To New York

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

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

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

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

Lab Partner

This takes place last weekend, after class ended. Siya, the teacher, dismissed everyone, and the other eleven kids raced towards the door. I, per usual, had to pack up my bag. Rube, my lab partner, had already slung his backpack over his shoulder and started out.

"Ahh! Rube, wait for me," I called.

"Okay, okay."

I resumed packing my bag before glancing over my shoulder at him. His head was all of a foot behind me, and I, expecting him further back, promptly panicked. "Eeep! too close."

He moved over to my other side, granting me a few more inches of space. "Better?"

"Much." We walked out the door and down the hall to the elevator, following another sophomore whom I've never actually heard talk. Right when the doors started to close, we heard running footsteps and a yelled, "wait!"

Quiet boy reached for the *door open* button, but not fast enough. The door closed, and he said "Damnit," but entirely without passion, and resumed staring silently at the door. I found the entire situation hysterical and began giggling madly, falling back against the wall of the elevator.

We reached the bottom, got out, and kept talking. Rube made some relation of the situation to someone named Optimus Prime.

"Who's that? Did he invent prime numbers or something?" I asked.

"No," Rube said, looking at me concernedly.

"So he's a Roman emperor then?"

"No..."

I frowned. "I give up."

"It's a Transformer!"

"A what?"

"A robot in disguise. How do you not know the names of the transformers?"

"I didn't watch transformers. I watched Totally Spies."

"Totally Spies? How is that a show?"

"It's a bunch of girls who do spy stuff and go shopping."

"Well, that makes sense," Rube said sarcastically.

"It's not as if they make any more sense than transforming robots."

At this point, the guy who had missed the elevator caught up. He glared at us. "Douchebags."

"Um, sorry?" Before we could finish filling him in on the conversation, he broke off in another direction and my cell rang, playing Mozart. I answered it, unsurprised that Sean was on the other end.

Rube ignored the interruption. "Is that seriously your ringtone? Hah!"

"Shut up! No, Sean, not you! I can't hear you anyways. What?" I asked. Rube pulled a weird face. "Stop it! No, Sean, not you. We're by this big flag on a stick. It's like, really tall."

"Flaaaahhhg-pole" Rube said, exaggeratedly.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yes, whatever, it's a flagpole. And there's, like this building."

"Liii-braar-yyy," Rube helpfully supplied.

"The library. No, not the actual library, the one that says it is but isn't."

"Viiiiisiiiiitooor's center"

"It's definitely not a visitors center! Wait, no, Sean, not you, I can't really hear right now-" Rube was laughing "-but I'll meet you at the fountains, okay? Okay, okay, bye."

Rube was in hysterics. "You didn't even let him respond. You're just like, 'Okay, okay, bye!'"

I shrugged. "He'll find me. Then I'll be stuck on a train with him for an hour." I gave my monologue about how annoyingly awkward the train rides always are, and by that point, we had walked past the fountain, over to one entrance, turned around and gone to the other entrance, when I said I really should go to the fountain, so Rube said "okay," and we both turned around and walked back towards it.

His response to my future awkwardness was to quote a Simpsons episode in which the family is seated with someone they don't particularly want to talk to. A basic transcript below:

*silence*

-I wonder what speed the fan is set at-

-wanna guess?-

-no-

*silence*

someone looks at the switch and says -it's on medium-

*silence*

-I would have guessed low-

-Well, you would have guessed wrong-

-oh-

*silence*

Then Sean showed up, Rube left, and we all lived happily ever after.

Anecdotally

Anecdote 1:

On the cab ride home, Sean, Mario, and I were seated in the cab, in that order, with Mario stuck in the middle. Sean was in complete awe of the taxi T.V. (oooh! comercials! on the back of the seat!). He was laughing hysterically at the commercials, I was giggling a bit at how overly entertained he was, and Mario wasn't even breaking a smile.

An ad for Wolverine came on, and the announcer went "He returned to a safer job as a lumberjack," or something to that effect, and Sean, right on cue, started singing the lumberjack song. Mario, being Mario, glanced at him, then resumed his general relaxed expression of staring unemotionally into the distance.

Sean looked at Mario. "Have you never heard that song before?" Mario gave a slight shake of the head. He leaned over Mario and looked at me. "Have you heard that song before?"

"I've heard some of my friends sing it."

He resumed his interrogation of Mario. "You've seriously never heard that before? I cannot believe that you have never heard the Lumberjack Song!"

"No," said Mario.

"Well," said Sean, gearing up for a monologue. "It's this lumberjack singing a song-"

No shit, I thought to myself.

"-and then he starts going on about hanging out in bars and wearing women's clothing and being a transvestite. It's REALLY funny!"

"Oh." Mario had a decidedly nervous expression on his face. Sean started singing again, and Mario just sat there, looking grumpy.

I have no idea what his problem was, and after we got on the train and walked down from the rear car all the way to the front looking for seats, he was in a much better mood. He actually smiled at me after helping with one of the doors (I was confused as to why he smiled, but, eventually, I realized that I had started grinning at how ridiculous it was that we were walking down the entire flipping train). We eventually found seats, with Mario and I on one side and Sean on the other side and a bit to the back. Sean promptly took out his phone and spent the entire ride on it, while Mario and I had our little double seat, which didn't even have a window (most bizarre) to ourselves. Mario seemed quite happy, and remarked, "I knew it would all work out."

I chuckled a bit. "Okay," I said, a bit incredulous.

"It's because I had you guys with me. Good luck charms, and all that."

I looked at him as if he was insane because, clearly, he was. "Whatever you say, Mario."

After we had been seated for a while, we had the following conversation related to U.S., which I think Vicky will appreciate.

Me: there's actually a corner in Harlem where Malcolm X boulevard meets Martin Luther King boulevard.

Mario: No, there isn't.

Me: Yes there is. I saw it when I was sitting in the cab by myself last week with nothing better to do than watch street signs.

Mario: That's ironic.

Me: I'm not sure if ironic is quite the right term, but it's certainly something. I can't really think of anything to call it better than ironic, though.

Mario: Yeah.

Me: It sounds like something we'd talk about in US.

Mario, quickly: I call it.

Me: No way! I thought of it first!

Mario: But I said it was ironic, and I thought we should bring it up in class.

Me: But if I hadn't told you, you wouldn't have anything.

Mario, frowning: When do you have social studies?

Me: Period 1. I win.

Mario: Fine, but you have to mention me. Like, say 'Mario and I just happened to be talking about this' or something.

Me: Sure. But, well, I've mentioned it in my quarter group before, so Opmin didn't hear, but it might be weird to bring it up again, and I might forget anyways, so you bring it up too, and mention my name.

Mario: okay.

When I brought it up in class, Opmin said that it definitely wasn't ironic, and proceeded to inform us that she hated the Alanis Morisette song "Ironic" with a fiery passion, and that every street named MLK was incredibly seedy and dangerous. Whatever you say, Mrs. Opmin. When I mentioned it at lunch, Julie's ears opened right up, and while she briefly referred to Mario as Voldy, I don't think she noticed that I noticed, so it's all good. I think.

Science Day!

Another Saturday, another morning devoted to the Columbia Science Honors Program. On this particular morning, I rode the train in with Mario, Sean, and Grandma Rose. It actually ended up being hardly awkward at all, since my wonderful Grandmother seems to have no problem talking to people. One interesting thing I discovered is that there is this program at MIT the weekend before Thanksgiving, where you basically get to take fun, but totally random classes, and I totally think that we should all sign up for it next year.

When we got on the train to go home, there were no three empty seats together, so, after canvassing the entire train, Mario and I sat together, and Sean sat nearby. Sean spent literally the entire ride on the phone with his friend, and it sounded like he was explaining the entire curriculum of calculus, or something, but regardless, he talked the entire time, and Mario and I settled down and listened to our ipods. I had rather a bit of difficulty getting comfortable because for the first time, I got stuck in the seat with the low back, and whenever I tipped my head back to far, I slammed into a useless metal bar.

There was an adorable small child seated in the row in front of us, and he spent a lot of the ride sending his beanie-baby giraffe on reconnaissance missions over the back of his seat before peering slowly up over it, grinning maniacally at me, and ducking back down. I smiled every time.

There were quite a few interesting conversations, so I'll share one a day for a few days. It'll give me something to write about, at least.

I was sitting quite contently in my seat, listening to some random spanish song I had gotten for free on itunes. I was slouched down so my head was leaning against the back of the seat below the weird metal bar, so the top of my head was about level with Mario's shoulders, when Mario started cracking his knuckles. I went, "Ughh!" and made a face before shivering.

He looked down at me, confused. "What?"

"That knuckle thing! It's just, like-" I shuddered.

"What, this?" He cracked his other hand.

"Ew, don't! My hands don't do that, it's so weird," I said.

"Seriously? You can't crack your knuckles? It's Co2 build up, or something, right? I don't see why that wouldn't happen to your hands."

I tried to crack them again, before giving up. "How do you?" I asked.

"you just, like-" He hooked the lowest segment of a finger on his left hand between the pointer and thumb of his right. "Pull in, then out."

I attempted it again, but still could not succeed. "Maybe it's cause my hands are stretchy."

"How?"

"Like, I can touch my thumbs to my wrists," I said, demonstrating.

"Hmm" He took his right hand and bent it forward, tugging the thumb towards the wrist. It stopped about a half and inch away. He frowned at it for a moment before hooking it between the pointer and thumb of his left hand and tugging, producing a series of loud cracks.

"ahh, god, that's so... ick!"

He grinned, producing the second true smile that I'd seen out of him today, and did the same to the other hand.

"Mario!"

"What?" he said, feigning innocence.

I gave a mocking glare, and we both returned to our ipods. During the next few minutes, he yawned repeatedly, rubbing his face.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"I'm fine. I think the coffee's wearing off." (he had gotten a massive ice latte thing before class)

"Are you really that addicted to caffeine?"

"No, it's just, like, the crash afterwards. And the train, and everything. It's just, ach" He tilted his head left, like I do when I crack mine, and made an "ach" noise.

I didn't see what that had to do with the conversation. "Is that a tired noise, or a neck cracking noise?

"Tired, but-" he grinned, and tipped his head sideways, trying to gross me out again, but couldn't get his neck to crack.

"Oh, here," I said, and cracked my own.

Conversation Avoidance

As you may or may not be aware, I don't always want to talk. With my friends, I'm perfectly conversational, but with people I don't know, I tend to be more reserved. This weekend, I have finally found a perfect method for tactfully avoiding having to talk to people. Although this method may only be effective on nerdy guys, I've found that they make up a very large percentage of the people I don't want to talk to.

I've tried other methods before. Last weekend, I went on a community service overnight with a few other kids from my church. After dinner, we were told to go sit in booths (like those tables with benches you eat dinner at) to listen to a speaker. I slid in next to Liza, facing in the direction of the speaker. At that point, a freshman from a different chruch's group who I had thought was a perfectly normal boy came over. "Do you mind if I sit here?" he asked.

"Not at all," I responded, polite as always. He sat down, the speaker began talking. It was then that Craig (I don't actually remember his name. If it actually is Craig, I'm very sorry) decided to act. He shifted closer to me. I leaned towards Liza. He scooted a bit more towards me, so his hip bumped mine. I deliberately moved into Liza, squishing her against the wall. I then had to stay completely still for the rest of the speech to avoid giving the scooter more of a wrong impression than I already had.

This method was ineffective because my leg fell asleep and because Liza made fun of my repeatedly afterwards. So, in an effort to avoid future awkward encounters, I developed a fool-proof avoidance method.

This weekend, I tucked my math team practice packets into may bag. Whenever I didn't feel like talking, I would begin doing the packets. When someone I didn't want to talk to came over, I would find a problem that I couldn't do and give it to them. This worked well the first time, when my lab partner, Rube, spent 20 minutes trying to solve a problem that he still couldn't figure out.

So, when I was on the train home, Sean, who I don't really know, intercepted me while I was waiting in line for the bathroom (alone, because mario drove in with his dad again), waited while I used the bathroom, walked to the platform- still talking- then asked me, about ten minutes in, what my name was. When we got on the train, I pulled out a book, but the chatter continued. So, I pulled out the math packets. Sean proceeded to solve Rube's unsolvable circle-hyperbola tangency (apparently it requires calculus), then stare over my shoulder and correct my math for the rest of the trip.

So much for actually getting my homework done.