Montgomery's posterous

This is my auxillary blog mostly for pictures and music. Follow me at http://mzzyzx.blogspot.com for other stuff.

Last Real Day of High School

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The last bell of my life rings.  The picture above is an Airbus A321.

In the newspaper that just came out, my "senior commentary" was published.  Here it is reprinted:

Looking back as a senior I am really not sure about the effectiveness of high school in preparing me for college.  All I learned is that people cannot be trusted all the time, and it is up to yourself to provide the motivation to get anything done.

Perhaps that actually is a good lesson I learned while I’m still a teenager.

Over the course of my four years as a high school student, I have lost a few friends, been deceived by people I trusted, and learned that hard work is not always rewarded. 

With regards to hard work, grades and extracurricular activities do not matter that much.  In the eyes of the government, every student is turned into a set of numbers. That is why the STAR test is administered each year, and why students take the SAT and the ACT.  GPAs exist so that one student can be easily compared to another.  These numbers do not define who you are.

I have seen many of my peers act as phonies in an attempt to get a higher set of numbers.  There people have an exemplary skill of filling in bubbles and regurgitating material that is expected of them.  Look at everyone in this school who has a 4.0 GPA or above.  Some of these students have not contributed a single thing to their society or are not particularly talented.

After high school students will be completely responsible for their own actions as adults.  They will have to take care of things like taxes, health care, and food.

Aside from all these negative feelings I had for my experience in high school, I had great experiences as well.  I managed to write a symphony (albeit a short one), which the music department is going to perform for the final concert.  I also had an opportunity to travel to Italy with my freshman English teacher, Janet Headington. 

In the end, high school is what you make of it.  My advice for underclassmen is to not let others say what cannot be done and to not succumb to peer pressure.


And also a few days ago I had a pretty good achievement:

I really am almost ready to say good bye to:

All I am missing now is signing some more yearbooks.  I will have more organized blog posts later.  For now, I must enjoy sleeping while I can.

Thank you for choosing UC Davis!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: UC Davis Undergraduate Admissions <do-not-reply-adm@ad3.ucdavis.edu>
Date: Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 10:55 PM
Subject: Thank you for choosing UC Davis!
To: Myron Lam

Hello Myron,

Congratulations! You have successfully submitted your Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) to UC Davis. We're pleased that you have chosen UC Davis for your undergraduate education, and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Next steps: Please visit http://myadmissions.ucdavis.edu to review and complete your upcoming pre-enrollment tasks. Don't forget to check for upcoming deadlines.

For additional questions about your admission or enrollment, please call (530)
752-3710. For a list of campus contacts, please visit
http://admissions.ucdavis.edu/contact

Again, thank you for choosing UC Davis. And welcome to the UC Davis Aggie family!

Sincerely,

UC Davis Undergraduate Admissions

All Around Hercules

Fine, it wasn't every single part of Hercules, CA. 


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But, as in the map, it's more places than I go to in a typical day, on foot.  That's what happens when classes are more or less canceled for standardized testing that the federal government wants my district to do in return for grant money, otherwise known as the STAR test.  Never the less, there's the story in pictures and a video.

 

From description on Flickr: "Most seniors didn't have to show up today. Those that did had to take a partial AP Lit practice test and/or go to AP Gov review. So here's everyone scrambling to leave after the gate was unlocked."

Walking past Refugio Valley Park.

Subway Sandwich - it's the "limited time" Orchard Chicken.

Typical macro shot of a flower - by City Hall. I tagged along in my friend's interview with the building official regading damages to the private property in the mudslides.  Yes, the flower has nothing to do with the interview.

This the is the fireplace at the library.

One thing I forgot to document is when I was walking backwards along Refugio Valley Road talking about "Hercules High School...college."  I really like how those tour guides can just talk and walk backwards the entire time.  Or well, I remember when I went to UCLA, and that tour guide cheated a few times when she wasn't talking.

I typically would have been lazier and just put a link to the set of pictures I have on flickr.  However, it was a special day so I decided to actually put a little effort into documenting the day.   Just to be specific I finished writing this post 2011-04-27 01:15.  But I will be posting this for 2011-04-26.

 

Spring Break Day 6 - Various Live CDs

I was cleaning up my collection of live CDs of Ubuntu, openSUSE, and other operating systems of which I do not know much about.  They are a good way to spend a weekend downloading the ISO (yes, slow Internet connection, even if it is called "hi-speed DSL" by AT&T), burning the ISO, loading it in the computer, and then playing around with various functions in the live CD.  I even committed to installing Ubuntu 8.04 on my desktop, and Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop when I got a new hard drive.  Let's just say I look forward to Ubuntu 11.04 being released, and I will commit to installing that on my newest computer.

 

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Spring Break Day 5 - Ubuntu 11.04 Beta

(download)
I don't care if I managed to skip the days I was on vacation.  I'll get back to writing about the rest of those days later.

As for yesterday, I was trying out Ubuntu 11.04 beta.  I have to say it looks pretty nice, and there are obvious influences from Windows 7 and Mac OS X.  The entire user interface very much looks like a mobile operating system based on all those apps available in the Ubuntu Software center.

And to just think, not too long ago, I was using Ubuntu 9.10: http://mzzyzx.posterous.com/ubuntu-910-70.>

And also 8.10: http://mzzyzx.posterous.com/ubuntu-810-8.>

Spring Break Day 1 - Monterey

 
I haven't bothered to write blog entries in a long time because they are extremely time consuming.  Likewise, I have yet to put stuff online from previous experiences away from home.
 
As for now, some guy commented on that photo above, on flickr.  When I reviewed this picture, it seemed like a very nicely balanced one.  I figured that summarizes what happened for Saturday, when my family took off from the Bay Area and headed for Monterey.  We also went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but in the end, the nature it still much more beautiful.
 
I'm in Santa Barbara at the moment, and I will be writing a blog post for that...like when I get home.