Только Ольга наверно знает!

Sooo...Neil Gaiman and Amanda Fucking Palmer are doing a free event within biking distance of my school today.

Awesome!

I'm not busy at all; it's not like a have a thesis draft due or a test tomorrow or an essay due on Wednesday.

Cool song that one of my roommates showed me. I especially like that the first rap has melodic qualities - I hadn't thought much about rap in those terms, but it's a neat effect.


link: http://youtu.be/UIsDhcu7HIo

Three of us want to learn the different parts of the rap. I think I've taken on the difficult-to-understand second part? I've got the hook covered, though; I'm probably the best-suited to sing it.

Several good things have happened, but I'm only going to mention a few that really strike me:

- Banjo lessons have continued to happen, and are still fun and pretty relaxed. Apparently, all banjo songs have silly names, like "Old Joe Clark".
- On another musical note, I went over once to play viola with fencing coach L. and his daughter M., on the banjo and ukelele, respectively. I hope that we try again sometime when I'm more familiar with the songs and everyone is back in town - he'll be gone for the next month, and his daughter doesn't actually live there except to visit. He agreed to give me a bunch of Andrew Bird and Beirut and other stuff to listen to, which I finally got from him on Friday. I'm really excited about it, actually.
- Cabin in the Woods! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I liked it.
- Brave! Better than Cabin in the Woods, in my opinion. It was pretty and well-done and cute and centered around some awesome female characters.
- Mango cupcakes! I made some today, and they're tasty. A house near school had a box out in their yard full of mangoes for the taking - I guess that the tropical storm earlier in the week knocked off far more mangoes than they could eat.

The lab is okay...tedious sometimes, but I have gotten to take data on the calorimeter a few times. Soon, we'll have the cooling component installed so that it can also measure things at sub-ambient temperatures.

I think that I want to attempt a bike ride to the beach (and back) sometime in the next two weeks.

A recent discussion about queerness has made me want to write about asexuality and the queer community and how I personally relate to the queer label. I'm not sure if it'll actually happen, though - I've been mulling it over in my mind for a lot of today and I suspect that my thoughts boil down to a few basic concepts. For some reason, it feels like an interesting topic to discuss, though.

Recently I've had REU stuff on my mind a lot...even though my chances for getting one are supposedly at least reasonable, I'm not convinced that any of them will take me. I reapplied to work at Duke TIP today, although I mentioned that I would prefer being a TA over an RC this year. I'd definitely be happy to work for them again, and the main reason I can think of for them potentially not taking me back is if most of the positions are already filled. It's best to put in an application by January or February, but I was afraid of getting an offer and being put in the position of not knowing whether or not I should accept it - as much as I like TIP, I'd take almost any research internship over it.

Sorry, anyone who reads this. I don't want to be a huge complainer; I just feel a little bit anxious and a little bit inadequate right now. Also, I'd rather prepare myself for the worst so that I'll be okay if I end up working at home over the summer or excited if some program does accept me.

Edit: Also, I just received an email from one of the programs to which I applied telling me that I wasn't considered for their program because my application package was incomplete. I have the sinking suspicion that one of my recommenders didn't send in a letter and hope that it's a one-time fluke rather than a common trend. :(

In other news, I'm behind in several of my classes (not so great), although I think I'm doing okay in Statistical Mechanics (good). Also, I have a big musical performance thing tonight at 8 that incorporates the ensemble I'm in along with a few other groups, so that should be exciting. Still need to figure out what I'm wearing, because clothing is hard and I'm not very good at it.

Also! I've totally been enjoying myself in Goju recently, fencing is good (although our coach might be leaving us?), and I finally went to frisbee last Sunday - it was fun! So I'm at least not sitting in my room all the time.

And did I ever post about how C's aunt and sister came down to visit him a few weeks ago? That was cool. They took me to a play (Once in a Lifetime - it was pretty funny) and then back to their hotel room afterwards to talk and eat brownies. We also cooked pasta and vegetables (that his aunt got from the farmer's market) together for dinner the next night, which was fun and tasty. I felt very honored to be included in some of their family activities and was relieved to find that talking to them felt fairly natural.,

And there was karaoke last night with two of my roommates and our fencing coach, his treat. In such a small group, I sang a lot more than I have at karaoke in the past. I like singing, but am a little bit more shy and definitely less pushy than a lot of my friends. That was fun too.

Tl;dr - I'm a little bit stressed, but there's a lot of good stuff in my life too. Sometimes it's important to maintain perspective.

...because Jill Sobule's "I Kissed A Girl" (which came out long before yours) is closer to how the song should sound. In my opinion, anyhow; people are welcome to disagree.



I know that a lot of people like Katy Perry and I'm okay with that, really - she's not my cup of tea but I can recognize that a lot of people find her very catchy. Jill Sobule's song, however seems to me like it contains more genuine emotion and less internalized homophobia.

Sometimes when I go without writing for a while I feel guilty, until I realize that this whole journal thing should be for me, anyhow, and that it shan't do me any good if I write in it without really wanting to.

So. I've seen the new Harry Potter movie - went to the midnight showing on opening night with some friends, in fact - and for the most part quite enjoyed it. A few notes, which may or may not be spoilers:

( Err, don't read this if you're not interested or you haven't seen the movie yet, I guess? )

After the movie we went back to my friend's house where the three of us at cookie dough and filmed, of all things, a very silly Harry Potter fashion show (I was Trelawney!) and a new rendition of "The Mysterious Ticking Noise", which you should see (the original, I mean) if you haven't already.  All was great fun, although I was very tired the next day.

I've been reading a lot recently, which is fantastic, and my most recent conquest has been The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco.  It's got mystery and theology and history and even a Holmesian-style character in it, so it proves so far to be a rich and interesting read.  I've also been going through quite a few of the works of Diana Wynne Jones over the past few weeks, having acquired (and finished) House of Many Ways just a few days ago and having re-read the first four Chrestomanci books (which are also quite excellent) within the last week or two as well.  (Did you know, by the way, that there are now six of them instead of four?  I didn't, and so I've still yet to start on the two that didn't exist when I was reading this series years ago.)  This July in general seems to be my "Reclaim My Lost Bookworm" month, which is good, definitely.  In elementary school I used to read avidly; we had one of those systems where you could read a book and take a quiz about it on the computer for "points" of some sort (they didn't do much, but we got recognition) and I was always at or near the top of the school.  (Geekiness apparently starts early.)  As I've gotten older, busier, and more attached to the computer, however, my reading's gone down a bit, and so I'm glad to get it back.

Various other things worth mention include the fact that I am currently leaning towards taking Hebrew next year at New College (as opposed to French or Russian, although I could still probably sway back towards Russian with enough convincing), the fact that my family's dog is getting old and fat-ish and out-of-shape and that because of this I have resolved to walk her more often, and the fact that my viola practice has been getting slightly better than it has been in the past.  I also have a new plotbunny formulating in my brain that potentially involves gnosticism and speculative fiction.  Fun, fun.

Partially out of curiosity, and partially because I wouldn't mind more book recommendations, what have any of you guys been reading (or wanting to read) recently?  Anything good?  (Also feel free to comment on anything else in this entry, obviously.)

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

mmailliw gave me: senioritis, thinking, reading, orchestra, astronomy
Senioritis

Well, I am a senior in high school.  A second-semester senior.  And I am already into several schools that I am seriously considering attending next year.  This, along with my procrastinatory nature, lends itself automatically to senioritis (although I'm still quite good at getting all of my assignments in).  Moving on!

Thinking

Uh, thinking is good?  I don't know.  I always have been into, or at least interested in, philosophy.  Ideas fascinate me even sometimes when I disagree with them, just as well-thought-out arguments can earn my respect even if my own opinions are different.  I suppose that one thing I could feasibly connect to this topic would be my constant interest in the nature of belief; I love to learn about the ideas and histories behind all different religions, and have been considering a major in religious studies, among other things.

In a slightly different vein, I've always been more of a thinker than a doer.  It's not so much that I won't do things - because I will - but simply that it seems like it's more in my nature to sit and carefully ponder, consider, or deliberate before jumping head-first into something.

Reading

I like books.  Om nom nom nom.  Seriously, though, I was actually kind of slow to start reading.  Apparently I had the ability, but was either too stubborn or too perfectionistic and afraid of failure to actually start reading at my ability level until sometime in the middle of first grade.  After that, I was unstoppable.  I devoured tons and tons of books and read way above my level, although the only concrete example I can think to give of this is the fact that I probably read the Lord of the Rings trilogy around what I estimate to be the fifth grade.  I do believe I've slowed down since then, what with all of the demands of schoolwork and extracurriculars, but I still would consider myself to be a pretty good reader and enjoy reading a lot.

Hmm, genres.  I'm willing to read in a bunch of different genres, although I tend to go more for fiction than nonfiction as a whole.  I like things that I would consider to be well-written.  Because I am lazy, I am simply going to
Orchestra

I joined orchestra in middle school, where I learned to play the violin because I couldn't decide between that and the cello, and my teacher made the decision for me.  She said that the school didn't have any half-size cellos.  I was small then, okay?

In eighth grade (or the summer before eighth grade, to be precise), I switched over to the viola on my own volition and have never regretted it.  I prefer the lower, richer sound of the viola to the higher one of the violin.  Also, there's a lot less snootiness and competition among the viola sections.  (Not that violinists as a whole are an issue, but in the upper orchestras particularly, some of them get to be rather ...eh.)

In my high school orchestra, we get to do lots of cool things!  I've visited Boston, NYC, and Orlando (did not vote for that location) thus far with my school's orchestra, and am already anticipating the trip to Chicago that we have planned for this year.  Also, by the time I leave my high school, I'll have seen Blue Man Group three times!  (Yes, this is an accomplishment, I think.)  Also, I like getting to play cool music.  My favorite that I've done so far would have to be Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave, last year.  I plan to continue with the viola in college, but I don't want to study music.

Astronomy

Let's see:

- Pictures!  This year in my honors Astronomy course we get to operate remote telescopes and take pictures of various constellations/galaxies/nebulae/star clusters/other sky objects.  Very cool!  As of recently, I've started posting some of my color images up at hourglass_sea .  (You can also find one or two, I think, over on this journal.  They've been tagged with "astro-awesomeness", I do believe.)

- Astrophysics!  Okay, so I used to think that I would find physics terribly dull.  And then I saw the light, with the help of books such as Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe.  And Astrophysics deals somewhat with the workings of the universe and of particles and oh my gosh, you guys, with gravity!  Do you realize how interesting gravity is?  ZOMG.  That doesn't even include all of the really cool things, like the dual wave-particle nature of light, or the awesomeness that is black holes, or relativity, or dimensions.  So, yes.  I like this subject more than I ever would have guessed because in middle school physics consisted of things like measuring velocity and that was that.  I am considering some sort of study in Astrophysics in college, although I'll obviously have to experiment a bit more with straight physics classes to see if I'll really like those.