Ginny's Favorite Things

Anticipating that I would not have much time to spend on my blog today (sorry, Tea, but I couldn't talk because I was SAT-prepping as per the agreement with my parents so I could go to NEML), I decided to do a post without a plot. So, here it is, my list of some of my favorite things in this world (people are not included in this list):

1. Autumn's sky.
2. Sunlight.
3. Rainy days that are not in April.
4. Electricity (and electronics).
5. Windy afternoons by the lake.
6. Hot chocolate with coffee and oatmeal.
7. Books.
8. A personalized playlist.
9. Sketchbook and pencil.
10. Crunchy leaves.
11. Hedley's Perfect.
12. Internet connection.
13. Purple bunnies.
14. Pink lemonade.
15. Eyes.
16. Poems and lyrics.
17. Midnight moons.
18. Breathing in ocean air.
19. Sunsets.
20. Chocolate cheesecake.
21. Tea and sugar at four in the afternoon.
22. Math problems.
23. Halloween costumes.
24. National Geographic.
25. Dramas that don't only focus on romance.
26. Rope and plank swings.
27. Key lime pie.
28. Saturday morning television.
29. Freshly cut grass.
30. Birds with broad wings.
31. Arctic circle.
32. Aurora Borealis (and the Boreal forests).
33. Hopscotch with chalk on pavement.
34. Pagodas.
35. Filling out empty forms.
36. Nachos and cheese.
37. XKCD.
38. Realizing 538.com just helped you in English.
39. Red ribbons.
40. Google Docs and just about everything else I love that I haven't mentioned yet.

The Long-Awaited Math Team Runoffs

Gretchen and I were the first ones in the classroom yesterday. I was really surprised that Dino did not make it here earlier than Gretchen, but then I remembered that he had health now, instead of gym, so he would not be able to get out of class earlier and climb up three flights of stairs before the last bell rang, as he must have done prior.

Melissa came here as well, and said, "I was thinking about not coming, but I had been mean to Owen lately, so he made me come here instead of him."

This Owen-goading was apparently something she and Irving shared with great interest.

Micro also came, although he said that he would be on the team regardless. He did say that he did the practice problems, because he didn't want to get all zeros.

We then heard Kathrya and Genie outside, so Gretchie and I went outside as well. Somewhere here (along the line of time), Tea also shouted out from some random place (I didn't hear her, but Gretchie did), and Dino walked past us as well.

So that was basically the attendance for the last runoff of the year. Irving also came sometime later, as well as Mario and his Princeton sweater.

We started soon afterwards, with Gretchie, Tea, and I (and Dino and Micro, I presume) each taking our 1-2-3/4 rounds. Round one was a miserable existence. There were plenty of mental addition/subtraction math, which I am most horrible at, and, judging by the scores, everyone is also rather horrible at. Round two was okay, but not that much better. Round three (for those who took it) was fair, but I tended to make weird mistakes, and yesterday was one of those days. Round four was surprisingly easy for some reason, although I suppose having known calculus was the only reason why I even knew how to solve the last question (although the concept was mentioned in precalc, and Argon told me today that he also got it right with deductive reasoning).

Dino chose not to do a fourth round, and Irving and Mario only did two rounds each (Mario had taken another round earlier). Melissa disappeared some very long time ago. So by the end of the fourth round, only Gretchie, Micro, Tea and I were left. I went over to the table with the scored rounds to see what I got, and saw that Argon (who had taken the rounds earlier during his semi-free) had gotten the same number of points in rounds one to three, except his round one and two points were the reverse of mine. Dino also had gotten the same score in rounds one and two as us. Micro nearly got a perfect in round three, so he had the highest round three score out of all of us, but he rather miserably failed the first two rounds, thus prompting Gretchie and I to later speculate what would happen if Irving and Bryant (he, along with Tybalt, was also not at the runoffs due to track practice) did the "easiest" rounds one and two instead of their five and six, which right now only they and Mario and Tybalt can do.

Anyway, later yesterday night, while I was writing my English essay, Tea told me on Google chat to "go on Facebook and tell Dino that I do not carry messages" (along with her numerous lines of "Ginny? GINNY? Fine, be that way" that somehow made itself into a separate chat log). I asked her why, and she said something about the runoffs.

Before I had even finished typing "Dino, Tea asked me to tell you that—" Dino asked, "How did you do on the runoffs?"

Strange. He had never cared how I did before, but since we had already established that he was a strange boy, I indulged him and told him my scores. He responded with a single-word response of "nice."

The next day (which is really just today), Tea said that Dino told her that he had gotten a total score of fourteen. Which was absolutely ridiculous, because even though I did not remember how well he did on round four, he had gotten the same as me on the first two rounds, and my total (round four replacing round three) score did not even reach fourteen, despite having gotten a perfect in round four.

(The fact that his supposed score is one point higher than mine is also very suspicious.)

Oh, Dino and his lies.

So, Tea asked me why I like Dino. This piece below was written yesterday, but the theme fits, and I hope it will serve as a sort of explanation.


If I could have one dream and never wake up, please make this a dream, because then it would be all too real and I would not lose a thing, not the happy memories not the tragic moments not the laughter not the pain not one bit not anything.


I am reconsidering what Ritchell means to me. I cannot help it, I am a writer, and I look for the metaphor everywhere I go, and everything I do. I had once thought that if I made everything into an allegory of something else, I would be able to figure out why the good things come and go, and why the bad things always linger in the background.

Likewise, Ritchell became part of my goal to create the ultimate symbol, the epic that would have a real-life meaning that I could comprehend and then pass on. I made a mental list of all of his qualities, some from my memories, some from my imagination, but most from this world that was out of my control. This was the world Fate created and Allison Saint-Cross tried to destroy, and so Ritchell was just as contradicted, just as hard to understand, just as lost.

Ritchell was a combination of the real and the unreal, but to call him anything less than real would be unfair, just as it would be to call him anything less than surreal. I could tell anyone on the street the tangible traits Ritchell possessed, and receive some blank stares along with some hints of recognition. Just as well, I could say, there exists such a person, and describe Ritchell until he could not be any more clear in my head, and no one would have ever heard of him, even if I never bring up his name.

I see traces of Ritchell everywhere, everywhere I go, but he is never quite there.

I thought I had seen Ritchell just the other day, that chilly November. He was standing by the tallest oak tree in the park, and he had those eyes that I instantly knew belonged to Ritchell. I walked over to him, introduced myself, and asked for his name.

"Matt," he said, and that was the end of that. He had Ritchell's voice, and his composure. He was Matt Ritchell, then, I concluded. Names meant nothing anyway, unless you were Allison Saint-Cross, but even then, names meant much less than the ones bearing the names.

We stood in the park, sharing memories as if we had experienced them together and were merely trying to help the other recall the little details, like the fresh basil sprinkled onto the bowls of tomato soup served at the county fair, or the slightly purple-blue flower hanging onto its stem in the middle of December, amidst a blanket of snow. He was my Ritchell, if Ritchell were ever mine to begin with, and I grew confident with every song we sang those wintry months.

But Nephria had a legend as ancient as the walls of its buildings and as enduring as the air and roads and the blood spilt on those roads. It was known as Prescott's curse, and it came every winter with the snow and left every spring when the snow disappeared. If there had to be one reason why Allison Saint-Cross could try to destroy this world and still be honored as a hero, it would be because of Prescott's curse, and it would be because although Fate had no sympathy, Allison was only imperfect.

So April came, with its rainy solemnity and childish stubbornness, and April went, and summer came and summer went, and I thought I saw Ritchell again, many times, but when I looked again he was gone, and I had many times wondered if he had struck a deal with Chronos and could transport himself through time and space as easily as the apathetic redhead could.

Come November again, I met Avery Kanswell, who said he knew Ritchell, knew him by heart, knew everything there was to know about him. I asked him, were we talking about the same Ritchell? And Kanswell replied, "There may be many people called Ritchell, but there is only one Ritchell. You and I both know that."

I nodded, not because I thought he was right, but because I knew this would be the best explanation I would ever have as to why Ritchell could transcend the laws of Fate that even Allison could only envy to achieve. I asked Kanswell if he knew where Ritchell was, and Kanswell said I should know, if only I tried hard enough. I told him I saw Ritchell everywhere, but that did not help me very much, because just as he was everywhere, at the same time, he was nowhere.

And then I saw Ritchell. He had Ritchell's eyes, he had Ritchell's composure, he had Ritchell's air of presence. I wanted to say something to him, but just as I could see him everywhere and know that he was there and not there at the same time, I could see him here and not be able to make him hear a single word I said.

I stood from afar, observing my masterpiece evolve, sure to encompass the symbolism I knew was in his very state of being. I had groaned when I read other writers' papers, with their confusing microcosms and stories within stories that I could not understand, but now I pursued my metaphor with the same vigor, because this would be the one. This would be the classic, the one that would hold true throughout time, the one constant that could transgress every rule and limitation that made all of us keep faith in Fate but still yearn to believe in Allison.

Then one day, I woke up from my reveries and really saw Ritchell, and I realized that I had always been comparing Ritchell to that spectrum between Fate and Allison, and trying my hardest to ensure that Ritchell was perfect, because he was the closest I had to someone as intangible as Fate. But Ritchell was imperfect, just like Allison, just like Prescott, just like Chronos, just like everyone else. It was because Ritchell was imperfect that he could transcend time and space, because he could be everywhere at once, because everywhere was just like him, because everywhere had his essence and state of being. He was, in part, the perfect metaphor I had been searching for, but in part, he was not, because everyone else could just as well be that metaphor and play the role just as well, just as wholeheartedly, just as outstandingly, breathtakingly, tragic.

Ritchell was not the metaphor; he was only a part of this world that was so alike and so different that everything could be a metaphor for everything and describe the situation so fittingly yet be nonconforming enough to not resemble the original.

Ritchell was a metaphor for the dreams and broken memories and feathered hopes and everything else that resided in this world that Fate had created and that Allison had not yet destroyed, and those things were metaphors for Ritchell and everything he said and did and believed.

And somewhere amidst this revelation, I realized that Ritchell was both the fleeting good and the lingering bad, the very mystery I had been trying to unravel. He was not an explanation. He was simply another example of what I had observed a long time ago, and he presented the truth in such a obscured, juxtaposed way that I had no choice but to face it and ignore that cowardice that had accompanied me ever since I had first begun on this journey.

I'm not perfect, but I keep on trying, 'cause that's what I said I would do from the start.

Treading That Fine Line...

...between reality and fantasy. I mean, it had to be somewhat real. It happened at my school, with all the people from my school, and all the hectic day-by-day things that happens at my school.

My dream, that is.

I was in the long hallway that connected the school's cafeteria to the gym when some police officers in uniform came up to me. They looked at me suspiciously, and then one of them addressed me and said, "I'm sure you have them."

"Have what?" I asked him.

"You know what I'm talking about. The diamonds."

I actually had no idea what they were talking about, but on some conscious level, I also knew what they were talking about. I had heard that the cops were looking for some stolen diamonds, and I knew that I did not have any contraband on me, although I knew it with a smug feeling that was not all that innocent.

"I don't have them," I told the police officers. "You can search me if you want. I don't have them."

The police officers took that as an invitation to search my bag, but as I had predicted, they did not find anything. The officer who had addressed me looked at me skeptically.

"All right, I'm sorry to have bothered you."

They walked away, and then Mogley came up to me, holding a brown backpack that was clearly not his (because he has a red one). I clearly had a reputation for conducting all sorts of illegal business, for the first thing he said to me was, "Can you break open this case for me?"

The case—which, might I add, was not his—was built similarly to an eyeglasses case, except it was half the size of anything capable of holding eyeglasses, and I did not know what it was used for. Mogley said, "I'm pretty sure there are diamonds in here, but I don't know how to get them out."

"Are they your diamonds?" Was what I should have asked, had I been in a more lucid state. I was, alas, not, and so I simply used my fingers to take off the lining of the case (as if I did this every day) and we both peered in and saw a handful of diamonds. Wow, so this whole story about stolen diamonds was real. I looked over at Mogley, who looked back at me and said, "We have to hide them somehow. We don't want the person who took them to find out that we have them."

I had no idea why Mogley was so willing to share this enormous wealth with me (implied by the fact that he even told me about the diamonds), but since it was free diamonds, I did not object. "Why don't you wrap the case up in something to conceal it?"

"That's a good idea." Mogley took some brown paper towel out of thin air (or he ran really, really fast to the restroom, which I doubt, but you never know) and then proceeded to wrap up the case hastily, and by the time he was finished, he had a bulky wad of paper. He then tried to stuff this whole thing into his jeans pocket, but the wad was so big more than half of it stuck out.

"Do you think this is okay?" he asked me.

"Uh, no. Put it in your bag." I grabbed his bag and stuck the paper-towel-wrapped case into the outermost compartment of his backpack and said, "Now you can pretend this is your paper lunch bag if anyone asks."

Mogley was satisfied. We walked out of the hallway that, in the real school, linked the gym and the cafeteria, but in this school, only led to another hallway that was lined with coats and bags. Mogley placed the brown bag where he had found the diamond-carrying case in the first place onto a silver rack that was the lost and found area.

"I hope whoever this bag belongs to never finds us," Mogley said.

"Why don't we search up whomever this person is sometime—say, during lunch—so we know who we're up against?"

"Okay, sure. Today?"

"All right."

We went off to class, and then, come lunchtime, I went over to the library, where Mogley was waiting for me. We found a computer and sat down, and then Mogley asked me how we were going to find this mysterious brown-bag owner and potential diamond thief.

"We'll find him on Google," I said, rather confidently. Again, if I were lucid, I would have realized, hello, I did not even know this person's name. But then again, I was not lucid.

"How is that going to work?" Apparently Mogley had more sense than I did.

"We'll just search up his name. Here, let's try yours and see what comes up."

I typed in Mogley's name, but halfway through, he stopped me and said, "You spelt my name wrong."

I was pretty sure I spelt it right, but to please him, I asked, "How do you spell it then?"

"M-E-G-L-O-Y," he said, which makes no sense at all because then it would say "Megloy" (and what kind of name was that?), but I did not argue with him and instead changed what I had typed. I pressed "enter," and a couple hundred thousand results showed up.

"Well, maybe we should narrow our search," I said, and typed "Paperclip" after "Megloy." This time, all the results narrowed down to Mogley. I thought that the incorrectly spelt name was throwing us off, but I did not think much further about it, because I glanced up at the clock, and I saw that it was already class time (more like, the class was halfway over). I had French, which never happens, because I never have French anywhere remotely near lunchtime, but it was strange, and so I did not question it.

"I have to go, I have class now," I said.

"Oh," Mogley said. "I have a free now. But we have calc afterwards." This part was at least true, because although Mogley was in calc AB and I was in BC, we both had calc during the same period. "Just skip French," he continued.

Since I would have been marked absent anyway, I concurred. We walked back to the cafeteria, then through the strange hallway with the coats and bags that connected the cafeteria to the hallway that originally connected the cafeteria to the gym. Mogley went over to the silver rack where he had placed the brown bag, but it was not there.

"Oh my god," he said, "someone really is after those diamonds!"

"I suppose so," I said, although I was not really concerned for some reason. I probably meddled with the wrong side of the law too often to be scared of something as petty as a potential bloodthirsty diamond thief coming after me.

Mogley, however, was petrified. "Here," he said, handing me the case full of the diamonds. "You take them. I don't want them anymore."

I stared oddly at him as he ran towards the gym (I did not even know why we were here, since we had calc next, and the math wing and the gym were as far away as physically possible—except maybe science is further, because all those science nerds don't need to go to gym), and then—

—here's the part where legions of literary critics will hate me forever and ever for—

—I woke up. The end. Nothing else happened. Nada. I don't know if the cops ever came after me and caught me red-handed with a case full of diamonds, or if the mysterious thief found me in the end, or if Mogley decided that money was much more important than his life and came back for his share, or if I was secretly the mastermind behind this whole theft after all and merely orchestrated this whole event for some strange reason.

The world may never know.

You've got to love alarm clocks. They kill stories by the dozen.

Heartland and that All-American Road Trip

America's had a love-affair with its roads for a long time now, ever since the first pioneers set out west for Oregon Country.


I stuck the keys into the ignition for the second time, listening to the engine splutter before roaring into life. The car was dying, and I knew that I had been way too hard on it for the past few months, but I had no other choice.  I could buy a new car and sell this one to some small-town commuter who never ventured beyond the borders of his state, but that would mean another couple thousand from my bank account, and I needed that money to pay for those nights I did not want to spend in the car.

The afternoon sun was slowly sinking towards the horizon, but I still had plenty of time. I plucked the road map from the seat beside me and opened it up. South Carolina—South Dakota—Tennessee. The page was wrinkled at the edges and faded from too much exposure under the sun, but I could still see the faint letters of the towns and the twisting roads and highways.

Tennessee. It was much closer now than it had been when I was in Massachusetts, and coming this far had taken me several months. It was just as well. I did not know where I would go from Tennessee. I could keep on going into Dixieland, or turn back up to Heartland and then continue to the West Coast. I had been leaning towards Dixie at the start of my trip—after all, I had already been to much of Illinois and Michigan, and I wanted to see the Texan ranches—but right now, I had a sudden urge for going down the Mississippi River in a raft, ridiculous as that sounds. It would be much more logical to start such a trip in Minnesota, rather than Louisiana.

I shoved the map aside and turned up the radio, listening to the local traffic station. Beth at the Cherry Diner promised me a free dinner if I stayed for another day, so I decided to stay another day here. I needed as many freebies as I could get. Gas prices were skyrocketing. I had known that it would happen, but I had no conscious idea of how much it would impact me until I started pumping gas every other day.

There was plenty of time left, so I drove to the drive-in theater first. It was too early, before dinner-time, and no one was here yet, so I had the lot to myself. I stopped the car and came out to breathe some fresh air and to stretch my legs.

"There's nothing here until at least after seven," someone called out behind me.

I turned around and saw a boy in his early twenties walking towards me. The lot was empty except for my car, so I assumed he was a local.

"I know, I just like the empty space."

"I haven't seen you around here before," he said.

"You must have missed me then," I said. "I come here every Friday when I'm in town."

I left out the words, I've never been in this town until yesterday. But he could figure it out himself if he really wanted.

"I must have," he said. "I don't live around here, so maybe that's why. I'm staying with my aunt for the family reunion for the weekend."

"Oh, where are you from?"

"Rhode Island. My family lives in Providence, but I go to school in Massachusetts. It's way up north."

"I know that," I said. "I've been there before."

"Really? Providence, or Massachusetts?"

"Both, actually. Providence is a nice city, although I didn't stay there for long. Massachusetts was too—I don't know. It had an air of something."

"It's different from here," he said.

"Well, yes. I would be surprised if these two places were exactly the same."

"I mean, maybe you just weren't used to it. It's quite a bit of a cultural shock, going from this place to somewhere like New England. I feel the same way, except in reverse."

I smiled. "If you go slowly enough, you won't ever notice the difference."

. . .

I drove into Cherry Diner's parking lot before the sun dipped below the horizon, but that did not help much, as I was near the westernmost edge of the time zone. I was twenty minutes late for dinner, and Beth looked surprised when she saw me walking through the door.

"I thought you wouldn't show up," she said, as she passed a plate of turkey and mashed potatoes to a customer sitting by the bar area. "Thought you'd be out of state by now."

"I was thinking that," I said, "but I couldn't pass up a free dinner. That doesn't happen every day."

"If I were your parents, I would've never let a girl like you out on a trip like this."

"Don't worry about me, Beth. Besides, my parents don't know where I am. I told them I'd be going, but not where."

"Don't worry about you," Beth said, now piling baked potato wedges and pork chops onto another plate. "You make it sound so easy. Don't you think your parents worry?"

"They probably do, but I'll give them a call someday. Just let them know I'm okay. I don't want them to come after me."

"You decided yet then?" Henry, one of the regulars at the diner, or so I had been told, interrupted us. "South or west? If I were you, I'd go to Florida. Nice, sunny place. And at this rate you're a-going, you'll reach there by winter, and I've been to the mid-west, and you don't want to be stuck there during winter."

"I've thought about that. Minnesota freeze and everything. I'm not sure my Northeastern training's adequate for something like that."

"When it's cold up there," Henry said, "it's cold. Nowhere else compares, 'cept maybe Alaska, but we don't know, do we?"

"That reminds me—thank you, Beth—I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get to Alaska or Hawaii yet." I unwrapped a fork from the napkin bundle and dug in to my plate of mashed potatoes that Beth had handed me. "I could probably drive through Canada to reach Alaska, but I'd have to take a plane or a boat to go to Hawaii."

"That car of yours won't last if you want to go to every state," Beth said. "This whole idea of a road trip is just so—so—"

. . .

And then I sort of stopped, but I'm reading Blood Done Sign My Name right now, and I sort of realized that, yeah, I've lived in the south and I've lived in the heart of Heartland, but I was never from there, and Clemson isn't really Dixie-like since it's got such a predominant college-town air, and downtown Chicago's the furthest thing you'd find from Fitzgerald's Midwest, except maybe NYC. So I can't really tell you what the Beths and Henrys of wherever this place is, halfway between Massachusetts and Tennessee, are like.

I can say, however, that I've never really found that much of a difference among the different places, perhaps because I wasn't ever in the heart of those places, or perhaps because I had never cared about grown-ups in my world except my family and Penny, who would come by my house every Saturday and help my mother learn English while preaching the Bible.

I'll never know, but if I do, I'll write an ending to this story.

Ain't you glad, ain't you glad, that the blood done sign your name?

Spring Cleaning

Well, my parents don't believe in spring cleaning, so I didn't have to physically clean out anything (we did wash the car today though). However, I decided to clean out my inbox, because lately Daily Writing Tips, College Board, Dictionary.com, Braingle, and Assorted Other Colleges have decided to spam me (more like, I signed up for their newsletters and whatnot and didn't realize the consequences of my actions). Since I had well over a thousand unread messages, and plenty more that I had already read, I created a few more labels and started sorting and archiving my mail.

With a good two or three hours spent, I've finally organized everything. Right now, my inbox status stands as follows (for anyone who's not interested, I don't have much else to say today, so you can basically skip this post):

(Also note, I have my email set in French, but I got lazy translation-wise and so all labels are in English.)

Boîte de réception: 9
Consists of odd items such as the email from Paperclip's resident dietician asking me to send her the completed version of my research paper, SHP applications that I have long abandoned (because my dad thinks it's not worthwhile, whatever that means), an email from Zephy saying I owe her $1.25 for the town bus fare, and several emails from QuestBridge, but I'm not sure what they are or what they want me to do (something I shall have to check out later).

Braingle: 390
My "Quiz of the Day" and "Teaser of the Day" supplier. I have 147 of those that I haven't read, which is strange, because they come in pairs and I read them in pairs, but perhaps I skipped a quiz one day because half of them are movie quizzes and I have a very limited movie knowledge database.

Cappex.com: 61
Registered an account there about the same time I registered an account for College Confidential, which reminds me, I haven't visited either lately. But CC is very depressing (especially all those amazing Ivy-wannabes who keep asking, "Am I going to get in???"—I would be surprised if you didn't get in), and I don't quite remember why I checked out Cappex in the first place.

CBoard: 251
"College Board" was too long to fit in one line without those annoying ellipsis (which, according to TheSage, can also be spelled "eclipsis"), so I dubbed it "CBoard" instead. Anyway, since I have around 195 of them I haven't read yet, that basically means I haven't been doing any of those "The Official SAT Question of the Day" for more than half a year now.

Clubs/Competitions/Confirmation: 139
Three separate labels, but each not significant enough to have its own block of text. This is where all those bike/chess club notices (including Livny's chess mafia email), Moody's half-completed papers, and subscription/sign-up confirmation emails reside.

College Promo: 649
The main reason why I was cleaning out my email in the first place (because everything else I can just filter out by sender and automatically apply labels). Twenty three of them come from University of New Haven, which I am definitely not applying to because it would be a waste of effort for both of us. The rest come from an assortment of colleges, including nine from WPI, several from this Monica person from Hamilton College, and plenty more that I have definitely seen duplicates of. Also, the more I ignore them, the more they send me emails (as evidenced by the few colleges I responded to have not sent me any emails ever since).

DWT: 214
Daily Writing Tips is amazing in many ways. I subscribed to their "newsletter" to learn new grammar rules and such, but they have so much more than that. For example, Friday's email included twenty book titles that were inspired by Shakespeare's plays (including the lines they came from) and the second installment of their poetry contest.

Facebook: 667
If any label could beat "College Promo" by now, it would be Facebook. I just remembered (right now) that I had set all Facebook messages to auto-archive, which is why I haven't seen anything whenever people write on my wall or send me messages as of late.

Fiction: 12
My Fanfiction.net and Wordpress.com account emails. I haven't posted anything on there, so this label has been much neglected.

Friends: 110
As the label says, all those emails from my friends that don't belong anywhere else. Half of them are 100+ replies between Stella and me. Half of those emails consist of links that Stella was trying to make me visit (mostly audio/video files) and me responding that I don't have any headphones on hand.

Misc: 20
All the weird stuff that I was too lazy to make an individual label for. Most of Google's emails/alerts/reminders somehow mysteriously (or not) ended up here. I've also got a few emails from Photobucket (which is a word, but spellcheck is not).

School: 68
All those SnapGrades messages in Turkish that Mr. Coffee sent everyone in his classes are here. Last-minute emails I sent myself with homework attachments are also here, and I've got an email or two from Mrs. Tallchief regarding my research paper. Oh, the nightmares. At least that's over now.

Word of the Day: 273
I thought I would expand my vocab by reading and memorizing one word each day. Seeing as I have 170 of those I haven't opened yet, you can see how well that plan went. I do remember learning "misanthrope" from an old WofD email, and emollient (which reminded me of Molly Weasley), and aquiline (a word that later showed up as a vocab word in my sophomore English class).

I feel so accomplished. Well, I also did a practice test for calc, and got a 70% on the multiple choice and 90% on free-response (I can't believe I got the Taylor series one), so I'm hoping for a five on the test. (It's also sad that I can get most of the AB questions right but BC is just that much harder, mostly because there's much less time.)

Dartmouth and Amherst: Different by All Means

After deciding that college visits are nice, my parents decided to take me to Dartmouth on Wednesday (also because, as my dad said, "we can go hike some mountains over there as well"). We left at seven in the morning, and drove all the way to Dartmouth just in time for their info session.

The person in charge of the info session emphasized the fact that Dartmouth is a college, rather than an university, and as such, specializes in undergrad education. This apparently amounts to the strange quarter-system schedule, study-abroad programs in the Caribbeans (and elsewhere), and no TAs at all. I don't think I would mind any of those things.

There was also talk of how "Dartmouth gets thousands of qualified applicants every year, so we can choose which ones we want to accept." That usually means bad news for me (and everyone else in general).

After our info session (spent mostly on "what is a liberal arts education and what does it do for you?" and "how do we choose which students to accept?"), our tour guides arrived and split us up into five groups. My parents and I followed this girl who was in her senior year and was majoring in Spanish and planned to become a lawyer.

We went around the school, noting all the different buildings (including the first building on campus that originally housed all the classes, teachers, and students into one tiny space) and the different things to do. The campus sort of spills into the town (Hanover), and the buildings were clustered in a cozy but cluttered way. We saw the Hogwarts-esque library (wooden paneled walls, ancient-looking books, comfy green chairs), went by some of the frat houses around campus, and saw a room that housed two large TVs (very important during the Yankees vs. Red Sox baseball games, where fans of one team screams at fans of the other team during intermission times). Our guide told us that the food at Dartmouth was very good (yay), and the alumni network is very strong. People seem to also make lots of close friends with other people on campus (and I did see a lot of students talking with each other, so they're not all loners, which is good).

After our tour of campus, we checked out one of the eight eating places on campus. This particular place had soup, salad, and this stir-fry thing that was so popular the line was very, very long. The food was generally okay though (not exactly my favorite, but with much more manageable portion sizes).

Of course, a major portion of this trip was supposed to be "hiking," so we went to nearby Quechee Gorge (in Vermont) and hiked along a two-mile trail. The gorge was really pretty, but the water was too chilly to go barefoot in the river, so we just played with the water with our hands and hiked to a dam and then came back. My mom pointed out the strange wooden boards on top of the dam, and my dad made up some semi-plausible reason as to why they were there, and my mom decided that you could only know if you were an engineer specializing in that field ("that's another possible career path there").

Anyway, we started heading home at around five, and on our way back we saw the sign for Amherst, Massachusetts. My dad asked, "Is that the same Amherst as the college?"

According to the atlas we had brought, it was, so we took the next exit and came to Amherst (the town is also home to four other colleges, including UMass, Smith, and two other ones I can't remember). I found the campus and buildings to be much more gorgeously outstanding, with a line of red brick buildings sitting atop a grassy hill, and other white, classical or Victorian buildings spilling to the side. (My impression, anyway.) To the right of the campus is a war memorial that overlooks the baseball and soccer fields, but it's on top of the hill and so you can see really, really far (according to their website, you can see 1000 acres). We missed the tour times (it was by seven now), but there were students milling about, and they seemed to be happy and generally friendly.

I personally think that Amherst is a much prettier place than Dartmouth, and if schools were only decided upon by their campuses, I would even have a hard time deciding between Amherst and Princeton. Amherst is that pretty.

In other news, I received a letter from the Advantage Testing Foundation for a Math Prize competition, which is bound to be very exciting (albeit all the way in November, so there's still a very long time to go), and also info session mail from the Claremont Colleges (not happening, because they're in California, as my mother puts it) and the Duke-Georgetown-Harvard-Penn-Stanford groupie (I don't know why those particular schools chose to be together). I also got a letter from Yale with no real information (that I didn't know already).

And SATs next Saturday. APs next next week and next next next week. This whole college thing is coming a tad bit too fast for me, I reckon.

Princeton: Just Another "Perfect"

Tea and Avon and I visited Princeton yesterday, as part of Tea's fourth (fifth?) college visit, and Avon's and my first. Tea's mom drove us, and on the way there, we were confused by the GPS directions, which stubbornly refused to comply with our wishes, so we spent quite some time on the road.

Nevertheless, we got there successfully (albeit after the info session had already started). Avon had brought a notebook with her ("This is going to be my college visit notebook from now on!"), and among some of the first things she had jotted down was "pretty town." This was absolutely true. Princeton (the town) was gorgeous to look at, especially since we visited in the spring and on a beautifully sunny day. The town wasn't too large, but there were plenty of small shops and parks.

We spent a while trying to find a parking lot, when Tea said, "Hey, look, a student!"

We all stared at the student, who looked fairly normal. "They're not aliens," Avon said. "Just normal people."

After our first spotted student, we saw several more who looked just as normal. They seemed really sociable as well, which was something Avon liked. We found our parking lot and rode the shuttle bus to Clio Hall, where the tour was supposed to start.

Inside Clio Hall, there were two floors (that we could see), one for graduate students, and one for undergrads. We went upstairs to the undergrad area, signed our names on the sheet, took a booklet that introduced the school, and sat down on the couches. The booklet gave us some basic information, such as academics, admissions, and room and board (including a very fancy flowchart to explain the junior/senior boarding/eating plans). Tea had also taken a diversity booklet, but there weren't any specific numbers or percentages, just general comments on how Princeton is a very, very diverse place.

Soon, a bunch of other people entered the room, so we figured that the info session that we had missed was over. We followed everyone downstairs, where our tour guides were already waiting. Thus began our tour of Princeton, which, judging from what we had seen already, was bound to be breath-taking.

Our tour guide was a freshman, planning to major in French, and believed walking backwards was a form of exercise (which, according to Crabtree, is much easier than jogging forwards, but I haven't experienced that myself), so she didn't talk much about the science departments (which was what we were most interested in, since all of us are science-oriented people) or the athletic facilities (not much of a loss here for us). However, she did mention lots of interesting bits about the history of the school, such as how the Yale architect carved his face into the chapel on campus or the numerous Woodrow Wilson residencies while he was at Princeton. She also did a splendid job pointing out the gardens and buildings, including the campus library, which is mostly underground and resembles an iceberg.

We finished the tour around noon, so we decided to eat at one of the dining areas on campus to see what the food was like. The cafeteria was pretty much similar to our school's cafeteria (except with a few more selections and bigger), but the main difference was portion size. People in Princeton must eat A LOT (is this proof that they're aliens in disguise after all?), because the meals we bought were humongous.

So, my opinion of the school overall?

It's in a pretty town (as Avon noted), decent size and not too isolated, and it's not too far north or too far south, so the location is nice. Buildings looks gorgeous (stone walls and copper roofs). Academics are definitely great, but there's also a lot to do around campus, and there are plenty of choices in general. I am not looking forward to the 80+ pages senior thesis (but I suppose it isn't that bad, if countless Princeton alums have survived it thus far), but I definitely wouldn't mind spending a lot of time in that library.

And, of course, the most important factor.

Can I get in?

Equations Evaluation

Mr. Coffee had given our AP chem class two packets to "review" over the break, and he had said that they would be on stoichiometry, since that was what we would be tested on the Wednesday we were due to come back. I thought that stoich would be fun to tackle (at least not frustrating), because I was fairly good at it, so I took out the packets today and took a look.

Turns out they're not even remotely related to stoichiometry. Both of them were balancing equations. I didn't do so well with my equations (so many rules), so I spent most of today finishing the two packets.

Out of a grand total of 56 questions, I answered 35 correctly. That's a D, for anyone who's interested. (However, with the AP curve, I am 5% away from a 5.)

Ouch. I am so glad that the test isn't entirely equations-based.

Here are some notes I took in the margins (as you can probably tell by now, I'm bored and have nothing else better to say):

H- + H+ = H2

CuO DOES NOT EXIST (It actually does, but not in any of the equations I tried.)!! Use Cu + O2

ZnO EXISTS and is preferred over Zn + O2 (In this case.)

I2 is a solid, not a gas.

WHAT IS THIS??? (Referring to diamminesilver(I) chloride.)

Well then. I still don't know how much of this I have remembered, but I am glad that I can now look at something like "potassium permanganate in solution" and instantly know that I won't be dealing with the potassium. That's quite an improvement over my earlier days of writing out the complete equation before cancelling out spectator ions.

Maybe I should go back to planning the last stretch in Santiago, plotting out basic routes in Japan, or just doing my English homework (we have to take notes on Huck Finn, one sheet per chapter, and there are forty chapters in total. Not fun.)

This may also be one of my shortest posts ever. Or not.

Easter Island—Finally!

Imagine this: in the middle of a cool, Chilean night, a silvery plane pierced the sky. Four hundred feet from a peculiarly-shaped bush, a llama stared at the plane, its eyes blank of emotion. It had seen these entities before, but knew not what they meant—those silver birds that were unforgiving in their paths.


Gretchen and I had a wonderful time in the Atacama, but unfortunately, we had to leave for our next destination, Easter Island. We had booked an early morning plane, hoping to arrive on the island and explore its renowned beaches before it got too chilly. At the airport, we were met with quite a pleasant surprise!

I apologize for the weird picture-ness. I got lazy and simply copied/pasted. For future pictures, I will actually redraw the people so they fit the background better. Or I'll just post pictures cause I'm lazy. Also, look, Air Canada!

Tea came! She bore news that Bruney would also be coming along on our next destination (after Santiago) since I still need to draw her as well to—drum-roll as I whip out random.org's random coordinates generator—Japan! Wow. That would be quite a huge leap from Chile. (Any suggestions to not go to Japan will be considered. That was just a random pick.)

Nonetheless, Tea said she would be coming to Easter Island with us! So we changed our boarding passes so we could sit next to each other (in a row, yay!), and excitedly got on the plane. Well, the plane part was boring, so I won't talk much about it. I did manage to fiddle around on my laptop for a while, and I've managed to memorize a few basic UNIX commands thanks to unixkcd. (Who knew "kill" meant transporting a terminator to 1984?)

Anyway. We got off the plane in the afternoon, before sunset. This really nice guy, Mark, from one of the guest houses on the island, came up to us and asked if we needed a place to stay. We said we were looking for a hotel, and he offered to drive us there. Now, before you get all suspicious about why a perfect stranger would offer to give us a ride in his car to some presumably unknown destination, this is apparently the norm among Easter Island guest hotel guides. So we hopped into his car and arrived at our hotel a short while later.

Here's a picture of our beautiful place that we will be staying in:

Mark told us that the food in "downtown" Hanga Roa, the only major town on the island and where we were right now, was pretty good, and that we should try some of it out—of course, after we go to the beach and check out the gorgeous sunset. I was really excited, because I love, love, love sunsets. They're top on my list of things I love, along with shiny things and sparkly erasers (although Jack says that the blood-red sunset in the mountains are the most beautiful things ever, drawn from his experience living in central Minnesota).

So, of course, we had to pay a visit to the Hanga Roa port. Isn't it coincidental that Hanga Roa faces west, perfect for a sunset? Or maybe it faces west just for the sunset? I guess it's just like the chicken and the egg—we'll never know for sure.

After the sunset, which was absolutely magnificent, I declared that I was hungry, and so we decided to find something good to eat. The most famous restaurant on the island had to be Te Moana, but we had to reserve early to get seats, and in my haste and tiredness, I had completely forgotten to do so. La Taverne du Pêcheur is another good restaurant that specializes in seafood, but it's really expensive. Granted, we had an unlimited budget because I say so and I am omnipotent in this trip, so we decided we would go there last, to treat ourselves to some "gourmet" food.

Mark had told us that there were some places around town that sold cheap empanadas, and so we went around town in searching for such a place. Well, we found one, right next to a market, and those empanadas were really delicious! We were going to take a picture of one of us eating an empanada, but decided we would just share a picture of the actual thing instead.

We went back to the hotel early that night, and woke up really early the next morning (at 6:30, which is very early for me unless I had to go to school, which effectively does not exist right now). Next on our agenda: the Moai!

For those who have not been privy to the Easter Island culture, Moai are those stone face-statues scattered around Easter Island that were used to commemorate the deceased. They are placed upon stands called Ahu, and we should not step on the Ahu because that would be disrespectful towards the dead.

Most of the Moai sites around the island are free to visit, so we rented a Jeep and drove around the island along the major road, oohing and ahhing over all of the Moai. We stopped at a few of them, including the most famous Ahu Tongariki and Ahu Akivi. We reached Ahu Tongariki in the morning, and had a brunch of pescado a la parrilla (I'm sure there are accents somewhere, but since I am not familiar with Spanish, I am not sure where—also, this is grilled fish) and bread prepared by the wonderful cooking staff at the hotel.

When we were about to leave, a crowd of other tourists had arrived, preparing to eat lunch at this famed location. Good thing we were early! We (mostly Tea, who is the only one here who can drive right now) drove on in the Jeep, often staring at the ocean and its glimmering prettiness. By the time we got back to Hanga Roa, it was already late afternoon, and we were starving! I found some leftover tortilla de rescoldo in my backpack (back from Atacama), so we munched on some of that with the pebre, a sauce made with coriander, onions, olive oil, garlic, and ground peppers. It was delicious (I should find a synonym for "delicious"), but not nearly satisfying enough. So of course, we went to another restaurant and had some chanfaina (see below), this traditional soup of beef or lamb with a bunch of other things added to it. I wasn't too big on the blood, but I liked the potatoes. I like potatoes a lot.

We went back to the hotel and caught up on some rest and reading about all the things that happened to our friends back at home. I was really sleepy (since I had woken up so early), so I fell asleep first, and I have no idea what Gretchie or Tea did afterwards. But we woke up pretty early the next day, this time to go to Rano Raraku!

Rano Raraku is a crater volcano, but it's famous because most of those Moai—those things we saw the day before?—were carved from this mountain. Of course, there are tons of half-completed Moai lying around. I don't really know why.

It took us most of the day to climb up the volcano and see the crater and the island all around us and then to climb down again. Some girl who was just climbing down from the crater as we were climbing up complimented our ponchos. She was wearing a really pretty chamanto as well. Anyway, here's a picture at the top:

We had some really good ave pimienta (diced chicken meat sandwich with red peppers) for lunch, and we got back down, we had some pastel de choclo, which is similar to a shepherd's pie. You can tell that I am a huge food fan. Chilean food is absolutely mouth-watering, and I can't believe I've been missing out on so many wonderful dishes all my life.

The next day was planned to be a day of relaxation. We woke up reasonably early (at 7:30, an hour later), and went down to Anakena, which is renowned for its white sand beaches. The water was chilly at this hour, so we just sunbathed on the beach and watched some guys surf. One of the guys kept falling into the water, despite the other guys trying to help him.

After a few hours of nice relaxation on the beach, we went over to Motu Nui, where we picked up the snorkeling gear Mark had reserved for us earlier. I had never been snorkeling before, and I was kind of scared at first, but it was really fun once I got used to the whole thing.

Tea caught a lion-fish in her hands by accident, and after she let it go it would not leave her alone. It was so adorable! Which reminds me, we (Gretch and I) still have to ship Owen his alpaca, but I suppose that can wait for a while.

After a whole day around water, what better place to dine for the evening but the famed seafood place, La Taverne du Pêcheur? After all, I had promised we would come back here on our last day, and we would be departing the next day. So we all indulged ourselves with seafood. Tea ordered the ostiones a la parmesena, scallops with melted butter and grilled Parmesan cheese. Gretchie ordered the congrio frito, deep-fried conger eel, and I ordered the machas a la parmesena, similar to Tea's except mine were clams.

Here are the pictures of our dishes, respectively:

Sadly, we had to leave early next morning to go back to Santiago (without even a chance to visit Rano Kau, which supposedly had a beautiful view). Well, it was certainly a fun time in Easter Island, especially with Mark and the hotel crew, and none of us could wait for the next destination!

Santiago, here we come—hasta luego! Or until whenever the next update comes, which could be a very, very long time away.


OOH*:

As I was walking into my US class today, I realized that I forgot to add a "works cited" to the end of my paper. So I told my US teacher I would hand her a new copy during lunch. I had gym/health right before lunch, and so when I walked out of class to go to the library, I saw Vincent, who was walking the opposite way to go to gym.

"Hey," I waved.

"Hi," Vincent said. "Oh, I have to ask you something."

"Okay, what is it?"

"I know you're not going, but, if you were, would you have gone to prom with me?"

Oh, uh. "Yeah, I would."

"Oh, okay."

"Are you going?" I asked him.

"No, it's right before AP week."

"Oh, right."

The two APs he's taking are in the second week, which was the same problem I have with my chem test. I have no idea who planned prom to be on May 8th, but it makes no sense at all. Unless you're not taking any APs, but I have a feeling a decent percentage the grade is taking some sort of AP test (there are so many of them, after all), so it still makes no sense. At all.

But enough of me ranting.

(I have also noticed that Vincent's hugging period is progressively growing. And to think all of this began with Amanda's hugging spree back when he was reluctant to hug people. Ahh. Life's unpredictable like that.)

*For abbreviation clarifications, see earlier posts relating to the round-the-world trip.

P.S.: All names mentioned in the trip that are not Gretchen, Tea, Bruney, or me are made up by me and have no basis in real life or those mentioned in the nickname spreadsheet or I was too lazy to add them in and stuff. Most of them won't be mentioned again, so I just made stuff up.

P.P.S.: Some of the pictures do not correspond with geographical location, most notably the ones that don't show specific geographical identities. Don't be confused if you see a similar picture elsewhere. Also, none of the pictures really belong to me, except those little people at the top. I would cite sources like I did last time, but it's a long and hard process and I'll probably do it later. For now, everything's just from Google Images, and they're even all from the first page with my keywords.

IT'S FINALLY OVER (partly)

From Wednesday (didn't post because I was working on the story), but the excitement still holds.

Insert various punctuation marks, including exclamation marks, question marks, the ever-so-popular SarcMark (can't on Blogger because it's not supported), and the occasional one.

What is this special occasion?

I am celebrating the END of two most awful things that have been bogging me as of late, most notably the research paper and calc finals. I just want to jump up and down and scream for joy! (Well, not really. But you get my enthusiasm.)

Of course, who knows what will happen once I get the grades back for them? Nonetheless, that's eons away, and I'm not troubling myself with these minor details yet. (Also included in these "minor details": I have stat finals tomorrow and Thursday, a physics test on Friday, American Indian paper for US due Friday, three labs despite taking two science classes, and since we did so horribly on the latest Dr. Cans-style electrochem test, we're taking an easier version tomorrow for freebie points.)

Since I am ever so happy and ever so not wanting to study for my stat finals, I will put up a story I had been working on prior with some minor edits.




There's a thousand lies I can make up, but only one truth, and I don't know if I can ever say that out loud.

Based on a true story. But Oprah, there isn't anything that is absolutely so, not even truth, not ever truth.

one.

Friday after school I circled the hallway aimlessly. I had someplace to be, something to do, someone to see—I knew all of that, but my heart was not into it. I listened as the soles of my feet tapped along the cheap, faux-stone tiles, echoing throughout the empty hallway, just as if I had worn wooden clogs and tap danced to a worn-out pattern.

Left, right. Left, right. Left, right. Left, right. I looked up and saw Avery's red backpack ahead. Something in my mind clicked. If Avery was here, then—

I ignored the fading statement and walked faster, hoping that he would not disappear behind a set of doors before I had a chance to talk to him. He saw me, and waved, a half-motion of his arm in slow, uncertain way. I waved back, came up to him, and glanced into the glass door he was standing by.

Left, right.

"Hey," I said, my face kept carefully blank as it always was around him. "Are you waiting for Carter?"

"Yeah, he's getting his forms signed for the scholarship. You have to get forms signed by so many people, and it takes a long time."

"Oh, yeah. I realized that I didn't qualify after the first page, so I just gave up. Do you know what time it is now?"

He squinted at the clock beyond the glass doors, where Carter was pacing back and forth, making faces at us when the teacher he was talking to was not looking.

"It's two-twenty."

"All right, I have five more minutes to waste before I have to meet up with the person I'm supposed to interview."

"Why don't you just go over now?"

"I don't feel like it," I confessed—one of the few truths I had ever told him. "It's like—I don't know. Everything's falling around me."

"Yeah, the math final?"

"It's not even just that. Everything—I don't know. It's these few weeks, and I can't wait for them to be over. Can't wait."

Left out the lies. Right over the truth.

He stared at me. I stared at Carter inside, now talking to another teacher, his manila envelope in hand, then back at him.

"Is there ever going to be another club meeting?" I asked him, changing the subject.

"Well, Carter and I both have tennis in the spring, and last year we didn't have any meetings in the spring either. Fall, maybe."

"Some time in the far, far future."

"Yeah, some time far away."

"I should get going now, I don't want to be late."

"Okay, bye."

"Bye." I turned on my heels, walked away, my back straight, not once looking back. That was where the broken promises resided, and I could not look back.


two.

"—so it was over, it was all over."

I forgot the first time I saw him, but it must have been so long ago if I could not remember. Ever since I first came here, he represented all this place ever was to me. He had the ambition that the ground reeked of. He had the false charisma the building donned. He had a snide side, much like the shadows of the neglected corners.

I listened to him as he laid his story out in a monotone voice. It was a tragic story, made even more tragic in the way he told it. But it was in my best interests to listen, and so he was to be heard, the few comments scattered here and there excepted.

Most of all, he had an eerie perceptiveness, sometimes there and sometimes not, that haunted me every time I stepped foot beyond those glassy doors.

"Why didn't you stop her?" I asked. It was a risky question to put out so early in the game, but I had my confidence.

I had probably not said anything to him, for I did not remember talking to him at all for the longest time. It was always someone around him—someone he knew, or someone who stood within earshot of him—and I brushed off those coincidences as mere coincidences. I wanted to talk to those people, yes, I really did.

"I—what can I do? Tell her not to go? Why would she listen to me? I've never been once nice to her."

Eventually I persuaded myself that I was meant for better, and I took solace in my revelation. I pulled on my brightest smile, and I gave it to everyone else. I was happy, I was loved, and I was not lonely. I was definitely not lonely.

"You had your excuses, but now is not the time." I held out my hand, and he shook it, and we both knew that he would lose, no matter what he chose.


three.

They were gone when I came by again, my feet tapping against the tiles. I stared at the empty space behind the glass doors, but it was just that. Empty. No amount of staring changed it. Walking by the computer labs on my way to the front door, I remembered that computer club usually met every Friday. I peered into the room, trying to see if I could find Sam and ask if I could borrow his phone, since I had forgotten mine.

Sam was not there, but Chris was, so I hurried away. He was another person I would rather not see. I continued on my way, stopping at the main foyer to see Tom, Stephen, and Nina climbing the stairs along the railing.

"Hey," Tom said, waving to me, then, as I came closer, he pulled me into an embrace. "I love your candy bracelet."

"Oh, it's not a candy bracelet."

He took a closer look at my wrist. "Aw. Well, I still love it anyway."

"Are you staying here for long?" I asked, as we pulled away.

"For about ten minutes, until my mom comes."

"Okay."

I left him as he turned his attention to Nina, who had made it to the second floor and was looking down, mocking Stephen's cowardice. I walked outside and stood next to Melissa, who was waiting for her ride.

Left, right.

"Hi," I said. "Do you know if there's tennis practice today?"

"No, I don't think so. Why?"

"Oh, just wondering if I should walk all the way over to the tennis courts."

"Do you have practice or something?"

"No, I just wanted to find something to do."

"Okay, well, I can't see anyone there right now, so there probably isn't practice. I have to go now, I'll talk to you later."

"Thanks, bye."

I watched as Melissa boarded the car and left. Then I tipped my toes and stared at the tennis courts on the hill. They were empty, as Melissa had said. Scott came out, carrying a racket case, just as I was about to go inside again.

Left out the past. Right into the future.

"Hey, Scott, is there tennis practice today?"

"Girls' team?"

"No, the boys."

"Yeah, but we just ran for twenty-five minutes. It's over now."

"Oh, okay. Are you on varsity or JV?"

"Varsity."

"Do you know if the JV team had practice today?"

"I don't know, I'm sorry."

"It's all right. Thanks." I walked inside again, where Tom was still there, now singing with Stephen. I asked to borrow his phone, and called my mom as I watched Callie sit in one of the benches beside the front door. I wondered briefly if her brother was here, but then decided it did not matter.


four.

We walked to the parking lot behind the supermarket and watched as the truck unloaded crate after crate of potatoes. He stared at those crates, then at me, and I could tell he was upset, more so than he had ever been when he had told me his story. I had given him hope, and hope was more frightful than the lack of it.

When he smiled at me I smiled back, seeing no harm in the exchange. He was just another person I would encounter in my life, with no more special preference than anyone else I acknowledged in the halls. He waved, an awkward, hey you're here type of wave, and I said hi, and he did not say anything back, and we left it at that.

"You're sure she's going to be here? How can you know?"

I tried my hardest with my excuses. The clock is right there—that was all I was looking at. Ben and Alex always made some sort of joke, and they were in that corner. I had a question, and no one else could possibly have known the answer. I deluded myself, told myself I did not know, told myself I had no other choice, and in doing so I believed it.

I smiled. "I have my ways, or I would not be in this business. Oh, and, you know what you owe me. Remember that, whatever choice you decide to make in the end."

One day I woke up and I knew—I simply knew. It was in the way the wind blew, or maybe how the clouds had rearranged themselves. It was in the air, and I simply knew. When I went downstairs I had my confirmation in brown, stiff cardboard. I played with the roll of tape on the table for a while, and I was almost relieved.

"Yeah, yeah. This had better be worth it." But he knew already, and I needed no further persuasion. I watched as he left, his back an awkward, retreating shape, as though he were not certain of the path he was taking.

It was over. Finally over. One last time, and everything would be over.

It could not have been so. He knew his choices, and I knew mine. After so many years, I had long ago learned that the secrets to this trade was not business savvy, but a willingness to make sacrifices.


five.

When I got home my mother was on the computer, but I told her I needed to finish writing up my plan for the trip, and she went into her room to watch TV. I opened up a new browser and typed in the address for my email. It took a while to load, and when it finally did, I searched the side panel and saw Ronnie online.

I opened a chat window with her, and debated what to type. There were several things I wanted to ask her about, but I needed to tailor them to fit my persona, and I wondered how far I could go with tampering with the words until they became too obscure to be understood. That was happening a lot lately, if any of Dena's feedback on my short fictions were of any hint.

Left, right.

"Hey," I wrote, making up my mind.

"Hi," Ronnie replied back. "Did you talk with Jennifer yet?"

"No, why?"

"She said she knew something interesting about you and Jack, but she wouldn't say what."

"Oh. I bet it's nothing. There's nothing between Jack and me, but she doesn't believe me."

"Well, you guys sure act that way. People are always going to think things if you keep that up."

"I suppose. Did Jennifer say anything else?"

"I don't think so. Oh, wait, she said that Carter wanted to talk to you about something. Not sure what either. I think he didn't tell her."

"Huh. I wonder why?"

"I don't know. He's a strange boy. Oh, and, have I told you about the new physics teacher?"

"No, you haven't."

"Well, the new physics teacher has a PhD in the study of enthalpy and entropy, and he's a huge fan of alternate dimensions and inter-dimensional travel!"

"Really? Wow, that's so cool!"

"I'm going to ask him some questions about the field later, but I want to do some independent research first to get a general idea."

"That sounds like fun. Tell me what you find out. I have to go now, dinner."

"Okay, I'll talk to you later. Bye."

"Bye."

Left without a mark. Right here in nowhere.

I clicked the chat panel and made myself invisible, then stared at my inbox. It stared back, taunting me with its bold, unread messages. I pressed alt-F4 as fast as I could, then ran into my room and grabbed a coat. "I'll be back soon," I told my mother, and she asked me where I was going.

"Just out for a walk."

"Come back before it's dark," she said. I nodded, but I was already half-way out the door, and she could not have possibly seen me. I had places to be, things to do, people to see—and never enough time.


six.

"You could have told me."

I looked down, my eyes not meeting his. "I meant to, last week, but you were so busy, and I thought maybe, maybe—"

"You had plenty of time, and I wasn't ever that busy."

"I—Okay, I wanted to tell you earlier, but I figured you wouldn't care, so I decided not to instead."

I raised my head, this time staring into his eyes before remembering why I had chosen not to. I stared at the spot on the bridge of his nose, between his eyes, and told myself the intensity of my stare was enough to dispel all suspicions.

"That's not true. I'm here, aren't I?"

I did not respond.

"Why are you doing this?"

"It's not my choice," I said. "I don't have a say in this."

"Yeah right. You could've said no. Could've—how long will you be gone?"

"Long enough."

He looked as though he wanted to say something more, but he merely nodded. I smiled, apologetically and not so at the same time. I supposed I would regret this moment, years later. I would berate myself for letting such an opportunity slip through my fingers. But right now, I needed to escape. I needed to
stop this toxic cycle, and this was the only way I knew how. I was running away, I knew that. I had always known that.

"Just—one thing that's been bothering me."

"What?"

"How did you find out? How did you know I would be here?"

"I just know," he said, his eyes unwaveringly trained on mine. "Just like I know that you will be coming back, and I will wait here until you do."

Left here once upon a time, came back and there was nothing left. Right here where I made my vows, I'm staring at old memories wondering if I was ever right.

"80, that's definitely a solid B." (Math Adventures—Part IV)

Continued from last time, where we had just finished round one and were going on to round two, but since this has been drawn out for so, so long, I will effectively condense round two and round three (during which Mario and Tybalt tried to find what room Argon and I were in, but failed because they didn't turn around and see me), and this latest edition will begin as Argon, Micro, Dino and I were all back in the cafeteria (basically after round four, so Mario and Tybalt have gone off to do round five).

"How are we doing now?"

"Round two was brutal. We got six points—Treeburg got twenty."

"There's no way Treeburg got twenty points," Dino said, standing up to go over to the score-projector. We followed him and confirmed this sad reality, and then came back to our table again.

"So, there goes 159," Micro said.

"159?" Dino asked, feigning confusion (I was pretty sure he was feigning, because he went on to ask "confusedly" what 162 was, when he was the person who first brought it up).

"Hey, Micro," I said. "Take 162 and multiply it by 0.8 on your calculator."

Micro punched in some numbers and said, "129.6."

"Okay, that's our new goal. 130."

"Why?" Argon asked. "What's 130?"

"That will give us a solid B."

"That's not a solid B," Dino said. "That's a low B."

"80 is definitely a solid B. In the grand scheme of grade-keeping, it doesn't matter what's added to the B at the end."

"Whatever." Dino chose to go back to explaining cos x as a Taylor polynomial to Argon, then added the two together to form the Taylor polynomial of e. After some fiddling and manipulation of numbers, he circles the final result—a degenerate Euler's formula, without the one or zero.

"Whatever," Dino said again as I pointed out his lack of zeros.

"I get how you derived it," Argo said, "but I don't understand how you can take something to the i power. I mean, what does that mean? How do you do it?"

"Well," Dino said. "It just is. You don't ask 'how.'"

Skimming over more trivial events (Micro, Argon, and I testing out more suspicious gelatin-marshmallow candy flavors, Mario claiming that we may still have a chance against Treeburg after seeing their dismal round four scores, and Bryant wondering if he should sneak in a TI-89—not allowed, but unlikely that the proctors would see the difference between that and a TI-84, which is allowed—for the team round questions), this final installment of Math Adventures sees us about to hear who the winners for the state match are. Half the schools (those who figured they would never make top three anyway) had already left, but of course we were not concerned about them. All we cared about was whether we had defeated Treeburg or not.

"And now, in second place for the large schools—"

"If we win," Dino said, "I am going to scream."

"—Paperclip High School!"

Well, so much for hearing him scream. Since the next part(s) is boring, I shall fast forward it. Basically people got their trophies (if any), got on the bus, made lots of noise, Ms. Sherbert asked "all the Paperclip kids to count off and see if everyone's here," to which Mario responded, rather immediately despite his poor view in the back, that yes, we were all here, and then we got back to school. As you can probably see, I have kind of forgotten all the details.

Nevertheless. There is math team tomorrow. The adventures continue!

(UPDATE: Our team made it to the top twelve in the Moody's challenge! YAY! We get a scholarship prize of $1500, which I have no idea how it's going to be even given to us, but nonetheless, top twelve! That is so amazing. As a side note, I am surprised that the Mario-Irving-Owen-Tybalt-Bryant team did not do as well as ours (although they made honorable mention), seeing as their paper seemed much more mathematically based, and ours lacked a conclusion. Perhaps we were so amazing that they overlooked those minor details.

Or so I'd like to believe.)

Soda Is More Important Than Food (Math Adventures—Part III)

Continued from last time, where Micro had taken the last of the green tea candy (thankfully), and people started filing inside. We went through another twisty hallway, and landed in the cafeteria of what I shall call Turkey High School. It's about the same size as Paperclip's cafeteria, except it's circular (instead of the L-shape that seems to be our entire school's motif). On each table was a school's name on a piece of paper. We found our school's table, and everyone sat down, with Irving and Mario at one end and Micro, Argon, and me at the other end.

"I'm hungry," I complained. I really was hungry. I don't think I ate much for lunch.

"There are so many soda machines here," Bryant said, pointing to the soda machines scattered all over the edges of the cafeteria. "But none of them sells food."

"Really?"

"Yeah. There's one that sells ice cream though."

I went off in search of the ice cream machine, which was empty, alas. I also saw a display shelf that I assumed sold snacks, but a piece of paper taped onto the glass said "No snacks sold after 1:00." I circled around and came back to our table again to find Argon working on math packets again.

"So," Micro said, "is anyone going to teach me synthetic division?"

"Bryant," Dino said. Bryant concurred, and started writing numbers and drawing lines.

Argon chose this moment to say, "I still don't understand how you can raise e to the i."

He was referring to Euler's formula, and of course, having learned the derivation of it not a long time ago in calc, Dino said, "It's calculus."

"Oh," Argon said. "Really?"

"Yeah. Look here—" Dino pulled out a sheet of paper and started writing the Taylor series for sin x and explaining it. (Since the notation of all of this is very complicated to type without math type, I will not go in depth about the explanation. Just know that by the time Dino got to cos x, we were called down to go to our rooms to start round one.)

"Smart people on the left," the proctor who was showing us our rooms said. We took a left and went into a relatively empty room. Everyone sat down close to each other, then Micro said, "We can't sit next to people from our school."

Argon, Dino, and I, sitting in a circle-like formation around Micro, got up and moved. After I sat down again, I turned around and asked Micro, "Why did all of us move and you got to stay where you were?"

"I don't know," Micro shrugged.

We were then handed the round one questions, and someone out in the hall called the time so that everyone started and ended at the same time. The questions were all straightforward, since it was, after all, round one, and were basically counting numbers. Ten minutes went by slowly, with me playing with my pencil and checking over my work several times (not that I can usually spot anything that I've done wrong anyway).

When the proctor out the hall said that time was up, we all held our papers up to be collected. Then, I turned around (since everyone else sat behind me, as I was sitting in the very front) and compared answers with the others.

"Wait," Dino said, "the third question is six? I got five." That particular question called for counting perfect cubes that fit a certain criterion.

"Did you count twelve?" I asked. I had almost missed that one myself.

"Yeah, I counted that."

"Did you count one?" Argon asked. "That's a perfect cube."

"Oh." Dino said, realization on his face. "One."

"Hey, at least we still have a chance for 159," Argon said, referring to the "162" goal Dino had set earlier.

At this moment, someone from another school said, "The answer to the last one's five, right?"

"No, six," Micro said. "Did you count one?"

"Yeah, I counted one, two, three, two squared, and two times three..."

"What about twelve?" I asked.

"Oh, dammit! I forgot that one!"

Tricky, tricky. Well, at least we still had hope for a 159 (well, not really, and especially not really since I know what happened next, but since I'm a meanie I will tell the next time I blog.)

That's all for today, folks, and we'll see you next time! Don't forget to call our toll-free hotline, 1-800-NEPHRIA*, for any questions, concerns, or downright rants!


(*Hotline does not exist. Other methods of communication does, though.)

"Oh look, ice cream!" (Math Adventures—Part II)

I left off yesterday at the part where we were all on the bus, doing whatever suited ourselves. In my row's case, I was highlighting US packets while staring out the window, Micro was playing with some fancy gadget, and Argon was trying to sleep. After what seemed like an eternity (since reading article after article about Indian gaming isn't the most fun thing I've ever done in my life), the bus pulled into a plaza.

"Are we here?" Someone from another school asked.

Argon opened his eyes, and, after scanning his surroundings, said, "Oh, yeah, we're going to be taking the test here, at—"

"GameStop," I said. "I wouldn't mind taking it in GameStop. Wait. Is that—ice cream!"

However, it appeared that we were not meant to stay, for the bus then turned around and drove away. We were where we were supposed to be, though, for after five minutes we pulled up into the high school that was the site of our match.

Everyone shuffled off the bus, and, in utter confusion, started walking towards some unknown destination. We found some entrance inside, and shuffled down the hall, then out the door into some place that looked like a courtyard. There were several stone tables and chairs in the courtyard, and Tybalt suggested that we all sit down, so we found an empty table and sat.

"We're getting 162 today," Dino said as soon as we all sat down (except for Irving and Mario, who were talking to Mr. Booth). "162."

There were eight of us, and at 18 points (for a perfect score) each, plus a team round of 18 points, we could get a total of 162 points (theoretically).

"Okay," Tybalt said, pulling out his formula sheets. "I just have to remember these. Hey, Bryant, what's tan of π/8?"

"Square root of two minus one."

I stared at him. "Why would you need to know that?"

"The area formula for a regular polygon. You have to divide π by the number of sides. And that answer's not right," Bryant said, referring to Dino, who was working on a round four question.

"What?"

"The answer on the packet, it's wrong. I tried it and it doesn't work."

"Oh," Dino said. He then proceeded to check his answers using synthetic division. Micro, who was sitting next to him, spotted Dino's work and asked what it was.

"Synthetic division. You don't know synthetic division?"

"Nope."

"And you're doing algebra? You need to know synthetic division!"

"That's the disadvantage of skipping algebra two," Argon said.

"Okay," Dino said. "I'll teach you. It's easy. It's similar to long division. You know long division, right?"

"Well—uh—maybe—no."

By this time, Irving and Mario had already migrated to our table as well. Mario was talking about something math-related when someone from another school several meters away from us started playing the guitar.

"He's horrible at it," Dino said, his mission of teaching Micro synthetic division abandoned.

"Why don't we have someone at our school like that?" Mario asked. "There's always that one guy, you know, who carries a guitar all day long. We should have someone at our school like that."

The group of people around the guitar-playing guy suddenly started singing. We stared at them for a while, then Mario turned around and saw several people throwing a football around.

"They're so bad at throwing."

"They're math nerds," Bryant said. "What do you expect?"

"Hey, Irving," Mario said. "You better polish up your frisbee skills. That's all they do in college."

The conversation subsided into math afterwards ("Quick, Irving, what's secant theta?" "Huh? What do you mean, what's secant theta?" "One over cosine theta."). We stayed outside under the nice weather for a while longer, and I took out a strange bag of candy.

"So, I have weird food today," I said, "since I figured I probably shouldn't cook. Anyone want some?"

Dino stared at me and echoed, "Weird food?"

Argon poked a piece of candy and said, "What is this?"

"I don't know." I opened the bag and took a piece out. "It's not in any language I know."

The packaging was in Japanese, although the character on the piece I had taken resembled the Chinese word for "tea." I told Argon so, and he took a piece as well.

"It tastes like a blend of marshmallows and gelatin," he said after taking a bite. "I don't really like the tea flavor though."

"Me neither," I said. I've never really liked tea-flavored things. Why Micro took this as a cue to take one for himself, I'll never know.

And that's it for today, folks. We'll see you next time!


(A.k.a.: Yeah, I should really be doing work right now, so I'll continue for next time. The entire retelling process may take a very, very, very long time, if this keeps up.)

Math Is Definitely A Sport

I am not much of a sports player (seeing as every sport I play—except maybe for KanJam, which I believe I am quite an expert at because I can aim a frisbee into the tiny slot on those KanJam cans—can be described with the words, "flailing arms everywhere and horrible hand-eye coordination"), so I do not know what a real sports team is like, at least among the players themselves. I cannot claim that solving complex geometry problems is the same as scoring a goal in lacrosse (which I still have no idea how it's played, but I'll probably ask soon).

However, math is most definitely a sport in its own right. It's competitive, we have a team, and we have matches and rivals and most of all, there are different levels of competitions.

In fact, our rivals in math are pretty similar to our rivals in, say, soccer or football.

Anyway, I promised earlier that I would blog about the state math meet, and so, after much homework-tackling and procrastination, here it is, a transcript of (nearly) everything that happened.

When I handed in my permission form on Monday, Ms. Sherbert told me that we would have a dismissal at one. I went on the website that night and checked the schedule (because I only have end-of-class times memorized by the minute hand, not the hour hand), and realized that I would still technically have to go to period 5, my calc class. But everyone was going to be taking a test that I had already taken anyway, so I figured that I wouldn't need to stay. That was what I told Argon (who has half of period 5 free, lucky him) during lunch, and he agreed to come with me upstairs to see Mrs. James and tell her that I was "skipping."

We made it halfway there when we saw Micro wandering down the hall in the opposite direction.

"We have the entire period off, right?" Micro asked as we approached him.

"Well," Argon said, "our dismissal's at one, so you still have to go to period 5."

"Oh, well, I have Spanish, so I'm skipping."

For students who supposedly represented some of the "brightest of Paperclip High," as Mr. Stone said the other day before AIME (while Tybalt stood on a swivel chair trying to dismount a projector, and Mr. Stone commented on what a shame it would be if Tybalt fell off and hit his head), we sure love going to class.

Micro followed my entourage (which expanded from one person to two) upstairs as we debated the world language department. Once we got to the calc classroom, I slipped in and explained the situation to Mrs. James.

"Where is Dino?" Mrs. James asked. "You guys have half an hour. He could have squeezed in part of the test today. Oh, he's such a slacker."

Later on, as we wandered the halls some more, Argon said, "I feel kind of bad for feeling sorry for everyone who's stuck in class while we're out here."

We had just walked past the ASR room, and I suggested that we go back and say hi to Tea and Mario, but this notion was dismissed as soon as we saw Mr. Fisher.

"Hey, Mr. Fisher," said Argon, who had had him for bio last year. Mr. Fisher nodded hi to Argon and I, and then spotted Micro.

"Where were you yesterday? Were you skipping?"

"No," Micro said. "I was sick yesterday."

"Sure you were. You were skipping yesterday, and you're skipping now."

We then made our way to the library, where I spotted Irving, Tybalt, Bryant and Dino sitting at a table together. Looks like everyone (except Mario, who, according to Tea, was in ASR, and Argon, who actually had a free) decided to skip.

After half an hour of basically doing nothing (I printed out all of my US documents, but that was about it), we re-congregated at the front door, where another school was already there waiting. I could not figure out what school it was, although it may have been the high school from the town next to ours. The bus still had not arrived yet, so we loitered in the lobby.

"Dino," I said, turning to him. "Mrs. James said that you're a slacker for not taking the test today."

"Oh, yeah," Tybalt agreed. I'm not sure how he knows this information, as he was in the library for the entire time, but perhaps he has superpowers I am not aware of.

"Come on," Dino said. "Cut me some slack. I'm not going to take half the test today and then take the rest on Thursday. I have a research paper due."

"So do I," I said. "And I took mine already."

"Yeah, well, English is your first language." Right. That made a lot of sense.

"No, it's not," I said.

"Yes, it is. It's not mine."

"What do you speak then?" Bryant asked. "Robot?"

The bus came at this time, so all discussions about Dino's robot status ended. Micro headed the line to go on the bus, which was already filled with people from other schools (I spotted Treeburg's red sweatshirt), and sat down in a random row. Argon sat next to him, and I sat across from Argon. Since there wasn't enough space left for the rest of them to sit together, Mario led the rest of them towards the middle of the bus.

The bus ride itself was rather uneventful, either because I didn't sit anywhere near Mario (and his gossip central), because I sat in front of Treeburg, who were all playing Pokémon loudly for some reason, or because I had lots of work for US that I had to do and I didn't want to be too overburdened. Probably a combination of all three. I did manage to get Argon to promise that he will trim down his backpack by the end of spring break ("You'll be really surprised at the results," or so I've been told), and highlight several documents (except the one that had "centrifugal" forces, which I rejected to the bottom of the pile because centrifugal forces do not exist and is obviously false).

Ladies and gentlemen, we will be right back after I sleep for the night, finish my EOQR, my essays (note the plural) and review for my finals the commercials! Stay tuned to find out what happens next!


(A.k.a.: I am tired now and will go sleep, but I've already written half of this, so I might as well post it now and then be lazy and write the rest later.)