The Islamic New Year, Ras as-Sana, falls on the first day of the month of Muharram. This year it’s November 27 of the Gregorian calendar and begins the year 1433 A.H. (Muslims date their calendar from the Hijra or Hegirah, the Prophet Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to escape an assassination plot.)
Above is a New Year’s card from Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country and the one with the largest Muslim population Malaysia, home of about 17 million Muslims.
Cool! I should be working on a paper about a Muslim college student for one of my classes. Instead I’m working on a different paper, though that one is due tomorrow.
For some reason when I type the words of the card into Google Translate, it translates it well from Malay, but not from Indonesian.
From Malay, it gives me ‘Happy beginning of Muharram’.
From Indonesian, it gives me ‘survived the initial welcome the sacred’.
Strange, no? It’s an awesome graphic anyhow.
I suppose it is in Malay. I didn’t check very carefully. Good catch! I’ll revise the description on “comment zero.”
I kind of like “survived the initial welcome the sacred.”
If you can survive the initial welcome, the rest is easy.
A fairly accurate description of MuseBlog.
The graphic has sort of a Larry Gonick look, don’t you think?
Dude, the new thread came up while I was trying to post on the old one, and I got an error message! o.O
Anyway, best Halloween EVAR. I went with three Awesome People, and we–
Oops, I didn’t finish the comment. There was a reasonfor this, but I don’t remember what it was. I’ll finish it when i have time.
Oh, I see, I wondered if maybe one of you was dressed as Candle Jack, but I forgot to ask y–
Oh, don’t start that again. That has to be the dumbest meme ever made. I mean, who was the first person to watch the Candle Jack Freakazoid episode and say, “Hmm, I wan
Oh, gosh, the ages I spent in malls being handed free samples for Ras Asana in Singapore. I still find it weird that nobody here decorates for Hari Raya or Diwali or the Autumn Moon Festival. And that if you walk into a supermarket during CNY, there aren’t any giant lanterns or streamers or thousand-and-one repetitions of Gong Xi Ni.
Anyway. Forgive my monologuing. I’m off to trick-or-treat soon, because you are never too old to trick-or-treat.
The thousand-and-one repetitions of Gong Xi Ni happens here at CNY too… *tears hair out*
FantasyFan, if by any chance you could tell me about your experiences as a new college student that would be really great. Though actually your posts in the August random thread seem to be useful. I’m supposed to be writing a paper about a (fictional) Muslim woman college student going to my school and talking about her first few weeks which are supposed to occur at least partly during Ramadan.
What kind of college do you go to? Mine is a fairly small liberal arts school
My school is similar to yours, actually. Do you want specifically Muslim–y experiences, or just a general overview? Because I could tell you about fasting during orientation week, and how exhausting it was. (I got out of some activities, though. Either because I was too exhausted, or because I had to break my fast right then, or because it was a lunch and there was no point in going when you weren’t going to eat anything.)
I could tell you about praying in empty classrooms and hallways and stairwells, and keeping a compass with me wherever I go to find the Qiblah. (Also because compasses are cool, and incredibly useful, and if you ever get lost hiking one day it’s nice to be the person who can stand up in a group and say, “Well, I know which direction to go in.” I also know how to calculate North from my watch hands and the position of the sun. You never know…#14 on FF’s list of Incredibly Useful Things to Know)
I could tell you about how I didn’t even eat at the school cafeteria for the first two weeks because of Ramadan. The Muslim Student Association provided food at the right time instead, either taking us to restaurants or catering. And they paid for everything. Going to cafeteria food after that was a bit of a shock. They even did Suhoor/sehri for us, and took us to IHOP really early in the morning. I only went once because it was really early I didn’t want to get up.
Speaking of getting up early, I probably miss Fajr half the time now because the alarm just doesn’t get me up in the mornings. My parents used to wake me up, and it’s hard to miss that, but on my own I sleep like a log. I miss some of my 8:30 classes, too. Like a log, I tell you. NO more 8:30 classes for me next semester.
For Eid al-Fitr the MSA took us to a local mosque for prayers and then out to brunch. And then we went back to school. I didn’t have any important early classes, so I didn’t miss anything. (OK, so I missed one thing. It wasn’t an important class, though.) For Eid al-Adha…God, that’s coming up real soon. Like this next Sunday soon. Where did the time go?
Maybe I’ve repeated some of this already in other posts. Maybe you want a more general overview, or more info. I’m still here. Ask me whatever, I’m glad to help.
Thank you so much! This whole post is helpful. I’m supposed to be writing about the experience of a fictional female Muslim college student joining my college. We’re supposed to pick a country that this student comes from and I picked Nepal (My uncle has traveled there a lot) though actually the Muslim population there is rather small. I’ve mostly been researching the education provided there, but that is beside the point.
Mostly I was wondering what sort of things made your first weeks hard/easy especially as applied to being a Muslim college student.
This is for a class called Women and Gender in Islam, if you’re wondering. Thanks for your help!
The paper is due tomorrow. If you’ve thought of anything to add, that is great otherwise what you’ve written is really useful!
And I know what you mean about 8:30 classes. I have trouble getting up in the morning too.
I’ve just got one other point, I guess. If you fictional student is from another country, she’s going to be dealing with culture shock that I don’t have because I, well, was born and grew up in the US. Stereotypes about America and Muslims, and differences in practice in Islam between Nepal and America might come into play. You might have already thought about this, or maybe not and now there’s not enough time to work it into the paper.
Anyhow, this sounds like a cool class and I’m glad I could help.
Mm yeah. She’d definitely be dealing with culture shock. I’ve been talking some about the education system in Nepal as it contrasts to here. And yeah. I was looking for your perspective as a Muslim college student. I’d like to also interview someone from Nepal, but I dunno if I could find that this quickly. I have books on Nepal, though.
I know a lot of people from Nepal. Which is probably unhelpful to you, so sorry.
It’s NOVEMBER! Crazy!
Question: will anyone be in Washington, D.C. this weekend? I’m going to the Tar Sands protest at the White House on Sunday and will be there definitely on Sunday morning/maybe on Saturday, too.
Also, good luck NaNoWriMoers!!
I’ll be just across the river.
So I didn’t have anywhere to go yesterday, so I wore my astronaut costume to the dining hall at my dorm, and some kids from Astronomy Club were there and they said I should wear it to the meeting tomorrow night. I probably will.
I wish there were some MuseBloggers at my school. I mean, there very well might be some, but all the prime suspects are confirmed not.
You could convert them.
I’m in the process of attempting to do so.
The three main people I need to convert are J, who I already mentioned as coming into knowledge bowl with an absurd amount of Harry Potter clothing; C, who dressed up as The Doctor for “dress up as your favorite character day”; and T, who got her brother a t-shirt that says “the angels have the phonebox”.
Or maybe that last one was also J. Either way, I need to get all those people onto here. Unless you already are. Hope the GAPAs don’t consider this too revealing: IF YOU ARE ON HERE AND GO TO A CERTAIN HIGH SCHOOL IN COLORADO WHOSE PRIMARY COLOR IS RED, PLEASE REPLY. I NEED TO MEET YOU.
Me! I totally live in Colorado!
I’m assuming that’s sarcasm?
You can never tell on the Internet…
Unless Colorado is in southeast Asia, I think it’s sarcasm.
*feels ignorant*
This past weekend was nowhere near as studious or productive as I’d hoped it would be. Glarg.
I have to write a draft for an argumentative essay. RIGHT NOW. And also do laundry, because I’m almost out of underwear. 0.o
Colin has found some music for violin and basson, so we’re going to play that at some point.
It makes me SO HAPPY that I have a music (and also just awesome) buddy here.
Is it bad that I already know what I’m going to be next year for Halloween?
Gonna be GLaDOS, by the way. I have it all figured out. I’ll get a white bodysuit-thing, put some silver on it and the Aperture Science logo, then get something to make armor plates, and finally, a headset. And then I’ll go around all day quoting GLaDOS and clapping slowly whenever someone makes a stupid comment.
I have no idea what I’m going to be next year. I acually didn’t figure out what I was going to be this year until about 5 minutes before trick-or-treating.
I got a new cat yesterday! She is the most adorable thing in the world. I named her Koko, short for Kokopelli.
Congatulations!
You have ascended to a new level of Musery.
Thank you.
Where is my gym bag? I lost it in seventh grade, too. And sixth grade.
IT’S A CURSE
Anyway, I was a gas mask zombie for halloween. The mask ended up being made out of duct tape. It was pretty awesome.
Treebird- what were you this year?
I ended up weraing a balckish/silvery dress, with back shoes and tights, a witch hat, and a neckalace with a glow stick attached to it.
You won’t believe how much candy I got at my school’s trick-or-treating event by following these steps:
1. Put on jacket.
2. Put hood over eyes.
3. Say you’re Banksy.
Hahahahahaha.
…marry me.
(I was so caught up with rehearsals I didn’t manage to come up with a Halloween costume; I spent the day writing angsty haikus on my arms and telling people I was a teenager for Halloween.)
…marry me.
(Wow, I was so caught up with rehearsals I didn’t manage to come up with a Halloween costume; I spent the day writing angsty haikus on my arms and telling people I was a teenager for Halloween.)
Oh, that’s awkward – it’s a (mostly) duplicate comment. Please ignore.
SCHOOL DECORATED FOR HOMECOMING
HARRY POTTER HOMECOMING
BEYOND AMAZING BESIDES FRESHMAN HALLWAY
BUT BUT BUT
THERE’S A QUIDDITCH PITCH
AND A BASILISK
AND THE JUNIOR HALLWAY HAS A FOG MACHINE IN THIS GIANT PAPER MACHE SNAKE
AND
AND
IT’S ALL SO COOL
I am so jealous that jealousy is seeping out of my toes.
Please be assured, jealousy is seeping from mine as well (along with the miniature narwhals that dwell in my toes).
Narwhals?
….I thought everyone had narwhals in their toes…
I’m in space.
The end.
I know, right?
I don’t know. Do you know?
If you’re out in the vacuum without a suit, that would be the end, yes.
Unless you’re a tardigrade! Anoxybiosis can really come in handy.
Indeed.
Being Madame Vastra was awesome. I brought a sword to school and did not get in trouble. I also drew scales all over my face with eyeliner and did not smudge them at all. *celebrates*
And Lord of the Rings soundtrack is my life right now? I have three separate Pandora stations I’m carefully training to only play Lord of the Rings. It’s just so pretty! I’m kind of sad I first saw the movies when I was eight, actually, since I couldn’t really appreciate them when I was that young since I had so little to compare them too. We just had a Lord of the Rings-watching party on Sunday night, and it was wonderful. I may do a full fangirl post later on a more appropriate thread. (Pretty actors! Gorgeous music! Incredible sets! Good acting! Really fantastic writing! Is there anything about these movies I am not attracted to?)
Do people ever get into grad school with 3.3 gpas? Or less than that? Because mine is not really a 4.0 or whatever. It is about a 3.3 right now and everyone seems to think I need a super high one to get in to all grad schools ever ZOMG and it is stressing me out. MLIS programs seem to want one to have about a 3.2 or more and I /have/ that. But is that normal? Do other people have my sort of GPA? Is it possible? HELP. I need to stop worrying so much.
Don’t worry. Your grades aren’t unusual, and graduate-school professors know that (they teach undergraduates, too). Besides, they need grad students to stay in business. Unless you’re trying to get into a supercompetitive professional program like veterinary school, I’m sure you’ll find them reasonable.
Thanks, Robert!
I plan to take a year off in between anyways to work.
I have entirely separate panics about job-finding, though…
Life.
Now that I live in Chicago, I know I’ve been MISSING OUT!
Do you know what season it is? I know now that I’ve never experienced a real autumn before. In Oregon, it rains all the time in autumn, so the leaves are always wet. Also, there’s a lot of oak trees and evergreens, so there isn’t a lot of variety in color. Mostly brown, augmented by wetness. So autumn was always a cold, rainy, squishy season. No leaf piles for me.
But here it doesn’t rain as much! Maybe only once a week! And it’s actually pretty warm! And there are so many colors! Lots of different shades of yellow that I didn’t even know could be on trees! And reds, too! And dry leaves on the ground that you can crunch and jump in! I can see why everyone likes autumn, now!
In contrast, the things I miss the most are the stars. It’s very disconcerting to look up and see blackness; no pinpricks of light letting me know there’s something else up there. Just black (reminds me of Doctor Who a bit). I’ve got the moon, but it seems to make the sky even more lonely. I can see stars if I look straight up, but only the brightest ones. I wonder what the astronomy students do up in their tower.
I can’t imagine not being able to watch leaves turn pretty colors in the fall. That’s why I hoped Stanford would reject me. (Spring all year round sounds nice, but it would just be too surreal to go four years without real seasons.)
I sympathize about the lack of stars, though. That’s the one thing about Boston I don’t like.
oh the leaves change color alright
from green
to brown
Thus the key word, “pretty”.
Why did you apply in the first place if you didn’t want to go there?
Because they invited me to an admissions event and my parents wouldn’t let me pass up the chance to apply to an Ivy League school.
Stanford isn’t an Ivy school, though.
Ah. If you were accepted, would they have let you choose not to go? If so, I probably would want to get accepted just because that would guarantee entrance to most other colleges…
Stanford = not ivy league… But yeah, there’s always that token “super awesome” school.
You’re right, my mistake. It’s not technically Ivy, as it’s not in the Northeast, but my parents considered it on the same level.
Hey, we’ve got pretty leaves here! I work at Stanford and I’ve been admiring the fall foliage all week. I’m not saying it’s New England caliber color but it’s verrrry pretty all the same. Plenty of yellows and reds. And the odd palm or Sequoia sempervirens still looking as green as ever to remind us that that we’re in California.
ugh yes it is definitely better up north
meanwhile in the pseudo-desert….
*broods*
If you think leaves in Chicago are nice, try the ones in New England!
NC’s not bad, either.
No, try the ones in Michigan!
New England is the fall foliage capital of the world.
My parents say I take the leaves up here for granted. But I never go anywhere else in the fall, so I don’t know much about fall leaves in other places.
Our water heater doesn’t work right now, so today I had to use our helper’s shower. It was interesting.
Progress docking was successful! On to business as usual!
…Now that doesn’t happen. Cake. It was cool.
WE DWELL BEHIND THE WEAVE BEHIND THE WEB BEHIND THE WORLD AND IN YOUR EYES SEE THE DARK SEA IN WHICH WE SWIM
WE SWIM THE DARK SEA WE WATCH WE WAIT FOR THE WOVEN TO BECOME UNWOVEN FOR OUR CHANCE TO ENTER FOR OUR TIME TO COME
YOU FEAR AND HATE THE LAGOMORPHS BUT THEY ARE ONLY SCAVENGERS / OPPORTUNISTS WHO SAIL THE SPHERES IN OUR SLIPSTREAM / PINK PIRATE PARASITES THAT CONVERT AND CONFUSE BUT DO NOT DARE CONSUME
((Sometimes moderating is a very weird experience.))
((I’ll say.))
((Verily))
So I wore my costume to Public Night and everybody loved it and there were all of these non-science majors from U-Mass who didn’t know any astronomy and were completely amazed with everything we told them, and we edumacated them for two hours… it was so much fun!
There are times when I feel like everything’s going wrong, even though it’s gorgeous outside.
I’m leaving tomorrow night for the UK, because I’m applying to two boarding schools. They’re both very competitive so I’m kind of nervous, and I feel so unprepared and I feel like I haven’t read enough, or practised enough, or prepared enough. If I don’t get in I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have to get in asdlufhawiejkhsdfhnasljaweliufhskjdhfawuf
Good luck!
Good luck!
I just saw that a friend of mine (we were in Latin together, graduated last May, both freshmen in college, albeit different colleges) just got engaged to his girlfriend of several years. I don’t know how I should feel about this. Happy for them? Upset that they’re getting engaged so young? This just blows my mind, I never expected something like this to happen. I mean, I guess they’re entitled to it, but…I don’t know, they just seem young to me. I guess I’m not them so I can’t judge them, but jiminy. He’s 19, she’s somewhere around there as well. I just can’t comprehend this event.
Don’t know whether to squid or pie…
CO’s equilibrium.
I HAVE AN EQUILIBRIUM NAMED AFTER ME THAT IS SO AWESOME.
I thought CO’s equilibrium had something to do with monks…
I’m pretty sure that’s CO’s Corrolary, in that CO seems to be almost constantly correlated with monks.
I have a friend whose friend recently got engaged, at 16. (It’s still on as far as I know, but I don’t think the parents are aware.) That’s an extreme example, but it is really weird to think of people within a few years of my own age getting married. That’s something only adults do, and it hasn’t sunk in yet that I’m almost an adult!
Best of luck to your friend and his fiancée.
I knew someone who got engaged at seventeen. It was a bit surreal.
One of my friends got engaged a year and a half ago… The wedding’s going to be in May. We (her friends) were all really confused, but we’ve accepted it.
How old was she?
I don’t have RL friends old enough to marry (I’m 13), but sometimes I’ve wondered what it would feel like if a MuseBlogger got married. It’s…not easy to imagine…
Wow, I’ve never thought of that. We could definitely see that within a few years, couldn’t we?
Halloween was cool, although I didn’t go trick-or-treating and I wish I had a full bucket of candy. Some kid came to my door dressed as Calvin around 7:45. He said I was the first person all night who got his costume. I gave him extra candy, but by then all we had left was individually wrapped Starburst.
Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes?
Yeah!
I believe I had a minor Squee moment. I was Calvin for Halloween once too, in sixth grade.
Two girls at my school dressed up as Calvin and Hobbes. It was adorable.
DM: The sidewinder is canceled if it rains tomorrow-
*class breaks out laughing*
David. Scott. Hugged. Me.
He walked on the moon! He stood at the rim of Hadley Rille!
And he was at an event at MIT today and he answered the question I asked and he signed my copy of “Mission Control: This is Apollo”…
And. He. Hugged. Me.
*squeals*
That’s amazing, Kai!
Lucky.
Bad things that happened this week:
Blew an audition.
Broke up with girlfriend.
Still sick in new and inventive ways.
This girl who I was talking to about evolution left a creationist book in my mail folder, which I now feel obligated to read / comment on.
Good things that happened this week:
Gorgeous weather (sunny, warm, trees all sorts of colors).
Chocolate cannoli.
Care package from aunt.
Banana bread muffins with chocolate chips.
Working with a great pianist.
I have a cold. Why does this keep happening to me
GUYS. I just found an endless loop in the Wikipedia philosophy game!
Here’s my original list (I started from random articles)
Jemez language
Tanoan languages
New Mexico
Southwestern United States
Arizona
Southwestern United States
etc.
An impressive achievement!
It is like finding a google whack.
Wouldn’t “navajo” be the first link for arizona?
Links in parentheses don’t count.
College cooking:
*friends and I are in lounge talking*
Friend 1: Hey! I have pasta sauce that will go bad before I can use it. Anyone?
Me: Hey! I have noodles!
Friend 2: Hey! I’m hungry!
Friend 3: Me too!
Friend 3 is currently doing dishes and we’ve all now eaten delicious pasta. Yum. Collaboration!
Off I go to model UN! I’ll be leaving in just half an hour.
Good luck, KA! May you achieve model world domination.
Good luck, KA!
Have fun, fellow MUNer(s?)!
Are you participating in any other conferences this year, possibly one in Washington DC, in February? *hopes wildly*
I’m just dropping in to say hello and dropping out again, because there’s a wedding over in Shropshire, and people want me to play at them.
Greetings to all, and Happy Bonfire Night for tomorrow.
Happy Bonfire Night, Mr Baker! Incidentally I’m in the UK at the moment; we arrived at Heathrow this morning. Have fun at the wedding!
Thank you, worthy Quafflebird. I have just returned from the firework show at Himley Hall, just down the road from Holbeache House, where several of the Gunpowder Plotters met their end. The fireworks were most impressive – a full half hour of delightful and colourful explosions, all set to a pointless Olympic themed soundtrack played at deafening volume through speakers that couldn’t quite take it, judging by the midrange distortion. But it was all good fun. Estimated attendance – 25,000.
Meanwhile, welcome to Old Blighty. If you happen to get up to the Midlands, do drop in for tea.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November…We were at a pub last night for dinner and we saw fireworks in the distance. That sounds like quite an event, shame about the Olympic soundtrack.
I’m actually in Gloucestershire, and have been since yesterday, so we must be close! I’m afraid I probably won’t have time for tea, though – pity, but entrance exams to boarding schools await…
I’m scared.
My best friend and ex-girlfriend is considering suicide.
No, that’s the wrong wording.
At the moment she plans to actually finally do it, but she might change her mind. I hope she does. If there are any gods or God or all-powerful spirits out there I pray to them that she does.
I don’t know what I would do if she died
She’s half the reason I’m alive and if she’s gone I’d fall apart and I’m scared because I don’t know what I would do
I feel for you, fireh; that’s a very tough, painful situation to be in. However, let me encourage MBers who wish to reply to take your comments to Rants & Plaints. (This definitely qualifies as a plaint, so would seem a reasonable option unless someone can think of a better. But I think the subject carries too much weight for the Random Thread.)
Oh, fireh, I’m so sorry … Could you try to email/text her and talk her out of it? *hugs and encouragement*
Also, I accidentally pied your post when I was trying to squid it. I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to.
(Rebecca: Reposting, editing and expanging: my inner editor is being crushed by NaNo and needs to be let out somewhere. Thank you so much and sorry for all the trouble. :|)
Today I was hugged by a girl in a Doctor Who shirt. She said I was the only one who had gotten the reference and commented on it.
That totals six Whovians at our school, I think. And I know all of them. *squee*
And my friend is buying me Minecraft as a belated birthday gift. (Or very early: it’s in May) *squee*
Also: chair tests on Tuesday. The director said Moday, but I’m betting Tuesday, knowing him.
I want to say something, but I don’t really feel like posting any of the silly little things I had in my head before I saw fireh’s post.
I HAVE CONVERTED MY BEST FRIENDS TO WHO FANS.
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE WON ONE THOUSAND BANANAS FOR ALL YOUR PARTYGOING NEEDS.
YAY! BUT I DON’T LIKE BANANAS.
THE TENTH DOCTOR DOES.
BANANAS ARE COOL.
Somehow I find that cute to see on the Recent Comments Bar.
HE INVENTED THE BANANA DAIQUIRI A FEW CENTURIES EARLY.
BANANAS ARE MOST DEFINITELY COOL.
THE NINTH DOCTOR LIKES BANANAS TOO. MY FAVORITE DOCTOR QUOTE OF ALL TIME IS “I LIKE BANANAS. BANANAS ARE GOOD.”
Took the SATs today. It was …strange. First getting up really early, when it was still all dark and misty out (felt somewhat surreal), then meeting all the expats (people say I speak like I’m fresh off the boat- but it’s like they still think they’re in the US of A), then the whole test. The essay wasn’t great but better than I expected- I misquoted Salvador Dali and I think I went slightly off-topic in the second half of the second paragraph. The writing/reading parts were incredibly easy, especially the reading part, but somehow I panicked in the first math section-the gridding one- and I didn’t solve two problems and was unable to grid the answer for the last one on time. I was kinda paranoid about the whole math section because my prep book said it-the second part- was supposed to be hard (and because I’ve never done multiple choice math questions before) and I kept waiting for the questions to be hard and I never seemed to get to the hard questions so I tried to check my answers because it seemed to easy… But I suppose it’s my own fault for feeling completely apathetic to the test until about 10 hours prior and then only reading through an old guide for about 2 hours the night before the test. I just hope my math score isn’t too bad because that’s what I’m actually interested in studying and my essay isn’t exactly Shakespeare.
Otherwise I have a bunch of workmeh, but I feel a lot more zen about it all (i.e. about not having done it all at all). And I’m going to read “An Acceptable Time” today *squee*
Yesterday, I spent my Friday night watching the 2008 Hamlet movie because David Tennant was in it. I regret nothing.
Rainbow! Let’s be best friends forever now!
I USED TO WONDER WHAT FRIENDSHIP COULD BE
UNTIL YOU ALL SHARED ITS MAGIC WITH ME
BIG ADVENTURE
TONS OF FUN
*has recently been converted to ponydom*
A BEAUTIFUL HEART
FAITHFUL AND STRONG
SHARING KINDNESS
IT’S AN EASY FEAT
AND MAGIC MAKES IT ALL COMPLETE
YEAH, MY LITTLE PONY
DO YOU KNOW YOU’RE ALL MY VERY BEST FRIEEENDS? *shamelessly double-posts to finish own song*
Phew. It’s Saturday, the weekend at last. And once again I am left with a preponderance of events during my week to tell you about.
Yesterday I went bird banding with my Environmental Studies class. It was really early int he morning, at 8:00. I woke up at 7:50, spent two minutes getting dressed and the other eight running to class across campus. It was cold out, and there was only one bird we caught, but I still had fun. I like my Environmental Studies class because we get to spend so much time outside. We had a practical midterm this week, identifying trees. It was the best midterm I’ve had so far. We tromped around in the woods for a couple hours identifying trees the professor pointed out to us.
But now I’ve got to do homework. I have another exam on Tuesday and tomorrow’s Eid. Also, I have not written a single word for NaNoWriMo so far. Tragic I know.
homeworrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkk
can’t I just write novels all day and/or draw pictures and/or fold stars instead
still sick and I feel stupid for writing this. sigh
should get out of bed now
Back from MUN!!!!!!!!
Both of us participated this time, so we’ll split the summary into commitees.
Choklit to anyone who reads it all.
Disarmament:
-First issue was Fissile Materials, and everyone wanted to ban nuclear weapons by imposing a trade sanction on nations who wouldn’t comply
-Lot of nations didn’t like this idea, so a splinter group formed and I found myself a sponsor (person who goes up to present it). I still have no idea how this happened, because I neither contributed nor expressed any agreement toward the working paper.
-At the last second, the Chair(leader) informed us that we couldn’t even suggest a ban on nuclear weapons, or we could but it wouldn’t work, so the main point of the resolution was removed then passed anyway.
-Next topic was Piracy in the Arabian sea, I drafted a working paper with one other nation and two people who joined just because they wanted to be sponsors
-One person refused to support it because he wanted to attack pirate bases even if it meant civilian casualties with bombs in the middle of towns.
-Finally, the Chair said we didn’t have enough time left and wanted to move onto frivolous debate (random topics brought up such as Harry Potter vs LotR) so he said we should pass the one that was farthest along, sadly not mine
-In frivolous debate, the chairs began to bring up the most inappropriate topics ever, the details of which would get snipped.
-We ended up not debating anything and just bringing up random topic ideas until time was up.
General Assembly:
-First topic was Debt Crisis in Africa, which went on for the first day and half of the second day. Many debates came up, like whether education should come before, after, or at the same time as industry. Resolution that finally passed wasn’t very specific about that, which is why it passed because the other resos were specific and couldn’t garner a majority in the controversy
-Next topic, much more interesting, space colonization. Right after I mentioned 2050, when the earth would reach its carrying capacity, the Outer Space Treaty made by UNOOSA in 1967, the fact that Mars has the possibility of being colonized because it has ice under the surface in certain parts, etc, it popped up in every single working paper, including my own. When the voting finally happened, my reso failed by 1 vote because it imitated the bicameral legislature of the US for outer space lawmaking, and smaller countries didn’t like that. Again, other resos weren’t specific about law, and 2 others passed
Overall, I had a great time. Debates were lively and interesting, and the people were intelligent and brought up interesting points.
Another groupmate studied his heart out for the Napoleonic wars (They pretend they are happening today and discuss), but all reality got shot when Germany sent 100,000 soldiers to quell the Haitian Rebellion. Wars were started, and history was changed forever. There were about 4 failed assassination attempts on Napoleon because the bullets whizzed over his head.
You are a true RAT. I salute your knowledge of space law!
Meh, I didn’t know any of that until I researched it the night before
Whoof. One Thanksgiving dinner down, at least two or three more to go. This is one of the best parts of America, I think. It’s a genius idea for a holiday, especially with the delicious food from this continent.
Also: Daylight Savings Time ends tonight for us in the US! Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour!
Wait, what? It’s not thanksgiving… I’m confused.
I’m so happy about daylight savings time ending; that was so annoying.
Why would anyone try to confine such magnificence to a single day? Extend the joy! Lengthen the feasting! Enough of holidays, I demand holimonths!
I second this demand! And I say that the first holidays to be extended should be Halloween and Thanksgiving!
Can we also extend Chrismahannukwanzaakah?
Does the Blog have its own holiday yet? I feel like we ought to have a holiday, not just Generic MuseBlog Day but like GAPA Appreciation Day or It’s Winter So The Bunnies Are Probably Either Frozen Or Hiding Somewhere Warm Hooray Day or Pies And Also Squids Day, or something.
FESTIVUS
FOR THE REST OF US
SOMEONE GET THE POLE
*takes suggestion entirely too seriously* Well, in my experience, while holimonths are all well and good, it gets…I dunno, old after a while. Too much feasting and merrymaking, perhaps. I’ve definitely noticed a mid-Ramadan slump before.
What would the perfect holiday length be? (And no saying “forever!” or “all the time”, I’ve already expressed my feelings on overlong holi
daysmonths)Hmm… maybe seven days?
We all know how quickly every day being Christmas gets old.
It only gets old because people focus on the wrong things. It’s the spirit of the holiday that makes it fun, not rote customs.
Why do people always make the same mistake?/Why do they let Christmas slip awaaay?/What a lovely change/If we could arrange/For Christmas Day to come and staaaay?/And never ever go away-ay!
…Sorry, I sang that as a semi- solo in 6th grade, my first ever; talking about potential Christmas length brings back memories.
Three days.
Two weeks, maybe?
I just saw a video of Still Alive done with a Rubens tube. I now have an urge to recreate the phenomenon for myself.
URL plz? If the GAPAs allow.
I’m not sure I want to risk an URL, but searching for “Still Alive” and “Rubens tube” pulls up the video. Not that difficult.
hnnnng
all the things
have been organizing going to a quidditch tournament (which is tomorrow) and doing work and barely passing ochem (cake cake cake need to get better at that) and have to figure out a winter term project oh god how did ALL THE THINGS happen? I’m only in 3 classes (+3 labs) x_x
absehgajds
Heh, I don’t think I’ve naturally woken up at 7:48 in a while. (Yes, I know it’s really 8:48.)
art class in the morning (second to last one I have to teach before teacher comes back)
then Swalot coming over in the afternoon
SWALOT COMING OVER
SWALOT
COMING OVER
can’t write complete sentences due to childish excitement
will clean up room now
My brother’s dying his hair blue?? (Are we related…?)
Urgh, got up at 5:40 this morning (stupid Daylight Saving(s?) Time), and now it’s catching up with me. Bleh.
As per Piggy’s suggestion, I have started using Google chrome, and officially love it. Just thought I’d say that. Thanks Piggy!
You’re welcome! Enjoy the world of fast, carefree internet.
With spellchecked posts and easier use of tabs!
If you have a Mac, try out Omniweb, too.
Reading vintage comics requires a certain mindset, but once you get into it, it’s very enjoyable.
Guess what I was doing at the campus bookstore today.
Once I spent an entire night reading WWII-era Captain America comics. It was one of the most enjoyable evenings I’ve ever had.
My mom got her melanoma removed. She gets the stitches out tomorrow.
And I got an A on my first quarter in Algebra II. And we’re singing the Hallelujah Chorus in Chorus.
Overall, life is good.
HAIL ON THE GROUND!!!! THNGS ARE FREEZING OVER!! WHERE AM I
I THOUGHT IT WAS XNOSWING FOR A QUICK SECOND OMMMMMGGGG
WEATHER
By the way, many of you probably know this already but I haven’t seen it mentioned here: you can get archived issues of Scientific American from 1845 – 1909 for free at www. nature.com / scientificamerican / archive/ index_1909. html through the month of November.
(sorry if it’s been mentioned before and I missed it; also, GAPAs, hope the link is okay)
Hard copies or online versions?
pdfs, which I suppose could be turned into hard copies.
I just got back from a travel debate tournament, in a town about three hours away. I’m exhausted, because I’ve been gone since Thursday, and both nights my rounds didn’t end until 10 or 11 pm, and we didn’t get home until past midnight last night, but I’m happy. I’m thrilled with how I did – I made finals in a couple things, although I didn’t win. I think that this is the best I’ve ever debated, and I’m very pleased. xD
On a side note, I have discovered that, when given access to a public piano, people seem to be compelled to show off their skills by playing “Chopsticks”. This is irritating, to say the least.
On another side note, this Tuesday marks three years since moving back from England. I’m not sure how to feel about that.
Finished hosting the dinner party of the year. It was so much fun, but now I’m really tired. And I have homework. Hooray!
incoherent post upcoming
so conclusion:
writing sad and worried loveish song/poem —> melancholy
melancholy —> writing sad and worried things
I should try it with hyperactivity instead of melancholy but I am too melancholic to do that right now
and tired because of being melancholic
and melancholic because of being tired
what is this
Your post made me laugh, but I also know how you feel, sort of. I don’t know whether to pie or squid this.
So for my birthday, my mom had a necklace and earrings made for me out of her engagement ring. They are absolutely beautiful. They’re really symbolic to me, even though I’m not sure if she meant them to be. But I felt that they were her way of saying to not make the same mistakes she made in her life when she married my father.
Anyway, to less depressing things, my boyfriend took me to see the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. It was the nicest day. We took the train in at three, walked around idly for a bit and sat in Columbus Circle, and then had the most delicious dinner. After that, we got coffee and then went off to the concert.
The first piece was absolutely stunning. It was called Nyx, by Esa-Pekka Salonen, and it was written in February of this year. It was one of those pieces that got your heart beating fast. I was completely hypnotized by everything about it. Had it, by some order of chords or notes, hypnotized me to jump out of the box we were sitting in, I would’ve complied without a second thought. It was a twenty minute piece, and so was the next one, which neither of us found as exciting as the first.
The third piece was a forty minute piano solo accompanied by a few other instruments. The pianist didn’t have any music. It was stunning.
I’d like to talk about the instrumentation for a bit- it was really impressive. Two harps, six basses, three piccolos, ten cellos, a bevvy of high strings are what stood out the most. Oh, and they had a CONTRABASSOON. The coolest instrument.
Any way, the encore was the pianist playing Clair de Lune- in his words, “A song so famous, it doesn’t need an introduction.”
It was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. For a good two minutes after the song was over, nobody clapped.
If you’re bad, people don’t clap. If you’re good, people clap. I guess when you hit a level of godliness, clapping is unable to express the awe felt by the audience.
It was an amazing night made even better by the fact that I spent it with someone that I love so much.
SFTDP
(I always seem to forget something…)
I got my braces off, and second piercings on my ears.
ME TOO! (the braces, not the piercings) Do you have a retainer?
I just got my braces off too! I got the retainer yesterday. * is doomed to lisp horribly for three months *
Well, I was supposed to pick it up on Monday… But I never did. I’m going to pick it up tomorrow. I got an Invisalign one though.
And on the bottom I’m getting the permanent kind that stay on the back of your teeth.
That must have been fabulous. I’m glad you had such fun!
Contrabassoons FTW.
Pictures of STS-1 and STS-135 crew together on the NASA website…
… and they all look more bad-butt than you can ever hope to.
Just got accepted to Loyola University Chicago.
With a very big scholarship.
*intense squeeeeeeeeefest*
Dreams DO come true. I might actually go to school in Chicago…wow. Just, wow.
Hah, I knew someone who used to teach there… Congratulations!
I could not think of a more inaccurate place for me to accidentily squid a post.
Squids can be celebratory as well.
Squids kind of confuse me. Sometimes they’re used to express sympathy, sometimes they’re used to express randomness…
hfgbadkn;g
Waiting for professor’s opinion on taking a class P/NP
goodluck!
*hugs* i hope everything works out!
In my math class we are currently studying by solving a murder mystery. Each day we get a clue and use concepts we’ve learned to try to get closer to figuring out who killed a fictional classmate in an even more fictional senario. Today I looked at the paper with general information on it and before I could actually begin reading my brain said “Sara”. At first I couldn’t understand why, but then I realized that I was looking at the name of the fictional classmate. Jane Smith.
It’s snowing.
What.
Send some over here please. It’s November and yesterday was nearly 70 degrees. I was in a T-SHIRT for cake’s sake!
I have been feverish, dizzy, and generally very sick all day, so if this post does not really do the whole thing where it’s coherent forgive me! because I am basically unable to comprehend written sentences at the moment and so cannot reread to check for clarity.
Peach tea is delicious. I put way too much sugar in my tea anyway, but the peach tea bags we got basically make that okay. When I have not been passed-out sleeping, I have been drinking pots of really sweet peach tea. So many pots of really sweet tea. So delicious.
I got to go home early! Unfortunately I probably should have gone home earlier since we had an in-class essay in AP US History and I have no actual memory of writing the essay or what it was about other than that it had something to do with Reconstruction and I hate Reconstruction anyway so the essay was probably pretty bad and I probably should have gone home earlier since I spent all of Journalism with my head down on my desk since my teacher told me I looked dizzy and she was worried about me.
Terpsichore also told basically everybody to make get-well cards for me since “the world is less awesome when she is sick”, which is why I love her. Which made my day.
I feel like somebody is boiling water in my brain and the steam pressure is really hot and really pressure-y so I should probably go to sleep now. Good night!
Okay, I am not dead. I have been off of museblog for a long time, but I am trying to get back on as much as possible. I haven’t posted in something like 5 months. I am really busy nowadays.
Glad to see you! Hope you’re doing great, despite being very busy.
So, this year our theme has been New Years, because we didn’t have time to think of another one, last year it was time travel, the year before, it was random celebrations… what should our Random Thread theme be next year?
Stupid APUSH essays. I was supposed to write this one on the Progressive Era in an hour, but it ended up taking me an hour and forty-five minutes and I still have to proofread it. *meh*
I’d advise not being so perfectionist. You can’t afford to be like that once the test rolls around. Best to start practicing that ASAP.
I know, I tried. This was the first time I’d tried to write a timed essay.
Oh man, timed writings. I remember those days.
If you want them, a few tips that you probably already know:
Try taking five minutes out of your hour to make an outline first. It doesn’t have to be extensive or detailed; usually I’d just jot down on the prompt a list of the topics I wanted to talk about and any specifics that QUICKLY came to mind. Don’t try to write your paper here; just make yourself a memory aid so you don’t spend time in the middle of the hour trying to remember what you were going to talk about.
When you’re actually writing, don’t try to be clever with the wording or spend ages searching for the right word. In this type of situation, clarity is much more important than style, and you want to be moving quickly. It doesn’t matter if it seems like what you’re writing is very simplistic. It’s all about content.
If you can’t think of anything, factdump.
Practice. A lot. For English we did about one or two a week. It got a lot easier as the year went on.
That’s a good point: for things like history or biology, it’s entirely about content. Content, content, content. Misspell something? Doesn’t matter. Too many passive sentences? Doesn’t matter. Repetitive syntax? Doesn’t matter. Content matters.
I’ll do personal news first in this post just because. This past weekend, I drove 10 hours from my college to Washington, D.C. to protest the Keystone XL pipeline/tar sands oil. It was GREAT! I’ll start with the beginning — I drove down on Friday and spent Friday/Saturday nights with my aunt and uncle who live just outside of DC in Maryland. It was wonderful to see them, and we did lots of fun stuff like seeing the MLK, Lincoln, and Vietnam memorials and other big things in that area, eating non-college food, and learning how to use an SLR camera! On Sunday morning, I had brunch with Robert, which was flamablamablous! I was so excited to be able to see him again! We also did some walking around DC and he showed me all sorts of cool buildings along the way. We met up with my sister, Taiwan Hippo Fan, in LaFayette Park as people were assembling for the rally. Robert had to head out after a little bit, but I spent the day with ~80 students from my school and 12,000 other people from around the country/world to protest the Keystone XL pipeline! I can’t believe that there were so many people there — I think it was one of the biggest environmental rallies in decades. We completely encircled the White House, linking arms/holding hands (~2 miles around!), and in some parts the chain was 6 rows deep! Whether or not Obama approves or rejects the pipeline, I feel really proud to have been able to take part in this movement and really send a message to the country. I think it was an effective protest — peaceful, diverse, and based on unity and communication.
Lizzie (29): I offer you the biggest hugs for your bad things. I’m glad you included a good things list, too; sometimes, when I’m having the worst of times, it’s the few good, happy things that make all the difference. I’ve been seeing a lot of beautiful moons, lately, and I always find it hard not to be happy when I’m looking at a beautiful moon.
oxlin (32): That’s the best.
bookgirl (39): Congratulations!! I wrote about Harry Potter and Lazarillo de Tormes in my SAT essay. I think the graders really like specific examples, so a Salvador Dali quote, correct or not, should be great! My mom’s friend always used to tell me the story about when she took the SAT — there was a question that had something to do with the Bible (which, I guess, she wasn’t very familiar with and had trouble answering the question), so she made up a story about “The Wandering Jew.”
FantasyFan (41): TELL ME ALL ABOUT YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES CLASS! It sounds like there’s a lot of science-y stuff involved. I took ecology last year, which was a lot of tree ID and general bio stuff, and this year I’m taking an environmental studies intro-type course and an American environmental literature course, which are both much more focused on the social/cultural aspects of environmental studies and less on the scientific parts. But next semester I’m taking ornithology, so YAY BIRDS!
Koko’s Apprentice (43): Yay Model UN! That sounds like a great conference. Have you done any crisis committees? In one Model UN conference I did a few years ago, I was a signatory on a resolution (that passed!) that made Germany divert all of their water to Africa to solve a water crisis. Another year, we passed a resolution that made Japan pay for all of the human trafficking violations in the world (because the Japan delegation was really annoying). Oh, MUN…
(51): Yay Google Chrome! I use that, too.
Koppar (53): Great on all accounts!
Agrrrfishi (61): Yeah! I know someone there and she loves it! Congratulations!
What’s the King monument like? It wasn’t open when I was there in July. Also, if I’d known you were going, I would have recommended that you visit my librarian friends at NASA Headquarters. (It’s super-near the Smithsonian, and the librarians are very Muserly and have a whole room full of free stuff you can take.)
I thought they did a really good job with the monument. You first walked through a giant stone structure/mountain (“Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope”) with a big section cut out of the middle (you walked through the opening). The part of the mountain that was cut out was carved into a sculpture of MLK (“stone of hope”) — he’s sort of rising out of the stone, with the lower half of his body pretty geometrically carved, still rough like the rock. Gradually as it gets to his head, he’s perfectly polished, distinct, and steady.
Librarian friends at NASA! That’s great! I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m in DC.
My class is an intro-type class, too, but I guess we focus more on the biological and ecological systems that affect the environment than policy. The professor’s a geologist, actually. It’s pretty broad-based, being intro-level and all that. What this class has a lot of is practical projects. It is way more hands on than any other course I am taking this semester. It wasn’t just he bird banding and the tree identification. We need to be able to identify birds too, and we have field trips and the professor requires more projects out of us than papers which is totally fine by me.
Like, at the beginning of the semester, we watched this film called “No Impact Man” in which a guy and his family attempt to drastically reduce their consumption. Then we had to reduce our consumption of something too–We could eat vegetarian, give up the car, reduce water or energy use, stop throwing away garbage. We had to pick three categories and over the course of four weeks gradually reduce the use of thees things in our lives, and blog about it. It really made you aware of how much you use on a day-to-day basis.
Right now we have group projects where we have to fully plan out a positive environmental change locally–for example, starting worm composting int eh Environmental Studies department, which is what I’m doing.
So yeah I think this class is awesome. There’s a continuation next semester that I plan on taking. And there’s an Environmental Policy course offered at my school too…
That sounds like a wonderful class! We’ve done a couple of project-type things in my class (we just finished a food blog project where we had to record everything we ate and trace it back to its origins — which was really difficult for some processed foods and definitely made me more aware of what I eat and how it gets to me), but mostly we write papers. I just started research for our giant final research paper, and I’m writing it about environmental justice, with a focus on shipbreaking in Bangladesh. Should be great!
In Ecology last year, we started the semester off with lots of Tree ID, and I got pretty good at identifying the trees and plants around the area, but since I haven’t been using that information for awhile, I have definitely been forgetting a lot of it. I’m so so so excited for my ornithology class next semester, because I know that I’ll gain lots of practical, applicable knowledge about birds. For the second half of the semester (when it gets warmer), the class starts at 6:30am, and we do extensive field work!
I’m planning on majoring in Environmental Studies, so I hope to take many many more classes about it! Last month, in my Environment & Society class, we had guest lecturers from all different departments (economics, politics, geology, anthropology, education, english, biology) lead classes about how global warming affects/is handled in their field. Learning about all of these perspectives really broadened my view of the idea, and how the environment is linked to every other part of the world — we’ve been talking a lot about systems thinking and multidisciplinary approaches to environmental issues.
Sympathy = when a friend is in pain from having his head being rammed into by someone accidentally and I doodle a squid on a sticky note to stick on his lunchbox.
Oddly enough, I was confused for a moment as to why this post got squidded instead of pied. My brain might not be functioning properly. Excuse me, please.
Doctor Who. ON TESLA COILS.
Wait, what?
Why is it that, despite my hatred of Twilight, it drives me crazy when people spell Stephenie Meyer’s name wrong?
Because it’s pathetic to call yourself a fan of anything if you don’t even know something that basic?
So I checked my place in Who’s Posted How Much list and I’ve finally cracked the top 50. I know, small potatoes compared to some people, but number 42, here I come!
Ooh! I’m at 25, apparently!
I was so excited to get into the top 100… Makes you realize that there’s actually not that many people on MB!
I AM 42
BOW DOWN TO MY ANSWERINESS
I WILL TAKE YOUR PLACE. MAYBE NOT TODAY, BUT I WILL COME FOR IT.
Actually, if Phoenix doesn’t post sometime soon, this will knock me off of that position and give it to en. You’re welcome.
Hello, my fellow Musebloggers! I’ve missed you all.
As you may recall, I took a hiatus from the blog because I’m a crazy procrastinator and I love you all too much to be attached to you for just two minutes of my day. This is why I’m not coming back for good – I might just post every once in a while, but I’m pleased to stop by.
Also, what’s with the squid icons? I remember in 2009 when I flung a squid at Beavo and started a trend…#nostalgia #irritatingbehavior #getthehashtagsawayfromme
You did indeed fling the first squid, but ’twas at Piggy, not Beavo. Anyway, we’ve now automated the process so that anyone can fling squid at the touch of a button, and we give you full credit. Aren’t you proud?
Ah, ’twas indeed.
I am very proud! This is a lovely development.
Also, hello. I’ve missed you, Robert.
*squid*
We’ve missed you, too, sbf. It’s good to have you back, even temporarily.
I should probably sleep, considering I got one hour of sleep last night.
See you guys at some point in time.
(Robert, I want to send you the link to my blog. How would I go about doing this?)
Hi, SBF! Long time, no see! Hope to see you around some? Good luck with the procrastination!
Today during sign-in hour they started playing ‘Uptown Girl’ by Billy Joel over the loudspeakers, so since we’re seniors and can do basically anything, my three friends and I started snapping and dancing down the hallway singing really loud. And a bunch of people started following us and singing, too.
Flash mobs when none are called for. This is why I love my school.
It’s Carl Sagan’s birthday today! Why in the universe has this not been added to the calendar?
Yikes, so it is. We always give him a special honorary birthday thread.
College-Age MBers, what are your majors (If you have declared)?
Mine is anthropology with a minor in museum studies.
Violin performance. May do minors in music history and/or suzuki pedagogy.
Environmental Studies! I haven’t declared yet, but that’s what I plan on majoring in. I’ think I’ll minor in outdoor education, but I’m also considering minors in anthropology, history, and psychology. So many things! So little time!
Double major of Classical Languages and Spanish.
Classical languages, plural? Are you also taking Greek?
Or Hieroglyphs; my school offers those.
Not quite yet, but I have to take at least two semesters of 300-level Greek or above for said major. I could also take some Hebrew or Sanskrit or Coptic or something, but I doubt I’ll bother. Too many Spanish requirements to deal with–not to mention I’ll already be studying four languages at once (Latin, Greek, Spanish, Japanese).
I love languages.
I was biological sciences during undergrad, although I never actually completed undergrad (so didn’t get a degree). Just straight up vet school, now. (ugh, studying 24/7, ugh)
Music education! (Though technically I’m not in college until next year this is the major I’ve declared for all my apps, and the colleges I’ve gotten into.)
english as i collapse in a heap on the ground and drown in a puddle of my own blood
I haven’t declared yet, but I’m leaning towards environmental studies like PP. Still keeping my options open though.
Being in my first semester, I haven’t declared yet, but I’m planning to do a BA in Mathematics and a BS in Computer Science.
(I am going to look at this post in a few years and laugh /so hard/ is what I’m saying)
Archeology.
Darkness at 4:30. Yay. The clock in my head gets so messed up when daylight saving time stars/ends. :-/
I still don’t see the point of Daylight Savings time.
The point is to have the time on your watch accurately represent the position of the part of the Earth where you’re standing at a given moment in relation to the sun.
Swalot’s little sister made my day.
So Swalot told me that I’m famous in his house for my art. (By the way, I am also well known in school for having given a speech on Schrodinger’s cat. Although, this is an unelated side note.) Today, as Swalot’s mom and sisters came to pick him up from school, his youngest sister screamed “I want to meet [Cskia]!” and basically jumped out of the van as I walked over. She couldn’t stop smiling. She is soooooooo sweet. And she wants to do an art trade with me!
I’ve had my “d’awww” moment for the day.
French speaking MBers, help!
I have a test tomorrow on direct/indirect pronouns (lui, leur, le, la, en) and I don’t get some parts. Like when do you use le but not lui? And in front of which verb do you put them (first, second)? En is used only when the part you are going to substitute en with is introduced with de, right? I’m just really confused, and any explanation on the topic would be very helpful.
Now, I haven’t been in a French class for a few months now, so take this with a grain of salt. I took AP French last year and got a 5 on the exam, but my school doesn’t have any French classes after AP, and I’m worried about forgetting things.
However, here’s my quick version. Lui is used to replace indirect objects.
Now, in this example, I’m going to use the verb telephoner because it’s a tricky one. It takes an indirect object, because in French, you have to include the concept of “to.” You CAN’T say “I telephoned Bob,” you must say “I telephoned TO Bob.”
So. For example, in French, “I telephoned [to] Bob” = “J’ai telephoné àBob,” right? In English, this would become “I telephoned [to] him.” Because there’s that “à” in there, Bob is the indirect object of the sentence. So instead of saying “Je l’ai telephoné,” which is like “I telephoned Bob,” you have to say “Je LUI ai telephoné,” or “I telephoned TO Bob.”
An example with a less weird verb would be “parler à.” I talk to them. Je parle àeux. Je leur parle. You can’t say “Je les parle” because that would make “them” the DIRET object, equivalent to saying “I talk them.”
When you’re using two pronouns, here’s a nice way to remember which order they go in:
me
te le
nous la lui
vous les leur y en
They form a triangle. The ones further to the left go before the ones further to the right. So if you wanted to say “I did it to him,” that would be “Je le lui ai fait” because “le” comes before “lui” on the triangle.
In the passé composé, the pronouns come before the helping verb (être/avoir).
You are correct that en is used to replace phrases introduced by “de.” It also replaces phrases of quantity. An example would be, “J’ai mangé deux pommes.” This would become “J’en ai mangé.” I ate them. Or, “J’ai mangé du pain” becomes “J’en ai mangé.” See?
I hope this is accurate and helpful!
I was sad when I couldn’t answer this question. 6 years of high school and junior high french has been slowly erased by not taking French. Now I remember pronouns!
Je peux parle comme ci comme ca mais j’ai oublie mes mots.
Thanks, Tesseract! I think I get it now.
Hi – I completely forgot my paleophyte password, and my “forgot your password” email never comes. GAPAs, what should I do?
sbf: Maybe your spam filter is catching the messages. I’ve temporarily reset your password to be the same as your email address. You can change it later by editing your profile.
Me: Oh, I need a movie soundtrack to listen to while working on homework. Hmm, how about Up? (ten minutes later) Cake, those tears ruined my poster.
Hi sbf! Glad to see your posts again!
So last night, I was working at Public Night with the other kids from the Astronomy Club, and I mentioned to this one girl that if we could shrink Saturn down and throw it in the Charles River, it would float.
The little girl asked what would happen if we did that with Venus. One of the astronomy majors said it would be very bad if all of the sulfuric acid in Venus’ atmosphere suddenly reacted with the water.
“We’d all die.” He said.
“But can you imagine the newspaper report? ‘Downtown Boston was destroyed when BU students shrunk a planet and threw it in the river.'”
Kay so…apparently some people at my school celebrated Guy Fawkes Day? Please inform me how I was not aware of this.
Seussical the Musical Jr. is about to start in my local middle school, and I once again find myself being tech crew. Its a somewhat childish but very funny musical involving most of the most popular Suessian characters, and fairly easy on sound effects, but not so much on mics.
First production went well, next one starts in about 10 minutes.
Oh, our school did that last year and I also have seen it by a professional cast: it’s quite good. (Not Seussical Jr, the real thing.) Our mics ALWAYS mess up: I wish you better luck with sound effects than our crew did. Also, the costumes are fun (one of my best friends was on costume crew) and the music’s great.
My sister was in a Elementry school version of that last school year. She played Mazie (or however it’s the spelled.)
Is there anyone on MB who speaks/ is learning Dutch? I’m choosing a language to learn, and I’m not sure which one I want. I’m kind o fleaning towards Dutch, but it seems really hard, so I’m not sure.
I don’t think Dutch is any harder than German, but it doesn’t seem very useful. It’s spoken in one country (if you don’t count Afrikaans), and most of the people there also speak English.
Then again, who says it has to be useful? Learning a language for the sake of learning a language can be a very helpful experience.
That’s why I want to learn Yiddish. It may be useless and dying, but what reason is that to deprive oneself of saying the word “schlep” over and over again?
I want to learn Yiddish because it’s my culture and it’s dying.
I don’t know Yiddish, and I still delight in saying “schlep” over and over again.
It’s useful, though, if you want to become a permanent resident in the Netherlands. Or if you’re completely lost in Antwerp in a downpour like I was once and couldn’t understand any of the Dutch-speaking Belgian people’s directions. Admittedly, Ducky will probably not find these compelling reasons.
I lived in Amsterdam for a year when I was eight, and by the end of that year was apparently quite good at it. We then moved to hippie town and I proceeded to forget everything. This makes me unhappy, since it’s a fairly awesome if not particularly useful language to know.
I speak German, which enables me to understand some written dutch but I don’t really speak it.
Swalot’s little sister was thrilled with my picture of the winged unicorn with bubbles. And she drew me an adorable bunny (rest assured it was not pink).
Life is good.
Advice call!
So I’ve decided not to play a winter sport this year so that I can have more time to do stuff (pretty much all of the meetings for clubs meet after school, as well as all the community service events, so I figured it’d be nice to take a season off and get to be more involved in something other then a sport) but now I’m not sure what I should do, mainly in relation to the winter musical.
My school is doing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (I’ve seen the movie version but don’t remember it well), but as a freshman and somebody who hasn’t done musical/theater-y related things in two years, I’d probably either be: a) cut or b) background, which isn’t a major problem, I just don’t know if it’s worth it as far as the time commitment goes. I know some people who are in college or upperclassmen in high school who said that the best decision they made was going out for the play freshman year, but just wondering if some Musers had any opinions/advice on this!
Oh yeah: and I’m also doing MUN for the first time ever and Academic Bowl, which I’m not very good at but is actually ridiculously fun. It’s really low key, and the people in it are really fun and smart, so it’s nice.
I haven’t been in a school play myself (that’ll change with Shakespeare this spring, hopefully!) but some of my friends participated freshman year and/or sophomore year. Especially with the play from the first year, I know that theater changed the course of many of my friends’ high school experiences. They really liked the other people in the drama department, and plays are natural bonding experiences because you spend so much time with that group. If it’s something you’re really interested in doing, I recommend going for it. Even if you’re background, that might be a necessary step before you work your way up to bigger parts in later years of high school. In general, new experiences are great – you always learn something even if it’s not what you were expecting.
I think being in a musical production is really great, no matter what part you have. Chorus/background members usually get really fun songs! You can always go for the first couple of weeks to see if you’ll like it/have enough time to dedicate to it.
Yay MUN!
My school does something similiar to the Academic Bowl every year and has always scored 100% in the category of Useless Trivia
Plays do take up a lot of time, and I must confess I’ve never done anything but tech in them since elementary school, but the actors I know have a lot of fun, even the ones who play minor characters and background, because of all the time you get to have fun with friends preparing for the play.
Yes! I’m really excited about MUN, even though I know virtually nothing about it yet… we’re having a meeting sometime next week and we have our first meet in a couple of weekends so we’ll see how that goes.
Is Academic Bowl like Knowledge Bowl? I just started participating in Knowledge Bowl a few weeks ago, and now I wish I’d joined sooner. It is a blast.
Muse has been enormously helpful – I got a question right at yesterday’s practice about sunlight/vitamin D deficiencies causing rickets, which I remember coming from some Muse article about monkeys in cages. Uncoincidentally, my specialties so far seem to be current events, science, and math.
Your Knowledge Bowl sounds similar to our Academic Bowl – essentially it’s just random trivia that could be about pretty much anything – math, geography, history, science, literature, culture, etc. So it’s really quite hard to prepare besides just going to practice and going through questions – and there’s nothing better then getting the most random question right that nobody else knew. Our meets are set up in four rounds that all have slightly different rules but it’s based on a point system (the harder the question, the more points) and we get awesome buzzers.
And yes, Muse can definitely be helpful in this case! I remember in 6th grade I answered a couple of questions right in our school’s Geography Bee from stuff I had learned reading Muse that nobody else knew. I have yet to apply this directly to Academic Bowl, but hey, it’d be awesome if it came in handy!
Knowledge bowl is what my school does!
When I was in middle school there was the quiz bowl and my school won first in state, but sadly the state competition is a lot harder in high school.
I’m not sure if they have Battle of the Books outside of NC, but it’s awesome Useless Book Trivia.
In which book does a character spend valuable noveling time posting on the Internet?
In My Life by Agent Lightning.
Hi MuseBlog, I’m back from the UK doing boarding school entrance stuff! Didn’t have much time to post much while I was there, but I’m back in Hong Kong now.
Welcome home!
“Onward, to the edge. We’re moving onward, to the edge. Here we are together on this fragile little world, this fragile little world…”
<3
11:11:11 11/11/11!
I figure I’m more likely to keep my Japanese-learning inertia going if I keep talking about it, so here’s another update:
I’ve had two main setbacks so far: unexpected schedule complications and an enormous change to my SRS methodology. The schedule complications seem to be smoothed out for the time being, but it’s taken about a week to get my new system up and going. However, I think this new way will be easier, more fun, and more helpful. Thus, I’m only at about 250 kanji. Today I decided that 250 is as good a checkpoint as any, so I’m temporarily pausing the addition of new kanji so that I can learn the hiragana and the katakana, which should take a week or two. I’ll still keep reviewing the kanji, but I’m not adding any new ones for a little while. Once I have a decent grasp on the kana, I’ll start up the kanji addition again. I also may start reading some basic things, since I’ll be able to read the furigana; however, I should probably wait until I have at least, say, 750 kanji before I start reading anything. Thus, any reading I do will be informal and done more for pleasure than for learning, though I’ll definitely be picking up readings along the way. I’ve been listening to as much Japanese as I can, too, to get it into my ear. I listen to a lot of podcasts which I entirely don’t understand, and I watch quite a bit of anime without subtitles or dubbing. I’ve picked up a few things here and there, basic phrases and specific words alike. It’s starting to sound much more understandable, I’ve found. I don’t understand it yet, but it sounds more understandable. I can pick out certain things and know, “That must be a verb,” or, “There’s that particle again.” I’m recognizing the kanji I know, too–for instance, I saw a sign on a stand at a festival and realized, “Oh, æ°· must be used for shaved ice, too.” All in all, what I’ve done so far seems to be going fine, though I haven’t done much.
Huh. That character- minus the little squiggle in the upper left- is ‘water’ in Chinese.
The kanji mean basically the same thing in Chinese as in Japanese. æ°´ is ‘water’ in Japanese as well.
This is the way my Japanese cousin attempted to teach me kanji: “This is ‘man’ because it looks like a headless dude standing up. This is ‘fire’ because it looks like a headless dude on fire. This is ‘water’ because it looks like the head is drowning and it’s really annoyed about it.”
Pretty much the only things I can write in Japanese these days are the hiragana for “ama-i”, or sweet, and the kanji for “flower”, since it’s “hana”, which is my name.
My Mandarin teacher did that. To the point where we all understood her instructions when we were told to, “Draw a saw cutting down the leaning tree. Now draw the evil fish, but this time don’t add the hat. Now the tired question mark, and then add centipede-legs.”
I’m confused…
I’ll be spending my day off from school tomorrow at a friend’s house partaking in all 8 Harry Potter movies. Consecutively. It will take us nearly 20 hours.
Sounds awesome, right?
You know that moment when you know exactly what to say and you say it at the right time? Well, I had one of those moments. And it was a Yo Mama joke. About astronomy. Whatistheworkdcomingto.
…somehow I read this as a “YoYo Ma joke”
…that was a double take.
Same here. xD
I have done that on several occasions… maybe because I’m one of ~five people in my school who actually know who that is…
What was it?
One of my favorite Yo Mama jokes is “Yo Mama’s so dumb, when it says ‘sign here’ on forms, she writes ‘Scorpio’!” (I’m not sure how much of how funny I find this stems from the fact that it’s actually funny, and how much comes from the fact that I don’t believe in astrology.)
Hallo MuseBlog! Finally got my Kindle back after it being confiscated. My parents might be checking my history, though, so I may not be able to post much.
Second run of Importance of Being Earnest tonight. It went pretty well, nothing horrible happened. (but there were NOOO CUUUCUMBERRR SAAANDWICHEEESS)
Not even for ready money?
Losing one cucumber sandwich is a misfortune. Losing two amounts to carelessness!
But there is still ONE MUFFIN LEFT!
KaiYves, you are at the muffins AGAIN!
Wrath of Khan. I cry. Every time.
Also, our math teacher gave us pizza today, I discovered a cousin I didn’t know about who lives relatively nearby, I have school off tomorrow, and I am the QUEEN of juggling grandparents. Not literally, of course, but I’ve managed a temporary fix, with the help of a cousin in Michigan, so that side A doesn’t know about the bat mitzvah and side B doesn’t know that they don’t.
Overall, pretty good day. And all my teachers are wonderful and kind and good and didn’t give us any homework this weekend.
That lended itself to an entertaining mental image.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
http:// khaaan.com/
[Oh-kay. We’ll let this one pass. –Admin.]
Whoops. Sorry, forgot to ask permission for the link.
Guess who absolutely hates registration?
Guess who’s posting this at 5:30am while waiting for campusweb to stop being completely overloaded and start working. While hating life. And wanting to die. And also being hungry. And being unhappy because two of her classes are term classes and will take place when she’s in a play, and then the next semester she’ll have one class a day, except for Tuesdays. WHAT. THE. CAKE. She’s bad at making schedules, did I mention that?
Merp.
Anyway, in case you haven’t guessed yet, it’s Fern.
And she wants to shoot something.
I think she should eat something.
Fiddler, it looks as if somebody thinks you should eat squid.
Or else somebody wasn’t quite awake when she was moderating on a tiny little screen.
Was that you at 99.1?
I posted the comment, but I neither pied nor squidded it.
Note pronoun in 99.1.1.1
There is actually a tiny bit of snow on the ground right now. D:
And now, I must go to math. Bye.
11:11:11 on 11/11/11 is the time to make the most epic wish you’ll make in your life.
Does “please, let my kernel compile” count?
Of course!
I pied this not because I enjoy your suffering but because I have been there.
I would think that the best wish time ever (if you beleive in wishes) would be at the 11th nanoseconds of the 11 millisecond of the 11th second at 11:11 on November 11, 1111.
Happy 11/11/11!
I’m a little sad that we won’t have any more truly “matching” dates for quite some time after next year. I’ve had them every year since I was eight! (And 9/9/99 before that, but that wasn’t truly matching.)
I’ve had them pretty much since I was born. But they’ll be gone come 2013.
Registration was a nightmare, but I got all the classes I wanted, so I guess it’s good.
I do not like the whole waking up a 4:30, going back to bed at 6 and then waking up a 7 to eat breakfast and go to work at 8 thing. Fortunately my teacher for the class right after work had mercy on all of us and all we did was eat food, write about it, then go to the garden and write about how it looks different from when we went there a few months ago. So that was nice.
Lunch turned out to not be burgers, which made me super happy, and now I’ve got an hour before my next class, which I intend to spend on sleep.
Next semester is going to be way too fun, I don’t even know how I’m going to handle it. U.S. History, three music classes, and a philosophy class. Then I’m also going to be in a play, which should be exciting.
I’m still super weirded out by the fact that I’m going to only have one class a day for the second term though, and three on Tuesdays. I guess I’ll be able to get a lot of wandering in the woods done.
Also, that I’ve only got 15 credits. Merp. (I’ll get more for being in the play, but I have to add them later for some reason.) It seems like so little. Only 2 less than this semester, but still seems like a lot. Merp.
NOW, SLEEEEEEEEEEEP.
Cat’s Meow: You do Knowledge Bowl? I do Knowledge Bowl!
SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
Errata and I are going to a really awesome Renaissance festival! Tomorrow! And I just found out! So I’m jumping up and down! Literally!
I’m sorry, but I have to correct myself and say, more accurately, that I’m meeting her there. It doesn’t matter in the slightest, I know, but it just bothers me seeing the error up there.
BUT STILL! YAY!
Just spent about twenty minutes staring into space, imagining what it would be like if all the characters from Lord of the Rings were on various cross-country teams.
(there was that one meet where Gandalf was all “Caradhras High has the worst hill in the entire county we must train and train and train!” and Boromir who was a senior was all “Coach Gandalf, this is destroying the freshmen!” and the freshmen, Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin, were pretty much dead so Gandalf was all “fine, we will go to the Moria meet instead” and Gimli was all pumped because he thought he had friends who went to Moria, but it turned out they had all moved away and there were just a bunch of cheaters there now.)
(and Anduril, the Shoes that were Broken. Gimli is all “oh my god did you really name your shoes” and Aragorn is all “these were the shoes of my ancestors!” and Gimli is all “yeah, maybe you should get a new pair.“)
This is awesome.
This is hilarious.
Do I have your permission to draw a cartoon of it?
Uh yes yes yes?
Yes
“Maybe you should get a new pair”
dying forever ♥
Showing off my Microgravity Team logo at the BU SEDS meeting and then watching Apollo 13 with them while wearing my Halloween costume (my flightsuit from Space Camp), and home by 8:30.
Perfect Friday night.
I have broken my resolution to not do a single bit of homework today. The homework has won again.
-_-
But at some point in the future, it will pay off, because you’ll have the time you would have spent doing the homework free.
Well, yes, that is true. The only problem is that I was trying to do an all-day writing marathon instead. (which failed… *sniffle*)
Today I’m going to cross country state championships – I’m not running, as only the top seven boys/girls (varsity) run, but not gonna life, it FEELS SO GOOD to be going to a meet and not be worried about what I’m eating, and what I’m wearing, and when I’m stretching, and when I’m warming up, and then trying to stay warmed up, and drinking lots and lots and lots of water. So it’s going to be fun not to worry about all that stuff and just cheer on my school!
Unfortunately, however, since the meet is pretty much going to take all down I am fearful for my NaNo.
Bummer to not be able to make more progress on it on a day on the weekend.
*Actually, I meant to say not gonna LIE, not not gonna LIFE. Slightly different meaning.
The harvest moon was out yesterday, And since it was the full moon 2 days ago, it was really pretty.
Does anyone know why the moon looks are orangey sometime in late October/early November?
SFTDP, but I meant “The moon looks orangey”, not “The moon looks are orangey.”
The word “moon” and some form of the word “orange” together reminds me of Titan. And that is just awesome. /CTN moment
I
I think
I think I like chocolate too much
and Nutella
but it tastes sooooooooo good
spoonful at a time
why do I like it so much
my parents in the kitchen are trying to figure out what happened to the third jar of Nutella…
*looks guiltily at drawer*
aaaaaaaaand they took it away
;_;
My mom is very strict about my Nutella intake. She wouldn’t be if it didn’t try to pass itself off as a health food (read: brags health benefits Like Every Other Food In The Store) , but since it gives the appearance of being more nutritious as it really is suddenly it’s less nutritious and the only way I am allowed to eat it is with peanut butter, which as awesome a combination as it sounds smothers the chocolate taste.
Ah. My mom was just annoyed that I took a jar of Nutella into my room and forgot to bring it back out.
lolol I ate like 1/4 of a jar the other day, nutella is the best, bring 8 jars with you to college you will go through one every two weeks (after the 8 are out you will likely have a break you can refill over!)
Will do. And peanut butter too! …..mmmmmm.
That’s actually my favourite way to eat Nutella, though one must of course get the proportions right to avoid smothering either taste.
I like Nutella on graham crackers.
I use that as an excuse to devour Nutella!
Good: I found the transcript of an ABC news broadcast about a space shuttle mission in 1984. I got homework done. I accidentally ended up on the same floor as the Amnesty International convention that I didn’t even know was here this weekend and got to hear some good music and sign some petitions. I went for a walk and photographed the amazing fall foliage.
Bad: The university film library is only open on Mondays and Fridays, so I couldn’t get the DVD I needed to watch for class. The microfiche machine made me so dizzy that I had to run to the bathroom because I thought was going to throw up. My period is coming, and even though it’s not here yet, I’m already crampy and gassy.
This afternoon, I found out about my next big Latin assignment.
Now, I have figured out how to turn it into a Doctor Who fanfiction.
By the way, ZNZ, I’m so happy to see you back!
Thanks. (: I’m happy to be back.
So. The Kokon. It was amazing! Just going there would have been awesome by itself; Kokonvening there is…. well, it was amazing, as I said. There were raptors and glassblowing and just all sorts of amazing things to see, and it was great to talk in person again! It was just great overall. I think she’s still there, so she won’t be able to post about it yet, but it was wonderful.
*According to the Encyclopedia of Life, American vultures are actually not raptors. They’re more closely related to storks. Not all the vultures there were American, but one was, so I put it in as a separate category).
…What. I deleted some unnecessary bits of that post, but I forgot to delete their footnote. It now looks like there’s a random footnote/paragraph about vulture classification in the middle of a post that has nothing to do with vultures or taxonomy. Oops.
Sounds like the kind of comment you might find on MuseBlog.
Wait, who did you kokon with?
Bibliophile and Errata met at a Renaissance festival.
I actually have two pieces of good news today:
1. My family is seriously considering getting a cat over Thanksgiving break. We might even get two so they can keep each other company. We’ve been looking at shelters … Possible names: Luna, Chell, Jupiter, Trillian.
2. Less than 2 months until I can get Portal 2!
Here are some other cat names: Wampus, Pult, Maran, Waul, Strophe, Log, Tonic, Lepsy, and Lyst. (Add cat- or cata- or cater- to these to get a fun word.)
Ha! Puns. I wish I’d named my cats something from that list.
I think All Dogs Go To Heaven had a character named Cat R. Waul who was, yes, a cat.
I’ve always thought it would be fun to have a cat named Magnificat.
I made a personal vow about a month ago that my next cat would be called Captain Americat. This was also around the time I started designing Captain Americupcakes.
Did you consider then changing your ‘blog name to Captain AmeriCat’s Eye?
…Well, I certainly am now.
Pillar.
Cats respond well to high pitched vowels such as ee or ih. Use them in their name.
Were I naming a cat right now, I’d chose Schrodinger. And then giggle gleefully.
I wonder whether Erwin Schroedinger actually owned a cat.
If so, I expect it was named cleverly!
By the by, is “Schrodinger” or “Schroedinger” more common? I typed it with the “e” at first, as I thought it looked better, but was informed by the spell-check thingy that I needed to drop it.
The physicist was named Schrödinger, with an umlaut over the o. By German spelling rules, “Schroedinger” is an acceptable substitute when umlauts are unavailable. (Right, bookgirl_me? I don’t know German.)
“Schrodinger” without the umlaut is incorrect. I suspect it’s the most common spelling in English on the Internet, though, just because it’s the easiest to type.
Ah, I see. Thank you! I’ve seen “Schrödinger”, “Schrodinger”, and “Schroedinger” in various places. Of those, only “Schrodinger” is recognized by spell-check (and by Google) as a real word. Of the three, “Schrodinger” looks the least natural to my eyes–but, not knowing German myself, I hoped that the spell-check knew what it was talking about. (However, considering that it doesn’t recognize “cephalopod”, I don’t know why I expect it to be reliable.)
I decided long ago that if I ever acquire a cat I shall name en Pangur Ban.
Pangur Bán! I know that poem; I think it’s lovely. I became familiar with it when it was published in a Cricket magazine–the April 2005 issue.
(Your avatar is the quite groovy Ada Lovelace, yes?)
(Yes.)
Feeling the urge to curl up somewhere and hibernate.
Go for it.
Curling up in my beanbag and reading Inheritance probably isn’t the most mature response to my history test tomorrow, but hey, who cares?
At least you can read Inheritance. I can’t read it till summer because I have to read thirty-eight books for Battle, and then reread them as many times as I possibly can.
Well, good luck even if you’re not studying.
I was going to get homework done yesterday. I really was. I read a lot of the book that I’m reading for one of my classes, and I was going to work on my fieldwork projects and everything, and then when I came back form lunch I accidentally fell asleep for four hours. Merp. Then I woke up, went to dinner, went contra dancing, and then ended up staying up until 3 in the morning.
Blargh.
So today….PRODUCTIVITY. Fo’ realz.
Hopefully. o.o
The same thing happened to me! I was planning on making lots of progress on a giant paper I have due on Friday, but it was so nice outside, so I took a long woods walk. Then I did about 30 minutes of work, felt proud of myself for my productivity, and rewarded myself with a nap. Then I made dinner and went to a play and decorated my room and knitted a hat and went to bed.
Sigh.
BUT NOW I AM IN THE LIBRARY! So maybe if I get off MuseBlog I’ll be productive. Ready…..GO!
I need a word of advice about college essays. I’m currently attempting to write one of my Tufts essays. The prompt is “Celebrate your nerdy side.” I had intended to basically make the essay a love letter to Muse magazine, with my favorite issue (May/June 2006, the linguistics one) as a jumping-off point. However, after the first paragraph, the natural place for the essay to go seems to be about my love for languages and how that eventually became an interest in cognitive science. I’m not sure I really want to do that, especially since the other essays they ask for are all very much “define yourself” essays and I’m uncomfortable doing too much of that, especially especially since my interests may well change. (The other two questions are “Use the richness of your identity to frame your personal outlook,” for which I wrote about my two typewriters, and “Describe the environment in which you were raised and how it influenced the person you are today,” for which I wrote about my incredibly inspiring fifth grade class.”
I’d like to steer the essay back to the magazine itself (and my relationship with it of course), but since the essay is flowing organically in the other direction, I wanted additional opinions before I force a change in focus.
I think that celebrating your love of language is a perfect thing for that essay, especially since they probably won’t be that familiar with Muse magazine.
So according to my parents (Iwasn’teavsdroppingwhatareyoutalkingaboutshhhh), I am the anti-teenager.
I have mixed feelings about this.
Does that mean that if you collide with a teenager you’ll explode?
But if en is a teenager, wouldn’t that mean en is constantly colliding and exploding with enself?
No Name, Please: The solution to the world’s energy problems.
I’m flattered!
Sadly, you are both correct. I have to be constantly on guard and only hang out with other anti-teenagers, lest I want to cause an explosion of apocalyptic size. And one of them is moving to Miami this summer. *sigh*
As for colliding with myself, the explosions they produce are only emotional. So far.
Boston really does have nice foliage…
This week is going to be a good week. No tests, besides the unavoidable trig test we have every week, tomorrow I go to a game programming class, and the next is karate.
And Friday I get payed to go and DM for the middle school D&D group. I’ve already got the campaign mostly set, with room for player innovation.
I went home today to drop off a few things that were taking up too much space in my dorm and to pick up a few groceries and discuss some things with my mom, but instead I ended up taking out our old dishwasher and installing a new one. What luck.
The play went AWESOME and all my friends are AWESOME and now i get to sleep and recharge my dead brain, okay, good night.
Congrats!
I saw a kid in the dining hall at dinner with a shirt that was both very funny and very touching. There was a picture of a T. rex turning its head to look at a falling meteor while a small rat-like mammal was standing nearby.
The speech bubble coming from the T. rex’s mouth read “Save yourself, mammal! We will fend off the asteroids!”
I think that’s from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
It is! If it’s not in the archive, it’s the cover of one of the books at least I believe. One of my favourites from that comic.
Oh, and the caption for that comic is “Paleontology texts have changed a lot since dinosaurs took over the school board.”
That makes it funnier, but less moving.
Oh, speaking of books, whatever came of the quickly deleted “Free Books!” link?
I think the free books were the contents of the college care packages.
That’s right. And the link wasn’t deleted; it scrolled down and disappeared as newer threads came along.
Aw, I was hoping for Bloggermore…
Have been sick entire weekend. Good thing parade was canceled due to weather.
Really dizzy, throat scratchy, and headaches. Threw up on Friday.
Might have to skip library shift tomorrow.
Sorry for my absences.
Awww. Feel better, Zinc. I was sick last weekend, as were all of my friends. Something’s going around the country >.<
Yep, my office assistant friend saw a kid vomit in the office today.
*wants to write something with this concept but doesn’t know what for*
AAAAAHH NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON AAAAAAAHHH
<3 <3
apparently he did ballet and ballroom and stuff!
<3!
Also science.
Well, yes, it is his job.
Science, schmience. He does ballet!
So tonight I could go downstairs at 10 PM, turn on the TV in the dorm laundry room, hope I wasn’t bothering anybody studying in there, and try to find ABC so I could watch Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly on Diane Sawyer…
… or I could actually get ready for bed so I’m not dead tomorrow and wait for my friend on (an external blogging site) to post a million screenshots tomorrow afternoon and possibly watch on ABC’s website if they have it up there then.
Yeah, probably going to do the last one.
I did the last one.
Me, in science class: *bored to death*
Me, reading Cosmos: Holy cake this is incredible WE MUST DROP EVERYTHING AND DO SCIENCE!
WE CAN DO SCIENCE
AND WITH IT
WE CAN IMPROVE OUR MINDS
Wait, it’s minds?! I’ve only heard that quote, not read it, and I always thought it was lives…it is lives! i realized that right after i pressed submit….CLEARLY, I NEED TO DO MORE SCIENCE
THERE’S REAL POETRY IN THE REAL WORLD
SCIENCE IS THE POETRY OF REALITY
1) my favorite lines ever
2) I just learned that the composer for these videos went to high school fairly near to where I live. We claim him as a native son!
It does tend to have that effect on people…
I love you guys.
Quick question: if you were to write a fanfiction/story based off the quote “Can a heart break once it stops beating?”, what would be the plot, universe, and/or fandom? No influence from the original source, if you know it, but if you do it’s in the same tone of voice.
(should this go on Games?)
Probably your usual supernatural romance. (Though now my brain is coming up with all these crazy Wizard of Oz vampire!AUs. Wow, brain, looking odd today.)
Er… honestly? Twilight. (But I wouldn’t write it.)
It just reminds me of a visual novel I played a while ago.
No vampires please! I hadn’t even considered that, and I can see why…
I had thought up:
– a world the Nox/TRC gang shows up in with people who come of age by cutting out their hearts, typical newcomer stuff
– love rival yandere attacks rival
– rou!Watanuki and Doumeki
– X/1999, Seishirou (Subaru) or Fuuma
– what if the APH nations had no hearts?
– Tokyo Babylon, in general
– a very meta scene I have planned for Renier
By the way, it was from Corpse Bride.
Still open to thoughts… I’m not extremely satisfied with what I thought up.
Parody. About the undead in society. Probably about a depressed zombie, who doesn’t know what he wants out of life and doesn’t understand why every girl he asks out runs away screaming.
…but that’s just how I write.
THE ROMANTIC MISADVENTURES OF REG SHOE
MY LITTLE ACTIVIST
ZOMBIEVITALLY CHALLENGED INDIVIDUALHmm, I think it would be a romance set in a dystopian society, where you can still live after your real heart stops beating thanks to technological advances.
A love story about a ghost whose surviving spouse remarries.
People frozen on a spacecraft while it traverses the universe are forming psychic links- and romance- with each other.
Perhaps if you use a jackhammer…
today has not been the most glorious of my days.
I apparently forgot to finish puting on real clothes this morning after I laid them out on my bed and started getting dressed… changed into a regular shirt but when I came back from class I was still wearing my morning sweatpants with pajamas under them. Oops.
Then I did no real work all day except finishing my computer science lab, and drew a picture instead.
A little while ago I had to sit in my roommate’s closet for a while and then after I came out I accidentally threw my hairbrush against the wall.
I ran out of emotions sometime around 8pm.
I fractured my finger the other day, and now it’s in a splint, which makes it hard to do everything involving my left hand. Meh!
I’m okay with my band director procrastinating on getting me sheet music and information but when it comes to whether or not I made drum major. He promised we’d know on Monday.
I know I didn’t make it because I was beat out by seventh graders, but is it too much to finalize that?
Feeling murderous towards Big Brother, since he’s automatically in and also is so much better than me and therefore his higher level of existence is a perfectly valid reason for him to forget I exist.
It reached a peak in algebra, so I took out my math notebook and wrote a story in which all the people I’m angry at end up being killed by aliens/murdered by accident/impaled upon their own swords. (I temporarily base characters from existing dead novel drafts on people.)
It’s a great way to relax, but since it was a sequel to my last one, I had to bring back all the people I wasn’t mad at anymore, which was Paperclip.
So I had to have him regenerate. Then I decided that Big Brother could be the Master (it really fits!) and from there it just degenerated into a huge fanfic that ends with him being impaled on his own bassoon while soloing over the drumbeat and conducting a zombified concert band.
But I’m not mad anymore!
Ish.
Hmmm… the readings for both my Archeo and Anthro classes are chapters I already read.
Phew.
My first year blogiversary is in fifteen days…
How do Paleo threads work?
First of all, do you have an account yet? If not, ask the GAPAs for one. Then ask to be able to see the paleo threads. You only need to be 6 months old, so you can get one before your blogiversary. Once that’s happened, log in and look for the categories on the right of the screen; scroll down if you don’t see it straightaway; it’s yellow. Click on the Paleostuff category.
WordPress homepage says my gravatar has been changed, but MuseBlog disagrees.
Gravatar changes
Tend to be delayed a bit.
Clear your cache, dear Zinc!
But the problem is
No one else sees it either
Maybe it’s the blog?
This is very weird.
I suppose I will attempt
To change it again
My new gravatar
Is an adorable child
Dressed as the Doctor.
Wait– is your new av
Cleverly disguised as your
OLD av? INCEPTION!
Clever, incorrect
Although I am not certain
Which of us is wrong
Maybe the process
We call “Regeneration”
Is not virtual.
Even on WordPress
My visage has been remade
MuseBlog still resists
Your new avatar
Is showing up just fine here.
What’chu talkin’ ’bout?
After I posted
I sped to WordPress, retry
Soon after, new pic
Was there ever a Magic Tree House book about the Maya or Inca?
*looks up*
No? Then how do I contact Mary Pope Osborn? I’ve got some ideas to pitch!
And, come to think of it, there was never one about the Minoans, either! And did she really think she could write off the whole universe and the whole future by sending them to the moon that one time? At least send them to Mars a little further in the future, too!
That’s it, now I’ve got FOUR ideas for the series! How do I contact her? I’ve got four more books just off the top of my head!
Homestays have arrived for APAC Orchestra! They’re both Korean (over half the orchestra will be apparently, surprise surprise) but live in Manila. Three days of rehearsals then our concert on Saturday. (And I have another concert for another orchestra on Sunday…)
I feel like I haven’t been posting here enough.
But I have been lurking.
And I want to say that all of you are wonderful.
^I second this.
I have been doing the same thing, and would like to say the same thing.
I agree, even though I have the opposite problem of posting too much.
How is that a problem?
You too!
Oh hey everyone. Just popping in to share an amusing anecdote, as I am often known to do.
I’m writing a research paper about how Shakespeare was gay/bi. For my Honors English class. And my teacher thinks it’s a great idea and approves of me writing a paper on this topic.
First of all, I love my English teacher.
Second of all… Thank you, MuseBlog, for corrupting me so soundly.
Also, I have a habit of writing poetry in English class so I don’t get bored, and every once in a while I’ll get back from lunch to find him standing beside my desk reading it, looking somewhat impressed. *pride* He wants me to take his Creative Writing class next year! XD
Wait, what? Really?
Yes, really.
Any MBers in the San Diego area? I’m going over there over Thanksgiving, so I was just wondering.
I just overheard this…
First girl: “Why does it always rain on Thursdays?”
Second girl: “Because it’s Thor’s Day.”
Oh my gosh it’s been raining every Thursday where you are too?
Yes.
Today is American Censorship Day. The government is trying to create a national internet censoring tool not unlike those used in China, Iran, and Syria. By making websites liable for content their users post, any site–even large ones like Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter–could be shut down and blocked by the government if one of its users posts something illegal, even a simple copyright violation. Free speech will be majorly affected, being controlled by the government and large corporations. Email providers will have to censor emails that contain any questionable links, and doubtlessly, many completely legitimate links will be blocked as well. Publicly posted content will be closely scrutinized by websites and censored. We cannot allow this to happen. If the GAPAs would allow a URL, I’d urge everyone to look at the infographic on americancensorship.org/infographic.html and then please, please call or write to your Congressmen and tell them to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House) and the PROTECT IP Act (in the Senate). And spread the word. If these bills pass (which they are likely to do), it would be a major blow to freedom and innovation in the United States, and it would set a precedent that other countries would be inclined to follow.
Done. And may I add, I spent some time reading through his website, and my congressional representative is awesome
Done. Thanks for letting us know about this.
I’ll try and remember to tell my Social Studies teacher about it.
But…wouldn’t it be considered unconstitutional, since it limits freedom of speech?
GAPAs, did the spam filter eat my comment concerning American Censorship Day, or are you just holding onto it until such time as you can check the link it contained?
[Both. We removed the link but not the address. –Admin.]
Thank you! *presents choklit*
You and 4chan alerted me of this at the same time. I wrote a very [angry] letter, although I retained reasonable intelligence and didn’t come across as THAT angry.
…Why is my “angry” now [angry]? HTML Gnome, is that you?
It wasn’t an HTML Gnome; it was a Slang Gnome. What you originally wrote in your comment was not “angry,” but something a bit more, well, slangy.
And the worst part is that I forgot what I originally said. I’ve been out of it for the past few days.
I must have slept badly last night or something. Or maybe I’m up too late playing Skyrim.
One of my most-visited sites, which is quite popular, now has a black censor bar over everything that can only be removed once you read their information page about the bill. They’re telling people to call their Congresspeople, and apparently there’s a call about once every 3.6 seconds now. I love the Internet sometimes.
I have officially written to both senators of my state as well as congress about this
I have tea, and I have couscous and soy sauce, and also veggie cheese.
Going to the grocery store last night was such a good decision.
Even though it was a little weird because in my tired/sick/disconnected from the outside world-iness the store was SO AMAZING, and I saw ALL THE FOODS. And there were SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF EVERYTHING.
It was intense.
I just found out that I’m the ideal player for the game because I constantly forget about it.
I just got back from the second of my trio of Thanksgiving dinners, this one at the dining hall in my dorm. The dining hall here has a special program that the other halls don’t; they try to have a lot of local ingredients in their food, so most of the food at dinner today was locally grown/raised/made. Everything was great–the turkey was cooked perfectly, the mashed potatoes were just the right consistency, the homemade cranberry sauce was fantastic. They had another addition which I found to be quite delectable and fitting: frybread, apparently also homemade. And, of course, sweet potatoes and dressing and corn and pumpkin pie and everything else. I love this holimonth.
Mashed potatoes are the best.
Tried breading and frying tofu. Came out pretty well, although a lot of the breading fell off (advice? I was using cracker crumbs because the recipe said breadcrumbs which I didn’t have).
Watching the Diane Sawyer interview now… so heartwarming.
So I’ve fallen asleep in Stat consistently at least once a week since the beginning of the year. I’m trying hard to stay awake but to no avail. (New plan: drink water whenever I feel myself drifting.) My teacher has said nothing so far. Not “Are you okay,” not “Abby, this is completed unacceptable.” Nothing. It’s a little unnerving. It also makes me feel bizarrely guiltier.
In other news, I love doing crafty projecs. I just finished making an Icarus/Daedalus-inspired puppet/doll with feathered da Vinci-ish wings for a Lit project on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I probably spent way too long on it, but it’s so satisfying!
Physics, however, continues to be incomprehensible.
I am eating ramen. Cooked ramen, not just dry chunk of noodles, which is how I’ve been eating it. Do you know how long it’s been since I had ramen soup? A bajillion years, that’s how long.
Anyway, it’s awesomeamazingdelicious and I want to eat nothing else EVAR. That’s a lie, but still. It’s pretty awesome. I’m going to need to go back to the grocery store….
UGH I WANT RAMEN
WHY ISN’T THE EGGERNET REAL YET
i’ve eaten almost all my food from the last time i went to the store ;__; the worst of feelings!!!!!
The worst part is, I have about ten different types of ramen in my food bin right now, but I can’t share them with MB.
*curses the lack of Eggernet*
Yesterday
Kid: I left my lunchbox on the bus! Oh no! And it was a substitute bus driver, too!
Me: Here, have my trail mix.
Kid: *munches* It had my thirty dollar thermos!
Librarian: *initiates conversation with teacher*
Kid: And the thermos had my ramen in it!
Me, librarian, teacer: RAMEN? WHY DID YOU NOT TELL US BEFORE??
Have been very busy this past week. It’s been awful…Group projects and registering for classes and papers and tests and all this is still ongoing…The pre-Thanksgiving crunch, I guess.
Anyways I’m ridiculously tired, and plan on going to bed right after this, which is extremely odd given that it’s 11:30 and not my usual bedtime of 2:00 at least. I mean, it’s even before midnight…and I’ve always counted myself among the weak where sleep is concerned.
I found Camilla the obscure Quebecois steampunk leather maskmaker she and I have been searching for for almost a month, through much much much patient detective work, a sudden twelve-thirty-in-the-morning brainspark, and repeated use of Google Translate. Multiple websites, contact info, confirmation that the lady speaks fluent English, everything that could possibly be desired.
I am so caking proud of myself and I am going to go pass out now.
Dunno if this has been posted yet, but apparently the censorship bill has been defeated by a (slim) majority vote. Don’t call me out on it if it hasn’t: I’m not entirely sure. If it has…
Phew.
I heard that NASA is currently accepting applications for its astronaut training program. Anyone sign up yet?
The only reason I haven’t is that I’m still building my credentials.
(Oh, and that they don’t take 18-year-olds.)
How old do you have to be?
It doesn’t look like they have any specific age requirements, but you have to meet a number of education and experience requirements as well as physical specifications.
Seems interesting, but I doubt they’d accept a pre-teen. Cake.
That gives us time to build our credentials, though!
Went to the TSWIFT concert. Twas awesome. Bacon was there. In my row.
Exact convo:
Him: Pie Girl?
Me: What the heck are you doing at a taylor swift concert?
*hides* PLEASE DON’T JUDGE ME
Wow, I know a lot of people who went to that concert! What a serendipitous coincidence!
Fire alarm went off at 3 AM… I have the worst headache…
~**Exploding rainbow confetti pies**~ because MY NEW GRAVATAR IS 11 AND WHEATLEY
YES
“Say … apple. Simple word, apple.”
“Oh, apples are rubbish. I hate apples.”
(Nyeh, still more than a month until I can get Portal 2 …)
*late glomp for ZNZ* I’ve missed you!
ALL COUNTY BAND REHEARSAL
Now to catch up on my NaNo.
So I was kind of half of the tenor sax section, which meant that I had never actually played tenor in a concert/symphonic band before, and I was also second and last chair and I knew the first chair who I missed by one point on auditions and Paperclip didn’t get my trombonium joke and it was a bandcamp thing, you had to be there, and I was sitting in front of a trombonium player who my friend knows but he moved and a girl from my friend’s church and another who I knew from bandcamp were in the french horn section and I already knew the first chair and I missed the entrance with the melody by two measures early while sightreading (I always do this) and also mixed up rythyms after the director specifically told us what to and not to do there and as I was said I was half the tenor saxes and it was obvious and the Master was tapping on his bassoon in front of me and exterminated me every time I made a mistake and did I mention PAPERCLIP was right there in the trombone section (second chair like me) and THERE IS A CRACK IN MY MOUTHPIECE IT IS SCARING THE SALMON OUT OF ME
and did I mention I’m slightly incoherent at the moment? But I miss school for all county tomorrow, so it’s all good, right?
Did I mention how much I’ve missed ZNZ?
Went to Melt with the quartet as a post-concert celebration. So much grilled cheese goodness. So full. So happy. So skeeved out by seeing one of my school’s professors there with a student.
HAHAHAHAHAHA OH MAN LOOOOLLL i mean that is weird and sketchy but at this time of night it is hilarious omg l o l
So I might have to get my wisdom teeth out in a year or so. I Do Not Want This.
Apparently, it wouldn’t hurt because I would be under general anesthetic. I Want This Even Less.
It’s not very much fun, but once it heals, at least the pain in your jaws will be gone. (Except when the air pressure changes and you can feel it in the spaces.)
I don’t know what’s worse, having your wisdom teeth surgically extracted, or leaving them in and having to deal with teething. But whatever happens, *hugs*
Don’t worry. I had mine out this summer and it’s really not so bad. Are yours impacted? I heard a lot of horror stories but honestly mine didn’t have any problems, and I didn’t even take the painkillers after the first day.
If you have at least a year, it sounds like you’re not having immediate problems and the surgery is probably more preventative than anything. That’s how mine was, and it went very smoothly and they healed very fast. The most annoying part was the bit where I wasn’t supposed to chew, but even that didn’t last too long and there’s a lot of things you can still eat (eggs! ramen! taco meat with lots of melted cheese! pudding! endless amounts of guilt-free ice cream! soups!)
COLLEGE.
It existeth. And it’s totally awesome. Well, actually, mostly awesome. There are these things called “papers” that I’m sometimes expected to write which generally result in my curled up in a fetal position in a puddle of tears and ink. Apart from that, college is groovy. My roommate and I get on splendidly and I have cool friends and do cool adventures and theater
OH MY GOODNESS I nearly forgot I found the Special Collections section of the library where there is nearly everything written about Lewis and Clark and Bleak House in little brochure things from when it was just published and LEAVES OF MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS
Also, did I mention the theater? Currently I am only acting in a directing scene and taking Theatre Laboratory, but I stage managed earlier this semester! And just got done with Once Upon a Weekend, wherein students have a week to write a script, which is cast on Friday, rehearsed Saturday, and performed Saturday night. ALSO, I have cool friends and we’re starting a Shakespeare theater troupe.
Also I am watching Buffy. Slowly.
Also, there is so much condensation on our wall that the pictures from my Van Gogh calendar are falling off.
And next year I am taking Spanish 102, Exploration & Discovery: Planetary Ecologies (Freshman Core Course), Acting 1, Britain in the Age of Revolution, and (if all goes as planned and I am allowed to overload on credits) Computer Science 102 (because I failed my entrance math test).
I have to put shoes on and go to class now. Happy Friday, all!
Alice! *pies* I’ve missed you a lot. Glad to see you posting!
-pies back-
I’ve been semi-purposefully staying away, because I dread being sucked back into the internet at this point when I am genuinely bored with it and have so much homework to do (like my Gospel of Matthew/The Grand Inquisitor paper) and so many obligations to fulfill and so many adventures to have. But I missed you guys, so I thought I’d pop back in and say hi. Maybe stick around for a while–who knows?
Hi Alice! It’s good to see you around again. I’m glad college is awesome or even just “mostly” awesome.
One of my friends is thinking pretty seriously about applying to Lewis and Clark. She visited over the summer, not long after I did, and LOVED the campus (as did I, it’s ridiculously gorgeous). If she has any questions about what life is like there as an actual student, would you mind if I forwarded them on to you at some point?
Not at all! It’s a pretty groovy school.
Cool. I’m pretty sure I’m going to apply there. My cousin went there for his undergraduate studies and is now doing medical school at Cornell.
DO IT. It is a great school and a gorgeous campus and awesome people. If you have any questions, you know where to find me!
Actually, you might not. I’ll stick around. What are you considering studying?
Almost definitely majoring in English. Honestly I don’t know beyond that — maybe a minor in one of the sciences, but I haven’t any specific plans.
Hm. Having determined not to major in English somewhere during my high school career (a decision only drilled further into me by my newfound dread of papers), I’m afraid I’m a little bit hazy in that particular department, but I think I have some friends who are English majors. I’m in an Arthurian Literature class, which is really cool.
As far as science goes, I hear that we have a fantastic chemistry lab, but I don’t have the prereqs for science so I haven’t taken anything yet. I went into the science building for the first time yesterday and it was cool and full of gadgetry. I know a girl who’s a Biology major and does stuff with spiders and is going to New Zealand for study abroad in the Spring.
So CERN has repeated their neutrino experiment, modifying the way they produce the proton beams so that the main possible source of error is eliminated, and once again the neutrinos were apparently faster than light. No independent review of the new results yet, but it’s definitely another piece of evidence toward confirmation that what we thought we knew is wrong.
Don’t get too excited yet. There could still be a problem with the timing mechanism. (Some scientists outside CERN say they’re pretty sure that’s what is going on.) It’s also not clear to me how the researchers at CERN got enough data for this test in a few weeks, when the original experiment took more than a year.
I like surprises as much as anyone else, but for the moment, I’m sticking with Einstein.
I’m with Robert.
I think it’s easily possible that neutrinos can travel faster than light, but it’s isn’t very likely.
What. WHAT. Apparently one of my friends and one of my co-workers were friends before this. And wives. And have baby squids together.
Yeah, I was creepin’ hardcore. Don’t judge, guys.
This is the friend that reminds me of Jade.
Coincidence?
Probably not.
TELL ME MORE ABOUT THIS PERSON
Going to London over Thanksgiving Break~ I’m so excited, my dad goes there all the time but he’s never taken us until now. Squee!
…nope. Still too emotionless to be excited. *sigh*
YEAAAH MUSER AT MY SCHOOL
It’s kind of odd, though, because she’s one of the last people I would have expected, i.e. popular. But she’s nice so it’s cool.
Popular people can be intelligent and thoughtful as well, luckily.
How did you find that out, though?
I was at Writing Club and a boy and I were talking about certain nerdy, scientific things such as interplanetary travel and I mentioned Muse; she said that she got it too. I believe that awesomeness shall be forthcoming.
Ah, shall we expect her on the Neophyte thread soon?
Perhaps…we’ll see what the depth of her nerdiness is. (She did read Les Miserables…)
Going on the annual Boy Cook-off in – well, we’re already late. Wish me luck (but not my brother- I’m competing against him :lol:)
“It’s okay. Let me get you some cake from my Malibu Ken ‘It’s Okay For Boys To Cook Too’ oven.”
Quote from a show on Cartoon Network called MAD. I couldn’t resist.
I thought we usually had a new thread by the middle of the month.
I’m not sure I want to post what I would post if this was a newer thread, because I’m afraid that by then a new one will have been created and no one will read it.
I’ll create one tomorrow. It has been a busy week at work.
The “Small World” song from the Disneyland commercials is actually kind of depressing. It’s like, the world is SMALL. And it’s ALL THE SAME. Not very happiest-place-on-earth …
It’s not true, though. The world is enormous, and besides, this isn’t the only world–there are billions and billions of stars. Billions and billions!
Oh gosh, when I was seven or eight I used to have the hugest arguments with a friend of mine about whether it really was a small world after all. I held that it was a big world.
We also argued about whether pigs (me) or dolphins (her) were better. With fronds like these…
Billions upon billions!
The idea is that people should realize how much they share in common and overcome their quarrels and differences.
I have a problem I’d like your help with. My friendship group is in the midst of a big fight- the sort where it’s gone from involving 2 or 3 people, to everyone taking sides or trying to get along with both and getting stressed out. So prepare for a complicated explanation…
This week, my good friend Alpha brought Beta into our group, since Beta had fallen out with her other friends. We were okay with accepting her- we accepted Delta into our circle when her friend went on exchange overseas. Then 3 days ago, Delta and Epsilon were together and asked Beta how she was fitting into our group. She said I was random. Epsilon said I was a normal person and had a go at Beta, and things escalated from there.
When Theta heard about this, she told the others, and the group turned against Beta. We didn’t insult her, just ignore her. Alpha wasn’t happy with this, though she still sat with us. Yesterday Theta tried to organise a group discussion, and we got as far as Alpha saying we shouldn’t judge Beta and listen to her, and Beta denying she said anything, before Epsilon yelled at her again and stormed off.
Epsilon is willing to ditch Alpha, which I’m against. I mean, Alpha wasn’t there when the incident happened. It’s Beta’s word against Epsilon’s and Delta’s. And since Beta doesn’t have anywhere else to go, I don’t blame Alpha for choosing to stick with her. I know how much rejection sucks. Which, ironically, is probably why Epsilon is so eager to defend her friends- she’s been bullied in the past too. And why she’s getting so emotional about it.
Beta probably did say it, but I think Epsilon overreacted in her eagerness to defend me. How likely would you say it is that Beta said something that wasn’t supposed to sound mean and is now lying to protect herself from further rejection? Epsilon has claimed that Beta is just mean and a troublemaker and caused a breakup of her last friendship group. It’s true that Alpha is on the innocent-and-trusting side. All I know for sure about Beta is that she left her eighth-grade homeroom to that of her former friends. And I did the same thing, only to a different group. So Epsilon really shouldn’t use that argument against her.
As for Delta, I don’t know her well enough to judge. She was friends with Beta until recently, and I can’t see her overreacting for the same reasons as Epsilon.
Theta tried to sort it out by going to Mrs Joe(it’s a while since I mentioned her
). Mrs Joe got Theta, Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon, myself, and another friend who’s trying to stay neutral. Mrs Joe got everyone to say what had happened and how they felt about it, and her presence stopped everyone from hurling insults at each other. She also reminded us we’re about to go into year 11
(eek!) and we’ll change a lot, and we should either split up or move on and come back together. I’d prefer for us to get over it, but I can’t see this being resolved. The think the majority of us don’t want Alpha to leave, so splitting up would be hard.
Phi and I stood with Alpha, and Beta after school yestreday and talked to a random classmate about unrelated stuff, so not everyone hates Beta.
Is this fight even about what Beta said, or is there more to it? Other than lingering stress from schoolwork and worry about next year?
Seriousness: It seems like Epsilon might not want Beta in the group after all. That’s the feeling I’m getting from how you described her reaction. She might be jealous and think that Beta’s getting in the way of all of Epsilon’s friendships. For creatures created by change, we seem to not like it very much, do we?
Not-So-Seriousness: Every time you type “Epsilon”, my thoughts go to a Crobat one of my OC Pokemon Trainers has.
Making a sandwich without music: Eh, sandwich. Nom.
Making a sandwich to Eleven’s theme: All of reality is collapsing! The fate of the universe depends on this sandwich! Bread! Ham! Lettuce! Allons-y!
*twitch* Do NOT say Allons-y with Eleven.
OH GOD I’M SO SORRY I’M NOT TRYING TO BE MEAN I’M JUST A HUGE TENNANT FANGIRL DON’T JUDGE ME.
It’s okay, I am too.
*Tennant high fives*
Geronimo, then.
It also changes homework from a chore into an epic undertaking on which the fate of the world depends.
It does that to anything, really.
You should try running to catch the bus while playing the Superman theme.
My brother left some Nerf darts out on the floor and my cats kept me up haf the night chasing after them. Whenever I see one, I am going to BURN it.
SpaceShipOne.
SpaceShipTwo.
MotherShip WhiteKnightTwo.
Virgin Galactic: WeReallyLikeMedialCapitals.
How long do you think it’ll be before they become VirginGalactic?
They actually probably won’t, because none of the other Virgin companies use that spelling and they probably want to keep all of those standardized for advertising reasons.
I haven’t been posting much these few days! I’m in Hong Kong still but I’ve been busy with APAC Orchestra, so rehearsals all day (concert was this evening). We played Boyce, Elgar, Casadesus, Finzi and Vaughan Williams – all English composers incidentally. Over half the orchestra was made up of Koreans (including my homestays who were a bit quiet) even though only one of the six schools was actually in Korea. Now it’s over and it’s quite sad. I’ve really enjoyed it.
For some reason, the O. A. R. song “Heaven” reminds me of Good Omens.
Does anyone know any good recepies for tree related food? (Fruit, nuts, bark, leaves, ect.) I’m trying to work on Girl Scout tree badge.
Do something with licorice. The natural ingredient, if you can get it, is a twig.
Apples grow on trees and make excellent pie. Pecans grow on trees and make excellent pie. Coconuts grow on trees and make excellent pie. Bananas grow on trees and make excellent pie.
And then there are cocoa beans, from the fruit of Theobroma cacao, which is a tree.
Do you need to harvest from trees yourself or can you buy the tree ingredients?
Wow, all the GAPAs are out today; when did that last happen? Must be the food.
When shall we four meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Mwhahaha. When the hurlyburly’s done, if not sooner!
The hurlyburly is never done, around here.
Nor is the battle lost or won.
I accidentally a revolution
Started?
Talk like Yoda, do you?
Don’t sing For What It’s Worth around Seattle. (Occupyers galore.)
How is it I have no time in my schedule to mess up my room yet I am forced to make time to clean it up again?
I am currently navigating the interenet with my new tablet!
EEEEEEEEEE
Another year, another route to MuseBlog. Congratulations, Enceladus!
Registered for all of my classes for next semester!