Friday, 19 April 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
We dedicate this month’s random thread to you: the MuseBloggers for whom this site was created. Your reflections, dreams, and desires fuel this blog, and we wouldn’t be here without you. Enjoy your month!
Date: October 1, 2012
Categories: At the Top of the Blog, Random craziness
first post? yay!
i am back! and aliver than ever! (Alive-er al… never mind) and i am sorry for being away for soooo long! my computer was being a jerk i missed my birthday! 
yes i still know the codes for the smileys i wrote them down on paper and taped them to the wall. and for the time being i still remain to be called Catwings by the public. so i have been watching youtube (basically the only thing i can do with this stupid computer) and pretending i have a minecraft account and made friends with famous youtube minecrafting people. it is 3:36 AM veeeery late. can’t sleep because stayed awake all night saturday watching TV and making friends from chat on a gaming/chatting website, and drinking milk and eating potato chips.
enough about my boring life, what’s going on with the blogsters?
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Hi! That sounds fun, although not being able to sleep is probably still bad.
Me, I’m recovering from a term of school. By spending a week mostly online. Fangirling Avatarand other things is actually helpful for me, though.
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I wasn’t expecting this! I love the illustration!
So I assume that there’ll be a GAPA month, as well? Then what will the final missing month be? All of the Muses together?
I just got out of my first class of the year–chemistry. It meets at the absurdly early time of 8:30 am. I better transform into a morning person, quick! Or go to bed earlier.
Right now I’m sitting in the library’s coffee shop, enjoying my hour-long break before physics and math. Unfortunately this means that I’ll probably get addicted to caffeine this year; the temptation to get a drink is too much to resist! I need to balance it out with hot chocolate once in a while.
The chemistry class itself went fine. I’m going to have to work hard this year! Fortunately, chemistry isn’t AS math-oriented as physics is–I’m going to have to derive formulas, but I won’t need to know multivariable calculus. Unlike the monster physics and math classes I have coming up next. Oh, dear.
I’m settling in. There will be big changes this year! I’m working in a library (any one will do) during the day instead of going back to the dorm, and I’m aggressively talking to first-years in chemistry to make new friends; hopefully less drama-filled than the friends I have now. Also I’m talking to all my professors and not being super shy, because most of them are very nice! And it doesn’t hurt to talk–If I come off as annoying, at least they’ll remember who I am!
My orchestra audition was on Saturday and I think I didn’t do too badly. I flubbed one part of each piece I played (Elgar concerto, 1st movement, and Beethoven sonata 4, 1st and 2nd movements), but since both of them kind of repeat the same thing, I got the other, similar part. So overall it was ok. I can gauge my improvement by sightreading, though, because I didn’t totally mess up this time! I had to start both of the excerpts twice (I think that’s a thing with me; I can’t get the start right the first time, but the second time the start and the rest goes swimmingly. Huh), but I think that’s acceptable. And this time she didn’t comment on how the excerpts were “hard” to make me feel better! So I didn’t mess up horribly! And I also decided to keep going on the excerpts even when I messed up what note I was playing, even though it was really difficult to resist the temptation to fix it. Because that’s how sightreading in a real orchestra is like! As long as you have the rhythm and know where you’re supposed to be, it looks like you know what you’re doing–even though you get the wrong pitches. I really hope I make it into symphony, because they do so much awesome stuff!
How is everyone’s school going? Make any new friends yet? Any hard/easy classes? Any favorite classes? What about extracurriculars? Have they started yet?
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I have a few friends, but they aren’t at all close. I wish I knew how to fix that.
I’ve talked a lot already about easy classes, favorite classes, etc, but Environmental Club didn’t start until yesterday. It is amazing! We’re doing water quality tests to send in to the EPA.
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So Minnesota Orchestra is locked out. That makes four, I believe, in the past few months – Atlanta, Indianapolis, Chicago (although they went on strike which is slightly better), and now Minneapolis. It looks like Richmond’s heading that direction, too..
Guys, support your local musicians.
2, Kyra – yeah, that’s exactly the right way to approach sightreading – the rhythm is much more important than the right pitches. Also, if you know that you mess up the beginning of excerpts, don’t hurry into starting them but take a moment before you start to check the key signature, time signature, and play through the first bar or two in your head. It just takes practice.
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My $100 Swatch Watch thinks there are 31 days in September.
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I f you paid that much for it, and it doesn’t work properly, don’t buy another one. But isn’t it a leap year?
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There are always 30 days in September, even during a leap year.
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First day of university… Ah, fun crazyness. I had one information session (just basic stuff about courses and everything) and two workshops already and I’ve finally found room 3.
It’s really funny being a math student. The dean was practically squeeing about having about 400 math bachelors & math teaching students combined: Biology easily has about 1400 a year. The math center is accordingly small too so my first lecture will be in the Natural History & Geography building. Apparently we don’t have a classroom that seats 200. About a quarter usually survives the StEOP, so we should be down to 50 students by november, which is nice.
The only irritating thing was that this one guy in my workshops was faster than I was at mental arithmetic. I do not like this new feeling of someone having an answer before I do. When I concentrate, I can beat him, but only if it’s a “tricky” question. Eh, we’ll see how he does with new purely theoretical concepts. Fine, I admit it, not being obviously best bothers me. I think I’m actually going to have to work this semester…
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Arithmetic has very little to do with math. Good luck with school!
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Aaand our first real lecture and he looks confused. </noireallyshouldn'tbefeelingsosmug
But reading all the textbooks and doing the problem sets beforehand and memorizing the definitions and proofs isn't technically cheating, right?
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I’d call it self-motivated learning.
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College can be hard on people who are used to being first at everything. A competitive streak is fine, but once you reach that level, it’s more important to do things that interest you for their own sakes (and yours).
</gapa_sermonette>
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Back at school after a very short Short Leave! My parents and sister are flying home tonight.
Bibliophile on the last thread – I looked it up and the Earthwatch programme looks rad, I’d never heard of it before. There does seem to be a teen expedition in England, a two-week archaeology one near the River Tyne, however I’m not sure whether I will be in England during those dates. Still, good to know though, just in case, so thank you for sharing.
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There are few things more comforting on a cold autumn night than mac and cheese and peas (and chicken).
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My brother’s friend is in the other room; he was just talking to my mom. I overheard the conversation, and he’s having a really hard time at home. Apparently, he frightened his six-year-old sister, and his parents are really angry, and he ran away. I think he said his father said that if he was 17, he’d bash his head with a fork. Doing that can’t be legal, but I don’t know about saying it.
Apparently, they’ve been really hard on him in the past, and he’s run away before. I don’t know if they ever did anything illegal; I don’t know if he knows if they have. But I’m worried. My mom has agreed to let him stay here tonight, and I think she did the right thing, but there’s probably something else she can do as well, and I don’t know what it is. Ask him to talk to a psychologist? But who would pay for it? Tell him that he should look up what constitutes child abuse, because if they’ve done anything that qualifies, he could run away legally (and safely)? But then what about his siblings? What if they’re perfectly happy where they are but wouldn’t be allowed to stay there? I can’t say any of this myself, because he hasn’t confided in me; in fact, he hasn’t really met me. It might be a bit rude for me to tell him what to do or even give him suggestions. But my mom would listen to what I have to say, and if it’s reasonable, she’d probably comply.
Please, any advice would be welcome. I know that some of you know a lot more about this sort of situation than I do.
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Update: My mom decided that they should probably tell his mom that he’s staying here for the night. She noticed that I was there, and she told me to go upstairs, which I understand; my presence might make him uncomfortable.
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Let your parents take care of it. They know the entire situation, and you don’t.
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Once upon a time I had standards about the kind of food I would eat.
But then I came to college and discovered ramen, and then yesterday I was at the Grocery Outlet and found vegan cheese for fifty cents that was only 10 days expired. Obviously, I now have several blocks in my fridge.
And tonight I decided to make macaroni and cheese….
…by making ramen, draining off some of the broth, melting chunks of cheese on it, adding some nutritional yeast and margerine, and mixing it all up into a gooey mass that looks disconcertingly like brains.
It actually exceeded my expectations, flavor-wise.
Awwwwwww yeah!
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This friday: another two tests x_x
But this time I will start work earlier… as in before Thursday… well, one of them is a take-home test, so I have to. But TONIGHT I will attempt to do some of it. Right.
And then maybe tomorrow I’ll do my laundry since I really need to but keep putting it off. Wherp.
At least I did the whole health center/bloodwork thing today and it went pretty smoothly. One scary thing accomplished!
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Oh oh oh I forgot to mention but also IFSA Butler submitted my study abroad application to the Northern University of Ireland, Galway today!!
I am so so so close to study abroad guerihfdsn I can taste it
How am I going to get through this semester when IRELAND IS GLEAMING UP AHEAD, SO FAR AWAY (TEMPORALLY)
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Just spent a few minutes staring at your mini-keysmash, trying to figure out if it was a Gaelic word. You never know.
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ahahaha oh my god
and I will be taking Gaelic there so YOU REALLY WILL NEVER KNOW AFTER NEXT SEMESTER
I WILL FOOL EVERYONE EVERYWHERE
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Good luck with your work! Everything you get done today is another stone off your back tomorrow!
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I never predicted this, but I love the photo.
SPOILER POTTER SERIES SPOILER!! SPOILER POTTER SERIES SPOILER!! SPOILER POTTER SERIES SPOILER!!, But doesn’t the mirror reflect our heart’s desire? A new thread? Read the inscription backwards if you ignored the spoiler.
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Hey everyone! This is probably another fly-by post because I can’t seem to stick around, but it’s good to see everyone anyway!
In personal news: I’m taking an exciting online writing course and I probably don’t have friends anymore. I that’s everything.
Is there going to be a NaNoBraSto thread this year?
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I hope so! I already have two ideas I’m playing with that I love, dunno what I’ll do… I probably won’t start until the 16th, because that’s the day of my StEOP exam, but still.
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Good idea. NaNoBraSto it is.
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Hello! It’s really nice to hear from you again; I was thinking about you. How was your birthday?
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I didn’t get a work contract for fall break, so I won’t be able to stay on campus. Which means I won’t get to hang out with Roo much, though I think I’ll still be able to see him briefly.
POOOOP.
Also I need to figure out what I’m going to do now. I’m considering asking some of my friends if I can couchsurf and volunteer at Jamestown for the week and bum around Williamsburg when I’m not working. That would be fun.
I could also just go home, but I’d really like to do something a little more exciting. I’d like to go adventuring somehow, but I’d like a partner in crime for that, and the usual suspects all have plans.
So, MuseBlog, TELL ME WHAT SORT OF WEEK-LONG ADVENTURE I SHOULD HAVE BY MYSELF. Preferably for cheap.
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*munch* Local candy shops.
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THERE’S THIS ONE IN AMHERST
CALLED CAPTAIN CANDY
AND OH MAN IF IT ISN’T THE CHEAPEST MOST DELICIOUSEST CANDY IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD
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Come visit meee! (Okay, that isn’t so cheap.) Go camping in a national park/state park! Take hikes and look at the fall leaves! You could maybe borrow a tent from someone who lives near your college/invite them to go with you.
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I have a recommendation for a poem. It is about gender and identity and is really good. The Changeling’s Lament by Shira Lipkin. It discusses being put into the boxes of gender roles when one doesn’t fit into them.
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I just realized that the lecture I’m going to give involves drawing an actual shipping chart for Dr. Zhivago. /presented without further comment
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That awkward moment when something about Firefox looks different than Safari and then you realize that Safari is set to English, Firefox is set to German and you realize that actually about half of your programs are actually set to a different language and you have no idea how or when it happened.
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So today in marching band rehearsal the section leader pulled me aside and basically told me that he had been listening to me and that I should play louder because I was the best out of all the second baritones and he wanted me to play louder and lead them. The second baritone section consists of three other freshmen besides myself, one sophomore and one junior. (Not that anybody cares about the instrumentation, but the firsts is one senior and two sophomores and the thirds is two seniors and two juniors.) So yay. More confident about my baritoning skills, I guess, now? Considering one of the other freshmen almost (would have, could have, should have) made all-state on trombone last year, and I only started this instrument in seventh grade.
And I’m getting more confident in my marching skills. So that is good. Hooray.
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I am hoping for rain weather this weekend. That way I will have an excuse to stay in bed, cuddle with They Might Be Giant Squids and watch Captain America and Spiderman. And also I can blame the weather if I feel bad about how I did on the two tests I have on Friday.
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No way, you’re watching superhero movies this weekend? I am too! (But in my case, Iron Man and the Avengers. Also a possible Doctor Who marathon with L.)
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Oh god
I knew it was going to happen, I did it anyways
test on friday and a take home test due friday
I have gotten so little done
alas
I think I’ll go to bed anyway
hating myself is for tomorrow
I am so ready to be done with this week
too much to deal with
I give up on sentences forever
forever awake as well now as I make the wise decision to read young adult fantasy instead of repaying some of my sleep debt or doing work
OBLIGATORY CAPSLOCK
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Fiddler, I swear I saw a girl dressed just like you on Comm Ave yesterday, but I know that’s impossible as you’re far from Boston.
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Ooh, a twin!
Dressed like me? Was she wearing ripped skinny jeans, a green tank top, brown plaid shirt as a jacket, and hiking boots, with wild dreads?
My friend and I got chai lattes after our last class (because the coffee shop is on the walk back to our dorm and included in our meal plan) and then laughed all the way back about how much like hipsters we looked. Me in the above outfit (with my canvas backpack) and her in a yellow dress, grey leggings, black boots, denim jacket and Andy Warhol bag, clutching our tea. Made with soymilk, because we’re both vegan.
It was beautiful.
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Yes to the books and dreads, but I think she had a real coat and also a scarf.
Kinda-related: I love that denim jackets are in-style this year, as the lucky one I’ve been wearing for years is now fashionable.
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No, of course I haven’t just spent the past hour writing up a list comparing features of all the Oxford colleges…what on earth would make you think that?
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Hello Museblog, just thought I’d pop by after who knows how long to see if it were possible to ask if any other musers were attending the same college,
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As long as all of them involved are 18 or older, yes. (And I don’t think we have anyone younger than 18 in college right now, unless you count me, but I don’t do it full time and not with actual non-high scholars in my classes yet; besides, no-one on the Blog lives in my area).
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I’m under 18 and in college, and I think there might be one or two others, but I’m pretty sure that you’re right about it being ok if everyone is over 18.
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I mean, I assume there’s not a problem. I’m here at UC Davis.
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Dang! That was my backup school, but I have friends attending there.
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Blast. I may some day unwittingly encounter one. It’s something at least,
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My aunt just got here PhD from there! She and my uncle and my cousins live in Woodland!
Whereas I’m in Chicago, chillin’. And doing mad problem sets.
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I am now gainfully employed as an SAT/ACT prep coach. I’m rather excited about this fact.
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SPOILER SPOILER THE FIRST KNIGHT SPOILER SPOILER NOT A HUGE SPOILER BUT STILL A SPOILER SO SPOILER SPOILER.
We’ve been watching The First Knight in English class for the past few days (personally, I hate that movie and wish we could just get on to the Shakespeare unit already but oh well) and the teacher was discussing the kissing scene with Guinevere and Lancelot. She went around getting people’s opinions of it. When she got to me, I said that it was entirely predictable, especially the part in which Arthur breaks in on them. She seemed surprised that I thought it was predictable, and proceeded to ask the next few people (she had been going clockwise around the room) if they agreed with me. Naturally, the people directly after me, and therefore the people she questioned, were the inexplicably soppy girls in the class who I’m willing to bet prefer helpless and stupid princesses to self-actualized heroines because they find them so much more romantic. They all said that they were so caught up in the kissing that they hadn’t been expecting anything (gee, surprise surprise). Then a guy sitting near them said he agreed with me.
The teacher said that she guessed “the ladies” just got to caught up in the kissing to anticipate, as opposed to “the men”. I said “Um, I’m a girl. Remember?” About half of the class cracked up laughing. The teacher said something to the effect of “Oh sorry, I forgot.” Not those words, exactly, but the rest of the class exploded into laughter too (including myself).
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SFTDP. Sorry, that should be “too caught up”.
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Got into my study abroad program! Yay for me!
Now all of the studying and work I still have to do for tomorrow morning… D8
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Person Update: well my Virtual Character, Catwings, has gotten an upgrade! by joining WaterClan i now have the ability to breath water (obvious) but also the ability to summon water (can make water balls, make tiny or big groups of water droplets hover in the air, (like a bucket of water in the air but the bucket is invisible just the water shows) make it rain, etc) and can run/fly reeeeeally fast. and when i run blue ice flames follow me (i hope this shows up, [Sorry, CW, the URL you included didn’t lead anywhere. –Admin.]) and i have some new imaginary friends, Olga also a winged cat but fur is white. and Dynamic the griffon, half eagle half cougar. WaterClan is like RiverClan from the book Warriors by Erin Hunter (if you read those) exept each member gets special powers as listed above ^.^
well… any questions?
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oops! my bad LOL
SFTDP
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Today was the first study break of the year. Our RA’s made a periodic table out of cupcakes, with a cupcake for each named element. Each of the different sections (metalloids, noble gasses, nonmetals, etc.) were different flavors and frosting colors. The rare earth metals were even separated by whether they were natural or synthetic! Fortunately I was at the front of the mob, so I was able to snatch up copper (Cu), my favorite element. When seconds were permitted, there wasn’t as much of a rush, and I nabbed Cesium (Cs). Finally, when everything had quieted down, Europium (Eu) was my third and final cupcake. Francium (Fr) was the last cupcake, funnily enough. I would have thought one of the carrot cake cupcakes, the natural rare earth elements, would be left.
In summation, a fantastic treat. A cupcake blogger and a “dessert expert” were in attendance.
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Did I forget to wish you all a Happy Sputnik Day yesterday? How foolish of me!
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Sputnik Day? never heard of it…
Sputnik huh? hmmmm
i will google it now…
oh a satellite? cool!
happy Sputnik day!
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I am glad I was able to help educate you about space history! (Come to think of it, the only place I’d heard of Sputnik when I was your age was The Iron Giant…)
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The Iron Giant? (i know i sound like an uneducated nut, but remember i was absent from the blog for awhile so i am an un-up-to-dated nut) i know it’s a movie but i know NOTHING ELSE
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It’s a 1999 animated Sci-Fi movie set in 1957 in which Sputnik appears briefly and is mentioned a few times.
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okay thanx KaiYves! you are a very knowlegeable (is that a word? is now) person
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Knowledgeable is a word, actually! It’s one I rather like (and I agree that it suits KaiYves).
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Ooh! I still have that movie!
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So my parents were always telling me don’t forget to unlock the door when you take out the compost or you’ll lock yourself out of the house one day…
I would have been able to climb into one of our back windows if not for the screen on the window… but then Mom came home…
XD
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I actually did lock myself out once while feeding some tadpoles. To worsen matters, I was home alone except for my brother who was too fast asleep to hear me shouting at him.
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I once was locked out of the house, and I didn’t have a key with me, my pet brother and my mom were playing frisbee out in the backyard, so I was locked out for an hour.
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i once purposely locked the door when my whole family was outside to see what they would do if a situation like this ever came up. they just opened the window (there was a window next to the door back then, since we re-did the whole house last year it was moved) and lifted me up and i got in and unlocked the door from the inside.
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Have any of you Americans in middle and high school (and yes, home-schooling counts) heard of the USA Mathematical Talent Search? It’s a math contest that’s completely online, and the problems are really difficult, but you have a month to do them, and you’re allowed to use books and the Internet and so on as long as you don’t ask actual people for help, which means it’s more of a test for hard work than for talent, which is fine with me. It’s pretty awesome, and it’s also free; I recommend that everyone who can do it should at least try.
Also, there’s Math Kangaroo. Anyone in elementary school, middle school, or high school (or the home-schooling equivalent of any of those) can do this one, although it isn’t free. You can win all sorts of things, from a ribbon or certificate to a stuffed kangaroo or a backpack to a Kindle Fire to a 1000-dollar scholarship or free summer camp in Europe. I’m talking about Math Kangaroo USA, but there is a Math Kangaroo International; only a few countries do it, though, so if yours isn’t the US, you’ll have to check to see if yours does it, and I don’t know what the age limits and prizes might be like.
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no i never heard of it!
(don’t tell my mom she’ll force me to do it even if i don’t want to)
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Oh yeah, I remember Math Kangaroo! I boycotted it for the past few years but the questions are pretty interesting.
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Oh, there’s a reason to boycott it? What is it? If I agree with you about it, I may not do it; I haven’t paid the 20 dollars yet.
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It was more about the process surrounding the test at my former school itself than the test. The reasons were the following:
1) All students in grades 5 through 12 were forced to take the test. The only way to opt out was to cut class, i.e. breaking a school rule. Since this test isn’t factored into school performance, a lot of students didn’t understand why they were being forced to take it.
2) The results were displayed publicly both in the school and, until a massive parent protest two years ago, online without the students permission being asked. Since the test is very different from the math that’s usually taught in Austrian schools, a lot of “good” students recieved surprisingly low scores. Many students didn’t want to take the test in the first place and found it humiliating to have their low scores displayed for everyone and anyone to ridicule.
3) Except for the oral language comprehension on the Matura (for which prep is limited to 11th and 12th grade), most students have never seen a multiple choice question before. The also have never had a test with a guessing penalty and never had a test with more questions than the average student should be able to complete on time. The teachers are also unfamiliar with this format and have no advice whatsoever to give.
4) The questions differ radically from the type of math seen in school: exempting the one or two students every other year who do math olympiad, students have never seen this type of problem before and have never been taught any way to solve it.
5) The way students are taught to approach tests (try to solve at least part of every problem, etc…) is actually counter-productive. They will never be shown any techniques that are useful for the test, nor will they ever encounter any test like it or receive any form of benefit from doing well.
6) There is no form of prep offered for the test: teachers either have no time to help you prepare for it or don’t quite grasp the test themselves.
7) Starting from 8th grade, students have 1-3 tests (or equivalents) almost every week, meaning that they probably don’t have the time to learn about an entirely new testing format with no help whatsoever.
8) The test takes place during what would’ve been two normal class hours. In my senior year, it took up what would’ve been two prep courses for the Matura- which was only a few weeks away at that point. Each and every one of us would have preferred to have two hours of prep than an exam that had literally almost nothing to do with the rest of our classes, and had, in the past, served only to humiliate and bore most of us.
9) The highest prize for distinguishing yourself is a bar of chocolate and a pat on the back from the principal. However, if you score worse than you usually would (which, due to the guessing penalty, happens in most cases), you will be humiliated in front of your peers and probably teased. You have no way of hiding your score from them.
There were probably some more reasons but I’ve forgotten them. Most good students tried to answer every question and were butchered by the guessing penalty. Since the test was said to test logic/reasoning skills as well, low scorers were often accused of being dumb and only earning good grades by sucking up. “Bad” students had nothing to lose, and by answering few questions, they often outscored even “average” students. So basically, the test sent everyone who claimed to be good at math into a tizzy- because, even though teachers didn’t officially consider the scores in their grades, they still received the scores and rankings of their students. I’m sure a good few were mortified.
…Anyway, the standard techniques was to fill in “ACDC” instead of the correct answer, or just write the same answer as your neighbor so that you’d both be disqualified and your test scores nullified. In senior year, we simply went to a coffee shop instead and all studied together to make up for the canceled prep class, since most of the teachers agreed that we should be able to chose if we want to take it in the first place and if we wanted our scores to be publicly displayed.
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That sounds more like your school’s use of the test than the actual math program that was the problem: the fact that they forced you to take it, the fact that the scores were publicly posted for humiliation. It doesn’t sound like the actual math program was to blame– if kids want to challenge themselves with new and interesting math problems, go for it, but schools shouldn’t force it upon kids. I’m sorry your school made you do that– it sounds unbearable. But wouldn’t copying your neighbor to nullify your score go on some sort of academic record? Or are cheating punishments different where you are? Or did it not matter (minus the fact you got your scores nullified) since the actual test wasn’t going on your academic record?
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Yes, sorry if I didn’t make it clear: the problem lies mostly with my school (though the curriculum having nothing to do with the test and vica versa should be addressed as well).
The thing is, the test doesn’t go on your official school record because it’s not an official school test. So officially, there’s no record of you taking it, only none of you not taking it.
Cheating is a discipline problem to be addressed by each classes’ head teacher on a case by case basis, and since the students cheated to disqualify themselves or achieve equally abominable scores (example: filling out ACDC instead of the correct answers), the worst case scenario is a lecture. It also helps that from about 8th grade onwards, 50-100% of students in each class boycott or invalidate their tests.
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Wow, that sounds… extremely unreasonable. Since that sounds like a problem with the way your school administered the test rather than the test, though, I now feel confident that I can take the test without moral issues. (My school doesn’t administer the test at all; I’m going to take it somewhere else).
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A List of Things That Happen To Aggie While She Is Sick:
1) Eat lots and lots of orange popsicles and pumpkin spice flavored ice cream, both of which are high on the very-short list of foods I can eat that don’t feel like thumbtacks going down. If you’ve never had pumpkin flavored ice cream, go get it. Absolutely sublime.
2) Listen to a lot of old music. Middle-school era music. Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, the whiny pop-punk alternative bands that I used to love and still do.
3) Watch all of Shutter Island and love the whole movie.
4) Turn down several chances to see all of my friends who are home this weekend, too, which makes me very sad, but apparently the cocktail of steroids that was in my IV yesterday makes me super-susceptible to more germs, so I’m under temporary house arrest.
5) Music theory homework, but then again, what else is new?
6) Be lonely, cuddle with sock monkey, Skype with people.
7) Actually want to be back at college, which is a bit surprising considering how I haven’t really taken to it so far. I miss my friends.
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*huggly squid tentacle hug* hope you feel better in time for winter! (god i love dat season =3 the air is so crisp and the white ground is so beautiful)
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Wow. You must be really sick . *healing and cuddle squids*
On a related note, I have tried pumpkin spice ice cream, and it’s the best. Have you tried apple pie ice cream?
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“Fall is coming– prepare for pumpkin spice EVERYTHING”
— the Internet
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Impostor!
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I’ve spent the past three days watching the entirety of Downton Abbey, and I have no regrets about staying up ’til two last night; words cannot describe my love for it. It has put me out of the mood of writing my French essay (due tomorrow, unfortunately) but that’s all right. The next episode airs tonight at nine.
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I love Downton Abbey! My family’s watching them as the DVDs come out.
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I am categorically unashamed of being obsessed.
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Last night and the night before I went camping, since I never got a chance this summer to really try out the tent I bought. Of course, these past two nights were the first this year to get below freezing. I survived, though. On Saturday morning at about five o’clock I heard a couple of coyotes outside my tent, but neither of them tried to poke its nose inside so I just ignored them. I also got some fantastic hiking in. The first night both of my parents joined me for dinner and a campfire, and my dad came back the second night as well (bearing beef stew, no less). Between hikes I got a lot of reading done too. It’s going to be hard to get back in the groove now. Not to mention I’m starting a new exercise routine and preparing job applications…blergh. Oh well.
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Just got back from lifting weights for the first time in my life. Woo! I tagged along with two friends of mine. Today was legs and shoulders day, so that’s what we did. Squats, box squats, seated calf raises, seated dumbbell shoulder presses, and glute hamstring raises. That last one is fun. It should come in handy if I ever have to reach over the edge of a cliff/skyscraper and save someone in a scene of intense heroism. Anyway, today was more of a “what in the world is a gym and how does it work” day, so I lost track of how many reps I did with how much weight.
Until all of my muscles start hurting, I feel great. Maybe this “exercise” thing isn’t so awful. But now: eat all the food.
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Wooo! Dragon capsule in orbit!
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Welp
I’m ready for the semester to be done now please
On the plus side, got to go to the ren faire yesterday (though I missed being there at the same time as ebeth by only a WEEK, alas) with friends so that was a nice escape for a while.
Now… all the work I haven’t done yet…
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Just discovered that the Mayan and Aztec gods appeared in a few issues of Thor in the 80s… I’ve complained that the Egyptian gods don’t get enough panel-time from Marvel, but at least they got a page in The Marvel Encyclopedia, unlike these Mesoamerican pantheons, who I didn’t know canonically existed until today. But I guess there’s just no reason for them to show up more often… we only see the Asgardians and Olympians so much because Thor, Ares, and Hercules are high-profile heroes.
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Wasn’t Ares a god? No offense.
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Yes, so was Thor. I think that by ‘hero’, she means major character doing major things.
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Oh. My Norse mythology isn’t very good.
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When taken literally, I agree; it’s so bad it’s hilarious. And the ridiculousness of the literal meaning can make it hard to even appreciate the metaphors.
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Oops, I didn’t notice the word ‘my.’ I thought you were saying Norse mythology wasn’t very good.
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Both Thor and Ares are gods who have been Avengers in the comics. By “high-profile heroes”, I meant superbeings currently on teams and/or with their own series.
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Okay, so when is the weekend?
This is really silly of me, but for some reason my biggest obstacle so far is that, now that I’m in college, I’m actually supposed to, like, study. I can’t just waltz in and be the best just like I always was. Which was a stupid assumption to make, but other people are getting it I guess so why don’t I always get it right away? And for some reason, everything that makes sense to most people makes no sense to me and the one thing everyone else seems to find illogical is the only thing that really makes sense to me.
…
…
…
So anyway, how’s everyone else doing?
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Pretty good.
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It might look and feel like you’re the only one who has to finally come to terms with studying, but I’d wager most of your classmates feel the same way. It’s not silly at all, it’s very common- so is feeling like you’re out of sync with your class. I’ve heard the most worries like this from friends at Ivies, so you’re in good company. It will dissipate the more you talk to people.
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Obviously, you are on a much higher level than I am, but I had the same problem when I started high school (I would just walk around going, “why isn’t everything easy?).
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It’s also possible she had a less challenging high school than you.
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Just spent a while cleaning my room. Usually when I clean I just straighten and organize, but this time I actually got rid of a lot of sttuff. It doesn’t look much better, but I’ve got a lot more room in my closet now.
I need to finish cleaning everything out, but I don’t really know how to go about cleaning it from here. Augh.
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i just reciently exchanged rooms with my dad and my room is a MESS!
but the god thing is i got up all of my Legos in my room so im fit to go 
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wait… God thing? i meant to say Good thing sorry
SFTDP
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‘sfine. I make that typo all the time.
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Sorry for the squid. My computer isn’t working, so I’m on my mom’s player. I’m not used to exploring the internet on a touch screen.
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Officially a photography intern at a place that supports start-up local businesses! It’ll be an enlightening experience, I’m sure.
I was fighting to not fall asleep all during class so I got coffee and now I’m wired. Oops.
Now, onward to dinner and homework!
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KaiYves, have you seen the Mythbusters episode with James Cameron? I think you would really appreciate it.
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Not yet, but it looks interesting.
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It was. I recommend that you see it.
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YAWN! mreow.
two of my pet cats died yestermonth (last month) and i was kind of unnerved until my remaining cat had a siezure (he’s OK now but IKD)
i might be getting a new cat from someone mom knows soon. i was going to get him today but the lady who has the cat now, her boyfriend was so sad that they had to get rid of the cat he started to cry because i can understand he would get rather atached to him. I havn’t really seen the kitty myself but mom says he is all white and he has natural blue eyes (like WhiteStorm from the book Warriors if you read that) and that’s what i want to call him, Whitestorm (WhiteKit untill 6 months then WhitePaw. then when i think he is ready, WhiteStorm)
meh. i am bored. entertain meh
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Keep in mind that completely white cats with blue eyes are often blind and/or aggressive. This might not matter in the slightest to you, and it might not be applicable in this case, anyway; I just thought I should let you know just in case.
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I thought they were usually deaf, not blind.
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According to the website of Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, you’re right.
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That’s what I’ve heard.
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mom says it’s the most gentlest cat she ever seen. but her brother is the mean one. but he’s a crossbreed so i dont know
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It is deaf. And though it doesn’t happen all the time, it is true that most white, blue-eyed cats are deaf–Wikipedia says 72%.
The aggressive temperament probably isn’t related to genes; I don’t think cats’ personalities are as affected by breed as dogs’ are. The aggressiveness may come from the deafness. The cat needs some way to defend itself. But the deaf cats I’ve seen (only around three) are as nice as normal cats, probably because they’ve had good lives with no need to survive in the wild.
Since WhiteKit is just a kitten now, there’s little to no chance he would be aggressive. Though he might be deaf.
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The estimates I’ve seen are somewhat lower: 40-65% for those with two blue eyes. Also some cats may be deaf in one ear without anyone noticing. I haven’t come across any information about aggressiveness as a factor, but my guess would be the same as yours, that a deaf cat might react that way because it felt disoriented or threatened. Or it could be that some people simply attributed behavior to deafness even if it were purely coincidental.
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It is both a lot of fun and kind of unnerving to be dealing with $8,000 microscopes on a regular basis.* On the one hand, it’s super cool and they’re nice to use and wow does the gypsum plate make minerals super pretty colors (fluorescent pink, orange, yellow, and blue), but at the same time oh god I break everything I touch why are they letting me use this whenever I feel like it.
Also optic crystallography: HARD. I am not quite understanding everything i need to I don’t think… lab this afternoon though, so maybe another repetition of it will make it sink in more. Even though today will be harder/more complicated than last week. Wherp.
*The first time I wrote that I accidentally left out the “$” sign… that would be an entirely different sort of problem.
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Good luck to aerial adventurer Felix Baumgartner, attempting to set a record today for the world’s highest skydive! Here’s hoping he lands safe with lots of scientific data and an amazing story to tell!
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The attempt was called off because of weather. Here’s hoping they get another chance soon.
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it was very wet here at my house today, it rained a bit.
i wonder if he could be persuaded to wear a camera hat or something so we could share his experience with the world. i love people who do that
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That’s exactly what he’s doing. (Not a hat, because he has a full pressure suit on including a space helmet, but there are cameras on his suit.)
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I personally think this guy is crazy.
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But awesome, as your name implies? As I told my Halo fan brother back in the summer, this is the closest to being an orbital drop shock trooper anyone has yet cone.
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Crazy or not, this dude is very brave to do this just to entertain other people! i would never be brave enough to do this!
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I think that the contribution to science is another huge bonus, in addition to the entertainment.
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Nah, he’s Austrian. We do this sort of thing from time to time…
Also, I have no knowledge of anything involving christmas trees, skeletons of prehistoric marine animals and possibly santa hats that may or may not happen this december.
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You celebrate Cephalopodmas, too?
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Today I suddenly got a huge linguistic crush on Icelandic. It’s just so awesome. It’s retained its inflection system, and it has three full verb voices (unlike the mushy middle/passive conglomeration ancient Greek has), but it uses auxiliary verbs to form most of the tenses, and it uses preaspiration before geminate aspirated plosives (which is just fun), and a linguistic purism movement a few hundred years ago means that it doesn’t have many loanwords, and it’s retained Ãð and Þþ, and its word for “stock market” is “hlutabréfamarkaður”.
But no, no, I must wait. I’m still a beginner in two languages right now, so I can’t justify starting another one just yet. But really, how awesome is it that speakers of modern Icelandic can just pick up and read an 11th-century text with no trouble?
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That is pretty cool.
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um… i have a question!
how do you remove decorative things in your text.
like how do i remove this ?
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By closing the html tag! Just repeat the tag you started with after the text you wanted to modify, but add a slash (/) after the first bracket. If you started with [strike] (I’m using square brackets so they’ll show up, but to actually change the text, you’d still be using <angle brackets<), to close the tag and stop the strike-through-ing, you'd add [/strike]. If you italicized a phrase by starting it with [i], you'd add [/i] after the phrase, so that only the words between the brackets would be italicized.
Does that help?
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yes it works! thanks
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To remove that, you would have deleted the brackets you used to make it.
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Yesterday I watched a boy from my English class make love to a giant banana goddess.
Today I watched a (okay, fine, simulated) bacterial disease spread through the entire world. It was seriously fun.
Also, I watched a viral video of a marching band doing the best show ever.
Looks like I’m in for an interesting week.
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wait
waitwaitwaitwait
YES
YEEEEEEES
I WILL BE A GIANT BANANA GODDESS FOR HALLOWEEN
WITH GOOGLY EYES
AND A MULLET!
I’ll just make a two-way slice through the top of my giant banana and peel back the back two quarters.
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The giant banana was supposed to be Calypso. The boy from my English class was Odysseus.
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This evening I went for a walk up the ridge and down the other side and then laid in the middle of a field and watched the sun go down and the stars come out. I’ve been really jittery and weirdly unhappy for the past few days, and that was just what I needed to feel human again.
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That sounds lovely.
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Is my weather app correct? Could tomorrow really be the day we see… The Sun?
By all the Muses, I hope so.
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And so it is! And apparently, the sky really is blue and not white!
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Today I acted like an ADULT in lab and only cried a tiny bit and no one noticed when the HUGE LEACHES WRIGGLED OUT OF THE POND SAMPLE INCHES FROM MY HANDS/FACE
I am not going to go through any of the samples by hand for the rest of the data collection nnnnghjerdfnsad
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I hope this doesn’t count as a double post (since my previous one was a nested comment), but if it does, I’m sorry.
If you go to or work in a high school in North Carolina and see someone pass by wearing a black top hat with clockpunk-style decorations and a TARDIS necklace, and carrying a bright green homemade sonic screwdriver, a blue parasol, and a sign that reads “Anachronisms and randomness!” then you go to/work at the school I go to and we should have discovered this earlier.
Here is my explanation:
This week is Spirit Week at my school, which is basically just an excuse to dress up every day for a week. Each day has a theme, for instance, today was “Dress Up Like Your Favorite Country Day” (the overarching theme for this year is the Olympics which were held in London). There were tons of people wearing t-shirts with flags and/or the names of countries on them, but some outfits were really elaborate. There was a girl in one of my classes dressed up as America who was wearing red, white, and blue everything, including face paint. There were also some less literal interpretations; for instance, a couple of my friends dressed up as Hetalia characters.
Since the Olympics were held in London, tomorrow is “British Influence Day”. I think I’ll participate, which will make this the first year I’ve ever done something for Spirit Week (and, since I’m a senior, also the last). However, I asked my first-period teacher and it turns out that bringing my homemade (well, sci-fi/fantasy con made, technically) sonic screwdriver and wearing a TARDIS necklace aren’t enough to count. (If you dress up, you earn a point for your grade, and your first period teacher decides whether you’re dressed up enough to count.) I don’t have any British-themed t-shirts, so I was ready to resign myself to only honoring the day in the eyes of my friends when I was reminded that I have a Victorian-style clockpunk top hat. My teacher had said that the two previously mentioned items didn’t count because they weren’t articles of clothing, but surely a hat would still count? By the time I thought of this, it was too late to ask my teacher, so I’ll have to wait and see. I told the friend who made me think of this, and she (with the help of our other friends) persuaded me to bring my parasol along too. I figured that if I was going to wear a black clockpunk top hat and carry a plain, bright blue parasol, I might as well go all the way and bring the sonic screwdriver and necklace too. The sign is my portable explanation.
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Sorry for the squid. Man I hate touch screens,
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After being shipped early Monday morning, my copy of Pokemon White 2 came today. Last night I was a bit upset because a guy who ordered it after me had gotten it before me, but today I understood why.
My copy had been run over by some sort of vehicle. The packaging is ripped, and the game box is squished. The game cartridge is scratched and won’t work.
Fortunately, Amazon is great with returns. But this means I’ll have to wait at least another three days! This is a lesson in patience.
On the plus side, the guy that I mentioned before will be further ahead of me. In Black 2, after you finish the game, you unlock “Challenge Mode,” which can be sent to other games, even if they haven’t finished. So the further behind him I am, the earlier in my game I will be able to get Challenge Mode!
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Oh, my replacement copy shipped! That means it might be here on Friday!
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*is jealous* *envious?* *I don’t even know anymore* Though that does suck that it got run over. Strange…
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Jealous = What you have. (And don’t want someone else to get.)
Envious = What someone else has. (And you want.)
CPM: The postal service is so awful sometimes. It’s a real pain. At least you can get it replaced! 
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Amazon actually overnighted it to me, which means I have it right now! Their return service is really amazing!
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Linguistics problems are so satisfying.
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I just spent a wonderful hour and a half chatting with Beavo! He was around way back when, for those who remember him. Anyway, he visited my college and although our schedule’s sadly don’t match up a ton while he’s here I got to talk to him a bit about my school and life and such. Woo!
ALSO I think I totally forgot to mention this but Taiwan Hippo Fan also did a visit here a month or so back. That was also awesome!
So if any more of you end up visiting my school, hit me up! Kokons all over the place.
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Last night one of my roommates was doing some work in the 3D studio on her sculptures for a life modeling class, so myself and one of our other roommates tagged along to keep her company. Taylor gave me a little bit of clay, so I played with it for awhile and ended up making a cartoon-ish face of an old man. I intended to make a face, but I didn’t have any in mind.
Anyway, apparently in the ten or so years it’s been since I tried to make anything out of clay I’ve gotten better at it. Hurrah for motor skills getting better as I age, and stuff like that. I was actually really happy with how he came out, so I kept him. Even though he’s unfired. I jokingly said I’d put him in the microwave, but something tells me that wouldn’t work and I shouldn’t try. 
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Is green tea addicting?
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I think it can be…
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I believe it contains caffeine, so it probably is, at least for some people. Why do you ask? Are thinking of trying it?
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You can probably become addicted to it in the same way that many people are addicted to chocolate, or French fries, or pistachios. But since it contains caffeine, you can also develop a dependence on it, but it would be a dependence on caffeine in general and not just green tea. (This would encompass tea, coffee, sodas, and those disgusting Red Bull things that scare me.)
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Green tea is one of the least-caffeinated caffeinated beverages out there. Should you develop a dependence on caffeine from it, it wouldn’t be as severe an addiction as someone who is addicted to coffee, for example. You’d probably feel under the whether without drinking tea, but you wouldn’t need it to function.
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And you have to drink it every day for a while in order to get addicted. I mean, I drink coffee/tea every couple of days and I’m not addicted (I don’t feel the effects on the “off days”).
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*slurp* What tea?
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Ah. Thanks for answering, guys. In response to Bibliophile, I wanted to test its applicability as a metaphor for something.
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I love metaphors.
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Watching Dave Cam’s speech at the Tory party conference and feeling fairly inspired. (I doubt many of you follow British politics, though.)
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I know enough to know the name and party, if that helps.
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So, a summary of recent events:
On Saturday, the park I volunteer at had a biodiversity survey. I participated, of course, even though I knew I wouldn’t be of too much help. I was on the herp team, because I’m not too bad at identifying herps, really.
It was amazing, of course. We saw a yellow-bellied water snake, 40 frogs (40!), almost 20 live green anoles, one dead anole being eaten by wasps, a Bess beetle, termites, skinks, toads, crickets, and butterflies! It was just awesome.
The next day, when I went to volunteer on Sunday morning like I always do, there was an injured giant swallowtail. This saddened me; I decided to take it home to see if I could keep it alive, but it didn’t even try to drink its sugar water. Granted, I have a giant swallowtail now, but I would have definitely preferred it if it had lived.
Anyway, that’s the only bad news; the rest is great. We’re doing a project in a personal growth class where we learn a skill, and my teacher is letting me do lichen identification! I don’t think he’s happy about my choosing it for some reason, but I’m really excited.
I’m officially going to try and test out of geometry! I’m kind of nervous because if I don’t get an A, things will not be well, but it worked with Spanish; I’m sure I can do it. Speaking of which, the test for the second semester of Spanish finally came, and I’m taking it Tuesday. Yay. If I pass it, I’ll finally actually be placed in a Spanish class; since I’ve tested out of the first semester but not the second yet, I currently just have an extra study hall. And then I might have to switch Spanish classes because I’d have to take another class to see if I can take the college-level version of the next Spanish class.
Aaand I get to volunteer at the park 4 times this weekend (including Friday, since I count that as part of the weekend on account of having no classes, because I’d volunteer even if I didn’t have to)!
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Sounds great!
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I was really worried about my Astronomy midterm, and I thought the best grade I could get was an 85, but I actually got a 101! Such relief!
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President Obama is speaking at my school on Wednesday.
…This can’t be real.
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So. Much. Envy.
Tell us about it afterward!
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Are you going? If you are, have fun!
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I am so envious. Tell us everything, yeah?
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Congratulations! That’s amazing (especially if you support him but even if you don’t)!
Please do tell us about it; I might see it on television or something, but if something amazing happens and you get to ask a question and he answers or something I won’t know otherwise.
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I’m super excited. Even though I’m probably going to miss class to go unless Megan decides to cancel/postpone, but still. And tickets are free!
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oh… my… god!
here’s a tomato and a throwing-arm upgrade.
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I just watched Princess Mononoke for the first time in around eight years! It’s sooo good! I love the music best of all. And all the traveling scenes.
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Tomorrow I leave for four days of geology field trip in the Adirondacks! So basically we will be prancing arond on mountains with rock hammars and exploring a wollastonite mine and an abandoned garnet mine.
Aaaaaand today was the day I got really sick D: I had a sore throat/slightly runny nose yesterday but last night I coughed a bunch and when I woke up this morning I was at least 18% dead 
Drank 3 thermoses of tea in the morning (one in each of my classes) and felt a bit better at lunch, then went on my errands downtown and went back to my room and was dead x_x BUt after sitting around for many hours doing nothing but internet tv and a hot shower I am feeling better. Still sniffly but have drunk 3 more thermoses of tea and had some soup (since I didn’t leave for dinner). Also bought cough drops so I can hopefully survive the 7 hour drive there. I don’t want to be mainlining tea/water on the drive like I have been all day since we won’t exactly be stopping every hour for bathroom breaks… D:
Cold things are usually only a few days right? And this should be the worst of it? It’s been so long since I’ve actually been sick to the point where I feel bodily tired (not just sniffly)
whhhhy timing
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After a short night of weird dreams and little sleep, I am awake. I leave to meet the bus in 30 min. WE WILL SEE HOW THIS GOES…
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I’m sorry about your cold. I hope you have fun on your geology field trip, though; that sounds awesome! Good luck!
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Sounds like an amazing trip, and the timing is indeed terribly unfortunate. Hope you feel better! *magical healing squid*
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I just realized this- it’s past my six month blogiversary.
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Indeed! Congratulations, Prussia! I realized sometime yesterday (I’m not sure how it crossed my mind seeing as I was at a band competition) that I no longer think of you as a neophyte.
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DUNG BEETLES
I SAW SOME
So I went to volunteer at the park again today because they were having a historical reenactment, and I’d only be allowed to paperwork and other boring things (training for the reenactment is on Fridays, when I have volunteer work that’s even more amazing), but I hoped maybe I’d get time to see some of it. I did, and walked off to go watch.
I never actually saw the reenactment.
They had horses, and they’d gone on the same path I was on, and there were actual dung beetles in their manure. So of course I sat down right in the middle of the trail and stared at them until one of them dug a hole and dragged the dung into it and was invisible (along with the others, since they were in the dung, which was in the hole). I mean, who cares about the Civil War when there are dung beetles? (Haha I would make such an awful soldier).
It was really neat to actually see one at work! (There were multiple beetles, but only one was actually moving the piece of dung; the rest just burrowed in it where I couldn’t see and probably laid their eggs where I also couldn’t see). And later, I found a green lacewing egg on the basil; those are really cool as well. And I finally internalized the differences between the 3 swallowtails that I’ve been mixing up.
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Sounds like you had fun in your own way– and you can always see one of their other training sessions, right?
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I spent a delightful day with two of my friends going to Goodwill and getting dinner at one of my favorite restaurants downtown and giggling and seeing cool stores and generally having a lovely time.
And I now have most of my Halloween costume! I’m going to be a nautical pinup girl, so I got a navy blue dress with tiny white polka dots (it’s simple and strapless and has an above-the-knee ruffle), a red belt, red flats (since I would kill myself in heels), and earrings that are a ship’s wheel with an anchor in them. I’m going to see if I can find a sailor hat to top it all off, and if it’s cold I’ll wear my peacoat.
I’m actually really excited, since it’s been quite some time since I’ve actually put effort into a costume. Usually I just forget to do anything and then go as a pirate because it’s easy for me.
Eeeep! 
I also got two button-down flannel shirts, one of which is a turquoise-y green plaid and the other is a brownish maroon-ish paisley. The paisley one is a bit small, but it’s okay.
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Sounds like an awesome day!
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I’m not actually dressing up for Halloween this year, but I’m still celebrating. I’m going to work at a local haunted corn maze and scare people. I did it one night last year and it was so much fun. I’ll only be able to make it two out of five nights (including Halloween) because of band, but oh well.
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I’m dressing up as Amelia Earhart. I already have the hat, goggles, coat, pants, and boots, I don’t know if I’m going to wear a scarf or not, in the specific photo I’m trying to imitated, she’s wearing a tie, but not a scarf.
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I’d happily wear the tie.
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If it’ll be seriously cold where you live, wear the scarf. If you want to be more recognizable, wear the tie.
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Yesterday was marching band competition!
Our band took Grand Champion and won first overall in Music and Visual categories. (We won first in our class in everything during prelims awards ceremony, but only because we were the only band in that class.)
So. That was fun. I’m not even sure how we got the score we did (a 90.2). I had been expecting something in the low eighties at best.
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Wow. I could never play an instrument while marching. That’s amazing.
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Thanks, Prussia! Of course, I never thought I could, either– it takes lots of hard work but ends up being so much fun.
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Welcome home, Felix! Don’t worry about when you popped the parachute, you still got the ascent and jump records and the speed record, now just go meet your family!
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Yes, he landed safely!
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I remembered just in time to catch the last few minutes of his descent. What an achievement.
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I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a human being jumped from 38 kilometers up and landed on his feet. It was amazing!
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Yeah, he’s very well-named. (Bad Latin joke.)
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Good Latin joke.
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You’ve got to be lucky to try something like that.
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Also exceptionally feline.
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Oh, you were punning on him being “cat-like” (felis) for landing on his feet, I was punning on him being “lucky” (felix)… so, a double Latin joke?
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Yes, a very good one.
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I’m just glad his last name didn’t come into play. I mean, I don’t think there are a lot of trees in New Mexico, but perhaps cacti? That could’ve ended badly.
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What does it mean, out of curiosity?
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Literallly, I think Baumgartner means “tree gardener.” Forester? Arborist?
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All the better to land on.
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I don’t know that you’d feel anything through that spacesuit, but even so… Ouch.
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I’ve got to repost this amazing photo of Mr. Baumgartner just before he jumped;
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Incredible.
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Wowzer.
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Whoa.I would be the person hanging onto the edge and screaming.
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Wall Street Journal front page above the fold! Rockin’! I cut out the article to save!
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Flannel paisley shirt FTW.
Basically.
I’m so snuggly right now it’s kind of sickening. Also CLASSEH AS CAKE.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m really just a hipster guy.
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hello!
library computer is rather annoying…
i am not used to it and the keys on the keyboard are REALLY BIG!
text is weird…
whatev. just to tell you i am okay. my whole parents-divorce thing is going okay and i will be going home for while and i think i will be using my own computer sometime soon.
-Catwings
(P.S. i have 2 new imaginary friends. Draggoon. a chineese dragon and a griffon. Allyssa. not quite sure if i told you that already… but i might have
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Glad to hear you’re okay for now, Catwings. Remember, we’re here for you.
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I’m glad you’re okay, Catwings.
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Present-me is really appreciating past-me right now: present-me has an extra essay that present me would like to turn in tomorrow, and present-me has just remembered about the very detailed plan for the essay question that past-me wrote out while in the library last week. Thank you, past-me.
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It hasn’t even been a week, and my resolve is already weakening. I’m not seeing Death Note characters every time I close my eyes anymore, but it still occupies much more of my mind than it should. Ergh. I’m seeing this through to the end! I can go two weeks without reading Death Note, I know I can! Or more, if necessary…
Speaking of which, as someone who has been a fan of Voltaire for about three years (thanks to this site, actually!), I have always found his song “Ringo No Uta” a bit… strange. I found a few English translations for it, and they all translate it to say basically the same thing, so presumably they’re right. It seems to be sung from the perspective of someone with an… unhealthy obsession with apples. Of course, now it’s forever linked with Death Note in my mind.
Now here’s the thing; I’m currently taking doing research for an English project, and whenever I research stuff online I always pull up a tab with That Video-Sharing Site so that I can listen to my playlist of Voltaire music while I work. Today, for the first time, when I logged on, one of the suggested videos was a Death Note music video for “Ringo No Uta”. I have been told that that site suggests videos based on stuff you type in Google or its sponsored sites. The only website I’ve ever mentioned Death Note by name on is this one, and isn’t it un-findable by Google?? It can’t be from the times I’ve typed “Ringo No Uta” or it would have showed up before today.
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SAME HERE
L is so adorable…
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I disagree, but to each their own, I suppose.
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Sisters sick. Off to go quarantine everything…
in other news, GAPAs, did you recieve my ribosome pictures?
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Oops! Sorry, Agent Lightning. Yes, we got them.
Herewith, Agent Lightning’s knitted ribosomes:
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It’s so cute! Well done!
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Those are beautiful!
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And this is the day I (finally) learn about ribosomes in science. And I gt a whopper cell model project too. Time to learn how to crochet.
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I like!
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Today in photography class we printed some pictures from a project we did a week or so ago. Aside from the fact that the printer wasn’t quite calibrated yet and so was printing some things darker or wonky from what they were supposed to be it was really cool to see my pictures on a physical piece of paper instead of just a screen.
I took home two of the prints that were too dark. The ones that turned out we put up on the wall in the art building where people show their work. It’s exciting, because I’m fairly proud of some of the pictures I took.
Once their time up on the wall is over I’ll get to keep them, too.
Oh, and in three days I will be done with my midterms and get a Roovisit!
And then I’ll have a performance on Friday and then drive home on Saturday and have a week of kitten snuggles and apple cider and homefoods and revisting my sweaters because it’s going to be a much colder winter this year than the last.
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Has anyone seen the movie The Red Violin? I have FEELINGS we need to talk about.
I wish it was more widely-known, because it is an amazing movie (not to mention it has all my favorite actors from Slings and Arrows in it).
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No, although I had heard of it in the context of being the film for which the soundtrack was performed by Joshua Bell. Looking it up, it definitely seems like something I would enjoy (I’ve a book on my Kindle, based on a similar premise, that I like) and I shall try to watch it sometime.
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Yessss, watch it and then we can discuss what an amazingly good/beautiful/tragic/hilarious movie it is. (So many violin-related innuendos. Goodness.)
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I AM BACK
I am really tired
but I had an AMAZING time in the Adirondacks, like wow seriously it was so beautiful and cool and no one yelled at me for taking home bulging pockets full of rocks because everyone else had them too.
I found some really cool stuff, including a bunch of garnets from an abandoned mine and wollastonite (with pretty garnet and diopside inclusions) and anorthosites which are basically only found in the Adirondacks and on the moon. And magnetite with peacock and some pretty gold-colored inclusion due to high copper content. We hiked up a mountain in the morning to see the sunrise from the top, and picnicked near Lake Placid and hiked up a gorgeous stream/waterfall (I and one other kid got halfway to the top of the waterfall before we had to go back down because people were starting to leave and we were like 1/4 or more of a mile up and away from everyone) that has SO MANY COOL ROCKS IN IT and iugbrfsndjk it was so great. And it was like SUPER CLASS BONDING TIME in the cars since it was a 9 hour drive there/back and we went all over the park once there so it was so many hours in the car every day. Not to mention in the cabins and around the campfires and stuff.
Anyway it was an awesome time and wow I love the geology department and our teacher is awesome.
Except I am really not ready to have classes again how is that even a thing? Like I have 3 days of school and then fall break. Let’s just go camping for the rest of the week instead. Except I have a midterm on friday and so much to do, wherp.
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ALSO
I know this is going to break everyone’s worlds but
at least one of these nights I was asleep before 11pm, possibly two of them
that is how fun and exhausting it was (also they made us get up at like 6:45, 5:45, and 7am depending on the day)
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Looks like your trip was-*puts on sunglasses*-PRETTY GNEISS.
YEEEEAAAAAAAAA-*slap*
Sorry, could not resist.
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My new life goal is to make it into a binder someday <3
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Go forth and make your own binder.
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Looking up gut strings for my old violin to use for the Early Music Consort.
One thing leads to another, and I’m seriously considering getting a baroque bow too, because, I mean, I’ve wanted one for a long time and it would be really nice and now I have a somewhat more legitimate excuse for owning one. Right? I managed to kind of sidestep the baroque violins, arguing that I don’t need a THIRD violin right now. And they’re significantly more expensive than the bow (which is a pretty cheap-o one, actually).
I can mostly talk myself out of the rebecs and the medieval fiddles, but I really, really want a viol.
I’ve wanted one for awhile. I really want one now.
But.
But.
*sobs*
Someday.
Also, I can sense a sea shanty listening binge coming on. I started listening to Oscar Brand today and now all I want in my life is more choruses of “whiskey-o, johnny-o, up aloft this yard must go, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey-o send ‘er up from down below” and the like.
I really need to make more time for playing music and making things and doing things that make me genuinely happy and excited.
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DO IT. They are so cool and play so differently and you will really enjoy it, I guarantee you.
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You are a Bad Influence.
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I am the best influence.
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Ooh, yes, get a viol!
And sea shanties are the best. Is Oscar Brand a singer/band?
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All in all, university is mostly harmless.
{Though I really need to fix my sleep cycle and convince my body that getting up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m. does not merit four meals a day.}
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“Mostly Harmless”
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The story of my day so far:
Woke up at 5:50 am, befuddled and confused because I’d apparently slept through my 5:30 alarm. Dressed in the dark. Ran down to get join the two-block-long line that had been forming for half an hour. Stood in pretty much the same place for three hours. Got inside. Stood in the same place in a hot, sweaty gym packed with 2,000 other people for three more hours.
Then, OBAMA. FIFTEEN FEET AWAY FROM ME. FOR THIRTY MINUTES OF AWESOMENESS AND JOY.
Plus: early voting in one hour.
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Holy cake. * faints*
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That is awesome. I’m glad you had such a good time!
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WOOO! Great for you, TNO!
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Half-term starts tomorrow, after lessons! Strangely, I wouldn’t really mind another week of school, although I am looking forward to the break – must take some time to continue thinking about possible degrees at university, which is both formidable and exciting.
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No matter how awful, awkward, or strange my life may become, I can always count on my section to be weird…
Thank you for posting my ribosome photos, Robert! I’m glad everyone could enjoy them!
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Erm, I must warn anyone who may read this that I plan to abuse my right to use capslock.
We are reading Macbeth in English class. And watching an anachronistic movie of it (it’s set in World War Two, but the actual words aren’t changed, though some lines have been removed). I already knew I was predisposed to like it, but… OH MAN LADY MACBETH THE SOCIOPATH AND JUST READING IT WAS AWESOME ENOUGH AND WATCHING THE MOVIE WHEN THE THREE WITCHES RIPPED OUT THAT GUY’S HEART AND EVERYONE ELSE WAS FREAKING OUT AND I WAS JUST LAUGHING LIKE A HOMICIDAL LUNATIC AND NOT CARING WHO HEARD ME AND…
Yeah. I think I enjoyed that more than was really warranted. Even if underneath everything I couldn’t help thinking “Isn’t that heart disproportionately large? Shouldn’t it be smaller?”
On a different (and completely unrelated) note, I’m going to be avoiding my friends tomorrow. Maybe if I stay away from them for a little while, I’ll be able to explain myself to them better when I talk to them again. It’s not like I really have anything to talk about for the time being anyway.
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MY FOURTH BLOGIVERSARY WAS OCTOBER 5 AND I MISSED IT.
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WAIT
THAT REMINDS ME
MY THIRD BLOGIVERSARY WAS YESTERDAY
CAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKE
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YOUR AVARTAR IS MARIGOOOOOLD
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
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HAPPY BELATED BLOGIVERSARIES, TESSERACT AND ROSEBUD! *THREW PIES FROM A LONG DISTANCE AWAY BUT IT WAS SO FAR AWAY THEY ONLY JUST GOT HERE NOW*
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OH NO R101 HAS INFECTED US WITH CAPSLOCK!
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WHY DID I TYPE THAT!?
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MUSEBLOG! I AM BACK!
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Glad to hear that!
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Guys. You guys. YOU GUYS.
Guess what I have?
I have a Roo! A real, live Roo!
We just got back from contra and are now internetting.
So there’s that! Yay kokons! Yay contra! Yay contrakons!
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What is a Roo?
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Glassboro!! A muser who used to be very active and is now not so much but many are still friends with.
I hope you guys had an awesome time!!
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ermagerd Asheville.
Hi guys! I’m still alive! And visiting Midnight Fiddler! And am about to desert her for the Lake Eden Arts Festival!
So yeah, that’s a thing. I’m a thing. Midnight Fiddler’s a thing. That thing over there’s a thing.
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Ahoy, Fiddler and Glassboro! Many pies to you both.
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By coincidence I caught a few minutes of Morris dancing on the telly last night.
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Excellent! Who was doing the dancings? What was the occasion?
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The Lake Eden Arts Festival is the BEST. I’ve gone every spring for like ten years. Have fun!
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oh my god it was SO GOOD, I love my friends and my dancing community. LEAF is definitely going to be one of my festivals, once I have money/time again…
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On a related note, do you contra dance? If not, you should; it’s pretty great.
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I need a senior quote. By last Friday. Actually, I think I can probably get away with turning it in by tomorrow. But I am still torn.
The two quotes I am most considering right now are:
“What will your verse be?” from Dead Poets Society
and
“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.†from The Secret Garden
They both very much have the attitude of “even though high school is ending, there is so much left in front of us! the world is beautiful! savor it, make the most of it!”, which is definitely what I’m going for. It’s just hard to pick one, you know?
Anyway, current and past seniors, what is/was your senior quote?
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Didn’t have one. Our yearbook was kind of lame. It’s been in color only for the past six years. Before 2007? Black and white.
I guess my “quote” was what my parents put in with my baby picture: “Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.†-A.A.Milne. Although someone else (whom I actually knew! And disliked! Hooray!) had exactly the same quote, but I didn’t notice until this summer, one year after the fact. Huh.
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One of my friends is using that quote as well!
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I didn’t have one, but if I did, it would probably be something along the lines of: “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well you deserve”. Of course, if possible, adapting it a little would be fun is permissible.
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“Curiouser and curiouser.”
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My school didn’t do them, but on my “senior page”, my parents put “blessed are the cheesemakers.”
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Never heard that one before – does it have a particular meaning, or is it just funny?
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I’m assuming it’s a reference to the beatitudes. Perhaps Cinamoon makes/loves cheese?
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It’s from a Monty Python movie, “The Life of Brian.” Jesus is delivering the Sermon on the Mount, the section known as the Beatitudes (as Bibliophile notes), but people on the edge of the crowd can’t hear him very well and keep misinterpreting what he’s saying.
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Oh, what a classic film. ‘All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?’ I stand by my conviction that British comedy is absolutely unrivaled, second to none.
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I love that movie. Good lord.
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What Robert said. One of my favorite movies.
“What did he say?”
“He said ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers‘!”
“What?”
“Well, it’s obviously symbolic, referring to any manufacturer of dairy products.”
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(For anyone unfamiliar with the original text, Jesus actually is reported to have said “blessed are the peace makers.”)
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” ‘It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the hope of yesterday is the dream of today and the reality of tomorrow.’ – Robert H. Goddard”
That should surprise absolutely nobody.
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Um… switch “hope” and “dream” there.
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“Twas brilling, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.”
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Mine was Vonnegut, from Sirens of Titan:
“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all”
in retrospect, I could’ve picked something a little more cheerful…
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We didn’t do senior quotes, but if I were to choose one now, it may be something by Thoreau. “There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life,” perhaps.
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“when I think back to all the crap I learned in high school it’s a wonder I can think at all”
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Wow. On the recent comments bar, that looked different.
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Auto-filtering for the win!
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Well, it’s a bit late now, but here were the ones I picked (we were allowed to have any that fit within 600 characters, which I gather is odd):
“But this, too, is true: stories can save us.†– Tim O’Brien
“Something told him that something was coming to an end. Not the world, exactly. Just the summer. There would be other summers, but there would never be one like this. Ever again.†– Good Omens
“I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.†– A. Bartlett Giamatti
If I could have, I would have quoted the entirety of the essay that the A. Bartlett Giamatti quote comes from, since it’s the best description of my outlook on life that I’ve ever read. Alas, it was a whole lot more than 600 characters.
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Wow, 600 characters would have been great! I was limited to 25 words. I like your choices.
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I just realized that I headbang every time I hear the Doctor Who theme from NewWho seasons 3-4. Every. Single. Time. It’s that awesome.
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Realization: When you don’t want to pack dirty clothes and all of your clothes are dirty packing to go home for break is a tad difficult.
Whoops.
This evening’s project: pack and make my room something that won’t be horrific to return to in a week.
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The cell project I’m doing… I’m going to sew it!
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Please send in pics when you’re done? Pretty please?
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Does anyone have general advice on writing a (history) essay of around 2,000 words when the only prompt is to discuss a quotation? In terms of structure, how many varied main points to cover, fulfilling that length etc.
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Hm, that’s kind of a lousy prompt. I usually use one paragraph to pick apart/explain the quote, one to talk about the person who said it, one to talk about the context of the quote (or what led up to it), and one to discuss the quote’s impact.
(I did several of these last year).
Good luck, Selenium dear!
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I do think the prompt is interesting; I just need to think of different historical circumstances that would (or would not) support the quote. Thank you, though!
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Depending on how friendly you are with artistic analysis, you could reference some contemporary poetry or painting or that sort of thing. If one person was talking about [insert subject here] at that time, other people probably were as well. Get creative with it (as long as you provide convincing arguments).
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Filler.
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I would like it to be good, though, well-written and concise and all that. Hopefully I’ll muddle through.
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I would use little words (like conjunctions), and describe everything about the topic in as many words as possible. Type (or write) the quote at the top. Research EVERYTHING!!!!!!
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Bring in a lot of outside references; stuff you’ve read in history class, stuff you’ve read in English class, stuff you’ve read on your own–anything that relates to the spirit of the quote. Plan everything on a piece of paper beforehand. A five-paragraph essay usually tops out at around 1,000-1,200 words, so plan for more than five paragraphs.
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The musical my school is putting on is consuming a huge portion of my time…sorry I haven’t been around much. It’s fun, though, even if I am only a townsperson. We’re doing Cinderella, and it’s half sappy, half funny. But’s it’s a good kind of sappy. And a very good kind of funny, too. (The stepsisters are being played by guys…that’s about the only funny part, but there are a lot of scenes they’re in, so it’s okay.) We got our costumes. It was cool.
That is basically all that’s going on in my life. That and freaking out about the impendingness of NaNoWriMo. I hope everyone’s doing well! How is your October going?
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Cinderella is in the running to be my school’s spring play! The main problem – which really is a big one – is that my school hasn’t put on a musical in years, if ever, and we aren’t sure whether enough people in our theater department can sing well enough to pull it off. How big is your cast?
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Um, we have, like– I have no clue. Let’s see…probably around 60? Maybe more. We have a no-cut policy for the fall musical, so it’s pretty big. It’s so much fun–and the songs aren’t too hard, assuming you’re doing the Rodgers and Hammerstein one.
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That’s good to know. Maybe we could manage the songs. Our cast would be tons smaller, but maybe that’s possible.
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Does your school have a choir? When my middle school did a musical, it was a collaborative effort between the theater and the choir departments, so that we could use the theater kids who could sing and the choir kids who could act. I think it worked.
If all else fails, you could do a really small musical like Into the Woods.
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Yeah, that’s true! Most of the talk I heard last year about collaboration centered on the fact that for some reason the band teacher doesn’t want to work with us. One of my friends actually said, “Yeah, don’t go through him for music, just talk to me.” Choir is a good thought, though, especially since the strings/choir teacher has helped with plays in the past.
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Oh, our school did Into the Woods last year!
Also, I have no idea how it works in high school, but at my middle school anyone could try out for the musical, no matter of whether or not they were in chorus, drama, etc.
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Into the Woods isn’t really a small musical, though. Even taking the usual doubling of Narrator/Mysterious Man and Wolf/Cinderella’s Prince, it still comes in at about twenty roles. Cinderella is actually quite a bit smaller, assuming you don’t have a huge ensemble (there are nine(?) principle roles. Unless I’m miscounting, which is possible).
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I guess I didn’t realize Cinderella was so small. See, when we did our musical, we rejected Into the Woods because we had way more than 20 people, and I guess I wasn’t really thinking about how big other musicals were. It was just… smaller than what we did. You’re right, though; 20 isn’t small.
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Piggy has been:
-Very busy this week, mostly due to Spanish work. I had to turn in an outline for a 3000 word paper about Alfonso Reyes’ “Visión de Anáhuac” on Friday, as well as the usual daily work for both classes, plus an oral presentation about the writing of Francisco de Quevedo Friday afternoon.
-Catching another cold. And just in time for my first choir concert tomorrow, too. Cake.
-Reading a ton of poetry (especially Robert Frost and Walt Whitman) in addition to 1Q84. Because apparently I don’t get enough literary analysis as it is.
-Enjoying autumn. It was cold and windy and a bit rainy last week, which was really fun. I think it’s going to be warmer next week, which should be fun too.
-Wondering why he has Christmas music constantly running through his head. Normally that doesn’t start till after Halloween.
-Looking for a job. All the places that are hiring are the complete opposite of what I’m looking for, and all the places I’d love to work for aren’t hiring.
-Wanting a motorcycle. Even more than a new car, even though the car does have over 260,000 miles on it now and the brakes are squeaking lately. But a motorcycle…. Maybe one of the later Honda Nighthawks, or a Suzuki TU250, or even a Honda Rebel, which would probably be easier to find. I just need to get a job first.
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Breeeaaaaaak
yay
I went to the gym today. I miss exercise a lot. A very lot. I’ve been trying not to be hard on my knee since it hurt so bad over the summer, though it still hurt coming down the mountain on my geology trip. But I can’t not exercise anymore.
Soooo today I got fidgety and ran 5 miles in 30 min on the elliptical (kept myself within 6min per mile, which isn’t very fast (especially since ellipticals make running like 40%easier) but easing into it and all) and then did a bunch of crunches/abwork and used a couple machines.
Sooo yay! My knees… are doing okay. Feel a litte wobly but not in pain. I think the pain is triggered from uphills followed by downhills. But ellipticals are better for knees than just running so maybe it will okay…
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Looked for meteors just now… didn’t see any. Sky relatively clear, but a lot of light polution Maybe later I’ll go back out and wander out to North Fields where it’s a bit darker. We’ll see! I saw one awesome meteor shower this summer and a chance one last monday, so I’m not too upset.
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just back from the competition
what the actual cake
we missed grand champions by eight tenths of a point
i didn’t even know that happened in real life
i thought it was just something your band director told you so you would practice harder
well now he’ll tell us that even more
ha ha
but anyway
it was fun though and i played two person dictator but charter buses are hard to sleep on
but overall very fun
plus we got people’s choice award because our show is the BEST THING EVAR and the Music award too which is good.
now i am going to go sleep, maybe capital letters are something for people with energy?
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Oho it totally happens in real life. We missed the String Orchestra championship by a single point.
It’s close enough that under slightly different circumstances, you would have won. So congratulations on the victory!
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So I bought fruit snacks. Shaped Like bunnies. That look almost pink.
They don’t taste that bad.
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Are those the Annie’s ones?
those made my life. (Most fruit snacks have gelatin in them, but not those)
Although i first had them during intermission of our musical last year and went around and gave them to all the other vegetarians, and I think we made so much noise that the people in the audience could hear.
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Haven’t seen you in a while!
So anyway, yes. I like the gooeyness(?) best.
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I’ve been lurking
I only post about things that are VITALLY IMPORTANT; clearly gummy bunnies fall into this category
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Well, welcome back! I’m glad to see you again.
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Thank you!
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They’re vegetarian?! I have to try those…
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Oh by the way guys, I’m back home for break.
Yesterday I drove for 8 hours, with a break of scaring people for three hours. It was Ghost Walk night at the local historic fort, so I drove straight there from NC, dressed up and got my makeup (complete with fake blood) done and went out and was a tour guide, then came home.
Today we went to Claude Moore Colonial Farm (just out of DC) for their market fair, and it was glorious. I’ve been really missing ding living history, so this was just what I needed. I also found a book from 1767 of all vegetable dishes! This is incredibly exciting, because I really love being as accurate as possible, but 18th century cooking is really heavy on non-vegan things, so to find a mostly vegetarian cookbook from the time period is SO COOL. This way I can make dishes and have a reference for them. [wherein Fern reveals how crazy she is]
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That Adventure Time episode “I Remember You”
oh my cake
i can’t even
the feels
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I have a pitcher plant! It’s Nepenthes miranda. I’m excited about it; when the pitchers die; I can open them up and look at the exoskeleton fragments that are left behind.
Meanwhile, I keep getting really awesome school assignments. It’s nice. I’ll have to send some of mine in; I’ve done some that I’m rather proud of, like the ecoregion map I made with lichens and shells and grass and the flyer I made on tardigrade taxonomy. Pretty soon, we’re going to be writing sonnets; I’m slightly intimidated but excited nonetheless.
And this morning, Public Achievement (a service club) was sorted into groups! Mine’s focusing on solving environmental issues. I’m trememdously excited about that, of course.
And I volunteered at the nature preserve 4 times again last weekend; I saw, let’s see, a hummingbird, several gulf fritillaries and palamedes swallowtails and giant sulphurs, and I don’t even know how many bees and wasps. And I found out that most lichens are edible! There are only two known poisonous species, and conveniently, neither lives in my area. So now, of course, I’m going to cook some with baking powder (or is it baking soda? I’ll have to check; anyway, it’s to neutralize the acid, which sounds important, so I can’t leave it out) and decide on the best way to eat it.
I can’t believe the quantity of homework we’re getting, though, even if the quality is, admittedly, ridiculously high. I’m getting much more than my brother, and he’s a senior. I want free time! Granted, it’s probably partly my fault for spending basically all of it on the weekends at the preserve. I have no regrets. The trouble is, I’ve occasionally not finished things on time, including one major project. I need to fix that.
In short, I’ve been busy, but I’m really content overall. There are stressful intervals, of course, but there’s nothing I can do about them. And soon I’ll finish the Spanish test and find out how I did and whether I’ll have tested out, ulp. But anoles! Swallowtails! Dung beetles! Yellow-bellied water snakes! I’m doing really well, for the most part.
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According to the internets I’m registered to vote in NC, so hopefully my card will be in my mailbox when i get back.
So I guess that means I should start paying a little more attention to current events, and do some research on the more local questions. Whoop.
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I voted absentee for NC!
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Are you going to watch tonight’s debate? I always do, because the news always focuses on details I consider irrelevant (although I expect most people probably care about them), like facial expressions and contexts that sound silly out of context (because apparently it doesn’t matter if it made sense in the actual situation).
Of course, neither candidate really ever gets very specific about his plans, which is annoying.
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They calculate, with plenty of evidence to back them up, that detailed plans would annoy most of the people they’re trying to sway at this point. I’m sure media consultants have calibrated the attention spans of undecided voters to within a couple of seconds, and debaters don’t dare exceed the limit. That doesn’t mean the candidates don’t have plans, but it does mean that watching debates isn’t the best way to find out what they are.
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Even when they yield little factual information about policy, they can certainly be revealing in a variety of other ways.
I do think they’ve improved somewhat over the years.
The ones I remember from way back when consisted of reporters asking incredibly long questions that were more speeches than questions and candidates answering with random snatches of their campaign speeches. Any relation between question and answer seemed purely accidental. Rules were strict and strictly enforced, so there was no room for the kind of back and forth between candidates that has become the norm.
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Debate is on the television in the other room. Foreign policy… Obama is talking… oh wait, now it’s Romney…
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Did you catch “Syria is Iran’s route to the sea”?
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I thought I caught “Obama bin Laden” at one point? But I was technically paying attention to math class at the same time, so I might be mistaken.
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Or “America is the one indispensable country”? (Apparently, the rest can just all go get eaten by manticores as far as Obama’s concerned).
(I guess it shows how much I hate our political system that I’m actually hoping he’ll win the election, for fear of the alternative).
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A scary thought crossed my mind today.
When the next presidential election comes around, I’ll be able to vote.
*shudders*
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I’m less than four months too young. My best friend is less than five hours too young.
I’m too far away to really care, but I do feel for her!
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I’m twelve days too young. It’s very irritating. Five hours must be awful.
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Eek. I’d never even heard of that happening.
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I’m pretty sure they don’t care about hours. As long as the birth date matches, right?
I’ll be 19.
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but if you were born five hours before midnight…
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Oooh, that’s a good point.
Do they really check your hour of birth, though? I’m not familiar with the voter registration process. Most ID only has a date and not a time, so presenting something like a school ID or a driver’s license would only tell them your date.
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…No, they don’t check the hour. That doesn’t matter at all? Just the date.
Being any number of hours up to 24 “too late” is the same as saying “a day late” but you get a better sense of how close it is with hours.
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Yeah, but she was born about five hours after midnight on November 7th.
Unfortunately, they can’t say, “oh, close enough”, because even saying “well, 20 seconds off is close enough” will then have the people who are 30 seconds off, 3 minutes off, an hour off, and so on saying “aww, but I’m so close too, shouldn’t I get to vote?”
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I VOTED LAST WEEK
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*ahem* I’m sorry for your pain.
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Same, and then I got a campaign letter yesterday from a woman running for the state senate and I can’t remember if I voted for her or not. It was really awkward.
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Wait a minute… You’re my age. That’s probably true of me, too…
*thinks* No, actually, I’ll be 3 months young. How annoying.
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So today, on the way to social studies, I took a wrong turn and walked most of the way down the incorrect hallway before I noticed, despite the fact that I go to social studies every day. And the fact that I was walking with a person who is in my social studies class.
My lack of a sense of direction is why I’m not more excited about learning to drive. I don’t think I even actually know how to get to my school from my house.
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Why is this a reply?
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You sound like me.
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This has been one of the busiest couple of weeks I have ever experienced. Our first (hideously disorganized, panic-inducing) production cycle this year in Journalism- I’m an editor, in case you missed the first two thousand times I mentioned it- coincided with an overload of work in ChemH, and the runup to the Orchestra’s first concert, which for some reason we are doing in conjunction with the concert band and the marching band and the choir and the jazz band.
So, I just finished a marathon of four days- yes, four, it was insane- of Journalism layout (we started last Friday after school and kept going back to the school to finish until this morning; we had today off school). But my section, Opinion, is two pages of beauty. I’m so proud. I wish y’all could see it, but unfortunately it sort of mentions my school, city, and the names of my classmates and me several times.
Adobe InDesign is my new friend.
This afternoon, having finished layout, I went to a gathering of the Mock Trial team, during which we ate crepes, watched both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and played a great deal of Just Dance on the Wii. So there are now highly embarrassing videos somewhere of a friend and me attempting to dance to California Gurls (we’re unforgettable, apparently).
Also, it’s cold and rainy and windy and really awesome, and I’ve been jumping in leaf piles and generally gallivanting, and I love this season.
This has been an update.
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I made phone calls and scheduled appointments like a caking ADULT today.
Next week I’m taking pictures of businesses in Asheville. With photo release forms and stuff. Like a professional or something.
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Hey guys, my friend’s birthday is coming up soon and she’s really into the 11th Doctor. What can I get her? I found a little flashlight keychain shaped like his Sonic Screwdriver, but I was wondering if y’all had any ideas.
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A FEZ
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Bow tie?
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I voted for president for the first time last weekend, don’t care for either candidate. Not that it matters, my state always goes democrat.
102- Wow! I drew a few cruddy cartoons for my school paper last year. :p
104- You could get her a police box
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Advice to voting-age MBers: If you aren’t smitten with either candidate, vote for the type of future Supreme Court you want. Presidents come and go, but the justices they appoint stay around for decades. If you have to be a “single-issue voter,” the Supreme Court is a reasonable issue to choose.
</voice_of_reason>
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THIS. ^^^^^
Not many of the current justices are planning on retiring, but a lot of them are quite old and will not live forever. It’s entirely possible a replacement will be appointed in the next 4 years.
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“‘S’nawful nice, eh, Supreme Court justice you’s gots here. Shame if sumtin’, ehh, happened to ‘im.”
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“They can’t ignore the dinosaur vote! We’ll stay home, we’ll throw the election!”
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Today was pretty fun! I dressed up as a zombie for English class. I ripped up a t-shirt and smeared stuff on my face and crumbled some leave in my hair. We got to take photos of us climbing over a chain-link fence, chasing one of the yearbook staff girls up a ladder, etc. I think it’s going in the yearbook. Anyway, then I got chosen as a team captain for a group project and got a good group.
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My school’s Brain Game team had a meeting today. We have a new member who is a) brilliant, and b) planning to try to recruit his (also brilliant) friends to the team as well. Things are looking up!
I will here refer to the new guy to the team as Lit, and other person who was here today (and has been on the team longer than me) as Pop-Up:
We practiced with an old episode today. It was a competition between our top rival and another school. Right away I noticed that all three contestants from the other school were wearing bowties, so naturally I shouted “Bowties are cool!” and Lit immediately asked if we could all wear bow ties during our own competition. Pop-Up said that she didn’t have a bowtie, and Lit’s immediate response was “How about fezzes, then?”
I have a feeling this is going to be a great year for my school’s team.
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ONE
HUNDRED
PERCENT
MERMAID
!!!!!
Ahhh I just went swimming in my tail with my roommate and took tons of pictures and it’s all painted and eeeeee yay so awesome
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Awesome, Jadestone!
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THAT IS SO AWESOME, JADESTONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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YOU ARE THE COOLEST!!!
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I’m a-working on my cell project,
All the live-long day…
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Done with midterms… *collapses*
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Congratulations! I hope you get to relax for a bit and nothing else comes up.
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Congratulations, I’m sure you did really well!
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It looks like visiting England for winter break is a very real possibility.
I am unspeakable excited.
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Hello.:)
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What’s going on?
Is this a joke??
No, seriously…
IT CAN’T BE THE DAY BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY ALREADY!!!
What happened to the time???
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You’re older than you’ve ever been, and now you’re even older,
And now you’re even older,
And now you’re even older!
You’re older than you’ve ever been, and now you’re even older,
And now you’re older still!
Time
Is marching on,
And time
Is still marching on !
This day will soon be at an end, and now it’s even sooner
And now it’s even sooner,
And now it’s even sooner!
This day will soon be at an end, and now it’s even sooner,
And now it’s sooner still!
You’re older than you’ve ever been, and now you’re even older,
And now you’re even older,
And now you’re even older!
You’re older than you’ve ever been and now you’re even older,
And now you’re older still!
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A friend of mine had a book where you find different Pokemon, and I saw an eevee! I didn’t see any swalots though :(.
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That amusing moment when you occasionally pop onto the Random Thread and find R&R Pokemon references.
Anyways, the Swalots probably wobbled off to find food. They might be gobbling up popcorn in some corner!
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What is this, Newsweek announces they’re closing down their presses and then suddenly starts publishing really good space articles. Is it like a going-out-of-business sale or something? Or like that “Live Like You Were Dying” song?
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I know that I keep saying that I’ve told various friends about this site, and they said they would look at it and maybe join, and then they didn’t. So I won’t blame you if you ignore the rest of this post on move straight on to a more productive one.
But there is someone in one of my classes who, as far as I can tell, is completely Muserly. I’ve told him about the site. He has made it clear that he is most definitely interested enough to at least lurk for a while. I really hope he joins, but at the same time, I hope he doesn’t look at the R&R thread. Because he’s Sage. And that could be awkward.
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Let’s hope he doesn’t see this post, either, then, because unless he is the most disciplined, courteous person in the world or something, it’ll arouse his Muserly curiosity so much that he’ll go there and do a control+F search on his name. Granted, I’m probably not helping. On the other hand, knowing you mentioned him on the R&R thread without knowing why (which would happen if he sees your post but resists the temptation) would probably be more awkward than him knowing about the actual situation, since he might get the wrong idea, so I have no regrets about posting this even if it does get him to look; after all, if he sees it, he’ll have read yours anyway.
(Although I have to admit that it would be interesting to watch).
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Everyone remember when Swalot first came to MuseBlog? Funniest, most adorable thing ever.
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*hides behind hands*
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Bibliophile- I was actually thinking of that when I typed the post, but decided that it was a calculated risk that it would be better in the long run to take, based on the reasoning that: a) I mentioned in this very post that I tell lots of people about this site, and he may not realize that “Sage” refers to him as opposed to one of my other male classmates that I may or may not have also introduced to this site, whereas if he looks on that thread he will definitely realize it. b) The acronym “R&R” does not actually appear in either the guide or the glossary, so he may not realize what it means until after he reads this post. c) This thread is so active that he may not see this post at all, let alone read it. d) I wanted to tell you guys this somehow. And e) I agree that if it does become awkward it would be very interesting to watch, and I am one of those strange people that can draw amusement even from watching this kind of thing happening to myself.
Cat’s Meow- I still think we must have all looked like a bunch of crazy internet stalkers. Or at least those of us who welcomed him on the Neophytes thread.
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When L came to MuseBlog we had two days where we did nothing but sit in the library and talk about all the posts I had made. Some I had definitely made without taking into account that somebody IRL would see them. (I had told him in a sudden moment of weirdness and he immediately found out all my secrets. :D)
I would be eager to meet this Sage, if you’re comfortable letting him onto the blog!
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That sounds like it turned out well.
I’ve already asked Sage to check out the blog, so presumably I am.
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Managed to start and finish two essays for history in one day, whew. And on overlapping topics (one was an extra one I asked for) so now my head’s swimming with facts that I’ve written multiple times with slightly different phrasing adapted to each context.
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Randomosity, have you heard of the Xerces Society? I was heartened when I found out about it, and I thought you might be interested to hear about it, too.
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I hadn’t. I googled it and it looks amazing. Thanks for telling me about it!
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D’aww look at google!
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Hello all!
I have taken to the frigid north for the weekend (haha jk it was 70 degrees Fahrenheit last night). Which is to say:
I am in CANADA visiting the lovely residence of one Fortune Cell. penguini is also here, although I am likely the only person who remembers her time on-blog.
Canada is eerie because everything is in metric. Nothing makes any sense to me, having grown up in the US (if 80km/h is 50mph, and 100km/h is 60mph, then how long will it be before penguini gets mad at me for trying to figure out ratios while she is trying to drive?) but I feel that Canada is inherently more sensible than my home.
Anyway, having a wonderful time, eating pig’s feet and seeing dinosaurs, wish you were here!
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Piggy-backing on this post to confirm that Dodeca and Penguini totally showed up at my condo last night and they are the best ever. The ROM has a temporary exhibit of awesome dinosaurs right now that we will definitely check out today. Also they brought me three bags of Trader Joes foods that I can’t buy up here :’). How crazy is it that I have known these fine ladies for like 6 years now? <3
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Ahhh! I hope you guys have an awesome time
Dinosaurs!! So exciting.
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Last night I played at a session and it was a blast. I’d played there once or twice before, but quite some time ago. I played both fiddle and concertina, which is exciting because I’m finally getting to the point in my concertina playing that I don’t feel like I have to apologise for taking it out of the box while around other people, and I managed to follow along on the fiddle on the tunes I didn’t know, which I’m not particularly good at, and usually I’m too timid. So, yay progress!
I also got a frying pan, and I’m now thinking of all the delicious things I can cook in it and being really excited. I’ve been wanting one for awhile, so I splurged. But it’ll be worth it, and it’s a nice size for cooking a decent amount of food for one person and still being packable, for camping or suchlike.
Today I helped some friends teach 18th century stuff to a bunch of 8th graders, which was fun.
119, etc. (Dodec, Penguini, FC)~ AAAAHHHH SUCH FUN! ♥ ♥ ♥
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SFTDP:
THIS JUST IN. I might get that job on a boat in Philadelphia after all. Which would mean no England, but would mean living on an unheated boat in the middle of the winter and making a paltry sum and cooking my own meals. Which would be fantastic as well, and significantly less expensive but also have less Paulie…
ANYWAY.
I really hope I get the job.
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whrrrrr
how is break almost over
but I didn’t do any work
and i have so much of it
hnnnnnn
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trying to work up the motivation to go get the samples for my research project
but it involves so much walking around and standing in ponds
and my partner’s not back yet so I have to do it by myself and I just am not feeling like I want to Plus I am not 100%positive I will be able to hold everything that needs to be held at once >.< And not sure if I can find anyone willing/availible to be a second set of hands…
Oh well… gotta force myself into it I suppose…
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I never realized just how much I consider myself a Californian until I started looking at colleges.
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Theater costume sales OH YES. I am now the proud owner of a Jayne Cobb hat, a witch’s hat with the most amazing feathery fringe, a black velvet pillbox hat with a spectacular veil, and a gold turbanny thing.
Good day, so far.
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THAT TIME WHEN THE SCIENCE CENTER WAS LOCKED
And safety and security wouldn’t give me the key I’m supposed to have access to since apparently all access to the sci center was revoked over break
So after finally getting up to do my research… nope.
Sigh. At least my partner will be back tomorrow and he has a key he keeps for the lab, so so we’ll be able to get in, allowed or not.
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So it’s really, really, really late, but I suppose I’ll post something.
OPENING WEEKEND IS OVER WITH and I didn’t have any emotional breakdowns and people liked my performance and singing so that was good.
All the other actors were good, especially Mrs. Lovett and Anthony (the latter is a great singer who I have known previously). Being the Judge, I was all creepy and stuff, but it was fun.
Bed now. Sleep. Just this once.
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I remember a Muse article not too long ago about lesser-known people who impacted the modern world or something like that, and it included a section on Dr. John Stapp’s rocket sled experiments. I know it contained what I thought was the funniest line in the whole issue, “We are not the Car Force.”, and that I quoted it in the discussion thread for that issue, but I can’t remember which issue it was…
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‘Twas January 2010.
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“Forgotten Heroes”– yes, that’s the one. OMG, got to get my hands on a copy again…
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Had competition yesterday! It was a double header, which for all you non-band people means that we had two competitions in one day. We didn’t win much at either (we went against some of the top bands in South Carolina) but it was a lot of fun.
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Classes have been cancelling tomorrow because of the impending hurricane. This, of course, just means more time to study for midterms. And perhaps watch some Doctor Who….
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Oh man, did I type cancelling? I meant CANCELLED. My inner grammarian is mortified. Many apologies.
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TNO, I’d like to thank you for raving so much about Anyone Can Whistle. I got curious the other day, so I looked it up, and although I haven’t actually, well, seen it (as in, the whole thing), I have read/seen all the free bits I could find (enough to know the storyline and all the songs and catch a few snippets of Bernadette Peters) and it really is amazing. Faye is incredibly relatable; the title song sums up my life better than any song I’ve ever heard.
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So. No school tomorrow and possibly Tuesday. On one hand, no school. On the other hand, AP classes are a pain to make up.
But more time for Pokemon White 2!
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Well, my family is officially bunkering down for Sandy, preparations and stuff. We’re not going to have a direct it, but it’s still supposed to be a tropical storm when it hits us. Charging electronics, making sure we have extra lights, water, food, whatnot. All that good stuff. This probably seems like nothing to those of you who get hit by hurricanes, but this will be the biggest storm I’ve been through in my life, as far as I know.
Good luck to the rest of you in the storm.
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I’m out of the danger zone, but we’ll probably lose power or something. It’s really windy and rainy out, but nothing too bad. We got dismissed early from school, though. I’ve experienced snowstorms that were worse than this is supposed to be, but I can’t help feeling a little nervous.
Good luck to you too–stay safe.
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Back in North Care-oh-line-i-ay!
I should do productive things. But I don’t want to.
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1) Will you be anywhere near Raleigh?
2) If so, kokon possibly?www
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SFTDP. I have no idea how those Ws got there…
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Asheville, for school, as always.
Someday I’ll make it over your way though, I don’t know when.
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yes yes yes yes kokon
However that may be hard to arrange
but I want to kokon
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Mkay kids. I have a Thanksgiving break (which is, like, two days off and the weekend, but more than nothing). If we could meet somewhere maybe around Greensboro or something (and we could kidnap Rebecca too) I could make that happen.
Yeah?
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I want to come!
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This sounds like an excellent idea!
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I was at the ROM with Tetra and Penguini and we came across some decorative coffins on the 3rd or 4th floor. There was one shaped as a car, and one shaped as a fish, and then we all realized that we knew of these coffins because of a Muse article, and that was cute
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To everyone in the path of this huge impending hurricane: Please stay safe!
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THE GIANTS JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES???????????????
THE GIANTS JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES
THE GIANTS JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES
THE GIANTS JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Oh wow a hurricane gosh okay STAY SAFE PLEASE. Really, please, any of you in a danger zone, I wish you the absolute best of luck.
This is completely unrelated to the above and probably inappropriate to the moment, but today I carved both a TARDIS pumpkin and One Pumpkin to Rule Them All (it has the Elvish script on it).
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Those of you who know more than I do about meteorology: how seriously should I be taking media claims that Hurricane Sandy could be the worst storm ever to hit the United States? It’s still a while from landfall, and I know the broadsheets love a worst-case scenario. (Though by all accounts it is huge.)
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Frankly, Irene was worse, and Katrina even more so. When Sandy makes landfall, it will most likely be a tropical storm. The major factor is the fact that it is moving slowly and is REALLY WIDE, so flooding is a concern.
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Depends on what you mean by “worse.” In all the reports I’ve heard, meteorologists have said essentially “don’t be fooled by the category 1 designation.” Plus, this isn’t a garden-variety hurricane, if I understand correctly, but an unusual collision of systems that makes its hard to predict. If heavy winds sit on top of you for 72 hours as some have speculated might happen, they can do plenty of damage, even without the flooding.
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So far, it just looks like a gray, rainy day here in the D.C. area. If I didn’t know there was a thousand-mile-wide storm lurking offshore and all the buses and trains had stopped running, I’d bundle up and go to work.
The wind is supposed to pick up this afternoon. That should be exciting.
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Trees are stirring. Cats are hiding.
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Getting worse now: trees tossing amid steady, drenching rain. One of the cats has reappeared and is snooping around, but the other remains cloistered.
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Would my first guess be correct as to which is which?
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It would.
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What was her first guess? I’m curious.
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Mishmish is the shy one, Mina the bold one.
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Has anyone seen the picture of a cat frolicking right in front of a taped down window?
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In Cleveland, super rainy and very very windy. I’ve heard 50-60mph winds.
Not sure if this is the hurricane or just Cleveland being Cleveland.
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Winds in the east, mist coming in. /
Like somethin’ is brewin’ and bout to begin. /
Can’t put me finger on what lies in store, /
But I fear what’s to happen all happened before.
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Up here in Upstate New York we’ve officially got a light drizzle, and it’s been overcast all day. School is on a two-hour delay pending a possible decision to cancel.
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It’s been really cold here in the middle of N.C.; it’s drizzled on and off and there are some intense winds.
My grandparents live in the Outer Banks, and I heard yesterday they are without power. I think someone decided to cut it to prevent major problems if a powerline went down.
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HMS Bounty sank today. According to reports, the crew is safe, but I’m worried because all the reports have different numbers, and one of my friends is/was crew.
Is it weird that I wish I wasn’t so far inland, sheltered by the mountains?
I want to be there with my shipmates to help them out.
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The latest numbers I’ve seen are 14 rescued, two missing.
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That’s what CNN was reporting just a few minutes ago, along with description of their search efforts.
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Why were they out in the ocean?
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The question is still open in this case, but ships can often be safer at sea than in port. The Bounty left Connecticut on Thursday, apparently intending to go around the storm.
Here’s the most complete account I’ve found: http: // hamptonroads.com/2012/10/crew-abandons-hms-bounty-replica-nc-coast
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Oh god, that’s horrible. I hope everyone is safe…I’ll be thinking of you and your friend.
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My friend is safe, but the coast guard is still looking for two people, the captain and another crewmember.
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Here’s hoping they find them okay.
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I’ve just seen a tweet reporting that the entire island of Chincoteague is now underwater.
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What has happened to the ponies??? I cannot find anything about them anywhere
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I haven’t seen anything about this storm specifically, several comments noted that the ponies go to high ground.
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Where? If the entire island is underwater, wouldn’t there be no high ground or any ground at all?
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The ponies live on a different island, Assateague. Sorry, I didn’t make that clear. Chincoteague is where the human population lives.
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But don’t the ponies go somewhere else?
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Can they swim?
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Is it sad that I thought the exact same thing?
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I think it’s good that you care about them, although it turns out they don’t actually live there, thank goodness. (But people do? Did they all escape? Humans are much better at leaving islands than ponies are, fortunately…).
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No, I did too. *childhood memories of reading Misty Of Chincoteague fill mind*
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You read those books, too?
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Out of curiosity, have any of you read any of that author’s other books? I own Album of Horses and King of the Wind.
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Heh, one of the archeologists who wrote this paper is named Robert Crippen… and it’s about a remote sensing project that used radar devices flown on the space shuttle, but apparently not on any of the flights piloted by the OTHER Robert Crippen.
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The missing deckhand has been found and pronounced dead.
I know we all understand the risks when we go roving, but it’s hard to accept them for others. Even though I’d never met her, it’s a shock.
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I’m sorry, Fern.
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Her name was Claudene Christian, and according to her FB profile, she was a descendant of Fletcher Christian, leader of the famous mutiny on the original HMS Bounty.
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Oh my…
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*hugs*
A large part of me somehow never expects things to turn into that. It’s always shocking and sad. Hope you and other sailors that knew her/others on the ship are doing all right.
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It’s the sort of event that everyone prepares for and everyone knows can happen, but no one believes ever will.
Like I said; an easy risk to accept for ourselves, but not for others.
The whole tall ship community is still shaken but pulling together, because that’s what we do, both literally and metaphorically.
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I’m sorry.
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I think we’re now getting the 70-mile-per-hour gusts they told us to expect. Impressive! Both cats came out when they got hungry and have stayed out. They seem to have decided that there’s nothing to worry about as long as the Big People aren’t afraid.
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I just saw a funny tweet to the effect that “Up and down the East Coast, dog owners are staring out the window and wishing they had cats.”
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Jeez, Internet friends, I’m seeing some really scary photos from New York City! I hope you guys are all staying safe and hiding under your bathtubs or whatever it is you’re supposed to do when hurricanes strike.
If I can do anything for you guys, just say the word! On another site I use I’ve offered to write stories, draw terrible pictures on MS Paint, or just plain send over some Internet hugs if it’ll distract you or make you feel better.
Seriously, be okay!
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The roof is falling off my science center!!
Not all of it but parts of it. Welp. I have class in there tomorrow morning.
Also a lot of wind here (50-60mph), though it seems to be a much bigger deal than when we got winds this fast at home? Maybe because a lot of people aren’t used to it/don’t live in tornado alley so I’m way used to this sort of thing. Wind is exciting! But we’re getting emails about not waling too close to the streets in case we get BLOWN OFF THE SIDEWALKS.
Heh.
But for reals stay safe those of you in places getting more than neverending medium rainfail and gusts!
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“rainfail” is now my favorite typo of the year, intentional or not.
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oh my gods
not intentional
BUT WILL BE FROM NOW ON
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And when the Vomit Comet can’t take off, it’s freefail.
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The pictures coming in of flooding on the east coast are terrifying. I hope that all the musers over there are keeping safe, and that there won’t be any further deaths. Have there been more natural disasters in the US this year than typical, or have I just been noticing them more?
On another unrelated note, I’m making dragon wings for my halloween costume!
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I’m okay. A few power surges, but no damage to our house and no loss of power. But I’m also watching the news and NYC looks like it got hit pretty bad. Are there any Musers who live there? If so, I hope you are safe and at least partly dry.
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My mom told me yesterday that there was water up to the door of my grandparents’ car. They’re fine; emergency vehicles can get to them safely if they have to.
On a completely unrelated note, we can dress up for marching band tomorrow, so I need ideas for a costume that’s easy to move around in. That’s also pretty warm because it’ll be freezing tomorrow.
*goes off to brainstorm*
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GAPAs, I think this is mostly harmless. And oh-so-pretty
http:// hint. fm/ wind/
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It’s both. Hypnotic, too. Thanks!
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Ooh. That’s so cool. You can see the hurricane…
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Okay, so the disclaimer says you shouldn’t take this thing too seriously. I can see why you shouldn’t depend on it for anything really important, but I’m wondering why you shouldn’t reference this for sailing. Most of the time, it’s hard to crash a sailboat and die because there was more/less wind than you thought.
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The storm hasn’t reached me yet, but we still have cloudy skies and a small drizzle. It’s predicted to hit me sometime Wednesday.
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Though I’m not anywhere near the center. Chances are I’ll be fairly far away from the anything major. Just though I’d clarify.
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And, we got barely anything. Looks like the earlier predictions that it was going to hit us were wrong.
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I wonder what the 2012 conspiracy theorists make of Sandy. It could be potentially quite amusing.
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Conspiracy theorists? Are they different from the Doomsday theorists?
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Probably not, I just hadn’t heard the term “Doomsday theorist” used before.
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You know you’re addicted to MuseBlog when you read ‘conspiracy’ as Kokonspiracy’ without realizing it and have to reread twice before you finally understand.
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Well, we’re all Kokonspiracy Theorists here, but that’s a mark of sanity, quite the opposite of simple conspiracy theorists.
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Hence my confusion.
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Breaking news! Star Wars episodes XII, XIII, and IX to be made. Disney has bought out Lucasfilm. Will they be another Avengers-style success? Hopefully!
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Hrm. Maybe I should be excited? I really don’t know. Too many questions. Too many concerns.
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I can only hope for the best, since George Lucas is no longer a part of it. Joss Whedon should come and make us love him even more.
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I don’t know that there was a *need* to do so, because they already did some pretty impressive stuff as collaborators, but I do hope it leads to some exciting future projects. (People have been talking about a LucasArts Land at the Hollywood Studios park for years, but who knows how serious the company is about it?)
Off to redraw my “Flowchart of How All the Things I Like Are Connected” to reflect the change…
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By the way, just to put it out there, I know that a number of fake photos have been circulating recently. I know that most of you are probably making sure you get your photos from reliable sources (well, either that or not looking at photos at all, like me), but it might be a good idea to be extra-careful.
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happy Halloween bloggerz of the musaverse!
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I’m going to be Jareth from Labyrinth to pass out candy tomorrow!
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Emergency day-before-Halloween costume done: this year I shall be the March Hare.
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Cheshire Cat: “And that way’s the March Hare. He’s mad too.”
Alice: “Oh, I don’t think I should go about mad people!”
Cheshire Cat: “You can’t help that, you see~
I’m mad,
you’re mad
we’re all mad here!”
You know you’re a theater kid when…
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I hope I can find my large rubber spider so that I can go as a This Book is Full of Spiders zombie. If not… well, I don’t really have a Plan B… -_-
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Was up at 6:30 (except I hit snooze a few times, so I actually exited my bed 15 minutes later, but whatever), got breakfast, drove into town, took pictures for my internship thing and got chai, and now I’m at work.
That’s too much to have accomplished at this hour.
Am I done yet? Is it bedtime? I have a nosebleed, can I miss class?
It’s entirely too cold to wear my costume all day (it involves a small-ish lightweight strapless dress and open-toed flats), so today for classes and suchlike I’m being a sailor, not a sailor pin-up. I’ve got a pair of jeans that have buttons on the pockets that look kind of like a button fly, a striped shirt, red scarf (with white and blue patterns on it, but it’s close enough), grey peacoat, ships’ wheel/anchor earrings, and a white sailors’ cap.
This weekend when there are parties I’ll wear the dress, but for today this works perfectly.
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Ugh… I’m so tired… And I need to do three more sub-chapters and nothing. makes. sense. because. tired. I think I’ll try a nap… I just don’t want to get even farther behind, I need to face to functions at very least and algebra would be nice too… Sleeeeep… *drools*
Who needs a costume when you’re already a study zombie?
((Not that I’m missing anything, Halloween here is just another excuse for college student to get drunk, I just wish I was more productive. And that my left eye didn’t make everything fuzzy. Come to think of it, napping sounds smart…))
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A while ago I think I mentioned briefly that a friend of mine from middle school and I got together to catch up and we ended up working out a basic plot for a movie that we wanted to make. We haven’t worked on it much together since then seeing as we go to college in different cities, but he’s been working on it a bit on his own. Anyway, over the past couple of days we’ve apparently both come to the realization that this story would work better as a novel or novella and that trying to stretch it into a full-length film would do a lot of damage to it. So we’ve agreed to a change of medium. The fact that this has taken place on the eve of NaNoWriMo is not lost to me (though I have no intention of writing it within a month).
But the question arises quickly: how do two people write one book? It’s been done before, to great success (see Good Omens). Anyone have any clue? The geographical separation adds to the difficulty, and neither of us are experienced novelists. Any ideas?
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Happy Halloween from BU’s UNICEF party!
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