Friday Afternoon Conditions

Also known as- Notes composed whilst killing six minutes in the main library.

I love how there is such a space in the world, namely the third floor reading area of the library, where I can go and nap in solitude for fifteen minutes because I am completely exhausted by the week's work, papers, and meetings.  I love how I could then just get up, go to dinner, and get on with my life.  Naps in the library is something I shall miss when I go off to the real world.

This library computer that I am using has not yet adjusted to daylight savings.  What a loser.

The library golf pencils are a newly sharpened.  I pity the student employee that had to fish all of them out of the tiny boxes and sharpen them all.  Or, perhaps they just tossed away the old ones.  They are all the same height.  Does anyone really sharpen golf pencils?

This week's issue of the Orient is conspicuously absent from the library front desk.  Gak, get your people on this.

There was a split second today when I thought that I would be walking into the dining hall without anyone to eat with (of course, I wouldn't actually eat alone, I would find someone whose table I could crash) but thank God, that didn't happen.  Oh, blessed cell phone and last minute lunch arrangements

Open Secrets

Moi:... apparently he has a son that no one knew about until now. A grown son, and this son is about the same age as his two other sons.

Awkward Andy: How old are they? (perfectly legit question)

Moi: In their late twenties, almost thirty?

Vita-K: Do they have the same mother? Is the new son and old son by the same woman? (perfectly illegit questions)

Moi: No... because then they would have known about him all along, because he would just be his regular son, and he wouldn't have been a secret...

Although, how hilarious would it be if someone kept the birth of one of their legitimate children a secret? The son that nobody knows about even though he's just as much a part of the family as anyone else? I might have to look into that.

PS: I'm at the Bo' now, as I have been for almost four years.

Quality Control

The flag that I was given at the naturalization ceremony. The one we were told to wave after we were sworn in. (The actual waving of the flags was quite anticlimactic and disjointed. We weren't really sure if we were supposed to wave after the first oath, or the pledge of allegiance, or when the judge walked out of the room. Plus, we were grown people with self respect. I wasn't about to show my relief by giddily shaking a tiny piece of cloth every few seconds.) Note a fourteenth blue stripe at the bottom of the flag. And all the loose threads. And the staples. They really went all out with their patriotic gear on this one.

I love non-tag clothing, what with the no tags and all. Keeps my skin itch free. But in the absence of tags and letters, there are instructions printed directly onto the clothing and I can't really decipher what it is trying to tell me. It's like a secret, between clothing and skin, except I don't know what it is. I hope it doesn't say anything about fireants. That would itch more than tags.

I hate it when I'm scooped. I was going to write a blurb about Maria today and reinstate my 'Person of the Week' thing that I tried to do a couple of years ago, but she had to go ahead and beat me to it by sending me a nice email. I don't like to be out-niced. So I guess the paragraph on how absolutely gracious, wondrously frank, thoughtful, and willing to do whatever it takes to help she is, and how awesome it is that she listens so carefully to people, all that is getting shelved.

Frenemies

I don't really want to think about it this way. But if I boil down the people I encountered face to face and actually talked to today, it sort of looks like this:

Roommates: 2
Soc Professors: 3
Anthro Professors: 2 (I don't even take anthro)
Department Coordinators: 1
Friends: 1

Sometimes, I just spend too much time at the department office and not enough time elsewhere. And because Roommate Amy (not to be confused with me) asked, I went to Lori, our wonderful department coordinator in search of some syllabi...

Moi: I have this friend. No, really, it's not for me, I have a friend.

Lori: Of course, you do. I assumed that you'd at least have one. But probably not many more, right?

Take it, Lori. It's ok. It's not like I was using my self-respect for anything.

(Later, talking to Roommate Amy)

Moi: So he said that he had done some home improvement projects over break. And I asked, "Does your bathroom finally have a door now?" Was that a weird question to ask, especially of a professor?

Amy: YES! That is SO weird.

Moi: Oh. It seemed perfectly natural at the time.

Path to Freedom

This is it, folks. The famed Faneuil Hall. Cradle of Liberty. This is where it all went down. The pictures inside weren't great. It was crowded. Officials were tense. Lighting was terrible. But here are a few that made it.

Some of the 397 people who became American citizens the same moment that I did. The judge presiding over the ceremony was thirty minutes late while we were done with the processing fifteen minutes early. That meant that for forty-five minutes, we were told to do nothing but sit still. And listen to not-at-all inspiring stories about the founder of Wal-Mart. There we were, 398 of us, without our green cards (we had turned them in when we arrived) and without proof of citizenship. In limbo. Waiting for one important American.

At long last, after hours of waiting, lessons on voting and jury duty, swearing allegiance and a willingness to bear arms, and being told that we could not make a difference in any country but the United States of America, after all that- picking up the certificates of naturalization.

The patronizing card that assumes that my life is so pitiful that the day I became a naturalized citizen would be the greatest day in my life. Why, even as I type now, I am giving thanks for the privilege to blog, one of the many privileges bestowed upon me as one of the citizens of this great United States.

Tongue Mechanics

Real Chinese is ordered in the mother tongue. Fake Chinese food is ordered in English, lest the wait staff discover that I am truly Chinese and judge me for eating their terrible 'pian lao mei' food.

This Land Is My Land

My Fellow Americans-
Today, I am one of you. I am now offcially a Sri Lankan Taiwanese American by way of of Scotland. In honor of the event, I met up with Sarah in Chinartown. But fret not, friends, for we went to possibly the whitest restaurant Chinatown had to offer. There was not a single Asian face except ours and that of the waiters for much of our meal. We really knew how to pick them.
During the ceremony today, in addition to a letter from the White House, a packet on voting registration, and an American flag, we were given little pins (not real ones, but the museum entrance kind) and a card that had the pledge of allegiance on it. On the reverse side of the card was a congratulatory note informing the reader that today would be the greatest day of our lives. Imagine that, to peak at such a young age. More stories of the day and photos to come. But for now, I must celebrate the best day of my life with Must See TV. I hope tomorrow never comes.

It's So Your Fault

Dearest Ellie's Cat ("Milo," though Jim seems to be under the impression that you are "Kiki"):
Why do you hate me? Why must you scratch me and abuse my laptop? Why must you stare at me with such angry eyes? Most cats love me. LOVE ME. Dogs, too. And even some kids (of the goat variety, though the human kind digs me, too). Basically, EVERYONE LOVES ME. Even the Band Man has cats that love me. But you. Oh, you. I thought we had something going there, how I'd scratch you and you'd just sit there and purr. But no. You had to start clawing. And sleeping where I wanted to sleep. And tapping your paws all over my laptop. And trying to shut down Dakota the Computer. And leaving red welts on my arms. And drinking out of the toilet when I try go to the bathroom in need of a good pee. And the leaping and the hitting. Why, Milo, why can't we be friends? Now I must shut the door behind me wherever I go because this apartment ain't big enough for the two of us.

Sincerely bleeding,

Scared in Cambridge

Lean on Me

 

An emergency phone stand in D.C. without the emergency phone. Doing great work there, trusted politicians.

In completely unrelated news, whilst we were in D.C., we got terribly lost trying to get to Senator Snowe's office. So lost that we put our fate in the hands of teenage pages working in the senate. Desperation had impaired our judgement and apparently, we were not in good hands. The page had to ask another little page. And then she started grilling us on where we were from. She was delighted to find out that we were a college group, and instead of letting us run off to the meeting we were late for, she kept on asking questions about where the Bo' was and whether we liked the school. A very curious and persistent page. I hope she fits in well at college.

In still completely unrelated news, I rode the bus today! The bus driver appeared to be an aspiring DJ. He had a smooth voice, a sympathetic story (he was just explaining why we arrived in Portland early, but I swear, it made me want to vote for him for something) and gave his announcements with dramatic flair, declaring that today's in-bus movie was Stranger Than (poignant pause) Fiction, "or, if you are on black ice, Stranger than (pause) Friction." So he's no comedian. But I hope I hear him again on the radio some day. On a boring side note (isn't this entire entry a boring side note?), I thoroughly enjoyed Stranger than Fiction. I hadn't watched such a likable movie in awhile. It felt especially good after a few days of bumming around and perhaps watching back episodes of The Hills... I couldn't help it. Gak talked about it so much that I got curious, though it really turned out as bad as I thought it would be.

By the by, the Band Man has strong feelings about Bob Dole and I have a naturalization ceremony this week.

Give Me Your Full, Your Needy to Go

Being back at the Bo' after half a year abroad, I now have far less opportunities to encounter new toilets. It's one of those things I miss about living abroad, along with never having much homework, and sharing Haribo's Tanfastic gummies with small groupers. Last week, however, stepping out of my New England bubble, I had some new encounters. Without further ado, I present to you- Variations in the Domestic Toilet Scene.



Not an especially impressive bathroom, I know. But it has a stately feel for it, with the dark wooden doors and marble floors and walls. All very fitting for a Senate building.



The colorful yet off-color bathroom at Bucca di Beppo, an amazing Italian eatery chain. The picture of a photographer with a camera pointed directly at the toilet user was slightly off putting and very clever on the restaurant's part.


Somebody seriously messed up while installing this toilet or redoing this room. It is completely slanted, so that there is a triangular space between the toilet and the wall. This was at So Others Might Eat, in D.C.

The rest stops in New Jersey were amazingly clean and efficient. I especially appreciated how the faucet, soap, paper towels, and trash were all within inches of each other. Unfortunately, these are not pictures of the New Jersey rest area toilets, but the ones below are from Connecticut and Maine.



This is an extra protective toilet, whose handicap railings give the bathroom an armored feel, a sort of room-within-a-room. The picture doesn't show this, but the flush handled is installed wrong and pushes down the other way. People have got to pay more attention installing their toilets.


This is from a door in Kennebunk. You don't really see much graffiti in reststop areas, and when you do, they're usually dirty and/or mean and not declarations of love. Now that I think about it, maybe something dirty did go down there and I don't want to know anymore. I did, however, like the possible shoutout to Gak's brother. Or some other great one. Who carries sharpies with them to the toilet anyway? And you thought having a camera handy was weird.

Upsidedown Pineapple

That's where I was all of last week. In the nation's capital. And Capitol. It was a hard and tiring week. We spent a lot of time in soup kitchens and speaking with advocates and consequently, saw a lot of the unfortunate side of life. Mostly though, the week was tough because I did not win. Not as much as I had hoped, anyway. Oh, we played games. Egyptian Ratscrew, Catchphrase, Pictionary, and Find the Sarah Seames. Yet uncharacteristically, I did not win them all. It was as if I had entered this bizarro world, where the weather was always lovely and the winners never me. My world was further spun when I seriously schooled everyone in Boggle but couldn't be my usual sore winner self and gloat. I somehow felt bad for beating people merciless. Instead, I just kept telling people how well they were doing. It was like having an out of body experience for an entire week. Freaky, and probably not too healthy.

More pictures of the week to come, along with quite a few stories that Gak has already heard/experienced. But for now, I'm pretty talked out.

Oh, I saw Bob Dole!

D.C. Talk

To Mondeda Yellow: Yes, I am in D.C. Will be until Saturday morning. Which practically leaves me no time to see you. Especially since I am leading the trip that I am on and all that. I am sorry the world has conspired so that we should not meet save that one fateful summer at CTY ("Geek Camp" to the rest of you). But yay for addressing inequalities in education!

To The World: The nation's capital has much lovelier weather than the frozen tundra that they call 'Maine.' My legs are so tired from constant walking/standing/being generally out of shape that I am considering screwing them off and carrying them on my shoulders as I traverse the town with my hands, because even that sounds better than walking on my sore and stiff legs right now.

I must now hand off the computer to Nicole, good day, world.

The Wrap Around

Mother: So you've been wearing the scarf [I gave you]?

Moi: Yeah, I really like it. It's been keeping me warm.

Father: Isn't that my scarf? I was wondering that was.

Mother: She needed a scarf. She was cold.


All right, folks. I turned in 71 pages of gibberish today. So I am quite spent. Instead of relaxing, however, I am going to D.C. for a week. Feeding the hungry, restoring sight to the blind, speaking with Congress- the usual spring break rituals. I'll see you when I get back, except for the ones I don't actually get to see. Stay pretty.

Secret Sauce

Moi: What're you up to for the rest of the day?

Band Man: Well, I've got this bar set up behind my desk. It's really convenient.

Moi: You know, you keep talking about this bar. You really need to share it with students. Some of us are over 21.

Band Man: Yeah, but I'd hate to card.

The Miseducation of Alex

This is not a good week for sophomores. Today, I am minding my own business, doing my usual poor job of lab assisting (stabbed myself with a staple today trying to pass out papers- I am just not cut out for this work) when this kid 'Alex' stomps into the lab. I think that may be his actual name.

Somehow, in a matter of seconds, Alex managed to make me sympathetic to the lab instructor, quite a feat for someone who has been displeased with her in all three of the years I've known her.
Alex: Am I to understand that we have a lab due the Monday we get back from spring break?

Instructor: That is correct.

Alex: And when are we supposed to work on this lab report?

Instructor: Spring break?

Alex: (stares at instructor like he's about to punch her. really, sitting behind her, I wondered if I should duck)

Instructor: It's been assigned since Monday, so kids could also have worked on it the these four days before break.

Alex: And what about the kids with lab on Thursdays, huh?

Instructor: Hey, for most people this is a working vacation.

Alex: Oh, is that what spring break is now? I see how it is.

He then stares at her for another minute, with a plotting smirk on his face, then angrily stomps off. His body language that spoke more than anything else. He wasn't being smart mouthed, the way he spoke, he was being confrontational, he was ready to pounce.

Sure, we hate work. We complain about it. And work over break is low. But it's also a fact of school. The audacity of this boy. The arrogance. The sense of entitlement. I was actually about to apologize to our instructor on his behalf. But he has rendered me speechless.

When lt Freezes Over

Lord, why must it be so cold? Why does it take such strong winds to remind us of your power? My teeth hurt.

Holier Than Thou

It's true what they say. The more you read the Bible, the more questions you'll have about it. At our weekly BCF lunches, we have been working our way through some of those toughest questions...

Minor prophet of choice? Hosea.

Best dressed at the first Christmas pageant? The Wise Men.

Favorite plague? This was a hard one to come to a consensus on. Mostly because we could only name five ('Bubonic' was a favorite answer). I had expected the group to be outraged and say that it was wrong to appoint a favorite plague, but no one seemed to have any trouble with that. Blood. Locusts. Darkness. And of course, the classic Death to the Firstborn.

Once we assigned a favorite plague, that really paved the way for our next question:

If you called King Solomon's bluff, which half of the baby would you want (you can slice and dice any way you want, as long as it adds up to 50%)? Tim came up with the most economic model: Just the torso- so the organs made be harvested for a profit. Those were his words, not mine; please address your indignant angry letters to him.

Disciple with the best hair? A tough one. The Bible doesn't give us much to go on. And some of us weren't very familiar with Scripture (Tim: Paul! No? I mean, John the Baptist! No?) Rather reluctantly, we concluded that perhaps Judas had the best hair because, as Tim put it, "He's got to spend those shekels [from selling out Jesus] on something." Matthew was contender for awhile, because he was a well-off man that dealt with the public, but Tim, biblical expert that he is, asserted that he was much disliked, ergo, ugly.

With the wealth of Christian literature out there today, I'm surprised that there aren't more books written about this subject. Perhaps after we organize these weekly Bible study sessions more systematically, you'll be arguing about the superiority of a slingshot over a tent peg and mallet as murder weapons at a Sunday School near you. In the meantime, feel free to submit your own answers/questions.

Gulliver's Travels

Welcome to my 501st blog entry. Man, I spend too much time here. I guess Dusty has a point about the slump... lazy sophomores.

This morning was a time spent in bizarro world. At breakfast, someone replaced all the normal utensils at Moulton with giant-ware. I felt like one of the Israelite spies stepping into Canaan. (Sunday school reference- ten points! Biblical reference on a Sunday- five extra points!) There were extra large spatulas for the omelettes, with handles longer than my forearm, and in the tablespoons slot, the biggest spoon I had ever seen. It covered half of Alex's face. So amused was I with my giant spoon that I snuck it out of the dining hall, only to be yelled at by Megan, who said that I was "extra wrong" because I was "stealing" right before church. But frankly, the 44 grand that the Bo' charges should more than cover for the spoon, giant as it was.

After breakfast, I ate brunch. There, the conversation turned, as it often does, toward Brian's gap year in Honduras between seventh and eighth grade, when he took some time to consider if middle school was right for him. Somehow or rather, Brian brought up his anti-pirates organization (pirates suck because they eat polar bears), thus setting Rachel off on the longest anti-pirate rant known to man. We had no idea that her little body was capable of such stored rage, but on she went, for no less than fifteen minutes, on how she hated pirates. Not terrorism, poverty, or global warming, but pirates.

Rachel: You don't understand how annoying it was. In high school, there were these girls who were obsessed with pirates. They were like a quarter of my class and they always dressed up as pirates and talked like pirates.

Brianna: Were they the popular girls? Because then you could have just turned people against them, became popular yourself.

Rachel: Oh no, I was popular.

Moi: Were you one of those popular people that hated the weird kids?

Rachel: No! No, I was weird!

Brianna: Right, you should have worked against them so people liked you more.

Rachel: But I was most popular. In my class, I was voted most popular.

(Realize how conceited that sounded)

Rachel: It was a really small class...


(I reiterate how giant the giant spoon was and how I missed it.)

Connie: Yeah! Look at how much bigger your spoon is than mine!

Moi: That's because you are holding a teaspoon.

Connie: Oh. What's yours called then?

Moi: This is a tablespoon. The giant spoon is in Tim's car.

Slackademics

While in line at the bookstore (where the printer jammed in such a way that three different clerks told me that 'I don't know what's wrong, I've never seen this happen before.'- always reassuring):

Boy: What's up?

Girl: I'm buying these notebooks so I could decorate them to motivate me to study. I just don't feel like studying for any of my midterms.

Boy: Yeah, me neither. I don't feel like doing any work.

Girl: I guess they were right about the sophomore slump, right?

Whoa, whoa. What 'sophomore slump,' lazies? Are you a major leaguer or a recording artist that you would have high expectations to live up to? Just do your work, dammit. What's next, the junior jams? Third grade trials?

UnGentle Giant

Gentle moisturizing action my foot! Poor Donatello. Though he may be the most intelligent of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he is no match for the heavy baby lotion that has trapped him and most likely irreversibly damaged his feet.

My Day at the High School

This morning, was supposed to go to the local high school with my service learning project group (Team Tedford) and the Band Man. Last night, as we prepared for our presentation, had to teach the Californians how to find out if there was a snow day. They are so adorable. Also adorable is the smallness of Maine, where school closings share the space with yoga class cancellations at the bottom of the television screen. Anyway, my teaching was apparently effective, as they both successfully found that that school was, mercifully, cancelled. It was my first snow day in about six years. We did not go back to our respective beds though, we trekked through the snow and watched RIZE together, eating fruit and chocolate chip cheesecake. Krumping and snacking- there's no better way to spend a snow day.

A Better Way

A giant packet came in the mail yesterday, bringing great distress to all hp students. In the packet were instructions on formatting ourtheses and a deadline for submitting the titles of our projects.

What titles? We asked each other. I don't even know what I'm arguing. I have neither introduction, analysis, nor conclusion. If I had known it was so much work, I wouldn't have signed up for this. We said to one another. I don't want to finish my hp.

Moi: Hp? Is that what the cool kids are calling it now?

Sonia: It sounds better than honors project, much less pretentious.

Moi: I thought pretention was the reason we were doing this.