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.

Hatred and the Physics SAT-II

It's almost enough to make me hate physics.

You know, the whole studying for the SAT-II thing. I'm so behind; I need to get through the whole book in the next five days, because I've forgotten far, far too much. I realize that this will mean a difference of about fifty points in my score, so it's a lot of work for a minimal payoff, but I want those points, so I'm making the effort.

Speaking of physics...*obsessively checks snapgrades.* Oh, look, it's been over a week and Mubbles still has not graded our tests. Oh, how woeful I am, how much I wish to know the truth. I know it will change nothing, but I've never really been a huge fan of suspense.

Some good kinds of suspense: looking forward to RSI, looking forward to being done with my SAT-IIs, looking forward to knowing physics, looking forward to the World Science Festival next weekend. You know, nice, fun things.

I washed three cars today. Granted, it was with Dad's help, and I ended up being the hose-offer, as I was a rather pathetically slow scrubber. At some point during this, I was reminded of a prom event, which, of course, I had never really gotten around to sharing.

I rode to prom in Cormac's car, along with Cammie and Nia. We were driving along, rocking out to the Beatles, when, much to our surprise, we saw a small tree in the middle of the road. The car in front of us swerved massively into the other side of the road and then continued.

"Gosh," we said to ourselves. "That sure does look mighty dangerous."

"We could go move it."

"We should go move it."

"Let's."

"One, two, three, GO!" said Cormac, of course, and the four of us, in rather impressive synchrony, leapt from the minivan. This is particularly impressive when one considers the facts that a) the minivan has rather sticky sliding doors and b) half of our party was wearing high heels. Regardless, leapt we did, and, in quick, effective motions, we cleared the tree to the side of the road and reloaded the car before driving off to the dance.

We spent the remainder of the ride discussing how awesome the aforementioned event was.

Much Delayed

Unlike Gretchie, it's only been five days since I posted (way better than seven), so it's not that bad. What has changed, let me think...

Eh, I'm a wee bit too sleepy to think. Silly movie nights, wearing me out.

I suppose I'll just give an overview of my afternoon.

Kathrya and I spent half an hour in the courtyard waiting for Cormac to show (he didn't), with Cammie keeping us company for a portion of that time. I texted Genie twice, telling her to meet me there.

She did not.

When Kathrya and I left, Genie's bag was in the bed of the truck, but I assumed that she'd put it there before catching the bus, so as to not have to carry the damned thing up the hill. We laughed at the bag and left. Unfortunately, the drive took at least twenty minutes. There was a huge traffic jam on a rather huge road- for some reason, some idiot had required a fire truck.

As I was rounding the corner to the hill, I switched radio stations and discovered that Mr. Brightside was playing on the radio, which made my day about a bazillion times better. Then I got home, found out Genie was waiting for me to drive her home, turned around (with Kathrya right in front of me) and left for school, but my mother dearest had forgotten to close the trunk of the car, so she got ahead of me, and then this blasted schoolbus pulled in front of me...

Moral of the story: if you don't check in with your sister, you will spend an hour in the car.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for that lifelong lesson.

Moving Along to Saturday

Most unfortunately, I was up bright and early Saturday morning. The alarm went off, I smashed at it, it stopped beeping, I got up, I stumbled about- I can go on, but I can assure you, it is both repetitive and predictable.

And besides- How Not To Write A Novel advises not to start stories with waking up.

Nyx was already awake, and she looked tired. Come to think of it, Nyx has looked tired for quite some time. I blame Saltine. It is all his fault.

By the time I got out of the house, I was running late, although I am still uncertain of how that always happens. I then discovered that my dad had been the last one to use the truck, and he has an absurdly odd manner of parking, so I of course got stuck, and I would have taken out another two or three bushes if Mom hadn't shown up and helped. By helped, I mean "sit in drivers seat and drive." I am totally competent.

I made it to the train station at a time that was, overall, very close to on time. This week, Helga and Archie were there, but Archie was sitting with his Dad, so I sat with Helga. The three of us went outside, Archie left his Dad to stand with us ("That's my Dad." "Cool." "He's working." "Okay.") and we made idle prom related chitchat. Helga was going with someone I hadn't heard of, Archie was, naturally, going with Renna, and I said "with friends," as I wasn't in the mood for more confused glances. I complained about the time crunch, Archie looked confused, and Helga said her parents were picking her up so that she could go get her hair done, or something to that effect.

The train arrived. We sat in some order that I no longer remember. Wait, no, I do. It's all coming back to me! We lucked out and got one of those five-seaters, so we all got a bit of leg room, which is always appreciated.

I took out an English multiple choice packet and tried to do it, but every time I got more than a sentence or two in, conversation would resume. Archie, it seems, is quite good at regulating small talk, and Helga, who can do nothing but stare into space on the train, is always a willing participant.

By the time we reached Harlem, it was raining a significant amount. Even just walking from the station to a cab, by shorts were speckled with droplets. This week, the driver was friendly, spoke a bit of Spanish, and made no racist remarks. It was, all and all, a relatively wonderful cab ride.

Upon arriving, I left to forage (i.e. buy a snack from Nussbaum and Wu). I waited in line, and they guy in front of me was speaking Spanish, so I was only half thinking in the right language. I ordered a cranberry muffin, the guy working there said "cranberry?" and I accidentally responded with "si," so he responded with "quiere cafe," at which point I figured I couldn't not order a coffee, so I said "un latte," but I didn't know how to say decaf in Spanish, so I ended up with a caffeinated beverage. "Para llegar?" "Si."

You have no idea how proud of myself I am for that exchange.

A Happy End of Calculus Dance

Calculus B.C. is over, thank goodness. Unfortunately, I can't discuss the questions, as I signed an affidavit (I actually don't think that it is an affidavit, it's just that I'm rather fond of that word. Too bad I don't know what it means) that I wouldn't.

The nice part about calc is that I got to leave school early after the test was finished. Naturally, The Diner was the chosen destination. Nyx and I left school and headed out. I got out first, and, seeing a car approaching from the direction of the typically closed side entrance, elected to take the shorter exit route. Just as I was pulling in, a freckled arm emerged from the window of the small car and began to make an odd sort of wave.

The car drew level with me and Boris called out "Go back. It's closed!"

He then drove away. I made a twelve point turn (as Nyx described it "I was going to go that way, but Tea's truck was sideways.") and exited by the more accepted route, where the security guard was, per usual, not bothering to check anybody's school-leaving-identification.

Excited. Exited. Two words that are spelled far too much alike. Regardless, I got to the diner without missing the turn (which Sergio, reportedly, did). I waited stood outside of the diner with Boris until Nyx showed up, then spent the time getting a table trying to explain to the hostess how I didn't know how many people were in my party.

By the time we hit the tables, we were seven strong. Upon discovering that only six fit in the booth we had, four people went to the second table (Sergio was, I believe, following Gnatta, which he can't seem to bring himself to stop doing. Then again, I still do the same to Mario, so I can't talk). Tybalt stayed with Nyx and I despite an announcement that "there was nobody at this table."

Apparently Nyx and I aren't people. Thanks, Tybalt. Thanks a lot.

Anyways, Mario and Dino soon arrived, Dino's speech replete with complaints about Mario's driving, to which Mario's response was "at least I drive better than Irving." Honestly, the amount he talks about him, its no wonder we joke about their nocturnal activities.

Nyx and I spent at least some portion of the lunch laughing at the way Mario wriggled his hands about (look! I'm flexing my finger muscles!) while speaking. Tybalt also finally formulated the perfect Dino-directed response for "Where's Kathrya?" which is one of his favorite questions. "Where's Lauretta?" seems to be functioning quite well.

Visiting Princeton: College Number Something Out of Far Too Many

As Ginny detailed here, we went to Princeton. Yay Princeton! I, of course, fell in love with yet another school. God knows how I'm going to manage to make any sort of decision when the time comes.

Avon slept over the night before, which mostly consisted of me trying to work secrets out of her and her responding with things like "well, this one time, I pretended I wasn't going anywhere so that he wouldn't have to drive me," and me being like "how are you so perfect?" in my head, but then I remember- Avon is Avon. We also spent a considerable amount of time on the computer. She had a conversation with Lysander in one window about banal items of interest, such as what they'd done that day. Andy and I, on the other hand, spent twenty minutes talking about the origins of the names of the various planets, with a few digressions.

Digression example:

Andy: Saturne in French, Saturnus is the Latin. Like "Marcus Aurelius" and such.

Tea: What, the French call him Marcu Aureliu? Oh, also, which came first, the names or the planets?

Andy: Probably the planets. The -us is Latin, I mean, like Marcus Aurelius, and the French call him Marc-Auréle.

Tea: Was he the Roman guy who killed Caesar?

Andy: err...I don't think so? Brutus?

Tea: Ahh, right. What was Aurelius again?

Andy: Marcus Aurelius was a stoic emperor, as in he was a Roman emperor and he practiced Stoicism. That's about all I know.

Tea: Everything from Western Humanities has blended together into a large blur of togas and "I WAS GOING A BUCK FIFTY ON THE AUTOBON"

Andy: ...uhhh

Tea: my western teacher was insane.

Andy: O_O

In the morning, Ginny showed up about ten minutes after my alarm went off. I believe I answered the door while brushing me teeth. Then I ate breakfast and then we left. Great story, no?

The big problem was that the GPS and google directions disagreed, so my mother dearest decided she wanted to just stay on I-95, but we somehow missed the turn, as all of the signs in New Jersey contradict each other, including signs telling you to make a u-turn at the next intersection, which is completely crazy, followed immediately by "RIGHT TURN AHEAD" for the same road. Very, very odd.

Anyways, Princeton was wonderful. I like that you don't have to apply to one school, and that the first two years of requirements for all science majors are identical, so you don't have to know going in what, precisely, you want to specialize in. And I like that, you know, it's PRINCETON, with all of the awesome academics and amazing undergraduate programs that comes with that. Oh, and the admissions office had extremely comfy chairs. That should be another factor in my school decisions: comfiness of chairs. They are, after all, an extremely important consideration.

The next item in my school queue

is my Science Research midterm paper, which was something like 11 pages long. So, yeah, not going to happen.

So, I took notes from Nature Reports Stem Cells, a section of the journal that is, for the most part, open for public viewing.

Neurons can be reprogrammed with only one gene. This is because they already express the others. In other words, duh.

There is an article about characterizing the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Phosphoproteome. You had me until the last word. Oh, apparently it's about protein phosphorylation and how it regulates cellular processes at various sites in the genome. Epigenetics! Yay!

Then Testicular Cell Conditioned Medium Supports Differentiation of Embryonic Stem Cells into Ovarian Structures Containing Oocytes. Haha, testicles. Also, this means that men could make more man babies, without the aid of- oh, wait, no, they still don't have wombs. Sorry, bud, ain't gonna happen.

So, you can differentiate germ cells from stem cells. They're not quite *complete,* but they're pretty good.

And now some other random paper about how somatic support cells restrict self-renewal of gametes. Adult stem cells continue to divide, but it's asymmetric division, in which the daughter cell and parent cell are different. The support cells keep the stem cells from just making more stem cells using niche signaling. Also, a lot of these tests were done in drosophila. Drosophila is what my truck is named. Phil or Oso or Ophy for short.

So, anyways, I kept reading articles about differentiating germ cells from stem cells, which I really think is just about the coolest thing ever, because it could help with infertility as well as lessen the need for eggs (or embryos) in stem cell studies. I read one that talked about how primordial germ cells are set aside early and come from the proximal epiblast. When I read this article, I knew what the proximal epiblast was. What an absurd thought. I think it's one of the layers in the blastocyst as it begins to differentiate, and it apparently contributes to the first blood lineages. In fact, these researchers found that embryoid bodies have blood development. Embryoid bodies are little floating bubbles of stem cells that begin to differentiate because that is what stem cells do (TERATOMAS! Also, I totally remembered that all by myself), which means that they might be able to make germ cells (so embryoid bodies could theoretically reproduce. That's fucking weird). Anyways, these particular researchers also managed to differentiate primordial germ cells into haploid sperm. Pretty darn cool.

Not-So-Scientific Scientifical Adventures

Today, Julie gave her "state of the project" ASR presentation. Which reminds me, I should be working on mine....eh, I'll do it tomorrow.

I wish my back didn't hurt. It's making typing uncomfortable, and I don't understand why it's only the right side. It's extremely odd. Mother dearest thinks I strained it unloading the truck, but I doubt that, as it took all of two minutes to unload the whole thing. It was quite nice, actually- all of the brush was stuck together, so I pulled on a branch and the whole thing came out.

Anyways, I got to Science Research and was rather dismayed to discover that Mario was there, because I had specifically chosen to wear the pants on a day when I wasn't going to see him. However, he didn't comment, so I think he may have forgotten about them. Well, that or getting laid was enough to stop him from being creepy about other people's butts.

Let me reiterate- EWWWW!!! MARIO! DOING THINGS! SEXUAL THINGS!!! EWWWWWWWW!-

To fully make that point, this is a conversation on my facebook wall:

Kathrya: AH. GRETCHEN. THE THING I TOLD YOU WAS TRUE.
EWW.
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Gretchen: I KNOW!! I REALLY WISH IT WASN'T.

Kathrya: ME TOO. SO DISTURBING. ON SO MANY LEVELS. BRAIN A-SPLODING.

Gretchen: NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME. AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Kathrya: NO IT WONT NO MATTER HOW MANY IRVING JOKES I MAKEEEEEEEEEEE :(

Gretchen: hahahhaaaaaha

THIS IS JUST SUCH A TRAUMATIC MOMENT. THE EARTH IS SLOWLY STRAYING FROM ITS ORBIT. WE'RE DRIFTING OFF INTO SPACE. IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!!

Kathrya: IT IS THOUGH THE EARTH IS NOW OFF ITS AXIS I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED EWWW. LOOK AT IT THIS WAY. AT LEAST THERE WERE NO BABIES. THEN I REALLY WOULD DIEEEEEEE.

Gretchen: AHHHHHH!!!! THERE WOULD BE BABY CLONES. AND WE WOULD ALL DIE!!!!!!!!!

Kathrya: YES WE WOULD. THE WORLD WOULD START TO IMPLODE AND COMPLETELY DESTROY ITSELF.

Gretchen: THE HUMAN RACE WOULD BE ENEDED. ALL LIFE WOULD BE DESTROYED.

Kathrya: OH SO TRUE. I HOPE I WOULD DIE SOON SO I WOULD NEVER HAVE TO LAY EYES ON THE KIDS

Tea: OKAY THERE WOULD STILL BE ONLY ONE BABY BECAUSE THERE IS ONLY ONE GIRL INVOLVED EXCEPT FOR NUMBER 6 BUT THAT BABY WOULD BE REALLY MESSED UP BECAUSE ITS PARENTS WOULD HAVE THE SAME GENES BUT YEAH

Gretchen: EVEN ONE BABY IS ENOUGH TO DESTRY THE WOLRD. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES PEOPLE, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NOWHERE TO HIDE.

Tea: I don't know- I think the art department would be an effective hiding spot.

Kathrya: uhm, I doubt it, because the mother is very artistic I've heard.

Gretchen: why did we stop the caps? it's so much more dramatic.

Tea: OKAY FINE, BE THAT WAY! ANYWAYS AHHH EVIL DEMON BABIES

Gretchen: THAT'S WHAT I SAID TO START WITH!!!!!

IT'S SO MUCH BETTER TO JUST RUN AROUND SCREAMING OUR HEADS OFF

Kathrya: I CONCUR. GOD. BABIES. EWWW. NOT WITH THOSE PARENTS THEY WOULD MAKE HIDEOUS BABIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Tea: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH BABIESSSSSSSSSSS EWWWWW

Kathrya: PROCREATION IS GROSSSSSSSSSSS ESPECIALLY THEMMMMMMMMMMM EWWWWWWW HE HAS COOTIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS /acts like a five year old

Gretchen:THIS IS MUCH BETTER!! :P

Tea: WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY FIVE YEAR OLD BUT EWW COOTIES LAST NIGHT THERE WAS A GIANT BUG IN MY ROOM AND I STARTED SHRIEKING AND MY MOM HAD TO COME AND KILL IT FOR ME AND IT WAS TERRIFYING BUT NOT AS TERRIFYING AS THIS SITUATION I SUPPOSE.

Kathrya: NO GIANT BUGS ARE FAIRLY SCARY BUT THIS DEFINITELY TOPS IT ITS LIKE A WHOLE HOARD OF GIANT BUGS AHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Gretchen: LIKE LIFE SIZE SPIDER SCARY!!!!!!

Tea:ACROMANTULA WTF!!!!??!??!?!?!??!?!(INTERROBANG)

Julie: YOU ARE COOL
EWWWWWWWW
UGLY BABIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS AND PROBABLY NOT SMART EITHER
I BET HE BELIEVES IN COOTIESSSSSSSSSSSSS

Cammie: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW AN ARMY OF EVIL UGLY CLONE BABIES!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!1!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND THE 1'S WERE NECESSARY

Tea: I LOVE THE ONES THEY ARE TOTALLY AWESOME AND WAYYY COOLER THAN NUMBER ONE AND ALSO DID YOU HEAR THAT NUMBER 27, THE ONE WHO DID THE DEED, IS NOW DEAD DUE TO SOME STD OR OTHER?

Cammie: OH NOOOO!!! THAT MEANS THAT NUMBER 27 WILL BE REPLACED BY AT LEAST 2 MORE AND WE WILL HAVE 9 EVIL MUTANT CLONES RUNNING AROUND THE SCHOOL!!!1!!

Julie: THEY ALL DID IT BECAUSE THEY COMBINE ON THE WEEKENDS UNLESS IT WAS DURING THE WEEK WHICH WOULD BE EVEN CREEPIER AND CAN STDS REALLY KILL YOU? WAIT THEY CAN WE LEARNED THAT IN HEALTH CLASS. NOOOOOOO WHAT WILL HE DO WITH THE EXTRA?

Tea: NO THERE ARE NOT ANY MORE WE BEIEVE, IN FACT, THAT THEY ARE SLOWLY DYING OFF, WHICH IS SIMULTANEOUSLY FORTUNATE AND UNFORTUNATE. WE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO REPORT THAT 27 WAS THE ONE WITH THE NICE ASS, AND THAT THEY ARE NOW NO LONGER WORTH LOOKING AT.

not that anyone was looking anyways...

Anyways, speaking of out-of-the-blue inappropriate comments, after Julie's presentation, the floor was open for questions and comments.

Mario: You seemed rather...tense. I mean, not like, tight, per se, but, just, somewhat nervous. Maybe afraid, or...

Tea: Uncomfortable.

Mario: Yes, uncomfortable.

Julie: I am uncomfortable.

Mario: You need to try to relax. Think of something calming, like Lumiere's shirt. It's so nice, and pastel colored. Pale blue is a calming color. And you could imagine undoing to buttons with your tongue.

After School Unadventurous Adventures

I left Spanish this afternoon with Gretchen and Avon, and we were the nearly last, if not the very last, people to leave. Avon went down the first staircase to catch her bus, and Gretchen and I sped up, soon overtaking Dino and Sonny, who, while moving at a reasonable rate, couldn't match what Richard calls Gretchie's ridiculously fast pace. We then proceeded to talk about Dino, but, despite his relative proximity, he didn't notice.

Then Gretchen ended up wrapped in some conversation with Sonny, Dino forged on ahead, and I followed far enough behind him that it didn't seem worth the effort to chase after him just to awkwardly disengage upon reaching the bathroom.

By the time I extracted my wallet from my backpack and journeyed downstairs in search of a bake sale, the lobby seemed almost deserted, and there was, alas, no bake sale. I located Nyx by means of her floral shirt (which is very pretty, by the way) and announced myself to her, Kathrya, and Tybalt by means of a request for food.

I was very disappointed to discover that Tawny's baklava, which had previously been in the locker she shares with Nyx, had been removed. I pulled out some pretzels, which Kathrya and Tybalt agreed didn't taste like "real pretzels," and Nyx left for the dodgeball game, and the three of us stood somewhat oddly in the lobby for a few minutes. Brian came by asking for members of his team, and a bit later, in a matching tee, Rodney walked past.

Rodney can be identified by the fact that, in my English class today, Ms. Seltzia mentioned tessellations. I said that they were my absolute favorite, and Rodney was, sadly enough, the only person in class who got the joke.

Kathrya, Tybalt and I eventually started walking towards the cars, and we saw Bryant walking towards us, and then we all turned around and walked out to the parking lot.

The only bit of the conversation I can remember is that something about Dino came up, and Bryant said, somewhat out of nowhere, that Dino has a really annoying voice. I then mentioned something about being really confused when he started laughing at me in the language lab until I realized that the audio system was making chipmunk voice, and there was a fair amount of me trying to figure out where to walk, because I didn't like being way out on the edge, because it's hard to talk across four people, but it felt sort of weird to drop back, so I think there ended up being a fair amount of weaving about, but I suppose it worked.

When we reached the vehicles, Bryant requested his ride to unstickered parking, and Kathrya and I both volunteered.

"You want to ride in the truck?" I asked. "It's pretty fun."

"It is," said Kathrya, "extremely cool."

Bryant consented, so we waved goodbye to the lovebirds (yes, I am going to call them that). I stood on that random black bar on the underside of the truck that is probably not random at all and meant for standing on to throw stuff in the back, and threw my backpack and lunch into the bed of the truck. Bryant seemed apprehensive.

"Do I need to put mine back there?"

"Just hang onto it."

"What do you do when it rains?"

"I don't. I mean, I haven't had a passenger when it was raining. Actually, wait, no, I drove Ginny home. She just held everything. It's a bit crowded, though."

He nodded, and I put in the key and rolled down the windows. As soon as power reached the stereo, Lady Gaga and Beyonce's "Telephone" started blaring at a somewhat inhuman volume. I turned it down a bit and pulled out of the parking spot.

"You mess with it," I said.

"This is fine."

"I hate this song."

He did something to the music controls that I didn't see because I was driving. Britney started singing "and I'm caught in between, counting 1, 2, 3-"

"Oh, that's loads better," I said.

He laughed and did some different button pushing and the music changed again, to something instrumental, familiar, and yet somehow out of reach.

"Should I go right up here?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I'll go straight then."

I turned out of Paperclip, still trying to figure out what the song was. "It's Lady Gaga, singing, well, something, I just...."

"Bad Romance."

"Ah, yes. I probably ought to have known that."

I wasn't looking at him, but I could practically feel his shrug.

From there, we somehow managed to discuss both what house the blueprint on the dashboard was for (he read off my address, so I assumed it was my house, but it turns out that he actually read the builder's address label, and it was for a different project) and, after I took a turn a little bit too quickly, whether I was allowed to have passengers in the car.

I said that as long as he could pretend to be my twelve-year-old sister, we'd be fine, but I wasn't sure he could pull it off, and, oh, wait, my sister is actually thirteen, I totally know how old my siblings are.

I think I got a laugh for that one.

And then there was something about parallel parking, and then we were at his car, parked as crookedly as predicted, and he was gone, and I was coming to an intersection I wasn't accustomed to, trying to determine the best possible route to a pastry.

Beware of Bad Drivers

Today, I went for a walk. I went down along the beach, squinting and looking at the ground directly in front of my feet the entire time.

I made it all the way around, smiling awkwardly at the exercise walkers and other passer-byes, and headed down the home stretch away from the statue towards my street. I was getting a bit tired, so I stopped, switched my ipod to something marginally peppier, and continued walking, since I lack to coordination to choose a song and walk at the same time.

I looked up into the oncoming traffic and saw a car swerving sideways, straight towards me. "Wow, that's odd," I thought to myself, having no apparent regard for my own life and limb. The car pulled to a stop right next to me and rolled down a window.

"Tea!" called an interior voice.

I bent down and peered through the car window. "Kathrya!"

"Do you need a ride? What are you doing walking?"

"I went for a walk. I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh, well, that does make sense."

"Were you at Nyx's house?" I asked, since she had come from that direction.

"No, I was dropping of Nia after going to the mall," Kathrya said. She kept talking, and I recollected some vague memory of Nia's gift cards for some store she wanted to go to, so I nodded along. "I should probably go," she finished.

"Well, if the offer of a ride still stands, I'm kind of tired, and I'd like to go home."

"Get in." She unlocked the door and I sat down. I suppose she must have done a u-turn, but I wasn't really paying attention. "You look exhausted. I saw you standing there, and my first thought was 'is that Tea?' followed immediately by 'is she going to pass out?'"

"I didn't realize I looked that tired," I said.

She made a half-hearted effort to stop at the stop sign, then decided not to and sped up.

"That was a horrible stop," I said, ever the annoying backseat driver.

"There wasn't anybody there. There really is no point in stopping if there aren't any other cars."

I shrugged. "I suppose."

We chattered about the niceness of her car and the glories of an automatic temperature control system until we reached my house. She let me out behind a clump of bushes so that my parents wouldn't know that I bummed a ride, then drove around the culdesac and away.

There was no real point to that story.

I guess I should tell it again.

Signatures

There are many forms of signatures. There are signature traces of elements that could be used to identify the composition of distant planets. There are also signatures at the ends of emails. For instance, Gretchen always signs off with:

--

Gretchen

Even on one-line correspondences, Yuma is partial to:

Thanks,

Yuma

Ginny signs off with her phone number, cell phone number, and an alternate email followed by an admonition: "If you received this message for any reason and are not the intended recipient, please delete this message immediately. Thank you" and brainy quote of the day.

My personal preference is ~Gretchen, but that tends to confuse people who don't realize that I am using mathematical logic to state, in case they weren't aware, that I am not Gretchen.

My least favorite signature is "Sent from my iphone," because it's a really annoying product placement.

There is also the matter of real signatures, those lovely, loopy things used to sign important legal documents, such as driver's licenses. On my license, I ran out of space, so it only has the first two letters of my last name. Apparently, that doesn't at all render the signature invalid.

During physics on Monday, Gage was trying to create a fancy signature for himself. The desks were all messed up, so I was next to him and Tybalt was in front of us, and he asked us which signatures we liked best (he'd covered an entire page with possibles). He was trying to decide between two, but both of them had these funny little hearts on the end that came from however he made the last letter of his last name, and once I pointed them out, he decided not to use those. Hearts are, after all, very girly, especially for a guy who walks as if his arms are too big for his hands to reach his thighs. All the Gs in the beginning looked funny, so I suggested that he just leave off the first name all together, since Gs are extremely difficult to draw nicely in script. Ls are, after all, much prettier in cursive.

I'm not sure what he ended up choosing, but I'm sure it looked nicer than my signature does. Why did I have to have first letters that look so downright awful?

On a totally unrelated note, I saw that Rube had sent me a facebook chat I hadn't seen. It was completely simple, just "Hey, Tea, have you seen Avatar?" and yet, after I read it, I found myself leaning towards the computer and grinning stupidly.

I keep logging back on to facebook to see if he's come online so I can respond.

I'm beginning to think that Julie can't have him.

Good morning, bloggites

I apologize for three postless days. I have been, unfortunately a bit under the weather. Well, that's kind of a lie- I'm not sick, just so stressed out about my research paper and tests and everything else that writing at all seems like just another drain on my energy. However, now that I'm at it again, I'm beginning to remember that it is, after all, rather fun.

Thursday was a very long time ago, and I can remember nothing that occurred then. I suppose it can't have been all that interesting, but it really is unfortunate just how wonky my memory is. I suppose it's the stress. Oh, wait, it's beginning to come back to me. I spent about an hour on the phone with Caroline helping her with the Utexas for physics. Shelby came over and started yelling at me to help with the dishes, and I went "No! Physics tutoring! Go away!" and, miraculously, she did.

Friday I saw The Princess and the Frog, which is now my favorite movie of all time. I couldn't stop smiling while I watched it. I even smiled while I was crying during a sad bit, but not the sad bit that you're supposed to cry at, so god knows what's up with that. The animations were gorgeous. I love that all of the surroundings look like gorgeous paintings, but the characters are still their classic hand drawn selves. I love the way the handful of little lines on their faces can do so much. The music was wonderful, to top it all off. Another bonus- prince Naveen is very hot. Animated characters have a remarkable tendency to make one swoon.

After going back to Nyx's house, I stayed out past driving curfew playing scrabble with Tybalt and Kathrya (and Nyx, who won, of course). My saving grace with my parents (who got home about ten minutes before I did and promptly flipped out, cause Shelby hadn't left out a note saying where I was) was that I stayed past eleven listening to Kiwi as she told us about how all of those kids our age who are partying and drinking all the time will drop out of college and become bums who hang out at bars in town and show up in the paper's police blotter.

I look forward to it immensely.

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.

Vroom

I just read Lock and Key, by Sarah Dessen. Below is a passage from said book:

"'Again,' he said to me, pointing at the book with his pencil, 'remember the power rule. It's the key to everything you're trying to do here.' ... 'The power rule,' Olivia recited, flipping her phone open. 'The derivative of any given variable (x) to the exponent (n) is equal to product of the exponent and the variable to the (n-1) power.'"

Maybe I'll actually be able to remember it now.

So far, I have been on two driving excursions by myself. Yesterday, I went to Trader Joe's. After I parked, I got out of the car and walked around it, checking to make certain that it was straight. A man walking past gave me a questioning look. "Is your taillight out?"

"No, I just got my license this morning, and I'm making sure I parked alright."

"Really? Congratulations." He came over and gave me a high five. "Just don't go parking anywhere near my car, alright?"

I laughed. "Sure."

Today, I went to Staples (the office supply superstore) and bought some at-home binders for physics and english, as well as some notecards to replenish my rapidly dwindling stash. I drove the pick-up truck there, with the windows wide open, classic rock blasting to the extent that I ever blast music, by which I mean that it was barely audible, singing along and grinning uncontrollably despite the fact that I was only going about thirty miles an hour.

Driving is fun.

Haiku

A Classic:

Haikus are random

and sometimes they don't make sense

Refrigerator

My Variation:

I have a license

Jurassic Park is boring

Minor stuffy nose

Science Symposium

Well, the science symposium left me feeling like a socially stunted retard. I blame the fact that many of the other sophomores are not true science geeks, so I find them somewhat unrelatable. Also, both Julie and Mario weren't in attendance, which was highly unfortunate.

At one point, I was standing awkwardly by myself, looking at someone's poster, when Kerry comes over and is like, "Tea, want to see a totally awesome poster?" and I'm like, "Well, it beats standing around by myself. Not that I have no friends, it's just that Julie isn't here, and Minnie has better people to talk to, I guess." Well, that doesn't sound remotely pathetic. "Great!" "Whose poster?" "Lysander's."

So, Kerry leads me over to Lysander's poster. He starts talking about his project, which is actually even more boring than standing by myself, and Kerry immediately runs away, probably bored out of his mind. Lysander's poster was something about how cellphones affect driving, and it was boring enough that I would have rather listened to Mario talk about economics and stocks. It was actually boring enough that I would have rather listened to someone else talk about Mario's project on economics and the stock market, which is saying something. So, Lysander is talking to me, and his eyes aren't leaving my face AT ALL while he was talking, and I keep wanting to look at the poster instead, but he keeps looking at me, and I try to look away, but then I feel weird, because he's still looking at me and talking, and then I basically start internally panicking, because I'm not really that good at reading people, and his eye contact cues aren't fitting in with any of my stored information on what various looks mean, so as soon as Dad wanders over (actually only a minute after Lysander started talking), I mumble something about wanting water and bolt. I meant to say something to Kerry today about feeling badly, but then I forgot

Oh well.

Racism Today

Yesterday, I went to the DMV and got my learners permit. For the picture, there is no flash, so I was totally unprepared and giving an odd sort of half smile when the camera went off. I hadn't brushed my hair before going, so it was pretty much everywhere, and when I got the permit, picture and all, my skin looked fairly dark, with my lips darker than usual and my brown eyelashes and blue eyes looking anything but. My Mom looks at the little plastic card and says, "that's a horrible picture of you." Gee, thanks ma! She then continued with, "you look middle eastern!"

Note to my mother- "Middle-Eastern" is not a synonym for fugly. Just sayin'

Slang

          In this article in the New York Times, a particular slang term was introduced that is, all in all, entirely new to me. Apparently, "to O.D., these days, means to overdo it, not to overdose on drugs." Now, I don't know about everyone else in the world, but I am, in my personal opinion, and extremely hip teenager, and I have never heard O.D. used in that way. It could be an example of city-slang vs. suburban slang, but even then, NY is the closest major metropolitan area, so we tend to use very similar terms.

          Clearly, the New York Times needs to update its slang dictionary. In other, equally exciting news, Drivers Ed. starts today. I am one step closer to achieving full road access, and that, my friends, is an example of true achievement, no semi- or over- about it.