“In this Illustrated Fantasy the Moon falls in love with the Sun. She entrusts her gift, a Fabulous Jewel, to Jack Hare who must travel through Earth Air Fire and Water to reach the Sun. Along the way, many adventures befall Jack Hare, but in the end the Jewel is lost. Where it was lost and where the Treasure lies buried is the final puzzle of MASQUERADE.”
Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!
Jadestone here. This was my absolute favorite “children’s” book growing up. It is a picture book of riddles: each spread has a page with the overarching story/a small riddle, and the facing page holds a whimsical illustration of that part of the story. Each image contains several things–a border of words, a hare hidden somewhere within the picture, and a clue. The author created a real-world treasure hunt leading to a jeweled hare made of gold and turquoise, at the time valued at $5000. The book taken as a whole, using both text and art, leads to the location where he buried it.
You can read more about this book and see all the illustrations here.
– Jade
Ooh, very nice. I love the golden rabbit.
I remember reading about this book in a book of “true tales of buried treasure” when I was younger. It actually got solved relatively quickly, as I recall *looks up* well, three years after the book was published, so yeah, pretty quickly, considering there are some similar books with multiple treasures that have not all been found yet.
Hmm, apparently the story that was in my book may have been later revealed as a lie and the guy who actually found it cheated. Two other people did find the right location a little later, only to realize they were beaten to it by that guy. That is really a shame.
Ready Player One did a similar contest, which I totally missed because I was a latecomer to the book (though the fandom burns bright in my heart still, it’s my number one problematic fave). I think the winner got a Delorean. it’s so excessive and dumb and I love that about it.
Oh, they had an actual treasure hunt? I know the book itself is about a treasure hunt (I read the first chapter or so because one of my brothers was reading it and he left it around), but I didn’t know there was a real-life one connected to it. That’s cool.
I remember “A Treasure’s Trove”, which was very similar to “Masquerade” but with 14 seperate treasures that came out when I was in Middle School. I had a copy and wanted to solve the puzzles, but I was too dumb and impatient to work any of them out and I probably wouldn’t have been able to travel around to look for them even if I had solved a puzzle.
Actually, come to think of it, couldn’t the treasure hunt in “Ready Player One” have been inspired in-Universe by “Masquerade” (and/or the several similar treasure hunt books that followed it in the 80s)? Since the whole thing was that all of the clues were related to the 80s childhood of the guy who made the hunt? So maybe the idea of *having* a treasure hunt came from his childhood, too? (Again, I’ve only read the first chapter or so, so this could be contradicted by what happens later on in the book.)
sftdp…. but to Vendaval on the last thread:
I really do think that black/white thinking, binary thinking, whatever you call it, benefits those currently in power. In many ways it’s the same argument as stereotypes making it easier to make a snap judgment but being harmful to those stereotyped. (For related, see: why feminism helps men too.) Basically I think it’s that the people in power will do whatever they can do to make it seem like they’re meant to be there/others aren’t, and an easy way to do that is to convince everyone of “us good, other bad,” which is pretty much the ur-example of binary thinking.
But I’m not a social scientist, so maybe I’m completely off the mark…
I agree, and maybe I misunderstood your previous post- I thought you were defending binary thinking, but I’m not so sure now. I also agree that systems of hegemony rely on highly simplified models for sorting the world, which isn’t great. But I wonder if the most powerful people in those systems use the same models? Like, Bush, for example- he’s terrifying because he must be much smarter than he appears, right? He can’t really believe or follow everything he’s said about his decision making process, right? Right? It’s probably worse, but also much more comforting to think that he presented a simple world to communicate and lead, while actually carefully weighing the subtleties and complexities of everything he was faced with.
Very intelligent people fall victim to black-and-white thinking all the time. I don’t think positions of power insulate people from it, or select for people who can avoid it.
The fact that I’m probably one of the only highschoolers who takes note of almost everything(including unimportant stuff)and goes through almost a whole note book within a few weeks. Also, by 3:30 PM, I have a massive headache! XD I’m very much determined though. I won’t let anything stop me from doing good.
Just took a trip down memory lane and visited Studge Academy. I’m having trouble believing that Studge was from April 2009. Was it really that long ago?
*feels old*
I remember that one. Everyone rebelled almost immediately, but Luna was the most creative/sneaky in her rebellion. And a bunch of us tried to unleash the power of the HPBs.
So, “Godzilla: The Half-Century War” is an incredible comic and I’ve never even read a Godzilla comic before.
In the realm of very strange but happy coincidences, I learned today that not only do I go to college with Cskia, but she’s also a good friend of mine, having met through the (much smaller than the college itself) art school. In total there are about 100 freshmen in the art school so this is statistically very improbable.
Nice! Coincidences are so awesome!
Coincidence? Or Kokoincidence?
Woah woah that’s amazing. More details!
Wait so you were friends IRL for a bit, then realized you were both MBers?
Yep. Ros helped with that last part, too
Wait, where/how does Ros come into this?
We started talking off-blog a while ago and discovered yesterday that Cskia is a mutual friend.
It pretty much went like this:
shadowfire: Hey, I was stalking you on (social media); how do you know (Cskia)?
Me: I think that’s Cskia? (note that I was braindead and tired from a 1.5 hour band rehearsal at the time)
shadowfire: WAIT WHAT
Me: WAIT WHAT
Heyo guys! How are you all?
So I found out today that shadowfire goes to the same university and same art school as I do, and we had a studio class together last semester, and that she (and Ducky) recognized me as Cskia because of all the squids I draw everywhere, and–HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS, WHAT IS THIS MAGIC AND ASFA:GLASLA:SD
for years I have fantasized that I would one day find out that someone in my college is a museblogger and
*sobs*
Whoops, we simulposted
Aaahhh this is so cool though!
*Cskia!! I missed you! *glomps* That’s so great about Shadowfire! Wow! How are the both of you?
OH MY! That’s incredible and mind-bogglingly improbable and wow, I’m sitting here giggling like a maniac because of how awesome that is.
You somehow managed to fulfill the dream that every MBer has always had.
Exactly what I thought. Back in middle school, I always hoped that someone else in my school would turn out to be a MuseBlogger too. But it never happened.
Man, middle school was rough, huh? This site was a huge help in getting me through it. Bittersweet memories.
It really did. This is one of the things from middle school (I joined the site in seventh grade) that was so fantastic that I have really fond memories of it. I don’t even mind that past threads have Embarrasing posts I made about silly things I did or thought. I like it here and don’t feel the need to dwell on the past, but don’t feel the need to run away from it either.
Hey, me too! (the 7th grade part, at least) Fettuccine Alfredo to you!
I haven’t been in seventh grade for a while now, but fettuccine Alfredo to you too! (I haven’t used that term in years. I forget what it used to mean.)
It sort of happened to me; one of the friends I met at college used to lurk here, though she rarely posted. Never met a full-fledged MBer in the wild yet, though.
(clarification: I have met Chok, but we arranged that via the blog so that’s just a kokonvention.)
My best friend saw my Koko sticker and said “hey, you read Muse too?” (I suppose we weren’t best friends yet. This was around the time we first met.) But she’s never been on MB.
Fun fact that some of you might not know: Marfwarrior and I have been friends since we were, what, 7? She was actually the one who introduced me to the magazine!
And then you introduced me to the blog a few years later!
Ah yes, because you actually went outside and stuff while I just sat inside all day on the computer.
hey, I mean, I’ve parlayed sitting on the computer into a job where I sit on a computer all day and write code (and go to meetings). There are worse hobbies!
Haha, I know — that’s what I’ll be doing this summer (and it’s basically my life now anyway)!
That happened to me in my first year of college – found out that my good friend and former roommate had been a lurker and occasional poster. This was discovered when I was telling her about a one act play I was writing for class about the Bunny Apocalypse.
Me: so there are these hot pink bunnies that took over the world –
Her: Wait – did you just say hot pink bunnies?
Me: Yes…
Stare at each other with looks of dawning comprehension and shock
That’s so cool you guys!
I’ve met a few people who were familiar with Muse (including my girlfriend), but never (that I know of) accidentally met a MuseBlogger.
Wow, how amazing!
I’m pretty sure there are no MBers at my college, yet I always wonder how many Musers there might be.
*cuddlefishes for all* Missed you too, everyone! College is busy but fun, and I feel like I’ve grown a lot through meeting so many different people.
I’m still amazed this really happened. Can’t believe that I didn’t know we were Kokonvening, even though we drew portraits of each other in class and singing in the bus and everything. Also, shadowfire is adorable, rad, super-talented and has the best socks (octopus socks are the BEST).
Just for you I will wear them more often :3 Maybe tomorrow in the hope that it will help me survive my midterms, aaaaagh.
*CSKIA! It has been an eon!
Cskia and shadowfire: that is absolutely mind-boggling and I am now insanely envious.
Jade: woah, that’s a really pretty book!
So I kinda didn’t do so well on that chemistry test from last week, but it’s okay because practically no one did. So it’s not like I’m an anomaly; there was just this one killer problem on material from two weeks ago that we hadn’t reviewed and that pretty much screwed us all over.
But the important thing is I did well in math.
So it’s 4am and I just finished watching Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog doc about prehistoric art in Chauvet Cave). Caves and thinking about prehistoric people both kind of freak me out in a way that makes me feel generally unsafe/vulnerable to physical attack. Just after I get into bed my roommate in the bunk below me says something in her sleep, which really startles me because she’s never done it before.
So glad I don’t have to leave for class until 1pm tomorrow. I’m way too on edge to fall asleep.
*sympathetic hug*
I’m speleophobic, too.
Man, that stinks. Every since I was really little I’ve loved caves. Whenever we travel somewhere I always notice if there’s any brochures for nearby caves, and I try and figure out a way to add it to the itinerary. I don’t know why–they’re just enchanting to me.
I really like caves/caverns, etc. I’ve always found them filled with excitement and wonder, and looking at all the little formations and stuff–it’s just fun.
I remember going to the Lewis and Clark caves when I was <10, and the caves at Ruby Falls in Tennessse, I think those were all some of the most fun/large/beautiful ones I've been to (probably in part due to the added wonder of having been a child at the time) But I still love going and seeing caves. <3
I should clarify– not all caves bother me. In Menorca, there were several small ones where you could see the full extent or nearly the full extent from the entrance and light reached or almost reached the back walls, and I was fine exploring those and thinking about how the Talayotic people used them as burial places and how later folks used them as livestock stables.
What freaks me out is caves where it’s possible to get so far in that you can’t see the entrance and/or you’re in total darkness. There was a tunnel-like cave by the sea that had a bend in it such that you were in total darkness at a certain point, and even though I knew the exit was ten meters behind me and there were other people right there with me, I freaked out.
I don’t like the idea of being in a situation where escape *seems* difficult, I guess, even if in reality it would be easy. It’s the same reason I would never pursue a certificate for diving in overhead environments– I want to know that if anything goes wrong, it’s a straight shot to the surface. (Hopefully a slow enough shot not to develop any nasty air-expansion conditions, of course.)
I know what you mean with diving in places without a straight shot to the surface/air supply. The idea of going diving in underwater caves is…definitely scary. Too many things that could go wrong, and that I would be thinking about constantly and *shudder*. I actually am not sure I’d even like regular diving, unless I”m super close to the surface. I can only hold my breath about 20 seconds, so….if my oxygen supply failed…. eep.
For some reason, though, caves, even the ones where they are pitch black when they turn out the artificial lights and you’re nowhere near the entrance, don’t bother me. Maybe it’s because there’s other people, and a tour guide, and all of that (I probably would be scared if I was by myself), because I’m afraid of the dark, and have an overactive imagination, so….I think it must just be one feels safe. I don’t know.
Hmm… How do you feel about malt beer? Red meat off the bone?
I’d rank them right up there with whittling and sitting around a fire.
Beards? Battle-axes? Mithril?
Goldsmithing, mountains, gems that glow.
Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica?
What is going on? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Identity theft is not a joke, Jim!
Micheal! Micheal!
“People say, ‘oh it’s dangerous to keep weapons in the home, or the workplace.’ Well I say, it’s better to be hurt by someone you know, accidentally, than by a stranger, on purpose.â€
I was trying to determine whether he might be a Dwarf. What were you asking about? (Hm, do Dwarves harvest beets from below?)
Yeah, I know. Somehow your series of questions made me think of this quote, which is from the episode of The Office where Jim pretends to be Dwight. I suppose that in effect this means I’m asking if Piggy is Dwight? But I assume that goes without saying. (….Right?)
Ah, I see. Or rather, I don’t see. Life doesn’t allow me much time for TV nowadays.
Oh dear. I meant to say that it goes without saying that he ISN’T. It was very early in the morning when I wrote that.
Happy Purim to all!
Riding on Acela, listening to National Geographic Weekend, posting on MB.
I promised you a Piggy Employment Update, so here is a Piggy Employment Update.
Last week sometime, Father (that is, the pastor of my parish) asked me if I could chat for a few minutes after Mass since we hadn’t really talked since I got back from the monastery. Naturally, that was a part of the conversation. He also asked if I had gone back to the grocery store I had been working at, and I said I hadn’t and was still looking for a job somewhere else. Long story short, starting this past Monday, I’m the Monday through Wednesday secretary slash bulletin editor for my parish. It was totally out of the blue but it’s a fantastic job for a number of reasons. Part-time (therefore, there’s time for camping trips and the like), at my own parish (I know most of the people, I can go to Mass before work, etc.), it’s great experience for me to see how a parish runs, I think I’ll be good at the work. And I don’t go home covered in grease and chicken blood every day. That’s a huge bonus.
No more unemployment! Phew! Just in time, too; I was scraping the bottom of my bank account….
Congratulations on the job! Also on doing adulty things in general, that stuff takes way more effort than I planned for.
Congrats! Sounds like a great fit.
That’s great, Piggy!
Hooray!
So it turns out one of the girls in my dorm (who is super nice) is from Tennessee, just an hour away from where I lived from ages 6-7! We had a fun chat the other night reminiscing about various aspects of eastern Tennessee, including Dollywood, which is a theme park named after Dolly Parton and actually a real thing that I have been to.
DOLLYWOOD IS SO GREAT. My family used to go there a lot when I was younger.
When eating bunny shaped marshmallows, I tend to either swallow them whole and imagine their suffering or just simply bite their head off giving them a quick death.
But aside from that randomness, huge large snow storm is coming to my house, the ice has already begun to fall.
A giant horror montage of hot pink bunny Peeps just ran through my head. And they actually exist!
Don’t assume too much. As MuseBlog established long ago, hot-pink bunnies don’t necessarily mind losing their heads. For a while, entire threads were devoted to this disturbing topic.
Don’t call off the agents just yet, guys: my life, yet again, is a movie. Or perhaps a TV show. Is it Community? It’s probably Community. The ninjas are probably coming for me momentarily.
So yesterday I decided that I wanted to make fettucine alfredo. I hadn’t cooked in a while and I was getting bored, so I went down to the (usable, but still terrible) dorm kitchen, which is like a little annex off of a bigger basement that is often used for events and things. This was at about 7:15. Some event was setting up, and i thought very little of it at the time–I was listening to Welcome to Night Vale and attempting to remember my sauce recipe, I believe. Then Latin dance music started playing and I thought ohhh, okay, I remember getting that email. It was some kind of dance class as stress relief or whatever and I remembered it as 7:30 on Wednesday, but I didn’t really think about the date or time when I went down to cook. Anyway, the point is, I attempted to do competitive ballroom dance in the beginning of my freshman year, dated my dance partner, and it was horrible and he was emotionally abusive and thankfully he is 100% out of my life since that January. And guess who, of all the people involved in our ballroom dance club, they chose to teach that class?
Yeah. So here’s me, making white sauce, the realization slowly dawning on me that the voice I am hearing counting out dance steps mere feet away is, in fact, my evil ex. I thank all relevant gods that I closed the door when I started and just kind of leave my trash on the counter because the trashcan is outside and I am NOT going out there. So I just kind of…. make pasta…. while having a panic attack…. and a girl comes in to heat up her Bagel Bites and sympathizes with me and I must have run twenty possible scenarios for how I could get out of there. His voice sounded really, really close. Thankfully, there are two doors to the basement, and there is one less convenient to the elevator but closer to the kitchen. I just turned up my music really loud and practically ran out of there with a pot of boiling pasta that I planned to strain upstairs regardless. I don’t think he saw me, but I had visions of a darkest-timeline outcome where I tripped and spilled the pasta water all over him and probably ran away.
So I’m not sure if my life is trying to be, like, a farce…. or a weird tragedy… or something…. but I am Not Amused. Seriously, of ALL PEOPLE. Of ALL SITUATIONS. How is this even possible.
Not nearly on the level of panic attacks or anything, but I thought I would also interject some random ex drama as well — I dated this guy in high school (like 3 years ago, mind you) and blah blah, anyway long story short I graduated, he didn’t, and that was the end of that. Haven’t seen him since, kept up occasionally via instant message or whatever, but I didn’t expect to see him again because he’s on the East Coast and I’m in California.
Well, the other day he messaged me saying that he was coming to Stanford for a tournament and would it be all right if we got dinner? I hesitantly agreed, first suggesting that we make it a Great Minnesota Get-Together (we have a lot of friends in common from back home), but he shot that down and said he wanted a one-on-one thing. Well, because I can’t say no, he then called me (at 2 AM his time and 11 PM my time, mind you) and we chatted for a while (well, he asked me questions and I answered them) and he straight-up asked me about my romantic life.
It was one of the most uncomfortable phone calls I’ve ever experienced.
So now I’m getting dinner with him tomorrow and I fully expect it to be the most uncomfortable thing ever. I mean, the guy has apparently been following my exploits at college through [are we still not allowed to name social networking sites?] and knows the names of people who frequently pop up on my profile page, and now he wants to meet them. After talking with close friends, however, we have all established that that is kind of weird, so they’re all going to be busy Friday night.
I mean, we last saw each other June 2012! I’ve moved on; I thought he did too. He said he still thinks about me on a regular basis. I haven’t thought about him in months. I’m all for keeping in touch with old friends, but he still seems to think we have this deep emotional connection or something when in fact, quite frankly, his intensity alarms me and I don’t reciprocate it and I like my life the way it is.
TL;DR: I am a coward. But it’s only going to be one dinner, so whatever, I’ll live.
That is… mildly worrying. Honestly, if I were you, I’d drag some friends along as a buffer, even though that potentially gives him more info on you. My ex has similar levels of…. intensity…. so I completely understand this struggle. I mean, the guy said he loved me after a MONTH but still said “I don’t want to label our relationship!!” And then he texted me last May (right before my birthday, which was… helpful….), after not having seen me for months, with something like “Okay, I think I’ve moved on enough that I can see you as a friend” or some other ridiculous cake that’s code for “I’M CREEPILY OBSESSED WITH YOU, LET’S HAVE DINNER SO I CAN INSINUATE MYSELF BACK INTO YOUR LIFE.” Which sounds about like what you’re going through right now, if I’m not mistaken. Good luck!! You are braver than I am because I probably would have made up seventeen excuses not to go!
(hopefully this comes off as “I sympathize with your predicament” and not “that’s nice but let’s make this about me again.” I never know with this sort of thing. If it’s weird, I apologize, I am in the midst of a research paper and feeling as if I will never see the sun again, so my social skills are pretty much down for the count.)
CANCEL LAST MINUTE, SOMETHING URGENT CAME UP
or, like. at the very least have a friend within close enough range to pick you up/checking their phone in case you have to text them discreetly to call you about an emergency you have to leave for…
idk, maybe I’m just socially inept and overly cautious, but I’m hearing warning bells.
Yeah. If you don’t want to go, you can say no. This meeting is not required.
Wow! I didn’t expect this to get as strong of a response as it did.
Everyone: I consider this person to be fairly harmless, if quite creepy/weird. Plus, I’m in my territory — the location for this dinner would likely be on campus or just off-campus, in places I know very well, in a very, very safe suburb.
RoseQuartz: I think that’s a good idea, I might text a friend we have in common who I trust to come and join us. Luckily this should be a one-time thing; it would be hard for him to insinuate himself into my life when he lives on the other end of the country. And don’t worry, I took it as sympathy!
Dodec: I don’t particularly like cancelling on people, especially when he seemed so excited about it, but if my anxiety spikes as dinner gets closer I might just do that. But I will alert multiple people to my location, and my roommate will have my back if I ask her.
Oxlin: Yeah, I know. I don’t “owe” him anything, and I’ll make that much clear.
So… I don’t know. I might cancel. I think I’ll ask someone to join us. That seems like the best course of action at this point.
I promise to stay safe, guys. I know campus and Palo Alto very well. I have the home turf advantage.
Update: Haven’t heard from him and now it’s almost 10 PM. So I guess that problem fixed itself…
Oh hey, Robert’s friend Lauren Mullineaux who answered Erin’s question about vent life was quoted in “Water Baby”, the 1990 “biography” of DSV Alvin! (Who was then only half his present age.)
Currently camped out in a high-legged chair, and not getting my much-needed sleep because there happens to be a mouse that, for whatever reason, took a particular liking to my bedroom. The dog had been on guard until recently, where he has taken up trying to get me to throw one of his toys for him.
So I was involved in a small student-led protest action today (part of a series of things we’re doing in an attempt to make campus and the city in general better for students of color) and this friendly-looking guy in a suit came into the building and started filming us. There were only about twenty people involved and I figured he was just a supportive faculty member, but, uh, turns out he was a journalist. Specifically one who’s writing a story about social activism on our campus.
So…my face may be in a major newspaper at some point…
I am probably going to NYU unless I hear back from Penn.
Nice! Maybe you’ll run into Cat before they graduate.
Make that definitely, Penn rejected me.
One fewer decision to make. Congratulations on knowing where you’re going next!
NYU is an exciting place. I used to teach there, and one of Science‘s writers still does. And New York City, it appears, is swarming with MBers and other Musers.
I liked the Open House and everyone in the department seemed nice, so I think I will like it.
The Great Displacement is over, I moved back into my suite/room this evening. The entire living room is still a huge mess, the kitchen is gross, and I have a ton of cleaning and organizing to do in my room, but it’s nice to be back here. None of my suitemates have moved back in yet, so it’s super quiet, but it’s alright.
On the topic of housing, I got a call from another boat I’d applied to, and it sounds like I probably have a job in NYC for four months directly after graduation. I still need to call them back and ask some questions about how much it pays and about housing, because as much as I’d like to take the position it entirely depends upon my ability to find housing, which is probably going to be really hard on a most likely very low salary. Which is frustrating, because I think it would be a neat boat and organization to work with, and I’d be interested in living in NYC for a short duration.
23 centimeters of snow and two snow days. Boy is my math teacher going to be mad.
Hello from all-state auditions, aka my ears are being assaulted with sounds similar to those they play in Heck. I’m not really expecting to make it- the odds are stacked against me in terms of who all qualified to audition (I’m still not sure why they let me), but wish me luck!
I cheer for Dawn and I cry for Nimrud and Hatra.
PSA: Daylight saving starts tonight. Who doesn’t love losing an hour of sleep?
Hopefully for once I will be asleep, or, instead of like last night where I got a whole 4 1/2 hours of sleep when i went to bed at 2am, I’ll only get 3 1/2 hours, and that’s…..just not adequate.
We set our clocks back last year! We’re not going to do it this year.
I don’t understand. Are you just going to add an hour in your head every time you look at a clock?
That was a bit of a sarcasm thing.
Like, “I went to school yesterday, I’m not going today”
Haha! I don’t have to experience Daylight Savings this year because I’ll be going back before it starts in France! Hooray.
Here in Cincinnati, we had one of the warmest (and most beautiful) days we’ve had in ages, and I feel better about life already.
Welcome, Spring, the most spurring of all the seasons!
“It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no,
That o’er the green cornfield did pass
In springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, Hey ding a ding, ding.
Sweet lovers love the spring.”
After one last day of single-digits last week, it’s been in the 50s every day here. It’s significantly brightened my mood as well, watching all the frost come out of the ground and turn into mud. The cool, humid mornings make the world seem very alive, very full of things to explore. Every year winter makes me forget what spring feels like, so every year it’s something new and surprising to me.
Hey let’s play a game. See if you can guess who keeps making really stupid mistakes on the math section of the SATs, needs at least a 2200 on her next SAT if she wants a shot at any of her dream colleges, and recently drove herself to tears over the previous two points.
*deep and prolonged sigh*
But on the bright side, spring! Warm temperatures! New growth! Snowmelt…under…the foundations…and seeping…into the house…
On the third side (my life is a triangular pyramid with no base), I ushered at my school’s production of Beauty and the Beast, and it was stunning. The set was beautifully painted, the costumes all on point, and the songs, my goodness the songs were amazing. The actors who played Lumiere and Cogsworth and the actress who played Belle were all perfect for their roles. Also Gaston: I know the guy in real life and he’s actually a huge sweetheart, so it was funny to see him playing such a mean, misogynistic character. B&B was and remains one of my favorite Disney cartoons, and they did a great job of putting it on stage, even for a high school production.
Chant with me?
*Math is a skill, not an innate talent that you magically have or don’t have*
*Math is a skill, not an innate talent that you magically have or don’t have*
*Math is a skill, not an innate talent that you magically have or don’t have*
Especially SAT math- those questions only come from certain topics in certain types and flavors. This not some insurmountable obstacle- you can practice and study for it and then you will succeed. Please don’t psych yourself out.
Les Mis opened successfully and on time, despite missing two weeks of rehearsals to snow days… I’m really proud of all the cast, crew, and pit. They’re all so amazing.
In other news, all state auditions were… interesting. Fun, though! Interesting but fun.
I’ve been messing around on Duolingo and either Duolingo is ridiculously easy or it’s surprising how fast Spanish is coming back to me.
This does mean I don’t yet have a sense of how good the site is for learning new material. Has anyone else had experience with it, or similar programs?
Duolingo helped bring a lot of Spanish back for me, too, but my main problem is that I can read/write it just fine–speaking quickly and fluently is what trips me up; if people casually ask me to speak Spanish, I get all nervous and flustered. But I did go to Spain last summer and a lot of it came back quickly and I was even able to communicate with various people.
Basically, Duolingo is great for reading and writing, but not speaking so much (or vocab). If you’re looking to learn more, I’d combine it with something like Memrise or Anki for vocab and practice with a fluent speakers.
Veering this off into general language-learning territory: I’m planning on learning Tagalog this summer, and unfortunately there’s no Duolingo for it yet. However, there are a lot of online resources for it, and my entire family speaks it… (on the other hand, the fact that I don’t already know it means that my family doesn’t particularly value learning the language, even though I do)
Whoops, I restarted the sentence midway and mixed up my singular/plural words. I highly doubt electronic speakers could be fluent in Spanish. Would not recommend practicing with those.
I’ve been meaning to try it out but I haven’t yet because anxiety about actually talking to native speakers, but I really should.
I actually know a couple of native speakers, as well as non-native speakers who speak Spanish pretty well, so once I have improved a bit more, I will try to start practicing with them.
I’ll check out Memrise and Anki too.
I should also probably mention that I don’t think Duolingo is easy — I found French rather challenging on it, especially the listening parts. (I don’t think French is quite my forte. I heard everything as “fwa fwa fwa” and it was very confusing.)
Out of curiosity, how many languages do you speak? So far you’ve mentioned Spanish and French, plus a desire to learn Tagalog, and English is obvious.
I’m pretty sure that what I’m doing right now is recovering old knowledge rather than adding new knowledge — it is easy now, but it’ll probably get harder once I’ve passed my last peak of Spanish proficiency.
Oh, I only know Spanish and English. My French is abysmal and my Italian is potentially passable, though I’ve never tried. I can understand conversational Tagalog pretty well but I can’t speak it very well; I can only read it if I sound it aloud in my head, very slowly; and my writing is basically nonexistent.
I have many goals for language learning, none of which I have accomplished yet here at Stanford. I have learned quite a few programming languages, though… so I guess that’s something.
I tried it for Spanish over winter break, but when I took the “place yourself!” test, my skills filled up everything except the last line. Whooops. Even though a ton of the vocabulary and even grammar in there (especially subjunctive and conditional type things) I definitely have not mastered. Then the “strength” of each skill was going down too slowly for me to feel motivated, so I forgot about it until just now. Also, the “Immersion” translations from Spanish>English are a lot easier for me than English>Spanish translations would be, so I wasn’t learning as much there. It seems useful overall, though, especially through intermediate levels of the language! I have heard that supplementing new verb tenses with outside explanations is helpful so that you get your feet under you faster.
shadowfire – Talking to native speakers isn’t part of the core Duolingo model. (At least as far as I know, I could havem issed something.)
you realize this isn’t about you, right?
So? She’s the one going through a breakup: if she needs space, give it to her. Smothering someone when they explicitly say that they want to be alone just hurts and angers them. If you love her, support her by giving her the time and space she needs. Loving someone (in a healthy way) doesn’t mean sticking to them 24/7, but it does include respecting the other person’s boundaries.
Agreed. The best thing for you to do for her right now is to respect her wishes.
Okay, now this is rather funny, the girl I like, her friend says she’d ask me out if she was lesbian. XD rather unusual case… (The other friend has a boyfriend whom she loves a lot.)
quick advice, aka “I went through the process of being a queer teenage girl and made these mistakes so you don’t have to” crossed with “I am going to be late for work if I don’t hurry”
-The kind of people who say “if I was lgbtq I’d date you” are generally either lying to themselves (about if they’re lgbtq) or lying to you (about whether they’d date you).
-You don’t want to date someone immediately after a breakup. They’re probably looking for comfort/still want their ex but are willing to settle for less/will see themselves, in retrospect, as having made a mistake by settling for you.
-There will be other girls, who will like you, who will not put these “if I was, which I’m not, tee hee” caveats on their declarations of sentiment. Wait for one of them.
-Speaking as someone who has been dating the same person since high school – my case is the exception, and we got together senior year. Breakups are the general case. It doesn’t mean the feelings you feel aren’t real, but… a breakup is far from the end of the world.
Technically, I can’t date them… They live across the country from me. DX
*quietly whispers that her girlfriend is across the country as well and somehow it’s been working*
Hm, seems like you’re the only person I talk to here now. I’m not doing it on purpose, it’s just that you’ve most recently been the one with relevant things I can reply to.
that’s never stopped me… (currently Cleveland – LA. Although it helps that we’re both adults with enough funds to afford a monthly plane ticket.)
as another former queer teen (former teen, not former queer) it’s also pretty easy to tell when you’re someone’s experiment, and it’s not really that rewarding to either party.
Yeah, I have a…thing? That may be a relationship? that doesn’t allow for a whole lot of face-time. Thankfully they’re a (long) train ride away when we’re both at school.
To those who thought my 8th-grade 20K Leagues self-insert was a Mary Sue, I just remembered an earlier story whose protagonist was a tween girl living in Connecticut in 1911 who had taught herself Quechua from a dictionary just for fun, unaware that there would coincidentally be an archaeological expedition requiring skills in just that language organized by a patron of the library she worked at. (She also knew Kung Fu and had psychic dreams…)
I love it.
In her defense, psychic dreams were featured in one of the children’s books on the expedition that inspired the story.
Also, about half my stories at that age had the premise “Smart and brave tween girl who was present at a historical event and played some small role in it” and half of those were “I went on this scientific expedition and saved the main explorer guy somehow”.
Okay, I have a confession to make: I like Mary Sues.
All Mary Sues or just this kind of Mary Sues?
Yours more than most because they reflect my own interests, but all of them inasmuch as they embody the writers’ unattainable dreams, ideals, and aspirations. How could that not be poignant and endearing?
If Mary Sues are wrong I don’t want to be right.
Today I came out to a casual friend and it wasn’t scary at all! It probably helped that they’re nb and so I knew that we had that shared experience of people not knowing that we exist. But I was pretty proud of myself because usually when I come out to people, even if I know or am pretty sure that they’ll be accepting, I get anxious (even if it’s just a little bit) and a little panicky and I have to kind of recover and breathe afterward. And it was a pretty casual way to go about it, too, which was nice–we were talking about comics and webcomics and I mentioned having seen a list of webcomics with asexual main characters and being excited. All I had to say was “I’m ace and on the aro spectrum so I get irrationally excited about stuff like that” and they were like “oh yeah I feel that!”
It’s really nice having irl queer friends. I’ve had a few cis gay male friends because theater, and I knew some people through the GSA in high school, but none very close and they all thought i was a “straight” “ally”. And since college I’ve been too scared to go to Rainbow (our MOGAI group) meetings, buuuut I have no excuse now because my pledge mom is the co-president. That’s also pretty awesome because I can suggest things to her (e.g. please do something for Asexual Awareness Week) and she will make them happen! Yay nepotism! (I’m pretty sure we’re the only two non-straight people in my sorority and somehow I managed to get her as my pledge mom. Best coincidence ever.)
WOOOOO *confetti*
I came out to my dad as ace over text a while ago and he was pretty accepting. My mother is more “oh, well, you might change your mind later” which I can understand but is a bit frustrating. Anyway, congrats and good job!!!
Terry Pratchett has died
it’s a sad time for sci-fi/fantasy fans.
.
(The collectSPACE forums have a convention of signifying a moment of silence with a post consisting of only a period. It may not have started there, but that’s where I know it from. I think it is very useful.)
Oh no.
I wonder if we can get an In Memoriam thread? I think there are enough people here whose lives were touched by him and his work.
Have you forgotten that you can make threads yourselves? But never mind. I’ve created one.
Oh, dear. Now there are two.
I did forget, but Rosebud didn’t. We now have two.
Back to one! Memorialize away.
oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no
cried for more than an hour when i found out, this isn’t okay, i’m not okay
Brief hello from Ogallala
On the road to Nevada still, left Chicagoland yesterday noon and stopped in Omaha for the night.
Was very sad to hear about Terry Pratchett yesterday. Will probably do some sort of proper write up when I get computer access again, time provided (which it probably won’t be, but, we’ll see).
For now: tumbleweed sightings increasing. So much inferior corn. I have seen several (farm) bison, 1 crane, and 2 bald eagles so far.
Hooray, I’ve been in the same city as another MBer again! This is, I think, the fourth time it’s happened (once before in Omaha, twice in D.C.).
Only one crane? I wonder how the migration’s doing this year. We usually drive out and take a look. Maybe they avoid the interstate or something.
Are you in omaha?
I usually am.
Then it’s the fifth time it’s happened.
Nobody understands my imaginary world.
If it makes you feel any better, we don’t much understand the real world either.
I’m sorry. D’,X
Party hats ready? Wherever you are, don’t forget to make lots of noise at 3/14/15 9:26:53. Pi Second won’t come again for another 100 years. (Even though tau is cooler.)
I was sleeping.
Celebrate on Alaska time, then. It’s where your heart is.
Same here. I’m going to celebrate tonight, I think. 9:26:53 happens twice a day, you know!
Happy Uber Pi Day! I was taking the SATs at the crucial second, but managed to look up at the clock at the right time.
Also, SATs. Glad they’re over with; the essay wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and there were only a few odd questions. Now I’m going to relax a little bit before I have to study for a Gov test and a Latin vocab quiz next week.
*SAT-on-pi-day high five/squids* I… am pretty sure I did a lot better than last time. Not sure how well I did on the essay, because it ended up on the short side because my hand and wrist were having problems.
Phew, I’m glad to see you’ve got those behind you. The SATs are brutal. Now hopefully if you choose to go to Grad School, they’ll have abolished the GRE by then…
While your’e all celebtating, spare a thought for us Brits, who don’t get to celebrate Pi Day until 31st April. And that is something of a problem.
You ought to look up the video that Vi Hart put out today which explains that today is not actually Pi Day. It is Tau Day. So is tomorrow. Well, it’s not yet, but it will be.
I saw that. She’s rather insightful.
My roommate left this morning to study abroad in Berlin for spring and summer quarter! Her flight left at 7:30 AM, but she pulled an all-nighter to pack and whatnot, so we said our goodbyes at around 1 last night when I went to bed. We’ve been friends since freshman year and were really excited about living together, so it’s sad to see her go. And now her room is empty and I’ll have a new roommate who will be assigned randomly…
Random can be good
Though sometimes … not.
I am currently sitting outside in my tree-fort,
spying on the neighbors andwatching the trees and the wind and listening to nature sounds. It helps that I live in a forest.Wireless is a great discovery, since it was too nice of a day today to not go outside, but I have to get some writing done.
Man, I feel so lucky to live in a forest.
I always wanted a tree fort…
You are indeed fortunate. My dad had to build me a tree fort out of roof joists and asbestos, because we had no trees.
I don’t want to go home so soon…
Went into the kitchen to eat some rice pudding, found a huge puddle of water on the floor, discovered that the sink has been leaking for some time apparently as the towel underneath it was all moldy. At least I had help cleaning it up, but I’d really rather not have to deal with this stuff at all.
I think this is my second worst apartment disaster, ranking after the time my fridge died – with food inside – when I was gone for 9 weeks.
Back from Spring Break and it’s snowing.
Today I was thinking about MuseBlog, and I was wondering if everyone will still be here when I am around your age. Then I realized you would all be in your late 20s or 30s (besides GAPAs, of course) and life goes on, but that would still be awesome. What if, a decade or two from now – if the Internet as we know it and Muse itself still exists – preteen readers are still stumbling into the ‘Blog. Hm.
The long-term future of this community has been a point of discussion of late. The demographics don’t look good for us (the number of regular posters is in a steady decline) but on the other hand, we’ve got at least 20 people who seem really dedicated and unlikely to depart for good.
I think the most likely way the Blog would go dark would be if we stopped getting new members. The core community, once everyone was over 18 (and, by then, many in their 20s or 30s) might just exchange off-blog contact information and migrate.
As it is: a lot of the current “Old Guard” were neophytes a few years ago, and some of the people who were the “Old Guard” then are still around. There’s kind of a generational thing going on, I think, and if we keep getting new members I can see it continuing for a long time.
Indeed. We have a steady trickle of new arrivals and a very strong existing community. For the present, I think we’ll do just fine.
Yeah. I’ve been here forever and never seem to leave, heh. And plenty of other folks are still around!
And some of those who disappear still return to lurk/check-in once in a while. Personally, I consider the ‘Blog my internet home.
Well, we do serve the best tea and scones in cyberspace.
Yeah — other sites will come and go, but MB is home.
Personally, I consider the ‘Blog my home in general because here is where my heart is.
<3
Les mis is over
We sold out six shows and still had to turn people away- everyone loved it and I felt really good about it. I made my friends cry and it was so good. I’m so happy that I was a part of it and now I kind of want to read the book (it used to look a lot more intimidating but right now it looks more accessible than these dense texts about adulterating Puritans they keep throwing at me in AP english.)
Anyway, it’s been pretty fantastic. Definitely the highlight of my 2015 so far.
There is a user on a chatting app I’m using by the username Mr.Happy004 and he’s encouraging people to cut themselves and show him the pictures so he can enjoy them and use them to encourage more people to cut. There is no report button on the app… He has made 24 people cut themselves so far! I have no idea what to do! DX I cannot sleep knowing this is happening and it hurts me to know that people are doing this!
After a quick googling of his username, it seems there are quite a lot of people campaigning to stop him.
You mentioned that there’s no report button on the app: is there perchance a block button? It doesn’t seem like a very safe app to use if you don’t have the option to report or block people.
You can only block them from speaking to you, not from speaking to others… The screen shot my friend sent me was gruesome! She showed me that he was so happy that 24 people cut for him. Probably many more by now…,
It seems like the best thing you can do is get anyone who you think might be vulnerable to the user’s manipulation to block him. And block him yourself if you haven’t already.
I agree. Keeping vulnerable people you know away from him seems to be the only thing you can do.
Ugh, what a sicko…
I’m so upset… And I feel so useless since all I can do is rant about it…
When Arthur Clarke declared that any sufficiently advanced technology becomes indistinguishable from magic, I wonder whether he realized that the magic would include demonology.
It’s good to hear that people are rallying against this awful misuse of the site. You might not be able to do much on your own, but by teaming up with others, you can help force this particular demon back into the shadows.
Can we exorcise him?
I think that’s what they’re doing right now.
See “I Remember Babylon.” The story shows its age in terms of its morals, but even if he was ultimately scared of the wrong things, Clarke understood that an easily-anonymized global communications network could be used for evil.
I found it online — interesting! Also noteworthy that he imagined it solely as a one-way vehicle for psychological warfare among superpowers, rather than the much more complicated phenomenon that it turned out to be.
So I’m reading a story I wrote for the junior talent show at my school.
It’s loosely based on the episode of WTNV “A Story About You,” in that I used the title, the first line, and the general atmosphere. I am excited and nervous. The show is two nights from now; I can’t wait, but at the same time, I wish I had more time to practice.
I just blew on my food as if to cool it down, and I’m eating ice-cream….
I do that all the time.
I’ve blown on a cup full of ice cubes to cool it down. XD
They had corned beef and cabbage in the dining hall last night, but sadly no soda bread for dessert.
I had corned beef, cabage, and potatoes a week before St. Patricks Day. :'( I actually have it very often though.
Every week I think “If I can make it through this school week, then it will get better” but it never does lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
oh man I know that feel. hugs!
Why do I feel the need to complain about my cold when my friends are in worse conditions?! I really need to quite it, it isn’t fair to them! One has a rotten scalp and the other one no longer has a boyfriend and yet even knowing that, I complain because I used a whole box of tissues on my nose today and my nose aches.
I hope you feel better soon, colds suck.
There is always going to be someone in a worse situation than you. As long as you let them complain too, and don’t try to shut them up to complain more about your smaller problems, I think venting your feelings is healthy and normal.
Indeed. Everyone has problems of their own, even if their size or type differ.
Yes, what POSOC and Kai said; everyone has problems no matter how big or small of a deal, and it’s always good to get through these problems whatever they may be. From a close relative dying to accidentally breaking a plate, it’s quite alright to talk or complain about it if the person your talking to is willing to listen. And believe me, everyone here is willing to listen.
Well, my last six days have been fun…
Thursday: poster due in the early afternoon, up until 4 AM the night before finishing it.
Friday: two scientific papers due at midnight. I don’t leave the dorm all day and barely talk to anyone from about 10 AM to midnight. Thankfully, everything is turned in on time and of decent quality. On top of this, roommate leaves but I can’t hang out with her all day because I’m working. LaTeX is burned into my eyes.
Saturday: I decide to take the day off. Why? Because I hate myself and want to be completely unprepared for my two Monday finals.
Sunday: studying all day.
Monday: two finals, back-to-back. Once I finish the second final at 6:30 PM, I begin reading scientific papers (the class readings) in preparation for my last final. I am up reading these papers until 3 AM.
Tuesday: I finish reading the papers, about 25 dense, scientific papers in the span of about ten hours. I take the final, and it’s not so bad, but I’m glad I did all of the class readings, because the final was entirely about them.
But now (well, yesterday afternoon, but then I just slept) I’m done with winter quarter, and it’s glorious! I spent today reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society outside in the sun (delightful book, highly recommend), and later tonight I’m going to play Cards Against Humanity and watch the latest Better Call Saul episode with my similarly liberated friends. I only leave for home on Friday, so I’m probably going to lounge by the pool tomorrow playing Pokemon. Life is good.
Today I had my ears irrigated. Which was a strange experience, but luckily, I was prepared for the possibility of it happening because I once watched a very unnerving vlogbrothers video from 2007 on the subject. Basically, a nurse uses a syringe to squeeze an alarming amount of warm water into your ear. The water comes out again, flecked with ear debris, and falls into the basin you’re holding. The process is repeated, over and over, until the giant clump of earwax that has been blocking your ear canal detaches itself and comes out. Voila, you can hear out of your ear again.
It also turns out that I have an ear infection. I used to get them all the time when I was younger, but I haven’t had any since I was twelve. I hoped that they’d gone away for good, but I guess not. At least I get the pill form of amoxicillin now and not that horrible beige goop. I must have drunk gallons of the stuff in my day.
I had a problem with ear infections myself around 8 or 10 years ago. I had to take some kind of antibiotics (probably the same thing you’re talking about) in this weird measuring thing (it’s the first thing that pops up on Google Images if you search ‘liquid medicine spoon’). Eventually they put me under and stuck some tubes in my eardrums to let out all the other stuff in the middle ear – I think I still have them somewhere in my room, actually – and ended up taking out my adenoids at the same time. Unfortunately, since this all happened so early in my life, I’m stuck with some speech thing. I don’t hear it when I talk, but in recordings, I sound ridiculous. Oh, well. Also, several years later, I watched the episode of Arthur where D.W. got tubes in here ears and it took halfway into the show before I realized that it was exactly the same thing that happened to me! I’m pretty sure she was even the same age that I was at the time! So that was interesting.
So I came across a version of the dumb old “Lincoln/Kennedy Assassination Coincidences” list on another site, and not only did it have all of the cherry-picking of the typical list, it also said that Booth was Lincoln’s “assinator”. They not only went for an obscure and little-used synonym of a rather common word (that’s in the title of a mega-popular video game franchise), they spelled it wrong, too.
:rolleyes:
That old thing? They used to sell a version of it (properly spelled) in gift shops here in Washington, D.C. Maybe they still do.
My high school History and Government teacher had one. He didn’t think there was anything to it, he just thought it was fun.
“Both men were shot in the head”. PEOPLE WHO REALLY WANT OTHER PEOPLE DEAD TEND TO SHOOT THEM THERE.
So. I feel like I haven’t posted in awhile. I’m currently on my ophthalmology rotation (eyes and all their related problems), a little over half way through. We switched which veterinary clinicians was on with us four students on Wednesday. So at the end of yesterday after being on with me 2 days she apologized to me for not realizing that I was on her service and that she’s been wondering who that person was who kept hanging around ophthalmology department. So apparently I’m totally forgettable. Although that explains why she always seemed a bit disconcerted/annoyed whenever I was speaking to her te last two days
And then at lunch yesterday I learned that our end of rotation exam was going to be the following morning (aka today now). Which I guess we’d been told on the first day but I had failed to realize that, and was taken by surprise because we’re on this rotation through next Thursday and I hadn’t studied at all because I though te exam would be next week. And was planning to go watch te divergent movie double feature in theatre. So I was like okay….well screw the exam, I’m not changing my plans
Then we got assigned an article to read in addition, to be ready to discuss today. So then I was like well cake I should be a good student and study and read the article and just skip the double feature, and jut rent the first movie and watch the second on theatre this weekend. But I was super torn. And then my rotation mates talked me back into going to he movie because they were like his exam is not going to have much impact on your life
So I went to he movie, and studied before and then at the intermission, and I only missed ones question on the exam today (23/24 points), so I’m glad I did go to the movie. Although I felt pretty guilty and regretful about it last night
The movie was good. I was a bit put off by the act that they deceived us, and while it was not billed anywhere as 3d, and after watching the first divergent movie in te theatre (as 2d), when suddenly they’re playing 3d previews before te second one and displaying messages on screen to out on 3d glasses, and te (whole dozen or less) people in the audience were sitting there, none of us with glasses, and one guy stood up and looked at the rest of us an was like. “Is the movie suppose to be 3d???” And I reply “not to my knowledge…..”
But then midway through the next preview, an employee walks through going us 3d glasses and apologizing. So turned out we were unwittingly signed up to watch insurgent in 3d. So I was a smidge annoyed about that
And then. Perhaps most important, and the thing which reflects worst upon my character (yes, worse then ditching studying for an exam to go to a movie by myself, in favor of cramming when I got home from the movie)….my signed Leonard Nimoy tshirt came in the mail.
Because I am an awful human being, but perhaps a passable ferengi, and decided I wanted an autograph to remember him by since I was never goin to meet him or get one in person. So the moment his web store went back online (it was temporarily closed following his passing), I snatched up te opportunity when I saw they still had signed shirts in stock and shelled out $80. Which I’m kind of ashamed of cause it makes me a horrible person, but I’m also kind of happy in a sad way, that I have a little pice of him to remember him by now. Because he IS Star Trek to me. Because Spock is Star Trek and he is Spock. So yeah
So I’m gonna frame it and hang it on my wall
And then in the not so distant future when I move home, I have to decide whether to ever display my cardboard Spock life size cutout that is currently still in its packaging because theres not room for it in my bedroom. But it seems rather gauche to display now, in light of his passing
Anyway. Long post. And I should probably return to looking productive since I’m at school.
The talent show went well! Four or five separate people came up to me in school today and said they liked my story! My knees were shaking the whole time but I didn’t mess any words up! I’m glad it’s over, though.
Weekend. 12 hours of sleep a possibility for first time in two weeks.
Hey, Oxlin was in town and stopped by Science for a cup of pomegranate green tea. We could have talked a lot longer, but impending deadlines forced me to send her back out into the rain. One of us will post some pictures before too long.
Aha! You posted of our kokon before I got a chance! It was great to see you again, and the tea was delicious! I actually headed over to the nearby museum and looked at my favorite paintings there until they closed. Now that I’m back at my grandparents’, my Dad has stolen a couple of the issues of Science you got me.
Hi everyone,
This is Emilia aka Silver Lining. I haven’t been on the blog in years, but I figured I would come back for a tiny visit as the five-year anniversary of my first Kokon was last week. So, hi. This is so so strange oh my goodness. I can’t believe it’s been five years. I’m still very close friends with Pseudo and Sudo (I don’t know if names and such are still banned so I guess I’ll call them by their old screen names); we see each other pretty often and we text a lot. They’ve come to see me in the fall musicals at my high school for the past three years, which means a lot to me. I guess you could say we’re pretty tight.
Basically, I just wanted to say thanks to all of you, and the GAPAs, for providing a platform on which my confused, anxious eleven-and-twelve-year-old self was able to sort of figure herself out. Since leaving the blog, I’ve been diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety disorders, and I’ve been on medication and going to therapy for threeish years now. Part of why I’ve stayed away from the blog is because for me, it’s sort of come to represent the very dark times of my life when I was struggling with my mental health. But I’m recovering, or at least I’m trying to. I don’t write as much anymore but I do theatre and I run the literary magazine and the feminism club at my high school. It’s difficult to see the changes in your own self but I guess I have come a long way. I turn eighteen this July, which is bizarre to me.
As difficult as it is to admit, MuseBlog will always be a small fraction of my past, or at least as long as I’m friends with former bloggers.
I’m glad everyone is doing well, and I’m glad that I happened to pick Muse out of a catalogue of magazines my godmother offered to me when I was ten.
Love,
Emilia (Silver Lining)
Hi, Emilia! We’re glad to see you again and to hear that you’re recovering and doing so well for yourself!
Welcome back! Pop into the Hare and Hedgepig, and I’ll get the wungs to rustle you up something scrumptious.
I’ve been having thoughts I don’t want to have lately. Thoughts like “What’s the point of life if we’re all going to die, anyway?” I don’t want this. I want to be happy.
Help….
I have those thoughts too. On good days I can usually kick them in the face and keep going cheerfully. On bad days it’s all I can do to say “well, dying now vs. fifty years from now doesn’t make any difference on the cosmic scale if I’m right, so I may as well keep living to see if I’m wrong.”
Is there a way you can see a counselor or therapist? They’re a mixed bag, but if you get a good one they can be a lot of help for intrusive thoughts and similar problems.
In a way, I sometimes will think about these types of things as well. It’s actually more like just thinking about how tiny I am compared to the rest of the world, and how tiny the entire world is compared to the galaxy, etc etc. If I ever end up starting to think about life and death and the inevitability of it all, I just tell myself something along the lines of, ”Even though we may seem like mayflies compared to the cosmos, I still exist to myself. If I think of my life in seconds rather than light years, it sounds so much longer, doesn’t it?” Then I realize that if I think of my life in regular years, I have so much longer to live and love than I ever would have imagined.
Just remember that there are people in this world(like me) who love you and care about you…
And like me too. I like seeing your posts here, Catwings! You’re a good person to know.
I think the point of life is to live. To be happy and sad, have experiences, teach and help other people, and do the same for yourself. To be a person who mattered and live life to the fullest while you can, before your inevitable death comes. Kinda boring, but it’s a thought that comforts me when I think like that.
To make it easier and more enjoyable for our fellow-travelers, to help them along on their way through life, and to find happiness and fulfillment on our own journeys.
My cats inform me that the purpose of human life is to provide them with regular meals, tidy litter boxes, and warm laps in cold weather.
Or, as you put it elsewhere, to create and to care.
Was this when I stated that the purpose of human life was to get cats out of tubas?
Yes, here, in April 2012: https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=11059#comment-452921 .
And “to create and to care” was Piggy’s elegant formulation.
Thank you, Robert, for sending me on a very bizarre trip down “things I learned when I was fourteen.” Including a post I do not remember making but feel like I really should: “Well, drat. I guess I’m going to need a new way to guide my nuclear missiles.”
Finding the right inertial guidance system is a lifelong quest, for some.
Only in Museblog….
Like so many things.
there’s some really good cheese out there and I want to eat all of it
Catwings, old posset, you have to stick around to entertain the GAPAS. We derive considerable glee from your posts, and our lives would be much more tedious without them. If that’s not enough of a purpose, you’re allowed to invent one. Even if it’s a grim determination to build a huge replica of the Staute of Liberty out of hairpins.
Reminds me of the Watts Towers.
The Watts towers are magnificent.
Also… I don’t know what I’d do without you…
First day of spring, but nobody told the snowclouds.
I wish to become more Muserly. I do not believe I am enough. Maybe I don’t drink enough tea. Or maybe I don’t spend enough time preforming tasks such as making miniature monuments out of chopsticks.
I think being Muserly is mainly about being yourself, and being happy and confident in whatever that may entail. I personally think tea is delicious. I enjoy it daily and encourage others to try it. But some people don’t like tea- you could say it’s just not their cup of tea. But that’s cool. It’s all cool!
I think the best way to become more Muserly is to be a positive influence on the people in your life in whatever ways you can.
Maybe your calling is to make the Eiffel Tower out of chopsticks, or the Sistine Chapel out of toothpicks, or the Taj Mahal out of knitting needles. But your calling could also be to be friends with computers, or to write amazing stories. You still have time to figure out that calling. Some of us are much older than you and are still a little uncertain.
The point is, being Muserly isn’t something you need to worry about conforming to, or something you can imitate to try and fit in.
I think you’re a top- notch Muser and that you’ll continue to be such in the future!
I think what makes people go “oh, that’s muserly” is being interested in learning, and not being afraid to be enthusiastic about things that interest you – especially esoteric things, but more common things as well.
Yes, this.
Oh, you’re definitely on the Muser spectrum.
Darling, go back to the 2009 threads and find the historical evidence left therein of myself when I was about your age. Then come back and try to tell me to my face you don’t consider yourself “Muserly”. ((Trust me, you’ll feel much better about yourself after seeing what an immature little hyperactive thing I was.))
If you are doing what you love and keeping the world weird and wonderful, you are being Muserly.
Hello, MuseBlog. It’s been awhile. Good to be back.
I got news today from my second choice college: I’m in. It’s not the first acceptance letter I’ve gotten, so I already knew I could go to college, but going anywhere lower on the list would’ve been settling, and now I know I won’t have to. I’m leaving Texas. I’m going somewhere new, somewhere beyond my experiences, going off to learn who I am. I’m thrilled. I’m beyond thrilled. I’m caking ecstatic.
I’m partly back because I wanted to share that news. Also, because I really want to thank Midnight Fiddler for, some months back, fiercely reassuring me that my mother’s dour comments about my chances of getting in were wrong. She didn’t get more optimistic until I actually got my first acceptance, and I think without Fiddler’s post to remember, my mental state would’ve been a lot darker these last few months. Thank you.
YEEEE!! <3
Super congrats!!
Congratulations, I’m so happy for you! I’m humbled that my comments had such impact, too. You’re rad, and you’re going to do great in school. Keep coming back and letting us know how things are going! ♥ ♥ ♥
Aand I was just rejected by my top choice college.
It was a blow when I got the letter and it sort of keeps getting worse as I realize how much I’ve pretended my second choice was exactly the same as the first choice, but more likely to accept me. Also it means my eggs are kind of all in one basket and if there’s something wrong with my second choice, I’m out of appealing options right there.
Ugh. Wish it was easier to reclaim enthusiasm.
Still, it simplifies the choice, which is probably for the best.
Further updates to come after my campus visit.
(If this was Northwestern, they rejected me too, so clearly they have terrible taste and their getting RoseQuartz was merely a lucky fluke.) I think there’s probably something wrong with all the schools we’ve applied to, but there is a very high chance that we’ll have a fantastic time ♥
(No, Carleton.)
Actually I’ve been terrifically lucky with acceptance letters, I just missed on the one that really counted. The others are much less selective, though, so I guess that explains it.
If you feel comfortable sharing, where have you been accepted?
Knox and Austin College are the ones that matter. Also Champlain and Trinity, but the second is way too close to home, and the I think the first isn’t really a great school, although it is focused around my interests.
There’s a couple more scattered around Texas that I haven’t heard from yet, but basically both Knox and Austin would have to disqualify themselves for something, and I know enough about Austin to suspect that’s unlikely. Knox, we’ll see on.
I’ve heard good things about Knox! Don’t think I know much about the others. I asked because I was wondering if there’d be any overlap in the list of places I applied to (I also applied to Carleton, but that was 7 years ago.) I didn’t apply to Knox though, but I also didn’t actually tour it or anything. I think I know someone whose sister went there, so I could ask her about it if you’d like!
The clubs at Knox look really cool! Their website kind of reminds me of that of my alma matter, Beloit College. Actually, the whole school kind of reminds me of Beloit. Ooh, though they have archery. Beloit never had that. *envy*
I haven’t actually looked into the clubs at Knox specifically, but wherever I end up I’m really excited to start looking into them!
Ahh I’m going to Knox for the first time next week and I’ll figure out whether I actually like it as much as I want to and I’m so nervous I can’t wait.
(It’s very encouraging to know that you’ve heard good things about it, though. Like 80% of my research for Knox was using sources from the Knox website, and that’s made me a little nervous.)
I love hedgehogs. I know a lot about them. I learned all this because I liked watching SonicX. I almost had a hedgehog of my own, but then my mom decided that my room is the worst environment ever for a hedgehog to live in. Did you know that a hedgpig is a hedgehog with a short snout while a hedgedog is a hedgehog with a long snout? Hedgehogs have very sensitive ears and the males are prone to more illnesses than the girls. Hedgehogs can swim. In England and other European countries, people used to boil hedgehogs and make them into soup. Hedgehogs spines do not come out of their back. Hedgies are so adorable! X3 *Squeals and hugs multiple books about hedgehogs.
Hedgehogs are indeed quite wonderful. My dad was talking about buying some to use as pets, but then found out how expensive they were. So we settled for a guinea pig instead.
Now, should the mascot to the Hare and the Hedgepig be altered so his snout looks shorter?
His bagpipe playing is tolerable at the moment. Best not to alter any bodily proportions that might affect it.
Yes. $300-$500 a hedgehog here. I have $400.
You probably already know this, but hedgehogs were being attracted to McFlurry cups because of the sugar, they would stick their head in to eat some, and then they would get stuck and die, either from starvation/dehydration or unknowingly ambling into traffic. This was such a problem in Great Britain that it now has hedgehog-friendly McFlurry cups.
Ever seen the video where a hedgehog gets it’s face stuck in a paper towel roll?
Poor hedgehogs!
I once received a random email requesting information on how to record hedgehogs. I have no idea why the gentleman wanted to record them, or why he wasn’t also interested in fliming them. I gave him some technical advice on microphones and he went away happy. Life is odd.
Record them? I’ve always assumed that hedgehogs weren’t particularly, you know, sonic.
I laughed at that harder than i should have
“MuseBlog: Supplying Guilty Pleasures Since 2005.”
YES.
That made me chuckle too.
I didn’t actually enquire if hedgehogs made any sound. I simply delivered sound advice on the assumption that they might. I do hope the fellow wasn’t too frustrated.
Yesterday I got to spend all day at the acreage/farm of some good friends of mine and help put up a chicken coop. I met them for Mass at the nearby monastery that they go to every Saturday morning, and then we went to their place for breakfast. I’ve had breakfast at their place once or twice before, but with seven kids (the oldest being thirteen), it’s always an extremely interesting experience. Some Jehovah’s Witnesses interrupted the mother of the household’s preparations, so I stirred the oatmeal and poked the eggs while she and her husband had an animated conversation with them. Eventually the Witnesses retreated and the kids were rounded up.
After brunch-née-breakfast was finally eaten, we went out and started working on the coop. They transported it from a friend’s farm last week, but we had to get the posts dug, the land leveled, the fencing laid out and the anti-rat defense mechanisms prepared. Measuring everything out took some head-scratching, since we had to make sure the run had enough room for the number of chickens they’d be keeping.
Around noon I had to drive myself and two of the boys back into town to our church for a rehearsal (about an hour’s drive each way), and barring a slight delay by a bored but forgiving traffic cop, we made it back to the farm to find that almost half the two-foot-deep trench (for the wire mesh we’ll be laying under the fence) had already been dug singlehandedly by Gianna, age ~9. Farm girls are something else, let me tell you. With three extra sets of hands we got the rest of the trench and the postholes dug and got the coop lifted into place. Luckily, right about then two guys from the seminary, a deacon and a third-year, arrived for dinner; and so I took a quick shower and then joined the baseball game that had formed.
After a few innings, the paterfamilias brought out a couple handguns and a .22 because the third-year, a Canadian, had wanted to try some shooting. Following a thorough safety talk, we headed out to their makeshift shooting range and tried to show each other up. After a while the dinner bell rang and we piled into the kitchen for mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, and sirloin tips courtesy of GB. GB is the name of an extremely ill-tempered, 1200 pound steer who, last year, changed his residence from the barn to the freezer. If you can guess what the initials stand for, you’ll know that it was fate all along. With the deacon providing some very fascinating information about Melchisedech, we all reveled in the well-earned supper.
The kids having dispersed early, after dinner we took a quick tour of the farm. Key points of interest included the garage providing temporary housing for 130 rapidly growing chicks, an extremely pregnant goat, and the site of an ancient battle against two murderous possums. The location of a recent mountain lion sighting a few hundred yards from the house was also pointed out to us. As the sunset leaked out of the sky, we shot some hoops and tried making friends with the cats. I left very late, very tired, very happy. The worst injury of the day was Peter (age six) hitting himself in the head with a baseball bat; it was the most injury-free day there that I can remember. I’m hoping to sneak back next Saturday to help the coop progress.
I have just one sibling and I’ve lived all my life in suburbia, but I think that if I could have picked, I would’ve chosen to grow up in a household like that. The parents were actually never farm kids; they lived all their life in the city, until six or seven years ago they decided that they were just going to move to the middle of nowhere and see what happened. Books and Youtube, they say, were how they learned everything about digging wells and milking goats and fixing tractors, and some very kind neighbors have also helped them find their feet. I’ve got a lot of respect for that kind of courage, of really taking your life into your own hands instead of being satisfied with whatever your circumstances happen to be. It reminds me of Thoreau, but unromanticized, unposing. “I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.” If a poetical, solitary soul like Thoreau made to live sturdily, how much more sturdily must a father of seven dig his spiritual foundations if they are to remain solid through to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren!
In other words: farms are fun, man.
More general life update, now that I can think about things other than college:
Basically, everything’s going much better than it was last time I posted. I have friends whom I actually hang out with outside scheduled stuff, I got my driver’s license, colleges are all applied to and have mostly accepted me. I’m not really getting along with my mom too well, but I’m also spending less time with her. School is coming along, by which I mostly mean I’ve given up and made peace with that. I am beginning to learn to program, which is something I’ve wanted to do for years and haven’t made any progress on until now, so that’s cool. Also I started working out, and I can already tell I’m making progress. I’m making progress towards changing up my wardrobe to suit my current style, crocheting up a storm, and making progress on personal writing progress. I finished up the last major part in a room redecoration that took years.
Basically, not everything is perfect, but right at the moment, I’m in as good a place as I’ve been for years. I’m glad I made it.
I found a t-shirt design else-Internet that reminded me very much of MuseBlog. It says “Poison dart frogs are way better than choclit (sic) and boys and fwuffy bunnies so there!” It surprised me that they both almost spelled “chocolate” with the same variant spelling we use and acknowledged that even one of the most poisonous creatures alive is still preferable to an HPB. (As for the “boys” part, my apologies to any male MBers who read this and may take offense.)
It’s especially appropriate given my headcanon (that I can’t remember if I’ve written out before) that depigmentizer serum includes poison from poison dart frogs. (I think this came from me confusing *analgesic* chemicals, which have been derived from frog toxins and are stimulants, with *anesthetic* chemicals that conversely cause a loss of conciousness as the depigmentizers seem to.) However, a little more research reveals that frog toxins are also being studied for the creation of muscle relaxants, which can induce paralysis, which also fits with the effects depigmentizers seem to have on HPBs. Also, a poison that can kill ten to twenty people (or two elephants) within three minutes of exposure would certainly put a strain on even the superhuman healing factor of the HPB.
(HPBs having quick healing is canon, right? I thought it was…)
I’m not sure if it’s that they heal quickly, or that they are tougher than humans. It ends up having the same effect though.
I’m-a Back-a.
What does HPB stand for?
Hot Pink Bunny, of course.
By the way, Eggy Rice, happy 14th birthday!
I’m so glad to finally be able to play Asteroids again… My favorite part of the MuseBlog.
Just kidding. Only half kidding anyway.
OK byeee
I find Asteroids to be quite mind-releiving and relaxing. Especially to one writer with not enough ideas at once like me who needs to clear her mind right now and focus on getting to work.
I’m off to think! Writer awaaaaaaay! *blasts off in asteroid pod*SFTDP but, how was Asteroids programmed? I mean, how do you get a little spaceship to fly around and destroy a webpage without adding the webpage to the game?
I think this is a great question and I’d love to answer it, but sadly I’m very busy today. I’ll come back to it when I get a chance, but if someone else wants to answer I won’t be offended.
I believe it’s a plugin that plays with the HTML. Anything more detailed than that, and you’ll have to ask someone who is good friends with computers.
I think I post waaaaaay too often! DX Perhaps I should try to spend a bit of time without posting? I don’t know… I’m just afraid of annoying people…
But aside from that… Um… I found three copper wheat pennies dating at 1944, 1952, and 1955. (In very pour condition of course, but at least I have them.) Well… Enough of my useless updates… Thanks.
And darned autocorrect goes and changes poor into pour… :/
where did you find them? I found a drummer boy quarter in my coin bowl earlier today but I don’t remember where I found it (and it’s now inside a laundry machine).
re: post frequency, I think there’s two main schools of mb thought. The first one is “wow these newbies [for some reason, it’s always the newbies that get complained about] are way too hyper and posting too much I can’t keep up it’s so annoying wow” and the second is “omg this place is dead no one ever posts we’re dying haaaaaallllp”. It seems impossible to reconcile the two. I prefer more posts to fewer, anyway, you can always choose to skip things but you can’t choose to read things that aren’t there.
I found them in a bag of dirty corroded pennies that we were using on a jelly bean machine.
My dad collects old coins
I’ve found some in his collection from 1827 to ancient Rome!
My mother also collects old coins. ^^ She has two silver wheat backs, two red $2 bills, 4 blue $1 bills, tons of copper wheat backs, and tons of foreign money from my dad.
I enjoy your posts!
Today I put a kleenex through the wash accidentally and it shredded everywhere.
I feel like this is one of those adulting milestones no one ever talks about.
I’ve done this. Plucking white fluff off clothes for days…
Ever washed pants when they had an ink pen in them? I have. It was messy! (Or in my suster’s case, taffy?)
Also towels. Do not machine wash bath towels with anything you care about or you will spend the next week picking fluff off it.
Unless your bath towel is an old one like mine that is no longer fluffy and does not ruin anything.
Spring break is over. It’s distinctly weird to think that it was my last break of my undergraduate career, and possibly of school ever since I’m not entirely sold on grad school anytime soon. It was pretty decent as a first day back, it was lovely and sunny out so the old-time session was outside (for the first time this semester!), and then I got my tattoos done! They’re real! They exist! A rooster on my right foot, a pig on the left. It hurt less than I was expecting, my eyes didn’t water at all and I think I did a pretty good job of not flinching. We’ll see how puffy everything is tomorrow, but for now I’m feeling fine aside from a headache, but that’s unrelated.
I didn’t tell my parents about the tattoos while I was home, because I didn’t want to get guilted and feel bad going into it. So it’ll be a fun reveal at some point. They’re big fans of artwork on walls, not so much on skin. They did always tell me I could do whatever I wanted after I was 18 though, and it’s money I earned myself, so technically they have no room to complain.
They won’t complain. Much.
One of these days, I will learn the purpose of a fridge is not to see what new form of life you can cultivate on long forgotten food items. Like some slices of cheese in tupperware, where one slice was half turned to white slime (this may have been less a new lifeform, and more the large amount of condensation in the tupperware, that kind of dissolved the cheese….I did not investigate too deeply).
I would have thought milk with a use by date of February 4th would have been significantly more odiferous, as well as more chunky……
Hulloa, Museblog, you fantastic old place, you.
The lengths between my postings have for years now been close to criminal, but on the bright side, I will say keeping Museblog as the home page to my computer back home has been one of my wiser decisions. That way, I at least have a little push to pop back in and say hello.
Life’s been happening, you know, as life does. I’m not sure it would be reasonable to attach a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to that. As of late, my time has mostly been swallowed up by university assignments, work/the constant stress of finding summer work, and finally feeling like I can write music instead of just pretending to, which I would say is one of the best feelings I’ve experienced. Over the past bit I’ve moved, had a piece of mine performed by professionals, found employment in a convenience store, lost/re-established contact with a few friends while remaining closeted to nearly all. I’m pretty happy, I think, so I can call that much good.
Hopefully folks here are doing well. Surveying your posts from here, it looks that way, at least. It’s funny to note how much this body of posts is occupied by others coming back in after big chunks of time to check in; this place has a real impact, and I’m constantly thankful for that.
Anyway, so, yeah. What’s up?
Hi, Giminator! i remember reading your posts on old threads. Glad to see you around! From the sounds of your post, you seem to be a composer. Are you majoring in music composition? If so, do you have any advice for high school students who wish to major in composition? How much did you compose during high school?
If you have the time, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Oh my gosh! It would be my pleasure!
*sets self up with a cup of tea*
Well, I think I’m actually sort of a delayed case in respect to my ‘class’ of composers. I didn’t consider actually composing until freshman year of college and didn’t actually start until my sophomore year. So, zero high school composing. I entered in with plans for psychology and made a sort of drastic decision to switch to music after a year (one of my better decisions, I’d say). Most of the others I’ve spoken to picked up some sort of work in high school or at least early on, and I think that really helped them. Basically, the key way to improve is to do , so the more you can just experiment and write things, the better! That said, it’s never too late to start in and try to catch up. I wrote my first real piece at the end of last school year and am picking up speed as I go, and I think I can confidently say (though not exactly modestly) I am at the very least as competent/ambitious as my fellow university composers. Elliott Carter and Iannis Xenakis are sort of my heroes for starting really composing later on (despite their both being dead white men. *sighs* at least composing is sloooowly starting to shift its demographic)
I heartily recommend taking advantage of whatever resources you have around you The biggest contributors to my education thus far have been talking to established composers/grad students, and access to the library’s scores, books, and essays on music. Then, after all that, the theory curriculum I’m working through. Listen to as much as you can! Seek out new composers and approach all music with an open ear. Get a chance to familiarize yourself with classical and modern music masters. Composition almost necessarily begins with imitation, so the more you find that you like, the easier time you’ll have knowing how to get that kind of thing down on paper.
Also, whenever writing things, I think it’s really important to focus on what you set out to do and what you accomplished. I’ve known composers who have written things, been terribly frustrated and then gone on hiatus or just tossed their pieces away. Everything that you write is another step towards getting where you want to be, so take some time to appreciate that you’re moving forward! Being self-critical can always come after you make sure you’re in the right state of mind.
And good luck with it! I’m excited to hear how your adventures turn out. Have you started composing? (and, again, I think it’s totally fine if you haven’t yet) And I’m curious to hear, are there any composers that you look up to/are especially interested in/want to emulate?
Thank you for your reply! That sounds like really good advice- I intend to explore music in every way that becomes available to me.
To answer your questions, I have started composing. I’m a high school junior now, and began in the spring of my freshman year. I’ve been on and off, trying to make time for it in between band activities and, oh yeah, school. I produced a chiptune/8-bit video game soundtrack a year ago and am most recently working on scrapping together an EP.
I’ve really been inspired by a lot of indie musicians, because their online presence has made the content producing community seem like a real possibility to me. In fact, it was the Homestuck records label that really started to spur me to explore the possibilities: some of these people were just like me, composing out of their own homes. James Roach in particular has a style I really like. And Michael Guy Bowman’s music is just my favorite thing. Even if I don’t currently plan on making much of that genre of music, his composition is just so good.
On the more mainstream side of things, I’m exploring soundtracks (Shiro Sagisu of Evangelion, Howard Shore of LotR fame, and John Williams of course) as well as jazz (standards and classics such as Basie, Coltrane, Ellington etc) and influences such as Holst, Bach, and Rachmaninoff. I’m also branching out into electronic artists like Aphex Twin and Wolfgun, as well as the occasional odd genre out (La Dispute, Macintosh Plus).
Anyway, what sort of music genres and artists do you draw inspiration from? What sort of music have you composed so far? And, if you don’t mind disclosing, what college do you go to? How much of the curriculum is theory-based? Do you do any electronic synthesis or production? What instruments do you play?
Oh wonderful!
Well, you’ve given me a least a couple names to go searching for. They seem very cool! Many folks I speak have are interested in composing for video games and the like. I am told this is one of the fastest growing professions.
Gosh, all the composers and artists I draw inspiration from… that list could never end, but I can at least give a starting point? I’ve mostly been digging through contemporary classical composers. I think that next to most of my classmates my tastes make me the local face of musical modernism. The ones I need to give credit to: I’ve begun idolizing Brian Ferneyhough’s music, for better or for worse. I think, by extent, that means a love of Edgar Varese and Anton Webern. Harrison Birtwistle (so also Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen, so also Claude Debussy). Luciano Berio, Luigi Dallapiccola, Luigi Nono, Pierre Boulez, Gyorgy Ligeti. Hearing Peter Brotzmann’s Machine Gun Octet was a really big deal for me.
Some names that get further away now.. Toshi Ichiyanagi, Toru Takemitsu, Dai Fujikura, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Behold the Arctopus, Wendy Carlos is a big personal hero. Iannis Xenakis, Elliott Carter, Harry Partch, Richard Barrett, Alex Temple, Merzbow I guess… *takes a deep breath* Oh dang, that list is longer than I wanted it to be.
I’ve composed only a little. I wrote a mini opera for some acoustic and electronic instruments/voices. The next big thing I did was a piece for a quintet called Splinter Reeds. Lots of little pieces in the cracks, but those are the two big ones. I tend to be a fan of aperiodic, atonal, amelodic and noisy stuff *shrugs* but I do my best to listen to other things as well.
Honestly, I haven’t done much with electronics, but after hearing some of Macintosh Plus, Roach, and Wolfgun, I’m thinking maybe I should look more into it. They do some really cool things that just aren’t possible with acoustics! I especially love the cuts between material in Mac Plus.
I’m attending UC Davis (where I play french horn, but spend most of my attention on composing)! The material seems actually pretty free with theory. There’s a basic core, but to really be competent I think you have to put in extra work. And if you want to look at non-standard notation/music, they’re okay with that too! You just have to take about nine quarters of theory material next to it. The biggest perk is that the department is small enough that talking to professors is no problem.
Phew! There’s a wall of text for you. I hope that’s not an over-response. I’ll look forward to hearing more about (and possibly actually hearing?) the EP as it goes along! Best of luck with it!
Thank you for all the recommendations! A lot of those names are unfamiliar to me, so I’ve saved them to listen to. I listened to the Machine Gun Octet, and wow. It took a while for me to understand but when I did it was really cool and reminded me of a lot of other jazz things I’ve heard (Sun Ra comes to mind).
I’m glad you enjoyed the music I mentioned! (Wolfgun is actually coming out with a new album soon, called Road to Jupiter, and I am SUPER HYPED.)
Anyway, yes, I am working on my EP all this spring break! I’m hoping it’ll come together well! Thank you so much for your answers!
wow, that’s a pretty diverse list – for instance, I wouldn’t have expected Ligeti or Partch from the others. Or possibly Berio even.
Oh yes, but I love them to death!
I think they all kind of tie in to a timeline I’ve assembled in some way, and even some of my earlier music loves (Partch, or even Wagner) stick around in my sensibilities somehow.
I got to sit in on a festival panel run by Mindy Wagner and one of the composers spoke about how his music was sort of his journey to reconcile his two disparate tastes of rock and minimalism into something that worked. Some of his stuff was about as boring as minimalism goes, but some of it was really cool! Looking back on it now makes me think of my music as something similar – cramming all of those sounds in there and seeing if I can make them all into something that works (and maybe a bunch of it won’t).
Also, hello! The last time we had blogtact was two years ago and gathering from some of the posts I glanced over from the interim you’ve had some impressive things happen! Congratulations on the job! Also, I found that video Paul posted of your quartet and you sound good!
Ah, that makes sense. I think what all the contemporary composers I like have in common (actually composers in general) is that they have a sense of humor and / or don’t take themselves very very seriously.
Thanks! I’ve also got a recital up on youtube if you’re interested.
Oh yeah, I can see that. That is definitely one of the things that appeals to me in Ligeti, Partch, and even Berio to some degree (definitely for Carlos, Barrett, and Temple, too). I even get it a bit in Ferneyhough, or at the very least, in the ways he handles his music.
And for sure! I’ll go look for it!
So good to see you again, and to hear that you’re well. Thanks for stopping by, please do so more often!
I’m busy at school, trying to enjoy ~the arts~ while also being productive, and gearing up for an intense summer on boats. I’m apprehensive about the time it will mean being apart from my girlfriend, but I’m trying to not let that get in the way of feeling good now. I think there’s a word for that, the fear of a future loss hurting yourself in the present? Anyway, I think I’m getting better at being mindful and present, being in the flow, which is a part of the better self I hope to be. A while ago I read a psychiatrist’s thoughts on changing your self, and his point was that you can’t just want to be more disciplined or empathetic, you have to want to be a person who is more disciplined or empathetic. I’m going to the gym now, and trying to be the kind of person who doesn’t just have to go to the gym, but the kind of person who does go to the gym.
Thank you! I certainly shall make an effort. Yours sounds like an intense personal shift. I hope it is going/treats you well! Also, I totally understand the productivity/arts rift. My whole life has basically been trying to define a healthy balance between the two (or what even productivity has to mean?). Forgive my not knowing, but are you studying something arts related?
Thanks, I think a lot of it is placing yourself in the environment that will shape you towards who you want to be. The effort you expend is more of who you are than what you believe, etc. Exercise is painful, but otherwise, it’s going well, bit by bit. I did go to the gym, I ran on an elliptical machine for 30min at at least 70% heart rate, and I had a good idea.
I am studying the arts, my official transcript reads School of the Arts, Major in Arts Management, and School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Minor in Art History. I think the program is changing its name to Creative Entrepreneurship though, which both sounds better and is more accurate. I like to quote the artist Jeremy Deller, who said “I went from being an artist who makes things to an artist who makes things happen.” And I love this interview answer from Damian Kulash, of the band OK Go:
Q: Do you worry that your amazing video work could overshadow your audio work?
A: No. We get this question all the time. But think of it this way. I am a chef. You are in my restaurant. And you are asking me if I am worried by the fact that we are known for our incredible desserts. I am very, very pleased that we have such good desserts, and that they are known around the world for being delicious and singular and unique and unlike anyone else’s desserts. As it turns out, I also make very good main courses. Many people also come and enjoy them. If millions come in for the desserts, and hundreds of thousands also find they like the main course, awesome. There are no bad customers in this restaurant.
See, the question you’re asking basically masks a way of thinking about creativity (or, more accurately, people’s creative careers) that seems… stuck in another century, I guess. That’s the idea that creativity and creative people are supposed to stay in particular boxes that were defined by the way our products used to be distributed. It used to be that music and film and video games and journalism were actually very different physical objects with industries built around selling and distributing them. Now all of us make ones and zeros. I spend my time chasing my creative ideas. My process generally starts with writing songs, but it leads to a lot of other fun places. I feel bad for musicians who get trapped in the box of “music” as it was imagined 30 years ago. Some people like it in that box, but a lot don’t. A lot of people wish they got to chase all of their creative ideas, not just the ones that involve their guitar. I am that lucky guy who is not trapped in that particular box.
GIM!!! That’s so cool that you’ve had a composition performed already. I’m majoring in clarinet performance and music industry, so, ya know, if you ever wanna write a piece for solo clarinet. *dramatic winking* It’s great to see you again!
Oh, cool! Well, should the opportunity ever arise, I’ll definitely keep that in mind! And it’s good to be back. The warm welcome is very appreciated.
Wow, everybody’s coming back for the 10th anniversary!
As Robert noted, one does tend to miss the tea and scones.
There’s a car that lives down the street with the license plate “CR44AW”.
I’m super worried about my friend… She was having pains that worsened when she drank anything and finally it got so bad that she had to be taken to the hospital… I’m really worried that I might loose her… DX I can’t stand the thought of loosing another friend… Not after I’ve known her for so long and watched as she changed and developed…
I spent almost 5 hours this evening playing or listening to old-time music, and it was absolutely fantastic. One of the things I’m going to miss the most about this place is regular jam sessions and being surrounded by great musicians.
Hi. I’m not entirely sure why I’m here, since I haven’t been active in any significant way in about 5 years. (Was I really 12 when I joined this site?) The “who’s posted how much” page says that I’m the 42nd most frequent commenter, which has to be some sort of accomplishment, given that the number 42 is surely significant to most of us, but, yeah, it’s been awhile. I guess I was feeling nostalgic. Or possibly avoiding finishing reading Neuromancer for my science fiction class.
(Honestly, I wasn’t sure if this site was still active at all when I went to type in the URL, and I also wasn’t sure if anyone I remembered from MB was still here, but I recognize most of the usernames I see.)
I’m not sure if I have much to actually say in this post. I wish I could come up with some fabulous story (and, admittedly, I did recently return from the cliche college spring break Florida road trip, but all that came of that was a really pointless argument about Spanish moss). Mostly, school keeps me busy, and the Internet (and occasionally something resembling a social life) seems to suck up the remaining time. It also looks like I’m not the only one returning to MB now. It must be something in the water.
Anyways, I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be posting, but figured I’d pop back in.
Welcome, blog twin! It’s good to see you around these parts again.
Hello, Rose! It’s always a joy to see you.
Some MBers are like satellites in low-Earth orbit that show up several times a day. Others swing around once a month, like the moon. Still others are more like comets: whenever they swoop in to sublime and defrost, it’s an occasion for awe and delight.
So, how are things in the Oort Cloud?
What are you studying? Good to see you!
I’m double majoring in computer science and linguistics. The linguistics part is kind of new and currently unofficial. Shockingly, if you take one or two linguistics classes every semester, you wind up a few classes away from completing the major.
Seems it’s never too late to take some time to stop by, and it’s always a pleasure for everyone else to see an old familiar face! I’m glad whatever it was prompted you to post!
Hey you! I remember you. *waves*
Speller!
Still doing pure math?
Not so much these days. I took an incredibly hard math class my first semester of college, and it kind of pushed me away. I think I realized while I like the discrete math side of things, I just didn’t like the calculus/analysis side enough to stick with the math major, so computer science wound up being a better fit.
Ack! That moment when you feel weak and tired but absolutely must get out of bed to do school or work!
I’ve figured it out, I feel this way because a storm is coming!
Funny, usually one of my dog’s ears are flopped over whenever it’s going to storm.
Animals are very good at sensing changes in weather.
My mom’s cat ran away a few days ago with a rust colored taby male. We are all worried about her because whenever she feels threatened, she flattens out instead of running or attacking… She could easily get ran over…
Also, the left side of my body isn’t working right. It has been this way since yesterday afternoon after the storm went away.
Maybe electrical currents in the storm gave you powers and the left side of your body hasn’t gotten used to them yet.
No… I doubt it… It’s getting worse because I’m worrying so much about a certain friend of mine who stopped eating and drinking and hasn’t spoken to me in over 2 days… (And I have no one to talk to about it…)
My friend who was in pain has been missing for over 2 days now… Last time I spoke to her she said she wasn’t eating or drinking… She might be dead…. DX DX DX
Congrats to all involved with today’s two successful Soyuz launches– two launches by the same rocket within two hours at sites a quarter of a way around the world from each other makes one feel futuristic like nothing else!
And all of my very best wishes go out to the Expedition 44 crew who launched to the International Space Station on today’s first flight and have just docked! While Gennady Padalka, Scott Kelly, and Mikhail Kornienko are all old Soyuz hands, they’re still no doubt thrilled to be in orbit once more. And of course, Kelly and Kornienko plan to remain at the station for an entire year with their physical and psychological states carefully monitored to provide data on the effects of long-term space voyages. So congrats on your successful launch, guys, and best of luck on your Year in Space!
Hmmm… Is one allowed to use self-charging solar-powered lights during Earth Hour? It is electric, but it isn’t polluting. (8:30-9:30 PM your local tonight, as always.) I guess I’ll just keep it around in case I need a light source but not use it unless I have to.
This post unfortunately didn’t lead to an hour of reduced energy consumption from me, but it did convince me to go out and spend five minutes stargazing, when I realized I’d forgotten about this at 9:25. It was quite lovely.
Semi-random story: For years and years, the only three constellations I could reliably find were Orion, Cassiopeia and the Pleiades (I also knew the Big Dipper, but for whatever reason I could never find it). Pretty much any time I was outside at night I looked up and found those three. Then last year I spent some time with stargazing apps and learned a bunch of new constellations and planets and so forth, and got good at spotting them, too.
Tonight I looked up and found all the constellations I remembered, but kept looking because it was a nice night and I thought I could almost remember a couple more. Then I found a cluster of faint stars, and said ‘oh yeah, that’s the Pleiades’, and then I stopped and realized all of a sudden that it’d been months since I’d looked for the Pleiades.
It’s nothing ground shattering, I guess, but it felt truly bizarre to realize that one of my three longest-known constellations had fallen between the cracks.
I’m glad you got to see the Pleiades again.
Hi I haven’t been on here in awhile but my sister keeps telling me I should get back on so what the hell. Hi, people. I’m fifteen going on sixteen and I don’t feel like it. People tell me I look older, and I can see why… I FEEL older. I AM older.
I’ve been watching a lot of movies.
Formerly known as Doctor Seaweed Stink and Joe the Stickfiddler?
Yes. But now I am a simpler man. I go by a simple name.
Welcome back, Joe!
Weeeee!!!! I got back into writing yesterday and I have edited 3 chapters and wrote 3 more! 8D Unfortunetly… None of these stories are my original work… They are all fanfictions… :'(
I’ve just started into the world of fanfiction myself, actually! I’ve been really stagnated with my original writing for a long time, save for my last NaNoWriMo Novel, so this has been fun. It’s a change from my usual but nice because I can get feedback without feeling defensive of “my characters” or “my world.”
Unless you have reviewers like mine who post reviews like, “This is so horrible I cannot read it!” And “That idea sucks! You should trash this story!”
It makes me very sad when people do this to me…
Is there a way to turn off comments? There usually is, and if not, you might want to consider switching to a fanfiction platform where you can.
You can delete any comment you dislike. ^^ I wouldn’t want to completely disable comments because there are lots of people who do like my stories and leave good comments.
It’s not unfortunate if you enjoy it and it helps you become better.
Nothing wrong with fanfictions! They’re very fun, a great writing excercise, and they make people happy. Just because they’re fanfic doesn’t mean they’re not good stories: there’s one fanfiction based off of a canon where I’ve given up hope on what happens to the characters- but in the fic universe they are very well developed and tell a compelling tale!
It’s just that, I cannot eventually publish them to get money. I doubt Nintendo would ever consider my work. And if they did, they’d keep any money made for themselves.
Speaking as someone who once dismissed fanfiction for the same reasons: It’s not wasted effort, even if you can’t publish it. It helps you to hone pacing, characterization, dialogue, tone, and a lot of other skills. The majority of your original fic will probably not get published either! But writing it will make your eventually-published stuff better.
)
(I still don’t post fanfic on the Net because I don’t want to be one of those authors whose embarrassing old work is still up on Wayback Machine snapshots of ffn pages, but that’s more of a personal hangup for me.
I think licensed authors do make some money, even if it’s not as much as if they were writing about a fictional Universe of their own. There are dozens if not hundreds of licensed Star Wars novels.
Depending on how close your fanfiction is to the canon you’re basing it on, it can also be possible, in the extreme case, to “file off the serial numbers” and get original fiction. Even in a much less extreme case, I’ve found that when I write the same characters for long enough, I tend to have enough original ideas about those characters that I can kind of adapt them into original characters I use in original fiction.
I do have one series that is my own story, but has Link in it so it isn’t original. Though, I have came up with a character just like him named Pinecone instead. XD So yeah… I see how that could work.
Honestly, as fun as it is to believe you’re the exception, most people don’t get published in high school. Most people don’t get published at all. And what prevents them is either not being good enough at writing in the first place or never sitting down long enough to create something.
You’re creating, and you’re improving your writing. Even if this stuff, now, is never published beyond the internet, it’s still improving your chances of being published in the future. Keep at it, and don’t give up on any source of inspiration.
(I feel like the fanfiction I’ve written over the last couple years has taught me a lot about how I write and what fascinates me, pushed me to write new things, and since other people are reading it, it provides a push to keep writing. I value all those things very highly, even if I’ll never make money off of it.)
I’m endorsing this comment and would like to add that if you’re only in anything for the money, you should probably do something else. Writing (or any other hobby) should be pursued for your own pleasure, not with an end goal of making $$$. Like any other hobby, you could make it a career, but you’re not at that point yet, so I’d just focus on improving.
I wasn’t thinking of publishing as a highschooler, I was thinking about when I’m older. Honestly, becoming an author is my only chance of surviving as an adult. I have no other skills so I can’t get any other job. *Sighs*
Skills don’t appear out of thin air. You have to cultivate them.
Yup. I don’t know how old you are now, GCA-DS, but I know that when I was 12 I had no clue how to write an essay. I remember working really hard on an essay all trhough 7th grade English. By high school I’d learned some basics, but continued to hone my skills with each year. In my sophomore year of college, I thought I knew how to write for all classes, but I had a professor who developed my skills even further through feedback on each essay. And I bet I’ll learn more in grad school!
Also, writing itself is a skill that can be applied to many jobs.
^^This. The upside of this is that they can be cultivated, and you’re not stuck with some predetermined array of abilities from birth.
Then don’t worry about whether the stuff you write now is publishable or not. Have fun writing and honing your skills and don’t give up on that dream. Use whatever inspiration you can find. You’ll write original stuff for publication later, and it’ll be all the better for the time you spent writing now.
And I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe you have ‘no other skills’ than writing. Even just being able to write opens up a huge range of careers other than ‘author’, and I’m positive you’ll figure out other skills you have as you grow. By all means, be an author, I’ll look forwards to seeing your books on the shelf, but stop it with the ‘I can’t do anything’ attitude. It’s unbecoming on such a wonderful person as yourself.
Well, the things you write now won’t be what you publish when you get older. Think of these as blocks you use to build a pyramid. With each thing you write, you’ll become a better writer. And by the time you’re an adult, the things you write then will be things you probably can’t even imagine writing now! The future is a big place: don’t limit yourself with what you can do now.
Yes! People still seek out fanfic to read when there’s plenty of original works out there. I have a weakness for AU fics…
Excuse me, was I banned…? None of my posts are showing up… :'(
[For some reason, your posts were getting flagged as spam. Sorry about that! Perhaps Robert has an explanation or solution? -Mod]
Mundane conspiracy theories: Michelle Pfeiffer’s publicity agent paid for her name-drops in “Uptown Funk” and “Riptide” as part of a plan to help stage a comeback.
I swear she’s destined for the screen,
closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you’ve ever seen…
I like Uptown Funk but it sounds like a song that would be in a dance party at the end of a movie they didn’t know how else to end.
So I found out that Wikipedia has a page for “Anti-Barney Humor” and that “jihad against barney” is still the second Google result for “jihad against b-“. I never knew people hated Barney so much.
The Night Vale live show was amazing!
Gad, the instant I return to my apartment from break, posting/keeping up here seems to be impossible. Luckily the blog moves really slowly these days, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep this up over the months to come.
Life is currently dictated by two main stress sources:
1) Summer job. Is it happening? Will I feel like I’ve validated myself/my parents’ hope for me to build a resume in some way? Will I be able to pay off the apartment while I’m not staying there? Will I end up stranded at a camp in the middle of nowhere and end up sort of depressed? Should know by Wednesday, but I’m almost certain that no matter what, I won’t be working at a music festival.
2) I’m jumping into a grad seminar this quarter and the preparation list looks super intense. I’m not super worried about being able to pass it, but I kinda feel like I’m trying to prove myself to the instructor/grad students, not to mention to myself since that’s what I hope to be doing in two year’s time or so. I’ve approached the class as ‘no matter what, I can rise to the challenge’, but I’m already starting to worry if I’ll be able to keep my head above water. Well, I’ll find out tomorrow.
Should I be concerned that there are strange little black things in my Coolaid powder that I can occasionally feel biting my tongue and lips when I drink the stuff…?
It’s hard to say. Do they have legs?
Not that I can see. They just look like little black specks.
I would throw out that powder if I were you… and inspect your pantry for any colonies of things.
They were already in there when I first broke the seal. I’ve been drinking the powder for a week now.
Yeah… I’d definitely stop drinking that and throw it out ASAP.
You ought to talk to Jade, she has a history of inadvertently imbibing immature insects
LOOK I WAS LIKE 7 AND THEY LOOKED LIKE “SEEDS” AND TASTED KINDA LIKE BUTTER AND HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT SEEDS DON’T JUST GROW FROM THE MIDDLE OF TREE LEAVES
it was a week before I found out
don’t eat things from yer yards without knowing what they are, kids
relatedly while daffodils may taste fine they are also toxic
Your conviction that you’re an ageless immortal makes more sense when I consider that there’s no other way you’d have survived childhood
I have whiplash because my taxi to work yesterday got rear-ended. I spent most of the day in the emergency room before being sent home with instructions to take it easy and take painkillers.
In other news, happy impending Passover! (It starts this Friday night)