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Saturday, August 2, 2014

This summer....

Today was such an incredible day. But first, I’ll brief you on everything that’s happened since I last posted. However I’ll talk more about what has happened since I’ve come to Setauket.

Recently my days have been filled with coding mornings and lazy noons; then math math math nonstop for hours. I hate math. But I’m terrible at it, so I need to WORK a lot. I am taking the PSAT in mid-October so I need to be ready. Surprisingly my “Writing Skills” are sort of terrible. I’m not sure why. The multiple-choice answers are somewhat ambiguous and I also have poor vocabulary. Least you would expect from me eh? I have sub-par, I guess. I can spell all the words I don’t know the meanings of (HUGE hyperbole okay because we all love our literary devices).

So. Coding mornings? Yes. I have been writing a bunch of things in C because my dad says so… It’s a summer project. It’s a thing. Yes. I’ve also been learning JavaScript (I’ve been learning for about a year or so on Khan Academy; I never knew it was JS until I realized last month). It’s pretty exciting. I’m actually motivated to do it because of the badges and things. AND Pamela and Vi are so nice and funny and it makes people feel like they are capable.

Side note: I’ve “coded” my own version of Flappy Bird. Except for 1) It’s Rainbow Dash, so it’s really Flappy Pony and 2) I didn’t really code it. I’ve been using TouchDevelop to code it and it’s one of the projects, which means that TD helps you do it every step of the way and tells you exactly what to code. It’s cheating, but I understand everything that goes into it so I’m “learning”, I guess. TouchDevelop is a Microsoft thing, by the way, and I first used it at a Microsoft YouthSpark CodeIT! session.

This summer is IT. This summer is THE SUMMER. I’ve been involved in A LOT of charity/volunteer work. Okay, so everything is “unsubstantial” but I don’t care. It’s fun to do the things I’m doing: papercrafting signs for the newly unhomeless, writing book reviews for the teens in our community, donating a lot lot lot lot. A lot of it comes from DoSomething.org, which has a bunch of challenges/scholarships they encourage teens to participate in. Anyway, I’m not an ad, but I totally endorse it. I’ve also donated to our local library’s food drive and I’m going to donate things to the Lupus charity. But the biggest charity thing of the season will be me and my friend’s Lemonade/Cookie Stand. AAH! Guess who’s making the cookies?!  Yup. And they’ll be madeleines!!


So why is today the best day? Because I totally found a huge stash of wrapping paper!! AAAAAAH! Now I can use that to make Wildlife Cards (for park rangers) and Birthday Cards (for homeless children). So yup. Today is wonderful.