The weirdest thing about sleeping until noon is that it makes the day feel really, really short.

Basically, all I've done today is play Environmental Oversight. I probably shouldn't have done this--for one thing, I have a mountain of work that I should be doing, and I'm still sick (planning on trying to go to a capella tomorrow, but when I was singing nerdy songs on the roofdeck last night, I only got through three songs before I literally couldn't sing anymore, but that was after a good deal of shrieking (can I help it if I react loudly to tickling?), so maybe things will go better), so running around for long quantities of time was even more difficult than it usually is.

But, it was extremely fun. I need to get better at switching weapons, and at not freezing up...and the endurance thing is kind of an issue, to the point where I felt like more of a liability than a help, though we were down enough people in comparison to the other teams that I was probably more use alive than not present. The world unfortunately did end up blowing up, and nobody escaped, but the red team put up a damn good fight.

Now I'm about to dig into planning my presentation for this Wednesday. Well, I'd been planning to do that, but now I'm thinking I want to head over to EC, especially since I have to get up at noon to get to rehearsal at 1. I really should practice piano, but I just don't feel like it. I'll pack a thing of post-it notes for tomorrow, then stick them wherever I can't keep up during rehearsal, then grind those spots out...

No, I need more practice. The presentation will have to wait.

I've been trying to avoid selling all of my soul to ESP, because, really, I would like to have some of it left, and I'd really like to have at least a little bit of free time in my life. Especially given that I'm supposed to be playing for a musical the weekend of Splash.

And yet, I let Olive talk me into co-directing morning registration with her. Why am I insane? The world may never know.

In other news, I've got a god-awful cold, and Jason has the same godawful cold, and it is generally rather unfortunate. I also finally caved and bought myself ice cream (bring on the weight gain), but I'm claiming that's just because I have a sore throat and it makes me feel better (actually, it was more a matter of "my computer fucking died again, and my boyfriend has too much homework to distract me. Ice cream!"). I've still been considerably healthier than I was during RSI, though, so I suppose that's something.

My physics class did an extremely awesome demo on conductivity yesterday. I seriously don't understand how the physics demos are so much more impressive than the chemistry ones (I mean, what chemistry ones?) when both classes are (at the moment, anyways) covering the same material from slightly different angles. Wire not conducting enough? Cool it down with liquid nitrogen (LN2 is always applicable). Glass not conducting electricity? Melt it with a blowtorch.

James's joke about this was "How many physicists does it take to light a lightbulb?" "One, but he needs a blowtorch to do it."

All of the awesome is mine.

Further questions include whether I'm capable of singing well enough to go to a capella tonight, which remains to be seen.

I'm with Leila in her room. We just visited her beloved Starbucks and had a generally wonderful time.

I'm not really sure what else to write about. Rube and I talked on facebook last night--it was totally innocuous, but actually rather nice. I guess this is kind of obvious, since I was friends with him for a number of years, but I really enjoy talking to him.

I will not fail my physics test, I will not fail my physics test, I will not fail my physics test. Somehow the repetition isn't making me feel any more confident in my abilities.

Imagine a sphere of charge Q. It's big. It's really big. Find things about it. Find all the things. Yes, I mean all of them. What do you mean you don't know what a gradient is?

Math is confusing. Taking physics with bonus math before actually taking the material covered in bonus math was probably not the brightest idea I've had. But if I manage to pass this test, I'll have actually learned things. Well, regardless of whether I pass I've learned an awful lot, it's just a question of whether "an awful lot" is sufficient.

On the plus side, I think I passed the chem test today.

Okay, I'm going to go search for productivity now. Also, worry about the fact that my throat hurts.

I'm down in the basement of the library. I forgot to bring a charger with me, so my laptop is going to die some time in the near future. I should be doing practice tests for physics, but I'm really confused and need my notes. I could be doing practice tests for chem, but I'm really lazy.

I could have worked this afternoon, but I skipped my calc class and went over to Jason's dorm for an hour. Being totally unproductive is a lot more fun than working. As it turns out, many things are a lot more fun than working.

But mostly studying. I don't mind psetting all that much, but I really don't like studying. I also really dislike writing essays, which I had to do last week, and preparing for presentations, which I should be doing now.

Actually, I'm going to go find a computer with Inkscape on it and do some vector image editing.

Happy birthday, James.

If I can just make it through Thursday, everything will be fine. If I can just manage to stay focused, and actually study for my tests and actually do my pset properly and learn the goddamn material and be prepared, everything will turn out okay.

I think 3.091 will be easy, if I make a sufficiently detailed formula sheet. I think that 17.40 will not be easy but that I don't have time to prepare for it. I think that 8.022 will be hard as fuck.

I think that I am too lazy to keep AIS's alias from getting out, but that's really a-okay.

James left at some point. I'm not sure where he went. Victor is still here. The froshlings are making a piñata for this weekend, because our floor is having a party and, for whatever reason, parties necessitate piñatas, and, for whatever reason, the froshlings are in charge.

I wonder how long I'll actually end up staying at said party, and how late my a capella group will end up making me.

In other news, physics is really difficult. Also, I've been dropping f-bombs left and right in my speech, and it makes it really difficult to type like a relatively appropriate person.

I'm stressed as hell, yet I keep forgetting to be stressed. I'm at AIS, where a mistake never to be lived down is that James mistakenly said that the sun rotates around the Earth. I'm at AIS, where there are fucked up people (I'm looking at your sexist comments, Linguini). I love it here, though. Life is glorious.

If James ruled the world, all numbers would be prime. If I ruled the world, I wouldn't have a test on Wednesday and then two more exams and a pset due on Thursday. Because that is cruel and unusual and entirely problematic.

In other news, I got up too early today (I had my alarm set for 9, and Alan called at 8:59 and woke me up). This is entirely separate from waking up at 7 because I forgot to draw the blinds and my brain was like "look! there is light! It's time to wake up!"

Draw. This reminds me of Jason last night, gchatting me at some point to tell me that a suggestion for his hall photo was the lot of them pressed together along a staircase with a centipede "drawn across their hands." Forgive me for thinking they meant a literal centipede atop the hands, because that would be how I'd use "draw" in that context, but good god was that disgusting. Then he went and asked if I'd seen some godawful movie about human centipedes, and then I went from creepy-crawly-shudder to literally wanting to throw up. His method of apology was to say that centipedes made him think of me.

Not really helping the case, there.

Rememory

I was looking through old drafts of blog posts, and I found this one. Apparently I never posted it, or, if I did, I went to edit it later and never put it back up. An essay from my junior year of high school.

I am in their house, his house, but the doors are twice my height. My sisters wear large pink dresses, layers of tulle bursting around their legs. They wobble about, unable to support their heavy crowns. Although I must stand on tiptoes to see over the couch, the dresses are too small. I leave the other girls and go upstairs, looking for him. I find him using the computer in the kitchen. I sit next to him, on the same chair but barely touching, and he shows me how to fight with animated soldiers.

He races up the hill in my backyard and I chase him, trying to release the competitive spirit that he has been coaxing from me all night. He trips over a tree root and slows, I slam into him, we tumble down. He catches himself on his elbows before landing above me, but his leg still comes down on mine and I groan. I look down, trying to disentangle, and I see his pale, pale arms, glowing in the barely-there moonlight.

The moon is above us, and we are silhouetted in its light. I dance down the middle of the street, ignoring the glass shards in my hand, forgetting that I’m leaving tomorrow. I dangle the spicy mint he wants so badly in front of his face before snatching it away as he lunges and I twirl down the street, singing “mine, mine, mine.” He gives up, returning to the sidewalk, but I continue to twirl and joy under the dull moon. Then he is beside me, grabbing me, pulling me over and a car runs by so fast I can barely see it, so close I can almost touch it. He saves me. Our mothers say that now we have to get married, like the rescued damsels in distress do in all the stories, and our blushes are hidden by the dangerous darkness. I still do not give him the mint.

We are back, before it all, in Iona, where the beach is close and the tide closer. My sister hit him earlier, and he didn’t hit her back, because he never hurt anyone, not back then. He has taught me to fight the way I could, has taught me not to flinch from pain by hurling ping-pong ball after ping-pong ball right at me, but would never hit a girl, would never hurt a soul, would always save my life. I trust his goodness. Our families are on the couches, spread out and close together, and we play a card game that is more laughing than thinking. I am wet for the first time. I notice, but I don’t know what it means. When I go to the bathroom later, there is a bloody spot on the inside of his basketball shorts, the ones I wear because my luggage is lost. My mother gives me Motrin and a bulky pad and cleans the shorts and tells me that I am a woman now, and I wear her sweatpants to bed and think but I am still twelve, and I am confused by all this growing up when all I really want is to play another round of cards.

I lie in bed that night in a room with my sisters but in my own bed because now I am special, now I am old. I realize, as the last bit of wakefulness leaves me, that my body has just told me that it is ready for sex, for love, for children. I try to picture it, but I don’t know how. The next day, I examine the books in the house until I find one with vivid sex scenes, perfectly specific, and I read until I can see it in my head and have to put the book down because the image disgusts me.

I am fifteen now and he is naked, above me around me within me, sweating, panting, shaking arms dark and glowing in the dim lamplight. I toss and turn, the visual plaguing me even though it has not happened and is based entirely on imaginings, but it makes my insides warm in a way that no other dreams do, and I decide not to chase it away.

It is snowing, and he is at my house, and we chase and run with a flock of children, throwing snowballs, and I see him break a window but he doesn’t know I saw. When the window is found later, no one ever knows that it was him. He wrestles his sister who is less than half his size after she calls him weak and emasculated and worthless. He is pushing her, tugging her, pinning her down with the arms that hold him over above within me. She claws at him, writhes, but cannot escape, and he tries to smother her with a pillow. I scream.

I can never marry him, never be with him, says my mother, because he is angry and only knows how to hit. That’s what comes of having a father like his.

I am sprawled across a couch in my basement, the gangling limbs that I’ve finally come to control and love and cherish stretching all the way from armrest to armrest. He is seated on the other couch, joystick in his hands, voice calm, steering an animated car around and around an animated track, destroying competitor after competitor as he tells me that he and his girlfriend broke up because he got angry and didn’t know what to do, that it just comes out, that, that now he’s not allowed to drive because his mother saw him hit his sister. “I don’t know why it happens,” he tells me, looking only at the television. “I can’t control it, can’t see it coming, I just get angry, sometimes.”

He breaks things.

We stand in the lights of the subway car, close together although it is late and the car is empty, falling into each other with each bump and curve and turn and stop. His eyes go transparent, the pale green-blue washed out by the bright bright lights, and I can see through him and into him and he is mine and I love him and I want him but I know he is not safe.

I bike down roads less than a mile from home but they are foreign now. I go faster and faster, imagining monsters on my tail, fighting to get away, fighting the urge to go to his house and throw rocks at his window and cry that I want him and need him and beg him to hold me. I cannot go there, cannot do that, cannot let him know because even if he loves me, even if he wants me, I cannot have him. I pedal, and I cry, and I pray, seriously for the first time in my life, that this hurt can go away, that this love can run its course and leave me because I am too feeble to fight him and to weak to let go. I must not love a boy who is dangerous.

I feel like a hand-height section of my torso around the vicinity of my bellybutton has been filled with knives. I know I'd been saying for the past few days that I'd rather have the cramps than the soreness that precedes it, but at this point I'd go back in an instant.

At the very least, now I'm working on my math pset instead of going to a physics recitation. Which kind of counts as being productive. But, mostly, I just hurt.

That was written a while ago. Now it's much, much later, and I'm back at the dorm, and I'm pretending that it's still the 28th because it isn't 6 am yet. Being silly on Bonfire is a heck of a lot of fun. James continues to be highly ticklish, and Ruby is continuing her efforts to learn what girls James thinks are cute (so far--there is at least one computer science girl at AIS who I also know who is attractive. Also, James doesn't want a trophy wife when he grows up).

In other news, Victor's hair is incredibly fluffy, I babble about things I shouldn't when I get tired, and Nicole squees about gay boys and cats. I squee about astronomy, though (not, as Nicole thought, astrology. Good god...), so it kind of works out.

Now, I really should sleep. Even if sleep is for the weak.

Someone said that in 13 Days, which we watched for my foreign policy class. "Sleep is for the weak." So the statement could not have originated with Becton.

Too Many Things

Ken finally decided to ask for my student evaluations from this summer. This means that I have to finish writing them (I have three left at this point), which is kind of a problem, because it interferes with what time I have to goof off and be thoroughly unproductive (which is actually a surprising quantity. Well, that or I've gotten very use to taking advantage of what little empty times I can eke out during the day).

I'm with my physics study group right now. People suddenly started saying "derp derp derp" and it sounded like rain.

Now I'm still being unproductive. I have to do a "library assignment" for chem (Can we use the internet to search for journals? Yes we can!), and finish a two page essay for my foreign policy class tomorrow (and by "finish" I also mean "start."). And then there's the math pset due on Thursday that I probably won't start until Wednesday night.

In other news, I'm waiting for the day that I go to call Jason and accidentally contact Ken. Because they're alphabetically next to each other on my phone, and I'm really not that observant of an individual.

Now, I should probably go and be productive. Because that would probably be a good idea.

I'm really really hungry right now. 19:30 is a very long way away. But eating now would be stupid, because I have gym class at 14:00, which isn't very long from now. I think I'm veering into the level of "things no one actually cares to read about," but I can't think of any actually good stories.

Lowlight of 8th Grade English

I found, also, the poem I wrote describing my depressive episode during the winter of that year.

Down


You feel down,
Down so low it feels like there isn't any up.
It feels like the hurt
Of all 6 billion people in the world
Has been dropped
On your shoulders,
And it's weighing you down,
Even though you don't know what it is.
You cry and cry,
For no reason, no reason at all, it seems.
You stand on the wall and look down.
You are sad, but somehow can't feel a think.
A voice in your head says jump,
Fall from this wall that you stand on so high
Above a world that can't understand you;
Fall from the people who never even try to listen.
You run from the voice,
But running from yourself you can't get very far,
And it follows you,
Taunting that you are too stubborn to ignore it,
And you are scared,
'Cause even though it says jump you don't want to,
But you wonder,
If you listened,
How long would it be before someone realized you were gone
And that you were never coming back?
You look down at the water,
And your heart says walk until you are gone,
And the voice says let go of everything,
But a little tiny piece of you,
The piece that is the real, lasting you,
Says stay,
Stay in the world that hurts you so much,
Because it's all that you have.
So you sit on the wall,
And cry until it feels like you've cried forever,
Like you've cried out your brain and your heart and everything that is you,
And you turn around and leave.
Go back to your room,
Pretend nothing happened for a little while,
Because you are smart,
And your brain is good,
And nothing can be wrong with you.
So you hide it,
Until you can turn around and cry again,
Because you are scared of yourself,
And you think,
What if I took that razor over there and dragged it across my wrist?
Would I feel better, then?
What if I pushed this hammock so hard that I fell and cracked my head into a
Million tiny pieces?
What about then?
And all those thoughts,
of ending it now,
Freak you out so bad that you can barely think,
But you can somehow still feel the weight of 6 billion frowns on your shoulders.
And you bite your hand,
So hard that your teeth hurt,
And the mark lasts for days,
Because it makes it all go away.
The real pain, the kind you can feel, makes the hurt stop inside,
And you can breath again.
You're still down,
But somehow
It's better now.
It hurts later, but what else can you do?
'Cause the pain makes it better,
So you can stand back up,
And go on until your next down,
When you need to get back up again.
And who knows what will happen then?
Who can say how far you will go,
And how much you will be able to hold back,
Next time?
Next time,
What if it really is
The End?



This was the poem that got me temporarily kicked out of school for being a danger to myself and others.

I wrote, to accompany the poem (and so as to avoid the mess that occurred the last time it was seen), a letter to my English teacher.

The letter is as follows:

This poem is a part of my past. I am no longer afraid of the downs mention in it. I did some therapy and all that, and I am better now. I am no longer a threat to myself. However, the down part of my life is as much a part of me as the good times with my friends and the embarrassing moments in and out of school. It is something I must look back on, not fondly, but as a lesson. That's why I chose to write a poem about it. It seemed like an event that needed telling. Because of the experience, I am more afraid of things (blood, height, and deep water) but it also makes me more aware of myself. The poem is me, but it is not me. I am not "Girl with a Problem," I am myself, I am my life, and "my problem" is no longer even mine. I now handle downs the normal way, with chocolate and a friend (which, by the way, works much better!). Don't worry. I've already been signed off (twice!) as a normal teenager (assuming you don't count my genius, gorgeosity, and sheer superiority*). I hope that you will not judge me for what I used to be. I am the same person you have known all year. Thank you for understanding.


Sincerely,
Tea


*I hope you understand that was sarcasm. I was demonstrating the typical teenage belief of the world revolving around me. Plus, I couldn't resist being so self-congratulatory. Sorry.

Highlights of 8th Grade English

One of the fun parts of packing for college is that I've been going through every thing I own. This includes schoolwork, straight back through 8th grade, when I first started saving things. I guess I get sentimental about anything I pour that much time into, which, in my opinion, certainly makes sense.

I found a brief graphic memoir from that year. The scanner isn't exactly functional at the moment, so y'all are going to have to cope with me transcribing the visuals as well.

Frame 1: "MOON" [image of a crescent moon, identical to the one in Starry Night, which was above my desk even then], "By Tessa"


Frame 2: "Gym class: it's some people's favorite time of day, but for others, it's a NIGHTMARE! "(Nightmare is written in squiggly, scary looking letters)

Frame 3: "I am a member of the second group"

Frame 4: [Figure labeled 'me' is in a push up position, with lots of wobbly lines around her arms. A male figure is next to me, also in the pushup position, with no squiggly lines. A teacher stands nearby, labeled "too fit teacher"]. The teacher is saying "Down! Up! One!" I'm thinking "But I can't get up!" and the other student is thinking "this is FUN"

Frame 5: "You'd think I'd at least have friends to complain with, but no! All I had was Barbie!" [I'm sitting with my knees drawn up to my chest while a ponytailed girl, presumably Barbie stands angrily next to me, arms folded. Two other girls are standing nearby with their arms around each other's shoulders]. "Oh my god! Did you see Tessa's shorts? Eww!" says the speech bubble for one of the friends. Barbie is saying "Gosh, Tessa! You only ran 5.8 miles! You were supposed to run 5.86. I'll have to tell Mrs. M!" "The teacher's pet was my new BFF," reads the caption at the bottom.

Frame 6: "I asked the guidance counselors to switch my class." [Three heads, in imitation of the gifted students's counselor, the general 8th grade counselor, and the one counselor I was actually comfortable talking to, were interspersed with the following text] "no no no no no no NO no no NO!"
"I was stuck." (the last is in a nested frame at the bottom right).

Frame 7: "So one day in March" [Mrs. M stands with a basketball under her arm]. Her speech bubble reads "Run around the really big field!"

Frame 8: [An aerial view of the field is shown. One fast person is out front, indicated by a circle with a bunch of lines trailing behind it. The rest of the class is in a large pack. Barbie and Me are both labeled near the end]. Barbie's thought bubble snakes out behind her and reads "Gosh, Tessa, I <3 Mrs. M. Do you think she'll give me an A+?" My thought bubble reads "AHH!"

Frame 9: [I've caught up to the rest of the group. My thought bubble reads "Yes! I lost her." There's a trio of boys immediately in front of me surrounded by the words "Do it!", "Dude!", "Yeah!", "Dude!". In front of them, the pair of mean girls from before are surrounded by "giggle!" and "hahaha."]

Frame 10: "Then, the guy in front of me moons me! (and everyone else behind him)." [the three boys have turned to two. One of them has the waistband of his gym shorts below a behind that has been censored by a black starburst]

Frame 11: "My poor eyes!" [An eye is illustrate]. "That was something I NEVER wanted them to see!"

Frame 12: My face turned bright red [a blushing girl with shoulder length hair (the same me I'd drawn the rest of the time) is shown]

Frame 13: I jog past the two boys. My thought bubble reads "Maybe if I run fast enough they won't notice me." The friend of the mooner, though, has the speech bubble "Man! Did you see her FACE?" Nested in the bottom right of the frame is "Oh well."

Frame 14: "I got back first. Mrs. M hadn't even seen. Not that I said anything--I was too embarrassed."

Frame 15: "The image had been seared into my brain. I was scarred forever." [a thought bubble of the butt, still censored]

Frame 16: "I told the kids on my bus after school." [My younger sister, my friend, and our neighbor with his emo haircut sit listening to me. I look despondent.] My speech bubble reads "And then...he mooned me."

Frame 17: "The thought it was FUNNY!" [Five giggling heads are scattered around the frame in various directions, including Mr. Emohair. They are surrounded by a very large number of "Ha"s]. "They were rolling on the floor."

Frame 18: "No one understands my traumatic experience." [I stare out the window of the bus, grumpily]

Frame 19: A small image of a crescent moon on a dark background.

Visits with the Universe

I greatly enjoyed my time with Priya last night. She's fun--more friend than child, I think.

I'm trying to work out the Trader Joe's shuttle schedule. Well, trying to find it on the internet. Supposedly, if I'm outside of my dorm at noon, it should magically appear, but that looks like the spring's schedule, and I don't know that it continues to be true.

As it turns out, I have too much work to take time out to go grocery shopping. I'm pretty sure that I have too much work to go to the free tango class that Jason wanted to go to tonight. I've been reading my chem textbook since Priya left this morning, and that was more than three hours ago.

In other news, I'm doing laundry again. I really need to buy more underwear so I can do laundry less often, because I still have plenty of clothing left.

I actually spent a good chunk of time yesterday talking to a group that was entirely female--Sydney, Priya,  Nicole, Ruby, and Chelly. It was kind of surprising, and the fact that it's surprising is, on the whole, rather strange. I guess my social life has shifted more from high school than I'd noticed up until now.

Fun Times

I'm really liking this "college" thing. I stayed up until god knows how late last night (interestingly, I also know how late. It was 4:45) doing vaguely crazy things in the wee hours of the morning. I spent my evening first at my dorm eating liquid nitrogen ice cream, then dinner, then doing a couple of math problems (/sitting on the couch and giggling like a madwoman while a number of my male dorm mates did math problems).

I'm trying to tell this in a reverse chronology, which would be confusing enough without taking into account that fact that I am running on a very small quantity of sleep and can't quite think straight.

I ran into Jason again before the water war--he was at my dorm (which will now and forever be known as Incidental) helping to fill water balloons. One girl was directing everyone about, and, in an attempt to improve my usefulness, she and Jason decided to attempt to teach me to tie water balloons.

Okay, it's 10:47, which means that friendly toast is supposedly going to be served on Incidental's first floor. I'll be back.

Collegecollegecollegecollegecollege

My darling blogosphere,

For some reason, I have been too busy having fun to write you messages glorifying the events of a given day. Also, so much happens in any given day that it becomes very difficult to compress it down in a manner that doesn't involve me spending hours writing it down.

We had a volunteering day today, so I prepared and served food at a women's shelter. I feel a bit guilty about the fact that I have little to no interest in continuing to perform community service, but at the same time, I do have reasons. Shelters are, in my mind, like bandages. They're really important, and, if one gets hurt, they're extremely helpful and necessary and important--but they don't actually heal anything. The root cause, the injury, isn't being dealt with. This is basically the entirety of the reason that I'd rather get involved in political activism than in community service. Yes, politics sucks, but I do think that sorting out issues within our government, and working at macroscale approaches to solving crises, is a better option than turning away as many women as you can feed every morning.

If that makes any sense at all.

But this argument only holds if I actually get myself involved in doing something. And, for whatever reason, there don't seem to be any student groups devoted to causes. I suspect I'm going to have to look off-campus for this sort of thing, because, as a freshman, I am not yet ready to gallivant about and actually start things, interesting as that could possibly be.

The activities expo, though? Lots of stuff. Should have been tons of fun, but having so many people hawk things to me makes me uncomfortable. Particularly when I accidentally made eye contact with a guy manning the pro-life booth. And then he started talking to me and tried to get me to come to a picnic and shook my hand before I realized that he wanted to take away my rights. It made me very, very uncomfortable. Which probably means that I'm prejudiced against anti-choicers, but you know what? I have every right to hate a man who thinks he and his unproven deity deserve to have control over my body and those of all other women.

Sketchy Bowls of Coffee

I have officially arrived at AIS. And it is, to say the least, completely and utterly awesome. My dorm is really, really awesome. The people are really varied. Some of them, at first, were somewhat intimidatingly strange, but I'm already adjusting to thinking of the oddballs as "normal," and I think it wouldn't take very long for me to start thinking of them as friends.

Anyways, I'm trapped here for the day due to the whole hurricane beeswax. I was sitting lazily in the lounge right outside my room. Then I wandered into someone else's room, where she talked about her lab job and what things are available for painting. Then Yuma showed up, and I briefly communicated with him, then left him and Victor sitting in the lounge when I went up a floor to an even that is being called "Physics and Coffee."

I haven't seen any coffee yet, but there are donuts, and there appears to be some sort of donut-shaped cake. Hopefully Yuma is managing himself alright. I suspect he's capable of that sort of thing.

There are a couple of girls here who got temped in other dorms but have pretty much been spending all of their time at my dorm. For some reason, I find them bothersome, but I think that's just because over-earnestness annoys me. At least, I think that's the problem.

Hopefully the physics starts soon, or I have the opportunity to start eating the donuts.

There is an upright piano in the lounge. An international student whose name I've forgotten is doing math on the board. Something about number theory and bose distributions...COFFEE TIME

Every Day, It's a Gettin Closer

Movie night last night. We watched The Prestige, which was completely amazing.

My arms are sore, particularly the insides of my forearms. I think it's from doing pull-ups on the diving board yesterday, but regardless of what it's from, it makes typing incredibly uncomfortable.

I miss Julie and Cammie, but at least Julie will be back soon. Snuggling with her with would have been a good antidote to the moie-night-induced "last time I did this I had a cuddle buddy" issue, but it is what it is, and I'm fine.

I'm through the roof excited for AIS. Just like before I left for RSI this summer, I'm spending so much energy being excited that I'm not bothering to savor what I have. But, then, there's not all that much to savor beyond solitude, and I've certainly been savoring plenty of that. Well, there's Nyx, who is currently at her second to last day of work, but I'm probably going to sleep over at her house tonight, and I'll be bothering the heck out of her these coming days, so I'm not missing anything right this second. Julie is in Michigan visiting Timothy, and Cammie is already at college, and Kathrya is long gone, so no dice there. Yuma is around, but I'll see him in a week anyways. There are a few other people, but no one that I'm desperate to see, no one I'm going to be striving to keep up with in the coming years.

Just my family, really, but I spent two weeks ensconced with them, and, well, they're my family. I'll keep in touch with them, and, really, I'll always make time to see them.

I'm ready to go, and I'm excited, and, unlike last time, I'm not going to feel like I'm missing out on anything at home. So this time, I think, all is well.

New and Old and In-Between

I had never been to Dairy Queen prior to last night. For some reason, it strikes me as a midwestern kind of thing, but I honestly don't know why.

A good crowd came bouldering last night: me (duh), Cammie, Nyx, Argon, Nimue, Kerry, Yuma, and Annika. Granted, I personally didn't do all that much in the way of actual bouldering--it should be clear by now that athletic activity is not my strongsuit--but I did make an attempt, and I did succeed in hauling myself up a few of the V-naught level walls and falling gracelessly down onto the mats.

I ended up sitting for probably more than an hour in a powwow circle with Yuma, Argon, and Nimue. It had been quite some time since I'd talked to Argon and Nimue, so that was certainly nice. It was strange to hear about high school again, because it feels like graduation was a lifetime ago. The senior summer flew by, but, at the same time, it feels like this is the only existence I've ever known, if that makes even the slightest bit of sense.

I'm crossing my fingers for Argon getting into AIS. He deserves it if anybody does (though he is on my mental list of "people who might end up ditching us for that other, extremely geographically proximate school. That boy really ought to actually join science bowl, because I think his help is going to be desperately needed.

In other news, both he and Nimue are taking bucketfuls of AP classes and working on college apps and pretty much sitting right where I was a year ago (well, slightly different--Argon has a more rigorous schedule than I did, Nimue's is less so). It feels so distant, though. I'm a bit worried about getting to college and diving into schoolwork again. I'm worried my mind has forgotten how to be fully intellectually engaged.

Think how bad it would be if I'd taken the fellowship and waited two years. That no doubt would have been a nightmare.

After both bouldering and DQing, Cammie went back to her house to pack up the car and, in the morning, leave.

She's our first departure. Well, technically our second, but no one had thought that Kathrya wouldn't be coming back. I hadn't even had sufficient time to get used to the haircut, but I suppose that's what skype is for. Even so, I already miss Cammie and her silliness--but I know that once I get to AIS, home will be the last thing on my mind.

Besides, it's going to be good to be somewhere new (well, maybe not 'new', but at least not here). I'd gotten way too used to having someone's arm around me on these outings, and I'm not sure now is the time to be thinking about--well, I'm sure you all know.

Ah, well. It is what it is, as always. I think I'm going to try to find a watch and some goggles and swim some laps. It'd be good for me.

Stuffity Stuff Stuff Stuffs

Finally came up with a name for college of choice: the  Academic Institute of Schooliness, abbreviated to AIS.

I'm currently helping Cammie pack for school. Well, I'm using my computer and laughing at occasional funniness. Annika is rooting through all of Cammie's drawers and digging out everything worth packing. Now Annika has given up on that and is rooting through Cammie's drawers looking for things to take.

I'm going to attempt to go bouldering tonight. I strongly suspect that I am far to weak and pathetic to succeed at this sort of activity, but I'm still going to spend $7 trying. It's also another chance to bond with my wonderful high school buddies, and I'll get to see Nyx, which is a particularly wonderful perk.

I'm going to get off of the computer, now.

Visitation with Rickling

Gunnar came to visit today. I've been, of late, focusing on (in Gunnar's words) firming my social ties, or something along the lines of that, with my high school friends. This means that Gunnar got hauled over to Cammie's house (he declared that Cammie is "interesting," and it sounded like he meant "in a good way" and not "ummm") to watch her pack. Cammie, after all, is leaving town to go to college on Friday, which is, as you might be aware, very, very soon.

The three of us eventually became hungry, and as Cammie is not in the possession of particularly much food (this is a side effect of getting home from Europe less than three days ago), we decided to go out for lunch. This was my first (and, in all likelihood, last) visit to the Shake Shack. Not that there's anything wrong with the place--the food was delicious, and there was an absolutely perfect quantity of it--but I don't go out to eat much, and I'm not going to be here for very many more days anyways. But I did eat a relatively guilt-free meal (I seem to have dropped half of what I gained this summer, which means that most of it was medication-induced bloat, which makes me extremely happy).

Gunnar's family also showed up at the Shake Shack, so I got to see his adorable younger brother again. As we were leaving, we also saw Lucas and Tamir. Cammie stopped to talk to them for a while--well, mostly to talk to Lucas. Gunnar and I stood awkwardly behind Cammie for a minute, uncertain of how the whole 'conversation' thing ought to proceed. Though Tamir's conversation was also limited, I believe that he's less cognizant of a need to avoid social situations in which one is unwanted, so he more or less ignored the awkwardness. Anyways, I said I wanted to call Yuma, so Gunnar and I went outside. I sat on the ledge of the truck's bed and he stood nearby while I scrolled through my phone.

Although I wasn't in possession of Yuma's phone number (Yuma, as it turns out, is not in possession of a phone), we decided to crash his house anyways, despite the fact that none of us, least of all Gunnar, knew its precise location. We drove around Paperclip on our way there, and Gunnar, funnily enough, was extremely impressed by the amount of lab space and the number of AP courses offered--despite the fact that I've always been very jealous of the kids I know who attended magnet schools. I think perhaps the moral of that is that high school sucks for everyone, so the grass is always greener...or something like that.

Anyways, then Cammie and I spent a good amount of time trying to explain to Gunnar what it's like to go to school with stupid people. One of his most significant questions was "how many of them are there?" to which we more or less said "normal distribution." We then started relating the antics of Umber's younger sisters and various other misdeeds. When I apologized to Gunnar later for dragging him along on these trips, he said he was glad to meet my friends because they "showed [him] what going to school with stupid people is like."

"Are you implying my friends are stupid?" I asked.

"No, but Cammie had lots of good stories."

I ended up driving to the approximate location where I used to let Yuma out of the car, then we went to the nearest house and rang the doorbell. No one answered, so Gunnar suggested I take out my laptop and try to get onto someone's wifi and start gchatting Yuma, which I did, but then Yuma came walking up the street with his dog.

As it turns out, Yuma's house is located rather farther back. We sat around there for a while, chattering about randomness--it was good to see Yuma after two months, and it's fun to talk about college with someone who is actually going to be at college with me.

We'd been there for about ten minutes when Yuma mentioned that Peter was supposed to be picking him up to take him to Brian's house in five minutes. I more or less flipped out--this would poke a huge hole in the "avoid Peter" plan of action--and Yuma ended up canceling on Brian to chill with the rest of us (apparently after an entire summer of Brian and Peter time, a change was appreciated), which meant that I drove over to Cammie's house sitting four-across in my pickup truck (le gasp). Julie arrived soon thereafter, and not to long after that I had to bring Gunnar over to Lucas's house and head home for dinner.

All in all, it was a fun day, and it was definitely good to see Gunnar. Now, one more day with Cammie, then a few days of hanging out, then packing while hanging out, and then...college. Holy shiznit.