Have had a very nice day. I woke up at 8, went downstairs, and watched M*A*S*H--which meant that I got to see "Movie Tonight", the episode I've been trying to see forever and thought I wouldn't be able to (see previous entry). Was very funny. Gary Burghoff (Radar) is very, very good at impressions, as I found from watching the particular episode. Hmph, apparently it's not genetic.
Had a couple of freaky M*A*S*H connections today--when Lily and I were watching another home movie (we were four this time), I could hear the M*A*S*H theme playing in the background on the TV. I don't remember ever hearing it before when I watched it--but then, I wouldn't have recognized it anyway...must've been in syndication already, as it'd been off the air for a few years by the party...
...The other one came later, when we randomly decided to go down to the lake with my uncle (and it really was random; my dad said, out of nowhere, that he wanted to go)--as we pulled into the park by the lake, there was an Ames truck there with 4077 marked on the front bumper (that's the name of the M*A*S*H unit all the doctors and everybody work at).
My brother and I swam lots and lots, and rode around on my uncle's hydrobikes, which were fun but tiring. The bottom was much muddier than any other lake I've been to, which was fun, 'cause it was all water-saturated, so you felt like you were walking in satin or something, and sometimes it'd act sort of like quicksand and grab you a bit by both ankles. Then my brother threw it at me, and it wasn't quite so fun anymore. Was a wonderful day, temperature-wise, and I fell asleep in the grass at one point, which I don't often do.
Ate a ridiculous amount of junk food and macaroni salad stuff (no mayonnaise, hurrah!). On the way back home, my parents decided they wanted to listen to my LotR movie soundtrack, so we popped it in...and by track four, they were done, and put in my brother's Weird Al CD instead. They didn't even get to hear "Aníron", or even the beginning of "The Black Rider" (where Merry and Pippin tackle Frodo and Sam in the Farmer Maggot's cornfield), so they thought it was boring. Hmph. Philistines, all of them (no, not the Biblical kind; the kind that hate art).
Finished Part II of Crime and Punishment; have only to do the questions. Just watched part of an MSNBC special on hypnosis, which freaked us all out because my brother's and my doctors are in it. Got a perfect 36 on my ACT English, 35 on the reading, 32 overall.
It was just a very nice day, and the other great part is, I get to sleep in tomorrow. Lalala.
-Laurel
6.30.2002
6.29.2002
Lily's still here; tonight we went looking for this cooking show that my brother made up and taped, and found lots of home videos instead...we watched this one of my first birthday parties (my extended family's so big that we had to have two--one for Mom's side, one for Dad's), and of Lily's second birthday (and our cousin Chris), and then of me in my really old house, when I was one and a half and two...
...And the video went on farther than I've ever seen it, showing the outside of the house just before we moved, and me eating oatmeal in the kitchen...
...There was something almost empty about the last bit, though...as much as my brother and I almost hate each other most of the time, I can't imagine being an only child. Sometimes I feel lonely even when he's in the house, somehow...I just watched, and the kitchen was sort of dark in the film, and my dad's there telling me not to rip the paper off my crayons...and it's like, I know they had a blast, and I did, too, but I can't imagine that ever being all--no brother. I don't know how Bethie stands it. Maybe that's why she likes my brother so much.
I don't know, in all the other videos before he was born, there's always all these family people around...when it was just the three of us, it seems like there's something hollow about it. It doesn't fit without him.
...That's really weird, considering we're always wishing each other gone for a month (he wants me to ship off to Zinni's or somewhere; I keep suggesting he stay with Bethie...*g*).
Went shopping today; finally found a pair of sandals I liked. They look kind of like yours, Daffy...brown leather with kind of an Irish-knot-lock look to the straps. I like them very much.
Gah, should do knee stretches, 'cause I missed them last night, but is once again not going to happen.
Have missed the M*A*S*H episode I wanted to see, 'cause we were shopping, but it'll rerun (sorry, Zinni, can't decently talk about "Movie Tonight" yet, darn it).
Happy summer days. Haircut Monday, hurrah!
-Laurel
...And the video went on farther than I've ever seen it, showing the outside of the house just before we moved, and me eating oatmeal in the kitchen...
...There was something almost empty about the last bit, though...as much as my brother and I almost hate each other most of the time, I can't imagine being an only child. Sometimes I feel lonely even when he's in the house, somehow...I just watched, and the kitchen was sort of dark in the film, and my dad's there telling me not to rip the paper off my crayons...and it's like, I know they had a blast, and I did, too, but I can't imagine that ever being all--no brother. I don't know how Bethie stands it. Maybe that's why she likes my brother so much.
I don't know, in all the other videos before he was born, there's always all these family people around...when it was just the three of us, it seems like there's something hollow about it. It doesn't fit without him.
...That's really weird, considering we're always wishing each other gone for a month (he wants me to ship off to Zinni's or somewhere; I keep suggesting he stay with Bethie...*g*).
Went shopping today; finally found a pair of sandals I liked. They look kind of like yours, Daffy...brown leather with kind of an Irish-knot-lock look to the straps. I like them very much.
Gah, should do knee stretches, 'cause I missed them last night, but is once again not going to happen.
Have missed the M*A*S*H episode I wanted to see, 'cause we were shopping, but it'll rerun (sorry, Zinni, can't decently talk about "Movie Tonight" yet, darn it).
Happy summer days. Haircut Monday, hurrah!
-Laurel
6.28.2002
You know, there was something I was going to say here, something interesting...oh, yeah! My dream last night! I'd forgotten.
...Okay, my friends will tell you that this dream means that I should stop watching so much TV, because this one involved everything I watched yesterday, plus a couple of things I was thinking about. It's pretty weird...
Last night (in reality, not my dream) I was watching The Cosby Show (have only seen it on and off, but it's lots of fun), and it was an episode where Rudy (who's about six at the time) has seven little girls over to spend the night (and eventually the boy across the street, who sleeps in another room). I also watched a fair bit of M*A*S*H, which comes as no surprise, and had been thinking some about Ananda going off to college, etc. Was also reading a very little bit of Jesus Freaks, the part in the back about what countries are still religiously restricted today--I mention this because my dream had an apparent death in it (what is it with my dreams doing that in the past week?), and maybe the martyr stories influenced that.
Well.
I think it was the first part of my dream when seven little girls very similar to the Cosby Show ones showed up at my house. It was earlyish on a sunny morning, and I was supposed to watch them until the bus came, or their parents came, or something. One of them was a very pretty little Chinese girl, with long black hair, pin-straight; and pretty eyes, I think, and a shyish, seriousish face. There'd been a Chinese girl on the show, too, but she'd looked different. I don't remember whether the bus took some of them or not, but before too long, Mr. Herman--a teacher of mine from the fifth grade, one of my favorites ever; we all adored him--drove up in a shiny red...well, vehicle...it was a form of car, but the roof part curved really high...it reminded me kind of like a big hollow apple (though it wasn't supposed to be connected to the Applebus, far as I can tell). And suddenly, in my dream, I remembered (so to speak)--the pretty little Chinese girl was his. He'd never married, so he'd adopted her. (::shrugs:: This has no relevance to reality, but in my dream, it was sort of a big point.) All the other kids seemed happy to see him, and I think he might have been the bus service, or whatever. I think that was the first part.
The second part was when suddenly I found myself in college with Ananda. The two of us were checking in, or something, and I remember saying, more than once, that I had to find a phone so I could call my mom, 'cause she didn't know where I was. So we went down a short flight of stairs and found the college computer lab. So I'm thinking, okay, I can e-mail her and tell her I'm here. So we go to this one computer, and this college guy's sitting in front of it, and he goes, "Dude, I can't get in" to his friend nearby. The computer is displaying a sign-in program much like the one at school. So I'm like, "I can do it--it's like the ones we have at school." And I try...but my fingers aren't quite working right somehow, and I can't get in. So we go upstairs.
Down in the computer lab, the room had been the kind of grayish-blue you get on a cloudy afternoon when all the lights are off and the shades are drawn. But upstairs was darker, the kind of "Merry blue" I described in my Lord of the Rings post, maybe a little darker...and there, in the room, was B.J. from M*A*S*H.
...But he wasn't alone. As I looked, against the window, a black silhouette showed against the blue--one of a woman, only a sleeveless white dress on, with long, flowing hair, her head thrown back and her hands pushing her hair over her shoulders, making it cascade down as I watched. It was much like a silhouette that had been in one of the M*A*S*H episodes I'd watched that day--but it was a different girl; it wasn't Major Houlihan, like in the show, and she hadn't been doing anything like that. This girl was like a Juliet, almost a balcony scene, but in the room, against the window.
As I came into the room, I saw the girl for herself--tall, and looking like a model; long, thin legs showed from under the dress, and she seemed to walk on her toes. The room was like a dorm room--a bed, a dresser, a closet...and B.J. not far from the window, looking absolutely frantic. This didn't fit, I thought in my dream, because I'd assumed the girl was Peg, B.J.'s wife in the show. But no...that couldn't be right...this girl was too young, and didn't fit the home video of Peg and their child that I'd seen on an episode. B.J. looked at this girl like he was afraid of her, and he was saying something about Peg...
...I don't remember when I managed to discern from him that Peg was dead. Finally B.J. snapped at the girl, who was obviously coming on to him. He began shouting at her as she strode around, something like--"You can't walk like that! You can't stand there! Peg used to stand there like that! ...You can't do that; Peg used to do that!" Frantic, he reached for the dresser and grabbed a stack of white paper doilies that was on it and began to write on them in what I think was a black marker, scribbling DON'T STAND HERE and placing them in clusters on the floor.
...I also don't remember whether it was before the writing, or after, when he finally noticed me standing there (I think Ananda was gone), gave me this half-crazed, wide-eyed, grieving look, and then threw his arms around me, crying in the blue darkness. He knew who I was, though I don't know how. I remember looking at the window from over his shoulder when he was crying on mine. I can't remember whether I was crying myself.
I don't know who came in after that, but he was male--a college student, I think, and I think he was sort of short and heavy--and he either told me that the phone was downstairs or my mom was downstairs, I don't remember which. But I left the room and realized that the college had been built into my house--the stairs were just like ours, and when I came down, I was in the kitchen (though that doesn't fit with my real house), and my mom was there.
...I don't remember anything else until I woke up.
So most of it was TV-influenced, but what's with this recurring death in my dreams? I haven't thought about it any more or less than usual. Was it because I was sort of depressed last night? I don't know, but I think that explains B.J.'s grieved embrace. See, it's a rare-but-recurring phemonenon in my dreams, this being hugged by guys, and until now it's always been adult guys I personally know. Sort of creepy, I know, but sometimes when I'm sort of depressed in real life, it happens--substitute love, maybe? I don't know. It's happened, like, five times ever--but the first one was something like eighth grade, so it's not a thing that happens more than once in about six months. Just...a couple of times it's been because I've been happy to see them--it's someone I've missed--but three of the times, it's been because they were in pain--because someone had died. Instead of being grieved myself, the grief is someone else's, and it's me who's trying to take it away.
...I was thinking last night about love, too, running through all the guys I've ever liked and concluding that I have the worst taste in guys in the world; I always fall for those who aren't popular, who talk to me because other girls don't, and finally I see, too late, why no one likes them, I see that they're really just stupid boys after all, and not higher than that, like I've thought...and then they either don't like me or they manage to land someone pretty. Yeah, that's part of the depression, I think; the other half Ananda's leaving, and about next year with only Daf and me, which neither of us really wants, and how they keep having sleepovers and going over to each other's house, but I can't get to them, and my time's already running out...
Right. That fill in all your gaps, explain my dream, and all?
I have to go. I've spent something like an hour on this. Hm, "Desert Rose" is an excellent song to have been listening to while writing it. The music's mood, though not really the lyrics, fits that of my dream pretty well. Finally found an mp3 of it, see...though it skips for half a second in the middle, darn it...
Will go eat now. ...Truly bizarre. I'm such a ruddy headcase.
-Laurel
...Okay, my friends will tell you that this dream means that I should stop watching so much TV, because this one involved everything I watched yesterday, plus a couple of things I was thinking about. It's pretty weird...
Last night (in reality, not my dream) I was watching The Cosby Show (have only seen it on and off, but it's lots of fun), and it was an episode where Rudy (who's about six at the time) has seven little girls over to spend the night (and eventually the boy across the street, who sleeps in another room). I also watched a fair bit of M*A*S*H, which comes as no surprise, and had been thinking some about Ananda going off to college, etc. Was also reading a very little bit of Jesus Freaks, the part in the back about what countries are still religiously restricted today--I mention this because my dream had an apparent death in it (what is it with my dreams doing that in the past week?), and maybe the martyr stories influenced that.
Well.
I think it was the first part of my dream when seven little girls very similar to the Cosby Show ones showed up at my house. It was earlyish on a sunny morning, and I was supposed to watch them until the bus came, or their parents came, or something. One of them was a very pretty little Chinese girl, with long black hair, pin-straight; and pretty eyes, I think, and a shyish, seriousish face. There'd been a Chinese girl on the show, too, but she'd looked different. I don't remember whether the bus took some of them or not, but before too long, Mr. Herman--a teacher of mine from the fifth grade, one of my favorites ever; we all adored him--drove up in a shiny red...well, vehicle...it was a form of car, but the roof part curved really high...it reminded me kind of like a big hollow apple (though it wasn't supposed to be connected to the Applebus, far as I can tell). And suddenly, in my dream, I remembered (so to speak)--the pretty little Chinese girl was his. He'd never married, so he'd adopted her. (::shrugs:: This has no relevance to reality, but in my dream, it was sort of a big point.) All the other kids seemed happy to see him, and I think he might have been the bus service, or whatever. I think that was the first part.
The second part was when suddenly I found myself in college with Ananda. The two of us were checking in, or something, and I remember saying, more than once, that I had to find a phone so I could call my mom, 'cause she didn't know where I was. So we went down a short flight of stairs and found the college computer lab. So I'm thinking, okay, I can e-mail her and tell her I'm here. So we go to this one computer, and this college guy's sitting in front of it, and he goes, "Dude, I can't get in" to his friend nearby. The computer is displaying a sign-in program much like the one at school. So I'm like, "I can do it--it's like the ones we have at school." And I try...but my fingers aren't quite working right somehow, and I can't get in. So we go upstairs.
Down in the computer lab, the room had been the kind of grayish-blue you get on a cloudy afternoon when all the lights are off and the shades are drawn. But upstairs was darker, the kind of "Merry blue" I described in my Lord of the Rings post, maybe a little darker...and there, in the room, was B.J. from M*A*S*H.
...But he wasn't alone. As I looked, against the window, a black silhouette showed against the blue--one of a woman, only a sleeveless white dress on, with long, flowing hair, her head thrown back and her hands pushing her hair over her shoulders, making it cascade down as I watched. It was much like a silhouette that had been in one of the M*A*S*H episodes I'd watched that day--but it was a different girl; it wasn't Major Houlihan, like in the show, and she hadn't been doing anything like that. This girl was like a Juliet, almost a balcony scene, but in the room, against the window.
As I came into the room, I saw the girl for herself--tall, and looking like a model; long, thin legs showed from under the dress, and she seemed to walk on her toes. The room was like a dorm room--a bed, a dresser, a closet...and B.J. not far from the window, looking absolutely frantic. This didn't fit, I thought in my dream, because I'd assumed the girl was Peg, B.J.'s wife in the show. But no...that couldn't be right...this girl was too young, and didn't fit the home video of Peg and their child that I'd seen on an episode. B.J. looked at this girl like he was afraid of her, and he was saying something about Peg...
...I don't remember when I managed to discern from him that Peg was dead. Finally B.J. snapped at the girl, who was obviously coming on to him. He began shouting at her as she strode around, something like--"You can't walk like that! You can't stand there! Peg used to stand there like that! ...You can't do that; Peg used to do that!" Frantic, he reached for the dresser and grabbed a stack of white paper doilies that was on it and began to write on them in what I think was a black marker, scribbling DON'T STAND HERE and placing them in clusters on the floor.
...I also don't remember whether it was before the writing, or after, when he finally noticed me standing there (I think Ananda was gone), gave me this half-crazed, wide-eyed, grieving look, and then threw his arms around me, crying in the blue darkness. He knew who I was, though I don't know how. I remember looking at the window from over his shoulder when he was crying on mine. I can't remember whether I was crying myself.
I don't know who came in after that, but he was male--a college student, I think, and I think he was sort of short and heavy--and he either told me that the phone was downstairs or my mom was downstairs, I don't remember which. But I left the room and realized that the college had been built into my house--the stairs were just like ours, and when I came down, I was in the kitchen (though that doesn't fit with my real house), and my mom was there.
...I don't remember anything else until I woke up.
So most of it was TV-influenced, but what's with this recurring death in my dreams? I haven't thought about it any more or less than usual. Was it because I was sort of depressed last night? I don't know, but I think that explains B.J.'s grieved embrace. See, it's a rare-but-recurring phemonenon in my dreams, this being hugged by guys, and until now it's always been adult guys I personally know. Sort of creepy, I know, but sometimes when I'm sort of depressed in real life, it happens--substitute love, maybe? I don't know. It's happened, like, five times ever--but the first one was something like eighth grade, so it's not a thing that happens more than once in about six months. Just...a couple of times it's been because I've been happy to see them--it's someone I've missed--but three of the times, it's been because they were in pain--because someone had died. Instead of being grieved myself, the grief is someone else's, and it's me who's trying to take it away.
...I was thinking last night about love, too, running through all the guys I've ever liked and concluding that I have the worst taste in guys in the world; I always fall for those who aren't popular, who talk to me because other girls don't, and finally I see, too late, why no one likes them, I see that they're really just stupid boys after all, and not higher than that, like I've thought...and then they either don't like me or they manage to land someone pretty. Yeah, that's part of the depression, I think; the other half Ananda's leaving, and about next year with only Daf and me, which neither of us really wants, and how they keep having sleepovers and going over to each other's house, but I can't get to them, and my time's already running out...
Right. That fill in all your gaps, explain my dream, and all?
I have to go. I've spent something like an hour on this. Hm, "Desert Rose" is an excellent song to have been listening to while writing it. The music's mood, though not really the lyrics, fits that of my dream pretty well. Finally found an mp3 of it, see...though it skips for half a second in the middle, darn it...
Will go eat now. ...Truly bizarre. I'm such a ruddy headcase.
-Laurel
6.26.2002
A federal appeals court in the 9th circuit has just ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional for its phrase "under God", maintaining that it endorses religion and tries to force it upon people. The original lawsuit came from Dr. Michael Newdow, an atheist. If upheld, at least the nine states under its jurisdiction (western states, if I'm not mistaken) will be totally prohibited to use the term "under God" in the Pledge.
I'm not really sure what it is that I'm supposed to say here. Three-quarters of the United States government has already said it for me--that this thing will be appealed, and in all probability, it will be struck down. Soon, most likely, this will be no more than a case for AP American students to study and memorize; no more than something to be put in documentaries and made-for-TV movies about decades gone by.
All I have are my thoughts, the things that flashed through my mind as I, alerted to the case by--I promise--the Spanish talk show El Gordo y La Flaca (a special bulletin came on and I managed to decipher enough between Spanish and footage to understand, whereupon I switched over to all-news channels), watched CNN...
...the thought of my U.S. History Regents, less than a week ago. Needing two cases to write about concerning expansion or restriction of American civil liberties, I picked the two I knew best, having made slides about them for a project. One was Engel v. Vitale, the case that struck down school prayer. On my Regents, I wrote that it expanded constitutional freedom by acknowledging atheism as a system of belief. Sitting on the floor, hearing a lawyer supportive of the decision mentioning that very idea, I wondered what I really felt, and whether I really cared what the Constitution said. I remembered suddenly how indignant I'd been in eighth grade, the first time we studied Engel, and how now I feel like that again, like in trying not to insult the atheists (why is it always atheists who sue for these things, and not Muslims or Buddhists or anyone?), they've just insulted two of the world's major religions at least...
...mental pictures of what would happen if the case by some anti-miracle was upheld, trying to argue it against someone like our principal, drawing the conversations out in my mind; pictures of rebel students standing and saying it before class, knowing that, were I one of them, my mom would probably support it if enough others were involved, but my dad would probably not...
...and remembering how I'd just spent an hour, reading Jesus Freaks, the book Aunt Cathy (Lily's mom) gave me for my birthday, about those who've suffered for the Christian faith, and how much of it still goes on today (honest, 'Nanda, you have to read it; it's so much like Amnesty reports, and some of the worst ones are recent cases...). One passage, written after the story of a schoolgirl in Russia who refused to join the school's Communist youth league because it went again her faith, haunts me even now; I'm reproducing it here:
In 1963, prayer was banned in American public schools. What would have happened if American parents had taught their children not to submit to this decision? They would not have been beaten, and their parents would not have ended up in jail, as in Russia. Here in the United States, the First Amendment of our Constitution guarantees us freedom of speech and freedom of religion. What have we done with that freedom? Must we wait until it is taken away as it was in Communist Russia or other dictatorial societies before we grow bold enough to stand up and proclaim Jesus before others?
I read the whole story about this on CNN.com, and came across the following quote from a supporter:
"Although no child is forced to say the pledge, the judges said any child whose personal or religious beliefs prevented him from reciting the pledge was left with the 'unacceptable choice between participating and protesting'."
Unacceptable choice? I just finished some 150 cases or so about those who had to make that choice about faith, and a good hundred to hundred-twenty of them died for upholding theirs. This is not an unacceptable choice. No child is forced to say the pledge. Many don't simply out of apathy, as my next paragraph attests. I don't know of anybody who's ever been looked at differently for not saying it. And just...I know there's a separation between church and state, but now it's personal. In 1998 alone, 156,000 Christians were martyred in other countries for their faith. Many of them were Americans. And this means nothing to anyone? It means nothing that more people have died in the past few years for the word "God" than ever died in all the early-day religious persecutions, when Christians were thrown to lions and Jews were seen as complete social pariahs? It means nothing that the U.S. government opens all their proceedings in prayer, that our nation's most popular anthems refer to God, that our money not only says "In God We Trust", but has God's all-seeing eye on the back of the dollar bill?
...and my brother's comment on the whole thing, "It's weird...back in the beginning of the school year, we [his friends and he] were talking about how no one says the pledge anymore...we talked about that ourselves, the "under God" part, said it was weird..." He told me about his class and the Pledge--it's not like my grade. September 11th threw a lot of us out of our apathy and back into saying it--and I include myself in that--and what's always happened, in any case, is that you either say it or remain respectfully silent, and in all cases you stand with your right hand over your heart, looking at the flag. My brother's incredulous question, when I told him about the hand-over-heart, was, "Who does that anymore? Nobody does that with us. We just stand there. Lots of us don't even look at the flag. We just talk." They're sick of it because they "have to say it every day". Kind of like they have to brush their teeth every day, shower every day, dress every day? The Pledge is over before any of those; it's just that they don't get anything out of it.
Just...I don't know, it's probably not going to last long enough to be so angry over. But this isn't the end. They've taken prayer already. My school made our extracurricular Bible study add the word "club" to the end of its name officially, saying we couldn't put up posters or advertise at all unless we did. They make B supervise in name, but he's not allowed to acknowledge our presence; he's not allowed to pray with us, despite his own Christianity. They don't let teachers supervise pole. There were rumors our school team was going to be changed from "Saints" to "Snakes".
...They're worried about us taking over? It looks to me like there's another group in charge.
-Laurel
I'm not really sure what it is that I'm supposed to say here. Three-quarters of the United States government has already said it for me--that this thing will be appealed, and in all probability, it will be struck down. Soon, most likely, this will be no more than a case for AP American students to study and memorize; no more than something to be put in documentaries and made-for-TV movies about decades gone by.
All I have are my thoughts, the things that flashed through my mind as I, alerted to the case by--I promise--the Spanish talk show El Gordo y La Flaca (a special bulletin came on and I managed to decipher enough between Spanish and footage to understand, whereupon I switched over to all-news channels), watched CNN...
...the thought of my U.S. History Regents, less than a week ago. Needing two cases to write about concerning expansion or restriction of American civil liberties, I picked the two I knew best, having made slides about them for a project. One was Engel v. Vitale, the case that struck down school prayer. On my Regents, I wrote that it expanded constitutional freedom by acknowledging atheism as a system of belief. Sitting on the floor, hearing a lawyer supportive of the decision mentioning that very idea, I wondered what I really felt, and whether I really cared what the Constitution said. I remembered suddenly how indignant I'd been in eighth grade, the first time we studied Engel, and how now I feel like that again, like in trying not to insult the atheists (why is it always atheists who sue for these things, and not Muslims or Buddhists or anyone?), they've just insulted two of the world's major religions at least...
...mental pictures of what would happen if the case by some anti-miracle was upheld, trying to argue it against someone like our principal, drawing the conversations out in my mind; pictures of rebel students standing and saying it before class, knowing that, were I one of them, my mom would probably support it if enough others were involved, but my dad would probably not...
...and remembering how I'd just spent an hour, reading Jesus Freaks, the book Aunt Cathy (Lily's mom) gave me for my birthday, about those who've suffered for the Christian faith, and how much of it still goes on today (honest, 'Nanda, you have to read it; it's so much like Amnesty reports, and some of the worst ones are recent cases...). One passage, written after the story of a schoolgirl in Russia who refused to join the school's Communist youth league because it went again her faith, haunts me even now; I'm reproducing it here:
In 1963, prayer was banned in American public schools. What would have happened if American parents had taught their children not to submit to this decision? They would not have been beaten, and their parents would not have ended up in jail, as in Russia. Here in the United States, the First Amendment of our Constitution guarantees us freedom of speech and freedom of religion. What have we done with that freedom? Must we wait until it is taken away as it was in Communist Russia or other dictatorial societies before we grow bold enough to stand up and proclaim Jesus before others?
I read the whole story about this on CNN.com, and came across the following quote from a supporter:
"Although no child is forced to say the pledge, the judges said any child whose personal or religious beliefs prevented him from reciting the pledge was left with the 'unacceptable choice between participating and protesting'."
Unacceptable choice? I just finished some 150 cases or so about those who had to make that choice about faith, and a good hundred to hundred-twenty of them died for upholding theirs. This is not an unacceptable choice. No child is forced to say the pledge. Many don't simply out of apathy, as my next paragraph attests. I don't know of anybody who's ever been looked at differently for not saying it. And just...I know there's a separation between church and state, but now it's personal. In 1998 alone, 156,000 Christians were martyred in other countries for their faith. Many of them were Americans. And this means nothing to anyone? It means nothing that more people have died in the past few years for the word "God" than ever died in all the early-day religious persecutions, when Christians were thrown to lions and Jews were seen as complete social pariahs? It means nothing that the U.S. government opens all their proceedings in prayer, that our nation's most popular anthems refer to God, that our money not only says "In God We Trust", but has God's all-seeing eye on the back of the dollar bill?
...and my brother's comment on the whole thing, "It's weird...back in the beginning of the school year, we [his friends and he] were talking about how no one says the pledge anymore...we talked about that ourselves, the "under God" part, said it was weird..." He told me about his class and the Pledge--it's not like my grade. September 11th threw a lot of us out of our apathy and back into saying it--and I include myself in that--and what's always happened, in any case, is that you either say it or remain respectfully silent, and in all cases you stand with your right hand over your heart, looking at the flag. My brother's incredulous question, when I told him about the hand-over-heart, was, "Who does that anymore? Nobody does that with us. We just stand there. Lots of us don't even look at the flag. We just talk." They're sick of it because they "have to say it every day". Kind of like they have to brush their teeth every day, shower every day, dress every day? The Pledge is over before any of those; it's just that they don't get anything out of it.
Just...I don't know, it's probably not going to last long enough to be so angry over. But this isn't the end. They've taken prayer already. My school made our extracurricular Bible study add the word "club" to the end of its name officially, saying we couldn't put up posters or advertise at all unless we did. They make B supervise in name, but he's not allowed to acknowledge our presence; he's not allowed to pray with us, despite his own Christianity. They don't let teachers supervise pole. There were rumors our school team was going to be changed from "Saints" to "Snakes".
...They're worried about us taking over? It looks to me like there's another group in charge.
-Laurel
6.25.2002
Today was my first day of work. Got dropped off early, 'cause of my mom's dentist appointment and all, so Dad and I went to the student union and had breakfast first (had a wheat bagel with cream cheese, not that anyone cares). On our way there, we were stopped by Tommy O'Connor, one of the janitors. He's this happy, funny, wizened old Irish guy, and, needless to say, my dad loves talking to him. Tommy said he's going back to Ireland on the Fourth of July ("if I can get across the borders!") and will be there for a couple of weeks. When he and my dad said goodbye, and Dad and I went walking back toward the cafeteria, Dad said, in a sort of absent, daydreamy way he hardly ever gets, "Someday you and I are going to go to Ireland, and we'll say hi to Tommy while we're there." ...My dad wants to go to Ireland re-e-eally badly. Somebody on his side of the family--one of the random great-aunts, I think--has already been there, and the pictures were very cool. It's his side that's Irish, anyway--Mom's is English going back to Captain Cook and farther; guess that's why I've always wanted to see both places. Maybe it's genetic, just the whole need to see them sometime. I've always been a bit partial to England 'cause of all the great British books I've read (Sherlock Holmes, for example, made me pine for London long before I ever felt any desire to see Dublin), but Ireland is way up there, too (wonder if they'll think me truly Irish, as I'm resolved never to drink...).
Once that was done, we went to the admissions office, and Sheila--*sigh* I never know whether to call her that now, seems like I should call her "Mrs."--gave me a quick tour of the places within the building that I'd need to know about. She's probably my higher boss--I can't remember the name yet of the one who works in the actual room I'm in--and is certainly more formal in this light, which is understandable, but a bit regrettable--I get the feeling it'll never quite be casual with her again, even when we're out of work. Maybe I'll end up wrong, though.
I work with about six full-time people (only three were here today) in the big room across the hall from Sheila. I think my mom worked there for a little bit before she switched over to financial aid, but in any case, I've been there lots of times. It looks very different now, though, and I didn't recognize as many of the people, though they certainly recognized me: my dad's worked here since I was two, and was even co-head of admissions for a short time (the other guy was my dad's coworker and best friend), so they've all seen me dozens of times. Of course, I don't remember any of them (except Mary, whom I remember solely because back in about fifth or sixth grade, my brother and I were arguing about something, and she, whom we'd never seen before, broke in with her strange Brooklyn-like accent and told us to ask God to help us get along with each other, which shut us up mainly out of mutual surprise, confusion, and being a bit weirded out), but they're all very nice. Most of them are in their 50s and 60s, and most have a supreme weakness for things like cake (my mom jokingly cited her health as one of the factors in her decision to take the job offered her in aid a few years ago...*g*)--my brother and I remember the food table outside the door very well, and it's still in full swing, though today there was nothing sweet there except a bag of dried fruit (the other stuff was pretzels, tortilla chips, etc.).
Anyway, the first thing that happened was that Lynn--I think it was Lynn, anyway--taught me how to log into the phones. This is not too complicated a business, except for remembering which four-digit number goes with which phone. All the same, I haven't tried it myself yet, so it should be interesting when I do.
They're going to start training me to answer the phones for next week, when two of the main ones are gone. This is the only part of the job that scares me, mainly because Mom's got so many stories about how clueless the people over the phone tend to be. (Actually, she also has one that's pretty funny: Back when I was about three, even before she officially worked there, she helped out one summer at a place dubbed the "Ranch Branch"--better not to ask; I'm not sure myself--was it Molly she was working with? I'm going to say it was--and it was really hot there, 'cause it wasn't air-conditioned. So they had all these fans going, and there were typewriters running--hey, the late 80s were pre-Microsoft Word--and all this stuff, and some random sicko put in an obscene phone call to the Ranch Branch, and Molly happened to be the one to get it. But Molly, who couldn't hear through the fans and stuff, had no idea what he was saying, and replied, quote, "Could you please repeat that?") But I think I'll be okay eventually.
Usually, Lynn told me, there's lots of stuff to do in the office, but today she could hardly find anything. So for my first hour and a half, I cheerfully shredded documents, feeling much like a modernized Radar/Klinger (they're company clerks, which are essentially secretaries--Radar's clerk first, then Klinger after Radar leaves). This was very easy, though noisy and a bit back-tiring, and I never really got bored of it (though Lynn assured me that I will be by Friday). I also got several visits from people in financial aid, all excited by my mom telling them that I was working over in admissions.
Sheila and Lynn decided to send me on a tour of the campus at eleven--like I said, I've been on campus for years now, but only in certain places--anything past the library and I'm pretty clueless. Once I'd shredded all the papers, though, I still had an hour, so I followed--argh, gonna call her Sharon, but I know that's wrong--down to the file archives to help her find a folder, then tried to match up papers in this one bin to their respective folders, if the folders were in the office, which they usually weren't.
While I was downstairs, Mom came in and told everyone, laughing, that my dad had gotten a phone call from my brother, who had informed him in a serious tone that I was missing. *g* I thought he knew I was working today. I guess not. I heard the story when I came back in.
Then I went on the tour, which felt longish because of how hot it was. While on it, I met Jim, the college student who works in admissions in the afternoon. He wasn't giving it, but tagged along for the sheer heck of it (his hours hadn't started yet). He seems very nice, and he's rather good-looking, come to think of it. (Not that Daffy should get any ideas about fixing me up...*g*) Well, by my standards, anyway--I imagine Ananda would tell me that his hair isn't long enough or something. *g*
Speaking of hair, I get my hair cut very short--kind of Sarah Hughes-style, for all who watched the Olympic figure-skating--on July the first. Have never done such a thing before, so I fervently hope that I don't end up looking like a freak.
Anyway, at tour's end at noon, I signed out (eventually I'll be punching a time card--how corporate--but for now I've got a green time sheet to fill out) and went to greet Mom--who asked, "Aren't you supposed to be working until 12:30? This is only three-and-a-half hours."
Ooh. I had no idea, as Sheila hadn't told me anything, so we went back and asked her, and she said it didn't matter, except that I'd be paid slighly less, since it was by the hour. So I knocked off early today, and will work until 12:30 all my other days.
And then I drove home, 'cause I had to--managed not to do anything too dense; had lunch; and beat Mario 64 (yes!), at which point my brother and his friend demanded the use of the Nintendo, so I came up and wrote this. It is now 2:55, despite the fact that this won't go up until at least four.
Day successfully accomplished. I'm going to watch M*A*S*H.
-Laurel
Once that was done, we went to the admissions office, and Sheila--*sigh* I never know whether to call her that now, seems like I should call her "Mrs."--gave me a quick tour of the places within the building that I'd need to know about. She's probably my higher boss--I can't remember the name yet of the one who works in the actual room I'm in--and is certainly more formal in this light, which is understandable, but a bit regrettable--I get the feeling it'll never quite be casual with her again, even when we're out of work. Maybe I'll end up wrong, though.
I work with about six full-time people (only three were here today) in the big room across the hall from Sheila. I think my mom worked there for a little bit before she switched over to financial aid, but in any case, I've been there lots of times. It looks very different now, though, and I didn't recognize as many of the people, though they certainly recognized me: my dad's worked here since I was two, and was even co-head of admissions for a short time (the other guy was my dad's coworker and best friend), so they've all seen me dozens of times. Of course, I don't remember any of them (except Mary, whom I remember solely because back in about fifth or sixth grade, my brother and I were arguing about something, and she, whom we'd never seen before, broke in with her strange Brooklyn-like accent and told us to ask God to help us get along with each other, which shut us up mainly out of mutual surprise, confusion, and being a bit weirded out), but they're all very nice. Most of them are in their 50s and 60s, and most have a supreme weakness for things like cake (my mom jokingly cited her health as one of the factors in her decision to take the job offered her in aid a few years ago...*g*)--my brother and I remember the food table outside the door very well, and it's still in full swing, though today there was nothing sweet there except a bag of dried fruit (the other stuff was pretzels, tortilla chips, etc.).
Anyway, the first thing that happened was that Lynn--I think it was Lynn, anyway--taught me how to log into the phones. This is not too complicated a business, except for remembering which four-digit number goes with which phone. All the same, I haven't tried it myself yet, so it should be interesting when I do.
They're going to start training me to answer the phones for next week, when two of the main ones are gone. This is the only part of the job that scares me, mainly because Mom's got so many stories about how clueless the people over the phone tend to be. (Actually, she also has one that's pretty funny: Back when I was about three, even before she officially worked there, she helped out one summer at a place dubbed the "Ranch Branch"--better not to ask; I'm not sure myself--was it Molly she was working with? I'm going to say it was--and it was really hot there, 'cause it wasn't air-conditioned. So they had all these fans going, and there were typewriters running--hey, the late 80s were pre-Microsoft Word--and all this stuff, and some random sicko put in an obscene phone call to the Ranch Branch, and Molly happened to be the one to get it. But Molly, who couldn't hear through the fans and stuff, had no idea what he was saying, and replied, quote, "Could you please repeat that?") But I think I'll be okay eventually.
Usually, Lynn told me, there's lots of stuff to do in the office, but today she could hardly find anything. So for my first hour and a half, I cheerfully shredded documents, feeling much like a modernized Radar/Klinger (they're company clerks, which are essentially secretaries--Radar's clerk first, then Klinger after Radar leaves). This was very easy, though noisy and a bit back-tiring, and I never really got bored of it (though Lynn assured me that I will be by Friday). I also got several visits from people in financial aid, all excited by my mom telling them that I was working over in admissions.
Sheila and Lynn decided to send me on a tour of the campus at eleven--like I said, I've been on campus for years now, but only in certain places--anything past the library and I'm pretty clueless. Once I'd shredded all the papers, though, I still had an hour, so I followed--argh, gonna call her Sharon, but I know that's wrong--down to the file archives to help her find a folder, then tried to match up papers in this one bin to their respective folders, if the folders were in the office, which they usually weren't.
While I was downstairs, Mom came in and told everyone, laughing, that my dad had gotten a phone call from my brother, who had informed him in a serious tone that I was missing. *g* I thought he knew I was working today. I guess not. I heard the story when I came back in.
Then I went on the tour, which felt longish because of how hot it was. While on it, I met Jim, the college student who works in admissions in the afternoon. He wasn't giving it, but tagged along for the sheer heck of it (his hours hadn't started yet). He seems very nice, and he's rather good-looking, come to think of it. (Not that Daffy should get any ideas about fixing me up...*g*) Well, by my standards, anyway--I imagine Ananda would tell me that his hair isn't long enough or something. *g*
Speaking of hair, I get my hair cut very short--kind of Sarah Hughes-style, for all who watched the Olympic figure-skating--on July the first. Have never done such a thing before, so I fervently hope that I don't end up looking like a freak.
Anyway, at tour's end at noon, I signed out (eventually I'll be punching a time card--how corporate--but for now I've got a green time sheet to fill out) and went to greet Mom--who asked, "Aren't you supposed to be working until 12:30? This is only three-and-a-half hours."
Ooh. I had no idea, as Sheila hadn't told me anything, so we went back and asked her, and she said it didn't matter, except that I'd be paid slighly less, since it was by the hour. So I knocked off early today, and will work until 12:30 all my other days.
And then I drove home, 'cause I had to--managed not to do anything too dense; had lunch; and beat Mario 64 (yes!), at which point my brother and his friend demanded the use of the Nintendo, so I came up and wrote this. It is now 2:55, despite the fact that this won't go up until at least four.
Day successfully accomplished. I'm going to watch M*A*S*H.
-Laurel
6.24.2002
Tomorrow I join the working world. Am actually working part-time in a non-baby-sitting atmosphere, four hours a day, five days a week (well, four days this week, but still...), Even on minimum wage, and Mom says I might get a bit more, that's more money per week than I've ever had all in one place. ...Well, actually, maybe it's exactly the amount I've had in one place, but, wow, I guess I don't have to scrimp for Samweli money anymore...
::pauses::
Have just read my SAT scores, and most of the world will be sick at the fact that I'm disappointed with my 770 verbal score, but, gosh dang it, two of my friends (at least; haven't seen Daffy's yet) got 800s, and they're both always making me edit their papers! Argh! 630 on math, which is good for me. 1400 total, 20 points less than I was supposed to get based on PSATs, 120 points less than Ananda.
Carp. Hope the ACTs are better than that. The verbal was certainly easier (now watch me do badly on it).
Anyway, work tomorrow, and I feel rather first-day-of-school-eve, except that I care a bit less about what I'm going to wear. As a student worker in a college in the summertime (my parents both work there, too), I can wear shorts and a T-shirt, and will not be seen by most of the general public.
Will have to be there ruddy early, though, as we've only one vehicle--the van, which got smashed a bit in the front the day I took the SAT (wow, the results came back quickly, come to think of it) is finally being fixed--the bad news is that my mom has a dentist appointment at 8. So Dad and I have to be there at 7:30 so she can take the car, which means I have to be up at 6.
Hm, perhaps I should go to bed now, then.
-Laurel
::pauses::
Have just read my SAT scores, and most of the world will be sick at the fact that I'm disappointed with my 770 verbal score, but, gosh dang it, two of my friends (at least; haven't seen Daffy's yet) got 800s, and they're both always making me edit their papers! Argh! 630 on math, which is good for me. 1400 total, 20 points less than I was supposed to get based on PSATs, 120 points less than Ananda.
Carp. Hope the ACTs are better than that. The verbal was certainly easier (now watch me do badly on it).
Anyway, work tomorrow, and I feel rather first-day-of-school-eve, except that I care a bit less about what I'm going to wear. As a student worker in a college in the summertime (my parents both work there, too), I can wear shorts and a T-shirt, and will not be seen by most of the general public.
Will have to be there ruddy early, though, as we've only one vehicle--the van, which got smashed a bit in the front the day I took the SAT (wow, the results came back quickly, come to think of it) is finally being fixed--the bad news is that my mom has a dentist appointment at 8. So Dad and I have to be there at 7:30 so she can take the car, which means I have to be up at 6.
Hm, perhaps I should go to bed now, then.
-Laurel
6.23.2002
6.20.2002
Yeah, okay--y'know that poem "Aníron", the one that got me into Quenya in the first place?
Turns out it's not Quenya at all. It's written in Sindarin, the one that baffles me when I try to follow the lyrics to "Lament for Gandalf" on the LotR soundtrack.
Right. I feel a bit of a twit. (Hm, unfortunate choice of words on my part--there's a Whose Line hoedown sentence that's almost like that, but with a dirty word in place of "twit" that I didn't realize was a dirty word until I'd said it in front of my mom...spelled much like "twit", but not quite...)
...Suppose I shall have to write LotR now instead of my much-used LOTR, since a) I do SdlA, b) it's more gramatically correct that way, and c) the guy who writes the Quenya course, whom I have come to see as a sort of quintessential Tolkien expert, writes it like that.
Will not be online for most of the weekend, as my family will be leaving tomorrow for my cousin's house for his graduation on Saturday. Which means, of course, that I'm going to be missing Ananda's. While this buys me some time, graduation-present wise *g*, it also means that I cannot see Ananda graduate, nor Kevin, nor anyone else.
...Would once have mourned also for my inability to see Bryan and Aubrey graduate, but...
...Ananda was talking about doctor's exams...have been wondering for quite some time now what I am going to say to my own. See, her first question every year is, more or less, "Tell me about school this year." It's cool that she's into the psychological (and she's got a very fun British accent: she started here when I was in eighth grade; I got switched over to her by my original doctor, a guy, who still does my brother's summer appointments), but it's like, My year? Right. Well...y'know, if you want the best account, I've got these blogs, see, and some e-mail archives...
And it's so true; everything I have to say about this year can be found either here, on Topaz Meanderings, or in a saved piece of e-mail. Just...it's one thing with this blog, where everybody either is a best friend or doesn't know me at all. It's one thing with my friends or with Lily or even with the school psychiatrist (whom I talked nearly to death when she brought me in about Aubrey). But how much do I want to get into? Do I want to get into Bryan? He's the closest I've had to a boyfriend, which I also always get asked about (followed invariably by the question, "Have you ever felt any pressure to date?" when I invariably tell her no), but...does such a boy even dignify discussion, considering his official take on the matter? And there was a time when all I wanted to do was talk to somebody about Aubrey, but now I feel like the less said by anyone who doesn't know him, the better. But will, I am sure, discuss both. And my gym injury. Gah.
Hope I can get on tonight once more, though, 'cause the first part of Ananda's graduation present--indeed, really for Ananda and Daffy and Zinni and Bethie and Megan--is only a few words from being done (something written, yes--have been working on it off and on for some time now), and I wanted to get it to Ananda before graduation.
-Laurel
Turns out it's not Quenya at all. It's written in Sindarin, the one that baffles me when I try to follow the lyrics to "Lament for Gandalf" on the LotR soundtrack.
Right. I feel a bit of a twit. (Hm, unfortunate choice of words on my part--there's a Whose Line hoedown sentence that's almost like that, but with a dirty word in place of "twit" that I didn't realize was a dirty word until I'd said it in front of my mom...spelled much like "twit", but not quite...)
...Suppose I shall have to write LotR now instead of my much-used LOTR, since a) I do SdlA, b) it's more gramatically correct that way, and c) the guy who writes the Quenya course, whom I have come to see as a sort of quintessential Tolkien expert, writes it like that.
Will not be online for most of the weekend, as my family will be leaving tomorrow for my cousin's house for his graduation on Saturday. Which means, of course, that I'm going to be missing Ananda's. While this buys me some time, graduation-present wise *g*, it also means that I cannot see Ananda graduate, nor Kevin, nor anyone else.
...Would once have mourned also for my inability to see Bryan and Aubrey graduate, but...
...Ananda was talking about doctor's exams...have been wondering for quite some time now what I am going to say to my own. See, her first question every year is, more or less, "Tell me about school this year." It's cool that she's into the psychological (and she's got a very fun British accent: she started here when I was in eighth grade; I got switched over to her by my original doctor, a guy, who still does my brother's summer appointments), but it's like, My year? Right. Well...y'know, if you want the best account, I've got these blogs, see, and some e-mail archives...
And it's so true; everything I have to say about this year can be found either here, on Topaz Meanderings, or in a saved piece of e-mail. Just...it's one thing with this blog, where everybody either is a best friend or doesn't know me at all. It's one thing with my friends or with Lily or even with the school psychiatrist (whom I talked nearly to death when she brought me in about Aubrey). But how much do I want to get into? Do I want to get into Bryan? He's the closest I've had to a boyfriend, which I also always get asked about (followed invariably by the question, "Have you ever felt any pressure to date?" when I invariably tell her no), but...does such a boy even dignify discussion, considering his official take on the matter? And there was a time when all I wanted to do was talk to somebody about Aubrey, but now I feel like the less said by anyone who doesn't know him, the better. But will, I am sure, discuss both. And my gym injury. Gah.
Hope I can get on tonight once more, though, 'cause the first part of Ananda's graduation present--indeed, really for Ananda and Daffy and Zinni and Bethie and Megan--is only a few words from being done (something written, yes--have been working on it off and on for some time now), and I wanted to get it to Ananda before graduation.
-Laurel
6.19.2002
Exams today went very well. I was a bit tired for English, but it was the best testing atmosphere I've had in some time--not hot, not cold, the slightest bit of breeze...everyone quiet, only sound the occasional scrape of a chair or the more-constant-but-less-noticeable (and somehow slightly comforting) echoing rustle of pages being turned throughout the gym...I never thought so many people could be so quiet.
My third essay was very good, I thought--may even be six material, now that I've learned how to incorporate elements without hitting people over the head with them. I thought my connections were pretty good, and it was a tricky poem to interpret, so maybe I'll get some brownie points for doing it validly (as I assume I did).
Spanish was almost blindingly easy; the test was much better this time, especially in the way it was written, though there were a couple of odd questions still. This time, I got all the daydreaming time I wanted. That's what bugged me most last time--not having time to stop and think.
Got out of the Spanish exam at about 1:10, then staged a daring raid into my English teacher's (unlocked) room to retrieve my group's Puritan-saltbox-style craft stick house. Lest suspicion of robbery arise, I left the following message on the board in brown dry-erase marker (the only color still in the holder), with an arrow drawn to the now-empty space where it had been (mainly just 'cause I felt like it):
Hi. Have rescued the house. Bethie wants to destroy it. Hm. Bye! -[initials]
...Had originally considered just swiping the thing and leaving a big, bold Nobody expects the Spanish Inqusition! in dashing, angular writing, but a) that's our Medea joke and he wouldn't have gotten it, and b) Melinda didn't help build the house, so it didn't seem quite right. As Daffy will point out, since two of our trio did, I suppose I could have written Nobody expects the Sp-- and left off there, but...no, no, fine as it was.
And, actually, Bethie wants to burn the house, but just in case somebody else happened to see the message, I figured I oughtn't to put that, either.
Got home and my brother informed me that we were locked out, as he'd gone to his friend's and left the key on the counter. Great. So I actually read some college mail(!), and my brother got my dad to come home and unlock it for us (he kind of wanted to work on the deck anyway, or whatever it is that he's working on).
Must write reservation letter for Leo Club. Hmph. Suppose I should also study for U.S. History Regents, but, to paraphrase Bridget Jones, what is ruddy point?
Will go now.
-Laurel
My third essay was very good, I thought--may even be six material, now that I've learned how to incorporate elements without hitting people over the head with them. I thought my connections were pretty good, and it was a tricky poem to interpret, so maybe I'll get some brownie points for doing it validly (as I assume I did).
Spanish was almost blindingly easy; the test was much better this time, especially in the way it was written, though there were a couple of odd questions still. This time, I got all the daydreaming time I wanted. That's what bugged me most last time--not having time to stop and think.
Got out of the Spanish exam at about 1:10, then staged a daring raid into my English teacher's (unlocked) room to retrieve my group's Puritan-saltbox-style craft stick house. Lest suspicion of robbery arise, I left the following message on the board in brown dry-erase marker (the only color still in the holder), with an arrow drawn to the now-empty space where it had been (mainly just 'cause I felt like it):
Hi. Have rescued the house. Bethie wants to destroy it. Hm. Bye! -[initials]
...Had originally considered just swiping the thing and leaving a big, bold Nobody expects the Spanish Inqusition! in dashing, angular writing, but a) that's our Medea joke and he wouldn't have gotten it, and b) Melinda didn't help build the house, so it didn't seem quite right. As Daffy will point out, since two of our trio did, I suppose I could have written Nobody expects the Sp-- and left off there, but...no, no, fine as it was.
And, actually, Bethie wants to burn the house, but just in case somebody else happened to see the message, I figured I oughtn't to put that, either.
Got home and my brother informed me that we were locked out, as he'd gone to his friend's and left the key on the counter. Great. So I actually read some college mail(!), and my brother got my dad to come home and unlock it for us (he kind of wanted to work on the deck anyway, or whatever it is that he's working on).
Must write reservation letter for Leo Club. Hmph. Suppose I should also study for U.S. History Regents, but, to paraphrase Bridget Jones, what is ruddy point?
Will go now.
-Laurel
6.18.2002
Hm. Have to say that baseball is boring.
Meant to read SdlA some, and ended up reading the bits near the end. Found Quickbeam's name translated to Spanish, which I'd missed before--what was it? Something-viva. Dang.
New expression alert: Gack. Used in Ireland the same way as England's "git", or in the sense of "dorky", but I tend to use it more as a sign of frustration, as follows from IM:
::reading Zinni's blog:: Gack! Ruddy forgot to ruddy watch BSS today, and told myself I would b/c Rene Auberjonois was on! Argh!
BSS is Black Sheep Squadron, which Zinni has been trying to get me to watch--I keep forgetting.
You've been awfully quiet, 'Nanda...
-Laurel
Meant to read SdlA some, and ended up reading the bits near the end. Found Quickbeam's name translated to Spanish, which I'd missed before--what was it? Something-viva. Dang.
New expression alert: Gack. Used in Ireland the same way as England's "git", or in the sense of "dorky", but I tend to use it more as a sign of frustration, as follows from IM:
::reading Zinni's blog:: Gack! Ruddy forgot to ruddy watch BSS today, and told myself I would b/c Rene Auberjonois was on! Argh!
BSS is Black Sheep Squadron, which Zinni has been trying to get me to watch--I keep forgetting.
You've been awfully quiet, 'Nanda...
-Laurel
6.17.2002
From Daffy's blog:
An' Laur, you *can't* concentrate on Pippin an' M*A*S*H the whole time an' pay [Labyrinth] little attention.. Me an' Ananda intently watched M*A*S*H, didn't think of Jareth, only fair you pay attention to Labyrinth. Ha.
::sighs:: It's a decent point, and one I figured you'd make...really, I could sit there dreaming anyway, due to the fact that I consider LOTR and M*A*S*H to be programming of such a better level that it automatically justifies me, but in the first place, I doubt you'd care; second, I don't want my e-mail flooded with Jareth pictures; and third, I think I'm generally in enough trouble already. *g*
...However, you intently watched M*A*S*H; Ananda was on the phone for fully 2/3 of the time. I think that allows me to go off into occasional mental breaks...
-Laurel
An' Laur, you *can't* concentrate on Pippin an' M*A*S*H the whole time an' pay [Labyrinth] little attention.. Me an' Ananda intently watched M*A*S*H, didn't think of Jareth, only fair you pay attention to Labyrinth. Ha.
::sighs:: It's a decent point, and one I figured you'd make...really, I could sit there dreaming anyway, due to the fact that I consider LOTR and M*A*S*H to be programming of such a better level that it automatically justifies me, but in the first place, I doubt you'd care; second, I don't want my e-mail flooded with Jareth pictures; and third, I think I'm generally in enough trouble already. *g*
...However, you intently watched M*A*S*H; Ananda was on the phone for fully 2/3 of the time. I think that allows me to go off into occasional mental breaks...
-Laurel
Hm, have posted more in the past 36 hours than I usually do in three or four days, haven't I? And all of them happy, or at least not melo-tragic. Baffling. *g*
Oh, but Zinni, I hope your uncle's okay soon...how sad about the pets...the kids must have been terrified.
::shrugs:: And I'm sorry, Daffy, but I as yet have no pity whatsoever for Labyrinth's Jareth. Even the line you guys quote obsessively, "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave!" ...you guys don't even see the irony in that, do you? That's not love...he doesn't want real love, or he wouldn't beg her to love him...is she gonna make herself love him? If he's going to worship her on condition that she worships him, he sounds more like somebody with a relationship problem than anything else.
I give you she's a dimwit...that I've decided just on basis of the lines...but I don't pity him. He's got no taste and a warped sense of love. And Sarah wants to be home with her brother now. She learns to love him. And a lot better than freaky-Jareth, too...
...I am gonna get it, aren't I? ::wry smile:: Oh, dear...first redecorating Ananda's locker and now Jareth-bashing...am starting to feel like Hawkeye a la "The Joker is Wild", just waiting for B.J. (read: Ananda) to pounce...
And I have to watch it once, I know--I promised--but I hereby warn you that I'm going to be thinking about Pippin and M*A*S*H the whole time, and paying as little attention as humanly possible. I know the whole plot already...
English final, part one, is tomorrow. I would study, but...what's there to study?
-Laurel
Oh, but Zinni, I hope your uncle's okay soon...how sad about the pets...the kids must have been terrified.
::shrugs:: And I'm sorry, Daffy, but I as yet have no pity whatsoever for Labyrinth's Jareth. Even the line you guys quote obsessively, "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave!" ...you guys don't even see the irony in that, do you? That's not love...he doesn't want real love, or he wouldn't beg her to love him...is she gonna make herself love him? If he's going to worship her on condition that she worships him, he sounds more like somebody with a relationship problem than anything else.
I give you she's a dimwit...that I've decided just on basis of the lines...but I don't pity him. He's got no taste and a warped sense of love. And Sarah wants to be home with her brother now. She learns to love him. And a lot better than freaky-Jareth, too...
...I am gonna get it, aren't I? ::wry smile:: Oh, dear...first redecorating Ananda's locker and now Jareth-bashing...am starting to feel like Hawkeye a la "The Joker is Wild", just waiting for B.J. (read: Ananda) to pounce...
And I have to watch it once, I know--I promised--but I hereby warn you that I'm going to be thinking about Pippin and M*A*S*H the whole time, and paying as little attention as humanly possible. I know the whole plot already...
English final, part one, is tomorrow. I would study, but...what's there to study?
-Laurel
6.16.2002
::laughing hysterically::
Time for the lighter side of Quid Pro Quo. Check this action out. Oh, wow.
I cannot believe they actually sold those things. I mean, they're little-kid toys! ("Mommy, the dog's been chewing on Klinger's dress, and he's got a date tonight!") And what I want to know is, where's Radar?
I love M*A*S*H. ::still laughing::
...Was planning on being asleep an hour ago...but oh, well, Zinni and I've been having rather a M*A*S*H-fest over IM (a "did you see this episode?" kind of deal...lots of fun!). Hence random silliness, including the above.
-Laurel
Time for the lighter side of Quid Pro Quo. Check this action out. Oh, wow.
I cannot believe they actually sold those things. I mean, they're little-kid toys! ("Mommy, the dog's been chewing on Klinger's dress, and he's got a date tonight!") And what I want to know is, where's Radar?
I love M*A*S*H. ::still laughing::
...Was planning on being asleep an hour ago...but oh, well, Zinni and I've been having rather a M*A*S*H-fest over IM (a "did you see this episode?" kind of deal...lots of fun!). Hence random silliness, including the above.
-Laurel
Been reading everyone else's blogs (this has become, seriously, one of my favorite pastimes--I'm so nosy! *g*), and it's time for some inter-blog messages.
Daffy--don't worry about your blog. We like it anyway, 'cause it's your stuff, and we know you'll get profound eventually. Mine started out that way, too, in a way--remember? It all depends on what's going on in your world...and you, like Zinni, have reached rather an impasse, self-wise. The best thing about blogs is how great they are for saying what's on your mind. I promise, Daffy, your blog is always worlds better than the random ones I click on at the Blogger main page when I'm feeling curious or bored. (Certainly yours is cleaner. *g*) ...And I thank you for the compliment on my Spanish, but my Quenya's rather pitiful at this point. Ananda wants to know some, too--you can join in if you like, of course! Heck, get Calypso in if you wanna. I don't care, and I doubt Ananda does.
And Zinni--I know you never wanted any attention about your blog, but...I'm so sorry, Zinni. I wanted it to be better than that, we all did, and I know you did, too...we don't ever mean to leave you out, and I know I've been terrible about the updates this year--I'll do better next year, honest I will; I won't have AP American to kill me every other day--and even Ananda and I feel kind of odd sometimes when people we know talk about elementary school together--my friends always used to talk about third grade, and that was the year before I came...but none of that helps, I know. I'm sorry. Tell us what we can do. We'll do it. We love you so much, Zinni--we're not gonna let you just subside. ...And, to my knowledge, the three of us have always listed you among our best friends. It's written on my Leo Club T-shirt, the ones we finally got, where we signed our names: "...And honorary member [Zinnia Brook]..."
Your Christmas present's coming, Zinni. We haven't forgotten. And you still have no idea what it is...I hope you like it.
And Ananda--I don't know, but I feel bad leaving anyone out. *g* You've tributed the lot of us in the past couple of days; well, you're our Bono, and our Frodo...you're the leader...the ways you've changed the way I think, and the way I look and speak and write...I can't put them into words (!), they're just Ananda-nesses, things you notice rather than define...
...But Zinni's on IM, and I was gonna get off this anyway.
-Laurel
Daffy--don't worry about your blog. We like it anyway, 'cause it's your stuff, and we know you'll get profound eventually. Mine started out that way, too, in a way--remember? It all depends on what's going on in your world...and you, like Zinni, have reached rather an impasse, self-wise. The best thing about blogs is how great they are for saying what's on your mind. I promise, Daffy, your blog is always worlds better than the random ones I click on at the Blogger main page when I'm feeling curious or bored. (Certainly yours is cleaner. *g*) ...And I thank you for the compliment on my Spanish, but my Quenya's rather pitiful at this point. Ananda wants to know some, too--you can join in if you like, of course! Heck, get Calypso in if you wanna. I don't care, and I doubt Ananda does.
And Zinni--I know you never wanted any attention about your blog, but...I'm so sorry, Zinni. I wanted it to be better than that, we all did, and I know you did, too...we don't ever mean to leave you out, and I know I've been terrible about the updates this year--I'll do better next year, honest I will; I won't have AP American to kill me every other day--and even Ananda and I feel kind of odd sometimes when people we know talk about elementary school together--my friends always used to talk about third grade, and that was the year before I came...but none of that helps, I know. I'm sorry. Tell us what we can do. We'll do it. We love you so much, Zinni--we're not gonna let you just subside. ...And, to my knowledge, the three of us have always listed you among our best friends. It's written on my Leo Club T-shirt, the ones we finally got, where we signed our names: "...And honorary member [Zinnia Brook]..."
Your Christmas present's coming, Zinni. We haven't forgotten. And you still have no idea what it is...I hope you like it.
And Ananda--I don't know, but I feel bad leaving anyone out. *g* You've tributed the lot of us in the past couple of days; well, you're our Bono, and our Frodo...you're the leader...the ways you've changed the way I think, and the way I look and speak and write...I can't put them into words (!), they're just Ananda-nesses, things you notice rather than define...
...But Zinni's on IM, and I was gonna get off this anyway.
-Laurel
From Ananda's blog, on my previous entry:
...so, next sleepover, if you start falling asleep should we just have you read aloud for awhile? ~_^
::laughs:: You wouldn't catch me doing it for an audience. Imaginary beings only, thank you very much. *g* And anyway, like I said, I got four hours extra of sleep that day...if my normal Saturday bedtime is midnight, then four extra hours makes 4:00, only half an hour off from when I really went to bed...
And yes, the entry is much shorter typed up than handwritten--it was front-back-front-back-front on my notebook paper...
I should change the name of this blog to Pure Drivel, a la Steve Martin. *g*
It was a beautiful thought I almost got to savor last night, the thought that I could stay up 'til 4 every night if I wanted...then I remembered that I'm working this summer, and only get about an hour and a half more to sleep than for school. Well, that moves my bedtime up to 11:30, anyway, so...
...You, Daf, and I should do a sleepover bit sometime, though--maybe after the English exams, 'cause I don't start work until the 24th, and that's every morning from 8 to 12 (part-time; not too bad, but it complicates weekday-sleepover plans). What I haven't thought much about is the fact that I'm going to get paid. This is an entirely new thought for me. Money? Really? ...It's been something like two years since I've had a baby-sitting job, 'cause both the families moved. I have no idea what my pay will be, but I can't say I'm at all averse to the idea. You'll benefit from this, too, 'Nanda, 'cause I'll be able to pay you off every month really quickly...though I am set, Samweli-wise, until July...as for Sunil and Mugisha, that's next week, but I'll have the money whenever I see you.
-Laurel
...so, next sleepover, if you start falling asleep should we just have you read aloud for awhile? ~_^
::laughs:: You wouldn't catch me doing it for an audience. Imaginary beings only, thank you very much. *g* And anyway, like I said, I got four hours extra of sleep that day...if my normal Saturday bedtime is midnight, then four extra hours makes 4:00, only half an hour off from when I really went to bed...
And yes, the entry is much shorter typed up than handwritten--it was front-back-front-back-front on my notebook paper...
I should change the name of this blog to Pure Drivel, a la Steve Martin. *g*
It was a beautiful thought I almost got to savor last night, the thought that I could stay up 'til 4 every night if I wanted...then I remembered that I'm working this summer, and only get about an hour and a half more to sleep than for school. Well, that moves my bedtime up to 11:30, anyway, so...
...You, Daf, and I should do a sleepover bit sometime, though--maybe after the English exams, 'cause I don't start work until the 24th, and that's every morning from 8 to 12 (part-time; not too bad, but it complicates weekday-sleepover plans). What I haven't thought much about is the fact that I'm going to get paid. This is an entirely new thought for me. Money? Really? ...It's been something like two years since I've had a baby-sitting job, 'cause both the families moved. I have no idea what my pay will be, but I can't say I'm at all averse to the idea. You'll benefit from this, too, 'Nanda, 'cause I'll be able to pay you off every month really quickly...though I am set, Samweli-wise, until July...as for Sunil and Mugisha, that's next week, but I'll have the money whenever I see you.
-Laurel
Though this won't be posted for some time, it's currently 2:46 AM, and I'm writing this in what used to be my AP American notebook. By rights I should have gone to bed by now--I'm supposed to get up in about five hours to get ready for church, and even if I fell asleep right now, it still wouldn't be enough--but here I am, a little tired, but unwilling to go to bed (I got lots of sleep today). I'm sort of hungry, too, but I don't really want to go downstairs, lest I either wake Dad or get enticed to go downstairs on the Internet--or both, which would be very bad.
Speaking of being hungry, here comes more stuff about Pippin. *g* I've just spent the last half hour--this is where I sound like a humongous geek; I can't believe I'm actually confessing to this--reading Two Towers's chapter "The Palantír" aloud to an imaginary audience of Radar and B.J. from M*A*S*H. And, what's even better, I can't tell you how fun this is. I just can't. I stopped liking being read to after about the fourth grade, but reading aloud to myself (and, in this case, a few imaginary friends...) is a heck of a lot of fun just after 2 AM. I can't say this is even the first time I've done this--I've seriously read "The Palantír" aloud, like, three times now, and I have to report that late at night is the best time for it, though early morning works well, too. I just love the chapter, and I don't know why. The two best chapters in the whole book, I think, are "The Voice of Saruman" and "The Palantír"...I think I'dve read "Saruman" aloud by now if not for the fact that it takes more voice talent than I possess.
See, when I read the LOTR books silently, it's like I have my own mental movie going--and parts of it are very different from the Peter Jackson version, especially since the Two Towers movie isn't out yet--and a lot of my mental-version characters speak in ways I can't myself. I don't mean just the fact that I can't do accents, or get my voice low enough for some of them. It's the tone of voice, the mentality, the million different nuances...that's what I just can't get. Much as I've read "The Palantír", I just cannot get the tones of voice right. I come the closest on Merry and Pippin, and Théoden, too...but Gandalf and Aragorn are worlds beyond me. 'Cause, see, it's about how I view their characters. For me, I can't read the voice right if I haven't had experience in the character's personality, or seen enough people who're like it to give it a decent shot. I'm rather Pippin-like, as I'm continually pointing out--but with a more Merry-like sensibility and sarcasm, so those two are easy...and Théoden is wise-ish, but in a more down-to-earth sort of way. I finally found, tonight, my Théoden-voice.
Aragorn, though, is so complex that I just can't figure him out. He's quiet, but in such an intense, perceptive way, so still-waters-run-deep, and he commands such respect: he's going to be the king of his race, and do all sorts of grand things, and he's finally come to terms with that...his voice has to be low, but with so many layers of meaning in it...you can't ever be casual with him, never fully happy, never fully joking, never even fully curious...the weight of his responsibility and his sense of foreboding have to come through in everything he says and does, and I can't get it right. Not yet.
And Gandalf...if I thought Aragorn was out of my reach, that goes double for him. He's like Aragorn amplified--and now that he's touched death and managed to come back, it's even more complicated, since, as Merry tells Pippin, "He has grown, or something. He can be both kinder and more alarming, merrier and more solemn than before, I think." Merry and Pippin's voices can skip a bit; Gandalf's has to glide, and it's got such a wide range.
...And, just as a side note, my mental-movie Merry and Pippin are very different from the Peter Jackson ones, much as I love Billy Boyd: they're even younger, though they probably shouldn't be, and the voices are different--the closest I can compare Pippin's to is a higher version of the Harry Potter movie's Ron Weasley, though even that's a bad comparison (and Ananda and Zinni won't get it, never having seen the movie); Merry's is a bit more medium, and more gravelly, though not rough. And I've talked about how names bring colors to my mind--Pippin has always been this vibrant red, and Merry a medium blue, kind of a sky-at-five-in-the-morning blue--and, oddly enough, I get the same red for Denethor, whom Pippin eventually serves, and the same blue for Théoden (well, maybe a bit lighter), whom Merry does...but enough! Back to the show...
Gandalf's voice has to have everything Aragorn's does--and yet more and less at the same time of every quality, which baffles me, too. He has this nuance about him--this, this...::thinks::...gah, the only word that fits is "Gandalf-ness", and that doesn't help at all! He, like Aragorn, commands respect, but everything he says sounds profound somehow, no matter how commonplace...and, too, though he's got a very serious undercurrent, when he's being lighthearted, it's much lighter than Aragorn ever is. Even Aragorn's humor has this sobriety to it--Gandalf's is breezy. He always eclipses Aragorn emotionally--goes more extreme. He can be very fire-and-ice, or he can be really wise, with everything having another meaning to it when you go back and read it again.
So it makes sense that I never get the part right where he questions Pippin about the Orthanc-stone and has to have a commandingness that is, as the book describes it, gentle but firm. Really, there's only one Gandalf part in all the chapter that I can read to my own satisfaction, and even that took a few times to get the sound just right: the one paragraph where he's talking to Pippin just after carrying him back to bed after Pippin tells him about looking in the palantír.
...3:47. One hour, and a very little more. It is seriously going to be 4:30 before I ever get to bed. I get the feeling that I'm not going to church tomorrow, or that I'm sleeping right after, if I am...
'Course, it'd help if I didn't keep interrupting myself.
All this also explains, by the way, why I also have such trouble with Gimli. John Rhys-Davies makes a very good effort in the film, and he's an excellent actor and all, from what I hear...but I still get the feeling that there's more to be had with Gimli. This is, in my opinion, mainly the script-writer's fault. Gimli's not really the semi-comic, very slightly dimwitted figure that the movie keeps making him out to be (and I have the same problem with their portrayal of Merry and Pippin, but that's old news). They've touched upon the pride part, but there's so much farther they could go--Dwarvish hatred of Elves, pride in their work...really, everything about them is wrapped up in their pride in their work. Dwarves have spent so much time with hard, ungiving things--rocks, metals--that they've hardened over themselves in a way, and it's made them brave, but it's made them sort of emotionally reserved. There's something sort of metaphorical in how they love jewels so much--'cause they're so rare, but half the love comes in how much brighter they are than rocks and metals...in any case, I think he's a slightly more settled character than the movie makes him. I can see his being cocky, I can see the flightiness, but there's a kind of jealousy there, too, and one that's been getting misinterpreted as hot-temperedness. I mean, this is all my new theory now that I've read enough of The Silmarillion...but the Dwarves weren't of Ilúvatar's making, they were Aulë's--Elves and Men were the "children of choice" of Ilúvatar, who's the Silmarillion version of God (Aulë's a lesser spirit, and made the Dwarves out of impatience when he was waiting for the Elves to be put on the earth, but was forced to put them to sleep until the Elves came), and the Dwarves were his "children of adoption"--and it does say, come to think of it, that that would be a partial cause of all their trouble with each other...I think that in all Dwarves, there's this sense of jealousy at that, and this need to prove themselves...of course they love crafting the most, because they're Aulë's children, but I think they kind of use it as an attempt at self-worth, too. And I can't translate that kind of psyche into Gimli-voice.
...I would never have dreamed all this up before two in the morning. Insanity.
Anyway, there was a question I set out to ask, and I'm just now getting to it (pure and total insanity!)--about the chapter itself. The chapter is mostly, though not entirely, about Pippin's getting into "frightful trouble", and the repercussions thereof. So why do I like it? See, ever since I was little, I've had this inexplicable hatred of having to watch people get into trouble and then get scolded for it--we used to rent Jack and the Beanstalk from the library, 'cause my brother and I liked it so much, but the one part I could not stand was when Jack got scolded by his mother for trading off the cow for the few little beans. I used to find excuses to get out of the room. And that's just one example--there are more, though I can't think of them. And yet Pippin screws up entirely and has all these awful things happen to him, and it's my favorite chapter in the whole book. That's just the kind of thing I hate in every other context--why not this one? I don't really know.
Ruddy heck, who cares? It is 4:18. I am going to bed.
Speaking of being hungry, here comes more stuff about Pippin. *g* I've just spent the last half hour--this is where I sound like a humongous geek; I can't believe I'm actually confessing to this--reading Two Towers's chapter "The Palantír" aloud to an imaginary audience of Radar and B.J. from M*A*S*H. And, what's even better, I can't tell you how fun this is. I just can't. I stopped liking being read to after about the fourth grade, but reading aloud to myself (and, in this case, a few imaginary friends...) is a heck of a lot of fun just after 2 AM. I can't say this is even the first time I've done this--I've seriously read "The Palantír" aloud, like, three times now, and I have to report that late at night is the best time for it, though early morning works well, too. I just love the chapter, and I don't know why. The two best chapters in the whole book, I think, are "The Voice of Saruman" and "The Palantír"...I think I'dve read "Saruman" aloud by now if not for the fact that it takes more voice talent than I possess.
See, when I read the LOTR books silently, it's like I have my own mental movie going--and parts of it are very different from the Peter Jackson version, especially since the Two Towers movie isn't out yet--and a lot of my mental-version characters speak in ways I can't myself. I don't mean just the fact that I can't do accents, or get my voice low enough for some of them. It's the tone of voice, the mentality, the million different nuances...that's what I just can't get. Much as I've read "The Palantír", I just cannot get the tones of voice right. I come the closest on Merry and Pippin, and Théoden, too...but Gandalf and Aragorn are worlds beyond me. 'Cause, see, it's about how I view their characters. For me, I can't read the voice right if I haven't had experience in the character's personality, or seen enough people who're like it to give it a decent shot. I'm rather Pippin-like, as I'm continually pointing out--but with a more Merry-like sensibility and sarcasm, so those two are easy...and Théoden is wise-ish, but in a more down-to-earth sort of way. I finally found, tonight, my Théoden-voice.
Aragorn, though, is so complex that I just can't figure him out. He's quiet, but in such an intense, perceptive way, so still-waters-run-deep, and he commands such respect: he's going to be the king of his race, and do all sorts of grand things, and he's finally come to terms with that...his voice has to be low, but with so many layers of meaning in it...you can't ever be casual with him, never fully happy, never fully joking, never even fully curious...the weight of his responsibility and his sense of foreboding have to come through in everything he says and does, and I can't get it right. Not yet.
And Gandalf...if I thought Aragorn was out of my reach, that goes double for him. He's like Aragorn amplified--and now that he's touched death and managed to come back, it's even more complicated, since, as Merry tells Pippin, "He has grown, or something. He can be both kinder and more alarming, merrier and more solemn than before, I think." Merry and Pippin's voices can skip a bit; Gandalf's has to glide, and it's got such a wide range.
...And, just as a side note, my mental-movie Merry and Pippin are very different from the Peter Jackson ones, much as I love Billy Boyd: they're even younger, though they probably shouldn't be, and the voices are different--the closest I can compare Pippin's to is a higher version of the Harry Potter movie's Ron Weasley, though even that's a bad comparison (and Ananda and Zinni won't get it, never having seen the movie); Merry's is a bit more medium, and more gravelly, though not rough. And I've talked about how names bring colors to my mind--Pippin has always been this vibrant red, and Merry a medium blue, kind of a sky-at-five-in-the-morning blue--and, oddly enough, I get the same red for Denethor, whom Pippin eventually serves, and the same blue for Théoden (well, maybe a bit lighter), whom Merry does...but enough! Back to the show...
Gandalf's voice has to have everything Aragorn's does--and yet more and less at the same time of every quality, which baffles me, too. He has this nuance about him--this, this...::thinks::...gah, the only word that fits is "Gandalf-ness", and that doesn't help at all! He, like Aragorn, commands respect, but everything he says sounds profound somehow, no matter how commonplace...and, too, though he's got a very serious undercurrent, when he's being lighthearted, it's much lighter than Aragorn ever is. Even Aragorn's humor has this sobriety to it--Gandalf's is breezy. He always eclipses Aragorn emotionally--goes more extreme. He can be very fire-and-ice, or he can be really wise, with everything having another meaning to it when you go back and read it again.
So it makes sense that I never get the part right where he questions Pippin about the Orthanc-stone and has to have a commandingness that is, as the book describes it, gentle but firm. Really, there's only one Gandalf part in all the chapter that I can read to my own satisfaction, and even that took a few times to get the sound just right: the one paragraph where he's talking to Pippin just after carrying him back to bed after Pippin tells him about looking in the palantír.
...3:47. One hour, and a very little more. It is seriously going to be 4:30 before I ever get to bed. I get the feeling that I'm not going to church tomorrow, or that I'm sleeping right after, if I am...
'Course, it'd help if I didn't keep interrupting myself.
All this also explains, by the way, why I also have such trouble with Gimli. John Rhys-Davies makes a very good effort in the film, and he's an excellent actor and all, from what I hear...but I still get the feeling that there's more to be had with Gimli. This is, in my opinion, mainly the script-writer's fault. Gimli's not really the semi-comic, very slightly dimwitted figure that the movie keeps making him out to be (and I have the same problem with their portrayal of Merry and Pippin, but that's old news). They've touched upon the pride part, but there's so much farther they could go--Dwarvish hatred of Elves, pride in their work...really, everything about them is wrapped up in their pride in their work. Dwarves have spent so much time with hard, ungiving things--rocks, metals--that they've hardened over themselves in a way, and it's made them brave, but it's made them sort of emotionally reserved. There's something sort of metaphorical in how they love jewels so much--'cause they're so rare, but half the love comes in how much brighter they are than rocks and metals...in any case, I think he's a slightly more settled character than the movie makes him. I can see his being cocky, I can see the flightiness, but there's a kind of jealousy there, too, and one that's been getting misinterpreted as hot-temperedness. I mean, this is all my new theory now that I've read enough of The Silmarillion...but the Dwarves weren't of Ilúvatar's making, they were Aulë's--Elves and Men were the "children of choice" of Ilúvatar, who's the Silmarillion version of God (Aulë's a lesser spirit, and made the Dwarves out of impatience when he was waiting for the Elves to be put on the earth, but was forced to put them to sleep until the Elves came), and the Dwarves were his "children of adoption"--and it does say, come to think of it, that that would be a partial cause of all their trouble with each other...I think that in all Dwarves, there's this sense of jealousy at that, and this need to prove themselves...of course they love crafting the most, because they're Aulë's children, but I think they kind of use it as an attempt at self-worth, too. And I can't translate that kind of psyche into Gimli-voice.
...I would never have dreamed all this up before two in the morning. Insanity.
Anyway, there was a question I set out to ask, and I'm just now getting to it (pure and total insanity!)--about the chapter itself. The chapter is mostly, though not entirely, about Pippin's getting into "frightful trouble", and the repercussions thereof. So why do I like it? See, ever since I was little, I've had this inexplicable hatred of having to watch people get into trouble and then get scolded for it--we used to rent Jack and the Beanstalk from the library, 'cause my brother and I liked it so much, but the one part I could not stand was when Jack got scolded by his mother for trading off the cow for the few little beans. I used to find excuses to get out of the room. And that's just one example--there are more, though I can't think of them. And yet Pippin screws up entirely and has all these awful things happen to him, and it's my favorite chapter in the whole book. That's just the kind of thing I hate in every other context--why not this one? I don't really know.
Ruddy heck, who cares? It is 4:18. I am going to bed.
Was reading Ananda's latest blog entry--it's kind of funny how much we both keep telling each other how much we love the other's blog...Ananda says mine is consistently well-written, but it's her that started me on that...I read some of her entries and realized what it takes for a good blog, or at least a decent one--you say what you feel, and you don't mince words. You have to be detailed, and you have to be very honest. Plus, I'm always getting into the psychological aspect of things, and she likes that--I think it's as much that as anything; plenty of people would read this and go, "Who does she think she is, Freud?" But that's what I've admired all year about Tolkien, about C.S. Lewis...they're so honest, and they make you look at yourself...it's that I'm trying to imitate, and I'm happy it's working, then.
As for spirituality...I'm not as great as you think I am, 'Nanda. It's nice of you to say what you did...I can't deny I'm rather pleased...but I shouldn't be, and that's where a lot of it begins. I don't want to make it look like I'm trying to act in humility, talking about my problems...that's kind of the way it looks sometimes, when you talk about your problems and then can't take any credit when it works...I'm sure faith looks absolutely ridiculous until you try it for yourself...
...But must go; I'm over my time here.
-Laurel
As for spirituality...I'm not as great as you think I am, 'Nanda. It's nice of you to say what you did...I can't deny I'm rather pleased...but I shouldn't be, and that's where a lot of it begins. I don't want to make it look like I'm trying to act in humility, talking about my problems...that's kind of the way it looks sometimes, when you talk about your problems and then can't take any credit when it works...I'm sure faith looks absolutely ridiculous until you try it for yourself...
...But must go; I'm over my time here.
-Laurel
6.15.2002
You know, this is way better than a real journal--I update this so much more often because typing is so much easier than scribbling in my little lock-bound thing. Summer is usually when I write the most in real journals--I had a couple written marathons this past summer--so I'm looking to have some representation a bit more tangible than a computer screen, too.
Anyway, wanted to invite Daf and 'Nanda over tonight, but did not--my dad, upon coming home, said that he wanted to go somewhere--anywhere--and so it ended up being the mall, Pier 1, and Borders Books & Music, and we didn't get back until about 9:45 tonight.
The best part, as it always seems to be for me, was our stop at Borders just before we left for home--I've been wanting Newsboys's new album, Thrive, for a bit now, and, since I didn't find any books I couldn't live without, I ended up getting it. Also got an almond-flavored French soda and wandered round the store drinking it--ended up sitting on the floor in a secluded spot, reading the very funny book Finding Mr. Right and drinking French soda (which I love). The book is one of a series using very funny photos to illustrate the text (which is also funny), and this one is a guy talking about how stupid guys are, especially romantically, which amused me very much. Really, what the guy was saying that if you go after life and be everything you want to be, eventually you'll attract someone who's also like that, and stuff like that. And I've thought of that on my own, too, but it was cool to hear (well, read, then) from a guy.
On the way home, my dad asked if I wanted to listen to my new CD, and I said yes. I was actually sort of nervous about this, 'cause the music is Christian, and my dad is not, and I didn't know the lyrics to the CD and therefore did not know what to expect--every so often, a few of Newsboys' songs have the potential to sound a bit self-righteous if taken out of context--but we got all the way through Track 4 before we got home, at which point my dad handed the CD back and said, "Make me a cassette copy of this, too." (He already wanted one of U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. He's been looking for good car music lately, and all he's got is a tape player.) It may have been for the music and not the lyrics, but I don't care--I've always been really shy around doing anything religious around him, but this time I went ahead and he really did accept it, which is cool--'cause, you have to understand, he doesn't like VeggieTales; his comments about that program make me a bit uneasy about everything else...but this one worked out.
And the music is great. Really, it is. Some of it I'll need the stories behind before I can fully appreciate them (most notably "John Woo", which would have baffled me completely if it hadn't tipped me off in its last line: "Driver, there's a metaphor tryin' to get out"), but the first five songs had my love right away--current favorite, though I only heard it for the first time about two hours ago, is "Live in Stereo", which is lots of fun to sing, and has a nice way of getting the point across without hitting you over the head too hard with it (I love their wordings: "I need a new dimension/Got to supersize/A Jacobian ladder to a parallel prize", etc. - so many of their new songs have turned very metaphorical, and it's very cool once you know what they mean).
You, 'Nanda, will probably like "The Fad of the Land", and you might, too, Daf; it's this sarcastic-ish, catchy kind of attack on materialism--I've heard other variations on that theme before (primarily "Little Man", by the O.C. Supertones, which--that reminds me--I still have to look up the chorus to), but this is my favorite one so far.
Cool side-note, too--the songs say "Copyright Dawn Treader Music", which I imagine is a reference to the C.S. Lewis book Voyage of the Dawn Treader--it's been almost three years since I read the Narnia books; I'll have to do it again, just to see how different they are from Screwtape Letters...
Anyway, my life has crested again. Screwtape Letters is so right about the undulation theory...my life has been acting like a cosine curve since at least my birthday--having fallen recently, it's risen again with this lovely night, which means that it may hold for a while, or it may fall again before long. I always think I'll handle it better, but it hasn't happened yet. I always go all tragic (see previous entries--there's rather a pattern: high-spirited, philosophical entries; followed by complaining, angsty entries; repeat process), then catch myself a few hours later with a mental dang...screwed that one up again...
...I haven't gotten too exasperated with the roller-coaster bit yet--not that I ever seem to when my life's on the upswing--but that's the great thing about Newsboys, about C.S. Lewis, about Lord of the Rings, even, to a degree, about M*A*S*H--they bring me back up, whether I think I want to be or not. There's something I savor, in a strange and twisted way, about the trouble-days...there's something I like about the sadness, though I don't know what or why...but I tend to stay quiet and pulled-in longer than I need to, and it's always one of the above that brings me out.
...My attempts at being profound are almost invariably ridiculous, as is my embarrassed urge to delete or modify this line as I type it. (See, now you're gonna look for it--all the times I try to say something cool...*g*) Still, it's a hook from M*A*S*H that, much like the other things I quote, has been sticking in my head for some time now--heard it a day or two ago...it was Father Mulcahy's line, and I'm not even going to try to explain, 'cause it's far too complicated, but it's talking about Plato's ideal plane, which apparently is a sort of theoretic utopia, and the part I'm thinking of goes like this:
And that's when I decided to keep one foot in the ideal plane...and one in the real world.
You mentioned in my yearbook, Ananda, that I was the one who tried to keep us grounded in reality to a point; that's what's made it stick in my head. In a sense, that is what I'm trying for: one foot in the ideal plane, one in the real world. I'm very far, as I continually find, from making it, despite my perpetual resolutions, temporary gains of perspective, models, and reminders. Really, considering all that I think about living in the right way, I accomplish a shockingly small amount. But, as I have to realize, I'm almost seventeen years behind, since my realest commitment to truly living faith and life came just after Christmas. Seventeen years behind what, I don't know, but I certainly feel it sometimes. Which is just as well--no sense in getting up on myself--but it's definitely a battle for each inch of ground reclaimed from everything that's screwed up the way I want to live, and still does.
And the thing that scares me a bit is that Christian singers talk about that, too--Chris Rice has, Newsboys have--and it's like, So how far does anybody get?
But, as C.S. Lewis points out, it's all a matter of looking back ("one does not always think to himself, 'Hullo! I'm growing up'...")--most times you get farther than you think without realizing it. So this is another high-point entry, another resolution to at least fail better. And faith is intertwined with every aspect of my life, but I don't mean just that I'm trying to follow the rules a bit better. It's the mentality...it's Zinni who pointed out in her latest blog entry about her mental tendencies, and how she hates them...I do so much of that, in different forms, and it's that I need to tackle, too. It's about how I always go in feeling brave and semi-heroic and end up feeling like a soap-opera caricature, this whiny child that sometimes takes my name. There're a lot of ways that I approach things that need to be re-examined. And there're comfort-zone boundaries to break--like asking for something when you know it might take some trouble to get it (example: you ask for the pride in your life to be taken down some--how d'you think that's gonna happen? Most likely, you're gonna screw something up so you don't feel so hot about yourself...), and things like that. Scary stuff that I keep bodging, then being all surprised when it falls down. Duh. You don't jump all the way in, what do you really want?
And though I write a lot of entries like this, I don't mean for them to be cheapened by the frequency. I really do mean them when I type them. I do very well until trouble comes. That's what I'm trying the most to change. I keep thinking you guys'll think I'm on some never-ending self-betterment crusade, religion fanning the perfectionist fires...but it's not like that; I'm really not just aiming for something I could never hope to have, I've decided. It sounds trite to talk about bettering yourself, outside of a therapy group, but I guess that's what I'm doing.
Sorry if I got overpreachy, though. I don't mean to be. But once again, at high point, I resolve to deal better with the coming low point.
...Well, c'mon, it's gotta happen sometime.
-Laurel
Anyway, wanted to invite Daf and 'Nanda over tonight, but did not--my dad, upon coming home, said that he wanted to go somewhere--anywhere--and so it ended up being the mall, Pier 1, and Borders Books & Music, and we didn't get back until about 9:45 tonight.
The best part, as it always seems to be for me, was our stop at Borders just before we left for home--I've been wanting Newsboys's new album, Thrive, for a bit now, and, since I didn't find any books I couldn't live without, I ended up getting it. Also got an almond-flavored French soda and wandered round the store drinking it--ended up sitting on the floor in a secluded spot, reading the very funny book Finding Mr. Right and drinking French soda (which I love). The book is one of a series using very funny photos to illustrate the text (which is also funny), and this one is a guy talking about how stupid guys are, especially romantically, which amused me very much. Really, what the guy was saying that if you go after life and be everything you want to be, eventually you'll attract someone who's also like that, and stuff like that. And I've thought of that on my own, too, but it was cool to hear (well, read, then) from a guy.
On the way home, my dad asked if I wanted to listen to my new CD, and I said yes. I was actually sort of nervous about this, 'cause the music is Christian, and my dad is not, and I didn't know the lyrics to the CD and therefore did not know what to expect--every so often, a few of Newsboys' songs have the potential to sound a bit self-righteous if taken out of context--but we got all the way through Track 4 before we got home, at which point my dad handed the CD back and said, "Make me a cassette copy of this, too." (He already wanted one of U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. He's been looking for good car music lately, and all he's got is a tape player.) It may have been for the music and not the lyrics, but I don't care--I've always been really shy around doing anything religious around him, but this time I went ahead and he really did accept it, which is cool--'cause, you have to understand, he doesn't like VeggieTales; his comments about that program make me a bit uneasy about everything else...but this one worked out.
And the music is great. Really, it is. Some of it I'll need the stories behind before I can fully appreciate them (most notably "John Woo", which would have baffled me completely if it hadn't tipped me off in its last line: "Driver, there's a metaphor tryin' to get out"), but the first five songs had my love right away--current favorite, though I only heard it for the first time about two hours ago, is "Live in Stereo", which is lots of fun to sing, and has a nice way of getting the point across without hitting you over the head too hard with it (I love their wordings: "I need a new dimension/Got to supersize/A Jacobian ladder to a parallel prize", etc. - so many of their new songs have turned very metaphorical, and it's very cool once you know what they mean).
You, 'Nanda, will probably like "The Fad of the Land", and you might, too, Daf; it's this sarcastic-ish, catchy kind of attack on materialism--I've heard other variations on that theme before (primarily "Little Man", by the O.C. Supertones, which--that reminds me--I still have to look up the chorus to), but this is my favorite one so far.
Cool side-note, too--the songs say "Copyright Dawn Treader Music", which I imagine is a reference to the C.S. Lewis book Voyage of the Dawn Treader--it's been almost three years since I read the Narnia books; I'll have to do it again, just to see how different they are from Screwtape Letters...
Anyway, my life has crested again. Screwtape Letters is so right about the undulation theory...my life has been acting like a cosine curve since at least my birthday--having fallen recently, it's risen again with this lovely night, which means that it may hold for a while, or it may fall again before long. I always think I'll handle it better, but it hasn't happened yet. I always go all tragic (see previous entries--there's rather a pattern: high-spirited, philosophical entries; followed by complaining, angsty entries; repeat process), then catch myself a few hours later with a mental dang...screwed that one up again...
...I haven't gotten too exasperated with the roller-coaster bit yet--not that I ever seem to when my life's on the upswing--but that's the great thing about Newsboys, about C.S. Lewis, about Lord of the Rings, even, to a degree, about M*A*S*H--they bring me back up, whether I think I want to be or not. There's something I savor, in a strange and twisted way, about the trouble-days...there's something I like about the sadness, though I don't know what or why...but I tend to stay quiet and pulled-in longer than I need to, and it's always one of the above that brings me out.
...My attempts at being profound are almost invariably ridiculous, as is my embarrassed urge to delete or modify this line as I type it. (See, now you're gonna look for it--all the times I try to say something cool...*g*) Still, it's a hook from M*A*S*H that, much like the other things I quote, has been sticking in my head for some time now--heard it a day or two ago...it was Father Mulcahy's line, and I'm not even going to try to explain, 'cause it's far too complicated, but it's talking about Plato's ideal plane, which apparently is a sort of theoretic utopia, and the part I'm thinking of goes like this:
And that's when I decided to keep one foot in the ideal plane...and one in the real world.
You mentioned in my yearbook, Ananda, that I was the one who tried to keep us grounded in reality to a point; that's what's made it stick in my head. In a sense, that is what I'm trying for: one foot in the ideal plane, one in the real world. I'm very far, as I continually find, from making it, despite my perpetual resolutions, temporary gains of perspective, models, and reminders. Really, considering all that I think about living in the right way, I accomplish a shockingly small amount. But, as I have to realize, I'm almost seventeen years behind, since my realest commitment to truly living faith and life came just after Christmas. Seventeen years behind what, I don't know, but I certainly feel it sometimes. Which is just as well--no sense in getting up on myself--but it's definitely a battle for each inch of ground reclaimed from everything that's screwed up the way I want to live, and still does.
And the thing that scares me a bit is that Christian singers talk about that, too--Chris Rice has, Newsboys have--and it's like, So how far does anybody get?
But, as C.S. Lewis points out, it's all a matter of looking back ("one does not always think to himself, 'Hullo! I'm growing up'...")--most times you get farther than you think without realizing it. So this is another high-point entry, another resolution to at least fail better. And faith is intertwined with every aspect of my life, but I don't mean just that I'm trying to follow the rules a bit better. It's the mentality...it's Zinni who pointed out in her latest blog entry about her mental tendencies, and how she hates them...I do so much of that, in different forms, and it's that I need to tackle, too. It's about how I always go in feeling brave and semi-heroic and end up feeling like a soap-opera caricature, this whiny child that sometimes takes my name. There're a lot of ways that I approach things that need to be re-examined. And there're comfort-zone boundaries to break--like asking for something when you know it might take some trouble to get it (example: you ask for the pride in your life to be taken down some--how d'you think that's gonna happen? Most likely, you're gonna screw something up so you don't feel so hot about yourself...), and things like that. Scary stuff that I keep bodging, then being all surprised when it falls down. Duh. You don't jump all the way in, what do you really want?
And though I write a lot of entries like this, I don't mean for them to be cheapened by the frequency. I really do mean them when I type them. I do very well until trouble comes. That's what I'm trying the most to change. I keep thinking you guys'll think I'm on some never-ending self-betterment crusade, religion fanning the perfectionist fires...but it's not like that; I'm really not just aiming for something I could never hope to have, I've decided. It sounds trite to talk about bettering yourself, outside of a therapy group, but I guess that's what I'm doing.
Sorry if I got overpreachy, though. I don't mean to be. But once again, at high point, I resolve to deal better with the coming low point.
...Well, c'mon, it's gotta happen sometime.
-Laurel
6.14.2002
Pre-calc is over forever. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.
My exam was this morning. Part I was easy--I knew how to do everything; I'll be surprised and disappointed if I don't get the full 20 points--but Part II was just evil. There's just so much that I can't quite remember...and it's so easy to screw things up in pre-calc, so easy...
The worst part was a space of 10 or 15 minutes, somewhere around 9:45 or 10:00, when I totally blanked out on, seriously, almost everything, and was just sitting there, my hands shaking, my brain deep-frying so much I could feel it, and I'm thinking, Crap, oh, crap, I'm gonna fail this thing...I have to get eight of these pages done, and I've only got a bit over half an hour, and I've only got three done...but what's more time even worth if I don't know what to do?...I'll never finish on time, and I don't even know how to start...oh, God, please help me, what do I even *do*?
It did, however, eventually come back, and I actually ended up getting one more page done than I needed to, so I got to omit one that would have lost me four points otherwise.
I just was not with it at all. I had no pen, and the test is supposed to be done primarily in pen. I never remembered that. I had to borrow one of Lisa's, and then she left and had to take it with her, but my teacher said I could do the rest in pencil. When I handed in my test, I had to get called back to throw out my scrap paper. I did, after almost missing the bin. Halfway down the hall, I realized that all my stuff was still in the test room, and I had to go back for it. And finally I got lunch, but the sub people didn't have any turkey, and didn't give me any lettuce if they had that (I did ask, but...), so I discovered that plain ham subs are best eaten with a few potato chips at the same time. And I couldn't rescue our Puritan house from English, 'cause the room was locked--it was right there on the podium still, and the lights were on; it was almost teasing me...
But I looked over the practice final that Bethie, lovely friend, gave to me (my class didn't get one), pretty much all of which had shown up on the final, only with different numbers, and decided that while I definitely didn't get 100, and while there's a fair chance that I didn't even get a 90, it looked to be a tolerable grade. Mid- to high-eighties is a much better weather forecast than test-grade forecast, I've decided, but it's not quite as cold as the 75 I got on my midterm.
Talked with Frances from ninth grade's Leo Club during lunch, then left to catch my ride--my mom was bringing Daf's and my brothers to their math final.
I think I've read so much Lord of the Rings that it's seeped into my blood, or at least my brain. Like I said, when I was writing Applebus recently, these lines from Two Towers's chapter "The Palantír" kept playing in my head. When I stood outside waiting for my mom to come, though, and flipping through the practice exam, another part came to me, and has been stuck ever since:
Be comforted! Things have not turned out as evilly as they might.
-Laurel
My exam was this morning. Part I was easy--I knew how to do everything; I'll be surprised and disappointed if I don't get the full 20 points--but Part II was just evil. There's just so much that I can't quite remember...and it's so easy to screw things up in pre-calc, so easy...
The worst part was a space of 10 or 15 minutes, somewhere around 9:45 or 10:00, when I totally blanked out on, seriously, almost everything, and was just sitting there, my hands shaking, my brain deep-frying so much I could feel it, and I'm thinking, Crap, oh, crap, I'm gonna fail this thing...I have to get eight of these pages done, and I've only got a bit over half an hour, and I've only got three done...but what's more time even worth if I don't know what to do?...I'll never finish on time, and I don't even know how to start...oh, God, please help me, what do I even *do*?
It did, however, eventually come back, and I actually ended up getting one more page done than I needed to, so I got to omit one that would have lost me four points otherwise.
I just was not with it at all. I had no pen, and the test is supposed to be done primarily in pen. I never remembered that. I had to borrow one of Lisa's, and then she left and had to take it with her, but my teacher said I could do the rest in pencil. When I handed in my test, I had to get called back to throw out my scrap paper. I did, after almost missing the bin. Halfway down the hall, I realized that all my stuff was still in the test room, and I had to go back for it. And finally I got lunch, but the sub people didn't have any turkey, and didn't give me any lettuce if they had that (I did ask, but...), so I discovered that plain ham subs are best eaten with a few potato chips at the same time. And I couldn't rescue our Puritan house from English, 'cause the room was locked--it was right there on the podium still, and the lights were on; it was almost teasing me...
But I looked over the practice final that Bethie, lovely friend, gave to me (my class didn't get one), pretty much all of which had shown up on the final, only with different numbers, and decided that while I definitely didn't get 100, and while there's a fair chance that I didn't even get a 90, it looked to be a tolerable grade. Mid- to high-eighties is a much better weather forecast than test-grade forecast, I've decided, but it's not quite as cold as the 75 I got on my midterm.
Talked with Frances from ninth grade's Leo Club during lunch, then left to catch my ride--my mom was bringing Daf's and my brothers to their math final.
I think I've read so much Lord of the Rings that it's seeped into my blood, or at least my brain. Like I said, when I was writing Applebus recently, these lines from Two Towers's chapter "The Palantír" kept playing in my head. When I stood outside waiting for my mom to come, though, and flipping through the practice exam, another part came to me, and has been stuck ever since:
Be comforted! Things have not turned out as evilly as they might.
-Laurel
6.13.2002
Did, however, have a very nice conversation with Pete today in study hall, who still has a girlfriend but who is still a better listener than Bryan ever has been or could be. He'll be fun in Piano/Keyboard next year if I can keep myself from falling for him. Hopefully Alisa will make that easy.
-Laurel
-Laurel
On my computer, in my private folder, is a Wordpad file titled "Friends", and it's a long series of free-verse poetry to my companions, heroes, and many of those--be them friends, passing acquaintences, or fictitious characters--who've moved me in some way. Ananda, Daf, and Zinni show up, of course, but they'd be surprised by some of the people who haven't--like Colin, Pippin, and Radar--and some who have--characters from the radio show Adventures in Odyssey, Star Trek's Wesley Crusher. The poems rarely mention names--the people themselves are identified only by number, with letters attached when there's more than one poem for them (3-A, 3-B, etc.), and mysterious-looking estimates at a time frame (Tenth grade, middle/end, etc.) in parentheses.
I've never mentioned the file to my friends before this--except to answer Aubrey's question once of "If you were to suddenly die, what would you want people to see or know?" My answer was for my poetry file to be found and read--it says all the things to people that I'm too shy, afraid, or uneasy to.
What comes as no surprise, I'm sure, is that of all the people in my file--of which there are a bit over 20 by now--Bryan has gotten the biggest number of poems directed to him, from 6-A, at last year's beginning/middle, to today's 6-G.
I mention all this because I'm about to post up the latter poem--it expresses today, my last lunch ever with Bryan, better than I can in regular narration. Only the names have been changed.
"6-G"
Last day of school, last day of you.
Despite the fact that you're back with Amanda
And that I have long since ceased to like you,
I still wanted to say, somehow, what you meant to me,
Not romantically, now, but as the friend you kind of were.
Still, I knew it wasn't sentiment you likely wanted,
So today at prayer breakfast, I prayed, among other things,
That the goodbye between us would be on your terms,
So that your last thoughts of me would be the kind you wanted.
In lunch today, you handed me your yearbook,
And for the last time, I tried to find something to say to you--
But I was no longer content with jokes.
That's why I wrote, though I know you thought it mushy,
That the best thing about knowing you had been talking to you,
That whether it had been six days, weeks, or months since
Each previous conversation,
You always talked to me like it'd only been a day.
I always liked that very much about you.
It was just as I'd finished my thankful words
That you told the entire table in general,
To their amazement, laughter, and semi-disgust,
That I'd liked you back in September.
When I pointed out indignantly that you'd also liked me,
You flatly denied it and chalked it up to Aubrey's efforts,
Despite your telling both Aubrey and Ananda that you'd liked me.
...If this was the ending to all of this that you wanted,
You certainly made the most of it.
As I wrote in your yearbook, just after you told everyone about me:
You're a big fat dorkhead, Bryan. But it's been fun.
And some of it has.
So goodbye, Bryan DeWind.
No one I liked ever liked me before, you know.
You were the first.
...That is how it went after he told the table I'd liked him--and, you have to understand, this table thinks that he's the biggest loser on the planet--liking him is not something you want to admit to...
I'm in purple, he's in red...
"You liked me, too!"
"As a *friend!*"
[indignantly] "*Oh!*"
[Several of his friends clamor for explanation]
"It was *before* I had a girlfriend...Aubrey was trying to hook me up with her..."
[Ka, one of his friends, cries: "Look, she's turning red! You did like him!"]
"*Liked*! Past tense, *past tense*!"
Past tense indeed, and for good now, if it was ever in danger of being otherwise.
It's a fitting end to a year like mine has been--like a Parthian shot aimed at me, lest I should miss anything about it except English class, creative writing, and Ananda.
It was fun for a while, Bryan liking me. But I hope he got the ending he wanted.
-Laurel
I've never mentioned the file to my friends before this--except to answer Aubrey's question once of "If you were to suddenly die, what would you want people to see or know?" My answer was for my poetry file to be found and read--it says all the things to people that I'm too shy, afraid, or uneasy to.
What comes as no surprise, I'm sure, is that of all the people in my file--of which there are a bit over 20 by now--Bryan has gotten the biggest number of poems directed to him, from 6-A, at last year's beginning/middle, to today's 6-G.
I mention all this because I'm about to post up the latter poem--it expresses today, my last lunch ever with Bryan, better than I can in regular narration. Only the names have been changed.
"6-G"
Last day of school, last day of you.
Despite the fact that you're back with Amanda
And that I have long since ceased to like you,
I still wanted to say, somehow, what you meant to me,
Not romantically, now, but as the friend you kind of were.
Still, I knew it wasn't sentiment you likely wanted,
So today at prayer breakfast, I prayed, among other things,
That the goodbye between us would be on your terms,
So that your last thoughts of me would be the kind you wanted.
In lunch today, you handed me your yearbook,
And for the last time, I tried to find something to say to you--
But I was no longer content with jokes.
That's why I wrote, though I know you thought it mushy,
That the best thing about knowing you had been talking to you,
That whether it had been six days, weeks, or months since
Each previous conversation,
You always talked to me like it'd only been a day.
I always liked that very much about you.
It was just as I'd finished my thankful words
That you told the entire table in general,
To their amazement, laughter, and semi-disgust,
That I'd liked you back in September.
When I pointed out indignantly that you'd also liked me,
You flatly denied it and chalked it up to Aubrey's efforts,
Despite your telling both Aubrey and Ananda that you'd liked me.
...If this was the ending to all of this that you wanted,
You certainly made the most of it.
As I wrote in your yearbook, just after you told everyone about me:
You're a big fat dorkhead, Bryan. But it's been fun.
And some of it has.
So goodbye, Bryan DeWind.
No one I liked ever liked me before, you know.
You were the first.
...That is how it went after he told the table I'd liked him--and, you have to understand, this table thinks that he's the biggest loser on the planet--liking him is not something you want to admit to...
I'm in purple, he's in red...
"You liked me, too!"
"As a *friend!*"
[indignantly] "*Oh!*"
[Several of his friends clamor for explanation]
"It was *before* I had a girlfriend...Aubrey was trying to hook me up with her..."
[Ka, one of his friends, cries: "Look, she's turning red! You did like him!"]
"*Liked*! Past tense, *past tense*!"
Past tense indeed, and for good now, if it was ever in danger of being otherwise.
It's a fitting end to a year like mine has been--like a Parthian shot aimed at me, lest I should miss anything about it except English class, creative writing, and Ananda.
It was fun for a while, Bryan liking me. But I hope he got the ending he wanted.
-Laurel
6.12.2002
::sighs:: Sorry, 'Nanda and Daf, but nothing doing. No letter to Bryan. No nothing.
Listen, he doesn't want that. Not out of me, no matter what it says. We've been through this, remember? I'm done with him. He likes Amanda. And I don't want him anymore. He said he liked me--and then proceeded to hit on any girl who glanced at him, including the two of you. Did you guys forget that? He may have liked me, but he never took it seriously. I don't know what chance I blew, but I blew it long ago, and no scrap of paper is going to change that. I can write everything or nothing, and it still won't make any difference. It won't turn him back to Earth-science-Bryan, and it won't make it any easier to say goodbye.
He doesn't want me to like him. He's made that perfectly clear. And even if it was just friend stuff...no, no, I can't. He's not like Blake and Calypso, guys. He's not sensitive and he's not sweet. He was fun to talk to and always wanted to know how I liked being in the grade I was in--he liked telling me about it. He always thought I was innocent--I'm starting to wonder if I've ever really been anything to him but a little kid to pal around with when he wanted to.
I don't want to write to him. I don't know what he'd make of it, and I doubt he'd take it seriously. It'd be like my Christmas card...
There's nothing to fix between us. All that ended long ago, and there's no sense in trying to make myself like him just because he's going. He's got a girlfriend--my polar opposite: short, red-haired, Metallica-loving, girly cheerleader. And liking him doesn't scare her. It scared the carp out of me.
Look, I may want a boyfriend, but it's not your responsibility to find me one. I know you guys'd love to see us all three in a happy little eighth-grade-reincarnate row (well, not exactly, but...), but it's not going to happen.
He's not Earth-science-Bryan anymore, whatever that Bryan was. I don't like the real one anymore. And he makes it darn hard to be friends with, too.
If he asks me to write in his yearbook, I will. But if not, that's his closure to miss, not mine. All the closure I could ever even have is in my yearbook, in the time he asked me bowling, and in the day I learned who Amanda was. The rest is just variations on a theme.
-Laurel
Listen, he doesn't want that. Not out of me, no matter what it says. We've been through this, remember? I'm done with him. He likes Amanda. And I don't want him anymore. He said he liked me--and then proceeded to hit on any girl who glanced at him, including the two of you. Did you guys forget that? He may have liked me, but he never took it seriously. I don't know what chance I blew, but I blew it long ago, and no scrap of paper is going to change that. I can write everything or nothing, and it still won't make any difference. It won't turn him back to Earth-science-Bryan, and it won't make it any easier to say goodbye.
He doesn't want me to like him. He's made that perfectly clear. And even if it was just friend stuff...no, no, I can't. He's not like Blake and Calypso, guys. He's not sensitive and he's not sweet. He was fun to talk to and always wanted to know how I liked being in the grade I was in--he liked telling me about it. He always thought I was innocent--I'm starting to wonder if I've ever really been anything to him but a little kid to pal around with when he wanted to.
I don't want to write to him. I don't know what he'd make of it, and I doubt he'd take it seriously. It'd be like my Christmas card...
There's nothing to fix between us. All that ended long ago, and there's no sense in trying to make myself like him just because he's going. He's got a girlfriend--my polar opposite: short, red-haired, Metallica-loving, girly cheerleader. And liking him doesn't scare her. It scared the carp out of me.
Look, I may want a boyfriend, but it's not your responsibility to find me one. I know you guys'd love to see us all three in a happy little eighth-grade-reincarnate row (well, not exactly, but...), but it's not going to happen.
He's not Earth-science-Bryan anymore, whatever that Bryan was. I don't like the real one anymore. And he makes it darn hard to be friends with, too.
If he asks me to write in his yearbook, I will. But if not, that's his closure to miss, not mine. All the closure I could ever even have is in my yearbook, in the time he asked me bowling, and in the day I learned who Amanda was. The rest is just variations on a theme.
-Laurel
6.11.2002
6.10.2002
Got TMBG songs stuck in my head. Great band, and great songs, but the tunes are so head-sticky that they'll drive you nuts after a while...
"Mr. Horrible, Mr. Horrible...telephone call for Mr. Horrible..."
Gah, took a ruddy lot of quizzes over on Topaz Meanderings, if anyone cares to see.
Will go now.
-Laurel
"Mr. Horrible, Mr. Horrible...telephone call for Mr. Horrible..."
Gah, took a ruddy lot of quizzes over on Topaz Meanderings, if anyone cares to see.
Will go now.
-Laurel
6.09.2002
Hm. Should be going to bed now, but I'll type for a minute.
Went to B's SFE picnic today--so much fun. I absolutely adore the Biedlingmaiers. They're so...so...happy. Such an idyllic little family, and Lorene and Hannah are the cutest little girls I can think of. ::rather "look-how-cute!" smile::
Was playing Sims, attempting to make Julia, one of my characters, fall out of love with character Julian and in love with character Matt...succeeded in getting her to love Matt, but still loves Julian...hm.
In Sunday school today we did the exact same lesson as one of the first days this school year--made up nicknames for the apostle Peter. Still fun, though. Pastor Greg pointed out (again...*g*) how Peter wasn't a rock (like his renaming by Jesus) right away, but he grew into it after making a whole bunch of mistakes, and ended up leading the church--and, see, this is what I'm wondering: If the newspaper was right, and Tolkien meant for LOTR to be a parallel to Christianity, I'm wondering if Pippin isn't supposed to be Peter. O'course, I've tried to pin down certain characters to Biblical equivalents, and have not yet succeeded in doing so--and no longer really want to. I'm starting to think that it was the events that parallel more than anything else. And besides, it's easier to let the characters be themselves. Let Pippin be his lovely, funny self.
But this time, Greg had us come up with nicknames for ourselves, something we thought God was maybe trying to grow us into. So I thought over the year--he gave us five minutes to do so, but I've done this ad infinitum already, so it took me about 30 seconds--and knew what this year was. It was doing what scared me. I've said it here. And, I mean, it was much more than just that, but that was the recurring theme. So...a nickname...
...That wasn't too hard, either. Between Pippin, M*A*S*H, and Excel from years past, I had one pretty quickly: Soldier-girl.
::shrugs:: Why not? Like I said, living my life to what I want to be is not going to get any easier. And it's the right kind of mentality, in a way, except that I'm for building up, not killing.
But I should go to bed.
-Laurel
Went to B's SFE picnic today--so much fun. I absolutely adore the Biedlingmaiers. They're so...so...happy. Such an idyllic little family, and Lorene and Hannah are the cutest little girls I can think of. ::rather "look-how-cute!" smile::
Was playing Sims, attempting to make Julia, one of my characters, fall out of love with character Julian and in love with character Matt...succeeded in getting her to love Matt, but still loves Julian...hm.
In Sunday school today we did the exact same lesson as one of the first days this school year--made up nicknames for the apostle Peter. Still fun, though. Pastor Greg pointed out (again...*g*) how Peter wasn't a rock (like his renaming by Jesus) right away, but he grew into it after making a whole bunch of mistakes, and ended up leading the church--and, see, this is what I'm wondering: If the newspaper was right, and Tolkien meant for LOTR to be a parallel to Christianity, I'm wondering if Pippin isn't supposed to be Peter. O'course, I've tried to pin down certain characters to Biblical equivalents, and have not yet succeeded in doing so--and no longer really want to. I'm starting to think that it was the events that parallel more than anything else. And besides, it's easier to let the characters be themselves. Let Pippin be his lovely, funny self.
But this time, Greg had us come up with nicknames for ourselves, something we thought God was maybe trying to grow us into. So I thought over the year--he gave us five minutes to do so, but I've done this ad infinitum already, so it took me about 30 seconds--and knew what this year was. It was doing what scared me. I've said it here. And, I mean, it was much more than just that, but that was the recurring theme. So...a nickname...
...That wasn't too hard, either. Between Pippin, M*A*S*H, and Excel from years past, I had one pretty quickly: Soldier-girl.
::shrugs:: Why not? Like I said, living my life to what I want to be is not going to get any easier. And it's the right kind of mentality, in a way, except that I'm for building up, not killing.
But I should go to bed.
-Laurel
6.08.2002
I'm not being angsty, really I'm not. But I found a really good song about this past November.
Like pretty much all my friends, I like setting songs to certain events in my life. I've only started doing this in the past couple of years. Before, I always made up mental music videos to songs, but they didn't involve me, they involved imaginary people, or my friends--but now I do it a lot. So I started thinking about setting my year to music, and what I'd put.
I was listening to my mom's old Cranberries tape (Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We?) and came upon the song "Linger". I've heard the song lots of times before, but only knew a bit of the chorus. But I listened to it a few days ago, and the words almost directly parallel everything with Bryan from November to when I stopped liking him. Lyrics here--but I'll be quoting some lines in a minute here.
See, it was November, just after Bryan's birthday (and subsequent party), when I learned about Amanda. And the song doesn't fit exactly--we'd never declared ourselves as "going out"--but this girl came out of, seriously, nowhere--I'd never heard her name before--and suddenly he was all moony over her and how perfect she was, and how he couldn't have her. Well, actually, he could--he did, about a week after I first heard about her. I, meanwhile, was not so much angry as hurt--all right, so he'd picked her over me, but I hadn't known I was in competition in the first place--and there were definitely some things I'dve done differently if I had. The feeling was not like Ananda's [Ananda, though, not Amanda]--she wanted to punch him out for me first and ask the questions later--it was more like, why didn't he tell me? I mean, okay, so I understand why--you like someone else also, you're not likely to say so--but I'd never so much as heard her name. It seemed more unfair than anything else. She was so far away--he could pick faults in me, but not in her. If we went to the same school, maybe I could have held my own--but I couldn't compete with his memories of her, and what he thought she was--and what she apparently is, from his accounts of their meeting each other. He doesn't see her every day.
"I, I swore I would be true/And, honey, so did you/So why were you holding her hand?/Is that the way we stand?/Were you lying all the time?/Was it just a game to you?"
But the thing was, I thought of him in the same way as he did Amanda. What I thought I knew of him had been from three years before--and, as I found when I referred to my journals, there were a few negative things about him, even then, that I had forgotten--because I hadn't seen him. He hadn't been in my classes anymore.
"Oh, I thought the world of you..."
I don't regret that we didn't get together--Bryan, I have found now that I can see the difference three years has made, is not really someone I could be in love with. And I do smile when I think of the two months before Amanda--the bowling, and driver's ed, and him stealing my food, pulling at my hair, and calling me "hon" (which I hate, but the thought was there)--but when I get to Amanda, and the day when Aubrey cut him off mid-Amanda-rant with, "We don't care!", and Bryan said, "She cares [meaning me]. That's why I like her," and threw his arm across my shoulders as he said it, it isn't as nice anymore. Not to be melodramatic when I'm trying to be semi-poetic, but the bit of weight from his arm sank more than just my shoulders.
"I'm sure I'm not being rude/But it's just your attitude/It's tearing me apart/It's ruining everything..."
And the thing was, I still liked him. It was ridiculous. But I couldn't help it. He kept giving me hope--he was going out with Amanda, he wasn't going out with Amanda, this-that-and-the-other-thing, and every time he showed the slightest bit of renewed interest in me, I'd fall again, fast and hard.
"But I'm in so deep/You know I'm such a fool for you/You got me wrapped around your finger/Do you have to let it linger?/Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?"
Maybe that's why I've been so quick to tease him in lunch for the past while--maybe it's convincing myself not to like him again. I don't know. That's "Not Sorry", though, a different Cranberries song, if it's true: "But you're so selfish, you don't see what you're doing to me/I keep on looking through the window again/No, I'm not sorry if I insult you/No, I'm not sorry if I insult you..."
I hope this wasn't melodramatic. I don't feel that way. Just...I wish it could have gone differently. I liked him. He was fun. But he never gave me a word of explanation for any of it--and he knew I liked him, and had said more than once that he liked me.
"If you, if you could get by/Trying not to lie/Things wouldn't be so confused/And I wouldn't feel so used/But you always really knew/I just wanna be with you..."
-Laurel
Like pretty much all my friends, I like setting songs to certain events in my life. I've only started doing this in the past couple of years. Before, I always made up mental music videos to songs, but they didn't involve me, they involved imaginary people, or my friends--but now I do it a lot. So I started thinking about setting my year to music, and what I'd put.
I was listening to my mom's old Cranberries tape (Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We?) and came upon the song "Linger". I've heard the song lots of times before, but only knew a bit of the chorus. But I listened to it a few days ago, and the words almost directly parallel everything with Bryan from November to when I stopped liking him. Lyrics here--but I'll be quoting some lines in a minute here.
See, it was November, just after Bryan's birthday (and subsequent party), when I learned about Amanda. And the song doesn't fit exactly--we'd never declared ourselves as "going out"--but this girl came out of, seriously, nowhere--I'd never heard her name before--and suddenly he was all moony over her and how perfect she was, and how he couldn't have her. Well, actually, he could--he did, about a week after I first heard about her. I, meanwhile, was not so much angry as hurt--all right, so he'd picked her over me, but I hadn't known I was in competition in the first place--and there were definitely some things I'dve done differently if I had. The feeling was not like Ananda's [Ananda, though, not Amanda]--she wanted to punch him out for me first and ask the questions later--it was more like, why didn't he tell me? I mean, okay, so I understand why--you like someone else also, you're not likely to say so--but I'd never so much as heard her name. It seemed more unfair than anything else. She was so far away--he could pick faults in me, but not in her. If we went to the same school, maybe I could have held my own--but I couldn't compete with his memories of her, and what he thought she was--and what she apparently is, from his accounts of their meeting each other. He doesn't see her every day.
"I, I swore I would be true/And, honey, so did you/So why were you holding her hand?/Is that the way we stand?/Were you lying all the time?/Was it just a game to you?"
But the thing was, I thought of him in the same way as he did Amanda. What I thought I knew of him had been from three years before--and, as I found when I referred to my journals, there were a few negative things about him, even then, that I had forgotten--because I hadn't seen him. He hadn't been in my classes anymore.
"Oh, I thought the world of you..."
I don't regret that we didn't get together--Bryan, I have found now that I can see the difference three years has made, is not really someone I could be in love with. And I do smile when I think of the two months before Amanda--the bowling, and driver's ed, and him stealing my food, pulling at my hair, and calling me "hon" (which I hate, but the thought was there)--but when I get to Amanda, and the day when Aubrey cut him off mid-Amanda-rant with, "We don't care!", and Bryan said, "She cares [meaning me]. That's why I like her," and threw his arm across my shoulders as he said it, it isn't as nice anymore. Not to be melodramatic when I'm trying to be semi-poetic, but the bit of weight from his arm sank more than just my shoulders.
"I'm sure I'm not being rude/But it's just your attitude/It's tearing me apart/It's ruining everything..."
And the thing was, I still liked him. It was ridiculous. But I couldn't help it. He kept giving me hope--he was going out with Amanda, he wasn't going out with Amanda, this-that-and-the-other-thing, and every time he showed the slightest bit of renewed interest in me, I'd fall again, fast and hard.
"But I'm in so deep/You know I'm such a fool for you/You got me wrapped around your finger/Do you have to let it linger?/Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?"
Maybe that's why I've been so quick to tease him in lunch for the past while--maybe it's convincing myself not to like him again. I don't know. That's "Not Sorry", though, a different Cranberries song, if it's true: "But you're so selfish, you don't see what you're doing to me/I keep on looking through the window again/No, I'm not sorry if I insult you/No, I'm not sorry if I insult you..."
I hope this wasn't melodramatic. I don't feel that way. Just...I wish it could have gone differently. I liked him. He was fun. But he never gave me a word of explanation for any of it--and he knew I liked him, and had said more than once that he liked me.
"If you, if you could get by/Trying not to lie/Things wouldn't be so confused/And I wouldn't feel so used/But you always really knew/I just wanna be with you..."
-Laurel
6.06.2002
Presented my Spanish project today in front of the class...went well, though I'm always much less articulate orally than I am on paper; could not talk worth crud, kept tripping over my verbs, were were always long even when conjugated (me materializaría, etc.). Got to answer questions in English, though. The funniest was Megan's--see, I'd mentioned that I was hoping Ananda, Daf, and Zinni could be superheroes with me and have powers like mine--and Megan's was, "D'you think Ananda would use her transporting powers to materialize at a U2 concert?" I laughed. This girl Katie in my class was like, "A U2 concert? *I* would!"
Another interesting one was, "Do you have any enemies? What would you do if you were trying to put a bubble around a kid [one of my powers; they're unbreakable, so they'll be protected until safety is found] and a bad guy came after them?" (Katie's follow-up: "Do you have any lasers?")
I explained that I don't really have any aggressive weapons--if we were come after mid-bubble-application, I'd just transport us both back to my hideout. "What was your question again?" I asked Shelley. "I don't remember--I'm sorry--"
"It was just, do you have any enemies?"
I thought about it, then finally shrugged. "Guerras. Odio." Then I translated it. "War. Hate." And I felt so Hawkeye from M*A*S*H, 'cause that's exactly the kind of thing he'd say. Heck, he has said stuff like that in the episodes.
...And there were a few scattered responses of "Awww..." --think it was Nicole, Stephanie, maybe Joe.
And I meant it, too. Like I said, whether war's right or wrong, I don't know. Just...twenty countries highlighted on my world map...and ours, though war's halfway across the world, is one of them now. And how many kids? Samweli's one...Mugisha's probably another...and even Sunil, in India, is looking at internal conflicts. That's all the kids we sponsor, and look. Look.
I don't get it. I feel like Hawkeye, like I could just drive or fly to wherever these places are having peace talks, fanagle my way in, and let them have it (episode called "Peace on Us"--it's one of my favorites).
You mean you can't even get together on one little word? ...People are *dying* out there--you've got to stop it! You *can't wait anymore*--you've got to *stop* this!
*sigh*
Am watching M*A*S*H as we speak and typing between the commercials (can you tell?).
Enough for now. My dad says I have to clean my room. ::rolls eyes a bit, smiles::
-Laurel
Another interesting one was, "Do you have any enemies? What would you do if you were trying to put a bubble around a kid [one of my powers; they're unbreakable, so they'll be protected until safety is found] and a bad guy came after them?" (Katie's follow-up: "Do you have any lasers?")
I explained that I don't really have any aggressive weapons--if we were come after mid-bubble-application, I'd just transport us both back to my hideout. "What was your question again?" I asked Shelley. "I don't remember--I'm sorry--"
"It was just, do you have any enemies?"
I thought about it, then finally shrugged. "Guerras. Odio." Then I translated it. "War. Hate." And I felt so Hawkeye from M*A*S*H, 'cause that's exactly the kind of thing he'd say. Heck, he has said stuff like that in the episodes.
...And there were a few scattered responses of "Awww..." --think it was Nicole, Stephanie, maybe Joe.
And I meant it, too. Like I said, whether war's right or wrong, I don't know. Just...twenty countries highlighted on my world map...and ours, though war's halfway across the world, is one of them now. And how many kids? Samweli's one...Mugisha's probably another...and even Sunil, in India, is looking at internal conflicts. That's all the kids we sponsor, and look. Look.
I don't get it. I feel like Hawkeye, like I could just drive or fly to wherever these places are having peace talks, fanagle my way in, and let them have it (episode called "Peace on Us"--it's one of my favorites).
You mean you can't even get together on one little word? ...People are *dying* out there--you've got to stop it! You *can't wait anymore*--you've got to *stop* this!
*sigh*
Am watching M*A*S*H as we speak and typing between the commercials (can you tell?).
Enough for now. My dad says I have to clean my room. ::rolls eyes a bit, smiles::
-Laurel
6.05.2002
More work on my Spanish project--the visual this time. See, I had to come up with some sort of visual, and I was going to design my superhero hideout on The Sims--that is, make the house there, then print it out--but the printing was too dark, so I came up with a different idea: my project is really, at heart, about war, so I decided to get a world map and shade in all the countries at war.
Well. You would not think that finding a website of the world's warring countries, or something similar, would take so long, but it did. I was on the computer for something like three and a half hours. Why? Well, so many of the websites are outdated--there was very little way to know which ones were still, technically, wars...the Amnesty page was one of the better sources--turns out, looking at their records, that a couple of the world's myriad little wars just ended, like, in April and stuff...meanwhile, all the sites disagree on whether or not India and Pakistan are actually at war.
There was another site that was a really good one, but it must have been from mid-2001...'cause we didn't show up on their list, and these people had even the most minor of conflicts.
Just...so many countries. I shaded in 20 on my map, and I know I missed some. And on another good site, Nation by Nation, they have some truly frightening statistics on which countries are mostly illiterate, infant death rates, unclean drinking water percentages, and--the one that made my stomach flutter--percentage of children with malnutrition. In one country--was it India?--it was 47%.
Things like that...I want so badly to go and help, or go and see so I can write about it...but my parents barely give me consent to go anywhere...even when I'm a legal adult, I'd almost have to sneak off, 'cause they'd worry so much...
...And the insanity is, if I ever have kids, I know I'll do the same thing. Darn.
I'll have to marry a missionary or something. That'd at least grudgingly reconcile my mom to the fact. *g*
Poor poverty-stricken kids everywhere. Wish I did have a secret hideout I could fly them to. Wish I really was a superhero.
-Laurel
Well. You would not think that finding a website of the world's warring countries, or something similar, would take so long, but it did. I was on the computer for something like three and a half hours. Why? Well, so many of the websites are outdated--there was very little way to know which ones were still, technically, wars...the Amnesty page was one of the better sources--turns out, looking at their records, that a couple of the world's myriad little wars just ended, like, in April and stuff...meanwhile, all the sites disagree on whether or not India and Pakistan are actually at war.
There was another site that was a really good one, but it must have been from mid-2001...'cause we didn't show up on their list, and these people had even the most minor of conflicts.
Just...so many countries. I shaded in 20 on my map, and I know I missed some. And on another good site, Nation by Nation, they have some truly frightening statistics on which countries are mostly illiterate, infant death rates, unclean drinking water percentages, and--the one that made my stomach flutter--percentage of children with malnutrition. In one country--was it India?--it was 47%.
Things like that...I want so badly to go and help, or go and see so I can write about it...but my parents barely give me consent to go anywhere...even when I'm a legal adult, I'd almost have to sneak off, 'cause they'd worry so much...
...And the insanity is, if I ever have kids, I know I'll do the same thing. Darn.
I'll have to marry a missionary or something. That'd at least grudgingly reconcile my mom to the fact. *g*
Poor poverty-stricken kids everywhere. Wish I did have a secret hideout I could fly them to. Wish I really was a superhero.
-Laurel
6.03.2002
::laughs:: Oh, wow, whoever knew that Spanish projects could be so great?
For part of my final exam this year, I had to write a one-and-a-half-page paper in Spanish (double-spaced, so it wasn't so bad) about a specific topic on the sheet. All of them were pretty boring except the one I chose, which was this: I had to describe what kind of superhero I would be if I could, what my powers would be, whether I would work alone or with others like me, and what the problems of being a superhero would be. The only stipulation: I had to help the world in some way.
So maybe it's all the M*A*S*H I've been watching, maybe it's the fact that the African child I help sponsor is currently in a Tanzanian refugee camp because his country (Dem. Rep. of the Congo, formerly Zaire) is at war, maybe it's just all the save-the-worldness that's finally rewaking in me, but I decided that I was going to save children who live in warring countries who are in danger--their villages get destroyed, or they stray to close to bullets or mines. I would be "La Protectora" ("Protector"; I know it's rather a mediocre name, but I couldn't think of anything better), and I would be able to sense where a child in trouble was, and I would be able to materialize wherever he or she was and place a protective bubble around them. Then I could bring them to safety--if there was no safe place nearby, I would transport us to my hideout, which would be a big house with food, drinks, and lots of places to sleep, and they could stay there until safety was found for them.
And I already knew that I wanted some partners to help me if possible--ideally three or more--because so many children are in danger, and, you know, I have to eat, go to school, and sleep at some point, but it took me until tonight (when I still had half a page to make up...*g*) to realize that the perfect three partners already existed: Daf, Zinni, and Ananda.
I mean, it'd be just what we used to dream about at Zinni's...saving the world, helping kids in places like Africa...that was always Ananda's big thing, Africa, and I was more interested then in local stuff--let's save America first, etc.--but now I find myself more interested in other cultures...and, let's face it, lots of times their situation is much more dire...we're nominally at war, and like on Memorial Day, I honor the soldiers we've sent...but it's not where we are. It's not chaotic. We don't have little kids stepping on land mines, having their villages destroyed. So much of what goes on in places like that reminds me of M*A*S*H--on the show, every so often casualties from shelled Korean villages will come and stuff...and they probably don't use shells anymore, but it's the same idea, isn't it?
So I talked about how they could work with me, and we could build the hideout together and help save the world like we've always wanted...and it was nice. The whole thing was very cool...
...And here I am, cracking jokes in Spanish in the parentheses. I mean, they pertained to my paper--they were side comments about things about it--but, I mean, it's a final, and here I am making some quip about how Superman never seemed to have all the problems we're bound to have, trying to conceal our identities and keep real jobs when we're running off every five minutes to save someone, and other things like that, and I'm thinking, what is *wrong* with me?!
But it was so much fun.
Waiting 'round for Ananda's ***stardust update to come up, but I may check later. I should shower at some point, and my mom just made a strawberry rhubarb pie that's looking pretty good at the moment (*g* to Ananda: "Not hungry...but it tastes good...but I'm not hungry...but it tastes good...").
More blithering another time, though not necessarily about the paper.
-Laurel
P.S.: Just got hungry. *g*
For part of my final exam this year, I had to write a one-and-a-half-page paper in Spanish (double-spaced, so it wasn't so bad) about a specific topic on the sheet. All of them were pretty boring except the one I chose, which was this: I had to describe what kind of superhero I would be if I could, what my powers would be, whether I would work alone or with others like me, and what the problems of being a superhero would be. The only stipulation: I had to help the world in some way.
So maybe it's all the M*A*S*H I've been watching, maybe it's the fact that the African child I help sponsor is currently in a Tanzanian refugee camp because his country (Dem. Rep. of the Congo, formerly Zaire) is at war, maybe it's just all the save-the-worldness that's finally rewaking in me, but I decided that I was going to save children who live in warring countries who are in danger--their villages get destroyed, or they stray to close to bullets or mines. I would be "La Protectora" ("Protector"; I know it's rather a mediocre name, but I couldn't think of anything better), and I would be able to sense where a child in trouble was, and I would be able to materialize wherever he or she was and place a protective bubble around them. Then I could bring them to safety--if there was no safe place nearby, I would transport us to my hideout, which would be a big house with food, drinks, and lots of places to sleep, and they could stay there until safety was found for them.
And I already knew that I wanted some partners to help me if possible--ideally three or more--because so many children are in danger, and, you know, I have to eat, go to school, and sleep at some point, but it took me until tonight (when I still had half a page to make up...*g*) to realize that the perfect three partners already existed: Daf, Zinni, and Ananda.
I mean, it'd be just what we used to dream about at Zinni's...saving the world, helping kids in places like Africa...that was always Ananda's big thing, Africa, and I was more interested then in local stuff--let's save America first, etc.--but now I find myself more interested in other cultures...and, let's face it, lots of times their situation is much more dire...we're nominally at war, and like on Memorial Day, I honor the soldiers we've sent...but it's not where we are. It's not chaotic. We don't have little kids stepping on land mines, having their villages destroyed. So much of what goes on in places like that reminds me of M*A*S*H--on the show, every so often casualties from shelled Korean villages will come and stuff...and they probably don't use shells anymore, but it's the same idea, isn't it?
So I talked about how they could work with me, and we could build the hideout together and help save the world like we've always wanted...and it was nice. The whole thing was very cool...
...And here I am, cracking jokes in Spanish in the parentheses. I mean, they pertained to my paper--they were side comments about things about it--but, I mean, it's a final, and here I am making some quip about how Superman never seemed to have all the problems we're bound to have, trying to conceal our identities and keep real jobs when we're running off every five minutes to save someone, and other things like that, and I'm thinking, what is *wrong* with me?!
But it was so much fun.
Waiting 'round for Ananda's ***stardust update to come up, but I may check later. I should shower at some point, and my mom just made a strawberry rhubarb pie that's looking pretty good at the moment (*g* to Ananda: "Not hungry...but it tastes good...but I'm not hungry...but it tastes good...").
More blithering another time, though not necessarily about the paper.
-Laurel
P.S.: Just got hungry. *g*
6.02.2002
*sigh* Yeah, whatever. Sorry as usual.
Did Chicken BBQ today for school. We screwed up miserably on "Cindy", but it was fun. I sounded better than usual, so it was good. Lalala. And Blake and Nicole did their puppet show during "Africa" when they played for band! It was absolutely brill.
So Ananda's done her last concert with us, and has passed on to me her title of Luke Skywalker, Rebel Alto Section Leader. This means I actually have to know the music now. And I'm being president of Leo Club, too...kind of like getting hand-me-downs, really...*g*
We love you, 'Nanda. And Blake does, too. *g*
-Laurel
Did Chicken BBQ today for school. We screwed up miserably on "Cindy", but it was fun. I sounded better than usual, so it was good. Lalala. And Blake and Nicole did their puppet show during "Africa" when they played for band! It was absolutely brill.
So Ananda's done her last concert with us, and has passed on to me her title of Luke Skywalker, Rebel Alto Section Leader. This means I actually have to know the music now. And I'm being president of Leo Club, too...kind of like getting hand-me-downs, really...*g*
We love you, 'Nanda. And Blake does, too. *g*
-Laurel
Warning: Whining ahead. I'll probably hate this entry tomorrow, and still more this warning. Read at your peril.
Gah, so much for maturity. Went to the choral banquet and nearly cried because I didn't feel pretty and no one danced with me.
It's not even that all the guys in my grade are stupid, though Ananda was very nice to try consoling me with the fact that they're not the only guys in the world. It's just...this is all I ever do at dances. This is why I hated the word wallflower when I was younger. It wasn't just that I was a word-freak even then and developed random dislikings for words (which still happens to me, actually)...it was that, even then, I knew that that's exactly what I'd be. The geek in the chair, or by the wall, or on the balcony looking down at everyone else (and thinking of my daydream of being Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac during that play's balcony scene and realizing how absolutely ridiculous the idea of my being Roxane is, all things considered). That's all I've ever been, and it's like, when do I get my hand held, when do *I* get held, when do I stop being the tag-along behind all my friends...or, at the very least, when do I reach the point where I can watch everyone else and not wish I was somewhere else?
The other part isn't something Ananda or Daf could help--the other part was that my mom said something before I left that implied that I've gotten sort of heavy. And she insists that's not the way she meant it, but...I mean...it's the same thing I've been thinking myself, and now she notices it, which means everybody notices it (it's not that my mom is clueless; it's just that she's usually so much more positive, me-wise, than everyone else, so if she says it...). It's not like it preyed on my mind all night, and my dress was big enough that you could hardly tell, but...but...
And I feel like a prat now because I actually care about this rot. Wanting things I'm not meant to have, which goes against all the promises I made myself and all the 'Nanda-and-Dafness I try so desperately to achieve on my own level. But how many times can I tell myself, people who spend all their time reading can't expect to be good at (fill in the blank)?
I keep telling myself that there's no use in whining. As it is, I'm dampering Ananda and Daf's night, like I was then. Just...the slow song, and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to laugh or cry...Daf and Ken were just there, not ten feet from me, looking like they had, as they say in LOTR, strayed into a dream...and Ananda, across the room, telling Blake everything, looking like it was heaven for two...
...and there I am, watching them again, just like I always have, and wanting it both ways--not being able to dance, knowing I'd be too afraid to even if I got asked...but wanting to be asked, all the same. Sitting with Brandon and Matt, who tell me that they don't like dancing, either. Great, I wanted to be classed with them. They're nice guys, but--I'm sorry--commonly seen as dorks infinitely beyond hope.
Be happy with those who are happy... And so I should have, but I was, and am, too busy pitying the fact that the vast majority of guys in choir--indeed, in the school--know me as nothing more than a girl who knows the answers in class and likes making the occasional semi-smart remark.
Fail better? That I didn't. Fell into self-pity again. Of course.
And I did this with sports for a long time, too--but that stopped when I got better at them and realized that I didn't want to be on a team, that gym class was fine. But what about this? I'm not getting any better at this. See, this is why I don't go to dances. I wouldn't have gone to this one, except that I wanted to see the senior gifts, and it turns out that I got to see Ananda kiss Blake on the cheek.
I wanted you to, Ananda. Don't feel bad.
...Why in crap can't I just get a life, like anyone else, or just shut up and deal with it? There's no sense in any of this.
-Laurel
Gah, so much for maturity. Went to the choral banquet and nearly cried because I didn't feel pretty and no one danced with me.
It's not even that all the guys in my grade are stupid, though Ananda was very nice to try consoling me with the fact that they're not the only guys in the world. It's just...this is all I ever do at dances. This is why I hated the word wallflower when I was younger. It wasn't just that I was a word-freak even then and developed random dislikings for words (which still happens to me, actually)...it was that, even then, I knew that that's exactly what I'd be. The geek in the chair, or by the wall, or on the balcony looking down at everyone else (and thinking of my daydream of being Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac during that play's balcony scene and realizing how absolutely ridiculous the idea of my being Roxane is, all things considered). That's all I've ever been, and it's like, when do I get my hand held, when do *I* get held, when do I stop being the tag-along behind all my friends...or, at the very least, when do I reach the point where I can watch everyone else and not wish I was somewhere else?
The other part isn't something Ananda or Daf could help--the other part was that my mom said something before I left that implied that I've gotten sort of heavy. And she insists that's not the way she meant it, but...I mean...it's the same thing I've been thinking myself, and now she notices it, which means everybody notices it (it's not that my mom is clueless; it's just that she's usually so much more positive, me-wise, than everyone else, so if she says it...). It's not like it preyed on my mind all night, and my dress was big enough that you could hardly tell, but...but...
And I feel like a prat now because I actually care about this rot. Wanting things I'm not meant to have, which goes against all the promises I made myself and all the 'Nanda-and-Dafness I try so desperately to achieve on my own level. But how many times can I tell myself, people who spend all their time reading can't expect to be good at (fill in the blank)?
I keep telling myself that there's no use in whining. As it is, I'm dampering Ananda and Daf's night, like I was then. Just...the slow song, and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to laugh or cry...Daf and Ken were just there, not ten feet from me, looking like they had, as they say in LOTR, strayed into a dream...and Ananda, across the room, telling Blake everything, looking like it was heaven for two...
...and there I am, watching them again, just like I always have, and wanting it both ways--not being able to dance, knowing I'd be too afraid to even if I got asked...but wanting to be asked, all the same. Sitting with Brandon and Matt, who tell me that they don't like dancing, either. Great, I wanted to be classed with them. They're nice guys, but--I'm sorry--commonly seen as dorks infinitely beyond hope.
Be happy with those who are happy... And so I should have, but I was, and am, too busy pitying the fact that the vast majority of guys in choir--indeed, in the school--know me as nothing more than a girl who knows the answers in class and likes making the occasional semi-smart remark.
Fail better? That I didn't. Fell into self-pity again. Of course.
And I did this with sports for a long time, too--but that stopped when I got better at them and realized that I didn't want to be on a team, that gym class was fine. But what about this? I'm not getting any better at this. See, this is why I don't go to dances. I wouldn't have gone to this one, except that I wanted to see the senior gifts, and it turns out that I got to see Ananda kiss Blake on the cheek.
I wanted you to, Ananda. Don't feel bad.
...Why in crap can't I just get a life, like anyone else, or just shut up and deal with it? There's no sense in any of this.
-Laurel