HAPPINESS
John had
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Hat;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh —
And that
(Said John)
Is
That.
–A. A. Milne
78 thoughts on “Random Thread: September 2016”
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Welcome to September! This month’s theme: happiness.
Me gusta! Ironically, I also got my new “Happiness isn’t good enough for me. I demand euphoria!” bag yesterday.
May everyone have a happy month!
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh!
♥ ♥
Happiness is also professors who respond promptly to email.
I thought I was moving in to my dorm today, but I got a viral eye condition and instead have to spend a few more days at home putting in medicated drops every two hours and listening to Dad rant about how the eye doctor he talked to on the phone doesn’t agree with the one who actually examined me and… I just want my left eye to be back to normal!
Oh no, karma, that’s not going to be the last word, because I know how you are, I don’t *just* want my eye to get better, I also want to be healthy in every other part of my body as well.
Happy news! I am pregnant!
Wow, congratulations! The next generation of Musers is upon us…
Ohmigosh! Congratulations! Good luck to you and your family!
AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!
Congratulations!
Congratulations!
Year 2 at the university is turning out to feel completely from how Year 1 felt, even though I had a year of community college before that. I feel so young and old at the same time, and I definitely grew as a person over the summer after having worked a part-time restaurant job for nearly three months.
I get this overwhelming feeling that this year is gonna be a good one, and despite the struggles I’m facing I am still able to say that I am genuinely happier than I have been in a long time.
ALSO: My school’s football team won our first game tonight 55-0!!
55-0?! Hasn’t anybody told the team that the quality of mercy droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven?
By the time halftime rolled around, we were already at at least 32-0, if I remember correctly. By the time the last quarter started we were 45-0 and everyone was wondering why they even bothered still playing when it was obvious we were going to win, honestly
Funny. My high school’s team just LOST their first game 7-53.
At 29K feet?
That would for sure be painful.
“The Quality of Mercy at 29K” feet is the title of an episode of “Sports Night”, the show Aaron Sorkin wrote before “The West Wing”.
Ah.
Playing at that altitude would lower the score, I’ll bet.
Aw yeah, OSIRIS-REx took off alright! This probe will head to Asteroid Bennu and hopefully break off a little piece of it to return to Earth for analysis!
Wait, I missed it? I haven’t been keeping up on NASA recently, but I was kind of excited about this one. Oh well, I hope the mission goes as planned. I guess we’ll be hearing more about it in a few years.
Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time to catch up, it won’t reach asteroid Bennu for two years, and it will be five more before the sample capsule returns to Earth.
My friend was at the launch!
Hi guys! I’m at the seminary! Well, actually, I’m at a coffee shop. But more generally, I’m at the seminary. I have a much quieter room this year, and also the internet. This is the first of four semesters of philosophy. Hooray!
Huzzah!
My friend invited a lot of us to go kayaking at Chelsea Piers today, but it was so windy that the river was super-choppy and there was a very real threat of capsizing. (The lady at the sign-in desk told us that two people had already!) I was in no mood to swim in the Hudson when I was already sick (even though my eye is getting better), and my stomach really didn’t like being shaken up, so I only kayaked for about 5 minutes before getting back onto the dock.
When my friends got back, they were hungry, so I suggested we walk to Brookfield Place Mall because it was only a few blocks south. It was a really nice day to be outside in the parks along the river’s edge and we saw lots of little kids playing. It felt kind of strange to come to North Cove Marina without a boat race going on, but the regular private boats were still cool to look at and my friends really liked the food at the mall.
Then they wanted to go home on the subway, and a lot of people wanted to take the quickest route, so we ended up going through the World Trade Center memorial plaza on the anniversary even though I had told myself that was one thing I absolutely wouldn’t do today because of the crowding and the security risks, but the truth was that nothing really felt any different than it had in May. It was still very peaceful and contemplative in the sunshine and the tower of One World Trade Center still looked very beautiful as it reflected the clouds.
We went into the new transportation hub, which hadn’t been open in May. It’s very shiny and futuristic inside, and I wished I could have stopped to take more photographs, but we were in a hurry to get to the trains. On the lowest level, there were little temporary signs explaining that the hub atrium had been built so that the bottom level would have been perfectly bisected by a wedge of direct sunlight a few hours before, and that the effect would repeat on the morning of every subsequent September 11th.
We were several hours too late to witness the effect, but the view looking upwards at the sky through the central skylight was still impressive. The archaeologist in me is happy that we still build monuments with astronomical allignments connected to significant occasions, like the sun dagger of Chaco Canyon or the Neolithic tombs where light only shines all the way down the passage on the winter or summer solstice.
As we entered the transportation hub, I read the words “World Trade Center” over the door. After fifteen years, a place that was horrific has become beautiful again. As time passes and the new buildings are used more and more, the association between them and that name will grow stronger. And someday the first picture it conjures up will once more be a beautiful one.
Does anyone else here rock climb? I’ve started climbing at my school gym’s indoor wall and I really enjoy it. I’m probably going to take a belay certification class soon. The school has a brand new climbing wall, and all the routes have Pokemon-related names. My goal right now is to climb the Pidgey (it’s deceptively difficult).
Also, Car Seat Headrest had some shows in my state, but I couldn’t make it to either of them, and now I’m sad. Has anyone seen them in concert/planned to see them in concert?
I want to get into it this year, but I think I should wait for my eye infection to clear so that I don’t give everyone who uses the rock wall after me pinkeye.
Car Seat Headrest is playing in Detroit next week, but I so highly doubt that my mom would let me drive to Detroit by myself to go to a concert that I didn’t even bother to ask. (Crystal Castles is coming to Detroit soon as well. I wish bands would have concerts in other cities in Michigan sometimes for a change. Like 21p, who had a show in Grand Rapids. Of course, I didn’t hear about that one until it was sold out.)
Aah, I had a similar problem. The Raleigh show was part of an expensive festival (a one-day ticket was upwards of a hundred dollars) and their Asheville show was four hours away, and as I don’t have a car at college I’d have to take a Greyhound or something.
Seriously, why is every concert unattainable? It’s the worst.
One day, though. One day I’ll see them in concert.
Video editing technology is incredibly accessible these days and yet there are no fanvids featuring Dame Ellen MacArthur and “Fight Song†and clearly this is a failure of our society to use this technology to its full potential.
Be the change you want to see in the world! Personally I feel like video editing gets easier all the time, both due to technological advances and practice.
Lately the highlight of my week is the Public Safety Blotter in the campus paper. Everything in it is so low-stakes that it stops being boring and starts being wonderful—there was one a couple weeks ago that said “Incident suspicious occupied vehicle. Summary: Pokémon Go,” and they’re all like that, “something was very slightly weird, we checked it out, everything’s fine now.” This week we have two great ones. One of them is “Incident suspicious person. Summary: Two students stargazing,” and the other is “Service general service. Summary: The residents found a hamster in their apartment. They wanted to turn it over to the proper authority. Residence life was notified.” Mischief! Mayhem! Students… stargazing and turning over hamsters to proper authorities!
I was reading through a forum on another site where someone had offhandedly said “If we made Galileo Day as a holiday, we could keep Italian-Americans happy while still getting rid of Columbus Day”. They were talking about having it on that Monday in October, but I realized that if they had it on his birthday, February 15th, the October holiday could be renamed in accordance with the various humanitarian campaigns to do so, AND give single people and other people who don’t like Valentine’s Day something to celebrate that week.
Galentine’s day, and then Valentine’s Day, and then Galileo Day? It’d be the best week of the year.
Lends itself to any number of celebratory activities, too.
“Look for your Galentine through a telescope.”The download page for the Vendée Globe app has a bit of… French Engrish? I know what they mean and it’s MUCH better than my French, but there’s still something funny about “Get inform on the previous editions of the race” and “Prepare your at Les Sables d’Olonne”.
My grandma Dee used to say that poem, I’d forgotten about it completely until reading it again here. I’m happy to be reminded of her.
In the latest game of “where in the world is Fern?” I’m in San Diego taking a class to get a captain’s license! Because I was all scholarly yesterday and did all my homework for the weekend early, today I got to gallivant around to museums. I went to an anthropological museum and a photography museum, heard some music at a huge outdoor organ, heard some great Roald Dahl poems (because the park was doing a 100th birthday event), got some tasty cookies from some ladies from the Czech Republic, and managed to talk myself out of spending all my money on an instant camera.
One more week of my class, then it’s just pushing paperwork at the Coast Guard and hoping they don’t find any mistakes. I’m pretty excited, it feels good to be taking steps forward professionally.
Hello, Fiddler! Congratulations on your new career move! And fitting that we should hear the news on Talk Like a Pirate Day, if you take my meaning, bucko.
Here’s what that message looked like on Talk Like a Pirate Day:
Ahoy, Fiddler! Congratulations on yer new career move! An’ fittin’ that we should hear ye news on Talk Like a Pirate Day, if ye take me meanin’, bucko.
Thankee thankee! An it looks like yer ol gal will shortly be (hopefully gainfully) employed as chief mate onboard a fine brig! An exciting development from her current occupation as acting mate (“senior deckhand” hogwash) on a brigantine. Give me more squares or…well, a schooner is fine too, I guess.
My parents used to take me to hear that organ when I was minuscule. (I spent most of my childhood in San Diego.) I’m delighted to hear that it’s still in service.
Happy “International Talk Like a Pirate Day,” me hearties! You all know what to do.
Arrr! ‘Tis a great day indeed!
So, I was really excited to actually get in to advanced english this year. Now I find myself doing very poorly in english, making me feel bad because I don’t want to let down the teachers I had last year who said I should get into it. I don’t know what to do. I try the best I can in that class, but it’s just not good enough.
Catwings,
What exactly makes you think you’re not doing well in the course? Test scores? Papers? Would you still be excited about it if you weren’t worried about your performance? What could you learn to do to make things better?
P.S. You say that you’re trying your best, but it isn’t good enough. But you might not notice that the effort of trying is making your best better. Isn’t that what education is all about?
If your english curriculum is anything like mine was, you’ve probably migrated from a more creative writing-based course to something far more analytical. The readings also get a lot denser. Specifically what’s been giving you trouble?
Happy autumn, everybody! This is my favorite season — maybe because it’s when I always feel smartest.
Why?
Probably a combination of cooler weather and memories of going back to school. My head feels clearer and more alert.
Same here!
It’s not really related to any month, but could “Pangur Ban” (any translation) be our poem for one of the remaining months of 2016?
Well, sure! Not in October, though — we already have a special poem lined up.
My birthday was this month
Hey, there, Ethan! We haven’t heard from you since February. How is life? How did you celebrate your birthday?
We had cheesecake, but not very much because most of us were sick. We’re going to have the rest of it when people get better.
Happy belated birthday, Ethan!
Attention MBers of voting age! (That’s most of you by now.)
Are you registered to vote? Do you know what credentials (e.g., photo ID) your state requires, and do you have them ? If you can’t make it to the polls on November 8, are you all set to file an absentee ballot?
If not, please get registered, get credentialed, and vote. Everybody ought to anyway, but it’s unusually important this year.
</public_service_announcement>
AND if you’re planning to vote in person make sure you know where your polling place is and how to get there! I just double checked mine and because I’m living at a different address this year (moved out of freshman dorms) I have a different polling place.
And, as always, Vote for Koko!
Kokopelli doesn’t seem to be running this year, but I see clear signs of his influence at work.
Ah, he sat it out. But 2020 will be his year!
(On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine how an election could come closer to a classic Kokopelli-vs.-Urania contest.)
I bought a keychain flashlight at REI today, but when I opened the package and tested it, it wouldn’t turn on even though it came with batteries inside. I was worried I had wasted 7 dollars, but when I took the flashlight back and explained, they let me exchange it for one that did work, so that worked out okay, at least.
To whoever got to the copy of “Annapurna: A Woman’s Place” on the one-dollar cart outside of The Strand that I would have bought if I hadn’t needed to get something to eat ASAP and was going to come right back for except I had to print my readings and then got distracted by reading about abandoned subway stations on Wikipedia… Well, enjoy it, it’s supposed to be a good book, and it’s pretty famous, so I’m sure I’ll find another copy eventually.
Today in “modernists are awful”: during the thirties, Wallace Stevens met Ernest Hemingway at a party. He proceeded to a) pick a fight wherein b) he punched the latter in the jaw as hard as he could, resulting in c) two broken bones in his own right fist. My love for this story isn’t even a little bit mitigated by knowing that this is exactly what would happen to me if I ever met Hemingway. Of course that’s what happened! Why did you try to physically fight Hemingway, Wallace? What on earth outcome did you imagine that wasn’t completely humiliating for you?
Drinking was involved, I assume.
Well, that goes without saying.
Even so, if you want to pick a drunken fight with a modernist you don’t choose Hemingway. Fight Fitzgerald! You could take Fitzgerald! Fight Eliot!
I’ll keep that in mind
*Worf voice*
Fighting T. S. Eliot is without honor.
Which is less honorable, fighting Fitzgerald or fighting Eliot?
How about Fitzgerald vs. Eliot? “No cocktail is too strong, no allusion too obscure, as style battles erudition in the cage fight of the century!”
“Live, direct from Paris, this is… JAZZ AGE SMACKDOWN!”