Rosalind, the Prodigy, in Black, with a Tissue

When I came to Brown, one of the things I wanted to do was join the orchestra. I was really really excited about it because I thought it would be just like concert band in high school, except with kids who were probably more devoted and more skilled - they are older, after all.

During some of the first days that I was here, I went to find the Orwig Music Building, which is quite a hike away from the rest of the life on campus. It's on, I think, Hope St. and Young Orchard St., which is not really a fun place to go because it's very removed. I remember, the first times I went, I didn't take my bike and that made it take even longer. The first few times I went, it was also closed, and I was very upset.

Eventually, perhaps the first day of class, I made it to the music building, walked in, and asked to talk to the director of the orchestra. The secretary told me his name was Paul and to check his office upstairs. So I went the spiral stairs in the Orwig Music Building - which looks like a very old, very nice house - and looked a Paul Someone or P. Someone. I didn't find any, but while I was up there I just happened to knock on a random door - even though it was dark behind the door - to see if I could talk to someone upstairs and see if they could help me.

I walked in and asked, "Hey, do you know where the conductor of the orchestra is?" And he said, "That would be me." He seemed really nice and really outgoing, and I said something to the effect of oh, you're Paul? And he said, No, I'm actually Eric Culver, I'm the guest conductor. Paul, it turns out, has been on vacation for the past few months and would be out most of this semester too, so Eric is taking his place.

I asked him if there was room for percussionists in the orchestra, and he said that there was, and I should just go put my name on the audition sheet. Auditions! I was very excited, except I had nothing to audition on... oh well. I remember I put my name on the audition sheet, missed my audition, then tried again, missed it again, and then finally got it on a Sunday. I just kind of played some scales and hoped for the best. I suppose it was actually good enough to get me in.

At one point I talked to Eric Culver about himself a little bit because it seemed like there was a lot to learn from him. I think he has a doctorate in Conducting... at first I couldn't believe there was such a program/accredation system, so I asked him to explain it to me. And he talked to me about all the different parts of conducting - first of all, the actual act of doing it, but also how to pick songs, work with your musicians, find the best musicians, train them, how to organize the mechanics of the orchestra, and of course mountains of music theory. I walked away agreeing that it was definitely a legitimate degree program, and pretty confident in his abilities.

That was at the social/introductory meeting for the orchestra... there wasn't a whole lot I remember about that day, other than it was kind of awkward and I didn't really like it a whole lot. I could barely even rem.... actually, I don't think there is a single name I remember from that meeting.

So anyway, I was in the percussion section. There are, I think, five people in the percussion section. The first one that I knew was Viday, whose name I'm still not sure I'm spelling correctly. He's Indian, and a friend of Abhay, who is my Meiklejohn [peer] Advisor. He's hoping to go to school for percussion performance, so I'm pretty sure he's amazing, but I've never really seen him rock out. Apparently last year he performed a timpani concerto which was pretty incredible, but again, I missed that. In either case, he's really nice and extremely modest about his abilities. Pretty much everyone in the band seems to adore him as soon as they meet him. The very first day he offered me a timpani part on Zampa, which I played once and then decided I didn't really like, so I think he took over. He also memorized exactly where I should be playing in the Rachmaninoff piece before I had ever even looked at my music.

The next one that I came to know was Nat Seleen, the president of the orchestra. He's a pretty big white male with black hair, senior year, who smiles all the time. He is always smiling. It's incredible. He's really very nice, and very agreeable, and I think people generally like him and think he does a good job of managing the orchestra. It's very interesting, though, to see him be so smiling and agreeable all the time and then talk to him in private and hear him - still smiling and being agreeable - say a word like "fuck" or "shit."

The next guy I knew Ojus - not sure I'm spelling correctly - an Indian guy from Pennsylvania who knows Liz DiCocco (my chem TA from PGSS). He said he always wanted to do drum corps, but he either didn't think he was good enough, or started to think he didn't have enough time. I thought it was really sad, and even sadder that he never knew about All-Age Corps like the Buccaneers... I suppose they'll still be around when he's older though, so he can probably do one when he'd like to if he's still into it.

The last guy - other than me - is Aaron, a junior in a topology class that's killing him, with a large afro-like haircut, glasses, and he's very nice. He's also in Wind Symphony and percussion ensemble and introduced me to their meetings, but I didn't really dig what they were doing so I backed out...

Anyway, as far as orchestra goes, my part sucked. I didn't like it. I had 867 measures of rest in a 25 minute-long song. I'm going to quit this Tuesday. I actually tried to quit the second week, but they asked me to play in this Rachmaninoff song [Rhapsodie, Variations on a Theme of Paganini], and I couldn't say no to Eric.

I think the most interesting part of my orchestra experience was Rosalind Rhee, then the concerts...

So for Rachmaninoff, the piece is really a 25-minute piano solo with an orchestra playing somewhere in the back. The soloist we have is Rosalind Rhee. I can't explain to you how good she is. I really can't even compare her to someone like myself or Nicki or Susan Lin because she's so good that it's not even worth the comparison. It's... she's simply not on the same level. I don't even care if I like what she's playing, I just like listening to her play. I did end up liking Rachmaninoff, though.

So yeah... the other day as we were getting ready for the concert, I saw Rosalind walk by. She always wears black - I don't think I've ever seen her wearing anything but black - and she's Asian and has black hair, so all my memories and pictures of her in my mind are very, very dark. Like I said, she walked past me before the concert as I was sitting in the percussion cabinet txting or talking to someone, and I don't know why, but I was kind of in awe. I think it's because she was wearing a trenchcoat - black, as always - combined with her piano awesomness, of course. It was like something out of The Matrix. She looks kind of like the girl in The Grudge, only scared instead of scary. I can still see in her face how she must have looked when she was little.

Her mom was also there with her, which I thought was adorable. Rosalind must be 21 years old by now, a senior, ready to go into the world on her own, and her mother - dressed totally in white - still came to see both of her shows. She sat with her before the show for a long time in a somewhat private room. I guess I just thought that was interesting. I wonder if many other parents would have come.

The other thing that I've noticed about Rosalind is that when she plays, she doesn't look at the music. Ever. This is a 25 minute song - I know, that's not that impressive - but this is so difficult that I could... wow, I don't think I could ever memorize it. I do not think I am capable. But she did. The first night, she showed up and didn't even look at the music except to give measure numbers to other people.

She also always has a tissue with her when she plays. I don't know what it's for. It could be for sweat or tears, I could never tell. After her first concert, I'm pretty sure she was crying. After her second, I think she was sweating. Maybe it's both. I don't know. I don't think I'll ever see her again.

I think she also made the only mistake I've ever seen her make at the end of her piece during the second concert. Thankfully we all recovered.

The one thing that I think I will miss about orchestra - other than Rosalind, the prodigy, in black, with a tissue - is the orchestra warming up. I know that sounds really stupid, but it's really something to be experienced. When I was cleaning up from the second/last concert, I stood in the back of the room before going behind doors so I could listen to them warm up. They tune on an A instead of a Bb.

It's hard to describe, but when the leader gives the signal and the high instruments come in and then it goes down further and further and the basses sweep in and it just fills the room like you've never heard before, god... you'd swear a tidal wave was rising up somewhere just outside the building and you're convinced that if only the orchestra would play loud enough and hard enough those strings could move time backwards if they wanted to.

Peace out.

MySpace Pictures

One of the questions I always get when people look through my pictures: "Why are they all black and white?!"

So I remember, from the beginning of high schools, I always kind of wanted to be the shutterbug of the crew. I didn't appreciate pictures back then as much as I did now - probably not until 11th grade or so - but I remember I had some little amount of interest in having a camera with me at most times. Sadly, that didn't happen... my family had one crappy Kodak digital camera for a long time, and then my mom got a new one, too, but I thought it was also pretty crappy, and there was NO WAY I could carry that thing around with me - it was just too big.

But I did try, sometimes, to take it around with me. I remember at one point near the end of junior summer, after I got home from PGSS, I wanted to make a pictureboard [on corkboard] with all my senior friends [Class of 2007 friends]. So we went out to Target and found the largest corkboard we could - it was probably 3' x 2' or so - and it cost $14.99. That was right after we found out about the "$20 Rule," so when we went to the cashier - it was Kia Brinkley who checked us out - we assured her it was actually $10, and she had to give it to us. We were pretty happy about that. We also got some thumb tacks, I think. Clear ones.

I forget if I took pictures that night, or somtime earlier that year, but there are three pictures from that time period that really stand out to me.

One of them is of Erin. We were at the Kid's Dream Playground for some sort of party, I forget exactly whose, in the mid-afternoon. It was a really nice day. She was wearing her huge, dark sunglasses that only certain people can pull off, and her black-and-white striped jacket-like thing that I don't know the name for. I think she was also holding a cup in one hand, and she may have had her mouth open just a tiny little bit. I remember thinking it was a good picture of her.

The second one I remember is one of Beth and Steve. This was when Steve would always grope and feel and invade Beth's personal space. We were standing outside of Beth's house - we were always at Beth's house, of course - near our cars, walking in from wherever we were, and I really wanted a picture of Beth and Steve being Beth and Steve. He was wearing his signature green striped shirt, but I can't quite remember what Beth was wearing. He was jumping on her and trying to lick her face, and she was screaming and shouting and playfully trying to get him off of her.

The third picture was my favorite. It was of Beth and Steve, laying on Beth's bed in her room, where we always spent all of our time. Beth was actually on the floor, and Steve was slightly sprawled out on the bed. There was bottled water on the bed that someone hadn't thrown into the recycling bin in the opposite corner of Beth's room yet. The bed wasn't made and you could see her red sheets. They were both smiling a lot. It's a great picture. It was pretty much everything I wanted to remember about that summer.

Those are just about the only three pictures of mine from the first three years of high school. I put them on the corkboard along with a few others. One day, we had a corkboard-picture-finding party... we picked out a ton of old pictures, but for some reason we never got around to putting them up. I guess I know the reason, but I just don't want to talk about it right now.

Sometime after PGSS, I was talking to Alex DiJulio while at Beth's house - standing in her kitchen and kind of having an aside with him - when I saw him looking through his pictures on his camera. I can't explain quite why, but I thought they were all particularly beautiful pictures, and they were all in black and white. I asked him what kind of camera it was [Canon Digital Elph], and whether or not he liked it. I knew he was pretty hardcore into photography, so when he said he liked it, I knew it was probably a pretty safe bet. I asked for that camera for Christmas, and I think it's pretty much the best material Christmas present I've ever been given. I took something along the lines of 1700 pictures in the next eight months, most of them in black and white.

I think the reason I remember that night and that conversation with Alex so clearly was because I thought, You know, if I could take pictures that beautiful, I would take pictures all the time. And I sort of guessed that what I thought was so beautiful about the pictures was that they were black and white. So if I had that camera - just a small camera, good resolution, easy to transport, takes good black and white shots - I would finally start taking pictures like I had wanted to for so long. And I did. And I think I owe a lot of that to the fact that I find black and white pictures so incredible compared to normal colors.

So that's why I take black and white pictures, I guess. I always wanted to take pictures, but I was always disappointed with the ones that I took until I discovered I could take them all in black and white and I'd think they were all beautiful. So I take pictures in black and white because it's the only way I know how to make myself take pictures.

Peace out.

Eric Levy

I play piano in Alumnae Hall fairly often. I don't always play at midnight anymore - sometimes I'm sleepy, and sometimes it's cold, and sometimes I'm just not in the mood - but I still go frequently. Now that it's during the day, I often get visitors of some sort.

This Monday, I got a visitor. I was in the middle of playing Rage, Rage when a tall, black, 35-or-so, bald, tattooed security guard in full uniform walked into the room from the far corner. Like most of my visitors, he wasn't in a rush to get over to me. I was expecting the normal security guard check - you allowed to be in here? Can I see your key? Etc.

But not with Eric. The first thing he said to me was something very close to, "Hey man, you mind if I come watch you play for a little bit?"

I was very surprised. Seriously, I asked him? Yes, definitely! he said. He'd been taking some music theory classes, he told me, so he knew all about how music was supposed to go down, but he was just having trouble getting it to go onto the keyboard. He asked if I would play a little something more, so I said sure, of course I'll play - what kind of stuff do you like to listen to? All kind of stuff, he said. I figured I'd play Chemical Road.

He talked, before that point, about how he was familiar with chords, but not terribly familiar with how to use them on a piano. Chemical Road is pretty easy to detect chords in - especially in the left hand - so I pointed that out to him before I started playing. Then I started.

I kept my left hand in fifths - I usually don't do that, but he was new and I wanted it to be really obvious to him the way my left hand was moving. He was tapping his foot throughout the song. At first it wasn't always with the beat, and it was more like in half-time than what I usually think of as the song's beat. But by the end of it, the last chorus, where I was singing, "Coming home, coming home, won't see you coming home," he was tapping his foot on the accents and playing drums in the air. He seemed to really like it.

When I finished, he laughed and said, "Man, that's a hit right there! Did you write that? I can hear the drums in the background through the whoooole thing, and how it goes up and down... up and down... that's really awesome!" [I'm not trying to toot my own horn, I'm just recalling an experience] So of course I say yes, I wrote it, and thank you many times... but I didn't really care about me and I wanted to know more about him so I asked him some more.

He took his music theory classes as part of his church. They're not incredibly in depth, he said - just six weeks - but enough to get people started for a choir piano part at a church. He said his church has really good music, and a number of musicians [sax and drumset included, and a full choir that he sings in], but the piano player sometimes wanted a break, or to know that when he was gone, someone would be around in the community to carry on. Not to mention Eric just wanted to let him know that other people cared as much as he did about what he was truly passionate about. So he decided to learn.

He grew up listening to a lot of gospel, and a lot of jazz. He reads music, but he was new to bass clef, and I'm pretty sure his ear is a lot better than mine because of what he grew up with. He says that now he listens to a lot of alternative rock - Hootie and the Blowfish, Pearl Jam, that sort of thing.

He had a girlfriend a while ago who was German, and her grandmother forced her to play piano. Very rigid, very uptight - would smack her hands if she played wrong and smacked her shoulders if she sat wrong. But she stuck with it - unlike me in the story I was telling - and she finally found it to be a really powerful emotional release. That's part of what Eric wanted, and what he said he liked about Chemical Road - he could tell that I actually cared about it.

He asked the best way to learn, and he was talking about his practicing. Sometimes he would sit down and work at a single part for hours and hours, and get frustrated and angry and give up and sometimes not touch a piano for a month...! But he said he definitely had to start practicing, every day, he said, for hours. I was like, "Oh no! That's way too much!" It really is... it can't be something you force yourself to do. If you come to it slowly, that's how it happens. So I told him that - just find some sheet music that you really like, with chords and bass and treble, that you REALLY want to learn, and just sit down whenever you're a little bored and take a look at it. After all, that was what his piano teacher wanted him to do - to really love piano - so I thought that was definitely the best course for him.

He also needed sheet music. I told him about musicfiles.com [but told him it might also be musicnotes.com] and told him how to work it, and hopefully that'll come through for him.

I can't remember a whole lot more about what we said... those are most of the important things. In any case, I really liked Eric and I hope I see him again. I hope he starts playing, too. It seems like he really wants to want to play, and I just hope that comes through for him. I'm really starting to enjoy Alumnae Hall Strange Time Piano Playing as a way of meeting people.

Peace out.

Ice Box

When I came to college, I thought it might be nice to start logging my AIM conversations. That way, in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, I'd be able to open them up and see what I was like when I was a crazy college kid, or what I was talking about, or who I talked about the most with, or just what was happening in my day-to-day life without always having to write it right here.

So I set it up. Like cheese chockadados, it was REAL EASY! I mean, yeah, I just hit a button and told it where to put the folder and it started, no problems. I started that before I even came to college - so something like August 31st, I guess?

And so up until just recently, I was operating under the assumption that everything in AIM was logged away somewhere on my computer for safekeeping whenever I wanted it. I recorded the stuff onto my external harddrive every now and then just to make sure that even if my computer blew up, my memories would be safe.

I looked at a log the other day - it only went back four days. Four days. I think it only stores up to about 1700kb of information, and then stops. I was so crushed. Think of all the things that I said... all the things I talked about and all the things I felt that I wanted to keep forever that I unknowingly let disappear!

I suppose there's nothing I can really do about those at this point. Just start again.

Peace out.

Snow and Lights

snow and lights might comfort me [ah, ah]
surrounded by that sea,
i can't recall if i was there

i dreamed of things i could not see,
what life must hide from me,
i wasted all my time
in dreams

i tried to look out for you [ah, ah]
but never ask of you,
i can't recall how much i cared

i dreamed of things i could not have,
what life must keep from me,
i wasted all my time
in dreams

by now i can blame myself [ah, ah]
'cause now i'm old enough
i can't recall [explain] why that should help

i dreamed of things i could not save,
what life must take from us,
i wasted it all my time
in dreams

but snow and lights might comfort me

NPR

I miss NPR. National Public Radio. A pretty good amount. I suppose that really I just miss driving, but there's so much to write about that that I could never do it justice, so I'll write about NPR.

I remember one of the first times I listened to NPR was when I was with Mom and Mitch Albo and Virginia Heffernan were talking about their book The Underminer, written in second-person, full of passive-aggressiveness. The entire point of the book was just to show how horrible passive-aggressive people really are. Some of the best lines were "Hey, do you still like your new haircut? .... Oh, yeah, I love it! I just wanted to make sure you do, too." Or, "Oh my god, I just saw your ex-boyfriend and he is the HOTTEST thing I have ever seen." Or, "Wow, your guitar player is really talented!" You kind of had to hear the whole story, and have it done in their voices, but I ended up buying and reading the whole book and falling in love with NPR.

When I got my own car [my dad's old Infinity Q45], just about all I listened to was NPR, WHYY 90.9. Part of it was because the car didn't have a CD player, and who wants to hook that up? But part of it was also because I just loved NPR.

I liked driving alone with NPR on... It was nice to, for a couple minutes a day, I suppose, just think about whatever you wanted to think about, and if you got tired or lost of your own thoughts, you could listen to someone else's on NPR. It would give you new ideas on things and keep you up to date with the world. There were, I'm sure, dozens of times when I started stores with, "So I was listening to NPR the other day and..." And Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me would make you laugh at the same time. It was too bad I was never driving between 4PM and 5PM on Saturdays...

So I guess what I'm saying is, I'd like to be able to drive here, while listening to NPR. I don't know where to exactly, or exactly why. I think I'd just like to get in a car and listen to NPR and see what's going on in the world and think about it more often than I do right now. [It's hard to stay up with the world at college] But I suppose I can't do that until at least next year...

Peace out.

Time

We had this Monday off for Columbus Day, and everyone was really excited for the long weekend. As it turned out, it was a long weekend for me... and I kind of want to get back into work. It's hard to describe why, but I'll try my best.

A lot of people left for the weekend, so the whole campus felt a little bit empty. Danny was gone so I had the room to myself. He was in Boston, and he ended up meeting Emily Gaeman.

Anyway, on Friday night, there was supposed to be a little gathering in Maura's room, but for some reason that didn't really end up happening. I kind of forget what I ended up doing for the earlier part of the night, but the the later part of the night, I remember I was watching baseball in Spencer's room with him and Maura. It was kind of tiring, I remember texting Gina a few times, and almost falling asleep a few times. I think after that people wandered around the second floor for a while, into Jaime's room (pronounced hi-may), and... nothing was really happening. So I decided to go back to my room, and I'm pretty sure that was around 11:30PM.

That was Friday, October 5th. My birthday is October 6th. And I was sitting there, thinking - what do I want to be doing as it becomes my birthday and I become 19? I want to be playing piano. I want to be playing Snow and Lights.

I'm not sure how many of you have heard or really listened to the song Snow and Lights, but it is - I think - the most personal and important [to me] song I've ever written. It talks about pretty much everything I've ever cared about in some form or another. The first stanza is an image of me sitting in my piano room at the big bay windows on our flower patterned couches, staring outside to snow falling through our spotlights and postlights. It's about life being easy and comfortable, and feeling at home, and warm, and safe. The second stanza is about all you kids - probably the ones reading this - and how much I cared about you. And still care about you. I think so highly of all of you and I would give the world to any of you and I know that you could give it right back to me but I'd prefer if you kept it. And it's just about the fear that, maybe someday, you'll drift out of my life and I won't even remember how much I cared for you. The third stanza is about that fear, too - how tragic it would be to sit back and realize that I had let you get away, and to know that that knowledge doesn't even help me. It just hurts.

And of course, the chorus. It's really all about time... wasting time. Perhaps the worst feeling I have ever known. Feeling like I should have done something, knowing I should have done something, but letting time go and go and go and never doing anything about it. Oh, it feels so terrible...

So that was the song I wanted to play. Birthdays make me think of wasted time more than anything else, and I thought that would be an appropriate song. So I was in my dorm room at 11:59 and I started playing and recording it on my keyboard. And then at 12:01... Andy knocked on my door. I know he couldn't have known - how could he have known? - that it was a horrible time [did I mention I was sweaty and had no shirt on?], but for some reason I was upset by it, still. I think it was just because this wasn't what I wanted. He returned my scotch tape and told me I was Awesome Resident of the Month [for letting him play in Alumnae Hall]. I finished the song after he left, recorded another version, and fell asleep without showering.

I woke up again on my birthday. I went to brunch and got some pancakes (eventually) and went back to check my mail. I found out that the mail room didn't open until 12, so I had to go back later. When I came back then, a card had been put in my mailbox from Kim, and I was happy to see it! I also got a package from mom and dad.

I think the most interesting part of this experience was my letter from Nana [mom's side].

I've never really been close with Nana, or any of my grandparents... it's not that we don't get along, or dislike each other... it's just that we were never close. I never understood what I could learn from her or how to relate from her. And for some reason, this year, I finally started to feel like I was missing out on that. And for the first time, I read her card - I mean, really read her card and thought about it - and for the first time... I think I understood what it was like to be a grandparent, almost. And what it was like to have a son, or daughter, or grandson or granddaughter, and to love them and care for them and be proud of them. And it made me sad that it took so long to learn this, and that it came at a time where every communication I got from her could be the last. This could be the last I ever hear from her. I just don't know.

That night I really wanted to go to Waterfires, so Nupur, Bridgette, and Andy Watkins [from PGSS, now at Harvard] came with me. Colleen, Bridgette's roommate at URI, also came. I suppose it was what I expected of Waterfire, and what I wanted it to be - but that is somewhat reflective and somewhat sad. Andy and I had a nice conversation about his parents and his family - I'm not sure how much I should say about it because it was somewhat in confidence, so I have to stop here. I also remember that I saw Bridgette crying on Nupur's shoulder and wondering why, and wishing there were something I could do about it. I gave her a hug when she left because I thought she might just want to know... I don't know. It's hard to say. I guess that I care about her and hope she feels better.

That night I slept in Chaz's room with Nupur and Andy. They both left at 8:50AM, and I went back to sleep. At 9AM, I realized my alarm was going off back in my room and I had to run across the Quad, retainers in hair undone shirt backwards, to turn off my alarm.

I had pancakes again that morning (eventually).

I remember I did some amount of work on Sunday, but not a whole lot. I didn't do much at night. I kind of forget most of Sunday. I remember that Gina and I talked a whole lot, though =)

Today I had brunch with the PGSS kids, +Andy and Jules's friend Maro but -Rima [who went home]. Liz put a huuuuge crossword puzzle on her wall - it has 25,000 clues.

Tonight, I had a nice long conversation with Maura. We both had kind of sad weekends... Mine just kind of felt empty. A friend of her's died. Hers was certainly sadder, but we could kind of relate to each other.

I realized later that I was largely homesick. I talked to Dad and told him that he and Mom should come visit me the weekend before parents weekend. I think I would really like it if they did that, and it might be expensive, but I really hope they come. I'd like to see them.

I felt a little better after that/during my Democracy Matters meeting.

I thought a lot about time this weekend. I came to the conclusion that time was the best gift anyone could have ever given to me. I just wish that I had more of it. But there's no way for that to happen... you're given it once and that's all you get. I think that's why birthday's make me sad.... they're a reminder of lost time. And I just wish birthdays wouldn't come and time would stand still and I didn't have to worry about it going away or going to waste ever.

This was the first birthday where I was really away from everyone and everything that was really important to me. And I guess also the first one where I realized that I should have spent all my birthdays appreciating those things a little bit more. Or every day.

Peace out.

One Night, One Day

I added a new song on my MySpace called One Night, One Day today that you should listen to?

Peace out.

Opposites

A week or so ago, I was having dinner with the six-or-so people on my floor that seem to have developed into a group of friends. It includes Spencer, Matt D., Matt V., Maura, Danny, and to some extent Katherine/Abby/myself. I was talking to Spencer, and I don't remember how we got to it, but he was talking about how his friends used to devote a lot of energy to finding out the opposite of things. For instance, what's the opposite of an elephant? Well, try to think of every property there is of an elephant and find its opposite. Whatever the opposite of the elephant is, it should be: small, not grey, not living, possibly man-made, perhaps not a concrete noun, perhaps made of anti-matter. I don't know exactly why, but we decided that the opposite of an elephant was the little thing on top of baseball hats.

Last night, I went to a WORD meeting, which is the performance poetry group here. I showed up a little bit late because I was held up playing Rachmaninoff at orchestra until a little after 9:30, I believe. I walked in in the middle of a poem, and sadly, I've forgotten what it was about already, but I only heard a few lines of it.

Actually, at first I couldn't find the building. Then I walked into the Rites & Reason Theater and went INTO the theater. And I just looked around. There was music playing and it looked like someone was painting or building sets. I pulled out my map to see if I was where I thought I was. I was just about to decide that I was in the wrong building when I heard a very deep voice boom from behind me, "Looking for WORD?"

And I kind of jumped because I didn't expect it. And then I turned around, and it was a tall black guy, probably about 21 or so, who looked like he was doing some work on the sets. I felt really bad jumping because it kind of made me feel racist, but at the same time, I didn't even know he was black when I was scared by him. And when I saw him I was fine. But I still felt bad about it, and like I might have hurt his feelings by it. He told me that I just had to go down the stairs and to the right, so I did.

OH! The first poem was read by this guy Tomas, a racially-mixed and culturally-mixed kid in New Pembroke (NP) 4 [one of four dorms called New Pembroke] about the question, "Where are you from?" and how it was such a small deal with most other people, but such a confusing ordeal for him whenever he was asked.

That sparked another girl to read a poem inspired by when someone asked her, "What do you think of the n word?" [I should mention, she was black]. It was a really cool poem, and it started off with a scene of two people in a bedroom, but the girl lifting up her skirt and feeling pain at the same time because for some reason she could tell the lover wasn't hers, and she was talking about how that's how she felt in America, surrounded by a people that weren't hers. There was also this really cool part where she was talking about forgetting her name, and she did a little wordplay that was excellent, like "Forgot my - forgot? - for my - got my - forgot - got my - for name - forgot my name?" You probably had to be there, but it was really excellent.

After that, a girl who calls herself Kiwi [I guess I should mention she was black?] read a poem... it was hard to describe what it was about. She was an incredible speaker, though. I don't exactly remember the theme of her poem, but I just remember really really wanting to listen to what she said because of how strongly she said it.

After that, a guy performed a really short poem starting with the line, "A woman shot me today." He played it really well, and it took us all like twenty seconds to figure out he was talking about a camera. Then Sarah Kay read a poem that was along those lines, although I sort of forget it.

Basically, after each poem, people would just go around and say good things they liked about the poem, or if they REALLY thought they had a wonderful way to improve the poem, they could say that too. Just so you get an idea for what was going on. People often snapped or clapped a little bit during the poem to show approval.

After that, a black guy with really awesome dreadlocks read a poem called something along the lines of "I Can't Believe She Was Ever Beautiful." It was inspired by a personal experience, he said, but not quite true. He was talking, of course, about a girl he knew who used to be very beautiful, but then how she grew up and got corrupted and how when he saw her now, callouses and burn marks and lines and torn, it was hard to believe she was ever beautiful. And he had some really interesting lines, like how she was beautiful back when the word "baby" meant all the right things, and something about cooking up loneliness like only your father could make it.

Then an Asian freshman girl read a poem trying to summarize the senior-year-of-high-school experience. She made it seem extremely painful... I wanted to say, "You know, my senior year ruled...!" but that wouldn't have been very useful, so I didn't say it, of course. She had some really interesting parts, though. A couple good images included lines like, "I watched the greatest minds of my generation have sex with each in their cars, and daydream about blowjobs in the Sunday pews," and then she listed a bunch of things that people became disenchanted with, including my two favorites "...Garden State... and Jesus."

After people were done reading poems, Sarah Kay decided it was time to start the Workshop. Some people left, but I wanted to hear the prompt. Basically, if someone has a prompt they like, they get up and say, "Here's an idea or way to start. Now, write." So Sarah Kay had a prompt this week. Opposite. She said, "Your poem should be based off the thought or line or sentence: The opposite of _____ is _____."

And then she talked about her experience with that line. She goes into city schools sometimes to get kids to be excited about poetry and she would often use this line with them, too. Then she'd ask them, "What's the opposite of light?" and everyone yells, "Dark!" Then what's the opposite of night? Day! of course. Then she'd get a little trickier. What's the opposite of flip-flop? Flop-flip? What's the opposite of ketchup? And then she'd ask them to try.

And this one little girl said, "The opposite of stars is inside me."

Holy crap. I know that there's a 99.9% chance that the girl had no idea how profound that line was, but man, that .1% of me really wants to believe that this little girl was just that brilliant. And that .1% of me will be waiting to hear some poems from her.

Peace out!

Farsi

During our Unit [Dorm] Meeting for West Andrews, there was a girl in the row in front of me and a little bit too my left whose interesting fact was, "I speak Farsi." I thought that was really interesting and I remembered it because I thought I could talk to her about what she thought of US-Iran relations right now and that I would learn something interesting.

The whole unit went to dinner after that and she was sitting, again, just beyond me and a little bit to the left. I turned to her and said, "You're the one that speaks Farsi, right?" And she said yes, and I said, "Is your family Iranian?" It turns out they're actually from Afghanistan - which, though not what I expected, was equally interesting to me. So I talked to her for a while - probably a good thirty minutes - about Afghanistan, her family, how it affected her, The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns. She said the stories in those books were the stories her parents told her about their childhood. She said that if I ever got around to reading The Kite Runner, I could talk to her about it and her experiences. I thought it was a pretty awesome experience and I was really glad I had met her.

She doesn't live on the same floor as me so I didn't see her around very often, but I'm pretty sure I saw her on the street a few times and I think we waved to each other.

Tonight she came to the 4th Floor and was just introducing herself. She walked into my room and said what she was doing, and I said, "Oh, yeah, I know you." And she said, "...you do?"

I didn't know what to think...

Peace out.

The Daily Show

I'm in the middle of watching The Daily Show for the first time since I got here. It makes me miss home in a strange way... I'll try to describe it but I know I'll fail.

So pretty much, I watched The Daily Show every day throughout high school except, I think, for when I was out of the country and when I was at PGSS. No matter what I was doing, or who I was talking to, or what I neeed to do, I would always go be in the shower by 10:45 so I could be in bed, under the covers, alarm set, ready to laugh and fall asleep to Jon Stewart recounting yesterday's most ridiculous crap. And I guess it was just nice to know that, of course, I could always fall asleep to that. But more importantly, it was nice to know that I had enough control over my life to be able to go to sleep at 11PM every night and not have to worry about anything not getting done or something like that - everything always got done. The only except was Hi-Q Cram Nights, but I only had like 15 of those and some of them were Sundays so whatever.

But it also has some really good memories attached to it... Two summers ago, I would always watch it with Erin after Law and Order: SVU. This summer, I would always watch it with Gina after whatever we had done that day or that night. And it was always just such a wonderful day to close the day. I often wasn't really tired at 11:30, but after that, I knew there wasn't really anything else I'd like to do... so I often just went to sleep anyway.

I feel like there's more to The Daily Show and its role in my life, but I feel like I can't get into it right now for some reason.

I don't know if I'll ever get into a strict routine here. I don't know if I ever could. I'm not even absolutely positive that I want to. But the idea of it still makes me miss home and going to Garnet Valley.

Peace out!

Fire and Water

I think today was the first fire on on the campus since I've been here. Maybe even the first time a fire alarm has been pulled, which is pretty good, I guess.

I went to lunch at The Ratty after I took my quiz for Math 18 on limits [this is the first one I may not have gotten 10/10 on]. I got a hamburger and some chicken and some water and YES a cake cone and then I went outside, talked to Megan for a second, and then unlocked my bike and sat on it trying to figure out where I was going to go next. I figured I'd probably like to have my bike parked at BarHol, so I decided to ride over there and see what happened from there.

Just as I turned out of The Ratty's sidewalk area, I saw some firetrucks on George St. I didn't count exactly how many, but I'm guessing between 5 and 8. Some were on George Street before the intersection of George St. and Thayer St., some were just on Thayer St., and some were beyond the intersection of George St. and Thayer St., so I couldn't tell exactly where the fire was. I rode past the intersection [going beyond Thayer St.] and kept looking around, and I saw a bunch of people standing outside of a building on George St., and I figured that must be it. I don't know the name of the building or what it's used for. Just that everyone was standing outside of it and there were lots of fire engines nearby.

It was kind of strange, though, because there were no hoses being used, there was no sound of fire, there was no one screaming, no one calling for anything, no one using any latters, no one threatening to jump, not even smoke. I couldn't figure out why there were so many firetrucks. I kept going and parked my bike in the Bike Graveyard at BarHol and walked back [I figured I would go to the Brown Bookstore for clothes]. And as I walked past, a firefighter walked to the door of the building, opened it... and then people started to walk back in. I could NOT figure out what was going on. It's still a mystery to me.

I was looking for a sweatshirt in the bookstore, but I wasn't sure I could find the right size. What am I more likely to wear as a sweatshirt, a child's medium or an adult medium? In either case, they didn't have any adult smalls, so I figured I should wait.

When I came out of the bookstore and started walking back to BarHol, most of the firetrucks were gone. I remember that one was driving towards the scene earlier when I was on my bike, and he stopped at the intersection and waved at me, telling me to go by first. I thought it was weird - he was an emergency worker, shouldn't he go first??? - so I waved him through and sat there until he went. And it kind of just made everything more of a mystery... why are there so many firetrucks for something that seems so non-emergency?

While I was crossing Brook St. to get to BarHol, though, I did see and hear an ambulance fly down Waterman St. with it's sirens and lights on. I still couldn't figure it out though, because... there was no reason they should ever be going in that direction from that place if the emergency was on George St. Absolutely no reason. I can't figure it out.

***********

Apparently the water here has lead in it.

Well, okay. Not all of it. The water in Providence at large is safe and no one has problems with it, but the water in some of the buildings at Brown, apparently, did not pass inspection recently. The safe level of lead is 15 parts per billion, and the lead level was 15 parts per MILLION. Which means we're 1000x over the safe limit. Three orders of magnitude too much. Now, I think it's only in building I don't go to - like the Department of Applied Math - so I don't worry about it too much. But you do have to ask yourself.... HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?! Who let that go? There is clearly only ONE WAY this could happen - someone left lead pipes in those buildings - and it just doesn't make sense to think that some of the old buildings would have those removed but some of them wouldn't.

All I know is that now whenever a math/science/engineering student doesn't understand something, they'll just blame it in the lead in the water.

*********

They were playing Fast Car by Tracy Chapman in the V-Dub this morning during breakfast. It made me really want to listen to it, so when I went back to my room I found a copy of it and listened to it a few times.

I also listened to Soulja Boy. Danny came in while I was watching the video and starting singing and dacning along with it. I think I might ask him to teach it to me.

Peace out!

Slam

I went to a live Poetry Slam/Spoken Word Festival for the first time tonight. It was in Sayles Hall, I think, and the headliners were a group of five poets who just happened to be in the area before going on a national tour. Collectively, the five of them had won every single international and national individual and collective slam title in the past five years, except for one. So this was like, the best of the best - except there was no Taylor Mali and no Beau Sia.

At first there were some people from Brown performing to get us "warmed up," and I think their names were Ryan (a white guy) and Sarah Kay (half-asian girl?), both wearing blue. I forget what Ryan's poem was about - I think I might have missed it - but I remember Sarah's started off about Hiroshima, and an entire city turning into powder by the power of the temporary supernova of the A-Bomb, and then she was talking about being in a birth nursery and looking around at all the sleeping children waiting for their parents to pick them up, and thinking, "I've been here before." And she was talking about the only things left not turned to powder: a watch, a tooth, a bike lock, a page of a diary.

And she talked about her name, Sarah. It was a biblical name, and in the Bible, God told the very first Sarah that she would do something impossible, and Sarah laughed because how would she do something that was impossible? And Sarah Kay said, I don't know what I would do if somebody tried to tell me I was going to do something impossible, but I can tell you I try every day to do something impossible. I try make the connection, she said, between two people, a connection where two people are feeling the exact same thing at the exact same time and they're not waiting for their turn to talk but they're actually listnening and every time she met someone new, she said, she tried to connect with them, but it seemed somehow impossible. And she talked about her performing, and said, "You can measure out my self-confidence in teaspoons or less and you can mix it up with whatever you want and dilute it and expand it but it'll still taste funny in your mouth." I forget exactly how she came to the end, but I remember her saying strongly, "Maybe I don't believe in reincarnation... but I'm just trying to get it right this time around."

The next guy who came up was a Brown student who just graduated and moved to Seattle, WA, and came pretty much just to perform tonight. He won last year's national individual competition. His poem was about The Distance, and I can't remember the whole of it, but I do remember two really good parts. The first was when he talked about going to a pawn shop at the end of The Distance, and finding there a shopkeeper who kept clean his beard with the razor you gave to him in exchange for a second chance. I don't know why, but I thought the idea of trading something in for a second chance was a very interesting one. The second was at the end of his poem, his close, when he talked about reaching the end of The Distance, and realizing you would trade in everything you had just found to find your way home.

I don't think I need to explain why I found that line powerful.

Then Ryan and Sarah got back up, and they started going back and forth doing little things a bit at a time... They said things like, "When you pee your pants, I will still play four-square with you," then the other, "When you need a date to the prom, I'll let you go with my cousin," or "When you come out to your parents, I'll let you stay at my house," or "When your need a place to run away, I'll be your home away from home." They said so much, and they went on for so long, and it was all so beautiful... I wish I could remember it all. If I do nothing else with my time at Brown, I will find out every word and every line of that poem.

The only other really interesting part of the night, I think, was when the first famous poet came up and started You Have Just Been Given an Official Order to Rock the F*ck Out. And he would start listing ways and reasons to rock out. Rock out as if someone was holding a weapon to your head and said to you Rock out as if your life depended on it because it damn well does. Rock out like you just won both showcases. He spent about three minutes, and it was all very good and very entertaining... the one that really stuck out to me, though, was the line, "Rock out like your dead grandfather just came back to life to rock the f*ck out with you in your new car." And it just kind of made me think about doing that... and for the first time ever, I felt sad that I never knew my grandfathers. Either of them. And I wonder what I am missing out on by not knowing them. I wondered if my life would be different if I knew them, and if Nana and Grandmom would be different if they were still with them... is it bad that I feel I miss people I have never even known?

Peace out.

My Wall

Peace out!

HEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Right now I'm sitting in the lobby of the Barus & Holley [Engineering/Math classroom and lab building], and I was working on my APMA0330 homework, and ... I don't know exactly when, but I started to hear a little sound. It was really squeaky and annoying and repetitive, but it was one of those things where once you notice it, you can never un-notice it, and you'll be forced to deal with it forever.

Basically, I'm at a long lit table in the middle of the B&H lobby, and about twenty feet away from me is this Asian kid with long hair, glasses, a white t-shirt, black gym shorts, and black socks... not sure where his shoes are. He's also wearing a silver watch. And listening to his iPod. AND I CAN HEAR IT. FROM TWENTY FEET AWAY.

Now, when I said, I can't remember how long it's been, well... I can't. But I can remember it's been a LONG time. And it's been the same song this ENTIRE time. Just now, as I was writing this, the song took a break, and then started again. It's hard to describe, but it's pretty much a bunch of really really high pitched annoying voices speaking in [I think] an Asian language. It has a really strong two-beat feel to it and it is SO repetitive. It kind of reminds me of that song Katie Ross listens to, that's like

"Pretty little boys, little boys, little boys!"

Imagine that kind of feel, but at the end of the third "little boys," and a really nasally "heyaaaaa."

So for the past like 20 minutes or so, I've been listening to

"Pretty little boys, little boys, little boys, HEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Pretty little boys, little boys, little boys, HEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Pretty little boys, little boys, little boys, HEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

on repeat. And I want to strangle someone. There it goes again. Oh my god, someone kill all iPods in the world please.

Peace out!

The Final Four Posters

Peace out!

Update on Work

1. Math 17 half-way problem set due tomorrow XXXXXX
2. Math 17 problem set due Monday at 3AM
3. Math 18 problem set due Friday XXXXXX
4. Math 35 problem set due Monday
5. Math 33 problem set due Tuesday XXX
6. Education paper due Sunday XXXXXX
7. Math 33 exam on Wednesday

Peace out!

Posters 5

Posters 4

Update

Completed so far:

1. Math 17 half-way problem set
2. Math 18 problem set
3. Education Paper

Update

Completed so far:

1. Math 17 half-way problem set
2. Math 18 problem set
3. Education Paper

Mark Soens

When we were younger - probably when I was in 3rd grade or so - my brother and I used to go and play with some kids named Matt and Tony Leonetti, who lived in the cul-de-sac at the top of our neighborhood. They were pretty cool kids - I remember always liking Tony a whole lot because he seemed like such a nice guy, but I realize that part of it may have just been the age gap - and I generally liked hanging out with them, except for when we played football, because they could both kill me. Tony, it turns out, is in the military. I guess he was built for it?

In either case, two instances of hanging out with them stick out in my mind. The first is when they showed me Red Alert: Command and Conquer, but the other was the time I talked to Mark Soens.

They called us and invited us up to their house (how we would get together), so we went up, and when we arrived there were a couple other kids there, including one whom we had never met, named Mark Soens. I can't remember a whole lot about him, except that he was tall, thin, white, had short hair, and I remember him being very pleasant and nice at all times.

Most specifically, I remember as he was leaving the Leonetti's house to go to his house next door, he said "Thank you so much for having me!" to the kids and the parents before he left. We all commented on that line after he left. I think that was the last I ever heard from Mark Soens.

I learned later, though, that apparently he was homeschooled, and furthermore, that it was a fundamentalist Christian homeschooling environment. He had told the Leonettis before that on Halloween, the souls of demons came to the world and roam freely, and also that holding together the nucleus of an atom was not the strong force or protons and neutrons, but the hand of God.

I don't know why this experience came to mind recently. I guess I just thought it was interesting that the first memory I have of a fundamentalist Christian was a very good one.

Peace out!

Completed

And so far:

1. Math 17 half-way problem set is done

Just for Bookkeeping

And so you can feel the stress of four college math classes, too!! =P

1. Math 17 half-way problem set due tomorrow
2. Math 17 problem set due Monday at 3AM
3. Math 18 problem set due Friday
4. Math 35 problem set due Monday
5. Math 33 problem set due Tuesday
6. Education paper due Sunday
7. Math 33 exam on Wednesday

Feeellll itttt. MMMMMMM.

I'll tell you about my progress as I go? Heh.... I can do this.

Peace!

Posters 3

The final one

Posters 2

Another one

Posters

I made three really cool posters tonight that I hope to hang in my room sometime soon...

Neat, Stapled, and On-Time

My Math 35 teacher, Dr. Steven J. Miller, has the following policy about turning in homework:

1. Neat
2. Stapled
3. On Time

As long as it meets those three criteria, it will be graded. What's missing from the list?

...

Name?

It turns out that papers without names do get graded. Then, the points are evenly distributed to all members of the class.

I thought that was a really interesting policy.

Peace out!

It's Real Easy!

Just so you all know, you can leave comments even if you don't have any sort of Google or Blogger account. Just say that you're posting as "Other" and go from there. Much like Cheese Chockadados, it's real easy!

[But of course, just talking to me about any comments you have is also totally cool and awesome and you should do that too]

I'm coming home in, I think, 4 days 9 hours. I'm very excited. You all should be too because I'm bringing you cool things from collegeland!

Peace out!

Military Time

The other night after I had dinner with some friends at the V-Dub (so this must have been Friday), Chaz and I decided to go the CVS across the street on Thayer Street. So we walked in, and he showed me where the NyQuil was (I got a night and day pack, actually), and I got some skim milk. Then we went to the register to pay. There were three workers - a white girl, a latino guy, and a black girl, all probably aged 20-24. As I handed the guy my card, the white girl asked,

"Do you know how to read military time?"

So there are three people in front of me, who work right next to an ivy league school, all aged 20-23, and one asks me if I know how to read military time. Now, I think I know military time, but... if these guys don't know it, then maybe I don't! So I say, "Yes??"

But I looked very inconfident, so the guy asked, "You know?" And I said, "I mean, I think I do..."

And then the white girl asked, "So what's 1624 in military time?" And I said 4:24PM. And she said, "Whooaaa.... how did you know that?" So I just said if it's 13 or higher, you subtract 12 and just say it's in PM. So then she pulled up a receipt and asked, "So what time did I take my break?" It said 1824, so I told her, 624PM.

They were all very amazed, for some reason. As in, shocked. Shocked! How did you know that? The white girl asked:

"Are you in the military?"

Since you're reading this, you undoubtedly know me, but just to illustrate: I'm 5'10", lanky, pale, scrawny, white, I wear tiny t-shirts and tight jeans and sandals and I have long hair. I could not look further from the military if I tried. In between some bad coughing and a little bit of laughing, I got out, "coughcough no i cough go coughcough to Brown."

And they all said, "OOHHHH!!! Yeah, I get it!" And the black woman said, "Yeah, they teach you math like that at Brown, right?" And very seriously, I said,

"Yes."

And I left the store.

Chaz and I went home to study for our Military Time 1350 course after that - we had a quiz the next day on all times from 0000 to 1159.

Peace out!

Fever Dreams are Made of These

At home, I was always really strict about my bedtime - no matter what I was doing, I was in the shower before 10:48PM and I was in bed watching The Daily Show at 11:ooPM, and usually I was asleep by 11:30PM. I usually woke up at about 6:30PM, so I generally got 7 hours of sleep, give or take. On the weekends, I guess I would sleep a little more, but I never really kept track.

When I came here, I decided to shift everything back two hours - in bed by 1AM, wake up by 8:30AM, etc., still getting seven hours of sleep. But on the weekends here, I was only getting six to seven hours of sleep, which I guess I didn't really notice was significantly less than I got at home.

In either case, my point is this: I've been overexerting myself at college just a little bit so far and it got me a little bit sick.

On Wednesday night, I started to get a bit of a sore/dry throat. It's hard to describe it... but basically, my throat just becomes dry constantly, and then when I swallow it would become painful. I mean, this isn't really anything to deal with, and if it were all there was I wouldn't complain or even talk about it. The only reason I note it is because it essentially always portends of far worse things to come for my body. So at home I usually take some Echenacea and Goldenrod [placebos that I <3], but here, there is no such comfort. So I just had to live with it.

The next I woke up and the dry throat thing was still going on, and I realized I had a stuffy nostril - meaning I would have a stuffy nose that day. This was Thursday. I remember going to class and sniffling the WHOLE time through Dobrushkin's lecture and wanting to kill myself because I knew I was being "That Kid" who was sniffling the whole damn time in the back of the room... but there really wasn't anything I could do!

Anyway, after class, this guy named Paul stopped to talk to me. He's a sophomore, and he was talking to me about a really strange percussionist who I should listen to/probably like, because he would lay over polyrhythms and flams and crazy time signatures, etc. He seemed really nice and easy to talk to, and hopefully I'll see him in class/around. He rides his bike a lot.
Anyway, the point is, I ended up doing my work in the BH lobby. When I do my math work, I lean over my paper just a little bit - as I'm sure anyone does. But when you have a stuffy nose... this becomes a problem. So I sat there doing work for probably 20-30 minutes, and then started to sniffle an uncontrollable amount, and knew I needed to stop. But I was in the damn engineering building, and where am I going to find tissues there???? Thank god, it turns out there's a "Cart" [food cart] there ["Carts" is a scammy part of Food@Brown] and they had napkins. So I walked over and I got a napkin and I blew my nose.

Holy.

Crap.

I never knew so much stuff could fit in my nose. I used one napkin to blow my nose, and with the next four napkins I cleaned up my face. It was gross and I have no idea how it happened. Yes, I know, it's messed up and wrong. And people kept looking at me and I was like, "Noooo, stop judging me, I'm sick!!!!" But whatever.

Over the course of the next 70 minutes, the same thing happened about three times. The Cart worker changed and they thought I was crazy.

Well anyway, I took it easy that day, did some work, a lot of Math 17, I think - it was a hard problem set and there were some problems I couldn't solve. I worked on one problem for about an hour before I got on AIM/talked to Gina/went to bed. I think it was about 11:15 when I started to get ready for bed, which is like two hours early for my schedule here. I think I got in bed around 11:45, knowing, oh god, I'm going to have to do the sit-up-in-bed-so-you-can-breathe thing. So I did that, and it was going okay - my nostrils were clearing - but I was like... I'm not falling asleep like this. So I had to lay down, and I thought, well, one of my nostrils will stay unclogged, right?

Wrong. Left nostril facing the ceiling, somehow blocked. So I had to breathe through my mouth for a while - not a problem, though, because Danny wasn't in the room so I wasn't annoying anyone. I think I sat there trying to fall asleep like this for about 30-40 minutes. Then down the hallway, I hear... ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da ... and it's a drunken a capella group singing Sweet Dreams are Made of These to welcome their new member, Kayla, the songwriter next door.

Noooooooo, I thought! I was actually, honestly really excited for Kayla and really hoping she would make it and was like WAITING for her to get the phone call so I could be there for her big moment, but it happened while I was sitting there mouth breathing nostril-stuffied and like, dying. And I felt like a bad friend because I wasn't there for her big moment, but like... I couldn't go. I apologized for it later, and I guess she understood? Ah well.

In either case, after that I just laid on my side trying to go to sleep. But I was having fever dreams. While awake. And everything became math. Piano, Gina, songs, college, life, school, everything was math. I tried to meditate and it became math. I tried to sleep, and it became the result of an integration. I couldn't stand it.

Also, I tried to go to the bathroom at 2AM, but tried to keep my eyes closed... and I hit the bathroom door with my head. And scared Morgan, who doesn't like me. Oh well.

Peace out!

The V-Dub

I'm in between classes right now, and I want to do some work but I also want to take a little break from Differential Equations, so I think I'll get back to writing about Food@Brown. One note to you kids when you're going to college: Try schedule your classes in blocks. "Awkward Hour" breaks between classes are just about the worst thing ever, UNLESS it's a break for lunch or dinner. But, honestly, a 70 minute break for lunch is just a little excessive. But anyway.

So I already discussed The Ratty. But, somewhere along the line, I heard that there was another option! I think my first knowledge of it was when Chaz (the best friend of Kim, my very close friend from Governor's School) was talking about both of us living in the Pembroke campus, and that he was excited because our dorms were both right near "The V-Dub." [It's real name is The Verney-Woolley Dining Hall.] When I looked it up online, it looked kind of sketchy, and I think I referred to it as "A cereal bar with a hat on."

Well anyway, when we came to campus, there were all sorts of rumors about VDub. The Ratty was open for Orientation activities, but the VDub was not. No one knew exactly when it would open - some said Tuesday morning, some said Tuesday night, some said Wednesday morning, some said it was closed all week, some said it was closed all year, some people said it was closed on weekends, some people said it was only open on number days that were primes or perfect squares. Suffice to say, there was a lot of controversy around VW.

So I think it turned out that it opened Tuesday morning, but I wasn't aware of that, so I had to wait (I think) until Wednesday or Thursday to try it. I'm pretty sure I waited until Thursday because I was afraid it would suck on Wednesday (first day of classes) and who wants that? I also think it was Thursday because they didn't have pancakes the first time I went, and I think they have pancakes MWF.

So VW is located in the basement of a dorm complex called Morriss-Champlin (or Mo-Champ). To get to it, you have to go in a door near a very popular a cappella arch, down a flight of stairs, down a hallway, turn a corner, go down another long hallway with lots of windows that look into a little courtyard where people might eat if they go to the VW, and then turn a corner to the entrance. At night, another door is open that bypasses the second long hallway. Anyway, it's all painted yellow and very plain.

But when you go inside the VW, it's actually pretty nice. Let's say we went in for breakfast, so we took the long hallway. When the person swipes your card, to the right of them is a nicely decorated eating area, much like the nicely decorated "Caves" of The Ratty. It's mostly dark green and dark brown, all tables, no booths. If you walk straight, you'll come to a half-wall. To the left of the half-wall is where you put your trays when you're done (and you have to remove your silverware yourself - !) and to the right of the half-wall is the cereal bar, drink bar, etc. Here, all the cereal is right out of the box - they don't even bother to put in in a new container for you. It's just like eating at home. Oh, and the bowls are deep here! But the spoons are always way too big. Heh...

Anyway, if you go to the left when you go past the card swipe, you come to all the food. So turn a left and walk straight. The first thing you pass is the ice cream bar, which is also right near the Belgian Waffle bar, which is open all day every day that the VW is open. It takes 3 minutes to cook them, and they are PRETTY FREAKING GOOD. If you keep going, you get to an omelette bar. After that, there's three little stations where they serve whatever main meals they have - chicken, pancakes, french toast, I don't know. In the center there is all the silverware, lots of fruit, and sometimes desserts (usually at night). To the left of you is a loooong bar where people can sit and face a window, and looking through the window you see the same courtyard as before. If you walk all the way past the three food stations and the ensuing condiment station, you come to another seating area, which is also very green/blue/brown.

But this one has booths. Huge booths. That could probably sit like 10-15 people, with very high backs that look very exclusive... It's hard to believe that something that looks so luxurious could be in a college dining hall... but hey, there it is. I guess that's what our puny $3,000,000,000 endowment gets us.

So some comments about the VW:

-Everything at VW is better than The Ratty, because the cooks actually put effort into it at VW. VW is like a family restaurant, and Ratty is like fast food. This is most notable in the quality of the ice cream and the quality of the pancakes. The syrup, sadly, is still subpar.
-The Belgian Waffle bar is incredible, and also a pretty big draw for me.
-People generally go to VW for breakfast and dinner, but it's pretty dead for lunch beacuse everyone is in class, and all classes are like centered around Ratty. So at 12PM, there's about 1000 people in the Ratty every day.
-Eating at VW, though, isn't quite as fun as eating at Ratty. They play softer music at VW, the people are quieter, and it's just not as "Brown" as Ratty. When people who know Brown think about it, they think "Ratty," not VW.

So yeah, that's about all I have to say about that for now.

Peace out!

Wasted

I think one of the worst feelings I have ever know is feeling like I have wasted my time.

Peace!

How's the Food?

Food at Brown is a little bit better than I thought it would be. But it's not like it's incredible or anything. I'll tell a bit about my experience with it so far.

So at first, the only place that I knew about to eat is "The Ratty." It's real name is The Sharpe Refectory, but apparently some kids found rats in it around the 1960s or 1970s and it's been called The Ratty every since. A girl named Trish in a dorm room just across the hall went to school with kids from the Sharpe family, and apparently they are not very happy about that name at all. One time, almost out of politeness to them, I referred to it as "The Sharpe," and people got mad at me for not calling it The Ratty. Oh well.

On a somewhat related note, the largest library here is the John D. Rockafeller library. People have called it "The Rock" for decades, but then apparently someone from the Rockefeller family got upset about it and contacted the Brown administration to have them ask students to stop. The students agreed and started referring to it very publicly as "The John." The Rockefellers called back and retracted their request.

Well anyway, as I said, the Ratty is the only place I knew about to eat for a while. Which is no problem - it's maybe a 10 minute walk, but only like a 3 minute bike ride, and it's right near the Barus & Holley Building (The BH), which is where 80% of my classes are. You have to understand that this building is enormous. It has to put out something along the lines of 11,000 meals per day, and it does it with some rockin' efficiency. If you look at it from the street - specifically, from George St., you can look through the basement windows and see row after row of kitchen, freezer, cooker, worker, etc. And to get an idea for the dimensions, it's probably about 400 x 400 feet, which is, as I said, enormous. It could swallow like half of Garnet Valley. Plus it's got three or four stories [although you only eat on one, sometimes two].

So inside. Most things are shades of yellow or brown. When you walk in, someone swipes you're card, and right about then you're in the "front left" corner of the building. The perimeter of the building is where everyone sits, as the center itself is for employees at work only, and just outside of that is where you get your food. So every sits in a big ring around the food lines. There are also a couple nicely decorated rooms attached to the perimeter that you can sit in sometimes, and then even NICER ones that are reserved for VIPs or whatever. I've never seen anyone in them.

In any case, in the center, there are four main "food lines" where people prepare food for you. The one that's closest to the "front left" corner has.... I don't really know, it's stuff I never eat. At the end of the line are the desserts, though, which include brownies and ice cream just about every day. I usually don't feel like ice cream, BUT I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE A CAKE CONE. HOW'S THAT FEEL, TEAM SKANKNASTY???? Unfortunately that's all I can tell you. The "back left" corner [if you walk further straight once you come in] has pasta and pizza and that sort of thing. I don't usually go to this line either. Just outside of this line is the cereal bar, which has like every kind of cereal I've ever eaten - Cheerios, Life, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Frosted Mini Wheats, Smart Start, and some others that I can't remember right now. But it's a great cereal bar. But the bowls are a little shallow and the spoons are huge. I usually get some in the morning... and sometimes in the afternoon or night, but usually only if there's nothing else that I like. And there's usually something I like.

If you turn right at the corner, and start walking to the "back right," you come across one of the two drink stands and fruit baskets. I "steal" apples from here when I can remember. I usually just get chocolate milk, skim milk, or water to drink, but they also have coffee and decaf and expresso and cappuccino and lots of soda. Oh, I also sometimes have orange juice, 'cuz there's like four types of juice that they have. One time I tried to get a friend a cappuccino, but I put it in this "Greenware" plastic cup and it melted in my hand and hurt a lot.

Anyway, if you go past the drink stand and turn the corner again, you're at the "back right" line, which is my favorite - the grill. They always have hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled chicken, and french fries. Usually I just grab a bun and have some grilled chicken or hot dog for lunch/dinner, and it's very plain and warm and it's pretty much all I could ask for.... hehe. So that's the line I usually go to. If you kept walking, the line in the "front right" is the vegetarian "Roots and Shoots" line. This is where all the vegetarians go. ...duh.

Oh, right, I forgot to add: The Ratty serves pancakes for breakfast EVERY DAY. The first week, I had a pancake breakfast every single day. Then I sort of was just like.... hm.... this is going to make me really fat. So I decided to just go back to breakfast as I knew it - bowl of cereal, maybe some bread, and something to drink - even though it feels like I'm wasting a meal credit. Ah well. Sometimes I have one pancake. The pancakes themselves are usually good - although sometimes too crispy - but the really scandalously awful part is the SYRUP. OH GOD, THE SYRUP. I wish I could describe it to you, but it's like... it's like Plastic Syrup. You can tell it sucks even more because on weekends, they give you real Maple Syrup from a bottle. But during weekdays, you have to scoop the syrup out of a vat with a ladle, and as you do, you can like... see it scrunch up and get "broken" and "frozen together" and oh... oh god. It like... latches on to your pancakes and your mouth.

I'd like to describe more, but I have to go to MATH0180 with Sergei Treil now. Sergei! His website is WEIRD. But Sergei is awesome. More later. I'll tell you about...

The V-Dub.

Peace out!

Lyrics

A Day on College Hill

There's too much to write. Oh, way too much.

I remember when I got on the train I was with Chaz and Sara and Nupur. We were all really excited, and we got seats together and went around talking to people. Shook a lot of hands. Chaz was elected mayor of the Brown train. I remember I talked to a really nice black girl from Delaware about working at Cold Stone, and taking a couple trips to the snack car. And this was when I ran into Jenny, the girl who lives next to Stephen Colbert. And a kid from a school right near me whose name I forget. It was a very pretty train ride but very long. This was the day that I learned how to solve a Rubik's Cube. Everyone knew me as the Rubik's Cube kid.

Oh, I didn't make the Bear Necessities but that's okay. Kayla, the songwriter next door, got a callback for Higher Keys!

Anyway, when we got off the train, we had to wait around for busses. I remember I got some candy bar 'cuz I was hungry, and there was the Derbyshires a cappella group and they song Army by Ben Folds Five.

We gave up on waiting for the buses and followed Chaz to the Brown campus. We waited in a long line at Faucen House to check in, then were put in groups. This is when I was taken to Perkins, the cult-like dorm very far from the rest of campus but close to the music building that nobody wants to go in.

The people in Perkins often buy shirts from the Perkins shipping company.

Anyway, I went to the Ratty then with a Mormon kid. He had a bum leg and as he was walking, I made a joke about something and he turned that into a joke that he did that night at Stand Up Comendy. I thought that was pretty interesting...

I remember I went to a Comedy show that night, both improv and stand-up. There was an asian christian girl who had some good jokes like, "Free Tibet! ...am I paying for it?" And a guy who did one liners like "Girls hate the word moist. But love the feeling."

Then there was improv, and they were really good. There was one guy of race I couldn't determine who was VERY funny. He was "Milk" in guess-what-I-am, and he drew utters on the chalkboard and "came out" of them. Another guy was a cloud, and kept making puns like, "No, I'm cirrus Imeanserious!"

After that, I forget what happened, but Nupur and I ended up at the Gate, which is at the very N end of campus (Perkins is at the S end). It was very late, and raining all day and we had been running around and tired and were delirious. There were mirrors all over The Gate, and I remember being very confused by them.

At 2AM, I decided it was time to go home. I didn't know where to go, though, but I wanted to get there quickly. I had a map. It took me a bit, but I found I was running in the wrong direction. I ended up running in the right direction, but it took me about half an hour to get back, and I needed someone to let me in... which sucked. It was cold and windy... I got a cold sore that day, and I got sick.

I forget what happened the rest of the way. I went to a biology class with a nice professor who knew everyone's name. And some class about global warming taught by a woman who wasn't very interesting. I went home on the train... I was tired. I didn't talk much. I worked on Rubik's Cubes. A girl asked me how fast I could do it, and she could do it faster... but I'd only been doing it a day.

Anyway, the main thing I remember is The Gate and the run home. It was sad...

Peace out!

More on Life

During my A Day on College Hill (ADOCH) adventure, there was a cool guy named Baird that was my host. We were kind of forced on them - they don't volunteer to take us in - but he was very very cool and very nice and all that stuff, and seemed like he'd be a friend if I came here.

So I ended up coming here. And we run into each other constantly. And we actually are friends, and it's cool. I'm glad I was given him as my host for ADOCH.

So recently he invited me for tea at his frat. He's not a part of it officially yet, but will be soon. And I say this was a frat party, but this was not in any sense a frat party. They all sat outside from 4-6 and opened their house (deck) to anyone who wanted to come and just gave them tea, water, and raisins. I met some cool people there... there was a guy named Jack, who looked very distinguished and scholarly, but always said really inappropriate things like. It was just funny because he was dressed so nicely and kept saying such un-adult things. But un-adult in a good way, like in that he still has a life, as he should.

One girl, named Melissa, I think, was running some play, and talked me into trying out at 5:30. So I did. I just sang a couple scales so they could get my range, and then I sang "Tragic Story" /played piano/ so they could hear me. I don't think they liked me, but Baird and another girl from Philly whose name I forget who was running the auditions said I sounded really good... whatever. I don't mind either way. It's for a relaxed theater thing.

Anyway! There was also a girl there who's running a GISP (group interest special project) class this summer on the history of pirates. I thought Chloe would like that.

I still need to contact a number of people today.

Anyway! The weirdest part of the whole thing... guess who I saw at this frat "party?" Steven J. Miller.

Peace out!

Details

Sergei Treil is my favorite. He says "homehork" instead of "homework" and "multiwariable" instead of "multivariable." It's pretty cool. He's also a pretty good teachers, and asks us often what we think of his teaching. Even "Are the letters on the blackboard big enough?"

Steven J. Miller is also pretty craxy cool. He's probably about 35, so he's very funny and very with it. He talks about something topical at the beginning of each class... like the NY Jets, or darts, or something... and he makes sly little jokes a lot. What's also really interesting is that he's clearly mind-numbingly brilliant, but doesn't put any effort into showing it at all. You can just tell. It like eminates from him effortlessly. Today he gave us a review session at 7PM and brought us little doughnuts (which I didn't get to eat because he packed them up before I could get to them!) and he also takes an interest in all of us... like, he knows about all of my classes and was the one who let me know that you can't get credit for 18 and 35, and found out for me that yes you CAN take 17 and 18/35 at the same time both for credit. And he told me about stuff in the summer that he does. And he came to the frat "party" today.

More on that.

Peace!

One Day, One Night

When I came to Brown, I was afraid that I would stop writing songs. By the time I left, it had been almost three weeks since I wrote a song, and I was afraid that with the new workload and social life and all that, I wouldn't have the time to write a song.

But somehow I managed to write one.

It started, I think, two days ago. I was taking a break from my work and I sat down at the keyboard in my room and I decided I wanted to play piano. I played a couple songs - probably Tragic Story, because I'm pretty sure I play that whenever possible and Morgan said she heard me play it - and somewhere in between or after them, I just kind of started fooling around, not looking at the keys, seeing whatever my right hand played. And it hit this interesting rhythm/chord on Eb Gb and Db, and I thought, yes, I'm writing a song! And I was very happy.

I don't think I wrote any more of it right then, but later that night [after fooling around for a long, long time with the Alumnae Hall keyhole], I was able to get into the piano room. I remember it being dark, but this time there were lamps on all over the hall, so I could write on the little lyrics sheet I brought. I think I finished the first verse that night. It took me a while - longer than I expected with how loose and easy the melody was to write around - but I got it done. I think I may have finished the chorus then, too. Actually, I think I finished all the chorus except for one line, which came to me as I was walking out. I wrote it in later, I think. It was the line, "I've got how long?" ...Yeah you'll hear it later.

And that was all for that night. I played through it a couple of times and then went home.

Yesterday I went back. I can't remember exactly when it was, but I don't remember it being too late... I'm pretty sure it was light out. I can't remember if I wrote the lyrics while I was in the hall, or if I wrote them the night before when I came back, but in either case I played the song a couple times and timed it [to see if it was a reasonable length]. I had a lot of different ideas for it, which maybe I'll explain sometime if you're interested, but you can hear lots of them in the song easily. I was basically just afraid it would turn out too long. It ended up being 4m48s, which isn't too bad, but is pretty long.

Anyway, tonight I came back to write the final section. Actually, I had written four lines during Math 0180 with Professor Sergei Treil, but I couldn't think of everthing I wanted. So I went back tonight at about 8:30PM or so, after my math review session, while all the kids at home were at band and the kids here were getting ready to go party. I played through what I had, including what I had written in math class, and tried out some new lines for the next stanza... and I left the hall feeling pretty good about it. I don't know when it happened, but somewhere in the walk back to my dorm, new lines came to me, and I liked them better and so I stuck with those.

I got my camera and my power cord from the dorm and then back to Alumnae Hall. The door is getting easier to open by now since I know how to do it. It was very, very dark, and I was afraid that someone could be in there and I wouldn't see them and something bad would happen.

But it was actually a pretty beautiful scene, I think. Alumnae Hall is a very large, open building with a beautiful ceiling and hanging lamps and a wooden floor and beautifully designed windows. This was at about 9:15, so it was dark, and somewhat chilly. The piano /9ft Steinway/ is over in the corner, and the window beside it is always open, so there were gusts of wind blowing in over me as I played. And it was so dark that I couldn't see words on paper, so I didn't even bring my lyrics sheet. This is actually the first time I've ever recorded a song without finishing my lyric sheet first...

Anyway, I started trying to record it sometime around 9:30. I took a few samples just to make sure I got my balances right, and then [between text competitions from Joe and Gina, and news that the band stopped because of the rain, the last set sucked, and Chloe had gotten a kitten], after about five takes, I was able to get a recording that I was actually happy with.

Having to record this way is good and bad. The bad side is, when I want a song to be perfect - and I wanted this one to be perfect - every little mistake means you have to start again. You can stumble over your words or stutter or use a wrong word or hit a wrong note or anything. And if that happens to happen 3 minutes into the song, well, you just lost 3 minutes. Try again. So it took me a long time - I used wrong words a lot, since the verses are somewhat similar in structure/idea - but I finally got it.

Also, as for my "lyric sheets..." When I start writing a song - like, five minutes after I decide "Okay, I'm going to put effort into this," I get a piece of blank white 8.5 x 11 inch paper and write down, with my mechanical G-2 Force .5mm lead pencil, whatever lyrics I have. Usually, when I make a mistake or write something I don't like and decide to change later, I cross it out so that I can see it later... kind of like history or record keeping for myself or something. And I try to align everything left... just because that's how I like it. As for the chorus, I only write it once, and I put a big bracket around it that says "Chorus." I'm not sure why, I'm pretty sure I know where my own choruses are... but yeah, that's it. And when I'm done, usually, I take a couple minutes and write out the chord progressions... but sometimes I do that before I'm done, and they change as I'm going through... but I usually don't end up changing them.

So basically, if you wanted a book of my sheet music, you'd get that. All the words, the words that used to be, and the chords that might still be there, but maybe not. I should work on that - for my own sake - but... I don't know. That's just how I do.

Peace out!

Alumnae Hall

So when I came to Brown, I knew that if I didn't have immediate access to a piano at pretty much every point in my day - and especially times when I was working - I would die. So I brought my keyboard. 88 keys, little speakers, two of the D notes stick. But it's 97.5% functional... but still not quite good enough all the time. Especially if I want/need to be alone.

So anyway, corequisite, I was in the process of joining orchestra so I could play mallet percussion. Of course, if I'm in the orchestra, I have to practice. And so it turns out that when you get into the orchestra as a percussionist, you're allowed to have a key to Alumnae Hall, which is right near my dorm and houses a very large marimba/percussion cabinet and a NINE FOOT STEINWAY GRAND PIANO.

So I went to the music building one day before Breakdance Club and asked for a key. Turns out it costs $50 (but you get it back if you don't kill the keys). So yeah, I got the keys to the hall and to the cabinet and to the hall in general.

So one day I had some free time and I thought, hey, let's go play piano. So I walk up to the side hall, where Nat (the orchestra president) had used his keys to open the door. Stick it all the way in the keyhole.... turn one way. Nothing. Turn another way. Nothing. Go to the handicapped door... all the way in, one way nothing other way nothing. All the way to the side door... nothing either way. So I walk to the front door hoping maybe that will help. By luck, it was open, and I could just walk in and play piano. So I did. I forget exactly what I played, but I didn't stay long.

So later I went back to the music builing (Orwig) to trade in my keys since these didn't seem to work. Another night, around 9PM, I decided to take a break from talking to people/working to go play piano. I sat there at the side door for twenty minutes, without exaggeration, trying to open that stupid door. It turns out... that

A) The lock is really defective
B) The door is really defective

So what I would have to do was kick the door in all the way and hold it back, then ram the key in to the hold as hard as I can, twist it and simultaneously spin the knob and open the door. And that's the way to get in to Alumnae Hall.

So every time I go to play piano now, just know and laugh at the fact that I have to go through that stupid ritual every time.

Peace out!

It's Not Like I'm Saving You

For the first time in more than a month, I got an idea for a song I'd actually like to write.

Peace!

Walking

Most people walk with their eyes down. So when I walk by [and I have my head up], if I try to smile or say hello to them, they can just pretend no one had tried to recognize them at all. Wouldn't life be better if we all had our eyes up and said hello?

I noticed that I haven't seen a 'kid' pretty much since I got here. That is, no one Joey's age, and no one Michael's age, or Steve Smuryl's age. It's strange.

Yesterday was a busy day. I had my first education seminar course meeting [and I should start on the reading soon].

After that, I went to breakdance club. There was a really nice guy named Andy who got me started with top rock [step]. He was EXTREMELY good at foot work... I need to ask him for help some more sometime. Then there was a guy Billy who helped me with the six-step and showed me how to work some other things in. And this one crazy good guy whose name I don't know, but he seemed nice/helpful.

Then I ran to the Ratty for dinner and almost sat with John from Philadelphia but had to go to the math competition. I got the first two problems and the last two problems, but other than that... I mean, I had seen the problems before but I didn't remember how exactly to do them. So I ended up writing things like, "This is the Power of a Point theorem! You can do this other cool thing with it, too... but I forget how to prove it." Or "There's a formula for extracting nested radicals that I forget, but I remember that once you do it it's really easy to see that the answer is 2." Or "Something about squaring the perimeter and going from there."

Anyway. I left that at 7PM so I could go try out for the Bear Necessities. I signed up for 7:15 because I needed time to practice, but the only place I could practice was in a classroom in Wilson [where the audition was]. So I was practicing there in a closet, singing to a wall... and then a couple kids walked in and I was like... hi? And it was really weird and then they walked out. Then I went downstairs to audition... the scales were pretty good, I could go from an F to an E... but not falsetto. Then we did pitch matching, which was way too hard. Then I sang Hallelujah, which wasn't quite as good as I had practiced but went okay. I forgot my backpack on the way out.

Oh, somewhere along the line, I got a key to Alumnae Hall. Now I can practice alone on a beautiful 9ft Steinway piano whenever I want. I'm so excited!

I forgot that the V-Dub doesn't serve pancakes everyday, but that's alright.

After Bear Necessities, I went to QuizBowl.... which was kind of boring and I largely just sat there, so then I left and talked on AIM with a bunch of people from home.

From there, I went to Tae Kwon Do, but found out the beginner meeting wasn't until Wednesday.... so I came home, did some calc, talked, did some more calc... I need to get back to trying some calc right now.

I'd like to note that a) I love my new phone, b) Sergei Treil could kick your ass any day, and c) I hate Bluetooth.

Peace out!

Brown Secure

I can't connect to the Brown Secure wireless network and it makes me want to kill someone.

Peace!

Busy!

I'm starting to feel very, very busy, which I guess is good? My school work isn't too oppressive - Math 0350 is the only real killer, but I think I may be dropping it and/or vegabonding it. Other than that it all looks pretty good. Math 0170 is even fun so far, Math 0180 looks pretty interesting, Math 0330 shouldn't be too hard [six hours per week, he says?], and the education course doesn't have that much to it other than some reading, writing, and speaking, which is fine. It'll be a nice change.

So I'll tell you about some things that I did/am doing.

Yesterday I went to the first Democracy Matters meeting for the year. The leader, Jon, was really excited to see me because I sent him an e-mail saying, "I'm pissed off, angry, feeling shut out, and ready to change politics. Also I am poor. What can I do?" and he thought that was very cool. I also wore my new Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican t-shirt, which pretty much everyone there seemed to like. A nice sophomore girl Christine made some really good cookies and I think I may have eaten too many but that's okay. There was also a very socially awkward freshman boy there whose name I forget, but he was a CS enthusiast so we were all happy to have him since the DM website blows. There was also a guy named Grant who was on Speech&Debate who testified before Congress for the Fair Elections bill, which is what DM fights for.

Today I have my classes - Math 0180 with the lovable Sergei Treil, then a recitation section with him or his TA, I suppose?

I'm not going to Math 0350 with Cole anymore. I'm only going to Steven Miller's class because his examples are much better and he's a bit more interesting. But I still may drop it because it's a huge amount of work. We'll see, I suppose.

Then is my education course, from 3-5:20. And this is where the conflicts begin.

Breakdance Club meets from 4PM - 6PM. I really really wanted to make it to the whole thing but I'm just not sure I'll be able to. At 6PM there's a freshman math exam in Kasser 205 that I'd really love to go to and kick ass on, but I'm not sure that'll work. Then I have tryouts for the Bear Necessities sometime between 7-9PM in Wilson 206, but QuizBowl is having its first meeting at 7:30 in BH159. Tae Kwon Do is also meeting from 9-10PM.

Thank god that's the end of it, though, and I can wake up early to get some homework done. Sergei just assigned some more that doesn't look too bad but I'd like to get it over with, plus do his extra work... yeah, I think I'm dropping Math 35. Hah. We'll see...

Peace!

Waterfires 1

I went to Waterfires for the first time tonight. It was exactly what I expected, and it was wonderful. Bridgette, Nupur, and Danny came with me. Danny said he missed his girl, and he was sad. There were candles, which was comforting.

Peace!