The Past Few Weeks

I have been going to my classes every other class. Sometimes it is intentional, like today, when I skipped my linear algebra class to attend a soldering tutorial that was probably more informative and productive than any single lecture I have gone to for linalg. (I stripped wires and made pretty twists with them and soldered them together with decent speed! That has to be one of the more productive hours I have ever spent in a long time).

Other times it is accidental, like today (again), when I woke up in the morning and it was 9:45 and my java class started at 9:35, and I was groggy and on the top bunk without any proper outdoors clothes on or any breakfast in my stomach, and the earliest I can have all of that done would be by 10, and then 5-10 minutes of walking to class would leave me with 15 minutes of lecture time left. So I promptly fell back asleep.

I asked Jessica later on about what the prof talked about in class today, and she said, "Calling a private property in another class with a public method." Which is, well, what we learned on Monday. I even have rather nice notes for that day.

I think it was on Monday, too, that I left my java class and, after buying yogurt and granola for breakfast, hurried to my linalg class and read the part in the textbook where I thought we had gone over the class before. And I went into class an hour later and proceeded to hear about the same things I had just read.

As Yuma puts it, "Why are your classes so useless?"

I like to believe that it is only so because I am in this limbo mode right now where I can't actually take the exciting classes. But I do have some neat classes next semester, like intro to computer engineering and engineering economy, as well as differential equations which I've heard is actually tough (or maybe they are making it up just like they are making up how difficult linear algebra was going to be). Also I will have no more English classes next semester and, as long as my 93% fixed schedule (based on rough approximations) is not changed by the higher beings who design the electrical engineering curriculum here, I will never have an official English class again.

Or maybe they do this English thing at grad school too. Who knows. I think they should do it every year but I suppose the workload (essay-writing) does add up.

. . .

I found a couple of tunnels under my school. This would sound so much cooler if I also put in, "I sneaked past -insert integer here- security guards and ducked under the camera and picked the lock on the grate and lowered myself into the tunnels," but alas, that was not the case. These tunnels are university-sanctioned, opened for the special purpose of allowing us to get to our classes without freezing ourselves to death when it is -40 degrees Celsius outside and the snow is piled higher than your head.

On the bright side, some of these are steam tunnels, which means they'll be extra-cozy in winter. On the not so bright side, they have operating hours, unlike the buildings themselves, so any late-night cramming session during finals time will necessarily involve walking through the snow.

I am not sure if our school has drains, which I have heard is also a good place to explore in the winter, but those are definitely not sanctioned and will require a lot of time and effort and luck to discover.

Roofs, however, are open (free?) to people who find the doors open at the right time. It is apparently not a rare occurrence. I have yet to be on a roof but that should be fun too.

. . .

Boys are weird creatures. I am sure this has been stated before (I vaguely remember this particular statement or a variation of it on my blog, and possibly on Kathrya's blog too although I can't remember if either is true), and I am aware it is a gross generalization, so I will restate this. Some of the boys I have encountered lately are weird.

The other day I went to the basement of the math and science building, and these two guys were selling white coffee to fundraise for some student group (I think it was Malaysian or some other Southeast Asian group, the guys told me but I don't quite remember). I asked them what white coffee was, and one of the guys explained (different coffee brewing process + condensed milk), and then took off the "$1" sign and said that they were running low anyway, so he gave me a free sample. Then they packed up so quickly and left the table before I even left.

Today, as I was walking down the escalator, one of the guys in my class walked past me, obviously in a hurry. He then held the door open for me, even though I was not even close to the door, so I half-ran to get the door so he wouldn't wait too long.

Maybe the midterms are addling with their brains.

I would love to extend this to girls too so this doesn't resemble a gender stereotype, but unfortunately I am not meeting enough previously-not-well-known-and-probably-will-never-know-well girls to have any concrete examples.

. . .

Thanksgiving weekend was good. It involved lots of fish (alive, raw, microwaved, hot-potted, stuffed-toy-ified), a trip to the depths of Chinatown, friend-visiting, mall-bridge-hopping, movies (some good, some dreadfully slow), and a variety of other things that may or may not be appropriate to put on here. A blackboard was acquired, kitties were petted, and a bunch of pretty much useless RAMs and hard drives were lugged back up the hill.

I might write about it, but definitely not from my perspective and not with any clear-defined names.

And we can also definitely glaze over the late-night drunk on deliriousness hours of insanity.

It was apparently also Denise's birthday on Thanksgiving weekend. It was a rather sad event for her, at least on the day of her birthday, because none of us were there (Sam went to her cottage, other people were otherwise occupied with their families) and she was sick. To make matters worse she spent the weekend at the studio working on one of her many, many projects.

Sam organized a belated celebration for her by taking her to a dumpling place (and inviting all of us). They were really good dumplings (I haven't really had a vegetarian dumpling in a long while, and the ones there were delicious), and Denise and Sam ate two platefuls. I would have ordered a plate myself, but earlier that day I had gone to the-dorm-with-a-good-caf and had gotten myself onion rings and cheesecake and chicken and noodles and broccoli and iced tea, and normally I could have dealt with the main meal but the combo of onion rings and cheesecake was rather filling already, so I was stuffed by the end of the meal.

So not many dumplings for me. So sad.

. . .

I am really tired now. I slept at 4 in the morning, because I wanted Yuma to read me a chapter from a story and he didn't want to, so I stayed up doing silly things. This is probably directly related to my inability to attend my java class this morning, which apparently was pretty silly too, so it all balances out.

I bought four books from the book fair yesterday, all on math and science, and I can't wait to read them. I also signed up for about a million email lists from various clubs around my school, and plotted them all on my calendar in hopes that by virtue of them being there, I will do them.

So far I have not gone to the computer-recycling club, nor the outdoors excursions club, but I have asked Jessica about the two competitions I was interested in (both require teams).

Maybe if I sleep more...

Electronics

As Nathan puts it, "Electronics always fail. Don't just take it from me. The guys who go on to become CEOs at Ford and [some other big car company whose name I have already forgotten] all say that they know shit-all about electronics and electronics always fail."

Very encouraging.

He then proceeded to show us a network problem he was having with the black box on the car. We spent a good hour there watching him put things together, and it was pretty fascinating (I never knew about breadboards before but they are the neatest things ever). Then we watched as he ran the program and explained that, once again, it was not working and he was not getting the data he needed.

Not to mention that the team is going on a pre-race event at Lakeside in a week, and he needs to get it working by then so the other teams working on the car can have the data they need.

I have a sort-of-like-SWE group mixer tomorrow evening, and there is the tech fair all day tomorrow, so I might go there on Wednesday night, if I'm not going to other companies' info sessions. I do want to check out the other parts of the car, and maybe do some data analysis, since that is always fun.

The rest of the meeting went by pretty uneventfully. I was hoping to see Peter so I could ask him where we were supposed to be on Wednesday for our English class, since we're starting on our research topics already, but he wasn't there (probably because there wasn't anything very important going on for those who are already on the team). I did see someone else from my English class though (what is with my English class and cars? I now know four people aside from me who is/will be on the team, out of a total of 25).

In other news:

• Today marks the first day I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a school cafeteria. I had an egg and blt English muffin sandwich and milk for breakfast, smoked salmon and shrimp sushi and peach yogurt for lunch, and pizza and lemonade for dinner (all the fancy stuff ran out by the time I got there). I am still $22 behind my spending schedule for the day. Tomorrow I will be $37 behind. I really, really need to increase my food intake and quality somehow without overeating. Or maybe, as Yuma says, I should exercise more. Maybe I could go up and down the hill every day like I used to?
• I found this really neat math genealogy website, and when I traced my math history professor, it went all the way back to Heisenberg and Gauss and Möbius and Copernicus and lots of other cool mathematicians. Also a really interesting thing was that when I started going really really far back (like 1400s) I would find that a lot people studied under the same people and then taught the same people and other mixed-up things like that. It's less common now because of all the people who are able to study math at a high level, but I suppose back then when learning was still a privileged thing to do, it was more common.
• I have, through some crazy notion, signed up to be part of a debate team in one of my 200-people-large classes. Only 20 people are debating in total. That is crazy, considering I usually never volunteer for anything even when 10 people are called for in a 25 people class. And it's on a topic I never did any research on. But I have lots and lots of time, I suppose. Which reminds me:
• I want to somehow pick up physics again, because I really don't know all that much about it and I believe it is rather necessary to know physics as an engineer. I have been telling myself that I need to get onto that but it's not happening yet, so I think I need to actually assign a fixed schedule, sort of like a class time, so I can get it done. Maybe two hours a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then an extra hour for reviewing calc. I could get that fitted into my calendar easily.

Also. People. Talking. About. Midterms.

Already.

I feel kind of silly because the past few posts have all contained some mentioning of grades, and while I do care I don't want to care too much to the extent that I won't get to do all the cool things I want to do on campus (EWB, FSAE, SWE-like group, youth outreach groups). Maybe all of this can be solved by writing shorter blog posts. These things take quite a bit of time.

There Was Snow, White Snow

Five minutes from the heavily anticipated announcement of whether we will have an early dismissal or not, Mr. Littney, who had earlier asked us to discuss all of the books we had read for class thus far, asked, "What would Gregor from Metamorphosis say if he knew that a snow day was coming up?"

We stared at him for a while, not quite understanding his question.

"I think he wouldn't even notice," Mr. Littney went on to say. "I think he would be so entrenched in his routine that he wouldn't even notice there was snow. What about Return of the Soldier?"

"Chris would probably be staring out at the snow and reminiscing some wonderful moment with Margaret," someone said.

For Brave New World, Sonny said, "I think there wouldn't be any snow. They would just make it go away." Some else said, "People couldn't have snowball fights unless they used complicated machinery that increased consumption."

For Hamlet, Cammie said, "Hamlet would probably be the superintendent, trying to decide whether we should have an early dismissal or not." And Mr. Littney added, "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to have an early dismissal or to suffer until 2:15."

And for Aura, Mr. Littney said, "You look outside at the snow, and it is not snow anymore!" "And cats are burning on the trees," someone else added.

Oh, English.

(At the beginning of class, we had a one-minute discussion of the snow, which included Mr. Littney saying, "This is AP, get nothing and expect even less," in response to the collective groan when he pulled up the blinds so we could better stare at the tantalizing snow falling outside.)

. . .

We had our early dismissal, after all. I came home realizing that if we had not had an early dismissal, I would have had to explain multiple incomplete homeworks. And it wasn't that I had banked on the possibility of a snow day—I went to bed fully prepared to plot out my day according to the plan that there would be a full day of school.

There is lethargy in the air. Scatter-brained.

My back hurts. I thought it was because I sleep in shriveled-up positions, but now that I think about it, perhaps it is more because I had been leaning against unforgiving edges for a prolonged time yesterday. I am not the flexible girl I used to be, the one who could raise her feet to almost behind her head. That was years ago. This is now. This is painful.

I am tired, I am sleepy, and it is but a week since our last break. I slept a ridiculous amount during break, extended, 12+ hours. Sometimes 18. Sometimes more.

Sometimes I want to sleep even more, but it is now painful to lie down on my back, so sleep will, once again, be elusive.

. . .

My dad is talking about one of my cousins, who dated a boy in high school throughout college. The boy went to a better school. My parents often said that was the reason they broke up right at the end of college.

The cousin got a job half a country away, in a factory, and there, she met her future husband. Who cheated on her. She got a divorce and moved back home.

And in China, a divorce is still a huge deal. It is reputation-destroying. You won't ever be the same anymore.

At home, she found someone else, a man with a child.

Which is somehow even worse. These are some values I cannot, cannot agree with. But they are reality. I am not in accord with reality.

My dad does not approve of this relationship (neither does my grandmother, for that matter). He thinks it won't work out. Ever the optimist, he is. He will, most likely, have little say in this matter, but he has a lot of say in other matters closer to home.

. . .

The days are long, and the nights longer. Long Day's Journey into Night. I think I make up for my lack of TV-knowledge with a good deal of literary references. I am not sure if that is any better. If one is inherently better than the other, or if it is merely a change in perspectives and roots.

For You, Hamlet

Wednesday is our in-class essay, and the official day we will be spending on Hamlet, so I thought I would like to summarize some of my thoughts after reading this play.

• Action vs. Inaction: what everyone reading the play would think about. Hamlet's soliloquies are all about his inaction when it comes to avenging his father. He is "mirrored" in Laertes, who does not hesitate to take down his father's murderer. But what struck me as odd was why Hamlet is not capable of acting. Is it because he is over-thinking things? After he proves that Claudius is responsible for his father's death, what reason does he have for still hesitating? Perhaps he does not truly believe in revenge, and in fact, he asks, "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them?" Is he thinking about revenge only because the ghost, who is presumably his father, asked him to do so, because it is the right thing to do according to societal norms, or because he actually believes in it?
• Another character with a striking resemblance to Hamlet's situation is Fortinbras. As the prince of Norway, Fortinbras has also lost his father, and, at least from my reading of the text, is bent on revenge against Denmark. Throughout the play, he never gives up on attacking Denmark, and even uses traveling through Denmark to attack Poland as an excuse after his uncle condemned his actions. Here, both Fortinbras and Hamlet have lost their fathers and are seeking revenge, but they go about different ways of achieving revenge, and arrive at different destinations. Fortinbras, in his fiery impulsiveness and warrior-like thinking, does not hesitate to attack, and in the end he and his country benefits (as he has now gained control of all of Denmark's lands). Hamlet, with his indecisiveness and heavy thought processes, continues to miss opportunities to kill Claudius, and eventually dies amidst the destruction of the Denmark throne.
• Mini-digression: it appears, at least in the Hamlet world, that revenge is highly valued (and the judicial system not so much).
• Ophelia's death (and life): this is what I found the saddest. Yes, Hamlet lost his father and rightfully should be sad, but later on Ophelia loses her father as well. And perhaps her loss is even worse—when her father was still alive, he controlled every aspect of her life, and when he dies, it is as though Ophelia loses her soul. Her insanity is perhaps a reflection of that loss and her newfound lack of direction in life. But what makes Ophelia's life and death sad, at least for me, is not how sad she feels, but how her condition affects others around her. Laertes's "What ceremony else?" almost broke my heart. I can just hear the desolation in his voice as he realizes he is powerless to protect his sister or even make her death better. And Hamlet's "I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers / Could not, with all their quantity of love / Make up my sum" is both sad and frustrating. Sad, because Hamlet obviously loved her, and frustrating, because, hey, Hamlet, couldn't you at least have treated her a little better when she was alive?
• Mini-digression #2: William Shakespeare must have either had a really bad day or was at least slightly psycho when he wrote this.
• The whole relationship scene: is completely messed up. Starting with family, we have Claudius, who kills his brother and marries his sister-in-law. I don't think it gets much worse than that. Then there are the friends, or the good friends (Horatio) and the bad friends (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) who are back-stabbers and suck-ups. The lovers who lie constantly to each other (Hamlet and Ophelia). Not to mention how Hamlet treats his mother (very likely violence, or at least very cutting verbal remarks) and Polonius's absolute control over his daughter. There are some very, very disturbing relationships in this play.
• And of course, the portrayal of women: both Gertrude and Ophelia are rather weak characters. They advance the plot, but they do not develop much as characters, and are often pushed around by the other, male characters. What is also interesting is how Shakespeare, in creating his strong female characters, sometimes have them cross-dress as males, as seen in As You Like It's Rosalind, or Twelfth Night's Violet.

All right. That should be enough for one night. Now back to French homework.

Not Enough Time

I am falling apart at the seams, save me, save me please?
I thought you said you didn’t need saving. Said you could save yourself.
That was before. This is now.
You’re not desperate enough.

[There are some dreams that cannot be salvaged. Because they never existed.]

The steps to 30 Reading Street was covered in filmy moss. When Katie climbed them she almost slipped, but years of subway-riding training gave her the quick reflexes to steady herself and keep on going.

“Careful there,” Nick said. He held out his hand, hovered behind her back.

“Don’t worry about me,” Katie said. “I’m fine.”

She reached over and pressed the doorbell. No sound came from inside, and Katie wondered if she should press it again, or knock on the door. Would it be too rude? She stared at her reflection in the glass.

Perfectly groomed hair. Make-up applied so seamlessly they were dreamy. A neat cardigan over a navy cotton dress and ballerina flats. Her appearance was so youthful and carefree she thought she could almost mask the haunted look in her eyes.

After a few minutes, the door creaked open. Amanda’s weary eyes replaced Katie’s from behind the glass.

“What do you want?” They both said at the same time.

“Am I that predictable?” Amanda asked, a half-smile on her face.

Katie returned it with more optimism than she thought she had. “It is partly my fault. I usually only call on you when I need something.”

“Well then. How are you?”

“Good, good. How are you? How is Nick?”

“He is good,” Amanda and Nick said at the same time. Except this time, Amanda did not react. Katie shot him a dark look before turning back to Amanda.

“I am glad to hear that. You are good too?”

“Yes,” Amanda said. “Yes, I am.”

They stood a while like that, in silence. Katie remotely remembered why she never called upon Amanda. She pulled up a smile again and said, “Want to go get coffee with me some afternoon? I have a really flexible schedule now, and I get most afternoons off.”

“You don’t have a schedule anymore,” Nick said. “You don’t even work anymore.”

Amanda said, “That sounds nice. I am free Wednesday afternoons, and Nick does not get home until late. It is nearing dinner-time today, so maybe next Wednesday?”

“Yes, that would be great,” Katie said. “Absolutely lovely.” Absolutely fucking lovely, but she managed to cut off the curse. Nick should be proud.

The conversation fell into another lull. This time, Amanda smiled. “No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings,” Katie said.

None at all.

“Yes, no hard feelings,” Nick said, and laughed. That dry, hacking laugh. “Wish her a happy marriage. I dare you.”

“I hope you will be happy with Nick,” Katie said. “You two are perfect for each other.”

“Thank you,” Amanda said. “I was afraid—well, forgive me, but with your history with Nick, I was afraid that you might be upset at the news.”

“No, not at all. I am happy for you.”

“Well, thank you again. I hope you will come to the ceremony? I was going to ask you to be my bridesmaid, but Jessie really wanted—”

“That is not a problem,” Katie said. “I would hate to be so responsible anyway.”

“But the ceremony?”

“Yes, I will. I have to go now, but next Wednesday at Miguel’s café?”

“Of course.”

“Good bye.”

“Good bye.”

The door closed, and Katie was left with her reflection again. The hair still unruffled. The make-up pristine. Her outfit as cheerful and preppy as before. Her eyes just as hollow, but she was glad Amanda was not too perceptive.

Katie went down the steps, taking care not to slip on the moss again. She asked, “Why didn’t you clean this place up?”

“Not my problem,” Nick said. “Amanda can do it if she wanted.”

“She is your fiancée.”

“She is.”

“So what if she slips and falls? What if she gets hurt? You still won’t do it?”

“You were pretty gutsy back there,” Nick said. “I thought you wouldn’t have said it.”

“Don’t change the topic,” Katie said.

“I’m—”

A sky-blue car pulled up in the driveway in front of her. The door opened, and Nick stepped out. He just stood there, staring at Katie, and she could see something in his eyes that she often saw in her own.

“Hey, Nick,” she said.

“Katie,” Nick said. His voice did not have that sardonic tone anymore. It was more subdued, with an edge in it that made Katie’s throat contract. “What are you doing here?”

“I was visiting Amanda. She is my friend, you know.”

Nick cringed, and Katie knew what he was thinking. That drunken night she had called Amanda on a dare, the night she had introduced Nick to her. Because “you don’t have any decent friends,” as Nick had said.

“Yes, she is your friend,” Nick said. “I would have never known that.”

“I had forgotten that,” Nick said. “How are you then?”

“Good. Good enough,” Katie said. “How are you?”

“Good,” Nick said.

“Good,” Nick said.

One with contempt. One with hesitance.

“Amanda invited me to your wedding,” Katie said. “I hope everything goes well. Don’t drink too much—I don’t think she would be happy to wait by the toilet for you to finish throwing up.”

“Thank you.” The other Nick did not say anything.

“You’re welcome.”

All civil. Not a single go to hell, or fuck you. They had grown up, after all. Katie scoffed. If this was what growing up meant, she knew why all the grownups she had known as a child were always so stuck up.

Being grown up meant there were some things you wanted so desperately to say, but never said out loud.

Like, “If I had not called Amanda that night, what would have happened?”

Katied wondered. But she knew the answer already. Had she not called Amanda, Nick would be marrying some other girl. Katie herself would still be on barely-speaking terms with him. They would still find each other in this state, perhaps not at his house, but maybe a coffee place or a supermarket.

Still this awkward. Still hating each other.

And Katie would still hear Nick’s voice wherever she went.

. . .

This is all over the place, I admit. I had other things in mind when I was writing this (Nick was supposed to be perceptive and realize that something was wrong with Katie, for example), but it got long and I knew if I didn't finish this today I will never get to finish it, so I cut it off.

This is a much less morbid version of the other Nick, Katie, and Amanda story I had in mind. That one involves a funeral, and in some ways links to this one, so if I do get to fix it up I'll post it as well.

. . .

I was deferred to Penn. Surprisingly, I am not distraught, nor am I that upset. I think I wanted to get in somewhere early so I could just get it over with, but I am not entirely bought on the whole Penn thing. Maybe I was just persuading myself because I had already said I would do it and I hate to go back on my words.

I still love Penn.

But maybe it's not the one.

What does the one look like? I don't know. But MIT's as good a start as any. And yes, I know it's probably not the one either. But to be honest, I don't think I have to go to any one school, nor do I know what I would want for the next four years right now. In this regard, at least, I agree with Mario.

. . .

In English, someone was going to get cough drops from the nurse's office, and Sergio asked for one as well. Then someone else asked for some tissues.

Mr. Littney then said, "Get Dino a sucker pop as well."

We watched the last scene in Hamlet today. Where [spoiler alert] everyone important dies from poison (or, in Laertes's case, also from falling off a balcony, and, in Claudius's case, also from being squished by a chandelier). And Fortinbras marches his troops into the castle only to find everyone dead on the ground.

What a happy sight.

Apparently Aristotle's view of a tragedy is that after reading (or watching) one, we should have learned something about ourselves from it. So what have I learned? (Except for, as Mr. Littney pointed out, "the inability to shut up gives one longer life," as evidenced by Hamlet having being stabbed with poison first but dying last.)

I would say it's my inability to act. My indecision. My ease of just talking things over and not putting them into action. I am like Hamlet in that aspect. And I am missing out on many opportunities, and I am pushing myself off track with each minute I wait.

I can't decide.

I wrote about that in my EOQR as well, and my portfolio. Of course, in my portfolio, I said I learned how to decide, but I don't think I really did. I still don't have what it takes to stick to one decision and its consequences.

Just like colleges.

Just like Nick.

But that would be linking too many things together into one.

Revisiting The Past, v.infinity

[I have not forgotten about the math meet, not yet. The post for that is sitting in my drafts right now, and I am thinking about writing that as soon as possible, which, knowing me, may take a very, very long time. But now I know how to solve this backlogging!]

If I were honest with myself, I would realize immediately that the reason I keep going to the past is because I want something from it. I am the first to claim that I do not like my past (it is not a subject I would freely talk about in front of other people, anyway), but I also admit I write about it a lot. Something about it is comforting, and it holds something I am seeking, so I keep coming back to it.

Likewise, I keep on holding on to people who I should have let go a long time ago. I think I have forgotten them, but some way or the other I see them again, and I can't help but dredge up the old ties. This is still novel to me. The idea that people can "go way back." So I am still fascinated by it, ridiculous as it is.

And here I am again. Sifting through old emails, and I can't help but search up his name.

How many times have I berated myself for doing this? Why can't I let go? I do not love him anymore, that much I know. Gone are the gut-wrenching days. I would like to say that this is merely curiosity, or habit, a habit reinforced no less than a thousand times.

The thing is, all of this was so, so ridiculous. I was a naive, misguided idiot back then. I had an excuse (no matter how poor). Do I still have that excuse now?

So much can change in three years.

Yet so much can stay the same. My love (and often hate, too) for clichés stayed. As did that illogical avoidance of sunlight and blue skies. This talking about the past, I think that stayed too.

November makes me remember, though. It could be the dreary cold (I have been in more colder places but they received a brighter dose of afternoon sunlight even in the winters). It could be the past coincidences, but that would be too simple, wouldn't it? Something as simple as that could not possibly be causing me so much grief. Or sorrow. Or just quiet reflection, because the color has already seeped out of what I used to feel, and now there is just a faded resemblance of the past.

But it is December now.

A good month. Filled with festive cheer, and a sprinkling of hope. Glittering ice and fluffy snow. The promise of something magnificent transformed within a night. I am entranced by December's charm, the way it takes away the oppressive but clearly resonating autumn with a wave of its hand.

Too surreal. Much too surreal, and that is why I love it so much. Not—oh, how could it?—because it reminds me of the past as well.

There is a part of me that knows I can never truly walk away. That I am still hanging on to the mementos, subconsciously. My means of daily conversation is proof of that. The way I get home. My double-take on first impressions.

It is all there, however vague it needs to be.

. . .

I am working on my LitEx paper, somewhat, although I do not know at all where I want to go with it. I will have to think of something, and soon, because the outline is due Monday morning.

What do I want to write?

Do I even have a thesis?

I said I would talk about the subconsciousness. I think I want to talk about how the subconscious, complete with its host of prejudices and preconceptions and silly past grudges, is more in control of our decisions than our conscious, logical mind. That is arguable, right?

Although you could rarely persuade me otherwise. Because my past is more in control of me than my rationality is. And in truth this is just an expansion of what I believe, except corroborating it with evidence from texts.

Now I need specific evidence, and nonfiction ones at that.

Hi, My Name Is Awkwardsauce

My new favorite sound is "uuuuuggghhhhhhhhh." I like to say it until I run out of air and all that's left is a clicky sound that escapes from my throat (before I turn blue and gasp for oxygen).

But first things first. In English today, we were reading the next part of Hamlet, when we came upon this line by Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." After much analysis, Mr. Littney said, "When you guys go off to college, you'll meet these kids who have never been outside their home state before, and you can say to them, 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' and they will hate you even more."

I don't know how he says these things with a straight face.

Also, the movie makes the ghost's appearance so weird, awkward, and freaky all at the same time. And the blood oozing out of the king's ear? I'm beginning to think this is an R-rated movie.

Oh, and, Cammie had fabulous purple shoes today. I love all of her shoes, although I have to admit I loved the sequined one better. It made the floor sparkle.

I would like to expand further on the title of this post, but that would involve revealing secrets I am probably not at liberty to say, so just trust me on this one. I am extremely awkward. And did I mention I am awful at maintaining my balance? Absolutely awful.

But I am pretty good at alliterations.

That is good.

I also now have a functional scanner, so I am able to scan in my art and possibly post them on here, instead of relying on my utexas-trained mouse-drawing skills. I mean, you can only get so far if your main objects of practice are free-body diagrams.

So maybe you'll get to see picture-logs of stuff that happens in my day soon. Maybe. Maaaybe.

Chill, Duuuuuude

When I walked into my English class today, I was the only one in the room except for Mr. Littney (well, okay, Mario walked in a couple seconds later). Mr. Littney was writing something on the board, which I made out to be our latest in-class "assignment," which was to write about our experiences with listening to our audio books.

At the bottom, Mr. Littney wrote, "Low stress, 10 points." Along with something else that I don't remember, but most likely along the same lines.

Eventually, people started trickling in and started reading the assignment on the board. Or more precisely, they all chose to read the second part rather than the first, which was the actual assignment.

Then, Sergio started laughing. Confused, I turned to look at the board, and saw that Mr. Littney had added this line:

"Except for Dino. He should be stressed."

The rest of the day was less interesting, save for perhaps Kathrya's eyebrow-wiggling (and Julie's response), or the ten minutes or so I spent with Cheshire today (I spent a good part of my time trying to think about what I could say and now I have a topic + there is something with me and talking about social studies related subjects lately).

Minor issues with today:

My ankle hurts. Still. Actually, I think it's getting worse, but maybe that is just my impression. At any rate, I am glad I did not wear my high heel boots today. That would have been even more painful.

Also, I need to do something about the awkwardly inopportune situation situations. Or just walk faster. Either way should work.

And, my Chicago interview tomorrow! To be fair, I don't really care about Chicago (not as much as some other schools, i.e. Penn), but it is still an interview and I hope everything will turn out great. Hopefully.

So all in all, not that many issues. It could have been much worse.

. . .

Still no story update today. Will it help if I link Beauty and the Beast instead?

Without A Doubt

I am confused. Not that I had not been before, but I am increasingly more so. It is a tricky, entangling path to go down, especially now. With everything going on, college and everything. Everything now is about college. In fact, I should be writing my college essays right now, or at least do something productive, but instead (and as I have done so for pretty much every one of my free-writes in English), I'm trying to figure things out in hopes of not being plagued by all of these thoughts when I should be working.

But first. I'm going to have to say that, in the past few days (note: 10 +/-3 days with a 95% confidence level), I have read all 1300+ PHD comics. I'd show you some of my favorites, but I don't remember the links to them. I did show them all to Yuma though, so if anyone's interested, I can pull up our chat logs and search for them (among all the other links/sources of procrastination we shared).

Basically, I haven't gotten as much work as I'd like done. Although I have been really productive in getting homework done, surprisingly. I have most of next week's homework done by now (of those that I know, anyway). It's just that when I stare at my essays, I don't want to write them. At all.

Yuma too, actually. We've been talking about getting our essays done (he's writing his Caltech one, and I'm working on my new Chicago one), and it's been a rather pitiful struggle.

But I don't like talking about college stuff. So, in other news:

I am on disc 5 of my 12-disc audio book, Loving Frank. It's rather fast-paced, and I can't think of anything to describe it better than to say that [spoiler alert] in these four discs I've heard so far, the protagonist goes from Chicago to Boulder, Colorado, to Germany to France. Plus she falls in love with another married man and both her husband and the guy's wife know about this affair, and by the end of the fourth disc, pretty much everyone she knows (i.e. the entire city of Chicago) knows as well.

I wonder what the next 8 discs will be about?

The abstract says that it's based on a real story, and the guy was a pretty famous architect too (he's mentioned in this other book or something I read the other day), so I think if I wiki'd them, I'd get the plot of the entire story. But Mr. Littney says we should be focusing on the listening process, so I have a good ten hours or so more to go through. He also said we should have this done in the next two weeks. It's taken me a month to listen to four discs.

Fun. Very fun. You'll probably see me walking around the halls with my headphones more often now.

But of course, I have to go back to my confusion topic, because that was mostly why I started writing this (and also because I've been neglecting my reader-base of five these days). And since it's late, and I really should get to work, I'll make it simple.

I'd like to know how people think about me. Especially a certain few people. But since I can't figure it out (maybe my lack of sleep has something to do with it—I've been staying up to the wee hours lately doing little), and since I don't particular know if I want to know (I'm treading this line where everything is nice right now and I don't want more, but I'm afraid that the balance is going to tip soon), I guess it'll remain an open question.

One day. Maybe. But for now I'm going to focus on my essays.

Turn On The Sun, Please

[Title concept from Pickles author/artist Brian Crane.]

Mrs. Leon complained today that I always leave before class officially starts, so I promised her I'll stay for third lunch next week (hopefully, but as previously mentioned, I'm not too good with promises). Maybe I will be there in time for sonnet readings. I don't know what else I could do with an extra half-hour of English class, especially since I'm probably not reading the same things (although my class is starting Brave New World, which Mrs. Leon's class has already read).

(Additionally, Clay told me he read nearly 150 pages of BNW in around two hours. Since it's, so far, taken me five days, more or less, I will probably need to dedicate a lot more time to reading. I'm past the first part—if there are any more, I don't know yet—of the everyone-is-talking-at-once pages right now.)

Other things of interest: I went over 10 pages of metabolism bio notes last night at around midnight (so also technically this morning), and have now come up with a really condensed, analogy-ladened version of metabolism, which I will add to the end of this, because I think I want to make more of these to prepare for the midterms (Mme Pottery mentioned midterms today, which set off a wave of panic).

Also, despite the cold, and the wind, and the general misery, there was frisbee today. There is another girl now, and she is pretty good at frisbee too (a great catcher, even in this wind). I ran around too (which almost never happens, mind you), but then my stomach started hurting, so I sat down and borrowed both Yuma's and Cameron's jackets (I wanted to borrow Tobey's too, since he wasn't wearing it at first, but by the time I'd gotten around to being too cold he was cold too and took the jacket) and tried to read more books (especially my LitEx book, which I have barely started).

Then a golden retriever came along and proceeded to sit on me despite my protests. Someone called out, "Be careful, he's a pervert," and with that the dog turned around and tackled me to the ground.

On that note, here is my version of metabolism:

• metabolism = energy vs. matter
• pathways: catapults tear down for boten anna to build up
• enzymes just float around for fun
• laws of thermodynamics: 
• energy is immortal; 
• entropy reproduces like bunnies
• ⌂G (free energy) = ♥
• likes to roll down hills and pull on wheelbarrows full of stuff
• must push it to make it go up hills
• said hill is a step-ladder hill
• In this analogy, "guy" is the substrate:
• guy wants to go over hill
• hill too high, guy too lazy, doesn't happen
• enzyme bulldozes hill, guy goes over
• enzyme only falls in love with one guy & his clones
• enzyme thus only bulldozes hills for guy & his clones
• when going over hill, enzyme and guy link hands
• their hands fit together like gloves
• at the top, enzyme pulls hard in excitement
• guy's arm falls off
• new products = guy + arm!
• then enzyme says, "eww, wtf?"
• enzyme ditches guy for clone #1209841
• other little-known facts of enzyme-drama:
• if guy is too hot/cold or brings H2SO4/HCl/HNO3, he gets slapped, enzyme says, "Get lost," and no hills are bulldozed
• cofactors/coenzymes: the bulldozer (the machine)
• inhibitors: the 3rd wheel
• either steals enzyme away (competitive)
• or kills enzyme and laughs maniacally (noncompetitive)
• allosteric site: door for 3rd wheel, except 3rd wheel is guy's arm
• arm can help or hurt
• too many arms will distract enzyme and result in no more bulldozed hills
• cooperativity: guy1 holds hands = guy2 can hold hands too
• many enzymes + many hills + many bulldozers = metabolic pathway (multi-enzyme complex)
• all these pathways come together to form . . . THE METABOLISM WORLD.
• dun dun dunnn...

This also effectively supports my argument that love/relationships can be a metaphor for anything.

My America

Is not physical, is never has never been and never will be physical. The physical things are not America, because they could just as easily be Canada, or China, maybe, or even the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. My America is metaphorical, it is a state, a phase, if you will, just as solids and liquids and gases are phases. Yet it is best described with the physical things, especially in a narrative.

My America involves subways. I could have said trains (I wanted to, at first) or cars or boats or planes, I suppose, any of them, all of them. But it is a subway, and I am sitting "in the corner seat on the subway, one of the ones that faced the front and made it easier to look out the window." Staring, of course, not out the window, because "all I could make out were the streaks of white light scratching against a dark backdrop [that] gave way to a blur of shapes and shadows that eventually solidified into people as the train pulled to a stop."

And, of course, don't forget "the sickly red State Farm ad [urging] me to open an insurance account for a car I did not own yet," or the man "wearing a deep purple dress shirt and a deeply-etched frown [talking] on his phone." Or the crowds and "their bright red and blue and purple shirts screaming against the faint humming of indistinguishable voices."

Those are all part of my America. The noise. The chaos. The confusion. But most of all, the freedom of flight.

The freedom of "being able to go wherever you want and do whatever you want, and no one will stop you and call you crazy."

Amidst all of the chaos and the craziness, there is that urge to "pack up my bags and buy a train ticket to some unknown town and hitchhike the rest of the route to anywhere at all, as long as I kept on moving, [because] I wanted to go somewhere and nowhere at all."

It is the America of the roads paved with gold. The search for that inner calling that makes us defy ordinary and lead the life we dream of.

That is my America.

Magically Mundane Mondays

Here is the start of another week, and the foreshadowing of a busy week to be. Or maybe it’s just because my free is in the mornings on Monday, so I am not actually getting any substantial work done, and the day just feels tremendously long.

There is a utexas due for Friday, and although at least we do not have 40 questions long utexases (what would the plural of utexas be?) anymore, they are getting harder (no more concepts MCs), so they also take quite some time. The lab for bio from last week is now due next week, because there is a part II (yay for growing algae!) upcoming tomorrow and Wednesday. I have 12 CDs worth of a novel to burn through (well, okay, I am not really burning anything because I have nothing to burn on CDs anyway), within the next month or so. Times like these I wish I had a portable CD-player (this has only happened once before, when I wanted a CD-player for the SAT IIs).

But those things are boring. I mean, I have to do them, yes, but that doesn’t make them any more interesting to listen to. So, onwards to the exciting things in life!

Math run-offs tomorrow! As I was telling Gretchen (and Sonny, although I am not sure how much he was paying attention and how much he just didn’t want to run up the stairs and away from us) this morning, I have been waiting for this day for almost a month. Really. Ever since we got our packets. I need to go over some of the coordinate geometry stuff still, but the regular geometry is good, and trig (this month anyway) is also pretty easy.

Also looking forward to seeing who’s going to (most likely) make the A-team roster (for most of the time). Bryant, definitely, and probably Tybalt too. Then there’s Mario (he says he’s going to take the run-offs during some time on his own, although he might presumably drop by—that is, if he goes to school, because I haven’t seen him in class in days). Dino and Tea and Gretchen and Yuma? Are there any more seniors now?

Non-seniors, there’s definitely Argon, although I am not sure about Joss. Micro, yes (he’s pretty much guaranteed for this round unless he flunks). Summer and Cheryl and Reno and the others? Well, we need at least one more person. Might as well be one of them.

Math team speculation is always fun. You know what this reminds me of? Fantasy sports. Maybe we can make a fantasy math team and bet on it?

Other exciting/fun things. Okay, this is in the past tense, but my dad hosted a semi-party yesterday (they called it “lunch,” as the little eight-year-old girl who came over said her mom told her, but as we—Onion and I—aptly remarked, “lunch” with company usually means a meal that spans until 7PM). My dad and some of the others started playing this weird card game that involves +10 points and “fishing for the suits,” whatever that means. So the three of us (Onion, little girl, and me) started playing some card game that I know how to play but have no idea what it’s called, while two other little girls sat/jumped on my bed. Then we went to play “Playing with Fire” on my laptop, then a few Orisinal games (they are the cutest ever), then slime tennis (which I won multiple times because Onion did not know how to serve), then Silversphere.

Then, when the little girls left, we started watching Youtube videos, most notably the Back Dorm Boys, Ultimate Showdown, Hamster Dance, and the Shamwoohoo. Onion then said that Taylor Swift’s music videos are weird (he is basing this off Love Story and the one where Swift plays the girl who’s got a million outfits in her closet and writes on a notepad her messages to her neighbor crush). All I can say is he has never been exposed to the world of weird music videos. Really.

So I showed/dissected-for him Rain’s Love Story for starters (guy in black suit wiggling his butt and having a girl vacuum all over him), then DBSK’s videos (Wrong Number—dipping phone in a glass of wine; O—semi-fantasy world where all five guys go, “Oooh, look at the birdies!” while everyone else vanishes; Triangle—bunch of fantasy fighters dancing and then some angel descends from the sky amongst a crowd in tin-foil hats), then Big Bang’s videos (Lies—girl kills boy-who-she-doesn’t-really-like with pineapple; Haru Haru—guy gets rejected by long-term girlfriend so he goes smashing things and tearing pillows apart).

We then decided we had enough of weird music videos (pity, I haven’t gotten to SHINee’s rainbow prism dance one yet), so we searched up Harry Potter versions of Tik Tok and ended with some quality OceanLab (you can’t beat OceanLab, really).

And when my Youtube minutes ran out on Chrome, we played Crazy Eights. It lasted well over an hour and when his parents finally ended the card game with my dad, we still had not finished. But it was too late (past midnight) so we never got to finish that game. Oh well. I was losing anyway.

Then this morning I thought I had missed the bus, because I woke up two minutes before the bus was supposed to come, but then I realized my clock is five minutes early, so I quickly got dressed and ran out the door, effectively waking up my parents (although I didn’t know that then).

For entertainment purposes, I suggest you go through all of the Youtube videos I’ve suggested (well, maybe not the weird MVs) unless you’ve seen them before. Especially the Back Dorm Boys. The one where they lip-synch to “We Will Rock You.” I’d link, but: a) it’s really hard to miss; and b) if I search it up I’ll get distracted and I won’t get anything done tonight.

Titleless But Not Contentless

I had econ first period this morning, and we had a test (which coincided with Mrs. Pointy’s classes’ tests as well). I thought it was easy, and I told Joss so at lunch, to which he replied, “You thought it was easy? It was easy.” Well, it’s all in the word choices.

Then Reese asked, “Do you remember your first test in calc? The limits test?”

Bad memories. Very bad memories. But yes, I did remember that particular test (and numerous calc tests after that).

Reese went on to ask, “How did you do on it?”

“Pretty well,” I said. “After the curve, of course. I think I got either 91 or 95 after the curve.”

“What did you get before the curve?” Argon asked.

“I don’t remember,” I said. “Somewhere in the 70s? Maybe lower. I don’t remember. I do remember getting a 67 before the curve and having that curved up to a 91 though.”

Ah, the ridiculous AP calc curves. At least those were good memories.

That was all during first lunch. Second (and third) lunch I went to the English/social studies learning center with Yuma, and we found Clay already there. He was working on his physics homework (oh, the woes of UTexas), and after that he started to watch this video on limits for calc. The video gives this definition for a limit: “A limit is the intended height of a function.” And then it asks, “Why is this a difficult concept?”

No duh. If you word it like that, of course people are going to be confused.

I finished my Student Activity Sheet in this lunch period, and then I went off to multi with Yuma, and lots of fascinating things happened (including everyone’s discovery that we had a syllabus four weeks into the course), but I’ll just fast forward to after school, when I met up with Mrs. Grindel for my teacher recs. It was a short and very informative talk—I now know that I should probably get self-adhesive envelopes for her and Mrs. MacDonald (my other recs teacher). I hadn’t thought of that before.

I saw Clay again and we talked about frisbee (tomorrow after school, if anyone is interested), and then I went upstairs, where I saw Noah. He asked me where I was headed.

“Oh, nowhere, really,” I said. “I’m trying to find a place to go to.”

We then talked about homework (or not doing homework at home). Noah said he does all of his homework at school, and then when he goes home he just doesn’t want to do anything. I told him that I don’t feel like doing anything most of the time, but during my free Yuma’s always typing away and working so diligently, so I feel pressured to work hard as well.

I guess it’s a good thing Yuma’s in my free. I don’t know how much work I’d get done without him. I mean, he’s even figured out which learning center is most productive. He really is serious about his work.

And I should be too. First prewrite for English due tomorrow, and I should be working on that pronto.

It's a Small, Small World

My parents went out today to get my dad's passport photos taken, but since we have Canadian passports, he had to get specific pictures that have to abide by a host of rules. Like certain size requirements, no hands in pictures, no tilted faces, and of course, no smiles. I don't know why, but these requirements somehow makes for ugly pictures. I have always hated my passport photos with a passion.

Anyway, because his photo had to follow those rules, he couldn't get them from the post office (which normally takes photos for US passports). Instead, my parents went to find a professional photographer, and I presume explain the rules to take a custom picture.

They came back an hour or so later, and as my mom walked in she asked, "Was there a freshman in your English class sophomore year?"

I, obviously confused, said, "No. Why?"

"The son of our photographer said he was in your English class freshman year. What's his name again—Camet—wait, let's see if you recognize the last name from the business card."

She took the card out, and I realized it was Cameron. We never shared an English class together, but I was in his French class, so perhaps he confused the two. I mean, English, French. Big difference.

But speaking of Cameron. (I guess this is the pitfall of having nicknames that resemble real names.)

I had this typed up already.

. . .


Again with the thoughts.

. . .

I spent my car ride to the border (a good five or six hours, not including food time) and back thinking, as usual.

We left at 11 the night before, because my dad was intent on having me come back on time to finish my homework and other things I need to write. I was bringing the pillows and blankets out to the car, and I stared up at the sky, and it was breath-taking. I can’t see very well (I need new prescriptions for my glasses), but I could still make out a lot of the stars twinkling in the sky. (Although I have read somewhere, but I forgot where, that “twinkling” is not the best word to use in these situations because it implies happiness.) Silver-diamonds against a soft, satiny night.

I wanted to cry. I think I did.

There were a lot of things I wanted to say, but instead we drove towards that small Vermont town with the funny name and lies half-here, half-there. I slept for most of the way there, sat in a small room trying to eavesdrop on two people speaking French in front of me, then stared out the window on the way back. I thought I’d read awhile, but decided not to at the last minute.

There are some things you can’t say out loud.

. . .

These nights, I dream about running. I am running away from something—I don’t know what. I am just running, and someone, or something, is chasing me, and I must run as fast as I can and climb over fences and jump across rivers. I am fleeing, fleeing, and I am not fleeing fast enough. I am a goner, I think, I am going to die. I am in the panic between running and giving up, I want to scream, to shield myself from the inevitable, and then, and then, and then I wake up.

There is a lurching in my stomach, and maybe my heart, but that is it. The feeling fades. No more. Until the next time I am running, but I do not see the pattern until several nights in, when I wake up and there is a déjà vu moment, and I realize that I have been dreaming the same things all these nights.

. . .

I saw Cammie Thursday. At lunch, with Yuma. Upset over English, and many other things, and suddenly, she was there. In a black skirt.

I called out her name. She came and sat with us. We talked about some things. English, I think. Guidance stuff. Yuma asked about math. I am not sure how well I handled the situation. I was afraid to say anything beyond the trivial. Wasn’t sure what she wanted. Wasn’t sure if I could give it to her.

I would have wanted to forget, but that is because I am constantly running away from reality. I am not sure that is what everyone would want. I am not sure if that is even the best thing. If I make the best decisions. If it even matters, because I am not as rational as I would like to be (despite Mr. Wollen’s claims that we are all rational beings).

. . .

I cut across the the narrow gap between the two cars, and as I was walking, someone called, “What’s up?” I spun around, trying to look at who was talking, and tripped over the curb and fell. The car full of boys—no doubt it was them—laughed. I had never seen them before, but they were probably seniors (or maybe juniors, but then they would be conducting illegal business in driving each other around).

Thank you. I hadn’t realized I was so clumsy before. Thank you so much for reminding me.

They drove off. I do not know if they will remember me. I don’t think I’ll remember them. I was always bad with faces.

It’s a good thing. I wouldn’t know what to say even if I did see them again.

. . .

Gretchen said that Tea looked nerdy. And that I looked smart. And that Bryant looked both nerdy and smart. I would say that Bryant always looks like he can read my mind. Every time I am doing something, and I catch his gaze, he looks like he can see some deep, dark secret I have (and I don’t have any, or at least I’m not thinking of any when I happen to be around him), and I freak out and look away.

It is getting on my nerves. He needs to stop staring at people like that. Unless he does it on purpose, to make people think he knows more than he actually does. Or he can actually read my mind, and oh my god that is not good.

I am considering transferring into his English class (not the best decision, according to him, but the other choice is Brit Lit and there is someone there I would rather not be with right now). I don’t think I will—Caribbean is not my favorite style of writing—and I don’t really want to leave my English class right now either.

But if I did, and I changed my bio class into period 8 (because then it would be free), then I would share 3.5 classes with Bryant, and maybe 4 if I changed my area studies. It is all possible, although all unlikely. With Bryant, I am unwilling to sacrifice too much. Or maybe I am, in general, unwilling to sacrifice too much now. Because there is too much pain associated with sacrificing. And it won't always end well.

. . .

This week was awful. Beyond awful, but I don't have words to describe it. But I have figured out both equations to my take-home portion of the multi test, and that is due next week, so I am grasping onto hope (even if I only have a few strands of it). I am hoping tomorrow (and the next week, and the next month, and the next year) will be better.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

Never Make Promises You Can't Keep

Or, in my case, never make promises, period. Apparently I'm really good at attracting last-minute change in plans, because this has happened to me quite often in the past week. There was Tuesday, when I promised to get math packets for Summer and Cheryl, and then conveniently Ms. Sherbert ran out of packets. Then today, when I told Zephy that: a) I can go to fashion/jewelry/whatever-it-is-now club on Wednesday, and b) I'll be able to give her a ride home tomorrow.

Guess what?

My dad has a dentist's appointment tomorrow, all the way in New York (the state), and it's in the afternoon and my mom is going as well, so they're coming back later at night. If the weather's nice tomorrow, though, I won't mind walking. It's just—

My mom also told me today that we're going all the way up to Vermont on Wednesday to get our visas straightened out (since my dad is planning to move to Florida and everything). That is going to be fun. I'll be missing extended multi, which is rather sad, but I'll also be missing crucial review-day-before-first-test physics, which is not good at all since I'm aiming for that pencil. And I'll be missing a bio lab, which is also not good, because I am rather bad at reading bio labs. The actual labs themselves make sense. The boggy text, not so much.

But enough about my future. Today, in econ, we talked about the classic guns and butter, otherwise known as the production possibilities frontier. It was pretty easy to understand (especially the part about cows making guns), and I loved the graphs. Graphs are so nice when I don't have to draw them by hand. After econ was French, and since that was uneventful (my French teacher is almost always late to class, probably because she has to go from the first floor to the third floor, so I spend the extra time trying to look into Mrs. Cumulonimbus's class), then I went to English. Cammie wasn't here today, and we had an in-class essay.

I was freaking out (a little) about the in-class essay, because I usually don't finish those on time (or I write not so much compared to other people), but this time I actually finished ahead of time with a neat conclusion and everything. So I am surprised and not quite sure where this newfound skill in essay-writing came from, but I will assume it's because we're writing more in class now (we get free-write minutes before every class, which is really cool).

Then, on the bus, I discussed the chem test with Yuma (something about X and F, and I remember that remotely but definitely not enough to know the answer without doing the question out). I still miss chem. A lot. I wish there was a period 7 chem class, so I can drop by and say hi and everything. Oh well. Can't have everything in life.

Matters of the Heart

My faithful readers, I have a confession to make. I don't know how my heart works (okay, this is very obvious, I admit). I am also an awkwardness magnet, or, as Faith from Sparknotes said, "full of awkwardsauce." In more practical terms, I (and this is a rather open admission to a sea of who-knows-who Internet readers—I mean, who are you, really, Java reader? I'd like to know) happen to not really like any guy who seems to like me.

This, of course, is problematic. And I, of course, have no solution whatsoever.

So I don't know why I'm writing this, except to basically put this out there and get it over with.

Anyway, today was really nice. I learned another month of calculus in one day, some more basic chem, and discussed our (Cammie and my) discovery that the "Welcome Home, Our Sophie Mol" play is remarkably similar to the musical the twins went to see (they both started out happy, happened because of Sophie Mol, had something tragic happen in-between, and never truly ended). Well, we had also tried really hard not to say, "It's interesting that..." whenever we're talking about something interesting, and that didn't really work (Mr. Littney also happened to write "interesting" on Cammie's poem thesis). And, of course, multi was really fun and, as always, too short. After multi, I saw Argon (who just had calc), and he asked me, "When is the pace of the class the fastest?" To which I replied, "All the time." I guess I should have added "before May 5th," or whatever the new AP day is, but I think he got the general idea.

I think I can conclude that I like Fridays. Thursdays too, those are nice. And so are Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. And, well, I'm sure Mondays are fantastic too. And I don't know if there's a day in the week I don't like anymore, and that is a little unnerving but I guess it can't be bad.

Also, I have less homework this year than I did last year (so far), so I've been spending lots of time reading random things, such as this NYT article that makes me think my habit of procrastinating (and therefore studying in various corners of the school) is actually more productive than I thought it would be. Who would've guessed?

I know what valence means, thank you for asking

Okay, so I know that a significant portion of my class are sophomores who have never taken chem before, or have only started taking chem. I think it's a huge loss for them, but, alas, our school's system is such that we learn biology first, then chemistry, then physics, which makes little sense because you use physics to explain chemistry, and you use chemistry to explain biology.

Anyway. I acknowledge that. I know most people don't have "metal oxide + water = base" in their heads, and the majority of my class probably does not know that all nitrates are soluble, but hydroxides are only soluble with alkali metals and the heavier alkaloid metals. I don't expect them to know that. I didn't even know that until last year.

Still. To be talking about "Na + Cl = NaCl!" is, well, really mind-blowing. In the bad way. Every single science textbook that I have ever, ever read (except for the physics one) mentions sodium and chloride, and, guess what? Sodium chloride. Every single one. I really don't think it's that hard to realize that, whoa, a metal and a gas comes together to form the stuff you over-sprinkle on your food.

I guess I am overreacting a little, because I spent 45 minutes doing absolutely nothing (well, okay, not nothing, I did draw a few pictures) while everyone else talked about basic chemistry. We are having a test on this thing in a week. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen (not in that order, of course). Trace elements. And a good dose of electron shells and elements and compounds and I'll bet organic chemistry.

FON, FON, FON. (It's a chem joke Mr. Turkey shared with us one day.)

In physics, Mrs. Cumulonimbus (back from sending her daughter off to college) said we would be learning basic calculus next week, which means derivatives, integrals, and u-sub. The last one got quite a few groans (well, there were groans for all of them from the people who were just starting to take calc). I always forget if u-sub is the LIPET one, or if it's the other one. They both involve u's.

But the physics calculus, so far, is easy. I've already finished the utexas due next Friday, and it's basic stuff. Nothing harder than integration of polynomials. I'm a little sad that we're not going to see shells, but I can live with that. Maybe.

After that, in English, Cammie and I discussed our Creeper Lists, among other things, like how I am horrible at music (I'm tone-deaf and therefore I can never tell if I'm playing something right or not when I'm playing harmony—which is almost always with the bass—unless someone kindly tells me). I would mention more, but this would involve adding people to labels and I would rather not do that.

So. Instead. I shall end this here and get back to my French and econ homework, and perhaps figure out how to approach the subject of my many, many clubs. I can't believe it's Friday already. (I also can't believe I missed yesterday's Project Runway review. I must be really out of it.)

A New Beginning

I think this was the title to one of my blog posts. Not this one, of course, but one of my WordPress blogs, or something similar, back when I was still a careless blogger and my blogs had fewer than four posts in total.

So. First day of school. Semantics, really (as compared to syntax, which requires more careful thought, but I think comparing school to linguistic terms would probably draw plenty of blank eyes). A lot of "this is what we're going to teach you," and a lot more of "this is what we expect from you." I have four syllabi (which is not a word, according to Blogger spellcheck) already, all pretty much useless because I will never, ever refer to them, ever.

And even if I did, I would do so online, not flip through several sheets of paper. But that is another story.

My French class went well (as well as it can go when I was only there for the last 15 minutes), and so did physics, which is right next door to my French classroom. I saw Dino as I went in, and he said, "Ginny," to which I responded, "Bonjour," because I was still in a French mindset (plus I was kind of shocked he was talking to me—he usually doesn't do that unless necessary). Nyx is across the hall from me (during French, that is), and so we both have very short distances to travel when going to physics, but alas that won't happen anymore because periods 1 and 7 have switched. Pity. (At least we can still walk together from multi on Thursdays.)

All of my other classes were also pretty good as well. Lots of people I know for most of my classes (I don't know about biology or middle east yet), and Yuma is in my free for the entire year! So I guess even with the not-so-good arena time, all of my classes are splendid, and I am so excited about the rest of the year. Especially because I don't have lab lunches anymore. I love regular lunches.

On the other spectrum (the one oft talked about and most dreaded), I talked with Mrs. MacDonald today, and we'll have to be talking soon about teacher recs. That means I have to hunt down Mrs. Tallchief as well, unless I want to ask someone else (I'm still not sure yet). Fun. Not really.

Well, at least I finished most of my homework (I still have to read and annotate the Aciman article for English—or at least I think it's that article, I didn't really hear Mr. Littney that clearly), and all my binders are (so far) organized, which is a good start.

I'll hope for the best.

In the Never Before Seen, Exclusive Side of Nephria

Namely, my unpublished drafts. Events and such that once upon a time merited some words, but then was either not important enough to be published (because other, more important things came up), or I got sidetracked and therefore did not find the time or effort to finish and publish them. Well, I'm doing a summer cleaning of sorts, in tune with my neighbor cutting down all the trees surrounding his house because one happened to be uprooted in the storm a few days earlier.

Other thing(s) before I begin: I passed my permit test! Well, sort of. I took the vision test first, which was basically me squinting and making up numbers, and the testing official being distracted (and talking to someone else) while saying, "All right, you passed, go on to the written part." Then I stood between two guys also taking the permit test, one of which passed, and one of which failed. After that, the testing official (someone else, I think) told me I had to wait because they were checking whether I was an illegal immigrant and other things like that. I mean, my visa (in my passport) wasn't enough? If I were illegal, how did I ever survive two years here?

Alas, it's protocol.

So I'm waiting to get my permit (hopefully) on Tuesday, the same day my dad leaves for Florida. On our way back from the DMV, my mom told me about the intricacies of turning (she doesn't use the hand method mentioned in the book) and the gas/brake pedal.

Now onto excerpts of my unpublished fun-stuffs.


Jan. 20th: Addicted to Freedom

Exams are finally over! I've been thinking about writing this post (what little time I had not cramming for calc or writing stories about Owen), and finally, it's time!

Alas, freedom is like that thing with feathers that perches in your soul, and comes out every so often, but is soon harnessed back by the chains of reality.

Well, the first part came from a poem by Emily Dickinson describing hope (which was on my English midterms), and I made the second part up.

The actual "exams" part of exams wasn't too bad, I suppose. I talked to Kyle after our stat exam, and he said it was just as he expected.

Even the fact that Mrs. MacDonald wasn't there.

But enough about them!

It's finally time to (besides finishing my EOQR) start on the miserable path of Owen-ness.

I would ask for your opinion, Owen, but considering you probably will never read my blog (or even know that you're Owen on here), I guess I'm on my own.

Jan. 23: Letters to Allie

Forty minutes to midnight.

He sat there, a piece of paper in his hand, musing. It was not in his nature to think—he was more of a do now, think later kind of person, as the twins once noted. The twins were the more contemplative types, thinking over every characteristic of the people they encountered, but he had always loved actions more than thoughts.

Right now, he wondered if it was too late to change his habits. Doing had gotten him nowhere, and now he needed answers.

Time was not waiting for him as it had always done.

He picked up the phone from his desk, stared at the glowing numbers. Who to ask? Who knew what he wanted to know? Who could he trust?

He had made enough enemies, he knew that. He had made enough mistakes. But this was one mistake he could not afford to make, one that could break his spring, crush him until he forgot who he was and why he was.

Thirty-seven minutes to midnight.


Feb. 1: Overdue-Part II

As we eventually all settled back into our rooms, with enormous amounts of junk food, we began to refocus on the problem. Or, at least, we tried to refocus on the problem. The fact that every ten minutes or so, a commercial about Saf-t-Swim, coupled with a matching "jingle" set to the tune of the Barney's theme song, would pop out of nowhere was slightly irritating.

Apparently, I was not the only one.

"If I hear that song one more time," Mogley said, "I will kill someone."

We all stared at Reese (except himself, of course).

"What?" Reese asked. "What did I do?"

"Okay everyone," Ben said. "Let's focus. What do we still need to do?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe search up how far our food travels? Ugh, I think I'm starting to get sick from all the cheese I ate."

I had not mentioned this before, but for lunch, I had ordered the all-cheese sandwich, because I was not a fan of turkey and I thought that cheese might have been a nice alternative. Well, the cheese was good. There was just so much of it, all dripping down everywhere. I even splattered some on the ground.

"And the candy," Joss added, motioning to the bag of candy I had in front of me.

"Hey," Reese said. "Let's turn off the lights."

I had no idea where this suggestion came from, or why, but we all agreed to it to some extent. The sun was still out by that time (although it may have been cloudy; I don't remember), so it was fairly bright in the room, especially with the light from the Smartboard. We resumed our old sitting positions, with Mogley and Ben at the desks, Joss and I on the ground, and Reese probably floating around somewhere. None of us really cared where he was, as long as he didn't distract us.

"I'm going to go get some water," Reese suddenly said. "Anyone wants to come?"

"Nope," I said.

"No," Joss said. "But get me a bag of candy while you're there."

"Oh, and get me a tea," Ben said. "What do they have?"

"Peach, lemonade, and berry."

"Okay," Ben said. "Get me a peach tea."

"Get me a berry tea," Mogley said.

"Does anyone else want drinks?" Reese asked, exasperation in his voice. But with him, it could have just been his normal voice.

"Nope," I said.

"Don't forget my tea," Mogley said.

"And don't forget my candy," Joss said.

Reese disappeared into the hallway. After a while, he came back, several food and drink items in hand.

"Here's your candy," Reese said, handing Joss a bag. He placed a can in front of Mogley. "And here's your drink."

"Did you remember my peach tea?" Ben asked.

"Oh, darn," Reese said. "I forgot."

"Cherry?" Joss exclaimed as he examined his candy closer. "Of all the flavors, you had to get cherry?"

"This tastes bad," Mogley said, after having tasted his berry tea.

"Okay, okay," Reese said. "I'll get everyone new drinks. What do you want?"

"Peach tea," Ben said.

"Lemonade," Mogley said.

"Non-cherry flavored candy," Joss said.

"They don't have anything else," Reese said.

"Another peach tea for me as well," I said.

Reese sighed and left the room again. When he was gone, I turned to look at the group.

"Did you guys really want more drinks, or did you just want him gone?"

"A little of both," Mogley said.

Oh, I can feel love in the air already. We waited for Reese to come back, and then settled back into what we were supposed to do. Which included making random outbursts over whose grammar--or lack thereof--was more correct.

Mr. Flatgrass chose this moment to pop into our room.

"Hey guys," he said. "You guys turned off the lights? To conserve energy?"

We laughed and heartily agreed. After he left, Reese said:

"He didn't realize that we had the Smartboard on. This thing uses more energy than all of the lights combined."

"Really?" I asked. Or maybe Mogley asked. I don't remember, but we were probably thinking along the same lines.

"Yeah," Reese said. He turned off the Smartboard, plunging us into darkness. It was really dark by now, which just showed how efficient we were. We all protested for Reese to turn the Smartboard back on, because we couldn't see anything.

In the end, Reese gave in, but not before putting Blackle on the projector-side of his dual screen and depriving us of more light.

We resumed our work, posting all of our sources onto an Etherpad site so Reese could MLA it all. (And I know that MLA is probably not a verb, but it's more fun as one.) We each had our own signature color (mine was purple), and originally, we had each typed our names in the spot where we identify ourselves. But of course, that wasn't going to last.

"Hey Ginny," Joss poked me. "Check out the Etherpad thing."

I turned suspicious and ctrl-tabbed on Joss's (again with the possessives) computer--only because he had Chrome and I had Opera and Opera and Google Docs are not compatible, so we had switched computers--until I reached the Etherpad tab. There, next to the red block, was the name "God."

I immediately remembered the book Tea had talked about, and changed Joss's name to "Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret," and mine to "Yes, it's me, God."

"Mogley," I said, spying our next victim. "Can I see your Etherpad thing for a moment?"

Mogley stared at me skeptically. "Why?"

"Just checking something."

Reluctantly, Mogley handed over his computer. I typed in "It's me, Annie. I hate you, Margaret."

"What?" Mogley stared at me weirdly. Lots of staring going on lately, it seemed.

I scuttled back to my computer and started typing in the Etherpad chat window. Joss punctuated every few lines with some random comment, such as SPARTA. Of course. After a while, Mogley caught on to what we were doing as well, and changed his name to "Reese, if you read this, you are going to suffer in seven days."

"You're nice," I said, sarcastically. I really liked the Annie line, so I put it in Reese's namespot instead.

"Whatever," Mogley said. He called out to Reese to check Etherpad, so, of course, Reese joined in on our chat virtually.

Annie (Reese): what Mogley? (Reese had actually used another nickname, but that would probably make Mogley's identity too clear.)

God (apparently me): hey Annie.

Annie: hey God.

God: how's life, Annie?

Annie: it's great, God.

Margaret (Joss): LOL\

Annie: :(|

Margaret: LOLOLOLOLOL

Annie: ....... (and on and on and on, but I don't like the dots so much myself.)

Reese (Mogley): yo cease.

And of course, Reese (the real one) proceeded to spam the chat with lots of dots. I offered up a virtual challenge, saying that I could probably out-spam him. Reese took it on willingly, and we started spamming the entire chat with gibberish letters (me) and lines of dots (Reese).

Suddenly, Reese said, "Who's typing?"

Oh wow. So he didn't know it was me. Joss, Mogley, and I all started laughing (rather suspiciously). Ben just buried his head into his work.

"Come on, it's one of you guys. Who's typing? Joss?"

"It's not me," Joss said.

"So it's Mogley then," Reese concluded.

"Nope," Mogley said. "I think you can tell who I am in the chat."

"Come on, who is it?"

"The one person you're not guessing," Joss said, "is actually the one you're looking for."

Mar. 4: Test Mornings

I am very, very happy I am not a sophomore right now.

There are some things I do not like about junior year (research paper, hello? and in response to my English teacher's reply to Mogley's remark of not being a "published author," I would rather not be known for my research paper, what with its present quality), but let's face it. Standardized tests are miserable. Standardized tests that last for a very, very long period of time (weeks, in fact) is downright dreadful.

Apr. 18: Undoubtedly Bored Again

Was a questionnaire. Probably didn't post it because I had other, more interesting things to talk about later (i.e. Princeton). Will post it later, maybe. Dino's not in this one. Hmm.

May 4: Santiago's Where It's At

Okay, this reminds me, we (me, Gretchen, Tea, maybe others) are right now suspended, perhaps indefinitely, above the Pacific Ocean. Not a good place to be when you're in a plane. So hopefully I'll move us out of here.

But here's the excerpt:

Ever since our trip to Easter Island, we (meaning me, Gretch, and Tea) have been stranded in limbo land because of the late onslaught of tests and such, so we (mostly me) decided that now would be a good time to actually arrive at Santiago and not be indefinitely stranded in mid-air.

Then Gretchen told me that she, too, wishes to be somewhere (mostly Japan) and not stuck in mid-air where weird currents can blow us over to Area 51 where Dino hangs out on spare weekends communicating with the other robots and aliens in a modified Morse code, so I decided that, yes, today would be a good time to arrive at Santiago.

And that's it, I suppose. This is very, very long because of that "Overdue" post that I should have posted earlier (ahem, a few months earlier), but I'd never gotten around to due to HUSH. Otherwise just a few things that I might have missed that I think should be out here and not lost forever.

Also, please, dear neighbor, plant your trees back. I don't want to die of CO2 poisoning.