Midnight Organ Concert

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace out!

Waffle Troubles

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope to see you soon!

Jeff

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

Plane ride

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

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

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

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

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

Peace out.

Friends

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

::

P [Phil Kaye]: Hey.

S [Sarah Kay]: Hey.

P: This is it.

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

P: It's taken lots of hours

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

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

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

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

S: I'll always save you a spot

P: I'll never break a promise

S: I'll never lie to you

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

S: I'll never rat you out

P: I'll never keep you waiting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

S: I will remember every birthday.

P: I will save every letter.

S: I will keep every secret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

::

=)

Peace out!

Home!

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

Peace out!

Your Interests Will Change!

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

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

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

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

I need to talk to my dad.

Peace out.

Difficult

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

::

Hi, I hope everyone is well!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Barsano will continue as the ensemble administrator.

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

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

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

Schedule:

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

Workshops:

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

Show:

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

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

If you have any questions please drop me an email!

Mike "Wuzz" Wasielewski
Director
Boston University Winter Percussion Ensemble

::

Peace out.

The Picture of College

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

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

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

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

EXCEPT IT WAS A FREAKING SQUIRREL.

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

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

Peace out.

3AM

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

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

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

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

Peace out!

You Have Just Witnessed the Construction of LIGHT

Peace out!

Toking Near the Third Floor Smoke Detector

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thankfully it wasn't a real fire...

Peace out!

Membership Drive

I finally started listening to NPR today in the Bee Ache Lounge (B&H lobby). It was a membership drive. I wanted to diiiieeee. But now they're doing the news so it's okay!

Peace out.

Aunt Nancy

When I was really young - I think before the age of 8 or so - my undisputed favorite relative in the world was Aunt Nancy. I found out later that her really name was actually Anne, but I never really knew her as anything other than Aunt Nancy. She was my mom's sister, a couple years older I think, who lived in Scranton. She had two kids, Leroy and Gabrielle, he in a band and she a model. I could never really understand exactly what was going on with their living situation - they lived with Aunt Nancy and not whichever uncle (I think his name is also Leroy?) was their father in a house in a fair part of Scranton, but I think they rented out the top floor of the house. I don't think they were ever too pleased with the renters, whoever they were. They had a lot of cats, including one named Barney that ONLY liked Gabrielle and hissed fiercely at anyone else, and another one that hung itself by its collar on a tree one day and Leroy found it. One of the rooms had a bunch of instruments in it for Leroy and his band; they also had a Wild West pinball machine of some sort in their basement. I remember thinking they had some stairs in their house, but thinking back, I can't remember where they went. I remember a living room connected to the band room, the kitchen, and a bedroom, which I think was Gabrielle's, all on the first floor. Later, Leroy put a pull-up bar in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. That was when he owned the house, I think.

I don't remember a whole ton about Aunt Nancy herself, but I remember liking her a whole lot, all the time. I can't remember a time when I didn't like her. She always laughed at my jokes - even though I was just a stupid little kid - and I remember she actually made me feel like I was funny. I remember one time she was on the phone with my mom, and she asked to talk to me so I could tell her a joke, and I said, "Did you hear the one about the three deer?" She said, "No." And I said, "Deer, deer, deer!" And she laughed a lot. I mean, I thought that was a funny joke and that's why I told her, but not so many other people seemed to find it funny.

I remember I showed off to her once - in a family party of some sort at our old house at 4 Federal Farm Drive - that I could hop on one leg. I came up to her in our dining room and she asked me to show her something new, so I hopped on one leg and hopped right out of the room.

I think it was at that same party that I told her my real name was Vega. Vega was a video character in the Street Fighter II game on Sega Genesis that wore a mask and long metallic claws who I thought was incredibly awesome. She went along with it.

I remember when we were a little older and we were staying in Avalon, she got a trailer and a spot in a nearby park for the summer. We thought that was pretty much the coolest thing ever. We would go and swim in the fresh water (?) lake in the park, with a plastic dock of some sort and sandy beaches, while her and my mom talked. I can't remember much about the trailer itself. I remember one time, though, we went to a vending machine and I got a tiny piece of gold jewelry. It wasn't real gold, of course. Plastic. I don't know much else about it, but I think it had a chain of some sort attached to it. I wonder where it went.

I can't remember the last time I saw Aunt Nancy. I'm pretty sure it was at her trailer near the beach.

Sometime before the end of 2nd grade - and I really can't tell you much more about it than that - Aunt Nancy got sick. Very sick. She was up in Scranton and we were back at home - I can remember I was in the 4 Federal Farm Drive house, so that's how I know it was 2nd grade or earlier. We didn't really know what was wrong, definitely not as kids who were in like 8th grade or lower, but I don't think any of the adults really knew what was wrong either. I remember it was a pretty confusing time for me. I can't even remember exactly how long it went on. I remember thinking it was a long time. Though I was little then, so anything seemed long.

Sometime the summer before she got sick, my mom and Aunt Nancy got in a fight. I never learned what it was about, but I remember picking up that it was pretty serious. I'm not sure my mom and Nancy ever really made up before she got sick, but I do know that my mom went to see her once at her trailer after the fight and said that Nancy was smiling and dancing and happy to see her, so I'm pretty sure they were okay with each other.

Anyway, like I said, Nancy was sick. We didn't know what was wrong and I don't think anyone else did. At some point during this whole ordeal, my mom went up to see Nancy in the hospital. She told me later - I think she even told me when I was young - that when she was there, Aunt Nancy said - sickly, softly - "Oh... it must be pretty serious if they brought you here...?"

My mom came home eventually. I can't remember when. I can't remember what I knew when she came home versus what I knew when she left. I know that I heard stories of Aunt Nancy being on some sort of breathing apparatus, and something about her being very sedated, and something about pain but I'm not really sure what, and I think something about appendicitis but I'm not really sure, and I think something about smoking but I'm not really sure about that either.

I got a phone call from my dad sometime that school year. Or maybe it wasn't a phone call, and he told me in real life. I know that somehow I knew before Jessica, so maybe she had gone to school, I can't really remember. In any case, my dad told me that Aunt Nancy died. I didn't really have any reaction. I'm pretty sure my response was actually, "Oh, okay." Looking back, I feel horrible and I wonder what the hell was wrong with me. I was stupid and I'm sorry.

Later that day, I was in the kitchen with Jessica. We used to hang out sometimes when we were both home from school, Dad was at work, and Mom was out somewhere getting Ryan or something. I remember we were talking about something, then stopped. To end the silence, I said, word for word, flatly, passingly, "Oh, by the way, Aunt Nancy died." Again, I was stupid and I'm sorry. I can't remember how Jessica responded when I told her. I wouldn't have understood even if I saw it, I guess. I don't think I was looking. She tells me now that she reacted extremely strongly, but I can't remember that.

She had a funeral and a viewing in Scranton sometime after that. I remember thinking that I would have had to have gone all the way up to Scranton, all the way back, missed school, and saw some family that I didn't think was very much fun, so I didn't want to go and my dad said that was fine. I was in like 1st or 2nd grade. Again, I was stupid, and I'm sorry, and I understand if you hate me for not going. I wish I had gone.

Peace out.

Locks

I'm pretty sure that the locks to Alumnae Hall were changed overnight. I could get in there one or two days ago, but when I went today - at first I was talking on the phone to Dad about my bike - I could NOT get the keys to go in. I figured it was just because I had low dexterity with my one hand, and maybe I was actually just trying the same key over and over again... but even when I hung up I couldn't get it to work. It would NOT go in.

So I tried the other side door, then the other side door, and I heard someone talking and thought it might be a security officer who might know about lock changes. It turned out it was a caterer on the phone with her son, but she actually hung up on him to call security and ask. They weren't really a help - I'll have to talk to the music department at some point. I suppose I could just ask at orchestra tonight...? In either case, I would be pretty upset if I couldn't practice in Alumnae Hall anymore.

Also, my bike was stolen. I headed out to class today around 10:20AM or so, walked to Smitty B where I keep my bike, and didn't see it there. I thought I might be crazy, and that it wasn't actually stolen, so I probably just left it somewhere else. The most likely locations were Faunce House [mail room] and The Ratty, so I walked to those places on my way to my 10:30AM class [Applied Math 33]. It wasn't in any of the bike racks that I saw. For some reason I was still convinced that it wasn't stolen, though.

So after my class, I went back to Smitty B to check if my bike was still there, or for one other thing... to see if my lock was still there. When I got there, I started to make out what I thought... yes. I saw my lock laying on the ground, sawed essentially in half. My bike was definitely stolen. I called campus security and filed a report with a police officer. Later, Bekah told me she had an article about bike theft in the Brown Daily Herald [campus paper] today that I should read. My dad told me it was just one of those things that happens and I'll just have to get a new one.

Is it weird that I was like completely apathetic about both of these things when they happened...?

Peace out.

Elevator

Have you ever thought about what you were passing by in elevators? When you step in, wait, press a button, go down, and step out... what were you missing on all those floors? A kid sitting in his room waxing philosophic about elevators and listening to recordings of himself playing piano; a group of kids on the 3rd floor gathering together and freaking out about their physics problem set due tomorrow; a girl with benign cancer losing a friend over the phone because they simply refuse to believe that she actually has cancer and she can't stand the accusation of dishonesty; two people unsure of how they feel about each other sitting awkwardly together with some sort of academic pretenses to settle the awkwardness; a group of water polo players trying to teach themselves the Soulja Boy dance as they watch the video on YouTube over and over again and get drunk; a brilliant pair of roommates sitting by each other, one whistling, one listening to classical music nearly endlessly; someone dreaming about home; someone dreaming about college; someone who can't fall asleep; someone watching The Daily Show and eating a bowl of cereal like they used to do at home; someone sketching in the shower for their crazy visual arts teacher; a scattering of kids throughout a number of rooms rooting for their baseball teams; two strangers telling each other about the worst weekends they can remember; two kids having sex in the dark in their strange and new something-like-home; someone writing a love letter and someone writing a poem and someone writing a song and someone writing the score they swear will change your life.... then the elevator stops. And did you notice it?

Peace out.

Points

I never really liked fighting with teachers over points on tests or projects or anything. It always kind of felt like a hyper-public and therefore acceptable form of cheating to me.

Today, we got our midterms back in Math 18 with Sergei Treil. I did a little bit better than I thought I did, but there was one question - I think question #4 - where I thought I deserved some points back. I'll try to explain...

Basically, the question was about a particle in motion. It gave you acceleration, and then you had to find the velocity by integrating the acceleration function, and then find the position by integrating the velocity function. Each time you integrate, you have to make sure that your new equation lines up with the initial conditions. In this case, the velocity at Time = 0 was -(1/2)i. When you integrated the acceleration function, that condition was already satisfied - you didn't need to do any work to get it. So I just left it how it was. Once you got that, you had to integrate to get the position function, with the intial condition that the position at Time = 0 was (0, .25). Once again, this was exactly the answer you got when you integrated - I didn't need to do any work to correct for this initial condition; it was already done for me automatically.

So I got the position function and went from there, solved the problem and got the answer right. When I got the test back, though, the grader had taken off four points. I couldn't figure out exactly why, but it looked like it might be something to do with intial conditions.

I feel like I need to say something about this so I don't seem like a hypocrite. I wasn't fighting for points just to fight him or to get him to change my grade. I only said anything because I knew that I understood the material and the question and that I - in my head - did the things he had wanted us to do on paper. I felt like I truly deserved those points, and that's the only reason I fought for them. There was another point I could have probably fought for and gotten back if I really wanted, but he gave me another point somewhere on the test that I didn't deserve, so it would be unfair to fight for that one. But this one I actually, really deserved, and that's the only reason I brought it up to him.

I kind of felt bad about it though. Deep down, I knew that I deserved those points, and in the end I think he agreed to give them to me, but I felt bad because I got the impression that he didn't understand that, and it was more just to get me to lay off of him than because I really understood it. I'd prefer that it was the second way, but ... I don't know. I don't know if it's better to get what is right in a wrong way, or to have something be wrong but at least not go about fixing it the wrong way.

Peace out.

- - -

I don't like it here. I'm really not happy here. There isn't anything here that I'm excited for and there are very few things that I care about or would miss if I left.

Peace.

Tableslipping

I realized yesterday when I was talking to Gina that I don't think I ever explained "tableslipping" to anyone who wasn't at Brown. I feel like I should do that.

So whenever you go to lunch or dinner at either the Ratty or the V-Dub, and you sit at a table, you're probably going to find a whole load of pieces of paper on your table. They're all pretty much exactly one-fourth of a regular sheet of white paper. They're called "tableslips" and any Brown-recognized group can use them to advertise just about whatever they want. The Math Department uses tableslips to advertise special lectures that professors are giving just for fun; a capella groups use them to advertise their performances that night; some groups use them just to raise awareness about something happening on campus such as illegal hiring practices; some frats use them to advertise parties; etc.

I think tableslips are one of the few things I actually like about Brown. It's kind of nice to know that every time you sit down to lunch or dinner, you're pretty much going to have opportunities forced down your throat unless you keep your eyes closed the entire time. Actually, I think I'm often more excited about tableslips that I am about any other part of lunch or dinner.

Oh, right, as for the rules of tableslipping: They must be 1/4th of an 8.5" x 11" piece of white paper and lie flat on the table, printed in black ink on white paper. You can only put tableslips on the tables at certain times right before meals, and they are cleared inbetween meals by the dining staff. The times to put them down are: 7 - 7.5 AM, 10.5 - 11AM, 3.5 - 4PM [Ratty], and 4 - 4.5PM [V-Dub]. You can't put them down during special dining events. All tableslips must have a Brown University recognized student group name on the tableslip, and they cannot contain advertisements or coupons for commercial establishments.

Other than that... you can do pretty much whatever the hell you want, and groups often do.

Peace out.

Cold

It's become pretty cold here pretty quickly. Last week, there were days when I would ride around campus on my bike and the weight and heat of my computer and my books against my back would make me sweat just a tiny bit.

It's pretty clear that that won't be happening anymore. It's cold enough now that the huge air vent in the bathroom isn't a comfort, but an annoyance. It's cold enough now to not only sleep under your sheet, but under your feather comforter and covers, too. It's cold enough for northerners to wear hats and jackets and southerners to fear stepping outside.

Perhaps the last Waterfire that I will ever see is this Wednesday. There's one more on October 26th, but I'll be home that weekend (!). There are more in the spring, but I'll be in the drumline or maybe somewhere else crazy just about every weekend in the spring. It will probably be very cold, and I don't know if I can find anyone to go with me.

Peace out.

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.