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.

Another Banal Update

Dad's pronunciation of all the hawaiian words is atrocious. He gets the first letter---sometimes even the first syllable---correct, and the last vowel, typically, but then all the letters in between turn into some sort of monkeyish jabbering. It's hilarious, and it drives Genie beserkers.

We drove the Hana (Hanna? Hannah?) Highway today, which meant that we went all the way around Maui in our rented minivan. We visited a lot of waterfalls, spent a lot of time in the car, swam in some pools and drove down the twistiest, most beautiful road I've ever seen while singing whatever songs my sisters and I could remember the words to. It was wonderful.

Now I'm back at our condo, sleeping on the couch (well, I will be sleeping, once I get off of the computer and wash up and crawl into bed, which I expect won't be for a while since Shelby is currently in the shower). There's not really anyone online to talk to--the time difference takes care of that. I started A Crown of Swords today, which is wonderful but a bit depressing, since it's currently focusing on Perrin and Faile, and I keep thinking about the awful mess that they're going to end up embroiled in, which makes me sad, not to mention how many books it is before Rand's craziness issue is going to be improved upon. I'm not sure if the books get darker, or if it's just that the plot lines developing now hadn't been resolved at the point where I last stopped reading, but the darkness of the story is suddenly bothering me a lot more.

I need to decide whether to go back to frisbee club when I get home. On the one hand, I need the exercise, I've missed playing, I had a lot of fun with it this spring, and it will make it 100% clear to Peter that I'm not avoiding him without me having to actually spend any time sorting things out with just him. On the other hand, I really would prefer not to have to deal with seeing Peter, because I strongly suspect that however over it I am now, seeing him is going to destroy that resolve (I mean, seeing Dawson did that to a certain extent in April, and that was a smaller involvement and a greater time lag...but it's hard to say). I also feel like if he wants to see me, that should be up to him. I'm more or less letting my pride lead me at this point, which is probably not a good thing, as I'll more likely than not end up embarrassed (oh, the number of times I spelled that wrong while writing up things for the summerbook....) about something that wouldn't bother me otherwise. I just don't want to let on to him that I'm still affected--that I was ever affected at all--because he's the one who ended things. Frisbee isn't about seeking him out, but I'm worried it'll seem that way to him, and I don't want him to think that, so I'll end up embarrassed and awkward, and then it'll really seem like I'm seeking him out. If I avoid any place he might be, though, that could be a problem. That I won't do. I want to avoid him, but I won't, because that would be both obvious and rude.

This is ridiculous. I shouldn't care. I don't care, not really, but I still worry.

Minor Happenings

This evening, I went on an event that resembled a date with our (not so) dear friend Peter. It was boring and not really worth much of the worry that lead up to it. On the plus side, I've emerged with renewed confidence (I can do better!) as well as improved comfort in my independence (I'd have had more fun by myself or with a friend!). Great success!

In other news, we're beginning a new game of mafia. I can say no more without risking death by beheading from Frank, our beloved overlord, so that is all I can reveal with regards to that specific category.

Last night's girly sleepover was quite fun and extremely enjoyable. Organic soda is delicious. Air mattresses are comfy. The companionship of Julie, Cammie, and Gretchen is wonderful.

Why is it that a bad date makes me so happy? More importantly, is this analysis worth performing? Probably not.

I also have a fiction assignment due Tuesday. I have to fictionalize the following memoir and hand it in:

Last summer, on August 2^nd, Annie died. She was six years old. She was the child of my father’s stepsister, but I’d known her for all of her six years. I could remember, way back when, visiting her family after she’d just been born, looking at this teeny tiny baby and marveling at how any human being could be that small.

She’d died of a brain hemorrhage. It was bizarre, completely uncontrollable, completely incapable of being healed. There was nothing we could do, though, and I’d never seen death before, never been to a funeral. I hadn’t reached the place where I am now—I suppose it takes a second death for that.

But, regardless, my family had splurged on airline tickets to Colorado months before, flying away for the first time in two nearly two years.

We didn’t want Shelby to have to go to the funeral—Shelby, my baby sister, who already thinks that she’s psychic and is about as emotionally overwhelmed as it’s possible to be already. So my parents stayed for the funeral, and they sent my sisters and I jetting off across the country. The three of us spent a week in a house by ourselves, learning independence, messing up the cooking, wandering off, looking for our own sources of closure. Sometimes, the funeral doesn’t help.

Whhheeeeeee

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

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

Fiction. Boredom. Book talks.

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

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

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

Not doing homework is becoming a disturbing trend.

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

Extended Weekend of Awesome Awesomeness

This can also be referred to "the time that Tea decided not to study for her midterms, and instead elected to enjoy her spontaneously week-long school vacation."

No, I am not kidding about the week bit. Wednesday was a snowday, Thursday had a delayed opening, Friday was staff development, Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Tuesday was another snow day. Yes, this is a lot of no-school, so, of course, I did a lot with it.

Thursday afternoon--ran science bowl practice. I made a list of all this stuff to look up, then didn't look it up. In my defense, my teammates said they were unwilling to start learning it before midterms anyway. Drove Julie home from ScienceBowl Practice. Well, not quite home--I started the weekend off with a bang by getting into my first ever car crash. Yup. Good stuff. Julie was giving me directions while talking about her sexy boyfriend (not that I'd know if he was sexy because I STILL HAVEN'T MET HIM!!!), she broke off midsentence to say "you should have turned there." I then totally misjudged the truck's ability to break (I blame it on the fact that the entire bed was full of snow, but I didn't think of this until the next day, so it's not a very good excuse), turned anyways, and whipped straight into an oncoming car. The driver of that car was really, really really really pissed, but I stayed relatively calm, even after she (totally unnecessarily, I might add) called the police. Then I called my dad, who untangled the vehicles, both of which are still totally drivable. Cosmetic damages, people. I drove the truck home, explained everything to my mother, then panicked about how much money I was going to lose.

Friday: I discover that the deductible on the insurance is a mere $500, so I'm only down between 500 and 627 dollars (those gosh-darned police gave me a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road, which I'm likely going to argue because I wasn't driving on the wrong side of the road, I swerved into the wrong side of the road due to an inability to judge the breaking ability of my father's pickup truck...but I digress). This was immensely comforting. I also rediscovered the buckyballs I got for Christmas and proceeded to spend most of the day attempting to build a 6x6x6 cube (for the record, I did eventually succeed). I also took my younger sisters shopping at Delias, where I bought a gray sweater, new boot-cut jeans (note that I've stopped referring to the clothing that now fits me as fat pants), and a $20 jacket that I am head over heels in love with. Shelby spend a lot of money in exchanges and gift cards and is still pretty excited about it. I'm just glad that I have pants that fit that I can wear with boots, because given the current snow situation, boots are a must.

Saturday: I spent all of the daylight hours milling around and feeling like I ought to be doing something. I probably started in on my final project for Mideast. I finished reading the entire archive of Ben Jones's blog at MIT, then read the entirety of Laura's. I went to a yoga class, where I failed miserably at giving off the appearance of having any idea what I was doing. The fact that my calves are so tight that I can't do a proper downward dog (apparently a very important portion of vinyasa), and my arms are so weak I can't do this weird lying down thingy we had to do a kazillion times, and the my blood pressure is still so low I felt like I was going to black out by the time we reached the 10,000th forward bend--where was I going with this?--oh, right, did nothing to diminish my enjoyment of the class. It was not quite as successful as the first class was--I spend a good three days after that one feeling sexy (no, I do not know why, but it probably was some sort of hormonal thing meant to reward me for finally getting my ass off my swivel chair)--but still nice. Then I came home, inhaled my dinner, and spent three hours ice skating. The ice skates made circular bruises around my ankles for reasons as-yet unknown. I felt so active on Saturday night, you have no idea.

Sunday I don't really remember, which means it was probably boring. I think I got the oil changed on the cars, but that might have been Thursday. Or Friday. I think it was Friday, actually, now that you mention it. And I've just remembered that Sunday wasn't boring! Kathrya came over, ostensibly to do homework (we didn't). We skyped with Bart! Saudi-Arabia-dwelling Bart! Kathrya was so excited I'm kind of surprised she didn't implode. I enjoyed the opportunity to actually put my computer's built-in webcam to use (also, talking to Bart was fun).

Monday I did stuff. What did I do? Again, I'm rambling because I don't remember. Stuff probably happened, most likely. I slept pretty late. I went to Borders and exchanged one book my parents got me for Christmas for a host of other books, including 2 Eloisa James romance novels (I read one, but the second one isn't really working for me, since the protagonist is like 20, very much unrelatable, and is pretty definitely going to end up with a 43 year old. Laaaame). I also got Ned Vizzini's autobiographical essays written at age 19. I am in love with teenage Ned Vizzini. It is unfortunate, but it is true. If he was my age, he'd probably have a blog. I should probably find blogs of random teenage guys to read, so that I develop weird writing crushes on people my own age, instead of the historical version of older people. I'll work on it later--for now: Hot Guys Reading Books!

Tuesday I set my alarm for 6:10, called the snow line with my eyes closed, then slept for another three hours. I read books. I played the piano. I hid in my room while my sisters cooked both dessert and dinner (I'm really going to need to get over my irrational fear of cooking). I played with buckyballs some more. I ignored messages from Rube and Bart while I was reading, didn't manage to respond to Bart until he wasn't there anymore, never responded to Rube, talked briefly to Greg before he had to go to lab (but not before Olive stole his computer and started typing to me). Then I started reading Yan's blog over on MIT admissions, got about halfway through her freshman year posts, then saw that she got a UROP at Sadoway Group. Then I had an absurd jealous breakdown, followed by a decision to actually read some of the papers by the group to make certain that my minor obsession was founded on fact and not some imaginary "OH MY GOSH FLOW BATTERIES" thing, since they work on other stuff (that said OH MY GOSH FLOW BATTERIES AND HE WAS REFERENCED IN THE CANON THE DAY AFTER I WENT BY HIS LAB AND MET WITH RANDOM GRAD STUDENTS OH EM GEEEEE. Plus he teaches intro chem and is apparently really awesome. And the lab appears to be doing cool stuff). Pardon the all-caps, but I have limited self control. I started reading one of the papers (well, I saw that layer-by-layer is abbreviated LbL, giggled madly, then went to the living room to collect my laundry). I decided to write this post instead of reading the paper, took note of my current more-intellectual reading (it's about the fact that gender bias and subconscious-driven gender discrimination is damaging our nation's school children, and it's particularly awesome in that it's addressing the fact that gender bias is harmful to both girls and boys (something that a lot of boys with high feminist-potentials seem turned off by is the whole "only girls are being damaged" thing)), then came back to my room, where I proceeded to while away the hours until I was tired enough to go to sleep.

Reasons

REASONS WHY I COULD NEVER MANAGE A TRADITIONAL HIGH SCHOOL RELATIONSHIP

1) I am way too busy

2) The people involved in them always seem really into it. I take one look at romantic and think "sappy, sappy, sappy." Unless it's in romance novels, but even then, there are times when I just end up yelling NARM in my head. Like I did out loud during the HP7 movie when Ron was going on and on and on about that ball of light. For reals, I'm a big Ron/Hermione shipper, and I thought it was too much.

3) That busy thing, again.

4) I can't remember the last time I had free time.

5) But really, if I did, I'd rather spend it reading webcomics.

6) We'll ignore the fact that my last relationship did a very good job subsisting on webcomics.

7) Including during the breakup.

8) That goddamned idiot.

9) Seriously, if that's what high school has to offer, I am more than happy to leave it alone.

REASONS WHY I AM WAY TOO BUSY

1. I am smart.
2. But not smart enough to only work hard enough to skate by.
3. In fact, even when I could work a lot less hard than I do, I put in a lot of effort.
4. I like to think of it as dedication.
5. Also, I'm kind of trying to hold down jobs.
6. It's a fun time.
7. I talk online too much.
8. I don't know how to "reflect" in a timely fashion.
9. I take too much time to draft my English papers.
10. I get distracted and read books.
11. I get distracted and play tetris.
12. I develop headaches and lie down.
13. I don't have effective time management skills.
14. Except when I do have effective time management skills, but then I forget to eat

REASONS WHY I ONLY ATE ONE MEAL TODAY

1. Scones are really filling
2. I've eaten five scones during the course of the day.
3. After eating half a pack of blueberries, I forgot to eat breakfast.
4. Then we had Channukah Brunch at 2:30.
5. At that point, it didn't make sense to eat dinner.
6. Then I wrote my Lit X paper again.
7. That made me forget about food

REASONS WHY I AM STRESSED OUT

1. I really want to go to MIT
2. I applied early action to MIT
3. I don't actually know when the early action decision comes out
4. It's probably not far enough away for me to finish my list of things I need to get done by that date.
5. My college essays are crappy.
6. If I don't get into MIT, I'm going to cry, and I don't particularly enjoy crying.
7. My room looks like a tornado blew though.
8. No, seriously, a tornado. It's getting really bad.
9. All I want to do is read.
10. Then sleep.
11. I miss sleep.
12. Also, I want to sit at home and work instead of going to school.
13. Because school is not productive, and I need to have complete productivity until I finish this shit.
14. I'm actually kind of looking forward to winter break, because even if I don't get in early anywhere, I can work uninterrupted. Kind of.

REASONS WHY I SHOULD NOT BE STRESSED OUT

1. Probability states that I will get into MIT
2. Even if I don't get into MIT, I have lots of solid backup plans, and it's a hard school to get into, and no one will think less of me if I don't get in.
3. If anyone does think less of me, I will take them down.
4. Well, I'll try to get Nyx to beat them up, which is kind of the same thing.
5. I have super awesome friends (like Nyx), who would totally be mean to people if people were mean to me.
6. People are not, generally, particularly mean to me. As a nerd, I could have it a lot worse.
7. Early Action decisions might come out late, in which case I'll have more time to finish my to do list.
8. I will edit my college essays until they are not crappy.
9. I always get all my work done. This will be no exception.
10. I can sleep when I'm dead.
11. I can also sleep next semester.
12. It's almost CHRISTMAS PARTY TIME
13. and then it's CHRISTMAS TIME
14. I AM SO EXCITED
15. WHOOO
16. YAY
17. LOOK HOW NOT STRESSED I AM RIGHT NOW

The Difficulty of Remembrance

Delayed my train by 23 minutes. Quite a nuisance (though I hope whoever was unwell has improved). This, of course, meant that we got stuck behind a local train, which in turn meant that I was really, really late to class.

Which I care about. Clara and Helga care less, so I bid them goodbye at the campus gate and proceeded at a very brisk walk, mostly because I couldn't take another minute of not talking. As I was approaching Pupin, I heard the slapping sound of someone running in flip-flops and thought to myself "well, at least I'm not as hurried as whoever that is."

Moments later, a slightly breathless (which means he was probably running for a good while) Rube pulled up (yes, I'm using vehicular terminology) next to me.

"Hey," he said.

I blinked. "Hi."

"I'm late."

"Me too."

"I woke up really early, and I assumed that my parents were going to make me breakfast, so I lay down on the couch for a few minutes--"

I wished that I didn't know what his couch looked like, that my mental picture was less vivid.

"--And then I woke up, and it was 9:47," he continued. "So I got a cab, and here I am."

"There was a medical emergency on the train. Before I got there."

"I didn't eat breakfast."

"Oh."

We continued walking, his pace slightly faster than mine, because my shoelace was undone and I didn't particularly want to stop long enough to fix it. I looked down.

"Your feet must be freezing," I said, because, as I'd thought from the sound, he was be-sandaled (yes, that's a word).

"Eh."

"My toes would be blue. Or purple. Probably purple."

"When they go numb I can't feel it."

I believe I snorted. Let us pretend that it was a lady-like snort.

Anyways, we eventually got inside, and I went for the elevator, to which he said "elevator, really?" and I said "I'm on the thirteenth floor" and he said "reasonable, then."

Because it is reasonable. Eight flights of stairs is a lot.

He entered the elevator with me, even though he didn't need to. He'd held the door, too, when we entered the building. I can't think when that trait stopped annoying me when present in males. Perhaps when I realized that there are better outlets for feminism.

I flopped against the wall of the elevator, and he did the same, against the other. I realized, abruptly, that we were alone, and then, just as suddenly, that he wasn't wearing a hat. It was messy, too long, curling while flat against his head in that horribly adorable way, and I wanted--I squelched the thought.

"I'm sleepy," I said, though I wasn't.

"I'm not," he responded, as the elevator stopped for him. I stood in the elevator by myself as it rose the last six floors.

I walked out, across the hall, stood in the bathroom, alone. I began to laugh, perhaps just because of how fittingly him the exchange was, but also because I didn't need it. It was interesting, yes, fine, good, but uncomfortable. More comfortable than that last night, but not something I wanted more of.

I'm trying to reclaim the music he sent me. I went down to the beach last night, after leaving Cammie's. I played the Los Campesinos song that is so much fun, You! Me! Dancing!, with its wonderful exclamation points. The one that I played whenever I missed him over the summer.

I stood on the cannons, the song loud, looking at the sky. I thought about him, briefly, but then about the stars. About the sky, about the world, about where I wanted to be and how, in a moment, in this chill cold air, I could just feel. I jumped from the cannons to the ground, then danced, as erratically as if I were drunk, down to the water, singing lines that felt right. I thrust my hands into the water, splashed it on my face, then twirled back up to my truck.

It sounds like a baptism, now. I'm going to call it that. A new beginning. A fresh start, not for him, not with him, but for me, for myself, with, well, anyone other than him.

I am made clean.

Doughnut Fun

Today, Ginny and Yuma came over. We made doughnuts. It was fun.

Apparently donut and doughnut are both acceptable spellings of this delicious food. I blame dukin' donuts. I also apparently make all of my paragraphs of my college essays too short, and admissions officers will see this and assume that my writing is imperfect, when I see the shorter paragraphs as a way to hold attention.

I think I've been reading internet news for too long.

Anyways, the donuts (yes, I am defaulting to the one with less letters) were a lot of fun, and the recipe worked out well, though I'd recommend halving the amount of nutmeg. Also, for future reference, the sugar is 7/8s of a cup, or something along those lines. It took the three of us, gifted math students that we are, an age to go from the recipe's grams to our manageable cups.

We are so talented.

Also, Ginny? I tell you this now so that you'll blush less if it gets brought up in person. During dinner tonight, Dad said, "How long have Jennn"

"Ginny"

"Yes, how long have she and Yuma been a, how do you say it these days? An item?"

"I thought they were just friends," said Mom.

"They are," I said, then gave Dad a funny look.

"So why isn't she allowed to go to his house again?"

"Because he's a boy."

"Right."

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.

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.

Second Milestone Presentations

Milestones are far more work than they should be.

On this particular Milestone Morning, I was very tired. I was also rather annoyed, because A) only my group and one other group had presentations this morning, and B) our presentations were combined, meaning that I was going to have to sit through four hours of presentations.

I was also rather happy, because, as I told both Vanessa and Sadie that morning before class started, I'd had a very interesting midnight phone call the night before, and half of my mental processing power was devoted to "did he really say that?" and "whaaaaa?" but we shall ignore that for the purposes of this post.

Well, I tried to tell this to Vanessa and Sadie. My attempts were interfered with by my rather terrible laryngitis. The worse bit was that whenever I laughed, I would squeak all over the place, and then start laughing at myself laughing and make it worse. I am not good at resting my voice.

Sadie had her own interesting story as well, and hers centered around the RSI prom. I can't recall if, at that point, she had a date (though she ended up going with Aziz, and I think that she was one of the earlier askees). Anyways, she was talking to Ash about the prom, and was all "do you have a date yet? Who are you going to ask?" etc.

Ash, who had very limited interest in asking anybody, responded by saying "I'll go with this beef," gesturing at his lunch.

At this point in the retelling, Sadie started laughing, although I didn't quite get it.

Sadie apparently asked whether the beef was willing to go with him, and his response was "I'll ask" followed by "the beef said yes."

For some reason that I still don't quite comprehend, she thought that last line was basically the funniest thing ever, and proceeded to repeat the story whenever there was much in the way of funny story sharing.

I'll admit that, after a while, it did become rather funny.

Regardless, we went in, sat down, and prepared for presentations. I sat with my geographically convenient friends (Gopika and Sarah), and behind Ashley (remember...Ashley=Ash=guy with girly name) and Maxwell. This seating arrangement is irrelevant but for the fact that Gopika got to eat some of my cheetos (I see nothing wrong with bringing snacks to a four hour presentation block), and Ash had cool looking doodles.

I sat through a lot of talks, and got up to go to the bathroom rather frequently, so as to keep myself from displaying my boredom overmuch. The bathroom breaks caused me to miss both Ava's and Gaea's talks, which was probably fortunate, since they were both about (I think) colon cancer, and Ava apparently used very, very graphic images in hers, as she was blackballed for the next two days until she could get a cleaner copy of her presentation to her tutor.

Gopika, Sarah, and Vanessa all had super intense presentations. Maxwell's I don't remember (sorry dude!). Anwar's was also rather beastly. I would like to note that Anwar was in my peer editing group, so therefore some of his beastliness should be credited to me (note: this is a bold-faced lie, as Anwar is just naturally extremely good at giving presentations and writing papers and doing science in general).

As far as my own lab group goes, I am proud to say that I got through mine rather well. It was three hours in by that point, so my voice had recovered a teeny bit, so I squeaked my way through the basics of nuclear reactors and an outline of my project. I thought Didge's presentation was fine, but apparently it lacked basic effort, or something, so he got dumped on probation with Ava. Bashir used the photo of nuclear reactor towers with giant yellow smiley faces on them again.

Eventually, after 4+ hours, the presentations ended. We went back to W20 to eat, and Ash said that I sounded like a Southpark character, and he and Maxwell got annoyed with me for trying to talk, so I went and walked with people who had smaller "must take care of others" complexes.

Capture the Flag (Ninja style)

I'm not entirely certain that this is the day that we played (in fact, I'm almost entirely certain that it wasn't), but it was, nonetheless, an event worth recording.

Bedcheck occurs every night at 10:30. My initial thought upon discovering this was that I'd have trouble staying up that late. This did not turn out to be true, but it did mean that late night activities were, really and truly, very late at night.

On this particular evening, the activity was capture the flag. We were told to meet downstairs at 11:30, wearing either a white or black t-shirt and carrying one of the opposite color.

For this event, in case you were wondering, I actually wore my athletic sneakers, proving that I did actually wear them, so they so totally were worth bringing.

We will ignore the fact that my time spent actually running was very, very limited.

The sorted us out based on which shirt we came down wearing, but the numbers weren't quite even, so a few people were asked to swap. This inculded guys, who just changed shirts where they were, and Ava and I, who slipped away to the girls' bathroom. We then trooped down to Lobby 7 and a variety of other locations as the various bases were described.

It was dark, the buildings weren't what I was used to, and I was very, very confused, and, besides, I was horribly out of shape, so running really didn't strike me as the best idea. As a result, Gopika (who is female) and I elected to play defense. We were assigned one of the hallways that went into our base, and we performed preliminary investigations. Gopika wanted to pace up and down and look threatening, and I wanted to sit in the bottleneck portion and be efficient, so we ended up doing that, chattering about nothing for a considerable time before we heard a noise.

Abandoning our bottleneck, we rushed up the stairs and caught a glimpse of James's flaming red hair. Gopika raced after him, and I returned to my initial location, determined not to leave it unguarded for long.

She came back after a bit, entirely unsuccessful, and we resumed out wait.

We heard more noise a time later. She opened the door to the stairs and screamed. Donny, a member of the opposing team, was standing there, reading a newspaper. He yelled back. She yelled again. He dropped the paper and she chased after him.

I didn't find out that was what had happened until later. I had, as before, been left to guard the door.

Gopika eventually got back, unsuccessful once again, and, soon after, due to complete and utter exhaustion, I left, informing Miles (who was, more or less, directing our entire team) of my departure and pulling the flag from the pants of a possibly-captured-but-maybe-lying Anders for good measure.

I was able to do this because Anders, unlike Dawson and Tramar (I'm uncertain if it was those two--either one may have actually been Nicholas), hung his flag from the side of his pants. The others, of course, had hung theirs from the front, so as to deter people from grabbing at them, as girls, at the very least, would be worried about grabbing other things.

I never did find out if they found that strategy effective.

The Twelfth, the twelfth

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

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

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

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

I'm leaning towards no.

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

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

Me? Tired? Nooooo

Cast of characters:

Dill, a crazy libertarian who thinks very highly of himself.

Livny, who we all know and love (or not, depending).

Stratton, who is secretly in love with Livny and only pretending to be straight (note: most guys here are in love with Livny. It is among the funniest things in the world).

Harold, who is a counselor.

Setting:

First floor lounge, some time after one in the morning.

Dill: I can bench.

Livny: Really? You can bench. *laughs at Dill's inferiority*

Dill: I do! I'm good.

Stratton: Hey, everybody, look at Dill.

Dill: I bench 160.

Livny: Oooh, 160.

Stratton: Check out Dill, he's totally jacked.

Dill: Hey!

Stratton: Look at those muscles. Ohhhh, man.

Dill: 160 is a lot.

Livny: Yeah, 160 is decent, I suppose. *looks at Dill, sizing him up* A bit of a stretch, but still in the range of plausibility.

Tea: 160...that's like me and two babies.

Livny, Stratton ignore Tea completely, Harold laughs, and Dill jumps.

Dill: Oh my god!

Tea: What?

Dill: I had no idea you were there!

Tea: Oh. Hi?

Dill: Yeah...

Independence Day

Fireworks are truly amazing. And the ones here? Definitely worth the 20 hour wait.

Saturday night, at one in the morning, I took my quilt and a soft blanket, a backpack full of study materials I didn't touch, and a change of clothes for the morning, and walked to the Esplanade. I think probably thirty or forty of the Rickoids walked down at that time, which is a pretty decent percentage. I walked with Dawson, who I've befriended, Donny, who was, for once, not surgically attached to his girlfriend, and Hassan, whose girlfriend I have stalked.

Donny continued with his forced Indian accent, Hassan encouraged me to pursue my patent because it just sounds really cool, and I made fun of Dawson for being from hicksville and having helicopter parents. At some point, Anders popped out of nowhere, which he does rather frequently. Although he'd told me, when I asked, that he was planning on going back to the dorm and sleeping, and he looked damn exhausted, he had apparently changed his mind.

Fortunately, he put up with me when I got sleepy and started singing You! Me! Dancing! to myself, and if he made fun of me when I tripped up the stairs, I can't remember it, so that's all good. When we arrived, the silly people who didn't travel with their own blankets taped down their tarps, and I settled down comfortably between Anders and Dawson.

Anders left an hour or so later, but Teresa took his spot so I was still somewhat warm, and the few hours after that was spent playing truth or dare (I had to slap Ululani's ass, and then I later got my cheek kissed (it was VERY ROMANTIC), but, for the most part, the game was pretty tame. Example, brought to you by Norman and Iditri: "Truth" "Describe a sexual fantasy." "I've never had one." "That's lame." "I haven't!" (guess which is which!)), which is kind of weird to do with that many people.

At some point, as it was beginning to get light again, Dawson went back, but left me his sweatshirt so I'd have a pillow, and I got Zsa to come over and keep me warm, so she and I bundled up and went to sleep.

I was, at that point, approximately 3:30 am. I woke up at 6:30. It was not good.

RSI is continuing (unsurprising, that)

I just spent a considerable quantity of time in my room, talking to Sadie. We discussed such fascinating topics as nail polish, college, and how the hell guys manage to go bike riding without damaging their junk. In short, highly academic topics that I would never have been able to discuss elsewhere.

I just had to leave to find Ululani or Kareem, as they are my next door neighbors and their alarm was going off and it was highly annoying. I can still half hear it, which is extremely unfortunate.

I should be writing more. I should be writing about walking with Miles to his lab this morning, and eating nothing in a whole day but a donut, coffee, and chocolate-covered pretzels. I should write about spending the entire afternoon lounging in the student center with Dawson, talking about the fact that we're having difficulty with our mentors and suffering from extreme lack of focus. I should write about the fact that my lanyard broke, so I'm stuck outside of the building, so when I went outside to play frisbee and Rube called, I had to talk to him while lying on the turf, and then whenever I rolled over everything started to spin.

I could talk about the severe dizziness I experienced yesterday, when I tried to climb off of the spare bunk bed during bedcheck, and everything started spinning, and I ended up leaning on Dawson and Miles as if I was drunk, and now I've got enough inexplicable bruises on my body that it looks like my abusive boyfriend was grabbing my thighs and forearms, and I'm still not sure what happened.

I could talk about going out to dinner with 41 other people last night, and getting counted every four seconds, and finally getting to talk a little bit with Anders (and I would mention that there was a good bit of talk at Girl's Night about his general attractiveness, but I know he was reading this a while back and I don't know if he still will. Oh, whoops, I mentioned it anyways. Gosh darn it), who had been very interesting to 'speak' with prior to arrival. I could talk about a lot of things, but I need to shower, and I have gotten very little work done because I have been doing much socializing in place of much working, and now I am writing, and it is quite not-good.

So I will work. Farewell for now.

I will have time to post again....

someday. Not sure when, at this point. I do know that I got my first choice schedule, so yay for that. I've been here at MIT, working my butt off. Classes are fun, but often difficult to comprehend. Well, the chemistry course is difficult to comprehend. The biology is completely manageable. The humanities is mostly just a struggle to stay awake, since it starts at about 8, and I start functioning at about ten pm, which is really when I should be sleeping. Logical? Not so much. But it does mean that I get to make midnight phone calls (to Rube, of course, since I can't say for sure if anyone else will be awake) which is rather fun.

The poor computer-tech-help guys must be ready to murder us for our severe stupidity. I just heard one of the first-week TAs trying to explain that "it isn't working because you typed point one point eight. .1.8 is not a number."

I should get back to work. Once I get this mini-paper done, I will hopefully have enough time to provide you with some sort of update (and to call my parents, which I haven't done yet. Whoops.).

I mentioned the midnight phone call thing to Maxwell last night at around midnight, when we'd left the dorm to go to the lab and work on the paper/presentation thing that I should be working on right now.

Me: I'm not used to staying up this late, but I keep making phone calls, so it just keeps happening.

Maxwell: Well, at least you're talking to your family.

Me: No, I haven't called my family yet.

Maxwell: But you're still talking on the phone.

Me: Yeah....

Maxwell: Who are you talking to then?

Me: People....person...um.

Maxwell: A guy?

Me: Yes.

Maxwell: Are you seeing him or something?

Me: Well, no...

I then awkwardly changed the topic. 'Twas fun (not really).

The Reconvening of the Three Continues into the Wee Hours

Kathrya: Blog the Dino thing, I wanna see. Tomorrow, though.

Tea: Oh, okay. I don't have it though.

Gretchen: Why don't you have it.

Tea: It's on facebook. I don't have his gmail. Actually, he doesn't use gmail. He uses yahoo. Ew. Yahoo. What the fuck is he thinking.

Gretchen: Haha, google vs. yahoo, how cliche. Google always wins.

Tea: I was trying to explain to Mario that he should just route his emails through gmail because yahoo is crap, and Mario was trying to explain the same thing to Helga while I was explaining it to him, so he didn't really know what he was talking about, but he still wanted to sound like he knew what he was talking about. Oh, Mario.

Kathrya: Failure.

Tea: You arrogant bastard.

Gretchen: That you still like.

Tea: Why can't you have uglier hands. Sigh.

Gretchen: And arms remember.

Tea: He was wearing long sleeves.

Kathrya: hands??? really?

Tea: yes. Why the ???

Gretchen: it's kind of random.

Tea: it's a perfectly reasonable thing to like! I like his other parts as well. It's just, I see more of his hands, and he's always fiddling with things, like, turning a pencil over and over in his hand, or rubbing his thumb along the edge of his notebook repeatedly.

Gretchen: Vaccination has nice hands...

Kathrya: I can't say I've spent extensive time looking at Tybalt's hands.

Tea: Tybalts hands are alright, I guess. I dunno, not my type. I like Mario's hands better.

We Reconvene and A Somewhat Later Time

Gretchen: So...what's this I hear about Tybalt's eyebrows???

Tea: Do you want to hear the end of Kathrya and I talking? Because we just changed subjects again.

Gretchen: yes please.

Tea: If mine ever get to the point of bugging you, let me know. I always forget to fix them. Gretchen is back, by the way. Also, anyways, before Gretchen gets here,

Kathrya: mmhm

Tea: Mario alternates between "what am I thinking" and "I want to bone him," in the girl sense, because girls can't bone, obviously.

Kathrya: I love you. Cheat on Tybalt with me?

Tea: Oh, totally, I've already kissed two girls, I can handle another one.

Kathrya: hahaha, sorry, distracted by the luge boy who died.

Gretchen: Wait, I'm not sure I get it...your dream?

Tea: What dream? Oh, no Kathrya is Dream, cause that's what the nickname on the account is.

Gretchen: ohhh. Kathrya has kissed girls before?!?

Tea: No, that's me.

Gretchen: YOU HAVE?

Tea: Yeah. How did you not know this?

Gretchen: Well, I obviously did not know this.

Tea: Oh, well, uh, ninth grade, in a tent, in Amy's backyard, big slumber party.

Gretchen: ok...

Tea: well, Caroline wanted to know what it was like to kiss a girl, and I wanted to know what it was like to kiss anybody, and Karen didn't want to be left out.

Gretchen: wow.

Tea: it was just little kisses, not, like, making out or anything.

Kathrya: oh, no I know what you're talking about, don't worry.

Tea: I was still clarifying, though. But, yeah. Gretchen, how the hell did you not know that?

Gretchen: maybe I've blocked it out.

Kathrya: Probably. So innocent.

Gretchen: But it does ring a bell.

Tea: Yeah. It wasn't like, hugely memorable, although Caroline did end up feeling me up a few months later. It was kind of awkward.

Gretchen: ewwwww. I didn't need to know that.

Tea: Haha, sorry, just clearing the air and all that.

Gretchen: it's okay.

Tea: Now I don't have to worry about telling you later.

Kathrya: haha, that would be awkward.

Gretchen: Although when would that ever come up again. Oh, hey Tea, I was wondering, have you kissed a girl before?

Tea: Well, if we ever talked about kissing or something. I dunno. It's weird. Like, I don't know whether to count it as a first kiss. Because, you know it wasn't, really, but it was, technically.

Gretchen: ok, sure.

Tea: Is Kathrya even here?

Gretchen: Kathryaaaaaaaaa

Kathrya: I am, I was just trying to find pics.

Tea: Of my and Caroline. They're hottttttt.

Kathrya: Tea, you're always hot.

Tea: I know. It's the perfectly sculpted eyebrows.

Kathrya: Agreed. It totally is.

Tea: Mom wants to take me to get them waxed, actually.

Kathrya: I pluck mine. I've been meaning to do so for a few weeks. I suppose I should for tomorrow.

Tea: Kat. You're blonde. It doesn't matter. Also, Tybalt's are way worse. He's not going to care. He's going to spend the whole time going "omg, date, what am I supposed to do, it's Kathrya, ahhh" etc.

Gretchen and Tea add Kathrya to the Conversation cont.

Tea: "odd really like Kad"

Gretchen: Good boy. He can spell. Sort of.

Kathrya: Not at all, he fails at spelling, he will fail the English part of the SATs

Gretchen: He took the ACT.

Tea: oddked kar to prom?

Gretchen: What are you responding with?

Tea: "girlfriend" he said. I said "Kathrya and Gretchen are making fun of your spelling." Now he's mad at me for showing you our conversation.

Kathrya: Oh, lordy.

Tea: How many details am I allowed to share. Probably none right?

Kathrya: Pretty much.

Tea: I told him that he can get it from Tybalt, and it's a girlfriend, and if he says anything else, I'm telling him that I'm going to talk about my period until he shuts up.

Kathrya: YES.

Tea: Genie wants to know how many Apolo Ohnos Tybalt could lift. Also, have you seen She's the Man? Because that is the BEST MOVIE EVER and there's a scene where Olivia goes into the gym, and Duke is weight lifting, and she's like "how many of me could you lift?" and he's like uh, uh, tries to count on his fingers and then slams his head into the machine. I LOVE THAT MOVIE.