From the Hall

Wild horses

2008-05-06T21:18:00.001-04:00

The past two years, I've attended the NCACS conference with my school. This year, the conference is being held in Colorado, which is too far for my school to get to. Next year, after I graduate, the conference is actually going to be held at my school. Of course.

To replace the trip, we tried to plan an outreach sort of thing, where we'd travel around and say hello to some of the other alternative schools. For whatever reason, all the plans lost momentum and eventually fell through. Finally, one stuck. A two-night trip to a state park.

So it is that tomorrow I'll be speeding towards Maryland with a few of my friends, and a few kids I go to school with. There are some cool people going, so I think it should be a pretty good time. My biggest fear is that somebody gets caught doing something stupid and everyone gets stuck in meetings.

But yeah. I'll take photos and stuff. I'll have my cellphone with me, but I don't know if I'll get a chance to recharge, so I'll only have it on for a few minutes a day to check my messages and such. I'll also check my email, and I'll probably twitter some too.

The title comes from where we'll be camping. Apparently it's got wild ponies running around. I may try to ride one.

More college stuff

2008-04-14T20:01:00.001-04:00

At this point, I've heard back from all of the colleges I've applied to. Of the five I applied to, I got admitted to three and waitlisted at two. I'd name names, but that would probably be a little unwise since I want to see how these waitlists play out.

Of the three choices I know I have right now, I have decided which one to put my deposit down for. Earlier today, I RSVPd for the admitted student's thing they have this Friday. It's a good school, and I'd be very happy with going there if the waitlists don't go my way.

Again, I don't want to give too much detail, just in case. I've been surprised and really pleased with things so far. I was really worried about my applications; the only thing not sketchy about my transcript were my admittedly good SAT scores. Besides those, everything I had to show was really all over the place.

I was also lucky to get some excellent recommendations from some excellent teachers. It's unlikely they're reading this, but I really owe them a lot of thanks. It's also lucky that colleges are looking more kindly upon homeschoolers.

Getting that first letter saying I was admitted was a little mind-blowing. The impact of the knowledge that, regardless of what else the mail brought, I would, for certain, be going to college in September really struck me - and still does. Even though I've had some college experience already, I wonder if I'm prepared.

I'm lucky because I know I'll be able to handle the work. I know that, like at previous schools, I'll gravitate to the awesome people. It even looks like I'll be going to a school within weekend-commute distance of Rachel, which rocks. But I've never really lived on my own before for more than a week's time. I've never had a roommate, or had to deal with living in close proximity to a bunch of college "dudes".

Despite all of that, I do think I'm up to it. I'm anxious, of course, and somewhat apprehensive. My mind is naturally drawn to think of all the ways that things could go wrong, and makes the best-case scenario look increasingly unlikely. I know everything will be all right; if the past four years have taught me anything, it's that I can bounce back from a lot. I'd still like the least amount of non-academic strain.

I only have two credits to make up to get my diploma. Graduation is approaching terrifyingly fast. I have some trouble dealing with the feeling of time running out - I do feel like I haven't gotten enough done during high school. I just have to make the most of the next four and a half months and look back on everything that I have accomplished.

Meet the Grandparents

2008-03-27T15:23:00.000-04:00

I spent Thursday through Sunday in Cape Cod with Rachel. Her grandparents live up there and Rach's parents joined us Saturday.

Things got a bit of a rocky start. We wanted to have more time up there than we if went with her parents, so we decided to take a greyhound out of Philly. We managed to get on the 8:30 bus, but that where things stopped going our way. Basically it was just a run of misinformation and bad luck that had us sit in NYC for four and a half hours.

I was pretty nervous about things, to be honest. I have met Rachel's grandparents before, but seeing people at dinner is different from living with them for four days. Most of the anxiety was from that I knew her grandparents are fairly devout Catholics, and even though I'm always pretty careful on the subject of religion, I was afraid of a misstep.

Fortunately, there weren't very many awkward moments. Though of course I absentmindedly ordered a sausage-and-egg breakfast sandwich Friday morning. I tried to hide the meat in the egg, but it didn't really work. Other than that it was a good time.

Mostly we just drove around and looked at beaches. It was extremely cold and windy, but many of the views were breathtaking. The food was also delicious. The highlight was undoubtedly when I bought my tiny red accordion. Rachel saw how much fun I was having with it and had to pick one up for herself.

It was a great weekend and I'm really hoping I get invited up again. Maybe when it's not so cold.

Getting things on track

2008-03-19T10:52:00.000-04:00

Things have been happening recently. Good, life-affirming things. I finally got my high school transcript together and sent off to colleges, and as part of working to do that, I got reenrolled at school. I'll be finishing the year out there, not so much for the last credits I need to graduate, but just to keep me from stagnating alone in my room.

The school's changed from when I was there last year. There are a lot of new kids, way more than usual, and a lot of the pivotal people graduated last year. Maybe it's just me, but the atmosphere is just different. More closed, somehow. It could just be me; but I'm having a harder time feeling like I belong. I've still got friends and all, but they don't seem to be around like they used to.

That's not to say it isn't a great feeling being back. This place has been a second home to me, and I'm getting to play music with people a little bit again. I don't know if it would be different if I had been here from the beginning of the year. Maybe I could have helped keep things awesome. But I probably would have just changed with everyone else.

Aside from school, the other good thing that happened is that I got my voter registration card. I wanted to register Independent, since that would have been honest, but more than that I wanted to vote in the primary this year. Thus it is that I am a registered democrat.

The new dilemma in my life, or at least more prominent that it was, is that my driver's permit expires on Friday. I've certainly clocked enough experience to pass a driver's test, except that I've never parallel parked. I also feel like it's a little pointless getting licensed, because even if I do, I still won't have a car of my own to get around in. But I will renew my permit next week, as I am reluctant to relinquish the small amount of liberty it bestowed.

In like a lion

2008-03-05T19:04:00.000-05:00

March has started off all right.

Footloose was pretty good. It dragged a bit at the beginning but picked up pretty hard and was down right impressive. Not as good as last year's production, but definitely worth the price of admission. The problem was just that it's not that great of a musical. But they did an amazing job with it.

The Gogol Bordello concert was, well... Mixed. The opening band, some shitfest called Skin Dred, was bad enough that it made me consider just leaving then. I'm also not much of a fan of the mosh pit. I'm just not okay with people touching me without advance notice and me being able to see them. It was okay at first, people shoved, I shoved back.

When GB finally took the stage, it was a different story. They are really good live. It's obvious enough that everyone in the band is up there playing because they love doing it. Eugene is one hell of a showman.

Sunday I went into the city with Rachel. She's got a huge school project coming up, and being the stand up fellow I am I volunteered to help. The project is to do a (condensed) claymation version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I didn't do much of the actual sculpting, but I helped take photos and some other grunt work. It was a surprising amount of fun.

Not much has happened this week. Just sorting some stuff out with college apps, making sure colleges have everything they need. I can't wait to be able to move on from this stuff.

Leap day

2008-02-29T13:34:00.001-05:00

It's the last day of February, thank goodness. I've hated this month for a good many years, and it seems this year it's been especially bad. Not even just for me, but also for those around me. I guess that's why it had to be a day longer this year.

Last weekend I hung out with Rachel and on Sunday went over to Gus' to hang out with him and Ben. We had planned to play some music and some D&D, but we ended up just playing D&D. It was a lot of fun though, it's been about nine months since the last time I played. I'm out of practice, but my velociraptor-riding halfling ranger is getting me reacquainted.

I've been in a bit of a slump this week. Just feeling pretty tired and lackluster all the time. General symptoms of depression, they'll get better as I get back into actually doing stuff. I've been too idle. I did hang out at Chris' yesterday and had a very nice time, it helped a lot to lift the monotony.

Hopefully, today should break the streak. I'm going to go see Rach's school's production of Footloose with her. It should be a good experience, even if it can't hope to match the awesomeness of last year's performance of Sweeney Todd. Tomorrow we're going to get to see Gogol Bordello at the Electric Factory, which should just be super awesome.

Valentine's Day was okay. I meant to blog sooner afterwards, but never did. Rachel was feeling pretty under the weather and traffic was terrible so it wasn't all that it could have been. Better than last year, but there's some room left for improvement. I'm just glad I got to spend it with her. We saw Atonement which I thought was just terrible but Rachel seemed to like it.

I recently picked up Super Mario Galaxy and Guitar Hero III. Both have been affording decent entertainment, and it's good to be actually playing my Wii after about a year of disuse. I am just getting more and more excited for Super Smash Brothers: Brawl. I preordered it through Amazon, I don't know what that means vis à vis delivery times but it'll be good enough for me.

Weird things

2008-02-11T23:01:00.001-05:00

So in the time between my last post and this my attitude towards where I go to college has changed a bit. That is to say, I'm now constantly worrying about where I'm getting in. Every college I applied to I did so because I want to go there, but what if I just don't get accepted? I know at least one place is a sure thing, but still.

A couple weeks ago I had to update GmailThis! to reflect some changes that Google made. While I was at it, I had some time to waste and added a PayPal donation button. To my immense surprise, somebody actually gave me $5. Man, if I had added that three years ago, maybe I'd actually have some cash. So I just wanted to thank that awesome dude who did that.

The weekend wasn't amazing. Friday didn't turn out really like I would have liked. Rachel and I went over to Gabo's to model for her. We went out afterwards to see some live music that wasn't terrible but wasn't stunning either. It could have been a decent enough time but the timing of the whole thing was terrible. Personal stuff that it's not my business to go into. I definitely feel responsible since I sort of planned it.

The painting came out pretty nicely though.

Saturday was okay. I spent some of the day in a Starbucks that I'm starting to have weird feelings about. I always run into people there. I didn't mind this time because it was a pretty cool person to bump into. Still, given that I never seem to bump into people I know, I feel like that place is some sort of odd nexus in my life.

Sunday was also not so great. Rachel got sick and felt pretty terrible all day. I was happy that I got to be there for her and fetch water and so on, but I hope she gets better soon. Her mom's having a party Wednesday that we're going to be waiter-ing at, and I certainly don't want to be carrying around those plates of shrimp-on-a-stick by myself.

I got my voter registration mailed recently. I wanted to register Independent, since that would be honest, but I ended up registering Democrat so I can vote in the primary. I had been previously supporting Edwards because I thought he was just adorable, but with him dropped out I guess I'm an Obama man. Truthfully I get more nauseated by Hillary every time I see her. She unsettles me on an Uncanny Valley sort of level.

Valentine's Day is coming up and I'm feeling a bit hesitant about it. I think right now my official policy is going to be "I don't need a greeting card holiday to mandate when I express affection to my significant other" but I've got a few tentative things planned that would make that seem marginally hypocritical. Shh, don't tell.

College post

2008-02-07T18:41:00.000-05:00

I finally got my college applications in on the first of the month. It was the super ultra final deadline for most of the places I'm applying to. Actually, it was two weeks late for some, but they had offered me an extension so it was okay. The application process has been pretty interesting and I'm hoping I never go through it again.

I'm not going to go through every step, but I basically did all of the necessary work the day it was due. I hate doing that but that just always seems to happen. I was lucky enough that Rachel came over after school and helped keep me on track. She saved me a lot of stress; if she hadn't been there I probably would have hit submit a few minutes before midnight totally stressed out.

At this point, only one of the colleges I was originally planing on applying to stayed on the list. I'm still so relieved just to have the thing done that I hardly care where I get into, so long as I get into someplace. Of course, I say that now, but I'm going to be a nervous wreck when those envelopes start coming.

It's really taken a lot of my mind to have this done with. Now, maybe, I can get on with all of that other stuff that I have to get done without getting paralyzed by anxiety. That would be pretty nice. I'm done in Pennsylvania staying at my dad's place for a bit and I'm hopinh the environment is more conducive to me keeping it together.

Some Macworld '08 Thoughts

2008-01-16T10:58:00.001-05:00

Everyone's doing it, so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon.

First some background. My primary computer for the past six and a half years has been my 500MHz G3 iBook with a 12" screen and something like 768 MB of RAM. Decent enough specs when it came out, but I guess it became officially obsolete when Leopard came out and dropped support for G3 processors.

I have done pretty much everything one can do with that computer - it's run every version of Mac OS X up to 10.4.11. I've done video/photo/audio recording, editing, producing, playing. It's been to several different countries. Its display died, its battery went to 3% efficiency, its motherboard died, and for a few months one summer the spacebar didn't work.

It has a lot of sentimental value, in other words. However, a bit after Christmas I gained possession of a black MacBook. 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 1GB of RAM (not maxed out). And a 13.3" screen. It's too big.

I've had a fair amount of time to try to get used to it, and I've adjusted to the keyboard, I quickly learned to enjoy the two-fingered scrolling, and I'm a big fan of the built-in iSight. But I can't get used to the overall size of the computer. It just seems unwieldy.

There was one thing, and one thing only, that I wanted out of this year's Macworld. I figured, like most everyone else, that they'd release an ultraportable. Awesome, I thought to myself. They'll finally restore the 12" notebook that's been missing from their line-up.

So what do they do? They release the MacBook Air (or AirBook as I'll inevitably refer to it). Thinnest notebook ever. No optical drive. 1 USB port, line-out, and micro-DVI. Okay, I can deal with that. And then the slap in the face.

A damned 13.3" wide-screen display. Exact same as in the MacBooks.

I get that Apple is really pushing ubiquitous media distribution. I understand that they're trying to print money off of movie sales and rentals. But, damn it, what is this?

There are other reasons I'm not a fan of the AirBook (see?). I rip, and burn, a lot of CDs for one thing. Okay, fine, with the $99 USB SuperDrive I could cope with that. I could also deal with the reduced speed and relatively small hard drive capacity. But if it takes up the same amount of space, in most terms, as a MacBook - Why? What would the point even be?

I get it. It's thin. It fits in an envelope. It's also very light. And has some other fancy things in the multi-touch trackpad. No, that's great, I guess. Maybe I just need to see it in person. But I'm not going to notice a difference when I have to use the same size laptop case.

If you find yourself in a situation where, for some reason, thinness is absolutely vital, then okay. Get an AirBook. I just don't see why you would when for less money you can get a MacBook and actually get a faster computer with more capabilities. In my head, thin just doesn't necessarily equate with smaller or more portable.

I'm not addressing things like the optional solid-state hard drive, because I'm not really informed enough to comment. I guess it's supposed to be faster? I haven't really felt hindered by regular hard drives, but maybe some people do.

That was a totally unnecessarily long rant on the AirBook, what with everyone on the internet doing it. Now I'll briefly comment on everything else.

iPhone firmware 1.1.3: I guess it's a good thing. I loaded it onto my mom's iPhone and it's pretty cool. I don't plan on getting an iPhone until it has 3G and can do all of the things that my Sony Ericsson W810i can do.

New iPod Touch software: Irrelevant to me, but I definitely don't approve of the $20 upgrade price. If I had one, I'd immediately shell it out, but I wouldn't like it. The stuff that got added are good additions.

iTunes Movie Rentals: This is also a good thing. I wish you had more than 24 hours to finish a movie after starting it, and maybe that'll change eventually. If I manage to pick up a mini-DVI to video adapter for my MacBook, this could be huge for me. I'm not much into buying movies. When I do buy one, it's a pretty big compliment to the movie. My Netflix account also got cancelled today, so this comes at a pretty convenient time.

AppleTV v.2: I didn't care when the first AppleTV came out, I don't particularly care now. I think the changes they made are good ones, but I still can't see any scenario in which I could be persuaded to get one. If the price were much lower and it was subsidized by commercials or something, that might help, but I probably still wouldn't since there's not really anything I could do with it that I can't with my laptop. High-def means nothing to you when your TV is a 13" TV/VCR combo that you bought because you could plug it into the cigarette lighter in a car.

Time Capsule and the new Airport Extreme: Pretty cool. I'd never buy one unless my current Airport Express mysteriously and spontaneously combusted, but I like the idea. What would be nice is if they released new firmware for the Express so I could just plug a hard drive into that USB port and use Time Capsule that way.

Annnd I guess that's it. I felt pretty let down by the announcements this year, just because I didn't feel like any of them really meant anything to me. A new iLife or something would be exciting because that's something I'd actually end up using. Oh well, there's still the WWDC to look forward to.

Year's End

2007-12-28T17:45:00.001-05:00

2007 has been a most messed up year. Probably the most, at least personally. Here's hoping 2008 is a little more stable. Seems unlikely, but it would be nice.

My mom turned up a week and a bit ago. She still hasn't given me the story on what happened, and I'm a little hesitant to ask. I'll find out sooner or later though. I'm glad that she's back, even if I'm mad about other things.

Christmas was mixed. I spent the morning with Rachel and her family, and that was very classic and nice. Then I went with my dad and visited my grandmother in the hospital. I saw my sister and mom there and then we went back to my dad's place.

It was the kind of Christmas it's supposed to be, I guess. Not much emphasis on presents, more stress put on "hey at least the family's together." Aunt Patty and Uncle Chris were there too. Our tree was a series of wreathes hung on the skeleton of a dead potted plant.

I mostly got a lot of books. That works for me; I love books, and I always need more. I also got two mugs, caffeinated chapstick and soap, and a super-awesome guitar that promises to be very good for rock.

My mom also tried to give me her iPhone, and I'm probably the only person who's ever turned away one. It's not that they aren't awesome or fantastic. Partly it's because I'm really happy with my phone, and I'm not ready to move on. Partly it's because I have issues with taking people's old electronics. I actually put my SIM card in it and got it to work and tried it out for a day. The iPhone just isn't for me, not yet.

Feature-wise my w810i is comparable. Opera Mini is completely fantastic and the iPhone can't even run Java apps. I'm also faster with the keypad, data-entry-wise, than with the virtual keyboard. My phone can take video. Maybe after a generation or two I'll be wetting myself to get one.

Yesterday I went to see Juno with Ben and Lindsay. I'd already seen it a week or two prior with Rach, but it's such a good movie I didn't mind seeing it again at all. I felt a little like a third wheel, but it wasn't as awkward as it could have been. It was good to get out of the house, especially with people I enjoy seeing.

Tomorrow I'm going to go play as bassist with Tigers in the Sun (Evan, Ben, and Gus). I've been hoping to get in on the band for a while - my old band replaced me pretty fast, and went Celtic fusion without me to hold them back. I'm hoping for a more rock atmosphere.

New Year's Eve I'll spend with Rachel in some capacity. No definite plan yet, we might go to some party or another. It should be good.

Dec(imate)cember

2007-12-07T09:40:00.000-05:00

So! Because I can't help but brag when something in my life gets screwed up.

Friday I drove down to Philly with my mom. I dropped myself off at Rachel's, and the idea was that she'd go on and check herself into a hotel in the city. Not like there aren't plenty. That was about 6:30 PM. That was also the last time anyone spoke to my mother.

Okay, that's not entirely true. But it sounds good and dramatic. Here's what happened.

I enjoyed myself Friday evening, most of Saturday (it was my grandmother's 87th birthday), and even Sunday. Sunday evening, I started to get nervous because my mom was supposed to call me, because we were supposed to drive back up that day. No word from her, and her phone doesn't even ring.

Monday I go in with Rach and sit in a Starbucks for seven hours while she's at school. Still no word from my mom, and I've been getting hella calls from people looking for her. This is the point at which I start really freaking out. I'm missing two tests and I'm supposed to be handing in an essay. Freaking exams are next week. What can I do, thought?

No word Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday. Wednesday morning my sister files a missing person's report. I'm called or calling every five minutes by or to my grandmother, my sister, my half-aunt, my godmother, or my father.

Finally, one of us gets into my mom's email and discovers she stayed in a hotel in Maryland, and she bought a plane ticket to Montego Bay (Jamaica). Turns out she doesn't end up getting on the plane, so we're back to square one. She also bought herself a new phone, but she won't answer that one either.

Yesterday, finally, some good news. One of us heard from her shrink that she was in contact with him. He would only tell us that "she is in a safe place" and nothing more. My sister called him a bureaucratic ass, which I'm inclined to agree with. But we can infer from this that my mother is now probably either in a psych ward somewhere or living in a hotel and only communicating with her doctor.

Definitely an improvement.

I've gone through a lot of emotions. Fear, obviously, mass amounts. Anger, again in quantity. I've gone between considering throwing furniture across the room to bursting into tears in half-seconds. The whole situation has been, well, you know, it's just blown.

The timing of it really couldn't have been better. I got thrown over right at one of the most crucial points. She was supposed to start her job (yeah, the one she was supposed to actually start in September) this week. She missed my grandmother's birthday. She picked a time that would achieve the most collateral damage.

But those are angry words. I can't actually say whether or not she picked the time. It's unfair to assume maliciousness on her part. The fact is, I am glad that she's finally getting help. Over the past year, her behavior has been, uh, erratic. Of course, the fact that she finally snapped is completely my fault. I've been the one who's been hardest on her.

Now I'm just trying to pick up the pieces and get on with things. I've been living with Rachel and her family and they've been, well, I don't think I'll ever be able to repay them. They've shown me such a tremendous amount of support that they really didn't have to. I've got a lot I need to try and get done to get my life on track, and I just couldn't do it without them, especially Rachel.

To recap November a bit: Rachel's birthday was good, if quiet. She seemed to like her gifts. The day of my birthday was good, as I spent it with Rachel. As an event it sucked for reasons not worth getting into (boiling down to no one in my family really caring). Thanksgiving was also terrible.

2007 is easily going to go down as the most messed up year in my life. Unparalleled highs and lows. Long and crazy and busy. I hope things settle down a bit, I'm just afraid that the shock of not having a new crisis every week would kill me. No, no I'm not, that would actually be terrific.

So?vember

2007-11-02T16:09:00.001-04:00

October seems to have just flown by. I'm not going to be over-specific on what I've done, because my memory's not that good and figuring what happened when would require a fair amount of effort, but: Good things about October in some particular disorder.

Spending the night at Gus', meeting his new niece, meeting his girlfriend, and hot-tubbing.
Going to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire with Rachel and Chris. Was a little worried, since they'd be meeting for the first time and they come from totally different parts of my life, but we had a good time and they seemed to get along.
Finally seeing Superbad with Rachel, Gus, and Ben. Brilliant, truly the representative movie of my generation.
Getting my new passport. Sure, the photo is terrifying but it's already making my life easier.
Hanging out at Chris' and playing Soul Calibur 3 and Mario Kart: Double Dash with him and his brother until two in the morning.
Went to Rachel's homecoming. I thought it was much better than last year, I was more comfortable and confident and let myself have more fun.

In general terms, things have been pretty good. I seem to be rocking most of classes with Bs and As. Greek has taken over my life and I wake up conjugating verbs. Getting home weekends has been hard and tiring but almost always worth it.

I didn't really have anything planned for Halloween, but when I woke up I had an unexpected burst of spirit and did my best to make myself look like Mr. Rogers in time for school. Unfortunately, I realized that I had no idea if Canadians ever had Mr. Rogers on TV. I sure hope they did. My costume was pretty decent though. We only got two trick-or-treaters, one of whom was our 20-something neighbor dressed up as King Leonidas. It was pretty awesome. It was a decent Halloween.

Right now I'm sitting in the international terminal of Ottawa Int'l Airport, waiting for my flight to Philadelphia. Today's Rachel's birthday, so I'm flying down so I can have a bit more time with her than usual. We don't have anything in particular planned for the weekend but I think it'll be pretty good.

Daytripping

2007-10-03T18:32:00.001-04:00

The bus ride was indeed an adventure! No worries, everything ended up just fine, but it was a memorable experience. Getting down to Philly was not much trouble at all, I rarely had to ask for help and when I did people were generally helpful.

As soon as I got into Philly, I had to get on a train to see my grandmother. Luckily, the surgery went really well, and now all the trickiness is left up to the post-op care. Making sure she doesn't get pneumonia and whatnot. She was happy to see me, it was nice. I also saw my mom, which made me feel guilty, since I got her sick with whatever it was I had a week and a half ago.

Then I got back on the train to go back into Philly to hang out with Rachel. We played around with a polaroid camera, had a paper airplane-building competition with her parents after dinner (I won! I spent first grade wisely, what can I say), then went to draw in the park. After that we went to see RJ's one-act play being put on at Temple. It was really good, the script was obviously quality but the actors did a great job with it. We see two other one-act plays there, one was pretty generic, the other was really good.

Early the next morning I had to get on a bus to go back up to Canada. I got out of Philly fine, the trouble started in NYC. First thing was that I had no idea where I was supposed to be for my bus, and none of the information booths seemed to be manned. I finally found one person who was surprisingly and fantastically competent who helped me.

I was supposed to get out of there on the 11:45, so I guess my first mistake was getting in line only twenty minutes early. The bus got there, twenty minutes or so late because they couldn't find a driver for it, and I was the fifth person too many for its occupancy limit. I had gotten talking with the man behind me, who was also headed to Ottawa, and he talked to the person who seemed to be in charge. She said they were trying to arrange a second bus for us.

Needless to say, the second bus never came. It finally came time for the next bus to arrive, the 1:30, but we weren't even able to get onto that until 45 minutes later. Then they found a second bus, for the people who would have been bumped from the 1:30. I thought, okay, this is a small setback, and everything was fine. We hit Albany all right, I got a tasty ice cream snack, and we switched buses because the other one could hold eight more people or something strange.

We drove and everything was fine. My seatmate was a little creepy, but whatever. I was rocking out to Gogol Bordello's fantastic new album, Super Taranta!, and reviling Iron & Wine's new album, The Shepherd's Dog. It's customary (ahaha look at the pun) to hit the big duty free before crossing the border, so the tourists, dolts, and smokers can buy their related paraphernalia. Keep in mind that when we finally stopped we were literally in sight of the border.

I got off the bus, wandered through the duty free, and got very depressed by the schlock. I got back onto the bus and the bus driver announced that the bus was broken. Some sort of electrical malfunction. He was going to call and get a mechanic, but it would take at least an hour and a half for one to get there. I got back off the bus and bought a large bag of mini-Twix and an orange soda.

Things got a little confused. We drove from the duty free to a gas station, then back to the duty free, and actually went back and forth like that a couple more times. I never found out why. Amidst the conflicting information and the angry protests of my stomach, I decided there wasn't anything productive I could be doing, and fell asleep.

Two hours later I woke up and everyone was getting off the bus. After a moment's panic I deduced that someone had sent us a new bus to get on and that's why people were on the move. I grabbed my stuff and went with them. We finally were over the border at around midnight. Customs had gone fine, way smoother than one would expect, and we arrived in Montreal around 1:30 AM.

It's a popular bus route, the one from and to Ottawa, so a bus runs every hour - before midnight. The next bus to Ottawa wasn't until 5:30. Thus it was that I slept for the first but I'm certain not the last time in a bus station. Luckily the man (he said he had majored in philosophy but worked in pensions) that I had befriended back in NYC was in the same boat, or, well, bus, as me, so I was fairly confident that he would prevent anyone from stabbing me and/or stealing my bag while I was asleep.

I got the 5:30 no trouble, and ended up getting back to the house at around 8:30 - only slightly over 24 hours after I had left Philadelphia. I showered, threw stuff out of my bag and other stuff into it, and went to class.

I'm going back down to Philly this weekend. What are the odds that the bus I'm on would break down again? No really, I'd like to know.

Classes this week have been going all right. Notable things:

Monday, Rabbi Ely Braun came to my religion class to do a lecture on Sukkot and to do a bit of a Q&A thing too. He was awesome. It was great.

Tuesday, I had a philosophy test. It took me 24 minutes to finish it, then I spent the same time over again checking it three times. Then I left.

Tuesday, after Greek, I finally got to see parts of Ottawa that aren't part of the university campus. I had some time before my ride back, and I spent it on a fun and informative walk around the city with Katie. I picked up the new Spoon album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which I am enjoying so far, from one of the many record stores that seem to be around. I appreciated getting the inside scoop on Ottawa, I'll have to provide a similar service for Philly if she ever visits.

Tomorrow, I have a test in Greek. I've been keeping up pretty well in class and getting decent enough marks on all the homework and quizzes so I'm not too worried. I have a guilty hope that the test will go quite badly for some my classmates, just because there are some people in there that I'd rather not have to see three times a week. We'll see.

The wheels on the bus

2007-09-27T20:08:00.001-04:00

Yesterday a whole bunch more drama got dropped into life. My grandmother fell and broke her hip and went to the hospital. The doctors wanted to operate, but she's an extremely poor candidate due to various things. My mom had to drive down immediately to over see things, and I'm getting around thanks to my godmother and her family.

Luckily, it seems things aren't as serious as it first seemed with my grandmother. So now, of course, I'm just worried with how it affects my weekend plans. I had wanted to get home this weekend, but my mom took with her all my documentation, which makes getting across the border tricky. Through a wonderful coincidence, my dad had to fly up to Vancouver, so he's FedExing me my birth certificate, which, with what ID I have on me, should be enough to get me in.

The only hitch is whether or not it'll get here in time tomorrow for me to catch a bus, first to Montreal, then to New York or something (I'm not totally clear on the details yet). It's a heinous bus ride, 14.5-16.5 hours, that I'm not much looking forward to at all, but what can I say. It's important for me to get home.

Classes are going all right. Some of my professors are great, some of them not very. For some reason, though, I always seem to get terrible English professors. My last one spelled "greatest" with an i. My current one told us about the theme of "solopsism" in the story we read. She then told us not to worry, that big words like that wouldn't be on the exam. Criminy.

I'm starting to enjoy Greek more. For whatever reason, I've always gotten a lot of pleasure out of translating English into Latin, and now that we've gotten far enough in Greek to do some translation, I'm finally getting interested. It also helps that I'm more getting the hang of the crazy accents and suchlike.

I'm just hoping this weekend goes off all right. And that I don't get stranded in New York or something. It should be an adventure.

Changes

2007-09-23T20:01:00.000-04:00

Things are going all right up here. My classes are rolling along, I'm doing what I can to stay in touch with people - I don't think my phone's ever seen so much action. Even this weekend passed by pretty easily.

Last weekend was much better, of course. I went down to grab some stuff (just the essential: clothes, a guitar, a bass, and my speaker set) and to see Rachel. Over the next weekends that I go down I plan on diversifying my time so that I don't spend all of it with on person, but this weekend I spent what time I had with Rachel.

Unfortunately, Rachel was sick. I felt really bad for her, since I knew she would have cancelled in other circumstances. As it was, I has a good weekend. We went to the Adventure Aquarium, where I haven't been in many years, and we saw Mirrormask, which was good. It was really good to see her again. Too short a time later I had to go, but I did take something away with me: whatever mild seasonal illness it was that Rachel had.

A question I seem to get a lot is: What do I do up here? The answer is a little disappointing. It's just not that different. My weekends are pretty much the same as they were before I had a girlfriend. There's about as much happening in my neighborhood as there was where I moved from.

The loneliness does get to me, of course. After two full weeks of classes, I've had a total of three conversations. (I think here is where I give a shout-out to Katie, whom I had the longest and most quality of those conversations with). Here's the weird thing: A similar phenomenon seems to be happening to all of the people who I'm closest to.

All of my best friends have told me that this year is feeling really lonely. Obviously, there's a common thread in that for all of them, a good friend moved to Canada, but I think it's larger than that. Maybe part of it is thinking about college. This is the year before the biggest separation most people will know.

Given how senior year has been hyped up since as far back as I can remember, I don't know if people have been grossly misleading, or if things will get better, or if I'm just weird and have weird friends. I'm banking on the things will get better theory. Personally, of course, I am regretful that I'll probably not know what it's like to be a senior. Instead, I'll get to be a college freshman twice. That's not exactly a fair trade, to my mind.

One of the biggest things this has done is made me appreciate what I had and have. It's so very cliche, of course, but nevertheless. Even stranger, and one thing I certainly wasn't expecting, is the feelings of patriotism that have been awakened within me. Here's how that happened.

I'm taking Greek I. I didn't know this, but Greek is a completely insane language. I could rant about that for quite some time so just take me on my word. In one of the more introductory classes my professor was talking about how the accent of spoken Greek changed. He said that the same thing had happened in Canada, too; that if you go to the film archives and dig back a few decades, you'll find that the Canadian accent used to be much stronger. My professor said that it's been highly Americanized. And for the first time, I felt proud, really proud to be an American.

How sick is that?

To recap

2007-09-13T19:00:00.001-04:00

In as few words as possible. Old stuff, and some new.

Over the summer, my mom applied for and got an internship doing some work at some museum in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She also secretly got my school shit together and applied me to the University of Ottawa, where I was accepted as a full-time student. However, my parents gave me the choice of going or staying.

Obviously, I chose to stay.

However, I was kind of, not really, kidnapped by my mom and was told that I had made the wrong decision so I don't get to decide. Last week I started going to classes.

Yeah, I'm not sure I've ever been as pissed off. But I'm trying to make the best of the situation. I get to go home at least twice a month, maybe more if I do well in my classes. And I've been told that in mid-to-late December, when the semester ends, I can go back home and finish things up there. Which is, again obviously, what I want to do.

So things got ridiculous super-fast and unexpectedly.

I'm going home this weekend but I'm going to be splitting my time up between packing up my stuff, since I've got none of it since I wasn't expecting to be up here, and spending time with Rachel. This has been really hard on her too, but we're trying to make things work.

I guess I can start filling this blog with witty observations on what it's like to be an American in Canada. Maybe.

Decision/vacation

2007-08-23T18:38:00.000-04:00

Two Fridays ago I went down to Washington D.C. to get my student visa and maybe do a little sightseeing. As it turned out, both my mom and I forgot a couple of crucial documents that rendered the trip impractical. However, we did get to go on an insider's tour of the Capitol Building, and that was very cool.

The day after that we went to the Philadelphia Zoo. It was a little more boring than when Rachel and I went, it was hotter out and the animals seemed more lethargic and depressed. The good thing is that I had brought my real camera along and was able to take many pictures. I did go up in the Zoo Balloon for the first time. Normally I have problems with height, but I seem to be able to deal with that in most situations. Overall it was a pretty good day.

Then the next day I was coerced into going up to Canada to my mom's new place to supposedly help her move some books. The drive up was pretty heinous, we left about seven hours after we were supposed to and didn't get in to our hotel until four in the morning. The days we spent in Ottawa I mostly spent on my own walking around the city, mostly on the Trans Canada trail.

Sometime within these days I finally came to a decision on whether or not to go to Canada for school and attend the University of Ottawa. It wasn't an easy decision to come to, as one can imagine, and I really did put a lot of thought into it, and talked to all my closest friends about it. In the end, I came to the conclusion that yes, UOttawa would be a great academic opportunity, but in every other way it would be bad for me.

So, I'm not going.

We're still figuring out exactly what my options are for staying here. I'll probably move in with my dad, but school-wise, things are still hazy. I might do what I did last year, or I might go into a traditional school to finish out senior year, or maybe something else. It's an ongoing discussion.

I had to decide against going, though, and after I did I was amazed that I considered going to be a serious possibility. Yeah, UOttawa would be good, academically, and probably look good on a college application, but I'd be in another country, eight hours from everything I knew. Rightly or wrongly, I've always placed a huge importance on personal relationships. Being socially isolated in another country, living in an area where a large part of the population is not English-speaking, would be horrific.

Going to Canada would have been, in many ways, the easy decision for me. I'd know exactly what I was doing and what I had to do and where I'd live and all of that. By choosing against that, I've complicated things for myself. I guess I'm really just hoping that I did the right thing. I do feel confident that no matter what, things will work out for me.

Anyway.

Before we left Canada, we went to this place called Parc Omega, this awesome drive-through nature reserve where the various animals actually wander up to your car and you can feed them carrots. It was mostly ruminants, but there were some fenced off bears and wolves too. It was awesome.

Last Thursday I went over to Gabo's to celebrate her birthday. It wasn't a real party, she's going to have a big one next week. This was just so we could hang out. I was a little confused, just because of how my mom had been haranguing me about having to get a lot of work done, but I'm not really complaining. We had a good time.

The next day I got in the car with Ben and began heading down to the Outer Banks. We picked up Gus in Virginia and stayed in a motel over night. The next afternoon we arrived. I think we should be getting back Saturday night, so I suppose I'll try to have a trip post up sometime after that.

UOttawa

2007-08-01T14:42:00.001-04:00

Matters changed yesterday with the arrival of a package. It seems that while my mom was in Canada, one of the things she was doing was getting my portfolio together and secretly applying me to the University of Ottawa. Despite the fact that admissions deadlines had passed some time ago, I was accepted as a full-time student. If I choose to, I can begin attending classes in the fall. It would be for high school credits, so it would count as my senior year and I'd still be graduating in '08, but it's a great opportunity.

It isn't because of that alone that suddenly makes this a difficult decision. In order to make this a viable option for me, my mom has made some accompanying promises. Things would be arranged so that I could be back home each weekend. Theoretically, most people I know wouldn't be able to tell that I'm gone. I could still make it to parties, D&D sessions, and dates. But for some reason, it would make a difference. It shouldn't, but it would.

It's a great thing that this decision is being wholly left up to me. It's certainly the hardest decision I've ever had to make, but it's nice that it really is my decision. I don't know how I'm going to make it; most of my life I've strived to be as rational as possible in every way, but I recently realized that's never helped me make a decision. My best decisions have almost been all instinct-based, which is terrific, except when I'm completely conflicted about something.

I've got a few other options, but the two branches are that I either stay here or I move seven-and-a-half hours away to Canada. But another really nice thing is that my parents have promised me that if I do decide to try the UOttawa thing, and it doesn't feel like it's working for me after the first semester, they're fine with me dropping it and doing something else. Really, most everyone's been hugely supportive of me. It's a hard decision, but it's being made as soft as possible, and I'm appreciative of that.

Oh, Canada

2007-07-30T16:21:00.001-04:00

I'm moving once again, but it's different than it's been before. And thus, life gets more hectic.

About a week and a half ago, I went up to New York with Rachel and her parents to spend the weekend with them and some friends of theirs. The weekend itself was nice, I'd like to think I was less socially retarded (I use the word in the technical sense) than usual. We took the opportunity to look at a couple of colleges, too. We also picked up the new Harry Potter, which I got a couple of pages into Sunday night and was able to finish it Monday before anyone could ruin it for me (it was pretty good, right guys?).

But as nice a weekend as it was, there was one conversation I had with my mom that was portentous. She had been up in Canada for a few weeks visiting a friend of hers. The lease on our apartment is up next month, so we knew we had to look for a new place. This is a recreation of the conversation:

Her: So, when I get back, you and your sister have to start packing.
Me: Yeah, I know, but we also need to look for a place to live.
Her: Oh, I have been.
Me: [Laughs, a little nervously] I mean, some place not in Canada.
Her: Yeah… Yeah, don't worry, we'll talk after I've made some commitments.
Me: [Quieter, more nervous laugh] You, uh, mean before you've committed to anything.
Her: Yeah, well… No, I don't.

Long and short of it is that she's gotten a job up there and is going to move. Don't get me wrong, Canada is awesome. I've enjoyed the time I've spent there, and in years past joked about moving there (insert quip at the current administration). But Quebec is a long, long way away, and it would mean leaving behind… Too much, in the end. I'm extremely lucky in that I'll be able to move in with my dad and will stay more or less in the same place for the school year, excepting some holidays I guess. As for what happens next summer I cannot say.

So I'll be staying put for the time being. It's going to be hugely weird, having my mom ~~thousands~~ hundreds of miles away for long stretches of time, but it's inconceivable that it could be any other way. I can't move out of the country before my senior year of high school, away from all of my friends when I'm going to have to say goodbye to them next year.

This is why there's been a little more stress in my life than usual.

A Fragile Friday

2007-07-07T13:38:00.001-04:00

The past week or so has been extremely busy, but I'm going to take a bit of time and write about Friday before last. I will in particular focus on the Polyphonic Spree concert that night.

Friday was a mixed-up day. I had a lot of trouble getting us out on the road, but we did manage to make it to the train station in Albany on time. There I found out that I had to take two trains, not one, and I was going to get in an hour later than I had been told (5:30 instead of 4:30) because, or so I was told, it was a Friday. I had already been wanting to have caught an earlier train so I didn't take the news all that well.

When my train finally did come, it was ten or so minutes late. Not a big deal, though it made me a bit nervous since I now knew I had to make a connecting train, but I've gotten pretty used to late trains. Unfortunately, because of the tardiness and all of the track-work that Amtrak has been doing, we got stuck behind a local train. I ended up getting into Penn Station an hour after I was supposed to.

I did my best to take it in stride. There was an Acela I could take at five that would still get me in at six or so. But the Acela was sold out! And so was the next regional, at 5:10! I finally managed to get a seat on the next available regional at 6:20, after pleading with the ticket agent; I had no government-issued photo ID on-hand, just my student ID and driver's permit. I suppose something of my desperation must have shown through as she let me slide. The train was on time and I finally, finally got in to Philly at around eight.

Rachel met me at the station and we went and picked up our Polyphonic Spree tickets from my sister who was holding them for me. By that time I was totally burnt out, but cheerfully so. The stress and energy of the day had taken its toll on me, but I was excited for the concert. We got to the Fillmore and managed to get reasonably close to the stage. We bought some merch and I wondered if my legs would hold out the night.

The opening act was a woman named Jesca Hoop. I felt bad for her because she ran into the same problem that Joan as Police Woman did at the Andrew Bird concert: Being a lone, relatively quiet performer, she just couldn't command the attention of the audience. As the background sound of talking grew, she too grew obviously more flustered and irritated. Still, she had a good voice and played the guitar well, and I'd consider picking an album up except for the abortive R&B song she played at the end of her set.

I'll be honest. I'm not sure I would have previously had the Polyphonic Spree in my top-five artists. I've enjoyed them since The Beginning Stages..., and their most recent album, The Fragile Army, is fantastic, but I didn't have anything beyond average expectations of awesome from the show. So it was a surprise to me when it turned out to be probably the best concert I've ever been to. I've been to a fair amount of concerts, and this one still really stood out, in every aspect.

There's a couple of components to judging live shows. It's not just about how well people are playing, and it's not just about the spectacle. Don't get me wrong - The Spree were playing the songs dead-on, and the while the spectacle wasn't quite up to the Flaming Lips, the confetti and lights were good. The thing that was unique about the Spree is that I've never seen a band so into it. They'd got around two dozen people up there, each of whom clearly loved being there. And beyond that, I've never seen an audience give a band so much love, and I've never seen a band give so much love back.

Pretty well emblematic of that was one particular concert-goer. He was dressed like a fancy kind of sailor and was immediately and obviously wasted. Normally that's the kind of person I fantasize about punching. And I soon was; his comportment was lacking, with him shoving people aside and shouting at the lead singer, and trying to shove the sailor cap in his face. To his credit, the frontman did take the hat and pranced around on stage with it for a bit. But what made it impossible for me to hate the drunken sailor was when he turned around after Tim DeLaughter took the hat and I saw his face. It was an expression of such pure, innocent joy that it made further contempt impossible.

It was like nothing I'd seen before. It was an amazing experience. What was even more amazing was that it seemed like it was for the band, too. At the end, DeLaughter thanked us, and it seemed like he was truly sincere about it. Like I said, I've never seen an audience like that, but maybe it was unusual even for the Spree. Apparently there was an earlier, free show that I missed, which makes me sad, but I'm so glad I was there for that. I don't think that's going to be a show that can be topped. You can read the first part of Rach's post for her take on it. But it was great.

Stone Harbor

2007-06-28T20:15:00.001-04:00

Last Wednesday I hit the road to Stone Harbor with Quiggy and his mother, my eighth grade math teacher. You'd think that would be a more awkward situation for me, but I've had plenty of time to get used to it. According to his mother, on the ride up we spent more or less the whole two-and-a-half hours chattering like a couple of teenaged girls. I am unable now to recall what we talked about. I suspect mostly it was reciting Penny Arcade cartoons to each other.

Quiggy and I are pretty big nerds. Thus it was that the first thing we did when we arrived, after bringing our luggage in, was set up his television and Wii and start playing the copy of Call of Duty 3 that I gave him. Since it was rushed to market in order to be a launch title, it's lacking in features, like multiplayer. So I'd watch him play and make fun of him occasionally, but I make fun of him pretty much no matter what he does.

Other games we played included: Balloon Fight, Bomberman '93,Donkey Kong Country, Mario Kart 64, Metroid Prime 1 and 2, Military Madness, Soul Calibur 2, Super Mario Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, Zelda (the first one, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess), and Wii Sports. I wouldn't say that either one of us really dominated in multiplayer. There were some games I was better at, because I had more practice, and some I sucked at. Likewise for Quiggy.

We settled into a routine pretty quickly. Generally, the day proceeded like this: We would wake up. I'd mess around on my laptop and Quiggy on his Wii. Then we'd get some breakfast. We'd mess around, usually playing video games, until lunch. After lunch we'd relax and let the food settle and then we'd hit the beach for an hour or two. Then we'd shower and mess around again until dinner. After dinner was when things most varied. Either we'd play more games, or watch a movie, or go into town.

I like Stone Harbor a lot. It's not very crowded, at least compared to Ocean City, and the downtown is very nice. It has a world-class ice cream parlor (Springer's) and far too many places selling fudge and taffy. It has bookstores, a great toy store, a movie theater, something like three mini-golf places, and really anything else you could ask for. Somehow it avoids feeling really touristy, which is always a plus.

The days seemed to fly by and before too long it was time to head back. Our last night there we went to the Boardwalk, where I resolved that the next time I was there I'd bring something to juggle with. I saw some bereft-looking teen doing a couple of passes, not very well, but he had managed to collect a couple of coins. I could tell that novice though I am, I was at least more skilled, so I figure if I get bored I could do something productive. We also went to an arcade and played some Galaga and some House of the Dead 3.

Our real last day there we went to the beach one last time before lunch. After lunch we packed up the van and headed back, though not before stopping for one last piece of deliciousness at Springer's. In the car we watched Batman Begins, an excellent movie. It conveniently was almost exactly the length of the trip back.

I did manage to pick up a bit of a tan, almost enough to make me look normal. I sunburnt one shoulder (my left one; I don't know how) and my hair is a lighter blonde than when I left. It was a good trip. Quiggy's going to Europe for three weeks soon so I won't see him until later this summer, but I'm thankful for the time we spent together.

Then yesterday I drove up north to visit a college and spend some time with my mom before she leaves for a little vacation. We got stuck in a thunderstorm so we didn't actually get in until earlier today. The college I visited is the same one my sister is attending, which of course makes me want to avoid it, but it actually seems like a nice place. I'm going to have to catch a train tomorrow back into Philly, but I've got no idea when exactly that's happening. All I know is it'll be kind of nice not to do any more traveling for a while.

Parties

2007-06-19T19:30:00.001-04:00

Saturday morning I made sandwiches and went on a picnic with Rachel in Valley Forge. Even though I think I've always lived less than an hour away from there, I've never spent more time around it than it takes to drive past it. It's beautiful, although it was bothersome when we were looking for picnic spots and half the place seemed to have "Danger: Buried Asbestos" signs. I don't know what the deal is with that. We ended up finding a nice spot not too far from the Welcome Center, so we'd hear the occasional cannon-fire in the background.

Afterwards, we drove out and picked up Gabo to go to a concert/party held at an acquaintance's mansion. And I do mean mansion -- this place was big enough to hold all of the places I've ever lived. Walking up to it you could have thought you were walking up to a town hall. It was huge. We really only came to Meat Rainbow, and even though we showed up about an hour after the show was scheduled to start, we got to see them setting up.

It was not a very big audience. It was me, Rachel, Gabo, and the drummer's girlfriend most of the time. It was sort of depressing, but kind of cool, too. It made it a much more private affair. We got to talk with the band and they said that next show we show up to, they'll let us in free if they can, since we're such good fans. Their set was good, but after they were done, there wasn't much for us to hang around for. We ran into a friend we made at the last Meat Rainbow show and ended up following her into West Chester.

We hung out at a coffee shop for a while and then somehow ended up at the top of a parking garage. By some freak coincidence, we ran into some friends of mine from school -- Pat, Sharif, and Eric. They were there just chilling with some of their friends, and we all hung out for a while. Eventually we headed back to the party, but we took Sharif and Eric with us, and dropped Gabo off on our way. It was a pretty good party, I didn't know many people there but they all seemed pretty cool. When it was time Rachel dropped me off and gave Sharif and Eric a ride into Philly with her.

Sunday was Father's Day. My sister and I went out to brunch with him. We gave him his presents -- DVDs of Good Night, and Good Luck and For Your Consideration, and a picture of something that we got for him on eBay but it hadn't arrived yet. Afterwards we went to the movies. I wanted to see Knocked Up but they seemed against it so we ended up seeing Ocean's 13. It was actually really good the second time, a lot of things that didn't make sense the first time were clearer this time around.

Monday I went to the birthday party of Sam S., a friend of Rachel's. I'm pretty terrible at parties, doubly so at pool parties, so the first half or so of the time that I was there wasn't great. I resent being called anti-social; I'm just not social. I didn't go out of my way to strike up a conversation with anyone, and, to be fair, none of them tried to talk to me either. Not that I can blame them. I knew I had a problem when I realized that I was narrating current events in my head from third-person perspective. The second half was better. I ended up talking to two people I didn't know. In the end I was glad I went.

Today I've got my place to myself. The rest of the folks are on a train going somewhere. I'm taking a train tomorrow out near to Quiggy's. I'm going with his family to Stone Harbor for a week. It's going to be pretty great. I was hoping that the Nintendo DS Browser that I ordered would have been shipped by then, but I'll still have my laptop and cellphone. I'll be taking the chance to test out the Opera Mini 4 beta. I'm sure I'll be Twittering while I'm gone.

Return to summer

2007-06-15T19:48:00.001-04:00

Wednesday before last was the official last day of school. It was technically a half day, although most everyone stayed the whole time since there was a picnic afterwards. I took the opportunity to pick myself up a yearbook and get signatures and so on. It was really a pretty boring day. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, saying goodbye to people. Mostly that was because a lot of them I knew I was going to see that Friday at graduation.

Graduation was good. I picked up the Sonic Yearbook (a compilation of audio recordings -- mostly songs and such -- that's been recorded throughout the year. I appear twice: playing guitar on one jam session and singing in the background for an impromptu a cappella rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'") and a t-shirt. Not all of my friends showed up, but most of them did. In general there were a lot more people there than I was expecting, and more than I think there were last year.

It was harder this time. Most of my friends I knew I wouldn't see again until next year, and I had a few friends in the graduating class, too. It's nice how easy it is to keep in touch with people these. I got a couple of phone numbers and email addresses that I hadn't had before, and I might be bassist for a new musical project. But it always seems to be the case that things tend to fall through and time gets wasted and things get pushed back. But at least there will be next year, and phone calls and instant messaging and facebook to get me through until then.

Gus and Rachel came over Wednesday to catch a ride with me to Gabo's movie night. I took the opportunity to give Gus The Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords as a belated birthday present. We listened to music and played around before heading over to Gabo's. It was just us until Gabo's friend Max came over. Evan was going to be there but he didn't show up. We watched Snatch, which Max brought. IT was a little hard to follow but I enjoyed it. After that we watched part of A Mighty Wind before it was time to go.

Gus and Rachel stayed at my place for the night. We watched V for Vendetta, which I liked even more this time around, and then went to bed. The other slept in late, but I woke up at the usual time. That was good because I was able to take care of some chores and such before they got up but it was bad because I was operating on very little sleep for the rest of the day. We ended up going to see Ocean's 13. It was loads better than 12 but not quite as good as 11. We hung out at the mall for a little bit and made shopkeepers nervous, then went back to my place and watched a few episodes of The Venture Bros. before everyone had to go.

The summer's gotten off to a pretty good start. I don't have much planned for the rest of it but I think it'll shape itself out nicely.

End of the year stress

2007-06-04T11:26:00.001-04:00

There have been a couple of busy days recently. I had to pull an all-nighter Thursday/Friday to get the last bit of my end-of-year school work done. It was my fault for being dumb and procrastinating some things for literally months, but I managed to get five four-page papers and four one-page papers done before I had to leave in the morning. They aren't my best work, obviously, since I didn't spend more time on them then it took to write them, so their structure is off and there's probably some mistakes in them.

Three of the papers were for my American Law & Government class. I wasn't sure what to write them on (we're allowed to do anything, so long as there's some tangential connection to legal matters) until I realized it would be easy if I just picked something I could get worked up about. Thus I ended up writing about the current internet radio debacle, all those proposed smoking bans, and (I hate myself for this one) how people are getting fired from work and suspended from school for having blogs.

The other two papers were for my Modern Mythology class, and were a nice diversion as they were much more light-hearted. One I did on Kingdom Come, the comic book, regarding other possible endings and their ramifications, and the other I did on possible scientific explanations for Hiro Nakamura's (character from the television series Heroes) time-travelling. (This is the point at which I'm going to plug Primatech Paper Podcast, a Heroes-themed podcast. It's stunningly insightful and humorous, and that it's done by someone I know is entirely incidental.)

I did my best to get a good night's sleep Friday night, as I had the SATs the next day. I managed to get to the testing center on time and find my seat without too much trouble. I was amazed to run into a friend from school there, but it was nice to have some kind of connection there. I was also smart to have brought an extra, long-sleeved shirt to wear as the gym we were in got progressively colder as time passed.

The actual test was okay. The essay wasn't bad; I managed to dot my final period with 24 seconds left on the clock, which unfortunately left no time for proof-reading and revising. I'm not going to say what I had to write about, since I'd rather not have to deal with any college nerd thugs. The reading comprehension was about the same as it's always been for me. The math was much easier than the last time I took it. I was able to answer more questions than before and feel better about those answers. Overall I think I did decently.

Afterwards I went home and took care of a few things, then took a train into Philly to hang out with Rachel. We made sandwiches for dinner and a peach cobbler for dessert. After that we listened to some music, I had brought over my copy of Belle & Sebastian's The Life Pursuit for her to rip. I felt bad because I wasn't much fun to be around. After dinner I really just kind of crashed. Between staying up all night recently and expending a vast amount of energy via hyper-focusing on the SATs, I was exhausted. I was doing the whole almost-falling-asleep-and-speaking-in-a-monotone thing, which does not make for good company.

Then nothing really happened the next day. I had the place to myself for most of the day, and so I got to just relax and do nothing much. It was a nice change. I always push myself at the end of a school year, which is why I usually start out the summer sick. It seems to just be what I have to do each time.

Memorial Day

2007-05-29T18:40:00.000-04:00

Sunday was Ben's family's annual Memorial Day picnic. I took a train out to Philly so I could get a ride there with Rachel. My mom was picking up a friend of hers from the airport, so if I hadn't been able to get a ride I would have gotten there about three hours late. It was a good crowd. Aside from us, Gus, Lindsay, and Evan were there, and Gabo showed up later on.

We started out swimming. Then we got food and went inside and played "Tumbling Towers" (Jenga rip-off) and Pictionary. Rachel and I probably would have won because we're awesome. The three teams (Ben and Lindsay, Evan and Gus and Gabo were the other two) were pretty balanced at least in that each had at least one real artist. We were going to go back in the pool, but there was a thunderstorm coming on and we (that is, the adults) thought it prudent not to.

I went back into Philly with Rachel because it was easier for my mom to pick me up from there on her way back from the airport. We hung out, and then when my mom and her friend got there, rather than going home they just talked forever. Which was cool, since it meant I got to stick around for longer.

Monday I started preparing for the SATs, which I'm taking this Saturday. It'll be the first time I've taken them in three and a half years. I'm not that concerned, except for the essay. When I last took them it wasn't on there, so it's a bit of an unknown quantity. Later on I took a train into Philly so I could hang out with Rachel for a bit. We had dinner and wandered around South Street.

I'd have included pictures with the post, but I forgot my camera at Ben's place. Gus has it in his position, and I ought to be able to get it back this weekend. I'll put them up then.