Happy Campers
Friday
Erica picked me up at three thirty on Friday afternoon, and as we drove up, every radio station systematically died on us until we were stuck with country and Christian Rock by the time we lurched into the park. Our tents were split between two camp sites, and over the course of the next two days I would trek between the both of them along a forested gravel road. Scattered to the side of the road in the woody shadows, gypsy-like, were other sun-burned families with pitched tents, trailers and RV's, laundry lines stretched between trees with clothes hung out to dry, and blue woodsmoke rising through the air, and children who would travel through the camp on the back of pick-up trucks, legs dangling out of the back.
The fire at the other campsite was already lit and smoking, albeit weakly thanks to Nick. This very much (comically) exasperated Lizzie and Ruchita, who arrived later, complaining, "Leave it to the women!" Despite Nick's protest of it being physically impossible to make the fire any bigger, it indeed did get bigger, after Lizzie manfully split some wood for kindling. We all roasted weenies on a stick, or in the case of Erica and Lisa, veggieburger patties. Veggieburgers are green and lumpy and look like goose shit, but they taste real good and I think I'm addicted to them. I felt very rugged roasting my food over an open fire.
Erica is apparently vegetarian because she feels that meat is an inefficient use of energy; Lisa only eats free-ranging meat after she heard the awful cries of dogs that were being tested on in the lab where she works. We joked about this: "And ever since that moment, I no longer eat dog meat..." But seriously, after that, she thought that cows, which are penned up like the lab dogs, must cry also. (I didn't think about this then, but this is something my non-beef-eating grandma believes too. You aren't supposed to eat the ox that plows your fields, and supposedly it sheds tears when you kill it. My aunt says this is a rural Chinese superstition, and my mom says it is a holdover from Indian Buddhism, which I take with a grain of salt.)
This is something I notice about Lisa: she's very empathetic with everybody, and is upbeat and positive and looks at the world with wide-eyed enthusiasm, loving the forest and sky and the softness of moss.
We went swimming in Lake Habeeb sometime during that "roasting meatlike objects over a fire" period. I noticed that as we get more primative, eating is not an "event" in your day like a normal meal, at a table with a definite beginning and an end. So we ate, went swimming, came back and ate again (or for people who arrived later, for the first time) in a very fluid and unstructured manner. The evening was hot and humid but the water was surprisingly and pleasantly cool, and we tossed a frisbee at each other and socialized as if not chest-high in water, doing rather little actual swimming. There was a roped off part of the lake where we were supposed to swim, but the lifeguard had gone (apparently he is gone after six) (though someone had appropriated his high chair to get a better view of a beach volleyball game) so we slipped under the ropes and went into deeper water like rebellious teenagers. On the lake bottom the imported beach sand comes to an abrupt end, turning into thick black mud that is very soft and pleasant on your feet if you don't think how disgusting it is, and lake plants curl at your ankles, making you feel like you're caught in something. Though Paul, who knows these things, said that the lake at its deepest is 20 m deep, we didn't go nearly so far because those plants pulling at us were rather disturbing. Malex got partially pantsed, which did not look half bad.
We went back to our main camp site, the one with the screen house over the table, to eat, again, and toast smores. Malex yelled at people to not eat the chocolate by itself. It got dark- very dark in comparison to our illuminated suburban nights; out came individual flashlights that made small and pathetic dents in the darkness, and candle lanterns inside the screen house that made it quite hot inside, and an electric lantern set outside next to the fire and the night pushed in on us. We tried unsuccessfully to tell stories by the campfire, we whose common culture is determined now by the tv, the internet, the newspaper, books, radio and school. Oral tradition flickered and died; me and Nick ended up alternating in telling the Scary Story of Zimbardo's Prison Experiment. (Philip Zimbardo is the president of the American Psychology Association, and he is infamous for creating an experiment on prison life at Stanford.) I wonder how he would feel if he knew he were the subject of campfire mythology; we no longer have ghosts and vampires and franken-monsters to be afraid of; our horrors are ourselves and the modern world.
The skies opened up and it rained. We fled into the screen-house with the hot lanterns, and tarped the mesh screens to keep the water out. With the skies closing in on us and the lights from the center of the table, the Madrigals sang and sounded beautiful in the forest. I always find it amazing that they can sing without sheet music, and whether it's twelve people together or three, they always manage to blend their parts together. Malex and Nick protested the exclusiveness of this activity though. Nick sung/howled Kumbaya very loudly and was shouted down. In the end we all ended up singing Beatles songs and the Lumberjack Song, which everybody knew. We had great fun but perhaps the commonness of the music made Ruchita and Lizzie impatient to be singing their own songs again. I think the Mads, when they sing, have so much fun and comraderie they often forget just how it feels like not to be them.
We went and played Mafia in the actual tent, and it was creepy. A park ranger rapped on our "door" with the annoying sarcastic comment, "All in favor of being quiet?" and we were embarrassed and went to bed. Me and Erica and Alex and Paul went back to our own campsite, where Paul observed that the sky was suddenly remarkably clear. He strapped on a red headlight (the wavelength or something of which allows it to illuminate things without ruining a viewer's night vision) and hauled his 100 pound telescope out of the trunk of his car. We helped take it to the nearby field and were setting up when great beams of light coronated the horizon of a nearby hill and a ranger's car, with its high powered lights, rumbled over the hill down the gravel road and blinded us to high heaven. Malex, shirtless in his swim trunks, went to ask what was the matter but Paul who was less scantily clad decided it'd be better if he took care of it. The ranger, very politely, simply made sure it was indeed a telescope and then was on his way, apologizing for ruining our night vision. I thought it was rather annoying to be checked on by rangers twice in one night, despite their noble intentions, but was distracted from this thought, or every other thought, by simple astronomy.
It's probably not the most exciting of hobbies if you think about it, peering at tiny blips of light through a telescope, but I found it very serene annd calming under the heavy silence and the pinprick lights of a scattering of stars, clearer, brighter and more beautiful than anything that can be found in the city. There was a fog rising from the ground, but we looked through the trees at Mars (which according to the Washington Post is closest to the Earth on August 1, and according to Paul, indignantly, is not) and saw it in great detail, with its ice cap and dark splotches on its red surface. Mars would swim out of the telescope's field of vision as we looked at it, more like a creature under the lens of a microscope than a telescope, and Paul commented that normal non-astronomical people seldom think of celestial bodies as moving objects, and the epiphany that the sky is constantly moving, or rather, the Earth is moving under it gave me a fantastic feeling of revelation and peace. We looked also at the Square of Hercules, and some double stars that were actually double-double stars on closer observation, and some other things, and when we looked up from the telescope Erica noted: "Mars has moved again" and indeed, it had. Paul pointed out another celestial body to us, a haze of light shining over the trees to our left: Cumberland, where the C&O Canal ended, and where some prison was built, and there was a historic district. He could list no other city merits. After a while, it had become chilly, and mist clouded Cassiopeia, and we no longer needed flashlights because we could see through the night with the eyes nature gave us.
Saturday
I woke up the next morning and trotted down to the other site, feeling very much like a homeowner who's going to greet the neighbors down the block. Breakfast. Sometimes I thought that I heard the sounds of rain, and would do this repeatedly through the day, but it turns out that it was just rainwater splashing from one layer of leafy canopy to another. Nick and Malex drove to Cumberland to buy some stuff for his contacts- Cumberland the backwater city in rural Maryland, where the C&O Canal ended, made glamorous by Paul's introduction to it as a celestial body; a haze of light to our left in the nighttime forest. In any case I couldn't go because Malex said "there was no space" in the van, which to me was like a kick in the gut after everything that "there is no space" implies. But he didn't say it knowing that precise wording would hurt me, aside from the fact that there literally really was no space. Lisa started a game of Taboo which she is a great fan of, often asking about activities by wondering if they are "more fun than Taboo?" Taboo is a game in which someone has to describe a word on a card without being able to use certain other words, so his or her teammates can guess the word. Ex: the word on the card is Drunk, and the person has to give hints to his teammates so they can guess the right word, without using the worlds alcohol, or drinking, or something. This was fun, and we got better as we went.
Went to the camp store to get oil but were met up by Malex and Nick there, and Malex said he had oil, so we didn't need to buy it. We got flipflops for Lisa and firewood, and then we went back to have lunch, and then we split up for either kayaking or hiking. I went hiking with Nick, Malex, Paul, Erica and Lisa, on the loop trail around the lake, which is like four miles something. Malex set a brisk pace, so a lot of the hike was spent looking down to make sure you didn't trip over things, as opposed to looking at the view; we joked about having the River Anduin (you know, the Uruk Hai) music start playing as we marched through the woods. I don't think this prevented us from enjoying ourselves, other than having Malex stop every once in a while to let us catch up with him. Halfway around the lake was the resort, where we went in to fill our water bottles, which was in an area fantastically hilly with hammocks stretched lazily between trees, and grassy, with flowers. We also hit the beach and swam a bit to cool down and watched kayaks and sailboats glide by beyond us in deeper waters, and then went on hiking. I liked this area better, once we were out of the forest and now really had a clear view. Across the lake we saw clouds casting shadows on the vast mountains we had hiked through (and then a whole lot we hadn't been through); while I was in it I had kind of missed the forest for the trees, so the view made me appreciate it more. We walked by areas of shrubs and flowers where there were wild blackberries and raspberries (and also a strange, bitter, but obiquitous bright red berry), and lamb's ear, a soft and felty flower. Malex and Lisa ran ahead; the rest of us followed Nick at a normal pace until we'd gone a full circle; he went back to the camp. I went to the camp store on the beach with Erica and Paul, and we got ice cream (or rather Paul got ice cream and Erica bought some for me) and Erica and Paul went back to the campsite.
I joined Lizzie, Ruchita, and Dena on the beach, as well as Lisa who'd gone ahead. It was the same beach as Friday evening's swim, but looked different with the sun out and the sky full and blue, instead of setting pink. I lay down on a towel on a beach and tanned a bit, creating a mold in the sand where my body was, while Lisa commented on the beauty of the sky, and Dena and Ruchita read beach paperbacks. I fell asleep blissfully and woke up and we got hot we went into the water (except for Lisa, who napped) and made a sand castle and Dena dove like a mermaid and made her golden hair float, Ruchita wore kelp behind her ear, looking Hawaiian, and everyone coronated themselves with crowds of lakeweed and Dena took pictures. At one point Ruchita was trying on a lakeweed necklace, and was wondering if it went with her crown and sprig behind her ear, or if it was too much, giving aquatic plants all the serious cosmetic contemplation of a fashionable woman's jewelry. I had had no idea that Dena, Ruchita and Lizzie could be so giggly. We came out of the water and lay in the sun again and I stared at the sky which looked like a blue dome above us. We were very mellow and refreshed by the end of it.
We went to take a shower; I took a long time figuring out whether I wanted to (because the bathrooms are dirty but the lake is clean, or at least feels clean) so went in last and came out last. By the time I was back in the campsite feeling very happy about the invention of hot water, people were hard at work cooking fajitas in a group effort, roasting bell peppers over the fire (now made again), or (Ruchita) chopping onions or (Nick) slicing peppers or (Dena) browning the onions in a pan. I rinsed out some cans (of chicken.... I didn't even know there was such thing as canned chicken and thought it was tuna) (for recycling), browned some onions, and then slacked off. Malex toasted fajita skins in the pan, melting cheddar on them, and damn they were good. I fried some bananas, but they turned out gooshy, though greasy and tasty. We made smores, concocting ways to melt chocolate on graham crackers, or just eating chocolate graham crackers with marshmallows, thereby combining the chocolate and the graham cracker.
Paul, with his meteorology knowledge gleamed from his passion for astronomy and his pilot's knowledge test, saw cumulonimbus clouds backlit by lightning and predicted rain for us; we put outside things inside, tarped the screen house, and played Mafia outside around the fire until we became listless. As it started raining, me and Malex and Nick retreated into the tent with Ruchita and Lizzie, where we sat as if in a small room mostly silently among ourselves with the lantern swinging from the tent's peak. The rain abated some; Malex and I got kicked out and went back to our own campsite, and went to sleep. Malex went into his tent with Paul, and I went into my tent with Erica, and I heard the drumming of rain against the tent and saw the lightning flashes blue through the cloth and talked to Paul and Malex in their other tent a few feet away from ours, their voices carrying through the tent walls so that you could hear but not see them like disembodied voices. Me and Erica had only one flashlight (mine) between us since Erica had forgotten hers and I planted it in the middle of the tent like a lamp where it lit our tiny room like a sapphire bubble, the only light source in a tiny world, and I felt very lonely in the middle of a tent in the middle of nowhere.
Sunday
I woke up the next morning to church bells; God knows where they came from. All of us woke up at approximately the same time, which is a phenomenon in tents. Since there is little privacy and the rustling of plastic and unzipping of things is very loud, once one person gets up, pretty much everyone else must as well, even people in the other tent. Being in the other tent may provide a barrier against watching people of the other sex change, but it's no barrier at all against noise. Conversation (and other exchange of noise) between two closed tents can be carried on perfectly well. Malex had gone off to wake up the unfortunate sleepers at the other campsite with his CD player blasting "Fanfare for the Common Man" on speakers.
It was dreadfully lonely at night, but in the morning, everything seemed clean and refreshed in the forest with rising blue woodsmoke. Camps are good places to face mornings. We ate breakfast and packed up, and I marveled at how Paul's tent could fit into a small bag. (I thought I lost my wallet but actually didn't)
Lisa said we could've stayed for a week.
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Thursday, July 31, 2003
Turn Off the Idiot Box
Watched two episodes of "Jag" today back to back because we have cable and Jag is a constant on the USA channel, which has lots of similarly patriotic programing. I used to watch it in middle school and my mom still watches it. It was a better show before they started taking it to Afghanistan and whatever country is fashionable to invade at the moment; I felt it rather cheapened and sensationalized the premises, concentrating more about the gimicks than the people. I guess post-911 popularity got to its head.
My mom is watching some strange Bruce Willis movie right now, about him as a cop or FBI agent or in some other hard-boiled testosterone packing occupation. In any case, he has to protect this savant autistic boy, who inadvertantly cracks a government code, from being killed. Now, why on earth do all autistic kids in movie have to be savants? Is there no such thing as dumb autistic people? Are normal autistic people too "uninteresting" for daytime televison? It seems like a rather patronizing point of view.
Watched two episodes of "Jag" today back to back because we have cable and Jag is a constant on the USA channel, which has lots of similarly patriotic programing. I used to watch it in middle school and my mom still watches it. It was a better show before they started taking it to Afghanistan and whatever country is fashionable to invade at the moment; I felt it rather cheapened and sensationalized the premises, concentrating more about the gimicks than the people. I guess post-911 popularity got to its head.
My mom is watching some strange Bruce Willis movie right now, about him as a cop or FBI agent or in some other hard-boiled testosterone packing occupation. In any case, he has to protect this savant autistic boy, who inadvertantly cracks a government code, from being killed. Now, why on earth do all autistic kids in movie have to be savants? Is there no such thing as dumb autistic people? Are normal autistic people too "uninteresting" for daytime televison? It seems like a rather patronizing point of view.
Assorted Topics Party Mix
Topic 1: I feel sorry for Saddam, as a father who has lost his sons if nothing else. I heard on the radio that $30 million is going to the Iraqi tipster who helped us catch the sons, but I have mixed feelings about this. While I am grateful that.. uh... the war on terror... or WMD... or whatever it is now.... is going well, it seems like a rather vile thing to do to betray your own country and (if it was the case) guests (symbolically at least) under your protection at your house. However, it is hard to judge: I am reminded of, due to my History EE, the accusations of treason made by British diplomats to German nationals who tried to warn them about Hitler's ambitions and convince them to go to war over the invasion of Czechoslovakia before something else was attacked. I doubt neither Qasay and Uday nor the rest of Saddam's regime did the tipster any favors in the last ten years; perhaps he suffered from persecution like the rest. And houseguests like Qasay and Uday who (I'd imagine because of their violent natures and dire straits) force their way in by putting a gun to your head are hardly houseguests at all.
Topic 2: AP exam results- 4's in everything. IB exam results- 5's in mostly everything, even Chinese. Booya. Physics was a 4. Math Studies, from last year, was a 6. I am getting a diploma, yippie-skie-yay.
Topic 3: What I Did Today.
I went to the Oral Surgeon (no Malex this is not a sexual euphemism) for my consultation on my wisdom teeth extraction. I need to get four extracted through surgery, but we've decided not to do all four at the same time, so it's two on one side, then two on the other. Date of first surgery is next Wednesday, date of second surgery is yet to be arranged. It makes me kind of nervous with possible complications and everything and having a big gaping nose from my mouth to my sinus.
Also went to Rock Creek Park and splashed around in the creek with my pant legs rolled up. Walking on the rocky (well duh) creek floor is better foot massage than anything my mom managed in Hong Kong. Water bulges against the weather side (if such terms can be used for a water current instead of wind) of my legs in compacting ripples like the grooves of a record; on the lee side, there is a little dimple where the water is more shallow. I fell in at an area where the creek flew whitecapped and bubbling over a terrace of black rocks, the water level high from thunderstorms, got wet up to my waist, cut my right big toe on something sharp. Pretty dumb, wading in Rock Creek, god knows what's in it, but I am young, and invincible.
If people ask me about what I did while I was young enough to have energy and not good senses, I can tell them, God as my witness, that I walked in a (possibly polluted) creek, and it felt good.
Topic 1: I feel sorry for Saddam, as a father who has lost his sons if nothing else. I heard on the radio that $30 million is going to the Iraqi tipster who helped us catch the sons, but I have mixed feelings about this. While I am grateful that.. uh... the war on terror... or WMD... or whatever it is now.... is going well, it seems like a rather vile thing to do to betray your own country and (if it was the case) guests (symbolically at least) under your protection at your house. However, it is hard to judge: I am reminded of, due to my History EE, the accusations of treason made by British diplomats to German nationals who tried to warn them about Hitler's ambitions and convince them to go to war over the invasion of Czechoslovakia before something else was attacked. I doubt neither Qasay and Uday nor the rest of Saddam's regime did the tipster any favors in the last ten years; perhaps he suffered from persecution like the rest. And houseguests like Qasay and Uday who (I'd imagine because of their violent natures and dire straits) force their way in by putting a gun to your head are hardly houseguests at all.
Topic 2: AP exam results- 4's in everything. IB exam results- 5's in mostly everything, even Chinese. Booya. Physics was a 4. Math Studies, from last year, was a 6. I am getting a diploma, yippie-skie-yay.
Topic 3: What I Did Today.
I went to the Oral Surgeon (no Malex this is not a sexual euphemism) for my consultation on my wisdom teeth extraction. I need to get four extracted through surgery, but we've decided not to do all four at the same time, so it's two on one side, then two on the other. Date of first surgery is next Wednesday, date of second surgery is yet to be arranged. It makes me kind of nervous with possible complications and everything and having a big gaping nose from my mouth to my sinus.
Also went to Rock Creek Park and splashed around in the creek with my pant legs rolled up. Walking on the rocky (well duh) creek floor is better foot massage than anything my mom managed in Hong Kong. Water bulges against the weather side (if such terms can be used for a water current instead of wind) of my legs in compacting ripples like the grooves of a record; on the lee side, there is a little dimple where the water is more shallow. I fell in at an area where the creek flew whitecapped and bubbling over a terrace of black rocks, the water level high from thunderstorms, got wet up to my waist, cut my right big toe on something sharp. Pretty dumb, wading in Rock Creek, god knows what's in it, but I am young, and invincible.
If people ask me about what I did while I was young enough to have energy and not good senses, I can tell them, God as my witness, that I walked in a (possibly polluted) creek, and it felt good.
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Stuff
What've I been doing... I've been going to Lebanese Taverna and Monkey Mall. Normal things.
Tacked myself onto the list of people going camping in Rocky Gap State Park on August 1st, next weekend, probably much to everyone else's dismay. Malex said on Sunday night there wasn't enough room in the Malex-mobile for me with him, Nick, and Dena and all those gosh-darn tents, but apparently, as plans stand finalized as of Monday afternoon, there is enough room for Karina. She's always been smaller than me. At any rate I've gotten a ride with Erica Morgan who I don't know all that well except that she sat across the aisle from me in Pyschology in junior year I think and I remember watching her a lot and occasionally attempting to draw her. Her face gets blurred in my head with Debb and occasional Victorian ladies of Pre-Raphaelite oil paintings. That I won't have anything to talk to her about for the four hour round trip to/from Cumberland while Nick and Malex and Dena and Karina make memorable gay jokes in the Malex-mobile and that had Erica not been nice enough to accept I would've had to join the merry nine campers a day late and that had Erica not been nice enough to accept my parents would have had to drive around rural Maryland for eight hours total (two hours to Cumberland Saturday morning, two hours back, two hours to Cumberland Sunday afternoon, two hours back) (assuming I'd on my conscience let them) is of no consequence to anyone, because there is no space for me in the Malex-mobile. In all fairness Karina probably faced a situation like this too, so it was merely a calculation on Malex's part of who he likes better.
Went to Screen on the Green on Monday with Malex and Karina. We were supposed to watch Mutiny of the Bounty on the Mall but it was raining cats and dogs, a formidable challenge for even our umbrellas, jackets, plastic, blankets and towels, so we went to Chipotle, blooming into social animals, and then Borders, where we retreated into antisocial shells. It was fun though, mostly walking around in the evening and the middle of the night. I was amused that on the Metro to Rockville Station where Malex's van was, we were all silently, simultaneously and independently checking out the guy sitting across from us. Karina said, after a brief silence, as we got off the Metro: "Did anybody think that guy was hot?" and we all agreed, spontaneously, telepathically knowing exactly who "that guy" refered to. Malex said it was a particularly unattractive Metro car; there really was only that guy to look at. I personally thought he looked better in profile than from the front, as it is with some people. Malex dropped Karina off at her house so that luckily enough for her, she was inadvertantly quite clear of the van before me and Malex had a Something the Hell Happened. (One of those things between a Falling Out and a Dialogue where the next day people who weren't with you would still be like, "Something the Hell Happened between you and Alex last night.")
See, Malex wondered if I was insulted that he chose to give Karina a ride to Rocky Gap and not me, and I didn't answer, and he gave me time to collect my thoughts. Here they are:
It was on the topic of why there is this wormhole in time space that allows there to be enough room in the van for Karina but not for me but the answer of course is that I am obnoxious and while I am a person who you would not object to watching screen on the green with I am not a person who you would trust with teamwork activities such as setting up tents. (or directing Sharon's Personal Profiles and fucking it up so that my media productions teacher says 'i think you owe sharon an apology' like i enjoy screwing up). It is very discouraging that someone on the brink of college and independence should feel all of eleven years old again and it seems that I am not entering college but middle school where an unspoken communication passes between people and they all in a group move away when you enter a room and there are times when i would like to be anyone except for myself. High school was great in that I could sit down and eat a sandwich at at least one table with nobody objecting to my presence, because having every single cafeteria lunch table turn you away ('this seat is saved for someone, there's no space for you') and eating standing up is the shits. (and also standing on the outside of a great barrier that is more transparent and invisible than glass yet harder than crystal that stretches in each direction between you and the rest of the world and warmth and people who laugh all the time and loneliness that is not a thing and a demon you can kill so much as a giant spreading deafening nothing empty of anything at all.)
There is a small core of people within my world. Everyone else exists outside of it, like Sharon and Ruchita and Lizzie whose lives seem so tidy and well-organized and so together like little suburban lawns. People walk the bridge across the gap between my world and the other all the time. Most of the time they leave; Nick has left and Malex is leaving, but also they come in and I think of the letters that Andrew and Doug wrote, and they wrote not because they had to but because they wanted. I think though that I have a strong and quiet pillar of humanity that I share with no one, and if that is taken away only then would I contemplate putting a pistol in my mouth and shooting myself. And it will not be taken from me because I have either the faith or stupidity to believe that things will be all right for me in the end and I may come out a better person.
I really feel bad for sending Malex on a mad guilt trip though (having conveyed some of the above to him in the midnight dark through an intensely awkward silence) because he's a nice boy and all he said was "Well you're kind of distracting." Jesus Christ, I bet he didn't know I was such an emotional piece of work. :P Hell, I didn't either. This, my friend, is why you should date MEN.
Malex called the next day with a "Hope you feel better" message on my answering machine which would've been funny had my parents gotten it (I can imagine: "What... did you have a fever?") but I got it and he invited me to watch Trigun with Janis and Lauren and it was a good show and Lauren was great and we got on swell which goes to show how well I can get on with people one-on-one if they aren't defensively huddled in with twelve other people at a party. And then I came home and had issues and read some All Quiet on the Western Front which made me even more depressed and had more issues and then checked my family email because my mom was expecting a message but there were 401 messages most of them spam probably all of them except that my connection kept dying at message #137 so I kept trying to Get New Messages and I'd get 136 of 401 and then my connection would die and I'd try again and get 136 of 401 and again 136 of 401 and again 136 of 401 so that I got four duplicates of each spam letter: 4 times 136. So I deleted them all, turned the computer off and went to bed.
I am sorry that Haie Westhus died because I liked him.
Today I got my learner's permit (very belatedly) so that hopefully a year or so from now I won't need to find space in someone else's minivan, and wrote, the old-fashioned way, to Andrew at camp and Doug the Eagle Scout and Jen recovering from surgery at home.
What've I been doing... I've been going to Lebanese Taverna and Monkey Mall. Normal things.
Tacked myself onto the list of people going camping in Rocky Gap State Park on August 1st, next weekend, probably much to everyone else's dismay. Malex said on Sunday night there wasn't enough room in the Malex-mobile for me with him, Nick, and Dena and all those gosh-darn tents, but apparently, as plans stand finalized as of Monday afternoon, there is enough room for Karina. She's always been smaller than me. At any rate I've gotten a ride with Erica Morgan who I don't know all that well except that she sat across the aisle from me in Pyschology in junior year I think and I remember watching her a lot and occasionally attempting to draw her. Her face gets blurred in my head with Debb and occasional Victorian ladies of Pre-Raphaelite oil paintings. That I won't have anything to talk to her about for the four hour round trip to/from Cumberland while Nick and Malex and Dena and Karina make memorable gay jokes in the Malex-mobile and that had Erica not been nice enough to accept I would've had to join the merry nine campers a day late and that had Erica not been nice enough to accept my parents would have had to drive around rural Maryland for eight hours total (two hours to Cumberland Saturday morning, two hours back, two hours to Cumberland Sunday afternoon, two hours back) (assuming I'd on my conscience let them) is of no consequence to anyone, because there is no space for me in the Malex-mobile. In all fairness Karina probably faced a situation like this too, so it was merely a calculation on Malex's part of who he likes better.
Went to Screen on the Green on Monday with Malex and Karina. We were supposed to watch Mutiny of the Bounty on the Mall but it was raining cats and dogs, a formidable challenge for even our umbrellas, jackets, plastic, blankets and towels, so we went to Chipotle, blooming into social animals, and then Borders, where we retreated into antisocial shells. It was fun though, mostly walking around in the evening and the middle of the night. I was amused that on the Metro to Rockville Station where Malex's van was, we were all silently, simultaneously and independently checking out the guy sitting across from us. Karina said, after a brief silence, as we got off the Metro: "Did anybody think that guy was hot?" and we all agreed, spontaneously, telepathically knowing exactly who "that guy" refered to. Malex said it was a particularly unattractive Metro car; there really was only that guy to look at. I personally thought he looked better in profile than from the front, as it is with some people. Malex dropped Karina off at her house so that luckily enough for her, she was inadvertantly quite clear of the van before me and Malex had a Something the Hell Happened. (One of those things between a Falling Out and a Dialogue where the next day people who weren't with you would still be like, "Something the Hell Happened between you and Alex last night.")
See, Malex wondered if I was insulted that he chose to give Karina a ride to Rocky Gap and not me, and I didn't answer, and he gave me time to collect my thoughts. Here they are:
It was on the topic of why there is this wormhole in time space that allows there to be enough room in the van for Karina but not for me but the answer of course is that I am obnoxious and while I am a person who you would not object to watching screen on the green with I am not a person who you would trust with teamwork activities such as setting up tents. (or directing Sharon's Personal Profiles and fucking it up so that my media productions teacher says 'i think you owe sharon an apology' like i enjoy screwing up). It is very discouraging that someone on the brink of college and independence should feel all of eleven years old again and it seems that I am not entering college but middle school where an unspoken communication passes between people and they all in a group move away when you enter a room and there are times when i would like to be anyone except for myself. High school was great in that I could sit down and eat a sandwich at at least one table with nobody objecting to my presence, because having every single cafeteria lunch table turn you away ('this seat is saved for someone, there's no space for you') and eating standing up is the shits. (and also standing on the outside of a great barrier that is more transparent and invisible than glass yet harder than crystal that stretches in each direction between you and the rest of the world and warmth and people who laugh all the time and loneliness that is not a thing and a demon you can kill so much as a giant spreading deafening nothing empty of anything at all.)
There is a small core of people within my world. Everyone else exists outside of it, like Sharon and Ruchita and Lizzie whose lives seem so tidy and well-organized and so together like little suburban lawns. People walk the bridge across the gap between my world and the other all the time. Most of the time they leave; Nick has left and Malex is leaving, but also they come in and I think of the letters that Andrew and Doug wrote, and they wrote not because they had to but because they wanted. I think though that I have a strong and quiet pillar of humanity that I share with no one, and if that is taken away only then would I contemplate putting a pistol in my mouth and shooting myself. And it will not be taken from me because I have either the faith or stupidity to believe that things will be all right for me in the end and I may come out a better person.
I really feel bad for sending Malex on a mad guilt trip though (having conveyed some of the above to him in the midnight dark through an intensely awkward silence) because he's a nice boy and all he said was "Well you're kind of distracting." Jesus Christ, I bet he didn't know I was such an emotional piece of work. :P Hell, I didn't either. This, my friend, is why you should date MEN.
Malex called the next day with a "Hope you feel better" message on my answering machine which would've been funny had my parents gotten it (I can imagine: "What... did you have a fever?") but I got it and he invited me to watch Trigun with Janis and Lauren and it was a good show and Lauren was great and we got on swell which goes to show how well I can get on with people one-on-one if they aren't defensively huddled in with twelve other people at a party. And then I came home and had issues and read some All Quiet on the Western Front which made me even more depressed and had more issues and then checked my family email because my mom was expecting a message but there were 401 messages most of them spam probably all of them except that my connection kept dying at message #137 so I kept trying to Get New Messages and I'd get 136 of 401 and then my connection would die and I'd try again and get 136 of 401 and again 136 of 401 and again 136 of 401 so that I got four duplicates of each spam letter: 4 times 136. So I deleted them all, turned the computer off and went to bed.
I am sorry that Haie Westhus died because I liked him.
Today I got my learner's permit (very belatedly) so that hopefully a year or so from now I won't need to find space in someone else's minivan, and wrote, the old-fashioned way, to Andrew at camp and Doug the Eagle Scout and Jen recovering from surgery at home.
Friday, July 25, 2003
There and Back Again
I have return-ed, though my internal clock is all wonky. Was showered with gifts upon leaving; now have a new mp3 player (huzzah!!!) from Uncle Fred for college, a bracelet from Lydia which looks like an exact miniature of her very stylish necklace, and a toy turtle from her as well. Left Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for Fish and his family, though he's only on Prisoner of Azkaban. He knows that Sirius dies anyhow, so I don't see any real point in him getting attached to the character in the first place. Since he asked, I told him that Harry does indeed snog with Cho; he found this amusing since he has a classmate named Cho Chang (Cho as in Autumn, Chang as in.. Chang, the common family name. In Cantonese: Zhou Zheung) who takes a lot of crap for being a Harry Potter character.
Other things about my family; Joanne, Fish's older sister, is job hunting yet again in this economy. She had a job teaching Chinese History and Civics this year among, um, very academically unmotivated high schoolers who she has amusing but also very disturbing stories about. There's one boy whose father was either in the Triad or axed by the Triad or both; when she asked him conversationally what he was doing this summer, he uttered grimly, "I seek vengeance." And there's another kid who, when he was taking an English exam where he was required to "fill in the blanks with suitable word or words" simply wrote "word" or "words" in every blank. There's a kid who survived for months, because he was so poor, by begging for bread from classmates and shopkeepers. There are kids who hand in exams completely empty. There was a boy who when asked in an essay test "What would you buy with $3000?" which was meant to be very easy because of course you could BS anything, got zero points because he misread $3000 as $30 and wrote that he couldn't afford anything. An alumni came back on career day or whatever to rant to the student body on how bad their school was. And now, my cousin is being fired from her job, because they need a teacher that can teach Chinese History, Chinese, Mandarin, and English, which is pretty much impossible for anyone.... it's like asking one of our teachers to teach History, English, Spanish and French. Yeah, my cousin's life is weirder than Boston Public, which I never thought possible.
Kai-lap, Lydia's younger brother, this year is really into Dynasty Warriors. He's got posters all over his room and the wallpaper on his computer. This cracks me up because I keep thinking of Dynasty Memories, the Dynasty Warriors parody on 8-Bit Theater. Lydia doesn't like Dynasty Warriors, thinking they're ugly, and is constantly trying to replace the computer wallpaper with one of Baby Cinnamon, a spastically cute and rabbit-like cartoon dog from Sanrio. Kai-lap in turn finds Cinnamon disturbing.
He has a ticket for a Liverpool soccer match at Hong Kong Football Stadium. He camped out all night in line to get it. Beckham is reportedly coming to Hong Kong in August. I should've liked to see him, if only because other people find him a big deal and worth bending like. Lydia does not like him though, mostly because she is annoyed that other people could possibly find him handsome.
I am back later than scheduled because the flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo was delayed by five hours due to a broken generator; I'm not sure what a generator is, but it wasn't generatin'. Obviously missed the connecting flight from Tokyo to Detroit; stayed overnight in Tokyo free of charge and took the flight from Tokyo to Los Angelos at 1 in the afternoon the next day, Tokyo time.
I went to Japan! I went to Japan!
My happy dreams of hopping in a taxi to downtown Tokyo and staying up all night sightseeing were shattered by the fact that our hotel was an airport hotel. By 'stay in Tokyo' I mean 'stay outside of Tokyo in the fucking middle of nowhere, where streetlamps apparently hadn't been invented yet.' A nighttime bus ride to the hotel revealed pitch darkness outside the windows, broken every once in a while by a lit vending machine by the side of the road. You couldn't even see the trees. A taxi ride into Tokyo from the hotel would've been over an hour long and we had no yen. I was in a hotel where you could not tell you were in Japan- it was Radisson, an American chain hotel (pronounced Rah-Di-Son! by the Japanese) and everyone spoke English and the food and accomodations were all western. My mom said we would wake up early the next morning to sightsee. I took a shower and washed my hair and brushed my teeth like any sensible person that's been waiting at airports/sitting around in a plane all day, and watched some Japanese tv (The Cube was on) and went to sleep. I woke up at seven something, watched more tv including the Simpsons. I recorded a bit in a wav file on my mp3 player, which I will upload so you can hear Marge and Homer arguing in Japanese. Japanese tv is funny; news anchors and show hosts will actually bow at the camera (hence you the viewer), and say "Hai!" a lot. There are a lot of cooking shows on (I also recorded a wav file of some kids singing a sushi making song in a show that's some bizarre combination of Emeril Live and Barney), but not Iron Chefs. I ate breakfast and my mom and I took a stroll around the place, where there were farmers in straw hats, smoke from open fires, and cocks crowing, because we really were in the Clarksburg of Japan. Unlike rural China, it was clean and neat and not at all poor, so it was pleasant, (a very respectable 70 something degrees in the daytime and a cool fifty something at night) though not what I was expecting. We didn't go to Tokyo after all, which really pissed me off, because I still felt that we should've gone during the night. While I was in the bathroom, my mom turned down an offer to take a taxi to the nearest shopping mall, which missed me off more, and when we went out to take another stroll in the countryside, it started raining, which pissed me off extremely.
Which was about time we took the early bus to the airport, and since there was daylight we could actually see outside the windows now. We got bowed at by immaculately uniformed baggage handlers, security guards and porters, which left me feeling extremely weird because they're all middle-aged men; it feels that I as the 18 year old girl should be bowing to them, and even so the whole bowing thing is just weird. And did some airport shopping and whatnot. I was vastly amused that there was a Mitsukoshi store in the airport, because there's one in Hong Kong also; I picked up some Mitsukoshi business cards relating the locations of stores around the world. There are three in Germany; Frankfurt, Munchen, and Dusseldorf, two in Rome, one in Paris, one in London, one in Hong Kong, one in Shanghai, and several others. It's quite sad that I've memorized this. Bought some souvenirs (I was reminded of what Joanne said to me at Hong Kong International as I was leaving; airport souvenirs solely exist for when tourists desperately need to buy gifts but hadn't bought them yet upon leaving). I was amused that for sale there was a sushi cup exactly like the one T bought for my birthday a while back. Then we left.
I'd been getting used to listening to Japanese too. Korean airlines; it's a bit annoying to have flight attendants address you in Korean constantly, but I don't suppose they can be expected to remember what languages all of their passengers speak.
Los Angelos was the shits compared to Japan. Flight to Memphis, then to DC.
I was wondering perhaps if it wouldn't have been better to have stayed in Hong Kong for an additional day rather than put up with having to wait for five hours in Hong Kong's airport, and going through bureaucracy in re-arranging connecting flights from Tokyo, and going through customs and security in Japan, and getting our luggage from Tokyo Narita airport to the hotel, and getting the luggage from the hotel to the airport the next morning, and then having to change flights at LA and then Memphis, whereas originally it would've just been Detroit. But apparently Hong Kong was hit with a level 8 typhoon the day after we left so we can consider ourselves lucky that we got out at all. My cousins had been complaining of only getting a level 1 typhoon; apparently all good schoolchildren the world round hope for inclement weather.
But I'm back. I've received a letter from Andrew D at boy scout camp and Doug thanking me for helping him on his Eagle Project. It makes me so happy. I've got mail! Real honest to god mail, written on real honest to god paper with real honest to god pen! Not e-mail! Not IM! Not ICQ, not phone, but real fuckin' mail!
I'll write back right away.
And you thought that our wired generation was less appreciative of these things.
I have return-ed, though my internal clock is all wonky. Was showered with gifts upon leaving; now have a new mp3 player (huzzah!!!) from Uncle Fred for college, a bracelet from Lydia which looks like an exact miniature of her very stylish necklace, and a toy turtle from her as well. Left Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for Fish and his family, though he's only on Prisoner of Azkaban. He knows that Sirius dies anyhow, so I don't see any real point in him getting attached to the character in the first place. Since he asked, I told him that Harry does indeed snog with Cho; he found this amusing since he has a classmate named Cho Chang (Cho as in Autumn, Chang as in.. Chang, the common family name. In Cantonese: Zhou Zheung) who takes a lot of crap for being a Harry Potter character.
Other things about my family; Joanne, Fish's older sister, is job hunting yet again in this economy. She had a job teaching Chinese History and Civics this year among, um, very academically unmotivated high schoolers who she has amusing but also very disturbing stories about. There's one boy whose father was either in the Triad or axed by the Triad or both; when she asked him conversationally what he was doing this summer, he uttered grimly, "I seek vengeance." And there's another kid who, when he was taking an English exam where he was required to "fill in the blanks with suitable word or words" simply wrote "word" or "words" in every blank. There's a kid who survived for months, because he was so poor, by begging for bread from classmates and shopkeepers. There are kids who hand in exams completely empty. There was a boy who when asked in an essay test "What would you buy with $3000?" which was meant to be very easy because of course you could BS anything, got zero points because he misread $3000 as $30 and wrote that he couldn't afford anything. An alumni came back on career day or whatever to rant to the student body on how bad their school was. And now, my cousin is being fired from her job, because they need a teacher that can teach Chinese History, Chinese, Mandarin, and English, which is pretty much impossible for anyone.... it's like asking one of our teachers to teach History, English, Spanish and French. Yeah, my cousin's life is weirder than Boston Public, which I never thought possible.
Kai-lap, Lydia's younger brother, this year is really into Dynasty Warriors. He's got posters all over his room and the wallpaper on his computer. This cracks me up because I keep thinking of Dynasty Memories, the Dynasty Warriors parody on 8-Bit Theater. Lydia doesn't like Dynasty Warriors, thinking they're ugly, and is constantly trying to replace the computer wallpaper with one of Baby Cinnamon, a spastically cute and rabbit-like cartoon dog from Sanrio. Kai-lap in turn finds Cinnamon disturbing.
He has a ticket for a Liverpool soccer match at Hong Kong Football Stadium. He camped out all night in line to get it. Beckham is reportedly coming to Hong Kong in August. I should've liked to see him, if only because other people find him a big deal and worth bending like. Lydia does not like him though, mostly because she is annoyed that other people could possibly find him handsome.
I am back later than scheduled because the flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo was delayed by five hours due to a broken generator; I'm not sure what a generator is, but it wasn't generatin'. Obviously missed the connecting flight from Tokyo to Detroit; stayed overnight in Tokyo free of charge and took the flight from Tokyo to Los Angelos at 1 in the afternoon the next day, Tokyo time.
I went to Japan! I went to Japan!
My happy dreams of hopping in a taxi to downtown Tokyo and staying up all night sightseeing were shattered by the fact that our hotel was an airport hotel. By 'stay in Tokyo' I mean 'stay outside of Tokyo in the fucking middle of nowhere, where streetlamps apparently hadn't been invented yet.' A nighttime bus ride to the hotel revealed pitch darkness outside the windows, broken every once in a while by a lit vending machine by the side of the road. You couldn't even see the trees. A taxi ride into Tokyo from the hotel would've been over an hour long and we had no yen. I was in a hotel where you could not tell you were in Japan- it was Radisson, an American chain hotel (pronounced Rah-Di-Son! by the Japanese) and everyone spoke English and the food and accomodations were all western. My mom said we would wake up early the next morning to sightsee. I took a shower and washed my hair and brushed my teeth like any sensible person that's been waiting at airports/sitting around in a plane all day, and watched some Japanese tv (The Cube was on) and went to sleep. I woke up at seven something, watched more tv including the Simpsons. I recorded a bit in a wav file on my mp3 player, which I will upload so you can hear Marge and Homer arguing in Japanese. Japanese tv is funny; news anchors and show hosts will actually bow at the camera (hence you the viewer), and say "Hai!" a lot. There are a lot of cooking shows on (I also recorded a wav file of some kids singing a sushi making song in a show that's some bizarre combination of Emeril Live and Barney), but not Iron Chefs. I ate breakfast and my mom and I took a stroll around the place, where there were farmers in straw hats, smoke from open fires, and cocks crowing, because we really were in the Clarksburg of Japan. Unlike rural China, it was clean and neat and not at all poor, so it was pleasant, (a very respectable 70 something degrees in the daytime and a cool fifty something at night) though not what I was expecting. We didn't go to Tokyo after all, which really pissed me off, because I still felt that we should've gone during the night. While I was in the bathroom, my mom turned down an offer to take a taxi to the nearest shopping mall, which missed me off more, and when we went out to take another stroll in the countryside, it started raining, which pissed me off extremely.
Which was about time we took the early bus to the airport, and since there was daylight we could actually see outside the windows now. We got bowed at by immaculately uniformed baggage handlers, security guards and porters, which left me feeling extremely weird because they're all middle-aged men; it feels that I as the 18 year old girl should be bowing to them, and even so the whole bowing thing is just weird. And did some airport shopping and whatnot. I was vastly amused that there was a Mitsukoshi store in the airport, because there's one in Hong Kong also; I picked up some Mitsukoshi business cards relating the locations of stores around the world. There are three in Germany; Frankfurt, Munchen, and Dusseldorf, two in Rome, one in Paris, one in London, one in Hong Kong, one in Shanghai, and several others. It's quite sad that I've memorized this. Bought some souvenirs (I was reminded of what Joanne said to me at Hong Kong International as I was leaving; airport souvenirs solely exist for when tourists desperately need to buy gifts but hadn't bought them yet upon leaving). I was amused that for sale there was a sushi cup exactly like the one T bought for my birthday a while back. Then we left.
I'd been getting used to listening to Japanese too. Korean airlines; it's a bit annoying to have flight attendants address you in Korean constantly, but I don't suppose they can be expected to remember what languages all of their passengers speak.
Los Angelos was the shits compared to Japan. Flight to Memphis, then to DC.
I was wondering perhaps if it wouldn't have been better to have stayed in Hong Kong for an additional day rather than put up with having to wait for five hours in Hong Kong's airport, and going through bureaucracy in re-arranging connecting flights from Tokyo, and going through customs and security in Japan, and getting our luggage from Tokyo Narita airport to the hotel, and getting the luggage from the hotel to the airport the next morning, and then having to change flights at LA and then Memphis, whereas originally it would've just been Detroit. But apparently Hong Kong was hit with a level 8 typhoon the day after we left so we can consider ourselves lucky that we got out at all. My cousins had been complaining of only getting a level 1 typhoon; apparently all good schoolchildren the world round hope for inclement weather.
But I'm back. I've received a letter from Andrew D at boy scout camp and Doug thanking me for helping him on his Eagle Project. It makes me so happy. I've got mail! Real honest to god mail, written on real honest to god paper with real honest to god pen! Not e-mail! Not IM! Not ICQ, not phone, but real fuckin' mail!
I'll write back right away.
And you thought that our wired generation was less appreciative of these things.
Saturday, July 19, 2003
I Feed Dead People
Went to Macau for two days and a night, where entrance into the city from the port terminal requires all disembarking passengers' temperatures to be taken by a sophisticated infrared scanner. As the scanner bobbed up and down the queue like a nodding head I saw peoples' blue and blobby infrared selves broadcast on a screen. Did not have a fever, obviously. Was closeted in a hotel that resembled a sunken ship, the designer's idea of style being grey marble and ivy everywhere, with my room being alongside a sharply triangular atrium that reminds me of being inside a ship's prow. The rest of Macau, however, was very sunny and Mediterranean.
I went with my mom, grandma, aunt and uncle to several Chinese temples, one dating from the 13th century, partly for sightseeing and partly for paying our respects to the dead. I marveled at how even indoors everything seemed so outdoors; almost every single room lead into some garden, courtyard, or portico, so that at least one side of each room seemed exposed to the open air. We went to a wall lined with the names and photos of the deceased and left oranges and a cake for my (other) uncle to eat in the afterlife, and burned gold and silver foil for him to use as money. It was a shock to see his photo since I'd expected him to be older. My mom told me the story of his death when I was very little and teenagerdom seemed the pinnacle of maturity; I had formed a mental image of a young man in his late teens, tall and strong and unaware of the cancer eating at him, but in the photo he is younger than thirteen (his age of death my mom says though my aunt says fourteen), and looks only like a grave and somber boy. Afterwards my grandma told me to eat the cake, taking the very prosaic attitude that cakes left at temple are left for someone to eat anyways, so it might as well be me, but something flashed through my head impulsively and perhaps not very rationally. I did not want my grandmother to watch her spoiled granddaughter eating a physical cake in the place of the wispy shade of her son eating a wispy ghost cake (in my imagination he is superimposed over me like a photo that's been double-exposed) and wondering how it came about in such a bitter turn of fate that this wretched girl of 18 should live while her boy of thirteen-fourteen had to die. Neither he nor I have done anything to deserve our respective fates. Towards the end of this train of thought I was not seeing it as my grandmother would see me but how I would see myself. I did eat one of the consecrated oranges, however, since my family was eating the other oranges, and had no hands remaining to hold the last one. I talked to my mom about this later; she said that the spirits are only meant to eat metaphysically and that eating their offerings physically is okay. Apparently the clementines left for my father's deceased parents at home only sit and rot because we forget to remove them.
We also went to see the facade of a 17th century church (the rest had burned down) and looked through catacombs and Catholic relics, but it was creepy. St. Francis of Assisi is for some reason associated with skulls; his statues always bear one. My cousin Lydia, who is a devout Baptist, told me that she finds Catholicism grossly tacky to the point of being occult-like. She asked me later (using as an example the decor of another church we were in at the time, this one intact) why Mary was mounted on the throne of God instead of Jesus, and I couldn't answer her except to say that historically speaking at least she's not the only non-Catholic Christian to voice that complaint. Some museum-going as well, where I faked being able to speak Portuguese because I'm one of the few Asians in Asia who can fake a relatively decent Latin accent. Discovered that the Chinese had invented something called a two-piston bellows, an ingenious double-chambered device for fanning forge flames. (Alliteration!) While air is being forced out of one chamber into the fire, the other chamber is expanding, (like a piston; hence the name) so that both pushing AND pulling on the handle will force air into the fire. I wish I could describe it better. It is cool.
In the rest of Macau, the buildings are shorter than in Hong Kong, with the famous Portuguese ironwork, colonial-style Catholic churches, Spanish stairs, narrow cobblestone streets, red-roofed villas and broad avenues with a line of trees running down the middle of the road, so the area feels more open in general. I went to a black-sand beach at sunset, where the sand is so soft I barely left footsteps in it, the total antithesis of Hong Kong Victoria Park's "foot massage garden," where you step gingerly along painfully pebbly paths. We went to Fortress Hill, which my mom onced climbed when she was little, spraining her ankle in the process. We took a cable car up it and went to see the fortress which was once patroled by Negro guards whose (supposedly) fearsome appearance dissuaded schoolchildren from playing there. The guards are gone, but cannons poking out of their embrasures in all directions still remain. There are streets with balconied two-storey buildings, all lined with shops that sell exactly the same thing; crumb cakes, eggrolls, and beef jerky. Competition was fierce. The stores rained free samples. You could see batter being poured onto griddles and being folded into eggrolls, and flour being pounded into molds, so you knew samples were being made right before you ate them. They're best that way.
The payoff for this is of course that there are not spectacular skyscrapers so the night view is not as nice, except for the single Macau Tower, which I went to. I went to the 58th floor observation deck and stood on a glass floor with nothing between me and concrete and ocean 600 feet below, except a few inches of glass. This is as creepy as it sounds and you have to fight your physiology to get onto the glass; sweat, terror, and every fiber of your being wanting to bolt. I walked from the central platform where the elevators are, to the glass, and could only get myself to cross the glass by walking along the metal frames that grid the floor like large sidewalk cracks. After crossing the glass moat, I clung to a column beside the normal, vertical windows. I think everyone who went there for the first time had that reaction. Fish, who is taking Psychology, (taking, not took- the Hong Kong school year is extended until the beginning of August due to their month-long SARS holiday) said that he discovered a new-found appreciation for babies forced to crawl over a "visual cliff." It's worth noting that on the glass floor of the Macau Tower observation deck, in an unintentional recreation of the visual cliff experiment, a little toddler began crying, much to the amusement of his parents, and could not be cajoled into being into a position over the glass, even with his dad holding him in his arms.
I discovered that it becomes much less frightening the more you get used to it. I planted myself at first firmly on the middle of a pane, and made myself look down and relax, and then began pacing the glass floor steadily, back and forth. I started jumping up and down. (The reason for the walking and jumping is that any sort of movement is creepier than just standing; additionally, the tremors in the glass caused by jumping lend an additional aspect of terror). I took off my shoes and paced the floor (surprisingly, it's actually creepier with shoes off, as if having soles between your feet and 600 feet of thin air was any protection), and then began jumping onto the windows from the opaque stairs leading down onto the glass floor, which initially was very alarming because for a few seconds you really do feel as if you've jumped out a 60th storey window, until you land quite solidly just a few inches below. Finally the view directly below me did not seem life-threatening but was emotionally sterile, like any other view from a safe height, like an airplane or a hill or the balcony of a building. I'm quite proud of myself for doing this. I imagine that the only person less frightened by those windows than me is the fellow who has to wipe them off with windex everyday.
Signs are in Portuguese and Chinese; I have an incomplete knowledge of both but between my bits of Chinese and bits of Spanish (which Portuguese is like), I can figure things out. Policia= police, igresa= iglesia= church, saida= salida= exit, turismo= tourist information, etc. Portuguese food is... interesting.
I also went into a casino, but it was very smokey and crowded and looked dumb. I thought it would be more glamorous; at least if you're going to be addicted to a sin, find one that's not retarded.
My mom was disappointed with Macau though; things have changed since she grew up there. Now she is confused from seeing it all again, and has a difficult time distinguishing modern Macau from her old memories, and says it was better remembered than reseen.
Went to Macau for two days and a night, where entrance into the city from the port terminal requires all disembarking passengers' temperatures to be taken by a sophisticated infrared scanner. As the scanner bobbed up and down the queue like a nodding head I saw peoples' blue and blobby infrared selves broadcast on a screen. Did not have a fever, obviously. Was closeted in a hotel that resembled a sunken ship, the designer's idea of style being grey marble and ivy everywhere, with my room being alongside a sharply triangular atrium that reminds me of being inside a ship's prow. The rest of Macau, however, was very sunny and Mediterranean.
I went with my mom, grandma, aunt and uncle to several Chinese temples, one dating from the 13th century, partly for sightseeing and partly for paying our respects to the dead. I marveled at how even indoors everything seemed so outdoors; almost every single room lead into some garden, courtyard, or portico, so that at least one side of each room seemed exposed to the open air. We went to a wall lined with the names and photos of the deceased and left oranges and a cake for my (other) uncle to eat in the afterlife, and burned gold and silver foil for him to use as money. It was a shock to see his photo since I'd expected him to be older. My mom told me the story of his death when I was very little and teenagerdom seemed the pinnacle of maturity; I had formed a mental image of a young man in his late teens, tall and strong and unaware of the cancer eating at him, but in the photo he is younger than thirteen (his age of death my mom says though my aunt says fourteen), and looks only like a grave and somber boy. Afterwards my grandma told me to eat the cake, taking the very prosaic attitude that cakes left at temple are left for someone to eat anyways, so it might as well be me, but something flashed through my head impulsively and perhaps not very rationally. I did not want my grandmother to watch her spoiled granddaughter eating a physical cake in the place of the wispy shade of her son eating a wispy ghost cake (in my imagination he is superimposed over me like a photo that's been double-exposed) and wondering how it came about in such a bitter turn of fate that this wretched girl of 18 should live while her boy of thirteen-fourteen had to die. Neither he nor I have done anything to deserve our respective fates. Towards the end of this train of thought I was not seeing it as my grandmother would see me but how I would see myself. I did eat one of the consecrated oranges, however, since my family was eating the other oranges, and had no hands remaining to hold the last one. I talked to my mom about this later; she said that the spirits are only meant to eat metaphysically and that eating their offerings physically is okay. Apparently the clementines left for my father's deceased parents at home only sit and rot because we forget to remove them.
We also went to see the facade of a 17th century church (the rest had burned down) and looked through catacombs and Catholic relics, but it was creepy. St. Francis of Assisi is for some reason associated with skulls; his statues always bear one. My cousin Lydia, who is a devout Baptist, told me that she finds Catholicism grossly tacky to the point of being occult-like. She asked me later (using as an example the decor of another church we were in at the time, this one intact) why Mary was mounted on the throne of God instead of Jesus, and I couldn't answer her except to say that historically speaking at least she's not the only non-Catholic Christian to voice that complaint. Some museum-going as well, where I faked being able to speak Portuguese because I'm one of the few Asians in Asia who can fake a relatively decent Latin accent. Discovered that the Chinese had invented something called a two-piston bellows, an ingenious double-chambered device for fanning forge flames. (Alliteration!) While air is being forced out of one chamber into the fire, the other chamber is expanding, (like a piston; hence the name) so that both pushing AND pulling on the handle will force air into the fire. I wish I could describe it better. It is cool.
In the rest of Macau, the buildings are shorter than in Hong Kong, with the famous Portuguese ironwork, colonial-style Catholic churches, Spanish stairs, narrow cobblestone streets, red-roofed villas and broad avenues with a line of trees running down the middle of the road, so the area feels more open in general. I went to a black-sand beach at sunset, where the sand is so soft I barely left footsteps in it, the total antithesis of Hong Kong Victoria Park's "foot massage garden," where you step gingerly along painfully pebbly paths. We went to Fortress Hill, which my mom onced climbed when she was little, spraining her ankle in the process. We took a cable car up it and went to see the fortress which was once patroled by Negro guards whose (supposedly) fearsome appearance dissuaded schoolchildren from playing there. The guards are gone, but cannons poking out of their embrasures in all directions still remain. There are streets with balconied two-storey buildings, all lined with shops that sell exactly the same thing; crumb cakes, eggrolls, and beef jerky. Competition was fierce. The stores rained free samples. You could see batter being poured onto griddles and being folded into eggrolls, and flour being pounded into molds, so you knew samples were being made right before you ate them. They're best that way.
The payoff for this is of course that there are not spectacular skyscrapers so the night view is not as nice, except for the single Macau Tower, which I went to. I went to the 58th floor observation deck and stood on a glass floor with nothing between me and concrete and ocean 600 feet below, except a few inches of glass. This is as creepy as it sounds and you have to fight your physiology to get onto the glass; sweat, terror, and every fiber of your being wanting to bolt. I walked from the central platform where the elevators are, to the glass, and could only get myself to cross the glass by walking along the metal frames that grid the floor like large sidewalk cracks. After crossing the glass moat, I clung to a column beside the normal, vertical windows. I think everyone who went there for the first time had that reaction. Fish, who is taking Psychology, (taking, not took- the Hong Kong school year is extended until the beginning of August due to their month-long SARS holiday) said that he discovered a new-found appreciation for babies forced to crawl over a "visual cliff." It's worth noting that on the glass floor of the Macau Tower observation deck, in an unintentional recreation of the visual cliff experiment, a little toddler began crying, much to the amusement of his parents, and could not be cajoled into being into a position over the glass, even with his dad holding him in his arms.
I discovered that it becomes much less frightening the more you get used to it. I planted myself at first firmly on the middle of a pane, and made myself look down and relax, and then began pacing the glass floor steadily, back and forth. I started jumping up and down. (The reason for the walking and jumping is that any sort of movement is creepier than just standing; additionally, the tremors in the glass caused by jumping lend an additional aspect of terror). I took off my shoes and paced the floor (surprisingly, it's actually creepier with shoes off, as if having soles between your feet and 600 feet of thin air was any protection), and then began jumping onto the windows from the opaque stairs leading down onto the glass floor, which initially was very alarming because for a few seconds you really do feel as if you've jumped out a 60th storey window, until you land quite solidly just a few inches below. Finally the view directly below me did not seem life-threatening but was emotionally sterile, like any other view from a safe height, like an airplane or a hill or the balcony of a building. I'm quite proud of myself for doing this. I imagine that the only person less frightened by those windows than me is the fellow who has to wipe them off with windex everyday.
Signs are in Portuguese and Chinese; I have an incomplete knowledge of both but between my bits of Chinese and bits of Spanish (which Portuguese is like), I can figure things out. Policia= police, igresa= iglesia= church, saida= salida= exit, turismo= tourist information, etc. Portuguese food is... interesting.
I also went into a casino, but it was very smokey and crowded and looked dumb. I thought it would be more glamorous; at least if you're going to be addicted to a sin, find one that's not retarded.
My mom was disappointed with Macau though; things have changed since she grew up there. Now she is confused from seeing it all again, and has a difficult time distinguishing modern Macau from her old memories, and says it was better remembered than reseen.
Saturday, July 05, 2003
My cousin Fish plays Return to Castle Wolfenstein and all sorts of FPSes. I managed to convince him that Heinrich Himmler was indeed a real person, and not a creation of computer game designers. Such is the problem of pulp fiction action hero/villain Nazis. Real history is so easily forgotten.
Fish finds me sadistic for this, but being tortured by lightning-wielding silly-German-accent mad scientist zombie Nazis in a torch-lit gothic dungeon is pretty damn funny. The caged skeletons dangling from the ceiling by rusty chains are the icing on the cake. Camp at its finest hour.
I also play Warcraft III- Fish wonders whether the people have British or American accents. The answer to that is they speak in a dialect of English known as Campy Fantasy Film English. I'm sure a true linguist can look into this. Fish also says that Arthas the paladin is comparable to Bush in his warlike righteousness; we had a good laugh mentally imposing Arthas' forthright knightly dialogue on Bush's simian head; "I stand for the light!" "Feel my wrath!" "Slay them all!" 'For honor!" "Betrayers of the light!" "I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth!!! Do you hear me?!!" I'm afraid this is only funny if you say the above in a grim and determined manner, setting your jaw just so.
Have also done lots of mountain hiking so it's not like I never go outside. I'm outside quite often. Kinda tropical. There's a type of fern that curls up when you touch it, and stairs carved into the rock and tumbled rockfaces and waterfalls that trickle over them (but they look dirty) and small orange crabs bright enough to appear cooked that scuttle away with amazing dexterity when you (unwisely) poke them with a toe. The good thing is that you can see very far into the mountains that fold in a green felty fashion like a giant's cloak in the foreground. It's easy, in the shadow of a mountain, to misjudge distances, until you see tiny white blots that are apartment buildings on the adjacent mountain's rocky spine, and you realize that walking from point A to point B would be the fruitful work of several days. You can see into the densely populated valley with its concrete forest of buildings, and saddles of mountains and the sea between mountain gaps, until the mountains fade into a universally flat haze in the blue distance against the horizon.
It's very strange how halfway around the world the rustling murmur of cicadas and the warm smell of suntan lotion can make it feel so much like home.
Fish finds me sadistic for this, but being tortured by lightning-wielding silly-German-accent mad scientist zombie Nazis in a torch-lit gothic dungeon is pretty damn funny. The caged skeletons dangling from the ceiling by rusty chains are the icing on the cake. Camp at its finest hour.
I also play Warcraft III- Fish wonders whether the people have British or American accents. The answer to that is they speak in a dialect of English known as Campy Fantasy Film English. I'm sure a true linguist can look into this. Fish also says that Arthas the paladin is comparable to Bush in his warlike righteousness; we had a good laugh mentally imposing Arthas' forthright knightly dialogue on Bush's simian head; "I stand for the light!" "Feel my wrath!" "Slay them all!" 'For honor!" "Betrayers of the light!" "I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth!!! Do you hear me?!!" I'm afraid this is only funny if you say the above in a grim and determined manner, setting your jaw just so.
Have also done lots of mountain hiking so it's not like I never go outside. I'm outside quite often. Kinda tropical. There's a type of fern that curls up when you touch it, and stairs carved into the rock and tumbled rockfaces and waterfalls that trickle over them (but they look dirty) and small orange crabs bright enough to appear cooked that scuttle away with amazing dexterity when you (unwisely) poke them with a toe. The good thing is that you can see very far into the mountains that fold in a green felty fashion like a giant's cloak in the foreground. It's easy, in the shadow of a mountain, to misjudge distances, until you see tiny white blots that are apartment buildings on the adjacent mountain's rocky spine, and you realize that walking from point A to point B would be the fruitful work of several days. You can see into the densely populated valley with its concrete forest of buildings, and saddles of mountains and the sea between mountain gaps, until the mountains fade into a universally flat haze in the blue distance against the horizon.
It's very strange how halfway around the world the rustling murmur of cicadas and the warm smell of suntan lotion can make it feel so much like home.
On July 1st, 2003, 500,000 residents of Hong Kong took to the streets to protest Article 23, a lovely piece of legislation wherein the Chinese government can ban or arrest any organization it considers to be a "threat to national security." In a city with little history of civil disobedience and little history of democracy, one fourteenth of the population turned out to defend its freedom of assembly based on something one small human rights organization circulated online. If something like that happened in the States, (even where people seem to protest or rally at the drop of a hat) something would REALLY happen! I don't know what you saw in the press; I have NO idea what kind of "foreign" news makes American news these days, but the streets were filled as far as you could see from one horizon to another, spilling over with people even in aerial shots, like Times Square on New Years Eve- the air was excited and electrified, almost festive, like though that's trivializing it, because something very important was happening, and people were part of something big, and doing something that mattered. Most of my family went (both my uncles, my aunt, and all four of my cousins), though I didn't; I kind of regret not participating in what is now a part of history; my cousin Joanne and her friends, in a Where's Waldo fashion, can be found in a crowd photo on the 2nd page of "The Apple" newspaper, which she's saved for posterity. She's now a part of documented history.
On July the second, looking at the sickle moon over a neon night, the city and harbor felt very much alive. It- the crowd moving and alive splashed across the tv and papers captioned in big lightning characters reading "Against 23!" and "To the Streets!" and "Hong Kong Lives Forever!"- was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a long while. Perhaps there is hope for this century after all.
Unrelated and Interesting Tidbit: Omnipresent in public places are a bunch of hand sanitizing boxes, like electric blow dryers you see in public bathrooms. You stick your hands under the motion detector and a little mist of antibacterial wash sprays bout. The bottled variety is also popular. Ah, zeitgeist of the times.
On July the second, looking at the sickle moon over a neon night, the city and harbor felt very much alive. It- the crowd moving and alive splashed across the tv and papers captioned in big lightning characters reading "Against 23!" and "To the Streets!" and "Hong Kong Lives Forever!"- was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a long while. Perhaps there is hope for this century after all.
Unrelated and Interesting Tidbit: Omnipresent in public places are a bunch of hand sanitizing boxes, like electric blow dryers you see in public bathrooms. You stick your hands under the motion detector and a little mist of antibacterial wash sprays bout. The bottled variety is also popular. Ah, zeitgeist of the times.
Monday, June 30, 2003
I heard that Strom Thurmond kicked the bucket. Poor Andrew D; now he has nothing to joke about.
Labels:
Strom Thurmond
I am in Hong Kong. The weather is actually good for a change, meaning that it's cool and breezy. Took a walk in Victoria Park, which has finished renovation and is greatly improved. Have gone mountain hiking. Take that, Malex! Wyoming my ass. Except that it's raining right now, but that's beside the point.
Kinda boring, but that's what you get for living with old people who do nothing but watch crappy Chinese tv.
My grandma is not biting my head off this year which could mean one of several things. One, that she's going senile. Two, that I'm not as obnoxious a brat as I was last year. Three, that losing twenty pounds does affect how people treat you.
People still wear SARS masks, but not as much. In airports. Also, mostly restaurant workers and sanitation workers. Saw a t-shirt, which I did not buy but still thought funny, of Mao in a SARS mask.
Have problems sleeping the entire night, but that's to be expected.
Kinda boring, but that's what you get for living with old people who do nothing but watch crappy Chinese tv.
My grandma is not biting my head off this year which could mean one of several things. One, that she's going senile. Two, that I'm not as obnoxious a brat as I was last year. Three, that losing twenty pounds does affect how people treat you.
People still wear SARS masks, but not as much. In airports. Also, mostly restaurant workers and sanitation workers. Saw a t-shirt, which I did not buy but still thought funny, of Mao in a SARS mask.
Have problems sleeping the entire night, but that's to be expected.
Labels:
Hong Kong,
SARS,
Victoria Park,
walk
Friday, June 27, 2003
Angie's Journals From Greece
This week, went to Orientation and registered for classes, which include good o'l Archaeology 100. Because I'm going to Hong Kong tomorrow, leaving you all three weeks without me, to fill that gaping void in your soul, here are my journal entries for my trip to Greece in 10th grade. I know it's long, but you have 21 days to read it, so I don't feel sorry for you. Oh, also. These were written before I began blogging, and are written on paper, and so are unedited and contain traces of my 10th-grade self, such as usage of the word "Woo!" I wish I'd been more descriptive, but I didn't have a lot of writing time and that's what photos are for.
April 8
Sabena sucks. The airline food reminds me of Cloud's quote, "I've eaten better dog food." I've never eaten dog food, but I suspect it would taste better. I'm dry puking. Nick says the correct term is dry heaving. Technicalities.
Belgians are nice. What does Flemish sound like? Brussels airport looks so much like the US it's creepy. It's like we never left. Rain and everything. Some parts look like Tokyo Narita. Some guy passing mumbled "Crazy American students." Nick & Rob are complaining about tobacco smoke. I didn't notice it. I found "Peeing Boy" merchandise. Joy. I'll buy some when I get back. More English here than in DC! Some French.
About airline food: apparently, Sabena is the trans-Atlantic airline that spends the least on food. It shows.
April 9
In Athens airport. Rainy. Again. As if we never left, but this is definitely Greece. Half of the words are in Greek, but the illiteracy isn't as bad as I expected, like in Hong Kong where I can speak fluently but not read at all. I managed to read "Exodus," gate. The landing was nice, even w/ rain. The guidebook said it rarely rains in Athens, but that's too stupid to believe. At first the islands rolled out of the cloud bank, green and rocky, like Hong Kong only I usually land in Hong Kong at night. Then the plane banked and you could see the mainland stretching out over the horizon with green and beaches and mountains. If only it weren't raining! There was an interesting effect with droplets flying across the window. I've seen it in cars, but not on planes.
We flew over the Alps, and over Venice. It was sunny. The Alps were really pretty, since you could see layers of clouds beneath, like frost over clear ice. And you could see winding rivers and valleys, not just monotonous snowy peaks. W/ the Greek view, you could see waves on the water, and red roofed houses, and shrubs and turqoise swimming pools, and ships sailing. You can't see pollution or poverty yet, though there's a hint of it as we descend, with murky green in the water and crummy houses. Then again, if you live next to an airport your house probably will be crummy.
Our luggage isn't coming and security wouldn't let us go to the bathroom. What sort of place am I in? Not exactly post card. Ooh. I got me some shiny drachmas with some guy on them. Woo.
The Greek they speak here sounds odd. If it weren't for the Greeks speaking it, I wouldn't know it was Greek.
The airport is all blue and white in the receiving area, but significantly friendlier later. And smoke-filled. Naturally.
Athens. Nice place. I'm surprised I don't have culture shock yet, though it's so different, it seems perfectly normal. Plants are Hong Kongy, houses are European and vertical. I think a reason I don't have culture shock is because the streets are wide enough to drive through. Some of the poorer places have random piles of trash lying about. The grafitti artists are quite skilled. There's a lot more color in Athens than American cities.
Athens metro and Syntagma Square. The Metro is an archaeological place too. It's the cleanest Metro I've ever seen.
We saw the changing of the guard in Syntagma. Poms squad.
In Plaka, we got chased around by a large band of stray dogs which would get driven off by storeowners slapping things together and yelling in Greek. They started attacking motorcycles and taxis and things. (Present day Angie's note: The dogs were attacking, not the storeowners) I didn't get a great view of the Acropolis, but I did see the Tower of Winds. The walking tour is tomorrow.
April 10 (Current day Angie's note: I stopped dating my journal entries here, using only a squiggly line to seperate each day's entry. However, I will continue to note the date in the blog, for your convenience.)
Bus tour, actually. We went to the Acropolis. Sunny, finally. Absolutely gorgeous. I really hate these journals though; it feels like I'm taking inventory. The view from the Acropolis is amazing; you can see the city stretch out for miles. And finally went shopping at Plaka & saw Syntagma in the daytime. Athens is growing on me, and begins to look less like Hong Kong. Went, after a long bus ride, to Cape Siounion, with the Temple of Poseidon. Drove along the sea, and it was incredibly pretty. The view from the temple was awesome, with dramatic cliffs and the ocean all around, and wildflowers. At the hotel, our neighbors introduced themselves. They're a bunch of British boys who like throwing oranges out the windows and burning deoderant. I went to Plaka to go shopping at night, so I couldn't join in the orange throwing, but I heard that we got some good stains in the alley. Night shopping was fun, but I killed my feet. Amy & Debbs spent all night talking to Tom on the balcony; they said it was too crowded for me too. I did not sleep. The Italians across the hall are too loud.
April 11
Windy windy windy. It's the island cruise, though really, it's more of a glorified ferry service. It's very windy on the "sun deck", they ought to call it a wind deck. It feels like I'm flying, and seagulls swoop and race the ship. Took a cold hour to reach Aegina; I can't believe such a booming town only has 3000 people. I took the bus tour to the temple of Atreya. Aegina is very pretty, like a springtime suburban Athens with mountains and valleys. The view from the temple was nice too, in a different way; I think all the temple views are nice anyhow. And I saw the church, where I bought the famed pistachios.
Okay. So Aegina has 10,000 people and Hydra has 3000. It's a tiny town tucked in a cove. There are no cars. I took a donkey ride for 1000 drachmas and nearly got a leg cramp. The donkey driver would occassionally wave to random people knew, like a Greek equivalent of "Wassup, my homie G?" I suppose in such a small town, everyone knows each other. I also suppose his Greek isn't really Athenian Greek but whatever. We went into the upper residential areas, which were much quieter than the portside tourist shops. He didn't know a lot of English. Maybe like "1000 drachma," "Hydra good, yes?" "This donkey, not horse," "you like donkey?" and "No problem."
(sketches on next page, labeled 'Greek building foundation' and 'tree')
The shopping is great.
Poros. Spent 20 minutes there. Should've went to the clock tower, but didn't.
There was bozouki on the ship later. I got dragged into it. It was scary.
April 12
Village of Arkhova before Delphi. (written in Greek letters) Two hour ride to Delphi. It was mountainous, but the view into the valley was great. I'm getting apathetic of tourist sites, and have stopped taking pictures. Arkhova, ski resort. Very European. The lanscape is different here in Greece. It's greener, and the mountains are rockier. In the US the mountains have dark green trees, and fields of wheat and corn and wooden barns and silos, maybe a corall with horses and cow. Here, it's cypress trees, olive groves, silvery gray, and pens of goats and sheep. There don't seem to be suburbs, just towns of differing size and density. Ferry over Straight of Corinth. Patras is a suburb. It was raining cats & dogs so we couldn't go to the beach. The coastal road was pretty but inefficient. Mt. Parnassis was snow capped. Patras is so pretty in the morning after the storm when the sea shallows aren't brown.
I spent the rainy night watching Greek soap operas, news, and religious stuff. Plus jumping at people exploding firecrackers.
April 13
(Greek letters, with the caption of 'random Olympian street signs' and 'part of inscription at Olympia, too lazy to write it all down.' sketch, caption: 'roadside memorial photos inside, sometimes made to look like Byzantine churches.')
Friday
Olympia. Seems that bagel cookies are popular in the region. The mountainous area looks more like the US. There are pines and broadleaf trees now. There were many memorials to people killed on the road alongside, it was a bit disturbing. Olympia was yet another archaeological site. The trees and flowers were very pretty, but the other temples I've seen were more impressive. Yay, food. I had eggplant. I can feel myself getting fat.
Tolos: passing near Sparta with very awesome dramatic mountains. Almost like pictures of Switzerland. Nick says there was communist grafitti all around, KKE; I didn't see it. There's nothing green and pretty about it. Saw a lot of goats & sheep, and some chickens too. The houses aren't as square. They have red tile roofs.
Tolos is a normal Greek town. The hotel is nice. Some frescoes, and you can see everyone from the balconies. No shower curtains. Good Friday, at night people went around with lit candles, and you could hear services from afar. And tons of firecrackers going off.
I didn't go to the disco, I went to the beach. It was dark and gravelly and hurt my bare feet, so I got my sandals sandy. It was mostly dark over the water except a mountain randomly glowing green in it. The water was clear and cold, no tides as usually. I'm glad I had my stupid flashlight, which illuminated about as much as a lit Good Friday candle. No one had a flash camera, but I tried to take pictures anyway.
Went back up; Nick and Renwa called home from a payphone, and we all went in an internet cafe to use email. 450 drachma. Thinking of Vassilis. Passed "The Gorilla", the disco. It looked pretty dumb, with Europop, a bar, and ppl getting drunk off their asses. I'm glad I didn't go, but I'll have to ask people how it was. Nick finally bought a souvenier. Some metal relief thing, of the Parthenon whole, and colored. About time he buys something.
April 14
Saturday
Super Saturday, or whatever. Left beautiful Hotel Epidauria, the beach (which we can't go to) looks very pretty during the day. The whole "two days at the beach" thing was really misleading. Went on to the theater of Epidaurus, yet another happy archaeological site. Stood around on the top row of seats like a total idiot staring at scenery while some tourists below were singing "Lean On Me". Went back to Tolo to pick up forgotten passports. It was interesting to see Tolo in daylight. Then doubled over to Mycenae, lion gated Mycenae of Agammemnon.
Mycenae had the most beautiful view ever. It was not a temple, but a well preserved fortress on top of a hill. You could see for miles around, and at one corner the walls just dropped down into a valley. The rocks were slippery, and it was windy with wildflowers. Then we went to the beehive dome of Agammemnon, where I forgot my camera. It was like a giant stone igloo, and smelled like something had died in there. There was a smaller, darker room we weren't allowed to go in, with a danger sign. We could see it with a flash camera.
Corinth canal. We passed the Acrocorinth to see it. Acrocorinth is a lot higher than the Acropolis and is very impressive looking. The Corinth Canal is a lot deeper than you'd think it would be, at sea level, and goes for four miles. The vertical drop is a bit freaky.
Fireworks. Holy crap, they've been scaring me. Candle light service was more like walking through a bomb field. Little boys would set firecrackers off in the public park, throwing them in bushes and things. They'd glow like embers for several seconds and explode in a flash and a bang. There were sparklers, and sky-launched ones that made a high whistling sound. People would go around with candles that'd blow out in the breeze, and random people would ask us for lights. One woman asked Rob;
Are you tourists?
Yes
Are you Greek?
No.
Are you Greek Orthodox?
No.
What are you then?
Assorted Christians.
*Pause.*
God be with you.
At 12 every church bell in Athens started tolling and people were setting off firecrackers like Dooms day. I suspect Athens Fire Department has one hell of a time every Easter.
April 15
Easter Sunday
I still have red Easter egg dye on my hands. I hope this doesn't symbolized the blood of Christ, or else I'd be disturbed. It's washed off a bit, so now I'm rosy fingered. Everything is closed. Wed took the bus to Syntagma and went up some hill by tram. It was windy, and you could see the Acropolis from the top, and from the 100 drachma pay telescope. There was a church on top, like in defiance of the Parthenon lower down.
(Chinese characters meaning: Big Earth Flower Bloom
Made in Hunan China
Fireworks in 03
BE 62150
Caution
Spins on ground emits flame and sparks
use only under close adult supervision. For outdoor use only. Place on hard flat surface. Do not hold in hand. Light fuse & get away.)
Spent the afternoon walking around at Plaka. McDonalds was open and I had spring rolls. It must be horrible working there, having to speak all sorts of languages and deal with tourists who have no change. Plaka was almost all closed except some tourist shops and jewellry shops, so we went around the agora, and residential areas, tavernas roasting lamb, and lively open parts of Plaka. My last daytime view of Athens.
The alternative evening was just scary. Basically "all the tourists you can cram in one taverna." It really was a fire hazard. Really longass tables and stuff. Scott got pulled up to belly dance, Nick got pulled up to do the drinking dance, which is pretty much how it sounds.
JEFF GOT LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM.
Dammit. Okay. Now Jeff can stop bugging me about putting that in my journal. The knob came off and he started ramming the door until Jane came to save him. Mrs. Bryant got to kiss one of the Bozouki guys.
April 16
Monday
Drove through Athens, for the last time. Sims' alarm clock fell on the floor and we never got a wake up call, so we ended up waking up to Nick banging on the door at 3:10 in the morning. The power went out repeatedly, causing our lights to go out and the elevators to fail. Greek elevators have no doors, by the way. We had to drag our luggage down five flights of stairs. And now we've been waiting for an hour in line for the check in.
Okay. No one expects a two-week old airport to function smoothly the wee hours after Easter, but you'd think it'd be more efficient. As in, not jogging/running through an empty airport to the gate.
This week, went to Orientation and registered for classes, which include good o'l Archaeology 100. Because I'm going to Hong Kong tomorrow, leaving you all three weeks without me, to fill that gaping void in your soul, here are my journal entries for my trip to Greece in 10th grade. I know it's long, but you have 21 days to read it, so I don't feel sorry for you. Oh, also. These were written before I began blogging, and are written on paper, and so are unedited and contain traces of my 10th-grade self, such as usage of the word "Woo!" I wish I'd been more descriptive, but I didn't have a lot of writing time and that's what photos are for.
April 8
Sabena sucks. The airline food reminds me of Cloud's quote, "I've eaten better dog food." I've never eaten dog food, but I suspect it would taste better. I'm dry puking. Nick says the correct term is dry heaving. Technicalities.
Belgians are nice. What does Flemish sound like? Brussels airport looks so much like the US it's creepy. It's like we never left. Rain and everything. Some parts look like Tokyo Narita. Some guy passing mumbled "Crazy American students." Nick & Rob are complaining about tobacco smoke. I didn't notice it. I found "Peeing Boy" merchandise. Joy. I'll buy some when I get back. More English here than in DC! Some French.
About airline food: apparently, Sabena is the trans-Atlantic airline that spends the least on food. It shows.
April 9
In Athens airport. Rainy. Again. As if we never left, but this is definitely Greece. Half of the words are in Greek, but the illiteracy isn't as bad as I expected, like in Hong Kong where I can speak fluently but not read at all. I managed to read "Exodus," gate. The landing was nice, even w/ rain. The guidebook said it rarely rains in Athens, but that's too stupid to believe. At first the islands rolled out of the cloud bank, green and rocky, like Hong Kong only I usually land in Hong Kong at night. Then the plane banked and you could see the mainland stretching out over the horizon with green and beaches and mountains. If only it weren't raining! There was an interesting effect with droplets flying across the window. I've seen it in cars, but not on planes.
We flew over the Alps, and over Venice. It was sunny. The Alps were really pretty, since you could see layers of clouds beneath, like frost over clear ice. And you could see winding rivers and valleys, not just monotonous snowy peaks. W/ the Greek view, you could see waves on the water, and red roofed houses, and shrubs and turqoise swimming pools, and ships sailing. You can't see pollution or poverty yet, though there's a hint of it as we descend, with murky green in the water and crummy houses. Then again, if you live next to an airport your house probably will be crummy.
Our luggage isn't coming and security wouldn't let us go to the bathroom. What sort of place am I in? Not exactly post card. Ooh. I got me some shiny drachmas with some guy on them. Woo.
The Greek they speak here sounds odd. If it weren't for the Greeks speaking it, I wouldn't know it was Greek.
The airport is all blue and white in the receiving area, but significantly friendlier later. And smoke-filled. Naturally.
Athens. Nice place. I'm surprised I don't have culture shock yet, though it's so different, it seems perfectly normal. Plants are Hong Kongy, houses are European and vertical. I think a reason I don't have culture shock is because the streets are wide enough to drive through. Some of the poorer places have random piles of trash lying about. The grafitti artists are quite skilled. There's a lot more color in Athens than American cities.
Athens metro and Syntagma Square. The Metro is an archaeological place too. It's the cleanest Metro I've ever seen.
We saw the changing of the guard in Syntagma. Poms squad.
In Plaka, we got chased around by a large band of stray dogs which would get driven off by storeowners slapping things together and yelling in Greek. They started attacking motorcycles and taxis and things. (Present day Angie's note: The dogs were attacking, not the storeowners) I didn't get a great view of the Acropolis, but I did see the Tower of Winds. The walking tour is tomorrow.
April 10 (Current day Angie's note: I stopped dating my journal entries here, using only a squiggly line to seperate each day's entry. However, I will continue to note the date in the blog, for your convenience.)
Bus tour, actually. We went to the Acropolis. Sunny, finally. Absolutely gorgeous. I really hate these journals though; it feels like I'm taking inventory. The view from the Acropolis is amazing; you can see the city stretch out for miles. And finally went shopping at Plaka & saw Syntagma in the daytime. Athens is growing on me, and begins to look less like Hong Kong. Went, after a long bus ride, to Cape Siounion, with the Temple of Poseidon. Drove along the sea, and it was incredibly pretty. The view from the temple was awesome, with dramatic cliffs and the ocean all around, and wildflowers. At the hotel, our neighbors introduced themselves. They're a bunch of British boys who like throwing oranges out the windows and burning deoderant. I went to Plaka to go shopping at night, so I couldn't join in the orange throwing, but I heard that we got some good stains in the alley. Night shopping was fun, but I killed my feet. Amy & Debbs spent all night talking to Tom on the balcony; they said it was too crowded for me too. I did not sleep. The Italians across the hall are too loud.
April 11
Windy windy windy. It's the island cruise, though really, it's more of a glorified ferry service. It's very windy on the "sun deck", they ought to call it a wind deck. It feels like I'm flying, and seagulls swoop and race the ship. Took a cold hour to reach Aegina; I can't believe such a booming town only has 3000 people. I took the bus tour to the temple of Atreya. Aegina is very pretty, like a springtime suburban Athens with mountains and valleys. The view from the temple was nice too, in a different way; I think all the temple views are nice anyhow. And I saw the church, where I bought the famed pistachios.
Okay. So Aegina has 10,000 people and Hydra has 3000. It's a tiny town tucked in a cove. There are no cars. I took a donkey ride for 1000 drachmas and nearly got a leg cramp. The donkey driver would occassionally wave to random people knew, like a Greek equivalent of "Wassup, my homie G?" I suppose in such a small town, everyone knows each other. I also suppose his Greek isn't really Athenian Greek but whatever. We went into the upper residential areas, which were much quieter than the portside tourist shops. He didn't know a lot of English. Maybe like "1000 drachma," "Hydra good, yes?" "This donkey, not horse," "you like donkey?" and "No problem."
(sketches on next page, labeled 'Greek building foundation' and 'tree')
The shopping is great.
Poros. Spent 20 minutes there. Should've went to the clock tower, but didn't.
There was bozouki on the ship later. I got dragged into it. It was scary.
April 12
Village of Arkhova before Delphi. (written in Greek letters) Two hour ride to Delphi. It was mountainous, but the view into the valley was great. I'm getting apathetic of tourist sites, and have stopped taking pictures. Arkhova, ski resort. Very European. The lanscape is different here in Greece. It's greener, and the mountains are rockier. In the US the mountains have dark green trees, and fields of wheat and corn and wooden barns and silos, maybe a corall with horses and cow. Here, it's cypress trees, olive groves, silvery gray, and pens of goats and sheep. There don't seem to be suburbs, just towns of differing size and density. Ferry over Straight of Corinth. Patras is a suburb. It was raining cats & dogs so we couldn't go to the beach. The coastal road was pretty but inefficient. Mt. Parnassis was snow capped. Patras is so pretty in the morning after the storm when the sea shallows aren't brown.
I spent the rainy night watching Greek soap operas, news, and religious stuff. Plus jumping at people exploding firecrackers.
April 13
(Greek letters, with the caption of 'random Olympian street signs' and 'part of inscription at Olympia, too lazy to write it all down.' sketch, caption: 'roadside memorial photos inside, sometimes made to look like Byzantine churches.')
Friday
Olympia. Seems that bagel cookies are popular in the region. The mountainous area looks more like the US. There are pines and broadleaf trees now. There were many memorials to people killed on the road alongside, it was a bit disturbing. Olympia was yet another archaeological site. The trees and flowers were very pretty, but the other temples I've seen were more impressive. Yay, food. I had eggplant. I can feel myself getting fat.
Tolos: passing near Sparta with very awesome dramatic mountains. Almost like pictures of Switzerland. Nick says there was communist grafitti all around, KKE; I didn't see it. There's nothing green and pretty about it. Saw a lot of goats & sheep, and some chickens too. The houses aren't as square. They have red tile roofs.
Tolos is a normal Greek town. The hotel is nice. Some frescoes, and you can see everyone from the balconies. No shower curtains. Good Friday, at night people went around with lit candles, and you could hear services from afar. And tons of firecrackers going off.
I didn't go to the disco, I went to the beach. It was dark and gravelly and hurt my bare feet, so I got my sandals sandy. It was mostly dark over the water except a mountain randomly glowing green in it. The water was clear and cold, no tides as usually. I'm glad I had my stupid flashlight, which illuminated about as much as a lit Good Friday candle. No one had a flash camera, but I tried to take pictures anyway.
Went back up; Nick and Renwa called home from a payphone, and we all went in an internet cafe to use email. 450 drachma. Thinking of Vassilis. Passed "The Gorilla", the disco. It looked pretty dumb, with Europop, a bar, and ppl getting drunk off their asses. I'm glad I didn't go, but I'll have to ask people how it was. Nick finally bought a souvenier. Some metal relief thing, of the Parthenon whole, and colored. About time he buys something.
April 14
Saturday
Super Saturday, or whatever. Left beautiful Hotel Epidauria, the beach (which we can't go to) looks very pretty during the day. The whole "two days at the beach" thing was really misleading. Went on to the theater of Epidaurus, yet another happy archaeological site. Stood around on the top row of seats like a total idiot staring at scenery while some tourists below were singing "Lean On Me". Went back to Tolo to pick up forgotten passports. It was interesting to see Tolo in daylight. Then doubled over to Mycenae, lion gated Mycenae of Agammemnon.
Mycenae had the most beautiful view ever. It was not a temple, but a well preserved fortress on top of a hill. You could see for miles around, and at one corner the walls just dropped down into a valley. The rocks were slippery, and it was windy with wildflowers. Then we went to the beehive dome of Agammemnon, where I forgot my camera. It was like a giant stone igloo, and smelled like something had died in there. There was a smaller, darker room we weren't allowed to go in, with a danger sign. We could see it with a flash camera.
Corinth canal. We passed the Acrocorinth to see it. Acrocorinth is a lot higher than the Acropolis and is very impressive looking. The Corinth Canal is a lot deeper than you'd think it would be, at sea level, and goes for four miles. The vertical drop is a bit freaky.
Fireworks. Holy crap, they've been scaring me. Candle light service was more like walking through a bomb field. Little boys would set firecrackers off in the public park, throwing them in bushes and things. They'd glow like embers for several seconds and explode in a flash and a bang. There were sparklers, and sky-launched ones that made a high whistling sound. People would go around with candles that'd blow out in the breeze, and random people would ask us for lights. One woman asked Rob;
Are you tourists?
Yes
Are you Greek?
No.
Are you Greek Orthodox?
No.
What are you then?
Assorted Christians.
*Pause.*
God be with you.
At 12 every church bell in Athens started tolling and people were setting off firecrackers like Dooms day. I suspect Athens Fire Department has one hell of a time every Easter.
April 15
Easter Sunday
I still have red Easter egg dye on my hands. I hope this doesn't symbolized the blood of Christ, or else I'd be disturbed. It's washed off a bit, so now I'm rosy fingered. Everything is closed. Wed took the bus to Syntagma and went up some hill by tram. It was windy, and you could see the Acropolis from the top, and from the 100 drachma pay telescope. There was a church on top, like in defiance of the Parthenon lower down.
(Chinese characters meaning: Big Earth Flower Bloom
Made in Hunan China
Fireworks in 03
BE 62150
Caution
Spins on ground emits flame and sparks
use only under close adult supervision. For outdoor use only. Place on hard flat surface. Do not hold in hand. Light fuse & get away.)
Spent the afternoon walking around at Plaka. McDonalds was open and I had spring rolls. It must be horrible working there, having to speak all sorts of languages and deal with tourists who have no change. Plaka was almost all closed except some tourist shops and jewellry shops, so we went around the agora, and residential areas, tavernas roasting lamb, and lively open parts of Plaka. My last daytime view of Athens.
The alternative evening was just scary. Basically "all the tourists you can cram in one taverna." It really was a fire hazard. Really longass tables and stuff. Scott got pulled up to belly dance, Nick got pulled up to do the drinking dance, which is pretty much how it sounds.
JEFF GOT LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM.
Dammit. Okay. Now Jeff can stop bugging me about putting that in my journal. The knob came off and he started ramming the door until Jane came to save him. Mrs. Bryant got to kiss one of the Bozouki guys.
April 16
Monday
Drove through Athens, for the last time. Sims' alarm clock fell on the floor and we never got a wake up call, so we ended up waking up to Nick banging on the door at 3:10 in the morning. The power went out repeatedly, causing our lights to go out and the elevators to fail. Greek elevators have no doors, by the way. We had to drag our luggage down five flights of stairs. And now we've been waiting for an hour in line for the check in.
Okay. No one expects a two-week old airport to function smoothly the wee hours after Easter, but you'd think it'd be more efficient. As in, not jogging/running through an empty airport to the gate.
Labels:
ancient Greece,
Greece,
vacation
Monday, June 23, 2003
Wherein Angie Gardens
Stayed inside parked on a couch most of the weekend in order to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OoP), which I awaited with anticipation from midnight Saturday to the middle of the afternoon, when it arrived in the mail. Am about halfway through. Received the shock of realization that Cassie Claire is indeed the superior writer, stylistically, to JK Rowling, and also the shock that one minor but extremely specific thing speculated about in fanfiction (can't remember for the life of me which authors) actually came to pass. I suppose I should've seen it coming by rereading the last few chapters in Goblet of Fire, which I did belatedly. But at any rate, (good ol' JK Rowling) nothing beats Potter canon. Some of Harry's newfound teenage angst is overdone (I wish people would stop talking in capital letters) but on the whole the additional complexity to the plot is truly mind-blowing, in a good (really good) way. It's like dunking your head in cold water, when you first start reading. I think this may be my favorite HP book yet.
Potter reminds me of an IB student, complete with sleepless nights, too many afterschool activities, cramming for standardized tests, and useless classes with no practical application. Kudos.
Also, I went to help Doug do his Eagle project on Sunday. You know that garden at Twinbrook library? No? Well, there is one now. It's purty. Andrew Durfor, but not Rob (who just came home from vacation, the lazy bum, so we harangued him via cell phone), was there too, so we made a very nice dork Troika. We sporadically broke into song (dorky songs too, like Istanbul Constantinople, and Knights of the Round Table) as we heaved, shoveled and carted around topsoil and manure, and planted marigolds and azaleas and artistically big rocks, and sprayed each other with the water hose. When Doug makes Eagle, he'll be the Praetorian Guard of the Boy Scouts. You go, Doug! You're an elite killing machine!
Stayed inside parked on a couch most of the weekend in order to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OoP), which I awaited with anticipation from midnight Saturday to the middle of the afternoon, when it arrived in the mail. Am about halfway through. Received the shock of realization that Cassie Claire is indeed the superior writer, stylistically, to JK Rowling, and also the shock that one minor but extremely specific thing speculated about in fanfiction (can't remember for the life of me which authors) actually came to pass. I suppose I should've seen it coming by rereading the last few chapters in Goblet of Fire, which I did belatedly. But at any rate, (good ol' JK Rowling) nothing beats Potter canon. Some of Harry's newfound teenage angst is overdone (I wish people would stop talking in capital letters) but on the whole the additional complexity to the plot is truly mind-blowing, in a good (really good) way. It's like dunking your head in cold water, when you first start reading. I think this may be my favorite HP book yet.
Potter reminds me of an IB student, complete with sleepless nights, too many afterschool activities, cramming for standardized tests, and useless classes with no practical application. Kudos.
Also, I went to help Doug do his Eagle project on Sunday. You know that garden at Twinbrook library? No? Well, there is one now. It's purty. Andrew Durfor, but not Rob (who just came home from vacation, the lazy bum, so we harangued him via cell phone), was there too, so we made a very nice dork Troika. We sporadically broke into song (dorky songs too, like Istanbul Constantinople, and Knights of the Round Table) as we heaved, shoveled and carted around topsoil and manure, and planted marigolds and azaleas and artistically big rocks, and sprayed each other with the water hose. When Doug makes Eagle, he'll be the Praetorian Guard of the Boy Scouts. You go, Doug! You're an elite killing machine!
Wherein Angie Prods her Skewed Worldview and Muses on the Scheme of Things
On Friday, after fencing, went to Ruchita's party and watched Devdas. I didn't do much socializing between the movie and the swarm of Nick B's girlfriends around the strawberry wafers. Apparently, people at the party were loud so people couldn't hear the movie, but it has subtitles, for God's sake. I never thought noise was much of a problem unless people really really want to hear the Hindi. (But in any case, Ruchita got very angry at the socializing swarm around the food table, not that helped quiet things down anyway.)
Aishwarya-Rai is a very beautiful actress, but her role as a tragic romantic heroine was ruined for me on sporadic intervals when she would suddenly, for some unknown reason, remind me of Elaine from Seinfeld. *shrug*
I spent the rest of the evening being confused, because India's always the type of country that Other People live in. Normal People live in The American Empire which dominates the North American Continent and swallows all of poor Canada. They also live in the UK and Europe, which is like the American Empire except better dressed and with silly accents. Then there's China and naturally inferior China-like satellite states (who wish they were us, the poor dears). Then there's Japan, a version of Asia that's clean and hip. Everywhere else is a Heart of Darkness, though India is acknowledged every once in a while as that wild and quaint country to the west of China, where travelling monks go to retrieve Buddhist scriptures, and from where sternly bearded men emigrate to Hong Kong to become bank security guards.
Those exoticized paper puppets who do live in India usually dwell in some sort of vague and mythic jungle between turbans and curry and elephants, kind of like a happy National Geographic theme park.
So that in having the hero and heroine and family and love and weddings and jealousy (and all the things usually within the jurisdiction of Normal People) all exist within this mystic wonderland, Devdas might as well have been set on Mars.
On Friday, after fencing, went to Ruchita's party and watched Devdas. I didn't do much socializing between the movie and the swarm of Nick B's girlfriends around the strawberry wafers. Apparently, people at the party were loud so people couldn't hear the movie, but it has subtitles, for God's sake. I never thought noise was much of a problem unless people really really want to hear the Hindi. (But in any case, Ruchita got very angry at the socializing swarm around the food table, not that helped quiet things down anyway.)
Aishwarya-Rai is a very beautiful actress, but her role as a tragic romantic heroine was ruined for me on sporadic intervals when she would suddenly, for some unknown reason, remind me of Elaine from Seinfeld. *shrug*
I spent the rest of the evening being confused, because India's always the type of country that Other People live in. Normal People live in The American Empire which dominates the North American Continent and swallows all of poor Canada. They also live in the UK and Europe, which is like the American Empire except better dressed and with silly accents. Then there's China and naturally inferior China-like satellite states (who wish they were us, the poor dears). Then there's Japan, a version of Asia that's clean and hip. Everywhere else is a Heart of Darkness, though India is acknowledged every once in a while as that wild and quaint country to the west of China, where travelling monks go to retrieve Buddhist scriptures, and from where sternly bearded men emigrate to Hong Kong to become bank security guards.
Those exoticized paper puppets who do live in India usually dwell in some sort of vague and mythic jungle between turbans and curry and elephants, kind of like a happy National Geographic theme park.
So that in having the hero and heroine and family and love and weddings and jealousy (and all the things usually within the jurisdiction of Normal People) all exist within this mystic wonderland, Devdas might as well have been set on Mars.
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
I walked to Togo's today to get a sandwich, and then Aspen Hill library to hit the used book rack yet again. Fished out "The Integral Trees" by Larry Niven (the author of Ringworld), "Success to the Brave" by Alexander Kent which is nautical fiction of some sort, and "All Quiet on the Western Front." T and her mom drove by me on their way home so I went to their house today and saw four episodes of Chobits on T's computer. It's an anime series about an 18 year old boy in Tokyo and his robot girl- I kept getting flashbacks from Megatokyo while I was watching it. Obviously, Megatokyo is a parody of of Chobits (the manga by CLAMP, at least, if not the anime), but I didn't realize until now. Even the drawing styles are almost the same. Mehmet likes Chobits so I was making fun of the gayness of that with T, but the more I watched it, the less gay it seemed... it seemed skewed to straight men even, because after all, it is a show about beautiful, completely realistic female robots who perform your every whim. There isn't a cute boy in sight.
T built her own hard drive. I'm impressed. It's transparent on one side, with neon lights inside of it that flash to the rhythm of whatever MP3 she's playing. My mom, when she came to pick me up, was like, "Why don't you build your own hard drive??" I was like.. MOM. I'm not the one who's majoring in electrical engineering. But this is more than made up for by the fact that T's mom often tells her that she should read more books, like me. Nyah.
Something surreal... right before my mom picked me up, I was watching Chief Moose's resignation on tv as T's house. As my mom drove me away, we passed the Aspen Hill gas station where cabdriver Prem Kumar Walakar was shot, and where there was an anchorwoman, live, talking about Chief Moose's resignation, on tv.
All of this, the sandwich shop, the library, and the house are all very close to the gas station, so it seems strange to be watching something on the news that (kind of) is taking place right outside.
T built her own hard drive. I'm impressed. It's transparent on one side, with neon lights inside of it that flash to the rhythm of whatever MP3 she's playing. My mom, when she came to pick me up, was like, "Why don't you build your own hard drive??" I was like.. MOM. I'm not the one who's majoring in electrical engineering. But this is more than made up for by the fact that T's mom often tells her that she should read more books, like me. Nyah.
Something surreal... right before my mom picked me up, I was watching Chief Moose's resignation on tv as T's house. As my mom drove me away, we passed the Aspen Hill gas station where cabdriver Prem Kumar Walakar was shot, and where there was an anchorwoman, live, talking about Chief Moose's resignation, on tv.
All of this, the sandwich shop, the library, and the house are all very close to the gas station, so it seems strange to be watching something on the news that (kind of) is taking place right outside.
Dorky Dreams 'R Us
I had this dream last night that I was in RPG World. I was LARPing as Cherry, but since this a dream, I look exactly like her. Hero was trying to kill me (probably posessed by evil or something). So anyway, I'm running away from him, and I manage to hide in this huge crowd of townspeople in a giant market square. I hide in this group of valley girls who decide to help disguise me. I'd hoped for a change of clothes or a wig, but they're just a bunch of teenage girls on a shopping trip, so the best they have with them in their purses is a makeup kit and some hair dye. They put a lot of blush on me and dye my hair blue. I don't want to be a powerplayer, so I consult with my DM on the feasibility of me completely changing my hair color in so short a time span. Neither I nor the DM are hair-dying types IRL, and the only way I know how to dye hair is in a sink, which takes a long time. But I vaguely recall from RL a type of temporary hair dye that Shpachee used to streak her hair blue. Me and my DM aren't sure how it actually works IRL, but in this RP session my DM lets me comb it in and change my hair color immediately. (I looked on Google just now, and my subconscious was indeed correct. Temporary hair dye can indeed be combed into dry hair, without any preparation.) Being an anime universe, blue is a natural hair color, so that I actually blend into the crowd quite well. I'm nervous as Hero scans the crowd and weaves through it looking for me, but the crowd, because it's supportive of me, is uncooperative with him, by getting in his way, or discreetly blocking his view of me as I'm ushered inconspicuously away by the girls, trying to act as much like a normal NPC as possible and not draw attention to myself.
One of the girls takes me back to their treehouse tower where they can help me apply a more thorough disguise. We travel up a spiral staircase up many storeys until we reach a giant flet. As I reach the flet, I hear the sounds of combat from the bottom, because Hero has followed me there despite the slowdown by the crowd, and is fighting his way in. The townspeople are trying valiantly to keep him from ascending the staircase, but of course, he is a ridiculously powerful fighter. I look around the flet for a robe or something to disguise myself with, but I don't have time. Hero gets to the top of the staircase where I am, and he spots me, and I begin desperately fighting him with my knife versus his sword. As I'm fighting him, he says, "You fight kind of like Cherry!" which is when I realize that by some miracle of nature he has not recognized me with the makeup and different hair color after all, and he just thinks I'm a random NPC. (Hero in the webcomic is ridiculously bad at recognizing people in disguise anyhow, I realized after I woke up, trying to make sense of my dream.) So I trade some half-hearted blows with him, and then fall back, pretending to be a weak NPC who's afraid of him, and he turns away from me to search the rest of the flet for Cherry. I look out the flet and see a lot of tall trees at my level. I'm an elf, so I realize that I can escape Hero through the trees while he's searching the rest of the flet for me. There's a black-haired elven boy in the flet (who looks like Eric Shansby from middle school but who's name is actually Juan) who I tell to come with me to help defend me should Hero pursue me. We jump off the flet and run away along the tree branches with elven grace. The tree branches actually look like plastic Chucky Cheese playground tubes, but nonetheless, they're tree branches. The branches are littered with Splendor in the Grass posters and other promotional materials from our many school plays instead of leaves. I keep running and running, but Juan is slower than me and falls behind, so I stop and turn around, afraid that Hero has killed him. But I see Juan only a little ways behind and alive and well. I realize that we can stop running now, because I can't hear Hero following us, and realize we must've finally gotten away from him.
Then I wake up.
I had this dream last night that I was in RPG World. I was LARPing as Cherry, but since this a dream, I look exactly like her. Hero was trying to kill me (probably posessed by evil or something). So anyway, I'm running away from him, and I manage to hide in this huge crowd of townspeople in a giant market square. I hide in this group of valley girls who decide to help disguise me. I'd hoped for a change of clothes or a wig, but they're just a bunch of teenage girls on a shopping trip, so the best they have with them in their purses is a makeup kit and some hair dye. They put a lot of blush on me and dye my hair blue. I don't want to be a powerplayer, so I consult with my DM on the feasibility of me completely changing my hair color in so short a time span. Neither I nor the DM are hair-dying types IRL, and the only way I know how to dye hair is in a sink, which takes a long time. But I vaguely recall from RL a type of temporary hair dye that Shpachee used to streak her hair blue. Me and my DM aren't sure how it actually works IRL, but in this RP session my DM lets me comb it in and change my hair color immediately. (I looked on Google just now, and my subconscious was indeed correct. Temporary hair dye can indeed be combed into dry hair, without any preparation.) Being an anime universe, blue is a natural hair color, so that I actually blend into the crowd quite well. I'm nervous as Hero scans the crowd and weaves through it looking for me, but the crowd, because it's supportive of me, is uncooperative with him, by getting in his way, or discreetly blocking his view of me as I'm ushered inconspicuously away by the girls, trying to act as much like a normal NPC as possible and not draw attention to myself.
One of the girls takes me back to their treehouse tower where they can help me apply a more thorough disguise. We travel up a spiral staircase up many storeys until we reach a giant flet. As I reach the flet, I hear the sounds of combat from the bottom, because Hero has followed me there despite the slowdown by the crowd, and is fighting his way in. The townspeople are trying valiantly to keep him from ascending the staircase, but of course, he is a ridiculously powerful fighter. I look around the flet for a robe or something to disguise myself with, but I don't have time. Hero gets to the top of the staircase where I am, and he spots me, and I begin desperately fighting him with my knife versus his sword. As I'm fighting him, he says, "You fight kind of like Cherry!" which is when I realize that by some miracle of nature he has not recognized me with the makeup and different hair color after all, and he just thinks I'm a random NPC. (Hero in the webcomic is ridiculously bad at recognizing people in disguise anyhow, I realized after I woke up, trying to make sense of my dream.) So I trade some half-hearted blows with him, and then fall back, pretending to be a weak NPC who's afraid of him, and he turns away from me to search the rest of the flet for Cherry. I look out the flet and see a lot of tall trees at my level. I'm an elf, so I realize that I can escape Hero through the trees while he's searching the rest of the flet for me. There's a black-haired elven boy in the flet (who looks like Eric Shansby from middle school but who's name is actually Juan) who I tell to come with me to help defend me should Hero pursue me. We jump off the flet and run away along the tree branches with elven grace. The tree branches actually look like plastic Chucky Cheese playground tubes, but nonetheless, they're tree branches. The branches are littered with Splendor in the Grass posters and other promotional materials from our many school plays instead of leaves. I keep running and running, but Juan is slower than me and falls behind, so I stop and turn around, afraid that Hero has killed him. But I see Juan only a little ways behind and alive and well. I realize that we can stop running now, because I can't hear Hero following us, and realize we must've finally gotten away from him.
Then I wake up.
Went to Malex's spur of the moment party yesterday. Everyone got haircuts, it seems, or at least Malex and Puffy did. Puffy was actually looking quite hot. Malex made pizza with garlic crust, which was a novelty. Watched Lilo and Stitch, which was very good. I loved the character designs and watercolor backgrounds, which I never ceased pointing out. And also, watched some episodes of Fawlty Towers, which is a British comedy about this guy who runs a hotel. Blah blah Cockney jokes blah blah Irish jokes blah blah jokes about Hispanic immigrants... passe. We need a gay black man, a transvestite Asian, and a Native American who smokes pot. What was more interesting was seeing if we could fit everybody at the party one one couch.
Monday, June 16, 2003
Did I tell you about the sci-fi anime starring a scantily clad Alexander the Great? Well, it's here in the US, and the first episode was on at 1am tonight on Cartoon Network. I caught it by accident while switching channels during the commercial breaks for the Discovery Channel's "Walking With Cavemen" and found something far more interesting. Reign: The Conqueror. It's so trippy.
Sunday, June 15, 2003
I redid the Geek Test since it was updated after I took it. 33.13609% - Total Geek
Andrew Durfor got 41.8146% - Major Geek
Oh, I am in awe of his geek godhood.
We compared answers, which probably makes us even geekier.
Andrew Durfor got 41.8146% - Major Geek
Oh, I am in awe of his geek godhood.
We compared answers, which probably makes us even geekier.
Saturday, June 14, 2003
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!
----
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
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!
----
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
Friday, June 13, 2003
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.
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.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
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?)
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?)
Monday, June 09, 2003
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.
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.
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