Wonder Page

for my research paper.

-facial expressions (across species/cultures)

-feminism as a label (why is it not accepted by people who believe in equality)

-sexualization of preteens

-origination of leg shaving

-nation of immigrants

-gerrymandering

-cloning

-stem cells

-etc.

-modeling industry and eating disorders

-originations of language

-common grammatical constructs

-development of the English language

-women in science

-affirmative action

-the internet and hate speech

-how to teach gifted children

Overheard

Today, during extended Health, I slipped out of class to go use the bathroom. There were two girls, probably sophomores, standing in front of the sinks and talking. There was a short, talkative one, and a larger, heavier one. I'll call them L and B, respectively.

L: Nice iphone.

B: Thanks.

L: My parents are getting me an itouch for my birthday.

B: Cool.

L: Know what's great about itouches?

B: No.

L:You can use the internet on them.

B: Yeah.

L: Emily has an itouch. She uses the internet on it.

B: Huh.

L: She looks at porn on it.

B: Wow.

L: Sometimes, I look at porn on it with her.

B: Oh.

L: It's kind of weird.

B: Yeah.

L: Don't tell anyone I said that.

B: That it's weird?

L: No, that I look at porn.

B: Sure.

L, speaking to me as I dried my hands: That includes you.

Tea: I don't know you anyways. Even if I told someone, they wouldn't know what I was talking about.

L: Good.

I, of course, promptly told both Red and Kathrya the entire story after I got back to health class. Kathrya and I agreed that even though we don't watch porn ourselves, it really doesn't seem like the sort of thing you want to do with a friend. I mean, seriously, that just seems like a recipe for either severe awkwardness or clandestine lesbian hookups.

On a completely unrelated note, we're writing essays on gender in English. Here are the theses of my group:

Margot: Girls wear clothes that are really uncomfortable.

Carter: Being a guy sucks because, like, we have to fit into expectations and stuff.

Brian: I have great female role models in my family, and we've now studied this so excessively I feel that my brain my spontaneously combust. It's all just empty talk that isn't going to do anything to stop sexism; that takes actions.

Tea: Femininity is an insurmountable obstacle preventing me from controlling my own life.

Rob: What Brian said.

Renna: Being a woman means not knowing what you actually want. Also, is it a problem if I write a synthesis essay using only personal anecdotes?

Tea Does Spanish

Señora is really a tad to prone to personal questions. For instance, my responses to the homework today:

If I lived on the island and didn't have a job, I would look for work as a babysitter because the children are pleasing to me.

If I could ask for the autograph of any person, I would ask for the autograph of the President Obama because he is pleasing to me.

If there was a limited amount of water, I would shower less times.

If I saw a person for the first time, I would not be capable of falling in love with that person.

If my parents made a toast on the day of my wedding, they would give me felicitations.

If I were Mario and I read a letter from Neruda (don't ask), I would hope that the letter is interesting.

If I had a son, I would give him the name Pedro.

If my spouse died before my son was born, I would become sad.

Avoidance

I'd been avoiding writing about SHP, mostly because, although Melissa, Irving, and Mario haven't objected to my joining their little group, I can tell that they really wouldn't mind if I wasn't there. Not that that's some huge issue- there are now seven or so people on the train, so one or two missing wouldn't make that much difference. It's more this general dislike of them that's developing after listening to them bad mouth virtually every other smart person. I'm exaggerating really, and they're probably people I wouldn't like either For instance, I am perfectly willing to join discussions about how ridiculous Boris is, but even so, Boris doesn't really bother me, he just kind of is. I think maybe I'm just a bit less sensitive to ingratiating behavior. I mean, I can barely remember why I dislike Gnatta at this point, and even Dino, cruel as he may be, is bearable.

Funny how much nicer Mario seemed last year, when it was just him. Right now, his comments about freshman girls (See that black Nissan? There's a bed in the back. You up for it?), let alone the one's about middle schoolers ("I was hoping I misheard you, but, no, Mario, that is not an option," in Archie's words) are mostly making me want to punch him. Granted, this may be a defense mechanism designed to get me over him faster, and perhaps indicates that some portion of my subconscious has finally come to terms with the futility of it all, but maybe he was just a dick and I didn't notice it before, or this may be a statement about how nasty people become when put in groups, or about how males, when confronted with societal expectations, feel the need to act like nasty bastards.

I'm not sure, to be honest.

The Phone Rings

I am simultaneously working on my Social Security paper and an English poster about the color green, so I ignore it.

Shelby answers, then comes over to my room.

"Tea, phone."

"Okay, who is it?"

"I dunno." Her eyes slide shiftily back and forth. "It sounds like a guy."

I roll my eyes and accept the phone, expecting it to be an overtired female whose voice she didn't recognize.

"Hello?" I say.

"Uhhh, hi," says the voice on the phone. Shockingly enough, it actually sounds male.

"Who is this?" I ask.

"Stanley," he replies. Stanley was in Gretchie's and my spanish class in eighth grade. He sat in front of me, and he left his gym shirt on under his t-shirt so you could see the writing through the back, and he smelled as if he didn't use deodorant. I haven't noticed a stench this year, but I had told him we were working on the same topic, and I'd gone through his outline with him after Mrs. Hirten gave him some horrific score to explain what he'd been doing wrong.

The call lasts about thirty seconds, in which I say, yes, writing a paragraph about the changing life expectancy since 1935 is absofreakinglutely fine and he says okay then, I'll see you in school on Monday.

I hope he doesn't make a habit of it.

When Zombies Attack

Who will survive?

Nyx and I spent a considerable chunk of time this evening rating people's ability to survive zombie attack. I would die fairly early on, because I would refuse to acknowledge the existence of said zombies without incontrovertible scientific proof, which can only really be obtained by getting close enough to the zombies for them to eat you. Ali would survive for a good amount of time, because she would beat the zombies into submission. Cormac would also survive for a long time because he's already written up a list of what to do in case of zombie attack. He also probably has a list of what to do in the case of pterodactyl resurgence, but that's another story. Nyx would kill the zombies and save to world because she is, really, that awesome.

Suffering

I am currently suffering from extensive eye make-up damage from being all dolled up as an emo for our health PSA. Nia may be really good with make-up, but I still consider it majorly unfun. Maybe I'm just oversensitive.

Of course, being oversensitive would make me emo by nature, no?

Could use some volt right about now

I'm so busy practicing for Guys and Dolls at the moment that I really don't have time to write a coherent post. So, I'll leave you with a paragraph I wrote freshman year about just how loverly piano playing is.

There is also power in the music I create myself. I play the piano constantly. I am currently learning Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# minor. It starts with three low fff triple octaves, then changes to ppp chords, each one with six notes, played by two hands with overlapping thumbs. The song stays quiet, switching between overlaps and octaves. It then shifts into a stream of triplets, twelve per measure. It is extraordinarily difficult, but even with my limited ability, I can still feel the melancholy tone as I play. Sharps, double sharps, and minor chords create a sadness that is reversed with a measure in D major before descending back into minor notes. No matter how jumpy I feel at its start, the song calms me as it plods along. I like the way the piece sounds, but I mostly enjoy the feeling it inspires within me.

That's the prelude I stopped playing last year after Harry got into orchestra for playing it. After that, I just felt inferior every time I practiced, and it was causing issues, so I moved onto brighter pastures, like Beethoven.

Nerds Don't Get Any

This is, as we're all aware, a sad but true fact. And it only makes things worse to hear about all of the people who we considered totally beneath us in middle school, back before we moved to the higher level classes where one could, potentially, find a room in which the only person who's had sex is the teacher, are out there hooking up and doing god knows what else. (Forgive me the run-on sentence. Incomprehensibility seems to be my buzzword for the week). For instance, take Grant, who apparently hooked up with a girl and then called her "Isabel" by accident. I personally don't know anyone named Isabel, so who knows what he was thinking, but regardless, I think I'm going to break into another round of pouting along the theme of what-do-they-have-that-I-don't.

This should make for a highly enjoyable evening.

The whole bit about nerds not getting any is a stereotype. It's a true stereotype as far as e the nerds I know go, but it is a stereotype. This week in Health, Kathrya, Nia and I are making a public service announcement about stereotypes in which we film a representation of a stereotype, then demonstrate how this person subverts it. For nerd, Kathrya got all dolled up in high-waisted cords with a TI-85 in the pocket, a tucked in, baggy white tee, and overlarge glasses. We were debating what subversion to use while Nia got the camera working. My vote was for an STD. Kathrya, however, didn't respond favorably to my pleas to tell the health class that she has gonorrhea.

A few minutes later, Mr. Booth walked by, and Kathrya and I both waved and said hi. He walked over to us.

Mr. Booth: So what are you doing?

Tea: We're making a public service announcement for health.

Kathrya: I'm dressed as a nerd. I don't normally look like this, I promise!

Mr. Booth laughs before saying: Nice calculator.

Kathrya: Haha, thanks.

Mr. Booth: So what is this about?

Tea: Stereotypes.

Kathrya: We're dressing up as them and then subverting them.

Mr. Booth: So how are you subverting nerd?

Kathrya: We're not sure yet. Tea wants to say I have STDs, but-

At that, Mr. Booth's entire head, including the top of it, turned red, and he covered up the his face.

Tea: Honestly, it's health class, I don't see what's wrong with it!

Mr. Booth: It really doesn't seem like the best idea.

Nia: Maybe you party a lot or something?

Mr. Booth: Or she could play sports. You still have the whole jock divide, right?

Tea, musing: What sport, though?

Mr. Booth: How about chess club. Would that work?

Tea, puzzled: No.

Kathrya: Probably not.

Tea blinked a few times, confused.

At that point, Tawny emerged from the bathroom in hippy regalia, and we had to end the conversation to go film her.

Comprehensive Learning

Sleep is a truly glorious thing. My eight hours a night are truly wonderful, and, honestly, I need every second of those eight hours. It always shocks me to hear about people getting less- Tybalt, for instance who averages "six, six and a half" hours per night.

Crazy person.

I had math team today, and there was a surprisingly low turnout. When I got there, Tybalt, Bryant, and Dino were the only ones in attendance. They were discussing the physics test, but Bryant hadn't taken it yet, so the other two were using code words to discuss it in front of him.

"Heavy tangerine, right Dino?"

"What?" asked Dino.

Tybalt looked at me expectantly.

"Nope, I still have no clue what you're talking about," I said.

"The one with the big things that go up and down and around."

"Oh!" said Dino, "the humpy one!"

"What?"

"The humpy one! It was the second one, I think. Or maybe the third..."

"Yeah, you got a heavy tangerine, yes?"

"What the hell is a tangerine?"

"I like tangerines."

"The ticket, it's a heavy tangerine, Dino, just think about it. TANgerine."

"What?"

Bryant got fed up. "He's saying that the acceleration is gravity times the tangent!"

"You weren't supposed to understand!"

Dino opened his mouth, then paused a moment before speaking. "Hey, if you take one genius twin, and derive him with respect to the other genius twin, which one of them are you respecting?"

"I don't get it," I said.

"Neither of them," said Bryant, understanding better than the intended target yet again.

Fireyes

Today, during English, I glanced over at Alfredo. He was staring at a small spot towards the front of his desk. He looked rather as if he was attempting to set in on fire with his gaze. This continued for a good ten seconds before I got distracted at looked away. I think he's attempting to develop Matilda-esque powers.

Now, I don't know if all of you are aware, but one of my many pointless hobbies is reading dating advice websites. There's a certain amount of irony involved in that- probably roughly equivalent to Mario's reading Cosmo. One of them linked to this, which is (advisory warning here) basically inappropriate drawings of Disney heroes. I, of course, was thoroughly distracted. There's something both incongruous and enthralling about Prince Eric (from The Little Mermaid) making a "sexyface" at the camera and wearing next to nothing. I'd honestly thought that he didn't have anything under that billowing blouse. I clicked through all of them, actually laughing at Hercules (nobody can have arms that big, it just doesn't work), before going back and sighing over the skinny, geeky, bespectacled guy from Atlantis with the glowing blue pendent.

It's funny, isn't it, that I see just as, if not more, inappropriate pictures of women on a daily basis in everything from advertisements to museums, and yet these drawings feel so much more scandalous. I mean, seriously, naked girls are everywhere, but we still freak out over photos of penises on wikipedia pages that are completely related to the topic. It's sexism, I think, but I haven't the foggiest idea how to deal with it.

And yes, foggy is still my word of the day.

Reading Today

is Dean Koontz's The Good Guy. It's fairly suspenseful, but also has some rather horrific prose. Below are a few gems from the first one hundred twenty seven pages.

• His preference for simplicity was so strong that he might have been happy as a monk in a particularly spartan monastery, except that monks were not permitted to murder people
• Rooney looked like a black-belt wannabe who, though never having taken a karate lesson, had tried to break a lot of concrete blocks with his face.
• If a spirit could be weighed and measured, Max would have proved to be bigger than his house.

For some reason, the character descriptions strike me as funny. Perhaps this is due to the rather drawn out metaphors.

Speaking of which, I think I'll add a Bulwer-Lytton to the bottom of this, just for a laugh. At the very least, it'll make me laugh.

"The moment he laid eyes on the lifeless body of the nude socialite sprawled across the bathroom floor, Detective Leary knew she had committed suicide by grasping the cap on the tamper-proof bottle, pushing down and twisting while she kept her thumb firmly pressed against the spot the arrow pointed to, until she hit the exact spot where the tab clicks into place, allowing her to remove the cap and swallow the entire contents of the bottle, thus ending her life." -Artie Kalemeris

Day in Twenty Small Steps

1) Woke up

2) Got dressed, remembering to close door in case visitors were awake

3) Had cereal for breakfast, just like I do every other day of the year

4) Drove to high school for PSAT/NMSQTs

5) Parked a mile away from the building because I was afraid that staff parking still gets ticketed on Saturdays

6) Went to testing room with Nyx, Kathrya, Gretchen, Julie, and others, and spent an hour filling out the identification form

7) Freaked out about not having a non-mechanical pencil

8) Took test using mechanical pencil anyways

9) Finished twenty minutes early, got proctor's attention, and told him that he was planning on giving us 35 minutes for a 25 minute section

10) Watched the people in speedier classrooms leave through window in doorway

11) Lunch with Nyx

12) Watched first TV show in two weeks, the episode of America's Next Top Model from the week before last

13) Piano lesson

14) Babysat neighbors

15) Called mother and asked her to bring me fuzzy socks because mine got wet and my feet were cold

16) Was mildly disappointed that the hot older brother of said neighbors didn't call again

17) Did math packets until I was too cold and tired to continue

18) Watched Legally Blonde to distract myself from the cold

19) Convinced father of neighbors to only walk me to the end of his driveway, thus ending the awkward conversations during the walk to my house

20) Wrote blog post

Look-alikes

Family friend visiting at the moment. He looks eerily like Nick Jonas, and it's freaking me out. He is now named Donal.

Degrees of Hilarity

Funny is Krystal's inability to think before she speaks, to the point where, when having a conversation in English about how Gatsby seems to be choosing his words carefully, she busts out with a "Wait- people actually do that?!"

Funnier is Tonta accusing Alex of giving her the impression that Alex gave a lot of blow jobs, which, now that I think of it, she never specifically denied. It ended with them both accusing the other one of being easy and Julian yelling that he had no interest in hearing anything to do with Alex and blowjobs, and that Tonta was overly gullible, Alex was being sarcastic, and, "seriously, you were convinced last week that I was sleeping with Maculate!" Alex was so distracted by the idea of Julian and Maculate doing anything that the conversation was derailed.

Funniest were the three sophomores talking about hot guys. "And, well, I just think Holden Caufield is so hot!"

"I don't know, he's a bit depressive..."

"You like emo guys, though."

"This is true. And Holden's pretty cute."

"Wait-" interrupted the third. "Are you talking about literary characters?"

"Yes."

"They can't be hot. They don't exist."

"Two words: Edward Cullen."

"You think Edward Cullen is hot? Is there something wrong with you?"

"No, I don't, but if crazy girls can have crushes on him, than I can have a thing for Holden."

I will take this moment to disclose my middle-school crush on Artemis Fowl. Something about those young, evil geniuses...

Ohmygawd

I am far too sleepy after the college presentation thing (UVA, Johns Hopkins, and Northwestern) to post much of anything. Also, Dad was talking to me in the car on the way back about how I really should play piano for more things once the show's over, but that I'm really fine, and I shouldn't be freaking out over everything. Well, Dad, I only freak out when you tell me I need to join more clubs and play piano more and do anything other than continue to take life one day at a time. Honestly, talking about boys on the way over was far more fun then talking about schools on the way back. Next time, I'm totally bringing Mom.

Ohmygawd, I am, like, so totally sorry that I couldn't post more, but, omygawd, my blackberry was taking forever to load- i mean, like ten seconds, ohmygawd- and i just like couldn't deal and I had to check Cosmo, and ohmygawd, ohmygawd, ohmygawd.

Birthdays, Once Again

As Julie so kindly reminded us on Sunday, Mario's birthday was this weekend. He was standing with Melissa and I and talking to Mr. Booth (civil war joke! speaking of which, check out this webcomic) about being seventeen.

"I'm seventeen, now," said Mario. "I can go to R rated movies and buy cigarettes."

"Actually," said Mr. Booth, "you can't buy cigarettes."

"I can buy porn, then, right?"

"No, I don't think so," said Melissa.

"Oh. Seventeen is kind of disappointing really. Sixteen you get to drive, and eighteen you're an adult-"

"And you can vote," I added.

"-and you can vote, and then twenty-one..." he trailed off.

"I still have to register to vote," Melissa said. "Because we have such a big election this year."

"Do you even get to vote for anything?"

"First selectman and planning and zoning, I think."

"Ooh!" I said. "I'll ask my dad about planning and zoning, since he'll actually care."

"Good plan."

Miscellaneous

I learned to spell that word from playing The Sims.

Mrs. Hirten said Yuuuuge instead of huge again. It made me cringe.

I've been trying to write down items worth blogging during the day, but I always lose my lists. I did manage to glean a few gems from my English binder, however.

Inverted sentences have the verb before the subject and sound like Yoda. For instance, "happy, I was, when I walked down the green hall."

I think Ms. Seltzia has death on her mind. When describing pungent flowers today, she asked if any of us had "been too a funeral home where there are lots of lilies."

Also, who knew that personification of nature is called pathetic fallacy?

And does anyone know where I can buy vanadyl sulfate?

The Homework Monster

is going to eat me. I've literally been working all day today. It's really, really unfortunate.

Class yesterday was fine. I'm sure that funny things happened, but I woke up in the morning with a migraine halo thing, took three advil, and then spent the next six hours in a bit of a haze, trying not to fall asleep in the middle of class. Most of the day is still a bit blurry, although I think part of that was intentionally induced after listening to Mario wax poetic about Scarlett for half an hour.

I did hear an awesome halloween costume, though. A bunch of grapes: twine vines in hair, wear a purple dress, and liberally apply balloons. I'm wearing an old pair of my grandmother's old plaid golf pants this year (either scotsman, golfer, or scottish golfer), so the grapes will have to go on hold for the time being.

Hello World

My extended family is back in town, so I'm going slightly MIA for the time being. Have a nice weekend!

Gchat is the true reflection of life.

Tea: WAIT, ARE YOu online, please be online

Vicky: yes

Tea: invisible

Vicky: how did you know?

Tea: oh good! I needed someone to talk to and I'd been looking at the gchat page for A WHILE, annoyed that no one was online

Vicky: ok...is it juice gossip or serious? And juicy gossip, not juice

Tea: uhh, gossip mostly, and it's Mario related

Vicky: GREAT!!

Tea: although not great for me

Vicky: YES!!! the best kind!

Tea: but I am determined not to care. He's OBSESSED with Scarlett. Do you know who that is?

Vicky: no, who's she?

Tea: some senior. he's worked out her schedule by figuring out what classes she's taken and listening to her talk about teacher s to other people cause she sits NEAR him in economics

Vicky: wow...that's definitely obsessed

Tea: and he wrote it down in this little notebook and CARRIES IT AROUND

Later, still with Vicky

Tea: The whole time that Mario was talking about Scarlett, Tybalt's shirt had ridden over sideways, so I could see this section of his shoulder, and I was like "see, you're fine, Tybalt, is pretty, you don't care, just laugh."

Vicky: Idk...I guess Bryant is smarter though right, so maybe Tybalt got the handsome gene and Bryant got the extra brain gene

Tea: Bryant is smarter, but their gpas are identical except for freshman year latin. They were so cute talking about who's going to be valedictorian. Bryant wants them to tie, even though he's ahead right now.

Vicky: oh...wait...dinner time...I have to go...bye!!!

Tea: and he doesn't want to have to make a speech and NOOO. I'm not done!

So, of course, I had to find someone else to talk to, yielding this conversations with Gretchen and Nyx that I will post later. For now, though, content yourselves with the wonders of Kathrya:

Kathrya: YAY FOR BEING SOCIALLY RETARDED

Tea: he was so proud of himself today

Kathrya: hahah what for?

Tea: he's like "I'm so glad the test got pushed up to friday because I helped her with econ!"

Kathrya: wow.

Tea: yeah, I mean, really, Mario. you don't admit to this stuff in front of a large group!

Kathrya: yea, you say it to your close friends, duuuuuuh

Tea: Tybalt clearly doesn't respect you/know you well enough to keep it to himself, I DEFINITELY don't, (I've already told 4 people, and it's been, what, three hours?)

crazy mario....

okay, I'm going to bed, nightnight

Kathrya: oh well the whole school will know soon lol

Math Meet

Kathrya is going to murder me. Ginny and I told Tybalt about our evaluative walk analysis. This coupled with our interrogation of him about what guys say when they want to get their haircut leads me to believe that Tybalt now believes that I'm insane. (As a side note, Kathrya totally deserves this for getting my hopes up about Tybalts GPA, which is a 4.46, a full tenth higher than mine, and therefore very, very far away.)

Also, Jeff's little brother, hereafter referred to as Micro, who calls his brother Jeff a communist, is actually a neocon jerk. He said that I am overly talkative! Me! Overly talkative! That bastard! My response to this was to storm over to the other table, which I hadn't been sitting at because Ginny and I felt like awkward social outcasts, and tell Melissa that Micro was being mean. I then got my calculus homework and brought it over with me, and Bryant pretty much helped me with every single problem. He really is wonderful, unlike Micro, who is a tiny little meanie.

I'll give a bit more info on the meet tomorrow.

Fun

In health class, Red poked me while the teacher was talking and whispered, "Mario was just staring over here, so I waved at him, and he looked away," although she actually referred to him by both first and last name.

He was probably trying to figure out why I kept looking over where he was (I was watching the clock! Honest! The second hand was broken, so it was doing this really entertaining thing where it skidded forward only every four seconds!), or had become completely enthralled by Red's red hair or the weird poster with the male olympians on it (unlikely), but really, Mario, you were creepishly staring at Julie just last week! You need to be more careful not to zone out while looking at people.

Speaking of Mario, as I've said before, Kathrya believes that he walks awkwardly. In fact, she believes that she can distinguish a nerdy guy solely by his walk. I told this to Ginny today while Bryant and Tybalt were about twenty yards in front of us. I finished up with, "I mean, just look at the twins!" right when they rounded the corner ahead.

"You want to run after them and observe?"

"Yes!" I said, and we rent running up to the corner before continuing to walk, this time a bit closer behind them. For anyone who's interested, they were stepping in opposite synchrony, going inside-outside-inside-outside, and they don't walk in precisely the same manner.

During science research today, I did the lab that's supposed to teach us how to use the micropipettes. Lumiere and Elle talked about this weekend's drunken antics. Lumiere seems to have some real memory issues. He had no recollection of telling Elle that he'd devirginized seven girls (he claims that he's slept with seven, but only three were virgins (only three. ha.)), and had no clue why he'd woken up on Sunday morning with a bed full of sand (tag on the beach). Elle professes to be very dedicated to TAG, which is Teens Against Something-to-do-with-drugs-and-alcohol-that-starts-with-G. Julie mildly insulted Lumiere while he was going on about his moral code, and she used a large-ish word I've forgotten (purport? profess?) but that he didn't know the meaning of. This from a boy who is going to Yale next year. I, for one, am appalled.

A Person In Class Is Embarrassed (and it isn't me)

Although I did manage to spill coffee all over one of the desks, I cleaned it up and nobody really cared. Other transgressions from the social norms, however, are more noticeable.

My cytoskeleton teacher gives lectures using powerpoints. To keep us from having to copy everything down (not that we by any means have to, seeing as the class isn't graded), she emails the presentations to us after she gives them. Some people, however, are too unobservant to realize this.

Last class, the boy sitting next to me, whose name I unfortunately don't know, spent the first forty minutes taking furious notes, copying down every word and diagram on the slides. I, on the other hand, was keeping track of the funny things the teacher said (i.e. haha, the MAN protein looks like a --you can guess). After explaining a particularly word-filled slide, our lecturer paused and asked, "can I go on?"

Most of the class nodded and muttered our assent, but this one boy emitted a rather sharp "no!" and continued his rapid scribbling.

"You know that I'll be emailing you this, right? There's no need to copy everything down."

The boy seemed to go into shock. "What!?" he roared, tearing an inked page out of his notebook and jumping from his seat.

"Um..." responded the teacher.

"I don't believe it!" He crumpled the paper into a lumpy ball and attempted to storm over to the trash can and throw it out. Unfortunately for him, he tripped over my feet in the process.

To New York

Yesterday, I drove the pickup truck to the station. I felt very cool despite the fact that it was rainy and I couldn't open my windows and feel that breeze in my hair. I got there, parked successfully, and walked under the tunnel to the other side. The only person there was Helga, so I said I and we made a little bit of small talk until Melissa showed up. We made more small talk, wondering where everyone else was, until Melissa looked over my shoulder and said, "Is that Mario? It think it's Mario. It has the swagger." Mandeep refers to this swagger as the "awkward walk," but I suppose it could go either way.

We ended up walking over there, and as a group of seven people (eight if you count Jess, who was sitting awkwardly on a bench with her mother about three feet away), we achieved a profoundly awkward silence.

Once we got onto the train, we ended up in smaller groups (I sat in a four-seater with Mario, Irving, and Melissa). Irving worked his magical ability to make conversation. Whenever a gap got too long he'd fill it with questions like "oh, Mario, how do you like World?" (he's dropping it) or "So how's your lit-x paper?" (Melissa is reading Anna Karenina (which autocorrects to Keratin, which I was learning about in cyto this week omg!)) or "What did I miss in orientation?" (I don't know, I was at a different one). He also made a sending-or-receiving joke directed at Mario which Mario actually chuckled at. I think that if anyone other than Irving had made the joke, he'd have gotten angry, but since Mario wants to be Irving, he deals with it.

The one thing I wished I'd had on the train ride was something to fiddle with. Irving took out his A.P. Environmental notes to 'study' but didn't read them at all. Melissa had her cell phone, and texted and talked simultaneously. Mario spent the entire hour playing with a little black mechanical pencil, turning it in his hand, spinning the eraser, sliding the lead in and out, etc. I just had to stare into space over Melissa's shoulder when the conversation wore thin, because I had to be careful to avoid Sean, who, of course, showed up again. He won't be there next week though, so that at least is good.

I Hate Titles

Nyx's over, and I don't want to bore her by making her watch me write, which is, if you think about it, almost as boring as watching me play piano, although not quite as boring as golf.

Still, I feel that, since I went all the way to New York and, in the process, formed a considerable volume of new experiences ripe for the sharing, I ought to say at least something.

Nyx has just reminded me that the above paragraph constitutes something.

Goodnight.

P.S. OMG JULIE YOU DIDN'T TELL ME YOU WERE GOING TO BE ON THE TV TRIVIA SHOW THING!!!!

A Day in Discussions

with Lysander:

Lysander: What are you eating?

Tea: Bear claw.

Lysander: What?

Tea: It's a-

Lysander: I know.

Tea: It's good.

Lysander: okay.

Between Mario and the health class:

Mario: I just said the 1st one was the bad stage, the second was really bad, and the third was even worse

(regarding the stages of syphilis)

Between Ms. Seltzia and a boy in my sister's class:

Boy: I went with my cat when it got put down.

Ms. S: Did it make you sad to watch it slump lifelessly to the ground?

Boy: Yes.

Those Male-Dominated Fields

The math team advisor who is known to call the house at odd hours, just called and informed me that I'm on A-team for the meet next week. I told this to my Dad, and his response was "wow, that's like the mathlete equivalent of varsity! You're on starting varsity as a junior! Congrats!" Sure, Dad, whatever you say.

In other news, physics is phun. Fiziks, however, is fun. We did a lab today that basically involved Caroline and me crawling around on the floor, pulling a wooden brick around on a string like a dog, and laughing when Daniel repeatedly tripped over it without even noticing that he was tripping. I'm just hoping that we can go a while longer without our teacher noticing that Caroline and I do all of the math, and that Lauren and Charlotte did absolutely nothing during the lab period. I really don't mind doing the extra work- it's fun.

Today, my teacher talked about using pulleys to find the force of gravity, which Gretchen was talking about doing a lab involving. Apparently, it took her two hours longer at school than anticipated, and at one point, her teacher, Mrs. Cumulonimbus (I couldn't resist) decided that they needed some other help and flagged down Irving, who was nice enough to check their calculations. It was only after Irving had left that Gretchen discovered that Mrs. Cumulonimbus didn't actually know Irving at all, she just knew enough of him to know that he'd be of help.