraid of too many things to put all of myself into something that may not pay off....it's much easier to slip into someone else's dream-fantasy and observe....I can't be hurt that way. People who are talented and physically attractive or at least not overweight have an easier time throwing themselves into things, I think. They have fewer weaknesses that are apparent.......

It's all too easy to sleep my life away.....it's warm and comfortable....no one to hurt/annoy/bother me...........

I wish I could scream this but even soft noises travel in my house; the walls are thin and hollow.

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Squishing a fly and seeing maggots come out of it's backside is the most unpleasant thing that I've ever seen. Absolutely disgusting. 

Amanda had baby Brandon on Wednesday, or more correctly, she had a C-section that resulted in baby Brandon being extracted from her uterus. He looks ugly but is actually more attractive than some other babies in the baby ward, one of which whose hands and feet were bluish while the rest of it was entirely red.

The US Open is going on so it's been that and Good Eats and various other TV shows when I should be reading the stupid book....or studying Chem, which I haven't done at all. I'll probably take it next year....if I ever get around to studying for it.

Orientation on the 4th, only 2 more days! and class on the 6th XP

Today, my week of sleeping at 3/4 AM ends as Mother is coming back this morning.

Just for fun:

You scored as Agnostic, Agnostics consider the possibility that they may be wrong about God's existence, no matter which side of the fence they stand on. Always willing to objectively evaluate the most ridiculous proof, nevertheless, these guys are skeptics of the Nth degree. Agnostic 83% Apathetic Atheist 75% Spiritual Atheist 75% Scientific Atheist 67% Angry Atheist 58% Militant Atheist 33% Theist 33% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

I apparently don't care and I give things a chance because it's more interesting that way.

This week is definitely one on the lists for most wasted....
I hate the Bay Terrace B&N. Of the six books I looked for, it only had two and neither were ones that I particularly liked. Why?!

Huzzah for the Sex Etc. Amazon gift card! Man, that sounds weird....and perverted.....but it isn't.

I just remembered that the teacher from my Political Econ. class at Columbia's SHSP was going to take advantage of the housing bubble to net himself a house in London. Apparently, things are the same over there as here but because the pounds going for about twice the dollar, houses and flats cost a lot more. I wonder if he got a place to live because he moved soon after the program ended and he was still homeless. His name is Alexander Villanueva (or Villanova) Gordon with the little slashy thingie over the second 'o' because he's Philippino although he's a British national. Dunno why that amused me.

And mention of Columbia pulled up to the surface of my mind the thought of the Science Honors Program. When are they going to confirm things? Oh well, I better get to sleep. The time is now: 3.44 AM

Ryan and Mother left for Florida today. It was a horrible day for flying and just in general. It rained all day long and Hurricane Dean was battering Mexico and Belize but I don't know if it affected Florida.

I finally got my course list from Hunter today but no schedule and gym isn't on the list. They probably haven't sorted that out yet. I don't know what they're going to do for the swimming class because it looks like the pool and Hunter North is still undergoing renovations.

The rain makes everything so cold. Today the highest was 60 degrees, which is bloody close to freezing at this time of the year. I don't know what's going on with me; everything just drags me down and my head almost always feels like there's some kind of pressure pushing both inwards and outwards against my skull and my brain. Is that what a headache feels like? People never describe them so I don't know. It clouds up everything.

Watching Anthony Bourdain in Beirut is a poignant reminder that even relatively famous people can suddenly become involved in conflicts that have nothing to do with them and the best thing to do is stay alert and prepared. Very soon after he arrived, conflicts between the Israelis and the Lebanese or whoever was in Lebanon at the time began again and he (and his camera crew) was forced to move to a different hotel where all the guests gathered each day on the pool deck to watch Beirut get bombed by the Israelis every day. Since the Hotel Royal was on a hill, they had a perfect view. The airport was bombed soon after the move, the next day or something, and he had to wait for the production crew in the US or where-ever it's based to arrange evacuation with the Marines, who were helping evacuate American expats and Lebanese refugees. At the moment I couldn't think of what it reminded me of, but I just realized that the waiting and being trapped in a hotel was very much like the situation in Hotel Rwanda, except of course the city streets were not lined with dead bodies and it was an international conflict, not an internal one. But the hotel filling up with refugees waiting to be evacuated and people writing or calling in this case to whomever they could and the tenseness...

Several things jumped out at me for the sheer ridiculousness. One, Bourdain said that the only thing from Washington that he saw in the news on TV was a clip of Bush eating a buttered roll or buttering the roll or w/e while Blair tried to get his attention and this clip was played over and over again and nothing else was shown re: the American government. Two, among the people that Bourdain said people were trying to call were people who worked at CNN, which struck me as funny for some reason although it makes sense b/c one needs to get information from somewhere. There was one person, referred to only as "some guy by the pool", who could predict everything that happened from which building got bombed to who was getting out....there was the question of how he knew though.

On a more personal note, Ryan and Mother go away to Florida tomorrow. Ryan for 7/2 months until Christmas break and Mother until next Monday.

Maya, I think mistful writes absolutely hilarious fics and little anecdotes in dialogue/play form about incidents in her life. Her personality is simply a humorous one, capable of finding something funny in everything, while I'm simply bleh. She seems an interesting person and I wouldn't mind meeting her, although I think that she and I wouldn't suit at all because of our different personalities.

I think for the last couple years I've been living life very abstractly and detachedly. I don't remember very much of what I experienced, although I think much could have been spent in better programs. I really need to find something to 'specialise' in, although it's a little late resume-wise compared to some people who've stuck to something throughout their entire high school career.

That makes me think of how appalled I am at the increasingly common spelling and grammar mistakes that I come across on the Internet, even as one person is berating another for their mistakes, they make their own. That isn't to say that my grammar is stellar, b/c that I nearly failed the grammar unit in 8th grade, but the most basic tenets should be observed.

小 Fong and her family came up from Houston while 大 Buoh Mu came from Taiwan. I accompanied 小 Fong and family yesterday for lunch and to the Met. The kids started complaining on the M15 ten minutes in and Sarah Michelle wouldn't sit still. She still hasn't learned to vocalize wants although she is certainly old enough and capable. At the Met, 姐 父 took Sarah Michelle while 小 Fong took the boys. I went with her and I think if I hadn't at least been there to keep William from running off, she would have gone ballistic. That is, not to say she didn't have a hard time keeping her temper since both were constantly complaining but at least she didn't have to chase after either of them. I hate little kids.

小 Fong and fam. are going back to Texas this Monday while Mom and Ryan are leaving on Tuesday. I really really have to start preparing for the SAT II Chem retake, not to mention actually register for it, as well as for school, although I don't know if any one has actually received their schedules.

Oh yeah, I finally found my paperback-sized sketch pads and discovered that I had been using one of them as a journal....the last date of entry was 1 Oct 2006. I imagine that I'll be switching between virtual and real journals in the future if I actually remember where I put my real one.