Fantabulosity

Today started with getting to sleep in, so it really seemed good from the beginning. Unfortunately, my beloved youngest sister got into a screaming fight with my mom at the time my alarm would have gone off anyways, so my attempts at rest were thwarted.

On the plus side, I then spent many hours lolling about the house and being generally unproductive (and by unproductive, I mean "covered two more mini-units of vector review," obviously). Then I drove all the way to somewhat-far-off-town, successfully using the car's built-in GPS to locate the photography studio. It was easily identified by the nerdy looking kid wearing khakis and a blue shirt, just as ordered.

I derived a surprising amount of enjoyment from the photo-taking. I realize that the people there are supposed to go on and on about how beautiful the photograph-ee looks, but that doesn't mean that a mountain of compliments isn't fun. Posing with Rodney was probably more fun on the whole, though. We got lumped together after the photographer+assistants asked if we knew each other---not if we liked each other, mind you, just if we knew each other. This meant that as they posed us in various relations to each other, we got to make jokes at their expense, which more or just meant calling them crazy and then laughing a lot (you'd laugh to, if you were uncomfortable). There are also some photos of us making James Bond poses that I'd love to get ahold of at some point in the future.

Also, I met this cute guy from Tennessee who rides Tennessee walking horses (or something like that) professionally and wants to be a large animal vet when he grows up. I kind of really wanted to attempt to set him up with Kathrya, but then I found out that he is only a junior. Well, that and I remembered that Kathrya has a boyfriend, but these are minor details.

Later this evening, I went to movie night. It was a painful decision between settling down with a new way of thinking about projection vectors and going to watch A Fish Named Wanda, but I think I made the right decision. The movie was hilarious. Also, I got to meet Timothy, at long last. He is every bit as adorably nerdy as expected. I already want to be his friend, and he totally fits right into the group, which is lovely on the whole. He and Julie are colossally cute (I actually said to Yuma "they're like you and Ginny. It's adorable!", so I'm now officially on record on finding Yuma and Ginny cute rather than nauseating).

The evening ended with eight of us sitting hunched over in the back of Josh's car, eating ice cream out of the carton and discussing internet browsers in great detail. It was amazing. Nerdiness to the point of perfection.

The best terrible pun I can remember (I love puns so, so much) was Josh saying that Julie was covered in mud and therefore "so dirty." So much pun. So much wonderful.

Nyx also said, at one point, "this is so much more fun than getting drunk."

"Agreed," I replied.

"I really wouldn't know," said Brian.

It was then realized that none of us actually knew, but we nonetheless agreed that this sort of activity is in every way superior.

I love my friends.

Whhheeeeeee

Chem. We learned organic nomenclature. Yuma still does not appreciate being hugged.

Science Research. We watched interviews with Feynman on youtube. I read more of that bio paper I really need to read even more of.

Fiction. Boredom. Book talks.

Math. Again, nothing was done. I think I did four practice polar integrals before the boredom overwhelmed me. But then we went to lunch, which involved food, which is always nice, and then I got Yuma and Ginny and Brian and Nyx to play Contact, which made everything still more better (and the multiple ands? Totally necessary).

Then I at last made up my David Copperfield essay test--for some reason I was required to answer two essay questions, and she only gave me one test booklet, so I wrote two separate essays, each crammed onto two double-sided pieces of extra-wide margin paper. Yay! Talking excessively about Uriah Heep and making uninsightful points!

I then went prom dress shopping with my mother. We went to a bunch of stores, and decided on something that is pretty and purple and not-too-short-not-too-long, which was pretty much exactly what I wanted anyways. Then I went home and didn't do homework.

Not doing homework is becoming a disturbing trend.

The fact that I'm not longer willing to use this medium as a mode of expressing my general sense of "gahh, boys are stupid, mrgh" has made this post somewhat boring. My apologies.

End of the Fatzone

Well, I said I was going to blog, so I'm feeling this compulsion to, well, actually blog. But at the same time, life feels rather boring, and I don't feel as if I have much to say.

I had a bizarre dream last night. I was on the rag, but I still definitely has sex (should be noted that I only remember the aftermath but not not the actual activity) with my dream-boyfriend, who was super attractive and very innocent looking but actually a prostitute. Then he became friends with my mom. I woke up, and my first thought was "holy *expletive* I didn't use a condom and I'm going to get an STD." My second thought was "oh, that was a dream." My third was "damn, he was attractive, too." Then I pressed the sleep button and I can't remember much else.

Math was fun, I guess. I like hard problems, the the one we did--the sum, from n=1 to n=44 of cos n/ sin n--was definitely difficult, at least for me. Gretchen seems to have permanently ditched us, though--Nyx overheard her suggesting to Dino that he could either pull up a desk or "sit with them." And, well, that stings, quite a bit, particularly since whenever she does bother to be with us she's perfectly wonderful. I know she's on some campaign to get Clara to go to college with her, but that doesn't make it sting any less.

The obesity presentation went fine, I think. I hope we do well, if only because I'd rather not get beaten. Plus, well, a little bit of money would be nice. A little bit of money is really always quite nice.

Brian apparently just asked Nyx if she used to date Tamir. I'm too busy laughing to finish writing this.

The Last Presentation

Julie and I are chilling at school. It should be boring, but Julie is awesome, so it isn't. Yay!

We all were just practicing for our Super Student Challenge presentation tomorrow. On Overcoming Obesity. That was our title until Gretchen started saying that the Os looked like little fat people. I actually wanted to put little fat people in, but then Yuma came up with the name "Shaping Paperclip," which is really much better anyways.

Julie says hi to the world.

I'm worried about the presentation--not really stage fright (I have stage fright for Julie because I'm getting nervous for her), but there's the fear that, like last year, the presentation might be the thing that keeps us from winning. Not that we really know if that was it, but I'm still nervous.

I'm also sad that our little team is dispersing after this. No more Science Bowl, no more Moody's, no more this, no more math team (not that Julie was on math team or Ginny showed up, but still!). The posse of awesomeness, or whatever we want to call ourselves, won't really exist anymore, and it's sad. They've been good to work with, and I've really gotten a lot out of the experience of working as a team with people who I can actually depend on academically. And I've really gotten to know all of our strengths and weaknesses--we're so well meshed together, it's a pity to break that up.

But we will. Because we're graduating. Internships, summer, college. I am so so so so so excited.

Today

• I found this really awesome applied math paper called "Forecasting Hourly Electricity Using Time-Varying Splines."
• I read half of said paper before recalling that I should be doing more pressing homework.
• I wrote about half a sentence more on my "better get done in the next few weeks" paper. Note to self: work faster.
• I rewrote my abstract (will anyone notice if it doesn't match the one on the poster?)
• I sent an email stating that my poster is free-standing.
• I took an accidental 1.5 hour nap. I got out of the shower, wrapped myself up in a towel and began to read Act II of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." The next thing I knew, I was lying groggily on my side and Shelby was saying "If you don't respond to the question of when you're eating dinner, I'm going to unwrap you." I fortunately discovered that I only have three pages of the act left.
• I ate dinner with my mother. We talked about how I've already picked up the MIT habit of referring to everything by either an acronym or a number.
• I freaked out about how much work I had to do.
• I decided I really like applied math and drew up more drafts of courses. If I take the math courses, plus the energy studies program, the 5 electrical engineering courses I want to take and the flex major in physics, I will have a reasonable schedule (4 courses a semester (yes, I factored in HASS and GIRs). If I do the focused option, it would result in overloading. I suppose this is something I can worry about in another 1.5 years, once I've taken more of these courses and have a better idea of what I actually enjoy.
• I wrote a blog post.
• I became hungry and went to eat more food.

Well, I will anyway.

On Organization

I have decided to start using Google Calendar. So as not to overwhelm myself, I am programming in regular activities one day at a time for the next week (thus far--great success!). I am making bunches of calendars so that I can color code (well, like 3...but they are well color-coded). I feel on top of the world. Something about preparing to do work makes me feel very productive.

This is kind of like how, in my attempts to get going on creating a research paper out of battery project, I wrote half of an abstract (still need to write the paper to determine how I want to phrase the whole "results" thing, what with this being a design rather than an actual experiment), worried about the fact that I haven't done an experiment (I'm going to faiiiil, etc. Particularly since I could always just submit my other project). I then copy and pasted the introduction from the relevant patent (the one I wrote...I am not plagiarizing, thank you very much). I panicked due to the fact that I had an insane number of windows. I spent a good half an hour enabling and setting up "Spaces" on my computer. I hate spaces. I want ubuntu, where I can just drop windows off into different desktops. This stupid thing makes me separate by application, which means all recreational web use is currently relegated to Chrome, and Firefox has been updated and is now being put to use running programming tutorials and displaying papers. I also dropped TeXShop, TeXWorks (yeah, my capitalization is probably funky) and NeoOffice in that space, so I'm using MS Word in space one, which means my poor compy is running about 10,000 applications, which is stressing it out a little bit.

I also discovered Asus is coming out with a new laptop that is not unreasonably priced, and is light, and pretty. I like pretty things. I like Asus. Yay laptops.

In other news, I have paid off 44% of the fees due to my *cough* errant driving. Oooooh, we're (almost) halfway there (wooooaaaah).

Moving along, moving along.

It's late. I'm hungry. I always get hungry right before I want to go to bed. I'm pretty sure it's giving me tooth decay (cue a round of "my shiny teeth and me" for no reason other than that I want it to get stuck in someone else's head). I suppose this is why JSHS allows for a "Late Night Snack." Fortunate, that.

I also apparently never got a sixth judge in the science fair. I assumed 2 groups, like it said on my sheet, was what was necessary, but apparently I should have waited through lunch for that additional judge. So weird. Certainly a bit of a confidence-booster, though.

Also, the AMC was fun. So much fun! I love math! I love fun! Wheeeeeeeee =)

Unattached Musings

This is, *ahem*, a serious post. Somewhat unusual for me, I suppose, but I've been feeling rather moody all day (whether this is due to the comment we're about to discuss or to the fact that I'm back at school after a phenomenally luxurious break is currently undetermined) so this post gets to bear the brunt of it.

What set it off was a conversation with a certain Nyx regarding a certain Warburton (I'm currently trying to ignore the fact that it's entirely possible that Warburton will read this and recognize the description of himself...I'm still adjusting to the fact that people legitimately read this thing). Warburton is one of the many individuals who have emailed me in search of RSI assistance (my last count is 26 total); his email was one of the more memorable, though, as it was about four pages of sleep-deprived babbling, followed by an offer to play scrabble. I spent a couple of days pointing and laughing at the email, the read it closely enough to work out what he was asking and try to respond to that. After we had worked out that he was not, as I originally suspected, completely batshit crazy, I gave him Nyx's email because she wanted a scrabble buddy. She reportedly stayed up way too late talking and playing scrabble with him, and they reportedly had a bit of a nerd cred contest.

Nyx defines nerd cred as indie cred for nerds. Indie cred does have a wikipedia entry, so I suppose this is legit. I define nerd cred as "that thing I am always trying to get more of. Bryant probably defines nerd cred as "that thing I have so much of that I don't bother trying anymore." Bryant has an amount of nerd cred comparable to the level of indie cred held by a band that only its members have heard of. Warburton's nerd cred, from what I can tell, is more along the lines of the band that doesn't exist yet--so, basically, dude is a completely, ridiculously smart. I'm exaggerating a bit, but for the sake of the analogy, it is at least somewhat funny.

As I was saying, Nyx and I had a conversation on the way to school (it should be noted just how terrible I am at sticking to a serious topic). She said Warburton has more nerd cred than me. I agreed, saying that he should get into RSI as a result, but one never knows. She agreed with me, and I said that I wonder sometimes how I got into RSI when there are all of these awesome people out there. She gave me the look that said that I was missing some important point.

"You're a girl," she said, as if that was all the reason that was needed.

I can't find it on the website (so maybe it's not true) but I recall being informed, multiple times, that for those selecting an RSI class, affirmative action is not used. This is how we end up with 1.5 minority students and only 1/3 girls (I just checked flipped through my summerbook at counted the American students--30%. I cannot imagine it would be that low if affirmative action was used). The website does say that students are selected "solely on the basis of their accomplishments and intellectual potential," but this was in reference to costs rather than gender/race/what have you, and I'm not the sort of person who will seriously quote out of context.

Regardless, it hurts. It hurt when Dino said the only reason I was selected for SHP at the end of freshman year, when he was not, is that I was a girl. Because obviously my test scores are lower, or the same--I couldn't possibly have a greater level of scientific knowledge beyond the biology that I will freely admit he is better at. It hurts that when I am sitting at the top of my AP physics class (well, I'm not certain my grade is actually the highest, but that's because I'm being lazy and not working as hard as I should), class that has 25 boys and 2 girls (though I grant you the vast majority of these guys are jocks who probably should not be in the class), and people continue to think that I got into college because I'm a girl, that I had this opportunity and that opportunity because I'm female and not because I am a very intelligent person who has spent years working my ass off.

But I'm a secure individual. I know that shouldn't bother me, because satisfaction rests within the self. I believe that I am both capable and deserving, so it shouldn't matter what others think. The only reason that it should bother me is the same reason that the previous sentence says "believe" instead of "know." I am not as certain as I think I am. Nyx's words troubled me because she is among my closest friends, and is one of those I've known the longest and know the best. It makes me wonder: if my best friend doesn't believe in me, who will? And if she doesn't it, is my belief in myself unwarranted?

This is the insecurity that gnaws at me. It continues to live partly because most of the things that people regularly dispute can be attributed to affirmative action, so I can't quite tell myself that they aren't true--but I can't totally blame an outside source. Much of it is a case of "imposter syndrome", the feeling that, no matter what I've achieved, I've cheated somehow, and one of these days, someone is going to notice that I don't deserve my current position. It's common, from what I can tell, among women in the sciences, and I'll discuss it later, but I went on a huge tangent below, and I think that a discussion of that idea deserves its own post.

The insecure feeling is similar to that which troubled me when Kathrya assumed I wouldn't land something because I'd be competing against international students, and they'd all be better--though in that case, it bothered me less, because I'm well aware that the best of the rest of the world is substantially better than me. I'm well aware that a lot of students in this country are better than me--but in what I've dedicated myself to, the number is damn small. There are probably tens of thousands with my grades, but if you throw in research and everything else--there are a number that do better, but from what I can tell, there are a few hundred of us that are about on par with each other (maybe closer to 1000 or so, I'm not entirely sure), maybe a bit more or less--though I'm getting stuck on this one, because while it's easy to make sweeping judgements, I don't know what everyone else is capable of, and I still don't know precisely where I stand.

However, any of these people would be qualified, overall, for RSI. These are the people that will do research at Caltech, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford (though a smaller number of them will end up at other schools). I don't really know what separates those who got into RSI from those who didn't--RSI is literally too small of a program to accept all of the qualified applicants, particularly if we take to heart MIT's constant statement that it, too, cannot accept all who are qualified--but regardless, there are more people sitting at the level of "totally awesome" than there are people at RSI. And at this point, I no longer remember what the purpose of this discussion was--something along the lines of being the best here, but not the best everywhere, which doesn't totally make sense. My 1000 estimate of people who are really into research--well, that's not a very conservative estimate. I would probably be better off with a few times that. And if "the best" includes that many people, what really qualifies me to say that I or anyone else is the best? If we make our definition broad, we pick up people who are good at many things. If we make it narrow, we discount the most intelligent.

I think I just made a point, but it has no relation to anything else I've talked about. I wanted to say something about affirmative action, I think. About how horrifically bitter Gretchen is because, from what she can tell, being an asian female puts her at a disadvantage in the college process. About how worried I feel that I've been receiving things I haven't deserved, even as I am fuming over the fact that others don't believe I deserve them. So where does it help?

It helps the statistics. It makes schools have the right numbers. And as I said before, with the huge numbers of the best, you could quite possible fill an MIT class with asian females and have the whole class be amazing. You could probably do the same with white Europeans. I don't know enough about the numbers to say if one could do the same with blacks, or with hispanics--I have a feeling that there aren't enough total people in research positions already. You could probably fill a class with people capable of succeeding, but it's quite likely that they wouldn't have had the same training. Just like I wouldn't have had the same training if I hadn't been accepted to the programs I was accepted to--because that's what enabled me to be one of these best people.

I feel like my reasoning is going in circles. The problem is that any equality in receiving an opportunity can go two ways--you can try to equalize people based on what they've had access to, and accept based off of that. Or you can actually take the people who have done the most, sum total, to be the most qualified. It's confusing, and I don't totally get it, and I'm tired, and I have a feeling that I'm going to offend people, and I'm a bit annoyed about the fact that I'm no longer anonymous, so I'm probably going to offend real people.

*insert curse word here*

Shopping For Shirtsies

Please note that I am not actually purchasing said shirts...just looking for geeky ones. Some awesomes:

• A Fibonacci sequence...in BUNNIES
• Our beloved Ginny probably likes this one
• Awesome on a number of levels
• Someday, I will exist in an environment where I can wear shirts that say things like "bitches" on them'
• Chemistry win
• Physics win
• If it weren't for the inaccurate Bohr model of the atom and the color I can't quite pull off, I would want this shirt
• Kathrya would like this one
• SO PUNNY
• And one for Julie
• Lolz
• Redundancy!
• This one may never get old.

Okeedokee, that's enough for now.

More on those RSI essays

Now, unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to post my essays or those of anybody else here, because all of us liberally copied from them for our college applications. Now, all advice here is the opinion of one former participant--I make no promises as to its veracity

In each Research Field selected in Question 2, please state what you perceive as the one or two most interesting questions/problems in this field. Explain why they interest you.

I'm happy to email my answers to this question to anyone who will tell me what fields they're applying with (I don't want anyone to feel like they can't use a response because I already wrote about it). My answers to these questions took up almost the entirety of my first page. These answers have three purposes:

1. The are used to match accepted students to prospective mentors.
2. They provide you with a vehicle with which to illustrate your critical thinking.
3. They provide you with a vehicle with which to demonstrate your knowledge.

I realize that the last two points are relatively similar, but they're significant in separate ways. As far as the knowledge goes--you should know what you're talking about. Don't just pick some random topic because it sounds cool, go into what interests you, what you already know about. Do some research. My secondary field was the part of my application I put the most time into, because I hadn't done research on it in well over a year, and I had very little information on the topic I decided to write about. I did some research, talked to a teacher in the subject to double-check that my proposal hadn't already been answered, then wrote about it. For me, the first question was answered to show knowledge, because it was one that I'd studied. The second one included many more questions and suggestions, pointing out a number of avenues for research. In both cases, I focused on the complexity of the issues at hand, and why I found that interesting. My two very, very different fields were tied together by a more unified interest in systems/networks, but this tying together (which wasn't done explicitly, and which I've only just noticed) is unnecessary.

Even though the research for the questions may take time, these should be the easiest to write because, for once, it's a chance to write about something more interesting than yourself.

What are your long-range goals?

This answer, for me, was about 2/3rds of a page. First, I discussed a desire to continue some research I'd already done, mentioning how I really need more experience to do what I've tried to do (and RSI would be super helpful, wink wink nudge nudge). Then I said that, as I'm rather young, I'm still flexible about what I want to be studying. I talked about my major interests in the past, going back to the first scientific paper I ever read, the summer before my sophomore year, and how that really threw into light the fact that no matter where I end up, I want science to be a major part of my existence.

The big thing with this is that it's okay to say that you don't have everything all planned out--I don't think that anyone expects you to, but if you do have a fascinating future mapped out, that's cool too. This question is both wide open and very specific, so you have a lot of leeway. I'm inclined to advise that you talk about science here (or, if you don't, keep it brief. You only have a limited number of pages, and you want to focus on your passion for math/science/research/life). If you're really into your research questions, this would be a place to reiterate your interest in pursuing them over the long-term. If you want to use engineering to save the world, put it here. If you want to grow up and be an oddball professor who make Rube Goldberg machines in her backyard, again, that goes here. When you go to sleep at night, what do you dream about?

Because me? I'm going to continue dreaming about electricity.

What extracurricular activities and/or hobbies demonstrate your interest and ability to undertake scientific or mathematical research? (Give some measure to the extent of your participation and/or accomplishments in math or science competitions, research internships, and awards received.)

Remember: it's not a list. You have three pages to indicate promise as a scientist. If you've won enough awards and done enough super-legit stuff that your promise as scientist is super duper evident, then you can make a list. However, if you've won that many awards, then you've probably got your application under control, and you're probably not going to bother reading this.

For the rest of us, this is a chance to further reiterate whatever point we're trying to make--and that is, more or less "Why You Should Accept Me." I talked about only two organized extracurriculars and two hobbies (if you count summer-research-in-my-room as a hobby), but I went into depth about each and how they demonstrated by ability and interest. This is mostly because I didn't have a lot of experience--I had to go into depth, because I didn't have the laundry list that other people do.

My best advice for this question is to be yourself. Talk about what you've done that has mattered to you, and don't be afraid of mentioning something just because it isn't a traditional extracurricular. It's about what you do, outside of class, to improve scientific understanding. This is a chance to take whatever it is you've done and use it to shine. Even if what you've done is super lame sounding (sometimes, I like to stargaze, for example), you can make it into something bigger (the feeling that the universe is bigger than me had really inspired me to go out and try to learn more about it, as I did in y internship or by reading z textbook (no, I didn't use that one, I'm just making up an example)). Accomplishments in science competitions, etc., should be mentioned if they exist, but don't flip out if you don't have them.

Describe your involvement and participation in extracurricular and community activities that do not relate directly to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics.

Hi, my name is Tea, and I have a life. I play a musical instrument. I sing in church choir and help out with outreach stuff there. I am a person beyond my research.

I grant you, I wrote a bit more than that, with a lot more depth (i.e. specific piano pieces, that time I played for a show, how I sing at church because school choir got ditched for science research) but it was only a quarter of a page. Athletes probably went into sports, people who do major charity stuff probably went into that, but this is mostly a "are you well rounded? Are you spread too thin? Have you done something really cool that you couldn't mention anywhere else but would like to say here?" opportunity.

Briefly describe any past experience with computer programming, modeling, and data analysis.

My response:

I excel at data analysis with Excel. I did a project in my science research course this fall analyzing sunspot data over the last hundred years. I had enough data points that I ended up having to dig into Excels slightly technical series names and split them in half, because it was overrunning the graphing limit. I did boxcar smoothing, modified standard deviations, and used a few other methods to examine relative peaks. My modeling abilities max out at what I can do on paper using concepts learned in algebra and calculus. For programming, I’ve just begun learning perl, teaching myself with a book appropriately titled Learning Perl. If I keep working my way through the text at my current rate, I’ll be through the book by February. My hope is that perl will give me enough grounding to work my way further through the puzzles on projecteuler.net. All of my manipulations in Excel are proving insufficient in getting through the fourth problem, since, although I managed to trick it into identifying primes, I still haven’t figured out a way to get it to recognize a palindromic number.

So, to answer that question, no, you don't need to know much in the way of programming to answer this. (Though it should be noted that, unfortunately, I stopped progressing at that current rate once holiday vacation ended). This response was, again, about a quarter of a page.

How did you hear about RSI?

Options:

Person at my school went last year, says it's amazing, I'm applying.

Friend went some year, says it's amazing, I'm applying.

Teacher knows students who went...

Teacher is obsessed with MIT...

Looking for summer programs on the internet...

Stalking MIT on the internet...

I did USABO, and it's run by the same organization...

I accidentally entered an RSI game of Mafia on efnet...

This random chick in my astronomy class told me to apply...

The guy in the white van told me to apply before I stole his candy...

I won my position in a national science fair, so this response is unnecessary...

My parents went to RSI...

My sibling went to RSI...

My cousin went to RSI...

That's probably a sufficiently long list of options. This can be a sentence, so as to limit its effect on your ability to write a ton of stuff for everything else.

Monday, Lovely Monday

There's a title that will probably never get repeated. Oh, how happy I am that there is no school tomorrow.

My younger sister's carpool buddy for swimming got a foot through the sclera and she's at the hospital. My stomach churns just thinking about it.

Ginny and Yuma are coming over tomorrow and we are cooking chocolate donuts. If Ginny's mother asks, we are working on physics. All of you, remember this.

In other news, I should be practicing for math team, but I'm putting it off because I'm busy. I should be working on college applications, but I think I'll be able to get my drafts done by tomorrow morning. I should be talking to people, but I'd rather read.

I hope that Kathrya is doing well, and that she continues to do well in the coming days.

I need to get going on The Purity Myth, which I think I'm going to add to my Lit X paper. The first three books (Orlando, The Scarlet Letter, Tess of the D'ubervilles) are from very different eras, but I think I can make it work, and I'll possibly be able to incorporate Lolita as well, in which case I'll be done with the reading phase of the paper. My current plan, though I haven't yet read the nonfiction text, is to focus on marriage and virginity through time. My main point is that the definition of marriage has changed considerably, granting much more power to the female counterpart (I'm going to have to think of any modern books I've read that would support this well, but I'll hopefully be able to find something...I wonder how Jane Eyre would fit into this analysis. I'd also rather like to read The Age of Innocence, which seems applicable. There are so many things I want to do in so little space!), while the societal perspective of virginity, placing it on such a pedestal, giving it this grand significance that is so similar to the power it has in Tess of the D'ubervilles (loss of virginity is equated with marriage to the partner in the text) is in a marked contrast.

Yay for plans!

Sniper No Sniping!

So I nerd sniped myself last night in the middle of dinner by derailing to entire conversation to prove that twin primes always surround multiples of six (answer: in a given set of three numbers, one will be a multiple of three, and this cannot be one of the primes, so it's the middle value. Additionally, primes are odd, but odds and evens alternate so the middle number must be even. Even multiples of three are multiples of six. Proof made).

Last night I also didn't sleep enough (shocker) because it was my beloved Cammie's birthday. Well, birthday party, but it amounts to the same thing. We had a Harry Potter role-playing battle at the park, then went back to her house, watched Moulin Rouge (or however it's spelled), and stayed up until 3 am talking. In our defense, we thought daylight savings time was applied, and it was actually 2 am, but this turned out not to be the case.

Aside from that, MIT applications are due tomorrow, but I already finished mine, so this doesn't really matter. I ought to be studying for my chem test, and I think I need to read Candide this weekend, and I should figure out where I'm going with my Lit X, and write my college essays, and do a thousand other things on my to do list.

They'll get done. Someday.

Cooking for America Night

I talked about International Night briefly, way back here. Now, we've moved on to something bigger, and better, and probably mostly just fatter and less diverse, but we'll ignore that statement.

For America Night, we divided into regions. I was, of course, with the Northeast, and my group included myself, Chao, Gopika, James and Patrick (male, IMO (as in math, not as in the chat abbreviation), OMG (as in the chat abbreviation), among others.

Chao decided we were making Indian pudding. Frank and I decided that we didn't know what that was, and therefore it would be gross, and James told us that Chao was at least putting in an effort, so we shouldn't complain, and we should instead start showing up for meetings.

I, naturally, got caught up in something that I'm sure was very important at the time (probably showering) and showed up rather late in the cooking process. Chao and Gopika were running around somewhat purposefully but with much haste.

The southerners had stolen our kitchen. Ash had, as ever, taken charge, and he decreed that their group was making roadkill burgers. Thus, the southerners co-opted all of the pots and pans and spent four hours of the afternoon broiling meat that, even when done, still looked plenty pink. They stuck it in bread with some condiments and called it a day, and then we Norther Easterneres, and Mid-Westerners, and the Out Westerners finally got a look at the kitchen.

I, of course, missed all this, and arrived when the east and the west were battling it out for stove space, with the east primarily winning, as even though Jared tries to be and occasionally manages to be intimidating, Chao, when she puts her game face on, can take on even him. Anyways, Chao and Gopika ordered me around, and I frantically tried to find things. Jared, a member of the midwestern crew, 'cooked corn.'

By that, I mean that he put water in a pan, stared at it for thirty seconds, said "okay, looks hot enough," ignored Chao and I disagreeing, and dumped about half the corn, since it didn't all fit, into the pot.

He left it in for approximately two minutes, then reached over Chao, who was stirring the chocolate for the Boston Cream Pie she'd finally decided on, grabbed some tongs, and pulled it out.

We objected that it wasn't cooked. Ravi (male) came over, looked at the plate of corn, and said "that is some raw ass-corn," as we'd all gotten into the habit of making the hyphen swap.

Jared said "it's FINE. Okay?" in his standard, overly punctuated speaking pattern.

We were going to object further, but then we noticed the hotdogs that a few other midwesterners (Luke and possibly Carlisle (though of Carlisle wasn't actually there, he will accuse me of discriminating for his asian-ness, like he did every time anyone caught him sleeping in lecture ("I have asian eyes it's not my fault")).

The hotdogs were virtually raw, and they declared them done.

Please don't blame me for not eating them.

The Twelfth, the twelfth

What happened the twelfth? I'm trying to remember.

I took a nap in the morning, during mentorship, just like I almost always do, because the couch in the undergraduate chateau is so phenomenally comfortable. I did some more reading, because I spend most of my time doing reading, then I lay around for a bit feeling sorry for myself because I still felt sick.

Dawson called after he had mentorship because he hadn't eaten yet, and he kept weird hours, so there was no one in W20, so he came and at lunch in the 'lab' while Didge and I worked.

At some point, we all went back to Simmons. The lecture was informal, but for some reason I decided to shower beforehand, so I ended up wearing Mom's old halter dress and being cold. I have no idea if this is relevant at all.

I'm leaning towards no.

Noam Elkies gave a lecture on mathematics, physics, and music, which was basically physics I've already done + music I've already done + a teeny tiny bit of Euclidean geometry I hadn't heard of --> a slightly boring lecture. Then he did this ridiculously awesome piano improvisation thing at the end, and I was all "dude, just kidding about the boringness, you are freaking awesome" except only in my head.

Because, if I'd said it out loud, I would have actually sworn.

The Degree of Neglect

That you have been experiencing is pathetically large. Much of it stems from the fact that I got rather ill on the 11th (the day we're pretending it is right now), and the rest stems from a lot of interesting occasions related to the opposite gender that I will not transcribe here because my RSI blogs are not precisely anonymous.

Regardless, I apologize, and I will try to make it up to you as soon as I can.

On July 11th, I slept until noon. I was up late as well, and I suppose I could relate that in my account, but there wasn't much to relate, aside from the fact that Rube and two of his friends had visited the evening before to play frisbee, and that they'd wanted more people than just me, so I'd called Dawson, who was with Gabriel, and we spent like ten minutes about a hundred yards apart, waving at each other without the other one seeing, on the phone going "I'm doing jumping jacks." "I can't see you" "Seriously, I'm right here!" while Rube and friends looked confused.

We eventually rounded up a larger group of people, but then those PROMYS jerks proceeded to kick our butts, which was somewhat bad. Apparently Rube's whole long distance running and good hand-eye coordination thing makes him good at frisbee. How very frustrating.

Anyways, back to the 11th. I got up at noon, and then my wonderful family came to visit about an hour later. My sisters (Shelby in particular) were very appreciative of the ball pit, which is understandable, considering that it is completely and utterly awesome. Eventually the family left, and I went to W20 with a backpack full of papers and settled down to read.

About a half an hour later, I felt like complete crap, so I walked back to Simmons to recuperate. I was so hot after the walk that I lay down on the couch on the first floor and refused to move. My tylenol, however, was upstairs. It was an extremely unfortunate situation.

At some point, Teresa came over and asked if I wanted her to buy me some medicine. I said that I had some upstairs, I just hurt too much to move, so I gave her my key and she went up to get them.

However, Teresa is an international student, and she didn't know the names of pills, so she brought down my entire bag. Unfortunately, the entire bag consisted of a giant pink plastic Victoria's Secret monstrosity, because it was the only thing my mother could find in the house that was opaque and large enough to put food in as well. Larry, who was on the couch opposite me, took one look at the bag and began to laugh. Teresa left, I rolled over and ignored Larry, and then I thought about how to get the bag upstairs without either moving or letting too many people see it.

A few minutes later, someone shoved their hands over my eyes. They felt squishy, warm, and biggish, and there is a limited number of people who would do such a thing to me, so I growled "Nicholas" in an angry voice. The hands immediately went away.

It wasn't Nicholas.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else," said the boy, who was, I think, one of the MITES.

"Yeah, I figured."

"Sorry."

I shrugged.

"This is really awkward."

"Yeah."

"Like, really awkward."

"Yeah." Suddenly, I had an idea. "Hey, do you want to redeem your awkwardness?"

"Depends what I have to do."

"Can you bring this bag to my room for me?"

"Okay."

So, I gave him the bag and my key, and away he went.

Larry rolled over to look at me. "Did you seriously just give him your room key?"

"Yes?"

"You trust him?"

I shrugged. "I guess so."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"You don't know him!"

"I dunno, I just trust people. Maybe it's stupid, but I do."

"Oh."

Larry and I looked at each other, then turned to look at the elevator, then we both began to laugh somewhat hysterically.

We were still laughing when, fifteen minutes later, the boy returned, my key in his hand, apologizing for how long the elevator took.

I continued to lie on the couch and moan for quite some time. At some point, I called Dawson to beg for food, who called Ululani and got him to bring me a bagel. I got first Nell, then Bing to sit on my legs and keep them warm, and when Dawson showed up I got use of his towel as a blanket, and Maxwell brought my my ipod, and the moral of the story is that if one moans about how crappy they feel for long enough, people will do nice things.

Yay!

A Happy End of Calculus Dance

Calculus B.C. is over, thank goodness. Unfortunately, I can't discuss the questions, as I signed an affidavit (I actually don't think that it is an affidavit, it's just that I'm rather fond of that word. Too bad I don't know what it means) that I wouldn't.

The nice part about calc is that I got to leave school early after the test was finished. Naturally, The Diner was the chosen destination. Nyx and I left school and headed out. I got out first, and, seeing a car approaching from the direction of the typically closed side entrance, elected to take the shorter exit route. Just as I was pulling in, a freckled arm emerged from the window of the small car and began to make an odd sort of wave.

The car drew level with me and Boris called out "Go back. It's closed!"

He then drove away. I made a twelve point turn (as Nyx described it "I was going to go that way, but Tea's truck was sideways.") and exited by the more accepted route, where the security guard was, per usual, not bothering to check anybody's school-leaving-identification.

Excited. Exited. Two words that are spelled far too much alike. Regardless, I got to the diner without missing the turn (which Sergio, reportedly, did). I waited stood outside of the diner with Boris until Nyx showed up, then spent the time getting a table trying to explain to the hostess how I didn't know how many people were in my party.

By the time we hit the tables, we were seven strong. Upon discovering that only six fit in the booth we had, four people went to the second table (Sergio was, I believe, following Gnatta, which he can't seem to bring himself to stop doing. Then again, I still do the same to Mario, so I can't talk). Tybalt stayed with Nyx and I despite an announcement that "there was nobody at this table."

Apparently Nyx and I aren't people. Thanks, Tybalt. Thanks a lot.

Anyways, Mario and Dino soon arrived, Dino's speech replete with complaints about Mario's driving, to which Mario's response was "at least I drive better than Irving." Honestly, the amount he talks about him, its no wonder we joke about their nocturnal activities.

Nyx and I spent at least some portion of the lunch laughing at the way Mario wriggled his hands about (look! I'm flexing my finger muscles!) while speaking. Tybalt also finally formulated the perfect Dino-directed response for "Where's Kathrya?" which is one of his favorite questions. "Where's Lauretta?" seems to be functioning quite well.

I have seen the future, and it is wonderful

I just asked Dino how many of his parents are coming to prom. I am fairly certain that implies that a) he is bringing his parents to prom, like this boy did his grandmother, and b) that he possibly has more than two parents. Then again, if we count his programmers as parents...

Today, Ginny went to school, but she was technically excused, so she elected to skip many of her classes. I stole her for her final pre-statistics-AP-test hour. After she ate her unidentifiable sandwich (I think it might have been egg), we went outside and sat on the grass.

Well, I sat on the grass and tried to drag her down with me. She was reluctant, as she "didn't know where the grass had been." However, by the time I was lying down, she had at least reached a low crouch.

We spent a while daydreaming about the time to come. First we tried to think of next year.

"We'll both be sitting here," I said, "in the sun, and it will be AP week, so we'll be stressed. Oh, wait, no, we'll already be into amazing schools. You'll be going- where do you want to go?"

"This would work better if we knew where we were going."

"This is true."

"What about the reunion. Do you think we'll go to the reunion?"

"Yes. How about the 75th. We'll both go."

"What'll we do there."

"Well, I'll spot you first, and your hair will be all gray. I'll try to flag you down but I'll have trouble, what with my cane and all, so I'll start yelling, Ginny, Ginny. Then you'll finally see me, and you step into the light and your hair is gray. My first response is to say 'gosh, Ginny, you don't even look Asian anymore.'

"You become very angry, call me racist, and start hitting me with your cane. I hit you back. Then we get into a wicked awesome cane fight.

"Dino comes over to break it up, and he says "guys, stop-p-p-p" and starts to shake, as his circuits have a tendency to get a bit rusty."

"Is Owen going to repair him?"

"No, Owen died off ages ago. That's why Dino is having problems- his self maintenance has issues."

"Ah."

"Anyways, Dino short circuits, so then we go back to fighting when Vicky comes trundling over, walker and all. She somehow manages to force us apart and says 'TEA! GINNY! OPMINN!'

"'What? Where? I thought she'd left.' I say.

"US History! Remember the battles! Remember the Mohicans and the women and portfolios! What a class. What. A. Class.' Vicky continues to babble, somewhat incoherently, about the wonders of US history."

Ginny laughed. "Who next?"

"Well, if Dino is there, Tybalt probably showed up."

"What about Bryant?"

"He's busy building robots and saving the world."

"Oh, of course."

"Anyways, Tybalt is there. He's working, doing something. Recently divorced- he tried to hard to have the perfect, cookie-cutter life, and it fell through. What's his job, though?"

"Something important. Presidential advisor? To Sonny, maybe, who beat out Lumiere in the race."

"Oh, naturally. Anyways, Kathrya is there as well. She and Tybalt broke up, ages ago, when she went off to college. Anyways, he's been finding life unfulfilling, and he showed up at the reunion in search of the one that got away. Kathrya, of course, has been fine without him, living it up and being awesome, as usual. She sees the cane parade by us, and comes rushing over."

"Rushing?"

"She exercised as a youth, she can still rush. Anyways, she gets rather excited to see us, and starts yelling about love and other lovely things, and then she sees Tybalt, and their eyes meet, and she immediately falls silent. And we get kind of confused, but then Tybalt comes over under the pretense of oiling Dino's joints, and, suddenly, we understand."

Ginny sighed. "What about Mario? How's he doing?"

"Mario...hmmm. He's a big businessman, somewhere, really rich. Anyways, he shows up, and we all start laughing about the whole peeing-in-a-cup beeswax. Then he tells us that we can't tell anyone, as it will ruin his reputation and destroy the stock of his company. So, we blackmail him and all get a million dollars."

"That's some fast monetary accumulation."

"That it is."

"He really ought to be thinking more about the consequences of his actions."

I laughed. "What about Gretchen?"

"I bet she's at a university."

"But which?"

"She's at MIT, and you're at Harvard."

"That's realistic. But sure. How is she doing?"

"Did she marry Phil?"

"Maybe she has a really cute baby. But with who? Mario?"

"If he isn't Asian, the kid won't be."

"Well, if the baby is half..."

"Not enough. Besides, Phil is way better."

"Yeah, but she'd never marry him."

"But-"

"Okay, fine. Two weeks ago, Phil came to perform a violin thing at Harvard, and I brought Gretchen to see him, because we're still all buddy-buddy and whatnot. Anyways, she and Phil fall madly in love and start an illicit affair. Also, now Gretchie is pregnant, and she and Phil are avoiding each other so as not to arouse suspicion."

"What about Nyx."

"She's living in Swahili, speaking Swahilian, and saving the world, one starving child at a time. She's doing great, though. That's kind of boring. No plot arc."

"Darn."

At that point, the bell rang, and we went up to my physics class. However, we resumed our discussion in the evening hours. A summary of that will come....tomorrow.

Well, Ginny covered ride there

here, so I figured I'd take care of the next bit.

Despite the tardiness of three of the eight paperclips, we still arrived at the high school early, and, due to the absurdly tight arrival schedule, waited for about five minutes outside of the parking lot before getting dropped off.

As we drove over, a pair of decidedly math-geek looking boys were playing frisbee on the tennis courts. Mario and Irving derided their skill. While I can accept that Mario is probably decent as frisbee, since he does seem to be relatively athletic, as far as math team people go, I highly doubt that Irving could have done much better.

Regardless, we walked into the school to a separate area from Mr. Booth, so we had to take a few minutes to make extra certain that everybody was equipped with a TI-84 for the team round (which was completely useless, as I don't think I even touched mine) and hear a last minute "down with Treeburg" reminder before we filed off to the cafeteria.

I went to the bathroom soon after arriving, bringing Ginny along with me. This detail is not relevant at this point in the story, but it is foreshadowing. Note the foreshadowing.

Moving along. The four present members of the dream team sat on one side of out little section of bleachers, and we sat on the other. Our group, consisting of Ginny, Micro, Argon and I, discussed the relative visible nerdiness of the various students. For instance, the girl who was clad entirely in purple, including a too-tight-weirdly-cut-oddly-long purple dress, leggings of the same shade and purple sneakers: nerdy. Blonde guy in cargos with a long blonde ponytail: nerdy. Short guy doing handstands without tucking his shirt: very nerdy. Tall, otherwise reasonable looking guy wearing a t-shirt that said "I failed the Turing test": nerdy. Team of guys wearing sunglasses like Nia's normal ones and carrying a boombox: trying too hard to not be nerdy, but failing when they turned on the boombox at a not ear-shattering volume.

There was then a supremely horrific degree of disorganization of us trying to find our rooms, but we did eventually do so. I met a girl from my cousin's hometown who looked extremely not nerdy, but I have a feeling that this is more because she is black, and my image of a nerd is either asian or white or occasionally indian, than anything else. Midway through the first round, when "TWO MINUTES" was called (I realize that that is technically not midway. Forgive me), I jumped and said "oh my god," then mentally congratulated myself for not swearing, although I'm fairly certain that I did manage to get a big fat 0 on that round, unfortunately. Honestly, I would feel so much more secure with myself if I'd just gotten that one three-point negative sign....

Ah, well, c'est la vie. I need to get back to calculus. Ginny, if you want to continue this, please do.

Particle Physics Careens Towards Boringness

I went to SHP today and, for the most part, completely ignored my class. I tried to pay attention, I really did, but then I decided to take a break to do a math problem, and by the time I was paying attention, the lecture had advanced so much that I no longer could follow it.

Whoops.

The train ride there was relatively boring. It was just Helga, Archie and I. I sat between them, and we managed a little bit of conversation before Helga pulled out her book, I untangled my ipod, and Archie fell asleep. At one point, Archie actually started to snore. I could hear him through the music, so I started cracking up. Helga laughed a bit before returning to her book, which was for English and, according to her, incredibly boring.

Interestingly, both Helga and Archie are looking forward to the end of SHP, whereas I am dreading it. How utterly fascinating, how different people can experience some of the same events and have such entirely different reactions.

I had originally planned to meet up with Rube for Mariokarting, but he had done badly in something and requested a raincheck (Allana was actually confused by the whole thing, which is kind of odd, but, hey, I get by). I texted Helga when there were about 10 minutes left in class to ask where to meet, and she and Ariadne were already outside, so I met them there.

Archie was still in class, they had no clue about Mario, but Ariadne had texted him, so he, of course, called me. To be perfectly honest, I'm still not following that logic.

We as a group had a horrifically large number of awkward silences. It's really remarkable how it's easier to avoid them when with just one other person than when with four. I think that with one person, you feel pressure to actually carry on the conversation, but when you have a lot, you typically let someone else handle it, and when nobody does, it just kind of dies.

I'm going to relate a couple of conversations, but be aware that both are interspersed with a considerable number of unpredictable and unnecessary pauses.

Archie: Middle schoolers are nasty.

Mario: Sorry, what?

Tea: He doesn't like middle schoolers. What was the phrase you used?

Archie: They're awful.

Mario: To who? Us? Each other?

Archie: Everybody.

Tea: This is true.

Helga: Middle schoolers are just nasty. I mean, looking back at it, people were so mean.

Tea: It makes high school look better in comparison.

Ariadne: I hate high school.

Tea: Really?

Ariadne: Yup.

Helga: It's so short, though.

Tea and Ariadne: But it feels like forever.

Helga: Really? It seems like it's only just started.

Archie: Agreed.

Conversation Two:

Ariadne: So, where do you want to go to school? Like, a city or a country?

Tea: I don't know. Somewhere other than here.

Archie: Not a suburb.

Helga: Definitely not a suburb.

Tea: How would you define school suburb, then?

Ariadne: Yale.

Tea: I believe New Haven is a city.

End Conversation

You may have noticed Mario's lack of participation. This stems from the fact that I'd given him my math packet #4 and requested help, and he had been staring at factoring problems (no writing implement, just staring) for about twenty minutes. I then spent the entire forty minutes in which we were standing because the entire train was packed, passing him various math problems, watching him stare at them, and then listening to his explanations.

Once some seats freed up, we moved over there and spent the remainder of the trip trying to determine the number of possible ten-unit strips that could be created out of green three-unit rectangles and red one-units. We had to do out all of the possibilities, and it took a ridiculously long period of time, but we eventually arrived at the correct answer, with minimal weirdness on his part (ex: "It's odd that we arrive at the same conclusions at the same time." "What?" "Never mind." "Sure. Where did you get that 6 from again?" "I divided twelve by two." "Oh, right. That makes sense.").

We had just moved onto the collinear candles when Helga had the decency to remind us that we were at our town's stop, so we disembarked.

Dear World

I am stressed out and exhausted.

Even though it is only nine o'clock.

Even though my calculus final is now over and done with.

Even though I have wonderful friends, and I'm not fighting with any of them.

I think it's residual stress from the calc panic, coupled with those silly menstrual cramps that mimic the lump-in-stomach feel of stress.

That's probably it.

After all, the whole confusion about Rube alone, and then more when Allana's opinions of him are added in, shouldn't be causing nearly this much stress.

I think some of it is residual emotional strain left over from the rememory paper.

Oh, and the constantly creeping sense of proma isn't helping, nor is the inescapable pull towards college admissions. Because I'm touring next week, and it really just never goes away.

How utterly depressing.

How pathetically whiny.

---------

On a happier front, my random woot shirts came. There is the weird ugly red one and the pretty brown swirly one. Andy found the links for me, based off of me saying that "one is brown with pretty blue swirls and the other is bright red and has a kramus on it." Yay for Andy.

Calc Test Tomorrow AAAAAHHHHH

Polar and parametric curves will be the death of me.

I'm freaking out, so, I'm sorry, but you're not going to get the transcription of a certain conversation today.

However, let it be stated that he said he wants to talk to "you" plural (referring to me, Ali and some number of people she told) tomorrow during gym class, which Kathrya will no doubt find interesting.

Also entertaining:

"That sounds kinda hilariously awkward and uncoordinated. So you fell three times in total today? Nice! Oh man, if a frisbee comes at my face I am definitely going to dodge the fuck away - someone in my physics class got hit in the eye with a frisbee and lost vision in that eye for at least a month. X_X But yeah, frisbees are delightful. You kinda sound like you’ll be fun to play frisbee with, to be honest, assuming you don’t hurt yourself (am I a bad person for thinking you sound fun to be around because you’re uncoordinated?)"

Direct quote from Andy, except I took out the shifty-eyes because the diamonds screw with HTML.

That was in response to me telling him about gym class today, in which "I tripped over my own feet and was lying on the turf, and then my friend went to pick me up and she couldn't so we both ended up lying on the ground and laughing hysterically. Then I tripped over one of my other friends later, and I slammed into somebody else and fell over again, and it was rather pathetic."

That one's quoting me, of course.