Buttered Bagels

This actually happened about two months ago, but since it's all I can think of and December is rapidly approaching an end, with no blog posts, I thought I had to write something (mostly because it would bother me to see the list of months in the archives for 2009 without a December). So here's my story.

It was a cold, quiet morning at Yale. I was in Commons, trying to put together my breakfast. I decided that I wanted a bagel with cream cheese as part of it, so I took a bagel, sliced it with the bagel-slicer, and proceeded to spread it with what was labeled as cream cheese.

It so happened that when I began to eat the bagel, I found that I had not spread it with cream cheese, but with margarine. So I scraped it off to the best of my ability, and went back, hoping to put on the actual cream cheese this time.

When I got back to my table and began to eat, I found to my dismay that it was again not cream cheese, but rather, butter.

Not energetic enough to go back again and try to find cream cheese, I scraped my bagel once more, and ate it plain, albeit having a slight flavoring from the margarine and butter.

Happy New Year, everyone.

-Philip

Your Reputation is on the Line

Have you ever played the game "Things"? It's a popular game that is sold by some game publishing company. It's played with a group of people where one person is the moderator, a job that rotates every turn. The moderator picks a card from the pile and reads it aloud. Cards are categories like "Things You Can't Google in China" or "Things You Wouldn't Want Your Grandmother to Know about You". Each player, including the moderator, puts an answer on a strip of paper into the communal pot or hat. Then the moderator reads all the answers aloud, and going clockwise, players try to guess who wrote what. If you get guessed, you're out for the round, and if you guess wrong, your turn is up and it's the next person's turn to guess. Whoever is left standing at the end of the round wins a point, and the game rotates to the next moderator.

I played this once at a friend's house and realized how it could easily be replicated without the cards if you throw in a little imagination. I find my version even more fun: instead of picking cards, the moderator has to come up with their own topic, so much more hilarity ensues. Earlier this evening, I had a group of friends over and we were playing "Things". The topic was set by the moderator: "Alternate Uses for a Pair of Pants". Sniggering commenced, and people wrote answers and one by one put them into the bag. The moderator shook them up and then read them aloud; "A Tupperware container", "Measure wind velocity", "Food", "Condom", "Spinach casserole ingredient", "Party for 2".

An intense round of guessing ensued until it was just Jesse, the moderator, and me who had not yet been guessed. The answers left were "A Tupperware container", "Food", and "Party for 2". Jesse was guessing, and of course he knew which his was, and it wasn't "Party for 2".

"Okay, in five seconds I'm going to have much less respect for one of you, and I have to guess who I think that is," Jesse remarked. "I'm going to go with...party for 2, Sachi?"

"Nope!" I replied.

Jesse turned to Marena, and we all cracked up. "All respect lost, all respect, Marena."

Sachi

Inspirational Story

Having finished my biology test, I quietly left the room and walked down the hall, looking for a nice spot to sit and read Walden until the next class started. As I was walking by a chemistry classroom, I saw a strange-looking movie being played on the projector. It was a cartoon, with not very detailed animation--the people had round heads and simple features and everything, not like a fancy Disney movie like the jungle book or something. I was rather curious as to what the movie was, but I assumed it was probably FernGully or something, which I've never seen.

So I sat down relatively close to the room with the movie and began trying to read Walden. As I began to become bored of Thoreau's descriptions of how the water level in the pond rises for about 15 years and then recedes and all that, I started to listen to the dialogue of the movie.

"But Pierre, you can't give up your experiments!" said a female voice. Hmm, I thought. What if the movie was about Pierre and Marie Curie? I continued listening, and I heard a man say something about, "Marie, you must not abandon science!"

I figured I must have been right. After all, it makes sense, seeing as this was a chemistry class. As I continued to read Thoreau, every once in a while I overheard a line from the movie:

..."She discovered a new element!"...

... "The theory of radioactivity! A leap of genius!" ...

..."But no woman has ever recieved a doctorate degree before!" ...

And then of course, the dramatic ending:

"The dream of the true scientist is to help mankind. No matter how hard and how many obstacles, he--or she--must never give up."
*Dramatic music begins*

Has anyone ever seen or heard of this movie?

-Rebecca

The Sound of Those Whales

I was in my ancient Greek history section, and we were talking about the Peloponnesian War. When we were discussing the end of the war, in which Athens was defeated by Sparta, I mentioned something that I had read (I think it was Xenophon) in which supposedly when the news of the defeat got to the the port near Athens, a wail was heard progressively along the route from the port to the city of Athens itself, a route which was surrounded by the so-called Long Walls. So I started talking about how a wail was heard moving along the Long Walls, when I noticed that everyone was looking at me strangely.

"A whale was heard moving along the Long Walls?" asked an incredulous student.

At this point, I could not stop myself from laughing. "No, the people were wailing," I said. "Lamenting. Because Athens lost."

"Oh," was murmured throughout the room.

I was subsequently subjected to periodic bouts of uncontrolled laughter as I pictured a whale slowly, but surely, moving and moaning as it made its way along the wall from Piraeus to Athens.

-Philip

The Light at the End of the Tunnel is Canada

"I am halfway to the middle of nowhere", I texted Thomas last night around 6.

"You'll get there yet" he replied.

"If Zeno was wrong, anyway" I told him.

Zeno might have been more right than I thought...Or maybe he had nothing to do with it. My mother and I had set out around 4 PM from Boston, heading to visit St Lawrence, one of my top college choices. A daunting six hour drive, and I had had no dinner. Getting my energy from almond Hershey's Kisses, I stayed awake for what would be an eight out car drive.

As we were heading up, there were many wonderful town names—"Mechanicsville" and "Schenectady", among many others. We tracked our distance from Montreal, heading north, 170 miles, 165 miles, 145 miles, 132 miles, 140 miles...did Montreal just get farther away? And what exit were we supposed to be taking anyway...one set of directions said Valley Farm Road. Only later at around exit 35 did we read the second set of directions—exit 23! Ugh. We were nearing the Canadian border, and there was no quicker route within the US that we knew of, not having a map. So we headed back, running low on gas, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.

Finally we found a gas station open late, around exit 28. "It's closer to go right up to the boarder, at exit 42" the people in the store told us as we bought a NY map and peanutbutter bars. So back up we went... Exit 42 was right at the edge of the Canadian border, and we were getting worried as we approached the border that we wouldn't find the exit before we got to Canada. Suddenly both the border and the exit came in view. In front of us was a truck, and beyond that truck was a glowing red light. "What is that?" "Canada?"

We never figured out why Canada was glowing, as we turned westward to travel through many quaint little NY towns in the pitch black (except for glowing red Canada to our right). In Mooersville we mooed, saying that though it was late we were still mooooving. We tracked our progress to Potsdam, which seemed to periodically get *farther* away rather than closer, making me think the distance was measured in a straight line rather than by the road.

We did finally get to Canton, at one AM, when I got to sleep.

Sachi

The Not So Famous

Today I was at a 'high tea'. Called so, apparently, because the tea is done on higher tables so one can eat. The person hosting it and I were talking, and she invited me:

Her: Come to my high tea birthday celebration!
Me: Ooh fun! I don't like tea, is that okay?
Her: Yup! I don't like tea either, I just like the idea of it.
Me: Me too! It seems like it would be such a nice thing to like.

So at the party we played a game called 'pot' where you put a bunch of names in a bowl, and then different teams take turns to have one person describing a name that was picked randomly out of the bowl, and the rest guessing, while being timed. A few of us being math dorks put some mathy names in....


Person: It's like the Microsoft thing! The Microsoft word one?
Team: Paperclip?
Person: No, one of the menus.
Team: Uh....file? Format?
Person: Yes! But with a different vowel.
Team: Fer-mat!

Another Person: Ok, first name looks Middle Eastern... Um. First syllable...the clock tower in London?
Team: Ben!
Person: Second syllable...like when you hang around outside a place?
Team: Loiter?
Person: Yeah kind of, but just the first syllable of that. First syllable of the last name...Like the thing you turn on a door. *makes motions*
Team: Handle!
Person: Yes! But with a different first letter. So um...last syllable....to take something with you somewhere...
Team: Bring?
Person: Past tense.
Team: Brought!
Person: Yes! Put it all together.
Team: Ben-loyt Mandel-brought.
Person: Yup!

Sachi

BANG!

In Biology class we were learning about prokaryotic cells, and eukariotic cells, and plant cells vs. animal cells, all of which doesn't sound very interesting. But we kept getting off topic and talking about diseases.

"If you want to make a really effective biological weapon, anthrax is a good choice," said Ms. P, my Biology teacher. She continued to explain how there are three types of anthrax, and the kind that you inhale is almost 100% fatal.

Someone in the class made a comment about learning how to kill people in Biology class, and Ms. P immediately responded by launching into one of her stories.

"When I was 24 and stupid," she began, "I used to teach my classes how to make a dry bomb." (presumably a bomb that uses two powders that explode when put together.)

One day, one of her students came up to her and said, 'You know how you taught us how to make a bomb yesterday?'

'Yes,' she said hesitantly. 'Well, I made one,' said the student.

'Where is it?' Ms. P asked.

'I have it with me--In my backpack.'

"This kid was smart enough to know that he shouldn't leave it at home, and he didn't know what to do with it now that he had it, so he came to me," Ms. P told us.

"And he made a lot. I used to make just a little bit, and put it on the edge of a drawer, and then asked a student to close the drawer and it would go BANG! But this kid made a lot!"

So what did they do? Exploded it of course. There was nothing else they could do to get rid of it.

As soon as she finished her story, the entire class started asking, "so how do you make a bomb?"

"I'm not telling," said Ms. P.

I couldn't help but think, though, about how exciting and fun it would have been to be in that kid's situation--having to secretly set off a bomb with this crazy Biology teacher. I guess it's not a good thing that I think that sounded like fun, but...

-Rebecca

Saturday Night Fever

It all started one Tuesday when I as hurrying across the Yale campus from multivariable calculus to ancient Greek history.

"Philip?" I heard a girl call out to me. I looked over, to see someone from the other side of the building where I live (we'll call her N-----). "Are you interested in going to the Morse Screw?"

Now, let me explain. First of all, Morse is the name of my residential college. At Yale, all students are assigned to a residential college, which is basically a building with rooms, a dining hall, a common room, and activity rooms all in one unit. Freshman do not live inside their residential colleges, but rather around a place called Old Campus, but residential colleges are still something we associate with, like one's house in Hogwarts.

Screw refers to a special Yale dance party, really called a Screw Your Roommate Dance, in which people are supposed to secretly find dates for each other and then have the two people meet up under amusing and awkward circumstances. The Freshman Screw is a big event, but this was just the Morse Screw. I had not been particularly interested in going.

"I don't know," I answered.

"Well, I have someone I would like to put you with."

I decided to be decisive. Hesitantly, I said, "OK. I wasn't sure if I wanted to, but I will just say yes."

During the next few days, I didn't think much about the Screw. Occasionally, I wondered how I was going to find out who I was going with, and how awkward the situation would be. But as the days drew nearer and nearer to the event, scheduled for Saturday night, and I heard nothing about what I was supposed to do, I began to wonder if I had been forgotten. Which would not have bothered me much; I was mostly doing it to be charitable.

So when I was given a two-dollar ticket to a Yale Symphony Orchestra concert, I decided to go. The concert would probably be over before the Screw, and I didn't even know if I would be going to the Screw. So I walked over to Woolsey Hall.

Now, it so happens that Woolsey Hall is right next to the central dining hall, Commons. And Commons is always closed on weekends. But tonight, there was something happening in there. I peaked in through a side door to be rewarded with a glimpse of eerie red lighting and lots of people milling about in robes and strange hats, and a giant banner with a dragon hanging from the wall. My first thought was, aha! That's why they close Commons on weekends. They have wizarding parties! During the intermission of the concert, I looked in again, and this time saw that under the dragon on the banner it said Whiffenpoof (Whiffenpoofs are an old Yale singing group). This was slightly disappointing, but Whiffenpoofs are still exciting even if they're muggles.

I enjoyed the concert, but on the way back, it was raining. And the path, which was paved with flagstone, had some very deep puddles. So I had to carefully step in the shallowest places I could, which was difficult in the dark, and inevitably I splashed into deep water now and then. Splash, splash, splash.

When I got back to my room, my roommate was sitting on the couch. Upon seeing me, he said that someone had called about the Screw, and that he was supposed to call her back when I arrived. Oh, I thought, this is actually going to happen. He called, nobody answered, and then my cell phone rang. I was told to go up to the fifth floor on a different entryway to meet my date.

So I quickly got dressed up, rushed over to the other entryway, and was greeted by a rather small girl in a purple dress. "Hello, Philip!" she said cheerfully. I wondered if this was my assigned date, but she wasn't on the fifth floor, so I didn't know.

"What did N----- tell you to do?" she asked me, excitedly.

"She said to go to the fifth floor."

"OK..."

So this was not my date, and I still had to climb up five flights of stairs. Up, up, up, I went, winding around corner after corner of stairwell. A last I reached the fifth floor and knocked on the door.

I was let in by another girl, who was evidently also not my date, and came into a room filled with people mingling. I felt sheepishly self-consious to see that nobody else was dressed as nicely as me. But what did it matter if I looked better than everyone else. So I went around, saying hello to people, and then N----- told me to hide behind a door. I hid there for a while, and then a girl came around and introduced herself. This must be my date, I thought to myself. But nothing was clear. We stood around for a while, neither of us knowing quite what to do. It turned out that she wasn't all that interested in going to the dance either, she had just been convinced to go and thought she would try it out, just like me. Eventually, the masses of people slowly made their way out and down flight after flight of stairs. We walked over to Swing Space (since Morse is undergoing renovation, Morse people have to live in a place called Swing Space. It's next to a cemetery and a power plant. Luckily, as a freshman, I get to live in Durfee, one of the nicest buildings on Old Campus). In masses, we went down the stairs to the basement, and followed signs to the activities room.

It was dark. It was black-lit. There was loud music. There were people flailing around, throwing light-sticks back and forth. But most of all, people flailing around. And I couldn't hear anything that anyone said unless I went really close to them. Now, I don't want you to think that I simply don't like dance parties. A week or two ago, I attended a swing dance with a live band, and it was really fun. But this was not so much. My assigned date made it clear that she did not enjoy this type of party either. After spending a short while standing awkwardly near the side of the action, we mutually decided to leave. And so we left, and that ends the exciting story of my adventurous Saturday night.

Can't wait until the Freshman Screw! Just kidding. Christmas Dinner in Commons, on the other hand, should be interesting.

-Philip

Art Supplies are Dangerous

A few days ago in Open Art Studio we delivered art supplies to different classrooms.

Sounds simple, right?

It turns out it's not as easy as it seems. It's not just giving some supplies to a teacher. There are actually three elements to the delivery:
1.) Balancing, holding, and carrying all the supplies. (Also included in this category is opening doors without dropping anything)
2.) Tracking down the teacher/teacher's room (This is only a problem if you don't know the teacher's room)
3.) Getting into the classroom, getting the teacher to notice you, and figuring out where to put the supplies.

My history teacher had ordered a lot of supplies, so one of my friends went with me and carried some of them. We were doing pretty well with number one for the time being. Number two was not a problem. Number three, on the other hand . . .

We got to the room and I looked in through the window. Just as I feared, my history teacher was not inside, and instead a another teacher who was teaching an elective there was busy talking to the class. I turned to my friend and we both kind of laughed nervously.

To make matters worse, there was someone at the pencil sharpener who had noticed me, and I think some other people might have as well. We didn't have time to figure out what was going on, because too many people would notice that we were standing out there and that could be really awkward.

At this point I started failing at number one.

I leaned on the door to get it open, because my hands were occupied. I kept pushing myself against the door until I realized that it wouldn't open unless I turned the knob. I somehow managed to rearrange the pile of markers in my hand so that I could use a couple of fingers to help turn the doorknob. Again, no luck.

I began to realize that more people in the class were noticing me. I began to get nervous. My hand began all sweaty, and I couldn't even get a grip on the doorknob. I was barely able to keep the art supplies balanced.

I tried some more rearranging, and finally I managed to turn the doorknob a little, but not enough. Even so, I was pretty sure it was now going to work, so I tried again and threw myself at the door.

Now this door has a sort of problem with getting stuck, and I suppose that's what happened to me. Unfortunately, when it gets stuck it also opens really quickly and suddenly. Immediately I found myself stumbling into the room . . . right into the boy sharpening his pencil.

Awkward.

I quickly apologized and turned to the teacher. "We have supplies for Ms. S."

The teacher stared at me for a few seconds, then looked around the room. I have a feeling she's angry at me for interrupting her class. "Put them on her desk," she responded.

I quickly and awkwardly walked/ran to the desk, my friend following close behind. By the time I got to the desk my hands were really slippery, and as I put one stack of markers down on the table the other stack decided to fall over. My friend was already done, and I had to bend down and pick up all these packages of colored pencils and skinny markers and such, and a couple packages had opened and some of the contents had spilled onto the floor. The teacher had not yet resumed her class, and all focus was on me. Quickly I piled the art supplies on the desk and escaped.

-Marianne

Insiders' Guide to the YPU

The Yale Political Union is perhaps the nation's foremost collegiate political debating organization (or at least it likes to think that it is). I attended the first meeting of the entire Political Union on Tuesday evening and had the opportunity to observe the various parties there. I thought I would provide an insiders' guide to the various parties and their characteristics:

The Liberals like to do social justice things and don't have debates, but rather "discussions" on their topics.
The Party of the Left was formed in 2006 at the nadir of the Iraq War and the left's frustration with the Bush administration, and hopes to portray coherently and well the ideas of the Left.
The Progressive Party is somewhat strange and likes to have fun; its politics are pretty much moderate, they like Theodore Roosevelt.
The Independent Party's fundamental belief goes along with their motto: "Hear all sides." That said, they're probably more liberal on average, but have, and cherish, a wide variety of viewpoints.
The Conservative Party is mildly conservative, they like the traditions of Western civilization and things like that.
The Tory Party likes to think that it is old-fashioned British.
The Party of the Right is a somewhat radical right-ist party where everyone has some kind of strong and unusual belief.

All three of the "right" parties (Conservative, Tory, of the Right) seem to like to talk about time in terms of post meridian rather than PM and like to wear suits and bowties.

I assure you that these are not typical Yale students. Still, what can you expect from tradition-loving conservatives in a decades-long tradition at a place like Yale?

-Philip

Jhaaarb! Nature is SO beautiful. . .

Since I'm sure you're all already tired of school, I'm going to write about the summer.

One of my camp counselors (we'll call her Andie) is famous for talking in her sleep. On the first day, everyone in her cabin was warned that it was not a good idea to wake her up in the middle of the night, even if it was an emergency. Andie explained that her most common response to people trying to wake her up was "Go see a Chiropractor," shortly followed by "Go see a psychiatrist." Her least common response was to actually wake up.

So one day we were just kind of sitting around, and all of a sudden Andie asks, "Did anybody in my tent hear two people having a conversation in the middle of the night?"

Nobody had. "What do you mean?" someone asked. "Did you hear one?"

"No," replied Andie, "But I did wake up in the middle of the night, and I'm sure I was in the middle of a conversation with someone else, but I can't figure out who it was or what we were conversing about."

While she was saying this, another girl walked over. "Wait, what are you talking about?"

"Last night I was having a conversation with someone in my sleep."

"Yes, you were!" said the girl excitedly. "I heard that!"

Andie was getting excited now. "What did I say?"

"Well, you said something like 'Oh, nature is so beautiful.' And then Celeste said 'Rajrjaahh!' And then you said "I know, right?'
And Celeste said 'Vhgulzaar' or something like that."

This makes me kind of wonder what they were thinking in their sleep.

-Marianne

PS: Sachi, you are now obligated to write a blog post in the next seven days

Cheeto Karma

If my history teacher can explain Hindu principles with The Terminator, I can get away with talking about Cheeto Karma...

Today was The First Day of School. After a series of 20 minute classes, I had a free period and so did my friend who is also named Rebecca. We decided to go to the cafeteria and buy some food from the vending machines since we were both hungry. I almost never use vending machines, so I decided to wait for Rebecca to go first so I could watch the order that she pressed different buttons. However, while she was buying a bottle of water, a random guy came over and started using the vending machine.

After a while, he asked me for help. I answered that I almost never use vending machines so I didn't know what to do. He said he had put a dollar in and punched the number, but nothing happened.

I saw that on the vending machine it said $1.00 in one of those LCD things that lights up with words, labeled "Credit."

"Does this mean how much money you've put in?" I asked.

"I think it's how much the thing you want to buy costs," said Rebecca. "Try pushing the return change button," she suggested to the guy.

When the button was found to be stuck, we decided that it must've not registered his dollar. Forlornly, he left.

"I don't want to use that vending machine," Rebecca said to me. We decided to try another one on the other side of the cafeteria.

I put my three quarters for a bag of cheetos into the machine (which was identical to the other one), and noticed that it now said "0.75" in the box labeled credit. Aha, so I was right, I thought to myself. Which means...

I grabbed my bag of cheetos, and stepped aside so Rebecca could buy hers. "It probably doesn't accept fives," she said, as she put her five dollar bill in the slot. As she expected, the machine spit it back out. "Do you have change for a five?" she asked me.

"You don't need one," I said. "I have an idea." A bewildered Rebecca followed me across the cafeteria to the first vending machine.

"What's your idea?" she asked.

"Look," I said, pointing to the "credit" box that still said $1.00. There's one dollar in there. Now, the number for cheetos is 48..." I pressed 48, and waited a second. The machine dispensed a bag of cheetos, and I retrieved the extra 25 cents from the extra change spot.

"So it did register his dollar..." said Rebecca, figuring it all out.

As we walked along eating our cheetos, I asked, "Why is it that you're the one who gets the free cheetos, when it was my idea?"

"I could give you 75 cents," Rebecca offered.

"Yeah, but you who you really owe 75 cents is that guy," I responded.

"I suppose I could leave a dollar in the vending machine for the next person who comes, to set my karma straight," said Rebecca. "Maybe that person would leave money in return, and it would start a whole chain."

"So everyone gets a free bag of cheetos and then pays for one, and gets good karma?" I said. "Nothing changes except there's more good karma in the world."

"Exactly," said Rebecca. "And that means the world is a better place!"

-Rebecca

P.S. I would like to acknowledge that the colloquial use of the word karma is not quite the same as the Hindu concept, and I do not wish to imply that I know what I'm talking about. :)

Can I have some red hot sauce? Hee hee hee!

Ah, Yale. Beautiful green quadrangles, towering stone gothic edifices, bells ringing, students and professors walking around the campus. A sense of prestige and high tradition fills the air. But walk just a little ways away from campus (or sometimes even within campus) and you're in New Haven, Connecticut, which, let us just say, is not quite the successful, wealthy, modern city one might enjoy wandering alone at night in.

Yesterday we had to go to a security meeting in which the Yale police told us about the dangers of New Haven along with some help from students who performed funny skits. The premise of one of the skits was of some naive Yale freshman who was eager to meet everyone in the city.

"Oh, I just need five dollars," said a person on the street.

"Oh, really? Nice to meet you. Let me see...no I have to go to the ATM...just wait...here...Oh, you need money to get to London?...Yep, one thousand dollars right here. Have fun!"

The lesson was not to give money to random people on the street. The policeman emphasized that there are ways to help the disadvantaged of New Haven through charities, but this was not a good way to do it.

This morning, since the dining halls don't start regular service until September, I walked a short ways out of campus to go to a little breakfast restaurant. Mind you, I did not wander off far. I could see the walls of Vanderbilt Hall on Old Campus just across the street. And then a woman came up to me and said, "Can you spare anything for some poetry?"

"What?"

"The Yale students call me the Poetry Lady. It's all I have to offer; I'm homeless, please give me a chance."

"No thank you," I said quickly, trying to get away.

"Could you give me some money?"

"No." Now I was walking at a fast pace, which, if you know me, you know is quite fast.

"You're so mean!"

So then I got to the restaurant, sat at the counter, and ordered my food. While I was sitting there, I heard maniacal-sounding laughter at the door.

"Hee hee hee. Can I have some red hot sauce? Hee hee hee!"

I looked over and saw that it was the Poetry Lady. Starting to feel uncomfortable sitting right near by, I was glad to see that she left almost as quickly as she had come in, with hot sauce in hand, I suppose.

Well, this is New Haven, my new home.

-Philip

I like your shoes. Do you do Lindy Hop?

Last night Sachi and I had the marvelous idea to try going to a West Coast Swing dancing event. Sachi is about to go to camp now, so I have been delegated to write this. It was certainly fun, but as you probably can anticipate, it was not free of awkwardness. Oh, why do we attract awkwardness so? Anyway, it was an interesting experience.

To start with, the location of the dance was changed unexpectedly from Arlington to Wayland, so it was good that we noticed this before we found ourselves waiting in Arlington for other people to show up and wondering what was wrong. The dance was supposed to be benefiting some well-known dance teacher who was undergoing chemotherapy, people brought food, made donations--it seemed like a nice thing to take part in.

West Coast Swing was the first type of swing dancing that we learned; we had been taking Lindy Hop lessons more recently (Lindy Hop is the original, standard type of swing dancing from the 1930s). Sachi had just bought some three-inch high-heeled 1930s-style dancing shoes that she was using for the first time. In addition to faltering sometimes while spinning (though for the most part I was impressed with her ability to dance well in them) Sachi attracted the occasional comment, "I like your shoes. Do you do Lindy Hop?" We decided that those must have been Lindy Hop shoes.

We were hoping to find our original dance teachers, who have been referred to in this blog as Matt and Susie. At first we couldn't find them (we did later), but then I did see one person that I recognized--it was a weird man that we had nick-named Purple Shirt at our old dance practice sessions because we didn't know his name and he was creepy. Sachi had several times told me that if he ever came close to asking her to dance, I should swoop by and take her before it was too late. Anyway, not only did I see him, but he had a camera around his neck and was taking pictures this way and that.

"Do you think he's the official photographer?" I asked Sachi.

"Marginally," she said. "I hope he's not just taking his own pictures because that would be...strange."

We tried to avoid his notice throughout the dance. I think we succeeded, although we probably show up in a few pictures.

The other thing about this dance was that most of the people there were really advanced, to the point that it was scary. Entertaining to watch, certainly, but...to imagine dancing with one of them? And then there was a weird thing where for certain songs, everyone would just start dance-walking in a big circle around the room. So we ended up dancing mostly with each other. Although at one point a man asked Sachi to dance, and she had an exhilarating experience of it, and I danced with my former dance teacher, Susie.

At the end, I went out in the hall to use my cell phone. When I got back, I couldn't find Sachi anywhere. She must be dancing with someone, I thought. And then I found her. So when the song seemed to be over, I went over to her, thinking I would have one more dance with her before we went home. At first the man dancing with her didn't seem to intend to let Sachi go, and then said, "Oh, you can take over now," and left. The music started up again, we started dancing, and then in was over. Oh, we just realized. That was still the end of the last song. I had just stolen that poor man's dance partner before the song was over! We were so embarrassed that we left just then. Oh, how awkward!

-Philip

My Pineapple fell in the Cake

My pineapple fell in the cake.

Except it wasn't a real pineapple. It was a plastic pineapple cup that we got at our cast party. And I dropped mine in the cake.

SPACE camp was almost over, the play was all done, the set had been struck, and it was cast party time. Excited people poured into a room decorated with grass skirts and flower leis and the occasional shrunken head.

At our seats there were these cool pineapple shaped cups that we were going to drink smoothies out of. When I went up to get food, I brought my pineapple with me to get some smoothie.

I was holding a plate and that pineapple and when I got to the end of the line I wanted to take a fork and knife and spoon. I kind of balanced my pineapple with my plate hand, and then, all of a sudden, my pineapple toppled over kind of and fell into the side of the cake.

Then, for some reason, I started laughing really hard. I returned to my table and laughed out "My pineapple fell in the cake!"

The person sitting across from me started laughing as well, and we were just sitting there, laughing, and nobody could figure out what was so funny.

Eventually, the cake was cut and eaten. Somebody realized there was a sort of indent on hers that was imprinted with a crisscross. I started laughing. That must have been the pineapple.

-Marianne

Amid the Mists of Lightning Beach

The rain pelted the wet, gray sand as shallow waves broke and shifted along the beach. It was a long trek from the Revere Beach station where we got out to the area of the beach where the changing rooms and restaurants were located. And it was raining. We looked out at the ocean, where the horizon of the sea merged with the rain and low clouds. Suddenly, the mist cleared enough that a ghostly piece of land jutted out near the horizon. Nobody else was on the beach; the landscape was isolated, misty, and gray.

Of course, we didn't mind. We decided that we wanted to go to the beach, and why let a little bit of rain stop us from having fun? But we couldn't help joking, as we trudged along the shore, about how ominously like the opening of some kind of horror movie the setting was.

"Mistake number one," said Derek, "deciding to go to the beach in the rain. Mistake number two: going into the water. Next thing you know, we'll be sucked in by some strange creature or there will be a portal to another land..."

Just then, I noticed the ghostly landscape across the water and said, "Maybe we could rent a boat and go there."

"That would be mistake number three!" someone shouted.

We walked on, conversing amongst ourselves, when suddenly Sachi pointed out Marena's hair. "Your hair is standing straight up!" she said, as others looked. Indeed, the hairs on the top of her head were pointed upward, as if affected by an electric field.

"Rebecca," I said, amused, "your hair is standing up too."

Then it dawned upon us: we were the only objects on a long, flat beach in the rain, and we all seemed to be electrically charged. I think you can see what I'm getting at....

"Too bad I didn't bring my collapsable metal cage," Derek joked. "Actually," said Sachi, seriously, "that would be really useful now. Don't be mocking about it." We decided to try to get closer to the buildings, away from the shore, before any lightning-related catastrophe struck. So we made our way up toward the street, and eventually managed to get into a pizzeria, and the rain eventually stopped, without any lightning strikes.

So we enjoyed the rest of the day at the beach, aside from a few minor flaws, such as trying to carry chocolate ice cream cones from the ice cream stand to our place on the beach and getting covered with dripping ice cream...but since I was spared that experience and only got a mild dripping of Italian ice, I can't complain too much. Needless to say, there is no reason to buy a cone when you can buy a cup--even when the person before you ordered a cone.

-Philip

The Sex Talk

This was a conversation I had with a few other people last night. Names are disguised for privacy.

Ellen: Yeah, the only sex talk my mother ever gave me was 'Don't have sex until after you're married, and don't use tampons.'
Sarah: So wait, does she not buy you tampons?
Ellen: I don't use tampons. Tampons are so weird.
Tim: You know, on a scale from 1 to 10, this is about a 2 on conversations guys don't want to hear.
Rhea: What's a 1?
Tim: Anything that starts with 'We need to talk'. Those are always bad conversations.
Rhea: So where does 'We need to talk about tampons' fall?
Tim: Now you're getting into negatives.


Sachi

Meet me at the Old Triangle!

I sometimes get very strange messages on my cell phone, which are evidently intended for someone else (wrong number, I suppose?). They usually have accents, and I've heard just about everything from the foreign-sounding "Alo? Alo?" to repeated messages from a man working at a delivery company begging me to give him directions to the place he's delivering to.

Today I turned on my cell phone to find six new messages, none of which were from anybody I knew. The first three or so seemed to be in a loud background with occasional children screaming, and a Russian-accented woman said something like, "Thees miessage is deerected to Natasha ----... Plees respondt immediately efter hearingk thees message...sahmone may be falsely usingk your identity..."

Then came an enthusiastic message from a girl's voice, saying, "Meet me at the Old Triangle!...it's where everyone's going...Yes, the Old Triangle, just one tree from the boat...I love you...see you there!"

Then came a few more Natasha calls, this time with a male Russian voice. I was repeating what I heard to Rebecca, accent and all, as we walked to the forest to meet Sachi for lunch. Just as I was repeating something about "your seeblingk Natanya" Rebecca said to Sachi, "Philip is listening to his phone messages."

Sachi responded, "Yes, I can tell. And he's talking to them too!"

Da, wis Rahssian eccent and all.

-Pheelp

I can see again!

So, yesterday, I went to the eye doctor. And I left my glasses there by accident. But that's not important. Anyway, the technician-person, who by the way was only a few years older than me, which felt really wierd, was testing my eyes, and she said something like "Are you enjoying your summer?" but she said it in a kind of serious, unnatural voice, so I felt like this whole conversation was a little awkward. But fortunately, since millions of people have asked my what I'm doing for the summer, I already knew how to answer, even though it's kind of complicated. So anyway, feeling foolish, I described my summer and stuff.

Then I had to wait for a long time in the examination room for the doctor to come, so I was looking at my information on the computer screen. It said things like "No abnormal medical history in the family except hypertension (paternal grandfather)." Bellow that, there was some boring stuff, and then, "Orientation norms: Patient is aware of people and surroundings. Recent and remote memory is intact. Disposition norms: Patient's mood is pleasant and sociable."

I found this kind of wierd, but at least I was glad that my awkward conversations hadn't given them the impression that I did not meet the orientation and disposition norms.

-Rebecca

Apple spinach stirfry pear!

Apparantly my previous post was written in ignorance. I have since found out that Zandra was not saying nonsense words to us, but rather speaking in a peculiar language called foodtongue. This language, which I happened to stumble upon, was invented by people at Mathcamp and has a vocabulary entirely of food words. If this isn't confusing enough, I found that it is very difficult to find out the meaning of a phrase, for instance, "Banana 'apple lobster' grass chocolate"* because one of the principles of foodtongue is that it should not be explained in any language other than foodtongue.

Fortunately, I was able to decipher some words by carefully watching a video of people speaking foodtongue with English subtitles. Now, I'm attempting to read the foodtongue dictionary, which defines all the words in foodtongue. Needless to say, this is a very difficult task. Maize green pepper apple tofu stew tongue-slice fish foodtongue.

*In my previous post I left out the word apple by mistake.

-Rebecca

That Magnificent Lunar Cake

In honor of the Apollo 11 moon landing 40 years ago, Rebecca, Philip and I decided to bake a moon cake.
Apparently Rebecca and Philip have never made a cake before. I could blame this entire cake fiasco on them, but then again it turned out pretty well, so I'd like to take a share of the blame, too. We started out with some cake mix, mixing it together. Unfortunately while I made Philip hold the egg yolk I had sifted, he was slowed down so as to miss the point at which the butter should have been taken out of the microwave, and our butter melted.

But we continued on, just as Neil Armstrong continued on by manually piloting the Apollo 11 when the autopilot was going to land them in a rocky zone. We baked the cake in two layers because the only suitable pans we could fine were very thin, but we figured this way we could frost between the layers. Next, on to the frosting! I had bought vanilla frosting mix, though I prefer chocolate, because I thought it looked more moon-like. However, we all decided we wanted chocolate, so in the entrepreneurial spirit of the astronauts, we decided to add cocoa powder to the frosting.

It worked pretty well! Although, the cake kind of came apart when we were putting it together, we frosted it enough that it looked decent. Then we decided to make craters. We accomplished this by sticking the teaspoon and tablespoon measuring spoons into the top.





































We added rays to the craters using uncooked spaghetti.

I'd be concerned if it were a regular cake, but for a moon cake, it was one magnificent lunar cake. (Of course that does not mean we can now divide the cake up for European colonization—the space treaty prohibits that, for one!)

And what cake would be complete without Neil Armstrong, the lunar module, and the American flag?


Sachi

A Washtub, of course!

I'm in a musical at a sort of theater camp - it isn't really a theater camp, but I'm in the theater program.

We were blocking a scene when the costume designer rushed in with a cell phone and gave it to the director. She picked it up, waited a second, and then said, very decisively, "A washtub."

A few more seconds passed by, and the director spoke again. "That is not what I was expecting!"

And then she hung up.

-Marianne

Banana Lobster Grass Chocolate

Or, How We Got a Free Dinner

Hello! Is anyone actually reading this? Or is everyone doing fun summer activities? Anyway, yesterday I went to MIT with Sachi, Philip and Marianne to visit our friend Zandra. We found her on a couch, sleeping. But that's later.

First, we bought Sachi some coffee. Because she hadn't slept in a very long time. As we tried to cross the street, Sachi reminded us, "I'm holding coffee. We have to remember to do everything at coffee speed."

"That sounds like it would be fast though," Philip commented.

"Okay, what about coffee-holding speed." That was better. So eventually we crossed the street at coffee holding speed, only to eventually decide to go back to the building we had just been in, in the hopes that Zandra would be in the ESP office there. After wandering around the building for a while, we found the ESP office.

"Is Zandra in there?" we asked.

"Yes, but she's sleeping," was the answer we got. We entered to find Zandra partially asleep on a couch in the room. We went out into the hall and sat down, and tried to talk to the half-asleep Zandra.

"Is that Gennie N----'s sister?" Sachi asked Zandra. (Names are removed to preserve anyonymity). "No," said sleepy Zandra. "That's Abby N----."

"Yes," said Sachi. "Gennie N----'s sister."

After a few more incoherent utterances, Zandra suddenly said, "It's Alex!"

Alex came over and talked to us. "I'm here because I had to drop off my glasses," he explained. A minute later Zandra said to Sachi, "Wait, why is he here?"

"His glasses," Sachi said. After some conversation, Alex said, "I wouldn't have recognized you from down the hall except that you said, 'It's Alex!'"

"What?" said Zandra. "Do I look so bad that you can't even recognize me?"

"No," said Alex. "I coudn't see you because I don't have my glasses."

"Oh," said Zandra. "That kind of glasses!" A little later we discovered that Zandra was creating a puzzle hunt for her friend. She was much more awake by this point. We asked if we could look at it and she said if we tested the puzzles for her, she would bring us to dinner. We consented, and got to work.

The first clues we recieved told that we had to give some kind of sacrafice. It said, "a sacrafice of any nature" and somewhere else, that the sacrifice was "heathen's choice". We spent a long time debating whether or not that meant we could give anything as a sacrifice, until eventually I decided to "call a priest" which the instructions said you could do for help. We pretended to call the priest (Zandra) and I asked, "What is a heathen?" She said "you."

This was enough, we decided that it must mean we can give anything. Instead of giving real objects, since we weren't really doing the puzzle hunt, we were supposed to write what we would give on a piece of paper and give it to Zandra. "Can we sacrifice God?" asked Sachi, loudly, as someone walked by.

So we did, and the sacrafice was accepted. Our next puzzle resulted in a code that turned out to mean "Apple lobster". We went to Zandra and said "Apple lobster", and she responded, "Banana lobster grass chocolate." We didn't know if this was important or not, so we wrote it down, while an amused Zandra smiled at the fact that we were looking for clues in her nonsense. It soon turned out that that was irrelevant and we had to use the same method to decode a different message to get our answer.

Eventually it was time for dinner, only we were late. At this point Zandra revealed to us that we were going to Junction dinner, Junction being a program for high schoolers that ESP was running. After running to the building, Zandra deposited us into a line and disapeared. When we got to the front of the line we realized why it was so urgent to get there on time; Zandra had to serve food.

-Rebecca

An Excusable Mistake, Of Course

Hi everyone! No one has posted in a while, so, with nothing else to do I thought I'd post something here. This is actually a story that happened a few months ago. (While we actually went to school!) Anyway, yeah.

I was in math class, listening to the teacher explain some concept or other of math. A student, Dan, got up from his seat and went to the front of the room where the teacher keeps a tissue box, graph paper, a stapler, etc. He reached into the tissue box and found it empty.

"Sorry," said the teacher, "we're all out."

He walked back to his seat. The person who sat behind him, Max, reached into his binder and pulled out a piece of graph paper, and gave it to Dan.

Dan looked at him strangely, then blew his nose on the paper.

"Oh," said Max. "You wanted a tissue? I thought you wanted graph paper!"

-Rebecca

Is Anyone Sitting There?

Philip and I went to prom earlier this week, as Philip mentioned in his earlier post. I was a little nervous about going to prom—being only a sophomore, I hardly knew anyone there. Even worse, I half knew a lot of people in that awkward "you're in my photo class but I've never talked to you before" kind of way. So it was just a stew of awkwardness at first. Possibly one of the worst set ups was the tables—the prom was held in a giant ballroom with lots of tables in the middle, circular tables with ten chairs each. I guess if you're going to arrange tables this is the way to do it—there was certainly no way to have everyone sit at the same table. But it made for an awkward time of trying to find the people one knows and gather around the same table.

Philip and I wandered around, looking for a friend of his we had seen earlier, but to no avail. We couldn't find her anywhere! We wove in and out of tables, like vultures circling over prey. We got some weird stares. I felt more than a little awkward. "Maybe we can find some other person to sit with?" I ventured, after our third round of hovering and circling tables. Philip agreed, and soon we spotted another one of his friends, a tall curly haired boy. We attempted to greet him and follow him to his table, only to lose track of him. Shoot! "How did we lose him?" I asked Philip. "He's really tall and distinct." Philip had no clue either, but it was back to table hunting for the moment.

We eventually spotted a table with two open seats left that was populated by a group Philip was familiar with. So we sat down and started talking, when the person next to Philip said, "I think these seats are saved for ___ and ___" (I don't remember their names at all.) And it was back to table searching again!

By that time all I wanted to do was find some table that wasn't going to mind if we sat down there, regardless of how friendly we were with them. Anything but the awkward table circling rounds that we were making would be wonderful. Finally, Philip spotted another table, with several open spots. "Can we sit here?" He asked. "If you can find a chair!" They responded, and we noticed that another table had stolen some of the chairs and silverware from our table so that they could fit more than ten people at their table. Well, I thought, one brief moment of awkward chair stealing would be better than more circling, so I stole the chair from another table, and the silverware, too. Success! This would be our refuge from the dance floor and everything else for the rest of the night. We sat down and that ended the long loops of awkward table searching.


Sachi

Anti-logic

This morning Marianne was exhausted. While she was lying on the couch, perhaps not completely conscious, while I was reading, we had this conversation multiple times:

Her: Stop reading that book!
Me: Do you want to read it?
Her: No.
Me: Than why can't I read it?
Her: Because you need to sleep.
Me: Why do I need to sleep?
Her: Because I'm really tired.

Marianne, who later said the only part of that she remembered was not understanding why I kept asking her if she wanted to read the book, asked me to post this. :P

-Rebecca

Boston and Math: No End to Excitement

Today my grade took a field trip to Boston. The idea was that we would walk around Copley Square and do math problems relating to what we saw in a sort of scavenger hunt-like manner.

One of the math problems had to do with Starbucks. Because we knew we wouldn't all fit in there, our group leader sent two or three people to find the numbers. As they looked around, we waited outside.

Soon a man walked up to us and began to speak. "When you get back on my bus, tell the person wearing that Obama shirt so proudly that it's not okay to make jokes about special education and special olympics. I don't like that. It's not okay on my bus."

One of my group members cut the man off. "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean," she said.

"Jay Leno hosted the tonight show for seventeen years! He didn't even get fired, because it's not okay to make fun of special education. If Jay Leno sat down with a special ed kid for one day, just one day, what do you think would have happened? It's not okay!"

The girl spoke again. "Excuse me, sir, are you our bus driver?"

"No, I just saw this boy . . ."

"Well I still like Obama."

"Don't get all caught up in the glory. That boy wearing an Obama shirt better know this. When he gets on your bus . . ."

This time my group leader spoke up. "There's another school here. I don't think he was on our bus." That was enough to divert the strange man.

Later, we were going in an elevator in the Prudential building. There was a sign: "Capacity: 4000 lbs." Someone had scratched off parts of the four, so it said: "Capacity: 1000 lbs."

The eleven people in my group crammed into the small elevator. When everybody was in, the group leader pushed the second floor button and the elevator began to emit a high pitched beeping noise. The door didn't close.

Around this time I noticed the sign. If each person in our group weighed 100 pounds (which is a low estimate), than we would be exceeding the capacity.

The elevator continued to screech, so I pointed out the sign and said to everyone: "Some of us have to leave. We're too heavy for the capacity!" I stepped out of the elevator, expecting others to follow.

Just then, the elevator doors closed. I could faintly hear the laughing of my group members and a long, drawn out "WAIT!" from our group leader.

--Marianne

Saying Hello to Simon

On Monday, as you may or may not know, Sachi and I went to the prom together. It was very nice, but of course, we managed to stumble upon some awkward situations. Sachi is going to tell some stories, but I was delegated to tell this one (because I was the main subject of the awkwardness).

We had by this time already managed to find a table at which to sit (this was not an easy task, I assure you--Sachi will get into more detail about that) and we walked towards the line to get our buffet dinner. I thought I ought to say hello to Simon, who I saw near the buffet area, and since Sachi apparently knew him also from orchestra, I thought it would be nice to have a brief salutation.

So I was about to walk up to him and say hello, when someone else nearby went and started talking to him. The trouble was, whenever I tried to get a chance to say hello, something else would catch his attention, and he would be looking away. At one point, Gabe commented on the fact that he had tied his own bow-tie or something like that. "Is it crooked?" he asked, and I, still trying to catch his attention, said, "maybe slightly." But instead of catching his attention, I ended up with him briefly saying, "I can fix it in the bathroom," and then wandering off.

As we were getting on line for the food, I tried one last time. Looking up at him (for he is quite tall) from a strange angle, I said, "Hello." I'm not sure if he noticed, but I immediately regretted my intrusion. Sachi looked at me, smirking. "Well, that was a failure. Now I suppose I have to run far away and hide," I commented embarrassedly.

Later in the evening, when the dancing was taking place, I came across Simon once more. This time I was not trying to start a conversation or anything; I was just dancing. But Simon was dancing especially violently, and his long, pointy elbows kept hitting me. I tried to move out of the way, but I think somehow Sachi got into the position I had been in before. Whatever happened, Sachi soon said to me, "I've had enough jabs from his elbows," and we moved farther away.

-Philip

We're not in Japan . . or are we?

I have Swine Flu.

Well, It's probably not actually Swine Flu, but rather a different strain, although I did have a flu shot so I don't know. Anyway, the doctor perscribed Tamiflu for us - I get a normal dose, and Philip and Rebecca get preventive doses so that they don't get it in time for Philip's graduation and my Bat Mitzvah.

Philip decided to do some internet research (I don't know why he wanted to so much, but he had already looked up flu symptoms and whatnot)and looked up Tamiflu. Soon he rushed into the TV room, laughing a little.

"Aparently Tamiflu has been known to cause hallucinations. And people jump off balconeys because of Tamiflu and run in front of cars."

I was horrified. Three fifths of our family was now on a drug that made people suicidal!

"But mainly in Japan," he added.

Rebecca and I exchanged glances. "What does that mean?" she asked.

Now Philip really began to laugh. "95% of all of these cases were in Japan," he explained.

We burst out laughing. "So we don't have to worry about it, I guess, because we're not in Japan," one of us mentioned."

I butt in: "Unless we really are in Japan, and we're just hallucinating that we're here."

-Marianne

Is this a practical joke!?

I walk into the TV room, 2 sheets of paper stuck to a pink stapler in my right hand.

"Is this a practical joke?" I yell.

My sister Marianne looks at me strangely. "What? What happened?"

"Okay, look at this stapler. Something or someone removed the little metal thing that bends the staple into it's bent shape. The staple went right through the plastic of the stapler. This paper is stapled to the stapler!!"

As I'm pulling the staple out of the stapler in order to free my chemistry homework, Marianne admits, "that was a practical joke, but not an intentional one. The metal thing fell off while I was using it, and I didn't bother to put it back on. You should go look for it."

So I go look for it, and after a few seconds give up in favor of continuing my homework.

Returning to the other room, I tell Marianne, "I couldn't find it, so I made a temporary solution. I put a piece of paper on the stapler that says "DO NOT USE."

"Aww, you should've left it," says Marianne with a smile.

-Rebecca

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Well, I'm sure our blog has been enjoying its nap, but now is as good a time as ever to wake it up... Appropriate analogy given the story I have to tell...

The story begins in the middle of the night with me sleeping and having a dream. Someone came up to me and told me something important I had to do. As soon as he left, I suddenly realized that I had not understood at all what it was I was supposed to do. Even worse, I woke up, and I tried desperately to remember the words he had said, but I couldn't recall them. It was one of those moments when you wake up from a dream and you remember what kind of thing was happening but you can't remember at all what it actually was.

Still half asleep, I immeadiately got out of bed and walked to my parents room. As my mom started to wake up, I frantically tried to explain my situation to her.

"Someone told me something important that I have to do," I said. "What was it?"

"What? What are you talking about?" said my mom. "Was this a dream?"

"Yes--in my dream someone told me something I had to do and I forgot what it was!" I suddenly began to realize that the fact that it happened in a dream meant it didn't matter. "I guess I'll go back to bed now," I said sheepishly and returned to my room. It wasn't until the morning that I realized how absurd my behavior had been. :)

-Rebecca

Stopping for Pedestrians

When I walk to school in the morning, I have to cross Walnut Street. It is a rather busy road, and I usually have to wait for a while before there are no cars coming in either direction and I can walk across. Which is something that I don't much mind. There are bound to be some natural troughs in traffic when I can safely cross the street. What does bother me is when cars try to stop for you when there is still traffic on the other side of the street. Then you can't just ignore the car that stopped for you, but you also have to force the other cars to stop as you walk across, which leads to confusion and, well, awkwardness.

I had one of those experiences this morning. Rebecca and I reached Walnut Street just as a large amount of traffic started coming on both sides. We could easily have waited for the end of the Poisson clump, except that another pedestrian began to cross just before we got there. So the traffic pattern was disturbed as cars on both sides stopped to let the pedestrian cross.

A few seconds later, Rebecca and I were at our crossing place, and we thought we would wait as if none of that had happened. The trouble was that one car saw us and remained stopped to let us cross. But instead of immediately taking the opportunity, we stood for a while. Then, just as it occurred to us that we should go across, the car realized that we were not crossing and started to move. So we of course had to stop again, just as the car that had started to move stopped again for us and started waving his hand for us to cross.

So we had no choice now. We started to cross, only to find that the other side of the road was paying no attention to us, cars zooming by at full speed. We stood in the middle of the road for a while, hoping that the car coming towards us would see us and stop. It didn't, but the next one did, and we crossed.

I don't like to complain about people with good intentions, but crossing streets would really be much smoother if only nobody tried to make exceptions to the law to be nice to you.

-Philip

Juggling Pianos

I play the piano. I've seen pianos open with their innards showing, their hammers exposed, their strings ready to be plucked by hand. I play a rather nice Steinway nearly every day. I've also played countless other baby grand pianos and - once - a big grand piano. I've seen piano keys taken out and put back in. I thought I had mastered the world of pianos.

But apparently the world of pianos is not the same as the world of keyboards.

In music today we were supposed to find a piano to share with someone else or a keyboard. Now, my school has six pianos in two rooms. We were in one room - the music room - so I thought I would have a better chance of getting a piano if I immediately went into the auditorium and claimed one of the two in there. However, a few other people had the same idea and I found myself mixed up in a crowd of four or five people, which is a lot of people when you only have two pianos. By the time I figured out what was going on both pianos were taken.

I bolted back to the music room and eyed the nearest (and worst) piano. There was only one person on the bench. But out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody else moving for it. Desperate, I launched myself at the piano bench, but, attempting to steer clear of people in the way, I missed. My competitor stared at me for a second with a somewhat worried look, then took a seat on the piano bench.

I quickly scanned the other three pianos, but they were all taken. Alas, I had no choice but to take a keyboard. There was no chance of me getting a spot on one of the pianos.

I waited in line for one of the nine or so keyboards that my school owns in addition to all the pianos. When it was my turn, only two remained: a broken one and one that was unusually large. Naturally, I was handed the unusually large one.

Handed is an understatement. In order to move that thing you needed to cradle it in your arms for extra support. Heaved would be a better word. At any rate, I was heaved the keyboard, and I grappled it, holding the large hunk of plastic with both hands and both arms.

It wasn't even that the keyboard was so heavy. On the contrary, it was rather light, and I had no trouble supporting its weight. But let me tell you, it was awkward. If I held it horizontally, it would crash into objects, people, and other keyboards as I walked, leaving a trail of ruin behind me. If I held it vertically, it would simply slide to the ground (that thing was slippery!). The only solution was an approximately forty-five degree angle. But what this lacked in inconvenience was made up for with awkwardness.

To carry a keyboard at a forty-five degree angle requires leaning slightly to the left while holding it more off to the right, taking the bottom with the right hand and supporting the top with the left. This causes a sort of limp-like walk, adorned by the occasional stumble. Even worse is what everybody knows will happen if you actually do stumble - and then fall. I don't want to be accused of manslaughter.

But I managed to carry - or lug - the keyboard to the nearest outlet, at which point I took an adapter, which had been balance precariously on the keyboard as I lugged it across the room. The teacher had put it there as I grappled the piano. I plugged the adapter into the outlet, unwinding the wire. I thought I had finally conquered the keyboard.

But when I looked for the familiar power plug on the keyboard, I found a smooth surface - they had put it somewhere strange. Back to the lifting of pianos, but this time I was on my back, holding it up with my legs while searching with my hands as well as eyes for the hole it plug the cord in.

I never did play that keyboard.

-Marianne

It must be the swine flu...

I've been hearing a lot about swine flu lately.  It's strange, since there really isn't much risk from it here, but people can't help but talk about it.  There were at least two instances today in which a student with a cold came into class saying, "I have swine flu," and then a teacher told the student to sit far away from everyone else, and then the student said that he/she didn't actually have swine flu, he/she was just saying that.  

The subject also popped up in some more unexpected places.  

My English class, for example.

My English teacher has a vicious sense of humor, to put it lightly.  So of course, she couldn't help but make comments about swine flu interspersed throughout class.  I have collected a few quotations from her: 

When someone mentioned being sweaty (for it was unseasonably hot) my teacher interjected, "Horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow."  

Talking about how (in her opinion, anyway, and she wrote the writing handbook, so it must be official) when writing a list you don't use a comma before the and unless there is an and within the last item in the list, she used the example of ham and eggs.  "Except it isn't Kosher and it suggests swine flu."  

Later, for whatever reason, there was another mention of swine flu.  "Swine flu," she said in a Russian accent, "eeit keels you."

She smirked dryly as she said it, amused with herself.  Yes, she has a strange sense of humor.    

-Philip 

You would like figs.

So it was another day at Newtonite, as I sat waiting for the clock to hit 6 so I could go home and study for the zillion tests I had the next day.
Our adviser broke the hush of typing keys with a groan.
"I brought these lemon bars at Shaw's," she started. "But when I got home, I realized they were fig bars!"
The room let out a collective retch of disgust.
"Hey, I love figs!" I said cheerfully.
"You DO??" she asked.
"Yea, I love them! My dad loves 'em even more, it's kind of a family thing I guess you could say.
"He DOES??"
"Yea!"
From across the desk Eli lets out his usual comment.
"You would. You would like figs."
"What does that even MEAN?" I asked him threateningly. "God, that's all you ever say. You would. What does that even mean??"
"We have an expression in the North End for people like you," our adviser said jokingly, and made a semi-vulgar gesture at him. "Tomorrow, I'll bring you those bars," she tells me.

The next day I walk into shop. She grunts at me, signaling me to stay put. She dashes into her office and comes out with three plastic containers of fig bars (which I had already forgotten about.) The rest of the day I walked around with them in my bag, and ate them as soon as I got home.
Yes, I would do that.
And damn, they were good.

Since when is going to the bathroom so complicated?

Although I'm nothing compared to some people on this blog, I'm pretty clumsy. No - not fall over your feet clumsy (Although I have occasionally been known to trip on nothing visible), but rather an incompitent sort of clumsy. And this gets me into some awkward situations - especially ones dealing with public bathrooms.

I was at a restaurant earlier this evening. It was a sort of small restaurant, and it had one of those single stall bathrooms that are really rather nice because they don't have doors that refuse to lock or stalls that make me feel kind of clostriphobic. However, being used to the other type, they confuse me and bring out my clumsy side.

I walked into the bathroom expecting it to have at least two stalls. I saw a sink on one side, so I instinctively turned the other direction to go into the stalls. But there were none, just a flat wall. I turned to the back wall, the only I had not examined, and found that there were no stalls, just a toilet.

I laughed at my foolishness and proceeded with the routine, until I came to washing my hands. I'm used to the cold water being on the right and the hot on the left, so I effortlessly turned the water to a nice, hottish warm temperature. But, to my surprise, it was cold, and didn't get warmer. I put in more and more hot water, but it just got colder and colder. I turned off the cold water, and it got almost unbearably cold, until I realized my mistake and reversed. They really should get the temperatures right.

Okay, problem done. I've washed my hands and the only step left is easy: drying them. What a relief.

Or not. This bathroom was equipped with an automatic towel dispenser. When I first used one I was quite good at it, but I've gone down hill since then. I waved my hand in front of the little glowing red dot, but nothing happened. I poked it a few times until, finally, the paper towel rolled out.

And it kept on going!

That's right. It didn't stop until it was at least twice the legnth it was supposed to be. I carefully picked out the line meant to rip on and cautiously tore the paper towel off. I did a messy job of it, though. It was a wavy rip that went above and below the line. I wonder what the next person to use the paper towels thought of it.

Finally, my trip was over! I quickly reached for the doorknob, eager to leave the confusing bathroom, but the door wouldn't open. I even manually locked it and unlocked it, even though the door automatically unlocks when the doorknob it turned. But it wouldn't open. IT WOULD NOT OPEN! Finally, exhasperated, I kicked the door, and it swung open so fast it was hard to believe it was ever stuck. I then realized I had been trying to open the door by pulling when I was really supposed to push.

- Marianne

P.S.: Yes, I did try to write this with a slightly Helenish tone, maybe because we haven't had much of it recently. I'm not sure if I succeeded

Fortunately I'm 5'2''

My English teacher was talking about a house in Salem called the House of Seven Gables that had a secret passageway behind a fireplace.

"The average height of a man in the 17th century was 5'6'', and a woman was about 5 feet. Now, I'm 4'11''--"

"You're a legal midget," someone in the class interupted.

"What?" said Ms. R.

"If you're under 5 feet and over 15 years old, you're legally a midget," said the student.

"What does that mean?" asked Ms. R. "Do I get money from the government or anything?"

"You can get handicapped parking," the kid said.

"Really? Where have you been all these years?!" said Ms. R, excited. After this revalation that she was a midget, Ms. R continued her story, about how the secret staircase was too small for normal sized adults to walk through, so there was a regular-sized staircase built for turists that led to the secret room.

"The only people who could walk in the secret staircase were the children, me, and my mother," Ms. R described. "When we got to the chamber at the top of the stairs, everyone had to bend over except the children, me, and Ma."

-Rebecca :)

Peer Pressure is When You're Pressured by Peers

Well, I am done with my first college overnight visit, to the University of Chicago. I have decided not to go there, for several reasons, not just because of the story that I am about to tell, although it is fun to pretend that.

I was assigned to a dormitory called Shoreland that was a mile away from the campus, near the lake, and we had to take a bus to get to it. The building apparently used to be a hotel in the 1920s, and now it was old and they were going to stop using it. My room was on the eleventh floor. When I got to the room that I was assigned to, I was slightly surprised that there didn't seem to be any space on the floor for me to sleep on. My roommate assured me that he would somehow manage to clean it up enough that I could lay out my sleeping bag, and then I went out to meet the other people to go to dinner.

It turned out that our dining hall was on campus, which seems a bit counter-intuitive to me since we were living a mile away from campus. We took the bus to campus and ate dinner at our House table (I heard someone comment that college was like Harry Potter--although I think Yale would be the real equivalent to Hogwarts). Then we went to an extra-curricular fair of some sort, in which there were tables and performances to see.  This included an improv show, one act of which involved a parody of an anti-peer pressure PSA.  

When this was over, we could not find our hosts, or as we preferred to call them, our people. We decided to take the bus back to campus, but we missed the first one. By the time the next bus arrived, there was quite a crowd of people who wanted to go back to Shoreland, and we all managed to fit--completely compacted in, like sardines, as they say.

Back at the dormitory, we decided to take the stairs up the eleven floors instead of the elevator just for fun. Not knowing quite what to do or where our "people" were, we sat in the common room for a while. Occasionally, some college students would walk by, we might say some things to them, and then they would disappear. At one point, however, a boy who realized that we had nothing to do offered to take us to his room, where we could have some "fun."

"What are we going to do here?" someone wondered.

"Probably just sit, like before, except now we'll be in a room."

We walked in, to see that there were several college students in there, some of them sitting around a table playing some kind of game with chips and drinking yellowish drinks out of small glasses.
 
"We have some orphaned prospies," our introducer said, explaining that our hosts had left us alone, so we were orphaned (and prospies meant prospective students).  

"We're just sheep," one of us commented, "and we just need a shepherd to tell us what to do."

It turned out that they wanted to take us to a fraternity party.  "Anyone who wants to go, write your name and your cell phone number on this blackboard."  A bunch of us proceeded to do so, one by one.  

One girl said, "I was thinking that I would stay here." 

But a college student girl, wearing a tight mini skirt, said, "Oh, but the frat party is part of the tour!  You should come."

"Oh, in that case, I'll come."  She then wrote her name on the board.  

Soon mini skirt girl offered us drinks.  "Does anyone want a drink?  I always like to have a drink before I go to the parties because there's no guarantee that at the party you will actually get one!"  She then added, "I'll make them especially weak for you."  

At this point, I decided to discreetly escape from the room, and I went to join my host, who was working on an essay and playing Guitar Hero. 

Strange, after seeing that improv show to then experience the kind of situation that always seems to be just a crazy made-up example.

-Philip 

Strange things happen after Gym tests

We seem to have a lack of blog entries this month, so...

A few days ago in Gym we had the infamous fitness test. For those who don't know, the fitness test is a written test at the conclusion of the fitness unit for which you have to know where all your major muscles are, how to calculate your target heart rate training zone, and other things that are useless in most areas of life.

Being in Mr. P's class, it actually wasn't so bad. On the contrary, it was very easy, as it was pretty much the same thing I had last year. I finished quickly, and so did most of the rest of the class. After turning in our tests, we really didn't have much to do. I considered reading, but instead occupied myself by attempting to communicate with sign language. The problem was, neither I nor Alpha (who I was trying to talk to) knew sign language.

This lulled to a stop after five or so minutes and I sat, doing nothing, until Alpha caught my attention and picked up a "ball" from the floor, throwing the imaginary object in my direction. I realized she was playing the imaginary balls game, a game in which you play catch with balls that don't exist.

I caught the ball and morphed it into a frisbee, throwing it back. Alpha morphed it into a football and threw it to me. I morphed it into a volleyball and threw it to her. We continued this for some time until Beta (who was sitting next to us) and soon Gamma (who was also sitting close by) began to play.

The ball, at the moment resembling one of those giant exercise balls that are really, really big and fun to bounce on, was in my possession when I realized half the class was watching us. I looked around awkwardly, smiled, and quickly tossed the ball to Gamma. She also seemed to notice around this time and made eye contact with one of the people watching, attempting to throw her the ball. She shook her head.

In about five more minutes we had approximately ten players: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, and me. Only the four of us (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and I) were really doing anything, but occasionally I would throw it to Epsilon, or Theta, or sometimes Iota. Zeta and Eta wouldn't take the ball from me, only from Epsilon, Iota, Delta, and each other, and Delta was out of my line of vision, blocked by a taller than normal boy.

At this time let me introduce three more characters: Kappa, Lambda, and Mu. Kappa is a friend of mine who was sitting at the other side of the room. She noticed that everyone else in the room was playing a game, and observed us for a while before picking up on the rules. She then threw an imaginary ball at Lambda, who happened not to be playing and found the entire thing stupid. Lambda gave Kappa a look as if to say "What the hell?" and continued to try to ignore us.

Soon after, I was bored with the ten players, some of whom didn't really play, and I threw the ball to someone new: Mu. Mu stared at me for a second, then processed that 

I had thrown a ball to him. He glanced at me, then the "ball," and then me again. I motioned for Mu to throw it, and he did, then began to ignore us in the same manner Kappa was doing.

~Marianne

What do you call those crescent-shaped fruits again?

I was eating at Cabot's yesterday, along with much of my extended family that was visiting for Easter. When we were ordering, the waitress asked me if I wanted French fries. I did not want them; I remembered that if you don't ask for them they give you a crescent-shaped piece of cantaloupe. Now, I don't really like cantaloupes, but for some reason at that moment I wanted one. So I started to say, "doesn't it come with one of those..." only to realize that I couldn't think of the word for cantaloupe. I swished my hand in a crescent shape several times, not thinking of what to call it. Eventually I gave in and just said, "one of those fruits."

The worrisome thing is that this kind of thing happens to me more than one would think.

-Philip

Political Drama in the SFA

I haven't had many funny or awkward stories to tell in the last few weeks, but many interesting things have been happening. I thought maybe I could write about interesting stories, even if they do not quite fit into the category of funny or awkward.

First of all, I am in the exciting period of my life in which I receive college acceptances and have them all trying to flatter me because they want me to choose them. I haven't yet decided where I will go, but fear not--I have good options, and I will be spending the April vacation visiting my top choices and spending the night (these may or may not be the subject of future blog stories; I have already attended something of a cocktail party for Boston-area students admitted to Yale, which was a little bit strange, I suppose).

My other interesting story is the big controversy over junior open campus restrictions in the SFA. As you might already know, a junior representative submitted a proposal on March 25 that would extend the current sophomore open campus rule to juniors (placing juniors with Ds, Fs, or Ns in study halls). I was opposed to this because it seemed unlikely to help the situation, as well as the fact that it does not recognize students' responsibility or the fact that different students are having trouble for different reasons. Anyway, it seemed as though the majority of the SFA supported the proposal, although a significant amount of people had qualms about it too.

During the next few days, the opposition movement began. I had been discussing the proposal with Sachi, and together we developed a stance on the issue. Sachi then wrote the Facebook note that you might have seen. Soon enough, a sophomore representative on the SFA created a Facebook group for people against the proposal, and soon a grand discussion and argument took place on the internet.

It soon became clear to me that if we wanted people to vote against the proposal, we would need our own alternative proposal. The reasoning for the proposal was to help students academically. I thought we needed some way to provide help for students without restricting open campus. That way, I hoped, people who would otherwise have voted for the restriction proposal would consider my alternative option, and maybe prefer it.

One night as I was pondering the problem, it came to me: students would meet individually with counselors to come up with plans and suggestions for receiving help on a case-by-case basis (case-by-case has since become one of my main phrases on this issue). That way the school could provide a way for students to receive help without infringing on their responsibility and (hopefully) providing a more effective way of achieving the same ends as the original proposal.

I talked to people, made agreements, convinced people of things, subtly sometimes. I almost scared myself about how much of a politician I was being. But never mind that. I wasn't too bad. Anyway, I wrote up a counter-proposal with help from Sachi and hoped to submit it at the next SFA meeting, April 8.

I showed up at the meeting, found that the library copier needed a password, so I quickly went downstairs to Graphic Arts to have thirty copies made. I rushed back up, just in time. As the discussion went on about the junior open campus restriction proposal, I found that some people seemed to want similar ideas to what was in my proposal. But unfortunately, the chair did not let me distribute my proposal. I made a few comments, but that was all. As it is, the majority of the SFA will probably vote for the restriction proposal, but if they see my paper, which is very relevant, I think I might be able to change just enough votes.

I hope.

I think I will be able to distribute my proposal at the next meeting before discussion resumes on the other proposal, because the student chair is going to be leading next week and I was talking to him. But it is not clear how this will turn out.

If you care, come to the next meeting, Wednesday April 15, at 7:00 AM in the library. If people see how much we care about this, maybe we can get their votes.

-Philip

False Memories

This isn't new, but the blog could use an update.

You may remember this quote from a while ago:

Me (paraphrased): I wish I liked hamburgers. It would be very useful to like them, because they're like sandwiches, but more filling, and they are served at almost every restaurant, and it would be very convenient if I liked them. But I don't.

Derek: That sounded like an audition monologue.

Some time after I had said this, I was talking to my mother about my dislike for hamburgers when she casually mentions, "You've never actually tried a hamburger because you never wanted them as a kid."

I stared at her. "Are you kidding me? I always thought I hated them because you would tell me I did and cook me other foods instead."

She denies that she ever gave me the impression I hated hamburgers, but I still think it was her fault. All those years I went around thinking I hated hamburgers...I do like hamburgers, and since this last conversation I have tried my first hamburger at the age of 15.

So, alright, I can forgive my mother for doing that once. But this was not an isolated incidence!

One of the things other people sometimes comment on is the fact that I never put my hair up. And the story I have always told them is that my mother always made me put my hair up in elementary school every single day and since then I don't wear it up. My mother overheard me telling this story and denied it was true, relentlessly arguing that she did no such thing.

I wonder what other lies I've been basing my life habits off of...


Sachi

Achoolera

   Today in community time (a very pointless class that is similar to the old B-block) we were supposed to do homework or read. The problem was, we didn't have any homework. So we had to read.
   Most people didn't have any books with them, and since my community is in my science classroom, there were science textbooks on the tables. One boy started reading one of them.
   "What is Chloria?" he asked. The class looked around, confused.
   "You mean chlorine? asked the teacher.
   "No - chorine-a," the student (we'll call him Joseph) insisted. "It keeps talking about it in this book. It says that it is in water."
   "That's chlorine," laughed one student in the room.
   "But why would a book about the human body be talking about chlorine?" I asked.
   "It's not!" shouted Joseph. "It's Chlorine-a!"
   At this point the teacher stood up and went over to Joseph's desk and looked at the book. "Not chlorine-a," she said. "Cholera."
   Students exchanged glances. Cholera sounded nothing like chlorine.
   "But what is it?" Joseph persisted.
   "It's a disease," answered the teacher.
   "But what is it?" he asked.
   "A disease," somewhat said.
   "But what does it do?"
   "Well," the teacher began, "people die from it..."
   "But what does it do?!" Joseph said in a rather loud voice.
   "Vomitting, diarrhea... I'll look it up," muttered the teacher.

   Later, in that same class, Joseph sneezed. He is one of those people (as am I) who doesn't sneeze normally, but rather makes a big scream-like exaggerated sneezish sound completely involentarily.
   "Joseph, you're full of bologna," the teacher muttered.
   "What was that?" snapped Joseph.
   "She said you were full of bologna," laughed one student.
   "But that was a real sneeze," Joseph responded. He seemed completely confused.
   "Of course it was," the teacher replied.
   "No, really, that's how I sneeze! I sneeze like that all the time! Do you want to hear how I fake sneeze? That's more realistic than a fake sneeze. Here's my fake sneeze: ACHOO!"
   At this point the entire class was laughing, and the teacher was looking at Joseph strangely. "What are you talking about? I never said it was a fake sneeze. Did I?"

-Rev. Samuel W. Wheet

Googlestalk

Today, I had a free last block of the day, but since I had to wait for the bus, I couldn't go home. Instead, Jared and I spent the time googling people in the library.

First we googled Jared. Turns out, according to one genealogy site at least, "Jared Kalow", son of Bruce and Celia and brother of Julia and Jonny, is supposed to be dead. His parents really are named Bruce and Celia and this brother and sister are Julia and Jonny. Something's a little strange here...

A little while later, Jared decided to google the name of the person I had a crush on earlier this year. He couldn't spell his last name, so I spelled it out loud for him. Unfortunately, just as I was spelling it, the said person we were googling walked by. Twice.

Then we decided to google our math teacher. The first few results were normal things, like "Ms. B tutors after school" and a ratemyteachers.com result... but then we found a youtube video at the bottom of the first page. So, naturally, we watch it. We skipped over the beginning parts, until you found her. Laughingly, we called over another girl in our math class, and the three of us watched a little more. It was pretty loud in the library, so we couldn't hear what the video was saying, so when we got the the "after-sex" scene, it was a bit shocking. There was our math teacher, and a half-naked guy, under rumpled sheets. Can you say TRAUMA?

How am I ever supposed to go to math class now?

<3 Helen

You owe me a salad and a half!

I've been involved in several photography projects as of late.

As we all know, photography projects can produce strange situations. About a week ago, Rebecca and I were helping Sachi with a photography project in which pictures would be taken of visual puns (such as "a wok in the park," a "pan tree" and things like that). So of course, we had to carry pans and a wok through the forest and to the park. The park was by the elementary school where Sachi works. When we got there, Sachi saw to her dismay that the playground and the park were filled with students that would recognize her, as well as faculty members. She then proceeded to cringe in embarrassment that they might see her carrying pans. At one point, she tried to hide them behind me (I don't know how this was supposed to work, but what do I know?) Nobody noticed her, and we then took some pictures. But walking back, we forgot about people seeing us as we noticed a fallen-down sign.

"We have to take a picture of that," someone said.

"What pun could it be used for?"

"Seinfeld!" Rebecca realized, excitedly.

We were so caught up in taking pictures of the felled sign that we forgot that people might see us. Suddenly, some people in the playground recognized Sachi. Sachi was quite embarrassed indeed.

"What are you doing? Trying to drive the snakes out of Ireland?" someone said (it was Saint Patrick's Day).

"It's a photo project," Sachi said, defending her dignity.

Someone else, in the park then said, "What are you cooking, Sachi?" At that point, we just tried to get out of sight as quickly as possible.

Yesterday, I had the lovely opportunity to participate in Rebecca's (not my sister from the blog--the other Rebecca) photography project. In this one, I had to be part of an Asian arranged marriage. This in itself is strange enough. But standing in the cold wind without a jacket for minutes on end and bending my knees so that my head would be at the same height as Sachi's (my assigned bride) ALL IN PUBLIC VIEW was quite unpleasant. When it was over, Rebecca my sister and Rebecca the photographer and I went to see Anything Goes. Rebecca the photographer said something to Rebecca my sister about owing her money. I then joked to Rebecca the photographer that she owed me a salary for all of the unpleasant work that I did for her.

"What?" she asked, looking very strangely at me.

"I said you owe me a salary for the modeling work I did for you."

She squinted her eyes strangely at me again, but accepted what I was saying.

Soon she decided to borrow money from me so she could buy a ticket. I gave it to her, and she said, "Now I owe you a salad and a half."

"What?" I asked, now I being the confused one.

"You said I owed you a salad for the work you did for me."

"No, I said you owe me a salary."

"Oh."

Salad, salary...what's the difference? Both words were derived from the same origin, after all!

-Philip

Hacking MIT

Today I was at MIT a few hours earlier than my classes started, hanging out with some friends. We were debating where to go: one person had suggested the engineering library, another said there was a secret garden he wanted to find. I piped up: "Oh, you mean the garden by the basement of building six?" I said, having stumbled across that particular daisy field a few years ago. We soon came to a general consensus that we should head there, and I, the fearless leader, lead them to it.

The garden consisted entirely dead, brown stalks of flowers that no longer existed. "This is depressing!" Tori commented. There were two small buildings (the garden was kind of a courtyard but in the middle of nowhere) that were some kind of electrical storage place. On top of one of them were two chairs. Noah, a very tall guy, started to climb up one by grabbing onto the roof (which was 7 or 8 ft high) and pushing his foot off a protruding pipe that had several valves on it. Then John, who is slightly taller than me, ran up to the building and jumped, managing to grab the roof and push his foot off a door hinge. Then Tori, taller than John but shorter than Noah climbed onto the roof. There were four of us left on the ground, but the other three had very little interest in getting to the top of the building, while I stood there wishing I could get up there.

I obviously could not go via Noah's method; I am not nearly as tall as him. I tried jumping, but to no avail. Finally, they brought over one of the chairs from the roof, and I used it to get a hold of the roof (even with a chair I could barely touch the top) and push myself up using the pipe. John pulled me the rest of the way up.

Up on the roof, I looked down in triumph. Then I began to explore. I climbed up onto the window ledge of the second story windows and skirted my way around that, hugging the wall in the space between windows where the ledge was only a half foot wide. I looked down the twelve or so feet from me to the ground slightly terrified, but mostly triumphant.

Soon it was time to head to class. Noah just hung from the roof and dropped, again the advantage of being tall. Tori also did a similar dismount from the roof. John turned around, felt around with his foot for the door hinge and carefully lowered himself down. I tried to turn myself backwards and find the door hinge, but couldn't find it. John came over and grabbed my foot, moving it to where the hinge was. I stepped down onto it, but couldn't go any farther. Noah came over and grabbed my foot. "Just lead on this, I'll lower you down."

"NOAH," I excaimed. "Do not grab my foot! That's not going to work!" But he wouldn't let go. So I lowered myself onto his hand and jumped down.

Just as we were leaving, John decided to get onto the roof of the second, taller building. He easily shimmied up a pole to get to the roof and was standing there as we started to leave. "Guys!" He screamed after us. "Don't just abandon me. I need help getting down."

Tori grabbed the trash can and moved it over next to the building. We cajoled John into turning backwards and putting his feet on a small hitch in the pipe. Noah started to grab John's foot, but John yelled at him for doing so and so Noah stopped and John got down onto the trash can. On our way back inside we realized there was a ladder right beside the door.

"Well, it was good practice," someone said.

"Practice for what?" someone else asked.

"This, without a ladder," the person responded.


Sachi

Note: Hacking is a word that has two meanings at MIT: the more common is a prank, particularly a clever one, such as putting a car on top of the dome, or turning part of the campus into a board game. The second meaning is exploring dangerous, secret, out of the way, or off limits places.