Washington is the beastliest state in the US. I have visited or lived in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Hawaii, and Florida.
Which, if I'm not wrong on, is 15 states. Over Spring Break, I'm going on a trip to the East Coast, which I've never been to (You may have noticed these are mostly Western states).
But I don't imagie it's better that Washington.
Why is Washington so great?
Several things.

Today, I went to State, for Mathcounts.

We went to the Microsoft campus in Seattle, where the competition was being held. It was pretty damn cool.
There were probably 200 people there.

It was HARDHARDHARD. At the School Competition, I got 2nd. At Regionals, I got 4th place. At State, I got a lofty 96th. Well, still, I guess it's State.
They start with the Sprint round, 30 problems in 40 minutes. 1 point a problem. They start out easy. Then they get harder.
If this website had a square root symbol, I could demonstrate, but it doesn't. Those problems were RADICAL! :D

So, this weekend, I'm going to both state for Math Counts, and Sectionals for Swimming.
In a few weeks, I have the Seattle Spelling Bee to go to.

Sectionals is 6 states. The Mathcounts thing is obvioiusly just 1. The spelling bee is for the whole Puget Sound. PNS champs, which I've already been to, covers all of Washington.

I know that the moment that going to some state competition loses it's sense of novelty, I have obviously broken some kind of talent barrier.

Well, I haven't gone to any National competitions yet.

"Bang Bang, Maxwell's Silver Hammer came down, upon his head!
Bang Bang, Maxwell's Silver Hammer made sure that he was dead!"
- The Beatles

That has a point. I had a HORRID migraine the whole day today. Still have it. In 1st period, I felt compelled to say "Aggggg. I've just been crushed by Maxwell's Silver Hammer!"

Anyway, my parents are gone. They left to go to Orlando for a meeting at my dad's company. Me and my brother have the house to ourselves for today, tommorow, and almost all of Saturday. They come back late at night.

My swim coach, Patty, cares a lot about what us swimmers do.
She doesn't MAKE us do stuff at home, I guess, but she wants us to.
She wants us to eat right, and do dryland.

For example, we were at a a three day swim meet, and it was after the day's events, so we had retired to the hotel. Most of the swim team, including me, decided to go to Safeway.
I bought a HUGE carton of goldfish crackers.
Then, we went back to one of the coaches rooms, named Lee. We played cards, and then we decided to use my goldfish crackers as betting chips.

and the groin of the face!

Anyway...
What job would you least like to have, and most like to have?

Hmmmmmmmm...
My mom has a degree in chemical engineering, and had a job with the government for a while. Something like that would be the job I'd most like to have.

And least favorite job?
Gynecologist. Definitely. If some of you don't know what that is, it's the vagina doctor. A doctor that specializes in women. Ewwwwwwww....

I generally define myself as gay, and I have for a while. It's a little too convenient though.
It's that I'm never attracted to girls BECAUSE they're girls.

There is a girl at school, the only one I ever asked out, a few years ago. Her name is Hannah. She was my first of three girlfriends. I can definitely see why I asked her out. She is just so amazing in her own little way, and would probably be one of the most popular girls, if anyone cared to notice her, or she cared to give herself special attention.

Well, in case you didn't notice, my computer was taken away again. I left another empty yogurt cup in my room. They gave my laptop back on Thursday, with no Internet, so I could write a report. Now they've reconnected the Internet. Now all I need is my desktop computer so I can play Civilization III (All my Civ files are on there!)

But that's not what's unfair.

For one of our classes, we have recently been studying the holocaust. Most of this stuff we're looking at is about tolerance and change. One of the things our teacher wants us to do is enter this contest set by the Washington State Holocaust Center.
It's either an essay or some art project. You can do either. It's supposed to be about "how can we build a more tolerant world, and how will this affect us?".
I have a few ideas I might write about...

According to my swim coach, I have a Sectionals time and I didn't even know it. It wasn't in the 50 free, so I don't know.
I'd suspect either the 200 IM or the 100 fly is the culprit.
It doesn't seem possible. I guess I could squeek by...
I hope this isn't some kind of a mistake. Well, she sent out an email to the entire swim team, saying Blake, Nicole, and CHAD are going to sectionals. That would be one hell of a far reaching mistake.
I guess this shows one must not be too sure of things. I thought for sure that if I would make it it would be in the 50 free. I guess not.

Sometimes, I'm happy for no reason. Or sad.

Probably a majority of the time, I view the world in a positive light. When I look at my life, I see good things, and hope.

Sometimes, and I look at the world in a negative light, sometimes for no reason at all. When I look at my life and the world in general, I don't see hope. I see all my inadequacies, and how sometimes you give your hardest, and you do everything you were supposed to, and things just get worse.

Well, the meet was pretty cool this weekend.
I'm not dropping time like I hoped though. On most of my swims, I added time.
There are two reasons for this. One, I'm on a wall, which is a period of a few months where I just make no progress at all. It happens.
Two, I'm working on new techniques. I've always been bad at technique, and this meet was my best ever for technique. When you change technique, you slow down for a little while.

During the past few days, I have had a lot of time to think. That’s been my main activity since Sunday. Most of my thoughts have been about swimming. If anyone cares to hear them, here they are, my thoughts about swimming.
But first, I really must give you something. A list of all the meets and times in ascending order. I’ll be talking about these.
Bronze times.
Silver times.
Gold times.
PNS champs times.
Age Group Sectionals times.
Zones times.
Senior Sectionals times.
Junior Nationals times.
Summer junior nationals.
Senior Nationals.
Summer nationals.

So, I hope that at least someone notices that I mysteriously disappeared Sunday. I shall attempt to explain in the shortest way possible.
On Sunday, I was at a swim meet in the morning.
But then, I began to get hungry. I called my dad to ask him if he could get me something to eat. But he wasn't actually at the meet. I asked if he could drive over.
Then, something happened I didn't expect. He started YELLING and SCREAMING. I imagine the whole house shook. I'd left an empty yogurt cup in my room.

I did something today I've never done before, actually been turned to tears at a television show. I was continuing to watch the final season of 6 feet under. Great show.

There's this old guy in the show, married to one of the characters, but he was emotionally unstable, and then they show you a lot of the reason why.
It shows him, maybe 6, sitting in a kitchen, fairly dirty house.
His mom kept him home from school, and he asks her why. She just said she wanted him there with her.