This month, MuseBlog celebrates the issue that brought many newcomers to the blog: March 2006, the issue on the hot-button topic of racial prejudice.
The contest section of the issue instructed readers to take an online test and report the results on the blog. (At that point, Muse‘s publishers had not yet launched the Chatterbox or other interactive fan pages.)
Voilà ! Instant neophytes, some of whom are now paleophytes of long standing.
Ideas for future random threads are still welcome.
So, how did you like being squids?
It was fun! Though I had a full load of classes today so I missed much of it. I was ASTRATEUTHIS. Other people were guessable with varying levels of difficulty.
I particularly loved the emergent squid grammar — quasi-poetic line breaks, all capitals, with “QUESTION” and “WAS QUESTION” filling similar roles to the Spanish question marks.
I liked swimming about the endless deep and emanating my stories to other squids. FANTASTICAL SEEKER, if you couldn’t guess.
I also liked the blog design and all the fandom references we made.
I got to see it, but I was planning on posting later, which… didn’t happen. It was really fun to see, though!
And I agree about the grammar. (I thought it was “QUESTION WAS,” though…?).
Same here. I saw it, but never posted. I think I was busy that day so was only on my smart phone. I’ve posted a lot less and lurked a lot more since getting a smart phone.
Same here.
Also, my thanks to whoever MOON MUNCHER was. I didn’t realize that my squid persona had a reputation for nova-surfing, but that drew me to a new level of immersion in the convocation.
As I hoped it would. (I was MOON MUNCHER/CRUSHER. Also A LARGE SQUID, SLENDER TENTACLES, and cuddlefish.)
Really liked it. I want to keep being a squid.
LittleBasementSquid, though probably all of you guessed that.
SQUIDBLOG SO GREAT!!
ALSO I DIDN”T KNOW YOU WERE CUDDLEFISH TOO (THOUGH I KNEW IT HAD TO BE A GAPA), I squee’d mightily at how cute that post was.
I was pretty obviously “GIANT SPACE SQUID” and then “GIANT SPACE SQUID (ASTROTEUTHIS JADESTONII) when there were more people about.
VERY WELL INDEED
EXCLAMATION WAS
I
AM PLEASED
TO LEARN
OF THE EXTENSION
OF THE GAME
I was Musa Teuthis(?). Musa- Banana, Teuthis- Squid.
Meh, wish it was still open… it looked fun
It is still open, Squidwings.
Im half afraid to post on there though, because I am afraid i will say something wrong *Shaky grin and nervous laugh*
Don’t worry. The squids are friendly, except to crabs.
Since there’s no right thing to say, you can’t possibly say something wrong. If you want to post, go for it. If you’d rather lurk in the background, that’s certainly fine as well, but don’t hesitate to post on the basis that you think you’ll say something wrong.
Just post it in all capitals and make new paragraphs instead of using punctuation! That’s basically most of it
Go for it!
Catwings/Squidwings:
The idea is that these huge creatures are booming messages across space. They don’t have enough energy for long sentences, so they communicate in bursts like foghorns. They can’t change the tone of their “voices” (which aren’t based on sound, because it doesn’t travel through space), but they can pause while transmitting. That’s why the messages contain only limited punctuation.
That’s how I think of it, anyway.
I will forever regret not joining the ‘Blog when I got this issue.
I WAS GOING TO POST ONCE MORE TO WISH MY SQUID-SIBLINGS FAREWELL
WHY IS IT GONE BEFORE MIDNIGHT QUESTION WAS
THIS ONE HAS FOUND THE VERTEBRATE GATHERING PLACE KNOWN AS MUSEBLOG
THIS ONE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW AS WELL
QUESTION
WHY HAVE THE SQUIDS DISBANDED BEFORE THE VERTEBRATE TIME KNOWN AS MIDNIGHT
QUESTION WAS
*loosely translated from I AM SWAÞUSWIÞEBLACU* “The vertebrate who possesses the keys to the portal found it necessary to initiate regeneration through unconsciousness before midnight. Vertebrate design flaw. Answer is.”
THIS ONE IS PUZZLED BY TALKS OF DESIGN FLAWS
HOWEVER, THIS ONE MUST ACCEPT THE VERTEBRATE’S INADEQUACIES
THE GATHERING OF CEPHALOPODS WAS MOST PLEASING
THIS ONE THANKS THE VERTEBRATE POSSESSING THE KEY TO THE PORTAL
THIS ONE CONTINUES THIS ONE’S DRIFT
THROUGH THE WOVEN BEYOND
FAREWELL
“QUESTION WAS” is going to become A Thing around here, I think.
Squidblog confused me… Was there an automatic system translating posts into squid, or was everyone just talking like that? I was too scared to post, because I was worried I would mess up the pattern…
No, everyone was just talking like that. It’s pretty easy once you get into the rhythm, though. Just dive right in (pun intended)!
I was wondering that too! Just at first, though, then I noticed someone had posted in a different style, and decided I would have to do it on my own.
That was the issue that brought me to the ‘blog.
Also, squidblog was awesome, although i wasn’t able to spend any real time there because school.
No fair! It’s still April 1st for me…
Anyone get screenshots?
Everything is still there! You just have to go to the address directly instead of being redirected.
That’s right: http://www.squidblog.org .
I’ve re-opened the thread to comments so the squids can make their farewells and disperse in an orderly fashion. I closed it early last night because no one had posted for a couple of hours and, as Lady B. noted above, I needed to go to bed.
In fact, why don’t we keep it open all month? Squid time is slower than hideous-warmblooded-airbreathing-human time.
Yay! I have posted there now. I’ve been away from MB due to being busy all week, stopping only to drop in and read things (so I saw Squid Blog but had not yet emanated anything on there.) Other people should return so I have fellow cephalopods to talk to!
That is very nice.
Happy birthday, THF!
Oh, that was so awesome… The background was so beautiful and peaceful too. I wish I could’ve posted more than once.
Anyway, I tried the project implicit test once about fat/thin (I plead the fifth to those results). I’d stopped subscribing in 2006 but I found mention in the blog archives sometime in… 2010?
And the test on the Austrian subsection revealed that I was biased towards associating women with sciences and men with humanities (I wonder why</sarcasm), which is apparently the opposite of the popular bias.
I TRULY ENJOYED
THE SPACE CEPHALOBLOG.
IT WAS A WORK OF ART.
Did you like the little floating specks? I was very pleased with the way they turned out, though you probably needed a reasonably big monitor to see them.
The background for the site was BEAUTIFUL. I was vey impressed by the specs, especially the way they seemed to dim and get brighter as they floated. Unless that was just my monitor? Can’t check the page at the moment as it’s refusing to load. Bad internet here : /
(I am excited to go back and post more (I was going to write a song/poem to post yesterday, but work got in the way), but I’m waiting until I reach a word-goal (2500 total tonight, have 1856 now) in this essay I need to finish before I’m allowed to work on that).
oh also I loved the way the “close” stars moved when you scrolled in relation to the background! Very nifty
I DID SEE THE DARTING SPECKS.
THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL.
I THOUGHT THEY WERE COMETS
OR ASTEROIDS.
I WAS ALSO CONFUSED
AND ENTHRALLED
BY THE FLYING SQUARES.
I would just like to say that I still lurk around here occasionally, and the Cephaloblog yesterday was probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen anywhere. Much kudos to the GAPAs for thinking up such an amazing April Fools Blog.
Also, the Implicit tests look fascinating, and I will have to take them sometime when I am not supposed to be in the middle of doing my homework. *sidles off*
Armada! *pieglomp*
Hallo there.
I really enjoyed it, but after the first few replies, the whole thing was so unstable on my iPad I couldn’t load it at all. I was most sad.
Oh, and I posted as Erroneous Wanderer, which was probably plenty guessable.
Also you know, I’ve been pretty desensitized to what might be normally considered “weird” things I get from my college (the institution itself, not friends), but sometimes I just look at the subject lines in my Oberlin inbox and
“International Queer Tango Festival”
Well thats queer…
There’s a drag competition/dance/talent show being advertised all over my residence hall. Berkeley is a delightful place.
We had Classics Professors playing in a band a few weeks ago as an event. (Sadly, I couldn’t go.) That’s about the strangest thing recently.
There’s an annual drag show at my school, and the last one was hosted by the school’s chaplain. Who was unbelievably fabulous and incredible and wonderful and awesome.
Good news bloggers!;
but this one seems healthy enough so i hope nothing goes wrong.
i am getting a little pet kitten from my aunt Susie in a couple of weeks
He is a little gray-and-black tabby with black ears. I decided to name him panther
i hope he doesn’t have any deseases, fleas, or anything.
I have had a few cats before who i fell in love with, then they got sick and died
I hope everyone had a great April Fools Day– I texted my brother telling him the spaghetti trees he had ordered had been shipped and would arrive in about a week.
I told my friend on the phone that i was invited to… something called a “Ballroom” place where people dance in front of thousands of people and i was going to preform a new dance called “Ballet”
i wonder if pun-making is frowned upon in Museblog?
If it is, that hasn’t stopped anybody.
I feel like their spread is rather puncontrollable regardless of general opinion.
(With sincerest apologies to Jade.)
Yes, feel free to make puns here without any fear of pun-ishment.
its glad to know i don’t need to post your proper rules to stand up straight in the eyes of the ‘blog
(say that out lout kinda fast to get it)
Yesterday was pretty horrible! (excluding squidblog of course, that was a light in the darkness)
But today was pretty great and cancelled out most of the negative feelings!
Hoping the good-trend continues.
I just had a realization.
“Caketopping” is an insult.
An edible ball bearing is a caketopping.
Therefore, “edible ball bearing” can be used as an insult.
me too!
I have to say, these random threads are making me quite nostalgic for the golden era of Muse. I think I’ll have to go find some back issues on eBay or something.
Re: the Implicit tests, they’re quite interesting. I took three (abled/disabled, young/old, and gay/straight), and it’s pretty mindblowing how you can see the connections being made or refusing to be made even as you take the test. I got moderate preference for the non-discriminated group on all three, which was, unfortunately, sort of what I expected on at least 2 out of 3 – I have no illusions that society has left me untouched by prejudice. But I’m having a reeeeally hard time believing that I have an unconscious moderate preference for gay people over straight people, because that would be quite a lot of internalized self-hatred there that I apparently haven’t noticed? So I think I shall remain happily in denial about that for the time being.
Cobblestonepub dot com has all the back issues.
I’m confused about your implicit results: you said that it said you had a moderate preference for the non-discriminated group on all three. I’m sure every group has been discriminated against at least once, but you said it said you had a moderate bias towards gay people over straight people. From what I’ve seen, the former tend to get discriminated against way more often than the latter.
Whoops. I, um, meant straight people over gay people, and the “culturally and historically non-discriminated against” groups — straight, young, abled, etc. Sorry, this comes of trying to write things late at night. >.<
Every era of Muse is the golden era!
Disagree. There was a sharp downturn in quality of contents around the time of the Kudzu article.
I know there was a rough period of transition for a while, but lately I’ve been very impressed with the quality of Muse’s articles! I’m far outside the target age group now but still learned interesting things from the latest issue.
I took a couple of the Implicit tests. They were quite… interesting.
Oh wow. That was an amazing issue. I think I still have it tucked away somewhere – I’ve never sold, lost, given away or discarded an issue of Muse, so it’s there. I just have to find it.
I gather I missed the April Fool’s foolery?
This saddens me. I probably should have remembered to show up. What exactly happened?
You can see the day’s events at squidblog.org. It will stay open for comments during April.
I have a feeling the answer will be yes, but are any of the musicians here familiar with “Anne Bolyn/With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm”?
Yes, indeed. I’ll bet Paul knows it, too.
In fact, he may very well have known Anne Boleyn herself.
You mean BEFORE she had her head tucked underneath her arm, I presume.
Preferably.
My little sister turned 16 today. I can’t believe she’s this old already. I remember being sixteen. In a few more days I will be twenty.
This is incredibly disturbing…
In a few more days I’ll be 18… I was going to say “an
mature and responsibleadult”but that would be to great a lie and might short out the comment box.The weird thing is that people offline keep assuming I’m older- my own mom keeps referring to me as 19 (In fairness, most of my close friends are one to five years older than me). My sister has the opposite problem; she’s turning 15 and gets mistaken for 13 a lot. Honestly, I feel like I should be turning 15- there was supposed to be these things called maturity and responsibility ‘n stuff which were supposed to happen at some point and I think I should get a refund?
I mean, I think I’ve progressed somewhat in the last three years, but I’d consider myself as a nearly-functioning teenager at best.
Anyone have a time machine I could borrow?
Don’t worry. You get used to being old. Then you discover you aren’t.
Studying geology helps.
Or archaeology.
look on the bright side… You’re only 20. I just turned 23. *whimper* and in two years I graduate and become an adult and have to do adult things, and make decisions and be responsible and actually hold the lives of little furry creatures in my hands and not make mistakes or really bad things happen and eep. Time to go hide in a corner and try not to think about Life After School because it’s terrifying
I just ate an entire avocado with some crackers and am now about to settle in with tea and do the reading I need to have done for class tomorrow.
I am still awake and my friends from home are going to sleep now THIS IS PROBABLY SOME SORT OF SIGNAL THAT THINGS ARE A LITTLE WRONG ON MY END
That moment when you’re playing 20 Questions with a machine, and you’re thinking of a wildebeest, and it asks you if you can blow it up.
…Technically?
Haha, apparently most people said no to that. But they also said that it wasn’t awake at night, that it didn’t swim, that it didn’t bend without breaking (um, it has knees), that it didn’t go inside other things (zoos, anyone?), that you could sit on it (…also theoretically possible, but I highly doubt you could get close enough, whereas to blow it up, you would just have to make a bomb and–see, this is where it all gets subjective, because I interpreted “could” to mean, well, “could,” not “could within the boundaries of ethics”), and–get this–that it didn’t bring joy to people.
I can’t help but feel kind of sorry for anyone who apparently thinks gnus are so boring that not even two people in the entire world are likely to derive joy from them. I mean, really.
Merely the word “gnu” has brought joy to many, many people.
GNU/Linux has certainly brought joy to me!
What’s gnu with you?
*sings*
I’m a g-nu,
I’m a g-nu,
I am the g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo!
I’m a g-nu,
How do you do?
You really ought to k-now w-ho’s w-ho…
that is VERY hard to say out loud!
I feel as though we’ve been here before. It’s the equivalent of the tip of my tongue, except it’s the tip of my brain. Was there a time in history when the GAPAs had a rather long punfest involving the silent g?
Maybe it’s xckd I’m thinking of.
Was this Akinator?
No, it was 20Q.
Attention everybody! I know this is late notice, but I’m hosting a live online video chat about dinosaurs at 3 p.m. my time — that’s 2 p.m. blog time. Stop by if you like!Here’s the link:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/live-chat-what-have-we-learned-a.html
Never mind! Technical problems scuttled the chat. We’ll do it again, for real, on April 11.
I’m waiting for it to go up right now! Am I too late?
Sorry! Google Hangout let us down. We’ve called off today’s chat. We’ll try again on April 11.
Aww. Okay!
That’s why I’m happy to be a print journalist, with a little blogging on the side. Moving pictures? Just a fad. They won’t last.
Ooo! I’ll definitely want to get in on that
Finally! some sign of spring!
)
i found a robin outside in a tree in my front yard, and the sandhill cranes have been cooing nonstop outside in the forest near my house.
WINTER! GO AWAY, YOU’VE OVERSTAYED YOUR WELCOME! go back to the north where you came from! (too many exclamation points, eh?
(You know, randomly bursting into song at appropriate moments is fun).
“Winter’s on the wing!
Here’s a fine spring morn
Coming clear through the night:
Come the May, I say.
Winter’s takin’ flight,
Sweeping dark cold air
Out to sea: Spring is born!
Come the day, I say,
And you’ll be here to see it!
Stand and breathe it all the day!
Stoop, and feel it! Stop… and hear it:
Spring, I say!
And now the sun is climbing high,
Rising fast on fire,
Glaring down through the gloom!
Gone the gray, I say!
The sun spells the doom of the winter’s reign;
Ice and chill must retire!
Come the May, I say,
And you’ll be here to see it!
Stand and breathe it all the day!
Stoop and feel it! Stop… and hear it!
Spring, I say!
I say, begone, ye howling gales!
Off, ye frosty morns!
All ye solid streams, begin to thaw!
Melt, ye waterfalls!
Part, ye frozen winter walls!
See? See how it’s starting?
And now the mist is lifting high,
Leaving bright blue air,
Rolling clear across the moor,
Come the may, I say.
The storm will soon be by,
Leaving clear blue sky!
Soon the sun will shine;
Come the day, say I,
And you’ll be here to see it.
Oh, stand and breathe it all the day!
Stoop and feel it!
Stop… and hear it:
Spring, I say!”
I say! good song
It’s from The Secret Garden musical.
Ahh, yes. The issue that precipitated my highly embarrassing first post on the blog. Which was on the wrong thread.
Also, ooh, video chat! *is excited*
Airport airport, still awake! Scareybus went fine.
I am literally always in the furthest gate from life in airports.
Wearing my kokopelli necklace, and SOOOOOOOON!!!
HI I AM NEXT TO YOU IN PAUL’S HOUSE BUT HI.
HELLOOOOO I AM NEXT TO YOU AND ALSO TO PAUL HI
HI OMG LOOK TEA.
SO MUCH TEA!
Paul is very insistent about tea, and that I try marmalade (which was good!) and marmite (which I haven’t sorted out my feelings about yet).
Mel and I have a plan to be very insistent about Dragon Age, though.
(pssst Mel that is a plan we’re going to have)
Tea cures all. Coffee provides awakes.
Instant coffee turns everything into coffee.
Clearly I have lost any standards I may once have had.
Also fires, he insists on them. And crumpets. They will be enjoyed.
Dragon Age is now mandatory.
HI HI HIII!
Paul is the most insistent about tea, and then he forgets that he’s made it and it gets cold. It would be terribly funny if it weren’t such a tragic loss of tea.
ANYWAY HI ALL OF YOU I LOVE YOU I MISS YOU I HOPE YOU HAVING THE BEST TIME YAY!!!!!!!!
Hi to all of you!!!
*much envy abounds*
Oh, to be eighteen and free to kokonspire with my elders..
Alas, I still have yet more than a year (but less than two!) to wait until that hour arrives for me.
*glowers jealously*
Marmite is good, in certain quantities. I have a theory that Australians are actually forced to eat it because otherwise they die from over-exposure to kangaroos, which are actually poisonous in large amounts. Because I have no idea why they would eat so much of it otherwise.
Australia has enough dangerous animals without kangaroos being poisonous.
(I still loved my time there and would love to go back, though. Australia rocks!)
New fact! Kangaroos are poisonous!
did you know leaves can transfer their souls to other dead leaves?
I don’t remember what marmite tastes like, though I ate it when I was little. But the vegemite? It’s better than fruity oaty bars.
Actually, my family has poached egg on vegemite toast, with parsley and cheese, for breakfast a few times a week. And occasionally vegemite, lettuce, and walnut sandwiches, but not those for breakfast.
One of the world’s longest-lived dogs ate a steady diet of meat, including large amounts of kangaroo.
Bo strikes again.
I’m completely envious.
Marmite is the food of the gods! Vegemite is good, too, although I haven’t eaten it since That Incident in which my friend and I got really hungry at three in the morning and decided to eat it out of the jar with a spoon.
Incidentally, New Zealand is just now recovering from a disastrous Marmite shortage caused by the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch. I have heard it referred to as “Marmageddon.”
I’ve been very busy, but I wanted to share that on Wednesday night, I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Dr. Nicholas Reeves, formerly of the British Museum, who wrote “Into the Mummy’s Tomb”, one of my most fondly-loved books from the period in Middle School when I first got into archeology.
I told him as much, and he said “Turned you off, did it?”
“No, it inspired me!”
His lecture about the royal mummy caches of the Valley of the Kings and the mystery of whose coffin Ramses II was buried in (not his own!) was really great– a real archeological detective story.
So I’m almost 15 lectures behind where I wanted to be today…..Because I needed to use tomorrow to study my butt off for my respiratory exam next week…..
But last week was a crummy week for exams, and I got my new computer yesterday (really not sure how I feel about it, why isn’t it possible to make the system font bigger on Mountain Lion? and to increase the size of the close/minimize/etc buttons? Or is it and I’m just too darn stupid to do it? because I like the size everything was on Snow leopard, and now its half as big), and just yeah.
72% on my anesthesiology exam last week, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull that up to a B. It was our first exam, and we’ve got 2 more, and I’ve done good on the quizzes so far, but….i don’t know. I’ve managed to avoid C’s thus far, and I really don’t want to start getting them now, but….I just dunno. I really don’t care for anesthesiology, it combines my two least favorite subjects of vet school so far (respiratory physiology, which is the reason I got a B in physiology–missed an A by only 0.6% in that class, that was fun) and pharmacology, and just yeah. Really not my thing.
And I mean, I know C’s really aren’t a big deal, because I could be getting a solid C average, and that would still be considered perfectly fine for graduating with my DVM, but I have no desire to actually do that. I want to graduate with a *good* GPA (because I’m grade obsessive, what’s new?) and since obviously a 4.0 isn’t happening, I kinda want to graduate with honors, and I’m not quite sure what GPA I need for that (because it varies between all the little different colleges of my university), I currently have a 3.6 something, and while that might be high enough, C’s will pull it down, and I’m guessing below 3.5 definitely isnt any kind of honors anymore, and….yeah. like I said, grade obsessive. I’m actually disappointed that I’m *only* in the top 22% of my class, that there are actually 25 other students who are doing better than me (out of 117).
Somebody make me go work so I don’t hate myself Monday morning for not getting enough done……
dl;kadjfodkshodsj; vet school sucks.
typed my email wrong. :/
Luna:
Vet school is hard. You’re doing fine.
When I was in grad school and fretting about one of my courses (Operations Research, I think it was), a friend of mine asked me this riddle: “What do they call the guy who finishes last in his class in medical school?” The answer is “Doctor.”
Once you’re out of school and on the job, nobody is going to remember this semester or your final GPA. And the animals you’ll be helping won’t care about it at all. (The large orange cat curled up in my lap agrees.) Perfection is fine if it makes you happy, but it’s not a prerequisite for world domination. Thank heavens.
Here’s documentary evidence of the cat in question, purring her assent just after I posted the previous message. (That’s my right hand.)
Awwww, adorable. Thanks, Robert.
She’s adorable, Robert. Luna, you are so going to win at world domination.
That was Mishmish. Out of fairness, I should also show you my other cat, Mina:
The second picture is a more typical pose: moving too fast to stay in focus, and trying to go where she’s not allowed.
This one is just as adorable. I think it’s the ears.
I’m not sure whether their personalities come through in the pictures, but I often say that Mishmish is our sweet cat and and Mina our salty cat.
BAWWWW I’d tell you to stop showing off how adorable your cats are, but who doesn’t love cat pictures? :3
That, of course, is why she may covertly be a Stratocat.
Not so covertly, I’d say.
Aw, she’s a beautiful girl too.
Awwww!
the only other cat i see is the one in the mirror, but that one has an ugly scar on her face.
SO CAKING ADORIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!1!1!!1!!111
(Torturing the !/1 button)
i think i need to stop eating cupcakes for dinner…
Did you ever want to post something on here because there was nothing else to do, and you couldn’t think of what to say…?
All the time.
I’m here right now partly because I’m somewhat lonely, and mainly because I’m procrastinating on talking to someone. Yeah.
I am the last one awake.
AND NOBODY WAS SURPRISED
Paul keeps giving me tea and I only drink SOME but when you’re on a no-caffine lifestyle even a little has effects. Regretfully, I’m going to have to refuse any tea after noon probably.
Dear Cat’s Eye, Cskia, Chok, and R101,
Do any of you mind if I use the picture my mother took of us in San Fran for a school health project?
I’d be honored. What’s the project?
It’s about the health triangle of Physical-Mental/Emotional-Social health. I’m using the meetup for the Social side.
I am back from my band trip! Hello, MuseBlog!
Spring break! The final show of our school musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, was last night. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed being in the pit orchestra until now. Our cast party went until 1 a.m. and culminated in our marching out of a Denny’s while singing “The Company Way.”
So, I no longer have to get up at six in the morning on Saturdays for rehearsals! Having this much sudden freedom is pretty strange. I’ve decided to spend the week reading Hamlet and watching really campy science fiction. I also need to figure out how to get to the beach by public transit.
36- I would be very happy for you to do exactly that.
For the past week and a half, I was on spring break. My sister was over to visit, and we were all spending the vacation on Kittyhawk. That’s where the Wright Brothers conducted all their test flights and their first manned flights. Naturally, we went to the Wright Brothers’ Memorial. We also went to the historically legendary island of Roanoke, and of course we spent lots of time on the beach. I was basically having the time of my life.
On Friday, we had a long drive home. As soon as we got there, my mother called to say that we had to fly to California immediately because our great-grandfather was dying of cancer.
He died today. The entire family was there, including people I hadn’t met in so long that I had forgotten I ever knew them. He was on a hospital bed in the middle of his living room, and there was a nurse taking care of him as well as a rabbi to make things easier for the whole family.
My cousin (who I will call M&Ms) is having his barmitzvah at the end of the month. The talis he plans to use in the ceremony was our great-grandfathers, and the talis cover was too, but passed down to him by his own father. Since we knew our great-grandfather wouldn’t last that long, and since M&Ms is already old enough, the rabbi there performed an impromtu barmitzvah ceremony. Right as he placed the talis on M&Ms’ shoulders, our great-grandfather quite literally breathed his last breath.
I really don’t know how to feel. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in the real world. It only happens in cheesy, campy, not-particularly-well-thought-out books and soap operas!
God I’ll miss him, once I can convince myself that this is reality.
My deepest sympathy for the loss of your great-grandfather. I’m glad your family was able to be there with him.
Strange, how often deathbed scenes do seem to come together in ways that would seem unbelievable in fiction. My mother’s death was like that. There’s no correct way to feel. Nor is there one single way of feeling or even a standard sequence of feelings. Let yourself observe and experience whatever mix of responses comes to you. Feeling unreal is normal, too; our brains often give us that cushion for a few days. The unreality may be even more pronounced for you since the change of scene and emotions was so abrupt.
Thank you.
My sympathies, Randomosity, something very similar happened to my family this past fall.
(And if it doesn’t seem callous to change the subject, you’re lucky for getting to go to Kitty Hawk.)
I’m very sorry for your loss, Randomosity.
I’m sorry for your loss, Randomosity.
As am I.
I’m so sorry, Randomosity. My deepest condolences.
So sorry you’ve lost someone who meant so much to you.
At least he died surrounded by people he loved. When we have to go, that’s the best way to do it. I hope the almost magical manner of his passing brings you some comfort.
Thanks everyone.
The funeral was yesterday. We were all talking about how in life he was a really stubborn guy with a great sense of humor. We all said that it seemed that he had just one thing left he had to see before he could leave us – M&Ms’ bar mitzvah – so he hung on just until the end. We kept likening his stubbornness and stability to a rock. Right after the conversation, we were told that they had to delay the burial because of a boulder in the digging site.
Kai, it wasn’t callous at all of you to change the subject. I agree with you about Kitty Hawk.
So poking around Different Bits of the Internet today resulted in the discovery that Castle (formerly known as eragon, etc.) and I apparently have only one degree of separation in the
realoffline world – we share a whole bunch of friends, have gone to the same homeschool institutions, so on and so forth. This is probably the oddest/serendipitous thing that has happened to me in my memory (as well as the first time that I have ever gotten to use the word ‘serendipitous’ because it was the most fitting word to describe a happening by) – we are totally going to have to kokon sometime just so we can rejoice over the serendipity together.In other news? I am sick sick sick. I have this cold/flu thing that’s been going around everywhere, which means that today I had to skip acting class to lie around on the couch and go through inordinate amounts of tissues. I caking hate sinus infections. *sigh*
Feel better soon!
After two full days of work, my 23-page first draft of this essay is due.
*collapses*
In my sleep deprivation last night, I made up Mad Magazine style parody names for the people and concepts I’m writing about, I might do something with those later, maybe a Quick Reads…
But now, bed.
For curiosity’s sake, the ship names are:
The Atrocha (The [Senora Nuestra de] Atocha)
The Pizza Margarita (The Santa Margarita)
The Why-Duh (The Whydah, it’s actually pronounced “Wih-duh”)
(I’m not making listing the people’s names because I feel it’d be rude to make fun of real people, even people who may not have done very good archaeology.)
Wales!!
What kind?
I’m pretty sure she means the country, since the animal is spelled with an H. Also, I know she’s in that area.
Aww! now i cant make that joke…
hmmm, i will anyway,
Splashing!
The country, not the animal
It was very pretty!
I was shocked when I found out a moment ago, but…rest in peace, Lady Thatcher.
What did i do today?
I spent two hours trying to get a football out of a tree…
and the best part of it all was, everytime i threw something up there to, y’know like, try to knock it down, IT would get stuck up there too!
But finally i saw some tent poles lying there and connected them together to make a long pole, and knocked all my poop down.
Overall it was very tiring and im as tired as all heck…
I’ve done that before with an odd combination of hula hoops and jump ropes. It was tiring, but I found it fun.
How did you get them out of the tree?
I can’t quite remember, but I believe it involved a really long stick.
Your persistence and ability to improvise mark you as a valuable member of the Kokonspiracy.
Thank you James,
I’m not James, I’m Kai.
*says all in same tone withougt laughing*
Yes it is.
Not really.
I was making a joke.
You should laugh.
Now.
I command it.
I think she was (jokingly) implying that what you said sounded like something from a James Bond movie.
No, I just heard it somewhere on YouTube.
Never watched Bond
I have two pimples in the dead center of my forehead, one about an inch directly above the other… Could I be turning into some kind of Star Trek alien?
Are you experiencing violent urges and/or a sense of militaristic honor?
No more so than usual.
Have your eyebrows been getting narrower and thicker, have your ears been feeling strange?
Has your forehead been getting wrinkled, are you growing bumps on your head that reminds you of a chicken’s comb?
Are you turning transparent around the legs, have you been testing your brain to make your siblings dissapear?
Not that I’ve noticed, not really. (The left one has always been pointy, though. I call it my “elf ear”.)
No, and no.
No, and I wouldn’t know because I haven’t seen my siblings in several weeks.
Then you just have been watching Star Trek too much
Current goal in life: Marry Colin Morgan.
…..that’s cool, right?
As long as I can have Bradley James we’re good.
Fine by me.
Happy Christmas, Museblog!
Happy Christmas, Jadestone.
Well, that’s *one* way to make sure I don’t decide to extend my nap (and test the functionality of our smoke alarms)….
My flatmate just set the smoke alarms off in our apartment (one minute before my alarm was due to go off, and while I was still *quite* sound asleep). Given I probably would have chosen to prolong my nap by at least an hour, it’s hard to be too irritate, but…..Hello, this is a prime example of why when everytime you cook and boil water over, or splash out food, or whatever, clean the blasted drip pans under the burners. You would think, that for someone who claims to be a clean freak, especially when it comes to the kitchen, this girl would grasp that. And I have fairly low standards where cleaning is concerned, and I think our kitchen is positively disgusting. She cooks at least once a day, and has *never* washed the little drip pans under the electric burners since she moved in in August. They’re an oily, brown, charred, food encrusted mess. And I’m just surprised it’s taken this long for her to set the smoke alarm off (given I’ve set it off just by opening a preheated oven before and releasing a blast of heat).
So waking up from nap on schedule: good
“clean freak” flat mate who keeps the filthiest kitchen I’ve ever had the misfortune of sharing (and grosses out my extremely low clean standards): not good.
So, you bloggers have been mentioning “World domination” in the past few days. Does that mean that you are unatimously going to try this year?
We’re cooperating.
One does not archive world domination all at once, it is a gradual process, but hopefully we will move further along this year.
Hmm… did you ever think about who would be master of pies, and the jailor to cake?
Are you applying for either position?
not really… but while you ask…
Who’d be princess?
Durfle…
Just got a half-inch of snow this morning… that sucks.
But what sucks more is that possible snow will fall tomorrow, and the next day…
I wish i lived in Iowa, or California, somewhere where the snow isn’t so common as in Wisconsin…
And also, just imagine. In the Bovember thread last year, i was begging for snow, if any of you recall.
Send it here. My livingroom is almost 90 degrees right now.
My gosh, woman! How do you live in such dense weather?!
It’s called North Carolina. Summer came early. Plus my air-conditioning needs freon before I can run it, otherwise I’ll end up with a flooded garage.
Wow…
And its NORTH too!
Well, it’s north of something. But that’s true of every place on Earth, except the South Pole.
(Paraphrased from The Color of Friendship, because I haven’t seen that movie in years…)
“I know lots about South Africa!”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Uh… It’s south of north Africa?”
My head is facing away from the north now, because that is where my computer screen is…
So my head is facing south, but the BACK of my head is pointed to the north.
I wonder if you stood on the very center of the North Pole and got out a compass… where would it point?
That’s a good question! I feel like I read the answer to it in a Muse Q&A column once. Robert (or anyone else), care to enlighten us?
I don’t think I’ve answered that question before, but I might. The short answer is “straight down.”
It also depends on if you’re talking about the actual north pole or the magnetic north pole, no?
As she was asking about a compass, I assumed she meant magnetic north. But geographic north has some interesting wrinkles, too.
Of course i meant the magnetic version.
“Then how come you sound like you’re from the North?”
“Lots of planets have a north.”
Yes, summer came early here. I went from frozen to frying very quickly. Good luck battling the elements!
Nature is weird…
it is a VERY LATE spring here.
I live on one of the queerest (Thats a word?!) places in Wisconsin.
its kinda between Wisc and Min, so, the winters here are kinda long…
Yes, that is a word.
Knowing museblog, i just KNEW someone would agree with me that “Queerest” is a word, instead of agreeing that nature is weird…
Of course not to sound mean, but like, “If i know museblog”
It became summer over the weekend. I just got around to folding the laundry from last week that I’d washed the other day, and it was half long-sleeved shirts and wool socks, and half tank tops and shorts.
Conversations like this make me appreciate the beautiful weather in Seattle… 45 and raining in the winter, 65 and raining in the summer, and 55 and raining the rest of the year.
Rains a lot in Seattle?
It does indeed, it is within a Marine West Coast climatic zone, where precipitation is common all year ’round.
For comparison, according to my atmospheric sciences textbook, the average rainfall in Vancouver, British Columbia, within that same North American climatic zone as Seattle although a little farther north, is 146 centimeters or 57 inches of precipitation per year, as compared to the average of 81 centimeters or 32 inches for the city of Madison in your home state of Wisconsin.
Although Wisconsin (and my home state of New York and current state of residence in Massachusetts) are located within the so-called Moist Continental climatic zone, they are not nearly as moist as the Marine West Coast zone!
Like i said, nature is weird
It’s a defining feature! Makes the city and surrounding area beautifully green and lush, though.
A friend in Seattle just now told me she’d be happy to trade places with me. I’d take it if I could. Anything below 80 sounds good to me, rain or no.
It doesn’t rain here as often as people say it does. it just spends a lot of time being vaguely grayish.
Meanwhile, here in Northern California, the sun is warm, but not too hot, it’s not humid at all, and there’s a cool breeze in the afternoons. Plants are blooming all over and hummingbirds have established a nest in the tree in front of our house. It is truly a good time to be outside. Or inside. Or alive.(I’m actually annoyed by the weather, since last week I finally did what I set out to do last year and acquired both a nice warm winter coat and a pair of warm yet vaguely stylish boots. And somehow the city pool is still too cold to use. Still, everyone else seems to like it!)
Meanwhile, down here in Texas, it’s suddenly cool and rainy. The sky was cloudy all morning, the rain was mostly but not completely over by morning, and there’s just a bit of wind.
One of my favorite kinds of weather. Though I’d take the snow in a heartbeat, if it was offered.
It’s warming up again, of course. Tomorrow I’ll probably be commiserating with Rebecca.
Spring is in the air here in Chicago. The weird cycle of thunderstorms has begun again.
I had a few thunder boomers in the past two days. The remedy i always use is, my DS, a good book, buried under blankets and pillows in your bed, or the most comfortable spot in your house, a stuffed animal.
THOSE are what make thunderstorms fun!
Tornadoes however, spoil it all
You are lucky by the way, i had some snow just yesternight (Yester-day night? how can it be both?
)
Squids. I also got barraged by the heavy white stuff. Second day in a row.
Airport again
fun kokon week over. And now back to the reality that includes a 2000 word essay due tomorrow that I have yet to start. Sigh.
Good luck with your essay!
Guys- i wonder what you feel about your names, like the long ones (Like dat Cello-Playing Mathematician ova dere! Yes you!) i mean, typing them in every day for the ‘Blog. Is it hard, fun, or just you feel like you have to.
if you have a very long name then would it be hard, i just dont know. Unless your name is recorded into the blog’s seret files and stored in the top-secret-files-that-have-no-name-other-than-ones-with-lines-like-this-one on they’re computers so you dont have to type them in everyday.
If you like having a long name then what inspired them i wonder? (I typed it wrong and “Winder” is a word?)
Well, my name is currently extended to remind me to get back to composing my film score. But normally I keep it short, just Agent Lightning. Also, my computer just automatically fills in the name boxes with whatever I wrote last.
My computer remembers my name, and I assume this is true for others as well. Or there’s an option when logging in to have the website log you in automatically whenever you come here.
It’s been ages since I actually entered my name.
Museblog remembers my name for me. It’s quite convenient, although my name is short and I don’t typically add anything onto it, except for special occasions. In fact, I’ve never had any major name change on here–this is the name I made my first post under. It just stuck on as my username for pretty much everything!
Jadestone is a pretty good name.
(I had to change mine, fron Catwoman to Catwings when my cat wings grew)
And here I thought it was a reference to the book…
Hello, everybody! Remember that dinosaur livechat I told you about last week? The one that didn’t happen? Well, we’re trying it again.
It allegedly starts at 3 p.m. our time (2 p.m. blog time) — less than 15 minutes from now. Be there, or be extinct! Here’s the URL:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/live-chat-what-have-we-learned-a.html
I am very much enjoying this. Dinosaur dung!
OH GOSH IS IT STILL GOING I HOPE THIS WILL LOAD ON MY INTERNET
(pffff what essay I still have not started)
Caught the last few minutes, but I’ll watch the whole thing later (AFTER THIS ESSAY PERHAPS).
I didn’t remember that Stephen Brusatte was the one with the chickens/dino bird connection work! We talked about his stuff in my Evolution of the Earth class (we spent a LOT of time on all sorts of dinos/extinct animals).
I just got out of class and saw this and got on RIGHT as you said goodbye.
But at least I saw that much, right?
I, too, caught the last few minutes. Waiting for the recorded version to become available.
I went offline just minutes before Robert posted the reminder and just got back on. Drat. Knew I should have written it down on my calendar.
Dang! I missed it, I was rescuing kittens from my neighbor’s wall.
I missed it, too. I had school.
I have now watched about half of it. Excellent stuff!
Try and guess what i just did…
I rescued two little kittens from my neighbor’s wall.
They were both orange, they have green eyes, and gray tails.
My aunt was visiting and she heard mewing in my neighbor’s walls and she informed [neighbor] So they called my dad over to help.
We took one home, and because we had to go through some poison ivy (Gaak!) to get to them, I named him “Ivy”
Man, rescuing my own kind is tiring and dangerous, but for some reason i feel like a heroine… for no reason.
Well, a heroine, besides the fact that at SkyRock i saved my whole tribe… other than that there is no reason i feel like a heroine.
That’s awesome, Catwings! You are a heroine!
Well done!
Also, I was wondering–have you read the Warriors series by Erin Hunter?
The books are about tribes of warrior cats who live in the wild. I started reading them when I was your age and I was a big fan. There’s a lot of books out in it now, but the first set in the series is 4 books and starts with “Into the Wild.” You follow the main cat character in that one for many books, although later you get other cats as main characters.
You should look them up! I think you’d enjoy them, if you’re not familiar with them already.
I love those books!
I just started on the new prophecy last week.
Nice! I read up to the first book of Power of Three (which a friend had gotten), but nothing since. I’ve been thinking of going back and reading them sometime for a nostalgia trip. For “children’s” literature, they got surprisingly dark. I remember crying several times during the first few series, you can probably guess where.
While it was never really superb writing, I was very fond of them. Back in the day there were a lot of online sites devoted to the books where you could create and roleplay your own characters with other people’s, but they all died out around five or six years ago.
Haha, I definitely went through a Warriors roleplaying phase. Some was online, but enough of my middle school friends were fans with me that we actually played offline as well. I distinctly remember one day in fifth grade when the standardized testing finished early and they let us play in the grass field behind the school for the rest of the day. There was a giant hill, and we were playing Warriors. My group was one clan, and a different group of girls was another, and we had real battles and intrigue and everything. It was awesome.
Power Of Three i haven’t gotten to yet, but reading another awesome book series hasn’t left me with enough time to read “Midnight”
and
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
i have just gotten to the part where Brambleclaw had the second dream.
in one week…
i am a lazy warrior fan because im too busy with that other series.
I’m pretty sure they didn’t all die out so long ago. I did a lot of Warriors roleplaying online about two or three years ago, and I never came anywhere close to running out of options, even though I was only on about two sites and only one was even a Warriors site (the other was the Cricket Chatterbox, which used to be overrun with them. They did die out there, but that was partially due to complaints about how they were taking over the site, and besides, that was much later than you’re saying they died).
So, about that film score…
I can’t write for full orchestra because I don’t have a full orchestra, but I do have a ragtag band of my friends, which means about six high school freshmen plus my tuba-playing eleven-year-old sister.
Also, I have decided not to pay for composing software, so I’m using Finale Notepad, which has its drawbacks.
Despite these roadblocks, I have made:
The opening theme
The president’s theme
The king’s theme
The assassin’s theme
A random ditty which I really like the sound of but will probably serve no purpose in the actual film
The movie hasn’t actually been filmed yet, so I can’t write most of the score, but I think this is a good start…
Excellent work!
For future reference, have a look at MuseScore. It’s an open source (ie free) notation package, and it’s not bad.
MuseScore, eh? I like the sound of that.
I’ve had a lot of people recommend it to me, so I think I’m going to try it.
Drat, I missed it. But at least I can watch the recording…
Housing nightmare over. We didn’t get the suite we applied for, and my current suitemates are moving out. I’m rooming with a friend who’s coming back to school, and my current roommate found a new roommate (just tonight), and they’ll live in my current suitemate’s old room. Hopefully these last-minute housing decisions will work out as well as previous last-minute housing decisions. I feel like they will, though. My roommate and I are good together, my friend who’s coming back and will be my new roommate and I are really tight, and the new girl seems really cool. So, yay.
Now to do homework and not melt because it’s approximately a billion degrees in my room and my hands are sweating SO MUCH, and then to contra!
Next hugely stressful thing: registering for classes for next semester, and managing to read four books for three classes in the next month. *whimpers*
sooooo for various reasons I didn’t really start writing until 11pm. But now I have 661 words at least, and can hopefully bang out another 500 or so in the next hour… probably should get more than that done before I attempt a few hours of sleep actually… D:
Why do I do these things to myself. Past Jade is pretty dumb. Present Jade is none to pleased.
Have you seen a speech called “Four things I wish I had been told when I began a career in research” by Paul (“Jim”) Roscoe? Tip number two is that writing a paper always takes four times what you think it will. Number four is about the day you realize you have two selves. “Self Number One is a blithering, irresponsible, drooling idiot” who blithely makes all the plans and promises that Self Number Two “the poor, long suffering, self-sacrificing self” actually has to carry out.
His name is Paul (“Jim”) Roscoe? Isn’t that like being Rebecca (“Kimberly”) Lasley or Robert (“Frank”) Coontz?
Thanks to an improv I was known as “Daisy” to my drama class in high school—to the point that at least some of them forgot I had any other name. Maybe something similar happened to him.
Then again, my artistic obsession of the moment, could legitimately be styled “Walter ‘Bob’ Anderson.” His middle name was “Inglis,” so that doesn’t explain anything. If I knew why his friends and family called him “Bob,” I’ve long since forgotten.
I seem to remember past Jade having a lot of fun recently, and some irreponsible person encouraging her. If I were you, I’d blame it all on the aforesaid person.
Great Muses, my friends must be the most wonderful people in the history of the universe!
P.S. All Musebloggers are my friends.
Awww
So after dinner today, my family and I are going to see “Up on Poppy Hill,” the new studio Ghibli movie. This is only the second Studio Ghibli movie I’ve seen in theaters (the first being Ponyo), and I’m pretty excited. I will let all of you know how it was after I get back!
I’m excited for you!!! It doesn’t open anywhere less than two hours away from me until July (and even then it’s an hour away, in a very crowded mall)
Happy Yuri’s Night, everyone!
I was just thinking – 70% of the Earth is covered in water. That’s a lot of dinosaur pee.
I resent the fact that i rule dinosaur pee!
And you drink it. Have a nice day!and i am going to drink your gut juice… have a nice day
Spoken like a true cat.
Speaking of dinosaur pee, everyone who has consumed it had died.
I think you mean the vast majority of people (and other organisms) who have consumed it. I, for one, despite having consumed my share of dinosaur pee, am not yet dead. I think. Probably.
No, you are a ghost, a slime monster is dictating the post for you! Of course you are alive! Ihe dino pee (or DP) we have consumed just turns into humanoid pee… so it makes no diffrence…… right…?
it is 1:30am and I need to be up at 6am and I am not tired despite only sleeping 3 hours last night (only partially due to essay, I just couldn’t fall asleep), I just made 52 nutella cookies (started around 11:30pm finished about 1)
and then Iw as all “OH WELL I’LL JUST WHIP UP A QUICK BATCH OF MUFFINS
HMM THIS RECIPIE LOOKS GOOD, IT MAKES NINE, BETTER DOUBLE IT”
that was a bad idea there is probably enough batter here for 35 muffins what do I do
(((answer: refrigerate, go to bed)))
Just realized we’re essentially taking 22 credit hours this block (they call it 11, because a block is half a semester, but….yeah).
We have 7 lectures of companion animal medicine a week plus a 3 hour lab. 6 toxicology lectures. 4 anesthesiology lectures plus a 1 1/2 hour lab. 4 lectures of small animal surgery plus a 2 hour lab.
That’s 27 1/2 hours a week just sitting in class. And, what, your’e supposed to study 2 hours per credit hour, right? I feel like that’s right, and in reality that’s not really enough, but let’s go with that. that means we’re suppose to study 44 hours a week, plus attend 27 1/2 hours of lecture.
So….that’s 71.5 hours, minimum, that we should be studying? Budget in an hour a morning getting ready, an hour lunch break between classes times 5 (so add 10 hours for weekdays), an hour for dinner every day (add 7), and we’ll say 30 minutes for shower/getting ready for bed. So 20.5 hours on minimal, basic needs. And that’s assuming I only eat one meal on the weekends.
So 71.5 + 20.5=92 hrs. wait. accoridng to that math, I hsould be able to be getting 10 hrs of sleep a night. and still getting over 7 if I add another hour of study per credit hour. Why am I only getting four.
apparently I waste about 4 more hours a day that I could be sleeping. Ugh.
3 exams, one a piece monday through wednesday t his coming week, and I’m 11 lectures behind where I wanted to be. That’s at least 11 hrs behind, and so so so so so much studying.
I really don’t like this block. 22 credit hours of classes, at the difficulty level (and volume level they present it, usually at least 60 dense powerpoint slides of information per lecture hour), is cruel and unusual punishment and should be illegal. and to think we’re all actually *paying* the school to be tortured like this.
I need a vacation.
Is there an aquarium in your city/town or a marine science lab on campus? I find taking an hour on weekends to watch the fish is very relaxing.
Also, getting a totally fun book not related to your classes to read at lunch and before bed makes a nice mental break.
Sometimes an imagination vacation is the best you can hope for.
Dear MuseBlog,
When I posted that I was leaving the blog last year, I was in an everyone-thinks-the-worst-of me attitude. I pushed myself away from a lot of really fun people. It took me until today to realize that no one thought of me as an irritating person, especially not you guys. I might not post as much as I used to, but I felt like you all should know that you are amazing people and I’m thankful to know about you!
Welcome back!
Welcome back, Agent Hippie! I’ve never thought of you as irritating, and I’m glad you realize now that we all appreciate you very much. I’m thankful to know you, too!
Welcome back, we’re glad to see you around again!
Hi! Yeah, I never found you irritating.
Do, stick around.
HIPPIE YOU’RE BACK!
Welcome back! *pies*
AGENT HIPPIE! I missed seeing you around the Blog. You were never irritating. Funny, but never irritating.
Hello! We are all glad you are back!
Welcome back!
Welcome back, it’s good to see you again!
I might be leaving the blog soon. I’ll keep my gravatar and name for when I come back, but I’ll still lurk around. You guys mean so much to me.
Aw, okay…well, see you around!
I’m sorry you have to leave…
I hope you come back soon! You were a great addition to our blog.
Be back soon!
Aww… Hopefully you won’t be gone too long
Aw. I hope you don’t have to be gone too long. Take this?
A pie for the road is always appropriate and almost always welcome.
(And a slotted spoon will hold a potato.)
Wha…?
I have this absolutely mad plan to drive up home to go to an 18th century event in two weeks. It just means that I need to finish two papers a couple days early and make up about 8 hours of work. Which is going to be annoying, but possible.
I’m not sure whether this is actually worth it or not, but I’m doing it anyway. Also I’m partially justifying it because I have to renew my driver’s licence (apparently before it says it expires? weird). That’s valid, right?
Anyway, I talked to my mom tonight and we discussed my coming up and logistics and all, and we’re staying in the barracks (it’s at a French and Indian War era fort) instead of camping, so we’ll have a fireplace. I promised I’d do at least a bit of cooking. I’m going to play house. 18th century house. I’m so excited.
I figure Robert is the best person to ask about this, since he’s mentioned knowing researchers who dove in the Alvin submersible… What exactly is the naming scheme for the Alvin-class? Alvin is named for a scientist who pushed for its creation as well as jokingly for a cartoon character, Turtle apparently named for a place as well as for the US’ revolutionary war submarine, and Sea Cliff is named for a town and a type of marine environment.
In a future issue/chapter of “Into the Cosmos”, I want to feature a dive to a hydrothermal vent field in an Alvin-class sub (there is a lot written about Alvin, so it should be pretty easy to find references), but because Alvin is undergoing renovation and not diving and because having it be damaged or destroyed in the course of the story would contradict reality and I just plain like Alvin too much to let him get beat up (I’m still working out the plot, so I don’t know if the minisub will get damaged or not, but this is a superhero story, so the possibility is always there), I don’t want to use Alvin itself.
However, out of the other Alvin-class minisubs, Turtle is now a museum display and Sea Cliff and Nemo (if it existed, it’s kind of complicated) are Navy-use-only and not available for civillian scientists.
So, even though I dislike contradicting reality in ItC, I guess this is one case where I have to go “Well, the Marvel Universe is not our Universe, and it’s possible an additional Alvin-class DSV was built as the result of events that happened differently in that timeline.” (I hate having to use that argument, and I would never, for example, create a sixth space-capable NASA shuttle out of thin air, but it looks like it’s necessary here.)
But if I DO have to create a minisub, then I am darn well going to make it as realistic as possible, hence the naming question.
Having come to the conclusion that I can’t people, I immediately lurk on the R&R thread.
I think I’m doing this wrong.
I have discovered that if I am feeling lousy it is occasionally helpful to find the most ridiculous armor/outfits for female video game or comic characters and creatively Photoshop them until they look less terrible. It’s oddly cathartic.
Also today I was avoiding taking a practice SAT and inadvertently learned about half the Madoka soundtrack on my violin.
This is why I never get anything done.
You might be interested in Project Rooftop, it’s a website for redesigns of superhero costumes by various artists.
Or Project Hawkeye. *coughcough*
Do you mean The Hawkeye Initiative? That’s also a good site.
I’m flying back tonight; school starts on Wednesday. It’s slightly depressing firstly because I definitely don’t want to leave home/Hong Kong, and also because I have those all-important exams starting in less than a month for which I’ve definitely been putting off revising. They appear to be less far away than I had been thinking all along, argh. But on a more positive note, I have had a great time being home. A case of all good things must come to an end, perhaps?
Whee, last-year-of-school things!
Maybe Voldemort will show up and exams will be cancelled?One can only hope.
Ahh, in some ways, I wish it were my last year of school. I’ve got one more academic year to go after this one before university (for which I admit I’m – very prematurely – excited).
I wholeheartedly agree with wishing exams could magically disappear, though. I’d welcome Voldemort over them anytime! I also wish I was (no idea how, but somehow) already accepted into places, and absolutely certain of being on track to be successful. The future is a Daunting Place.
The future is your dominion. You’ll see.
Oops, sorry.
Not sure why I forgot that. Uh, I agree with Robert about world domination.
47 DEGREES!!!!!
My thoughts go out to all of the MuseBloggers who live in the Boston area or who have family or friends there. I hope you are all safe.
This is one messed up world we live in.
What? you a hippie, maaan?Sorry… *cough*
Huh?
You are agansed life and the world….
you wanna be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
………………………………
That does it… no more cupcakes for dinner
Please explain how, precisely, being concerned for the safety of MuseBloggers’ and their families/friends in the Boston area makes me against life and the world?
sorry… i was trying to be funny.
I was in Kenmore Square from one to about two fifteen cheering for the runners in the marathon. We saw the wheelchair racers and the first men and women go by. I went into the BU Bookstore and bought a Captain Marvel comic and two cheap ping-pong plastic paddles to bang together because I my hands were tired from clapping. I was right past the Mile 25 marker and I stayed there until about two fifteen clapping and shouting “Come on, one more mile, almost there, you can do it!”
I felt like I was losing my voice, and I had to get lunch, so I came back to my dorm and had a sandwich and finished reading my comic book.
And then my Dad called me and said there had been explosions at the finish line and people were hurt. And I got texts from the BU alert service telling us to stay inside our dorms. And the cell network got tied up and I couldn’t call my parents, just text.
I ran to the other side of the cafeteria to look in the direction of the Prudential Center and the finish line. I didn’t see any smoke, but there was a helicopter hovering overhead. There were girls crying in the hallway outside because their friends had been there or they thought their friends had been there and didn’t know and were scared.
Dear god, what happened to those runners I cheered on? Were they at the finish line when the explosion happened? What happened to the other spectators?What happened to that little girl I gave the paddles to when I went to lunch? Did they move further up the route?
Glad you’re safe–hopefully more information will become clear in the next few days. *hugs*
There’s about eleventy million theories because it was an important day for North Korea, but it was also Tax Day, but it was also Patriots’ Day except it wasn’t actually the anniversary of the beginning of the Revolutionary War because that’s the 18th, but Friday is also 20 years since the siege at Waco, but Friday is also 18 years since the Oklahoma City bombing…
(It was also the day the Titanic sunk and the day Lincoln was shot, but those probably aren’t relevant except to prove that holy cake April really is the cruelest month…)
And it looks like it had nothing to do with any of those… although it is still relevant that April may be the cruelest month.
Is anyone catching this Boston Marathon stuff? I mean… dang.
I heard it was a big blowout.
I feel kind of guilty for finding this so amusing.
Catwings… that really isn’t okay…
Seriously, Catwings? Three people are dead, hundreds more inured, many of whom had their limbs ripped off in the explosion, and you think it’s an appropriate time to be making tasteless jokes?
I realize you’re only a little kid, but at 11 years old you’re still old enough to exercise a little bit of common sense and tact. Why don’t you look at some of the pictures of the carnage and then come back here and tell me if you still think that’s funny.
*injured
I am sorry i was so callous, guys…
I know what has happened was devastating and i know people were hurt and i didn’t mean to seem careless.
I only make jokes, not to make fun of people who unfortunately got injured in the incident.
HA HA THEY GOT THEIR FACE BLOWN UPNo, I would never do that… I was just trying to cheer everyone up, find some humor to make some dim areas a little brighter. But it truly wasn’t to say i didn’t care about the people who were hurt, I understand their feelings because i knew someone who’s sister got killed in a fire. Nothing like this has happened to me, which makes me more aware about the pain that some people go through, maybe everyday.I am sorry i sounded cruel or heartless.
Your apology would come of a lot more sincere if you weren’t continuing to make insensitive flippant jokes both in this post and in your post time stamped 3 minutes later (#81).
Some things aren’t funny. And they sure as heck aren’t funny barely 24 hours after the tragedy. Show some respect to the victims.
If you want people here to respect you as an intelligent human being, then think before you post those sorts of comments. Because quite frankly I’m sickened by your levity at the situation.
And I realize that you and perhaps others here may feel that I am overreacting, but I fail to see any humor in your bomb jokes, that you continue making (even in the midst of an apology for making them). I’ve seen to many pictures today of blood streaked sidewalks, a young man barely older than I am with his legs ending in mangled, bloody tatters just below his knees, and heart wrenching stories from people such as the father of the young 8 year old boy who died. In addition to losing his son, his six year old daughter lost a leg and his wife went into surgery for head trauma. Children, your age, being seen at the ER from shrapnel wounds with nails stickiing out of their flesh all over their body.
So yes, between the graphic images and descriptions that I have seen/read in the last 24 hours, your continued commentary (after having been politely reprimanded) does sound cruel and heartless.
If you really are “aware about the pain that some people go through”, then realize that your continued jokes are not appreciated by others here, and kindly restrain the urge you have to continue posting them.
I think Catwings was serious in her way, Luna, but I don’t think you’ll talk her into being solemn. It’s not in her nature, yet.
Ok. i realize i am just an immature adult, no need to remind me… i guess i am just not old enough to be your friend anymore. i suppouse i need to come back to the blog when i am a little older and more mature enough to not make anymore “Tasteless jokes”. And i failed to see where the “Tasteless jokes” i were making, actually were in my post.
And when i do make jokes, i hope for them to make people laugh, not to make them hurt my feelings. and i actually DID understand what the people must have felt was terrible. But if you say i didn’t i guess i really didn’t. All i do with my time IS make “Tasteless Jokes” and hope for people to laugh at my sense of anti-humor which i guess i need to improve.
I hope that the part of the blog that still likes me will understand that i guess i am just not old enough, or responsible enough to stay any longer.
Goodbye.
Catwings, my intention was not to make you feel like you can’t/shouldn’t remain on the ‘blog. We have all said and done things (on the ‘blog or in real life) that were immature or inappropriate for whatever reason (and many times, without realizing our mistake).
There is nothing wrong with jokes most of the time, but I feel that some things just shouldn’t be turned into a joke (such as the bombing in Boston). As a point of clarification, since you seem to be honestly unaware of what you are saying that I consider tasteless, I am referring to your comments about the events in Boston being “a big blowout” (75.1), “HA HA THEY GOT THEIR FACE BLOWN UP” (75.1.3.2), and “boom boom” (81).
I did not say, or at least did not intend to imply, that you did not understand that what people felt was terrible (nor could I possibly claim to know what you do or don’t feel), but rather requested (or intended to request) that you extrapolate that understanding to those such as myself that didn’t appreciate the jokes about the tragedy.
I am not asking or trying to shame you into leaving the ‘blog. I am only asking that you perhaps take an extra moment of thought before posting a joke about such things.
I apologize if I hurt your feelings, I was just trying to explain how some of your comments come across to others, and why we find them upsetting.
that HA THEY GOT THEIR FACE BLOWN UP part was reeffering to what i would NEVER do. i wasn’t DOING it.
Unfortunately, by referring to something that you would never say, you did, in fact, just say it. That may not be your intent, but it’s how it’s perceived. And that was not how I interpreted your comment, despite what you may have intended. The “No, I would never do that” comment following the aforementioned statement came across as a sarcastic “Haha, I would never do that (even though obviously I would because I just did)”.
I believe that may not have been you intention, but please understand how such a comment might be perceived by others.
Ok… im sorry… i guess i am just not sensative enough yet…
Now i feel like im not worthy to be your friend
that was NOT sarcasm!
Apology accepted. And we can still be friends.
I think you just unintentionally created an example of preterition / paralipsis (it’s called both things), which is a. my favorite rhetorical device and b. is when you mention something by saying that it shouldn’t be mentioned – “If I weren’t so polite, I’d say that you smell bad”. Shakespeare uses it a lot in his famous Friends, Romans, Countrymen speech, I believe.
excuse my grammer nerd rant
Otherwise known as “having your cake and eating it, too” — or, more accurately, as “eating your cake and having it, too.”
Catwings, can we imagine for a moment how this may have played out if we were all sitting together in a cozy cafe? It’s so different when there are expressions and body language to read. I imagine a somber mood settling over us as we adsorb the news, even if it has been some time. I think anyone there would be less likely to make tactless comments due to that mood alone, but it’s still possible. If so, there would be a whole host of reactions that we can then interpret as social cues: harumphs, rmmms, gasps, sighs, glares, glances… I know I would immediately feel terrible, and my expression in turn would communicate so much; that I’m already so confused and saddened, and now a coping mechanism that’s worked in the past has only hurt my friends more.
Humor is a delicate thing, and dark humor can help some people through dark times, but it’s near impossible to tread that path in a room full of people whose faces you can’t read. I doubt you would’ve made such a mistake in that imaginary cafe.
I should have put a
there in the first place, eh?
Okay, I know I’m really late to the conversation here, but I think I finally realized exactly what Catwings was having an issue with.
It’s true that humor can help alleviate the pain of things sometimes. It’s less advisable, however, to attempt to make a joke about the tragedy itself. This is exemplified by Gilbert Gottfried, who was doing a comedy routine shortly after 9/11. He made a joke about the attacks, which was…not very well-received. Then, though, he covered for it by telling a certain joke that In any other context would have offended absolutely everyone, and he got a standing ovation.
So I think her original sentiment was good. She just didn’t quite realize how to carry it out.
Based on her comment in post 115, I think you are giving her far too much credit. She was deliberately trying to antagonize people so that she could play the victim and storm off the blog.
(Intended respectfully:) I don’t think all this analysis is very productive, and although I can’t speak for Catwings, I would feel hurt if it was directed at me. It doesn’t seem to help. Could we all move on?
People in Boston–you’re all ok, right? Please stay safe.
KaiYves is safe. Do we have any other Boston-area MBers?
Yeah, anyone else in Boston, please check in. I’m worried.
Kai, I’m glad you’re safe.
So. It becomes apparent that these twelve months are not so far being a great twelve months for the residents of New England.
I’m… not sure really what to think. The only thing I can think is ‘thousands and thousands of people come to this race, the fact that less than thirty of them were injured is pretty incredible’… I think I’ll probably get around to processing the rest of the facts by sometime tomorrow.
I was nowhere near Boston, but I’m a bit worried about the Boston-area MBers. I’m not sure how many of them post regularly anymore, but… Pseudonym? SudoRandom? Keiffer? Other people? I can try emailing them, and let the blog know what I hear or not, if that’s okay with the GAPAs.
I thought some of the latest numbers were saying around a hundred had been injured? Some fairly seriously from what I’ve read….and 3 dead, including an 8 year old child
Although that is still a comparatively small number given how many people could have been killed/injured
Do let us know what you hear about the Boston mbers
A graduate student from BU is one of the dead, and at least one other BU student has been hospitalized, but is stable.
At the time of my posting, I think the official count was something like 2 dead and 23 or so injured, but yeah, I’ve also heard that the numbers have gotten a lot higher since then (something like between 175 and 200 injured). I’m really hoping that there will be more information released soon.
I haven’t yet heard from anyone other than Nym and P_M so far. I’m reeeeeally hoping that’s just because they don’t check their emails much.
…Nobody from the blog goes to BU, do they?
Armada: Yes, KaiYves does.
But she’s okay. Thankfully. And that’s everyone?
Update: Pseudonym and his sister are all right. I have yet to hear from anyone else, though *eyes clock* this is unsurprising, given the hour. Good night (or early morning, if you prefer), MB.
Enceladus is okay, he’s in France.
The bombs were apparently homemade, which sort of explains how relatively few people were injured. But I’ve seen higher estimates for the amount of injured people. So I don’t really know.
Yes, please.
Sorry for taking so long to respond to this, but Sudo is fine. I’m going to see if I can find out about Keiffer next.
I left a post but it seems it was eaten by the spam filter…
I haven’t heard from anyone about Keiffer yet, which strangely makes me nearly positive that en’s fine.
It was, but it’s back now.
Keiffer is fine.
I’m very glad all the Massachusetts MBers seem to be OK.
Just one random question;
I am making a video series about four horses who get together and have adventures (Inspired by Dukes of Hazzard) and i need a name for the group that they create…
What is a good name for a group of horses who look like they belong in dukes of hazzard?
help I’m having a lot of feelings about Johnny Cash right now
I keep adding to my collection of terrible chemistry pick lines. Help.
MATURE? ME?! I STILL LAUGH WHEN SOMEONE FARTS!Cupcakes will send me to Boom Boom land for sure…
Oh, hey, GAPAS, please remove this comment, IT ADDS A BIT OF HUMOR TO THE BLOG. I APOLIGIZE I DON’T KNOW WHAT CAME OVER ME!
I was debating whether to post this or not, but I’m going to go ahead because I think it’s something that all of us have needed to learn at one point or another. I know I have.
When someone objects to something you say or do, there are two main ways of reacting. The first way, and the easy way, is to immediately go on the defensive, get all upset, play the victim. The problem with this is that it’s not productive. You’re mad, the other person’s mad, and no one gets anywhere.
The second way, and this is really hard, is to put aside your ego and think about what the other person said. If you decide that they were right, you acknowledge that, apologize, and move on. If you decide that they were wrong, probably the process of thinking about it has led to you to be able to vocalize why, which leads the two of you closer to an understanding. Admitting you were wrong is a sign of maturity and strength, not of weakness. I play chamber music – string quartets – very seriously, and this is something I have to work on daily. Being told that you’re doing something wrong or badly is never fun, but the ability to accept that and work to fix it makes you a better person.
Well… she still hurt my feelings when she said that she didn’t like my jokes. I just wanted to cheer everyone up
And now you know that sometimes trying to cheer people up with jokes is the wrong thing to do.
Hmm… got me there
I would like to add on one little (not so little) thought more.
Even though we (everyone on the ‘Blog) know each other only through usernames and avatars (perhaps with the addition of a few irl encounters), everyone here is a person. When we can’t see a face or hear a voice, it’s pretty easy to forget this.
Posting something here is like having a conversation in a circle of friends. Everyone hears what you say and will sometimes answer back with a reply.
Would you have joked about the Boston Marathon bombing to your friends? Not your best friend(s), who may share a darker sense of humor, but to kids you know from your neighborhood?
The actual joke might have gotten a different response in real life. Perhaps an awkward pause or an admonishment, and then a change of subject. Or it might have gone in the same way as it did here. Anyway, on the internet, we have more time to think of responses than when in an actual conversation, so response is more likely to go the confrontational route than to avoid the subject.
But the true question is–How likely would it be that this would be said in real life in the first place? The answer, for most people, is not very. But this depends on the person, of course. If you have a darker sense of humor, Catwings, then you might have said this in real life, and it might have garnered the responses in the previous paragraph.
Which brings us back to the internet. Typing text responses allows us more time to think about what we’re saying, and more clarity when we’re actually saying it. Nobody talks like an essay in an actual conversation on the spot. We can think about what we’re saying much more carefully than in a conversation–nobody accidentally blurts something out on a forum like this. Each post took time to type and time to press the submit button. This extra time allows us to consider who’s going to read it, and what their reaction might be.
Empathy is a powerful thing. Especially in an anonymous forum.
Whoops, I missed this and said something similar upthread, but yours is written better.
Yours is good, too! I decided to put mine down here since it seems like the end of the whole drama.
Writing that comment got me thinking about self-censorship. Or non-self-censorship? Like, some people have an absolutely different persona when it’s anonymous, like, more assertive or something. I don’t think I do that; when I post, it’s all coming straight from my stream of conscious. I use “likes” and “I dunnos.” When I feel like a sentence is starting off bad, where, in real life, I would have to say “um” and stumble through it, I can start over. Or edit as I go. I also don’t usually go back and read through what I just wrote for any final edits. Usually everything’s okay, if a bit rambly.
I definitely think a lot about what I say in real life though, so the extra time writing doesn’t do much more than to focus my point. I usually don’t say anything, much to the dismay of myself and my discussion-based course instructors. I’ve never achieved an A in a discussion-based course, while one of my friends, a talkative extrovert, gets As all the time with not a lot of effort writing essays, since participation counts for more. It stinks.
I do censor myself a little for MuseBlog, though. I swear a lot more in real life.
Usually, I write basically what I would say in real life, but then I generally read over it and change anything that seems unclear–or if I realize it should be changed before I’m done, I do that. I do think about it more beforehand, though, too, because in real life, I tend to have trouble finding the right way to say something or take longer than necessary, and sometimes it still doesn’t come out right–I don’t know if I’ve ever accidentally offended anyone online, but it’s happened plenty of times in real life. Also, I’m not this long-winded in real life, because I’ve learned that people don’t generally like really long rants there.
I’m a similar kind of talker IRL, I’m more likely to think through what I say before I begin a sentence. For some reason when I’m writing it’s easier to put down a fragment (I guess because there’s no awkward pause), so I’m able to construct larger ideas. Unless I’m on IM, of course, then even basic grammar and spelling can break down.
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” – Oscar Wilde
I CAN ATTEST TO ALL OF THIS
I tend to think it through a little before I start typing, then think about structure as I go then look over it. I think a lot more about my word choice when writing. I’m extra careful when writing about my personal life in detail or saying something that could easily be misinterpreted.
In real life, I try to take a little time to think before actually speaking unless someone else is going to start talking if I’m not quick. I have a tendency to forget details and blurt out something stupid, and I hate that enough when other people do it.
I use fragments a lot more offline- it feels lazy doing that so often in text.
I do put in a lot of asides as they occur to me, similarly to adding things in brackets. But I do that less, either leaving them out or taking a moment to think how to work them in, because it annoys me when someone else won’t just get to the point.
And yes, I was observing myself doing the above as I wrote this/am writing this.
New Zealand voted to legalize gay marriage.
I actually cried a little bit when I heart. This feels huge to me.
♥
I know that “heart” is supposed to be a shortening of “heard it”, but the double meaning is very appropriate here.
I didn’t know that “heart” is used as a shortening of “heard it”; interesting!
I feel kind of full of love and happiness, hence the heart.
I don’t know if it’s officially a shortening of those words, but I assumed you were using it as one.
Are you talking about the little black heart at the end, or when you said, “I actually cried a little bit when I heart,”? Because I assumed the latter was a typo and you meant to write “heard”…
OH. I thought Kai was talking about the heart at the bottom of my post! No, “heart” was definitely a typo, sorry.
Yay!!! Reading that made me so happy…
I was really looking forward to watching that Antares launch, especially after everything since Monday, but they scrubbed at about ten minutes to go because of premature umbilical separation. (Insert lame joke about the circumstances shortly after my birth being similar.)
However, it doesn’t look like any of the hardware was physically damaged, so they should be able to try again soon. Here’s hoping they fix the problem and launch their capsule simulator and mini-satellites according to plan.
Also, Robert and Roseanne, how visible are launches from Wallops Island like this from DC? Universe Today says they’re visible up to 10-15 degrees above the horizon, vs. 5 degrees in Boston.
KaiYves: I’ve never tried to see one. The horizon in that direction is all cluttered up with trees where I live. I’ll give it a try sometime.
(Rosanne grew up in the D.C. area, but she’s a Californian now.)
This is not my week for naps. Today’s gotten prematurely terminated by the tornado sirens going off. And then a text, email, and phone call about a tornado warning saying take cover immediately
I was nice and calm, went to the office basement (which like my apt is made of tissue paper) and was fine until my weather-nit friend texted me Godspeed and now I’m still on the verge of tears and/or emotional freak out because tornadoes are up really high on my list of Horrible Scary Things and I’m too sleep deprived to deal with that sort of thing
The warning is over now, but my hearts still racing and I’m still on the verge of tears and my “new” car now has a dented roof (it’s almost two, but it’s my first car and I’m still paying it off, so as far as I’m concerned its new)
Dents are due to the golfball sized hail that got dumped on us. since i realized I didn’t actually specify that.
Ulgh… I hate tornadoes too!
Hope no servere damage was done to your place and/or the neighbors’s (If you have any… you might live alone like me.
forever alone!)Thanks.
Fortunately, I don’t believe any tornadoes actually formed/touched down/whatever the proper terminology is. The more severe part of the storm (the part that had a higher probability of developing into a tornado) bypassed us a little to the north, but I dont’ think anything besides ongoing thunderstorms and the brief golf ball sized hail storm occurred anywhere in the storm’s path.
A hail dented car and some terror was the only damage. I’m especially freaked out by tornadoes, because where i grew up tornadoes simply do not occur, ever. So I find the mere possibility extremely terrifying, which makes going to college in the Midwest a bit scary at times. Especially the summer before last when I spent the summer down here getting in-state residency. There were some really bad tornadoes that summer, fortunately none that went directly through where I was living, but there was one that went only 2 hours north.
I live in an apartment complex that is rather flimsily built (I swear the walls are made from tissue paper), I can hear people having conversations in the parking lot in a normal indoor speaking voice as loud as if they were in my bedroom with me. So being here when there’s a tornado threat is kind of especially scary to me, because I feel like it’s barely any safer than a trailer park.
I should probably get to bed….I have to be up at 8 o’clock so I can go sit through 4 hours of lecture. And this whole four hours of sleep a night thing is not conducive to consciousness in lecture.
sorry for the rambliness of the post, been awake for 21 hours (and surprisingly not particularly tired feeling, that’s the most annoying bit. I’m tired during classes, but when bedtime rolls around, I”m no longer tired, even if I didn’t have too much stuff to do to be able to go to bed…..)
Let’s talk about the suspect/person of interest for the Boston bombings for a moment. Or perhaps I should say ex-suspect, since they eventually let him go once they weren’t able to did up any suspicious info on him. Except for the fact that he was Arab, and Muslim.
For those of you who haven’t heard, this was this young Saudi guy who was caught running away from the explosion. Because that’s what people do, when something blows up and shrapnel is everywhere and people are panicking. You run. But not everyone gets immediately tackled and pegged as suspect, because not everyone is brown.
This terrifies me. It really does. Someone who is totally innocent can be blamed so easily, and their life upended, based entirely on some bullcake racial profiling. Maybe this doesn’t worry you. It worries me, because I happen to fit that same profile, and in similar circumstances, that could have been me. Or maybe not me. I’m a girl, and that tendency to believe that Muslim women have no agency whatsoever actually benefits me in this case. It could have been my brother then. Or my father.
We still don’t know who’s responsible for the terror attacks two days ago, but the police could be barking up an entirely wrong tree with this focus on what a terror suspect is. It could be another thing like the Oklahoma city bombing, or the Norway shootings, when they go and blame the Muslim community and then whoops! Turns out to be some far right white guy. In the Norway shootings specifically, the earliest articles said they were looking for a Middle Eastern guy and then it turned out to be someone whose ideology and motivations were almost a complete opposite, and articles like that unilaterally blaming us are in fact partially responsible for what happened that day.
I’m not saying the Boston bombings were due to a far right extremist group. We don’t know yet. But I hope it was, just because the alternative will make my life that much more difficult. It’s sad that my second thought, right after, “Oh no, what a terrible thing,” was, “Please don’t be Muslim.” I had the same sequence of thoughts during the Virginia Tech shootings, during Nidal Malik Hassan’d shootings, every time the suspect wasn’t entirely known yet. When it was a Muslim, I went into damage control mode.
And it’s not just me, it’s lots of people doing this, feeling this way. The Muslim community in America has been hit hard with this for a while now. And I’ve only recently begun to realize just how much it’s messed me up. It’s like I learned a lesson, when I was eight and scared because my (Islamic) school had received bomb threats on 9/11, and that lesson was, “When everyone else is worried about foreign terror attacks, you should be more worried about your xenophobic neighbors.”
This, and much more–this laundry list of calamities I’ve carried in my head, made up of every negative headline and horror story I’ve seen and heard–went through my head when I read about this ex-suspect. So yeah. I’ve been carrying this around for a while. Let’s talk about it.
Perhaps this would be best suited for the Hot Topics thread (I assume there is one open)?
There is.
Sure. Though I don’t actually have anything else to say at the moment.
Guess what?
I overslept and missed all my classes today!!1!!!1
Now I might not do well in music class, since if you miss three classes your grade goes down a whole letter! I’ve already missed two classes by accidentally sleeping in. Isn’t that great??!?!!?!??
I might have to actually TALK to someone about how missing class is a COMPLETE ACCIDENT and not me being a slacker.
And this just in–I now OFFICIALLY have a HUGE CRUSH on someone. How do I know? Because he’s out of town now and I miss him. And he might reciprocate? SECOND TIME’S THE CHARM WHEE!!!!
I’m just kind of jaded now. In general, not just right now. Don’t wanna do work, don’t know what else to do. I probably need dinner/snack food. Good thing my parents just sent a box!
So Ex-Mom’s picking me up tomorrow (Which will be “Today” by the time anyone gets this post, probably)
And i know she already hates my guts, she just picks me up eveyday to sort of “Use” me, to say; “Hey, i divorced my husband and goi’n with another guy, and SHE’S STILL WITH ME! HA” but it doesn’t mean i have to let her…
So why i am here, is… Got any ideas for like, a prank i could play on her?
How about a potato in her truck’s tailpipe!
*Mischievious Grin*
Uh, I get that you’re upset at your mom, but you probably still shouldn’t try to kill her. Just sayin’
What a killer idea!
But i don’t want to kill her though (Why am i so soft?!) but i did put a scratch in her car’s rear left door. She hasn’t noticed, but she IS pretty particular when it comes to car scratches…
Most of you might hate me for that and call me “evil-minded” and I don’t care
you can’t insult me by telling me what i am. 
If she hates your guts that much, playing a prank on her would probably just make her angry at you. Is a bit of short-term satisfaction worth getting punished or lectured or yelled at for? Maybe try just imagining playing a prank?
(Well, one of my cats playfully bats at our arms, usually without claws, as we walk past, and he still gets plenty of attention and cat-friendly tidbits. But he’s a bad example.)
Has your dad been any help?
Man, was my young cousin a brat today… WHEEW!
and OH MY GOSH! WEATHER ALERT ON TELEVISION SCREEN SCARED THE POOP OUT OF ME JUST NOW! TORNADO WARNING JEEZ! Oh it’s a test, Damn those tests
anyway… mom was all for his grouchiness and it just winded up with me in trouble because he broke one of grandma’s dishes, and i just happened to be standing there and everyone suspected me. Because Perfect Little Baby Tiranyn can’t be blamed for anything…
I hate babies. They’re so perfect to everyone but the one who’s innocent.
I just had some Cupcakes…
thank you james…
Ahh I totally feel you on having to babysit. It’s like if you’re in a certain age range (and especially if you’re a girl) the whole family expects you to watch the kids. I mean, I don’t hate small children or anything, it’s just that I strongly dislike having to look after them.
And my ex-mom’s side of the family think they’re PERFECT!
So, if something goes wrong, Blame it on the peasant!
I am having a really hard time with the fact that my body has apparently just decided that I no longer need more than five and a half hours of sleep in a night. I had a 24-hour stomach bug a couple days ago and was up all night puking my guts out, and it seems that was enough of a trigger to flip my sleep cycle to “Armada totally wants to be woken up at five in the morning by vaguely homoerotic dreams to the theme of Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead! On every single caking morning including the ones she was really counting on sleeping in on!”
Augh. Flail. This is not helping me either recover from being sick (basically nonstop, with varying things, since I got back from Spain a month and a half ago) or catch up on all the homework that I’ve missed because of said sickness.
…However, upon waking up this morning I was greeted by 1. a new page of Nimona and 2. Electros liveblogging me on his ongoing efforts to send copious amounts of anonymous geeky pickup lines (all of them amazing) to girls on Tumblr. So I suppose it’s not all bad.
Why was Six afraid of Seven? Because Seven ate Nine!
Chomp on the nine and seven ate mine
What did the zero say to the eight?
“Nice belt!”
My Dad said “So I call you at six?” a few days ago, when he was really supposed to call me at nine, so I asked “How did you manage to turn the number upside-down while speaking?”
Today, in World Geography, we watched the first two episodes (ever) of Pokemon as we did a worksheet. The reason my teacher gave for showing it was that was that it might distract us, so that fewer of us would finish it, and he would have fewer papers to grade.
Today is my blogiversary! I managed to remember it this year because I set up email reminders last year; obviously I am a pro at this now. Thanks to you all for being a hugely significant part of my life for seven years, and thanks to the very issue of Muse featured on this thread for leading me to this wonderful place.
You know, I dedicated an entire slide of my senior presentation section on “major influences” to you guys. It was amazing to reflect on everything we’ve been together, and it was amazing so rediscover all of my Kokon pictures as I put the slide together. You guys are great, MuseBlog. Stay awesome.
Happy blogiversary! Seven years – impressive!
I’m so glad you’re part of the ‘Blog; you’re wonderful.
Happy blogiversary!
Happy Blogiversary
Happy blogiversary!
Massachusetts MBers, are you all okay? Apparently there’s someone with a gun on the MIT campus. I can’t remember if someone here goes to MIT- but all of you, please, please stay safe.
As far as I know nobody here goes to MIT. “Please stay safe” seconded, though.
BU is shut down for the day, like we were during Sandy and The Big Blizzard.
Getting real tired of your trumpery, criminals…
Just stay safe, okay? *anxious huggles*
Hey all.
I’m all safe, as is Silver*Lining. I’m glad to read Nym and P_M are as well, as I hadn’t heard from them. And apparently Enc is in France, so if I’ve done my math right that accounts for all us Boston MBers.
I was in NYC on the day of the Marathon, so I didn’t get hit by all the mayhem. My friend Amanda’s step-dad was in the Marathon, about five miles from the finish line when the bomb went off. Amanda and her family were on their way to pick him up.
t’s funny how these things hit me, I always have to be told twice before they sink in. The first time I heard about Sandy Hook I was in school and a kid read off his phone, “fourteen people just died.” I reacted pretty much with a “wow, s**t”. It wasn’t until I dropped in on a conversation about it later in the day that I acknowledged the scale of what had happened.
It was the same thing with the bomb at the marathon. I heard it once from my dad when he read it off his phone, and then didn’t think about it much until I got a call from my mom. She was at Logan when the bomb went off so she was really in it. I talked with her, told her about my day, and then went to dinner. There was a TV in the restaurant, and that’s when I had my realization. a goddamn bomb went off and killed two people within 5 miles of my house. People lost their legs. That could have so easily been Amanda’s dad.
It’s scary because I really live my life feeling like the worst things won’t happen to me. I’ll die of old age, not a car crash. I’m going to live my life to a fullest, I’ve got a plan, and that plan doesn’t involve being shot up by a madman in my second year of college. I know I’m not exactly treading on new ground with this sentiment, but it doesn’t make it any less jarring when I have to face that it’s bulls***.
I keep coming back to my Amanda’s step-father. She doesn’t have a biological father anymore, because he worked in the World Trade Center and was killed in 9/11. Imagine if her step-father had been hit by the bomb? That seems to impossibly unjust to ever happen, and yet it almost did.
I remember I was waiting in line for the bathroom at Starbucks and I got a text from my friend Rachel to ask if I was okay. Just like all of you, she had heard about the explosion and immediately thought of all the people she loved that could be dead. Her sister had a friend in the VIP section they didn’t know where she was or if she was even alive.
And 3 hours ago, at 2 AM I got a text from Silver*Lining. “I’m listening to the radio about the shooting near MIT. Are you okay??? Please tell me you’re okay.” Two guys shot and killed a police officer maybe a twenty minute walk from my dad’s house.
It’s a funny balance that I can say “I am safe” but I can’t say “we are safe”. I’m confident that I could walk around my city every day 9 to 5 for the next month and be perfectly unharmed the entire time. But on the other hand, two texts reading “are you okay” in three days, asking about separate incidents, that’s far too many. And between Aurora, Sandy Hook, the Boston bombing, the police officer, and the explosion in Texas (which I didn’t mention until now because it’s an entirely different kind of tragedy), this is a dark way to start a decade.
More of a collection of my thoughts than a coherent post. It’s barely been edited, sorry, but the sun is coming up and I think my mom is awake, so it’s time for me to go to bed.
(Whoops, in the seventh paragraph, it shouldn’t say “My Amanda”. I originally just called her “my friend” and then gave her a fake name to make things simpler.)
Good to see you.
I’m glad you and all the other Boston MBers are okay.
The Boston lockdown is showing on the Beeb…it looks so surreal, and it must be frightening. I hope everyone there or near there, ‘Bloggers and all, is all right!
…Why are so many bad things happening in the world right now.
I don’t think more bad things are happening overall — just more in places you’re likely to notice.
Ok, Tornado warning, Scared the ever loving cake out of me just now. Then the warning on TV stated it was a test of their equipment.
Why do they scare the cake out of people, then, say it is a test? It’s kind of unfair, because you don’t know it’s a test until afterwards!
Why are so many scary things happening at once? I’m sorry about the tornado test; that’s definitely alarming.
When I lived in Singapore, the government would periodically test their islandwide alarm system, which is supposed to notify people that the country under attack and that they should get to a bomb shelter. You can imagine the panic when people don’t know ahead of time.
Actual tornadoes are on the way to my part of the world, I hear.
I am wishing you all the possible safety.
Yikes. Somehow didn’t realize you got tornadoes in that part of the world. Stay safe!!!!!!
Globe Twitter and local TV news reporting that the suspect who was being pursued has been captured and transported to a hospital for treatment of his injuries.
So a couple of days ago it was announced that Earthbound will be coming to Wii U virtual console in both America and Europe. This’ll be the first time a form of the game has been seen in America since the initial release, and the first time Europeans will see it at all.
I love how much hope this has given to the fandom. There were some vague hints about something “Earthbound-related” in the works, but that was a few months ago. The announcement came straight out of nowhere during the April Nintendo Direct (as well as the new Link to the Past sequel/re-imagining), and it was really difficult to contain my excitement.
When there was no Earthbound on the Wii, people pretty much gave up. Mother was a dead franchise in the United States. But now? There’s hope again! Maybe Mother 1 and Mother 3 will see an official English release, as part of an anniversary/combo cartridge or something! Wouldn’t that be stellar?
I don’t have a Wii U, but if I did I would buy Earthbound. To lend support for a brighter future.
Completely of topic of the recent posts of this thread, but:
When am I going to learn to actually get up from my naps when my alarm goes off? I had (still have) so much I needed to get done today. But I was really tired this morning, so I decided to take a 2 hour nap when I got home from school. I set my alarm for 2:30.
The volume on my phone alarm must have been set too quietly for me to hear, or else I turned it off without waking up. the one on my ipod woke me up at 2:30. I chose not to get up. Reset an alarm for later, and reset numerous alarms when they would go off until 5 o’clock rolled around (now 4 1/2 hours into my nap). Then I decided to close my eyes w/o an alarm for 5 more minutes. When I open them again, it’s dark outside. 8:30 pm.
My 2 hour nap just turned into 8 hours, and I don’t have that kind of time. I have so much I have to get done today, and I wanted to go to bed by midnight, and now that’s not going to happen because I won’t have even gotten done half the stuff I needed to get done done.
Where is my self control that says “Hey, alarm going off, and even though you don’t have to physically be somewhere, get out of bed!!!!!”
Because seriously, an 8 hour nap is just freaking ridiculous.
You probably couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t needed it.
Wait, so I’m confused. When I went to bed last night, the officer who was killed at MIT was unrelated to the bombings.
But if I’m reading things correctly online now, it was in fact related to the bombing, the bombers shot him? Before being tracked down in Watertown (where when I went to bed, unknown stuff was happening there)?
I’m confused.
They shot the officer at MIT, carjacked an SUV, and then fled to Watertown. Google “Boston bombing timeline.”
What’s confusing you is that about ten or twenty minutes before the officer was killed, two men held up a nearby 7/11. It was believed that these men were the Boston bombing suspects, but later it was determined there was no relation.
At least, I think I’ve got that all right. NPR’s blog is pretty good about only posting accurate information, so I recommend them if you want to read more.
They were Tge only ones who didn’t jump to incorrectly report Ms. Giffords dead two years back, so I agree.
Ugh, I’ve misspelled “The” as “Tge” at the beginning of sentences a few too many times and now my phone corrects “tge” to “Tge” instead of “the”. How do I make it stop?
Spontaneous wizards’ duels are fun. So is offering a rematch by grabbing another stick and shouting, “AT LAST MY ARM IS COMPLETE AGAIN!” even if no one gets the reference.
Boston Comic Con posponed until further notice, ugh, I was looking forward to that so much, I worked so hard on my costume and Don Rosa’s supposed to be there and it was so much fun last year, and… ARRRUGH!
KOKOPELLI CRAW URANIA CHAD BO FEATHER MIMI AEIOU PWT!
If it ends up being during finals or after classes end… AGGGGH!
DESERT RAIN JUNGLE SNOW MOUNTAIN SEAWEED ARCTIC FIRE! APPLESAUCE HOPE DIAMOND PHOBOS COMET HALLEY BLANKETY BLANK!
I am getting REAL tired of your trumpery, criminals…
And now there’s been an earthquake in Sichuan. This is the sort of week you wouldn’t believe if someone made it up.
Ugh, for Koko’s sake… Too much suffering, too much…
And there was that explosion at the fertilizer plant in Texas (which hopefully was just an accident) earlier this week, which I’ve seen very few places talking about, and haven’t seen mentioned on here I don’t think
Apparently there was one guy who witnessed both the Boston bombing and the explosion in Texas after he went home.
Let’s get talking about happier subjects, because the recent comments bar has really depressed me lately…
i like chocolate…
my favorite color is green…
JOIN WITH ME, CLASS!
I realized I’d kind of forgotten about Patriots’ Day in all the commotion, so I found the Liberty’s Kids theme song online yesterday and watched it, and I was reminded of how great that show was. It was exciting, educational, funny, even-handed in portraying the war (one of the protagonists is British!)… it really was a great show.
I think I’m going to watch an episode tonight!
Ugh, I need motivation. Haven’t done a single thing today.
Write a story, go to youtube, Doodle pictures, hang-glide off the roof, Tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon, Parachute from a jet 2000 feet in the air, Grab a sword and go fight Dumbledore or (Or someone), Do a double-jump-backflip onto a horse and make the horse jump a fence!
There’s a WIDE RANGE of things to do today!
Man, that sounds like a fun to-do list!
Me, too.
Fun Fact: This was the first issue of Muse that I got via my subscription. At yet somehow it took until July to get on here.
Woo! Got another pet kitten today
I named him “Panther”
.
Unfortunately though… Ivy (Our first cat) Doesn’t seem to like Panther very much. He keeps trying to bite her head off
So we locked Ivy in a cat kennel for awhile, and we switch ’em around every once in awhile so each get their turn to be outside, but Ivy can’t kill Panther.
First impressions make a huge impact with cats. Hopefully you can salvage the situation!
Next time, isolate the new cat in a bathroom or something for a couple of days. Let the old cat sniff under the door (or gate or whatever) to let it know that there’s going to be a new member of the household. Step two: put the new cat in a carrier or something and bring it into the house proper. Let the cats interact with each other through the carrier. The old cat is still in the dominant position even though the new cat is encroaching on its territory. Do this a couple of times. Step three: Let the new cat out of the cage during one of these sessions. Let the cats interact with each other for a while, then move the new cat back to its designated space. It’s vitally important to make the introduction as slow and stress-free as possible. The old cat has an established territory and generally will not tolerate newcomers, especially if it is surprised.
We were unfortunately no super careful when we got a new cat. She accidentally got out of the basement (her area) way before she was supposed to and accidentally snuck up on the old cat. Puffed up coats, growling, and hissing commenced. They’ve hated each other ever since (three years). I like to think that maybe they could have got along if not for this mistake.
Of course, not all cats are the same, but you might want to try isolating the new cat to let your old cat feel in control again. The new cat doesn’t need to go outside; if only the old cat gets this privilege, it will feel even more in control. Litterboxes aren’t so bad–it’ll only be for a couple of weeks! Then slowly re-introduce the new cat. Hopefully it will go well!
Quick PSA: neither cat should be going outside.
Hm, yes, good point–the older cat may try to run away after the perceived threat. And of course the new cat shouldn’t go outside without supervision for a while because it doesn’t know what’s home and what’s not yet.
Well, also, cats shouldn’t be going outside in general. It’s bad for the cat, it’s bad for the local wildlife. If you feel like they absolutely have to have that option, constructing an enclosed cat run is probably the most ethically sound option.
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt there, but that’s what I thought you meant.
Personally, even though I know that being outside is dangerous for the cat, I think that it’s worth it. The cat gets a lot more enjoyment out of being outside, interacting with strange cats, and maintaining a territory. It’s always really sweet to see my cats sunning themselves and rolling around in the dirt on the first warm day of the year. Indoor cats always seem really bored to me.
I agree with the wildlife thing, though, but only in suburban neighborhoods. In more rural areas, predation by wild animals probably wouldn’t be compounded too much by the addition of a cat.
We’re just going to have to agree to disagree.
Although I don’t personally let my cat outside (hugely overprotective parent, here–although in my defense we have a bald eagle that lives on the lake we live on, and frequently perches in a tree near our house, and I’ve also seen a fox lurking around the edges of the yard), I think letting one’s cat outside is a perfectly legitimate lifestyle choice.
yes, cat’s are predators. yes, they kill songbirds. yes, the lifespan of an outdoor cat is going to be shorter. but there are precautions you can take for you own cat. Don’t declaw them if they’re going to be an outdoor cat, keep them up to date on vaccinations and parasite control. No, you can’t really do anything to ensure your cat doesn’t run out in front of a car, but….nothing in life is safe.
So while I would’t personally do it because I am far too overprotective (my poor hypothetical future children are probably going to be wrapped in bubble wrap and never allowed to leave their room, lol), I think the practice is perfectly acceptable.
Afterall, as we keep having drilled into our heads when talking about treatments of terminal diseases (bit of a tangent, I know), it’s about quality of life, not quantity. So if your cat is going to be far happier with an indoor-outdoor life, but lose a few years off the end? It’s a personal choice between the owner and their cat and what is best for their human-animal bond.
It’s a personal choice, except it directly and significantly affects fragile songbird, amphibious, reptile, etc populations. If you are at all concerned about local ecosystems, it’s irresponsible to let your cat outdoors.
I also disagree with your assertion, CPM, that cat predation in rural areas isn’t significant. From the abstract of “Landowners and cat predation across rural-to-urban landscapes”, study I think done by MSU: “To understand the impacts of cat predation onbirds, we surveyed all 1694 private landowners living on three breeding bird survey (BBS) routes (120 km) that represent a con-tinuum of rural-to-urban landscapes in Southeastern Michigan, where the majority (>90%) of land is privately owned. Our data indicate that among the 58.5% of landowners that responded, one quarter of them owned outdoor cats. On average a cat depre-dated between 0.7 and 1.4 birds per week. A total of 23+ species (12.5% of breeding species) were on the list of being killed,including two species of conservation concern (Eastern Bluebirds and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds). Across the three landscapesthere were 800 to 3100 cats, which kill between 16,000 and 47,000 birds during the breeding season, resulting in a minimum of 1 bird killed/km/day. While the number and density (no./ha) of free-ranging cats per landowner differed across the rural to urban landscapes, depredation rates were similar. […] Our results, even taken conservatively, indicate that cat predation most likely plays an impor-tant role in fluctuations of bird populations and should receive more attention in wildlife conservation and landscape studies.”
or, from “The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States” published in Nature communications, emphasis mine: “Here we conduct a systematic review and quantitatively estimate mortality caused by cats in the United States. We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. ”
There’s been a LOT of research done on this; I found the above two in a five-second google search. If you feel that strongly that a cat’s quality of life is diminished by not being able to go outside (or go outside outside the confines of a cat run), then don’t have a cat; I feel quite strongly that letting your cat slaughter local wildlife is irresponsible, and, frankly, unethical.
Also, less scientifically, from an article in Outdoor California May-June 1999, “University of Wisconsin ornithologist Dr. Stanley Temple, who has done extensive studies with radio-collared cats, estimates that 20-150 million songbirds are killed by rural cats annually in Wisconsin alone. There is a report of another study in suburban desert neighborhoods near Tucson, Arizona, where cats killed slightly more than 80 small animals each per year; about 26 percent birds, 62 percent mammals, and 11 percent reptiles. Cat control is particularly
important for those who live in rural areas. Studies have shown that the average number of birds and other animals killed by cats annually is greater in rural areas, as would be expected. Cat-related losses of wildlife on islands is often particularly severe, especially where fauna has evolved with no predators.”
The article goes on to make a point that I think is important and which I personally didn’t think of, namely: predation by wild animals is significantly affected by predation by cats, because the cats are competing with native predators for prey while enjoying protection (usually) from starvation, disease, etc
Your second article also pointed out that it was unowned cats, rather than owned cats that contributed to most of the bird deaths. So it would seem the more advantageous solution would be decreasing feral cat populations, rather than disallowing peoples’ pet cats to go outside.
I also am aware that I sound really stuck-up. But I am at this point. Because I know that the evidence is proving me wrong, but I don’t care. I honestly don’t care. And I didn’t care before, either, since I already was aware of the evidence.
Sorry.
Oh, oops, this should have been nested one level up.
This is why I never like talking in discussion-based courses.
I know all these statistics. I know that cats have a terrible impact on the ecosystem because they have very few natural predators. And yet I still let my cats outside. I’m sorry. You’re not going to be able to change my mind. I wasn’t trying to change yours.
I just stated my opinion, then ended with an “agree to disagree” statement. Yet a rebuttal is made, supplemented by even more evidence that I already know. Arguing is pointless at this point. So why are we arguing? I don’t know. It just makes me angry and I don’t know why.
Sorry, but I refuse to let a topic of this importance end with misinformation, which is what your statement about cats in rural areas was.
Okay, fine. Good. Great. Whatever.
Indoor cats are only bored if their humans don’t make the effort to keep their environment interesting. Additionally, since any cat sleeps more than half the day away, it’s possible that one reason you might think the indoor cat is bored is that you are likely to see more of its sleeping time than you will see of the outdoor cat’s.
Keeping our three cats indoors basically works for us.
They used to all be indoor-outdoor, and the other two did hunt and catch various birds (in our suburban area all they could even catch is pigeons and suchlike, with the occasional exception), mice, and rat-poisoned rats (obviously not good for them).
There are some… unpleasant people, to say the least, in the neighbourhood. One of our cats was caught and dumped on the edge of town and luckily someone found him months later, and there have been other incidents. Then there were the fights with other tomcats, and the injuries.
One of our cats is old and sometimes gets let out for a few minutes, which is enough for her. The other two now demand plenty of attention when awake. My dad did build an enclosed run thingy, and luckily the house has an enclosed porch, now with two cat towers.
I was typing in the URL to MuseBlog, as I always do, when suddenly I was six letters into the word ‘mudblood’. Does this expose my subconscious Slytherin tendencies?
On a brighter note – I’ve a beautiful new phone! It’s excellent, I love it, etc.
I always have this site bookmarked, so i don’t have any Mudblood incidents
I am a paranoid enough freak to always be* incognito when visiting MuseBlog (it follows that I do not have it bookmarked) despite this being my own, password-protected laptop. It seems almost idiosyncratic, but I find the idea of reconciling MB with my IRL life to be slightly unnerving; ergo, just in case…
*the split infinitive makes for a less awkward-sounding sentence
split infinitives are one of the grammar rules imported from Latin without any thought about whether or not they fit the English language (cf: up with which I will not put). The point of grammar is to codify and clarify language, not to obscure it. However, the misguided fixation on not splitting infinitives often has the opposite effect of obscuring what the writer is trying to say. While they might be best to avoid in formal writing because some people get upset about them, in informal conversation or if they get across what you’re trying to say most clearly there’s no reason to avoid them.
Thanks; I like your explanation! You might say the same thing about who/whom. For some reason, doing my best to uphold a selection of grammar rules (however pointless) gives me an uncommon sense of satisfaction. I know it doesn’t really make much difference in normal conversation, and I’m sure I break a lot of the ‘rules’ myself from time to time, but there you go.
tl;dr I am an odd person.
No, “whom” wasn’t imposed from outside. English used to have cases like German and still distinguishes between subjective and objective pronouns. “Whom” is an indigenous feature that most speakers are choosing to ignore.
Ah, I see! Thank you.
I pin the site in my browser. Also, Slytheirn isn’t a bad house!
The bad news is that I have a fever of 100.3, and the DVD of Sunday in the Park with George is about to be overdue, and we’re going to have to turn it in soon, even though my family hasn’t gotten a chance to watch it, so I can’t convert them.
The good news is that I don’t actually feel that bad if I’m covered in layers and blankets, I don’t have to go to school tomorrow, I can still watch Sunday in the Park with George, and someone I don’t know recognized me from last year’s local TV.
I went to the MIT Museum today, and decided to try using a slide rule after coming across a display that had several for the use of visitors and instructions on how to use it to multiply by two.
It took me five tries to do the problem the sign mentioned, because I got the numbers indicating 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. confused with the regular 1,2,3 numbers in the row I was supposed to use.
This is why I’m not an engineering major.
Don’t worry. It always did take a lot of practice to use a slide rule. If you didn’t use one regularly, it was easy to forget how to use it, too. Likewise vernier scales on micrometers. They were the best we could do until we had pocketable electronics.
Slide rules were so elegant, though — lightweight, no batteries or circuits, nothing but wood and logarithms and a thin red line. They were like wands.
I had one in high school and have inherited about half a dozen more from my father. My favorites are the circular ones — just wrap them around so going up a factor of ten takes you back where you started. I still take them out and use them every once in a while for old times’ sake.
It’s probably not fair to compare myself with college students who would have been learning to use slide rules since Middle School, but I did feel pretty dumb.
I wouldn’t worry about it. How are you on an abacus?
Pretty good.
Archie/
Professor Flutesnoot: “It’s an abacus, an ancient Chinese calculator.”
Moose: “Du-h, but how many Ancient Chinese are you ever going to need to calculate?”
/Archie
My ex used to do abacus competitions – she was crazy fast with it. I always wished I knew how to use one.
Well, if we’re reminiscing – I saw my first scientific calculator in the last couple of years of Grammar School (like a High School but more pretentious). It was a Sinclair Scientific. It had a red LED display, 5 digits plus a 2-digit exponent. It did the usual + – * /, sin, cos, tan, and their inverses, logs and antilogs, and that was about it.
It was (relatively) cheap if you bought it as a kit and soldered it yourself, which is what a couple of mates of mine did. The main problem was that it had no brackets, and no = key. It worked in Reverse Polish Notation, which is almost as unintelligible as programming in FORTH. Actually, it’s very similar to programming in FORTH. Iknow, because I bought a Jupiter Ace…..
Ah, happy times!
*descends into nostalgic gibbering*
It will probably come as no surprise to anyone here that I loved Reverse Polish Notation.
I can’t be the only one who thought Paul was joking, starting around the point when he said it had no = key. And “Reverse Polish Notation”? Definitely made up. Jupiter Ace sounds like a great name for a model of car, though.
We have some old calculators around the house, I suppose out of reverence for design rather than a deep desire for sums. I don’t possess a great dexterity with numbers, but I do have an eye for design, and tools can be so inspiring. My grandfather’s slide-rule, an Acu-Math No. 400 is a bit plain on the back, but it awed me as a child when he told me that astronauts could get back to earth with that slide alone, if the computer failed (I’m not sure how true that is). Hmmm, that might be a great design project…
My favorite is my father’s old TI-30, with the red LED cylon eyes set in gold chrome plastic, and the blue nylon carrying case that zips all the way around. It feels so light to my modern touch, seemingly cheap and insubstantial, but back then was it all the more wondrous, to have a computer weight so little?
well, you don’t need brackets in Reverse Polish notation! why bother including them?
also, I looked up Forth because of you, and can confirm that being a stack-based language it is indeed very similar to the structure used to evaluate postfix/reverse polish notation.
So, do any MBers plan to apply for a place in the Mars One Martian colony?
I’m not sure how seriously to take it, but I’ll bet it would spark some very interesting conversations with parents.
I’m not going on a one way trip to Mars. I would be slightly more open to a one way trip to the Moon.
Also, I really feel like we should be trying to colonize extreme place on earth (Oceans and Antarctica) before trying to colonize other planets (or the Moon).
I think it’d be prudent to wait until they’re a bit further along, just to be sure it would be more substantial than one of those “First Moon Flights Club” cards Pan Am gave out in the 60s.
Still, it’s only $38. And as I’ve noted, signing up for a one-way trip to Mars could be an effective way to get your parents’ attention.
I think you need to be 18, so, that rules me out. (Add that to the long list of things I can’t do yet, one of which is setting up a phone contract under your own name. I mean, seriously, Three?)
Anyway, I don’t know what the chances are of this realistically happening. It would be funny to apply, just for jokes, though no doubt I’d fail all the physical fitness tests before even reaching the national challenge round or whatever they call it.
To me it seems a tad ambitious to be making concrete plans to settle on Mars, when there are places like the Moon that we’ve visited but haven’t even seriously considered for settlement (we as in, the whole of humanity).
I am REALLY CONSIDERING IT
like
I would probably never actually be picked
but I feel kind of obligated to try?? Like, if someone came up to me right now and gave me the offer of going to live on Mars forever: I would pretty much have to say yes.
Then again if they’e trying to plan for this now probably they will later in my life time and I could give it another shot
although in that case probably MORE people will be interested and having multiple applications would show that I’m a more serious applicant so
I don’t know. There was a time in my life when I would have said “yes absolutely” and gone no questions asked, but I’m not as 100% positive anymore. But I am still probably too young to be strongly considered. Maybe if I get more experienced in planetary geology it could be possible?
I dunno I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I think my biggest issue is I’m not comfortable wiht the technology we currently have for settling there. Mind you, my dream job is basically terraforming work, so if I could in any way get in on working on the creation of miniature biospheres, that would not only be awesome but also I could be more likely to go if I knew how the environments/equipment there would work.
LOTS OF THOUGHTS ETC
this was probably how the colonists felt heading to America… ish…
I wouldn’t.
God made this Earth for us to live on, Not Mars.
If I could, I think I’d definitely apply. If I could have had the chance to see another planet and not tried for it, I would feel awful; there’s no chance I’d be selected, but at least I’d have given it a shot.
I don’t honestly think I’d go, if some weird miracle happened and I got selected. Life so far removed from most other people would probably destabilize me- but it’s also that there’s so much of Earth that I want to see, and haven’t yet.
I wouldn’t go. There’s so much in the world to explore, so many places to see and things to do and people to meet that it would seem like throwing it all away. I want to backpack through Europe, get my dive instructors license, sail across the pacific, learn italian, japanese and possibly swahili, volunteer in Africa and just generally meet all sorts of people from all sorts of cultures. I also want to be there to see my brother grow up, and take care of my parents when they get old. Not to mention that being stuck for the rest of your life with such a small group of people might not be good for me.
Funnily enough, I had a conversation like this with my dad about two years ago, where he said that if someone offered him a one-way ticket off the planet, he’d take it (provided I were old enough to fend for myself). I think he’d be proud if I applied.
No, I agree with bookgirl and CO. There’s too much I think I’d miss out on, and I don’t want to be stuck with a small group of people, and I’d find it too scary. Um, and right now I’m too young and highly unlikely to be accepted anyway. I love the idea of colonising the Moon and other planets, once technology and all allows, but I’m staying on Earth.
MUSEBLOG! I’M BACK! *glomps*
I really have no excuse for being gone so long.
Hi Ducky, welcome back!
It’s good to see you. I hope you stick around!
DUCKYDUCKYDUCKYDUCKYDUCKYDUCKYDUCKYDUCKYDUCKY!!!!
Glad to see you post again!
DUCKY! My lovely friend, it’s good to see you here.
*Quack*
Welcome back, Ducky!
*returns glomp*
Welcome back!
I have to say it’s strange and nostalgic to come back onto Museblog. I was reading an assignment and suddenly wondered if people were still here. I guess you are. [snipped for potential contact information –Admin.] That’s something. I doubt anyone remembers me, but this is me chiming in. I probably did the same thing a little over a year ago… but who knows? Maybe I’ll be back? (the word vicissitudes comes to mind when considering the span of time since I was last here)
‘Course we do. Ah, that was a different era… time really flies, doesn’t it? RPGs are passé, the H&H is still plodding along and we’re all secretly giant space squids*. Jump right back in
*Methinks you might’ve still been there when it started, but the squidlore hath increased.
Hey there! Good to see you again.
Of course we remember you? How could we forget! The impossibility of making an acronym of your name is a potent reminder!
(Actually, that’s partly true. But I mostly just remember you for your more humorous posts.)
Welcome back!
SFTDP. I don’t know how I managed it, but I seem to have switched the punctuation following my first sentence with that following my second. I apologize for that. *mystified expression*
Welcome back.
Hello there, welcome back!
By the argument i started on Post 75.1, i was actually HOPING that someone would write a nasty hate-mail comment (No offense to Lu the Lo) So i could leave the blog and make an amazing re-debut at my old self on my Blogiversary (Which was today if anyone noticed) as my old derpy self as well
but NOOOO, YOU guys had to APOLIGISE to me!Hmm… i couldn’t get the chance,
SO I WILL DO IT HERE MWEHEHEHEHEEE
Eh, leaving the blog is overrated. We’re an open-minded bunch- just make your mental re-debut to start changing your posts and people will notice. I dare say we’ve all been new, we’ve all been eleven and we’ve all made mistakes- like the way I’m blogging right now. Because no of course I don’t need more than nine hours of sleep in two days while studying calculus, silly bookgirl. (Okay, ‘m gonna go to
study! must study!sleep now)Sleep well.
On the internet, flouncing (being all “I’m gonna take my ball and go home,” usually as a way to get attention) is generally frowned upon – it’s more polite to just leave without making a production out of it.
“Flouncing” is the perfect word for it. This editor salutes whoever coined it.
It would’a been funnier
To you, I’m sure it would have been. It wouldn’t be so obvious to all of us that it was even a joke.
My cat Panther hasn’t been going in her sandbox…
Of course, come to think of it, she hasn’t been “Going” at all
I cant wait to see what we’ll find during spring cleaning
Not using the litterbox could be a sign of infection or other problems. Or she could be stressed by the presence of the other cat.
Nietzsche is way to hard to read for pleasure during the last months of high school.
Still have no idea where I’m going to college. But that’s ok. That’s ok.
Also, I have way to much energy half the time at school and too little the other. Why can’t it just be even. WHY.
Perhaps it’ll converge eventually?
Go home, infinite series. You’re not even on this test.What Nietzsche work(s) are you reading?
Thus Spoke Zaeathustra and Beyond Good and Evil.
Ah, cool. I also recommend On the Genealogy of Morals, if you haven’t already read it – might be a little more straightforward to read for pleasure.
So, no Nietzsche fanfiction, then?
“Nietzsche’s hands trembled with excitement as he opened the door. The sky over Genoa was dark, and he could see only a sliver of the man who stood in the hallway. Wordlessly, the visitor handed Nietzsche an envelope, and then pulled his cap over his eyes and walked briskly away. Nietzsche’s eyes followed him to the main road, where the man stood silhouetted against Genoa’s skyline. The ancient spires of the city impaling the cloudy sky seemed to Nietzsche almost a perfect symbol of the ages of European history that had so destroyed God and left society embittered and philosophers disillusioned.
Nietzsche tore himself away from the city and turned his attention to the slightly stained letter in his hand. It was valueless, thought Nietzsche. A letter in and of itself was not important. Nothing was intrinsically important. And yet when Nietzsche squinted to read the envelope under the light of a flickering lamp, he felt his heart leap. The return address, written in an elegant script, began, ‘Cosima Wagner.'”
((I should know better than to joke about such things.))
((The number of times I had to re-type “Nietzsche”…))
One of those rainy, fuzzy socks days…
…So auditioning for things is exciting but it is also really caking stressful, and I think I’ve finally figured out why – acting is all about letting yourself do ridiculous things onstage because you trust that nobody is judging you, and auditioning is about doing ridiculous things on stage for the sole purpose of having people judge you. It’s kind of really scary.
Aaaand then after the auditions are done, completely apart from the wonderful worry that comes from having done that and not even knowing whether you did okay or horribly, you can lie happily awake in bed for hours in the knowledge that you are not going to receive a cast list for about three weeks because the theater company you just auditioned for has no idea what the word ‘organization’ means, and furthermore, that though you had no idea until you got to the audition, you are dying to play Beatrice and there is no way you are going to get cast as her unless Pink gets deathly sick and can’t audition ever, and she would probably get Beatrice even so because those are just the roles that Pink gets, and that you will probably end up as Don John or something because everyone knows Armada is good at the male roles, eeurgh.
Oh, and then there are all the weird emotions that get stirred up by seeing people that you haven’t seen for a year, such as “cake I totally caking forgot that I have a raging squish on Eleven, can he please be Benedick or something” and so on and so forth and I am probably going to be really weird emotionally right up until that cast list comes out three weeks from now.
…I love theater so much.
MUCH ADO.
I’m sorry, but I was Dogberry last spring (yes, I’m a girl!), it was my first high school play, and I will forever love it. Please tell us how it goes!
Hee.
Congrats on getting Dogberry, that is pretty much the best role ever. I’m really excited, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun no matter what roles everyone ends up getting.
Yeah, I’ll definitely keep the ‘blog at least minimally updated on how it goes, though as I said, there is probably not going to be much to hear for three weeks to a month or so. (I don’t even know when callbacks are going to be. *sigh*) *grumblegrumbledisorganizedtheatercompanygrumble*
Yup, Dogberry is extremely fun. He was the last character I originally wanted – nothing like me at all – but I (with help from GAPAs and MuseBloggers!) convinced myself to stick with it, and it turned out to be blast. He’s just so outlandish, and the director gave me lots of freedom to play with the character. Downsides: facial hair, and my hat/wig falling off in the middle of one show. But there’s still a joke around the theater that I’m an ass, so I’d say it was pretty darn successful.
going to bed by midnight for the first time in i don’t even know how long, and actually semi on schedule for where I need to be to be “caught up” this weekend.
8 hours of sleep for the first time in weeks, here I come.
The number of posts I make drops really abruptly when I’m in school. I fell like during spring break, I was on here a lot, but right now, especially since finals week is coming up, I’ve been too busy to drop by and say hi. This is my last week of classes. It’s all teacher evaluations, finishing up homework, and freaking out over exams. I realized I had a paper due today last night at midnight. I finished it, but boy was that a nasty surprise.
Also, my chemistry professor really likes Breaking Bad. She keeps praising the chemistry in the show, immediately followed by a disclaimer that she doesn’t actually approve of any of the activities being done with said chemistry. It’s kind of amusing. I guess.
And then we had these evaluations to fill out, and this voluntary study examining how students use supplemental instruction in their courses. This is notable only because the racial/ethnic data bubble inexplicably left out any Asian category. Which is kind of an oversight. Good luck getting any useful data from that question, statisticians. Pointed it out to the teacher, and some of the other students and I had a good laugh about it.
This post is totally irrelevant.
It rained last night and now everything on campus smells like woodchips. Not bad, just very potent.
My family would take vacations in Florida and all the woodchips at the resort would smell when it rained as well!
Random, but this reminded me of how my band director sometimes rants about the price of reeds and says we should just take the woodchips from outside and use those to play our instruments. Then the other day I was outside the band room and I found a reed in the woodchips. XD
I feel like i haven’t posted in ages whoops!
I… don’t have much to say??
Ireland is good
Blarney Castle is wonderful and I had an amazing sunny day there on monday
planning travel is hard and I am very nervous about going to a country where I don’t speak the most common language even if English is pretty prevalent there. Also the train and bus websites are HORRIBLE and I HATE them but I am telling myself IT WILL BE WORTH IT D:
Are there still dolphins in Dingle Bay?
Meant to respond to this earlier: Yes! Well, there is one, who has been there for like twenty years. I wanted to go down there, but it’s a long trip (weekend probably) and when the international student society sold tickets for thier trip I was on a class field trip, and didn’t get back until after they sold out : / so don’t think I’m going ot make it there in the next 19 days, sadly.
I’ll have to save it for when I come BACK to Ireland
I don’t know much about Ireland, but you’re supposed to kiss the Blarney Stone for luck, right? Did you?
Also, SUPER ENVIOUS OF YOUR BEING-IN-IRELAND-NESS. But not of your website troubles.
I did kiss it! It makes one quite eloquent–ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Gift of Gab!
The academic advising office has a book of New Yorker cartoons from 1955-65 in their waiting room, and I always come a little early to look at it, because I consider New Yorker cartoons to be the height of humor and this collection has lots of space-themed ones because of the time period.
*large telescope pointed at the night sky*
Sign next to the telescope reads: “Comsat stockholders, keep an eye on your investment, 25 cents a look.”
What’s the secret to making difficult, nay, near-impossible life decisions that will have ramifications for your entire future?
Maybe this belongs on the university thread, but any and all advice would be appreciated.
A coin toss works better than you might think. If the result makes you say “Really?!”, then you’ve learned what you really want to do.
I’ve also often thought that one could do worse than to base decisions on a majority vote of one’s friends (assuming one has the right friends).
There’s also the “ask the GAPAs” method…
The real trick is not to torture yourself afterward with regrets and second-guessing.
59 CAKING DEGREES!
I CAN GO OUTSIDE IN BARE FEET AND A T-SHIRT!
WOOOOOOT!
I made a display of the various types of evidence of stone tool making found at a tool production site (raw material, hammerstones, flakes, cores, partly-finished tools) at the museum today.
Art fair?
So the school year (for me, at least) is almost over.
Teachers are talking about finals, I have an AP Exam in Bio looming, and one of two concerts is already finished.
Huh.
My grandmother is dead.
it’s not really a surprise, I guess. She’s had a degenerative disease for much of my life. By the end, she couldn’t walk, she could hardly talk, or do basically anything else on her own. But she was still there. She still loved me, and I could bring her flowers from the lakeside, or hug her, or just sit beside her. Now she won’t ever be there again.
I don’t know how to accept that.
I’m sorry for your loss. Acceptance will come with time… I know how wrong everything feels right now, but it’s going to be okay.
Errata, I am so, so sorry for your loss. We are all here for you if you need us.
I’m sorry, Errata.
I’m so, so sorry for your loss, Errata. *hugs*
I’m so sorry for your loss, Errata. *hugs*
My condolences, Errata. I’m so sorry.
I’m very, very sorry to hear that, Errata.
I’m so sorry for your loss, Errata.
So sorry, Errata.
Death happens. It’s real, and it hurts. You just have to deal with it however you can, and treasure the memories.
Making meaningful memories with the people who are still with you is often a helpful way to start.
I’m continually gratified by the great advice I get from my parents, especially my dad in relation to career things. Guys, don’t ever overlook your parents as a source of help.
I don’t know if it’s been evident but I’ve been quite stressed recently because of exams, revision, not doing enough revision etc. And in the past few days, I’ve had quite a lot of new thinking to do with regards to future plans and all of that.
After a three-hour call with my parents, I have a much clearer idea of where I should plan to be going in life for options I want to pursue, what I’m aiming for, various options I can take, etc. I feel a much less helpless in the face of the future, and a lot better in general. Of course, exams aren’t going away, sadly, but it’s nice to feel at least a little bit more secure in what I’m doing with my life.
Robert (125), thank you for your advice. It’s good advice, as always. Right now it still feels like two possibilities are roughly equal, but with my current Plan of Action I don’t need to make any tough decisions at this moment in time.
Hey MuseBlog! I haven’t been dropping in frequently for a while, I’ve been rather busy with school. How are y’all?
I’m working on project idea that I have; the project itself is almost set but I do need some feedback on the name I (temporarily) chose for it. I’d really appreciate your opinions, so thank you in advance if you reply!
So, my questions are, what do you think of when you see the word “Pandora?” How do you interpret the Pandora’s box myth? Is your reaction to “Pandora” more positive or negative (if that makes sense)?
Unfortunately the online music station Pandora is what first popped into my head, as opposed to the myth of Pandora’s box. :/ That makes me sad…..
I always feel, well, yeah, the music thing, but also I won a mythology trivia competition in sixth grade by knowing that, so a positive sense, yeah.
I usually think of a silly woman with a box or a jar.
I have the D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, which has pictures of all the bad things she let out, i.e. Distrust is a giant ear, Accusation is a pointing finger, Gossip is a bug spewing out more bugs, etc.
My reaction to the myth of Pandora is “Well, we have all these bad things, but at least Hope didn’t fly away.” I don’t really know whether that’s positive or negative or whatever.
Hope this helps!
Same, the D’Aulaires book is awesome!
I see it as a sad story, but I see the fact that hope survived as positive.
I love that book so much! The illustrations were lovely
Thanks to all who replied!
The “hope” trope has never made sense to me. I remember telling one of my primary-school teachers, “You mean she let all those awful things loose on the world but kept hope in the box?! What good is that?”
This has always bothered me. Also, I still do not really understand WHY hope was in the box with all the nasty things anyway??
This myth is not the most straightforward one, and not my favorite, but I love greek mythology a lot so my reaction is still pretty positive.
I always thought that if Hope was let out, then it would just fly off into space or something instead of hanging around.
My interpretation is that while humanity can’t control things like famine and disease, hope is something they have power over. Since Pandora can open the box again, right? It appears that it is easier to open the box/jar than to close it.
Some people interpret the myth negatively, though, to represent that hope is kept from humans. My worries were that more people would see the myth this way rather than optimistically, but from my (rather limited) polling efforts, this does not appear to be the case, so yay!
The “hope was still stuck in the jar” part never made sense to me, either. Why keep it stuck in a jar when you can let it fly out and share it? I think we could all use some hope.
The teacher said, “I think the idea was that ‘hope stayed with her.'” I said, “Just with her? That’s selfish!”
Having me in your elementary school class was a mixed blessing.
I vaguely recall reading an adaptation that took the point of view that Hope turned out to be a curse, the worst demon of the lot.
My first association with Pandora would be Doctor Who
But I’d say I’ve got a more positive reaction towards it-the myth, I mean- sort of hope conquers all.
I thought of the online radio service first, too, sadly.
I interpret the myth as similar to the Garden of Eden myth–there was a temptation (both the box and Pandora herself because Epimetheus knew she was a trick from Zeus) and authority was disobeyed. This caused a fall from a perfect existence, but created a meaningful existence. Zeus wasn’t completely terrible, though; even though Pandora disobeyed his instructions, he included hope in the box so the world wouldn’t be destroyed completely. Pain and suffering, coupled with hope, provide the basis for much more interesting and meaningful stories for the gods to enjoy.
Also, I like Greek mythology, so anything from that genre’s gonna be positive with me.
Looking down at the other responses–Pandora kept hope in the box because she thought it was another bad thing at first, maybe even the worst thing because it was at the bottom. It took a great deal of faith for her to let it out only on its testimony that it was good. The fate of the world rested on her decision. I guess I felt expectant/nervous at this point in the myth? Maybe at some point it got changed because the storyteller thought the myth needed more drama.
Huh. Also, I guess the version that I know is one where Pandora lets everything out of the box and then shuts it before hope can get out. There’s a period of time where there’s no hope in the world. Then, hope tells her that it’s hope, so she lets it out, too. Upon more research, the “hope stays in the box forever” version seems to be more dominant, which is weird because I’ve never heard it that way before. I agree; that’s really confusing. If all the evil things fly out and infect humanity, why shouldn’t hope get to fly out, too? How does it have any influence at all from inside the box?
I’m sticking with the other version.
Like, Pandora observes how much suffering is in the world without hope. Hope tells her that it can make things better. Pandora kind of decides that there’s nothing left to lose, so she lets hope out and everything’s a little better.
I wonder what a Disney version of Pandora would look like. First step: give her a sidekick with a funny accent, maybe a small mythological creature or animated inanimate object.
Like a humorous, talking box/jar with a wide range of facial expressions.
Exactly! “Beats me what’s inside. Why don’tcha ask Zeus?“
Oh whoops, accidentally put in a squid…
Oh I don’t want to write these papers, I don’t at all! I’ve done nothing productive all day, and they’re due on Monday and Tuesday and I’ve got nothing. I just want to sleep all the time or go on adventures or do things that are not homework! I don’t know how I can get my stuff done feeling like this, isn’t the semester over yet?!
But seriously, do you ever just seriously wonder how you can possibly get through the overwhelming waves of apathy?
I’ve been fighting a similar apathy for most of the last two months. I had a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to get done today, and I chose to nap on and off for several hours instead, even though I got adequate sleep last night. And this is pretty characteristic of most days the last month. And I’ve got a super hard block starting in a week, and finals this coming week, and really need to get the apathy to go away so that I can get done all the things I need to get done. :/
Wish I had some advice for both of us.
It’s now 1am and I have one page of one of the papers.
Of course, it’s not very good and I don’t really know where I’m headed with all this but ugh.
Panic is just about setting in, but it’s late and I’m tired so I guess I will panic in earnest tomorrow also I realized that I have a CD review that was due last week oops and I need to record a song with classmates tomorrow.
WHAT IS SLEEP?!
One page is better than no pages. You’ve made a start on breaking the apathy.
Yeah, I’m pretty much stuck with apathy too. I got a D on my last test even though I studied a lot for it: I can’t shake the feeling that no matter what I do, I’ll fail this next test. And I didn’t get anything done yesterday
I too often go through bouts of lassitude, and when it happens I get frustrated with myself for doing so.
It’s a tricky one, but I think one of the
most effectiveleast ineffective ways of dealing with this is have a longer-term goal in mind, to remind of how working hard will help you towards this. Having something to aspire to, I think, can be a more powerful source of motivation than the feeling of ‘oh, this is just another pointless assignment’. For me, certainly, after I’ve worked something out regarding my future plans, it motivates me to work harder.Remind yourself of the aspects of work that you may enjoy. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s a certain thrill to be had from finishing a long paper.
I think it’s also good to recognise the fact that you shouldn’t feel the need to be working all day, every day. I seem to have fallen into a pattern of giving myself Saturday afternoons off, after lessons finish, to recover from five and a half days of hectic school. Then I try to use Sunday to be more productive. Just remember that we do need mental breaks to stay sane. Pushing myself to try and work constantly can have almost the opposite effect.
A lot of the time it’s probably a question of attitude. I know all about how difficult it is to get back into productive mode if I’m in a lethargic mood, but it might help to tell yourself that you’ll change your mindset, possibly for the next day. I’m not explaining very well but e.g. ‘Today is Saturday, and I haven’t done any work, but after today’s break, on Sunday I will definitely power through all my work.’ A good night’s sleep can help me break the cycle of staying up late procrastinating, then feeling too tired to apply myself to work.
I don’t know what works for you, but maybe establish some kind of clear order of importance or difficulty for assignments. You might prefer to do shorter assignments first, to get them out of the way. Alternatively you may want to tackle the longer, more challenging papers and such first, so when it gets late and closer to sleep-time, you don’t need to work yourself quite so hard.
I also find making lists to be helpful. Use Post-it notes! There is a disproportionate amount of satisfaction to be gained from crossing things off a list.
To reiterate what I think can make a lot of difference, remind yourself of your longer-term goals or dreams, and always keep in mind the ultimate purpose of getting through the work. Turn off any distractions (the internet is a big one for me). If I’m doing assignments that don’t require the internet, I find I work more effectively with my laptop closed and my phone out of reach.
Importantly, be positive! If you approach work already thinking it will be a struggle, it most likely will be. If you are firm with yourself and say, I know how to do this and I will get through it, then it becomes easier.
Sorry for the long post. Good luck!
I have returned from [national student journalism conference]! It was huge and magnificent and absolutely fun. There were very helpful panels and presentations, and this morning I went to a talk about incorporating satire into your newspaper by a woman who reminded me inexplicably of Molly Ivins. (It might have been the fact that she grabbed a microphone and sang a song about political scandals in the 90’s to the tune of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town in a heavy Texas accent.)
Has she ever been a member of the Capitol Steps? That sounds like their sort of song.
There’s really not much to report when you spend your whole day eating breakfast outside in the lovely weather and then doing homework, except to say that Spring on campus is really pretty.
I think that the worst thing about having run away to sea relatively early in life is the exquisite torture of knowing how possible it would be to do so again at any moment.
Also known as in ever-grander procrastination efforts I am again considering ditching school and running away again, presumably forever or at least for an extended amount of time. I mean, that’s my plan for when I graduate anyway, but the thought of having to wait two more years until I can do so is actually painful. I’m just so dissatisfied with staying in one place anymore.
Possibly the only reason that kept me in college after sophomore year was the fear my parents would disown me if I quit. I even had a job offer to tempt me even more. It wasn’t till the following year that I discovered painting—and that finally gave me a reason to stick around long enough to get that degree. The class reunion this weekend confirmed more deeply than ever before that finishing was A Good Thing.
I know it’s painful, but stick at it. You’ll end up with knowledge, skills, and lots of complex ideas in your head, which will give you a more interesting life. You’ll also get a silly hat, and a meaningless bit of paper that the world regards as important. That will open doors, and should help you get jobs that are either interesting or lucrative, possibly even both. The latter will help fund adventures.
Not only will that piece of paper open doors, it will prevent some from closing.
Right on! SpaceShipTwo made its first supersonic flight today!
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL IS BACK TOGETHER.
THEY ARE TOURING THIS YEAR.
THIS IS THEIR FIRST TOUR IN 15 YEARS AND THE SAME YEAR THAT MY BLOODY VALENTINE AND BOARDS OF CANADA AND DAFT PUNK AND POSSIBLY THE DISMEMBERMENT PLAN HAVE NEW ALBUMS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE YOU 2013
(and it might mean a new album too)
I have this plan. When the first commercial space hotel opens, they’re going to need a resident hurdy-gurdy player.
I like that since this is a music post and the above was a space post, this works equally well as a reply to either.
We’ll call you Rhysling.
Wait, they’re real? I thought John Green made them up.I thought that too when I first read Will Grayson Will Grayson.
When I read it, I was surprised that someone notable actually listened to them.
Arriving home at 2 in the morning with another 2 hours of studying planned before I head to bed for, at most 4 hours of sleep, and having only gotten 3 1/2 last night, oy to find a muse magazine all about sleep sitting on my kitchen table, mocking me an my sleep deprivation, while its every headline mentions sleep and features a sleeping statue on the cover. Really, muse, really? Must you torment me so??????
(It will now be added to the backlog of over a years worth of muses I have yet to read)
I love this college and this city (at least now that it’s warm here), but when the Boston Globe has it on the front page that 11 fellow students have died in the past 13 months, one starts to wonder…