A Happiness of Epic Proportions
I won’t lie to you, it’s quite normal for me to be happy. It’s as normal to me as being tired is to the average high schooler (who actually studies). But I’m super-super happy today. One of the Most Important People I know wrote me today. And I’m about to bust out my black pen to write back, because I miss this MIP very very much. Her letter clouds the bad thoughts in my head and makes me think of Good Things. Sure it makes me nostalgic, but I’m glad to know that I still hold a place in her heart. <3
And the second reason I'm super-super happy is that tomorrow I officially turn Old. Almost Ancient. Just Old for now. I am psyched. SO PSYCHED!
One more reason, London is building a cloud of LED-laced bubbles above the 2012 Olympic grounds. Not just any bubbles, but bubbles that will broadcast information about the games and about stuff that tourists would like to know (perhaps, when the sun will shine?). It looks amazing. And I am ridiculously excited to see it finished. Even though I probably won't be seeing it in person… :-(
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The Culmination of a Semester
In three weeks, I will be sitting for three Finals. Or midterms, whatever you wish to call them. And I am so psyched for this mess to be over. Not just the mess on my desk of work needing to be done, clothes needing to be tucked into drawers, books needing to be read, letters needing to be written, and bottles needing to be watched. I’m talking about the mess of in my mind and the people around me. Life is messy. Entropy. I know. But still, in the seemingly innate struggle for chaos, I want to find order. And I’m absolutely certain that by now, there is no order, until I take the time to organize everything back into their shelves. The unwanted things pushed to the back, and the wanted things in the middle, and the URGENT! NEED TO FIX NOW things in the front.
Everything is in the front right now. Absolutely everything. And I’m sick of wading through this marsh of foolishness. I’m over high school and the dumb drama that comes with teenage, hormonal, sex-driven minds.
There are thoughts that need to be said. And thoughts that need to be heard. I think I’ve said all the words that need to be said. I think it’s your turn to start listening, because sometimes, I’m not joking. When my lips don’t part in a smile, and my eyes can’t meet yours, I’m not joking. Sometimes, things are serious. And when they are, it’s best that you stop smirking like everyone cares, because when the time comes that things are serious, and you’re the only one smiling, no one will care.
This Thanksgiving Break has given me the gift of breathing amidst piles of shit. And it didn’t smell as bad as it usually does.
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The Indulgence of my Inner Nerd
So maybe I’m not the best nerd in the world, seeing as I didn’t go out to see Star Trek the minute it premiered, but still. I watched part of it yesterday, and would have finished it had been past ten at night when we started watching it. But the first hour is incredible!!! So epic! Aside from the corny “coincidences” of the previous crew of the Enterprise from the original Star Trek meeting each other. Seriously, why would they all want to live in Iowa is my question.
Anywho. I’m so pumped for the next hour and a half!! Sure the new Spock is nowhere near as epic as Ambassador Spock. And James C. Kirk is such a ladies’ man, it’s not even funny. It bothers me a little bit. But still, the action sequences have been beyond the beyond the beyond this world. (haha, bad pun)
I’m excited.
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Teaching
It’s difficult, for anyone who doesn’t have the talent. And it’s difficult when you spend half the period doing too many problems from homework of two nights ago, and then talk about how wonderful you are at everything (we all know you aren’t seeing as you have to go around reassuring yourself that you are), only to realize that you didn’t leave enough time to actually teach. Teach isn’t do. It’s to help others understand. Understand isn’t just know how to, it’s also know why. I’m confused by the book, and I can’t understand why, for the life of me, that you think, for even a second, that you’re a pure math guy. I’ve got news for you, pure math people know why. Maybe you do know why, and since you do happen to be a teacher, why don’t you enlighten the rest of us who are sitting here either bored half the time, or confused beyond belief.
It doesn’t matter how many years you have under your belt, that doesn’t matter as much as you think it should. I’m going to go ask someone who can actually explain to me what I’m doing. If I have to sit through yet another stupid speech about your brilliance, I’m going to ditch class. I swear it, I will. I’m sick of it. So damn sick of it. And I love how you think that some of us actually listen. The speech has been said, and I don’t care if you edit it, I don’t want to hear it anymore. Fifty times is enough for me to get by for the rest of this life, and the next, and the one after that, and the one after that, etc. Shut up. We know you like the sound of your voice, and we’re so over it. You should join the rest of us over here.
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Contacts
I can see. Sans glasses. I can see! One hundred percent, 20/20, deliciously clear, delectably visible. It’s amazing. And happens to be one of the strangest things ever. The clarity of my sight is no longer bound in four-way parentheses of obnoxious metal. Nothing there closing 20/20. The astigmatism is virtually gone, and after spending the past few days with mild headaches because of astigmatism, nothing. At all. Weirdness.
Ah well.
Yay for contacts! I get to decide now how much I like them… maybe I’ll even wear them to school on Monday, if I feel courageous enough.
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Astigmatism
The laptop screen looks like an oval. The lights are more like stars than they are circular lights. It probably does not help that my newer glasses just broke, and I am currently wearing my old glasses with the improper prescription, and therefore the wrong astigmatism prescription.
Wonderful. This should be fun. I already have a headache.
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Northampton, Mass.
As most of you know, I spent a good month in Northampton, specifically Smith College, this past summer. I realized today as I was driving with my mom to go get a movie just how much I miss being there. It’s a completely different culture there. You’d think that as a country, we’d have some idea of a unified culture, but we don’t. The West Coast has different jargon, and is more solo-transportation based. Here, we spend most of our lives in a car driving around, whereas the East Coast is much more walking-centric, and therefore more sociable.
This is just my opinion, but I find it much friendlier there. The people are much more used to being around other people rather than cooped up in a car only to drive to be cooped up in a cubicle only to be let out a good eight hours later to be, once again, cooped up in a car. I don’t really know what has gotten into me, but I want to go back. I want to turn back the clock and be back in the summer with my friends on the tennis courts, surrounded by greenery and lush landscapes. There are so many things that I’d do differently now that I look back on it, and it disappoints me a little that I didn’t do them while I had the chance.
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Tags: northampton, smith, SSEP 2009
Applications 2 out 4 to go
I’ve been stalking the RSI and WTP websites ever since I got home from SSEP. I was high off of the Massachusetts charm and off of the amazing weather (the morning temperatures there sometimes got as low as winter highs here, it was amazing; and it rained).
RSI boasted that their 2010 application would be out mid-October, I visited the site every single day from October 10th until yesterday. They lied to me about the date at which the application would be out, but that’s alright. They weren’t as fun as the WTP people who actually changed their prospective application date from late October to early November on their website. Maybe that just goes to show how mildly obsessed I am about these camps, that I’d actually know that they changed the quip below “How to Apply” section… But that’s okay. I hope that my excitement is tangible enough for them to feel through my application.
I just have two other lesser priority camps to wait on: KEYS and YSP. I’m not as psyched about them as I am about WTP and RSI, but the chances of getting into KEYS and YSP are far greater than that of the former two.
I’m looking forward so much to April when I get to find out results!
I feel like such a nerd, but who wouldn’t want to spend a summer at MIT? It may not be the most attractive private institution there is, but no one can deny its brilliance.
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Tags: KEYS, MIT, RSI, WTP, YSP
Estrogen
It’s fantastic for everything about making babies. But it’s not fantastic when it promotes crazy over-analytical thinking. When the dude says something, he says it. Rarely do they actually lace some underlying reason to it. Girls do it, boys don’t. They’re not wired like we are. It’s some weird thing that girls do that makes us thinking that everything the guy says has some undercurrent of amorous meaning. I don’t get it. They’ve just got dicks, what makes them so special that we have to spend our time thinking, overanalyzing, and fussing about them. They don’t matter aside from the fact that they’re good for reproduction.
Honestly. Half the time you sit there wondering whether or not he meant something when he said such and such, when in reality, he just said it. I have full confidence in the fact that men are too dumb to actually put some meaning behind it besides what is completely and utterly apparent. I take that back, men are not too dumb to. It’s just that men don’t care enough to. They don’t think too much into what they say.
And that’s the best thing about them. You get men at face value. Literally. And that’s amazing. There’s no gossip behind hands, there are no secrets, it’s all right there. At least that’s the kind of man I think dream about. I know a couple too, that are like this. Just blunt. And I love it. No more worrying about what they meant.
Oh, and when you think a guy is going to ask you about something that happened, he won’t. By default he won’t, unless you guys are really close. Then he will, but whatever. You can keep to your attention-seeking antics as much as you want.
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Amidst a Crowd of Steinways
I have a recital tomorrow (which I do believe I mentioned before), so I went in with my teacher to practice my piece and get used to acoustics and the tone of the pianos. I never knew that my city was the home of a piano rebuilder and tuner who tuned for masters of the art like Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz. He’s rebuilt nine-foot grands for Steinway, and they’re planning on shipping them down here from his storage space in California. I’m banking on his grands to be better than the one I was playing one earlier. It was bright, and rather torturous to the performer’s ears, though my teacher informed me that it sounded okay in the audience. Her nine-foot was really nice, good tone and everything.
And now, of course, I must go on my rant about pianos. I have discovered my ideal piano. The tone has to be equal throughout each key from bottom to top. I want the low notes to resonate a deep thunderous sound, the kind I associate with a charismatic man. I want the high notes to resonate a melodious tune, but not anywhere near the tinkly harpsichord, clavichord esque sound. I want immediate response that allows for somewhat lethargic fingers to play a crisp and clear-cut tune. I want to look up and see strings reaching to the end of the stage.
I have yet to play on a piano this perfect. Nothing I have touched has come close, nothing I can recall. I know that the Hamburg nine-foot was beautiful, but I hardly remember anything about it. Probably because of the fact that I was in the middle of a competition and had no time to critique the piano. Then again, not critiquing the piano might have been a good thing since there was nothing to critique.
I mean, I did spend all of my most recent competition wincing at the overly bright piano that I was given…
On another note, Happy Halloween!
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Tags: perfection, steinway
