Gettysburg 2004

So over July 4th weekend, I went to Gettysburg, and by default, New Oxford.

Friday night, I stayed up til 4 am making pies. The banana creme pie worked out to be quite yummy, the personally I thought it tasted better hot than chilled, like you're supposed to. The latticed blueberry pie had a fatal collision with the kitchen carpet. Sustained an oven burn on my arm.

Saturday, July 3rd, went to Gettysburg to watch re-enactments. Met up with Jeremy, and presented him with a slice of banana creme pie. He left it in the car, and it melted. The Gettysburg re-enactments themselves have the feel of a country fair, with a rows of rectangular white tents set up with aisles in between them littered with straw, selling overpriced lemonade, hotdogs, funnelcakes, and other miscellaneous fair fare, and of course the line of ubiquitous blue porto-potties. There is of course Civil War merchandise unique to these types of events; the nightmarishly hot woolen uniforms of the Union and the more comfortable cotton ones of the Confederacy, sturdy boots, collectable weapons for ungrown-up adults and plastic guns and wooden sabers for children, prints, hair braiding services, wooden craft knicknacks, video casettes of previous battles or DVDs of old favorites, Civil War movies, CDs of folk music from Appalachia and the South. Women in gingham and calico hoop skirts and straw bonnets wander around fanning themselves, contemporary naval officers in full uniform stroll about looking at muskets along with brass-buttoned historical counterparts, looking rather dashing in gold and red piping, with their sideburns or muttonchops, and modern mounted policemen do slow patrols around. Gettysburg is a bit like Rennfest, except the accents are real. Bikers and other species of red-blooded American males display their Confederate pride, or perhaps simply a breed of country music patriotism in shirts emblazoned with things like, "God Bless America, " or "Freedom isn't Free." Pickup trucks, draped or painted in the blue cross on red of the South roll up the hill and squash the grass in the parking field, and closer by, pickups pass with Union or Confederate soldiers seated and dangling their legs out the back. Some of the trucks haul artillery.

We were a bit early for the battle, so we had a stroll around. Away from the glut of merchandise, we talked to a camp surgeon, who showed us various amputation procedures on his comical collection of plastic and rubber legs, complete with fake blood. We passed tents as men and women tended to smoky fires wafting the smell of frying ham, and a camp follower woman generously fed us hardtack, much to our misfortune. We ended up getting, in the commercial area, "Italian sausage," which is fair fare, not Civil War fare, but a lot better tasting.

Didn't get a very good view of the battle itself, though we were in the front row of the general "seating" (by which they mean standing, in a crowd) area flanking the (more expensive) grandstands. A man with a loudspeaker began to narrate from a platform, explaining the battle and its significance. I ignored him. From the Union Camp on our right, a mass of men, dark and buglike against the distance of the hills, snaked to the top of a hill, where the cannons already were. Further out, a line of men set up, in formation, hunkered down in the high grass at the crest of a hill, muskets pointed. Solo cavalrymen, on horses doll-like in the distance, charged back and forth, seemingly at random. A signal from somewhere, the line moved. All this setting up was interspersed by long periods of nothing, with the sun beating down upon our backs. Cannons fired, a blossom of smoke expelled from the barrel and a vortex cloud spiraled from the mouth visible, and half a beat later the boom of thunder like a loud clap, and gradually later, the rotten-egg smell of sulphur and the battlefield cloaked in plumes of smoke. Something was happening on the other side. The deceptively cheerful music of the fife and drum corp, escorting people to "kill" each other. Long periods of nothing. Being that it was a Union retreat, it ended with a bunch of people swarming spectacularly on our side. Then the battle "ended," by which they meant somebody won, I guess.

We were hot and a bit bored, so we left.

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Sunday, the Fourth, went back to Gettysburg for the last day of battle, which is supposedly the most intense. We got there pretty late, and so we couldn't find any seats. Apparently the last day is the most popular, and everyone had camped out in the general seating area with picnic blankets or lawn chairs. We spent the first battle, a cavalry battle, running back and forth behind the grandstands trying to get a peek of the action through the gaps in the bleachers. We did end up just standing behind the press photographers, which made for a good close-up, if limited panoramic view, and watched cavalry skirmish with fake sabrists wheeling about slashing at each other and shots of smoke puffing out from pointed pistols.

Spent some time going over to the Confederate and Union camps (Reb and Federal), where re-enactors actually lived for three days. Union camp was larger and seemingy better organized. It seemed quite normal, with tents, smoke fires and food, signs with rules and regulations posted, people sitting around talking, a group of rowdy young men firing their muskets into the air, and a more disciplined dozen or so doing drills, horses tied to lines stretched between trees, surrounded by a ring of horse trailers, patties all over the ground like mud, and plentiful piles of firewood. A black cavalryman on a prancing grey Arabian poses and parades for hoop-skirted, bonneted women and girls. "I was just in the Midwest, chasing Indians," he says, of his full-time hobby/job. Semaphore signalers stood a few yards apart and practiced, while having colorful conversations with a modern Navy signaller. As it started to rain, a boy with a tin whistle, a fiddler and a guitarist began to improv within one of the tents, a high and lovely music to the patter of rain on canvas, a dry place and home (at least for a bit) while the world stormed outside.

When we left, we could still hear the tin whistle from the stalls. a grinning trio of teenage boys beat snaredrums for loose change. We decided to get a funnelcake and lemonade and get seats.


The last battle was Pickett's Charge. We did get a good view this time, at the center edge of the general seating area, near the front. It began to pour, historically accurately, and umbrellas bloomed above the lawn chairs. It stopped, and the umbrellas disappeared. The boring, eternity of setting up, as usual, at least this time, without the heat. We had a better view of both sides this time. Cannons boomed their incoherent language to one another across the field, and short flashes flared up in the grass where the cannonballs "hit." A haybale exploded in flame and tiny firefighters in the distance rushed out to douse it, unspooling hoses. Through the smoke, the signallers motioned their troops into position; far off at Confederate camp I saw, waving around, a tiny white flag with a red square in the middle, in the distance almost appearing to be a dot. I was starting to expect samurai. Though you couldn't see them, the Confederate host down the hill far to the left took up a wild and undulating battle cry, and like the dramatic scenes in movies, became louder and louder until the sudden line of them rose, visible, above the hill's crest. Pickett's Charge. They began running, past and away from us, the flag held high, and threw themselves upon the Union barricates. With a sound of repeated, reverbing, popping, cracks, not one of which would end before the other began, like marbles being scattered to a hard surface, and a leaping line of muzzleflash ripping down the line, the Union formations let unload the contents of their rifles, again and again. Yelling, smoke, screams, people fell, from the Confederate camp, men and women with stretchers racing up at what seemed to be painfully slow pace. We, calm spectators, watched a man attempt to get up, and fall to the ground again. Clash, hand to hand combat.

"Where's the Confederate Army?" I asked, peering at the field of blue. A woman next to me handed me her binoculars, and I peered at all the Grey men scattered on the ground, and in close vision, saw smoke and broken lines and the surprisingly brief, frantic, animal struggle that follows and concludes after half an hour of setting up, boredom, impatience and waiting.

"This," announced the announcer solemnly, "is the true horror of war. You can buy this video for $7.99."

People in the general seating area began leaving. They decided to get lunch. Meanwhile, the Union and Confederate reenactors were shaking hands in the right field, and firing off their muskets in random celebratory round of a weekend well done, and the corpses picked themselves up off the ground. A group of re-enactors yelled, "HOOAH!" There came the review, where the soldiers would march from one side to the other by the audience, waving, saluting, grinning and posing in general for photographs, including a Union cavalry officer who looked remarkably similar to Mr. Hines.

The rain, having let up for the duration of the battle, couldn't hold it in any longer, and the skies opened. In the gaps between the rain, a couple of young boys pummeled each other with their wooden sabers and shot each other, proving that in every generation, children will always play soldier, and then grow up, and stop playing. The loudspeaker announcer wished the best of luck to those re-enactors about to leave for Iraq and Afghanistan. Me and Jeremy looked around, and decided to leave. We sat on the haybale in a tent listening to a brass band playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" with instruments they claimed dated from the Civil War.

They must have, because they sounded awful.

Things Made of Rock: Proof that I am Easily Amused



Ammonite fossil!



Big fossil..



Two fossils...



Swan carved out of quartz..



Fossilized sandollar necklace..



Obsidian turtle!



Lapis Lazuli necklace..



Look! A box!



Oh Jerrrrremy!!! ^___~*



*I kid. Actually, I think they're all very gaudy.*



*Except for the fossils.

Guess Who's Getting a Job Interview?

Jeremy!

Japanese LotR Cosplayers, Once Again Proving That Asians Make the Best Elves.

They also have some Pirates of the Caribbean, Full Metal Alchemist, Master and Commander, Troy and a ton of other random cosplays I can't identify.

Spam for the Blind

That'll be $95, please

Behold! Obsidian Phallus!

Generally I'm very apolitical, but then again, this isn't about politics, it's about someone who's very brave, and also a bunch of greedy scumbags.

Even if, and especially if, you support responsible gun use, let's fight to keep these shitty guns off the street!

Some really kickin' Naruto cosplayers

Remember to register for Otakon online. Tomorrow's the last day you can do it.

Boo!

Valedictorian Denied Diploma After Criticizing School

Something Nerdy This Way Comes

Went to see Harry Potter 3 with T. I've been suffering through driver's ed on weekday evenings (dear God, make it stop!!) so her driving amused me as I watched her attempt to eat, talk to me, and deal with her ringing cell phone at the same time. I love the MVA.

Great movie, though I do wish the actors had better enunciation, and the scripts wouldn't breeze through the important, expository dialogue. I found the part where Harry first confronts Sirius to be rather lacking in tension, but that isn't the climax of the movie, which is later. The movie has a wonderful, almost Gothic aesthetic that you don't get in the first two, as well as a slew of understated visual gags which will require repeatedly viewings to catch, but the CGI werewolf is rather disappointing. Camerawork emphasizing the mechanisms of clocks and pendulums, and Harry's reflection in mirrored surfaces expertly tie the movie together thematically, as does the uncanny ability to string scenes together organicaly through expertly-timed transitions, most notably irises and fades. The ending was well-done; thank God they decided not to go with that ponderous, ritualistic House Cup ceremony which always ends in everyone standing up and applauding to the swell of triumphal music, ala the end of Star Wars: A New Hope. I always thought that was a cop-out. Hermione, played by Emma Watson, is turning into a gorgeous young woman, with actual acting ability. Scenes are naturalistic, like someone just let the camera roll and forgot about it, and I really get a better feel of Hogwarts as a place, as well as Harry, Hermione, and Lupin as characters, though Sirius is kind of vanilla. Lupin, in his mentor relationship with Harry, is fantastic. I'd talked to Mary W (who would've gone with me to see Harry Potter, but is being shipped off to CTY in Lancaster), and she'd said that she found (and objected to) some slash friendly scenes in this movie, which I agree is a first. Yes, there are some slash-friendly scenes. Hurrah.

T is thinking about transferring to UMBC from College Park, and back from electrical engineering into computer engineering (she'd previously transferred from computer engineering into electrical). She thinks UMCP's academic environment isn't as good as UMBC's. It's considered a bigshot college already so it's not focused on helping individual students anymore, as opposed to UMBC which is trying to make a name for itself, she says, and that she prefers computer engineering as well as thinking many skills in that curiculum are necessary to survive as an engineer nowadays. I told her there is really absolutely nothing to do at UMBC, but she seemed undeterred. Well, at any rate, the dorms are much better at UMBC than UMCP, which I can attest to, and while I don't know about the quality of our computer engineering program I do know we throw fistfuls of money into it (shiny shiny!), so it must be decent.

Later went to Popeye's with T and Mehmet. Mehmet's growing his hair long so that he can donate it to charity. (For those of you who either don't know or have been hiding under a rock and are considering haircuts, many charities use donated hair to create wigs for cancer victims whose natural hair has fallen out due to chemotherapy.) I think this is very sweet of him. The ulterior motive is that whenever his dad complains to him to cut his hair, he at least has a noble excuse.

He and T are dressing up as Larva and Vampire Princess Miyu for Otakon. I'm in a hurry to get tickets, since online registration lasts only until June 30th (Wednesday!), and otherwise I'd have to get tickets at the door, which means winding queues that last for hours. I know I'm at least going with her, but if anyone wants to come with me you're more than welcome. This should be at least one summer activity that's going to work out; I have no driver for my trip to Gettysburg to watch the reenactments, which leaves me resorting to the Greyhound, and Andrew D bailed from my roleplaying camping trip at Little Bennett Regional Park, leaving me scrambling to see who has tents. Doug does, but not enough for six people or so, and Rob is uncertain as to whether he's coming. Organizing things is a mess.

Iron Chef Human

Hannibal Lecter vs. Iron Chef Italian Masahiko Kobe

Courtesy of the famous filker Tom Smith. Sadly, only Andrew D's aunt knows who he is.

Self Explanatory

The World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things

Went to see "The Terminal" with Doug. When I got there, I didn't see him outside the theater, so I ended up buying a ticket for a later showing of Harry Potter in case I couldn't find Doug, since I didn't particularly want to see "The Terminal" and only agreed on that movie because I wanted to see Doug. Once I got past the guy who tears your ticket, I went inside the "Terminal" auditorium (with my Harry Potter ticket) to look for Doug. Fortunately, Doug was there.

Unfortunately, "The Terminal" isn't really a movie worth seeing. How you can take the real life story of a political refugee who's been trapped in an airport in France since 1988 due to a bureaucratic error and turn it into a heart-warming Hollywood romantic comedy complete with token minority sidekicks, I can't imagine. Really, I see it being rather Kafka-esque or Theater of the Absurd, not Steven Spielburg. I'd rather an indie filmaker have taken on the responsibility, and done Merhan Karimi Nasseri some justice.

On the day before I was to leave, I went on a biking excursion in Tai Po with Fish and his girlfriend and people from his fellowship. Riding 14 km is really fantastic. I discovered that one can maintain a fairly decent conversation with the group, since everyone is pretty much stationary relative to one another, even at high speeds, and I got a tan. Also, I'm a much better biker than city people from Hong Kong. ^___^ At the end, Fish said, "Why do you not look winded???" though I think my ease of travel had less to do with my physical condition (crappy) and more to do with the fact that I'm at least experienced enough a biker to not wobble or swerve all over the road. Also, early on in the trip, my hand slipped on the handle and changed gears (an accident to my advantage).

Tai Po is a city in the New Territories that was built around biking. Everybody bikes, from people transporting goods from one place to another to whole families in three-wheeled pedal-powered carts. We begun, after renting our bikes through the trail through an urban park and waterfront. Out away from the city, we rode past tidy, walled villages of colorful four-storey houses arranged tightly around narrow lanes at the foot of rolling mountains and the sea. They seem completely different from the gigantic scale of Hong Kong proper but still rather modern. It'd seem much of the economy revolves around selling drinks to bikers. At the last leg of our journey, the head of the fellowship convinced us to just, "ride across the lake," so we crossed a straight causeway across a great reservoir, which took over ten minutes to fully cross on bike. The blue mountain, cloaked in something of a haze with the sun shining bright, would always loom ahead, above the great expanse of calm water, never appearing any nearer. But we did arrive, zooming into a circular area where little kids were wobbling around on bikes with training wheels and flying kites (or getting the stuck in trees).

At dinner, for my birthday, I was presented with a basket of steamed buns shaped like celestial peaches, filled with lotus seed paste. I find this highly superior to cake, and a great end to a trip.

Excerpts, Edits, and Additions to/from E-mails from Hong Kong

(I've been home for a while, btw, since June 15th, just not posted.)

May 26

Saw Siddhartha's fingerbone. Kind of. It passed me by in the street, drifting slowly like a parade float in a golden reliquary presided over by some monks and guarded by an escort of policemen. People lined the road and the pedestrian bridge overhead to see it pass. To me, it wasn't a big deal once the "Walk/Don't Walk" light switched from the red standing man to the green striding figure.

I was in a traffic accident today, and by traffic accident I mean the bus I was on scratched the bumper of the compact car in front of us.

Had crabs today. Not the STD crabs, the seafood crabs. Wondered what I came halfway around the world for, if I'm eating crabs. They were softshell though, and pretty good. I'm a champion crabeater, but not as good as you.

Linkin Park is coming here on June 17th, but I'll be home by then. Apparently William Hung is pretty big here too, so maybe his success isn't too blatently due to racial exploitation. My cousins imitate him all the time, seemingly unaware that they don't sound much better, what with the same accent and all, but they can rest easy knowing they at least look better.

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May 30

Cantonese food has a reputation for being bland for a reason. "Look! Food! Let's steam it!" Yarr... Did you know McDonalds is pretty upscale here? It costs about the same, but many other food places are cheaper so that it attracts a mostly middle-class clientele as opposed to the blue collar workers we get in the US, so that in HK while the food is the same the places are generally cleaner and there's better service. There actually
is service, for example; people will take your tray for you when you're done and give you menus and speak in very proper Cantonese, as opposed to even lower class or rural Cantonese.

Days are very long. Wish you were here, except, you don't like heat, crowds, or noise.

Went to Sai Kung, which is in the New Territories outside the city, and it's very pretty. It's got many villas by the sea along green mountains, and hasn't been too built up yet. By a pleasantly beautiful organic farm covering a series of gentle hills, Chinese herbal greenhouse, and insect museum,I went to the Shell Museum. Besides being a museum about shells, and it is also actually shaped like a partially opened clam shell, with windows at the opening, tapering in height into the clam "hinges," the entrance. The exhibits themselves are arranged in spiral corridors. It had all sorts of shells, and disturbing spiny, skeletal-looking cross sections. I will show you photos. Shells are very shiny. Did you know that they produce their own varnish? So it's not like you even have to polish them, just kind of wash them off.. and also there's no limit on their growth, they just stop growing whenever they die. So theoretically if there was a mollusk that was immortal it could keep on growing until it was the size of a small planet. And we could turn it into a space station and live inside the spiral corridors of its shell.

After a long walk through what can be described as jungle, I reached a Hakka (a Chinese ethnic minority) village by a stone pier, preserved from the 1900s. It's on a raised platform, accessible by stairs, but it's really tiny. The brochure says it housed 100 people but there were only like 8 rooms (not counting a room for pigs and other livestock) separated by walls and connected not by any interior corridors, but by an exterior walled courtyard. Most of the rooms had timber lofts reached by stair-like ladders, so there was a bit more room, but I couldn't bear living with the same 100 people in any case. But then again if you think about it I only interact with really 20 people throughout my life at any one time. Except that they never seem to be any of the same people that I'm with throughout my life except for my family; I don't really have any core of childhood friends, except for Christy but she's one and a half years older than me so ever since elementary school she's been in a different grade. In elementary
school it mattered in that we never had classes or lunch or recess together and now it's that we're at different colleges. So we've never really hung out together on a regular basis. I don't have someone who's been with me every single day, you know? If I think about it, the person I care about most in the world right now is you and I've only known you for 8 months and you already know me better than most people. I'm thinking about people I'd invite to my wedding or my funeral, and when it comes to friends, it's like for all of these years I've made none that really mattered. There are people I say hi to and talk to and maybe do things with when it's convenient for them, but there isn't anyone in the world, outside of my family which is there by accident of my birth, that would stick by my side except for you.

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June 1

I went swimming yesterday. I still suck. My relatives were like, "Can you do anything else besides doggy paddle?" I was like.. -_-

Cafes here are ridiculously cheap, and they're also clean and delicious. I love them. I had French toast with peanut butter yesterday and it was great. You'd think that peanut butter doesn't go well with French toast, but you're wrong.

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June 2

Went to the art museum today, the rather prominent pink building with upswept roofs in Tsim Sha Tsui, recognizable from anywhere in Hong Kong Island when one looks over at Kowloon. Two walls of the lobby are lined with parallel, floor-to-ceiling windows, so that straight ahead of you, unobstructed, like some grand photographic mural lays the harbor and the entire, signature skyline of Hong Kong Island. There's a promenade along the sea known as "The Avenue of Stars," an imitation of Hollywood where famous Chinese media personalities ("everybody who's anybody") each get a star in the walk and a slab of cement in which he makes his handprint. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and John Woo's stars were there. Well, also Andy Lau, but he's not someone you've heard of. Jackie's hands are much bigger than mine, but Maggie Cheung, who won Best Actress in Cannes this year (which apparently is a big deal, and makes her the latest news darling in Hong Kong) and who played Flying Snow in "Hero," has the same size hands as me. Somehow, sticking your own hands into someone's handprints makes you feel closer to them, as if having the same sized hand makes them smaller and more human.

At the museum itself, I got to see all sort of gold artifacts, glowing softy in a dark room and the craftmanship is really amazing. Of course you can see the evolution of craftsmanship, from rather crude artifacts from the Neolithic era which looks like someone pounded on a yellow gum wrapper, to some incredible filigree work in the Qin dynasty, gold so fine that it looked like woven silk, except that it was, of course, gold. It looks pretty sturdy too; some of the Tang dynasty stuff looks like it would
bend if you so much as touched it, which is not to speak badly of it, per se; it's just a different aesthetic.

Also jade, which was less interesting, because there are limits to what you can do with stone as opposed to metal. Apparently though, nobody knows what quarry the jade in ancient artifacts came from, because they can't find it anymore; it's a soft, translucent white-ish jade known as "nephrite," (this is why in poetry beautiful women are described as having jade skin.. they're not Martians!) whereas modern jade is dark green and hard and known as "jadeite." It seems very mysterious, like something out of a novel, having a treasured material from time immemorial, that can no longer be found.

Saw some watercolor paintings too, which were unremarkable ink and colour landscapes of trees and misty mountains and such. Also some Qin Dynasty glasswork, but this was also unremarkable because really, we use all the same techniques even today so it looks like things you'd see in Pottery Barn, and some artifacts honestly looked like plastic, except for some really lovely snuff bottles which were made of frosted glass painted from the inside with tiny bamboo brushes.

And libation cups carved out of rhino horn, all in the tapered triangular shape, which is very manly. They are a nice, glossy shade of brown, like a polished hardwood. I think I'd like to get a piece of wood carved to look like a rhino horn, and if customs officials stopped me for suspicious contraband, I'd tell them it's actually wood, and it'd be true.

Btw, saw something really cool on the Metro. There was an ad on the side of the subway tunnel which was a series of consecutive billboards, so that as the train passed by and you looked out the window, it looked like an animated billboard, kind of like a flipbook effect, but in the Metro! It was hella cool.

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June 3

Hey, if my feet are tired, does it help to lean against a wall? Does this take some weight off my feet by having my weight pressed into the wall, or does the normal force of the wall push into my back and into my feet, into the ground? Or none of these?

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June 7

I had a dream too, that it was next year and you had a job and I was at school by myself and lonely. I think your dream was much better.

I went to the Gold Coast, a five-star resort hotel, over the weekend. There was a beach and stuff. It was fantastic. I went swimming at the beach because while I'm not a beach person, I felt it was something I should at least try. Now, the beach in itself great for actually swimming, which was what the swimming pool was for. It was salty and murky, and the sand had a lot of shell shards and little bits of rock in it so it hurt to step on it, but it was really fun drifting on the waves and being washed up against the shore. Also, I found a clam shell, with both shells intact and hinged. Wasn't too sunny, but it's better that way because then it isn't hot. And also I went to the outdoor dinner buffet and ate a lot, and I ate some grilled ostrich, wasabi cheesecake, and also there was sushi, except that kept getting attacked by a horde of tourists. ^___^ And also I went shopping at the little umbrellaed stalls on the boardwalk but you don't want to know about
that.. and then I spent the night being hyper and jumping between two beds. Literally.. it's the bed jumping game. It's quite dangerous and juvenile actually -the mattress can slip, causing you to lose your footing, or if you don't stop in time your momentum can take you charging right off the bed into the closet, which is why you have to play. And also UNO and junior Monopoly with my cousins. In the morning, I went into the sauna,
which is just like a small room with lots of steam in it, and it's very hot and wet but it feels nice to breathe in, like you're drinking gaseous soup or in some sort of womb. And I went to the jacuzzi which is just bubbling water, except that I was the only one there at 10 in the morning so I swam around in it like it was my own giant private bath tub and massaged my feet with the water jets. And also, I took an archery lesson for thirty minutes and ended up having the string thwap the the inside part of my bow
forearm, despite me wearing a bracer, and also the index finger of my arrow hand is rubbed raw. But it was fun still, if tiring, because it was a real, wooden bow, and I even managed to hit the target several times.

And today I went to the top of Victoria Peak which is just a big tourist spot and saw some dried pufferfish which were inflated and strung from the ceiling, like some sort of macabre Christmas ornaments. I thought about buying one, but I a) wouldn't know how to pack it and b) don't know if it'd get through customs. I also took the Peak Tram, which is a trolley up and down the mountain. The tram is set along a steep incline, with ridges along the seat aisles to prevent someone from sliding. It feels like a roller coaster when you are at the very top, and you can see a little bit of the track in front
of you before it drops steeply away out of sight, and it feels that if someone released the brake you'd go roaring all the way down the mountain. Fortunately, the method of travel is much slower.

At the bottom, threaded through Hong Kong Park, and took a path through a niche behind a waterfall where a man sat on the rocks reading. Revisited the tea museum which I had gone to a few years back, but the great inflatable teapot which had been standing on its grounds is now gone, which is a pity. Many things are still there, like the stairway over which a shallow current runs, and in which a braver person than I could walk up or down, and the cocktail glass shaped fountain accessible by a series of stepping stones across a pool, and with a bench running around the stem on which someone can watch the encompassing cylindrical curtain of water.

Oh yeah, I also got to the fourth level of Prince of Persia. Those swordfighting skeletons and slicing sheets that come out of the floor and ceiling are incredibly disturbing.

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June 10

Not much going on... was sick for a while, but only with a sore throat. Think it may be the result of allergies; my nose is chronically congested.

Went and got a facial, which involves paying a lot to lay around for two hours waiting for the gunk on your face to try, and waiting for people to get around to you, and getting sprayed with steam and being rubbed with various creams. With your eyes closed. While you don't talk or move. Got a mask, which smells like chemicals, sort of like paint, but if you were there, you wouldn't go, "This smells like paint," but rather, "This has a chemical smell, which reminds me of the way paint smells, because they
both have a chemical smell, but it's not as if this actually smells like paint." It covers your eyes and mouth and is kind of heavy so it feels almost like someone's trying to cast you in iron or something. I felt like a Malfean.. you know, deep in my underground slumber or something. Except without the slumber part. Afterwards, I looked exactly the same.

I did go out for soft shell crab tempura though. Mmm! Delicious!

Also: got a haircut. Decided that since you were going to get a different haircut I ought to get a different haircut also, since it'd be hypocritical to tell you to change your hairstyle, and then be unwilling to do the same myself. Also, worse comes to worse, we can look stupid together and Bob's your uncle. Now my hair is wavy.

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June 12

Well yesterday, I got to go to my uncle's (mom's sister's husband) decoration ceremony at the Japanese consul-general's residence, because he received the Order of the Rising Sun with Rosette (aka shiny shiny!). He likes calling it his 'bottle cap.' :P He used to be the head of the department of Japanese Studies at Chinese University and got it for
lifetime's service in promoting the study of the Japanese language in China.

The consul general's residence is at nearly the very top of Victoria Peak, which is the highest point in Hong Kong. For once, my ears didn't feel plugged. I don't know, maybe I just like low air pressure places, because "normally" in the valley it feels like every sound is dampened. I've tried yawning and swallowing and holding my nose and everything.. my ears don't "pop" like they're supposed to.

Anyway, it was kind of weird, because people kept bowing to us and I didn't know what to do, and you didn't know what language to speak to people unless you were good at that ineffable art of telling Chinese people from Japanese people, which according to World War II propaganda is possible, but very difficult for most normal, non-jingoistic people. The rule of thumb I used during the occasion was that apparently Japanese people are the more polite and better dressed ones. (As in, white gloves well dressed)

Anyway, in an impeccably neat reception room with a yellow carpet, there was a Japanese-style table with a photo of the Emperor and Empress each, with the Japanese flag to the left (respective photos of.. the prince and princess?.. were on the fireplace by another wall). Me and my family were close to the front, because we were family. There was the reading of the scroll "from" the Emperor (in Japanese, he probably didn't write it himself though), the ritual champagne toast by my uncle and aunt (his wife, my mom's sister), and the pinning of the medal, winking with its dark red stone, and a speech by the consul-general and an acceptance speech by my uncle in English (which I knew pretty well anyway because I'd proofread it). I have some pretty decent photos of the event since I was in front (with my digital camera) but they aren't great, about as crappy as the ones in the paper. You see how well you can photograph when you're jockeying for good shooting positions with the press.. they're pros at that kind of thing. There was a photo session afterwards, which was pretty tame too. There were some good catered snacks passed around though; very simple, but extremely classy things, like smoked salmon/shrimp/scallops on crackers... mmm, snacks. My aunt (mom's brother's wife) says she finds one of the consuls (in white gloves) to be "handsome, in a genteel way".. which I find amusing, because I think the word she's looking for is "bishonnen"... :P Anyway, when we left, the entire staff bowed to us simultaneously, in a synchronized manner. It was terrifying. I did bow back.. and they bowed again.. it freaked me out.

--

Am home. Don't know when I'll be seeing Jeremy again. He's graduating today. Have that strange, disjointed feeling one gets when one goes home. Should not count on getting too settled in; am going to Hong Kong on the 22nd, and coming home only on the 14th of June. Will get disjointed feeling again.

This is what happens when you play D&D with a level 1 party.

The Unexpected Party

(Malex is staying only three weeks in Maryland, and is then going back to California for some research program on retirement savings. He sucks.)

Malex, Janis and Lauren came over today to visit me, after getting thoroughly lost figuring out where to park, and delivered unto me a painting/ collage in acrylic with the words "Fuck Yeah!"

They inflicted donuts and cookies on me, played mancala/ read the questions off of my Trivial Pursuit cards.

Your Educational Link for the Day

Artemisia Gentileschi, an incredible female painter of the Renaissance/Baroque period. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Saw Troy with Jeremy, Chris and Jose. I suppose you would like it, if you enjoy watching all the characters from the Iliad assraped repeatedly (figuratively, of course).

("I'm Agammemnon, I like conquering shit! I'm the villain! Yarrr!")

("I'm Achilles, I'm a big pussy! Boo hoo hoo! I'm secretly a kind and sensitive soul and I have a love interest!")

("I'm Helen, the most beautiful woman in all fo the Ancient World, but for some reason, contrary to every standard of classical beauty, I am as skinny as a stick. Every sign of the vivacious charisma and forceful presence that made me the most compelling woman in all of history will be removed until I am just a generic, pretty face as dull as dishwater and just as forgettable.")

("Let's kill off Agammemnon and Menelaus!")

("Let's remove every sign of intervention by the Greek Gods, every ounce of homoerotic tension between Achilles and Patroklos, and every actor who looks, speaks, or is actually Greek, or anything else remotely interesting...")

("Let's turn the Iliad into a politically-correct, modernist exploration of the human pysche, but with stock Hollywood character concepts!")

You'd think that people would realize that a poem that has survived for over 2000 years has done so for a reason, but no, they gotta go fuck with it.

Morons.

At least we get some good shots of Brad Pitt's butt.

Occult Week

My posts from today are a rather eclectic collection of things I've been doing for the last two weeks.

-watched Hellsing, the anime. I had been misled into thinking it was a phenomenal anime because of Kay's fantastic AMV, but I ended up not liking it too much. I liked the way they treated Victoria's angst with becoming a vampire (not an original subject in modern vampire lore, but still well done), the infighting among different vampire hunting organizations (mainly the Catholic and Protestant branches) and the thorough knowledge of British military structure. Still, I wouldn't say it was great because it taxed my suspension of disbelief just a wee bit much. Honestly, any fantasy character (and by my definition, horror still counts as a part of the fantasy genre by dint of being "fantastic") with powers must have rules regarding them somehow, in order to be believable. If in this universe vampires are killed by blessed silver, then it shouldn't be too much to ask that a vampire who is stabbed/shot greviously with blessed silver be killed consistently. Anyone with godlike powers ought to have a set limit to their godlike powers, or else a story degenerates from being a story, and turns into a special effects extravaganza (*cough* Matrix 3... *cough*). Besides, too many questions were unanswered for there to be much semblance of a plot. I should also note that there's an absurdly high mortality rate for... well, all the characters.

Also, though Jeremy prefers watching anime with subtitles, Helsing, which takes place in London, really should be watched dubbed. It takes place in London, therefore you ought to watch it in English. This is a no-brainer. Most of the voices are pretty good. Integra's voice actress is right on the mark, as is Ferguson's, though he's only a minor character. Alucard's voice actor has a nice voice, but can't act for shit. Walter sounds like a nondescript English butler but isn't bad. Victoria's voice is annoying because it's too "snobby British" for a cop. Priest Anderson, they gave an over the top Irish accent, which makes sense because he's Catholic, but I just never imagined him that way. It's like making Wolfwood Irish.. it's not something you'd do. But I prefer the dub just because the translation flows better in English than the translation for the sub, which is rather bad. There are just little things you wouldn't do in English that are annoying in the sub. For example, the translation of names. Alucard is translated as "Arucard," Ferguson as "Fargason," Integra (a girl's name) as "Integral," Anderson as "Andersong"... It's silly. Random epithets are clunky. Who gets called "Little Kitten" as a nickname? This is "Baka-chan" in Japanese so it makes sense there, but in English, a kitten, by definition, is little. And no one, as far as I've experienced, has ever been called a "sow" or a "whore-bitch."

-Van Helsing, the movie. It was fun. I liked it. It had many scenes that made me jump (but then again I shriek when Niall jumps out at me from around a corner), non-stop action, cool Gothic scenery, asskicking weapons (repeat-fire crossbow, anyone?) and trite comedy which I found funny anyway (I never claimed to have refined tastes). Downside- many scenes with lots of goop, and Kate Beckinsale in slutty make up. Their Dracula wasn't that great... fairly cookie cutter. It's not, you know.. high drama, but it is a fun movie.

-Hellboy. It's good. It has likeable, quirky characters with defined personalities that you can relate to emotionally and deadpan humor in the strangest places. Plus, some of the concepts are pretty original (a clockwork villain??). Not as fast-paced as Van Helsing, but of course it makes up for this with having better, you know, story and acting. Gee.

Wish they wouldn't do that, "Oh my god, somebody save my kittens!" cliche they do in every movie when some natural disaster or monster is killing people in the city left and right, and some moronic woman wants the hero to save her cat, but at least it's in character. Hellboy likes kittens. And chili. And pancakes. That's what I love about him; you can't be hatin' on a superhero who likes pancakes. And plus, the first ever human/demon romance story arc I've ever seen.

-Jeremy's favorite anime, Vampire Princess Miyu. She's a vampire. She's a princess. But don't be fooled, both of these aspects are completely irrelevant to the actual plot. Anyway, it's about this vampire schoolgirl (!!!) who acts as an immortal guardian to mankind, slaying demons who prey on human emotions. Despite sounding corny, it's rather well done, a bit depressing even, as it is essentially an ironic commentary on human nature. Each episode has a demon that preys on some human's flaw or dream, and the demon's appearance and manner of feeding somehow relates to said human weakeness. This format allows it to go on a truckload of philosophical tangents. It's a bit hard to understand since (according to Jeremy) it takes many concepts from Shinto and uses theatrical devices from kabuki, but the incoherence is the result of an alien culture, not because its creators were incompetent with storytelling. Oh, and the last episode made me cry for like ten minutes nonstop. Not really an uplifting anime, but it's damn good.

Museum Weekend, Part 2

After lunch, went to the Dime Museum in Baltimore. As we went in, the director explained to us that it was an authentic recreation of traveling sideshows from the 19th century, which is basically a disclaimer that anything we see that's offensive is "history," not sensationalism. Therefore he covers his ass and we can't sue him.

Though it's intended as history, it's not that edifying. The main draw of the museum is what drew our ancestors (okay, your white ancestors) to freak shows a hundred years ago... weird ass shit.

It's got the world's largest bat, which weighs 600 ponds and "can kill a horse." It's a baseball bat. Har har har.

It's also got an "authentic" fossilized fairy and the world's biggest wall of ties. It has Victorian samplers, which would be exquisitely lovely except that they're embroidered completely in human hair. God, Victorians! I think their imperialist tendencies must've been compensatory for something. There was a good deal of relics from the Victorian era, like jewelry made tiger claws, or more eerily, people's baby teeth, and a landscape picture supposedly made of multicolored butterfly wings glued onto a backing (it looked very cool, but could've been done with tissue paper as well). Naturally, there were also some mummies, one of an "Amazon," and one of some pharoah, which I would be disinclined to accept as authentic if it weren't for the fact that the mummy of Ramses the first was actually found in a dime museum by Niagara Falls. (True!)

Museum Weekend, Part 1

My dorm sponsored a trip to see some museums in Fell's Point on the first of May, so I went, with Jeremy. Went to the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, a rather cheesy place in Baltimore, but sadly the most visited museum there. Baltimore is not that great a place. Did learn a few things though.

-Did you know that Pushkin was black? <--- (I purposefully do not capitalize this, unlike my socialistic sociology book. IMHO, there are no such thing as races, only ethnicities. Therefore black is an adjective, not a proper noun). I find this tidbit of knowledge to be pretty cool. I knew he was a great Russian writer, but didn't know he was black. I'm glad he was taught to us in school as "a great Russian writer" rather than a "great black writer," because the latter would imply that he's only worth studying because he's black and therefore satisfying some "cultural diversity" quota in the school curriculum.

-Did you know that Rastafarianism is actually a religion combining mysticism and Judeo-Christian beliefs? And all this time I just thought it was a dress style.

-Sheba was a great civilization that was a precursor to Ethiopia. All my friends at UMBC are science majors of some sort and so they don't understand what motivates me to read up on these things on my own. They are my friends in terms of social activities and entertainment, but it gets a bit lonely sometimes in the academic sector. I wish I knew more about the ancient world. It's rather remarkable how many great civilizations we've forgotten. 500 years of influence and centuries later, it's as if you never were. Ashes to ashes, I suppose. Persia, Kush, Canaan, Syria, Phoenicia, Anatolia, Abbyssinia, Aramaia are all names to me, and yet what places they must have been.

Did you know that Kay is a fratboy? I mean, in hindsight it seems rather obvious. You look at at our roleplaying group and you go, "GEE, I wonder who's the fratboy??" It's amazing how he can be simultaneously cooler than us yet nerdier than us at the same time.

I learned how to crochet. When people ask me what I'm making I say, "A tangled knot of yarn." I really don't know what this is. It's too small to be anything. Maybe a penis warmer I guess.

Check out my econ project webpage, yo.

No, I didn't do the html. I wish.

Gay or Asian?

See, it's not that I think that being called gay is an insult, or that I object to good-natured humor regarding the androgynous dress style of many Asian men, it's just that the kung-fu/samurai/Chinese food delivery stereotypes are some of the most annoying and grating pieces of shit I've ever seen. Oh yeah, and I so want to be "a crazy cool Americaaaaannn!" because clearly, all true Americans are white.

-_-

Morons.

In This Day and Age College Kids Who Drink are Outlaws While, Say, People Who Get Rehab Against Heroin Addiction Are "Victims" or Have an "Illness."

On Sunday night, Jeremy walked me back to my room, kissed me goodnight, and left. He turned the lights off as he closed the door behind him, I locked it, and went to bed.

About five minutes later, a shaft of light fell over my face as the door opened, and in came two guys, hoisting my roomate between them. They flopped her down onto the bed. A small crowd was gathering in the hallway. Two people were the RAs from the front desk (who check IDs), and one (a Sarah, I think) came in and sat on the bed and called my roommate's name but she wouldn't respond. There was a quiet argument about whether to call an ambulance; the terrors of being treated like a criminal weighed against the necessity of getting medical help. Sarah went to call the EMTs. John, one of the guys who'd brought Mai in, talked to her in a firm and gentle voice, asking how much she'd had (a Long Island iced tea and two marguiritas), a soothing sound in the dark interspersed throughout the room by sporadic bursts of speech over cell phones to worried friends across the state. Mai insisted in a slurred murmur, as her eyes focused and unfocused, that she was fine and wanted to sleep, and John insisted over and over again like a lullaby to a child that they were just making sure she was okay, in a rise and fall of voices by the bed.

A very cop-like cop came in and asked where the sick person was, and asked John questions (WHERE WERE YOU. at a club in virgina. HOW MUCH DID SHE HAVE. three i think a long island iced tea and two marguiritas. ARE YOU OF AGE. we are but she isn't. HOW OLD IS SHE. twenty i think but i'm not sure you can check her id. IS THIS HER FIRST TIME DRINKING.) "no," I said and they asked who I was and I said I was the roommate and I showed him the empty vodka bottles between the wardrobes and he asked how old I was and I said eighteen and he asked if there were any full bottles in the fridge and I said no and that I'd not actually seen her drink and didn't know who the empty bottles belonged to since she often has guests over. Then he asked her if she'd been drinking and she said: i never drink in here i just keep the bottles here: and he said, that's not what i asked i asked if you ever drink and then he asked me if she'd been drinking over the weekend but I was home over the weekend and didn't know and the cop held her wrist to take her pulse and she said: whaaat are you doooin???? and he said: taking your pulse, and she tried to bat his hand away but failed. Then the paramedics came in and the cop told them the same story (though I don't think he believed the part where I said the bottles weren't mine even though it's true because he's probably too used to people lying about that kind of thing so even when it's true it sounds like a lie). Then I went downstairs to check in a friend of hers who the desk staff wouldn't let in because she didn't have proper ID and when I came back up to my room the paramedics were taking her blood pressure and then they were trying to convince her to go to the hospital (because she didn't even know her own name or how old she is; she's 19 not 20) but she didn't wannnnaaa but they decided she was under 21 and drunk so she couldn't sign a release form anyway so they took her anyway and they put her in a stretcher and she said why are you strapping me in? but it didn't matter because she couldn't sign a release form, and they took her in the ambulance and left with her friends following her. So I went over to Jeremy's to stay the night.

On Friday night at dinner, I had said, "Mai, I don't care if you drink in your free time because it's your business, but could you at least hide the bottles?"

Sunday, went with Jeremy to Rock Creek park and walked the three mile trail from the entrance at Russet road to Lake Frank and Lake Needwood, which Jeremy calls "Lake Needlewood," which we both agree is a better name. The sky, in degrees of grey and white, hid the sun from the woods and grass in shades of damp green. I showed Jeremy the rocks I had gotten stuck climbing, but we conquered them this time by walking up tree trunks fallen aslant along the slope, weaving through a horizontal jungle gym of fallen foliage a few feet above the ground. We found deer by the flicking of their white tails, the rest of their bodies thickly furred in a sheen of grey. By some small falls, a heron with outstretched wings stroked the air, strutted upon a pair of stilt-legs and speared its beak into the water, emerging with a wiggle disappearing down its throat.

BTW, Lake Needwood has a wooded island.

On Saturday, went to the National Mall with Jeremy, when the sun was bright and the air clear from a week of rain and thunderstorms. Went to the National Aquarium, a dowdy, civic-looking building in which you descend a claustrophobic staircase, the walls badly painted with murals of aquatic life, into a basement resembling a modest fish shop. Saw some puffer fish unpuffed, a long murray eel milky-eyed and sinister, horseshoe crabs (which I got to pet), small alligators, pirahnas, a giant mollusk the size of a small watermelon, hermit crabs caught exposed outside their shells, fiddler crabs with their one giant claw and a tiny one, flounder almost indistinguishable from rocks, an ornery snapping turtle, lobsters the size of your cat, and gar, weird fish with long noses. There went my three dollars and fifty.

Also went to the National Gallery of Art to look at Italian Renaissance paintings, glowing in oils or softer egg tempera, the transcendant Raphaels and the portrait of Ginevra de Benci, the sole Leonardo da Vinci in the Western hemisphere, and, I'm sure, other Ninja Turtles. Also, Botticelli and Titian and Giorgione and other people from history class, who are, inexplicably, not amphibians of any sort. We sat in the National Gallery sculpture garden for a bit, beside the smooth, granite-ringed fountain in which you can dip your feet, and looked at the sculpture resembling a stack of chairs melded together, and the optical illusion sculpture resembling a pile of cubes (Jeremy calls it the Q-bert box), which are actually rectangular. After the museum closed, we strolled through the maze-like pathways of the Hirschorn sculpture garden, with strange objects in bronze, few of them coherent but most of them at least pleasing to the eye in an unexplicable way. Here, a giant bronze ball with etchings, somehow resembling a bombed out city, and from a distance, the etchings looking like reflections in the globe, there, the primordial round shapes of a monolithic woman, there, a nude composed completely of metal cylinders, there, a bird made of rounded crescents... so forth. Oh yes, and there, a statue of a woman that looks completely normal.

After we left Washington, we tried to go to a pizzeria in Dupont Circle for dinner at Kay's suggestion via cell phone, but the circle by the fountain was flooded with pro-choice ralliers pysching up for the big women's rights march on Sunday. Jeremy was getting that tight, clenched muscle look around his jaw, so we left. He did like the ginormous subterranean escalator from the Metro station to the surface, that eerily lit, monumental ode to Death Star (One and Two) ventilation shafts, even if the Metro system was crammed with protestors of all sorts, from the NOW ones to the pro-choice ones to the anti-IMF ones (from a totally different protest down 19th Street). Like cicadas, it's just that type of season. We ended up going to the Barnes and Noble in Bethesda, around sunset, in that small plaza with a brick-lined road and flower pots and outdoor cafes, and from there went to Raku, the Japanese restaurant next to Deli Dhaba. It's a small and cozy place with outdoor seating, and on the inside, colorful paper umbrellas suspended from the ceiling and oblong lamps emitting a buttery glow, and all the smells mingled together which are almost as essential a part of the decor. Service wasn't great; they gave us our food but it was so crowded they didn't have much time for anything else, and the food was an hour in coming and they took twenty minutes to give us our check. But the food was good; I had a bento box (I didn't eat the actual box) and Jeremy had teriyaki salmon.

Now I make you hungry.

Addendum

I don't mind coming in on my roommate having sex so much as the fact that it's never with the same person.

On Friday, went to Bal'more with Jeremy. I thought he was going to take me out to cheer me up from the random depression I'd been in for the last week. But no, he apparently had needed to go fetch the Exalted Players Guide from the Inner Harbor Barnes and Noble. Silly pie. He should learn how to BS.

The sun had come out after basically two weeks of unremitting rain, and made things shiny again. (Malex, I hate you for being in Southern California and not dealing with East Coast weather. :P) We went to Fort McHenry, which we found out later was called Federal Hill, very steep and imposing from up close, with grassy slopes that rise steeper than 30 degress. The top of the hill, with the oversized Star Spangled Banner drooping in windlessness like a disappointed bird, is flat and surmounted by a toothy ring of cannons. It's very freaky, especially to someone like Jeremy with no depth perception, because the slope of the hill disappears behind the ridge formed where the flat and the incline meet, so it looks as if past a certain point the ground just gives way to thin air. But from the top you can see everything, downtown across the harbor with sailboats like little triangular paper cutouts, those crew teams in their slim maritime needles slipping through the blue, and fireboats uncharacteristically jaunty in red and white and thick smoke mushrooming charmingly from the pier. The skyline casts a clean silhouette of sunlight on metal and sky mirrored in glass, and in other directions away from the city, so far in the distance as to be painted against the horizon, roll the hazy blues of hilly piedmont.

For a while you might even say that the city is fair, until you are, in the course of a day, begged at for money by ten (we kept count) people. One man asked us for money for coffee... across the street from a tavern. God, I don't know why I make eye contact with anyone anymore, because as soon as you take your eyes off the sidewalk and look someone in the eye they ask you for spare change. Jeremy told me he does make eye contact, but has mastered a look of such contempt and vitriol that most people just find it better not to approach him for anything. Only one person was with an organized charity. I suppose you could count eleven people total if you count the little girl who tried to sell us chocolates, and twelve if you count the drunk who yelled at Jeremy belligerently and incoherently, but didn't ask for money. The drunk was bellowing "Lifeguard!" at Jeremy (who was wearing his lifeguard t-shirt) and I thought he maybe needed medical attention, but he kind of fell back once Jeremy marched me past, towed very firmly by the arm. He probably was just drunk and didn't need a lifeguard at all (we saw him again on the way back). After all, if I really had some sort of emergency and honest intentions, I wouldn't have been cowed by having someone glare at me. But I also wonder, if I were homeless and had a medical emergency, if I would have any kind of conviction regarding my right to be helped. Most of us would consider a medical emergency a life or death situation, but I think homeless people are so used to being in life or death situations and being ignored (not having money for food every day is a continuous life or death situation in its own way) that maybe they've stopped expecting passerbys to even care about the most terrible of tragedies.

In any case, we didn't give them money.

We walked to historic Fells Point, with brick streets and small shops that sold genuinely interesting gifts items. We had tea at a small, if expensive, Egyptian cafe called The Nile, with frescoes from the Book of the Dead (said Jeremy) where Anubis weighs the souls of the dead, and hieroglyphs painted along the walls. On the other wall was an Egyptian hunting scene with archers and trappers and a woman on a papyrus boat amongst the cool reeds of the Nile, inhabited by comical fish and a graceful flock of herons in flight. This segued, next to stairs to the upper (private) floor, into a mural of veiled women and men in headdress captioned in Arabic. I thought they got their genres mixed. In any case, there is nothing quite like the texture of late afternoon sunlight on a hardwood floor, so the atmosphere was fine by me, and it was a rather relaxed affair revolving around mint tea, jallab (date juice with the subtle hint of rosewater as an aftertaste), a bizarre, honey-coated dessert that looked like a giant wheaties (kunafa), and a cinnamon buttered, almond cake with oranges (basbousa). Later, we went back to B&N, and wandered around because I swore I'd seen a theater around there somewhere, except I must not've (there's a theater along North Charles Street but none downtown). In the coming of the evening, we found a cozy, winding walkway through a series of waterfall-fountains, where the niche behind a curtain of water provided a little bit of privacy.

Revenge of the Asian Tattooist

Martial Artist Kills Burglars

Hee hee! You get 'em!

Went to a formal, multi-course dinner at the Skylight Lounge and learned which forks to use for what food.

"How long will it take you to get ready?" Jeremy asked me.

I said, "Not too long, I just need to change."

Fifteen minutes later, I had shaved my legs, changed, put on my shoes and pantyhose (via a very inefficient process of pulling it while jumping up and down) and was watching Jeremy strive in mortal combat with a necktie ("Argh, it's ALIVE!!! Og kill!!!!") while turning a very elemental shade of red. And he was asking me how long I'd take?

But he looks very cute and squared away while he's playing Mormon.

We were late, but that turned out to be fortuitous because we missed that first half hour of the dinner where people are suppose to "mingle," and we all hate mingling.

Note: Silly white people! You invented gunpowder as a weapon of war, you are (outside of Japan) the richest people in the world with the best health care systems, you have industrial development that's the envy of all countries.... but you still eat rice with forks! What the hell is that? Did someone wake up one day and say, "Gee, look at this eating utensil that is comprised of a series of a parallel tines. Let's eat miniscule, granular objects with it." Morons. Rice is for spoons.

See... when you're too busy conquering people, all the blood in your brain flows to your weapon hand.

How to Collect Semen From A Rhino

Hey, it's Libertarian, er.. "Liberty" Week at UMBC, where we have an orgy of fun-filled Libertarian activities.

Tonight we had political satirist Bob Somerby, and an audience of all of fifteen people.

And next Sunday is the trip to the shooting range!

Oh, Poop.

I've been sick since Friday morning.

I have a fever, upset stomach and diarrhea, which are okay by themselves except that they all ganged up together and formed themselves a roleplaying party. ("I'm the mage!")

Being typically incompetent, UMBC's health services aren't open on weekends. You'd think that if they had to be cheap they could at least staff the health services with pre-med students desperate for money and experience. (Kay, who is a pre-med, "prescribed" me some of his leftover medicine for nausea. I know this is illegal. I don't care.) You might say, "Oh, it's Easter," but Jesus, Health Services is never open on any weekend. They're open from 8am-5pm on Monday through Thursdays, and they close early on Fridays.

But if you want to think about this philosophically, last Easter over high school spring break, I had a high fever and a cough caused by respiratory allergies for three days (strangely enough, after a college visit to UMBC). When I got up from puttering around in bed swathed in blankets drinking lots of water I noticed that the magnolia tree right by my front porch was in blossom and some of the petals were falling down, and I started crying. Well, being sick was basically my spring break but when I got back to school it seemed like everything was different somehow, like it was clean and made new, as if you could feel the place and times changing around you. (This could also be a result of the real academic year drawing to a close as we got into AP and IB Testing Season, and everyone getting their college acceptance notes, and beginning to disappear into the ether of a Real Life, and the days getting longer, and the snow finally going home.) My blog entries from last year around that time don't quite capture what I felt (and neither does this one), if simply because I am not good enough with words. I used to spend hours outside listening to the silence alternating with the wind in the trees, and watch how each blade of grass turned a translucent green-gold in the reborn sun, and hiking on top of hills so that I could see the straight trunks and the newly lush leaves of the trees under and around me.

----

Sunday, April 20, 2003

I am painfully happy for the beauty of the world. I think heaven must be a sunny walk. Why does the world have to change? I must go on living (school, job, marriage, kids) to be happy, but I'm happy already, so why won't the world stay as it is, with the wind and shadows in the grass? It feels like the end of everything, though I know there are no beginnings and no ends, simply living on as one lived before, and the world continues as before.

Anyone can have ambitions, but being content is God's gift. Let me be content then, at least for a while.

Monday, April 21, 2003

"So coming back from a journey, or after an illness, before habits had spun themselves across the surface, one felt that same unreality, which was so startling; felt something emerge. Life was most vivid then." -To the Lighthouse

I am happy now because there's not anywhere else in the world I'd rather be or anything else in the world I'd rather be doing. I spend most of my life either looking forward or backwards, but I've spent today all mellow and at peace waiting for something to happen.

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

There's no greater joy in the world than a good, long, two-hour walk with birdsong and tall trees. It was very strange.. I felt like I'd turn a corner and see something.. I don't know what, like some lost world I once belonged to, a place where I should be and half remembered.

Thursday, April 24, 2003

I have re-discovered a passion for walking, which I suppose is much healthier than my winter passion for S&M and German men.

Walking makes me really really happy. It's so peaceful every day, I don't give a damn about anything, and for that hour and a half, I have everything in life I wish to have. Today, a boy on a bike, maybe around twelve years old, smiled so warmly at me as he went by that it was like the sun came out (I mean, the sun was already out but it was like a second sun came out), and later on, he was with a bunch of friends in the street laughing as they raced each other on bikes and scooters and on foot. And how can such exuberance help but be contagious? And the Good Humor truck came out, the epitome of childhood happiness, and the boy's friend on the bike rode after it, and life was good.


----

Maybe it'll be something of the same this year. Here's hoping.

So happy Easter, y'all.

And I knocked this time!

I really wish I could stop walking in on my roommate having sex.

Speculations Upon the Nature of Eden: a Movement in Three Parts

The Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore has the Della Robbia sculpture from Renaissance Florence featured quite prominently as a dramatic device in "The Birth of Venus" (the recently published novel, not the Botticelli painting), the one where the snake that tempts Adam has a woman's head. I went to see it last Thursday, with Jeremy, but it was something of a disappointment.
---

On Saturday, I went to New York City for a wedding in a ratty, Azn part of Flushing. I personally didn't find it to be that great a wedding; why anyone would have a combination traditional Chinese/nightclub themed wedding afterparty I don't understand. (Presumably the actual ceremony had more decorum; I wasn't there.) You can go to a nightclub for $5 any time you want, but you only get married (hopefully) once in your life. If you ask me, in my fluffy pink thought bubbles where logic and laws of physics do not apply, I'd get married with ribbons woven through my hair, on a wooded island in a glassy lake accessible only by swan-shaped boats and fairy dust, and because my husband will be handsome, rich, intelligent, kind, and perfect in all ways, his smile would bring out the sun itself, so it'd never rain, (it may mist at worst, but that's atmospheric). Or, I'd get married in an Italian villa and ride away in a horse-drawn carriage festooned in garlands. At some point there will be soap bubbles, and ballroom dancing of the kind in which your satin dress rustles across the floor (and it doesn't matter that I can't dance, I'd take lessons six months before, with my husband, who, because he is perfect, is already an amazingly talented, yet infinitely patient, lord of the dance). And then I'd be in a loving relationship, become independently wealthy, well-rounded, good-natured, travel the world beloved by all for my meritorious contributions to society, and live a life of effortless luxury. And then after I die people will look at my gravestone and think, "Damn, she was cool."

Or something like that.

In the event that the above, by some horrendous tragedy, shall not come to pass, I should at least like to declare an edict that there will be no moronic fratboy-esque games at my wedding after-party, with flashing lights and a DJ yelling things in one of those car advertisement voices: "Now everyone on the left side cheer! What's that??? Louder! I can't hear you!!!"

There will be no Eminem or Ludacris at my wedding.
---

If I ever think about getting married, or raising children, or living somewhere or going places in my hazy pastel daydreams of the future, I inevitably find myself inserting Jeremy into the place of what previously was just some nebulous, idealized male figure. That doesn't mean though that I have anything planned, or even marginally intended. I think Jeremy finds it a bit hurtful that I make no long-term statements. It's not that I can't see myself with him in five years or so, it's just that I refuse to say anything, almost like avoiding a jinx. The thought of committment doesn't, say, make me recoil with a jolt of horror, it's simply that I fear to trust to hope as the armor against heartbreak.

Journals from Spain

(I found these on an old clipboard. They are only a three day record of a 10 day trip in 7th grade. Please forgive the bad writing. All mispellings, bad Spanish, bad grammar, inadequate descriptions, and aspects of my personality as a twelve year-old are, as they say in the computer business, features, not bugs. All linked photos are not mine, but included to enrich my otherwise inadequate text. The paragraphs in italics are my account of the journey on the plane, which I noted for some reason. It is terribly irrelevent in retrospect and is included for completeness' sake only. You may skip if you so wish.)

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Day 1: Madrid

Remind me never to fly Spanair again. I usually find flying pleasant, but this was not the case. It might have helped if my overhead light and air vent had been working. In the middle of the night, it was unbearably hot, and I couldn't get to sleep. My headphones didn't work so I couldn't watch the movies.

I decided to take my watch off because the strap was making me hot. I put it on the arm rest, but it kept falling off. Finally, I attached it to the hook that holds the table in place. I went to the door to look out the window, like I usually do, but there was no window. I went to the W.C. to change and took off my shirt, but I had nothing to change into, so put it on again.

However, I did get little blue slippers that were fun to slide around in. At fist I had no idea what they were. I thought they were night caps or something. I asked one of the flight attendants, who like much of the crew, didn't speak a word of English. Regadless, I didn't get far. I found out they were slippers after seeing someone slide around in them. It was still very hot, so I went to the front of the plane and back. Just because you like to know these things, here is the food I ate on the plane: fish with rice and veggies (eggplants!), crackers with cheese, cheesecake, and some grey round stuff that tasted disgusting. I fell asleep soon after.

When I woke up, we were prepared to land. We could see the sun rising throuh the window. When we landed, we had to go down the stairs, instead of through a gate so I got to see the sun rise. It was 12 degrees C, probably the perfect termperature, and my first view of Madrid was of a sunrise over the hills. (Despite the fact that my ears hurt.) After customs, and upon exiting the airport, we waited for the bus. It dawned upon me that Madrid looked very much like Hong Kong, with the same climate and vegetation. After heading to our hotels, we toured Madrid. There seemed to be an unusual nmber of motorcyclists willing to run me down. There were too many cars smokers, and beggars, which made it hard to breathe. We went into a little bakery to seek refuge and breakfast. "Er, pan for favor?" asked Jacob, the same boy on the plane sliding around in slippers. "You want this?" the person asked in English. It was very funny and we got away from speaking more Spanish.

We went to the Royal Palace. In front of it, were several mounted guards. (Personally, I wonder if they like their jobs.) After awhile, the rode away, and I was able to get a close up photo. They were chased by a bunch of kids who wanted autographs. Later, they changed the standing guard. After a series of military salutes, they finally changed.

We had to meet behind the Royal Palace and between a church which I do not know the name of, at 12:00. In that area, was a statue of Felipe II This statue was flanked by 4 obelisks, which were flanked by 4 balls. Behind the statue was a gate, from which one could see Toledo, a neighboring city. This place is my favorite in Madrid because when you lie down, the stone is cool, the sun is warm, and every hour, the nearby church tolls its bells.

Passing the front of the palace again, we saw a guard on a motorcycle with a machine gun in camaflage uniform. He looked strange next to the ceremonial guard with their blue uniforms and bayonets. The modern guard seem to be everywhere.

We headed to the park, where there was a maze made out of bushes. The bushes were short and could easily be seen over, but it was fun chasing people around. I get tired easily, so I sat by the fountain and splashed the water. Nearby were many statues of Greek and Roman people that I have never heard of. Madrid looks and smells like Hong Kong except that Madrid has Greco-Roman influences. The park is my second favorite place. (It always seems that I always take the most pictures of my favorite place.) We ate lunch at Museo de Jamon (literally, Museum of Ham). I ate limon helado, or lemon ice-cream. It was ice cream inside a lemon. (Try new things. I wonder what orange ice-cream is.) We then went back to the palace. Christine got rubbings. We went back to our hotel for siesta, then went to dinner. It was very greasy chicken. I think the Pepsi made me hyper, because I am REALLY HAPPY AND HAPPY AND HAPPY AND TIRED.. zzzzzz...

Day 2: Villa Nueva de Canada.

I met my host family today. My "sister", Lucia Monserrat, had made me a Welcome sign. She also gave me a little blue teddy bear that plays music when you squeeze it's paw.

We went to Segovia, the city where she and her mother were born. It has a castle and a (scribbled in the margin of the page: "811-7310 Don Angel".. I have no idea what this is) cathedral, and was built by the Romans. It even has an aquaduct running through it. I bought a book in Segovia. We had lunch at a small cafe. I had orange ice cream this time. It tasted like lemon ice-cream, except orange. After lunch, we went to another part of Segovia and saw the fountains near another royal palace. It was winter, so the fountains were off, but I bought some post cards which I probably will never bother to send home. Wen we got home, my family had a stange conversation with Teresa, Lucia's friend, and I hopped into her car and got driven to Maria's house. There, we dropped off Teresa's brother to play soccer in the middle of the road with his friends and I was introduced to Maria. Her American is my friend, Anne. We walked to the house of Julianna, and her "sister" Anne. We played soccer in the middle of the road and were occassionally scattered by a passing car or motorcycle. Many people would sit on the front steps and talk. We went home after dark and ate dinner at about 10:00. We watched a soccer game, then I went to sleep.

Day 3: Home Stay.

I had cereal for breakfast. I didn't know that eating cereal could be so hard. For example, which goes in first, the milk or the cereal? How much milk or cereal do I put in? What do I do with this little packet chcolage? I learned after a while. Afterwards, we went to the Prados Museum of Art in Madrid with Blanaca, another friend of Lucia's, and Christine. I got 2 brochures; 1 on Goya, 1 on Velazquez, and 1 on the Museum itself. Then, we went to Toledo. It has two beautiful cathedrals. In one, I saw a painting, the burial of Count Orgaz. It is the only painting that a certain artist is admired for. I forgot his name, but the painting is so famous that I'll find it soon. After lunch, we went to an observatory on the outskirts of Toledo near the top of a mountain. I took a couple pictures from there. The parents were having coffee, so we played hide and seek and hiked to the top of the mountain. I took a picture from the top. I am going to school tommorow, so I have to go to sleep early. Bye.

Day 4: Homestay

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The journal ends. Dammit! I wish I'd written more. Or at least taken more pictures, but I, like Rob, who was also in Spain, am camera shy.

Back from Spring Break. I now have a lovely green vase full of daffodils which Jeremy picked from his garden for me. I have to return the vase though; his mother wants it back.

Did you hear about the high-ranking admiral who retired from the Navy? There was a great controversy when he admittedy shortly afterward to being gay. It's not really a great surprise then that he was a rear admiral.

-Paraphrased from a Conan O'Brien rerun

Madness in the Dark

Lauren recommended to me an excellent Trigun fanfic. V. short but v. powerful. Spoilers.. duh. You know which one.

Apparently there's a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie being made. Rock on!

You PETA People Are Gonna Kill Me For This

Senate Passes Fetus Protection Bill

I'm vaguely pro-choice but I'm not against this at all. If you can get prosecuted for killing a cat, you should be prosecuted for killing an unborn child, for God's sake. This is a no-brainer. I don't consider it murder on the same degree as killing a full-grown person but it should still be a criminal offense. I mean, compared to offenses like parking tickets, pulling the tag off of mattresses and pirating music... After all, even if for the sake of argument a fetus doesn't have rights (which I think it has at least as much as any animal*), isn't the assault of a pregnant woman, as well as being an assault on her person, a violation of her right to choose? The criminal is essentially attempting to make an abortion for her, which anyone on either side of the argument can agree is a heinous deed.

*My opinion on animals is that they can be killed for the utilization of a resource, as a preservation of a cultural tradition, or to euthanize them. They should not be killed because someone enjoys the suffering, or if they are someone elses' property. However, the intention is more important than the act in this case. A butcher who kills not because he must provide meat, but because he enjoys watching the animals squirm, is to be condemned. A matador (whose vocation encompasses centuries of unique tradition and is the social glue of an entire community) who performs not because he likes killing, but for the love of grace and precision in his movements and respects the bull as an honorable enemy, is to be applauded.

Fetuses should be given at least this much protection, and for goodness sakes, a lot more. A sense of ethics, if not the government, should say that an unborn child should not be killed after it has developed a heart and brain, unless the mother is in grave danger or it is so deformed, handicapped or severely retarded that it would be a mercy to the child not to bring it to term.

Full human rights, for fully-formed human beings, go as follow: Among other things, they should not be killed for any reason except self-defense, should not be euthanized unless requested, and even then, probably not. I don't care if the guy is retarded or deformed or handicapped after he's born, you can't kill him. Can you really look a retarded person in the eye and say that all those years he's been alive were a waste, and then drill a hole in his head and vacuum out his brains? Didn't think so.

Therefore fetal rights lie somewhere in between, deserving of more than animals with no sentience or nor souls, but not a human with moral, spiritual, emotional and mental capabilities yet.

Excerpts from Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About:

So, as I was saying, 'insomnia'. The thing with insomnia is you never know when to give in. Do you stay there, trying to get to sleep, or do you give in and say, 'Well - not going to get to sleep anyway, might as well get up and do something.' It's a tricky one and no mistake. When I get insomnia, I generally try all the standard things: I try to relax, I try to clear my mind, I try to think of something pleasant (often this turns out to involve Courteney Cox and, in the 'encouraging a condition where sleep is likely' stakes, backfires massively). If none of these works, I'll quietly get up, go downstairs and read Pinter until insomnia's spirit breaks. What I don't do is turn to Margret and, at intervals precisely judged to be 'just long enough to have allowed the other person to have got to sleep again', keep saying, 'I can't sleep' and, 'I can't sleep' and, 'Really, I just can't sleep' and, 'I'm still awake, I just can't sleep' and, 'Pheeeeeeeeeeeeee - I can't sleep' and, 'I don't know what it is; I'm tired, but I can't sleep' and, 'I can't sleep' and, 'I can't get to sleep' and, 'I'll be so tired in the morning - look at the time. But I can't sleep'. Because that's the kind of behaviour that can lead... to... someone... snapping.

I do this. I bounce up and down on the bed and pound the mattress in a tantrum with my wimpy little fists. "Jeremyyyy! I can't sleeeeep!" *whine, mope*

..

(When his roommate's not there, of course.)

Deep Fried Chocolate Sandwiches

Mommy, I'm scared.

You Are No Longer Welcome In the Homer Reading Group

I know people like this. This is also, sadly, an aspect of roleplaying groups as well.

More excerpts from "The Birth of Venus" (which is an quite interesting with some really memorable dialogues. This is not one of them but I thought I should note):

"Then move your black snatch out of the way," he shouted, shoving her back. "Slut. We don't need women of the Devil's color on our streets. Watch your step or you'll be next for his knife."
"Not before your balls are hanging alongside the Medici crest," she muttered, as she started to push me out through the back of the crowd.

This is one of those things that are only funny to me. The Medici crest consists of a few pallae (pills), which are symbolized by a set of spheres or balls.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Look at My Telekinetic Robotic Arm!

Malnutrition in Developing Countries

While I admire our good intentions, should I be just a whee bit concerned that the government is putting stuff in our food without our knowledge? (Or it could be with our knowledge and I'm just uninformed..)

Just so you know, I'm on spring break. It's very boring. Because it coincides with my Rennaissance Art class, I've been reading "The Birth of Venus" by Sarah Dunant, a novel which is quite visibly displayed front and center in hardback in every Barnes and Noble all over America. You can't miss it. If I ever become an author I'd die to have publicity like that. It's currently #24 in Amazon.com's sales rank. Dear Lord! I'm reading a popular novel!

*faint*

It angles towards the "Girl With a Pearl Earring" crowd, except it's a bit more feminist and a bit more erotic. It's about this girl, Alessandra who's the daughter of a rich merchant and has a passion for painting which apparently is not proper for a girl of her station. She's intelligent, spirited and stubborn but not very graceful, modest or obedient, unlike her older sister (if life was like novels, older sisters through some phenomenon of medical science would always be prettier), which I guess is supposed to be a character flaw of some sort. The operative word here would be "spunky" or "plucky" or something eye-rollingly campy like that. Then she gets sent off to her arranged marriage*... blah blah... and I should mention that there's a young, sensitive and spiritual painter of few words who is employed at her house.

--
"So you think he is impervious to women?"
She snorted. "If he is, he'll be the first one I've ever met. He's just rigid with purity."
---

(sounds like a boy I know)

Chick factor on a scale of 1-10... 11.

The main character is a lot more vivid than Griet from "Girl With Pearl", but also is a lot more cliched and the product of an anachronistic "girl power" mind set imposed on another era. It's among the most politically correct books I've ever read, and this is coming from an ardent reader of fantasy, a genre that's basic appeal is historical revisionism without the pretense of accuracy.

Reviewers say "Birth of Venus" is "well-researched," (wow, that's a lot of quotes) but I'm taking an introductory Renaissance Art class and I know all this stuff already. It's not giving me any more insights into Renaissance Florence than my professor and his fifty minute narrated slide show three times a week (though admittedly he is a very good professor and it is a very good slide show.) Maybe "Birth" is well-researched for a casual read, but it doesn't seem like this woman spends her life working on this stuff, which is what separates the greatest period writers from the kinda good. My first thought goes to Mary Renault who sets the standard for Ancient Greek historical fiction, but since you guys have never heard of her (illiterate heathens!), I'll use Tolkien as an example. I know he's not a historical fiction writer, but my point still stands. I mean, these people eat and sleep and probably shit history. They're in it for a living. If you're just a "hobby historian," though there's nothing to say you can't write a good novel, in terms of richness of detail and thoroughness of research, you really can't compete.

But anyway, Birth of Venus is pretty good anyhow. It's very fast paced and not boring anywhere, and though the protagonist is cliched, she's at least very likeable. Some of the theological points are quite profound, and yes, some moments are very poignant. The author could have just pulled some cheap and easy plot or dramatic devices and she doesn't, and I respect her for that. Also, I'm halfway through and it's suddenly gotten very interesting and quite unconventional...

*An arranged marriage sounds a lot like college. As a rite of passage into adulthood, leaving your family for a strange home where you don't know anyone. Okay, without that.. having sex with a random stranger part. .. Oh yeah, and without AIM.

At the recital hall, a beautiful sound emanated from the stage. The richness of violin, flute, clarinet and cello swelled in full and mellow notes, in subtlely textured harmony. Then the musicians stopped tuning their instruments, and the concert for contemporary chamber music began.

Contemporary music is terrible. At worse it sounds like a bunch of autistic kids who found the key to the band room; at best you can tell there's something like rhythm and notes, but it isn't anything. It's empty. If music is nourishment for the soul then this is just nothing at all.

I left (in the rain) during Intermission, while the table for the post-concert reception was set up. Lemon merangue triangles are among my favorite desserts, but I wouldn't for love nor money sit through the second half.

I did, however, pick up the pamphlet for the entire music program for this semester. There's some Bach and Beethoven to be had in April.

Thank the Lord.

I went to listen to the seminar in the library gallery on housing prices in the U.S, because I'm an econ major and feel like bettering myself. There were many graphs in shiny ink on glossy paper. I understood the principles of supply and demand in relation to the market. The speaker finished, and opened the floor for questions, and while faculty members asked questions that I didn't understand about things like tax deductions and refinancing mortgage and monthly payments, I walked around looking at the walls of the gallery, at an art exhibition with black and white photographs from the Cuban Revolution. For being black and white photographs, these were tremendously moving, full of so much hope and exuberance of a bygone era. They're such frail and ephemeral things, and not a little sad for it since we all know how that revolution under the Havanna night and Che Guevera's pen turned out. It made me wonder who the people in it were; who they are now, who that little girl laughing under the light of the sun in a little white dress lifted and swung up in Fidel Castro's arms is, whether she's still laughing. There's a sequential pair of photos, the first one showing maybe half a dozen members of a crowd waiting for the arrival of Castro to make a speech, wearing expressions of anxious anticipation, and the next photo, taken right as Castro arrives, when such joy breaks out on the people's faces it's like the surging of a wave. There's just that moment of a temporary dream that makes it so beautiful and sad. In the meantime the seminar concluded and the audience converged on the reception table for coffee, fruit, and lemon merangue triangles.

Kay made his first anime music video for Hellsing, to E.S. Posthumus' "Pompeii" (apparently an opera of some sort). It's badass, and he's going to show it at Otakon. Go download it. Now.

La Historia del Mamut

Cancer! Al mamut le dio cancer!

(This song is stuck in my head)

Wherein Angie Reverts to Fall Semester, Freshman Year

Niall and Paul have kicked me out of Jeremy's room, after staying there for five months, without any advance notice to either me or Jeremy. We didn't know there was any sort of problem but apparently we didn't deserve to be told what it was.

Yes, I technically have a place to live, but I'm not quite sure how I'm to call it home, and in the meantime I have no cash and I've got to get myself some soap and shampoo and toothpaste because I haven't used my own bathroom since September.

I should also like to note for the record that Tim has an endearing assholic facade but it's rather unclear if he's really an asshole or just acting for our amusement.

Quote of the Day:

"I only ever knew one guy who died. I had this friend who died, who ran across the street to buy some cigarettes and got hit by a car. I was like, 'Idiot! Everyone knows that cigarettes kill you!' "

On Sunday, we went to the Olive Garden with Jeremy, Jose, Kay, and Eric Numberless, Jose's tagalong friend. Kay says that the food isn't authentically Italian but nonetheless I thought it was good, which just shows that I really don't care about authenticity.

I also like General Tso's chicken.

Statement!

Watched our production of The Bald Soprano on Friday, an absurdist play by Ionesco, the same guy who wrote Rhinoceros. All the usual absurdist themes; the failure of logical deduction, the failure of language as a form of communication, failure of the ability of names as a form of identitym, people lack purpose and are alienated and don't really know each other, etc. Unlike Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, it was actually funny (or better performed at any rate). However, I find it kind of amusing that absurdist plays have a standardized set of themes in the first place.