Stalked by College Recruiters

I finally got a Twitter account. It sits on the sideboard and looks shiny whilst reminding me that I’m wasting time. Unfortunately, the link does not appear to update more than once a day.

I am doing physics this year, as previously mentioned somewhere. Physics daily takes as much time as my regular math sets take. However, physics, in odd, creepy way, almost seems easier than math. This fact gives me forebodings. My mother, however, was ecstatic when I told her about physics. In fact, my forebodings are due, probably not to the fact that the math may get harder, but that I will need to use a sloppily written book in the future. Last night, I got a glimpse into one of the textbooks used in public schools, and the writer didn’t introduce any topic incrementally. It’s somewhat ironic that many students’ hatred of science is due to writers.

In other news, the several colleges which have my address and phone number are wreaking a merry havoc. Only today, I got (1) piece of junk mail, (1) phone call, and (1) college spam.

“So, have you come to one of our preview weekends yet?” asked one chipper recruiter

“Um, your college is in (distant state)”

“Yes?”

“Um, I’m 782 miles away”

“If you’re making a round of college visits you could come to our August 15 preview weekend, otherwise, you can drop by anytime”

“Uh, sure”

“Any questions?”

“Do you have scholarships? (Translation: Pay me lots and lots of money and I’ll come)

“Sure, we can send you info on that”

“Um, ok”

Thus comes the round of spam, junk mail, and happy college calls.

No, I’m not the Grubmaster

As I feverishly prepared to depart on another camping trip, the thought sprang into my mind. “You know, I bet people (on my blog) would like to read this poetry I’m preparing for troop entertainment.” I am posting my poem before reality kicks in, as it did last year, but too late for the troop to prepare an unfriendly reception.

Dirge for the Grubmaster

The cook so strangely skillful
Took a queer delight in life
His grub haunted the patrol
Grisly nightfall after night

What skills he showed in making
All the victims of his knife
Into the charcoal flaming
With the fire’s ruddy light

This dear departed fellow
Lived a long eventful life
Until he made some Jello
On a dark and lonely night

It grabbed him in a choke hold
He put up a valiant fight
The hour had not gotten old
But it crawled out of our sight

What a help the cook had been
Before he finally died
The actions of the gelatin
Kept the patrol alive.

I go now to make muffins and stuff my pack with stuff. Fare well!

Rain and Reading

Lately, the weather in my area has been unexpected. The news of Hurricane Gustave’s disintegration was accompanied by waves and waves of rain. I have never seen a cloud so black during the daytime as the one I saw this afternoon. The rain is an answer to prayer. The lake fills, the noise of the rain helps me study, the grass grows green, and the dampness prevents mowing it. A capital situation, I’d say.

I have been reading The Scarlet Letter recently. I am of the opinion the Hawthorne may or may not have written great American literature, but he did write commentary on people and issues which he did not understand and which offended him. Hahaha. I, too, can write literary criticism. Speaking of which, this cartoon has been haunting my desktop. All right, I will be good and go to bed now.

Clearly I Have No Say in the Opinons of Others

Sometimes I wish I could vote. Oh, to have a say in government! Unfortunately all the other people of my age would have a say in government as well, and I don’t trust their judgment. (not that I trust the judgment of half the population today) So while news of Sarah Palin is plastered all over wordpress.com, I can’t have an opinion. No, wait! I can be apathetic!

Anyhow, I have been at home doing science lately. (between looking over my Mom’s shoulder at political blogs) Science goes marginally well, I cannot wait until I’m finished with last year’s experiments so I can concentrate on physics. Physics has a lot of math-ity graphs. In fact, the entire science of mathematics seems to be illustrated by graphs and if you can understand graphs and their equations, you can understand chemistry, physics, and calculus, not that I’ve done all of those. ;D

Yesterday I was hired to help direct parking at a motorcycle race. Many people didn’t need help parking. There was an amazing number of car people and old motorcyclists. From the looks I got, half the people there thought me an adorable kid waving an orange flag around.

“When will humans begin to take people smaller than themselves seriously?”……asked Reepicheep…”Why is it always ‘cute’? Why not ‘courageous, or cunning, or chivalrous’?”

I did, however, gain a suntan that makes me appear to be an active outdoorsman. Unfortunately, as I am not an active outdoorsman, the tan has begun to disappear already. I must get a picture of myself for posterity.

The Prince Caspian Film Isn’t Half Bad

It seems my blog gets more visits when I actually write on it. I didn’t think I was so popular…

This weekend I saw Prince Caspian at last. Is a result of seeing movies on a large screen that they seem slightly disjointed? Perhaps this resulted from the nonstop action; perhaps it was a result of the rearrangement of the original story; perhaps it was the change to more act-able character development; but as long as I cannot identify the source of this separation, I will claim Prince Caspian to be a good movie.

Prince Caspian had a lot of CGI. It was beautifully done. The sudden influx of centaurs over the last movie, however, was amazing. After reading a WSJ review several months ago, I was struck by how many of the mythical creatures might confuse someone who had not read the book. For clarity, the water thing is a naiad.

My younger sister and I now take piano lessons from Chrs’s teacher. Although (I thought) she is several levels lower than I, she can play pieces that sound so much more impressive than mine. That realization does not seem fair. She has the temperament to practice in the afternoon when there is more time, whilst I feel the need to practice at ten p.m. I am also, currently, doing technique exercises and pieces I cannot play. I hate differences in temperament and learning style. *end tirade*

Also, to cap off my week, I suspect I have another allergy. Not that I know what it is. Things are interesting here.

Dish Washing (and other things that irritate me)

What with the eldest siblings gone, I am the oldest kid in my house. “And it isn’t funny, you guys! Come back!” Anyhow, in order to avoid depression and all-that-fun-stuff, I bring you my opinion on dish washing.

Dish washing is one of the great evils, up there with vacuuming and cleaning-someone-else’s-toothpaste-off-the-counter. Dish washing, however, has unique problems. Whereas with vacuuming, you can blow it off for a month before doing a quick job, dishes grow. When I washed several days of dishes while my parents were gone, I quickly realized that the entire house would be much more efficient eating off paper plates and never allowing leftover chicken in the refrigerator, cost-effective too, what with water restrictions. An even more cost-efficient way of reducing dishes would be not to use any at all, and use slap-dash vacuuming. Unfortunately, as I only have a miniature vacuum at my disposal, the job proved to be grueling. Thus I washed dishes.

I have two computer monitors hanging over my head. In the way of cleaning house, I wish to hurl them over a cliff. They sit in my room. In the case that my younger sister takes over my elder sister’s room, she will probably leave all of her furniture in our current room. I find this irritating. I know that Chris wishes her room to remain her own, but let it be know that I wish to hurl all the furniture my little sister leaves behind over a cliff. If you see a cliff, let me know.

Dissections also irritate me. Use paper plates or I will fling a perch at your head.

Time Travel

I have of late discovered time travel. The most telling consequence is this: yesterday, it was July the 22 of 2008. However, the calender in my room reads April 29 2008 today. Thus, I must be enjoying the cool weather of April and not just the blast of the air conditioning.

Another of the more evident results is that I may sit in front of the computer and instantly find myself two hours ahead of when I sat down. On a downside, I do not seem to be able to revert to the time I sat down. The secret to time travel I must assume, then, is the Internet. It has been touted as “progress!” “A tool for education!” I must assume that the education they speak of is the inadvertent discovery of time management and progress is the rate at which the Internet speeds through your available time.

Not only the Internet, but work that seems to be involved in time travel. Absorbing work bends and stretches Time instead of moving through it. Work, it would seem, is not a series of pipes. As I was saying, work always takes too much time for Time to be moving in a steady rate. The difference is in perceived Time and actual Time. Work I enjoy tends to take much actual time instead of the reverse.

The secret to time travel, I suppose, is a change in typical state. Time tends to move slowly when doing something on hours on end, does it not? I recommend you don’t do anything; at least then the day on your calender won’t change.

Fun with Motivation

For the last week, I have been in the process of doing all of the experiments from a physics course. However, I have not actually done any of the course work. Hey, if I like  physics coursework as much as these experiments, I should ace it!

I have recently discovered how to motivate my primer Spanish students. If they do what I assign, they get a worksheet and I will not go over the lesson in detail. I had unsuccessfully been trying to motivate them for weeks. This time I was only trying to get them to write. Who would have though that good teaching required less teaching and more psychology? All the teachers apparently.

Ironically I have been having trouble getting motivated. Why is it so difficult for a unmotivated Spanish tutor to give herself incentives?! Go figure.

Happy Fourth!

Happiness and pie-scent reigns in the air today. Strangely, apart from the siblings nagging me to-finish-writing-that-so-I-can-play-LEGO-star-wars, the air of the house is strangely subdued. I theorize that because this is a day a celebration, everyone in the house celebrates by not doing any thing resembling the rushed activities of schoolwork.

Many people in my neighborhood are setting off fire crackers, which is somewhat odd. I had not even seen consumer-sized fire works up close until last summer. Until recently, they were illegal where I live, not that the law stopped many people. Being able to lawfully set off explosions is strange.

Anyway, we have pie, I have someone looking over my shoulder, and I feel unusually happy (not necessarily in that order) as a kind a peaceful atmosphere pervades the household. In August, yet another sibling will desert into the depths of academia; so I am quite happy they are here today. And now, amidst the sounds of celebratory fire crackers, I need to organize a game of hide-and-go-seek. Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Of Wodehouse and Poetry

Hurray for vacations!

We happened to watch a P.G. Wodehouse episode several days before we left. By this rather unusual element of the story line, the entire family was inspired to write poetry to be read in the car. Although few of us finished ours, I thought that these were fitting, if somewhat amateurish, tributes to Wodehouse’s ability to write comic verse.