Memories, Diaries, and Youth

Last night, when I was going to sleep, I decided to open up my diary again, and, well, write. I meant to write about Connor, about the funeral. I ended up calling myself and idiot about the Rube thing, again, then worrying that the only bits of Dawson I could remember were the bad ones, near the end.

I then, of course, proceeded to spend half an hour compiling memories of Dawson. Because I am seventeen, and hormonal, and I do stupid things like that.

I want to say "I'm such a girl," but the feminist in me is getting grumpy, so perhaps "I'm such a stereotypical girl" would be preferable.

Regardless, I, per usual, have work to do.

So, as Rube always used to say, back before we embarked on this spree of mutual ignorance, farewell for now.

Grief is

Crying, then talking, then gazing into space occasionally when the memory comes back. Then, when the slightest joke is told, a suggestion that Kathrya's former beau (oh, Tybalt) is actually a robot, laughing almost hysterically for ten times as long as the joke merits, because it feels so good to finally laugh.

Dear World, Fate, and What Have You

Why are you so fucking stupid? I don't like having to write two grief posts in one year.

I'll miss his bedhead.

http://xkcd.com/791/

Another weekend draws to a close

I had a sum total of five hours of real, true relaxation this weekend. I spent these hours eating chinese food and playing 1984-themed Mafia while talking to Kathrya in person and Leila via skype.

The theme ended up not really functioning in practice, since we didn't have enough people, although it's possible that the second round, after I had left, went better.

I've decided to drop A.P. Spanish and take two frees. Getting my homework done not including Spanish still had me swamped, so I'm thinking that's a good idea, although once I get my college and science fair stuff in, I'm going to have a lot time on my hands.

Maybe I'll learn perl.

Well, that or sleep. I have a feeling I'll end up alternating between sleeping and reading trashy romance novels, just like I typically like to do. Predictable me.

I at least got round one of the Sieman's paper rewrite done. On second thought, I'm not sure if that competition name should have an apostrophe. Ah, well.

Yay for blogging! I'm going to go write another RSI post :)

Marvelous Mubbles

In homeroom, during receipt of planners.

Mubbles: When your home alone and you don't feel good, who are you going to call?

Class: GHOSTBUSTERS

Class looks around and realizes that *everybody* said ghostbusters.

Mubbles: No, the school attendance line. Nice guess, though.

The Silent Boy

The first part of a story that will hopefully grow longer:

When he was born, nobody heard his cries.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

In November, Lana found(knew) that she was pregnant. She told her husband David. He rejoiced. They held each other and were happy.

In March, the small swell between her breasts and her hips began to grow. She rounded like an overripe balloon. Her husband stood behind her, her back pressed against his front. He pushed(slid) under her shirt, splaying(spreading fanning stretching) his fingers across. The fetus(baby child) kicked. He felt it. She smiled.

In April, the kicking stopped. David lay for hours with his ear on Lana's watermelon(cantaloupe) stomach. She shook and swore that she was feeling the rumble of a body inside her, but David could not hear it, could not see it, could not feel it.

In May, Lana was kicked and David was nothing. He(they) touched to make him feel it, made love to make him feel it within her. She shook and David was empty. The ultrasound moved but the heart was missing.

In June, David argued with the obstetrician. He wanted the baby gone before Lana felt the pain.

Lana refused to believe that the baby was dead. She swore that she would try to nurse the dead child before she let him be put in the ground, swore that his life remained.

David cried for the sadness that Lana would feel.

In July, Lana went into labor. David rushed her to the hospital. The way a good husband(father) should. Lana pushed for a day and half a night.

In August, the other half of the night came, fast and hard. David held her hand, and she screamed the silent scream of the undead. The baby came. His mouth fell open as the medic held the child in his sterile arms. The baby shook ore than a dead child should. David hater of horror cringed at the sight.

Lana held open her arms. She reached for the child. When he touched her skin, Lana began to shake again, as his cries sounded behind her ears. She put him to her breast. He squabbled closer to nurse, and his little mouth began to work.

Only Lana heard him as he sucked her tit(teat breast).

David put a hand on his wife, a finger brushing the child to ask her to give in to death. When his hand came down, he heard it to, the suck suck sucking of a silent mouth.

When Lana and David brought Christopher home, they held him always, for as soon as they put him down, his cries vanished.

In September, in October, in forever, Christopher grew.

Week's End, The

Well, referring to this as a week is a stretch, but I feel more dead than my typical Friday self does. Hopefully this doesn't last all year, because that would be very, very unfortunate.

And I'm on fb chat, talking to Sadie and Bart, separately, and Sadie wants to skype, and then I'm going over to Nyx's, so I believe y'all are gonna get a highly abbreviated post.

My apologies.

School, Miserable School

I need to keep writing.

Right, blogging. More writing. More work. I need to keep it from becoming that, because that would qualify as a Bad Idea.

I still have all this weird capitalization left over from God of Small Things.

I still have 10,000 things to do. College shall be the death of me. So will school. But mostly college applications.

I like that school and college are somehow different. In the world that is in my head, anyways.

I like A.P. Physics because it is a review, and I can read during it. I like A. P. English because it involves books. I'm worried I'm more of an English geek than I originally intended to become.

Ah, well.

The God of Small Things (Arudhati Roy)

Paradise Pickles and Preserves

I can't keep track of the names. Thus far, the story feels simultaneously broken and beautiful.

Pappachi's Moth

A viable dia-able age. I love the slips of poetry. I love this little chapter, for some reason. It reminds me of Rememories, this splintering of sections. Beautiful.

Abhilash Talkies

Boy. Poor boy. So sad. The story begins to twist, but the words themselves have yet to become ugly.

God's Own Country

"While father's played sublimated sexual games with their nubile teenaged daughters" (121) Wait...what?

Cochin Kangaroos

I like that nostrils are never held, they are always clamped.

I'm not sure what to put here; my questions are of plot, not substance.

Wisdom Exercise Notebooks

Q498673. How much did Arundhati Roy think to arrive at that number?

Welcome Home, Our Sophie Mol

"Bright, like cheerful, pink condoms" (163) which character's mind has gone there?

The Love Laws. These are important, somehow.

This is making more and less sense, although the everywhere time seems almost to be vanishing.

Mrs. Pillai, Mrs. Eapen, Mrs. Raja Gopalan

I can't tell at all when this last scene is ocurring. Oh, there, now I can, but it is difficult. I thought the teachers said this would get easier!

The River in the Boat

Children discover the "blissful delights of underwater farting" (193)

The God of Small Things

I want the future now, beyond Sophie, beyond Ammu. I want Rahel to make Estha speak.

Kochu Thomban

Rahel is in a temple. Rahel is a bad christian.

The Pessimist and the Optimist

"A Wake" (226) for the prettypretty deadgirl.

This story would be just as sad if it was only Margaret, the woman surrounded by death.

This is why discussion of Sophie Mol's perspective is odd. Because Sophie Mol is dead.

Work is Struggle

For a story which blatantly acknowledges that large portions of it have already happened, this sure is suspenseful.

The Crossing

I love miniature so-lovely-they're-almost-poems interludes.

A Few Hours Later

I still haven't quite got the bit about Velutha's leaf making the monsoons come on time.

What a sad, sad death. There and gone. Lonely. Gone.

Cochin Harbor Terminus

"I love you I love you" (281) Baby is still young Kochamma.

The History House

I honestly don't think that I want more explanation on the taking of Velutha.

I can't read the description of BrokenVelutha. It makes me sick. Oh oh. Oh.

Saving Ammu

Oh Baby. Oh Esthappen. Oh Ammu, so sad.

The Madras Mail

I want to blame Baby for everything, but is that fair? If you let her persuade you, are you guilty?

"The Love Laws" (311) all that is broken now makes me think of only Lolita.

This time lets you see the broken in one thousand places. I hurt.

The Cost of Living

Now that is how a sex scene is meant to be written. Go Roy!

I'm not sure what the "Yes, Margaret"...oh wait. It returns.

Oh, oh, oh! So lovely. Glad to end there in place of a death. Love lives on because time is irregular, again and again and always like spaghetti in the sky. Ammu, Baby what have you done? Where did you go? A broken world of pieces that fit. How did Roy make you, in order or apart, in snatches or a fit? You were born. Love-in-Tokyo.

I am Lost

---------

End notes.

In short, I know that this book was good, because it reduced me to complete and utter incomprehensibility.

Another Day, More Work

I've almost (almost almost) got the patent finished up. Just have to rewrite the claims and do a final figure description. I'm rather looking forward to getting it all submitted.

I also finished Summer Reading Book #3, also known as Tess of the Deubervilles. This adds on with 1984 and Lolita, and now I've just got to get through God of Small Things. At the moment, my biggest topic linking the three books is something regarding perceptions of purity and attractiveness, because, for some reason, all big books seem to come back to sex.

Today, I did some (but not enough) cleaning, some (but not enough) talking, and a fairly reasonable quantity of work, although, like I said, I have the figure description to write up, and I think I might try to make a bit of a dent in the summer chemistry work, and I'd like to do another one of my RSI blog posts (I must remember ALL!!!!!)

Anyways, that's today's update. Sorry it's brief, but I'm pouring my energy into far too many things at the moment.

Oh, right, last night I hung out with Nyx, and then Dad got mad at me for how much crap I still had in his office. Tonight, Gretchen is coming over. Tomorrow, Kathrya and Nia are coming over. I am in no way listing these to increase the number of tags held by particular individuals. No sirree, I wouldn't dream of it.

Homecoming in August

I'm back, finally.

I'm working frantically, as usual. Missing flashdrive, non-backed up due to lack of internet access.

FML.

Although that seems wrong to say, since it's my own damn fault that the thing is gone. And, as evidenced by the previous post, worse things have happened.

Regardless, after a long break, I'm here again. I have 16 more RSI posts planned, because I don't want to forget all of the little funny things that happened while I was there, so I'm sorry that my regular posts are going to be somewhat brief for the time being.

Here I am, working again, hoping to manage to squeeze out enough free time in the next week to go visit Rube (who hasn't called or texted or anything in 24 hours and oh, wait, he texted yesterday afternoon, just kidding. Too bad I spaced on responding).

And now, time for breakfast.

Goodbye Annie

I'm using your real name here because you are dead.

That still sounds wrong.

How can a seven year old bundle of energy, always yelling and dancing in circles around our grandmother's kitchen, possibly be gone? How can a little bit of blood let loose in the brain destroy so much so quickly? How can there be death that is so utterly unpreventable, so entirely beyond our control?

There is nothing I can do to make it better, nothing I can do to staunch the wound. The family bleeds.

The tiny fractions call endlessly, searching for reprieve, searching for news. I know nothing.

The funeral is on Saturday. It is a funeral for a girl still living.

How can her glassy eyes be truly real?

Despicable Me

Once the final papers were all in, it was movie night. The options: Salt and Despicable Me. Sucker that I am, I elected to go see the animated children's movie, a decision I do not regret--for realsies, that movie was soooo cute! (in the words of Kathrya, though she didn't see the movie).

We broke into two groups in the theater--the loud people (Keyuri, Astrid, and others) sat in the back, and I sat somewhere closer to the middle, between Bart and Ravi, who are both wonderful, kind, and popcorn sharing.

The movie was, as I said, basically totally adorable. I have such a weakness for animation (anyone else excited for Tangled? I know Bing is psyched about the hair super awesome hair), and small children, and adorable monster type things, and, well, basically I loved the movie. So...yeah. That's about all I have to say on that one.

I'm having vague recollections of the walk to the movie, now, where we misplaced Dominique, so Dill and one of the counselors waited for her, but she took a cab instead. It made me laugh. Also, I'm totally not sure if that actually happened, I just kind of vaguely think that it did.

After the movie, we split into a burger/pizza group (it was one of the two...) and a dim sum group, which was headed by Hannah, her random friend, and a bunch of other counselors. The only students were me and Remus, and Remus and I didn't really talk much, so basically I stared at my plate during most of the extremely delicious meal, which was lame. Then I talked to Hannah's random friend, who went to school with Maxwell, about Maxwell's issue with tucking in his shirts.

Then Remus and I talked about gossip. About me. Which was weird, because usually I gossip about other people. Then I went back to the dorm. I probably slept at that point, seeing as I had pulled an all-nighter the evening before, but I don't really remember. It all blurs together after a while. This may have been the time that Leila didn't make it back to our room until 5 am, but, again, I don't remember. I hate how little I can put in order, now.

I am sad.

Buddy Reading and Real All-Nighters

Immediately after the frisbee game ended, I went back to the dorm (oh, how much lovelier life would be if I possessed a bike) to get my paper, then went to W20 to meet my peer editing group. I was with Dill and Anwar, both bio people. We started off outside, shooting glares at Vanessa and Ash's group because they had stolen our idea to experience the great outdoors. Anwar read his out loud first, and I lay down and stared at the clouds and focused on staying awake, then offered a very short list of constructive comments (his paper was phenomenal; very clear, highly technical, about using stem cells to grow retinas or something like that). It's fun to listen to him talk, because he's Singaporean but speaks English with a very good English accent; basically, the cross between Asian and british is entertaining. Then I read mine, which they both gave criticisms on while acknowledging that they didn't really understand the subject matter, since, as I mentioned, they were both doing biology.

At that point, the hammock freed up, so we ran over there and then spent about five minutes arranging ourselves so that we could all fit. Dill and I were on the ends, and Anwar was in the middle, and he's heavy enough that he was basically sitting on the ground. I'm sure that we looked rather silly. Dill took forever to read, because he had a lot (and I mean a lot) of typos and grammatical errors that he hadn't noticed until he read it out loud, so every two sentences he had to go back and change things, and then he'd go back a couple more sentences and read them all again. I was ready to scream (I have an extremely low level of pickle tolerance), and even Anwar was getting annoyed, and I was getting hungry and didn't understand the paper anyways, so Anwar loaned me his meal card and I went to get a bagel, as I was sick, and still operating on a diet where the primary foods were oranges, orange juice, and toasted bagels.

I ran into Olive and Hassan at La Verdes, and Olive advised me to "be assertive!" when ordering sandwiches. I need to work on that assertiveness thing. I got my bagel and went back outside, where we sat while Dill read until it got so dark that we couldn't see, so we moved inside and began passing the papers around for grammar markups.

That evening, I made those changes and went to bed. The next morning, I assembled a draft of slides so that I could give a practice talk for my mentor. I used Beamer. It was epic. I gave said talk. It went badly, very badly. Then I realized that the final draft of my paper was due the next day, and I was not even close to being done.

At 3 pm, I went to Simmons, showered, and assembled my supplies. At 4, I sat down to work. I got up occasionally, but I did not truly stop work until 9:30 the next morning. It was torture. It was bliss. It was so much fucking work.


I started out sitting next to Sadie, but then Bashir came over and started talking to her and moaning about how his paper was being so difficult, when the issue was really his very limited grasp of English language mechanics. I found the talking so annoying that I got up and moved next to Grace, who, despite having finished her rough draft two weeks in advance of the due date, was working quite diligently.


The next few hours are lost in a swirl of very focused work as I made edit after edit, including massive structural changes to my introduction and diffusion sections. Some time around 2 am, when I finished said changes to part four, I noticed a major hole in my analysis: I'd never definitively proven that products would not diffuse, I'd merely illustrated that they'd diffuse less than they would out of a standard reactor. I looked panicked, so one of the very wonderful nobodies, Rocky (so christened because somewhere in the annals of livejournal, there are photos of him at seventeen, all dolled up for the midnight showing), came to help me. He worked magic with mathematica while I cracked open my can of caffeinated beverage, and some forty minutes later, the image, the oh-so-perfect graphical representation of an equation that I'd hastily derived in the margin of an old draft, was done.


It was beautiful, and it is 86% of the reason that I printed my paper in color. Not that I had anything in the way of a legend to explain what color went with what element. It was just so darned pretty.


Soon after that, I was approaching my non-functioning stage, so I drank some more caffeinated beverage and went to take a twenty minute power nap, moping about my cold, solitary loneliness. I eventually woke up and stumbled back to the lab, where I started working again. I soon got a number of zephyrs from Kaylee and Hannah, who were trying to get together a late-night (well, early morning) fake Chinese food order. I zephyred (is there some other word for this?) Hyumni, and she reluctantly pulled herself from braid theory (I would love to watch her tear down anyone who saw the whole 'braid' thing and went "look, when girls do math, all they do is talk about hair") to help pick out food.


I finished the work-through on the redesigned diffusion section and left to take another nap, passing by Didge, who for some reason enjoyed working on the couch, with piles of papers surrounding him. We agreed to proof each others papers later (not that we ever actually did so), and then I went to get some sleep (well, fifteen minutes of sleep, but they were lovely minutes nonetheless).

By the time I stumbled out, Hyunmi had already obtained and paid for our veggie/tofu noodles. We ate them, and they were delicious. Something about tofu drenched in soy sauce and salty pasta is just very, very delicious.


I went back to work, after that. People gradually trickled out. By morning, the ranks were thin. Hassan was still present, as were Jasmine and Comrade Vito. I needed to wake up enough to move, and to clear out the stuffy morning feeling from between my ears.

I don't remember who suggested it, but a bathrobe-clad Vito and I ended up running laps around the lab for at least a few minutes, until I felt prepared to proof my paper. I printed it, then went about trying to find people to read it; if I remember correctly, Tramar was agreeable, and I read his as well. It was without doubt one of few that was written so clearly that it really made sense, though it's frustrating how, too frequently, clarity is confused with a lack of difficulty.


I had a donut and a coffee for breakfast, printed a copy of my paper, emailed another copy to Kaylee, then went back to the dorm and slept for four hours. When I woke up, I showered, then proofed the entire document before heading out. I made my changes at the Simmons cluster before going to W20 and having a second breakfast. Around two, I finally got Kaylee to myself, and we spent the time I should have been at my last meeting with my mentor frantically making changes to my paper. I then went to mentorship, proofed it one more time, just myself, then emailed it to my mentor's phenomenal assistant for color printing.

At five, when others were panicking, I had been done for over an hour. Which was fortunate, because W20's printers were not being cooperative. Many, many people did not have printer success, but they were fortunately (and most likely due to sheer volume) not disqualified from the competitive paper analysis.

Huzzah!

I only later heard the story of those who did not work with the rest of us. Susan, for example, stayed holed up in her room, working to devise the optimal method for preventing high temperatures and wind-related paper organizational losses. Bing did the same, though his room was less breezy. He also later informed me that he did not move from his chair for the entirety of the night, not even to use the bathroom. I responded with a "TMI" look which he took for confusion, and began explaining that since he wasn't eating or drinking during the time period, it wasn't an issue. At the very least, he's logical.

RSI vs. PROMYS

This is one of those posts that probably would have been more fun to write before I developed this miserable dissatisfaction with a certain boy (note: not the one who went to RSI).

Anyways, on this particular morning, I slept until, if I remember correctly, 10:30, or something along those lines. We were having a counselor group breakfast, leaving at 11, because that was pretty much as early as you could possibly get all of us to be awake. (Didge? Tem? This is why your 9 am Breakfast Club Farewell was a failure. At least, I assume it was a failure. I wasn't there, since I was sleeping off my sleep deprivation).

Well, that assumes that all of us were awake. I got up showered, got dressed, then proceeded to stand on one of the strange blocks that came with our room and jostle Leila enough for her to tell me that she'd get up in five minutes.

I went downstairs. Keyuri and a few others were there. Keyuri and I went on a search for the rest. Miles and Vito didn't answer the door, so we walked up a floor and checked for Miles in Ava's room. A tired looking Zorah answered the door, and informed us that nobody--not even Donny--was in her room. We went downstairs, banged on Vito and Miles's room a few more times, until eventually one of them emerged.

They'd had, for once, the good sense to hide Ava (I say 'they', but Vito was more passive about the whole situation, since she's Miles's girlfriend). On one particularly memorable occasion, Ava and Miles had only just woken up when Becton knocked on the door. Ava, who was closer, opened it before remembering that she was not supposed to be cohabitating with Miles and hiding behind it. Miles, who was then standing inexplicably six feet from the now-open door, waved at Becton, who said "wow, that's creepy," before getting on with his life. Anyways, on this day, they were much better behaved.

Then we went back up to my floor, and I dragged Leila out of bed, and Keyuri bothered Kareem, until, eventually, enough of us were assembled that we figured we could go to breakfast. I ate pancakes. They were extremely delicious.

We took a bus back to campus, and then rushed over to Killian Court, where PROMYS students and the rest of RSI had already arrived. By this point, I had a massive caffeine-withdrawal related headache (I hadn't had a coffee in about two days, and it was two days too many), but was fortunate in that PROMYS wasn't in the mood to play girls, so I could go in search of said coffee. Hyunmi came with me, and we berated Bart for hanging out in W20 instead of cheering before rushing back to the game.

When we got back, Keyuri was in full force, yelling very, very rude insults across the field. Most insults involved either the fact that PROMYS guys couldn't get girls, that they were too ugly to take their shirts off (our team was playing skins), and that the only reason that they were at PROMYS in the first place was because they couldn't get into RSI. While watching the game, I made a joking comment to Nicholas that the entire affair would be better if both teams were shirtless, and he proceeded to make fun of me for this for the remainder of RSI.

Eventually, when they were kicking our asses by a lot, we decided to play girls, in hopes that our girls were better than their girls (which I say they are. I think we scored more points than they did, anyways). We did a lot of running about, but it was eventually decided, when some of their girls didn't want to play, that we wouldn't make them match all of our girls, so they added in some guys and scored on us pretty quickly. Gopika and I stayed in for a little while after that, but we eventually ended up on the sidelines again.

At some point, Livny, who was playing with a shirt on his head to add to the intimidation factor of his extreme muscular definition, got into a fight (there was one slight violent incident followed by a lot of yelling/intimidation attempts) with someone on the other team. Rube continues to believe that Livny takes steroids. I also have vague recollections of some loud noisemaking device from their team, an invasion by our girls into their audience, and someone from their team petting Hyumni's hair.

Regardless, they eventually won, and then the counselors played. I left around the time that Rube did, but, reportedly, we lost that game too.

We continue to contend that we're so busy having lives and doing real research that we didn't have time to practice, and are therefore better than they are. We still haven't decided whether the research or the lives argument is more persuasive.

Blown All-nighters, Italians, and Proms

Every time I write one of these, the memories I'm writing about feel more and more distant.

I suppose this is what I get for writing up most of my RSI-related posts as backlogs.

The night before the first draft of the final paper was due, I prepared myself for a long haul. I stocked up on food (a giant bag of tostitos and a box of double-stuffed oreos. I am nothing if not classy), packed up my bag, and settled myself into the Starcraft section of W20 to get working.

Notably, even during this very tense night, Ash and Luke managed to play said computer game. This is because Ash is one of those people who believes he can't work when he's too tired (so, like me before RSI), but rather than sticking it out, he prefers to go to sleep, so he'd finished up his paper a day ago. Luke is just obsessed.

I settled down between Ash and Nicholas and took my now-sorted work (thank you for the file folders, Didge) and went through it, one folder at a time, compiling all of the information that I had into a cohesive whole.

I'm losing cohesive loosely, as there have been a lot of edits since to add to the cohesive nature, but regardless, I was pulling everything together. My big goal here was to make certain that I'd used all of the information that I had.

The first folder took me over an hour. I had twelve folders. I got through the second and third faster. Then I hit the fourth.

I needed a diagram.

I spent about half an hour wrestling unsuccessfully with Gimp before Nicholas took pity on me and helped. He, then, spent about an hour wrestling with Gimp for me, while I found an empty computer near Bashir and Sadie and worked my way through the extremely imposing "diffusion" folder.

When Nicholas had finished and I got the computer back, I blearily walked around the cluster, taking note of Olive sitting up on a computer divider, typing away on her laptop.

I kept writing. Some time after Ash had left, I sent some zephyrs back and forth with Bing, and soon after that he came over from the dorm and took over Ash's computer. I'd offered him oreos for the company via zephyr, but after his arrival, he declined.

About a half an hour after Bing arrived, I was done. I looked at the paper before me, completely shocked, but elected not to complain. I printed a copy, brought it to the dorm, and slept until nine thirty the next morning. Less than five hours, but better than nothing.

My alarm went off, Leila made groaning noises, then I showered and proofread the entirety of the paper before going downstairs to the Simmons cluster, making changes, freaking out that I couldn't find me key, realizing the key was next to the computer, going to W20 for breakfast, experiencing disappointment that W20 was not selling breakfast at this early hour, walking upstairs to the Athena cluster, finishing the changes, printing off another three copies of my paper, and handing it in.

I was, overall, quite pleased to have garnered a few hours of sleep, but still rather tired.

By this point, it was 5 pm. I know, a lot of hours going by really fast, but that's what happens when I'm working. Soon after that, we left for the Italian food trip.

When we got there, we were sent off on our own to find somewhere to eat. This was, of course, highly difficult. I was running around with Minette, Tal, Dexter, Donny, Zorah, Susan and Norman. At some point, Zorah and Donny slipped away to eat something that I'm certain was highly romantic, and then Susan and Norman got so sick of us looking for Italian places that they went and got Chinese food.

The four of use remaining eventually found a restaurant. We were led in, then to a set of stairs. We went down the stairs, through a room of diners, then turned left, passing through a second room of diners, its ceiling slightly lower than the first. We then passed through the kitchen and into a third room, with still lower ceilings, and, in place of windows, two TVs, one displaying a video of an aquarium and the other scenic portraits of the Italian countryside (and associated freeways).

It was, all in all, entirely bizarre. I'd meant, here, to talk about prom, but, well, it wasn't a particularly awesome experience.

I walked over with Susan and Carlisle, danced briefly, then spent a good percentage of the time sitting outside, talking to Carlisle and Ravi about our respective high schools, and with Bing about how terrible the music was. Then Nicholas and Joseph, completely covered in black, meshy clothing (yes, faces included) showed up, and proceeded to act weirdly.

By that time, I was feeling exhausted, so I left early and walked to W20, where are number of starcrafters had ensconced themselves. Even that, though, just seemed rather pointless, so I went back to the dorm, chattering with the gangstered up Jared and Gopika on the way.

So, fake proms, like real proms, are, all in all, not worth the effort.

Runnin' from the Po-po

I apologize for the Ke$ha related joke. I shouldn't have done it. I really shouldn't have.

Anyways, this post is dedicated to my bepatched pants, shown above. The word "bepatched" is lifted here from Heart of Darkness, which I still don't really like all that much, even though I am now almost, almost done with it.

Let us also note that the butt of these pants looks vaguely droopy, as, in the picture, I'm not wearing them. This should be taken as proof that I am a fabulously curvy individual, despite the fact that said pants are a size 4 long, and therefore, well, not all that curvy. However, since the buying (I use the word 'buying' loosely, as they were technically free) of said pants, I've gone up a pant size to an absolutely luscious 6 long, and a bra size as well.

I realize that the fact that I am now a B cup is probably one of those things that I shouldn't share. But I am very, very proud of my body for putting its weight in the right place, so I felt the need to express my great happiness.

I am such a teenager.

End Dedication.

Now, we come to the true post, which is "How My Pants Found Their Patches", more or less.

During many of my evenings while at RSI, I played frisbee. (I use the word "evening" loosely, as this was typically between 11pm and 1 am). Ultimate Frisbee is a truly awesome activity, one which I enjoy greatly, despite the fact that I am altogether terrible at it.

Well, that's not quite true. I can throw and catch the damn thing, more or less. I just get winded easily, and I'm terrible at changing directions, so I tend to end up running into whoever I'm supposed to be guarding, which usually results in me getting hurt, because somehow I do that.

Example: that time I was guarding Stratton, a tall skinny fellow who is both taller and skinnier than me, and he stopped moving, and I kept moving, and his forehead hit me in the chin and I had this really annoying tender spot right where I'd started stroking when I was thinking (thank you, Dawson, for giving me your weird ticks), and it was rather uncomfortable.

On this particular evening, I was running late to frisbee. I don't quite recollect why; this could have been the night that I tried to explain tampons to Zsa and Grace, or I might have just been doing something less interesting, like talking on the phone to Rube. Regardless, I was late, so I went walking along the fence looking for a Way In, which I couldn't find.

I past Hyunmi (female, pronounced 'Hummy') and Maxwell walking the other way, and they told me the gate was locked, so I went to the far corner, where the dirt looked soft, and pulled myself up and over the fence, a feat which, while slightly annoying, was not altogether difficult, and I landed comfortably in the grass on the other side.

I jogged past Livny, Jasmine, Stratton, and others, who were playing soccer, and, presumably, enjoying themselves. I joined the frisbee game (I believe I was guarding Luke, who makes an effort despite his perpetual butterfingers). I played for all of two minutes before the soccer players began moving towards us at an alarmingly fast rate. Red lights flashed behind them.

"Should we run?" someone asked.

"No," responded Jasmine. "Just leave. Quickly."

The red lights were, naturally, a police car. Apparently we're not supposed to use the field when it's been locked up.

A small group of us reached the surrounding fence. Tem climbed over first. I swore in my head, but made an effort to scramble up. When my barefoot feet proved incapable, Dawson gave me a boost. I got on top. Looked down.

This time I swore out loud. The ground was very far away.

"I don't think I can get that far."

"I'll help," said Tem.

I looked at him, incredulous. "I highly doubt you'll be able to catch me."

"We'll do it like chicken. Have you played chicken?"

"Yes, okay, sure."

He stepped closer to the fence. I tried to get down, only to discover that I was stuck. I performed a very awkward (and trying, for someone with my minimal level of upper body strength) push-up maneuver, then sat myself Tem's shoulders.

"Okay," he said. "Now, get down."

"How?"

He paused, considering. He was, after all, over six feet tall, and I was, of course, quite clumsy. Dropping me backwards would be inadvisable, and his head was in the way of a forward leap.

"Okay," he said. "I lean forward, you hop off. Good?"

He started bending before I could respond. I dismounted, rather inelegantly, before falling into a still-more-inelegant heap on the ground. He helped me up.

During the time it'd taken me to unstick myself, Dawson had already vaulted over, and the three of us joined the rest of the group in walking back towards Simmons.

My pants felt...not quite warm enough. I checked my butt. All the fabric was still there, but there was a substantial tear on my left back pocket. If I remember correctly, I asked Kris or Jasmine (probably Jasmine, since she's female, but for some reason my memory says Kris) to check it, and he/she declared it "not that bad, and if you'd just stop fiddling with it no one would notice."

We made it back to the dorm, settled around in the lounge that usually contains the ginormous set of jenga blocks.

I sat on one of the couches, ripped pants and all. Livny extracted a deck or two of cards from his backpack. There was some debate about games--the Chinese kids (mostly Andy and Jared) wanted to play President, or Mao, or some other complicated game that they said would be too annoying to teach the rest of it. Livny, however, had the cards, so he won the battle.

He declared that we would be playing "Durak." He then spent about twenty minutes explaining it, then, whenever any of us had difficulty, which was virtually every time we played, he's say "no, really, it isn't that complicated," and his henchman, Stratton, would say "so simple we all get it, yeah?" or something along those lines.

We played for a while. The game, as it turns out, translates loosely to "Idiot." Jasmine may have been the idiot, but I don't really remember.

I was, though, one of the first to be declared "Not Idiot," which is something I'm rather proud of.

Astronauts

On this evening, an astronaut came to speak with us. This was almost as awesome as when D.E. Shaw gave us free t-shirts.

It was really neat, but she kind of kept going on and on and on, and then Teresa started asking her all of these questions about how you go to the bathroom in space, and Lady Astro gave really long answers, and I tried really really hard not to fall asleep, and this may have been the lecture where I sat next to Bing, and he would drift off (and by drift off, I mean his head would fall into his lap as he crumpled into sleep) and then I'd elbow him.

Anyways, that was that lecture. I feel like there's meant to be more detail than that, but, well, ehhhh.

Instead, I will use this post to discuss mentorship awesomeness.

Every so often, Bashir would actually show up in mentorship, as opposed to going to W20 and moaning about how he didn't have anything to do, or sleeping on the couch, or making his phone do this really annoying beeping thing which I disabled midway through my second mentorship week when he wasn't paying attention.

On one particular day, Bashir wanted to hear about New Jersey. I believe this was triggered by the time he spiked his hair up for the WTP dance and I said he shouldn't try to be DJ Ronnie D from Jersey Shore (I just googled the cast of characters to see which one had the spiky hair, I have never watched the show). I drew him a map of the East coast, then did a squiggly line and dropped California on the other side of the board, indicating all relevant portions of the U.S. When Bashir asked about everyone else, I drew Arizona and Colorado in, then dropped dots for Andy and Dawson indicating their respective Mid-Western states.

Bashir then took over and taught Didge and me a lesson on Lebanese history, geography and politics, which I promptly forgot almost all of, aside from that there is some major division between North and South Lebanon, and there are beaches on one side and mountains on the other, and whichever North/South side Bashir lives in thinks the fighting is stupid because it scares the tourists.

Didge said something about Australia, but I forget what. 'Twas quite fun.

On a different mentorship day, I was feeling rather stressed out. This is not that surprising, as my emotions tend to always be in either "really, really happy" or "completely and utterly freaked out," although I often manage to freak out and be happy at the same time, but that's completely irrelevant to this point.

I was in a state of panic over RSI-related work, college-related work, and Dawson-and-Rube-related issues (those boys have caused me way, way too much emotional stress). I also wasn't eating or sleeping properly, because I kept forgetting to and my mind was really busy, and Didge, who had spent the last week teaming up with Ash and refusing to leave lunch until I'd had cold-healing soup, was not pleased.

Our plan of action was for us to go get office supplies so that I could organize my research materials and feel better about that, and then come back to the Undergraduate Chateau and let me talk or sleep, depending on which would help more.

So, we took the art budget supplied by our mentor (twenty bucks) and walked ourselves down to the student union, which turned out to be mostly a really souped up Barne's and Noble's, including a random barbershop in the back.

I'm still not really sure what's up with that, but we went downstairs for school supplies and textbooks, passing on our way an absolutely ginormous bin of extremely fuzzy and fluffy pillows.

We each pulled out a large blue pillow (the blue ones are always the best), then spent twenty minutes walking around the store looking for file folders, which we eventually found in rainbow, and dry-erase markers, which were also rainbow.

We returned the pillows, and I made an impulse purchase of purple earbuds and a paperback copy of Tess of the D'ubervilles.

Then we went back to the Undergraduate Chateau, and I ranted for two hours, interrupted by him telling me really adorable stories about his girlfriend, and then I went back to the dorm and he went to W20 to work more.

Then we saw the astronaut.

I should probably put those in a more chronological order, but, meh.

Not happening.

Laundry and Lockouts

This post is going to be a compendium of a few different events, all of them utterly interesting.

Laundry, the first time:

The first week had ended, and the second was rapidly approaching. I discovered that I had run out of underwear and tanks, and my bras were starting to smell.

For a moment, I was confused about the path forward, but then it hit me: laundry. I loaded up my bin, then began the intrepid trek downstairs (by downstairs, I mean, literally, down one flight of stairs to the eighth floor, where I thought the laundry machine was, then down a second flight of stairs, to the seventh floor, where the laundry machine actually was.)

On my way down, I ran into (note: not literally) Arthur. Seizing upon the opportunity to socialize, I asked if he would come with me, as I frequently have issues with laundry.

He looked somewhat confused, but he soon consented. We entered the laundry room. The door shut. I had a moment of awkward realization that I was alone in a windowless room with a male of the species before I shrugged it off and began sorting my lights and brights.

All was well. I poured detergent into the first machine and figured out how to insert quarters. I went to put detergent into the second machine.

It was then that I discovered that my laundry detergent bottle was not, in fact, symmetrical. It was really rather asymmetrical, with only one side appropriate for pouring. I realized this belatedly, when a tide of Tide fell upon the machine, dripping down to my legs and non-pouring arm.

I began to laugh madly, and Arthur joined in. Through my somewhat hysterical giggles, I asked him to put quarters into the second machine, which he did, only to realize that he'd leaned into it and gotten detergent all over his shorts. We laughed again.

I then apologized profusely for being such a klutz, and offered to wash the shorts. He agreed, stepped back, and was about a half a second away from de-shortsing himself before he realized that would probably be a bad idea.

He said he'd go upstairs, I said I could do with a towel, we got halfway down the hall when I realized I'd forgotten my wallet, so Arthur, being the less soapy of the two of us, went back and fished it out.

We went upstairs, I washed my legs in his sink, then realized that there were no towels in his bathroom, so I hopped, wet leg off the ground, over to his door, through which I called "Arthur? Towel? Please?"

Arthur, in clean cargo shorts identical to the previous pair, emerged with towel. I finished de-sudsing, then we went back down, threw in his shorts, started the machine, and returned to our respective rooms.

Later, we both went on the dinner trip to Fire and Ice but didn't talk to each other.

Laundry #2

Leila did the laundry. She came back and said, "You are not allowed to call me a bad roommate, I made you laundry!" It was so adorable I decided not to correct her.

Laundry #3

I combined loads with Astrid and Leila. Astrid helped me sort. I changed the clothes over, then eventually brought them back.

During the walk to the machine, Dawson and Arthur followed me part way, then left me in Astrid's capable hands.

Laundry #4

Dawson announced that he was doing laundry. I mentioned that I was running out of underwear and needed to do the whole laundry thing. I asked if I can throw a few pairs in with his clothes so that I could delay more effectively.

He, somewhat uncomfortably, agreed. I got my undies, he got his clothes and detergent, we both put in some quarters and some clothes and started the machines.

During the 45 interim minutes, I took a shower, then realized that it'd been 45 minutes, threw on my sundress (yes, and nothing else) and rushed down to meet him.

The clothes smelled suspiciously not clean.

I asked how much detergent he put in. He looked confused. I asked again. He said "I thought you put it in."

"No, you definitely did."

"I did not."

"Oh."

We paused, looked at the machines, prepared to reload.

He looked uncomfortable.

"What?" I asked.

"I can't get over the whole 'underwear' thing."

"Fine." I took them out, he added detergent, and we left.

"Do you want to go get dinner?" he asked.

I agreed, then realized that I wasn't hungry. "Wait, no."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, it's just, well, I'm not really supposed to agree to do things with you just because I want to be around you anymore."

"Oh. Right."

"Yeah."

We stood awkwardly. I went upstairs, then realized that my key was in my room.

I, notably, was not in said room.

Which brings us to Lockout #1

I was fortunate that I was in possession of many panties, and that my bathroom, with its small heap of dirty clothing was unlocked.

I was also fortunate in that I'd left my backpack full of work under Nicholas's care in the student center to return to at a later time.

I got downstairs, newly clad in tank and cargos, and flung myself upon the couch. Astrid, Minette, and Norman looked at my questioningly.

"I'm locked out. I have no shoes. I have no sweater. I'm going to W20 to work, because I have no money and can't eat."

Astrid loaned me her horribly undercharged meal card (I think Sweden has been overpaying her), and Norman brought me upstairs and loaned me a horribly expensive sweater.

I then went to W20 and worked until Leila got back with her key and let me in. This was a time period along the lines of 3 hours, as she'd gone on a movie trip.

Lockout #2

I was at least wearing clothes this time. I show up at bedcheck, go "Leila, I'm locked out again," she gives me her key, I return a moment or two later, pillow in hand.

Lockout #3

Repeat, verbatim, Lockout #2.

These events led me to two my superlatives: most likely to injure myself, and most likely to get locked out.

Yay, me.

Yum Yum Dim Sum

After the end of the Rocky Horror adventure, Kaylee, Hannah and I removed ourselves from the cab and I, at least, went to sleep. Whenever Leila got back, I was far enough out that I didn't wake up (although this may have been the night that she and Joseph fell asleep in one of the lounges and she just didn't return. Wait, no, this was the morning that she slept through her alarm and missed her oral presentation practice leave-time, so she woke me up at 12:00 and had me make phone calls for her, because English over the phone is too hard to understand).

I woke up, made her calls, took my pills, took a five-minute shower, then got downstairs at 12:30 for the dim sum trip.

I figured dim sum were as good a breakfast as anything, so I happily added myself to Hannah's group of travelers, then proceeded to sit down and doze until we actually left. I have vague recollections of Susan and Sarah being the only other student girls on the trip, and us discussing the fact that I just eat what everyone else gets because I don't speak Chinese or have much of an opinion. I then talked with Bing about the fact that dim sum are apparently kind of like breakfast, or more like breakfast than lunch, so I really wasn't being all that odd.

I know that once I got there I sat at a table separate from Hannah, Susan, and Sarah, and that I was between Bing and Bart, and Sid was also at our table, and that Bart showed me Saudi currency and demonstrated how to fold it so that when you tilted it, King Abdullah (at least, I think it was King Abdullah) would smile and then frown. I remember eating a lot and feeling quite full. I remember seeing an extremely adorable small child when I got up to use the bathroom.

I keep getting this one mixed up with the last dim sum trip, which I already recounted, as that one also had Susan (although it had the people from Bing's country other than Bing).

We got back when the Harvard tour left, though I didn't go on that. I thought Dawson had, but then I found out he was sick, so I alternated between working and asking Gabriel, Dawson's roommate, if Dawson wanted any medicine. I'm not sure if I made much in the way of meaningful progress on the work front, but I did my best. That night (I'm writing about the 18th still) was the talent show, during which my phone went off multiple times.

As far as the show goes, I missed a couple of acts, most notably Pensky's dancing. I did get to see Bing beatbox, which was cool, and hear Nicholas play violin (he really is remarkable, but I don't care what Jasmine says, it is nowhere near enough to make me think that he's sexy. He's just too...too......Nicholas.).

I walked back to W20 with Gopika and Didge, and Gopika put further efforts into getting Engle to take her to prom (she was unsuccessful). I walked from W20 back to Simmons with Susan and Sarah, who gave me very good guy advice which I took, even though, as I stand in September, it didn't exactly help.

Rube arrived about ten minutes after I got back. He left about forty minutes later. I spent bedcheck panicking to Leila, then a good while panicking to Maxwell, then a considerable quantity of time sitting around and just plain panicking.

I really am getting very good at that.

I eventually went to sleep, completely unprepared, as always, for the following day's mentorship.