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For band, we must audition to see if we'll be in the upper or middle band. The audition will be the final for this year. We will be graded on scales, tone, a prepared piece, and sight reading, among other things.

That's all fine and dandy. I do have a small problem, however. It's not with the grading system, yet it is.

The current freshmen will not be required to play all 12 scales. They shall only have to play the 6 simpler scales. The other points are waived and given as a "freshman bonus" of sorts.

I still do not have a problem with the system. But then...

If a freshman is able to play the other 6 scales, if I remember correctly, they get additional bonus points. This is where I disagree with the system.

Being freshmen, they're new and could have much potential. Thus, learning the scales should simply come with time. It's understandable that they might now know them now. This already can give an unfair advantage, but I don't much mind. The scale still evens out. By giving another set of bonus points for knowing the scales anyway changes the scales. They basically get an extra chance. In fact, ideally, the scales would be necessary either way (at least for audition purposes, not the final), to ensure that the best musicians are chosen for the upper band.

If I knew all of my scales and did two octaves each, then I'd get a rather nice score. If a freshman had a similar tone, did extra octaves here and there, but only knew 9 scales, the score would be comparable. While not receiving as many points for extra octaves, the extra scales would balance it out. Thus, the weaker musician gets a boost.

Now, sure, one can get extra points for adding octaves to the chromatic and major scales. I don't have a problem with that, as anyone can do it. Whether freshman or junior, the opportunity is open to both. On the other hand, only freshmen would receive points for playing all 12 scales.

For the purpose of the final, I could understand the placing of the bonus points. However, the replacement points are unnecessary for this section. I would instead scale it to a smaller total, that is, unless it's intended to be a softer scale.

For the purpose of the audition, I would only add extra points if the person plays more than one octave and only proportionally to the increase an upperclassman would receive. The first octave for those scales should be completely disregarded. The "freshman bonus" should stay in this case in order to correctly scale the results.

I apologize for the lack of organization. I was a bit distracted.

This came up as I thought about the audition... Danny... Who will it be?

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Would you consider me more of a gregarious introvert or a reserved extrovert? Also... why?

This was the question that I asked many people yesterday.

(For sake of ease, I shall abbreviate gregarious introvert to GI and reserved extrovert to RE for nearly the remainder of the post.)

In any case, the votes ended being tied, 8-8. Two that I asked, however, switched from RE to GI after giving it more thought. I discounted votes from those that randomly chose, usually because they didn't understand the words.

Personally, especially after discussing it, I consider myself to be a GI. I asked the question to help me decide which one fit me more and to see how other people see me.

While the words mean nearly the same, there are slightly different connotations to both. A lying thief steals for a living, but constantly lies. A theiving liar lies for a living but also steals. Such is the difference between GI and RE. The noun part is the intrinsic description. The first word, the adjective, describes a common occurrence for the second.

Another this that I noticed was that the people who chose GI tended to either talk with me more or put more thought into the question. Those choosing RE just looked from afar and saw my outward personality.

The individual words in each are opposite of the corresponding word in the other. Yet, the two phrases mean nearly the same. Both are oxymorons as well. The inverse of an oxymoron is a synonym? Paradox?

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Ignorance is bliss? Knowledge is power? Which trumps the other?

Solitude is good in short doses; one is able to get away for awhile from the chaos of life.

Facade... is it necessary for people to change their personality?

Silence can be relaxing in the right spot and can be nerve-wracking in the wrong spot.

Things change. One must constantly adapt to these changes. Reflecting on the past is fine, but dwelling is not.

At night before sleep... I find a lot to think about and it keeps me up. It's good, as I can reflect and comprehend some thoughts, but I lose some sleep.

Stereotypes may be accurate often, but judging one based on an example can be seen as insulting. After awhile, stereotypes might become the opposite of the reality. Still, people look to them.

Common sense, do ya have it? Sometimes people... well... common sense. Understanding it should be common sense, self-explainatory.

Political parties are a natural occurence because people always group themselves. It interests me how such groups are formed and who are part of each.

The grass is greener on the other side. People tend to envy others because they bore of what they have... it's never enough to satisfy the hunger.

Escaping the norm can bring great change or unwanted distress.

You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

One should know when it's time to stop. It's not good to overload, but it's not good to slack off.

Progress can only be achieved by pushing oneself past the current limits.

Irony occurs all the time. Laugh and learn.

The middle road is normally what's best. The extremes can bring forth unwanted consequences.

Try it. New things should not be feared, but welcomed.

One should take the advice one gives to be sincere.

Many wise saying contradict other wise sayings. Which applies depends on the situation.

I took my AP CS test. Not bad. July... can't wait!

I'm leaving on a trip for 3 days. It shall be fun.

Bye for now.

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I am happy. I have reached a new height regarding PHP. I created my own PHP class.

I looked at my RSS feed creator and i thought, "Wow... what's this?" I wondered how I could clean it up and make all of my feed writers as efficient at the same time. It then dawned on me... this would be a perfect place to implement a class.

In case you didn't know, a class in object-oriented programming (OOP) is a set of variables and functions that work together to organize the code better. Java is an example of a completely OOP language. PHP is mostly procedural, but can support objects.

PHP Object support was really poor in version 4. Even when it improved, I never found use for it. I could always do the same thing without objects, but that wasn't always the most efficient. I wanted to be more efficient now, but I didn't care for it in my earlier days. I had no clue what a-do for OOP, but as I learned Java, it all began to make sense why one would use it.

Anyway, I toiled on my little AtomFeed class. I chose Atom over RSS because it seemed better. It could change with the times, as opposed to the frozen state of atom. It also seemed more structured. But anyway, I managed to create it. It's set for PHP 4. I hope to move to PHP5 and I won't mind updating the code accordingly. One has to change with the times, after all.

Then, I updated the data transfer scripts to take the info from the database and put it into the new class. When I tested (and thoroughly debugged) it, By Jove, it worked! That made me happy.

Thus, my second titular news: feeds are updated. I abandoned RSS in favor of Atom. I now only have one main feed, removing the RSS version, and I transferred the mini-entry feed to Atom. Thus, I now have a standard way to modify my scripts.

Now back to programming. Java. My AP test is in two days. I haven't read much of the book, but I know enough PHP to know enough Java. The thing about programming is one only needs to know the basics: variables, types, comparisons, arrays, and control structures. Then learn common functions. After that, each language has its own refined points, so just learn them. Of course, this is just based on my limited knowledge of Javascript, PHP, and Java. I have dabbled in C and C++ and seen that they're quite similar. This does not apply to assembly lanuages or certain novelty languages. But yeah, I should read more on Java. I just got done with polymorphism and inheritence. I have quite a few more chapters to go, but I didn't do badly on the practice exam. Doesn't mean I can't improve, of course.

On the topic of PHP, I must remind myself to implement tag deletion on my entry edit page. This is my reminder. Oh yeah... comment fixin's. (Not a possessive 's, just to clarify)

And another topic. I noticed myself using a lot of "anyways" and random digressions. I've been Catcher in the Rye'd?

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Bad words, swears, curses, expletives, profanity, highly informal slang. Do you cuss?

Why are people obsessed with these words? Most either fear them or love them. Most of the time, it's both.

The uniqueness of these words are their connotations: they're very strong and negative. They're usually used to express a strong feeling. They also derive from things that society would call private. Thus, the words have become something not to be uttered in public. And this taboo nature have given them this love/hate relationship.

Since these words have a negative connotation, they're often used to insult, attack, or intimidate another person. This makes the speaker seems tough or bad. According to social darwinism, the tough will survive. Thus, swearing is a way to proclaim superiority.

These words, with the strong feelings attached, make certain demands or emotions more forceful or even more genuine. "Would you please stop?" and "I am quite enthused!" maybe get the point across, but not necessarily with the deisred degree.

So now we know why people use it and for what purpose. Why not?

In certain situations, especially formal ones, it makes one seem less intelligent. Instead of reaching in the dictionary of the mind, one has to fall back on low-class profanity. Especially when dealing with people (restaurants, stores), one's diction can give a good or bad impression on quality, regardless of the actual rank.

Thus, one must judge one's audience. A business would balk at a message with inserted expletives. Likewise, a friend might find insincerity in a detailed essay. The desired result in either is not achieved.

Now a quick run on censorship. Removing the vowel does not really cover anything. First letter or all asterisks. One site, for example, allows swearing by truncation, leaving the first letter, (f'ed) or obfuscating ring all letters while keeping the length (****ed). Otherwise, it's not really censored.

On euphemisms: How is saying "screw this" or "Fudge!" any different (aside from construcion and tasty desserts) from the other word that would fit in? They're just weaker. Is that a good enough reason for them to be more acceptable? The emotion behind them might be the same; it might even be repressed, being relegated to a weaker expression. The euphemism treadmill might make such circumventions unspeakable in public.

If a TV channel let a bomb slip, the infamous "F", then they would be inundated with angry parents. They are protecting their children, sure, but I thought stick and stones only break one's bones, not words. On the news, perhaps the family saw a rapist be violently murdered by sharpened sticks and heavy stones. That would likely go by without a second thought. That sounds a bit worse than a couple of words. This is an example lazy parenting and dodgy priorities. Violence? Common. Sex? Natural. Words? Blasphemous!

Personally, it's habit that I don't cuss. I hardly even have to stop myself from doing so in public. It's more that I have to force myself. When I'm with company that drops whatever word they wish, the words pass my mind, but it's still somewhat unlikely that they fall out. In formal situations, they don't even come to mind at all. Two-faced? Perhaps. It's simply a judge of my audience.

When I hear others? I don't really mind. If I don't have a bad opinion of someone, then their choice of words has almost no effect on my impression of them. When I do have a below par view, my assessment of their character slowly drops.

And a quick thought: At school Friday, one was trying to be reserved and speak around a word, but it was obvious what fits. Another responded that it was ok to say it, we're in high school. Then I thought... does that mean it's ok because we're not in middle school or not adults? Is it fine because we're older, or still young? Or is it that we're in the rebellious teenager phase? Why is high school a valid excuse?

There was a lot to this rant. I digressed a bit, perhaps, but it's a bit of a wide topic, and I wanted to cover a lot of it.

Wow, a whole essay without even using a swear word. I had to talk around it and insert euphemisms here and there. It didn't seem flow at times. Damn, that was hard.

What shall we do with a drunken sailor... early in the morning...

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