Sam

As my facebook status, I recently put up that I was taking a semester off [later, to go to PSU] and that everyone should drop by to say goodbye. I felt like people came out of the woodwork to ask what was going on. Dani M., Sam, Melissa S., Crystal H., etc... - I couldn't believe that really anyone took any interest. But anyway, the comment from Sam caught special attention because she said she was taking the next semester off, too, and it was nice to know she wasn't alone. I wrote back and said, Yeah, we should talk sometime.

I went to Beth's house two nights ago. When I walked down the stairs, Beth was sitting on the couch with Tina and Steve and they were reading National Geographic from the 1950s or so. Her family keeps them. They made me read an advertisement that headlined, "Think about June in January, then think about Ontario!" They said it took them a really long time to figure out. I thought it was really interesting was that at the bottom of the page it said, "Mention the National Geographic - it identifies you."

So anyway, very soon after that, Kim L., Meghan D., and Sam all came to see us. They sat in the corner across from me. Sam was in a chair, Kim was on a bench, and Meghan was on the floor in front of Sam. Meghan and Sam both went to the same school that my mom graduated from [East Stroudsburg U], and both of them would be out of it by the end of their second semester. Meghan would have finished their entire art program by then and decided it was time to move on. Kim said she liked Pitt for the most part - the city was great and the school was good. I think I got the feeling she was yet to find her best friends there but I think we both knew that would come in time, and at least the rest was good. I know Kim is reading this but I definitely wrote everything up to here without thinking about that, so that's all honest, promise.

I wanted to catch up with Sam and talk to her more about why she was taking a semester off, so I told her we should meet the next day for lunch or coffee or something, and she said she'd call me around 11 or 12 to figure something out. It wasn't until later I realized that I planned to go into Philadelphia the next day to see Kim K at her parents' store in The Bourse. Those plans fell through, though - actually, for two days now, very sadly - so I could go see Sam.

While we were talking at Starbucks, she said that her mom said hello, and that she loved my graduation speech. I was kind of surprised that she would remember me, and even more surprised she'd remember my speech, but Sam said she remembered me from that night we went to the concert [in 11th grade].

I kind of have to split this story into two parts so that it will make sense to everyone reading. First I'll say what's going on with Sam now, then I'll get back to the concert.

I.

Sam's home was never anything near what you'd see in picture books. Her dad was no longer a part of the family from when she was little. He had terrible health problems for a long time and their relationship was terrible for almost as long as I've known Sam. Her brother was a good guy but he always got in lots of trouble and it got progressively more serious through time. Her mom seemed to be the one thing that Sam would always have. They weren't rich, but they had what they needed and they were pretty much closest/best friends. Sam started to have health problems sometime around 10th or 11th grade.

Sometime over the summer of 2007, the cops busted in to Sam's house. Apparently the papers they presented to whomever was home was not a search warrant, but a paper saying that a search warrant was served. Furthermore, it was for the wrong address, and the signature on it was fake, and they were searching the house on false pretenses. They went in anyway. They tore apart every room in the house and went through everyone's things and apparently found enough evidence to have Sam's brother face a minimum sentencing of 10-15 years.

I suppose her brother has been in the state's custody for a while. He also got very sick. He's pretty well built, but he's dropped down to 130 pounds, which is lighter than me. The police apparently beat him pretty badly when they found him. He has to get his ACL operated on, and apparently the state isn't taking responsibility for it, so he has to rely on Keystone Mercy insurance. He's also undoubtedly under tons of stress and his gallbladder isn't working properly.

The pipes in Sam's house are pretty old. One of them was stepped on, apparently, by someone searching the house, and it started to leak. Sam's mom got a plumber to come out and take a look at it and they did all they could to take care of the leaking. One day, she came home and the roof of her bedroom fell in. Her room was absolutely unusable. They didn't even have any reason to go in her room. And she doesn't have the money to pay for it right now. So she had to move into the computer room.

And she misses Sam. They're best friends. Every time Sam goes back up to college - and the first time she went up, too - she cries. They both do. They both cried the entire way up their the first time, Sam said. And I think the last time she went back up, her mom told her, "Sam, there's no way you're going back there. I have a breakdown every time. I just can't do it."

II.

Sam and I are both pretty big fans of Billy Joel. I'm not quite sure of how Sam came to love him, but for me, it was because my parents had his tapes and when I was little I listened to it once and I guess essentially became obsessed with it and he just became my favorite. He and Leroy are the only musicians I will remember from my childhood. Sometime in the beginning of Junior Year, Sam told me there was a free concert in a park in Rose Tree Media by a Billy Joel coverband and that she would go with me if I was interested. I remember being kind of shaky about it at first - a Billy Joel coverband...?? - but I wanted to go for some reason, so I said yes and asked her to come, of course.

I remember the whole plan being shaky for a while, but we worked it out so that her mom would drive us and just hang out at the concert, basically. So I drove to Sam's house - still in that old Q45 - and parked in her driveway because I still felt scared to park in the grass, even though she told me it was totally cool if I did. This was the first time I'd ever been to Sam's house. I didn't know what it looked like inside, but I thought it was nice. I never really knew she had a dog, but I'm pretty sure I remember being greeted by one.

We drove to the concert. I remember it was a really nice night and I think it was still light out when we got there. I can't remember if we took a blanket or not, but I'm willing to say we didn't. The concert was put on a stage at the bottom of a circular hill where everyone could gather. It was actually a really good band and a really nice venue. Sam and I hung out with her mom for a little bit, but mostly ran around on our own. I think we went to the snack line and got a snow cone or something, but I could be wrong about that. I remember we stood on the roots of a tree at one point, on a hill, and it was hard to keep our balance. I remember we talked to kids while we were standing there. I can't remember if we ran into anyone we knew or not that night, but if we knew anyone, it was probably because of Sam and not me.

When the concert was over, Sam and I couldn't find her mom in the crown, so we just walked roughly in the direction of where we thought we had parked and sat on a bench under a light and talked for a while. A lot of people walked past us and a lot of cars left before us. I think some kids talked to us while we sat there, too. We called her mom on her cell phone a couple times, and sooner or later her mom found us sitting on the bench, and I think it turned out we were totally in the wrong spot for where we had parked.

We left the parking lot - which I think was a field we all agreed we should just park on - and talked about the concert. We all really liked it. I forget exactly how, but we started singing songs that we all liked. I don't know if they were on the radio, or on a CD, or on an iPod. I can't remember how popular iPods were two years ago, or if Sam ever had one. Anyway.

At one point, "Annie's Song" came on. If you're not familiar, that's the really pretty folksy song with guitar, violin, and piano with the chorus that goes:

Even though we ain't got money,
I'm so in love with you, honey,
Everything will bring a chain of love...

And in the morning, when I rise,
You bring a tear of joy to my eyes,
And tell me everything is gonna be alright

And we all sang that song together, on the highway, driving home that night. I remember I didn't have a very high range then because I was just starting to sing but if I got close to belting it came out pretty well. We all sounded wonderful together.

III.

And it was everything that I just wrote that came into my head in one instant when Sam was talking to me. And I just thought of how beautiful that moment was and what a great night that was and, god, just thinking of her mom and how she must have been so content to be with her daughter and her friend, having a nice night out with them. And I thought of the last year and how far away Sam is and all the things that have happened, and how nice it would be just to have that moment again, and it made me tear up in Starbucks right there in front of Sam.

Peace out.

Just so you know

If you're ever at a job interview, and someone asks you what the integral from negative infinity to infinity of e^-x^2 is, the answer is the square root of pi.

Just so you know.

Peace out!

Snow

A month back or so I think we got some snow at Brown, but it was really just a dusting. Even the southerners weren't excited about it.

But this Friday we got some snow for real. I remember on Thursday night, Danny was talking to Tanya on the phone [he usually talks to her on the phone late at night right before they go to bed, I think - they used to videochat but for some reason I think they started to find that weird and switched to phone] and she made me promise that if it snowed the next day, I would play in the snow with Danny.

The next day it was gray and pretty crappy, but I don't remember it snowing until later at night. I think it was too late to really go outside and play in it by the time there was any significant collection on the ground. The next night, though, I was going to go outside and play with Danny in the snow. I saw Morgan somewhere earlier, and she said she wanted to play in the snow or make a snowman too, so I told her she should come with Danny and me. I think Danny went outside first bceause he told a guy we call Jun ["June"] that he would go out and play with him, and then Morgan and I came out and found them later.

I can't remember if it was there at this point or not, but someone built a pretty large snow penis on the Andrew's Terrace. I think it must have been on Saturday night, because earlier that day I went down to the Reading Room and looked out the window at some kids playing soccer in the roughly fifteen inches of powdery snow that we got, and there was no way they were playing around that snow phallus. Sadly, the shaft of it was removed sometime in the last 24 hours, it seems. Anyway.

When Morgan and I went out there, after she told her boyfriend Greg that she was going to be playing in the snow, we saw two kids outside on the hills just beyond the terrace and weren't really sure if that was Danny and Jun, but we would probably play with them anyway, whoever it was. It was Danny and Jun, though. They had a couple "toys" too - Two trays from the VW that I think Jun stole that night, and two shelves that Jun had removed from his bookshelf. A lot of people steal trays to sled on - they're actually really good sleds. I went down once and went really quickly and lost control and got snow up my gloves and my hands were freezing later. Jun tried to use the shelves as a snowboard and almost got hurt a couple times, but not too seriously. Then we basically got in a snowball fight. I actually had a pretty good shot and got some people in the head a couple of times here and there. I also used the trays as a shovel and just picked up tons of snow and shoved it in peoples' faces. Someone pegged Morgan in the face with a snowball and all the snow got caught between her eye and her glasses, and even minutes later you could see droplets of water left over from that hit on the inside of her lenses.

Danny was wearing socks on his hands because his gloves didn't come yet. At one point he took of his hand socks to make a snowball because he could make it pack a little better that way. His hands must have been freezing! I don't think he was really wearing snow-worthy shoes, but I wasn't either. Somehow they didn't get too wet, though. I think it was because the snow was too dry - it didn't pack enough to build a snowman that night, but some kids built one in the grass near Alumnae Hall next morning, I think.

At one point Danny wanted to try his luck sliding down the railing of the stairs in the middle of the hills in front of the Andrews terrace. Morgan and I looked on and I think Jun was running around near the hall with a trashbag to protect himself from something (?) and kept telling Danny it was a bad idea. Even Danny said it was a bad idea. But he did it anyway. It went well, he was going down, sliding, etc., all fine until the railing leveled out and slammed into his crotch. He yelped a little bit and collapsed on the snow and just laid there on his back for a couple minutes.

This morning my mom was asking me if it snowed here recently, and I said no, not much since Friday or so. I really didn't think there had been any. But then I went outside, and I found that it had snowed probably another five inches, was still raining a tiny little bit, and was seriously just the most miserable weather/walking conditions you could imagine. I feel once going down stairs a few nights ago and cut my hand, and Danny fell twice, once going to The Gate. There was water coming from a lot of places and of course snow melting, and it was all right on the verge of freezing, so when I stepped in it my toes were as cold as I've ever felt them. I hated walking to the Ratty today so much I didn't even go back for dinner. I'm a little hungry.

Sometimes snow falls off the rooftops here - they're slanted on Andrews. I was sitting in the kitchen doing some MATH0180 work today and then I heard a lot of noise behind me, wondered what it was and quickly turned around, and just saw a little mini-avalanche going by the window. It was a pretty good amount of snow, and I imagine if you were walking underneath it you would have been very hurt from the 40-or-so-foot descent it would go through before hitting you. Let's work out this math problem.

a = -9.8
v = -9.8(t) + v_0, but v_0 = 0, so v = -9.8t
d = -4.9(t^2) + 12.30, because d_0 = 12.30 [the height of the roof] ; the snow would take 1.6 seconds to fall from the roof to the ground.

int(v) = $ 9.8(t) = 4.9(t^2) = 4.9(1.6^2) = 12.544

So yeah, that snow would hit you at 12.544 meters per second, which is about 30MPH. Pretty harsh. No one walks beneath the kitchen window, but people walk on the Andrews terrace, and I saw some fall there, too. That would blow pretty hard.

Danny and I walked in the road today because the snow was so bad on the sidewalks it wasn't worth it. There were no cars for a long time. I guess people just wanted to stay in today. We walked home with Christie and her friend whose name I don't know and I feel really bad about that. Christie didn't have a hat on and her hair got wet (with freezing water, I'm sure) and I felt really bad for her, but she had boots on so I guess we're even.

The people who clean up the snow here are pretty good. I remember the first night it snowed the paths were cleared as it was snowing multiple times, and they even cleared a path to the two main Andrews doors by the next morning. But I think they took Sunday off and that kind of sucked. Oh well, that's understandable.

Bed time.

Peace out!

Diana's Bath

I think for the past three or four years, I thought that Diana's Bath was in Eb or Bb. Today I found out it's in F.

Peace out.

Finals Period

We don't have normal classes at all during finals period. They're supposed to end on the 7th or so for reading period, but they all definitely HAVE to end by the 12th, so no more classes for anyone. All we have left are some tests and projects and papers. I have a paper due for my education class at 5PM on Saturday. It's mostly done but I don't feel like doing the grunt work that's left on it [reorganizing it]. I also have a test for Math 17 and Math 18 both at 2PM on December 18th. I was able to get the one for Math 17 moved to 11AM because there is a blind girl in the course who needs extra time to take math tests. Could you imagine trying to take a math test blind?

Anyway, I have nothing to do really and nowhere to be really except for what those tests demand. It's kind of a strange time.

Peace out.

My Room

I don't think I ever really described my room before. I feel like I should put that down somewhere.

So when you walk into the door - I'm at the end of the hallway, on the right - there's a little alcove on your right for the sink and mirror and towel racks and a light for said alcove. Most dorm rooms/college wouldn't have anything like this, but we do, so we never have to use the hall's bathroom to shave or brush our teeth or wash our face or mess with our contacts or anything. I guess that was really nice at first, but now I kind of lament the fact that we all have our own sinks and mirrors because we never have to go to the same bathroom all gross and disgusting and sleepy-eyed and see each other just that much more. Anyway. I keep most of my stuff on the sink - toothpaste and brush and etc., pretty much everything except for my shaving cream and razor because I don't use them enough and they're too big to justify keeping on the sink.

Behind the door when you walk in is my closet. Our doors slam, so we have to prop them open with brick(s). So my closet is often obscured by a door propped open with bricks. We have one brick that is half painted as a piano, and then Danny wrote on the other side, "lay me." Sam Schmerler thought that was a really good idea, so he wrote "LAY ME" on a brick and wanted to take it back to Keeney with him, but left it with us, and never returned to pick it up.

There's a safe in my closet. It's bolted there, and we can't move it. It's in PRIME shelf space, too, like, exactly the place where if somebody said to you, "Where's the last place you would want me to put this bulky, crappy safe?" that you would point to immediately. I We hate those safes.

The top shelf of my closet is for bulky stupid stuff that I don't want to think about or deal with. Stuff like the vacuum I haven't used, boxes for things in my room, suitcases and extra stuff, the fan I don't use anymore. On the shelf below that, I keep things like paper towels and napkins and plastic bags. Below that is the shelf with the safe on it, and I ended up keeping all the medicines I thought I might ever need on this one. Vitamins, sunscreen, Mucinex, Wal-Profen, etc. On the shelf below that is actually where I keep my food, two boxes of Cheerios, one of Life, my shaving kit, my peanut butter and crackers and my utensils. Below that is the box of Ritz crackers and all my extra towels and sheets and stuff. I keep my hamper in there, as well as the pile of jeans that I never feel like putting in the hamper. Oh, and also that I recycle. Oops. I also keep my hockey equipment in there, but I haven't used it yet here and it makes me very sad. I have some clothes/jackets hanging in there, too, but I really only use two coats here [the big black one and the tiny blue one].

If you walk past my closet, you've stepped onto my side of the room [the right side, basically]. Behind you and to your right, on a wall that juts out between my space and the sink, are some shelves. I keep my hat/glasses there, and magazines, mallets, my puzzles, books, bowls/cups, my shower caddy, and gym/sleeping clothes there. There's also a trashcan below it, and currently my sandals as well.

My clothes drawers are in the far right corner of my side, then next to that is my work desk, then my bed. My printer is on top of my clothes drawers. The top is for socks and nightshirts/etc. The second drawer is for all my regular shirts, which I now organize by color. I realized that I have a HUGE number of blue shirts [and I'm very happy about this]. The bottom drawer is for pants. I brought khakis, but I haven't worn them yet, so I put those in the back.

My work dest is sort of messy, but at the same time, not really. There's a ton of wires over on the right that go towards the surge protector behind the printer, but I know what all the wires are for. Whenever I unplug/take out my laptop, there are five wires just hanging out, but it only takes me like five seconds to plug them back in [USB Mouse, printer, ethernet, power, speakers]. My external harddrive is also on my desk, but I actually haven't used that too much. There's also my lamp, and my clock, and my phone, and usually my water bottle. My gloves, headphones, and letter stationary are also out right now, as well as the tiny ball of wall putty that I play with when I'm bored.

One of the nice things about college is that I ALWAYS know where the scissors are. All of those things are in my second drawer of my work desk all the time and never go anywhere else. It's really nice to have it be that easy, I guess.

Behind my printer, on the wall, is my photo board. There's a picture of it on Facebook if you haven't seen it already, but just incase FB or that picture ever disappears, but this doesn't, I have 20 pictures on there, of these people, from top left to bottom right: Jeremy T, Hetty N, Joe K, Kacey D, Katie R, Kelly D, Matt G, Kristin W, Nicki M, Beth O, Gina M, Sarah J, Steve! S, Steph D, Viv D, Trisha K, Abby M, Chloe G, Erik H, and Drew S. They're all black and white pictures, and I think all pictures that I took, except for the one of Gina and maybe the one of Kelly.

Behind my workdesk and bed are my posters that I made and love and posted here. I guess I'll explain them, from top left to bottom right. And for people who don't know me as well, they're posters of pictures I took and the titles to them all are songs I wrote.

tragicstory is a macro picture of a small flower/weed at the DCI show that Nicki, Viv and I went to in Allentown, PA, summer of 2007. It's the time we saw Mike and Katie and they hardly waved to us. And the time we saw the guy from Norristown and wondered if he actually had a tattoo on his leg. And the first time Nicki and I heard Scharton and asked the pit instructor of the Buccaneers what the name of it was so we could find it and use it. I think that might have been Tollie Contento, but I'm not sure.

strangeplace is a picture of the pier on 31st St. beach in Avalon, New Jersey. I think this was the time that I went down on my own, the day after Kristin's party. I wanted to wake up before the sun rose and drive there and see the sun come up over the water, but I missed my alarm, overslept, and missed it all. It was raining and stormy when I got there and thought it might make for a good picture, so I went and took a few and really like a couple of them. This is one of the ones I liked best.

onedayonenight is a picture of candles on the coffee table in front of the sofa in Gina's basement. On the second to last night, I think, we lit candles. I think we had five of them total [there are five in the picture]. I remember thinking it was going to be just about the last time I could light candles before I left for Brown, and I'm really glad with the way this picture turned out, it makes them look really beautiful. I was very sad when we had to blow those candles out.

singingfarewell is a picture of Katie R on the rocky jetti somewhere around 54th street in Ocean City, NJ. We were just walking on the beach and found that jetti and I thought it was really pretty and I would like pictures of it, so I got some just of the jetti and water and the pier nearby, but also some of Chloe and Katie with it. I think this is one of the better pictures of Katie that I have.

chemicalroad was taken at Chloe's house, at what I think was the last time I was at her house for a party before I left for Brown. We had a fire - a very large fire - that day. I remember this picture was taken when it was still light outside. Chloe's dad or uncle had just thrown a huge amount of fuel onto the fire and it got really big really quickly. Gina was laying on the hammock, and I took a picture. The fire looked really intense, and the smoke looked really ominous, and the scenery was beautiful and Gina looked so subtly amazed by the fire.

snowandlights is a picture of the Brandywine River, way down Smithbridge Road. I took it the day I drove around town with Steph and Kacey so they could take pictures of everything for their German exchange students and I could get pictures of things that I thought made Garnet Valley as awesome as it was. I think it was by far the best picture I got that day. Actually, I think it's the best picture I have, period.

goddamn is another picture that I took that day. I remember we were driving down Smithbridge Road either towards Cossart Road or toward the river, and Steph wondered if she would see any geese anymore this time down the road. There were some geese, and I made Steph take a picture. Come to think of it, we may have been driving back towards home from Smithbridge, or maybe it was a different road [but I don't think so]. In either case, I think this picture largely captures what the song God Damn was going for, except for maybe the geese, but they're cool anyway.

dysthymia was one of the first pictures I took with my camera. Like, within the first ten that I didn't delete, I think. I was sitting outside Jess J's house, and I just looked at my dashboard and thought, this could make a really pretty picture. So I took a couple shots. I can't remember if I had already talked to Jess or if I was waiting to go in and see her. I'm pretty sure I had already seen her.

thingsfallapart is a macro shot of the inside of my piano. My beautiful, fifty-four inch, Baldwin, baby grand piano that I like more than any piano in the world because it's the best piano in the world. In this picture you can just see some of the string pegs and some of the strings. I took it in the higher register because all of the string pegs have three strings around them. It's a really mellow picture.

Out of Bounds, the sketch comedy show, starts soon, so I think I'm going to go to that. Just for closing, my favorite pictures of the ones listed here, in order, are: snowandlights, singingfarewell, chemicalroad. It's really really close between 2 and 3, but snowandlights is by miles and leagues and years my favorite. Not really fair, though, because it's the one I colored blue. But I think it was the best even before that. People who come into my room all seem to agree that snowandlights is the best one, as well, though, so I'm pretty confident that it really was the best anyway.

Peace out!

Army/Navy Surplus

Today was not a very good day as far as temperature goes.

I first noticed this when it was EXTREMELY FREAKING COLD OUTSIDE. Like extremely cold.

The next time I noticed this was when I tried to unlock my bike. Noting the failures of locking my bike up behind Smitty B, I decide I would lock it up outside the stairs that lead to Metcalf Hall so I can just get it when I'm leaving the dorm [Metcalf is connected to Andrews Hall]. When I timidly took my freezing, freezing hands out of my pockets to grab the freezing, black, metal lock on my bike, and put the key in the hole and tried to turn it... I noticed there was a problem. It wasn't really turning. I kept trying and, after a few tries, I got it. I put it on my handlebars and locked it back up and went to the Ratty for breakfast. I had even more troubled there, but got it locked. I noticed there was ice inside the metal workings of the lock.

The next time I noticed there was a problem with this was when I COULDN'T UNLOCK MY BIKE. It's stuck at The Ratty. When I came out after breakfast, stuck. Same after lunch. I suspect it will be even more stuck tomorrow. I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I'll throw hot water on it after I steal some from the Ratty?

Well anyway. I also needed gloves because my hands are constantly freezing these days. I should also get boots, but those are way more expensive, so I just went for gloves. I went to the Army/Navy Surplus store on the east side of the north end of Thayer St. I'd gone there before, but like I said, I was dizzy and people were talking and it was weird and I didn't see what I wanted so I just left.

I went back in today. As I was walking in, I noticed a sign on the front door that said "Apartment for Rent," or something to that effect. I thought it was kind of strange that someone would advertise for an apartment on the window of an army/navy store. Anyway, walked in the door. Again, the first thing I saw were these little tiny green camo shorts with "BOOTY CAMP" written across the back, and I just thought to myself... there's no way this is legit army/navy stuff. This was confirmed as I looked through the store, and especially when I looked at the gloves. I was expecting something different, but oh well. I got a pair of $10 gloves and paid for them with my credit card.

Just as I was wrapping up, a guy walked in the door. He was slightly shorter than an average man, thin, white, and you can tell that he looked much older than he actually was. I remember noticing something about his eyes but I forget why now. He greeted the man at the counter who had just rung me up as if he was an old friend - I was actually under the impression they were old friends for a second. Then the man started talking, "Hey, my manager from CVS just told me to come over here to ask about an apartment." And the man at the counter said, "Oh, yeah, it's a three bedroom."

I couldn't believe someone was not only advertising an apartment at the army/navy, but actually looking for one there, and finally selling one there. I took a little bit of extra time getting my things together because I wanted to listen to this conversation.

The guy who was looking to rent said that it cost him $130 a week just to transport himself from his home [a town that starts with "A"] to and from work at CVS every week, so he had to move, because he only made $120 per week. He also mentioned that he worked at two CVSs. I thought that was really sad - that this guy who was probably 40 years old worked at two CVSs and was just $5 per week per store he worked at away from being able to ... not lose money by working. I don't know why, but there was something really tragic about the whole scene. Maybe I'm not communicating it. I guess it gets worse.

The guy at the counter said that the apartment was $1200 per month - which, doing the math, is what the guy makes in 10 weeks, not 4.5. There... just didn't seem to be any way it would work out. But he insisted he was going to buy it. He said he would be quiet, and he had a job, lots of money, and he had a roommate, so he'd be a good tenant. I think that made me really sad. That being quiet was something he used to sell himself to this guy. He said that he would come back on Friday to put down a deposit on the department - of $1200.

When he was asked if he wanted to see the place before he bought it, he refused. That was the last thing I heard before I left the store.

Peace out.

Regina Spektor

Last night, a little after 9:30, I went to the holiday a capella concert thrown by The Higher Keys [male and female, about 20 members, including Kayla and Sarah Kay] and The Bear Necessities [the group which I tried out for and didn't make callbacks]. A lot of our floor was going to go and we were all going to walk together, but for some reason my RC, Andy, was left behind with me, so we ended up walking together. It was freezing cold - I didn't take my hands out of the pockets of my thick black jacket once the entire way there. Earlier that day I had done so to ride my bike, and I couldn't feel my thumb when I went to lock it up. On the way there we talked about the Ratty, and how the morning after the Daylight Savings Time change, your body felt like it was waiting until 11:30 to eat breakfast, which sucked. Furthermore, a lot of people went at "10:30" which was actually 9:30 and had to sit there, hungry, waiting for an hour.

When we showed up, we ran into a couple people that seemed to know Andy, including one friend he had called as we were about to pass The Gate. There was a girl, I think named Kaylie(?) who was from Philadelphia and remembered me from the train up to Brown during ADOCH. Her grandmother lives in a development right off of Naaman's Creek Road, near the Wawa. She was friends with Sophie, an Asian girl in WORD that I've talked to a bunch of times and thought was nice, so we and Andy and his friend sat together during the show when they let us it. We were supposed to donate ($2?) to the Women's Hope Foundation to help women in [I think] the Dominican Republic who otherwise had no access to health care, but when they opened the doors everyone was so concerned about getting The Good Seats that no one donated. Maybe people did afterwards, I'm not sure.

The groups had decorated the chalkboards in the auditorium we sat in - the main hall of MacMillan. There was one board that was shaded green and said "HAPPY/MERRY/JOYOUS" and then one shaded in red beneath it that said something like "CHRISTMANNUKKWWAAKANZAKA." I can't recall exactly, but I remember thinking it made absolutely no sense. Just about the only other things I remember on the boards was an amalgamation of the letters "TBN," which I guess is the symbol for Bear Necessities, and I think a snowman drawing.

The show started very abruptly, I remember. The Higher Keys came out after a very short introduction by someone guy I don't know. I can't remember their first song, but I remember thinking it was by a kid who was a little bit awkward. After it was over, they started tuning for their second song, and Andy's friend said "Sounds like F major!" I asked Andy if he had perfect pitch and he said that he did.

At one point in the show, The Higher Keys's spokesman said something to the effect of, "I hope you guys stick around for the Bears 'cause they have even more kick-ass stuff for you all." A kid behind us in the audience said, "What? Is that meant to imply that this is kick ass?" You had to hear how angrily he said it, but it was funny, I promise.

I think it was actually the second song by The Higher Keys that I really liked. It was soft and slow, and the lead singer/soloist - I swear I've seen her before, but I don't think she's a freshman - had the most amazing high pitched voice I've ever heard. Like, operatic almost. I asked Andy if he knew who it was by, and he didn't know, so I asked Sophie and she said it was by Regina Spektor. I'd heard of Regina Spektor before but I didn't really like that one song of her's I heard [Fidelity, it turns out], but this one was very, very different and I could tell I liked it much more.

When I went home, I found the video for it on YouTube and I swear, in the past 24 hours, I must have listened to it 20-30 times. I don't think I know all the words, though, but I don't really care because I just like how it sounds. I really like a couple lines, though, like "The bible didn't mention us" and "kissed me 'till the morning light."

This morning I was talking to Viv and I told her that I feel in love with Regina Spektor last night, and she was very excited for me. She said that I should learn how to play Samson [the song I heard/fell in love with] on piano, and I said yeah, sometime I should. She got me the sheet music a couple minutes later from a Yahoo Group called Regispek. I figured I would play it tonight for midnight piano.

A little after 12, I decided I would go. It was very very cold outside again today. I couldn't feel my hands. I even went to the Army Navy Surplus store to buy mittens but got dizzy and didn't find anything and people were talking about NASCAR and poker so I left without any. It snowed a lot today, and I think there was still some snow coming down because my Samson sheet music is crinkled and wet, and there was a lot of ice on the ground and even/especially near the stairs on the Andrews Terrace and I was very afraid I was going to fall. I didn't wear a jacket or anything - just my Duke shirt and my "This is my Brown t-shirt?" white gym t-shirt - because I was just running to Alumnae Hall. I went in through The Gate, and saw Jasmine and Malcolm and Spencer and Danny, but really wanted to play so I just said hello and went on my way.

When I got up the spiral staircase that leads to the hall, I heard piano. I figured someone else must have figured out my trick. The lights were on, thankfully, and a door was open. I wasn't sneaky or anything, and they heard me come in [which is what I wanted]. There were actually three of them. It looked like one of them, whose name I found out was Kelly, was teaching the other two how to play, but I'm not sure. There was a guy on the bench, too, named Chris, and a girl whose name I really wish I could remember but can't. She had dark hair and skin and eyes and played classical piano and was an accompanist, but I can't remember her name.

When I got to the piano, I kind of just wanted to say hey and then go on my way - I could play another time. But they pretty much insisted that they were done. I still wanted to talk to them though and definitely didn't want them to leave/feel like I wanted them to leave, so I asked them how they got in and they told me through a window (!). I told them they could get in through the spiral staircase by The Gate, and they said they should use that from then on. I also told them if they had a friend in the Orchestra, they could ask them to get a key and then give it to them which I said was what I did, and that made them feel like they had to go, but I said again that no, they didn't have to leave. And they said they'd been there for a while and should, and I said No, you can stay! And Chris said they had school tomorrow, which I guess was a good answer, but I still wanted them to stay. One of them asked me why I came, and I told them about Regina Spektor and that I just wanted to play it tonight. It seemed like Chris and the girl whose name I forget knew the song. She asked me if I could play it. I wasn't sure if I could or not - I'd never looked at the music before - but I told her I might be able to play it and not sing it. So I put it on the music stand and told them to go along with me.

I started playing - five sharps (!), but I knew the chords for the most part right away so it wasn't too difficult for me. We couldn't sing it perfectly, and I messed up some of the timing, but I actually ... well, I liked playing and singing with them, I guess. And I wasn't nervous at all. I didn't even think about my nerves until this minute, actually. The girl whose name I can't remember said Chris was a good singer - and he was. But she was also better than she gave herself credit for.

I think it was actually after we finished playing that they introduced themselves to me, and the girl whose name I can't remember told me she wished she could read chords for her accompanying and that she was finally teaching herself how. We walked outside together, just for a minute, before they had to go to Keeney and I had to go back to Andrews. We have school tomorrow, of course...

On the way back, still wearing just just my two shirts, I heard someone call my name from the other side of the Andrews sidewalks. I looked over and saw Bekah, bundled up in a huge white coat. I told her that I'd been meaning to talk to her for a while but I never got the right time.

Peace out.

Baby Book

When I was home last week for Thanksgiving - with the cold sore the left side of my lower lip - I found my baby book. I can't remember quite if it was Saturday or Sunday. I know that when I woke up it was Sunday, but I can't remember if I found it after midnight or not. I know that I had just signed off from AIM and told Gina I was going to take a shower and go to sleep, but for some reason when I went to my room I really wanted to look through my old yearbooks and see if I could find old pictures of Gina. I found a couple of my yearbooks on the right side of my bed - I think the middle school ones - and then I found some more on the left side of my bed. I think I only found one of them that had Gina and I in it. I think it was when I was putting them back in that I noticed a book I had never seen on the right side of my bedstand. Its outside was a mix of pastel green, yellow, and pink, thickly bound with some papers sticking out of it. I opened it up. I can't remember exactly what I saw first, but I knew immediately that it was my baby book! I was so excited! Even though I knew Gina would be dead tired I kept texting her to tell her all the crazy things I found, even though we agreed to look through it tomorrow [which we did... sort of].

Somewhere in the beginning was a picture of me, which I'm not sure I saw until the next day when we looked through it again. There was the name of the doctor that delivered me - I think Kalzan or something along those lines. I guess I'm started to forget some of the specific parts but I'll try for what I can still remember. I found out that I used to call my blanket "Gocky." I don't know why, it doesn't make any sense to me at all. I also used to say "gaboon" instead of "balloon," and I said "bemorrow" instead of "tomorrow." One time my parents found me in the bathroom drinking water out of my shoe. One time, they told me that if I ate my Easter candy too fast they would take my Easter basket away; later they found me in the hallway closet eating candy out of my basket. Once my mom asked me if I was her baby, and I said, "No! I'm your little guy!" I apparently loved to go anywhere, at any time - I called it "going bye-bye" - even to boats that made me sleepy. I also really liked our cat Pepper, and wanted her to lay with me all the time. The first time I pulled myself up in my crib, I looked shocked (!).

At the end of the book there were a ton of pieces of "art" that I had made. Mostly it looked like watercolors on crinkled paper. One of them, I think, looked like I was trying to make a landscape. I know I loved dinosaurs so maybe it was from that period. Most of the time I just drew lines, though. There were a couple things in there that I had drawn, including one thing we had ripped off from a paper menu at Friendly's. I had no idea my parents kept so much stuff. There was also a birthday card or Christmas card that I just took and scribbled aaaaaaaaall over. I'm sure I was really proud of myself. There were also two copies of a picture of me soon after I was born. I had my eyes closed and hands up and I looked like an alien.

At the end of that section, behind the pictures and paintings, I found an envelope. It was closed. On the outside, it said, "Jessica, Ryan, & Jeffrey // My 3 Angels from Heaven." I didn't know what to do - should I open it? Should I not? I don't know exactly why, but I couldn't resist opening it. I made sure to mess up the envelope as little as possible because I would probably want to keep it for later. Inside there was a letter that my mom wrote in 1989, and apparently no one had seen since. She was going on a "four-day trip" - but she didn't say where, and I have no idea whether or not it was a trip. I know my pregnancy included complications so it might have been some medical problem. She was afraid that she wouldn't come back for some reason, so she wrote this to us all just in case. She wrote a little bit to Jess, then to Ryan, then to me. She said she'd hardly gotten a chance to know me yet, but that I was just as gorgeous as Ryan and Jessica were, and she loved to see me smile and she loved my eyes.

The very end was the saddest part, though. She just said, "Please don't forget me, and look at my picture sometimes."

How tragic!

And to think that, had she not come back, I never would have forgotten her because I would not have remembered her.

Peace out.

Writing

All I want to do right now is write. I have class tomorrow at 10:30AM, which I think would be good, because I think that's about when I would be done writing if I started right now. I considered staying up all night to write but I decided maybe that wasn't the best idea right now. I just want to write for so many reasons, I can't even say. Lines and notes and letters and messages and apologies and elegies and entries and stories and anything else I could think of. Ironically, today is the first day at Brown where I didn't contact everyone I meant to. I'm sorry to all of you.

Peace out.

it

I always try to remember the very last time I can see you. So I watched you walk home today from my bay window. Jeans, slippers, brown crocheted/knitted thing on. Your bag slung across you. Two white papers in your left hand. Hair down. And you walked in the garage door and I missed you.

Peace out.

Yellow Leaves

Yellow leaves in the fall are definitely my favorite. That doesn't really make any sense because I hate the color yellow. It makes me feel tense and rushed most of the time, and I never liked that our house was mostly yellow. But this week, when I was at home, I noticed yellow leaves a lot more than ever. I don't know why they struck me. They were so nice to look at, though.

I remember there was a tree on the main green here, a couple weeks ago, the week that we sat outside and a man got attacked by a squirrel, that had leaves that were turning a very bright yellow and I thought that tree looked incredible, too.

I think I first noticed the yellow leaves at home, though, on the way home from school on Wednesday. I was driving Gina [and myself] back home on Smithbridge Road, and just after we passed the middle school, we saw a line of trees with beautiful yellow leaves. They're the ones that line the awkward bend of the running path that goes in a big circle near Kid's Dream Playground, between the school and the house with a grey steel chicken outside of it. So we just looked and appreciated them for a moment.

And then when we got home, we noticed that in Gina's back yard, the big tree was covered in bright yellow leaves, too. But it didn't look like any of them had fallen yet; the tree was still very full. I don't remember why, but Gina had her camera on her at some point that day and took a couple pictures of the tree.

I meant to take pictures when I went home this time. I really did. I meant to take pictures of that tree when the leaves were still yellow. I was even going to take the picture in color. Maybe even vivid color. But for some reason I never got around to it, and by the time I finally decided I would make myself take that picture, on Sunday morning, all the leaves had fallen.

Peace out.

Coming Home!

I can't believe that it is on the day that I come home that I start to develop a cold sore on my lip.

Peace out.

KY

Last Thursday or Friday, I was sitting in the BH lobby doing some homework or Facebooking or something in the middle of the glass-lighted table where most people do their work while here. I was sitting on the side closest to the doors, and across from me, a bit to my right [closer to the Brown Food Cart] were two people talking about a bunch of courses at Brown. I can't remember exactly what I heard or in what order I heard it, but I remember at one point the girl suggested creating a class numbered ENGN0070 because she liked the number "7." Then she and the guy that she was sitting with started talking about what would be in the course - I remember they said it should be fun, with group projects, design projects, things like that. I guess they were trying to come up with a new intro course for Engineering track freshmen that would get them interested and keep them there.

Actually, before that, I remember them going over some statistics on some paper the girl brought with her. I think one of the questions that was surveyed and reviewed on one of the pages was "What needs to be fixed in the Brown Engineering Department?" I think one of the answers was that the professors didn't seem to care, or something along those lines. Another one of the questions was "What is the best engineering school?" Of course M.I.T. was #1 - I forget how many responses it had - and Brown only had one respondent name it as the best engineering school. There were some other things they talked about on those sheets but I can't remember what they were.

A little bit later on they were talking about the requirements for the ENGN track at Brown, and what it should and shouldn't include. Apparently Linear Algebra (MATH0520) is currently a requirement, but people blow it off more readily than any other course on the list of pre-reqs, and they seemed pretty upset about that. They looked at the list and saw that CHEM0330 was a pre-req, too, but that it could be satisfied with CHEM0100. They decided if the pre-req could be met with 0100, there was no reason to make engineers waste their time with 0330, so they took that off the list, I believe, and hoped it would give people room to take Linear Algebra instead.

At one point, I looked over on their paper and saw a big circle with AM33 & AM34 inside it that said "DIFF EQ" [differential equations], which apparently they thought was a big problem. They started talking about APMA0330 (Applied Math 1) and APMPA0340 (Applied Math 2), and I could tell that neither of them had been in those courses for a while. I spoke up and said, "I'm in AM33 if you have any questions about what it's like now," because I could tell that the curicculum had changed over the past four years from what they were saying. I told them that we did tons and tons of forms of ordinary and partial differential equations, and he seemed to think that was good enough for the needs of the program and you could learn anything else along the way. I showed him the homework set I just got back - which included the method of variation of parameters, etc. - and he commented that he never had anything like that in his year. He said they spent a month on population models alone - we spent one-fifth of a problem set on it. We agreed that AM33 needed to be fixed, though, because it's kind of a hodge-podge requirement course for a number of different majors [Engine, business, applied math, comp sci, some more?] and tries to satisfy them all while not actually satisfying any of them. I think they agreed to design a differential equations course specifically for engineering majors.

At that point, I think the girl asked me for my name, so I told her, and she said her name was Teresa. They guy's name was Ky [I wasn't sure how to spell it, and the time I thought it might be Kai or something else]. She had really short black hair, glasses, thin. He had blondish hair and a little bit of facial hair. Both were white, and young - she was a new staff member and he was a senior engineering major.

There's more to this but I have to go to class now...

Peace out.

The Long Awaited William McNary

Just about the only group at Brown that I'm active in is Democracy Matters. I didn't see them at the activity fair, but I saw their name on the huge list of clubs and put a star next to them after reading their tagline. I sent an e-mail to their president, Jonathan Bogard, that said something very close to

Dear Jon,

I feel shut out, pissed off, and ready to change politics.
Also I am poor.

Sincerely,
Jeff Conway

I think he got back to me that night to tell me about the first meeting, at the Sarah Doyle Women's Center, at 8PM on Sunday. I rode my bike, and I saw Gene there, and a girl named Christine or Christina baked chocolate chip cookies that I thought were really good. I wore my "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican" shirt that I had bought the day I came onto campus at the Urban Outfitters on Thayer St.

I can't remember exactly when we started planning, but at some point we wanted to bring in a speaker. I think this was probably the second or third meeting, and we went through a small list of names of people that supported public financing of election (which is what Democracy Matters [DM] works on). I think there was some big names, like Senator Dick Durbin, and some relative of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, and then William McNary, who Te-Ping said was the best and most electrifying speaker she had ever, ever seen. He seemed a lot more plausible than all the other candidates, plus Te-Ping swore by him, so we decided to go for him.

We wanted to make sure a lot of people came to see him and got excited for our cause, of course, so we started tableslipping. We decided to go the viral marketing route. The first batch of tableslips said in large letters "WHO IS WILLIAM MCNARY" and then had a blacked out face with a ? in the middle of it, signed Democracy Matters at the bottom.

After that, we decided to start "campusslipping," which is basically when you take the equivalent of a tableslip and tape it somewhere around campus where people will walk on it or see it. There are some really nice, reflective windows on the Bio-Med center building as you walk down Brown St., and people always look at themselves in them, so we were told to put some there. The slips said: "MCNARY // power is finite. // equality is infinite"

The next batch of tableslips, I believe, looked like a dictionary page and came to the entry "McNary," defined as one of the most electrifying speakers of our time, and then gave the location of the speech (Monday, November 11th, 8PM in Salomon 001). The next entry in the dictionary, I remember, was "williaw," which I think is a swift and cold breeze or something close to that. The writing on the dictionary pages got lighter as you went up or down, so the McNary entry was by far the darkest/most visible.

The final batch of tableslips was done on Monday, just to tell people that the speech was that night. I signed up to tableslip the V-Dub at 4PM, forgetting that I had my Education seminar at that time. I had to pass it off to Jon when I saw him setting up the table where we would hand out hot chocolate and talk to people about democracy.

I went to the speech. I had a bag of gummi worms in my pocket that I wanted to save until the show started but I ended up eating a couple of beforehand. Gene and Yana came to see, and they sat next to me. Danny and Kayla also came, and sat next to Gene and Yana. To be honest, I don't remember much about the speech, and I don't think it was that interesting. He wasn't as electrifying as he was made out to be. He basically outlined a socialist utopia and then said that public financing of elections would bring us that. He rubbed the podium he was speaking at very often, and didn't make good eye contact, and raised his back left foot up a lot. He had a LOT of papers in front of him and it looked like he was reading from them. He used a lot of rhymes. He's black, and he was bald, I think he was Baptist, but he was very liberal, although he did not mention abortion.

The most interesting part of the entire experience was the man sitting in front of me.

One time when I went to the Brown bookstore, I saw a homeless person when I was parking my bike beside the building. I think that was the first homeless person I had seen in Providence, although I can't be sure. I remember being startled by him, though. If I'm remembering correctly, this was the same man who was sitting in front of me at the McNary speech.

It was a black man, with male-pattern baldness, but that only covers about a third of his head. The rest of his hair is very long, and he seemed to have it in dreadlocks, but much thinner than usual dreadlocks. You could see spots and strands of gray in his hair, but largely it was black. He also had a substantial beard, and you could see gray in that, too. His skin seemed really leathery, and I could almost hear the texture at one point when he began rubbing his hands together repeatedly. I wondered why he did that. The top of his head - the bald part - also seemed pretty leathery.

He was wearing a large gold ring, and he took it off later. I remember he was wearing three layers of shirts, a jacket and some sort of athletic wear and something else. He clapped at the mention of universal health care, and at the criticism of the war in Iraq.

I had to wonder how he found out about the speech by McNary. It wasn't very well publicized in the community, from what I could tell, although one or two other adults did show up. This guy had a copy of the Brown Daily Herald in his hand - maybe it was in there, but I think I would have heard if somebody were putting something about McNary in there.

I wondered how long he'd been going to speeches like this at Brown. How many lectures has he been to? What does he know about public financing? What does he know about carbon trading or the ACLU or graph theory? What kind of education is this guy getting from these speeches?

Peace out.

Response Paper

I stayed up until now - 2:20AM - doing my readings for my education course tomorrow so that I could write a paper by 3AM and be done with my responses. Before I started writing the paper, I looked at Dr. West's comment and suggestions again on my old papers. He said that I should write about my issue on the central topics - this week, teacher compensation and merit pay. I decided not to write the paper because I didn't have an opinion. I feel pretty strange right now. I feel kind of cheated, because I stayed up so late for nothing. I also know that I should definitely have an opinion on this, I just can't feel it right now.

Peace out.

Updated Letter from Mrs. Rock

I put the old edited stuff back in the post about Mrs. Rock, so its title is partially inaccurate now. Some stuff I'm still leaving out. Maybe I'll put add it this fall or spring or something.

Peace out!

My Strongest Memory of Aston

When I was in 7th grade, my old cat, Pepper, started to get sick. I remember it was in 7th grade because the last time I saw her was when my mom picked me up from an Aston soccer practice, and I was only with Aston during 7th grade.

I remember the practices were held on some school campus that I thought was absolutely huge, and it was quite a drive for me, especially compared to BYC where I used to play (and could walk to if I asked). Our coach was Scottish, the father of Bill Randall, and the team was full of misfits but we were all friends. I remember there were two kids named Ed and Kevin who were rough around the edges, but best friends, and really easy to get along with. They're the kind of kids who would see a friend getting in a fight in a street and beat the crap out of the other kid even if they didn't know why anyone was fighting, because they would just assume their friend was right and that was all there was to it. There was also another kid named Ian who I remember pretty clearly because he was good at soccer, sort of strange, sort of pale, sort of small, pretty fast though. He had a little sister who looked way too much like him. There might have been a red-headed kid named Michael Conway on that team, too, but I can't remember. Pat MacCullough was also on the team. He was goofy, and got kicked in the kidney once and peed blood.

Anyway.

I remember practices were always really pretty. I don't know why, but I don't have any memories of practices at night or in storms. They're all at sunset in a large open field, and all very beautiful. I remember we had a practice on September 11th, 2001, and we saw a plane go across the sky and we were all worried. I think that's the only way I could figure out that I was actually on the team during 7th grade, not 6th.

Like I was saying, my cat Pepper was very sick at the time. I think she was just about as old at me, so probably 12 or 13 years old at that point. She had congestive heart failure, I think. She was on some medicines for it that my mom had to painfully force feed her or trick her into eating every day, but it didn't look like anything was helping.

Pepper started retaining fluid. She got really really bloated, and my dad would jokingly call her a basketball with ears (which didn't make sense because she was not orange). I remember that you could feel the liquid inside of her if you put a little pressure on her skin, and you could feel from her matte that she wasn't washing herself anymore. She looked sad, I remember thinking. I think one time my parents actually had the vet remove whatever fluid was building up in her, but it came back very quickly.

My parents inevitably had to deal with issue of euthenasia. My dad thought it was the right thing to do because he believed we were just making the cat suffer, and she wasn't enjoying life anymore, she was just in pain. My mom, I think, was too emotionally attached to Pepper, so she thought putting her to sleep was simply out of the picture. I remember they talked a couple times about some talk show in California that wanted to talk to couples that were having such issues, but I think they wanted them to bring Pepper to the filming of the show, and that was just ridiculous, so of course they would never do that.

One day, Tuesday or Thursday, after soccer practice in Aston - I think it was still light out, so it must have been pretty early in the season - my mom came to pick me up in whichever van we had at the time. I got in the back seat (couldn't ride passenger seat for some reason) and I saw Pepper next to me in the backseat, laying in a box. She wasn't moving much, and she was much bigger than any cat should be and way bigger than she had ever been when she was healthy. I didn't know what was going on, and I remember being kind of confused and worried. My mom told me we were taking her to the vet to put her to sleep, and she thought she would bring Pepper to practice so I could see her one more time and say goodbye. I can't remember if I cried right then or not. I loved that cat, and I still miss her.

We drove to the vet on the way home, and my mom asked me if I wanted to go in with her or not. I knew I would never be able to see something like that, so I waited in the car and my mom took the box with Pepper inside it into the building. I'm pretty positive I was crying by then, since that was the last time I would ever have seen Pepper alive. She came back out a little bit later. I can't remember if she had her body or not, because I know we had a funeral for Pepper but I think I would have been creeped out if she had brought the body back.

I asked Mom how Pepper looked when she was dying, and she said she just looked like she was going to sleep and that she looked happy. I believed her at the time, but I'm not so sure I can believe that anymore.

I don't remember the ride home. I remember that I cried a lot that night and I'm pretty sure my mom asked if I wanted to skip school the next day. I didn't skip, but I'm pretty sure I was a wreck the next night, too.

We didn't have very many good pictures of Pepper. The best one I think we could find, I think, is the one my mom framed and gave to me. It's a picture of Pepper sitting on two paws in front of the glass sliding door in the kitchen at our Brookside house, looking towards the camera with her green eyes. You can see that she doesn't have a tail, and you can see from her mix of brown and black fur that she was very much a mutt. There was still some sort of construction in our backyard at the time, so you could see hunter's orange wirefence in the background. My mom also gave me the last collar Pepper ever wore - it's old and yellow and beaten up and it's hanging on the frame of that picture in my room on my bedstand. I remember the first time I touched it, I just lost it. I've gotten a little better since then, but not much.

And of all the things I remember about my year with Aston, this is the strongest.

Peace out.

That was NOT a Safe Ride

This Saturday, Nupur and I went to see a Tom Stoppard play called "The Real Inspector Hound" being performed by a student group in Brown's T. F. Green building, which I'd say is about three-fourths of a mile away from either of our dorms. We got out of the play, I think, very shortly after 12:00AM (so by the it was technically Sunday morning). We started walking back towards our dorms, but we were both freezing the entire time we were watching the play and we were even more freezing now that we were walking outside. We really, really wanted a way to be not-freezing-our-faces-off.

The obvious answer, of course, is SafeRide, the free shuttle that goes around the Brown and RISD campuses. For the past couple days, Nupur and I kept seeing SafeRide vans with drivers just parked in the lot outside of B & H, and since that was essentially on our way back anyway, we figured we would go there. For the first time we could remember, there were no SafeRide vans in the parking lot of B & H. I don't think we saw any at all, not even any parked without drivers.

So we kept walking on, past B & H. We could see into the lounge (where I am right now) and see that no one was there, so we knew there was no way in. We kept walking around to the sliding-door entrance and I tried all three of the doors there - the central sliding doors and the two doors on either side - because I really wanted a break from the freezing (B & H usually has a good climate). None of the doors opened. We could see people in the computer lab - some people have cards that will let them swipe in - but we figured it wasn't even worth waiting to get the attention of the nearest person and ask to be let in, so we just went on and figured we would look for SafeRide on Thayer St.

So we made The Walk from B & H, down the brick pathway lined with trees, across Brook St., across the cement sidewalk between the Sci Li and MacMillan, and turned right onto Thayer St. Nupur thought she saw a SafeRide van parked, so we ran towards it screaming, but then we saw that it wasn't a SafeRide van. Then, thank god, a SafeRide van came driving right towards us from further up Thayer St., so we flagged it down, ran to the nearest stop, and got in.

Now, when you get into SafeRide, you're supposed to show them your Brown or RISD ID card so they know they're not just giving rides to crazy people who want free, safe rides in white vans with heaters on. Oh, yes, the heater was on and it was glorious. Anyway, the point is, the driver didn't check our IDs. We just got right in and he left as soon as we closed the door. That didn't make me feel very safe...?

We got in the van at 12:17AM.

As we were driving down Thayer St., the driver kept talking on his cell phone (but in walkie-talkie mode) in Spanish(?) to someone else. Just about all I could figure out was that it was also a guy. The only time our driver stopped talking on his cell phone was when he wasn't driving the van, which seemed completely backwards, but what was I going to do? So I just went with it, feeling once again, not very safe.

Our ride wasn't the most direct path. We went down Thayer St. some more, and I forget exactly where we went from there, but I remember we drove through the center of The Walk and I was upset that we hadn't just caught the SafeRide van crossing when we were there. Later on in the ride, the van actually stopped right outside the T. F. Green building, where Nupur and I had left the play. We could have just stayed inside and waiting and we would have been exactly as well off as we were before. We felt a little cheated, I think.

When we stopped at the T. F. Green, three more people got in - Peter Drinan, a really nice guy from New York in my Education class; Taylor, a very proud singer; and another girl whose name I unfortunately forgot as soon as she said it. Peter and Taylor were in a competition that night to see who knew more people - they were in that competition before the play, too, and Peter called my name just so he could prove to Taylor that he knew me.

When we got in the van, Peter said hello to me again to show again to Taylor that he knew more people than her. She introduced herself to me, and I said, "Hey, yeah, I'm Jeff, I've met you before!" She looked really confused. I'm pretty sure it was because I met her when she was drunk and she didn't have any memory of it. I guess she was a little worried of what I knew of her if she couldn't remember meeting me. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Nupur and I talked for the rest of the ride home. The other three got out at Keeney before the van went North to Pembroke so Nupur and I could get out.

It was 12:35AM when we got out of the van.

IT WAS NOT A SAFE RIDE.

Peace out!

Midnight Organ Concert

On October 31st at 11:59PM, the University was sponsoring a midnight organ concert. I think they put on three midnight concerts every year - once the day before class starts, once on Halloween, and once on Day on College Hill when all the prospective freshmen come to look at the campus. I went to the one the day before classes started, and last night I went to the one on Halloween.

The name of the first piece was "The World Awaiting a Savior," by some French composer with a name close to Durcel. I read it in the program long before the organ started playing, and I was really excited for it - what could this song sound like? Imagine how intense and powerful it must be to be worthy of fame with a title like The World Awaiting a Savior...! I expected it to be one of those pieces that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck and made you shiver a little bit and then wonder if anyone else saw you shaking or could possibly feel the same way listening to it as you do.

Sadly, I was very disappointed by the piece. I remember thinking through it that it sounded like something written by a five-year-old. I mean, of course it was written by a famous composer in his adulthood, but it sounded really disorganized and unstructured... and not even that the disorganization and lack of structure were for effect, it just sounded like the composer was too lazy to make anything better so he just threw some notes on a paper and hoped someone would be able to play it.

So I didn't concentrate on the piee. Instead I looked around at everyone else in Sayles Hall watching. Most people were laying down. Max was right near me with his friend, Sunshine, who said that he had no first name. At one point Max laid his head down on the crossed legs of the girl behind him and tried to move his arms to make himself comfortable, and ended up laying his elbow across Sunshine's neck. He just turned his head smiled at Max, and eventually Max moved his elbow. He also ended up putting his foot on a crinkled piece of paper in an attempt to make himself comfortable. I saw that he was upset that he was making noise, so I said to him, "Lift up your foot" (I forget if it was left or right), then held up the paper, said "Put your foot down," and then let the paper drop on top of his shoes instead (the paper was underneath someone else, so I couldn't just move the paper).

I liked looking out in the audience... like I said, most people were laying down, but a select few were sitting against the wall or sitting cross-legged among the rest. There was one kid who particularly caught my attention. He was sitting about twenty feet from me, in the center of the width of the room but only about a quarter of the way back. He was staring very intently upward, but I didn't know why - the organ is up a floor, and there was no was he could possibly see the organ, so I don't really know what he was looking at. In either case, he didn't look down through the entire piece. He had both of his feet on the ground, but still sitting, with his arms around his knees, and he was holding the program in his right hand. He had glasses on, and a buzz cut, and I couldn't tell what ethnicity he was, probably Middle Eastern. I don't know why I was so struck by him - I guess it was because I couldn't believe how into the music he seemed to be.

The first piece ended on a major chord, which I didn't expect. Everyone was clapping, and Nathan said to me, "I love how you can feel the low notes!" And then I realized that I spent so much time looking at the crowd that I missed my favorite part of the organ itself.

Peace out!

Waffle Troubles

One of my favorite parts of Food@Brown is the Carbon waffle irons at the VDub. Generally, a Belgian Waffle with some syrup is my special 'dessert' breakfast for the week every Friday - since the VDub is closed on Saturday and Sunday. For the first month of school, it all went well as far as the waffles were concerned.

However, recently, it's taken a turn for the worst.

I can't remember when, but at one point last week, I was trying to make a Belgian waffle - maybe it was one for dinner since I stupidly went to the VDub even though they never have anything I like for dinner. In either case, when I lifted up the top half of the waffle machine, half of the waffle went with it. It took me so long to pry that waffle out of there. I'm not sure if I tried for another one after that or not.

I remember this Friday - my big day, going home! - I was so excited for my Belgian waffle. What a great way to start such a great weekend, right? So I put on the Pam and the batter, waiting 2m15s, and came back for my waffle. Once again, ripped right in half. Had to spend like five minutes tearing it out, then had to try again. I'm pretty sure that one was ripped in half, too. I remember that it looked inedible, but I'll be damned if I didn't have a Belgian waffle for breakfast on my big day, so I ate it anyway. [I was so excited I didn't really care, honestly!]

So Monday - "today" - I decided I wanted to try again to make up for lost waffles last week. When I showed up, BOTH irons had torn-in-half waffles in them, left by some very-entitled-feeling jerkbags who thought it wasn't their responsibility to clean up after stupid things they did. Myself and one other guy spent 5-10 minutes scraping out their mistake. He beat me to the punch, and put his waffle batter in. I then cleaned mine off and - damnit! - THERE WAS NO BATTER LEFT! But, again, I'll be damned if I didn't have a waffle to make up for the one on my big day. So I took what little batter there was left and put it in the iron, waited 2m15s, and opened it up. It wasn't quite done, and it certainly wasn't as big as a real waffle should be, but it was edible, so I ate it.

Today - Tuesday - I am on a mission. For a perfect Belgian waffle. It will not be ripped in half or half the size of what a Belgian waffle should be. I will not stop until I have acheived my goal. Wish me luck.

Peace out!

P.S. Happy birthday to Gina!!! If you're reading this you should tell her happy birthday. If you're a Brown person and don't know how to contact her, just ask me =)

A Letter to Mrs. Rock, Omitting 1.75 Paragraphs, Personal Info, and a Post Script

Dear Mrs. Rock, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10/29/07

I meant to write you this letter during the first month of school, but it somehow slipped my schedule so I'm writing it now - during class. Heh.

The first thing I wnated to tell you is just something fun I thought you could do: I'm going out with Gina Mattei, and if you said something about that in class, she'd probably melt, so you should! She tells me about your AP Gov class all the time - she thinks it's a ton of fun and that you're hilarious, like when you tried to get Dave Seiler in ^extra trouble for his counterfeit ID! And something about writing crazy things on the board when you were on the phone, but I forget exactly all the details of that story...

The QuizBowl team here is C R A Z Y. It's SO hard. I don't know how these kids know these things. I didn't really like the whole deal, though, so I decided not to do it. I really miss GV Hi-Q. I'm glad I devoted myself to it as much as I did now. Last year was really special, I thought - 3 freshman on-stage, we pretty much had 3 advisors (w/ Mrs. Law's help), and everyone was really close and we were always so excited to be there or at QuizBowl or bake cookies for a reception or anything...! I suppose that could still happen this/future years at GV, but it doesn't seem possible here. QuizBowl here is too huge & bulky & loose. So I guess what I'm trying to say is thanks for making last year happen. I really appreciated it.

Also, I don't know how to say/explain this without being awkward, but thanks for being such a good teacher. I liked you when I had you, but now that I can put you up against college professors... there is no comparison. They don't care as much as you did. They don't run class as well. They don't learn names or passions or interests. They don't have Gwen Stefani ringtones or stories about beach houses or speeches about annexing Mexico or candy bowls or college magnets. You did. You also taught - I find myself teaching myself out of books here a lot. It's just... there's no comparison between my classes here & my classes with you. Yours were superior in every way and I miss them very much.

I think Julie is applying to college this year, right? I hope that's going well. I'm sure she'll get in pretty much anywhere she wants to go. [Other omitted paragraph]

As for classes, I'm taking four different calculus classes right now. None of them are too hard, but the lectures are 50% useless and I use textbooks to learn a lot. Only have 3 tests per year really sucks. I'm doing fine, though, but some wiggle room would be a comfort right now. I'm in my education seminar right now - we talk about issues like standardizes testing, black-white gaps, teacher pay, NCLB Act...

Speaking of which, I'm becoming increasingly interesting in being a teacher. If that becomes the case, I'd be forced to leave Brown - they have no Math teacher training program. Plus no one would pay for me to go to Brown to be a teacher...

I'm trying to take a "City Politics" course next semester with this professor named Morone. Apparently his lectures are usually ended by a standing ovations, and he sometimes makes audience members cry with his passion. I'm pretty excited.

You should write me back/tell me how it's going! I'll probably see you on Thanksgiving weekend Wednesday, but that's still 3 weeks away and you should talk to me before then! How's Hi-Q looking this year? How are your AP US classes? How's your Cadillac convertible and beach house and everything else?

Email: Jeff_C@brown.edu
. . . . . mailto:.mCJE@gmail.com
Address: Jeff C
. . . . . . . . Brown University
. . . . . . . . 75 Waterman St., Box #5226
. . . . . . . . Providence, RI, 02912

Hope to see you soon!

Jeff

P.S. Say something to Gina for me!! =)

Plane ride

I've been using planes a lot more frequently than in the past. Each one is kind of like an emotional rollercoaster, but, there are some interesting things about plane rides. On the way back home the first time, when I was talking to Gina about it, I remember saying that I had done my math homework on the way back and I felt like I had missed out on something, and I wouldn't do that again. So now I make a point of looking out the window as much as possible on flights.

First off, when you just take off - maybe two minutes after - have you ever looked outside and just noticed huuuge, huge tracts of land that looks like farmland? Especially for those of us reading this that have taken off from Philadelphia. And have you wondered where the hell those huge tracts of land came from? When's the last time you were driving around and you just saw enormous tracts of unmolested land surrounding Philadelphia? I don't know what's going on with those... I'd like to get in the air, plot on out, and then see what was inside it.

A little bit later on in the flight, I saw one of the most ridiculous and incredible and beautiful things I'd ever seen. I think by far the coolest thing I've ever seen on any flight. I think it was a couple cumulous clouds, though I can't say that for sure, that weren't too big... they were more like drops of clouds than anything else, but still substantial enough to cast huge shadows on the tracts of land below. Anyway, I was looking at one, and suddenly I noticed that it was rainbow colored. Throughout its entire body. I didn't figure out exactly what the pattern was - a stripe of rainbow, or a circle? - because I was too busy just admiring it and being in awe of it. I saw a few more after the first one, and tried to take a picture of it. I don't think rainbow clouds come out very well in my camera. In either case... I guess the best way to describe it is that it looks like something out of a children's show or video game, but it was very real.

Somewhere near the coastline on my flight, I started just looking at the shapes in the ground. Geography can actually be extremely beautiful and pleasing to look at. It made me want to consider taking a course in geology, but I doubt there's too much to be said or studied concerning the beauty of geology.

Around that coastline, when we went a little further out, I looked down at the water and I noticed a lot of points of white. I couldn't tell what the hell they were. They couldn't be whitecaps because they were too stable - I could see waves on the shore, but I could see them move and change. It could have been clouds, but they looked way too solid and too distant and too attached to the water. It might have been boats, but if that were the case, there must have been 50,000 boats in this part of the water. I guess that would be really cool, but sadly, I doubt that was the case.

Peace out.

Friends

As promised, before I left, I got a word-for-word copy of the friendship poem performed by Phil and Sarah kay at the Solemn and Sparrows Spoken Word Show. Here it is:

::

P [Phil Kaye]: Hey.

S [Sarah Kay]: Hey.

P: This is it.

S: I can't believe we're finally here.

P: It's taken lots of hours

S: Lot's of late nights.
But just so you know, When you're pulling an all nighter & studying at the Scili @ 2am, I'll make the Jo's run & bring you a spicy, with.

P: If you forget your card, you can always use one of my guest credits.

S: Even when you can't be there for super smash brothers, I promise I won't take Kirby.

P: I'll be the best man at your wedding.

S: I'll always save you a spot

P: I'll never break a promise

S: I'll never lie to you

P: I'll always tell you how you really look

S: I'll never rat you out

P: I'll never keep you waiting

S: Even when all you have is an egg-salad sandwich, I'll still let you trade me for one lunchables pizza.

P: Even if the cool kids ask me to sit with them, I'll only go if there's room for two.

S: I will be the spongebob to your patrick
P: harry to your ron
S: shaggy to your scooby
P: boo boo to your yogi
S: bert to your ernie
P: beavis to your butthead
S: wallace to your grommit
P: christopher robin to your winnie the pooh

S: When they make fun of your accent, I'll take you swimming, because we all sound the same under water.

P: When you're old and can no longer remember my name, I'll meet you again & again every day.

S: The night you come out to your parents, you can come sleep over at my house.

P: When everyone knows you as the kid who pissed his pants, I'll still play handball with you.

S: I'll come visit you every week of your sentence.

P: When your dreams get shattered, I'll stay up with you to find all the pieces and tape them back together.

S: I'll always see you for the alley-oop.

P: I'll let you be the Red Power Ranger.

S: I'll let you back-cut me in line.

P: When you audition for a hundred plays, and don't get called back to a single one, and say you're no good and should just give up... I’ll be there for audition one-hundred and one.

S: When you don't have a date to prom, I'll let you take my cousin.

P: When your harddrive crashes, I will lend you my porn.

S: lennon, I will be your mccartney
P: Archie your Jughead
S: watson your sherlock
P: rosencrantz your guildenstern
S: snoop your dre
P: snoopy your woodstock
S: ben affleck your matt damon
P: raphael your leonardo
S: and your donatello
P: and your michelangelo

S: when you forget the sequence of this poem, I will ad-lib until you remember what comes next.

P: When you have to be carried out of Sex power god wearing nothing but fishnets and a solo cup, I won't put that shit on facebook.

S: I will not make fun of you for liking grey's anatomy. Or the hills. Or wicked.

P: If you die a young, tragic death, I will get a tattoo of your name across my wrist.

S: I will remember every birthday.

P: I will save every letter.

S: I will keep every secret.

P: I will march with you from Selma to Montgomery and back again, however many times it takes.

S: And I will take the hoses and the dogs standing by your side.

P: When Ellis Island tries to erase your past, I'll still always call you by your real name.

S: When you lose everything in the fire, my home will be your home.

P: When your kids are little and think you're incredible, I'll be there to remind them how lame you are.
S: When your kids are teenagers and think you're lame, I'll be there to remind them how incredible you are.

(both): Because I have seen the best of you and the worst of you and I choose both.
P: I want to share every one of your sunshines and save some for later.
S: I will tuck them in my pocket so I can give them back to you when the rains fall hard.
(both): Friend,
P: I want to be the mirror that reminds you to love yourself.
S: I wand to be the air in your lungs that reminds you to breathe easy.
P: when the walls come down,
S: when the thunder rumbles,
P: when nobody else is home.

(both): Hold my hand
P: and I promise
S: I wont let go.

::

=)

Peace out!

Home!

I'm going home! TODAY! I'm so, so very excited.

Peace out!

Your Interests Will Change!

I guess I should explain how I'm feeling about that e-mail a little more. Basically, the one thing that I love to do more than anything else just got removed from my life. I don't know what to do. Other than going home occasionally, there is nothing at Brown that I look forward to. I've been miserable about it all day, and last night I felt like crying. I honestly just don't know what the hell to do. I want to slam my fist through a wall or scream or harm small woodland animals or kick my cat or go to Waterfire and sit alone for a long time, I don't know.

I've been talking to some people recently about how I was upset that Brown didn't have the things that I really loved and really cared about - percussion, drumline, drum corps, roller hockey, competition math, anything with music at all, and then some other like home/family/friends/etc... It made me really upset, because people kept saying, "Your interest will change!" Then they laugh or smile and pat you on the back, as if you should be happy of the fact that all the beauty in life is gone.

And I was really angry at them. Who are you to tell me that my interests are fleeting? Or that my passion is so shallow and transitory?

How would you like it if I was at your wedding I stood up during the ceremony and said, "You won't love her in two years"? It's only the light of your life, relax.

I need to talk to my dad.

Peace out.

Difficult

I just recieved perhaps the most crushing e-mail of my life.

::

Hi, I hope everyone is well!

This email is being sent to those that expressed interest in the BU Winter Percussion Ensemble through the on-line interest form. If you have changed your mind since filling out the form, let me know and I can take your name off of our list. I would also ask that you pass this email along to your friends that may be interested in joining!

Staff Changes:
Last season a number of new faces were introduced to the staff. I've asked some of those new faces to take on more active roles in the ensemble.

Gabe Cobas worked great with the front ensemble last year. I'm pleased to announce that Gabe will be returning this season as the Artistic Director and Front Ensemble Arranger / Technician.

Ian Flint designed an excellent visual program for the group last year, and we hope to expand on those successes. Ian will be returning as the Visual Program Designer.

Phil Perry developed the Battery into a great marching ensemble. Phil will be returning as the ensemble's lead Visual Technician.

Chris Dufault will bring his years of marching percussion experience back to this year's ensemble as a program consultant.

Mike Barsano will continue as the ensemble administrator.

A few new faces will also be added to the team!

Matt Ramey has worked with the percussion section of the BU Marching Band for the past 2 seasons as well as many other Drum Corps and indoor percussion ensembles. As an Alumni of the Santa Clara Vanguard, and a Contemporary Writing and Production student at the Berklee College of Music, Matt will surely bring a number of fresh ideas to the ensemble as the Battery Arranger and Technician.

Many more new faces will be announced over the next few weeks! Check out the group's web page for staff bio's.

Schedule:

The Friday night, Saturday, Sunday schedule that the ensemble has used in the past has made progress difficult at times. To overcome this difficulty, the ensemble will rehearse on Tuesday night from 7:30 to 9:30, Thursday night from 7:00 to 9:00, and Saturday from 10:00 to 7:00. I know this will make it difficult or infeasible for some of you to participate, but we feel it is in the best interest of the ensemble to implement this new schedule.

Workshops:

The 2008 season will kick off on Tuesday, November 6, 2007! Attendance at these pre-audition workshops is required. The audition rehearsal will be held on Saturday, December 1, 2007. Check out the ensemble's web site for the November, December, and January schedules. The exercise packets for the Battery and Pit will be added to the web site within the next few days!

Show:

The design team has been working very hard over the past 2 months to assemble a successful show. We are currently dotting the i's and crossing the t's on the show, and an announcement

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you on November 6th!

If you have any questions please drop me an email!

Mike "Wuzz" Wasielewski
Director
Boston University Winter Percussion Ensemble

::

Peace out.

The Picture of College

When we took our break for Education 0410B today, Dr. West decided that it was way too hot inside and we should go for class outside. It was a beautiful day, and we were all really excited about it. Our break ended a little early, which wasn't much fun, but it was okay.

Seriously, the scene was like the picture-book version of college. More specifically, the picture-book version of Brown. Twenty kids of every color and their professor - wearing cowboy boots, jeans, and a flannel collared shrit - sitting outside with no textbooks and often no shoes, talking about desegregation while sitting in a beautiful quad with yellowing leaves falling and hanging everywhere. And squirrels. There were lots of squirrels.

We were sitting in something like a circle, and Dr. West had his back to a tree. I was sitting across from him, so I could see behind him. There was another tree over his left shoulder, and there was a kid sitting there, with either a book or a laptop [can't remember which], studying or writing. It was like out of a college brochure. There was a cute squirrel on the tree on the part closest to me. There was another squirrel in the grass even closer to me, and it started to run towards the tree. Then the squirrel in the grass climbed up the tree and started chasing the other squirrel. They went around for a couple seconds - but I didn't see anything too crazy - and then, all of a sudden, one of them jumps off.

So the kid was sitting there just doing his work, and out of nowhere this squirrel catapults itself into his neck. I can't describe how incredibly hilarious it was to see this happen. Have you ever been at the beach or a park, and you're just sitting there minding your own business when someone throws something and it hits you in the head, and you're like "Ah, what the hell - a football/frisbee/tennis ball/etc.?" Well that's the exact reaction this kid was going through.

EXCEPT IT WAS A FREAKING SQUIRREL.

Just imagine. Minding your own business when you feel a nudge on your shoulder and you wonder what jerk is playing football too close to you, so you turn your head and BAM, SQUIRREL.

I can't stop laughing at the image. I wish you all could have seen it!

Peace out.

3AM

Last night was the first night in a long time that I actually had to spend working. I thought that was kind of strange - I remember a lot of nights in high school where I kind of felt like I was under the wire and I really had to be on top of things to get it all done, but here it's really only happened once so far, and that's because I kind of made it/forced myself into it.

So there's a big Applied Math project due Tuesday, and so far Max and I had really only been able to figure out what was going on in the first problem (out of four). I woke up somewhat late, went and got breakfast, and then started working on that for pretty much the rest of the day. We got up to the very last problem, but by 7PM we realized we'd reach the end of what we could teach ourselves and we'd have to call it quits for the day. In either case, that was pretty much seven straight hours of work right there, which I think it more than I have done at any other time here.

After that, I went to dinner, then to the Democracy Matters meeting, and decided I would take a break 'till 10:30 or so [it ended up being a little later than that - oops]. I did that knowing that I had 200 pages of reading to do for my Education course and then a paper to write - all before 6AM that morning. So sometime around 11:20, I think, I started the reading. I finished it sometime around 2AM, I think, and I finished my paper within half an hour. So I guess that whole ordeal really only took three hours - which isn't too bad, I don't think. Then I took a shower and went to bed sometime just before 3AM.

The good thing was that I could sleep until 10AM, and I did. So I feel fine. But I don't want to stay up that late tonight. I just want to sleep so that Friday comes faster.

Peace out!

You Have Just Witnessed the Construction of LIGHT

Peace out!

Toking Near the Third Floor Smoke Detector

From 4PM yesterday to 4AM this morning was a very, very crazy time for me. Sometime I'll write it all, hopefully, but for right now I have to go to the bathroom so I'll just talk a bit about 1AM - 4AM.

I got back into my dorm room sometime shortly after 1AM, but I can't remember exactly when. I was really, really wet because I'd been running around all night. My blue jacket is probably still wet, my socks were soaking, even my jeans were wet on like 70% of their surface area. I wanted to take them off because they were uncomfortable but I wasn't the only one in the hall so I couldn't do that very well. I went and I took a nice warm shower - but not too long 'cuz I was kind of tired - came back, got ready for bed and went to sleep. I think I might have listened to that song on my keyboard again, but I transposed it so it's in F# Lydian... I like F# Lydian but I think it sounds better in its original key, so I've put it back.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I fell asleep sometime between 1:25AM and 1:45AM. No problem.

Then, later... I woke up. I didn't know why exactly. Then I heard a sound, and I remember thinking along the lines of: "Hrm... well, that's a funny sound. That's also a really loud sound. I don't think I like you very much, you funny loud sou-OH MY GOD OH MY GOD FIRE ALARM GET THE HELL OUT OF BED."

So that's exactly what I did when I recognized what it was. I didn't have a lot of time to think, assuming of course that it was a real fire and I was actually in danger, so I just did what I had been told to do in a fire alarm situation like this. I suppose I should mention that I sleep in my underwear, which is like, fine, it's more than the swimsuits guys wear in Europe, but I wouldn't want to be outside in front of my entire dorm in my underwear at 3AM. So, like I said, did what I was told to do - grab something to keep you warm for the night and get the hell out of the building as fast as you possibly can. I figured, what's the nearest warm thing to me I can possibly get? My comforter. So I'm in my underwear, grab my comforter, wrap it quickly around my body, bolt out the door and start hopping down the stairway towards the exit on the first floor.

As I was hopping down the stairs in my comforter, I realized that Danny was still in the room. It looked like he might not even have recognized it was a fire alarm by the time I left. I felt really bad about it and was like, God, I should have told Danny to wake up. But there was no way I was going back in for anything.

So hopping hopping down the stairs in my white feather comforter wearing only my underwear, and I get to the first floor, go through the door. As I do, I see Eric Dobson walk out of his room in his red, velvet(?) bathroom robe. I just kept running, got out the door, and stood and looked. No smoke. Probably false alarm. What can you do.

So, I should say, when I grabbed my comforter, I was pretty certain that everyone else ran the hell out of their room, they would probably grab their blankets and run, too. I was very, very wrong. I was the ONLY person with my blanket out their. Everyone else was dressed. Some people were clearly still very awake.

At some point during this ordeal, I looked at my watch. 3AM. We were out there until 3:25AM.

While I was out there, I was talking to Janine (the Minority Peer Counselor on the first floor) and Lauren (the girl who lives with Trish, across the hall and one door down). Janine said she was considering just going back in and sleeping... I don't know how, but we came upon the topic of what to take out with you when you went. Janine said she would take her computer, and I thought... what's the first thing I would take?

I realized it was my blanket. That I've had pretty much since birth. More on that later. After that, I said, I'd take my little box of memories - full of all the cards and letters and other little things I've gotten since shortly before I came here or while I was here. Janine thought that was kind of crazy. She mentioned she would take her camera, which I thought was a good idea, but I have three copies of all my pictures, so I'm currently good for now.

I realized, though, there are a lot of things in my dorm room that I would really, really hate to lose. My box of memories. I don't want to go through everything that's in there right now, but oh, how I would hate to lose that. My blanket. My roller hockey equipment. My flash drives, keys, wallet, money, peppermint patties. My camera. My posters on the wall. My pictures of all my friends. My novelty t-shirts I've had for how long now? My computer. My external hard drive. All of my CDs - not the ones of myself, just the ones I listen to. All my schoolwork. My calculator and its programs. My Rubik's Cube. The mallets mom got me for my birthday one year. My Carbondale foam-mesh hat and aviators.

Thankfully it wasn't a real fire...

Peace out!