In which Pearl forgets...again.

Ah!! Gomen nasai, minna-sama! *bows down repeatedly*
I totally forgot about this blog entry... Please forgive me...
My excuse? Er, well, you see... After school I went to Fairview for a reunion with my classmates (it was a failure, though, because barely anyone showed up). Then I had a headache so I went home. I got home at around four-ish and went straight to bed. Now, uh, I...didn't wake up until...11:30 PM, when my mom was getting ready for bed. She told me to go to sleep, so I did. I woke up at...2 PM the next day. So you see...I didn't even go on the computer for the past three days. I guess I was suffering from sleep deprivation. The past week...I barely got a day of sleep.

So, Friday was the last day of school before Winter Break. It was a half day, so classes were only 45 minutes long. Because of this drastically shortened day (and most likely the fact that it's the last day of school), teachers decided to put away the old teaching handbook (I'm guessing here) and have a relaxed class. In my English and Science classes, we had a small party and conversed with each other. In my French class, Mr. Vretranos gave us a little talk (nothing serious) and we got the rest of the period to chat with our friends.

In ICS, Mr. Arkin gave us another work period. Zarin-dono and I worked on the "Window Edge-Tracer" program. I figured out why the rectangle wasn't going to the last row - it was because I hadn't used the dot-dot option after my put CHARACTER statement. And lo and behold! It was fixed and working perfectly!Until...

Mr. Arkin told Zarin that our if statements should be separate. However, when I did that, the rectangle did not go to the corners of the run window. I need to fix that glitch, and I'm planning to do so over the break.

---This next part does not pertain to computer science at all, so you don't have to read it---

I admit it. The pain of staying away from anime, manga and video games has finally caught up to me, and I'm facing withdrawal symptoms. The past week, because I've been working so hard on editing people's essays and doing my own; as well as the homework from other subjects, I didn't get to read one fanfic, one manga, one doujinshi... I didn't get to watch one crime show (other than Hawaii Five-O, and that was on Monday), one anime... I didn't even get to draw, for goodness' sakes! And my DS had been broken since August...August!!! So...I admit to "binging" on these things, as well as sleep for the past three days. *smile*
I believe that the aforementioned factors have also made me quite irritable and grumpy, too.

Nevertheless, I have recovered! Now I'm off to look for an old video game that will work on a PC, so I can cure that video game withdrawal! Oh, and I need to write a Christmas-themed fic as well~ I have a pretty good idea. It's fluff. Fluff for the holidays~
(And Zarin-dono, don't worry, I have a good idea for your Sebby/Ciel fic too~)

Anyways, have a great Winter Break, minna-san~!

Merri Kurisumasu! (Merry Christmas!) Happy Hannukah (though I believe that it has passed)! Happy Diwali! And Happy Holidays!




Image belongs to Owaranai Kiss.
Saber and Fate/Stay Night (c) Type-Moon

 

In which Pearl gets a shock

Aw man, Mr. Arkin is hilarious.
"Some of you used special character entities for characters that are not special!"
Today was a great day.

We got our Printer Comparison marks today. Let's just say (again), I'm extremely happy with mine.

He started the less on by giving us a review on absolute and relative links (which, for me at least, was very much needed). An absolute link starts with a protocol, and can be used on any web page. A relative link does not start with a protocol, and can only be used on web pages that are in the same (root) directory as the file it links to.

An example of an absolute link is http://chibikarin22.deviantart.com/
(This links to my deviantART account.)

An example of a relative link is /EC/ICS2O/assignments/printer_comparison.html
(This tells the computer to start from the root directory and look for a folder called "EC", then look for a subdirectory in that directory called "ICS2O", and so on.)

Then he continued on by telling us about how we should properly write our HTML code. (Like the special character entity problem.)

After he finished his spiel (when I say "spiel", I don't mean for it to offensive, so please don't take it that way!), we went back to our computers and worked on Repetition Assignment 12. Not soon after, the bell rang, and I got a huge shock: I barely got twenty lines down! Grah...

Even after I got home, it took me at least half an hour to finish it. Zarin-dono Zarin-chan even pointed out that I got the GST and PST wrong. Heh. I guess I'm really tired today. And I have to write it out. The code is 104 lines...*cries*

On another note, I still have to finish that poem for the Lit section, write my News and Events article, and finish inking that birthday card for my friend from middle school. That's gonna be easy!

Ahem. Yeah, so until tomorrow, minna-sama!

In which we learn how to add colour to programs

I realize...I'm going to miss five days of school this month. I was already absent for three days, all for X-Country meets. Then on Tuesday next week, I'll be away for Metros (also X-Country) and on Thursday of next week, the Grade 9 science classes will be going to Rouge Valley.
Now that I think about it, there's also a possibility that I'll miss school on November 3rd for Take Your Kids to Work Day.

Oh, and this is completely off-topic, but: in class today, after Zarin told me what happened to her, I realized that my chances of getting hit by a car are higher when I'm sleepy. For example, there was a time when I almost got hit by a car twice in the same day.
I space out when I'm tired.

Going back to the topic of Computer Science...

Today we learnt how to change the text and background colour in the run window, for Turing. There are two keywords we can use: colour, which changes the text colour; and colourback, which changes the run window's background colour. I have yet to experiment with these keywords, but I plan on doing so over the weekend.

We also learnt how to put in special characters. (And this is where ASCII comes in!) There are two keywords that we use: ord, which stands for ordinal; and chr, which stands for character.
For example, if you want to put the capital letter "A", you can write either one of these programs:

#1:
put ord ("A")

#2:
put chr (65)

And...I guess that's it. I've been listening to Canterella by Kaito Shion (one of the Vocaloids - computer-generated voices) for the past hour. I love that song!
I'll shut up before I start fangirling about Kaito.

Ja ne~!

"The first shall be the last"

"The first shall be the last"

That was the quote that Mr. Arkin put up on the board today. Why? Well, I was confused at first, too, but then he explained it to the class. Since today was Grade 9 Day, we were the only class he had the whole day! In other words, we were his first class as well as his last one! (Oh, oh, and did you know that it came from the Bible? I sure didn't!) Ha, well, enough of my rambling. Let's get to what I did today.

Mr. Arkin finally assigned a due date for our Superpower Assignment: Friday.

Ah, it doesn't affect me that much, since I pretty much finished everything a week ago. Now, I'm just putting the finishing touches on it. One thing that Mr. Arkin cleared up today that was incredibly useful for me was how to link to directories "above" the one the file I'm editing is in. (I'm referring to the hierarchical file structure) Nngh...I had forgotten that ".." means "one directory above" (or something along those lines). I feel so stupid...especially because I've used FileZilla pretty much every day, and have seen ".." every time I used it.

I spent most of my time today making sure I used special character entities consistently and appropriately. Then I made sure my spelling and grammar were correct. When I was absolutely positive that it was fine, I checked the marking scheme to see if I missed anything. Unfortunately...I did. Although I am, er, slightly confident that I will get a good mark, I'm missing something. My images aren't visually integrated.

This was a problem before, since when I first tried to do so, the HTML Validator claimed that there was an error in my coding. However, even Mr. Arkin couldn't figure out why, and suggested that I put each image in a paragraph of its own. And...it worked! Now...I'm not sure what to think, or do for that matter.

Other than that...I think I'll be okay. I'm drawing my illustrations at this very moment (literally!) and I'll be replacing the ones I currently have with my own pictures. Ha! Take that, stupid websites who don't indicate whether their image is copyrighted or not! (Oh...I feel sort of pathetic) Heh...anyways, back to work I go!

Studio 218 - What a surprise! (And a good one, at that)

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! I DID IT!
I fixed that horrible problem I had yesterday!
I'm not sure how though. I just reuploaded the file I had backed up my USB.
Ha, sometimes I feel a little stupid...

Anyways, I'm working on centering everything now and (hopefully) making my images visually integrated. I heard that you have to include the source of the image as well, so right now I'm looking for the URLs of the images I used.

He also taught us about "special character entities". Apparently...we're supposed to use those. So, instead of just typing in the straight double quotes ("), we have to put in the code (“ or ”). Not that I mind, but it will get kind of tedious if I have to go over my whole super-power assignment...replacing all of them...
Nevertheless, I find them pretty cool. I never knew that there was a difference - I didn't really have a reason to notice!

Oh, before I forget! Today was awesome! Mr. Arkin told us that every friday from now on, our classroom is transformed into "Studio 218". What does that mean, you ask? Well, we get to do our work while listening to music! I could feel the smile grow on my face as he continued explaining this. Today, Mr. Arkin was the DJ, but next week it will be one of the students! The only rules are that the music must be legal and non-offensive to anyone in any way.
If I had my way, though, I would make a playlist containing only japanese music (even some from anime!). Unfortunately...I don't think my classmates would like that.
However, there's a page for Studio 218 (especially for my class!) on our Wikispaces page. I'm checking that out right now! Hmm...it seems that there are three options: have two DJs per week, have the class create their own playlist, or let Mr. Arkin be the DJ. Personally, I prefer option two. But...I wonder if my classmates would consent to music in other languages?

My goals for this weekend is to finish re-editing my Super-power assignment (on top of my other homework) and catch up on reading Mr. Arkin's blog.

Ah...I can't wait until next Friday!