Of Mindstorms and Headaches

Howdy, y'all! Don't be fooled by my deceptive burst of energy. I am feeling very groggy right now. My head pounds as if someone is beating on it like a drum. 

I see I'm not the only one.

Due to getting home so late, I was up until almost 2 am yesterday working on the Mosaic project! Not to mention getting up at 6:30 am for a nice hot shower. I'm a morning person, but four hours and thirty minutes of sleep just does not cut it. I felt like I was going to fall asleep any time all day, but thankfully, my geography teacher kindly let me take a nap during silent reading. At least, she didn't complain when I did.

It must of been the deadly combination of little sleep and the Tylenols I've been taking as painkillers, because I was really frustrated in CS today. We had another period to work on the culminating activity part 1 (CAP1), which I was having a bit of trouble with previously.

I had chosen the topic of Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0, a robot kit. All was going well, because I had already written my article, edited it a few times, and come up with what I had thought would be the final copy. Turns out, I had completely forgotten about the length limit, which is at most a single printed ledger-sized sheet.

I then embarked on a treacherous and depressing journey that ended up with my cutting my 680-word article to a 446-word article. I learned many lessons along the way, including how to stick to the point, and not to include too many details. Using friends, my parents, my brother, and PaperRater, I thoroughly inspected various factors such as grammar and plagiarism. 

If you feel like it, take a look at the finished product! It fits exactly onto one ledger sized page, but I may create a special print version with better formatting later.

I'm pretty pleased with it, so I hope Mr. Arkin feels the same way. I really hope I do well on it, because I've always wanted to say, "Remember kids, hard work pays off." It's so annoying to be told that, so I've always wanted to try saying to somebody. ;)

Well, time to get working on my music culminating activity. For those who aren't finished their Mosaic projects yet, don't give up, and good luck!

A tired but content Hopping Grass

P.S. The link above talks about an interesting webpage.