Friday, 3 May 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
We said it every month during 2011. Now, as the year turns, the we are saying it once again.
In accordance with MB tradition, the GAPAs are delaying the unveiling of the first Random Thread theme and image until a few days into the month. All we’ll say is that it will involve a return to our Muserly roots.
Date: December 31, 2011
Categories: At the Top of the Blog, Random craziness
Happy new year! *noisemakers*
So, 2011. That was a pretty fun sort of thing.
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Whee it’s almost a new year
Which means SHERLOCK TOMORROW
I seem to have abandoned punctuation at some point That’s a shame But now that I have pointed it out I shall have to continue for this entire comment fun fun
Luckily for you all I do not have all that much to say beyond SHERLOCK and I am trying to get my friends to go to a Ceili with me next month so I will stop talking now and next time I post I will use periods and apostrophes and stuff
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2011: In which an infinite number of things could have happened, but their entirety can never be known. And I wrote a vague post.
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It’s not midnight here yet, but it will be in a few hours.
Let’s hope 2012 is better than 2011. Pip’s here though! That’s definitely a good start!
Also, I’m HOME.
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Happy New Year, all! I saw the Rembrandts today! So much art history! Ready for another year of being on the blog… I thought I could snatch a first post, but no such luck.
Also, Mr. Holland’s Opus… amazing movie. I normally don’t cry but OHHHHHH SO EMOTIONAL perhaps because I have such strong connections with band? Anyway, great movie.
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It’s not 2012 here yet, but Happy New Year, everybloggy!
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Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
and surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the braes,
and pu’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidl’d i’ the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
for auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne!
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Like KaiYves, it’s still 2011 on my end. Happy new year for the thirteenth time to everyone else, though!
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Happy new year!!
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*confetti* *sparkling juices*
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@muselover – I’M IN THE FUTURE
And all the rest of you west of Central or Eastern time.
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Happy New Year! *fireworks*
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Happy New Year to you all. May warthogs never rummage in your cabbage patch.
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Happy new year, you lot.
-A
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Hey, it’s the Apocalypse. Does everyone have their cans of beans and Girl Scout cookies stored up?
Oh yeah, Happy New Year.
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Someone on another site mentioned wugs, and it made me happy because I got the reference. Does anyone know which issue that was in? Was it the 2006 language issue?
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Yep. May/June 2006. They were also mentioned in the May/June 2010 issue, I believe, as a category of folk taxonomy which includes worms and bugs.
“This is wug. And so these are two–?”
“Oh, dear, well, carry on.”
“And so these are two–?”
“Wugness, isn’t it?”
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I CAN LOOK TO MY LEFT 45 DEGREES AND SEE THAT ISSUE
I LOVE that issue!
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It’s my favorite issue. To craunch the marmoset!
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Happy New Year, everybody! Watching GRAIL-B maneuver into lunar orbit!
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Hi everyone! I´m at another internet cafe. I personally was asleep for the new year´s fireworks here, but my brother says it was the biggest, if not the best, fireworks display he´d ever seen. You don´t need a permit to use fireworks here, so basically everyone who had the money got some fireworks for a huge display at new year´s. Even the hotel we´re staying at shot off a few, and one misfired and landed on the roof where everyone was watching them from! No one got hurt, and it didn´t even explode. We don´t know why it didn´t, though we have our guesses. The keyboard here is still weird, I think all of my apostraphes are actually accent marks, but that´s OK.
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Happy New Year MuseBlog! 
INTO THE FUTURE!
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Happy New Year, Museblog!
Another year, another destiny!
This never-ending road to Calvary!
These men who seem to know my crime
will surely come a second time…
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One day mooooooooooooore
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I did not live until today
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How can I live when we are parted?
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One day more
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Tomorrow you’ll be worlds awaaaaaaaaaay
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And yet with you my world has started
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One more day all on my own
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One more day with him not caring
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“So this is the new year/ And I don’t feel any different.”
We went over to some family friends’ house and had a bonfire in their backyard, which was, in my opinion, better that watching the ball “drop”. In the words of one of the family friends: “It’s just this thing. And it’s not even big. And it moves down for ten seconds and then it stops.”
My family and I have the Vienna Philharmonic on TV. This is one of my favorite New Year family traditions, which I routinely forget about up until the point when my dad turns on the TV to watch it.
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*futuristic pride* It’s been 2012 for 37 hours and 20 minutes here! Woo!
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So I suppose I ought to join in with the crowds wishing a Happy New Year’s. *blows noisemaker* I’m a bit late, though, seeing as it’s already Jan 2 for me. But then I have a good reason for this. You see, nearly a week ago I went to the library–you may remember me complaining that it was closed for the holidays. I checked out a lot of books–mostly old favorites, with a few new ones–and they have thoroughly occupied my time. Booookss….Now I want to go to the library again. And whaddya know, it’s closed for New Year’s. Cake.
Also I went to a wedding this past week. Which was nice.
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SHERLOCKKKK
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SHERLOOOOOOOOCCCCKKKKKK
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SSSSSSHHHHHHEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
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I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS
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All of the feels!
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INDEED YES.
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Guess who doesn’t have a TV at home…
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Use the internet! That’s what we all did. It’s not coming to TV in the US until March or so…
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GIVE ME A LEGAL WAY TO WATCH IT ONLINE
NOW
NOOOOOOOOOOW
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GAPAs, am I allowed to post download links?
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‘Fraid not. Too much trouble for us.
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Probably not. If SOPA goes through…
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No legal ones, sorry. Since we don’t live in the UK we can’t use iPlayer.
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Wonder if a proxy would bypass that.
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DANGGIT…. I’m going to see it at a showing on Saturday, so it’s all good.
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Hello, MuseBlog, I’m back from Vietnam! Happy belated New Year! We went trekking in the mountains in the north, near the Chinese border (I even stepped foot in Yunnan) and stayed in a different village every night with the local ethnic minority tribes there (Hmong, Nung, Tay etc) in their very basic houses, but it was a lot of fun! I hope everyone had/is having a good holiday!
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Hello!
I was going to write you all a very long, very well thought-out post about why I stopped posting here and what amazing people you all are, but then it turned into a very horribly thought out post about absolutely nothing at all, (much as this sentence started grammatically-sound and well put together before quickly devolving into a confusing run-on full of what I’m sure are misplaced hyphens) and I decided to spare you.
Suffice to say that I’m not exactly sure when my last post on here was, but it was a good while ago. It was in the casual lurking since then that I realized what an intelligent, close-knit community MuseBlog really is. I think I never noticed that when I was posting regularly because I was too self absorbed, but this past month or so, I’ve felt your absence.
I think I’ll stop now before this gets too cheesy/sentimental. I just wanted to say that I can’t guarantee I’ll stick around for good this time, but I really think I’d like to.
Happy New Years, by the way! The picture is absolutely flammy!
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Nice to see you, Sudo! Happy New Year.
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Happy 2012, Sudo! I am very glad to see you ’round again.
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Sudo! Glad to see you posting here!
Got to love the Warm Fuzzies thread.
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Hi, Sudo! Really great to see you! Happy 2012~
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I watched Fight Club and now I don’t want to go to sleep, so I’m staying up until dawn, which a handy-dandy Internet calendar informs me begins at 6:55 and ends at 7:24. Which gives me five and a half hours to waste. I have one candy cane, an iPod Touch with Internet access, and a whole head full of energized boredom, so this ought to be a fun night.
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GAH SCHOOL GAAH
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Wow. I´m only halfway through the trip and I feel really disconnected with the world, but in a good way.
I have no idea what has been happening news-wise, but everything is so peaceful. I don´t have to worry about one thing or another because most of the time our group has no idea what it is going to do next.
Today we were going to pick coffee, but then we were going to shift sand, but then we finally ended up sorting coffee beans into good and bad. By the way, though I don´t like coffee I highly recommend the San Lucas Toliman coffee now that I know how much quality control it has.
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Oh, and SFTDP, but the fireworks display for the new year was incredible!
There are no permits as to who can and can´t set off fireworks, and the market is chock full of cheap fireworks near New Years, so practically half the town buys a few and sets them off at midnight, resulting in a chaotic burst lasting hours that lights up the sky (and allows no one sleep).
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Woah. That must have been crazy to watch.
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I went to a bookstore a month ago, and they had the 2012 book of world records. I hadn’t seen one since I received the 2009 one for Christmas, and I wanted to make sure it hadn’t taken out the bit about tardigrades or anything crazy like that. I did, and they were still there, but their record had been changed from “most heat-tolerant animal” to “toughest animal in space.” That’s interesting. I don’t think I have a preference, really, but I suppose it’s good to change things up a bit to interest more people. Anyway, I’m wondering what the 2010 and 2011 books said, so if anyone here happens to own one of those, I’d appreciate it if you’d try to find them in it and see which record they were given, although of course you don’t have to.
This is irrelevant, but by the way, the edition I own is too tall for my shelf, and I display all the books that can’t get on the shelf, and it’s the only one on display that’s open. I suppose I needn’t specify to which page.
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I like to do that with textbooks. The updated version of “Call to Freedom” removed Robert Ballard, but put in George Lucas.
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I’ve got the 2010 version, and I can’t find tardigrades or either record in the index. I might be missing something, though.
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I just checked to see if they’re in the index of my version (I know that’s not how I found them in the first place because I wasn’t looking; I was on the right page because it was about “extreme habitats, and I thought that sounded interesting; in the newer version, I just went to the section they were most likely to be in). Both their name and the record are there. Did you check to see if they’re called “water bears” instead? That’s a possibility, especially if this is yet another record.
Thanks!
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Hey everyone!!!! Just thought I’d pop in and give you all on update on life in general, before vet school reconsumes my life when it starts up again tomorrow morning (at 8am, *sob*).
So, vet school. It’s hard. Not impossible hard or anything, just consume your soul and study constantly hard–or feel guilty for not studying, or forget to feel guilty, spend an entire weekend slacking off, and spend the rest of the semester trying frantically to catch back up, to no avail. yeah…..That kinda sums it up. Study until your sick of studying and then study some more–more studying than I’ve done in all 15 years of school prior.
But all the studying paid off, my first semester went exceedingly well, although not quite as well as I’d have liked, because, who of thunk it, Luna is a perfectionist and hates Bs. Especially when said B was 2 questions, .6% (point blood six percent) below an A. Less that one percent below an A. 89.4% But hey, I really shouldn’t complain, I know many of my classmates are struggling just to scrape by with Cs, and here I am, having gotten 3 As (anatomy, microanatomy, and cell bio), complaining because I “only” got a B in physiology. But it’s just frustrating, to have come so close to an A, and to know had I just studied a tiny bit harder, not slacked off so much after Thanksgiving, I could have done it. Could have gotten that very rare 4.0 of vet school, instead of having the lowest GPA I’ve ever had, of 3.667. Oh well. It’s not like grades actually matter in vet school, I mean “C=DVM”, future employers don’t look at your vet school GPA, they just look at the DVM after your name. But it matters to *me*, and I kind of hate that I can’t just be happy with how I’m doing, since I’m not doing badly, but fact is, I’m never happy if I get less than As, and when you have to get 90% to get As? That’s darned hard. But this is turning into a rants and plaints post, and I don’t really mean for that to happen.
So, Christmas break. Far, far too short, at only 2 weeks long, half that I had as an undergrad. But Alan came up with me to Alaska for the two weeks, which was wonderful. I’d almost forgotten how great spending time with him is when I’m not in a highly stressed, extremely volatile, explode over the tiniest of things, state. Poor Alan. As much of a ***ch as I often was this past semester, it’s a wonder he stuck by me. I really do need to thank him, and be nicer to him, especially when I’m stressed. So break was wonderful, and os relaxing, not having to think about school AT ALL, not having to worry about studying, just being home for the first time since March, seeing my mom for the first time since March, and spending two completely stress free weeks vegging, hanging with Alan and my family, and dragging Alan around in the freezing cold and snow.
We spent four hours outside at the zoo in 2 degree weather one day, and while we were frozen solid by the time we finished, it was great. I think Alan took about 200 photos, lol. And we drove him up into the mountains, and he got some great pictures, and all in all I think he had a fantastic time, and I know I did. Lucky boy now gets 2 more weeks of break, home with his folks, while back to the grindstone for me.
I think that’s pretty much it here in Luna-ville. Hope the holiday were wonderful for all of you!
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Thanks for the dispatch from Luna-ville! Hope the coming semester will be less stressful now that you have a better idea of what to expect.
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Agreed!
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I finished reading “Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope”. It was AWESOME.
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Just thought I’d drop in to say Happy New Year and I haven’t died yet, but not having internet at home makes me feel like it. I spent New Year’s Eve in New York City-Times Square, Rockefeller, Central Park, all of that. But I didn’t make it down to Zuccotti Park to get beat up. So that was too bad. I may soon have internet at home, and then I will come on regularly. I think MuseBlog is the place where my time online would increase the most-we’ll see. Speaking of that, does Comcast or Frontier give better internet?
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Has anyone read The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, by Alexandra Robbins? It’s a nonfiction work that follows a few high school-age students as they overachieve. I wish I had the perspective in high school that I have now. Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety is next on the reading list!
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Saw Jupiter tonight! It looks like a bright star close to the moon.
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Did anybody else have school today? My district is the only one (that I know of) in the region that did, and the complaint on everybody’s tongues today was “It’s a federal holiday! If the banks are closed, school should be too!” At least half of my teachers commented on how empty the streets were during their morning commute.
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I will. What holiday falls on January 3rd?
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HOBBIT DAY
Well, at least in my family. Not officially.
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Oops! That was posted very late on January 2nd according to Pacific Standard Time but on January 3rd according to MuseBlog time.
I meant yesterday, Monday, January 2nd, the day after New Years Day, which is legally celebrated as a holiday when New Years falls on a Sunday.
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Well, we didn’t have school on the 2nd, but I’m not in the US so this probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for.
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There’s school here, too. (For me that just means band practice. Unschooling FTW.)
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I did. Which was okay, I guess, except homework and stress and getting up early. Really, other than those things I’m okay with school. After all, Band practice!
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Spent much of New Years Day curled up on a couch with friends watching Sondheim musicals.
Expressing admiration/adoration for the song “The Worst Pies In London” (Sweeney Todd) and also the line “While her withers wither with her” from Into The Woods. And “Getting Married Today” from Company, especially the Carol Burnett version.
/sondheimobsession
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(Reply to Robert, Anchor’s Aweigh!)
It appears so, since you closed the thread. 
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No, that was just more inconsistency.
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If this is what inconsistency brings, BRING IT ON. I could use a few more reminders of what lies behind us, because you can’t appreciate how far you’ve come without it. Looking at posts form my senior year of high school is very nostalgic.
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We haven’t posted a special announcement, but the Quadrantid meteors are falling overnight and are supposed to be spectacular this year. If the sky is clear, watch for them coming from the north after the moon sets. (That’s 3 a.m. where I live.)
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I was already aware, but I wasn’t sure what time to watch. Thanks, Mr. Coontz!
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excellent! here is the upside to the gross dry/windy/hot weather we have been having: clear skies! thank you for the heads up, robert!
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dfhkxz I’ll be on a traaaaain D: But maybe wherever we are at that time will be clear? Uhg. Just need to make sure I sit on the left side of it…
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Thank you for the announcement! I shall be up at quite an ungodly hour tomorrow morning.
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I think I saw one already, when I was taking my dog out to relieve herself.
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Can you get high of books because I think I just did?
EEeep fifteen books from the library to read but I don’t know which one to pick. All I can do is look at my stash and giggle madly. Which is, I’ll admit, quite entertaining and almost as good as actually reading a book in its own way.
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I think you can. I’ve walked into a pole because I was thinking so hard about the enjoyment of having lots of new library books in my bag. And that time I wasn’t even reading while walking (amazingly, I’ve only walked into poles twice that way!)
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Mmm yes booksss…I’ve never walked into a pole that way, though—just into traffic. (Good thing I had a friend with me who dragged me back, isn’t it?)
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One of the creators of Molesworth, Ronald Searle, has died. RIP
In other news, I have no idea how to find a job. I have this feeling I should be sending out applications now that it is break but everytime I just search rather fruitlessly and just get frustrated. GAPAs, help?
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He will be sorely missed.
I am no GAPA but I am employed! Here is how I search for job/internships:
Talk to friends/family. If anyone knows of a cool company or project that might be hiring, contact them through the friend/family and see if they could use help.
Check NYFA. I’m lucky to have a database of jobs for the arts in NY, maybe you have something similar in your region?
Are there any places you would like to work but know little about? Call them up or email them, someone might be looking to hire or know someone who is.
Talking to a person I find is much more rewarding than just sending off an application, and I would like to think it helps your chances of being remembered. People like friendly people. Good luck!
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Thanks so much Vendy. If you have any more advice of if anyone else has any it would be greatly appreciated.
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Last year I asked my professors if they knew of any good jobs/internships in environmental education fields, which is what I was looking for, and many of them gave me good suggestions. Often, organizations and programs will send emails to professors so they can pass the news on to their students, and they’re also aware of all sorts of opportunities in their fields. I’m assuming you’re looking for something anthropology/library/museum-related, so maybe you could stop by local libraries and museums and ask them if they know of possible jobs, too.
I’ve also had some success with idealist [dot] org [sorry to link, GAPAs, but it seems mostly harmless, and I think it’s helpful], which just has lots of job and internship offerings.
And asking friends is always a good start, too.
Good luck! 
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Professors are definitely a good resource. Also any acquaintances you have in your chosen field (or related ones). Consider joining a museum association. I belong to NCMC (North Carolina Museum Council) which is very student-friendly, with special membership and conference rates (scholarships, too). Each section has a listserv which sometimes contains job announcements. The museum community here is fairly tight knit, but getting involved and getting to know people will increase your odds of being considered for future openings in any field. Don’t overlook volunteer work. Many museums can’t hire right now because of the economy, meaning they rely that much more on volunteers. In some museums that can be a great means of picking up crucial job skills, or even a way of finding out what jobs you really want and the keys to getting them. Think of volunteering as field research.
Old wisdom that still holds true: let everyone know you’re looking, not just your friends. Not long ago I read something to the effect that most job opportunities don’t come from your friends and acquaintances, but through friends of your friends, or even their friends. Those wider circles have access to contacts you don’t.
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Hmm.
HEY MUSEBLOG AND FRIENDS OF MBERS I AM JOB HUNTING.
Will also talk about that IRL…
I had an internship last summer at a museum, so I made some connections that way. My cousin works at a museum too, so perhaps I’ll talk to her. I wonder what sort of organizations there are in the Midwest. Is anyone near you hiring, Rebecca? Though I most likely want to stay in the Midwest. I was planning to find a job, not necessarily at a museum, then go to grad school of some sort but to stay around here for that first job and do whatever is hiring. After grad school, I was planning on looking for a museum job, though if I can find some now, I’ll certainly apply. I have some experience through museum studies classes as well as through my internship.
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the blog header says it’s January 4 right now
I AM NOT READY
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GAPAs, sometime just before my birthday I will turn 8k. I don’t know if you have 8ks marked yet, but they will start happening just before people’s 22nd birthdays.
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OXLIN YOU ARE OLD
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OLD LIKE A SPACE SQUID
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Random Thought Experiment: What if squids went mainstream- not just on MB, but on the whole Internet? People everywhere would wear squid t-shirts and have squid avatars and invent squid lingo and buy each other plush squid toys. Squid would be the new big trend. And we’d have started it.
How would that feel?
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You just know that we would be like, “We squidded people before it was mainstream,” and look down on everyone else who came to it later as having copied it and being total posers. /hipster muser
Personally, I think it would be cool, and feel a little glow of pride every time I saw a squid. And that’d be it.
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Well, Amy Pond once called the Doctor a “space squid.”
I squee over that every time I watch it.
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In Calvin and Hobbes, Spaceman Spiff once called his alien captor a “space squid.”
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And was the alien in question tentacled?
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Yes.
Also,I have found 4 times that H.P. Lovecraft uses the phrase “cosmic octopi” so far.
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It’s one of his favorites, along with “antediluvian,” “eldritch,” and “Cyclopean.”
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Let’s not forget “Squamous”!
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No, it’s sort of like a cross between a beetle and a dinosaur.
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My friend described the Sherlock fandom as “going nuts with giant squids of anger” about ten seconds ago. Life imitating art?
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“Giant squids of anger” is a nerdfighter saying invented by John Green, I think.
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Oh. Makes sense. Never mind, then.
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That’s funny though, because I was just talking to a friend about how people always misinterpreted her sherlock happiness as a giant squid of anger, so she had to distinguish by waving her arms different directions.
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Unless they were all cartoonishly illustrated, I’d need therapy.
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I would–do–feel proud to be in a group with the power to sway culture, even on a seemingly small scale. Squids are already picking up popularity. If we can do it once, we can do it again. We are Mostly Harmless, and we are Powerful. And, better, we are eccentric and we are exuberant and we have minds and we are Good Guys.
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Squids are a Big Deal on the hall I live on, Sci Fi hall. Before-I-got-there big.
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Me? I’d probably assume squids had been popular all along without my knowing it and be embarrassed that I’d thought it was a special MuseBlog thing. It actually wouldn’t be too irrational; this was the first place I heard the word ‘fail’ used as a noun, after all. The difference would be that in this case, I wouldn’t be disappointed that MuseBloggers were using it, too; I’d be delighted that normal people were getting interests that were actually interesting and wonder if maybe they could learn a bit of sense after all.
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My friend made his girlfriend a giant stuffed squid for her birthday. Neither of them have anything to do with MB.
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Yesterday I submitted a story to the D ell A ward for excellence in undergraduate science fiction writing. It occurs to me that some of you might want to enter. Sorry, it didn’t occur to me until too late for this year’s contest but maybe next year. If you are a full time student at an undergraduate institution anytime during 2012 you are eligible for next year’s contest. See their site for details. Yes, there is a fee, but they are a legitimate contest that is regarded within the Science Fiction and Fantasy field.
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Attempting to start and finish a short story for a competition I just found out about; deadline is in two days. (I don’t expect to win anything, of course, given the situation.) Even so – inspiration, I have never needed you more.
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I told my mother last night that renewing my Smithsonian membership was “a transaction with a government agency”, because, technically, it is.
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YAY FOR PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS
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YAY FOR PHOTOSHOP CS5.1
^ The MOST pirated piece of software on the planet.
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YAY FOR LEGALLY OBTAINED PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS
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That’s what I use. “Save For Web” is a Thing of Which I Am Unreasonably Fond.
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Yes, “save for web” is an old and trusty friend.
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Whereas pirated copies have NSFW.
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Waaait. Is that supposed to be…a pun? Of, you know, Save for web and the obvious SFW acronym?
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It also has advantage that you can use many of the plugins, brushes, and other resources designed for Photoshop.
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I saw a few Quadrantids last night. I don’t exactly have a great stargazing vantage point here in suburbia, but I saw about a dozen meteors of varying brightness. I’m glad it’s been such a mild winter–standing outside at four in the morning would be out of the question most Januaries.
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Been at home, watching Babylon 5 because the internet is kind of bad here. Just realized: Some of the ships in this look like GIANT SPACE SQUIDS.
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Look, I know this has been brought up before, on some old thread I don’t want to search for, but hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to start watching Dr Who–legally–where could I go about doing it?
I can’t even believe I’m asking this, you know. I’ve managed to last quite well against the mania that has taken so many others, and truthfully I don’t need something else to get into, but I was bored earlier and I watched the first episode of the first season of new who, and it was…funny.
And then put the information somewhere easily findable, because I won’t be the last person you peer pressure into watching Dr Who, you horrible, horrible people.
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I’ve yet to be pressured. *ducks hate pies* I don’t doubt that it’s extremely good, but I’m worried about adding yet another tool to my procrastination toolbox (if I start, and it turns out to be as good as everyone says, then I won’t be able to stop).
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*pressures*
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You should know how easily distracted I am when it comes to homework!
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Homework, shmomework- you got into Hogwarts! Relax and watch Doctor Who for a semester.
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It’s very tempting, but if I ever decide to apply to the US for university as well, in case, I think they’d require my four-year transcript, so it wouldn’t look very good if I started slacking off completely.
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There are a couple of free episodes on iTunes, and a couple on Netflix as well; other than that, I can only think of places to watch them illegally, or actually purchase the episodes, which is what I’ve usually done.
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I tacitly advise googling “I watch Doctor Who” and scanning through your results until you find one that’s helpful for letting you watch the episodes.
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You could just move to England, and watch all the episodes the moment they’re released. And then have a look at Torchwood.
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Perhaps I shall start watching once I’m there in September!
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If you us Netflix Instant, they’re on there through series 5.
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You can get a 1-month free trial for that, too, if you haven’t already!
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Crossing The Whoniverse is probably the best site to find it on- it doesn’t host the videos itself, but it’s baisically a directory to find all the episodes.
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But keep in mind, it only has the first ten episodes of the latest Matt Smith season. You’ll need to look elsewhere for anything past “The Girl Who Waited”.
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Back in Collegeland! So happy to be back. Hung out with friends/the boyfriend all day yesterday. Gonna start my winter term project today. I’ll be painting (on magic cards!) all day everyday this whole month, and nothing else work-wise. This doesn’t even count as work really.
THIS WILL BE THE BEST MONTH.
EXPECT UPDATES WITH REGULAR SHENANIGANS.
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Oh gosh this whole January term thing sounds so so so cool. I hope it continues to be awesome!
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ALSO I PASSED ORGANIC CHEMISTRYYYYY
LET US NOT EVEN TALK ABOUT THE FINAL
WHICH MUST HAVE HAD A REALLY HUGE CURVE
SINCE I WAS PASSING THE CLASS BY LIKE 4 POINTS + B IN THE LAB SECTION
AND SOMEHOW STILL PASSED THE CLASS WITH A 55/150 ON THE EXAM.
I MEAN, WHAT.
THAT’S NOT EVEN REASONABLE. I WAS PANICING ALL BREAK BECAUSE I KNEW I GOT A LOT WRONG. IT’S PRETTY ANNOYING HOW SOME TEACHERS JUST GIVE SUPER HARD STUFF THEY DON’T EXPECT YOU TO DO WELL ON.
BUT WHATEVER DUDE I PAAAAASSED I DON’T HAVE TO RETAKE IT OVER THE SUMMER IN FACT I NEVER HAVE TO TAKE A CHEM CLASS AGAAAAAAIN!
(I APOLOGIZE FOR ALL THE SHOUTING)
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HIGH FIVE
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You accidentally organic chemistry? Smashing!
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HIGH TENTACLE
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OH JADESTONE YOU HAVE MY MOST DEEPEST CONGRATULATIONS FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY MOSTLY FUNCTIONING HEART. YEAH YOU!!!!
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GIVE ME SOME TENTACLE, BRO
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I DIDN’T GET A C IN RUSSIAN!
I DID POORLY ON THAT FINAL AND MEDIOCRE IN THE CLASS BUT HOORAY!
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HUZZAH!
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YAYAAAAAY!
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THIS WAS A TRIUMPH
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HURRAY!!
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Reading the new Muse issue when I should be doing a major English project. whatiswrongwithme
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Er, from the sound of it, absolutely nothing. Ditching everything to read Muse is a completely natural reaction. It’d be weirder if you didn’t.
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Correction: Reading the new Muse issue when I should be doing a major English project that’s due tomorrow and that I still have quite a bit of work left on. seriouslywhatiswrongwithme
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I think your priorities are exceedingly well-organized, but I ditched a major psychology project to write a long essay about BBC Sherlock, so I may not be the best source.
You’ll learn more from Muse anyway.
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“How to play frozen walrus carcass”? “There’s nothing funny about Comic Sans”? This issue looks promising.
Oh, Muse, how I love you.
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Allow me to point you to the discussion thread, sir.
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My band director said that my personality was ‘hard to read’ and that he had ‘no idea what went on inside my head’ and that I ‘did not wear my heart on my sleeve’. This isn’t making sense. I’m the most extroverted person I know. I told him that if he wanted to know what I was thinking then he could ask the alto sax player, and that also, it involved paperclips.
I’ve never had anyone think I was introverted before. I’m easy to read. I laugh at jokes that aren’t funny. I make it way too obvious when I’m stressed, when I’m angry, when I’m sad, when I’m depressed, when I’m joyous. It takes me all of about five minutes to reveal my deepest secrets to people. I don’t know what to make of this.
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Introveted doesn’t mean that you don’t interact well with people, it means that you recharge by being by yourself rather than by being around others. I, for instance, love spending time with people, and (when around people I know well) I often talk a lot and very quickly, but eventually I need to pull back and have some time by myself. It sounds like what you’re talking about is more a measure of reservedness vs. openness.
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Ah, thank you. When I said ‘extroverted’ (I tend to fling vocabulary around) I meant I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve- I tend to be really open around friends, if I get a chance to talk.
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Perhaps your band director is just unobservant?
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I think I want a framed copy of Nak’s “House Rules”. I made a quaint little arrangement of it in Inkscape. I’d just have to get it printed out and then have a frame made for it, nine by ten inches or so. Alas, it, like most of my projects, will probably not get off the ground.
I feel like I haven’t been posting much lately. I’m back to college on Saturday, so I’ll probably have more to say soon.
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I’m sorry, what are Nak’s house rules? I did some judicious googling and was unable to find a result.
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House Rules
1. If you wash your hands with no soap
dry them with the green towel.
2. If you wash your hands with the green soap
shake them into the purple potato peelings.
3. Everybody gets a piece of pie.
4. If you ask somebody nicely
and they still say no
do a small dance in a secret room.
5. Always carry ostriches upright.
6. Never (ever) let a capital letter
wander the house alone at night.
7. At birthday parties, remember your mother.
— Nancy Kangas
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We really need to lure Nak back onto the blog.
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You genuinely do. Since my Muse subscription lapsed, her work, the Q&A, and Koko & Co. are the three parts I miss most.
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I miss quite a bit of it. Should really visit the Library That Keeps The Muses next week.
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We really do. I also miss Polyhymnia.
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Of course, the one time I manage NOT to think about Dr. Horrible while doing my laundry, I turn around to see the first verse of “My Freeze Ray” written in chalk on the wall.
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I’m sick. Graagh. My nose is clogged and my ears ache and throat is sore and I hate it. I also blame my parents, for getting sick and then not covering their mouths every time they coughed. *sigh* at least i have plenty of good activities to do. Like reading. Or finishing up the first series of Dr Who.
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Just so you all know, my posting schedule will likely be somewhat erratic over the next couple months. This is due to the fact that my only two consistent ways to access the Internet are being taken away until I bring up my science grade. Thanks for being here, all of you. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me over the past few months.
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We’ll miss you.
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Happy New Year!
…Yes, it has been 2012 for 5 days, 17 hours, and 18 minutes where I live. Too bad.
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Good: New science section on (external news site) with articles by Seth Shostak, Sir Richard Branson, and Buzz Aldrin.
Bad: Reading comments left by anonymous Internet people saying bad things about Seth Shostak, Sir Richard Branson, and Buzz Aldrin.
New rule: If there are more than 20 comment on an article, I won’t read them.
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It’s always weird to think that when I’m getting out of school, one of you might be having dinner.
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I used to enjoy thinking that when I was at school in Singapore, most of you were asleep.
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That would be me, probably!
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At seven in the morning? Sel, you keep a strange schedule.
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Silly Choklit Orange, don’t you know I always eat dinner at seven in the morning?
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Yup, moi.
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Sorry if this has already been said *is too lazy to check* but this April 11th will be the 42nd anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13.
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No, it hasn’t! We must arrange a SPACE-y celebration!
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It will also be my birthday. So nice to know I share it with something special. ^_^
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They attempted to hit the moon and missed and then hit the earth.
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In a manner of speaking, yes.
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All-district auditions tomorrow. Enh.
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Yep, I passed the high school where it was on my way there- it’s actually close to me this year.
Good luck, even though I’ve already auditoned (and failed) and you might have too (athough not the bit about failing). *support squid*
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Thanks! I don’t think I did well either. We’ll see tomorrow…
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Oh my goodness. I had the most wonderful night. A while ago, I participated in a photography expedition program. We wandered about and took photos of the waterfront. Today we had our gallery opening–each one of us had two photos printed, matted, and framed! They were even for sale! I didn’t sell any, but some other people did. It was lovely. Right now I’m feeling lightheaded from a combination of excitement, happiness, and also anger at myself. (The presence of a certain person probably didn’t help either.) I’m angry at myself because I basically managed to act like an idiot around the certain person, but I don’t care that much because I got to spend three hours with en and also my photos are hanging in a gallery so cool.
…Eeeeeeeeeee!
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Congrats! By the way, ignore the I-acted-like-an-idiot feeling. I know just how you feel. It’ll mess up the best moments of your life, if you let it.
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Describe me. Use metaphors and weird words. My friend was once described as “like two car alarms in love”
… in other news my friend Green and I took a walk along the river today. I wore my new green fedora. I like taking walks. Will probably take another tomorrow.
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Car alarms in love? Talks but doesn’t listen, contradicts oneself, and makes a lot of noise?
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Hmm. I suppose it is a better description if you know my friend. She does listen, she doesn’t really contradict herself. It is probably a comment on how loud she can be, though, but it is in a very friendly way which is probably what the in love part is for.
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Hey FantasyFan! You said on the old style, fashion, and costume thread that you have many shalwar kameez. Where do you buy them? Thanks!
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Come to California. We have sari shops like you would not believe.
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Most of mine weren’t bought, actually. They were gifts from a family friend from Pakistan. Or hand-me-downs.
If you want to buy one of your own, I suggest looking for online stores. Searching salwar kameez ought to do the trick. Of course, most of them will be more formal or party style then. Or you could do like CO suggested and look for local sari stores. Hope this helps!
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Or I’ll buy you some in India this summer. Really, actually, I could. They’re really cheap and very pretty there.
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Really? That’d be awesome. I could make you earrings or something in exchange.
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Sounds good! (I could also buy you some here, if you’re in a hurry, but they’re usually nicer in India).
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Mm. No hurry!
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*is back, so here goes a somewhat belated New Years post*
On second though, nah, never mind. I’m glad it’s 2012 because writing 2011 plain annoys me. The preview for this year shows reaching a new level of stress before the Matura, hopefully doing well, then plunging into the world of SATs & Subject Tests, then a new level of fighting with both parents when I try to wrangle out the details of my gap year, plus the interesting moment when I break it to my father that I intend to attend college in America. On the bright side I should have everything in place to apply EA/ED to my first choice and by 2013, the freaky year in which I shall turn 18(!) I’ll end up in some for of college. I have no idea how I’m going to survive this, but stay tuned because it’s going to be a wild ride.
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We went for a walk today at a park. It started out as a nice, cloudless day, and then the clouds rolled it. There were a few gaps here and there where the sun could shine though and it looked really cool. But I digress.
My mom told me about a book called “Quiet”, by someone named Susan Cain, about the power of introverts. It comes out on January 24th, if any of you are interested.
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So, Treebird (who probaly should stop refer to herself in the third person but doen’t want) is playing on Freerice. And she comes across the problem A^3+A^3=_____. One problem: She doesn’t know what the ^ symbol means! Can anyone help her!?
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Superscript/exponent. “A^3” means “A to the third power” a.k.a. “A cubed.”
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Ah.
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Reasons Bathrobes Are Better Than Snuggies #271: You can’t walk around your house pretending to be the Tenth Doctor in a Snuggie.
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Or Chrestomanci. On the other hand, you can’t buy a Harry Potter bathrobe.
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Well I don’t know about that. Some wizard robes look like they’d work quite well for that purpose.
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Chrestomanci FTW.
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That is still one of my favorite series.
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Ack. I broke the back of my computer chair and can’t lean back in it now. Unfortunately I keep on forgetting that and leaning back anyways. This gets added to my list of “100 things FantasyFan should have figured out by know but keeps on forgetting anyways.”
Besides that, not much up. I’m jsut passing the time until I go back to college in a week. Still sick. Still watching Dr Who. Still reading.
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You know the music that the 10th Doctor regenerates to? Vale Decem? I found a translation of the Latin. It’s not a literal translation, because apparently Murray Gold’s Latin is pretty bad, but it’s a “mood-appropriate” translation.
Farewell, Ten
On to eternity
The fates be with you
On to eternity.
Farewell, Ten
The fates be with you.
Oh, blessed he
Who brought us peace.
Farewell, Ten
Lay down your burden
We will remember you forever more.
Farewell, Ten
We give you thanks.
On to eternity
You are not alone
Never
Trust to the last
Farewell…
The whole “You are not alone” part really gets me every time I listen. The 10th Doctor gets so lonely all the time, and he needs to know that he is loved. IT’S JUST SO EMOTIONAL!!!
…Yeah, I need to express my Doctor Who feelings. RANDOM THREAD IS RANDOM.
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You are not alone = YANA = Professor Yana, the master’s disguise.
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Well, the original translation was “Never alone,” so…
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IS THAT A SPOILER. No, wait, don’t tell me, I’d really rather not know. Darn it I’ve managed to avoid spoilers so far…
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I’m telling you anyway! Muahaha! Not much of a spoiler, actually. The character only appears in the episode he’s revealed, so it doesn’t matter much. I was guessing he was the master pretty much the entire time!
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I was going to pie your post, but it had ten already and I couldn’t bring myself to ruin its perfection.
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I just gave blood for the first time ever!!!! It really wasn’t bad at all, it barely hurt. The anticipation was far worse than the actual event. And now I feel great because I’ve given blood that can help save lives.
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Great for you!
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I am so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At my school, we are doing West Side Story for our spring musical, and I got Chino!
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I love that musical. Good for you, Spuddy!
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Nice job! I wish my school was doing West Side Story… Good luck in the musical!
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Good for you!
That being said, I’ve only ever seen the movie once, so could you remind me who Chino is?
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The guy that shot Tony, the main character.
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Wow, congratulations, Spudman, that’s great news! You sound so excited and I’m really happy for you.
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That’s a really hard part to play! You have to SPOILER kill Tony! SPOILER. I know you can pull it off, though!
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I need to stop reading so many comics, because my first thought was… another Tony.
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Okay, I’m going to disclose my semi-crazy theory now: the monthly theme will be revealed on the same day the names of the GRAIL probes are announced.
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You know what I have decided? I am only going to do homework that’s worthwhile. I will only do the ten problems I need to do to understand exponential functions, not the fifty I’ve been assigned. Then I’m going to go to the library and check out Brian Greene’s Fabric of the Cosmos, not Great Expectations (we’re reading it next in English, but I honestly don’t like Charles Dickens. Too much purple prose). I feel so free.
The Teenage Liberation Handbook is AMAZING. Go read it.
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Okay, seriously, where can I find a copy of this book? I feel like it’s liberated half the teenagers on the ‘blog!
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I know, I want to read it too, but I don’t know where to find one!
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I got a version for free online as a pdf.
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wherewherewherewhere
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Hey, I think I found one!
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My high school yearbook class is being featured on national news.
And I almost (accidentally) joined it.
*needs some recognition*
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Don’t worry about, muselover! Being on the news is overrated. You don’t need to be shown on television for a few seconds in order to think you’re any good. We recognise you here for all the wonderfulness that you are! Friends matter. Not television.
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[Snipped: Too much information. Sorry! –Admin.]
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Ah. I just realized that that could be a bit revealing, especially if people watch [thing I mentioned]. Thanks for getting on that.
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I was on ESPN once.
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Aaaaand beginning of exam week. Functions & Trig exam starts in approximately two hours and fifty-five minutes, the one I’m most worried for (so far) and I haven’t finished studying/writing the one notecard we’re allowed to bring in. Someone tell me get off MuseBlog.
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*polite shove in the right direction* Good luck.
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Well, it turned out to be pretty easy – and almost identical to the review packet we were given (which was made up of our old tests). So that’s a yay. Four more to go!
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Cramming for Bio now…I heard it’s pretty easy, but I’m cramming all the same…11 pm and the exam is 9 hours away..NOT ENOUGH TIME TO LEARN ALL THE THINGS
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Book recommendations because I feel llike it: Freedom and Necessity. Have I talked about this one before? It is fantastic.
Books by Ellen Kushner in generla, but particularly The Privilege of the Sword. A young woman is told that she must go into town and live with her uncle. She gets excited for high society things but then discovers that she is to learn to fence and sword fight and does not want to do this.
You’ve all read The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley, right? Classic. Excellent.
Pick up a Rich Horton or Terri Windiling and Ellen Datlow or Kelly Link, Gavin Grant, and Ellen Datlow Year’s best Fantasy sometime. They’re worth it.
Theodora Goss’s In the Forest of Forgetting is full of brilliant fairy tale like things that are also worth it.
Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog is hilarious and Brilliant
I haven’t yet read Steampowered II, but Steampowered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories is fantastic.
Etc. Etc.
Laurie J. Marks’ Logic Books. So far, Fire Logic, Earth Logic, Water Logic (in that order) about a really cool world and many queer people having adventures and trying to achieve peace.
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Well, I’ve fixed my computer chair by getting a new one. I can lean back once more! But my new chair can’t spin around…on second thought, that’s a good thing. I took out a bit of the wall scraping it with the broken back.
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Does ‘getting a new one’ qualify as ‘fixing a chair’, then? It might fix the problem, perhaps, but it wouldn’t fix the actual chair. 
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Weeell…It fixed my Computer Chair Problem, so something’s fixed at least. But, um, yeah, chair’s still broken. I’ll probably have to throw it out eventually. At the moment it’s just standing abandoned in the middle of my room.
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Make a sculpture out of it.
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Recycled modern art. What an intriguing idea. Still, I want more room in my room, not less. My sculpture still might end up being displayed at the street curb.
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I like it. A stark statement on our modern consumerist culture, symbolically demonstrating the growing rift between the haves and the have-nots–one person’s overuse causes another’s underuse, while in the end the impoverished have to dispose of what the wealthy look down upon even as they themselves look up to it. Very controversial.
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Couldn’t have put it better myself. I’ll become famous for it. The best part of all: the whole critique of consumerist culture will be done for money and fame.
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Ah, experimenting with neoironicism, embracing the self-referential as played-out, novel by being overdone.
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I really, really want to go to the Wizarding World. My mom expressed vague interest in a spring break expedition, but it would be really difficult to coordinate! What I want most is my wand from Pottermore to appear in real life! I did a little research–They do actually sell Alder wands at Ollivander’s (I can also get one online, but that’s no fun) and they are really long, just like mine in Pottermore! They don’t seem to be separated by core, though–online, at least–but they might be in the actual store.
Wizarding World has its own wand-sorting method: Birthdays. Mine does not fall under alder jurisdiction. That would have been amazing if it had! According to Wizarding World, my wand would be a reed wand. I trust Pottermore way more than a theme park, though. Plus, reed isn’t even on Pottermore as an available wand wood. Alder it is!!!
I really, really, REALLY want to go!!!
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Birthdays were considered when JKR chose the wand woods for different characters, but they weren’t usually priorities. Harry’s wand accidentally matched his birthday, so JKR decided to do that for all the Trio, but most characters have wands inconsistent with their birthdays.
At Wizarding World, you can’t see the core, so they have you choose what it is. (I haven’t been there, but that’s what I read).
I agree; I’d also really want to visit Wizarding World, but I know I won’t be able to, at least for several years. Another thing about buying a wand online is that you can’t tell how rigid it is. It’s really important to me that I get a really rigid wand, because I have a very rigid personality, so I always thought my wand would probably match, and when I got on Pottermore, it turned out to be correct!
Errata and I went somewhere that sold wands once, but I didn’t get one, partly because I didn’t have enough money with me and partly because you got to see it being made, which would be a good thing, except the cores were really unrealistic, like a coil of red ribbon for dragon heartstring. Anyway, there were no elm wands. My Pottermore wand is elm, and I think it’s not a bad match.
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Today: Donated all my blankets and most of my pillows to the hall blanket fort. It included a
– [Name of friend studying abroad] Memorial Blanket Rest Zone and Comfort Area
– Nondenominational Asia-themed Town
– Red Light District
– Grand Entryway
Community (the show) lovers should appreciate this. It took up two short hallways I did most of not-china-town, with my paper lanturns, fans, and asian coins. Matt put the rice from the kitchen in it and J her pokemon figurines. We told everyone there was a sweatshop in the lounge next door.
COLLEGE IS THE BEST.
Also painting is going pretty well! Have done a card a day and I think I am improving already. At least, I’m happier with the card I did today with the ones I’ve done so far. Hopefully this trend will continue!
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Also I am going to start a tally of how many bottles of juice my friends and I drink. There’s me, my roommate, the boyfrined, and our other friend. So far since the 4th or 5th we have drunk (half-gallons):
– 1 cranberry
– 2 cranberry with lime
– 1 cran-grape
(all Ocean Spray). We have 2.5 more jugs of cranberry with lime and a little over half a container of strawberry-mango-something drink.
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Barking spiders!
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Those are excellent books too!
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I LOVE THAT BOOK
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I don’t get why the people who run Atlantis Marine World aquarium changed the name and got a boring new logo. I mean, honestly, what sounds cooler– “Atlantis Marine World” or “Atlantis Long Island Aquarium and Exhibition Center”?
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Clearly, the wrong people are enjoying world domination.
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Boring people.
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Instead of doing what I should be doing for English, I’m watching MLP:FiM and listening to loud music with the volume up high on my computer, without a care for my poor ears.
Life is good.
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I made All-District according to the scores that my band director received (they’re not open to the public until noon tomorrow)–second chair in the lower band. Considering I honestly thought I wouldn’t make it, I am BEYOND thrilled.
But I’m actually not the most happy for myself, because one of my very best friends just made first-chair clarinet for the entire district. I am so proud of him and so happy for him I’ve been smiling all day.
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Congratulations! Yep, I know the feeling- I was really happy for my clarinetist friend who made District (he’s tried out for County and District stuff before and gotten nervous and never made it even though he TOTALLY deserves it) and also for Paperclip (who is amazingly skilled and will brighten the whole uppper band. Or at least, whoever has the good fortune to sit next to him.)
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So today I took the bus to my old internship to take so photos so that I could make a presentation on it later on. One the bus, someone told me they liked my hat! (specifically, that I should always hang on to it and that it was a nice hat).
After taking some photos, I went to the library which is close to my old internship. One of the books I checked out is Pollyhymnia’s latest one — The Grimm Legacy. I’m really enjoying it so far; a lot of the things that the main character learns in her work are things that I know from my museum studies classes and it was fun to see that come up. The setting of her work is really cool too.
I was also able to check out some Muses.
Now it is time to watch Red Cliff and read and write.
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I believe Cinnamoon and I now hold the Kokonvention records for “most impromptu” and “shortest”. Can anyone beat 10 seconds?
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Penty and I on our way to class waving at each other for about a second or two! (Though we do go to the same school, we each started after having known each other on Muse Blog and chose the school entirely independently)
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Yours sounds more exciting, though. Penty and I have been going to college together for a while so it probably doesn’t count by now.
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Story time! Story time!
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We met briefly at a knowledge bowl competition. I knew that she was going to be there, and her team happened to be coming out of the same room that our team was going into. We sort of just did a “Hi… Are you (name)?” thing, confirmed that we were indeed, and then had to follow our teams in opposite directions.
Then my teammates were all “What was that about?” So I told them that she was from the internet. xD
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Hahahaha, that’s great! I’m not sure if my team even noticed that I was talking to somebody – if they had, maybe that wouldn’t have hurried me off so quickly. Really, what were your teammates’ reactions to that?
I’m so glad that you actually said something. You were the first team I’d seen with blue shirts, and I thought you were looking at me, but I might have walked right on by because I wasn’t sure enough. I must have been giving you the strangest look…
oxlin and Piggy – Hmm, those definitely might contend as well.
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Well, I’d checked and I knew you were in the room. And then someone on your team said “(Name), come on!” And I had an “aha!” moment. But yes, you were giving me a very odd look. xD
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That makes a lot of sense. I wish I’d thought to check the schedule to see what rooms you’d be in.
I think that was my “I’m trying to telepathically communicate with you to ask you if you are who I think you are without approaching and risking an awkward moment and/or weird(er) questions from my teammates” look. My apologies – we’ll make sure the next chance encounter is much better.
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Agrrrfishi and I had a Kokonvention in which we didn’t even talk to each other. If momentary eye contact counts, I think we have you beat.
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Wow, you MBers sure know how to party!
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I’d explain that extenuating circumstances prevented our actual meeting each other, but I like the idea of two MBers just awkwardly standing near each other for a couple hours before parting wordlessly.
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Story?
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I can’t really say much without revealing way too much information, so I’ll have to leave it at: we were both at a certain event for various reasons, and we had both known the other would be there. Brief eye contact from across a large room, and then each was whisked away by things we had to do. Pretty dull.
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The convoy of black Cadillac Escalades snaked their way up the long drive, weaving past geometrically trimmed topiaries and matted hillocks, far from the reach of prying eyes. As telephoto-lenses strained to snap blurry pictures, P leaned back into the upholstery, mulling over the irony. “Taking an Escalade to a peace summit, does it get any stranger?” When a checkpoint pulled him from his musings, P sat up a bit straighter and pulled out his attaché case, reviewing the bulleted points once again. He really needed to stay focused on these pages, wasn’t that why he was called half way around the world? No, actually, nearly anyone from the Agency could give a brief speech with the subtle serious undertones and jovial welcomes apropos of the event. So why was he called? It was because he did consider “escalade”, rooted in the Latin scalae, dragged through Italian, then French until it reached English. French! that was it, the cufflinks must be turksheads in the doublelong French style. In P’s line of work, minutia matter.
Trailed by rather large men in slightly small suits (and one rather small man in a slightly large suit), A swept into the large hall, pausing only briefly to survey the crowd, and smile at a select few. Then it was onward to her quarters to check and double-check all of her contingent’s remarks, stacking the finished copies in Carson’s overfull arms. Then it was off to the stage to rehearse blocking, then to the ballroom, to perform the hardest task of all: polite socialization. Bilderberg, G8, Bohemian Grove, Davos, Belizean Grove… they all began to blend together at some point. So predictable and routine to the point of boredom. So many factors beyond her control. But that is the nature of the game- rules change as you play, and the only winners are deluded. A has parts in plans however, plans that reach far deep and wide. Not her plans per se, but plans she has helped to craft. Faceless allies and old tea rooms, all coming to a head soon.
P raised his glass in toast. “To continued prosperity, and to growing wealth! To bountiful crops, and to glowing health!” The light from the chandelier glanced off a turkshead cufflink, catching the eye of a graceful woman across the large room. A’s glass raised in reciprocal toast. “May our foundations be strong, and our intentions pure! Let us revel in creation, but ever seek more!”
Brief eye contact was made, then broken.
Some time later, it was the drive again, back through hills and shrubbery. Carson turned to face his leader. “How would you say that went, Ms. A?”
“Do you know why we drive Escalades, Carson? No? It’s because we’re always moving onward. Upwards, forwards. That’s the nature of the world, ever changing and advancing, excelsior ad infinitum. Some changes are large, some are small. All are significant.”
“But the summit, Ms. A, how would you say that went?”
“Pretty dull.”
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I hadn’t realized you were at the summit as well, Vendaval. I shall have to fire my current informants.
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Hm, a thought: there were hundreds of people in suits at this event.
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That’s like my question of whether or not I can say that I “met” John Glenn this summer. I was in the same room, I breathed the same air, I saw him with my own eyes and took pictures, but I didn’t get to talk to him or let him know I existed in any way.
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Beavo and I once passed within 100 feet of eachother, but didn’t see or know the other was there. I think we win closest Non-Kokonvention ever!
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Finished all my homework at a reasonable hour! Now my shoulders hurt from sitting and typing, but YAY SLEEP
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I remember sleeping. I had some great times, doing that. *wistful sigh*
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Glad to hear it!
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Our library has this AWESOME thing called Mango Languages, which lets you take free online language courses in everything from Danish to Haitian Creole. So I’d like some advice from you excellent people; I’ve narrowed my favorites down. Which language should I learn?
-Arabic (Levantine)
-Thai (GREAT food over there)
-Hebrew (I know a bit, but can’t actually converse or anything)
-Irish (Because)
-Finnish (Quenya!)
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All of them!
Hmm, they all sound great, that’s the trouble! Which ones are most likely to be useful later on in life? I know nothing about it but Arabic just looks really difficult, same with Thai and Hebrew actually. Learning Hebrew would please the Jewish side of your family, wouldn’t it? Finnish sounds awesome as well.
I realised I know such common languages.
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If I were picking from those, I’d choose Arabic. I may be mistaken, but I think it’s probably the most widely spoken of the languages on that list.
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Ooooooh, I want to take Arabic when I get to college. Partially because it’s so interestingly close to Hebrew, partially because I want to learn more about the Middle Eastern culture, partially so I can try to read the Qur’an in its original language (since I’ve heard translations are iffy), and partially so I can actually understand the signs and writing I see in photos.
Thai is also a great language, I had a friend in Hebrew School who spoke it. I can’t say I know much about it, but it was really fun to try to pronounce and put words together. I enjoyed learning snippets from her.
Hebrew is cool! My fascination with it has never been in the contemporary way but more in the sense that it’s a cool old language, and I love cool old languages, because learning them usually means you can read cool old things. Most of the Hebrew I know is Biblical Hebrew, and it’s super-interesting to read the Old Testament and compare it with the English translation, since usually there’s a gap between what was said and what was translated, and some things just can’t be translated properly. (For example, when it talks about “yirushalem, bat-tzion”, is it saying Jerusalem is metaphorically a daughter of Zion, or that there is a girl from Zion and also there is Jerusalem, or what?)
Irish is just a really fun language, if unspellable. Also, it’s dying, as most native speakers are in remote Irish villages that are also dying out as communication and connection spreads, so that might be a reason to learn it?
Finnish is also fun and unspellable. One of my life’s goals has been to learn to swear in Finnish.
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I know very little about this subject, if you know more please correct me or add in!
There are seven major branches of Arabic (5 spoken, 2 written).
Some people will tell you that they’re interchangeable. This is not entirely true.
The five dialects: Egyptian, Maghrebi, Mesopotamian, Levantine, and Gulf, are more closely related than the Romance languages, but still different. At worst it’s like Portuguese & Spanish, but more often it’s akin to someone from Georgia speaking to someone to Ireland.
Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic are for formal and written works, not everyday use. The relationship is kinda like Latin and Italian; lots of similarities, but not interchangeable.
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Egyptian Arabic has a distinctive accent and different words for many common things but is widely understood because Egypt has a huge TV and movie industry. Levantine Arabic (spoken in Lebanon and Syria) seemed to me more of a lilt, like an Irish brogue. Highly educated people from different parts of the Arab world can communicate without much trouble, because their speech is more formal and standardized. Oddly, wherever you go in the Middle East, local people will tell you that their Arabic is the “purest” (the closest to what the Prophet spoke) — even in Morocco, where it’s manifestly untrue.
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First rooftop excursion!
Took long enough. The stars were beautiful.
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Rooftops are the best.
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They are. The BU observatory is on the roof of the College of Arts and Sciences building and the view is fantastic. (Fantastic enough to make me wish Astronomy Club was more often than once a week!)
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Ahhhhhhhhh Jade. I love rooftop excursions!
Are you allowed to go on roofs at Oberlin? If not, is there an associated fine for getting caught?
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I dunno about Oberlin but at my school you’re not allowed and the fine is $50. I’ve gone only once, though, and wasn’t caught.
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Thanks oxlin! I was charged $500 for being on the roof at the end of last semester, and I’ve been working on an appeal for the past few days and trying to figure out why the fine is so high.
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Huh, wow, yeah. Maybe look at how high the roof is/whether you damaged any buildings? Good luck with your appeal!
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Also, at my school there is a roof that is accessible through a dorm’s bathroom window (my dorm sophomore year. I got annoyed by drunk people constantly tramping through our floor and leaving muddy footprints in our bathroom.) The roof I went on however was one that I got to by a route using railings etc, to get onto a lower roof of that building and to proceed over to the bit with a better view.
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Thanks!
I think the fine is so high because people try to run from security and jump off/break arms and legs and such. But our situation was so different, because we were really quiet and watching the stars, and we were really cooperative with security, so we’re hoping to get the fine lowered at least a little bit. Sent the appeal today!
The roof is pretty high, but there are ladders to get to the different levels. People climb it almost every night, sometimes screaming and drunk, and I only know of one other person who was ever caught — it’s really rare.
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No and yes. The fine here is ridiculously high. But someone also fell down a smokestack last year and broke almost all their bones (though possibly a townie, not someone who goes here? Anyway they are VERY anal about it now, alas).
But I know the way up noowwww. And until it snows, it’s clear for photographic oportunities! I wiiiish there were more stars out so I could finally try some timelapse night stuff, but there’s too much light pollution here.
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Mm, yeah. I think they’re worried about people falling/jumping and dying. But also, it’s frustrating because they don’t use the fine money to put signs up discouraging the behavior or anything. It seems like a way that the college is generating additional income (since there were four of us on the roof, they made $2000 in one night). My school also charges lots of money for things like leaving trash in the hallways, playing sports in the dorms, not declaring your major on time, etc. Seems a little unreasonable.
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Does any one know who wrote Extremely Reusable Bags in the July/August 2011 issue? It doesn’t have a by line! I am curious who wrote it. It reminds me of the old math pages.
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PSAT scores came, FINALLY. Cat’s Eye, I know you got them a month ago? I didn’t do as well as you though, only 204. I’m not complaining though, the PSATs really don’t matter.
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Well, I won my school spelling bee today!
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Congratulations!
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Congartulations!
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Congratulations! That’s awesome.
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Good for you!
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Brava, Bibliophile!
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Conregurgitationcalculationvisitationexclamationmotivationmenstruationdemontstrationgratulations!
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…Oddly, the word I won on last year was a form of ‘regurgitation’ (‘regurgitate’). Or maybe that was the word before the one I one on. Thanks, everyone!
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Grate job! I hope your happy about it.
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Were those spelling mistakes intentional/meant to be ironic?
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Of coarse not. Why wood you think that?
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Corny MBer humor: ♥ .
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I notice everyone commented on muselover’s intentional mistakes, but not on Vendeval’s.
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I guess no one likes subtlety.
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Was THAT mistake intentional?
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*twitch*
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Congrats, Bibliophile!
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Congratulations!
I wish my school had a spelling bee. There was one in sixth grade, but we haven’t had one since. (In that one I came in fourth and knew all the words that came after I got out, so I’d like to get another chance.)
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My first school ever had no spelling bee. We moved, though, so I only missed one year rather than the 3 I would have otherwise. (This was an elementary school, and I moved in 3rd grade, the first grade where you’re allowed to participate in an official bee in my region. I was too late for the bee that year, but at least I didn’t also miss 4th and 5th grade). Have you asked for a bee? Last year, I did school online, and the virtual school I attended had no bee, but my mom and I asked if they could start one, and they did. That was the year I won district and got to… well, it’s not called regional, and it’s not exactly state because there are three in the state for three areas, but it’s that sort of thing… which was on local television. (No-one here lives close enough to have watched it, but I just met someone who did)! If I’d won that, I’d have gone to Washington, DC. I’m going to study very hard this year, of course.
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Ugh I am so behind on posts what is this.
Still crocheting like a fiend. I finished hat number 4 today, and need to ship it (and the other crocheted things I’m mailing) soon. Like, maybe tomorrow. Merp.
Yesterday I went to Baltimore and visited my brother and his girlfriend. We went on errands, which mostly meant getting lost all over the city. But it was fun! I got a button that says “Bach” on it with a picture of the man himself. It’s on my backpack now. I’ve decided I’m going to decorate my backpack with buttons and patches, so Bach goes next to the “not all who wander are lost” written in a spiral button, and above the Kokopelli for President and Chicago Jazz Hands ones. On the side i my paint crew patch from school last semester, and on the back between the straps is a large rectangular patch that says “I (really) ♥ consent” with an owl on it (my school’s mascot). Most of the zipper pulls have friendship bracelets on them, and one has a compass.
I like my backpack.
Anyway, visiting the brother and his gf was a hoot, I’ve missed them both.
Today mom and I visited some friends after going to the Asian grocery, so we had them try Yan Yans, rice cakes (the gooey ones with bean filling), and seaweed. They liked the yan yan, but not the other things, but they were good sports about trying them.
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I’ve got a button on my backpack that says “Only you can stop Times New Roman.” I got it for Christmas.
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Going to a Brain Game team meeting on a day when your brain has refused to work is… interesting. On the plus side, I was assigned the task of pausing and un-pausing the old episodes the other people were using to practice, which doesn’t take brain power, not to mention the free soda and popcorn.
And when the meeting was over and I was waiting in front of my school, a guy came from inside the school wearing a black suit and bowler hat and a red bowtie. This was awesome.
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Is he acting in Waiting for Godot, perchance?
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I have no idea, but if he is, it isn’t through the school. I just assumed he had a presentation that day, because a lot of teachers give you a lot more credit if you dress fancily.
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I HAVE BEEN CONVERTED TO PONYDOM.
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Woohoo! Welcome to the herd!
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Dear god, not that.
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Yay!
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Huzzah!
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*assorted celebratory noises*
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W00t!
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NOOOOOOOOO
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(yaay)
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I like your choice of gravatar. *raises shields*
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I went through my iTunes and found ALL the album artwork. Isn’t it strange how exhausting such simple, sedentary processes can be?
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I was home alone today and bored, so found my an old prism I hadn’t done anything with in years and started playing with it, making rainbows and light effects in my room. Then I wondered what would happen if I placed a mirror in the path of one of the rainbows, so I got one of my mom’s compacts to test it out. I couldn’t get it exactly right, but I could hold the prism in the shade and use the mirror to send light at it, which was cool.
Then, I noticed my nautical prism and decided to include that, playing with reflecting light from the mirror into the regular prism and then placing the deck prism where one of the rainbows fell and watching the effects. I accidentally flashed some of the mirror’s light onto a box I have that’s decorated with shiny tiles, and these made their own effects, so I included them.
It was all really cool. Fun with optics!
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Forgot to post last night cause I didn’t go to bed till 6. But have been having fun, painting and hanging out with people. Haven’t gotten into as many shenanigans as last year yet, but it’s still very relaxing and fun.
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Is it odd to read the science textbook, cover to cover, for pleasure?
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Not if it’s well-written and interesting.
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No.
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Not if it’s good. And if you have textbooks that are good enough to read cover to cover for pleasure, then I envy you.
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“Linking to the Past: A Brief Introduction to Archeology”. That is all. “We will assume there were no mutant deer with extra shoulder blades.”
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Ha. I kind of want to find this book now. My intro to archae textbook was good too, but yours sounds funny.
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All our textbooks our from the Clinton era. Seriously.
INACCURACY FTL.
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Why would that be bad? Well, for math ones I guess they wouldn’t tell you how to properly use a calculator, but for English and history there wouldn’t be much of a difference. You need quite a lot of hindsight to study history objectively, and all anyone ever reads for English is at least thirty years old anyway.
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The maps on the wall of our classroom still has the Soviet Union on it. Yep, we’re one of the best schools in the city, but we don’t even have enough money to heat properly, let alone buy new maps.
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Ouch.
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On the other hand, it’s been a while since anyone’s won a Nobel Prize so I guess they’re just getting frustrated.
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Nearly managed a macaco gi bimba today (terrible spelling, je le sais). Essentially a sort of cartwheel-oh-never-mind-I’ll-do-a-handspring. And a cool type of handstand went well too *yayness*
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Hrm. Apparently next (school) year most girls room with someone, so it’s likely I will especially because I’ll be new. I’ve had my own room for the past five years and I’m generally quite a private person; I like having my own space and time to just be with myself. I guess my question is what’s it like having a roommate all the time?
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If you’re well-matched, it takes some getting used to, but it becomes normal after a while. It’s very important to have a roommate with a similar sleep cycle.
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104 (Quafflebird)~ Re: Roommates: It depends on what kind of roommate you get. I’d never really had a roommate before going to college (unless living on the berth deck with 20+ shipmates in hammocks counts), but my roomie last semester was pretty easy to live with. We never really fought about anything because we’re both too laid back to actually freak out at each other. We had some rough times, like when one of us had to do homework and the other wanted the room to herself, or when I was going through a really rough time and she came in drunk and sobbing, something I was not at all emotionally able to take care of at the time, stuff like that. Even though we’re pretty different and not Best Of Friends we lived together really well and had enough of the same friends that it was always fun in our room. I was okay sleeping in the same room as her because she doesn’t snore, and my being there was good for her because she’s scared of the dark and gets convinced that there are axe murderers under the bed when she’s alone and panics. So overall we had a really good roommate situation. We also had things we shared (I used her hairdryer and printer, she could borrow my water kettle and boots or jackets as long as she asked first and didn’t scuff them or smoke in the clothes), and we had some shared food items (ramen, hot chocolate), we devised a system for who got to take out the trash that isn’t MB kosher, but it worked, and we were okay with each other running around the room naked, and occasionally we locked the door and had roommate bonding time while tearing our hair out over papers.
Next semester I’m going to be rooming with a different friend of mine, so we’ll see how that goes. It’ll be different because we actually know each other and have chosen to be roommates. We’re talking about changing the layout of the room, maybe bunking the beds or something and having more of a shared space than a my side/your side of the room kind of operation.
TL;DR
In my experience having a roommate isn’t as terrifying as it might seem at first, but I’ve also heard horror stories, so I have no idea.
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Hello again, everyone. My, how long it’s been; can’t believe my hiatus keeps continuing!
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Welcome back.
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Hmmm. I’ve posted roughly 1,200 posts as both Castle, eragon and variations thereof. Less than I thought…TIME TO POST ON ALL THE THREADS!
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I’m nearing the 1,000-post mark as C-PM! I’m not much of a Mathematician anymore, though. I’m still decent at it and like it, but I like physics a whole lot more. Still gonna stick with C-PM because a) I don’t want to break my streak and b) C-PM is a much better acronym than C-PP.
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Whereas I’m close to 2,000.
Life=gone. And I’m all the better for it.
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Some of us are well past 10k.
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If you had to represent MuseBlog as an easily drawn symbol, what would it be? I’m making a paper mache sculpture of half of my head for an art project, and inside, we’re supposed to include things that represent ourselves. My background is light blue and I’ve been representing a lot of things as cool-shaped white clouds. For example, one shaped like a sailboat. I want to do that for MuseBlog, too.
I was thinking hot pink bunnies, but they’re the “evil”, right? Koko’s head, maybe? A pie, but that might be hard to represent well in one color…
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Why not a space squid?
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Or, if the inside of your head is being represented as the sky, an non-cloud space squid.
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My head now contains a genuine cloud squid. He hasn’t quite made it all the way to space yet, but he hangs out in the troposphere and keeps an eye on all of us down here.
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My sisters think “Loco” is a better name for our cat than “Serenity Trillian”.
They liked “Serenity Trillian Softkitty” even less, even if it meant her initials could be STS like the space shuttle. Is there something a bit more dignified than Softkitty that starts with an S …?
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Serenity Trillian Solstice?
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Or Sarah, Trill, or Sol for short. (In my experience, long “official” pet names always get shortened for addressing and calling.)
You could also name her Sekhmet, after the ancient Egyptian lion goddess.
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That’s true of my experience too. I’ve observed it’s true of people names also–or maybe people just really like to give me nicknames. (And I feel like all those nicknames are slightly different people. Even Firstname Middlename Lastname feels different than Firstname Lastname.)
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Solstice sounds pretty.
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Sun? Star? Solar? Space? Supernova? Sky? Spacesuit?
Random, but there’s a girl in my school named Seren. I have to resist the urge to yell, “FIREFLY!” every time I see her.
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JLynn’s is named Spatula Pie Zombie.
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Snow day?
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NO.
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For me, yep. Finally! Snow!
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Yay! It’s snowing a lot here as well, although I believe it’s beginning to turn to freezing rain. 
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Ahh, finally done with exams and I’m lying in bed (re)watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Life is good.
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Finally caught up with all the stuff I missed from school while away!
I got an 80 on a test because the teacher tried to cram the week’s worth of learning into half an hour, but since he drops our 2 lowest grades I’m not especially worried, seeing as that is my first sub-90 grade since the quarter started.
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That awkward moment when all your friends are 1 year (at the least) old than you.
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Touchscreen fail
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I was younger than most of the friends who were a grade behind me. Can’t say “awkward” ever applied.
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I’m a year too young for my grade, so I think I’m the youngest in my school, Pie Girl. It’s okay, having older friends is pretty cool sometimes~
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Oh, it’s not awkward at all having older friends. One of my best friends is visiting me this summer – he’s a college freshman. Another one of my good friends came back from U of Chicago last summer to do experimental theater with me around Seattle.
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Then there’s MB, where you suddenly realise there are people other than the GAPAs who have been through college.
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Then there’s MB, where you suddenly realize that most people here are in high school or junior high.
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My freshman year of college my main group of friends were all 2 or 3 years older.
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My copy of The Fault in Our Stars came today, and it is Hanklerfished! Off to go read it now.
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Ahh! I hope mine comes soon!
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Chorus concert! It was a major success. We sang “Daemon Irrepit Callidus” (go look it up, it’s a very cool song) and when we finished, the audience was just like :shock:. And then our choir director was like “It’s over now.” And we all laughed. ‘Twas most amusing.
Basically: my high school chorus = flamablamablousness
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Ugh, leaky basements… wet dust looks NASTY.
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Hello there.
I kind of disappeared for a while…
But I’m back?
Anyway.
Went to the John Green/Vlogbrothers/The Fault in Our Stars event on Tuesday… I’m still recovering (in a good way).
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Waaaiiiiit
You live in the Boston area? Kokon maybe?
Also I just finished TFiOS and aaaaaa. I think as far as entertainment value it was my least favorite of John’s books, but it was the most intense and caused the most thinking. Which is good. It was sort of one of those books where you don’t want anyone else to read it in case they don’t think about what it means, or in case they get it more than you, and then you feel really guilty for wanting to deprive everybody else of the book.
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Boston area? You too? We WILL Kokon.
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YES.
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Please.
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You too, Kai? Oh, this will be exciting. We will sit around on a rooftop and discuss Museblog and constellations.
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Welcome back! It’s good to see you posting again.
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Hey again!
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Hi again!
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I LOST MY BAG
okay okay calming down
so I was taking the (public) double decker bus home because there weren’t any taxis, and I know I had it on the bus because I took my wallet out of it
next thing I know I’m in the taxi and I realise my bag isn’t on my shoulder…
AHHH PANIC MOMENT
then I was like WHERE COULD IT BE
so maybe it caught on something on the bus? I was leaning against something so maybe? but HOW did it slip off my shoulder without me noticing?
anyway I called mother for help and she’s calling the bus company now and I HOPE I GET IT BACK
luckily there wasn’t anything valuable in it, by some miracle I had my phone in my pocket and I was holding my laptop, Kindle and wallet
only thing in the bag were some papers, the Kindle charger (we have another one I think) and its cover, and my beloved earphones )’: and of course the bag itself which is from Vietnam and very pretty
UGHHH NOOO THEY MUST FIND IT
Thank you for reading this pointless little post
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Also SFTDP but Friday the 13th…this might be the first time I can remember that I’ve actually been unlucky on Friday the 13th. SIGH.
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OHCAKEOHCAKEOHCAKE I just realised my nearly US$200 calculator was in there as well….there are no words to describe how badly I need my bag back. ARGH.
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And to top off a great day it’s possible I might have to get (bottom) braces again. Apparently my teeth shifted? Awaiting next week for the orthodontist’s verdict. Sorry, this probably belongs on the Rants & ‘Plaints thread. But ughhhhh today has not been the best of days.
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Just kidding, turns out that no matter what the orthodontist thinks I probably won’t go through the whole thing again, the difference is negligible for such a staggering amount of money. You can’t even tell it’s crooked. Thank God. Also, we can insurance back on the calculator and earphones, thank God as well. The only thing I miss is the bag, which I was rather fond of. Maybe it’ll turn up. But if it doesn’t, it’s okay.
SORRY for the million posts! *pays huge fine*
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I am SO sorry I keep posting, I swear it won’t happen again (otherwise you all have permission to pelt me with as many pies as you want) but the bus company found my bag! So I will be able to get it back this week! So nothing went wrong on Friday after all!
(Apologies again *pays yet another round of PoPo fine)
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Yay!
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Yes indeed, yay! And I hereby promise I shall never ever post six times in a row again. (This doesn’t count because Rebecca’s broken the streak, so it’s now become socially acceptable for me to reply to the above post yet again. Well, I hope.)
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Happy to be of service.
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Yay! I’m really glad they found it. I know what it feels like to have lost something. So panicky!
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SNOOOOOW
SNOW SPIRALS ARE GO!
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Also, midnight cheese runs!
Sometimes you just need cheese no matter how much wind there is on the walk.
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Snapshots from Oberlin.
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Snow spirals, night cheese; you’re becoming a combination Andy Goldsworthy / Liz Lemon!
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YAY 2 TWO HOUR DELAY!!!!!!!
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SNOW DAAAAY
Just finished reading The Fault In Our Stars. Wow.
John Green is a brilliant, brilliant, person. I started reading at 6:30 and finished at 8:20. My eyes didn’t leave the pages even once. It’s a book that just… pulls you in, drags you into an entirely new world, gives you an entirely new way of looking at the universe. I cried during several scenes and laughed at many more.
First thought after finishing: I think this book is going to become a real-world version of “AIA” for many Nerdfighters across the world, and I wonder if John Green is aware of that.
Also, the sticker on the cover that says “SIGNED COPY” and the signature on the first page make me HAPPY.
I want to write a book now. Actually write a book, not just attempt during November and give up. I want to write a book with deep, emotional characters, a book that draws people in and makes them cry and laugh and read it over and over again.
Wish me luck! ^^;
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Good luck, Fireh!
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Do it! Good luck!
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Best of luck, Fireh!
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Good luck, Fireh!
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We did charities today, I sang loudly the my little pony theme. Weird looks were worth it.
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All through Friday I kept singing the chorus of Winter Wrap-Up and all Pinkie’s No Fear song. I got some weird looks too. *brohoof*
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I wrote my schedule for Monday out in my planner (first days after long breaks are wonky), and I’m scared of it. Even though it’s not really that bad, I’ve just gone soft from a month of not running nonstop from 7am to 11pm.
It’s probably not a good thing that I’m least excited about going to play practice….we’re supposed to a run-through Monday night. *dies*
But tomorrow I’m going to DC to see the Anglo-Saxon treasure! Whee!
I need to go to bed now.
My bed broke this morning.
It hasn’t gotten fixed yet.
Hm.
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oh god this is totally me re:schedule, i’m STILL not sure what i’m doing but it will definitely involve 8AM japanese three times a week /cries
*hugs just ’cause*
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Oh, please do tell me about the Anglo-Saxon treasure! I have a particular interest, but I doubt I’ll get to go see it.
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I assume that’s the National Geographic exhibition? I am delighted to note that it’s composed of pieces from the Staffordshire Hoard, other parts of which are on permanent display in Birmngham Museum and the Potteries Museum in Stoke. It’s good to see that they’re flashing it round the world. That will help raise enough funds to clean up the rest of it. There are still hundreds of items encrusted with soil,
It does pose something of a problem when something like this is found, especially in a time of austerity. I was really chuffed at the way it was handled. Firstly, the lucky metal detector guy who found it, and the farmer who owned the land, did the right thing, and notified the relevant authorities. A proper archaeological dig was mounted in secret, preserving the all-important information from the site.
Then, when it was publicly announced, hundreds of people from all over the world, including lots of Midlanders and some prestigious institutions, stumped up a total of about 3 million quid to keep it together and stop it being flogged on the open market.
I remember the first bits being exhibited in Birmingham. The Museum opened late. At eight o’clock one evening, I saw queue of proud Brummies about 200 yards long, all patiently waiting to get in to see it. That’s unheard of, even when Brum puts on Turner or Canaletto. I got in on a priority pass, because I Know People. It’s worth seeing. The workmanship is breathtaking. I still can’t work out how some of the supposedly simple decoration was done.
Anyway, if you can’t get to England or DC to see it, there are pictures here :
http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/
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I love the idea of archaeological digs being performed in secret. All those people with their excavation tools taking the least visible route into a farmer’s field; biting their excited tongues when relatives and friends and total strangers ask them what they’ve been up to.
I didn’t know about the money being raised–huzzah for non-open-market-flogging!
Priority pass? Lucky fellow. And oh! Turner and Canaletto! {Worldly nod.} They’re much more interesting in person than they are in my Art textbooks. Er, the paintings. Not the dead artists.
Ooh, really smashing photographs on the other side of that link. They show all the dirt and detailed metalwork. Thank you very much!
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It’s a pleasure. I like pointing people in the direction of cool things, especially when the aforesaid cool things are from the Midlands and I get the opportunity to gloat.
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Home turf gloating is always enjoyable.
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Low points of today:
I had to wear a skirt, which– I can’t really express how much I hate skirts. It’s not just that I dislike the limited movement, though I do. It bothers something really fundamental inside me, like an identity thing. When I look in the mirror when I’m wearing a skirt, it feels like someone else is looking back at me.
Woke up at 4:30 a.m. for a plane flight.
Chicago is cold in the winter. Also, sludge. It’s not snow. It’s not water. It’s like mud, except colder and then it gets in your boots. Also, really cold wind. Also, snow! In the city! Why is there snow in the city? What is snow doing in a city?
Had a Family Event, which is code for my bubbe embarrassing as many grandchildren as she can in as short a time as possible. Also, I was wearing a skirt.
High points of today:
The kid who played Marius in our production of Les Mis last year, and who is basically my idol, met up with us for lunch. He also gave my cousins a tour of U of Chicago, and won their hearts.
Deep dish pizza. I’m never going back to California.
Penn State’s men’s hockey team is apparently staying at the same hotel as we are, and my female cousins and I were hanging by the swimming pool when they all came in and started swimming. And, uh. Yeah. Attractive is probably a good word for it.
My cousin Rebecca becomes a Jewish woman tomorrow. *makes flailing hand motions*
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Huwhaaat? You’re here? Your cousins were here?
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STFP: Too bad I was sleeping all day! Haha maybe I would have seen them! Silly math homework…
Yes, the snow is amazing. Everyone’s running around in it.
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I am actually going to try to go to sleep by 3. I have to be up at 9 to make crepes for brunch for the co-op tomorrow! Going to do two batters, one normal and one vegan, do an apple filling (the only fruit we have on hand), and then by that time the batter should have sat long enough. Hopefully. I’m getting there at 9:20 and will hopeflly have batter+filling done by 11:20, giving me an hour to cook them all. WIll report wiht how it goes
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I saw the ISS pass overhead before dawn with my dad!
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Mononoke-hime just became one of my favorite films of all time. I don’t know why I waited so long to see it.
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Rosebud2, is that a new gravatar? If it is it’s utterly flammy. If it’s not, it’s still utterly flammy, but somehow I didn’t notice until today.
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I’m pretty sure it’s one she had before, replaced, and then reclaimed.
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Yes, I had it before about a year ago.
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So, in another act of logic-defying strangeness, my bed that broke was actually flatter and more comfortable that it had been before. Before the mattresses (it’s a be frame with two futons on it) were all lumpy and my feet were up and it was uncomfortable, but then the corner where my head goes collapsed, and somehow the entire bed felt flat and level, unlike it had been before. Whot.
Not that I’m complaining, but still. Weird.
The Anglo-Saxon treasure was AMAZING. The metalwork was incredible, and since my mom’s a metalsmith she was explaining how they did the things which made it even more incredible. Gorgeous pieces, super exciting, and the history! The mysteries! Intrigue!
After seeing the hoard we went to lunch, then to the Folger to see the exhibit on the Kin James Bible. Very interesting. I particularly liked the bit about typos in it, such as the “Wicked Bible” that has the type “thou shalt commit adultery” instead of “thou shalt not…” For the lols.
Then home, then packing, which is an activity I thoroughly despise, and then hoping to get on the road early-ish tomorrow morning (9 is my goal) so I can drive for nine hours and get back to school. Whoo. I’m excited to go back, but….merp. I’m not sure how I feel about this whole schedule thing. And structure and self-discipline, and lunch at a certain time every day. Meh.
Also, nine hour drive. Whoo again.
So I now bid you goodnight, dear friends.
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Oh, going to museums with people who know how things are done is great. And–{Inarticulate noises of agreement.} Have you got a theory about what it was doing there in the first place?
Is this Bible an illuminated or a printed copy? I would not like to have been the scribe or typesetter responsible.
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The Folger is amazing, I highly recommend it!
King James bibles are printed.
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That looks really intriguing, I think I’d like to go there…OH! That theater! Great Scott, it’s grand.
Ah. Quite right. Silly Cerulean.
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UH OH.
I was reorganizing a photo album today, and I came to the conclusion that I have never spent a whole year entirely in one country (that is, I’ve lived in one country for years at a time, but always traveled elsewhere, usually because my family is also elsewhere). After a lot of thinking on this, I’ve realized I’m probably going to be one of those people who never settles down and spends her life running around the planet. I have an insatiable urge to see things now. Ironic as that may sound coming from someone who has spent a lot of their lives whining about being homesick.
So anyway, my question is: wanna come with?
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Totally. We never stayed in one place longer than a week back on the boat, so I’m probably going to be just as bad as you.
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YESYESYESYESYES!!!!!!
Ahem. Being someone whose extent of travel has ben only to different states, and has never been outside the country, yet has flown several times a year since I was two, I have developed an intense and probably insatiable hunger for travel. Expecially to places I haven’t been to before. To the point where, when other people count the days to adulthod so they can be on their own, I count the days to adulthood so that I can travel freely. So if you might consider letting me go with you, I would be insanely grateful.
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SFTDP. That should be “never been” sorry.
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Woohoo! So where are we off to first? I’ve never been to Europe.
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I’ll give you a tour
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Yay! And then South America.
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And Asia and Africa! And some random islands in the middle of an ocean!
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Yeah! Thailand is AWESOME, India has a couple of cool bits if you avoid civilization, Hong Kong has spectacular food… Also Tioman and Langkawi have awesome coral reefs and suchlike. As for random islands, might I propose New Zealand?
Africa-wise, I’d like to see Egypt, and South Africa, and definitely the East African Rift. Or some of it. We can dig for fossils.
What about South America?
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Hong Kong also has Selenium the Quafflebird! Except I’m coming with you so that’s not as relevant. But I’ll be able to show you around and stuff!
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Two plus two is…
…
…
ten.
IN BASE FOUR! I’M FINE!
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*high-five* Because I’m not a moron.
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Hey everyone,
My parents have become tighter on internet safety lately. So I know I don’t post much anyway, but this is likely to be my last post on MuseBlog for a while. I just wanted you all to know that I didn’t leave because I wanted to, and that I will be coming back if it’s ever possible. I’m sorry. Safe travels.
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Brunch yesterday went well! They were out of eggs so I only made vegan crepes, but they turned out well.
At some point this week I have to go show my project to the art guy who’s my advisor for it oh god he is going to hate me and everything D8
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Just spent a significant part of today playing Dutch Blitz. Anybody heard of it? It’s such an awesome game–the only problem is that we probably own the only deck north of Pennsylvania, and it’s falling apart. Maybe the internet…? Anyway.
SKIING! We finally got some snow here, so I got to go skiing Friday. It was awesome. I didn’t fall down nearly as much as I expected! Also, I rent skis because if I didn’t it would be ridiculously expensive, but I just ordered a really nice ski helmet. I can’t wait until it gets here! I might go skiing tomorrow, too, and that’ll be fun as well.
I really should be doing homework now. Midterms–eep!—are Tuesday, and I need to study. Badly. Ironically, the one I’m most worried about it my gym midterm, but Algebra I is a close second. We have 100 hard questions to answer in two hours. Ahgahahhhhhh *runs around panicking*
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You’re so lucky you’re skiing! I miss it a lot. We’re not going at Chinese New Year any more. Maybe we’ll go at Easter but nothing’s certain yet. Anyway, have fun if you do go again tomorrow!
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Maybe you’ll go skiing at Easter?
HERE?
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I’m not sure where we’re going (if we go at all) so it may be ‘here’, or it may not be!
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Oh, that’s too bad! I hope you do get to go at Easter.
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Being kissed to “Never Gonna Give You Up”. This is a truly unique day.
:3
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Has anyone seen that soda ad that basically says that girls watch romantic comedies and guys watch action films while drinking their soda? This ad annoys me so much. grrr…..
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Ugh…
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As a girl who never watches romantic comedies or drinks soda, I am disgusted.
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As a girl who watches romantic comedies and action movies, often while drinking soda, I am likewise offended.
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As a girl who hates romantic comedies, enjoys action movies, and stays away from soda as much as possible, I am annoyed.
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Is that one of those “Dr. Pepper: it’s not for women” ads? Those infuriate me. They don’t even try to pretend they’re not sexist.
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…I haven’t seen those, either, but they sound even worse.
(The only TV I watch is what has been recorded beforehand, so I never watch commercials. When someone else has them on, and I’m within earshot, I’m generally so disturbed by the music alone that I make them turn it off before I have the faintest idea what messages they could be sending about society, or even what product they’re advertising. Subsequently, I rarely have any idea what people are talking about when they discuss commercials. I’m happy about that, because they seem like such a waste of time.)
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So Dad refused to get in gear today, so by the time he was done with the car I had been packed and ready for an hour and a half, and left at 11. Grr. I had hoped to stop by Boyfriend’s school for a quick visit on my way down, but due to the two hour delay I couldn’t. Grrrrr again.
Made good time though, and my room is mostly functional again. Kind of. I wish my room would just unpack itself and be all set up and lovely. Heh.
Class tomorrow. Ugh I’m not ready for this.
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Can’t you do the Mary Poppins thing?
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Re-reading Les Mis. Words cannot express how much I love these men – that is, the bishop and Valjean and Hugo himself. This is wonderful; I’ll even go so far as to say that it’s better the second time round.
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Hey, I’m re-reading Les Mis, too! I just got to Valjean at the Thenardier’s inn. It’s amazing.
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And I’m reading it for the first time! I’m loving it so far, but it’ll probably take me a while to finish, seeing as I have other books I’m *supposed* to be reading.
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I’m reading it as well! I love Jean Valjean but not the bishop. It’s excellent so far.
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I love the Bishop, but there are a few things that really irk me about him, like when he lumped women with children, fools, the weak, etc in that they supposedly were not responsible for their actions. (I don’t remember exactly who they were lumped with, actually, but I it was something like that…).
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“He said, ‘The faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise.'”
I just close my eyes and remind myself of when it was written, and then I feel better.
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Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel too. With a few other irks. Like how he refused to visit the guy with different opinions from his until he was lying on his deathbed… 
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Father Madeleine <3333
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Oh my goodness, Combeferre is wonderful, isn’t he? Wow.
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Back in Boston.
I have a new mini-mission: Photograph ALL the U-Haul Venture Across America trailer designs!
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I got my PSAT scores back! I did a lot better than I thought I would. For some reason, even I lot of the questions I half guessed on I ended up getting right. 99th percentile in state and country for writing, and I never got below 94th percentile for any other category!
*does happy dance*
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Congratulations! Surprising to hear that I wasn’t the last one to receive them, considering where I live, but maybe the mailing time is negligible.
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When the dorm cafeteria and the student union aren’t open until 11 and you need breakfast… thank Koko for Panera Bread.
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GUESS WHO (ACCIDENTALLY) GOT TO SCHOOL A DAY EARLY BECAUSE CLASSES DON’T ACTUALLY START TILL TOMORROW?
THIS GIRL
FALLING ON THE GROUND IN JOY
this means i can take a nap right now oh man oh JEEZ YOU HAVE NO IDEA
also, 24 hours to relearn the japanese language. IT’S OK, I’VE GOT THIS
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AXA THAT IS THE BEST! At my school, we have to confirm our enrollment two days before classes start, so we have TWO WHOLE DAYS (and sometimes three, because most people travel on Sunday) of on-campus-but-no-classes time, which is the greatest!
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Series premiere of Alcatraz tonight! I am excited.
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I think I heard about that. What’s the premise?
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Axa- WOOOOOOOO
Uneventful day so far but tonight having a skype conference call with freindgroup to try to sort some things out nervous nervous nervous
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Good luck!
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Best wishes, Jade! Hope everything works out well.
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Good luck!
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Dear Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Thank you for everything you did.
Love,
Mika
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I need some advice, and I have no idea where else to post this, so I’m posting it here.
In eighth grade, at my school, you can choose which Related Art (Music, Tech Ed., Art, and Home Ec.) you want to do each of the four quarters. Each class has a certain thing that they do — first quarter I did Music, and we learned how to play guitar, second quarter I did Art, which was largely clay and working on the wheel.
Students’ choices for third and fourth quarter have already been submitted, and though I’m satisfied with the choices I made for third quarter, I don’t like what I did for fourth quarter anymore. I chose Art (Class Night theme and decorations) (Class Night is the eighth graders’ “graduation”) as my first choice, and the singing/song writing class (Music) as my second choice. The only reason Music wasn’t my first choice was that the people who would choose a vocal workshop are (at my school) the popular ones. These people are in Chamber Choir, which I am also in, and though I love singing, that is the only class where I am the odd one out. When I was in Music first quarter, I was also left out. My friend Dragon also wanted to do this vocal thing, and put it as her first choice, and since we’re both some of the best behaved kids in the grade, we’ll probably both get our first choice. I really regret putting Music as my second choice, because it’s something I really want to do.
The problem is, we aren’t supposed to talk to the teachers about changing our decisions for which RA we want to do. My friends say that the music teacher would listen to me, but I’m not so sure, because I know that he doesn’t like to be partial to one student and not let others have the opportunity to change their decisions. I also would only want to be in the class if Dragon was there (but I think it’s pretty likely she’ll get in).
But anyway… advice please?
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Ask. Can’t hurt.
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Ask anyway! I got out of so many classes that I didn’t want to take just by being nice and a bit pushy. They only tell you you’re “not allowed” because they don’t want a huge mess of people changing at the last minute.
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I asked the music teacher, and he said to remind him in seven weeks, and that it shouldn’t be a problem because more people do Class Night decorations than Vocal/Composition.
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I went to our school’s MLK Day celebration. The music and speeches were great. It’s really interesting to think that he attended school here, walked down Comm Ave, was in and out of these same buildings… perhaps an encouragement to all of us Terriers live in a way that would have made him proud.
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Er, “TO live”…
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Long ago, Mika asked how to tell the difference between male and female bullfrogs. We gave vague answers, but now I have a specific one. According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, “Male bullfrogs have a yellow throat. The eardrums on males are larger than the eyes, while the female’s eardrums are the same size as the eyes.”
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Ooo! Fascinating! I can’t wait to put this new information to use. Thank you, Bibli!
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I discovered how to play Still Alive from Portal on the guitar…I think I know what I’ll be doing for the next two months.
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So, the GRAIL probes’ new names will be announced at 1PM today. Is that when we’ll get our January theme?
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It won’t make 1:00 pm, but aiming for launch before too long, weather permitting.
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…the GRAIL probes, or the new theme?
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The theme. The probes already launched in September and are orbiting the moon now.
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Ebb and Flow! Not bad for fourth-graders. Nice work, Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Montana!
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They’re such cute names! I want to draw fanart now.
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I’m confused. What’s that and what does it have to do with the probe and/or the theme?
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NASA held a contest to let schoolchildren choose new names for the probes then called GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B. The winner was a fourth-grade class in Bozeman, Montana, who sent in the names Ebb and Flow.
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First day of work on the music crew went well, if a bit unbalanced in it’s concentration of busy/slow, and I got an email of gratitude and adoration from the teacher I helped when I got there early.
Other things accomplished thus far today are: two packages mailed, a commission for a pair of fingerless gloves from the lady who works at the post office, the plants in the music wing properly cared for, and half of a record digitized.
My mind is still sufficiently blown from my philosophy class, and now headed to old time fiddle 2.
Badoop!
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New Symphony of Science!
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Will MuseBlog be participating in tomorrow’s internet blackout in protest of SOPA and PIPA?
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I hadn’t thought about it, but it’s worth discussing. What do you MBers think?
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Yes, absolutely.
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Please, yes.
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I think we should.
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I agree 100%.
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Go for it, I say!
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I agree with Rosebud.
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I’m all for it.
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Yes yes yes!
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Not like we’ll get much recognition, but I’m game.
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Yes!
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Yeah. Definitely.
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Good idea.
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Yes.
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Please don’t make MB go away.
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I think we have to, KaiYves. But we’ll keep our Muse Academy “emergency” blog open so that people can discuss the reasons for the blackout, among other things. It’s at http://museacademy.wordpress.com .
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Twenty-four hours without MuseBlog!? *gasp* However shall I live?!
(In all seriousness, though – yes, I think we should.)
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We should expand on this a bit. It wouldn’t do much to just black out MuseBlog for a day, at least in utilitarian terms. We need to make sure everyone here knows what these bills are, what they would do to the internet, and what we can do to stop them. Congressmen need to be called on the phone (as well as emailed and written to), information has to be spread virtually and in real life, a real outcry has to be made. Of course, not all MBers are in the United States, but if this legislation passes, it would be much easier and more likely for other countries to pass similar legislation. This is really the biggest and most important threat to the internet in its entire history thus far, and it needs to be stopped.
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((GAPAs: Here’s a link to WordPress’s statement on their blackout, which also contains a link to some blackout plugins, in case you decide to join in: http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/internet-blackout/))
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It definitely worries me, if not the way it would if it happened in my own country.
As for whether blacking out MB would be effective, I’m not sure.
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Devil’s advocate!
Will it accomplish anything? It seems like almost everybody in our small population already knows about the bills, and I don’t see the point in making such a gesture if it wouldn’t have much of an impact, either in individual MuseBlogger minds or in the context of the country’s larger discussion.
I mean, I support Wikipedia’s blackout because it will be seen by many, many people. With an typical audience like that, it will gain lots of attention and be a big deal. But I’m reluctant to reflexively take MuseBlog down for the day if it would only be informing people who are already informed.
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I agree. I think that most MBers have heard of it. I would advocate for a black square or something instead of the main thread picture and a discussion thread of it. Or maybe a full blog black out and a link to muse academy? something to get people’s attention, but it seems like most people here have heard and sites like Wiki /are/ going to get the attention of many more people who wouldn’t already know.
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I think Wikipedia is going offline at midnight tonight, U.S. Eastern time. That gives me a few hours to mull this over. But so far, I would say that the “sense of the blog” is clear.
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Heeeelp.
I need a one minute, comedic monologue from a play, and I need it TODAY. I’m 13 and female, if that makes a difference. I need it as soon as possible because I’m performing tomorrow. If I can’t find anything (and the Internet isn’t helping), I can’t be in the play.
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Gosh, this is a tough one. I have two that would be good:
– Heidi’s monologue from Marcus Is Walking (I use this monologue all the time)
– any of Phebe’s monologues from As You Like It (if you’re up for classical – I played this role)
…
If you need any dramatic monologues ever, I’ve got a cache.
– Lucy from Invisible Friends
– Elizabeth from Catholic Schoolgirls
– The Wild One from Cagebirds
– Emily from Our Town (overdone because it’s great)
and so many more.
…
If all else fails, just channel Nathan Lane.
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But in terms of comedic and contemporary, my only monologue is Heidi from Marcus is Walking. Check it out. (There are always other monologues, but they aren’t really age-appropriate/type-appropriate. For instance, there’s the bed-leg monologue from Tom Sawyer, but that’s delivered by a boy; there’s the mama-logue from Once Upon A Mattress; there’s all the monologues from Chicago; there are a few in the Vagina Monologues; and so forth.)
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I can’t find Heidi’s monologue, and I’m afraid the others won’t work. I think I’ll have to do a monologue my teacher’s already heard me perform, although not officially, not at once, and not for the same thing. I don’t even like it. I don’t know of anything else, though… Thanks, anyway.
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…cake. Bro, I have Heidi’s monologue if you still want it.
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Thanks, it’s too late now, though. My teacher didn’t mind that she’d already heard the monologue, though, at least!
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try monologue books at the library?
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152 and nested comments- I feel sadly uninformed. Would someone kindly explain to me what you’re all talking about?
154- I could suggest something from one of a few not-terribly-well known plays you’ve probably never heard of, if that would help…
I’m in a puzzling (at least to me) situation, and I’ve no-one in real life to ask about it at the moment… Today I got four emails from various colleges on the east coast, the typical “come to our college” stuff. But I’m not signed up with any college-finding site. I have used internet directories of colleges to look at colleges with entomology programs, but I never filled out any forms or gave out my email. I find this rather perplexing.
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Did you take the SAT / ACT? They share your information unless you tell them not to.
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Thanks for the offer. It would help if they’re available for free online, but it’s too late now, anyway, I think, because I go to bed soon.
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SOPA and PIPA are two (well-intentioned, but in my opinion awry) bills designed to stop internet piracy and copyright infringement, among other things, but protested by many who feel that this constitutes censorship and violates free-speech/information rights. SOPA is kind of stalled at the moment, but the Senate will vote on PIPA a week from now. The idea with PIPA, which is the less-severe version of the two bills, is that rights holders with a claim against a site with “no significant use other than copyright infringement” could get the site blocked.
Wikipedia (that is, the English version), along with a lot of other sites, is going to “go dark” tomorrow to protest SOPA and PIPA. WordPress, I believe, has a widget that the GAPAs could conceivably apply to the blog to make it go dark as well.
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Whoops, that was meant as a reply to R101’s comment (155).
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SOPA will allow the destruction of ANY website that could possibly infringe on copyrights without a trial. This will make it possible to ban Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, almost every blog, third party downloading sites (like MediaFire) and pretty much anything with user posted material on it. PROTEST! PROTEST NOW!!
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Actually…no. SOPA can’t do that. It only does that to sites outside of the US.
PIPA, on the other hand…
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Are we back? I thought the blackout thing was for the whole day?
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I guess the autofill was a bit wonky.
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*COMMENT REMOVED BY SOPA*
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I would hazard a guess that you’re new here, sweetheart. Hiya.
I could make a point about the inaccuracy of your comment, but that would be pointless antagonism.
Instead, I’ll just say to be careful. If you stick around for a couple years, yoou might look back and think you look pretty dumb… (speaking from my experience)
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What Zinc said. Choose your words – some day you’ll come back here (January 2012 Random Thread, for the record) to show yourself or someone else your first posts and your eyes will fall out of your head as you goggle at yourself and think “Was that really ME?”
I looked back at mine and physically winced. Like, I had an actual physical reaction to something I wrote.
Now that I’m done pointing that out, welcome to the blog! I see you’ve been active in BA and are just starting to branch out into the other threads. You’re not listed in the MBers, Chronological, so I, like Zinc, am assuming you’re new here.
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DITTO. I was the most obnoxious 9-year-old ever.
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Oh goodness, don’t remind me. I looked at the posts of my ten-year-old self and shuddered.
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Zinc, Castle- Lighten up a bit, eh?
Lawson, I’m glad you’re here. Don’t let these old fogeys bother you. I’d like to see you comment more.
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Watching Piggy be relentlessly squidded is starting to annoy ME.
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Don’t feel bad about it. I’m just so incredible that people have no way to express their awe other than squidding me–an honor that not even the GAPAs hold. Or perhaps I have another secret admirer that can only bring enself to squid my comments. Or maybe it’s a coded warning from myself from the future, trying to tell the present me something that will allow me to save the universe from hot pink destruction. Or it could be that one of the people who hate me are trying to get on my nerves in the pettiest way imaginable. Or possibly the ‘Blog itself has reached self-awareness and is trying to tell the world that a new form of consciousness has brought itself into existence. There’s all manner of possible explanations.
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Of course! The squids try to warn us of their existence, but only have enough power to squid from the Woven Beyond, not post comments. Together, they collectively reached out their energy to squid Piggy’s comments as a warning, a warning of what they saw in the future, of the terror that is to come-
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You’re clearly superhuman.
I look up to you, Piggy, a lot of us do. I’m not deluded about your status as a human, however. You just have good, well-thought-out things to say, and when you say them, regardless of your stance on the subject, regardless of whether I agree or not, they make sense.
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Trying to make sense is all I know how to do. I’ve got a long ways to go yet before I’m any good at it.
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I just thought I should let you know that I squidded you entirely out of genuine sympathy.
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For the record, Lawson is officially a paleophyte, having first posted on the blog on March 30, 2011, under the name Halomaniac.
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Wait… he’s Halomaniac?
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I think so. Apparently he posted as Halomaniac for the last time on July 18, 2011, disappeared from the blog for a while, and then reappeared as Lawson on October 25.
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Wheee! So today was going to kind of suck, because my friend “invited” (read: forced) me to another big giant Evangelical service at her church. BUT instead of sitting through a super-long performance with heavy religious overtones, I got to meet up with an awesome friend- who Randomosity101 introduced me to, how cool is that?!– and we had the greatest time. Apparently we look a lot alike, so we went around trying to convince people we were twins. It nearly worked.
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Whoa!
So I’m on a computer I really haven’t used for internet since 2009, and it still has some of my old blognikers as autocompletes on it. Does anybody remember these?:
Zinc the sorceress
Zinc the sorceress (One blogiversery point, one Bday point)
Zinc the sorceress and Leafygreen
Zinc the sorceress and Leafygreen (Lark and Roberta)
Zinc the sorceress with no suns
Zinc the sorceress/vampire and Leafygreen
Aw man, you guys remember Leafy? Good times, good times.
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I missed Leafy! I remember all of those except the “no suns” one and the “vampire” one, but those were probably during one of my two hiatuses.
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Yeah, I just realized that I’ve spelled Oobatooba at least four different ways now…
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I remember Leafy!
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Attempting to write most of a resolution but my brain is refusing to cooperate…why oh why?
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Sometimes brains have minds of their own.
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And that’s the truth.
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*ba-dum tsh*
*crickets chirping*
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So far it’s not bad, and much more substantial than I had imagined. I think I work in cycles like this – before I start I think it’s going to be really awful and turn out horrible, but once I get going and actually complete a large part of it it turns out to be all right.
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Hnnnng
have had a few canker sores (5) in my mouth the last few days and so yesterday I didn’t drink ANY juice but then I missed it too much so now I am drinking SO MUCH CRANBERRY WITH LIIIIME and it is so gooooooooood
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Piggy’s life has been busy this week. He wrote a ten-page paper Tuesday night, then a few short papers Wednesday and today. And, of course, it’s the time of year for scholarship apps and housing forms and that sort of business, so he’s had to organize all that. And with the dry winter air, his fingers keep bleeding. He narrowly avoided frostbite walking to astronomy this morning. Let’s see, what else…. For those of you keeping score at home, we’re at 422 kanji. æ´¥ and 越 are fun ones.
Off to dinner now.
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Until you are doing summer program applications and auditions every single caking year – which involves learning a few hours worth of pieces since every place has different requirements as well as $50-$75 application fees per – and it’s only going to be worse next year because grad school auditions are at the same time and that’s a whole different set of repertoire, you do not get to complain about forms.
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I haven’t complained about forms. I mentioned that they’re been one of the reasons my life has been somewhat busy lately, but I attributed no value judgement whatsoever to them. And even if I had, you have no more “right” to complain about anything than anyone else does. Such an idea is preposterous.
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Do you know how to write the Japanese word for “exploration” in kanji?
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探検, probably.
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In a slightly-creepy but very welcome coincidence, while walking to the campus bookstore today to find out if my Lost Languages and Decipherment textbooks had come in yet, I found myself thinking about how much I wished I could read Wade Davis’ new book about George Mallory, “Into the Silence”.
When I entered the bookstore and looked at one of the displays of new books, the book was there.
I don’t know if I can afford it at the moment, but I’m definitely going to read it in the bookstore.
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So it seems there is a tradition in my family that if you need money to pay for take-out food, you just steal it from me. I thought I had escaped it today, but no luck.
Me: Thank you for the meal and not making me pay this time. *bows*
Brother and Mom exchange glances
Me: … You stole my money, didn’t you….
Mom: No I didn’t!
Me: *turns to brother* Then you took it?
Brother: Nooo…..
Mom: Just borrowed… a large amount, without asking…
Me: … That’s sixty dollars now…
Brother: :-O
(another anecdote on my life)
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This is where you call in the definition of borrowed.
Plus interest.
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Hide your money. Problem solved. I just bought a guitar and I’m in debt to my parents (or so they say), so I don’t have to worry about silly things like guarding my money as I have got none.
If your computer’s case comes apart easily, you can always hide it in a ziploc in there in a place that won’t interrupt airflow or computer systems. Just remember to unplug the computer before you reach in there.
If you own an acoustic guitar, you can apply the ziploc method and tape it up inside the guitar. They might not respect your money, but hopefully your possessions. After this is said and done, make sure they know that you are getting your $60 back within 7 days and they are not to “borrow” any more of your money.
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The government of the United States today arrested workers at the immensely popular illegal downloading and streaming site Megaupload and shut it down.
Fifteen minutes later, the Department of Justice site crashed, accompanied by sniggering from Anonymous.
*lies down and stares at ceiling*
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Yay for Internet goodwill and participatory democracy and showing that Internet denizens aren’t a rowdy bunch of hacking hooligans!
Right. That lasted a long time.
*lies down and stares at ceiling*
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I concur. As tends to be Anonymous’ methodology, they’re much more concerned with revenge than public image, and I think this can only hurt their cause. But I guess hivemind is as hivemind does.
*lies up and stairs at floor*
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In retrospect, somebody will probably try and call me out on this, so I’ll explain: “stairs” was intentional. It’s a reference to–well, perhaps you can guess? It may not have been as obvious as I thought at the time.
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So the U.S. shut down the crap out of Megaupload. To clarify, it’s not all illegal downloading. It’s a perfectly legitimate file sharing site endorsed, in fact, in a commercial featuring a handful of celebrities like P. Diddy, Kanye West, members of the Black Eyed Peas and more. While originally designed for file sharing between businessmen, artists and friends for original material the focus quite predictably shifted to illegal downloads.
So the government, in a stroke of absolute genius, pulled something that they thought would without doubt convert the anti-SOPA/PIPA movement and make everyone admire them for their amazing life-saving abilities, and took down Megaupload less than 24 hours after the massive blackout in protest of SOPA/PIPA.
Shortly after Megaupload had been shut down and its crew arrested, for some strange, unknown reason, the sites of the RIAA (the people that sue you for pirating music), the Department of Justice (the people that help that suit go through) and the Universal Music Group (one of the “big three” record labels) all spontaneously winked out of existence. Taking a leaf out of Cat’s Eye’s book with my wording here, Anonymous’s famous stronghold took a collective giggle (it was incredibly immature) and promptly let out the big secret and told everyone they’d done it, which they had.
Personally, I’m in support of Anon for this one. The government taking down a prominent site like this (I found out it was down when I tried to download a Minecraft texture pack) less than a day after the blackout is a likely-unintentional-but-still-really-I-mean-come-on big middle finger to us. It feels almost like they’re flexing. This site has been around with all its illegal glory for years, and they chose TODAY to take it down.
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Random: I’ve actually walked by the mansion they raided in Auckland.
I definitely think the timing was intentional, on either side- either they decided to shut the site down after the blackouts, or the blackouts were intentionally staged around the same time; I only say that because apparently the US government had been investigating MegaUpload for nearly two years.
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But you’ve got to think of it like an 60 or 80-year-old Congressperson who isn’t intimately connected with the Internet communities: This great bill with a lot of bipartisan support (and a lot of money attached from interest groups) has come to the floor. The only people it will affect are evil Internet people who steal popular movies, music, and radio shows, and I intend to support the bill that stops them. But, wait! A ton of media attention is being attracted to the bill because of an opposing “blackout” of some apparently well-known websites, like this “Wikipedia”. My office has also received thousands of messages and calls from concerned constituents. This must be a big deal! Maybe I should reconsider my position on this bill. But, wait! The Department of Justice shut down a website that is a known haven for illegal downloaders, and in retaliation, scary Internet vigilantes committed acts of terrorism against government entities and important American businesses. Oh God, I can’t imagine what they’ll do next. This Internet stuff is scary! The people who wrote that bill were right after all, and you just can’t trust the hooligans on the Internet to do the right thing.
It seems to me like part of the blackout’s goal was to harness the peaceful, democratic power of millions of Internet users – many of whom are also voting constituents. Now that Anonymous is involved, I’m afraid that history will show, once again, that a fringe movement can be mistaken for the will of the whole. I feel like Anonymous acted too quickly and squandered the power that a lot of hard work and good intentions had gotten us. SOPA still may die, but I don’t think Anonymous has done anything lasting except create more enemies in the government than anybody concerned about Internet freedom would like to deal with.
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You raise some good points, but your first paragraph reminds me of a picture I saw yesterday of a sign a protestor was holding: “It’s no longer OK to NOT know how the Internet works.” It’s not a matter of the people trying to dumb down our arguments and actions so that our leaders can understand us; our leaders’ ignorance is their own fault, and we shouldn’t stand for it. Did Anonymous act irresponsibly? Maybe. It’s certainly not the first time they’ve done things like this. But the message they’re trying to get across is absolutely correct. And the fact that that the people making our laws fundamentally misunderstand the source of the problem is deeply concerning. If I can get on a bit of a soapbox here, I think this is one reason why we absolutely need term limits–get fresh blood into Congress, and keep it circulating. This is a very dynamic country, and in its current state, I don’t know if Congress is well-suited to respond appropriately.
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Look, I completely agree that their message is laudable in this case, but my concern is still primarily with the tactics. Ideally, yes, everybody in Congress would be as familiar with the Internet as are you and I, but that’s not the reality we’re actually faced with. It’s all well and good to say, “We need to elect Congresspeople who are familiar with modern technology,” but SOPA and PIPA in their current incarnations aren’t bills that are going to sit still and wait for our Congress (or those who are elected in the future) to catch up with the times. Your comment goes to the root of the problem, and I can’t say I disagree or am less concerned. But though the threat of SOPA/PIPA is just a symptom of the larger problem, if we don’t deal with the symptoms now and in an appropriate way, these bills could become codified into law, making them harder to remove and unleashing the multitude of problems that have so many of us so concerned. In an absolute sense, Anonymous is justified in their actions, but in an immediate, political sense, I think what they did will only set back what they (and we) are trying to accomplish, and I do call that irresponsible.
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I entirely agree.
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Guess what, MuseBlog? I’m currently in the middle of packing (okay, I’m nearly done) because this afternoon we’re going to Foshan for Chinese New Year! I can’t wait to see my grandparents/cousins/other family again, and plus CNY in China is always very exciting. I’ll have intermittent computer access – my dad is bringing his laptop for work, but I probably won’t have much spare time to be on the computer what with all the family things and festivities. So long!
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I’m hoping it will backfire on them, leaving less support for the bills. But wow. That was unexpected.
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KaiYves (and anyone with similar enthusiasms):
Have you heard that Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 capsule is moving from the Naval Academy to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston? You’ll be able to visit it!
Also, on Tuesday the New York Times reported that the Folio Society is reprinting all 12 issues of Robert F. Scott’s expedition newsletter, the “South Polar Times.” Unfortunately, it costs almost $1000 with shipping, but maybe your university library will order a noncirculating copy. (Reference: www . nytimes . com /2012/01/17/science/scotts-south-pole-times-penguins-hockey-and-serious-stuff-too.html .)
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I had not heard of either one before, thanks for telling me! I will definitely have to see Freedom 7 when it comes to Boston!
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Are we going to get a second Random Thread this month?
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We’re working on it.
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Tonight’s co-op special meal: Epic meal time special meal. Not sure what all is being made except they bought over 100 sliders from white castle and are planning to deep fry them and possibly wrap them in bacon.
Yesterday was Viva La France special meal. OMNOM. I crewed though and cleanup took over two hours x_x
Special meals coming up: Breadbowl meal on saturday, Snowflake day meal on monday (mmm lamb tacos), and sometime this weekend is one of our fabulous cook’s truffle oil meal. She’s using it in every dish.
Seriously sometimes co-op food is hit or miss, but we got some really good cooks in the sci fi coop this winter term and omnomnom.
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Wow. Co-op food meant lentils and brown rice in my day.
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So I went to the (one-room) archeology museum in the College of Arts and Sciences building to see if I could volunteer to work there, but the lady wasn’t there this week. Instead, three grad students were there, flintknapping (making stone tools using ancient methods). This was what I overheard:
First Grad Student: (making a mistake) “You know, doing this always helps me realize that there are failures that can appear in the archeological record.”
Second Grad Student: “Like us?”
First Grad Student: “No, we’re failures who appear in the archeological DEPARTMENT.”
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Aaahh! (Gasps for breath)
So, I finally broke through a massive swirling storm system of schoolwork to get here. (Mental weather: partly cloudy with a chance of essays.)
Anyways, hi again!
In an effort to sync with recent discussions, SOPA and PIPA: I think they are good in principle (protecting people’s online property), but they could bring down a lot of good sites. There is also a vigilante-justice part that I don’t like: it allows service providers to block sites without judicial oversight. Comments?
Also, I am seeking a chess game.
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Posting from China, where I’ve just discovered that Google Docs do not work. My resolution is due tomorrow…I shall have to work something out. Anyway I’ve been doing pretty much nothing apart from eating so far, but it’s been fun!
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Greetings, Selenium!
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Greetings, Robert! I’m just off to bed, but I managed to send off the resolution in time (it involved downloading it as a Word document from my email, finishing it all myself, and sending it directly the chairs without any final editing by my co-submitters, but that’s all right, I have sent it to them for their reference and anyway they should just trust me. )
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