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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All of the awesome is mine.

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

Title Forgotten

I spent most of yesterday lolling about and being unproductive. Today seems very likely to be similar. I've been reading, and I got back on the Python horse a little bit--though I think I'll probably end up taking the Python programming class at my college of choice.

Speaking of college decisions--May 1st is rapidly approaching. I'm going to click my commit and decline buttons tomorrow at some point. It's been a relatively easy decision for me--I was pretty emotionally attached to one school going into the preview weekends, and nothing I saw made me doubt my decision, so that was more or less that. I know what the best fit for me is, and that's where I'll be this Autumn.

I know it isn't that easy for everybody, though. I spent nearly an hour and a half today talking with Avon. She's deciding between two schools, both of which are pretty good, but she's worried about the nonpremed academic programs at one, and I don't know how much of her fear is legitimate because I honestly haven't done the research. That said, I've been more or less telling her to go to that one because she seems pretty emotionally attached to it, but she'll make whatever decision seems like it's best for her.

I'm now listening to music on my computer--the current song is Run, by Benton Paul, whoever that is. I'm also talking (internet-talking, but you know what I mean) to Maxwell. I'm recounting the tale of my ditching Arthur at prom because I'm uncomfortable dancing with dudes--he called the move courageous and said that it was quintessentially me. I think he's a little bit insane, but I suppose most people are in some way.

My last science fair is tomorrow. I'm not sure if I wish I'd done them sooner--they're fun, but I'm glad for the uncompetitive attitude to science I currently have. I'm still looking forward to it, though. Science! Yay!

Rude

I should probably sign something announcing that I will never again call something "Part 1" unless I have already written "Part 2." Because my languishing party post is unlikely to ever get finished, and it's a bit rude of the title to suggest that it would.

I've recently realized that "rude" is the worst insult in my arsenal. I realize that this sounds patently ridiculous, but after some careful analysis (that I haven't performed yet but will perform right now), I've decided that this is true. I'm also debating whether using cuss-words in a vaguely academic context is allowable, and I think that it is, so be forewarned, rude language awaits ye who read onwards (see what I did there? Geddit?). Rude isn't ridiculous enough that it doesn't get taken seriously (or is overused by rappers...wait, there's that Rihanna song, isn't there? Shoot.) For example, I do not call someone a ho-bag really mean it. I don't like slut because I think it's a fundamentally sexist piece of the English language, and because I consider people's sex lives their own business, and I think it's rude of others to insult someone for something that's really a matter of personal preference.

Notice that I just used rude again. It's so multi-purpose. It's rude for people to call people names when they shouldn't be call names. It's rude to use bad manners when eating. It's rude to play really loud music while others are trying to do homework (speaking of which, I just went and yelled at Shelby to shut up. She called Genie and I "poops." It was very creative of her, but not really that bad of a word--for instance, it was actually enough to make Angry Genie start laughing). It's rude to steal, it's rude to do a lot of things--but, to me, it encompasses any action performed without thought to the effect it will have on others. I'm not sure how I gave it that broad of a definition--I'm fairly certain it's a lot broader than it should be--but, in my book, to be rude is as bad as it can get.

Some Highlights of my RSI Notebook

We will ignore the fact that I may have already done this, then forgotten.

On the first day, we learned about The Odyssey. "Odysseus ~ Hephaustus (skill, craftmanship). He knows the value of disguise and restraint, except when he's hungry." In bio, nothing funny happened. In chemistry, I was confused: on June 21st's chem sheet: "Look up: ELECTRONEGATIVITY". On the side--"what is this electronegativity?" Oh, how naive I was. We also talked about the oil spill, and I legitimately contributed to the discussion by suggesting that we nuke the source. Our professor also produced this gem: "Before petroleum, the world was a much darker place . . . literally." The solutions we examined included "hair"--using the stickiness of hair to absorb the oil--not kidding--and "petroleum eating microbes"--though an associated flaw is "NEW ORGANISM AAAHHHH" and "SCOTT WESTERFIELD = EVIL." I'm not really sure where I was going with that one.

The next day, we learned about The Odyssey again. I drew a lot of pictures. In bio, I noticed that the teacher did that thing where she pronounced Ws with an h in front, like hwere, and hwat. Also, mitochondrial issues can be described as when the "mitochondria go rogue," which I have to say sounds really cool. In chem we learned about birth control. At first, emmenin was extracted "from the urine of pregnant women (yum.....)", but premarin came from a "less squishy source" (thank you, prof. Michael)--horse piss. An interesting bullet on this page is "-chem stuff that supposedly makes sense."

Day three involved a lot more pretty pictures during English and a couple of very coherent quotes a la "life sucks after you die." In chem, we learned about why mountain dew isn't transparent. Day 4, I finally stopped taking notes during English. In Chem, we made a nice chemistry vs. biology comparison chart. Bio left, chem right.

Temperature

body temperature/whatever you want

Presssure

1 atm+/whatever you want

Concentration

1mM to 1 micromolar/ .1M -1M

Sequence

sequential transitions/one step at a time

Solvent

Water of pH 7/non-polar

Energy

thermoneutral and reversible/exothermic

Specificity

very specific/general

I then have notes on the one grid study meeting I went to (where notes is defined loosely as "a titled page with a lot of doodles"). Weirdly, I have "what is a parallelepiped" in my notes from the first few days in the Nuclear Sciences department; I distinctly recall getting to math this year and not knowing what they are." From here on...it's my research notebook. The only interesting things are the song lyrics scribbled in Teaish in the margins, which looks to be a lot of "You! Me! Dancing!" The only remotely interesting thing remaining is the doodletastic page shown below.

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.

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.

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.

Potential Highlights

I thought to myself this morning: gosh, at least one nice thing about RSI is that people will stop going "oh, you're doing that summer thing. Isn't it hard to get into? I mean, really, really hard to get into?" and then look at me expectantly, like Mr. Mubble did this morning. I'm still not certain what he was expecting.

Oh, no. My sisters decided to play music while doing dishes. That Matt Nathanson song that is supposed to be all sexy and yay but just sounds depressing and awful to me. I will attempt to tune it out.

Anyways, Mr. Mubble. I am really truly going to miss him next year. I think I may have to just drop by randomly with questions when I finally get around to actually reading The Elegant Universe, which I really, really wish I had time to do.

To be honest, though, I think I would have time, if I didn't keep handing said time on a platter to Rube. I'll have hours in front of me, and just a bit of work, and I'll go to take a break, and then I look up and forever has past and I've gotten nothing done and that Gene Wolfe anthology is staring at me, desperately, pleading to be read.

I'm midway through the second or third story of said anthology. The tale centers on the son of a man engaged in human trafficking on a distant planet, and thematically it's centered upon the question of humanity.

I hate how much easier it is to find themes in science fiction than it is in everything else, although I do enjoy it so. I should read more of it, I think. At the very least, it'd be more invigorating to the psyche than the endless stream of bodice rippers is.

Speaking of bodice rippers, I really do need to get Nyx's sister's (Kiwi, is it?) back to her.

Somewhat unrelated but also worth noting: during physics jeopardy in ASR today, team Julie+Tea+Angela beat team everybody-else. It was extremely wonderful.

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.

The Good and the Bad

I had to leave the taping early today to come home, which was bad, as I missed the later games. However, as a result, I took the subway by myself for the first time, which went well, and the train by myself as well.

I got to the station a couple of minutes early, boarded the train, and began walking towards the back in search of a window seat. Oddly, I ran into Charlotte, who was going home from her job shadow day. We talked briefly, then I left because I "needed to do work." (Let the record show that I do this every time I get on the train, and yet the work never gets done). I stepped out of the train, walked down a few more cabs, then stepped back on and moved forwards through the doors, ignoring the platform. About two cabs in, I saw an empty seat. I moved towards it and sat moments before a man coming from the other direction could. I say that the seat was mine, as I definitely spotted it first, so this was fair. However, he didn't put up a fight, so this crucial detail is irrelevant.

I put my bag on the set next to me and focused upon looking intimidating, trying to retain my seat. The first couple of people who walked by sat elsewhere. The next asked, perfectly politely, if the seat was free. I said yes and moved my bag; he stowed his and sat down. I had my earbuds in, so I wasn't particularly worried about needing to communicate.

However, my seat companion turned out to be rather talkative. Before leaving Manhattan, I had given up on my ipod and pulled out my copy of The Elegant Universe, as it is easier to drift in and out of conversation while reading than while listening to music. I ended up, naturally, not reading the book.

Talking to stranger-boy, whose name was not revealed until right before he left, was quite comforting. It's nice to know that I can talk to someone I've never met without any of the difficulties I've come to associate with talking with people I've never met. For this association, I blame Mario, as he somehow managed to convince me that I was incapable of normal conversations using his wily ways (in other words, his inability to carry a conversation).

Regardless, stranger-boy was quite nice to talk to. We will ignore the fact that I generally enjoy talking to cute boys (which he was/is) in this analysis. We managed to cover sea animals, jellyfish, Michael Jackson, the ethics of sneaking free passage on the train, his college, college in general, some topics in science, the relative enjoyability of stay at home jobs, and issues with cell phones.

He also told an extremely delightful story that was, overall, a comedy of errors, to the point where, if he hadn't provided quite so many supporting details, I would have believed it untrue. The gist of it is that stranger-boy had, uncharacteristically, decided to be generous to a hobo who claimed he needed money for gas. However, he didn't have any money with him, so he brought the hobo back to his dorm, told him to wait outside, and went in to get twenty bucks. Then, for reasons that were later unrecountable, he elected to go check his mail. However, he was carrying a bag of juggling supplies, including a considerable number of juggling knives, so put the bag down to go downstairs. When he was halfway through the mail, he realized that the dorm had a policy against unattended bags, so he went upstairs to attend to his bag. He got there just as the security officer was going to open the bag, but, in his haste to stop him, he dropped his other bag, which he was holding. This bag, unfortunately, held a bottle of wine which he, at age 20, shouldn't have had in the first place. Said bottle shattered upon contact with the ground. He managed to get out of discussing the wine by giving the security officer assurance that he would clean it. He responded that "he just needed to pay the man on the street," which he immediately realized sounded sketchy.

Anyways, funny story. At least I got something out of missing the last competition round.

It's going to be June by the time I get to prom

but who cares?

Onto the next page of SHP! In the left margin is scribbled, in Teaish, the lyrics to the chorus of Mr. Brightside, because it is still stuck in my head.

According to Newtonian physics, we would have a static universe, because everything would just staying in its prescribed gravitational orbits and nothing would change. By relativity, the universe should have been expanding and contracting, but the currently accepted belief was a static universe, so Einstein added a fudge factor, the cosmological constant, to make the shifting size go away.

However, Einstein (or Ein-schtein, as my teacher calls him) will have the last laugh. Please note the foreshadowing.

Tralala, moving along. Hubble telescope (20 year anniversary whoooo) results showed that distant objects have more red shift because they are moving away. Conveniently, I had learned this in physics three days prior to class, so I was able to twiddle my thumbs and fidget for an interval of time considerably longer than Planck's. Anyways, redshift means that objects are moving away, because their wavelength is increased. Apparently more distant objects are more red, or that is what I have in my notes, but one would think that it is actually ones that are moving away at a faster rate.

Then our teacher said, "Surprisingly, with some notable exceptions, all stellar objects were redshifted. This meant that-"

At least half the class put a hand up to ask about these exceptions, so he expanded. Some local galaxies, including that one that is on a crash course to slam into us a few billion years after the sun goes nuclear (that way of saying "blows up" works better when not talking about a natural nuclear generator), are moving towards us, and these are blue-shifted.

Then we have a couple of equations. I'm going to ignore those. Using the redshift data from Hubble, a graph can be generated demonstrating that the velocity with which objects are moving away is directly proportional to distance. However, it was graphed as a line on a logarithmic scale, so I think there was some sort of issue, but we can ignore that for the time being. So, Hubble shows that the universe is expanding from Earth, but Copernicus's Law is that it is never all about us (stop being so gosh-darned self-centered), so ALL points in the universe are moving away from each other.

Then I took a bathroom break, because I couldn't sit still and was being fidgety, so that is all for today.

Kick-Ass was, unsurprisingly, completely kickass

And Kickass should definitely be a single word. Spellcheck, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I realize that I should talk about prom, since it was last night. However, I've been busy, and I have a backlog of posts, so Kickass is getting its time.

I drove to the theater with Nyx, in separate cars as always, because we are good children who don't break the law. The best part of this is that I found this song on my ipod, which, even better, might possibly have the best music video ever.

I successfully parked, navigating through one of those booth things with a guy who gave me a little green ticket that I promptly lost.

We rushed in, as Camel had been frantically texting Nyx that we were going to miss the movie, only to discover that he was standing next to the ticket counter, hadn't yet bought tickets, and, when we made it in (without being carded as potential under-seventeens), the previews hadn't even started, and there were all of six other people in the theater. Before the film started, three more showed up: Jack and Bob (two of Camel's computer club buddies who coincidentally ended up at the same movie) and Richard, who was of course joining the three of us.

My favorite portion of the movie was how authentically awkward the geeky teens were. They didn't just have bad hair or glasses, although that they did. They just acted so awkward, making ridiculous faces, stating ridiculous convictions without a hint of irony...it was amazing. Yes, there was a fair amount of gratuitous violence, but it was still great. If you want a compendium of reviews, Jezebel had a good summary here.

After the movie, Nyx and boys wanted ice cream, so we walked around the downtown area looking for a place to get some. We walked far and wide, searching, down dark streets and streets with many lights, past bakeries and consignment shops, macking couples and gleeful friends, and still, we could find no ice cream. We surrendered and walked back towards the theater and the parking, at which point we discovered that there was an ice cream place right there, that we had, naturally, completely missed the first time around.

On leaving, I was pulled over by a police car before leaving the parking lot because my headlights weren't on. Then I realized that I didn't know how to put my head lights on, so I spent a minute or so messing with various buttons until something clicked and there was light. Then I went to leave the lot, but I had lost my green ticket, so I had to pay again for parking, but I looked so lost and confused that the people working there took pity on me and just let me leave.

Then I drove home and went to bed. What a great story.

Gretchen and Tea add Kathrya to the Conversation

Gretchen: OMG, OMG, OMG.

Tea: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Kathrya: hahahaaa

Gretchen: aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tea: AAAAH

Gretchen: AAAAHHHHHHHHHH

Kathrya: good god you two hahaa. It's not that big of a deal :)

Gretchen: YES IT IS!!!!!!!!!!

Kathrya: hahaa. It's just a first datee relax.

Gretchen: did he ask you out? What movie are you seeing? Are you excited? omg.

Tea: AAAAAH. I NEED DETAILS.

Kathrya: nah, we're watching movies at his plate, which was kind of the general plan, as Tea can say.

Gretchen: oh

Tea: TYBALT HAS A PLATE. OMG.

Gretchen: haha

Kathrya: Plate? What?

Gretchen: place*

Tea: You said plate. Got it. Wait. What were the precise circumstances?

Gretchen: Yes, do tell.

Kathrya: Okay, okay anyways we were going to watch movies, and then Ali texted me asking what chocolate I liked and then Tybalt texted me telling me he bought it, and then she told me he was going to ask me out tomorrow and we had a conversation which I think all got relayed to Tybalt, because eventually he just cut out the middle man, so no one said it straight out but now it's like a date. Does this make sense?

Tea: Dino is yelling at me for not telling him why I'm leaving, by the way.

Gretchen: haha.

Tea: Anyways, YAY KATHRYA!

Gretchen: Congrates :)

Kathrya: haha thanks.

Gretchen: that's so cute!! ahhhhh. This is more exciting than the Olympics.

Tea: AAAAAAH I KNOW!

Kathrya: hahaa

Tea: Gretchen and I have been going OMG for like EVER

Kathrya: really gus??

Tea: yes!

Gretchen: YES

Kathrya: hahaa. Well, I'm glad I can entertain you guys.

Tea: I'm going to need a big report afterwards. And also, Dino is still yelling at me.

Gretchen: Haha.

Kathrya: tell him to go away.

Gretchen: second. By thew way, do you (Kathrya) mind if we bug Tybalt when he signs onto fb.

Kathrya: uhmmmm yes. Feel free to do so after tomorrow though.

Tea: Okay.

Gretchen: ok

Kathrya: I feel like it's not official enough. I don't know, I'm fairly confused, cause he didn't say it straight out, but it like, is, so whatever.

Gretchen: When it's on facebook, it's official.

Tea: Don't put it on facebook, that's awkward.

Gretchen: I guess...not that I would know.

Kathrya: Well, it's just one date. We'll see. I sound like Avon.

Tea: Dino is now threatening to remove friendship. I wasn't aware we were friends.

Gretchen: Just tell him you're going to help your sister with something, or just tell him you have to go. The end.

Tea: But we're getting into a really good fight. It's fun? and BACK TO KATHRYA. AAAAHHH OMG OMG OMG OMG cough.

Gretchen: OMG OMG OMG OMG

Kathrya: I'll take it this means you approve?

TEa: YES DUHHHHHH.

Kathrya: hahaaa

Gretchen: Kath, you have no idea, Tea and I have been FREAKING OUT.

Kathrya: it's okay I was freaking out earlier. It went from OMGGGGGGGGG YAY to OHNOESWAH to COMMITTMENT PHOBE TIME to YAY. :)

Gretchen: Stay at Yay :)

Kathrya: I plan to.

Tea: Be married to someone else on fb, and then don't worry about it, because if it's not on fb...

Kathrya: hahaaaaa if it's not on fb then I have privacy.

Gretchen: Kathrya, will you marry me?

Tea: I PROPOSED FIRST. I DID. WITH MY SHIRT.

Gretchen: WHAT!?!?

TEA: SO THERE.

Kathrya: with your shirt.

Tea: HA. HA. HA.

Kathrya: SO TRUE

Gretchen: MINE WAS SO MUCH MORE OFFICIAL

Tea: MINE WAS FIRST

Gretchen: MINE WAS BETTER

Tea:AND WE LIVE IN A FOURTH DIMENTIONAL WORLD

Gretchen: ?

Tea: WHERE TIME FOLLOWS A MOSTLY LINEAR PATH AND WE CANNOT GO BACKWARDS BECAUSE WE ARE NOT FIFTH DIMENSIONAL BEINGS. BOOYAH!

Gretchen hey, does facebook let you marry more than one person?

Tea: polygamy.

Kathrya: No, it doesn't, stupid. I wish it did. But anyway, I just took my relationship status of facebook. I think that just solves a lot of problems.

Tea: I agree. Also, Dino is still yelling at me.

Gretchen: ABOUT WHAT??

Tea: WHAY DO YOU THINK

Gretchen: AMC? beach coverups?

Tea: I told him I was leaving, and he said why, I said can't tell, he says TELL ME, I say no, etc., for like ten minutes.

Gretchen: I'll tell him you're talking to me, and I'm hogging you.

Tea: NO. Then he'll think it's about you and Tybalt. Sorry.

Gretchen: Then suffer. WHAT!?!?! Did you mention Tybalt?!?!??!?!

Kathrya: what??

Tea: he says it's that KATHRYA HAS A CRUSH ON TYBALT. He came up with it by himself.

Gretchen: OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tea: What the hell am I supposed to say.

Kathrya: ommmmmmmmmg WHY IS HE TALKING ABOUT ITTTTTT

Tea: I don't fucking know.

Gretchen: DON'T SWEAR. just log out...

Tea: Then he'll think it's true.

Kathrya: just tell him it's none of his business and log out.

Gretchen: woah, I said log out first. Credit it to me.

Kathrya: Also, why do I feel like EVERYONE knew he liked me before I did.

Gretchen: :P

Tea: Oh, shit. I swore at him. Now he says Tybalt likes Kathrya.

Gretchen: Well, he's not wrong.

Kathrya: This is true.

Gretchen: Kathrya is very likable.

Tea: He blatantly just told me that Tybalt likes Kathrya, by the way, so he's clearly a crappy confidant, and I should have told him this sooner, because then you would have found out sooner.

Kathrya: Well, it's cuter this way. I like the Valentine's Day theme.

Gretchen: What's he saying now.

Tea: WHAT'S THE SECRET TEA? ROHO. ROJO. BASTARDO.

Gretchen: HAHAHA.

Tea: I responded with: TALK TO TYBALT. ROJA. BASTARDA. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Gretchen: Presuming he understood that much spanish.

Tea: We've devolved into all caps. I should probably just log out, but I'm enjoying myself way too much.

Kathrya: This is amusing. I vote stay put and keep us updated.

Tea: I think he's giving up. I need to give him something though. He's starting to stop responding.

Kathrya: Something what?

Tea: Am I allowed to end with him finding out or not? Because otherwise this is just cruel.

Gretchen: Well, he basically got it.

Tea: I just dropped a massive hint and he stopped responding.

Gretchen: My dad is playing dramatic classical music in his room and I can hear is and it totally fits!!!!!!!!

Kathrya: I like dramatic classical music.

Gretchen: It's Beethoven's fifth symphony. duh duh duh DUH.

No Matter Where You Go You Stay Where You Are

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

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

A Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

The End

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

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

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

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

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

Well, that did not help.

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

See, better already.

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

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

How very peculiar.

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.

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.

Song to Nick Jonas

By A Middle Schooler Near You (well, Tea after she got out of the shower today, because she was entertaining herself. In the shower. And by entertaining herself, I mean writing bad musical-theater-y songs, not whatever you were thinking of, Kathrya)

(Sung kind of to the tune of "A New World, for some of the bits, and kind of to the tune of Ocean Avenue. No, I don't know why)

Nick Jonas

I love you I love you I lo-o-ove you

Nick Jonas

When you ask me to marry you I'll say I do

Cause you're all that I want

from 3000 to forever

and you're all that I need

when I'm burnin' up this world

It's Nick Jonas forever, with the hair and too tight jeans

my Nick Jonas

I saw you

in concert last month and you almost touched my hand

you smiled

at somebody else but I know it was meant for me

Cause you love me right now

with the heart that you have

and you wish you could be here

and not on your dumb tour

it was Nick and me forever, just the two of us, no more,

Nick Jonas

I think we need to talk

I wrote this song last week

and some things have happened since

I've changed

I've grown

I've moved on with my life

Because, you see, Johnny

Johnny from science class

he has hair that's just like yours

except it flips counter-clockwise, way to the left

And Johnny

with his eyes so blue that the sky gets jealous

told Eric who told Laura who told Darby who told me

that Johnny

Thinks that I'm cute

and it made me kind of excited

So, Nick, you're all that I wanted

from 3000 to forever

but I have grown

you've gotten old

and it's time to move on

Because last week in science class

while he was burning methane gas

Johnny tore his eyes from the flame

and he looked at me and said

"movie? friday?" and I said "what movie?"

and he said "whatever you want."

So on Friday, Johnny and I saw New Moon

and a new light dawned on my life

Nick, dear, I loved you once, but better days have come

I can't marry you now

It's not you, it's me,

There's someone else

You're too distant

My heart now belongs to

Taylor Lautner

It's doesn't quite fit but you're really more cute

Taylor Lautner

You've taken my heart so you'll have to commute

You're all that I want

For today and for forever

You'll hold me close

And ditch Taylor like bad weather

Because Taylor

I lo-o-o-o-o-ove you.

This Week At SHP

I got to the station rather ridiculously early because I had to buy a new ticket, and I really wasn't in the mood to move quickly. I stood around for about seven or eight minutes by myself, growing progressively more worried when no one else showed up. I then texted Melissa and called my house. Neither responded. A couple minutes later, pretty much exactly at the time when the train is supposed to show up, Mario walked out of the station.

"Oh, good," I said, and walked over to him. We exchanged the typical perfunctory greetings. "I was beginning to think I didn't have class."

"Oh." He frowned for a moment. "I dunno. I didn't check."

"I called my Dad, but he didn't pick up. I texted Melissa, also."

"She didn't text back?"

"No. I can only assume that she must be asleep, cause she always has her phone with her."

"Yeah." We looked awkwardly around and try to think of something to say. He put his notebook on the ledge. I took my hat off. He picked his notebook up. I put my hat on. He counted the number of pages in the folder. I looked to the direction the train was coming in. I looked the other direction because the sun was too bright.

"Do you think anyone else is going to show up?" he asked.

"I dunno. I think Archie said he had ACTs."

"Irving never comes."

"Melissa's sleeping."

"I dunno about Ariadne."

"Me neither and oh! that's me!" My purse had begun to play Mozart. I pulled out my phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Why'd you call?"

"There wasn't anyone else here so I wasn't sure if I had class."

"What?"

"There wasn't anyone else here so I wasn't sure if I had class."

"I can't understand you."

"There wasn't-"

"What?"

"I wanted you to check the class schedule."

"Oh. Why didn't you say so?"

"Well it's fine now, Mario's here- it's my dad- and so you don't really need to-"

"He probably should. I'm not certain that we have class," said Mario.

"Could you check? It's on the bulletin board and the internet."

"Sure. I'll call you back when I find it. It'll be a couple of minutes. I'm upstairs. I was in the bathroom."

"Great, Dad, thanks." I hung up. "He has to walk downstairs to check," I told Mario.

He nodded.

"Do you know what time it is?"

I've just come to the realization that if I don't stop myself, I could probably easily reiterate the entire days conversation right now. Well, it'd probably take me an hour or two- we definitely spent at least that long talking- but I'm pretty sure I remember all of it. I guess I'll try to give a highlight reel. We spent a good amount of the time, both up and back, doing colleges. I think that since it's a clear, overlapping interest, and Mario's slightly obsessed, it works reasonably well. What's really funny is when I relate his own opinions back at him, using different words, from things he's told me before, and he just nods along in agreement, sure that I came up with it myself, and not that I'm just trying to fill in his words so he doesn't have to strain himself thinking of them. During the cab ride back, he was talking about the repetitiveness of people's college essays and I mentioned that he sounded like he could work in a college admissions office already.

"I know." He paused. "It's kind of pathetic."

I didn't respond. I wasn't really sure how to.

Bring Out Your Yarmulke

It's almost time to celebrate Hanukkah. I feel like that means that Vicky's birthday is soon. But I'm not positive. My memory is rather spotty, after all.

The one unfortunate aspect of Hannukah is the lack of really good music. Other than Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, we're pretty much screwed. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah is trying to stop that. He may be a conservative Mormon from Utah, but he promises, he's Jewish on the inside.

An exact quote from the article: Orrin Hatch of Utah loves Jews, songwriting, and Hanukkah. He also calls Barbara Streisand his idol. I tried to find a link to a song I always hear on PLJ about a jew and a gentile where the Jew says he loves Barbara Streisand.

I have a feeling this reporters personal dislike of Hatch made him/her a wee bit more tongue in cheek than is probably proper.

Fun facts- Hatch worked on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court in a case whose syllabus I read for Government. What a coinkydink!

Also, Hatch tried to create a bill which allowed companies to seize your computer if you were found to possess pirated music or other materials. Very scary.

Anywho, here's Hatch's video, and here's the Adam Sandler Happy Hanukkah song, which I haven't heard yet this season, but really consider a necessity.