Cutting the Floor

Last night we had to work on the drumline floor again.  We've done it for each of the past three weeks, and I know that I'm getting very impatient with it, and I suspect some other people probably are as well.  Some people just don't even come anymore.  We have to go to the Blue Band Building, which is northeast of campus and pretty far from me, and load the floor into Kyle's (our tenor tech) green conversation van and then drive it to the Wagner Building, which is the building used mostly for the R.O.T.C. programs.  There's a huge "bay" in the bottom that we call the armory or the arms bay.  It's really just a huge open space where we can unfold our floor.  There are two gas grills on one side, a lot of picnic tables, and there are stone slabs in one corner that have answers to unlisted questions.  Some examples of things written on them are "Art can't save your woman" and "No, but it always has happened and always will happen."  Apparently they were laid out in front of the Forum earlier in the year with questions posted nearby, and people answered in chalk.  I don't know what the point it.  There are also at least three pull-up bars, and a very very high ladder in one corner.  Everything is very gray, very industrial, very impersonal, and boring.  There are a lot of windows on oneside and it is almost always very cold in the bay.  Sometimes R.O.T.C. people practice their drills when we're painting.  They're usually nice.

I came late last night - supposed to be there at 8:30 and got there at about 10 - and we were only just as I was walking in ready to make measurements to cut the floor.  I knoew this would happen; the staff didn't give us great plans and they apparently spent a long time figuring out exactly what they wanted.  Kyle was sitting in the corner near a table with his computer.  Mikey brought out some straight-edges and switch blades so we could get cutting.  Cass cut the first line at the bottom of the flap and that went fine for the most part.

I should say, we're cutting out flaps of an old floor so that we can tape them to our new floor and pull them back in the end of the show to reveal a new design.  Or something like that.

Anyway, we had to go up the floor a little bit to cut the other end of the flap.  Isaac was down with the straight-edge and blade doing the cutting, and Cass was standing nearby giving a little instruction.  He said things like, "I gotta see that bicep man!  Flex it!"  He was telling him to cut really strongly to make sure he cut through the tarp all the way; it's sort of annoying to try and not get it through.  After Isaac had cut through about a eighteen inches, Steve W noticed that our real floor was underneath where Isaac was cutting, and he was probably cutting right through it.  We pulled apart where Isaac was cutting, and realized that yes, he had cut the floor.  Not just through one layer, but two or three.  We were all pretty upset, but realized we could just put black tape on it or on the back and it'd be okay.  We did just that, and I believe it will turn out okay.  Somehow, throughout the whole process though, the blame shifted to Cass because he told Isaac to put pressure on it, rather than on Isaac, who actually did the cutting, or everyone else, who didn't notice that the floor was underneath.  We sort of owe our show to Steve.  We seriously almost slit our floor in like four places.

Peace out.

Cognitive Biases

Recently I stumbled across Wikipedia's List of Cognitive Biases.  Some of them are really intensely interesting, and I definitely suggest you check some of them out.  Some of the ones that blew my mind in particular were these:

Illusion of asymmetric insight - People perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them

Illusion of transparency - People overestimate others' ability to know them, and they also overestimate their ability to know others

Outcome bias - the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made

I feel like if we all had an active awareness of our biases, we would all probably be much better people overall.  I'm going to make a conscious effort to keep these in mind from now on.  Hoping it'll help me understand people a little bit more and be more sympathetic.

Peace out.

Showers and Towels

When I was younger, I used to not take showers very often.  But I'm not talking like baby-young, I mean like, up until fifth grade.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't until the end of fourth or sometime in fifth grade that I actually started to shower more often than like once every Sunday.  Looking back, I guess that's sort of gross.  But at the same time, I don't remember my hair being greasy, and I didn't often get dirty, no one ever told me I smelled, and kids don't even start to really sweat until they hit puberty.  So it's not that bad, is it?  I used to think it was ridiculous to shower every day, and honestly I still do, and often I take a shower every other day if I'm not disgusting, although I doubt I could get by other people showering once a week now.

I also used to not understand that you can reuse towels.  Every time I used a towel, I would put it in the hamper to be washed.  At one point, my brother or my mom talked to me about it and told me that I should use it a few times before washing it.  Instead of actually doing that, I sort of just decided to not put the towels in the hamper ever.  So for a long time I washed towels every time, and then for a long time I never washed them at all.  I think I'm striking a sort of happy medium now, but I'm not really sure.

Peace out.

A Sad Dream

I had a dream last night that Barack Obama resigned the presidency.  I forget exactly why, but it had something to do with him already having made a mistake that was absolutely irreparable and would stop him from doing anything productive anymore.  I was really really upset, until I woke up, and realized it was a dream.

Whew.

Peace out.

Ishmael Beah

I was at a speech last night by Ishmael Beah.  He was forced to be a child soldier during the civil war/revolution in Sierra Leone (West Africa).  He mentioned that oral tradition was very there and that his foster mom was a professional storyteller, so during Q&A, after talking about how this war and violence affected his life for 45 minutes, I asked him to share one of the stories.

Imagine a husband and wife telling this to their son.

So, son, you're out hunting one day, and you've brought your gun.  You're in the forest and looking through the trees, and you find a monkey who's eating a banana, or scratching his sides, whatever monkeys do.  So you think he looks like a good catch and you raise your gun to shoot him but then, he puts his hand up as if to say stop and he says, "Whoa whoa, hold your horses."  And, since a monkey spoke to you, you listen.

He says, "If you shoot me, your father will die.  If you don't shoot me, your mother will die."

[at this point, you turn to your son and ask] "Son, what would you do?"

Ishmael said that his response was always, "I would go to the bathroom!" (and maybe he would run to the bathroom).

Then he just started talking about the story, and he said, "Then when I was young, I didn't really understand the story, I was too young to understand what it was about.  But after I got older and I saw all these things and I was thinking about everything, I realized that the point is that there is no correct answer.  Once you've lifted the gun - once you've chosen violence - it doesn't matter what you do, someone is going to pay for it.  It's not that it's going to be your mom or that it's going to be your dad, it's that the choice is already made."

(I had gone back to my seat at that point, but he was still looking right at me, and I said thanks from my seat and he said "You're welcome" while looking right at me still.  It was pretty cool.)

Peace out.

Losing My Hat

I took my actuary exam this Thursday that just passed at 9 in the morning.  It's a big deal, apparently, and the testing centers are made to be extremely secure.  You're not supposed to have anything in your pocket at all and you have to put everything you came with in a locker, and they scan a photo ID of you and take your fingerprint six times before they let you start taking your test.

Well anyway, one of their directions was that they don't have perfect control over the climate in their centers, so you should bring a coat in case it gets cold.  I brought a coat - and my hat - for exactly that reason, but sometime during the testing a woman came through and said, "Here, let me take that for you."

I wanted to say, "No, I want it in case it gets cold," but I wasn't cold, so I just figured I'd let her go.  They also yelled at me for using mechanical pencils (which she called a "pen") and said that I wasn't supposed to have anything.  She let me use them though 'cuz they were just pencils, and probably because I gave her a look of "That's ridiculous and your pencils suck" when she mentioned it.  Their pencils really did suck.

Anyway, on the way out of the testing center, I meant to get my coat and forgot.  I also realized that I didn't know where my hat was, so I called my mom to ask if it was on the island at home, and she said no.  So I went back inside and went to the receptionist.

"Hey, I was just at desk 21 taking a test.  Could you possibly go back and check to see if I left a blue knit hat there by any chance?"  So she went back to check, and while she did, I took my coat from the coat rack, which I had also forgot.  I reached my hand into my coat pockets as I often do, and in the left pocket was my hat.  Damnit!  Oh well.  I felt pretty foolish, but she already went to look, so I just let it go.  When she came back I kept my hands in my pockets and said, "Alright, well thanks for looking."  I think I sort of noticed her looking at my hands in my pockets as I turned, but I'm not really sure, and you definitely couldn't have seen my hat anyway.

Peace out.

Things Like Other Things

If you take a big Zildjian cymbal - like 18" or more - and hit it softly and then let it vibrate until you can't hear it when you're standing three feet away, and then you put your ear half an inch away from it, you can hear a deep roaring sound, like a bass guitar.

If you bite your lip and lick it at the same time quickly in a certain manner for a little bit, like for thirty seconds, it tastes like snow.

There's a window in the basement of my dorm that has brown-paint framing that smells like pavement after a hot rain if you have your nose really close to it.

Peace out.

A Tiny Documentary about Me

I think I mentioned this to a bunch of people at home. My friend Davis made this short documentary/profile of me and my music a couple weeks ago at school and posted it on his website, an alternative news source for Penn State students. It's seriously well done (and only two minutes long!).

Feel free to check it out at this link right here. Or maybe this one.

Or this one.

Peace out.

The Idea of You

I keep getting ideas for songs that I really like a lot, but I can't seem to finish them. I think I have like four or five on deck right now. It'd be really great to finish them, but I don't know if I will. I think the best way to describe it is that it's sort of like having a crush on them. I like the idea of them, but deep down, I don't actually like them. Like people say about relationships.

Though my relationships with my songs really aren't typically deep, I promise.

Peace out.

Most Bizarre I Have Ever Seen

On Friday night, we were staying at Francis Bunnell High School because Penn State Indoor was practicing there. Trumbull High School, where we were competing, was about twenty minutes away.

Anyhow, the night that we showed up, some other high school was rehearsing in the same school as us - we had the small gym and they had the regular basketball gym. We all had to shower in the boys' locker room, which was right near their gym. I went to get ready for bed at something like 11:30. I looked for sinks but I couldn't find any good ones, just a gazebo-type thing that had three tiny jets of water coming out of three places by motion-sensor activation, which sucked for brushing your teeth and washing your mouth. There were TONS of lockers to my right, way more than GV. To the back on the left were the showers.

There were maybe six showers. Together they occupied a hexagon, with each of the six triangles of the hexagon having a curtain to surround it, something along those lines. I never shower at drumline, but one of the PSU guys was showering (I believe it was Dennis, a tenor player). There were also a number of guys from the other high school showering. At one point one of them said something along the lines of "Oh, wait, I have to go get my shampoo!" and ran out of the shower, probably naked, though I wasn't really looking. I was getting changed at this point.

A half minute later or so, he came running back past me. I wasn't really looking, but out of the corner of my eye, for a split second, I saw that he was wearing an enormous red strap-on penis. I had no idea what the hell was going on. I think there was another kid running with him but I wasn't sure. He ran into the showers. I should say, this thing was probably like 18" long, and just fire-engine red everywhere. I wondered if he harassed the guy from PSU - I don't think he did. But other kids were screaming, asking what the hell was going on.

It really was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen.

Peace out.

High on the Fever

Download it from http://jeff11.fileave.com/HighOnTheFever.html. kthx!

Peace out.

Lack of Memory Property

"For x, y > 0,

P [ X > x + y | X > x] = P [ X > y]

We can interpret this as follows.  Suppose that X represents the time, measured from now, in weeks until the next insurance claim is filed by a company, and suppose also that X has an exponential distribution with mean 1/t.  Suppose that 5 weeks have passed without an insurance claim, and we want to know the distribution of the time until the next insurance claim as measured from our new time origin, which is 5 weeks after the previous time origin.  According to the lack of memory property, the fact that there have been no claims in the past 5 weeks is irrelevant, and measuring time starting from our new time origin, the time until the next claim is exponential with the same mean 1/t.  In fact, no matter how many claims have occured in the past 5 weeks, as measured from now, the time until the next claim has an exponential distribution with mean 1/t; the distribution has "forgotten" what has happened prior to now and the "clock" measuring time until the next claim is restarted now."

Peace out.

Eating It

I ride my bike to and from classes to save time; I'm sure like everyone who reads this knows that.

Last Friday, after my Stat 415 class, I hopped on my bike in the bike "parking lot" that's right outside of Willard, on its east wall.  Typically I just stand beside my bike and walk it north a little bit until I'm on the main road until there are less people, but for some reason I decided to just hop on right away that day and hope for the best.

So I hop on, and start going toward the busy sidewalk.  There were a lot of people.  I remember there was a girl coming from my left, I think she was Asian, and some guys coming from the right.  I didn't want to thread right between them, so I tried to stop.  I put on the brakes, and I turned my wheel a sharp left, as if I might go behind the girl coming from my left somehow. 

I guess I turned my wheel too far, and I pedalled a tiny bit and then IMMEDIATELY just hit the deck.  And I totally ate concrete in front of everyone.  I'm sure there were hundreds of people in the area, but I don't know how many were watching.  I didn't know what to do, I felt really embarassed, so to try to dispel some of the awkwardness I used my loud Will Ferrel voice and said, "WOW THAT WAS RELLY EMBARASSING."  I got back up and just started walking, and realized the knee of my pants were all wet and sort of dirty.

The kid named Mark in the room next to me was walking by without my noticing, but then he said, "Good going," or something to that effect.  I told him I was going to walk with him because I'd feel less like a loser, and as we were walking he said, "So, uh... you might want to learn how to ride a bike a little better."  I agreed.  We got to the road at the north and I rode to my next class, where no one knew what happened.

Peace out.

KiSoek

There's a guy in my STAT 501 course named KiSoek.  He's really nice.  He sat next to me in lab one day and we just started talking, I'm not really sure about what, but it was probably something about the course.  We talked to each other every Friday when we'd sit near each other in lab, and then he started to sit in the front row of class (with me) so we'd talk then too.  He's super nice, you have to understand.  He's also very Asian, has a pretty thick accent, and somewhat frequently I have trouble understanding what he's saying.  Today I had trouble when he said "fifth" as in "fifth edition" of a textbook.

One day I asked him how he got to class and he said he'd ride his bike, unless it was too cold, in which case his wife would drive him.  Wife?!  I thought he was like 24 like any other grad student.  He then said he also had kids.  KIDS?!  Gosh, how far along are you man?  Then he laughed and said, "My age is uh, 38!"  I had absolutely no clue.  He definitely doesn't look it.  I dunno if he works out or just eats well but it doesn't show.

Anyway.  His kids are like seven and nine years old.

A day or two ago his backpack got stolen.  He was working in the library and got up for a minute, and when he came back it was gone.  He talked to the library staff, then the police, but they basically said it happens all the time and there's not much they could do.  They found his backpack in the bathroom, emptied out.  They took his stat book, which I've lent to him for the night, and his computer.   We were talking about it for a minute at the HUB today, and I thought it was very sad.  He said he didn't care so much about most things - he could buy a new computer - but he mentioned that he had the "entire history" (in his words) of his kids on there.  From day one up until age nine.  And now it's all gone, and he'll probably never see any of it again.

He didn't get very emotional when he said it, but I could tell he was pretty upset.  He breathed in and looked up and sort of sighed to himself.

Peace out.

Titty Bar Lock-out

The Saturday that just passed, the drumline had a performance in Mifflinburg.  We also taught a clinic there.  We practiced on Saturday until something a little bit after 11pm, and then we were free to do what we wanted.  All the instructors went out to drink like they usually do, so Sean was in charge of turning the lights on and off.

I was totally not ready to go to bed.  I talked to Kyle, who was laying on his sweet memory foam bed for the night, and then a few other people, and ended up driving Gina, Isaac (our new bass drummer) and Kyle to Sheetz.  Kyle really really wanted a milkshake, but my car was almost so cold it made him not want one.   I kept the car warm so he would still want it.  I got a pack of purple and pink nerds, but I left them in the gym that night and forgot to get them the next day.

Anyway, after we got out of Sheetz, we had no idea what to do because it was still too early to go to sleep.  One of the other guys suggested, "Let's look for a titty bar!" and so I thought, hell, why not?  What's the worst that could possibly happen?  So I drove a couple miles down the main road in town (Rt 45) looking for anything that might be a strip club.  We eagerly read every sign we came across, particularly neon ones.  We were let down in every circumstance.  We turned around in a creepy used car lot, parked in the Mifflinburg lot, and went to the door.

We had gone to Sheetz with another car of people, and we thought they would leave the door propped open for us.  However, we were wrong.  It was pretty cold that night, and also pitch black in the parking lot because they turn all the lights out there at that school after a certain time at night to save energy.  So I was dressed alright, in a light jacket.  Gina had a bunch of layers on.  Kyle and Isaac were both wearing gym shorts if I remember correctly, but had on jackets and sweatshirts.  When we found the door was locked we just thought, "God, you must be kidding me."

So the first thing we did of course was knock loudly.  However, the gym we were staying it was three sets of doors away, so there was no way they would ever hear us.  I considered honking my car forever until they came, but never brought it up.  Isaac tried to force up a window, but that didn't work.  Kyle and Isaac had both left their phones inside, so we couldn't get to any of the numbers they had gotten because no one memorizes numbers anymore.  So we were stuck with my phone and Gina's phone.  I called the few people I knew that were inside - Cass and Sean - but neither of them answered.  Then we decided to call Laura to get some other people's numbers, so Gina called her.  She kept hanging up to give us numbers, which made Kyle really frustrated.  She gave us the number for Kate and Steve W, but neither of them answered.

Well actually, she gave us the number for SOME Steve, but not the one in drumline.  Kyle called "Steve" from Gina's phone and the guy was just like, "Dude, what?  What are you talking about?  No, this is the wrong person, sorry."  Which was great.

So it had probably been like ten minutes at this point and we were still locked out and not sure what to do.  I told Gina to go back to the car because her teeth were chattering, but she didn't want to.

Eventually, I gave in and called Tollie.  I told her we were stuck outside and someone needed to let us in, and I figured she'd have a number of a bunch of people inside to try.

A few minutes later, Alix came to let us in.  The wallet and paper we'd been using to prop the door open was nowhere to be seen.  What the hell happened?  Oh well.  Alix asked us why we were out so late and I told her, because I knew it would make her angry.

Peace out.

Ah

I don't usually make posts like this, but I just want to record that this is the most tired I remember being in just about as long as I can remember.

Probably since the time I stayed up all night talking to Cat, or the time I tried to stay up all night at the end of PGSS, or the time I stayed up all night at Brown.  

It is too early.

Peace out.

(Note that this was originally posted by accident on thethingswesaid, Wednesday after midnight, and I slept well into Thursday morning)

Cai

I went to Late Night (a cafeteria that's open late) recently with a couple friends to just hang out and hopefully eat some Mozz sticks as we say.  At one point I went up to get some cereal and decided on Frosted Flakes, and just as I put the bowl under the dispenser, a girl with black hair, pale skin, but maybe an Italian face who worked came up beside me to fix something nearby and said, "Yeah man, go for those Frosted Flakes, they're great."  Something about the way she said it was interesting, so I said, "Yeah, definitely - " and then I realized that "They're Great" was referring to the tagline for the cereal, - "oh, hahaha, clever.  Yeah, they are great."  I wanted to make some witty reference to another cereal slogan, but none came to mind.  Kid tested, mother approved?  Eh.

Later I went to get some milk, but it was empty, so one of the workers needed to change it.  They called someone, but no one came, and the same girl ended up doing it.  My friend Jaffe (his last name) was with me.  I think that her name tag said Cai but I'm not really sure.  She talked to Matt and I as she opened up the silver dispenser, took out the huge empty crates, and then loaded another one.  I realized that she had a bit of trouble loading the full one, and I made fun of Jaffe and myself for letting the woman do all the hard work.  She said that she was a disgruntled worker, but at least she got paid.  She also made a reference to Napoleon Dynamite - "You could drink whole milk if you wanted to" - as she walked away at the beginning of the episode.  She seemed like a cool cat.

I think she was in Simmons today.  I was playing piano, and I think I saw her sit down on a couch beyond the piano, where I couldn't see very well.  There was a friend there, too.  They both seemed like they wanted to sleep - and, I'm pretty sure they fell asleep.  I played quiet and calming songs so I wouldn't bug them.  In a way it was nice - I think they may have actually liked it, since they came in while I was playing - but also, I like to play what I want to play, not waht sleepy passerbys want me to play.  I didn't get to check if it was her or not afterward.

Peace out.

Strangers at Simmons

Sometime over the weekend, after drumline, I was hanging around Simmons.  I was walking up the stairs right near the lobby (the main stairwell, with black "granite" flooring) when I saw someone knock at the window that's to your left if you're walking up from the lobby's floor.  I just looked for a second and stepped on - you're not supposed to let strangers in - but they knocked again frantically and I said, "I DON'T KNOW YOU" and then they said something which I couldn't really understand, but I sort of realized it was an old Asian man, and I went to let him in.

When he came in, he was sort of loud, and the person at the help desk definitely noticed the disturbance.  I was afraid he would be mad at me for letting him in, but he was a delivery man (at least, we hoped.  He had food and stuff).  He called someone on his cell phone and said that he was in the lobby after asking me where he was, but apparently the person couldn't understand him.  He seemed a little bit angry and fairly frustrated.  He hung up his phone, and then asked me to call them back and explain the situation (white person = English!).  I called the person and they said they were at the Simmons loading dock, and I said that he was in the lobby.  The person said they would come up to get it, but he insisted on going down - I knew this was a bad idea because we might somehow miss each other on the way by.

I started walking him down the stairs and insisting, "The loading dock is down this way.  This is the way she would come if she were coming from there."  At each door and each turn, I think he grew a little bit more suspicious, like I was leading him on a wild goose chase or some sort of stunt.  Eventually we got to the basement, and I looked around, knowing the girl would probably be headed up.  He followed out the door behind me, and I noticed a girl at the elevator just as we got to the floor.  He asked if it was for her, and she said yes, it was.  They had a quick exchange that was somewhat angry - you said you'd be here!  No, I said I'd be here! - but the deal was done, I suppose.  I can't remember where he went or where I went, but he thanked me before he left.

---

There was a black guy sitting and waiting at the door to Simmons's loading dock a few days ago when I went out for some reason - dinner?  He said thank you and went inside, but I felt like there was something weird about him.  He was approximately my age, but I had never seen him before ever, and he was just sitting, waiting, as if he didn't know anyone and he didn't have a card.  He had a big blue jacket on, and a blue knit hat.

I've heard rumors of someone getting into the dorm recently and apparently giving people a rough time.  It's suspected that whoever it is isn't a student.  My friend Vicki apparently glanced at him once, and he came over and cursed her out and kicked her computer.  I was wondering if it was this guy.

I did feel bad about letting him in, but then again, what can I do?  If he's a nice guy, there's no harm in letting him in.  If he's a murderer, then he'd probably murder me for kicking him out onto the cold streets at night.  And if I don't let him in, someone else will (while I'm laying outside, murdered).

Anyhow.  I came back later - maybe I went to the computer lab? - and I saw someone approaching the door from the other direction (we were both outside, he from the west and I from the east) and I thought, shit, is it that guy again?  It was that guy.  I don't know if he was waiting for someone to approach the building or not but there was like no way I could avoid letting him in.  I felt bad about it again.

However, no one's been murdered.  I saw him in the study lounge tonight, with a laptop, on Facebook.

Peace out.

Icey Hockey

Chas and I have been itching to play hockey basically all semester. I had checked out the rink once or twice to see if the snow and ice had melted off of it yet, but was disappointed to find about two inches of slush each time. Yesterday Chas called me at about 3:30 when I was in the computer lab and said he checked the rink and it looked mostly clear, and asked if I wanted to go play. I said sure, and I got there a little bit after four.

We shot around for a little bit. He was working on his backhand and slapshot. On one of the first shots he took, I kept thinking, "the pucks are going to break. We really should try not to hit the post" and I was literally just about to say "Do everything you can to NOT hit the post" when he shot it, hit the post, and the puck flew over the fence and about a hundred feet away onto some ice in the middle of the field near the rink. We must have shot about six pucks out.

At one point we were playing one-on-one with an empty net. We would just start in the middle of the court, one on offense and one on defense, try to get a shot off. I played offense first and I don't think I did very well, so he took the puck out to go. He was coming down the board on his right side, and then turned around to try to guard the puck from me. Without either of us realizing, he was skating backward right into a huge left-over puddle of freezing water and some ice. I have no idea why it seemed so fast, but it felt sort of like I was in the middle of a super intense chase scene in a movie and then everything went wrong, the camera angle changed, and you realized, "Um, crap" and all the music stopped.

Anyhow, he was okay, he didn't hurt himself, but he didn't totally eat it. He landed on his elbow and scratched it just a tiny bit, but the worst injury was that he was very very wet, and the water was very very cold. It actually splashed as he hit it. I felt bad - there really was like a 50% chance that either of us would hit it, and it sucked that it turned out to be him. I also sort of felt bad that I didn't stop him, but I also had no idea it was coming.

Peace out.

Broken Computer

My computer came down with some malware recently (of the SWP2009 variety) so it's in the shop. I haven't been online, I haven't been up with the news, I haven't been reading SomethingAwful or HuffPo, I haven't been able to check my e-mail or my homework (since it's basically all online now), I haven't talked to people on AIM, and I haven't had time to write. I'm making time to update very quickly. For posterity.

On Monday I had dinner with Todd. He called me the night before extremely upset; his girlfriend sort of asked to go on a break with him and he had had some sort of strange problems over the weekend (found it impossible to speak, or control his legs). I had dinner with him at West and he told me he might transfer to Philadelphia. I hung out in his room for a little bit (a double, turned into a single when his roomie got kicked out for drinking) and we talked about math mostly, and some music. I decided I should listen to some Radiohead. I gave him all the music I had written (for the most part, lacking a few of the very latest songs).

As he walked me out of the building, we said goodbye, and I looked back at him. I could sort of tell that he was waiting for me to say something else, hanging on my words just a tiny but, but I couldn't think of anything. I think the correct answer was "take care of yourself" or "see you soon," but all I could come out with was "bye" or "later."

He Facebooked me later saying that he liked my music, in particular the song Philadelphia. Not because of what I wrote in the song, but because of how much he likes Philadelphia.

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On Thursday morning, I wrote a song. This was in part because I had nothing better to do with my lack of having a computer. It's a very very good and catchy song. At least like four people have said it was good so far, including two random dudes in the lounge (a while after I had played it, they asked what "that first song" was), a girl named Louisa, and Steve from drumline. I'm not sure what it'll be called yet but it's going to be INTENSE.

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On Friday night after drumline ALL I wanted to do was play my song on piano again. But I checked starting at about 12:30 and there was some girl playing the piano. It was a really slow song, plodding, with a chord/double in the left hand and a melody in the right hand, in a mid/high register. I checked back up later, still playing, same girl, sounded like the same song. At one o'clock when I was ready for bed, I checked again, still same girl, same damn song. It wasn't even hard or interesting. It was sort of sad though.

At one point I walked by her to see what she looked like. She had an orange shirt, which made me wonder if she worked in the dining commons. She had blonde hair and she was looking downward with her said sort of tilted, and looked angry. I decided not to talk to her or ask her for the piano.

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I really hope my computer gets fixed, without having to be reformatted.

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I'm really mad that drumline might make me miss the last four hours of thon. I'm going to fight to see it.

Peace out.

High G

When I started singing, I had to strain my voice to hit the F below middle C, and I could pretty easily sing a full two octaves below middle C. For a long time I thought my range would top out at about middle C, but I got there a little bit ago, and it's still been going up. Sometimes it makes me feel like less of a man; sometimes I wish I had extended my range downward rather than upward; sometimes I worry that my talking voice is higher now that I've been upping my range rather than lowering it.

Last night at drumline, we couldn't get into the mirrored room in which we normally practice, so we just got our instruments, found a corner anywhere in the Blue Band Building, and practice on our own, individually. I played some warm-ups and played through the show a few times, but got bored of it after a while. You can only play the same thing so many times in a row without someone yelling at you to play it more other than yourself.

After a while I played some songs I felt like playing. "Ain't No Reason" by Brett Dennen is a favorite recently, and I also discovered how to play "Black Balloon" by Goo Goo Dolls on piano yesterday (Friday). So I played that. I had been struggling with the range - I felt like I couldn't do it the way the lead singer did in the song, and that my range wouldn't go high enough. But I figured I'd give it a try and just see how it went.

I was in the corner, facing a glass wall, right near the mirrored room, on its west side, facing South I think. I think Sean was over my right shoulder, and maybe Rich was too, and they were both practicing. At some point in the song, the lyrics go something along the lines of "and scattered like lights from the sun; where was your mind, ye-e-ah" before "coming down, the world's turned over; ..." and the "was" is the syllable on the G, which I thought I couldn't reach.

Somehow, I'm pretty sure that while I was belting it on with the vibraphone, I actually hit that G. I had to scream pretty hard, but I think I got the pitch. It didn't squeak or seem to cause dissonance. It was the highest I'd ever gone. I tried to do it with some other songs, or with longer notes, just a little bit later, but it didn't seem to work. I think I tried that when Alex and Sean were near me, and I think they might have heard me. Or maybe it was actually Matt, the director. It might have been embarassing, but I don't think they know that I'm really a singer at all, and I guess technically I'm not really.

Anyhow, I just thought that was exciting.

Peace out.

tQx

In actuarial science, the symbol tqx is the notation for the probability of somebody dying anytime from the year denoted x and the t years following x. Typically it's given as a function, and typically it turns out that the area underneath the function between 0 and about 110 is 1, which implies that there is a 100% chance that you've died at age 110. So the function might be something like (t)Q(x) = (1/10) * e (-1/10)*x, where x is your age. You have to work with it a lot, and you use it to construct mortality tables, probabilities of dying, and from there you'd calculate how much premiums the group should pay based on their expected lifespan, etc., etc.

Typically the whole concept seems pretty distance, but sometimes our teacher Ron brings it back home. In class, he often gives examples of tQx for something like, "If you have an equal chance of dying every year before 100, and you're all 20 now, when will most of you be dead?" Sixty, of course. And some kids look around the room, like "Holy crap, we're actually dealing with dying people here." Recently he was doing an example, which requires some math to understand, but in case you're unfamiliar I'll explain a little bit. We were working with an operation, and the point is that if you input a number of about 115, the operation will tell you that everyone has died. The question in class was what number to put in to assure everyone had died, and someone responded "infinity." Technically, it's correct, but you don't need to go that high.

Our teacher responded, "Hmm, well, that's certainly safe." He has a way of making everything seem mundane even when it's not, in a good way - he smiles a lot and often stands akimbo and nods just a tad. "Yeah, well... I suppose no one's getting out of here alive," he finished.

Just in case you're interested, your chance of dying can be predicted almost exactly using a really simple equation, with a simple principle. The principle is that as you get older, you get worse and worse at warding off the effects of aging and mortality. The guess was that you get worse exponentially as time goes on. It requires math again, but to explain, the "force of mortality" for you at any moment is e^[.0004 + .00002x^1.103] or so. It seem like low numbers, I know, but if you add it up, it guarantees you're dead by about 111.

It's strange how with all the complexities of life and nature biology, we can figure it all out with five numbers.

Peace out.

T9 Switch

My T9 is one of the ones that learns/remembers the new words that you put in. For a long time when I hit 1-1 and then hit Next twice, it would bring up =), but recently it's switched so that the same button combination brings up =(, and I have to hit next again for it to bring up =). I'm not sure why that is. I don't know if it's because I actually use =( more often than =) recently, or if it just means that one time when it reset its memory, I used =( before =) thus putting it first in the new memory cache. In either case, it's pretty annoying, and if I send you a text with an inappropriate emoticon, this is probably why.

Peace out.

Frustration with Example

Homework in college can get pretty frustrating. Unlike high school, we typically only have homework once per week, but it also typically counts for a lot more of your grade, like 10% or 20%. Also, it's graded a lot more harshly, and it's typically more difficult. Instead of just spending maybe 30 minutes reviewing what you did in class, it's often the main instrument of learning the material (yes, you teach yourself, and it's just through the homework, fun!). Kids usually spend a lot of time on each assignment, and usually there are only about four or five questions, but that can still take many hours. If there are more questions, the grader (who is typically not the teacher) selects a few and grades those and nothing else. For instance, in Math 220H (linear algebra, honors) we would have about 30 problems/week, but only six would be graded. So if you got 29/30 correct and one of those was graded, you got an 83%. Hooray!

Anyhow, I was doing my Math 465 (Number Theory) homework today because it's due tomorrow. One of the problems caused me a great deal of frustration, largely because I spent a lot of time on it, and I learned nothing from it. I wouldn't have minded if I had learned. Let me explain the problem. It'll be fun, I promise, and you'll get to see what super cool math majors do!

So we're working with Greatest Common Divisors (GCDs), which is probably a familiar example. Pick two numbers A and B, and the GCD is the biggest number that divides both of them. If A = 12 and B = 8, the GCD is 4, because no bigger number divides both 8 and 12.

There's a fun fact about this though. If you were to just look at the equation 12*X + 8*Y = E, and pick any X and Y that you wanted as long as they were both whole numbers, you could never make E any smaller than 4. So, the smallest number that you can make E using that set-up is the GCD of those two numbers.

The problem was this: If A*D - B*C = 1, show that the GCD of (A+B) and (C+D) is 1.

So I started on that problem, and thought about it for days, just to let it sit and simmer and see what came up. Basically, nothing did. So tonight when I worked on it, I just tried everything I could. I noticed that it's a linear combination if you write it correctly: A*D + (-C)*B = 1, and thus the GCD of A and B is 1. Hooray? I tried to go further from there but it didn't help me.

Then I ran out of options and looked in one of my old math books to see if there was any help there. There was nothing pertaining to this particular problem, but it DID spark an idea somehow. I figured I'd look at a linear combination of the second part and see if that helped: (A+B)*K + (D-C)*N = M. What I thought I could do is as follows. Assume that M is greater than 1. Thus, the GCD of A+B and D-C is greater than one, and M divides both of them since it's a divisor of both. Since it devides A+B, it divides A and B, and since M>1, the GCD of A and B isn't one - contradiction! But the last step doesn't make any sense, so I gave up on that.

I thought about doing prime decomposition, and I thought I had it there for a while. Then I tried expanding my linear combination, but still nothing.

It ended up that the answer was a trick you learn in high school called "Adding zero." Basically, it goes like this: If you add and subtract the same quantity from the same side of the equation, everything is still the same. Thus, you can say X = Y or you can say X + A - A = Y, because the +A and -A equal zero together. What you had to do was this:

A*D - B*C = 1

A*D - B*C + A*C - A*C = 1

A*D +A*C - B*C - A*C = 1

A(D+C) - C(B+A) = 1

A(C+D) + (-C)(A+B) = 1

Since you have a linear combination of C+D and A+B, their GCD is one.

Okay, fine. It's true, I get it, the GCD is one. The thing is, I didn't learn anything from it - the answer to the problem was a stupid trick you laern in high school that doesn't teach you anything about the methods or insights of number theory. Perhaps there is a tiny bit of somethign to be learned - sometimes you add zero! - but the goal would have been much better served if the instructor had added to the question (Hint: Add and subtract a certain quantity) so that you didn't spend two hours on it.

Anyway, it's late.

Goodnight.

Sodium Pentathol

I realized recently that sodium pentathol's two uses are somewhat interesting to consider:

1) Makes it impossible to feel pain
2) Makes you much more likely to tell the truth

Peace out.

Christine

The summer that I went away to Governor's School, a girl in my grade named Christine L died. She was new to the district and I actually didn't know her when I heard of the accident, but people kept saying someone named Christine in our grade had died, and I was sure I would know who it was. Eventually I found a yearbook with her picture in it, and it turned out I actually hadn't known who she was. I found a MySpace as well, and there were a couple more pictures there. Some of her best friends were some of my acquaintences, and they would write on her wall from time to time even after that day to say they were thinking of her and they missed her. Visiting that page really is heart-breaking. I probably would have liked her a ton from what was on there - she was liberal, talked about how much she loved her friends all the time, into politics, etc...

Today I was in Pollock on the North side, the regular cafeteria, and I went to get some desert or milk or something like that. On the way back, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a face that looked familiar, but I couldn't place it. For just a split second, I thought it was Christine. She looked the same - short blond hair, round cheeks, thin, pretty eyes, smiling. For a split second, I had no idea what it was going on. I was convinced for a moment that she was alive again. A moment later, I realized it was a girl who was in my Stat 200 class last semester, and nothing about the situation seemed so special anymore.

Peace out.

Nose Hairs

It's been so cold recently that, when biking from one class to another for hardly three minutes at a time, the hairs inside my nose freeze. It's very noticeable, unfamiliar, and fairly uncomfortable.

Peace out.

Obama Breakfast

After we watched the inauguration, I drove Hannah, Abby, and Joey to drumline so they could practice folding the floor or something, and Matt took Chloe and Molly to Megan's, where I drove after dropping my passengers off. Chloe drew the Obama symbol on her hand and jumped around with it and her Obama shirt on Smithbridge, and apparently someone honked and one bus-driver turned their head, according to Molly. When I stepped in, a man said to us, "Yeah, how about that Hawaiian president?"

We joked about putting Obama symbols on our food. I tried to put syrup on my waffle in the shape of the Obama symbol, but it didn't really work, although I took pictures of it. Matt put some butter on his pancake's top edge, and then took the syrup as I was about to use it, saying, "I have to put it on before the butter melts," and quickly made an Obama symbol with the syrup as the bottom half, the bottom of the circle and a couple stripes. I took a picture of it, because you could actually tell what it was. He told Molly she should make the word "HOPE" out of her fries, and she did, and I took a picture of that also.

When we were done, Chloe brought $25 up on our $24.49 check or something like that and didn't get change. I asked if she got the change for the tip, and Matt said, "The change we can believe in? Hah, you should have said that." At one point, the waitress noticed that we had overpaid and came to Chloe to give her the change, but Chloe pounded out the correct line, "No it's okay, you can keep the Change We Can Believe In."

Peace out.

N

I watched a video on YouTube recently called "Read a Book (dirty version)" which you can find if you want, which I first found because someone mentioned it in Paul's room, and they showed it to me when I was playing Four Square on their carpet. Gina and I thought it was really funny, and I would sometimes speak in the language in the video because it was funny. They said the word "nigga" a lot, for example. We were walking outside and I said that to Gina at the end of a sentence, and a fraction of a second later a black girl walked around the corner just in front of us, and I felt like a d-bag, even though I'm not racist and didn't mean anything by it.

Peace out.

Trucks

I think I realized this weekend that truck radios and possibly radar detectors can mess up your car radio, which I never noticed before. Some sort of flat bed truck, I think, had something going on that really messed up my radio for about one second when I drove past its cabin. I realized it, and figured it was probably the truck. I was on my way home from Penn State, and passed a truck stop shortly after that, and the radio blipped again. It sounded like something was popping a metallic bubble in the car, if you can imagine that, and it happened far more strongly outside the truck stop than just beside one truck. It happened once more as I passed another truck, but not others. I don't know if something is actually causing it, or if I'm imagining it.

Peace out.

Thief

Yesterday I went to the student bookstore. I bought the full version of my textbook for my Linear Regression class on Sunday; it was enormous and cost $200. The next day I went to class and my teacher told us that we could buy a smaller version that was cheaper and cut out a lot of the information that we didn't need for the course. So I went to the store and bought it.

When I got to the register, it came up as $109, and I paid. I thought that it had said it was $89 for a used book, so I decided to go back and check the price tag hanging near the book to make sure it was right. I knew that I would be walking out without paying for the book again, so I assumed people would assume I was a thief. So, I walked around with the book open and the receipt clearly displayed on its first page. Suddenly I was acutely aware of all the people that were able to watch me - a man on the stairs, just standing there, I realized was a manager - whcih I had never been aware of before. I walked past him and one other older staff member on my way out, and then through the registers, where a young Asian girl said she could take me, but I told her I had already paid. I don't know if she believed me or not but I guess she had no choice. I went to the side to get my backpack back - they take them so you can't stuff books in them - and I realized the girl turned around twice looking at me. I don't know if she was suspicious or if she was just looking around.

The next day I returned the full version to the other bookstore, and bought a calculator, then proceeded to look for the HUB's computer store. I couldn't find it, and I made a big circle around the HUB and walked back in through a different place than I had exited, and the alarm went off. There were sensors lining the entrance, and they made loud beeps and red lights lit up at the top of them. I had the receipt for the calculator with me, and again displayed it clearly. I didn't know what to do, but I felt like I was about to be accused of theft by a manager, so I sort of just waited to be accused. No one came up to me. The only person I saw walking anywhere in my direction was the girl who worked the register when I bought the calculator, so I just walked away.

Peace out.

All-Male Dorm Floors

God's punishment for the non-believers.

Peace out.

Song

You won't know what I'll be feeling, 'cuz you've always asked for a needle and Novacaine
Someday you'll let down your guard; it comes from behind and it hits like a hurricane
I had said I'd wait but I realized that I don't have time for this heart made of cellophane
You said I can't know what you're feeling, but I looked in your eyes and they read like a weathervane

Possibly a chorus of a new song. Just felt like writing it.

Peace out.

Women and Children

It occured to me sometime last night that I'm leaving the group of "Women and Children" that get to jump ship first and don't get shot in hostage situations and am entering the group of "Fighting-Aged Men" that have to go down with the ship and get shot when no one wants to.

Peace out.

Blanket

This morning I woke up sometime before I actually wanted to get out of bed, which happens all the time to everyone I'm sure. I adjusted position, but I didn't realize where I was moving from - my elbow was putting weight on one part of my blanket that I've had since I was born, and my body was putting weight on the closer part of it. So when I moved my body back, my elbow held part of it in place, but my body took the other part with it, giving it a somewhat serious rip. I heard it and I was extremely sad. I don't know how much longer it'll make it. All the corners are looking pretty bad now. Some are worse than others, and I actually couldn't tell which one I ripped today when I look later, but I am afraid it'll all be apart soon.

Peace out.

Just Noticed

That I wrote as many blog entries in the short time between leaving home for Brown and the end of 2007 as I did in all of 2008.

Peace out.

Piano

Playing piano is a lot harder at college than it is at home where I basically have a "private" piano. At school there's one in my dorm room, but the walls are thin so writing a song is embarrassing still. There's one in a study lounge, so it's clear why I don't write there. The other is five minutes' walk away in a basement sound-proof room, which is sort of creepy and frequently occupied, making it usually not worth going. Thus I haven't been able to write songs nearly as much as I used to.

The February of my senior year I think I wrote about 4 songs in four weeks. I haven't written one is five weeks or so at this point (since right before Thanksgiving). I think I still can't write at home because I've lost the "habit" of constant piano playing because of terrible pianoing conditions at Penn State.

It makes me really frustrated, and I would do just about anything in the world to change it. I would kill a man to be able to write songs more frequently. I guess it's something I'll have to work on.

Peace out.

Windows

I've always been sort of afraid of the dark. Not really just darkness, but more like what you can't see because of the lack of light... which I suppose is really a more accurate labelling of being "afraid of the dark." When I was younger - and sometimes even now - I would run up my basement stairs when I turned the lights off at night, fearing something would grab my ankles and drag me down and torture/kill me if I didn't move quickly enough.

Currently my main fear is windows. I'm often afraid something sinister is beyond them. Sometimes when I'm in the basement, I fear a criminal peering into the windows above the pool table. When I put my cereal bowl away at night, I'm afraid that someone with a rifle is positioned in the woods, waiting for someone to stand at the sink to shoot. Right at this moment at this computer, there are two huge windows just to the right of me, and I had to completely cover the one I can see in my peripheral out of fear of something or someone jumping up to it and scaring me to death.

Peace out.

The Last Full Day

There was another false start today. We were told that we'd probably wake up early to go boating, but my dad ended up getting a boat reserved later - at 12:30, so we were allowed to sleep in for a while. At something like 8:30 I detected that something wasn't going to plan so I got up and asked my parents what was going on, informed them I was taking their bed, was informed I would be disturbed, and slept comfortably in a marshmallow until sometime around 10.

Then we just hung around until it was time to go. I had Cheerios, which is the only type of cereal we have. The bowls are very deep and always have way more milk in them than you think when you are done.

I've been entertaining myself in my down time here by reading a topic on the SomethingAwful formus I post at. It's title is "Creepy reads on Wikipedia," and it has people bringing up things anywhere from serial killers to unexplained sounds to things like Cossart to outsider art. By far the most interesting thing that was there was Henry Darger, the most celebrated example of "Outsider Art" there is. You should read the abstract of that Wikipedia article. Seriously, read it. Now.

Congratulations on reading it! Anyhow, I spent a LOT of time reading about all those things. Very informative, though not sure it was worth probably the 4 hours or so to read about all of them.

Anyhow, we went to the Marriott to get our boat (that's where the dock was). We stopped at a convenience store on the way. A guy in a truck that was towing some sort of trailer almost destoyed the car we were in while we were in the parking lot. I got a doughnut which was marked Krispy Kreme but was definitely from Dunkin - a disappointment. My brother and I carried the large blue cooler down the very long dock when we got there, and it took a long time to actually get out of the dock. There was another family there and it seemed they were all renting waverunners. The prep work on our boat wasn't all done by the time we got there and apparently the man that we communicated with had to put some oil in our boat before we set out.

We went out and got to fishing. I didn't really feel like fishing, so I just chilled out with my aviators on and didn't do a whole lot. They caught some small fish - Ryan caught a tiny little one. Then they caught some Jack - possibly the same fish twice? And we also caught some catfish, and they made strange sounds (so did the Jack). We tried a new spot after we drifted down our first path a few times, and we saw porpoises jumping (!) which was pretty cool. There were also other fishing jumping, more in the distance, however. There were a lot of porpoises and they seemed to get pretty close to our boat, but never closer than about 50 feet. Jessica was afraid we would catch one. She was also afraid that we all texted too much and that I wasn't actually a great photographer.

I saw a huge fish jump at the point of land near us at one point and told my dad, and he drove over there. We drifted down that once or maybe twice and caught some fish, my dad thought one was a Pompano but it was just a Jack again. At one point a Jack jumped very close to our boat, in and out of the water twice, the first longer than the second, probably about ten feet horizontal and then about four. It was surprising and I happened to catch it.

My mom made me take a picture of palm trees in our complex earlier because they "look like a mom and pop and child." She also made me take pictures of everyone on the boat, so I took really bad pictures on purpose, and then my sister and mom tried to take good ones, I'm not really sure which are which right now, oh well!

My mom wanted my dad to go somewhere crazy for not a very good reason and we kept running on shallow ground. The first time it was about to happen Ryan said, "You're about to run aground" and then my dad ran aground and was surprised and Ryan said, "Geez, someone should have said something." This happened multiple times and we gave up. We stopped to fly fish for a minute on the way back because we saw two people on one boat with a fish on at the same time, but I don't think we had any luck. There was another boat at our dock when we got back, so we waited a few minutes before pulling in.

There were two girls at the dock that were from the family renting waverunners from before. I was confused why they were there. The rest of the family wasn't there, and one of them had changed clothes but the other hadn't. Were they renting waverunners again on their own? I dunno. My brother and I took the cooler back and we all used the bathroom and drove back to the apartment. I took a shower and read about creepy things. I also had to look up weather for my mom (it will be windy but I lied so she wouldn't freak out) and order pizza from Papa John's because my brother and I didn't feel like Chinese (neither did my dad but he dealt with it). The guy from PJ's said it was very confusing here even for a New Yorker, and I agreed. His name was Doug and he made 3 deliveries, per the receipt.

We went to David's house for dinner again. I couldn't not-touch the guitar anymore, so I asked Wendy if I could touch it, tuned it a tiny bit and played it (I'm not very good though). Everyone else sat down for dinner, but Ryan and I were exiled because we already ate and there wasn't enough room. He watched Two and a Half Men and I read The Great Gatsby, which David is reading to Lucien. He tried it, at least, and said he also read "Be Prepared" to him, which is like a Boy Scouts guide of what to expect for a male who's about to become a parent. It referred to infant behavior that seems contrary to survival instinct as "a sort of baby-version of Jackass." (i.e. flying down stairs, sticking things in sockets, laying face down in every water source possible).

I joined the dinner table after some people left and Jess was mad that I didn't help clean up. I asked Dave about his reading to Lucien and he showed me Be Prepared. I think I went back to the TV area after that and listened to Jenn talk to my sister about marriage - Jenn was glad that she waited to get married because she changed a lot.

When we showed up at David's house, we heard a cat crying from behind a wall of hedges. We looked for it with our cell phone lights but couldn't see it but it kept crying. I told Jess to go to the other side but she wouldn't so I did and it turned out to be Scooter, and it crawled under the hedge into David's yard. Jess didn't even see it scurry away, it was lost in the night, although it came back inside later.

I headed to the kitchen area later and got some Gummi Bears, and then some more gummi bears, and then some more. I talked about the time Jenn accidentally ate the paper part of Fruit by the Foot, after asking Ryan and Jess what the name for that was anyway. We also talked a little bit about my going on Semester at Sea in 2010 and how I was going through "Pirate Alley." Some seemed scared and some thought it was okay, Dad said he only had $2 in the event of ransom and otherwise I was screwed. I said that they'd never been captured so it was okay, but secretly I hoped we were captured by 1600-style pirates, or maybe even 1700-style.

My mom went to print out boarding passes and I went and we talked about Semester at Sea and Barack Obama and his court cases about his citizenship and if David actually had to convince Wendy to vote for him. The printer ran out of paper and I printed my itinerary for SaS. My mom told David about draft mode on the printer, which I first heard about years ago on an NPR segment about sophisticated consumers.

Earlier, young David had made me give him a piggyback ride. I made space shuttle noises and so did he, and I was convinced I didn't want kids because I don't like playing things other than Facts in Fives and pianos.

Jenn and her family left so we said goodbye to all of them. My mom had given them their Christmas present earlier, but they already had the Pokemon DVD game, so we had to find out a way to return it and get them something else. I'm not sure how that was resolved.

Wendy was holding the baby now; Grandmom had it earlier when she was on the rocking chair with him. I showed Wendy where I was going for SaS and she mentioned some places she'd been and that I should get some leather in Alexandria (I think). She said that Hong Kong was like New York but with three times as many people, but I said it was okay because they were 1/3 the size, and she added "and all with jet black hair."

We went home after that and I read more creepy things 'cuz I'm a loser, wrote this, and am now going to sleep.

Peace out!

The Girl in Green

There was a girl at the Marriott Hotel the day we went there for lunch who was sitting alone at a table for a while (later with a younger brother) with black hair, a green bikini swimsuit, and interesting eyes, although I can't remember why. Maybe it was color, or maybe it was shape, but there was something uniquely intense about them. It wasn't particularly attractive or not, but it was striking and you couldn't help but notice if you looked at her. She was probably 18 or something like that.

She was behind me when I sat down at the table. The bar near the food area was playing music, including the song "Suddenly I See." I asked my sister about it; she didn't know who it was by but knew it was the same girl who sang "Black Horse in a Cherry Tree," which was a familiar name but not tune. While the song was playing, the girl in green walked up to the bar without me noticing, and on her way back she was lipping the words to the song. I just happened to be looking in her direction and made eye contact for a fraction of a second while she was lipping. She flashed a smile very very quickly, and then her face returned to normal and she stopped lipping, as if to say, "I mean, I don't actually like that song?" I didn't mean it, but I thing I looked angry at the time because it was sunny and I was squinting and I didn't mean to look at her so I didn't smile or stop looking possibly-angry, and I kind of felt like I ruined her fun for the moment.

Peace out.

Third Day in Florida

On the second day my Grandmom had a delusion that we were supposed to eat breakfast at her house, and we saw that she bought materials when we went to use her bathroom so we agreed to eat there the next day.

I woke up next to my sister and apparently my mom woke me and was wearing my green Brasil jacket (which contained my Aviators) and I just said, "MY JACKET" and apparently dreamed she had been wearing it the previous night. Then I guess I woke up and got ready to go, and we walked over at about 9:30. My grandmom said we were very punctual.

We were afraid she would make the batter too thick so I handled the batter with a little help from Jess, and Jess tried to cook at first but they kept getting burnt so I took over. They turned out all fine but I thought some of them were mushy in the middle and they were "wheat honey" pancakes rather than just plain pancakes, so that wasn't great. My parents came at the end of breakfast after we had helped clean up a little bit and talked to my grandmom about moving and her whole ordeal and basically ordered her to keep it colder in her apartment. It was weird. We were about to go shopping and Jenn and her family were going to come for a spaghetti lunch; Grandmom kept trying to leave with us but after a while we got it through that she had to stay to have lunch with the rest of them.

The walk to and from Grandmom's was very wet because it rained the night before. I walked barefoot through the grass and my dad said it could have lizards and snakes and he was serious.

We went to the stores a tiny bit later and my mom saw a jewelry store where she could get her watch battery replaced. It was decorated from Christmas and it had very gawdy jewelry that Mrs. Rock would have loved. The couple running the store was from Brooklyn and an old customer walked into their store down here and was surprised. They moved because of the weather (the owners, that is). We asked how long a drive it was to Kennedy Space Center - about 90 minutes, they agreed.

We kept walking by the shops. My dad asked what 3 Rednecks was because it was headlining one of the places; my sister and I figured it was a band or a show. It was very hot and I kept feeling tired and just a little bit sick to my stomach, and I was just not in a very great mood. We went into some stores looking for gifts or sunglasses and were mostly disappointed. One store we stayed in for a while was April Daze; I look at "Porn for Women" which had muscley men doing things like cleaning a cat litterbox with talk bubbles saying things like, 'Nothing better than cleaning up after the cutest things on four legs.' The shop owner said, "THAT'S SO FUNNY YOU'RE READING THAT MOST PEOPLE ARE AFRAID!!!" which drew the attention of my dad to the fact that I was reading Porn for WOMEN, which was a little bit awkward. I think my sister got some journals for her students there.

There was one shop with two very small dogs in it of the owners' and they were very cute, but we left quickly.

There was one shop with a peace-sign shirt that I liked but it was for girls. They also had things that let water fall down glass that you put up against a wall that I like so much, but they were prohibitively expensive, ruining my plans to line my entire house with them.

After that we looked for a place to get lunch. Burger King's broiler was broken, so we went to McDonald's, and I got chicken. I took a long time to eat because I took the fried part off, and I ended up not even being done eating when everyone else was, so I had to rush and eat a little bit of the fried part, too.

We were supposed to go to Sea World that day but it was a long drive and expensive and no one really cared enough to go, so we went to a local Florida Oceanographic Institute instead with Jenn and her family. We got in free. My sister spilled some soda on the car floor. We looked at sting rays and then went on a nature trail walk and I talked to Jenn about the movie Milk and things at Brown and politics and how people called her husband Dead an "Obamacan" and that she was proud to have converted him, which I thought was sort of funny. We walked back to the stingray pool to watch a program on them and then you had an opportunity to feed them because they had been de-barbed, but it was too slow for me so I lost attention and wandered to other things. There was a hermit-crab-finding-its-shell game, a starfish pool, and a help the turtle find its way to the sea game. We checked the gift shop and then I checked out the indoor part and then we left for the Shell Beach.

(We saw bathtub beach the day earlier; it was guarded by a shallow reef and had very calm water)

Shell Beach was largely eroded and had huge coral/rocks sticking out everywhere which was very painful. Richard danced on them which was dangerous and he didn't seem to understand why. We drove down to a nice beach while Jenn/Jess/Mom/youngkids walked to the nice beach, about a half-mile down. We hung out there for a little while and then went back to our hotel and showered and watched TV before going to dinner at a place called Dolphin Bar.

The wait was very long. First we went to the gift shop but there was nothing I liked, so I went back and saw my dad at the desk buying a giftcard for the Brandt's (since we're staying in their apt). He told me there was a lot of history and to check out the pictures, so I did, they were of people I didn't know, including some girl named Florence whose last name I forget (it started with an L) and letters from Ronald Reagan and an old couple sitting beneath a picture of Richard Nixon and lots of other people I didn't know. My mom made my dad buy her a really gawdy silver/stone beachy bracelet for her big Christmas gift since she's impossible to shop for and he hadn't gotten her anything big. She liked it, and liked that she got it cheaper than his website said it was worth (she checked at home). There was a book on the table of letters from kids in a JD Parker 4th Grade class to someone who got them a class subscription to Cousteau's Kids, which apparently had stuff about albino dolphins, beluga whales, and pollution in its September and October issue. The kids wrote well but used the word "elated" to describe their reaction to the magazine with surprising frequency.

I texted when I got bored. My sister was about to make us play the Name Game when our table was called (the one about people's initials) and my dad was getting really impatient. My mom didn't like the table so we got another one that she liked about 5 minutes later. I got chicken and chocolate cake, and we fed bread to a bunch of catfish that were hanging around the dock at the back of the restaurant. When I got back, I mostly read SomethingAwful's topic on creepy reads from Wikipedia, then came here.

Peace out.

The Second Day in Florida

Hint! Don't read this if you want me to have stories to tell you when I get back :-P

I slept on the couch the first night here. It has a hard-wood frame, but there are cushions on all three dimensions so I thought I might be able to sleep on it. My parents got one bed, my brother the only other, and my sister took the aerobed because I had been tired earlier and thought I'd be able to sleep on the couch. I remember watching some SNL before going to bed, including the episode where Ben Affleck hosted and played Keith Olbermann and apparently Obama actually made a guest appearance, but I was hoping to fall asleep long before he would actually be in the show, so I changed the channel to something else, though I forget what.

It turned out falling asleep was a lot harder than I thought. I had two blankets and an extra pillow, but I could not figure out what combination of them was right, and I didn't have my own baby blanket. I tossed and turned most of the night and didn't get a very good sleep.

We were supposed to get up and go see relatives and possibly fish at the beach at something like 8AM or maybe a little later, but I think somehow my parents could tell that none of us were very well rested. They woke me up when they got up because the couch is right near the kitchen and etc., and I said, "Do we have to go now?" And they said that the kids could sleep a while longer but they were going to go out until about 10:30, so I wrapped myself up (wearing only my underwear) in one of the blankets I had, trudged to my mom and dad's INCREDIBLY SOFT BED, and disappeared in the marshmallow-like mattress for the next few hours. Apparently my sister tried to find me in it and could hardly see me poking up between the folds in the mattress and pillows. I remember before going there, though, my mom said something about getting doughnuts, which I was pleased to find when I woke up for real. I had one (Dunkin Donuts), chocolate with sprinkles. My sister pointed out that the box spelled it "HOLIDDAYS" but we concluded it was to match with "DD" for Dunkin Donuts.

We got our sunscreen on and our swimsuits and went to the beach. It was warm outside, but it was windy and the water was a bit cold - probably high sixties - and wind+coldish water is never a very fun combination, so I didn't go in. My dad and his brother fished a lot, and David caught a few whiting fish. He was using shrimp as bait, which he said wasn't a great choice from an economic standpoint, but you got very fresh fish. They also used sand fleas as bait, which were little crab things they caught by skimming the sand in the shallows. David was going to keep the extras by boiling them for 45 seconds and them freezing them. Jessica tried to cast the rod a few times but was not very good at getting it far out.

Richard and David played in the water a lot, but not so much the older kids. It was a very nice day outside, incredibly blue everywhere. My dad chatted up a passing family with the bucket of sand fleas we had collected, it reminded me of how personable he can be if he feels like it. I took a picture of him chatting them up. We buried the youngest David (my cousin, not uncle) in the sand up to his head and he dug himself out and then rinsed himself off with my sister's help. My uncle David showed us how to fit a 13' fishing rod in your truck.... pop the trunk window open and close it lightly on top of the rod and hope it doesn't break.

After that, my parents took us on a tour of the island, I think it's called Hutchinson Island. It wasn't incredibly impressive, but it was nice, I guess. There's all different types of water everywhere - rivers, oceans, bays, inlets, whatever. We were looking for a beach called Avalon but we never found it, and just turned around to go back and maybe find something to eat. We ended up eating at the Marriott which, in this town, is just a RIDICULOUS resort with way too much space and its own golf course and beach and etc. When we showed up it was really busy, and one woman was reserving a number of tables for her party of 15, and my mom yelled at me to grab one table the second the party of four that had been occupying it left it. Even after we sat down, it took about 15 minutes to get a waiter, and ended up taking at least an hour to get our food after that. We came in at about 1:15 and didn't get out until 2:30, which was when we were supposed to meet our family at the pool back at our complex.

So we drove back there after food and showered off the salt and sand, but then we all needed to go to the bathroom, so my siblings and I went to our grandma's apartment to use the bathroom (she lives in the same complex) and then convinced her to walk to the pool with us. Then the kids all went swimming with Richard and young David. We played tag. My mom's camera had a lens error sometime during our swimming after my dad touched it, and my mom asked me to fix it but I couldn't, so I became her official photographer. We tried to throw Richard but it didn't work very well; Ryan could do it best alone. David didn't want to be thrown. We did handstands in the pool. After a while I got a headache and wanted to go back, but my mom made me wait until my dad could drive me even though we lived ten seconds away, so I had to wait for all the kids.

I took a nice long shower when I got back because it helps when I have this type of headache (sun and temperature changes and swimming/chlorine) and my mom and sister yelled at me for using hot water when we had a small tank, which I didn't know. We basically sat around until it was time to go to my uncle David's house for dinner. I can't remember what we did in between, I'm sure we just watched something on TV.

Apparently we stopped at a beach and I took some pictures when we drove to the tip of the island. I also remember unloading my pictures after my shower to clear up my memory card, since I think it's only 256MB.

The sky was really pretty when we drove to David's. We took my grandmom's car because we took her, so that was six people, which is too much for one car. When we showed up my mom made me show Wendy how to do things on her new camera, not against my will, but probably against Wendy's. My mom basically was like "HERE LET JEFF SHOW YOU COOL THINGS." It took a while but I figured out how to do color accent on her camera. I remember House was on TV. When I showed up, the first thing I did was pet their very very very very very fluffy and dark black cat named Scooter under their table for a while, and then Wendy gave me a cat comb to make it better. He rolled on his stomach; it was very cute.

We had dinner of Pompano fish, which my uncle David had said were great for eating earlier in the day and said he was really excited to cook for us. It was pretty good, and we all sat together at the same time, except for baby Lucien, who was sleeping, but cried at the very end of dinner. My sister took care of him, but then after a while Wendy's mom (Cathy?) took care of him instead. The conversation seemed to split in two then between men and women, but as usual, I favored the women. I think my dad and David were talking about fish, which I couldn't take. The women were talking about motherhood which was sort of interesting. Cathy also talked about the years people were born (Wendy, David and I are all year of dragon), and we talked some about music and math and a kid they knew named Leon who was an actuary and wealthy in Hong Kong. At some lull in the conversation we all went to the other room but I forget why.

Oh, we watched the Eagles game earlier and they destroyed the Cowboys. Also, I remember looking for the bread from dinner after dinner was over, and getting a cup of cold water dispensed from INSIDE the refridgerator, which was very strange. I also found out Wendy had a facebook and said I would friend her, which I did today.

When we went back home, I drove because I didn't drink anything, and after that I think we pretty much just watched Family Guy and House and went to bed. I slept with my sister this time.

Oh, my Aunt Jenn stayed in her hotel that day because she was very tired - her kids have tons of energy. Also, I was without sunglasses because I left them in my coat pocket, and I left my coat at David's house.

Peace out.

The Day We Arrived

My dad gave each of the siblings a $10 bill before we went to the airport because we'd get there around lunch time and he told us we should use it to get something to eat before we got on the plane. At about 11:25 I asked when the plane would board if we were leaving at 12, and it turned out it was boarding at 11:30, so we all got up to get food. I couldn't find much that I liked except a tiny candy shop with a small pack of three peppermint patties, so I bought that. I paid for it with my $10 bill and it cost $.89, so the change was $9.11, which was great, considering I was about to fly. My mom is TERRIFIED of flying and I considered showing her the receipt or telling her, but then decided against it.

Earlier in the day I had been texting Gina and we realized that it was the one-year anniversary of Sarah's after Christmas party, which was the day that we were blessed with the Best Txt Ever.

The man sitting next to me was old, very wide and big but not fat, had a full head of hair despite his age, and dark and somewhat leathery skin. His wife sat in front of him because US Airways separated them, as it had separated my family, so I also sat alone. I had a window seat, and the man had the center seat. He tried to take an empty seat by his wife, but then a commanding woman came from first class and said "Oh No, They Gave Me That Seat" and made the man go back and sit in the middle next to me. She was a jerk. The man didn't have much respect for my personal space and his elbows crowded me the whole time. His feet were in place but he spread his legs out at the knees, so that crowded me too. I spent the whole time reading Newsweek for the Hi-Q team but didn't even finish. We spent a lot of time on the tarmac, too. I also took a lot of pictures, and discovered that my camera DOES have a long exposure setting!

There were also some asshole teenagers on the plane sitting behind me, somewhere near my sister. Apparently they talked about some friend's mom being hot and made the mom in front of them angry, and she told them they were dirty-mouthed and inappropriate. Apparently there was a disagreement over the possible meanings of the word "stud." Apparently she talked to a flight attendent about them and that angered them even more (she sat right in front of them), and they accosted her further after that. My sister loudly said "THEY SOUNDED LIKE ASSHOLES" behind them as we walked off the plane and one of them heard her, which was the goal.

I ate all my peppermint patties on the plane, faster than I had expected. They didn't make a very good lunch so I was very hungry by the time we got off and it took forever to unboard. I bought a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos when we got off because I am a gross person.

My parents were sort of irritable the whole day, which usually happens. My dad really hates airports and my mom hates flying and she hates when things don't go perfectly according to plan, which happened when Enterprise didn't give us the kind of rental car that she asked for. Even though the Jeep we got is perfectly fine, she was still upset and angry about it. I wish that she wouldn't be like that, I wish she would be more like me, No-Drama Obama.

...

We went to a place called Shrimper's for dinner because my mom wanted fish dip, which my brother thought was hilarious. I got a chocolate milk so it was good. I wondered if I should still buy an apartment at PSU because of the market conditions, figuring a depression would completely sink me if I couldn't find renters. My dad talked about why he got out of the deal (on a technicality) for the property he had bought in Florida. We also caught my sister up on another divorce in the 'family'. My dad's brother is getting one, and my mom's best friend (who we call my aunt) is getting one. This is the one whose son drowned, if you are familiar. It's really sad, but apparently this often happens to couple whose only child dies, I don't know.

When we were at Shrimper's I took off my Brasil jacket and was wearing my Change We Can Believe In shirt beneath it. My sister and I went to the bathroom at the same time and apparently people were arguing about Obama at the bar, and my sister wondered if I had instigated it with my shirt. We had come across an Obama-mania booth earlier at the Philly airport, staffed by an Asian girl who smiled sheepishly at me when I did to her, after my sister pointed it out to my Obama-obsessed mom.

I took a picture of my food at Shrimper's because it was chicken tenders but I took off the tender and just ate the chicken, and by tender I mean the bread parts. My sister said I would post it on Facebook and it would be embarassing, but I never do that, but now I might and tag the picture with her so she'd be embarassed.

We were driving around Florida and talking about Christmas lights on the way to one of the houses (Fred's, where we are staying, or David's, my uncle whom we are visiting) and my brother and dad talked about white and blue christmas lights. They said it means you don't really believe, and my brother said, No, it's not like they spell it out. My dad said, "That's what blue lights spell if you really look closely, 'I Hate Jesus'." Which was out of character for him, and thus very funny.

Wendy plays guitar, which is really cool. She's my Uncle David's wife. The baby is really cute and my grandmom loves holding it, which is equally cute. Everyone liked my Obama shirt, which was very nice. Jenn, the sister of David and my dad, has apparently done a great job of liberalizing her children. They referred to Sarah Palin as "A STUPID IDIOT!!" and Richard apparently threw a baseball at her when she was on TV. For reference, he is 10 and his brother is 8. They were also disappointed that their public elementary school voted went for McCain when the kids were asked to vote.

We played tag outside and my uncle Dave talked about how this place is a blast from the past, telling a story about getting Wendy's very old knives sharpened at a blade sharpening specialty shop right from the 1950s. Her father was a butcher, or maybe grandfather. I tried to use my long exposure but the stars weren't shining strong enough, or the other lights were too strong.

Peace out.

---

My heart sort of sank when I turned off the Christmas lights on the tree just a minute ago.

Peace out.

Hurricane

Hurricanes come up the east coast all the time but it's only every couple of years that a good one makes it all the way up to the Jersey shore. When it happens, adults freak out and kids get all excited because the waves look crazy, the ocean looks angry, skies look dark and the wind is incredible.

In Avalon, we're doubly lucky because we have some safe spots to view the hurricane from on the North part of the island, near 9th and 10th street. As it turns out, streets with higher numbers were put underwater by storms long ago. So much for safe, eh? But anyway! There are public bulkheads at the east ends of those streets near the inlet, and there are beaches and large rocks beneath them. The tide from the storm always covers up the little beaches, and the fierce waves are then free to crash directly on the rocks below the bulkhead, sending walls of water over the solid metal guardrail. Whenever there's a good hurricane, kids gather at the bulkhead and wait for a good wave to come, crashing onto the rocks and sending a thick wall ten feet over the guard rail and then crashing down on the kids, who scream, get soaked, and run away. Sometimes reporters come and videotape it for the news. Sometimes the streets flood and parents decide it's time to go home.

One time a hurricane came up the coast and my mom suggested my brother go "parasailing" with its wind. In this context, that means taking two broomsticks, tying a bedsheet between them, putting on rollerblades, and letting the wind blowing into the sheet carry you at crazy speeds with no effort. So we actually did it - my brother and I were both pretty good skaters. We got two brown broomsticks and went out on one of the big, long, deserted streets in Avalon with our pink bedsheet sail and went probably twenty or more miles per hour on our blades. Stopping was always the scary part. "What do we do?!" I asked Ryan the first time we did it, totally scared. He told me, "Come'ere," and he put out his hand for my broomstick, so I handed it to him and he put them together, killing the sail and letting us come to a stop. We did it a few more times, and my mom might have a videotape of it.

Our friend McKenzie who lived in Avalon wanted to try it to, so she put on her skates and gave it a try with my brother. They went about as quickly as my brother and I had before, but she didn't know how to stop, and wasn't as good at skating as I was, and I think she fell and hurt her legs at the end.

Peace out.

Twister

When the movie Twister came out (a long time ago, I think I was in first grade or so), my whole family went to see it. If you're not familiar, the plot of the movie is basically that a bunch of different teams are trying to get their devices to the center of a tornado and prove that its the best for prediction purposes. So they basically just chase tornados the whole movie and get really close so they can put their inventions into them.

About halfway through the movie or so, I started having some sort of crisis. I don't even remember how it came on. In any case, I remember feeling like I couldn't breathe, feeling like no matter how deeply I breathed in I couldn't fully satisfy the need for air, and that (this is the weird part) the responsibility for directing breathing was consciously mine for the first time. I felt like up to that point, breathing was always automatic, and now it was up to me forever, and I wondered if I would die when I slept. I did have trouble going to sleep that night.

Anyhow, I started freaking out in the theater, though not loudly, but my dad sitting next to me noticed. I'm pretty sure I got off my seat and went to the floor with my panic - the cold of movie theater floors seems to make me feel better when I feel sick. Another time I got very sick in the middle of Castaway, and went to the cold floor of the theater minutes before throwing up in the bathroom. After getting on the floor in Twister, my dad just took me outside and we sat on the curb of AMC Painter's Crossing until the movie finished, and I suppose I told him I was afraid I couldn't breathe, and he told me that everything was fine.

The whole thing was just sort of surreal, that I actually had a moment where I realized that breathing was sometimes under conscious control and sometimes not, and I went into a panic about it. I also had a moment where I realized that the nape of your neck caves inward just a tiny bit for the first time when I was about five, and I freaked out, cried, and tried to blame the woman who had just cut my hair (thankfully I was home already).

My brother insists that I was just scared by the movie, but it really wasn't a scary movie.

Peace out.

Christmas Eve

When I was younger, I remember I asked my sister if people worked on Christmas Eve. She said yeah, and I remember being really surprised. Then I remember asking her if bosses asked all the atheists to work around Christmas so everyone else could celebrate, and then I also asked if it applied to anyone who didn't celebrate Christmas, like Jews or Hindus. For some reason, Dunkin Donuts is explicity tied to this memory, and I don't know why. I think maybe we went there around Christmas, or I assume everyone working there is Indian (terrible person, I know, going straight to hell) and therefore is an example of a place not effected by Christmas celebration.

I went to the mall today for shopping and was reminded of this because - terrible person going straight to hell - an Indian woman was working somewhere in Boscov's when we entered. Actually, today in general made me feel bad for all the people that had to work today. The woman that checked us out at B&N was clearly old enough to have a family and was wearing reindeer ears, and I would have liked for her to be with her family, I think. Same for everyone else (as long as they wanted to be). Jess pretty much summed it up when we were finding a parking spot on our way over and said "You know, Christmas pretty much sucks when you're an adult."

I guess it does but I like to think it'd feel better again if it would snow.

Peace out.

Money

For the first time, today I finally spent somewhat significant amounts of money (to someone my age) for gifts to friends, without doing secret santa or whatever. I guess I finally realized that I have more than I need right now, and I definitely don't have anything better to spend it on. It felt good, actually.

Peace out.

Soco Amaretto Lime

Chloe and I listened to Soco Amaretto Lime tonight when I was taking her home from Nicki's pit reunion. I had asked her if she heard it on the way there, but we didn't have time to listen until the ride home. I told her the story, about Baccalaureate and Pat Dawe singing it, and his friends standing up and singing later. I sang softly up till the end, because I wanted to sing but didn't want to ruin the song for her. I thought her eyes looked different near the end, but I wasn't sure until after the song was over. I told her the rest of the story, about the parties and singing at the end, and I teared up a bit too. I asked her if she was sad, and she said yes, about everything, and missing things, and I said I was too. I tried to make it a little bit better by remembering that at least we had something worth missing and being sad over. I suspect we were both still a bit upset by the time we got to her house, and it probably would have been nice just to talk to my friend a bit longer 'cuz what better is there to do but it was late and it seemed someone in her house was looking for her, ending a conversation a bit too early, I think.

Peace out.

Christmas Light Driving

When I was a junior in high school, Erin and I went to look for Christmas lights. It was in my dad's old Q45 that he gave to me. I'm pretty sure it had a big dent on the side by that point, and things were going to get much worse with it soon. We drove around the neighborhood, and perhaps the neighborhood next to ours, and made our way down Kirk Road. At some point, I think we turned into Devon's neighborhood, and then I think we turned into Wasiq's neighborhood because we knew there was that one house in there that was always INCREDIBLY lighted.

We didn't know how to get out of his neighborhood, though (we didn't know he lived there at the time...), and I guess we came out on Naamans Creek Road, and I guess I made a right turn. It turned out this was the opposite direction of home, and ended up taking us toward Kacey and Steph's neighborhood, which I think I was familiar with by that time.

It's a left turn into the neighborhood, and it comes up a hill. Erin was in the passenger seat. I put on my signal and slowed down to make the turn, everything looked fine, so I went. Out of nowhere, I saw headlights.

Crap.

They're coming fast. I remember seeing them and immediately fearing that I was about to get Erin killed. I don't remember thinking anything at all except for some appropriate obscenities, but I suppose I was aware enough somehow to floor it, and we made it into the neighborhood safely.

Once we got in, I just about died. I remember I freaked out. Things feel sort of light when this sort of freak out happens, and I don't feel nauseaus, but more like I'm about to pass out. Sometimes I get dots in my vision, coming in from the side. My legs feel almost out of control, although they don't shake. I'm just afraid that I can't control them. I had pulled over, I think, because I didn't want to drive around like that.

I forget if Erin realized how scared I was of what just happened or not. I think she did. I wanted to go home after that, and I think we basically went right back. I never would have forgiven myself if I had gotten her hurt that night. I'm ten times more cautious about that hill now.

Peace out.