The Ice Burns of Prof. Haran

My Stat 200H [elementary statistics] teacher is a young Indian guy - maybe 30 or a little bit older - with a modern sense of style and vocabulary. He often refers to incorrect methods of statistics as "silly," but you can tell he knows it's sort of ironically funny.

Anyhow. One day in class, during the end of the voter registration drive up here, I was sitting in the back so I could pass notes with Dana, which we do to pass time. I had some "clings" in my backpack (kind of like stickers, but they used static cling instead of an adhesive material) that said "Vote for Change" on them. They were pretty big - probably about a foot diameter. So I took one out when he was looking away and put it on the back wall, over my head. When he turned around he did a quick double-take and asked me if I did that. "Did what?" "That." "Hm? Oh... uh, sure..."

He didn't seem upset by it. Furthermore, he's a professor and does research on global warming, so I felt pretty safe saying he was liberal. I think I asked him after class and he said he was supposed to be "shy" with his views, so he didn't tell me.

Another time, he asked me if I went to the Sarah Palin rally. He had. I was going to go, but I didn't have the effort to go because I heard you needed tickets, and I had driven 3 hours back home from an Obama rally that day. I prodded him again to ask if he were liberal - "Come on, you watch The Daily Show and you do research on global warming, you can't not be liberal." And he said, "I don't know, I might be..." and winked. But he still somehow didn't quite give it away.

But I'm going to go ahead and say he's liberal. Don't quote me on that.

Anyhow. Recently I got a lot of assignments back, and the first one was a lab on which I got 30/30. Generally I don't do super-hot in that class. I feel like I always answer things correctly, but the grader goes for details and you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, so I always end up with something like a 90% I feel like. Anyway, when I got the lab back, I said, "Oh my god! This is the first good grade I've gotten in this course!" He overheard me and said, cuttingly but playfully, "That's because you never come to class...?!"

I rarely go to class, it's true. But it was still funny the way he said it. It was just funny that he actually called me out on it.

Anyway, Colbert is on.

Peace out.

If I Had A Million Dollars

Sometime last year when I was at Brown, Chaz and Sarah and Nupur and Ben and other friends (Allegra? Margeaux? and one other whose name I forget, I think it started with a J, she played water polo) were hanging in Chaz's room. It was sort of small - actually, unusually small for a dorm room at Brown - but it never really felt cramped. It had a sunroof/moonroof/starroof above Chaz's bed in the corner, a futon/chair beside the bed, and his roommate's bed against the other wall. There was a little Ikea coffeetable in the middle that I "helped" Chaz put together during the first week we were there, and their desks were just about opposite their beds. I think this was the night of SexPowerGod, but I'm not sure.

In either case, Chaz had his computer - a white MacBook, I think - playing some music, and somehow when we were talking about music, we got to If I Had a Million Dollars, by The Barenaked Ladies. He said that he thought it was one of the prettiest songs he knew, and told us that sometime we should really listen to it - so we put it on right then.

If you're not familiar with the song If I Had a Million Dollars, you should be. The whole song is basically the two lead singers listing all the things they would buy for their girlfriend or wife if they had a million dollars, and each verse ends with "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy your love," before going into a chorus that lists more things they would buy for her so she would love him. And so we sat and really listened, and at the very end, Chaz said, "Oh, oh, this is the best part."

So I listened to the prolonged last line: "If I had a million dollars.... I'd be rich."

I'd listened to the song hundreds of times before, and I had always thought that it was just a pun. But for some reason when Chaz told me to listen to it, it completely changed the meaning. He wasn't talking about money at all; that's not the kind of rich he means.

I had actually momentarily forgotten the line as I was writing this post, and it didn't actually hit me until I wrote the line out just a moment ago, and when I did, it was strangely just as strong as the first time I realized what it really meant. And I remember the first time, Chaz and I just looked at each other, both feeling a little mushy and sentimental, and half-cried out, "It's so beautiful!" and hugged each other, non-ironically.

You should really listen to it sometime, maybe.

Peace out.

Songs

I'm working on two songs currently. One is basically finished, except I don't know what range I want the chorus to be in. The other I've just started, but I have some really pretty ideas for it, and it would go with basically any lyrics ever.

I'm trying to finish my CD by the end of Thanksgiving break. So for all you people out there that like to pretend you enjoy my music, get pumped!! I have like... 68 minutes or something so far. So I might go for one more song. I think 72 is about sufficient...

Peace out.

Stephens

There's a guy's bathroom on the first floor of Stephens Hall which I sometimes use. It's very peculiar. You have to walk in, go around a wall, and then go around the wall again to get to the only toilet in the entire bathroom. Strangely enough, it has two sinks. And even though there is only one useable toilet in there and it's hidden by the bend of a wall, it has a door on it. As if the first door wouldn't have been enough. Whoever designed it was an idiot. I can't even describe.

//

I might play vibraphone for PSU Indoor this year, but if so, I have to learn Burton grip instead of the Stephens method (which I have basically always used and loved). I'm pretty upset, but I guess it's nice to have to actually learn something for once. I always carry my two Pilot G-2 .05mm mechanical pencils with me, and I can put them in my hands and pretend they're mallets to help me learn Burton grip.

It's a tough grip. And to make it even worse, it's almost impossible to find a good tutorial on it. Jim Ancona's book has a sample from this section on the internet, but it only contains the even pages, and the bulk of the explanation is on an odd page.

I tried Wikipedia, Google, YouTube, and VicFirth. I'm not really sure where else to go, so I think I might just e-mail Tollie and Jim and see how it goes from there.

Peace out.

In General,

I have been pretty disappointed by college life as a whole.

Peace out.

The Great Restoration Part 2

Peace out.

The Great Restoration

Earlier in the night, Gabby, Gabby, Gina and I had taken a look into the lounge to check out an election watch party. It just so happened that everyone in their except for us was black (literally, every person), and we felt a little bit out of place, so we headed back up to Gabby B's room to watch the rest of it. We had gotten snacks from Louie's - Gabby R got chocolate Tastykake mini-donuts, and I got some Junior Mints, and Gabby B got some organic sun chips, or things along that line.

Gabby lives in a lounge that was made into a dorm room, so it's pretty spacious. They have a huge bed in the middle just to watch TV from, but it's bent up where your head is to make it easier to see. The sheets were blue, and there was a blue blanket on it. The TV was good, and we moved a tall green cup to make our view a little better. At first it was Gina, Gabby R and I sitting on it and watching, but eventually Gabby B took other Gabby's spot, and she then ended up sitting on a pillowchair right next to the bed.

I was giddy the entire time. I texted my friends about how excited I was. I couldn't believe it was happening. McCain had a tiny lead in the beginning - something like 8EV to 3EV - but after the northeast onslaught, we all felt a lot better. And then, early in the night, we heard that PA had been called for Obama, and then we saw it on the channel we were watching. We switched between CNN and ABC and NBC, and sometimes FOX to see if they were freaking out yet.

Once PA was called, I knew deep down that the election was over, but I didn't celebrate quite yet. We kept watching. For a long time it hovered around O:200 - M:130, and we got sort of impatient. Colbert and Stewart's live broadcast came on then, and we watched it, and switched to the news inbetween. I think I had eaten all of my Junior Mints by then - but that's okay, I think we actually started watching sometime around 8:15PM and it was 10PM by then. Colbert had a cockatiel and it was very cute and white.

We kept switching back and forth and back and forth, and nothing changed, and Colbert and Stewart weren't being too terribly funny. I had talked earlier of partying with all the black people in the lounge because I was sure they were a little more fun to hang around with than the lameos we were being, and eventually Gabby B took me up on that and we went down.

I feel like I should mention there was a naked roommate in the room with us for a long time, wearing a towel and nothing else after her shower, but she dressed eventually. Another roommate did some laundry and then hung around. A third roommate listened loudly to her headphones, and didn't hear us even when we all simultaneously screamed her name. The toweled roommate IMed her to get her attention.

Also, at one point I called my mom and screamed "OHIOOOOO!!!!" into the phone and then hung up on her just for fun, because we won Ohio. She called me back to ask what just happened.

Anyway, we went down. There were two other white people there; one was a photographer and one appeared to be writing in a notebook. Gabby and I stood in the back for a little, and then I suggested that we get closer to the front and take a seat, so we did that. The TV was on very loud, on CNN. As Gabby and I walked around to sit down on the floor, the photographer took a number of pictures of us - we suspected it was because we were the only white people there. We felt a little self-conscious, but it was okay.

This was about 10:42PM when we went down, because Colbert wasn't funny enough. I got a call sometime in there, and I believe someone told me we won Virginia. Our station wasn't reporting it, but I remember shortly after hanging up, I heard people saying things about Virginia. Maybe someone else got news from another station and brought it in. Eventually, CNN called Virginia as well, and everyone was really excited, and we all screamed.

There was a black guy behind me, thin with short hair, who was working quite intently on what looked like some studying for a biology class, with powerpoint notes printed out on plain white paper stapled in the corner. He was dressed nicely. He wasn't paying full attention to the election because he said he wasn't doing great in his class, and when we all freaked out about Virginia, he looked up from his work and asked, "Wait, what happened?!" So I told him that we won Virginia, and he gave me a very full smile.

And then I realized it was almost 11PM, and that the polls of California and Oceania were closing in a about a minute. We were at 225EV or so, and we were about to get at least three more states in a matter of seconds. I turned back to the guy behind me and said, "That's it! That means it's it! We won!" And he asked me why, and I told him we were about to take California, and that would be it.

The time until polls close came onto the screen. It was less than a minute. It was counting down in seconds. I was in the Stephens Lounge, with dozens of excited black people around me, a photograph, a writer, and Gabby B sitting to my left. The TV was on CNN, with the volume about all the way up. I was wearing my "Friends don't let friends vote Republican shirt," my nice jeans from Aeropostale, my embarrassing red Hanes underwear, and I believe mismatching white socks, as I'd left my shoes upstairs in the lounge. I had my camera in my pocket, and my cell phone, but I think everything else was upstairs. I hadn't shaved my chin in a while, and I didn't have a coat with me at all.

Twenty seconds left. Would this be it? I suppose somehow I knew that this would be it. I took my camera out of my pocket and set it on video mode, and set it on my knee (about shoulder level as I was sitting), and zoomed in on the screen. Just as the CNN "Breaking News" visual was coming on screen, I started filming, and the visual broke to Wolf Blitzer standing by a huge screen with a picture of Barack Obama on the left, head only, blue background, and words to his right

BARACK OBAMA

ELECTED PRESIDENT

Everyone was looking. Everyone saw. Everyone understood immediately. We all screamed. People jumped and danced and cried. I turned my camera off and struggled for a moment putting it in my pocket, and hugged Gabby. The photographer went wild taking pictures, and people continued to celebrate, dance, cry, laugh, text, call, hug. We chanted O-BA-MA and crowded around the screen, and some girls danced with Gabby for a moment.

And that was it.

We had done the impossible.

Peace out.

More Obama Rally

When we were walking into the rally, there was a man standing against a wall with a yellow posterboard sign draped around his neck by thin white string which said something to the effect of, "What does God think of killing six million innocent babies?" You could tell the guy was kinda smug, and my mom could sense it too and she said to him, "What does God think of killing thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq?" The guy was a little shocked for a second, and seemed to not know what to say, and then somewhat smugly replied, "He doesn't approve of it."

My mom used to be a single-issue, pro-life voter. I don't know how or why she changed.

//

My mom befriended two people at the rally. The first was a white man about her age in the line in front of us, wearing a wooly hat with a short brim and I think stuff to cover the ears and a trashbag on his torso to protect from the rain. I don't know what he talked about to my mom, but I know that at some point they talked about negative advertising, and someone I entered the conversation and he told me that I might like the movie The Boogiemen. Or maybe it was The Boogieman. In either case, it was about how Lee Attwater invented negative ads for campaigns in the Dukakis campaign and completely destroyed his campaign in a week. We talked about how terrible that was, and we talked about how the Republicans have actually gone as far as to slander Obama as a Muslim Terrorist.

The other guy was a black man also about her age, maybe a little bit older, that ended up next to us during the rally. He worked in a bottle factory in Allentown, and drove all the way down to see this rally. He talked to my mom about how excited he was to be there because everyone at work was Republican, and he could never share his excitement there. He seemed like a really nice guy, and I felt bad for him because of this next story.

//

One of the 'rules' listed in the e-mail was not to bring umbrellas. Of course, people didn't listen, I brought an umbrella, but I put it down as soon as I got into the rally because I didn't want to block peoples' views and it was hardly raining anyway. However, there were a LOT of people that left their umbrellas up. There was an open space in front of Obama for a number of yards, then an orange mesh fence, then a gate, and we were about fourth row back from the gate. You could hardly see him from there anyway, and to make it worse, these jerks in the front had umbrellas, blocking the view for everyone.

People in the crowd got really really angry. We started chanting to put the umbrellas away, but there were still some up by the time Obama started talking, and no one behind the front row could see him except to cleverly position themselves in a line through the umbrellas. At one point I got really frustrated, so I tore my way through the crowd to a person in the front row with an obnoxiously large blue umbrella, tapped them on the shoulder and said, "Hey, could you please put your umbrella down so everyone back there can see?" Seeming not to know - which was ridiculous after our chanting - she agreed to put it down, and everyone cheered.

A second later, a young black girl put an umbrella up.

We could. not. believe it. That was not the change we needed. The change we needed was umbrellas down right now.

People yelled insults to her and told her to put the umbrella down, but she didn't listen. People kept screaming and getting frustrated and Obama was talking, but the sound system was low and the screams were loud and angry so you could rarely hear a word. I was getting frustrated again so I went up to the girl and asked her to put the umbrella down, and she said no, and I said, "Please? There's like 500 people back there that can't see because of your umbrella," and she said, "Do you see my hair?"

Her hair was in very small curls, and I suppose it would come undone if it was wet, but bits of it had already come out. It clearly wasn't a perm. I don't know anything about perms but I know that this situation wouldn't arise if it were. So she could easily do it again. Everyone got really mad at her, and she left her umbrella up, leaving hundreds of people unable to see. Another person had the gall to put up a lady-bug designed umbrella somewhere to my left, and people jeered at them too.

The worst of it all is that it was hardly raining. After a long while - by the very end of the speech - the black girl in front of us put the umbrella down, and we could all see, and we were elated. Unfortunately, it was the very end of the speech, so we just heard his normal closing that you heard tonight on the Obama infomercial.

That stupid girl. I'm so mad at her. The rule said no umbrellas. I drove 400 miles to see this. Do I see you hair? Yeah, I do, I don't care, I drove 400 miles and who knows how far all these other people came. At least one from Allentown. Others missing school. Selfish jerk.

People say that whatever you right on the internet can wind up on the front page of a newspaper, and I sort of hope this does, just so that she sees it. She'd probably be a jerk about it and say it was our fault for not being tall or something, but whatever. She's a punkass.

But the goal was just to go to a rally. And I did that. So whatever.

Peace out.

The Obama Rally

I was absolutely dedicated to seeing Barack Obama speak before he won this election. I wasn't going to tell my mom at first, because I knew that it would quite likely end in me driving a ridiculous number of hours to wherever he was on election night, or the night before, whichever I would find out was first. But sometime when I was home I sort of let it slip, and she didn't seem to have a problem with it, and neither did my dad.

Now, of course, Obama and his campaign had claimed that they would suspend all visits to Pennsylvania because they were so sure they were going to win it about a month ago, but then McCain realized it was his only path to something even close to a possible victory and began pouring all of his race-baiting and fear-mongering into Pennsyltucky. This kind of sucked, because it's terrible politics, but it increased the chances of Obama being back in Pennsylvania, which was (in a small way) good for me. As it turned out, he announced that he would be holding a rally on the quad at Widener University on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008, and my mom told me about it, and I decided this was my chance.

I also found out he was going to be in a huge stadium the Monday just before in Pittsburgh, which is closer by, but I wasn't sure how to get there and my sister and Sam couldn't go because grades were due, so I figured going home would be preferable. I was a little worried, though, that Widener wouldn't fit enough people. If I was going to an Obama rally, I wanted it to be a big one to really experience his campaign. But anyway.

So I made plans, talked with the parents, etc. I gave my fish, Gauss, to Cat, who often cares for him whenever I go away for whatever reason. She seems to like him a lot. I asked my mom if I could bring home some laundry since I hadn't done any in forever, and she said that would be fine. I didn't pack the night before because I spent all my time doing my linear algebra homework and my Math 451 assignment, and I knew it wouldn't be worth going to Econ the next day, so I'd use that time to pack. I finished early, so I went to talk to Gina, who was hanging out in the Hub, and I think she was there with Dani, and I got a Krispy Kreme doughnut before I found them.

After my next two classes, it was time to go, so I biked back to my dorm and picked up my stuff and gave my fish to Cat and changed his water with Gina, since I want his tank to stay as super clean as when I supercleaned it recently. Gina gets worried when I go away so I hugged her and stuff and then said goodbye and left. I was thinking about homework as I drove away and realized I left my backpack in my dorm room, so I had to stop back to get it.

I'm going into too much detail. I also went to Friendly's with Abby, Chloe, Lexi, and Sarah. Our waitress was really slow but very sweet. There was a huge bug that scared the crap out of us and followed us from one table to the next. Abby was wearing eyeliner and looked very pretty, and Chloe was wearing Dave's alpaca. Afterward I drove to Kristin's house and gave her a big hug since I haven't seen her in forever, and we talked near her fire outside. I visited Michelle and her boyfriend Cory was there, her dog attacked me. I did homework for the rest of the night and felt very frustrated and had to watch The Daily Show while working. My mom baked me cookies and made me my favorite incarnation of chicken for dinner and I appreciated it a lot. The Phillies were playing the fifth game in the Series, but it got rain delayed in the sixth inning.

The next day when we woke up it was very cold, very rainy, very gray, and very windy. We didn't know if it would be cancelled, but he has never cancelled an event. Instead of going super early at about 7:30 [doors open at 8], we decided to show up around 9, assuming no one would want to go in this weather. I frantically organized the change in plans with Chloe and Abby, and found out later that Wasiq would not be coming. We all bundled up - I more than I ever have before - and went to the rally. We talked in the car about politics, and I caught up with Chloe and Abby on what was going on around school, with band, with the football team, with teachers, and other things. Apparently Mrs. Rock was never told by Julie that we had visited her, but that's okay.

There was one fun story about the rally that I will save for a separate post. Daily Show time for now.

Peace out.

Italian

The loud-mouthed Italian guy that I heard crying on the phone to his girlfriend is at it again right now. He's yelling at her, and trying to make her feel guilty for feeling like a jerk and being embarassed recently, or something like that. I think her name is Kate. He was talking about her mother, although I'm not sure what about exactly. He's extremely, extremely angry when he talks to her, or to just about anyone. He yells at her to take him back, screaming, "NAME ONE THING YOU DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIP!!!?" Well, how about the way you asked that question?

Anyway.

Peace out.

Recent Dreams

I usually don't have very interesting dreams. At least, for a long time I didn't. They really were boring through almost all of high school, but they've been getting more interesting in college.

This one happened Monday morning, I suppose. I was sitting outside my house back home with Gina, and it was something like night, but not quite. The moon was out and very clear, but it wasn't dark. I went inside for a second to get something, but I could hear something, and I could tell it was something huge/astronomically inclined. I think I could actually tell that it hit the moon when I was inside, whatever it was, and I think I was looking through my kitchen sink when I saw the comet/etc hit the moon. It turned red, and I suppose it started on a path towards Earth. I went back outside and Gina told me that it hit the moon, and I told her I knew, I saw it. I kept looking, and it was definitely coming toward us, and I was scared in my dream. I knew it was a dream sometime around then, though, and I started thinking, "Could this happen in real life?"

The next day I had a horror dream, but it wasn't really a nightmare. I was in a house, but not mine, it was a lot older and a lot more cramped. I forget who else was with me, or if I was even in the dream, but there were other people. It was dark, I think it was night, and whoever was in the dream was going through dark places. Whenever it was completely dark, some sort of monster would come out, but it could only exist when it was dark, so you could never see it. Except somehow I knew what it looked like.... it was definitely a girl who just looked all rotten and whatnot, like a really good Halloween costume. Oh, and it tried to kill everyone in the dream. But I don't think it did kill anyone. Did this happen in a movie?

I had another dream on Wednesday, I think, that Gina's dad made a joke that I didn't like. I can't remember what it was, but it was probably one of the things they think I'm crazy for thinking, like how avoiding bottled water is probably a pretty good idea, in general. I have been too busy to dream since then, though.

However, I finished my super hard assignment, rocked a test, and am hopefully about to rock another. Then hopefully I will write a song I have some ideas for this weekend.

Peace out.

Politics and Canning

This weekend I went canning with Springfield Thon, and hosted at my house. It was supposed to be like 15 people, including one or two guys, but ended up being just myself and eight girls (who were all really cool).

One of the girls was Katie, who I had seen around Simmons a million times before and always sort of remembered for some reason, but it wasn't until this weekend I discovered we had gone to PGSS together. I was canning with her at the intersection of Route 1 and the exit from the Shops at Concordville or whatever - the new huge shopping center with Target and Home Depot. The day was going slow but I wanted to make some money for the kids, so I took on a screw-it attitude and just went for anyone and anything.

A young, white, blond-haired girl drove up probably sometime around 10:30 in a small green car, and I noticed (since she pulled up beyond me) that there was a McCain/Palin sticker on the back window. I figured since she was young, she would be okay with me joking around with her a little bit (in case I totally blew a joke). So I went up - I forget if her window was up or down - and said loud enough for her to hear, "Help kids fight cancer?! Your candidate doesn't support universal health care, so these kids are gonna need to get money from somewhere."

I can't remember exactly what her reaction was, I think she was a little surprised that I would actually say that, but it wasn't a look of "You're such a punk." I think she got that I was being playful, and I know that by the time she said something back to me, the window was down. She said that she only had change, and I said, "Change is perfectly fine, even if all you want to give is a penny, that's great." So she gave me all the pennies that she had, and I was about to walk away, but then she offered a few more coins from the console between the front seats. I told her it was okay, and I didn't meant to guilt her that much, I had just been playing, but she insisted, so she put them in the can. So I told her - like I told everyone that donated - thank you, and that it means the world to these kids, and to have a nice day.

Peace out.

Oh Yeah

I woke up today at about 8:02AM. At first I didn't think anything unusual of it - I've been waking up around 8 every weekday since I've gotten back to school and your body gets in a pattern of waking you up on time after a little while. But as I was trying to go back to sleep, I started to hear a girl's voice saying, "Oh yeah... oh yeah! oh yeah..!" I suppose it's hard to say it in writing, but it was clearly the type of "Oh yeah" a girl would say while she was having (apparently very enjoyable) sex.

The only thing was that I had no idea where it was coming from. The guy next to me has a single, but the voice sounded like it was coming from close to my door, and I know that's not where his bed is. There's no way it was Jason or Mark, on the other side of me. It definitely wasn't Bobby or Dan, across the hall, and I doubt it was the kids in the room to the north of them. So I have no idea where the hell it could have come from. Perhaps upstairs, but it definitely sounded like it was on my floor.

Oh, yeah, the other thing was that it was 8AM. What college kid has sex at 8AM? Weirdos.

Peace out.

Stop Electing Idiots

All the crap in the news about the economy and the McCain campaign has made me comically frustrated recently, and I don't really like to write about stuff not immediately related to my everyday experience, but I feel just kind of want to write my thoughts on this.

Countries that elect idiots get idiotic governments. That's why America has such an incapable government compared to all those other countries, where people want to elect someone smarter than The Average Joe. After all, they're better than the other guy. So if we want a better government, we should just stop electing idiots.

So do it. Stop electing idiots. Fun facts: Obama graduted from Columbia University and was editor of the Harvard Law Review. John McCain finished 894th out of 899 in his Naval Academy class and crashed five planes upon graduation.

Obama is smarter than McCain. He is. Don't complain about elitism. Stop electing idiots and vote for Obama.

Do it or you can kick your own ass in four years.

Peace out.

Jen's Mom

Sometime in the middle of this summer, before Kristin went to Spain, I went for a walk with her down Smithbridge Road to visit Jen Vitlip, because I told her I would, and I told Kristin I would walk with her, too. I took a picture of Kristin on the way down there when someone called her - I forget who it was, but I think it was a girl. We stopped on the bridge to make sure we didn't get hit by cars, and admired how pretty it was from there. The neighborhood - that little cul-de-sac - at the bottom of Smithbridge Road, is actually particularly beautiful, and if you are reading and live in that Glen Thrills, you should check it out sometime, really.

We knocked on the door, and I think an aide for Jen's mom answered. I knew Jen's mom was very sick - in a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy, or multiple sclerosis, or some similarly degenerative muscle disease - but I didn't know how sick, or that she needed aides. It was a young, nice black woman with long hair, and we asked if we could talk to Jen or Josh, and they both came out. We went to the back of their house and tried to find places to sit. I think the grass was a little wet, but it was also very hot that day. I sat on a piece of wood, I think, meant to cover up some sort of outlet. I took some pictures of the pond beyond us. There were snapping turtles in it, they said, and it was covered with algae. There were some benches too, I think, but at least one of them was completely overrun with ivy. I forget what we talked about exactly - Genuardi's, friends, ... - but I think this was when I told Jen that I wanted to bake cookies one day and run around town giving them to friends, and yes, she would be one of them.

We talked about cats, I think. I forget if I asked to go inside, or if they had to go inside because the aide that had answered the door for Kristin and I was on her way out, but we walked back up and went inside. I think Jen went to check on her mom, and Josh took us to try to find the cat(s). We found at least one, in someone's bedroom. It was a pretty cat and it looked pretty nice, but Josh said it didn't really like people, and it ran away when I tried to get close enough to it to pet it.

I think I said I was hungry, or something along those lines, or wanted to find their other cat (if I'm correct that they had two), so we went toward the kitchen in search of Lucky Charms (which I did get), and her mom was in the kitchen in her wheelchair. I suppose wheelchair isn't quite the right word, because it was electric and had much more to it than just wheels. It also held her head in place if she needed it to. Her head was hung low when we walked into the room, but at one point she asked Jen if she could lift her head up. So Jen lifted her head up, and then pulled a strap across her forehead that was attached to the sides of the head cradle at the top of the chair. It was large and black, I think, with a wide base, although I can't remember much more about it.

I didn't know how to react to her mom, and I felt bad about it. I remember reading or seeing or hearing somewhere that summer that people with disabilities hate being ignored just like anyone else hates it, and hate being treated differently, and hate it when people try to pretend they don't have whatever condition they have. So I really wanted to just react to her as I would react to any other of my friends' parents, and I said hello to her, and maybe asked her how she was, but I didn't know what else to do. I would have liked to have talked to her, but her voice seemed extremely weak and I guess I was afraid that it was difficult for her to talk. I would have liked to have asked her if she was doing okay how she was, maybe, that would be very bold for me and maybe inappropriate.

We left soon after, and I talked to Kristin about it. I said that I felt bad, and I wanted to talk to her again, the way I'd talk to anyone else, if I could. I put it on my list of things to accomplish by the end of the summer - Talk to Jen about her mom, with the intention of talking to her mom again. Somehow I never found the time to do it.

I found out today that her mom died sometime over the summer. Jen is a really strong kid, and so is Josh, so I think they'll be okay, but it must have been terribly sad to lose her, and to lose her in that kind of battle. And I felt upset at myself for not doing anything. I suppose ultimately it wouldn't have made a difference in any case, but I still wish I had known what to do, and if she liked people to talk to her, and if I could have talked to her and had a conversation with her. If it were possible I would still like to know, but I don't think that's the kind of thing I can ask anymore.

Peace out.

"I'm Not Going to Vote for a Muslim"

Every once in a while, I'll get a call on my cell phone from a number I don't recognize. Sometimes I get really optimistic and hope it'll be a call from the National Security Agency, or the CIA, or the Department of Defense or something like that, telling me they have a summer internship waiting for me where I can just do number theory all day and watch The Daily Show at night. But, almost uniformly, it is someone from the local campaign call center phone banking for Barack Obama. I think this has happened at least three times. I don't know why they're so disorganized; I always mark down that I am a volunteer already and a bunch of the people there would recognize my name.

The first time, I just said that I was voting for him and that I was campaigning for him, and said thank you and hung up. The second time it was a call from Tara, who's basically the director/organizer of the whole office, and I was POSITIVE that she knew me, so I was like, "Um, Tara, it's me. Jeff. I do classrooms for you. I talked to you on Sunday." [or something close to those lines] And she just said, "Oh, Jeff! Hey, how are you? How's it going?" So we talked for a second and I hung up. I think I got another call one time after that, and just said yes, I was working for him, thank you, and hung up.

I got another call, I believe, this Friday night, although it could have been this Thursday. My guess is Friday, because I was at Putnam training on Thursday.... although I could be wrong. In either case, I saw someone was calling and I realized the 814 area code, and figured it was from Obama. I'd been waiting to do this. So the woman introduced herself, she sounded probably 40 or so, and said that I'd written somewhere that I supported Obama and was asking if I was still going to support him with my vote. I said, "Um, no, I'm not going to vote for a Muslim." And then there was silence. She just had no idea what to say. After letting her sit in pain for a few seconds, she started to say something, but I had already started to talk to and I told her that I worked on the Obama campaign registering classrooms, and that I was kidding with her, and that yes, I was still going to vote for him in November. She started to laugh and said, "Oh, thank god! I'm a newbie at this and when you said that, I just - a Muslim?! I didn't know what to say!" And I responded, "Yeah, don't worry, I'm just f***ing with you." She said that she would normally ask if I wanted to volunteer, but that I already said I did, so we just said goodbye and hung up.

Peace out.

Wrist Shot

I was playing hockey today at the YMCA in State College, at the farthest intersection of University Drive and Allen Street [although it turns into another street, but I forget the name, it might as well be Allen]. We had started playing sometime around 6 o'clock. A bunch of the guys from our hockey team, Blue Balls, were supposed to show up, but I think it was actually only Chas and I from our team. However, a local guy named Cole and a whole bunch of his friends showed up to play. We only had one goalie for a while, so we played full court and we'd switch after either three goals or two posts. Playing post is EXTREMELY frustrating.

He doesn't seem to have a specific title, but a guy we call Dyke [a shortening of his last name] is basically the director of club hockey at PSU. He's really good, and sort of funny, and plays with people all the time, whether they're on the teams or not. He was playing with us tonight, and sitting on the bench beside me, and I heard him talking about a kid named Dan that we were playing against tonight. He said that he was on "the team" and that he was captain, and called him "chatty," though as a good thing. I turned and asked, "Wait, which team?" And he said, "Um.... the team?" Some kids who play Club - and I think Dyke is on the B team - also play in the i.m. league, so I thought he might be talking about that. I didn't remember a "Dan" being selected for the team during announcements this year. And I said, "Like, the club team or what?" And he said, "...are you one of Timmy's friends?" I was, so I said so. Tim is from Garnet Valley, and plays on the club team. Dyke said, "Of course you are. You guys always try to hang out with us so you can drink at our parties." I said something to the effect of, "I've never tried to party with you, and I don't drink." He said back, "Sure, that's what you say, trying to get me to like you." The kid on the other side of him laughed a little and said, "I used to not drink."

The club team was coming to play at about 8PM. It was 7:50 or so and they weren't there, and we were all still playing because we wanted to get our time in, and another goalie had shown up (I think it was Judas, the goalie for the A team). I got the puck just left of the slot and somewhere near the top of the circle on the other team's side and put up a wrist shot.

Unfortunately, it went a little higher than I would like any shot to go, and there happened to be Cole standing right in front of it. It whacked him on the head, bounced off, and he went down immediately. I saw blood coming out, and I was terrified. I had no idea what I had hit. I thought I blinded him. I thought I broke his nose. It looked high so I was pretty sure it wasn't his mouth, but I was terrified. I apologized profusely. Other kids started looking for a towel, and after Cole got up I went to my car to look for a towel too, but I suppose I'd taken mine out. Thankfully, and extremely luckily, nothing "important" was damaged - it got him on the top right of his forehead, right about at the bottom of his hairline. It didn't touch his eyes at all and it didn't touch his nose. It was bleeding a good amount, but it was clear that nothing was broken, and at worst he would need some antibacterial and stitches.

He was up a little after the hit. There were spots of blood on the court, a small pool of it where he had fallen, and then more where he had skated before someone got him a pink towel. Spots of it were saturated in blood within a minute. He said, "Man, you guys know in those war movies when a bomb goes off and everything just goes silent, and then it's like ringing in the ears? I always thought that was made up, but it definitely just happened to me." I kept apologizing. I went over to him at the bench and said, "God, Cole, I am so sorry, I absolutely did not mean to do that at all, I would never try to hurt anyone playing here." He said, "Man, it's hockey. I've been waiting for someone to draw blood for weeks." I still felt terrible, but it was at the least a little relieving that he wasn't incredibly angry at me.

He talked about possibly getting stitches, but he wasn't sure he'd want to because he didn't know about his health care. Politics. Hockey. Seriously? He said he needed a ride home, and that possibly he'd need a ride to the hospital, so I said I would give him a ride. I also told him that I had health insurance and it was my fault, and that if he needed stitches or anything at all, to just do what was best for him and not to even consider cost, since it'd be on me. I hate private health insurance. He also told someone else that he owed them a towel, and I told them no, that would be on me as well. I also owe the club team a Rocket puck, and Chas an IDF puck.

We put his things in his car, and I gave his cell phone a call so he'd have my number and I'd have his. He got in my car with his skates on and a towel to the wound, although it didn't seem to be bleeding very much anymore at that point. He didn't want to drive, just in case something bad happened. I asked him if he was dizzy on the way home, and he said no, he just had a headache, which I guess was a good sign. His house was just two left turns away, and on the right. There was a small red car in the driveway, which was cement and sloped up a whole lot. It was a nice house, white sidings, with a light on at this point. It was 8PM at this point. I had planned to be back by then for [H]ouse, but I wasn't going to skip out on Cole when I just did that to him.

We went inside. His large brown dog greeted me. He said it's name and asked it who I was, but I forget what its name was. He still had his skates on in his house when his dad came into the foyer to talk to us. He had talked to his dad at that point, and I came in and jokingly said, "Hey! I did it, I'm the criminal. Sorry." His dad had a pretty good sense of humor about it. He took a look at it and said it didn't really look too bad - it hardly even split the skin, he said, more like gave it a very serious dent. Cole asked him if it needed stitches, and his dad went and got a flashlight, and concluded again that no, he probably didn't need stitches. Some gauze, he said, not peroxide, though.

I told Cole again that if he thought stitches were the best idea, to do it. I didn't want him to be left with something worse than what he had to be left with because he was afraid it was cost money or be a bit of a hassle. He said that he didn't want to get stitches, and that he liked scars. He showed me another one he had from when he fell off a roof during some construction work that had split his entire hand open. I guess if he made it through that, he'd make it through this alright.

He and his dad seemed to agree the best plan was to just wait for a little bit for the bleeding to stop, put some gauze on it, and check it out in an hour or two. Cole asked if I could get text messages, and said he would send me one if they went to the hospital. I excused myself since it seemed like he wouldn't need a ride for a while. I drove out of the driveway very slowly to make sure I didn't hit the car at the bottom and screw up even more things in their life.

I haven't gotten a text and it's been 4 hours. I guess he's not going to get stitches. I hope that's the right thing for him to do.

Peace out.

Waiting for an Elevator

If you walk out the door of my room and turn left, you'll go through a heavy puke-colored door, and legend has it that there have been at least two puke incidents just on the other side of the door, so whenever we go through it we walk around where there supposedly was vomit. If you keep walking after you go around the mythical vomit spot, you'd come to another really heavy puke colored door. On the right side of that door, before you go through it, is the most useful elevator in my building [Simmons], since it actually goes to all the floors, from Basement to 5. Beyond that door is the entrance to the terrible, terrible Simmons cafeteria, which I promise I will get to at some point.

So anyway. I left my room tonight to go talk to Tanvi, who lives on the second floor, so I went through the door and hit the button to go up on the elevator on my right. As I was going over, I saw someone in a white shirt with red/green squares somewhere in the design in the cafeteria entrance, beyond the next door [the doors have a rectangular glass window in them]. I know that Jason, my next door neighbor, sometimes talks on the phone in there. I hadn't seen him in a while, so I thought I would bother him and just say hey, but I opened the door and saw that it wasn't him. The kid had longer black hair. He was probably a junior or a senior. He was standing behind the counter where the person who swipes your card usually sits, and all the posters and whatnot were up, including the one saying "THE NORTH CASHIER IS CLOSED, PLEASE USE SOUTH CASHIER."

I closed the door and just waited for my elevator. But as I was waiting, I started to hear him talking. I don't remember exactly the first few things he said, but I remember thinking that he had a particularly high voice for a guy of his size and age. I didn't really mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help hear. In a sad, pleading voice, he asked, "I don't understand, how could you just break up with someone like that?"

I felt pretty terrible for him. I have no idea what the circumstances were but it looked like he was hurting a lot and terribly confused. He said a few more things, but unfortunately I forget those too, but they were definitely about a relationship and a break up, and it was clear that she was the one doing the breaking up with him, and he didn't know why. The elevator came after stopping on the floor above, so I got in and went to talk to Tanvi.

Peace out.

Stealin' a Cookie

The other day, I think it was this Monday, I went to Redifer for lunch. That's the place that I go to now that Simmons has terrible food - more about that later. At least Redifer is somewhat nearby though. In any case, once I was done my lunch, I wanted a cookie, and I told Gina that I was going to get one and she could meet me outside or something if she wanted to split it, and she agreed.

So I got a cookie from their display and got in line. There were only I think two or maybe three people in front of me. It was a coffee type place, although I forget the name of it at the moment. I could see two people behind the counter, and I knew that there was a third on the side working with the soda fountain or something like that. In either case, they were taking forever with whatever order(s) they had. I couldn't even figure out what they were doing. Maybe they were fixing something? Or maybe they were just trying to make a drink. In either case, it was exceptionally slow.

So I was standing in that line with the cookie in my hand, with a worker on the side who couldn't see me and two who were very busy turned around working on whatever, with two girls in front of me, and I started contemplating stealing the cookie. Although I'd say it was more like borrowing, because I did honestly plan to go back and pay for it at another time when the line wasn't two people and twenty minutes long.

I started considering the conversation.

"Hey, let me pay for a cookie."

But you're not buying a cookie...?

"Oh, I know, it's okay, I stole one earlier so I'm paying for it now."

Why would you steal a cookie?

"Because I was in a line that was taking FOR. EVER."

You still probably shouldn't have stolen the cookie.

"Look, I know, but at least I'm paying for it so really what do you care?"

I guess at that point I would hopefully be able to say "Do you want me to pay for it or not?" and they would just say yes. Hopefully they wouldn't try to take me down for stealing or something. But like, really, would it be stealing? Would it just be deferred payment since I was actually completely serious about doing it? If you buy something, do you always need to pay for it right this second?

The girl in front of me ordered a soy latte. I don't know what that is but it occured to me that it might take another eternity to make. So I just held up my cookie to the cashier, as if begging her to just check me out now so I wouldn't have to wait.

"Oh, you're just getting a cookie?" she asked. So I said yes, and paid for it, and left. It was a good cookie. I still wonder what that later conversation would have been like, though. Ah well.

Peace out.

Music Minor

Today at the beginning of Math/Stat 414, the teacher realized she was using the wrong .ppt and had to go back to her office to get the right one, so I decided to make a phone call I had tried to make on Friday but wasn't able to. I'm thinking about minoring in music, so I wanted to find out if I could get out of any of the courses since my schedule is already pretty packed with my Math Major. So I called the director of the music minor and said,

"Hey, I had some questions about the music minor and I'm trying to talk to the director of the music minor, and I thought this was the number - could you help me with that?"

And he said, "Well first of all, never address a professor initially with 'hey'. Because when you go out into the business world and address your boss with 'hey', he'll fire you on the spot. Okay, got it?"

I was so taken aback. I didn't know what to do. I've never had anyone be such a colossal and self-righteous d-bag to me in my life and I had no idea how to react. I sat on the phone in silence for a second considering what to do; I thought about hanging up. Somewhat sadly, I decided to talk to him and even gave him my real name, so I can't be a jerk to him.

In retrospect, I should have said "Get the f**k over yourself! Alright, peace out homeboy."

Peace out homeboy.