“It’s fine,†said October. His beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire orange and wine red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face. His cheeks were apple red.
He looked like a friend; like someone you had known all your life.
–Neil Gaiman, October in the Chair
Neil Gaiman writes some of the most tender, sweet passages I’ve ever read. Not saccharine or sentimental, just really nice and kind (and very British), the sort of thing you want to share with someone you love, perfect pictures of the little details of everyday life. Then you turn the page and he’s writing about processing babies for leather and meat.*
Gaiman’s works contain a lot of darkness, but it’s never crude or dehumanizing. The darkest moments often have a vulnerability about them that is appealing; other times, you don’t realize something is actually pretty dark until you’re three quarters of the way in. What he’s best at is taking a story you’ve read or lived millions of times — the outlines, if not the details — and twisting it so suddenly you’re looking at something completely new, but something that feels so absolutely right.
–Lizzie
*Babycakes
Welcome to October!
Would Neil Gaiman be a good writer for this month? Since he writes a lot of horror and it’s almost Halloween?
Or Stephen King!
Hmm… shame we didn’t save my Lovecraft month for this month.
Mr. Gaiman would be very appropriate. Would someone like to write a paragraph (or more) about him?
It’s interesting, because Gaiman’s own conception of October is relatively warm and tender – October in the Chair, October’s tale from a calendar of months, season of mists.
Lizzie, would you like to write the Gaiman blurb for the October thread?
Sure, I can probably do that later today or tomorrow, although if anyone else wants to and gets to it before I do feel free. Should I email it to y’all when done?
Lizzie,
Thanks! Email it, or post it here and I’ll move it up where it belongs.
emailed
….Aaaand posted!
It’s finally hoodie / sweater weather! I love fall so much – pretty sure it’s my favorite season. Gonna get me a hot pumpkin-spiced drink later too.
Ok but I think the real thing we should be celebrating about getting to wear now that the weather is appropriate is FLANNEL
That’s a funny way to spell “fingerless gloves”.
I prefer summer because it’s warm. But you know what I do like about fall? Oreos with orange cream! I have no idea, but the orange ones taste the best! I had three just earlier!
I agree. There’s something special about eating food that looks like it could kill you from radiation poisoning.
I’m excited that I can break out the motorcycle jacket and scarves without getting sweaty. I was wearing the lighter scarves in summer, but now I can wear the thicker ones, too. And, of course, my replacement red and black gloves, although they will never be as special as my stolen famous pair.
Time to watch Over the Garden Wall again! And my section just had a pie party with mugs of cider and a bonfire. Everyone brought pie to summon in the new season.
What lovely weather for the first day of Halloween!
Today I get to see Jane Goodall give a talk! I’m excited!
Awesome! If you get to shake her hand, we’ll be two degrees of separation apart!
Happy Feast of Building a Fort in the Backyard! This year I unfortunately have no fort, and so I have had to borrow other people’s forts.
Also, I discovered that the fort can in fact be a tree fort, as long as it’s high enough in the tree that there isn’t foliage above it.
Sukkot may be my favorite holiday in any tradition.
Are non-Jewish people allowed to celebrate?
Yup!
One reason why I love Sukkot is because it is a holiday that everyone can participate in, Jewish or not.
People in Israel (where I live) go really crazy with decorating their sukkahs. Tons of tinsel, lights, and fake flowers/fruit. Also, I have seen several mobile sukkahs on the backs of trucks, as well as a picture of a (very tiny) TARDIS sukkah.
It’s probably bigger on the inside.
Am I the only one who is a total Halloween costume freak? I a) shouldn’t be dressing up still b) shouldn’t start planning my costume a 5 months early.
I’m dressing up as Medusa this year. Snakes should be a challenge.
XD I’ve already planned next year’s costume! That is, if it isn’t too expensive… My mom won’t buy me any over 100 bucks.
I really love Mavis from Hotel Transylvania. She’s very beautiful. My mom might not let me wear the black lipstick though…
I’m gonna be Honey Lemon from Big Hero 6, I’ve been growing my hair out since August. c:
I don’t have the time or energy to wear costumes anymore, but I totally respect the people that put a lot of effort into theirs. You rock that Medusa, dude.
I’m probably going to go with the jetpack pilot costume I made for Yuri’s Night a few years ago and wore last year, since I’m going to try to have it here anyway for Comic-Con. (I might only be able to go for about two hours, but I am living in NYC and I have Thursday tickets and I am going to go to Comic-Con gosh darn it.)
KaiYves: Speaking of jetpacks, have you seen “Tomorrowland” yet?
I found “Tomorrowland” cool in concept but in practice I think the script could’ve used five or six rewrites and someone at Disney giving them permission to not make a feature-film-length advertisement.
Not yet, is it out on DVD?
It will be next month.
Actually, this month: October 13.
I was really looking forward to that movie! But it turned out it wasn’t so great.
“Tomorrowland” wasn’t perfect by a long shot, but there were things about it that I liked a lot.
Same here. Though probably it helped that once upon a time I visited both Tomorrowland and the New York World’s Fair. At the time the behind-the-scenes events as depicted in the movie would not have contradicted my expectations.
I`m planning on being Josh Dun for halloween. (now that I think about it, it`s kinda weird that i`m gonna pretend to be my celebrity crush, but, eh, whatever, i get to wear cool makeup)
Ok I just thought of the best idea: a kerbal.
Oh, I love costumes! It’s a real shame that I have neither the money or resources to make anything really creative. Last year I wore a black outfit and tied a rag around my head and went as a ninja.
OK, so I have everything BUT the wig planned out.
Face: I wish I could be super elaborate and wear contacts and have Greek looking earrings and wear super fancy makeup, but I a) am on a tight budget b) know nothing about makeup or have peirced ears. I’ll just slap green eyeshadow and green lip stick on. I also think fangs would be a nice touch.
Dress: I’m taking a XXL woman’s black shirt and wearing a yellow belt on it that looks like gold rope. I’m also cutting holes in it so it looks torn and worn (I’m wearing a green shirt underneath, along with green tights)
Tights: The tights are green. Neon green.
Shoes: I WAS going to wear gladiator sandals, but since I’m wearing tights…. Did the ancient Greeks have close toed boots? I guess that’s I’ll do.
I’m ALSO wearing arm cuffs. And I might wear fake eyelashes.
What’s your best Halloween costume?
How long is your hair? If it’s midlength you could probably spray dye it green, coil strands, and use glue or gel to snake it out – would take a ton of product though (I’ve got a pixie cut and last year I did statue of liberty – died it and spiked it out for the crown).
(creepy, dark, and somehow sad voice) sumwun squiddid my comment so i go end squidd evrywun else`s comments. simple logic.
ER, the squid was all amiss interpreted. It was a vision fair and fortunate.
I celebrated the first day of October by being cold and damp outside all day. There’s a hurricane coming, so we moved the boat to a more sheltered dock, and on the several-hour transit (we motored the whole way) we tied everything on deck down and tied up our sails extra tight. Then we moved anchors around for several hours (in the intermittent rain and constant damp). Then when we finally got back to the apartment I cooked and ate an entire butternut squash while watching the Lego movie.
So that’s what my life is like.
I hope your ship comes through this storm okay.
At least the boat has a motor. You could have been in a longboat.
Sometimes, the people who smile the biggest are truly the ones who are the most depressed…
When around others, I pretend to be happy, but at night, I cry… It’s my fault… It’s all my fault… I have complained about this before and I know I am repetitive… But there is this one boy who always remains on my mind… One boy that I wish I could be with again… I was afraid to tell him how much I loved him because my friend loved him too and knew him for longer than I did, she told me to back away from him… I accidentally fell in love with him though… I looked into his eyes… That was my mistake… I want to be with him again… I wish I could see him again. I would like to know how he is doing. Sometimes I wonder if he has been thinking about me too…
So there’s people here who are much more Old And Wise than me but I’m an adult too (how did this happen) so I’m gonna dispense some wisdom:
Being super attached to someone you can’t have is dangerous. Especially when you’re younger and you haven’t really developed very good coping mechanisms. And (speaking from experience here) while being in love at your age can feel so intense and real, in a few years you’re going to have a really different perspective. I’m not trying to invalidate the feelings you have – I know what it’s like, and I’m trying to tell you some of the things I wish I’d known. So I know it probably seems impossible, but try to minimize the feelings you have for him to whatever extent is possible.
Also you really need to consider talking to your friend about this and maybe considering ending your friendship with her because a friendship in which she tells you to “back away” from a guy you both have feelings for rather than talking it over does not sound like a healthy one.
Look, being a teenager sucks. Having an unrequited crush sucks. In an alternate universe where you were going out with this guy, I promise you 100% that things wouldn’t be perfect either and you’d still be having all the same angst and insecurity. I don’t know what the solution is, maybe just realizing that pretty much everyone around you feels the same way.
Is anyone else here effected by hurricane Juquin? I don’t live on the cost of Carolina, but I live a few hours away. Last night: rain Today: rain. Is it a category… 4? I wasn’t alive for Hugo, but I remember Katrina and Sandy clearly.
I live in central NC, so my area isn’t exactly in danger, but it’s been raining all week and we’re expected to get really bad storms starting today. My thoughts are with the people on the coast, though :0
It has been pouring for the past few days here… The only break was on Wednesday when I went to the movies. My suster’s happy because she doesn’t have to take walks now…
Ok scratch my “All we’ve gotten is rain!” comment. Someone told me that SC was “spared” from Joquin. Yeah right.
We got a call from county government. There’s historic flash flooding on the way. Schools were closed in Columbia (the biggest city in SC. Not my city) My school might close on Monday. Relatives are calling from the coast. There’s a 100% chance of rain on Saturday and Sunday. It’s going to be a dark and stormy night…
Also, we have to keep the “variety” station on for weather reports (More of an annoying 80’s station) Is it just me, or does “Land Down Under” and “Don’t Stop Believing” interrupt a peaceful meal?
> Is it just me, or does “Land Down Under†and “Don’t Stop Believing†interrupt a peaceful meal?
DON’T STOP
BELIEEEEEVING
HOLD ONTO THAT FEEEEEEEELING
Having an essay due at 8 am on a Sunday is weird.
Plato’s Republic is really fascinating at least.
Ugh, it’s cold, it’s wet, my room is cold, I only have summer clothes and blankets because my parents kept insisting that they would be able to send me stuff easily since home is so close…
Is it normal for new teeth fillings to squeak when your other teeth rub against them?
I’ve had these fillings for about two days, and when I chew they squeak. It doesn’t hurt or anything. I don’t think this happened with the last few I got.
You could try oiling them. But I wouldn’t recommend it.
It was a while ago but I feel like that also happened to me when I got fillings!
I went to AMNH with the kids from my dorm today and bought a plush tartigrade. Any suggestions for a name? I’ve been mentally calling it “Squish”, but tardigrades aren’t very squishy at all in their hibernation form.
How about “Bear”?
Blandy? (That’s worse then squish) Smally? (:roll:) Very-Tiny-Squishy-Tardigradey? (Don’t look at me for name help)
For some reason, ALL of my stuffed animals have names that end with y
Flamingo-y the Flamingo, Manny the manatee, Monkey the monkey (I’m particularly proud of that one)
It’s okay, as a little kid, my prized possession was a dolphin as big as I was that I named Dolphiny. (I told a story about him in the “When I Was A Little Kid” thread a while back.)
Piglet! Or — they were first named Tardigrada by Lazzaro Spallanzani, and I think Lazzaro is a very good name for a tardigrade. Alternately Johann, after the dude who first discovered them.
And Lazzaro sounds like Lazarus, which us the perfect name for an animal that can come back from the “dead” – or at least from places that would kill almost any other organism.
Ursula? Or Ursa?
I kind of like Ursa Minor as a silly pun.
I like “Ursa Minor” a lot.
“Ursa Minor” means “Little Bear”.Tardigrades are sometimes called water bears. That’s golden.
Tad?
Ursa Minor is good, or Teddy. (As in teddy bear, which goes with the bear theme.)
This is very apt, because I’m in the process of rereading Sandman! Saaaandmaaaaan. (hate “Babycakes” tho. Smoke & Mirrors is the only book I’ve ever deliberately destroyed, and that story was why.)
NEIL GAIMAN THREAD NEIL GAIMAN THREAD
Okay I’m calm, I’m calm. I’m a little sad because we seem to have skipped fall over here, it was like 85 last week and now it’s in the 50s. Also the heat in my apartment does not appear to work. Whee!
Anyone else doing Inktober?
50s is fall weather!
Well, my October Muse came today.
New comic: Odyssey characters doing Odyssey character stuff. (Talking about mechanical body parts)
Muse mail: A bunch of letters from Odyssey fans about how much they don’t like the merge. Who knew?
Skip a few articles
Last slice: Propaganda about tails by Nancy Kangas. Glad she’s still on board.
We’re transiting tomorrow for real! We downrigged all our hurricane preparations, and the plan is to get underway super early in the morning. I’m excited to finally be going places on a boat again!
Fair winds and following seas!
Anyone know any good books in any of the following categories?
1) Geometry beyond what you learn in High School
2) Calculus-based physics that’s not a standard textbook (so I can bulk up a bit before winter term’s physics) (my high school physics class was awful)
3) RECENT (2014 or 2015) books about synthetic biology or computational biology?
Regarding 3:
– Fundamentals of Systems Biology: From Synthetic Circuits to Whole-cell Models by Covert NOTE: The author of this book is a professor here at Stanford and is super nice. The book is really good; the reason it’s currently out of stock is because it was just assigned for a BioE class and the students taking the class bought up Amazon’s stock. Should be restocked soon.
– Biological Sequence Analysis:Probabilistic Models of Proteins and Nucleic Acids by Durbin et al NOTE: This book is quite old, so it doesn’t really fit your requirements, but it’s still taught in computational biology courses. Check out related titles on Amazon if you want newer versions.
3) Bioinformatics for Beginners was helpful for my bioinformatics class.
TMFA,
Coxeter’s book Geometry Revisited gets rave reviews.
I see Schaum’s Outlines are still in print. They were invaluable to me in college — no frills, lots of examples and problems. Their College Physics might be what you need.
So, is anyone watching “Con Man”?
Mmmmm, Swiss-and-cheddar grilled cheese with guacamole. I think I’ll ask for that again the next time I’m at the make-your-own-sandwich station in the cafeteria.
i think its kinda nice that on my phone keyboard the ! is right next to the a. i can type aaaaaaaaaaa! with ease.
Before today, I never realized how grumpy I can get when I’m hungry. I had a rather boring office party tonight, and at the beginning I was barely able to interact with anyone without biting their head off. Once I ate something, suddenly the urge to scream and run away disappeared.
My guinea pig Gus is sick – his breathing sounds really weird. I don’t think it’s a URI – he doesn’t have any of the other symptoms (nasal discharge, loss of appetite, etc.) and the other guinea pig (they live in the same cage) appears totally healthy so I’m guessing/hoping it’s allergies. I’m about to replace the bedding with fabric and see if that helps. If not, I’ll try to convince my parents to let me take him to the vet.
You don’t happen to be using bedding with baking soda, do you? I lost a lot of my favorite guinea pigs to that kind of litter… It ruins their lungs and they slowly die off…
Wooohoooo!!! Feeling awesome! I found old documents! Stories I wrote last year! Turns out, GCA is supposed to be the most beautiful angel of all as well as being gullible and overly eager to help everyone in need. I also found out that Pinecone was originally going to be a black wolf, but for some reason I chose to make him silver. Then I learned a valuable life lesson, never feed my character Lillian a Snikers Bar. I love it when I find my old stories and they make me laugh!
I ran into the juggling club in the park today and tried to juggle– I caught onto the technique pretty quickly, but I couldn’t always catch the balls. I got to two, and I think I’ll try and perfect that before I try three.
One of my best friends is gone. He killed himself this morning.
I don’t know how to process that. I don’t know how to feel the emotions I know I should be feeling right now. I miss him. I love him. Loved him. I don’t want to believe that he’s dead.
A piece of my heart has been ripped out and lit on fire.
I don’t want to say goodbye.
I’m sorry, fireh. This is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to deal with, and I don’t know of anything that will make it much easier. Mourn him, commemorate him, honor his memory — that’s what people have done for as long as they’ve been human, and probably before. And be very, very kind to yourself. Our thoughts are with you.
I’m so sorry, fireh.
Hugs, fireh. I don’t really know what to say here but we’re all here for you. Do what you need to take care of yourself.
Shadowfire said it better than I could have. I’m very sorry, fireh. *hugs*
Same. <3
As everyone else said – we’re all here for you, we love you, take care of yourself. If you find yourself having a particularly rough time, just remember that MB is here to support you. *hugs*
Fireh, I’m so, so, sorry. Deepest condolences. Hugs.
I’m very sorry, fireh. If you need to talk, we’re all here.
I am so sorry, Fireh. *hugs and love* I can’t imagine how terrible that must feel. I and the rest of MuseBlog are here for you however we can help. Take care of yourself. *hugs*
Many hugs.
Love you, Fireh. Here for you if you need anything. I’m so, so sorry.
The sorrow I’m feeling for you and your friend could not be expressed in a little comment box, but let me say I’m sorry. We all are. Also, eat lots of pizza. Pizza always helps. Do what it takes to feel better. Once again, I’m really sorry.
Has enough time passed that making a lighthearted post after the above discussion will be acceptable? If not, you may zap this.
Lightheartedness is part of life, and life goes on.
Guys! The Kepler space telescope found a star with some kind of huge orbiting structure blocking some of its light, similar to the dust and loose matter that usually surrounds much younger stars. It’s possibly a sea of comets or shrapnel from an asteroid or planet collision, but NASA is also considering that an alien civilization might have built it to harvest energy from the star. They plan to look for technological activity in its solar system with a radio telescope in January.
http: //www .theatlantic .com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/
Thanks for the Sci Fi novel inspiration! If you need me, I’ll just be writing an alien saga…
Dang it, why does everything happen midterm week?
NaNoWriMo novel idea! NaNoWriMo novel idea!
OK, So, we won our second QB match. Yay us. I also got my Clarinet. The WiFi has been very…. Iffy. Also, I like cats! (That was random)
I’ve never done NaNo before and I CERTAINLY don’t have time now but I’m tempted to do some kind of mini version? I wrote a 21,000 word fic this late spring/early summer, mostly in June, which was really really fun. (It’s Lydia x Gigi from Lizzie Bennet Diaries, posted in July on AO3 if anyone wants to try to find it–shouldn’t be too hard, there’s almost nothing in the tag.) I have a sort of prequel one I want to do, but it’d require rewatching the whole webseries to get details right, which would be a time suck I don’t know if I have time for. (A detailed LBD wiki would help me so much.) Still, I really want to write it and November seems like a good kick to get started…
I’d like to do some writing, but I think I’ll be too busy with schoolwork.
I had a really crazy and long dream last night, but if I were to explain it, it would be about 20,000 words so I think I’ll just save it for a story. XD but let’s just say, it involved putting ketchup on a waffle!
Dear Past Me,
What made you think it was a good idea to go out of town the weekend before you had 1 minor and 3 major homework assignments due?
Love,
Current Me, scrambling to finish the 1 minor homework assignment before class
Dear Kokonilly’s current and past self,
Oh, come on. I’ve had to finish a homework assignment at 1 in the mourning. The ironic thing? Even though my math teacher stressed it, she never took it up.
Best wishes, YinYangSpirit12
Now, now, misery poker is a game with no real winners.
Kai is right, but Yin — I was up until 6 AM last night finishing an assignment due at 11 AM.
Dear Lizzie,
I hope to one day (1 or 2 years from now) be where you are.
Once can dream. Awake.
Sleep-deprived,
Kokonilly
Once during drama tech week I finished an essay for another class at 4 am while eating Mini-Wheats and listening to Tomorrow is a Latter Day on loop. Got an A in the class.
Dear Kokonilly and YinYangSpirit12,
I am out of school, have not had to do homework in six months, and will never have to do so again.
Just thought I’d point that out.
Hugs and Kisses,
Lizzie
Dear Lizzie,
Good point.
Live long and prosper,
YinYangSprit12
Hey, Pollyhymnia’s new book is out! It’s called The Poe Estate. Here’s a review:
http:// scifichick. com/2015/10/15/fantasy-book-review-the-poe-estate/
Just figured out about the blogs connection to “The Grimm Legacy”.
My friend just texted me about how I needed to read TGL, and thinking I was in Google, I looked the book up in the MB search box.
Yes, MuseBlog and Polly Shulman go way back. MBers have even put her into fanfiction.
There’s a Belgian waffle truck that stops right by my dorm on Thursdays from 6 PM to 1 AM. If it was 6 AM to 1 PM, I could have waffles for breakfast, but sadly it’s the other way around.
“Waffles — they’re not just for breakfast anymore.”
McDonald’s new campaign is centered around eating breakfast all day long. Also, I just enjoyed a delicious bowl of Lucky Charms for dinner. Or, you could eat breakfast REALLY early…
I went and bought one in a box tonight so I can eat it for breakfast tomorrow.
Mmmmm, it was delicious. (Of course that will probably show up under a comment implying that I eat something else strange, on top of nematodes and lightbulbs.)
My new hobby: I make “animator reels” on YouTube. I put together scenes done by specific animators in history so that people can recognize their work. It’s pretty fun! I’ve gotten to talk to some interesting folks and learn about Disney history and such.
That sounds really cool. What would I search to find them?
“ibcf” and “animation” will probably bring it up!
There’s like no chance I’ll have enough time to do a NaNoWriMo this year but today I’ve had the most fabulous idea that I’m really excited about!
I was too lazy getting out of the room today, so I only got about an hour and fifteen minutes at the American Museum of Natural History before it closed, but I did learn that if you enter at or after 4:45, admission is free because they feel bad you only get an hour there. Remember that if you visit New York!
But if you’re only visiting New York, you probably should come earlier and pay admission because 1 hour isn’t much time to see stuff in so big a place. “Walk fast”, the ticket-counter lady advised me.
I basically spent my time walking around the Hall of North American Mammals and then cut through the Hall of Planet Earth on my way back. I had been in North American Mammals when my family slept over years ago, and then again last year, a few months after it reopened after being refurbished.
It’s really a fantastic exhibit hall, the dioramas are really impressive examples of that art, and the scenes depicted are really stunning– a jaguar stalking a ridge-top in the Sonoran Desert at sunset, mountain sheep on the slopes of Mount Denali in the midnight sun, a mother grizzly bear showing her cub how to eat termites in Yosemite, a whole hallway that looks onto a herd of bison on the Midwestern plains, and then my two favorites– wolves running under the aurora borealis and cougars resting in a rockshelter at the rim of the Grand Canyon.
In many ways, the Hall of North American Mammals is also the Hall of Great North American Landscapes. The maps at the front of the hall are a reminder of how many biomes can be found in just Canada, the US, and Mexico. On the subway coming home, I read a post on another site talking about how European tourists often don’t realize now big the US really is and how far apart things are, and it made me realize that even living on the East Coast for almost my entire life, I don’t really have a feel for how far west the continent stretches at all. Aside from making transfers in airports, I’ve never been further west than Alabama.
But I’d like to see so many of those landscapes in person, and that spot in the Rockies in the Birds of the World hall that really conveys why they were advertised to Victorian tourists as “the Switzerland of America”, and heck, even here on the East Coast I’d like to see the Florida Keys, the Everglades, the Outer Banks, the White Mountains (the BU Outing Club had trips announced in their e-mails, but I was always too busy), and Mount Desert Island… All I know for the moment is that I have to make plans to visit Niagara Falls when I go to visit J. at college, because he’s only an hour and a half away.
But for now, there are the dioramas, and vacations of the imagination.
Wow. That sounds amazing! I’ve never been to NYC, but spent some time in DC in 2014. For one day, I practically went in circles around the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. That was awesome.
I really want to go to DC! Apparently we might around Christmastime but if there really is a government shutdown in December, we wouldn’t be able to do… anything.
I live close enough to drive out to D.C., I must say though, some of the museums contain things I wish I never saw. XD I’m too childish.
Do you mean like the Holocaust museum?
Nah, I mean statues of naked boys.
Never go to Rome or Florence.
Our substitute once had a “wonderful” idea to show us “great Roman art” This made our history class go bezerk. I’m pretty sure she won’t be subbing any time soon…
I found this exchange completely hilarious.
Any advice on how to write a paragraph as if I were a 19th century scholar who knew his ancient hellish rituals?
Nineteenth-century scholar…hellish rituals… Hm. I’d advise you to read Edgar Allan Poe, or visit The Museion.
“The Great God Pan” by Arthur Machen might give you some ideas– but I’d advise you not to read it at night.
…Is there something wrong with Museblog? Some things seem a little messed up…
Looks like it, my reply got pushed way down so it isn’t even connected to what I was replying to! XD
Probably a glitch in the threading plug-in. That happens sometimes, between updates.
Did anyone else confuse “cavalry”, “Calvary” and “Calgary” as a kid?
Still have to think for a moment about cavalry and Calvary.
I still have to double-check that the place in Canada isn’t spelled like the Biblical place sometimes. I mean it does happen a lot in the English-speaking world– I grew up near a Babylon, a Jericho, and a Mount Sinai, which confused me quite a bit as a little kid in Sunday School.
Wait… I went to Catholic Sunday school for years, but… what is Calvary?
Golgotha.
This is now cemented in my head thanks to having to read a bunch of medieval Corpus Christi plays. Whee, more useless knowledge!
YO corpus christi plays are great, I will fight you about corpus christi plays
…What is Golgotha??
I paid attention in Sunday school, I swear.
arg sorry I make weird assumptions. It’s the hill where Christ was crucified! (Golgotha is Aramaic for “skull,” so you get the Latin Calvariae Locus, place of the skull, Calvary for short.)
The hill where Jesus Christ was crucified.
Oh man, I didn’t know it had a name! I know the whole Pontius Pilate thing, and what Mount Sinai, Jericho, etc. etc. are — I just didn’t know the hill itself was called something.
(But of course it’s called something. Everything is called something in Christianity.)
It took my young, fantasy book-loving and Catholic church-attending self an almost embarrassingly long time to stop always swapping cavalry and Calvary, considering how often I encountered both of those words (but that also may have been part of why I did it so much?). Now I only get them mixed up, like, half of the time.
Nope. I never knew about Calvary, just calvary and Calgary. I just went and looked up Calvary because I had no idea what it was. Suddenly the line “The neverending road to calvary” from Les Miserables makes a lot more sense…
And I’m a looong way from your hill of Calvary
I’m a looong way from where I was, and where I need to be…
I could see 3 planets this morning! (Jupiter, Mars, and Venus) I felt vey small standing on my planet, and I also realized the universe is very, very, big.
Have you ever tried laying down on the ground, looking up at the stars and planets, and imagining that you are looking down at them and that there’s just really strong glue keeping you from falling? It’s amazing.
Lying down, please. (But you’re right: it is an amazing feeling.)
Lying down, sorry. I’ll keep that in mind.
Hullo, everybody! I told myself I’d keep you updated on my college adventure, but I just realized I’ve been on here for eight weeks (!) and I haven’t been on here since then.
Although it’s been kind of hard to scrape together updates for family and so forth because 90% of the time everything I want to say consists of “Everything’s still going amazingly, I love it here so much, this place is fantastic”
Although at the moment I’m kind of stressed because 1. I’m waiting on midterm grades (I swear I was supposed to get them by 2:00!), 2. I misplaced my jacket yesterday and I have no idea where it could be, and 3. a couple of days ago I texted my best friend here trying to coordinate our dinner plans and she responded ‘I’m really tired, I think I’m going to take a nap’, and that somehow sent me into a spiral of thinking that everybody, and specifically her, hated me. I’m convincing myself otherwise, it’s just going somewhat slowly.
Other than that, though, this term’s been amazing. I love my classes (well, maybe not the 8:00 AM one), I love my friends, I love the weather, I love everything about this place.
Just found my jacket! That’s one source of stress removed.
NaNoWriMo veterans! I’m participating this year for the first time, and have lots of questions. This one has been bugging me:
I have a fuzzy idea for a novel in my head. One big part of my story is the Patheon of Gods the characters worship. Can I write a brief summary down, or does all prep have to absolutely start November 1rst?
You can do whatever you want (it’s not like the NaNoWriMo police will come after you), but I believe that you are actually encouraged to plan your novel beforehand. If you read the things that are written on the official website (ywp . nanowrimo . org) you can see for yourself. The “NaNo News” is all about novel prep!
Yeah, Noah’s right, you can absolutely plan ahead as much as you want! Write down all the summaries, character sheets, world notes, religious diatribes you want! Unless you prefer not to have that much planning, which is also a legitimate strategy.
Technically, you could even start writing now, although I don’t recommend it at all. The only thing you’re truly banned from is counting words written outside November in your official word count.
Thanks! I’m excited to be participating this year! I would’ve last year, but I didn’t have much spare time (I was in the 4th match of elemnation spelling bees. I was 2 away from the national bee! The school I attend now isn’t really spelling bee crazy, so I think I can do NaNoWriMo)
What would you recommend as a word count?
It really depends. 30,000 words is recommended for students, and adults are supposed to do more like 50,000. Do you write much? I don’t really, and it was hard for me to get up to just 20,000 words last year. There’s also a word count calculator on the website, which is helpful. Last time, it gave me an estimate something in the low 20,000s. I decided to raise that to 35,000 (which MAY have been a bit overzealous of me…) and I definitely did not get there. Actually, I hit my suggested goal almost right on! If you don’t get a satisfactory goal assigned to you, it’s not the end of the world. Everyone’s different in their writing speeds and styles. If you think you could write more than the suggestion, at least keep the estimate as your official goal for a week or two. If you end up writing more, then you surpassed your goal! And if you still think that you can do a lot better, you can always raise or lower your official word count goal on the website.
I do write a lot, although I do my best writing (in my opinion) is do when I’m not under pressure. Here’s an example:
Writing under pressure in the middle of art because my short story is due in 3 hours:
“You do understand that Vivian is using you, right?” Octavia said to Liam.
Liam nodded yes nervously.
And when I redid the “paragraph” (if you would call it that)
“You do realize,” Octavia said in a voice Paul had never heard care free Ockie use “Vivian is using you for bad things. Awful things. You understand, right?” Liam swallowed and nodded no.
Yeah. Hands down. The second one is better.
How much pressure will I be under exactly?
Again, everyone’s different. If you take this really seriously (and choose a high goal) you would probably be under quite a bit if pressure to get the whole thing done in time. However, the nice thing about NaNoWriMo is that it doesn’t matter if the end product isn’t very good. The point is to set aside your editing OCD-ness (or at least mine) and just get ideas down. If you want to make is sound good, go back and fix it afterwards.
Okay, I’m a really bad person to ask about potential wordcounts. I went straight for the full 50k when I was thirteen, and I never looked back. Honestly, if you think you have any chance of making it, I still recommend that, it’s an amazing experience. My first year, I had to scratch out every possible moment for writing, do everything I could to keep up with it. But I made it.
However, if you’re going to be slightly sane about it, I guess I’d just straight up calculate it. Figure out how much time you want to spend writing every day, and figure out how many words you can theoretically write in that long. (The best way to do this is to actually write for that long, on some throwaway story. If it’s too long for that, you can do a shorter time and estimate, but that gets risky. You can write a lot more in the first ten minutes of an hour than in the last ten minutes. Also, be sure you’re actually writing, not just copying text. Typing speed is not equal to writing speed.) Multiply that number by however many days you expect to be able to write in November and round to something pretty.
I personally think stretching yourself is an important part of the event, so I wouldn’t aim too low, but at the same time, don’t overestimate your limits too much.
And if you have any other questions, let me know. I will babble about NaNo ’til kingdom come.
50k is standard, and the minimum if you’re not using the kids site. It seems really daunting, but it’s very possible if you have a couple hours a day to set aside and write. The more you plan out your story, the easier the words will come! I’d suggest looking at your old stories’ word count, or typing a bit into a word processor just to see what sort of commitment 1,667 words a day really is.
My dorm turned the heat on!
My apartment building’s heat’s been on for the past week. It’s been cold here! (well. 40F. Perfectly sensible for late October, if it wasn’t still early September in my head.) I hope you have plenty of warm blankets, since it sounds like your dorm may not be the most reliable.
Oh no, it’s a nice dorm, they just didn’t want to turn it on too early in the season and waste money. I’m not too familiar with the controls, so I think 74 degrees is the warmest I can make my room, but that’s warm enough.
My dorm was the same way! The worst part is in the springtime when there’s three or four days of warmth during which they turn the AC on. Then the weather gets cold again but this time there’s AC blasting in the hallways all the time and it’s Siberia and all you can do is curl up in a ball under a blanket.
Meanwhile, we in the AC-less dorms still sleep with our fans on and hope it cools down at night.
High of 82 tomorrow in inland southern California.
Wooo! Enric Sala kicks butt! He’s an oceanographer from Scripps who studies ocean environments far from human settlements for National Geographic and tries to get them protected as marine sanctuaries. And tonight he was speaking at NYU and he signed my NGS membership card!
I’m working on a really awesome research project with two biology professors at my college. We have a TON of data related to behavior of a particular species of seabirds – ten to twenty 50,000 row Excel documents from each of the past eight summers. Previous thesis students in my professor’s lab have gone through such documents by hand to code different behaviors. My job is writing a computer program, in Python, to automate the analysis. It’s going surprisingly well! When I sit down to work on it, I get so engrossed for hours at a time. And yet I’m amazed at how much progress I’ve made during the few hours a week I’m investing. We’re almost to the stage of taking the program output and analyzing it for actual biological relevance, which is very exciting. AND in November we’re planning to write an abstract to present at the Pacific Seabird Conference in February, which will be in HAWAII!!! How’s that for motivation?
Other really, really exciting news is that I got a job at my consortium’s brand new Center for Collaborative Creativity, which is just as awesome as it sounds. My first few weeks on the job have included brainstorming ideas for a “sideways cityscape” mural, planning “reset layouts” for the furniture which is all on wheels, thrift-shopping for silly props which can put one in a generative mindset, and assembling a rack to hold bins of prototyping supplies. I love working there and can’t believe I’m getting paid for that stuff. It’s also amazing to be involved in the start-up stage of what I hope becomes an integral part of the consortium, affecting the student experience for decades.
The story of this semester is that my co-curricular stuff is much more exciting than my actual classes. Oh well! World Domination is clearly proceeding according to plan.
Cool! Good luck with the abstract!
My ADD is really frustrating me right now. I’ll be in the middle of doing something at work, and suddenly I’ll think of something, and then there goes my brain. Normally, this doesn’t particularly bother me, because I can work at my own pace and I don’t have to follow anyone else. But right now I’m working on a huge project, and need to complete a certain amount of it per day, and it’s a large amount per day, and my easily distracted brain is causing problems.
I’m not on any medication right now, because I can’t afford it, and even if I could, I’d have to stop taking it if I got pregnant. Listening to music works to a certain extent, but it’s not a perfect solution.
I’m not necessarily looking for advice here, just needed to vent (and I can’t find the rants and plaints thread)
We had to write mock proposals for my professional development class that could be about any hypothetical project we could find interesting, so I wrote that I would like to create a database of academic papers about Bronze Age paleoclimatology in the Mediterranean and Near East only to be told that this would apparently be an entire career’s worth of work.
Perfect! Congrats on finding a career’s worth of work.
While the degree in which climate change was a factor in the Bronze Age Collpase is a problem that I find interesting, it’s not the ONLY problem in archaeology that I find interesting and I wouldn’t want to focus on only the Bronze Age Collapse to the exclusion of my other areas of interest. (Such as the dating of the Thera eruption several centuries before and maybe possibly actually EXCAVATING at Akrotiri beyond the one street that’s all we’ve had to study for fifty years… /Eloise/ For Gawd’s Sake /Eloise/ And also I’d still like to maybe work underwater if that’s at all possible…)
Really? Even with everything online? There can’t be that many papers.
That’s what I thought, but I guess that as professionals they know better than me. I wanted to include papers about specific sites, though, which probably does bring it up.
Any tips for my Homestuck cosplay this Halloween?
Depends who you’re cosplaying!
Karkat Vantas.
Seal ya makeup!
(actually though, or you will get grey on literally everything.)
I second what shadowfire said! Seal that makeup! Also, make sure you do a test run a few days beforehand to know how much time it’ll take you to get into costume and do your makeup.
Be prepared for questions- lots of people are curious when you’re gray and have candy corn horns.
Today:
–
Heard that my paternal grandmother died last night.
Almost stepped in vomit on the subway.
Had the fire alarm go off when I was halfway done with dinner and had to evacuate the dinning hall.
+
Went to AMNH and saw the Hall of Ocean Life a little before it closed, and was actually brave enough to look at stuff in the Hall of Biodiversity while pretending the giant squid wasn’t up there. (Yes, it is just a model, and I am 22, but it is also sixty feet long and you have to walk under it and I hate tentacles.)
It was spaghetti bolognese.
Today I failed my math midterm (studied hard, but misunderstood or forgot a lot of things) and got fired from my cashier job (manager appreciates my efforts to improve, but too many mistakes with change). According to my parents this is a really awful start to my adult life and it will probably be hard for me to find another job or transfer into the college I want. They seem especially worried that I genuinely tried hard at both my only real (not theater) class that I’m taking for the second time and my extremely basic customer service job, but didn’t have the skills or intelligence to keep up. I don’t know how to start catching up with the last 6 or so years of maturity and problem-solving, but my parents seem to think it might be too late.
It’s not too late. There are many jobs, and many different ways to learn the things you need to know. Do you think anxiety about math and numbers might be part of the problem?
Hey hey hey, I failed college math exams as well, and I ended up getting a B.Sc. in that very subject! While I don’t suggestion you emulate my failures, it doesn’t mean you’ve somehow botched your entire adulthood. You have other classes in college, no? I’m not sure about the unreal/real definition there.
I’m sorry you got fired from your cashier job. But I’m sure you can find something else that doesn’t involve counting change. Just because you struggle with some things doesn’t mean you’re somehow failing at adulthood.
I don’t know what mean about “catching up on so and so many years of adulthood”. All I can suggest is taking things step by step; find a problem, then make a list of things you can do to fix it, do those things, see what happens, rinse and repeat. For example:
->Math issues:
-Consider if anxiety about math is part of the problem, if so talk to counseling
-Talk to your professor or TAs, make time to get to office hours and/or consider a peer-tutor
-Can you join a study group to talk about math concepts?
-Can you change your study strategy for math to incorporate more time for repetition (i.e. less hours per day but more days of studying)?
-If math really just isn’t your thing, can you shift your main academic focus in another direction? I don’t think the college you want to transfer into would care as much about a bad grade if you make it clear that it’s in a class that’s unrelated to your major.
-Do the student disability services have any kind of support for those who need extra help in math and/or problem solving?
->Job things:
-What jobs are there in your area that don’t require dealing with change much? Could you (for example) waitress? Work at a museum or library? Any other job at a department store where you don’t have to work at the cash register? I think it’s clear that you were let go because of a specific issue that won’t be relevant for many other jobs, and as long as that shows in your references I don’t think it will be such a big deal.
Please don’t be too discouraged! Learning to deal with setbacks is another one of those maturity/adulting skills that everyone needs to learn.
Thanks for your help. My major is technical theater, so I could have taken an easier math class, but I took precalculus last semester because I hadn’t decided on a major and would have needed it for biology. I failed by a couple points (final grade was like 68% or something), so right now I’m retaking the class to hopefully get a better grade that will overwrite the existing one on my record. I’ve had one homework assignment since I failed the midterm, which I stayed up until 3:30 am finishing, turned in on time, and understood the material, so I’ll try to keep going with that. I have more time to study now that I don’t have a job, so I’ll try the things you said.
I was talking to my mom about my struggles with work, school, etc. and she said I play dumb for attention and am actually smart, but she usually says this when I admit to not knowing something or ask for help. I asked her how I can appear smarter and not seem to be playing dumb, and she told me to stop playing dumb about that.
No general advice, but re: math problems, do you think it would be worth taking a couple afternoons just to practice really basic math skills – arithmetic, basic mental math, that sort of thing? I obviously don’t know what you specifically struggle with, but if you’re having problems with change, going back and making sure you understand conceptually what’s going on with math at a basic level might be worth while, and that might give you more confidence when it comes to like precalc. Also, make sure you’re doing all the assigned work, going to study sessions, that sort of thing. There’s many things you’ll be able to do in the future that don’t really require math at all, but being able to do it will be a confidence boost.
Asking for help isn’t playing dumb at all – it means you’re making sure your own personal playing field is the same as everyone else’s. The only way you can “catch up with the last 6 years or so” is one step at a time, and while it might seem like slow going, it will be easier (and pay off in the long run) if you make sure you completely understand every step along the way. Short cuts tend to come back in the future to bite you.
Final thought: In a lot of ways, college is practice-adulthood so making mistakes is pretty much expected.
So mom’s getting a movie from redbox tonight, as she often does on Saturdays since they don’t have any TV shows they watch on Saturdays. And one of the one’s she’s getting is “Z for Zachariah” because she knows I like Chris Pine lol. And she asked me what I knew about it, and I was like, um, don’t remember anything that I know about it, just that Chris Pine is in it.
Reason she asked: 99.9% of the time, the movies she gets from rebox totally suck, and this one didn’t have good redbox rating, so she wants to be able to transfer blame to me if it sucks lol.
So I just looked it up, to remember anything at all about what it’s about, and the summary was “Following a disaster that wipes out most of civilization, a scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a miner (Chris Pine) compete for the love of a woman (Margot Robbie) who may be the last female on Earth.”
And I was like, whoa, wait, deja vu, is this based on a book? Where there’s a girl who is in an underground nuclear bunker and she’s rescued by a guy in a space suit after the world is destroyed by nuclear war????? And so I google “book that starts out girl in nuclear bunker found by guy in space suit” and whaddaya know. First thing that pops up: goodreads link for “Z for Zachariah”.
And I’ve still go this deja vu feeling, like this isn’t the first time I’ve had this eureka moment regarding the movie, so what do I do but go the one place I know there might be a catalog of such a moment, and what do I find, but I posted a nearly identical comment on the August 2014 random thread. https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=14368#comment-485568
Yeow, another time loop.
“MuseBlog: Home of Déjà Déjà Vu.”
That’s hilarious. Thank goodness for searchable eureka moments.
played concertmaster for my first official concert, didn’t screw up!
downside it was music of the 70s and apparently Carole King makes me feel physically nauseated. I felt better as soon as we moved onto Stevie Wonder.
That’s a shame, I really like a lot of her music. To each their own.
Dang, the awesome teahouse on my street is closing after tomorrow. They make the best bubble tea on campus and I had a tradition of going there for chicken soup with udon noodles and pork dumplings with bubble tea on Saturday nights after study sessions in the lab.
I just got back my first lit paper and my prof (whom I love) has written just the loveliest things — he said it was “superb work” and that I’d created a new way for him to consider connections between two characters in the text!
Yay! That’s great to hear, ZNZ!
Told you!
Marching band is consuming my life, et cetera, but the semester has been going well. I dropped my math class because I didn’t need it to get into college or to graduate, so now my only classes are civics, AP English, and wind ensemble. It’s good fun. Now I have very little homework, and having no math means no first period for me so I drive to school late every morning. Meaning I can focus on the mind-numbing blank that is my college essays! Also, practicing for college auditions! Yay!
I like sleeping in. I like my section. We have a new band director this year, which is difficult for our band (deeply rooted in tradition), but we’re coping. We haven’t won any grand championships yet. Our biggest competition of the year (the big one, the one we always lose by a small margin, the one hosted by our school’s rival school) is this Saturday, on Halloween. I’m nervous and excited.
My friend and I plan to record some cool music once marching band is over. I’m excited for nanowrimo. Guess this is a life update.
The guy who won on “Jeopardy!” tonight looks like one of my OCs.
Sadly, he lost last night. But he won four nights in a row, so he m’s definitely going home richer.
End of the month is coming up. Anyone care to nominate stories or storytellers for November’s theme?
It’s probably someone else’s turn to do a thread but two writers who have had an enormous influence on my thinking are Margaret Atwood and Jorge Luis Borges.
Either would make a worthy thread-head, but let’s see who else steps forward.
What are your favorite works by Borges? I recently read “Emma Zunz” and “El etnógrafo” for my Spanish lit class and am interested in reading more of his stuff
All of Ficciones is really solid – in particular my favorites are Tlon, Pierre Menard, the Library of Babel, Three versions of Judas, and Book of Sand, which isn’t in Ficciones. I’ve got the big blue collected short stories but it’s not the best translation, honestly – I’ve also got Ficciones in a separate volume and that translation is much better.
I’d like to nominate the Child Ballads!
All 305 of them? Great idea! Can you write up a blurb and maybe find an image? (I’ll handle the latter if you can’t.)
I can’t write about each of them individually (not least because I hardly care at all about the Robin Hood ones of which there are approx. a thousand), but I’d be more than happy to write a blurb and find a picture.
That’s fine, ZNZ. Just explain what they are (in aggregate) and why they matter. Mention a few of your favorites if you like.
I’ve saved the post as a draft!
Perfect. And away we go into November!
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=15563
POSOC, one more month to go after November. Do you still want to celebrate Peter S. Beagle?
If November’s taken I’ll queue it for December.
December it shall be. ZNZ has November.
Wait, it’s National Chocolate Day? And tomorrow is National Oatmeal Day? How could I have been unaware of this?
Sandra Boynton is in the habit of making one-panel cartoons for a lot of these national days. That’s how I found out about today being National Chocolate Day.
I grew up on Sandra Boyton! Didn’t know about the cartoons…. Guess I’ll check that out.
And now today is both National Oatmeal Day and National Cat Day. I celebrated by eating oatmeal for breakfast and feeding my cats special treats.
(Eat the oatmeal, feed the cats: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…)
#*^% umbrella broke after less than a month…
Going purely from squids I have gotten on my last few posts, breaking my umbrella is equally as sad as my grandmother dying, but having my favorite bubble tea place close is the saddest of all.
Today I saw actual tardigrades! aaaahhhh they’re so cute.
Ooh, where?
Biology lab! We were all asked to bring moss samples – mine didn’t have any tardigrades, but it did have a nematode.
I don’t know what a tardigrade is. What is it?
A tardigrade is a microscopic animal with eight legs. They’re known for their remarkable endurance and toughness– they’re found in almost every environment on Earth, no matter how hot, cold, irradiated, or oxygen-starved, and some have even been exposed to the vacuum of space in experiments and survived. But they’re happiest living on wet moss or lichen.
“Life at the Limits”, the American Museum of Natural History’s current exhibition about adaptations animals have to their environments, features tardigrades heavily. I bought a plush one on a visit a few weeks ago, which I named Ursa Minor, or “Little Bear”, because tardigrades are nicknamed “water bears”.
Many MuseBloggers are very enthusiastic about tardigrades, and all treat them with respect, because we know that if they were ever to become sentient, they could very easily dominate the world.
Air and Space Smithsonian Customer Service Lady: “Your subscription will continue with the March 2016 issue.”
Me, trying to joke: “Well, I hope there’s nothing good in the intervening months, then.”
Me: “I probably should not have said that.”
A few months ago, the lightbulb in my room burned out, so I’ve been relying on a lamp, that I knocked over last night. So, I’m using my old flashlight from camp for light. So, if I leave a textbook in my room or something like that, I click my flashlight on and go around looking for it. Kinda creepy… I hope my unintentional Night at the Museum reenactment ends soon…
Have you considered changing the bulb?
I’ve bought a bulb, and I’m kinda… Lazy.
My friend is threatening suicide because she’s broke, and has no job, no family nearby, and she hates where she lives. My husband tried to convince her to come stay with us, but she didn’t want to impose even though we offered, and I’m really scared she’s going to kill herself.
Good news, with the help of some friends we got her through the night and this weekend, and she will be staying at our place starting tomorrow.
I’m very glad to hear it.
Sorry! I meant to pie that!
Is there any good way to tell the difference between someone who’s genuinely busy and tired and so forth and someone who’s avoiding you? Cause I don’t know if I’m paranoid or snubbed, and either way it feels kind of awful.
Last week, I was voted “Most likely to become a Disney villain” by some friends. I thought they were joking. Today during band, we had maniacal laughter contests. I tried as a joke. I practically scared everyone. What scared me was that my friend’s prediction could be right.
Join the kokonspiracy and use the trappings of evil for the cause of good!
Hey Robert, KaiYves, and anyone else who might know. Do they play board games in space? If so, how? Velcro? Are there any “tweet the ISS” opportunities to ask? (I know you just talked to them, Robert but questions don’t occur to me in a timely manner, heh.)
I know the astronauts play chess and Scrabble with Velcro boards and pieces. (Magnetic ones seem to be banned, probably for electronic reasons.) I don’t know about more complicated games like Settlers of Catan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the geekier astronauts play online versions.
I know Greg Chamitoff played chess in space during two of his missions, but I can’t remember if the news stories explained how he held the pieces in place– I think Velcro would make sense, though. Velcro is very widely used in spacecraft in general, to the extent that many people mistakenly think NASA invented it– they didn’t, they just did a lot to popularize it.
You can always tweet at the current ISS crewmembers who have Twitter accounts– Scott Kelly’s is @StationCDRKelly– and see if they reply, but I know there are special Q&A events on different social media platforms from time to time.
Happy Halloween, MB! My jetpack pilot costume was a big hit with all of the little kids in Washington Square Park (of course, so was the candy I was giving out). Lots of little kids were dressed like Yoda, and I also saw a lot of astronauts. They played “Purple People Eater” at the dorm event I volunteered at, which also made me very happy.
So I had a good Halloween night with a friend of mine and my sister and currently I am thinking, what better way to end a spooky night than the scare of one of my worst nightmares flying around the house and disappearing so it can attack without us knowing its there? Well, it happened, that’s why I’m mentioning it(though really I post too much about useless stuff)This giant wasp about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide appeared in the house earlier and scared me and my friend. Last time I checked, the wasp hide somewhere and nobody knew where it went. O.O (But you know what is scarier than giant wasps? A giant smiling moon crashing into the earth within 3 days killing every living thing.)
So there’s this big important band competition hosted by our rival school and we go there every year and we haven’t won in 12 years. we have a new band director this year and no drumline and we’re smaller but we went out there and DID IT and we WON!!!! I’m so happy!! it’s my senior year and my last chance to win. we did it. we won. I’m so proud of my section and the whole band <3 <3 I'm so happy and I want everyone to know how happy I am and share in my happiness.