Random cure for boredom, now that I'm home and not seeing state parks all the time :-D

Okay, so this probably didn't work as well as it was supposed to. Edited slightly for content, which means that I deleted two questions and tampered very slightly with one. And you may never know which, bwa-ha-ha. Though, I'm totally serious, neither with #16 was touched. It just ended up weird like that.

Name 20 of your friends below.

(Quiz-taker's note: This means that like every friend I have is going to be on here, so don't be alarmed when you see yourself...and it's not in ranking order or anything, though it's not much of a surprise that Tim came to mind quickly.)

1. Tim
2. Tom
3. 'Nanda
4. Bethie
5. Albert
6. Zinni
7. Erik
8. Kristin
9. Daf
10. Matt
11. Kathy
12. Trevor
13. Aneya
14. Melly
15. Bunny
16. Glenn
17. Lily Jo
18. Evan
19. Rafi
20. Tara


Who is #8 going out with? Nobody right now.

Is #9 a boy or a girl? Girl.

Would #11 and #2 make a cute couple? ::giggles:: Were that even possible, considering Kathy's going out with Matt...not two people I'd purposely set up, but neither is it the worst pairing on the list.

How about #18 and #4? ::laughs:: Absolutely not.

What grade is #10 in? Will be a college freshman.

When was the last time you talked to #12? Um, sometime last week.

What is #6's favorite band? Hm...might be the Monkees still, or might be something else by now...

Does #1 have any siblings? ::grins:: Yeah, #2 constitutes half of them!

Would you ever date #3? No.

Is #16 single? Thanks to me, he is. ::looks a bit disconcerted::

What's #15's last name? Harrington.

What's #5's middle name? Frederick.

Would #14 and #19 make a good couple? Mm...no. For one thing, there're six years between them.

What school does #20 go to? Alfred.

Tell me a random fact about #11? Her favorite DDR song is "Higher."

And #1: ::giggles:: That's a bad thing to ask a girlfriend. Um...he's been to Germany.

And #3: She introduced me to got me hooked on C.S. Lewis nonfiction books.

Have you ever had a crush on #16? Considering that for eight months we went out, I'm going to go ahead and say yes.

Where does #9 live? About seven minutes from my house.

What's #4's favorite color? An excellent question. I'm going to guess green, since that sounds familiar, but I may be completely wrong.

Are #5 & #6 best friends? No. I'm sure they could be friends if they knew each other, though.

Does #7 like #20? They haven't met, so I'm guessing not, but they also would make decent friends.

Does #8 like #19? See previous question.

How did you meet #15? Through school, I imagine. I'm trying to figure out whether I knew her brother first or not.

Does #2 have any pets? ::evil grin:: It's a pity Tom doesn't read this, or I'd tease him about the plastic skeleton. No, no pets, unless I missed something while at his house this past weekend.

Is #12 older than you? No.

Give #13 a hug!! ::shrugs:: Okay. ::offers one::

Is #17 the sexiest person alive? ::grins:: Could very well be, and she spells it seksi.

-Laurel

Friday morning adrenaline

I get to go to the other-Boston today, right after work! ::bounce bounce bounce::

Home-friends, check your e-mails if you haven't heard about the Great Northern Gathering yet. Matt, if by some chance you read this anymore, what happened to your e-mail address? This's the second time stuff I've sent to you has bounced.

You know what I miss, randomly? The way the high school smells on sunny days in May and June. Usually because people start opening windows. That always used to make me walk on air.

Be back on Sunday afternoon/evening, everybody!

-Laurel

"The boys won't leave the girls alone..."

First of all, this is kind of interesting, but also weird and random-feeling.

Secondly, 'Nanda and Daf, were you guys in on us singing "Belle of Belfast" in the tenth grade, or was that just the regular chorus? Well, anyway, it's a DDR file now. Not officially, like on the video game (more's the pity), but up on Bemani; look for "Tell Me Ma." Beating the standard level on it is my new goal, since I keep flunking out with like 10 seconds left in the song. I did that twice in a row, and failed even sooner before that.

Got a cookbook all about bread as a birthday present from Aunt Cathy. Made Vienna bread last night. Was very good. I'd wanted to start semi-simple; now there's even whole-wheat flour in the house, for the first time in my recollection (yay, Mom!), so next time I can go as crazy as my free time allows.

Seeing Tim this weekend. Haven't done any reading to speak of since I finished Golden Compass; as in, I haven't really done much of any at all. I really ought to get moving on that Newbery Project, man. I'll never make it by September at this rate, as ambitious as that goal perhaps was.

-Laurel

"Hello, hello/We're at a place called vertigo/It's everything I wish I didn't know..."

First of all, I want to make something clear. The thing about Glenn, despite the intensity of last night's rambling, is not that I miss him in a romantic way. It's more like when we first broke up, where all of that wasn't there anymore, but still all I wanted to do was find him and hug him for a while, because I missed the warmth.

He is wonderful and bright and imaginative, funny and serious alternating, and so brave, always, that seeing him reminds me of why he's my friend even when he isn't anything else, and it hurts to keep saying goodbye to that, never knowing when I'll see him again, because I never do know. For all he's wonderful, he isn't dependable, and he sure as anything isn't consistent. And I do miss him when he's gone, once I remember why I missed him all the times before. And it makes me riveted on him when he's around, especially when I realize that I've missed so much of what I wanted to be there for. I don't know why. I'd erase the fixation that must be written all over my face if I could.

I finished The Golden Compass today--read about three hundred pages of it (hardcover is just about 400 exactly) at a clip, the narration was so good and the story so fascinating. Until the end, when the fascination went on overload and I could barely tell what I thought of it all, which usually happens when plotlines turn grandiose like that. I guess I'll know later. (Glenn read this book in the fifth grade? I can't help thinking so much would have gone over his head. So much would have gone over mine.) So I got online and they've got all the stem-cell news articles going, which is just enough like the book to buzz my head even more about the weird world in which I live. And there's the frame of mind I was in when I started writing this entry.

Mary from work, who got mentioned on this blog a long time ago, got diagnosed today with cancer in multiple organs. Kidneys, liver, lungs. No wonder she was having trouble breathing. Her daughter got cancer a few months ago, but she's young, and it hadn't spread. Most of it got cut out; I don't know much more. ...My mom basically talks like Mary's going to die, just like that, wonders if she'll bother with chemo as a losing battle or just die.

It scares me to hear my mom talk like this, and makes me hope that she never gets such cancer herself. But then, Lance Armstrong (once in worse shape than Mary) is a distant figure. In the real world, apparently, multiple-organ cancer patients die, however much in chemical treatments they soak in. With Mary, so gregarious and nice, that seems unreal. I wonder if it really works just to disbelieve it. I guess it would depend on how much love for being on the planet you have, since that first step is the only one that gives you any chance of survival, outside of infinitesimal odds that it'll just go away without you caring whether you live or die.

I really, really need some sleep, though I'm not going to try for it yet.

I miss everybody.

-Laurel

There's a rose in the fisted...saxophone...

Hugest thanks to Daf for mentioning in passing that she was going to the band concert at the high school tonight, or I would have missed the last high school performance of Matt and Glenn.

'Cause let's face it, I've been to so many of Glenn's copious concerts that I had to be there for the last one, or it just wouldn't have been right in my mind. So I went. And it was cool.

I'd forgotten how many people I knew. Aaron was there, in red-curly-puffball-hair glory, with his French horn concerto (Glenn still has a slight hair-height advantage, but perhaps only because his head is bigger), and two of the "triplets," and...

...and it doesn't really matter for this story. This is a story of me wondering where the heck my senior year went, because here it is two years later, and I can't believe that two years ago I was still there. I feel a million miles away from high school.

Oh, to explain title line: all the seniors got roses. Glenn put his in his saxophone for the last song, as a mute. He said it worked great, actually. ...He's going to prom tomorrow night with a bunch of friends, so he came in the rented tuxedo, on the grounds that he didn't want to iron anything. ::giggles:: (Noooobody else was in anything even close to that dressy, of course, but he pulled it off fairly well.)

I feel almost as though my life began in a bare Openhym room, arranging dressers to make room for Lily Jo; that my first steps were taken at the Student Olympics; and that my early youth was spent running from Openhym to Tefft to see John. Like, holy cow. 12th-grade AP English existed, outside of two-second memories? The quotebook, Ocean Bowl, Arsenic? And, I mean, Leo Club? We were children then. And that was as old as Matt and Glenn are now.

But, like, what changed? About me, not much. So why does it feel like ancient history?

I guess it's a good thing that time moves slowly for me, lest I wake up one morning and find myself forty-five years old (it'd be awesome if this blog lasted so long, ha!). But I miss the way things were, too. Matt coming to school will help, but Glenn will vanish into RPI, his dream for as long as I've known him. I'm still amazed his mother isn't moving to Troy, since they've spent every third-or-fourth weekend there, plus all major holidays, for probably the past five years, and now Glenn's going to school there. (But it's a relief. If Glenn moves to Troy, the only way I will ever see him again in my life is if he joins RPI's chapter of APO and we meet up at a conference.)

(Do you know, he scored 70 points higher on the SAT than I did, outshooting me by a mile in math, though probably behind me in verbal. May his mother stop telling him, forever, that if he doesn't work harder he'll end up digging ditches.)

It was nice to hang around, sort of, with Daf, since that doesn't happen a lot, and I'd started to wonder if such things would ever happen again, with all three of us who didn't move to Pennsylvania now wrapped in jobs and boyfriends, and 'Nanda online for hours every night with Megs. And Bethie working her tail off in engineering, Melly and Bunny together-but-separate at different schools in Massachusetts, Julie across the state, Erik c-cing it at home...how long will we attempt to keep up the pizza gatherings, now that the sleepovers have essentially died off? And I'm desperate already to see my college friends--I can't believe I've been home for less than a week; that, too, seems like a gulf of distance.

Egad, but adulthood looks stark from here. I mean, is this how it goes, that you have to marry into someone's family to keep them? I know from my dad that that isn't quite true, but dang. I feel so severed from some aspects of home, know that that's my own doing, and still--to be really honest--don't regret it. High school is over. It was nice enough, especially once twelfth grade got better, but...B, Klumpp, and Westby are about all the people I'd care to come back to see, outside of the students themselves. And almost all of those students have graduated, or are doing so this June.

It's a pretty cruel trick, this, making us live in two worlds for four years, then suddenly collapsing the world that inevitably comes to mean the most to us, to fling us into places that have no idea what infinite care and love and sweat and ache went into those four years.

But then, the district invested eight into me (fourth grade on, remember?), and I don't give it so much as a backward glance until nights like this.

-Laurel

For my own benefit

The FTP site into my webpage hasn't been working from home since about spring break, so, for Newbery Project reference, today I finished The Matchlock Gun, by Walter D. Edmonds. ...It was interesting, though not with the complexity you see in a lot of other Newberys; plus, the ending could have told us more about the mother.

Before that, though, I finished Silver on the Tree, thereby finishing the Dark is Rising books that I began over Christmas break. The last one was probably the fastest-moving, and probably my favorite, except for maybe Over Sea, Under Stone. Not bad at all, as a series. But either she stole way too much from Tolkien, or Lord of the Rings wasn't nearly as original as I thought. ...Also, being used to wizard's-chess puzzles, riddle contests with mutant former hobbits, et cetera, the so-called "tests" the Drews got put through really did not impress me that much, especially inasmuch as they tended to escape out of nothing more than blind intuition. But that's enough snot out of me.

Am soon to begin the His Dark Materials books. When I've finished them, maybe then I can consider myself an amateur student of fantasy, as I will have read the major fantasy series of C.S. Lewis, Phillip Pullman, Susan Cooper, Madeleine L'Engle, J.R.R. Tolkien, and of course J.K. Rowling; and have read the first Xanth book. And if all those mentioned prior to Xanth don't count as at least minor greats of fantasy, somebody's going to have to tell me who does.

Okay, I should have emptied the dishwasher like three hours ago, so I'm gonna go and do that.

-Laurel

One-year anniversary of the Peru trip

And glad I am that I'm here instead of there. But some things about it, I do miss.

Thought for tonight: Dang, can my mom ever cook. And never underestimate the importance of time in cooking--not how long the dish cooks, in what I mean, but in how long you give yourself to think up and make a dinner.

Went to the library tonight (ahh, bliss!) and picked Silver on the Tree back up, so that now I'm finally going to finish it soon. Where I thought the story was when I left off doesn't seem to have been the correct book, even--must've been a memory out of The Grey King. Hm.

Also grabbed an armful (well, almost) of Newberys and The Golden Compass, which really will get read in the next three weeks if I have anything to do with it. Well, now that I have wireless internet upstairs (the best Christmas present I got), I can lounge on my bed and read to my heart's content while leaving an away message up for anyone who cares to talk. (And, since Tim is in-state, hopefully I will be a little less pasted to the computer anyway.) It will be a literary summer. And so it will need to be, considering how many Newberys I have left, plus the number of projects on the side! I will need to play a lot of DDR to balance out the lounging-around-and-reading, as well as the working. At least until the W&B job starts up and I get to help with playground time (or so I hope).

Enough for tonight.

-Laurel

Geek watch, faith watch, gun control

In case anybody missed any of yesterday's geek-links when I was mass-distributing them (it was a very geeky day):

-The most hysterical Star Wars parody this side of Spaceballs

-The most awesome geek-shirt I've seen in quite some time

-Rated somewhere between PG and PG-13, but totally worth it just for ranking "Piers Anthony fans" within it. Ha-ha to the twins.


Was reading Time Magazine today, the May 9th issue, since that was the one lying around my house. They had a nice article, very respectful, about Christian groups on secular college campuses (was especially intrigued by the Greek InterVarsity thing, with the frats/sororities coming together, but as annoyed as those kids are by the bad rap that frat kids automatically get from a lot of religious groups).

Am very concerned, however, by the article about Florida's new "Stand Your Ground" law, which comes off to me as an absolutely horrible idea. I mean, a law where just claiming you felt threatened (how can you dispute that?) will let you kill someone? We're the nation of the Terror Alert. We are a little too good at feeling threatened. I mean, you can give death in return for threat of bodily harm, if I'm reading that right. How does that even approach a proportional response? And shouldn't it? ...I'm not saying there's going to be the Old West returning here, but let me ask, with the article linked above, whether we're placing belongings above people.

I know that sometimes those "belongings" might be children, but there must be, there must be a better way. Especially in public. The castle doctrine is one thing, because not a lot of people break into a house by accident, even though I still have my reservations about filling people full of lead for any reason. But this? This is too far.

Well, I think it's time for a nap; how about you?

-Laurel

Ummmm...

...so our e-mail server from school has been taken over by German spam. Like, seriously. ITS sent out a message warning us about the German spam. And it is, indeed, in German. I know because I've gotten about 23 pieces of it within the past 24 hours.

That shouldn't be as funny as I think it is.

Church today was great. I feel like everybody's learning so much these days, even though not much has changed since spring break. I will miss IV less than I expected, I think, especially since somebody's starting a college-student Sunday program. Awesome. ...The first-graders were given their Bibles today (it's a thing we do for all of them; my brother was young enough to be part of that when we first started coming. They're pretty nice Bibles, with kid-oriented inserts and stuff like that). For once I recognized a good 50% of them (we have a lot of first-graders every year), because they're the same kids I watched two years ago for PIG class. You can probably even read the QPQ entries about them, if there are any. It was so cute to see them, and a little sad.

So today's projects: meet up with at least Erik sometime (hopefully 'Nanda and people as well) and beat a path to my computer through all the junk. w00t.

-Laurel

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

My mom says that all the time.

So okay, I'm back from school. Tim and his mom helped a ton with the packing/loading, and they may just be the reason I got off campus with time to spare (though granted that it was an hour and a half to spare, so maybe I could've done it myself, but I'm not so sure). This makes me feel irresponsible, but I did spend the week helping with the APO office move and doing stuff for the trustee thing and all that randomness, so I guess that works as an excuse.

Today (well, Saturday) I sang the alma mater with people, which was interesting. Was supposed to be there at 11 AM (which is about an hour before we were needed; Luanne, who wasn't going to be there, must have been playing it really safe). About 10:35 AM: my stockings come apart at the side (like, the Run of Doom, alll over the stupid things) as I'm putting them on. My hair is not even dried. ...The dress really needed stockings with it. I checked. One frenzied hair-drying and dollar store trip later (thank goodness for my car), I'm ready to go and it's like 11:05. The walk down from the house isn't pretty, so I drive. Good idea, right? Absolutely not. Practically every space (real or imaginary) on campus is taken, and more have filled between the trip at 10-whatever and my driving by around 11:05--and this is during a ceremony that started at ten! Time I actually got there: like 11:30. And my car? Finally found a spot behind the library, near Kruson. I jogged all the way to graduation. Yeesh maneesh, it would've been quicker to walk. Or to park anydangwhere, since I saw the security car at graduation, outside, parked and off, with no one around it.

But it was all right. I got to see Terri, Ryan, Ben, and other cool people graduate (though I missed alll the speakers, plus I wasn't paying attention when they called Hazel and Chelsea).

The alma mater was okay. I started on the wrong note (never mind how; Tom did it last time, and this time it was my turn) but corrected early, turned on the perkiness...then spent half the song trying (successfully, thank heaven) not to laugh because McDonough was doing "raise the roof" from his seat.

Everybody had safe trips home. Including me, even though mine was in the (sometimes-torrential) rain and not exactly 100% driving-mistake-free.

Watched TV with my mom. It was fun. So I'm going to link to a site that, yes, is run by Hallmark, but which is nevertheless pretty cute, and then go to bed.

http://www.hoopsandyoyo.com

But maybe watch this first, so you can see why I loved them so much.

-Laurel

::listening to "Adagio Sostenuto", better known as "Moonlight Sonata"::

Today was better than the entire rest of the week combined.

The craft supplies got sorted this morning between two local public service groups and donated. I got to do the driving, so that was a pleasant hour where I could feel like I was saving the world, one bag of donated construction paper at a time. (Like, you have no idea how much construction paper there was. Holy ruddy cow.)

The trustees came today to look at the house. Kathy from Student Affairs went nuts about it and was going to have our rooms examined and us in matching black pants and white tops, etc. etc. (if she's the one Devin was referring to when I heard about it, which I for one believe she was, considering how spastic she was when she saw us at the Jet at noon), but Brenda from Res-Life calmed her down, for which we're grateful. We got to wear whatever semi-dressy stuff we wanted. I wore the stuff I'd worn to my job interview and felt a little overdressed, especially compared to Chris, whose dress clothes were in the Rescue Squad office and appeared in a semi-nice shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Joel and Ann are down-to-earth and wonderful. Joel is cancer-free as of January, which is even better.

And...are you ready for this?...there was a chocolate fountain. Like, seriously. A machine-thing with tiers, looking vaguely like a wedding cake, from which cascaded melted, warmed milk chocolate, pooling in a ring constructed at the machine's bottom, and being, I assume, sucked back into the middle somehow to be "recycled." It was, I assure you, nothing short of amazing. The twins, predictably, were in ecstasy. (Tom's current away message: angelfood cake + strawberries + a chocolate fountain = God's glimpse of Heaven 0:-))

After we played with the fountain (especially when the trustees were gone), we just...sat there in the lounge, talking. Including Devin. It was really nice.

I can't believe that this is the poorest county in New York State. That is, until I get to around Belmont and Birdsall. ...Wellsville has some hope; its agencies are set up fairly well, and appear to function fairly well, too. But even though you don't see ramshackle houses, somehow I wasn't surprised when I read the statistics online.

Which makes me wonder--is it because it's so rural that nothing is ever set up to combat this? I mean, city poverty is well known. Rochester, 90 minutes away, has literally something like over-500 human service agencies. I doubt Allegany County has twenty percent of that. Of course, I don't know how great a population difference there is, but...but from someone who had to work to find two places to donate craft supplies, let me tell you, I miss home, the way everything's spelled out, the way everyone makes it obvious that help can be given, and how. I mean, APO chapters like Xi Zeta and Mu Lambda (RIT and U of R, respectively) must have it so easy. They're schools with lots of APO members, and if they want information, all they have to do is look here, and there they are. Rochester is internet-savvy; they're on all the online volunteer-match sites. Allegany County, practically nothing. I've looked. And we're down to 18 if Meryl transfers; Mike and Kelly are gone permanently, and Kim's on co-op until spring. Which is 10 people better than last semester, so it's hard to complain.

What I want to do, as my private project, nothing to get APO involved with, is to take the two years I have left on this campus and make a Community Wishbook site of my own, just like Rochester's, and get the county webpage to host it, or at least prominently link to it. I can talk to the career center when I get back in the fall. They'll help me find all the agencies, I'll explain, and anyone who wants to post information (and why shouldn't they?) can. I know enough HTML to get around; look at Rochester's page, it's not so advanced in format, only in how many ways you can sort things. Tim still looks at me funny, clearly trying to tell me it's a daunting task...but two years should be enough. We don't have as many agencies as Rochester. And I want to make it easier for this county. It felt like coincidence that I ever ended up here; it's almost the last place I expected to be. But I've fallen in love with the place, and I want to help. They get lost in the shuffle; Heather, who lives around here, tells me how. Rochester helps, but not enough. And sometimes they're creating the problems instead.

I go home tomorrow. I'll have all summer to regroup, to cook, and to plan. It's about time.

-Laurel

cheer up, emo kid.

Aaand, having spent my "relaxation" week running service projects (Adopt-a-Highway, x-ray file moving) and cleaning out the office, virtually everybody on campus is hereby driving me crazy. ...And there are roaches in Tom's dorm, which is super-special. I've decided not to go in there.

But hey, now that the dining halls have closed and we get $15/day at the Jet, the food has improved.

Finished on the 9th and 10th: two Newberys, both very good.

To do tomorrow: Sort and donate all of the 459320914 craft supplies left in the APO office. Montessori school, et cetera, here I come.

Also: must not forget choir practice.

To bed with me. I'm depressing myself.

-Laurel

Mass hatred

Facebook groups have gone the way of LiveJournal ones now, of course: there are happy little groups like religious ones and Poder Latino...

...and then tonight, I discovered by accident, one against Tom. Specifically. It says some pretty nasty stuff, and posts his phone number to call him and everything. Because he's an RA, and kind of a stickler sometimes (not in an out-of-line way, just in a not-taking-crap way), and there're a bunch of first-years on it, hopefully in largest part because the group's name is toilet-humor funny and has nothing to do with the hatred, and because the guy who started it appears to be kinda popular.

Like, maybe half the people on it think it's a joke. I hope so. 'Cause one of his good friends from last year is on it.

I'm trying to decide how angry to get. It's mostly a stupid freshman thing, and Tom himself isn't even on Facebook, so I'm letting ignorance be bliss anyway. I'm asking a couple of people to look at it, and if we decide to have it reported, then we do, but that might prove more trouble than it's worth.

Those first-years--I wish I really could use nasty names for them. And I'm supposed to love them instead.

I'm going to take a shower. Dang it. Dang it. I know it's a stupid freshman thing, but if they could see how much it already bothered him that they don't like him...and if he knew about this...

...I mean, that is so middle-school! And a middle-school nightmare, as well.

-Laurel

46 Newberys left to read by September 1st...

...if I'm to accomplish my goal. That's 116 days from now, if I'm not mistaken, which averages out to one book every two-and-a-half days from now until then.

Yikes stripes, I better get reading.

-Laurel

Augh!

How did I get to be twenty years old without consistent knowledge of basic household skills? My bangs look like a four-year-old tried to cut them, and I don't dare correct them any farther or I won't have any bangs left at all! I hope they straighten out in a week so I don't look like a freak when I sing at graduation.

::whimper::

-Laurel

Happy birthday to me!

My birthday (which was Monday) went pretty well, except for the weather. It rained. Then it snowed. Then it hailed. Then it went back to being sunny. Then it rained again. Then it snowed again. Et cetera. ...I went to Jamie's for about an hour for an APO thing, then to Terri's for the last Bible study, which consisted of a little VeggieTales, a little Mr. Bean, and a lot of food.

Folk dancing party was lovely. Oh, and I went to Midnight Breakfast to claim my prize that I won taking the National College Health Assessment Survey, or whatever it's called. $50 toward the bookstore, whoa! This week I absolutely am having fun with that. And, well, buying an MLA handbook.

And, to top it all off, I received the following today, dated May 2, 2005:

Dear [Laurel],

The Committee of Traffic and Parking Appeals met on April 29, 2005. Following deliberation, it was decided by majority vote that ticket(s) No# D3538 which you appealed has been granted.

The wording, as Tim agrees, is poor, but I think that means I won. Hurrah for second chances! I hope this means I get my $30 back. ::giggles:: Birthday money after all!

-Laurel