Hiatus

Well I have a very busy summer schedule, and probably won't be able to post anything for... eh, about five weeks. Busy summer! For the time being, about everything is on hiatus for a while, until after I get back on track with life and everything.


Love you all!

How to Build a 1:20 Scale Model of the Doctor's TARDIS: Phase 1

Yes, you read that right. I am going to attempt to make a miniature TARDIS. I imagine it will take a bit of work, but it will be awesome!

Today, I completed Phase 1: Math.

I decided to make my TARDIS 1:20 scale, because I wanted it to be 6 inches tall. That meant that a TARDIS that is 10 feet tall is equal to a TARDIS that is 6 inches tall when you divide it by 1/20, or .05.

I found a picture of a TARDIS with the height next to it. It was probably in meters, but I decided that It was in feet. I'm not good with the metric system. I calculated that one foot was equivalent to approximately 18 pixels, so I set up two basic formulas:

(p/18)12=f, where p is the number of pixels in a particular measurement and f is the inches the full scale TARDIS measurement is.

  f           i   
  1   =   .05, where f is the value we got from the last formula and i is the inches the scale measurement should be.

That's basically what I did for each measurement. If you want all of the measurements, here they are!

FINGERS ON LIPS!

This is one of my favorite scenes in Doctor Who yet. I've started to wonder if this attempt to watch various sci-fi TV shows this summer has turned into an obsession...

Yes, yes it has.

I've been watching for around four days, and finished a whole season in one day... For the past two nights I've stayed up until... oh, around 4 AM watching Doctor Who and talking about it with my friend Katie. Bahaha I love her to death, I don't know of anyone else that would stay up watching Doctor Who until almost morning. (Well, except for me, of course)

It's gotten to the point where all of my thoughts are in a British accent... That's loads of fun! It's great, my mental British accent is magnificent, but my real one is awful. I also keep thinking about what I would do if I had my very own TARDIS... That would be fantastic!

I was really sad at the end of season two... If you haven't seen it or you don't want it spoiled...

SPOILER ALERT!

Well.. Now that that's done, lets get to the good stuff. I loved Rose! She had been traveling with the doctor for two seasons. She can't just go and figuratively die! It was at least a clever way to write her off. When the Eccleston doctor regenerated into the Tennant doctor, I was a little disappointed, but now I love Tennant!

Well that was a fun little rant. Off to-- you guessed it-- watch Doctor Who. :D

Tired...

Last night, I stayed up until about 4:00 AM watching Doctor Who. It's late now, so this is going to be all for tonight.

Greenroll'd

I love my friends. We came up with this new idea called Greenrolling.

It's like Rickrolling, where you give someone the link the Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" unsuspectedly. It's one of the most popular ways to troll.

Basically my friend Carl made a bunch of green photos and put them on Facebook. It was for a video he's making. I went and tagged him in all of those pictures, so the default pictures on his profile were all green. Then his brother Christian did the same thing to me, so then all of MY default pictures were green, and thus Greenrolling was born. Have fun with it!

The Open Door: Day 4

I had a good day. I went to my brother's 8th grade dance. It was fun! I decided that tonight I'm going to write something short, since it's already 9:30...

I have a summer project. I am going to watch as many sci-fi TV series' and movies as I can. I'm starting with Doctor Who, and I'm probably going to watch Stargate next. If you have any suggestions as to what I should watch, let me know!

The Open Door: Day 3

Hm... day three!


I didn't really do anything today other than sleep in, so I don't exactly have anything to write about. I posted on Facebook to give me suggestions, and my friends Addy and Olivia suggested pie. I was never told what exactly about pie, so I guess I'll have to include everything.
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Pie: A History

Pie is a baked dish, usually composed of a crust and a filling. The crust can either be more of a shell, where pie has an open face exposing the filling, or in can completely encase the filling. The filling can be... well, anything you want to put in a convenient pastry. Pies can be either sweet (for desert) or savory (as an entrée, appetizer  side, basically anything else) and can be made in sizes anywhere from big pies with multiple servings  to one-bite pies.

It is believed that the ancient Greeks are the origin of pie pastry. They used a flour paste (basically flour mix with fat, the most simple form of a pastry) to encase meats to seal in juices, help in the cooking process, and it was much easier for soldiers to carry at sea. 

In Europe, meat pies are much more common than in the United States. They are almost like the European version of fast food, because they are very convenient. However, the United States is known for their pot pies with flaky crusts and creamy meat fillings. Fruit pies in America are often served à la Mode, meaning they are served with a scoop of ice cream. It is also common to put excessively large amounts of whipped cream (or Cool Whip, which is common with pumpkin pie) on top of pie.

In popular culture, cream pies are often used as props and are thrown into people's faces. The term for throwing a pie in someone's face is called pieing. 

_________________________________________________________________________

Unless Addy made a typo, I believe this short essay will do nicely. If, in fact, she did mean pi, here's another essay.

_________________________________________________________________________

π

Some people are like pi. They're simply irrational.

Pi is a mathematical constant, representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its 

diameter. It is a never ending decimal, and it never repeats.

For more information, please click here.

_________________________________________________________________________

I would write more, but the Wikipedia page on Pi is longer than the page about life. That's a liiiitle sad.

Addy and Olivia, I hope this was satisfactory.

The Open Door: Day 2

Why hello there, internet peoples!

Today was a good great AMAZING day. I took my foods exam (EASY!) went to the pool with some friends, and I've basically been doing nothing since. I have over two months to do whatever I want. YES! I really just want to have an epic dance party. This feels awesome, to not have to worry about ANYTHING for TWO MONTHS!!!! *flails like a crazed muppet* It's great doing actual school and stuff, but this summer is going to rock.

One thing I'm doing this summer is going on Footprints. Footprints is basically a week long hiking trip along the Appalachian Trail (AT) with girl scouts. I went in 2009, but I ended up falling a spraining my wrist. Again, in 2010 I was supposed to go, but that whole spine fiasco took place. I FINALLY get to go!! I love hiking. It really is a good experience. I love going places where most people can't say they've been to. Tops of mountains are also great places to take pictures!

Another thing I'm doing is going to the beach. I really just want to do and do absolutely nothing. We usually spend a week in the outer banks, but we couldn't do it this year because of school schedules. But we're gonna go deep sea fishing, go to a bunch of awesome restaurants, and just do nothing!

An ongoing thing that I'm doing this summer is selling cakes. I like baking, so I decided to make it a summer job.

My friend Carl who's on Team PyroTech with me likes video editing. He showed me this contest where you have to make a short video about duct tape. We decided that we're going to team up and make an epic video and win the $5,000 grand prize!!!

I love life. Isn't that nice? I think I'm going to go find someone to hug now. Bye!!!

The Glass Door: Version 2.0 - The Open Door: Day 1

If you are reading this, chances are that you have read my blog before. Assuming you have read this blog before, you probably have not even thought about this blog for about five or six months. The reason you have not thought about this blog for five or six months is probably because I haven't posted on this blog for five or six months. I am about to tell you why.

Hello, my name is Megan, and in the past six months, I have completely changed as a person.

Even though I may not have known it, I have always wanted to be an aerospace engineer. It's a dream that I've been pursuing my whole entire life, not even being aware of it half of the time. I had the grades, the attitude, the ambition, until I hit a small bump in the road.

It all started around January or February of this year. The new semester had started, the FRC build season had been kicked off, my back was starting to feel a heck of a lot better, and life was good. Really, really good. 

Classes were going smooth. I liked all of my teachers. (or could at least tolerate all of them...) I was doing the work, turning in my assignments, usually with little effort involved. That's usually how it's gone with me. I've never really had all that much trouble in school. 

I was having so much fun with robots, it basically took over my life. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it was in some cases. During the first quarter, I would say to myself "Well, I have an A in the class right now. Missing one homework assignment wouldn't hurt..." and boy was I wrong. I just stopped doing work. My grades were slipping. I became really stressed and not my normal self at all. My teachers were getting mad at me, my parents were getting mad at me, but most of all, I was getting mad at me. 

Regionals happened. Probably the greatest experience I have ever had in my entire life. Our robot, Team PyroTech's robot, the robot that 12 dedicated students put all their time and effort into (for the first time even!) was going to compete. We all had it in our minds that as rookies, we would place low and just have the event be a learning experience. After the first day of tinkering, testing, and practice matches, we still had that idea. But after the first day of actual matches, we all realized that we had a shot. This thing that we had all created, together, was amazing. It had brought us far, in the competition, in outreach, and in our team. This 'thing' I'm referring to is not the robot at all, but the bond that we created, the family that we built, in such a short time, to create Team PyroTech. In this period of time, we managed to meet, build a robot, and become a family .At the awards ceremony, we won the Rookie All-Star award. That meant that we basically were the best rookie team there. It meant that we showed effort, enthusiasm, and most importantly, gracious professionalism. That was the absolute best feeling ever. It also meant that we had a spot at the FRC World Championships. Let me say that again-- WORLD. CHAMPIONSHIPS. Very few teams had the honor of going, and a tiny team from rural North Carolina, got to go. 

During the short three days of the competition, I realized that the dream I was pursuing, to be an aerospace engineer, wasn't going to happen if I didn't step it up. 

About a week passed, and I was doing better in school, but not great. I was still missing assignments in some classes, and grades weren't up by much. But still, my parents were kind enough to let me go to St. Louis for Worlds. 

You know that thing about the regional being the greatest experience in my entire life? Scratch that. Worlds was amazing. It litterally changed my life. Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST (and the inventor of the Segway! :D) was there. Woodie Flowers, the co-founder of FIRST was there. Will Smith was there. Morgan Freeman was there. The Black Eyed Peas were there. Yes, THE Black Eyed Peas. (I did have fun stalking Will.I.Am xD) Seeing all the famous people was fun and all, but that's not the point.

Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers are the kind of people who make you feel like you can do anything if you listen to them talk for five minutes. When I heard their speeches about being the future of tomorrow, I knew that I really had to kick it up a notch.

In that short period of time that I had with my team, I learned more about life than I had... ever.

I came back wanting to kick it up a notch, and that's exactly what I did. I brought my algebra grade up from a high D to a high C (literally about two tenths of a point away from a B...) my programming grade up from a D to a B, and my biology grade up from a C to an A. For the last ten days of school, I spent two to three hours at a math tutor so I could get my grades up. I stayed for after school help, and that did the trick. 

I've been thinking about the title of this blog lately. "The Glass Door." I like it. But stating that there's a door implies that you cannot enter. From now on, this door will be open, to all and to anyone.

Being on that robotics team has really changed my life for the better. Every time I think about the experience that I had, I just feel like hugging every one of my team members. I truly cannot express the love I have for that team. Next season will be even better. To all of my family, I love you, for... well... basically everything. My friends, the same. To all members of Team PyroTech, expect a giant bear hug from me next time I see you. For now, I have to sit back, relax, and enjoy my summer. After that, tenth grade, here I come.

Day 21

*doesnt have time to poat or use spell chexker or proper grammaer*

Ohaithere... I dont have time to post or use spell checker or propper grammer. Good nifht. :3

Day20

I'll explain later.....

Day 20

*post*

Day 19

I've had another fun weekend! But I don't have time to type. I've made a new schedule for my day. I will get home from school around three, go for a walk ASAP and get back around four, do my homework and as soon as I finish that, I'll write a blog post. Then, I'll go to my Pyrotech meeting, take a shower, and go to bed. I think it sounds like a good plan!

I have one more thing to say: Fergie ruined Sweet Child of Mine.

Day 18

Today was fun! I made bumpers for a robot. It was very difficult but fun. Now, I'm just jammin' out to some Rhett and Link music!  I should be in bed, but I don't really feel like going to sleep... Oh well... Well I am getting tired, good night!

Day 17

I'm sorry for the short post last night. I've had some short ones, but that was one stinking word... I've had a busy week. I'll to a long post tomorrow, I'm going to bed...

Day 16

*post*

Day 15

Over two weeks! Yay! :D Ugh... short post D: 


Today was kind of fun. All of biology class was spent blowing bubbles. Mine was almost 30 cm. in diameter! 


I've been posting almost nothing for quite a while... By the time I go to write stuff, I have to go to bed... Which would be now actually..... Goodnight :P

Day 14

Well I originally started to write this in Programming again, but the bell rang. I'm at the hospital now, getting a checkup after my surgery. This should be fun... I know I have to get x-rays, and we're probably going to do some exams and stuff like that.

Day 13

I'm at school again. I've already done all my work... I guess this gives me the opportunity to blog. :)

-Back Story Back Story: Part Three-

First, I'll start off by saying something that actually happened before all the back pain. My friend Taylor had scoliosis, and had to get rods in her spine. I went to visit her in the hospital a couple days after her surgery. Her mom showed us the x-rays and we were shocked how much straighter her spine was. Now before I go on, let me point out that Taylor is the tallest person I know. Before the surgery, she was 5'8". I was 5 foot even. Immediately after the surgery, she had 'grown' two inches. She didn't actually grow, her spine was just so curved that it was making her almost shrink. When I saw her in the hospital, I jokingly said to her, "I wish I could have some growth-increasing surgery!" If this isn't ironic, there is obviously some small monkey in your ear giving you a false definition of the word.

So anyway, back to lets say... July. I was very stressed out and worried about everything. I just remembered, it was July that I found out about my back, not June. It's funny, when I'm stressed, I bake. Remember, stressed spelled backwards is desserts! :)

So I was pretty much doing the same thing from August to December. Those last few days of school were kinda stressful, but I had some friends come visit me the night before I went to the hospital. My friend Lauren, who I've known for almost ten years, spent most of Sunday night with me.

This would be part four, but that would be too many parts for a Back Story. Anyway, this is the actual surgery portion of the Back Story.

I woke up at about five that morning. I had to be at the hospital at 6, but I didn't really have to do anything. I literally rolled out of bed and got in the car. In the car, we put this stuff on my arm that made it numb so I wouldn't feel it when I got stuck with  needles... It didn't work... :(

We got to the hospital, and went to the front doors, but it was dark inside. The door was locked. We had to go through the main hospital then into the children's hospital, but it was still funny. I got checked in, and they brought me back to the little holding room thing. I brought my stuffed giraffe Herbert, that I got at my pre-op at my last surgery. I changed into my gown and everything, then they started to prepare me...

It was pretty easy at first. They had to connect some wires to my head, but the only bad thing about that was the glue... After all the wires were connected, they came over to work on the IV...

Six times they tried to get the IV in. At first I didn't mind, because the numb stuff was working, but apparently that stuff shrinks your veins so it's harder to get a needle in. Eventually, they had to go away from the numb areas. Have you ever had to be stuck in the wrist? It hurts!!! Eventually, they decided to just knock me out then do the IVs. (Yes, multiple.) I was perfectly fine with that, until I realized that they had to give me the loopy stuff through the IV... So I was perfectly conscious and aware of everything while they were wheeling me down the hall to the OR. That was probably the scariest thing ever... I remember I was lying in the bed thing and they were getting ready to knock me out. My mom was standing over me, along with about 20 other people. One of the nurses sort of laid the gas on my chest, so I could breathe a little of it, but it wasn't enough for me to sleep. I was sitting there trying to inhale as much as I could, and I can imagine I looked pretty funny. Finally, they decided to put the mask on my face. They put Dr. Pepper chap stick in the mask, so now I was pretty much inhaling my favorite soda. In a few seconds I was out. I do remember my mom telling me that she would be there when I woke up though.

When I eventually did wake up, I was still in the OR. I looked around for my mom, but she wasn't there. I was kind of sad actually... I asked where my parents were, and a nurse told me they went to get something to eat. I was wheeled down to the ICU, where I stayed for probably one of the worst nights of my life. After a few minutes of doctors and nurses running around me trying to get me hooked up to various pain killers and machines, my mom and dad walked in. Apparently, during the last half hour or so of the surgery, a nurse came out and told them that they should go get something to eat before I came out. They finished up a little early. The surgery lasted five hours. I am SO glad it felt like a few seconds!

In the ICU, there are two patients separated by a curtain. While I was on one side, a small baby was on the other side. She was about three months old, about the same age I was when I had my first surgery. She was in there after a de-tethering surgery with Dr. Fuchs, the same surgeon I had. Coincidence? I think not.

That first night was really hard. There is almost no room in there for other people, only enough for the bed, nurse, and all the IV stuff. There was one chair for someone to sit in, but it was probably the most uncomfortable chair ever. My dad was awesome and stayed with me that night, since my mom was going to stay with me for the whole week. His plan was to stay until around seven in the morning, but my mom had to come around four. I don't know why, but other people can't sleep in the ICU rooms. Also, the baby on the other side of the room was crying most of the night, and to try to calm her, some of the nurses were playing a 10-second loop of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star all night. From about 8 that night until 10 that morning, all we heard was that song... Eventually, we got to my more permanent room. It was painted lime green and had crayon trim all around it. I liked it! I don't really remember much more, except for the fact that I had some awesome visitors. (my Girl Scout troop, some friends who brought me awesome food, family, and just other awesome people) Well, the bell just rang, I'll continiue this later!

Day 12

I am very sorry for that short post yesterday... I got home at around 11 and didn't even think about the blog until about 11:59... 


I don't feel like continuing my Back Story, so I'll just tell about my weekend. It was just about the most fun I've had in a while. Friday night, I was at "The Lair." The Lair is the townhouse that my robotics team, Team Pyrotech, works at. For the past couple of weeks, we've been working our butts off building a robot for this awesome competition. Here's the link to the competition video. It should be really fun! So on Friday, we did get some stuff done, but all the mentors that were helping us went to a meeting upstairs, so the bottom floor was pretty much a bunch of teenagers blasting music and eating snack foods. It was so much fun! Saturday, I also went to The Lair. We got some of the pneumatics done, (phnewmyatics, as we like to call them) and then took a five minute break that turned into a 20 minute break. Saturday night, it was one of the team member's birthday. We all went to his house, ate pizza, cookie cake, and soda, then watched Inception. It was a really good, really confusing movie. But the whole thing was really fun. I had a blast!


Today was a very good, laid back Sunday. Although I woke up to my dad yelling "BREAKFAST IS READY!" at around 8 am and walked downstairs half an hour later to find two slices of bacon, it was still good. I got some homework done, which I actually sort of enjoyed. After that, I went with my mom, brother, aunt and uncle to see their new dog, Mary Ann. I got attacked! My face smelled like puppy. That makes me smile :)


After that, I came home for a little bit then went to see The Green Hornet with my dad and brother. Every once in a while, my dad will just randomly ask my brother and I if we want to go see a movie, usually on a Sunday. I really like it when we do this! My dad is usually so stressed out about everything-- work, scouts, just other random things. It's nice to spend time with him on the weekends. 


After the movie, we came home to a fabulous dinner made by my mom. We were having steak, but because of my slight dislike for red meat, she cooked up a chicken breast just for me! Along with that, we had mashed potatoes, broccoli, and some very good mushrooms sauteed in balsamic vinegar. After that, I've been doing pretty much the same thing: nothing. Well I think I've written enough. Thanks to everyone who made this weekend awesome! Love you all!! :D