Saw the Matrix on DVD, with my mom. I may go and see Reloaded with her, if I ever get around to it.

Andrew Durfor reads my blog. (A lot of people seem to find my blog through looking up their own names on Google. A search for Andrew Durfor on Google brings up my blog, and another notable thing, Ask Red Mage on 8-Bit Theater) Hi, Andrew! Because of this, I need to mention him more.. fanservice, you understand. Anyhow, he's been talking to me more recently than the lot of you put together, and I'm lonely. I didn't talk to him that much in second semester after we got different period stat classes, but since we're both outgoing on AIM, unlike most other people, who are reticent, it works well. I think we'll keep in touch. He's an aquatics instructor at Boyscout Camp now, which he touts as the "gayest job ever."

Since he hasn't got a blog, I'll blog for him..

Andrew's Quote of the Day: So is "If vegtable oil is made of vegtables, is baby oil made of babies?"

Now for... Andrew's Blog for June 14! Based on cutting and pasting AIM stuff to make it look as multi-paragraph standard issue bloggish as possible, since you all hate reading unedited chat transcripts, I'm sure. Now... in his own words.. Andrew Durfor!

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Beedril411: "i just got a cell phone today. i called my parents from camp and told them there were no pay phones (there usually are) and mail me addressed envelopes for them and 1/2 a dozen girls. So they went out and got me a cell phone. yep, now my friends can call me @ camp and I can call them. my friends have land line and I have a cell.

i should tell you my hypothermia story. well, cause i'm the snokeling instructor that also makes me the cheif diver (I'm most proficent in the skills and w/ the gear). So I get to dive down to the bottom of the lake and locate things to tie the floating dock to. Well on the surface it was like 40-50F but down 12ft it was like 30F. So I do these dives and end up getting reall cold. So I go sit on the floater and the wind picks up. I start to shiver and get real cold cause I'm wet. Well I go back in the water cause then I'm gonna be moving and out of the wind. So I dive repeated, breath dive breath dive etc. So come up and sit on the floater to catch my breath, i couldn't stop shivering! I lost capilary action ! (My fingers would stay white if I pressed on them instead of turning red again). I got in and got mild hypothermia and oxygen deprivation cause of all the dives. So the whole day I'm looking at things and think things like "ooh preatty colors" and "Hey boss I'm good for another dive" At the time that I fall to the sand beach and can't stop shaking. that was wend and thats my hypothermia story. I was hurting preaty bad that day. Thats male bravado for you

SFX 87: that's very sexy.

Beedril411: thank you, I think that would mean more if i hadn't frozen my testicals off but hey, a compliment is a compliment

SFX 87: It will probably aid you in the Gayest Job Ever. "Hey, did I tell you about the time I got hypothermia?"

Beedril411: yeah, thats going in the lesson plan for all the badges I teach

SFX 87: how'd you recover?

Beedril411: very slowly, I didn't have full blown hypo cause I was still producing body heat, I got dry and covered myself in my thick clothes that I had brought for that emergency. It was nothing bad enought to go to the hospital thank god. kind of anti-clamatic. If the ass. Directer hadn't ordered me in after I said that I could still dive, I'd probably have had a hospital visit. I'm just glad that the area is set up and I got to stop by for a night and talk to everyone. I'm gonna check my e-mail just as soon as i finish inputing everybodys phone # into my cell. I'm back @ my house in rockville. it was 6hrs of driving but steve was going back so I caught a ride w/ him

SFX 87: ah. When're you going back to camp?

Beedril411: 8 tommorow morning. I'd love to catch a movie or something but I only get 23hrs off a week. i get off sat 12:30 and have to be back sun 11:30 but I'm probably not gonna be back every weekend. this was only cause steve needed to get things. Acutally next week is Doug Maryotts Eagle project on Sunday. Call him up and you can work it. I'll be there. he's gardening 'cause he's feminine. i dont know the details, you'll have to ask him cause its his project. i just know its sun and @ the twinbrook liberary. I'm gonna be there so you know it'll be a party. oh, do what he says mostly manual labor like raking or digging or whatever we're doing

SFX 87: I can be an honorary boy scout. Dammit, I always wanted to join the boy scouts.

Beedril411: oh, being a boy scout is not required just talk to doug and he'll hook you up w/ info. he's in the RM phone book. what you been doing for the past week?

SFX 87: hmmm.. I went to Six Flags on Wednesday, while you were getting hypothermia

Beedril411: I'm not a big fan of roller coasters but still cool

SFX 87: I went on almost all roller coasters. and got very nauseous. Still kind of am, actually, but I'm not sure if that's a result of the coasters.

Beedril411: yeah every mon, wed, fri, i have polar bear swim and have to be up @ 6:15. I got to get up early!but its a small price to pay if I get the tan I'm working on. I also get to do pleanty of rowing to build my muscles. gonna be in shape for college. yeah, Uber nerds gonna have it all, brains and good looks. *cheers* anyway, my first paycheck I'm gonna buy a wetsuit. no more Durfsickle. i've heard its gonna be a cold an rainy summer, remeber that Heritage is 15F colder than what it is here

SFX 87: well, it's hot and rainy here. A bloody jungle.

Beedril411: yeah, in heritage its cold and clammy, a bloody . . . whatever is cold, clammy, and humid

SFX 87: Where is heritage? it's a bloody clam.

Beedril411: farmington PA. western PA

SFX 87: ah. Do you hang out with Amish people?

Beedril411: nope,

SFX 87: you know what? you should get a blog or a livejournal

Beedril411: I have a ink and paper jornal of camp. i'm not at a computer often enough to make it worth while

SFX 87: well get a blog when you get back

Beedril411: k i'll see, maybe in college

Fencing. My horoscope in Seventeen [which I really shouldn't be reading (because 1: it's stupid and 2: I'm 18) except that I was at the dentist's on Tuesday and had nothing better to do] says I should take fencing. I feel so affirmed, and am delighted with this bit of astrological accuracy.

In fencing class today, have discovered that I can actually hit people, which is very strange because I'm so used to losing. I think they would be better fencers if they didn't run away like scared rabbits or at least not let themselves get backed into the wall even though I stand around waiting for them to advance- I mean, even if you totally suck at fencing a good way to win (or beat me at least) is to just run at people screaming.

Today: learned attack and parry riposte in seven. Learned combination 4-7.

Oh, right; last week was attack and parry riposte in eight.

Speaking of fencing: take the extremely accurate Geek Test in all its glory. I'm 29 point something percent geek, but I didn't lie on the questions to score better, unlike Mary, who sent the link to me and got 39%.

Also, a pinnacle of geekiness.. The Incredible Hulk's Pants.

Wherein Angie Celebrates Her 18th Birthday

Okay, I lied about having a quiet birthday. I went to Six Flags yesterday with Cristy and her boyfriend Mehmet, who is a funny, smart, and extremely gracious person I'd met Tuesday night at dinner at T's. He has a rich mellifluous voice; plus he can cook. He reminds me of a very young and rather stout Arabic Liam Neeson.

I took the 48 to Wheaton Station, then Red Line to Fort Totten and Green Line to the UMCP station. There was a shuttle bus from there to UMCP. I've never been on Green Line before. It was something of an exotic experience- the interior of the Metro car was reholstered and everything. No longer orange! Also, a good deal of the Green Line is above ground so it feels like a real train, and you can see the lush water-sated countryside. Really, UMCP in is the middle of nowhere after all, but at least a relatively pretty middle of nowhere if there aren't any buildings around to ruin the landscape.

At UM's Stamp Student Union, which is totally gutted from renovation, I bumped into Ryan, a random Cantonese guy from Churchill I keep seeing (though technically he isn't from Churchill anymore since they graduated a while ago). I know him from SAT classes and I saw him at a UMBC dinner. I've never once encountered him intentionally. But anyways, since he was there, I caught up with him and we talked, and he found immensely unfunny things funny. Anyhow, he knows Michael B, and he's going to UM next year, in engineering.

Then he left and Cristy and Mehmet picked me up to take me to Six Flags.. but we went to eat first at a really good Mexican restaurant for lunch. It was empty, being situated in a college town in the summer, with slowly rotating ceiling fans in the heat of the dark, there not being enough regular summer customers there to even bother turning on the lights. One meal and a side dish and a mango daiquiri was enough for three people, and I got happy birthday ice cream. (I loved my part of the daiquiri even though Mehmet, who is 24, technically ordered it; there was still the subtle taste of alcohol in the mango tartness. Mixed drinks are my friend.) We were the only people there. I felt so special. Mehmet sang me the Bennigan's birthday song, because he used to work there.

At Six Flags, the ticket taker at the entrance noted to T and Mehmet that "You come here every week!" because they have season passes. We went on the Beast, a wooden roller coaster in all its rackety glory as a coaster warmup. It would be a long day for roller coasters. We went on the Superman twice, which is a beautiful coaster in red and blue, with large graceful loop-de-loops. Oh yes, and a 200 foot drop! It's a bit nervewracking when you're at the top of that latticed metal bell-curve, right before the drop, and you see your long shadow cast over the land. After that, we went on the Joker twice, though it wasn't as cool as the Superman. It was a standard metal coaster, with the notable thing being that in the beginning, instead of being dragged up to a peak, the coaster just floors it, thanks to electromagnetic acceleration. Even after riding it twice, it still startled me. Thankfully, since I was getting dizzy, we went on the Penguin, or the Blizzard or whatever, that new water ride they have. It's basically a glorified water slide where you ride this circular tube with five other people and it spins around as it goes down. Some penguin statues jet water on you. Kind of stupid, but a nice and tame intermission. Then we went on the Batwing, a coaster where you go laying belly down with the rail above you, so there's nothing between you and the grass, or the sky, as the case may be.

Afterwards, upon leaving the Gotham section of Six Flags, I filled out a raffle ticket to win a car or $25,000, my first official form filled out as a legal adult. I was so proud. We played in the wave pool until the lifeguards yelled at us to get out because we were wearing pants, though Mehmet pretended not to understand English and answered the lifeguards in Arabic, but he conceded eventually. I don't understand what the issue with pants is; you can't even sit beached on an inner tube by the side of the pool in pants. We went on a swing ride twice to dry off, where Mehmet kept grabbing the chains of our swings and got yelled at again, and I won a teddy bear with the Guess Your Age/Weight/Height thing, because everyone thinks Mehmet is lighter than he actually is. I went on the Two-Face twice (the ride that goes forwards/backwards), but not a third time because I got immensely nauseous afterwards because it was just an un-fun and painful ride. I sat on a bench outside the Iron Eagle as the sun set and the day cooled while Cristy and Mehmet went on the spinning teacups.

As soon as we left, it was pouring rain. Mehmet said I must be a saint because of the miracle of it not actually raining while I was at the park. The skies opened and the whole sky was lit up by periodic flashes of lightning alarmingly close and split open by resounding peals of thunder. We went to his apartment in Greenbelt because God knows no one can drive in that type of weather, and though my clothes had dried off since my time in the wave pool, in the interval between exiting his car and entering his apartment, I was thoroughly soaked all over again. There were a bunch of his friends in his apartment, which was kind of weird to me because my house is all quiet at night. They went out to smoke on the balcony, which has a certain appeal to it because the T-storm, though terrifying in a primal way, made the air very clean and rain-washed. Me and T changed out of our wet clothes into Mehmet's clothes and put our own into the drier so we looked like painters in overly large work clothes. T laughed at me, an 18 year old woman, struggling to belt my (Mehmet's, really) pants. Hmmmph. >__< Well it's not like I ever use belts. I would've figured it out eventually at any rate. T threw back some fruity beverage that was 70% alcohol and got promptly drunk I suppose. We watched some hardcore German porn on Mehmet's computer for amusement, though his monitor, which he salvaged from a junkyard, makes everything all green-filtered so it's not like anyone had realistic skin tones. (I doubt that guy's cock is really purple). T thought that dialogue should be banned from porn movies; IMHO, soundtracks are worse. Who has sex to music? I don't understand.

Then Mehmet decided that playing Deus Ex would be more interesting, so he did that. Me and Cristy went to microwave some corn, much to the annoyance of Mehmet's pothead brother. He's one of those people who sound stupid somehow just by talking, possibly from overusage of the word "dawg." T told me earlier that he treats Mehmet very badly, though T was reluctant to talk about the brother to me with him there in the house. Which I thought was understandable, after having thought about it a bit. Apparently his (the brother's) computer and the microwave can't be on at the same time, or one or the other will go off. It's bad circuiting of some sort, like an electronic version of musical chairs.

In the meantime, Mehmet introduced me to Jagermeister, a very tasty German liquor that tastes like licorice, and burns in your throat. It is godlike, and joins my list of things I will drink when I am legal, though I got more of it on Mehmet's borrowed shirt than actually into my mouth, like a dumb boozer. T joked about me getting my 18th and 21st birthday confused, but she should talk since she had more alcohol than me and is not 21 either. (I had two capfuls of Jager; it's not that much). So in the end, I did end up having my celebratory Porn and Cigarettes as promised, though alcohol in lieu of cigarettes because we unanimously agreed that tobacco is stupid.

Then we remembered that we had microwaved the corn, so we took it out of the microwave, buttered, peppered and ate it. T showed me photos, on her digital camera, of when she got her ears pierced, while she was drunk, by drunk people. It does not seem to me like a wise thing to do, but she didn't feel a thing.

You must understand that during all this time T and Mehmet were all over each other. Sober IB high schoolers are very restrained people, I've noticed in hindsight. So my 18th birthday was fun but weird in all its stupidity and liberation. Stupidity in that ... well watching porn and drinking is stupid and possibly immoral... and also I thought it was disturbing of Mehmet in that he's the type of person that is amused by swerving all over the road and racing mothers of young children in parking lots and ignoring lifeguards and grabbing other people's swings on the swing ride and stealing ketchup packets and yelling at random passing drivers in the middle of the night. Either it means that he's immature or that I'm stodgy. It seems disturbing that I should find someone who's 6 years older than me to be immature, because if someone 6 years younger than you finds you to be juvenile, you must really be juvenile. Or it could be that I, freshly out of teenagerdom, am so molded into obedience towards the authority of elders so much that I draconically object to harmless fun. Or I'm a hypocrite in that I'm an easily amused person, but am annoyed when other people are easily amused. It's kind of like when people laugh at things that aren't funny. It's annoying for no particular reason.

Liberation.. in that it really doesn't matter whether my mom doesn't "let me" go out. It doesn't matter whether she wouldn't like if I had a boyfriend. It doesn't matter if she wouldn't like it if I go swimming in my clothes, or watching porn, or wearing some boy's clothes or eating microwaved corn instead of a real dinner or coming home at 1 in the morning. I'll go to Six Flags because it's fun, I'll get a boyfriend when I want one, I'll swim in my clothes because they'll dry off afterwards, I'll watch porn because it's amusing, wear a boy's clothes because my real clothes are wet, eat microwaved corn for dinner because I'm hungry, and come home at 1 or the next morning or not at all. There's a big list of "Shouldn't"s that I've been conditioned to accept, but if you think about them they really don't matter, and it's slightly frightening.

(I probably should stay at home when the forecasts say it'll rain and not get a boyfriend until I'm older and bring a swimsuit for god's sake and an umbrella so I won't get wet in the forecasted rain which I should have known better than to have been caught in in the first place and stay away from the porn and eat a real dinner and come home at a reasonable hour. These little things that don't matter, but make up your life. What sort of habits will you develop through your adult life with no mother watching?)

On a bright springsummer Monday in June, I graduated from high school at DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Constitution Hall, with my silly cap with its braided multi-tassels and cardboard quandrangle. I saw all of you there, mostly in the first few rows for band or chorus, truly spot on in your scholarly professionalism, though probably not intentionally. It made me proud. Lisa gave a moving speech, though I suspect its profundity was lost on a lot of the audience which was looking for something humorous to hoot and holler for. We are different people than we were. I thought it strange how fast these last four years have passed, though now that the glow of the graduation ceremony has given way to a more introspective mood, I think that the time hasn't passed by at all quickly. I've just lived it day by day, and not noticed. I am rarely so self-aware of growing up day by day as I have been in this second semester, or what was the second semester. It's a bit like a mental and emotional version of marking your height on the wall. I suppose we will have to pass on our reigning titles as seniors sooner or later.

In the meantime, I threw my cap up into the air (it came straight down while Andrew D's boomeranged and hit a guy in the row behind him), and did lots of spontaneous hugging with people.

My parents, sisters, and brothers-in-law came, and thoughtfully got me a capped-and-gowned teddy bear and a dozen red roses that have bloomed beautifully since in a water-filled vase, so that you can see all their rich velvet and deep shadowed swirls. Have been enjoying the general joy of it without my glasses on so that the world looks like a big and blurry oil painting. I took a long walk with my mom in the cool of early summer evening, and held my finger up to the moon.

I was thinking that of all the people in the world, there are very few that can claim to be happy at this very moment, and I have the extraordinary privelege of being one of them.

I turn 18 on Wednesday the 11th, two days after graduation. I will look for porn and cigarettes symbolically but otherwise be quiet about it. Being a neither a teenage girl nor a high schooler any longer, I wonder very much who I am now.