Laundry and Lockouts

This post is going to be a compendium of a few different events, all of them utterly interesting.

Laundry, the first time:

The first week had ended, and the second was rapidly approaching. I discovered that I had run out of underwear and tanks, and my bras were starting to smell.

For a moment, I was confused about the path forward, but then it hit me: laundry. I loaded up my bin, then began the intrepid trek downstairs (by downstairs, I mean, literally, down one flight of stairs to the eighth floor, where I thought the laundry machine was, then down a second flight of stairs, to the seventh floor, where the laundry machine actually was.)

On my way down, I ran into (note: not literally) Arthur. Seizing upon the opportunity to socialize, I asked if he would come with me, as I frequently have issues with laundry.

He looked somewhat confused, but he soon consented. We entered the laundry room. The door shut. I had a moment of awkward realization that I was alone in a windowless room with a male of the species before I shrugged it off and began sorting my lights and brights.

All was well. I poured detergent into the first machine and figured out how to insert quarters. I went to put detergent into the second machine.

It was then that I discovered that my laundry detergent bottle was not, in fact, symmetrical. It was really rather asymmetrical, with only one side appropriate for pouring. I realized this belatedly, when a tide of Tide fell upon the machine, dripping down to my legs and non-pouring arm.

I began to laugh madly, and Arthur joined in. Through my somewhat hysterical giggles, I asked him to put quarters into the second machine, which he did, only to realize that he'd leaned into it and gotten detergent all over his shorts. We laughed again.

I then apologized profusely for being such a klutz, and offered to wash the shorts. He agreed, stepped back, and was about a half a second away from de-shortsing himself before he realized that would probably be a bad idea.

He said he'd go upstairs, I said I could do with a towel, we got halfway down the hall when I realized I'd forgotten my wallet, so Arthur, being the less soapy of the two of us, went back and fished it out.

We went upstairs, I washed my legs in his sink, then realized that there were no towels in his bathroom, so I hopped, wet leg off the ground, over to his door, through which I called "Arthur? Towel? Please?"

Arthur, in clean cargo shorts identical to the previous pair, emerged with towel. I finished de-sudsing, then we went back down, threw in his shorts, started the machine, and returned to our respective rooms.

Later, we both went on the dinner trip to Fire and Ice but didn't talk to each other.

Laundry #2

Leila did the laundry. She came back and said, "You are not allowed to call me a bad roommate, I made you laundry!" It was so adorable I decided not to correct her.

Laundry #3

I combined loads with Astrid and Leila. Astrid helped me sort. I changed the clothes over, then eventually brought them back.

During the walk to the machine, Dawson and Arthur followed me part way, then left me in Astrid's capable hands.

Laundry #4

Dawson announced that he was doing laundry. I mentioned that I was running out of underwear and needed to do the whole laundry thing. I asked if I can throw a few pairs in with his clothes so that I could delay more effectively.

He, somewhat uncomfortably, agreed. I got my undies, he got his clothes and detergent, we both put in some quarters and some clothes and started the machines.

During the 45 interim minutes, I took a shower, then realized that it'd been 45 minutes, threw on my sundress (yes, and nothing else) and rushed down to meet him.

The clothes smelled suspiciously not clean.

I asked how much detergent he put in. He looked confused. I asked again. He said "I thought you put it in."

"No, you definitely did."

"I did not."

"Oh."

We paused, looked at the machines, prepared to reload.

He looked uncomfortable.

"What?" I asked.

"I can't get over the whole 'underwear' thing."

"Fine." I took them out, he added detergent, and we left.

"Do you want to go get dinner?" he asked.

I agreed, then realized that I wasn't hungry. "Wait, no."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, it's just, well, I'm not really supposed to agree to do things with you just because I want to be around you anymore."

"Oh. Right."

"Yeah."

We stood awkwardly. I went upstairs, then realized that my key was in my room.

I, notably, was not in said room.

Which brings us to Lockout #1

I was fortunate that I was in possession of many panties, and that my bathroom, with its small heap of dirty clothing was unlocked.

I was also fortunate in that I'd left my backpack full of work under Nicholas's care in the student center to return to at a later time.

I got downstairs, newly clad in tank and cargos, and flung myself upon the couch. Astrid, Minette, and Norman looked at my questioningly.

"I'm locked out. I have no shoes. I have no sweater. I'm going to W20 to work, because I have no money and can't eat."

Astrid loaned me her horribly undercharged meal card (I think Sweden has been overpaying her), and Norman brought me upstairs and loaned me a horribly expensive sweater.

I then went to W20 and worked until Leila got back with her key and let me in. This was a time period along the lines of 3 hours, as she'd gone on a movie trip.

Lockout #2

I was at least wearing clothes this time. I show up at bedcheck, go "Leila, I'm locked out again," she gives me her key, I return a moment or two later, pillow in hand.

Lockout #3

Repeat, verbatim, Lockout #2.

These events led me to two my superlatives: most likely to injure myself, and most likely to get locked out.

Yay, me.

Yum Yum Dim Sum

After the end of the Rocky Horror adventure, Kaylee, Hannah and I removed ourselves from the cab and I, at least, went to sleep. Whenever Leila got back, I was far enough out that I didn't wake up (although this may have been the night that she and Joseph fell asleep in one of the lounges and she just didn't return. Wait, no, this was the morning that she slept through her alarm and missed her oral presentation practice leave-time, so she woke me up at 12:00 and had me make phone calls for her, because English over the phone is too hard to understand).

I woke up, made her calls, took my pills, took a five-minute shower, then got downstairs at 12:30 for the dim sum trip.

I figured dim sum were as good a breakfast as anything, so I happily added myself to Hannah's group of travelers, then proceeded to sit down and doze until we actually left. I have vague recollections of Susan and Sarah being the only other student girls on the trip, and us discussing the fact that I just eat what everyone else gets because I don't speak Chinese or have much of an opinion. I then talked with Bing about the fact that dim sum are apparently kind of like breakfast, or more like breakfast than lunch, so I really wasn't being all that odd.

I know that once I got there I sat at a table separate from Hannah, Susan, and Sarah, and that I was between Bing and Bart, and Sid was also at our table, and that Bart showed me Saudi currency and demonstrated how to fold it so that when you tilted it, King Abdullah (at least, I think it was King Abdullah) would smile and then frown. I remember eating a lot and feeling quite full. I remember seeing an extremely adorable small child when I got up to use the bathroom.

I keep getting this one mixed up with the last dim sum trip, which I already recounted, as that one also had Susan (although it had the people from Bing's country other than Bing).

We got back when the Harvard tour left, though I didn't go on that. I thought Dawson had, but then I found out he was sick, so I alternated between working and asking Gabriel, Dawson's roommate, if Dawson wanted any medicine. I'm not sure if I made much in the way of meaningful progress on the work front, but I did my best. That night (I'm writing about the 18th still) was the talent show, during which my phone went off multiple times.

As far as the show goes, I missed a couple of acts, most notably Pensky's dancing. I did get to see Bing beatbox, which was cool, and hear Nicholas play violin (he really is remarkable, but I don't care what Jasmine says, it is nowhere near enough to make me think that he's sexy. He's just too...too......Nicholas.).

I walked back to W20 with Gopika and Didge, and Gopika put further efforts into getting Engle to take her to prom (she was unsuccessful). I walked from W20 back to Simmons with Susan and Sarah, who gave me very good guy advice which I took, even though, as I stand in September, it didn't exactly help.

Rube arrived about ten minutes after I got back. He left about forty minutes later. I spent bedcheck panicking to Leila, then a good while panicking to Maxwell, then a considerable quantity of time sitting around and just plain panicking.

I really am getting very good at that.

I eventually went to sleep, completely unprepared, as always, for the following day's mentorship.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

The shopping for this took place immediately following the 2nd Milestone presentations. I gave some cash to Sadie and had her shop for me, as I had to work.

Dawson gave his money to Arthur and sent him. He realized only later that this would likely end up in something a tad more scandalous than his original intent. Apparently, though, when it comes to Rocky Horror, scandalous is what you're going for.

I know I went on some trip on this day, because I clearly recall coming back and being really, really exhausted, and then having to change in about 10 minutes flat, and having nothing to wear, and ending up wearing this long shirt that was "totally not revealing" along with sneakers, because sneakers are comfy. I maintain that Arthur worse sneakers, so they were fine, but I've been told that the fact that Arthur was wearing pink tights and an extremely short miniskirt negates this.

I borrowed tall socks from Minette and a belt from Kaylee, loaned my not-even-that-short-but-at-least-belonging-to-someone-with-a-vagina shorts to Dawson (who got a really, really weird stain on them, actually), and had at least three guys try on my one pair of pathetically low heels, in hopes that they could find something that fit (those they fit declared them rather horrifically uncomfortable).

We headed out, I fought to stay awake. I was that behind on sleep. We walked all the way there with relatively few odd events, aside from me walking briskly in the front along with James and Hassan because we looked less scary to whoever we walked past than did Ululani and Arthur, who were leaning more in the "going all out" direction, and Arthur's skirt rather inconveniently blowing up and scaring the bejeezus out of an innocent passerby (although I really could have done with out the spandex demonstration).

We got to the theater. There weren't enough seats, so I sat in the aisle and alternated between leaning on Zsa and Teresa, both of whom thought the show was very, very weird. Morrison was the audience favorite and got to get married. I fell asleep about twenty minutes in, and when counselor Hannah and tutor Kaylee decided it would be just cruel to make me stay any longer when I was clearly very ill (read: wanted an excuse to take a cab back), we left.

Most of the Rickoids we walked past were out cold. Apparently movies about transvestites are not our favorite kind of entertainment.

We prefer Truth or Dare.

Oh, and before I forget: Hi, Bart.

Second Milestone Presentations

Milestones are far more work than they should be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New England, Rediscovered

By the time we'd finished our own cooking (while attempting to ensure that the midwesterners didn't give anybody food poisoning), we were twenty minutes late, so Chao, Maxwell, Gopika and I raced (well, walked quickly) to 6-120 for presentations.

Now, I'm going to walk you through a presentation on the Northeast.

\begin{frame}{Title Slide: The Northeast}

aka Winners of the Civil War

Clearly the best region of the US

RSI 2010.

\end{frame}

When this slide was first displayed, Vito counted down 3,2,1, and we all simultaneously popped our collars.

We stood, in this order: Chao, Sarah, me, Patrick, Gopika, Zorah, Stratton, Livny, James, Maxwell. If there was anyone else, they're cropped out of my picture. We looked, if I do say so myself, polo-tastic.

\begin{frame}{Some Geography}

\begin{figure}

Map of the U.S. with New England + Pennsylvania + New York + New Jersey highlighted

\end{figure}

\end{frame}

James talked through the above slide.

\begin{frame}

Some History

-1775: Revolutionary War -- started in the Northeast.

-1789: Capital of US was in NY, then PA
-1804: Northeast started abolishing slavery
-1848: Seneca Falls, NY convention first discusses women's suffrage
-1865: Civil War - won by the North(east)
-1865: Northeast forcibly abolished slavery in the South
-1920s: Jazz popularized in NY
-1945: United Nations established, headquartered in NY
-1969: Woodstock music festival in NY
-2010: RSI 2010 held in MA

\end{frame}

James discussed this slide as well. The southerners started booing when he read the line about jazz, though. Poor form on their part, if you ask me.

\{begin}{frame}{Some People You Might Know About}

-Benjamin Franklin
-John Adams
-John Hancock
-Paul Revere
-Mark Twain
-Alexander Hamilton
-Theodore Roosevelt
-Franklin Roosevelt
-John Kennedy
-Carl Sagan
-Hillary Clinton
-Joe Biden
-The cast of Jersey Shore

\end{frame}

Maxwell took this slide. He got through all of them up to Carl Sagan, who he didn't know. Jersey Shore was also mysterious to him, so he finished by saying that whoever they were, they couldn't be cooler than Patrick.

\begin{frame}{North and South}

N: 55 million people.

S: 55 million opossums (before Sunday dinner)

N: 8 of the 13 original colonies

S: 12 of the 12 Confederate States

N: John Kennedy

S: George W. Bush (although he was born in CT)

N: Snow

S: Hurricanes

N: White collars

S: Rednecks

\end{frame}

I discussed that slide, and I got to make a lot of jokes at the expense of southerners (eating roadkill, lowbrow politics, etc.). It was almost enough to make me think that I'm funny.

\begin{frame}{Politics}

Map of the U.S. with Obama and McCain voting states mapped out.

Large image of a colored donkey.

\end{frame}{Politics}

I think I made Patrick take over at this point. Or possibly Stratton.

\begin{frame}{GeoPolitics of the Northeast}

If we look at a series of nations, we begin to notice a disturbing conclusion about the Northeast of each one. Now let's generalize...North Vietnam? Rebellious. North Korea? We beat them hard and good way back when. Anarchist Catalonia? We all know what they're up to. Thus, it is only a matter of time before our Northeast, too, falls to the rebellion.

\end{frame}

That bit was Vito's baby. I still don't quite get it, but the Catalonians seemed to find it funny.

\begin{frame}

Colleges in the Northeast

\end{frame}

Chao went up and listed about a zillion schools. Then we all tried to talk about our individual states, and we got cut off for time-related reasons.

Cooking for America Night

I talked about International Night briefly, way back here. Now, we've moved on to something bigger, and better, and probably mostly just fatter and less diverse, but we'll ignore that statement.

For America Night, we divided into regions. I was, of course, with the Northeast, and my group included myself, Chao, Gopika, James and Patrick (male, IMO (as in math, not as in the chat abbreviation), OMG (as in the chat abbreviation), among others.

Chao decided we were making Indian pudding. Frank and I decided that we didn't know what that was, and therefore it would be gross, and James told us that Chao was at least putting in an effort, so we shouldn't complain, and we should instead start showing up for meetings.

I, naturally, got caught up in something that I'm sure was very important at the time (probably showering) and showed up rather late in the cooking process. Chao and Gopika were running around somewhat purposefully but with much haste.

The southerners had stolen our kitchen. Ash had, as ever, taken charge, and he decreed that their group was making roadkill burgers. Thus, the southerners co-opted all of the pots and pans and spent four hours of the afternoon broiling meat that, even when done, still looked plenty pink. They stuck it in bread with some condiments and called it a day, and then we Norther Easterneres, and Mid-Westerners, and the Out Westerners finally got a look at the kitchen.

I, of course, missed all this, and arrived when the east and the west were battling it out for stove space, with the east primarily winning, as even though Jared tries to be and occasionally manages to be intimidating, Chao, when she puts her game face on, can take on even him. Anyways, Chao and Gopika ordered me around, and I frantically tried to find things. Jared, a member of the midwestern crew, 'cooked corn.'

By that, I mean that he put water in a pan, stared at it for thirty seconds, said "okay, looks hot enough," ignored Chao and I disagreeing, and dumped about half the corn, since it didn't all fit, into the pot.

He left it in for approximately two minutes, then reached over Chao, who was stirring the chocolate for the Boston Cream Pie she'd finally decided on, grabbed some tongs, and pulled it out.

We objected that it wasn't cooked. Ravi (male) came over, looked at the plate of corn, and said "that is some raw ass-corn," as we'd all gotten into the habit of making the hyphen swap.

Jared said "it's FINE. Okay?" in his standard, overly punctuated speaking pattern.

We were going to object further, but then we noticed the hotdogs that a few other midwesterners (Luke and possibly Carlisle (though of Carlisle wasn't actually there, he will accuse me of discriminating for his asian-ness, like he did every time anyone caught him sleeping in lecture ("I have asian eyes it's not my fault")).

The hotdogs were virtually raw, and they declared them done.

Please don't blame me for not eating them.

The Beach

I discovered today that Caleb's profile picture is now of him surfing.

On that note, I'm going to recount beach day.

On this day, we had to awaken early. Possibly before seven. So, like, really early, not just early by RSI standards. Leila and I awoke. I quickly brushed my teeth and washed my face, by which time she'd managed to get herself awake.

I made a half-hearted attempt at packing a beach bag, then ran to W20 in hopes of getting a few minutes to eat breakfast. It is likely that I ran into Chao along the way, since she and I are frequently breakfast buddies, but I have a vague recollection of rushing along with Gabriel, Leila's little spanish friend, on this particular morning.

I inhaled my breakfast while standing around with my counselor group, waiting for Kareem, who was late as usual, and Leila, whose hair was being difficult.

We then walked to the t-stop. In order for me to give you all a complete impression of how long this takes, I'm going to give mini-bios of a few more members of my counselor group, since that was who I was walking with. We covered a few people here, and now we'll discuss a few more.

Leila and Gabriel: Leila is my roommate, and Gabriel is the roommate of my friend on the eighth floor of my tower (hint: the one who doesn't have a single). They both love skype, although they kicked their addiction somewhat the last couple of weeks. They are from Cataloonya, which is where Barcelona is, and is not actually spelled like that. Leila is so short that her head fits under my chin when we hug. I'm not really sure how tall Gabriel is.

Kareem: Kareem is from Saudi Arabia, and he lives on my floor. He isn't really bothered with rules, so he does things like sneak off campus and buy really expensive laptops when he's supposed to be at mentorship, which our counselor, Keyuri, never yells at him for, because she thinks that all Saudis have connections to the Taliban and she doesn't want to make the wrong people angry.

Veer: Veer has a girlfriend (and she doesn't live in Canada. I said hi to her on skype once. It was fun). He actually rarely talks about her, so it's silly to introduce him as such, but whatever. Veer is Indian and occasionally accuses other Indians of acting white. I didn't really talk to him that much, to be perfectly honest, so I can't give you much better than that.

That's good enough for a wait, I think.

I most likely talked to Arthur and Dawson during the walk, because I tend to do that, but regardless, we eventually arrived, and met the other counselor groups, then took the tube to...

A BOAT!!! WE GOT TO RIDE A BOAT!!!!

It's really remarkable that I still get excited about these sorts of things, considering the number of boats I've been on in my life.

I stood between Dawson and Bing (Bing is a guy) for the ride over, and I have vague recollections of talking about Arkansas, then learning that, contrary to my previously held belief, Singapore is an island. Who knew?

We got off of the ferry, and, soon thereafter, Ashley (male), James (male), and Chao (female) gathered together a Contact-playing group, and we got so intent on our game that we missed the first ferry.

When the second ferry came, a "particularly smart" group of us decided to wait in the shade until the last possible second to get on the ferry. Naturally, it was full, and the five of us got stuck on the island.

We wandered off to a grassy area and, of course, played more contact. I also got my first semi-explanation of what Starcraft is from James while Ash was looking for some sticks to turn into sandcastle building tools. I also got to lead my first round of contact; I used magnolia as my word, screwing over my science-geek friends who couldn't get magnets out of their heads, although Bing eventually figured me out.

An hour later, we boarded the ferry and went to island number two. Here, at last, was the beach.

I swam, first with Nicholas and Gopika, who spent the entire time attacking each other, because Nicholas derives some great enjoyment from stealing her stuff, then with Bing, who declared the water to be rather chilly, and then with Kareem, Nicholas and a few others who were trying to play beach volleyball in chest high water with a soccer ball.

Then, of course, it came time for frisbee. It was still warm out, so I figured I'd just play in a swimsuit--it wasn't until I'd walked all the way up the great big hill and started playing that I realized that Nicholas and Livny were the only other ones in just swimsuits.

Gopika and I, naturally, took a moment to discuss Livny's shirtless state.

Gopika: Livny has bigger boobs then I do.

Tea: Me, too. Although, yours are bigger than mine, so I suppose that's just a logical continuation.

Gopika: I'm not sure they are, I think it's just the combination of the swimsuit and the dress.

Tea: You're still plenty sexy and curvaceous.

At the last line, Luther (big Chinese guy) turned around and gave us the absolute dirtiest look, so we dissolved into hysterics.

We played frisbee for a bit more, and I borrowed Dawson's spare shirt so I felt a little more comfortable, then uncomfortably returned it with some various interesting wet spots left by my bathing suit.

When walking back down to the beach with Gopika, I ran into Arthur, and I recounted our little tale and Luther's shocked reaction. Gopika said I'd probably gone into too much detail, and Arthur said it was funny, but still awkward.

Then he promptly forgot the entire event, and a while later, when he heard mention of some awkwardness that had occurred involving Gopika and I at the beach, he bombarded me with instant messages asking what the hell it was, and insisting that I hadn't told him anything at all.

Anyways, back to the beach: it rained copiously, so we hid in the main building and played more Contact, which is, as I've said, the best game ever. Then, rain and all, we went on the ferry and rode back to shore.

Gaea tried to talk me into coming on some dinner trip with her, then changed her mind at the last minute because she was apparently avoiding someone on said trip.

Instead, we went back to W20, and I stood around with her, Maxwell and Abe and tried to decide what to order for dinner. Then Abe hug-attacked me, and then Gaea licked me, so I freaked out and went to eat with other people. No pizza for Tea.

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.

It really is remarkable

Just how much work work manages to be. I remember next to nothing from these days, just a cloud of sleeping off sickness, infecting others (Dawson, I'm sorry), and reading paper after paper after endless paper.

Oh, and writing. That second milestone was a fair bit of work, I suppose, although I think a better chunk of the 13th was spent pretending to read S. Mckee's thesis on nuclear energy, which I never did get all the way through (although I did manage to forget to cite her half-life data. Whoops).

I'm going to say that this was the day that I walked to dinner with Jared and Bashir, because it will make for a more interesting post.

Bashir is the crazy Lebanese guy who works in my lab. He is, as I've said, crazy, but you will probably get more on that later.

Jared is Bashir's roommate. Jared is a big Asian guy from a big city (and I say big in a relatively loose sense of the word, because, while tall and muscle-y, he is still extremely skinny) who wears baggy t-shirts and long shorts and waves his arms and gesticulates in a manner suggesting a comfortable existence in a ghetto.

On this particular day, I walked out of the dorm with the pair of them.

"Why," asked Bashir, "are there no black people in RSI?"

Jared and I looked at him.

"There are not! I look, and I see black people, and they are all MITES. There are none here. Why are there no black people."

Jared looked pained.

"Why!" demanded Bashir.

"Well, there was supposed to be one, but his visa fell though, and he was, like, actually from Africa," I said.

"No, look, see," said Jared. "You can't just ask this shit."

"I just did. You say I cannot ask this, but then look! I do!"

"I think what Jared means is that it's not the sort of thing that one generally talks about. It's a sensitive subject."

"Yes! That's it. We don't talk about it. You just pretend that it doesn't exist."

"Why would I pretend that it doesn't exist when it so clearly does?"

"Because that's what you do," responded Jared. "You pretend, and then it just, I dunno, goes away."

"I'm not exactly certain that it--" I started.

"It will not go away. Look at your movies."

"What?" said both Jared and I.

"All the black people in the movies--they are stupid. Stupid. So stupid. They cannot talk, they cannot live, they cannot make money. They are poor and stupid. What am I supposed to think about black people here when all I see is 'blacks are dumb'?"

"SHUT UP! Bashir, don't let anybody hear you!" Jared looked worried.

"Well, what do black people do?" asked Bashir.

"I dunno, they play basketball," said Jared.

"I'm not sure that's the sort of thing you would think that you should be saying," I said.

"Shut up."

"Jared, I thought that you played basketball."

"I used to."

"Why'd you stop?" I asked.

"Were the black people better than you? Did they make your asian-boy look stupid?" asked Bashir, before beginning to laugh.

"Bashir, someone is going to hear you, and they are going to beat you up."

"No, they will not. The only one who will beat me up is you, and you won't, because you love me."

"I do not love you."

"You are my roommate. Of course you love me."

"You are so fucking crazy."

Bashir just laughed.

The Twelfth, the twelfth

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

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

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

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

I'm leaning towards no.

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

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

The Degree of Neglect

That you have been experiencing is pathetically large. Much of it stems from the fact that I got rather ill on the 11th (the day we're pretending it is right now), and the rest stems from a lot of interesting occasions related to the opposite gender that I will not transcribe here because my RSI blogs are not precisely anonymous.

Regardless, I apologize, and I will try to make it up to you as soon as I can.

On July 11th, I slept until noon. I was up late as well, and I suppose I could relate that in my account, but there wasn't much to relate, aside from the fact that Rube and two of his friends had visited the evening before to play frisbee, and that they'd wanted more people than just me, so I'd called Dawson, who was with Gabriel, and we spent like ten minutes about a hundred yards apart, waving at each other without the other one seeing, on the phone going "I'm doing jumping jacks." "I can't see you" "Seriously, I'm right here!" while Rube and friends looked confused.

We eventually rounded up a larger group of people, but then those PROMYS jerks proceeded to kick our butts, which was somewhat bad. Apparently Rube's whole long distance running and good hand-eye coordination thing makes him good at frisbee. How very frustrating.

Anyways, back to the 11th. I got up at noon, and then my wonderful family came to visit about an hour later. My sisters (Shelby in particular) were very appreciative of the ball pit, which is understandable, considering that it is completely and utterly awesome. Eventually the family left, and I went to W20 with a backpack full of papers and settled down to read.

About a half an hour later, I felt like complete crap, so I walked back to Simmons to recuperate. I was so hot after the walk that I lay down on the couch on the first floor and refused to move. My tylenol, however, was upstairs. It was an extremely unfortunate situation.

At some point, Teresa came over and asked if I wanted her to buy me some medicine. I said that I had some upstairs, I just hurt too much to move, so I gave her my key and she went up to get them.

However, Teresa is an international student, and she didn't know the names of pills, so she brought down my entire bag. Unfortunately, the entire bag consisted of a giant pink plastic Victoria's Secret monstrosity, because it was the only thing my mother could find in the house that was opaque and large enough to put food in as well. Larry, who was on the couch opposite me, took one look at the bag and began to laugh. Teresa left, I rolled over and ignored Larry, and then I thought about how to get the bag upstairs without either moving or letting too many people see it.

A few minutes later, someone shoved their hands over my eyes. They felt squishy, warm, and biggish, and there is a limited number of people who would do such a thing to me, so I growled "Nicholas" in an angry voice. The hands immediately went away.

It wasn't Nicholas.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else," said the boy, who was, I think, one of the MITES.

"Yeah, I figured."

"Sorry."

I shrugged.

"This is really awkward."

"Yeah."

"Like, really awkward."

"Yeah." Suddenly, I had an idea. "Hey, do you want to redeem your awkwardness?"

"Depends what I have to do."

"Can you bring this bag to my room for me?"

"Okay."

So, I gave him the bag and my key, and away he went.

Larry rolled over to look at me. "Did you seriously just give him your room key?"

"Yes?"

"You trust him?"

I shrugged. "I guess so."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"You don't know him!"

"I dunno, I just trust people. Maybe it's stupid, but I do."

"Oh."

Larry and I looked at each other, then turned to look at the elevator, then we both began to laugh somewhat hysterically.

We were still laughing when, fifteen minutes later, the boy returned, my key in his hand, apologizing for how long the elevator took.

I continued to lie on the couch and moan for quite some time. At some point, I called Dawson to beg for food, who called Ululani and got him to bring me a bagel. I got first Nell, then Bing to sit on my legs and keep them warm, and when Dawson showed up I got use of his towel as a blanket, and Maxwell brought my my ipod, and the moral of the story is that if one moans about how crappy they feel for long enough, people will do nice things.

Yay!

Things I Love

Zsa claims (probably rightly) that she could very easily make a list of 1,000 things that make me happy.

One of these things is the adorable french exchange student (graduate, I think) in my lab, who speaks with a heavy accent and is confused by English keyboards, but is still willing to run a computer program to find various Gibbs energies for me, and then spend at least a minute typing "good luck!" into the email he sends me.

I love science.

Me? Tired? Nooooo

Cast of characters:

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

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

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

Harold, who is a counselor.

Setting:

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

Dill: I can bench.

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

Dill: I do! I'm good.

Stratton: Hey, everybody, look at Dill.

Dill: I bench 160.

Livny: Oooh, 160.

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

Dill: Hey!

Stratton: Look at those muscles. Ohhhh, man.

Dill: 160 is a lot.

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

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

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

Dill: Oh my god!

Tea: What?

Dill: I had no idea you were there!

Tea: Oh. Hi?

Dill: Yeah...

Food-Related Adventures

I'm going to continue with my description of the July 4th fun, since the vast majority of what I did this week was rather boring.

I woke up at 6:30, approximately 3 minutes after the majority of those remaining had gone for a breakfast run. I sat up and began talking to one of the many nobodies here, after which I brushed my hair (because it looked damn bad) and finally gathered enough wakefulness to make note of those around me.

Ava and Miles were cuddled up very, very close together. Zsa had taken my blanket and wrapped herself up like a pupae in a cocoon. Chao was sitting by herself, so I went, still bleary eyed, over to her, and we chattered a bit and swapped back rubs, which, overall, makes me really dislike Veer for saying mean things about her, because Chao is, in her way, completely awesome.

Eventually, a breakfast run was formed, and I will give no further details about that, because it is one of those events that would be spoiled if a future Rickoid knew of it, and this is, after all, a public forum. Suffice to say that I eventually arrived back and occupied my morning by playing GHOST. I went on a dim sum trip for a late lunch, which was fun in its way.

I walked with Sarah on the way there, and it was nice to get to talk to her when she wasn't worried about not being good enough at academics, because she's so much better than me that when she gets started I begin to get twitchy. Behind us, Ululani and Gopika argued about whether his sexual actions towards Keyuri qualified as purposeful destruction of their relationship, which was entertaining due to the fact that Ululani has a girlfriend back home and his relationship with Gopika consists solely of arguing over whether said relationship has been invalidated.

During the meal itself, everyone at my table asked for foods in Chinese while Miles and I awkwardly twiddled our thumbs. Then we all walked back, and I got excited every time I saw ice cream, but everyone just kept moving, so I didn't get any. Thus, when we finally returned, I found Zsa and dragged her over to a truck that was serving soft serve and bought us both cones.

Unfortunately, I greatly overestimated Zsa's ability to eat ice cream. Apparently, in China, they have dairy very rarely, and, when they do, they eat it with a spoon. Thus, Zsa ate her ice cream by repeatedly biting at it using only her lips, and it was extremely ineffective. She ended up covered in melt, so we went over to the edge of the Esplanade, and I held back her hair until she surrendured and threw out the remains, and we got all cleaned up before returning to the group. 'Twas extremely fun.

Independence Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Milestones

First week of mentorship was over, so I had to have an introductory milestone paper and presentation. That would have made more sense if I'd had longer than 24 hours since receiving said mentorship.

I may possibly have psyched myself and completely flubbed the presentation, but I will not admit to that here or anywhere, because I would prefer that it be forgotten (but, really, I forgot the difference between atoms and molecules. It was bad. Like, really, really bad).

Saturday was also a counselor group competition day, which consisted of the various counselor groups breaking off, and the members of each group engaging in a myriad of fun activities, including really, really awkward ones like sticking a toothpick in your mouth and using it to pass a lifesaver on to the next person's toothpick (Arthur? I realize that you may be proud of the three facial hairs that you are in possession of, but I feel no need to get that close to them again. Please remove them).

Anyways, I will refrain from discussing the rest of the activities, so that any future Rickoid that reads this will not be at risk of spoilage, and instead use this opportunity to introduce my counselor group.

Dawson: Dawson is a math person, but I like him anyways because when I am lazy, he'll find the area of a hexagon for me, like he did yesterday. He is dissatisfied with his project because it involves a lot of case work, which is apparently boring. He is also one of the ten-thousand-bajillion tall asian guys here (note: there are not quite that many, I am just so confused by the fact that tall Asian guys exist in such a large quantity that I occasionally exaggerate (I'm not sure whether Rube counts as a counterrargument that they exist elsewhere)).

Arthur: Arthur is another math person, and I like him as well because he once spent over an hour trying to explain his project to me, and when I am doing anything by myself and I run into him, he is perfectly willing to be dragged along. For instance, this happened last week when I tried to do my laundry. I was confused by the asymmetry of the laundry detergent bottle and spilled detergent all over myself and the machine; fortunately, I had brought Arthur to the laundry room with me to help. However, as he was inserting quarters, he leaned on the machine and got detergent on his shorts. I said I'd throw them in with my wash, and he was approximately thisclose to just taking them off before he decided that, considering the fact that we were already chillling out alone in a windowless room, he'd be better off going upstairs. I hopped up after him so I could de-soap myself a bit, but realized I'd forgotten my purse, so he went back and got it, we went up the stairs (performing difficult door-holding maneuvers so I could get through without touching anything or anyone), and I cleaned my legs and arms off before realizing that, lo and behold, there were no towels in his bathroom. 'Twas fun.

Miles: Miles is Australia. Miles is awesome. Miles is dating Ava and they are the most cute-tastic couple ever. Miles also finds it entertaining when I repeat everything he says while trying to mimic his accent, and he sat around with me whenever I felt the need to bitch about my old mentorship. Miles also loves sailing, particularly catamarans, to which I said we should go get Nyx to take us in one of her wonderful free rentals, but then we realized that the fact that we're not allowed off campus may get in the way of that sort of thing.

That just about sums up the group of us that sits on the top of the spare bed in our counselor's room during bedcheck while Keyuri, the counselor in question, reads off anouncements. I will go through everyone else at a later time.

It has been eight days since I last posted

Whoops.

I suppose I could post retroactively, since blogger enables me to.

I went back to the last day that we had, and I can't remember much at all. I know that we had a speaker who'd gone to RSI, and I could share gossip about him, but, in the scheme of things, that's somewhat identifiable, which would be, overall, not good.

Ah, wait, it's beginning to come back to me. Last Thursday, the day before the day which I am going to put this post on, I got moved to a new mentorship, which is really, really unusual, and I'm not going to talk about it anymore for fear of stepping on virtual toes, which, to be perfectly honest, I've done quite a lot of already.

Anyways, I got moved over to nuclear engineering. Yes, that's right, nuclear engineering. Because, you know, electrical didn't sound quite imposing enough. Now, some of you might be aware of the fact that I know very little about nuclear energy. As in, most of what I learned about it I learned from a single information packet that I got during summer chemistry, long, long ago. Thus, I have spent a large percentage of the last few days (and all of both Thursday and 'today') reading an introductory textbook to nuclear energy.

While nuclear engineering is rather riveting, textbook reading is rather exhausting, so I didn't write very much, if at all, during that textbook period.

Weirdly, the spellcheck on this computer refuses to believe that didn't is a word. I am very, very confused.

RSI is continuing (unsurprising, that)

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

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

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

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

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

So I will work. Farewell for now.

Mentorship is mostly worked out

which is quite nice. Aside from that, we have a Nobel Laureate speaking tonight, which is somewhat unbelievable but is sure to be awesome. Also, tonight (after the speaker) is Girl's Night, which consists of the 23 girls (because, of course, we only have 23 (for all interested parties, that means that there is a 2:1 ratio of guys to girls (also, there is a wonderfully large number of tall Asian guys (insert shifty eyes here))) and can fit in one room) sitting and doing fun activities such as 'gossiping about boys.' I will continue with my current gossip method, which is to mention how easy on the eyes Donny is, which everyone then agrees to, and then we have a lovely bonding moment. It's really quite fun.

Stupid emacs. I keep trying to save with ctrl-x ctrl-s because that's how you save on emacs. My personal opinion of this is that emacs is a complete and utter butthead, because, seriously, that is far, far too many buttons to perform such a delightfully simple action.

Now I'm trying to remember what I did last night. It's remarkable how much of a blur my life has become. We had international night, in which people from other countries made food and then talked about their homelands. I, for my part, made chocolate chip cookies (pure American goodness) with the help of three of my fellow Americans (Tem, Jasmine, and Vanessa).

Later on, after bedcheck, which was spent with three other people trying to arrange ourselves in such a way that we could lie on a single mattress without risking physical contact, Miles took a group of us outside to play with a boomerang.

I would give more details, but I need to go get ready for that formal-wear lecture. Suffice to say we spent most of the time throwing the boomerang, then ducking because it was dark, we couldn't see, and boomerangs have an awful habit of coming back.

First Week is Done

And I am extremely thankful. I will, thankfully, not have to be awake before eight any time in the next five weeks.

I just made my mini-presentation, which I did on how sticky Nutella is, and I am now sitting in the computer lab next to Kris, who appears to be actually doing RSI related things.

The night before last was Meet Your Mentor Night. I got all dressed up so as to make a good impression only to discover that, in fact, my mentor had neglected to make an appearance. I sought out my tutor, Kaylee, who informed me that my mentor is Dr. Bohdan (I apologize if there is a legit person named Dr. Bohdan somewhere out there, because I blatantly made that name up) and that he hadn't been resonding to emails. She advised me to just show up at some point the next day.

So, that's what I did. Yesterday morning, I woke up at 8:30, ate breakfast, checked my email, and went in search of the proper building, which turned out to be converniently located less that one block away from the computer cluster. I found the proper room, and there was a woman sitting at a reception desk. I went up and introduced myself, and she informed me that she was actually someone else's assistant, but that Bohdan's assistant would be there in ten minutes.

I sat down and occupied myself with some engineering magazines (there was a riveting article about designing nanodevices to actively deliver drugs), and about a half an hour later, the assistant finally showed up. I introduced myself, mentioned RSI and the CEE, and she looked vaguely confused and then told me that Bohdan was at his summer home until Tuesday, but that she could make me an appointment then, so I made said appointment before leaving.

I then called up Kaylee, who said she'd come over and sort things out (because Kaylee has a PhD and is thus capable of magically sorting things out). She walked in, all business despite ridiculously tall cork platforms she was wearing, and attempted to find one of Bohdan's students.

The assistant's first assumption was that Kaylee was another high school student who believed that she, too, was supposed to be working with Bohdan, which I found somewhat funny. However, we did get ahold of Chad and Nelson, two of the grad students. They had no idea I was coming, so they called the other grad students, who also had no clue (including the one who, like me, specializes in the many flaws of the electricity transportation system), but declared that this was "typical Bohdan" and that they were sure it would all get sorted out on Tuesday. Then Kaylee left, and Chad and Nelson decided to give me a tour of the lab. Well, Nelson gave me a tour of the lab. Chad got somewhat bored and left after a couple of minutes.

The lab was completely and utterly awesome. There was a random car in the middle that had been opened up, so you could see the engine and all of its component parts. There were also various smaller engines in different locations around the room that Ethan and others were working on. There were types of lights designed to turn on in new ways (I'm fairly certain I'm not supposed to reveal what people are working on via the internet), and a giant lightbulb used to test solar panels, and screw drivers and tools everywhere. Nelson showed me what sautering (I'm sure I butchered that spelling) is, and demonstrated. He works with ultracapacitors, which are pretty much extremely awesome. I think my favorite bit of everything I saw was just the volume of stuff everywhere. Unlike the sterile image of a biology or a chemistry lab, in which everything looks so white and clean and new that one should not touch it (or, at least, that's what they look like on TV), this looked like my garage, but about 6x as dangerous.

I realize that I will most likely end up doing an experiment that is more theory than construction. However, the whole 'building' thing is completely awesome, and Nelson said he'd teach me to do some hands-on stuff if I wanted, and I think that I definitely want, because how can you really engineer anything without getting your hands dirty?

I realize that I haven't really done any engineering yet, and I've barely even touched any power tools, but I think it would be a good idea to learn. I'll have to have Dad teach me when I get home, although I'm a wee bit worried that I'm too clumsy to handle that sort of activity.

But if I can just sit in a room of component parts for all of eternity, I'm not at all certain that I'll care.

I will have time to post again....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Me: Yeah....

Maxwell: Who are you talking to then?

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

Maxwell: A guy?

Me: Yes.

Maxwell: Are you seeing him or something?

Me: Well, no...

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

I have computer time

and, since I'm not particularly good at taking naps, I've elected to write you a post.

I am at RSI. I should be very, very tired, but, as I just had an extremely delicious coffee, I am not. 'Tis lovely. Absolutely splendiferous. I wonder how long it will be until my sleeping patterns adjust. My roommate is named Leila, and she has been brought in all the way from Catalonia, and even though she speaks Catalan natively, she's better at Spanish than English, so she doesn't mind my feeble attempts at practicing. She studies some sort of astronomy, and she has this big paper with lots of fancy-schmancy math in it that I understand only bits and pieces of (apparently there is far more to Keplar's law than just, you know, Keplar's law).

When I first got here, I was very, very afraid of all of the people, because, as most of you are aware, I really really really really really do not like crowds. However, I'm good with small groups, so I've mostly been starting small and then working my way up, which has been working alright, since I've learned a lot of names (and people talk to me! It's quite exciting.)

Another highlight was the battle in the ballpit. Because, you know, we have a ballpit. It. Is. AWESOME. I keep jumping into it somewhat randomly, because it really is extremely fun, but last night we got a good group going, and we had the plastic equivalent of a snowball fight. My team lost, but I did a decent job of weakly chuckign the things before I discovered that it was much more effective to pretend that I was in a pool and 'splash.'

Anyways, this morning, I had my first day of classes. I am taking chemistry and biology. The bio, unsurprisingly, is fairly easy. The chem, which I did not sign up for, is far over my head. I had to get someone to explain electronegativity to me, which did help, but I am still, overall, somewhat confuzzled by the idea. At the very least, my moaning "I have taken exactly 6 weeks of chemistry and I DON'T GET IT" has caused a few people to laugh, although I'm not sure if it's just because my complete inadequacy is making them uncomfortable.

Hopefully I will never need to find out.

Because I know I will be too busy tomorrow...

Here is a video. It made me happy. Also, I found it by myself, without the help of Nyx. Not that I generally have the help of Nyx. Or Cammie, for that matter. No help at all.

Holy Bejeesus

I'm leaving tomorrow morning. This is absolutely completely and utterly terrifying. Completely mind-boggling. I just need to focus on being excited, because I started getting homesick in advanced last night, and that just qualifies as generally bad, and I feel like while I'm at RSI it will be harder to get Rube/Ginny to tell me to stop it, since they won't be there, although I suppose Rube sort of will, even if I may not actually get to see him, and I'm sure that if I call Ginny and beg a teeny bit she'll talk to me, so I guess I don't really need to worry about that.

Oh, and, right, yeah, I'm leaving? I haven't finished my essay, and I haven't even bought all the stuff I need to bring, and I've barely started packing, and I don't even have any bags at all (although I did get (and hide) my traveler's checks). Anyone who would like to squeeze in a final goodbye, come by this afternoon or evening. Also, that includes Nyx. And Cammie, who wanted me to mention her.

A Busy Day

I should, theoretically, be going to sleep about now. But, for some strange (but entirely comprehensible) reason, I can't gather the motivation.

I blame Rube. I'm sure that you are all completely (not) shocked by this revelation. He is, overall, very easy to blame things on. This includes the butter currently on the handle of my door, which is, I would like to report, very greasy.

I would also like to report that, despite somewhat extreme skinniness, he has a very comfortable lap.

That is all.

Potential Highlights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Obligatory Scheduling Post

This upcoming year, I have three options.

My first choice:

1 AP English

2 free/fiction

3 ASR

4 AP spanish

5 AP physics c

6 multi bc

7 mid east/free

8 AP chem

My second and third choices (I'm not sure, at this point, which is second and which is third.)

1 ap english

2 ap chem

3 free/fiction

4 spanish (I'm tired of writing ap all the time)

5 physics

6 multi

7 mid east/free

8 asr

1 english

2 chem

3 asr

4 spanish

5 physics

6 multi

7 mid east/free

8 fiction/free

Let us take a moment to note the fact that I have singletons periods 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

If I still have any readers left, please inform me of what classes you will be in (particularly in my 2nd and 3rd choice schedules so as to serve as a dividing factor between the two).

The Whole Extended Shebang

The Prompt:

Take Me To the River

For your final assignment of the year, I'd like to give you a chance to play some more with language and here, fiction. Like Twain, you'll create a picaresque/episodic short story that includes at least two (more if you like) shorter stories, based in some way on your freewrites over the past weeks, woven together by geographical motif and by some theme. If none of these will work, you're welcome to create new episodes.

To assemble this, then you might consider all of your freewrites, or a tleast their spirit, and how they might work together. Let your brain go loose, and thread through your thinking your geographical place- or another just as familiar and evocative. You might attemplt a classic, satiric, picaresque anti-hero; the most true picaro ranks low in social class and grapples with a corrupt society. Then again, you might now. Up to you.

You'll have noticed that Twain doesn't make a huge attempt to transition gently into his episodes; that's characteristic of picaresque fiction that you'll find in novels like Moll Flanders and Tom Jones and Candide. You also should feel free to shift somewhat abruptly, so long as your geographical location smooths the way and your overarching theme is present. Notice I didn't say obvious. We don't want to hit with a two-by-four!

Your tone can swing; consider how Twain's tone moves from the lyrical description of nights on the river to his rolloicking narration of Huck's attempt at disguising himself as a girl. In the same way your piece might move from clearly autobiographical, non-fictional pieces to those that are just as clearly fictional- or at least hyperbolized or altered significantly.

Tina and I sat at the counter in her living room, a counter that looked rather like a bar, and could have been convincingly said to be one, if shot from the right angle, provided that Tina and I were not spinning the seats around and around, kicking each other with each rotation, laughing from the sheer joy of being seven years old and happy.

After a few more spins I was clutching the counter. "I'm dizzy," I said.

"I'm," she said, turning once more before kicking her feet out and stopping against my chair. "Not. But I can stop."

"Good."

"You always get dizzy first."

"I don't get as much practice."

"No, you're a dizzy monster."

"A what?"

"A dizzy monster!" Tina hopped from the stool, picked up a discarded dress-up scarf, and began to twirl in circles again. "Blerrrgh." She attempted to grumble the sound in the back of her throat. She twirled over to me and pulled at my arms; unlike her, my feet were only inches from the ground, so I easily joined her motion.

"I'm a dizzy monster," I said.

"Oh no! Don't make me dizzy."

"I will too!"

"No you won't! I don't get dizzy. I'm magic."

"I'm magic. I'm a monster."

"Monsters can't talk."

As always, I went with her rules. "Blergonna eat youarghh."

"That's talking."

I stopped spinning. "I don't like not talking."

She stopped too. "Fine. Let's make a song."

"Do we have to?"

"Yes."

"What kind of song?"

Tina started to sing. "We are on a boat."

"Sailing on the sea," I said, repeating her melody.

"Lots of waves."

"I'm getting dizzy."

She gave me a dirty look before continuing. "I'm on a boat."

"We did this part already."

"Sing!"

"No."

"Fine. Let's play a game."

"What game?"

"You can pick."

"I can?"

"Sure."

"Let's play orphans."

"But we always play orphans."

"We can play escaping orphans."

"Only if we actually get to escape."

"We'll see."

"We have to escape!"

"You can't decide in the beginning!"

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Fine. Outside?"

"Okay."

We went through the door behind the bar and lay down on the patio.

"Guess what," said Tina.

"What?"

"My butt hurts."

"That's 'cause you're an orphan."

"No, it's cause I need to fart."

"Tina, you're ruining it!"

She blew raspberries, then, in an attempt to create louder noise, she brought her forearm to her mouth.

"Tina, The Giant will hear!"

"I'm not Tina, I'm Annie."

"You're always Annie."

"That's cause it's the best name."

"I want to be Annie."

"Annie isn't tall. You're Mary."

"How come Mary is tall?"

"Stop arguing, The Giant will hear."

I decided it was time for us to wake up. I reached over and poked her.

"What?"

"The Giant isn't here, we should escape."

"Okay, let's go."

She crawled to the edge of the patio and then began to roll down the grass. I sat at the edge, indecisive. She stopped, sat up. "Come on!"

"I don't think I'm supposed to roll."

"Why not?"

"I'm just not."

"But you're too big. He'll see you."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Now, come here!"

I stretched out on the grass and began to push myself along, over over over, until I bumped into her. She rolled more, and I followed, rolling and rolling. She stopped a few feet before a tree, and I slammed into her. She went forward, then yelled.

"Oh no! The Giant!" I said.

"You broke it!"

"What?"

"You made me break my fairy houses!"

"Did not."

"Did too! Look." She sat up, and I followed. There were shattered remains of houses in the imprint of her body. The leaf roofs had fallen to the ground, and were lying about the houses, slightly crumpled, very browned. Half the twigs were snapped, littered about. Some had merely fallen from where they had been pushed carefully into the ground, and the rest had merely been pushed somewhat further in. I felt sorry for the houses, but it still was not my fault.

"You made me roll."

"You didn't stop."

"That's why I'm not supposed to roll."

"That's stupid."

"Is not."

"You broke my fairy houses!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!"

"I don't care."

"I care."

"They're stupid. Fairies don't actually live in them."

At that, Tina stood up. "I quit."

"What?"

"There are fairies."

"No."

"I say there are."

"But how do you know?"

"I can feel it."

"What do you mean?"

"I can feel them at night. I look out the window, and I feel them."

"You see them?"

"I feel them. They plant little flowers outside of their houses, and every night they grow and grow until they touch the sky."

"The houses?"

"No, the flowers."

I looked up. The sky seemed very far away. "That's tall."

"Yup."

"Do they really get that big?" I was still staring up above me, trying to figure out just how far away the sky was. I couldn't seem to describe it using any words I knew.

"They grow forever."

"Wow." I was quiet.

"Now they won't grow."

"Huh?"

"You crushed them and they won't grow."

"We can build them again."

"Later," she said, and got up off the ground. Standing, she managed to be taller than my seated form. I stood up, towering above her again, and she tugged my hand. "Come on. Let's go play."

Vignette 2

I stood at the corner of Tina's yard, armed with a towel that had a piece of fabric sewn onto the side that could be used to actually hold the towel itself, creating a bag that was just large enough to hold my bathing suit, her birthday present, and, of course, the swimsuit itself.

I was there for Tina's eighth birthday. I'd spent so much time trying to find the towel, which she'd given me for my own birthday two months previously, that I was running late. The yard was full of girls, her friends, all of them small and blonde, mysterious and unknown and entirely unreachable. There were many of them, and I couldn't see Tina in the flood of unfamiliar faces, so hugged my own mother goodbye and went inside to find Tina's. She was in the kitchen, unloading bags of groceries.

"Hello Mrs. Bloom."

"Hi Shelby. Why aren't you outside?"

"I have to put on my bathing suit."

"Tina's upstairs changing, if you want to go there."

"Okay." I turned to leave. "Here's my present."

"I'll make sure she gets it."

"Good." I turned, left the kitchen, and went upstairs. I pushed open Tina's door while simultaneously greeting her. I didn't see her for a moment, then spotted her standing just inside her closet, wearing only the bottom half of her swimsuit with her hands on her hips. "Hi, Tina," I said again.

This time she responded. "I can't find it."

"Find what?"

"The other half."

"Wasn't that the one your brother used for the Happy Half-Birthday Halloween thing he went to?"

"Oh! Yes! I'll go get it." She turned, walked around me, and went out into the hall. "I forgot how you're smart."

I began turning my towel-bag inside out to get my suit.

"See you later," she said, shutting the door behind her.

"Yeah, I'll have to..." I trailed off. She was already gone.

I walked over to the window after I'd changed. Tina was rolling down the hill again, and three other girls were following her down, laughing and smiling. There was a group of girls in the tree, another with their legs in the pool, and another kicking their legs in the hot sun where Tina and I had been sleeping mere weeks before. They were happy, all of them, no playing of orphans, no getting sick from twirling. Perhaps if I was there, with the girls, it would be fun for me, too.

I went downstairs, outside. When I was closer, I was still taller than them, but they somehow felt bigger. I didn't know them, and Tina was busy, so they all continued their games as I walked towards the tree where Tina kept her fairy houses. I sat down to look at them, but the ground was empty. I looked for the bits of leaves and scraps of wood, and I finally found them in a small knot in the tree, stacked up neatly. I pulled them out and carefully, precisely, constructed a tiny house. It had three wooden walls, one with a tiny peephole, just big enough for a miniscule eye. I placed a leaf in the middle, the first floor, then another on top, to mark the roof. I was glad that faeries were light, because even the breeze was almost enough to knock it over. I watched the house for a time, hoping that, just this once, the faeries would forget that I was here and come during the day, that they could plant their flowers, and that the stems could rise up and up until they covered me up and I would stand still, perfectly still, a part of the tree, and Tina would come over and visit me because she loved the faeries' plants, but the people were too loud for us to truly disappear.

A pair of girls came up behind me, looking over my shoulder. "What's that?"

"A faerie house."

"Why would you build that?"

"Tina likes them," was all I said.

"That's stupid, faeries aren't real," said one of the girls, and the other nodded her assent.

"But if people think that they are," I said, "maybe..."

They laughed, and ran to Tina, and I couldn't quite hear them, but I saw Tina laugh too, and then she looked at me in a way that said that I'd done something wrong, only I didn't know what it was. I stayed with the house for a time, trying to adjust it so that with each rush of children, it still stayed upright. Then Tina's mother came out, carrying an armful of shaving cream cans, one for each child. I tried to stay by my house, but she called me over, and I accepted my very own can. It was light green, and it said on the front that the insides would smell like mint. When she blew a whistle and the girls began to scream, I sprayed a bit into my hand. It sat there for a moment, a dark gel, then began to grow. It grew and grew, spreading and stretching, turning while and filling with air until it towered above me hand. I put another drop on top, which sunk in that began to grow as well. I thought that the faeries would have liked to see it, the sticky stuff that could match their flowers.

Vignette 4

We were ten, and still at different schools, but Tina still came over every so often. On this day, we sat together under a tree in my backyard.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

"I dunno, what do you want to do?"

"I dunno, what do you want to do?"

"I dunno, what do you want do do?"

I laughed. "Remember back when we would build faerie houses every time we visited?"

"Yeah, you said they were for babies."

"I was just saying that, though. I still liked building them."

"I know! You started building one when I had all my friends over, and they were like, wow, that girl is so weird."

"Hey!"

"They said it, not me."

"Fine, I won't get angry then. At least, not this time."

"You never get angry."

"Maybe someday I will."

She shrugged, doubtful. "So, what do you want to do?"

"I dunno."

"We could build faerie houses, like we used to."

"Do you want to?"

"Sure. You want to try to get some sticks?"

"Okay, you go for the flower petals. We'll regroup in seven minutes."

"Seven?"

"Ten is too many, and five isn't enough."

She thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Sounds good."

I went to some bushes in the neighbor's yard, forsythia that had long ago stopped blooming, and broke off a leafless bottom branch. I scavenged around a birch in the front and a dogwood in the back, looking for branches that felt right. When we regrouped, Tina was holding a pile of petals as well as a few interesting leaves. We sat in some dirt near the wall of the house where we couldn't be seen from the windows. She passed me bits of daisies and I handed her discarded daffodil stalks.

Her constructions were tiny but complicated. She put twigs in a criss-cross and placed a single flower into each and every one, crafting rainbow walls more fragile than glass. I built one like a tiny wigwam, with sticks in a round circle, ferns woven in and out, and a maple leaf on the top. I built my next out of shreds of bark pushed against each other like playing cards, trying to match her fragility, while she followed my Native American idea and constructed a teepee. We soon had a small village constructed of barely there houses, of trees without trunks and tiny platters of inedible food. We divided our halves with a small indent, a river that would bring water to the whole village. When we were done, our supplies exhausted, I sat back. She continued to trace her finger along the tiny, waterless river.

"Do you think any will come?" I said.

She was silent.

"I mean, I know they don't exist, but a girl can always dream."

She still didn't speak, and as her finger reached the base of the river, right next to her knee, she let it stop and looked up at me. "I'm moving."

"Do you want to swap spots? It's pretty comfortable here."

"No, I mean, I'm moving to a new house."

Now it was my turn to look at her.

"It's in California. The trees are funny there, all big, and you can't reach the branches even if you try."

"California is far away."

"Yeah."

"When are you leaving."

"Tomorrow."

"Oh." Tomorrow was very, very soon. "You hadn't mentioned it."

"I don't like thinking about it."

We sat in silence. I began to trace the path of the river, as she had before, then stopped and began to create a second river surrounding my half of the village. Tina was unmoving.

"Do you think," she said "that these will grow?"

"The rivers?"

"No, the faerie houses. Will they put down roots and grow flowers that touch the sky?"

"Maybe."

"You have to look."

"I'll look at night, when they grow."

"It'll grow big enough for you to visit me."

"In California?"

"Yes."

We were silent again, and I looked over to where the sun was, since I knew that was west, and looked for California. The farthest I saw was Long Island. "Tina?"

"Yes?'

"Did the ones in your yard ever truly grow?"

"No."

"This one won't either, will it."

She looked at me, and she said the same hopeless word as before.

Vignette 5

Tina had been gone for two years when we finally, finally got to visit her. We arrived first to a restaurant in San Francisco, where she now lived. San Francisco was big. Everything was bigger than it was at home, where there was nothing but empty space, big green yards, and the occasional house. But there was a beach near the restaurant, a little sliver of the outdoors, and after we ate, our parents let us leave, and we began to walk.

We were in middle school by then, and we were old and all grown up, so we tried to talk instead of play. We walked from one jetty to the next and back, sharing words of growing up, of her friends back home whose names I've finally learned, of the hopelessness of middle school boys. We tried to talk of who we were becoming, but we were soon back to where we once were. We recounted a thousand childhood games in precise detail, the name of every pirate ship, the each daydream of a lonely orphan. I thought about suggesting play-acting again, but it somehow felt as if here was not the place.

After many lengths, we returned to our families. Her brother, who still only toddled, had surrounded herself with tiny piles of sticks, and my sister, Ella, who was already in elementary school had placed leaves on them, trying to make them beautiful. We sat with them for a time, adding layers, shifting piles, until we'd created another miniature world, this one decorated with shells in place of petals.

This time, I did not bother to ask Tina if she thought our plants would grow.

Vignette 6

In high school, one develops these annoying chores, one of which is babysitting one's younger sister. I usually did this by ignoring her, and this evening was no different. I was on the computer in the living room, using an instant messenger to pretend that I wasn't stuck at home. For once, Tina was online. I said "Hello."

She responded. "hi wats up"

I said, "Oh, not much, and you?"

"sum stuf. nm. g2g."

I had to look up her abbreviations online. I didn't talk like her anymore, didn't think like her. I'd tried to talk with her before, and it was always the same; I'd try to reminisce, and she'd use such cryptic terminology that I soon became utterly lost.

I stood up from the computer and went looking for Ella. She wasn't in her room, wasn't in the basement, or watching TV, or even in my room. I went into the kitchen to use the phone to call Mom, certain that I'd lost my sister, when I finally spotter her outside.

She was sitting beneath the tree in the backyard, staring at a house of sticks that she built yesterday, filled with with flowers and little pieces of popsicle. It began to rain, but she still sat there, so I went outside to bring her in. As I got closer, I heard her talking.

"Priscilla, how are you today? And your son? Did he like the cold sugar? It's my favorite. Are you happy here? Would you prefer to be by the shed?"

"Ella?" I said.

She looked up at me, smiling. "They talk to me."

I stopped, and the rains began to pool on the tops of my ears and slide slowly, slowly down.

"They talk to me, Shelby. I can hear them."

"They don't exist."

"Yes, they do! They're here. I can feel them."

"You can?"

"Come here. You can feel them, too."

I walked closer, and she tugged my hand, pulling me down. Her tiny palms were damp with rainwater.

"Look, Shelby. See them?"

The house was small, smaller than small. She'd worked on it carefully, each twig elegant, each leaf precise. She'd even crafted furnisher, a feat that Tina and I had never managed.

The faeries weren't there at that moment, she said to me, but when they did, the house would be alive, and the twigs would stand, and tiny little flowers would grow around it. The flowers would grow until they touched her knees, her waist, her shoulders and her brow, until they wrapped up around and stretched up and over the tree, over the house, up and up until they circled the very stars.

She said it would grow soon, because it was raining, but that we needed to be very still.

We sat together and watched until it was too dark to see, and the twigs and branches and flowers had sunk deep into the all-consuming mud.

I'm Back and In Business

Well, I'm in buisiness in if going to do library to study and do homework because the house has been inundated by members of the extended family counts as business, and I say that it does.

It's good to be back. I was gone for quite some time because, as I explained in my previous post, I was busy making an animation.



And there, my darlings, is said animation. Hooray for being done! Hooray for staying up past midnight to finish! Also, hooray for book awards, for taking two hours out of my animation time (it's okay, I got cool books. Yay Shakespeare!)

I'm still a bit sleepy, which manifests in some rather severe overenthusiasm. I apologize.

My Time is Devoted to Video

For English, we have to make a thirty-second visual. I've elected to make a thirty second animation, using the computer, of said visual. So far, I've had three false starts (I'd picked a scheme that was beyond my meager abilities).

There is one of them, embedded above. Now I'm working on another, in which we see kids just sitting in a classroom, occasionally raising hands, and we see both their thought bubbles and how pissed off random gifted kid gets when his teacher, after he asks too many questions, begins to ignore him. In this one, I plan to actually animate the people, which should be a big help.

Muddy Waters

The two of us stood at the edge of the road. The pavement was hot, hot enough that I could feel it through the thick calluses on my bare feet. The street we stood on was lined with trees, it’s entire surface coated in the mottled shadows of leaves. We were in the edge of this darkness, at the barrier.

In front of us, to the left and right, was a stone wall. The wall was unbroken, unworn by time or use. The stones fit perfectly next to each other, the cement was smooth, and the barrier, despite the fact it came up barely past my waist, seemed insurmountable. We had been walking alongside the wall for a time, as we had finally turned left from Julie’s house and gone away from the beach, and now, right here, there was a wall.

In the wall, at the place where we had stopped, was a gap. It was as wide as the three of us if we stood shoulder to shoulder, so a hair wider than the usual door. The sunlight seemed to push outwards from the smooth lawn beyond, and the only thing blocking us was a single chain hanging across the gap. The lawn was small, barely bigger than my garage, but at the end was a wooden dock that glowed in that way that metal ones couldn’t, and beyond that, the mud.

“I want to go in,” said Karen.

“I really don’t think we should, though.”

“But it looks so nice.”

“It’s somebody’s yard, though,” I said.

“I want to feel the sun,” said Karen. “I’m going in.”

She ducked under the chain and turned around, expectant. I looked at Julie.

“You go,” she said.

I considered ducking the chain, but a closed gate was a closed gate, so I went to the wall, the smooth-cut wall, pushed my arms on it, and hoisted myself up. My ankle caught on the corner, and I felt a slight snag before my entire foot caught, and I tumbled off of the wall into the light grass. I stood up immediately and looked out at the lot. The grass, even while I stood on it, seemed unreal, but the dock looked as if it would be more tangible. I walked towards it, to it, stepped onto it. I could feel Karen, who stood still by the gate, watching me. I stepped forward again. I moved closer to the shore, then closer, and then I was at the edge of the dock. I looked down to see the water and discovered that it was mud, dark and thick. I bent, picked up a pebble, and dropped it into the muck. It rested on the surface, not rippling, not sinking. I stared at it, entranced.

Karen came up behind me. “What are you doing?”

“Look.”

She moved next to me, then looked down at the rock.
We stood in silence. I looked up, following the muck. There was water, out there, but the mudflat stretched out all the way to the island in the middle of the river. I looked at it, wondering what was there. Karen’s eyes were still on the pebble, and her gaze was calculating.

“Do you think,” she asked, “that it could hold us, too?”

“Probably not.”

“But would we sink all of the way?”

“I dunno.”

“I’m going to try it.”

“But you’ll get your pants dirty.”

“Fine.” She undid the tie and took them off, hanging them on a support. “I’m going in.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“I’m taller than you. If we’re testing for the bottom, I should go first, because I’m less likely to sink over my head.”

“Okay.” She looked at me expectantly.

I shucked my own pants and hung them atop hers before sitting on the edge of the dock. I stuck my legs out in front of me, not touching the mud.

“That won’t work.”

I made an annoyed noise, then began to lower my heels. The right made contact first. The mud was cool. It held under my foot, its surface bending as I pressed downwards. I lowered the other foot, pointed my toes, and slipped in.

“Do you feel a bottom?”

“Not really, but…” I wiggled my toes around a bit, feeling the chilled pressure along my skin, between my toes.

“But what?”

“It feels strong.”

“What?”

“We won’t sink.”

“If you say so.” She prepared to leap in.

“Don’t jump.”

She came and sat next to me, pressed in her feet, then stood. She sunk slowly until the mud was just past her knees. She lifted her leg, stepped forward, then looked back at me.
I stood, and I sank. The mud rose, slowly, pushing up and up till it stopped, about a foot higher than it had started. I lifted my left foot, pulling against it, then cleared the surface. The mud sucked into place beneath me, and my foot felt suddenly free. I lowered it again, this time further, and repeated the process with my right leg. Whenever my leg came up, the mud was dirty, grasping, grimy. When it went in, it was calm and warm and good.

Karen had already progressed a good ten feet. “Are you coming or not?”

“Coming where?”

“The Island.”

“Oh.” I stayed where I was, wiggling my toes, feeling. “Isn’t the mud enough?”