Happy May Day! I’m reporting in stationed from Long Beach, with today being the first day of the 2008 California State PTA Convention (which I blogged about a few days ago). I’m also right in the middle of AP exams review here too, so I’m quite busy right now. But of course, I’ve got time to take a look back on the very busy month of April.

Personal Life
April has been a month full of tests (although May is going to have a good number of them, too). I had STAR testing (the last STAR tests of my entire life!!!) on April 8, 9, 10, and 15, and I don’t know (nor do I really care) how well I did on them. I took the ACT on April 12th, on which I got the totally-awesome score of 34 on (99th percentile). On April 26th, I had to take a practice AP U.S. History exam for my U.S. History class, in which I apparently got the highest score of my class. And, in class during four days (April 17, 18, 21, and 22) I had to take a practice AP Calculus BC exam for my Calculus class, and I don’t think I did very well on that at all.
My high school hosted this year’s CMEA Band/Orchestra festival on April 11-12. As a part of my school’s orchestra, I had to play with them in it on the 11th (they got a Unanimous Superior rating), and work at the thing on the 12th. The orchestra also did a “String Fling” kind of performance on the evening of April 15th in conjunction with the local elementary and middle schools.
I kind of had a full evening on April 17th as well when I pretty much wrote my entire Research Paper for U.S. History at the last minute. We had to do an 8-10 page research paper on any debatable topic of our choosing from anytime in U.S. History (1492-2007, essentially). Mine was on the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and though I had done lots of research in advance (I spent the whole day at the library on Sunday, April 13th), I, uh, didn’t get started writing until the night before it was due. Bad me. But I do think that I managed to do a pretty good job on it.
Finally, on Thursday, April 24th, I attended and spoke at a rally in Sacramento for PTA’s Flunk the Budget campaign. There’s also some pictures and a press release about the rally, which was very exciting to be at.

Significant Blog Posts from This Month

Review: WordPress 2.5
It’s bigger, it’s newer, and yet it still does pretty much the same thing!

CSS Naked Day
The clothes make the man, and the CSS makes the website. Now someone go pull Internet Explorer out of the nudist colony…

The End of PreviewCast: A Look Back and a Look Forward
Try looking forward to something that May be happening next month…

Thoughts on Standardized Testing
If April is the month of standardized tests, think of this like one of those Code Pink outbursts in the middle of a Congressional hearing.

Why You Will Not See a Referral Link to the MacHeist Retail Bundle on Webmacster87.info
Who wants to hear a 100% pointless rant? (I do! I do!)

Flunk the Budget
My speech from the aforementioned “Flunk the Budget” rally in Sacramento.

My Convention 2008 Itinerary
Does anyone care anymore? If someone starts stalking me at airports, then I might start caring…

Book Review: Managing Online Forums
Stay tuned for the sequel: Managing Idiotic Online Bloggers, co-starring myself.

Video/YouTube Grab

Control-Alt-Debate
See, Jon Stewart agrees with me! I’m NOT crazy! Well, maybe that’s not good enough justification…

Congratulations to Jackie Speier
Just representin’, nothin’ much new.

Podcast Episodes and Appearances

phpBB Weekly #057
The Londonvasion extravaganza. Though I do kind of wonder how they’re going to get Bertiezilla across the Atlantic…

TPNP #003: Exploring the Apple Universe
Featuring Daniel Brusilovsky, the trekker of the final frontier, where no tech-addicted teenager has gone before.

phpBB Weekly #059
phpBB2 is ready for its Social Security benefits. Anyone know of a cheap convalescent home?

May is coming up, and it’s the last month of this school year (and that means MORE TESTS, ugh!!!). Stay tuned…

TPNP #004: Am I Fired Yet?
Hopefully an inaccurate predictor of my future on the Teen Podcasters Network.