"Shut up and live off the fat of the land!"-Rev. Charles Semple, Grace Assembly of God

::laughs:: That title is courtesy of Joe's pastor, trying to tell us young'uns (anyone still considered financially-dependent) to enjoy our youth and low responsibility levels while we have them.

Which is to say, Joe is back in town for the weekend, and Andrea's with him, and they took me to church and lunch this morning, for which I am super-happy.

Joe's church is the most like Pearce, from home, that I've yet seen: lots of people of different age levels, big sanctuary set up very similarly, lots of youth groups by age level. People-wise, however, it is pentecostal, though not to the degree that Lighthouse, in Alfred, is. (I mentioned this to Joe, who sounded a little surprised, as though it hadn't really occurred to him that they were charismatic at all.) Everybody was very friendly--I got to meet his friend Rachel, an English major (haha, as Albert's like, "Whoa!"), and three guys with whom he'd been on a missions trip.

I mean, Joe and Andrea and I do talk about secular things, of course, and we did a little of that, but mostly we talked about faith-related things over lunch...a lot about the two years in high school where Rachel explained Christianity to Joe, and what that was like; how the three of us all came into InterVarsity; oh, lots of things. It was really nice.

No plans for tonight on my end (Joe and Andrea are doing stuff with Joe's neighbors, or friends, or whatever...if you're still up for something, Aneya, call).

Sparkette is eating again, though still thin. I wonder what's going on.

-Laurel

Update on the previous

Oh, ruddy crap on a cracker.

Apparently, though of course the webpages all say "this could be possible even without these symptoms, or it could be something else, nobody really has any idea," it could be fish tuberculosis. My fish did actually show some of the symptoms, which is startling.

And humans can apparently catch it, if they get their hands in the tank.

Okay, then!

-Laurel

Another potentially-boring-and-morbid hobbyist post

I cannot figure out what has gone on with the three original guppies. Jemima thinned out and died, Maria unexpectedly followed suit within ten days, and I'm starting to think that Sparkette's next. After Maria's death I watched her for the same signs, but she went at food as energetically as ever, which the other two did not, just before their untimely demises. But suddenly I looked at her tonight and realized that she's thinned out anyway, in spite of accidental overfeeding and the elimination of the offending shrimp. She's sort of listless, has spent a lot of time since Maria's death in the same corner of the tank where I found both other guppies dead, swimming up and down (I wouldn't mention this, but she's never done it before), and when I dropped a food flake into the tank experimentally, she went at it with all her usual energy, but didn't devour it as she always has; sort of just nipped at it twice and swam away. These are bad signs. I think I'm going to lose her, for I have no idea what the problem could be, and therefore can't fix it. The other fish are fine; the cherry barbs are as jovial and hungry as ever.

It isn't even lack of companionship, not that I expect fish to die of grief, for Lila has brightened everything up. She's another female guppy; I bought her yesterday (fish are cheap, for those of you wondering about my frequent acquisitions) and gave her the name as a shortened version of "Little Lady," which I absently called her as we were driving home. It seemed a nice, gentle name for a small, gracefully-colored fish. But Lila, if I read things right, is perhaps the happiest fish I've ever had, or at least the friendliest since the unlucky Fflewddur. She seems to want to play with everything and everyone, and has even had the sedate Brett (who used to chase Mary quite happily until I brought home Davy and Sandra, whereupon the barbs became a trio, and Brett was left rather in the cold) swimming around for all he's worth. I like her very much.

So I don't know. It's a mystery, and I pity poor Sparkette; I wish I knew how to help.

-Laurel

Jumping on Chelsea's bandwagon

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Very Lady Laurel the Random of Withering by the Wold Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Niiiiiice.

-Laurel

Your English-geek humor for the day

http://www.savagechickens.com/blog/2006/11/grocery-store.html

Christmas was nice. The family got together and ate dinner and sang Christmas songs. Also, I got an iPod. And March of the Penguins on DVD.

Not much to say, except that another of the guppies (Maria) died, and it may actually have been my fault this time (uh-oh). I've decided that, even if TetraMin does put them out, dried baby shrimp should be fed to bigger fish than mine are. I think a shrimp-shell-induced blockage/injury (can't figure out which) got her. Sparkette, at least, is the picture of health, to what degree being perpetually ravenous is healthy.

The rest of the fish are well, as is the shrimp. I watched Hoover, my plec, clean some algae off the side of the tank today. It was pretty cool. Clearly, I need more of a life. Or, rather, to be more diligent about the life I have; I am behind on the Newberys, and should get that grad-school application in.

-Laurel

Christmas in the 'Cuse

"A Christmas Hymn," Richard Wilbur

And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him,
Master, rebuke thy disciples.

And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

-St. Luke XIX, 39-40

A stable-lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
And straw like gold shall shine;
A barn shall harbor heaven,
A stall become a shrine.

This child through David's city
Shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
Though heavy, dull, and dumb,
And lie within the roadway
To pave his kingdom come.

Yet he shall be forsaken,
And yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
For stony hearts of men:
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's love refused again.

But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.


First Christmas in the new house. It hasn't been a particularly Christmasy-feeling month, 'cause of the lack of snow (though I'm not complaining about the air's warmth), but I found this poem today pretty much by accident as I was flipping through my Richard Wilbur book from Recent American. And Anna got a hold of me today, too. She's doing well at the new school, has a new boyfriend (went out to California with him for a few days, I guess!); it was nice to catch up a bit. So two Christmasy things have happened already.

It's maybe an odd annual tradition, when you think about it, to list all one's new friends (not always close friends, but people to whom I feel more warmth than for an acquaintence), but it does give me a chance to wish everyone well and be happy I know them better now than I did last year.

Merry Christmas, then, to Tim (the A-State one), Maggie, Aaron, Andrea, Laura, Josh, Matt-from-Bible-study, Sophie, Leah, Jeanne, Sarah (of the walnut allergy!), Shannon, Sean, Devin (English major), Ted, Lauren, Jamie (karate), Zac (not Zack), Jeff, Terese, Crystal, Dani and folkdance/IV-Anna and Jess (whom I put together because they all should've gotten this wish last year), Laniece, AK, Liz Lawton, Dr. Strong, every darling one of the FYE freshmen (but perhaps Jessie and Humberto, for their particular kindness, deserve special note), and the crew from Syracuse International Folk Dancing (especially Carman, Jan, and the awesome lady whose name I always forget, as I'm doing now). A slightly-belated happy Chanukah to Haley, too. It's been another big year, from Text & Image to Basileia to FYE, and everything in between, for meeting great people.

The fourth-annual merry-Christmas wish to Samweli, Sunil, and the soldiers. Danos la paz.

And a merry Christmas to all of you, my friends and best-beloveds. Here's to the coming start of a new year; I think maybe it'll be the best one in a while, what d'you think?

-Laurel

Devotional time

This, besides being about a master's-degree program(!), put things in perspective for me this morning. Joe and I have agreed, in our late-night AIM conversations, that perfectionism is pretty much not worth it, though it's not like we exactly plan to start trying for C's (after all, we're supposed to do our best; it's the lack of contentment therewith that creates problems). We were mostly talking about general life anyway. I think it's especially, for me, that I'm quick to blame myself for not having changed already, instead of focusing on the idea that if I'm supposed to be different, I will learn how to be if only I have the sincerity.

So much, I've learned this year, is about sincerity.

Another thought: go look at Luke 17:5-6. It occurred to me, since I've also wondered recently how to get "more" faith, that the disciples didn't really get a direct answer to their question, which I guess I'd missed because I hadn't isolated those two verses; I'd been looking at the whole chapter. The only thing I can come up with is that maybe Jesus is saying that they need faith, period. That you have it or you don't. Another translation, paraphrasal though The Message often is, seems to interpret it like that, too.

So is it that most people just don't have any, or that they're not putting it to use, or--? I feel like I should have learned this by now. Maybe I did once.

On another note, I'm taking Chris Rice's blog off my side-column (since it hasn't been updated since about April, and I've more or less given up on it) and subbing in Leroy Sievers's, which I mentioned probably back around October. He's the journalist who's chronicling having cancer, and it's certainly thought-provoking, if sort of morbid a topic. I finally caught up to the present last night (had to read a few months' worth of back-entries) and figure I'd better start following it regularly now.

'kay, off to do responsible things, such as working on my grad apps, going to the post office, and cleaning my fishtank. I know the tank just came home, but the moving process brought up a lot of crud that'd been trapped under lots of gravel. I'd been wondering how to deal with it (figured this involved actually learning how to use that...oh, what's it called? It's sort of like a pump, but not. Whatever), but vacation largely solved that for me. The filter's icky now, and should be cleaned.

-Laurel

Somewhat-Cryptic Fish Update

For the interested, I have named the three cherry barbs. After watching the one male alternately chase the two females, I am going with Davy, Mary, and Sandra.

Here's lookin' at you, Applebus kids.

-Laurel

News from home

December 17th, the twins' birthday. Here's to not having a stomach virus this year, though I do have a mild cold. w00t.

Have been home since Friday evening. The journey was entertaining, to say the least, because I was trying to keep my fish alive. I ended up buying two clear half-gallon Rubbermaid screw-top jars in which you'd normally keep things like sugar. I filled them instead with tank water and the fish (and, in one of them, the tank thermometer). Then I poured the rest of the water out of the big tank, then stuck the fish containers inside, anchoring them in the slightly-wet gravel that remained.

The trick, after that, was to not let the water temperature drop too far. What I ended up doing was running the heat a lot in my car, which actually worked, though it was a bit warm a day for it. Got home, dragged everything upstairs, and set it up; all went fine.

So, for an update on the fish (in case it's anywhere nearly as interesting to you as to me), we now have seven, plus a crustacean tankmate. John's guppy Jemima died a few days back; I would like to point out, however insensitively, that this was probably not my fault, unlike the whole ich thing. She's had a problem with her mouth, or digestion, or something for a couple of months, actually--she'd go without more than a scrap of food for days at a time. Finally something went wrong with that, and it was the end. So we have two guppies still, Maria and Sparkette; we have the checkerboard barb (Brett) and the plecostomus (Hoover); we now have three cherry barbs, since they're a schooling breed and I was trying to give my lone one some company, but they've yet to be named; and we have one ghost shrimp, which I think of as Pepe (after Pepe Prawn, from the Muppets) even though that's what Emily named the one of hers that died some weeks ago.

Poor Pepe almost didn't make it out of Alfred: it may or may not have been due to the small hole in my net, which developed either during or just before this process (and made the cherry barbs pretty hard to transfer), but when I went to shake him into the jar, he disappeared, and I couldn't see him on the table or floor or in the tank. Shortly, to my startled dismay, I found him wedged between the jar and the tank's outer wall, looking pretty much like a snail out of its shell, gooey and limp. I popped him into the jar quickly but without much hope for his survival, but he actually pulled through without much trouble, and seems to be doing just fine. ...Or maybe she. I don't know how to tell and will have to look it up soon.

Today some of my mom's sisters are coming over for a sort of Christmas-with-Mom's-side, so I should dry my hair and get going on the mini-reubens I said I'd make for an appetizer. More before too long. Cheerio!

-Laurel

oh, ruddy.

This has been a complicated week. Maybe I should take a "hot both," haha.

-Laurel

You who use Firefox...is this entry even showing? I'm having problems with all my browsers tonight.

Windows IE 7.0 browser, free upgrade: not a computer-threatening idea, but still rather a bad one. Hands for people who think that IE should not try to be Firefox? I mean, most people would agree to that simply because they like Firefox and think Microsoft is evil. I actually don't like Firefox all that well (::ducks objects heaved by 'Nanda et al.::), so my reasoning is basically that Microsoft isn't really very good at imitating any group it doesn't own, as far as I can tell, and Mozilla is no exception.

Anyway, Thanksgiving was good. Uncle Paul was there, back for a while from Fallujah, where he's training Iraqi policemen and doing some other stuff. I should have written about that last night; I would have had more to say. As it is, a day later, most of what I know is that a) wow, is he ever in a dangerous place, and it's more real to me now how scary it is to have two relatives in Iraq (Matt's still around Baghdad somewhere, with the Army); and b) the poor soldiers deserve some comfort. Forest People, at school, is doing a big anysoldier.com project, and I think I've just jumped on board for collecting some supplies for them.

It's far easier to offer them help than to come to any conclusion on the war itself. Uncle Paul is as hardcore conservative as my dad is liberal, and they offer very different perspectives on the whole thing. To me it only seems "too hard a knot for me to untie," as with most political issues. I'm glad to have a vote, but I don't feel particularly deserving of it. What knowledge I have of the outside world, from Alfred Isle, where I quite happily spend most of my year, is scant. Coming home, rather than making me regret my ignorance, usually makes me all the more ready to embrace it again upon going back to school: the news is simply not worth watching, and rarely worth reading. I feel like Alfred is the only place I ever see any civility, political or otherwise, and I suppose even that is partly because I'm out of APO and Student Senate.

But enough of that. ...I spent lots of today napping and reading Macbeth, trying to find something to write my next paper on for Mayberry. I think I've found it. It's not as good a topic as last paper's, but should be simpler, once I iron out the thesis. Something to do with characters' connections to nature, and how the Macbeths and the witches throw it out of whack, and how it's up to Malcolm and Macduff to stabilize it. We'll see.

Tonight Mom, Sean (the bro), and I went bowling. It was a very good night for all three of us. I even broke 100 in the second game...what was it I got, a 107? That never happens. So rock on.

The Christmas season is begun, thank heavens. The worst of November is over. Then again, most of November is over. Holy cow, I have the literature GRE in eight days. At least it's on campus--hurrah! A welcome change, after the drive to Rochester at the crack of dawn for the regular GRE.

My brother has another week at home after I leave, since he's between quarters (well, trimesters, but...). He came home with a couple of work-study paychecks...and all his poker winnings, which amount to more than the checks. Gracious, those poor ROTC kids he's been playing against. They had no idea, as I did, that he spent this summer reading poker books and playing it online. ...He's going to be playing curling again soon; that's his gym class next quarter. Good; not only is he excited, but now I get to have fun again, telling people my brother plays curling, and watching them be either like huh? or whoa!

Speaking of poker, on Wednesday I came with the family to Regal and saw my first-ever James Bond movie. Casino Royale is apparently pretty different from other Bond movies, so I guess I really don't have anything to compare it to, but it wasn't bad, though it was violent (and though there's a scene in there to make guys in particular blanch).

That's about all from here. Wish I was in Rochester, where everyone else is. At least I have fewer distractions from my Shakespeare paper...?

-Laurel

Aaaaaahhhhh, I can't stop!

Okay. So I realize that pretty much everyone with a blog jumped on this bandwagon before I did back in October, but Lily Jo finally forcibly sent me the Trick-or-Treat-Haul game, and it ended up being so spectacular that I played it for faaaaar longer than I care to admit.

To show how much fun I had, and because pretty much everybody has to see this (especially 'Nanda and D'Artagnan and Aneya), here I present my Cut-and-Pasted-and-Edited, Far-Too-Long Trick-or-Treat Best-Of Montage:

You went trick or treating as Waldo.

Stephanie Tanner gave you wasabi.

LeVar Burton gave you a red gumdrop.
Carmen Sandiego gave you a brain.

The Dead Parrot gave you a butterscotch.

Ringo Starr gave you sand art.

Jareth gave you the Antivirus.

Jem gave you a wintergreen.

Horatio Hornblower gave you a cordial cherry.

Marius gave you a lemon drop.

Simon and Garfunkel gave you a golden key.

The Baby-Sitters Club gave you a towel.

Lucy Pevensie gave you the Golden Snitch.

Charlie Brown gave you the Sign of Iron.
Bran Davies gave you a chocomint.

Le Petit Prince gave you a malted milk ball.

Meg Murry gave you a Christmas tree.

Meg March gave you a chocolate-chip cookie.
D'Artagnan gave you a gumball.


You had a spamtastic time until Rockapella betrayed you to the Dominion.

(or, as an alternate ending for certain readers of this blog) ...until Christine Daae deleted your NaNovel.


What's Your Trick-or-Treat Haul?
Shiver My Timber--A Pirate RPG


There you go. That's not even the half of the awesomeness on there (try though I did, for example, I never did get Bink back after I accidentally passed him the first time), so definitely check for yourself if you feel so inclined.

Thanksgiving soon!

Okay. Time for some productivity, finally.

-Laurel

On Miran

Erica has a friend--well, she's my friend, too, but primarily Erica's--named Miran. I've meant to mention her for some time now. Miran (said "meer-ON") is from South Korea, and is an art student. She's Christian in a solid, but almost mystical way--she's always very concerned with the genuineness of our speakers for IV, and she's disliked a couple of them on the grounds that she didn't sense their sincerity. She claims to sense a lot; I don't remember all the stories anymore that I heard one night when I sat and listened to her and Erica for a while. She is blunt and eccentric, and forever apologizing for anything she sees as coming out of her own selfishness (she says she got spoiled at home). Holding up her end of a conversation is no problem for her: she talks fast--maybe even as fast as I do, haha, but certainly in even longer strings than I do. She's picky about food, and somewhat of a germophobe (she wears a surgical mask out in public, which reminds me of news footage during the SARS epidemic), but she loves apples, which I guess she doesn't have in Korea (makes sense). When we had so many of them around the house, after the IV apple-picking, she'd take as many of them home at once as we'd give her.

I caught her artistic eye the night we met. It was cold, for September (I think it was in September), and I was wearing my old red fleece, the one I've had for literally six-ish years now. Something about the bright red of my fleece and the brightish blue of my eyes (mine? she should see my dad's and Uncle Dennis's) made her apologize for always looking over at me. It became a surprise to her when she saw me anywhere else and I wasn't wearing it, since that's how she remembered me, blue eyes and a red fleece.

Well, I am a very t-shirt-oriented person, but this year, I have had to get some actual warm clothes. Almost all of mine from the last several years have met one of various demises--shrinkage in the campus dryers, recurring holes, zipper problems, etc. (The red fleece still lives, trouper that it is, but I can't wear it every day.) Today I finally went out and bought a nice, non-itchy sweater. As it turns out, it too is red, a bit deeper a red than the fleece, and actually has a hood. (I have never owned--or, indeed, before this year, even seen--a hooded sweater. It looks better than you'd expect, because of the different way it's cut.)

I told Miran about it tonight when she came over to do a joint Bible study/class project with Erica, knowing the color would please her. Excited, she asked me to put it on and show it to her. I did. Miran went into art-girl ecstasies: I got an in-depth explanation of my eyes' chroma (an interesting definition; check it out), how it worked when I wore red, how my sweater and the t-shirt I had on under it (my light blue Quiz Bowl one) worked together, but the sweater and my jeans (dark blue, a little washed-out) didn't, and how I should go to Australia because my eyes were the color of the Great Barrier Reef.

She also, I found out as she went on with her analysis, likes two things about my looks that I mostly do not: the thickness of my eyebrows and the way I look without bangs. In Miran's opinion, the next time I go anywhere fancy with a guy, I need to be in a red dress, with no bangs, and it will be amazing. She was very funny about this, asking, at one point, "Don't you want to please your man?" I laughed at that, pointing out that I probably should get one first (though I don't like that way of phrasing it, but whatever). Erica reminded Miran of the Biblical mention of beauty coming from within. Miran agreed enthusiastically that that was most important, but still thought I would look better bangless. Fair enough.

All of this about the sweater is perhaps not very interesting, but I have never been told so many times at once that I am beautiful (except by my parents, probably, when I was younger), and it was nice, though I didn't quite know where to look. ...She makes me wonder about minds more abstract than mine. My cousin Tara is a professional artist, mostly abstract sculpture, and she finds these meanings in what look, to my family, like very colorful blobs. (As far as we know, no, she is not on any controlled substances, haha.) Miran talks about auras, and the people at Lighthouse Church speak in tongues. I'm so normal, at least comparatively, and quite fine with that; I know Miran is lonely, in a way, because so few people really know firsthand what she means about things. In such a sublime and complex world, though, it's good to know that God is the God of the abstract as well as the commonplace.

That's all I have on that.

-Laurel

Mizu no kokoro

Today was just an awkward day, one of those where large portions of everything I said were wrong, especially around Dr. Strong, whom I saw for three hours today, instead of two, because of my thesis meeting that turned into various FYE things as well; and especially in Writing Center, where my second tutee and I just were not operating on the same wavelength.

Plus, I've just now remembered that I'd resolved to keep being extra-careful in speech today, after the inspiringness of yesterday's IV sermon about letting our yes be yes and our no be no.

But I think I'm going to have to lower my stress level a bit, because one of my high-level warnings is going off: I am starting to obsess about conversations after I've had them. I mean, to some degree, I do that all the time, go over things and make sure I haven't said anything too stupid, and make sure there wasn't something I've missed that I should have understood at the time, but I think it gets especially bad when I'm under tension. When I start feeling like verbal precision is an incredibly important part of being a good and Christian person, and agonizing over my utter lack thereof, it is time to cool it. Watching myself is good, but intention is more important than success. My job is to love, not to never sound stupid.

-Laurel

This must be, what, week ten? Oh ruddy dang it.

The week and I tied for who was ordering whom around, despite my improved time management. This week promises to be almost as busy, as it turns out.

Saw my brother when I went to take the GRE (which went well). He seems so much older, after only about two months apart from him. Gave me a hug, which was nice. We couldn't have lunch or anything, 'cause it took too long for us to find each other, but maybe some other time. I went to DiBella's and got a taste of Rochester. Ah, sub sandwiches on delicious rolls. Ah, oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies.

We went to Bev and Harold's farm for honors-seminar last Thursday. Harold's stories are super-cool and super-impressive. It made me want to abandon grad school to go work on his farm for five years. Sort of. If only I were good at anything besides academics.

But I guess academics are not so shabby. Dr. Strong was quite impressed, as it happens, by my poetry lesson. Jessie, sweet girl, told me she'd take a class with me any day. ...Have been reading some FYE papers and grading them on a separate sheet of paper, to see how closely I match up to Dr. Strong's, since I'm really not sure what makes an A paper, a C one, etc. Stay tuned on that one, I guess.

Everybody is forbidden to ask me about grad school until at least December, and probably February. Else the squeaky hammer shall come for you.

I have an actual personal journal now. That's perhaps an odd comment to make on a public one, but for a while, this was really all I had. The new one began as just a space to gush and think about FYE and that whole bright new world as much as I wanted, but quickly branched off into other topics. I guess I mention this by way of apologizing for my entries here being fairly boring these days, but it's not like they'd be radically different otherwise.

Lit GRE after all, December 2. Guess I needed another thing to do. Next week I have to meet with Dr. Strong about my honors thesis, which means that I'll have to get that together as much as possible this week, so that I know whether or not I have a Newbery Project. I might not, you know. I've made rather a bad job of it, as it turns out, with far more books read (and by now forgotten) than notes taken. And Herrick is closed for renovations. Wellsville Library, here I come.

...I'm not really sure who knows me anymore. But I'd still rather be here than anywhere else.

-Laurel

Whoa! Time management is awesome!

So this is pretty much the Week of Craziness, due to all of the following on top of the regular stuff expected:

-paper due Monday on The Sun Also Rises, necessitating my reading the book again (since the last time I did was twelfth grade)

-the rather inconveniently-placed FYE-program meeting tomorrow night

-the PBK-speaker dinner on Wednesday that we have to get the house ready for, but at which I can't actually be, since I have...

-...the interdojo clinic for karate, which is an extra-long class where the upper-belts, the Tiny Tigers (little-kid karate), and some jujitsu students get to watch us do stuff (though we also get to watch them do stuff)

-a treasurer/Invisible Children meeting with Sandy on Wednesday afternoon

-having to really get stuff done on my grad school search, since I have...

-...the GRE (aughhh!) on Thursday, which means...

-...study time for GRE math and essay before that (verbal seems to be fine, based on practice)

-teaching FYE on Friday, good ruddy gracious (we're doing poetry; I'm going to cover the idea of allusion...at least I have no set amount of time to cover, since Dr. Strong promises to finish up if I can't go the whole hour)


But things have gone well so far. I actually, in a shocking display of productivity, got all my homework for tomorrow done before karate, so that after karate I could start The Sun Also Rises, which I did, finishing Book One, and even managing to make a small batch of cookies on the side. And then I did my dishes, read my friends' blogs, and wrote this. Now I'm going to bed so as to get, ideally, at least seven hours' sleep. If I can keep this up (everybody pray!), I will have this week by the collar, instead of the other way around.

Oh, and Lightning the Larger (my car) is back in action. w00t!

-Laurel

Soli Deo Gloria

So if people do have guardian angels, as I'm told they do, then thank God for mine.

I found myself, around 9 tonight, with nothing in particular to do and a few things to get, so I went to Hornell. Stopping for money and gas was apparently an act of particularly bad timing, for, several minutes after I did those, I clipped a deer. To spare you suspense, it was the best possible situation, short of not hitting anything. My right front signal's out, but not a crack to the windshield, dent to the chassis, or bruise to my person. The deer might even have lived.

I don't think there was anything I could've done; it bounded right out in front of me, a smallish doe. Quick one, too; she almost made it all the way across before impact. As soon as I saw her coming, I knew I'd never stop in time, so I hit the brake (maybe I should've done that, maybe not, but it just sort of happened without my brain being really involved) and braced for impact. I got it down from 55 to 45; not bad for the little time I had.

And it was way less than I expected. A loud, solid thwack, something white went flying (goodness knows whether it was part of my light or part of the deer), but my car never even jolted off course, never slowed. Just shouldered the hit and kept right on. I felt worse, really, for the person on the other side of the road, who must've been as freaked out by watching as I was by experiencing.

I was really more stunned than anything. Talked to myself a lot about it as I drove to Wal-Mart. Didn't spend all that much time in there; got my stuff and got out of there. Well, I did get a CD, WoW 2007. I kinda figured, (a) I was getting something out of this startlingly-anomalous experience, even if it was my own $15 paying for it, and (b) some Christian music seemed like a good idea anyway, all things considered.

Drove home as slowly as I could; looked for a deer carcass or any other sign of badness as I passed the general area, but there was nothing but a mark toward the middle of the road, possibly related, possibly not. I'll call my mom tomorrow; it didn't seem quite like the thing to do tonight.

I mean, crud, I didn't have my cell phone on me, or even my license. If it'd been bad, I would have been in big trouble. But my stupidity, in all respects, was more than compensated for. Thank heaven and the Manager thereof.

-Laurel

I should probably still be asleep right now.

(Note to d'Artagnan: I had already posted this, or at least was on my final sentences, by the time we started talking about whether I'm ever calm this early in the week. So...this isn't your fault, haha.)

I'm one of those people that Dr. Mayberry talks about as being sort of like she sees Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, someone who just can't turn his brain off. Without being hyperactive per se, I've always been a little, I don't know, high-strung or something. I talk fast and often unnecessarily--I've always been like that--and one big reason why I was a morning person (like my dad) as a kid was that, as soon as I got up, I had things to do that I found so interesting. I remember fifth grade, always being up even before my dad; there were mornings when I'd wake up at quarter past five, and even that was exciting (since it wasn't until junior high that I had to do that all the time); I'd go downstairs with a book and lie on the dining room table, reading. (Why the dining room table? Well, the dining room light was one I thought was harder to see from the upstairs, when on. I didn't want to wake anyone; I often expected to get in trouble even when there was no danger of that...another thing that's changed very little.)

Since I don't go to bed early enough now to be fully-rested when I wake up before the proper time, I am no longer a morning person, so much as a person awake in the morning. My problem isn't waking up in the middle of the night--that happens, but not often, and I can get back to sleep without much trouble--but waking up long before my alarm (or, when I haven't set one, long before I would choose to get up). Once my brain is awake, my body has no choice but to be awake. I am one of those people for whom bathroom trips mean big trouble, since that's about all it takes to switch my consciousness on. No caffeine necessary. I try to get back to sleep, and all I get is my mind darting in a dozen different directions. After a while, I'd rather act on everything I'm thinking than stay in bed trying to sleep.

Dr. Mayberry went on to say that Mercutio's mental busyness is probably one reason that he and Romeo get along so well: Romeo's not like that, so they kind of balance each other out. I don't know what I think of that. I mean, I can see her point. There are friends I have that I really value for their sort of understated, steady goodness...Jessica and Amy always sort of struck me that way, and cider-Jamie (to distinguish him from any other Jamie you might be thinking of, I guess), and even, to a lesser degree, Chris (since, though he can be real good at the kind of thing I'm talking about, he also has this hyperactive streak that comes out in a series of personal quirks). Certainly they're rewarding friends regardless, but it's also sort of calming to see them...sometimes.

On the other hand, my best friends have always been smart, high-strung people. It means something that, among the calming people I just named, none of them is from home. The problem I have in talking to really understated people is that they also make me self-conscious; without meaning to, I think they make me count my words, scrutinize my topics. They're calming when I can, like them, shut up. When I can't, I'd much rather be around someone I know will respond with the same energy. And I can't tell you as many things about Jess and Amy as I can about even, say, Maggie and other-Tim, two people I know about as well as I know them.

...I went into all this simply because I woke up far earlier this morning than I had intended, and couldn't get back to sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about things. It's not clear thought when I do that, but even smeary thought puts the adrenaline in my bloodstream. I'm tired, but up.

Would that I could sleep more, though, 'cause it's contributing to my feeling that a bunch of campus people are getting on my nerves. Though a lot of things are behind that, so whatever.

I was essentially complaining about everything to somebody over AIM the other night--I don't like myself when I do that, since I always sound, or actually become while typing, worse than I really am, but, again, whatever--and when I kind of apologized for that at the end, they'd told me that, actually, I should do it more often, since they'd kind of been living in a bubble-world and should care more about other people. I think this actually was a sincere comment, though I have to admit that it was also a brilliant response, since it was so different from what I expected that I half-returned to normal simply out of a mix of surprise, curiosity, and admiration.

I thought about that when I stumbled onto the NPR "My Cancer" blog last night, which I knew nothing about theretofore. Leroy Sievers, apparently sort of a name in the journalism world (he's covered several wars, among other things), is chronicling his cancer experience and treatment. The blog is long and difficult, but very insightful (it almost can't help being otherwise, though that's not to insult it in any way). Starts here, if you're interested enough to go back to the beginning, here if you want the most recent.

Breadmaking today, and studying for the GREs. Probably a nap, too.

-Laurel

Week seven? Seriously?

Dang.

Since the last posting, we did indeed adopt Emily's guppies. It's been 10 days, and they're still disease-free. Yayyy, fish-keeping is easy again! (Erica, John, and Chris named them, respectively, Maria, Jemima, and Sparkette.)

Midterms here. The only real work I have is in Shakespeare, which's cool. We're reading Pride and Prejudice in Jane Austen, with which I'm already quite familiar. I'd forgotten what a lovely book it is.

Everything goes fairly well. Tim's going to give me some karate help on Wednesday, which's good. This weekend, it'll be just John, Chris, and me in the house; we're hoping to have a soup-and-bread party on Saturday night (I'm probably going to attempt sourdough, which means I should make the starter soon). And John and I should study for the GREs, oh dang. I hope they mail me my information soon, if they're gonna.

Lily Jo's dog died. :( She had a fairly long, really good life, with much more freedom than the average dog has. So their family's getting kittens this weekend, which should be nice.

'kay, guess it's bedtime.

-Laurel

Week five of thirty; time is still on my side. And I am ruddy glad of it.

All the fish are dead.

We put in the ich medicine, doing just what the label said, repeating the dosage every alternate day, but we must have been too late. On Friday night, Duenna and Lionel (the replacement catfish) died within two hours of each other, after lots of the fish equivalent of gasping for breath, supposedly a sign of the disease. Duenna didn't surprise me; the parasites had clearly ravaged her. Her tail was shredding, almost fuzzy, by the time she went down. Lionel had looked healthier, so I hadn't expected him to follow, but it makes sense enough.

We'll try again after I clean the fish tank out the best I can. This time we've got medicine at our fingertips and will be able to jump right on the problem if we see it, before the spots get bigger. Despite my private, half-joking protestations that I don't run a fish orphanage, I'll probably end up taking Emily's three guppies, which her favored betta doesn't like. (Emily, incidentally, blames the fishes' demise on our having named them; apparently it's a superstition in her family. I kind of thought she was kidding, but now I think she isn't.)

On a happier note, I picked fourteen pounds of apples yesterday (I seriously didn't think I had that much), and Erica and John picked likewise, so there will be more apple-related food in this house, soon, than you can shake a stick at. ...Where does that expression come from, anyway? It would never occur to me to shake a stick at pretty much anything, except maybe an orchestra.

I like my FYE class best of everything I'm in this semester. We were really given a fantastic group, and the reading is interesting, and...and it's just lovely all around. Would that teaching were really like this; I'd know with more certainty that I should do it. But it's different to be the one actually teaching than the one answering (at times stammeringly, only half-prepared) the odd question, looking over papers, and sometimes joining the class in giving Dr. Strong weird looks. (I really shouldn't do that; it feels like I'm trying to play both sides, be the obedient peer leader and then, when he isn't looking, ingratiate myself to the freshmen. But sometimes the things he says are so random...)

Still, Jessie, who is super-sweet, told me on Sunday, as we walked to Ade to pick up our boxed lunches for the apple-picking trip (on which, in the end, she didn't go, citing excessive homework) that she thinks I would be a good professor, and was excited when I told the half-secret (since it is not a typical part of FYE) that I'd probably get to teach something by myself, once as an experiment, before the semester is out. I'm glad she's excited; Dr. Strong has already mentioned that I should try to find something.

That's all for now, except that I'm glad that New York State has Regents exams. Standardized curriculum, for its potential faults, also ensures that the average student entering college has at least been told how to write an analytical essay, whether or not they've listened. Some of the teachers as the FYE kids describe! Sometimes, it appears, high school is the last refuge of the incompetent. As much as I would like to believe that everybody tries hard to do well in whatever they do, and as much as I'm in no position to talk, I really can't help concluding that, in the majority of cases, if you can't teach at the skill level of the New York Regents, then you're not trying to teach kids to measure their self-worth by something other than grades; you're being lazy or a crackpot.

Insert brilliant, argument-clinching conclusion here.

-Laurel

And another update...

Well, the ich medicine was bought and is being applied, but we're now down to two fish. Fflewddur, who was my favorite, is gone. I don't mean that he died and we took him out, either. He flat-out disappeared. All we can think of is that the catfish ate him, 'cause there isn't any fish-body on the floor outside the tank. Darn you, Wal-Mart icthyoid. Bring ich into my tank and make short work of my favorite fish. Sheesh.

Most everything else is good, though I may have contracted a form of "pharyngitis," as I imagine Crandall would call it. I think I know where my adenoids are now, simply because I know that more than just my tonsils are swollen. For some time now I've considered letting AURS demonstrate a tonsillectomy on me, as long as I got the work for free. :-P

Karate is getting a little easier, warmups in particular. I get my gi tomorrow (that's the uniform); that will help, too, 'cause I'll feel more legit, instead of being some yahoo in Dr. Seuss pajama bottoms. ::giggles:: (I really have been wearing those, too, 'cause I left my gym pants at home, thinking we'd have uniforms right away.)

Book plug: The Smell of Sin: And the Fresh Air of Grace, by Don Everts, the awesome guy who wrote Jesus With Dirty Feet, the book that sort of reminds me of the musical Godspell, in a good way.

Okay, I'm out.

-Laurel

Tales from the Aquarium

Oh man, fish ordeals. Got back from Stratford yesterday (which went very well) to find the fishtank light physically in the fishtank--a situation that is, shall we say, not optimal. Chris had been feeding the fish since I'd left, but said it hadn't been there that morning or any time before.

Apparently the light had been dirty, because the tank was all manner of dusty-dirty, and the water was a very light shade of tan. Besides that, the light hadn't actually turned off when it fell in. While I'm glad that tank lights are manufactured in such a way that fish don't get electrocuted at times like these, the light still being on raised the temperature of the water past what it should be for healthy fish. Granted that too warm is better than too cold, but all the same.

Oh, and Landlubber, Lily's catfish, had died the day before, so we were down to two fish anyway. ...I should call time-out for a second and name/describe our two remaining. Duenna stuck as the name for the swordtail-girl; she's been described already. The zebra danio is, I believe, a male, and I've named him Fflewddur. He is a bright and curious fish, boldly striped, but skinny--partly because he doesn't appear to be the bravest thing in the world. He'll kind of come up to a flake of food, get ready to chow down, and suddenly turn tail and flee when Duenna (who does have a size advantage) comes near him, and like as not she'll steal the flake from him. (I'm not sure I've ever seen a fish so voraciously hungry as Duenna. It's hard to feed anyone else, 'cause she'll take it all, and there's no real way to distract her.) Fflewddur's got the speed advantage, and probably the brains advantage, but he seems to be easily-intimidated. So I called him Fflewddur, 'cause he looks bold but doesn't act it. Passable name, and literary.

Anyway, back to the mishap. I knew I had a sort of siphon for the tank, but I didn't really, to be technical, know how to use it--and besides, the siphon in question didn't look like it'd been made to deal with water this contaminated. So I filled a plastic punch bowl with water, made sure the temperature was okay, and transferred Fflewddur and Duenna into it. (See, if I were really smart, I'd have fed Fflewddur all by himself when he was the only one in the bowl, 'cause I transferred him first. I guess startlement took my wits.) Then I removed as much of the tank water as I could, bailing it out with a plastic pitcher. (I couldn't just dump everything down the sink. It's all hooked up and right, and anyway, the gravel would've gone down the sink and who knows what.) Filled the tank back up, put in the water conditioner (which I'd forgotten to put into the bowl, but F and D seemed to be doing okay), changed the filter stuff (which was reeeeally dirty). Waited as long as I could for the temperature to drop (it was still a bit too high, but the temp in the punch bowl, with the water still unpurified, was slowly dropping, so I figured the tank would actually be safer), then put the fish back in.

Things progressed fairly well--the filter was doing a good job with the dirt I couldn't remove, the fish were still alive after all the chaos--but now we had no catfish. The thing about catfish is that they're good to have if you want a clean tank. It's one of those things that's just plain good to do, have a catfish. But it was Sunday and darkling, and the pet shop was certainly closed. I figured I'd try to do it today.

But Emily came over last night, and one thing led to another, and we ended up at Wal-Mart. Now, Wal-Mart is open 24/7 and sells tropical fish. I know their frogs tend to die off quickly, but the fish didn't look so bad, though the store wasn't very good about keeping a good water temperature (some were okay, but some were too high, and some were probably a little low). Their upside-down catfish (yes, upside-down; that's the breed, and describes how they swim) looked lively(/hyperactive) and good, so I bought one.

Well. This is probably what I get for buying a Wal-Mart fish. Emily had asked last night if the catfish maybe had a couple of white spots on him, and I'd said no. I still don't see any, but maybe he did have some, for this morning I came down and Duenna had tiny white speckles on her, like grains of salt. This is a bad sign. This means ich.

Ich (spelled ick in many cases) is short for ichthy-something, basically Latin for "annoying little fish disease." Ich is basically a thing where parasites infest your tank, and if you don't treat the water soon, your fish's scales will fall off, and the fish will die. And this will happen to pretty much every fish in the tank, 'cause it's really contagious. It's easy to treat, but you've got to get right on it, and you've got to be vigilant about it for a while (some say three days, some say three weeks...we'll see what my bottle of fish medicine says). I've never dealt with ich; I don't think we ever had a case of it at home, or else my dad treated the water and I just don't remember. I hardly know what to blame, in this case: either the catfish brought it in with him, or Duenna picked it up somehow 'cause of the excitement yesterday, since it also tends to strike fish who've had to deal with water-temp fluctuations (yup, check). In any case, if Lily doesn't go to Wegmans in the next hour or two, I'm going first, 'cause we need some medicine ASAP.

In the meantime, the catfish, who was so lively in the store and in the tank last night, has been practically motionless all day. (It is, however, alive. I touched it with the fish net to check, and it moved.) It better be nocturnal like the last one, and not about to die like the last one. I still don't see any white spots. Whatever.

I don't know how to explain this. I'm not the kind of person who kills every living thing I try to keep. Why is my tank, like, a disaster? ::snort::

Okay, end.

-Laurel

"Where would you rather be than right here, right now?"-Marv Levy

So my time management is still, shall we say, hit-and-miss. Karate, too, is definitely still kicking my butt (warmups are easier, but now we're into actual karate moves, at which I'm definitely one of the worst in the class, and perhaps the actual worst). I seem to have lost my new hoodie, which I got as a hand-me-up (if that wasn't a word, it is now) from my brother.

On the whole, however, I am so happy to be here. It's just...Alfred. And that makes almost anything okay. I wish I'd known sooner that this kind of contentment was going to come out of this place. I don't think it'd have spoiled anything to know.

Classes go fairly well on the whole. Oddly enough, FYE is probably my favorite. We really ended up with a great group, and it's just so interesting to sit there and soak it in. It's a weird position I'm in, really neither student nor teacher. Knowing I might end up teaching has made me look at how my professors do it (and I guess I've been watching professors closely in general, as I don't have classes with Otto or either of the Westacotts), and the kind of openness and sincerity and--I don't know, benevolence or something--that I've found from them is just so...I don't know. I find myself wanting to ask questions I don't even have words for.

Writing Center has gone well. It's a little frustrating, but I've gotten kind remarks. (Oh! On that note: there is such a thing as a squinting modifier! I found it in one of Vicky's grammar books! More on that some other time.)

Bible study has gone well, too. I joined Maggie and Tim's, so I got really lost last night as I tried to find Peet Hall. It's always nice to know State kids better, though I know these ones fairly well already. I finally got to see Tim's robot, though she wasn't in her full walking-around glory.

We have tropical fish in the house, three so far. They're fun. Two are mine, but I haven't named them yet. I'm thinking of "Duenna" for the red velvet swordtail, which I know is a girl because her tail isn't sword-shaped. It's not a very good name, but I'm determined to be geeky and give them literary names, and the Duenna from Cyrano de Bergerac is the only character I can think of who's as simple, and as enthusiastic about food, as this fish. Maybe I'll come up with another.

More later, but I thought I'd give you a glimpse of myself, content half through rapture and half through, oddly enough, fatigue.

-Laurel

Okaywow.

I learned tonight how awesome Dr. Myers is. I mean, I knew that he was pretty cool, but now that I've been lectured by a cultural anthropologist who isn't him, just by comparison my understanding has increased fivefold.

Though, to be fair, probably most anthropologists don't use the term "verticality" instead of what anyone else on the planet would say, namely, "water flowing downhill." Or refer to my entire sex as...what was the term? Genatrix? Yeah, that, and guys are "genitors."

Yeah. End rant.

-Laurel

I still live!

So I switched one of my Writing Center hours with Quinn's permanently, 'cause she didn't realize it messed with one of her classes. So now, rather than have two Tuesday hours, I only have one, which is nice. In exchange, though, I've just added yet another thing to do on Mondays. Granted that in a way this is simply changing one hassle for another, but we'll see how it goes.

I think that settles it: my office hour for FYE is definitely going to be on Wednesday nights. I can't take any more Monday action.

Things here are...passable. Though so far it's without any consequences, I have fallen behind on practically all my reading for classes now (even the Shakespeare, partly 'cause I never get to the library to read the massively-long thing on reserve), and have discovered that my body is doing its stupid thing where, no matter what time I go to bed, I'm not going to get eight hours anyway; I'm going to be forcibly awakened by my own body at around the six-hours-45 mark. Or maybe I did get into the sevens. It depends on when I fell asleep last night. I even refrained from napping yesterday in an effort to stay asleep. Much good it did me, hmph.

Also, my parents are coming this weekend, and I know my dad and I are going to have an argument about grad school. We don't have a lot of arguments, but this one's been a long time coming. Great.

On another note, I really think Facebook's getting more stalkerlike every day. I used to like the thing a lot, but like a month ago it decided to start taking over the world, apparently, and it's been crazy ever since.

Okay, breakfast and reading. Reading, reading, reading.

-Laurel

Anyone have a hot water bottle I could stick on my entire abdominal-muscle range?

Four words on the title: first night of karate. It was on Wednesday, if you want a sense of just how out of shape I apparently am. Should be fun, though.

I didn't mean to be melodramatic in the end of my posting about the twins back whenever. I mean, I do see them. Just that, often enough, I don't seeeee them. I'm sort of just in the same places they are. Or at least I feel like that.

Whatever.

FYE is going all right, though most of the mistakes we made in today's "digital dash" (picture-taking activity around campus) were my fault (good job, Peer Leader). I've gotten to know a few of the kids particularly well: my honors little sister is in there, and so is a super-sweet girl named Jessie that I keep seeing around. I know more names than I expected to by now.

Honors seminar is going to be amazing. It's a new one, about local history in terms of food (as I've said, the Alfred liberal arts faculty appears to be made up almost entirely of food-loving people), and we're taking field trips to awesome places...Dr. Mayberry's to see her husband's beehives, the Lains' to see the cider mill, Harold and Bev's(!!!!) to see their dairy equipment...the list goes on.

Had my first Writing Center tutee this morning; I guess you could call her a "walk-in," in that she was using the computer in the room for about 40 minutes before she asked me to look over the draft she'd just completed, heh. Things went all right, I guess. I'm not as good at explaining things as I'd like to be. ...Final training tomorrow morning; Vicky promises it'll be not-too-long, and she's bribing us with doughnuts. So I'll get to see whether there's actually such a thing as a "squinting modifier," or if Dr. Strong has unintentionally made a fool of me.

Okay, more when I'm not so tired.

-Laurel

Postcard from Fatigue

Two days of classes, tryouts for Chamber Singers, and a look at the Writing Center schedule, and all I have to say about my semester so far is this: I am going to have to time-manage like whoa.

But I'm doing all right. Not like sophomore year. Sophomore year I was doing everything and freaking out about my future. Right now I'm actually fairly...you might almost say apathetic, career-wise. I have a better idea of who I am and want to be, and am not yet concerned about anything farther along than, say, this semester. The only question is whether sleep-deprivation will eventually claim my sanity, as it is rather wont to do, and whether I'll then become the basket case that all my friends know and love. Ideally not. We'll see.

I'm going to go to bed, as I've spent my allotted, oh, five minutes on this.

-Laurel

"Alfred: It's About Time!"

Well, for all you linguistics fans...or anyone who wants to read an amusing/bizarre article (from England, no less!):

Here you go.

Hung out at Peter and Janet's house with them, Joe, and Andrea for part of yesterday, at the House for the rest. Lost at Settlers of Catan again, but got much closer this time. Andrea and I were actually one team, 'cause we're both novices--two heads were, well, about as good as one, but we got a lot of hints from Peter and Janet as well. Strategy is apparently not my thing. Maybe it depends on the game.

Went to the Terra Cotta with John, Chris, Ted, and L.Jo last night, which was hysterical. Exciting events at the House now have an accompanying fanfare (quote, "dun-da-da-daaaaah!").

Helping with move-in went well today, despite my getting an embarrassingly-small number of hours of sleep. I'm hoping to get a nap before PlayFair tonight. w00000t.

They moved Maura Cullen to the middle of the afternoon(!) tomorrow...I approve, 'cause now the audience'll probably be bigger.

Spent the least ever on books, I think, this semester. All riiiight.

No luck so far with setting up the tropical-fish tank. How many honors students does it take, haha. It would have helped to keep the directions when we moved. I may just go buy a cheap filter at Wal-Mart (well, "cheap" defined as about $10 or less), just for the sake of not having to guess which parts from the pile of two completely different filter types are the ones I want.

See, tomorrow was supposed to be my free day, and now things're happening (FYE icebreaker, Maura Cullen, something-I-can't-remember, haircut), and it's so not. But that's okay. It's amazing to be here.

-Laurel

The Setting SunOr: The Obligatory Cornball Back-to-School Post

...Let us find where we belong,
Beyond the setting sun, beyond the setting sun
Yeah, yeah

(Soon...) It won't be long, I'll belong
Somewhere past the setting sun
Fin'lly free, fin'lly strong
Somewhere back where I belong

Yeah, yeah...

-Switchfoot


Besides the song's more celestial meaning, the part I've isolated above might also work in an immediately-applicable way because I have to go west, now, to get to school, rather than just south. Sort of like...going through and beyond the sun and finding Alfred on the other side? Well, maybe. But whatever.

Anyway, the lyrics are right. This year is probably going to be completely insane. But, if I let it, it'll be completely amazing as well.

-Laurel

Erie County, Twin-Style

Two preliminary things.

First, it turns out that I am going to Alfred even earlier than I expected, so as to help with the IV move-in team, apparently short of people. Yay for happy and early returns! I'm getting everything packed by Tuesday morning, loading as much into my car as possible, driving to Alfred as soon as I can (hopefully buying books then, if the bookstore's open to me yet), and staying with Peter, Janet, Joe, and Andrea for the night. I'll work the move-in crew Wednesday morning, move myself in that afternoon, and help with PlayFair that night. My parents will come on Thursday, bringing everything I've left behind, and I'll have all day to be with them, though ideally I'll be on my own on Thursday night and will get to catch Maura Cullen. Writing Center training on Friday/Saturday; block party Saturday night; chapel, cake-baking, FYE training, and DBC on Sunday; classes start Monday. And sometime during those six days I plan to get my hair cut to just below my chin again, but I don't yet know when. Whew.

Secondly, I've reread my Basileia entry and have decided that I still like it, almost three months later. A quarter of a year since then, good gracious.

Now about the twins:

Monday morning, I got an e-mail from Tom, saying that if I didn't mind the short notice, and could be at their house by 10 AM (tickets were 1/3 price if we could buy them by 11), I should come to the Erie County Fair with him and his brothers on Tuesday. Eager to a) see the twins, and b) get out on my own for a while, I assented eagerly.

Thus it was that I set out a few minutes before 6:45 the next morning, allowing about three hours for the trip. I calculated this figure based on the distance from Syracuse to Rochester, then from Rochester to the twins' according to the directions my mother has me use. (They take slightly longer, but are less four-lane-highway-intensive, which makes my parents happy.) This figure turned out to be incorrect, because Mom's directions start from the westernmost Thruway entrance at Rochester, and I was coming from the east and had to pass two other Rochester exits before that. Also, I failed to take into account that I'm not used to driving for three-plus hours, and was not going to be able to do it without Thruway stoppage. Happily, though, I'd given myself enough of a time cushion that it was a few minutes before 10:10 when I arrived, so it could have been much worse.

Even had I not figured in a time cushion, I might not have been the latest one. Tim and Tom's high school friend, whose name is also Tom (for minimal confusion, I'll call him Other-Tom), was also coming, but was much later than I, despite his vast advantage in commute time. He did make it, though, so we got there by 11 after all.

It'll be kind of boring (even more so?) if I describe everything in detail, so I'll go over what I find interesting, and then you'll know whether you in turn find it interesting, haha.

We watched bits and pieces of six shows while we were there, and the coolest by far was the Chinese-acrobat show. I'm not really sure how to describe this, except to say that you've probably seen clips of one before on PBS--groups of people hanging off each other, spinning plates or tables, etc.--and you should see one if you ever get the chance. It is really something.

The cheesiest by far was the magic show, "Wizard of Aaaahhs," which I'm pretty sure the twins wanted to go to mostly because of the horrible pun in the title. The joust was cheesy, too. I'd thought the Ren-Fest joust had kind of degenerated into a brawl last year, but Sterling's got nothing on Erie County for WWE-style action, as it turns out. But it was jousting, which meant the twins were all into it.

I saw the 4-H building. It was very cool, and I have more respect than ever for the program. Matthew won "Best Entry" for one of his woodworking pieces, but the award didn't indicate which; he didn't even know himself.

We brought our own lunches and after-dinner dessert, to cut down on food costs. We had this really nice moment out by Other-Tom's car as the sun was just starting to set, eating brownies and drinking Pepsi, lying in the grass and listening to Tim and Other-Tom talk about a book about conservation of materials, Cradle to Cradle, that Tim had been reading.

I got details, rather sporadically, out of Tim about his time with SEA. He didn't usually volunteer them, but would answer questions willingly enough if asked. I felt again like I'm the boring one who's stuck at home while everyone else goes out and does adventurous things in other places, but let's face it, though I love sea stories, I wouldn't have enjoyed doing what Tim did. I am only passingly interested in science, mildly claustrophobic, and still mildly emetophobic. (On the other hand, last night I spent much of my dream-time on a ship, and various bad things happened, and I was still okay. It helped that lots of people I knew were there.)

I think maybe he was saving some of those details for his slide-show; I saw the pictures on his computer, with much narration alongside. It sounds like a great program. I am glad he ended up on it.

The five of us played a lot of Nanofictionary that night, at Matthew's request, and again the next morning. Other-Tom wasn't there the next morning, though; I had stayed over, but he had gone home.

In the morning the remaining four of us went out and picked blueberries (taking my car, as their parents were gone again). If you'd like an amazing and sunlit view of some big and lovely hills, and can't get to Alfred, go to this blueberry patch (it's in Colden) around ten in the morning. Wow. It was spectacular. I stood and stared when I got done picking. The blueberries, too, were huge and ripe and clustered like grapes on the bushes, very plentiful (I got almost three pounds off of just two bushes) and pretty tasty. I saw, too, a monarch butterfly that almost shouldn't have been able to fly at all, given the significant gouge out of one of its wings, but it floated expertly from one bush to another.

We watched PageMaster (why not?) and played cards and had lunch. It was only going to be a matter of time before the twins forcibly taught me Settlers of Catan, and I did indeed learn it after lunch. Predictably, I was horrible at it. But now I understand it, which undoubtedly will mean no end of trouble when I get back to Alfred, haha. Still, I am glad to know it after all.

It was just...so good to see them. Summer brings out much of the worst in me when I'm stuck at home, but the long drive and the sights at the end straightened me out, so I managed not to drive anyone crazy. They, for their part, seemed to be at their best now that they'd been productive for part of the summer and rested for its remainder. At its best, being with them makes simplicity look gorgeous and love look easy. You feel sometimes like you could be happy indefinitely, just there with them, playing games and eating brownies and giving hugs, you know? I know that's not always the case with them--perhaps more often than not it isn't. I don't know.

I often doubt that Tim and me sharing a faith would fix everything, that I would just pick up where we left off if we did. That's not the only way we changed in two years. But I'm no longer sure I wouldn't. I was wrong to wish I'd never gone out with him at all. ...Anyway, right now I've no cause to decide.

I left half an hour later than planned, 'cause Tim's pictures/narrative had had to happen in two parts, and had run over schedule. I went through a lot of music on the three-plus-hour drive home, as I had on the way. Got home, presented Mom with the fruit I'd bought, and had some spaghetti and meatballs.

Tim will be getting to Alfred right around the time I post this entry; I follow in two days, and Tom will arrive four days after me. They'll be busy with grad work, I'll be busy with undergrad work. I'll see Tom probably more than I see Tim, considering. But I'll probably offer free food at some point, and they'll both come over, and so will Joe and probably Evan, and we can hang out at the house, playing games or sitting outside. It'll be incomplete, without everyone we wish was there and every way we wish we were. But it'll be enough.

-Laurel

Update Forthcoming

I have been to the twins' house and will write about it soon. It's just that I need some sleep.

To answer the question I keep getting so far: no, it was not awkward seeing Tim. Judging from his behavior, it did not appear awkward for him, either. We are not really thrilled about being broken up, but pretty much nothing about either of us has changed since we did, so we're not going to be getting back together in the meantime. I don't mean to sound short with this answer; I don't resent the question.

On a completely different note: to the Eliot Spitzer campaign people, for getting some lady to sing a slightly-slowed, slightly-overdramatic version of "This Little Light of Mine" on their spot about mandatory pre-kindergarten, or whatever, that gets stuck in my head like epoxy glue, stop. I promise to care about the issues instead of the song if it turns out that I actually end up voting for state governor, but really.

Okay, going to bed now, because I really need it.

-Laurel

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...

...get the heck over to LibraryThing and make an account right now, if books are at all an interest. No personal information required. I've plugged it in passing before, but now it's a direct request. 'Cause the geek potential is just too much to miss out on.

School friends, too, should join the Alfredians group (created by our very own Colombe), 'cause it's just fun.

Homestars, maybe we should start our own group? :-D I know. Here we go, another Facebook. But this's geekier, and therefore in a way cooler.

Also, jumping on Colombe's bandwagon again: http://www.letssaythanks.com. And let me just point out that it's Rochester's very own brainchild, Xerox, that's cool enough to do this.

-Laurel

::cheers::

Some days are days to thank God happily and then keep praying. This is just such a day.

But, on a less cryptic note: it takes me to practically grow up in Rochester, move away, and only now have my first garbage plate. It's to happen tonight, 'cause today's my brother's birthday, and that's what he wanted for dinner. So we've come up with a homemade version, and now that I actually like macaroni salad well enough, I'm going to have one, too.

Whether I go folk dancing or not tonight is up in the air, considering said birthday and the lack of celebration plans so far. Which's cool. Only now next week will be my last, 'cause as of today it's official: I am going back to campus to lend some non-OG help to PlayFair. Yay!

Okay, time to go!

-Laurel

Further blither (part 2)

So the newspaper people said today--apparently this's been semi-common knowledge since late '05 and I'd just missed it--that scientific study's been linking aggravated acne with heavy milk consumption, particularly skim ('cause of either the hormone levels in the milk or the iodine, depending on who you ask). To which I, the heavy drinker of milk (and even skim milk, these days), say: oh, great. If this's true, then maybe my dad isn't just paranoid, and maybe my zits are worse than his genetic curse accounts for.

But, dude, I don't want thin bones, so there's not much I can do.

Anyway, back to Alfred.

Jess and I were thinking of what we might do on this lovely Saturday, and she suggested bowling. I was for that, so we called Lily and Devin, Chris, and Laura and Josh to see how that would work. We also, figuring that Wellsville would be cheaper than Hornell, looked up instructions for that alley.

Laura and Josh couldn't come, but the others could, so we got into Jess's car and went to Wellsville. ...Well, before that, as Jess and I were getting into the car to pick everyone up, I fell down. There's a small place where the road comes down at a slant just before the parking spaces by the suites, and, unthinkingly trying to take a short cut over it, I actually skidded down it (all five inches of it!) and fell. (The tread on much of my sandals, which were old, had worn down to nothing, so I'd also had no traction.) This removed a respectable amount of skin, for such a stupid injury. I actually had to call Chris and ask him to grab me a bandage for my bleeding foot, as it was faster to go and pick him up than to go back to the suite. Trust an AURS member and a pre-med: not only did he bring one of the perfect shape and flexibility, but he was also packing alcohol wipes.


But as I was saying, we went to Wellsville quite contentedly and found the bowling alley...in a deserted parking lot. Well, that couldn't be good. And it wasn't: the place was closed for the summer. What, do Wellsville high school students and senior citizens not bowl? It's the only one in town.

Whatever the reason, we were now in Wellsville without a purpose. This seemed fun, so we went to the main part of town to poke around, and decided to go see a movie--Monster House, to be exact, as it was going to play in something like forty minutes, and looked like a nice little PG-rated animated kid-type movie. So, to pass the time, we taught Jess how to parallel park(!), since you don't need to know that in Arizona (she picked it up quickly), and went to Texas Hots. We didn't get any Texas hots, which later got me in trouble with Kristin (heh), but the housemates and I're going back this year sometime. ("I'm sorry," I'd told the waitress, "but we're in a bit of a hurry...what cooks quickly?" "Everything," she'd replied, a combination between crisp and amused.)

Then we went to the movie. The theater we went to is quite small and old-fashioned, in a nice way. Monster House was way more bizarre than the previews had led us to believe (and such a lonely little main character, for much of the movie! So sad...), but not bad.

We went back to Alfred after that. Devin went off with Dunshee, and Lily went to take a nap in the room Jessica and I were sharing, and Jess and I ate some carrot sticks (late addition to lunch, which had been very light on both sides) and did more talking. In the middle of that, we realized that (regular-)Chris's birthday had been earlier in the week and no one had celebrated it formally, so we figured we'd make him some birthday brownies (there'd been cake last night, and pie here and there, so we figured we ought to switch it up!). Leaving a note for Lily, we walked down to Main Street, preferring the ripoff of the Uni-Mart to wasting the weather on a car ride to the dollar store. Anyway, Jess wanted to see if another shop on Main Street was open.

On our way down to the stoplight, with Harder Hall at our left, Jessica stopped to tie her shoe, and we heard a greeting nearby. Through the window was an art friend of hers from--China, I think?--whose new studio had been relocated to that very room; he'd happened to hear us talking and glance out the window, where we'd coincidentally stopped. He invited us in (we climbed through said window!) and we all talked for a while; he was very nice.

Got our UniMart stuff after that--a bag of marshmallows to go with the brownie mix, 'cause we wanted to melt them into sticky icing to write things with. We learned from our odd-but-friendly checkout guy that large marshmallows can be sales-taxed, but that mini-marshmallows like ours could not; Jessica guessed that it was because small ones are primarily for baking. She and I walked up and down Main Street a bit after that, not wanting to go back just yet, and paused to sit in the memorial garden just to the side of State campus, also on Main (it's rather hidden...I actually didn't remember the bench was there, if I ever knew it was, and didn't realize that the flowers were part of a memorial garden).

We went back to the suite; it was dinnertime. Rather than go find ready-made food, Jessica proposed making spaghetti, and it sounded good to me. Mostly she made it, since it wasn't exactly a job for two, and I helped with other little things.

Partway through the preparations, the door swung open, and in strode Chris. This gave us a turn, as the brownie mix and marshmallows were right there on the table, but of course he didn't know what they were for. Anyway, Barbara followed him in. They asked whether they could use the suite to test the range of their Squad radios (we were the farthest point up and out that they could think of, there in Upper Pine!), and Jess agreed. So Barbara left, and Chris and I talked, and eventually, while he was busy with the radio, I took the mix, marshmallows, and note we'd left for Lily, and I put them in all the places they belonged. Chris didn't notice.

The events of much of the rest of the night melt together in my head. Chris left, we had dinner, we made the brownies and had a misadventure with the marshmallow frosting (it was only soft enough to write with for a while, and our lines were too thick--soon it turned to the consistency of chewed gum, and stuck to everything in a similar way!). We called Lily Jo, Devin, and the moms and asked them to be there when we gave Chris his brownies. They came, but then Chris couldn't; he was tutoring when we called. So we all went down to Bartlett, hoping to surprise him and his students, but he'd left to cook dinner for Shaun and Barbara, so we followed to Shaun's apartment, making a great noise and probably weirding out the aforementioned S&B.

Chris had to leave his own party on an ambulance call; the event dispersed after that, and Jessica and I went back to the suite and pretty soon after to bed, rather earlier than the night before.

The next day was one of mishaps--I managed to get water on the bathroom floor while showering; when I pulled my towel off the bar to dry myself and then wipe it up, the towel bar came with it, right off the wall (apparently it was loose, or else Jessica was just trying to make me feel better). I had to iron my shirt twice, to cover the large section I originally missed. Things like that.

But St. Jude's, to which I went with Jessica, was no mishap; it was very nice. Fr. Gene was just recently back from a ten-day tour of Italy, if I'm not mistaken, and had a very nice message to deliver (I'm continually surprised by how much shorter Catholic sermons are than Protestant ones), though I don't mean to sound like it was about said trip. It was also a pretty musicless Mass, as the two main music people were gone for the week, and Fr. Gene apparently decided to combat this (now that the whole service would have to be spoken) by being as exuberant as possible about everything. This turned out to be an excellent strategy, 'cause he's really infectiously good at it. Saw some familiar faces besides Jess's, but no Chris; the call must have kept him out quite late.

And that's where this story closes, 'cause it is far later than my entry timestamp shows, and high time I went to bed. Thus endeth the narrative; thanks for reading!

-Laurel

Further blither (part 1)

So if I stay in Latin, an upside is, my honors little sister will be in it. ...Apparently she's this raging U2 fan, especially for Bono. Wow.

The other option, since recently I realized I have one, is to drop out of Latin (which, as you remember, was my backup should psych fall through, and at this point, yes, I've given up on it) on the grounds that it's a crowded freshman language class and I've heard it's actually not as interesting as it sounds, and to join Laurie's honors seminar (on local food, no less!) and have one last semester--assuming Luanne wants me; I would come to tryouts to prove myself if necessary--of Chamber Singers.

The downside of that option is that Thursday (which would then be choir followed by Laurie's seminar) was going to be my only free night, probably where I was going to join a Bible study, and now I'm going to have to figure out how/when I would do that. I should e-mail Tom, Joe, and Erica.

Okay. So about Alfred.

We--Lily Jo, Devin, Aunt Cath, Mom, and I--left sometime after one and stopped at a Wendy's for a late, lightish lunch. When we got into Alfred, around four-thirty, the first thing we did was stop at Tinkertown Hardware to pick up a pie--it was, after all, Friday. ...For the curious, the local hardware store sells homemade (well, not by them, but by a localish family) pies every Friday. "Friday is Pie Day," says the sign out front, to prove it (the Volks, who run the store, have a thing for rhyme). This is one of those things about Alfred that might have a funny story behind it, but I don't happen to know what it would be, so it simply stands as a testimony to the whimsicality that is Allegany County (I am already on the lookout for any job that will let me stay there next summer). Of the few pies that were left at that afternoon hour, we chose the Toll House kind, which, as you might expect, pretty much resembles a giant chocolate-chip-walnut cookie. We parked in the Alfred faculty lot and went to Terra Cotta so that Lily could get some coffee, and sat outside enjoying the nice late afternoon sun. It was odd to see professors randomly walk by--Dr. Clare, out for a jog, etc.--but it was cool.

We were just about to leave and walk around AU campus when suddenly, seemingly from out of nowhere, Chris, Zack, and Barbara appeared. Shaun had spotted us and called Chris. They're all there for a bio-department internship that has practically nothing to do with their pre-med majors (would that I could have stayed in Alfred for the summer, working any random internship, but that was obviously not possible). We talked for a while, then they left to go do something (get dinner, I think), and we went on the walk.

We'd just gotten to Powell when we saw Jessica, with whom we were supposed to try to meet up in 15 minutes or so anyway. (This was excellent, as it turned out that the phone number I'd brought with which to reach her was incorrect, and I'd been about to try it.) So we all walked almost down to Miller, just talking, then turned round and walked to Honors House. Peering in the windows, we found: a very messy kitchen featuring a largeish cluster of empty Bully Hill wine bottles (...that speaks for itself, considering)--but also, cheeringly, a mop and a yellow janitorial bucket-on-wheels, so hopefully the place will be professionally (so to speak) cleaned by the time we all get back.

Lily and I moved our stuff (and Devin's, temporarily; he was staying with Chris Dunshee) into Jess's suite, and everyone but she and I went over to ASC for a while, to check out the moms' room. Jess and I hung out, talking and stuff, and eventually decided to go to the sub shop in case everyone else had already gone there, since there'd been semisolid plans to have dinner there.

Well, the others weren't there when we got there, but Callie, Jess's lone suitemate, was, along with three friends of hers (one of them was Josh, a classmate of mine under Tolhurst last fall; we greeted each other). They invited us to eat outside with them. So, splitting a large sub and getting a pair of loganberry juices, we did. Callie invited us to have cake with them later, as everyone was celebrating her birthday that night; she had friends driving to Alfred from Philadelphia, her hometown. They hadn't arrived just yet, but were on their way.

As we finished eating, Lily called to say that the rest of the contingent was coming to eat; it was okay that we'd already done so. The moms got subs to go, I think, or else figured they'd wait for food at one of the ASC reunion functions; either way, they wandered back to State. Lily and Devin got their own subs and joined us.

Bev and Harold(!) came to the sub shop as we were there, apparently picking up a lateish dinner, and they talked to us for a while; it was great to see them. They were as happy and laughing as ever, and had lots to say about the three weddings of the season (Laura/Josh, Gabe/Hazel, Cory/the-nice-girl-whose-name-I-unfortunately-never-remember).

Callie et al. had left by this time, but the remaining four of us went back to the suite, where we were joined by Chris Dunshee, and we played Outburst for a while. We'd called (the regular, non-Dunshee) Chris to come play it with us and maybe bring Zack and Barbara, and he'd agreed, but no one ever showed up; eventually we figured they'd gone out on a call for Alfred Ambulance, for which they all work.

Lily, Devin, and Dunshee then left to go out (they ended up crashing in Dunshee's suite that night; Lily and Devin had moved their stuff there by then), and Jess and I hung out and were talking some more when, pretty much without warning, the door opened and there Chris stood. He'd gotten held up by tutoring work, but, far from seeming disappointed that he'd missed the game, proceeded to plop down on one of the suite chairs and talk to us practically nonstop for the next--it seriously had to have been at least three and a half hours. Longer. It was really something. It turns out that Chris, now that he doesn't have any MCATs to study for or homework to do, really loves just hanging out. We did make sure to give him some pie.

Eventually we also went down and had cake with Callie and her friends, most of whom by this time were in, shall we say, a rather altered state of mind; the party broke up when most of them decided to go swimming in the AU pool (I believe they did, in fact, have a lifeguard with them; whether said lifeguard was fully sober I do not know). It was getting on towards three in the morning by this time, so Chris went back to Bartlett, where he's staying, and Jessica and I went to bed.

A brief shower next morning, a hurried prep, and I--in a wet ponytail--walked down to the Terra Cotta around 9:30 to meet the rest of my "travel group" for breakfast. (Yeah, I was kinda tired.) Since I don't like coffee, I attempted to order an iced chai with my bagel, but the girl behind the counter looked a bit embarrassed. "Sorry, no ice yet...my mom's running out to get some. It should be here soon." So I ate half my bagel, taking my time, then went back to try again; this time I was successful. Saw Cory from IV and said hello.

But I'll have to tell you tomorrow or so what happened after that, for it is midnight, I'm a bit stomachachy after my Italian-food restaurant dinner (friends of the family came over), and I'm ready for bed. I look forward to resuming the story; for now, good night.

-Laurel

News and some overdue update-age

I was weighing a mango in Wegmans today when I suddenly noticed a head in very close proximity to mine. I figured someone had just bent over to examine something on the produce shelf near me, but then that head said something along the lines of, "Hey!" I looked over a bit and got a visual-field full of Joe, who was doing what could have been an imitation of a contented giraffe, with his head and neck stuck out and hovering somewhere over my right shoulder, and a close-lipped, amused smile on his face.

"Hey!" I cried back, and went in for the hug. It was, of course, the first I'd seen of him or Andrea, who was with him, since Basileia in mid-May; as I've probably mentioned, even though I now live in Joe's general area, they've been off doing their camp-counseling thangs. It was a happy reunionette. They're just back from camp, and were off to go camping; they were buying a few supplies first.

They're all right, though they, especially Joe, are as antsy as I am to get back to school. (I did very well for two months. And then the bottom dropped out, and now I want to go back so badly that I'm ready to gnaw through wood planks. Or something.)

I might's well keep going backwards in time...

About church: we're still looking for one. I thought we had a winner, but granted that I had not realized--after so many years of my going to contemporary services solo, on break from nursery work or at school--how important the traditional is to my parents. They are really going for things like pews, hymnals, and probably three-point sermons. Which the church I liked couldn't provide. Besides that, there were maybe six people besides us in the whole place when we went (we went at night, but it's not all that much more populated by day), and coming out of a church as big as ours was, the rest of my family is looking for a better chance of semi-anonymity. So I was sent back to the drawing board. Made another attempt yesterday and failed at that one, too (no pews, still only about fifteen people...but there were hymnals). There're still a couple of Methodist ones to try, and then we're out of luck and are going to have to, I don't know, switch denominations or something. Maybe the one in the city will have more people.

Saturday: Aneya came! That was fun. We read through the senior-year quotebook. We spent about 45 minutes at the zoo (would have spent longer, but it was only open that long; we went a bit late in the day) and saw, among other things, some really cute penguins, some really neat clownfish, and a really Aslan-like lion. We stopped by the local Macedonian Festival and saw the inside of a Macedonian Orthodox church (beautiful and curvy-shape-oriented, and not unlike a Catholic church in many ways), listened to a Macedonian folk band, looked at folk costumes, and bought cookies made to look like ripe peaches (three-dimensional and everything...on the inside of each was coffee cake and apple filling). We went and got subs for dinner at a place called Brooklyn Pickle and ate them outside, since it was a gorgeous day, and talked for a long time. We went back to my house, played a game of Shout About Movies with my mom, then caught about half of the Weird Al movie UHF, playing on UPN (it was actually very funny). Then Aneya left, 'cause it was long past dark and she had to get home. It was great to see her!

Note to everyone who hasn't come: you should. I will take you to neat places like the zoo, or the science museum, or even just the park (especially in wintertime; Joe says they have ice skating, with skate rental and everything!). Most everything seems to be $5 or less here (except the Macedonian Festival pig roast, apparently...hmph).

I will relate the stories about my visit to Alfred when I get back, as we're going to dinner with some family friends soon. Sorry for the hurried sound of this narrative.

Oh, emphatic book recommendation: The Essays of E.B. White.

-Laurel

On Mensa

This might well end up being a big day for updates, as I have the visit to Alfred, Aneya's visit, and a bit about church to describe. But first, a little fun:

See how well you do, especially you home friends, many of whom will remember even more from MathCounts than I did. I got a 22, which's not too shabby, and, haha, credit part of it to already being mentally-stimulated, having just finished listening to Says You! over semi-local(!) broadcast. (It turns out that Central NY is the only section of the state at all interested in the show.) ...John's actually bugged me on and off since freshman year that we should try for Mensa together. There's something a little self-glorifying in the idea, but I'm thinking about it anyway, since they're more playful than your average honors-type society. ...Anyone who wants to test with us, if we decide to do it, is welcome. :-D

-Laurel

On the three mutant, unfamiliar, swollen small sac-things in the back of my throat

I hereby proclaim: that bodies are stupid.

Thank you.

-Laurel

::suddenly wired, caffeine-free::

Never again will I suggest that Bill from folk dancing does not have a sense of humor, however sticklery he can be. Tonight the people who knew it danced this really complicated dance--maybe that was Le Rondargentonnais?--to the tune (or, well, rhythm) of "They're Coming to Take Me Away (Ha-Ha, Hee-Hee, Ho-Ho)," apparently because the rhythms are identical. It was flat-out bizarre, and everyone laughed. Folk dancing was hard tonight, but enjoyable all the same.

It started raining while we were on 81-N, coming home, and I put my hand ever so slightly out the window and let the raindrops prick my fingertips as they struck at fifty-five miles per hour. The sharpness felt oddly familiar, but I can't think why. Oh, yes I can, sometimes snow or sleet in winter catches the wind and stings in tiny needle-jabs like that. Only usually it's your face instead of your fingers.

Speaking of water-based things, TIM IS HOME FROM SEA! Alive and everything! Tom is soon to return from SIG, and maybe, since I'm not doing anything anyway, I can go and see them, or they can come and see me, or something! Aneya is thinking of coming this very weekend (Bethie, if you read this, call her if you'd like to also come; it'd be fun! We'll go to Abbott's and the zoo or something!). And the 12th I'm supposed to meet up with Abby (never thought I'd be typing that!) and Lily Jo and maybe Nicole, and the 19th is more Lily-time (that's the Dump and Run, 'Jo)...and sometime between the 23rd and 25th, depending on a couple of things, I will be back at school!

So, crud, maybe I won't have to get a volunteer job to have a life after all. Goodness knows I should concentrate on my Newberys if I can, anyway. (Yeah, right. 'Cause the three books I have coming from interlibrary loan are all Newberys...or-r-r possibly not...)

I like the poems of John Donne and George Herbert. Especially when I read them as I consume leftover pasta after folk dancing, listening to the rain outside (and hoping the power doesn't go out again).

Okay, it is really bedtime.

-Laurel