The Times I Know I am a College Student Part 3: What a college party should be

My life has continued to go well recently.  Last night, for the first time, I experienced what I consider to be a nearly ideal college party.  There were between 10 and 15 total people in a common room of a suite.  The first order of business was a quick round of four-player Bomberman 64 (something I have dreamed of doing since childhood - I only have two controllers at home) while people were still arriving.  Then, once almost everyone had arrived, it was beer pong time.  I was a little nervous about that because I don't drink and had never seen much of beer pong before, so I thought that I would end up left out in a room full of loud, drunk people.  Not so.  Apparently about half of the people there didn't drink either and the game was a very laid-back two vs. two match.  It was actually quite fun to watch with all of my non-drinking comrades, and it took so long that no one got hammered.

So after beer pong, what then?  Why, what else but charades?  No seriously, the party went straight from beer pong from charades.  I can't make this stuff up.  But it was fun.  I had to act out Apocalypse Now really early on, and it would have taken hours if my roommate wasn't psychic or something.  I gave as good as I got though, with Zardoz, Manos the Hands of Fate, and Hercules.  Other memorable ones were A Scanner Darkly and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (both of which were surprisingly easy).  Everyone was legitimately having fun playing charades at this party.  It was strange but wonderful.

The night ended with about ten of us (including two random people from the suite who joined in sometime during charades) sitting around swapping riddles.  At that point it was 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning so everything was absolutely hilarious.  The party finally ended at 3:00 in the morning.  Did I have work the next day?  Yes.  Do I regret it?  No.  I'd gotten plenty of sleep for two nights before and I strive to live well when I get the opportunity.  That party was a rare gem that I was not going to toss away before its time.

I feel it is important to note at this point that the people I was hanging out with weren't all recluses like I am.  The two random guys from the suite looked like they had probably seen their share of pretty wild parties.  No one really expected the party to go the way it did, but everyone had fun.  That really was my ideal college party.  The people who wanted to drink got some beer from the beer pong but they didn't actually get drunk (at least not enough for there to be problems), no one who didn't want to drink got pressured to or felt left out because they didn't, everyone got to know each other better, and there was a real whole-group dynamic (by which I mean there weren't small groups of people all doing their own thing).  It was great and I hope I get to experience that again before I graduate.  I really love this little group of summer friends I'm growing.

Now I'm off to a midnight showing of The Last Airbender.  This is probably a very bad life decision in many ways (I really don't need two late nights in a row and it's supposed to be a terrible movie), but I'll be going with a group of cool people, so there's only so bad it can be.  Allons-y!

The Times I Know I am a College Student Part 2: Does duct tape fix people too?

The first time I really felt like I was in college was in October of my freshman year.  I was hanging out in my room with my roommates and two of their friends late one school night when we suddenly heard singing from outside.  We looked out the window and saw a whole group of guys singing "Build Me Up Buttercup" to the second floor of the front of our dorm.  We all assumed that they were serenading some girl on the floor above us and thought that it was a really cute gesture, so we opened the window to listen and then applauded them when they were done.  To our surprise, they turned and looked right at us as intently as predators studying their prey.

"Come outside, we have a gift for you," one of them said.

All of us stared back out at the boys, confused as to whether or not they were actually speaking to us.

"Come out here, we have a present for you."  Definitely talking to us.

We started to run to the front door, but one of the girls warned, "Be careful, they're college boys.  We don't know what they're up to."  We all nodded our understanding and then walked out the front door.

The crowd had dispersed.  All that remained was something lying on the ground.  We moved forward to get a closer look.  It was a boy, stretched out lengthwise on the ground with his arms stretched far above his head.  He was duct taped to a wooden post.  And it wasn't just a few pieces of duct tape, no.  He was strapped throughly onto the post in at least five places.

I sighed and turned back toward the front door.  "Okay, I'll go get the scissors."

It shouldn't have been hard to find my scissors.  It really shouldn't.  But for some reason that day my scissors had decided to disappear permanently and never return.  I spent at least five minutes digging through my part of the room to no avail.  Finally, feeling the time pressure from knowing that the poor boy was still bound up on our lawn, I ran to the back of the dorm, happened upon some friends in the hallway, and gasped out some garbled pleas for scissors I could borrow.  A few minutes later I booked it back to the front of the dorm with two pairs of scissors clasped in my hand.  We were finally able to cut him loose.

I don't remember much of what he said, but I think that he had lost a drinking game and his friends decided that he really needed to meet new people.  I forgot his name and his face almost instantly, so I think we can all agree that their plan didn't quite work.  However, I still have a clump of duct tape that I pulled off his foot nearly a year and a half ago as a souvenir of the first time I felt like I was a college student.  

Two months in and I already have grandchildren.

Okay, I know that I promised the second installment of my "Times I Know I am in College" posts today, but something else has come up.  Today is the two month anniversary of this blog!  Now I know what you might be thinking: "Two months?  So what?"  Well here's a question.  Have you ever tried blogging every day?  For most of you, the answer is no.  It's often somewhat difficult and takes a bit of planning and thought.  However, some of you out there have taken up the challenge of blogging, and therefore this post is about you.

One of the reasons that I started blogging is that I wanted to make some sort of mark on the world.  Now it could be that this is as big as my blog ever gets.  That's fine.  I like doing this for fun and I have enough readers that I feel motivated to maintain my daily posting schedule.  However, my blog has gone on to reach a little beyond itself.  One of the things that makes me happiest in the world is when someone tells me that they have started a blog and that Methyl Ethyl Aldehyde helped to inspire their action.  This has happened several times.  A few of my friends have recently started small blogs that update infrequently but accomplish the purposes that their authors set out to do.  Some other friends have followed more closely in my footsteps.  I would like to point these blogs out.

The first blog that cites Methyl Ethyl Aldehyde as one influence is Business as Usual, a daily blog by The Artful Dodger (T.A.D.) over at http://workingsofbrilliance.blogspot.com/.  It tends toward somewhat philosophical reflections on life and societal expectations, and T.A.D. does it quite well.  I am quite proud of her and the thoughts she puts on the internet.  Her blog has also inspired another person to give blogging a shot and, since I sort of consider bloggers to form a strange kind of family, I like to think of that blog as a kind of internet grandchild.  It puts a smile on my face whenever I think about it.

The other daily blog is The Zeppelin Diaries by Mister Flask at http://twentyfivehour.blogspot.com/.  I think the fact that this is one of my favorite blogs reflects quite strongly on the type of person I am, but I believe that Mister Flask has produced some genuinely hilarious posts.  The Zeppelin Diaries is mostly about RPGs like D&D, but it is also about BEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.  Two of my favorite posts so far are this and this.

I really hope that neither of these authors has a problem with me linking their blogs, mostly because I think that they are worthy of a few more readers taking a look at them.  I'm proud of these bloggers who looked at M.E.A. and decided to jump in head-first and give daily blogging a shot.  They are producing quality stuff and in many ways have already surpassed me.  I love it.

Once again, I would like to thank my readers for continuing to spend a little of their valuable time reading this blog.  It has been a great two months so far and I hope this blog continues to take me wherever it may go for a long time to come.  Allons-y!

The Times I Know I am a College Student Part 1: SoCal in the Summer

I've probably made this clear before, but even though I am a college student, I've never lived much like one.  Well, at least not like the type of college students movies and popular culture love to portray.  I've only been to a few parties, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't hang out in the campus café, and you can probably fill in the rest.  My life is basically eat, sleep, class, homework, YouTube, Hulu, Google Reader, blog, and maybe play some video games.  I do have some very good friends, but they normally fit somewhere within the comfortable rhythms of my life.  Truth be told, it gets rather boring sometimes.  It's not that I don't like adventure, it's just that most of the experiences college students "should" be having don't appeal to me that much.  Wild parties aren't my scene.  

My whole life has kind of been this way, actually.  From the time I was very little I have been a recluse not so much by choice as by vicious cycle.  Example: because I don't go to parties, when people ask me to go to parties with them, I tend to say no because I don't know how to handle myself at a party.  This then makes people less likely to invite me to a party next time, which is unfortunate because the only way I would go to a party at that point would be if someone I knew invited me and/or went with me.  

The thing is, though, that I want to go out and have fun.  I want to really feel like I'm a college student instead of a high school student with more homework and a dorm room.  And sometimes, I do.  When this happens, I remember it as an event of great importance.  I can really savor it because of its rarity in my life.  Take, for example, yesterday.  I went with six other people to a friend's house to hang out and watch the World Cup.  We shouted at the television, ate burgers, mourned our team's loss, then tossed some people in the pool to cheer ourselves up.  Then we went to the beach.  Now remember how I said that I tend to be a recluse?  Despite loving the ocean and having lived in SoCal for the last two years, I have not been to a California beach since the first time I went to one in seventh grade.  Fail.  But I was redeemed yesterday when I went into the ocean with my fellow college students and we messed around and had fun.  When we got tired of the water, we played frisbee on the beach.  It was perfect.  It was an experience I hadn't realized I needed until I'd had it.  I felt like a real, proper college student for the first time in a long time.  It was also the first time that I really appreciated the advantages of living in SoCal and that there are experiences I can have here that aren't possible in my native Pacific Northwest (I'd still rather live there, though; my home state is simply the best).  

This isn't the only time that I've felt like a college student.  The very first time was less glamorous and more filled with duct tape.  But that's a story for tomorrow, for now I must prepare for a round of five-hour laser tag.  If I actually get to do this tonight without some unforeseen problem throwing a wrench in the works, this will go down in history as one of my coolest weekends ever.  

Not what you would call a great first impression.

If there is one thing that is really reliable about my behavior, it is that unless I do a semi-time-sensitive task immediately, it won't get done until the last minute.  For example, if I do the laundry and I don't put it away within a few minutes (or hours at the maximum) of the dryer spitting out the clothes, the clothes will almost certainly not get properly folded or hung up until the next time they get washed.  As you can probably guess, this behavior is not very conducive to living an organized or responsible lifestyle, particularly because I am usually able to convince myself that I can put the task at hand off for just a little while because this time it will be different.  It almost never is.

So with this in mind, it is perhaps understandable that yesterday my floor was filled with my still-unpacked suitcase from my New Jersey trip and all the no-refrigeration-required groceries that I had bought four days before.  There were also several empty boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and Cheez-Its scattered around with two small boxes I had never bothered to collapse from moving day as well as miscellaneous items haphazardly pulled out my backpack.  There were dishes on the unoccupied dresser and desk of my double and books on the empty bed.  Even my vlog station - the four boxes I stack on top of each other to make my webcam high enough - was fully set up in the middle of the room.  

I arrived back at my room on Friday a little after 5:00 with the knowledge that I had to have my room somewhat clean by 5:30 so that it would be presentable when my friends arrived to hang out.  It was a daunting task, but I went in armed with the knowledge that it didn't have to be perfect - just not a pigsty.  After a few minutes of cleaning I noticed a brown suitcase on the floor.  I couldn't figure out who it belonged to.  None of my friends had told me they were planning to stay in my room; then I realized that none of them had a key.  I looked around, noticing a pair of boots by the empty bed, a backpack on the desk, and a few other small items that suddenly told me exactly how much trouble I was in.  My roommate had finally arrived, and her first impression of me was that I was a total slob.  Crap.

After a few seconds of shocked processing, I started to clean frantically.  Luckily, the mess was exactly what I expected it was - ugly, but not difficult.  I managed to clean it all up in time for my friends to arrive.  There were, however, a few minutes when I ended up lying on my bed because I was feeling a bit dizzy from the non-stop cleaning and slightly-panicky breathing.  In that time I realized what changes were going to take place in my room.  No more free reign on when I got to shoot my vlogs.  Headphones instead of computer speakers.  Eating breakfast quietly outside the room.  But the most worrying thing of all was that my roommate could be a jerk who had a horrible first impression of me.  

After my friends arrived, we hung out until about 1:00 AM with no sign of the mysterious roommate.  But after they left she came back to the room.  I was, and am, lucky.  She seems like a great person.  Totally cool about the whole mess earlier.  She even told me that when she saw my collection of books and DVDs she knew we were going to get along.  She's a Molecular Biology and Physics major (which actually sounds really fun.  Too bad I didn't figure out my majors sooner or I might have done a minor in Physics).  She's so awesome that when I woke up from a nightmare in the middle of the night (I dreamed I that had crushed a mantis), forgot I had a roommate now, and turned on the light to check myself for a mantis corpse, she was totally cool and forgiving about the whole thing.  I think we're going to get along.

I have to run to the beach now, so apologies for typos.  I'll fix them later, but I have to post this now because I don't know when I'll be getting back.

A different kind of heiress

When people hear the word "heiress", the first thing they think of is probably this:

And her little dog too.

The general perception of an heiress is that she must be a person who stands to inherit a great deal of money from her older relatives and, in cases like Paris Hilton's, is already reaping the benefits of said family money.  However, I would argue that things like money and property are perhaps the least important things one can inherit from one's family.  They are not trivial by any means, but, unless you are living near or below the poverty line, they do not strongly influence your happiness.  What matters most is what your inheritance gives you as a person.

If I am still alive by the time that both of my parents pass away, I know what I'll value most in my inheritance.  It won't be their money, even though they've worked so hard and saved so well throughout their lives that the amount will probably not be inconsequential.  It won't be their house, even though it and the environment around it are beautiful.  No, what I will be most grateful for is the little bits of themselves that they've embedded in me.  I have my mother's drive to meet self-made goals (for her, it's Wii Fit every day, for me, it's blogging).  I have my father's love of math and physics.  They have both given me a deep-rooted morality and an overbearing perfectionism (a trait which has its negative qualities greatly amplified by the tendency for procrastination I get from my mother).  They have taught me that store-brand is usually just as good as name-brand and that a Roth IRA is the best retirement savings plan for a person my age.  They have taught me love and compassion and responsibility.  When they die, I will carry on the best of them in how I act and who I am to the best of my ability.  

Just like Paris Hilton, I am reaping the benefits of my inheritance now.  But money is fickle; as we've all seen recently, a few screw-ups made in smoke-filled rooms can rob anyone of the material worth they have.  My true inheritance, though, is made of hardier stuff.  No fickle quirk of fate will take away the gifts my parents have given me.  Therefore, I do consider myself an heiress.  Perhaps I am not the kind of heiress society would deem as such, but I would not trade my inheritance for the world.

The Vacations of Doom Part 1: My Mother Scares Children

My family used to go to Maryland each summer for two weeks of sun, ocean, and mini-golf.  There was a streak of at least three summers, however, when it wasn't all fun and games.  Those three summers tended to bring strange injuries and usually ambulances.  This is what I believe to be the story of the final summer, by which time my mother had apparently become immune to pain in Maryland.  Hopefully the other stories will be told in time.

My mother always enjoyed going for walks while in Maryland.  One day, however, everything went more than a little wrong.

From the tone of her voice, I stood up to help her expecting a small, run-of-the-mill scratch.  Alas, it was not to be.

I don't think that was the minor injury that ended up requiring stitches, but I'm not sure.  I would also like to add that I'm pretty sure there was actually that much blood on her shirt.  I feel so bad for that little kid, standing in an elevator with a perfectly calm woman drenched in blood in an area near her mouth.  I think that the thoughts "VAMPIRE!" and "WEREWOLF!" must have sprinted back and forth across his brain several times.

The Chameleon Actor

I have a real story to tell you all that I've been planning all day, but I woke up early to watch the World Cup and it's catching up to me fast.  When I tell my stories, I want to do it right.  So here's a few thoughts instead.

First, I never appreciated how beautifully quiet my college is during the school year until this summer. Currently, it is a strange night when there isn't loud drumming or music leaking through my window for hours at a stretch in the late evening.  During the school year, my college takes a great pride in keeping things quiet for studying/napping students.  I think I will appreciate this fact much more after sleeping in a noisy dorm room all summer (even the room I stayed in during vacation last week was right next to an oddly noisy road and morning construction).

Second, I would like you to figure out who this actor is.  I don't care so much about his name as I do that you should really be able to place the most famous character that he's played:

The reason I'm asking is that this man, despite having played one of the most quoted characters in history, is apparently some kind of ninja (but not the same kind as Sea World).  I was recently introduced to Dead Like Me, a show that used to run on Showtime.  I knew who this actor was before I saw him because I recognized his rather distinctive name in the opening credits, but if I hadn't known this, I probably wouldn't have recognized him.  I know this to be true because everyone I know who watches the show (okay, only three people, but at least one really liked the show and had seen all of it) didn't realize who he was until I pointed it out.  Apparently he disguised himself so well in his character that he didn't even trigger any sort of nagging partial recognition feeling in any of them.  Take a look here starting at around 1:25:

If you still haven't figured it out, here's a hint - the character in question has a problem with the word "inconceivable" when it's used incorrectly.  Have most of you figured it out now?  "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die."  Apparently, what we didn't know about Inigo Montoya is that he is a master of disguise.  Also that he isn't really from Spain.  It's just so interesting to me how well a haircut and an accent change can hide a person.  I should try that sometime...

Things I've learned so far this summer: Part 1

Living on one's own is somewhat of an adventure, particularly in the early times.  Learning to buy food and pay bills consistently are only a few parts of it, however.  Many other valuable life lessons are also learned alone the way.  Here is what I've gleaned so far:

• Hearts is a surprisingly fun game to play.
• Challenging someone to hack your Facebook is not a good idea.
• Especially if you eat dinner with them most nights.
• And if you have a tendency to have your laptop out, open, and unguarded around dinnertime.
• Always carry your keys with you.  You never know when someone is going to lock themselves in your room to hack your Facebook.
• Mounties are fun.
• So are grim reapers.
• I'd still much rather read young adult books like The Hunger Games trilogy than a grown-up book like Love Walked In.  Much better characters and plot.
• Peanut butter is not a substitute for ketchup, but it's not horrible on hot dogs.
• Grilling chicken in a pan is not a good idea if you don't know what you are doing.
• Teriyaki marinade is not the same as teriyaki sauce.  At all.  
• Some potatoes are too big to be properly baked in a microwave, but extra cheese can cover up any deficiencies in the cooking process.
• Life has a weird way of invading your schedule and making it both more awesome and more exhausting.
• Sleep is great, but living life is too.   
• Webcams are very bad quality cameras, but they do a good job of naturally blurring acne away.
• Nothing is perfect the first time, so try for what you want and then keep trying until you produce something great.
• Bolas save lives.

How To Deal with Alien Drug Lords

Before I begin the post proper, I would like to point out that right now, on the evening of the solstice, I am sitting outside in a hammock on a comfortably cool night with a light breeze.  I can faintly hear the sounds of happy volleyball players several hundred feet away, the waxing moon is shining bright in a cloudless sky, and I have a full WiFi signal.  No matter what small unhappinesses I face day to day, my life is beautiful right in this moment.

And now for something completely different: a story about an alien drug lord.

I have twice previously mentioned the ongoing story of my GURPS roleplaying character, Captain Luke Roberts.  On the second and final night of the campaign, a great deal of sneaking around and listening at doors led to a final confrontation with a winged alien drug lord.  I learned a few things from that confrontation.  Here, then, is a how-to guide for dealing with alien drug lords:

DO tell the drug lord that when two of his underlings attacked you, you temporarily incapacitated them with your bolas and were so able to end the encounter without killing or permanently injuring them.

DON'T tell him in the interest of full disclosure that three of his other alien subordinates also attacked you in the fight and had to be killed in self-defense.  It will get people shot in the arm.

And...that's about it.  But really, is there anything else to know?

It's my very last day with my friends and I'm leaving for an airplane in just over three hours so I'm posting quickly now in case I can't get back to a computer with internet access before midnight (and even if I do, I might be too exhausted to post).  So here's an old but great video from YouTube - one of the founding classics, you might say.  Even after all this time it still made me laugh to the point where I almost wasn't breathing.  Watch it with friends and/or people who haven't seen it before - it's about 5 times better that way.

The Life and Times of Captain Luke Roberts

This is my last night with my friends all together for who knows how long, so this is going to be a short post.  When it comes to blogging vs. friendship, friendship wins.

This is an update on Captain Luke Roberts, my RPG character who I referenced two posts ago.  On the first night of the campaign, he got hired for a job, discovered that the plant that produces the stims he uses has been stolen to be used by a drug lord, and has traveled to the asteroid mine used by the plant producers to try to recover some hostages and to get the drug shipment back.  Also, due to a critically failed dice roll which I had actually volunteered for, he not does not know that our P.I. team member is kleptomaniac and in fact trusts her so much that he gives her items to take care of.  Fun times.

Now he's stuck on the asteroid with a kleptomaniac P.I. and an assassin and only they can rescue the hostages and retrieve the shipment from six-fingered, clawed, winged aliens.  Can he make it?  Probably not.

Mountie Crack.

Imagine you are a modern-day pirate on Lake Michigan.  Then imagine that a full crew of Mounties on a tall ship start firing their cannons at you and then rappel on board.  This is the world of Due South, a show about a Mountie named Benton Fraser who, as he explains it, "First came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father and, for reasons which don't need exploring at this juncture, I have remained, attached as liaison to the Canadian consulate."  Fraser is polite, truthful, and oblivious - or, as dreamwaffles puts it, Dudley Do-Right played straight.

Also, he has a wolf.

She also describes the show as "Mountie crack", which, as my first two sentences would indicate, is a rather apt description.  I've only seen one episode, but the show is amazing.  My friend Nia described the show as a weird violation of the first law of tragicomedy in which drama increases with tension while comedy decreases.  In Due South, both the humor and drama increase with tension.  It's different than anything I've seen before, but it really works.  Check it out if you have some spare time.

Taking the night off for role-playing.

Hey guys!  I am on vacation but have still been blogging as if I'm not.  Well, now I'm taking the night off to start my friend's GURPS campaign.  I'm a space pirate named Luke Roberts who is basically Mal Reynolds with a stims addiction and first aid knowledge.  Also he can use bolas.  Anyway, I'm off to have fun with friends I won't see again for a very long time after this week, so this blog can take a one-night break from real content (depending on what you call real content, this break could have been going on for a very long time).  Goodnight!

One day I will have revenge!

WANTED

FOR STALKING ME AND RIGGING CARD GAMES

Seriously, I don't care if you're the queen.  I don't care if you love me above all other people who play Hearts.  You do NOT get to appear in my hands every single round like a sugar-high attention-seeking rabbit popping out of a magician's hat every five seconds whether it's wanted or not, disrupting the show and taking the magic out of the act.  YOU ARE NOT WANTED HERE.  Don't make me take out a restraining order on you.  It would hurt me more than it hurt you because I like being able to play card games with my friends.  It's kind of what I do.  But you are making it very hard on me, Your Majesty.  So go pester someone else for a while.  Oh, and go talk to the King of Hearts about how he's feeling.  I'm a bit worried about that sword in his head.

(I think I've played a few too many card games tonight)

Image taken from http://www.madore.org/~david/images/cards/english/queen-spades.png

In which I say uncharacteristic things about Twilight

Today I went into the bookstore and I found something which I had been hearing about for several months but had never seen in person: Twilight: The Graphic Novel Vol. 1.  After laughing evilly for about 10 seconds in anticipation of how bad it would be, I opened it up to take a look.  

Now what I have to say next may be shocking to some of you, so pregnant women and people with heart conditions should stop reading now.  Basically, I liked it.  For those of you who don't know, this is coming from a person who will tell anyone that will listen that Edward is an embarrassment to vampires (they. do. not. SPARKLE!) and that Edward and Bella have a very bad/stupid/obnoxious relationship.  Now, from the brief view I had of the graphic novel, neither of these problems changed.  However, the context of them did.

A few months ago I decided to sit down and reread Twilight in order to get a fresh perspective.  I got all of four pages in and had to quit.  I hated the writing.  Couldn't stand it.  In the graphic novel, it's different.  All of the pointless writing is re-expressed in drawings, which are remarkably good.  I love the art style in the graphic novel.  It really suits the story.  

There's also the issue of the medium itself.  I read a lot of manga and have done so for years.  Clearly, I love the art form as a whole.  Its real strength is providing a way for overly dramatic and ridiculous stories to be told in a way which makes them seem less ridiculous.  You expect a certain amount of melodrama and crazy situations in manga, and the Twilight graphic novel is very similar in feel to a manga.  Therefore the story, which is pretty melodramatic and somewhat absurd, feels more at home and acceptable in this new format.  I would still have the same basic problems with the story if I actually read the graphic novel version, but from what I saw, the story is probably much easier to swallow this way.  

Essentially, I believe Twilight could have been a decent graphic novel series from the start.  In retrospect, that is clearly a much better medium for the story than a novel ever was.  It's too bad Stephanie Meyer couldn't pull that off.

I stole the cookies from the cookie jar.

UPDATE: Video now functional.

Children's toys are so much more fun when used incorrectly.

Sorry about the wavering light quality. The camera just doesn't know what to do with a moving cookie jar.

Update: Forgot to mention, this game was a joint invention with The Artful Dodger over at http://workingsofbrilliance.blogspot.com/.  I might have "borrowed" this blog idea from her.  She was very lovely to let me have it.  

Punk nerd!

As I have mentioned in a previous post, my fashion sense in middle school was slightly sub-par.  As a refresher, here was my standard outfit:

Standard hoodie and jeans.  Not going to get any popularity points, but not awful.  But wait, there's more.

You see that little rectangle in my hoodie pocket?  That was one of the many books I might carry around on any given day.  I wore hoodies with big pockets that could hold relatively big books.  That cemented me as a nerd.  However, there was something even worse that completed my accidentally self-inflicted social ostracization: the bracelet.

I was so hardcore.

I wore this bracelet every day for months.  I happened to have a couple of friends who were more on the punk end of the spectrum.  The girl who inspired me to buy it had one with only two rows, but I figured that more had to be better.  I can't make this stuff up; I was just a really, really awkward middle schooler.  Take a look at the complete picture:

Wow.  Shapeless, nerdy, and a poser; the trifecta.

If there had been a nerd group at the school, the bracelet would have tipped them off that I didn't belong.  The punks clearly wouldn't have adopted me for reasons which I should hope are very clear by now.  Basically, I was lucky that a few very nice people decided to risk social suicide by being friends with me anyway and that by high school I had wised up to the fact that my bracelet was not helping me socially.  I still love that thing, though.  I don't know where it is now, but I do know that I wore it to an academic award ceremony back in the day.  Oh yeah, I was a total rebel.  

The Anatomy of "A Day"

When people have had a bad, stressful, or eventful day, a standard summary often given to friends and family (at least in my experience) is a variation on very simple sentence: "Today has been A Day."  Well, yesterday I had A Day that made me think about the nature of Days, so let's take a look at them to see what makes them tick.

In my opinion, there are two major forms A Day can take (with a spectrum of Days lying in between).  The first is the one where things just go wrong.  A plane leaves four hours late, traffic is a mess, you forgot to do a homework assignment, that kind of thing.  Nothing tragic or horrific (those events are outside the scope of Days), just a pile-up of standard day-to-day issues.  I had a minor version of this kind of Day today when my flight was significantly delayed.  The second form is the one where nothing particularly goes wrong except inside your own mind.  This is the kind of day I had yesterday, and it is far worse than the first kind.

In the mental Day, most everything goes normally on the surface.  The milk stays fresh, the power doesn't go out, a test isn't failed.  But somewhere along the way someone says or does something that shakes you.  It's probably accidental, but their words knock-down a card in the base of delicate house of cards that is your happiness.  That little card that holds up the self-esteem section of the structure has always been weak - it has a crack where one part of your self-worth has always been vulnerable.  You had tried propping it up with glue and toothpicks and a prayer, but it falls down anyway because a word from a friend accidentally struck it like a stray bullet.  You start running around trying to right the card, but the foundations of the whole structure have been shaken.  The rest of the glued-together cards start to give way bit by bit, leaving you scrambling to catch up and put right what has gone wrong as the whole thing continues to slowly collapse.  This second kind of Day is much worse than the first because there is nothing to blame for your mood except your own pieces of self-contempt.

That was what happened to me yesterday for a few hours.  I was tired and a certain adjective had been tossed around as a description of me a few too many times for my comfort.  That word triggered the initial breach of my defenses.  From there it never really went to all-out sadness, but rather to a feeling of mild hopelessness.  Luckily, I had medicine.  One of the few things that can combat the inner struggle of A Day is an unexpected kind word.  The source isn't the important bit, but the meaning and sincerity is.  I talked to someone who used a synonym of my trigger word to describe me, but then immediately, sincerely, and intently told me that the word was one of my most positive character traits.  There was no prompting; she just somehow intuitively understood that it needed to be said.  For that, I am truly grateful.  Now, a kind word can't entirely fix A Day.  A person has to do that on their own.  But that little bit of honest encouragement can help catch some cards as they fall so that they can more easily be righted.  It is a great help to have.

I guess the take-home message of this post is the following: be careful of your words.  When people are with friends, it's natural to joke around with them, making fun of some aspects of their personality or some mistakes they have made.  Much of the time, this is okay.  Most people are good at accepting good-natured jokes from friends.  But in my experience, some of those jokes/jabs/words leave small cuts every time they happen.  They might be laughed off at the time by the person being targeted, but they do add up over time.  Now what I'm not asking you to do is to stop teasing a friend (unless the person actually shows signs of discomfort).  Good-natured teasing is part of friendship, and from my experience, 90% of it is fine and won't trigger any long-term negative reactions.  However, every once in a while, make sure that your friend knows that you really are teasing.  Make sure that they understand what you really think about them.  It could save a lot of pain in the long run.

I've been deliberately vague about my trigger word in this post.  I hope it wasn't too annoying.  My reason for not disclosing the word that slightly hurts me (other than it not being the main point of this post) is that I have too many good friends who use it to describe me for me to risk them feeling bad about it.  It is a perfectly reasonable adjective to use to describe me - people have used it for years and will continue to do so as long as I keep meeting new people.  So to my friends, don't worry about what you have said to me.  I don't hold any grudges against you for using this word and I never will.

Finally, I'm writing this on two nights of greatly reduced sleep and after a full day of airports and airplanes.  Any stiltedness can be attributed to that until I actually come back and edit this post sometime in the future.

This isn't it for today.

I'm going to be travelling all of today.  I'm going to be working on a blog post while I'm flying and should be able to get to WiFi soon enough to post it; however, travel is filled with uncertainties.  This post is here in case something goes horrifyingly wrong and I can't put my real post up by midnight.  However, I promise that if the real post doesn't make the midnight deadline, I will post it as soon as possible after that and then post a new, unique post for the next day.

As a bonus, here's one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time.  Most, if not all of you, have probably seen it already, but it's worth a re-watch.

Tutoring!

I have tutoring and packing to do tonight, so here is a short post for today.  Tomorrow's post might be quite short as well because I will be on airplanes all day.

Praying mantises are quite cute in person.  I work with five every day and I was surprised at how non-threatening they were when I first got them.  However, what is scary about having 1 or 1 and 1/2 inch long mantises is that when they jump at you, you have to be very careful about finding them without squishing them.  The other day, one jumped at me and was found near my armpit by a team of three coworkers.  It was a very good thing I didn't move.

It's a girl?

I was reading a manga today where a girl was praised for becoming more feminine because it meant she was growing up.  It reminded me of some realizations I've been having about myself lately.  Hold on to your seats, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in-between, because this is going to end up somewhere between a reflection on societal expectations and the nature of the self and an undercover exposé on the Oatmeal.  Probably significantly closer to the former.

Note: Blogger.com ate the entire body of my completed blog post, so forgive any frustration/anger/RAGE that leaks into here as I rewrite the whole thing.

I am a woman (that word feels so wrong.  When did I stop being a girl?  Why is there no decent female analogue of the word "guy"?  "Gal" doesn't count - it is a dumb word).  However, I never acted feminine growing up.  I was the girl who played video games all the time, who didn't like clothes shopping, makeup, or shoes, and who wore baggy shirts and hoodies all the time.  Seriously, my close high school friend told me that she found me in crowds consistently by looking for the tall brown-haired girl in a bright yellow or red hoodie.  It was a perfect system (well, except for the days when I was wearing a brown, black, or grey hoodie).  It was so bad that in middle school, when I took off my hoodie one day in math class, some classmates were legitimately shocked to find out that I had something approximating a figure and was not simply an amorphous mass of brightly cloth.  My hair was a blunt cut that my friends often told me looked horrible (in kinder words, but the sentiment got across) and I never washed my face.  I was, in short, a disgrace to what society considers femininity.  I was okay with that on the whole, though sometimes I wished to be more like the beautiful, fashion-conscious girls.

Even in my freshman year of college, my first year in a coed environment since middle school, things didn't much improve.  I stuck to my video games and my baggy clothes, though I was a bit more conscious about my concealer.  I got my hair cut, but all it did was add bangs to my now somewhat-shorter blunt cut.  Nothing significant had changed.

Last semester, though, something changed.  During the second half of my sophomore year, I started to research potential hairstyles for myself, seriously considering a professional haircut for the first time in my life. I bought a pair of dangly earrings on a whim to supplement my tiny diamond studs that I had worn nearly consistently for several years.  I accidentally severely decreased the amount of time I spent playing video games.  Worst of all, I wore a skirt voluntarily one day (it was laundry day, okay?), and though I thought it was strange and note-worthy and defended my reasons for doing so all day (I have a well-known grudge against skirts), NO ONE seemed to think it was out of the ordinary except two guy friends who commented on my related facebook status.  What happened to me?

At the end of the semester I realized what had been happening.  I had been changing without realizing it.  Part of me was happy; I was ready to become less of the crazy outsider that I had been my whole life.  Part of me, however, was very sad.  I missed my simpler existence in the time before makeup and dressing to impress and having boys in the local area.  I miss tossing on a baggy black D.A.R.E. t-shirt every weekend and then going to play Morrowind or the Sims all day without having to worry about social obligations.  But I'm growing up, and I accept that.  I can only hope that I'm becoming more feminine now because somewhere deep down I really want to, rather than social pressure or the universal law of girls growing up that the manga mentioned above seems to suggest.  I think that's the case.

Also, the author of the Oatmeal is secretly a fish.  I have no evidence for this except a non-existent gut feeling.  There's the exposé section of the post.

Radical Music

As I'm sure many of you are well aware, Organic Chemistry is hard.  Really, really hard.  It is the only science class I have ever really struggled in.  But the worst part of it isn't the millions of flashcards you have to memorize or the mechanisms you have to know backwards and forwards, it's what it does to your mind.

Before Winter Break this year, the last thing we learned about in O. Chem was free radicals.  For those of you who don't know what free radicals are, here's a quick summary.

This system of atom with a lone electron is called a free radical and it is fifty kinds of unstable and really reactive, kind of like a house of cards made of baking soda built over a pool of vinegar.

Boom.  

In chemistry, an free radical is represented by the letter symbol for the element with a lone dot next to it, like this:

It looks deceptively innocuous to those who haven't studied Organic Chemistry, but slightly terrifying to students who have just been introduced to them.  

Anyway, when I got back to orchestra after a full month of not seeing free radicals or any kind of chemistry at all (I love Winter Break so much), I got my new sheet music for the quarter.  That's when I saw a full sheet of staccato notes that looked rather like this:

Except that's not what I saw.  My brain didn't see music notes with dots, it saw a whole army of free radicals, or in other words, a whole pack of dynamite ready to go off at a moment's notice.  For a second or two, I froze in fear.  Then I realized that I was being scared to death by a SHEET OF MUSIC.  Not one of my prouder moments, especially because I had only been exposed to free radicals for a few weeks over a month ago and I had been seeing staccato notes since 5th grade.  Like I said, O. Chem really messes with your head.  

House of cards photo credit: http://gallerydriver.com/Art/Costello,%20House%20of%20Cards%20%232,%20detail.jpg

Sheet music photo credit: http://www.melmartin.com/html_pages/sheet_music.html

It's my line, clearly.

I don't have time to do a full vlog or drawing-y post tonight, so you're going to have to settle with a celebration of a television show.  While my favorite show is Doctor Who and the best show I've ever seen is Firefly, the most sheerly entertaining show that I've ever known is Whose Line is it Anyway.  I love that show to death.  If I could pick any job in the world (assuming I would have all the necessary skill), I would be on that show.  Most of you have seen it or bits of it, but here I'm going to compile what I think are the greatest bits ever aired on the show.

Colin and Ryan are always great together:



However, while Colin can stay absolutely serious, Ryan sometimes can't contain his laughter when Colin does something totally ridiculous:





However, Colin is often the butt of the joke.  This time it was in the best way possible:



Wayne Brady is not infallible either, as this great clip demonstrates:



And last but definitely not least, things can never, EVER be boring when Richard Simmons is allowed on set:



There are many other great moments that this show has produced (it is by far the biggest YouTube time sink I have ever run across), but I've already flooded you with too much.  I hope that whatever you watched of that whole slew of clips made you laugh - they always work for me.

You are amazing.

I haven't felt so strongly about life in a long time.

For most of my life, I've never been passionate about anything except for getting A grades. Well, as coincidence and fate would have it, now I've gotten a B+ in Organic Chemistry and have simultaneously found my long missing drive. I am a blogger. I feel I can say that with real truth now. I started this blog out of boredom and because I wanted to put myself on the internet. Then I blogged because I had made a promise to post every day. Now I blog because I love it. I really do. I feel liberated, like I can finally defeat the voice that has always told me that I wasn't funny enough, likable enough, eloquent enough, or creative enough to do anything like this. This blog is helping me restore some of the humanity that I'd lost, even though it is simultaneously pulling me further and further into the depths of the internet.

I also love vlogging. I'm bad at it, but I love it. I figure it's like instant immersion in a different culture - I learn as I go. However, though blogging is good for my self-esteem, vlogging is likely hurting it. The thing is that, as I said earlier, I know I'm no good at it. I've got little-to-no charisma, bad lighting, a low-res webcam, and a really poor quality microphone. Even when I look at Charlie McDonnell's early videos, I can see the humor and presence that carried him all the way to the top. I don't have any trace of that. Even so, I am set on completing my sort-of-super-secret video project (and yes, it is secret because it's different than the one I mentioned a month ago. The project evolves fast). The only problem is that I desperately, DESPERATELY need a decent camera, and I'm really not sure that I can get access to one without dropping several hundred dollars. This is my dilemma. I want to film, but I can't, and every day that passes reminds me that the clock is ticking on my deadline. It hurts. I guess that's a good sign though - it means I finally care about something. I wouldn't get rid of that pain if I could.

I have a hobby now. A true hobby. And for that, I thank you. All of you. Your support means the world to me. Your kind comments have propelled me to where I am now. It might not be a great place from an external perspective - only a handful of visible subscribers to this blog and none to my YouTube, no YouTube comments, only three bad quality videos - but I see it for what it is. It is my legacy in the making. It is a place where some people come to be entertained once a day. It is a kind of journal - something I always wanted but could never keep on my own - where I can keep a record of myself as I am. It is a place I feel loved. Thank you all so, so much. You have made my life so much richer. Now, time to find a camera and keep the dream alive!

Note: Apologies for any typos, this has to go unedited for the time being.

Update: This is post is NOT meant to guilt people into subscribing/commenting. I appreciate the encouraging comments I've been getting regarding my videos, but I am really, really not trying to fish for complements. This post is all about what you and this blog have done for me. This is a thank-you post, not a pity-me post. I would also like to clarify that I am very proud of my vlogs, even if I think they are rather low quality. :)

Sea World is a Ninja

Apparently, theme parks can be stealthy and pop up where you least expect them.



On a separate note, I was asked by a friend if she was allowed to plug my blog. I thought I'd made it obvious before, but the answer is YES. This is not meant to be a private blog. If it does just turn out to be for my friends, that's fine. But I love to entertain people, and I would like as many people to read my blog as the internet allows. I just wanted to clarify that point.

Update: Apparently spending an extra hour on HD processing does nothing to bring the video back up to its original quality. Never. Again.

Cooties vs. Crawfish

Here is my second vlog. If any of you went to my YouTube channel yesterday, you probably noticed that this video was posted then. You get extra imaginary cookies for that, but no new blog post.



I'll be back tomorrow with hopefully a little more time on my hands and some stories to tell!

Trope Girl Enters the Vlogosphere

In a misguided attempt to save time on my blog by avoiding MS Paint, I decided to make a video.  Apparently it takes over seven minutes to get about a minute-and-a-half of video uploaded to YouTube.  The video and sound quality aren't great, but my webcam does the best that it can.  Also please forgive the lack of scripting and any sloppy editing; I really am working under a deadline.

I think a little more introspection might be in order.

You find inspiration.  The motivation you've been lacking for so long finally kicks in.  You're going to make real progress on your project, the one that makes you excited but also terrified, the one that could change your life forever, bring you into a community, and let you prove to yourself that you are actually creative.  But first, you need the materials.  You need to watch and eventually buy an episode of a TV show, but not just any episode, THE episode.  You could probably find another, but in your mind only that one will do (you have access to a version in Spanish and have already put a lot of thought into it).

First, you check YouTube.  Only parts 2 and 3 are there.  You hunt around desperately, resorting to Google video, but part 1 is just not there.

You don't panic.  Everything is on the internet somewhere.  You try every means you can think of, avoiding the downloading sites because you're terrified of viruses, the long arm of the law, and your own hardcore guilt-trip issues.  Nothing meets your requirements.

You check Amazon because you heard that you can buy single episodes there.  Great!  You love the idea of buying the episode now and getting it immediately.  But the episode isn't there, and you don't have the time/money/patience to buy a full season DVD and wait for it to ship.

You check iTunes and find that they DO sell episodes individually!  You check the season that should hold your episode...and it isn't there.  It isn't anywhere.  You check and recheck, desperation turning into resignation.

Suddenly, you realize that you are a college student who has spent a good half-hour chunk of the best years of her life hunting down an episode of Dora the Explorer.  You examine your life seriously for a few seconds.  Then you take a shower and start to mentally prepare yourself to begin research on other usable and iTunes-available episodes of Dora the Explorer.

I just wanted to take a nap, that's all...

This evening, I tried to take a nap in the hour before my friend was going to call about fixing dinner.  This is what happened instead.

First, the formerly-latent creative part of my brain decided to start spouting off ideas really urgently...AGAIN.  It seems to hibernate while I'm awake and then wake up with a bang as soon as I try to fall asleep.

Then I noticed the drummers outside.  They drummed a really repetitive rhythm almost non-stop for at least an hour or an hour-and-a-half.

Then my fridge decided to act up.  While it is useful to have a fridge acting as a makeshift bedside table, I clearly didn't think the consequences all the way through before I put it right next to my bed.

Finally, just when I was starting to filter out the distractions and drift off, the phone rang.  C'est la vie.

(and then I found five dollars)

P.S.  First person to point out the pop-culture reference in this blog wins imaginary internet cookies!

Edit: I have to give half-points for Fat Albert and "Hey hey hey", but that's actually not the reference I was thinking of.  Also, in terms of the reference, I ONLY want the name of the show (there are people reading who do not need any spoilers).  I'll know if you actually know what I'm talking about (as opposed to a shot in the dark) by who you are.

Stage Beauty

Once again I must admit defeat, the deadline is fast approaching and I must blog quickly.  No drawings today then.  However, the reason that I ran out of time was that some friends were visiting whom I don't get to see very often.  We watched a movie called Stage Beauty, which, if you were paying attention to the title of this post, is today's topic.

The movie is about the era when all female theater roles were played by men.  I don't want to say much more than that because the movie is something that deserves to be discovered on its own.  What I'm about to write is true of any movie, but the less you know going in, the happier you'll be.  It's not critical to go in without reading the back of the DVD case, but I know I was happier that way.

Anyway, the movie is one of the most interesting studies of gender I've seen in a long time.  It is a movie that could be read as either highly problematic or very unproblematic in its portrayal of gender; I tend strongly toward the latter.  Now, before you run away, I am not usually a person who goes for gender studies issues; however, the movie impressed me because it put the issues in an interesting context and wove them skillfully into a good story.  I very much enjoyed the movie and would strongly recommend it, whether you're looking for something to think about or whether you just want to have fun.