wow

the post i just posted happened to be posted exactly at 10:00:00. isn't that freaky!!!

nothing much

i feel like i should post, but i have nothing new to say. thanksigiving was nice, i hope yours were too. it was soooo nice to have off four days. i like turkey. and i don't understand you crazy vegitarians who don't eat it. because it's yummy, despite the fact that it was once alive. what else...college apps are a bitch, but you all know that. friends are wonderful and i don't know what i'd do without them, and i don't know what i will do without them in less than a year. which is kinda freaky. but it's ok, i'll survive. i was told today by one of them that that they won't let me lose them, which was good, because i know i'm not as good at keeping in touch as i'd always like to be. and then we shared a long, big hug. it was great...it was wonderful. and it's not like i don't hug him any other time, but...well, it was reassuring, and reaffirming, and everything that a good hug should be.

and i think that's about it. also as usual, and as you know, i miss all of you, and i think you should all call me cuz i'm lazy/busy (mostly lazy) and probably won't call you. sorry. or you should all come to new york, that'd be good too.

-- alex

And so I dreamed...

Bizarre dream, let's see if I can tell you all about it before my ailing computer dies.

Ok, so there I was, and I was walking toward a walmart type store. In my hand was a laptop type carrying case. I went up to the doors, but then panicked, turned, and began running. Thinking me suspicious, a group of cops began to give chase. I rounded a corner, and then jumped a low brick wall into a courtyard, at the center of which was an obelisk shaped monument. I slid down behind it for cover, and then opened up the case. I pulled from it a pair of revolvers. Suddenly, from another entrance, Rafael, yes you raffie, came running over and crouched next to me. I tried to tell him to run away, but he wouldn't leave. A shot made me look around the monument and see some cops crouched behind the wall. This is where my dream got pretty vivid. Without hesitating, I raised my gun and put a bullet straight through the first cop's face. It happened to be a female cop. Raffie shot a few times as well, but I was positioned to prevent his getting any dangerous shots. I shot another in the chest, and a third in the head. It was pretty horrible. Then I got hit in the arm, and my bullets ran out. Raffie tried to stay but I screamed at him to leave, which he did reluctantly. Just after he escaped I was caught. WHAM! That was what my conscience catching up to me was like. It was so realistic. I lay my guns next to me and stretched out on my back. I was kicked a few times by the guards, who were army soldiers in desert cammo. They insulted me and hated me, but I knew they were totally justified. Finally, I was taken to a strange room with a cell in the center. They put me in and locked me up. I thanked them for getting rid of me. The guard told me to shut the fuck up. Then I was in court, awaiting my sentence, when Raffie came in and confessed to being another culprit. I vehemently denied it, and then said that he only helped buy me the guns. However, he wouldn't give up, and finally I confessed that yes, he had been at my side. The judge gave us three choices. Death, life in prison, or a reinsertion into society. We chose the last one. We hugged eachother goodbye for now, and said we'd meet up, "on the other side". Ready for the strange part? We were both then melted down and pumped through pipes, where we had the part of our soul/mind that had made us kill distilled and removed. The rest of us was then solidified, and presto, we were ourselves again, sans agressive tendancies. But no, my dream still didn't stop. I felt what it was like to try to make a fresh start in my life. Colleges wouldn't take me, my NJROTC unit busted me down to the lowest rank, and no one wanted to befriend me. However, I could not be resentful, for I understood in my heart that I had committed evil, and deserved nothing better. But I still tried. Finally, out of frustration, I said to a man, "Why do you shun me? You know for certain that I will be a model citizen from here on out!" He responded, "It doesn't matter how good you are from now on. What matters is that in your past, you killed people in cold blood. I don't care about your future, I will avoid you because of your past."

Pretty deep closing argument huh? I think that if you read into that final dialogue, you can see a problem prevalent in international politics. I've written a lot though, so I won't elaborate. Sorry... :)

Love you all!

PS: This dream was followed by another very long and gory dream wherein I was a soldier fighting in a midieval war. Wierd, huh?

happy thanksgiving to all

ok i'm a bit late; for that i apologise.


however, in attempt to make up for that, i'd like to say something cheesy that i have been planning to post since thursday morning but was afraid someone would beat me to it.

here it goes:

on thanksgiving morning, all i could think about, as erin called david's mother to say 'happy thanksgiving', was: 'oh yea ... it is thanksgiving'. then, all i could think was: 'wow, i'm so thankful for having been given the opportunity to meet 33 beautiful people. and in turn meet erin, and her friends, and to be have been given a little more clearity of thought and a little more direction in my life.'

i look back at everything i've acquired both from and as a result of those six weeks and i can't help but feel this overwhelming warmth that i can't jsut shake off (believe me, i've tried).

***

i know it isn't the first time i'll think it (or say it for that matter); maybe i say it too much, but it's meaningfulness to me does not diminish at all any time i manifest this feeling that i get into words. i'm so happy.


.happy.day.of.today.
(since i missed being able to say '.happy.thanksgiving.')

.christopher.a.rodriguez.

disappointment.

Never mind...my parents can't find a flight. Rrgh.

Attention, NYC area TASPers!

All TASPers in the NYC area! (Haruko, Sid, Alex, Greg, David, anyone else who may have slipped my mind) I'm going to be in NYC from Friday to Sunday (morning, prolly) next week. Is there any way we can get together?

Anyone want to come along?

I know many of you thoroughly dislike They Might Be Giants, but for those of you in the area and in the know, TMBG is playing at Irving Plaza on Dec 27th. I'm going -- if anyone of you want to come, you can grab tickets at www.irvingplaza.com (too lazy to html it).

It'll be fabulous.

Check this out

Cornell I Program

Kathleen Long, who gave us the much-loved Hermaphrodite Talk, is teaching the CI seminar next year. Fabulous.

The CII seminar sounds equally awesome.

reunion.

Hell yes. But how and where?

My parents forced me to cut my hair.

reunion?

Is there actually going to be a group reunion this summer?

Hey guys! I hope you're all surviving and having some fun with senior year.

A while ago, I had a weekend of no homework, and it was the happiest time I'd had in weeks. When I started school again, the stress, exhaustion, and stupid busy work started again, and I got completely fed up.

I decided, with Rachel as my inspiration, to get out of school. I counted up my credits and found that I had exactly enough to graduate at the end of this semester, so that's what I'm doing. As of about January 20, I will be a high school graduate doing completely independent study and answering to no one but myself academically.

So that's what's going on in my life. I'm happily planning my vacation/period of intellectual freedom and limping through the last few weeks of school. I'm going to teach myself linear alegra, take a university course on cryptography, make lots of things out of cloth without patterns, and sleep for more than 7 hours a night. I might actually read a second book off the book list! :)

I don't think I would have taken the initiative or even thought of doing this before tasp, so thank you guys for showing me how people can have great intellectual development completely independently of what they study or don't study in school.

I think of you all a lot, and my friends here are sick to death of hearing tasp stories. Everyone has to hang in there so hopefully most of us can see each other at the reunion in the summer.

Love to all,
Elise

from christopher

sorry guys.

i really am.

here i don't write for what seems like aeons and then all i do is post negativity. i realised it the second i clicked the mouse there. no hi, not even good-bye.

--

so hi. you probably don't know what i'm talking about because the message to which i was referring is just below this one. i'm missing you guys so much (have been, hopefully won't always will be). sometimes i wonder if forgetting you all would make things better .. then i pass that sad excuse for a possibility off because of its intense impossibility that it's not even worth considering. gosh i have the relapse. it's the worst!

life, on the whole, is satisfactory. i'm living. weekends sustain me and they are going excellently. they just have to keep doing their jobs until i go away, but the plague of doubt as to whether that day will come keeps me in miserable check. as for my art. i have been so inspired the past few weeks and i'm goinggoingaway (at it), it makes me content even after long school days.

i suggest you read the next message and then continue with this one (that would pee me off so much if i were reading this, but i'm about to refer to things i wrote there ... sorry again).

--

i don't know how that really came across. i have all these feeling and i'm just trying to express them. problem is: they are so jumbled up and seem to be contradictory even though they aren't. they are just what i like to think of as aristotelian intermediates between extremes, which is the best way to feel perhaps because you get such a wide range of sentiments and thus, inherently, experiences, reactions, and possiblities to ponder. though, i can see how feeling in an extremist fashion would be so much easier and clearer.

ergo, i feel i must explain how i'm feeling flat-outly because it's really not as bad as it sounds. the dash thing. yea, it definitely is as bad as it sounds; but about the only bad thing about palmetto is the attitudes toward change and attitudes change, right? i figure if they got to know me that they wouldn't be so mean, but what does that matter for i'm never going to have them get to know me because it would be excessive.

other than that, come on. out of school at 1430 rather than the usual 1535. a SINGLE, fifteen minute bus ride home as opposed to multiple bus rides totalling to a two and a half hour long homeward commute. chillax climate in which one paces themself and is trusted to do their work without being coersed into procrastination. not to mention the adrenaline rush of new faces, i can't get over it.

i feel like i should be outgoing but i don;t feel like there's a point. i'm there a total of four days. what kind of relationship can come out of four days?

ok. i sound like an idiot don't i. i guess i never thought of this: they live minutes from me. finally the chance to meet people whom i can actually see on weekends because they are within reasonable distance of me. and here i am, squandering it away. i've never actually examined my un-cohesive thought process.

i wish i could continue to write forevermore but i think my brother will be angry if he finds me using his computer for such a long time. i don't know when i can post again. i'm getting a little sad right now thinking of it. (my computer is still in the shop). thinking fo you constantly and here this electronic thread that binds us can even be tight-rope-walked upon without me falling almost immediately. and the climb back up is soooo long.


i love you guys.

.christopher.a.rodriguez.

not so much funfunfun in the sunsunsun

florida sucks. yet thousands this week have come from locations nation-wide to my muddle-in-the-pot home. why? whywhywhy? why would one come here? i'll tell you why. it's that darn free trade. so i guess the real question is: why? whywhywhy? why must the money-hungry u.s. steel its greeny little eyes on latin america?

speaking of steel: is bush even for this plan? is the whole world (including himself) against him? (thankfully so, and let's keep it that way, at leastl until next november).

as if this place weren't hot enough. now we have all these people coming in to vent their hothotheads over this rather pivotal issue in this hemisphere and perhaps the world right now. worse yet is the hot air eminating from the mouths of the diplomats in the building: they are ninety-five percent of the cause of the thirteen-degree-celsius change in the tri-county's microclimate.

if only. if only (in the avaricious conservatives' eyes, this is) miami didn't have so much to gain from these talktalktalks. if only the ftaa could arrange themselves in cypress, texas. hey, krishanu. you have a fiscally conservative governor don't you? hey, dubba-ya's from there. why don't you woo the attention over to your side of the gulf. it'll get your government lots of money ...

--

so my school is in not quite in the heart of downtown but pretty darn close. am i afraid of riots? that i'll be sleeping in history class when of a sudden i become a medium-well part of the text book i'm presently drooling upon because some extremist con-freetrade punks make a bonfire of my school?

first of all, i shouldn't have given my situation the dignity of book-worthy status. second of all, no. that will never happen. rioting? maybe tomorrow. that particular situation, no. no for the sole reason that i have been blessed with the woeful munificence of the miami-dade county school board: PARTY! i'm at my home school for the next, oh, two days now.

i'm so happy (no sarcasm here ... really). it's so fun. i get to walk around the giant school all day, bored out of my pants.

but it's a good boredom because the alternative would be, let's face it, sleepy boredom in my history class in which the teacher merely spoon-feeds the information we all should have read the night before in a one-hundred minute-long lecture (unfortunate is your case if you are in the minority that actually did do the reading: forced to fill in the ben-stein-in-ferris-bueller's-day-offish blanks) .

yes, at least the boredom at miami-palmetto senior high is peppered with the occasional new face (which i'll probably never see again; and if i do, it will be muddled in the ginomous crowd of other students). it gives me the freedom of anonymity.

anonymity. yes. one of the very few aspects i miss so terribly of middle school. and i will miss it further upon my return to my tiny place of 'eduaction by design' where rumors pass like gas, where not a kid in site doesn't know your last name, gpa, and social security number (in that particular order), and where assenine drunkards strut around proclaiming themselves 'principal of this institution' while plopping the ponderous plague that is advanced placement design upon your feebly crippled back.

one thing i won't miss, however, of this outlandishly-similar-to-middle-school experience, is the strange sameness so consistent throughout the school.

remember the 'ocassional peppering of new faces'? well, each one comes with a designer label top, botton, (left and right, while we're at it) and sometimes, when they recognise your presence, an undeniably cruel stare. so filled with animosity are these kids at difference and individuality of character. it's like ayn rand's nightmare (but i sense, somehow it's her euphoric dream at the same time).

one thing is for sure. on friday at 1430, when the meek indoor bell sounds in that big library, i will pray that the robust outdoor bell never sounds. for that thing to sting my ears will mark the end of my life at miami-palmetto; and i am onerously predestined to an afterlife in the inferno. oh i'd only dream of dante's version if it meant my going there. much the sad truth is the opposite, i am forced to go to mancuso's version.

despite the neurotic homogeneity i will clutch onto my moments at this place as hard as i can, allowing none to pass me without arduous scrupulence.

Sorry I've been lurking

Hello, guys.
Guess what, I have a livejournal, courtesy of Linda! My username is blackcatjenny (surprise surprise!). Can someone add me to the list of livejournal users on the side of this blog?
Mmm, so what's new.... I had an interesting dream. Interpret it as you will. I dreamt that somehow Dara and Christian and all of us were in this deepish forest, and a bunch of you guys got lost. I thought that we should go look for you, and I was all prepared to carry multiple unconscious TASPers out of the woods with my dream-world buffness. I tried to get Dara and Christian to help, but they vanished. Then I found Christian hiding in my suitcase (don't ask me why I had a suitcase), and I realized he was a bad guy--like he got you guys lost in the first place. He was wearing black like a 30s-era gangster. I figured Dara was also in my suitcase. Eventually I and some miscellaneous dream characters found all of you in some kind of minivan in the woods. I think the message is that I'm sad that we're all dispersing and my brain had to blame someone, so it blamed Dara and Christian for not keeping us together the way they did at TASP this summer. Hmmm... This is not a guilt trip by the way. I'm just telling you my dream.
Has anyone located the Cornell I professors/our essays yet?
I had my choir concert last night, and it was lots of fun. We sang a rich, deep modern arrangement of Ode to Joy, part German, part English (not Beethoven's music)...a lyric song called We are the Music Makers, a Latin song with brass quintet with very obscure but cool text (Rorando coeli...et more cerae defluent--something about flowers and at Judgment Day, all the mountains will flow like wax)...and a really fun African song with drum and percussion and claps.
We have a dance called Senior Ball on Saturday--we only got the invitations last Saturday. I don't know if I will go--I really want a date--a female one. But there seem to be no options--all the girls who are out are already taken.
We're reading the Inferno in English. This is my second time. I like it.
Wow, I really have nothing deep to say. Drop me a line/visit my new sparkly livejournal!

Back from the land of the sick

Hello... I am back! And so is my voice! Yes, I lost my voice for a week. A whole friggin week. It was a quiet time around RAS. It started on the last day of the london trip (monday) when i got sick, and my voice didnt fully come back until today. My english teacher's gonna get it tho! he was makin fun of me about it, so i'm refusing to speak in the next class we have. We'll see how he likes that. In other news, I think I'm trying out for Twelfth Night. I also think I wont get the part I want - Viola, the lead role, and the only female role i like - because i never get the lead. Oh well, whatever, I'll try out because its impt that I do. How was the musical Miriam? Its great that u get tacky costumes! I got that in ninth grade as Ms. Hannigan! it was awesome. I'm sure you absolutely wowed them!
Its great to hear from u eddie! I was gettin worried. I may apply to amherst too, tho not early.
Did u guys all get Xtian's email? About informing he/dara if we're applyin to the house.
I g2g now. Love you all.

PS. Damn Alex, i wish i were in new york this instant. Even if i'd be freezin my arse off!

Latin in Rome and Naples

The play went phenomenally...I feel like how I'd imagine being postcoital feels. Wow.

When I'm less tired and incoherent, I'll chip in my two cents on the topic of love.

Right now, however, I'm kind of considering actually being in Italy for three weeks this summer in July (hopefully you won't have moved yet if I actually do this, Keegan). It's a Latin study program stationed in Rome and Naples. w00t. Check it out:
http://www.udallas.edu/travel/latin.cfm

Yeah man I definitely have to visit Italy while you are still there

The love equation

I think that love is a very complex thing. Personally, I choose to believe the strange queasiness you feel when you are particularly emotional about someone is more than a chemical imbalance resulting from a primordial collision of opposite-sex pheramones. I do believe that many kinds of love can exist side by side, although at times these loves will vie for position, and occasionally mess things up in the process. I believe it is something more powerful than we can possibly imagine, and that love as we know it is a mere fraction of the love that awaits us after we take the big step into the next life. However, for now, I am content to try to find what love I can in this life. I believe also that love can coexist with other feelings as well, indeed, who are we to say love and hate don't belong together. I think they are much closer than we realize. Lucifer was an angel.

Keegan

I can empathize with you about the coolness of fires roaring out of control. Although I am sad for those who have lost lives and property to them. If you really do like them a lot, why not visit Napoli? Every day I see a fire somewhere, of varying magnitudes. It is not unusual to see a massive plume of smoke on my bus ride that is visible both at my house and near my school, about 40 miles away. It's a site to see.

So there was this massive fire in my city yesterday. A huge mill burned down. There were winds of about 50 mph. I went down there and it was sooo cool. What do you guys think of fires? Or about wind? Or mills?

what's love got to do with it?

so, i've been thinking about love a bit lately, and i'm just talking about it with nikki, so i'm posing the question -- what's love got to do with it? does romantic love exist? can it? what about other kinds of love? fraternal love? erotic love? is that love? parental love? can two kinds coexist in one relationship? i know that there are certainly people in this world that i love -- family and not family -- and though i don't have a romantic love for anyone at this point, i certainly have hope that i could. so what do you all think about that? give me your two cents.

in other news -- i saw haruko, greg, sid, isa, and isa's danish friend in the city (that's new york city, of course) on tuesday night. we had a nice, liesurely dinner of good vegetarian indian food. it was really nice, i hadnt' seen any of them since tasp, and it made me miss all you guys. come to new york so i can see you!!!!

-- alex

True Love

I'm no expert, but that sounds to me like a sign that you and Miriam share true love.

Congrads!

weird

i know this is weird but i defintely had a dream about miriam and she was wearing a pink suit with a pink hat and prancing around...what could this mean?

Carnival!

Argh, I imagine lack of heat in freezing weather is quite sucky. I'm sorry, Nikki and Keegan. : /

The musical opens this Friday. Think of me and send me happy good-luck TASP vibes at 7:00 PM Central Standard Time. I'm excited beyond belief; it should be amazing. I get the coolest costumes in the whole bloody show since my character's supposed to be this super-tacky shrewish kind of person AND a magician's assistant, hurrah! I get a very vampy, quite sexy red sequined gown for the magic sequence and this supercool feather headdress, not to mention the hot pink feather pillbox hat...w00t. Acting rules.

I'm exhausted. Every day this week I've gotten home at around 9:00 and still have homework to do. So I'm going to go drop off to sleep. Night, loves.

doesn't work

damn, sorry, it doesn't work.

my debut

https://iweb-napl-hs.eu.odedodea.edu/index.html

Try typing this in to the address box, and see if it gets you where I want it to. It should take you to my school's homepage. If you do get there, and the quicktime movie loads up, enjoy my debut on film. Note that this thirty second clip was taken from an hour of footage. The original footage is absolutely hilarious, and consists mainly of me ranting and running. About math.

Oh yeah, good to hear from you again Eddie.

Do we know yet who is completely out of touch with other TASPers? It's good to hear that someone's been in communication with Blaen, I was worrying about her and Seyrum. Seyrum? Anyone?

An eddie update

Hey Guys, what's goin' on?
Right now, I'm feeling pretty lucky, just like Adam, because I'm pretty chill when it comes to college applications. I just got back from looking at Williams and Wesleyan, but have made a last-minute decision to apply early to Amherst. I know that Linda and Hannah are interested in going there...any one else? Wouldn't it be awesome if there was a mass-TASP 4-year-long reunion at Amherst? Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I'm part of it, I gotta get in.

Rock on London, Rock on Chicago.

alina's life

Alexis visited me last week and after a mild car accident, the fun began. We started our trip by shopping together and we bought matching underwear! that was exciting. we spent the rest of the two days having in my shattered car.
besides that my life has been up and down. THe people aroudn here are pretty cool but sometimes i miss the old tasp gang, a lot. like this morning i was thinking about green eggs and ham and randomness. alright, that is all i have. good night

How's everyone? Im doing excellent. I am glad that I have had time to post lately. It seems like I am getting less and less hw as the year goes on. Or maybe I am doing it faster and faster? Anyways I am glad because I seem to be less stressed out than many other people. Is anyone else applying to these three schools: Harvard, MIT, or Rennselaer? Thats the three schools that I am applying to. I decided that I want to either go to Boston or N.Y. I am going to go play soccer tonight at 9. That should be fun. Well at least its not going to be cold.

You may be wondering what has gone on lately. Well this year me and two other people at my school started a first robotics team. I know that Brenden-Hawaii has a team at his school, is anyone else on a team? Its a competition where you build this car of sorts to move stuff around. We really needed money though for it because it costs lots of it to enter and build. We had like 30 people on the team but no money. So I was talking to this guy from Raytheon for them to sponsor us. I am really excited because just today I got a call from him and he said that they are going to give us $10 000. Wow! My friends wanted to get a ryder truck, paint it black, take the money, drive to mexico, and live like princes with millions of pesoes! However, the check was going to the school, and even with millions of pesoes, we would most likely succumb to the crushing poverty of mexico. Also, my school is strictly anti-militarism and anti-globalizaiton. I dont know how well the school will handle probably the largest military missile contractor in the world subverting the school's students with money. Well darn.

so where are my flowers?

Hey, everybody, it's the three-month anniversary of our departure from TASP. well, it was yesterday, but I was sleeping then. anyhow, we've been away from TASP for twice as long as we were there, and haven't completely disintegrated as a community! hooray!

now, as part of the celebration, I was wondering if maybe we could make a more concerted effort to be sure that all the TASPers are getting communication if they want it. I think Elise said she's talked to Blaen since TASP - anyone talked to Seyram? or Ashley? or... hm... I know there are other people. maybe some people are reading the blogger but not posting, so - could you guys post, just so we know you're out there? indeed.

I'm doing well. the school newspaper is coming out today and I have an article in it about psychotic squirrels. erm... I was on the radio, and... yes. yeep, I'm late to help with the blood drive. love to everyone.

Too cold to snow.

Thirty degrees. No heat. Window doesn't close. Gotta love Ghetto Academy.

Dictionary.com! Dum dum dum...

Instead of going to church like a good little girl, I think I'm just going to chill...and look up random spelling questions on the internet. According to Merriam-Webster, it's "chimney", plural "chimneys". There, I've done my good deed for the day.

chimmineys, chimmneys...

How the hell do you spell that word? Can anyone tell me? I'd look it up in the dictionary in front of me, but my head is pounding and I'm dead tired. And my eyes are hurting, which brings me to my subject line. Somebody humor me and tell me a fanciful story of climate control and central heating, of clear chimmneys and cozy bedrooms. Here's our house. I woke up today around 6:30, because I had a venture crew (organizational hiking) trip today. When I left the house, my house was still freezing, as it has been for the last week. We can only heat a few rooms of it, and that requires spending a lot of money on some sort of petroleum to fuel our radiators. Not wanting to blow all our money in November, we've been wearing sweatshirts, hats, and jackets around the house. I came home today to find that there was a cozy fire burning away in our fireplace. Believe it or not, this is the most effective way to heat our living room, and it got us through the last two winters. However, the flip side of the coin is that our chimmney is somewhat defective, so everytime we start a fire, plumes of smoke billow out and turn our house into this bizzare, cloudy smoke stack. This fire has signaled the start of the red-eye season. During school days, I will come home at 6, start up a fire, and tend it until around 10:00, 10:30, when we all retire to our beds. I will do homework and eat in front of our inferno. I will poke at the fire to maximize each log's output. I will develope burns and blisters from rearranging the burning wood, and from the metal grate that has to be removed by hand for each new piece of wood. I will have to crawl under the living room balcony to retreive wood from the stack, a heap of wood infested with spiders, termites, and earwigs. My eyes will become burned, and my skin will take on a blackish hue. My hair will smell like smoke, and my throat will become raw.

I want a fucking thermostat.

Being the cheapass that I am, I thought I should warn those of you who do not know that my birthday is in about a week's time: November 17th.

Emails, cards, anthrax, pocket lint are all welcome.

I promise, I'm still alive.

So I haven't been posting...I promise there's a good reason (well, the sewer backed up and my school floated away and I can't do anything without my day-of-the-week underwear and the dog ran away with Thursday). So yeah. Classes are decent, although I have to miss lunch for my French class, which does not make me happy, since swimming started and I need food. I've been massively craving some Special K with bananas. Or a peach smoothie.

There's nothing exciting going on at the moment...our French club is taking a field trip to the Mint Museum sometime, the math club sponsor is bitching me out for doing my job when she doesn't do hers, swimming makes me want to drown myself, noone is working on the newspaper so it's not getting out and I feel responsible even though I've been working my ass off on it, and I finally finished college apps and my term paper (rough draft, anyway, which was kind of a rewriting of one of the TASP essays...I'm not lazy, no).

In other news...okay, the US Mint has announced that the nickels are getting new designs on the back in 2004. I just want to say - what? Is this what we pay our government for? To redesign spare change? Jesus, I just want it to fit in the vending machines, I don't care what it looks like. It's kind of like the government's declaring national "days", like "National Pigs' Ass Wipers' Day". I would think that there are more important issues to address...

That is all for now, catch more on the eleven-o-clock news, I love you all,
Nikki

Anchors away!

Just thought I'd post the latest update on my bid for college. I've received notice that I am granted a NROTC scholarship for Cornell University! I now have a place to stay and the department of defense to foot the tuition bill, now I just need to be actually accepted into the university. That would be nice. Well, it looks like an interesting future is calling, hopefully I can find the receiver around here somewhere...damn the torpedoes!

Urk.

Messed that up. Anyway, here's the URL if it works:
http://www.hamncheez.com/download.php?flash=endoftheworld.swf

AP studio art is annoying and time consuming and I wish I was just not taking the class but had spare time to just paint without all the damn stress. I don't need a bloody college credit in studio art. Must head off to do my calc homework and breed fruit flies. Ah the loveliness of biology.

funniness : )

So I found this crazy animation that I (in my silliness) thought was freaking hilarious. The last time I tried to post a URL on the blog, it linked me back in a circle, but we'll see how this works. It's on this website called hamncheez, and it's an animation entitled "the end of the world" or some such

yes rafie loves you

I am in computer class, and i am not supposed to be online i think. Well, all is average here. Cold is cold like last year. My high school is disturbingly immature. I take two classes at the University of Wisconsin-Milaukee(UWM), but i have to come back to this garbage everyday. Well, since the last time i wrote anything on the message board, i have been voted all-conference for soccer, scored nine goals in my season, and fasted the last week and a half. i have to finish this assignment on Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, anyone read this? oh, Morrison and her incest.

i suck

sorry guys. my computer is completely broken. i'm using my big brother's computer so i can only be on for like a second. but i love you guys and, i thought i'd be over it by now, but still : not a 'day goes by' that i don't think about you all.

More natality.

Today is Elise's birthday.

Happy seventeenth.

Winners!

SO i went on the trip to Tangiers for volleyball. And we won. Both guys and girls. As much as i love celebrating the fact that we whooped everyone's asses, i feel kinda wrong. Bcuz i dint get to play a single set. Or minute. And that blows. I'm probably the least upset - the 3 other girls hate it more. Especially Kemi, whose Nigerian (her father replaced my dad at the Embassy) and reminds me of myself b4 i stopped giving a fuck about our school's behaviour towards me. Ah well, she'll get over it - her sisters will help. The worst part is i missed trick or treating on Friday (in the pouring rain) because I was at the tournament. COnsolation prize: our coach's fiancee painted our faces on the way there.
We're doing Twelfth Night this year. I cant wait. I dont even really know the play, BUT its my last high school play and I'm dying to start it. I'll keep u all posted about what's going on with that.
I may or may not be going to London in 2 days. It depends on if morocco gives me a visa or not. A return visa that is - like I'm in here now, but they dont feel like lettin me back in. Pray for me that works out cuz i really wanna go, and i really wanna see my cousins.
I'm so disoriented for the one school day that i missed. I cant figure out anything... I just realised at 10 o'clock last nite that today was an a day and not (as i had imagined) a b day. Oh well.
U guys, tomorrow is Krishanu's birthday, i think we must bombard his email accordingly. I havent heard from him in ten billion ages.
Good luck to all of us applying early somewhere.

IE has weird issues with this site; it refuses to load the latest version sometimes unless I post.

don't hate me, pleeeeeeeeeze

I've been awfully awful about keeping in touch lately, but I'm back and I'll try to stay back. [Insert lame-ass and inadequate excuse here about not having time]

Keegan, you're moving to LONDON? Rock on! :D At least it's someplace familiar this time, and for chrissake, it's London! You'll blend right in with no effort at all. That absolutely rules. Where is the creative connections course geographically? (By the way, it's fantastic that you're taking a course in theatre. You are such a freaking movie star.)

Alex, your Halloween costume sounds tres hot : )

Sid, good luck with the app...

Adam: music vids to check out for ideas (yes, I am a slave to VH1): "Smack My Bitch Up" - Prodigy, "Losing My Religion" - R.E.M., "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" - David Bowie, "Days Go By" - Dirty Vegas (one of my favorites, and not very technically demanding unlike the others. this one is a good inspiration source because of its simplicity).

News of the Miriam: I MET ANOTHER TASPER!! One of the UT Austin kiddies. We met at the Stanford Fall Visitation Program. His name is Adrian, and he's an artist/evolutionary biology enthusiast (those crazy taspers with their weird and diverse interests). He showed me some of his slides, and his work is *phenomenally* gorgeous. He took AP Studio Art last year (I'm taking it this year) and his concentration had to do with windows, so he had these gorgeous paintings and prints of these dilapidated old window frames. Beautiful...And he gave me and someone else this big long (and seriously fascinating) lecture about evolutionary biology. Crazy taspers.

And my show is at 8:00 PM, November 14 and 15. I will be playing The Incomparable Rosalie (actual character title...I'm a magician's assistant) in the Saint Mary's Hall production of Carnival! If there is any humanly possible way for any of you to make it down for it, I'd be eternally grateful, because as it is the only people coming in to town are family. Krishanu? Ashley? Maaaaaybe? It's not Broadway (aw hell, it's a bad high school production), but it's terrifically fun.

I have to run along and be a slave to homework now. I'll return, though!

visit me!

Somebody visit me! I swear, Italy's cheap, and ticket rates go down during the winter! Ok, maybe it's just not feasible, but remember, if your loved ones say something like, "You know, I've heard Italy's really pretty" or "I'd love to see Rome and Pompeii" or "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore," jump up and say, "I can get us there!" Then write or call me. HAHA! It's gotta work! Two other me-news-blips; My family is currently slated to move to London, England next summer. I consider this a homecoming. Yeah! Have you guys heard of creative connections? It's pretty much an artsy instructional camp seminar thing for one week. I'm going to apply for a new subject this year: Irish theatre. Can you believe that's an actual course this year!? IRISH---THEATRE (that's how I spell it so bugger off with your "theater.") I'm all over this. Got to go, love you all,

Keegan

Hey adam, remember how Cornell thought I was Leegan?