I know that I've promised to slow down on these for a little while--::grins::--but I did want to make one last update before I left, that I am feeling significantly better (hurrah for vitamins and sleep!), and am highly enthusiastic about my weekend West. I leave in an hour and a quarter, and will most likely not post again until January 3rd or 4th at least.
A very happy New Year to you all.
-Laurel
12.30.2004
Well, she'd have a reputation for being tough on...dirt...
Kristin decided last year that she was going to be president someday and gave us all jobs that we'd be doing when she was elected; I may have put up an entry about it nearly a year ago. I was dubbed her speechwriter, Sam-Seaborn-style, for those at all familiar with West Wing before he left the show.
Well, have just received the following e-mail from Kristin:
Dear [Laurel],
I hope you are enjoying your break.
As my Sam Seaborn I thought it proper to let you in on my presidential
campaign idea. I am going to run on a cleanliness theme. Now hear me
out. What do you think about the Government subsidizing first a
starter program of soap and then a more extensive deoderant program?
I know you must think I have gone off my rocker. But how many people
would vote for someone who vows to make this country smell pretty????
I mean speaking from someone who ends up at arm pit level with
everyone on the subway I think that this is a wonderful idea.
Remember if you are my Sam you have to leave and run for something on
your own too.
I should probably mention that Kristin is four-foot-nine and has to take trains and subways from Long Island to New York City and back, five days a week.
::shakes head, laughing helplessly::
-Laurel
Well, have just received the following e-mail from Kristin:
Dear [Laurel],
I hope you are enjoying your break.
As my Sam Seaborn I thought it proper to let you in on my presidential
campaign idea. I am going to run on a cleanliness theme. Now hear me
out. What do you think about the Government subsidizing first a
starter program of soap and then a more extensive deoderant program?
I know you must think I have gone off my rocker. But how many people
would vote for someone who vows to make this country smell pretty????
I mean speaking from someone who ends up at arm pit level with
everyone on the subway I think that this is a wonderful idea.
Remember if you are my Sam you have to leave and run for something on
your own too.
I should probably mention that Kristin is four-foot-nine and has to take trains and subways from Long Island to New York City and back, five days a week.
::shakes head, laughing helplessly::
-Laurel
Okay, so maybe the nickname "Slug" does fit me...
I am here attempting to convince myself that I really do not have anything worse than a chest cold, despite my sleeping 'til eleven and not feeling like I'd gotten much sleep at all. Plus, when in your dreams you're with friends and go into coughing spasms, and then you wake up and the coughing part is real...
...but tomorrow... ::helpless look::
Maybe if I go to bed early...
In other news, perhaps I do not know how to seize opportunity when it knocks at my door: my mother actually offered me apple pie for breakfast, joking that, hey, it has fruit. She would have let me and everything, but on the theory that more vitamins will mean an end to my sickness, I had two packets of fortified oatmeal. Which also tasted quite good, though that is some quality pie.
My dad's boss got him the pie for Christmas; it is an apple pecan one from Cracker Barrel Restaurant. The humor here is that, just two days ago, one day before this gift, my family spontaneously went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, and we were making fun of the pies because they all have pecans in them, except for the one that's no-sugar-added apple. We made lame cracks about the pecan plant down in Georgia they must have ties with. And then we got one for Christmas, and it's absolutely delicious.
100,000 and rising in Asia. Still have not found any local non-monetary projects (and what do I expect, a mission trip to the site? as if my parents would let me go anyway, even assuming I could get over my fear of the Third World), but then, I never did get to see yesterday's news articles on the efforts here. I should do that; the recycling people come tomorrow. ...I wonder if Sunil is okay. I checked the sponsorship site, but they have no news alerts more recent than the Haiti disaster. ...Neither, for that matter, does our local Red Cross chapter's site, though I know they're doing something or other for Asia.
Okay, time to take a shower or something.
-Laurel
...but tomorrow... ::helpless look::
Maybe if I go to bed early...
In other news, perhaps I do not know how to seize opportunity when it knocks at my door: my mother actually offered me apple pie for breakfast, joking that, hey, it has fruit. She would have let me and everything, but on the theory that more vitamins will mean an end to my sickness, I had two packets of fortified oatmeal. Which also tasted quite good, though that is some quality pie.
My dad's boss got him the pie for Christmas; it is an apple pecan one from Cracker Barrel Restaurant. The humor here is that, just two days ago, one day before this gift, my family spontaneously went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, and we were making fun of the pies because they all have pecans in them, except for the one that's no-sugar-added apple. We made lame cracks about the pecan plant down in Georgia they must have ties with. And then we got one for Christmas, and it's absolutely delicious.
100,000 and rising in Asia. Still have not found any local non-monetary projects (and what do I expect, a mission trip to the site? as if my parents would let me go anyway, even assuming I could get over my fear of the Third World), but then, I never did get to see yesterday's news articles on the efforts here. I should do that; the recycling people come tomorrow. ...I wonder if Sunil is okay. I checked the sponsorship site, but they have no news alerts more recent than the Haiti disaster. ...Neither, for that matter, does our local Red Cross chapter's site, though I know they're doing something or other for Asia.
Okay, time to take a shower or something.
-Laurel
12.29.2004
It takes brains to know you haven't any. -Cyrano de Bergerac
Great Northern Gathering was very good and much-needed. Sorry for skitching out on everybody last night. I think I know why it was particularly bad, and it shouldn't happen again. Dentist stuff today went fine as well; the nitrous thing went way better than last time.
I have a Peanuts calendar, and it is cool. :)
I have presents from my friends, and they are cool, too. :) :)
And I get to spend New Year's with Tim and his family in approximately 40 hours. ::squee!::
But, ruddy crud in a bucket, I still cannot find my way out of a paper bag. Note to self: the map may indicate that a street crosses a major highway, but that does not mean that there is a junction with this highway at any point near that location.
Also: Tim Horton's does not equal Agatina's Italian Restaurant, and one therefore should not turn at the former when they are supposed to turn at the latter. Thank you.
But 'Nanda and Matt were very, very good about getting lost with me, and somehow, incredibly, managed to keep me from feeling all that stupid. So a thousand points to each of them.
Now, let's go on to a game called "Laurel Gets off Blogger and Gets Ready for Bed." This game is for Laurel only...
-Laurel
I have a Peanuts calendar, and it is cool. :)
I have presents from my friends, and they are cool, too. :) :)
And I get to spend New Year's with Tim and his family in approximately 40 hours. ::squee!::
But, ruddy crud in a bucket, I still cannot find my way out of a paper bag. Note to self: the map may indicate that a street crosses a major highway, but that does not mean that there is a junction with this highway at any point near that location.
Also: Tim Horton's does not equal Agatina's Italian Restaurant, and one therefore should not turn at the former when they are supposed to turn at the latter. Thank you.
But 'Nanda and Matt were very, very good about getting lost with me, and somehow, incredibly, managed to keep me from feeling all that stupid. So a thousand points to each of them.
Now, let's go on to a game called "Laurel Gets off Blogger and Gets Ready for Bed." This game is for Laurel only...
-Laurel
12.28.2004
Oh, ech.
It's up to, what, 60,000 deaths in Asia now?
Is there anything I can do for these people that doesn't involve money that I mostly don't have?
Everybody is dropping hints that my tension level is really getting scary. Look, I've been aware of it for five months; anyone have any suggestions a little more creative-slash-helpful than "take yoga"? I've been getting a lot of that, mostly as people trying(?) to subtly tell me I'm scaring them. Even my parents.
-Laurel
Is there anything I can do for these people that doesn't involve money that I mostly don't have?
Everybody is dropping hints that my tension level is really getting scary. Look, I've been aware of it for five months; anyone have any suggestions a little more creative-slash-helpful than "take yoga"? I've been getting a lot of that, mostly as people trying(?) to subtly tell me I'm scaring them. Even my parents.
-Laurel
12.27.2004
Another prolonged jawing, w00t.
I hope Evan is safely in Denver and having fun.
Had to drive my mom to my dentist appointment today; she never really got to like my driving, which makes sense, inasmuch as it sucks. She wants me to sit back farther and stop twitching. About the twitching, she is very good at making me feel like there's something wrong with me when I do it, but never mind.
As for the sitting back, she tells me gravely that the way I sit so far up now, if the airbag ever deploys, it will kill me.
...Great, 'cause I needed another reason to be tense while I'm driving, and to feel amazed that I'm not dead. That's gonna help the twitching so much.
I have two "very small cavities" where my sealants apparently came off--Aneya says that they are caries, 'cause I eat a lot of bread; she learned this in archaeology class. What it means is that I have to go back now on Wednesday to get them filled, and this time my mom gets to drive (thank goodness for that), at least going home, 'cause they're apparently putting me under nitrous just for that. After what happened last time, I'm a little wary, but here's hoping this time they won't give me too much, if that's what happened, or that my brain won't skitch out, if that's what happened.
I got home from the appointment and proceeded to make gingerbread, which is probably an odd thing to do after visiting the dentist, especially when you're informed of your newly-developed caries/cavities, but I like it, and had been planning to make it.
In much better news, I will be with Tim and Tom from New Year's Eve until January 3rd. New Year's with their mother's side of family (including the apparent couple-dozen cousins, hurrah!), ice skating, Andrea and Joe coming to see Tom, and the lot of us going to Niagara Falls on a daytrip. Yay!
But I am coming down with a chest cold, which means that I have been given stern orders (from Tim, not my parents) to sleep and to consume chicken soup. I have had more success with the second than the first, but hey.
Time to do something a little productive, maybe. Goodness knows what; I haven't the energy to play DDR, nor the inclination to organize the APO secretary's binder. Maybe I will read. Maybe I will eat more gingerbread (eventually; right now I'm full of homemade pizza) and read. That sounds pretty nice.
-Laurel
Had to drive my mom to my dentist appointment today; she never really got to like my driving, which makes sense, inasmuch as it sucks. She wants me to sit back farther and stop twitching. About the twitching, she is very good at making me feel like there's something wrong with me when I do it, but never mind.
As for the sitting back, she tells me gravely that the way I sit so far up now, if the airbag ever deploys, it will kill me.
...Great, 'cause I needed another reason to be tense while I'm driving, and to feel amazed that I'm not dead. That's gonna help the twitching so much.
I have two "very small cavities" where my sealants apparently came off--Aneya says that they are caries, 'cause I eat a lot of bread; she learned this in archaeology class. What it means is that I have to go back now on Wednesday to get them filled, and this time my mom gets to drive (thank goodness for that), at least going home, 'cause they're apparently putting me under nitrous just for that. After what happened last time, I'm a little wary, but here's hoping this time they won't give me too much, if that's what happened, or that my brain won't skitch out, if that's what happened.
I got home from the appointment and proceeded to make gingerbread, which is probably an odd thing to do after visiting the dentist, especially when you're informed of your newly-developed caries/cavities, but I like it, and had been planning to make it.
In much better news, I will be with Tim and Tom from New Year's Eve until January 3rd. New Year's with their mother's side of family (including the apparent couple-dozen cousins, hurrah!), ice skating, Andrea and Joe coming to see Tom, and the lot of us going to Niagara Falls on a daytrip. Yay!
But I am coming down with a chest cold, which means that I have been given stern orders (from Tim, not my parents) to sleep and to consume chicken soup. I have had more success with the second than the first, but hey.
Time to do something a little productive, maybe. Goodness knows what; I haven't the energy to play DDR, nor the inclination to organize the APO secretary's binder. Maybe I will read. Maybe I will eat more gingerbread (eventually; right now I'm full of homemade pizza) and read. That sounds pretty nice.
-Laurel
"Time won't leave me as I am/But time won't take the boy out of this man..."
::laughs:: That line reminds me so much of B.
I wish he was content to still let SFE be a refuge for the science second-raters like myself. I learned a lot there before it got competitive. I was lucky enough to be devoted; it kept me on the teams even when I didn't deserve it. My brother isn't so lucky, and has dropped out in favor of the robotics team.
Anyway, had a lovely Christmas. The best thing I got? So hard to decide, but I'm going with the wireless transmitter/receiver stuff that means I am now internet-capable here in my room. Here I type, new U2 CD blasting from my new computer speakers (which I asked for solely because the other ones didn't have a volume-control knob, and it got to be a pain for things like DDR to have to go through Windows to mess with it), and quite happy about it.
The album is quite good; I can't decide whether I admire the music or lyrics more. Bono, in interviews, seems as proud as I am of his line "freedom has a scent/like the top of a newborn baby's head," but when you hear the story behind "Miracle Drug," you have to forgive it, 'cause it's amazing. Has to do with a boy from his high school; paraplegic for much of his life, was it, 'Nanda? Will have to find a telling of it and link.
The lyrics inspire me, for whatever-odd reason, to attempt to figure out who/what/where from my own life each song should be dedicated to.
So far my favorite track on the album is not one of those destined to be most popular, at least by current prediction: "City of Blinding Lights." It was written about (for? in?) London, and that is very cool.
[rest removed due to essential pointlessness. sorry.]
-Laurel
I wish he was content to still let SFE be a refuge for the science second-raters like myself. I learned a lot there before it got competitive. I was lucky enough to be devoted; it kept me on the teams even when I didn't deserve it. My brother isn't so lucky, and has dropped out in favor of the robotics team.
Anyway, had a lovely Christmas. The best thing I got? So hard to decide, but I'm going with the wireless transmitter/receiver stuff that means I am now internet-capable here in my room. Here I type, new U2 CD blasting from my new computer speakers (which I asked for solely because the other ones didn't have a volume-control knob, and it got to be a pain for things like DDR to have to go through Windows to mess with it), and quite happy about it.
The album is quite good; I can't decide whether I admire the music or lyrics more. Bono, in interviews, seems as proud as I am of his line "freedom has a scent/like the top of a newborn baby's head," but when you hear the story behind "Miracle Drug," you have to forgive it, 'cause it's amazing. Has to do with a boy from his high school; paraplegic for much of his life, was it, 'Nanda? Will have to find a telling of it and link.
The lyrics inspire me, for whatever-odd reason, to attempt to figure out who/what/where from my own life each song should be dedicated to.
So far my favorite track on the album is not one of those destined to be most popular, at least by current prediction: "City of Blinding Lights." It was written about (for? in?) London, and that is very cool.
[rest removed due to essential pointlessness. sorry.]
-Laurel
12.25.2004
Traditio-o-o-o-o-on!
Tonight (assuming it's still December 24th at least mentally) has been a night of traditions--Christmas Eve service, driving around to see Christmas lights, drinking egg nog by the fire with my family, giving my brother his present as he gives me mine, playing computer games we played most when we were in elementary school (yeah, Medieval Warriors!)...
...so I uphold this blog's tradition, such as it is (with only two-and-a-half years of existence), even if it's a liiiiiittle late in technicality, and wish my friends a merry Christmas, singling out, as usual, the ones I didn't yet call friends this time last year.
Merry Christmas to the newbies, such as they are, whether they'll read it or not: Albert, Evelyn, Chris, Heather, Kelly, Meryl, Sara, Juliane, and Jenny. Happy Chanukah, belatedly, to newbies Lily K., Gabe, Alexa, and the Prinze-Nadwornys. Good Yule to Casey, for that matter.
Another Merry Christmas to Samweli, and Sunil, and the soldiers. Stay safe, all of you, and it's especially for you guys that I root for peace on Earth.
Merry Christmas, of course, to all my existing best-beloveds; you know who you are. :)
And to all a good day and night.
-Laurel
...so I uphold this blog's tradition, such as it is (with only two-and-a-half years of existence), even if it's a liiiiiittle late in technicality, and wish my friends a merry Christmas, singling out, as usual, the ones I didn't yet call friends this time last year.
Merry Christmas to the newbies, such as they are, whether they'll read it or not: Albert, Evelyn, Chris, Heather, Kelly, Meryl, Sara, Juliane, and Jenny. Happy Chanukah, belatedly, to newbies Lily K., Gabe, Alexa, and the Prinze-Nadwornys. Good Yule to Casey, for that matter.
Another Merry Christmas to Samweli, and Sunil, and the soldiers. Stay safe, all of you, and it's especially for you guys that I root for peace on Earth.
Merry Christmas, of course, to all my existing best-beloveds; you know who you are. :)
And to all a good day and night.
-Laurel
12.22.2004
Lift Between Switches
Thanks to Lily, who gave me Newbery books for Christmas, I am currently in mild awe of E.L. Konigsburg, who has written two of them.
The first, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, is one Lily bought me. It is simply wonderful, first page to last. I read from the first page to the last, all in the same night-slash-morning, something like 90 minutes straight. Which I have done before in my life, many times, but it's been a while since I've done so, and with such pleasure.
Claudia is simply adorable. Jamie is pretty cool, too. The dialogue is brilliant; I laughed aloud multiple times.
Also, it reminds me in several ways of Story of Laurel, Part I--the fiction I wrote for Zinni back in the eighth grade. I have to pinken at the cheeks now, since I know a real twin too well to be proud of it, but as of eighth grade, Zinni and I both had twins, and I wrote out the first piece of their history for her. (Laurel is the twin's name to my real name. That's where the pen name came from, the "flower names" we all had in junior high.)
Like Claudia, Laurel sets out to run away. Both had companions. Claudia's companion, Jamie, was chosen; Jessie, a friend of Laurel's, came along almost by chance. Like Jamie, Jessie was "rich" by ten-year-old standards (Jamie is only nine), but by selling hand-drawn comic books at school, not by cheating at cards. I don't remember how much money Jessie had, but it was not unlike Jamie's $24. ...Unlike Jamie and Claudia, Jessie and Laurel did not worry about taking the bus.
Both escaped to cities--Claudia and Jamie, to New York; Laurel and Jessie, to the city proper of their home in North Dakota, a city I named, never dreaming that in five years the name would be part of my home, Powell.
From there, the stories diverge. Claudia and Jamie are gone for only a week; Laurel and Jessie last eleven days. Konigsburg's characters are hugely careful not to stand out; for Laurel and Jessie, this works for perhaps one day, but then they fall in with a group of children who end up putting the renegades up in their treehouse.
Claudia was looking to be different--Laurel's goal was more in terms of finding freedom. Claudia and Jamie turned themselves in, so to speak; Laurel and Jessie were caught. Claudia wanted to come home noticeably different, but in a way, never truly did; Laurel, on the other hand, felt as though she'd proven something. Goal of freedom, however temporary, set; goal accomplished, and she was quietly proud of it--but she did learn that it came at a price.
I have half of Part II written, mostly from around tenth grade, but I'm pretty sure it'll never be finished, though I'll eventually give Zinni what I have. There just never was a way to transplant Laurel and her sister to this home, at least none with which I was ever satisfied.
But I was intrigued, to say the least, by what I'd tapped in the eighth grade. Not for nothing does "runaway fiction," as the Konigsburg book is actually classified, get Newbery-honored a lot. What I wanted, in eighth grade, was freedom. Now that I have it, more or less, the stories feel different somehow--but still stirring.
More present to me in a general sense was The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg's second Newbery. This I began last night and finished this afternoon. It's present mostly because it's about a Quiz Bowl team, or at least the sixth-grade equivalent. That alone was enough to win me over, and of the characters therein, it's hard to decide which I like the best, not that such a thing is important. Like Nadia Diamondstein, I am also the only girl on a Quiz Bowl team, but neither of us really think much of it. I liked the part in her story about the sea turtles and their "switches." ...I liked Noah's narration perhaps the most (though Ethan may edge him out once in a while), especially his "factual" sentences. My personal favorite takes place during a wedding: "I had decided what to do by the time they finished their kiss. (Fact: It was a very long and thorough kiss.)" I like Julian's panache, of course. *g*
So that's what I've been up to and thinking about. Whee. Christmas in...two-to-three days already? Man.
Tomorrow, either before or after my present-shopping is done for good, I'm totally going out and getting take-out sesame chicken.
-Laurel
The first, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, is one Lily bought me. It is simply wonderful, first page to last. I read from the first page to the last, all in the same night-slash-morning, something like 90 minutes straight. Which I have done before in my life, many times, but it's been a while since I've done so, and with such pleasure.
Claudia is simply adorable. Jamie is pretty cool, too. The dialogue is brilliant; I laughed aloud multiple times.
Also, it reminds me in several ways of Story of Laurel, Part I--the fiction I wrote for Zinni back in the eighth grade. I have to pinken at the cheeks now, since I know a real twin too well to be proud of it, but as of eighth grade, Zinni and I both had twins, and I wrote out the first piece of their history for her. (Laurel is the twin's name to my real name. That's where the pen name came from, the "flower names" we all had in junior high.)
Like Claudia, Laurel sets out to run away. Both had companions. Claudia's companion, Jamie, was chosen; Jessie, a friend of Laurel's, came along almost by chance. Like Jamie, Jessie was "rich" by ten-year-old standards (Jamie is only nine), but by selling hand-drawn comic books at school, not by cheating at cards. I don't remember how much money Jessie had, but it was not unlike Jamie's $24. ...Unlike Jamie and Claudia, Jessie and Laurel did not worry about taking the bus.
Both escaped to cities--Claudia and Jamie, to New York; Laurel and Jessie, to the city proper of their home in North Dakota, a city I named, never dreaming that in five years the name would be part of my home, Powell.
From there, the stories diverge. Claudia and Jamie are gone for only a week; Laurel and Jessie last eleven days. Konigsburg's characters are hugely careful not to stand out; for Laurel and Jessie, this works for perhaps one day, but then they fall in with a group of children who end up putting the renegades up in their treehouse.
Claudia was looking to be different--Laurel's goal was more in terms of finding freedom. Claudia and Jamie turned themselves in, so to speak; Laurel and Jessie were caught. Claudia wanted to come home noticeably different, but in a way, never truly did; Laurel, on the other hand, felt as though she'd proven something. Goal of freedom, however temporary, set; goal accomplished, and she was quietly proud of it--but she did learn that it came at a price.
I have half of Part II written, mostly from around tenth grade, but I'm pretty sure it'll never be finished, though I'll eventually give Zinni what I have. There just never was a way to transplant Laurel and her sister to this home, at least none with which I was ever satisfied.
But I was intrigued, to say the least, by what I'd tapped in the eighth grade. Not for nothing does "runaway fiction," as the Konigsburg book is actually classified, get Newbery-honored a lot. What I wanted, in eighth grade, was freedom. Now that I have it, more or less, the stories feel different somehow--but still stirring.
More present to me in a general sense was The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg's second Newbery. This I began last night and finished this afternoon. It's present mostly because it's about a Quiz Bowl team, or at least the sixth-grade equivalent. That alone was enough to win me over, and of the characters therein, it's hard to decide which I like the best, not that such a thing is important. Like Nadia Diamondstein, I am also the only girl on a Quiz Bowl team, but neither of us really think much of it. I liked the part in her story about the sea turtles and their "switches." ...I liked Noah's narration perhaps the most (though Ethan may edge him out once in a while), especially his "factual" sentences. My personal favorite takes place during a wedding: "I had decided what to do by the time they finished their kiss. (Fact: It was a very long and thorough kiss.)" I like Julian's panache, of course. *g*
So that's what I've been up to and thinking about. Whee. Christmas in...two-to-three days already? Man.
Tomorrow, either before or after my present-shopping is done for good, I'm totally going out and getting take-out sesame chicken.
-Laurel
12.20.2004
"Image perfecting; please wait..."
So I went to the coffee place with Erik tonight, which ended up being really cool. We talked about how the semester went; neither of us was very happy with it. Erik doesn't like that he did more homework than he's ever done in his life and still failed out of his chosen major, which turned out to be less than ideal for him, if you hadn't caught on to that. He's losing will to go to another college and try, unsure whether to go into auto-body, tool-and-die (dye?), or none of the above.
I don't like how I turned out this semester. I really was a huge nearly-bipolar pain in the butt, and even I knew it. Most of it was stress-related. I thought I knew how to handle stress--what was Aubrey, what was Calypso?--but apparently that's a different type than trying to do too much at once. I was--am--a heap of uncertainties, by turns fire and ice.
Community service is what I want to do, but it is what I am least equipped to do. Since junior high I tried to be let on service projects, missions trips, and every year my dad said I couldn't, it wasn't safe. It's always that, with him. He's been overprotective for my entire life; I'll give examples if asked, but there's no point in doing it here. Now he's got a problem with my being in public service because he thinks there's too much emotional baggage involved. And the frustrating thing is, I haven't done anything this semester to even come close to proving I can handle any form of emotional pressure.
But I'm so sick of painting faces at carnivals. That's not big enough. And the problem is, I've never been anywhere where it's more than that. Even when I ran Leo Club, it was never anything significant. Nobody wanted to follow me; every single person was there for the college application sparkle. I would get into service, and Mr. M would hold me back, saying it was also about fun, too.
I think that's why I'm so desperate to be Vice President of Service for APO--anything, anything more significant than checking tables, please. I may yet rearrange my schedule and swallow my fears (and not tell my father, bare horrible truth be told) and join Rescue Squad. (I ran this past my mom tentatively. She actually didn't mind the thought.) Anything to feel needed. Anything to feel like I'm here for a reason other than to write English essays and give hugs to my boyfriend. They're good things, very. But they're not enough. I can't watch people hurt without wanting to fix it.
And who better to do it than someone who had an ideal childhood, who has good friends and a boyfriend to make the world feel okay, who has never questioned her parents' love for her?
But I have made myself such an incredible pain about APO that I'm starting to wonder whether anybody wants me to run anything, not counting Tim. I can be a service slavedriver, but I will lose all of my friends in the process. But this to me is more than just a hobby; I'm trying to make a life out of it. I keep wanting to scream, like Leo Club senior year, that nobody understands, this is important to me.
But I can't make it their career. I can't be so bipolar. It's the only word I have for it, that some days I'm nasty to anybody in my path, and some days I'm so happy and talking a mile a minute that I scare people with my energy.
I think I scare a lot of people these days. CB was certainly concerned.
I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, but this year I've got a list as long as my arm.
I will not make everyone try to guess how not to anger me. They should not have to make a part-time job of psychology.
I will get more sleep. This is part of the problem, though less than I like to claim.
I will stop being presumptuous, in every sense of the word. I do not know everything, and know far, far less than I think I do, even when I think I have a blast of humility about it.
I will stop getting angry at people in my head.
I will stop being a timid slacker and instead actually show up, more than once/semester, to SonLife. Same goes for the Bible study, if at all possible, and it will be possible if I make it so. I will probably get to know them if I talk to them, like duh.
I will stop being a head case around my boyfriend. On the other hand, I will also stop apologizing for everything, because it's really annoying, even to me.
I will stop avoiding people just because I think they're going to depress me.
I will--this is a big one--shut up about APO a lot more often.
I will--this is an even bigger one--shut up a lot more, period. I am also a lot less funny than I like to pretend I am. And the sniping has got to go.
I will not take all the credit for my success in any of these. Success is one of the many things God offers. Also failure-for-purpose, so I should probably not resent myself so much for my total lack of perfection.
I will make it so that nobody who has not read this entry will know that I am trying like heck to not be such an idiot. I will not complain about it (including explicit away messages). I will not draw attention to it.
I also will not come off as an ascetic, however ascetic this entry sounds. Life is cool and fun, and I should dress brightly and sing along with the funny music in folk dancing, have DDR parties and give lots of happy hugs along with all the feel-better hugs, hang out with John and Lily a lot more often, even if it means hanging out with the APOs less. I should not freak out if I get halfway through the semester and haven't made significant progress in any of these.
But my friends are all starting to drop these hints that maybe I should calm down, and it only ever freaks me out the more, because I think they're starting to hate me. I will not turn into a high-school-Rachel, because people like that drive people away who aren't by thinking that they're driving people away and trying to compensate. I can't do that.
But I've got to beat myself into recognizable shape this coming semester; I need to get back into what high school was like. I was happy then; I'm not as happy now.
That said, I'm going to play DDR until such time as Tim comes online, if he does, which he may not. And then I'm going to read, and then I'm going to sleep.
-Laurel
I don't like how I turned out this semester. I really was a huge nearly-bipolar pain in the butt, and even I knew it. Most of it was stress-related. I thought I knew how to handle stress--what was Aubrey, what was Calypso?--but apparently that's a different type than trying to do too much at once. I was--am--a heap of uncertainties, by turns fire and ice.
Community service is what I want to do, but it is what I am least equipped to do. Since junior high I tried to be let on service projects, missions trips, and every year my dad said I couldn't, it wasn't safe. It's always that, with him. He's been overprotective for my entire life; I'll give examples if asked, but there's no point in doing it here. Now he's got a problem with my being in public service because he thinks there's too much emotional baggage involved. And the frustrating thing is, I haven't done anything this semester to even come close to proving I can handle any form of emotional pressure.
But I'm so sick of painting faces at carnivals. That's not big enough. And the problem is, I've never been anywhere where it's more than that. Even when I ran Leo Club, it was never anything significant. Nobody wanted to follow me; every single person was there for the college application sparkle. I would get into service, and Mr. M would hold me back, saying it was also about fun, too.
I think that's why I'm so desperate to be Vice President of Service for APO--anything, anything more significant than checking tables, please. I may yet rearrange my schedule and swallow my fears (and not tell my father, bare horrible truth be told) and join Rescue Squad. (I ran this past my mom tentatively. She actually didn't mind the thought.) Anything to feel needed. Anything to feel like I'm here for a reason other than to write English essays and give hugs to my boyfriend. They're good things, very. But they're not enough. I can't watch people hurt without wanting to fix it.
And who better to do it than someone who had an ideal childhood, who has good friends and a boyfriend to make the world feel okay, who has never questioned her parents' love for her?
But I have made myself such an incredible pain about APO that I'm starting to wonder whether anybody wants me to run anything, not counting Tim. I can be a service slavedriver, but I will lose all of my friends in the process. But this to me is more than just a hobby; I'm trying to make a life out of it. I keep wanting to scream, like Leo Club senior year, that nobody understands, this is important to me.
But I can't make it their career. I can't be so bipolar. It's the only word I have for it, that some days I'm nasty to anybody in my path, and some days I'm so happy and talking a mile a minute that I scare people with my energy.
I think I scare a lot of people these days. CB was certainly concerned.
I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, but this year I've got a list as long as my arm.
I will not make everyone try to guess how not to anger me. They should not have to make a part-time job of psychology.
I will get more sleep. This is part of the problem, though less than I like to claim.
I will stop being presumptuous, in every sense of the word. I do not know everything, and know far, far less than I think I do, even when I think I have a blast of humility about it.
I will stop getting angry at people in my head.
I will stop being a timid slacker and instead actually show up, more than once/semester, to SonLife. Same goes for the Bible study, if at all possible, and it will be possible if I make it so. I will probably get to know them if I talk to them, like duh.
I will stop being a head case around my boyfriend. On the other hand, I will also stop apologizing for everything, because it's really annoying, even to me.
I will stop avoiding people just because I think they're going to depress me.
I will--this is a big one--shut up about APO a lot more often.
I will--this is an even bigger one--shut up a lot more, period. I am also a lot less funny than I like to pretend I am. And the sniping has got to go.
I will not take all the credit for my success in any of these. Success is one of the many things God offers. Also failure-for-purpose, so I should probably not resent myself so much for my total lack of perfection.
I will make it so that nobody who has not read this entry will know that I am trying like heck to not be such an idiot. I will not complain about it (including explicit away messages). I will not draw attention to it.
I also will not come off as an ascetic, however ascetic this entry sounds. Life is cool and fun, and I should dress brightly and sing along with the funny music in folk dancing, have DDR parties and give lots of happy hugs along with all the feel-better hugs, hang out with John and Lily a lot more often, even if it means hanging out with the APOs less. I should not freak out if I get halfway through the semester and haven't made significant progress in any of these.
But my friends are all starting to drop these hints that maybe I should calm down, and it only ever freaks me out the more, because I think they're starting to hate me. I will not turn into a high-school-Rachel, because people like that drive people away who aren't by thinking that they're driving people away and trying to compensate. I can't do that.
But I've got to beat myself into recognizable shape this coming semester; I need to get back into what high school was like. I was happy then; I'm not as happy now.
That said, I'm going to play DDR until such time as Tim comes online, if he does, which he may not. And then I'm going to read, and then I'm going to sleep.
-Laurel
12.19.2004
London, Part III - Food
Because after the first couple of days in London, the events started to melt into each other (especially now that it's been two months since we went, and feels like longer), I think the whole thing is going to be better discussed by topic, rather than by day. Since it's fun, I'm going to start with food.
So about that English Breakfast thing, that "breakfast like a king, lunch like a peasant, dine like a pauper" philosophy--you can if you want, it appears, but it's certainly not obligatory.
I didn't get a whole lot of breakfast, English or otherwise, going on the first day, because remember how I set the wakeup call for 8:00? That was with the philosophy that when the itinerary said "breakfast - 8:00" and then the first event was listed as being at 10:00, that meant I had until 10:00 to eat. Um, not so much; we were meeting at 9:00 to leave, and apparently everyone had grasped this concept but me. When I realized this, it was about 8:45, so, tying my still-somewhat-wet hair back (this was to be a recurring theme for the week, as hair dryers had to be borrowed from the desk 'cause of the electric outlets, and I always felt too stupid to ask for one), I went downstairs.
They stopped serving the English-variety breakfast around 8:30 most days, in an oddity we could never quite explain (it didn't take long at all to make), but that was just as well, so I went for the cereal option and was given my choice of cornflakes or muesli. I might like muesli if it isn't those little brown sticks, but I couldn't remember and didn't want to take the chance, so I went with the cornflakes.
I did that sort of thing about meals a lot; somehow I never seemed to know how much time I had for them. So the candy I brought from home ended up being put to good use.
I had the weird thing going on, as I said before, with my metabolism or eating pattern or what, in that I wasn't all that hungry when I was supposed to be, and then starving two hours later. Still, I managed to have several food adventures, so to speak.
One had to do with the sandwiches. I am a big advocate of London little-food-shop sandwiches. They can be expensive at times (or they can be really cheap), but they have three huge advantages. First, they are ready-to-eat and take like no time to find and buy; we were on the run a lot and appreciated this. Second, they are clearly labeled with all their ingredients. I am a great big fan of this because I'm a picky little bugger, and will not eat anything with mayonnaise or "mustard mayonnaise" (which I believe showed up on several labels) or horseradish or certain things like that. In America, I am always getting unpleasant surprises like that with store-boughten goods, especially convenience stores. In London, no problem at all.
The only responsibility, therefore, is to know what the ingredients are that show up on the labels. One afternoon when we were left to fend for ourselves, dinner-wise, before a show, Sara (who spent most of the week nursing an asthma-related cold) asked me if I'd go get a sandwich for her when I went out for myself; she wanted to take a nap. So because technically we weren't supposed to go off alone, I justified my solo run by only going down to the convenience store down the street (and, c'mon, where else was I going to get food in a semi-hurry?). I surveyed the sandwiches there, but the expiration dates on most of them were pretty much that day, and I was unimpressed by that. There were, however, four samosas.
Samosas are these Indian-food things in phyllo-type dough--beans and sometimes chicken, and spices and vegetables. I read over the ingredients, but apparently that "chili powder, curry powder, cumin" thing never tripped the mental alarm, because, skeptical of their modest size and impressed by their being cheaper than the sandwiches, I bought all four of them that were left on the shelves--two chicken, two plain-vegetable, thinking Sara and I could have one of each. Because it looked so good after several days straight of water and juice and soda, I also bought a pint of "semi-skimmed" milk (that's 2% for the Yankee), thinking Sara and I could also split that.
And a darn good thing, because they turned out to be so spicy that I got through maybe half of one chicken one, then picked at the pastry, which tasted really good. I polished off most of the pint of milk myself, trying to douse the fire. Sara, who handles spice better than I do, got through one of the vegetable ones, which was even hotter than mine; the other two we took downstairs and offered to anyone who wanted them. Lauren ended up with one; the other may have been thrown out.
The third big advantage of the boughten sandwiches, though, is their creativity. There were things like turkey on white with tomato and lettuce, and tunafish, and what have you. But there were also some really interesting ones that tasted really good. They've got a thing for putting fruit on their sandwiches, paired with cheese or cucumbers--or both,I think. I ended up making a meal of a cranberry-compote-and-brie sandwich that I bought at the National Theatre food stand, which seemed so European that I got a complete touristy pleasure out of it. I was glad for the whole varietal-sandwich thing, really. And if "varietal" was not a word before, it hereby is, henceforth. I've been to the Globe; I've got that authority now. :-P
Another wonderful thing is London's apparent pure-food kick; they sell a lot of natural and organic food on a very mainstream level, and are very into things like unadulterated juice--apples, oranges, pears, or etc. liquefied and straight into a bottle, neither water added nor vitamins (like, not usually together--usually just one type of fruit, but they got creative with the types). A whole little cafe near The Globe Theatre sold only things like that, if I'm not mistaken. It's not significantly more expensive, and it all tasted really good. Especially the unadulterated apple juice, which I look back on sort of wistfully; I was semi-addicted by the end of the week.
The low-carb thing has, unfortunately, wormed its insidious way into London, but not nearly to the degree that it has in America (and, in Montignac Diet form, France, but maybe that was just the late '90s). I didn't see a lot of that. There was still a significant about of information about purity of beef, after the mad-cow/CJD thing. I didn't end up eating any cow-type products, though. ::shrugs::
I went to McDonald's twice, another totally touristy thing to do, and have discovered the following:
1) You cannot get chicken nuggets with honey in London. The closest you're going to get is curry sauce, which I tried, and I like curry in mild forms, but this stuff just wasn't my thing. They tried too hard to tone down the spice, which's quite a statement coming from me.
2) British McDonaldses, instead of having a "Dollar Menu", have a "99 Pence Menu" or a "Pound Menu", depending on where you go. On this menu are the local version of Flurries--I say "local" because it's local candy. I got Cadbury Dairy Milk in mine (which's just milk chocolate, but really tasty), but it wasn't as good as, say, Oreos.
About the candy bars. Oh, man...Cadbury, especially, needs to start selling its good stuff to America, 'cause we're getting left out in the cold. I should know; the thing about London is that, the way my money-exchange bill size went as compared to the daily price of a subway ticket, which does not give paper-money change, I ended up with a lot of coins, a lot of coins. At the end of the week, I had so many that I spent a lot of time in Gatwick Airport buying candy bars from the dispenser machine. I calculated it later for customs and realized that, across the whole week (not just that day, I don't think), I'd spent roughly £20 on them, which's $35 American if you get a good exchange rate, and $40 if you don't. Let's just say that startled me. But I didn't eat all of them; at least half ended up as gifts, and the others were spread out over the first month or so away from London. :-D
I didn't like Flake bars as much as I expected, and the bubbly-chocolate thing is only cool, like, once. But the "biscuits and chocolate" stuff is great (especially "digestive biscuits", which Katie bought because she liked the name so much), and the gummies are quite good, and the Yorkie bars are just fun (plain good-tasting chocolate, but how can you pass up something that says "it's not for girls!" because it's too thick to fit in one of those little preteen purses?), and other stuff like that.
London likes to flavor things--candy, medicines, and otherwise--in "blackcurrant," which's kinda like raisin (kinda, but it can be more like grape-with-a-bitter-undertone), and as a flavor is very hit-and-miss. I thought this was interesting. I usually liked it. Sara usually didn't.
I also bought some Ribena (pronounced rye-BEAN-ah), which's this fruit-type drink that Dr. M remembered from when he was a kid. It was all right--lots of sugar with the fruit-flavoring. That came in blackcurrant as well, if I remember, and Sara took some back for Cloud Nine, which apparently had a line about Ribena in it.
Lily, Lily K., Tori, and I went to a restaurant one night called ASK, and got pizzas. Mine had spinach and hard-boiled egg on it, which was cool, but it took a long time, and I had to give money and duck out before everyone else, 'cause it was on one of the free nights, and Sara and Juliane and I were going on the Jack the Ripper tour, which Sara was all keen on.
The Jack the Ripper tour brought us into Whitechapel, which's technically just outside of London, and in one of the neighborhoods where one of Jack's murders was committed, we saw a sort of Arabic version of McDonald's--run very much like one, with the same style, but all in Arabic characters, and with different types of sandwiches, more chicken-oriented, I think.
We got dinner from one in London on our last night; Sara, Juliane, Katie, and I went to go see Batboy (oh dear, more on that one later), and when we finally found the theater, we had half an hour to spare, so we decided to grab dinner there. Part of the menu was in English, I think, which was good. The problem was, the guy running the place had a very thick accent, and only Sara could consistently understand him. However, her cold had progressed so that she didn't have much of a voice at all, so it was an interesting situation. But most of us ended up with chicken patties smothered in ketchup (like doused, but they still tasted pretty good), and Katie (one of the trip's five vegetarians) had some falafel that she said was good, so all went well. The other thing was that we all bought sodas, and they were all worldwide brands, like Sprite, but not a one had a can in English. Some were in Arabic, mine was in German, and I think Juliane's was in a language we couldn't identify.
Finally, because I'm running out of thoughts, I will share the following: in a Greenwich pub, Sara and I had fish and chips. ...It was okay. But not the best I've ever had, which was in a down-to-earth little brewery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, right on the ocean. :)
Oh, and English bacon is really salty and kinda odd, but really good.
That's it for now.
-Laurel
So about that English Breakfast thing, that "breakfast like a king, lunch like a peasant, dine like a pauper" philosophy--you can if you want, it appears, but it's certainly not obligatory.
I didn't get a whole lot of breakfast, English or otherwise, going on the first day, because remember how I set the wakeup call for 8:00? That was with the philosophy that when the itinerary said "breakfast - 8:00" and then the first event was listed as being at 10:00, that meant I had until 10:00 to eat. Um, not so much; we were meeting at 9:00 to leave, and apparently everyone had grasped this concept but me. When I realized this, it was about 8:45, so, tying my still-somewhat-wet hair back (this was to be a recurring theme for the week, as hair dryers had to be borrowed from the desk 'cause of the electric outlets, and I always felt too stupid to ask for one), I went downstairs.
They stopped serving the English-variety breakfast around 8:30 most days, in an oddity we could never quite explain (it didn't take long at all to make), but that was just as well, so I went for the cereal option and was given my choice of cornflakes or muesli. I might like muesli if it isn't those little brown sticks, but I couldn't remember and didn't want to take the chance, so I went with the cornflakes.
I did that sort of thing about meals a lot; somehow I never seemed to know how much time I had for them. So the candy I brought from home ended up being put to good use.
I had the weird thing going on, as I said before, with my metabolism or eating pattern or what, in that I wasn't all that hungry when I was supposed to be, and then starving two hours later. Still, I managed to have several food adventures, so to speak.
One had to do with the sandwiches. I am a big advocate of London little-food-shop sandwiches. They can be expensive at times (or they can be really cheap), but they have three huge advantages. First, they are ready-to-eat and take like no time to find and buy; we were on the run a lot and appreciated this. Second, they are clearly labeled with all their ingredients. I am a great big fan of this because I'm a picky little bugger, and will not eat anything with mayonnaise or "mustard mayonnaise" (which I believe showed up on several labels) or horseradish or certain things like that. In America, I am always getting unpleasant surprises like that with store-boughten goods, especially convenience stores. In London, no problem at all.
The only responsibility, therefore, is to know what the ingredients are that show up on the labels. One afternoon when we were left to fend for ourselves, dinner-wise, before a show, Sara (who spent most of the week nursing an asthma-related cold) asked me if I'd go get a sandwich for her when I went out for myself; she wanted to take a nap. So because technically we weren't supposed to go off alone, I justified my solo run by only going down to the convenience store down the street (and, c'mon, where else was I going to get food in a semi-hurry?). I surveyed the sandwiches there, but the expiration dates on most of them were pretty much that day, and I was unimpressed by that. There were, however, four samosas.
Samosas are these Indian-food things in phyllo-type dough--beans and sometimes chicken, and spices and vegetables. I read over the ingredients, but apparently that "chili powder, curry powder, cumin" thing never tripped the mental alarm, because, skeptical of their modest size and impressed by their being cheaper than the sandwiches, I bought all four of them that were left on the shelves--two chicken, two plain-vegetable, thinking Sara and I could have one of each. Because it looked so good after several days straight of water and juice and soda, I also bought a pint of "semi-skimmed" milk (that's 2% for the Yankee), thinking Sara and I could also split that.
And a darn good thing, because they turned out to be so spicy that I got through maybe half of one chicken one, then picked at the pastry, which tasted really good. I polished off most of the pint of milk myself, trying to douse the fire. Sara, who handles spice better than I do, got through one of the vegetable ones, which was even hotter than mine; the other two we took downstairs and offered to anyone who wanted them. Lauren ended up with one; the other may have been thrown out.
The third big advantage of the boughten sandwiches, though, is their creativity. There were things like turkey on white with tomato and lettuce, and tunafish, and what have you. But there were also some really interesting ones that tasted really good. They've got a thing for putting fruit on their sandwiches, paired with cheese or cucumbers--or both,I think. I ended up making a meal of a cranberry-compote-and-brie sandwich that I bought at the National Theatre food stand, which seemed so European that I got a complete touristy pleasure out of it. I was glad for the whole varietal-sandwich thing, really. And if "varietal" was not a word before, it hereby is, henceforth. I've been to the Globe; I've got that authority now. :-P
Another wonderful thing is London's apparent pure-food kick; they sell a lot of natural and organic food on a very mainstream level, and are very into things like unadulterated juice--apples, oranges, pears, or etc. liquefied and straight into a bottle, neither water added nor vitamins (like, not usually together--usually just one type of fruit, but they got creative with the types). A whole little cafe near The Globe Theatre sold only things like that, if I'm not mistaken. It's not significantly more expensive, and it all tasted really good. Especially the unadulterated apple juice, which I look back on sort of wistfully; I was semi-addicted by the end of the week.
The low-carb thing has, unfortunately, wormed its insidious way into London, but not nearly to the degree that it has in America (and, in Montignac Diet form, France, but maybe that was just the late '90s). I didn't see a lot of that. There was still a significant about of information about purity of beef, after the mad-cow/CJD thing. I didn't end up eating any cow-type products, though. ::shrugs::
I went to McDonald's twice, another totally touristy thing to do, and have discovered the following:
1) You cannot get chicken nuggets with honey in London. The closest you're going to get is curry sauce, which I tried, and I like curry in mild forms, but this stuff just wasn't my thing. They tried too hard to tone down the spice, which's quite a statement coming from me.
2) British McDonaldses, instead of having a "Dollar Menu", have a "99 Pence Menu" or a "Pound Menu", depending on where you go. On this menu are the local version of Flurries--I say "local" because it's local candy. I got Cadbury Dairy Milk in mine (which's just milk chocolate, but really tasty), but it wasn't as good as, say, Oreos.
About the candy bars. Oh, man...Cadbury, especially, needs to start selling its good stuff to America, 'cause we're getting left out in the cold. I should know; the thing about London is that, the way my money-exchange bill size went as compared to the daily price of a subway ticket, which does not give paper-money change, I ended up with a lot of coins, a lot of coins. At the end of the week, I had so many that I spent a lot of time in Gatwick Airport buying candy bars from the dispenser machine. I calculated it later for customs and realized that, across the whole week (not just that day, I don't think), I'd spent roughly £20 on them, which's $35 American if you get a good exchange rate, and $40 if you don't. Let's just say that startled me. But I didn't eat all of them; at least half ended up as gifts, and the others were spread out over the first month or so away from London. :-D
I didn't like Flake bars as much as I expected, and the bubbly-chocolate thing is only cool, like, once. But the "biscuits and chocolate" stuff is great (especially "digestive biscuits", which Katie bought because she liked the name so much), and the gummies are quite good, and the Yorkie bars are just fun (plain good-tasting chocolate, but how can you pass up something that says "it's not for girls!" because it's too thick to fit in one of those little preteen purses?), and other stuff like that.
London likes to flavor things--candy, medicines, and otherwise--in "blackcurrant," which's kinda like raisin (kinda, but it can be more like grape-with-a-bitter-undertone), and as a flavor is very hit-and-miss. I thought this was interesting. I usually liked it. Sara usually didn't.
I also bought some Ribena (pronounced rye-BEAN-ah), which's this fruit-type drink that Dr. M remembered from when he was a kid. It was all right--lots of sugar with the fruit-flavoring. That came in blackcurrant as well, if I remember, and Sara took some back for Cloud Nine, which apparently had a line about Ribena in it.
Lily, Lily K., Tori, and I went to a restaurant one night called ASK, and got pizzas. Mine had spinach and hard-boiled egg on it, which was cool, but it took a long time, and I had to give money and duck out before everyone else, 'cause it was on one of the free nights, and Sara and Juliane and I were going on the Jack the Ripper tour, which Sara was all keen on.
The Jack the Ripper tour brought us into Whitechapel, which's technically just outside of London, and in one of the neighborhoods where one of Jack's murders was committed, we saw a sort of Arabic version of McDonald's--run very much like one, with the same style, but all in Arabic characters, and with different types of sandwiches, more chicken-oriented, I think.
We got dinner from one in London on our last night; Sara, Juliane, Katie, and I went to go see Batboy (oh dear, more on that one later), and when we finally found the theater, we had half an hour to spare, so we decided to grab dinner there. Part of the menu was in English, I think, which was good. The problem was, the guy running the place had a very thick accent, and only Sara could consistently understand him. However, her cold had progressed so that she didn't have much of a voice at all, so it was an interesting situation. But most of us ended up with chicken patties smothered in ketchup (like doused, but they still tasted pretty good), and Katie (one of the trip's five vegetarians) had some falafel that she said was good, so all went well. The other thing was that we all bought sodas, and they were all worldwide brands, like Sprite, but not a one had a can in English. Some were in Arabic, mine was in German, and I think Juliane's was in a language we couldn't identify.
Finally, because I'm running out of thoughts, I will share the following: in a Greenwich pub, Sara and I had fish and chips. ...It was okay. But not the best I've ever had, which was in a down-to-earth little brewery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, right on the ocean. :)
Oh, and English bacon is really salty and kinda odd, but really good.
That's it for now.
-Laurel
12.18.2004
One month 'til classes start... :-P
Well, here I am at home.
::cricket cricket cricket::
No, it's not that bad yet; just that Saturday nights, apparently everyone has a life but me. :-P 'Cause totally I got back from a family thing and went to work on the APO website like the hyperobsessive nerd I am.
Next semester's classes, for the curious, are as follows:
Cultural Anthropology: This's the obligatory second social-sciences credit (AP psych took care of the first one, yeah!), but apparently I've landed in a very good class; so far everyone I've talked to who's taken it has recommended it wholeheartedly. Evan has a funny story about it--when asked on a test to name, I believe, Afghanistan's primary export (which apparently is opium), he couldn't remember it. After thinking about it for a while, he finally figured the heck with it and wrote down "Osama bin Laden." ...He got full credit for the answer. ...Casey will be in it with me, which should be interesting.
Introduction to Critical Analysis: As much like a scary English course as this sounds, it's actually a scary Spanish course, more 300-level. Emphasis on reading and writing, or so they claim, but Advanced Practica this semester was supposed to be the speaking-skills equivalent, and we did just as much reading and writing as speaking. (Incidentally, I got an A in the class, which means that I actually did better at 300-level than I did last year in 200-level, which was A-. Not a huge difference, but it still amuses me.) ...On the other hand, she had us do a lot of debates and essays in Spanish. Could this course mean papers instead? ::is suddenly worried::
Social Psychology: I am not a Freud person or an abnormal psych person; I do not really want to study either the superego or schizophrenia. I am also only lukewarm about many forms of biopsychology (though some really are very cool). I am primarily in this minor for the interpersonal aspects of psychology. So I was super-excited about this class until I talked to Rachel and Alexa, two psych-major friends, who told me that the professor is horrible and that makes the class really boring (though the material is, according to Rachel, good). ...Nobody else teaches it, and Social Development, besides being at 8:20 in the morning (::keels::), is not really the one I want to take, judging by the course description. This one is, but I have a feeling that SocPsy is going to go a lot like Psych Meth/Stat this past semester (A-, but just barely; the extra credit made a letter-grade difference for possibly the first time in my whole life), where I show up to class, but I work on Spanish homework the entire time. (Towards the end of the course, this's why my grade in the class started dropping; not because she noticed, but because I had a hard time with the first stuff I hadn't seen in AP psych. Perhaps I have learned something. Unfortunately, perhaps not.) ...SocPsy classes are double the length of Meth/Stat; perhaps I'd better bring lots of Spanish homework. Maybe that will keep me from skipping, since Rachel claims no attendance is taken and says that if you know the material, it's just as well if you don't show up. On the other hand, if the text is good, I may pull a junior-high-English and just read twenty pages ahead during lecture.
Language of Literary Art: This class may end up being my reason to leave the hill on days measured in single digits Fahrenheit. ::snorts:: Too bad it's my last of the day. ...But seriously: Lily, Lily K., Anna, and now John there with me, plus Dr. M (yes, as in London) team-teaching with Dr. Zen-Ben (who apparently is very nice; I should not make fun, but I like the rhyme, because it's so true). I still can't get over John being an English/Math double major now. He thinks the English part is going to be easy, 'cause it's all, shall we say, blatant sophistry in his opinion. I think he's in for a big surprise. And if he is daunted by LoLA (which Dr. M is calling "Lite Art", as if it was somehow a low-calorie course), wait'll he gets to Survey of British Lit.
Maple Syrup: The Real Thing: The final honors seminar I have to take (and should take, considering my schedule, but should Dr. T ever run her C.S. Lewis one again--or Tim manage to co-teach an honors-sem on puzzles for his thesis--!). Tim got all excited when I said I was going to take it, 'cause he was in it freshman year, and said I-should-do-it-I-should-do-it. Now that I'm signed up, he tells me that, because there's only so much you can say about maple syrup, the course got boring pretty quickly. ::pause for effect:: But I'm looking at it this way: first of all, it's the one I wanted to take anyway, so no loss there. Secondly: Chris, John, and me (and Katie Goetschius, or however you spell it, of laxative-cookie infamy, but I don't know her as well as Tim does)...plus tree-based sugar...plus cooking with said tree-based sugar...plus field trip in snow to professor's house in middle of woodsy nowhere...plus field trip to all-you-can-eat pancake place with aforementioned hungry boys...equals self-made honors-geek entertainment, and plenty of it. I'll show that twin, that doubting not-Thomas-that's-the-other-one! We'll have so much fun, he'll feel it! :-P
And then there's choir again, and now I'm on the committee to plan the next international trip, and apparently the incredible odds we beat in getting out of Peru without any damage worse than we had have not fazed Luanne a bit, and she's dismissing all the really safe places as too normal. Oh, joy. Stay tuned for the next episode on that one, assuming I don't find a creative excuse to jump the committee.
Hurrah! Have just heard that Matt and Kathy's first college choice is my school! As I have just told Matt, it's about darn time someone else from our high school came down to the one-light town. And they'd love it so much, especially Matt. :-D
Okay, so I've just taken like an hour to type all that up, so I'm leaving everything else for later.
-Laurel
::cricket cricket cricket::
No, it's not that bad yet; just that Saturday nights, apparently everyone has a life but me. :-P 'Cause totally I got back from a family thing and went to work on the APO website like the hyperobsessive nerd I am.
Next semester's classes, for the curious, are as follows:
Cultural Anthropology: This's the obligatory second social-sciences credit (AP psych took care of the first one, yeah!), but apparently I've landed in a very good class; so far everyone I've talked to who's taken it has recommended it wholeheartedly. Evan has a funny story about it--when asked on a test to name, I believe, Afghanistan's primary export (which apparently is opium), he couldn't remember it. After thinking about it for a while, he finally figured the heck with it and wrote down "Osama bin Laden." ...He got full credit for the answer. ...Casey will be in it with me, which should be interesting.
Introduction to Critical Analysis: As much like a scary English course as this sounds, it's actually a scary Spanish course, more 300-level. Emphasis on reading and writing, or so they claim, but Advanced Practica this semester was supposed to be the speaking-skills equivalent, and we did just as much reading and writing as speaking. (Incidentally, I got an A in the class, which means that I actually did better at 300-level than I did last year in 200-level, which was A-. Not a huge difference, but it still amuses me.) ...On the other hand, she had us do a lot of debates and essays in Spanish. Could this course mean papers instead? ::is suddenly worried::
Social Psychology: I am not a Freud person or an abnormal psych person; I do not really want to study either the superego or schizophrenia. I am also only lukewarm about many forms of biopsychology (though some really are very cool). I am primarily in this minor for the interpersonal aspects of psychology. So I was super-excited about this class until I talked to Rachel and Alexa, two psych-major friends, who told me that the professor is horrible and that makes the class really boring (though the material is, according to Rachel, good). ...Nobody else teaches it, and Social Development, besides being at 8:20 in the morning (::keels::), is not really the one I want to take, judging by the course description. This one is, but I have a feeling that SocPsy is going to go a lot like Psych Meth/Stat this past semester (A-, but just barely; the extra credit made a letter-grade difference for possibly the first time in my whole life), where I show up to class, but I work on Spanish homework the entire time. (Towards the end of the course, this's why my grade in the class started dropping; not because she noticed, but because I had a hard time with the first stuff I hadn't seen in AP psych. Perhaps I have learned something. Unfortunately, perhaps not.) ...SocPsy classes are double the length of Meth/Stat; perhaps I'd better bring lots of Spanish homework. Maybe that will keep me from skipping, since Rachel claims no attendance is taken and says that if you know the material, it's just as well if you don't show up. On the other hand, if the text is good, I may pull a junior-high-English and just read twenty pages ahead during lecture.
Language of Literary Art: This class may end up being my reason to leave the hill on days measured in single digits Fahrenheit. ::snorts:: Too bad it's my last of the day. ...But seriously: Lily, Lily K., Anna, and now John there with me, plus Dr. M (yes, as in London) team-teaching with Dr. Zen-Ben (who apparently is very nice; I should not make fun, but I like the rhyme, because it's so true). I still can't get over John being an English/Math double major now. He thinks the English part is going to be easy, 'cause it's all, shall we say, blatant sophistry in his opinion. I think he's in for a big surprise. And if he is daunted by LoLA (which Dr. M is calling "Lite Art", as if it was somehow a low-calorie course), wait'll he gets to Survey of British Lit.
Maple Syrup: The Real Thing: The final honors seminar I have to take (and should take, considering my schedule, but should Dr. T ever run her C.S. Lewis one again--or Tim manage to co-teach an honors-sem on puzzles for his thesis--!). Tim got all excited when I said I was going to take it, 'cause he was in it freshman year, and said I-should-do-it-I-should-do-it. Now that I'm signed up, he tells me that, because there's only so much you can say about maple syrup, the course got boring pretty quickly. ::pause for effect:: But I'm looking at it this way: first of all, it's the one I wanted to take anyway, so no loss there. Secondly: Chris, John, and me (and Katie Goetschius, or however you spell it, of laxative-cookie infamy, but I don't know her as well as Tim does)...plus tree-based sugar...plus cooking with said tree-based sugar...plus field trip in snow to professor's house in middle of woodsy nowhere...plus field trip to all-you-can-eat pancake place with aforementioned hungry boys...equals self-made honors-geek entertainment, and plenty of it. I'll show that twin, that doubting not-Thomas-that's-the-other-one! We'll have so much fun, he'll feel it! :-P
And then there's choir again, and now I'm on the committee to plan the next international trip, and apparently the incredible odds we beat in getting out of Peru without any damage worse than we had have not fazed Luanne a bit, and she's dismissing all the really safe places as too normal. Oh, joy. Stay tuned for the next episode on that one, assuming I don't find a creative excuse to jump the committee.
Hurrah! Have just heard that Matt and Kathy's first college choice is my school! As I have just told Matt, it's about darn time someone else from our high school came down to the one-light town. And they'd love it so much, especially Matt. :-D
Okay, so I've just taken like an hour to type all that up, so I'm leaving everything else for later.
-Laurel
12.07.2004
::having a rather "Sapri Tamar" kind of morning, at least in terms of tune-expressing-life::
Actually went to bed at 9:45 last night and got up at 5:15ish this morning. Nearly three hours later, I have gotten my wash put away and part of my closet cleaned. I have discussed sweaters and subways with Kristin and The Giver with Albert (dude, what if Jonas had managed somehow to slip back in time after he passed the boundary of his colony-thing, almost like The Truman Show, but time-wise, and that's what the ending was? Wouldn't that've been spectacular?). I have showered and dressed and dried my hair. I have checked my e-mail and several blogs. And I am right about on schedule with my homework, with a nice folkdancing-music soundtrack to accompany it.
I am laughing heartily at myself, seeing how much I get done when I get up at a time when (for a while) nobody's on AIM and my boyfriend is sleeping.
Much to my chagrin, I should really do this more often.
-Laurel
I am laughing heartily at myself, seeing how much I get done when I get up at a time when (for a while) nobody's on AIM and my boyfriend is sleeping.
Much to my chagrin, I should really do this more often.
-Laurel
12.02.2004
So this sleeping-in-on-Thursdays thing, why doesn't it work half the time?
I'm liking this idea that, next semester, however things work out with my schedule, I will have no Thursday classes. Right now I have one (well, two, counting choir), and it's not 'til the afternoon, but that means that I can never fully enjoy the morning, because I have the homework hanging over me. :-P 'Cause the way things turn out, it doesn't often get done on Wednesday nights.
I have a busy tomorrow even though that's only two classes, too; those are early, a psych quiz (open-note, but considering how consistent my attention span has[n't] been, I'm going to have to review and add majorly to those pages) and a Spanish class, which's fine except for the journal entry being due as almost-always.
After lunch I pack up and head down to my uncle's near here to meet up with my family, and we will then drive to Connecticut, where a friend of my dad's lives, and from there the next day they'll take us into New York City, where my cousin Tara's having an art show in a gallery. This should be okay. It's a lot of travelling (even if that's the British spelling, which it may well be) for what will probably be like an hour of Tara's art, but only twenty minutes total of Tara herself, and my parents got kinda cranky about seeing any of NYC while we're there, 'cause it'll be night and winter. On the other hand, this would be an excellent time to finish reading MFK Fisher for Lit class, this twelve-type hours total of travelling that I'm to do. And it may just take me that long to slog through another 300 pages, since when the book cover says A Life in Letters, wow, they're not kidding. I've gotten through some thirty years of her life and I'm only done with about 25% of the book. True that I only need 350-400 pages read of the 500 total, but looking at it from page 140-something, that's still pretty disheartening.
If Mark runs his Leadership and Civic Responsibility course next semester, I promised him I'd drop anthro (since it runs every semester anyway) and sign up for his class and karate instead. Mark isn't particular about the karate, but I need to get some form of requirement done this coming semester, and the gym one would be one that didn't involve, say, an 8:20.
I mentioned this to Tim and Lily, who're in karate now, and Lily got all excited 'cause it's a fun class. ...Tim, for his part, burst out laughing at the thought that there is now a possibility, if hazy, that, as Lily (one cousin of a pair) and Tim (one twin) are now in the same class being, like, kick-partners or whatever, I (other cousin) may yet end up in karate with Tom (other twin). Which's an odd thought in the sense that I didn't, for whatever reason, ever assume that he'd be interested in kicking things and going ki-yah, whereas Tim and Lily, I can see it better.
...Then again, it's a weird thought that I'm likely enough to be in it. I'm actually more amused by the idea that I may be taking classes from both Mark and Laurie, seeing as I'm in Maple Syrup for honors at that point. I don't know why this's amusing, but it is.
So stay tuned for the next episode on that one. The London narrative will continue soon, since now it's, like, a month and a half since I went.
-Laurel
I have a busy tomorrow even though that's only two classes, too; those are early, a psych quiz (open-note, but considering how consistent my attention span has[n't] been, I'm going to have to review and add majorly to those pages) and a Spanish class, which's fine except for the journal entry being due as almost-always.
After lunch I pack up and head down to my uncle's near here to meet up with my family, and we will then drive to Connecticut, where a friend of my dad's lives, and from there the next day they'll take us into New York City, where my cousin Tara's having an art show in a gallery. This should be okay. It's a lot of travelling (even if that's the British spelling, which it may well be) for what will probably be like an hour of Tara's art, but only twenty minutes total of Tara herself, and my parents got kinda cranky about seeing any of NYC while we're there, 'cause it'll be night and winter. On the other hand, this would be an excellent time to finish reading MFK Fisher for Lit class, this twelve-type hours total of travelling that I'm to do. And it may just take me that long to slog through another 300 pages, since when the book cover says A Life in Letters, wow, they're not kidding. I've gotten through some thirty years of her life and I'm only done with about 25% of the book. True that I only need 350-400 pages read of the 500 total, but looking at it from page 140-something, that's still pretty disheartening.
If Mark runs his Leadership and Civic Responsibility course next semester, I promised him I'd drop anthro (since it runs every semester anyway) and sign up for his class and karate instead. Mark isn't particular about the karate, but I need to get some form of requirement done this coming semester, and the gym one would be one that didn't involve, say, an 8:20.
I mentioned this to Tim and Lily, who're in karate now, and Lily got all excited 'cause it's a fun class. ...Tim, for his part, burst out laughing at the thought that there is now a possibility, if hazy, that, as Lily (one cousin of a pair) and Tim (one twin) are now in the same class being, like, kick-partners or whatever, I (other cousin) may yet end up in karate with Tom (other twin). Which's an odd thought in the sense that I didn't, for whatever reason, ever assume that he'd be interested in kicking things and going ki-yah, whereas Tim and Lily, I can see it better.
...Then again, it's a weird thought that I'm likely enough to be in it. I'm actually more amused by the idea that I may be taking classes from both Mark and Laurie, seeing as I'm in Maple Syrup for honors at that point. I don't know why this's amusing, but it is.
So stay tuned for the next episode on that one. The London narrative will continue soon, since now it's, like, a month and a half since I went.
-Laurel