"I have this aunt," Violet said, in her I-have-this-crazy-story voice. "She had chickens as pets. She bought these pedigree chicken eggs—yes, pedigree chicken—and she wanted to hatch them into chicken and have those chicken lay eggs to sell. Except they're pedigree chicken, so they get sick really easily, so she had to buy expensive medicine to keep them alive. She would stab the chickens with needles one by one and force-feed them pills."
We were in the computer lab, eating our large boxes of poutine with extravagant toppings. Violet's boyfriend, Henderson, stole a particularly large piece of smoked meat, and Rosemary turned her attentions towards him again.
Just yesterday, Violet and I were talking about our futures, what little we knew of it. She and Henderson both wanted to be in academia, like her father. Their dream was to get tenure together in the same university. I told her my future was to see if Khajiit would graduate in the next ten years. We both laughed.
. . .
When I first went to Fish Wings, I won't deny this: I thought it was beneath me. I had gotten in without trying, and a scholarship to boot that had seemed to have fallen into my lap. There were smart people here, of course, but I was just as smart as them, if not more.
This past year has been a lot, and I have met so many people who have changed my mind about that. There is Flynn, who could rival Bryant on anything math and physics related (and who infuriatingly calls everything from triple integrals to advanced algebra "easy shit"). Aishan, who programs with three monitors and will be going off to Microsoft this summer (hopefully with no chair-throwing incidents). Sandra, who works multiple jobs and learned French from a retail job so she can support her way through university. Jessica, who is involved in everything from residence council to engineering teams to student society representative.
What had I to be so scornful about?
. . .
In his spare time, Khajiit works on his beloved programs and websites. He works on them when there is work due soon and he does not want to do it. When there is an assignment due in two days he would fix the scrollbars on the a small portion of the computer club's website, or make a Java program more Windows native, or something, anything, that is not his assignment. He says that his procrastination is never time wasted. He is always productive, especially when he procrastinates.
It used to frustrate me a lot. It still frustrates me sometimes. The new meds will probably help, but we both know he has to work hard too. Some days I want to tell him I believe in him, and I know he will pull through, one way or another. Other days I wish he could do it right now, because with every setback I can feel him slipping away.
Khajiit is not someone my parents would approve of. They asked where he was from, what he was studying, all the usual questions. For once they did not ask if he was a good student. Afterwards, when Khajiit told me to take deep breaths so I wouldn't fall into a state of panic, I wondered if it was merely an oversight.
. . .
Khajiit's dad recently asked me, "Do you like it here? No regrets?"
Maybe it is because his own daughter has chosen a college, and he is curious to make a comparison. Or maybe he knows. He has always known things about me before I do myself.
. . .
They smile when I fix the paper jams. They thank me when help them with their computer issues. The other day, I heard a girl explain to her friend the way the printing system worked, and I grinned. I could not have done it better.
There is something refreshing about swinging the keys attached to the network cards, going off to fix a ghost paper jam and hearing people talk about why they need to print so urgently. Sometimes it's an assignment due in ten minutes. Sometimes it's a document they need to file their taxes. Once it was a girl who needed her transcript to apply to grad school.
Maybe that's why when someone knocks on the door I tend to get up to open it. I hold the record for most printing money sold last semester, and although there is no prize or recognition for it, it's surprisingly satisfying. All those hours I've put in this computer lab make me happy.
I had first joined because I saw Flynn at the front desk, and I knew him because he was friends with Sam and Denise. I had stayed because it was fun, dizzying fun, all the late night laughing and crazy antics and large group outings. We are all good friends, I want to say, or maybe we are family. We are a family complete with wise, mature ones and scream-in-your-face immature ones, and the one or two people no one likes and the one or two people everyone likes. Lots of outside drama. Lots of inside tension.
My residence advisor said that living in residence was supposed to give us a feel of home, to make long-lasting friends and to feel like you belong in a group. I never got that from my residence (going home at 2am all the time probably did not help), but it's nice that I found it elsewhere.
. . .
Today is Mother's Day. I should call my parents. I have been putting it off, and the more I do so the more I want to, the harder it is to pick up the phone.
. . .
The title was sentimental me thinking I had sentimental things to write about. It is too late for me to think much, although I have had a four-hour nap today, and should not need to sleep too much, even if sleeping patterns for me are too elusive.
Showing posts with label procrastination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label procrastination. Show all posts
Monday, May 14, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
"You think this is cold? This is nothing!"
I had been pretty hopeful, these past few months, that this winter was going to be different. That there would be none of those bone-chilling, wind-takes-your-breath-away-just-so-you-lose-more-body-heat days. The day I got back from Texas, everything was fine. There was snow on the ground, yes, and it was a bit chilly, but it was also dark and it wasn't anything I hadn't experienced before.
The next morning, I decided to go out shopping for groceries, and the moment I step out of the house I think, "Oh. Fuck. Cold."
Ever since then I haven't gone outside. I lugged a ton of groceries back and I am living off of frozen dinners, eggs, bacon, cheese, and almond milk until I have to go out again, and if things go as planned that won't be until Saturday morning. Which, according to the weather forecast, will be snowing.
Why did I ever choose to live in this city again?
In happier news I have finally rolled out of bed today (I even cooked!), and I will finally get around to making the Christmas present for Khajiit that I'd been saying I would for the past two weeks or so. If he didn't read this blog I would also probably say what it is, but since he does I'll just save it for later.
I also got my calendar fixed up, my bills paid, and my expenses recorded. So accomplished.
Now about my room.
The next morning, I decided to go out shopping for groceries, and the moment I step out of the house I think, "Oh. Fuck. Cold."
Ever since then I haven't gone outside. I lugged a ton of groceries back and I am living off of frozen dinners, eggs, bacon, cheese, and almond milk until I have to go out again, and if things go as planned that won't be until Saturday morning. Which, according to the weather forecast, will be snowing.
Why did I ever choose to live in this city again?
In happier news I have finally rolled out of bed today (I even cooked!), and I will finally get around to making the Christmas present for Khajiit that I'd been saying I would for the past two weeks or so. If he didn't read this blog I would also probably say what it is, but since he does I'll just save it for later.
I also got my calendar fixed up, my bills paid, and my expenses recorded. So accomplished.
Now about my room.
Friday, January 7, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
This Is Why No Work Ever Gets Done
When I am on the computer. Because really, the computer is my greatest source of procrastination, and that is saying a lot, since I procrastinate a lot.
But here are the computer-related reasons why I haven't been getting any substantial work done lately (these are all approximates):
wasted spent: 1015 minutes, or nearly 17 hours.
But here are the computer-related reasons why I haven't been getting any substantial work done lately (these are all approximates):
- In a mix of marketing genius and sheer cuteness, Mozilla has most likely killed hundreds of thousands of "productivity minutes" by adopting two firefox cubs and, sadly, naming them "cub #1" and "cub #2." I mean, seriously? I know they're temporary names, but still. The overhead cam is by far the best, because you get to see them in their entirety no matter where they happen to drop and nap. [Productivity minutes wasted: 20]
- Every time I see an article (or anything, really) on math that I know a little bit about I get really excited. So guess how I spent a lot of my time? P.S.: That last one I have not read through completely, but it sounds really cool and it also mentions times when other regression models (such as chi-squared) should be used instead, which is really helpful. [Productivity minutes wasted: 250; including the other math and science articles that I have not linked to because there are too many of them]
- After much consideration, I have decided that my next blog will be on food. Or at least taking pictures of food. Because food is so, so good and I don't know how I can ever live without it. Also, Yuma, if you're reading this, can we make the second-to-last recipe? [Productivity minutes wasted: 400]
- There is so much I do not know about Toronto, despite having lived there for three years. Did you know I had never heard of Transit City? But I have to say, if costs were not in consideration (I can't comment on that because I haven't researched into how much either project will cost), I like the idea of Transit City better than Ford's idea of expanded subway lines, if only because I think more light will be good for otherwise already probably pretty frustrated commuters. [Productivity minutes wasted: 120]
- I am a sucker for pretty graphs and other pictures. Always. 100% of the time. [Productivity minutes wasted: 45]
- This blog. [Productivity minutes wasted: 180]
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Obviously, It's The Mustache
This is why Ophelia loves Hamlet so much, even though she knows Hamlet, as the prince of Denmark, will most likely marry one of his cousins instead of a "commoner" like her (she can be an aristocrat to some extent, though, as her father serves the King).
Because Hamlet has such a hot mustache.
At least that was the reason Mr. Littney gave us, as we were watching our version of Hamlet today (it's apparently the best DVD version that adheres to the text, although I am not sure which version it is except that the guy who plays Hamlet also plays Iago in the version of Othello that I watched last year).
I have to say, the whole premise of Hamlet requires a lot of willingness to accept otherwise rather ridiculous events. It does make the play rather humorous, and maybe Shakespeare was aiming for that, but honestly I would never believe it if someone told me, "Hey, that ghost won't talk to me, but he'll probably talk to the other guy."
Also, I saw way too many sex scenes from the movie for my comfort. Way too many.
I still love my English class. We had bagels yesterday, thanks to the wonderful efforts of Tabby and someone else (I forgot who). Food is always good, especially in the mornings, and especially bagels.
Plus, talking about whether Gertrude is an idiot or a whore is always fascinating (I think that she would have had no choice in the matter of her marriage, especially if she wanted to stay alive, although it can be argued that if she hated her situation she could have gotten Hamlet to just kill the king, so I don't know).
I would love to talk about my English class all day, but I did promise I will be productive, so I shall have to go back to work.
Because Hamlet has such a hot mustache.
At least that was the reason Mr. Littney gave us, as we were watching our version of Hamlet today (it's apparently the best DVD version that adheres to the text, although I am not sure which version it is except that the guy who plays Hamlet also plays Iago in the version of Othello that I watched last year).
I have to say, the whole premise of Hamlet requires a lot of willingness to accept otherwise rather ridiculous events. It does make the play rather humorous, and maybe Shakespeare was aiming for that, but honestly I would never believe it if someone told me, "Hey, that ghost won't talk to me, but he'll probably talk to the other guy."
Also, I saw way too many sex scenes from the movie for my comfort. Way too many.
I still love my English class. We had bagels yesterday, thanks to the wonderful efforts of Tabby and someone else (I forgot who). Food is always good, especially in the mornings, and especially bagels.
Plus, talking about whether Gertrude is an idiot or a whore is always fascinating (I think that she would have had no choice in the matter of her marriage, especially if she wanted to stay alive, although it can be argued that if she hated her situation she could have gotten Hamlet to just kill the king, so I don't know).
I would love to talk about my English class all day, but I did promise I will be productive, so I shall have to go back to work.
Monday, November 1, 2010
It's Been A While
Since I've written anything. I have been busy with a lot things, such as college applications (most obviously), but also homework and general procrastination. Very, very busy, so much so that I missed the last day to post in October and must now start in November.
What a tragedy.
Anyway, since I have fuzzy memory I will recount things in reverse order. Bear with me as we travel back in warped time.
Tuesday, Nov. 2nd:
Election day! Which means three things: a) no school tomorrow; b) going over to Tea's house to bake donuts with Yuma; and c) checking out how accurate Nate Silver's predictions are. Excitement levels in that order. My mom had no idea there was no school tomorrow, so I wonder what would have happened if I went out at 6:50 and walked to the library and spent my day there? Oh well, she knows now, so that's not possible.
Also, I am very excited to see how baked donuts will look like. And taste like, too. I am so glad I subscribed to, uh... around 109293874 food blogs while I was working on my college essays (i.e. procrastinating), because I would never have found the recipe without it.
Then, of course, actual election results! That, too, is exciting, but I guess it's not as exciting as listening to PM-wannabes dissing each other in French and gluing their hands into their pockets. But I suppose that is a purely Canadian thing.
Monday, Nov. 1st:
ED/EA applications are due today, and guess what? I don't have to worry about them, because I finished them! Yay! Other than that, the day went by fairly boringly. Oh, right, I fell asleep in French today, which was bad, because I was in the middle of a listening test. Luckily, I got through the first trial effectively, and I couldn't understand most of it anyway, so I guess a second listen-through wouldn't have helped much.
But I told my partner-in-crime-in-the-business-of-staying-up-late that I should probably set a bedtime, and he suggested, "11pm?"
Then I told him that I fell asleep in class, so he immediately changed it to 9pm.
Haha. As if. I barely get any work done before 9pm. But I do need to get to bed earlier, and preferably not spend half an hour trying to say "goodbye" in Welsh. Or Portuguese. Or Macedonian. Anyway, now we've set it at around 10-11pmish, which is a good time, I suppose. If only I can remember that, along with the fact that I need to bring lunch money (and money I owe Tea).
Also, NaNoWriMo is starting today! Anyone interested in starting a full-fledged novel (or, really, does anyone have the time to do that)?
Sunday, Oct. 31st:
Halloween! My parents and I went out to buy a printer/fax/scanner/copier/whatever-else-is-there machine. We went to Best Buy, and once there, my mom told me, "Can you look for some whiteout?"
"Mom, we're at Best Buy. Why would there be whiteout here?"
"Why not?" My mom said. "I'm sure they have some."
No, mom, they don't. I asked the guy at the front desk anyway, and he said he has never seen whiteout in the store. Ever.
Then I went to check out the iPads, and started playing Plants vs. Zombies, which is my favorite game of all iPad games. My dad came over and checked out the MacBook Pro to the side. I must say, I'm not a fan. Seriously, Apple. You were great a couple years ago with all those really colorful computers, but these days you're all white and black and silver. So monochrome. Even shuffles have color. Why not laptops?
Anyway, we also checked out several Sony laptops, and we wanted to see a few Lenovo ones too, but Best Buy didn't have any. Oh well. I'm hoping to get a new laptop soon, if only because I'm really, really tired of all the white (yeah, this laptop's white too) and I want to be able to bring it in to school to work on stuff.
Saturday, Oct. 30th:
We (my parents and I) went to the border early this morning (read: we left at around midnight) to sort out our visas, once again. It was fairly successful, and I even finished a lot of my reading/listening homework. Very productive. Then we came back and went to a Chinese supermarket in West Hartford, where I discovered supermarket-porn.
Well, okay, not really porn, but they were selling the herbal version of Viagra, except they call it deer's tail, so I had no idea what it was, and when I looked at the pictures they showed people in very... fascinating positions.
Ahem. Yeah.
When I came home I worked on my Chicago app, and I finished very late into the night (around 9pm, I believe). But Cammie's birthday/Halloween party was today, so I went over and shared in the movie-watching (Moulin Rouge), gossip-sharing fun with everyone else there.
Where, yes, major stuff were revealed, but at least on this blog that is as far as I'll go with it.
And in the morning (which is technically the next day, but oh well) there was chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream! Yay!
Monday, Oct. 25th to Friday, Oct. 29th:
I don't remember what happened here, except for a haze of college apps and late-night chatting with Yuma and maybe other things, such as, oh, Clay repeatedly asking Yuma and me whether we were going to frisbee. I got the message on Wednesday, thank you very much. I didn't really need the reminders on Thursday and Friday as well. But I think I'm just snappy because I am so exhausted by college apps and not sleeping nearly enough.
But that is all I remember, and all I can recall right now. Time to do homework and maybe, maybe, catching up on some sleep.
What a tragedy.
Anyway, since I have fuzzy memory I will recount things in reverse order. Bear with me as we travel back in warped time.
Tuesday, Nov. 2nd:
Election day! Which means three things: a) no school tomorrow; b) going over to Tea's house to bake donuts with Yuma; and c) checking out how accurate Nate Silver's predictions are. Excitement levels in that order. My mom had no idea there was no school tomorrow, so I wonder what would have happened if I went out at 6:50 and walked to the library and spent my day there? Oh well, she knows now, so that's not possible.
Also, I am very excited to see how baked donuts will look like. And taste like, too. I am so glad I subscribed to, uh... around 109293874 food blogs while I was working on my college essays (i.e. procrastinating), because I would never have found the recipe without it.
Then, of course, actual election results! That, too, is exciting, but I guess it's not as exciting as listening to PM-wannabes dissing each other in French and gluing their hands into their pockets. But I suppose that is a purely Canadian thing.
Monday, Nov. 1st:
ED/EA applications are due today, and guess what? I don't have to worry about them, because I finished them! Yay! Other than that, the day went by fairly boringly. Oh, right, I fell asleep in French today, which was bad, because I was in the middle of a listening test. Luckily, I got through the first trial effectively, and I couldn't understand most of it anyway, so I guess a second listen-through wouldn't have helped much.
But I told my partner-in-crime-in-the-business-of-staying-up-late that I should probably set a bedtime, and he suggested, "11pm?"
Then I told him that I fell asleep in class, so he immediately changed it to 9pm.
Haha. As if. I barely get any work done before 9pm. But I do need to get to bed earlier, and preferably not spend half an hour trying to say "goodbye" in Welsh. Or Portuguese. Or Macedonian. Anyway, now we've set it at around 10-11pmish, which is a good time, I suppose. If only I can remember that, along with the fact that I need to bring lunch money (and money I owe Tea).
Also, NaNoWriMo is starting today! Anyone interested in starting a full-fledged novel (or, really, does anyone have the time to do that)?
Sunday, Oct. 31st:
Halloween! My parents and I went out to buy a printer/fax/scanner/copier/whatever-else-is-there machine. We went to Best Buy, and once there, my mom told me, "Can you look for some whiteout?"
"Mom, we're at Best Buy. Why would there be whiteout here?"
"Why not?" My mom said. "I'm sure they have some."
No, mom, they don't. I asked the guy at the front desk anyway, and he said he has never seen whiteout in the store. Ever.
Then I went to check out the iPads, and started playing Plants vs. Zombies, which is my favorite game of all iPad games. My dad came over and checked out the MacBook Pro to the side. I must say, I'm not a fan. Seriously, Apple. You were great a couple years ago with all those really colorful computers, but these days you're all white and black and silver. So monochrome. Even shuffles have color. Why not laptops?
Anyway, we also checked out several Sony laptops, and we wanted to see a few Lenovo ones too, but Best Buy didn't have any. Oh well. I'm hoping to get a new laptop soon, if only because I'm really, really tired of all the white (yeah, this laptop's white too) and I want to be able to bring it in to school to work on stuff.
Saturday, Oct. 30th:
We (my parents and I) went to the border early this morning (read: we left at around midnight) to sort out our visas, once again. It was fairly successful, and I even finished a lot of my reading/listening homework. Very productive. Then we came back and went to a Chinese supermarket in West Hartford, where I discovered supermarket-porn.
Well, okay, not really porn, but they were selling the herbal version of Viagra, except they call it deer's tail, so I had no idea what it was, and when I looked at the pictures they showed people in very... fascinating positions.
Ahem. Yeah.
When I came home I worked on my Chicago app, and I finished very late into the night (around 9pm, I believe). But Cammie's birthday/Halloween party was today, so I went over and shared in the movie-watching (Moulin Rouge), gossip-sharing fun with everyone else there.
Where, yes, major stuff were revealed, but at least on this blog that is as far as I'll go with it.
And in the morning (which is technically the next day, but oh well) there was chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream! Yay!
Monday, Oct. 25th to Friday, Oct. 29th:
I don't remember what happened here, except for a haze of college apps and late-night chatting with Yuma and maybe other things, such as, oh, Clay repeatedly asking Yuma and me whether we were going to frisbee. I got the message on Wednesday, thank you very much. I didn't really need the reminders on Thursday and Friday as well. But I think I'm just snappy because I am so exhausted by college apps and not sleeping nearly enough.
But that is all I remember, and all I can recall right now. Time to do homework and maybe, maybe, catching up on some sleep.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, September 10, 2010
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?
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?
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Giving Up Isn't What I Do—It's What I've Already Done
Another story while I work on the Easter Island saga. Lots of pictures I have to fix up, and lots of distractions (i.e.: calc test, research paper, EOQR, and everything else in life), so I wrote this instead. Huh. That didn't really make sense. Oh well. (Quotes from OceanLab's songs, as you may have suspected already.)
You have your own philosophy, and it works for you, but please don't force it onto me.
Lines. Shades. Chiaroscuro.
There is something magical about life—especially in the way it can be used to emulate everything else in life. Life is like a painting. Life is like a song. Life is like a tree. Life is like a river. Life is like—
Life is my source of humor, and it's also where I get my fountain of despair. I get high on life, I get drunk from life. I am made painfully sober by life.
Life is also remarkably conforming, one life to another, especially when you distill it to its very roots.
Millions of years ago, life ran over the jungles of Pangaea, searching for survival, but more so searching for a future that would no longer require a search for survival. A future where life would be guaranteed—where it would be the basic tenet of the world and all of its extravagance.
Millions of years later, life roams over the jungles of architecture, still searching for survival, still searching for that bright future where survival simply will not become an issue anymore—where the mere word "survival" will be relegated to the dusty tomes of archaic lexicons.
Fifth grade, up in my grandmother's apartment on the third floor. I looked out the window and saw two boys climbing the walls to reach the second floor walk-way on the apartment beside ours. It was sunny that day, and I remember falling in love with that golden beam.
I think that was the first time I ever fell in love.
That winter, I read my first tragedy. What struck me most wasn't how the protagonist loved a girl that he found out later was his sister, or how everyone seemed to mistreat him, or even the fact that he died—it was how, when his sister came to visit him at his grave, it started raining, and then, as his sister pleaded for him to stop crying up in heaven, it really stopped raining.
I think I found that story tragic because, even in death, he defied his own emotions to please someone else.
The spring after that, I was bound to leave. My cousin gave me a page of her "address book," a peculiar combination of keeping in touch with old classmates and a space to write farewell thoughts. On the first line, I wrote, "They smell like lavender and pain—tears." It made no sense, and yet I could not let go of the word "lavender."
I think if I had to pin-point when it all began, this would be my choice.
Smile. Say something in that sweet voice of yours. Oh, and, don't forget, smile.
They always had golden hair—a distant reminder of the sun as it slipped beyond my grasp. Blue, blue eyes—reminiscent of the brightest, highest autumn sky. They were all the same. A thousand of them, lined up, and they would still be all the same.
I treated them all the same. My eyes would inevitably follow their footsteps, my heart hung in suspense over their every word. I assigned reasons after the occasion. Oh, he's sweet, oh, he's nice, oh, he pays attention to what I say, oh, he's a people person. Oh, he's got golden hair and blue eyes.
I never admitted it before. They were all the same, really. The boy on the swings, the boy who lived next to me, the boy who trudged down the roads with me, who was too afraid to tell me. A thousand of them all lined up and they would start blending into each other, one face to another, until I could only vaguely pick out the individual characteristics and it was so, so much easier to just combine them together into one entity.
He—they—were all the same. I said hi, said bye, said I'll never see you again don't ask me why.
I believe in Allison Saint-Cross.
I believe in everything he stands for. Everything he is fighting against. Everything he treasures, everything he regrets. Everything he is. Everything he is not.
If I had to have a faith, it could be summed up by him. If I had to follow one person's tenets for the rest of my life, it would be his—but that would be contradictory, because one of his tenets is not to blindly follow others' philosophies. If I had to sacrifice my life for one person—it would not be him.
Somewhere in-between the ideal and the real, I had lost sight of what I was really searching for.
I am, above all, searching for survival, searching for that peaceful future where survival will no longer be in my dreams. I believe in Allison because he represents life, represents the sacrifices we are willing to make for life, represents that dogged search for survival. He exists because of our desires to live on.
But somewhere in-between the real and the ideal, I had redefined what life meant to me.
Life was a whirlpool, and there was only one way to get out. I knocked on glass, looked up, and saw blue, icy blue, soft cotton blue, simply blue.
It was simple, really, the rules of this new game. It was a twisted combination of truth and dare, of hide and seek, of tug-o'-war, of battleship, of Monopoly, of Clues, of tic-tac-toe, of every game this world had come to know and will continue to know.
It was a game of deception, a game of play, a game of hiding your true strengths and most importantly, your true weaknesses.
It was like a game of chess, and we were both good enough at it to keep on playing against each other. My pawns lined up like a curtain, poised, mockingly so, ready to stake out new territories. He had his defense up already, his eyes narrowed, his bishop out to sweep my attacks. My knight was ready, with its haughty laugh, defending my choices. His rook hung out, sharp, biting, ready to tackle me with my very attacks.
I kept my queen unmoved, afraid that once I start, I will be opening a Pandora's box, revealing my darkest weakness. He noted my unusual moves, but did not question it out loud. His mind was already wrapped up in the complex plays, trying to figure out the meaning behind every move.
It was simple, really, my reason for hesitance. I did not know how to end a game. So I dragged the game on, not winning, not losing. I waited for him to realize, and yet, at the same time, hid it deeper and deeper.
He was just like the rest of them, and yet he was different somehow. I could not tell how.
The fourteenth floor. Looking down through that tiny excuse of a window. Blue, dirty, smudged blue, adorned with maybe a wisp of a cloud here and there. So close, and yet so out of reach.
Midnight, on the buoying deck, hand framing the moon. Pale, cold, softly blurred and so ethereal it is a deity all in its own right. So far, and yet so close to the heart.
Swaying grass, endless spans of eternity etched into varying shades of green. Sea-green, sea-blue, spelling whispers of a tribe of legends and a siren's songs. So close, so far, and just so, no more, no less.
The eulogy was easy enough to write, and so were the parting words. Some hastily put-together words: I'm sick of this world, I can't see the light anymore, I can't go on anymore, I'm sorry, I love you, I've always loved you, I know you'll miss me, but I can't deal with this anymore, so please, don't miss me too much, don't hang onto me too much.
Lies, they're all lies, lies.
I chose this because I wanted to, not because it was my only choice. Let me go, forget me, because I am embarking on a voyage without end, and such a voyage requires no ties to hold me back. I am not sorry. This is my choice. I am doing something I've always wanted to do. This is my definition of survival, and I am going on a journey to find my future without survival.
I am finally ending the game.
You and I, truth and lies, I've been fooling myself too long. You and I, breaking ties, how could we be so right and wrong?
Giving Up Isn't What I Do—It's What I've Already Done
(but it's not really giving up, and it's never what you think it is, not ever)
You have your own philosophy, and it works for you, but please don't force it onto me.
"You're smart, yeah. You've got good grades—you work hard. But what makes you different from all the other smart girls out there? All the other hard workers? I could have a thousand girls like you lining up, all vying for this opportunity. What makes you the one that should deserve it?"
Lines. Shades. Chiaroscuro.
There is something magical about life—especially in the way it can be used to emulate everything else in life. Life is like a painting. Life is like a song. Life is like a tree. Life is like a river. Life is like—
Life is my source of humor, and it's also where I get my fountain of despair. I get high on life, I get drunk from life. I am made painfully sober by life.
Life is also remarkably conforming, one life to another, especially when you distill it to its very roots.
Millions of years ago, life ran over the jungles of Pangaea, searching for survival, but more so searching for a future that would no longer require a search for survival. A future where life would be guaranteed—where it would be the basic tenet of the world and all of its extravagance.
Millions of years later, life roams over the jungles of architecture, still searching for survival, still searching for that bright future where survival simply will not become an issue anymore—where the mere word "survival" will be relegated to the dusty tomes of archaic lexicons.
"You think you're all that, with your little awards printed on cheap stationery, your fake gold and silver medals, and your minute of 'fame' going up in front of everyone in your grade to receive a round of applause that a hundred other people also receive? You really think you're special because of those trivial things?"
Fifth grade, up in my grandmother's apartment on the third floor. I looked out the window and saw two boys climbing the walls to reach the second floor walk-way on the apartment beside ours. It was sunny that day, and I remember falling in love with that golden beam.
I think that was the first time I ever fell in love.
That winter, I read my first tragedy. What struck me most wasn't how the protagonist loved a girl that he found out later was his sister, or how everyone seemed to mistreat him, or even the fact that he died—it was how, when his sister came to visit him at his grave, it started raining, and then, as his sister pleaded for him to stop crying up in heaven, it really stopped raining.
I think I found that story tragic because, even in death, he defied his own emotions to please someone else.
The spring after that, I was bound to leave. My cousin gave me a page of her "address book," a peculiar combination of keeping in touch with old classmates and a space to write farewell thoughts. On the first line, I wrote, "They smell like lavender and pain—tears." It made no sense, and yet I could not let go of the word "lavender."
I think if I had to pin-point when it all began, this would be my choice.
"I've got my fair share of boyfriends, you know, and let me tell you, they're all the same. They'll make sweet promises to you, tell you they'll give you the world, say they'll do anything for you. They'll do that for a while, make you feel like they're real. Then when they grow tired, they'll turn their backs on you faster than you can blink and none of them will ever turn back."
Smile. Say something in that sweet voice of yours. Oh, and, don't forget, smile.
They always had golden hair—a distant reminder of the sun as it slipped beyond my grasp. Blue, blue eyes—reminiscent of the brightest, highest autumn sky. They were all the same. A thousand of them, lined up, and they would still be all the same.
I treated them all the same. My eyes would inevitably follow their footsteps, my heart hung in suspense over their every word. I assigned reasons after the occasion. Oh, he's sweet, oh, he's nice, oh, he pays attention to what I say, oh, he's a people person. Oh, he's got golden hair and blue eyes.
I never admitted it before. They were all the same, really. The boy on the swings, the boy who lived next to me, the boy who trudged down the roads with me, who was too afraid to tell me. A thousand of them all lined up and they would start blending into each other, one face to another, until I could only vaguely pick out the individual characteristics and it was so, so much easier to just combine them together into one entity.
He—they—were all the same. I said hi, said bye, said I'll never see you again don't ask me why.
"Who does he think he is? I can find someone a thousand times better than he. He's, what? Crying to his little friends now, calling me a bitch? I'm not a bitch, this is just how life is. Take it or leave it. I'm not going to mess around with someone like him, when he's just another average guy down the street."
I believe in Allison Saint-Cross.
I believe in everything he stands for. Everything he is fighting against. Everything he treasures, everything he regrets. Everything he is. Everything he is not.
If I had to have a faith, it could be summed up by him. If I had to follow one person's tenets for the rest of my life, it would be his—but that would be contradictory, because one of his tenets is not to blindly follow others' philosophies. If I had to sacrifice my life for one person—it would not be him.
Somewhere in-between the ideal and the real, I had lost sight of what I was really searching for.
I am, above all, searching for survival, searching for that peaceful future where survival will no longer be in my dreams. I believe in Allison because he represents life, represents the sacrifices we are willing to make for life, represents that dogged search for survival. He exists because of our desires to live on.
But somewhere in-between the real and the ideal, I had redefined what life meant to me.
Life was a whirlpool, and there was only one way to get out. I knocked on glass, looked up, and saw blue, icy blue, soft cotton blue, simply blue.
"Really unattractive. You should have seen her. But she's special, you know. Strange girl. I don't understand her. I've never met someone so smart and so stupid at the same time. I don't know what's going on in her head all the time. I don't understand her at all."
It was simple, really, the rules of this new game. It was a twisted combination of truth and dare, of hide and seek, of tug-o'-war, of battleship, of Monopoly, of Clues, of tic-tac-toe, of every game this world had come to know and will continue to know.
It was a game of deception, a game of play, a game of hiding your true strengths and most importantly, your true weaknesses.
It was like a game of chess, and we were both good enough at it to keep on playing against each other. My pawns lined up like a curtain, poised, mockingly so, ready to stake out new territories. He had his defense up already, his eyes narrowed, his bishop out to sweep my attacks. My knight was ready, with its haughty laugh, defending my choices. His rook hung out, sharp, biting, ready to tackle me with my very attacks.
I kept my queen unmoved, afraid that once I start, I will be opening a Pandora's box, revealing my darkest weakness. He noted my unusual moves, but did not question it out loud. His mind was already wrapped up in the complex plays, trying to figure out the meaning behind every move.
It was simple, really, my reason for hesitance. I did not know how to end a game. So I dragged the game on, not winning, not losing. I waited for him to realize, and yet, at the same time, hid it deeper and deeper.
He was just like the rest of them, and yet he was different somehow. I could not tell how.
"There's a thousand opportunities out there, and a million people who want them. I'm telling you, you have to go out there and get it. Be aggressive, just talk, open your mouth. A million people—you have to show them why you're the one. Show them what you've got."
The fourteenth floor. Looking down through that tiny excuse of a window. Blue, dirty, smudged blue, adorned with maybe a wisp of a cloud here and there. So close, and yet so out of reach.
Midnight, on the buoying deck, hand framing the moon. Pale, cold, softly blurred and so ethereal it is a deity all in its own right. So far, and yet so close to the heart.
Swaying grass, endless spans of eternity etched into varying shades of green. Sea-green, sea-blue, spelling whispers of a tribe of legends and a siren's songs. So close, so far, and just so, no more, no less.
The eulogy was easy enough to write, and so were the parting words. Some hastily put-together words: I'm sick of this world, I can't see the light anymore, I can't go on anymore, I'm sorry, I love you, I've always loved you, I know you'll miss me, but I can't deal with this anymore, so please, don't miss me too much, don't hang onto me too much.
Lies, they're all lies, lies.
I chose this because I wanted to, not because it was my only choice. Let me go, forget me, because I am embarking on a voyage without end, and such a voyage requires no ties to hold me back. I am not sorry. This is my choice. I am doing something I've always wanted to do. This is my definition of survival, and I am going on a journey to find my future without survival.
I am finally ending the game.
"We're really alike, you and I. We want the same things, we crave the same things, we need the same things, we dream the same things. But we go about achieving them in different ways. I couldn't figure it out for the longest time, because you acted differently from what I'd expected, but now I know. Now I know."
You and I, truth and lies, I've been fooling myself too long. You and I, breaking ties, how could we be so right and wrong?
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
So I'm Lazy and I've Got Lots of Work...
Therefore, I find it perfectly logically (acceptable or not is up to you to decide) to replace actual content with copied and pasted things. Such as my half-finished story for a writing contest on this forum thing. It's a story about... romance, and albeit my very limited knowledge into this field, I decided to give it a try.
And also, I asked Dino whether entropy was reversible and if he had any large lasers at his house. His answer to the first question was, "On the planetary scale, of course it's not possible." And his answer to the second question was, "Is this a serious question?" To which I replied, "Yes, it is."
And he said no.
Alas, my grand scheme to go back in time so I would have more time to write my research paper, and, in general, other homework assignments as well, will thus be slightly delayed. Not by much, though. I'm sure Vincent always has a way.
If he can solve cryptic crosswords, then he can do anything.
(Click here for the short story that inspired part of my questions.)
And, there is my story, or, the first part of it, as I have written it.
When I first looked into your eyes, I thought you had the bluest eyes I had ever seen.
And maybe had I done something, there would be no more story to tell.
"Hello," I said, trying to fill in the silence.
I paid no heed to those words at the time, but perhaps that was the turning point of this story. I had my choices laid out in front of me, two separate roads leading down unforeseeable worlds, and I made a decision. Did I make the right choice? I do not know. But I do know that things could have turned out so differently, and so easily.
And also, I asked Dino whether entropy was reversible and if he had any large lasers at his house. His answer to the first question was, "On the planetary scale, of course it's not possible." And his answer to the second question was, "Is this a serious question?" To which I replied, "Yes, it is."
And he said no.
Alas, my grand scheme to go back in time so I would have more time to write my research paper, and, in general, other homework assignments as well, will thus be slightly delayed. Not by much, though. I'm sure Vincent always has a way.
If he can solve cryptic crosswords, then he can do anything.
(Click here for the short story that inspired part of my questions.)
And, there is my story, or, the first part of it, as I have written it.
I love you, maybe.
Dedicated to my favorites: Dray, Allison, Prescott, and *name crossed out due to relevance to reality*
Heaven has always hated me. I am not lying. Every time something good happens, Heaven always takes it away from me. Every time I want to cry, Heaven makes sure only the brightest sunshine falls on my head.
I want to make this perfect for you, because you only get one chance at it, you know? No rewind button. No undo key combo. We all have only this once chance, and I want to make it worthy of you. But Heaven hates me, and I can't call forth the rain I want.
So this will have to do.
Forgive me.
When I first looked into your eyes, I thought you had the bluest eyes I had ever seen.
You were a foreigner. Blue eyes, blond hair, pale skin, all that cliché. The older kids told the younger ones that you were a monster out to get them at night. A vampire. A ghost, perhaps. They said the bluer your eyes, the greater the number of lives you had taken. I remember the first time we met, down by the bus station between Lily Road and North Avenue. I had missed my ride again, the fourth time that week, and my mother refused to pay for a caddy anymore. So I trudged to a stop in front of the orange metal pole that marked the bus station from the street, and waited.
You were already there, your clothes perfectly groomed and so out of place. Your face was so pale it made us look dirty. You smiled at me, out of habit more than out of friendliness. I smiled back, just as uncomfortable with the situation as you were.
I said hello, in an heavily accented English that I was sure you were laughing at on the inside.
You replied in perfect Chinese. "Hello. How are you?"
"I'm fine. How are you?"
The bus came at that moment, and you smiled again, apologetically. We both hurried on the bus, and amidst the crowd, I lost sight of you. But that question had been haunting me ever since I had asked it. How were you that morning? Were you really happy, oblivious to the whispers behind your back?
Had the bus not come that moment, and had you answered, would everything have been different?
I did not see you again until two years later, when we were assigned to the same class at the beginning of high school.
You had changed by then. Your face had a harder edge to it, and your voice deeper. You had a nonchalant aura. But your eyes were still the same blue, if only colder. If I had thought I could drown myself in your eyes before, then now I felt as if I could lock myself in the icy palace you built with your eyes and never want to come out again.
I wanted to say something to you, but you were distracted by a group of boys. They were pointing at you and whispering something in traditional Shanghainese, something even I did not understand, despite living my entire life near Shanghai.
One of the boys spoke in Mandarin. "Wei, you! Sheep-hair! Come over here."
You barely granted them a passing glance before occupying yourself with a silver chain you had. The boy who spoke to you started shouting again.
"Hey, I'm talking to you! Answer me, you bastard!"
I should have gone up to them and told them to leave you alone. I should have reported them to a teacher. I should have said something, anything. In hindsight, I should have done so much.
And maybe had I done something, there would be no more story to tell.
The tutoring thing was more of a fluke than anything else. I had been sitting under the tree in the courtyard, sketching the school, when Ms. Ling walked over and asked me if I was free every Wednesday afternoon.
"I see you here all the time," she explained, "doing nothing at all."
I am doing something. I am drawing. "Of course I'm free. Why? Is there something you need?"
"Well, you see, I have a student who is not quite grasping the curriculum, and I simply don't have the time to help him myself. You're doing fairly well with your grades, so I wanted to ask you a favor."
"You want me to tutor him?"
"Yes, is that possible?"
There were a thousand ways this could go wrong, I wanted to say. A thousand and one. But instead, I said, "What subjects would I be responsible for, and for how long?"
"Chinese, and math. I don't think English is necessary. You will only be helping him with one subject a session, with each session being two hours long. Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, if that works for you? I will tell him about our plans. You two can meet at the school study hall."
"Okay," I said. Had I been more alert, and less upset, perhaps I would have seen the warning signs and bowed out despite my cowardliness.
When I stared into your eyes again, they were still the bluest eyes I had ever seen, but somehow they appeared duller than what I was accustomed to. Was it merely my dreams that catapulted your reality into a form of perfection that was never real? I smiled weakly, the first time I had ever smiled to you since our first encounter, but you did not return the gesture. You saw me in the same way you saw everyone else, defiant, but hopelessly lost.
None of us realized the lost part, however. We just saw your defiance and assumed the rest.
"Hello," I said, trying to fill in the silence.
"Hello. How are you?"
You were polite, too polite. It chilled me more than any harsh words could. I grabbed a chair next to you and sat down. You had your notebook open, on the first page, clean and fresh and so unreal. There was one line of text at the top, scribbled in a flowery font that was evidently not yours.
Be good.
I paid no heed to those words at the time, but perhaps that was the turning point of this story. I had my choices laid out in front of me, two separate roads leading down unforeseeable worlds, and I made a decision. Did I make the right choice? I do not know. But I do know that things could have turned out so differently, and so easily.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Why Not to Start Your Research Paper on the Day Before it's Due.
1. You find yourself needing to write five pages of solid work, of which you barely have one page.
2. You find your fellow classmates needing to write five pages of solid work, of which none of them barely have ten pages combined. In a class of twenty.
3. You find yourself waking up really, really early to finish off said five pages.
4. You find your fellow classmates not waking up really, really early and not finishing off said five pages.
5. You find yourself weeks behind on another blog entry.
6. You find your fellow classmates... wait, you don't know if your fellow classmates have blogs.
Well, now that I know why I should totally not procrastinate on my research paper, and why I should totally plan it out ahead and totally write it long before it's due, will I actually do it?
Well...
No.
I'll probably, at most, just think about it for a very, very long time. And I doubt I'll even think about it for such a long time. Other, more exciting things, are always around.
Like the AMC results.
I talked to Argon, who religiously checks the AMC website and can apparently glean off information that I myself cannot find (a.k.a. the cutoff scores), and he told me that the 12A cutoffs were 88.5. So, if the 12B cutoffs are the same, I have room to make two "oops-I-bubbled-it-wrong-again" mistakes, and exactly two.
The downside to that?
Dino would also make it, what with his guessing not-so-strategy.
I know it sounds mean, but I really do not think Dino deserves to make it to AIME's. But I searched around Google and I've heard that quite a number of people got over 100, so I am not sure about these cutoffs. Also, apparently, many people who take 12B have also taken 12A and take the second one because they didn't do so well on the first one, and are thus more prepared for the second one.
Who knows?
All I can say is, I am 95% confident that Argon was one of the pitifully few who actually did practice problems on the AMC site.
I know for me, personally, I forgot the AMC even existed until the day before, when Nyx conveniently reminded me. But that's just me.
Of course, I'm also really, really excited for Moody's.
Rumor on the street claims this year's topic is going to be about healthcare, namely what is the best way to tackle the healthcare problem while minimizing government (or better known as tax) money, maximizing savings for the average person, and possibly avoiding political attacks.
You know, such things as, "It's socialism, and if this is passed in Congress then I'm going to move to Canada!"
Well, no, you're not. Because, if anything, Canada is much more socialist than the US, even with the addition of a universal healthcare system. Moving to Canada will help your case in no way whatsoever. You might as well say you're moving to China.
Which actually might help, as China's barely starting (if any) a socialist system, and as for now, there isn't even a property tax.
But I digress again.
Regardless of whether the rumor's true, I'll be looking into the healthcare system for the next few days. And if it is true, and some other topic such as when is the best time to end the war in Iraq/Afghanistan or how to end our reliance on foreign oil is not chosen or even how to make sure colleges don't spam your inbox with the same emails, then I'm sure we will be prepared plenty.
Of course, I would also be pleasantly surprised if they asked us to design a work calender to maximize worker productivity, with an emphasis on more breaks. I'm not picky at all.
I will be bringing my calc textbook, my precalc textbook, my algebra textbook, my photocopied version of the geometry textbook, my stat textbook, my dad's weird math textbooks in Chinese, my AP review books, and other assortments of random things. You know, calculators, pencils, graph paper, shiny erasers, and so forth.
I think the fact that I've been writing research papers and US reflections for the past few weeks has greatly hindered my natural tendency to write in lists instead of separate, cohesive thoughts, and thus I am expressing myself excessively in this post.
Oh well. Moody's is coming up, and that means fourteen hours of, as Jimmy nicely put it, "insanity." I do believe this reminds me to also bring nice, soft, cushiony pillows, as our school's chairs are most uncomfortable (although the tables are, according to Tea, better than some other schools' tables). I would not be able to stand another fourteen hours of sitting on the ground with only my coat as a soft thing to buffer the pain. I wouldn't even have Joss as a pillow anymore.
So yeah. Pillows, food, writing utensils, and more food.
What more math could there be?
Oh, being on A team for the math meet, finally, after a two month hiatus. Not that I minded B team too much, but I would have liked a chance to see if I could rank comparably with the other people in our grade, and missing a chunk of points because your score wasn't counted does skew the results somewhat.
However, I find it amazing Tybalt did not do better than me. He had been, after all, beating me in my rounds ever since... he started doing them as well. Maybe he had been distracted. That could explain the slightly lower AMC score as well.
Does that mean, since Bryant also scored worse than last year, that he is also distracted? By what? Or whom?
Oh, such mysteries in this world.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Procrastination and Another New Beginning
If it were completely up to me, school would assign no homework at all, and we would only have to do work in class. It's totally plausible, with after-school group study sessions to review materials covered in class, without the plethora of distractions home (and, quite often, my laptop that happens to have internet access) offers.
I would never, ever finish an assignment five minutes before it's due.
Argon would know. He's very concerned with my current ability to handle schoolwork right now. It's a little disconcerting, actually, how often he says I seem so stressed out.
I'm not. Really. I just mock-complain a lot, because my mind goes blank every now and then and I don't know what to say. Interesting, coming from a girl everyone thinks is really quiet.
Anyway, the point of this came from my current status of procrastinating instead of doing my English notecards, as I totally should do, had I been the good little girl I was back in... uh, seventh grade? I finished my homework ahead of time back then.
In fact, I still blame that guy in eighth grade, who always did homework in class and got caught (as opposed to me, who always did homework in class and never got caught) as my major corrupter. I did get a key chain as compensation though, but that's another story.
As I was saying. I had been procrastinating, when I roamed upon my Gmail tab (not accidentally) and spotted Tea. I immediately made myself "visible" and said hi.
"Hi," Tea said. "You know I blog, right?"
Oh, Tea blogs?
"I know now," I typed. Blogging reminded me of all those semi-attempts I had at blogging prior. And my half-hearted posts that collected dust.
Oh yeah. Pleasant memories of a self-proclaimed princess of procrastination.
"Well," Tea said. "Read this."
And she promptly sent over the link to her blog.
Which, I have to say, looks all amazing, partly because I myself have never accomplished such prolific projects of such massive scale. (It's also amazing otherwise, but I've always been uncreative with praise and such.) I scanned through the latest post--mentioning me as Ginny, which is evidently where I got my screen name from--and the quite... interesting turn of events. This, on some scale, is sad, because I had been there half the time, and I caught on to only two parts of the conversation, namely Irving's ad and Dino's bot-like voice. Oh well. I was always slow to react.
But this raises a very valid question.
Why am I not blogging?
Or, to phrase it in terms that strike my conscience the most:
Why am I not continuing to blog on those blogs I've started?
Posing that as my "Question of Subconsciousness" as I work on my remaining six notecards, I realize that it's because blogging had never been fun. It's always been something I wanted to do when I wanted to write about all the things that troubled me, but I channeled those into stories instead.
Oh, and this reminds me, I'm a little upset that I didn't get even an "honorable mention" in the Reflections contest (Boris did get second place for his poem, though, which I remembered him printing off on the day it was due, probably because we were both in the library that morning with last minute edits), but then I realized that winning wasn't the reason I wrote. I write because I want to visualize my emotions.
It's why most people don't get the things I mention in my writing. I use a lot of references (I like historical ones the best). I describe things with a novelty that is only completed because of the connotations of the words themselves. And I write with how it sounds in mind, because to me, the words are often more important than the plot.
But those were stories.
This is real life. And real life is supposed to be fun, because it's pointless if I go around being moody all the time.
(I had a discussion yesterday, as it chanced, with Stella, a friend of mine back in a world far, far away, about the meaning of life. Or lack thereof, I suppose. We ended up mulling over what existence meant, why we still lived and hung on to our lives, and the rather disturbing thoughts Stella had.)
Real life, and Ginny-world (Nephria, as it is called, for the Unenlightened), are two drastically different things. I've forgotten that writing could be just, purely, unequivocally about fun, and that's where I had gone wrong on my Quest O'Blog.
So, a fresh start?
In 2010.
Maybe.
But first, my five remaining notecards. English teachers may not be able to count, but NoodleBib unfortunately can.
