Blew Cross

I'm pretty sure I didn't get the internship offer at Independence Blue Cross because I told the interviewer that I didn't think health insurance companies should exist.  Oops!

Peace out.

A Math Dream

I had a dream the other night that got pretty feisty as it got toward the end.  At some point, someone said something along the lines of, "Math isn't an art!"  As I'm sure pretty much anyone reading this knows, I am pretty gung-ho about math being an art.  Anyway, Michael S (the RA from the fourth floor that I played Scrabble with one time) was there in my dream as well, and for some reason he was extremely on my side, which was awesome.  So he sort of laughed at the person and then said something to the effect of, "Oh come on!  Believe math isn't art is like believing that the elephant population is multiplying, or that the planet isn't getting warmer!"  I remember stopping in my dream for my brain to cycle through things to say.  It was kind of surreal.  Anyway, later he continued, "Of course math is an art:  you need to do exercises to communicate effectively through the art."

I'd never thought of that sentence before, and that was the last thing that happened in the dream before I woke up.  It was amazing.  I wish I had thought of that consciously.  I think that's a pretty effective argument of why math is an art.

Peace out.

Compassionate Release

This is why we should have compassionate release:

"JLWOP stands for Juvenile Life Without the Possibility of Parole.

"This means going to adult prison for the rest of your whole life without even the slightest possibility of ever seeing a parole board. For children.

"This is very significant because even someone doing "straight life" (life with the possibility) at least has some date in the future where he will be eligible to go to a parole board. So a straight-lifer has an incentive to do his programs, do his restitution, whatever he needs to do- because those walls close in on you, you know; and even the hardest dude starts thinking about those words "life in prison" after a while. That's how they break gang leaders and get them to debrief, you know. Give them the hope that maybe one day they will get the chance to plead their case in front of a parole board.

"That maybe one day- far in the future- they will have a slim, fighting chance to get paroled.

"They know that they will be old men at that point but there is at least a glimmer of hope that they will be able to look at clouds without razorwire in the way. To eat that home-cooked meal from their elderly wife instead of getting a postcard in their cell that she died alone. To sleep in a real bed for a little while until the end. To go to a park and look at ducks and kites and pretty girls.

"To hold their grandchildren in their lap, and look at the pictures they drew with their crayons, and maybe go and buy a toy the grandkid will cherish forever. Maybe even be able to see the little tyke open the Santa present under the Christmas tree one last time.

"To die with a modicum of dignity in a hospital bed with flowers and loved ones and cards and painkillers and a TV instead of succumbing in agony while shackled to a prison hospice bed in a 5-day old dirty diaper being abused by a prison nurse."

(Taken from HidingFromGoro on the SomethingAwful.com forums)

(The part about the ducks and kites and pretty girls really gets me)

Peace out.

Attempting my first EMAIL BLAG

This is a blag update that I just typed into my gmail compose box!

HOLY CRAP!

If all goes well, I'll be able to update chemicalroad from aboard the MV Explorer just by sending email (which we get for free!) to blogger, essentially.  Which would be way cool, and much better than bugging my sister to update it for me, and giving her the password to my Google account.

Peace out.

Fun With Finals

We all sat outside 216 Thomas on Friday before our Math 416 final. I didn't even bother to look inside the room, but I'm guessing another class was taking a final in there. I only had to get a 40 on this test to get an A in the class, so I wasn't very concerned at all, and I had pretty much no stress going into the test.

Nicole, Fan and I talked for a while before the test. Then when we went inside, the only two seats open next to each other (pretty much) were in the front right corner of the classroom, so Nicole and I took them and sat down. I think I tried to look out the window to the mall between Thomas and Ritenour but I'm not sure.

At one point I turned to Nicole, and very conspicuously said, "DUDE, Nicole, did you SEE the e-mail that he sent like two minutes before class?" I paused a half-second for dramatic effect. "I am TOTALLY freaking out about this. Oh my god." And then I looked back, and all six people in the three seats behind each of us were leaning forward with bugged-out eyes, wondering what the hell could have been in said e-mail and what it would mean for them.

Of course, I was completely kidding. So I turned to them and just said, "Haha, nah, I'm just playing with you. Everything's cool." They laughed a little bit and looked relieved. Nobody punched me in the face or anything, so I consider this joke a success.

//

I needed an 89 on my Stat 510 final to get an A in the course. I was pretty sure that I could do that, but not totally positive. When I actually took the test, I was feeling more and more unsure that I would actually come out of it with an 89. I was thinking that, if I had done well, I would write at the end of the test "I LOVE YOU JOHN F*****!" [where the last part is my professor's last name]. However, I was afraid that he might take off a couple points on the test if I did write that, and I guess I just wasn't willing to risk getting an A-. So I didn't write it.

I got a 90 on the test.

I wonder what would've happened if I'd written I loved him.

I wonder if he'd have been confused when he realized that "I LOVE YOU" and the course evaluation that said "I learned nothing from this course and never had to think once" were in the same handwriting.

//

My Middle Eastern history professor is pretty unique. You have to meet her to really understand why this story is so excellent to the people who were there. She kind of looks like Mrs. Grotke from the Disney show Recess, except she dresses in colors other than green sometimes. She's very very calm, kind of zen-like, except definitely not Buddhist in her beliefs at all. She always speaks very quietly, and in her most absolutely excited moments, the most she will do is turn her regular talking voice to different tones to make it a little bit sing-songy.

Anyway, it was Friday before finals and we were having an optional review session. I wasn't even supposed to be there because I was taking the take-home final and this was really only for the in-class kids. At one point, a kid a row or two behind me asked, "Does spelling count? Because I definitely know the material, but sometimes with names and stuff I'm a little shaky..."

And my professor just stood very calmly and looked at him, kind of looked away, looked back. Not staring him down or condescending, just kind of searching for her words. And calmly she said, about five seconds later, "Well... we are in a university."

And the kid didn't really like that answer. In his same tone as before, he continued, "Yeah, but I mean, it's just spelling, do we..."

My professor continued on, as if the kid weren't even talking, and said, "I have this argument with my fourth grader every day..." [Whoa! Kind of a burn, dude!] "...it's not that your point won't come across, it's about how people will perceive you. You want to come across as the educated person that you are."

I think he continued on, but her stance was clear.

//

My goal for the semester was to not get a 4.0. It's not worth it - you have to do too much work, but you don't learn anything. I got one A- this year. I suppose I met my goal, but I still feel like I didn't go for my goal hard enough.

Live and learn, I guess.

Peace out.

Legion of Boom

During the Iranian revolution in 1979, people who feared for their lives would go to the border, find a shepherd willing to help them, put on all white robes, get on their hands and knees, and crawl amidst a flock of sheep across the border to freedom.

Peace out.

President Evil

I drove to Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon and woke up the next morning at 5:30 so I could go to school all day with my sister. I didn't get to bed until 4am the next day. Last night I kind of wanted to go to bed early, even though I had tried to nap, but ended up hanging out with different people until 3:30 in the morning or so, when I climbed into bed, thinking I would finally get some good sleep.

An hour later, at 4:30 in the morning, the fire alarm went off. I was pretty confused, though trying my best to prepare myself to get outside and deal with the freezing weather. I put on some pants, put on my heavy jacket (no shirt underneath), stepped into my shoes without tying them, and grabbed the comforter off of my bed and ran down the hallway with it around my shoulders. I saw myself reflected in the mirror at the end of the hall, and I looked like I had a cape on. Well anyway, we were all standing outside and being miserable. Some people looked like they hadn't gotten into bed yet. An RA came out and asked us to move further away from the door to make room for people yet to leave the building. There was a barefoot girl beside me and I felt really bad for her. After about ten minutes or so, I saw two people coming down the stairs and wondered how the hell they hadn't made it out of the building yet, then I pieced together that it was Meg and Christine, which was slightly more confusing. The alarm went off. They went back upstairs before they had even made it outside, and everyone else trudged inside and went back to bed.

Then another alarm woke us up at 5:30am. I put on the exact same costume as before, and was feeling really, really upset because all I wanted was some sleep. I expressed my anger when I was outside and a kid beside me - though I forget who it was right now - said he felt the exact same way, hadn't slept well in days, and was counting on tonight. I think the barefoot girl was there again. I kept thinking about telling somebody to pick her up, but then I thought it was my responsibility as much as anyone else's, so they'd just make me do it, but I had a blanket around me. Yeah, I know.

Alex said that if there was another alarm, he wasn't going out. Two a day is the maximum. He also said that the first time the alarm went off, rather than try to get out of bed right away, he just tried to put his pillow around his ears so he could go back to bed.

When I got back in my bed and left all my crap on the floor, I decided I wouldn't go outside if there were another alarm either. I live on the ground floor with a window that I can gently crawl out of in the case of any problem. So I could just wait until the last second and decide if I needed to leave or not. I also realized that I had not followed proper fire safety protocol - when I opened my room door, I didn't check with the back of my hand if the handle was hot or not. Then again, there's nothing flammable outside my room.

I had texted Malinda earlier to ask if she were still awake - this was at a much more reasonable hour of the morning. She texted me back at 4:23am (the first alarm) to say "Now I am :) ". Kerri also texted me the first time saying "Not cool." at the same moment that I texted her "WHAT. THE. F***." The next time out, she sent me "Im going to kill someone" at 5:40am, and I sent "F*** simmons" at almost the same time, again.

I ended up sleeping past noon. I still don't feel totally rested.

//

Hardly anyone goes on AIM anymore, and that makes me sad.

Peace out.

Thxgiving

When I went to Uncle Bill's house for Thanksgiving this year, I noticed some pictures and things dedicated to Carli's memory that I hadn't noticed before. One of them was a funeral notice. I think there might have actually been two in the house. It had a picture of her and a time/date/place of where her funeral and viewing would be. It also had a two lines where it said:

Given by God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Returned to God

And had her birthday and the date she died listed underneath. I don't know why, but those word choices really got to me, and made me really sad. Not that I was angry that it had to do with religion or something, they just seemed particularly sweet. I didn't cry though. I did cry later when we had to leave Nana in the hospice and realized the chances keep getting much, much lower that I'll ever see her again. I tried to hide it from my parents but I'm pretty sure my dad figured it out. I sniffled in the car, and didn't do any work.

//

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but:

I bought the new Fallout Boy CD.

I've had it in the player in my car pretty much ever since, except for a break to listen to Arms Trader from This American Life. I used to be able to hit an F# above a middle C. Since I got the CD, I've had a lot of time to drive alone and belt at the top of my lungs with no one to listen or criticize, which is a great way to extend your range. I can almost get to an A above middle C now. That's three half-steps in like 10 days. Which is pretty awesome for someone who's been singing for a couple years now.

I actually just got back from a drive that I took just so I could sing at the top of my lungs. As a general update, I really hate college life and am doing my best to ignore it. So one of the ways to do that is to drive around screaming. I realized that even though I'm alone in the car singing, I still sometimes feel a little self-conscious, just a tiny bit, like I'm embarrassed of myself, usually when I reach for a really high note with my throat voice and squeak instead of sing. I'm a tiny bit surprised that I still feel awkward about it, but it's okay.

Peace out.

Antivirus System Pro!

I'm currently in the process of removing some malware from the main computer in my house. This happens from time to time. I know it used to happen a lot more often. I'm really not sure where this one came from; I swear to god I was only on Facebook and AIM at the time. Maybe I got it through AIM. The pop-up thing keeps saying people can send malware through AIM but I never really believed it or cared. Oh well.

Last year my laptop at school got really badly infected and I ended up just reformatting. I think I maybe have lost a small number of personal files in the mix, but I didn't really care. Plus that computer pretty much runs like new now. So yeah.

This is pretty annoying though. I wish there were a way to prosecute the people who make this stuff, but they all say they're in places like Somalia, where there are pretty much no laws to begin with.

For my own sake, I'm going to recount the things I've done so far in a very boring fashion. Feel free to skip.

Friday: Came home, chilled, went to a party at Stasi's house including Erin, Gary, Katie, Nick, and Katie. Watched Shawshank Redemption with Chloe.

Saturday: Saw Matt that night, also visited Emily at Bruster's.

Sunday: Saw Emily and Chloe for pancakes, art, and craziness. I think I saw Bobby that night too. Played hockey with the old guys in the morning.

Monday: Went to school in the morning to see Trabocco and Rock. Then I had a dermatology appointment and waited an hour in the lobby, which sucked. Hung out at home, I guess, and went to drumline before dinner, which was nice.

Tuesday: Saw Kelly Davis, Chloe, Wasiq, Lauren M, and Stasi. Also had to get three vaccines, which were supposed to make me tired today, but I don't feel tired at all.

Today: Saw Katie D, Viv and Alex, going to see Stefan later.

Peace out.

Sportmanteau

When I see kids with statuses that say something like, "Drumline is my only reason to get out of bed oh my goood," I get incredibly jealous. I wish I had a reason to get out of bed. I wish that I still loved drumline.

There were two girls studying in the piano lounge. They asked me to be quiet. I said no. I could tell they got angry. This is my only place to play.

I hate college.

Peace out.

Healed of Gold

I lost my keys early Tuesday morning. Some friends and I had gone to some fields about 2 miles north of the dorm to watch the Leonid meteor shower. I got back to my door at 2:15 or so, reached into my pockets, and realized there were no keys present.

The next morning I woke up at 7:41 (though now I realize that 741 is not prime) because I wanted to get around campus before anyone else was awake and aware enough to pick up my keys and turn them in to the nearest "authority," which might make it harder for me to find them. Campus is very dead at 8:11.

After retracing all of my steps leading there, I finally made it to the field about seventy minutes after I started my search. I went down the hill to access the field, across the tire lines that I knew we had crossed, and looked around the general area of where I thought we had laid down. It was a large field, probably about 100 yards by about 300 yards. The grass was really thick and heavy and long and multicolored. I don't know whether that helped or not. It certainly wasn't as easy as looking through my yard at home, but it wasn't as difficult as looking through a cornfield.

I had no luck in the area where I thought we were. I remembered that Will and I had gone up to a 'clearing' up the field a little bit when we were trying to scare fellow viewers, so I did my best to trace my path up there and looked around. No luck. I took a different path back to the spot where I thought we had laid - there were some funny golden stalks in the middle that I know we didn't touch - thinking that maybe I dropped them on the way, but no luck.

I kept looking around. Eventually, after a couple minutes, I realized a pattern in the grass. It was exactly long and wide enough for the six of us to have laid out and pulled the grass downward in exactly the way that it appeared. So I had found right where we had laid. If my keys were going to be anywhere, it'd be there. They were probably in my left pants pocket or my right coat pocket, so I looked at the grass near where they should fall out if they were in those places. Nothing.

Extremely frustrating.

I would have to call mom and ask her to overnight my car key so I could drive home, and pay a lot of money for a new dorm key.

Just before I was about to leave, I leaned back in one last time, for pretty much no reason at all, at the same place horizontally as my keys should have fallen out of my left pants pocket, but much higher vertically - closer to where my arm would be. Through some crazy lucky, I just happened to see my keys poking out from behind a bit of grass.

It was the most satisfying personal victory I can remember in a long time.

Peace out.

What's My Age Again?

Relationships with the children of family friends are funny.

I remember one time when I was maybe 13 years old, my dad's friend Kevin came to the beach with his kids. His girl was named Meredith, and she was maybe 11, and his son was named Connor (or Conner?), maybe 7 years old or so.

My only memory of Meredith, at all, really, was that she slept in the TV room in the bottom floor of the beach house. I remember the computer was in that room at the time - I think we used my sister's old laptop or something - and I was just chillin' on the computer for some reason. We talked a little bit, and I remember she (tried to?) show me an internet game involving parking, or driving through obstacles, something along those lines. I left earlier than I would usually go to bed because I didn't want to keep her up. I remember hearing later that she was dating a kid in my school, one year ahead of me, named Todd, and I was very surprised to hear that.

The most I remember of Connor from that visit is that when Adam, Nick, Ryan and I dug that hole in Stone Harbor's beach, he was in the hole with us. The lifeguard was hassling us and asked us what the point of building a hole was if we just had to fill it in, and with Connor right next to me, I said, "What's the point of living if you're just going to die?" Apparently Connor was mortified, and asked his dad about it. His dad said maybe that was inappropriate, or something, but I don't know how serious he was.

[[ I think Nick/Ryan/Adam also joked "What's the point of being a lifeguard if you're just going to be gay?" I remember before we left, we flattened one side of the hole and made a sand sculpture of one lifeguard performing oral sex on his partner life guard ]]

I looked for Meredith on Facebook recently. She goes to the same big university as one of my close friends, and her profile picture is her barely clothed in a devil costume. God, was that strange.

//

My mom played tennis with a woman who had two kids, Emily and Tommy. I think Tommy was a year or two older than me and Emily was a year younger than me. I don't remember many interactions with Tommy, but I remember hearing he was pretty crazy-good at math in high school and worked his way up the ranks of a local grocery store such that he could get his own car and apartment when he was 20 or 21 years old.

I remember one time we went to a Superbowl party at their house... at least I think that was why we got together. I had never really talked to Emily much, but we did talk a little bit that night. If I remember correctly, it started when we realized we were both big fans of Whose Line Is It Anyway? She had a typewriter in her room, a modern one that had an electronic interface situated above the keys and a backspace button that applied whiteout rather than just putting a # or an X over the previous letter. I thought typewriters were pretty awesome and I remember typing some of my favorite lines onto a blank piece of paper loaded into it. She typed some back at a later point. I think somewhere along the line we started to type things not related to the show, more just about life, but I remember it feeling funny and like I wanted it to stop or to go back.

[[I couldn't find her on Facebook]]

Peace out.

Avalon Underwater

Click for full-size

Avalon got pretty seriously flooded this morning due to the confluence of strong winds, hard rain, and a high tide. The leftmost building in the picture is part of the condominium complex that my family stayed in all summer every summer until we got the new place on 22nd Street. But my old house is basically being blocked by that first telephone pole in this picture.

If you want to see more pictures (which would probably be pretty fun for those of you who've been to my place), just go here.

Peace out.

Disintrysted

I never found a way to get my hands of a copy of Real Men and I'm still disappointed. I would like to try again tonight but I feel very tired. I even have the author's name. I just can't find him. I've tried e-mailing him twice. He's probably graduated - or thinks I'm creepy/crazy. Sigh.

//

People vandalize my whiteboard and door a lot. A couple times it's been about me playing piano too much. One time two things of ice cream got spilled all over the bottom of my door on purpose. I thought maybe it was an accident, but it wouldn't happen twice at two separate times. Someone apparently wrote something about it on Evan and Davis's whiteboard too, so that would imply it not being an accident. I asked them if they knew who it was and they said no. I don't believe them. I have a hunch of who it is but I'm not sure yet.

I drew a picture of the crucifixion with the standard cross replaced by the Penn State whiteout t-shirt design, which looks exactly like a cross. The point of the drawing was to point out the similarity of design. First someone wrote "Don't be intimidated, it is only he who died for your sins." Then someone ran their hand against it to try to erase it. Then someone wrote "There is a specific level of hell reserved for this - the sixth." That was three vandalisms in like thirty hours or something, which I think is the most that's ever happened. Sometimes people are offended way too easily, like by things that aren't offensive, and whatnot.

//

My competition IM roller hockey team lost the second playoff game tonight. It was close for a while but they kept it in the third period. I also played for the team full of guys from my dorm and we won, but I don't think I should play with them tomorrow, because it'd be kind of unfair.

I'm going to buy Timmy and Chas their favorite kinds of alcohol at the end of the season because they do a crapload of work for the league and nobody every thanks them for it. I asked them what their favorite kinds were after the first playoff game and they wondered why I was asking.

//

It gets dark so early now. I'll walk to my 1:25 class sometimes and when I step outside the dorm, it's already "golden hour," as Dana put it. That's supposed to be from like 5:30 - 6:30, not early afternoon.

//

The only thing on my Christmas list right now is for no one to study in the piano lounge during non-quiet hours ever again.

//

I put a message in a bottle with Meg last week, I think it was on Thursday. It was the last piece of paper in the ream so I wanted to do something cool with it. I had stalked Meg's blog from years ago earlier that day and she said she wanted to do a message in a bottle, so I asked her if the message should go all the way in the bottle or be poking out, and she got excited and wanted to come along when I put it somewhere. We ended up putting it on a water fountain in Willard. It was an old IBC root beer bottle and I took off the label and taped a paper label that said "MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE" around it instead. The message was actually a story from Mike Birbiglia, the one about the car accident. I wrote it as if I were Mike. I know that's kind of lying, but really, that doesn't make a difference to the person who's reading it.

//

I haven't emptied my camera's pictures in a long time. Like since before I went canning. I also haven't taken pictures in a long time. Like since I went canning.

//

My friend Hortense told me that I should come visit her and Lucy more often in their dorm room. I felt very complimented. I went to visit them last night around 12:30. Lucy went to bed early and I felt bad, like I was keeping her up, but sometimes she'd laugh at something Hortense or I said, so then I didn't feel too awful.

//

For some reason I have 81 unread messages in my GMail inbox that I plan on leaving unread forever. Old junk mail that I just never deleted or whatever. I'm getting really lazy lately and starring and keeping things marked as unread. I think I have 86 unread messages now, which is bad. That's 5 things that are like, moderately important, which I should probably have attended to at least a week ago.

I have a pretty real problem with procrastination.

//

I finally took the advice of environmentalists the world over and filled my fridge and freezer with bottles of water. Specifically used milk bottles. Honestly this was mostly because I never felt like going to recycle them. I suppose filling them with water isn't any easier but whatever.

//

I made a list of everyone that I wanted to see over Thanksgiving that I could reasonably see (people who live far away didn't make it, for instance). It took up 34 lines, but some of the lines had multiple people on them. That's a lot of people in 9 days. It's sort of overwhelming, and I feel like I really just set myself up for disappointment.

Peace out.

Antonyms

What's the opposite of impossible?

Possible!

Ask that question to a couple people that you know. Most of the time, they'll jump right out and say "Possible." But if you really think about it, the opposite of impossible is definite. Something being impossible implies its probability of happening is 0, and at the other end of the spectrum, if something has a probability of happening equal to 1, then it's definite. Possible is just a gray middle ground between impossible and definite, not really an opposite to either of them.

Just an interesting way that language affects the way we think, to some extent. At least I thought it was sort of interesting.

Peace out.

A Picture of Me from When I Was Older

rat anagrams to art. rats backwards is star.

Silly language!

Peace out.

Cornerstoned

Don't believe everything you fear.

Peace out.

I Am Woman Hear Me Lure

I had dinner with Kerri the other day, and it went much too quickly, so we hung out in her room for a while afterward. I picked up the guitar that her roommate had, which was missing its highest string, and just started playing. I played Scars of Time once or maybe twice, and ended up playing Diana for pretty much the rest of the time we talked, over and over again. Things sound so pretty on guitar.

Kerri and I talk a lot about how not-at-home we feel at college. Usually it's nice, because misery loves company, and also because Kerri is just an awesome person. I got really sad when I was talking to her this time though, like I could feel that if I wanted to, I could easily just let myself cry. I didn't want to cry in front of her though, it would have been pretty inappropriate and awkward for her, so I didn't.

I've accepted that I have never and will never feel at home in college. She's accepted that she loved her childhood, but she can't go back.

Sometimes I wonder if how good I had it my last three years of high school has given me unfair expectations of how good things could be in college.

Maybe I was just supremely lucky in high school. Maybe most people never feel as happy as I did then. Maybe you're not supposed to be able to walk around saying, "Every day you see me, you're seeing me on the best day of my life." If so then that fucking sucks.

Things here often feel temporary. I can tell because I don't take pictures. I'll head out for the night, look at my camera, and leave it behind thinking, "No, this isn't like a real night with my friends, this is just like practice, or temporary, or something. But whatever it is doesn't call for me taking pictures of it."

I heard some kids in the hall (probably) making fun of one of my songs the other night. It put me in a pretty bad mood. I don't understand why people would do something like that. Especially when I live where they were doing it.

I don't mind if people don't like my music. They can even do that in front of my face. I don't even mind when people make fun of my music. I just prefer they not do that in front of my face. That's not really a lot to ask.

Peace out.

Canning

Tarik and I are awesome canners. Here are some of the fun stories...

1. I was getting bored, so I came over to Tarik and asked if he wanted to double-team the next car. So a minivan rolls up, and I go to the passenger side and he goes to the driver side. We both start asking them for money to help the kids, and they both roll down the window. The husband is on my side, so I talk to him. He says, "You know, I make a point of not donating to anyone that disrupts the flow of traffic."

Being aware of the world around me, I said, "We're not disrupting the flow of traffic. There's a red light right there, and you're stopped at it."

So he said back to me something along the lines of, "Well all I know is that I'm a cop, and I look to my morals to decide what to do with my money and what to donate to."

I said, "Right, and I think your morals would probably tell you it's okay to donate to these kids."

And he said angrily, "Look kid, you have no f***ing clue how I spend my money or who I donate too!" And then something about me being arrogant.

I said, "You're right, I don't, but I still think that you should donate to these kids." Then he pretty much rolled up his window for good (he had started to a few times before) and that was that.

His wife donated to Tarik while I was talking to him.

2. Tarik and I decided to have a little fun by asking people to donate to whomever they thought was cuter out of the two of us. Usually we would ask this if a girl was in the driver's seat/donating to us specifically, but sometimes we would ask the husband "You have to donate to whoever your wife thinks is cuter. She doesn't think we're cuter than you, just whichever out of the two of us is cuter." Sometimes we would also ask who had cooler hair, and sometimes we would ask who needed a haircut more.

Anyway, one time a black guy and his kid came up to the light and they were going to donate. The kid was youngish, probably about 10 or so, with cornrowed hair and a big fauxhawk going down the middle. The face was sort of soft and feminine, so when they were about to put the dollar in, I said, "Alright, whoever she thinks is cuter put it in that can." And the father pulled back his dollar and said, "...He will give you a dollar."

And I wanted to throw myself in front of his car, like maybe that would make him feel better.

3. There was a guy in a car who was going to give Tarik or I a dollar, and we did the "Which one is cuter?!" donating gig, and he responded, "I ain't no homo." We still got a dollar, but I felt bad about that one.

4. A husband and wife came up to us, I forget who was in the driver seat, I think the wife. There may have been kids in the back. When we came to them they were laughing in a good-natured way. When we explained what we were for and probably just seemed interested in what they were laughing about, the wife said, "When we were driving up my husband asked me, 'What are they collecting for, a haircut?' " It was after this incident that we started asking people who needed a haircut more.

5. Tarik has a sort of flat affect, which comes across mostly from his speech. He also spoke half-Arabic and half-English when he was a kid, and his parents are from Palestine, so he has something like 5% of an accent to go along with his affect. It makes things he says sound a little funnier. Our call to get people to donate was Tarik first saying, "Do you hate cancer?" And then I would say, "Do you love children?" And then people would laugh and feel sheepish and exploited, and we would look at them, point, and say, "Looks like you do!"

6. Tarik and I were doing so well we decided one time after a light that we needed to change our names to reflect how awesome we were. I forget who was assigned "Livin' Easy" at first, but later we decided our final names would be Jeff "Rainmaker" C and Tarik "Bank Roll" S.

7. When we would say to people "Looks like you want to donate!" and they would shake their heads no, Tarik and I would start our harassment shtick. It was surprisingly effective. Tarik and I would alternate every object sentence, almost going down a list: "Really? You don't have anything? A quarter? A nickel? A penny? Your watch? Your glasses? Your car radio? Your wife? Your kid? Car keys? Gum wrapper? Pen cap?" If they had something funny in the car, we would ask for that too - I asked one younger guy for his hockey stick. If none of these worked we would demand a high-five. Once people agreed to that, the window was down. Half of them were in.

8. There was one guy at the very front of the line that Tarik and I worked extra hard on because the Domino Effect is totally a make-or-break deal with these things. At some point in our shtick, he just started laughing and said, "Alright, you guys sold me!" with a smile on his face and donated to us. I asked him if it was because of our comical stylings, and he said it was. That made me proud for the two of us.

9. Another part of our shtick, after asking for everything in their car, or for their car itself, was to pick an aspect of the person and say that it counts double. So for a lady in a conversion van, we would say, "Conversion vans count double!" Or "Big rigs count double!" It doesn't make any sense at all, but it makes people feel special and needed, and sometimes it gets them to donate. I got at least one conversion van driver in this method. There was one guy that came to our light with a particularly gorgeous girl in his passenger seat and a baby in the back. After going down our list, I said, "Cute couples count double!" Still not convinced, I said in a more pleading voice, "....Cute babies count triple..." And they donated.

10. One lady who we asked to donate to the one with better hair looked at us, put the money in Tarik's can and said, "I'm from the 70s and his hair reminds me of my decade." Tarik celebrated by singing Disco Inferno while walking to the next car.

11. Whenever Tarik would see people who looked involved in Middle Eastern culture, he would approach them by excitedly saying "As-salamu alaykum!" It translates to something along the lines of "Peace be upon you" in Arabic. One time when he said it, the people responded in completely American-sounding English, and he just sort of sighed to himself in his head.

12. One time I texted Tarik to see how he was doing when he was way on the other side of the intersection from me - this was on Saturday, before we started working together. It had been raining on and off that day. He said, "It stopped raining from the sky cuz I'm making it rain over here."

13. A woman came to Tarik on Saturday and said she didn't have any money, and asked if he could take a check. He said, "Sure, we'll take it," so she started writing. She asked him if $15 would be enough, and Tarik just said, "...eeehhhfhfhfh...", and so she wrote a check for $30.

14. I told a trucker that I would root for the Yankees if he donated since he was wearing a Yankees hat. He donated. I need to root for the Yankees sometime soon, before the series is over.

15. The last person in a line of cars one time was a nice, middle-aged black woman. She didn't have any money to donate, but she was nice and we had already tried everyone else, so we just said, "Well, you're the last one here, so do you mind if we talk to you a little?" And she said that was okay, so we just had a conversation for 45 seconds or so, until her light turn. She was on her way to Macy's, which seemed like a fun shopping trip at first, but then she told us it was to go to work, which was less exciting, because it's work. We told her what the charity was for, and she said it was a very nice cause. She left when her light changed; we both liked her, maybe she even liked us too.

16. Sometimes you get stuck in the middle of the road when the light changes. When that happened, Tarik and I would just stand right in front of/behind each other and wave the cars onward, so they'd know they could go and we would get out of the way after all of them had passed. One time Tarik was like 10 yards ahead of me. A guy started honking right after he passed Tarik, and the driver gave me the finger. He was a young white guy. I don't know what he expected me to do. Look, dude, I know I'm in the middle of the road, giving me the finger isn't going to solve any problems here.

17. Sometimes Tarik would try to sing to people when they wouldn't donate. Sometimes he would sing to them when they did donate. A couple times he tried singing Happy Birthday to people, and one time I sang See You Again by Miley Cyrus. To quote Pokemon: It was not very effective.

18. There was one car that didn't donate, but of course we try to be nice anyway, and so after saying his thanks, Tarik said, "Cute dalmatian by the way!" He thought he had seen a dalmatian in the back. From my vantage point, I could see that it wasn't a dalmatian. See, Sesame Place was about five miles away, and a lot of people were coming with kids in silly costumes, and this was one of them. So Tarik had actually just called their child a dalmatian. A cute dalmatian. I told Tarik and he just said, "...oh... whoops."

19. A man in a mustang drove past us and Tarik shouted, "MUSTANGS RULE!" The guy had his window cracked, and then rolled it all the way down and said, "Alright, you get a dollar for that trick." I don't think he even knew what we were collecting for, he just liked Tarik saying his car ruled.

20. Sometimes Tarik would say "Thank you for being awesome" when people donated. Sometimes we would tell people that if they donated, they would never die, we promise! People seemed skeptical, but I assured them that I had donated before, and that I had never died, so they could trust me.

21. One time we asked who needed a haircut more for whose can to put money in, and the guy said, "Hah, at least you guys still have hair!" I felt a little sad but the guy didn't seem too upset.

22. When we asked who was cuter, Tarik was more likely to win the older the women got. I did very well in the 7-and-under demographic. People typically thought my hair was better, and we were about split on who needed a haircut more. A lot of people, when we asked who was cuter, would just whip out another dollar so they could put it in both of our cans. One woman, when we asked who was cuter, put $1 in my can, then $5 into Tarik's can. Whenever we asked people to donate to who was cuter and they got hesitant, I would say, "Don't worry, we're really good friends and we won't get mad at each other." Then if they donated to Tarik I would immediately shout at him, "I'm mad at you!" And the people usually understood, and laughed.

Peace out!

Little Things...

I didn't get my STAT 510 lab back this morning when everyone was passing around the stack and taking theirs out. At first I thought that maybe someone else named Jeff had taken mine. I gave the whole stack to Fan sitting next to me and decided I'd wait till after class to worry about it. Then I realized that more likely is that I just didn't hand it in. So I looked through my folder, and after a minute or so, realized that I had done the entire lab and just not handed it in. What a waste of time! I felt like a complete idiot. Oh well.

//

"Your brother called me today and i was really afraid he was going to say something bad happened to you. it was surreal, just for a minute, and i had a feeling that is what i suspect i'd feel like if i found out i had just died, or something close to that. just wanted to share. he called me by accident. i love you"

Peace out.

Typo Negative

I went to a debate today between Karl Rove and Howard Dean focused on health care reform. At one point Rove made a comment deriding the fact that if we had a public plan/insurance plan in general, then you would be subsidizing other people's plans. Other people had been shouting a lot during the debate, so I figured whatever, so could I! Of course, the whole point of an insurance plan is that you do subsidize other people's costs, so I said, "That's the point of insurance!" It wasn't too loud and it didn't disrupt his speaking.

The woman in front of me, who was clearly on the other side of the political spectrum, turned around and snarkily asked, "How old are you?" As if a 21-year-old can't have informed opinions on politics, or understand how insurance works, even though my major is the mathematics of insurance. I could have said 21, but that would have been letting her win, and I wasn't quick enough to think of the correct response, which was "Old enough to know how insurance works," so instead I just asked back snarkily, "How old are you?" She said, "Forty-seven," and I said, "Good. Great. Good for you." And that was that.

I wish I were quicker with things like this.

Peace out.

Even During Pledge Week

Click for full size

I saw this in The Daily Collegian today right before Middle Eastern History. I was so excited that I texted Dana right away, and when I went into class I asked my teacher if she listened to NPR (as I suspected she did) and then showed it to her. Two other kids in the class commented on it too. I said to one, "Yeah, NPR is definitely the only thing worth listening to on the radio," and he said, "On the radio? More like at all." There was a girl further back in class wearing blue who said it was weird, though I don't know why. Maybe she likes other radio. My teacher appreciated it though; she also made a comment about how pledge drives make you want to "just turn it off!"

Peace out.

Real Men Ask Tonight II

A lot can be gained from realizing when you have nothing to lose.

Kayla Ringelheim's music is really amazing and I wish she could burn me another CD and hand it to me next door like she did the first time.

//

Whenever I go on long car trips now, I download episodes of my favorite NPR or PRI shows and burn them to CDs. It's starting to be a little bit inconvenient, and I'm actually thinking of getting some sort of mp3 playing device at some point in the future. Possibly. It would be a big step for me.

My dad is pretty much certain he's going to make everyone in the family switch to AT&T so that he can have an iPhone. I really wish he wouldn't. All of my friends are on Verizon, plus AT&T has really, really awful coverage area compared to Verizon.

Technology is dumb. Sigh.

Peace out.

Nobel Peace Surprise

I like being in classes where everybody is talking to each other before the professor gets started. But it also makes me sad that it's rare enough in college for me to take notice of when it happens and when it doesn't.

//

It snowed yesterday, October 15th, and it stuck. The tree outside of my dorm is so heavy with snow that I almost hit my head on its branches when I walked out of the exit door. It's usually nowhere near my door. Last night, laying in my bed, I noticed the purple nighttime glow of the snow, how much brighter the night is when the grass is covered. That used to mean a two hour delay, but now it just means walking through snow.

//

I haven't remembered a dream in an unusually long time. Probably coming up on two or three weeks.

Peace out.

Whiteboard

it's approximately every other day with my hands holding head heavy hit me from the blinded side impossible to heal heart deep stop the beating if you cannot stop the bleeding then it's far too late now

maybe we could paint a picture of an unassuming man with his sympathetic child by his side holdings hands waist deep looking way beyond the breakers where the tidal wave is building and it's much too strong now

since i got here i've been waiting for the day when i recognized that everything is like it is at home and i should break my habits i should go out of my way but i've been getting so much older and it's far too late now

peace out

Intentional

I was playing piano in the lounge today around dinner time, maybe 5:30 or so, and some people were watching a sports game in the TV part of the room behind half-closed doors and making a ton of noise screaming and celebrating or crying or whatever. One of their group kept going in and out of the room, and she would sit on the couch behind me and study when she didn't want to watch.

At one point I finished playing "You to Thank" by Ben Folds and paused for a second to consider what song I wanted to play next ("Golden," I think). Right when I was done, she said, "Could you be a little quieter? You're really loud." So I turned around and said, "Oh yeah, sure, I'll just move the piano downstairs actually." She asked, "Uh, what?" And I said, "Don't worry about," turned around, and went back to playing as if she had never been there at all.

//

I caused someone physical pain sort-of on purpose for what I think is the first time in my life Friday night. I was going to see Capitalism: A Love Story with Dana at 7:30. I was getting ready in my room beforehand, and I had my new song playing back from the recording feature on my keyboard. My door was open but it wasn't too loud. Down the hall, a kid named Drew was making fun of it, pretending to sing a whiny "emo" melody over it.

I don't get upset, but he was being a douchebag. To be honest, I did thinking about doing something that would hurt him physically, but I didn't think I would do it. I thought instead I would walk into his room on the way out and ask him if he was making fun of the things other people make because he's not creative enough to make things on his own.

Dana came down and we started to head out. I locked my door and walked towards the exit, which brings me past Drew's room. He was making the stupid sounds again that he had been earlier, and he was opening his door. I figured I would give it a good kick just to make a loud noise and startle him, and that'd be good enough, so I kicked it with a moderate amount of force. Right away I saw his face pull back and he grunted out an "Ough!" and fell back into his room, closing the door somehow on the way. Dana was behind me, and I turned around, and she gave me a funny look as if to say, "Whoa. Did you - Jeff - actually just do that?"

I just kept walking.

I didn't feel good about it. I know that I had thought about hurting him (and other people) before, and that felt nice, but it turns out that it doesn't feel so nice to ACTUALLY hurt people. I think I will probably try not to do it again. I will, however, continue to daydream about killing Max Baucus, or at the very least making him sick and then denying him coverage.

//

I have an interview with Independence Blue Cross on Monday at 3PM. They were one of the only insurance companies to come to Penn State that offered internships in Philadelphia, and I know that my family has Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance, so I figured I would go for an interview with them. The other options were like Cigna, Aetna, and United Health, which are more like death panels than insurance companies. I missed the deadline for Blue Cross because I'm a loser, but I e-mailed them to ask for an exception and they gave me one.

I found out after that happened that Blue Cross is only a health insurance company. I really don't want to work for them now because, as it turns out, I'm not actually so interested in rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Maybe I'll work for them and become CEO of the company and then shut it down to demonstrate the problems of private insurance.

//

The source of the phrase "for whom the bell tolls" is actually crazy beautiful, especially for something that was written sometime around the year 1600:

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore I never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for me."

I changed it slightly, of course. But yeah, it's still wonderful.

Peace out.

On the Pavement

Have you ever been dropped and hit your head on the pavement? It's an incredibly specific feeling, and completely impossible to describe except for "heavy" and that there's a smell associated with it. Or maybe a messed up method of smelling.

Every once in a while I experience this feeling, even though I haven't hit my head on pavement in probably like 15 years. Don't know why it is, but it's interesting, and weird.

//

I have an exam tomorrow which I am unsure how to study for. I am well on my way to not getting all As this semester.

Peace out.

The Gap

Peace out.

The Glass Door

On Saturday, September 12th, 2009, my THON organization (Springfield) went on a "camping" trip. Basically, a girl in Springfield (my friend Sam K) has a cabin in the woods of a mountain right around Harrisburg, and we figure that's as good a reason as any to spend time together. Some people actually did sleep outside in tents, but a lot of people wuss out and sleep inside. I had slept outside when we went there last year, and was adamant on not sleeping outside again this time around.

Well anyway. My car ride down was pretty cool. The shotgun seat was taken by a kid named Alan, who was really easy to talk to and I had a really good time getting to know him, and Tanvi T and Rachael G were in the backseat being goofy and funny as well. There was a sophomore I didn't know named Ajay sitting in the seat right behind me, which is a hard place to engage someone in conversation from, and he unfortunately didn't talk too much in either of the car rides. I forget what we listened to most of the way there. Right before we got to the cabin, we took a pit stop to get some food (just in case) and I picked up some Tastykake mini chocolate doughnuts, because they're awesome, and I did last year. Note that this would be my eventual downfall.

So we continued on to the camp, listening to my Summer 2009 CD including Wicked which pretty much everyone seemed to like, and showed up at a closed gate thinking we had gotten there first. Service wasn't good, so I had to use Ajay's phone (only one getting service) to call Sam and ask if she was there yet. Apparently she was, and she'd opened the gate, so we were at the wrong place, and we headed down the mountain, only to find out we were going the wrong direction, and headed back on up. Eventually we got there, and we were preeetty much the last ones to arrive. Oh well, no big.

So I got my stuff out and put it on a bed, and left the doughnuts on the table inside the cabin and took a couple for myself. Kids outside were working on getting the fire started, but didn't have any kindling or anything. I went into the house to look for something to start the fire, and decided a phone book from like 1996 would be a pretty good place to start. Sam said it was okay to use it, so I handed to the fire starters and told them to use that.

I think it was right after this that I decided I wanted more doughnuts. So I started heading toward the house again, doing a sort of half-jog which you might do to pick up a Frisbee which someone had thrown too far. It's a glass door at this part of the cabin, usually with a cinderblock in front of it because it's about two feet off the ground. I forget if the cinderblock was there or not at this time. Well anyway, once I got about two paces in front of the door, I sort of realized Oh, crap, there's a door there, huh? Yeah, there is. And it's probably closed, isn't it? Yup, it's closed. Darn. So I tried to slow down. I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop in time. I didn't think it was going to be any big deal, I'd just bounce of the door and hopefully no one would notice, whatever.

No, wrong. I hit the door and the thing shatters all over me. I'm just completely dumbfounded at what just happened. There's spiderwebbed door all over the place, half of the front pane is missing, and it was really loud, to top it all off. I don't remember this extremely clearly, but apparently the first thing that happened was Laura R turning to me and saying, "Did that seriously just happen?" To which I responded, "Uhh... yeah, that just happened." Then I looked at my hand and noticed it was bleeding. Like, pretty seriously. Like you could probably slip a dime into one of the gashes on my hand. Fortunately I was wearing a jacket and jeans, so my arms and knees were safe from anything getting to my skin there. People started to see the blood and I think picked up it might be pretty serious, so we started to consider taking me to the ER, or calling an ambulance. I thought I was doing pretty okay, so I walked over to where all the cars were (the other side of the cabin) to wait for someone to be able to take me. Someone brought me paper towels to help control the bleeding a little bit.

I wasn't feeling any pain at all, which means that I had gone into shock. Pretty neato! It remained pretty neato until my body was not in shock and decided that it was a bad idea for me to be able to stand up, and insisted on bringing me to the brink of passing out every time I attempted to do so. The first time that this happened, Katy P was walking me to the deck to make sure I could get to a seat safely, and I got really upset, which pretty much never happens with me. I said angrily to her, "Call. A f***ing. Ambulance." She told me that people were in the process. Sam was on the phone with her dad, and I couldn't hear anyone on the phone with an ambulance, so I was getting pretty frustrated, especially since I thought I just might die if I passed out. Or that it wasn't that I was about to pass out, but that I was about to die.

Eventually I realized that I would be pretty much okay as long as I could sit down, and it was decided that Katy would take me to the ER in Harrisburg rather than call an ambulance. Mike H decided to come along too. Katy is studying medicine/emergency care and Mike is a very well-trained lifeguard, knows CPR, might have been an EMT, stuff like that. Dana also came along to be official hand-holder, pretty much. Mike had been to the hospital before, but never from this direction, and had a general idea of where we were going, but we had to guess at a couple of points where we were supposed to go. We ended up getting there in about 40 minutes. The bleeding had mostly stopped by then.

Dana and I got out first at the ER while Katy and Mike found a place to park. I registered with them, told them what was wrong, and was asked to wait for triage. Most of the other people in the waiting room didn't have anything visibly wrong with them, which made me way more worried than if there had just been blood all over them or something like that. There were probably 4 kids in the room that night all wearing the same purple and yellow football jerseys. Eventually we were called into Triage, and we all went in together. One nurse asked me when I had my last tetanus shot, and I said I didn't know, and she laughed at me and said, "Yeah, probably today." I think it was after this that we took a new set of chairs, and Mike started to read a magazine for people over the age of 70 and actually got pretty interested in an article about some harmless old man who rode his bike all over the world. I tried to read through it too, but we got interrupted.

We watched TV while we waited, also. There was football on. Mike and Katy were interested in it, Dana and I not so much. We got called back to the last registration part pretty quickly, and the woman kept talking about how tired she was, which made the whole thing feel pretty sketch. She asked me "Can you sign here?" at one point on one of those credit-card swiping things, which you can't even sign with your good hand when it's function. I laughed and was like, "No. I can't sign." So I picked up the stylus with my left hand and put a happy face on the signature line. The receipt printed with the happy face as my signature. We got called back to the room pretty quickly.

The woman there said that only two people could come with me. We were agonizing over the decision for a little bit, but eventually she said, "Oh, hell, just everyone come." So we celebrated to ourselves and all went back. First she had me try to clean the wounds myself, but then put my hand in a solution that clears out dried blood from the skin. At one point somebody referred to us as "friends," and we talked about that later, and how all the weird things we'd been through tonight alone definitely made us friends. That felt nice.

Eventually an attending physician came and said that things really didn't look too bad, and a nurse came after a little bit and took me back to get X-Rays so we could make sure no glass was inside my hand. That didn't take long at all, and soon after I came back to the room where my three friends were waiting, the physician came again and said that the x-rays showed no glass. She said she would just need to wrap my hand, and I'd pretty much be good to go.

Before she did, I asked her if the one gash on my hand would need stitches, and she said no. There was a pretty big flap of skin hanging from it though, which was clearly not doing anything productive, and she was fiddling with it. I asked her if she needed to get rid of it, and she said, "Yes, can I?" So I said yes, because I'm totally the kind that picks at my scabs. She slowly tore it off, and it was WAY more painful than I had anticipated. Like, holy crap. Farewell, skin! It was the only pain I experienced the whole night, and the bleeding resumed in that spot for a while afterward. She wrapped up my hand, I got a few band-aids from the nurse, and we headed out to wait to be dismissed. The nurse that had me try to sign the credit card thing came out a few minutes later and told us we were free to go, so we left.

I apologized a lot to Mike and Katy and Dana for screwing up their camping night. We did go to Sheetz on the way back, however, and ended up taking WAY longer than we anticipated there and getting a lot more food than we had thought. But even that was nice, actually, and we got to brag about going to Sheetz. They all said they didn't mind though and that they actually had a good time anyway, and we got back to the camp by 11, so they still had a good amount of night left to enjoy with everyone.

Everyone asked me how I was doing when they saw me. Some people who hadn't shown up yet asked me what the hell happened. I felt a little dumb saying the story, but it's no big deal. I told everyone I was doing fine. I gave my remaining mozzarella sticks from Sheetz to Gabby and one other person, who were the first to come to the car when we returned. Someone made me take a picture prominently displaying my wrapped up hand, which I think is now on Facebook. People laughed at all my dirty jokes we told around the fire later and Meg asked me to sit on her lap, I think. I wondered if people were just being nice to me because I was an incurable dumbass. Hannah told a really good dirty joke involving OB/GYNs and numbing things, but it only works in real life.

Peace out.

Car Crash

It was Sunday, December 21st, 2008, the Sunday just before Christmas. I was home for Christmas break, save for the time that I would spend visiting my Uncle David and Aunt Wendy in Key West. I hadn't seen Bobby D, Stefan S, or Rory H for a while, and somehow one of them told me that all three of them would be at Rory's house that night, so I decided to go. My mom said that it might be icy so I should take her car, so I did.

We hung out, we played pool, some video games, I took pictures of M&Ms, we played fooseball, talked... not really sure what else we did. At one point I left to visit a couple other people, who were partaking in drug use, though (as always) I did not partake.

Anyway, I left sometime shortly after 11pm. Rory lives in a neighborhood right off of Mattson Road. In the section where he lives there are a lot of neighborhoods perpendicular to the road, often at crossroads, and they always have stop signs and Mattson doesn't. So I was driving down that road, past some neighborhoods, keep going, past some neighborhoods, keep going...

I remember there was CD on at the time and I was flipping through it with the control on the steering wheel. I saw a crossroad coming up and thought that I didn't have a stop sign. I was going about 40MPH, maybe, on a 35MPH road.

I did have a stop sign. I recognized it when I was maybe 10 yards in front of it. It was definitely too late to stop in time. The car was too big and clunky, and if I tried to stop, I would have just been sitting in the middle of the intersection. I didn't have much time to consider what to do, and it's a pretty lonely road, so I thought it was best to just spend as little time in the intersection as possible and if I run a stop sign, fine, I run a stop sign, at least I'm safe.

No.

I was not safe.

As soon as I made the decision, I saw headlights approaching from the driver's side. God damnit. I didn't panic, it's not like I made a decision not to panic, it's just that you don't panic in situations like that instinctively. I remember thinking very quickly that I was probably going to die, and regretting being such a terrible driver, and feeling very scared because I was pretty sure I was going to die. Like, quite sure.

I think I should emphasize that I was really very sure that I was going to die.

Not knowing what else to do, I sped up, hoping to get out of the way. At the very last second, the other driver swerved to the right and slammed his brakes on, too, to try to avoid hitting me, although there wasn't much he could do. His car slammed into the read driver's side door of my mom's car. It was incredibly loud, and the airbag went off, and it felt like a shotgun went off in my ear while I was getting tackled by an NFL linebacker at the same instant. The car did a 180, or even more, and ended up on the other side of the intersection, facing back on the right side of the road toward where I had just come from. I took it forward for just a moment to try to let other people on the road pass.

The important thing that I realized very quickly was that I had survived. Hooray! Life!

I turned the car off. I got out and apologized to the other driver. There was a ringing in my ear that didn't subside for hours, I went to sleep with it that night, the window was smashed and the car was cold as I waited for my dad and the police, and I apologized to the other driver. My mom told me more about her miscarriages that night that I had known before. The police officer asked me if I was drunk or if I was high, she said my eyes were bloodshot, but no, I'd ever drank or smoked in my life and I guess she believed me because she didn't even Breathalyze me.

The other kid's car was totaled. He knew some kids in Garnet Valley, and I think he said that he was just getting back from a concert that night, or something along those lines. He didn't show up at the court date so I never even got a ticket for running the sign.

The point is, I'm alive.

Peace out.

Note

The sky takes on every color except for green, but we still say "The sky is blue."

Peace out.

An Aggressive Gambler

You start out with $100 in your pocket, and you start betting on coin tosses of a fair coin. You bet heads every time, so you win $1 if it comes up heads and lose $1 if it comes up tails. You tell yourself that you will stop the first time that either (a) you have $0 remaining, or (b) you have $300 total.

What's the probability that you end up with $300?

I'll do something awesome for anyone that answers this with full solution.

Peace out.

My Primary Skills

1. Curiosity

1a. Test-taking

2. Keeping in touch

Peace out.

Here's My Irrationale

The guy that runs the club roller hockey teams at PSU is a guy that we lovingly call Dyke. It's part of his last name. His first name is actually Brian or Bryan. But anyway, he's quite a big guy - probably 6'3" or so - and he has a little bit of paunch going on, short hair, often wears glasses. He's a really funny guy, although his humor is a little bit mean and you have to have thick skin if you want to hang around him, even if you're just playing hockey together. I should also note that he's extremely good at hockey. I think he's easily the trickiest player/most finessed player I've ever played against personally.

Well anyway. We were all playing together a week or two ago, maybe, at the rink at the Y. We had a goalie and 8 skaters, so we were pretty much good to go, and then a kid came and started messing around at the rink. No big deal, people don't mind. After a while he shot his puck out, and when he was coming back in, he called to Dyke and said, "Hey, can I play with you guys?"

Dyke put on a sort of fake surprise face and said, "What's your name?" (The two didn't know each other)

The kid said his name, and Dyke immediately screamed at him, "HELL NO."

The kid's face was totally shocked.

"No I'm just kidding, of course you can play with us." And he did.

//

To some extent I've been waiting to use that line. I would kind of like for someone to come to me when I'm playing piano and ask me to play quieter or something so I could use it then. An Asian girl came to Dana&Louise's room the other night and asked us to be quiet and I could have done it then. A girl in my Math 484 class turned to me and said "Can I ask a question?" and that would have been a perfect time, if we weren't in the 2nd row of seats in the middle of a lecture.

//

My thumbs have been messed up recently. My left thumb got messed up on (I think) the first Tuesday that I was here. I was playing hockey against Chas - I think playing defense against him - and I took a fall and hit my thumb when I got to the ground. My knee was also a little messed up but nothing bad, even though I had no pads on. Anyway, my glove should have been guarding my thumb, but it's hurt pretty bad ever since. For a while I couldn't turn the lock on my door with my left hand because the thumb hurt too bad, and I couldn't get a strong enough grip on my markers to remove the cap with my left hand. I think it's pretty much better now though.

The right one just got messed up recently because I was biting the nail and definitely took a little bit too much off. I think I tore some of the skin open at the front of the base of my nail, and maybe from playing piano or hockey or something, I dried it out some more and I could see it turning very red the past couple days. I think it's getting better now though. I had to put a band-aid on it for a while there though.

//

I've been drawing a lot recently. I bought a sketchbook like right before I came to college (it's 100% recycled and 100% recyclable!). I honestly didn't think that I would use it a whole lot. I thought it would be one of those things that I always wanted to do but never got around to doing. That was not the case, as it turned out. In the first weekend alone I filled like seven pages with sketches or something. I think I'm up to something about 40 right now.

I'm not very good at drawing, but the ideas behind them are okay enough that it doesn't really matter. Sometimes people laugh at them when they see them, which is a good sign.

Sometimes I put them up on my whiteboard, or sometimes I put things that I put on my whiteboard into my sketchbook.

I remember there was a speech a while ago when Obama was talking about hope, and how we need it, and that if we didn't have hope we would have looked to the moon and thought, "Nope, too high. Can't go there." I really liked that line, in particular, out of everything he's ever said. I was walking to my friend Malinda's room the other day and there was a whiteboard that was undecorated, and that image was running through my head, so I just stopped and worked on the whiteboard that was there. I drew a crescent moon in the top right corner, then a line at the bottom with some lines for the grass, and a larger man and a smaller man with their heads tilted up toward the moon, and the older man says, "Nope, too high. Can't go there."

I liked how it ended up looking a lot, so when I got back to my room I put it on my board, but this time I filled the sky with stars as well, and I used a quick move of the marker on the whiteboard to make a shooting-star effect once. And this time it wasn't the man speaking to the child, specifically, the words were just sort of on the whiteboard to get the idea across more generally. I liked the way it turned out, again.

I kind of wish I had a picture of it.

Cavon, a guy across the hall, said that he really liked that one in particular. It made me like him a lot, because I think most people just like the funny ones I put up, but I think this one was better than the rest, as well.

// EDIT //

Here are some pictures of the board and the sketchbook for you. Click for full-size.

Peace out.

The World Will Thank Me

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This is my attempt to close all unclosed "sets" of parenthesis in writing up until this point.

You're welcome, planet Earth.

Peace out.

John Mayor

How many ways can n objects be split among m kids, with the rule that each kid gets an integer amount of candy, x, where x > 0?

This many ways:

Oh damn.

It turns out that you could also just do (m + n -1) Choose (m-1).

Heh.

Christ on toast do I love math.

And yes I did put off all my other homework to spend 3 hours or more solving this problem because I like thinking about it, and also because my teacher will give me $1 if I get it right.

Peace out!

I'm Bad at Parties

Last night there was a Springfield social (Springfield is the organization I'm a part of that raises money for Penn State's THON charity) at the apartment of Gabby, our social chairwoman. I thought it would be a good way to meet some of the new people joining Springfield and see if there were any particularly cool newbies, but I knew there would be dancing and drinking and loud music and stuff, so I figured I'd try to go early before any of that started.

It was supposed to start at 11pm, and I showed up at about 10:40pm, which I figured was safely before any real partying would begin. However, as soon as I got to the third floor of the building (where her apartment was), I could hear the party coming from all the way down the hall and around the corner. I thought it was another party at first, but no, it was the party I was headed for. There was loud music, people were drinking, there was alcohol set up outside for people to take, and there was a game of beer pong happening. Some people started dancing a little bit later.

I said hello to maybe two or three people, including one of the RAs in Simmons, who had to leave early because she didn't want to be seen drinking/partying in front of her residents. Meg saw that I was just sitting/standing around and not really digging it, and made a sad a face at me. As Dana put it a long time ago, "Meg has this disease where she has to make sure everyone around her is happy." It's not a bad disease to have, but it sucks when you're in a situation like "At a party with Jeff," where it turns out I can't be happy. I left after maybe 15 minutes. Most of those 15 minutes, I had this image in my head.

I was sort of frustrated with myself when I left. I just sort of realized that back in high school, I could totally work the social scene. Whatever kind of party kids in high school were having (at least ones I was invited to), I could find a way to make myself happy and I think even help other people have a good time, too. I honestly don't think that's happened once at a party at college. I just thought through all the parties I can remember, and I still believe that it's accurate. I've never enjoyed a party at college, ever.

That sort of sucks.

I wish I liked the things that people did here. I want to like it and I want to enjoy being around people while it's happening. But I just don't. I just want to leave and play piano or draw or drive or listen to NPR.

Peace out.

Another Great WHYY Quote

"Nazis-in-hiding must be high-fiving each other because genocide is being rebranded as a benefits program."

Robin Young on Here and Now commenting on the current health care coverage.

Peace out.

This Problem Will Keep You Awake at Night

Say there are 5 guys at a party and they're all wearing silly hats. They decide to trade hats, and so they all throw their silly hats into a pile in the middle of the room. Then they close their eyes and randomly all grab a silly hat from the pile at the same time and put it on. How many ways can these 5 guys pick hats such that none of the 5 guys have picked their own hat?

How about for 10 guys?

How about for n guys?

The best part about this is that there's pretty much no way to Google the answer, or even to Alpha the answer, or even Maple the answer. Doesn't it feel a little weird to be asked a question like this where you can't just say "I don't know, but Google does?"

Peace out.

[[ It took me about two hours to figure this problem out, just sitting and thinking. Major props to you if you figure it out faster than that - you should consider a math major ]]

GED

I took my second actuarial exam (financial mathematics) on August 13th of this year at the Curtis Center in Philadelphia. Believe it or not, I actually didn't use my own Pilot G-2 .5mm mechanical pencils this time because I was afraid of them saying I was cheating. I was also forced to leave my cold sore medicine (for what, I believe, was not even a cold sore) outside, and had to leave my test for a minute to put some on with about an hour left.

Well anyway, after I left, I had a bit of trouble finding the bathroom, and decided to just forget about it for a while, and headed for the elevator back down to the first floor. There was a man in the elevator with me, who I believe was taller than me, with a little bit of paunch, older, whiter hair and balding. He saw that I was holding something like a study manual in my hand (the Actex manual that I had been using) and asked me if I had just taken a test. I said yes, and he asked me if I passed. I told him yes, and then I asked him if he had taken one too, and he said yes, he took the test for the GED, and he had passed. He seemed very, very content to have passed. He even gave me a high-five when we stepped out of the elevator and wished me the best of luck with everything. It made me extremely happy to see how happy he was that he'd passed his test.

Peace out.

Molly Bloom

I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

//

I would kill for a book filled with something like this. Maybe someday I'll just read the last chapter. And that one other chapter that's supposed to be really good...

Peace out.

Text Messages

I always feel a little bit sad when I delete the inbox on my phone because it's full. I feel like I'm losing something.

//

I hate that I had to spend all my summers in my childhood at the beach away from all of my friends. I almost feel some resentment about it. I remember that my dad would stay at home all week and only come down to see us on the weekends, so he was alone all week from Sunday night until Friday night. I wonder if he feels resentment about that. I think that would probably be even worse.

Peace out.

Pope-ourri

[This entry has nothing to do with the pope]

I think it's silly when people think I'm attractive/cute/hot/etc. Not because I'm flattered by it and don't know how to handle it [though that is true when it happens], but because I seriously think they're wrong. I always thought that I was just-average looking and not a bit above. And still do, pretty much. Also, I'm always afraid that I'm gaining weight.

When I was in 8th grade I had to write a paper in response to talk radio or talk TV for Dr. Castefaro's Social Studies class. He specifically made me respond to Rush Limbaugh, although I think I encouraged him in that selection a bit. I remember listening to the show and taping it upstairs on the floor of my parents bedroom with our crappy old radio/tape player and hate-hate-hating Rush Limbaugh when I was finished with it. He was talking about Iraq and Saddam Hussein and probably WMDs at that point. I would love to see that paper, but I can't find it at the moment. More importantly, I would love to see Dr. Castefaro again, or have him be my teacher again. I can and probably should make the first one happen, though I don't know if I can swing the second.

I've been sleeping way more than usual lately and it makes me feel unproductive, but I just don't know what else to do after 11pm when I have to be in my house and can't make noise.

I'm really lucky that all my passions/desires are within the bounds of social acceptability. Nobody every calls me a freak or criminal because I play piano for hours every day or basically drool at any mention of number theory, roller hockey, or Krispy Kreme doughnuts. But some people aren't so lucky and they just so happen to be into disabled people or crossdressing or even just people of the same sex, and they have to spend their whole damn life feeling like an outcast because of it. It's not like they choose these things! I wish society didn't judge things like that.

I think there exists at least one person who does know or to whom I could comfortably tell every "secret" that I have. I think that's a good place to be. Although I wish I didn't have to have secrets.

I've worked on keeping my cool over the past while, and I think I've done a good job of it. I never really get angry, I'm becoming much more patient, and I never lose my temper. I typically feel good about all of that, but sometimes I wonder if it's really for the better. Maybe people should get pissed off.

The kid in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close always said that he pet his cat "to show him that he loved him." I used to think of it like that with my cats, too, although I hadn't for a while. I'm starting to again after reading said book.

My senior year of high school, I would always tell people: Every day you see me, I'm probably having the best day of my life. I don't know if that's true anymore and it makes me uncomfortable. I know that there's tons of potential for me to go back to a monotone increasing amount of awesomeness in my days, but I worry that somehow it just won't happen.

I'm slow to take up new technology. I never got an iPod, I never use .mp3 players, I never got a "smart phone," I never update my versions of AIM or Adobe, I hate finding my homework assignments online.

I don't know where I stand on the Will-You-Ever-Have-Kids issue currently. I still think that I would hate the first like 13 years or so of raising each kid, but after that I'd probably like them. Like, when they have their own personality and independent thoughts and actions and interests in stuff. It would be awesome to raise some kickass kids and feel like an awesome father and die proud of my incredible children. But what if I don't like the things I make? Scary.

But then again, I always regret the things I don't do more than the things I do.

When I found out somebody is really religious, I have a much harder time developing a friendship/good relationship with that person. There are exceptions of course - Rachel M is very religious and also a great friend of mine. But I still have that prejudice. It's definitely because of The End of Faith. I think I have been getting better about it recently - separating the religion from the rest of the person.

My brother mentioned my blog [HATE THAT WORD] in front of my parents the other day and I wanted to strangle him. Not to death, just to make it hurt. I don't want my parents to read this. I hate the fact that they know it exists. [Hey Mom and Dad! Hint: Never mention this ever]

The other day in Genuardi's, the cashier commented on my shirt. It was the middle-aged blonde woman, and I was wearing my "Wednesday is hump day" shirt, featuring a camel. She said it was very true. I don't think she realized the innuendo, but maybe she did. Viv's mom also commented on my "Friends don't let friends vote Republican" shirt tonight when I went to visit her.

I had a very exciting week, although it's to remember everything. Sunday I saw Keith's band called Hessian at Mojo 13, Monday I watched Dr. Strangelove with Chloe, Tuesday Chloe/Matt/I went to Dorney Park, Wednesday I walked w/ Kristin and saw Christie H, Thursday I looked for ladders, ran through corn, and saw DCI w/ Chloe, Friday I went to First Friday. Saturday I studied. Sunday I saw Viv.

I have still never taken a drink of alcohol or ingested any drug that was illegal for me to take. I don't think I want to - especially not after this summer. I might be interested in going to a frat party at some point just to see what it's like, but I imagine that I'll be extremely uncomfortable, and probably want to leave after a few minutes. On a mostly unrelated note, apparently plastic bags really aren't too terrible for the environment (but I still avoid them anyway). Furthermore, a solar tower is in operation in Lancaster, PA. Go sun!

I don't know what I want to do with my upcoming summer. Options include (a) Insurance internship, (b) NSA internship, (c) Academic program TA or RA, (d) Non-academic program TA or RA, (e) Drum corps, (f) Become a long-haul trucker.

I didn't even start texting until Gina basically made me, just by virtue of her texting so frequently. I remember I got a new phone right before I went to Brown and traded it in the first week I was there because it's T9 Word didn't learn new words. The battery also died within like 6 hours every time.

Loving people is definitely the best part of my life. It makes me happier than anything else I can think of - to know that there exist people who I think are that awesome. The only thing that comes close is writing a song that I know kicks ass. But nothing else.

There are a lot of layers between people now. There was a picture recently where five people in my family were sitting on the couch in front of the TV, and each person had a laptop in front of them. I count that as six layers inbetween the people and a conversation. Add in cell phones for an additional five (although they're not in constant use). Even right now, my brother and I are sitting across from each other at the same table, but we're both on our laptops, not talking, hardly even communicating at all. I wonder what would happen if I closed my laptop and just sat here.

I should write my Nana a letter. Soon. I was supposed to do it when she sent me money on my birthday last year - she hardly even has any money to send me - but it just kept getting pushed off. Partly because I don't really know what to say. But that shouldn't matter to me, dammit, she wouldn't care what the hell was in there, really, just that I sent something to her at all. I hate that I haven't done this yet.

Graveyards are like libaries, full of people and all their stories, but you can't check them out anymore. Imagine all the secrets that are taken to the grave. God damn. I wish that I were one of those people that could start a conversation with anyone with ease. I'd love to get to know/love more people. Everyone if I could. But I never feel like people want to be bothered, and I also fear that I have an angry default face that would make people not want to talk to me. Maybe I just use that as an excuse and I'm afraid they wouldn't like me. Not sure.

One of my friends attempted suicide recently. I couldn't understand it. They were smart, had loving family, a great home, a good school, good grades, a significant other, athletics, looks. They looked perfect on paper. I don't know what drove them to try it exactly, I don't think I could every really understand, but it's scary and makes me feel like no one is safe.

I worry a lot recently about my friends staying safe. I wish I could make sure everyone were safe all the time somehow.

Leroy showed me the paragraph in The Catcher in the Rye where Holden actually uses that exact phrase. I found it once, looking through a copy of the book in Trish's room at Brown. I never liked the book, but I really like that paragraph, and I relate to Holden in that sense.

I'm taking my actuary exam on Thursday morning at 8am. I'm pretty sure I'm already overprepared for it, which is a nice sentiment to have.

We were running low on all my favorite awful foods recently, but we got some Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Tastykake doughnuts now, so I'm set for a while. Except for I'm still afraid I'll get fat. Eh. I'm going to go have some cereal right now.

Peace out!