Capture the Flag (Ninja style)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Found Objects

in my A.P. English pocket divider that literally exploded last week:

• R-rated movie permission slip for Spanish class
• A New York Times Op-Ed article we analyzed about 4 months ago
• 1 sheet unreinforced blank notepaper
• 3 sheets reinforced blank notepaper
• 8 pages of museum synthesis prompt
• registration details for a science fair I'm not participating in
• 2 scoring commentaries written in incomprehensible handwriting (even worse than Peter's)
• Leo Africanus's description of Africans from Shakespearian times
• 4 pages of synthesis essay prompts
• The first page of Umber's research paper from last year about plastic bags
• an exemplar photocopy of my essay about pennies
• my actual essay about pennies
• the first chapter of Sarah Palin's book
• an 8 page packet on invasive species
• 2 more sheets of unreinforced notepaper
• a full transcript of Obama's speech on race
• 6 page packet on space exploration
• Othello 4.2.52-80
• the actual penny essay exemplar
• 10 page packet on pennies
• my entire A.P. English midterm

Cooliality

According to Ali, I am less cool than Tybalt. I am deeply, grievously wounded. Actually, I'm not really that wounded, I just enjoy being overly dramatic about it. Plus, everyone gets mad at Ali at some point, or she gets mad at them, so I consider it something of a right of passage. A right of passage into what, I'm not quite certain.

On a completely unrelated note, here are a few of my fears: public speaking, embarrassing myself while speaking in public, trichomoniasis, those freaky old guys they catch on To Catch A Predator, the creepy news reporter on To Catch A Predator, date rape, and crappy law enforcement policies at universities. Thank you, Health class, for improving my optimistic perspective on life.

Speaking of Health class, you know you have great friends when you can have an hour long conversation about circumcision without anything becoming awkward. I did this on gchat with Nyx last night. The highlight of the conversation is as follows:

N: but how did your parents come to be invited to his circumcision?

T: they're apparently friends with his parents, but they can't be that close considering I never even met him, I don't think, and OMG THERE ARE PICTURES OF DICKS ON THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE!

*dramatic pause that actually builds drama, unlike those stupid fake ones Dino enjoys randomly adding into conversations*

T: that was traumatic

N: AH SO THERE ARE. I'm reading it too. yikes.

T: I totally didn't see it coming and it freaked me out

N: jeez wiki

T: they oughta have a warning or something.

Things Nyx and I learned from our wikipedia adventure: be wary of photos of private parts showing up on wikipedia pages related to said parts, and check skin-care products to make sure that they don't contain foreskin, because it says on wikipedia that it's in some of them, which is really, like, gross.

Budget Cuts

I'm really not fond of the Connecticut Post. Now, I will admit that I haven't read a particularly large amount of it. However, I know that the Republican grandfather I don't like swears by it, and he and my grandmother keep dropping by and 'accidentally' leaving a copy on our kitchen counter. I think they're hoping that I'll read it and become hopelessly brainwashed. Up until now, I'd mostly managed to avoid reading said newspaper. However, my American Government teacher, Mrs. Hirten, who talks a lot like Sarah Palin but with more 'likes' and a greater knowledge of U.S. policies and laws, assigned that we read this article and write a page-long, four paragraph summary of it for class on Tuesday.

I did not like this article. I did not like this article for multiple reasons, but mostly because I think it's very impartial journalism. It includes bushels of quotes by republicans insulting the dems, accusing them of being unwilling to accept reality and of being "unable to resist the temptation of pork-barrel spending." They are even "insult[ing]" the economic crisis and grasping the state legislature in "a stranglehold." They then make a brief mention that the democrats are trying to save non-profit funding and health and humans services programs and other lovely things. That doesn't sound like strangling to me- it sounds more like trying to help our state do something for its residents. After all, like we learned in gov last week, Americans are unique in that we want to know what our government can do for us, rather than just letting it do whatever. I am going to restrain myself from ranting about how untrue this is.

This article is also prone to statistical warping and scare tactics. Apparently, there is "a new tax rate for the state's wealthiest that's 33 percent higher than the current 5 percent." Oh my gawsh, 33 percent! That's a third! That's a lot! I just can't afford that, wealthy as I am! Well, if you actually look at those numbers, the rate is going from 5% to 6.6%, which is hardly a huge leap. Aside from that, they don't mention what this is 5% of- income? property taxes? It's very unclear. Also, everyone keeps going on about how we're raising the budget by $900 million. Well, according to Wikipedia, the U.S. has a 4.20 annual inflation rate. The total budget, minus that 900 million, is 36.7 billion. That's 36700000000. Now, lets multiply that by .042, giving us about 1.5 billion. 900 million is less that 1.5 billion. Therefor, our budget is increasing by less than the inflation rate, and is therefore in effect decreasing! So why can't everyone be happy that we're cutting anything and stop yelling at each other about it!

Also, why on earth would the state senate start a 2.5 hour meeting at midnight? I mean, seriously, a lot of those state senators are old. It would be stressful to their delicate sensibilities to pull all-nighters.

Well, I feel a bit better after that rant. Maybe I'll actually be able to write an impartial summary. If the article in question has a conservative bias, is my summary impartial if it is conservative? or is it impartial if it is moderate? What a fascinating consideration.

Today, the New York Times had this little snippet in the back of it's Week in Review. I think I'm quite capable of forming an opinion. I may have become a socialist for U.S. honors, but there is no way in hell I'll become a Republican for American Government. It just ain't happenin.

Grandfather

Yesterday, Papa gave my cousin and me a lecture on the evils of electronic communications. First it was texting. "All you kids text every day, all the time, text text text text text." "Papa, it's hardly-" "Oh, yes you do! You text people you hardly even know! Why I read in the paper-" "I don't know about everybody else, but the majority of kids I know don't text that much." "Well my newspaper said they text constantly. Always. And Everyone. They even text strangers!" he told us with an air of finality. "And then there's this facebook and twitter. What's the difference?" My cousin started to explain, but her cut her off. "They twitter everything! And facebook is not private. Why, I read in the paper that..." blah blah blah, on and on and on. Apparently, everything he reads in the newspaper is true. Opmin would be disappointed.

Today, I looked at Bristol's facebook page. Her brother died a few days ago, and the whole profile is now covered in messages of condolence, that people are "sorry for [her] loss" and are "praying for [her]" (Yes, I can properly MLA format quotes from facebook). Margot and Christoph actually wrote the exact same thing (although Christoph wrote it first). George's blurb was uncharacteristically eloquent. I would write something, but I think anything I say would sound fake. I am sorry for her loss, but I'm more sorry about her brother's life being cut short, since I barely know her, but I barely even knew him, so lord knows if he had a life worth living, but I still feel badly, but I haven't the foggiest idea how to actually express all that.

The Vacation Continues

Mom wants me to go visit Dartmouth while we're up here, so she had me look up tours on the website. I, of course, managed to get lost on the website, and ended up flipping through course requirements for various majors. Then I started worrying because I really don't know what I want to major in once I get to school, and then I was worried because I don't know where I want to go to school, and then I got even more worried that I wouldn't be able to even get into a school, and then I took a deep breath and wrote a blog post instead.

I just read The Mozart Season, by Virginia Euwer Wolff, which is apparently also an emo band, because when I googled Mozart Season to find the author, I got all these hits with these really mopey looking guys with awful hair. Anyways, the book was very good, although Allegra seemed far older than her twelve years to me at first, but I've thought about it, and I think I'm underestimating twelve year olds. After all, my brain was in perfectly good working order in seventh grade.

I haven't read the news in almost a week. I feel so disconnected from the world.

Quarantine

Hey, Nyx- aren't you glad that this didn't happen to you last year?

Kids on a summer trip to Beijing got quarantined, and some of them actually had swine flu, and they can't go home, and it all just sounds horribly awful. Also, they all had horrible issues with language barriers. If I was there, I would have called Gretchen and tried to get her to explain everything to me, since I wouldn't be able to understand. It seems absurd that this girls parents didn't immediately know someone Chinese who could translate. I guess I've been overexposed.

I wonder if Sam is quarantined right now. That would suck, like, a lot.

Hugs

First, a quote, courtesy of Otis in my English class.

"If nobody voted, there would be no votes."

Now, onto current events. According to this article, hugs are the latest social trends. Apparently, we teenagers hug everybody, all the time. Now, I may not be the coolest kid on campus, but I'm not blind, and I definitely do not see that much hugging. Yes, I do hug a few of my closest friends, but I'm hardly a hugging maniac, and I haven't really noticed other people hugging excessively.

Thoughts?

Happy May

The rest of the dream makes even less sense than the first half, so I think I won't bother with it. Instead, I will treat you to the transcripts of the texted conversations. This one was carried out with Bette, my friend from camp, whilst I was on the train with Mario.

Me: yo

Bette (within ten seconds of my texting her): HII how's life what's up how are you?? ^_^

Me: Betteyyyyyyy! hi! im on a train to nyc with an awkward kid frm school for the science thingy and he is READING THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and its scary! how did you type that fast?

Bette: awww that sucks! ask him a question. like ask him what he though of it. something related to what you guys have done lately, so it doesn't seem totally random, but make it something you wont feel awkwaard talking about or you think he's interested in. i type fast cuz i have an enV2 and it has a QWERTY keyboard ^_^

Me: Well, i told him you type really fast and he was like woah, but im kinda giving up on us ever carrying out conversation and watsupwityu?

Bette: lol nothing much.. internetting and i may go to a friend's house later... but that's about it... sigh* itred! and lol so ask him a question, not a statement, silly! lol

Now, here is a conversation with Mario, via text messages.

Me: Im going 2 take the train, but be forwarned: my gramma is riding in with us

Mario: Haha. thats fine

The End.

Hello

Mario's hair no longer resembles bo burnham's, because Mario cut his, and, in my personal opinion, it now looks rather unfortunate.

I also wanted to post a link to the most awkward article ever.

There's gonna be snow tomorrow, and I, for one, am psyched. 8-14" should definitely be enough for a snowday, no?

Well, I'm blowing off my US history homework, so it'd better be. If it's not, I'll take it up with the management in the morning.

In other news, I wanted to comment on a product (red) commercial I saw the other day on American Idol (go Adam!, btw).

Usually, I love product red. They picked a shade of red that is one of my all-time favorite colors, and I love the fact that my penchant for consumerism is helping to shape a better world. However, I found this add incredibly aggravating. Basically, this guy carries around a red laptop, and everyone thinks that he's so amazing that they spank/kiss/mob him. Now, personally, if a weird police officer type guy slapped my ass, I would immediately freak out over the horrific state of authority figures these days.

I think this may primarily be a difference in the male vs. female perspective of things. Guys don't think of that sort of thing as rape or sexual harassment, so they should be happy with the attention. Sounds like a boatload of shit to me, considering I'm fairly certain that the male gender is often in possession of a personal space bubble.

On the bright side, though, when I pointed out to my sisters how weird it would be if that was a girl instead of a guy, the 13-year-old sister, who I will cleverly refer to as Genovia, said "wow, that's really sexist" and I was like "yes it is" and it just made me happy to think I was opening another person's eyes to sexism in advertising.

In conclusion, here's the commercial:

Peace out, y'allsies.

Homework

I swear to god, all this work is eating me up. I'm on my sophomore year- it shouldn't be this bad! It's ridiculous that to find classes that are challenging enough for me mentally, I'm basically forced to give up my emotional well being in favor of the endless stream of homework assignments. Yes, I could, theoretically, take easier classes, but I've done it before, and it generally leaves me both bored and ostracized. I made it through middle school- I do not want to experience anything remotely like that again.

In marginally better news, one week and two days until the first day of the Science Honors Program, and I am so excited. Yes, the fact that I am psyched to ride on a train into new york and learn science is incredibly nerdy, but according to Newsweek, the girl nerd is 'hot', so me and my 5'9" of gangly limbs are ready to prove them right, I suppose. If I could just figure out how to put on eyeliner...