Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
We haven’t found anyone contemporary who starts the year in December. But during the Middle Ages England and Germany began their years on Christmas for a while. So Happy New Year yet again, and next month we’ll say it for real.
The picture is a pretty stained-glass Nativity that Robert found on the Web.
Date: November 29, 2011
Categories: At the Top of the Blog, Random craziness
It’s very shiny. Me gusta.
Today at school I watched movies, slept, and wrote limericks about my teachers coming to horrible ends. Good times.
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I’m sorry, but Advent started on November 27th this year. I’ll see if I can find an alternate new year. 
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Sorry! I miscalculated. But Middle Ages England and Germany provide a fallback.
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This is our last new year of this year! How did we come up with this idea, anyway?
The stained-glass is very pretty.
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You suggested it on the March Random Thread, if I recall correctly.
And then I searched the internet for new year days for every month, although I couldn’t find anything for August.
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Wait, it was me? I honestly don’t remember, but, cool!
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It’s going to be so weird not having the random threads be Happy New year. I’ve just kind of gotten used to it. 0.o
Because I posted on the last thread just before it was closed, head-rubs and massages are pretty much the best ever.
And also it looks like I’m going to be going to bed before 2am! for the first time in several days! AMAZING. Will Fern get more than 5 hours of sleep? WHO KNOWS?! Probably not. She needs to read several (long) chapters of a book to keep from getting too horrendously behind. But hurrah for at least trying.
And I’m steamboating ahead on one of my fieldwork projects, and kind of sort of almost have all the required “materials” for the other one…sorta. I just need to figure out how to present it and make it work and not seem patched together in the last few days before it’s due.
Which is totally what this is.
DEADLINES AND SCHOOL AND MADNESS, WHAT IS THIS?
Also, play rehearsal tomorrow night ohhhhhh goddddddd. Our director is crazy. Completely, absolutely, without a doubt crazy.
He’s a great person, but he’s an incredibly frustrating professor and a rather frustrating director as well, though I’ve never really been in a play before, so I don’t know exactly how directors are supposed to act. Merp.
And I have an obligatory Common Session tomorrow, which basically means torture session.
GAH.
But at least I have more than I thought I did for my Awful Stressful Projects.
And then at the end of it all I can transcribe my interview and be at peace with the world.
And then finals.
This probably doesn’t belong on the random thread, sorry.
Also, you probably really don’t care about my school-related stress, but right now that is what my life is. :/
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HURRICANE FORCE WINDS
AAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I SAW SOME WEIRD LIGHTS IN THE SKY BUT IT’S NOT RAINING AND THERE ARE NO CLOUDS
I’M NOT SAYING IT WAS ALIENS
BUT IT WAS DEFINITELY ALIENS
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YES
CLEARLY
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*death glare*
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SORRY FOR CAPSLOCKING ALL OVER THE PLACE
BUT
I HEARD FROM THE OTHER SCHOOL, MY FIRST CHOICE, JUST NOW
I WAS ACCEPTED!
WITH A MUSIC SCHOLARSHIP AS WELL!
I’LL PROBABLY BE GOING THERE INSTEAD OF THE OTHER ONE.
THIS IS GREAT BUT I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!
(THE SCHOOL IS REALLY PRETTY, BY THE WAY)
THIS NEEDS TO SINK IN
HAPPINESS
(I thought I posted this before, but perhaps it got eaten by the Internet. Felt the overwhelming need to present myself in the image of an overexcited young child so I posted again.)
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CONGRATULATIONS
ENJOY THE SORTING HAT
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It’s a bit strange because I’ve posted twice now about being accepted to boarding school (though they were two different schools, admittedly)), but thank you again!
Sorry I keep posting about it, by the way, but ’tis too exciting! That was the last one, I promise, I haven’t applied to any more! ^^ And I’ve definitely decided on the school that accepted me today.
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Pshaw, who wouldn’t want you in their boarding school, Selenium?
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Congrats, Sel!
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Thank you, everyone! Agent Lightning, you’re too kind.
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Going to repeat what Choklit Orange said: me gusta.
YAY FIRST DAY OF ADVENT CALENDAR CHOCOLATE!!!1!!1!111!one!!
Emotions are back. Heck yes.
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Got a date and a dress for Christmas Dance, so that’s one less stress out of the way.
24 DAYS TO THE DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
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All right, who is squidding every single one of my posts? It’s slightly annoying.
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Perhaps someone is trying to turn you blue 
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Yeah, that happens to me too…
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I am currently deep in the bowels of Linux, fiddling with system calls. Wish me luck…
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I’m going to install Ubuntu on my machine and make it a dual boot. Why not? It’ll be a fun learning experience.
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That sounds very Cyberpunk.
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Beware the birds! They’re EVIL.
Sorry, random Portal reference. Couldn’t resist. Anyways, did it go well?
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I thought they were just angry.
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Unfortunately, no It didn’t. I ended up bombing the project…
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SEL GOT INTO HOGWARTS AND THIS MAKES ME SUPER HAPPY.
And also, I’ve decided I want a Popemobile.
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Aw, you’re so sweet. LET’S ALL BE WILDLY HAPPY TOGETHER!! And it does sort of look like Hogwarts, albeit on a much smaller scale! I mean, it’s got proper turrets and everything.
A Popemobile? Why?
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*joins wild happiness*
Congrats, Sel! 
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SFTDP but that’s how I’m going to refer to my (my!!) school now on MB – Hogwarts! It is a boarding school, and it is in the UK – close enough!
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A Papaquarium? (Papst=Pope Aquarium)
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So if the pope brewed cheap beer, would it be called Papst Pabst?
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Badum-tch!
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Wow. I am really a mess right now.
I’ve got these two homework projects that I’ve procrastinated on until, well, way past the last minute. My excuse on my film project was going to be that I didn’t have a camera for much of the two weeks I had to do it in (my mom lost it somehow), but now it turns out I’m mostly using footage from YouTube, so really I have no excuse whatsoever. I’m just, like, freaking out and unable to get my act together and even throw together anything. This stuff is due tomorrow. I would ask for help, but I doubt anybody can give me any… -_-
My family has decided that we’re going to celebrate Hanukkah early so as to be able to have it at home (we’d be in Florida having Christmas instead otherwise), so we’re starting today. So I don’t even have the evening. Cake. Cake cake cake cake cake cake cake.
I still don’t want to do any of this. I want to work on this fancomiccy thing that… is probably far beyond my abilities and will also probably get me in loads of legal trouble. My self-confidence has gone way, way, way through the floor.
And I’m hungry. Very.
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Hello, MuseBlog! The rutabaga is back after a long and exhausting NaNoWriMo.
Apparently I inspired one of my neighbors and her coworker to do NaNo next year. Also apparently my aunt and college aged cousin and college aged cousin’s friend are impressed. And my best friend is editing it. (She printed out all 106 pages… if I did that I’d get a lifetime ban from the printer courtesy of my mom…)
Now I must go study for a social studies test!
Christmas parade is on Saturday. Prediction: Since we went out in the snow in t-shirts last year and froze to death (I was almost Otzina the Icegirl) , it will get up to 70 despite all weather predictions this year and we’ll all die from heat exhaustion while wearing hoodies.
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(mood swings :D)
Studio 58 (whoever they are) put on a steampunk production of Comedy of Errors last January. I think my life is now complete. It could only possibly be completer if someone had put the whole production on YouTube.
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One good thing about living in a dorm is I only have to walk down two flights of stairs to buy a freshly-made smoothie. *picks raspberry seed out of teeth*
I can’t believe this semester’s almost over. Next week’s dead week, and then finals. Apparently on Friday of finals week is the annual classics program Christmas party. I’m trying to decide whether I should go. I don’t think I have any finals on Friday, so it’d be nice to get back home, but it would be interesting to see what the party’s like–classicists are always an eccentric bunch. (One of the classics professors here, a rather frail-looking man who appears to be around seventy years of age, rides a skateboard around campus.)
I really need to get going on my Christmas shopping. I ordered my sister a customized Twilight Sparkle binder, but I haven’t gotten anything for either parent yet. Of course, they haven’t gotten anything for me yet either, so I guess we’re even so far.
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What’s dead week? It sounds ominous.
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It’s the week before finals, wherein professors can’t have quizzes and projects and most courses are already through their curriculum so the classes get cancelled. It’s sort of the ominous calm before the storm of finals week.
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No quizzes and projects due the week before finals and most classes cancelled? Wow, I wish they’d done that at my college in undergrad…..Classes were never cancelled week before finals, and we often had projects due the last day of class and were frantically finishing them up that week, lol.
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No, there are several projects and papers due, they just can’t start anything. The only exceptions for quizzes are if a class has regular daily/weekly quizzes.
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Gotcha.
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It sounds worse than Shark Week, but not as bad as Tragedy Week.
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The temperature here must have literally dropped about ten degrees (Celsius) between November 30th and December 1st. The last day of November was still really warm and sunny; as soon as it became December it dropped to about 14 degrees. I think it’s really going to stay cold this time.
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Hmmm… how about anniversaries as a theme for next year’s random threads? Any sort of anniversaries, any number of years ago, but taking place within the period the thread would be open, which means we could feature two or three anniversaries a month.
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Or spaceflights. Every month celebrates a famous historical launch or a current one.
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Now, now, we have to remember that not everyone shares our interests and not force them on other people. I’d be glad to have some anniversaries that were spaceflight-related, but since variety is the spice of life, I’d like to celebrate other fields, too.
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YES SPACEFLIGHTS YES
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What I am doing right now:
Finding all of the cover versions of Love Will Tear Us Apart, and ranking them from best to worst.
So far Moonspell’s cover is in first place and Simple Minds’ cover is the worst.
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Whoa, there’s a song with memories…such an off-the-beaten-track song when I first heard it; strange to think there are covers at all, let alone dozens of them.
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I only listened to about ten so far, but there were a lot more that I haven’t heard yet. Some of them were fairly odd: Broken Social Scene turned it into a waltz, 10,000 Maniac’s version had it sung by a girl (if the girl was a baritone, I think this would have been less confusing), Simple Minds gave it a sort of disco-ish beat…
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I just broke a menorah. That seems like a bad omen.
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Calm yourself. Everything breaks sooner or later, and somebody has to do it.
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True, but I like it when that somebody isn’t me. And it was a rather nice menorah.
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Someone in my Pre Calculus class gave a presentation on tesseracts today.
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I’m famous!
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They thought you are amazing and when showing the video, the math teacher said “Do you see God now?”
The people who presented got extra credit.
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Awww, well, shucks. I’m just your average four-dimensional cube, nothing special.
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Bubble tea. LOVE
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The first time I ever had bubble tea was with Rosanne, in Berkeley. Remember that, Rosanne?
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They have wonderful bubble tea in Berkeley. Actually, they have a lot of great Asian food in Berkeley. It has the only sushi I can stand that isn’t the sushi in Japan.
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Now I do! Thanks for reminding me. One of the great things about old friends is they bring back buried memories 
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I thought it was like swallowing tadpoles. Lots of them. But in a good way.
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*imagination fails*
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In the Recent Comments bar I thought this was a reply to the bubble tea discussion. You know, how they have the black pearls…I thought it was an interesting if slightly icky analogy.
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Wait, unless it was actually talking about the pearls and not the memories… How stupid of me. Never mind.
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Wax tadpoles? Or is that Coca-Cola?
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Coca-Cola, and you bite them. The wax helps you set your teeth.
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There’s an interesting Snopes article on the subject.
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YESYES. What’s your favorite flavor? I like Honeydew.
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It comes in flavors?
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It comes in pints?
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I’m getting one!
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Avocado bubble tea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(My family mocked me for drinking guacamole with fish eggs floating in it, but it has the best texture; like drinking whipped melted silk.)
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You’ve had a whole half already!
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Yes, and it’s actually kind of scary to watch them make it (I dunno, here it might be actual fruit or something, but it wasn’t in Singapore). You order from a list of fruity-sounding names, and someone behind the counter will pour some ice into a blender, add a ladleful of thick syrup, dump in a measure of incredibly brightly colored powder, blend it, and throw it in a cup with some tapioca pearls. Then they put it in a machine which hermetically seals the top of the cup by melting it slightly, and then you drink it and try not to shudder.
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We have a shop that sells it on campus, but I’ve never tried it.
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Tonight at rehearsal Graham (our director) was jumping around like the lunatic he is and telling some of the guys what to do for the scene,
“Okay, so I want you do be here, and then jump and grab him when….oh I’m sorry, I just farted. Anyway, when she says her line….”
Pretty much the entire cast almost died from hysterical giggles.
And he just kept on going.
Oh lawd. 
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The President of the Governing Council (school board type thing) of my future school used to be the secretary general of NATO. Whoa.
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And used to be Foreign Secretary. He’s got something like six titles.
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No beard, but still most impressive.
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Indeed. It’s not like I will be meeting him frequently or anything, if at all, but it does somewhat show the prestige of the school.
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I have new glasses! They are wonderful and no longer distort my vision around the sides of the frames!
The lenses also don’t pop out! And I have some of my depth perception that I didn’t have before!
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Seriously, whoever’s squidding all of my posts: knock it off. It’s really getting on my nerves.
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That’ll stop ’em.
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‘Sworth a shot.
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Seems like the best way to get everyone to keep squidding is to tell them that it’s going on, and they’ll want to join… SQUID ATTACK!
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QUICK, EVERYONE SQUID
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I WILL DESTROY YOU
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Now every one of your highly-squidded posts have a pie. I wonder what THAT means?
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*has
Cake. My grammar died.
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Ok. Sorry, Piggy. We love and respect you and will stop squidding your posts because we don’t want to alienate you and make you feel unwelcome and annoyed.
RIGHT, GUYS?
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Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. *looks around suspiciously*
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Steven Moffat said that David Yates was wrong and the Doctor Who movie will have Matt Smith! Or whoever the next Doctor is.
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Oh GOOD. I was worried about that.
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Yes, you can’t waste a whole regeneration on a movie.
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*cough* EIGHT *cough*
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It’s not as bad as regenerating three times in under a minute. Perspective!
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Curse of Fatal Death?
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Exactly.
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Is it just me, or is that name a tad redundant?
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Intentional.
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I love high school.
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That’s good to hear.
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That’s refreshing. Actually, so do I.
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That’s great! Congratulations! But… I thought you were in 8th grade…?
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I am. But I’m also in high school. High school is 8-12. Here, at least.
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I do too!
I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.
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SPOILER SPOILER A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR BECAUSE YES THAT ACTUALLY IS A SPOILER FOR SOME PEOPLE SPOILER SPOILER.
I have a bit of a problem with the baby speech situation. The TARDIS automatically translates every language for anyone who enters it, right? And apparently it translates baby talk for The Doctor. But not Amy? Shouldn’t it translate it for her and Rory too?
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Wait, doesn’t the Doctor speak baby, as opposed to the TARDIS translating for him?
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I don’t think that baby is a language…or maybe it’s just one that the TARDIS doesn’t translate…BABY=GALLIFREYAN!!!!!!!!
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When Amy denied his ability to speak baby, he said “I speak every language.” Which was how he explained the TARDIS translator to the lady in the episode “Planet of the Dead”.
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Yeah, based on “Planet of the Dead,” I always assumed that traveling the TARDIS grants the ability to speak every language.
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My stepdad came home from his work in New Jersey last night!
So he called my mom to tell her to pick up “a friend” at the airport because he had sent her a present with the friend. Turns out HE is the present. I’m glad he’s back for her birthday! (He sent her a very pretty and shiny watch for her birthday too. Sweetness!)
I’ve been missing him around the house, now he’s back and we’re all family and happy and such.
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Never mind. He leaves this Sunday. But well, at least he’s back for three days.
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When nearly all hope is lost, remain calm and make instant couscous.
SLEEP, WEAK, ETC.
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I went to a show put on by one of the campus comedy groups with some of my friends from the come-to-Boston-early community service program I did in August.
The skits were great, and when they did the improv parts, two of my suggestions were chosen. What those two suggestions were will surprise absolutely none of you.
For the first game, we had to shout out ways to die, with the examples given by the host being “death by panda” and “death by chocolate”. I shouted “death by space junk”, which they chose, along with “death by pregnancy”, “death by curling (the sport)”, “death by wedgie” and “death by Occupy Boston”.
In the game, “space junk” was the name of an obnoxious techno band who annoyed someone to death with their dancing, and at one point ended up saying “Just because we’re from the future, doesn’t mean we live in space! That’s racist!”
The second game was “party guests”, where we had to suggest personalities or quirks for “guests” to have, and the “host”, who wasn’t in the room when the personalities were chosen, had to guess who the “guests” were supposed to be. I suggested “mad scientist”, which got chosen along with “magician”, and “guy obsessed with feet”.
The whole show was hilarious.
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Today I misheard “Bieber” as “Reaver”. I can’t even think of a snarky comment to make about this, there are too many.
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FANFIC TIME
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So Choklit Orange needs some advice,
I think Color Guard is super-awesome and I’d like to join. However. The practice schedule is very intense. The auditions are tomorrow and I can just barely fit them into my schedule. If I get in, practices are 6-9 on Tuesday and Friday nights, and 9-5 on Saturdays. Which is fourteen hours a week. Which is a lot.
So (this is all predicated on my getting in, since I need your guidance before I make my official decision tomorrow afternoon), it’s not like I have anything going on on those three days, or like I have a big huge social life or anything, but I’m still kind of hesitant about committing that much time to Color Guard. My only other extra-curriculars (Journalism and hopefully soon GSA) are during school or lunch, except for Art Club, which is after school on Wednesdays.
Thoughts? Opinions? Forebodings?
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So, Color Guard.
If you think it’s super-awesome, then go for it! Loreena Chattheng was (and probably still is) in Color Guard and she always made me feel jelly with her amazing flags and impressive moves. If I was any good with twirling flags (the one time I tried I hit myself on the head, so I thought it probably wasn’t a very good activity for me to pursue) I would have joined.
Even if it takes up a lot of time and work, it’s a great way to make friends, bond with people, and a lot of other good things. Good luck!
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A couple points:
1. I’m actually more productive during marching band because I have time constraints. I procrastinate less! Also, I’ve gotten much better at time budgeting because of it.
2. I know you probably aren’t thinking about college yet and this is a poor reason to do an activity, but consistency across high school with an activity, especially one as high-commitment as guard, looks really good on an application.
3. I’m assuming this is winterguard rather than marching band guard (which is usually in the fall), but still: Joining band is, without a doubt, te single best choice I have ever made.
So… I’d say go for it.
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Yes. What Tess said. Plus, you get to hang out with band people.
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Whoa. MB disappeared for a little bit.
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Suddenly I found myself falling through the Woven Beyond.
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As I fell, I saw things you could not imagine. Worlds beyond life, stars beyond recognition.
I saw dark gods and ancient lights. I saw things that could not be, and things that should not be.
I saw terrors greater than anything in our small world.
I saw things that you could not believe
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Precisely.
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*Feels an urge to quote “The Great God Pan”*
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Arthur Machen was eldritch before Lovecraft was born.
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But Cthulhu was eldritch before any of them!
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Horror Hipsters!
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Yesterday, my Grandma came to visit. She is the one that originally got me a subscription to Muse. Sice she lives ina different state then me, and I don’t ever see her on Chrismas, she gave me my preesent early. It was….. a 100 dollar gift certificate to Cricket publishing company. At the price they sell Muse back issues, including shipping and handling, that’s 11 or 12 back issue. Yes!
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Nice, Treebird!
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Ahh, that is an awesome gift!
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So every time I raise the saxophone to my face, a Bb twelve- bar blues comes and starts hitting me over the head with a giant wrench. It’s affecting my playing as well as my status in advanced jazz combo/elite jazz group.
Tenor Madness is really, really, really fast, and I need my Bb blues for All-District jazz auditions.
Everyone else in the group can improvise. It’s getting embarrasing.
So… suggestions? Advice?
On an unrelated note, the parade’s tonight. Yaay.
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Live art performance went way better than I was expecting, and almost as well a I’d hoped. It definitely went well and people enjoyed it.
We built a city. On the bridge connecting the main campus with the upperclassmen housing.
And we had shoppers, streetwalkers, businessmen, homeless people, construction workers, and tourists to populate the city. And it was awesome. People had fun, people noticed it, and people added graffiti. Unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of all of it, but I got a fair amount, and it was pretty great.
Now, AN ANTHROPOLOGY PAPER FOR WHICH I AM UNPREPARED AND ALSO REWRITE AN ESSAY BECAUSE THEY’RE DUE ON MONDAY AND I’M BUSY ALL DAY TOMORROW.
GO!
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Hmm. I am once again posting purely out of boredom. It’s not that I don’t have anything to do–in fact, there are Microeconomics problem sets calling my name–but I’ve done half the problems in the first set and got several of them wrong and I think it might be best to take a break before my brains start leaking.
I’ll get to the problems eventually–particularly because microeconomics is my worst class and exams are coming up. This weekend I’m going to try and spend a lot of time reviewing, even though I’ve never been good at studying like this. In the meantime, I will post on Museblog, clean my room, and procrastinate. Maybe even write a bit–I know NaNo’s over, but let’s face it–I was never going to finish that novel in one month anyways. Not when I hate writing in the first place. Not when there are more important papers due. I’m just going to view writing anything at all as an achievement, regardless of the time of year it takes place in.
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Don’t write if you don’t enjoy it and don’t have to. Especially don’t do NaNo if you don’t enjoy it (because no-one has to). The founder has written about how you shouldn’t write if you don’t enjoy it and how NaNo is supposed to be about having fun; there’s no point otherwise. Don’t just write because you feel like you should.
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CALLING ALL GIRLS WHO LIKE OTHER GIRLS!!!!!
I have a question. I figured you would be the best people to ask. How is your hair cut, if you are comfortable sharing that over the internet, and how does it fit in with your sexuality? There’s a group of girls at my school who are lesbians (or pretend to be, long story) and all have very short hair and dress differently than the mainstream. I wasn’t going to assume that just because they have short hair they were automatically lesbians, because that would be stereotyping them. Apparently, I was supposed to assume that. Now I’m confused. Are there times when you want to fit in with the stereotype for the sake of convenience? Thanks.
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I’m bisexual and my hair is… not long and not short, either, which probably goes to show something, although I’m not sure what. It’s about halfway down to my elbows.
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I have short hair and am bisexual, but I’m still in the closet. When I come out there’s going to be quite enough “oh so you are a lesbian now” without conforming to some sort of stereotype of sexuality, so I’ll probably stay dressing the way I do, which is T-shirts, jeans, and Converse with a little eyeliner or mascara. I’m definitely keeping my hair short, I hate having it long. I also hate skirts with a burning passion, so I’ll probably never wear those.
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Erm, I’m not entirely sure if I should reply to this or not, since I’m in a weird place as regards to my sexuality. I kind of waffle back and forth between considering myself straight and bi…usually I just settle for “I’m kind of a little bi, I mean, I like girls and I’m attracted to them, but at the same time I really like guys am attracted to them as well, and I have a bit harder of a time imagining…..getting intimate…..with other girls than I do with guys, and the only relationships (one of which is significant) have been with guys so make of that what you will.” I guess I’m kind of open about it…except not really. My boyfriend and at least one of my good friends knows this is how I feel, but I don’t think I’ve ever really told anyone else, except for MB. And I don’t really announce it unless someone asks, and when my mom asks I say I’m straight, because I think she’d have a fit if I said I liked girls, even though I think she kind of wonders if I do because I’ve been talking about gay rights and transgenderism and all that sort of thing lately and arguing for it.
ANYWAY.
Taking all that into account, if you still want to know what my hair looks like…I used to have a mop-top-esque pixie cut (around 2 inches long), that I then let grow out and then dreaded. The dreads are all about 8 inches long, but in layers because I had layers that grew out before I started dreading. Side part on my right. A few beads scattered throughout. I usually either leave them down or do a bun or ponytail in back.
When I had short hair no one ever though I was lesbian/bi, that I knew of or can recall. In fact, I’ve never actually had anyone seriously ask me if I was gay/bi, except if I said something serious while we were joking around, which I think is how I’ve told the few people I have.
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Oh and also, the way I do my hair has to do with what I want to do with my hair, not who’s pants I want to get into. I honestly didn’t know that short hair was supposed to be a lesbian or butch thing to do when I got my hair cut, I just did it because it looked convenient and I wanted to do something new. Then I loved it and kept that way for two years.
Dreads were another “hey, let’s do something new! That looks awesome!” kind of decision. I’m still questioning them a bit, but I’m going to give ’em at least a year before deciding whether they stay.
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oh god what am I. queer? female assigned? person. Long haired person. Really long. Waist length? I like people. pansexual. Starting to do fancy swirly curl things in my hair. Blame the forties LARP. am queer though. yah.
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Oh and if you’re talking about presentation versus gender identity mreh? I dunno how to present how I identify. I waffle between going “what the cake does it matter” and “I’m agendered/genderqueer”. I’m also sort of female. It is rather layered with a heavy dose of “who gives a cake?”
I wear suits! Shiny suits! Currently I’m wearing a black and red shiny blazer. My hair was up in swirlies but now it has fallen down to its usual WAIST LENGTH-yness. I tend to wear clothes. Somedays I put on shiny skirts. Somedays I put on shiny suits. If it is formal wear time, I wear a buttondown and tie. Sometimes with skirts, mostly with suits (I have the SHINIEST new skirt and a shirt and tie to match oh man). I think of skirts as things that are casual and suits as fancy and awesome though I like wearing pants, a buttondown, a vest, and a tie in everyday wear land.
My hair is usually down or in a ponytail or somesuch. I have this habit of having REALLY LONG WAIST LENGTH HAIR and then chopping it all off for charity. I like dramatic changes. Soon I’ll get my hair cut to my ears or something but I haven’t truly felt like it yet. My hair is either long or short (what are you talking about in between stages DON’T EXIST)
Voila. Moi.
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There are not times I want to fit in with stereotypes for the sake of convenience. There are, however, times I find the stereotype describes me, and then I laugh.
My hair goes down to just below my chin.
Really, though, my general appearance is much more impacted by my gender identity than my sexuality. Also by this lovely closet situation where I’m out about my sexuality and romantic preferences (or lack thereof–I’m panromantic) and not out about my gender identity. Which is probably not going to change for a good long while.
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I’m bi. Possibly pans. And definitely female, though if I had an androgynous figure I’d probably try dressing as a guy because why not. My hair is a couple of inches past shoulder length with bangs. As for general presentation, I dress like an average teenager here, I suppose, just with slightly less revealing clothes. I generally wear jeans or shorts, and T-shirts or random tops of varying sleeve lengths with a cardigan and hoodie if it’s cold. Preference for layering and V-necks. I like skirts and dresses, but usually wear pants for practicality. I wear makeup occasionally, but not a lot.
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Went to a friend’s viola recital – one of the pieces she played was a transcription of the Vitalli chaconne with organ accompaniment. The organist wasn’t very good – had trouble catching the tempo changes – but oh man, that is such a cool instrument. There’s really something inhumanly unique about it.
Woke up in recital panic mode, am slightly calmer now, but holy cake I have so much stuff to do – why on earth did I think it was a good idea to schedule my recital during finals week? And then take like three time-consuming gigs on top of that?
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You know the thing on the Internet that says something like ‘If I had a British accent, I’d never shut up’? How accurate a representation of Americans is that, among MBers?
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I have a semi-British accent. I never shut up.
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Are the two necessarily related, though, in your case? ^^
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OUCH.
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I’m just kidding, of course. You know that, though…right?
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I’m American, and it’s extremely true of me – I’ve wanted to be British my whole life.
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Same here. Well, if you count ever since I started watching Doctor Who as ‘my whole life’.
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Same here.
I’m half British, which counts for something, right? Right?
HELP ME OUT HERE.
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You’re half-British? English, Scottish, Welsh or what? I’m also half-British (English)! What’s your other half? Where do you live? Sorry to sound so interrogative! 
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I’m half-English too! My other half… Well, it gets a little complicated, but technically half-Chinese. I’m a Massachusettsian and have lived in America all my life though, though with frequent jaunts to England.
And on Friday the twenty-fifth I was without an alibi. D: Just kidding – it didn’t actually seem like an interrogation, but then you apologized for sounding interrogative and I read too many Agatha Christie books.
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Wait, NO WAY. I’m half-English and half-Chinese too! This is really cool! Are you my long-lost twin? I don’t live in the States, though – I live in Hong Kong and I’ll be going to school in England starting September next year (squee).
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Wait. Really? I would say, “What a coincidence,” but, of course, there is no such thing. Yes, we are clearly related.
Good luck in England! I wish I could go to school there, but actually I really love my school right now…
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Yes! That’s wicked. What’s the complicated story of the Chinese side, out of curiosity?
Thank you! I just heard back from the boarding schools a week ago – I don’t know if you saw these extremely overexcited posts? – and I’m really excited to start going next year for sixth form!
So is your accent American, having lived there your whole life?
Hang on. Do you have grandparents/other relatives who live in England? If so, whereabouts do they live?
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To me it’s funny to think of an “American” accent. I’ve lived in the U.S. all my life and have had at least half a dozen distinctive accents. When we lived in Rhode Island, my North Carolinian father claimed he couldn’t understand a word I said. Which might have been true, actually.
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Sorry, Rebecca! An accent that comes from a region under the jurisdiction of the government of the United States of America, then, as opposed to that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
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In fairness I should point out that the British Isles by themselves — let alone the U.K. as a whole — are home to an extraordinarily diverse pool of accents, even now after many have died out. The topography created lots of isolated groups who developed their own accents, idioms, and grammatical idiosyncrasies. That in turn contributed to our own variety, since people from different regions of Britain settled in different portions of the colonies, thereby planting the seeds of arguments over pronunciation and usage that have lost none of their heat even though the reasons for them have long been forgotten. </pet_topic>
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Perhaps I was thinking in stereotypes. How erroneous of me.
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Well, we all think in stereotypes to some degree. We have to. Our neural circuits would fry into ashes if we didn’t. Just like at any moment our senses gloss over anything that’s not part of our immediate attention. The problems arise when we take our stereotypes to be Truth.
I seem to be in a philosophical frame of mind this morning.
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True. I mean, I do know that there are hundreds of different types of accents within America, just as in the the UK, but it was meant to be a general sort of question, I think.
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To me, saying that someone has an American accent is like saying that I drive a Japanese car. It might imply that the speaker thinks there’s only one kind, but it doesn’t necessarily.
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That’s a good analogy, Robert. Saying ‘an American accent’ to me doesn’t mean there’s only one accent which is indistinguishable throughout all 9.83 million square kilometres – rather, the accent comes from a part of the world which is located in America, like I said in 42.2.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 (wow), if I’ve typed out the correct number of ones.
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True enough. My original comment wasn’t actually meant as a direct reply to Selenium. I was just musing in general terms about whenever I hear the phrase “American accent” — or “English accent” for that matter.
Then again, except in very specific contexts, my first reaction to “Japanese car” would likely be: which one?
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Rebecca’s comment that ought to be 4.2.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.2 has no number. Should I be worried that it’s escaping?
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Making interstitial comments at the edge of the nesting limit is one of those quirky things GAPAs can do (although we usually try not to).
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I thought ‘interstitial’ meant ‘in between grains of sand.’ Does it mean something different when not talking about tarigrades?
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Bibli: In between intervening spaces, especially very small ones.
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Well, I don’t know if complicated is the right word for it. Basically, I came from a donated egg cell, but was only told so about a year ago. I spent most of my life just thinking that my mother was my biological mother, and that I was a quarter Japanese and a quarter “American” – meaning random-mixed-up-European-immigrant. I mean, personally ethnicity has never been a huge part of my identity, but still. It’s odd for me to view myself as being Chinese.
Congratulations on the school – I have seen some of the posts. You deserve it.
My grandparents live in Sevenoaks (near London), an aunt of mine lives in Edinburgh (so not England), and my other aunt lives in Oxford. She’s actually a high school teacher there, but it’s not a boarding school, so I guess you wouldn’t be going there.
Yes, my accent is American. People sometimes say it sounds British, which I think is a little strange – I’m not sure where they get that idea from.
Stereotypes are interesting… The thing is, the world’s rather too big to view everything individually. As far as English and American accents are concerned, I would say that the many subdivisions within the two do fit into a certain common class. I have heard many variations on “English” accents and “American” accents, and it’s still possible to classify each as English or American without any detailed knowledge. But I think that people place far too much weight on this sort of categorizing. It can be easy to get stuck in it…
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Oh, that’s very interesting! I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone like that before. So your biological mother was Chinese, do I understand correctly? It makes sense that you wouldn’t think of yourself as Chinese, then, if you’ve grown up around your Japanese/American mother.
Thank you, again!
One of my friends who used to go to our school here in Hong Kong goes to Sevenoaks school now – it’s in Kent, isn’t it? My school is quite close to Oxford, but it’s not actually in Oxford. Still, if you’re ever visiting your grandparents or aunt, perhaps we could Kokon? It’s a possibility, anyway.
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I think there are too many numbers for me to be allowed to reply to your comment… so my reply is here.
Yes, you understand correctly. I always feel rather odd when I think that I’ve never met my “real” mother… I guess it was just strange for me to learn this once I was so used to knowing my own background. And then I didn’t.
Sevenoaks is in Kent, correct. Do you mean Sevenoaks school as in the Sevenoaks School? Or a school in Sevenoaks? There’s more than you might imagine.
I go to Oxford quite a lot actually, so that would be lovely if we could sort something out at some point, It’s a very nice possibility to think about. And I will stop sounding like a creep now.
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That must have been somewhat of a shock, learning that about your background.
Yes, she goes to the Sevenoaks School!
My school is near London and near Oxford, so that may work out! A UK Kokon would be delightful. We shall see, once I get over there. I’m still (all alone) in Asia for now, now that Choklit Orange has moved to California from Singapore!
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Yes, that would be absolutely brilliant if it could work out… but maybe we’ll have to wait a couple of years. We’ll see.
I hope you enjoy being in Asia until then, even if you’re alone. xD I can’t think of a better way to phrase this, but you know what I mean, I hope.
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Yes, perhaps in a few years time or something. No rush! That would be extremely flammy though.
Oh, thanks. I do enjoy Asia; I love Hong Kong – only that Kokon possibilities are rather limited. Being able to post on MB, though, is great in itself so it’s quite all right!
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I want to be Australian, because it’s considered perfectly normal to eat spaghetti for breakfast there, not just because you have some left over, but because you actually want spaghetti for breakfast.
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I’ve never heard anyone’s opinion on that, but I’m curious. Next time I socialise with anyone I’ll see…
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We New Zealanders have chocolate fish.
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YES YES YES YES YES YES
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*is amused by all the people who want an English accent*
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It’s not our fault. You people just sound amazing.
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I think the question is: Do you find British accents ever so appealing?
My answer is: Yes, I do. I don’t know why.
Which thought is sending me off onto a tangent…. Wheee!
I don’t have an English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish*, etc. accent. I don’t. But, thing is, other people think I do. Not everyone. Just enough people to confuse me. I know I speak in a formal way–even a very formal way. I got this from books. I’m used to the way writers construct sentences; I do the same when I speak. (Semicolons and dashes and ellipses included! They hang visibly in the air.)
I usually make an effort to speak clearly, so that I can be understood. I probably got this somewhat from theater.
Apparently, many people think that all Brits speak formally and precisely. They’re used to BBC English, I expect.
So, I know that I don’t have an accent of the British Isles, but I have a voice that people find an acceptable substitute. I get asked where I’m from regularly. I get asked how long I’ve lived where I do. I get told what a lovely voice and or accent I have. I was told once, “Are you sure you’re not English? You sound just like the queen or somebody.”
SO! Reaching the point of this irkingly self-oriented tangent!
As someone who gets treated like a Brit at certain times, have I noticed any social advantages to sounding British among Americans?
Yes. Really, yes.
Does that mean I enjoy the sound of my own voice?
…No.
*I don’t need to say “Irish or North Irish” when referring to accents, do I? Both countries have Irish accents, yes?
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Well, now –
Coming from over there, you do get this notion that there’s something called a “British Accent”. Over here, we recognise a whole crateful of different accents. Radio and TV don’t seem to have homogenised them too drastically.
To give you a very broad picture, we have “proper cockney” (inner London), generic London, Posh (The Queen, Home Counties residents, Eton graduates, etc), Mummerset (a glib fictitious classification for a number of distinct accents seen as “countrified” – e.g. Gloucester, Devon, Cornwall, East Anglia), Midland (but an actual Midlander will tell you that a Birmingham accent is completely different from a Black Country accent), Potteries, Yorkshire/Lancashire (only residents can tell them apart reliably), Scouse (Liverpool area), Geordie (Newcastle area), Glasgow (broad Glasgow borders on unintelligible), Edinburgh (seen as refined and cultured), South Welsh, North Welsh, Northern Irish, Southern Irish (Although Southern Ireland isn’t part of Britain. I think that covers the main classifications, although residents of an area will recognise much finer distinctions.
My late father was a haulier, sub-contracted to the Great Western Railway, so he spent a lot of time travelling the Black Country – an area about 12 miles in diameter to the west of Birmingham. He used to claim that if he met someone from the area who he didn’t know, he could pretty accurately place the STREET they lived in from their accent.
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What’s yours, Paul, out of interest?
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Oh, I do know that there are a lot of accents–just like in the United States. I didn’t know most of those names; thank you for the overview! I don’t always know, when I’m reading a book by an author of that bit of the earth, exactly what a referred-to accent sounds like, and I don’t usually know what connotations it has. I’ve gotten to make some observations when watching things like Doctor Who and Sherlock–people make snide remarks about sounding “like you’re from up North”; etc. TV doesn’t homogenize them all to bits, but I do think that, in trying to be understandable to a range of people, the speakers all try to do some things: Control the breath, e-nun-ci-ate, pause distinctly between words. All of which combine to be, even in those retaining a specific region’s accent, “BBC English” as I know it. It probably has a proper name.
I am–this will sound boastful, sorry–rather good at imitating accents. Doing this has taught me that every English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish*, etc. accent requires me to do one thing: Form the words earlier on the breath than I do in my normal speech. “Scottish” is earlier than “English”, which is earlier than “Cockney”. “Scottish” and “Irish” involve curling my tongue, while “Welsh” involves a flatter tongue. “English” is more or less my own voice, earlier on the breath, with a bit of–oh, I’ve got to figure out what the words for these things are–a bit of refrain(?).
(Quotation marks are because that’s what I think they are; they may sound off, but they’re good enough to impress Americans who’ve been to the U.K.)
I have heard that it is possible to identify a person’s street from their accent in some (or all) areas; I find this fascinating, and very impressive! In the Black Country at the time your father knew the accents, did people tend to stay in the same house for long stretches of time? I think that would cause accents to be picked up/defined more easily.
*I’m still thinking that Ireland and North Ireland can’t have been split for long enough to have developed radically different accents. I know that within the island they share, there must be some variation, but Ireland, while not in the United Kingdom, is in the British Isles by accident of geography. I think they’re worth including in “British Accents”. The distinctions between Ireland and North Ireland are a touchy subject, so I may be offending someone; if so, I apologize.
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It sounds as if you’re inventing your own branch of linguistic analysis. Impressive!
You’re right about localisation. My dad was talking about a time when people rarely travelled, at least not on a regular basis. They spent most of their time at home or at a factory, talking to people from the same immediate area. Mostly, they lived their entire lives in one palce.
I suspect there are lots of accents from all over Ireland that an Irish person would be able to identify. But I don’t think many Brits, whichever bit of the isles they’re from, would confuse Northern Irish with Southern Irish. I suppose there must be a bit in the middle where they merge, but usually, they’re quite distinctive.
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{Beams.} I like linguistics quite a bit.
I thought so–and, I imagine, anyone who did move to a new place would be regarded as so-and-so, who’s from such-and-such, for years, while the local accent percolated into their own.
Hum, I’m not sure I know the difference between Northern Irish and Southern Irish. I know I’ve heard Northern; I wonder if I’ve never heard Southern? Or perhaps I have, but I wasn’t paying attention to linguistics at the time. Humm.
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Your father sounds like Henry Higgins (with regards to accent recognition, not interpersonal relationships.)
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And in Welsh the south and north are very different.
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It’s certainly true of me, but I think it’s just me, not my accent.
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Oh, I’m sure they’re charmed by you! But your accent is a part of you, and we Americans do seem to find such accents especially worth noticing.
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Went to the Museum of Science to see Cosmic Collisions with the astronomy club. I’d seen the show before, but not for five years, so it was nice to see it again.
I picked up a book about the Hubble telescope, three packages of freeze-dried cinnamon apples, and an astronaut-squeeze-bag-style water pouch.
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I am currently at the Library of Congress at a gala. There is a string quartet playing in the background, and I will be at a table with a senator and the former Secretary of Transportation. I feel about half in awe, half disbelieving, and 100% like I’m about to steal the Declaration of Independence.
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Ben Gates, you are now the invisible man.
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You stole my joke! GRR.
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I literally just watched “National Treasure” last night. SO EPIC
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I love that movie.
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DO IT DO IT DO IT. The Kokonspiracy needs you to.
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Why would we need to steal it? It’s perfectly safe where it is, as Ian Howe is in prison.
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SFTMC
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Pardon? I don’t think I know that acronym.
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Sorry for the misplaced click. I meant to pie your post, not squid it.
SFTMA (Sorry for the mystery acronym).
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How did you get invited!?
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Whee! Christmas parade went well. Did not freeze to death, like last year. Did not die of hyperthermia, either. Did not hit anyone with my slide (which would have been really bad like Paperclip was in front of me). Learned that 7th grade trombone section mixes badly with 8th grade tubas, however, but other than that it was quite fun and my sister’s at a sleepover which means I can watch The Time of the Angels tonight!
Tess- TELL ME EVERYTHING
IF YOU NEED HELP WITH ANYTHING I AM VERY GOOD AT SNEAKING AROUND
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I’ve been rock climbing all day! So much fun! I went to an indoor climbing wall at a leadership school with a group I am in. It was amazing. I was kind of terrified at first but I ended up being able to jump at the end, and that was just awesome. (There was a red ball hanging from the ceiling, and you had to jump from the top of the climbing wall and touch it. You have a harness on, but you are forty feet up in the air and have to jump AWAY and up from the wall. It’s really freaky.) I’m okay at climbing, not too great, but I mostly have trouble with the whole coming down part.
I’ve only been rock climbing once before, and that was on the side of an actual mountain. (Which is infinitely more terrifying because you look down and see all the tiny cars and trees and the road. And also rope tends to feel thinner the higher up you go.) I think I like indoor climbing more.
Has anyone here ever been rock climbing? Do you like indoor or outdoor climbing better?
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I climb mostly at camp. It’s indoor style climbing, but outside. There’s this big green tower with four sides, and the holds are screwed to it. On the front side there’s the green wall, the blue wall, and the purple wall (well, they’re technically the same wall, but you climb them like they’re three different walls). The right side there’s the overhang (second hardest), the chimney (it’s shaped like a chimney, and the holds only go halfway up, so you have to turn sideways, put your feet on one side of the chimney and your back on the other, and sort of crabwalk up), and easy mac (the hardest wall). The left and back sides of the tower have bouldering on them, and some of the left side has no holds so people who are doing level 4 (there are skill levels, like for level one you have to be able to climb the blue wall, tie some knots, and learn some other stuff; level two you have to climb green, tie some more knots, and learn to belay, etc. I passed level five last year) can make their own routes.
* wall of text *
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I’ve done artificial rock walls in several places. We have one at the Fitness and Recreation Center here, but you don’t get to use it unless an attendant is there and there’s never an attendant there when I’m there.
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Yes yes yes! I do lots and lots and lots of rock climbing! My college has a rock climbing wall, and I work there (mostly belaying, some climbing/knot-tying instruction, setting routes, building anchors, etc.). I’ve only been outdoor climbing twice, once in Red River Gorge, KY and another time at Devil’s Lake, WI. If you are interested in climbing and live near either of those places, I highly recommend them! They both have lots of crack climbing, which is my favorite kind of climbing, but they also have big varieties and are probably the biggest climbing destinations in the area. I like outdoor climbing best, definitely, but I also like indoor walls with natural climbing routes (that is, without holds and just grooves and cracks in the wall to mimic an outdoor climb).
I can’t lead/trad climb yet, but I can lead belay and I know how to set trad gear and build anchors (I’m just not strong enough yet to do most lead climbing, especially on 5.8+ routes, because I’ve only ever climbed up to a 5.10 level route), so I can do sport climbing! But I’m mostly used to setting routes on indoor walls (screwing in the holds in different patterns) and bouldering indoors, because that’s what I have the most access to. (Also, outdoor climbing is so expensive! I have my own shoes and chalk, but harnesses+ropes+trad racks/quick draws definitely add up, so it’s nice to have more serious climbing friends who can provide all of the gear and expertise. )
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I love climbing and high ropes courses. I haven’t been outdoor climbing, unless you count climbing walls outside, so I can’t really state a preference.
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My friend took me to the gym once since she had a membership and we went climbing.
Also, at a camp I used to go to there was a really high rock wall which I would scale. Occasionally I reached the summit.
Also, at a children’s musem, there was a ‘real’ rock wall which instead of having little hand and foot holds really felt like the side of a mountain. That was fun.
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I’ve been doing indoor climbing every week for about two months now, though I plan to do some real outdoor rock climbing this spring. *can’t wait* I mean, what’s the point of living in a country that’s mostly alps if you can’t ski and hike and go rock climbing?
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We did indoor climbing in PE at school. It was fun, but as the uncoordinated straight-C student with a stronger-than-average fear of heights, I’ve only ever got to the top of a few walls. So outdoor climbing would feel a lot more dangerous for me.
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I’ve just seen Les Miserables for the first time. I feel like my heart’s been torn out and repeatedly stomped on. It’s incredible.
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ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US
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DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING
…oh, nostalgia.
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Do you hear the Musers blog,
blogging the words made up of dots?
It is the blogging of a people who are thinking awesome thoughts!
When the color of your shirt echoes the color of the bun’,
there is some running you should do before tomorrow comes!
Will you join our evil plans?
Who will be flam and stand with me?
Beyond the Woven web is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight to enact the Kokonspiracy!
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SINGING THE SONG OF ANGRY MEN
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IT IS THE MUSIC OF A PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT BE SLAVES AGAIN
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WHEN THE BEATING OF YOUR HEART ECHOES THE BEATING OF THE DRUMS
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THERE IS A LIFE ABOUT TO START WHEN TOMORROW COMES
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((How can anyone NOT feel a little bit cheered and stand a little bit taller when hearing that song, really?))
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WILL YOU JOIN IN OUR CRUSADE
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WHO WILL BE STRONG AND STAND WITH ME
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SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE BARRICADE
IS THERE A WORLD YOU LONG TO SEE?
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THEN JOIN IN THE FIGHT
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THAT WILL GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO BE FREE
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I like spending time in cemeteries. Is this a bad thing?
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No.
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I spent the 4th of July at Arlington by choice, so I’m in no position to criticize.
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I spent a significant portion of my college years wandering around the cemeteries near my school. There were two, side by side. One was the old Moravian one, with its identical flat stones and birth dates going back to the 18th century. The other was more Victorian with rambling paths and little nooks, lavishly ornamented with trees and flowering shrubs. I wandered through there whenever I wanted to think or just escape from other college students. Cemeteries are peaceful. The people who live there leave you alone.
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Cemetaries are awesome! Particularly for getting name ideas for writing.
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I find cemeteries very relaxing, especially early in the morning. It’s nice to be able to think… As an additional plus, the cemetery near me has nice birds.
I like birds.
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I really like cemeteries!
However, I love to imagine stories in cemeteries, and sometimes act them out. They’re fantastic open spaces, and most of them have very nice trees to climb, or hide under, like the willows at mt. Auburn. There’s something about graveyards that just makes you want to come up with stories, I think it’s a combination of the calmness and little slice of nature in the middle if a city, and the sense of how old everything around you is. I’ve never really found it that morbid that there are dead people under your feet.
Also, Oxlin: My mother found my name in a cemetery, near Alexander Hamilton’s gravestone (she’s a history teacher, so I’m somehow not surprised.)
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There’s something very conducive to the imagination in cemeteries. Also, they’re just nice places to relax, I find… When I’m feeling stressed out about… stuff, it’s the most convenient place for me to just go and take a mini-vacation from the world.
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They are lovely to walk in, and so quiet- they stopped burying people at the cemetery near our house a while ago, so nobody really goes there much. There’s a small hill with a tree that’s perfect for reading under and a little creek and quite an expanse of grass with flowers and trees and boulders.
Also, there are some really old graves that nobody visits and which seem a bit neglected, so I like to neaten them up. Nobody seems to object. But my parents seem to think it’s creepy.
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I just really love that idea.
I’m not sure why, really. I’m not religious or superstitious or anything, but I always think of graveyards as rather sacred. It always upsets me when I see rubbish all over a cemetery (well, anywhere, but especially a cemetery), because it’s just wrong. I love the image of someone working to make the world a slightly better place.
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As do I.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to the lady at Arlington who asked if I was family because I pulled out some of the long grass around Dick Scobee’s headstone and left a rose. Why would I have to be family to care if someone’s grave was well-maintained?
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Well. I do my best. But it’s a big sort of planet, this one.
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In Britain, some cemeteries are tourist destinations. Highgate has the graves of luminaries such as Karl Marx and Douglas Adams.
Smaller cemeteries are lovely places to visit if you want a bit of peace and quiet. We have the advantage over here of hundreds of little parish churches, some dating back to Saxon times. It’s not uncommon to find 16th century graves close to the church, and inside you often find older ones.
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This is why I want to go to cemeteries in Britain.
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Of course,. if you want OLD graves, you could always have a look at west Kennet Long Barrow. how does 3650BC grab you?
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Whoa. That’s old. One time on a field trip in Boston, we had to find the oldest gravestone ina graveyard, and that was only 1622. 
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the hollywood forever cemetery holds events and concerts! i actually really wanted to go to a concert there earlier this year but alas, it sold out….
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There’s a cemetery by my house that’s famous for no particular reason. I think someone famous might have designed it. It’s at the end of a long row of shops on one particular street, and it’s nice and easy to, say, see Spirited Away at the local cult movie theater and then walk three blocks to sit on the gravestones and have a picnic, or whatever you want. I always make a habit of leaving a stone on one of the Jewish gravestones, even though I don’t know anyone buried there.
It’s a nice place, a sunny place. The angels aren’t weeping and the tombs are white. There are expensive gravestones on the hills and cheaper ones below, gravestones for soldiers and gravestones for mothers and gravestones for children. There’s the sense that the dead have found some kind of quiet peace.
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Guess who just got the second corda? (and a new strategy for potential college interviews)
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Congratttts! ^_^ (How does your ranking system work? I know that it varies a lot between groups….)
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The adult cordas, starting at the age of 14, go from green-green to green-yellow etc following the brasilian flag until blue-blue (the fifth corda). The first belt is about 3 months to a year, depending on how often you attend training, basically just a few kicks (Armada, Mei Lua, Queshada, Bençao, Martelo) and esquivas and of course an aú and clapping. The second belt is another year of training, being able to do a wider varieties of movements (floreos, feintas) and knowing the words to most songs and surviving in the roda while showing that you can do said kicks and feintas etc against two graduados/etc in a row- basically just practice. After that, it usually takes two years or so to get the third belt, for which you need to be able to play some basic pandeiro, be able to differntiate between Sao Bento grande and Banguela and play accordingly and just generally be awesome and really good in the roda.
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Hugo finally started showing in my local theater!
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Babysitting: I got payed in a Barnes&Noble gift card and a cookie. I like these clients.
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That’s excellent! How much is the gift card worth, out of curiosity?
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I’m not sure, I suppose I have to actually go to the store or their website or something to find out.
Which reminds me… why is it that I always get stiffed when I babysit? Not with these people, who are very nice, and also happen to be my next-door neighbors so I suppose they want to stay on my good side, but everyone else will either say they’re going to pay me ten dollars and then pay me three (in a closed envelope which seems kind of rude to open right there, and then by the time I find out I’m home and too shy to go back to them about it) or they just won’t agree to anything more than $3 per hour, which seems a little low to me.
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Maybe you could find a way to have to open the envelope there – maybe don’t bring a bag and only bring a wallet that’s in your pocket, so you’re ‘forced’ to take the money out of the envelope so it can fit in your wallet otherwise you don’t have enough room for the whole envelope, and then you can look puzzled and go ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, but this looks like $3. Are you thinking of paying me the rest next week, because that’s fine! Just as long as you know there’s been a mistake!’
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You are getting seriously stiffed. I get paid ~15 dollars an hour to babysit my usual baby and toddler.
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I get paid $8 an hour to lug 300 – 1500lbs of laminated particle board up stairs, ramps and through hallways and then assemble it into something resembling a closet. It’s actually kind of fun.
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I’m paid the equivalent of around US$26 for an hour (it’s usually around 40 minutes though, in actuality) for teaching violin to a fourth grader (I think I’ve mentioned this before on the ‘Blog). It’s less than half of what a decently priced proper, non-student violin tutor would charge, and nothing compared to what some professionals out there charge.
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Could you send an email? I don’t know about you, but I’m much less shy on the computer than in person.
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I want to babysit for those people.
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So what is this “Woven Beyond” That I’ve been seeing referenced lately? Robert talked about it when the blog shut down, and it’s on the siblings thread as some random collection of colorfully collaged names from MB.
Anyone care to elaborate?
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It all started here with giant space squids.
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SFTDP:
Well, actually, Loreena first named it here and the design first appeared here.
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That is one of my favorite Random Thread design pictures and also one of the first threads I remember actively participating in, although I’m sure there were a few before that…
Slightly pretentious, I know, but just for old time’s sake I found all my posts in that thread and read them (In some cases, just skimmed over the ones I thought would be more then a little embarrassing.) I know we have this ‘aw-everybody-has-embarrassing-posts-kids-on-MB’ every couple of months, but WOW, was I different in 7th grade. 
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As was I in 8th.
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The border of the blog looks like it was woven–at least, it usually does. I think it’s actually white on my computer right now…
Anyway, it’s been used for… many things. I think it symbolizes the connection between us or something? But usually it’s more The Dark Outside World We All Fear And Know Not Of But In Lore. I think. Which is basically the opposite.
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On Thursday, we chose our high school classes, although there’s plenty of time to change our minds, and… SQUEE! It was actually really fun! I can’t believe I’ll get to take Aquatic Science, AP Environmental Science, Environmental Systems, Research and Design (You choose a topic, do experiments on it, and present it to the scientific community all year, Small Animal Management, and maybe Cultural Linguistics and Social Action. Not in one year, obviously, but still. Unfortunately, I can’t go to the high school I wanted because it doesn’t offer Research and Design or Aquatic Science, and I’m not willing to give those up even if it does mean getting an Associate’s Degree at the same time as my high school diploma plus probably an easier time making friends. I’m considering doing International Baccalaureate, though, because I read the descriptions of its bio classes. There are 2. The first sounds just okay, but the second one sounds like literally my dream class. And both of them are at least 40% lab and field work!!
That’s why I wasn’t here since the day before that; I’ve been busy looking into this voluntarily. And homework, of course, but that doesn’t count because I have that all the time. Anyway, I’m excited. I had no idea I’d get to do things like this.
I originally wrote a monster post about it, but I realized no-one would read it. Anyway, I’m happy.
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Your school seems to have such interesting subjects! The subjects at my current school are mostly generic and unoriginal.
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That’s great! Also, what do you do in Social Action?
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The first 4 you can only take in junior and senior year, so I won’t be taking them yet. I can’t take Social Action until senior year, unfortunately. I agree, though! It isn’t my school yet, though; I only just decided which I’ll go to for the first 2 years, although I’m pretty sure about junior and senior year because there’s only one nearby with an IB program (and I forgot to mention that the first, okay, IB bio class is a prerequisite for the flamablamablous one). I’m also taking Theory of Knowledge (and not Cultural Linguistics), which I just found out about. I’m excited!
Re: Social Action: “This course is a one-year program designed to teach students about social action and responsibility. In addition to working collaboratively at school, each student will also work for a selected non-profit organization throughout the
school year, thus accruing four hours of volunteer service each week. Students will design and implement a Social
Action Project to better their community and non-profit organization.”
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While doing routine maintenance on the blog, I found myself rereading Stupid Senseless Smiley Stories, v. 2008.2. Those of you who haven’t seen it really ought to go back and have a look. It’s a classic.
(Old-timers may remember the saga of Fred the Bunny Nerd.)
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Poor Fred. He never could catch a break.
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Gosh, I should do those again. I miss them.
I feel like I used to be a lot more creative than I am now.
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POSOC, you never finished the story of Fred and Louise. Do you remember what was supposed to happen to them? I’d love to know.
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They go on to have many amusing escapades while hiding from the rest of the bunnies. Learning each other’s languages, converting the landing pod into a shelter — basically a dynamic halfway between Robinson Crusoe and Adventure Time.
Eventually they learn that BEACON and the scattered fragments of humanity in orbit have developed a resonance weapon that will obliterate every intelligent being on Earth — a deadly perversion of Intelligent Air. Fortunately, Fred accidentally discovers a way of reversing the zombification process, enough to restore a few hundred people and convince BEACON that the collateral damage of using the weapon would be too high. Fred and Louise become reluctant ambassadors during the following truce, being the only ones who speak both human and HPB languages, and negotiate the settlement of the first town populated by bipeds and bunnies alike.
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I went back and read the Round-Robin Smileys about a week about. My legacy on the ‘Blog. Fun times.
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STFP: Wow, it looks like Kiwi has been posing as a hermit for a long while! I never noticed that before!
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Oh man, my Space Age Smiley Stories were fun!
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My stepdad left. He won’t be home for the holidays…
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I’m sorry.
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School is over. The only thing between me and junior year is the summer. I have mixed feelings about it, but am optimistic.
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Are you now the only active MBer in the Southern Hemisphere, ML? You’ll be able to spend summer evenings gazing up at those strange and wonderful stars.
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Did we use to have others in the Southern Hemisphere as well?
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Dotty-Kay, Sam/Elwing, Zoe, Andromeda pineapple-duck, lauren — maybe a few others. Nobody from South or Central America or Africa, I think.
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I think these are all people from before my time? I don’t seem to remember anyone from the Southern Hemisphere apart from Maths Lover.
Would you know if anyone from those continents subscribes to Muse?
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I don’t know about Hong Kong, but I found Muse deliveries in Singapore and New Zealand to be so sporadic that I eventually cancelled my subscription… that may have happened.
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Deliveries for me were fine, just several weeks late. I vaguely remember seeing posts by Dotty-Kay. Sam was a fairly regular poster when I was a phyte, I think, and some time later she came back and had forgotten her blogname. The others are names in Who’s Here and old threads to me.
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i’m kind of concerned that it’s 5am and i’m still not tired but if it means i can finish this paper then NOOOOO COMPLAINTS
good morning, GAPAs!
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Good morning, Axa.
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Good morning, Axa.
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Ugh. My sister is playing the Spongebob Christmas special on the TV at a annoyingly loud volume. *prepares to kill sister*
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I know, right? *is glad for a mother who banned Spongebob or any mention thereof from the household*
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I found an online radio station that mixes ambient and experimental music with historic NASA audio. It’s incredibly relaxing.
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Yesterday we ate eggs laid by Highliter. Yum.
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I read that as, “Yesterday we ate eggs laid by Hitler.” Needless to say, I was… rather alarmed.
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My friend Hannah once made that mistake. While reading the label on an actual highlighter. Hilarity ensued.
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Well, I finally locked myself out of my room. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Unfortunately, I have no idea where my roommate is or when he’ll be back, and he isn’t responding to my texts. But I have my iPod to entertain me. I refuse to go to the front desk and have them unlock the door. I must maintain my dignity.
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Have you tried SSHing into his laptop and using the speech synth to ask him? If that doesn’t work, you could always ring the doorbell.
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Both of those would’ve worked great if he had been in the room.
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Would your resolve weaken if your iPod ran out of charge?
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Oh, most definitely. I would’ve gone straight to the front desk.
Anyway, after about an hour my roommate came back from wherever he was. I’d found a nice desk in a dark corner of a hallway and I played solitaire and watched the snow fall outside.
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Sounds lovely, actually. I love just sitting and watching things, though it’s hard to have the time or excuse to just do that…
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How is it undignified? It happens. No big deal. You want undignified? Try locking up the padlock key AND all your clothes in the gym locker and not realizing it until you get out of the shower and everyone else has left and having to summon the guy with bolt cutters.
And not for the first time.
Tiny tater tots in the scheme of things.
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It was a more a matter of not wanting to talk to other humans. Being constantly surrounded by them 24 hours a day has really wrecked havoc on my tolerance level, since I can’t recharge very often.
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Now THAT I understand completely. See my comment about cemeteries. Also, even though I ceased being a music major at the end of freshman year, I managed to keep a practice room in the Fine Arts Center for my entire time at college. It was a wonderful place to hide.
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I find darkrooms are good for that, too, plus developing photos in general is relaxing, I find, as well as fun/mentally stimulating. Yes, it is possible to have the two in conjunction without it being a contradiction.
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I got locked out of my room at Yale and called the emergency number they said to call if that happened. Luckily, the girl whose room was at the oposite end of the emergency fire corridor came back and let me come into her room and then into my room through the fire door.
I called the number back to tell them they didn’t have to come, but nobody responded, so I left a message.
Several hours later (I don’t remember how many, just that it was dark outside), a guy from the housing office finally arrived, because apparently nobody had gotten the message I’d left. I explained I was sorry for the trouble and I’d left a message, but he was still mad.
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SFTMP. I meant to squid it. Sorry!
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“Emergency fire corridor” Read: secret passage!
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I often “discover” secret passages because I don’t bother reading the signs “Emergency Exit Only.”
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I heard that somewhere, some people got lost in a corn maze filled with signs that said: If lost, call the number XXX-XXXX. These people called 911. Now that’s undignified.
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Oh yeah, I heard about that. I’ve been in that corn maze, and those signs really were everywhere, and they gave us a postcard with a map on it when we went in. And you could see the road from about half of the maze.
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A few days ago, I locked myself out because-wait for it- the zipper on my bag broke and got stuck all the way in the lining (don’t ask). So I had to break open my own bag using an aglet and my fingernails because everything- keys, cell phone, wallet- was in the bag. It was surprisingly difficult.
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I had to do that with a backpack once. Who made zippers so dang error-prone, anyway?
Nice gravatar, by the way.
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Merci beaucoup.
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Zippers are so hard. I once caught my shoelace in one (attached to a friend’s backpack) and he was too busy playing clarinet to notice (I was in a position that made it pretty much impossible to bend over.)
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I just made two gallons (Yes, TWO GALLONS.) of herbal cough/cold medicine for Castle and everyone else in my life who is sick (everyone). I feel awesome.
I also made some non-alcoholic pan-gaalctic gargleblaster. (Everything spicy in your house thrown in some vinegar, it’s super good for you)
I will CURE the sicknesses!
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Or at least end them, one way or another.
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Cure ALL the sick!
Right ALL the wrong!
Feed ALL the hungry!
House ALL the homeless!
Shoe ALL the shoe-less!
Strangle ALL the hobbitses!
Repeat ALL the memes!
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Pie ALL the posts!
Squid ALL the rants!
De-bunnify ALL the things
Post ALL the messages!
Quote ALL the people!
Muse-ify ALL the memes!
…couldn’t resist. XD
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Muse-ify all the memes. All of them.
(You cannot hope to beat MuseBlog in a meme-off. It is simply the best there is.)
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Reply to ALL the sad posts!
Type ALL the HTML!
Miss ALL the grounds!
Memeify ALL the nothings!
Preview ALL the smiley faces!
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Muse-ifying meme level: 99
And not a single squid was given that day.
(…I won’t do it again!)
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Juggle ALL the goslings! Take ALL the lemons! Wear ALL the fezzes! Eat ALL the potato chips! … I’m just rambling now.
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How would one go about wearing ALL the world’s fezzes at once?…
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Step One: Become a hydra.
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Step 2: Cut off own head
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Step Three: Repeat as necessary; take care that end number of heads not exceed number of fezzes in world.
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Step 4: Find a way to keep track of everyone on earth you haven’t already killed with your bad breath to ensure that you’ll be able to steal any fezzes they create in the future. (Also keep track of the people in space, in case they bring any fezzes back into the world).
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Wait, that’s Step 5, sorry. Obviously, Step 4 is “Wear ALL the fezzes!”
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I have a sense that part in parentheses is because of a certain trope…
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No, actually… Which trope?
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A very high stack?
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My Christmas list went something along the lines of this:
“A fez.
Book thing blah.
A fez.
Doctor Who gimmicky things.
YARNYARNYARN
A fez.
Etc.
Did I mention a fez?”
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I haz a fez. Well, Darwin the walrus does.
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My mind just imploded.
SQUEE.
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So cute!
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Avoiding work! As usual! x_x
On the other hand, I wrote a program to create sound waves and play notesand programmed in the violin part to an Elvenking song. Wooo procrastination.
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I’m avoiding English homework by posting here. I hate analyzing literature. Takes all the fun out. 
Procrastinators of the world, UNITE!…tomorrow.
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Seconded… tomorrow.
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Maybe I’ll get around to thirding this…eventually…
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Hello friends! I’ve been too busy and crazy to post here much, but I’ve been doing well and I hope you are, too!
A list of stuff:
–I can’t believe the semester is almost over! That is crazy crazy crazy crazy. *mindexplosion*
–Due to the aforementioned statement, I have gotten very little sleep and thus am experiencing memory loss and feel like that guy from Memento except instead of solving a murder I’m writing papers. Hehehe.
–I calculated how many pills I have taken since my Crohn’s Disease diagnosis in 2003, which is 28,740. (This was a great procrastination activity.)
–I received high praise from a professor on a research paper draft, that made me feel super happy and excited and competent. Some excerpts from these comments are: “As strong as the other elements of the paper are, the style is probably the most striking. You fill the paper with vivid, reportorial writing that makes these issues and implications come alive–especially in the opening paragraph, which is stunningly well written. Your sentences are flexible, fluid, and intellectually complex, combining a striking sense of voice with the ability to trace complex and nuanced connections,” and “This is a stunningly good first version of the paper. The nuance and complexity with which you explore how these various systems interact is extremely impressive, and stylistically your writing is on a level with lots of essays published in high profile magazines, such as Orion.”
–I bought a DSLR camera! It will be waiting for me at my house when I get back for break. Can’t wait. (JADE AND FERN WE WILL BE CAMERA BUDDIES.)
I’m off again, but I hope everyone has a great week! Sorry I didn’t respond to any of your posts–I’ll be better next time! I love you all!
ALSO Congratulations NaNoWriMo-ers!
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Nice! I just hope my Anthro professor likes my research proposal half as much.
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Kai, I’m sure he/she will! You can do it!!
And by Fern I mean Fiddler! Sorry! *can’t keep names straight*
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I got it back today! I got a 14 out of 15! So relieved!
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Got a 72 percent on my last econ exam, so a B overall in the class. Sorta disappointed, but it hopefully won’t affect me too much in the long run.
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Ouch. My sympathies, Piggy.
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I’m currently writing a song about the water cycle. To the tune of Ravel’s ‘Bolero’.
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Interesting! What are the lyrics?
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That. Sounds. Amazing. D:
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That reminds me of the Last Page Muse once did about “Unraveling Bolero”. Which issue was that?
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I’m kind of sad I only have one archeology class left before finals.
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Just reorganized my desk and alphabetized my CDs/records. Happiness=increased.
Also, I was just looking through my parents’ bookshelf and found eight books about how to speak Hungarian (none of them told how to say “My hovercraft is full of eels,” though), a book about the Muppets in Hungarian, and a copy of The Selfish Giant that is in both Hungarian and English.
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Essay…
It was going really well and then my roommate walked in and my flow was totally broken. And then I looked down at what I was writing and was like “What is this? What am I even saying?” and also realized I had a full page less than I thought. Which is nice in that I had more room to argue my points, but irritating in that I was so much less close to finished. Also I have a performance to be at in about an hour, so I’m wondering where is really the point of continuing. Except that I will get more sleep later and also when I get done I can come back and edit on my stage high which could be nice, or do something else with that energy and not worry about having to finish an essay.
Anyway White Noise is a good book and there is a lot to read into it, it’s a little bit genius in a way.
I keep expecting this text box to behave like a Word document, which I think is a sign. Good bye!
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I love White Noise too.
I hope the essay goes well. Sometimes interruptions can be good so you sort of detach yourself from what you’re saying, and sometimes they can be, well, interruptions.
Good luck with the performance too! What is it?
Does that mean that I’m not the only one who keeps trying to adjust the margins and use keyboard shortcuts for my comments? xD
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I spent an hour and thirty-five minutes today learning how to read tarot cards. Time well spent!
I can now read palms, tarot cards, and runes, as well as knowing some feng shui. If I ever need to make a quick buck in college, I guess I know what to do…
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I don’t understand why caffeine is such a socially acceptable drug. My dorm tonight is apparently giving out endless caffeine since it’s dead week and people are writing papers and studying like crazy. If it were any other psychoactive substance they were giving out, there’d be uproar. Caffeine causes insomnia, it can trigger anxiety, it causes a type of intoxication, it’s highly addictive and tolerance builds quickly. I don’t get why it’s so widely accepted. I’m not saying it’s bad–I certainly drink caffeinated drinks of various sorts. I just don’t get the sociological aspect of it.
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Try energy drinks. One of my friends literally starts jumping up and down after one of *brands*, they’re much quicker then alcohol and people tend to be even sillier.
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Tomorrow:
-Physics test on momentum (I thought I knew how to do this for once but I’m reviewing and nope apparently not)
-Playing my all-district piece in front if everyone that takes lessons from my teacher
Awesome.
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Today I drank horchata in December for the first time!
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Starting Russian homework now. Why now? Because we took about 6 mattresses, piled them in a lounge and jumped on then. Then cuddled once we were tired. It was excellent.
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69.1- I finished the essay before midnight, so it’s kind of amazing.
I was performing a scene from Butterflies Are Free directed by another student for her directing class. It went really well! And now I’m all like “aw it’s over.”
70- I feel like an hour thirty-five isn’t really enough time to learn Tarot… To really say you can read it I think you have to be able to not consult a book at all during the reading. And there are so so so many meanings per card. Like the aletheometer or something. I’ve been doing it for like two years and still only know a couple of cards.
My roommate’s and my musical alarm went off and is apparently completely on the wrong playlist because there is angry loud rock coming from the speakers.
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I just got done with my physics final. Two hours of stressing over things that I should know… and then figuring out those things by not really thinking about them and going by instinct.
Whenever I take a test I get a headache. It goes away when I start doing things correctly, and comes back when I’m stuck. It’s very irritating.
Good luck to all of you with finals!
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I may be totally off the mark here, but when you get stuck do you tense up your shoulders / hunch over? because that would cause headaches
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Waugh, the final paper for my history class may be the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. The prof gave us a packet of primary sources, and we’re supposed to take on the role of a person studying in Paris in 1984 who happened to stumble across a stack of documents holding open a door in a library. Apparently this actually happened, and we’re supposed to write the paper from her point of view as she’s telling her friends about what she found. The documents he gave us are all badly photocopied (at least 10 percent of the words are cut off), entirely out of order, and with no way to identify anything. I think this is intentional, to make it seem more “authentic”. And I have to write nine pages of this by Friday. And it’s not as though I could just read everything regardless of the order–no, we have to number each document for inline citations. There’s one chunk that’s either one document or four, and after looking at it for twenty minutes I still have no idea.
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More genuine sympathy squid. Good luck!
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Good luck, detective Piggy!
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Thanks, guys. I’ve scheduled it out–I’ll finish reading the documents today and write two pages before I go to bed, I’ll write another four pages tomorrow before dinner, and the last three pages before bed tomorrow, and on Friday morning I’ll do final editing before turning it in at 11:30. Luckily all of my classes tomorrow and Friday have been cancelled, and my other paper isn’t due till Monday.
But, of course, I’m coming down with a nasty-feeling cold that I really, really hope isn’t the flu.
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Hmm… I haven’t added any tags to my username for a while, do you guys think I should?
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Yes.
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No.
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Hmm…
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The other day I was explaining how a ball bounced to my sisters friend when we were on the sidewlines at basketball paractice. I was babbling for about two minutes, and even dribbling the ball that I was holding in slow mo to show her before I realized she wasn’t listening.
Also, I apparently have no idea how to write a childrens book. it’s supposed to be for 1st graders, and I so far have 3 pages about organelles. Sigh.
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I wouldn’t sweat it. One of my friends found some of her old elementary school stories, most of which seemed to culminate in crows eating everyone’s eyeballs. I’m sure that as long as you make it sound interesting, you could probably write about string theory. Subtly. Like subliminal indoctrination learning… see, this is why no-one asks me to write books for children. You could write about HPBs?
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Personally, I don’t see any reason why little children couldn’t learn about string theory or organelles if they were explained well enough and in an interesting enough way. When I was little, my mother sang me songs about string theory!
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That is really cool. How did the songs go?
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Meh, I had to write a children’s story for school about weather. I chose to have an animal main character. I named him Ernest because I wanted it to start with an E (E— the Eagle) and of course the only other E name I could think of was Edward, which was out of the question.
I had to read it out loud in front of the class and discovered what a huge problem my lisp was.
Not cool, seventh grade guys.
Sorry for turning this into my own rant. In retrospect, it was probably actually pretty funny to watch.
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64- CAMERA BUDDIES WOOOOO!!!
I am getting better at watercolors Well, painting small things with them. Why can I only do art in miniature? I blame doodling as my only real practice. Still though, works out for me pretty well.
This should probably go on the arts thread so I’ll talk there more later I guess.
Aaaand got my weekly smoothie from DeCafe. Omnom peach mango.
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YESYESYESYESYES!!
And yay weekly smoothie! I did weekly smoothies, too, until it started getting cold and then I decided to do random-weekly-warm-drink instead.
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What camera did you get?
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Canon Rebel XS!
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That’s what Fiddler and Jade have, isn’t it?
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Indeed it is! We will be camera buddies and it will be the best.
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My Web Design teacher is confused as to why Google doesn’t accept Boolean commands. *facepalm*
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Before Google came along, most search engines were based on Boolean commands. They did give you more of a feeling of control — like speaking a highly inflected language. I can understand why your teacher might miss them.
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Just don’t get him on Regular Expressions.
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I wouldn’t be as discouraged if that were the case, but he had no idea that Google didn’t accept them and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working. This is our WEB DESIGN TEACHER. Who is supposed to be UP-TO-DATE.
Sorry. That may have been a little too rant-y.
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Rantlet justified. Maybe he spends so much time coding, he doesn’t actually use computers much. It happens.
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I just found a lovely X-Men fanfic where an OC calls NPR and gets interviewed about mutation over the phone by Ira Glass!
(Oh, Koko, I am so nerdy…)
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Ira Glass came to my school to talk! I was sad I didn’t get a ticket in time I heard great reviews…
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Bob Herbert, a former NY Times writer, gave a lecture here back in October, but I couldn’t go as I had an appointment to have dinner with my aunt.
All I really wanted to do was tell him how much I loved the op-ed piece he wrote in memory of the Columbia astronauts, “The Best of America”.
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Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters– “From the publishers fo Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes another fantastic book full of love, heartbreak, and tentacled mayhem.” ♥
Anybody read it?
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ARE THERE SQUID?
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YES!
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Yes! I liked it better than P&P&Z, actually.
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Me too. Of course I haven’t actually finished it yet, but so far it seems like it’s better.
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What I find beautiful: listening to RainyMood with Lugia’s song.
It’s giving me an odd sort of feeling. Not a bad one. I love it.
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*tries* Coooooooool… *drool* Well, I found my new soundtrack-for-the-day.
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I am attempting to take a break from studying for my final tomorrow, because my brain is crammed full of information and I’m afraid I’ve reached the maximum retention level at the moment, but at the same time I’m afraid that anything I do to take a break will prove to be horribly addicting and then I’ll never get back to studying.
…Maybe I’ll go and fold clothes or something. The only time I ever feel like clean my room is when I’m using it as a form of procrastination, anyways.
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That is exactly how I’m feeling right now! Except my final is in an hour. Room cleaning is always a good choice.
I hope your final goes/went so so well!
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I started watching Star Trek: Enterprise yesterday. I know it’s not considered the best of the series, but a) setting it in an earlier time period makes it seem more relateable and exciting plus gives some backstory b) Vulcans are awesome c) I have a thing for Vulcan science officers.
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I’m not really a Star Trek fan, but I watched Enterprise with my parents a lot when I was younger. I like the theme song and the frequent references to the history of exploration.
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I just learned that I’ve been accepted to be a student ambassador in the British Isles this summer!
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That’s awesome!
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That’s great! How long will you be there for?
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3 weeks
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Do you know the dates? I’ll be in England this summer as well, but I’m not sure when yet.
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Nope, don’t know dates yet.
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Ah. Me neither, actually. Well, let me know when you do!
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Is it with People to People?
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Yep!
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Cool! I went with them to Australia back in Summer 2007.
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You went to Australia? Which state?
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Queensland and New South Wales. We started in Sydney and spent 3 weeks traveling up the coast to Cairns.
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0_0 I was in the same city as another MBer? Well, not at the same time, and I had no idea what MB was. Also, that’s cool!
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I’ve been to Sydney, and near Sydney for surfing, a few years ago, but that’s the extent of my travels in Australia.
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Wow, awesome! What kind of program is that?
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On very infrequent occasions, I get chance to drop in to the Special GAPA Control Screen to do some moderating. I’ve just noticed it greets me with “Howdy, Paul Baker”. Anyone know where I can buy a stetson and cowboy boots in England?
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Paul – Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that. Once I start living in England in September I could ask around, I suppose, but by that time you’d probably have found what you were looking for.
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I’m sure you could find some online.
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So, uh, does anyone know the best course of action to take when you’ve forgotten the PIN for your debit card? I, uh, I ask because friend of mine…
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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…I really have no idea. Did you your friend write it down anywhere?
I just Googled it and apparently you can take your ID to the bank and they’ll give it to you/reset it, as long as you have proof of identification? Worth a try, perhaps.
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No, I didn’t he didn’t write it down. He could try taking it to the bank, even though they’ll probably charge a fee for resetting it because that’s what banks do. He doesn’t understand why he can’t remember it–he uses it fairly regularly and has never had problems remembering it.
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Ah. Well, if there’s no alternative then I’m afraid you he will probably have to pay the fee. Or perhaps it will come back to him later – things I forget often do.
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Ha! I got it! I’ve been mulling it over for hours, but as I was walking to the library it appeared in my head. I should probably find somewhere safe to write it down in case it disappears again. Now I’ll be able to buy gas so I can go home again.
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If it disappears again, visiting your bank does the trick.
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A girl who was expelled from our school either last year or two years has just been expelled from her boarding school in America.
She isn’t very smart at all, and is the partying kind – her mother is the definition of a lax parent and supports everything she does (they’re very rich, so I hear). I’m wondering if any kind of financial supplements were paid to the boarding school to take her, because she honestly is not that bright, and seeing as she was expelled from this school for skipping exams… I don’t know for sure, though.
It’s incomprehensible to me how people can value their education so little. Do they not have a conscience – do they not feel bad when they manage to get themselves expelled from two schools in a row? One of her friends says that she (the girl) doesn’t care, because she can afford it. It’s quite sad when people who are more well-off completely slack off on their education and think they can get away with literally failing school.
Just a random thought for today.
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So. Much. This. Practically half my grade is of this mentality.
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So many people would give anything to be able to go to the schools she has, yet she just throws it all away…
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I go to a public school-a very good public school, with nice teachers and everything-yet there are people who have 50’s in science class. My science class is really, really hard to fail. You have to literally not turn anything in and fail all of the tests (even harder, seeing as how they’re open-note) to fail this class. And people are doing it.
WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN
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More shootings at Virginia Tech, guys. Apparently some kid shot a cop, and people have heard more shots. This is being covered by CNN and the like, and a lot of off-blog discussion sites are talking about it, so I’m pretty sure it’s legit.
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Yup. I’m listening to the local police scanner, and they’re talking about it. Not good. Two dead, kid somewhere on campus. Bleh.
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Dispatcher on the scanner just said that a woman called in from the highway reporting a fast-moving station wagon with something black over the plates. And the kid was moving through parking lots. Huh.
GAPAs, you don’t mind if I keep updating, do you? Is there a thread I should take this to? Hot Topics maybe?
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I saw it on the NY Times website. Scary… *shivers*
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Two people dead, campus locked down, confusion. The university will hold a press conference at 4:30 Eastern time (3:30 blog time). Maybe we’ll find out more then.
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It’s over. The university has ended the lockdown and says the gunman is dead. He may be the second body found on campus. You can find out more from regular news sources.
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This may seem somewhat insensitive, but all I can think is, “Virginia Tech again?” I really wonder why they’ve had two incidences of school shootings within a relatively short period of time.
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I was thinking that too. It seems like a really nice school, actually, but maybe they put a lot of stress on their students?
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MIT has had two suicides this year so far, so I was wondering something similar about them.
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Just looked over the article. That’s awful that two people are dead, but I’m glad it wasn’t more.
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Oh, gosh that’s awful. My radio has gone fuzzy, too; am I right in thinking that the two people who were killed were the shooter and the police officer?
This scares me.
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*sigh* Why? Why do people have to needlessly die like this?
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School computers still allow MB. Which is good, because I sincerely believe this site is educational. MSPA, however is blocked.
Oh, god… I haven’t even heard about the shootings til now… that’s awful. And what’s worse to me is that a lot of my peers won’t even know about it, like with Libya and Endeavour. But everyone knows about Kim Kardashian. It’s so frustrating.
Tomorrow is CIF championships, pep assembly, and a sidewinder! *keyboard smash* We now have a halftime field show, which has been lowered from three boring sets to two boring sets, and it’s irritating because it’s the brass’ fault. The woodwinds totally had it down.
I’m making a better effort to do well in my classes, and have recently found out that I will be having sex ed, this year. Yay.
Really tired all the time. Bun you, adolescence!!
Going to go scamper aroumd some other threads some.
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Oh, more will know about it than about STS-134, for sure. Bad news is always more widely known.
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Ugh, sex ed? *shudders* I’m opting out this year on account of simply not wanting to. That’s the official version of what I’m telling everyone, but really my mom doesn’t want me to take it… something about me not needing to know certain things quite yet? It’s not like I’m going to walk out tomorrow and do inappropriate things with someone of the opposite gender.
(Honestly, I don’t think I need to know these things yet myself. My idea of something highly illegal and dangerous that I would actually realistically do is sneaking into the office after school when there’s nobody there so I can use the phone to call home on account of needing a ride home from a trombone lesson, and then sneaking out when I hear the administrator coming.)
Of course, this means I sit in the hallway/another classroom and do worksheets on who-knows-what. Hygiene is my guess. Fun.
Can you opt out, or do they not like excuses?
(‘I can’t strand being in a classroom with a bunch of immature –th graders who no matter what are going to silently giggle and make crude jokes’ is probably very reasonable if you have personal reasons for not wanting to take the course, but I don’t think admin+co would buy it.)
#off topic, pedantic, and probably going to start another huge conversation about sex ed that I didn’t mean to, I swear! Oh well, we could bring it up on Hot Topics again but this was a reply to Zinc’s post, or at least it started that way… sorry.
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Mm, well, I’m in honors Bio. Zero period. Maybe that will help? Our teacher’s pretty awesome too.
(Actually, I learned this stuff in fifth grade from an encyclopedia… I might just go for the entertainment value.)
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I should have tried to opt-out. The kids at my school were very immature.
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So… Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day, anyone?
My friends and I went out to [city] square in odd outfits (front ponytail, metallic streamers in hair, wrapped in CAUTION tape…) and did stuff that time travelers would do (ask for the year, give people warnings about future occurences [specifically The Eminence and the Demiebelles] tell them to call a random phone number in three years)… fun stuff.
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Sounds great.
I opted to walk up to random strangers and greet them warmly as my best friends, then realize that I hadn’t met them yet. And I gave people random messages to remember. “It’ll be important. You’ll see. You’ll need it.”
Stuff like: “The angels have the phonebox.”
“Green, purple, and then finally the red button. The order is very important.”
“RANDOM STRING OF NUMBERS.”
“The flame hides a penguin inside.”
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An invisible penguin?
… sorry, long story.
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Sounds intriguing.
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Ugh, that was today? I never remember.
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You’ve got a time machine. Go back and fix it.
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BUNNY APOCALYPSE 2081. FEAR THE DAY.
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I saw a cardinal today! I’ve never seen one before! Cardinals and fireflies are two fairly common and distinct animals that the west coast simply does not have. It’s so weird.
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I thought you meant the Catholic kind of cardinal at first and I was wondering why you thought they were common animals – oops!
Anyway, that’s very cool! I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before.
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Male or female? (Do you even know how to tell the difference if you’ve never seen one?)
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It’s generally pretty obvious what the gender is… If it was a “classic” cardinal (i.e. red), then it was male.
If it was brown, it was female.
Yup. Girl power.
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Oh, I know. I hear cardinals every day; I’ve known the difference for as long as I can remember. It’s just that I realized that if you never see them, there isn’t as much point in learning, so it may not be something taught to children Over There.
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Ah, of course.
I’d imagine someone who didn’t know about it just wouldn’t know what the cake the female was.
OMG IT’S LIKE A CARDINAL BUT IT’S BROWN! Yup.
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It’s a very common trait throughout the animal kingdom for the male of the species to be more vibrantly colored and larger than the female, so I’d imagine that someone would be able to apply that general rule to a cardinal, even if they hadn’t seen one in person before.
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Haha yes it was a male… I doubt I would have even seen it if it was a female!
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233 on my PSAT! *jumps up and down*
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holy cheesenuggets are the results out already *runs to check*
On another note, eeeeee! Congratulations! That’s really amazing!
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The Odyssey was a lot more emotional than I thought it was going to be. But it was also a lot more epic than I thought! Even not read on my own and having to answer a bunch of dumb questions about it didn’t diminish the awesome-ness!
Of course, the teacher is going to ruin it by making us write an essay comparing our independent reading book with it. 
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The Odyssey is awesome.
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We’re reading the Odyssey too! Except instead of reading the whole thing we’re reading excerpts. I really like the parts we’ve read so far, though (Sailing from Troy, The Lotus Eaters, and The Cyclops), so I think I’m going to go back and read the whole thing.
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Read it. Reeeeeaaaaaddddd iiiiittttt. You won’t be sorry, I promise.
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For an ancient action-adventure story, it has a surprising number of female characters, don’t you think? And if you read it instead of excerpts, you might be surprised by the way it starts in the middle and by how big a part Telemachus plays.
Favorite scenes, anyone?
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Bleh. I have a cold. My dad has forced me to stay home from school even though I probably would have made it if I went. (My family has a sort of “Stay home if you’re sick, because if you don’t rest a lot you’ll get sicker, and also you’re contagious” policy.) I’m kind of upset about missing school, because I missed a lot this past week and also last Thursday, so I’m already drowning in make-up work…plus my friends and I were going to go get pizza after school and I have writer’s club and we’re going to do what seems like the second fun thing we’ve done in science. I do feel a bit better now though, after sleeping a ton and drinking a bunch of water. *sigh*
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Why is it only when my stomach acts up that I realize how beneficial it is to go to bed before 10?
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Joining the sick club. Scratchy throat, coughing coughing coughing. Voice is going, gah… Still at school (reporting!), though, since I can’t afford to miss today. Marching band.
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Missing band=the worst.
Sitting through band feeling like you’re going to throw up=even worse.
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Marching a parade in 85-degree weather in uniform with a sprained ankle and low fever = also pretty bad.
The rule everywhere seems to be that you don’t miss band unless you’re dead.
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Currently submerged in a sea of Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Theodore Roosevelt. Have absolutely no complaints about this.
My friend Atlanta is convinced Whitman, Twain, and T. Roosevelt should start a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I would be in complete agreement were I not afraid that Whitman would be too busy hitting on Twain and Roosevelt to get anything done.
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That would be a great comic.
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John and Hank Green are coming to Boston!
HAPPY DANCE TIME
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SO MUCH JEALOUSY
SO MUCH
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Increasing the awesome, decreasing the suck!
(I only know of them through their NASA videos, but those are great.)
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EEEEEH I WANT TO BE THERE
Oh, wait. I can be if my parents are willing to drive.
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That would be an amazing Kokon….
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You, me, JLynn and John and Hank Green. True story, kids.
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Hey, I’m in Boston, too!
(Except I’m busy with exams for the next two weeks.)
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They’re starting their tour in January, so I don’t think that would interfere with your exams.
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I thinkishishmaybe I am going. Maybe. I hope.
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My parents might drive us if we make a convincing argument for it.
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THEY ARE NOT COMING TO PHILADELPHIA.
…And the next closest city is New York, but those tickets are sold out already. Hopefully they will add another date up there, I would really like to go. My friend already preordered The Fault in the Stars for my birthday. I’m so excited!
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During lunch today, when I was putting my tray away, I saw another tray with a pile of Lucky Charms marshmallows on a plate.
Who DOES that? Who picks out all the marshmallows and doesn’t eat them??? Eating Luck Charms without marshmallows is like eating Cheerios! There was a perfectly good Cheerios dispenser right next to the Lucky Charms one!
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I pick out the Cheerio-bits, eat them, and then eat the marshmallows. All without milk.
My bandcamp buddy Stromboni says I act like a four-year-old. She also says I act like her sister. Her sister is sixteen.
Of course, the one week of the year when I actually can eat whatever cereals I want is bandcamp week, where I act like a four-year-old anyways. (Okay, so a four-year-old who is exceptionally good at the saxophone for her age.)
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I don’t eat any cereal that isn’t colored and artificially flavored. And I don’t put milk in it. I HATE soggy cereal.
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Same here. Well, the bit about the soggy cereal, at least. And oatmeal. Not the bit about only artificial ones.Then again, I rarely eat cereal at all, so it doesn’t really matter.
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I am the opposite!
I refuse to eat artificial cereal and I adore milk in it!
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Me, too! Except I’m allergic to milk, so I have soymilk. Well, I had soymilk. I can’t have that, either, right now, but that may change, and the milk thing won’t, so…
Also, I think I’m able to have rice milk. I’m not sure, though. I’m in a confusing place, food allergy-wise.
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Maybe the marshmallows were supposed to be an anonymous gift.
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Or a trap.
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I remember at engineering camp, my friends there would get Lucky Charms, and eat all the marshmallows. I got the brown stuff.
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I was randomly clicking around and came to the first random thread from January of this year. And, completely unexpectedly, I came across our realtime discussion of the Tucson shooting.
I can’t believe that was almost a year ago, it seems like both more and less.
Here’s to courage, unity, hope, and love.
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*sighs in rememberance* Time seems to warp, doesn’t it?
… that was my first random thread. Man, was I really a ‘phyte that long ago?
… that was my first random thread. Man, was I really a ‘phyte that short of a time ago?
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It’s just a step to the left, and a jump to the right.
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WAIT WHAT
THAT WAS A YEAR AGO
IMPOSSIBLE
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I remember posting about Sully’s plane landing in the Hudson back in ’09. Do you think we could have some sort of resource containing links to realtime MB discussions of news events as they happened? I think it would make interesting reading.
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Maybe we could start a dedicated “News” thread, too, for future breaking news events that everybody wants to discuss.
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I think we had a Current Events thread several years ago that died.
I think it would be really cool, for historical purposes, to have ready links to what MBers said on the night of the 2008 election, for instance, or our liveblogging of the Phoenix lander’s touchdown on Mars in the old Space thread, for instance.
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First final was today. History, which is my favourite class and also the one I do best in, so I’ve got high hopes. It was actually one of the easier tests we’ve had from him. As a rule he eschews multiple choice questions, but apparently he uses them on finals so as to make the grading easier.
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Hat needs to be knit by tomorrow for Altosax’s birthday
slowly becoming addicted to youtube
Sam Hazo is my favorite concert band composer right now
We played ‘Ascende’ for All-county bands. Ooh, shiny syncopated rythyms!
Georgian Suite FTW
Doctor Who now, Friday night.
How do I keep up with trombone and sax lessons simultaneously?
Rephrase: I’m taking trombone and sax lessons!!!!!!!!!
If I edit my NaNo and there’s nobody around to read it, has it changed at all?
Commercialized Christmas=bah humbug.
Double rehearsal today, double rehearsal Monday, Concert Tuesday.
Fun, no?
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I just went out and was social. At the mall. With my friends. We were saying goodbye to my friend who was here for a year with her family but is going back to her home country.
And I have my graphing calculator for next year. So now I have two great but expensive to replace pieces of technology to carry around. Don’t drop anything, don’t drop anything…
And I’m staying up late to watch Star Trek so I can see the lunar eclipse! Or the start of it, since I need to sleep and don’t want to spend half of tomorrow in bed.
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HE STOLE FROM THE RICH AND GAVE TO THE POOR
STOOD UP TO THE MAN AND GAVE HIM WHAT FOR
OUR LOVE FOR HIM NOW AIN’T HARD TO EXPLAIN
HE’S THE HERO OF CANTON, THE MAN THEY CALL JAAAYNE
… Sorry. Sleep is for the weak, Firefly marathons are for the strong.
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RAINBOW*STORM
I JUST FINISHED WATCHING FIREFLY
MY GIRLFRIEND AND I
AND IT’S OUR SHOW AND STUFF
AND I JUST THINK YOU SHOULD KNOW
THAT JUST FOR SINGING THAT SONG ON MUSEBLOG
I LOVE YOU AND AM ADOPTING YOU AS MY DAUGHTER. OR SISTER.
Thinking about Firefly, and then looking in the recent comments bar and seeing that made my day. My day starting after 10:45 this morning, that is.
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Ow. I just knit and crocheted for about an hour and a half, so my hands hurt.
The end of the semester is so close. I am completely over school by this point.
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I FINISHED SEWING MY SWALOT* PLUSHIE
THAT IS A GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR ME ON SO MANY LEVELS
SWALOT IS SO CUDDLY AND I CAN’T STOP HUGGING~
*Swalot the Pokemon
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Congratulations! I was rather worried before I read the footnote, though…
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During middle school, one of my friends sewed a Colin Firth doll and called it her “Colly Dolly”.
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Total lunar eclipse tonight!
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For realsies!? Is it viewable in North America!?
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I doubt it.
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It’s visible in the western half.
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NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
You’ll have to tell me how awesome it is tomorrow, then.
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I just pulled an all-nighter to complete an essay. I listened to the entire Okami soundtrack. It helped me so much.
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Yesterday evening I gave my junior recital. It went, in my opinion, amazingly well – I don’t think I could have played it better. And my teacher was all proud and my parents were all proud and everyone said nice things and it was all very nice.
(Then I went out and stayed up far too late and feel absolutely horrible this morning. c’est la vie.)
The icing on the cake, though, was that Grant O. came to my recital!
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Really? I performed last night, too! It was with choir, though, and it wasn’t a Kokon. It was great, though, because a high school choir was there as well, and it was amazing.
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Congrats, Lizzie!
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Yeah Lizzie! Congratulations! What did you play?
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Mozart Adagio and Rondo, Beethoven violin sonata no. 1, Brahms violin sonata no. 1, Brahms sonatensatz. Very solid, germanic, traditional program
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I love those pieces. Congratulations on a great recital, by the way!
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Congratulations! I’m so glad it went super well and that you got to see Grant!
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I told you it would be a triumph. I’m delighted Grant was there to see it. Sterling fellow.
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I just had a crazy idea. But hey, you guys stand the best chance of talking me out of it: Australia! As in, I could study in Australia. The applications process is fairly straightforward, they give out plenty of scolarships and all I need is to finish school and perhaps take an english language skills assessment test.
I mean, I’ve never been to Australia before, I don’t know a soul there and I can’t really understand their accent but no worries, mate, they’re supposed to be speaking english anyway. Besides, I hear it’s sunny, and I wouldn’t have to explain to people that no, I live in Austria, not Australia. Never been there, sort of speak the language, don’t know anyone, am a very long plane ride away from any form of home- sounds like a plan!
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Australia is extremely awesome. Extremely. ML will tell you. *has lived in Australia and will put aside her rugby rivalries briefly*
There are some great universities there, too. My dad used to teach at the Queensland University of Technology, and I believe he also taught at the University of New South Wales, both of which are good colleges. In terms of cities, Melbourne is just wonderful, but it’s also pretty expensive.
But you know what you absolutely should do- and I don’t know why nobody else considers this- is to go to college in New Zealand! *shameless country promotion* But seriously, New Zealand is beautiful, everyone there is really friendly, and they have excellent schools. Both my parents taught at University of Auckland, which has a beautiful campus, and I hear the University of Otago is nice.
Also- big block of text forming here, sorry- New Zealand is experiencing something of a brain drain at the moment, because all its brighter citizens are leaving, so they are quite eager to have foreigners coming to their universities.
In conclusion: Go to college in New Zealand, land of awesomeness, and I’ll join you in a few years.
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I’ve still got 9,999 applications to send before I officially give up so it’s a go 
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IT’S OVER NINE THOU – *is pushed out of an airlock*
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*There are exactly… eight… uni’s in New Zealand, and one of them- Lincoln- is about the size of my high school. So I’d say, apply to them all.
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Oh, one of my best friends is from New Zealand! And she’s awesome and you’d all love her.
Also, in New Zealand they can distinguish between a euphonium and a baritone!
*is a band nerd trapped in America where according to a Kiwi friend, ‘Americans are too busy worrying about breaking away from the British to notice the difference between a baritone and a euphonium*
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You do know one person in Australia–not someone you could stay with, obviously, but someone that could prevent you from feeling completely alone. Kokons are awesome that way! Maybe you could find a way to meet Maths Lover if her parents will allow it and you end up anywhere remotely near her.
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Or talking you into it…
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Our universities do seem to be more affordable compared to some countries, though I don’t know if that applies to international students. Australian National University is apparently pretty good.
As long as you don’t mind our enormous spiders, some of the most venomous snakes in the world, saltwater crocodiles if you go with Queensland… Those jokes about Australia’s wildlife have some basis.
We have great beaches! That’s good, right?
CO- From what I’ve seen of New Zealand it’s really pretty, so that’s a plus. One of my classmates wants to go to a New Zealand university, so there’s someone who’s considered it.
And Kokons!
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I think I’m sick. But I don’t think it’s sick enough to not do any of the things I have to do today, just sick enough to feel cakey while doing them.
On a lighter note, my first jazz concert went awesomely, and I am now fully amplified!
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I just found out that there is a book called Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid. The description: “Takes the reader on a wild narrative ride through the world of squid science, along the way addressing some riddles about how the human brain works and what intelligence is.”
…Seriously.
SQUEEEEEEEEE!
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Ooo! I’ve read that book! It was super super good! And (if memory serves me correctly) it has really awesome pictures!
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I love awesome pictures of sea life!
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Me, too! I loved the Census of Marine Life pictures in a Muse issue from last year. I went to the website and looked for all the others; they’re amazing, especially the loriciferans!
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My floor’s theme when we come back from winter break will be Pokemon! And we got to pick which Pokemon we wanted on our doors, and the RA let me have Charmander! (Don’t call me old-fashioned, it doesn’t get much better than an adorable fire-breathing baby dinosaur with a flaming tail.)
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Charmander is an awesome choice. I would have gone with Zangoose, but Charmander is still cool. I used to have one on my old game named Chel, which was named after an old file that got corrupted.
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Wow, same here! My Pokemon’s Vileplume.
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To my squidder: You’re missing a lot of my comments. Sloppy work. You’d better shape up.
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I thought you wanted en to stop?
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Well, I recently started watching Squid Girl, so it’s fitting.
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What is that? The opposite of Pie Girl?
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Oh, I think it’s definitely more than one per…what? What was I saying?
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So, last night: while all my friends were out partying, I was in my choir robe singing descants with a cold.
It was sad; the concert ended about an hour before the dance, so I could have gone if my parents hadn’t insisted on taking me home. I can just imagine the scene now…
….
Friend 1: What’s that red tent in the distance?
Friend 2: I think it’s a squid…
Friend 3: Oh no, it can’t be!
Me: IT’S ME IT’S ME IN MY CHOIR ROBES DON’T YOU RECOGNIZE ME I LOVE YOU
Friend 2: …oh god…
….
That was dramatically lit by strobe lights, by the way.
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My hands are always freezing. Why are my hands always freezing?
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So are mine. I could barely hold my bow properly when I was practising just now.
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December is that month when I’m basically always doing vibrato because I’m shivering.
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My hands are freezing even in the summer sometimes. Especially the tips of my fingers. Maybe too much computer for me?
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Same here.
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SFTMP
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Get some fingerless gloves. They’re the best.
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Why fingerless?
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Kai says it’s extremely difficult to do things like writing in fingered gloves. (I’ve never tried).
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It is. (I have.)
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It is definitely difficult, as is typing on a keyboard and picking up small objects precisely. Doing fine work in lacrosse or scuba gloves is not recommended.
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Oh, I see. That makes sense.
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You all know how I feel about this subject…
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I’m getting them. Portal reference time.
My mother was all “But aren’t fingerless gloves for girls?”
And I was like “NOOO WAAAAAY.”
And she was like “I pretended they were for girls. You can go buy a pair.”
That was great.
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IGNORE ALL THE WORK ETC
finals soon but then breaaak aka I start posting again and then another winter term, which will hopefully be as fabulous as the last one, and will certainly be much less stressful than this semester. I’m sad I can’t regale you all with amusing anecdotes about all the cool stuff I’m doing because mostly I’m sitting around with organic chemistry bemoaning my fate or ignoring the chemistry work I should be doing and interneting instead. Alas!
But January will be fun. My project is painting magic cards for 6 hours a day. It’ll be very relaxing. Woo!
Was also sickish this past week Had been hoping to go to Lizzie’s recital as despite this, but then my ride got food poisoning that day. Herp derp. I’m so glad to hear it went well though! I cheered her on in spirit though! And I’m glad Grant got to attend! If there is a recording I’ve lovelovelove to hear it.
Anyway, all day LotR marathon tomorrow, need to get up at 9 to start making lembas bread, so bye I guess. Though I’ll probably read instead of sleeping because WEAKNESS ETC.
HERE IS SOME MORE OBLIGATORY CAPSLOCK MY GOOD FELLOWS
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Someone has put the entirety of the BBC radio play of Night Watch on YouTube. Life = at least 20% better.
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Ooooooo. *runs off to find*
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*runs off to find; trips due to general lack of coordination*
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Is it 20% cooler, too?
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Doubtless.
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obligatory SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK post.
So tonight (last night?) was the winter formal and I learned Viennese waltz and afterwards I taught people about combinations and Pascal’s Triangle and my professor (the one you met, Jade) who knows Vi Hart showed everyone Vi Hart videos. There is an awesome new one up, by the way!
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I think I just did a pretty good job of convicing my mom to get me some Musery Loves Company stuff for Christmas! GAPAs, let me know if anybody orders a plain black HPB t-shirt and/or a navy-blue Pwt Pwns baseball jersey.
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I told my mom I wanted a HPB shirt for Chrismas/ my birthday (which happen to be 5 days apart), and she was looking at Musery Loves Company for about an hour after I showed her it. I hope I get it.
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Eee I played the Poulenc Gloria this morning and it was AMAZING.
QUI SEDES A DEXTERAM PATRIS!
MISERER NOBIS!
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*AD
*MISERERE
ALSO THE FIRST EXCLAMATION POINT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE, A COMMA WOULD BE MUCH NICER
…Quoniam tu solus Sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus Altissimus, Jesu Christe, cum Sancto Spiritu, in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.
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Hey, I didn’t actually sing, I just played the horn part.
ET IN TERRA PAX HOMINIBUS!
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Spent a successful Saturday night singing Abba songs and watching the Wedding of River Song with two of my best friends. Then (since it was Altosax’s birthday) we got party bags on which she had put personalized pictures. Mine had a picture of the Tenth Doctor.
I didn’t get to give her her hat but I’ll have it done by Monday.
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All day Lord of the Rings marathon yeaaaahhhhh!
Making lembas bread soon
also drawing which counts for an application I need to finish by tuesday so it’s kiiind of like I’m being productive…
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Whoa, you can make lembas bread? How?
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There’s a couple recipes online, although we generally use one that’s a bit altered, as well as a vegan version. Also add more sugar than they tell you.
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The star whale from Doctor Who should have sounded like Penderecki’s Threnody.
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I wonder if it knew any space squid?
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Maybe it’s was Space Turtle’s neighbor?
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Hey guys! Hey! Hey hey hey hey!
I TAUGHT MYSELF HOW TO PLAY “RECONSTRUCTING SCIENCE” ON THE PIANO!! Well, sort of. BUT IT SOUNDS LIKE IT!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
</soproudofmyself
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No, actually, it’s a Saturnalia tree. Because we’re just awesome that way.
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Can we put Isaac Newton on top?
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What does he have to do with Saturnalia?
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In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon Cooper insists that since the tree in his apartment is a Saturnalia tree and not a Christmas tree, Isaac Newton should be on the tree instead of Christmas ornaments.
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And because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th.
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I still see no connection between Newton and Saturnalia, but whatever.
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Newtonmas and Saturnalia are both very good alternatives to Christmas. If you feel like having an alternative to Christmas.
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I don’t see why anyone would want an alternative. Christmas works fine as a secular holiday.
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Maybe because Christmas is based around Christian co-oping of Pagan rituals, and not everyone on the planet worships Christ?
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“Christmas works fine as a secular holiday.”
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in reply to Piggy’s post 130.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1:
I think you’re saying that, though, from a Christian background. To me, as a non-Christian, it’s a bit like saying that a nativity scene in front of the City Hall is just fine, because it’s “just” a symbol of holiday spirit etc etc. It may be that, but it is closely and inherently linked with a particular religious expression, which is not appropriate for government to seemly promote. Christmas can work as a secular holiday, but to say that there’s no need for an alternative, that it can serve all purposes, is disingenuous.
Basically, Christmas, with all the various religious groups strongly claiming it as their own (see: all the various groups saying that “happy holidays” is discriminating against Christians and having a “holiday tree” instead of a “Christmas tree” is a sign of being anti-religious), with the nativity scenes and songs about baby Jesus, doesn’t include me, and insisting that it should comes across as forgetting that one’s own background doesn’t apply to everyone.
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Using a nativity scene and songs about the baby Jesus is celebrating it as a religious holiday. Most people I’ve talked to (including, strangely, all my Jewish friends) enjoy Christmas for the Santa Clauses and the Christmas trees and the general merrymaking. But you obviously don’t feel the same way, and I respect that entirely. But I never implied that Christmas as a secular holiday should include religious artifacts.
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No, I like Christmas in the secular sense, with the lights and trees and Santa Clauses and so forth. Saturnalia is fun too; since the only part of Christmas I celebrate now is the tree part, though, I don’t see anything wrong with reverting to Saturnalia.
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A Mormon friend of mine tried to persuade his family to split Christmas into two holidays, Christmas (religious) and Gebenfest (secular). They said they understood his logic, but they didn’t do it.
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Just got back from a great session of Jew Camp!
We have Jew Camp three times a year. (Okay, technically it’s called a “retreatâ€, but Jew Camp is more fun to say.) It’s a function of Jew School, and all the counselors at Jew Camp are teachers at Jew School.
I love Jew Camp. I love it. There is no other place in the world where you put on a cowboy hat and sheriff badge and take your partner by the elbow and swing her round and round while singing “I Have A Little Dreidel†at the top of your lungs. Or any other place where you can head down to a campfire and sing every song you know as loud as you can, from “Brown-Eyed Girl†to “Let’s Get it On†to “Since U Been Gone†to “America the Beautiful†to “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.†My voice is pretty much gone today.
Time also goes slower in Jew Camp. Or faster. I don’t know which. I met my two bunkmates at around 6 p.m. on Friday, and by 11:00 we were giving each other an in-depth, detailed history of our romantic relationships. I have now promised to be a bridesmaid at another girl’s wedding. I’m pretty sure she’s serious.
Also, Jewish food.
aaah I miss it already *flails*
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I think I just spent 4 hours watching Castle.
And I meant to do something useful today.
Cake.
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You know you’re addicted to MuseBlog when that sentence sounds really creepy.
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At first, I thought Pseudo meant the MBer, too.
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Is it creepy or awesome that I think my boyfriend looks like Nathan Fillion a bit,
and I watch a ton of Castle (and Firefly),
and he goes by Castle on the internets,
and we watch Firefly together?
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Not at all. After all, I think my crush looks like David Tennant, and we both watch Doctor Who.
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Right! We can be not creepy together.
I don’t quite remember the details of your situation, but if you ever need to profess your love to a Whovian, I find that “I love you more than River loves the Doctor.” Is a pretty great way to do it.
It’s almost 5 in the morning. Why am I awake?
Oh right, I had tea at midnight.
Castle, you really should have told me that that was a bad idea. More.
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Unless Castle’s secret crime-fighting alter ego is Nathan Fillion (which, now that I think of it, is fully possible) I don’t think I was watching him….
I hope….
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I was Castle before Castle was Castle.
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And I was muselover before Muse lovers loved Muse!…wait, no.
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That’s kinda what my dreams end up looking like.
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MY LIFE. YOU JUST DESCRIBED IT.
*Hugs*
Do they have Castle rehab?
I figure if I finish the series, I can only procrastinate once a week. Then again, I said that about Weeds and Doctor Who and Torchwood too.
*sigh*
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Last Qudditch practice of 2011 was today. I scored a goal!
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Using an Ethernet cable for a clothesline probably isn’t that good for the cable, but I do it anyway.
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Seems like MuseBlog is having some spambot problems. I see a lot of threads being popularized with zapped posts. The bots have found Zion, then? Someone call Morpheus.
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I don’t see any signs of a spam surge, and the “currently popular” threads are new ones that I’d expect to attract traffic. On the whole, things look normal for this time of year.
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Really? I’m seeing Random Factoids v. 2009 on the currently popular list. I did a page search with the key “2011” and the only results were in the sidebar and in other notation, and not affixed to a single post within that thread. The most recent was in late 2010.
I also saw a really old thread in the popular list a couple weeks ago, though I can’t recall its name.
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That is odd, now that you mention it. Our visitor monitor doesn’t show anyone looking at that thread, either — and it’s supposed to detect bots. I’ll look into this.
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Currently writing a paper about grapes. Someone shoot me. Please.
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a) Why grapes?
b) What class/thing is this for?
c) *deletes grapes*
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a) I have absolutely no idea. None of it is related to anything we studied this semester.
b) Introduction to Anthropology. It’s 20% of our final exam grade.
c) Thank you.
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The history of grapes? Relic grapes as discovered by aliens in the future? What?
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Think of the dullest general essay about grapes you can imagine. No, that’s too exciting; try again. Okay, now cut out that one interesting part. Now increase the boringness. More…more…bit more…good! That’s ten times as interesting as the essay I had to write.
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That’s too bad, because I can think of all sorts of fascinating things to write about grapes.
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So can I. But I had a long list of very dry questions I had to answer, and with an absolute maximum of five pages (“If you write more than five pages I’m throwing your paper out”), I had no room for creativity.
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*shoots you with a ray gun of happiness* Better?
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Ask JLynn about that, she wrote something quite akin to it once.
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Uhhhh, you mean the menial cake I write every day? Yeah. Office furniture. Random trees and plants and stuff. Random electronics.
-.-
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No, no, remember the gurp? The grape-like fruit I invented that looked like a grape but was very slightly different?
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Yes! I am representing my team at the schools GeoBee! Winner of the school goes to regionals. The wiiner of regionals goes to state. The winner of state goes to nationals. The winner of nationals gets a college scholarship! Of course, I shouldn’t get my hopes up, since before I represent my tteam I need to win the tiebreaker. Well, I’m off to go study!
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Good luck!
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Good luck! I’ve done the GeoBee before, but with limited success*, but I bet that you’ll do pretty well.
*the only question I got right was what continent had emperor penguins. I guess that says something about me…
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I DID THAT THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN
I GOT INTO CALIFORNIA STATE
REMEMBER: THE CANADIAN RIVER IS IN OKLAHOMA
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I didn’t win the tiebreaker. They wre eary questions, like “What New England state doesn’t border the Atlantic Ocean,” and “What is the large island off the coast of Africa”, but since we tied for all of those, the teacher gave us one about “Where did (Explorer person who’s name I forget) explore?” And that’s where I died.
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I’M DONE! DONE WITH EXAMS! And tomorrow I will be headed home for the first time since August!
I MUST CELEBRATE. A ROUND OF PIES FOR ALL, especially those who are still working on getting everything done before winter break. My sympathy lies with you.
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I have 3 pages of math homework to do, and I am wasting my time on MB. So I guess I cannot complain when I fail.
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Wasting?
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Playing Finlandia in Orchestra this semester – we’ll finally get our band instruments joining us soon! Also Schumann’s Third Symphony.
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Okay, for all Homestuck fans who are also Muse readers:
Postal Mistress. Does she or does she not look like Mimi?
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No.
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Just before I went to bed last night, I had an idea for next year’s random threads, far better than my vague prior suggestion of “anniversaries”…
Pole-To-Pole With The Muses
The Muses are on a world tour, and every month features them in a different region of the world, hanging out with locals, celebrating local festivals, and visiting famous monuments. The only rules of their itinerary is that the journey starts in either the Arctic or Antarctic and ends at the other pole, hence the title. Where they go in-between is entirely up for grabs, and any number of travel plans can be suggested.
For example, here’s the one I drew up to prove I could think of 12 sufficiently-different regions given that there are 7 continents:
1. Arctic/Antarctic
2. North America
3. South America
4. Europe
5. Russia and Central Asia
6. North Africa and the Arab Lands
7. Sub-Saharan Africa
8. India and Southeast Asia
9. Japan, China, Korea
10. Australia
11. New Zealand and Polynesia
12. Arctic/Antarctic
I split up Asia and Africa, but other possible divides would be splitting the Americas further into North, South, and Central, and splitting Europe into Northern Europe and the Mediterranean.
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I second this idea.
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Thirded.
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I just sat down to look at the world for the first time in ages. Not planning stuff, not worrying, not expecting anything, just looking.
How is the world so amazingly beautiful and how do I keep forgetting this?
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I sometimes have moments of this walking to school. I’ll just be really stressed about something, and them I’ll get off the train to walk down the esplanade and…suddenly everything is beautiful. And you just stand there and go “Wow. Life is just so strange.”
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We all should do that more often.
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Sometimes when I’m in the car I try to see what’s going by my window as if I were a visitor from another country and had never seen any of it before. It makes me realize just how lovely all the lights and colors of the universe really are.
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I love the moment when you’re lost in thought, and then suddenly all of your senses start to kick in one by one until you realize that you are part of a very real world.
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I am awake.
It is five in the morning (almost).
I had tea at midnight.
I’m doing silly things on the internet like shopping for Castle and I can’t tell you what it is because then he’ll read this and know.
I feel more than a little silly.
I’m waking up at 7.
TOMORROW WILL BE AWFUL.
I have Theater casting, then a four-hour circus rehearsal.
So much caffeine will be necessary.
I can’t even spell. I used spellcheck ten times just now.
Kill me now? With sleep and warm fuzzy rainbows? Thanks.
In other news, somebody please tell me that my red/white and green decks do NOT need 100+ dollars of upgrades? Also thanks.
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sigh 3am again, 5 and a half pages to go
but i will be pretty much done with everything as of tomorrow at 11 i guess hahahahahskjfsd
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I have the feeling I fell asleep last night whilst Skyping with JLynn. Again.
I had the most awesome dream last night. It involved six or seven MBers, but the only one I can remember is Kai. You were all at my house, and we were doing random dorky things that made me happy. Ah, brain. How wonderfully silly you can be sometimes :3
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So.
Anyone have any ideas for the best way to incorporate a DNA cable – see the June Oshiro pattern as an example – into a hat? Would it look to busy and hard to see what it is (because it’s a somewhat long cable pattern) if they went vertically?
I’m thinking that it might be best to make a strip with the cable, like a headband, and then pick up stitches and make the hat.
But anyway. Thoughts?
/random /Ilikeknitting
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A KNITTER?
Oh yeah. ‘K, so, her pattern is really cool, but I think you’d have to make the cable long if you want it recognized as DNA. Do you want it recognized as DNA? If it’s going to be vertical that might end up being a very long hat. The strip of cable idea works but then the stitches of the hat will be in the opposite direction. I might just intarsia it and make it a smaller pattern going around the brim instead- I drew up something like that a while ago so that you can be scientifically accurate if you like and color-code the base pairs… I’ll post it on the Visual Arts thread if I can find it.
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Indeed.
Knitting shall take over the earth.
Hm, yeah. Good points and ideas… I’d love if you could post that, out of general curiosity as well as planning purposes. Thank you!
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1.5 hours of sleeeeep
It was a brief nap from 6:30-8. Stayed up almost all night working on creative writing application but it is done and turned in and I am done with classes for the semester woooo
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Jeez, nobody’s sleeping…
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I know there’s a new lurker on here, and I encourage her to post. Now.
On the other hand….
I HAVE EXAMS I LOVE EXAMS IT’S TWO HOURS OF HAPPINESS
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I know, right? There’s nothing like a compréhension orale to catch up on some lost sleep.
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GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS
I GOT INTO BROWN
I GOT INTO BROWN
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*pies*
I don’t usually do that, but this is a special occasion. Congratulations, Tess!
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YAYAYAYAYAYAY! WE CAN PARTY TOGETHER EXCEPT NOT REALLY BECAUSE CALIFORNIA IS FAR AWAY FROM RHODE ISLAND
ANYWAY, IT ROCKS TO BE DONE WITH COLLEGE APPS
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Congratulations!
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Congratulations!
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*celebration squids* That. Is. Awesome. Hey, I think you’ll be going to school with Emma Watson, too.
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Who is just about the most attractive female person ever…
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She dropped out.
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I heard that she’s studying abroad at Oxford this year and then returning to Brown.
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CONGRATULATIONS TESS!! I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU! I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!
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Congrats, Tess!
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I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!
*HUGS AND HAPPY SQUIDS AND CONFETTI*
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Thanks guys!!! (I normally hate using more than one exclamation point, but this is a special case.)
Aaaah, this is the best day ever. We just had a band concert and I had solos that I thought I was probably going to mess up and they went really well too! So I’m just pretty much floating right now.
Of course, this means my motivation to do homework is absolutely zero.
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Senior slide? HECK yes. I didn’t do any homework all weekend (I got my Stanford decision 5:06 PM on Friday).
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Congrats to you too
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This is deserving of an infinite number of exclamation marks(!!!!!!etc.)
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I am so happy for you!!!! Congratulations! If you’re hearing back this early, I take it you applied early decision?
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Congratulations! That is super awesome!
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UTTER FANTABULOUSNESS AND FANTASTICALITY
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WOO!!!
My great-grandfather, Erik (George) Emil Erikson, was an extremely well-loved professor at brown for many years. He has his own teaching room and a picture of him built into the halls and everything. He taught anatomy and surgery and Primatology. Family rumor has it that he acquired his thousands of monkey skeletons by shooting them from the wing of an airplane over the amazon.
He was the best in his field in his day.
Anyway, that’s just my association.
YAY FOR YOU!!!
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You have epic relatives.
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EEEEE TESS CONGRATULATIONS FOREVER
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Yes!!!! Tess, that is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
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Congrats, Tess! I’m so happy for you.
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So I think this is really cool: Cambridge Digital Library scanned and posted online a notebook Isaac Newton used when he was an undergraduate at Trinity. I can’t read it because so far it’s all Latin and Greek, but it’s really really cool just to look at it.
The link, GAPAs snip if necessary, is http:// cudl.lib. cam. ac. uk/view/MS-ADD-03996/
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This is one of the reasons I love studying Latin: regardless of when it was written, I can read it because it hasn’t changed much for a couple thousand years.
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Ita!
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I mean, I studied Latin also and I still can’t make out most of it.
Also church latin changed a fair amount from classical
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Ecclesiastical Latin is so much simpler than classical Latin.
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Fiddling! Lessons will come soon…
(I hate that I never have anything really interesting so say here except stuff about me…)
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I purposefully made the last photo I uploaded to my e-portfolio for my English class to illustrate my very last assignment a photo I took of several stones from Mount Everest that were on display at the Explorers’ Club when I went there a year ago.
(Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the class, but being done with all of my work for it does make me feel like I’ve climbed a mountain successfully.)
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I need to rewatch Sherlock before season 2 is released. Christmas break cannot come soon enough.
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I need to stop falling asleep while talking with JLynn.
And also, Mission Impossible 4. Any thoughts, guys? Like maybe Tom Cruise is wearing out his welcome with this series? I mean, he’s got to be in his late forties/early fifties by now.
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Practically Precambrian. Haul him off to the retirement home!
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Robert, don’t for a minute believe we think any of you GAPAs are old.
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GAPAs are Time Lords, guys. Age is kind of an irrelevant concept.
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Hmm…J.J. Abrams? Brad Bird? 96% Tomatometer?
MUST WATCH
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Well, that information just amended my movie-going plans. Brad Bird directing “Mission: Impossible” and Martin Scorsese directing a 3-D family movie — this is one of those times when the question “what is the world coming to?” takes on a much shinier aspect than usual.
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Hugo was…interesting. It’s one of the best films I’ve seen all year, yet I can’t help but feel that it could have even better. It opened with the single best 3-D sequence of all time, yet the rest of the film didn’t utilize it as fully. Little things like that are what annoyed me about it.
Still, you should see it. It’s great.
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I second this! It’s a beautiful homage to mechanics, Paris, and the history of film.
Now that I’ve gotten my hands on the book it’s based off of, I envy Scorsese for the source material he had to work with. The pictures amaze me every time I turn the page because the exact same perspectives and even framing were captured so well by the movie. And all of the images are gorgeous in both mediums.
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I did see it (and read the book later that same day, as my turn had coincidentally come up on the reserve list at the library). Yes, some things could have been better, but it was such a heartfelt valentine and had such a good time along the way, that I readily forgave it. Indeed, as a fan of Georges Méliès and silent movies, I felt the price of admission was worth it just to see those film clips. Some I’d seen on TV but that couldn’t compare with the big screen.
I actually thought the 3D was used well throughout, sometimes in subtle but effective ways, although I’d agree with you that nothing else matched the splendor of that opening.
But I do wish the film makers had kept the book’s title. I heard it was called “Hugo Cabret” overseas, which is at least better than plain “Hugo,” which makes me think of either Victor or the hurricane.
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Wait, that’s what it is? The Invention of Hugo Cabret? I had no idea! I must go see it!
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It appears that my cousin was correct in predicting that the movie was in danger of losing some of its core audience because of the name change.
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My thoughts exactly. Forgive me if I sounded too harsh in my earlier judgement, as that wasn’t my intention at all.
Now I need to go see The Artist. I hope it comes to my town.
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Maybe my family and I should go see it this weekend. I have been wanting to see it. It looks interesting.
Have any of you read the other book by that author, “Wonderstruck”? It’s equally amazing if you haven’t. Go check it out.
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I loved Wonderstruck!
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One, two, three, four, five! You know you are addicted to band when you see the words ‘Mission Impossible’ and all you can think of is its time signature.
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I got a 217 on my PSAT!
I aced the critical reading section!!
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Nice! I want to know my score but the school hasn’t said anything.
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Stayed up till 2 am (what it is now, almost) half-heartedly finishing a humanities project, but mostly DMCing on Skype with two of my really close friends. Finally going to bed now. I will probably be dead tired tomorrow. However, it was very fun, so for now I regret nothing.
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Considering matricide…
Anyhow, a question: why must people always assume that just because you have a cell phone, they have the right to contact you whenever they want and get a response post-haste?
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I don’t know. It’s quite bothersome. I read some opinion piece on this somewhere a few months ago, and I like how the author put it: a cell phone is supposed to be for your convenience, not the convenience of whoever wants to contact you. Generally, I let most of my calls go straight to voicemail, and I respond to texts when I get around to it. Since the list of people who call or text me is relatively small and constant, it’s just an understood condition of contacting me.
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Same here. The only people on my contacts list are my parents. And even then I only text/call them when I absolutely have to.
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I got a 202 on the PSAT.
Also, today I was finishing reading Les Mis during lunch and apparently my face was such that a girl near me felt the need to ask me if I was all right, if I was sure I was all right, and if I wanted her to pray with me. Victor Hugo why must you do these things to my emotions.
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HEY YOU KNOW WHAT’S FUN
COMPETITIVE DANCE-OFFS BETWEEN YEARBOOK CLASS AND NEWSPAPER CLASS AT WINTER RALLY
COMPETITIVE DANCE-OFFS BETWEEN YEARBOOK CLASS AND NEWSPAPER CLASS AT WINTER RALLY ARE FUN
*twirls her newspaper fiercely*
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It was cloudy, so at Astronomy Club, we played Dungeons and Dragons. I had never played before, but all of the other players except one had never played before, either, and the guy in charge had never been in charge before, so we were all about even and pretty much just stumbling along together.
We got random, pre-made characters, so I was this big stupid barbarian dude. Pretty much all we did was fight a bunch of goblins, but I got to kill two.
Choice quotes:
(Kid playing other Orc barbarian, to girl playing Rogue): “You should steal Christmas from the goblins!”
(One kid): “So, we tie up the goblin-”
(Kid playing human warrior): “Can we tie him up like a piñata?”
(Guy in charge): “No.”
(First kid): “So, we tie up the goblin and ask it-”
(Kid playing human warrior): “What color is my underwear?”
*Me and that kid burst out laughing*
*Nobody else laughs*
(Me): “What, nobody watches SpongeBob?”
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Pah. The youth of today do not understand true greatness, i.e. Spongebob.
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Everyone there was my age or older, they just had apparently never seen that episode of SpongeBob.
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Hah. My friends and I were just playing a game where we all ended up on a cruise ship where they trained us to be various New World of Darkness types (it is a system and can be googled). I’m not sure what I am yet but most were hunters, some changelings, one mage, one werewolf, one vampire. The mage proved that it wasn’t all fake (it was play-yourself so we were all pretending to be ourselves on a cruise ship) by reading someone’s mind and telling her the color of her underwear.
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Listening to “Shy” from Once Upon A Mattress with Carol Burnett. Musicals are awesome. Carol Burnett is also awesome.
Also that Sondheim revue with Carol Burnett and Captain Jack is amazing. And Man of La Mancha. And Into the Woods.
/musicallove
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Staying up till 2AM cramming for Algebra final. Is probably not the smartest thing I have decided to do. Polynomials. They are the ENEMY.
My life is chugging along as well as can be expected during finals week. I need more sleep. At last count I have accumulated one night’s worth of sleep in the last 72 hours and this is not a good thing.
PE final tomorrow as well, but apparently you cannot cram for those. Just gonna go out there and run five miles, then. Yupyup.
/update
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5 miles? 5 miles? 8 kilometres? The equivalent of doing my school’s run 4 times? Poor CO.
Does having the final at least mean you’ll be doing a non-polynomial topic afterwards?
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SFTMP.
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Never mind… See, I pied your post, then I looked at it again and nothing had happened, so I tried again and accidentally squidded it. Now it looks pied and not squidded. Apparently, it just took a long time for the pie to show up.
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Good luck! You will be fine.
Five miles is…a lot. Our PE exam is the [one] mile run, which is painful enough – I can’t imagine having to run five. Good luck on this as well!
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Not only do we have the mile, we have the pacer test where you stampede like wildebeests across the gym running back and forth and back and forth until you pass out.
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We had a test where you had to move tennis balls from one crate to another for six minutes.
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…why?
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To see how fit we were, I guess. The crates were 60 feet apart and we had to run back and forth between them for six minutes, and if you got something like 25 tennis balls into the other crate you passed or something like that. Everyone was always really stressed out (one girl from another school ended up coughing blood at the end of hers), even though there were no negative consequences for failing. It was very strange.
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Oh yeah, that test! I absolutely hated that one. I guess it’s to see how fast you can run for a period of time, but I think that it’s a stupid test. Like most standardized testing, it completely neglects other areas of fitness, like flexibility and strength and stuff. I have a friend who calls it the “Who has asthma?” test.
At my school they used to put the names of people who got 28-30s on the board, which seemed really unfair to me since you wouldn’t post a chart of how much everyone in the school weighed.
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Oh, that thing. We did that every year(apparently primary schoolers did it too), and there were about 100 levels, and the speed increased for each, and if it wasn’t embarrassing I’d have been the first to stop except maybe the fourth.
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I watched Star Trek: First Contact yesterday. While I didn’t like everything (I did not need to see the Borg Queen trying to seduce people), the last scenes just about made me drool. Data looking attractive. BOLDLY GOING. THE FIRST TIME AN EARTH SHIP HITS WARP SPEED. VULCANS. VULCANS BEING LOGICAL. As in, the best things about Star Trek, even better than Kirk/Spock. *fangirls*
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Have you seen Insurrection? I like it a lot more than First Contact, because, while it’s slightly sappy, there isn’t a Borg Queen. Why would there be a Borg Queen in the first place?
But the warp-speed thing almost made me cry, at that bit where they come back to Earth and all the people in that tiny colony gather around looking war-torn, and then they introduce Vulcans to rock music.
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Borg queen…yeeeeeeeeechhhhhh! I’m also just a little borg obsessed, so the Borg queen annoyed more than it should have.
Data Is Awesome though: “For an android, that’s an eternity.” is one of the best lines ever.
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No. I’m watching the movies in chronological order. Even though I’ve only seen up to Season 3 of TNG and thought Picard was assimilated in one of the TNG movies, not the TV series.
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Last day of school is technically tomorrow, but it’s just assemblies and Spirit Week and stuff so today was the last day of classes! Now for Christmas break…
…time to study for exams. UGH. We are one of the very few schools, I think, who have our first semester finals AFTER the holiday.
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Nope, mine too.
STUDYING. I AM STUDYING RIGHT NOW. NOT ON MB.
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Well, I allowed for other schools, such as yours, with the ‘very few’ comment, which still includes more than one. Most people I know have them before, though.
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Good luck.
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My college also had exams after Christmas. When students protested, the administration said the college didn’t want winter break to be an “intellectually dead” time for us. So the students rose up under the rallying cry “Long Live the Intellectually Dead!” and eventually they changed it. (You may use that slogan, if you like.)
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Next year they’re changing the schedule so that we have them before winter break. I won’t be there, of course, but this will probably mean that teachers will cram everything they want to teach even more than they already do, and students will have less time to study. At least the break gives us loads of time to study, which is one good thing. However, the semester will still end mid-January, because it’s coordinated with the primary/middle schools as well, so after the exams there’ll be a period where no one really cares any more.
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I want a t-shirt that says that.
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If it’s any comfort, I’ve had one exam every week since the second week of october and two exams (or equivalent, i.e. a presentation that also counts for about a third of your grade) every week since mid-november. Next week I only have one exam because the holidays are coming and I get my semester grades.
The one-exam-a-week thing will start again in mid-January, but of course the second semester is mainly prepping for the Matura which means studyingstudyingstudying plus writing all my Spezialgebiete (15 pages about matrices for math, 15 about Sartre and three of his books in français, bien sur, 15 on some theme for english I haven’t decided on yet, 15 on some theme I also don’t know yet for history and 20 on three core curriculum history themes involving french en français aussi (probably a bunch of stuff about France’s former colonies plus Napoleon plus WW2 in France)) and I will do this in my spare time, along with college apps and possibly re-taking the SATs. Nope, I’m not going to get bored this year, though I think my classes are easier than say Mandarin.
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Mine doesn’t have finals until mid-January!
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We also have finals after Christmas break, but I like it because you don’t have to cram to study everything. We also have 4 days of exams with only 1 or 2 21/2 hour tests a day, and you can spend the rest making pillow forts in the school lobby.
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on this: https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=244 thread, post 42 is by emogrl but has Robert’s userpic. How’d that happen?
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No clue.
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Looks like Robert moved a comment or resurrected one that had been accidentally deleted. But you have to go to rather elaborate lengths to fool WordPress.
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That’s odd. Recently I thought I saw the same thing happen to one of Ebeth’s old posts.
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It occurred to me today that I never got around to naming either my ukulele or my guitar. This is unacceptable. After much consideration, I have named the uke Ui, after the character from K-ON!, because it reliably stays in tune far longer than it logically should, just like Ui is extremely reliable compared to her sister. The guitar I’ve named Jayne, after, of course, the character from Firefly. The guitar’s not remotely reliable, is stubborn, doesn’t follow instructions well, and makes all sorts of rough and aggravating noises when it shouldn’t be. Not to mention I think it would be much happier with a hat to keep it warm. I don’t know how I’ve neglected to do this for so long. My piano has a name, my organ has a name, my good recorder has a name, my ocarina has a name, but I somehow forgot about my string instruments.
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I like your guitar’s name…
My guitar is named Oliver. I don’t really know how to play it though… I need to learn. Our family’s piano is named James, my alto saxophone is named Canbe, my melodica is named Sarah, and the baritone saxophone that is not really mine and in fact belongs to the school does not have a name. Neither does the harmonica that I don’t know how to play either. (I really need to get on this…)
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As Nym knows, the name of my trombone is “Gah you semi-cakey instrument, make a better sound for once!” It’s name used to be “Gah, you cakey instrument, make a good sound for once!” I think that we tried to translate this to newspeak a while ago.
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My tenor sax is named Megan. My school owned trombone is named Adelaide. For both, it is a long story.
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I keep meaning to name my viola, but I can never think of anything more creative than “Violet.” My iPod, however, is named Jupiter as of recently. (This is kind of related! I have a keyboard app on it!)
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My giutar is named Strums, and my sister’s piano is named Melody.
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I want to name my instruments, but can’t think of anything good … My violin is a golden-ish wood color with stripes on the back, the pegs are always sticking and it’s hard to tune, but it sounds great when you can get it tuned so I love it anyway. My piano is silver and black with a blue screen, lots of buttons and different sound effects. Ideas, anyone …?
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My flutes are Alanna and Misty Rose Silverwing. Alanna’s probably going to get a new home soonish, though. The ukulele that I don’t actually have yet might be named Luella.
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Today in history class our sub showed us the movie Elf, which I had never seen and didn’t much care for, but I had the most amazing mental images of the Fellowship watching it, and Aragorn sort of staring in fascinated horror, and Legolas doing the same until he eventually broke down and started sobbing, and Pippin and Merry and Boromir thinking it was hilarious, and Sam having no idea what was going on, and Gimli silently giving thanks that at least it wasn’t about dwarves, and Frodo staring off into the distances and paying no attention whatever, and Gandalf just facepalming. Yes.
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Hello.
Right now it is 2:03 am and I’m working on a project/essay/poster/speech hybrid due tomorrow. Maybe I shouldn’t be here. Oh well.
I’m banking on the fact that people’s speeches in our class tend to run long so I won’t have to go until after Winter Break. Hopefully I’m last. Probably not. Oh well.
Hee hee. I hate it when I try to click on something and then I accidentally right-click. Darn computers. I’m typing really slowly right now. It’s 2:07. Wow.
So, life is good. I’ve got an A average in all my classes (except for math – A minus), choir concerts are going well, and I just landed the lead in the school musical. It’s 2:08.
At the same time I feel increasingly worn out. I think teens are supposed to get around ten hours of sleep to be able to function well – I never get that much sleep. Ever. Except for two days out of seven. 2:09.
Maybe I shouldn’t procrastinate, but my schedule’s just so busy! Some days I go straight from school to ballet and straight from ballet to choir and get home at 10:30 to start my homework. I have my free periods in the morning, so I end up doing homework due that day the period before. Hm. Efficiency?
Aggh I’m tired. I might not be able to go back to theater camp where all my best friends are. Cake. I don’t even know anymore – I have to do choir but it conflicts with theater camp and my brother won’t even let me practice choir because my singing’s “horrible”. (It’s not.)
I went to the cast of As You Like It’s reunion last night (not like a few hours ago last night, but last last night). It was heaven. I missed everyone.
It’s 2:12. Hee hee it’s late. Tra la la cholera ahh I’m tired.
I’m supposed to be gluing things right now. My eyes are starting to squint.
I don’t even really know what’s going on with me right now. Maybe over break I can rest and come back completely rejuvenated. That word took a long time to type. Ha ha jokes.
A Separate Peace has too many things to write about. I don’t want to write about A Separate Peace. I don’t want to give a speech on A Separate Peace. I want to sleep on a separate piece of pillow. That didn’t make much sense.
I’m eating a candy cane. I have no water. Cough cough cough. 2:18.
Oh dear. I just realized I haven’t done my math homework.
…this is what the car is for.
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i had an html tag in that and now it is gone. it said,
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AHH NOT COOL WORDPRESS
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It said,
.
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…oh dear. The thing inside the tag was, “sleepdeprivedrambling”. I was ending my sleep-deprived rambling. Arg.
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….SFTQP!
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C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!
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Hm, the little fake HTML bracket-less tags are being noticed by wordpress now, I notice. Hey, wouldn’t that be cool if you could past random text and then add an HTML tag so that the post would appear to be sleepdeprivedrambling?
/randomwondering
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They’ve always been noticed by WordPress. Unless you know how to trick it. </likethis>
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How do you… Oh. </likethis?>
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Now you’re thinking with </brackets>.
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No, I was referring to the ones without brackets.
/clarification
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So for science class we have to do a presentation. Mine is on the process of diffusion and osmosis in cells and I based it off of an earlier experiment that we did in 6th grade, where we dissolve the shell off of some eggs and then put them in different liquids (colored water and corn syrup, in this case) to see how diffusion makes them react.
Did you know shell-less eggs are really really cool?
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Ooo, yes, I love that experiment! When I did it, I put one in corn syrup, one in salt water, and one in plain water. I’m not going to spoil the results of your experiment for you, but let me just say that the corn syrup one looked really cool by the end.
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It did, it did. So awesome.
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Wow, that is really cool! What do you use to dissolve the shells?
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Well, I used vinegar, if I remember correctly.
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Yeah, white vinegar, specifically.
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Oh! I did that experiment in seventh grade. It was awesome.
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*is overwhelmed with envy* *cannot do experiment due to egg allergy*
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I’ve often seen a shell without an egg, but I’ve never seen an egg without a shell.
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Hi. Remember how I mentioned all those concerts going on this week? And how the advanced jazz thing was playing at all three?
Yeah. So… basically…
Eighth grade concert went well. Flute and I played our duet together (Raiders March) (Paperclip and I had a long conversation about John Williams and how awesome he is) and while I’m sure that in terms of technicality and difficulty it paled in comparison with the alto sax duet and the falling stand and the piano duet and MO’s piano solo and Red’s piano solo (Rachmoninoff!! Yeah!!!) but it went well considering how little we had practiced it. The songs went well. I was ticked that my favorite (Where the Sun Breaks Through the Mist- not very technically challenging, but very fun and nice sounding) had been cut off (cough! cough! trumpets!) it still went well overall. Except for Ave Verum. Very painful for the lips, even the second trombone part. Then the big band played, and the advanced jazz combo: I soloed over ‘Footprints’ by Wayne Shorter. Afterward, the director said my improv was improving. Ha! Ha! And then Paperclip took super long solo on Tenor Madness. It was awesome. Then we all went up to the stage and played our final song, ‘The Night Before Christmas’, which was basically a bunch of small tunes strung together by narration. Our student band director (like a student teacher, but a band director) narrated… in a pink bunny outfit. Later I realized it was so that any mistakes we made would go unnoticed because Look There’s A Guy In A Pink Bunny Costume Reading Poetry! (I informed anyone who mentioned the incident that this was obviously some nefarious plot preceding the bunny apocalypse. I got some… strange looks.)
Seventh Grade Concert: The combo hung out backstage. It was a bit chaotic, what with the hats, and the car, and the typewriter, and the spraypaint and the crazed sixth graders under the influence of a bari sax player, but we made it to the end where we played our tunes and then we all went home.
Sixth Grade Concert: No big band. Just the ten of us, the advanced jazz combo, the elite. For privacy’s sake, I’ll codename us MO, Leonardo da Vinci, Flute, Red, Picard, Paperclip, Linguine, Altosax, and Spock. And me, AL. We hang out backstage being quiet and waiting to play at the end of the concert, right?
But there’s a door backstage, a magical door. It leads to the outside, behind the auditorium, and a flight of concrete steps. We sat in our dress clothes in the cold night air. We climbed the concrete wall with stairs on the side, and we sat there dangling our legs and talking. For one precious hour, the rest of the world didn’t exist. We had theological debates. We held hands and sang songs. We played charades. We decided that we’re meant to be touring the country right now. In the prop room, Paperclip wore a bowler hat and looked stunning in it. I mean it. We discussed how much trouble we would be in if we were caught by administration staff here, climbing and sitting on top of this glorious wall. We were one, we were the elite, we were happy. Never in my life have I felt so strongly that I belong somewhere, and never was I so happy. I don’t know if they all felt the same way as I did about that, but I’m fairly sure we all felt it. We all knew. And it’s a secret from the rest of the world, one that none of us will tell. This is what we live for. It’s why we practice day after day. It’s what unites us all. It’s not just the music, it’s beyond the music. Next year we’ll be seperated, but I don’t think any of us will ever completely forget what it’s like. Climbing walls at night in fancy dress clothes, seeing in the dark, racing, running, that wonderful feeling of being completely and totally absolutely free. I can’t describe this feeling to anyone IRL. It’s just something that I’m trying to put into words so perhaps someone can realize what I’m feeling, relate to it. That was the best night of my life, and I’ll never forget. None of you go to my school. None of you know these people. It’s most likely you’ve never met them and will never meet them, but I love them all. They may have their quirks, their narcissism, their odd bouts of sporadic dancing, their predjudice and popularity, their cliched haikus, but for that night and forever more, methinks, I love them all.
No, Leonardo da Vinci, not like that.
Oh yes, and then we actually played. That was fun, too.
Anyway. Concerts are over, and I have sucessfully established a huge wall of text on the ‘blog. Squid to the GAPAs anyone who reads this.
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Quite all right, AL. And I understand very very well what you mean. Do you have a souvenir to remind you? It often helps on less exalted days to remember what life can feel like. Even though this particular moment can’t happen again, the fact that you were able to be that open to the joy of the moment increases the likelihood you will find similar joys (and their echos) in the unknown adventures ahead.
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I definitely know the feeling you’re talking about, and you’re right, it is so hard to put into word. It’s just the most amazing feeling.
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RiiffTrax is offering a free riff for a limited time! I got Birdemic.
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MERRY SQUIDMAS!!
Have I talked about Squidmas here? I should have. I live on SciFi/Fantasy hall and twice a year (once a semester) we have Squidmas, which functions like a secret santa type thing. Squid are the mascot of the hall actually, I was SO excite when I found that out last year. There’s like 3 squid paintings on the walls. I got my person a shirt that says “Sunnydale High” with stakes and teeth on it since she likes Buffy.
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Merry Squidmas to you too, Jade!
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Squidmassssss!!!! Merry merry!
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If anyone wants some hilarious unintentional humor to read, look up “high five” on Wikipedia. I don’t know why, but it’s hysterical.
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How do you take something that should be so simple and break it down into such a complicated-sounding structure?
The way they describe it makes it sound like it’s really hard to pull off.
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The photos demonstrating the steps of the “up high-down low-too slow” variation were particularly amusing.
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Also, just imagining that someone took the time to photograph each step is at least just as amusing.
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PIGGY
HOW DO YOU FIND THESE THINGS
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Ancient powers.
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I KNEW IT
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A wild Piggy appeared!
The wild Piggy used AncientPower!
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The Piggy used WeeWeeWeeAllTheWayHome!
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“Fist bump” is great too.
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BUNP
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Apparently some primates do it! Who knew?
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Is that REALLY what the article is called?! How can it POSSIBLY not mention that it’s CALLED a dap? See, spell check doesn’t even know, either; it’s quite problematic! WHY can’t everyone just read The Whatchamacallit?! (Yes, I did use an interrobang there; it was intentional, to make a point, and spell check doesn’t know the word for it, either)! /annoyance
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Actually, there’s a separate page for “dap greeting.”
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It’s called a dap? What’s a dap?
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Okay, I haven’t been on much, as I’ve been studying for my archeology final and now I have to go study some more, but I felt rude not to drop by and say “Hi”.
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When you’re not sick of studying it, I’d like to hear what you’ve learned about in your class. -MB anthro major who liked archae the best out of the subfields.
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I just watched “Night Terrors”. No spoilers here, but it’s the first time I’ve seen an episode of Doctor Who in over a month and suddenly the fact that my favorite seat on the couch in my house is right next to the Christmas tree makes me slightly nervous.
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The writers won’t stop until my friends are afraid of all sorts of perfectly innocuous things, it seems. Stop messing with my friends, Doctor Who writers!
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I’m at Disneyland with marching band! In line for food at pizza port (cheapest place in Disneyland fod food, by the way).
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LUCKY!
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I have taken many tests and given a presentation on three hours of sleep. I have just participated in a choir concert. I think it’s time for some rest.
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Yesterday, I was very tired, and I slipped into what I call my dream state.The world seems like a dream. Time moves fast and slow. I see the world in a whole different way. It’s just this amazing feeling. i was talking to my mom about how on the surface, all science seems to be different, but as you get closer, and get to the bottom layer, everything is connected, and things click. I was also being very philosophical, and talking about how we can’t prove that anything is real, and maybe we’re dreaming, and someday we’ll wake up and life will be totally different. It was a very interesting experiance.
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My computer is detecting a network called “Bill Wi the Science Fi.”
…I need to find this person and marry them.
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Mine is “Pretty Fly For a Wi-Fi”.
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Hmm. A Google search brings up a Cheezburger entry for a network with the same name. Is there another network nearby called “myqwest7237”?
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OMG, somebody on (an external blogging site) that I know posted a screenshot from their iPhone showing a network with that name? Could it be that they were in the same place you are now?
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After it first appeared online, I imagine quite a few people emulated it.
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Yeah, I was thinking that was the likeliest explanation. Ah, mundanity…
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That would be awesome. Do they live in MI? I’m not seeing “myqwest7237,″ but it’s possible ir’s nearby and I’m not getting a signal.
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Aw, none of the networks around here has a very interesting name.
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Around here there is a “Lightning Bug” and a “Lightening Bug.”
I’m not sure if they’re the same person or not.
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Lightning? No way I’m lightening!
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Ligaments! Htni! Ngy-ngy-ngy-ng-ng-ngy-ngy-ngy-ng-ng!
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Ligaments! htni! ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-ngy-
/latepost
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Out goes the LIGHT! And there go the Nannies, Ice-skating Nimbly in Girdles.
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There’s also one called “Other Network.” My best guess at the (presumably jocular) intention is that if people see it on their list, they’ll think it’s the button you hit to type in a network name, so they don’t try to connect to it. There’s also one with a blank name, which is vaguely unsettling. Most of the others are called “2WIRE[3digitnumber]” for some reason.
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There’s been one called “FBI Surveillance Van #2” near my house for a few months now.
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Has anyone tried typing in “let it snow” into Google today? It’s a very nice effect.
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Aw! I love the “Defrost” button.
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Indeed.
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I like this!
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Google “recursion.”
DO IT.
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No, no. You mean “recursion”.
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Google is full of neat gimmicks like this. Another one I found out about today was typing in “askew”.
*must find more self-explanatory easter eggs*
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So cool how you can wipe the screen clean with your cursor.
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Reminds me of blowing on the window and drawing on it…
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One of my favorites is “do a barrel roll”.
Google also graphs functions now, which is really nice.
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I love how googling “the answer to life, the universe, and everything” brings up “42” on Google Calculator.
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guys
i accidentially piecrust cookies
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So did you end up making cookies out of piecrust or piecrust out of cookies? Both sound delicious.
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Cookies out of piecrust. (The dough looks the same, and it was on the same shelf…) Eventually the piecrust cookies became part of an actual piecrust. Our pie has little Christmas shapes on it now…
NEXT: PAPER BACLAVA
PHYLO NOTEBOOKS
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So you used pie crust to make cookies, and then used those cookies to make pie crust?
What’s a baclava? A balaclava made out of baklava?
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That comment had zero pies. I pied it. Now it has two pies. What?!
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Double pie power from the ponies.
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I know I pied it; maybe we did it at exactly the same time!
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Maybe so! Hmm, we each have half of BiblioRose’s blogname, we were born three days apart, and now we possibly pie simultaneously? Odd…
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Maybe we’re twins!
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That is exactly what I did. And…
Aha! Piggy, you’re right, it’s spelled baklava. Sorry for the inconvienence. (I was making baklava and my sister asked if the phylo dough was paper.)
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Once I very nearly made falafel cookies by mistake.
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Once, I confused the conditioner bottle with the hand lotion bottle and put hand lotion in my hair.
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Those sound sort of tasty, actually.
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I eat raw pie crust.
It’s surprisingly good.
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Raw cookie dough is better. I’ve been eating it for awhile and have never gotten sick.
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Cookie dough is the best.
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I typed “tardi” into the Google searchbox, and the first two suggestions were “tardis” and “tardigrade”. Is it possible to award Musey Points to a website??
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It should be.
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Google’s also well on its way to world domination.
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Coincidence? I think not!
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Google! Join the kokonspiracy!!!!!
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xkcd 792. That is all.
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Happy Wright Brothers Day, everybody! It’s pretty fly!
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I was going to try to make plans with friends this evening, but instead I’ve been listening to Disney songs on Youtube for three hours.
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Today I realized I remind myself of the Idiot Nerd Girl meme. This Is A Problem. A Problem That Must Be Fixed.
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You are NOT an Idiot “Nerd” Girl!
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Project for awesome!
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I don’t understand. What’s the project? I’m glad it excites you.
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Yes! Tell us!
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I know, right? This stuff is so incredible. I managed to catch part of the live show yesterday and – oh my, it’s still going!
Did you vote yet? I haven’t watched enough of the actual videos yet to decide, so I’m going to mute John and go check out some more of those.
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What project?
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I have realized that I may appear to have something against the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Looking at four of it’s* five last flights:
STS-122: After someone reported seeing HPBs in Florida on landing day, got worried, anti-lagomorphic squad was deployed and successfully neutralized threat.
STS-125, the last Hubble Servicing Mission: Was alarmed to see pad worker in hot-pink vest durring prelaunch preparations, remained on-alert throughout mission.
STS-129: Nothing out-of-the-ordinary.
STS-132: In my Marvel fan-fic, target of sabotage attempt by Green Goblin. Thwarted by heroes in a very awesome fashion.
STS-135, the last space shuttle mission: In my Marvel fan-fic, cyborg villains hold crew hostage before launch, after a curb-stomp battle, everything goes according to plan.
I swear, I didn’t notice that all of these happened to be Atlantis when I was writing them!
*I see Endeavour, Enterprise and Challenger as guys and Pathfinder, Columbia and Discovery as girls, but Atlantis I’m not sure about.
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HELLO MUSEBLOG
THE EARTH HUMAN YOU KNOW AS ENCELADUS HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY THE TUXEDO EMPIRE
WE ARE USING HIS BODY TO SAY HELLO
HE IS WEARING A TUXEDO
(eeee I hope this concert goes well)
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HELLO TUXEDO EMPIRE
GREETINGS FROM EARTH
WE MEAN YOU NO HARM
AND WE WILL GLADLY WEAR TUXES
(Squee! Good luck, Enc!)
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That definitely sounds like a monster from a Doctor Who Christmas special.
Good luck!
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The Doctor, the Widow and the Tuxedo…
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eeeee good luck my fiance
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IT WENT PERFECTLY
I GOT COMMENTS FROM RANDOM STRANGERS ABOUT HOW GOOD IT WAS
At the end, we got a standing ovation, and you could tell they were standing because it was really good, not because we were their children.
And my parents said it sounded nearly proffessional and better than a lot of college groups.
eeeeee
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Questionable Content.
I am SO glad this happened during vacation.
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JLynn has made art on the same tablet Jeph used to draw the first QC.
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Yup. And my Dad bought the Cintiq, and my dad has probably met Jeph,
and Jeph has most certainly seen my dad’s band, as he is a regular attender of Thursday shows at the 11s. (Or the 12s, in QC-land.)
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Once you start you will not be able to stop until you’ve read all 2080. It’s a curse.
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I have a friend who’s father has randomly decided to start baking her cookies nonstop since last tuseday. Can you say John Egbert?
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John Egbert.
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Kim Jong Il. Dead.
The leader of North Korea, for those of you who don’t know. Or…used to be. It’s now his son.
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Does it look like his son might be a better ruler? I don’t know anything about him at all.
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Baisically nobody knows anything about him.
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The NY Times says Kim Jong-Il is dead.
So… I’m a delayed-action jinx?
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For context, see the first August 2010 random thread.
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Bwahaha I found it! You have a powerful and creepy talent, Kai.
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Can’t sleep. That would show signs of weakness.
In other news, I’ve retired Sirrus for the time being in favor of the greatest gravatar ever.
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It is pretty great.
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Why did I not think of this.
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Dark chocolate peppermint bark is the most amazing thing ever. *drool*
In other news, I’m slightly dizzy every time I stand up from lying down. Should I be concerned?
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Happens to me too… for me it’s a blood pressure thing (I have low blood pressure).
For me it’s not serious – the worst thing that’s happened is that I’ve blacked out and passed out a couple of times – but you might want to talk to a doctor.
In the meantime, drink water and eat salt and stuff. Yeah.
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Yeah, my mom’s been harping on me to drink more water. I suppose I should heed ehr advice before I pass out. Thanks!
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Happens to me as well. It has a name, but I don’t remember it. Like Adeliae said, it’s because of low blood pressure. I’ve blacked out a couple times as well. If you stand up and feel yourself start to black out, crouch down, and that usually stops it. The way it was explained to me is basically that when you have low blood pressure, it take longer for your body to get the blood to wherever it needs to be. When you stand up suddenly, your body can’t redistribute the blood fast enough, and so tries to force you to lie down, by making you black out.
The same thing-that-I-don’t-remember-the-name-of can also lead to you having trouble standing for long periods of time. I’ve passed out from that before as well. (Once in the middle of a presentation at school… Embarrassing!)
Anyway, you can definitely go and talk to a doctor. There could be other, more serious, things behind it. They’ll probably end up telling you to drink more water, but it’s worth getting checked out in case there is something more serious going on.
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The Holiday Party exists now. Shall we go party and stuff?
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