Books

To combat the brainsuck effect of summer, I went to the library today and got a stack of books on the recommendations of my awesome friends.  I already crunched through three over the past few days: Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill, Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, and The Summons by John Grisham.  The Hill and Grisham novels were throwaway page-turners, and I finished them in a day each.  Both were good, and the Grisham won a special place in my heart because it's protagonist was a professor of law (what I'd ultimately like to study) at the University of Virginia (where I'll be in a few months) with the last name of Atlee (which is the name of an awesome lit professor I had last summer).  Bad Science was an interesting non-fiction read about a variety of things that claim to be science and totally aren't, like homeopathy, anti-vaccine sentiment, and some others, plus some really interesting stuff on the placebo effect.  I suggest it.

What I plan on doing is this: everytime I finish one of the books in my new to-read pile I'll do a review/critique/analysis/whatever I feel like about it.  I'm not sure what I'll be tackling first, it's either City of Thieves by David Benioff (who wrote the screen play for Game of Thrones, which is a wicked HBO tv series) or Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (auther of Everything is Illuminated and Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close).  I'll be starting tomorrow, and my first review should be done by Thursday!

Weird Metaphor Night!

I still have my bag of pencils and pens from AP testing.  Mostly because pencils and pens would get lost in the drawstring bag which has replaced my backpack.  During one especially dull moment in class today, I started pushing some of the pencils through the side of the bag, poking little holes.  With the mechanical pencils it was easy; they were small and just poked little holes.  The regular pencils were harder.

None of my regular pencils were sharp (AP testing saw to that, and I was to lazy to sharpen them again).  So, as I pushed them against the plastic of the bag, they wouldn't break straight through.  They'd stretch the plastic around them, stretching and stretching until finally they popped through.  So I made a game of it, to see how far I could stretch the bag without breaking it.  The bad news is that now I have a plastic bag filled with pencil shaped holes which likes to leak the occasional pencil.

If you read the title, you're probably wondering where this is going (and reading what I just wrote, I could definitely go to some crazy places).  When you're suffering the braincrush of senior year, and sitting in a dark classroom as a friend attempts to explain taxes, your brain wanders.  Today, I started identifying with my pencils.  I decided that that plastic bag was my world right now.

As you push the pencil, the plastic around it stretches.  Everything strains to keep up with the change, to keep the bag from breaking and pencil from making it through.  But the more you stretch, the thinner the plastic gets.  The walls of that plastic bag, which had seemed so real, start to get flimsy and weak.  What's going to happen next becomes more apparent with every millimeter, and more urgent because you've pretty much already poked this hole, so why stop now?

Then you start to realize that you're going to poke a hole in that bag.  After that you'll pretty much have to throw it out, because that hole will just get bigger.  You start to regret pushing the pencil as far as you have, but there's no turning back now.  Finally the pencil breaks through and you have a little moment that sits somewhere between "mission accomplished" and "what the hell did I do that for?"  In the little world of that bag, the goal was getting that pencil to poke through.  But why?  Why did that matter?  Why was that what you wanted?  Have you really accomplished something, or have you just screwed up something that was good?  Who even cares--you'll get a better bag in a little bit.

Don't worry though, this kind of introspection lasts about half a second.  Then I get to work on another hole.  And another, and another, until the bell rings for me to leave.  Because, what else is there to do?

Now It Feels Real

I'm going to college.  I've known that for a while now, but now it's starting to feel real.  First there was touring, but that didn't mean much.  Then I applied, and that was a total timesuck.  Then, on and around April 1st I found out where I got in.  That was a stressful, hectic, but ultimately good time.  But it still didn't feel real, because I still had to make my decision.  May 1st was the decision deadline, and you'd have thought that after that I'd be set and ready, but I had a waitlist sitting at the back of my mind reminding me that there was still some shred of uncertainty about my next four years.

Well, no more uncertainty.  I know where I'm going, I've paid my deposit, and I've registered for orientation.  I've even put in my advisor request, and found myself a roommate.  I've got my school apparel and a nice drawstring which has replaced my backpack.  AP exams are over and my work is petering out; I'm settling into that awesome groove between high school and the beginning of the rest of my life.  My time now is spent enjoying friends, doing what little work my teachers use to justify teaching after APs are over (the Stranger is an excellent book though), and counting down the days until I say goodbye to high school.

Every day, as I cross out another day on the calendar that counts down to June 22nd, I look at that dwindling number with a mixture of joy, ruefulness, excitement, and apprehension.  A new chapter in my life will soon be starting, but this one isn't quite over yet, and there are definitely still some plot lines that need to be tied up.  As much as I hate to say it, there will be things I'll miss about high school; people, classes, experiences.  And to be honest, high school's essentially all I've known for the past few years of my life (outside of the few summer forays into other environments), and jumping into college will be a whole lot of change all at once.

Knowing that this change is coming has some weird side effects.  Have you ever experienced the moment when everything shifts, and you feel as if the earth has started spinning in a new direction?  Or at least, from where you're standing, you feel like you've suddenly become a stranger to your own life?  I imagine that it's like the first time you experience an earthquake; the most permanent thing you know starts to shake.  That's what it feels like to know that in a few months I'll be saying goodbye to high school, almost everyone I've known throughout my life, and the only place I've ever called home.

Besides that crazy sense that everything is changing faster than I can even recognize it, there's this crushing lack of motivation that comes with knowing that pretty much nothing that I do now will change much of anything.  They call it senioritis, and it is definitely contagious.  It's just hard to take anything high school--high school classes, high school drama, high school work--seriously when you know that in a few months you'll be in college, in the big leagues.

So the question that's staring me in the face is: now what?  How do I kill these remaining months?  How do I squeeze every last drop of awesome out of what's left?  How do solve this paradox of wanting so badly to go to college while wanting so badly not to leave my friends?  And what color bedspread should I get?  Actually, the last one really doesn't matter to me (I think I've already got a bedspread), but it's definitely a pressing question for some of my friends.

From what I can tell, the best answer is just to enjoy senior year as hard as possible.  Take the risks you've been afraid to take: cut class, write the paper that you want to write rather than the one you think you should write, go for that person you've been thinking about.  Because as much as senior year is a willpower crusher, it also liberates you.  In college no one will remember if you made a fool of yourself at a party, or embarrassed yourself in front of your friends.  Take the chance to talk to people you've never thought to talk to before; worst case scenario you never talk to them again, and maybe you'll make a new friend.  Now more than ever you can drop the act and be who you want to be, consequence-free (relatively).

Most of all, I'm going to savor every moment that I get with the amazing people that I call my friends.  This year more than any other I've realized that my friends are incredibly intelligent, talented, motivated, creative, fun, funny, and sincere, and are honestly some of the nicest people I've ever met.  Soon we'll have to say goodbye, and I'm sure that each of us will build new networks of friends who are just as great as the ones we have now, but for now I just want to enjoy the people I've spent the better part of my life getting to know.

I'm not sure what move in day will be like for me, but I am sure of one thing: that even though I'll be done with high school, part of it will still stay with me.  I just hope it's the good part, and not the part where I have to wake up at 6 am.

I'm really back now!

And I'm posting tonight!

I'm making a promise

So hold me to it: I will post on the college decision process (picking the school you want) before spring break.  I know my last two posts have been "I'll be super busy," and I was 100% right.  Since last post, I went to NHSMUN, JETS, and have had a lot of super interesting (but long) budget meetings for the Board of Ed (I'll try to get a post up about that too before the vote).  Plus, of course, college decisions came in, so I've been dealing with the stress of trying to make some really important decisions myself!  I'm actually visiting a school right now, so I'm in the midst of the stress (the awesome crazy cool stress).  I still have two schools to visit, and potentially a third, so everything is still pretty up in the air.  Even now I face a minor but important decision: of the two colleges I visited this weekend, whose sweatshirt do I wear on Monday?  The worst part of it all is that I'm going to have to keep waking up at 6 in the morning for high school.  Tomorrow I get home though, and after getting my schoolwork done (haha..) I'll get another post out.  I promise!

Remember how I said I'd be less busy?

Well, I lied.  The crazy frenetic fury of the past few months that I swore would die down after States and JHUMUNC has just kept on devouring every ounce of my free time.  Now instead of JHUMUNC and States, I have NHSMUN (National High School Model UN) and Nationals for IPLE.  Tomorrow I'm going down to Maryland for a scholarship interview plus an info session all on Wednesday.  Somewhere in this crazy mess I have to make time for schoolwork which, even though I'm a second semester senior, still seems to keep piling up.  All the while the tension of future college decisions increases, with the end result being a vague nihilistic sense that everything I do now won't really matter much in a few months. Rather than  feeling freed by the knowledge that my grades and activities don't matter as much anymore, instead I feel like a hamster stuck on a wheel, still furiously churning away but getting absolutely nowhere for my efforts.

My queue of half written blogposts and messy room are testaments to the insanity that has been, is, and apparently will be my life, at least for a little while longer.  "Don't worry, after event X I'll have more free time" I keep telling myself, desperately trying to find the light at the end of this increasingly claustrophobic tunnel.  Then event X comes and goes, and it turns out that event Y was waiting to jump in and shatter my dreams of relaxing, pressure-free weeks.  I'd say at this point that after college decisions come out I'll feel better, but I know that will be a lie.  Not that I anticipate disappointment, I'll honestly be happy going to any of the schools I applied to, but instead because I know that once the colleges make their decisions it will be my turn to make a decision.  More tours, intense deliberation, and the fear of making the wrong choice will be my destroyers of free time.  Not to mention the pressure of competing in Washington D.C. with my IPLE team, and knowing that people will be counting on me to be at the top of my game.

Most likely, my first days of freedom won't come until May.  And then, oh what sweet joyous time I will spend in a dead sleep on the couch or in a stupor playing video games.  Maybe I'll even get the chance to watch a movie or something like that!  Until then, I really can't complain; I signed up for this madness.  I just want to be able to stop saying "soon" and start saying "now."

Eulalie Full Text

I'm going to repost the text of Eulalie without a link, because a couple of people had problems with the link.  Here it is!

Eulalie

‘Out to buy lace ~Roddy’ read the note Roderick Spode left hastily scribbled and tacked just above the bellybutton of a headless mannequin.  ‘Roddy’ dashed out the back door of Eulalie, quite ineffectively trying to be subtle when in fact it seemed as if a small circus tent was trying to flee the scene of a murder.  A passing couple would later tell a constable that they swore a gorilla in garish plaid had escaped the zoo.  Of course, Roderick was not on his way to buy frilly textiles for his shop, but had instead realized that in the intense concentration of finishing the swooping design of a left brazier strap he had forgotten about his meeting with his Fascist organization, the Black Shorts.  He barely remembered to grab his briefcase, and only that because his secretary Annette had left it by the back door, along with a note on pink heart shaped stationary that read, ‘With love, Annette.’  For effect, she had also added a few dozen hearts, scattered about on the paper. 

Annette was a breathless sort of woman who seemed always to be just on the cusp of fainting, her top-heavy body teetering on the smallest of waists.  It may have been the corset—designed by Roderick himself—that caused that combined effect, but Roderick often worried that she would simply fall over in the midst of raving about how a particular undergarment would beautify a customer’s bosom.  She had been enamored of Roderick from the first time she saw one of his garter designs, but Roderick was insistent that she remain his secretary and nothing more.  She had other plans, and made no attempt at keeping them secret from her employer.  Roderick arrived at the secret predetermined meeting spot after awkwardly removing his work attire and donning the black knickers and medal-blazoned jacket uniform of the Black Shorts in the back seat of his car.  A quick prayer should likely be said for the suffering that that leather had to endure. 

Roderick found the small meeting room filled with large men whispering quietly amongst themselves in similar black shorts and jackets.  An uninformed observer might have believed the group to be the 30-year reunion of a preparatory school, with the alumni wearing the same uniforms from their youth.  Taking the small gavel in a meaty fist, Roderick gruffly called the meeting to order with a few quick flaps of his moustache. 

‘Gentlemen, today we will be discussing our publicity campaign.’  A general murmur of assent, sprinkled with a couple of ‘Good show’-s and ‘Here here’-s answered Roderick’s opener.  ‘I have in my briefcase our newest batch of posters and pamphlets, ready for distribution by the Promotionary and Ambulatory Committee.  I must say Head Imagery Director Overstroppett, excellent job on the design, quite heroic.’ 

‘Thank you Chairpresident Spode’  Overstroppett simpered.

‘Pardon me for a brief moment, compatriots, while I retrieve the adverts,’ Roderick blustered, clicking open the latches of his briefcase.  Upon opening the lid, however, Roderick’s normally ruddy complexion took on a hue closer to spoiled cream.  Inside was a profusion of lady’s lingerie spilling over the edges of the valise, topped with another insidious heart shaped note:

‘♥♥♥♥♥♥♥The new shipment ~Annette♥♥♥♥♥♥♥’

After an expectant pause, Vice Deliberative Officer MacDinglebraith spoke up.  ‘Well Roderick, are you going to show us the posters?’  The man in front of him blinked and shoved a sausage-like finger in his ear as MacDinglebraith’s sonorous voice boxed his eardrums.  MacDinglebraith was Spode’s sole rival for control of the Black Shorts, and was no doubt salivating like a Doberman at Spode’s sudden show of weakness.

Roderick finally broke his paralysis and snapped the lid shut on his briefcase.  ‘Terribly sorry compatriots, but I’ve just realized that I’m late for an important work-related meeting.’

‘Don’t leave before you show us the posters Spode!’  MacDinglebraith boomed again. ‘I say, what’s wrong with you?’

‘I’m late!’ Roderick shot back, trying to sound forceful, but undermined by his voice cracking on ‘ate’. 

‘Nonsense Spode!  Now give me that briefcase.’  In a surprising show of agility, the old man snatched the leather bound portmanteau and clicked it open before Roderick had a chance to rouse the hairy caterpillar sleeping above his lip.  The tight packing job caused a solitary brazier to leap out at MacDinglebraith, who stood motionless with the undergarment perched jauntily above his left eye.  A moment of pregnant silence ensued, with Spode entirely frozen except for his eyes, which seemed as if they were franticly trying to escape his head.  The rest of the room looked from the lacy bits to Spode’s face and back, most slack jawed and some muttering comments under their breath.  MacDinglebraith was the first to break the silence, but with less authority in his voice than before, it being hard to act dictatorial and righteous with pink lace draped over your forehead.

‘What, may I ask, is this, Spode?’  MacDinglebraith face was quickly approaching the same hue as some of the red panties in the briefcase.

‘I.. well.. it’s.. you see.. my wife put that there!’  Spode’s face seemed to light up at this last bit, like a dog that had finally figured out how to jump up on the counter to get at the bag of kibble and treats. 

‘Your wife?  I hadn’t the slightest idea you had a wife, Spode.’  ‘Spode’ was spat with such fury that it seemed MacDinglebraith was trying to pummel Roderick with his consonants.

‘Of course I have a wife!  That’s her note there!’  Roderick pointed to the heart shaped scrap that had managed to fall under the seat of the poor chap who had earlier lost hearing in one ear because of MacDinglebraith’s commentary.  

‘Don’t just ogle it, pick it up!  What does it say?’  Unfortunately, the fellow was looking at the paper rather than MacDinglebraith, and didn’t hear the Vice Deliberative Officer’s command.  After a moment of frustration, MacDinglebraith pushed the package of intimate apparel into the lap of another onlooker, who then sat contemplating the niceties of a particular nightie, while MacDinglebraith himself bent over, lacy pink brazier still hanging round his head, to pick up the note, reaching through the legs of the still deaf fellow.  It was at this point that a rather meek looking fellow in spectacles and a comb over opened the door.  Absorbing the scene before him, he looked around at the knickered men, then at the bouquet of braziers in the briefcase, his eyes finally stopping at the grey haired gentleman sporting a lacy pink number, on hands and knees in front of a surprised looking man.

‘I-I-I-I’m s-s-s-sorry, I must have the wrong room… Can anyone tell me where the bathroom is?’

‘Down the hall to your left’ barked MacDinglebraith, looking up momentarily from his task.  Spectacles chivvied off as if MacDinglebraith had fired the opening shot of a race as MacDinglebraith got to his feet, clutching the note and dusting off his knees.  ‘Who’s this Annette character, and why is this the first we’re hearing of her?  What is all this about a shipment?’  MacDinglebraith rounded on Roderick again with the Doberman drool.

After another pause, Roderick answered.  ‘I must confess, compatriots, that I lied to you all just now.’

‘AHA!’ roared MacDinglebraith, with a vicious victory glint in his eye.  ‘I knew it Spode!  At least you’re wise enough to confess!’

‘Yes, yes, I confess: I’m not ‘late for an important work-related meeting.’’  MacDinglebraith looked confused, as if the steak he had been eying had grown legs and run away, but he was swiftly back on the attack.

‘Then where were you going?’

‘I had forgotten my plans for today, and when I saw the contents of my briefcase, I remembered…’

‘Well?!’

‘I remembered that today is my anniversary, and that I was supposed to meet my wife at a particularly expensive hotel a half hour ago.  She quite likes when I buy her lacy things, so that was her present.’  Roderick blushed, cleared his through, and tugged at his collar, an act accomplished by harnessing the discomfort he felt at contemplating meeting Annette at any sort of hotel.

MacDinglebraith stood awkwardly, uncertain whether to cry victory or acknowledge defeat.  After a moment’s consideration, he chose the latter.  He plucked the pink C cup from the top of his head and escorted it at arm’s length across the room, like something dead.  He dropped it finally among its compatriots in the briefcase, which had been placed on the ground by the man who had fantasized about the nightie, who had decided to place temptation out of sight and out of mind.  In vain MacDinglebraith struggled to close the case, but the contents, having been shifted, now were uncooperative with his attempts to contain them.  Giving up, he loaded the entire case into his arms, and made it about halfway across the room when disaster struck. 

The frills of a pair of stockings, which had successfully escaped their leathery prison, tickled the nose of MacDinglebraith, who had the open end of the case just under his chin.  With a violent sneeze, he dropped the case, sending undies, drawers, skivvies, and various other unmentionables flying about the room.  Seeing the colorful fabric now adorning the members of the Black Shorts, Roderick muttered to himself, ‘at least it’s a little less somber in here now,’ before saying his adieus.

‘Well, I should really be going, I’m quite late already, and I wouldn’t want my wife upset with me on this happy day.  You all can keep the clothes, consider them a contribution to the organization.’  With a quick bow to the awestruck assemblage, Roderick bolted out the door and into his car.

Roderick never went to another meeting of the Black Shorts, but after his ‘contribution’ the group elected MacDinglebraith as their new leader.  Their only condition for accepting him as their majordomo: that he would wear the pink bra over his left eye at every meeting. 

‘The color just suits him’ one member was noted as saying.