In which Pearl starts to feel the pressure

Kon'ichiwa, minna-san.

I came home this afternoon to find my mom lying on the couch, reading newspapers. What a scare. I had completely forgotten that she said she might take a day off because of the excessive amount of snow.

Which reminds me. This morning I was fifteen minutes late because of the traffic jam on Victoria Park caused by the snowstorm last night/this morning. It took...forty-five minutes to get to school by car; whereas on a normal day, if I left at the same time, it would only take twenty to twenty-five minutes. The funny thing is, I got there a few minutes after my teacher, Ms. Fisher. And I wasn't even the last one to get to school in my class.

I didn't really have a great day. I only got six hours of sleep (which, strangely enough, is actually more than I usually get these days) and spent three quarters of an hour in the morning in traffic, so...please excuse my irritability. I almost forgot that I hadn't already attended ICS earlier, and mistook my Period D class (French) as the last class of the day. Imagine my surprise when I didn't see anyone else at their lockers.

ICS seems to get shorter and shorter. I don't feel like I'm getting a sufficient amount of work done. Nevertheless, last night I typed up the good copy of the About the Authors page and helped Lisa finish part of Test One. I have also been asked to edit half of the Glossary terms (the definitions) and edit the If Statements Lesson. I still have to complete a few more flow charts.

Suddenly, I feel like a world of work has been piled on me.

I want to do as much ICS as I can tonight, but I have to allow time to practice for my English CA. My group is presenting tomorrow; and I don't want to be the one to bring our marks down. So I have decided to finish my Science first (as it's due tomorrow), then work on ICS until eight- or nine-ish, and finally, spend a few hours practicing my lines for English.
Hopefully I stick to this schedule.

Wish me luck, minna-san!

---

Current Music: Meltdown - Len Kagamine & Kaito Shion

In which Pearl regains her pep

Konbanwa, minna-sama!
Hm. "Pep" is a bit outdated, isn't it? Oh well. Anyways, as the titles suggests, I was actually alive today! It's strange, though, because I only got four hours of sleep last night/this morning. (But hey! I got the last hour of sleep after I finished my French test second period!)

Today I got my "Follow the Bounce" code fixed (thanks to Nicole), and completed my "Window Edge-Tracer" code. I need to fix a small glitch on the latter, but otherwise I'm done!

That....is all I have to say. I'm in the middle of editing a friend's essay right now, so I'm keeping this short.

Tomorrow is the last day of school before winter break! Ha...I can finally catch up on my sleep...

In which we achieve our goal!

Konbanwa, minna-san~
I think I was still "drunk" from International Night this morning. Heh, not even. I was "drunk" the entire day. I'm going to sneak in a fangirl moment here and say "Oh my God, the Korean groups were so awesome!!!" (Y'know, I'd replace "awesome" with another word [that starts with "h" *wink*] but it's probably not a good idea to say that here.) Ha, now I have renewed respect for Asian boy bands. *cue fangirl squeal* The song's still stuck in my head: Again and again and again and again...

On the other hand, I'm exhausted. After I got home and ate dinner (yes, I get home almost right before dinnertime) I went to sleep. I woke up at 9:30 PM, mentally kicking myself for not writing my blog first. Then again, the minute I go on the computer I won't be able to get off of it for a while. So, yep, that's why I'm doing it now.

*cough cough* Anyways!
Today was the last day we had to review programming in our groups. As I mentioned in the blog title, I think we achieved our goal. My group went over all the Programming Concepts noted on the handout Mr. Arkin gave us quite a while ago. I made sure I understood everything there, and if there was anyone who needed something to be explained to them, I tried to help. (Hopefully they understood after my efforts!)

I love helping others. *smile* I want to be an elementary school teacher, so it's actually helping me prepare for the "challenge" as well.

On another note, I need to start preparing for exams and culminating. Over the break, I plan on taking all my binders home and creating study guides for each one of my subjects, especially Science. Hah... That's what made me "sober". Mr. Pourkhatai returned out Ecology tests today after school, and I got a...horrible mark that will undoubtedly bring down my average.

Dakedo...oyasumi, minna-san!

---

Translation: So...good night, everyone!

P.S. For anyone that's interested, there's a Japanese boy band called NewS (also, NEWS, News) that's actually good. Sorry, I used to hate boy bands in general because they sang about...fickle concepts. Like love. (Dear God, I must sound morbid now.) But yeah, they sang for the seventh One Piece movie. It's called "Sayaendo". The translation's cute.

In which we learn about procedures

Konbanwa, minna-san!
I...get obsessed with different series very easily. Sometimes my love for a certain series dies out. (For example, I used to adore Hot Gimmick, but now it's...meh. It's not like I don't love it anymore (I mean - who can resist Ryoki-sama? *wink/fangirl squeal*), but it's just not as important to me.) But at other times, I will continue to love that series forever and ever... Like Inuyasha. I started watching it, what, six...years ago? I still adore it. And FullMetal Alchemist, which I started watching at around the same time. Of course, I absolutely cannot forget Detective Conan/Case Closed~! I'm a huge mystery/detective fan, so I love this one. Right now, I love Durarara!! It has a really unique/amazing/epic/addictive storyline and even more unique/amazing/epic/addictive characters. I don't want to stop loving it...



From left: Izaya Orihara, Anri Sonohara, Mikado Ryuugamine, Masomi Kida, Shinra Kishitani, Shizuo Heiwajima. The figure in the moon is Celty Sturlson, a dullhan.
Durarara!! (c) Ryohgo Narita

 Ah, but these are simply the ramblings of a crazy fangirl/writer. To get back on topic...

According to my Programming Glossary, a procedure is a subprogram that performs a defined task. It is very similar to a function. However, a procedure does not have a result (because it's not returning a value) and it can have zero or more arguments. An example of a procedure with zero arguments looks like this:

procedure sayHello
     put "Hello!"
end sayHello

sayHello

This code outputs "Hello!"
However, you can "upgrade" it, using an argument. This code will output "Hello, Shizu-chan!"

procedure greetUser (greeting : string, userName : string)
     put greeting + ", " + userName + "!"
end greetUser

greetUser ("Hello", "Shizu-chan")

Simple, ne? *smile*
Of course, if this was Izaya-kun speaking, Shizu-chan would say: "Get out of Ikebukuro!!!"
D'awws, we love you, Shizu-chan~

You can also ask the user to give you the greeting and name. However, then you must make greeting and userName variables (within the procedure, if that makes sense).

procedure greetUser (var greeting : string, var userName : string)
     put greeting + ", " + userName + "!"
end greetUser

var greeting : string
var userName : string

put "Greeting? " ..
get greeting : *

put "Name? " ..
get userName

greetUser (greeting, userName)

Got it? *smiles again*

Well, I hope that explanation was plausible. I'm generally horrible at explanations (and you wonder how I'll ever become a teacher).

Anyways, after we were taught how to create a procedure, we evaluated ourselves on our understanding of programming. Then we got into groups based on our evaluation. By Friday, Mr. Arkin wants us to fully understand all the concepts of programming! With a bit of work, I'm sure we can do it~!

Ganbatte, minna-san~!

In which we learn about functions

Konbanwa, minna-san~!
I'm so tired... Luckily, I don't have a lot of homework tonight. I'm going to draw: something I haven't done in a long time. I need to improve my skills. See, one day, I want to draw a manga. Nothing too long - it'll be a oneshot. I already have a few ideas floating around in my head, but I don't want to get into them here...

So, as the title of this blog post mentions, we learnt about functions today. If you take a look at my Programming Glossary, you'll see that the definition of a function is "a subprogram which returns a value". The actual structure of a function is actually quite simple. Take this for example:

function sum (integer1 : int, integer2 : int) : int
     result integer1 + integer2
end sum

put sum (1, 2)

The program above will output the sum of 1 and 2, which is 3.

It is basically saying that sum will return the sum of two integers. integer1 and integer2 are parameters, and the : ints mean that those two parameters will hold integers. Parameters only exist locally, which means that they only exist inside the function body.

The last : int means that the datatype that sum returns must be an integer.
All function bodies must have at least one statement: the result statement.

Personally, I'm still a little confused about all this, but I'm sure I'll understand with time. I'm not a very fast learner, but with trials and tribulations (ha, did anyone catch the Phoenix Wright reference I made there? *wink*) I manage to "get" the concept with time.

For homework, I have to figure out how the nextConsonant function should look like, and modify some substring assignments so they have functions in them. Derr.

On an ending note (and no, this has absolutely nothing to do with computer science, but I really want to say this)...
If you haven't heard "Every Time You Kissed Me" by Emily Bindiger, go listen to it now!!! It's from an anime called Pandora Hearts, and it's a very pretty song. I happened to stumble on it by accident, when I found a piano instrumental cover for another song on YouTube. I went to the uploader's channel, and he decided to take a look at this song.
One day, I'd like to do a cover for this song...

Anyways!
Oyasumi, to mata ashita, minna-sama!

---

Translation:
Good night, and see you tomorrow, everyone!