Eye'm Restless

So school has officially turned me into a crazy person; I have a twitch. Seriously, my eyelid has been non-stop tweaking ever since I got out of ballet around noon. Just to show how annoying this has been for me, I am going to let you know every single time my eye twitches while writing this note. *twitch*

*twitch* It has been an eventful few days back. I've plunged right into my TA duties and it has been wonderful. Basically, *twitch* all of the TAs are amazing people. I think that the prerequisites for being hired are you must be nerdy, awkward, and hilarious. During our ice breaker question, one of the guys said that even though he had been searching for a reason for 20 minutes and come up with nothing, if he could be any person or thing, he would be asparagus. And I feel so legit *twitch* now that I have access to all the secret meetings, computer labs, supply rooms, free food, and copy machines(with colored *twitch* paper!). Not to brag or anything, but I also have my own mailbox. I don't care that there will never actually be mail in it, I *twitch* have one. Plus, one of the meeting spaces is ridiculously pretty. We use it around 6:00 when the sun is starting to go down and it is on the sixth floor of the cs building with huge windows. So much *twitch* awesome.

Hand in hand with TA-ing, I taught my first section today. Even though half the students went to the wrong room because it was changed recently, it went decently well. I made *twitch* them do the typical ice breaker questions and bribed them with candy, like all the other TAs. And then I proceeded *twitch* *twitch* to attempt to teach programming with chalk and a blackboard. If I were half as good at writing quickly and legibly on a blackboard as my Italian Calc TA was, this would have been fine. I may have to go practice my chalk technique, cause it could use a lot of work.

My other classes have been going well. Even *twitch* when I noticed the depressingly low amount of females in the classes I'm taking. Seriously, what is it with most girls and upper level math/science classes? I guess *twitch* *twitch* the 15 other girls in my math 308 class and *twitch* I will just have to rep our gender that much harder. The classes themselves look doable though. I'm being taught about linear systems by a lovely Eastern European (possibly Russian) woman and physics by a plethora of online homework websites. I'm also making friends with a planner for the first time in my life. Organization... who knew?

Now I'm left dealing with this twitch. I had it when I taught my first section, I had it walking around my campus, *twitch* I had it while meeting with the awesome cs people I will be spending so much time with, and I had it the entire miserable bus ride home. Staring out the window, feeling like a loser with a tweaky, twitchy eye and just wishing the hour *twitch* commute could go by faster. The only upside is that you can't really see it. Well, you can, but only if you stare at my left eye and wait for a tiny movement. But after freaking out when it first happened, and then dealing *twitch* with it all day, I told my mother who proceeded to let me know that she gets this frequently. Here I thought I was just slowly suffering from a weird stroke, or school had actually caused me to go fully insane. Apparently when I'm *twitch* overly stressed out, or tired, or possibly because my one good eye is overworked and needs to tweak out a bit, I will get this oh-so-attractive twitch. Thanks mom, you could really take this *twitch* crappy piece of genetics back. Seriously, I'd be fine without it.

I must bid you adieu for now, and go try and sleep my eye back to normalcy. That is, *twitch* after I do one of the many physics homework assignments I have this week. I hope all of your midterms went well.

Much *twitch* love,
Riley

*twitch*

Edit: I just dug out my glasses and the twitching stopped. Silly Riley.

Scarred for Life

Some days there is a general theme that runs in every conversation you have. Sometimes it is about how nerdy your life has become, or how things are different from how they were when you were at home. Today, it was things that I still hate because of traumatic childhood experiences. In order, the things that occurred to me I hate were: the song Greensleeves, spinach ravioli (and all cooked spinach, for that matter), the YMCA, and Battleship.

Unlike some of the other things on the aforementioned list, I am unable to pinpoint the exact moment when I began hating the song Greensleeves. (For those of you who are thinking “well then you didn’t have a traumatic childhood experience about it then!” I must inform you that the reason for the confusion is that there are multiple traumatic experiences, so I humbly request you quit your neener neenering. [Yes, neener neenering is a verb. How dare you look it up!? You don’t trust me!?]) I am quite positive that in my early days of piano lessons I was forced to play the song Greensleeves. The odd thing about trying to play songs you know by heart on piano (or bassoon or anything else for that matter) is that you are (a) unable to play at a slower “practicing” tempo and (b) trying very hard to learn the song by ear rather than read the music. The result of this is that you never learn the song properly, so you never improve, never pass the song, and must play it week after week at your lesson. Some part of me is under the impression that I was stuck on Greensleeves for multiple months (though this probably wasn’t the case) and thus I hate it out of mere overexposure.

Secondly, I believe I had a toy (some mechanical keychain type thing) that played the most horrific electronic version of Greensleeves. I liked the toy, however, because it would sometimes play the song “Henry the VIII I am” which somehow had a catchy and upbeat sound to it despite the electronic obnoxiousness. Unfortunately, I believe it played Greensleeves much, much more frequently than Henry the VIII I am, so I was forced once again to listen to copious amounts of the dreaded song.

I am unsure whether the parody of Greensleeves I am somewhat familiar with was created by my brother and me in a juvenile state or whether we heard it on a silly songs tape (yes, a tape), but this parody further associates the song Greensleeves with unpleasantness. (Though I appreciate its effort to explain why the song is called “Greensleeves”.) It went something like:
“Alas, my love, you are looking bad,
It must have been those old peas you had.”
Although I don’t remember any other lines, a vivid image of a woman wearing old English style voluminous white sleeves vomiting green chunky pea vomit is seared into my brain.

Lastly, although this is not a traumatic experience, I further hate the song Greensleeves because of its annoying quality of making people forget how it ends. If you get it stuck in your head, you will be in an infinite loop of two eerily similar, repetitive, and unpleasant musical chunks (that’s a technical term) for all eternity.

I’m sure you’ve come across things in your life that make you go “oh my gosh that is such a good idea!” which then disappoint you in practice. Two such things for me are spinach ravioli and potato salad. (Potato salad is an enigma. I like every individual component, but somehow when all mixed together it becomes a disappointing glop of yuck.) Spinach ravioli seemed to me like a great idea. Pasta? Awesome. Cheese? Heavenly. Spinach? Healthy. Could this magical dinner be a way to consume cheesy delicious pasta and be able to tell myself how healthy I’m being regardless of the quantity of butter involved in the creation of the sauce? I had high hopes for spinach ravioli. Accordingly, when I ate it I kept chewing and chewing it, gagging, pleading with my body to allow me to stop convulsing like a cat with a hairball and just swallow the cheesy pasta-ey awesomeness. I couldn’t though. My mom finally told me to spit it out after watching my twitching, the only physical manifestation of the battle between my brain and my taste-buds, for probably a full minute. To this day I very rarely even try anything with cooked spinach in it. (Fortunately this incident caused no aversion to either cheese or pasta, and I continue to enjoy these foods mightily.)

My hatred of the YMCA and my hatred of Battleship arise from the same unfortunate and miserable incident. This incident defined the day it occurred as arguably the worst day of my life. In elementary school, Joe and I would have to stay after school at the YMCA for a few hours a couple of days a week until our parents got off work. We already hated it because it was boring and full of obnoxious people, but this day while I was in third grade set it at or near the top of the list of things I hate. I was playing Battleship with a friend, and I had to use the restroom. I politely asked a YMCA staff member if I could use the restroom, to which they replied, “You can’t use the restroom until more girls have to go.” Alright. Fine. I don’t have to go that badly anyway. A few minutes later another girl has to go to the bathroom, and we went and asked again, and they replied once again, “You can’t use the restroom until more girls have to go.” Okay. Whatever. I’ve already been holding it for ten minutes but I feel okay. I’ll hold it. I waited, playing Battleship, listening toward the direction of the staff member begging for another girl to ask if she could go to the restroom. It never happened. I sat. Waiting. Crossing my legs. Fidgeting. Until it got to the point where I couldn’t even move anymore. If I moved I was going to wet my pants. If I moved a cascading waterfall of urine would shoot out of me in front of everyone subjected to the awfuls of the YMCA. I was frozen. No other girls had to go to the bathroom. I waited. My face turned red. My Battleship buddy asked me if I was okay. I said I was. I started crying. No other girls had to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t stop moving. If I moved I was going to wet my pants. If I did not move and go to the bathroom I was going to wet my pants. I could not move and go to the bathroom. I was going to wet my pants. I wet my pants. Sobbing. Red-faced. Losing at Battleship. Are you okay? Yes I’m fine. Sitting in own urine for indeterminate period of time. Starting to get cold. Switch to a dry chair and push the wet chair in as far as it will go. Trying awkwardly to pretend like my pants aren’t wet. They are. I’m crying. It’s uncomfortable. Then a staff member comes to supervise our Battleship playing and tries to sit down. On the wet chair. The wet chair is pulled out from underneath the desk. It’s in the light. You can see that the chair is wet. Oh my god. “How did this chair get wet?” … “I don’t know.” … “Hey, Gina, weren’t you sitting in that chair.” … … Sobbing. “Why didn’t you tell us you had to go to the bathroom!?”

ARE YOU EFFING SHITTING ME YOU ASSHOLE? I TOLD YOU TWICE! I SAT HERE SOBBING WHILE I PLAYED BATTLESHIP FOR HALF AN HOUR! WHAT KIND OF POLICY IS “YOU CAN’T GO TO THE BATHROOM UNTIL YOUR PEE CYCLES ARE SYNCED?” THE FUCK, MAN! IT’S NOT MY FAULT I WET MY PANTS I’M EIGHT AND I’M VERY GOOD AT FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS EVEN IF THOSE DIRECTIONS SUCK AND ARE BASED UPON EXTREMELY FLAWED LOGIC AND OUTDATED CONCEPTS OF GIRLS TRAVELLING TO THE BATHROOM IN GROUPS. I hate the YMCA. I hate Battleship. I don’t understand girls who go to the bathroom in groups. No, I will not synchronize my pee cycle with you.

I realize this post had pretty much nothing to do with college, but I hope it was entertaining nonetheless. Good luck to you (and any other UWers) headed off to school this week. Think of me, and how I’ve already had two midterms, as you read through syllabi and buy textbooks. Have a wonderful, challenging, and well worth it quarter.

Much love,
Lola

Waiting Is A Thing I Do

So I've been reluctant to post here simply because I have nothing to tell you. While you are off going to classes and generally having collegiate adventures, I've been engaged in the end of summer activities. For me this has mainly included sitting and eating, but since this project encourages communication of the daily stuff, I'll besiege you with some highlights since we last spoke.

Firstly, I got a haircut. It's not a ton shorter, but I got a bunch of layers put in. Prior to this my haircut schedule was to find a place that will chop off your hair if you donate it, get that blunt cut in the chin to shoulders range, wait two to three years, repeat. However, this time I had a coupon for a free haircut so my cheap self was willing to do something different. And though it errs on the side of emo girl haircut with too many short layers on top and too few longer pieces, I'm starting to get used to, and like, it. Plus, hey, it was free.

Secondly, I was house sitting recently. It was for my mom's friend who had a daughter getting married down in California. The wedding was a four day affair with wine tasting, rehearsal dinner, and the actual wedding in Sonoma County. Apparently it was very beautiful, very over the top fancy, and pretty entertaining. At least according to my mom. The actual house sitting I did was uneventful, though it provided a pretty place to spend my time. I sat around a house that belongs in a price range I won't be able to afford for quite a long time, if ever. It has a gorgeous view of Seattle and is beautifully furnished, but the four days I spent there would be boring to hear about. The most interesting thing I did was figure out how to work TiVo. That, and the small adventure of driving to and from this house. I guess I hadn't driven on the freeway for long stretches of time in a while (or at least not south through the Bellevue area). Were other drivers always so eager to touch my car?

Thirdly, I had an early rehearsal with the Gospel Choir. This year we're singing at one of the football games, so after receiving an email requesting my presence, I showed up at school a week and a half early to learn how to sing Africa. Yes, that song Africa. Unbeknownst to me and my cohort An, we'd be two of the seven altos who actually showed up. Regardless, it was entertaining and held up with last quarter's level of awesome I've come to expect from choir rehearsals. The instructor is your typical no nonsense old black woman who seems like she has been running that class for 45 years. And the lack of attendance didn't change a thing. I'm sure with her at the piano helm we'll be singing Africa with at least a semblance of all the doos, doots and dance moves for the UW stadium in October.

And lastly, I have been watching the new fall TV shows (SPOILERS). Monday night I sat down and watched the season premier of How I Met Your Mother, which to my surprise was a whole hour. It continued to be as awesome as the rest of that show is, though I'm frustrated they're playing with who Barney is supposedly marrying. I like Nora and I thought she'd be good for him, but if they want to keep people guessing with whether or not the bride is actually Robin, fine. It is their show. I also watched Two Broke Girls, which is a new show and I was pleasantly surprised. I only watched it because I didn't have the remote, nor anything better to be doing, but even though it was slightly contrived it got a few good giggles out of me. As did Raising Hope, which is another of those shows I watch circumstantially. My mom actually really likes that show and has been known to laugh out loud at the corny jokes in it. The only real disappointment I have come across so far is the highly looked forward to show New Girl. I was so excited for it, partially because I have a huge crush on Zooey Deschanel, and partially because... no wait, that was the main reason. Anyways, I was very underwhelmed by the pilot. It's one of those shows I think could get good, but it resembled a kid's movie in that the commercials held all of the funny bits. Also, it is a little far fetched how dorky they make Deschanel's character. Nerdy, unaware of how pretty she is, awkward, those things are all fine, but just completely lacking self-presence so far is not okay. So those are all the new shows I've been watching, and I have no idea if I'll continue to watch them once I jump back into school and lose all my free time. The only thing I can guarantee I'll continue watching is Doctor Who. Which this sixth season I've enjoyed though the rest of the internet seems to disagree with me. Also, I'm sorry if you didn't understand a word I was saying throughout this paragraph.

So that has been my life lately. Now you can see why I haven't been posting. I mean, it took 22 days for this much to accumulate. And that is just sad. Fear not my friend, next week I'll be plunging back into University and starting my job as a TA. I'm sure hilarity will ensue from my teaching misadventures, especially since I'm pretty sure I will be younger than all of my students. Get excited for that. I miss you dearly and hope you are having fun as New York turns to autumn. And of course keep your eye out for Santa again before he heads back to the North Pole to get ready for the holiday season. Give him my love if you chance encounter him again.

Love you,

Riley

My Sanity for a Wink

While I thought my last post was lacking in my old notes' usual sparkle, I believe this one more than makes up for it.

Ithaca gives off a small/college town feel. The city population is only around 30,000 (slightly smaller than Bothell). Cornell even has a vet school and an ice cream shop: trademarks of schools in rural/cow-infested areas. While most of the people I encounter are college students, a venture to the Ithaca mall shows the locals true colors: the kind of people who wear camouflage and trucker hats, the kind of people who knit, hipsters, or the kind of people who may or may not be homeless. Considering this, it was surprising for me to discover what an excellent environment I am in for the play of license plate bingo. Just on my walks from my dorm to west campus (roughly five blocks) I have seen (I think) license plates from at least the following places: New York, New Jersey, Alberta, New Hampshire, Vermont, Alabama, Texas, Ohio, California, Montana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and my personal favorite: Alaska. To whomever drove here all the way from Alaska: you have some serious cojones, and I salute you.

As I mentioned, the people of Ithaca are an eclectic bunch. Living in a place full of eclectic people gives rise to an eclectic array of style choices. While many Cornellians go the classy “I go to an Ivy League institution and even though I walk miles up and down hills every day I am going to buy the cutest goddamn flats I can buy” route, the weather here leads to some discrepancies between what is attractive and what is practical. While half the year you don a puffy snow coat and boots, we are currently in the two months of the year when it is warm. An added bonus to these warm months is the occasional torrential rain. You know Ithaca is a place doomed to fashion faux pas, since at times wearing shorts with your rain boots is the most sensible clothing option. Unfortunately for the Ithacans who care about their appearance, the brand of weird caused by the shifting weather has yet to catch on in Paris and New York.

As a chemical engineer in training, I get to take all sorts of fun sounding classes. This you are well aware of, but what you may not have been aware of is the difficulty that is sometimes inherent in the shortening of these class names. While I can easily call differential equations “math” or “diff EQ”, shortening the class name “mass and energy balances” poses a more significant challenge. Should I call it M&E? No, that’s too close to E&M, which we use to shorten the physics class electricity and magnetism. Balances? Possibly, but balances is already a word in its own right, a verb in fact, and if I heard someone say balances I would say, “who balances what?” No, I know I can do better. Ah, yes, let’s try a spoof of the professor’s name, like my friend Sam who calls principles of biomolecular engineering with professor Varner the Chronicles of Varnia. The professor’s name: Susan Daniel. At first glance, a boring name. Not much to work with at all. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes evident that taking the first syllable from each of her names results in an excellent class nickname: Sudan. Clear availability for puns (i.e. I’m having so much trouble in Sudan), high potential for head-turns when discussing it (did you hear those people saying they hate Sudan? Did something happen there again?), and all this while still being a word I don’t use often enough to find confusing. Mission accomplished.

Few things are more satisfying in life than when you set a goal, or even just have a vague hope of something coming true, and having that goal or hope come to fruition. Last fall, I often sat next to a kid named Brian during math lecture since we both had a fondness for second row slightly to the left seats. We had talked occasionally, and I knew Brian was also a fellow chemE. It would probably be beneficial to you for me to mention that Brian is one of those people who you assume to be gay without bothering to ask. About a month after school started, I was still lacking in the friendship department (it takes a while) and I sent a pleading text to my brother: “how do you turn a sassy gay acquaintance into a sassy gay friend!?” I do not actually remember Joe’s response, but I still remember sending that text. This year, the chemE curriculum is becoming pretty standard for everyone in the major, so, naturally, I see Brian everywhere. Furthermore, I believe I have officially turned a sassy gay acquaintance into a sassy gay friend because Brian and I now have inside jokes. These include Brian’s aspirations of Olympic speed-walking (a goal he could reasonably achieve, since he walks at the speed of light), and his past as a child figure-skating prodigy (he’s actually the president of the figure skating club. Perhaps I should have mentioned that as further justification for the Brian-is-gay assumption). New friends: what a lovely thing.

Today was a day just like any other. I woke up a ridiculous amount of time before my alarm was set to go off (6:45 when the alarm was set for 7:30), showered, dressed in the most Ithaca-weather appropriate clothing I could find, and headed off to a leisurely breakfast before my 9:05 class. After viewing the license plates of many a state for a few blocks, I see a man a ways ahead of me. He is an older man, tall, with a bit of a paunch, and he is wearing a red polo shirt, to contrast with his long, white, and puffy hair and beard. As I passed him, we smiled at one another, and with his beautiful, blue, twinkling left eye he winked at me.
I know what you’re thinking: that if I wasn’t so incredibly awesome at describing things you would say I was severely overreacting to the wink of a creepy old man. I therefore must inform you that I do not believe this old man to be creepy because I am thoroughly, completely, and utterly convinced that he was Santa.
Do not try to tell me Santa isn’t real. Like you, I once believed the lies about how my parents made him up, but upon seeing him and receiving that so perfectly Santa-like wink, I know, without a doubt, that Santa is real and that he summers in Ithaca.
Contrary to popular media/Hallmark depiction of Santa summering in places full of beaches and palm trees, I believe it is much more likely that Santa spends his summers in a place like Ithaca. For a man accustomed to constant below-zero temperatures, a day at the beach in 95 degree weather would be tantamount to torture. Any sane person, especially one unused to the heat, would sweat a fair amount, but, knowing what we do about Santa’s body type and quantity of facial hair, we can safely assume that he would be sweating more than a fair amount: a lot more. In addition, I believe cool, refreshing treats like popsicles would be unable to satisfy the palette of a man who consumes cookies at the house of every child in the world in one night. Popsicles just don’t do it for cookie lovers, they don’t contain enough butter. Also, jumping in the water would be of minimal relief to our jolly fellow, since the water (at least in Hawaii) is still at an average of somewhere near 80 degrees in the summer. If people really understood Santa, they would know he would have a much better time in Ithaca, where the warmest it got in August this year was 89 degrees, and it still managed to drop to a comfortable 65 overnight.
In conclusion, I learned a few things about Santa today: he is real, vacations in Ithaca, is rather tall, has lost a significant amount of weight since the last time he was portrayed, and when he winks at you it instantly makes your day while simultaneously causing you to feel all of the magic of Christmas.

I hope you are enjoying yourself in the Hundred Acre Woodinville!

Much love,
Lola