No Matter Where You Go You Stay Where You Are

As some of my older readers know, when I am not in the mood to generate a current post, I reach into the past. For today, I'll go back to an old English mindbender, written on September 11th, 2008.

The Mindbender is: No matter how far you go, you stay where you are.

A Summary:

People are boring, and constant, and never ever change, and I think that whole concept is obnoxious. My introduction is only two sentences long because I am lazy. Also, I'm using the first person, because I'm cool like that.

The Palace Thief is a book. It involves a big Roman history competition and togas, but all anybody cares about is that Patrick Dempsey is in the movie. I suppose that I can let Cammie keep her weird George Clooney thing if I can have Dempsey. Anyways, the cheating boy in the competition grows up to be a cheating, good for nothing grown up. He stays where he is. Isn't that a great example?

I think the cheating boy is a dickwad. I'm going to try to pretend that he's an isolated dickwad.

Oh, darn, Sarah Bareilles says that people don't change either. Since it's set to music, she must be right. Wait- Sarah's actually talking about moving around in the literal sense. But it's a song, so we'll pretend that it's figurative.

People are always trying to change, so the mindbender is wrong. I know that it's actually right, but I am going to be an optimistic for as long as I possibly can.

The End

Interestingly, even though the mindbender was written on September 11th, I make no mention of September 11th, despite the fact that it is a somewhat important date. To see if I even thought about the historical significance (twin towers! ahhh!), I went through my old journals to find something. Below is my September 11th entry:

Still Crampy. Still bleeding profusely from my vagina. It is muy disgusto.

Mom's going to the hospital tomorrow to have her uterus scraped out. She has to be anesthesized and shit. It's kinda annoying, but standard procedure. Intellectually, I'm sure she'll be fine, but I can't shake this odd foreboding feeling.

Though that could be more related to my audition tomorrow. Turns out there'll probably be only one piano, so that guaranteed spot- basically unattainable. Not that I won't try, but I'm somewhat lacking, confidence wise.

But it's alright. Worst case, I'll apologize to the set painters for my illness and join up. I'll go once or twice a week and paint out my sorrows, then try not to cry when everyone walks out and they're having fun and Ryan is being sexy and wahhhh!!!!

Well, that did not help.

I need to go to sleep I'll try to dream of D (I think?) from music theory, and hope that Mario turns out to be wonderful (and takes the train).

See, better already.

As I'm sure you noticed, this, too, contains no mention of terrorists. My aversion to discussion of world disasters seems to have been present for at least a year.

Interestingly, the mindbender is saved as 5.doc, but is titled mindbender 4.

How very peculiar.

Nails, Screws, and the Verbification Thereof

Genie and I went to the high school and painted sets for Grease. Normally, we set up shop in the blackbox, but, today, we were out on the big stage, painting a bed white (tomorrow, we'll add the pink heart design, or PHD, not to be confused with the webcomic of the same name).

We sat on the bed and started filling in the etched heart with primer. "Haha!" I said. "I got the heart."

"Hmph," she responded, filling in the other side.

"Hey," I said, painting faster.

Then, at the exact same time, with no prior communication, we said "heart race!"

We dissolved into laughter.

"I love that we have the same sense of humor," I said.

"Transylvanian ostriches and all," she responded.

On the floor, Genie found a screw. "Look, Tea," she said. "A nail!"

"No, that's a screw."

"Same thing."

"No, a screw is twisty, and a nail is not."

"What?"

"Screws go in with screw drivers, nails with hammers."

"Oh. I always thought that screws were little and nails were big."

"They aren't."

"So I gathered."

A few minutes later, as we passed by a techie making yet another inappropriate joke (they do that a lot), I poked Genie. "I definitely should have made some joke about screwing and nailing."

She laughed. "Probably. Too late now, though."

Regardless, she definitely should have made some comment like "I always thought screwing and nailing were the same thing..."

Alas, another opportunity for inappropriate humor, wasted.

In other news, I finished The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, which was both enjoyable and interesting. Then I read two more of those ridiculous Eliosa James romances. The movie I watched tonight, Like Water for Chocolate, was actually even more ridiculous. At one point, a character became so impassioned from eating quail prepared while the protagonista lusted after her sister's husband, that she ran out to the outhouse to get herself off, but her skin became so hot that she lit in on fire and was rescued by a band of revolutionaries (they rode off into the sunset, making out on a horse, while she was totally starkers). It. Was. Weird. But kind of awesome, as well.

Also, I may possibly be seeing Sturken on Friday. We'll see if I can make it out without getting all spastically into him again. Heck, I'll be happy if I escape with my slight Mario obsession and burgeoning Ryan interest intact.

The Ferris Wheel

Nyx hates ferris wheels. She is not afraid of them, but, for some strange reason, she absolutely loathes them. However, Cormac took it upon himself (with the support of Benny and I) to get Nyx onto the ferris wheel.

Cormac failed. Nyx is, after all, an extremely stubborn person. At the last minute, Nyx ran away and Benny chased after her, leaving behind Ryan, Cormac, Lysander, Johannes, Benny's little sister, Benny's sister's friend, and I. Rather than trailing Nyx (which I have been known to do) I stuck it out, granting her and Benny some quality time. Fortunately, I managed to end up next to Cormac, across from Ryan, and diagonally across from Lysander. Ryan and I both sat with our legs over to one side so there was absolutely no physical contact. I think our knees bumped maybe once (translation: they did bump once)

Johannes got stuck with the two little girls. Ryan yelled over at him, "Johannes, you're such a Dad right now!"

"No, dude, I planned it like this," he said. Lord only knows why he would do such a thing.

"So, how's the phone search going?" somebody asked Lysander.

"Oh, pretty well. I sent a text message offering a two hundred dollar reward."

Ryan looked shocked. "Seriously?"

"Well, I actually just said 'reward if found,' so I wouldn't actually have to cough up the money."

"Is the phone actually worth two hundred dollars?" asked Cormac.

Lysander shrugged. "Probably not. But it's my phone."

As we neared the top, I looked over to the stage. Everyone was leaving, and I'd missed my sister singing.

Cormac looked down as well. When he saw someone carrying a large stuffed animal, he remembered a joke he'd attempted earlier. "Imagine seeing one of your teachers here, carrying some huge prize."

"Imagine if Mrs. V was on this ferris wheel. That would be a safety hazard," said Ryan. I didn't laugh. Fat jokes are a) rude b)disproportionately directed at women, and thus sexist and c)remind me of Livny (it's a type of russian pig), who always told them about the other orchestra teacher during biology.

I can't really remember anything else from the conversation, but I do remember enjoying it, and I definitely talked some, because I remember Ryan laughing at something I said in this way where he seemed to think about it a moment, understand it, and then decide that it was funny, as if the little comment truly deserved to be laughed at. I feel like that happened more than once, but I can't remember anything I said for the whole ferris wheel ride.

When we got back down and found Nyx and Benny, we discovered that, because Johannes had made them hold his popcorn, they hadn't actually been able to go into the funhouse, and had instead wandered around aimlessly for the duration of our ride.

an aside: check out this link.

Italian Festival

Last night I went to the Italian Festival with (prepare for a slew of new nicknames) Nyx (who you know), Benny, Ryan, Johannes (like Gutenberg, who invented the printing press to make books *hint hint*), Cormac (you know that's what they should have called the other brother), Lysander, and Nick. We saw Cormac's brother, Cameron, as well. Anyways, I have a whole bunch of stories to share, so I will spread them over the coming days, just like I did with the SHP.

We spent a lot of time just standing around. The laws of inertia and magnetism appear to apply very strongly to them. The will remain at rest unless an outside force makes them move, and they have a mild magnetic attraction to Nyx, since she is the only person capable of making them move. They also had a tendency to split off into groups, with Lysander and Benny vanishing temporarily, which bugged Nyx to no end. And spending any protracted amount of time with Lysander really introduces me to the concept of wing-woman. But he's really not that bad, so I suppose I'll manage.

At one point last night, I was standing with Nyx and Cormac when I saw a familiar face approaching. I tried to remember who it was. A gym teacher, maybe? No, then Nyx would recognize him. As soon as Cormac gave a very friendly hello!, I realized it was our youth group advisor from last year.

"It took me like ten seconds to recognize you," I said.

"Really?" He started counting on his fingers.

Then, Cameron popped up behind him. "Hi!"

"Hey! How you been?" said the youth group advisor.

"Pretty good."

Nyx, who had wandered away, then came back with Benny.

"This is Benny," said Cormac.

"Hello."

"Hi," said Benny. "I want to call you Mark, for some reason."

"I like Mark. Mark works."

"Okay, then. Hi, Mark."

Cameron laughed. "His name is Chad."

I laughed too, since his name isn't actually Chad.

"Should I call you Chad?" said Benny.

"Chad's fine too. It's all good."

"Hmm. How about Chad Mark?"

"Now that is a great name."

Casual Fridays

Or, in my case, shoeless Fridays.

I just don't like wearing, shoes, okay? It isn't as if most people even notice, and when they do, they laugh, and think that I'm slightly insane, but whatever.

I did, however, wear shoes to the gala (which I went to with Nyx) last night. We had to conversations with other people while we were there. In the first, we ran into Kerry and Lysander.

Nyx and I walked up to them, Nyx started talking a bit, and I stood there kind of awkwardly, because the conversation wasn't really related to me at all. After a minute, give or take 45 seconds, she decided to introduce me.

"Oh, guys, this is Tea. Tea, this is Lysander."

"Hi, it's nice to meet you," I said.

"You too," he responded.

We both stood awkwardly for a moment while I tried to determine whether I should attempt a handshake, since his hands were full, but it felt rude to just stand there, so the silence dragged on for a bit, until Nyx opened her mouth to talk and Kerry and I interrupted simultaneously, him with "I know Tea already" and me with "I already know Kerry."

I checked out of the conversation at that point.

As we went up the stairs, we passed Ryan, Ida, and Cammie. I said, "Hi, hi, hi," my voice growing progressively higher pitched with each, and Ida, who was third, laughed.

"Hi, Tea."

"Hello," I replied, greeting her again, as Nyx and I continued up the stairs.

"Oh," Ida called, "are you wearing shoes?"

"Of course!"

"I don't believe it," said Cammie.

"Let me see," Ida ordered.

I swung my leg over the banister, flip-flop and all. "See? Shoe!"

"Good job."

Unfortunately, I think I managed to lose Nyx's socks at some point during this conversation, which I really do feel quite badly about.

---------

I leave you with my final essay using my midterm planning from Western Humanities, this essay about Historical Values.

During the Renaissance, they like Renaissance Men. This is because this era was horribly repressive towards women, so they didn't want to be Renaissance Women. Also, Renaissance Men knew a whole lot of stuff, like Da Vinci, who was awesome. As far as art goes, there was Michelangelo, who spent years of his life on his back (painting a ceiling, of course). They were also really religious, so Michelangelo painted a lot of overly muscled angels. The government was decentralized, which is a big word, so should be used frequently in essays, so the church took up the decentralized slack with the powerful, decentralized pope, who did many powerful decentralized things, because decentralization is decentralizingly important.

In Rome, they were big on Pietas, which, unfortunately, has nothing to do with Tas flavored pie. They did their duty and had a big army, and the had Gravitas, which we still have too, since I have yet to float away. Gravitas is also exemplified in the Star Wars Storm Troopers, but I have no idea how, since I can't remember what Gravitas is, but it probably has something to do with their sick awesome artificial gravity. Dignitas is like dignity, but spelled wrong, according to my spell checker, and it caused fighting and class separation. This is why my eschewing of dignity and not wearing shoes is good and will end all fighting and class separation.

The End.

Dracula

is officially the most boring book ever.

Today, I had my A.P. music theory exam, which went better than I expected, but I suppose I'll have to wait and see. Afterwards, Avon, Nyx and I (I has good grammar, see!) went to the diner and got lunch. We stayed there for about an hour, bought next to nothing, and then spent ten minutes sitting at the table waiting for them to come take out money because we forgot that you're supposed to go up there to pay. It was rather comical, actually.

Then, I had about an hour at home before I had to go back to school for a gala rehearsal. However, it turned out that there weren't enough people, so the conductor canceled the entire number and I got to leave early. Unfortunately, there was still an hour and fifteen minutes to go before my parents could come to pick me up. So, I wandered the school for a while before settling down in the lobby of the auditorium, where it was nice and quiet. The only activity for about half an hour was Josh repeatedly walking out one door of the auditorium, past me without noticing I was there, then back into a different one.

After I had read about two chapters, activity increased. First, Ryan walked by, apparently giving a tour ("Are there separate wings for each grade?""Um, kind of. Well, no, actually."). Then, Adrian and Jun walked by, talking about some complicated math problem. I assumed engineering team had just gotten out, and thought nothing of it. Then, to my surprise, Mario, Irving, Theo, and a junior whose name I don't know came walking down the hall, discussing another, equally complicated sounding math problem.

I tried to read for a while more, but I could still hear them distantly talking, and really, eavesdropping is far more interesting than Dracula, and I still had 45 minutes to kill, so I picked up my book and strolled nonchalantly down the hallway. As I got closer, I could hear Theo talking to our science research teacher, Dr. Breese ("I have all sixes," he frequently reminds her). I talked to her for a minute before walking around Mario, Irving, and the unknown junior and settling down on a bench to listen in. Unfortunately, their conversation was entirely boring and related to replaying some problem from their A.P. test, and when Mario finally realized I was there and talked to me for about a minute and a half, that conversation was also boring. Really, the only entertaining thing was that after Mario left, an unknown freshman asked the unknown junior something about Mario, and they came to the conclusion that Mario is "like, a genius or something."

Beyond that, my day was uneventful.

I leave you with another essay.

One man can have a great effect on society. However, apparently one woman can't, seeing as I don't reference any females at all in this essay. As a form of protesting my own lack of gender neutral pronouns, I will not post this essay, and will instead leave you with this, a study that I really, really don't want to believe.

What is strange, uncomfortable, and really long?

This is another story courtesy of Nyx and Tamir, her lab partner.

Setting: Chem class. Both are seated at desks, with Tamir's legs reaching across to the horizontal supports of Nyx's.

Nyx, looking down: Jeez! Your feet a huge!

Tamir: That's not the only thing that's huge.

Nyx shoots him an incredulous look.

Tamir: 10 inches, baby!

When Nyx told me this at lunch, I laughed for a very long while. I also remarked on how ridiculous it is that her lab partner has freakishly huge feet (probably because he is tall enough to make me look like a dwarf) when my lab partner, who is at least 6', has feet that are smaller than mine. How can his feet be smaller than mine? How can he run multiple miles everyday and still stay upright rather than falling due to lack of support? It's entirely unfair. If my feet were even a half size smaller, it would be so much easier to find shoes!

I also realized that it is utterly absurd that my lab partner and I managed to have an entire conversation about shoe size without making any inappropriate jokes. I will attribute this to the fact that I don't generally make dirty jokes, and he probably wouldn't want to make any jokes about his being "small."

I also figured that Nyx would want to know that I now have a picture of Ryan (the cute cellist in pit, as opposed to the creepy cellist who wrote Tierra a symphony) on my phone, because Tawny took a picture of him using my cellphone and set it as my background (although I got her to change it back). He was making a very serious cello-playing face, which I thought was rather funny, but I only just now discovered that Tawny actually went back into my phone and deleted the picture, so, um, I lied. Sorry.

And the answer to the question in the title is a court case.

Description courtesy of Opmin.