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.

Child's Concept of Heaven and Hell

I left the shades open at night so I could see the stars. I would lie on my bed, pretending to sleep, with my head pushed all the way into the corner so that I could see up, over, all the way to the stars. I watched them, and I felt them move, and I felt them breath. The stars were my people, and if I just tried hard enough I could walk among them.

I sat in the dark, my knees curled up against my chest, watching the sky. The planets together made stars, the stars together made galaxies, the galaxies together made the universe. Could there, then, be other universes, that spun with our own and sent out their own tendrils of existence? Could a universe, not a planet, not an individual, but an seemingly infinite spread of stars, be the plaything of a deity? If there could be infinite stars, why not infinite universes, spawned from the droplets of a universe cloud that sent out tiny, heavy particle that begat another big bang.

When I died, I would have my own universe. We all would have our own universe, our own world, where all understanding is known and the entirety can play out before our eyes. Where we can see the souls of the stars as easily as the people, feel the voice in the vacuum as well as in sound. When a tree falls in the woods of our carefully crafted universe, we can hear it.

The universe I live in, as I watched over my world, looked rather a lot like my grandmother's apartment in Florida. I suppose that is what happens, when one's heaven is the stuff of dreams.

There were nights when I could do little but ponder the future. It would be nice to be omniscient, but even in death, would it be possible? And how could I reconcile the simultaneous truth of all religions with their numerous contradictions? I would read by day, texts of what could be, words that I didn't know piled into sentences with structures beyond my grasp. I wanted a pattern, a similarity, a simple this is what is and was and will be that seemed constantly inescapable. A heaven of angels seemed no more realistic than my universe of gods, waiting for the final day of reckoning seemed rather less likely than the lot of us walking, gray and soulless, through a refugee's world before flying towards the sun and dissolving to Dust.

I thought too much for a child. I thought so much that I knew that I thought too much, and elected to leave the issue of where we went up to the individual.

I would go to a heaven of my own, and use my time to visit the heaven of all I knew. My grandmother could sit with Jesus in the clouds, Aunt Joan could settle herself fully into the memory of each individual and meddle, my dog could trail me loyally while plucking milkbones from midair, we could have houses for the homeless, and the entire world would get what they needed, what they expected.

But the expectations began to push against each other. What heaven do you give the criminal, what haven is allowed to a wicked man? Does the remarried widower live with two wives? I suppose that, with infinite days, each wife has infinite time, but there are just as many restless nights, alone. And then, if we are given what we expect, is the atheist truly allowed to desist?

I did not know. I did not like that I did not know. I eventually discovered, however, that I would be much better off, overall, if I was willing to wait.

Why I Don't Trust Prep Books

In my efforts to be an awesome test-taker, I have been taking practice tests. The spanish ones have been going decently, high 700s. The English I thought was manageable--I took the first practice in the back of the book a couple weeks ago and got low 700s, so I figured, like Spanish, I'd jump about 50 points after the first one.

So, after discovering that the McGraw-Hill book had a diagnostic exam in the front that I'd originally missed, so I took that.

I got a 590.

I'm still rather confused. My theory is that they put in a hard diagnostic test so that you read the rest of the book, look at your scores at the ones in the end and say "gosh, look how I've improved." If that is the case, it's very manipulative of the book. If it's not, and I'm suddenly experiencing an outpouring of stupidity, well, I'm going to have some severe end-of-year issues.

I'll have to take another test from the back for comparison. I am really not looking forward to this.

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.

Electonic-Related Disasters

My bedroom appears to have eaten my sister's camera's download wire. She came in looking for it, so I started to dig around, looking from suspicious suspects.

I found three black wires with one tiny end and one USB--I think they're called firewires--despite the fact that I don't have a camera that those wires could have come with. She tried all three; none fit.

So, we have three mysterious black wires, and a camera that can't download pictures.

In the words of Shelby, "greeeeaaaaat."

Another unfortunate electronic adventure: my cell phone has been completely nonfunctional for about a month, due to the fact that my charger vanished mysteriously from the floor next to my bed (and no, it's not under the bed). After three weeks of "it'll turn up eventually"s, I caved and ordered a new charger on Amazon. Actually, I ordered two new chargers, since my model of phone is so old that there are literally bazillions of charges lying around, unused, unplugged, powerless and ignored.

My new charger came on Thursday, so I plugged in and, on Friday, when I went shopping with Kathrya, I was fully plugged in. I checked the time obsessively, worried about it accidentally falling out of my pocket, and was pleased to discover that I had missed neither calls nor texts. While in one store, as I ignored the salesteen who had poked fun at me for tripping over a table and waited while Kathrya tried on pants, I sent Nia a "Happy Birthday" text and Rube a "is text message persuasion going to get you to come build sand castles tomorrow?"

I felt both sociable and accomplished, almost as accomplished as I felt after successfully flipped a fedora up my arm before putting it on (salesboy's response: "niiiiice." Weird-ass skaters...). Then Rube called and I completely ineffectively dropped the hat while attempting to juggle two bags, my phone, my wallet, my jacket, and my keys, trying to get outside of the store to somewhere where I could actually hear.

Unfortunately, it was actually louder outside, so I ended up leaning against a wall near the front of the store, curled around the phone as Rube said in a voice that was far too tired, "I can't hear you, we'll talk later."

That was the phone call with the highest effort to talk time ratio in the history of humanity.

Regardless, I used my phone, didn't worry about my parents being able to reach me, and generally had a grand old time. To continue my phone-using habits, I brought it to Castles in the Sand the next day, which was not a smart move. Somebody--I have no idea who, although it may have been me--spilled water all over the bag, and, despite the fact that there were three phones in said bag, only mine short circuited.

It has been sitting in my kitchen for over twenty four hours, innards removed, searching for sunlight, but thus far, no luck. My only hope is that merely the batteries are dead, and that I can utilize a replacement battery to access the contacts and whatnot. However, you may rest assured that I will not create a facebook group dedicated to my phone, because, really, that is just poor form.

I'm Skipping some SHP

because, in the scheme of things, prom is more important.

We will ignore the fact that prom has already begun to fade into a distant memory, and, instead, pretend that is was today. Or, yesterday, or whenever you would like to pretend that it was.

I was going to transcribe either Archie and Rube awkwardly meeting or my feminism and gender-equal education discussion or debate-esque conversation with Archie on the train ride home, but it is now vague enough in my mind that I doubt I could properly explain his opinions and statements without some really huge misrepresentations, so I shalt not doeth so.

Anyways, I got home, and my dear, darling mother set me to cleaning. By that, I mean that I put a few dishes away, took one look at the mess that was my room, freaked out that Genie was putting things away without telling me where she was putting them, convinced myself that it was so messy at this point that it really didn't matter, took a shower while Genie finished my room, and then sat, completely patiently, on the stool that goes with my keyboard, a stool which I am loath to call a piano bench because it is, really, rather small, although quite comfortable.

But I digress. Genie spent a considerable quantity of time blow drying my hair, as well as running up and down the stairs to our mother's room to obtain a wide variety of blow drying implements and sprays. I had no idea how much tech it took to get my hair to look "just like it normally does, but better." I am very glad that I don't do this blow-drying beeswax on a regular basis, because, again, so time consuming!

Next I put on mismatched clothing and proceeded to rush madly about the house in a fruitless attempt to get everything ready. This included vacuuming. I love to spell vacuum. It is a fun word.

More to come.

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.

Rube's Eyes Are Brown

I have that written down in Teaish on the upper right corner of my first page of notes. It had been bugging me for quite some time, but I know now that Rube's eyes are brown, a shade lighter than Archie's but darker than Mario's. It really is odd that I expected them to be blue, just as I always expected Mario's to be. I think it's residual from Sturken, as I really spent far too much sum total time looking at his eyes.

Stay tuned, those of you who ignore these sorts of science-y posts (I'm looking at you, Kathrya), for the story at the bottom.

And so, we have Cosmology, the Universe, and Particle Physics. Because, naturally, we can cover all three topics in a single class. In case you were wondering, there is a standard model of both cosmology and particle physics, because, when in doubt, scientists choose the most confusing name possible.

The universe is a pie chart. Quarks, leptons, and photons together are less than 5% of total stuff; the rest is dark energy and dark matter. Our universe is 13.7 billion years old. Now, personally, measuring the age of the universe in years strikes me as rather silly, when you consider the mutability of our orbit, but, alas, it is a commonly accepted unit of time despite its unwieldy nature.

Fun fact: if the universe were infinite, the sky would be white, because, anywhere you looked, somewhere, you would hit a star. Now, personally, I think that if light dims with distance, than this wouldn't be true, but it apparently is.

And now, the funny story.

Teacher: The universe is most likely curved, so if you go in a straight line, you can never reach its edge.

Rube: What if I go in a curved line?

Teacher: That's what I said- it makes you travel in a curved line.

Rube: but if I curve the opposite direction, wouldn't I technically be going straight? And, then, couldn't I get somewhere?

Teacher makes a thinking face and crosses his arms.

Other Student: His argument makes sense geometrically.

Rube: See?

Teacher: Ah. I'm not certain. How about you try it and report back to me next semester?

Other student: Wouldn't it make more sense for him to report back to you last semester?

The entire class laughs and Teacher returns to his lecture. "This is how you know we're geeky," Rube says to me after said teacher has resumed talking.

"Hmm?"

"If we weren't so geeky, we definitely wouldn't have laughed at that."

"It was funny. Wouldn't anybody laugh?"

"You're overestimating the world, I think."

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.

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.

Uncoordination

I cannot play an instrument and sing at the same time. I can't even play shaker eggs and sing at the same time. I am completely and utterly incapable of multitasking.

Ah, well. I'll manage.

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.

Continued Ruminations on Reunions

Yuma has his own energy startup. He runs it with full employee support, miraculously. He somehow managed to develop some astonishing social skills. At some point, he bought my battery concept, the one I'd held onto since high school, and incorporated it into his business plan. The money from that allows me to fund a reasonable lifestyle while still doing academic research. It allows him to be a billionaire, so everyone wins.

Gnatta runs a strip club where the primary attraction is Rachel (that suggestion was Ginny. The strip club was me, though) and the magically duplicating twins (two of Mario's clones). At one point, Sergio went to the strip club, and, seeing Rachel, elected to try to rescue her. He went back to talk to her and ran into Gnatta. The two get into a huge fight, claws out. Then, "Gnatta trips, falls over, and accidentally kisses Sergio, and they discover they've secretly loved each other all this time, and the fights were just denials, so they make up and come to the reunion holding hands, but, once there" (Ginny quote!), Scott declares his undying love for Sergio. Sergio struggles between the two, but then Scott snatches Sergio away, and the two run off into the moonlight and live happily ever after.

Julie is an astronaut, and she has just gotten back from the moon. She brings a moon rock to the reunion, and it has special properties, distorting electrical signals. When she comes near Dino, he short-circuits even more severely and collapses to the floor. Melissa, who has apparently been there the whole time, rushes over. "Oh, dear," she says. "This happens sometime. Ever since we extracted his circuit for multiplication purposes-"

We look at her blankly.

"For our children! They are small and lovely and will never grow up."

"Wait," said Cammie, who had wondered over, robo-baby in hand. "How old is this little fellow, then?"

"Well, 14. But you still look two, don't you honey." Melissa accepted the baby and pinched its cheeks. She then extracted a key from it, restarted Dino, and continued as if nothing at all had happened.

We move on, then, to Cammie, who has been working as an English teacher at our dear old Paperclip High School. She almost didn't come to the reunion, but decided, at the last minute, that since it was so close, she might as well. Anyways, she somehow (and no one is certain how) ended up marrying Lyle directly out of college. They had a couple of tight-pants-wearing children, and lived the perfect cookie cutter life. Then, one day, (again, completely inexplicably), Eccentrius decides to visit. Of course, being eccentric, he does this by showing up with a can of paint that changes colors in the sunlight, climbing over the perfect picket fence, and beginning to paint. Cammie, naturally, has no idea how to respond, but, after a good deal of running about, Lyle runs off with his secretary, who turns out to have chlamydia, and then Cammie and Eccentrius get together. They marry while hanging upside down by their legs from a tree. The minister sits upon a suspended tire. The newlyweds honeymoon in Swahili, where they visit Nyx and get some much-deserved sun.

While they are gone, Avon watches the kids. She manages to fit them in around her busy schedule at her private pediatrics practice. Her partner there is Lucas. Nobody expected him to go into medicine- to be honest, no one realized he was that good at school- but he hit college running, got into med school, and ended up, somehow, in pediatrics. When Avon wanted to start a private practice and started looking for doctors in the area, she found him, and the two established their own office. They worked together platonically for quite some time. After all, he was married to Cora Lee for quite some time, until he realized that she was just a bit mad. However, he neglected to tell Avon about the divorce for months, despite the constant flirting. Poor Avon was in agony, convinced she would hurt Cora Lee, certain she was being morally unsound. She finally caved when, while at Lucas's house (for a completely explicable, nonsexual reason), she saw the divorce papers sitting on his desk.

Anyways, I think that's enough of the future for the time being.

I have seen the future, and it is wonderful

I just asked Dino how many of his parents are coming to prom. I am fairly certain that implies that a) he is bringing his parents to prom, like this boy did his grandmother, and b) that he possibly has more than two parents. Then again, if we count his programmers as parents...

Today, Ginny went to school, but she was technically excused, so she elected to skip many of her classes. I stole her for her final pre-statistics-AP-test hour. After she ate her unidentifiable sandwich (I think it might have been egg), we went outside and sat on the grass.

Well, I sat on the grass and tried to drag her down with me. She was reluctant, as she "didn't know where the grass had been." However, by the time I was lying down, she had at least reached a low crouch.

We spent a while daydreaming about the time to come. First we tried to think of next year.

"We'll both be sitting here," I said, "in the sun, and it will be AP week, so we'll be stressed. Oh, wait, no, we'll already be into amazing schools. You'll be going- where do you want to go?"

"This would work better if we knew where we were going."

"This is true."

"What about the reunion. Do you think we'll go to the reunion?"

"Yes. How about the 75th. We'll both go."

"What'll we do there."

"Well, I'll spot you first, and your hair will be all gray. I'll try to flag you down but I'll have trouble, what with my cane and all, so I'll start yelling, Ginny, Ginny. Then you'll finally see me, and you step into the light and your hair is gray. My first response is to say 'gosh, Ginny, you don't even look Asian anymore.'

"You become very angry, call me racist, and start hitting me with your cane. I hit you back. Then we get into a wicked awesome cane fight.

"Dino comes over to break it up, and he says "guys, stop-p-p-p" and starts to shake, as his circuits have a tendency to get a bit rusty."

"Is Owen going to repair him?"

"No, Owen died off ages ago. That's why Dino is having problems- his self maintenance has issues."

"Ah."

"Anyways, Dino short circuits, so then we go back to fighting when Vicky comes trundling over, walker and all. She somehow manages to force us apart and says 'TEA! GINNY! OPMINN!'

"'What? Where? I thought she'd left.' I say.

"US History! Remember the battles! Remember the Mohicans and the women and portfolios! What a class. What. A. Class.' Vicky continues to babble, somewhat incoherently, about the wonders of US history."

Ginny laughed. "Who next?"

"Well, if Dino is there, Tybalt probably showed up."

"What about Bryant?"

"He's busy building robots and saving the world."

"Oh, of course."

"Anyways, Tybalt is there. He's working, doing something. Recently divorced- he tried to hard to have the perfect, cookie-cutter life, and it fell through. What's his job, though?"

"Something important. Presidential advisor? To Sonny, maybe, who beat out Lumiere in the race."

"Oh, naturally. Anyways, Kathrya is there as well. She and Tybalt broke up, ages ago, when she went off to college. Anyways, he's been finding life unfulfilling, and he showed up at the reunion in search of the one that got away. Kathrya, of course, has been fine without him, living it up and being awesome, as usual. She sees the cane parade by us, and comes rushing over."

"Rushing?"

"She exercised as a youth, she can still rush. Anyways, she gets rather excited to see us, and starts yelling about love and other lovely things, and then she sees Tybalt, and their eyes meet, and she immediately falls silent. And we get kind of confused, but then Tybalt comes over under the pretense of oiling Dino's joints, and, suddenly, we understand."

Ginny sighed. "What about Mario? How's he doing?"

"Mario...hmmm. He's a big businessman, somewhere, really rich. Anyways, he shows up, and we all start laughing about the whole peeing-in-a-cup beeswax. Then he tells us that we can't tell anyone, as it will ruin his reputation and destroy the stock of his company. So, we blackmail him and all get a million dollars."

"That's some fast monetary accumulation."

"That it is."

"He really ought to be thinking more about the consequences of his actions."

I laughed. "What about Gretchen?"

"I bet she's at a university."

"But which?"

"She's at MIT, and you're at Harvard."

"That's realistic. But sure. How is she doing?"

"Did she marry Phil?"

"Maybe she has a really cute baby. But with who? Mario?"

"If he isn't Asian, the kid won't be."

"Well, if the baby is half..."

"Not enough. Besides, Phil is way better."

"Yeah, but she'd never marry him."

"But-"

"Okay, fine. Two weeks ago, Phil came to perform a violin thing at Harvard, and I brought Gretchen to see him, because we're still all buddy-buddy and whatnot. Anyways, she and Phil fall madly in love and start an illicit affair. Also, now Gretchie is pregnant, and she and Phil are avoiding each other so as not to arouse suspicion."

"What about Nyx."

"She's living in Swahili, speaking Swahilian, and saving the world, one starving child at a time. She's doing great, though. That's kind of boring. No plot arc."

"Darn."

At that point, the bell rang, and we went up to my physics class. However, we resumed our discussion in the evening hours. A summary of that will come....tomorrow.

Petty People

Dino is mad at me because I didn't offer to step down before New Englands.

I am mad at me because I didn't believe that Dino was a good enough person to let me keep my New Englands spot. I am also mad at Dino because he is refusing to speak to me.

Dino has now decided that he wants to go to prom with Lauretta (Vicky's buddy from U.S. last year, I believe). I have no idea if he has yet asked her. However, due to the fact that Dino is lacking in friends (I'm mad at him. I'm going to be mean) he can't get a prom group. So, he wants to join the one meeting at my house. However, he unfortunately can't bring himself to ask to join, so he had Tybalt ask me.

I told Tybalt that he could join if Dino would talk to me. Then I felt bad, because I would still like to be friends with Dino, and the only way we're getting out of this is if I don't get mad at him. So, I said that I wasn't going to be petty, so he could join regardless, although if Dino manages to get through it without speaking to me, I will be rather impressed with his dedication.

I will, however, still be angry. I mean, honestly, even Livny will smile back at me, and I can't remember the last time I talked to him.

So, Dino, please stop being a jerk. It is times like this when I am reminded why I didn't trust you in the first place.

Well, Ginny covered ride there

here, so I figured I'd take care of the next bit.

Despite the tardiness of three of the eight paperclips, we still arrived at the high school early, and, due to the absurdly tight arrival schedule, waited for about five minutes outside of the parking lot before getting dropped off.

As we drove over, a pair of decidedly math-geek looking boys were playing frisbee on the tennis courts. Mario and Irving derided their skill. While I can accept that Mario is probably decent as frisbee, since he does seem to be relatively athletic, as far as math team people go, I highly doubt that Irving could have done much better.

Regardless, we walked into the school to a separate area from Mr. Booth, so we had to take a few minutes to make extra certain that everybody was equipped with a TI-84 for the team round (which was completely useless, as I don't think I even touched mine) and hear a last minute "down with Treeburg" reminder before we filed off to the cafeteria.

I went to the bathroom soon after arriving, bringing Ginny along with me. This detail is not relevant at this point in the story, but it is foreshadowing. Note the foreshadowing.

Moving along. The four present members of the dream team sat on one side of out little section of bleachers, and we sat on the other. Our group, consisting of Ginny, Micro, Argon and I, discussed the relative visible nerdiness of the various students. For instance, the girl who was clad entirely in purple, including a too-tight-weirdly-cut-oddly-long purple dress, leggings of the same shade and purple sneakers: nerdy. Blonde guy in cargos with a long blonde ponytail: nerdy. Short guy doing handstands without tucking his shirt: very nerdy. Tall, otherwise reasonable looking guy wearing a t-shirt that said "I failed the Turing test": nerdy. Team of guys wearing sunglasses like Nia's normal ones and carrying a boombox: trying too hard to not be nerdy, but failing when they turned on the boombox at a not ear-shattering volume.

There was then a supremely horrific degree of disorganization of us trying to find our rooms, but we did eventually do so. I met a girl from my cousin's hometown who looked extremely not nerdy, but I have a feeling that this is more because she is black, and my image of a nerd is either asian or white or occasionally indian, than anything else. Midway through the first round, when "TWO MINUTES" was called (I realize that that is technically not midway. Forgive me), I jumped and said "oh my god," then mentally congratulated myself for not swearing, although I'm fairly certain that I did manage to get a big fat 0 on that round, unfortunately. Honestly, I would feel so much more secure with myself if I'd just gotten that one three-point negative sign....

Ah, well, c'est la vie. I need to get back to calculus. Ginny, if you want to continue this, please do.

Another Round of Particle Physics

A certain someone (i.e. Tea) is rather confused, but doing her best to keep up. As a result, you get to listen to (watch? read?) me go through my notes this week.

My header, outlined to make it bold, is SHP notes, as I had my new notebook, which was supposed to be electrical engineering notes but has already become something of an everything. On the top is a note to self: ask Rube about imaginary particles, which he was kind enough to explain during the break. Apparently, particles can borrow energy from nowhere, so long as they give it back quickly, and this energy sometimes generates new particles, but, in doing so, imaginary particles end up briefly carrying mass. Or something like that.

There is then a large drawing of a flower. Following that is "Unification" with a squiggly line under it, with unpredictable variables underneath it (and I mean "unpredictable variables." I don't know what the variables were). Oh, wait, I remember. It's saying that the standard model can't predict all variables.

Next we have "SYMMETRIES - explain everything." I must take the least informative notes ever. Ooh, now we move onto Field Thoery: must incorporate special relativity, quantum mechanics. At that point, my instructor hadn't yet explained what, precisely, field theory was, so I nodded along quite nicely. Fields are, as I later discovered, functions defined at all points in space time. They can be scaler, like temperature on the Earth, or a vector, like in magnetism. In quantum mechanics, this field oscillates sinusoidally, (like a mattress!), simulating particle interactions, as particles are the waves on a spring. It is at moments like these when I truly appreciate that Mr. Mubble taught us about waves on Thursday.

Then we went into Langrangians, which went completely over my head but had some relation to spring constants that was identified on the powerpoint by "(this is suggestive!)" at which I snorted at poked Allana to point out the ridiculousness of the exclamation point, at which point Rube tutted at my immaturity (this from the boy who attempted to argue with me last year that the penis game is not at all immature).

So, there are infinite waves, which work together like probability waves with particle motion. At places where the waves are added together due to constructive interference, particles propagate. Then there was some math stuff I didn't understand, and I learned that (cursive O) O(x^n) is "x of order n." Apparently whatever I just learned from that math can be applied to a crystal lattice, and the word phonon can be used to describe it.

Page 2! This has a series of notes on it between Allana and I. There was a short asian guy with bowl cut hair and glasses and an MIT shirt in front of us who, I swear to deities, looked exactly like Andy. Rube actually pointed to the guy and said "I be he's going to RSI with you." Anyways, I told Allana that if I guy who looked like that came up to her at Quiz Bowl nationals, he was my friend. She asked me his name, I said Andy, she said what?, so I spelled it on the corner of my page.

"I'll introduce myself as Shaniqwa," wrote Allana.

"I told him you were Allana."

"Names that Asians should not have: Andy and Shaniqwa!"

"Like Allana isn't Catholic" (this works better in reference to her actual name).

Beneath that, in Tea-code, is written "silly instrument," which, second to Wino, is our new favorite euphemism, and is from Canterbury Tales. My use of code to record it prompted both Rube and Allana to poke me repeatedly, trying to figure out what the hell I was writing.

Anyways, back to class....Langrangians, whatever they are, have symmetries called gauge symmetries, but pronounced gage symmetries, unless gauge is pronounced gage and I've been doing it wrong for all of these years. These symmetries apply to the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, using an equation that includes circles with xs in them that make absolutely no sense. Anyways, the apparently predicts particle size, but this bit is rather boring so I shall skip it. There was something about minimums and partial derivatives (cyrillic d). Anyways, nothing forces a particular ground state, whatever a ground state is, hence it doesn't need to be an even function, so there can be SPONTANEOUS SYMMETRY BREAKING, which yes, is written in all caps in my notes and followed by wooooo!

I believe the wooooo is there because after Allana, Rube and I got back from stealing oreos from orgo and class resumed, the teacher said "and now, how that symmetry breaking occurs," Rube said "yay!" I said "whoooo" and the teacher laughed.

"So, mass comes from the Higgs field," but I still don't know what the 'so' is referencing. And a table! Look, logic. I shall copy this down into my notes so as to give myself the appearance of absorbing the information. Electromagnetism has one photon and is massless, neutral, has infinite range, and is calculated using QED. Weak nuclear has the plus and minus W and the Z, all three of which are imaginary, have gauge symmetry that has been hidden by the Higgs field, and are massive bosons with weak electric charges and zippy decay. Then there is the strong nuclear force, with its eight gluons, which are massless but self-interacting, colored, and calculable using QCD.

The next page starts with another fun euphemism, wino, as in a hypothetical symmetric pair to the plus or minus W. Now, a graph, with lines. "Theoretically, high energy scales will combine forces due to the effect on coupling constants as QED increases rapidly, strong decreases, and weak decreases slowly, finding a common value at ten to the sixteenth giga electron volts." Sure, yesterday's Tea, whatever you say.

Grand Unification Theory can be abbreviated as GUT, in case you were wondering.

Anyways, this one would be tested by searching for the decay of a proton, which would have a lifetime of 10^30 years, so if you watch enough, some should break down, creating observable Cherkov cones. But, after 1/5 a century of searching, we have nothing, so this particular GUT is likely useless, unless we have....

SUPERSYMMETRY (SUSY), which, yes, must be written like that. This would require an operator to switch between fermions and bosons, so there is an equal number of each. However, none of the knowns have pairs, so half our particles are missing. So, let's make up names for the particles that we haven't yet found.

Bosons become bosinos (photon becomes photino, etc.). Fermions become sfermions, including sparticles, squarks, and sleptons.

Allana then turned to me and said "You're such a slepton."

"Huh?"

"Whore."

"Well, you're a strange squark who can't get any."

She laughed. "So which is a better euphemism, wino or silly instrument?"

I said silly instrument at the exact moment that Rube said wino. Soon after that, I began playing tetris with myself on the side of the paper and shading in all the shapes, so there are no more notes, aside from Allan insisting that I am secretly called M.C. Tea, which is note true.

No Post Again Today

Blame Rube. Because he is distracting. And it's all his fault, not mine for talking to him in the first place.

P-p-p-prom Planning

Pre-Prom at my place (woo, woo). There will be far too many people involved, by my count, but we shall have fun regardless.

My cousin sent me her bat mitzvah souvenir sweatpants. They are too small. I feel sorry for any of her fatter friends.

I can't do more than a one-liner, I'm sleepy. Work, work, work. Well, chat chat chat, mostly. Andy and Dino and Cammie and Kathrya and Gretchen. No wonder I don't get work done. Too busy with friends.

I like having friends.

Your Darling Tea...

...is something of a klutz. For instance, this very morning, I was walking down the hall with Gretchen, with Tybalt nearby. I tried to take off my glasses and eat crackers at the same time. I got out the glasses case while holding the open cracker container between my teeth.

"You sure you got that, Tea? Want me to hold anything?" asked Gretchen.

"Ahm good," I said around the plastic. I then sniffled once, my teeth shifted, and the entire container of crackers tipped over.

"Tea! I told you it would happen!"

"I'm always forgetting about how clumsy I am."

"You probably should have taken her up on that one," Tybalt advised.

"So I've noticed."

So much for a delicious snack.

Facebook Hacking

Maxwell's facebook got hacked. He posted a link on all of his friend's walls about "How Acai Berry and Colon Cleanse changed my life forever!" My first reaction was to assume he was an annoying facebook user and delete it.

However, Maxwell is not at all accustomed to facebook. He communicates using unusual methods, and he has a profoundly confusing habit of actually ending all of his posts with "Maxwell." I mean, a signature? Really? In this day and age? Regardless, I'm fairly certain that Maxwell only created his facebook after the CEE sent out an email talking about the group, and he only has a hundred some-ought friends. So, he proceeded to apologize to most of them, but not me, because I'd deleted mine.

Take, for example, his exchange with Gaea. She commented "..." on the original post. He wrote on her wall the next day "Sorry, Gaea, this is not from me! Maxwell." Her response? "ok now I'm more confused then ever."

Personally, I am impressed by her grasp of a second language. Gaea lives in Japan, after all, which is very far far away.

Anyways, just to make certain that the entire human population (or, at least, the 105 members of the facebook group) got the memo, Maxwell wrote one more apologetic message, with emphasis on NOT FROM ME and "I really prefer e-mail" (with the hyphen), and a warning about the new "Instant Personalization" setting, which sounds invasive and defaults to on (BE FOREWARNED!).

I commented with the following reminder:

"I wouldn't worry about it. One of my friend's fbs once got hacked, and she sent a link to a website that was either porn or cybersex (judging by people's reactions. I never actually clicked the link) to every one of her facebook friends, and people still talk to her."

An Asian guy who's facebook indicates Scandinavian origins responded by praising the juice that not-Maxwell had been shilling.

Maxwell responded to me with a four line message (two of which were "Hi Tea" and "Maxwell") including two exclamation marks and thanking me for the reassurance, via inbox.

I'm not sure if either of us are being sarcastic, and I'm really, truly uncertain of which side of the exchange is, overall, the most awkward.

Regarding Johns Hopkins

I was rather underwhelmed. I'm trying to decide if it was the weather, or if it was the school itself. There didn't seem to be much in the way of students, and, of what there was, they didn't seem to be particularly friendly. I mean, maybe friendly, it's just most of them were walking by themselves then with other people, there weren't groups of kids hanging out. What few people I saw talking were groups of Asian students speaking their native languages, which was kind of odd.

However, I think part of the problem is that I saw Princeton two days ago, so compared to that, it feels like any school is going to be not quite nice enough. And it's odd- when in the campus, JHU feels less like a city than Brown does, and yet, as soon as you leave, you've got all of the cars and buildings and mess that I dislike about Columbia. But I somehow liked Brown better, because even though the buildings themselves are a wee bit less classically brick and collegiate, the environment and the area just felt right. I know that I'm not supposed to decide schools based upon what they look like, and I know that there are more important factors, but I just don't think I could feel truly at home on a green where you have to speak loudly to drown out the sirens a few blocks away.

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.

Particle Physics Careens Towards Boringness

I went to SHP today and, for the most part, completely ignored my class. I tried to pay attention, I really did, but then I decided to take a break to do a math problem, and by the time I was paying attention, the lecture had advanced so much that I no longer could follow it.

Whoops.

The train ride there was relatively boring. It was just Helga, Archie and I. I sat between them, and we managed a little bit of conversation before Helga pulled out her book, I untangled my ipod, and Archie fell asleep. At one point, Archie actually started to snore. I could hear him through the music, so I started cracking up. Helga laughed a bit before returning to her book, which was for English and, according to her, incredibly boring.

Interestingly, both Helga and Archie are looking forward to the end of SHP, whereas I am dreading it. How utterly fascinating, how different people can experience some of the same events and have such entirely different reactions.

I had originally planned to meet up with Rube for Mariokarting, but he had done badly in something and requested a raincheck (Allana was actually confused by the whole thing, which is kind of odd, but, hey, I get by). I texted Helga when there were about 10 minutes left in class to ask where to meet, and she and Ariadne were already outside, so I met them there.

Archie was still in class, they had no clue about Mario, but Ariadne had texted him, so he, of course, called me. To be perfectly honest, I'm still not following that logic.

We as a group had a horrifically large number of awkward silences. It's really remarkable how it's easier to avoid them when with just one other person than when with four. I think that with one person, you feel pressure to actually carry on the conversation, but when you have a lot, you typically let someone else handle it, and when nobody does, it just kind of dies.

I'm going to relate a couple of conversations, but be aware that both are interspersed with a considerable number of unpredictable and unnecessary pauses.

Archie: Middle schoolers are nasty.

Mario: Sorry, what?

Tea: He doesn't like middle schoolers. What was the phrase you used?

Archie: They're awful.

Mario: To who? Us? Each other?

Archie: Everybody.

Tea: This is true.

Helga: Middle schoolers are just nasty. I mean, looking back at it, people were so mean.

Tea: It makes high school look better in comparison.

Ariadne: I hate high school.

Tea: Really?

Ariadne: Yup.

Helga: It's so short, though.

Tea and Ariadne: But it feels like forever.

Helga: Really? It seems like it's only just started.

Archie: Agreed.

Conversation Two:

Ariadne: So, where do you want to go to school? Like, a city or a country?

Tea: I don't know. Somewhere other than here.

Archie: Not a suburb.

Helga: Definitely not a suburb.

Tea: How would you define school suburb, then?

Ariadne: Yale.

Tea: I believe New Haven is a city.

End Conversation

You may have noticed Mario's lack of participation. This stems from the fact that I'd given him my math packet #4 and requested help, and he had been staring at factoring problems (no writing implement, just staring) for about twenty minutes. I then spent the entire forty minutes in which we were standing because the entire train was packed, passing him various math problems, watching him stare at them, and then listening to his explanations.

Once some seats freed up, we moved over there and spent the remainder of the trip trying to determine the number of possible ten-unit strips that could be created out of green three-unit rectangles and red one-units. We had to do out all of the possibilities, and it took a ridiculously long period of time, but we eventually arrived at the correct answer, with minimal weirdness on his part (ex: "It's odd that we arrive at the same conclusions at the same time." "What?" "Never mind." "Sure. Where did you get that 6 from again?" "I divided twelve by two." "Oh, right. That makes sense.").

We had just moved onto the collinear candles when Helga had the decency to remind us that we were at our town's stop, so we disembarked.

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.

Dear World

I am stressed out and exhausted.

Even though it is only nine o'clock.

Even though my calculus final is now over and done with.

Even though I have wonderful friends, and I'm not fighting with any of them.

I think it's residual stress from the calc panic, coupled with those silly menstrual cramps that mimic the lump-in-stomach feel of stress.

That's probably it.

After all, the whole confusion about Rube alone, and then more when Allana's opinions of him are added in, shouldn't be causing nearly this much stress.

I think some of it is residual emotional strain left over from the rememory paper.

Oh, and the constantly creeping sense of proma isn't helping, nor is the inescapable pull towards college admissions. Because I'm touring next week, and it really just never goes away.

How utterly depressing.

How pathetically whiny.

---------

On a happier front, my random woot shirts came. There is the weird ugly red one and the pretty brown swirly one. Andy found the links for me, based off of me saying that "one is brown with pretty blue swirls and the other is bright red and has a kramus on it." Yay for Andy.

Do I have stories to share?

Of course.

Am I going to share them?

Probably not.

Although, for all interested parties, today during Science Research, I was working next to Mario at a computer, and Kerry was on his other side, when Mario suddenly started laughing. Kerry and I looked at him, confused, but he didn't notice, so I looked at his screen.

He was on the Home Access Center, looking at attendance. Thursday and Friday were both marked in light blue.

"What?" I said. "Is getting your absences excused funny?"

"No, this is Irving's."

"You're on Irving's page," said Kerry.

"He gave me his info."

We stared at him.

"It's not as if he minds."

Kerry elected to roll with it. "How are his grades? Doesn't he have like a 2.9 or something?"

"No, he actually has A+s. He's spreading that around to make himself look normal."

I laughed at that.

A moment later, Louette and Granada caught wind of our conversation.

"Irving?" said one to the other. "Isn't he failing?"

"Oh, look," laughed Kerry, thrilled to be in on the joke. "They heard it too!"

Un Día De Estos

Narrator (N): One day, a dentist and his son went to the village to buy food for dinner.

Hijo(Son)(H): Father, I hoped that we had eaten sweets for dinner yesterday.

Dentist(D): If you had eaten sweets for the dinner, you would have died of an illness of the teeth.

H: I want that you buy for me more sweets and chocolates right now!

D: I cannot buy the sweets for you because there are big and ridiculous taxes.

H: What are taxes? I hope they hadn't eaten my candies.

D: The taxes can't eat nothing, but they are very evil.

N: They didn't know it, but during all of this time the militant mayor had listened and he became very angry. If he had not listened, he would not be angry. But now he wanted vengeance.

-The Militant Mayor enters-

Mayor (A): My taxes are very important for the populace. If we had had this good taxes, our village would be better.

D: But these ridiculous taxes are only for the dentists!

H: But father, you are a dentist, and I want my candies not the taxes. I hate that you are a dentist.

D: I'm going to start a demonstration against the grand taxes.

A: *laughing evilly* You shouldn't do this for two reasons. The first is that you are the only dentist in all of the village. And the second reason is that a demonstration is illegal.

H: What is a demonstration? I haven't heard of the demonstrations.

A: The demonstrations are very bad and we're never going to speak of them in the future. If we didn't have demonstrations, there would be more peace in the world.

N: The dentist became very angry that the mayor would insult the demonstrations.

D: In the past, I have become very angry that the government was military, but never like now.

A: If anyone had a demonstration, I would put them in the jail, and the same is true today.

H: You cannot but my father in the jail. Father has big and powerful weapons, and he can kill you.

N: The mayor drew his sword of light and said a threat.

A: No, poor son, I go to kill your father.

D: You are not correct, Sir. I will kill you in a minute. If I were you, I would have fear for my life.

A: Don't speak to me using the inferior form of the pronoun "you" and its respective variations in conjugation! I am in the superior position!

N: The mayor became very angry that someone would use bad grammar.

-fighting. the dentist is mortally wounded-

D: My whole body hurts. I can see a tunnel of light.

H: Father! No! You cannot die! I want to live with you for forever!

D: If I had won, I wouldn't have died in this manner.

N: In this moment, the dentist dies in a very dramatic manner.

A: I have won! I am victorious! You have died, and your death is not sad.

H: No! My name is "Son of the Dentist." You have killed my father. Prepare yourself to die!

A: You cannot kill me. I am much larger than you.

H: I will grow.

A: Where will you grow? You don't have parents.

N: I will adopt the son, and we will live together happily for always.

-THE END-

Script by Tea, Julie, Gretchen, and Avon.

What I've Found Under My Desk

Because I'm cleaning, despite my possibly broken but probably just badly bruised pinky toe.

• Notes, in Spanglish, from a debate in Spanish (ex: niños have a right to choose what they see.") Written on the bottom, in Tea-ish is "why care."
• The second page of my Rockefeller application, an essay about PHD finger proteins that is covered in black scribbles.
• Practice Intel essays from October regarding my promise as a scientist, mathematician, or engineer.
• a torn piece of paper with nothing written on it
• An outline, in pencil, of the essay about PHD fingers, written on the bottom of a Nature paper.
• Fallen, the Sturken paper, printed with only every other line because the printer is running our of ink.
• All four pages of Dr. Verona's resume.
• The first page of the PHD finger article, with exactly two 'annotations.' The first is a box around Hox and a note, "hox = important." The second is a circle around "A control group of mice" and a note, "the importance of a control."
• Oh, wait, just found another page of Dr. Verona's resume. I guess it had five pages.
• The envelope that Nyx's birthday present came in.
• Introduction to Anthropology worksheet.
• First page of Spanish dialogo, with corrections.
• The schedule for the first day of school. As in, Tuesday, September 1, 2009.
• An AP math problem about a diver.
• Our entire Super Student Challenge paper.
• the first page of the Rockefeller essay with scribbles all over it
• The Rockefeller personal statement, without any scribbles.
• A middle page of the outline of my research paper.
• A piece of notepaper with "PLAN" written on the top, followed by a roman numeral I with "Batteries" next to it. The rest of the paper is blank.
• The entire contents of my Anthropology binder, minus the actual binder.
• A black sock that is actually dirty.
• Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson.
• Two separate miniature notebooks
• Some Anthropology notes that never actually made it into the binder.
• A letter from Duke University
• A Paperclip High School Directory.
• A void railroad ticket
• 8 index cards covered in Utexas calculations
• Two bank receipts. The first says I have $1,011,01, the second says $1145.16. I'm assuming that the second is more recent.
• My $18 SAT score report that I didn't look at.

Now, time to cover the rest of the floorspace...

Tea Learns All About Health

Also known as it is late and I don't feel like writing a real post so you're getting more schoolwork.

Obese children are at risk of heart disease because they have old-person arteries. However, parents pretend it's baby-fat and elect not to put their children on diets and destroy the self esteem of a miniature person. Also, this is boring and fat related and blech, so not happening.

So, moving along to the second health article. This one is about a new virus in South Africa. It causes flu-like symptoms but is followed by death from respiratory and circulatory collapse, which basically sucks. There were four deaths and one recovery and nothing else. Phew.

Viruses are scary. They are also invisible. Like Harry Potter while wearing his invisibility cloak, but evil. Well, not evil. Self-serving, I suppose. Ebola is also scary. It's intangible, too, which is a big word, which I am adding here to make myself sound more intelligent.

Also, best description of viruses ever "semi-alive bundles of nucleic acids." I'm not certain it's strictly scientifically accurate, but we can pretend.

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.

Calc Test Tomorrow AAAAAHHHHH

Polar and parametric curves will be the death of me.

I'm freaking out, so, I'm sorry, but you're not going to get the transcription of a certain conversation today.

However, let it be stated that he said he wants to talk to "you" plural (referring to me, Ali and some number of people she told) tomorrow during gym class, which Kathrya will no doubt find interesting.

Also entertaining:

"That sounds kinda hilariously awkward and uncoordinated. So you fell three times in total today? Nice! Oh man, if a frisbee comes at my face I am definitely going to dodge the fuck away - someone in my physics class got hit in the eye with a frisbee and lost vision in that eye for at least a month. X_X But yeah, frisbees are delightful. You kinda sound like you’ll be fun to play frisbee with, to be honest, assuming you don’t hurt yourself (am I a bad person for thinking you sound fun to be around because you’re uncoordinated?)"

Direct quote from Andy, except I took out the shifty-eyes because the diamonds screw with HTML.

That was in response to me telling him about gym class today, in which "I tripped over my own feet and was lying on the turf, and then my friend went to pick me up and she couldn't so we both ended up lying on the ground and laughing hysterically. Then I tripped over one of my other friends later, and I slammed into somebody else and fell over again, and it was rather pathetic."

That one's quoting me, of course.

I Love Babysitting

Especially when the babysitee is twelve years old, shares his easter chocolates, and watches the sixth Harry Potter movie with you.

So I basically got paid forty bucks to spend three hours hanging out and watching movies. That is, in my opinion, an epic win.

----------------

In other news, here is a story I wrote at the beginning of sophomore year.

----------------

Every June, the town's public library would hold a fundraising event. Seats were sold for a minimum donation of twenty-five dollars. The sizes of the tables varied, as most of them were either dragged in from the various sections of the library or loaned to the building by patrons. Some tables sat twenty people; others held only two.

At one of the smallest tables, during this particular year, sat a comparably small woman. Her companion, a man who, according to his name card, was called Kevin, had yet to make an appearance, so she had picked up the book in front of her and begun to read. A few minutes later, the mysterious Kevin arrived.

"Hello," said Kevin. "I'm Ryan."

"Are you certain that you're in the right spot, Kevin?" she said, looking pointedly at the name card.

"Kevin Ryan. I go by my last name."

"In that case, I'm Jane Collins. Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise." He paused for a moment to let her speak, but she had returned to her book, so he decided to just keep talking. "Say, what book did you list as your favorite?"

"Jane Eyre."

The man looked at her, waiting for the punch line, and after a few moments she raised her eyes to look at him. "What?"

"Tiny Jane loves tiny Jane. You must be joking."

"I assure you, I am perfectly serious."

"Please, you actually enjoy Jane Eyre? You probably just like it for the similarities. I'll bet you hadn't even picked it up until right now."

"Of course I've read it, and I enjoyed it very much, thank you. Just because some pompous men might declare it 'too girly' doesn't make it any less worthy of praise."

He snorted.

"Oh, you disagree."

"I've read better."

"Such as...?"

"Walden, by Thoreau."

"Please! That's not even a novel."

"It's got great description and interesting philosophy."

"A canned response if I've ever heard one."

"Fine, have it your way."

She returned to her book, and he picked up Walden, flipping through its pages.

"Look at this," he said.

"I'm reading."

"Read this, then. Page 104. 'The note of the whippoorwill is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled.'"

"Improper use of a semicolon."

He ignored her and continued speaking, this time using his own words. "Notice how he uses this passage to unite himself with the natural world. The word ripple is both an emotion and a birdcall, and it also connects his serenity to the lake. And this isn't just here- the whole book carefully constructs human's connection with nature."

"There's no need to lecture me, I'm well aware of what good writing is."

"Then you agree that Thoreau is better than Brontë."

"His nature descriptions might win out, but, truly, anyone could write those. It takes a true master to create strong characters and properly describe humanity. The only character Thoreau respects is himself."

"His guests are just as fascinating."

"He's simply transcribing events to paper. There's no true comprehension of humanity."

"And Jane Eyre's so much better?"

"Yes."

"You going to back that one up?"

"It's not that simple. Part of the beauty of Brontë's work is the change in the characters, particularly Jane. And even the smaller ones behave in such interesting and unique ways. It's truly wonderful."

"I'm not seeing the proof."

She marked her place and began thumbing through the book. "Here's a bit where Jane talks about Mrs. Reed and herself. 'It was her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence. However carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were still repulsed, and repaid by such sentences as above,' the above referring to Mrs. Reed telling the principal of Jane's future school that Jane is a lier. Each of the points was carefully made twice. Jane 'obeyed' and 'strove,' and Mrs. Reed 'repaid' and was 'repulsed.' The repetition makes doubly certain that the reader understands, and shows that the character's traits manifest themselves in multiple ways, just as an actual person's would. Aside from that, the passage gives insight into both characters; it shows how young Jane reacts to cruelty and the exact pain Mrs. Reed is capable of inflicting."

Ryan opened his moth for a rebuttal, then stopped himself when he discovered he had nothing to say. "You do seem to know what you're talking about."

"Of course I do! You could have just listened in the first place. Brontë's characters are every bit as valuable- truly, they are more so- as Thoreau's endless love affair with trees."

"Are you trying to imply something about Thoreau?"

"I wouldn't dream of it."

---------------

There Was No School Today

So I went shopping, and I bought this amazingly fuzzy sweatshirt, and these t-shirts. Then I went to the Y and swam, and I ran into Richard's mother, who apparently knows who I am, and it was rather awkward. Then I had a piano lesson, then I came home and read some more of American Gods and wrote back to Andy and ate dinner and read some more and used the computer and wrote a blog post.

Well, since that's rather boring, let's do another English event.

Feminine Irony is the title of this paper, and it exemplifies my ability to make all essays about feminism, religion, or both.

During the Elizabethan era, England had a female queen. However, this is ironic because, incongruously, women had no other power, and the queen kept her power frequently by repressing her own femininity. Isn't that fun?

For one thing, if Elizabeth got married, she couldn't be queen, which pretty much sucks. Also, I used the line about denying her femininity here, not in the first paragraph. Oops.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet demonstrates that those gosh-darned Elizabethan females were weak, powerless, and repressed. Juliet doesn't get to choose her own husband. Then she offs herself. That is not fun. It is not fun at all. It is, really quite tragic. When I saw the show with Nyx, I cried for a good half hour afterwards, and then we went home and talked about how sexy the guy playing Romeo looked shirtless. He really did look good. Probably about as good as Norman, this guy from California who's going to RSI next year who's using a picture of his entire swim team in swimsuits as his profile picture, and they all look rather, uh, nice. What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah, Lord Capulet is a dickwad, right.

Oh, also, I need historical research in this paper. So, check it out, women were property of their husbands, and I'm going to back it up with laws and literature. Is that some great consonance or what? Anyways, I'm not going to bother with that sort of thing. I'm well above it.

Queen Elizabeth's situation was unique. Life sucked for everyone else.

Aphorisms, Adages, and Amazement

No person is born evil. They are shaped by the events around them, the environments they are raised in. Villains are not born sadists; their minds are twisted and tormented by innumerable painful events.

The destiny of children is also independent from their parents. In The Scarlet Pimpernel (sink me!), Sir Percy works to save fallen noblemen and their children. Although in many cases their parents repressed the working class, the children haven't done the same sins and don't deserve to die. This is a painfully obvious point, but it is one that I will back up using literature because apparently that's what the cool kids are doing these days. In A Tale of Two Cities Charles Darney is a fine upstanding man despite his asshole rapist of a dad.

Madame Defarge, the characteristic evil mastermind, clicking her needles as she knits the death of a generation, is just the opposite, a woman born ordinary but warped into an evil mastermind. She was a force against good, but she was forged into that shape by the trials of revolutionary France. Then there are some quotes about wind and fire and other fun stuff, and this was a boring essay.

Ah, well. Cest' la vie, or whatever the hell that is.