International Volleyball Night (2010-12-09)

I am kidding. There is no such thing as International Volleyball Night. Well, maybe there is, but not that I know of. Today in the morning and afternoon, I was at York Mills at a volleyball tournament. It was quite an intense day. We played against four schools one after another. Then, after a one hour lunch break, we played three more schools. Unfortunately, we only ranked fourth place. (Pssh, there were some intense teams!) However, on the bright side, we received pizza as a consolation prize!

Right after the tournament, my dad drove me back to Victoria Park to prepare for the International Night. I stopped at Parkway to buy a meatball sub-sandwich. However, that is a different story. I performed at International Night today. I represented China by playing a traditional Chinese song on the flute. It was nerve racking playing in front of two hundred people, but I take it as an amazing experience. I also got a chance to watch some other acts on top of the Parade of Nations. Most definitely awe-inspiring!

Tonight I got home at 10pm. I was so exhausted that I was about to flop down on the bed. I have to finish my Geography project, but I don't believe that I will be very productive since I am so tired. Anyways, I have to finish my assignment now. Goodbye, Blogger!

(Procedure) Step One: Manage Time (2010-12-08)

Today in class we learned about programmer-defined procedures. It was similar to functions, except there were a few differences such as the absence of the keyword result. One new keyword was, of course, procedure. Last night we had to write the nextConsoant function. Only a few people in my class actually obtained the correct code for the function. I wrote out a rough guess of the code. However, I will check with my peers tonight after I finish my blog.

I left the class early for another volleyball game. To be frank, I feel like volleyball is eating away my energy and ability to sustain a healthy lifestyle. Practices are at 7am in the morning and some end at 5:30pm (not the mention the one hour bus ride..) after school. I also have to constantly catch up on my schoolwork after I miss classes for games. The sacrifice is definitely worth it, but I have to truly learn how to manage time properly.

That will be my goal for this week. That's all for now. International Night is tomorrow! I am nervous and excited at the same time!

Writing Functions + Being Organizaed... (2010-12-07)

Today we learned about functions. To be more specific, we learned about programmer-defined functions. The functions that I was familiar with before was pre-defined, such as ord. We learned today how to declare functions and apply them in the programs that we create. We learned two new keywords: function and result.

In addition, we also learned how to write algorithms in pseudocode. It helps when a programmer is not sure how to write the code in Turing to solve a specific problem. By writing algorithms, the programmer can write the instructions in English and translate it to Turing.

We also had a homework check today. I printed it out but I left it on my printer. I was going to get it when I pack my backpack before I left for school this morning, but I forgot it along with my flute for the dress rehearsal for International Night. Did I mention I forgot my shoes for the volleyball game today after school, too? It just goes to show how important organization is. Fortunately, I was forgiven for missing the dress rehearsal, and Zainab lent me her shoes for the game. Mr. Arkin was annoyed, but there is nothing I can do about what happened. Sigh. I will just be more organized next time.

For homework tonight, we have to write the function for nextConsonant. I noticed on the daily log that Class B and C have to integrate the usage of functions into their substring assignments. I may actually try to do that just for practice. That is, after I figure out the function nextConsonant.

Eight hours? (2010-12-06)

Today it was an early dismissal day! We had our introduction to counted loops. I have to finish some volunteer work so I am going to try to make today's post as succinct as possible. Eight hours of sleep is entirely possible today. Back from the tangent, we learned about the keywords, decreasing, and for.  We also reviewed our substring assignments. I must say, it was very handy to have all my assignments in writing in front of me. I was able to take notes on the revisions and modifications have to make as Arkin went along.

Thanks to Stephanie C., we have to modify substring assignment nine to gather a word from user and exchange every consonant with the consonant that follows. I wouldn't say it is a bad thing, simply the fact that I had more homework today. Regardless, I finished the assignment in five minutes, and I took a couple more minutes to revise and print it out.

That's all for now. As I said, eight hours of sleep is entirely possible today.

Absence once again (2010-12-03)

This morning I woke up at 5:30am to finalize and print my substring assignments in preparation for the quiz. Thankfully, (depending on how you look at it) I checked my e-mail before I began my work. I got an email from Mr. Arkin saying that he will not be here in class today. So, I went back to sleep at got one and a half hours of sleep.

Since Mr. Arkin is not here today again, we had time to fully complete our substring assignments. Since I already finished them, I spent the period teaching the concept of substrings to Zainab and Zahra. I must say, they caught on quite fast. It took me only around five minutes to explain the concept from beginning to end. Well, "end" meaning knowing enough to start the first three assignments.

I went home today and printed out all my assignments. Was it painful? Yes, you bet it was. Is it mandatory and are there benefits for doing so? Of course.

Hopefully Mr. Arkin will return to school on Monday. Once again, I hope I will do well on the quiz! (If we are having one...)

Proper Studio 218? Quiz tomorrow! (2010-12-02)

Today, we once again had a guest teacher. I spent the period helping Mithunya with the assignments and concepts of substrings and revising some of my repetition assignments.

At home, I printed out all my substring assignments. There will be a substring quiz tomorrow. Somehow, I feel quite prepared since I finished all my substring assignments. Hopefully karma will come along, understand that I worked hard, and allow me to do well tomorrow!

I also had the time to create a playlist for Studio 218 tomorrow! I posted a link on Wikispaces, but the link is: tinyurl.com/studio218

It is a shortened URL that redirects the user to a playlist that I created on Youtube. I chose the official music videos and re-production of pop songs. I also purposely chose numerous old classics -which in this case means they were released over one year ago- that many already forgot about. They are, in my opinion, truly the most amazing singles ever produced. There are also some Glee performances released by Fox on Youtube. Sweet!

That is all for now, hopefully Class A will, for the first time in a long time (since Cindy's contribution), have a proper Studio 218!

Substring Assignment Redux! (2010-12-01)

Today is the first day of Deccember! That means that there is only one more month until 2011. The year passed by so quickly it is incredible! Anyways, today I worked a little more on my substring assignments in class. I didn't print them out yet, so I am planning to do that either later on tonight or tomorrow in preparation for the substring quiz on Friday.

I spent a fraction of my time today in class helping my classmates with the assignments. I noticed that most of them had trouble with substring assignment four. Personally, the assignments didn't start to get challenging until I had to switch the cases. I started thinking I had to use case statements, but then I realized that there is actually a simplier way: to control the ASCII codes of each charater outputted.

I am almost finished my substring assignments. I am currently on number 19. Will continue to work on it right now...

By the way, I don't recall adding this, but I understand that some of my classmates are reading my blogs. So, if you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to leave them! I am always looking for ways to improve my blog posts, and I do read my comments. :)