I was always under the impression that the correct way to say it was “yay.” The phrase appears in 41 of my posts on this very blog. But during a recent trip to Florida, my grandfather – who surpasses everyone I know with approximately 3.2 ypm (yays-per-minute) – said that the correct way to say it was “yeay.”
But, a quick Google search tells me otherwise. There are 42 million instances of “yay” on Google, but only 544 thousand instances of “yeay.” Another quick (mathematical) search on Google tells me that this means “yay” is mentioned over 77 times more often than “yeay.” I think that this matter has now been resolved. The majority of the population uses “yay.”
Yay.
Published on
July 16, 2009 at
10:50 am in
Life.
Yayy! I’m getting my braces off in a month! I just had my second-to-last appointment, and for the next one I’ll get them off! Then I’ll have to wear a retainer for a while, but still – the braces will be off!
This means I can smile without looking like I’m 10 years old! I can also chew gum, eat popcorn without being afraid of breaking my braces, and eat gummy bears without any fear! Well, in a month at least.
I made my first movie with Final Cut Express! Yay! It’s about our family’s Christmas dinner and is just under 3 minutes. I tried uploading it in full HD quality to YouTube but APPARENTLY my video breaks copyright because it has the song “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” in it. I would think that would be a good thing for the studio, as it promotes the song and reminds people of how awesome it is, who would then go on to buy it.
But whatever. I uploaded it myself in non-HD Quicktime until I figure out a better way to do it. Just click the image below to view/download the file.
So I started school Tuesday and it’s my Junior year of high school which means colleges, colleges, colleges. Colleges emailing me, colleges mailing me, first PSAT score, upcoming PSAT test, SAT next spring, SAT classes, colleges just not shutting up! But then I realized that I will be going a college – one of these colleges, in less than two years. Yikes.
But Junior year is cool. I have all new teachers and my first official free periods twice a week. That’s fun because I get to go to the Library and just completely like… you know, like get a head start on my homework and… type in Word documents… and.. uh… other… awesome stuff like that… that doesn’t include facebook because of awesome website blocker software. Yay for useless computers.
I am now in my second week in a film program that is the result of a partnership between the NYC Department of Education and the Tribeca Film Festival. It’s a part of the “Summer Arts” program that encompasses programs focusing on all sorts of specialty arts (photography, dancing, film, etc.)
So every day for the past week and a half I’ve woken up kind of early and gone to Stuyvesant high school (where it’s being held) from 9 to 3. Kind of like school – only I want to be there and the things we’re being taught I actually want to learn about.
So far it’s been a lot of fun, and not nearly as boring as these film programs sometimes end up being. Well – the lesson about how a Mac is different from a PC and the basics of Final Cut Pro was boring but beyond that I’ve actually been learning some very interesting and exciting things.
Until now we’ve only been working on small practice films, but starting this week we’re beginning work on our major project for the summer: A 5-7 minute movie that takes place in a specific neighborhood of New York City and focuses on a certain sub-topic, assigned randomly. There are 5 groups and about 20 kids so groups of 3 and 4 are each making this movie together. My group’s sub-topic is music.
We had two “pitches” – A documentary idea and a narrative idea. The staff would choose whichever one they thought was better. Our documentary idea was about street musicians in Central Park (which the staff allowed us to consider a neighborhood) and why they do what they do and what their effect is on the park.
Our narrative idea (which we like a billion times more) is about a young man living in Brighton Beach. He never pays any notice to the violin player who plays music every day on the boardwalk, which is on the main character’s way to work. But one day the musician is gone and the main character sees Brighton Beach in a completely different way. What used to seem like an exciting and vibrant neighborhood now seems dark and ugly.
I don’t want to give away the ending because – guess what – we got the narrative idea (yay!) So I guess that you’ll just have to wait and see the movie yourself then.
I don’t rate my iTunes music as much as I should, partially because I don’t listen to the majority of my music. I’d say that approximately half of my music is (was) rated, and that it’s about that much I have actually listened to. Then, only about a quarter of my library do I actually consider even thinking about listening to on a daily basis.
Then, today, my ratings were lost when iTunes had a hiccup and I had to re-import all of my music. No problem, I just had to tell iTunes where all my files are again. But I lost all my playlists and ratings. (This is like the 10th time this has happened to me, and this time I’ve actually found a backup solution… to use for next time.)
So I am going to re-discover my iTunes music by going down the list and listening to and rating everything in my library. Starting with “Take on Me” by a-ha and ending with “Valerie” by The Zutons. I figure that if I listen to two albums, or approximately 30 songs a day, it will take… 2083/30=69.433333333333333 days.
That’s a little over 2 months, and I won’t do it completely some days so I would give this 2 or 3 months until it’s finished. Of course, in order to make this work I can’t add any new music so I won’t be distracted. So I won’t be done until the end of July. Wow. School’s almost over, yay!
I figured that if I posted this public self-promise on my blog and spent the time photoshopping the picture above I might actually do it. Or maybe not. We’ll see.
I submitted an application, burned a DVD with my movies, and went to an interview and now I’ve finally been accepted into the Film program at the Summer Arts Institute, which is an arts-focused summer camp type of thing. The NYC Department of Education has partnered with the Tribeca Film Institute specifically for the Film part, so I’ll be making movies with professional cameras and stuff this July.
Yay! The program is very instense, from what I’ve heard, but I’ll be making movies so it’ll be fun! Only a handful of students get picked from the many who apply, so I’m happy that I got in, even though I’m not really sure how many people are the “many who apply.” Still, yay!
