Today's Title:
Athenian Hemlock
Thursday, September 12, 2002
On Monday, I turned on the tv in the middle of a Voyager rerun, to find the intrepid crew of the Voyager in the middle of a hoedown. They faced down such evil intergalactic threats such as toothless old men with banjos, sugar cookies, devilled eggs, and scantily clad Southern women horny for Tom Paris. I don't watch Voyager so much for the quality of its acting (ha).. but for that amusing "What the Hell???" factor that makes our beloved entertainment industry as great and noble as it is today.
Labels:
Star Trek
It was a rather crappy day to start out with. In Chinese we had to finish up translating a poem about 911 into Chinese, and the sickening tackiness of it had me pissed off well into second period. The thing on the end saying "send this to at least 10 people! DON'T BREAK THE CHAIN!!!!!!!" did not help. I didn't have my math homework done, and it happened that, not having collected homework in the previous three weeks, Ms. Gesterling decided today would be a good day to do it. Now, if I had checked my planbook toroughly and realized that the homework was a worksheet and I didn't need the textbook to do it, I could've done it during the morning announcements, or even during the six minutes between classes, but no, I saw the textbook excercises in the planbook and somehow my eye skipped over the worksheet problems. Third period had me nervous over my TOK presentation, which we did not get to finish because at the beginnning of the period Ms. Sullivan had spent fifteen minutes grilling Herschel, who was in the previous group that hadn't finished yesterday. I was immensely satisfied to overhear Herschel bitching about it during archaeology later. Since Nick is going on a college visit tomorrow, we gave Anya Nick's part to finish, meaning that tomorrow we get to see Anya Kouklova wearing a pair of sock puppets alternating between a falsetto and a bass. Stayed after school for Archaeology, which involved the spilling of various soft drinks in room 215, and.. cataloguing. -_-. The cataloguing group before us left us with a generous gift of rusty nails. Ironically, Rob and Gordon and I had been cataloguing that very same bag last year and had meticulously avoided the nails, hoping the next group could do them, but with me getting the same bag two years in a row, I ended up staring at nails anyways. Andrew came over and tried to explain to my group of bewildered novices and myself the difference between rusty fencing wire, rusty electrical wire and rusty barbed wire, though all I got out of it was that barbed wire has barbs. As I was leaving my E.E. advisor sprung on me to tell me that I'm 1000 words under the lower limit, I need footnotes, a works cited, a title page, and an abstract by next Friday.
But the latter half of the day was much better. After archaeology I bumped into Silvia in the school's front lobby, and she said she could use a ride home, so my mom gave her a ride home, and she decided that since I was sitting in a car right in front of her apartment that I might as well stay for a few hours to study for the physics test. So I did, though honestly I think I could've studied more efficiently by myself. We did a lot of talking though, which was really great, and it was sort of amusing how my mom called Alex asking him for Silvia's phone number to call me, and Alex told Silvia on Aim. Silvia told me, and I called my mom, who was surprised that all of this could have ensued within a span of 30 seconds. Stayed on with Silvia's hyperspastic five year old sister, who was immensely amused by my TOK sock puppets and we had loads of fun removing and retaping the puppets' round paper eyeballs in different places on their faces, and making new eyes and clothes for them. This is the only use TOK has ever been to me. Later wadded up the socks into a giant ball with ponytail holders, and played Sockeyball with Silvia in her front yard, like volleyball but with socks. Silvia's sister was annoyed at us not playing with her, so I went back to playing Socky with Cindy while Silvia played real volleyball with her dad. Silvia got on the phone with Josh and I ended up playing chess with Cindy until her attention span died, and then won a game of Chinese checkers. I stayed for dinner, though I felt awkward about it, and sort of weird trying to talk in Mandarin, but it was nice anyways. It was rather a pleasant afternoon and evening, and I wish I could hang out with people more.
The sock puppets will need new eyeballs because the tape adhesive is going.
But the latter half of the day was much better. After archaeology I bumped into Silvia in the school's front lobby, and she said she could use a ride home, so my mom gave her a ride home, and she decided that since I was sitting in a car right in front of her apartment that I might as well stay for a few hours to study for the physics test. So I did, though honestly I think I could've studied more efficiently by myself. We did a lot of talking though, which was really great, and it was sort of amusing how my mom called Alex asking him for Silvia's phone number to call me, and Alex told Silvia on Aim. Silvia told me, and I called my mom, who was surprised that all of this could have ensued within a span of 30 seconds. Stayed on with Silvia's hyperspastic five year old sister, who was immensely amused by my TOK sock puppets and we had loads of fun removing and retaping the puppets' round paper eyeballs in different places on their faces, and making new eyes and clothes for them. This is the only use TOK has ever been to me. Later wadded up the socks into a giant ball with ponytail holders, and played Sockeyball with Silvia in her front yard, like volleyball but with socks. Silvia's sister was annoyed at us not playing with her, so I went back to playing Socky with Cindy while Silvia played real volleyball with her dad. Silvia got on the phone with Josh and I ended up playing chess with Cindy until her attention span died, and then won a game of Chinese checkers. I stayed for dinner, though I felt awkward about it, and sort of weird trying to talk in Mandarin, but it was nice anyways. It was rather a pleasant afternoon and evening, and I wish I could hang out with people more.
The sock puppets will need new eyeballs because the tape adhesive is going.
Labels:
AIM,
archaeology,
Chinese,
poetry,
translation
Dave Barry like you've never seen him before. The last 911 angst you will see on this blog, I promise you, at least maybe until next year. But I felt it was necessary.
Labels:
Dave Barry,
terrorism
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
One year later.
I said goodbye to my mom this morning before she left for work at the Department of Justice, and spent the rest of High Alert Day hoping that nothing would come of it. Abstractly and morbidly thought that perhaps as my Patriotic Duty I ought to accessorize myself according to the daily alert color. Today, orange, tomorrow, red!
I spent a goodly portion of the day getting eerie flashbacks, amazed that it still resonated so much. During TOK after the badly executed memorial service, (Skanksville? "Roll on"?) the class just sat there encased in a solid block of silence.
I said goodbye to my mom this morning before she left for work at the Department of Justice, and spent the rest of High Alert Day hoping that nothing would come of it. Abstractly and morbidly thought that perhaps as my Patriotic Duty I ought to accessorize myself according to the daily alert color. Today, orange, tomorrow, red!
I spent a goodly portion of the day getting eerie flashbacks, amazed that it still resonated so much. During TOK after the badly executed memorial service, (Skanksville? "Roll on"?) the class just sat there encased in a solid block of silence.
Labels:
patriotism,
terrorism
There are so many deer in Rock Creek Park, but they're rather scrawnier than movies would have you think. No majestic stags or anything. I've been walking there with my mom for the last four days (Saturday, Sunday, yesterday, today) in the late afternoon and evening, and we haven't ceased to see deer.
On Saturday was one that dashed across the path around the middle of the trail and disappeared. I also saw a water snake too, from a bridge. And one dead crow. Yayfor West Nile.
Sunday, three deer slunk through the woods by the middle of the trail, one buck and two does.
Yesterday, there were nine deer spottings, though very possibly they were the same deer. One doe with a fawn eating grass as we went into the park, two bucks later on by Rock Creek in a grove of trees, in about the middle of the trail, one fawn with prominent dapples and another dark-coated, un-dappled deer of some sort further back in the trees, and when we were leaving, one doe with two fawns (not dappled as prominently as the earlier ones.) The weird thing is that they weren't afraid of us; they stood around watching. Also interesting to note that the forest is so much cooler than outside.
Today.. six total. My mom's friend was with us as well, so that may have been the reason why the deer were more cautious this time. As we were going in, a doe with a fawn ran away from us. I think it's the same one... Later, going in, two deer crossed the path in front, and also ran away. When we were coming back, a doe was looking at us from behind the trees, along with another doe behind another tree. It was especially nice today, because it was so windy... it makes it feel like the whole Earth is alive and the trees are breathing.
On Saturday was one that dashed across the path around the middle of the trail and disappeared. I also saw a water snake too, from a bridge. And one dead crow. Yayfor West Nile.
Sunday, three deer slunk through the woods by the middle of the trail, one buck and two does.
Yesterday, there were nine deer spottings, though very possibly they were the same deer. One doe with a fawn eating grass as we went into the park, two bucks later on by Rock Creek in a grove of trees, in about the middle of the trail, one fawn with prominent dapples and another dark-coated, un-dappled deer of some sort further back in the trees, and when we were leaving, one doe with two fawns (not dappled as prominently as the earlier ones.) The weird thing is that they weren't afraid of us; they stood around watching. Also interesting to note that the forest is so much cooler than outside.
Today.. six total. My mom's friend was with us as well, so that may have been the reason why the deer were more cautious this time. As we were going in, a doe with a fawn ran away from us. I think it's the same one... Later, going in, two deer crossed the path in front, and also ran away. When we were coming back, a doe was looking at us from behind the trees, along with another doe behind another tree. It was especially nice today, because it was so windy... it makes it feel like the whole Earth is alive and the trees are breathing.
Labels:
deer,
Rock Creek Park,
walk
Monday, September 09, 2002
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