Time for a random update!

I finished the first 2/5 of my math homework, now five sections instead of three! I should compose a song about it, to the tune of “I got a jar of di-irt.”

*does a jig*

Last night I attended a staged version of John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. The first act was excellent, but the second act was atrocious and easily three times the length it needed to be. Ah well. I understand it’s still being workshopped, so hopefully they’ll fix some of the more glaring problems. Tonight, I saw Aaron and pals in Much Ado About Nothing, which was hilarious and awesome. Three cheers (and lots of revelry) for all involved!

Now tallying 16 days without my stuff, CollegeBoxes remains useless, and I am now being told that someone will get in touch with me early next week. Wow, that sure is helpful, especially seeing as I got the “We’ll call you in the next 48 hours” line last Tuesday, and I had to call them.

And back to the grindstone for me.

Whee, we’ve got cover art! White Night, ninth novel of the Dresden Files. Will it deal with the White Court? The White Council? The Knights of the Cross, given Butcher’s predilection for puns? How would you know, only like four people that read my blog have read the series! And that’s gotta change. *eyes you significantly and directs you to the first book in the series*

Anyway, I’ve got my hands on Lemony Snicket’s The Beatrice Letters, the fifth Artemis Fowl book, and the remaining trades of the graphic novel series Fables. So much awesome to balance with so much reading required for my Feminist Fairytales class. Which is awesome as well, but nevertheless very abundant. Coupled with Calc, this semester seems like it’s going to be a lot more time-intensive than previous semesters.

Apparently my Calc III professor decided we didn’t have quite enough due on Monday and added an additional two sections. WTF???????

Also, *definitely* setting CollegeBoxes on fire.

Why am I the only person that speaks up in my Calculus III class? I can’t be the only one that has questions. The professor called me “observant,” though. Not bad for my first day of that class.

Anyway, tonight I and a partner spent four hours working on problems for a FRACTION of our math assignment. We did about two-thirds of set 8.2, and we have to do sets 8.1 and 8.3 for Monday as well. I’m going to love this class, I can tell.

It was about 9AM, Central. My first period class, Digital Photography, was wrapping up. It was held in the Upper School computer lab, a fairly popular spot during breaks. Nearly everyone in the class had left when I heard whisperings around the lab. “Passenger planes” and “World Trade Center”. I went to CNN’s website and goggled uncomprehendingly at the horrific headline, but when I clicked on it, CNN’s server had crashed. I kept pressing “reload” every few seconds, and finally the front page was replaced with a basic, no-graphics interface that would withstand the strain of hundreds of millions of people all frantically trying to understand what had happened.

A voice on the loudspeaker told us to go to our homerooms and called the advisors to a meeting. United with my friends, we shared worries over friends and family that lived in New York, and I started crying when I remembered that it was my Aunt Nancy’s first day as a delegate at the United Nations, and what if there was a fifth plane, like all the people on TV and the radio and the news websites were suggesting, and what if the UN was their target?

Dr. Magee, the Upper School Headmistress, called us to a meeting. The Middle School would take the auditorium after us. I don’t know what they told the Lower School, if anything. She told us what we already knew, and then she said that school would continue as scheduled, but students would not be penalized if they felt they needed to be at home. After she spoke, the presidents of various clubs stood up and stated that they wouldn’t be meeting that day. After four or five of these announcements, Caroline stood up a bit sheepishly and said that the JETS meeting was still on, for anyone that wanted to be there.

My next class was Multimedia Engineering. No one felt like learning anything, so we helped Mr. Taylor and Mr. Loh reassemble the junked TV and built an antenna for it. The phosphors in the screen were all messed up from demonstrations involving magnets, and the reception was awful, but we managed to get CBS with a minimum of snow. We watched the same footage and the same stunned news anchors saying the same thing over and over for the full hour and a half.

I don’t really remember what the afternoon was like. I remember that when I got home, I remained glued to the TV for hours, until I finally got fed up with the anchors’ lack of anything new to say.

It was surreal. Everything was so distant. The day was sunny in Dallas. No noxious clouds of smoke and dust hovered over our landscape. After I confirmed that Nancy and Becca and Aunt Phyllis were safe, I was at a loss to think of anyone I knew personally that could have been in the way of the attacks. All the camp friends and online friends I could think of that lived in New York didn’t live in the city, and I couldn’t think of anyone I knew in Washington. So who were all these people that were dead and dying and mourning their loved ones and struggling to reconnect with family and friends? Who were the near-misses that deviated slightly from their everyday routine that morning, which ended up saving their lives? Who were the people that watched the towers fall in person, when I just saw it on TV?

I don’t really know what else to say. My account seems trifling and insignificant compared to the recollections of the people that were actually there. And tomorrow, I will return to my regular brand of criticism and mockery of the administration and other stupid people in power, but I will never forget to give thanks that I live in a country that allows such criticism. I live in a country with such extraordinary freedoms that we can actually find ourselves taking them for granted. I can write in my weblog that Senator So-And-So is a moron and not be shut down or arrested by the secret police. I can plaster my door with liberal slogans without fear of attracting the wrong attention. I can attend a rally for Dean or Kerry as easily as I can attend a shindig. I can go outside wearing whatever I want and not be expected to follow a rigid dress code. I have the ability to practice any religion that speaks to me, or practice no religion at all. I can attend University and learn freely, unencumbered by censorship of information. I can join the work force, unconfined to the home. And in the film industry, I will retain that freedom to express an opinion, political or otherwise.

We have so much freedom, woven into the very fabric of our country and our being. We may complain about not being able to carry liquids on to flights, but it’s trifling compared to what we can do. And they can’t take that away from us.

Everyone’s Gods–be they Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, or an Outmoded Belief System on a Crutch–Bless America.

To thank us for showing off our room to prospies during Penn Previews last year, housing gave Ko and me each four coupons for free pints of Ben & Jerry’s. Now that’s just cruel. My hips hate you, Student Housing, but next week will be That Time of the Month, and I expect I may change my tune. Still, I think I gained ten pounds just thinking about it. XD

My first round of DVDs from Netflix arrived last night, and I watched the first disc of Sports Night. Oh, Aaron Sorkin! The one thing that really bothered me was the laugh track. Laugh tracks make jokes less funny for me. Though this distraction does not prevent me from wanting to wrap Jeremy into a tiny little ball and carry him around in my heart. Also, Ko and I have decided that if Nathan Fillion and David Tennant had a love child, it might resemble Casey.

Then we watched the pilot of Studio 60, which looked like all kinds of fun!

Speaking further of TV, it’s looks likely that The Dresden Files might be taking over Stargate‘s old spot, 9 EST on Fridays. *does the Sci-Fi Friday dance* And if that’s true, unless USA changes its schedule, it won’t conflict with Psych! I’d reiterate my tired “blonde cop named Karen that consults a private eye with supernatural abilities” joke, but I remind myself that in the TV version, it’s a brunette cop named Connie. Stupid real-life Chicago PD for actually having an employee named “Karyn Murphy.” XD

Browncoats! (I originally typed “Browncats!”) Tell Universal “THANK YOU!” for the Big Damn Movie.

DanRad on Extras. It’s so cute to see him trying so desperately to distance himself from Harry Potter. :D

A Montage of Gay Moments on The Daily Show

Non-Liquid Toiletries for your carry-on needs

From Renata: Giant Octopus Battles Shark

Here’s something appalling and twisted, and here’s something that gives me a small measure of hope.

CollegeBoxes claims to have found my stuff, but they also claimed that I would receive it before 5:30 yesterday evening. Still no word.

“When two angels from God almighty appeared one night in human form at Lot’s house in old Sodom told Lot that he should gather his family and get out of Sodom immediately because God had determined to destroy Sodom with fire and brimstone the next morning, they thought it was just more of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s brand of comic mockery! So strong and pervasive was the satanic spirit of mockery. Hear these words, America, and weep for your sodomite sins!”

I hereby nominate Fred Phelps for “Most Unintentionally Hilarious Total Asshat on the Planet.”

The less said about yesterday, the better. It certainly wasn’t a bad day, but it was just peppered by a series of tiny disappointments, mitigated with enough happy that I don’t feel justified in complaining, but which still really bug me.

CollegeBoxes is giving me the distinct impression that they’re never going to find my stuff. It isn’t dire, as practically everything I have identified as missing is replaceable, except for the Paul Kidby “Discworld Family Values” poster, autographed by Pterry himself. I’ll just have to hope he comes back through Philly to promote Unseen Academicals or whatever comes next, as it’s definitely not on the list for the Wintersmith tour.

My Physics professor, for some inexplicable reason, rescheduled our final exam for two hours after I was supposed to fly home for Christmas. I hope I can find a flight to replace it.

The Digital Figure Modeling class was cancelled, so I can’t do my Independent Study. I’ll try again in the Spring.

Looking over my CPG for something to replace said Independent Study, I realized that I’m still missing a Math elective, whereas I thought last semester would be my last Math class. Joy.

Though on the bright side, I won a promo code to download the Heroes pilot, and I just heard about Pan’s Labyrinth, which looks totally awesome. And my booxes of books finally arrived, plus two of my course books from Amazon, which is being unusually slow for some reason.