I had gone to International Night last night because I felt I ought to get out more. Even if it is just going to school, but I can delude myself. Mostly I was motivated by the free food.

Performances can only be described as ghettofabulous. Good, I guess, for a non-humorous high school ethnic talent show. Xu was in the show, in Chinese dress, as were a lot of random Chinese people I know but don't hang out with. Joyce and Xue were there and quite graceful in the Maiden River dance and I was envious again like I was as a little fat kid watching gymnasts and ballerinas. Lucy was the announcer some of the time and seemed very stiff about it. Many of the performances were quite well done. Most were. Some were not, like the singing of Chinese pop songs.. The audience, however, was horrid: during the super-serious samurai staff ritual performance various people in the audience were yelling "Ai!!" imitating the fighters' karate yells and snickering, and during an Indian wedding dance were singing in fake Punjabi falsettos, like chingchongchingchong but Indian. I was like, "Could you be more offensive?" and I would have yelled at the people behind me except that one of them was like an 8 year old girl. Racism is not something I generally think of as common in minorities (which was most of the audience and nearly all of the performers), so this shocked me. I don't think these people were so much racist as transcending to levels of incredible disrespect. And of course, the audience could never shut up, even while the announcer was introducing people. Were we this rude during Mr. RM? I know we were loud, but I never thought of it as really rude. I'm not sure if I just have different standards because when I know people in the show, it's 'enthusiasm' and when I don't, it's 'rudeness.'

Something traumatizing: Anya bellydancing. I kid you not.

She was very good at it.

Meg and EdandMilla were there but I didn't really talk to them much. Meg, I think, was still traumatized by Anya bellydancing, and EdandMilla I left to their own devices because they seemed more interested in each other than in me.

The food was good, though being literally all carbohydrates. I think there were like, fifty different kinds of rice. I have a theory that poor countries eat a lot of wheat based products since they can't really afford meat, fruit, or vegetables. Atkins is very much the result of an over-rich nation.

Had a long talk and walk and got all muddy in Rock Creek Park with Spachee, who is, as she noted, more my sister than my actual sisters. We were both in general despair over the world, but I told her that it's more that humans are idiots before and we simply never realized. I think people had to feel so helpless in World War II and I, with the new technology and bizarre causes and the entire world going to pot, which is slightly uplifting to know that people have gone through the same thing before and survived, but depressing to know that people have gone through the same thing before and survived but not learned. I think this war is incredibly absurd. More people are dead from helo crashes than combat, and all of our wounded are a result of a grenade attack by one of our own soldiers, and 200 civilians (says Iraq anyhow), are wounded in Bagdad. Madness, madness.

One thing I never thought I'd think: How beautiful the explosions over Bagdad, the red curling smoke and flashes of light in the brightness of the living night, like fireworks, or the horsehead nebula.

I feel, for the sake of posterity only, that I ought to say something about the war though I really have no political or even ideological opinion, and when really it doesn't affect my life except in terms of the surreality of it all- when you see war news splashed over the front page of the paper (which I never thought to see in my lifetime), and sometimes fear, and sometimes it breaks my heart and makes me want to cry. In not so strong a term: more like it makes me want to want to cry. It plants the seed of tears, it puts me in the somber heartshardsbrokenglass mood where if something else happened crying would be possible. And though I consider myself both a hawk and a patriot, I avoid it on the news and I hope that the war ends quickly, and though I did not think I would feel pity, as we eagerly await news on the status of Saddam and his sons and smoke over Bagdad and fire in the night I feel sad if not but then again sorry that we must kill a man.

Rain, rain, go away. Am in the habit of going to Archaeology on Thursdays again mostly because it gives me a chance to chat with Mary and Rachel M, and am looking forward to the dig next Saturday. I'm getting back into my groove. We had a good bag, not a nailbag like the one that haunted me late last year and early this. We had so much interesting glassware, with textures (which Mary said reminded her of her cat's fur but stylized and mused on if the glass was once a cat statue) and patterns, and a piece of fiber, and pottery and some other stuff we couldn't identify.

Have finished rolling up my multi-class, multi-personality D&D gnomish vegetarian plant-hating ranger-cleric and have given the sheet to Mary, since she, for very good reasons, would not allow me to play a Gelatinous Cube ("You don't have a brain." "But I could consume one!"). We decided that how we'd meet is, I'm a patient at a mental institution, Andrew's half-orc fighter is an orderly there, Shannon's rogue is hired to break in to steal something/free someone (whatever) and steals a chest containing me inside it (either intentionally or not), and Joanne's bard is a friend of Shannon's rogue. Ah, there. The wonders of D&D.

Have new 3rd edition D&D group, with Mary GMing, Joanne, Andrew Durfor, and Shannon, some girl Mary and Joanne know but I do not. Have decided to meet on Tuesdays at lunch instead of Mondays to avoid James Durfor and Alex Haley, the insane munchkin duo who insist on being 'half celestials.'

Abuse of Webcam:

(For reference, this is Steve who I was/am semi-dating from Louisiana. Carry on.)

SFX_87: stir things up. Get a mohawk.
theodrekt2t: Gah.
theodrekt2t: i could strip.
SFX_87: yah, uh.. close the doors? ^__^
theodrekt2t: o.O Really?
SFX_87: no!
SFX_87: ^__^
theodrekt2t: No doors...but...dun hafta worry about that...
theodrekt2t: Lemme take off my pants, then... ^_^;
SFX_87: were you really gonna do it???
theodrekt2t: ...well...yeah...
theodrekt2t: *blushes*
theodrekt2t: *tilts head at you*
SFX_87: I can live without male stripping for a while.
theodrekt2t: *sighs*
theodrekt2t: You sure...?
theodrekt2t: *was actually getting into the mindset of it*
theodrekt2t: And no one else is watching.
SFX_87: It would be amusing, but please keep your pants on.
theodrekt2t: Bah
SFX_87: actually... depends. Are you ripped?
theodrekt2t: No.
theodrekt2t: Which is why Iw asn't gonna take off the shirt.
theodrekt2t: Just enough to show...umm...the little guy.
SFX_87: wise.
theodrekt2t: JUST it.
SFX_87: no, don't do that.
SFX_87: don't do that.
theodrekt2t: *nods*
theodrekt2t: Blaaah.
SFX_87: *hides*
theodrekt2t: Then send ME a picture...!
theodrekt2t: I never saw what you look like.
theodrekt2t:
SFX_87: You're threatening me with stripping?
SFX_87: dear god.
theodrekt2t: ...
theodrekt2t: o.O
theodrekt2t: ...YES.
theodrekt2t: YES, I AM.
SFX_87: THE HORROR! THE HORROR!
theodrekt2t: Oh, don't make me
theodrekt2t: That's the belt.
theodrekt2t: The pants will be unzipped next.
theodrekt2t:
SFX_87: yikes
theodrekt2t: Yeah
theodrekt2t: That's right!
theodrekt2t:
theodrekt2t: Push me!
theodrekt2t: Go ahead and do it!
SFX_87: uh.. *pushes*
SFX_87: I'm going to have nightmares about this, I swear.
theodrekt2t: ...
theodrekt2t:
theodrekt2t: Fine...
SFX_87: ah!!!
SFX_87: window minimize!!!
theodrekt2t: Mrr
SFX_87: haha! Foiled again!
theodrekt2t: Blah.
SFX_87: oh, good.
SFX_87: you're back.
theodrekt2t: Yes, and I'm not wearing pants.
SFX_87: greaaatt.
SFX_87: You should wear a kilt. It would make a great conversation piece.
theodrekt2t: I want to.
theodrekt2t: Anyway.
theodrekt2t: Want to see it? o.O
SFX_87: sure.
SFX_87: *mumblemumblemadscotsmanmumble*
theodrekt2t: Well...are you sure?
SFX_87: yah
theodrekt2t: Not the kilt.
theodrekt2t:
SFX_87: but don't make me see you change.
theodrekt2t: No...NOT THE KILT.
theodrekt2t: Not see the kily.
theodrekt2t: *kilt.
SFX_87: Wait.
theodrekt2t: I'm asking to make sure you're not confused./
SFX_87: You're asking me if I want to see your notkilt?
SFX_87: if I want to see you not in a kilt?
theodrekt2t: Yes.
SFX_87: agh, no.
SFX_87: put some clothes on, man.
theodrekt2t: Blah.
theodrekt2t: I dun wanna.
theodrekt2t: *has 11 hours of work tomorrow*
SFX_87: TOGA! TOGA!
SFX_87: TOGA!
theodrekt2t: *is relaxing*
theodrekt2t: *sigh* Then I'm a turn it off.
theodrekt2t: Cam.
theodrekt2t: -_- Me wanna be naked...bottom down, at least.
SFX_87: wear shorts?

(I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes. Nobody had mentioned what the stakes were.)

Do I put on a good show of being interested? I'm indifferent, even in my banter, except that it's a chore keeping it up. I promised myself not to push guys away, because I'm attracted to unattainable assholes. By the nature of that attraction, I repulse nice boys who like me, and therefore I must fight my twisted nature of pushing away nice boys by being ultra-accomodating to geeks on the internet, even if I don't like them, because I don't know if me not liking them is because they're actually losers, or because of my screwy Freudian psychoshit. Common Sense would tell me not to date people I don't like, but seeing as that people I do like are assholes who're not good for me, by that approach I'm going to end up fucking some homicidal drunk.

I don't know if I'm nuts one way or nuts the other.

Change of tone:

Friday:

Mr. RM was hilarious. Good job, guys. I'm glad we got so much IB representin'. Po' Puffy didn't make it into the top 5 (which Xu did with his mad raver skillz): he was good but didn't project an image. His image should've been the suave math geek thing that's made him popular these last four years, but he was really serious about the whole contest, to his detriment. Kira is right though. He is ripped.
It was good we had such an enthusiastic audience though. Including Malex (who did come, forgoing the Bivalve party) yelling, "TAKE IT OFF!" and chanting "PUFFY! PUFFY!" Good stuff.

Saturday, went to Potbelly's at 5:30, had a nice dinner with a bunch of random RMers I don't know all too well or at all (including Kevin, Tara who looks like Cynthia from Clan of the Cats, Kainoa CHANG- which he proved is more common a Chinese name than Wong...). The 7:25 showing of Chicago was sold out, even though I had my ticket already it didn't matter since not everybody else could get tickets. Me, Nick, Malex, Lizzie and Sarah decided to hang around until the 9:55 showing (I just exchanged my ticket) after much argument: some of the juniors left, some of them who'd already had tickets for the 7:25 showing just went and saw that. We sat around at Ben and Jerry's, then comfy armchairs at Starbucks, then we went to CVS so Malex could buy mechanical pencils. We harassed the historical county courthouse fountain and statuary, and Malex noted that Justice is quite busty, at least from an angle. Just to show that Rockville has no nightlife, which Malex labeled, if it were to exist, "The 5:30 Club." We lay down on the grass of a park nearby and looked at the stars and the moon, before going to the theater obscenely early, so we got to watch the.. trailers for the trailers, so to speak. LAME.

Chicago kicked ass, with hot Welsh women that Nick adored. Her role wasn't actually all that big though. And, um, yes.. scantily clad female inmates, who all inexplicably wear eyeshadow and lipstick in prison. The main female character looked enough like a hot and blond Ms. Shay to disturb me for the first fifteen minutes of the movie before I really got into it. Though I would've preferred a different ending.

Last few days:

Exploring watercolors, painting fruit. So hard to control. Results: satisfactory. Janay has been depressed over Rashad's death, since she had been his sweetheart, apparently. People tell her she could have saved him; if she had dated him, he would've come to school to see her and wouldn't have stayed home that day. It does not make her feel better. Despite spring and watercolors, art class has been in general very down. I never even knew the guy but I'm beginning to miss him even, from Janay talking about him and the funeral so much, and the mother whose son is 6 feet under and whose daughter is in Juvie until she's 21, and so has basically lost two children at once. I had expected it to be a drug related death, or a car accident, but being stabbed by your 12 year old sister over a cell phone is such a cruelly needless way to go, that it's very sad and I mean it. 1987-2003. I wonder what it'd be like to die tomorrow.

Nice weather, sunny, balmy. Spring should be here soon, hopefully, though I liked winter very much, the weather made me very happy. That and, perversely, giving blood. Nothing makes you feel better physically than a good bloodletting. (Don't know what's wrong with me but there we go.)

Been spending my lunches recently with Humzaa and Sharon (and John From My Bus)'s group, alternating with Mary and Joanne's group. Realize it may be sort of loserly hanging out with lowerclassmen but I don't care. Though it may be unwise to make form new social circles in second semester senior year.. you'd think I had the last four years to do it. I don't know if I'd like to be closer friends with these people who are currently on level of "People I Can Talk To About Interesting Things" or if I shouldn't bother. Am currently surveying people, for Zifei's benefit as an animation major tweaking his character designs, of who the hottest male and female cartoon characters are. I will publish the results on here.

Random Hallway Gossip: Apparently Mike Correll has been getting around. If you get my meaning. Well, ast it goes.. "Correll's been making out with.. blah blah blah." To which I respond, "Which Correll?"

Happy days, traumatizing the freshmen!!! ^__^

In non New-York News:

1) As of Saturday, we now have Dish Network, since my dad wants to watch the Golf Channel. Which means, for the first time in my life, I have cable.

2) Italian choral concert was kinda blah for me. I came really late (4:40) and paid $8 for a dinner (it would've been $3 if I had made reservations) which I didn't get to finish (to my satisfaction anyway since finishing in all you can eat meals is subjective) before rehearsal, and I didn't get to socialize cuz people were already in rehearsal. Went to rehearsal. Madrigals, Resonance, and Testostertones the stars of the actual show as usual, sounded great, as usual. I didn't really care. We went, I got stuck in the soprano section after intermission despite asking people several times "What voice range are you?" with answers being "Oh, it doesn't matter." Bah. I can't sight-read for shit with singing and rely on listening to other people around me sing, so it didn't work well. Didn't sing/sang soprano part/sang alto badly, meaning all my rehearsal time was worth diddly. Won a "Kinkade print," Moonlit Sleight Ride at the silent auction for $6, then discovered it was basically a piece of cardboard with a pencil sketch over it. (When I think "print" I want like a poster dammit, in all its lovely glossiness.) Bah. Raised money for Italy though. But I'm not going. Bah.

Felt sorry for Malex not selling his dinner, but don't think he can really justify charging $75 for a meal cooked by a high school senior with no reputation, served at his house. It may be inspired by the Inn At Little Venice, but if I were inspired by Jenna Jameson still no one would pay to see me in porn.

3) Blood drive + heavy menstruation = eek.

How bad? Weelllll... I don't believe Pharoah would appreciate me going anywhere near the River Nile in the next few days.

The blood drive was nice though. Not painful or even gross to watch. I was kind of detached from it; I didn't think of it really as my blood, and anyway, it's not like you could really see it graphically squirting all over the inside of the bag, which was the case when I went in for blood testing for the first time, the first time I'd ever had my blood sucked out by a needle. (This was my first time donating, with the chief differences being the forms you fill out and the size of the needle and the amount of blood they take.) Also, the people didn't have to jab me with the needle repeatedly to find my vessels this time either, though they did a lot of Concerned Whispering and poking my inner arm with their fingers looking for a vein. I got light-headed after they finished though and I saw pretty colors. On the plus side, ate lots of tasty shortbread, have free t-shirt and stickers. Got some punariffic stickers orginally, like a sticker with a dalmation saying "I was SPOTTED at the blood drive!!!!!" and then just threw them away because they were too lame to live. Overall though, it makes me feel like a good person. It makes up for me not going to Choral Day, which I was lukewarm about in the first place.

4) I need to reap in my services hours with Archaeology and Concert Choir.

Friday in New York:

Woke up, before the wake-up call, to find the day cold and clear. Stayed in bed, pleasantly, for 20 minutes before having to actually wake up wake up. Was glad to have a new pair of socks after the wetness of the day before, got dressed, went downstairs. Found Malex, plus Andrew in his Indie hat, Rob, Lizzie, Sarah and Karina and hit the Greek (?) cafe across the street which was not fancy but very filling in the way that solid plain food is. We did some minor souveneir shopping, but didn't find much interesting.

And off to Sony Tech labs, which was extremely trippy. We were inside a sunny public plaza made of granite, which was designed to look like you were outside though you weren't, with high-set skylights and vines and patio furniture, and welcoming robot and a very cool bullet elevator. After waiting in line for a long time, amusing ourselves with rock paper scissors, and then a few badly run games of Animal Vegetable Mineral, we took the elevator up to a dark and star-filled room (really, just wallpapered with black cloth and white pinpoint lights) that led into the exhibits after we "logged in." It took a badly lit photo of us and a voice recording and saved it on our card, so in later exhibits we could manipulate the freakish photo and sound clip. There were some activities inside... saw this short film "Goodnight Tokyo" which existed just to show off their high-definition theater. I was very impressed though. It was all very.. high definition. Me and Rob looked at clips from historically important movies, and went, among other things, on a simulated trip through the digestive system and tried to clean up a simulated oil slick. We were fairly put out to find that the welcoming robot in the plaza was actually controlled by a human ("Nooo! The robot isn't real!!!!"), who looked at the people downstairs through a camera mounted on the robot and talked through a mic. It was fairly lame, aimed for younger children, but presented very well, so that it was a good experience over all.

We went to Times Square, in all its blazing glitz and glory, passing in succession St. Paul's Cathedral, the Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, and NBC studios and a street hosting lots of plays which I guess was Broadway but I'm covering my ass if I'm wrong. Times Square is a great place to be in, though it looks more like a triangle. Everything moves and blinks and shines and flashes and glows, and the giant cup of Ramen Noodles really steams and the Nasdaq ticker tape really tickers, red on black, and in general advertising has been elevated to a great artform. It's fantastic. The ground rumbled with the subway below us; if you live in Manhattan you must get used to the rumbling- it was there during the Fed, (I had thought, not seriously, that it must've been like those basement minecarts in Gringotts but turns out I wasn't half wrong) and during dinner the night before. We went shopping at Virgin Records, and ate at an Italian dive off of TS, and went through the nifty revolving doors into the greatest Toys R US in Manhattan, which has an indoor ferris wheel with chaser lights and screaming children. We, unlike last year's class, didn't bump into the Naked Cowboy, but we did encounter two Veg Girls, who, as the giant, lush airbrushed sign hovering above the Square demonstrated, sexy women hired by the PETA to protest meat-eating.. by wearing only strategically placed lettuce. And eating hamburgers, though I didn't think PETA hired them to do that. There were also some camera crews there. We didn't bother them.. much. Some people had their pictures taken with a cop. I didn't find it extraordinary. We also passed a swarm of Musicians on Strike, with signs and picketing in an orderily manner behind a metal fence against/with a group of Spanish instrumentalists playing on the sidewalk. It was amusing, and made national news, as I heard later.

Then, onto the subway, where we couldn't manage to all get on one train, since the doors did close on us. We waited for a while in the rich chords of a guitarist on the opposite platform, who was drowned out every once in a while by passing trains. I would have tossed him money, but my arm was not that good. We got off at the financial district, or fairly close to without the World Trade Center station anymore, and out, in South Side Manhattan where you can see the sea, unblocked by buildings and flat and clear to the horizon. We got to the Commodities Exchange building, waited a while sitting on the window sill when lo and behold, the curtains automatically rose behind us, dazzling us with sunlight. That was our cue to go further in, and we did. We rushed into the bathroom, timing people for the fastest time (39 seconds for the guys, 41 for girls I believe) so we could all have a go. A whirlwind tour of the history of the exchange, with really cheesy plaster reconstructions, and then, the cream of the crop, the ComEx trading floor.

It looked like a 24-hour party. With crowds of people in rainbow colored clothes gathered around pits waving and yelling, and big screen tvs situated all around the trading floor, and index cards being whipped like ninja stars into the pits and the ticker tape racing around the upper edges of the room and numbers and letters flashing on the LCDs. It all became more frantic and wound up as it edged towards closing time, until the horn/bell(?) sounded for closing time and paper burst into the air all around the pits like gunshot confetti at New Years. What a job.

A race, for us, then, through Battery Park (which I'd never seen frosted in snow) so we wouldn't miss our boat. Into the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, where pigeons nested in the lights, and onto the boat, where me and Malex went outside to watch the Manhattan skyline, sans two towers, slide away, and to watch Ellis island and the Statue of Liberty approach us and then pass us by on our right. It was winter, and the seagulls didn't dip and race along the side of the boat as I remembered them doing four years ago. But times are different, anyhow.

As we were approaching Staten island, I snapped a picture of Malex standing on the stairs with the sign reading "No standing on the stairs until ferry has docked," which it hadn't. That's an explanation of the photo for posterity. Just a little joke which no one will ever understand.

And then it was the bus. For "Fletch" and "Men in Black," two lackluster movies, and when we were in Maryland, I was glad to be home.

Thursday in New York: A Blog in the Form of Edited AIM Transcript.


shpachee: how was ny

SFX 87: great.

shpachee: tell me about it

SFX 87: I dunno what to say. You need to see Blue Man Group. they really kickass. I mean they really kickass.

shpachee: you've seen them live?

SFX 87: YAH.

shpachee: WHOAAAA

SFX 87: DUDE.

shpachee: DUUUUUDE

SFX 87: YAH.

shpachee: what did they do

SFX 87: DUDE WELL..they had glow in the dark paint in their drums so when they hit it it'd go FOOOSH and they played plastic tubes.. and we played with toilet paper, which was really fun. like they turned on the black lights so the toilet paper was glowing, and they had like four rolls attached to this balcony and people in the back grabbed it and would pass it on to the people in front of them so there would be like these giant glowing globs of toilet paper converging on you.

(editing note: We also wore protective ponchos, in the front row against squirting banana cream, which glowed purple in the light, and there were rotating glowing plastic tubes above us, and plastic glowing tubes with water-tornadoes. Very trippy.)

shpachee: yeah i've seen them do the drum/paint thing lol!

SFC 87: but also they had the strobe light on so I'd miss the toilet paper sometimes..and the music was rilly great. it was very ravery. I wasn't expecting it to be ravery.. I thought it'd be kinda new-age like those intel commercials.
but it wasn't. It was ravery. With lots of glowy things. it was trippy. i guess it sounds kinda stupid when I talk about it. I mean, they had various sketches and stuff too
Like comedy skits in between. They wouldn't talk but they wore LCD screens on their backs with dialogue which doesn't sound exciting, but they were funny.

shpachee: oooh@

SFX 87: also, they took a dude and strapped him by his legs and painted him blue and swung him by a rope so that he smacked this giant piece of canvas and made a living painting.

shpachee: ooh i've seen that before too. i keep seeing blue mans gorup on tv. oit's great. i think when they did that on tv though. they used a celebrity

SFX 87: yah. I saw it on tv so I didn't find it that exciting

shpachee: ohh

shpachee: yeha i think they should come up with new things to do cuz it just sounds like the same things i saw back like two years ago or osomethin

SFX 87: like with the skits they had three posters, and the posters would say 'pick a poster to read and stick with it' and every five seconds or so they'd flip the page (cuz it was like a giant notepad but with posters)

shpachee: LOL

SFX 87: so that there'd be no way you could read all three posters at the ssame time

shpachee: hey do they talk EVER

SFX 87: and the posters would say things like "don't you know that the time you've spent reading this poster could be spent on other posters" or "the odds you've read only this one poster for the last 5 rounds is 4441515 to 1"

SFX 87: no, they don't. they seemed really anti-internet though in the skits that had a point but they did it in a good way. oh, and they had little video clips and stuff too.
like they'd mix their musical pieces with comedy skits and random video clips.

shpachee: ohh i haven't se nthose but why were you guys seeing them anways

SFX 87: no reason.

shpachee: was it supposed to be educational or something

SFX 87: no, but it was at 7 at night anyhoo. we spent all our school hours being edumacational. we visited the Federal Reserve Bank and the New York vice president of the bank talked to us.

(editing note: The Bank impressed me immensely. Though I live in a suburban bubble in the richest county in America, and am used to luxury, indulgence and comfort, am not at all accustomed to grandeur and gravitas. I don't know very much about economics, but spent my time in awe at the architecture and interior design, looking at the bronze classical statue of a man with a lyre, the oak conference table and paneled woodwork and leather chairs with brass studs in it, and the gothic ceiling vaults with their chained medievalist chandeliers in wrought iron [the massive amount of chains and chandeliers and spiked gates made me comment to Malex that the bank looked like an S&M dungeon, causing HIM to make a rather horrid pun about bondage... get it..? Bondage... gah. On the plus side, during the tour I got my little "briquette" of shredded money as a souveneir. I thought it was neat.)

We got to look at this dumb exhibit on the history of coins. Actually, it was pretty cool, but dumb compared to blue man group.

(editing note: Educational fact of the day - coins were historically made through casts or stamps, aka mints. Casts, like in China, allowed for much faster coinage but wasted more metal. I thought it was nifty how historical coins could be like giant plates, or really really thin. Or really really weird, like shell shaped coins, or giant stone coins.)

and we got to look at their shitload of gold they kept in the basement that made me flip out. I was like.. "goooollld! goolllld!!!" cuz like ONE bar was worth like several million dollars you know? I scratched some bars with my nails but it just broke my nails. cuz the VP dude was joking "you should scratch the bars with your nails and see if you can get gold dust" and I thought it was worth a try. But gold's not as soft as it's all cracked up to be. anyhow, they're really accurate in weighing the things anyhow.

(editing note: I was actually fairly numb to all the gold initially when we went five stories down from ground level to the basement, because it just looked like so many piles of shiny yellow bricks it didn't really register. I actually thought it looked kind of fake, though I knew it was real... but I could reach through the metal grate and touch it, which is when I flipped out.)

shpachee: LOL that's awesome. so how much gold was there really? you know gold is soft, meaning it's bendable

SFX 87: hum. More than Fort Knox. But it's not all our gold see. A lot of it belongs to other countries. yeah. but not softer than my fingernails unfortunately

shpachee: not that it's gonna scratch off

SFX 87: right. the dudes who work there have to wear these magnesium shoes so if they drop the gold while they're transporting it they don't like.. break their toes. "AUGH MY FOOT!"

(editing note: Magnesium! Lighter than aluminum, stronger than steel... better than mithril, and burns dramatically... *notescribble*.. v. good fantasy metal. Shall be, in fiction, forging magic swords out of it real soon. I also thought it would suck to work in the Fed vault.. I mean, you spend all your time handling gazillions of dollars and then you go home every Friday with your minimum wage check.)

SFX 87: Also. The door to the vault is 8 feet thick steel. I was wondering how they'd do that.

(editing note: I was contemplating to Andrew the idea of seperated shifting plates, since he'd brought up that 8 feet of steel is impossible to manipulate all at once, and must be made of plates fused together. Funner idea: seperated shifting plates that open vertically... so that when the vault door closes, it slams into the ground like a portcullis. Pity the man trapped under that.)

But what it was was.. it was this giant metal cylinder with a passage through it. So to let people through they'd rotate the cylinder so that the passage would match up between the door leading into the vault and the door leading out.

(/end convo)

Ingenious. So, how was my day?

To begin again...

It started with a long, four hour busride, sitting with Rob watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (which traumatized me as a kid with the melting-skull-Nazi). He industriously finished Farewell to Arms. It did not prevent him from asking finicky questions like, "Why are the snakes still alive in the pit after having been buried for the last 3000 years?" I suggested reproduction and then subsequent cannabalism, but anyhow. Raiders. Good movie. Bad Nazis. We drove past Ground Zero. I had thought it was a parking lot until it was pointed out, so there wasn't as much emotional impact as I thought there would be. We had a very rushed lunch at Southstreet Seaport, very much like Baltimore's, and were sent out into the driving snow along Wall Street, humming the Indiana Jones theme around Andrew who had the misfortune of wearing an Indie hat. It was a dumb joke that would last both days.

Up north, snow was aggressive and stung our faces. It was very angry snow and it hurt. After hitting the Fed, we invaded a Starbucks, then Trinity Church, a beautiful, peaceful place that was once the tallest building in New York, though now it's dwarfed by other things. Both Lizzie and I remembered it from Time and Again, and I from my eighth grade New York trip. Going inside and looking up between the tree-like columns (a throwback to paganism, Andrew noted, apologizing in advance for blasphemy) made it feel like the tallest building again. We looked at baptismal fonts, stained glass, chapels and statuary, all under an aegis of serenity. Outside, there were old, snow-dusted gravestones we could hardly read ("Here Lies William... who?") through the bars of the fence (the graveyard was closed to visitors). We were late to meet up with the rest of the groups because we'd misheard the times so they were mad at us for making them wait in the cold. It was the only time church has ever made me late for anything.

We took the metro (subway) to Grenwich Village, trekking through slush. No one was in the mood for shopping, so we dived into the NYU law school bookstore to do some reading and were quickly bored. We plopped down at a cafe down the street the clerk recommended and camped there, reading the Times for about an hour before dinner.

Dinner at the Times Cafe (elsewhere). A very calm.. relaxing.. BIG.. (too much) dinner with an entire group of friends. (Malex, Andrew, Rob, Sarah G, Karina, Lizzie). We took two hours. It was very nice, and something I think we ought to do more often.

Then.. Blue Man Group... then.. the hotel, a shower, Rob telling me that everyone in his room was busy getting ready for bed and to please stop harassing him at night, me rooming with random people who wouldn't shut up and let me (or the people next door) sleep, and then bed, and then unconsciousness.

Good night, good night. Sweet dreams to the sound of traffic.

At dinner last night, my sister (Stella) announced that she's expecting. Woohoo! I'm gonna be an aunt in September!

I love oil paints. They're marvelous: I, the naive colored-pencil user, never realized until now that colors could be mixed and smudged so brilliantly, though they make a mess of my hands.

I don't mind scrubbing up afterwards: these days I'm always looking for excuses to soak my hands in the soothing warmth of hot water.

I went for a walk in Rock Creek Park as snow fell. It was silent, except for the sound of the water rushing in torrents, and white but for black trees and black rocks, and I think I understand why Robert Frost, with miles to go before he sleeps, took a moment to stop and wonder.

However, I had not, on going there, taken into account that even though this current snow shower had only produced a slight dusting so far, like six inches of snow were already on the ground from the Blizzard. People had already tramped through it over and over, making the trail look like rutted cobblestones. The snow had then refroze again, basically leaving a cemented trail of crisscrossing pits and gashes of varying depths (six inches or more), leaving me stumbling around, and unable to simultaneously admire the scenery as I walked. I did, upon stopping every once in a while to look around, notice a bunch of rabbit tracks, and deer tracks which looked like they'd been created by a psycho on a pogo stick (I don't know, maybe they had). It was much easier to just stay in someone's ski tracks, or run across the top the virgin snow off-trail like Legolas, which was possible because the upper crust was frozen solid. Sometimes, if I stood in one place too long, the crust would crack and I'd sink calf-deep in snow and it'd get all in my boots. Quite a mess, really. Other times, the icy crust would hold, but I'd slip on it and leave Angie-shaped craters in the snow.

This is the most profound thing I've seen in a long time.

Ah, lots of playing of Super Smash Brothers with Malex during the Blizzard of '03. And frying dumplings, but mostly, lots of playing of Super Smash Brothers. I tried it out again, by myself.

Apparently, I can unlock Falco as a bonus character if I beat the game with all the normal characters. Hurrah! More mindless video gaming soon to come!

Happy unstressed post-IA period... and our orals are cancelled! Whoopie!

New York trip on the March 6-7. Niiiice. Rob and Malex are going, as far as I know, but I don't know who I'm rooming with because I have no female friends in Econ who're going. I just signed up randomly.

I think it's quite possible to fight for peace and fuck for chastity, as the saying goes.

It's certainly been done: I was reading an article about crimes committed against civilians during World War II. Women in Berlin (towards the end of WWII) would prostitute themselves to one Russian soldier so that he would protect her from being gang-raped by a group of them. People call "peacekeeping" soldiers hypocritical for fighting to prevent more intense and extended periods of violence, but would people tell these women who have suffered so much the same thing?

I saw Mimi in stat wearing a pin that said this: "War doesn't determine who's right, but who's left."

I have something of a problem with this line of logic, which is as follows:

1) The winner of a war is the group that is best at making war, not the group that is morally superior.
2) The outcome of a war does not determine moral superiority.
3) Therefore, we should not go to war to show that we are morally superior.
4) War is never morally justified.

My logic is as follows.

1) The winner of a war is the group that is best at making war, not the group that is morally superior.
2) The statement above can be applied to any other contest of skills. The winner of a pie eating contest is the group that is best at eating pie, not the group that is morally superior.
3) The outcome of a pie eating contest/war does not determine moral superiority.
4) Therefore, we should not enter a pie eating contest/war to show that we are morally superior.
5) However, many other reasons besides demonstrating moral superiority justify entering a pie eating contest. ("I was hungry, I wanted to see if I could do it, pie contests are my hobby, etc.")
6) Many other reasons besides demonstrating moral superiority justify entering a war.
7) Ex: "I am entering this war to stop the advance of Nazism and the murder of thousands of people." In this case, someone is going to war to prevent the fulfillment of something he/she considers immoral.
8) Entering a war for this reason is the equivalent to: "I am attacking this man because he is mugging an old lady and I want to stop this."
9) It is not the equivalent to: "I am attacking this man because my mighty fist will show him that mugging old ladies is wrong."
10) Therefore, entering a war to stop or prevent immoral actions is not the same as entering a war to prove moral superiority.
11) While war does not prove moral superiority, people can still wage war for other moral reasons.

I realize that of course there are many other issues such as: Is a war morally justified? Is it morally justified to send other people? Is it morally justified despite the civilian casualties? If we're so concerned about morality how come we're only dealing with the issue right now?

So it isn't black and white by any means. I still have no opinions about Iraq except that if we do go to war I would support it. I don't know the politics or economics of it. But ideologically, I think in general that saying "War is never justified" through said reasoning is flawed.