Happy New Year

Twainian thoughts on New Year's:

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions.

I miss you all. I hope you enjoy the celebrations and the associated TASP togetherness in New York. (I was about to set out on foot, but I decided against it after finding that it would take 18 days to cover 1300 miles at a continuous rate of 3 mph.)

Make New Year's your scapegoat!

Love and Hugs,
Valentin

Minimalist Post #2

No longer bored.

Minimalist Post

I'm bored.

There's a Reason Why Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" is the Most Popular Karaoke Song

I watched Orange County last night, and I've realized that my dream to go to Stanford is no different from the protagonist in the movie, whose name escapes me at the moment. I've realized that I really do want to escape this place. I want to escape the pettiness of the population.
For example, my principal wouldn't talk to me at the beginning of this school year because I wrote him a letter at the end of last year about how disgusted I was with his leadership skills, or lack thereof. Now, oh sadness, he goes out of his way to say hello to me. So I go out of my way to avoid him.
My dad and I drove the tractor over to our house this afternoon, froze to death, and lifted ourselves in the bucket of the front-end loader to make a lighted archway leading in to our driveway. It's incredible.
And now it's snowing. Again. Which is just another excuse NOT to go to the dance at the school tonight, which I wasn't going to anyway, but when my friends ask me why I wasn't there, I can say I couldn't drive in the snow.
So, these guys spend their whole lives doing this. I think. Because they have a website devoted to it.
www.eepybird.com
I just wanted to inform everyone that I've decided what my future occupation is going to be. I am going to be a registered nerd. Not a geek. A nerd is a geek minus the social skills. I will live my life having love affairs with test tubes and beakers of hydrochloric acid. Or Diet Coke.

Tact

Since it's almost Christmas, people are bringing in tons of cookies and stuff for us. A lady brought in a plate of frosted Christmas cookies today, and they reminded me of you guys. Remember those cupcakes that we decorated so lovingly? These were like those, only instead of "Bruce Robbins," "Marry Me," and pictures of Kirshner and Croatia, these had No Smoking signs and stuff. And it wasn't a joke or anything--a couple of the librarians smoke, and I guess this lady thinks they shouldn't.

"Arabi's army was about seventy thousand in all, And, virtually speaking, it wasn't very small."

I have just discovered the man famous for being the worst poet ever, William McGonagall.

From "The Late Sir John Ogilvy":

ALAS! Sir John Ogilvy is dead,
aged seventy-seven,
But I hope his soul is now in heaven;
He was a public benefactor in many ways,
Especially in erecting an asylum for imbecile children to spend their days.

How about this one, from "A Tribute to Dr. Murison":

He told me at once what was ailing me;
He said I had been writing too much poetry,
And from writing poetry I would have to refrain,
Because I was suffering from inflammation of the brain.

Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch...

Blog Revival Festivities!

Hey, you guys! Congratulations to you all for your UChicago/USAMAWP/Columbia/Yale/Stanford admissions prowesses! I have literally been skipping around my house and throwing confetti everywhere for the past 2 days. (Minus, I must confess, the time of a brief nervous breakdown a little earlier this evening...) With any luck, the admissions Gods might be more merciful to me come March. (Or perhaps not!)

CONGRATULATIONS, I am ridiculously proud of you all!!!

Also, an official "Happy Birthday" to David squared and to Gili!

Nothing About This Post Is Intellectual

I would like to preface this by saying that Laura told me to post this. It's all her fault.

So my school's yearbook is being slapped together, and our senior polls are... well, they're something alright. There are about three pages of these "awards," but there are some real gems here.

Some Selected Categories:
1. Nicest Personality
2. Classiest Strut
3. Most Likely To Join The Military
4. Tallest
5. Most Easily Confused
6. Shows Great Sportsmanship
7. First To Marry

We also are being pressured into completing our "Senior Write-Ups," the bits of information that go under our pictures in the yearbook. I've decided not to do one, but as I keep getting bothered by the teacher overseeing the yearbook to write one out. He told me we're allowed to have ANYTHING if it isn't obscene or a reference to drugs. Here's what I have:

Nicknames: that weird girl, Helga, the space cowboy, the gangster of love
School Activities: 23-Man Squamish League, Future Trombonists of America, Junior Society for the Conservation of Unicycles, Extreme Ice Polo (Captain)
Likes: ice fishing, the Amazonian kneegle fish, balls of hair, small pieces of pocket lint, orange
Dislikes: being attacked by wolves, corn muffins, the feeling you get the first time you ride a bike, the stench of death, the Hamburglar
Memories: that time I was attacked by wolves, deep sea diving with Stack, passing a kidney stone in English class
Wants to Forget: being attacked by wolves, passing a kidney stone in English class, the color blue
Quote: L8R DOODZ!!!1111

Either they'll publish it and it'll be hilarious, or they'll leave me alone. Win-win, really.

Procrasti(nation)

I wish I were above it, but right now I ought to be working on AP Calculus problems, and who wants to deal with all that nonsense? It's unnatural, like a baby with four legs. Related rates? Please.
I'm done with most of my applications, but I haven't submitted them yet. All I have to do is proof them, give them a kiss, and send them out into the world.
Maybe I have a subconscious desire to skip college and go straight to grad school.
I had to give a lecture today for my Modern Middle East class. I was part of a "roundtable panel." Three of us delivered talks, and then sat for questions from the audience, which was composed of my class and a bunch of random folks. And our head of high school. He and I are buds, though, so it was OK.
The topic of our roundtable was Iran. The other two people delivering lectures chose normal topics (nuclear proliferation and minority groups). I had to choose a weird topic, because my history teacher has a doctorate in Near East Studies and reads Foucault, so I do all sorts of bizarre stuff and get away with it.
So I decided to analyze the rhetorical use of themes prominent in the Islamic Revolution of 1978-9 in contemporary Iranian political discourse. My thesis was that revolutionary rhetoric acts as a form of population control and a means of repressing reform movements.
Except maybe a large crowd of high-school students isn't the best audience for a lecture on an esoteric topic, especially if that topic has the word "discourse" in it.
A representative selection from the paper I delivered:
"It is interesting to note the interplay of Marxist theory and messianic theology in the call for the spread of the Islamic revolution... the process of the spread of revolution (especially as Ali Shariati articulates it) is more or less straight out of Marx. The influential political philosopher declared that human history is marked by a dialectic, a series of conflicts between opressor and oppressed, and that this dialectic is historically destined to be resolved in favor of the downtrodden. We see the these two ideas in Shariati’s language—the sociologist’s usage of Marxist idioms lends a radical edge and an elegant flourish to his rhetoric."
Ah, Marx for Dummies. Even this absurdly reductive explanation of the dialectic appeared to have gone over everyone's heads.
But wait. It gets worse:
"Opposition to a powerful 'oppressor'... unites Iran’s population against a real or perceived hegemonic threat and encourages it to depend on the revolutionary government for protection. The demonization of Israel serves a similar function: it allows Iranians to define themselves as a cohesive group in opposition to their Israeli Other, and leads them to look to the hard-line Iranian government as a bulwark against the 'threatened domination of the region' by that Other."
Just imagine this scene. Just imagine. I'm looking around at the audience like a speaker is supposed to do. Directly in front of me, there's this football player with this incredible blank look on his face. Terrified animal blank. It was really out of sight. It was a total lack of any understanding. I can't even describe it adequately, except to say I've never seen anything approaching it before.
I felt sort of guilty at the end of my speech because I gave in to my pointy-headed-intellectual impulses instead of doing something other people would learn from. I forgot about it pretty quickly, though, because there was a very cute boy sitting a few rows ahead of that football player. My friend Mimi and I are planning to ask 8 or 10 guys to the next school dance and to go as a big group of two girls and with four or five dates each. I'm thinking about asking him to be one of the group.
So, now you know how shallow I am.
Love you.

On Metaphysics and the Mating Habits of Snails

Like the venerable Dylan Kenny, I shall take up my duty of blogging. (As though I needed another excuse to procrastinate writing my essays!)

The applications process puts things in perspective. Alternately it makes me feel that I am better and worse than all the other thousands of candidates applying. One realizes that all of it is not very important in the least. Sure, I used to think that getting into the best college was the summit of life. Now that the rat race is nearing its end, I see that the reality is quite the opposite. Rankings mean nothing, really. Of course, I am still applying. Why? Perhaps it is because of the rankings. But it is also because of a desire to be at an institution of like-minded people, of people interested in and concerned about the world – a place where people are contemporaneously trying to solve the problem of world peace and the problem of ontological determinism. Hence, I slog through the applications – applications that reflect not even the tiniest part of me.

As I sit here by a clear window, I look out upon a snow-covered landscape where everything is beyond me, everything exists absolutely on the other side of the window. It is as though I am watching some great drama unfold as snow falls and birds huddle in dry branches.

Aquinas knew of the ontological good, the goodness of things in their mere being. Yes, I have lived in important places, seen momentous things: a squirrel clambering up a tree, a blade of grass trembling from a single dew-drop, a man strumming a guitar by the side of the road. They are all good, all equal in their being. It is an extraordinary moment when one realizes that a pebble on the shore is as great in its absolute existence as the Parthenon. Some people, however, conclude, then, that the Parthenon is lowered to the level of the pebble. But, perhaps, it is the other way round, that the pebble is raised to the level of the Parthenon. If everything is equal, everything does not need to be worthless: all of it may very well be of infinite worth.

Always, the everyday exists and will exist. But it is by no means commonplace. Emerson says, “The sun illuminates the eye of man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child.” In the world of men, everything is given false importance. The truly valuable things in life are despised, and the worthless things are exalted. It is the child who sees the world as it really is, and, like Milosz, is in “constant amazement.” Yes, there are some strange, exuberant times in life when it hits you suddenly: “I’m alive!” – and then you are, like Heidegger, in wonder at the mystery and beauty of a simple word: "esse."

I shall conclude with a quote from Soren Kierkegaard: “I am terrified by everything, from the smallest gnat to the mystery of the Incarnation.” The mundane, in a Heraclitean flux or a Hegelian dialectic, passes by not in silence, but with “trumpets and zithers.”

And no, this post has nothing to do with the mating habits of snails. Unless in some metaphorical way.

The Annals of Productivity…

are non-existent. All the same, after weeks of heart-rending un-productivity, surely it wouldn’t hurt to procrastinate just a paltry day or two. Or ten. What is productivity anyway? Isn’t it a state of mind relative to your general happiness? Can’t I choose to define productivity however I want to? Why am I forced to subscribe to a standard of productivity imposed on me by an arbitrary authority? Am I just a pawn of money-hungry admissions officers?
Of course, I have a choice. They want us to have ‘free will’ after all. Nobody is forcing me to do this to myself. It’s a democracy, for God-forsaken sakes. I have a choice, the wonderful freedom of choice, just like a guy at the gunpoint has a choice to be shot or not be shot. Statistics are astonishingly favorable to the latter, but no one can say he didn’t have a choice. Of course he did. He just tried to have some basic common sense, too.
So let me choose. I choose to be forgetful. Let me be forgetful and I will be content. Let me forget that I have to be productive and drown myself in bliss ineffable until the sounding doom of consequence comes. Let me spend this day in paradise and I will gladly suffer a thousand years of agony in hell. Let the world just be a simple shining bubble of fragile joy. I don’t mind if it’s hollow. I don’t mind if it’ll burst. I really don’t.
Really.
Fine. Fine! I do mind! I do care! Because I don’t have free will. Because it’s vaguely discomforting to think that behind it all is just the glorified whine of someone who’s too lazy to work and too stubborn to admit it. Because colleges don’t appreciate this fascinating and diverse perspective on the moral valuation of productivity. Because in two weeks I just have to get it done.
Because…because…oh, just because. Yeah.

Damnations on them all.

Snow Day Thoughts

There. I've done it. My first post.

I know most of you applied early somewhere, but I, the great procrastinator that I am, decided against it, "to keep my options open". And the deadline isn't until January 1st, so, of course, I have waited until the last moment to write all of my essays. I've been struggling against a writer's block, which is really more of a personal rebellion against college essay prompts, which isn't really going to hurt anyone but myself, I realize that.
"Who or what influenced you to apply here?" "Tell us why this college is a good place for you?"
My great friend sarcasm looks more beautiful every day, when prompts from hell haunt my disturbed dreams.

School is horrible, as always. And, as always, I am enjoying it, wallowing in all that misery. My calculus class is a waste of time. Chemistry is impossible. I fail all of the vocabulary tests, and manage to ace most of the problems tests, which are much harder. There is no way I'm passing English. No matter how hard I try, I always get bad grades in seminar. Seeing as there are only five out of the twenty in the class who actually participate, I wonder if the bad grades come from participating too much.
And, I'm in choir. My choir teacher informed me I actually can sing, which I highly doubt.

It's snowing in Colorado, thus, the snow day. All the ski slopes are open, and there's some really nice fresh powder, if anyone is interested. Also, there's an extra room in my house, at least until winter break when my sister gets back.

I miss you all terribly.
Love,
Ana

Internashunul politicz made flesh!!!??!

Whoa! Whoever came up with that deserves some sort of an award for MCFoP (Most Creative Form of Procrastination). Ever.

I miss you all terribly.

Get Well Soon

I should explain that my chemistry teacher thinks I'm some kind of crazy genius. Irrationally.
I don't really like chemistry, and he's not helping. I try to just sit there and do my work. Nothing special. But every time he asks a question to the class, he'll either single me out to ask me, or say, "I know Laura knows. Does anyone else know?"
And he's just so impressed that I know what a benzene ring is. Nothing about it, really, just what it is. Which is something he taught us maybe two weeks ago.
I should add that he's an awful teacher, so benzene rings are one of the few things I've learned this year.

Anyway, the kids in my class kept a "Laurometer" of how many times he'd say something about how I'm a genius, or single me out to explain something to the class, or congratulate me for something I didn't do, or things like that. The highest it ever got in one day was to 8. If it ever were to get to 10, I don't know what would happen, but I'm thinking a standing ovation. The kids in the class love the whole thing, so they'll give me two or three rounds of applause a day, on average. Mostly, again, for just sitting there. It's okay, though, because they also clap for other people.

Anyway, it's an awful class. Yesterday, I didn't have to go. I had to go to the eye doctor's in the middle of calculus, and I just didn't come back to school that day. I didn't tell any of my friends why I was leaving, but I didn't think there would be a big deal about it.

Later that evening, my little brother comes into the kitchen where I'm eating dinner with some friends and asks me, "Laura, you're doing okay?" I say yes, he says okay, I ask, "Why?"
"Oh, some kid in my 7th hour said you were in the hospital for heart trouble."
"Wait, who? I went to the eye doctor's"
"You don't know him. You didn't get taken there by an ambulance, did you?"

My class told my chemistry teacher that I was in the hospital, in intensive care "because my head exploded or something." He had the class make me a card. A huge card on a huge piece of paper.
It got around to the whole school, I guess. I don't know what I'm going to do on Monday.

A Mark Rothko Fiesta?

Anyone else just tick off "philosophy" as an intended major for lack of any better idea twenty minutes before the EA deadline? I suppose it's a step forward from checking off "fishery" as an intended major on the College Board forms . (It took me a while to figure out why I was constantly being flooded with emails about internships in the fishing industry...)


Oh man, don't you just love the New Yorker?

I miss you guys. Let's spoil our blog with TLC!

PS: On a completely unrelated note, don't y'all find "tyrotoxism" is the coolest word you've ever heard?

Throw it up and yell if you love L.L.!

Guys, guys, breaking news!
We (International Politics Made Flesh '07) managed to take up just over 47% of the pictures on the TASP 2008 brochure: http://www.tellurideassociation.org/pdf/TASPBR08.pdf.

Way to go to all those brave souls who sent pictures to Ellen!

Love,
Aurélie

Thanksgiving Makes, People Take

Actual caption for this image, from his school's newspaper: "Dominick is a womanizer."

Other quality quotes from the paper:

"[An Inconvenient Truth] is not especially well made, as it is essentially an hour and a half long lecture for a studio audience that was filmed, and then put in movie theaters across the United States. I feel asleep twice during my viewing and had to watch the second half again to know what he said. It wasn't worthy my time."

(Headline) "Global Warming Threatens Globe!"

"Man made global warming is just one more thing that you don't have to worry about because you don't have to worry about things that don't exist."

Dom, Laura, and I are together in St. Louis for Thanksgiving and it's fantastically good times, but man, is his school newspaper ridiculous.

Not as cool as cows.

Well, maybe. I don't know.

Hey, guys. I love you. What are you doing for Christmas break?

Because, see, I'm thinking that the answer should be some kind of TASPer togetherness. Some kind.

So, you know, what do you guys think?

Also: According to MapQuest, Mac lives 38 hours away from Gili. But it looks like the route goes through St. Louis.

"Did You Ever Wonder Where It Came From?"

I love it when you find beautiful things in an unexpected place like YouTube. This is a clip from the first-ever episode of Sesame Street, which (I believe) aired in 1969. The music is unreal.



I was having a stressful day. Watching this was cathartic.

Greetings, again

So, it seems TASP 2008 seminars are out... (strange; only four are available this upcoming year.)

http://www.tellurideassociation.org/TASP1.html

This abrupt transition, I have to admit, makes me a bit sad. I am inundated with nostalgia; it hurts, almost, that time refuses to wait for no one, and that even as I (or 33 percent of I) remain embedded in that fleeting six-week span of Nunnian history, the clocks keep on ticking; the cycle continues; another batch of intellectually starved minds will be satiated. And Cornell 2007 becomes a thing of the past.

But even so, our story is not over...There are still questions to be asked, theories to be disproved, sunsets to spy, redrum knifists to slay, gorges to frolic in, hours to be unslept (naturally). Oh yes, there is much TASPing to be done after all.

And, anyway(s), where is that lovely brochure of ours?

Being for the benefit of Ms. Kling

Howdy everyone.

So I have little enough to say, but a certain eponymous someone told me that it was my civic duty to provide input for this blog. Not wanting to be lax in my Oedipal obligations to the community, I hastened to post at the first possible moment.

Now that I'm here, I don't quite know what to say. What goes on here in the desert cannot possibly mean anything to the uninitiated, and I don't want to bore you all with an epic portrait of the Phoenician landscape.

Suffice to say that I am far more tired than I ought, and the proportional amount of work I have completed thus far is by no means significant. I stand somewhat castrated before you all. One ball left. The right one. I am the abject figure prostrated at your stern, judgmental feet. I'm like a woman. Ugh. What a fate.

I feel as if perhaps this sententious conversation grows far too partisan, and perhaps a tad bit too phallic, to continue. And so I shall end my rant. Here you go Ms. Kling, this one's for you. I hope you don't begrudge me your shattered anonymity.

Remember, remember the First of November

(So, it's November 1st (you know what that means (in a matter of hours (or femtoseconds, if you prefer (my application to the you-oh-see (that nebulous and gargoyle-ridden institution of higher learning (will be completed at long last (what a happy, surreal, and thoreau-ly tiring day!))))))))

Yeah, I know, atrocious use of parentheses. But it's November 1st!

I miss you!

Transcendental hugs to all,
Me

P.S. Please reply! I am very curious about everyone's scholastic adventures.

fires, college applications...hell...maybe this incomprehensible article can take everyone's mind off of things.

How am I not myself?

Read my lips: to thine own self be untrue. You can’t read my lips because you are merely reading a text that is independent of me. Also, there is no me. No one wrote what you are reading. If you’ve believed everything that I’ve written so far, then you are swimming in the correct lane. SPLASH! You will now need a lot of faith in absurdities to believe what is contained in the next sentence. There is not just one you; there are also many yous.

Take a trip…to your mind’s eye. Here you can imagine anything; keep that in mind. Imagine each of the classes you take here at Roslyn High School and line up each of the classrooms of these classes in a row (something like booths at a fair). Walk into each of the classrooms and look at each of your selves. Your appearance may not be different in each class, but your eyes usually deceive you. Listen (trust your ears while you still have them) to the quantity and quality of what you are saying. Listen to the quantity and quality of what your teachers and classmates are saying. How do your words, or lack of words, relate to what your teachers and classmates are saying in each class? The way you relate to each classroom situation creates a different self. You form these classroom selves over the year. On a numerical level, each class gives you a different grade representing a different self. On a social level, you’ve created a different talking head for each different class. You may try to make jokes in some classes, make intelligent comments in others, and do absolutely nothing in math.

But, hey, there probably aren’t many selves; there probably is just one self that does many things. You do have one body, and your appearance can be differentiated from other people’s appearances. What was I saying? Of course there is one self because you see only one reflection of yourself in the mirror.

The mirror creates two physical appearances: one real you and one reflected you. The verbally constructed self (in my case the “you,” in your case the “I”) does not have a permanent home as the body does. You are never able to differentiate the real verbal self from the reflected verbal self. Whenever you try to find your real “self,” you will always be looking through a facebook of reflected selves. Your thoughts, written words, spoken words, relations to other people, appearance to other people, movements, gestures and memories are merely representations of a concrete self that doesn’t exist. Your memory attempts to forge a concrete self, but it only can preserve certain memories. Those preserved memories cannot truly be a concrete self because they represent merely a fragment of you. The problem with a concrete self is that you can’t keep track of all of your thoughts, words, and experiences. Instead of saying that you are leaving parts of your “self” everywhere, you are leaving selves everywhere.

Theoretically, there could be a continuous self. Since all selves are constructed, the construction of a unified self is as a valid as the construction of selves.

Do you really think that you are doing the constructing? If there is an I something constructed it. The I didn’t construct itself. The self you proudly own is not yours. It was externally imposed on you. Language and society have given you this self and these selves. The reason that you have different selves in different classes is that your self is determined by your environment. Without society you can’t exist.

“To thine own self be true.” That is impossible. The self isn’t yours.

I'd really prefer snow days.

I'm not sure how much you guys have heard about the fires in Southern California ... things are improving slightly down here, although they're evacuating more people every time I turn on the news. Check this out:

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/10/23/wildfire.ca/index.html

Games Without Borders

Last Tuesday, the most notable contemporary Macedonian passed away in a car accident. He was a 26-years old singer, the most popular one in the Balkans. He led a fast life, just like Cobain, Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison. Unlike them, he did not drink and take drugs; he sang on humanitarian concerts instead. The people of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have always been thankful to him for the assistance he provided to them, at times when they desperately needed it. "The Elvis Presley of the Balkans", as he was described by BBC, was the only person who managed to unite the disunited people of former Yugoslavia. His music and humanitarian work proved to be stronger than the bitter memories of ethnic conflicts that have existed in this piece of the world since the bloody 1990s.

Since the tragic accident that happened a few days ago, I have been thinking a lot about life, friendship, and God, or the lack thereof. I have thought of several patches of memory that I would never remember if it were not for the unfortunate event which shook the entire Balkan Peninsula. Even though I have never listened to his albums, I knew many of his songs. He was omnipresent here; you would hear his songs wherever you went. People of all ages loved him and viewed him as the person who united the quarrelsome fractions of the Macedonian people. In the past days, no one here can focus on work and function properly; everyone is burdened by the death of the brightest star on the Balkan sky.

I feel I need to tell you that I care about you. Since no one knows what may happen tomorrow, I would like to say that I am happy I met you and made you my friends. You people have shaped my life, and that is something truly essential.

To all of you who are in the House - good luck with your interviews. I miss the sunset in Ithaca; I used to view it from the front porch, the one where we had fun on July 4. I hope you will have time to enjoy there and reminisce on the unique experience we had last summer.

Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key

I just got back from the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco. It was insane - something like 100,000 people showed up - and for good reason. This festival is in beautiful Golden Gate Park, has an amazing lineup, and is TOTALLY FREE. Anyway, I got really excited because I saw THREE - count 'em, three - "Ithaca is Gorges" shirts. They were all on people who looked to be about college-age, but Cornell is in session and SF, last I checked, is on the other side of the country. Thus, by such infallible reason, I concluded that they were all former TASPers. I thought about yelling "TASP" as loud as I could, to see if they turned around, but decided my assumption was good enough.
That night, I had a dream in which it was the last day of TASP all over again - except the Telluride House was in Central Park. I had a Wonder Years-style inner monologue running in my dream: "Walking past that house, I couldn't help but think how beautiful my time there had been. In the middle of the bustling City, blah blah blah..."

My words will someday rule the world. Today, I'll have to settle for just Roslyn High School.

Out of complete avoidance of other duties, I have decided to post my upcoming column in the Roslyn High School newspaper called the Hilltop Beacon (because, it is so important to know that the name of my high school's newspaper is based on our location on a hill). I guess this is like a pre-release special edition of my column. I might as well also post the column that was too risque (obsessed with post-structuralism) for publication. That'll be soon. Perhaps. And I'm Brian Sherwin. I probably don't have to tell you that...but I feel obligated to do so. What? I have no idea what I am saying anymore. I'll stop and let a previous self speak for this present gnarled and mangled self.

The Skeptic

Boring, boring mundane, and boring mundane….it’s all so boring!!! That thought usually swirls around the coffee in my mind like a dissolving creamer. I need caffeine. I don’t drink coffee. But this type of thought progression probably occurs in your head constantly during school. Wake up! The revolution against boredom begins with you. Students of the world unite! All you have to lose is your chains! WAIT! Before you proceed to run into the streets with hammers and sickles and confetti and balloons and Happy Jewish New Year, read this article. I have a permanent solution to boredom: a keg of absurdity, a bottle of creativity, and a shot of freedom.

During the sixties sexual revolution, a few UC Berkeley students organized a free speech movement. The UC Berkeley administration banned political activities: getting signatures for speeches, recruiting activists, and handing out pamphlets, and students of the free speech movement protested to force the administration to remove the ban. Mario Salvio, of the free speech movement, released these words from the bowels of his soul in a speech to students participating in a sit-in, “Here is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” Boredom is the machine. If “the machine” has” made us “so sick at heart,” then we must act absurdly to “make it stop.” We live in a gray fortress of sameness and wear gray everyday. I run the ticket booth to the catapult, and you have to light yourself on fire and be dressed in a florescent pink jumpsuit to get launched over.

Back at Berkeley in 2002, artist Jonathon Keats, who copyrighted his mind and sold his thoughts that he had while staring at a nude female, attempted to get Aristotle’s law of logic passed as a law. Aristotle’s law of logic just says that each thing equals itself. The newspaper that you are reading equals itself. If you don’t understand, then just ask me. Keats claims that attempting to get the law passed was an artistic endeavor that questions the processes of the legal system and the reasons we pass certain laws and follow them. No one would have actually been able to break this law. Why do we break laws? If there’s a law that can’t be broken, then what is the purpose of it? If no one ever broke any of the laws, then would it be necessary to have laws? Without humans, would there be laws? Natural laws - are there natural laws without humans? We have legal laws, why do we need societal laws? Why must we wear shoes in public?

Keats and Salvio broke away from the confines of boredom. They acted creatively and absurdly in order to transform reality into an interesting place to live. First, I have a minor and practical suggestion. English teachers should give the option to students to choose their own summer reading books. There should also be more creative writing in class. I applaud the A.P English Literature teachers for setting aside time for journal writing. All grades and levels of English should do so also.

The imagination is the most immediate escape from boredom. Creativity, absurdity, and the imagination can lead you to personal freedom. Scribble insanities on your binders, paint like a kindergartner, CREATE! CREATE! CREATE! All you need is pen and a piece of paper. You don’t even need a pen and a piece of paper. You’ve got your mind; you don’t need a copyright to own it. The theater is closed.

The Answer to Life: Not Bagels, Not 42, but

...muffcakes. Yes, it's the truth. There's been a lot of cluttering going on in my mind lately, what with the college application frenzy and this stupid blob of busyness called school (oh! disconsolate soul! why this uncertainty?), but in spite of all this there's always been one thing I invariably come back to, and that thing is the essence of muffcake. And so the war continues...

I'm missing my pep rally this year, but it'll be okay.

Our Homecoming theme is the best.

"Tigers: The Ultimate Superheroes."

What's yours?
I mean, I think my school's still going to win Most Awesome Spirit Theme Ever, but I'm curious.

This post was sponsored by the letter H

This is about an issue that we are all aware of. It's something we never want to admit, but we all know it's there, like the big-foreheaded elephant in the room. Why Hufflepuff? Why did J.K. even bother with such a useless House as Hufflepuff?

There are obvious reasons for the other three Houses: Gryffindor is for the jocks, the cheerleaders that bang them after the game (and if anyone's thinking that Hermione doesn't count, check out page 625 of the Deathly Hallows, US edition), and the honor students. Slytherin's got all the slutty goth chicks and the obnoxious legacies. And Ravenclaw, obviously, is where the annoying genius-brats go to play. So what's left? Special Ed. A quick breakdown of Hufflepuff ought to clarify the point:

Who's in Hufflepuff? Let's be honest. The only thing Hufflepuff ever had going for it was Cedric Diggory, and he died. The most anticlimactic death 'til the Deathly Hallows, Cedric Diggory, hero of Hufflepuff, went out like a chump. Other than that, you've got a few pathetic no-names that the Gryffindor's go to hang out with to get service credit.

And really? C'mon. The Hufflepuff common room is next to the freakin' kitchen. How much more obvious can it be? The connection to house elves is so painfully obvious. The Hufflepuffs are the ones that the rest of the school is ashamed to show in public. It should have been S.P.H.W. So let's imagine the Hufflepuff common room. I see big, round walls, with no sharp edges. It's furnished with bean bags and big foamy couches, so no one can get hurt. Scissors are strictly banned, and only organic paste is allowed. And being next to the kitchen serves a double purpose. Not only does it keep the retards out of sight, it allows for central heating without dangerous fireplaces for some downie to fall into. And not to be insulting, but their Head of House is a gardener. And their mascot is a badger. Strong and hardworking? Yeah, so were Neanderthals.

Anyway, it's time to get to the point. Helga Hufflepuff ought to be remembered in the same breath as greats like Woodrow Wilson and Margaret Sanger. There are some people that we want to succeed, and others we don't. Some people just aren't cut out to contribute to the gene pool. Helga Hufflepuff recognized this, and she wasn't afraid to say it. We can't let these people keep procreating recklessly, or we'll just get more of them. So we must segregate. Brand them with the bright letter H.

Intellectual Elitism, the Horrors of

Today I...

Spied on the sunset (yolkishly pale, a bit sad and half eaten),

Felt particularly Amazonian and ordered Fear and Trembling, Paradise Lost, and Pale Fire (hands down the best $25 I’ve spent since that outrageously medieval Shakespeare book),

Listened to snippets of “Hey Jude” waltz across feverishly in my brain,

Tried to read Ulysses amidst all this commotion,

Passed by a car station called Butler Tire and—well, guess who came to mind?

Wore my shirt inside out,

Did not toil away meticulously on college applications,

Searched “Foucault”, “Judith Butler”, “Derrida”, et cetera, on YouTube and was pleasantly surprised (Why, they’re all so endearing! Neanderthals, the rest of us),

Dreamt something insane that Freud would not understand (well not really, since I’ve forgotten everything, but all the same I have a feeling it was pretty baffling),

Wrote a silly poem about some extinct bug (a natural symptom of lethargy, I'm told),

Sketched a shoe,

Checked this Blog,

And, as always, am missing everyone. There are unconditionals in this world, I’m telling you!

WCS: Where Children Succeed

So today was my first day back at Wilson Central School, a tiny public high school in the middle-of-nowhere part of Western New York. People bring cowbells to graduation and ring them when their son or daughter walks across the stage; no one is embarrassed by this.

We've been ranked the top school in the county a number of times in a row, based upon our scores on standardized tests. To reiterate: "based upon our scores on standardized tests." It's beautiful, in a sick sort of way. Every year, I am filled with the same mixture of awe and disgust that I get when one of my friends talks about his "system" for choosing horses at the OTB. Our principal has found a way to break the school ranking system, discovered the magic formula to produce the highest test scores without sacrificing the sports budget. The man is a genius, really.

The goal high schools are supposed to work towards, according to No Child Left Behind, the whole sick state/federal funding scheme, and independent rankings is high test scores on NYS Regent's exams. This is the end goal, the logical conclusion of the groundwork laid by state and federal agencies. Most schools still like to pretend that "education," "personal growth," "achievement," and so forth are the desired results of a public high school education. WCS has the balls not to waste everyone's time on such a ridiculous assumption.

Most schools have advanced classes. Pretty standard fare. Honors, AP, maybe even IB... The assumption here is that it's best for everyone if the brightest, most well-motivated students are able to challenge themselves academically and perhaps earn college credit in the process. It's a fairly self-evident, intuitive assumption to make. But in the whole NCLB scheme, the exact opposite is true. If your funding is based upon the scores your students earn on standardized tests, the absolute worst thing you could do, financially speaking, is to segregate out your brightest students from the pool of students who will be taking said tests.

You want gifted students to be trapped in Regents level courses -- which are set up as Regents test prep classes -- because they will inevitably score very well on the Regents exams, padding out the scores of the less talented students. Everyone takes the same classes, everyone takes the exam, and by averaging out the scores of the people who need to be in a Regents level course and those who would otherwise be in advanced classes, you outscore schools who place their gifted students in courses that focus on actually teaching the topic at hand as opposed to preparing for the state examination.

It's like our principal's favorite aphorism: "If you do what you are supposed to do, when you are supposed to do it, the way it is supposed to be done, to the best of your ability, and you do it that way every time, you will succeed." Success is measured in terms of doing what it is that you are supposed to do towards a goal defined by someone else, not what is most fulfilling, desirable, or indeed beneficial. Dance, monkeys, dance.

And yes, in case you were wondering, this IS just a frustrated, probably mostly juevenille rant. Some highlights from my day...

Precalc
The teacher hands out an eight problem worksheet as a review. The eight problems involve the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of simple fractions. "7/8 + 4/15"... that sort of thing. She gives us ten minutes to solve the problems. The vast majority of the class does not succeed in completing more than one problem, and discovers that the problem it did complete was incorrect. We will be discussing this topic in depth tomorrow, because apparently we were all absent that day of fifth grade when we were taught this the first time around.

Economics
The teacher has a fake tan and goes on a long rant about lazy people who wind up living in their parents' basements. This is both a direct reference to the students in the class and a thinly-veiled reference to poor people in general, who all would have succeeded at life if only they had worked hard earlier in their lives. The class looks like it will be an introduction to neoclassical bullshit with a good deal of inane paperwork.

English
The teacher is a unabashedly condescending man. He spells out words as he speaks them to us.... "The theme is the moral of the story... that's 'moral' without an 'e' at the end, or else that would be something different... Characters are affected by the plot... that's affected with an 'a,' or else that would be something different..." However, I don't know whether it's fair to characterize him as condescending, as many people around me were, in fact, correcting their spelling.

Physics
According to our syllabus, the entire first quarter of the year will be devoted to a review of measurments and middle-school level equations from eighth grade science.

Independant Reading
This class has literally three people in it. Our teacher asked us what we were going to read. I said I was going to read The Human Stain by Philip Roth, and she had not heard of him. She is reading something by Stephen King.

I sort of feel like an asshole for going on like this. It's quite an elitist rant. But at the same time, it's such a frustrating situation to be in that I don't know quite how else to react. I'm sure I'll get acclimated to high school again, but goddammit, I almost don't want to. I came home today and started reading a microeconomics book I picked up at the Cornell Store just so I could feel as though I've actually learned something today.

Bah, bad times.

Oh Man, You Guys. Oh Man.

So:
I participate in this tangentially scholastic activity called Lincoln-Douglass Debate. It's named after the debates between Lincoln and Douglass for, you know, president. That was how they rolled, back in the mid-19th century.
My coach really wants us to win, a lot. Gee, does he want us to win. In the pursuit of a shiny plastic trophy to grace his cold and empty mantle, my school-chums and I have been slaving away at his child labor-law-violating Potomac Debate Institute, practicing tactics for the year's resolutions.
There's a list of ten possible resolutions, of which five have been or will be selected.
This is one of them--
Resolved: Governments ought to make economic reparations for their countries' historical injustices.
I dare you to tell me this isn't a blatant Bruce Robbins.
Good God, I could have so much fun with this thing. I can dress as Bruce, and instead of actually delivering my speech (which of course will be composed wholly and solely of quotations from Lama Robbins, as I have taken to calling him), I can just skim it in front of everybody, summarize select paragraphs, and then pause to criticize the bald lack of logical reasoning ability displayed throughout. Best of all, during cross-examination (in the course of which your bumbling and incompetent opponent attempts to articulate a question in comprehensible English as you stand awkwardly by, tracing the bottom of the podium with your toe and admiring your own minty-fresh breath-- thank you Doublemint Gum-- spit out into a wastebasket before the round commenced, of course-- or surreptitiously stuck to the underbelly of a cold metal desk-- there's a whole universe of chewing gum underneath desks in college and high school classrooms if you'd only bother to look, pocks and crests like a lunar surface), I can snarkily brush aside all my opponents' questions. "You're very clever. Very clever, but very wrong." The judges will love that. And when my opponent asks me for the credentials of my evidentiary source?

"Some say he was born the son of a nuclear bomb and the complete works of Martin Heidegger--"

What more could you ask for in an academic? Or, for that matter, in a man?

Sorry I've been more or less incommunicado for the past 3 weeks; in addition to debate I've had to set some other affairs in order. Wow, sounds like I'm dying.

I'm not.

I'd like to write about how thrilled I am by the Larry Craig Scandal, but I have summer reading to do, so that's a topic for another day.

The former Senator and I send you our illicit, steamy, airport-bathroom love and affection from the nation's capital.

Concerning the transnational praise of L.L.’s everlasting transcendentality

Definitions

1. By “L.L” I mean he who is the essence of the Nunnian universe; or he who can only be conceived as the precursor of a transgenerational Elysium. I also mean he who is worthy of yelling and hand throwing.

2. A thing is said to be of everlasting transcendentality if and only if it cannot be superseded by another thing of the same nature. For instance, a foosball game held during a seminar break is not said to be of everlasting transcendentality since it can easily be superseded by a 3 AM match between two equally sleep-deprived teams.

3. By “transnational praise” I naturally mean a timeless sense of deep recognition and gratitude. In other words, it may be described as a feeling similar to that experienced in a “calling off the curfew” meeting.

Exp I say “transnational praise” with no connotation whatsoever – conscious or otherwise - of Robbinsian blame.


Axioms

1. The Sysco TASP 2007, held in gorges Ithaca for a total of approx. 3,542,400 (quasi-)sleepless seconds, was fully immersed in the so-called Nunnian universe. It was not a mere illusion, and did in fact take place. (To sceptics and/or solipsists, I say: Please overlook this argument or refer to verificationist theory.)

2. One who can be held accountable for the everlasting transcendentality of a transgenerational Elysium is considered worthy of transnational praise.

3. Transnational praise is limited to a single individual. Multiple instances of such praise would result in the loss of transnationality.

4. If the essence is the real and invariable nature of a thing, it must be unique.

P1 L.L. was the sole essence of the Sysco TASP 2007.

Proof Since the Sysco TASP 2007 was fully immersed in the Nunnian universe (Ax. 1), and since that L.L. is the very essence of this universe (Def. 1), and that this essence is unique (Ax. 4), then L.L. was the sole essence of the Sysco TASP 2007.

Cor Hence it follows from Def. 1 that the essence of TASP is well worthy of yelling and hand throwing. (And a lot of it, too, as it has proved to be the case.)

P2 L.L. is to be the object of transnational praise.

Proof This is evident from Def. 1 and Ax. 2, for if L.L. is the precursor of a transgenerational Elysium, he is worthy of transnational praise.

Schol It follows that the praise to be allocated to THE BRUCE cannot be of the transnational variety. It may very well, however, remain in the much respected form of the ode.



P3 The Sysco TASP 2007 was an experience sans pareil.

Proof It follows from P2 and Ax. 3 that L.L. is a unique, unrivaled individual. And since L.L. in a unique individual, and the essence of a thing constitutes its real and invariable nature (Ax. 4), if follows from P1 that the Sysco TASP 2007 must also have been an unparalleled experience.

Another Proof This is also made evident by visiting: http://www.facebook.com/video/?oid=2357247095 .

P4 which transcends any need for logical ground whatsoever:
Whereas if you are bothering to read this ridiculous piece of writing, you are most likely a 2007 Sysco TASPer. And whereas you are a 2007 Sysco TASPer, I MISS YOU. Terribly. And whereas I miss you terribly, please, please, please do keep in touch (by posting here, for instance!). – Now all those in favor say “AAAYE!”, kay?

Much love from Montréal,
Aurélie

PS: If you’re reading this, and I still owe you a letter, don’t let me procrastinate any longer…Please do wall post/email/message/knock me over the head with your address.

PPS: Please pardon the obvious flaws of logic above. I’ll try to patch them up one of these days, when I get a chance.

PPPS: My deepest gratitude to Baruch for the nice, geometric layout.

The Quixotic American Spirit

I live in Kirksville, Missouri.
Every fall, we have a Red Barn Arts festival.
Other small towns have similar(ish) things.
Edina has a Corn Festival. Novinger has Coal Miners' Days.
But in La Plata (luh plate-uh), Missouri, there was a Soybean Festival today.
My younger brother needed a ride.

There was a washers tournament. Six sets of washers, and washer-throwers competed for the championship.
There were also barbecued pork sandwiches. The Midwest is great at grilling food, as a general rule.
Of course, the VFW had their thing, because We Do Love America, Here In the Midwest. So the veterans definitely need to bring a speaker to the harvest festivals. This is not uncommon.
It was decent, though. Some girl sang the national anthem, then there was a speaker. He'd recently come home from the war in Iraq.
So that was what he talked about. The shortage of supplies, how he thought they were doing a good thing overall, but how he didn't want to go back, that kind of thing.
After that, the girl sang another song. "The Impossible Dream," from Man of La Mancha.

"To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go"

My older brother and I think it's brilliant political commentary.
I think everyone else was just inspired to love America more.

Also, not a soybean in sight. At the Corn Fest, they throw corn from the floats in the parades, like candy. They do not throw soybeans in La Plata, though. They do have a train station.

An illusion, a delusion and a temporary solution

So, I woke up about half an hour ago from one of the evening catnaps that have become a survival strategy since starting school, and now remember that sleep does having some redeeming values.

I had a truly delightful dream that TASP didn't end, and on August 4 all we did was switch seminars; the Cornell I people got to learn about the Renaissance, and the Cornell II-ers got to bask in the glory of Kirshner whilst learning nothing*. I was aware that it was August 28, but we were all still there. It was so real (except for the part about my pink-coiffed school librarian going around making all of our beds), and sadly, this was the best part of my day. I even was walking up the stairs to the branch office and one of you guys (don't even remember who) randomly hugged me. This woke me up and made me very happy for about seven minutes without remembering why. Thank you all.

In other news, my school had a mandatory assembly today to honor, in the words of our revered principal, "our most distinguished alumni (sic)" - a NASCAR driver. Additionally, it was so hot today that two of my classes had to be held in the library (because our classrooms don't have air conditioning. We live in the fucking desert.). Without Descartes, the Common App and sporadic hallucinations/realities of being reunited with you guys, I would be insane. GET ME OUT OF HERE.

The actual reason for this post, however, is not to complain about my school nor to descend into unhealthy TASP reminiscences, but to offer myself up as a victim of your guys' letter-writing impulses. Seriously, please send me something; nothing beats the excitement of getting mail that is not a college brochure or a bank statement, at least in my book. I will reciprocate, of course. My address:

3270 Rocky Sage Rd.
Jamul, CA 91935

Love you guys.

-Abigail

*The latter, especially Niko and David P., were quite indignant about that.

This means true love

I was waiting at a stoplight today, after I got out of school.
THREE Sysco trucks drove past. All going north! Three of them!

I hope there's a siege somewhere, and they're trying to help. Really, all you need is Sysco on your side, and you can survive anything.

Also, I want you guys to know it warms my heart so much when you post here.
So keep it up. I miss you.

Crescat Bloggia, Vita Excolatur

In the spirit of Blog and Nunn-hood, I bring to you the following compendium of TASP-infused activities, in the hopes that it may jog to life some stirrings of memory that altogether bind our collective Soul(s). Apologies for the length; I got a little carried away with my pseudo journal entries written in the course of those exquisite six weeks spent semi-monasticizing to my heart's content. Oh, and please do add any other Telluridean episodes you can think up! That would be lovely.

6/24

Behold that three-feeted brick edifice known affectionally as ye Telluride House, unpacking, room 24, TASPers, Michael's House tour + TA history, First Supper, kitchen tour, collective circle meeting, "chain of reporting" in case of imminent doom, communal reading (Burckhardt!) in branch office

6/25

Noah's obnoxious triangle, seminar (Professors Long + Chapelle, small group discussions, begin Burckhardtian crusade), lunch, Linda's Cornell campus tour, library browsing, SCT lecture on "Praise and Blame" (Bruce Robbins), scrumptious supper, Paradise Lost on roof-porch, bizarre basketball phenomenon, House meeting (Committee debates, circles, monk chants, mutterings in the dark), communal reading

Committees: ServCom, LangCom, CirCom, EntCom, InCom, OutCom, DebateCom, PatriotCom

6/26

Seminar (Burckhardt, Machiavelli, symbolism in Durer), lunch, spontaneous watergun war, harassment lecture + really cool flashlights, marbles, mango green mint pearl milk tea (best thing since sliced bread, for sure), EntCom meeting, supper, various discussions (evolution, creationism, feminism, current political happenings, etc.), squirrel incident, communal reading (uterus amidst cranes and pulleys, fanciful distortion of man's head viz., Nixon), hardcore whistling, MySpace lady, Planet of the Apes Cornell I screening, Thank You for Smoking!

6/27

Seminar (portraits, gender relations, nude aesthetic), lunch, kitchen shift, funny Desiree stories, "Making Sex Safe and Fun" lecture, communal reading, sitting outside in rain, observing lightning/thunder phenomenon, ultimate frizzzzbee, Sisyphus boulder question, finger + cup tapping game, Leonardo body systems poetry/prose assignment, PubSpeaks (Noah & Linda), ruminations on TASP thus far

6/28

Waking up obscenely early, "hot potatoe" game thing (oh, hardly), Seminar (presentations--art, drama, poetry), Cornell bookstore (Vonnegut!), Christianity + C.S. Lewis, EntCom meeting, lunch (Marxist revolution, politics, Zionism, war profiteering), whistling round (Carol of the Bells, Row Row Row Your Boat), Waltzing Matilda, Hey Ho, swing dancing + Les Triplettes de Belleville at Cornell cinema

6/29

Seminar (Trope of Naked Savage, Rare Manuscripts Collection), Waltzing Matilda take two, Rapevan (!), piano stuff, perambulation down Gorge trail, depressing stories on mortality, female sexuality & menstruation semi-joke, Starbucks, ping-pong, Big Booty, PubSpeaks (Aurelie & Ibrahim), "there ain't no party like a music-sharing party" night + dancing + eccentric fashion, Rushmore, jolty lounge conversations

6/30

Brunch (Charlie food!), weird YouTube videos, Buttermilk Falls (Gorge trail, Whitman reading circle, Paradise Lost, circle of silent meditation), violin-guitar-piano instrumental/singing ("the good days have passed and gone"), Across the Universe theatrical trailer, Zero thumb game, ABCD slapping thing, s'mores + singing, The Office, Pan's Labyrinth, random conversations

7/1

Sunday Service at Korean Church, Terror-ride Association horror epic, picnic at Central Campus, Renaissance paper the first (Humanism, fall of God?), "Alcoholic Party" dancing courtesy of Dominick, PubSpeaks (Mac & Alina), more essaying hooray!

7/2

Seminar (Petrarch), Cornell mall (Alice in Wonderland, 1001 Nights, Unbearable Lightness of Being, etc.), Lifeboat (what's up with the shoe/dead baby?), House Meeting (Committee announcements, 20min+ Quaker moment), elitism discussion, popping of really bad popcorn, late night reading

7/3

Kim's birthday, seminar (Petrarchian sonnet, Pico, theory of everything), God debate, Hamlet dramatic reading, Stanley Fish SCT lecture (Political Activism in Academia), The Lives of Others at Cornell cinema, sporadic ping-pong games, Taboo, Harry Potter nipple theory (er....)

7/4

Happy Birthday America, favorite American costumes (eecummings, whee!), BBQ, poetry readings (Black Spring, Walden, Gatsby, "Marriage", etc.), sardines, Whitman circle, s'mores in the rain, Hamlet (bad Mel Gibson incestuous adaptation), PubSpeaks (Chanelle & Joe), cheesy pick-up lines (hmm...)

7/5

Seminar (Hamlet), Hamlet dramatic speed reading, check-ins in [drumroll] Room Nineteen, bubble tea + Sidney Cox Library of Music & Dance, Peter McAff lecture (Science & Technology), quiet moment in the rain on which we appreciate the beautiful spirit of our fellow TASPers, midnight snacks, Big Booty, Bing Bong, Moose, keyboard kid

7/6

Seminar (Hamlet presentations, Olivier v Gibson clips), anonymous anti-Bloom rant, essay conference with Professor Long, PubSpeaks (Niko & Tyler), fiddle concert (the Contradictions, waltzing, reels), Trivial Pursuit, terrace circle, cup game

7/7

Brunch, Olin Library search for Latin texts, collegetown bagels, Gorge trail hike, object story sharing (with milk & cookies), communal staring + hugging (the staring threw me off a little bit, but all in all an indescribably inspiring experience), bouncing music stones, erotic sunset-watching on hill, hacky sack flinging, Pot guy (are you guys on acid?), Modern Takes on Shakespeare movie marathon (kind of), romantic star gazing, distant fireworks, egregiously unhealthy midnight snacks, moral relativism v absolutism

7/8

Sunrise!, brunch, Hamlet screening (avec Kate Winslet), PubSpeaks (Rachel & Wanjin), collegetown bagels, late night Renaissance paper revising

7/9

Seminar (review of body studies, Petro della Valle), SCT lecture (Spinoza, ideas & metaphors), Turkish-German movie, Labe sonnet reading, Butler analysis, supper (higher learning, merits of the Core, etc.), House Meeting (hangman, Commitee reports, collective breathing, "In the Jungle"), French translation of Labe's poetry

7/10

Seminar (Labe sonnet explications, Butler, truth v falsehood, sensory perception & nature of discourse), inter-TASP war waged on WashU (hairy pastery), pranked by UMich (lame! condoms), Bach Fugue on piano, Starbucks, SCT lecture by UChicagoan Martha Nussbaum (woohoo! liberty of conscience), "Blessed Be Your Name" impromptus on piano, Dr. Strangelove (awesome movie, though trying so[ooo] hard not to drift to sleep-land), bagel shop, Harry Potter OotP midnight premier

7/11

Seminar (Judy Butler, breathing/stretching exercises with Sandy), Starbucks + light rain, PubSpeaks (Brian & David T), lunch (Martha Nussbaum as guest!), J Butt baaaad writing contest, piano duets, Apples to Apples, peace sign (romantic sunset watching, Mac's near near-death experience), swing-dancing lessons (courtesy of Mr Kurt), Jenny Holzer reading, chilling in basement lounge while drifting in/out of consciousness

7/12

Seminar (Johnson Museum of Art lecture, Shakespearen sonnets, all-around exhaustion), yoga workshop (stretching, weird bodily contortions, props, 5 gestures, interpretive dancing performances, phallogocentrism), costume-scrounging at thrift store/Commons (SH trenchcoat + shoes, Eth'nyk shop, insanely steep slope), fancy dinner (Last Supper recreation), foosball, communal reading

7/13

Seminar (Johnson Museum of Art lecture, con't), Cornell store browsing, more New Age stuff + human knot, quiet reading at library, stroll about campus under light rain, PubSpeaks (Brian & Kim), frenzy of cross-dressing costume borrowing, TASP'o'ween (murder mystery, dancing competition i.e., Shakira, Laffy Taffy), bagel shop in costume, peace sign, horror movie marathon (Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, Alice, The Departed), midnight snack (Ramen)

7/14

Bastille Day!, lounge time, brunch, kitchen shift, bubble tea excursion (Taro Blizzard), philosophical quizzes (would you rather...?), reading on front lawn beneath shade of large tree, Robert Frost (miles to go before I sleep), Niko on literature and androgeny, communal reading (Ganymede), shoe sketching, formation/meeting of Committee for Anger & Subversion, meringues, Gilmore Girls, heated foosball pre-tournament

7/15

Bagel shop, brunch, sitting outside in rain, sketching, foosball tournament, community meeting (on the comings to terms with and redress of general malaise), mass bubble tea outing, sunset spying + terrace conversation (gendered names, literature, etc.), PubSpeaks (David P & Dylan), anti-cyborg manifesto

7/16

Seminar (Shakespeare, Ganymede, Cabeza de Vaca, manifestos--Emily & Tyler), SCT lecture (Native American culture/spirituality, just society, limits of capitalistic imagination), foosball, peace sign, bagel shop, most efficient House meeting ever, impromptu midnight Writer's Alliance circle courtesy of Brian (stream of consciousness & exquisite corpse, whoohoo!), TASP drama reaches a new height, sleeping on terrace under starry night

7/17

Seminar (Mr Cowhead), kitchen shift, library (Nabokov! Pale Fire + short stories), collective [Gregorian] monk chanting circle, SCT lecture (Plato's Dialogue), bubble tea, Battle of Algiers, communism/anarchy/Scandinavian socialism, late-night bonding (the nature of which I forget)

7/18

Seminar (Cowhead, Equiano), lunch (Bruce Robbins day!), final project chat with professors, Cabeza de Vaca screening (abnormally hideous mala cosa), PubSpeaks (Julieta & Laura), on the merits of coffee, Bruce Robbins lecture + subsequent interrogation (Allied bombardment of Germany & transnational blame), bubble tea, one-minute speeches (Liberte! Equalite! Fraternite!), attempt at reading, sleeping out on terrace

7/19

Being awakened by rain (the perfect alarm clock, I tell you), seminar (DV/OE debates), Cornell store (Harry Potter deluxe edition voting fraud, T-shirt--go Maroons!), knitting circle, telephone, human knot, factota-less community meeting (with the passing of Dom's infamous hat), mass excursion to bubble tea, Big Booty, multilingual supper, coffee-shop bonding, Shame screening, branch office reading/philosophical discussions, Writer's Alliance (Gregory Corso, "Marriage", exquisite corpse), late-night bonding (room 24, hooray!)

7/20

Seminar (Museum, Equiano, Montaigne), T-shirt designs, PubSpeaks (Katlin & Emily), Johnson Museum of Art summer party (exhibitions/galleries, free food & ice cream, 5th story view), coffee-shop bonding, lazer-tag at Commons, Greek diner (rice pudding, elephant money), Wag the Dog, Silvio Rodriguez, Dylan's nocturnal oddities, star-gazing/UFOs, bedtime story

7/21

Chinese checkers (unfinished, alas), brunch, kitchen shift, commons (walking about aimlessly, used bookstore, coolest Shakespeare book in the history of the universe!), Harry Potter craze, Gargantua, cup thing round, bagel shop, Cafe Telluride talent show, s'more by fireside + storytelling (Nunnian tales, other-worldly encounters, etc.), muff-cake making + hot chocolate, The Office

7/22

Brunch, epic muffin-cupcake debate + BIRT, matching roommate Cornell sweatshirt, meal with Meno, House cleanup, PubSpeaks (Valerie & Olivia), scientology debate, bubble tea, Rabelais project

7/23

Seminar (Rabelais), commence sporadic Harry Potter reading, Cornell store (Spivak), SCT lecture + walking in the rain (Culler on lyric address & narrative), Olin trip for final research project (Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Nicolas Flamel), House meeting, hugging, mass bubble tea excursion, late night kitchen rampage + ice cream + conversation in the throes of weariness

7/24

Seminar (Rabelais: Gargantua & Pantagruel), Spivak SCT lecture (theory of education, epistemic discontinuity between intellectual and subaltern), out for a walk (Starbucks, video rental, Wilson Farms), Rabelais' lost chapter on interior journey of the Sow, sunset spying, on the merits of Frankenstein (P&P, HP, etc.), Indiana Jones & Last Crusade (darned sleep chemicals kicked in again)

7/25

DAY OUT OF TIME

Seminar (Rabelais, sausage-people presentations, Monsters & Marvels), X-Files & discussion (Detour), green men, Philosopher's Stone: the making (menstrual fluids, Philosophic Egg, volcanic effect, coffee parchment) in response to WashU's lame whistle, on the reality of TASP, bagel shop, dinner with Spivak!, kitchen shift, PubSpeaks (Natasha & Valentin), dance/swing party (decades costume), midnight ice cream, HP denouement

7/26

Aurelie's birthday, seminar (Montaigne, Monsters & Marvels), commons (knitting yarn, maroon!), campus clean-up + Gorges hike + water splashing, dinner & really good cake, foosball, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, frenzied essaying

7/27

Joint seminar (Invasion of Body Snatchers, Pare, group performances/parodies), commons (yarn), bagel shop, PubSpeaks (Bill & Ana), homemade pizzas, knitting circle, R&B concert at Arts Quad, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, The Grudge (with much screaming and gasps of horror), Edward Scissorhands, off to dream-land in living room

7/28

Brunch, commons (Indian cuisine with Desiree and others; wrap dress; used bookstore), bubble tea, Hot Fuzzz!, sundaes & brownies & cookies, ping-pong tournament, chess (David & Wanjin), hardcore semi-stripping foosball, Suite party (room 26), more knitting, spontaneous midnight dance party (sort of)

7/29

Brunch, bagel shop, mediterranean diner (Natural Eatery), knitting ad nauseum, slide show pictures compilation, trip to Art Museum, House cleanup, PubSpeaks (Alex & Amir), hot chocolate + Descartes + Foucault, foosball, piano love, basement stairway conversations

7/30

Seminar (2 cents, Foucault, Descartes), conference with Professor Long, library research, overnight Yurt party (ish), Apples to Apples, dinner outside with knitting and negligible amount of reading done, pseudo obstacle course by clock tower, full moon, swaying circle singing, House meeting by firelight in woods, Woods BIRT debate, Noah trying [in vain] to sustain pale fire, s'more toasting, Quaker meeting Yurt-style, cuddling under blankets, other nocturnal oddities

7/31

Katlin's birthday, delirious conversations outside Yurt (something about tornado bears, i.e. a product of sleep deprivation, naturally), seminar (Grosz, Descartes, nakedness), kitchen shift, foosball, arrivals of TASP T-shirts, dinner guest Ray Krape (sp?), sunset recording + knitting, Wilson Farms, Apocalypse Now, final draft essaying

8/1

Dominick's birthday, seminar (Descartes, dramatic body exercises/presentations), Starbucks, factoto check-in/out/up, knitting, piano love-making, lots of naps, guest dinner with 2003 Cornell TASPers, No (Cornell I screening), midnight communal letter writing, "fist" episode

8/2

Seminar (Descartes & Descartes' error), 15-min kitchen shift, Cornell arts & sciences school/human ecology/Telluride House (Lauren)/Deep Springs (Noah) information sessions [for once my femininity irks me inconsolably], PubSpeaks (Amy & Abigail), dinner outside on lawn, mini-walk around campus, squirrel with pipecleanerish tail, scarf project finito, peace sign excursion + grass blowing bird calls, fancy desert at Madeline's, Life of the Mind conversation, stories of near-death experiences, letter writing continued

8/3

Seminar (android & robots magazine articles, individual character/concept performances, group verbal summaries of Renaissance, Cornell II group picture, seminar evaluation), lunch, TASP 2007 front cover brochure photo (LL!), Olin library book return + random suggestions letter in box concerning fecal matter in books (?!), collegetown in the rain, letter writing, collegetown again, TASP 2006 Rejects box in storage room, PubSpeaks (Gili & Aditya), Bollywood films, Last Supper (BBQ on front porch), House cleanup, lots of camera flashing, TASP 2007 slideshow courtesy of PatCom, all-nighter! + more letter writing, It's a Whole New TASP, Renaissance seminar rap (Pico, Shakespeare, Leonardo, Naked Savage), Ode to Bruce Robbins, L.L. Nunn rap lyrics, Dom's Alcoholic Party dance, Hedwig songs, random YouTube music videos, Emily's birthday, Gilmore Girls, Dylan's red rum sleepwalk, T-shirt signing, midnight bubble tea & smoothie place excursion

8/4

...to be continued.


My goodness, that was a wickedly long post.

-Transcendental hugs to all,
Rachel

Post-TASP thoughts

Ever since I enrolled in high school, I eagerly waited to be a senior. The attention, the senior parties, and the senior trip around Europe were the reasons why I found senior year so appealing. Now, when senior year is about to begin, I am indifferent about it. I just don't care. Everything seems so meaningless now. Even the lifestyle I had before TASP seems faulty now. All I want is to get in college, nothing more.

The previous three years of high school passed very quickly. I feel senior year won't be that enjoyable. I will have only a few people with whom I can discuss some meaningful ideas. Yet, I won't be able to hear appealing debates on the topics of universal morality, Camus, abstinence, clash of civilizations, the power of money... I won't be able to listen to many different adaptations of Straight Outta Compton. I won't bother to look at the sunsets because I know they won't be as good as they are when you observe them from the peace sign or the top of Olin Library.

The key force that will aid me in the process of college applications and senior-year survival is the desire to see my fellow TASPers again and the possibility of a TASP reunion. Sincerely, if there were no TASP, I would not be inspired enough to work hard to get into a college in the U.S. Even though I know it will be difficult to get in, I hope I will. Once I do, I know I will be truly happy and content again. I will have the unique opportunity to meet some of you again.

Whatever I do and wherever I go, I know that my fellow TASPers are some of the best people I could ever meet in my life. One does not meet people like you often. It's been an honor and a pleasure to get to know you. All of you.

Love you guys

Hey Guys,

I'm in the mountains now in the middle of nowhere in India and there is a monk sitting next to me typing away merrily at this G of an internet cafe. Miss you all a lot.

NIKO--DON'T LET ANY ASSHOLES, IB OR OTHERWISE, LET YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT ARTICULACY. We all now how articulate you are; the IBers are probably jealous.

Today is Indian independence day and that movie from which I showed you the song for my PubSpeak is on. I will watch it with tears in my eyes, remembering the last day of TASP.

I MISS Bruce Robbins. And Lauren (oh god yes). I miss 2AM, which I slept through last night (I slept 13 hours last night...this would never have happened at TASP).

The Tibetan exile community here is really interesting to study and there is something very thrilling about being thousands of feet above sea level and in the Himalayas. But I miss Ithaca.

Loves ya
aditya

Procrastination

So, it's half-past midnight, and I have elected to defer the completion of my reader's response journal to indulge my nascent YouTube addiction and to solicit comiseration from my beloved TASPers.

I hate Bradenton and its arrogant I.B. students. Not that I wish to speak ill of my friends, but just to illustrate: last night I gave a speech to persuade impressionable freshman to join the club of which I am president; I had worked for an inordinate amount of time on the preparation of a speech and the compilation of promotional literature. Upon completing my speech, I was relieved, yes; but that brief and shining euphoria was to be quickly tarnished by my friends who felt compelled to tell me, "You really need to learn how to give a speech, darling. You were drab and monotone; such a shame, considering how eloquent you are." Do I hear a "by the way, betch, FUCK YOU" through the bits and bytes of cyberspace?

None of my TASPers would have spoken to me that way, regardless of how "drab and monotone" my oratory may have been. But my wonderful I.B. STUDENTS would...and I must endure this hell for one more year. This is worse than "just the tip".

But, how go my TASPers? to whom I long to say...
HEY BETCH.