Best and Worst Clothes Day

There are four clothing items in my life which caused memorable sadness when I realized they were lost.

1) The baby-blue maple leaf "CANADA" shirt that Jessica got me. It was the first shirt I wore of that type, which is to say, the type that I still wear today. I had it for a while, and don't know where it went, or have any idea at all where it could have gone.

2) The many-blue-color beanie hat that Jessica got me one year for Christmas, and that I wore on the last night of Governor's School when we painted the fence, and got some paint on one side of it. I know I had it until sometime in college, and think that I lost it on a drumline weekend, possibly at the Rutherford's house.

3) The wetsuit-tight blue jacket that Kelly got me for our fake Valentine's Day dinner in 11th grade (at least, I think it was 11th grade. It may have been 10th). It was the first tight zip-up jacket that I got, and was the gold standard for all other jackets I've gotten since then.

4) The "SHUUUUUNNNNNN" Charlie the Unicorn shirt that Matt got me when he was in North Carolina. It fit really well and was extremely nerdy and always got attention and comments. I had no idea how it could have gotten lost, except maybe a home/college transfer.

Well anyway, this Sunday I woke up to go play hockey, and I opened up my closet and looked up and to the left, and THERE WAS BLUE JACKET! I was so pumped! What a great way to start the day! I knew that the universe would give me good karma for waking up on time for hockey. Then I opened my drawers to look for a black shirt and white shirt (to help clear up which team I'm on), and the first black shirt I pulled out was the SHUUUUUNNNNN shirt!!! SURELY A DAY FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS!

I was so pumped.

So I went to play hockey. I took the black and white shirts down and put them on the bleachers, figuring I'd put them on later when I knew what team I would be on. Turns out I didn't need either of them because my "air hockey legend" shirt was dark enough to be clear indication.

At about 6PM that night - I had gotten back from hockey at noon - I realized that I didn't pick up the shirts from the bleachers.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang you guys

With nothing better to do - and the Eagles not on until 8PM or so - I figured I'd just put on some NPR or Fallout Boy and see if they were still there. NPR was awful, so I just put on the mixed FOB CD that I made from mp3s that Misha gave me in the last weeks of Semester at Sea. It was good fun, for sure.

I got there, well past dark, and was one of two cars in the lots. I was sure an officer would come up immediately and ask why I was there. I'd sound silly explaining it, and ask him to accompany me. That would not assuage his fears at all. What is he really looking for? Turned out there were no officers, but the moon was very bright, so I wouldn't need to rely on the light of my cell phone to help me look. I walked down the hill, feet wet from frost grass, and saw that they were not where I had left them. I look underneath, nothing. In the recycling can, the trash can, on the rink. Nothing. Maybe one of the hockey players had taken them for safekeeping. Maybe other players later had taken them. Maybe the children of the Mexican soccer league participants that usually filled the park had taken them when they came to play soccer in the hockey rink. I didn't know. I only had one shot left though.

I went home and emailed the list of guys that had played hockey that day. "Did anyone happen to grab one black and one white t-shirt? Thanks."

And an hour or so later, I got an email back "Yeah, Chris B took them. Talk to him."

Hooray!

Surely this is the best, and worst, and best clothes day ever!!

Peace out.

Pancake Dinner

I went to the Habitat for Humanity pancake dinner at a church on Thursday night because Haley suggested it at some point in the day. I guess really she just told me about it, and I went because it was all you can eat pancakes for $5, and who could turn that down? Not me. But I'm sure if you're reading this, you already knew that.

Well anyway, I went around 5:25PM or so with the normal crew, including HK and Shengnan, and I remember HK took a pretty killer fall right in the middle of the road as we walked over. Matt, Tarik, and I reminded her that she should look where she's going. There was a car headed towards her, but fortunately it stopped. It was an SUV.

The dinner was sort of crowded, and their pancake-making capacity did not meet the popularity of the event. I'm sure they were trying their hardest though. At one point they told the back half of the line to just sit down because it'd be so long, so that's when everyone at our table just hung out for a while. We got back in line later, and I got three pancakes, plain, which were pretty good. Some other people got back in line later to get some more, and just to avoid sitting alone at a table, I went to hang out with them.

When we got to the front of the line, things slowed down a little. Someone came to take a picture of them. Then someone else came in and said, "Hey, where's [boy's name]? Hey - happy birthday!" It was one of the guys who was cooking behind the counter, over on the left if you were looking over the counter. The people up at the window shouted happy birthday to him as well.

And I added, "Congratulations! Many years ago today you were squeezed through your mother's vagina!"

That got some weird looks from people behind the counter. I didn't feel awkward, but I knew they did. So I just turned around and left.

Peace out.

Arraigned Marriage

Today we went to Lori's house for lunch/dinner, or whatever, but mostly just to hang out and talk. A lot of people that I wished could have gone couldn't go, and that made me sad, like Hortense, Haley, and Jen. Lori is my professor for CAS 100H and she's really awesome. Very alive. Haley and I, since she's actually in the class with me now, used to talk about how awesome she was and how we should Facebook friend her and go hang out with her on the weekends.

We came and had some vegan pizza, and then some vegetarian baked goods, and then went downstairs to play Wii and talk and not play pool, and then went upstairs to have a short concert, and then just proceeded to talk for a long time.

By the end of the evening it was just six of us or so sitting around the dining room table with her, and Stef mostly talked, mostly about her relationship with a Muslim boy who wasn't allowed to see her because she was not herself a Muslim. She gave her first speech in the class about this topic too, and it was clear from the way that she talked about it that it still gives her massive amounts of trouble and heartache. At one point I wondered if she might cry because I asked about it. I felt bad for asking about it at first, but then she talked more about it, and I thought maybe it was good that I asked.

I brought up arranged marriage, I think, but maybe it was Stef or Lori that did. In either case, I talked about how at first I thought it was a really silly idea and it made me uncomfortable to think about. Then I met my best friend at school, Tarik, this really bad-ass Muslim dude (as I described him to the table), who was pretty excited to get an arranged marriage. And I said eventually as I talked to him about it, I sort of came to understand why: He doesn't feel like dealing with the whole stupid annoying courtship crap, and he trusts that his parents are going to pick someone awesome for him. I said that even though my dad would never arrange a marriage for me, I saw his point, because I'm positive my dad would pick someone amazing for me, too, given the chance. [KEEP THIS IN MIND, DAD, IF YOU'RE STALKING MY BLOG. ARTS AND MATH.] And then I mentioned that I thought it was really cool that arranged-marriage societies all sort of make a statement about love, as a society, that it's not some crazy thing out of your control, but a choice. You can make the choice to love. Your parents will find someone who is good, and you'll spend the rest of you're life with them, and you'll be good to them, and they'll be good to you, and you'll love them. And if you have the right attitude, you can love anyone, because it's something you can control.

When we were leaving and saying our goodbyes, I leaned down to say goodbye to their dog and said, "Bye, Linus! Make the choice to love!"

Peace out.

Tee

Hortense is in a group called PSIADA, which I don't really know anything about except they're international and a debate club, or something like that. They were having a fundraiser today at Happy Valley Freez, and I figured I'd go to help out her club.

Another friend, Amy (from English 202), had asked me to play at an open mic for a charity group she's in as well (Global Hunger Awareness, maybe?). Hortense's club was at 6 and the other was at 6:30, so I figured I would just go one right after the other. Amy's club didn't have a piano set up there, so I just brought my guitar. And so when I went to Hortense's fundraiser, I was wearing my blue hat, Fall Out Boy t-shirt, white belt and jeans, and the guitar on my back.

I walked in. I looked around for Hortense, and she wasn't there. I could see some people who were clearly members of PSIADA in the corner to my right, but I don't know any of them. I don't really know what to do for the fundraiser, so I just kind of stand there for a moment. The guys in PSIADA are staring dead at me, then turn to each other and laugh. One of them says, "Uh, what?" quietly to his friends, and another says, "Oookay..." It seemed quite clear to me that they were judging me really hard.

So I went to the cashier, who came to the register by then, and said clearly, "I'm here for the PSIADA fundraiser. Could I get a small chocolate cone?" I made sure they could hear it. I took my guitar to the corner where they couldn't see me and ate.

I texted Hortense:

J: I'm here! Where are you?

H: Oh no! Not there yet! I can be there in fifteen, sorry!

J: Hurry! Your friends are tots judging me!

H: Haha i love you!

J: IT'S STILL HAPPENING =(

H: Haha i still love you

J: Awww, thanks horty! Love you too =)

Extremely adorable, although it did not alleviate the judging.

//

Hortense sat with me for a while as I finished up my ice cream. It wasn't a kid's size, and I legitimately had a very hard time forcing myself to finish all of it. I didn't ask for a cup or throw it away because I was already being judged.

Before we left, Hortense stood up from my table and went to go hug her friends goodbye. I got up and stood near the door. She talked to them quietly and laughed.

When she got to me, she said, "When I was talking to them they were like, Dude, you gotta lock that down." I didn't really understand. "What does that mean? Is that good? Like lock me down because I'm a crazy person? Or lock me down like girls and boys?" "Yeah, like to date you." I was extremely confused. We laughed about it. She told me that it meant they thought I was attractive. I still felt kind of silly.

//

I saw Hortense later in her room, after she took her shower. She asked if I wanted to hear a fun story about PSIADA, and I said sure, but that I also wanted to hear a final verdict on their judging of me. She said that was the funny story.

"I talked to my friends and was like, 'So, were you guys judging my friend?' And they said, 'Judging, I don't know what you're talking about!' 'Well, he says you guys definitely said something...!' And the kid who was bisexual was like, 'I wasn't judging him, I was checking him out. Is he fickle?' He didn't ask if you were gay because other people don't know he's bisexual, but I know."

How strange.

The moral of the story is

Peace out.

The Center

I went to see Tess work with her learning partner for English 202H today. I almost cried twice. He was a thirty-year-old man, roughly, with short brownish hair and short red facial hair. He came in listening to his iPod with his headphones in, and told Tess he was going to go get something from the vending machine. He offered to get her something if she wanted it; she said no, and so he offered to myself and Dave as well, who was also watching the session.

They pulled out the books they had been using. A pronunciation book (he was almost 100% perfect with that, actually), some Entertainment magazines, a Game Informer, a screenwriter's bible, a book of scary Pennsylvania stories. Tess decided the lesson for the day would be to work on the script he was writing. He read the script to us so far - also not bad at all at reading - which was more of an outline of a horror film, but not yet complete. He creates the plot as he goes.

Tess pointed out that he had mixed up the words from and form again. As he read, he often mixed up the names Chelsea and Katrina. He often wondered aloud where the period should go. He didn't know how to use quotation marks. He couldn't spell the word friends or the word Escalade on his own, although he got them later with some help and some sounding out. He seemed completely happy to work on the story the whole time.

It totally broke my heart.

He's such a nice guy. He really was sweet and very polite, and he makes the choice to come work with Tess every single time he does it. He has a job as a dishwasher that most people in college would never dream of taking. He tries, he really does. And he still couldn't write a proper sentence if his life depended on it - and I seriously mean that, because that's how bad it was. Sometimes he couldn't even get a single word correct.

It made me think of all the bullshit we hear. "Anyone can make it in America! If you just work hard, you can do anything!" No, false. Some people have legitimate problems, and no matter how hard they work, they can never overcome some difficulties. It kills me to know that society, in general, would provide no help to this man. That doesn't seem like the kind of thing that a kind people and a kind Earth can do. He's a good guy, he works hard, he tries, he does what he can. He survives because he has a family that loves him and treats him like gold. But if it weren't for that, he'd be on the streets for sure. And that should never be allowed. Meeting him and working with him, even for an extremely short time, made this actually hit home, and it feels more unconscionable now that it ever has.

Peace out.

Cutting Class

We were at Fourth Meal tonight and Dan R shared a great story with us.

D: "Once, I slit a girl's wrist in school with a pair of scissors."

Table: "!! Why?"

D: "Because she was a b****"

Table: [Lots of laughter] How did that possibly happen?

D: She was my lab partner and I hated her and we were just fighting and it got to the point that I was holding her hands in place and had a scissor blade to it and she said, "Do it, I dare you, you don't have the balls," and then I just did it and was like, "F*** you, yes I do!"

Table: [Incredulation]

D: Well, and the teacher was like twelve months pregnant, so she didn't care about ANYTHING. Kids would get changed for sports teams in the back of the room and she would just be like, "Oh, come on, guys..." And so when I did this, she didn't care at all, she was just like, "Dan, come on, clean it up." It kinda helped that she basically thought the girl had it coming.

I don't think I could ever imagine something quite like this happening at GV. Although kind of messed up, we laughed a ton during this story. He told it well.

Peace out.

Blanksy

It is significantly more difficult to find high-res images with a political message than you might imagine.

(Any help appreciated)

Peace out.

Matherton

Today I met Kathleen. Or really, introduced myself to her. I've seen her a few times on the way to or from Julia's room, but I've never asked for her name or given her mine. Today I wanted to play piano after lunch, so I went to Atherton (knowing Simmons would be crowded by that time) to give it a shot. I heard someone playing when I showed up, so I think I went to get a drink, and noticed that it seemed to pause for almost a whole minute while I was doing so. I figured maybe whoever was playing had gone to study instead of play but still in the lounge. So I poked my head in, and there was the girl from Julia's floor, looking at papers that had clearly been handwritten on the music stand. I knew immediately that she'd been writing a song.

"Did you want to play?"

"Oh, um.... I guess, yeah? But I really don't mean to kick you out!"

"No, it's cool, I was actually gonna go to the piano downstairs."

We talked a little bit more - I really wanted to make sure that she was okay with going to the piano downstairs - and she convinced me it was fine. She asked me what I wanted to play, and I said I didn't know, just something loud, because I didn't want to say "Fallout Boy."

What I should have done, I realized in hindsight, was ask her to play what she was writing for me. I'm not really upset at myself that I didn't ask, but somewhat surprised. I almost never ever turn down a chance see what someone I know made, and I wonder why I didn't jump for it in this case. I also wondered if that would affect her first impression of me. But I don't think it's a terribly big deal in either case.

Peace out.

This is Why We Can't Have Vice Things

I was in Washington this weekend I was staying with Kelly M, "Smiley Kelly," from Semester at Sea, and her roommate, Irena. Irena lived in Russia until she was eight years old and is a major in essentially Russian Studies. She's studied in St. Petersburg for a while and speaks fluent Russian, and told me about the street where the Duma used to be which is now a raving cesspool of madness on spring nights around 3AM.

We were talking about my own travelling (through Semester at Sea, of course), and I think we were talking about subways and metros and how Japan has the best system. She said Japan must have been awesome, but I told her that I didn't really like it, because people didn't smile at me very often. She said, "Well you can't really blame them, I mean, who do you think really has an interest in befriending white Americans?"

And I said, "People in Cambodia and Vietnam!" And I talked for a second about how nice and friendly the people there were compared to Japan, who wouldn't even make eye contact with me. And then I was about to say the following:

"Which is really strange, considering what America did to Vietnam in the war. What did we ever do to Japan?"

But before I did, I realized: OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH riiiiiiiiiiiiiight, and then didn't say that, and felt like an idiot.

Peace out.

My McBride

I heard that they're doing McDonald's weddings in Hong Kong.

//

I went to see James McBride today, the author of The Color of Water. I showed up late because I came from my first hockey game, which started extremely late, and so I had to leave early, after I scored a goal, while the game was still going on. I dropped my gallon of water on the rink on the way out. People were upset but Matt B took care of it. I felt like an idiot. I was still a little late for the speech but that was okay.

I sat alone, but realized that people I knew were sitting very close to me. I could see Haley, Jen, and Grace in the front row with the speaker series. James was wearing a hat and it made his face hard to see. My favorite line of his, when he was talking about discrimination and why it's bad, was the following:

"People who discriminate against gay people, they're no friend of mine. [...] In fact, God's gay, and he's a woman, and she's from Texas. How's that?"

//

I came to Shengnan's play late as well, because I had to leave another hockey game sort of early, although I don't really know if it was early or not. It took me forever to find parking because the lot I usually go to is under construction, so I had to run from another place, I actually don't even know where it is. I found 111 Forum faster than I normally do (it's right near 108!), and came in the second door, right near the sound person, who looked at me inquisitively. I looked for my friend HK who said she was coming, but to no avail. I sat down randomly.

I noticed Shengnan playing in the pit, which was facing the door to another Forum classroom so that the conductor could lead them. She was wearing a black dress with a bow on it. Tim B (from my hall) was in the play. There was also a guy with a painted-white face like Amanda Palmer and the other guy in Dresden Dolls, like in the Coin-Operated Boy video, I liked him a lot, but I think I was biased.

There was a girl sitting behind me who I didn't know and I liked before I talked to her. She leaned forward the whole time and laughed lightly and often. Additionally, she was cute. As the play went on, I considered turning to talk to her, see if I could charm her pants off, or maybe her underwear, though I'm not actually interested in that. As it turned out, she actually tapped my shoulder at the first, and asked me if I knew what time it was or how long the play was going to go on. I told her I had no idea but joked about how long it felt, and she laughed, and we said we were both really just here to see friends in the cast, and so we went to find them.

Peace out.

Campus Squirrels

I wish the squirrels on campus knew that I would never do anything to hurt them >.<

Peace out.

Chickens and Stabbing Apples

Two days ago, a bunch of guys from the floor and I went to Rigatoni's - Monday Rigatoni's, which is the best Rigatoni's, except for Wednesday. We got an inaugural cookie. Collin, Matt, Tarik, Nick, Tim, and Mike were there.

Dinner was cool. We talked about eggs, because someone asked if there were eggs in the salad. I asked if eggs were always so perfectly shaped and perfectly white, or if we had selected for chickens who made eggs like that, and thus forced them to evolve to where that was all they made. Some kids suggested that they had always been like that because the structure is the strongest that could be made. Matt, however, suggested that we had evolved them into this. He also suggested that chickens would soon be evolved into nothing but egg factories, who would sit in a barn eating a constant stream of corn and pooping a constant stream of eggs, which has the consequence, he said, that if one ever escaped, the entire world would be covered by eggs in a matter of days. I almost died laughing. I've retold the story a few times since then, and each time I died laughing. Even as I was writing this right now, I started laughing.

In either case, after we were done eating, we played the napkin game. You throw napkins into people's empty drink cups, and if you get a napkin in and then also get one in on the very next shot, then you win. More accurately, your victim loses. And the next time you have dinner with them, they can't have a drink. And they also have to wear the same color shirt for a week, even if that's the only shirt they have of that color.

During that, Matt got up to get an apple and some forks. He explained that you throw the apple to someone else at the table and they try to catch it by stabbing it with their fork. Then you throw it to someone else. We all thought you'd take the fork out, but he clarified, "No, you leave the fork in when you throw it. You just throw it by letting go of your fork." And so we all got our forks ready and started doing it. It was easier to stab it than I thought it would be, and eventually we were lobbing around this apple-and-three-fork conglomeration. I got my fork ready in hyper-stabbing mode and went for it so hard it just went straight through the side of the apple. Someone else slammed it down into their bowl.

Then a crotchety 30-something at the table behind us got up and came to our table.

"I know you guys think it's fun to act like you're 5, I know I did when I was in college, but you break it you buy it, so I think it's time for you to leave."

There were so many things wrong with the situation that we didn't even know what to do. First, she had no authority. Second, people break things in dining halls all the time and don't pay for them. Third, we already bought the apple, so if we broke it, who cares. We were seriously just dumbfounded, and not knowing which place of idiocy to capitalize on, we just left, and arranged for what to do next time. Possibilities included inviting her to play with us; asking her what crawled up her ass and died; telling her that she didn't have any authority to kick us out; telling her that we already bought it so we didn't have to buy it; suggesting that SHE leave; waiting until she asked us for our ID cards and then just running as fast as we could since they're all old and out of shape.

Peace out.

A Conversation with Gift

She told me her real name, though I forget what it was. Thai people usually have very long first names, apparently, and instead go by nicknames. Her nickname was Gift, which is apparently a very common one in Thailand. She was sitting in the orange chair by the main door in Emerson's apartment, the one that we didn't come in through at first. She was wearing green and black on top, which khaki-ish shorts, and lip gloss and eye-liner. Emerson and I talked to her for a little bit about Semester at Sea and how she could get the same scholarship that he did - by being an East Asian Studies major or minor - while I tried to show her that it was actually cheaper than a normal semester at UVA, which was beared out by the websites of the two organizations' own numbers. She also said that she was a biology major and didn't know if she could pull of the East Asian major or minor.

She told me that she had studied in a boarding school in Connecticut before coming to UVA, just for a year, and that was her first time in the states. She said that she mostly felt used to it by now, though. She used to be alright at speaking, but then she got self-conscious and clammed up, and from talking less and less, her English got worse and worse. Her roommate was the one to help her, and said that she could always talk to her and ask her for help with speaking or writing or anything. And slowly, over time, they worked on it. Her conversation with me was perfectly flowing. She said that she missed her roommate a lot.

I asked her what she thought was the most striking difference between Thailand and America. One thing she mentioned was the parties, and that she didn't understand why people did things like that. I forget what aspect of it she didn't like, but it was one of the same things that I've never liked - dark, loud, drunk, crowded... something along those lines.

And she said that friends were different.

"So tomorrow, you will wake up and maybe you won't think about me, but when you do think about me, you will say I'm your friend, right?"

"Right."

"It's not like that in Thailand. When you say friend, you mean someone very, very close to you. Someone who you think about every day."

Interesting.

"So that's why I don't just hang out with American people and I hang out with Thai people too, because they understand what friends are to me."

Peace out.

Disasster

So yesterday was Wednesday. I shouldn't have had much to do but I always find things for myself to do.

I woke up around 10 or whatever and went to Tarik's class again. Nate Brown is really cool and the class is actually willing to talk to each other, which is very rare and special. I was in a group with Tarik and a kid named David who is a senior in high school and Nate referred to us as "the smart kid group," which I thought was a little premature but nice anyway. We walked back with Hortense and I forget what we talked about but I remember having a good time.

I'm pretty sure I spent most of the next time working on the song for CAS 100H. People stopped in a few times I think but I made some good progress and I think I had a verse or two by the time I was supposed to go to lunch.

I went to lunch at Simmons and was supposed to eat with Lucy, really, but she had to be a little late, but that was okay because Hortense was coming too. I showed up a little early to get food so I would be done when they got there and I could just talk to them. Hortense was the first to come, and she brought a friend named Stephanie who lives in McElwain and did the same Shanghai program that Hortense did and is a math education major. It was nice to meet her, and I might talk to her about teacher stuff sometime. Lucy came when I was just about to go really, so I told her I'd like to see her again and we decided to try for Friday's lunch.

I left for a meeting with Ron in his office. When I showed up one of the officers was talking to him about club stuff, and the kid who played varsity soccer was also there and discussed whether or not he should take an actuarial job at Chubb. He had worked in their PMU over the summer but I don't think had quite as good of an experience as I did. Eventually he left and so Ron and I got to talking. I wanted to check if he had gotten the Cambodia material and so we went through his email and he found that he did actually have it. He gets a million emails all the time so I don't blame him for not getting to it. I just wanted to make sure. After that we talked about my summer, and my life plans, the things I wanted to do and could do, and the things he had done and some politics about the department and the colleges and the major. He's a really nice guy. I never knew he was almost a music major. He's so cool.

When I was done I went back to the dorm to work more on the song, and Lisa stopped by. I played it for her, but I went too fast or something and so she had to look at the lyrics. She liked the part about Facebook stalking. Other people came in for a while and hung out on the futon. I finished writing the last lines of the song while they were still there and I didn't even have the guitar, but they worked out fine when they tried them.

I had to kick them out because I needed to go to French. I went there, and we did our first real listening activity, I think, which was kind of hard. French is such a dumb language. And they talk so fast. The teacher always says "Isaac" wrong. I wonder if she's a native English speaker or not. Her accent is pretty much dead on though... pretty convincingly American... but sometimes she asks "Is that how you say it in English?"

I left and went straight to dinner 'cuz I wanted to play hockey. I told Kozi that he could come, and after some back and forth it worked out that I picked him up a little after 6 and went to the rink without going to Eddy's. His friend Azad came. He was built and Assyrian and a nice guy and a pretty good player, too. At first we just shot around a little bit and were afraid the rink was going to be too full, but then a big group left and it was just the three of us and three other dudes, so we played air-post against them. The clear winning strategy is to go right up on the red line and then shoot sideways... so yeah, we did well against them. Two of the guys on their side were really good and I should have gotten their info to play club with them, but didn't. Later, Timmy and Dyke and Kirky and other club guys showed up and played too. Dyke and Timmy were incredibly impressive, as always, and we played until it got dark.

I forget exactly what I did when I came back, but it was around 9:00PM or so. I think I went to Will and Drew's apt at some point to help Will with some math, and then went to visit Emily, and then returned later to the apartment to help with another small math question before going to fourth meal with the crew. Things were cut on the floor in the studio, too, that was before I went away to the apt. After fourth meal, people hung out in my room for a long time. Tarik stayed until 12:30 but then went to bed; Matt and Ariel stayed until sometime around 2; Emily stayed until sometime around 4 because we had a really nice conversation, and then I went to bed.

Peace out.

Personal Statement

I started trying to write my personal statement for the Fulbright scholarship tonight, specifically about how I'm disappointed with my academic success since I've left high school. I didn't even make it to the end of that paragraph and I was almost crying. I gave up for the night. I'll try again tomorrow hopefully.

Peace out.

It's Unforunate

thinking of you = toy

i feel that this coincidence has robbed us of a great acronym.

somewhat less direct/useful:

love you miss you = lymy (limey)

peace out

Ouch

In regards to keeping insurance losses low:

"...smaller businesses located in areas indicative of simpler lifestyles tended to perform much better than the rest of the country..."

Hooray, right?! It continues:

"...the blue collar impact can most likely be attributed to the fact that lower-educated workers employed outside of large metro areas have less access to the legal system and a lower sense of self-entitlement."

Ouch.

Peace out.

"Corporate Isn't for You, Is It?"

There was a "former intern panel" at ACE today, which included two interns and two full-time workers, and I'm not sure either of them were actually interns at ACE. I didn't get a whole lot out of it, but I guess I did have some questions I was curious about.

The first I asked was what ACE thought about working from home. I think I may be able to convince myself to work in the corporate world under some circumstances, and this one may play a part. Either that, or the building needs to be REALLY close to my house, or I need to be able to pick my own hours well under forty per week. She said they were largely cool with it, especially in the summer, but that you need to build up trust, and your managers will know if you're doing work or not.

The second - which I asked later - was about "vacation" time. I asked her if there was anything they could do for people who wanted to push all of their vacation time or roll it over, if that were possible, such that they could actually have a meaningful abroad experience rather than some vacation at a resort/beach, which I said I was not interested in at all. She said it might be possible to take three weeks of vacation all at once, or more when you've worked up to it, but that you really can't roll it over like that. Later a girl came to me and said that her dad works there and has like five vacation weeks per year, and that he's been considering doing something like that, but that it takes a lot of organization and planning for the seventy days when you'll be gone, and that discourages a lot of people from doing it.

Before I left the room even, her brother had come up to me and said, "So the corporate world really isn't for you, is it?"

I didn't know I was being that obvious.

Peace out.

Things I Did After Work Today

1. Got a haircut

2. Practiced Khmer

3. Bought apples for lunch

4. Worked on dreamcatcher

5. Cleared memory card

6. Charged camera battery

7. Got food ideas from Matt

8. Acquired bitTorrent stuff

9. Acquired The Room

10. Sent Ariel all pics/vids

11. Found Shawshank Redemption

12. Inflated tires

13. Read the 17 Project blog

14. Ironed my new shirt

God I'm impressed with myself. I also watched The Daily Show.

Peace out.

Recounting

I feel like, as a service to myself (more than anyone else reading this... as if anyone does anymore?) I should recount the awesomeness that was this weekend. Quickly.

Got out of work at 4:30 on Friday, met Caitlin's sister and her husband, who were extremely cool, and her friend Joan, who was also pretty damn cool.

Went to Fat Tuesday's on South Street with the actuaries from ACE and had an okay time, but was worried about getting back to my car the whole time.

Left at 7 and made it to Lauren W's graduation party by 7:40PM or so, which is like AMAZING time for going from Philly to GV (!)WITH(!) a stop at Wawa.

Hung out there for a while, talked to Steve and met Lauren's mom and talked to Pacificos.

Went to go play open hockey at Marple Sports Arena with Chas, which was a little costly and very crowded, but tons of fun! Ran into a fat dude with my neck and that sucked.

Came back and hung out with Jess and Sam while they watched a show about Whale Wars. Ate cookies with them and talked for a while. She gave me her wedding invitation, which was painted by Sam's mom. She asked me to pay for breakfast but I said no.

She made me breakfast the next morning, including chocolate milk. We had cereal and talked.

I worked on 100 Nights and essentially finished it, except I'm not sure how I feel about the bg harmonies in the bridge. Tone quality is pretty shaky.

Went to Five Guys Burger and Fries because I was feeling American after watching us let up an incredibly embarrassing goal to England in five minutes.

Went to Krissy M's graduation party, learned her name is Kristina, and gave her cookies which she didn't eat until the next day. A random family member called Tracy H my girlfriend, which totally caught us off guard, but we went with it.

Went to Sarah Jones's party and saw Gina for the first time in a long time, along with a number of other people. Briana was there and she looked really pretty in her white dress. I talked to Erik about Arabic stuff.

Went to Melissa DJ's party and talked to her brother for a while about his life, then went back to have a bonfire with everyone. Stayed until everyone was gone except for Melissa and Steve F, who was in the same "circuit" as me, it seems.

Tried to go back to Krissy's house at night, but miscommunication and an ever-wake mother stopped that from happening.

Wrote an email to Xiao and Christina K, and told Megan R we should hang out. I think I contacted someone else, too, but I forget who.

Woke up to play hockey at 8:45 and did so until about noon.

Went to graduation, Joe Biden was there, Ceci gave a speech, Tracy said she hadn't told her parents yet.

Went home to eat dinner with my family.

Went to Katie R's graduation barbeque, and ran into her grandmother, who is extremely nice and remembered me from when Katie put my music onto her iPod. Talked to Nick a good bit, and then Stasi about college and what to expect.

Came home.

Sang in the car a lot.

Peace out.

Piano Bracelet

I made the first one in South Africa because the stencil shop didn't have any clever stencils.

Then I realized it was wrong sometime when I was still on the ship.

So I made this one.

Peace out.

Work

So tomorrow I start my internship at ACE. Probably I shouldn't be typing this on the interwebs, but OH WELL. I'm not particularly excited about working there. I'm afraid that tomorrow the other interns are gonna show up and be like, "Man I'm so excited about finances and insurance!" and then they'll ask me if I'm excited and I'll just be like, "...yeah... man! ... insurance...! ...okay honestly I really don't want to be here."

But maybe it'll be okay. Maybe. Transportation is also an issue. There doesn't appear to be any great solution. Maybe I'll just go with Dad.

I told Mom that I want to be a teacher and she seemed almost personally offended by the idea. She made some dick comment about "If you ever want to live alone and not with a roommate you better be an actuary for a while." I think that was patently ridiculous considering the inordinately large amount of money I've saved in my life plus what I'll be making this summer, plus the fairly cheap rent for some place in the area. Plus I live cheap in general, plus I could work, and it's not like teachers live poor.

I wish she would be happy with me just being happy, instead of me being rich.

Peace out.

Happiness Video

The South African chick is hyper cute.

Peace out.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Hit play button hiding at the bottom. Right-click when it starts to play. Toggle full-screen. Fast-forward to 15 minutes.

Peace out.

The Worst Day

//

 

This is the last page of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, where Oskar fantasizes about life going backward on September 11th, when his father died in the twin towers.

 

"

 

I ripped the pages out of the book.

 

I reversed the order, so the last one was first, and the first was last.

 

When I flipped through them, it looked like the man was floating through the sky.

 

And if I'd had more pictures, he would've flown through a window, back into the building, and the smoke would've poured into the hole that the plane was about to come out of.

 

Dad would've left his messages backward, until the machine was empty, and the plane would've flown backward away from him, all the way to Boston.

 

He would have taken the elevator to the street and pressed the button for the top floor.

 

He would've walked backward to the subway, and the subway would've gone backward through the tunnel, back to our stop.

 

Dad would've gone backward through the turnstile, then swiped his Metrocard backward, then walked home backward as he read the New York Times from right to left.

 

He would've spit coffee into his mug, unbrushed his teeth, and put hair on his face with a razor.

 

He would've gotten back into bed, the alarm would've rung backward, he would've dreamt backward.

 

Then he would've gotten up again at the end of the night before the worst day.

 

He would've walked backward to my room, whistling "I Am the Walrus" backward.

 

He would've gotten into bed with me.

 

We would've looked at the stars on my ceiling, which would've pulled back their light from our eyes.

 

I'd have said "Nothing" backward.

 

He'd have said "Yeah, buddy?" backward.

 

I'd have said "Dad?" backward, which would have sounded the same as "Dad" forward.

 

He would have told me the story of the Sixth Borough, from the voice in the can at the end to the beginning, from "I love you" to "Once upon a time..."

 

We would have been safe.

 

"

 

Peace out.

I Remember

There’s a list in my Religion and Politics folder full of things that I remember.  I don’t really know why I started it; I guess I just felt like it one day after the twelfth day of school.  And now I don’t know what to do with it really, but I feel like I should do something.  I think I’d like to write about everything in some detail, but I think the list itself is also just sort of fun.  So I think, for now, I’m just going to write it:

 

- Stepping on a cactus
- Someone getting their nail cut by a crab
- Watching home videos of Ryan dropping his Slimer ice cream and losing his shoe on a Ferris wheel
- A video of Ryan pushing me into the snow and then kicking me
- Crying on my bed in Avalon because I felt bad that Dad never caught huge fish
- The ice cream man at the beach; “Fudgie Wudgie!” and “Ice cream, soda, rip off!”
- Choco Taco vs. Chipwich, and the time I dropped my Chipwich in the sand.
- The time I almost drowned from that huge wave, and the time I almost drowned by falling in the bay
- Always wanting a waverunner and never getting one
- The huge hornet thing that Jess and I swear was real underneath the deck at the old house
- Eating all of Ryan’s gummi worms with Kevin D while watching The Price is Right in kindergarten
- Flipping Kevin D over my head trying to be like Vega from Street Fighter
- Discovering This American Life on the first car ride back from going to Wildwood TIA
- Cocoa escaping from Bobby and I on the way down to Avalon
- The cigarette hole in my khaki shorts that we never figured out how it was made
- The three girls we met at the beach that asked to use our house but I never liked them
- Christian doing the left hand dance
- When the cats chewed on our fingers
- When Erin and I watched Law and Order:  SVU every night
- When I should have kissed Beth in Gina’s pool
- The first time I kissed Viv and she asked, “Can I help you?”
- The last time I tried to kiss Viv and she wouldn’t let me
- Watching Supersize Me and then giving up soda and McDonald’s
- The time I wrote like 4 songs in 8 weeks
- Kelly and I celebrating Fake Valentine’s Day, getting pizza and a blue jacket and flowers
- Wesley Willis and making a video for Rock & Roll McDonald’s
- Playing piano on my desk in class in ninth grade behind Ezra Han
- Practicing my drumline parts on my desk in class
- The night in Schlichter’s basement with Synthesis when they put on the hardhats
- Joekat being funny/awkward to try to get Mrs. Mattei to like him
- Ticking Danny Boselli until he wanted to kill us all
- That Kevin and I stopped being friends
- Letting down John Alfuth from Mexico by never sending him Dane Cook or Crank Yankers
- Hating Junior Prom more than anything in the world
- Me, Gina, Chloe and Molly were friends at Wildwood once
- When Kim and I talked every single night
- When I thought about holding people when I went to sleep
- The time Mr. Ricci yelled at Alex for almost no reason
- Chis Hopper showing me to fold strips of paper when I was bored at Hi-Q practice
- Corky hitting his head on the microphone on stage
- Talking to Dr. Arensberg while skipping French
- Outlining at the computer with textbook in lap
- The Infinity Q45 and the belt exploding with Jen Lue in the car
- Exploring the Church of Our Savior while singing Fallout Boy and Steve was filming
- Making mustard gas(?) and the girl getting drenched in the emergency shower while wearing a white t-shirt
- My graduation speech going over way better than I thought it would
- Eating at the diner in Allentown before DCI, and at the West Chester Diner twice
- Making brownies with Sonali
- Tarik coming to me at the piano to learn Mr. Brightside, and seeing him again during Ramadan
- Ariel telling the dolphin story at camp and then breaking my hand
- John Kuderka getting three strikes for nothing with Dr. C
- Make A Difference Day with Bobby
- Ashley vB, the Difference of Squares and seeing her on a plane
- Playing chess and losing to Lauren McLaughlin
- Teacher Gnorene, the club about not liking a girl, and having lunch at her house
- Lightning from Elam Love & Learn.  Sticking my tongue out at David
- Praying before snack with Mrs. Montella, and seeing her later in Genuardi’s
- Getting sick the night of the sixth grade lock-in
- CN Skate Palace roller hockey and Dave O
- Playing hockey in the street every day with Somers and Dhruv
- The time the neighborhoods kids tried to ditch Ryan and me but he found the Hewlitt kid
- Being left at CCD forever that one time
- Mr. Doyla “donating his liver” for the expansion
- John K being stabbed by Dennis W with a pencil
- Double D gymnastics
- Eating lunch without our thumbs in seventh grade
- Trying to make Bobby laugh so hard he spit out his drink
- Joining the soccer team for Dorney Park
- Timmy L getting shot right in the balls by Jim F
- MathCounts
- Getting a B in science AND social studies
- The stupid projects in Mr. Wright’s class that I absolutely hated
- My car crash
- Puking in Las Vegas and Ryan getting salmonella
- The Big Red Boat
- Jess getting chicken pox, Lyme Disease, and appendicitis
- When I cut my hair short and wore flannel jackets in fifth grade
- Forgetting the football on the last day of recess
- Jasmine, Somers, Olivia and Priya
- My first homerun in softball
- Shutting my finger in the window in 6th grade
- Club Rush with Jess and O’Neil

 

Actually, on this list I have on entry that reads “The first time I heard” and then there’s nothing.  I forget what I was writing, even though whatever it was, I was writing it today.

 

Peace out.

Shiptease

If you follow this blog but not my other one about Semester at Sea, you're doing something wrong.

http://shiptease.blogspot.com

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Some Things I Will Miss

-Roller hockey

-Playing my own piano

-Playing piano without people outside my family listening

-Playing guitar

-Driving

----and listening to NPR

----and screaming songs at the top of my lungs

-Seeing the GV kids' drumline season

----especially the seniors, the last year of the ones I knew

-Seeing the GV kids enjoy their senior spring

-Knowing where I am exactly

-The Simmons Pearl River piano

-Bothering everyone in the dorms at Penn State

-XKCD every M/W/F

-Dinosaur Comics every weekday

-Text messaging (just a little bit)

-The Internet, in general

----SomethingAwful

----GMail

----Streaming NPR

-Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

-This American Life

-Radio Times

-Using a mouse with my laptop

-Using a non-laptop keyboard

-Homecooked food

-Mom & Dad

----Ryan & Jess

----Cocoa & Ginger

----Gauss

-Seeing Nana a few more times

-Mother's Day? Father's Day?

-Spring break back here

-Making t-shirts

----Making the designs

-The Daily Show

-Jersey Shore

-Wife Swap

-My bed

----My pillow

-My blanket from childhood, if I don't pack it...

-My shower

----Specifically the shower head

-Mom doing laundry

-Pretty much every single friend from GV, PSU, Brown and elsewhere

-Land

-Lack of sea sickness

-Emergency room access w/out aid of helicopter

-Having fun without spending much money

-Bowling

-Springfield THON

-THON IN GENERAL

-Being at PSU and NOT being in drumline

-My old cell phone

----Really my dad's old cell phone...

-Feeling informed about world events

-TastyKakes

-Genuardi's

-Wawa

-Weekend nights in the valley

-TGI Friday's

-Cossart Road

-Math

-My single room

-Rigatoni's

In no particular order.

And I'm sure I'm forgetting things.

I think part of my problem is that I'm really good at thinking about all the things I'll miss, and pretty awful at thinking about all the things I'll get to know.

Peace out.

Jeff Free IX

Semester at Sea asked us to fill out a survey about our pre-voyage experience. I told them that I found things a little overwhelming, because they asked what they could do better. One question asked if you would suggest Semester at Sea to your three or four closest friends, and I said, "I recommend it to all of my friends, and sometimes total strangers." The last question asked what three or four sentences/phrases you'd use to describe S.A.S. to someone who was asking about it, so I said:

"It's basically a floating university, you take four classes for credit while you're on the ship, and you stop in 10-12 countries depending on what specific voyage you're on and you get to explore.

Then I give them a YouTube link to I'm On a Boat."

Maybe they'll appreciate that. Maybe they're sick of it.

Peace out.

Jeff Free VII

I made a list of things to do last night at about 1am and didn't let myself go to sleep until I did a bunch of them. I wanted to stop procrastinating. I made a list of all the trips I was going on and sent it to Dad, like he asked. I made a new blog for Semester at Sea, which you can see at ShipTease.blogspot.com. I emailed my pictures from Christmas to Gabe, and told her to get a gmail account since she still uses Hotmail. I asked a question to the literary reviewer guy on SomethingAwful for my friend Jennifer, who would like to have the same job he does when she grows up. I cut some designs downstairs while my cat watched. I put my pictures on my computer and changed out my memory card. I even put some adorable photos of myself and Cocoa on Facebook, which is amazing, because I never get around to putting pictures on Facebook. I tried to schedule for PSU Fall 2010 as well, but the schedule isn't available yet. It was 3am at that point, and I decided it was better to fall asleep and update this blog in the morning than to do it at 3am.

Jeff Free VIII

This took me almost an hour to write so far.

Jeff Free VI

I wanted a green cloth belt. I could not find one anywhere. I picked up Chloe from school on Tuesday and asked her if she wanted to go to Goodwill with me to try to find one. Eric J was working there and she accosted him. I picked out a cloth belt for $1 and decided we could just try spraying it green, so we had to go get some paint, too, which cost $3.

Last night I went to Chloe's house and into her yard with the belt and the paint. It actually went on pretty well, and turned from tan to green before my eyes. I let it dry inside for a little bit. The fumes made me wonder if I was going crazy, or stupid. I'm very afraid of them; even the can is very frank that it can cause permanent nerve damage. Later I went out and put a few black stencils on it, of Mr. Peanut, a penguin with a cane and top hat, and a bomb. They came out pretty well in general, although I had to do it outside, alone, in the cold, and so they didn't always lay completely flat on the belt. There was a little bit of blurring. I wish Chloe could have held the stencils in place, but she was sick, and didn't want to come outside.

We let it dry for a while. I tried it on. It's still very sticky, and I couldn't pull it through all of my belt loops because of the friction. We decided to let it dry more. It wore well before I painted it, so it should wear well now, right? I tried it on later and looked at myself in the downstairs bathroom mirror. It does look pretty cool. I'm glad we decided to be hooligans.

Jeff Free V

I had something of a crisis with Semester at Sea yesterday. Although I suppose the crisis actually happened at about 11:55pm on December 14th, 2009.

There are some trips that you can only reserve a spot on before you go on the ship. You have to request a spot during the Pre-Sale period. We got the field practica guide sometime around Thanksgiving, and it had a bazillion trips in it, and I remember reading through a good portion of it when I went to visit Nana that break. It was still incredibly overwhelming, though. The deadline to submit a request for these trips was December 15th, which is kind of vague, so I decided to make sure it was done on December 14th at the very latest.

December 14th was during finals week at Penn State. There was free food that night in one of the study halls. Kerry O was wandering around the ground floor at 10 o'clock or something like that. She said that all she was going to do for the rest of the night was procrastinate, study, or eat food. I told her that sounded great and we should go to the study break snack in Simmons together, and she agreed. At some point I started to feel more concerned about S.A.S. stuff, and I think I may have even called their 24-hour answering service to see if this needed to be done tonight. The guy said yes, and I told Kerry that this was going to take me a little bit, and would probably be frustrating for both of us, so I understood if she wanted to go. She insisted she really didn't have anywhere more fun to be, so she hung out, which was fine.

At some point I remember going to Drew's room, and Kerry was there too at some point. I think perhaps she did leave for a little bit and then come back. I introduced her to Drew and told her that he was going on Semester at Sea with me.

Anyway, I very very clearly remember picking my trips. I remember logging in to MyVoyage and clicking on MyTrips. I remember how the page looked - the same theme as the rest of the S.A.S. website. I remember picking a primary option at each port, then picking an alternative, and then holding Ctrl while clicking any additional alternatives. I remember the bill coming out to some ridiculous amount. [[Understand that these trips were things like Great Wall, Taj Mahal, Safari, etc.]] I remember calling my dad with Kerry still sitting near me, near the doorway, and him getting upset that I was "springing this on him." I remember telling him that it was going to be "sprung" on him anyway, so he couldn't get mad at me. I remember he called me back a little later, with Kerry still there, and told me to just use his credit card, and he seemed a lot calmer about it, like he wasn't mad at me anymore. I remember he told me to write it down, so I did write it down, on the back of my orange field manual. I wrote the four sets of four numbers in a box. I was afraid someone would think it was a credit card number, so I put a + sign in front of the numbers and started adding them. It was security through obscurity. I told Kerry what I was doing. I was proud. I remember putting the credit card number and information in, and I remember hitting submit.

I swear that the transaction had gone through.

We went to get food. I apologized for the wait. She was a good sport and I was glad I hadn't frustrated her or put her in a bad mood.

Yesterday I saw something that said the bus we were slated to take from San Diego to Ensenada was posted on our MyTrips page, along with all the other trips that had been assigned to us. None had been assigned to me. I had actually been a little bit worried about this for a while, but figured it was just taking a while. I then checked the Facebook group, and saw that some kids (but not a whole ton) had posted what trips they were going on. I figured maybe kids who requested fewer trips had them assigned earlier since they were easier to figure out; maybe mine was just taking a while. But I called just in case, and they told me that everything had been assigned. There was nothing on record for me.

I talked to my dad. He called the credit card company. Apparently the charge had never even been presented. It wasn't even that it was denied, or bounced, or rejected, or over the balance - it had just never shown up in the first place. I had no idea how that had happened, but I knew that damage control needed to happen as quickly as possible.

I called S.A.S's office probably 100 times in the next hour and a half. That might be a slightexaggeration, but I'm not totally positive. Eventually I got through enough to find out that there was a woman named Alison D who might be able to help me. I had talked to her once, and she asked me if I had the list of trips I wanted in front of me. I said no, but that I could get it together before 5pm. This was at about 4:15pm, and she was supposed to leave at 5pm. She gave me her direct number and told me to call her back. I found the list of trips and alternatives I had wanted, and called her back. Busy. Called back. Busy. Called back. Busy. This is where the 100 calls comes into play.

My dad realized I wasn't getting through and told me to call the main number. So I did, and they said she was free and would take my call next. Busy again. I kept trying. I left two messages and my dad left one. I even marked one as urgent!

5pm came and went. No calls back. I guessed I could just call her tomorrow and sleep with my phone on in case she called me before I woke up.

Leroy, Gabe and Kelly were visiting, and I was in a terrible mood because I thought my semester was about to be ruined/had already been ruined by a credit card malfunction of some sort.

She called me back at about 5:30. I thanked her profusely and apologized for pestering her. She was actually incredibly nice and understanding, and she apologized, as if the fault may lie on their end. Truth be told I have absolutely no idea what went wrong, so I suppose it's possible that someone went wrong on their end, but I suspect that I did something wrong. But whatever. We went through what trips were still open, and I took what I could. I think she had done a Semester at Sea before, so she even counseled me on a few decisions, which was really nice. I got most of the big trips that I wanted. The only downsides were that all the overnight house visits were full. I was pretty upset about that. I also didn't really feel like scheduling one of the super-expensive safaris, so I just took a one-day one instead. She said that was an improvement, considering all there is to do and see in South Africa. I also missed out on the overnight trips in Brazil, but she said I'd have a boat-full of friends at that point, and I'd find something to do.

Jeff Free IV

I'd been going back and forth with a woman named Joann at AXA Equitable in New York for a long time - like almost a month now - about scheduling an interview in New York. I would have to take a train up and train back in the same day for the interview; I was viewing this as reading time for Things Fall Apart. I looked around New York on Google maps the other day and found out that if I lived in the right part of Hoboken, I would two blocks away from an outdoor roller rink and two blocks away from a huge trainyard, which would be cool. Plus the drive to work would be like 35 minutes, with traffic, which is good NPR-listenin' time.

Anyway, I talked to her on the phone yesterday and she said that they provide housing at Columbia University, which I wasn't really feeling. And they only pay $22/hour, which isn't really worth it to drag me to New York when I'm getting $21 in Philadelphia. I asked her if I could talk to Dad, so we hung up and I talked it over with him. I called her back and said that I was really sorry, but I just didn't think it was going to be worth it for me to take the job even if I had the offer, so I declined the interview. I felt kind of bad about it. We both spent a good amount of time trying to make sure it could work out. Oh well, it's okay. Just business, or something.

Jeff Free III

I went to play hockey yesterday for the first time since the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I drove to the rink in Delaware right near the Delcastle golf course. It's only supposed to be a 25-30 minute drive or so, but I missed my turn onto Rt 34 in Delaware. There was tons of construction, and I swear there were no signs on 141 South to tell you that 34 was coming up. So I had to turn around after taking an exit when 141 turned into a legit highway. The ride there ended up taking me like 50 minutes. Tell Me More was on NPR, which I hate more than any other show on NPR, even more than Fresh Air and maybe even more than You Bet Your Garden or Car Talk, which all suck.

The rink was dry, which was good. But it was very very cold. My skates were messed up, sort of - the lace had come out of the highest eyelet that I used, and the tip of it was frayed and had lost its aglet, so I couldn't get it through. I tried licking it a few times to condense it, but it was no help. I needed to look at it earlier, before I came. I ended up just wrapping the lace all the way around my skate and trying my best to get a knot from that. It felt loose and it was hanging off the left side of my skate, but it was okay for now.

I didn't have a good puck to play with; just one of those crappy "speed pucks" that we'd yell at the ref for using if we were playing in a league. I had called Sports Authority earlier, and they said they only carried pucks made by Franklin, which are awful, so that was no help. Then I called Dick's and asked if they sold pucks by IDS or Rocket, and they asked me to please hold on. Ten minutes later they still hadn't gotten back to the line, so I called back, and asked again. Five minutes later they still hadn't gotten back to the line, so I called back, and asked again. I was slightly forceful with my question this time, and told them I'd been on hold for fifteen minutes already. I'd been talking to Nick online though, about actuary stuff. Then they picked up and told me they didn't sell any pucks at all.

After playing for a little bit, two kids showed up, about my age. They took half the rink, I took half. It was very cold, my eyes were dripping, my nose was running, and I was afraid I was going to get a headache if I stayed much longer. At one point I shot the puck out, and decided I'd had enough. I had other things to do at home anyway. So I untied the knot hanging off the left side of my boot and got in the car. I made a wrong turn again, and it took me 50 minutes again.

Jeff Free II

Two things predominantly come to mind when I think of last summer. The first is how awesome it was to have an outdoor rink that I could go to after work for hours every day and play for free. The second is how much I hated my job.

I got offered a job with ACE INA in Philadelphia for the summer. They pay $21/hour for someone in my position, which is good, especially since my parents wouldn't have to pay $600/month for housing and extra food and stuff. Apparently the guy named Jim who interviewed me really liked me (he was young, went to UPenn, was more of a computer science guy, and I could tell he liked me in the "I'd like to hire you" way) and asked me to work in his part of the company, which is predictive modeling. It does sound kind of cool, so I will definitely think about it.

However, I looked for outdoor roller rinks recently in Philadelphia, and I've been unable to find any. Beyond that, even if I did take the job, my dad would probably often drive me to and from, and I doubt he'd be down for stopping at a rink for an hour or two a few days a week. Marple is nearby and they have great leagues, but they play late at night. Speaking of which, I don't know if I want a curfew of 11pm as a 21 year old with a full-time job. I know that last year I wasusually in by 11pm in the summer, but it's different when you're friends with people who don't live in your house.

Jeff Free I

I went to Sonali's house on Wednesday night. We hadn't seen in each since July of 2008, when she left Walgreens to go visit India with her family. She was supposed to teach me how to draw a little bit, since I suck and she's going to art school, but somehow we got distracted by the idea of baking brownies, and never turned back.

We were looking over the back of the mix box to see what ingredients we needed, and it called for two eggs. She wasn't sure if she had any, so she looked through her refrigerator and told me, "Oh! We have exactly two eggs!" So she put them on the counter, and we continued preparing. At one point a few minutes later we were talking, I was at the end of the island and she was on the other side of the corner, and I could see where she had placed the eggs over her shoulder. Suddenly, too late for me to do anything useful, I realized that one of them was moving (pretty quickly) toward the edge of the counter. And then half a second later it was on the floor. Oh nooo!! Then we only had one egg, and we were sad.

Sonalia suggested we could go to the grocery store and get some more, since they were all out anyway. I, having recently listened to Hey Ya by Outkast/Obadiah Parker, suggested we ask our neighbor to lend us some sugar. We ended up walking across the street to a neighbor's house after she had called them to check. They had two young cats who were very compactly built and very adorable, and one of them played fetch. The man's name was Steve and he shook my hand. The woman was allergic to chocolate. Steve asked if we could bring him some when we were done since he could never have chocolate in his own house, and we said yes.

I learned a lot about Sonali. I learned why she kept going to different schools. We talked about our love lives for a good while, probably about an hour. I continue to feel very afraid that I am boring people when I'm talking, yet feel insanely interested in almost everything that everyone else has to say. I always give people the benefit of the doubt; she always searches for people's flaws so they feel more real. My flaw is that I lack follow-through and that I procrastinate, she said. I also suggested that being a total asshole and bad with people was a flaw of mine, but I guess she didn't think only taking two years to actually see her was asshole-worthy enough to agree with me. We both hate talking on the phone; she likes movies and I don't. Someone once told her that she "fires" her friends when she doesn't like them anymore. She told me that I could keep my job.

Plagiarism

What has been scene can not be unscene.

Who will speak for the breeze?

(The borax?)

Who will speak for the fleas?

Peace out.

Blew Cross

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

Peace out.

A Math Dream

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

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

Peace out.

Compassionate Release

This is why we should have compassionate release:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Taken from HidingFromGoro on the SomethingAwful.com forums)

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

Peace out.

Attempting my first EMAIL BLAG

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

HOLY CRAP!

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

Peace out.

Fun With Finals

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

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

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

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

//

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

I got a 90 on the test.

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

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

//

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

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

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

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

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

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

//

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

Live and learn, I guess.

Peace out.

Legion of Boom

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

Peace out.

President Evil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

//

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

Peace out.

Thxgiving

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

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

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

//

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

I bought the new Fallout Boy CD.

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

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

Peace out.

Antivirus System Pro!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace out.

Sportmanteau

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

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

I hate college.

Peace out.

Healed of Gold

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

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

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

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

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

Extremely frustrating.

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

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

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

Peace out.

What's My Age Again?

Relationships with the children of family friends are funny.

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

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

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

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

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

//

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

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

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

Peace out.