So! What Have I Been Doing Over The Summer?

-Saw Pericles by Shakespeare Theatre Company. Once upon a time a girl sat down to watch an enchanted play, where glitter fell from the sky and Diana walked on billowing waves.

-Won tickets for Love's Labor Lost, Shakespeare Theatre. It's like Shakespeare: The Band. Which is not a bad idea. I am so glad I didn't live in the seventies, because man I would've embarrassed myself.

-Karissa got married! ... How is it that jeans-and-t-shirt turns into gossamer, satin, froth and veils, or dorm room hair to a lady's coif? Is it the same person? People I know are getting married, and I'm starting to feel, if not old, then, adult.

-My first job! I've been the phone and office monkey for Baltimore City Council at City Hall and discovering the inefficiencies and meaningless tedium of government employment, how pretty I look in a skirt, the Baltimore-UMBC bus route, the beauty of neo-Baroque municipal architecture, how to answer phones with powerless diplomacy, outdoor cafes, the old character of a city, new buildings built on top of and around old ones, the chugging diesel motor of the water taxi and the water rolling like a molten metal sheet and the skyline in a golden haze hanging on the horizon, and, after spiralling interminably up a stone gothic staircase, a clear sunny view of Baltimore from a belltower on a gold-capped dome.

-Baseball. Air conditioned baseball, in a box. Hotdogs. Beer. Bad beer. Government work has its perks. I could get used to this. The getting sick at a bar in Fells Point, though, is an exception. NO MORE FUCKING NATTY-BOH.

-Re: above ... I have discovered that I don't like beer. Not even Trappist beer. Belgian monks may find God through beer. As for me, in this respect I remain an atheist.

-Got my driver's license.

-Dieting

-Beat Final Fantasy I, am now working on Final Fantasy II and Tales of Phantasia. Go emulators!

-Reading: La Chanson de Roland, The Complete Odes and Epodes of Horace, Prince Valiant: Volume 1, and the Crown of Stars .. uh... septilogy.. or trying to.. MAN I'm a nerd!

-Writing poorly written surrealist short stories

-Playing the violin and butchering Eine kleine Nachtmusik.

Things from the Montgomery County Fair

Kissing on the Ferris wheel. Playing carnival games and losing, and knowing you'll lose due to the imperceptible yet unyielding mistress of the universe, Physics. Admiring epic vegetables. Eagerly anticipating the 4H queen. Spinning mobiles in the sun and wind. Bunnies, chickens, poo and hay. Behemoths made of living beef. Allergies. Equestrian ballet, the Star Spangled Banner, and polo to August glare. Summer evening and the smell of roasting cinnamon nuts and the rhythm of a blacksmith's hammer.

Atheist Summer Camp

@____@

O....kay.

Check out the New York Times article about it that's linked on the site too.

My cousin Fish plays Return to Castle Wolfenstein and all sorts of FPSes. I managed to convince him that Heinrich Himmler was indeed a real person, and not a creation of computer game designers. Such is the problem of pulp fiction action hero/villain Nazis. Real history is so easily forgotten.

Fish finds me sadistic for this, but being tortured by lightning-wielding silly-German-accent mad scientist zombie Nazis in a torch-lit gothic dungeon is pretty damn funny. The caged skeletons dangling from the ceiling by rusty chains are the icing on the cake. Camp at its finest hour.

I also play Warcraft III- Fish wonders whether the people have British or American accents. The answer to that is they speak in a dialect of English known as Campy Fantasy Film English. I'm sure a true linguist can look into this. Fish also says that Arthas the paladin is comparable to Bush in his warlike righteousness; we had a good laugh mentally imposing Arthas' forthright knightly dialogue on Bush's simian head; "I stand for the light!" "Feel my wrath!" "Slay them all!" 'For honor!" "Betrayers of the light!" "I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth!!! Do you hear me?!!" I'm afraid this is only funny if you say the above in a grim and determined manner, setting your jaw just so.

Have also done lots of mountain hiking so it's not like I never go outside. I'm outside quite often. Kinda tropical. There's a type of fern that curls up when you touch it, and stairs carved into the rock and tumbled rockfaces and waterfalls that trickle over them (but they look dirty) and small orange crabs bright enough to appear cooked that scuttle away with amazing dexterity when you (unwisely) poke them with a toe. The good thing is that you can see very far into the mountains that fold in a green felty fashion like a giant's cloak in the foreground. It's easy, in the shadow of a mountain, to misjudge distances, until you see tiny white blots that are apartment buildings on the adjacent mountain's rocky spine, and you realize that walking from point A to point B would be the fruitful work of several days. You can see into the densely populated valley with its concrete forest of buildings, and saddles of mountains and the sea between mountain gaps, until the mountains fade into a universally flat haze in the blue distance against the horizon.

It's very strange how halfway around the world the rustling murmur of cicadas and the warm smell of suntan lotion can make it feel so much like home.

Excellent. Went to the field in front of the Washington Monument last night to listen to the US Army Band play. The 1812 Overture with live cannon fire! (and that live cannon fire smell.) That's some uplifting music for you. I never knew that classical music had this capacity to put crowds on their feet.

I was walking to the library, but decided what the hey, and wandered around randomly and got lost in the suburbs and went in circles until I stumbled upon St. John's church, and found my way to Aspen Hill Library anyhow. It's a good feeling, walking around randomly on a summer day. Very time wasting, but fun.

I'm being quite healthy and stuff. Lots of DDRing. Saturday.. walked with my mom through Rock Creek Park to Lake Needwood, which I think we'll start making a weekly habit. I saw two deer in the woods that looked extremely frail and skinny. I really haven't seen deer that close up before. And when we left, there was a dappled deer that crossed the road and by the road, was suckling three fawns. And in Lake Needwood I saw a watersnake that drew back into the water when I came closer. I considered poking it with a stick, but that's the type of thing that wins you Darwin Awards. Oh yeah, that's wildlife viewing for me.

And then there was Alex's party. Lost overwhelmingly to Alex in Apples to Apples.

Andrew is sickeningly good at DDR, but complained about being too big for the pads.

Sunday. Went swimming at the Montgomery County Aquatic Center, which I hadn't been to in a few years. The kiddie pool isn't as exciting as I remember it being. And yes, apparently I still have my phobia of deep water. I refuse to swim in water deeper than 8 feet or so because it freaks me out. The water there got as deep as 18 feet (at the diving section) and it was so unnerving for me to see how dark a shade of blue it was. I honestly don't think that the type of phobia therapy where you're exposed to what you fear really works for me, because I used to learn swimming in water 12 and half feet deep, diving in it and things, I'm still as freaked out by it was I was then. Only now I'm taller, so 'neck height' is higher for me.

Boring, boring week. I like boring; it means I get to sleep. I can't believe so much of my summer is gone.. it's like.. one week of frantically running back and forth from school after exams, three weeks of dysfunctional family in Hong Kong, and now it's August. Blah. Strong urge to call up Alex and leave a message on his answering machine with my Carmina Burana mp3 playing in the background, while saying in a very deep voice something like, "The time is now... as the forces of evil converge on your answering machine, there is yet one hope for the world.." Or, I considered playing the T-Rex and raptor sound effects and yelling, "Alex, help me!!!! My house has been overrun with Puffy's genetic experiments gone wrong!!!!" I wouldn't have the guts to do it though.

Read "Interesting Times," with a special feature called "Rincewind being chased by enraged sumo wrestlers and a Peking opera-singing, kung fu fighting woman shouting Communist slogans." That's Terry Pratchett for you.

Lord Hong is so badass.

Yes, Mainland (nickname: Big Green) China is now officially the most ghetto place I have ever been. Not so much as ghetto, but totally random. Let me demonstrate. Visualize what I'm about to say, instead of just reading over it, otherwise you won't understand me.

It is nighttime in July, and it is hot and humid. You see a large mall. Right in front of it, is not a parking lot, but a tiny lawn, maybe the size of a blacktop. There are large green spotlights pointed at the grass, so that it's a nice crayony shade of green, as if someone thought, "Damn, the grass should be green." Without thinking that grass isn't green at night. On the grass is some metal playground equipment. You know, swings, slides, etc. There's maybe a hundred people, coming and going into/from the mall, green kids (the lights doing their job) playing on the playground and random people sitting. On the grass. There are poles on the grass. There are Christmas lights shaped like fireworks on the poles. Around this whole scene are colonial style apartments badly in need of repair. There is a giant KFC sign in Chinese. Looming above the sign is a crane. And a clocktower.

I'm not sure if I'm getting across, but what I was thinking looking out at this was.. What the hell???

A fairly dumb tour.. we went to the beach, and just stood around acting like idiots, since it was blistering hot, even with the free fans and free water we were given. I hate beaches. The only thing distinctive about it was that you could see Taiwan. Chinese tea ceremony demonstration.. good tea.. but I didn't understand the Mandarin, and didn't pay attention to the Cantonese. Went to a nifty Buddhist shrine and ate a vegetarian meal there. The cooks were amazing- they could make everything taste like meat. They made fried glutton that tasted like pork kabob, and had some strange fungi mushroom thing diced up to taste like calamari, and mushrooms basted to taste like sea cucumbers, and some awesome vegetarian pan fried noodles.

Am in Hong Kong. Actually, I've been here for a week or so (starting on the 24th of June) but was too lazy to blog.

It is all normal. It looks very good at night, sparkly like it's Christmas or something (Christmas in Hong Kong is demented by the way... too many lights...), but in the daytime, it's dirty. Japan creeps me out because it's an Asian country and clean. Has been 33 degrees C out, and I wish we'd turn on the air con. The fan is trying very hard, to its credit. This is part of the reason why I escape to my cousin Fish's apartment (flat, my bad) ... because my grandma is worse than Nick B's dad. I don't think she's let a meal pass without commenting on my fatness (when people comment that I've lost weight she immediately goes, "No she hasn't!") And she serves fish at every meal and gets hella angry if I don't eat it (despite eating other things). Evil..I hate having a mouthful of bones- it's like eating a skeleton, especially since choking on a bone when I was little and having to be taken to a hospital.

And semi-escaping from my other cousin's flat because a) he's starting to inherit his dad's temper (this being the type of model family where the father is the disciplinarian and the mother is the nurterer- so that the daughter is extremely compliant and my other cousin is starting to yell at his mom..) Also, he's been running around shouting, having spiked his hair like David Beckham and is wearing a "Brasil" soccer (read, real football) jersey. Also, I have to go to church with them, which althought it hasn't been as offensive as it was last year (we got to watch videos on "converting the natives of Africa") but it's still awkward because I don't know anyone and people think I'm weird because I eat pizza with my hands.

Anyhow. Fish has been teaching me how to play Counterstrike. Yay, FPS. And "Typing of the Dead." Type or die!

It seems like I have not blogged in forever. And when I blog, it's about random shit, not about stuff that happens in my life.

Um, school is over. FINALLY. It hasn't really felt like summer cuz I keep going to school for various reasons, like my mom bitching about CAS forms. I'm not that incompetent, it's just that I don't care.

(you know all this. bear with me- this is just for the official record)

King's Dominion. HOOAH. It was as hot as shit, so I was actually feeling icky and soaked even without the water rides but then it rained. Hard. Like, pouring buckets. We had been planning on going on the water rides in the afternoon, but the rain sort of killed those plans. Roooolllleer coaaastersss.

Hurler- first coaster, wooden, fairly tame- Nick should've gone on this one.

Grizzly- po' Nick. I have a feeling he smashed his hip against the side because my fat ass was shoved up right next to him.

Rebel Yell, backwards, but the suspense was sort of ruined in that you knew you were going to go downhill when you ceased feeling like you were going uphill.

Shock Wave- stood in the front with Christine at her insistence (I guess she really trusts Jesus), got my head smacked against the dumb metal headrests, and since there were two cars on the track, had to wait for like 10 minutes after the ride before we could actually get out.. blegh. Puffy actually got stuck on it, and got gift certificates for his trouble. You know, Puffy had never been on a coaster before the trip.

Anaconda-that was sweet, especially the corkscrews. We went on it twice. The going underwater thing wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. I heard Julia or someone flashed the camera...).

Didn't go on the Outer Limits (You didn't miss anything, Jen) since the line was too long, and the same with the Volcano (Puffy's first coaster, which he said was lame- I don't buy it) when it reopened after the storm. Took one look at the Berserker going upside down in dreadfully slow circles and ran away, making some white lie about there not being enough time to go on it. Which happened to be true.

I used to be rather terrified of roller coasters because they were rather ominous- you'd have the creaking of the chains as they dragged the cart up the first hill and you could look down and be like, aw shit, why am I here? And then you'd be motionless for a second before you'd fall... I didn't really like the metal roller coasters as much because they'd seem too fast, because you couldn't hear things rattling or feel the turning motions because everything was so smooth. But still. Apparently the HyperSonic XL is the 9th fastest roller coaster in the US. I still don't think I could go on it. I wanted to go on the Skyflyer, but it was hella expensive.

Some wholesome noncoaster things. The Flying Eagle, which was like a swing ride except in carts, and I said it felt like being on a landspeeder and Nick said I was a dork. Quiet, you. And we went on the carousel (wheee!!!) which didn't go on for as long as I'd like, but it was still cool. The Eiffel Tower, which was nice and windy, and made me heightsick. Swing ride thing, which I remember from being little and crying because I was too short to go on it for two years straight. Took pictures on it, but it was starting to rain (read: storm) and the ride was cut short. And it lit up after I was on it. And the funnel cakes were good, and the food was good (but incredibly overpriced), and it was incredibly cool playing bumper cars, as long as you didn't crash into anyone head on, which was painful. I won a frog! Froggie! From throwing a ball into a basket. yup. So did Dipa. Hers was a different color. Played some skiball and lost pathetically, DDR (mostly watched it). Yup.

Shakespeare Free For All, which basically consisted of people not talking to me. Picnic was sort of excruciating, since it seemed like if people had a choice not to talk to me, they made it. It seems that the more people Nick or Alex invite to a social occasion, the more lonely I am. But the play was good, and it was nice being in an ampitheater with the IWBA. Making snide comments. BARDFU! I was pleased that I understood it. I think we should dub a term for "theater beautiful," which is a lot different from "tv ugly." TV characters who are "ugly" are just pretty people in glasses, but people on stage who're beautiful are often saggy middle aged women with make-up on playing teenagers.

Um, my DDR party, which was mostly other people playing DDR, but it was still fun. I'm afraid the stomping probably has made my house structurally instable. Except for picking up Silvia's socks when it was over. And my sisters and their husbands coming over later for the belated Father's Day party. Lots of food, talking about stuff. Wondering who I'm going to get married off to. Joy.