Observation about my university life. It can be divided into several sections.

First, there is the Music School, where I do most of my classes, practicing, attending concerts and the like. Currently this portion of my education is the most tedious because practicing so much is terrible at this point. I plan on improving this important section by attending concerts (not many have been performed yet), continuing classes which I enjoy, and improving practicing as soon as I can stop rehashing the basics. This section is responsible for my artistic development. Needs some improvement, as planned.

Secondly, there is the section of core classes I take. This section should be as minimal as possible, as it is merely general education and relatively unimportant to my degree. Currently I have very few core classes, and the number is only going to decrease, I believe. Hurray for AP credit. This section needs little improvement or work.

The Honors division of the campus holds my greatest interest. It contains the extracurricular events, all special programs, and any other items of interest for me. Currently I have little to do with this division of the university, but hopefully this will change. I do not have any plans so far as to how, but I hope to find out in my honors advisement and honors seminar. This branch is responsible for development of character. Needs great improvement, no plans yet.

Besides these sections, there is the Catholic community, in which I am hardly involved. I think a little involvement might be in order, but I do not consider involvement here to be imperative to spiritual growth. Needs minor improvement, plans in progress.

And finally, the recreational division of my university life. It involves things like Facebook, Elftown, Guild Wars, etc. This should be a small, but still existent section. I think I'm doing fine here.

In short:
Music- some improvement
Honors- great improvement
Catholic- little improvement
Core- little improvement
Recreational: little improvement

I have an application on Facebook that gives me daily Bible quotes. Today it gave me this one, and I decided I'd like to save it:

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." (1 Peter 3:3-4)

I like this one because it brings up a point I've tried to explain to myself before. I've always thought that people's 'inward self', as this quote calls it, shows through on a person's face anyways. People I find to be beautiful tend to have an inner beauty anyways. Some people that others have called attractive struck me as somewhat ugly in my opinion mainly because of their face, which seems to me to look less beautiful. The strange thing is it's sort of an intangible quality that I find difficult to describe; it's kind of a "They look nice" or "They look mean" sort of thing. In any case, my point is that while this encourages disregard for physical beauty and promotes inward beauty, I'd add on that the latter will create the former, from what I've seen.

First, a funny quote, then an interesting thought.
(on a forum about Pluto's planet status)
Jenna: [...] Seriously, I do not see why anyone cares. Stop wasting your time and start to support a cause that actually affects people, like mass genocide.
Jenna: I meant that last phrase as "support a cause that actually affects people, like stopping mass genocide."

And, since I saw in the same forum a thread titled, "Can anyone give me one good reason to believe God exists." Now, I'm getting pretty tired of these stupid threads, including ones the other way around that go, "Ten good reasons to believe in God", because they are entirely irrelevant. But since this was a forum about outer-space-ness, I was thinking in universal terms, and some of the replies gave me an idea. Many people have theorized that in an infinite space (or in this case amount of matter), over an infinite period of time, there are a finite number of combinations of how things can be arranged. A massive, but finite number. Over the course of infinity, that finite amount of matter would either become each combination or repeat old ones, which gave rise to the theory of Eternal Return and similar theories, which state that the universe will repeat itself.

Now, this has been mathematically disproven by a model someone used involving three rotating wheels that never realign and never stop changing. The specifics of the model I don't know off the top of my head, but there is a second refute to it, which gives rise to almost an inverted theory. There is an infinite amount of space, and some have theorized there is infinite matter, as well. With infinite space, you can't possibly use all combinations, because each combination could be repeated, but sized larger, like similar triangles. But what does all this have to do with God, as I mentioned in the first paragraph? Well, some people have posited that since there is infinite space, there must be aliens. It's just unthinkable that with so many infinite planets, space, etc, that there aren't any. I would posit in return that the same reasoning could be used to suggest God exists as well.

Extra credit to anyone who can refute the above reasoning for God. I can think of one right now, but there're probably a couple other things wrong with it.

Finally moved into college. It's quite strange being here, but I think I'll like it. The only problem is getting around. I have no means of transportation, and I don't trust the bus system yet. It's good for on-campus, but I need to find a way to get to church. And tomorrow is a holy day of obligation >.<

Hurrah, my IQ is 126, according to http://www.iqtest.dk/ .
I'm not sure exactly how accurate it is, and think it might be overestimating a little, but I'm pleased with the result nonetheless. It was fairly hard at the end. And by that I mean I had to guess the last question almost entirely.

Does Templar need more sleep?

"Caleb says:
Mythology is like a name-giving thing
Caleb says:
>.> I think it's a bit late, after that sentence"

I think so. At least for now :)

Interesting cloud pictures:
http://leenks.com/link70511.htm

Well, not all of them are great, but here's one to grab your attention (from the site): http://bp2.blogger.com/_Fzq94YVbHHM/Rh1UKutFV7I/AAAAAAAABmY/mKGbWo4LTYI/s1600-h/rare_clouds_06.jpg

Probably not of much interest to most people, but I figured there are a few people who would like them.

I love my dreams :)
Sometimes, though, I just wish my mind would be as creative as it is when it's asleep. The other night I had a vivid dream, in which I listened to an orchestra perform some concerto. It sounded extremely good. The funny thing is, I don't believe I'd ever heard the piece before. My mind was making it up instantaneously while I was sleeping. If I could hear pieces like that played so well sounding so good while I were awake, I'd having this composing deal down solid. But it is comforting to know that in any situation, at least my mind is capable of making it up.

Our orchestra placed third in the nation.

For the record, the first place wasn't all that great. They may have been together, but their repertoire was not very impressive.

I'll be leaving in a few hours to go to Detroit, Michigan. I'll be returning Sunday morning. Apologies for any problems this may cause, though I don't anticipate any. I just figured I'd let everyone know.

So I've finally figured out what it was I liked so much about finishing games, movies, and books. I used to attribute it to a sense of catharsis, which is certainly true. That, and I always left feeling complete and satisfied, with a lot to think about, and a general sense of well being. This is all true, and they are the biggest reasons I love stories and the like that are well-written. They make me feel satisfied.

However, the biggest factor in this that I've overlooked in the past (hence am jotting it in here so I can reread and reremember someday) is the stability that I gain when I finish an adventure. Frequently in life I feel very unstable, like I'm on the verge of breaking down, going insane, or in some manner breaking the strict rules of society, crossing the border between acceptable and unacceptable, even in just my own opinion, society aside. It's stressful to keep control of yourself constantly, or at least it is for me, because for whatever reason I feel like I'm on the verge of doing something unacceptable or going insane (repeating myself now x.x). In any case, after finishing good books or movies or games, I feel solid. Like I can trust myself not to do something wrong, and very confident in my own aptitudes.

Just for the record, I finished Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which is why I'm making this post :P Unfortunately, the solidity and satisfied feeling was banished too quickly by sticking me on the computer and planning the rest of my school stuff like five minutes after I finished :(

Since we're studying psychological disorders at school, I ran across a diagnostic test, and for reference after we cover all the topics in class, I'm posting the results here. It says the validity is good, but I wouldn't trust the site because it didn't look professional, and it didn't have very good spelling.

Validity - Validity is Good ( Low End )

Total Score 93

Schizophrenia - 10
Paranoia - 6
Deviate - 13
Introversion - 14
Depression - 18
Hypomania - 8
Somatoform Disorder - 8
Dissociative - 15
Anxiety / Obsession - 4

I wouldn't disregard the dissociative, introversion, and slight schizotypal levels, though. But I would deny depression. I don't know how it figures I'm depressed.

*On review of its criterion, I believe it's confused my schizoid and/or dissociative factors with depression.

I've figured it out. ARI has Schizotypal Personality Disorder (http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe03.html)

Not going to join the RP Council forum/page/whatever it turns out to be, no time for another forum.

Auditions turned out to have gone well enough to get me into UGA's music school, so that's one less worry for me.
My largest problem now is Mock Trial (which will be resolved this weekend in our competition).
After that is practicing for Detroit's National Orchestra Festival.
And after that, I only need to worry about finishing my music theory composition.
With the exception of AP exams, of course, and school, and all that.

But I'm primarily worried about music theory, since you can just practice the others. Writing music takes the same sort of inspiration as writing does, to make anything besides utter crap. And I refuse to put my name on a paper of utter crap, if people will be performing this.

Auditions went alright. They could have been better, but didn't go as badly as I feared. Mock Trial case is a whole lot worse, I need to fix things and memorize them, which is always the part I do the worst, but hopefully it'll work out.

In any case, I am wondering if it would be worth the effort, or gain enough interest, to create a new game on Elftown where players run countries or regions, develop resources, build a military, and cooperate or fight each other, with the ultimate goal of reigning supreme. There would be numerous side-quests and various threats or disasters, etc to spice the game up. I tried something like this before, but for several reasons it didn't work out. 1) I didn't know what I was doing at the time, 2) Too complicated system (that I didn't explain well), 3) Too time consuming, 4) lack of interest.

If I were to do this, I'd have to remake the system a little, create my own world, write about seven side-quests, maybe more, make it a little more systematic and less judgemental, write up a set of very very clear directions, find a good group of people to play, and probably recruit help maintaining it. It's a lot of work, and I'm not sure it's worth the effort, especially since interest may not be too high. The other big concern is how to rule out the small fry who will sign up to play but aren't capable, mature players. I don't want ppl hu wrt liek dis to play the game because the nuances would be beyond them, and they would be decimated, and I'd feel bad :P

On the other hand, if it becomes a success, it could be an officially sponsored game. But somehow the odds seem against that all. It'd be interesting to make, in any case.

It's no surprise to me that senioritis is so common at our school. We learned about this in psychology: The "General Adaptation Syndrome" is the basic response to any sort of stress. First you have the alarm reaction, where the person realizes they need to react to a stressor. This is the typical fight-or-flight response. In the case of a student, they realize they have to learn everything in school for tests, do all this work, etc. The person then moves to the resistance stage, where the person tries to stabilize his condition and prepare for long-term work to cope with the stressor. This usually involves sustained levels of higher energy while the coping and reactions take place. However, as the body depletes it's extra resources resisting the stress, it eventually becomes exhausted. Coping deteriorates, the subject becomes more vulnerable to stressful conditions, and becomes less productive while it tries to recover. Hence, by the end of their twelvth year of continuous stress, seniors are utterly exhausted, and simply become less productive.

I'm typically more resistant to stress, but in this case, I think I may even have problems >.> I'm physically and mentally exhausted already, and tomorrow I have my UGA music auditions, and the week after I have multiple orchestra rehearsals and Mock Trial rehearsals, plus who knows how much homework I'll be getting. Next Friday and Saturday, I'm competing for Mock Trial. In short, I have the busiest week ahead of me, and no time to sleep, and it's also worth note that my next favorite way of relieving stress (aside from sleeping) is ruled out because I can't find a single room in the house that I could have to myself for more than five minutes at a time. I used to be able to handle any sort of stress because in the morning I would meditate and relax, but noooooo. It's perfectly fine to shove Caleb in some room with his brother, and take away any time he might have to himself to sort things with himself out. Yeah, Caleb doesn't have stress >.>