The Bemanistyle simfile database is back up. I don't know when that happened, but it makes me glad.
-Laurel
11.29.2005
11.27.2005
"Had another Thanksgivin' dinner that couldn't be beat..."
My family really did end up having, essentially, two Thanksgiving dinners: the official with Uncle Bert and Nancy, and then such a pile of leftovers today at Aunt Lisa and Uncle Paul's that it was pretty much the feast all over again. Only mine came in the form of Uncle Paul's amazing turkey soup, and I dipped lots of bread in the broth.
Here's what I want to know, to gauge just how crazy a child I really was:
In elementary school, did you people out there in Blog-Reading Land ever spell words wrongly on purpose on assignments, just to not be the only one without red-pen corrections? I'll accept other-subject equivalents, like sabotaging your own math problems.
...And if so, was anyone in the first grade? Or can someone perhaps beat that?
-Laurel
Here's what I want to know, to gauge just how crazy a child I really was:
In elementary school, did you people out there in Blog-Reading Land ever spell words wrongly on purpose on assignments, just to not be the only one without red-pen corrections? I'll accept other-subject equivalents, like sabotaging your own math problems.
...And if so, was anyone in the first grade? Or can someone perhaps beat that?
-Laurel
11.23.2005
Ooh, playplay!
You have to play this game right ruddy now. Or at least when you have a spare half-hour. No matter who you are.
Grow!
My brother and I played them together and beat them. He gave me hints on the two he'd done, and we beat the Version 3 one together. Yay!
The trip home was simple. Ooh, and I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was good, though obviously not as good as the book. Only it was annoying when Dumbledore said "Drumstrang." It's Durmstrang, and that's important, not to mention that it took me a long time to get: it's a spoonerism of sturm und drang, which means "storm and urge." Besides being a German literary movement, it's also an old psychological term referring to adolescence. Like, surly teenagers. Such as those learning to be wizards.
I thought it was cool, anyway. Assuming I haven't told everybody already.
Anyway, go play the game, and have a happy Thanksgiving.
-Laurel
Grow!
My brother and I played them together and beat them. He gave me hints on the two he'd done, and we beat the Version 3 one together. Yay!
The trip home was simple. Ooh, and I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was good, though obviously not as good as the book. Only it was annoying when Dumbledore said "Drumstrang." It's Durmstrang, and that's important, not to mention that it took me a long time to get: it's a spoonerism of sturm und drang, which means "storm and urge." Besides being a German literary movement, it's also an old psychological term referring to adolescence. Like, surly teenagers. Such as those learning to be wizards.
I thought it was cool, anyway. Assuming I haven't told everybody already.
Anyway, go play the game, and have a happy Thanksgiving.
-Laurel
Snow globe
So it turns out that I stayed on campus for the night more or less needlessly: the reason I didn't leave this afternoon, or at least the surface reason, was that I had class at night, 7:20-9:10. My professor said so, and it was right on the syllabus and everything. Of the nineteen in the class, about seven of us showed up. But Dr. Peterson never did. We waited fifteen minutes or so and then gave up; another class was taking place just a couple of doors down, so it's not like the department really gave a crap about the "no classes after 5:20" rule.
So I went back to my room and took a call from Kristin, and then we did folk dancing in the lounge. Only four of us: Tom, Mellie Mae, Emily, and me. Really three-and-a-half of us, since Emily mostly didn't dance. Tom and I ended up doing a one-pair Salty Dog Rag, which was fun for us and amusing for our spectators. We ended the night pretty early, though, and didn't even do Ajde Jano.
Emily's dad came partway through; the two of them leave for Massachusetts tomorrow morning. He didn't dance, nor did we expect him to, but he's really nice, down-to-earth with a good, kind of gentle sense of humor. He and Emily clearly get along well, and they both like animals. I talked to them for a while after Mellie Mae had left and Tom had gone upstairs to work.
Then I took the rest of the cornbread I made earlier tonight to Tim (and Katie), and here I am, watching them and their other lab partner boy work like sixty on their stuff. Actually, mostly I'm not watching, but reading A Walk Across America (after Linked Arms, might's well keep with the Allegany County sort-of-theme, right?).
It's a cold, on-and-off-snowy night, and I can't get to my coat until the 27th at least, 'cause I left it in Ada's apartment after the brothering this past Sunday (I must have; people saw me wear it there, but I haven't seen it since, and I didn't go anywhere else 'til I missed it but my dorm, where it clearly isn't), and she and her roommate left for their respective homes the next day. I have a coat at home I can use, but in the meantime, while I'm here, I'm wearing Tim's. I don't know what I'd do if he wasn't around to go around in fleeces, which he insists are warm enough, even though the wind cuts into me like it's ice held to my ears.
It's pretty around campus, but quiet and solitary, and for someone like me, for whom part of the comfort equation is signs of life (I don't need the presence of people so much as just to know they're there, and especially that they're awake; I like being alone by choice but hate it any other way), I'm fighting my desire to go back and sleep in favor of staying here, where it's bright, and where people are. I like staying late on campus much better during Senior Week.
But I was glad to have this excuse to hang out on campus without having any work to do; I was glad class was supposed to happen tonight and gave me the excuse. ...Foolish me, I also thought I'd get to hang out with Tim, even just reading side by side, instead of having him working literally all day and all night, something like fifteen hours' worth by now, when you subtract mealtimes. But it was nice to talk to Emily and her dad. She seems happier around him. That's good, too.
Time to go back to my book, though. I'm just in the next building over from my room when we do go back, and there'll be a warm room and gingersnaps waiting for me when I have to go.
-Laurel
So I went back to my room and took a call from Kristin, and then we did folk dancing in the lounge. Only four of us: Tom, Mellie Mae, Emily, and me. Really three-and-a-half of us, since Emily mostly didn't dance. Tom and I ended up doing a one-pair Salty Dog Rag, which was fun for us and amusing for our spectators. We ended the night pretty early, though, and didn't even do Ajde Jano.
Emily's dad came partway through; the two of them leave for Massachusetts tomorrow morning. He didn't dance, nor did we expect him to, but he's really nice, down-to-earth with a good, kind of gentle sense of humor. He and Emily clearly get along well, and they both like animals. I talked to them for a while after Mellie Mae had left and Tom had gone upstairs to work.
Then I took the rest of the cornbread I made earlier tonight to Tim (and Katie), and here I am, watching them and their other lab partner boy work like sixty on their stuff. Actually, mostly I'm not watching, but reading A Walk Across America (after Linked Arms, might's well keep with the Allegany County sort-of-theme, right?).
It's a cold, on-and-off-snowy night, and I can't get to my coat until the 27th at least, 'cause I left it in Ada's apartment after the brothering this past Sunday (I must have; people saw me wear it there, but I haven't seen it since, and I didn't go anywhere else 'til I missed it but my dorm, where it clearly isn't), and she and her roommate left for their respective homes the next day. I have a coat at home I can use, but in the meantime, while I'm here, I'm wearing Tim's. I don't know what I'd do if he wasn't around to go around in fleeces, which he insists are warm enough, even though the wind cuts into me like it's ice held to my ears.
It's pretty around campus, but quiet and solitary, and for someone like me, for whom part of the comfort equation is signs of life (I don't need the presence of people so much as just to know they're there, and especially that they're awake; I like being alone by choice but hate it any other way), I'm fighting my desire to go back and sleep in favor of staying here, where it's bright, and where people are. I like staying late on campus much better during Senior Week.
But I was glad to have this excuse to hang out on campus without having any work to do; I was glad class was supposed to happen tonight and gave me the excuse. ...Foolish me, I also thought I'd get to hang out with Tim, even just reading side by side, instead of having him working literally all day and all night, something like fifteen hours' worth by now, when you subtract mealtimes. But it was nice to talk to Emily and her dad. She seems happier around him. That's good, too.
Time to go back to my book, though. I'm just in the next building over from my room when we do go back, and there'll be a warm room and gingersnaps waiting for me when I have to go.
-Laurel
11.19.2005
::moment of randomness!::
Here, for your enjoyment and possibly mild disturbance, is a great big huh? of a webpage. Like, I get it, but even so, huh?
http://www.tech.org/~stuart/semper_ubi_sub_ubi.html
-Laurel
http://www.tech.org/~stuart/semper_ubi_sub_ubi.html
-Laurel
11.18.2005
Swiped
Ripped shamelessly from the Dave Barry Blog, which posted it as the "Sensible Headline of the Day":
(It's a good one.)
So okay, things're all right. I really don't have much else to say about school. On another note, Daf posted up, on Facebook, a picture of her, Zinni, 'Nanda, and me after the Monkees concert in the summer of '01. It's a cute picture, but I'd mostly managed to forget how hideous my hair still was at the end of tenth grade. Ruddy crud, my bangs were not only wavy, but triangular. Oh, well, every group needs one dorky-looking person. It's that way in all the books and stuff. :-P
(And for that reason, I can't help resenting, just a little, that the Harry Potter movies never gave Hermione big teeth and hair. 'Course, I can't help resenting just a little in the books that Eloise Midgin is never given any more in the way of character traits than a lot of zits, but maybe she'll show up later.)
Editorial over with; I'm out.
-Laurel
(It's a good one.)
So okay, things're all right. I really don't have much else to say about school. On another note, Daf posted up, on Facebook, a picture of her, Zinni, 'Nanda, and me after the Monkees concert in the summer of '01. It's a cute picture, but I'd mostly managed to forget how hideous my hair still was at the end of tenth grade. Ruddy crud, my bangs were not only wavy, but triangular. Oh, well, every group needs one dorky-looking person. It's that way in all the books and stuff. :-P
(And for that reason, I can't help resenting, just a little, that the Harry Potter movies never gave Hermione big teeth and hair. 'Course, I can't help resenting just a little in the books that Eloise Midgin is never given any more in the way of character traits than a lot of zits, but maybe she'll show up later.)
Editorial over with; I'm out.
-Laurel
11.14.2005
-momentito-
Yesterday Tim, Albert, Chris, and I went for wood-fired pizza out in the woods (long story). It was fairly expensive but incredibly filling; I didn't eat another meal for six hours thereafter. So hey.
Much of today simply kicked my butt, but I am in high spirits and will give it another shot tomorrow.
And I have this bad feeling like I'm about to develop a Milk Duds addiction. Somebody please hide all the money that I don't need for my phone bill. :-P
-Laurel
Much of today simply kicked my butt, but I am in high spirits and will give it another shot tomorrow.
And I have this bad feeling like I'm about to develop a Milk Duds addiction. Somebody please hide all the money that I don't need for my phone bill. :-P
-Laurel
11.13.2005
Questions, ponderances, boring you silly with my ramblings...
Remember when (it was my freshman year; I don't know if they did it before that) Poder Latino's posters all said "I like raisins"? What the heck was that all about? Did anyone ever learn?
I understand that Tom and Emily's breakup was not my fault or anything, but I have realized that anger really kills. Like, even to the day of the breakup I was all snide about them (in large part to no one but myself, but that doesn't excuse it), as even to a couple of days before Heather's death I was all cranky about her and the other crooked-phis being such a huge pain in the e-board's collective neck, and it totally killed, in both cases, a lot of the kindness I should have been showing them in their last days. Each time, I reformed at just about the last minute, but still. I should straighten up, 'cause for one thing, things're a lot less permanent than I assume.
Anydangway, last night I got sick of being on campus (not really sure why, inasmuch as I was at Tolhurst's house with the rest of ENGL 308 on Friday night; the Chinese food was delicious) and fled late at night to Wal-Mart, where I bought, well, mostly craft stuff. I'm still trying to make my room look less stark. Last night I tried tackling my mirror, which is quite plain and has no frame at all. So I outlined it with ribbon and put little flower-things in the corners (this involved a lot of Scotch tape and a stick of chewed gum). It looks pretty good, but if anyone has a flash of brilliance and wants to tell me what would be even better to do, I'm open to that.
I still have no idea what to do about the walls. I've hung all the posters I own, and it's not even like the room is that big, but there's still all this negative space. ...I've gotten used to living in the smallest room I've ever had, but the honors house is lookin' better and better for next year.
I also broke down while at Wal-Mart and bought candy. Milk Duds make a horribly good second breakfast, let me tell you. I don't remember them being so big. That's a good thing, though.
Okay, time to go.
-Laurel
I understand that Tom and Emily's breakup was not my fault or anything, but I have realized that anger really kills. Like, even to the day of the breakup I was all snide about them (in large part to no one but myself, but that doesn't excuse it), as even to a couple of days before Heather's death I was all cranky about her and the other crooked-phis being such a huge pain in the e-board's collective neck, and it totally killed, in both cases, a lot of the kindness I should have been showing them in their last days. Each time, I reformed at just about the last minute, but still. I should straighten up, 'cause for one thing, things're a lot less permanent than I assume.
Anydangway, last night I got sick of being on campus (not really sure why, inasmuch as I was at Tolhurst's house with the rest of ENGL 308 on Friday night; the Chinese food was delicious) and fled late at night to Wal-Mart, where I bought, well, mostly craft stuff. I'm still trying to make my room look less stark. Last night I tried tackling my mirror, which is quite plain and has no frame at all. So I outlined it with ribbon and put little flower-things in the corners (this involved a lot of Scotch tape and a stick of chewed gum). It looks pretty good, but if anyone has a flash of brilliance and wants to tell me what would be even better to do, I'm open to that.
I still have no idea what to do about the walls. I've hung all the posters I own, and it's not even like the room is that big, but there's still all this negative space. ...I've gotten used to living in the smallest room I've ever had, but the honors house is lookin' better and better for next year.
I also broke down while at Wal-Mart and bought candy. Milk Duds make a horribly good second breakfast, let me tell you. I don't remember them being so big. That's a good thing, though.
Okay, time to go.
-Laurel
11.12.2005
-guilt trip-
I've been angry the past few days at Tom and Emily, but especially Emily, for her switching out of our Bible study, fussing at folk dancing, giving APO the run-around, and cutting out of SonLife, all because she was miserable any time she couldn't be around Tom.
There've been a few times where I've said to myself that the best proof of what was really important to her would have to come if Tom broke up with her. See then what she'd come to.
I never said it to anyone else. But tonight...he did. Emily came to my room to find me.
Good heavens forgive me; I didn't mean it.
-Laurel
There've been a few times where I've said to myself that the best proof of what was really important to her would have to come if Tom broke up with her. See then what she'd come to.
I never said it to anyone else. But tonight...he did. Emily came to my room to find me.
Good heavens forgive me; I didn't mean it.
-Laurel
11.11.2005
What I learned in enviro-sci
According to a factoid in my textbook, the world's richest 20% (of the total huge population, I assume) consumes about 80% of the world's resources currently being used, and that America accounts for 25% of that, despite accounting for less than 5% of that rich population.
Enough percentages; I don't like that paragraph either. Watch this. It's amazing. And it, unlike what I've just posted above, is hopeful. Look how easy it is to help. Even if you're not a star.
World on Fire
-Laurel
Enough percentages; I don't like that paragraph either. Watch this. It's amazing. And it, unlike what I've just posted above, is hopeful. Look how easy it is to help. Even if you're not a star.
World on Fire
-Laurel
11.10.2005
'Cause you totally needed another way to waste your time, right?
http://www.sharpieminigame.com/
I got to the last block on Level 11, dang it. I don't like the "enter your name and e-mail" crud that they put you through to get to the game, but honestly I fudged it. Which complicated things when I won a mini-Sharpie partway through. ::giggles::
Anyway, whatever. The game is all kinds'a fun, and you should play if you find yourself with a spare half-hour.
-Laurel
I got to the last block on Level 11, dang it. I don't like the "enter your name and e-mail" crud that they put you through to get to the game, but honestly I fudged it. Which complicated things when I won a mini-Sharpie partway through. ::giggles::
Anyway, whatever. The game is all kinds'a fun, and you should play if you find yourself with a spare half-hour.
-Laurel
11.08.2005
-sport spoiled-
I know that this is going to sound snotty and perhaps hypocritical out of me, but there are certain things that are a heck of a lot more enjoyable and less complicated before you start adding intragroup romance into them, and one of them is APO, and the other one is folk dancing.
Neither one is a dating service or a tryst-spot, holy cow.
-Laurel
Neither one is a dating service or a tryst-spot, holy cow.
-Laurel
Chris Rice and Michael W. Smith...jumping rope. Sa-weet. ::laughs::
Okay, Chris Rice's blog is now going in my link section. It is just too good not to read.
Granted that he's also one of my favorite singers, so I may well be biased.
-Laurel
Granted that he's also one of my favorite singers, so I may well be biased.
-Laurel
In Which Laurel Comes to Her Senses, Does As She's Supposed To, and Life Improves
Dishes (save three cups from last time and now my ramen bowl and spoon) are done, and much of my laundry is as well. Recycling has been taken downstairs where it belongs. Almost all of the questionable food has been removed (still gotta deal with those pickles).
Have, as aforementioned, begun to get an APO-related grip. Still havin' to work with the chapter on all manner of headaches. Still havin' to work against chapter apathy on a lot of things. But I'm not at people's throats anymore, and they're not at mine. We (the brotherhood) had a stinkin' long but very reasonable discussion yesterday about how to deal with the particularly troublesome pledge that's done some particularly troublesome things. We ended up coming up with what appears to be a good solution, including both accountability and second-chanceness. Said pledge's response has been good thus far.
The thing is that we're all supposed to be united by our desire to serve others, and in just about every case (including that of the questionable pledge), this is true, but the problem starts in that many cases that's about all we have in common. So any question involving any form of gray area ends up with like nine different projected answers, and because we're all such dedicated people, we have very specific ideas of what has to be part of the answer, and we're humongous pains in the butt.
But with a combination of calmness, debate, dedication to facts, bylaws, parallel reasoning, majority rule, and the Colonel's secret blend of herbs and spices...we're getting there. Perplexed, but not in despair, if the phrase is not irreverent.
Bible study has been simply amazing and I love everyone in it. And tonight I got to send music to Zinni, and that was just good.
I have been getting a half-decent amount of sleep and laying off the caffeine.
What I have yet to do is catch up on my work. But I'm doing that, too.
I'm reading Linked Arms (Thomas Peterson) in my spare time, and it's kind of inspiring to see that the kind of stuff we're doing in APO really might help us deal with real-life difficult situations.
I should finish Ishmael, though, since Tim has started Screwtape Letters. Fair is fair.
-Laurel
Have, as aforementioned, begun to get an APO-related grip. Still havin' to work with the chapter on all manner of headaches. Still havin' to work against chapter apathy on a lot of things. But I'm not at people's throats anymore, and they're not at mine. We (the brotherhood) had a stinkin' long but very reasonable discussion yesterday about how to deal with the particularly troublesome pledge that's done some particularly troublesome things. We ended up coming up with what appears to be a good solution, including both accountability and second-chanceness. Said pledge's response has been good thus far.
The thing is that we're all supposed to be united by our desire to serve others, and in just about every case (including that of the questionable pledge), this is true, but the problem starts in that many cases that's about all we have in common. So any question involving any form of gray area ends up with like nine different projected answers, and because we're all such dedicated people, we have very specific ideas of what has to be part of the answer, and we're humongous pains in the butt.
But with a combination of calmness, debate, dedication to facts, bylaws, parallel reasoning, majority rule, and the Colonel's secret blend of herbs and spices...we're getting there. Perplexed, but not in despair, if the phrase is not irreverent.
Bible study has been simply amazing and I love everyone in it. And tonight I got to send music to Zinni, and that was just good.
I have been getting a half-decent amount of sleep and laying off the caffeine.
What I have yet to do is catch up on my work. But I'm doing that, too.
I'm reading Linked Arms (Thomas Peterson) in my spare time, and it's kind of inspiring to see that the kind of stuff we're doing in APO really might help us deal with real-life difficult situations.
I should finish Ishmael, though, since Tim has started Screwtape Letters. Fair is fair.
-Laurel
11.06.2005
In Which Laurel's New Pile of Dishes, Dirty From Breadmaking, Still Do Not Get Washed
Here's what I did today instead of washing my dishes from last night:
-Woke up at about nine, to have my parents call at about nine-ten, telling me that they were coming down to visit a day earlier than planned
-Entertained said parents from quarter after ten until nearly one PM
-Went to lunch with said parents, Lily Jo, and Lily Jo's parents (the 5th was her 21st birthday)
-Went to a place that, if I described it, would more or less let out the secret of where I'm going to school (since this is a private blog, the odds of my being stalked are slim, and anyone who really wanted to would prolly be smart enough to figure out where I am, since I can think right now of a way to do it, but hey, might's well have a blog mystique)
-Said goodbye to parents and relatives and had a long nap
-Ate dinner and read (a pleasure all round)
-Discovered that karate is, indeed, cancelled for the very semester that I'd planned to take it (spring of this academic year), and picked dance instead (this is how you know that Laurel has progressed from high school to college: she is signing up for fundamentals-of-dance, by choice, ruddy crud)
-Listened to NPR's Says You! for the first-ever time, courtesy of Albert and his computer (it was fun)
-Decided to run to the campus center to pick up a couple of APO things and maybe look into the swing dance going on
-Encountered the Prinze-Nadwornys(!) at the swing dance (they moved to Rochester, as a matter of fact, but come here on weekends), whom I have not seen in person for--::does math::--holy cow! Just about six months! Wow, I totally didn't expect that. Okay, so I hung out with Brian and Raffi and talked, which was supercool, and...
-stayed after they left just to watch, which was very enjoyable, and the music was good and made me think of hearing high school jazz band, and people swing-dancing at the chicken barbecue.
So here I am now, talking to Erik and Glenn and considering going to bed.
-Laurel
-Woke up at about nine, to have my parents call at about nine-ten, telling me that they were coming down to visit a day earlier than planned
-Entertained said parents from quarter after ten until nearly one PM
-Went to lunch with said parents, Lily Jo, and Lily Jo's parents (the 5th was her 21st birthday)
-Went to a place that, if I described it, would more or less let out the secret of where I'm going to school (since this is a private blog, the odds of my being stalked are slim, and anyone who really wanted to would prolly be smart enough to figure out where I am, since I can think right now of a way to do it, but hey, might's well have a blog mystique)
-Said goodbye to parents and relatives and had a long nap
-Ate dinner and read (a pleasure all round)
-Discovered that karate is, indeed, cancelled for the very semester that I'd planned to take it (spring of this academic year), and picked dance instead (this is how you know that Laurel has progressed from high school to college: she is signing up for fundamentals-of-dance, by choice, ruddy crud)
-Listened to NPR's Says You! for the first-ever time, courtesy of Albert and his computer (it was fun)
-Decided to run to the campus center to pick up a couple of APO things and maybe look into the swing dance going on
-Encountered the Prinze-Nadwornys(!) at the swing dance (they moved to Rochester, as a matter of fact, but come here on weekends), whom I have not seen in person for--::does math::--holy cow! Just about six months! Wow, I totally didn't expect that. Okay, so I hung out with Brian and Raffi and talked, which was supercool, and...
-stayed after they left just to watch, which was very enjoyable, and the music was good and made me think of hearing high school jazz band, and people swing-dancing at the chicken barbecue.
So here I am now, talking to Erik and Glenn and considering going to bed.
-Laurel
11.03.2005
::humming "Twilight Zone" theme::
So this comic on Toothpaste for Dinner is just like some of the stuff we were talking about in environmental science today. And I think that's weird.
-Laurel
-Laurel
Starting-point
So I confronted a particular APO member and friend of mine that had said a thing or two about the chapter to Kristin that I didn't particularly appreciate, but I did it over AIM and as detachedly and non-judgementally as possible, deciding to get as many facts as possible before I started arguing.
It worked. I can hardly believe how well. Like, I did have to convince him that I wasn't about to yell at him, or trying to pin anything on him, and I suppose I had that coming, considering that I tend to be pretty passive-aggressive about APO stuff: you get one or two hints, one of them sure to be blatant if also polite, and then if you blithely keep doing whatever-it-is you get the verbal smackdown. I do realize that that needs to stop.
But we ended up having this conversation about something else, having calmly diffused the other situation, where I realized that I've been overestimating the general apathy/corruption level of the chapter, such that I've ended up playing devil's advocate to the e-board for someone who did something inappropriate, thinking that this was just Tim and Tom reacting, when in fact most of the chapter is pretty riled up about it.
Now, though the e-board as a whole is pretty out of touch with the rest of the chapter (goshdarn, for people so wary of administration, we on e-board're pretty good at emulating their evils sometimes, and that's really frustrating), I also learned that I'm a lot more so than I thought. Granted that I wasn't there for the incident in question that everyone's bothered by, and so I was working only from a description, but I seriously thought that that was something that, while certain to touch off Tim and Tom, whose Sam-the-Eagle acts really get to me sometimes, everyone else was going to shrug off. Turns out I was wrong, and the rest of the chapter was pretty bothered as well.
This is a good sign, inasmuch as it's not such a callous world after all, and there's less moral division between chapter members than people have been implying, even if the e-board and chapter need way better communication (though the e-board also needs it internally like whoa).
A better sign, although I know that anonymity has obscured much of this entry, is that I managed (through, I'm serious, a lot of God-help) to have a difficult conversation without losing my temper, which lends a lot of hope that maybe this career in community service administration is a feasible long-term idea, not to mention that staying in APO and not hating the guts out of it is a short-term possibility. I have a lot to learn, but this is a good new beginning.
-Laurel
It worked. I can hardly believe how well. Like, I did have to convince him that I wasn't about to yell at him, or trying to pin anything on him, and I suppose I had that coming, considering that I tend to be pretty passive-aggressive about APO stuff: you get one or two hints, one of them sure to be blatant if also polite, and then if you blithely keep doing whatever-it-is you get the verbal smackdown. I do realize that that needs to stop.
But we ended up having this conversation about something else, having calmly diffused the other situation, where I realized that I've been overestimating the general apathy/corruption level of the chapter, such that I've ended up playing devil's advocate to the e-board for someone who did something inappropriate, thinking that this was just Tim and Tom reacting, when in fact most of the chapter is pretty riled up about it.
Now, though the e-board as a whole is pretty out of touch with the rest of the chapter (goshdarn, for people so wary of administration, we on e-board're pretty good at emulating their evils sometimes, and that's really frustrating), I also learned that I'm a lot more so than I thought. Granted that I wasn't there for the incident in question that everyone's bothered by, and so I was working only from a description, but I seriously thought that that was something that, while certain to touch off Tim and Tom, whose Sam-the-Eagle acts really get to me sometimes, everyone else was going to shrug off. Turns out I was wrong, and the rest of the chapter was pretty bothered as well.
This is a good sign, inasmuch as it's not such a callous world after all, and there's less moral division between chapter members than people have been implying, even if the e-board and chapter need way better communication (though the e-board also needs it internally like whoa).
A better sign, although I know that anonymity has obscured much of this entry, is that I managed (through, I'm serious, a lot of God-help) to have a difficult conversation without losing my temper, which lends a lot of hope that maybe this career in community service administration is a feasible long-term idea, not to mention that staying in APO and not hating the guts out of it is a short-term possibility. I have a lot to learn, but this is a good new beginning.
-Laurel
11.01.2005
Livin' in the Fridge (this entry not really for the squeamish)
Here's how I know I've been completely remiss in my cleaning for far too long: I've encountered two moldy dishes today, an additional one nearing that point, and the spoiled dregs (or so they must be, being four days or so past the due date) of a carton of milk, not to mention all the caked-on applesauce remains from who knows how long ago, though thank goodness homemade applesauce is apparently not good microbe food (they appear, however, to like ramen and German potato salad). I managed to do the worst of the dishes, except the molding one that I just found 30 minutes ago and haven't had the fortitude to remove from my refrigerator.
Here's how I know that this is far too much spoilage to find and deal with all in one day: I looked at myself in the mirror and, for a fleeting part of a second, mistook some of the larger and rounder of my zits as a series of bacteria colonies on what's apparently the agar of my complexion. And so zits are, in a way, but this was ickier.
Flashback to when Albert came over early for Terri's wedding and every piece of bread in the house had rotted through, leaving us to Easy Mac it.
Well, this's bad-dreamlike.
-Laurel
Here's how I know that this is far too much spoilage to find and deal with all in one day: I looked at myself in the mirror and, for a fleeting part of a second, mistook some of the larger and rounder of my zits as a series of bacteria colonies on what's apparently the agar of my complexion. And so zits are, in a way, but this was ickier.
Flashback to when Albert came over early for Terri's wedding and every piece of bread in the house had rotted through, leaving us to Easy Mac it.
Well, this's bad-dreamlike.
-Laurel