Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Have made cup and straw kazoos with Jose, Jeremy and Niall. What you do; take a paper soda cup, after you've emptied it, wash it out, and punch a hole through the center of the bottom side with your straw, and stick your straw in partway. Clench with your teeth the side of the straw that's sticking out of the bottom and suck in air through your teeth. Tada! Cup kazoos!
Unfortunately, Jeremy and Paul, his roommate, cannot for love or money, make their kazoos work.
Jeremy is like this though; he's terrible with woodwinds. He has a bamboo flute he got at Rennfest which he tried to learn to play. It's one of those flutes which, unlike a recorder or a penny whistle, you don't blow directly into, but hold it sideways across your mouth and blow across the mouth hole, for better sound quality. Well, he can't do it. I told him that it's just like blowing across the mouth of a soda bottle to produce a low whooping sound, but apparently he can't do that either. I think this "trained incapacity" (as Sociology 101 would have it) comes from playing trombone all these years... perhaps his mouth is conditioned to only move in a certain way.
Unfortunately, Jeremy and Paul, his roommate, cannot for love or money, make their kazoos work.
Jeremy is like this though; he's terrible with woodwinds. He has a bamboo flute he got at Rennfest which he tried to learn to play. It's one of those flutes which, unlike a recorder or a penny whistle, you don't blow directly into, but hold it sideways across your mouth and blow across the mouth hole, for better sound quality. Well, he can't do it. I told him that it's just like blowing across the mouth of a soda bottle to produce a low whooping sound, but apparently he can't do that either. I think this "trained incapacity" (as Sociology 101 would have it) comes from playing trombone all these years... perhaps his mouth is conditioned to only move in a certain way.
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Politically Noncommital Girl Strikes Again!
Went to see a screening of a documentary called Life Over Debt organized by Oxfam, an organization against global hunger that I'm kinda in. Chris (Brian's twin brother and head of the Economics Club) sprung on me saying, "You're an econ major? Would you like to be more involved in contemporary economic issues?" and I was like, "sure..." because I've lately been trying to make an effort to partake in more student events, with marginal success. Besides, I've always felt a bit guilty about being such an uninformed voter and so politically inactive. I can't even classify myself as either liberal or conservative, much less find a party or a politician to support. I didn't even vote in the Maryland primaries today. I was reminded in the morning, but then I forgot by lunchtime, and in any case, all the Democrats seem alike to me. I feel bad about this; voting is what Nick and Malex and Andrew would've wanted me to do. At any rate, the documentary, which I did remember to go to see, was about how Jamaican farmers are driven out of business by foreign corporations which sell things at lower prices, or something like that and is very anti-globalization.
I found it like Bowling for Columbine in that instead of taking the responsibility of being an objective film, it goes for emotional manipulation and cinematography instead. Not that it wasn't artfully done but I'm just saying it seemed a bit too perfect. You know, it of course must have many shots of carousing tourists (always fat and white and sunburned) with (poor, black) people working in factories, and analogies comparing foreign corporations in Jamaica to colonial slavery. Obviously many of the people representing the anti-globalization point of view had to be impassioned blacks with thick Jamaican accents while the sole speaker for the WTO had to be a bald white man with glasses who was coolly composed and well-spoken, the very epitome of a (imperialist) corporate shark. (Also he had no eyebrows. Is that freaky or what?) So whether intentionally or not, a lot of the documentary took advantage of people's guilt over being relatively affluent, or their residual white guilt over historic oppression of other cultures, or xenocentrism (where people sentimentally find other people's cultures to be more wiser, richer, and more wonderful than their own simply because it's exotic) to be emotionally manipulative regarding the issues instead of being informative about them.
The discussion following the screening was pretty much a recruitment drive for the Coalition Against Global Exploitation, a local Baltimore association. Personally I think this makes any sort of educational and informative documentary screening and discussion lose a bit of credibility as being .. well... educational and informative. Because if the impartial facts truly and rationally stood for themselves, education without proselytization would be enough to convince someone of the merits of CAGE or a similar organization. All you'd have to do is say "This screening sponsored by CAGE and Oxfam" on the posters and have a contact e-mail address. The fact that most of the "discussion" period was devoted to the logistics of joining CAGE and what they as an organization do, instead of the documentary or the issue itself, seemed rather to defeat the purpose. There was no real "discussion" because there was no real dissent- it wasn't possible to express dissent without sounding like an asshole. (I, for my part, didn't speak out at all on everything I've written here, and nobody else did.) I'm sure the people with CAGE are nice and very tolerant; it's just the nature of public groups that nobody wants to be the sole dissentor.
I don't know what I think of it really; maybe protectionism is better for developing countries to be able to develop their own enterprises. It is true that people ought to have a right as consumers to buy whatever they wish, be it local or foreign goods (which was the argument of our WTO corporate shark*), but this may not be a priority if it thwarts the growth of local businesses. US businesses based in a country ought to be subject to health and labor regulations of some sort, though obviously the idea is that these regulations will be more lenient in another country than in the US, hence encouraging investment. "Free trade zones" sound like cowpoo* to me. I appreciate the infrastructure and new technology that foreign investment provides, but it is also cowpoo that free trade provides jobs to people who otherwise wouldn't have them. This may be true in some cases but in many cases it takes away jobs by driving away local businesses by encouraging imports instead local production. Also, short-term loans to countries, with interest, is pretty dumb because they can't use that money for long term investment and just end up in debt. Obviously, we ought to stop subsidizing American enterprises that produce things for which there is no demand and instead fund the transitions of some of those enterprises into other venues.
However, I still don't think globalization is generally evil.
*Who probably isn't as much of an asshole in real life as the documentary makes him; anyone can seem an asshole in documentaries when juxtaposed with shots of mournful mothers and starving children.
*Cowpoo! Like bullshit but better.
Went to see a screening of a documentary called Life Over Debt organized by Oxfam, an organization against global hunger that I'm kinda in. Chris (Brian's twin brother and head of the Economics Club) sprung on me saying, "You're an econ major? Would you like to be more involved in contemporary economic issues?" and I was like, "sure..." because I've lately been trying to make an effort to partake in more student events, with marginal success. Besides, I've always felt a bit guilty about being such an uninformed voter and so politically inactive. I can't even classify myself as either liberal or conservative, much less find a party or a politician to support. I didn't even vote in the Maryland primaries today. I was reminded in the morning, but then I forgot by lunchtime, and in any case, all the Democrats seem alike to me. I feel bad about this; voting is what Nick and Malex and Andrew would've wanted me to do. At any rate, the documentary, which I did remember to go to see, was about how Jamaican farmers are driven out of business by foreign corporations which sell things at lower prices, or something like that and is very anti-globalization.
I found it like Bowling for Columbine in that instead of taking the responsibility of being an objective film, it goes for emotional manipulation and cinematography instead. Not that it wasn't artfully done but I'm just saying it seemed a bit too perfect. You know, it of course must have many shots of carousing tourists (always fat and white and sunburned) with (poor, black) people working in factories, and analogies comparing foreign corporations in Jamaica to colonial slavery. Obviously many of the people representing the anti-globalization point of view had to be impassioned blacks with thick Jamaican accents while the sole speaker for the WTO had to be a bald white man with glasses who was coolly composed and well-spoken, the very epitome of a (imperialist) corporate shark. (Also he had no eyebrows. Is that freaky or what?) So whether intentionally or not, a lot of the documentary took advantage of people's guilt over being relatively affluent, or their residual white guilt over historic oppression of other cultures, or xenocentrism (where people sentimentally find other people's cultures to be more wiser, richer, and more wonderful than their own simply because it's exotic) to be emotionally manipulative regarding the issues instead of being informative about them.
The discussion following the screening was pretty much a recruitment drive for the Coalition Against Global Exploitation, a local Baltimore association. Personally I think this makes any sort of educational and informative documentary screening and discussion lose a bit of credibility as being .. well... educational and informative. Because if the impartial facts truly and rationally stood for themselves, education without proselytization would be enough to convince someone of the merits of CAGE or a similar organization. All you'd have to do is say "This screening sponsored by CAGE and Oxfam" on the posters and have a contact e-mail address. The fact that most of the "discussion" period was devoted to the logistics of joining CAGE and what they as an organization do, instead of the documentary or the issue itself, seemed rather to defeat the purpose. There was no real "discussion" because there was no real dissent- it wasn't possible to express dissent without sounding like an asshole. (I, for my part, didn't speak out at all on everything I've written here, and nobody else did.) I'm sure the people with CAGE are nice and very tolerant; it's just the nature of public groups that nobody wants to be the sole dissentor.
I don't know what I think of it really; maybe protectionism is better for developing countries to be able to develop their own enterprises. It is true that people ought to have a right as consumers to buy whatever they wish, be it local or foreign goods (which was the argument of our WTO corporate shark*), but this may not be a priority if it thwarts the growth of local businesses. US businesses based in a country ought to be subject to health and labor regulations of some sort, though obviously the idea is that these regulations will be more lenient in another country than in the US, hence encouraging investment. "Free trade zones" sound like cowpoo* to me. I appreciate the infrastructure and new technology that foreign investment provides, but it is also cowpoo that free trade provides jobs to people who otherwise wouldn't have them. This may be true in some cases but in many cases it takes away jobs by driving away local businesses by encouraging imports instead local production. Also, short-term loans to countries, with interest, is pretty dumb because they can't use that money for long term investment and just end up in debt. Obviously, we ought to stop subsidizing American enterprises that produce things for which there is no demand and instead fund the transitions of some of those enterprises into other venues.
However, I still don't think globalization is generally evil.
*Who probably isn't as much of an asshole in real life as the documentary makes him; anyone can seem an asshole in documentaries when juxtaposed with shots of mournful mothers and starving children.
*Cowpoo! Like bullshit but better.
Friday, February 27, 2004
On Monday, at Jose's behest, I went with Jeremy to Latin dancing lessons. Poor marching band Jeremy cannot move his hips for love or money; he seems not to be inhibited, but just to be physically incapable of the motion. Shall put him on the stairmaster for a while and see if he learns to wiggle his butt. Won't mention it otherwise; he seems rather sad and discouraged by his lack of progress* anyway.
*Symptom of a condition commonly known as Whiteness.
*Symptom of a condition commonly known as Whiteness.
Sunday, February 22, 2004
On Saturday we were going to have an impromptu LAN party but it didn't work out because it was a bit too impromptu; no one came. Also people kept asking, "Who's coming, what are we playing?" before deciding whether to come. Because everyone was waiting on everyone else's decision, nobody made any decisions in the end. Kay was busy messing with his new computer and when we called him to invite him to our LAN party (without the party part) he asked us who was in it, and since nobody much was except for me, Jeremy and Niall (Chris didn't have a computer to contribute), he decided we weren't cool enough for him and spent the day hanging out with his other friends. There was a simultaneous LAN party in Potomac basement, but our hardware wasn't good enough for them and they ended up unintentionally excluding us by playing Unreal Tournament 2004 extensively.
Went to Wizards of the Coast at Arundel Mills today with Jeremy, Chris and Niall, since WtC retail stores are being closed. Got me some transparent pink dice and some glow in the dark ones, and got, at somewhere else, one of the Half-life expansions. Thanks to Steam, with one CD key I can play basically everything in the Half-life expansion pack including Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat.
Niall pushed me across a parking lot in a speeding shopping cart.
At Best Buy later on, while waiting for seats to open up in a nearby Ruby Tuesday's, we bumped into Kay, with his Other Friends, and a 19 inch computer monitor in a shopping cart, which promptly keeled over from the weight. We were sickened and left for dinner. I ordered some indeterminant yet tasty meat-with-potatoes meal and Jeremy got something fishy and uninteresting. Jeremy eats and likes any and all seafood; therefore, he is to be ignored anytime he recommends a seafood restaurant or entree. In the meantime, Niall made friends with Sam Adams. I have determined that when people get drunk it doesn't do much except make them act more like themselves (more open, and pronounced mannerisms becoming more exaggerated, etc); therefore, Niall got more Niall-esque.
Have also installed Jeremy's version of Homeworld (the first one), on my computer. Have finished the tutorial, and suck at it tremendously. Nothing else is new.
Went to Wizards of the Coast at Arundel Mills today with Jeremy, Chris and Niall, since WtC retail stores are being closed. Got me some transparent pink dice and some glow in the dark ones, and got, at somewhere else, one of the Half-life expansions. Thanks to Steam, with one CD key I can play basically everything in the Half-life expansion pack including Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat.
Niall pushed me across a parking lot in a speeding shopping cart.
At Best Buy later on, while waiting for seats to open up in a nearby Ruby Tuesday's, we bumped into Kay, with his Other Friends, and a 19 inch computer monitor in a shopping cart, which promptly keeled over from the weight. We were sickened and left for dinner. I ordered some indeterminant yet tasty meat-with-potatoes meal and Jeremy got something fishy and uninteresting. Jeremy eats and likes any and all seafood; therefore, he is to be ignored anytime he recommends a seafood restaurant or entree. In the meantime, Niall made friends with Sam Adams. I have determined that when people get drunk it doesn't do much except make them act more like themselves (more open, and pronounced mannerisms becoming more exaggerated, etc); therefore, Niall got more Niall-esque.
Have also installed Jeremy's version of Homeworld (the first one), on my computer. Have finished the tutorial, and suck at it tremendously. Nothing else is new.
Dorkiness
On Friday we spent a night playing Niall's Final Fantasy I based tabletop roleplaying game. It went something like this:
----
Niall: You walk into a town. It has an inn, an item shop, an armory, and a small fountain in the middle.
Me (Thief): I play in the fountain.
Niall: You, and the rest of the party (because in Final Fantasy you can't split up), are thrown out of the town. Great job.
Jeremy (Black Mage): I'd peed in the fountain as well.
Niall: To the west and north is forest. To the east is the ocean, to the south is plains.
We defeat some imps and reach a castle.
Niall: The king says, 'You must rescue my dear daughter! She has been kidnapped and is held in a cave to the west!'
Chris (White Mage): We'll save your daughter if you can aid us by providing us sufficient resources to do the job.
King: You may take whatever treasures you find in this castle.
Jeremy (Black Mage): I lift my hat, and while the king is shocked, snatch the crown off his head! That's a treasure.. and something we did find in this castle..
Niall: You attempt to snatch the crown off the king's head.. the crown stays. It has been molded to his head and his skull has grown around it.
Jeremy: Ew!
------
Later:
Niall: You encounter six wolves!
Jeremy: I take some of the food I'd taken from the kitchen and try to feed the wolves and make them friendly to me.
Niall (rolls): You manage to make two wolves your allies for life.
(we attack and kill the other wolves)
Me: I skin the corpses and carry the pelts to sell them at the next town.
----
Niall: You arrive in a vast chamber of the cave. In front of you, you see a giant lizard man holding the Princess in the air.
Jose (Fighter): Put her down now!
Lizard man: I shall never relinquish my sacrificial victim!
Chris (White Mage): How about a trade...? You give us the princess and we give you.. Angie!
Me (Thief): Hey! I'm not a virgin.. er.. *schemes* ... eh, sure, I'll be the trade.
Niall: Okay.. you trade your thief for a useless princess. The lizard man is now holding Angie in the air and licking her.
Me: I chop off its tongue with my dagger.
Niall: It takes no damage and immediately regenerates its tongue, but it's pissed off and attacks the party.
Chris: I grab the princess and run away towards the castle to get the 10,000 gold reward while the rest of you stay behind and fight...
---
King: Thank you, great adventurer, for returning my dear daughter to me.
Chris: Do I get my 10,000 gold?
King *giving it*: Yes, here you go... and your doom as well, foolish mortal!
Niall: The King shows his true form! He's a demon!
Me: And the princess?
Niall: She turns into a succubus. You, the white mage, are all alone with a bag of gold and two angry demons. The rest of the player party is not with you because you betrayed them and left them behind.
-----
We got bored of that game for a while, so then we had everyone else calculate the stats for the character another person would play. The thing was, if your stats were being calculated, you weren't allowed to speak up. For example, if you were Jeremy, you would play, in the game, a character named Jeremy who was exactly like you, with exactly the same personality, memories, skills, and experiences. However, since your 'character' is created by other people, you'd end up actually playing other peoples' perceptions of you.
On Friday we spent a night playing Niall's Final Fantasy I based tabletop roleplaying game. It went something like this:
----
Niall: You walk into a town. It has an inn, an item shop, an armory, and a small fountain in the middle.
Me (Thief): I play in the fountain.
Niall: You, and the rest of the party (because in Final Fantasy you can't split up), are thrown out of the town. Great job.
Jeremy (Black Mage): I'd peed in the fountain as well.
Niall: To the west and north is forest. To the east is the ocean, to the south is plains.
We defeat some imps and reach a castle.
Niall: The king says, 'You must rescue my dear daughter! She has been kidnapped and is held in a cave to the west!'
Chris (White Mage): We'll save your daughter if you can aid us by providing us sufficient resources to do the job.
King: You may take whatever treasures you find in this castle.
Jeremy (Black Mage): I lift my hat, and while the king is shocked, snatch the crown off his head! That's a treasure.. and something we did find in this castle..
Niall: You attempt to snatch the crown off the king's head.. the crown stays. It has been molded to his head and his skull has grown around it.
Jeremy: Ew!
------
Later:
Niall: You encounter six wolves!
Jeremy: I take some of the food I'd taken from the kitchen and try to feed the wolves and make them friendly to me.
Niall (rolls): You manage to make two wolves your allies for life.
(we attack and kill the other wolves)
Me: I skin the corpses and carry the pelts to sell them at the next town.
----
Niall: You arrive in a vast chamber of the cave. In front of you, you see a giant lizard man holding the Princess in the air.
Jose (Fighter): Put her down now!
Lizard man: I shall never relinquish my sacrificial victim!
Chris (White Mage): How about a trade...? You give us the princess and we give you.. Angie!
Me (Thief): Hey! I'm not a virgin.. er.. *schemes* ... eh, sure, I'll be the trade.
Niall: Okay.. you trade your thief for a useless princess. The lizard man is now holding Angie in the air and licking her.
Me: I chop off its tongue with my dagger.
Niall: It takes no damage and immediately regenerates its tongue, but it's pissed off and attacks the party.
Chris: I grab the princess and run away towards the castle to get the 10,000 gold reward while the rest of you stay behind and fight...
---
King: Thank you, great adventurer, for returning my dear daughter to me.
Chris: Do I get my 10,000 gold?
King *giving it*: Yes, here you go... and your doom as well, foolish mortal!
Niall: The King shows his true form! He's a demon!
Me: And the princess?
Niall: She turns into a succubus. You, the white mage, are all alone with a bag of gold and two angry demons. The rest of the player party is not with you because you betrayed them and left them behind.
-----
We got bored of that game for a while, so then we had everyone else calculate the stats for the character another person would play. The thing was, if your stats were being calculated, you weren't allowed to speak up. For example, if you were Jeremy, you would play, in the game, a character named Jeremy who was exactly like you, with exactly the same personality, memories, skills, and experiences. However, since your 'character' is created by other people, you'd end up actually playing other peoples' perceptions of you.
Friday, February 20, 2004
What I Did on Actual Valentine's Day
On Saturday we took the bus to figure out the Catonsville route, and discovered how to get to the Walmart, the Asian Market, various shopping centers, the theater, and residential areas. Catonsville, which I hadn't had a good look at in the daytime, is a fairly nice place with individualistically painted houses being a novelty compared to the mass-produced housing developments I'm used to seeing, though of course some neighborhoods are better than others. It actually is a decent sized city, and on Sunday we walked to Giant to get pie ingredients.
In the meantime, on Saturday night I decided to drag Jeremy to watch Phoenix dance company, which is basically a bunch of our dance majors getting together to perform. It was extremely artsy; the first act, a rather ineffectual piece which thematically was supposed to juxtapose the movement of dancers with the movement of amusement park rides, was ruined by "music" that sounded like those deep industrial farting sounds the plumbing makes on occassion. And it wouldn't stop.... as a matter of fact most of the music was dissonant and discordant. They even managed to distort one of Stravinsky's string pieces through the sound system, though Jeremy said he thought their tenor speakers were just malfunctioning. The Stravinsky piece was an act titled '1914' and had the dance teacher performing solo in Russian peasant garb. She then proceded to rip it off and expose a plain white suit under it, and then pulled a red handkerchief out of her bosom. I think this is supposed to represent World War I or something or the Russian Revolution.. I was never any good with Dance, or Deep, Profound, Symbolic, Handkerchief Bosom Pulling. The dancing itself anyway was rather nice. There was a video with a girl in black crepe who was shown dancing in a forest and in a stream, so that the swirls of fallen leaves that lifted into the air and the trails of rippling water would follow and accentuate her movements, and music would correspond to her motions, like bells that would ring when she dripped water off her fingers. Also, there was a (live) show where the choreographed motions of several girls was themed after the movements of mobiles, and they had two-toned suits, with the front one color and the back another, so that the colors would blend when they spun. In the same act, there was a backlit screen so that girls dancing behind it would cast their shadows upon it, which would distort in size and shape depending on how wrinkled the screen was, and for their masterwork in set design, there were transparent, multi-colored plastic sheets suspended from the ceiling and slowly rotating, so that in the dark, ghostly images would be cast upon them by a projector. There was a token fat girl also... perhaps every dance company has one. I didn't know whether to be awed by how good she was (some of that shit looks painful... like rolling around on the ground..), feel guilty about immediately picking up the fact that she was kinda hefty, or find it rather amusing.
I feel really really sorry for Jeremy though. That was seven dollars.
On Saturday we took the bus to figure out the Catonsville route, and discovered how to get to the Walmart, the Asian Market, various shopping centers, the theater, and residential areas. Catonsville, which I hadn't had a good look at in the daytime, is a fairly nice place with individualistically painted houses being a novelty compared to the mass-produced housing developments I'm used to seeing, though of course some neighborhoods are better than others. It actually is a decent sized city, and on Sunday we walked to Giant to get pie ingredients.
In the meantime, on Saturday night I decided to drag Jeremy to watch Phoenix dance company, which is basically a bunch of our dance majors getting together to perform. It was extremely artsy; the first act, a rather ineffectual piece which thematically was supposed to juxtapose the movement of dancers with the movement of amusement park rides, was ruined by "music" that sounded like those deep industrial farting sounds the plumbing makes on occassion. And it wouldn't stop.... as a matter of fact most of the music was dissonant and discordant. They even managed to distort one of Stravinsky's string pieces through the sound system, though Jeremy said he thought their tenor speakers were just malfunctioning. The Stravinsky piece was an act titled '1914' and had the dance teacher performing solo in Russian peasant garb. She then proceded to rip it off and expose a plain white suit under it, and then pulled a red handkerchief out of her bosom. I think this is supposed to represent World War I or something or the Russian Revolution.. I was never any good with Dance, or Deep, Profound, Symbolic, Handkerchief Bosom Pulling. The dancing itself anyway was rather nice. There was a video with a girl in black crepe who was shown dancing in a forest and in a stream, so that the swirls of fallen leaves that lifted into the air and the trails of rippling water would follow and accentuate her movements, and music would correspond to her motions, like bells that would ring when she dripped water off her fingers. Also, there was a (live) show where the choreographed motions of several girls was themed after the movements of mobiles, and they had two-toned suits, with the front one color and the back another, so that the colors would blend when they spun. In the same act, there was a backlit screen so that girls dancing behind it would cast their shadows upon it, which would distort in size and shape depending on how wrinkled the screen was, and for their masterwork in set design, there were transparent, multi-colored plastic sheets suspended from the ceiling and slowly rotating, so that in the dark, ghostly images would be cast upon them by a projector. There was a token fat girl also... perhaps every dance company has one. I didn't know whether to be awed by how good she was (some of that shit looks painful... like rolling around on the ground..), feel guilty about immediately picking up the fact that she was kinda hefty, or find it rather amusing.
I feel really really sorry for Jeremy though. That was seven dollars.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
What I Did On The Day Before Valentine's Day
On Friday, we were in Renaissance Art class when the prof, for not the first time, mentioned as an aside that the Basilica of the Anunciation in Baltimore was modeled after Brunelleschi's church of Santo Spirito in Florence.
"Let's go look at it. Right now," I told Jeremy randomly.
"Sure," he said, and bought me a chocolate rose.
After lunch we went back to the room to figure out the bus schedules, wherein I found a pair of heart shaped balloons and a bag of cookies delivered and waiting for me. There was also a tin of chocolate pretzels (which I'd already known he'd bought for me because I saw him buy them) and a little cup of chocolates which I hadn't known about. I was happy but not really surprised; everything was for sale on campus.
We went to the Inner Harbor in the late afternoon, taking the shuttle bus from UMBC. We bickered about where to get off, except that a woman close to us who heard us said that we had better get off because the bus only stopped at the next place (a block down) by request. So we got off by a John Hopkins health services building, a giant cylinder of a place in pinkish granite, and walked by Camden Yards and the Baltimore convention center over a network of pedestrian skybridges, guided by signs for tourists and the unmistakable skyline of downtown Baltimore, noting the Bromo-Seltzer tower, an embrasured clock tower which we pedantically recalled was modeled off of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
Most public things were closed by four in the afternoon, like the USS Constellation, the grounds of Fort McHenry visible as a green mound across the harbor with a big honkin' flag stuck in it like a sandwich toothpick, and the Maryland Science Center which was in the process of getting there. The National Aquarium was open, but $17.50 for admission, so it might as well have been closed for all the good it'd do us college students.
We went to the Baltimore World Trade Center observation tower (apparently the world's tallest five sided building, which is for some reason significant). It looks very small on the outside, an unassuming building on the harbor, but is actually about forty storeys high, which... is actually still rather unassuming, compared to skyscrapers anywhere else. Still, it provided a good view of the city, under a hazy blanket of smog made pale gold by the westering sun. From one of the west windows we saw the arterial expressway through which we had arrived and followed its snaking line further west, and the line of rivers, further out, closer to the horizon. Supposedly we could see the campus from there, but the sun was blinding. Still, we looked at the keyed panoramic photo on a podium under the window, and on that, far in the distance, we could see a recognizable concrete rectangle surmounted by a green drum and a flank of red brick box buildings. Those panoramic photos, one set under each window (there were five of them, one for each side) helped us search for random things in the great girth of land splayed out under us, in a Where's Waldo fashion: In the direction of the city the Ukranian Orthodox church dotted the landscape with golden minarets (which I always thought looked like onions) and sea-ward below us the USS Constellation turned into a toy boat with its clear deck comically interrupted by three stick-like masts, and Fort McHenry was a small flattened mound with stubby cannons (and the flag was still there), and the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse which wasn't much of a lighthouse but more like a round hut on stilts with a conical roof. There was a map of the city on a wall, which was more than either me or Jeremy had, so Jeremy memorized it, and was aided by his watch set with a compass. ("Or, you could figure out the cardinal directions using the setting sun.." "Hush, that would make sense.") I went to the bathroom at the top of the world, and was amused by the thought of my crap shooting down 400 some feet of plumbing.
Seaward, closer than we'd ever seen it before, was a graceful arch of metal titled in the key to the photo, "The Francis Scott Key Bridge." Twenty miles west there is a windy hill on which an ugly post-modern state college is built, in which I live. It is ugly most of the time, except that on the crown of the hill when me and Jeremy look eastward there is this piece of architecture that we see, a great span of a bridge which before to us had no name, and we always wondered what it was and where it went. My dad said, "Probably Glen Burnie" but now I know better. Other couples have "their song." We seem to have "our bridge." Whenever I see the bridge from campus I feel happier, and I always go, "Look! The Bridge!" when I see it even though I know it's always there. It seems somehow significant that I should know its name.
------
After we left, stumbled around east until we found Charles Street and went north up it, looking around at everything like dazed tourists. We found the Basilica of the Anunciation a few blocks up as the sky turned purple and pink, but the church was closed so we walked around staring at its columns and dome silhouetted through the wrought iron fence. Then, having kind of done what we had come for, we went back to the harbor, by which time the sun had set in full, and the Bromo-Seltzer tower was lit up in the night by spotlights of purple. We went to the Gallery, glowing yellow through panes of glass and gawked at things we couldn't afford, then went to the shops on the harbor.
We went to Philip's Seafood Restaurant and got us some nice fish and crabcakes, and also pie and cheesecake. This took like two hours. We ended up having to run to catch the bus to campus, except that we near missed it because when I was on an intersection and looked to the right and saw the JHU pink cylinder bus stop, we saw the bus speeding away from the block towards us. Jeremy sprinted to the left, towards the stop one block ahead and flagged it down like a taxi.
When we got home Jeremy discovered, beside my bag of cookies and two balloons, another bag of cookies and two more balloons, for him. ("They multiplied!")
On Friday, we were in Renaissance Art class when the prof, for not the first time, mentioned as an aside that the Basilica of the Anunciation in Baltimore was modeled after Brunelleschi's church of Santo Spirito in Florence.
"Let's go look at it. Right now," I told Jeremy randomly.
"Sure," he said, and bought me a chocolate rose.
After lunch we went back to the room to figure out the bus schedules, wherein I found a pair of heart shaped balloons and a bag of cookies delivered and waiting for me. There was also a tin of chocolate pretzels (which I'd already known he'd bought for me because I saw him buy them) and a little cup of chocolates which I hadn't known about. I was happy but not really surprised; everything was for sale on campus.
We went to the Inner Harbor in the late afternoon, taking the shuttle bus from UMBC. We bickered about where to get off, except that a woman close to us who heard us said that we had better get off because the bus only stopped at the next place (a block down) by request. So we got off by a John Hopkins health services building, a giant cylinder of a place in pinkish granite, and walked by Camden Yards and the Baltimore convention center over a network of pedestrian skybridges, guided by signs for tourists and the unmistakable skyline of downtown Baltimore, noting the Bromo-Seltzer tower, an embrasured clock tower which we pedantically recalled was modeled off of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
Most public things were closed by four in the afternoon, like the USS Constellation, the grounds of Fort McHenry visible as a green mound across the harbor with a big honkin' flag stuck in it like a sandwich toothpick, and the Maryland Science Center which was in the process of getting there. The National Aquarium was open, but $17.50 for admission, so it might as well have been closed for all the good it'd do us college students.
We went to the Baltimore World Trade Center observation tower (apparently the world's tallest five sided building, which is for some reason significant). It looks very small on the outside, an unassuming building on the harbor, but is actually about forty storeys high, which... is actually still rather unassuming, compared to skyscrapers anywhere else. Still, it provided a good view of the city, under a hazy blanket of smog made pale gold by the westering sun. From one of the west windows we saw the arterial expressway through which we had arrived and followed its snaking line further west, and the line of rivers, further out, closer to the horizon. Supposedly we could see the campus from there, but the sun was blinding. Still, we looked at the keyed panoramic photo on a podium under the window, and on that, far in the distance, we could see a recognizable concrete rectangle surmounted by a green drum and a flank of red brick box buildings. Those panoramic photos, one set under each window (there were five of them, one for each side) helped us search for random things in the great girth of land splayed out under us, in a Where's Waldo fashion: In the direction of the city the Ukranian Orthodox church dotted the landscape with golden minarets (which I always thought looked like onions) and sea-ward below us the USS Constellation turned into a toy boat with its clear deck comically interrupted by three stick-like masts, and Fort McHenry was a small flattened mound with stubby cannons (and the flag was still there), and the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse which wasn't much of a lighthouse but more like a round hut on stilts with a conical roof. There was a map of the city on a wall, which was more than either me or Jeremy had, so Jeremy memorized it, and was aided by his watch set with a compass. ("Or, you could figure out the cardinal directions using the setting sun.." "Hush, that would make sense.") I went to the bathroom at the top of the world, and was amused by the thought of my crap shooting down 400 some feet of plumbing.
Seaward, closer than we'd ever seen it before, was a graceful arch of metal titled in the key to the photo, "The Francis Scott Key Bridge." Twenty miles west there is a windy hill on which an ugly post-modern state college is built, in which I live. It is ugly most of the time, except that on the crown of the hill when me and Jeremy look eastward there is this piece of architecture that we see, a great span of a bridge which before to us had no name, and we always wondered what it was and where it went. My dad said, "Probably Glen Burnie" but now I know better. Other couples have "their song." We seem to have "our bridge." Whenever I see the bridge from campus I feel happier, and I always go, "Look! The Bridge!" when I see it even though I know it's always there. It seems somehow significant that I should know its name.
------
After we left, stumbled around east until we found Charles Street and went north up it, looking around at everything like dazed tourists. We found the Basilica of the Anunciation a few blocks up as the sky turned purple and pink, but the church was closed so we walked around staring at its columns and dome silhouetted through the wrought iron fence. Then, having kind of done what we had come for, we went back to the harbor, by which time the sun had set in full, and the Bromo-Seltzer tower was lit up in the night by spotlights of purple. We went to the Gallery, glowing yellow through panes of glass and gawked at things we couldn't afford, then went to the shops on the harbor.
We went to Philip's Seafood Restaurant and got us some nice fish and crabcakes, and also pie and cheesecake. This took like two hours. We ended up having to run to catch the bus to campus, except that we near missed it because when I was on an intersection and looked to the right and saw the JHU pink cylinder bus stop, we saw the bus speeding away from the block towards us. Jeremy sprinted to the left, towards the stop one block ahead and flagged it down like a taxi.
When we got home Jeremy discovered, beside my bag of cookies and two balloons, another bag of cookies and two more balloons, for him. ("They multiplied!")
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Went swimming again. I seem to have my own personal swim trainer.
Jeremy now has pink marbled speedos. Ooh! His consisntently pink swimwear allows me to identify him immediately from a distance, even without my glasses on.
Did a bunch of fifty yard drills because that's really all I have the stamina for, while Jeremy did anaerobic drills.
Also went to watch Love Actually at LHII. It was cute, if contrived. Also, Keira Knightley is in it.
Jeremy now has pink marbled speedos. Ooh! His consisntently pink swimwear allows me to identify him immediately from a distance, even without my glasses on.
Did a bunch of fifty yard drills because that's really all I have the stamina for, while Jeremy did anaerobic drills.
Also went to watch Love Actually at LHII. It was cute, if contrived. Also, Keira Knightley is in it.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Wherein Angie Gets Off Her Ass Every Once in a While
Went combination swimming and weight lifting with Jeremy and Jose.
Jeremy has speedos with little pink stars on them. He says, "They used to be red... -_-" I think they're endearing. Jose tactfully says that maybe he ought to get black speedos sometime. Jeremy's a damn powerful swimmer, though when I'm in the pool with him because I don't have glasses on I can't see him or what he's doing, only a line of splashing the progresses rapidly down the length of the lane. He looks very good from the spectator's balcony though, which I frequented with my glasses on.
Pools are also a good place to make out because of bouyancy. And little pink-starred speedos. But I hate locker rooms because of those wet, slick, floors with their thin film of God knows what. I'm paranoid.
Bench presses-
My max: 55 lb. -_- (Tthat's like just.. the bar.. without any weights on it)
Jeremy's max: 140 lb. *
Jose's max: 150 lb.
Ab crunches-
My max: 30 lb.
Jeremy's max: 60 lb.
Jose's max: 20 lb.
Leg pushy thingies-
My max: 180 lb.
Jeremy's max: 400 lb. + (The weights don't go any higher)
Jose's max: 400 lb. +
I'm a big wuss.
*This is why when I arm wrestle with Jeremy, he still beats me even when I use both arms. Even while he's being tickled.
Went combination swimming and weight lifting with Jeremy and Jose.
Jeremy has speedos with little pink stars on them. He says, "They used to be red... -_-" I think they're endearing. Jose tactfully says that maybe he ought to get black speedos sometime. Jeremy's a damn powerful swimmer, though when I'm in the pool with him because I don't have glasses on I can't see him or what he's doing, only a line of splashing the progresses rapidly down the length of the lane. He looks very good from the spectator's balcony though, which I frequented with my glasses on.
Pools are also a good place to make out because of bouyancy. And little pink-starred speedos. But I hate locker rooms because of those wet, slick, floors with their thin film of God knows what. I'm paranoid.
Bench presses-
My max: 55 lb. -_- (Tthat's like just.. the bar.. without any weights on it)
Jeremy's max: 140 lb. *
Jose's max: 150 lb.
Ab crunches-
My max: 30 lb.
Jeremy's max: 60 lb.
Jose's max: 20 lb.
Leg pushy thingies-
My max: 180 lb.
Jeremy's max: 400 lb. + (The weights don't go any higher)
Jose's max: 400 lb. +
I'm a big wuss.
*This is why when I arm wrestle with Jeremy, he still beats me even when I use both arms. Even while he's being tickled.
Monday, February 09, 2004
Played Vampire the Masquerade (Sabbat, Andrew) last night.
Vampire is really a terrible game. All you do is walk around and suck blood. You've got no family or friends or hobbies or goals and the sun turns you to ashes. You haven't got any of the motivations of a normal person.
We did encounter an NPC who was Jeremy.
"Bob the Nosferatu gives you the address of a computer security expert."
"I go to that address."
"You see a sign in front of the house reading, 'The Pie Residence.' "
"I knock on the door."
"Jeremy answers, holding a cup of coffee."
*laughter*
"Actual Jeremy?"
"Yes."
"I use Presence on him."
"Okay.. what's his Willpower?"
"Two.. he's only human."
"Jeremy says: 'Wow, I just spent all night playing Vampire the Masquerade and now I see real vampires!' Angie appears in the hallway. 'Who's at the door, pie?' "
"Jeremy: Nobody, go back to sleep."
We're trying to think up ways for him to become a permanent recurring NPC. I suggested having my character Embrace him and turn him into a vampire- a pale, Vampire the Masquerade-playing, coffee-drinking vampire. I don't think my in-game counterpart would be very happy about this but out of character I think this is sexy.
Vampire is really a terrible game. All you do is walk around and suck blood. You've got no family or friends or hobbies or goals and the sun turns you to ashes. You haven't got any of the motivations of a normal person.
We did encounter an NPC who was Jeremy.
"Bob the Nosferatu gives you the address of a computer security expert."
"I go to that address."
"You see a sign in front of the house reading, 'The Pie Residence.' "
"I knock on the door."
"Jeremy answers, holding a cup of coffee."
*laughter*
"Actual Jeremy?"
"Yes."
"I use Presence on him."
"Okay.. what's his Willpower?"
"Two.. he's only human."
"Jeremy says: 'Wow, I just spent all night playing Vampire the Masquerade and now I see real vampires!' Angie appears in the hallway. 'Who's at the door, pie?' "
"Jeremy: Nobody, go back to sleep."
We're trying to think up ways for him to become a permanent recurring NPC. I suggested having my character Embrace him and turn him into a vampire- a pale, Vampire the Masquerade-playing, coffee-drinking vampire. I don't think my in-game counterpart would be very happy about this but out of character I think this is sexy.
Monday, February 02, 2004
I have a poetry class for non-English majors (not because I like poetry, or English classes, but because a literature class is a pre-req for English 271, Creative Writing), Principles of Accounting II, Macroeconomics, Sociology 101 and History of Renaissance Art.
I have to get up at 8 in the morning for my English class, and I have to write a 200 word reflection for each class period, and we spend all period talking about the meaning of various poems, and the prof tries to get us to read the poems out loud, with feeling. I think I may drop it, except that we're studying Sappho and Alkhaios now and I have a soft spot for the ancient Greeks and find Greek verse terribly interesting. So we'll see how that goes.
Accounting is actually, of all things, fairly interesting. We have an engaging professor, and a small and sharp class. In any case, I think that managerial accounting is inherently more interesting a subject matter than financial accounting anyhow, and it makes this class unexpectedly stimulating.
Macro blows because it takes place in a large lecture hall, and the professor could not be more boring if he tried. I fell asleep in the second lecture, so that the class period seemed to be a big nap punctuated by brief periods of consciousness where my brain drowsily went, "Oh, a supply and demand graph" or something similar and went right back out again. To be fair to the professor though, this is may be less due to the monotony of the lecturer and more because I wake up at 8 in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Still the end result was that I fell asleep all the same.
Also, we have a web site project, and the grading requirements are such that you can only get a good grade if you include things like Flash, Powerpoint, animated graphics, or other glitzy things. (Having solid, well-researched economic material that's properly cited and expressed in a well-organized format will only get you a decent grade). While I do have a guy in my group who's a professional web designer, solving the problem of eye-candy, I still think that that aspect of the grading policy is rather unfair. Also, each project group has a "project coordinator" who has the responsiblity of assigning each of the members of the group a "pass/minor pass/fail" grade, submitted confidentially to the professor, depending on how much the coordinator felt the member contributed to the group. This is, in theory, to discourage group project freeloaders, but I'm critical of a system that allows any one student to have such power over the grade of another. However, I have taken Macroecon in high school, and the lecture notes are available online, so I think I'll do well as long as I go to class ... (unlike for Micro, where I missed my first exam and didn't turn in one assignment.. and even then got a B)... even if I do fall asleep or space out sometimes.
Sociology, which I'm taking as a pre-req for various anthropology classes, is one of those classes that sounds interesting but really isn't. We have a rheumatic elderly professor telling us a vague and generalized history of the world without any support for his statements, like a grandfather who tells kids about the good old days, in just the same manner. For those of you who know him; it's like my dad, but twenty years older. "And then there was the French Revolution where the peasants were fed up with the aristocrats having large parties and building big palaces.." What rulers in which regions? What pieces of legislature and which prevailing customs described in what documents? "The Industrial Revolution was a horrible time. The conditions of workers were terrible. You'd often see children in the mines without hands and feet..." Described by who? What cases? Mr. Thomas and Mr. Hines always told us exactly where their information came from, and I'd become accustomed to it. You can't just say random things, hoping they'll be acceptable because of your position of authority.
"Even nowadays you see the problems inherent with over-competition in markets, in the form of the vile practice where companies outsource their labor to India to maximize their profits.." ...and nobody spoke up. Well I got into this argument with the professor and a girl sitting a few seats away from me who was the daughter of some powerful labor union man. I had just finished Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" which is an eloquent muckraker tract on the unsanitary conditions of the food industry but also a very treacly propaganda piece for Socialism. My annoyance probably was not so much a result of any one person in Sociology as my residue reaction to that wonderful little book, and the girl, whose name I wish I had, had some very nice points. Still, even though I like arguing, one must wonder... you're the sociology professor for the love of God, why can't you teach that?
In any case, I also suspect the prof thinks we're really stupid because nobody ever speaks up in class. But if you went to a class where you had an old guy lecture at you as you sat with maybe fifty other people in rows of desks marching straight down the classroom so that in the middle and back couldn't hear him, would you ever speak up? I know you're supposed to be critical in class but I'm so critical of everything he says that I end up not saying anything at all because I haven't got a place to begin (and I don't want to disrupt the class by being an Anya). I don't know, maybe things will get more interesting once we get past the introductory lectures. Plus, Sasha is in that class, which is a plus.
I have Renaissance Art with Jeremy. It is really really cool, not in the least because our professor is expressive and funny. In addition, it puts my Greek Archaeology knowledge from last semester to good use, I have someone to study with, and we keep each other awake if we're about to fall asleep.
I have to get up at 8 in the morning for my English class, and I have to write a 200 word reflection for each class period, and we spend all period talking about the meaning of various poems, and the prof tries to get us to read the poems out loud, with feeling. I think I may drop it, except that we're studying Sappho and Alkhaios now and I have a soft spot for the ancient Greeks and find Greek verse terribly interesting. So we'll see how that goes.
Accounting is actually, of all things, fairly interesting. We have an engaging professor, and a small and sharp class. In any case, I think that managerial accounting is inherently more interesting a subject matter than financial accounting anyhow, and it makes this class unexpectedly stimulating.
Macro blows because it takes place in a large lecture hall, and the professor could not be more boring if he tried. I fell asleep in the second lecture, so that the class period seemed to be a big nap punctuated by brief periods of consciousness where my brain drowsily went, "Oh, a supply and demand graph" or something similar and went right back out again. To be fair to the professor though, this is may be less due to the monotony of the lecturer and more because I wake up at 8 in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Still the end result was that I fell asleep all the same.
Also, we have a web site project, and the grading requirements are such that you can only get a good grade if you include things like Flash, Powerpoint, animated graphics, or other glitzy things. (Having solid, well-researched economic material that's properly cited and expressed in a well-organized format will only get you a decent grade). While I do have a guy in my group who's a professional web designer, solving the problem of eye-candy, I still think that that aspect of the grading policy is rather unfair. Also, each project group has a "project coordinator" who has the responsiblity of assigning each of the members of the group a "pass/minor pass/fail" grade, submitted confidentially to the professor, depending on how much the coordinator felt the member contributed to the group. This is, in theory, to discourage group project freeloaders, but I'm critical of a system that allows any one student to have such power over the grade of another. However, I have taken Macroecon in high school, and the lecture notes are available online, so I think I'll do well as long as I go to class ... (unlike for Micro, where I missed my first exam and didn't turn in one assignment.. and even then got a B)... even if I do fall asleep or space out sometimes.
Sociology, which I'm taking as a pre-req for various anthropology classes, is one of those classes that sounds interesting but really isn't. We have a rheumatic elderly professor telling us a vague and generalized history of the world without any support for his statements, like a grandfather who tells kids about the good old days, in just the same manner. For those of you who know him; it's like my dad, but twenty years older. "And then there was the French Revolution where the peasants were fed up with the aristocrats having large parties and building big palaces.." What rulers in which regions? What pieces of legislature and which prevailing customs described in what documents? "The Industrial Revolution was a horrible time. The conditions of workers were terrible. You'd often see children in the mines without hands and feet..." Described by who? What cases? Mr. Thomas and Mr. Hines always told us exactly where their information came from, and I'd become accustomed to it. You can't just say random things, hoping they'll be acceptable because of your position of authority.
"Even nowadays you see the problems inherent with over-competition in markets, in the form of the vile practice where companies outsource their labor to India to maximize their profits.." ...and nobody spoke up. Well I got into this argument with the professor and a girl sitting a few seats away from me who was the daughter of some powerful labor union man. I had just finished Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" which is an eloquent muckraker tract on the unsanitary conditions of the food industry but also a very treacly propaganda piece for Socialism. My annoyance probably was not so much a result of any one person in Sociology as my residue reaction to that wonderful little book, and the girl, whose name I wish I had, had some very nice points. Still, even though I like arguing, one must wonder... you're the sociology professor for the love of God, why can't you teach that?
In any case, I also suspect the prof thinks we're really stupid because nobody ever speaks up in class. But if you went to a class where you had an old guy lecture at you as you sat with maybe fifty other people in rows of desks marching straight down the classroom so that in the middle and back couldn't hear him, would you ever speak up? I know you're supposed to be critical in class but I'm so critical of everything he says that I end up not saying anything at all because I haven't got a place to begin (and I don't want to disrupt the class by being an Anya). I don't know, maybe things will get more interesting once we get past the introductory lectures. Plus, Sasha is in that class, which is a plus.
I have Renaissance Art with Jeremy. It is really really cool, not in the least because our professor is expressive and funny. In addition, it puts my Greek Archaeology knowledge from last semester to good use, I have someone to study with, and we keep each other awake if we're about to fall asleep.
Well, I haven't blogged in a while. I'm at school, and haven't been getting very much in the way of privacy, having immediately moved back in with Jeremy. I end up being with him 24/7 except when we're in class or the bathroom, neither of which can hardly be described as privacy either. Therefore, I can only blog while he's in class because it seems a bit rude to make him sit around by himself while I type, though I sometimes wonder how he doesn't miss his own privacy himself. Sometimes I miss sleeping in my own bed where I can stretch out my arms without elbowing Jeremy in the face or can roll over without waking myself or him up, and not have to end up sleeping in the same position all night to wake up with a sore back and shoulders. Sometimes I miss solitary activities like reading for pleasure undisturbed, and surfing the net and mudding and and blasting mp3s very loud, or even just the liberty to fart and pick my nose and scratch myself when I so wish, because it always seems like I'm with someone or other these days. But after dinner when it's late at night but too early to go to bed, in the common room of Suite 404, everyone sits around on the couch or the carpet under the lamp reading roleplaying handbooks or doing homework, and the night is quiet, and maybe the tv may be on in the background with someone playing video games. It has some element of domestic serenity, as if I have some people and a place in the disorderly universe to go back to at the dying of the day.
Really the key to being not bored is to have something of your own to do, or joining whatever it is that other people are doing. I've given up on any pretense of social independence outside of this circle of nerds, and have created characters and joined a number of role playing games. I find myself actually reading players' handbooks in my spare time. I've learned the bloody rules to Axis and Allies, and can kick ass competently in Soul Calibur. Also, I have enough schoolwork to occupy myself, most of it interesting, and in that I am happy.
Really the key to being not bored is to have something of your own to do, or joining whatever it is that other people are doing. I've given up on any pretense of social independence outside of this circle of nerds, and have created characters and joined a number of role playing games. I find myself actually reading players' handbooks in my spare time. I've learned the bloody rules to Axis and Allies, and can kick ass competently in Soul Calibur. Also, I have enough schoolwork to occupy myself, most of it interesting, and in that I am happy.
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