Still new, still happy, still going strong.
Continued from Part One.
(Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!
Patience, Please
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January Random Thread, Part 2
First post-ish? *hopes*
I have smuggled my laptop into my room in the hopes of staying up late doing absolutely nothing. This is my life.
Actually, I need to wind about twenty balls of yarn from a gazillion skeins I have lying around. And I have a few new Wait Wait podcasts. This should be good.
Staying up late doing absolutely nothing with a laptop is fun. I do that sometimes, when I’m not dead tired from lack of sleep due to school.
Why do you need to ‘smuggle’ your laptop into your room, though? *is curious*
My parents disapprove of Internet in the bedroom for some arcane reason. Which is weird, because most of the time I’m online they’re not even home.
Practically all my Internet usage is in my room, at my desk or snuggled up in bed (I wish there could be more of the latter, especially in the cold winter months).
I have yet to do this, but I want to.
Unfortunately, I’m still in grade school (you lucky college MBers!), so maybe tonight…
… I’m in 8th grade…
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-okay. I have odd sleeping habits.
Staying up late is really fun, but my room doesn’t have any internet, so I have to be in the family room. But when I stay in the family room, my brother stays up late to, and my mom knows that he will, so I have to go to bed when he gets caught. (latest: 2 AM) Then I can stay in my room and read, but sitting in bed makes me fall asleep. *Wishing parents wouldn’t catch me*
Two feet of snow! TWO FEET! Then I pile it up along the driveway and it’s taller than I am. And a nearby town got 30 inches.
I am insanely envious of your snow.
Likewise. We got snow. Then it rained. And I had to walk to school in the slush, which was slippery, and I got blisters from too-large boots. Bleh.
SLEEP IS A THING OF THE PAST
AS ARE MORNING SHOWERS, APPARENTLY
random middle-of-the-day showers is what’s up in ebeth’s life. for class and work i’m just like IT IS EARLY IN THE AM YOU CAN DEAL WITH MY HAIR BEING GROSS
actually, i’m sure i look significantly less disgusting than i feel. but arrrgh
oops gotta run off to work now. then SHOWER finally, then band, more band, D&D, sloopy’s, NO FRIDAY CLASSES SLEEPING IN SHOWERING FOREVER WOOO
3- WOOOO LATE NIGHT SHOWERS YEAH
The bathroom is nice and peaceful at 2 in the morning.
Also I approve of your weekend.
Last night for me was D&D (SO MUCH FUN) and then I watched Pan’s Labyrinth till 4 in the morning because I am start and stuff.
Do you ever sleep nowadays, Jadestone, or have you given that up?
Well, I try to get 5-6 hours a night in general… but since I don’t have to be up till 10:30 that means a 5am bedtime XD
But basically, yeah, SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK
Robert: I was wondering that too. Because nine out of ten of her posts are about staying up until all hours doing wonderfully fun things.
I’ve taken showers at 2:00am.
jadey we are so cool with our college D&D shenanigans
we should have an extended kokon sometime and play together
with liv as well! and anyone else who wants to come
oh my god YES
Consider me volunteered. (not that I’ll ever be able to make it barring a miracle
)
Yeah. I probably can’t make it too.
Mee!
That sounds awesome. Not that I could ever get there, or that you would want me to come even if I could, since I have nothing more than a slight understanding of the rules of D&D. My family uses a different game, which is similar in several ways, but also very different. I’ve mentioned it before, I think.
www . d20srd . org
This is a very helpful reference (although the volume of information can be overwhelming, and a few things are left out) for the third edition of the game. Though I’m not sure how helpful it would be in the event of a miraculous and improbable DragonKokon, since I know a number of our college complement prefer First.
I believe I saw a 1st edition core rulebook in a corner of our local used bookshop, come to think of it…
But I shouldn’t get my hopes up. “Hey, Mom, Dad, can I have money to travel across the country to play D&D with a group of strange semi-adults that I’ve never actually met in real life?” Yeah, sure son, let me help you pack…
Maybe I’ll go to college back East.
Haha, well I actually only know Pathfinder. So who knows how the game would end up XD
we’re playing 3.5. so actually we shouuuld be able to play together i think
Yeah, Pathfinder and 3.5 have a lot of the same basic rules, although the class specifics are a little different. It shouldn’t be too hard to straighten out. So now all we need is some means of transport, pots of money, and legal independence for the minors among us…
But it needs to happen now, somehow XD
I have a suggestion, but maybe it’s madness.
I don’t think the GAPAs want me to get any more specific than that.
3.5 is the best.
Shh. I’ve never actually played D&D either. Just loads of White Wolf games. And some other games too. I loose track of who made what.
Yeah, I’d probably survive once I got past character creation, but while I was working on that you would all hear quite a lot of grumbling.
4.1~ She’s a college student, doesn’t that entail giving up sleep?
Just out of curiosity, when do people of the blog take showers? I take them at night (when I’m following my normal schedule). I don’t really like showering in the morning and going to bed feeling gross.
It seems like it makes more sense to shower at night, you get less dirty sleeping than you do during the day. I think HAWK wrote a long and eloquent post on the subject once, but I don’t remember when/where.
If I go to bed with damp hair, though, I wake up looking like Naruto.
I’m 99% certain that that said Astro Boy instead of Naruto when I read it in the recent comments bar.
I changed my mind. If I go to bed after showering, my hair when I wake up makes Astro Boy’s look tame.
Hair dryers? That might fix the bedhead.
I usually take showers in the night too, (sometimes at 2 too), but that’s more because I’m awake at night and in the morning I wake up late and really don’t have the time to shower than any personal preference.
Too time-consuming. It’s easier just to take showers in the morning.
I’m trying to imagine this, but the image is combining with your gravatar and resulting in a very Jabberwocky/Whingdingdilly-esque Robert
A cautionary tale, dear Musers!
I shower in the morning, because for me, if I shower at night, my hair (to me, at least) seems greasy and icky in the morning, and certainly greasy and icky by midway through the day, and my hair just doesn’t cooperate quite right if I shower th enight before.
In the evening, after either gym, capoeira or going running. I sometimes shower in the morning when I either didn’t have one of the above or was so tired that I my thought process is something like … need to shower… tired…sweaty…tired…shower!…ah, shower, water…tired…water good…tired…drank water…tired…more water?…so tired…sleeeep…no drink more water… tired… why water?…really tired…ow *banged limb on something*…what was I thinking of?…go to bed…ah! shower…later…
Ahoy, bookgirl! You’ve got your Capablanca chess game.
ugh no, i can’t deal with showering at night, i feel disgusting in the morning.
part of that probably has to do with the fact that i sleep in my clothes half the time :-/
i need morning showers to feel clean. unfortunately mornings have become an Issue. so i’ve mostly been doing post-class/post-work showers, which tend to be afternoonish. so really my day hasn’t been reaaally starting until then. in my mind anyway
i think i’m sort of figuring the sleep thing out for this quarter. the problem is i have all these 8:30 classes and i’ve been staying up based on my usual shiny 10:30 or 11:30 schedule. my friends are good at yelling at me to sleep though
Most of the time I shower in the morning, because my hair takes FOREVER to dry, and everyone else in my family showers before bed.
I shower at night, because I’m not a morning person to the degree that, after my mom pulled me out of bed, without a blanket, onto the freezing floor (She had to go to the vet’s and take me to school first), and I fell asleep again. On the cold, hard floor.
Anyway, if I tried to take a shower in the morning I would be insanely late. Mostly I manage to get away with getting up 45 minutes before school starts. I want to keep it that way.
Plus, my hair wouldn’t dry until the middle of the day, since I have a crappy hairdryer, gotten at a yard sale for an art club. And that would be irritating.
I can’t wake up early enough to take a shower in the morning, so I just take it at night. Unfortunately, that’s the reason my hair always looks like a mess, even if it dries before I sleep.
Okay, and maybe it never looks good because I wake up about fifteen minutes before school starts.
I like shower though. I feel like, aside from when I’m sleeping, I’m only very relaxed with scalding water pouring down on my back. Call me strange.
Also, the heater in my house broke at six-ish, and the repair man isn’t coming until nine-thirty. I’m staying up until it’s fixed, because I need some blistering water on my back, especially after the chem test today.
I always shower at night, right after I get home from soccer, because otherwise I feel gross and it’s hard to get to sleep. My hair doesn’t dry very fast AT ALL, even with a hair dryer, and that also makes morning showers hard.
After school, and then *another* one before I go to bed, because for some reason I can’t sleep unless I feel cold.
Naruto? When I wake up I look like Bellatrix Lestrange.
I generally take a shower sometime in the evening, about an hour or 2 after supper. I’ve always found it extremely boring for some reason, though…
5.1~ I believe we had a discussion of bedhead once.
When my hair was longer I used to wake up with my hair forming something looking vaguely like a Medieval wimple.
Now it generally opts for impressive, floppy sweeps to the side, which as soon as my head is vertical turns to sticking up in mind-baffling ways. For this reason one of my first morning rituals is to douse my head with water in an attempt to make it calm down.
Usually it works. Today it didn’t.
My hair goes funky even if I go to sleep with dry hair though. It’s quite determined to be impossible.
I shower at night. My hair takes overnight to dry (although it’s a bit damp when I wake up, but that air-dries faster once I’m up) and it takes a long time to blow-dry, and that means waking up EXTRA early and poor little insomniac me doesn’t do that. Also, then I’d have to walk outside and my head becomes literal icicles. Which can be fun to poke people with but are terrible for my hair. Which is waist-long, for reference.
I just don’t bother waiting for my hair to dry in the morning before I leave for classes…Because, like yours, it’s waist length and takes ridiculously long to dry. I do hate it when my hair freezes, though.
My hair’s short, so I have to shower in the mornings. It goes crazy or just flat after sleeping on it. Really, i look a bit like Alice Cullen/Ashley Greene with this hair length. =)
Hi, SO, haven’t seen you around for a while.
been busy. but came back for a visit. might stick around for a while. =)
Out of curiousity, has anyone ever been kicked out of their house or willingly moved in with another family? I know most musers are young-ish, but there are some elders who could have experience.
I’m taking a semester off college. Instead of staying home, I’ve moved in with a friend and her family, who were kind enough to take me in indefinitely free of charge. My parents were upset, naturally, but my mom and I are keeping contact and she’s being really nice about it. My dad, on the other hand, wouldn’t even say goodbye when I moved out. =/ I think this is one of those things only time can heal.
That’s horrible- I think one day he’s going to regret it. Are you angry at hiim?
no, not particularly. we’ve always had a rocky relationship and I knew he wouldn’t take it well. He wants me to join the Coast Guard…. even though I can’t and hate swimming…..
but i’m alright. the family I’m staying with is incredibly awesome. =)
I changed my gravatar. The fan is BACK. Also I forget my gravatar password. Again.
9~ No, but I’ve considered it. Actually, both ways. One of my best friends and I have a sort of “if it gets to be too much you can move in with my family for as long as you need” sort of arrangement. Mostly it’s an open invitation if she needs to get out of a negative family environment, but there have been times when she said I could move into her house too. And of course my boyfriend has said that if I ever decide to leave [home] I can stay with him at college/his house/his soon to be apartment near his college.
10~ I always forget my passwords. It’s very sad.
Urg, I’m having a hard time focusing.
It’s annoying, because I used to be able to focus very well. I think the internet has diminished that a lot, actually, and it’s depressing.
You are a Digital Native! There is a lot of new research on our brains on technology. Anyone interested might want to check out:
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr, and iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, by Gary Small.
Hey cool, part two! Theme and name are coming soon-ish? Please?
We’ve decided that the theme and name should be “Happy Muse Year!” ‘Tis the season, after all. (Yes, I know that phrase makes some of you cringe.)
Showers/hair/bedheads: I shower in the morning. If I shower at night, I’ll wake up with a randomly bumpy section on the back of my head that no amount of brushing can fix. I could theoretically blow-dry it, but when I’ve tried that before (at band camp, when I shower at night because I’m all sweaty and gross) I end up using the dryer for about forty-five seconds, getting bored, and handing it off to my friend. She has thick (Asian) hair with long straight-across bands, and if she tries to sleep on wet hair the results are extremely entertaining.
I HATE DEBATES!
Whaaaat?! Debating is fun.
*is a model congress nerd*
Debating IS fun.
*is an MUN nerd*
Dep[ends what you’re debating.
*remembers debate about Into the Wild*Shudder.
Why?
I had this huge history debate. Let’s just say it ended badly.
This is a travesty.
Debates are quite fun-for me, anyway.
Oxlin (Responding to previous thread)- No, I have not heard that song, although somebody mentioned it to me on MB a while ago. Do you know anywhere I could hear it?
If you’re looking for music on the internet, try grooveshark. Or youtube, which often has live shows.
I’m not sure, really. It comes from a band that preforms at Renn Faires. They might have a site but I think you’d have to get a whole cd. Or try youtube.
Renaissance space music? Now I HAVE to find it…
Just google the band name. Minstrels of Mayhem. You should find them.
I have to make a literary analysis on To Kill A Mockingbird, and I have to come up with five thesis ideas by tomorrow.
These kinds of writing assignments are probably (almost certainly) why I don’t like writing. Other bad happenings: my French grade is a C because two make-up quizzes I did the teacher hasn’t entered yet (I don’t like her, and I don’t think she likes me, for numerous reasons), and one of my cats is limping.
Good things: I am home, I am about to watch Sherlock Holmes, next weekend is three days long, and I got 53 out of 50 and 100 out of 100 on recent math tests (my favorite class, algebra is soooo much fun!)
My friend’s To Kill a Mockingbird essay question was, “Find an example of racism within the book.”
Okay… I have three ideas so far… Just two more! I’m fine with finding one, but FIVE? And my teacher just yelled the assignment out as we were leaving, so I’m not sure if there is something else I should be doing to…. *dies*(again)
So, my neighbor just died.
We’d been expecting it for a while, I guess. For as long as I can remember he’s been suffering from all those little ailments that come with age. It started with deafness, and then he got dementia, and then he passed out and fell down the steps last Christmas…
He’d been old forever, it seemed like to me. He’d fought on the beaches at Normandy and everything. He never talked about the war, though. Every afternoon, without fail, he’d ask my brother and I how school had been that day, even if it was a Saturday. We’d laugh, my brother and I. And when we were little he’d bring us presents, just things he found on the street, like broken pencils and spinning tops and once a whole box of crayons that someone had left out in the rain. He fed the squirrels on our street, which was a bad idea, because now they beg for food from everyone. He had a pile of wood in his backyard, and a whole family of rats lived there. Our cat would kill them and bring them to the front door. And after his wife died, he’d just sit on his porch, drinking, and ask my brother and I how school had been that day. Even if it was a Saturday. Every day, without fail. Every day.
I’m truly sorry, Cat’s Eye.
I’m so sorry.
I’m really sorry. I had a neighbor who died about four years ago, too, and he was like a grandfather to us. He fought at Normandy, too. If you need to talk, we’re all here.*hugs*
My condolences.
I’m so sincerely sorry. *hugs*
Can I just say that that is a very moving eulogy?
Same.
My condolences, Cat’s Eye.
I’m sorry, Cat’s Eye.
I’m sorry, luv. *hugs*
I’m sorry, Cat’s Eye. He sounds like a wonderful guy.
That might have been the most heartfelt thing I’ve seen written down. Ever. I’m sorry, Cat’s Eye. You’re lucky you had someone like him living near you, let alone the kind of person to open up to you. There aren’t many WWII vets left.
I’m so sorry, Cat’s Eye. We’re all here for you. *hugs* *choklit*
Thanks, everybody. *hugs back* Like I said, we’d been kind of expecting it for a while, since he was pretty old, but it was still a shock to me. He was such an unchanging fixture in my life that it feels like there’s an empty space where something should be, and the world just kind of preserves it, empty and unchanged. His house is the same, the street is the same, but it feels like I was walking up the stairs in the dark and I thought there was an extra step at the top but my foot just came down on empty air.
I’m really, really sorry.
I’m so soryry.
*sorry. I should have previewed that.
Wow…
That’s…
Impossible to describe.
Random thoughts on things.
In my school, minority is a majority. Half the students speak English as a second language.
Weathermen always predict more snow than we actually get. There’s always someone who doesn’t shovel. The superintendent always gives more snow days than we need, such as today.
I’m abnormal. I like to read. I like to practice the trombone. I want to audition for Junior Districts. I want to study. I want to get all A’s. For the most part, I get all A’s.
I’m abnormal. I don’t like modern art. It freaks me out. I like old art. I like old things. Steampunk makes no sense to me.
Northerners don’t like the South. We think they’re all insane and extremely religious. We think they all drive pickup trucks. We think they’re rednecks. We think Texans all drill for oil.
New Englanders take it for granted that we can get to another state in a few hours.
I like to read classics because it makes me feel superior. I’ve read Jane Eyre, go me. I like to read biographies because I like to know things.
Today I drove past a field and saw some people that had built an eight-foot high snow fort with snow blocks. I wondered how long it had taken them.
I wish people still wrote letters. Send me a letter, and I’ll be happy with you.
I am afraid of the ocean, but I’m not afraid of deep water in a pool. I am afraid of skiing, but I’m not afraid of sledding. I am afraid of insects, but I’m not afraid of snakes.
People don’t think I’m shy, but I am.
Dreams are strange things. Sometimes I wish they are real. Nightmares traumatize me.
My brother’s friend from college (in new york) was going to visit once, and seemed to think it would be easy to pop over to Oregon or Washington at some point from California
I envy bei.ng able to do that though! It boggles me a bit, actually
haha, oh steampunk~* (imagine several gears and watches attached to this sentence)
I like old things too. I study archaeology in school now! It is great! History’s pretty great too, the older the better.
People still do write letters. I love writing letters!
Just for the record, neither I nor anybody else I know has ever drilled for oil.
Let me rephrase: We think that oil drilling is one of Texas’s only industries and that there are oil drills all over the state.
Ooh. Happiness is happening. I get to learn to downhill ski! SQUEE. I’ve always wanted to learn downhill, because although I can cross-country ski (for the most part, ahahahaha.) I’ve learned that somehow, my wanting to go down hills combined with the fact that cross-country skis, are, well, for cross country skiing, makes me fall into a few situations that are rather hard to get out of. Such as somehow getting my ski tangled around my neck and stuck there. Yeah.
But this will be fun.
Also, I’m going to learn some basic photography, which will be very interesting, as I’ve been taking some pictures with my mom’s manual camera and am very fascinated with photography at the moment. But they’re probably cake. Ah well…
I have a question: Does anyone think it’s possible to do research on worldbuilding a steampunk world? I’m actually fairly sure that if I’m MAKING UP THE WORLD, the details are left up to me, but oh well. My teacher would like me to cite my sources, do some educational research, and come up with a idea of what I would like to accomplish. I have to do some kind of project.
Which is how I got corralled into agreeing to this, actually, because she was like, “So, what are your interests?” and somehow that got turned into a steampunk thing. Don’t ask me. I’m really not sure how to get this across to her, but the world I’m building sort of turned out steampunk, not “oh, I think I’m going to do research and, like, make a world that’s like this [source] and yeah”. I do have a pretty good idea of steampunkiness, but this took place a while ago and I have no idea where it came from other than here and wikipedia, to clarify a few things, and she won’t accept either one of them as a certifiable source. HELP.
Read up on the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian and Edwardian periods. That should give you some baselines for the technology and societal norms, respectively.
The only way I can think of to research steampunk is to look at early steam-powered machines, and then adapt those elements to whatever you want to make. Or you could copy stuff from Girl Genius, I guess.
DOWNHILL SKIING! One of my favourite sports, if not the favourite. I get to do that in 15 days – California, here I come! We haven’t been in quite a while so I’m excited, as you can probably tell.
*sobsobsobsobsob* Ah, cruel fate.
I’m sorry, Sophia! *choklit* I didn’t mean to upset you with that post. I would definitely take you with me if I could, believe me. Now, all we need to do is find a way to smuggle you inside my suitcase for 15 hours…
My best college friend is visiting for the week (she was home for winter term) and staying with me. She came up 2 days early and surprised us and it is the best.
Calling it an early night, not going to post about today’s shenanigans as not all may be blog appropriate (but now you’re all thinking worse things than actually happened so whoops) and we’re both tired. ‘night.
Did you go on another killing spree? *wags finger*
No comment.
I have just pinked Piggy’s comment. *feels important*
The week is over! Finally. It seemed like it was going to last forever. Only now I have to do 20 more of them.
*does happy first-post dance* The first time in my life. I feel like I should have a banner made.
Our school flooded. It was awesome. The librarians put books in plastic tubs to save them- and since the library is below ground level there were just a bunch of plastic bins floating about. Then some little kids decided to sit in the bins and paddle around, only they sank… I got completely soaked trying to carry a pile of The Outsiders out of the library. The students were completely out of control and having the time of our lives, and the administration was helpless. It didn’t help them that some of the teacher started wading around too. Also, the canteen is below the school, and there were fried eggs sitting in the water…
Oh frabjulous day.
*makes banner* I’ll send it to you sometime.
Your school was flooded? Oh dear. That looks pretty weird in my head = books in plastic tubs, floating around the shelves, people swimming for the exit, fried eggs sitting in water…how bad was the flooding; how deep?
SFTDP: I accidentally googled “muse fan page” instead of typing it into the URL bar, and came across a site with exactly the same theme and layout as the MB, but devoted to the band Muse.
Creepy.
I’ve seen those results, but I’ve never actually clicked it. How eerie.
Spooky.
[/jumpingonbandwagon]
Ugh, summer camp applications. I’m going to have to record all this weekend… not looking forward to it. I just hope I get in somewhere.
It’s only the first week back, why do I have so much to do?
It would also be nice if I could sleep again. I’m tired of going to bed at 11 and falling asleep at 4..
Recording? Is it a music camp?
yeah – I’m a violin performance major. I’m applying to like eight festivals and I probably won’t get in at most…
I am trying out for All-District. I hope I make it. I am so nervous. I play the saxophone. Good luck Lizzie!!!
Good luck, Lizzie! And to you too, Agent Lightning. I’m auditioning for All-District too, on oboe. (Tomorrow. Eek.)
Good luck, Tesseract and Agent Lightning!
Wooow… someday I hope to be you. Good luck!
How can I be exhausted all day and suddenly feel energetic at night? I wish I could retrain myself to fall asleep earlier, but my inner clock is apparently very stubborn.
Warm milk, perhaps. I hate the way milk tastes here. Everything is either mostly water, or powdered and rehydrated at a plant christened- and I am not kidding here- the Great Singapore Lactose Institution. Things translate weirdly from Chinese.
That’s me. Tired in the morning, energetic at night. I’m living on Greenwich time or something, I don’t know.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Milk doesn’t taste very good here either. Even the ones imported from Australia and New Zealand and such aren’t very good, seeing as they’re not exactly the freshest…
And I agree. Things DO translate weirdly from Chinese.
I have the same problem. Maybe our internal clocks are stuck on Tokyo time…?
Yay Calvin and Hobbes references!
Whoopee!
I doubt it; Tokyo’s only an hour ahead of us.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Well maybe you’re on my time, East Coast time.
I may not have ever recovered from California time.
I’m leaving for Seattle later today. Mom and I are spending the weekend there–tomorrow we’re going to Harry Potter: The Exhibition (yayness!!!!) and probably doing other stuff (dunno what, except NOT shopping. We both hate shopping), and then Sunday doing stuff (no specific plans, just, again, NOT shopping).
And then Monday I leave Seattle for school (shouldn’t be looking forward to that, I mean, school, but y’know, Alan, so I am looking forward to it) and Mom leaves to come back home.
So I won’t be on much for awhile, until maybe *very* late Monday night. Because I have plans of hanging with Alan all Monday evening after he picks me up from the airport.
I wonder if I’ll see you. We’ll never know if we saw each other. Spooky.
There are pictures of Luna on this blog. Search “Luna and the Tiger”. Or Muserology Michelle.
Oooh *stalks*
Don’t worry, I won’t be going out much.
Woah, I was also in the Seattle area this weekend. Bainbridge Island, specifically, but we were CLOSE!
Sounds cool!
After having read the article in the latest issue of Sky and Telescope magazine about the effects of solar storms in the past and the damage one could cause to our power grid today, I propose the immediate hardening and other preparation of all Kokonspiracy electrical and communications systems as an ALLSTAR* Group high priority project.
The infamous Carrington Event of 1859 caused auroras to be seen nearly to the equator and telegraph wires across Europe and the United States to spontaneously short out, causing fires. If such an event were to occur today, radar, GPS, satellite telecommunications, ground-based communications other than those utilizing undersea fiber-optic cables, and conventional electrical power distribution systems would be very aversely affected.
Therefore, in this agent’s professional opinion, should such a solar superstorm occur at the same time as, or in the immediate aftermath of, an HPB uprising, all hope would be lost.
Even a lesser event, such as the 2003 Halloween storms, or the storm responsable for the 1989 Quebec blackout would create localized problems for our agents in the field, as well as chaos which might be exploited by the magenta menace.
This agent recommends immediate modification of our hardware to survive geomagnetic disturbances up to and including the level of the Carrington Event. (Also, we’ve EMP-proofed already, right?)
*Anti-Lagomorphic Logistics, Science and Technology Applied Research.
17 (Cat’s Eye)~ I’m so sorry about your loss. Your post was very well written and heartfelt, a beautiful tribute. *hugs*
AVP Advanced training today. Was good. Now I’m off to dinner, and then, oh geez, I Sarah’s for a mooooovie.
And then studying when I get home I guess ahhhhhhhhhhhh this is going going to be one very interesting weekend. >.<
Will reply to others later. Maybe. Probably.
17-So, so sorry. *hugs and fuzzies*
My cats are fighting. Sammy the Pinhead against Snookie the Dumb-But-Loyal.
My mom just fell for the dihydrogen monoxide trick. O.O This worries me.
And thank you again, all.
For the what what trick?
Think about it. Di. Hydrogen. Mono. Oxide.
Incredibly dangerous stuff. Studies show it caused the levy failures in New Orleans. It’s also been proven that the presence of DHMO in the iceberg was what really caused the Titanic to sink. Shark attacks occur with much greater frequency in its presence, one of the major goals of many terrorist groups is securing a source of it, it’s a major component of many poisons, and nobody’s doing anything about it. It’s present in nearly all processed foods, including bottled water, baby food, shampoo, and most candy. And there aren’t even any plans for banning it.
It’s a horrible situation. I wonder if we can do anything about it?
Terrible, indeed. “Its basis is the highly reactive hydroxyl radical, a species shown to mutate DNA, denature proteins, disrupt cell membranes, and chemically alter critical neurotransmitters. The atomic components of DHMO are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.”
The government is putting it in our water, too! It’s been proven! And studies have shown that if you ingest too much of it, you die!
We’ve pulled this on everybody we know, and very few of them didn’t, even the ones with college degrees.
It’s incredibly fun.
Um…is it waterwater? Two hydrogens, one oxygen?
Oh my god. *facepalm* That was stupid. I’ve got to learn to use the preview button.
SFTDP
Yes, in fact. But nobody realizes that if you give it a fancy name and tell them all about its horrors. Inspect the above posts for ideas and try it on your family and friends.
The number of things you can say about it is nearly infinite. My family has favorites, but I’m sure other people use other things.
Ohsweetkokothatwassoamazing. Squeeeeeee… I went to the [town] Snow Bowl and went skiing…and it was fun…and yeah…
Except at the beginning I tried to ski on the bunny hill, and I fell three times and lost my ski twice. Oh, and half way up I realized I’d forgotten my gloves.
This is all happening while five year olds are skiing serenely by me.
But then the group I’d come with (sort of) had lessons, and I managed to ski from the top of the mountain down.
Not without falling, of course, but whatever.
I didn’t kill myself. That’s got to count for something.
I’m glad you had fun!
14…more…days…
Fun, except for all the bruises.
Have a good time skiing though!
Speller (and her awesome partner who just so happens to be her roommate) won a bridge tournament today! I have a shiny new trophy! (Unfortunately, the second and third place prizes were chocolate, while we just got a trophy and a book that I think my dad might own.)
So as I may have mentioned before, my school has fun classes the week after winter break, so I spent this entire week playing bridge. (Apparently what we learned in the first four classes was what an adult begginers’ class would learn in twelve weeks.) Today was the last day, and we had a tournament, and my roommate and I won among the N-S teams. To be fair, I got some awesome hands, although we were playing duplicate, so every North player would have gotten those. There was also the time where our opponents accidentally bid 4 hearts when I had 4 hearts including the king in my hand, a singleton high card (possibly singleton ace), and a whole lot of points. I doubled. They were vulnerable. They wound up down 6. We got 1700 points. It was awesome.
Oh, and did you know that a woman shot her husband once for bidding badly? They made us play that hand this morning with the same contract and the same first two plays. My roommate managed to get one less than contract, and the guy who was shot got two less than contract, so I let her win. There was a way to actually make contract, but that only happened at one or two tables.
I am off to a hacking party! 12 hours straight of Lego robotics and caffeinated hot coco!
I’m excited but also little scared! I will try to do Jade proud and not fall asleep.
Sounds like fun!
I SHALL BE BEAMING WIDE-AWAKE BEAMS AND LUCK TOWARDS YOU
HELLO 5 AM AND STILL WISHING YOU LUCK! WOO! BE AWAKE LIKE ME OH GOD WHY AM I EVEN STILL AWAKE IT’S NOT LIKE I’M ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING
TURNS OUT STAY PUFT MARSHMALLOWS ARE CAFFEINATED. THIS COCO IS CRAZY. SO MANY LEGOS! AND FREE XKCD BOOKS! AND I BUILT A SUMOBOT. SO INTENSE. 3.5 MORE HOURS TO GO.
Let me know if you see any giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Men walking around…
Yes, we’ve got our proton packs ready. (Professor Spengler teaches at the same college as my dad, you see.)
LOLIN FOREVER
I APPROVE OF ALL THESE THINGS
who knew marshmallows even had room for caffeine…
I love Lego robots!
I am hopefully seeing The King’s Speech tomorrow, it having FINALLY come to our town. *is excited*
I have seen it. It is awesome.
SFTDP
Also, according to Alexa, the MuseBlog’s two keywords are “muse magazine” and “scrimgeour”. If that is a Harry Potter reference, it’s not the first thing I would associate with the series…
Keywords for what? Who’s Alexa? *is completely baffled*
Why Scrimgeour? Why not Luna Lovegood? Or Ron? Or Tonks? Or Hermione? Or pretty much anyone but Scrimgeour! Scrimegour does not seem Muse-ish.
Because of my fanfiction.
WOW! Awesome fanfic!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m glad you enjoyed it. There’s more. And still more.
If you search for “fanfiction” here, you’ll find all sorts of interesting things.
I’ll take this opportunity to plug my Schism epic, which chronicles a possible future in which Mostly Harmless gets hijacked by a corrupt corporate executive for his own ends. Many MBers appear (although, since this was written some time ago, some of them no longer post regularly).
I’ll take this opportunity to say-
Please read it, it’s really good!
It started on Muse Fanfiction, v. 2007.2 (I think), continued on Muse Fanfiction, v. 2008.1, and concluded on Muse Fanfiction, v. 2008.2. Then the action continued as an RPG.
The Other Muse Academies thread was Non-Canonical as far as I’m concerned.
Just had nerf. Oh my god it was so much fun. I got the nerf Recon gun for my birthday and went down and some people helped me mod it about 7pm. Took out the air restrictors
At 9 we headed over to a dorm and played a few games. It was intense. My friend D got hit in the face with a door halfway through though and needed 5 stitches in his eyebrow : / But he’ll be fine. Also I looked like such a **** carrying two guns and wearing black and my leather jacket. The others agreed 
Also going to make a cardboard frame for the engine-like-prop I’m building for the Firefly musical this weekend! I don’t know when though, it may have to wait till monday… Tomorrow I am making cookies for the co-op* (nutella! omnom! going to be strange cooking for 40 people instead of 4 though) and in the evening re-building the blanket fort Ali and I made last semester in my room (christened “Narnia” because you can only enter it through the closet) and having a Doctor Who marathon in it. And then sunday night is D&D.
*a co-op is a group of people who buy food/cook/clean for meals. I’m in one just for winter term, the sci-fi/fantasy hall one. It’s a lot of fun and a lot cheaper than eating in the dining hall.
Okay I had this post written for like an hour and a half and I forgot what else I was going to say so just going to submit it I guess. Fun times! It’s 3am again etc!
My Recon got FUBAR after I modded it. It worked great for about a year and then a little orange bit popped out and it died. If you weren’t miles away I’d host a massive nerf party in our yard.
I’d join!
I read FUBAR as FLUBBER and I was so confused.
I have such a boring life compared to you guys. *sigh*
Agreed.
Don’t say boring. say banal because it is a vocab word. Hopefully I will pass my quiz… (banal and boring are the same thing.)
Nah, it’s just that there are enough people here so that something interesting happens every day to different people. It’s a sampling bias. People don’t really post about boring events.
Tesseract –
I realize this is quite late, but about me being the priest/rabbi at your wedding, I am a Unitarian, my dad is Jewish, and my mom’s mom is Christian. So religion isn’t a barrier for me.
High five. I’m a UU, my mom is a Presbytarian, and my dad is a Hindu.
Hindu’s rock. They love cows. Cows are my favorite animal.
But it means you don’t get cheeseburgers… and I love cheeseburgers.
Kai’s Keep It/Give It Away Rules For Culling Her Bookshelf:
GIVE IT AWAY:
– If it gave you nightmares, give it away.
– If it bored you to tears, give it away.
– If you really hate the characters and never cared about them, give it away.
– If there’s nothing that makes it worth keeping and it has language you don’t approve of in it, give it away.
– If it was a gift and you’d never be interested in the topic in a million years and it’s been long enough after you got it that your mother won’t recognize that it was a gift from somebody, give it away.
– If all or most of the information is repeated in another book you have that also has more or better information, AND this book otherwise does not present a cool view of “what people used to think/know about this topicâ€, OR have anything otherwise remarkable about its illustrations or the way it presents the information, give it away.
– If you bought all of the books in a series (Or at least all the books you’d want to read again) because you really liked it and wanted to have all of it at your fingertips, give it away IF AND ONLY IF the library has the complete series, or at least all the books in the series that you’d want to read again. If you really, really like some of the books and can’t do without having them in your house, save those, but give away the others. (This means you, Magic Tree House and Harry Potter.)
– If you don’t feel particularly strongly about the book and you can readily obtain a copy at the library or a bookstore, give it away.
KEEP IT:
– If you have no idea where you’d get another copy, keep it.
– If it’s out-of-print, keep it.
– If you rescued it from the library discard pile, keep it, because they obviously don’t want it back.
– If it’s signed, keep it.
– If it invokes a strong positive memory, keep it.
– If it helped to shape your current personality, keep it.
– If it’s related to a topic you are writing or may write a story about, keep it, because if you give it away, you’ll be kicking yourself.
– If you keep coming back to read it year after year, keep it.
– If the information is outdated, and you have more recent information in another book you own, BUT this book distinguishes itself with its writing, illustrations or insight into “what people used to know about this topicâ€, keep it.
PERIODICALS- all of the above apply, plus:
– If it has any pictures that you find scary or gross, or that you can’t stand to look at for some other reason, if you couldn’t tear out that page without taking out text, give it away or recycle it.
– If there’s nothing in it that interests you, give it away or recycle it.
– If there’s nothing in it that interests you, but someone you know would be interested in one of the topics, give it to them.
– If the information is outdated, there’s nothing distinguishing about the illustrations or presentation, it doesn’t present a cool view on what people used to know about the topic, and you have a later article that has newer and better information, give it away or recycle it.
– If it’s reporting on something that could be historic, keep it.
– If it’s commemorating the anniversary of something you care about it, keep it.
– If it’s outdated BUT has cool illustrations, good writing and/or an insight into what people thought at the time, keep it. (It can always be inspiration for an alternate history story.)
– If you wrote or are mentioned in one of the articles, keep it!
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICS- all of the above apply, plus:
– If it’s from before you were born, keep it.
– If you got it from somebody else’s collection when they were cleaning out, keep it.
– If it has cool fold-outs, keep it.
– If it has articles about Robert Ballard, Zahi Hawass, Mount Everest, or any of your other obsessions, keep it.
– If it’s related to an anniversary in the history of the magazine, keep it.
– If it has an article about archeology that’s outdated, has nothing else appealing or significant about it, and/or has information you can readily find elsewhere, give it away or recycle it.
– If nothing in the issue makes it worth keeping but it has a map, keep the map and give away or recycle the magazine.
– If somebody sees you recycling or giving away these issues and makes a joke that “Nobody ever gets rid of their old National Geographics”, pie them.
Holy crap.
And I saw the article on you in the new Muse. Very nice!
This helps, although I would like to point out something:
If the book is hardcover and has a jacket, and the library ones
a) are missing the jacket or
b) have the jacket tapet down,
keep the book so you can put the jacket on upside down while reading it in public places.
I got some very weird looks from a snare drummer. The bass clarinet and I cracked up, it was so funny.
How about, for keeping it, if it’s a first edition?
I’m not lucky enough to own any first editions.
My rules are simple: Keep everything, just in case.
That probably explains why my room is so cluttered.
Same here.
Is it bad that I take my sketchbook to lunch with me for exactly that reason?
Enc, you’re fabulous. Let’s be friends.
I second the above statement. Friends are good friends. Especially when the friends are fabulous.
*steals Enc*
I’ll come willingly! Depending on where we’re going. I mean, I wouldn’t go with you into a raging pit of fire with Daleks on the side, but I wouldn’t go there with anyone. Except perhaps the Doctor.
Yay! Friends! ♥
Yay! *gives squid*
Where shall we go? A glacier, perhaps?
A glacier where? Antarctica or the north pole area?
Why don’t we go to Iceland?
Wonderful! ♥
At first I read your post as “Ireland”, which conjured up strange images of you jaunting about with bagpipes and a tweed jacket (and the squid multitude).
What should we do while in Iceland?
Enc, we should play the bagpipes, even if we’re in Iceland.
Enc Enc Enc! Urgent! What to do while in Iceland?
I was bitten by the cleaning bug and cleaned my room! *gasps!* and then accessorized everything with flowers. And buttons. And I cleaned under my bed. It was really weird.
I have to do a science project with my friend. It’s due tommorow, we’ve barely started, but I can’t do anything because she’s still asleep.
I hope I make all district! I did slighly better than my All-County tryouts, and I ALMOST made all county, so I’m just crossing my fingers.
In one day my brother has decided to be 16. He had this whole argument with my mom while she was arguing with my dad, so there was a double argument. He wanted his computer in his room, because he can’t use his web-cam when he is in the family room. He wants to talk with all his friends and play bloody video games all day. As it is when he is in the family room I don’t see him, so if he is in his room… Now he’s wandering the streets of our neighborhood.. He wasn’t really a normal teenager until today, now he’s just like everyone else. Didn’t even say where he was going. Usually he just says, “Bye, I’m going to ******’s house!” *is annoyed, angry, and ***** more than usual*
Wow. I don’t have any teenage siblings, but 9 and 5 year olds are almost as annoying. Especially on Monday Mornings.
I think I would rather have a younger sibling than an older one, but there’s nothing I can do.
I very much prefer having an older one! He is like my guinea pig, who I push through life ahead of me, making him go through all the adolescence and angst and horrible math teachers before I do so I can carefully observe his mistakes and proceed to make entirely original ones. Also, by the time my turn to be this age comes around, my parents have had practice, so they can make totally new mistakes, too. And he can help me with my homework, since my parents no longer understand anything I’m doing in Algebra. Yay for older siblings!
I would much prefer to have just an older sibling than to having both an older sibling and a younger one, but I suppose that would just mean that my sister and I would just annoy each other, because we’d lack a common enemy.
The thing with my brother is, he is making ALL the mistakes anyone could make. He never does his homework, and he borrows my parents credit card all the time to buy video games. His hair now has natural indentations were he puts his headphones. I don’t really know who he is anymore.
Oh, young grasshopper, once I too thought my brother was making all the mistakes anyone could make. *headpat* Wait two years. He’ll emerge, even better than he was before.
Poor Trojan Tiger, I know how you feel, and YES, I’M LOOKING AT YOU, NYMMIE.
* gets defensive * I don’t play video games…
Is it still January?
Cake.
I have internet! Whoopee! Unfortunately, in its long absence I seem to have forgotten its appeal. It’s convenient to look things up, but not really very interesting to spend large amounts of time on.
39- This makes sense. I’ll probably have to do some crazy book-thinning in the next few months because I have seen dorm rooms and They Are Small.
Clothes-thinning too.
What’s wrong with January? (If you don’t mind me asking)
Nothing. I just feel like its been January for forever and it’s such a boring month. We have lots of school but no new classes and it’s all wintry without being festive and COLLEGE APPS.
Hi, Alice!
For our sakes, I hope you sort out your current disinterest in the internet, though I must admit I can also see the appeal of leading an mostly internet-free life.
I am bored. Brother is hogging the good TV…bleh. But tomorrow I get to go snow tubing!
Ooo, tubing is FUN.
Yeah, it is. I can’t wait!
Whoa lots of posts.
AVP was good. I find it amusing that I’m seen as somewhat intimidating or scary to the inmates. Seriously. We were doing an exercise called “getting in touch with anger” and one of the questions was “how I feel about my anger is:” and my answer was “frighteningly overwhelming.” That, along with some of my other answers to other questions had the other guys in my group giggling and teasing me about being a psychopath. Or saying “really? I mean, you seem so nice and quiet and all, but really? That’s what your answer is? That’s crazy, dude!”
Now I’m tired and want to rest a bit before I go to STUDY FOR THE SAT, WHOOOOOO.
Ugh.
So, at the library today, I found a book that I LOVED in elementary school called “The Mysterious Tadpole” about a boy who gets a Loch Ness Monster tadpole as a birthday gift from his uncle in Scotland. And names it Alphonse. And it’s gigantic and adorable. And it eats cheeseburgers. And the book contains the line “It’s a submarine from another planet!”
I just saw the Next Generation movie “Insurrection”. It was quite good.
Ooh, yes, it is. Anything that isn’t Nemesis is quite good.
Yes, I’ve seen some of that one too. I didn’t like it.
Random Thought of the Day:
If I weren’t going to become a priest (and that is what I’m going to be; don’t try to say, “But you can still change your mind, don’t become a priest!”), I know that I would become a biologist and work in a national park, preferably Yosemite or one of Alaska’s parks.
You’re going to be a priest??? Just curious, what made you choose that?
Why would I say “you can still change your mind, don’t become a priest”. If that’s what you want to do, that’s your choice, not any of ours.
Apparently he’s had problems with people trying to convince him to change his mind. Or maybe he was trying to clarify that what he’s really saying is ‘it would be fun to __’, and that was an attempt to keep away overly supportive posts.
A priest of what religion?
Piggy is Roman Catholic.
.1- I’ve sorta known since roughly second grade.
.2, .2.1- The typical response to saying, “I’m going to become a priest” is generally something suggesting that I’m throwing my life away and should reconsider immediately.
.3- Roman Catholicism.
That is impressive. When are you going to start studying? Have you already started?
Studying? In what way?
Are you going to a seminary?
After college.
As in religious studies.
Yes, but in what way?
Like, have you taken any courses with titles resembling “Religious Studies”?
My school doesn’t have anything like that.
You could preach in a chapel near Yosemite and go in your free time.
I’m afraid priests really don’t have any control over where they’re assigned.
Just so long as it’s not Craggy Island.
Heh heh heh. I got back early to school (today, most people arrive tomorrow) and so I’m the only one around. My club has a special interest house and I found a secret stash of googly eyes and glue. Time to run around and put eyes on things! Wheee!
Rebuilt blanket fort, named Narnia. Can only enter it through the closet.
Already watched Torchwood/Dr Who and people are here and it’s a party and great. Wooo!
I think I’ve figured out why colleges are so awesome. They literally drain the awesomeness out of all school leading up to that point.
Every American institution of higher learning employs a trained cabal of Fun Vampires (the bodies of dead alumni are secretly removed and reanimated through dark rituals) who visit schools across the country in the dead of night and subtly extract everything that is amazing and brilliant from the campus. They use nothing so crass as fangs or forked tongues; it’s a quiet and genteel form of osmosis that leaves the ground bleached and barren where their shadows pass. As dawn breaks, they return through hidden byways of the Woven Beyond to their home campuses, where they disgorge boiling golden gouts of concentrated happiness from their gaping maws and into the hot water pipes.
…I would never have written something like that in a normal frame of mind. I ought to compose more posts at 1 AM. I’m not even sure I got the plural of “campus” right.
This sounds plausible. But a lot of my middle school teachers are fairly awesome, so maybe my college has defective vampire minions or something…college probably won’t be as awesome.
Oh my god yes forever. And you should ALWAYS write at that time of night (or later, if you’re me and 1am is early), the best things happen
Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes!
The woman who I’m cat-sitting for has all the episodes of Firefly.
There is a god.
Now, God, as long as you’re listening, I’d like a one-way ticket to SFO and Windows 7 for my laptop.
Did my post about the College Fun Vampires just vanish into the aether? What a gyp. I don’t think I could possibly re-type that.
Do you mean 49.1?
my roommate has a big blue box o’ clothes that she keeps under our beds (we have them bunked). Apparently this entire year she’s thought it was mine.
You know what would be really creepy? If you met a random person and found out that they were already on MB. *shakes dream out of head*
Actually, I remember going to a sailing camp a few years ago and there was a girl there who was my friend. We used to sing songs with random lyrics. One was about HPBs. This was before I got Muse… And while using the random button, I came across a kokon picture, with a girl who looked quite a bit like her in it.
Obviously, the girl was probably not a muser (For one thing, the picture was blurry) but it does present interesting possibilities, does it not? And it also provides your overactive brain with plenty of material, so that you happen to have a dream about it. But of course, these things really did happen, so…
That happened to Tessera Rose and me. We were friends a while before we discovered we were both on MuseBlog.
Who was the girl in the Kokon picture? Does she still post?
53.1- That’s awesome! And mildly creepy…
53.2- It was Taiwan Hippo Fan, I believe. She’s posted several times in the last few months, though not a ton. I seriously doubt I met her; for one thing the photo was taken a year before the camp, unless I’m remembering wrong. But it does present interesting possibilities, doesn’t it? What if you hated someone in real life, met them on the blog without knowing it was them, and really liked them? What if you knew several people without knowing they were on here?
Killer Klowns from Outer Space = Best Movie Ever!
You know what’s fun? Talking about music with your father, then bringing up a Voltaire album called The Devil’s Bris. Said father is Jewish. Thankfully, he has a sense of humor.
I was declared “pure evil” today.
Also, I’m wearing a shirtdress and tie-dye socks. I had lasagna last night and today, which makes me quite happy.
I just sent a message to a friend that was basically a crash course in cover letters.
I need to go study now. In this frame of mind, it’s going to be very interesting.
I want more lasagna.
I just have to ask, why are you all so excited about me being pure evil?!
Also GAPAs, if I was so inclined I’m now able to pie my own posts from before the icons changed. Software glitch? I just wondered if you knew. Also, a question, can you see who likes an item? Do you have any moderating abilities over that?
Is there any possibility of having it show who’s pied the comment, like FB does? That would be cool.
Fiddler:
Let’s see… Software glitch? Maybe. Did we know? No. Can we see who likes an item? No. Moderating abilities over it? None. Show who pied it? Not with the current software.
Okay. Is there any way of using a different software in the future so it is visible?
Personally, I think it’s nice not to know. Makes the pie more of a free gift. No pressures to return the favor. Also — speaking selfishly here for a moment — the anonymity allows GAPAs to play.
My computer never remembers what I’ve pied and what I haven’t.
You have a dynamic IP address–your internet service provider rotates its addresses from time to time for various reasons. I have the same thing.
Went for a nice run today, finished a drawing, and am working on English essay, after which all of my homework will be done. Then, on to fan-fiction. If I can pull everything off, this will be quite a productive day.
I found Gödel, Escher, Bach on the family bookshelf and decided to start reading it(mainly because I love Escher and Bach, and had at least heard of Gödel).
…my head hurts.
That is my favorite nonfiction book ever. It’s totally awesome.
I’m totally bringing it to school tomorrow and accumulating funny looks. It’s hard, but I want to finish it.
Wow, just re-read Muse Schism in its entirety. That was great stuff. (“Go to Venus, Tardiff!”)
Are you still making people for Omega?
That should be “taking”, not “making”.
Omega? Sure. I haven’t really done anything with it lately.
Okay, I’ll post a profile on the Muse Fan-Fiction Planning Thread.
What did you do today, darling daughter?
I drew five pages of anthropomorphized-countries-during-World-War-1 comics, watched incredible amounts of Hetalia, and learned how to actually give my characters facial expressions when I draw them, Mom!
Well, did you do anything productive?
…I drew five pages of comics, watched incredible amounts of Hetalia, and learned how to actually give characters facial expressions when I draw them?
No, I mean do anything productive!
Oh. I jogged for fifteen minutes.
Well, it’s nice to know that this day wasn’t a complete waste for you!
Yeah. Waste. Yeah.
*sigh* Nobody ever understands our definition of productive.
Drawing is productive! If at the end of my day, I’ve done any (or, preferably all) of these things to some degree, I consider it productive:
1) Get writing or drawing done.
2) Read for pleasure.
3) Exercise.
But you weren’t drawing as part of a homework project, or for anything school-related, so it must have been a complete waste of time, right, darling daughter? Right?
*sigh* Sure, Mom.
What were you drawing, anyway?
I was illustrating each line of the poem “In Flanders Fields” using the characters I used for those cartoon things I made last week. Remember, the ones I showed my history teacher, and then she told you about it in the teachers’ lounge and said she had laughed and laughed? I’m illustrating the poem with each of the countries saying various lines and having similar reactions in order to express how ultimately, neither of them were that different, since they all had similar hopes, dreams, ideals, et cetera.
Oh, so this is school-related! Homework?
No, it’s for my friends. It was Terpsichore’s idea, actually.
But you just said it was about history?
Yeah.
Then isn’t it homework?
No, I’m doing it of my own initiative, actually. History is pretty fun.
Oh… Well, I have no idea why you think history is fun, but why not do it instead of become a writer?
*sigh*
/rambling, tangential rant>
I love that poem. It was one of my favorites from English class last year.
Have you considered sending your cartoons to the GAPAs to be posted here? I’m probably not the only one who would be really, really interested in seeing such “wastes of time”.
I’d love to, but my scanner runs the spectrum from “rarely works” to “not working” to “really, really not working.” If at any point it magically materializes the ability to do its job, I’ll send something over…
You could take pictures of your cartoons perhaps. I’d love to see them too!
I made all-district. I can’t even believe it. I can’t even believe it.
I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling for three hours.
congrats! that’s awesome!
Cool! What are you playing?
*joyflail*
Thanks, guys! I’m playing oboe in the 9-12 symphonic band. I’m still shocked, because I thought I completely bombed the audition (played first scale with wrong articulation, a couple wrong notes on the solo where I’d never made mistakes before, awful sight-reading) and was all prepared to be at the bottom of the list and feel awful about the whole thing. Then when the scores came out last night we were in the car driving back from DC and my friends texted me saying I got in. I basically explode into a little puddle of happiness and then we stopped for ice cream.
I’m actually even more happy about it than I would have otherwise been because this year (only my second on oboe) I’m stuck in freshman band due to a schedule conflict, and my friend C who just started this year is playing for the symphonic (10th-12th grade) band. I still get to rehearse with them on occasion and play concerts with them, but C gets all the solos and first oboe parts since she’s there every day. She also got to play with the chorus and orchestra when they needed an oboist. She practices a lot, and I’m extremely proud of how well she’s doing and happy for her, but I’d also been kind of down about the situation. So it’s really, really nice for me to know I’m not as bad at oboe as it sometimes feels like I am.
Once again, the awesomeness of an oboe player conquers all. Great job! *high-five*
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (et cetera, ad nauseum)
*pats on back*
This here is my trophy wife.
(Oh my gosh, that is the most annoying post I’ve ever written. But so necessary. So very necessary.)
♥ You are the best!
*highfives* HAPPY CHRISTMAS (long story, sorry) !!!
I am confused.
Happy Christmas= Congratulations! Multiple times!
Really, really long story.
But anyway, very Nice!!!
Yayness!
“Cannibal! The Musical” is EPIC. EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH IT.
My beloved cousin sent me ten packets of Kool-Aid (since you can’t get it in Singapore) for my birthday and I just drank one. Boy is that stuff good.
Selenium- I’ve been assigned to write a report about why you should never, ever meet a complete Internet stranger in real life :). It feels wrong for me of all people to be preaching this to fourth graders.
Oh no! What are you even going to write? ‘The only time in my life I ever met an Internet stranger in real life, I was nearly abducted and only barely managed to escape in time. I even lost my sanity due to this unfortunate meeting. This is why you should never, ever, ever meet someone you meet over the Web.’ Ironic! To make things interesting, you should write a report about the complete opposite and make it about our Kokon, just to prove a point. Although your school is so *insert adjective of your choice here* that they probably wouldn’t appreciate that very much.
*adjective of my choice is a term that I probably should not know*
“The only time I met someone over the Internet, I was tricked into thinking I knew them and thought the person was a girl around my age. They turned out to be a forty-year-old man. I was almost abducted…”
Getting a bit ahead of myself, am I not? Still.
‘She told me she was 14 and was coming to Singapore for an MUN conference. She seemed pretty nice, and I agreed to meet her, but unfortunately…anyway, kids, never, ever trust what people say on the Internet. They’re ALWAYS lying.’
You should totally write that. It would be so funny.
My sister had to do a “glog” about Internet safety. A glog is like a blog except no one can see it. THEN WHAT IS THE POINT?!?!?! The kid next to her wrote, “don’t say bad words on the phone.” My school is *adjective of my choice* too. Nice but slightly paranoid.
If no one can see it, then it does not exist. If it does not exist, then nobody did the assignment. Therefore, the entire class got a zero on that assignment.
My goodness, that is one of the most ironic things I’ve ever heard. Although, do MuseBloggers count as complete strangers? I feel like I know some of you pretty darn well.
No, you guys don’t count as strangers. Plus I actually Kokoned with Selenium.
That she did!
I once offhandedly mentioned you guys to my friend Hippolyta, and she said, “You haven’t met up with these people, right? Or agreed to talk with them in dark alleyways, and secret locations like that?” Which I suppose is a normal reaction to going, “Orion, my Internet friends think I should kill you because you dislike Doctor Who.”
I am very, very sorry.
I have a way in which you could kinda-sorta do the assignment and enjoy it at the same time. Write about your Internet friends. You don’t have to meet them to be friends with them.
Personal story: I have a friend. He’s kind, supportive, and funny, and I try very hard to reciprocate. He’s told me I can make his day, and I hope I can do the same. We’re both artists and have done some really awesome collaborations that hopefully other people have seen too. But here’s the thing: I don’t know what he looks like. I don’t know how old he is, where he lives, or even his name. We met on iScribble, an online drawing community. That’s right: I met a very good friend on the Internet. Will I ever meet him in real life? I highly doubt it. It’s not a priority.
Top Five Things You Should Never, Ever Eat in Singapore:
-Pig Organ Soup
-Fish and Carrot Curry
-Tofu Goat Meat
-Prawns with Special Disclosed Sauce
-Happy Fry Assorted Meat.
The sixth thing you should never eat in Singapore: pizza. Their pizza is nasty.
And since our house is far away from all the pizza outlets, by the time we get it it is both nasty and cold.
To be honest, Choklit Orange, the fried rice that I had – well, I’ve had better here.
It was okay though, not something that I would never, ever eat.
I did recommend the Taiwanese stall rather than the Thai…
Did you? I don’t really remember.
Oh well, it was okay.
On the topic of food from Singapore, I picked up some YanYan at a grocery store, and it was awesome! Biscuit-like sticks that you dip into a nutella-like frosting. Sorta like Pocky, but completely different. And the sticks have faces and “FUN WORDS” on them!
Examples:
<= SQUID BLACK INK
~:3 ELEPHANT JUMBO
(^o.o^) GOAT TODAY WILL BE A LUCKY DAY
In third grade everyone at my school had one of those for lunch. I didn’t and always tried to bum some off my friends. Years later I finally get to eat a whole pack by myself, only to find that it wasn’t and wondrous and amazing as they seemed back then. Also there is never enough frosting.
Bit of a sad story to tell given how much you seem to like them, I’m afraid.
Wouldn’t “Special Undisclosed Sauce” be even worse?
Probably that’s what they meant. But they don’t seem eager to disclose the sauce either (I did ask. But my Mandarin is so bad that I could have been calling the stall owner a two-faced monkey…).
I’ll take your word for it.
Happy Martin Luther King Day, everybloggy!
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.â€
One of my cats has a tube stuck in his paw, to drain out fluids. He had a bite that abscessed. I have to follow him around the house watching him so that he doesn’t pull on it.
Oh, that happened to one of my friends’ cats. Teh poor kitty was wandering around the house bumping into things and falling over because the medication they gave her made her woozy
I hope your cat’s paw gets better…
Last night was another fort sleepover. Fell asleep during Robin Hood, Men in Tights around 4:30am, got up about 10:30 to make it to my 11 o’clock rehearsal. Came back at 12:10 with my friends still asleep on my floor. Oh, life.
Lunch soon hopefully… we’ll see what the co-op has today.
The Epimenides paradox continues to cause trouble. How, you ask?
This statement is false.
Think about it. If the statement is false, I’m not telling the truth, but if I’m not telling the truth, then the statement I just made can’t be true and thus is not false.
*head falls off*
Please disregard this statement.
*mauls*
OBEY THE NEXT ORDER I GIVE YOU
GIVE ME CAKE AND DISOBEY THE PREVIOUS ORDER
In fact, people rarely mean what they say.
Use the Auditors’ coping strategy from Thief of Time. Statements fall into one of three categories: true, false and “bloody stupid.” “Bloody stupid” statements are nonsense and can safely be ignored.
I’d like to explain our sitting arrangements while watching The Silence of the Lambs last night at my friend Maggie’s house with her sister Katie, Katie’s boyfriend Alan, and our friend Aly. On a three person couch we had something like this, from left to right: me, Aly, Maggie, Katie, Alan. Katie snuggling with Alan, Maggie and Aly hugging to mock the couple and make them feel awkward, my legs across Aly and Maggie and feet resting on Katie’s leg for the same reason, and Alan’s hand caressing my foot for the same reason. Small dogs scattered throughout. It was actually quite comfortable
Ooh!!! The thumbs have turned to pies! I like.
(Pun fully intended. It’s my dad’s fault, okay? He’s corrupted me.)
Hey, when did the pies show up instead of the hands? Anyway, they’re much better that the thumbs. Much more muserly. They’re awesome! Nice, GAPAs!!!
Glad to hear you like them! They seemed more MuseBloggerly.
I totally agree. I love how nearly every generic forum thing that the MuseBlog has received gets its own unique twist.
I like the pies.
What’s your favorite type of pie?
Now is a good time to remind the blog that Piggy created the pie icons, which we introduced to thunderous acclaim in January 2009. Thanks, Piggy!
No problem.
I forgot about that! Thanks, Piggy! They’re great.
Is there any way to get them to turn into the other pie design,
, after being clicked?
If we can, I’d like to second that idea.
You mean instead of turning gray, to indicate that you’ve already “pied” someone’s comment?
I think they mean instead of turning into a green check mark, it turns into a
. The turning grey is something else, isn’t it?
Yeah!
Yeah, I think so.
I meant instead of a green checkmark, but you could have them turn into the same thing.
My anti-virus seems to clear all tracking cookies anyway, and for some reason it forgets what comments I’ve pied and what I haven’t.
My phone’s calendar goes up to 2065 and counting…No, wait, 2068…2070…2071…
Aha, apparently it “only displays from 1971 to 2098”. It would have been easier to go backwards. My hand hurts from holding down the button.
Just got back from dinner. We went to a restaurant. Our waiter was wearing a smashing black fedora, leading to me thinking of him the whole time as Black Hat Guy.
In other news, I’m theoretically going to an anime convention in April. And I’m cosplaying. An animate suit of armor. Oh dear.
I had a tube stuck into my throat via my nose today. It wasn’t fun.
In other news, I have nothing wrong with my vocal cords. Hooray.
Oh no! Why would they do a thing like that?
To check on my vocal cords. Mom was a bit concerned, but it didn’t amount to anything.
It wasn’t that bad, actually. Just really strange. They sprayed pepermint anesthesia up my nose first to numb everything up, and it didn’t take more than thirty seconds or so. Though my throat did feel all swollen and strange for half an hour or so.
I’ve never liked the peppermint anesthesia. It tastes too much like toothpaste. In Singapore they use bubblegum, although I anticipate the introduction of a chili sauce numbing agent.
Glad to hear you’re okay, though.
Ooh, look, pies! And they poof up when you mouse over them. Nice, Piggy!
What is the word used to describe a word that sounds like it is? Like ‘whimsical’ sounds whimsical. ‘Poof’ sounds poofy.
Onomatopoeia is the word you want.
Onomatopoeia.
Well, thank you both! Nice timing!
vanillabean and oxlin posted AT THE SAME TIME! MY HEAD ASPLODE!
just an observation. =)
We did that just to freak you out.
What’s your avatar? It looks familiar.
MIND CONNECTION
Another midnight-3am baking party! It’s a friend’s birthday, so we made brownie mix, then put cookie batter into the brownie mix and baked it. OMNOM. Not sure if we’re gonna do anything else after this, but the friend staying in my room and I will be sleeping in the fort again at least. Partially because there’s no other room in my dorm room XD
Actually now we’re making eggs and cheese. Because 3am is the perfect time for that. Earlier, we had a cuddlepile and talked to each other in Whale.
Just to clarify: none of us is drunk/high/etc
Oh GAPAs, you’ve done it again!
I overdosed on sushi.
Hooray! Pies instead of checks! *pies Choklit*
Lovely.
For the eighth grade Chinese New Year Showcase, I am in charge of the following games:
-Bowl the Diseases
-Dunk the Healthy Habits
-Blow Your Height
Wow.. Um…
Grr..
School today!
SNOW DAY!!!! SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!! SNNNNOOOOOOOOOWWWWW DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*gasp* I should not be up this early.
Never wake up at six unless you have to go to school, or *alas* the zombie apocalypse is impending.
Ah, lucky. All we got was a stinkin’ early release of one hour. Yeah, that gives us lots of time…!
I could not agree more.
Woke up and found the power was out, ate breakfast and got dressed using flashlights, then went to school.
Was the power out at school??
DUDE. CONTRABASS CLARINETS. SUBCONTRABASS SAXOPHONES. CONTRABASS TUBAS. WHAT ARE SARRUSAPHONES ANYWAY? BARI SAXES ARE SO TINY NOW. IN COMPARISON. DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our school has a contrabass clarinet! It’s in the shop right now though
Sub-contrabss flutes. Those are freaking awsome.
Our school has boring instruments.
Flugelhorn!
No, I don’t know what it is. All I know is that our school has one, and the word is awesome.
It’s like a cross between a mellophone and a trumpet. We have one of those too, I believe.
And here I thought that the flugelhorn was a joke instrument.
*looks up flugelhorn*
Hmmm. So there are also instruments called the “flumpet,” “heckelphone,” and “dudelsack.” Honestly, who comes up with these names?
It’s real all right; I know it’s used in at least Mahler’s Third Symphony.
I will hecklephone you later today to let you know what time you need to bring my flumpets and tea over. Don’t forget to bring the flumpets in their dudelsack!
What’s a mellophone?
French Horn for marching band.
Yes. It looks kind of like an overlarge trumpet, or a cross between a trumpet and a marching baritone (but more towards the trumpet end).
The most interesting instrument our school has would be either the [single] french horn, or the gong. Which is incredibly sad, of course.
No.
YOU GUYS. SERIOUSLY, YOU GUYS.
SOMEONE NEEDS TO WRITE OUR TVTROPES ARTICLE.
I mean, yeah, the magazine and Attack of the Smart Pies share one, but we have our own page on the search! But it’s not written… so someone should write it!!
(And don’t ask me to.)
WE COULD BE SO AWESOME. And we could advance some Kokonspiracy.
Also, I’ve shortened my name just to let you know to just call me Zinc, cause it makes me feel awkward when I see “the sorceress” attached to it. Especially with the suns, ja.
So I’m doing a report on myself in science, hahaha, I’m a weirdo. I should be working on that… instead of this.
(And my second complete story is up on the fanfic thread, so if you want to see… it stars Avalon and Xerix… *it’s terrible*)
Unfortunately, the GAPAs like to keep us nice and unGoogleable, so we probably shouldn’t put up a TVTropes page. (I made the same mistake.)
Oh, is that why I could never find the Museblog at first? I wondered.
I think we’ve discussed it before, and the GAPAs are generally not fond of the idea of linking us to another site. We like our privacy, see.
museblog, what is a book that has made you reflect on the greatness and possibility of life? be it through sadness or happiness? (or any other emotion, really)
i need something reinvigorating, in a sense
– The Princess Bride (A truly flammy book. Though it may not be exactly what you’re looking for.)
– Any Calvin & Hobbes or Peanuts anthology (Self-explanatory.)
– O Pioneers! (Though most people strangely don’t like Willa Cather.)
– The Hobbit (Can be longish, but oh what a story.)
– Watership Down (Obviously.)
– Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Graphic novel. Out of print, though a library may have it. Terribly sad at times, but wondrously thought-provoking and introspection-inducing.)
– Walden (For some people, it’s horridly boring. For others, it’s intensely beautiful.)
What not to read if you want to be reinvigorated:
– Grendel (Nihilism, nihilism, nihilism, nihilism.)
I thought of another one: the webcomic Buttercup Festival. Combine Walden with xkcd’s Beret Guy and throw in a bit of surrealism. It will make you want to leave society and live in nature.
calvin and hobbes! piggy, you are a genius. i bow to the sage once again.
i need to dig up my old anthologies…
i don’t know how i haven’t read watership down yet but i will do so, certainly! kaloo kalay!
He chortled in his joy.
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass used to reinvigorate me when I was in high school, but I haven’t tried it lately.
I’ll try that as well!
I heard it’s quite the common graduation present which I find surprising…i celebrate myself and sing myself!
The Hobbit. Especially the end. And Packing for Mars, oddly enough.
Really? I’ve been avoiding reading that, because from the reviews I’ve seen, the central theme seemed to be “Why being an astronaut sucks”.
She does tend to report on the funnier, nastier, or more degrading aspects of space- but it’s an extraordinarily informative and amusing book.
Books about space. And videos and pictures.
Especially the “Powers of Ten” video. I even wrote a few college essays on it…
It’s written for little kids, but Brian Floca’s “Moonshot”. It works every time.
Ahh.. Two and a half hour softball practice…. *bliss*
My brother has finals, and he is studying (not). He is playing video games. (What? Is this what people do during finals!?)
To answer your question: Yes.
Or, in my case, hang around on MuseBlog. Procrastination is procrastination is procrastination.
So, I am taking a leave of absence from college. I feel right now that this is the best thing for me. Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me out and been supportive. Actually, thanks to all of Museblog for existing, because without it I am sure I would go crazy. Also to the GAPAs for their learned comments and for running the site and EVERYTHING.
Also I am going to try to use the interweb less during this time so potentially I will post less frequently.
I love you all!
Good luck, Axa!
We love you too!
Good luck!
Oh, good luck! How long do you think you’ll be away from college?
Good luck! I hope your leave of absence does great things for you.
Good luck! We’ll see you when you get back
thanks everybody!
88- ♥ You know I’ll always support you in doing what is best for you! I am confidant you will be able to work things out in your own time. Better to take a break and think and enjoy yourself than be frustrated and miserable.
Tonight: we watched Sherlock in my fort and then half of the first Pokémon movie. Sadly, the friend staying with me had to leave and go home today, so no sleepover tonight
Still sleeping on the floor of the fort though… taking it down = effort and clearing off the bed = more effort. Floor party for one woo! I’m on the mattress pads and like 3 comforters we put on the floor for padding though so it’s plenty cozy. Going to bed early tonight, aka as soon as I post this and kick myself off the internet XD
So in reality, you went to bed really late, right?
Hahaha. 3am is my normal bedtime in the school year. OH LIFE.
oops 4:30 am
actually tonight will probably be an all-nighter…anthro midterm at 8:30 tomorrow morning, at this point i’d rather stay up all night than risk sleeping through it
plus i’m not really tired…sort of slept in really late today (don’t worry, didn’t have classes). actually i woke up with really bad cramps so i just sat around in bed in the dark on my computer reading sandman and then i switched to listening to the bbc radio version of much ado about nothing and playing freecell, and then jake came over and brought me food (feel free to d’aww) so i actually turned on the light and put on my glasses, then we watched firefly and then i finally got up and showered and went to english
so actually i didn’t really get out of bed until 1ish. so staying up all night won’t be that huge a dent in my sleep
God, I can’t wait till college.
I spent my day herding 4th graders around on a scavenger hunt. My friend, one grade above me, spent it on a field trip to a chocolate factory.
Tell me how this is fair.
I spent the day sitting in class, bored out of my mind. My friend, one grade below me, spent the day sitting in a library with kind librarians and drinking iced tea.
Tell me how this is fair.
*choklit*
Aw, come on.
HAHAHAHA. Like x 1000000etc.
Love you.
There is such a thing as sportsmanship. And supportiveness. :D. And for the record, the iced tea was only at the end of the scavenger hunt.
*fights losing battle*
I just realised that everyone else is probably wondering what the heck we are talking about.
That applies to most of my life, most of the time.
Once again, I have a subscription to Muse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I convinced my dad to let me if I paid for it myself with money from tutoring!
Lucky!!!! Muse doesn’t deliver to Singapore. On the other hand, when I go back to the US I’ll have, like, 36 issues piled up…
How’d you get a job tutoring? *desperately wants something different from teaching 4-year-olds violin*
They DON’T?!?! Oh my goodness. ): ):
It’s not much better than teaching a 4-year-old violin – he’s eight, a beginner, and terrible, even for a beginner. It was through my Strings teacher at school who also teaches the Upper Primary Strings programme. I actually get $200 an hour.
Sorry, I just realised that it might be interpreted as US dollars. I meant Hong Kong dollars, so around US $26, I think.
SFTDP.
I was about to say, $200!?!? An hour!?!?!? But yeah, $26 isn’t bad, considering minumum wage around here is like, 6 or 7 dollars per hour.
@ Cat’s Eye! Yeah! Posting from school FTW! *fist bump*
$26 an hour is seriously good money. I only make ~$8 babysitting.
I know I’m late, but that’s awesome!
I make about $9/$10 per hour for babysitting.
Yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous. In a good way. Though actual violin tutors can charge upwards from 2 times more than what she pays me, since I’m only a high school student.
Okay. *recovers from jealousy attack* But I get about US$7 per half hour lesson. Still. Mine is the most obnoxious four-year-old you’ve ever met, which is saying a lot. To make any progress I have to relate every note, song, technique, exercise, or concept to dinosaurs. And it is very hard to create a dinosaur analogy of key signatures. Also, he completely sucks, and his very pushy mother is convinced that he’s a top-tier prodigy destined for Juliard. I can hardly say, “Your son cannot play a single note, not even an open string, after six classes” so I have to keep telling her he’s brilliant. Is there any way to tell a helicopter-parent that their child has no future in music?
*breathes* sorry.
Whoa. I’m tutoring next semester (hopefully) and I get 16$ an hour.
Dentists. Should die. *headdesk* I have an appointment today, and because of that, I can’t practice for my scene in Acting or study for Chem. And the rough draft of my scene was pure cake, to put it lightly, and I REALLY need practice time, and I have a 90.01% in Chem. I’ll say that again: 90.01%. 90.01. So I really, REALLY need to do well on the final and I think both of those things are more important than my teeth, please…
On the other hand, posting from school is always a win. So yay?
You never realize how annoying the Annoying Orange actually is until your younger brother decides the only way he will give you the computer is if you watch ten in a row with him and then he starts channeling the Annoying Orange all the time including but not limited to after you get home from school before dinner after dinner in the morning RIGHT NOW and sometimes you start to wish that the knife will come down and end it all if he goes, “Hey! Hey Apple!” another time.
Your brother needs to meet my younger sister. They have so much in common. At least she doesn’t do it as much any more, not as much as she did a few months ago…
*sympathy* My entire class is obsessed with that fruit. It annoys me to no end.
An average conversation between my brother and I:
Him: Hey! Hey, RD/Apple! (he uses my name and apple interchangeably)
Me: What?
Him: Hey! Hey RD/Apple!
Me: What!?
Him: Hey! Hey RD/Apple!
Me: WHAT!?!?!?!?
Him: Hey! Hey RD/Apple!
Me: *ignores*
Him: Hey! Hey RD/Apple!
Me: *ignores*
Him: Hey! Hey RD/Apple!
Me: OH MY GOD WHAT DO YOU WANT
Him: Hey! Hey RD/Apple!
Me: You are the most annoying person in the world. Have I ever told you that?
Him: I’m not annoying, I’m an orange! *collapses in laughter*
Me: *sighs*
It’s remarkably similar to the videos. And don’t let me get started on “Wassup”.
What on earth is the Annoying Orange?
Search it on YouTube. Or rather, don’t. It will make you want to hurt something. Violently.
Perhaps you want teach him the one about an annoyed HPB in disguise…
Remind me to never, ever, show those to my brother.
And I haven’t even watched them yet. But if they have potential to make hime more annoying, he should be kept miles and miles away from them.
Well. Tentatively I’m going on a college visit tomorrow to the college I’m 98 percent sure I’m going to. Now I just have to pray it doesn’t snow enough to have said college be closed.
Have a wonderful time! I hope your visit goes well.
(Side note: these ratings are quite exciting. I really haven’t been on here in a while…)
Indeed you haven’t. Welcome back!
*pinks Piggy’s comment*
I have no idea why this comment has so many pies. It seems quite unremarkable to me.
Based on the fact that I just wrote “I know I’m late” on my reply to Sel’s post about her job that was only posted recently today, I guess you guys can tell that I’m tired. Gah.
Some things have been happening in my life recently that I want to update you on ( <— No, the world doesn't revolve around me. That sentence just sort of made me sound like I think it does. Ha.) but I'm slammed with homework and studying tonight, so I'll wrote an uber long post soon where I can ramble about some of the amazingly nerdy things I'm doing!! Yes!!
I just looked on Google Buzz for the first time (weird). One of my friends posted this:
okk… you meso/jiiided NOT MISO SOup! WHAT NONONONONONONO! om… your wrong you kow. chaesiiiiii kar x onlinE!!!!
(and iff yur wunduring, that makes purfact senses to smurt popol!)
Usually I can translate, but this one is really confusing me. (Just to say, I barely know any “chat speak” words.) And if a person has some education they (usually) don’t talk like that. What really annoys me now is that some people actually speak in texting language. It doesn’t take that much effort to say “Okay” but people (one of my friends) say “kk” all the time. It really annoys me A LOT.
I want to make a “One from column A based on the month you were born, one from column B based on the first letter of your first name, one from column C based on your favorite color” type of game for “Things Kai Would Think About”.
I just dyed the tips of my hair (3-4 inches) red. Yay! This is the first time dying any of my hair.
Exciting!
Coloring your hair is one of the great joys in life.
After watching The Matrix for the first time, I am working on a new fanfiction crossover, tentatively titled “ELROND VS. AGENT SMITH!!!!”. I’ll post it when it’s finished.
Ha ha!
Warning: there will be plot deviations from both LOTR and Matrix simply to fit the story, but I don’t think that’ll bother people much.
CROWNING MOMENT OF AWESOME
Crossover fanfiction FTW!
Baking cookies for Pep Band is one of the more fulfilling things to do with one’s time, especially when one is not actually in Pep Band and just holds the music for the flutes because their clips don’t work. It just makes you feel so… worthwhile. *looks at empty plate with a few cookie crumbs on it* I love sitting in the stands with the band. If they ever start marching, I’ll never go to another sports game.
New computer!
I’m not sure if I should ask this on the Calendar or Suggestion Box thread or what, but perhaps the GAPAs could include Chinese New Year on the calendar (unless they already do, in which case my apologies)? It’s on February 3rd this year (and it will be the Year of the Rabbit).
Oh noes! I got caught in the rain on the way home and my vocab homework got soaked.
A good day, altogether.
Slept from 4 last night till 1pm today (woke up twice though). So nearly 9 hours of sleep instead of my usual 6 (averaged 5 over the last 5 days though… oops). Aka, still awake at 4:20am! Keeping two friends company while one makes focaccia bread for our co-op. Should be done in like half an hour. It will be delicious. And then I’m getting up at like 11:30, so I should aim for bed by 5:30 probably, so it’ll work out fine.
Eureka! I have found it! I have found it! A free online Mendelssohn violin concerto score. But still.
And my Gryffindor scarf is coming along well… I now have GRYFFI.
realization: i’m not supposed to eat for about half an hour after taking my meds or two hours before
i’ve been eating sour patch kids all night
i never think about the 2-hour rule because i usually take it in the morning so it doesn’t matter
but uh
looks like i’ll have to wait until post-anthro?
hopefully i finish the exam early so i can come back to my dorm for a bit before work
probably will, i’m a fast test-taker
thinking i’ll probably nap when i get off work and hopefully not sleep through band. just because i know thursday nights are always late nights…b2d, midnight sloopy’s, usually hang out with jake after although i think he has an early friday class (haha, friday classes)
anyway i’ll sleep like all day friday so eh.
i might go bowling with the english-y people tomorrow…the english honor society (the initials of which never fail to crack me up, it’s STD) is doing a Thing. i don’t want to join (lol spending money on honor societies) but i might sneak to events anyway and see if i can become biffles with some profs
that’d be riiight after band though and it would mean i’d be late to b2d. late in the probably wouldn’t get to play any games sense. would almost defs make it back in time for sloopy’s though
meh. i’ll see whatever i feel like doing. and then friday i will SLEEP ALL DAY and then there’s a Thing going on at night. the rennies are doing a madrigal sort of cabaret thingamajig. jake’s in it, in various capacities. i think he’s juggling and doing bits of magic and telling a story and hitting a drum.
and then ben and i are going to not go to anberlin because it sold out while i was waiting for the trumpet section to not be cakes and volunteer to sub for me
but nobody did so i’ll probably have to go that night. it’s a hockey game though, those are fun. ben will be sad though, we’ve been planning on anberlin for ages
hmm, tiredness starting to set in a bit. might grab a 20min nap and then shower and cram and take a midterm and work and nap more and go to band and go to more band and either go play games or go bowling and go out to midnightdinnerbreakfast and sleep forever and etc etc
I flopped onto the couch and slept for about an hour. I haven’t slept at all- as in, really at all- in two nights. And I have bruises all down my arm from sleeping on top of it. Weird.
A good six inches of snow yesterday evening/night, still flaking lightly, last night’s pre-vet club meeting cancelled due to weather, and a good 14 hours spent with Alan yesterday? Almost makes me not care about how bleeding tired I am…..((Going to bed at midnight at the earliest and being constantly sleep deprived is probably not the smartest way to start the semester…..But oh well))
Oh lucky. It’s only supposed to snow an inch over here. Which is, at best, a two-hour-delay. Oh well, better than nothing, I guess.
At least you would get a 2 hour delay out of it….I would have loved my classes to have been cancelled, even just my morning one. Because then maybe I wouldn’t feel like my neurotransmitters are trying to travel through sludge. My whole brain feels sludgy. Sleep deprivation=not cool. And I can’t even blame school….
You get a two hour delay for ONE INCH?!!
If the roads are icy, yes.
So you get a two-hour delay for ice, not an inch of snow.
Yeah, I suppose I should’ve been more specific.
One of the few benifits of blond hair is that you can dye it with Sharpies.
My friend went biking in 4 inches of snow last night with the F***ing Bike Club. That’s really what it’s called. By last night I mean 11pm – 2am.
He’s crazy.
OMGEORGE, the town that’s next to mine is having a “pie parade”. O, the amazing, wonderful, awesome muserlyness of it all!!! On January 23 (pie day, of course), a bunch of restaurants and inns will be offering up their best pies. You buy a ticket and walk around [town] tasting pies, from 1:00-5:00. IT”S FLAMMY.
Just thought that needed to be said
Last month, I saw an end-of-the-year “What’s In / What’s Out” list that predicted that pies would replace cupcakes as the cool pastry in 2011. Maybe the parade is part of that trend.
But March 14th is Pi(e) day!
National pie day is on January 23, it’s on the calendar at the top. It does seem a bit random though, doesn’t it? The world can always use more pie, though…
Well, it is 1/ 23
But of course, that’s the sane, rest of the world way of writing dates.
National Pie Day was actually in my newspaper. Unfortunately, however, the only actual event going on is a pie-eating contest. I wish I lived in your town…
Eh, pie eating contests are pretty awesome! Apparently, the town (well, city) was recently proclaimed “pie town, USA” by the food network.
I have no idea why I wasn’t aware…
I’m going to do some recruiting while eating pie.
College visit = pretty successful (and not cancelled). When we first got there it was chilly, but the sun came out later on, so it wasn’t too cold outside. Not an enormous amount of new information, but I feel a lot more familiar with the college now. It feels right. I talked to one of the two professors in their Classical Languages major. It seems that most students who major in C.L. (of whom there average about fifteen) also major in something else. That’s a possibility I’ll have to think about. For right now, though, I’ll stick with majoring in that and minoring in Spanish. There seem to be a lot of opportunities to study abroad, as well–to southern Turkey for archaeology, to Athens or Rome, to Oxford–including many scholarships to lighten the financial burden of leaving the country for a semester. The honors program there seems like a good fit as well. They’re only waiting to receive my letters of recommendation now. I spent about an hour with the associate director of that program, so hopefully she’ll remember me and look over my application more favorably. The dorm there that’s reserved for honors students is quite wonderful as well. It’s the oldest on the campus, so the rooms are small, but the community there seems to be great.
The professor of Classical Languages had a good point about being an undeclared major. As he saw it, being undeclared basically means there’s no one to look out for you and offer you extra scholarships. If you’re in a definite major, then the professors of that major will get to know you, help you get money and recommendations, all that sort of stuff. And on that note, I’m off to figure out how to change my major.
Is “Ex indagatione, intellectus” correct Latin for “From exploration, understanding”?
Technically, that’s “Out of exploration, understanding”, but it’s all grammatically correct, yes.
True, but “Ex Luna, Scientia” is technically “Out of the moon, knowledge” and that’s usually translated with “From” in place of “out of”.
Snow day tomorrow
means
One day of midterm review left
And zero for English and history.
Why?
I’m thinking of giving flute lessons for beginners. I just need a way to make some money without getting an actual job, because I really have no time for that. I figure if I charge $15 an hour, I can just make some extra money without really working that much.
My sister teaching beginning violin, and she charges $15/half hour. Ask around, see what other people charge for music lessons in your area. Don’t cheat yourself out of money.
Professional violin lessons (given by qualified adults) are around $200/month. If you offer anything under $100 it’ll be pretty appealing.
Wow. I got 3 hours of sleep last night because I stayed up reading the Federalist Papers. I started to regret this choice around lunchtime.
The Federalist Papers?? Why?
What a ridiculous question!
I got a new harmonica! Only $20! (instead of $47.) My other one was all old and gross to put my mouth on. Softball training/season is starting, so I’m getting busy, I won’t post as much, but I’ll still read the threads.
= softball
I was over at my friends’ dorm and there were a few of us sitting in the lounge at 11:30 or so. Someone decided that we should hold Shakespeare readings at somepoint. Then we realized that the school library was open for another half hour! This spurred an impromptu rush to the library to grab four copies of A Midsummer’s Night Dream which we then proceeded to read most of aloud. It was quite an excellent evening.
How does one politely tell an over-controlling, pushy, Irene Pollock-like mother that their son is terrible at the violin, clearly has no interest in it, and is far too young to be learning anyway, and that his parents are wasting $30/month? Said mother is convinced that her son is the next Mozart.
One doesn’t, so one can keep on earning $30 a month.
But I feel guilty about taking their money, since I can’t teach the kid anything and he doesn’t want to learn… *gets over it* I do like money, though. Money is good.
Money is the root of all evil. Not that it doesn’t have it’s uses- I bought over the rights to the name Pablo Sanchez for ten bucks from my friend Agent Baritone during homeroom (friend status is subject to change to enemy status, and so I couldn’t have him using the name.)
I’d say keep trying to work with the child, and if he ever doesn’t let you teach something, talk to his mother about being disobedient and stubborn. You don’t have to tell her that her child is bad, but if misbehaving is the root of that you should just tell her. Or maybe I’m reading this incorrectly… Is he just not motivated? Even that you could tell the mother, something along the lines of, “He doesn’t seem to want to do this, so if you keep giving him lessons I don’t think he’ll try.”
You don’t. You tell them that you don’t think you can bring their son’s potential out to its full extent or you’re not the best fit for him as a teacher or something and here is a list of other teachers in this area to consider.
My parents say that the problem is probably the parents. Say something like “I don’t seem to be able to motivate your son to put in the effort that violin takes. Here is a list of local teachers, if you wish him to continue learning.”
Aunt: I’m going to India for a few medical conferences. Alone. I’d like to travel alone. With no one else. Just alone. Only me. Completely alone.
Grandparents: Okay, we’ll come.
*Nayanama fractures hip* *Tatagaru has open heart surgery*
Aunt: Aww. Get better soon. Well, I suppose I’ll have to go alone.
Grandparents: Don’t be ridiculous. India is full of doctors. We’re on our way.
SFTDP: I should probably clarify that Nayanama is Telugu for father’s mother, and Tatagaru is grandfather. For the record, I have such a large extended family that I have met my Pedama-atta-garu-chinnama, or father’s aunt’s father’s mother’s little sister.
Ooh, sounds like the Jewish side of my family! (Who I’m almost entirely convinced aren’t actually related to us and just pretend they are because my mother is bribing them so she can go to a wedding on the East Coast every few months.)
I’m probably related to most of them, but there are so many aunties and uncles and nayanama-this and tatagaru-thatses that I just assume they’re family. If I walk into any hut in any village in Andra Pradesh, I have about a 1/8 chance of being related to someone in it.
Snow day today!
Noooo
Hm. I received a letter today from a member of the Nobel family asking me to join an invitation-only international society whose Board of Advisors includes Maya Angelou, the founder of SpaceX, the CEO of Dreamworks, several chancellors of universities, the actor and director Ed Harris, and ten Nobel Prize laureates. But more importantly, we’re getting cable and internet installed (from a different provider than our current) tonight or tomorrow. Also, it’s snowing.
….
Cake.
I know. We’ll get a lot more TV channels now.
Oh you.
if it’s the national society of high school scholars, it is pretty much useless if you join .
i know cause i did without looking it up and pretty much everyone says it’s not worth the money
Maya Angelou, Elon Musk and
Gene KranzEd Harris? You, Sir, are impressive.My dad used to work with Elon Musk. *random*
What do you get if you join this society, Piggy?
Not much.
In what capacity?
You extremely motivated person, you. I’m unable to tell: are you feigning indifference or are you used to such proposals?
Congratulations (hence the pie).
You person who uses that phrase a lot, you.
To answer your question: neither. I’m bemused by but not excited about the invitation. It’s mostly hoopla.
Point taken.
Your lives are so interesting. Meeting the CEO of DreamWorks makes touring the personal rock collection of Jim Goodnight, the CEO of SAS, sound boring. It was cool though. They had a dinosaur egg. And a metiorite which I got to hold. No, I am not being sarcastic.
A dinosaur egg and a meteorite? That’s anything BUT boring.
We had a two-hour delay today, so I got some extra sleep, which was great. Also, I finished drawing a picture of Judith Resnik.
We had a three hour delay, which was odd. Everyone was complaining about something: classes were too short, might as well not go at all, should have been a two hour delay, if we don’t have school before mid-terms we’re all going to die. I blew it all of, because the only thing that would save us from the bad preparation for mid-terms would be to go back in time and not tell the teachers that there was going to be snow, because they all planned as if we didn’t have school. Therefore, today became a day of awkward silences filled by the occasional review question and we didn’t have enough time to do anything actually helpful. This week has been a severely compressed mash-up of lesson plans.
On less of a monotone, I got a haircut today! My dad broke his ankle! I’m doing well in the classes I usually struggle with and doing horribly in the others! I’m auditioning for a play tomorrow, my first out of school! Mid-terms are next week and I haven’t start studying! I finished Great Expectations! I’m boiling water! I open Wonderful Town as the Tour Guide in the school play, and then I also get to congo as a Portuguese sailor, make out with a girl at a dinner party, and sing as an irish policeman to a lady! Meanwhile, I feel lonely.
Today was nice. Lunch was frozen yogurt, and half of my knee is swollen (not muscle, unfortunately. It’s a massive bruise.) We’re having a bunch of guests over tonight, so the house smells like crockpot chicken and brownies. My coat was just delivered, and it’s quite lovely.
SAT tomorrow. Doing a practice test now. I am so [expletive deleted]ed on the math sections. Math continues to rape me unabated.
Someone please kill me before 0745 tomorrow?
Good luck! You’ll do excellently, I’m sure. I’m taking it tomorrow too, we can share the pain…
Could you not use the term rape to refer to things that are not actual rape? Thanks.
I second this.
Axa- Yeah, that’s it, and that seems to be an accurate description. You give them sixty bucks and they send you a certificate and a chance at eight or nine scholarships that you’ll never realistically get.
Agent Lightning- I don’t think anyone here has met the CEO of Dreamworks.
Internet/cable installation: in progress.
True.
My cousin sent me vanilla glitter lotion that contains neither vanilla nor glitter.
That is a marketing fail.
I just had an excellent evening. A Japanese couple(one of whom works with my dad) were over for dinner with their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Dinner was nice, but after was the fun bit. See, their daughter really liked stairs, presumably because she wasn’t used to having so much space(they live in Tokyo). Basically, she developed this game where she’d take her mother and me up the staircase holding my hand(toddlers have death grips. Jeez) and then back down. After doing this about three times, we tried to bring her back over to the table. No such luck. She stood in front of the stairs, looking at me with her hand out. We continued until it was time for them to leave.
My back now hurts like cake from bending over the whole time and I’m tired. So very tired. But it was one of the most adorable things I’ve ever experienced. I also made her parents laugh by calling her (daughter)-chan. And my mom told them I liked anime, and it turns out mom likes Death Note. Win.
Anyway, very, very tired. Going to bed now.
Do dodo still awake. Going to aim for bed at 3 though! Well, trying to sleep at 3. In bed now technically (well as much as “blankets on the floor of the fort” counts as bed because I am STILL too lazy to take it down). Building for tech tomorrow yay. And then on sunday is my co-op’s Lord of the Rings themed meal, followed by an extended-edition marathon all night/morning/afternoon. Will be my second such experience in the last 3 months XD
But yeah going to try sleeping earlyish (for me), so ‘night and all
*tries and fails to not be jealous*
What kind of food does a LOTR-themed meal entail?
Well… Lembas…
And all the seed cakes and such mentioned in the first two chapters of The Hobbit, I suppose…
man we have been trying to find time for an extended-edition marathon too! but people keep having things to do >.<
we're gonna go play walleyball today though so that should be fun. and tom's roommate is gone for the weekend, leaving his massive teevee and videogame collection behind
We totally had an extended-edition marathon last semester!
Erm… bread? Bread never fails.
We’ve had three two hour delays so far, which have been excellent, but people are still complaining that we haven’t had a snow day yet. If they give us a snow day, I’ll take it, but having the delay is nice because I actually feel well rested when I go into school! (What a surprise…)
At my school in middle school there’s a main research paper that you do each year for English, and in 6th and 7th grade the theme is basically already chosen for you, but in 8th grade they give you some more leeway on what you’re doing – so as long as the teacher approves you can pretty much pick anything. Well, my English teacher gave my class a list of suggested topics, most of which were either murder mysteries (Which would creep the living hell out of me…so that was an automatic no) or assassinations, most of which I just didn’t really feel like researching.
So I went up to my English teacher and basically asked her if I could research Harry Potter. (Excuse me, “J.K. Rowling and the way Harry Potter has affected modern culture”, which sounded a lot more official…but inside my head, I was just thinking “HARRY. *SQUEE*”) And she agreed, as long as I could find enough information on it, which was easy enough – I mean, hello? It’s Harry freakin’ Potter.
(Couldn’t resist, sorry.) And reading books about books is just about the most nerdy and hilarious thing ever. I started out with Harry, a History by Melissa Anelli – it was a really fun, interesting read which I’d heard of before but never read – and a few other general biographies on J.K. Rowling and the series. Arghhh, it is just the most amazing research paper ever. And now, when I’m on HP fansites, I can just tell my mom it’s for my research paper. 
(Added bonus.)
I am so jealous.
By a really strange coincidence, I’m about to do a research paper as well and almost chose the exact same topic (thinking of it BEFORE you made this post). Though I’m sure it would have been really fun, I ended up deciding to do tardigrades instead, but it’s still going to be one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done for school. Isn’t it wonderful when projects are open-ended enough that they can easily be made awesome?
Wow, that’s cool that you were thinking of doing the same topic! That would have been fun if we were researching the same topic at the same time, but I agree, open ended papers like this are indeed awesome.
I’m also one of the only people who decided to actually take real advantage of the situation – most people just picked something of off the suggested list, but what’s the fun of that?
Although a lot of people in my English class are not..err…as involved in Harry Potter as my life is, which is just too bad because they keep giving me strange looks when I tell them what I’m researching. Meh.
Ooh, sounds fun! HP projects always rule.
I also have an open ended project (no writing unless I want to, thank Odin…but then again I’m not exactly sure what bearing it’s going to have on anything; it’s not a class assigned project.) that I have to do coming up, and, unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do. I have to tell the teacher on Tuesday what I’ve decided…*wracks brain*
*pinks starr’s comment*
126.1~ Thanks, and belated good luck to you as well.
How’d your torture session go?
I think I did okayish. Math killed me, as usual, but the rest was alright and the essay was surprisingly not as evil as I’d been imagining. Hopefully whoever grades it likes John Lennon.
It was okay. My essay was way better than last time, and the rest felt more or less the same. However, I do not understand how one test can feel like it takes seven months.
133.1~ Agreed. It actually didn’t feel as terrifically long and boring as I was expecting though, and I think the reading passages were definitely more interesting than the practice ones I’ve been doing. Or maybe I’ve just been in a funk the past week and finally snapped out of it. That’s probably the case, actually.
The worst part is waiting to find out how you did.
So, so! I have a question!
Yesterday I sent in my written test for the Naational Geographic geography bee. It was great fun (thanks to Hetalia, but that’s somewhat irrelevant), but I’m wondering: is anyone else participating? If you are, I hope we’ll be able to see each other in DC if we’re lucky! (Some girl asked me where Texas. I’m serious. When I answered China, she had to consider it for a second. It was sad.)
In other news, preparation for the Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre have begun! I’m Priscilla, the ailing Colonel’s pushy, overbearing sister with a wimpy husband. She is poisened, gets to call everyone idiots, and has a psycho moment. It’s a great role. Kim and Kenny, the shortest kids in the class (as in very petite) get to have a fight at the end, which I’m looking forward to.
The Murder Mystery sounds fun! I’ve always wanted to do something like that!
And good luck with the GeoBee!
Our’s is annual. So much fun, since out teacher usually writes it.
So, in my Freshman year at my High School, I found the astronomy section and read all the books there that interested me. (Including a first-edition copy of “The Cosmic Connection”!)
In Sophomore year, I found two books related to space colonization in the geography section, just after Antarctica and read those.
In either Sophomore or Junior year, I found the section on space hardware and technology. (Which, by some quirk of the Dewey Decimal system, is always next to gardening. I don’t get that at all.) I read all the books there that interested me, and since there were some great vintage things from the early space shuttle era, I made some photocopies of things that could help me with a story I’m writing.
So, now, I end up in the technology section, where I have never been before, and there’s a whole bunch of OTHER space books, several of which would help me with my story.
Ai ya, what a time to find out! I only have until June before I leave the building forever!
Wow. Our school’s library is pretty disorganised (to me, at least) so it’s hard to find everything. I have found several books on space, though.
And I’ve never seen anyone write ‘aiya’ on MB before, apart from me (I think?). It’s such a Chinese thing – how do you know about it? 0.o
It’s not too uncommon a phrase in American media. I know I’ve heard it in several TV shows.
Oh, really? Interesting. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never lived in the States.
The character Uncle said it all the time on Jackie Chan Adventures when he was stressed. It was sort of his catchphrase. I say it sometimes because I watched the show a lot when I was younger.
I used to watch that show! I loved it. Then they moved all the cartoons to only Saturday mornings…That was a sad moment.
I say “Aiya!” in real life, but I am slightly abnormal…and I take Mandarin Chinese.
You do? Cool!
Not just Chinese. At the climax of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Iolanthe, when it looks as if Iolanthe is about to be executed for disobeying fairy law, the other fairies all sing
Aiaiah! Aiaiah! Aiaiah! Aiaiah!
Willahalah! Willaloo! Willahalah! Willaloo!
I’ve heard a Korean friend say it… she said it was something more of an expletive… I’m not quite sure.
What does aiya mean, out of curiosity? And on the subject of questions (well, not on the subject, but as I’m asking them), who’s Ernest Shackleton?
And on the subject of him, my district spelling bee is on his and Galileo’s birthday! I find that strabgely exciting.
I think the closest translation would be ‘Oh no’ or ‘Oh goodness’ in the case of something bad.
It actually looks like this – å“Žå‘€.
In Singapore it’s aiyo!. And lah. Singaporeans use lah a lot. My Chinese dictionary defines lah as “a particle of many uses.”
I think ‘lah’ is the ultimate Singaporean stereotype, it’s what everyone says when you try to imitate the Singapore accent. It’s just a Chinese accent with ‘lah’ tacked onto to every other word. ‘A particle of many uses’ is a hilarious definition.
How many people have you heard trying to imitate a Singaporean accent?
They call it “Singlish.” The government briefly tried to completely ban it (fail) and even removed a radio song with Singlish lyrics called “Fried Rice Paradise.” Singapore has been constantly trying to ban various things and then giving in to the population’s defiance- they banned in succession long hair cuts, hawking, pork, women in the military, and Rastafarianism before drawing back. I predict the ban on gum will be the next to fail, since you can smuggle a truckload in from Mayalsia any time you want.
“Fried Rice Paradise”? That is a song I want to listen to.
Actually, quite a lot…whether it’s accurate or not is a different matter. Wait, was that the point of the question?
Singapore is such an odd city.
Ernest Shackleton was an Irish explorer of Antarctica in the early 20th century. He’s most famous for his 1914-1916 Endurance expedition, where he set out to cross the Antarctic continent. His ship, the Endurance, was caught in pack ice and crushed, but he managed to sail to a whaling station 800 miles away and get help. The really remarkable thing is that not a single man from the Endurance died.
There was a big surge of interest in him right around the turn of the millenium, although now it’s died down a bit.
Basically he was one of the coolest men ever.
Yes.
Just found out that on my birthday in 1995 (though I wasn’t born yet), Atlantis first docked with Mir.
Nice.
today: built platforms for tech
after dinner helped (read: ate extra chocolate and licked whisk (which was shaped like a squid) friend make Black Bottom Pie. The hung in lounge doing weird acrobatics (aka trying to climb up onto the ledges without using arms/one arm one leg/legs/etc), until another friend wandered by and 3 of us sat and talked about philosophy and books and science fiction and read a lot of those ultra-condensed novels online and watched youtube videos of baby red pandas and otters holding hands and an owl blog.
Then went back to room which is still a fort. For a week now. Oops. But I found peanut butter and cereal and now I’m watching Battlestar Galactica and woo!
Do you ever do anything academics-related at college?
When it’s an academic semester. This is winter term, where we do a project. Mine is working tech for the Firefly musical, and I do spend a lot of time at rehearsals/building, but it’s enjoyable.
why would you post about that stuff anyway?
“today i went to class. then i went to more class. then i did some homework”
nawww, you want to skip to the exciting bits.
Update on the Piggy Cable/Internet Installation Saga:
We’ve discovered that the cable goes out every time we open or close one of the garage doors. Stupid badly-planned wiring….
I made it into Junior Districts
Yay! Next year I’ll try to be as Skilled as Enc and get into Senior Districts 
Great job!
Perhaps I’ll see you!
What chair? (Don’t worry, GAPAs it’s regional, and we’re not telling what district of MA we’re in.)
My mom wants me to write for a youth writing contest. The theme is “If you really knew me.” The maximum amount of words is 750. I can’t think of anything! The winner gets the story posted in the newspaper and other places, so I don’t want to enter in case I win, because I really hate people reading my writing…. And the one idea I have I wouldn’t want people to know I wrote it…. Enter, not enter, enter, not, yes, no, yes, no…. *brain explode*
“If you really knew me, you wouldn’t ask me to enter a writing contest. Because if you really knew me, you’d know that I hate when people read my work. Especially deeply personal work, like, say, an essay with the theme ‘If You Really Knew Me”. If you really knew me, you wouldn’t put me through the deep inner turmoil and emotional distress inherently attached to such a project. But you don’t really know me. So you did.”
Haha, brilliant.
Exactly.
Pseudonym.
“If you really knew me” implies that you really don’t know me though you may labour under the delusion that you actually do. Which means that either you want me to clarify, or I’m supposed to do it out of the goodness of my heart for the sake of honesty and fluffy puppies and soppy family reunion scenes where everything is forgiven. Of course, I suppose if you don’t really know me I chose to hide myself away for a reason, though knowing me, this reason might have simply been that it’s unreasonable. If I write a published article, even anonymously, you’d probably be able to figure it out. Which means that this long charade would be pointless and I hate wasting my life pointless things. Dream on, I have no intention of telling you anything about me that you don’t yet already know. Do you really think I’m just going to pour out my heart to try and reach you? I suppose you could try to insinuate that this charade stems from lack of self-confidence and a phobia of rejection based on imaginary lack of self-worth. It certainly would be the classical argument to try to goad me into talking. But I ask you: do you honestly think you’re better than those others who would and have judged me based on these things I don’t dare tell you? The times I bite my tongue and say nothing? The details about my life that “slipped my mind” when you ever think to follow up? You can say that you’d never judge me based on what I’d reveal, promise it and I’d almost believe you. I’d want to- I want to so badly. But even if I wrote a letter or emailed you, telling you everything I’ve held back and repressed, I’d still have to look into your eyes for the first time after you’d read it. Unless I moved to Alaska and left you behind and believe me, your friendship means much more to me than I’d ever admit. Don’t think I don’t know you well enough after all these years to tell when you’re lying, though it’d be kind of you to try and pretend that we could just keep going like we always have and it didn’t matter at all. Can’t you see it’s for your own good? I’m the one suffering here, trying to stop you from finding out the truth about me that would ruin everything. You think that you’re trying to help me. I wish you’d just stop it already because you’re driving me mad. Why can’t you just leave me alone? I’ll say it freely, I’m not entirely proud of who am I, of what I’ve done, but I’m trying to live like this and it’s working for me, just as long as no-one finds out who I really am. All I’ll say is that of all the people I know, you’re the one who I least want to find out the truth. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that I can count on you, always, and loosing that would break me. Don’t ruin this for me. Why can’t we just stay like this, forever? Because if you really knew me, you’d abhor me and I’d have to agree with you.
…See, this is what happens of you give bookgirl too much chemistry homework.
This is great.
Wow. If you made me write about the county school policy involving snow days, I would be in trouble. Very big trouble.
Write that as the essay- if you don’t mind people reading it.
I have heard that a hawk has taken up residence in the Library of Congress! Apparently, they are trying to figure out how to remove the hawk, without hurting en; the library; the patrons; the librarians; etc. I find this story intriguing, but I cannot figure out the thing I most want to know: have the librarians named the hawk? If so,what have they named en? (I, personally, would dub it “Giovanni.”) Does anyone here know?
143–Trojan Tiger: It sounds to me like you aren’t inspired by the theme and entering would bring you more stress than joy. If the thought of entering makes you unhappy, then don’t enter! It really is that simple.
I just found one of my posts from a long time ago: “Wow. A stone foyer.”
Wasn’t I eloquent back in Jan. 2009?
SFTDP. I just realized my two-year blogiversary has passed and I haven’t noticed. (I first posted on Jan. 1, 2009.)
I was going to mention that to you. I thought I did? I guess not.
Perhaps not. Thanks for thinking of me anyway!
My parents decided it’d be a great idea to schedule my flu shot for the end of January. So, naturally, I got the flu before the shot. Great.
I hate summer camp applications. I’m applying to places that are probably above my level and I’m not looking forward to the rejection letters.
Yesterday a friend and I took preliminary steps for getting an apartment for next semester! Hopefully we can get one of the ones on this street nearby – the apartments are a bit old and run-down, but it’s so convenient to classes.
Romantically I think there’s stuff going on but I’m not sure what it is or if it’s going anywhere. It could be going in three directions or it could be going in none.
Yesterday also I fell down a flight of stairs. My back’s really sore. At least my neck / shoulder stopped hurting.
Has anyone heard about the new horoscopes? Mine got changed, and I like the new one better
I thought that actually the tropical zodiac (the one westerners use) stayed the same?
Correct.
My brother is obsessed with the Annoying Orange. I’ve already posted that. But when he tried to annoy cleverbot… well, let’s just say cleverbot was ready.
User: Hey! Who are you?
Cleverbot: Cleverbot.
User: You’re an apple.
Cleverbot: And what are you?
User: Hey! Hey apple!
Cleverbot: Hey hey orange!
User: Hey! Hey apple!
Cleverbot: You’re an apple, I’m an orange.
User: No you’re an apple.
Cleverbot: Gotcha.
User: Hey! Hey apple!
Cleverbot: I’m an orange.
User: Hey! Hey apple!
Cleverbot: No, I’m an orange! You are an apple!
User: Hey! Hey apple!
Cleverbot: Knive.
For those of you who haven’t been subjected to the annoyingness (spellcheck didn’t like that) of the Annoying Orange, many videos end with the annoyee (another spellcheck no-no) being killed with a knife after the Orange says, “Knife.”
What new horoscopes?
Wow. I was looking through old threads and discovered that me as of two years ago was a complete dolt.
Ouch.
Happens to the best of us.
Everybody’s more exuberant when they first join.
My computer screen keeps randomly tinting pink…
AHH.
I saw a large Coming Soon poster at the movie theater today that featured a pink bunny. Anybody know what movie it might have been?
(Side note: I saw the King’s Speech, which was excellent. Don’t let the R rating deter you – it’s entirely for language, which at least for me isn’t too disturbing, and the story and message are great.)
I-I’m scared.
Possibly “Sucker Punch.” I know it features a mecha with a pink bunny painted on it.
(Side note response: I saw that movie yesterday, and I completely agree with your critique. My friend tried to see it three times, and the first two times it was completely sold out–for good reason.)
(Side note: I saw that too! :D)
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Excellent film.
R rated? For one scene, and entirely for language? It was rated PG here!
Groundhog- When I saw it the session was almost sold out too.
Mmmm, cherry cough drops and vanilla ice cream go very well together.
There will be no goodnight post from me tonight as THERE WILL BE NO SLEEPING. All night Lord of the Rings extended edition marathon is GO (and the LotR themed dinner tonight was delicious). It will probably end around noon, and I have things to do from 12pm to 12am at the least. Probably more like 2am.
WILL JADE SURVIVE HER DARING VENTURE?
FIND OUT NEXT TIME, ON STUFF THAT SEEMS LIKE A GREAT IDEA THAT I WILL PROBABLY REGRET TOMORROW: COLLEGE EDITION
Stuff that seems like a great idea that I will probably regret tomorrow: high school edition:
Not studying for my midterm that is in two days today and staying up until 12:30 when I have school tomorrow.
Let us know if you survive your daring adventure.
My friend was applying for a summer program where you learn how to fly airplanes, but the FAA doesn’t allow people with ADHD to fly. He’s been wanting to do this since he was a little kid. Jeez, what on earth would I do if somebody said I couldn’t study biology? He’s really crushed. I feel so bad for him.
That’s so sad. Is there any way for him to prove to them that he has the ADHD under control and could therefore learn to fly just as well as anyone else?
Not really… We’ve done a bit of research, and it seems like there are only very few exceptions. Fortunately, it also seems that there are a bunch of other people out there with the same problem, and they’re fighting to get things changed.
Weird
The guy that did the killings in Arizona was known to be mentally instable was legally allowed to carry a weapon.
Why do we let people with mental illnesses carry deadly weapons but not peacefully fly airplanes?
1. The shooter has never been diagnosed with any mental disorder.
2. You seem to be equating schizophrenia with ADHD. The two disorders are about as similar as the common cold is to lung cancer.
*walks in*
*collapses*
Oh my, y’all; fantastic couple of days. First I had a long study party with my friends, which, of course, ended up being a lot more study than party. My friend Echo bet me that she could find a vocabulary word that I couldn’t relate back to the Giants or zombies or both, and I managed to relate every single one back to both. (“The zombies shuffled up the side of the brae, unaware that Tim Lincecum was waiting at the top with a shotgun.”) Then she and Egeus made good on their threat to tie me to a chair and make me watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, and of course it was fantastic, and Jack Skellington is my new boyfriend.
Then there was a debacle with my parents ending with me being more than an hour late for the next thing, but that doesn’t belong in a happy post, since it still makes my mouth taste bitter.
And then I headed out to my friend from arts camp’s house!!!! *jumps up and down enthusiastically* I hadn’t seen her in six whole months, even though we’d been texting absolutely constantly, and her school was actually putting on a play that she’d written, and then we went back to her house and watched absolutely ridiculous amounts of Buffy, since she’s an even bigger fan than me, and odd anime, and ate donuts and talked for hours, and it was brilliant and fantastic.
And then I started to do my Chemistry homework, and for the first time all year, I actually understand the concept. Which means I may get an A this semester after all. *flails with joy*
And has anyone else heard the new Decemberists album, The King is Dead? We’ve just got it and I love it so far.
Anemia. It be pernicious.
I scored a goal in field hockey today! And promptly crashed into a very large fellow player! Who proceeded to attempt to grind me into a pulp! Which hurt! And caused a gigantic nosebleed! Yay!
Still. I scored a goal.
You play field hockey?! Was this just in PE, or do you play on a team? Congratulations on scoring a goal, though!
Movies With Incredibly Awesome Soundtracks:
– Star Trek 2009
– The Return of the King
– Star Trek: The Voyage Home
2001: A Space Odyssey.
Apollo 13.
Gladiator.
INCEPTION
Up
How to Train your Dragon
Alice in Wonderland
All the Star Wars movies
Okay, I admit it: I’m a movie score fanatic.
I love movie scores. I have… About ten on my iPod right now, and that’s not counting the three that should be on there but aren’t right now.
Da Vinci Code was only an average movie, but it had a great score.
Lord Of The Rings
Sherlock Holmes!
FOREVER AWAKE
still on Two Towers hahahaaaaaaaa. at this rate I am going to have to miss the end of Return of the King because I have to be at rehearsal at 11. ALAS. Also, thinking about getting some caffeine, haven’t had any yet…
When you eventually graduate and get some kind of job with, you know, normal hours, you’re going to be all “What? Bedtimes? What is this nonsense?”
normal hours, pfft. isn’t jadey gonna photography everything or something?
At lunch the other day my friend P was digging through my backpack while she was waiting for me to finish my calc homework and she found one of my HPB buttons. “Look,” she said, showing it to one of my friends. “Isn’t it adorable?”
“Aww, it’s so cute!”
Be scared.
The decieving cuteness is what makes them so dangerous.
Can anyone age 12-16 answer this? No answer can be more than two words long. No complex answers. Treat it like a multiple-choice test. I need five answers.
(My hypothesis is that people in this age range prefer preppy clothes over gothy clothes.)
1. Do you think that spikes or lace on clothing is appealing over designs?
2. Do you prefer bright or pastel colors over dark colors?
3. Do you like to look elegant every moment you can?
4. Do you like red and black over colors like white and green?
5. Do you like smooth or textured clothing?
6. When there’s a design on a t-shirt, do you like it to be a positive or a negative design?
7. Do you prefer Arial font over Times New Roman or Helvetica font?
If you could get this to me within 24 hours…that’d be great.
1. Lace.
2. No.
3. Yes.
4. Yes.
5. Textured.
6. I don’t know what that means.
7. No!!
(We’re a bit away from the preppy side o’er here, so we may not be the best selection of people to ask. We still count for answers, but we’re not as preppily diverse as the general population… I think…)
1. Nope, I prefer designs.
2. Bright colors ftw. No need to look like a funeral.
3. Well… I do like to have a certain standard every time I leave the house. I loathe tacky clothes.
4. I prefer green and white for everyday and red and black for formalwear.
5. Textured! Smooth is boring.
6. Positive. Definitely not going emo.
7. I honestly can’t tell the difference between Arial and TNR, but I dislike Helvetica.
I already know that I’m biased in a preppy way, for the simple reason that I go to a preppy school and gothy often verges on prolo (comes from the german word for proletariat, slang for teens from poorer areas with tacky clothes, too much eye makeup and strong slang).
1. Lace, yes.
2. Pastel.
3. Depends.
4. No.
5. Sometimes smooth.
6. Hate designs [like that].
7. No, Helavetica.
((Mmm…I don’t. Prefer preppy clothes over gothy clothes, that is.))
If you’re doing research you probably shouldn’t tell your subjects your hypothesis..
Well, does it matter?
PSYCHOLOGY 1 THIRD LESSON
i has it
ALSO WHY DO YOU PEOPLE HATE ARIAL. It is the only font my reports are ever submitted in.
because it suggests what the purpose is to your subjects, so you’re less likely to get unbiased answers?
If people know what the study is trying to determine/your hypothesis, they will probably be biased in answering the questions. You’re not submitting for a peer reviewed journal or anything though, so you should be fine.
I don’t hate Arial, but it’s just a knockoff of Helvetica. I prefer Helvetica.
Do you think that you could have phrased the question differently? Would’ve the results changed? If so, how?
Because it will skew the sample. A subject might want you to conclude that 12-16 year olds will want to wear one type of clothing or another and skew their answers in the direction they wish your conclusion to follow instead of answering honestly.
Times New Roman just looks so much nicer to my eyes. It strikes a perfect balance between old-timey Victorian stuff and new-fashioned round Comic Sans-y stuff. It’s simple, easily readable, and professional, like a nice, plain pair of jeans as opposed to black skinny jeans with studs down the sides or a brightly colored, ruffled skirt. The only font that can even come close to it in my heart is Courier Sans, which gives me happy little typewriter-induced shivers. (Typewriters are the writing implements of the gods.)
Arial has its place, of course, and that place is on the Internet. I always feel odd if a website is in Times New Roman.
The only font that can even come close to it in my heart is Courier Sans, which gives me happy little typewriter-induced shivers. (Typewriters are the writing implements of the gods.)
Hee.
Yeah, this will skew the sample.
Also, just so you know this is a convenience sample! It is a sample of people who are readily available to you.
Okay I’ll stop now. I just took research design last semester so this sort of thing is floating around my head.
1. Lace. [I guess. I don’t really like big full-shirt designs.]
2. Yes.
3. Yes. [Well, sort of, but like bookgirl said, I have standards.]
4. No.
5. Smooth. [Depends on the clothes a lot, I guess? I like soft things, mostly.]
6. I’m not sure I know what this means. Positive, I guess.
7. Helvetica, I suppose. My computer doesn’t have it, though, so I can’t be sure.
1. Designs
2. Dark
3. No
4. Red & Black (Hey! R&B)
5. Not sure what this means
6. I’m not sure what this means. If a positive design is a band logo, then I prefer positive. I like skulls and other negative ones too, but not as much.
7. No preference
1. Not really.
2. No.
3. Noooo.
4. Yes.
5. Smooth?
6. Depends.
7. No.
1. No. Designs are flammy, while spikes/lace are overused.
2. Dark colors. All the way
3. No.
4. Yes, red and black certainly.
5. Smooth.
6. Negative, if that means what I think it means.
7. No, I dislike Arial
1. No answer (spikes and lace can be part of the design, so I don’t have a succinct answer).
2. No.
3. No.
4. Yes.
5. Depends.
6. Depends.
7. No.
When you say “over” you mean “as opposed to” not “on top of”, right?
1) I guess I prefer designs
2) no particular preference
3) Ha, even if I wanted to…
4) no particular preference
5) smooth.
6) positive
7) Depends.
Sorry, I forgot that answer couldn’t be more than 2 words long. I’ll start over.
((Emoticons don’t count as words, and it was the only way I could think of to convey that it wasn’t actually practiced without adding a word.))
1. Do you think that spikes or lace on clothing is appealing over designs? Sometimes lace
2. Do you prefer bright or pastel colors over dark colors? Often pastel
3. Do you like to look elegant every moment you can? …In theory…
4. Do you like red and black over colors like white and green? No
5. Do you like smooth or textured clothing? Smooth! & textured ((i.e. both, especially smooth)
6. When there’s a design on a t-shirt, do you like it to be a positive or a negative design? Positve
7. Do you prefer Arial font over Times New Roman or Helvetica font? Not really
designs
bright & pastel
no
no
smooth
positive
don’t care
1. Lace
2. Light.
3. When in public, or when it’s winter. I just don’t care in summer.
4. No.
5. Textured.
6. Positive….?
7. HELVETICAAAAAAA
1) No.
2)Yes.
3)No.
4)No.
5)Smooth.
6) Positive.
7)Yes.
1) Lace
2) Pastel
3) No, not necessarily…
4) No
5) Smooth
6) Positive, although it depends
7) No
1. No
2. Depends
3. No
4. No
5. Yes
6. Positivity FTW!
7. No
1. What?
2. Yes.
3. Not all the time.
4. No.
5. What?
6. Positive.
7. Arial is boring.
I know it’s been more than 24 hours, but I like taking quizzes
Wait a minute…*looks up fonts* Times New Roman is boring too, because it’s used so much.
Okay, more on the Google-is-reading-my-mind front- does anybody else get “The Return of William Proxmire” as the first hit for “The Return of W”?
Yup.
I do.
Phew.
163:
1. Do you think that spikes or lace on clothing is appealing over designs? I hate spikes. As for whether I prefer lace or designs, it really depends on the design.
2. Do you prefer bright or pastel colors over dark colors? It depends on the color. In general, I suppose I’d have to say pastel and not bright, but there are so many exceptions that I really think it’s best not to give an opinion, though it’s kind of late for that…
3. Do you like to look elegant every moment you can? Well, I prefer looking elegant to the alternative in theory, but I rarely go to the trouble.
4. Do you like red and black over colors like white and green? No
5. Do you like smooth or textured clothing? Both, but I suppose I prefer smooth
6. When there’s a design on a t-shirt, do you like it to be a positive or a negative design? Positive
7. Do you prefer Arial font over Times New Roman or Helvetica font? I don’t know what Helvetica looks like, and I’ve no preference between the others.
164: Yes, who is he?
SFTTP, but if that ampersand counts as a word, it can be changed to a comma.
I think Robert mentioned Figment a while back (hmmm, suddenly unsure whether to italicize website names. What would Strunk and White say?), it’s a writing website aimed at teens. I was recently introduced to Turnstyle (dotcom), a news website in the same vein. It’s aimed at teens (well, 18 to 34 year-olds, technically), mostly written by teens, and partially publically funded. All-round froody in my book!
Studying for midterms. Locked in room. Shut off phone. Facebook is deactivated. Reading through three hundred years of European history.
Also, I’m writing my research paper on why the Bible is an outdated and just plain bad moral guideline. So. Freaking. Excited.
Don’t expect to hear from me this week, I need to study like mad. Kick me off if I come back. No, I’m not even kidding. Tell me that nobody cares what I say, and I should go back to studying or I’ll turn out to be a sad, pathetic excuse for a human.
Kbye.
I’m interested to hear your arguments for that paper. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” seems to me to be a fairly good moral teaching that isn’t out-of-date.
“Kill your son because I said so, no questions asked”? There are definitely good examples of morals in the Bible, but also bad ones.
You’ll notice that A. Abraham didn’t kill his son, and B. that was an instance of God directly testing the patriarch of the entire Judeo-Christian religion complex, and not a moral teaching telling everyone to kill their children.
The fact that Abraham was prepared to commit atrocities just to please God sends the message that everyone should be prepared to commit atrocities just to please God. They shouldn’t.
Before we continue this conversation, please define “atrocity” so we have a common base of discussion.
Killing your son is an atrocity, and that’s what I was referring to. But forget atrocities. My post could have been:
The fact that Abraham was prepared to kill his son just to please God sends the message that everyone should be prepared to kill their son just to please God. They shouldn’t.
Also, there is the sexism and other beliefs that are just wrong in the Bible. So it has some morally correct things and some morally incorrect. As Cat’s Eye said, there are “regulations on how to sell your daughter”. In what universe is selling your daughter morally acceptable?
(For my response, see post 171.)
That whole story was more about giving up what’s dearest to you in order to serve God. God was testing Abraham’s faith and willingness to obey, but God didn’t want Abraham to actually kill his son. He just wanted to see if Abraham would say yes or no (and here I am, reading the mind of God. I hope to high heaven I’m getting this right). Also, the incident established the principle of No Human Sacrifice in Judaism (and later Christianity). We know now because of that incident that you should not kill your son to please God, but that might not have been the case back then.
Abraham was about to. That counts as bad in my book.
On the other hand, there’s all the attitudes toward women and daughters, toward sex, toward non-believers, toward slaves, and most of Leviticus in general..
But, according to Christianity, the Mosaic law is no longer used, having been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Thus the laws in Leviticus and the rest of the Old Testament no longer apply. If one wants to argue that following Mosaic law is wrong, I would agree with them. In its time it was correct to follow it, but its time is over.
I feel like “love thy neighbor as thyself” is a wonderful moral guideline, but some Bible passages were quite clearly written thousands of years ago. For instance, quite soon after the Ten Commandments comes a whole list of regulations on how to sell your daughter. Also, the stoning of adulteresses is certainly considered an extremely harsh punishment today, and I personally have always felt uneasy about God killing all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians, and the Hebrews killing quite a lot of other tribes and/or taking them as slaves.
Not that the Bible’s intentions weren’t good. But it was a product of its time, in which “an eye for an eye” was a warning to make punishments more lenient. Not to mention being translated from Hebrew to Latin to English through a ridiculous amount of languages, which really doesn’t help with interpreting it. (Of course, all of the above focuses on the Old Testament, since all my religious study happens for forty-five straight minutes every Tuesday at post-B’nei Mitzvah Hebrew School, so if the New Testament negates the above, disregard my babble.)
Good luck on your midterms, dear fiancée of mine!
I haven’t examined the morality of the bible, but in one of my classes, about education and books in the middle ages, we’ve started by examining the Bible and looking at instances (there are bunches) where scribes got bored or lazy or tired and miscopied things. Text when the scribes were writing waslikethisallpushedtogether and was rather hard to copy, especially if the scribe was only vaguely literate. They might’ve known the shapes vaguely and not been copying them perfectly. They might’ve wanted to change something to make it fit their own views, they might’ve tried to change back something they thought was wrong but had a false corrections leading to three versions: the correct one, the first change, and the attempted correction.
This was a problem with most Medieval copying, not just the Bible but it affects the bible today.
You didn’t deactivate MuseBlog, however?
Good luck on your midterms!
I find it interesting that people are still using the Bible.
Oh. Yeah, I didn’t mean to step on any toes with that. But I need to argue both sides for the paper, and I think both sides can really be argued rather well. I suppose it all depends on the interpretation. For example, Catholicism actively denounces homosexuality, yet the Episcopal church that my family belongs to has a gay priest, and many of the people who attend are openly gay. I think all religions sort of cherry pick through the Bible to create a religion that is “morally correct” according to the founder’s/leader’s views. For that, I don’t think that the Bible is really a moral guideline anymore. Nobody truly follows it wholeheartedly.
The paper is going to be a tremendous undertaking, but it’s going to be really interesting too. My English teacher also teaches college level world lit, a class in which they read the Bible, and she wants me to enter my paper in a contest, so she said she’d help me. She actually brought up what piggy was saying, some laws and rules that are mentioned in the Old Testament are overridden in the New Testament, and told me that we’d talk about it more in depth in a writing conference. (I’m going to have A LOT of help with this. Not that I need it, but she really wants me to do well in the contest.)
I think I’m more interested in this because I find the Bible to be really fascinating. Despite taking religion classes since I was about four, I never really learned about the Bible, and that’s part of the reason why I stopped this year. They just taught us morals, and various stories to reinforce them.
For reference, I’m agnostic-y. Rather unsure on how I feel about religion, though I think the Bible, historically, has done more bad than good.
Okay, I just wrote a novel on my opinions on the Bible. This is when you start yelling at me to go study.
Tesseract, my love, thank you for your support, my dear wife-to-be.
Oh, yeah, forgot to mention this- perhaps we shall move this conversation to Hot Topics? Don’t be offended if I don’t respond to anything, like I said, I really dong know much about the Bible. Also, I have to study!
Have you heard of “The Year of Living Biblically”? It’s a memoir from a guy who actually lived according to the Bible for a whole year. I haven’t read it, but it seems like a useful resource for your paper.
As a point of reference, Catholicism is, to my limited knowledge, the only major religion founded by its own god instead of a human representative of a god. The line of succession from Jesus to Peter and down the line of popes is well-documented and unbroken, and the interpretation of scripture has remained constant since the earliest days of the Church.
Well, that’s sort of my point. The interpretation has stayed constant through hundreds of years. It seems unreasonable to abide by the same code of laws (because that is, essentially, what the Bible is giving us) for hundreds of years without making any changes to it. I mean, look at America’s legal system. We still are making changes. Life and the world change all the time, why should we not change our moral laws?
So we shouldn’t love our neighbors as ourselves? And is killing fine now? Morals remain the same; their applications vary depending on societal customs.
Although you could argue that the Bible doesn’t have a lot to do with the universal morals like “love your neighbor” “don’t kill people” – those existed before the monotheistic religions, and, after all, the Bible has a ton of smiting and killing.
I don’t feel very comfortable debating in this area, and so am largely trying to stay out of this, but I agree with Lizzie here. One thing that has always bothered me is when people equate Christianity with morals–I’ve heard a lot of “I don’t do X because I’m a Christian” or “That’s not a Christian thing to do.” I’ve also heard people claim that if a Christian does something amoral, than they are not, in fact, a Christian. I’m not saying the Bible doesn’t provide a valuable moral code, far from it, but I do think that there are certain fundamental universal morals that don’t need to be written down in a holy book for us to follow them.
If morality is not governed by religion, what does govern it? Take away religion and matters tend to collapse into relativism, which allows for all sorts of horrid things to happen.
Addressing this from a different angle:
(I ask you to bear with me with a slight suspension of belief on your part, so that you can see my side of things.)
Imagine, if you will, the possibility that there is one definite, absolutely true religion. All of its tenements are wholly and universally true, and what it teaches is inherently correct and just. In such a religion, do religious teachings and universal morals differ? That is to say, in this concretely correct religion, is there any difference between a religious teaching saying “Do not kill” and the basic human moral saying “Do not kill”? If this religion is entirely correct in addressing the entirety of truth, wouldn’t its teachings be exactly the same as fundamental, natural morality?
((At this point, don’t get ahead of ourselves. My argument’s only halfway done; simply give an answer and let me conclude.))
I think there is a difference, slightly, in that the religious moral would be enforced more by “this is what God requires you to do” and the inherent moral is enforced by “this is what is accepted as the right thing to do.” But I see your point, I think, which is that yes, for someone within that religion those two things would be more or less the same. (You can give your conclusion now.)
I’m speaking as someone outside the big organized religion, though. I’m a reform Jew who doesn’t believe in God and accepts Judiasm more because it’s a part of my history and who I am than because I subscribe completely to its beliefs. (Background info: three of my grandparents fled germanic Europe with their families as children because of the Nazis.) I like the culture and the customs and I suppose yes, some of the morals too, but I don’t try especially to follow a religion’s set of morals. When I make a decision, I do what I feel is right. I like to think that I live a moral life without a set of religious guideposts marking the way.
I think you’re describing the No True Scotsman fallacy! I’ve stolen this example from Wikipedia to illustrate it:
Teacher: All Scotsmen enjoy haggis.
Student: My uncle is a Scotsman, and he doesn’t like haggis!
Teacher: Well, all true Scotsmen like haggis.
I just googled it and that sounds more or less right. One site actually had the example with Christianity:
“In some Christian groups, for example, there is an idea that faith is permanent, that once one becomes a Christian one cannot fall away. Apparent counter-examples to this idea, people who appear to have faith but subsequently lose it, are written off using the ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy: they didn’t really have faith, they weren’t true Christians. The claim that faith cannot be lost is thus preserved from refutation. Given such an approach, this claim is unfalsifiable, there is no possible refutation of it.”
Granted, the person from which I heard this logic was a Pentecostal minister (who also told me that I was going to hell not only because I’m Jewish but because I believe in evolution, after which, I confess, I was too ticked off to listen to anything he said in a remotely unbiased way), so I’m sure it’s not representative of all Christians.
Uck.
Well, define “constant”. I’m fairly certain the Catholic Church has finally admitted that the earth goes around the sun by now.
When has astronomy been the same thing as interpretation of moral teachings?
Since they were both decided to be explained by the word of God in the Bible. The church taught that the sun circled the earth just as they taught that to kill was wrong. When it was proven that the earth circled the sun instead, they denied it for years and years because it contradicted the literal word of the Bible, in which God, at Joshua’s prayer, stops the sun from moving in the sky, not to mention that the Bible specifically describes Earth as stable and unmoving. This was later decided to be reinterpreted as meaning that God had stopped the planet revolving instead, because new information had come up that made the previous theory impossible. The interpretation of God’s word changed.
I ask again, when has astronomy been the same as official moral teaching? Never. The Catholic Church only claims infallibility on official moral and doctrinal beliefs affirmed by the Magisterium and the Pope. The Galileo affair was no such matter. Have Church officials made mistakes? Of course. We’re only human. But, by our beliefs, God protects official morality and doctrine from inaccuracy.
Oh, maybe the religion thread, come to think of it. As Cat’s Eye said, I forgot to mention this, there are a lot of good morals in the Bible, but they seem to be outweighed by things like, stone lepers, stone prostitutes, stone women, stone children, stone slaves, stone liars, etc.
(That was a hyperbole, please don’t take that last sentence too seriously.)
I am dancing around my house’s library dancing to Charlie McDonnel/charlieissocoollike’s album, This is Me
DON’T JUDGE ME
I am doing my homework(which, unfortunately, doesn’t involve dancing) to the very same. *highfive*
*judges*
You are an incredibly awesome person.
Oops.
160.1.1- DUDE YEAH except not, I’m probably going into science. But maybe i can get a weird-hours job anyway XD
But yeaaaah I’ve always had a hard time falling asleep (have to be laying down for an hour before I can unless I’ve gotten less than 4 hours of sleep the previous night, if that’s the case it’s reduced). I’m naturally a lot more nocturnal than most people are.
STATUS UPDATE:
– Was tied in the morning
– Slap happy and lunch then calmed down about 1pm
– 2:30pm started getting tired so showered
– 4:30pm started getting tired again, so at 5 did 200 crunches and some jumping jacks and walked a bit, which woke me back up
-5:30pm wasn’t as tired, but it’s the time when a friend and I exercise, so we did that (400 crunches plus plank stuff) and it also woke me up
– 6pm dinner, was fine
– 7:30 getting driwsy again so probably going to go for another walk.
I’m going to a sing-a-long at 9:30 (the last one went till about 2am), and I don’t nap, so I just need to amuse myself till then and then I’ll be fine because I’ll be doing more stuff. All I’ve had to do is some light exercise to wake myself up, which isn’t bad.
Part of me is tempted to see how long I can push this but the smart part of me that is interested in things like survival is probably going to make me go to bed no later than 3am, which would be early for me for a normal night. We’ll see! I promise not to kill myself though.
tied in the morning? or do you mean tired?
Hahaha, whichever you prefer
but yeah tired. Which I am not currently. Although I still haven’t slept. WHUT
In re: Morality of the Bible:
As I mentioned, everything that people have taken exception to is matters of Mosaic law. And as I said, Mosaic law is not practiced by Christianity. When the Law was in effect, it was morally correct to follow it. But Christ fulfilled the old law and established a new one in its stead. Now, there were numerous reasons why God gave Moses the six-hundred-some regulations we call the Mosaic law. The most important two reasons are 1. to serve as a temporary punishment for the sins of the Israelites in the desert, and 2. to act as preparation for the final law. Both of these reasons were fulfilled through Jesus–as a Redeemer, for the first reason, and as a King, for the second reason. Thus, the old Mosaic law is no longer in effect–that’s why Christians don’t have to eat kosher food or worship in a synagogue or do anything else proscribed in the Mosaic law. If anyone wants to argue that following the Mosaic law is immoral, I would entirely agree with them. The old law was correct in its time, but its time is past.
Now, most people would now raise the objection regarding the Ten Commandments, saying that either A. we should’t have to follow them since they’re part of the old law, or B. if we follow them we have to follow the rest of the law. However, the Ten Commandments were not part of Mosaic law, but rather a summary of natural law–that is, the basic, inherent morals that all humans have always had and will always have. No killing, no stealing–these are universal.
Thus, the only laws that Christians have to follow are the natural laws and the commandments and precepts laid out by Christ in the New Testament. In my personal beliefs, to say that the Mosaic law should or must be followed is immoral.
And this is when I stop debating until after I finish my research. I can’t really get into a more in depth argument without knowing all of my facts. I’m definitely going to keep everything you’re saying in mind as I’m researching, though, thank you.
Though Christians may believe that the New Testament revokes some aspects of Mosaic law, we Jews have a somewhat different interpretation, what with not believing in the divinity of Jesus at all, and such.
‘Course, that depends on whether you’re Orthodox or Reform or Conservative or Reconstruction or what, and whether you’re Ashkenazi or Sephardic, and whether you’re practicing or nonpracticing…
The way I’ve always interpreted the morality issues in the Bible is that yeah, the morals in the Ten Commandments are universal, just as you say. But that doesn’t mean that everyone always follows them. People lie, people steal, people murder. But when they’re told that God will do some smitin’ if they do steal and lie and murder, the crime rate drops. People don’t mean to be bad people. But they need help every so often, and if believing in Hell makes them better people, the ends justify the means, yeah?
It worked when everyone was a Middle Eastern shepherd, anyway.
re: Ten Commandments being universal
this is kind of repeating Vendy’s post below, and the numbering of the commandments varies, but since I was curious/bored:
1: I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other God, no idols
Religion-specific. Not universal.
2: Do not take the name of the Lord in vain
Again, religion-specific, not universal.
3: Honor the Sabbath
See above.
4: Honor your father and mother
Good advice.
5: Don’t kill
Universal.
6. Not commit adultery
Depends on circumstances. If you and your partner are into open relationships, does that still count as adultery? What if neither partner is married / emotionally attached to another person?
7. Don’t steal.
Universal.
8. false witness
Universal.
9 / 10 covet neighbor’s wife / possessions
Isn’t this the basis of modern capitalism?
The more I think about it, the less sure I am of how universal some of these are. I’m calling it The Robin Hood Problem. Obviously stealing is wrong. But it can be right when it’s in the face of great injustice, correct?
So as a little game I tried to come up with some sort of list of rules or principles that are more universal. I liked Universal Unitarianism’s seven principles (listed below), but they don’t give very specific guidance. It feels like a more complete moral code would need layers, with rules such as “don’t steal” being superseded by something like “All have the right to life.”
Thoughts?
* The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
But, as I’ve studied them, most religions say they’re universal. For instance, if Judaism says it’s universal, then it’s also universally true that you should keep holy the sabbath. You seem to be arguing (partially, at least) relativism, the discussion of which would open up a whole new can of worms.
Well, those can depend on your interpretation. My rabbi says the Sabbath is the Biblical equivalent of vacation days, and that it means that for one day a week, you ought to stop thinking about baser stuff like the harvest and the farm and turn your mind to God, as well as taking a break for your body. The adultery rule bans open relationships, yeah, but back then, open relationships weren’t exactly the norm; if you were a dude you could have lots of wives, but that was just about it, and later that was prohibited, too. And I’ve heard it said that not taking God’s name in vain and not having any other gods was just common sense. I mean, he’s a large, angry dude up in the sky who can kill at his pleasure, and he can either make you the luckiest man on Earth or smite you. You’re probably going to want to show respect.
Ok, I don’t know if this is the best place to debate this, but I feel strongly compelled to add to this discussion. I might be making a mistake, but hey, no question is a stupid one, right? Hopefully it helps Beedle.
168.5.2- Founded by its own god; are you referring to Jesus? Isn’t Abraham the founder? As for other religions, Hinduism and I’m pretty sure some Chinese religions claim to be founded directly by their gods, with no human middleman. But hey, who’s got divine inspiration and who doesn’t? Hard to tell.
Now, more factually, the Catholic Church has been anything but constant and unbroken. The job of pope was a highly valued one in medieval times, as the church was often a governmental and economic body was well as religious one. So, lots of people claimed the seat, often at the same time, and to great political machination and confusion. A quick Google search turned up at least four instances in which even the church isn’t entirely sure, Silverius and Vigilius is an example. As for law and interpretation, debate still rages today (condoms and HIV/AIDS. grrr.) The Councils of Nicea are perhaps the most famous for deciding church doctrine, but lots of specifics have also been decided haphazardly, for the true word of god (Gospel of Thomas?).
Most of what I know comes from my study of the Byzantine Empire ( <3 ), if anybody is interested I highly recommend the podcast lecture series12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of The Byzantine Empire, by Lars Brownworth, as well as Constantine’s Sword, by James Carroll, although the latter is more specifically (detailed! so much detail!) about the Church and the Jews.
171-Maybe this comes down to translation, but doesn’t Matthew 5:17-19 specifically say “not abolish”, but instead “fulfill” the law? And if there are verses contradicting that, why are there contradictions?
I guess I just don’t get having a ‘chosen people’. So what if your ancestor saw his father naked? It shouldn’t decide your fate. Anyway, I don’t understand how moral truths can be declared outdated or subjective- if they’re true, what changes that?
Finally, natural laws. I don’t know if there are natural laws. As far as I can tell, from an evolutionary standpoint, there are right things an wrong things that we as a species universally respect. What those things are is harder to pin down. However, God’s name, the Sabbath, and honoring parents are all in Moses’ 10, and I’m not sure they’re universal. They also all come before the ones about murder and adultery. Then come the coveting ones, which just don’t make much sense to me, and certainly don’t seem to be universally right/wrong.
I’d say there are, roughly speaking of course, three types of moral laws/codes: natural ones (fundamental ones that people everywhere tend to agree upon, although they are rather hard to pin down), group B (can’t think of a concise way to define it, but basically morals that one finds and respects on one’s own. They are generally influenced by the values of society and are not generally defined specifically; more of a case-by-case thing. Some may be defined too, like “I don’t do drugs” or “I don’t gossip about my friends.”) Then there are religious morals, those prescribed by the religious text of a group. These are all defined.
The first two can adapt as society changes. The last one cannot change except through new prophets and interpretation (although some religions don’t changes their interpretation much, according to Piggy).
Okay, that was more than I meant to write. Does it make sense? I need to stop posting things like this from my iPod, they’re so hard to proofread that way.
Jesus was he founder of Christianity. (“Upon this rock I will build my Church”, etc.) Abraham, as directed by God, is generally cited as the founder of Judaism. (See my discussion about the abolishment of the old law for he distinction between the two religions.)
Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” There are no verses contradicting this. Basically, Christ is saying that the old law was correct–it isn’t to be destroyed, as one would destroy an evil thing. Instead, he fulfills its conditions and thus completes it. The old law is done and the new law is established.. Read Hebrews 8 and Romans 2-4 and especially Galatians 2 for scriptural proof of these matters. To quote Galatians 2:21: “For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain.”
Galatians 3, as well, lays it out very clearly.
Seems odd to me to treat Jesus as the founder, if the religion was ‘built up’ after being founded by Abraham (working for the same god), to the schism. I guess I’d call him more of a prophet. In any case, that means there have been many religions founded or represented in some degree by their gods on Earth, from the Incas to the Japanese to the Rastafarians.
I’m just using a different definition of ‘fulfill’ then, I thought it meant something like “augment”, but in this sense it means more “replace”.
Perhaps this belongs on Religions or Hot Topics?
1. Do you think that spikes or lace on clothing is appealing over designs? Sometimes-lace in dainty quantities can be lovely. Oh, wait-do you mean “more than”? Not generally.
2. Do you prefer bright or pastel colors over dark colors?
It depends on the color. I like neutral colors and don’t like bright pastels, but a pop of navy or lime green is nice.
3. Do you like to look elegant every moment you can?
It’s better than the alternative.
4. Do you like red and black over colors like white and green?
No.
5. Do you like smooth or textured clothing?
It depends.
6. When there’s a design on a t-shirt, do you like it to be a positive or a negative design?
Do you mean in disposition, or in color?
7. Do you prefer Arial font over Times New Roman or Helvetica font?
Not particularly.
I just discovered I’m horrible at taking surveys.
Sorry, I accidentally just liked that comment instead of the one above it.
I love this place.
That is possibly the most liked comment on the blog.
Teacher: You should have finished questions 1-3 by today.
Students: You never told us to finish questions 1-3 by today.
Teacher: Yes I did. It’s right there on the board. Oh, wait… no it isn’t. But you should have the questions finished anyway.
Students: How were we supposed to know that?
Teacher: I’ll be collecting questions 1-3 now.
I have had teachers like that…
Is Molly Ivins awesome, or is she awesome? I just found a copy of Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She in a cupboard.
Why do the best people always die?
So, I have one reference for one school, and I’ve sent an email to my captain of the past two years asking if he’d write me a letter of recommendation. I really hope he will, because he’s excellent at writing formal letters.
It’s cold. I’m cold. My room is at 64 degrees (F), the warmest it’s been for awhile. The past week or so it’s been hovering around 52. *shivers*
I’m considering taking a Wilderness First Responders course, I dunno. It might be handy for future jobs, and I imagine it’d be a more interesting context to learn these things than a standard setting. On the other hand I’m just like “meh, medical stuff. I don’t go to doctors, I don’t use medicine, why should I take this course?”
Also, Pip’s going to be taking it (it’s near his school) so I could stay at his dorm and all, which would be nice. It’s $700 though, which is a hefty price for something I’m kind of on the fence about. And the registration date is coming up, la de daa my life is so disorganized. I still have to apply to boat jobs and figure out how in the world I’m going to manage my time this summer, and even what kind of time I’ve got. URGH. I am so disorganized.
And yet with all this stuff I desperately need to do, I’m incredibly bored.
At school, finished AP Gov midterm. It’s about two hours until the bus comes, so I’m waiting for the library to reopen.
It’s always creepy how quiet the school is during midterm week.
Update: Forgot to post last night, but went to bed about 3am, so I’d been up for 40 hours. Slept for a good 10, so I’m back on track now.
10 hours? That’d be to one. Do you have any morning classes?
Nope. We’re on winter term, and as I’m doing tech for a musical my hour vary day to day. Today I’m just working on building an engine out of cardboard in my room, so it wasn’t a big deal that I slept so late, heh.
Winter term? My school has semesters. Is that a trimester? Why are you only working on a musical and no class? My friend’s school has fall term, winter term, and spring term trimesters too!
Well, there’s 2 normal semesters, and then winter term. Winter term (some schools call it january or j-term) is just a month long (jan 5th to feb 1st or so), and instead of a normal schedule, students pick one project/class to do the whole month. You can do things like languages, where you learn in a classroom or go places for ~5 hours a day (split into two sections), or work in a play/musical (acting or technical), or do research for/with professors, or pretty much anything else you can think of. You can do projects that have been planned out, or pick your own (have to have it sponsored by someone and approved by your advisor, but most projects, no matter how whimsical, get passed). I have a friend who is doing analysis on characters in the Harry Potter books, one who is learning Hebrew, one who is learning electric guitar and is also doing a musical therapy project with a clinic in her hometown, one who is learning Alexander technique (for his music), several who are learning circus stuff from the campus circus club, one who is learning embroidery, etc. You can also do it on campus or at home or anywhere else. Someone else I know was going to do a camping trip through a lot of the forests in California. Students have to do at least 3 winter term projects.
We go back to a normal schedule for 2nd semester in february. It’s been a lot of fun so far though! I’m also eating in a co-op, where we all (about 40 people) rotate cooking/cleaning/making tasty things instead of eating in the college dining system (which is more expensive winter term because there are a LOT less people on campus). I’m in the sci-fi/fantasy hall co-op so it’s extra fun
I am extremely jealous! Especially of the food that you must be getting/making in that co-op.
Sometimes the food is okay (like broccoli special meal where everything was made with broccoli) but there are also a ton of delicious things! Including 4am focaccia bread!
Today was the Non-Symbolic special meal. Which was very probably politically incorrect but kind of hilarious in an awful way, but it’s something the internet should probably never hear about
(no, it honestly did not have anything whatsoever to do with sex, get your minds out of the gutter!)
At my school it’s called (W)intersession.
Oh! J-term is the only thing I’ve ever heard it be called. Sometimes I get envious of it.
I just hit the “random” button and wound up on a thread I had forgotten all about: MuseBlogeography.
A “random” button?? Where?? I love randomness!!!!!!
Scroll up form the recent post bar and click on the link where it says “Want to explore MuseBlog in ways even the GAPAs can’t predict? Click here.”
It’s on the sidebar, under the headline “REALLY Random”.
Ok, so my friend’s dad is a voice professor at my college, and this semester he’s putting on Mozart’s “Magic Flute” (an opera) with his students. And he asked me to make some animations that will be projected onto the walls around the performers as part of the scenery. I am ridiculously excited about it.
I’m vegetarian, have been for the last 24 hours, and hopefully will continue to be.
Yup. Lifestyle change. Thought I ought to let you all know.
Why? Well. (generally, not in all cases) Good for the environment, good for my body, and good for my brain because it gives me something to control, something to choose that can’t be taken from me.
My parents aren’t especially pleased.
Actually I’d describe their mood as annoyed and being obnoxious about it. But it’s not their choice. That’s the point.
In other news I had a horrible day and a panic attack that left me with blood dripping down my arm.
And the play I’m in opens tomorrow.
That’s a big change! Good for you. Are you swearing off all meat, all the time? I ask because I know lots of people who do, and are very happy with it, but I just could not imagine myself going cold turkey (pardon the pun), even though the environmental benefits appeal strongly to me. Now isn’t the right time for me anyway, but a vegan friend of mine, who eats the way she does for what I think are reasons similar to your own (control, health) actually does eat non-vegan from time to time (obviously not heavy cream or red meat), which confused me at first. Many different approaches.
Sorry to hear about terrible day and panic attack! I bet your play will go off splendidly.
I think you’re a more dedicated person than me. I’ve been sporadically vegetarian for no more than three weeks at a time, but never could keep it up.
*is worried about panicking/blood*
Good luck with the play!
*is also worried about panicking/blood*
Good luck with being vegetarian, and I’ll be coming to see you in the play(not tomorrow, but you get the idea)
Cool! I’m mainly vegetarian, but I eat chicken and turkey; my dad eats basically all meat, my brother eats the same as me except no turkey, and my mom’s vegan. Changing diet to exclude things can be a bit tough to focus on; so I wish you luck with that!
I’m really sorry you had a horrible day.
Good for you! I’m also a vegetarian, it’s nice.
I’m sorry about your horrible day…I really hope whatever’s bad gets better soon.
Good luck! I’ve always wanted to eat vegetarian, or at least try, but I’m waiting for college so I don’t have to deal with talking to my family about it. (My brother makes a habit of making fun of teenage girl vegetarians.)
In my case the jokes your brother’s likely making are extremely fitting, if inappropriate. Thanks for the support everyone!
Obligatory happy 5am post!
Oh, Jadestone.
It is snowing hard here and I don’t have school! Yippee! *dances*
Usually it takes me twenty minutes to get to school. Today, it took an hour – and when we were just pulling up to the gate and literally right outside, my school calls and tells us it’s a snow day. *headdesk* It took us another full hour to get back home…Basically all the kids that did make it to school are going right back home now. I’m glad it’s a snow day, though. I really needed the day off to catch myself up on everything. And sleep, ahh, the sleep.
*dances with LBK*
Although I have to come up with my thesis statement/prelim outline for my HP research paper, and I was thinking of something along the lines of: Harry Potter? Heck yes! (For my thesis. I would just love to see the look on my teacher’s face if that’s what I turned in.)
J.K. Rowling is my idol.
Ditto.
Argh, I love this paper SO MUCH. *happiness* (Sorry for bragging, by the way. I know these posts might seem sort of obnoxious, I’m just still excited that I was allowed to research it.)
No exams, so it’s stay-home-shovel-snow-and-study day.
184~ Yay for becoming a vegetarian! The vegetarian threads here are good, though rather dead. If you ever need encouragement or anything just let us know, there are a handful of vegetarians/vegans on here (including me) who would be glad to offer any assistance we can.
As far as parents, a lot of them seem to get upset when their child converts to a different eating style. If they try to force you out of it just confront them with facts about how it’s a healthier lifestyle overall and can actually be cheaper, too. You’ll do fine. *hug*
I’m sorry to hear about the panic attack, I trust you’re doing better now? *more hugs*
Good luck on the play! I’m sure it’ll go spectacularly!
Um. Started work on two folder/book things that mom is convinced I should use to put my college application stuff (essay, transcript, partial portfolio) in. This will be interesting.
Also sent three letters. One for the GED office (which, if you’re following my epic tale of woe regarding my relations with said office, is still being evil), one in code for a friend who likes languages and codes and cracking them, and one with a friendship bracelet. I feel all productive-like about this.
Then friend called crying, because mom’s yelling at her, brother’s yelling at her, grandfather’s yelling at her, (now ex) boyfriend’s yelling at her, LIFE IS NOT GOOD IN GENERAL and promised to take her to youth group because her car is dead and we’ve been wanting to visit anyway. Also said we’d stop by grocery store and get vegetarian bacon and eat it without even cooking it and revel in its absolute disgustingness.
Got permission to take her to said youth group, it was declared (by said ex boyfriend) that we shouldn’t go be because we didn’t belong. So we now have plans for her to come over, eat uncooked soy bacon and other favorite junk foods, moan about period cramps, watch mindless youtube videos, attempt to bellydance and generally have an fantastic time without any losers to dampen our party of awesome. FTWaffles.
But now: ESSAY. *ominous music with lots o’ dun dun dun dun’s*
My school confuses the schedule during midterms so that you skip some classes and have extra time during others, and it is confusing the heck out of me. I Still have to study for English midterm on various books we read.
On the plus side, less classes means teachers have no opportunity to assign homework.
Oh hey nevermind then. Muffy’s not coming over because the sky’s decided to start belching down loads of white crap that’s not fit to be called snow, and has made the roads all gross. That and when I asked if she could spend the night, since the roads are just going to get nastier her mom said no. Blah. We have postponed our uncooked soy bacon and bellydancing party of awesome until the weather get’s it’s act together.
That also means this evening gets to be solely dedicated to, you guessed it, THAT EVIL ESSAY I’M SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING THIS VERY INSTANT! Face, meet palm; you’re gonna be great friends.
Last sentence = had me LOLing.
I completely agree
Laughing out louding?
You mean I’m not the only person who has ever been a bit bothered by that? Yay!
That is, I’m not objecting or anything; you can say what you want; I’ve just always found it slightly annoying when abbreviations don’t make sense.
LingOL?
Laughinging out loud?
Really, “I am LOL” would be the correct formation.
Hm. Maybe it would be better to just say ‘This made me LOL.’
Yeah, I had assumed that LOL stood for “Laugh Out Loud” not “Laughing Out Loud”, but perhaps not. besides, I think that when you say LOLing, LOL becomes a verb, and the ing makes it present tense. In any case, Pedants should just stay away from chatspeak, because it’s not exactly written by English Scholars.
What do you propose instead? LingOL?
Softball practice is killing my legs. I’ve been sitting on my couch for four months.
Really need to get back to running.
And my new P.E. class and the guy that sits next to me talking about all the drugs he has taken and how long it’s been since he has taken said drug and how long he was suspended and worst things he has done that won’t be mentioned.
My dad went to a meeting with a friend, and he looked like one of the Vulcan ambassadors in Star Trek! So cool.
New semester and I have advanced art now! *happiness* The person that sits next to me is (really bad).
Life = Good
I also really need to train Burney (my puppy).
I also really need to stop stressing about school. And the essays I should be writing and the history tests I failed. And how I believe I am mentally challenged in English.
Life = Bad
My life is good but sort of confusing at the moment so no really coherent post just a general update
Today worked on building the engine for firefly and had D&D and after we all went to Stake & Shake and hung out and then came back and things went sort of confusing but maybe in a good way?
More later maybe we’ll see. Going to be up for ages because thinking but not going to be online really
Normally I’d just assume it’s a typo, but knowing you, I’m not sure- Is Stake & Shake a misspelling of Steak & Shake, or a vampire themed restaurant?
*mystified*
Arrglptz. My science teacher signed me up for a high-stakes national science competition. Despite the bold letters on the signup sheet that said For 11th and 12th grade students only.
I failed the technology part of the quiz completely. I cannot read C++. I cannot write a Java applet. Sue me.
What a coincidence! My younger brother needs to write a Java applet for a science competition thing too. He’s got some experience programming though. May I suggest an online course?
CTY has some good ones.Oops, you need to have qualifying PSAT scores to take courses through them, and I do not know if you have taken or plan to take the PSAT.
Anybody know any other online courses?
Aha! I just remembered How to Think Like a Computer Scientist
(Java Edition). I’m currently using the Python version, it’s pretty good.
Ooh, thanks! I’ve been meaning to start learning computer programing of some sort.
You can’t take the PSAT in middle school. I’ve tried. *feels very nerdy*
you can, however, take the SATs.
Really? I thought it was the other way around. Does it depend on where you live, or am I just mixed up?
OH. MY. GOODNESS.
MY DAD IS GETTING ME A KINDLE!
It’s my (very) early birthday present. I’ll be able to have it once we arrive in the States on Saturday, since we ordered it to our friends’ house so the delivery would be cheaper. Along with my new shoulder rest! Saturday can’t come quickly enough.
Nice!
You are lucky, Selenium. I have a kindle too, and I can tell you firsthand, they are epic. I found out a way on mine to access the internet, and I found some free games in the kindle store. Be warned, though, if you drop the kindle, it will most likely brake. Be careful with it.
Whoa! *does happy little jig* I’m so happy for you! And you’re going to the US….
Thanks, everyone! And Beetles, for the advice.
Choklit Orange – yes, I am, tomorrow. So sorry I can’t take you!
Almost twenty-four hours until take off! I won’t be able to sleep tonight.
SFTDP:
25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster.
Seems rather inappropriate for me to be saying this, after my post above. In fairness, though, I did technically post that on the 27th and this on the 28th.
Is it the 28th your time already? It’s still the 27th blog time. (Apollo 1)
Yes, it was around 1 am on the 28th when I posted that.
Uhm, is it legal to just cancel a midterm? Because math was just cancelled. And now my average is stuck in the eighties. Low eighties.
Why was it canceled?
SNOW.
I’M IN A RAGE.
I managed to do something resembling a french braid today. I’m excited about this, as I’ve never been able to do that before. I’m wondering if it would be possible to do a french braid all the way around my head in a crown-like sort of arrangement. I think that would be quite lovely. Also, since my bangs are now down to the bottom of my nose it would be handy in allowing me to see things again. However, I don’t think I’d be able to do a french braid all the way around my head, I had enough of a time just doing the 4 inches on the side (the braid is opposite the side part, going behind my ears). Ah well.
Midterms *groans” I just finished one of the worst midterms I have ever had. I don’t like biology.
Hmm. School was cancelled. Not sure why; we only got flurries.
I just spent a very enjoyable day with my friend down at the river. We made up very, very… special song lyrics. (East is the beast. West is the best. West is the place where they all go to rest! Etc. Etc. Etc. [in opera] And I want to staaab them… [un-operafied] AHHHH! Aww, SHUCKS. ) Actually, he made up most of the lyrics; I fell down. Since we were by a sort of ditch (a very big one) it was a long way to fall. But it was fun.
I hate tests. *throws pies of sympathy* They are supposed to test what you know but you always blank out because you’re nervous. Then I always say, why did I miss that? I knew that! I think that they mess up your brain on purpose. Studing for the SATs for this program thing I am doing… and of course I missed the deadline… So I have to go to all of these extra measures to take it… Oh well. I hope I get a good essay question. And my computer froze up. Anyway… tests are terrible.
I feel like letting everyone know that I’m still alive and the reason I’m not posting anything is because I’m currently trying to finish Yu Yu Hakusho before I go back to Jordan and there’s always a cliffhanger and I need to watch the next episode and…yeah. I stayed up till four watching anime. 75/112 episodes finished. Oh, and that post on my Jordan experience will come. Eventually. It’s in my mind, I’m telling you.
I need some feedback. I’m 13 years old and have read Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston. 127 Hours has just come out in our town, and I’m wondering if I should see it. Is it more or less graphic than the book in, uh, the graphic scene? If any MuseBloggers have seen it, this would be a great help.
I saw it on a plane and while they do pan the camera away from the arm-amputating bits, the effect was sufficient to put me off meat for three weeks.
203 (muselover)~ I haven’t read the book nor seen the movie. However, I did do a brief google search. I’m assuming the graphic scene you’re referring to is his cutting off his arm? (I remember hearing about this guy in the news whenever it came out, I don’t even remember.) I do have a few ideas about your decision though.
My advice is thus: if you want to see the movie but are worried about only one scene, make sure you sit on an aisle seat in the theater where you can leave quickly and without disturbing anyone else, of you must. That way you can see the rest of it, but not have to worry about being forced to see something that makes you uncomfortable.
Another concern I’d have is that the movie is rated R, and since you’re 13 that means you’ll need to go with an adult. I’m not sure exactly how it works, whether it can be with anyone over 18, or just your parents, but from what you’ve said in the past are your parents okay about you going to a movie with that rating?
In response to your last question: yes. In fact, I only checked IMDb to see if it was playing because I thought my dad might want to see it. It was a complete surprise when he asked if I wanted to see it with him. I suppose this change in restrictions as of late (being allowed to see The King’s Speech, Moon, The Matrix, and all PG-13 movies that don’t have much sex) is because they must realize that I’m a teenager now and can handle more than I could when I was 10. I dunno.
I may be moving to Oregon?
Neighbor, nooooooo!
Don’t worry, I think my mom might’ve been screwing with me.
Why does my family always do this to me? I was getting my hopes up…
I was hoping that you would, because then we’d be able to Kokon. Also, Oregon is awesome.
You know what? When I graduate, I’m going to take a gap year and just travel the world. I’m going to go all over. I’m going to kokon with every single muser in America, then I’m going to England, then I’m going to Singapore and chill with Choklit Orange, and then I’m going to Hong Kong and visiting Sel.
And realistically, that’ll never happen.
Don’t forget Australia (Maths Lover) and Austria (bookgirl_me) and possibly somewhere else for someone neither of us thought of.
You’ll have to come to Russia to visit me- of course, assuming I get in.
-A
Oregon’s relatively near Washington…compared to, of course, Austria or Singapore.
You live in Washington?
Yes.
In other news, I was just poking around ASTA’s website and looking over race results from the summer….Niagara came in third place her division on the 3rd race and first place her division on the 4th and final one. We also won a Seamanship Award,
“Presented for special service to the fleet, in the true spirit of seamanship
(for providing the assistance of expert divers to sister brig Roald Amundsen)” Because one night Roald rand aground and Niagara crew went out to save them in the middle of the night before the 4th race.
The first race Niagara didn’t compete in, and the second or third one (can’t remember which) we crossed the finish line first, but the race results are based on corrected time.
I just felt the need to brag. It’s an interesting feeling, looking over a webste with ship names and race results and looking at the pictures to see familiar faces and thinking “I was there.”
Cool! Also, you know, I love what the name of the sister brig was…
I want to go home.
I take it that going home is not really an option for you though?
Goodspeed Apollo 1- Ad Astra Per Aspera.
194.1.2–Actually, at some schools, you can. I’m only in seventh grade, and I’m going to. I think Mikazuki is, too.
191.1.2.1.1, 191.1.2.1.1.1, 191.1.2.2: “I am LOL,” might confuse people, though. You could always just say, “That made me LOL,” or, “I am laughing.” Again, though, it doesn’t make a major difference to me.
Not in Singapore, though.
206.1 (Kai)~ Yeah, the Roald is a fun ship. She’s from Germany, and a sister brig in that they’ve swapped a fair amount of crewmembers. Including myself, actually. I sailed for about a week (including the first race) on her this summer. Didn’t learn much German though. :p
School’s over! California, here I come! (I need this vacation badly. Thank goodness for Chinese New Year.)
Have fun!
I’m not crying. *cries* Have a great time and do some wonderful skiing for me.
It’s not very late, but I’m not functioning very well. It must be time for…
A STUPID SENSELESS SMILEY STORY!
I have always wondered what it’s like to pull an all-nighter…tonight may just be the night.
Never have I ever, and it’s something I pride myself on, so far. I’m going to lose my all-nighter virginity to something really special.
-A
Alice–my all-nighter wasn’t as bad as I expected (though I am used to little sleep). Just do exercise when you start to get tired. Brisk walk/short jog, sit-ups/crunches, etc. Caffeine is good but don’t drink more than someone might on a normal day. Food is also good, and if you eat the right stuff will wake you up (aka no junk food).
Today worked on the cardboard engine and had people over to my fort to watch the last episode of the BBC Sherlock. And got a phone call.
So yeah. We’ll see.
Error
Unknown opcode f4 at 8457
SUCCESS
MIdterms are over!!!!
Does anyone else have the day off today or is that just me?
Nope, I’ve just had half days since Wednesday. My classes today are 20-30 minutes long, which basically means we’ve been learning nothing. But finals ARE OVER!
Midterms were over for me two weeks ago, but I do have the week off! *is way too excited*
13 hours…
I took a several-hour-long nap this afternoon wrapped up in my blanket on the windowsill. So I’m now wide awake, but my dad says I can stay up as late as I want since I can sleep on the flight/get more adjusted to US time.
Had my last midterm today as well.
I had off all week, except for Monday. I just had to go into school when I had an exam. I have the rest of today off, and then a congress at three. It’s Harry Potter themed.
Really, I barely have enough self control to keep myself from just screaming right now. It’s Harry Potter themed. After, we’re going to see That Guy’s Band play at a cafe.
i do!
but that’s because i have no friday classes
Did anyone else watch the Life in a Day movie yesterday on YouTube?
You know how Starr and I almost ended up doing a research paper on the same topic (Harry Potter)? Well, it turns out that my paper (which I haven’t yet begun; I found out about it way in advance) has to be about progress and how something has effected society, and that wouldn’t work with tardigrades, so I’m doing HP after all!
After a quick google for tardigrades, I can conclude that they are very very awesome.
/randomness
I’m a mess. The past few days should have been great. Yesterday we had a snow day, and today my crush sat next to me 3 times (twice by choice) and seemed to be finally returning my interest. Instead I did something I hadn’t done for almost a year and had sworn never to do again. I also cried twice, made out with my evil-quasi-ex-girlfriend in front of my crush, left a basketball game as soon as she joined it, and basically alienated her. Oh, and I went to the nurse’s office twice because I was bleeding and failed a math test.
*hugs* There’s no way I could possibly understand what you’re feeling, but I care about you and don’t want this to happen to you. I thnk that’s how most of MuseBlog feels. We care about you.
*huggles* I second what Ducky said. We’re here for you.
After jazz band, my friends and fellow saxophonists were good-naturedly threatening each other with violence and my friend Kiwi said she could never hurt anything unless it was nonliving. Then I said, “Does that apply to Horcruxes?” and they all gave me weird looks. I mean, who doesn’t know what a Horcrux is????
Radiant Darkness, I hope your days improve. All the MuseBlog does.
I want to note that, without MB, I would not know what a Horcrux was.
You’ve never read Harry Potter? I thought everyone on this blog had.
She said on a different thread that she has. Maybe she only read HP because of MB?
I’ve read Harry Potter, but only up to Book 4. Everything after that, I know because of MB.
218 (R_D)~ *hug* I hope things get better.
My grandparents are here from Wisconsin, and shocked that there’s lots of snow and it’s cold here. It seems to be the general attitude among Wisconsinites that winter doesn’t exist anywhere except the midwest, and perhaps Canada and the poles, but even those are iffy.
But yeah, they’re here and amazed, and it’s kind of like “uh, what are we going to do for five days stuck in the house because of snow and coldness and somehow avoid killing each other?”
I got some earrings today! My other grandma (my dad’s mom, who my mom’s parents are staying with while they’re here) had just brought a box up from the basement of stuff she hadn’t sorted out from the fire, including a lot of earrings. She let her ears grow shut again and wasn’t going to bother repiercing them, and since I didn’t have any she gave me several pairs and a cute tin to put them in.
I’m wearing one pair now, they’re silver three pence coins. They’re dangly and cute. The other pairs were beaded blue corn, brass disks with eagle cutouts, woven rainbow tassels and silvery hearts with patterns on them.
Then we went to Ten Thousand Villages, and I got another pair, which are simply awesome–red/orange peace signs with brown stripes. They’re large-ish and bright and fair trade and wonderful. I plan on wearing them tomorrow with mostly gray and low-key colors so they’ll stand out like a visual BOOM.
Tomorrow we’re going to see The Music Man, and I can’t wait.
I love The Music Man. I wish that there were 76 trombones in our band- it would balance out the 30 trumpets. But some of them switched to baritone. How many trombones do we have? One.
*Stands in gray Muse Academy courtyard with rest of student body*
*Steps up to podium, shuffles papers and clears throat*
“Yesterday, in 1967, during training for the first crewed flight of the Apollo program, astronauts Virgil “Gus†Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed when a fire broke out in their space capsule.”
“Forty-four years ago yesterday.”
“On this date, the 28th of January, 1986, a rubber seal aboard one of the booster rockets on the Space Shuttle Challenger gave way shortly after liftoff. All seven of the crewmembers- Francis “Dick†Scobee, Michael Smith, Ronald McNair, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis and S. Christa McAuliffe-perished.”
“Twenty-five years ago today.”
“On the 1st of February, 2003, damage to the heat shield that had occurred during launch almost 16 days later caused the Space Shuttle Columbia to disintegrate while re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere after a routine mission. The seven astronauts onboard- Richard Husband, William McCool, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon -were lost.”
“Seven years ago next Tuesday.”
“The cause for which they gave their lives was not conquest, nor vengeance, nor hatred. They went into space hoping to improve the lives of all of us here on Earth. To explore the Universe, to promote cooperation, to gain scientific knowledge, to create better materials, to find new places for our future settlement, to educate our children.”
“They went Mostly Harmlessly and fully aware that danger was inherent in the nature of their profession. They knew they could die. They went anyway. Their cause was our own, and in their name, it must be continued. That is their Challenge to this, our present generation.”
“In our present time, the greatest quest of adventurers is the exploration of space. In the 60s, the first footsteps on the moon were the ultimate goal, and today, our work with space stations and shuttles builds towards a first landing on Mars.”
“A century ago, there were still many great geographical challenges and mysteries on the surface of our own planet, and the great goal was to be the first to stand at one of the poles. Robert Peary and Matthew Henson were the first to the North Pole in 1909, and Roald Admunsen the first to reach the South Pole in 1911. About ten years later, the attention of explorers turned to the “Third Poleâ€- the unclimbed summit of Mount Everest.”
“In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine set out to make the first ascent of Everest. They were never seen again, and Mallory’s body was not found until 1999. Even today, historians don’t know if they made it to the summit or not.”
“But Mallory’s fellow explorer, Howard Somervell, offered this statement when asked if he thought Mallory’s death was worth it:
“The loss of these splendid men is part of the price that has been paid to keep alive the spirit of adventure. Without this spirit, life would be a poor thing, and progress impossible.â€
“Thank you.”
*Lights candle and walks away from podium*
*claps*
I’m listening to Lost in the Blue in remembrance.
I couldn’t sleep until 4 AM last night (that is, today).
I have knitted a tardigrade shawl! The tardigrade ended up looking more like a pig, but I intarsia’ed TARDIGRADE below it to get my point across. Thanks for the idea, Bibliophile.
Wow! Team Tardigrade!
That is brilliant. I wish I could knit. That’s really awesome.
I can knit, but only scarves. That’s about as much as I can do.
I made chow mein for diner, it was good! However, it made me have a headache. Is it just me, or am I inheriting my dad’s allergy to wheat and sugar? *is scared*
Wow.
Harry Potter themed congress was amazing, I made friends and was called cute. By a male. Everyone’s dressing up tomorrow, and I’m going to be Moaning Myrtle. After the congress we went to a cafe to watch That Guy’s Band.
Oh my gosh, they were so amazing. The cafe was really small, hot, steamy (the windows were fogged up), and packed. The only reason we weren’t kicked out is because we sat on each other’s laps. It calmed down after a while, though. As we were leaving, I waved to That Guy, and I got a smile and friendly nod back (he was playing his guitar). Died on the inside.
Anyway, it was just great to take a break and hang out with friends and listen to some great music and make some great jokes and debate some great bills. What a nice night.
What’s Harry Potter themed congress? It certainly sounds amazing.
I’m in this club called Model Congress, it’s basically a debate team, and we go and meet with other schools to debate. There’s always a theme, and the theme this time was Harry Potter. We were hard core debating in Harry Potter costumes. A basketball team from the host school was walking down the hallway when we were going to the cafeteria, just staring at us in our Harry Potter costumes.
I need to explain something to everyone about congress. These kids. They’re not only the smartest group of people you’ll ever (never?) meet, they’re eloquent, polite, nice, and also crazy. We always cheer at meals, and it’s insane. We get up on the tables, and start screaming our school’s name on the top of our lungs. If the host school’s board needs to get our attention, we stop. Everyone is silent within ten seconds. Hardly any adults attend; the students in charge are so organized. Everyone is responsible, we always end up where we need to be, and it’s still fun. I can’t even fully describe how amazing it is because you couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like unless you attended one.
The people are so friendly; it’s really helped me to come out of my shell. You can, no joke, sit down next to someone and say, “Hi, you’re my friend now,” and they will accept that.
The debating is amazing as well. I was in Supreme Court this time, where we debate previous supreme court bills, so it was rather difficult, but it was still fun.
I cut that post short.
Debating is obviously the reason why we have the club, and it’s what I love. Everyone is really such a good debater. Imagine 200+ high schoolers debating in an auditorium. It happens, and it’s amazing. Everyone is quiet and respectful. The speaker has everyone’s attention. I love it. I love this club so much.
Well, I am trying out for a solo in jazz band! And best of all, I can sort of play it! After only 15 minutes with the first tenor part and a recording from the sheet music website, I can almost play something sounding remotely like the solo!
HP themed congress sounds awesome.
What’s the solo slash piece?
-A
Hm. Unfortunate phrasing there. I thought you meant a piece of one-person slash fiction.
Ooh, that’s awkward.
*tries very hard not to think about it*
Oh, has Jack been crossing his own timeline again?
I’ve been thinking about the internet and how long I’ve been a part of it versus how long other people have been a part of it. Else-internet, I was reading a thread about how other people were about to start rewatching Babylon 5. They were all reminiscing about how the world was when they first started watching the show, particularly the internet and how that was around ’96-’99. None of it seemed applicable to me. I, too, have seen that show but from 2008-2009. On the other hand, it struck me that I was using and posting on the internet back in 2003 which wasn’t that far away from 1999 compared to today. Back in 2003, I was using MB and posting on MB. So, as much as I can’t relate to their first watching Bablyon 5 fourteen years ago, I can relate to posting on the internet a while ago. 2003 wasn’t over ten years ago, but eight years is quite a bit of time ago too, internet-time wise.
It’s called Limbo Jazz. It’s a Duke Ellington piece.
today was fun!
woke up, got on a bus to ohayocon. my friend from middle school who i thought was going wasn’t able to make it this year but i did get to see jesse (a friend from cleveland) and i hung out with tom and sarah and santa and met a bunch of people
i didn’t have a pass (i borrowed one for a bit to look through artist’s alley but didn’t think buying my own was worth it) but i wandered around and talked to people and generally had fun. and then when we got bored with the anime we went and crashed the magic the gathering prerelease party that was also happening this weekend at the convention center. ran into jake there too, he being all pro. so tom, jesse, and some of jesse’s friends and i sat in the corner playing magic. waltrip and adin and one of their friends were going to join us but i left before they showed up
now i am heading home because i have to do taxes and may as well do my laundry for free. also a gluten-free bakery just opened right by my house and i need some delicious baked goods in my life
tomorrow i have to write a paper :-/ should be easy though. not sure how long i’m staying at home…i have to be back on campus by 6 tomorrow but most people i know are gonna be at ohayocon, sooo…yeah, might just be lazy and write the paper at home where i have free snacks and a large comfy bed
have to wait for dad to come get me though. maaan can’t wait until next year. assuming we ever get this caking thing together. renting houses is so full of drama.
Piggy has created a new calendar system, after being inspired by the system from the Elder Scrolls series.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
1. Each year has 12 months.
2. Each month has 29 days.
3. Each week has 6 days.
4. Every three months there is a four to five day festival that is not counted in any month.
5. There is a condition for leap years in order to keep the calendar aligned with the seasons.
6. The total days equal 365 (or 366) days, so that it can be used here on Earth.
7. Each month begins on the first day of the week. Thus, the last week of each month has only five days, but the sixth weekday is skipped, not carried over to the next month as in the Gregorian calendar.
Days of the week, in order:
Soldes
Lundes
Vendes
Martes
Jupites
Sates
Months of the year, in order:
Inanta
Alta
Tabesca
Pluvia
Aperta
Vivida
Medita
Calida
Proventa
Pruina
Opima
Foca
The year begins the day after the winter solstice (in the Gregorian calendar, December 22nd).
The festivals take place after Tabesca (Spring)*, Vivida (Summer), Proventa (Autumn), and Foca (Winter). The winter festival has five days; the others have four. However, in the first year of every cycle, the summer festival has five days instead of four.
The years are numbered not by the individual years but by the “cycle” (that is, four-year-period). Cycle One began on December 22nd, 1891. Thus, today (January 29, 2011) is Martes, 10 Alta, 31.4 (Marta, the 10th day of Alta in the 4th year of the 31st cycle).
*”Spring” is not the meaning of Tabesca, but rather the season in which the festival takes place. Likewise for the other three.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
If any of that was unclear, please ask; I want everyone to be able to understand this. I made a PDF version of the calendar that makes it a bit more clear, and if requested I can send that to the GAPAs. Also, if you see any mistakes in my maths (that would make the year add up to 380 days or something), please tell me. If you’re curious how I got the names of the days/months, I can explain that too.
How did you come up with the names? What is it called if something happened before Cycle One (December 22nd, 1891)?
The names of the days of the week are similar to the current names–based on the astronomical bodies.
Soldes – Sol – the Sun
Lundes – Luna – the Moon
Vendes – Venus
Martes – Mars
Jupites – Jupiter
Sates – Saturn
The months are a bit more complex, but all based on Latin. A few of them are precisely Latin words already; the rest are derived from them.
Inanta – empty
Alta – deep
Tabesca – thaw
Pluvia – rain
Aperta – open
Vivida – vivid
Medita – middle or meditate
Calida – hot
Proventa – harvest
Pruina – frost
Opima – rich
If anyone can figure out why I chose 1891 for the start of Cycle One, I’ll bake them a virtual cake. I’ll help narrow it down: for the specific year, I just wanted the leap years to line up with the Gregorian calendar. So there was something that happened in 1891, 1892, 1893, or 1894 to which I’m paying homage. More hints to come if no one can figure it out.
Foca – hearth
Whoops, the last month got cut off from the rest. Oh well, I’m sure you can figure that it shouldn’t be below the paragraph.
What would you call a date before 1891, as in something like February 12 1809 (the date of Darwin’s birth)? Like B.C. years for the calender.
Guesses:
– The invention of the Telsa Coil
– The publication of “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”
– Gandhi’s first act of civil disobedience
– New Zealand’s becoming the first country to allow women the right to vote
– Some anarchist attack in Europe?
Thomas Edison invented the first (silent) motion picture stage?
Nay.
Is the December 22 significant?
Apart from it being the day after the solstice, no.
Trojan Tiger- I haven’t really thought about it. I guess this calendar, in my mine, hasn’t been intended as a fully utilizational modern calendar. More like a calendar of a fantasy primitive nomadic people or something. So they’d probably refer to such a date in rather unspecific terms. But for our uses? Hm… I guess I’d say to use it as we use B.C. years–counting backwards from the start of Cycle One. But use B.T. instead of B.C.
KaiYves- Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Perhaps my last sentence to Tiger up there may contain a clue.
In my mind, that is. (An itch, if badly enough timed, can cause all sorts of typos.)
Yes, count backwards from Cycle One–but count the cycles backwards, not the years. For instance, December 22nd, 1890 would be: Soldes, 1 Inanta, 1.4 BT.
The Chilean civil war? The opening of Stanford University? Ellis Island?
None of the above.
J.R.R.
Well, J. R. R. Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 (Soldes, Inanta 13, 1.1). Some would consider that an event worth commemorating.
Ah… You mean 1891? *was racking her brain trying to figure out what happened in 1981 which would interest Piggy*
Riiight… never mind.
Ha, me too.
STS-1, natch.
Vendy and Robert win cakes.
Are the other dates different peoples’ birthdays?
Other dates?
Never mind. I thought you meant each year, not just one of them.
Yesterday: Worked on tech stuff, did some choreography for a fight scene, dinner, then later that night watched the end of season 1 of Torchwood with a friend via the internet. Took a shower around 2:30 am because why not. Went to bed early (3, 3:30am) because there wasn’t much to do.
Today: got up, went to co-op to make cookies for people while 2 friends of mine made chocolate zucchini cake. For lunch ate half an orange because my stomach hurt but I wasn’t sure if it was nausea or hunger or a stomachache : P it happens to me sometimes, possibly because I usually never get hungry (I just eat when it’s times that it’s convenient… sometimes I forget though and end up not eating till dinner. Oops.)
After that I was PRODUCTIVE and did LAUNDRY and CLEANED. Then short ab workout with a friend (we try to do 300-400 crunches and a few minutes of plank every day), then dinner, which was thai themed. And I did crew after dinner, which took TWO HOURS because there were so many pots to wash. x_x
Then was NERF. Which was funnnn of course. Ended with zombies, and both games I was one of the last few people standing, wooo!
Going to try to go to bed EARLY. And by early I mean like TWO. That’ll be the earliest I’ve gone to bed all winter term if I manage XD Probably won’t be able to sleep for ages, but… yeah. We’ll see.
jadey, you should come up to OSU for our spring HvZ! i’m sure some clevelanders will be heading up, you should try to find one with a car
we could nerf it up
Hahaha right, I was supposed to try to go to bed by two. Ooooops. An hour late >.<
Still better than me, who is just now going to bed at 4:15…..Cake it all, I can’t keep not getting anything done.
The Music Man was good. I made a trivia quiz about the musical beforehand, so we had something to talk about (other than listening to g’ma M’s constant monologue). I think they enjoyed it, although g’pa refused to talk after he got the first question wrong. *sigh* Oh well.
The play itself was good, they did a great job, though in my mind Robert Preston will always be Harold Hill, and I will always be in love with him. Even though I don’t actually find him that attractive. Whatever. He was one of my first celebrity crushes (before Orlando Bloom even) and he will remain in my heart forever. ♥ This guy did pretty well though, obviously was copying the movie in a lot of it, but then, RP is pretty much the defining Harold Hill, so that’s to be expected.
Tomorrow and Monday will be interesting. I hope things get better, but I’m not super optimistic. I just hope I can avoid getting sucked into it all. I am annoyed at Dad for thinking it was necessary and acceptable to tell g’ma M all about my personal life, including breakups that happened last winter. So you can bet that the rest of the family, our old homeschool group (the closest I have to mortal enemies) and anyone else she happens to run into will know any and everything he told her. Great. >.<
And my ear is a bit sore, so I think no changing earrings for awhile. Sadsad, since I'm finally able to. But whatever, I'll live.
I'm tired now with an early morning ahead of me, and should probably be writing this in my journal, but oh well. MB is my journal it seems. Scary thought. :/
The Music Man was the first musical I ever saw. (I saw the movie version.) Robert Preston is wonderful. Robert Redford (in The Sting) is truly amazing, also.
I think it was my first musical as well, though I saw it in a live performance. Shortly thereafter, we bought the VHS of the Robert Preston version and have watched that often through the years.
Wonderful! What’s your favorite musical, Piggy?
-Avenue Q
-Spelling Bee
-Urinetown
I have a sudden fixation with 13 The Musical, but that’s because I’m currently in it…
My first was The Lion King.
A squirrel got loose in our building’s electrical box and chewed up a bunch of wires, so we have been without electricity for hours and our apartment’s fuses blew simultaneously.
In good news, the squirrel is fine.
Woah.
Is a computer science major feasible if I am pretty much the worst at math? Because I would like to find something more job-applicable to double major in. bleh. :/
oh god just kidding calculus
Computer science doesn’t actually seem to use that much math, from what I can tell. I guess it depends on what you’re programming, but high level languages allow you to let them do the math for you.
both the major and the minor require discrete mathematics which has clac as a prerequisite….SOBBBB
like i dropped out of ap stats cause it was too hard…STATS
i think i might still just take some classes even if i can’t do a minor in it..hmmm
yeah! take some classes anyway, who knows what’ll happen. lots of the people I’ve met in the startup world came from unorthodox backgrounds (e.g. Moxie Marlinspike, although I haven’t met him).
idk if you’re looking to get into programming, or looking for a skill that gets jobs. maybe that’s not the best way to approach things?
I’m posting from California! We arrived in San Francisco yesterday morning and drove up to the resort at night. I woke up at 4 am this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. Breakfast soon, hopefully. First day of skiing today! I can’t believe I’m really here.
hurray! have fun
Yay! Happy skiing!!!
Yayy! You’re lucky.
San Francisco? That is really close to were I live….. It’s really rainy here today, yesterday it was all clear…..
Have fun, Sel!
*squees* Have lots of fun!
Have fun! Have you ever been to the states before?
Yes, I have, several times.
I haven’t had a snow day yet all year *is sad* My town has too many plows grrrr.
In other news, want your merit badge in world domination? help save the muse scouts thread!!!!!
No snow here, but the weather is very nice! I played kickball.
Feeling better. Not good, but better. Therapy starts Monday.
*hundreds of hugs and choklits*
*eats hundreds of choklits* *gets a stomachache* *goes to therapy* *throws up on therapist* *leaves* YES! I’m feeling better already.
*hugs* I hope you do end up feeling good soon. *four leaf clovers*
I love airport wifi. It makes hour-long waits for the plane that much more tolerable.
I had a softball tryout/elimination today. Nothing to do but wait. I have no patience. The coach has to cut five people from the team…. grrrrr……
I was returning a key to my neighbor from dog sitting and they gave me a research project on first day of issue stamps! They are all really cool and really old. *happiness*
Good luck!
Back to school tomorrow, but I imagine they’ll give us a little cooling-off period after exam week.
231.1 (SBF)~ I’m glad someone else here loves Robert Preston. ♥
237 (R_D)~ I don’t know what’s happening in your life, but we love you and are here if you need to talk. *hugs & choklit*
238 (FantastyFan)~ Yes.
Finally manned (wommaned?) up and sent SAT scores. Eesh I hope they’re okay, still aren’t available yet. I think it’s dumb that you the credits expire before you can see your scores. I mean seriously. Also, $10 each after that to send score reports? wtf? And I’m kind of like “ummmm” because I only sent to two colleges…..so I’m kind of starting to be like “oh, uh, maybe this is dumb of me? I dunno…..merble.”
Ear still hurts; probably mildly infected, yay. Emitting small amounts of crusty nasties. Meh.
Was able to actually talk to grandpa and get human-ish responses, for, like, the first time this visit. So, success? And he allowed me to carry his oxygen bottle and put my arm around him to walk. So I guess that’s good. I dunno, maybe he hates me less than everyone else? Not sure. Whatever. Perhaps there’s hope for this evening and tomorrow after all.
I have Girl Scout cookies.
What would you call a werewolf in reverse?
Also a werewolf, no? They change back and forth.
There’s something about that in The Sight by David Clement-Davies, but I don’t remember if it gives a specific name.
A werehuman?
A flowerew, although I sense that’s not what you’re after,
A wolf that temporarily turns into a human, you mean?
Yeah.
A Man-Curs-ed Wolf Being.
Can anyone who answered my previous questions answer these? Yes or no answer, just that one word.
a. Do you like to stand out in neon or not?
b. Glitter or no?
c. Soda or something else?
And:
d. Scarification…interesting or disgusting?
a. No.
b. No.
c. ((Are you referring to calling soft drinks “soda” or “pop”, or are you contrasting soft drinks with, say, juice or milk?))
d. Interesting. ((Hey, that wasn’t a yes-or-no question. Neither was the previous question, come to think of it.))
a. Noooo.
b. No.
c. No [I don’t like soda, in case that isn’t clear; it’s not to me].
d. ((I’d say interesting, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to put yes or no! Please feel free to “convert”my answer to a yes or a no)) Interesting.
a) Not.
b) No.
c) Something else.
The bits in double parentheses are things I really didn’t want to leave out, but needed to because they added words.
a. Do you like to stand out in neon or not? …Sometimes? ((Sorry, I know that’s not yes or no, but it honestly doesn’t make much of difference to me. Neon colors are nice, but there are other colors I like better. Anyway, not all of these are yes or no questions. I suppose you can change this to yes if you must, but ‘sometimes’ is really more accurate…))
b. Glitter or no? No ((usually–there are a few exceptions, like on certain types of Christmas decorations))
c. Soda or something else? Other ((i. e. “something else” *hates soda*))
d. Scarification…interesting or disgusting? Um… ((Sorry, but I couldn’t figure out a satisfactory one-word answer for this. I don’t particularly care for it, but ‘disgusting’ isn’t exactly the word I’d use for it, either. I do think it’s interesting, but saying that implies that I like it, and I don’t.))
a. No.
b. No.
c. Water.
d. Interesting.
a) Yes.
b) Glitter.
c) Does Orangina count?
a. No
b. No
c. No
d. Interesting, because I don’t know what it is.
a. no
b. no
c. soda
d. neither
a)
SometimesOften.b) Only for crazy parties
c) tonic water
d) Interesting
Oops. I mean glitter as in “on me”.
a. No.
b. No.
c. As the drink? Yes, I guess.
a. No.
b. Yes.
c. Something else.
d. What?
a. No
b. No
c, Occasionally
d. Interesting
I love GarageBand so much. I just recorded the first verse of a beautiful shanty (Farewell Shanty, in the rare occasion that you know even a remotely similar version to the one I know. Hint: mine’s sung by Johnny Collins). First track I did concertina (with very basic chord stuffs), then sang the melody, then sang a harmony. And it turned out quite well, if I do say so myself. I’m going to attempt to record the whole song now. I LOVE this.
Oh yeah, and I should probably be writing or doing something productive or whatever right now but oh well.
(PS If it works does anyone want to hear me singing and playing concertina? It’d be completely not shanty-ish, since I do it very slowly and am doing harmonies and accompaniment and all and yes I’m a terrible hypocrite but oh well.)
YES to your PS.
A. Depends-I don’t enjoy a full-neon outfit for the sake of clashing, but one pop of neon with gray or black can be nice.
B. On occasion. Could you be more specific?
C. Water, milk, lavender dry soda. (Or juniper. Or cucumber.)
D. Ick.
Thanks, everyone!
It snowed around six inches last night so there was fresh powder snow, but the forecast is for blue skies and sun for the next week, so it should be nice. Whew. We basically covered most of the runs today – hard work, but I’m glad I was able to pick it up again so quickly. Haven’t been in two years, which is unusual as before that we went every year. On the upside, since it’s not really a holiday in the US, there aren’t many people here (even today, Sunday) so the lines for chairlifts and restaurants and such should be pretty empty for the rest of the week. (Yay, Chinese New Year!) I LOVE SKIING. <3
AAHHHHHH!!!!!
I’m glad you’re having a good time, but AAAAHHHHHHH!!!
EEE. Glad you had fun!!!
Happy Chinese New Year, Selenium!
Um,it starts on the third.(feburary)
Yes, en’s right, but thank you all the same!
I’ve returned. :]
I see a lot of people who were here last time I was here.
a. No
b. No
c. Something else.
d. interesting
Does anyone remember me?
I was Unintended Pun, then Karin Tay, then the Russian spellings of Karin and Yupitera. I was thinking about being Yupitera again, but the friend who originated that nickname is slowly growing distant and I don’t think it’s good to use that name. I’d rather have it be an exclusive name to that friend.
I have a name addiction now.
I remember all your various name changes. It’s good to see you back here.
I remember this name. Welcome back!
I don’t remember you too well, but welcome back!
I remember you! Not sure how long we overlapped for, but yes.
Same.
Welcome back, UP!
Hello, Unintended Pun. ‘Tis good to see you.
Er. I don’t think I remember you. Nice to see you back anyhow.
247~ Hey Karinn! Of course I remember you! I actually was wondering last week where you’d gone and how life was treating you. It’s good to see you back! You’ll probably want to ask the GAPAs about getting a paleo account, if you weren’t here when that all came out. There are some private threads that are only seen/used by MBers who have been here for over six months, I’m pretty sure you qualify.
244.1 (Oxlin)~ Okay!
Only one more day of school. I am counting the minutes.
today:
Helped a friend move back into her dorm, went out to lunch with her, her mother, and another friend. Then uh, went on a date, which was a strange experience but went well? And may be seeing him tomorrow. So, yeah. Then came back and hung out with some friends and then at midnight decided to make pancakes. So we got stuff and started around 1, and about 15 min before I finished the last one another friend came in and started a movie, so stayed up and watched that. The friend I helped move in is sleeping in my room tonight, although we are both still on the floor of Narnia-fort. Whoops. This will probably be one of Narnia’s last few days though. Alas!
Classmate A: I hate myself. I’m so ugly!
Classmate B: That’s no reason to be upset! Wait, that didn’t come out right.
Today is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!
Pop.
Cool! Too bad I don’t have any.
*stomps on bubble wrap*
Is it bad that when I read a New York Times article about how most contributors to Wikipedia are male, and what that means, my first thought is: “Well, I know TvTropes has more female contributors than that.” ?
Why don’t females contribute to Wikipedia? I’ve thought about doing it.
I haven’t got the faintest idea. The article was talking about how women are still afraid of being disagreed with. I don’t know, read the article yourself. it’s up on the website.
Good for you.
Dearest GAPAs, you should have an email.
Today I played Thisbe from the play within the play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now I’m going to make soup. Tomorrow and Wednesday: probs snowdays?
So guess who’s school is cancelled tomorrow? Yuppers, that’s right. My college is cancelling ALL classes tomorrow. Can you say YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY? *happy happy dance*
Lunaaaaaaa I’m so jealous.
But not really, because we’ll probably have one tomorrow or the next day, depending on the amount of snow we get. There’s already about a foot on the ground.
We’re losing days from spring break now, which really sucks. I’d rather have school now and a long spring break.
Also, call my subconscious creepy, but I had a dream that you and Alan got married last night.
MUSEBLOGGERS, HOW ARE YOU GETTING INTO MY DREAMS?
I live in new york state and my school has not had one snow day yet all year. my county has too many darn plows. I ‘m jealous too.
Wait, really? I live on LI, so I’m assuming we got less snow than you. That’s really suckish. Our town didn’t plow one time when it snowed a lot. We still had school. No delays.
PM- We didn’t have that many, I think only three. Five is a lot…
Poor Beedle! We are on our fifth snow day if we have one tomorrow. There will probably be one Wednesday. The mayor is talking about eliminating April vacation, which I won’t be happy with if it is. ( Parallel structure? ) Oh, and by the way, there’s a foot of snow on the ground on some places, three-foot-high cliffs on either side of the sidewalk everywhere else, and also a lot of petrified ice.
*free-time bearhug*
Your college cancels classes? Really? I’m pretty sure my school assumes that the students can manage to walk through the snow from their dorms to class. I suppose individual professors could cancel if they couldn’t drive.
It very rarely cancels class. This is the first time the university has cancelled class in the 2 1/2 years I’ve been here. I think the last time they cancelled class was about 4 years ago, and that was the first time in 17 years or something, or so I’ve heard.
Our campus has a large student population off campus, though, so even if the kids living on campus, such as myself, could trudge to class, the kids living off campus would have trouble getting here, especially as [name of town] does a really caking awful job of clearing the roads.
Oh. Huh. My college doesn’t let anyone live off campus so I don’t think they cancel at all. Enjoy your day off! Build a snowman for us all!
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, my college doesn’t have anywhere close to enough on campus housing for the entire student population, and they encourage everyone sophomore year and on to live off campus.
It still hasn’t started to snow yet, so I’m still rather surprised they actually cancelled school tomorrow…..
I’d forgotten how much I hate therapy.
See, the problem is my therapist wants me to tell him everything. I don’t want to tell him anything. I don’t want a stranger to know all my problems. I don’t want him to know about my R&R and I definitely am not going to tell him about it myself. I don’t want him to see my poetry. I don’t want him to know about the times my father and I fight. It’s private.
After two hours talking, he finally got an idea. I’m supposed to write poetry when I feel overwhelmed or in pain or sad or whatever, instead of dealing with it the way I usually do. I don’t think it will work, but it’s worth a shot.
That’s one of the most important parts of therapy: learning to trust someone else. Believe me, your therapist has heard everything under the sun; listening to your R&R life or hearing about your fights with your father–it’s like tying his shoes by now. Simple, rote, everyday activity. But activity that’s essential for his being able to help you. The more you go along with what he says, the easier you’ll be able to overcome what you’re going through. And we’ll always be here for you, no matter what happens. *hugs*
I told him everything about a year ago and look how that turned out.
You are good at poetry. I agree that I don’t like telling my problems to a total stranger.
My next fanfiction crossover: ATTICUS FINCH VS. MILES EDGEWORTH!!!!!
Woah! In court, I presume.
Yes. Although a hand-to-hand fight might also be interesting…
Can Atticus fight hand-to-hand? We only really see him use a gun.
Who knows? Can Edgeworth, for that matter?
I had a semester change, so i have ditched my study hall in favor of intro to programming. The teacher is great, the first thing he did is show us a program a student made of penguins dancing to “play that funky music white man”. We use the alice system, not language programming, but it still should be fun.
February tomorrow! Lots of good stuff happened in february (At least according to the issue of muse where they reprinted the physics article, I think)
My little brother is weird (and9)!.He played Wii for 5 hours today!
WHY IS THERE A LITTLE PIE THINGY THERE?
It’s a “like” button! Hit it and your post gets liked!
I would really like for this thread to reach 1,000 posts…Six more posts, people!
Day two:
In the morning, we all skied together as a family, so this meant going on many of the easier runs (mainly groomed blues) and a lot more slowly, with a lot of stopping and waiting involved; my sister is just starting snowboarding this trip after years and years of skiing and my mother is not the most daring person when it comes to skiing. (Think cautious and fearful.) The highlight of the morning: we were going to try out a new run, but it involved a short section of black before we would reach the blue run, but my sister agreed to try it (even though this is her second day of snowboarding). Several metres down the slope (a relatively steeper one), my sister gave up and somehow (I didn’t see exactly what happened since I was waiting at the bottom) her snowboard became separated from her feet. It was quite a sight to behold, the lone snowboard sliding down fifty metres of steep slope before it came to a stop just below where I was. After a lot of shouting between my mother, who was just above me, and my dad, who had been behind my sister and was with her, they decided to hike back up to the top of the chairlift and ride it back down, instead of attempting to have my sister carried down the mountain (which would have been hilarious, if I may take some liberties with schadenfreude. I carried the snowboard and my mother took my poles and we skied down to the bottom of the chairlift to wait. I managed to fit in another ride up and another run down before they finally came down.
In the afternoon, my dad and I separated from my mother and sister so we could go at a faster pace and they wouldn’t get annoyed whenever we tried to do something more challenging. We went to one section of the mountain that was basically all blacks, and spent the whole afternoon going up and down that single chairlift and skiing down the mile-long (apparently) runs. It was so much fun, and it’s the most exciting thing to go so fast that you’re almost out of control. The great thing about this resort is how empty it is. There were several times where I literally did not see a single other person on the run (other than my dad) until we reached the bottom. It was pretty amazing.
All right, so sorry for the long update, but I just thought you guys might like to know how I’d been faring. I didn’t expect the post to turn out quite so long, and choklit if you read it all, but there you go.
P_M: Here, I’ll help! Just don’t alert the GAPAs! We have to remain cautious!
Hi, I haven’t really appeared on here since December (just snippets here and there), but don’t worry, I’ve been lurking!
*stalker*
I was really happy when all my college applications were done, and I said to myself, “I should post that on MuseBlog!” and didn’t. So YAY COLLEGE APPS ARE DONE!!! Wait, maybe I already posted that. I don’t remember. Anyway, all I have to do now is wait! And FAFSA! Yes, FAFSA is a verb.
All-state was also a joy this year, partially becasue the cool people have actually accepted me now, so we snuck out and got pizza at the most fabulous pizza place ever! It’s in Eugene, and it’s called Granary Pizza, and if you’re ever in the area you should try it. There’s an awesome Japanese-style room if you have a large party. We also went to Voodoo donuts. It was my first time in one of their stores because the one in Portland is always so crowded, and I hardly ever go to Eugene. Those donuts are deeeelicious! I got a Fruity Pepples one!
More recent exclamations of joy are occuring because FIRST SEMESTER IS OVER!!! I just had MY LAST FINALS OF HIGH SCHOOL EVER. And I have to go to school tomorrow. Let the horror of second semester begin!
Just wait until IB tests, Kyra! You thought the last four months were bad, just wait! HAHAHAHA!!!
I don’t know why my fingers are being hyperactive right now, considering I’ve been vegetating in front of the computer all day, watching YouTube videos. Then again, maybe that’s the reason… I really should go practice cello right now…
248- Aww! That’s cool that you guys actually remember me. Now that I’m here I’m remembering all of the names. Are Alice and Beavo still around? I remember the rest of you guys!
How do I create an account?
I should do it! That way I will be less inclined to wander off again.
If you look on the far right of the green bar by the top of the page, you’ll see a button that says “Log In”. Click on that, and then click on “Register”. Follow the instructions and have a bit of patience while the GAPAs approve your account.
I remember you!
Alice posts occasionally, though not as much as before. I haven’t seen Beavo around lately.
265~ Alice isn’t as regular as she once was, but she’s been around. Beevs is alive, but I’m not sure if he’s posting here anymore or with any frequency. Hmm. He’s alive and fabulous as always though.
GAPAs, I sent you a recording I made (as I mentioned in post 244). Did you get it?
Aye, lass, that we did.
So, I remembered some show I watched when I was little where a character who had the magical power to control water was tied up and manipulated a stream of water like a magnifying glass to burn through the ropes with sunlight.
Magic aside, could falling water really be used as a lens to start a fire? How about still water in a container? How about ice?
I don’t want to actually set anything on fire, but the idea of starting a fire with water sounds so fascinating.
That would be ironic.
By way of falling water, I highly doubt that it would naturally fall into a perfect lens of any sort. Water in a container? Possible, though I would think the container would have to be shaped like a lens. Ice? I’m pretty sure it’s actually been done before. I can’t remember where I saw it, but I remember something along those lines.
Xiao Lin Showdown?
No, it was Power Rangers: Ninja Storm.
Tuesday snowday: yes. Wednesday is probable as well–more snow, forty miles-per-hour winds, and windchills roughly thirty below.
266.1 (Robert)~ Has it been deemed not too horrible to be posted? It’s kind of rough, I know. :/
Not at all! I just haven’t had time to upload it yet. There’s a backload of artwork from other MBers, too. Sorry, everybody — for some unaccountable reason, we Administrators have been needing more sleep than usual lately. Maybe we’re were-bears.
Werebears, Cylons, and Time Lords? Sometimes I worry about you…
Oh my!
You all need to spend time with me. I just sort of destroy people’s circadian rhythms just by being near them. All my friends here say so at least–“I USED TO GO TO BED AT NORMAL HOURS, AND THEN I SPENT ONE DAY HANGING OUT WITH YOU AND NOW I’M NEVER IN BED BEFORE 3AM”
XD
Hi, all. This is a warning that the Random Thread is closing down in about 10 minutes. (I’m going to bed then and don’t see any other GAPAs online.) The February Random Thread will come online a couple of minutes after midnight, blog time. Post now, or hold your peace until then (or give some of our underutilized threads a little much-needed business, in hopes that Rosanne will moderate your posts).
Goodnight!
This thread is still open. Just pointing that out.
Yeah, look at that!
I had seating auditions for orchestra last week, and found out the results today. (Background: This is my third year in this division of the orchestra, and last year I was a first violin. This year I’m a second. Hurm.)
The good news: Apparently they were impressed enough with my audition that they moved me up to the first violins. Happiness!
The bad news: I now have to learn a whole new part. For Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, no less. I am so very dead.
Thankfully, the other second violin who moved up is my stand partner, so i have a companion in my confusedness.
Well, I debated against posting in a mind dump to express what I will refer to as complete mental state, or my thoughts in their entirety just to try and empty a feeling of walls consistently crumbling down around me. The attempted eloquence will pale in comparison to the visions in my head, but I assume my point will be conveyed nonetheless. There’s an overwhelming whirlpool of ideas and emotions I want to put down on the page, but whenever I try, I’m tugged back under and drowned. Apologies ahead of time to the GAPAs for the mass of text I think they may have to wade through when I finish here.
.
Consistent hatred I suppose is the proper way to describe the way I view the fuel for my personality at the moment- hatred for a myriad of subjects. The majority of which include hypocrisy, myself, stereotypes, etc., or rather how each one of those becomes a defining part of my lifestyle. Hatred lives in my gut for my lack of strength, intelligence, and uniqueness. I want to be the best there is in any category. As multiple personality tests can prove, power grubbing is a key characteristic, and this is easily reflected in the above statement. In physical prowess I can accept that I will never have any upper body strength to speak of, nor pose any menacing threat to anyone with whom I would choose to quarrel. As for intelligence, I am never happy with my situation. I consider myself smart, but the knowledge that I can always be outdone by another, coupled with the fact that I live in a community that lives such a sheltered life as to insist on perfection in any academic situation creates a loss of purpose or identity. I simply can’t handle the idea that I’m not enough, and that I never will be. This concept inevitably leads into my saying that there are so many people I want to protect from various situations- abuse of alcohol, superficiality, or this same virtual darkness which I feel consumes me. This, of course, can only compound my feelings of inadequacy when I fail in any category. When my underage cousin gets drunk to the point of sickness, when my traumatized friend has a panic attack I’m helpless to defend against.
.
Museblog was, for a while, a way to express that fledgling of a personality that would come to be me. Nowadays, just like as would be expected, I view my previous statements with contempt and superiority. Thus, I am not happy with my previous self nor my present one: another nest for the hatred to flourish in. No one will ever consider me to be an influential poster on this blog, but that’s not that important. I’m still uncertain as to the intricacies of securing virtual friends who actually appreciate and support you. I can offer a thanks Museblog, for providing this outlet.
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I hate the stereotypes of men in my culture today that, though I despise I occasionally perpetuate. I hate the exploitation of women in today’s ‘sex sells’ perspective. I hate the exploitation of those less intelligent or less wealthy. I hate that unwillingly, I sometimes worsen the situation. I hate that I’m powerless. I hate that I’m trapped in the city in which I live.
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However, recently, I participated in a poetry reading at which the most talented speaker presented on the concept that beneath the hatred in which they live, there is still something beautiful that can be retrieved and that still lives amidst the storm. For the first time in years, despite my skeptical christian faith and its teachings, that perhaps the proper way to live involves more brotherly love than I can imagine. I have yet to live up to this standard, but I see it as a goal, as a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s near impossible to maintain this viewpoint during my hours of long homework, piling requirements for boyscouts and ridiculous amounts of work packed so tall and so thick that it just makes you want to stand and yell [caaaake] at the top of your lungs and rip your hair out. It’s difficult for me to put into words a pressure I feel sometimes from this.
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Indeed, despite all this, I improve. I will not ever be smart enough, strong enough, unique enough. Yet, at the very least I can express a love that aides our society at least a little. I know that I can’t beat myself, which is why I need to put so much effort to try. I can’t sum up how I feel or who I am in this space, but I can attempt to. I’ve spent about 35 minutes writing this. Now I’m going to spend another hour and a half to finish my homework, work off of less than 5 hours of sleep, and plod through tomorrow, barely. I’ve said as much as I can, and yet I’m sure I’ve said nothing at all. Still, I do feel a little better. Thanks for reading.
*gives choklit*
Facts: You are an influential and respected poster. We are all embarrassed, to some small degree, by our past mistakes and naivete. While I have not had the pleasure of directly befriending you, I hope I will in the future. You are extremely unique. There has never been and never will be anyone exactly like you.
Agreed. That second statement applies to me possibly more than anyone.
Actually, I think that’s a pretty broad generalization.
Firstly: *hugs*
Everyone on this planet–every single person–sometimes feels like they’re not good enough, like they’re not living up to their potential. They compare what they are to what they could be and hate themselves for it. What you have to learn is: the person you are now is exactly who you should be. You’ve spent your entire life, making millions of tiny decisions each day, forming yourself. And it hasn’t been just you. Your family, your friends, your neighbors, everyone you’ve ever come in contact with has shaped you your entire life. To hate that person they’ve raised is to disregard their work and to say, “Everything you’ve done for me is worthless.” I don’t want you to think that. Let me make this very clear: You. Are. Goddamn. Awesome. I mean that as sincerely as I physically can. No one in the past, present, or future is like you. You do have endless possibilities, and to hate yourself is to throw away your potential. Should you try to grow as a person? Yes. But hating yourself will only shrink you. If you want to grow, try love. I don’t care who, just love. Your family, your friends, the little red-haired girl, yourself. That’s how great people become what they can be. And the more you love, the more love you’ll see in your life. Because right now, even if you’re unaware of it, there are tons of people who love you very, very much. We here on MuseBlog love you, and MB wouldn’t be the same without you. To hate yourself is to insult us, your parents, your friends, everyone. Please, learn to love yourself like all of us love you. All of your faults, all of your imperfections, your weaknesses–they make you human. Believe me, everyone has just as many problems as you do. But your problems make you different from us. And the way you learn to accept your imperfections makes you unique.
I’d like to share something I found elsewhere on the internet:
“Hey, you out there.
Yes, you. I have something that, for some reason, I just felt this incredible urge to share.
Don’t get me wrong. I barely know you.
So what I have to say may not really affect your life at all.
But it’s still something I’m going to say, so please listen to me.
“It’s not your fault.
You’re just a human being like the rest of us.
Even successful people have problems.
“And something else.
You aren’t a failure. You never were.
You may feel like you aren’t doing anything with your life. That all day long you do ‘nothing’.
But I just want you to remember this.
“You’re where you are right now, because you wanted to be right here.
Doing nothing isn’t a ‘waste’ of life or talent. It’s something that you yourself wanted more than anything, and that’s what you’re doing.
Other people expect or demand things out of you, but they’re just worried about you. That’s all.
They don’t want to see you become unhappy. They don’t think that you’re doing what you wanted to do.
You are loved. In some way, shape, or form.
You may be loved by someone you’ve never even met. But their love is there regardless.
“Well, I’ve said what I wanted.
That’s all.”
You’ll make a really good priest.
I’m not sure what I can say that hasn’t been already said, but I can totally empathize with you. Take a deep breath, and start a new chapter of your life optimistically.
…Taht sounds really cheesy, but I hope my happy, fluffy, optimistic thoughts reach you. I need them to, too.
People don’t expect much from lazy, stupid, or untalented people. The reason people ask so much of you is because they recognize that you are talented and have tons to offer. You didn’t list any good qualities about yourself in the post, but from all you’ve said it sounds like you care deeply for people and have a strong sense of justice. We need people like you. Everything that’s good about you is so much more important than any faults you have. Stop focusing on the bad and start paying attention to everything that’s great about yourself.
Sorry if that sounded cheesy and wannabe-psychologist.
Thanks very much, guys. Such a response feels a little overwhelming, but at the same time… heartwarming. I’m glad that museblog is a place where I can just type how I feel and people will take the time to read and respond. It means a lot to me. Thanks.