Omar Abu

Noam Chomsky, a renowned Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is, among many things, a linguist, political activist, and author. He is so highly regarded that students wish to study linguistics at MIT just because of him. While he is supposedly retired, he still hangs around MIT giving lectures and interacting with students. In fact, just recently he gave a lecture entitled "Rights and Responsobilities: The University Connection" at MIT as part of the Amnesty International's lecture series. Some of his notable contributions to society include generative grammar and the cognitive theory of Psychology. 

In the past week, this website has had a record five people on at one time!! Amazing stuff for such a young and sprouting blogger. I almost see the future, a future of hundreds of visits, many comments, and... ice cream. Anyway, the main reason I am doing this post is because of a imminent coming of a momentous event for this blog.  If you glance to the right of the homepage of this blog, you would see a small, yet important, counter. At the moment, it reads 95. Now for those math geeks out there, if you would take out your calculator and chug and plug, I believe you would conclude that I need 5 more visits to reach 100 (100-95 = 5). Only five more visits and my site will be rolling in the triple digits! Who knows with the help of you readers, I am sure we can make this happen today!!! So visit, visit, and when you are done, visit some more.

In about two hours, I will be leaning over a tiny desk and staring at tiny sheet of paper with five math problems, and they are not of the kind 2x + 3 = 5. If you have ever taken the AMC, then you would know exactly what I am talking about because this is my state's version of it. To be accurate, this part that I'll be taking today resembles the AIME, while the first part that I passed with somewhat flying colors a while back resembles the AMC. Regardless, these are going to be some tough math problems that make you think hard about why you are here in the first place. Despite achieving my school's high score on the previous exam, I really do not have the mathwiz mindset for these sort of exams, especially compared to those math savants, who will undoubtedly find this exam easy. For me, though, and most others, I guess we'll just have to eat our Wheaties and hope that with some luck, there'll be some easy problems like last year. And for those who are skeptical about what I HAVE TO SAY, then click here for some previous tests and see for yourself just how craaaazy some of the questions are.

It's that time again. That time of magic, that time of wonder. That time when you become amazed by what I have to say and worship me. That time of hope, a time that opens a window to the future. Yes, it's that time again.

The research front is fraught with discoveries this week, but one in particular intrigues me and allows me to see past the silly notion of cars running on water or electricity. Because, like, come on...ALGAE is the next big thing!!! 

For the past few hours, the internet has been really aggravating my friend and me. I HATE YOU INTERNET!!! My friend and I have been working on our latest issue of our school's literary magazine and as such, we take turns editing and working on it. So what does that mean? It means were are brutally forced to use the internet by means of email to exchange our spread files. Are you still wondering what this means??? It means I HATE THE INTERNET!!!

Ok so the file we are working on has reached 56 mb since it is a magazine spread after all. Obviously email services refuse to handle this (because of the internet and how it works) so we must compress and split the file and send multiple emails. Having to do this is not too demanding, but it is annoying nonetheless. This system of compressing and splitting has worked for the past day, but now it has failed... failed I say! My friend has the latest revision and has been for the past few hours attempting to send it to me. He did so this morning in three emails, each with a 10 mb segment of the file. Parts 2 and 3 worked fine. What happened to part 1?? The INTERNET ATE IT (figuratively I mean)!!!

I cannot fathom how this happened but yahoo flagged the file as having a virus!! Parts 2 and 3 were fine, but part 1 had a virus. How does that make sense?? Anyone??? Yahoo, being the control freak it is, proceeded on to tell me that it was in my best interest to not download it. You would think that after saying something like that it would then give you the option to download it, but as I just stated, Yahoo is a control freak. Once the file is flagged, it is imprisoned in the lonely dungeons within Yahoo, never to see the light of day again. From there things pretty much went downhill.

From that point on, we have not been able to exchange emails properly. My friend's internet has begun randomly coming in and out and refused to send any emails to me with the attached files. Either he finds himself with an annoying error message or the email never finds its way to my cozy inbox. So basically for the past few hours we have been attempting to find ways to send the attached files. We have unearthed old emails and tried file uploading sites, but it is as if the internet has cursed our blessed file and it is never to touch the internet again. I HATE YOU INTERNET!!!

Still, as I write, we have been unsuccessful in sending this file. The worst part is the tight deadline. The printshop will most likely have no staff next week as it is part of our local university, which has finals next week and is then on break. As a result, it is now or nothing and because of the internet, it will be nothing!

The internet just makes me want to through my laptop against the wall. But what good would that do? The internet would then owe me 3000 dollars. And we all know it won't pay up, right?

Every year, my high schools holds special functions for its seniors. The latest one of these events, known deceptively as the "Senior Tea," finished just a few hours ago. This event is so old that tea is not even served here any more, something I was extremely disappointed to learn about. Because it was served here many, many years ago, however, when the event was in its blooming years, the name has stuck and has come to anger a whole class of students every year.

Despite the lack of tea, this event serves to give us students a chance to recognize the most influential person in our education. I chose my research mentor, someone who I greatly admire and who has taught me the value of research. He is responsible for making me even more interested in my potential career path and will always have a special place in my heart.

Anyway, the event was awesome, especially because of the delicious food present. Being the great photographer I am, I snapped some pictures of the food - and some random people.

I've been scrambling the past few days trying to improve my performances on some pieces I have to play for a recital in two weeks. I guess my piano teacher wasn't too happy with me when I made the exact same mistake two weeks in a row because I didn't use a metronome (whoops :D). Anyway, I think I've practiced enough now so that just maybe I won't get yelled out =). Now, if only my duet partner would call me. I don't have her number and she has yet to call me. We haven't practiced at all! At least my teacher can't yell at me for that!

As I'm sure you're dying to know, I'm playing Chopin's "Waltz in B minor," Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," and Brahm's "Hungarian Dance no. 5," which are all great pieces in my opinion. I've been watching performances of the Hungarian Dance online and I came across this one in particular that I just wanted to show to everybody below. I just liked the feel of the entire video (you'll see what I'm talking about). So, anyone care to discuss what their favorite music pieces are or describe funny recital mishaps? Just leave some comments!