Guilt and Innocence: A daily primer

Dreams of MIT

Okay, so I know I'm not a science person. And I know I'm not smart enough to get into MIT or survive there, but this Discover article, MIT Nerds: As dozens of Nobel Prize winners can attest, students at this university aren’t exactly normal, really made me wonder if I'm attending the right school. Honestly, MIT sounds like the most amazing nerd-heaven ever created. Look:

On East Campus, halls have names like Tetazoo and Putz and The Beast from the East. Some halls use house taxes to purchase explosives. “You can’t blow this building up,” Sam boasts. “We’ve tried!” No one smokes in Tetazoo (hall rule: No smoking unless you’re on fire), and most don’t drink much alcohol. No one watches TV. Corridors are shabby and covered with murals. Rooms are anything-goes building projects. Communal cats loll in hallways. At all hours of the night, people are likely to be taking things apart or putting them back together. Bedtime is about 5 a.m. campuswide, but on East Campus, the night hours are busier. This is where many of the MIT “hacks” originate.

“Hacking is breaking and entering, basically,” says Sam. Sometimes the mission is to explore an unknown basement or rooftop, but other hacks are highly elaborate. One of the most visible targets is the big dome in the center of the campus, where, famously, one morning in 1994 a life-size campus police car appeared, complete with a dummy cop and a box of doughnuts. On other occasions the dome was transformed into a giant beanie cap with propeller (1996), banded with a giant ring engraved with Elvish calligraphy from the opening of the Lord of the Rings movie (2001), and has served as pedestal for a full-scale model of Kitty Hawk, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ flight (2003). The ascent requires security evasion and a 20-foot ladder. “We have tried eight ways to Sunday—alarms, locks—to prevent kids from getting on the dome,” says Steve Immerman, assistant dean for student life. “We are immensely proud of them—it is part of who we are. At the same time, we have an explicit responsibility to ensure that students do not put themselves or the university at risk.”

Do you think they'll consider starting a J-school? Actually, they have a writing major and I'm not going to lie, I'm seriously tempted to transfer schools. Okay, not really. I just wish an English major equivalent of MIT existed. Actually, it probbably does. I just don't know where.

I'm just never pleased.

I actually earlier wrote some long, boring, tedious post about what I've been up to, but I've since realized that it can be summarized into a few key points:

1.) Do you remember when you used to long for the summer of days with nothing to do? Well, I have that right now and I despise it, it's boring and it's making me depressed.

2. )The Macaroni Grill called and I had an interview on Monday. The interview itself was boring, but my inner-monologue went something like this: "Oh, please, god, just hire me, I need something to do and I hate job hunting...THREE TABLES? Your employees only have to run three tables? Casa Bonita would give me four tables of eight, and then a fifth on the other side of the fucking restaurant because someone was late...Look, I can see the kitchen from everywhere in the restaurant. That's quaint...You're complaining about the air conditioning being too cold? Try working in a restaurant with a fucking pool in the middle of it with malfunctioning air conditioning. So it's always hot, it's always humid, and you always smell like chlorine...What? No, I'm not going to Mizzou for education, Why the fuck would I subject myself to out-of-state tuition in the middle-of-nowhere missouri when I could get an education degree from CU? And, no, having lived in Iowa does not mean you know anything about Mizzou. Dumbass."

Of course, I said none of that. I smiled and stopped just short of begging for the job. It'd be nice. It's in Denver West with the Barnes and Noble so at least I could spend my breaks there if I can't work there.

3.) Despite having digital cable and thus billions of channels I still can't find anything worth watching on television, so I've started watching Telemundo, because just trying to figure out what's going on keeps my attention. I've also got slightly addicted to their news, which means when I pick up the paper in the morning I have a "Oh, that's what they were talking about!" reaction. It's kind of fun.

4.) I need to stop putting foreign substances in my body. This includes alcohol and caffeine, mainly, among any other chemical. Because even when I'm not drunk at all, I do stupid things. (Alternatively, I also read three-quarters of The Stranger. I would have finished the book, too, had Darcie not woke up and made me turn off the lights.) And really I'm too sensitive to caffeine to drink coffee the way I do. Or at eleven at night, which seems to be my preference. And I just seem to have heightened reactions to any chemical influence at all. (Note to self: These previous realizations suggest it would be unwise to experiment with heroin. Keep that in mind in the future.)

5.) What the hell is a "quant"? I just realized I misspelled "quaint" earlier and the spell check didn't catch it because "quant" is apparently a word.

6.) I got a "Haunted" (Chuck's new book) night-light in the mail. I win.

So, is the summer over yet?

The definition of "open-minded" is still up for debate...

Here are some humorous, alternative textbook disclaimer stickers, so you can take the law about disclaimer stickers on textbooks into your own hands.

I especially like the last one.

What I Suspected All Along, and Still Will

Maybe I should look into changing schools, or majors. At least I would if payed much attention toAn Open Letter to Journalism School Grads:

To have made it this far, you've had to inhale the usual bromides like "the reporter's job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"--a noble sentiment that overlooks the fact that anyone who can spend $30,000 on j-school should be considered "comfortable." You've been trained to be skeptical of every truth and every detail ("If your mother says she loves you, check it out") but you've been steered away from skepticism about j-school itself.

Of course, I already know all of this. I am already critical of the J-school. (J-1100 anyone?) Actually, I'm already critical of the whole damn profession, so maybe there's hope for me yet.

Still jobless, but now 300% more caffeinated

Yesterday, Mwema and I commenced a marathon job search at Denver West and Colorado Mills. We walked all over the place, gathering applications and then we finally crashed in the food court and filled them all out, until our hands were about to fall off and our brains were mush from writing the same pointless information over and over. Why, why can't you just give these places a resume?! They all ask for the exact same information!

Anyway, it actually seemed like a fair number of places were actually hiring compared to last summer, so maybe there's hope. I'm also hoping we've kind of beat out some of the high school kids. Now I have to repeat the same exhausting process at the Lakewood Commons and Belmar, where it would actually be easier to get a job, but at this point, I don't even care. Anywhere that isn't Casa Bonita and will give me seven dollars an hour and something like thirty hours is fine by me, even if I have to spend all day riding the bus.

I came home for dinner with the family that night, then Mwema, Joe, Lurch, and I headed downtown to hang out at Paris. I had my favorite Cafe Fantasia and Joe and Lurch pulled out the cigars, so I suppose you can guess where some of my pretentious influence comes from.

While we were there, Joe and I got into this awesome discussion about how we wanted our funerals to be. Joe was talking about how he wanted a "New Orleans Style" funeral, where basically everyone throws a huge party in your honor. Him talking about this was ironic, because as long as I can remember my mother and I have admired the idea of an Irish wake, which is basically the same thing Celtic style. From there, we discussed how mourning death is kind of a backwards idea, since a majority of religions believe you're going to some sort of better place. My point in talking about this is really just to point out how I miss these people.

Tonight was the Lakewood Pop's Concert, so we all ended up there. I was sitting with Darcie's mom (rather than with my parents, who were also there), which was a little weird, only because her mom seemed so exhausted. The concert was good and actually managed to hold my attention and included some guest appearances such as Mr. Harris, our band director as the phantom of the opera, and Castagna, our principal, as a short, Italian Darth Vader.

Afterwards, a whole crew of us band kids headed out to what was supposed to be bowling at Holiday Lanes, but by the time we got there, we decided to go to Denny's, but then couldn't get a table for twelve and ended up at IHOP. It was a crazy night of reminiscing and using glow bracelets and a ketchup bottle for a game of ring toss. It was kind of interesting to have four years of band kids, from juniors in high school to sophomores in college all in one place, and the UNC kids talked too much about UNC, but it was a fun time. It was the first time I've gotten to see Taryn and Sean since I'd gotten back, so that was nice. I miss all the sarcastic fun Taryn and I use to have together.

Now, despite three cups of bad IHOP coffee, I sleep.

And my life flashes before my eyes...

From the NY Times story, When Death Means the Loss of an Archive:

Joe Nash's vast archive on black dance in America made him a leading figure in the dance world. It also may have helped kill him.

Last Thanksgiving, he stumbled over a pile of materials in his packed apartment in a West Harlem housing project. As he fell, he clutched at a stack of books, which tumbled down on him, according to Rashidah Ismaili AbuBakr, a friend who took care of him. Mr. Nash, a lecturer and essayist whose flowing African robes made him a familiar figure at dance events in New York, lay on the floor for five days, until friends heard his cry for help, she said. "Every single room was storage - his bathroom, his bedroom," Ms. AbuBakr said. "He just had enough space to lay down."

Mr. Nash never recovered from the fall, friends said; he died on April 13 at 85 of cardiovascular problems.

Anyone want to take bets on how likely it is that that's how I end up killing myself? I mean, I'm already well on my way to filling my entire living space with books, and I'm only eighteen. This man was eighty-five! Just imagine what I can collect in sixty-five years. (Article from Bookslut.)

Summertime Diversions (Installation #1)

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get very bored quite often throughout the summer. Often when this boredom occurs I find myself in front of my computer, looking for some sort of amusing distraction. So far I've found two and I'm willing to share:

For those of you who feel that your brain is turning to mush without the wonderful twice-weekly stimulation of J-1100, here's a quirky, logic puzzle that I don't really feel like figuring out right now, but might later.

Also, Kingdom of Loathing is a parody of turn-based online RPGs. Don't worry if you don't know what those are, there's lots of sarcasm and stick-figures and I promise it's fun.

Welcome to my Subconcious

I don't usually remember my dreams, since I don't get enough sleep to make it to that sleep cycle, I think. However, the dream I had last night was crazy and weird, so I'm going to share.

So, apparently in my dream, it was next semester and I was in my International Relations class. I remember this, though really the class had nothing to do about international relations. In the class we were discussing a family whose house had burnt down, and I think one of the children had been trapped in the house. Then we were watching a movie about it, and it was really gruesome, and the father and mother of this family ended up killing themselves because they felt responsible, which was in the movie in graphic detail.

Then I was sitting in what felt like a hotel room, or a very under decorated bedroom with a couple of friends, though I don't remember who, when the bed decided to burst into flames. I was watching it for awhile, and then said, "I think we should put it out," and started to try and smother it with a pillow, but it just kept spreading, and everyone else was just standing by, watching expressionless. Of course, I didn't seem very concerned about the increasing amount of flames either, just annoyed.

The next part I remember, I had my supposed International Relations textbook on my lap, but it was illustrated like the readers I had in elementary school. It was open to a page which had a bunch of different types of dogs on it. Only instead of being a breed chart, it had different parts of dogs, like their coats, ears, feet, tails, and eyes, and there was an equation to figure out what breed the dog was, based on its individual parts. I looked up and told Quan Lin (my dog) that she was something-or-other and she looked at me reproachfully and then walked away.

Finally, I was taking some sort of final exam and Jessica was there and I was really upset and I kept telling her I needed to buy a blue book, because I had my humanities exam at eleven, which was right after the exam we were taking. She just kept looking at me, amused, and I was getting more and more upset, until whatever exam we were taking was over, and I got up to leave, and Jessica turned to me, laughing, and told me that we had our International Relations exam next, not humanities, so I didn't need a blue book.

Then we went to the exam, but somehow we were taking it in our own individual rooms. I hadn't studied for it, but the questions all asked about our weird movie, but they were even weirder. Such as, "What laundry detergent did the mafia member pour on his victim?" It turns out that in this case it was Gain. Then there was a question about our dog breed formulas, but I couldn't remember the formula because I hadn't studied. I remember being upset about what my grade was going to be, because I hadn't studied, and then I think I woke up.

So, if my dream is any indication, International Relations is going to be a wild time next year. Yet, somehow, I doubt it.

What do Steve Reich and S&M bears have in common? Nothing, really.

I think coming home gets harder and weirder each subsequent time. Maybe it will be good for me to stay in Columbia next summer.

I went out with Mwema and Drew on Sunday, and I only did that just because I'm not very good at telling people no, not because I really wanted to go out. We were going to go to Drew's house to watch Sex and the City, but it took her forever to find Mwema's house and then pick up Mwema, so by the time they got to my house there were only a few hours before I had to be home to go to dinner with my parents, so we went to Colorado Mills instead.

We didn't really have any purpose in being there, so we just kind of wandered around. Mwema picked up a few applications, but I was being unjustifiably picky about the places I would work, so I only ended up with applications for Black Market Minerals (I think, or one of the other new-agey, bamboo selling places in that Mall) and one for the California Pizza Kitchen, though I didn't even end up going to their group interview on Tuesday.

We got bored with the Mills and were discussing how Drew and I had never been to a porn shop, so we decided to go to the Fascinations on Colfax. Honestly, porn stores just aren't that exciting. We spent an unnecessarily long time looking at vibrators and dildos, most of which I've noticed attempt to have some sort of animal likeness. There were beavers, rabbits, dolphins, and  birds, oh my. (The "songbird" as it was called was kind of creepy, and just looked painful.) However, I thought the most amusing item (other than the size of some things, Dear god, where is there room?) were these teddy-bears in S&M gear. S&M teddy bears! What consumer did they have in mind there?

Anyway, they dropped me off at my house and I went to IHOP with my parents while my sister was at youth group. I don't remember much about that dinner except that our waiter was ADD and generally inept at his job, and looked about fourteen. I still get creeped out when people waiting on me are younger than I am. I mentioned this to my parents, and my dad just told me to wait until the doctors are younger than I am.

Afterwards, my parents took me to Barnes and Noble and they bought two books, which I am actually bordering on needing as my stack of "to read" books has dwindled to a very small number by my standards.

Monday, Ryan called me at eight in the morning after he got off work, and I groggily answered the phone and told him to call back at a reasonable hour. He called back at eleven, but I was still in bed and still feeling uncharacteristically anti-social so I tried to ignore him, but finally answered the phone, and tried to get out of doing something, but he threatened to come to my house and drag me out of bed, so I gave in and got up myself.

We went down to Denver so Ryan could drag me around Metro while he ran errands there to get stuff in order for the fall, which was mildly excruciating since I hate doing stuff like that even when it's at Mizzou for myself. So to make him pay me back, I made him pay for lunch at Paris on the Platte. I had their veggie melt and their cambric tea, and we played some Gin Rummy, and it was a generally enjoyable lunch. We then took a mostly depressing trip to the Apple store somewhere off of Santa FE, where I found lots of things I want, but am nowhere near being able to afford. Then he dropped me off at home, since my Family had decided to do Mother's Day that evening.

We went to Red Lobster, the restaurant of choice for all occasions in my family, and I had Coconut Shrimp, which were quite good. I think I spent most of dinner going off on random rants about how Lakewood has gotten just a tad bit too accepting, and my father and I started speculating about how the Democratic party is going to save their ass, much to the dismay of my mother and my sister, I'm sure.

Tuesday, Ryan and I went to a free percussion ensemble concert at DU, but since I have no job and didn't feel like paying for dinner, we decided to go to his house. First, we went back to the Apple store, so Ryan could empty his back account to buy an iPod. Then we went to his house and he made soft tacos for dinner. If there's one reason I'll keep Ryan around, it's his cooking skills. I always have the best vegetarian meals when he cooks for me.

Then we headed off to DU for what turned out to be an okay percussion ensemble concert, but it was free so I'm not complaining, though I did learn two things:

1.) Watching anyone perform Steve Reich's Marimba Phase live and trying to follow the individual parts is an invitation to madness. Just don't do it, I mean, unless you're looking to go off the deep end.

2.)Never, ever use crystal mallets on crotales. Ow, my poor ears are still complaining. (Also, this uncultured word processor doesn't believe crotales is a word.)

Finally, tonight I went to a movie at Denver West with Mwema, Joe, Scott, and Darcie. We saw Crash, after what was technically sneaking in, since Darcie is still ridiculously young and after failing to sneak her in, we all went to exchange our tickets for something she could actually see, but then the ticket attendant mysteriously disappeared, so we saw Crash anyway. The movie was really good, though a bit heavy, and then, like old times, we sat around outside, talking about things, and perhaps doing a little too much rehashing of the details of old, failed relationships. It almost made me miss being in Columbia where no one can dig up unwelcome memories from your past. Which isn't to say that I didn't have a good time anyway, though I couldn't convince anyone that eleven o'clock coffee sounded like a good idea, and Darcie and Scott still had school, and Mwema had a midnight curfew, anyway.

Now, tomorrow I have to drag myself out of bed to meet Mwema and actually commence a real job hunt.

Book #15: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

This was a cute, quirky fun quick read. The story is unusual because it's written from the point of view of a fifteen year old autistic boy. However, the novel is definitely well done and I would recommend it to anyone, of any age, because the story is well-written and highly accessible, but that's not why I like this book.

I like this book, because it is written from the point of view of an autistic child and I have an unabashed interest in bizarre neurological disorders that result in some sort of weird talent. (In this case, it's math skills.) While, autism isn't quit synesthesia, I still think it's utterly fascinating to read about, so I liked the book even more.

Anyway, I think this is a good summer pool-side read, if any of you are in the market for such a book.

NOVEL: A living installation

I think having just finished Chuck's horror story about a writer's retreat, this comes off as a little bit more creepy that maybe it actually should.

At 9pm on May 7th, 2005, three novelists will be enclosed within three individual habitats designed and constructed by three teams of architect/artists. For thirty days, this will be their reality. Nightly, they will dine together (courtesy of a revolving cast of chefs). Public readings of the novels-in-progress will be held every Saturday evening, with viewing hours throughout the week. On June 4th, each writer will emerge from his or her habitat, having completed a novel.

I suppose if you cross a writer's workshop and a zoo exhibit, this is what you get.

Homecoming (In Which I am a participant of a four car pile-up on I-70)

Okay, It's time to play some catch up.

Thursday night, I ended up proctoring exams for four bloody hours, which turned out to be a problem because I was supposed to have all my stuff packed so Allison and I could go put it in storage. So I finally made my escape back to Twain at a little after ten, but I was tired and hungry, since I'd spent almost all day proctoring, so the packing didn't go as fast as it should've either.

I went up stairs to find a note from Kim that began, "Now don't be too creeped out..." which made me think she'd been doing something horrible to my room, but it seems she'd just wanted to borrow my TV so she could watch it while packing. It was amusing, and after all, what else are suitemates for? I don't even know why I have that TV, as Jessica seemed to be the only one who watched it.

Kim gave me some Shakespeare's pizza from dinner and I commenced cramming my life of the past nine months into boxes. Finally, around midnight, everything that needed to be put in storage was in some sort of a box. So, then Kim  and Maxine set off to try and find me a laundry cart, only to realize that they lock the laundry carts up at night. Fools! Some people enjoy moving at odd hours of the night! Anyway, someone came up with the idea of holding an elevator while the rest of us hauled my stuff into an elevator and then taking the whole kit and caboodle downstairs and then relaying it all into Allison's car. Surprisingly, all of my stuff (read: all of my books) fit into Allison's car and we made it to the storage place, coerced the lock open, verified there were no dead bodies or homeless men inside the very dark storage space and unloaded all my stuff.

We were almost done unloading stuff when Allison said, "Oh, that box in the bag is yours, too." At this point, I was racking my brain to figure out what she was talking about, because I didn't pack a box in a bag. Then finally, I looked at it, and it was a coffee pot. Mwah! Caffeine injections whenever I want, even when Barry's not around! Joy!

Anyway, we headed back to Twain and I crashed asleep on Allison's futon since I'd just put all my bedding in storage.

Friday morning, Allison had to get up early to work the desk, and I headed back to my room which looked like it had been hit by a tornado. I decided an extra half-hour to nap before I had to go proctor, so I crawled on a bed and used my bear as a pillow and fell asleep. About ten minutes before I had to leave to proctor, Kim and Maxine knocked on my door, so I flew out of bed, got dressed and raced downstairs, sadly just a few minutes too late to say good-bye to Maxine.

Then I proctored, somehow crammed all my remaining items into two suitcases, cleaned my room, said good-by to Olivia, missed Kim leaving, gave Rachel some boxes and said good-bye to her, sort of said good-bye to Allison, had Barry RICC me out, said good-bye to him, and then waited for MOX.
Now, this is when things got interesting, The MOX (the airport shuttle to St. Louis, for those of you who don't know) was heading along I-70 when we ran into some construction. We start to slow down, maybe a tad bit too fast, and have come to a stop, when the car behind us ran into us, hard enough to push us into the car in front of us, then that car behind him, ran into him. Luckily, no one seemed to have been hurt, though I'm pretty sure the car that hit us was totaled, since once corner of the hood was completely smashed in, and the trunk had crumpled. So, we sat on the side of I-70 for awhile, then the police had us drive to the Kingdom City McDonald's, where they wrote down all our addresses and about an hour or so later, we were on our way to the airport again. Since I had taken an ungodly early shuttle, I was plenty on time for my flight, and my trip home continued without incident.

So, I'm here, in one piece, still unpacked, and still unemployed.

Or: Signs You Spend Too Much Time in Front of Your Computer

I'm a sucker for McSweeney's lists, and being the geek I am, I thought this was funny:

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Tools or Actions in Photoshop That, Were They Applicable to Real Life, Would Prove Useful at Various Stages of a Relationship.

Book #14: Haunted

As anyone who knows me is aware, anything I write about a Chuck Palahniuk book is going to be horribly biased, because the man is essentially my hero, he sends me crazy packages for Valentine's day (sort of) and I went and bought this book the day it was released after waiting anxiously for something like a year.

Getting those details out of the way, I still really liked Haunted. It's not one of his best books, by any means, and from a purely critical stand point, it's probably not a very good book at all, but despite it's unnecessary gruesome details and completely absurd plot-lines, I liked it.

The book is a sort of modern day Canterburry Tales, only much less excruciating to read. The characters of the novel have signed up to attend a three-moth writer's retreat: no distractions, no unnecessary interactions, just the time they need to complete the masterpiece of their lives. Then in good Palahniuk fashion, everything goes horribly wrong and descends into self-mutilation and some good old-fashioned cannibalism. Now, if that were the novel, I would have hated it, and perhaps had to reconsider Chuck's highly-valued position as my favorite author, but that's not what makes up the novel.

What makes Haunted worth reading are the seemingly unrelated stories that each character tells. I loved reading those, and they make the ridiculous envelope plot tolerable, and they make Haunted a good book. After all, how can you call a book where the first story has been responsible for multiple faintings a bad book?

Oh, but one thing: Chuck Palahniuk is not a poet. The "poems" he uses to describe each character still sound like his fiction. Whatever editor let him leave those in, wasn't doing a very good job of things.

Driver's Lisences not just for driving anymore.

I'd nearly forgotten to present you all with my last and final column of this school year, in which I manage to sccop Time for the second week in a row. That's right, for the past two weeks of columns, Time has had a story on the same topic the week afterwards. So there.

Anyway, this week I tackle the House's shady trick of turning driver's lisences into National ID cards, and stuffing this into an Iraq appropriations bill that no Senator with a hope of political future can vote against. Jerks.

So here it is: Real ID Act hurts more than it helps.

The End of an Era (Sort of.)

So this is really it. I've pretty much made it through my freshman year of college, and relatively unscarred, at that. (That's a first.)

My roommate left at about three Tuesday, taking with her our rug, microwave, fridge, and lamp, and essentially most of the stuff in our room. It's almost too weird to look at this half-abandoned room and try and remember what it looked like once. Of course, the one advantage of Jessica being gone is that I can listen to music almost-as-loudly as I want while I get ready in the morning.

Of course, despite the fact that my roommate is gone, and Katie and Laura have both left, and Erika and Dave will be gone by this evening, I can't quite convince myself that my freshman year of college is almost at it's end. It went by so fast.

I know that at this point, I'm supposed to talk about how I've grown and changed over the course of this year, but the truth of the matter is that I haven't grown much, but it was a nice chance to reflect on how much growing I've done in the past three years. I made it through the year with few notable break downs and with good grades almost in spite of myself. While maybe this doesn't seem remarkable, in a way it kind of is.

Sure, I still miss my band kids, but the thing that amazes me the most about this year is that while maybe I kept quiet about some things, I'm no longer trying to shove myself into categories I don't fit in. I don't try to be perfect when I'm not. I don't try to pretend to care about things when I don't. (I still don't understand Cosmo and I still don't understand why anyone can actually enjoy shopping for clothes, and I really don't care about my grades that much.) That, I suppose, means I've done a little bit of growing up. But still, I wouldn't go so far as to use some cliché phrase like "I've come into my own, " to describe any of this, because It's just not that big of a deal.

Now, as soon as I'm done proctoring tests for what is simultaneously too much and too little pay, (That's right, I'm getting paid five dollars to sit here and type this will someone else is suffering through a final.) and I've finished stuffing my ridiculous number of books into rubbermaid bins, I get to get on a plane, fly back to my Rockies and commence a desperate job search for a well paying job that is anywhere but Casa Bonita.

Still, I can't really think about all that. I can't imagine being home for three months. I can't imagine how different next year is going to be. I'm just unconvinced that this is really the end of the year. I'm no longer a freshman. This is no longer new. This is life for the next three to four years.

A Modern Day Hitchhiker's Guide

A Slate article notes the paralells between Wikipedia and  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

It's too bad Douglas Adams wasn't able to see his vision brought to life. I don't mean the so-so movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm talking about Wikipedia, the Web's own don't-panic guide to everything.

The parallels between The Hitchhiker's Guide (as found in Adams' original BBC radio series and novels) and Wikipedia are so striking, it's a wonder that the author's rabid fans don't think he invented time travel. Since its editor was perennially out to lunch, the Guide was amended "by any passing stranger who happened to wander into the empty offices on an afternoon and saw something worth doing." This anonymous group effort ends up outselling Encyclopedia Galactica even though "it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate."

The article goes on to offer some criticism on the Wiki form of things, most of which I think is fair. I'm not a huge user of Wikipedia, but I do think it's nice to have that ever-expanding, if somewhat unreliable knowledge base.

Book #13: The God of Small Things

Usually, I have to finish a book for humanities that post that follows is something along the lines of, "Well, don't read that unless you have to," or "That was pretty good for a humanities book," but in the case of The God of Small Things  by Arundhati Roy, these rules do not apply.

I think this book may be one of my favorites. The language is dense, beautiful and the story is heartbreaking. Time in Roy's novel shifts backwards and forwards, and it's not the easiest book to read, but it is enjoyable once you get the hang of things.

Roy deals with the caste system in India and the unfairness of it by showcasing the effects a relationship between an untouchable and a member of an upper caste has on their surrounding family. Sadly, the ultimate result is tragedy, but the way Roy describes everything made me want to start the book over the second I finished it.

I think the real tragedy of The God of Small Things  is that Roy said she believed it was the only novel she had in her, so I can't even delude myself into waiting for a second novel. I can however tell you three lessons you will learn from reading it:

    [a] Anything can happen to anyone
    [b] It's best to be prepared
    [c] A boat

I should know better than to trust this president for more than half a second.

U.S. to Open Remote Forests To Logging.

The Bush administration, in one of its biggest environmental decisions, moved yesterday to open nearly one-third of all remote national forest lands to road building, logging and other commercial ventures.

The 58.5 million acres involved, mainly in Alaska and in western states, had been put off limits to development by President Bill Clinton eight days before he left office in January 2001.

Sigh. I'm too mad for eloquent words about how Bush is not a compassionate conservative.

Looking to get away from Starbucks?

So the influx of Starbucks doesn't seem to be as much of a problem here in the Midwest, but in Denver, at least, they seem impossible to escape. It seems every time a building is empty for more than two days it is miraculously redone into a Starbucks. And any major store undergoing renovations ends up with one inside by the time their done. They're like weeds.

So, if you still love coffee, check out the Delocator, a nifty little search engine that will tell you all the non-Starbucks cafes in your area.

"Keeping weird hours"

This has been a weekend of madness.

After the excitement of the fire alarms, I stumbled out of bed at about one in the afternoon. Then Barry knocked on our door and we started discussing the fire alarms, and somehow pretty much everyone ended up in our room. Then Barry decided he wanted to go to Hitt Street to get food, and I persuaded him to wait until dinner when we were all planning to go cash in our Subway stamps before they expired today. So instead he convinced me to go downstairs in my pajamas to get Express.

This would've been okay had we actually just gotten Express. Instead, we somehow ended up outside at the JMC barbecue, which I was not thrilled about. Then, while talking to Rob (who was also in his pajamas, so I didn't feel quite so bizarre)  he decided that he needed to introduce me to some Hall Coordinators while I was in my pajamas. That's exactly the sort of first impression I'm always hoping to make.

After the JMC pajama barbecue, Allison drove Maxine and I to the Columbia Wal-Mart. Apparently, the pastime of most of Columbia is to head to Wal-Mart on Saturdays, because it was ridiculously crowded. Also, I don't understand people who purchase groceries at Wal-Mart. Columbia has at least one grocery store, but still, I saw people who were clearly buying all of their groceries at Wal-Mart. Somehow, this just doesn't make sense to me, and I was greatly relieved to escape that zoo mostly unscathed.

That evening we all headed to Subway, got our sandwiches and pushed two table together in the lounge so we could all eat together, much I think to the confusion of the rest of our floor. Then we ended up in the suitemates room and watched The Shawshank Redemption, which is a superb movie. I'd simply never seen it since the year it came out, we determined we were probably all more preoccupied with the release of The Lion King. The score was also done by Thomas Newman, and I adore his movie scores, and I was sorely disappointed to find out that Hans Zimmer beat him out for the Oscar that year with The Lion King score, but I suppose I understand.

Then we decided to head off the Steak 'n' Shake where we proceeded to be ridiculous. Somehow we kept offering a dollar to various people to do weird things, ended up talking to the waiter about how water was "on tap," and despite all of us being perfectly sober, generally acting ridiculous hyper and drunk.

Then, somehow, we decided we should play what Olivia christened, "Hide and Go Park," which involved one car "hiding" somewhere and then calling the other car to give a clue. The other car then has five minutes to find them, or they can call and ask for another clue. It was good find, though the other cars clues were wholly unfair. Telling us things like "Aardvarks and Flamingos" and then hiding at a Ronald McDonald house that none of us knew existed. However, it was still fun, and I saw parts of Columbia I've never seen before.

I also discovered that apparently there is some sort of a "park" wedged between the dirty diner, the power plant, and providence, and I decided that this most definitely needs to be investigated in the future.

Just how drunk do you have to be to hit a fire-truck?

So, the Mark Twain crew headed out to see Spanglish last night.  I kind of wanted to see the movie when it came out, but I think it got mixed reviews, or I was here, which means I never see movies within a normal time frame. However, I'm glad I went to see it, because I thought it was a super enjoyable movie. Not a great movie by critical standards, but I really liked it anyway. I think I've also become endeared to anything that lets me put some of my Spanish knowledge to use. It's a challenge to try and understand it all, and I like that.

After Spanglish and some Coldstone ice cream, we all came back to Twain, went elevator fishing, an invented distraction that involves trapping all the elevators on the seventh floor, leaving the rest of the building unknowingly stranded. Of course, we do catch and release, so it's only a brief, probably unnoticed convenience.  Then we started a pick-up game of psuedo-soccer in front of the elevators using the beach balls from RHA's random week that Dave had just retrieved. Despite an early lead, Olivia and I lost miserably.

We headed down to Erika and Olvia's room and hung out there and just chatted for awhile. Then, invariably, everyone else got tired before I did, so we headed up to the seventh floor. Then I ended up in Allison's room watching the end of some bizarre movie with Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson that turned out to be called Conspiracy Theory, a clearly original title. Despite being a wonderful sub-par movie, its one shining moment was when a heavily drugged Mel Gibson said to Julia Roberts, "I'm sorry you're dead," which Allison and I found ridiculously hilarious.

Then the night got interesting. At about three in the morning, just as I was climbing into bed, I heard this loud buzzing noise that sounded faintly of the fire alarm. Fearing it was the fire alarm, I got out of bed to inspect. Later, I realized it was the fire alarm going off on another floor, since the alarms in the building are staggered. However, instead of being smart like Mole who heard the alarm, went back to his room, got dressed, got his glasses, a coat and gloves before the alarm went off on our floor, I just kind of stood there hoping it would go away. It didn't. So we all traipsed outside, into the cold, past the third floor that smelled distinctly of the burnt popcorn that had clearly set off the alarm to stand in the cold for twenty or so minutes, before the fire department gave the all clear. We came back in, and went to bed, slightly annoyed.

Then at approximately a quarter to five in the morning, the fire alarm went off again. This time, since I'd actually been asleep, I was mildly pissed. Then the alarm stopped for a few moments, and there was hope. However, it started to go off again, so I crawled out of bed, had a brief moment of clarity in which I remembered to grab a blanket and then continued, down the eight flights of stairs to go stand in the cold again.

Jessica, Allison, and I happened to be standing on the street, watching the first fire truck approached, when Allison posed the question, "I wonder, do fire-trucks have to stop at the stop sign?" So the three of us watched the fire-truck approach the stop sign, stop at the stop sign, and begin again when all of a sudden, this white car comes barreling out of nowhere and hits the side of the fire-truck. The sound of the impact was an almost jarringly loud smack, and it was one of those things that was just near impossible to believe. Honestly, how do you drive into the side of a fire truck, especially one that has it's lights and sirens on?

So the staff herded us into the parking garage, set us down and Tasha, one of the staff members proceeded to lecture us on how whoever pulled the fire alarm was a dumbass, essentially, and the whole situation was very not funny. Preceding the whole mostly pointless lecture by, "Now, I know most of you didn't do this..."

The details of the situation that came to light in the morning were that the girl was drunk (I'd assumed this. I don't know how else you drive into a fire truck.), did apparently try to stop, though I saw no evidence of this during the occurrences, broke the axle on her car, and damaged the fire truck badly enough that it had to be towed. There is also a rumor floating around that someone knows her and that this is about this fifth car she's totaled.

In all, it was a weird, somewhat disturbing, annoying, frustrating, but by now, ultimately bemusing night.