Elizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hermionesviolin) wrote2006-02-19 01:56 am
hermionesviolin) wrote2006-02-19 01:56 am
life update
Wednesday
The $50thou Millionaire question I had no clue about (The Model T originally sold for . . . $850) and usually when you switch the question the new one they give you is nigh impossible, but this one was "which gemstone, whose name comes from from the Greek meaning against intoxication, was supposed to protect one from the effects of drunkenness?" and I knew the answer even before they listed them (only because it was in something I'd read recently but can't recall -- possibly "Golden City Far" by Gene Wolfe in Flights: extreme visions of fantasy ed. Al Sarrantonio, but that feels wrong; probably some Cicada short story) -- opal, sapphire, amethyst, emerald. I saw the answers and knew I was right: amethyst. I thought, "a=not, meth.... yeah, I've gotta be right." I should have known the $100thou ("Exit, pursued by a bear") but didn't (Winter's Tale, which I've been meaning to read since junior year of high school).
Afterward we watched the beginning of the DS9 ep "Trials and Tribble-ations."
O'Brien: chroniton particles...
me: "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."
O'Brien: There's a ship directly in front of us.
Mary Alice: It's the Enterprise!
Viewscreen: [shows the Enterprise]
Mary Alice and I: [surprised and impressed at Mary Alice's random guess being right]
Odo: "She called it a Tribble!"
Worf: Grr! and fear.
me: I was wondering if anyone remembered. So he [Kirk] has the biggest file on record; something like this should stick out.
We dispersed back to work not long after, and I Googled to get the gist of the remainder of the episode.
Isabel: I get out of class at about 5:30, so we can meet for dinner whenever you get out from work (any suggestions about where to go?).
Me: [suggests Veggie Planet]
Isabel: YES! Finally someone who'll go to Veggie Panet with me. I've been wanting to try it, but I'm friends with carnivores opposed to green and grainy things.
One of these days I'll order something other than the same thing I always order there, but this was not that night. We saw Crash [lj entry here] and because I had plenty of time before I needed to leave to get my train home we hung out in TeaLuxe for a while afterward.
Overheard in Harvard Square: "my LiveJournal post."
Oh, I forgot to mention. When I was at the library, Saturday before last, some girls (age 12 maybe?) were printing stuff out and I totally saw the fanfiction.net logo on top. I restrained myself from enquiring as to the fandom.
Proof that I am not all about Teh Gay, Isabel was telling me I needed to see Capote, and what sold me was her talk about a connection between In Cold Blood and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Thursday
Really tired again this morning, natch. (Home ~11:30 the previous night.) Was really tempted to ride the Red Line out to Alewife and then back to Harvard so I could get more nap time in, but I didn't.
I was strangely awake all day, though. Which was good, as I didn't really want a repeat of the previous day when I was ready to fall asleep at my desk around four o'clock.
According to the 2004 Census, the median age of first-time brides in the U.S. is: 21, 23, 25, 27? Answer: 25. They also asked asked the real name of the horse who played Mr. Ed -- Penny Ante, Sweet Whisperer, Bamboo Harvester. Answer is: Bamboo Harvester. None of us guessed that.
I learned that Laura lives in Braintree. It thus stuns me that she drives in to work. I mean Braintree is at one end of the Red Line. Though I don't know what HBS's employee discount for parking is, so maybe it actually is cheaper to drive in to work than to park at Braintree and drive in. (I didn't ask 'cause we were talking after work and I really had to be heading to the Square -- as it was I ran hardcore.)
Watched Fantastic Four with my mom [lj entry here]
Friday
As previously mentioned, this was a very slow day.
I'd brought a coat in preparation for the evening but didn't wear it at all in the morning and was surprised at just how cold it had gotten when I left work. I walked to the Square with Alyssa, and we parted ways where the galleria thing is
I was a couple minutes later getting to the T Station than I sometimes am, but there were a lot of people already waiting, so clearly a train hadn't come too recently.
There was a guy playing accordion, and he didn't look so great but the music was quite good so I gave him money.
little girl: "What are you doing?"
guy: "I'm trying to make my rent; that's what I'm doing."
The travel experience was downhill from there. The little kids weren't that bad -- the "I hate trains" little boy shut up after a couple stops -- but the mom made me seethe. As the train got more crowded she jokingly yelled "I can't breathe!" and I was willing to let that go 'cause she'd had a long day or whatever, ditto her scolding her daughter like three times for hugging a stranger (as far as I could tell, the girl did it once, but the mom scolded her repeatedly). One of the kids was calling someone else a vampire and I wasn't sure if it was another kid or a passenger -- by this point there were multiple people in the aisle between us. Then the mom was griping to her friend about feeling faint (I guess) and how she might fall into some guy, and her friend commented, "make sure it's not an ugly guy" and she responded that it would probably be a lesbian (in this "that would be even worse" tone) and I was kinda seething at this. Were it not for the fact that there were a lot of people in between us and (and really this was the primary reason) the fact that she was getting off one stop before me and I didn't wanna hold up this ride any more than it already was I like to think I would in fact have lectured her. After she got out one woman actually vocalized "I'm glad she's gone" (she had been loudly complaining the entire duration between Park and Downtown about how she was gonna have to turn this stroller around and people needed to get out of her way, and I imagine a lot of us were thinking, "Well there's no space to move until the doors open, and what were you thinking at rush hour Friday before a 3-day weekend anyway?"). Park St. was the start of the stupid people standing on the yellow line as if there would magically be more space in the car, and when I got out at South Station I ran almost all the way up and got there at five-forty-one. My train leaves at five-forty. I was pissed.
My dad mentioned on Thursday that NHS was doing Doctor Faustus as their competition play. I'd been meaning to read that (as well as Geothe's Faust) for ages. Getting in to Norwood Depot ~6:13 would give me plenty of time to walk up to theSavage Center old Junior High North, but 6:45? Cutting it much closer. The train got in more like 6:50, and uphill in the wind? Ow, my legs. I actually wondered if I should just go home and go to bed. I only got there a few minutes late, though. I really like the way they did Mephistophilis and don't really have any other comments, in part because I did doze off at the end, due to the aforementioned tiredness. It felt like all the events of the play happened way too fast, so I got the play out from the library so I can better critique Marlowe (and also compare Goethe; yay Harvard Classics putting them both in a single volume).
I was gonna go to bed early but got sucked into watching bits of the Olympics with my mom. I learned that ice dancing is teh boring. Watching the slalom I told my mom about the Ani lyric -- unable to save ourselves from the quaint tragedies we invent and undo, from the stupid circumstances we slalom through.
So yes, I saw Lindsey Jacobellis. First the announcers didn't know what had happened, and then they were showing replays and one of the announcers was talking about how she looked behind her to check out the gap and then tweaked out on a showboating trick, and if it really had been a showboating trick I was gonna be pissed at her. I did feel bad, though, 'cause after all the preceding ones the two winners would shake hands and here the winner was celebrating and everyone was mobbing her and Lindsey was just standing there. In the immediate post- interview she said she'd been having trouble with that section of the track and was just trying to stabilize, and that made me feel better. And like she said, a silver at the Olympics is still very good. Her comment that the U.S. will still be on the podium reminded me of the uncomfortable nationalism of the Olympics. My favorite was one of the announcers saying that if he had the opportunity to go into first place ending with a stylish trick like that in front of the grandstands he would absolutely do it.
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sexonastick has already posted some on the coverage -- including how the woman who crashed into the snow fence early on was being taken out in what looked like a body bag but all the media could talk about was how Lindsey blew her gold medal -- and ghostintheshell has a link, which among other things talks about how snowboarding is so much about style anyway.
Saturday
I was the Great and Amazing Sloth, which didn't entirely make sense to me as I wasn't that tired during the day on Friday and though I stayed up a few hours later than I would have preferred it wasn't that late; and I'm mostly over my cold. So yeah, my Saturday was far less productive than I had previously intended.
I went to the library (as mentioned above) and weather.com said it was 24F feels like 9F. I actually felt less cold coming back when it was supposedly 22F feels like 7F. Shrug. I was pleased by the cold both times, natch.
Oh, and my dad made stir fry tonight and he made stir fry tofu for me and I appreciated the protein but . . . flavor. My dad said he thought when I said I didn't like food with flavor I was just joking. Now okay I have had food that I find unpleasantly tasteless, but clearly he hasn't been paying attention. :) [Course, we so rarely have food at my house, how would one even know ;) ]
The $50thou Millionaire question I had no clue about (The Model T originally sold for . . . $850) and usually when you switch the question the new one they give you is nigh impossible, but this one was "which gemstone, whose name comes from from the Greek meaning against intoxication, was supposed to protect one from the effects of drunkenness?" and I knew the answer even before they listed them (only because it was in something I'd read recently but can't recall -- possibly "Golden City Far" by Gene Wolfe in Flights: extreme visions of fantasy ed. Al Sarrantonio, but that feels wrong; probably some Cicada short story) -- opal, sapphire, amethyst, emerald. I saw the answers and knew I was right: amethyst. I thought, "a=not, meth.... yeah, I've gotta be right." I should have known the $100thou ("Exit, pursued by a bear") but didn't (Winter's Tale, which I've been meaning to read since junior year of high school).
Afterward we watched the beginning of the DS9 ep "Trials and Tribble-ations."
O'Brien: chroniton particles...
me: "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."
O'Brien: There's a ship directly in front of us.
Mary Alice: It's the Enterprise!
Viewscreen: [shows the Enterprise]
Mary Alice and I: [surprised and impressed at Mary Alice's random guess being right]
Odo: "She called it a Tribble!"
Worf: Grr! and fear.
me: I was wondering if anyone remembered. So he [Kirk] has the biggest file on record; something like this should stick out.
We dispersed back to work not long after, and I Googled to get the gist of the remainder of the episode.
Isabel: I get out of class at about 5:30, so we can meet for dinner whenever you get out from work (any suggestions about where to go?).
Me: [suggests Veggie Planet]
Isabel: YES! Finally someone who'll go to Veggie Panet with me. I've been wanting to try it, but I'm friends with carnivores opposed to green and grainy things.
One of these days I'll order something other than the same thing I always order there, but this was not that night. We saw Crash [lj entry here] and because I had plenty of time before I needed to leave to get my train home we hung out in TeaLuxe for a while afterward.
Overheard in Harvard Square: "my LiveJournal post."
Oh, I forgot to mention. When I was at the library, Saturday before last, some girls (age 12 maybe?) were printing stuff out and I totally saw the fanfiction.net logo on top. I restrained myself from enquiring as to the fandom.
Proof that I am not all about Teh Gay, Isabel was telling me I needed to see Capote, and what sold me was her talk about a connection between In Cold Blood and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Thursday
Really tired again this morning, natch. (Home ~11:30 the previous night.) Was really tempted to ride the Red Line out to Alewife and then back to Harvard so I could get more nap time in, but I didn't.
I was strangely awake all day, though. Which was good, as I didn't really want a repeat of the previous day when I was ready to fall asleep at my desk around four o'clock.
According to the 2004 Census, the median age of first-time brides in the U.S. is: 21, 23, 25, 27? Answer: 25. They also asked asked the real name of the horse who played Mr. Ed -- Penny Ante, Sweet Whisperer, Bamboo Harvester. Answer is: Bamboo Harvester. None of us guessed that.
I learned that Laura lives in Braintree. It thus stuns me that she drives in to work. I mean Braintree is at one end of the Red Line. Though I don't know what HBS's employee discount for parking is, so maybe it actually is cheaper to drive in to work than to park at Braintree and drive in. (I didn't ask 'cause we were talking after work and I really had to be heading to the Square -- as it was I ran hardcore.)
Watched Fantastic Four with my mom [lj entry here]
Friday
As previously mentioned, this was a very slow day.
I'd brought a coat in preparation for the evening but didn't wear it at all in the morning and was surprised at just how cold it had gotten when I left work. I walked to the Square with Alyssa, and we parted ways where the galleria thing is
I was a couple minutes later getting to the T Station than I sometimes am, but there were a lot of people already waiting, so clearly a train hadn't come too recently.
There was a guy playing accordion, and he didn't look so great but the music was quite good so I gave him money.
little girl: "What are you doing?"
guy: "I'm trying to make my rent; that's what I'm doing."
The travel experience was downhill from there. The little kids weren't that bad -- the "I hate trains" little boy shut up after a couple stops -- but the mom made me seethe. As the train got more crowded she jokingly yelled "I can't breathe!" and I was willing to let that go 'cause she'd had a long day or whatever, ditto her scolding her daughter like three times for hugging a stranger (as far as I could tell, the girl did it once, but the mom scolded her repeatedly). One of the kids was calling someone else a vampire and I wasn't sure if it was another kid or a passenger -- by this point there were multiple people in the aisle between us. Then the mom was griping to her friend about feeling faint (I guess) and how she might fall into some guy, and her friend commented, "make sure it's not an ugly guy" and she responded that it would probably be a lesbian (in this "that would be even worse" tone) and I was kinda seething at this. Were it not for the fact that there were a lot of people in between us and (and really this was the primary reason) the fact that she was getting off one stop before me and I didn't wanna hold up this ride any more than it already was I like to think I would in fact have lectured her. After she got out one woman actually vocalized "I'm glad she's gone" (she had been loudly complaining the entire duration between Park and Downtown about how she was gonna have to turn this stroller around and people needed to get out of her way, and I imagine a lot of us were thinking, "Well there's no space to move until the doors open, and what were you thinking at rush hour Friday before a 3-day weekend anyway?"). Park St. was the start of the stupid people standing on the yellow line as if there would magically be more space in the car, and when I got out at South Station I ran almost all the way up and got there at five-forty-one. My train leaves at five-forty. I was pissed.
My dad mentioned on Thursday that NHS was doing Doctor Faustus as their competition play. I'd been meaning to read that (as well as Geothe's Faust) for ages. Getting in to Norwood Depot ~6:13 would give me plenty of time to walk up to the
I was gonna go to bed early but got sucked into watching bits of the Olympics with my mom. I learned that ice dancing is teh boring. Watching the slalom I told my mom about the Ani lyric -- unable to save ourselves from the quaint tragedies we invent and undo, from the stupid circumstances we slalom through.
So yes, I saw Lindsey Jacobellis. First the announcers didn't know what had happened, and then they were showing replays and one of the announcers was talking about how she looked behind her to check out the gap and then tweaked out on a showboating trick, and if it really had been a showboating trick I was gonna be pissed at her. I did feel bad, though, 'cause after all the preceding ones the two winners would shake hands and here the winner was celebrating and everyone was mobbing her and Lindsey was just standing there. In the immediate post- interview she said she'd been having trouble with that section of the track and was just trying to stabilize, and that made me feel better. And like she said, a silver at the Olympics is still very good. Her comment that the U.S. will still be on the podium reminded me of the uncomfortable nationalism of the Olympics. My favorite was one of the announcers saying that if he had the opportunity to go into first place ending with a stylish trick like that in front of the grandstands he would absolutely do it.
sexonastick has already posted some on the coverage -- including how the woman who crashed into the snow fence early on was being taken out in what looked like a body bag but all the media could talk about was how Lindsey blew her gold medal -- and ghostintheshell has a link, which among other things talks about how snowboarding is so much about style anyway.Saturday
I was the Great and Amazing Sloth, which didn't entirely make sense to me as I wasn't that tired during the day on Friday and though I stayed up a few hours later than I would have preferred it wasn't that late; and I'm mostly over my cold. So yeah, my Saturday was far less productive than I had previously intended.
I went to the library (as mentioned above) and weather.com said it was 24F feels like 9F. I actually felt less cold coming back when it was supposedly 22F feels like 7F. Shrug. I was pleased by the cold both times, natch.
Oh, and my dad made stir fry tonight and he made stir fry tofu for me and I appreciated the protein but . . . flavor. My dad said he thought when I said I didn't like food with flavor I was just joking. Now okay I have had food that I find unpleasantly tasteless, but clearly he hasn't been paying attention. :) [Course, we so rarely have food at my house, how would one even know ;) ]
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Re Faustus-St. John's did it, and won four (points to gray hairs) years ago, so I don't know as to N-wood's chances. Then again, we kicked N-wood's butt the one time we came up against them in pre-lims. Oh Globe Drama Fest politics, how I don't miss you.
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I think homesick nostalgia is a completely appropriate reaction :)
And I miss you, too. *snugs*
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