saturday, june 24

•••    I'm back! or rather, I'm allowed ftp access to my swat webspace again! woohoo.
10:58 PM +

•••    NEVER MIND. ::smacks the sccs people upside the head::
10:33 AM +

•••    ::smacks blogger upside the head::
10:12 AM +

friday, june 23

•••    blogger is being really weird tonight. grr.
11:05 PM +

•••    ups doesn't want to track my package. :P (isn't that a dignified mature response? I thought so.)
8:57 PM +

•••    I'm sure everyone's heard about the water on mars by now - pretty exciting, isn't it? those hypothetical canals don't sound quite as ridiculous as they once did. I'm having fun with the moc pictures. they're so nice and organic-looking.

next week's science can't possibly come fast enough.
4:33 PM +

•••    I finally got around to updating the look of the archive page. it matches the current design a little better now. it's very simple - should be completely uniform in any browser, unless netscape decides to have irrational fits about the css and underline the links. ;) it also has more flowers, but different flowers. if you want to see, the page is over there on the left. time travel. :)
10:55 AM +

•••    can't get britney out of my head.

sadly, I'm not that innocent either.
10:13 AM +

•••    my favorite four year old in the world has a new baby brother today! :)

I remember when my little sister was born. I was three. before she was born, we had been calling her "baby mouse." (hey - seven years later we called my little brother "seltzer," so don't even start to think that baby mouse is weird!) I got to have a sleepover at my best friend's house. I was very hyper; not quite bouncing off the walls but literally bouncing off the chairs. my friend's family thought I was pretty amusing. ;) in the morning, I resolved to be calm and casual about this whole baby thing, even though I was excited about it. after we got dressed, my friend's mom said to me, "are you ready to go meet baby mouse?" my friend started jumping up and down, chanting, "baby mouse! baby mouse!"

I gave them what I hoped was a nonchalant, you-should-know-better look, and said, "jeez, we have to have breakfast first!"
8:26 AM +

•••    you know those snapple commercials that have two guys talking, and one guy asks the other guy: would you rather (ridiculous choice number one) or (ridiculous choice number two), the second guys asks completely inane questions about the choices, the first guy clarifies, and the second guy goes "aaahhhhh. hmm."?

in one of those spots, one of the ridiculous choices is that you have to wear a lifejacket all the time. (I think the other one has something to do with only saying words that start with a particular letter.) so the second guy asks what color it is, and the first guy says it's "reversible: orange on the outside and grey on the inside." I don't get it. what makes the orange part the outside if it's reversible?

not that I get the snapple commercials in general.
12:06 AM +

•••    why on earth does this keep showing up in my referrer logs? and how can a scooter cost six hundred dollars?!
12:00 AM +

thursday, june 22

•••    my face is already pink from today's sun, but it just became more so. wow. thank you, rick.
11:16 PM +

•••    the newest biggest baddest coaster on the east coast, superman: ride of steel, was great. connecticut river on the left, park on the right, 221 foot drop, 77 mph, 75 degree angle, 10 seconds of weightlessness, fog-filled tunnels, excellent air time on subsequent hills. in a word: rocked.

the skycoaster was fifty times better. I've been wanting to go on one since the first time I saw them four years ago, and I finally did. but let me tell you, physics was the last thing on my mind during that freefall. whee. :)
7:54 PM +

•••    gone rollercoasterin'
back later
have a nice day
:)
7:41 AM +

wednesday, june 21

•••    I do not own a cell phone. I own a computer and I work on several others every day. I have a wallet filled with library cards. I have more personal mail than junk mail, but I wish I had more anyway. (personal mail, that is.) I do not wear brand name clothing (much). I do not gossip. I do not believe in god. I work. I got rice milk. I visit doctors once a month at least. I brush my teeth at least five times a day, usually many more. I do not eat fast food. I get stuck in traffic, but only if I'm on a city bus. I get mad at celebrity award shows for pre-empting things like the x-files. I believe in love. I don't masturbate much, but sometimes. I drink small amounts and very occasionally. smoke makes me sick. I read. I know what a pokemon is and I like to say "squirtle." I rather like the red sox, but I don't especially care about the rest of my local sporting teams. I've never had a real boss, but I've never hated any of my employers. I have neighbors, but they change a lot because I live in a college city. they all have accents. I sent a fax once, but I have never recieved one. I email a lot. I surf the web a lot. I use windows. I wish I could fly and one day I will go bungie jumping or parasailing or skydiving. hopefully all three (but not at the same time.) I get jealous. I get angry, but mostly at humanity as a whole or just myself. I cry almost every day. I laugh absolutely every day. I don't own a watch. I keep track of time on my computer. I pay my taxes. I want money, but not too much just yet. I hate war. I want peace. I try not to make photocopies, but then I do it anyway. my genes are copied, but my genome is unique.

what is generic, anyway?
11:47 PM +

•••    there was less sunlight today than there was yesterday. it's that time of year again, already.
9:47 PM +

•••    happyhappyhappyhappy smilesmilesmile :) I missed you, fiona!!
2:46 PM +

•••    anticipation... I haven't been this excited about a movie since the last star trek film. claymation chickens! whee!
2:21 PM +

•••    learn to fly. I know you wanna. flapflapflap. :)
2:12 PM +

•••    provided you don't take it too seriously, I HATE MUSIC is a real breath of fresh air. it gets a little tiresome seeing people gush about music over and over all across the net (you know - and I'm just as guilty of this as anyone - "I love music, all music, I listen to it all the time, and I couldn't live without it." blahblah). the thing I love about this is no one is safe or sacred. she takes on b*witched and moves right along to simon and garfunkel. and check this sentence out: "But the recent records, which seem specifically designed ... for schoolkids who want to navigate between the Scylla of the plastic Britney clones and the Charybdis of those nasty Oasis boys... words cannot describe how bad they are." isn't that great? you should go read the whole unedited thing.
1:06 PM +

•••    I love it when the astropic is so pretty it makes me gasp.
12:32 PM +

tuesday, june 20

•••    my subconscious is having a temper tantrum.

but I just discovered that adam is finally updating webloglog again, so now I feel a little bit better.
11:23 PM +

•••    I've been in disgruntled two year old mode all evening, and I'm not sure why. I feel somehow at odds with the universe. I was upset because my family had pizza for dinner and all I got was half a bowl of salad, and then I ended up eating a ton of junk food. I think I'm out of sorts because I didn't go running. who knows why that happened. ugh. hopefully soon I'll snap out of this and go back to being an adult again . . . or at least someone who can act like an adult. ;P
10:58 PM +

•••    suvs: fuel wasting garbage trucks. I could not have said it better myself, so I'm not going to get all soapboxy about it. just go. read. now.
3:50 PM +

•••    I just got the most absurdly long bank statement ever. five pages, all with binder holes punched in them. if that isn't a waste of trees and ink and hole punchers, I don't know what it. stupid bank mergers. this has been the most unpleasant one yet, and I've witnessed several. my theory is that fleet is out to destroy the planet, but not until they make you want to eat your atm card.
1:30 PM +

•••    according to my handy dandy fingertip thermistor, my hands are seven degrees colder than room temperature, and I still can't get them any warmer. I'm a biofeedback failure, at least today. :P
1:21 PM +

•••    I spent all morning playing riven, mostly so I could zip back and forth on all the rollercoasterish things. two more days and then I get to go on some real coasters. yay. :) it's hard to believe that only nine years ago I was on my first-ever steamin demon ride with my eyes squeezed shut (I only opened them on the upside-down parts) and my white-knuckled fingers wrapped around the harness. I was so small that my body was never touching the seat and the harness at the same time. it was terrifying. I felt sick. I loved it anyway.

I absolutely hate amusement parks, but it's so worth it for the thrill rides.
12:33 PM +

•••    pikachewy! glad to see I'm not the only one exploiting jabberwocky. I like the squirtle part especially.
9:55 AM +

•••    the best bridge over the charles is the weeks footbridge. no cars go across it, and it's bookended by trees, grass, and geese, thanks mostly to the harvard groundskeepers. there are always boats going underneath, keeping the river alive with little paddle-pools and big motorboat wake-waves. there are always tourists ogling the harvard domes, little kids sticking their heads through the columns to look at the water, bigger kids sitting on the wall to dangle their feet carelessly over the edge, couples of varying ages nuzzling close and pretending to be oblivious to the world. during the summer people tango in the moonlight.

I cross that bridge twice when I go running. today I stopped the second time and sat on the edge for a while, just watching. a man was sitting on the riverbank, painting with watercolors. my skin was damp, the air was cool, the sun was warm and orange. the river was black. I closed my eyes and thought about what it would feel like to fall from my perch into the water . . .

eventually I got up and started running again.
12:05 AM +

monday, june 19

•••    one rem song I haven't heard any mention of is the superman cover from life's rich pageant. I know it's just a cover, and not even three minutes long, but it's one of my favorites. I like it for one simple reason: the band sounds like they are having fun. you can hear mike mills smiling as he sings. I smile when I sing along. :)
5:41 PM +

•••    I don't know - I sort of think denying a kid access to a textbook under any circumstances is silly. I have yet to meet a math text I actually like, but I think math is the one subject where I learn more from a textbook than I do from a class. this is somewhat depressing for me, but I've come to accept that I really do need to sit down with a math book and read it if I want to understand the material.

when I was finishing tenth grade, I was bored out of my mind with math (algebra 2) and science (chemistry), even though they were both supposedly honors courses. I loved science, but I was worried about what was happening to my intellectual curiosity. my committment to school was essentially gone. so, I decided I was going to take ap physics and calculus my junior year. my guidance counselor discouraged me ("four ap courses is too many for a junior!") and my algebra teacher refused to sign my course registration form ("you'll fail").

I didn't care. I went to the head of the math department and asked to borrow the textbook for the precalculus course I was skipping. I had every intention of learning the material over the summer. I had no idea how to read a math book, since I had never done it before - I had always opened straight to the assigned problems and never even looked at the actual text. nor was I a master of self-discipline. needless to say, I didn't get more than a few chapters done.

I went into calculus with absolutely zero formal instruction in trigonometry, and while the first few weeks were review for my classmates, they turned out to be a crash course in precalculus for me. I realized that if I was going to ever be able to do calculus properly, I needed to have a much firmer grasp on trig functions than I did at the time. so I studied. I read that precalc book cover to cover. I did practice problems without looking at the answers in the back of the book the way I normally did. in a way, I think that saved me threefold: once in that calculus class, which I did fine in, once in multivariable calc my senior year, and once this past semester when I had to learn the entire linear algebra curriculum in about a month. if I hadn't figured out what it took for me to learn math, I don't know if I would have been able to do it.

as a general rule, and for most subjects, I think textbooks are a terrible learning tool. they're boring. they brush over important details. even the best textbook I ever had made me want to scream, either because it was full of eight-syllable words that I had to remember or because it touched on incredibly interesting concepts and then blithely skipped along to something else. but! in the case of math, I honestly think that it's so hard to find really good math teachers that you can learn an awful lot more if you spend some quality time with a textbook than if you just go about the course in the status-quo way.

so, uh, study up. ;P and if your kids want to learn something, anything, let them! and have faith that they're smart enough to separate the wheat from the chaff.
2:56 PM +

•••    lifeshots is good for a quick dose of sensory-saturated emotion. my only problem is I can't keep track of all the memory-keeping websites. so much good stuff on the internet, really.
1:55 PM +

•••    this sounds like something out of calvin and hobbes: scientists discover sugar in space. can't you just see spaceman spiff zipping around, ramming into a giant sugar bowl, and sending clouds of sugar flying everywhere?
12:41 PM +

•••    blogger is stuck for everyone - my hit count has been ridiculously inflated for the past few days because of it. I feel like I haven't been living up to it either. being low-profile lets me live happily with my delusions of adequacy... sigh.
12:48 AM +

•••    who would have thought . . . apparently cigarette ads are good for something after all. screw ripping - let's make collages!
12:24 AM +

sunday, june 18

•••    I just figured it out! hoppywood is like hollywood with p's instead of l's! that's what the stars are for! (don't laugh at me, I'm very proud of myself for getting this. ;P)
8:48 PM +

•••    my dad's family is ridiculously competitive. the regulation croquet rules aren't malicious enough - we play a special poison variation. ours goes like this: the game doesn't end at the last stake - once a ball completes the course, it becomes poison, but it does have to complete the entire course first. when a ball is poison, it's immune to everything except scoring wickets. if you're poison and you score a wicket, you're completely out, even if you finished the course half an hour before everyone else. if your ball hits a poisoned ball before you get to the final stake, even if it's an unintentional knock on your turn, you're finished.

even before anyone gets through the third wicket, the focus has shifted from scoring to roqueting and croqueting. if another ball roquets yours, you can expect to start your next turn from some faraway corner. the game usually progresses until at least half the players have finished and are poison, and everyone else has been eliminated. then the poison players go after each other, trying to hit each other and herd each other through wickets. it becomes a game of long-distance, psycho croquet, because you have to hit the ball hard enough that if you miss, you won't be in close range for retaliation. it's golf with croquet balls. shins and breakables are not safe.

I won our last game. ;)
1:25 PM +

•••    it's father's day! that means playtime, all day. whee. we just finished croquet - now it's rugby time. ahahaha :D
11:55 AM +

•••    one of my favorite pictures of myself is, I think, the one in which I am the least photogenic. it's a passport photo, but it looks more like a mugshot. I'm not smiling (I actually do smile in real life, honest), and my eyes are partly closed. my shirt isn't even on straight. the film is black and white, and it's hard to tell what my ethnic background might be. I used it for my cygnet picture (that's swarthmore's freshman facebook/directory.)

it's one of my favorite pictures because I don't look pretty. I look like I'm staring right over your head, looking for something that might not be there. I look dazed or drugged or something. I look enigmatic, inconspicuous, alien, and yet normal. I like it.

anyway, black and white pictures are fun to play with.
4:04 AM +

•••    the guys upstairs are having a party. this is normal. they are also singing along, loudly, to the ricky martin cd. this is not normal, even if they are drunk and living la vida loca. it's downright creepy.
1:37 AM +