So this weekend I went to Knoxville!
I left Saturday morning and had the best drive ever (hardly had to brake through Nashville). There was the thrilling combination on the radio; Weekend Edition to Car Talk to part of What Do You Know and, once the Knoxville NPR was accessible (WUOT), Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. It was a dream.
After arriving early for a lunch with Laura, a friend from Morristown, I went hunting for Wiis. I was going to Taste of Thai, and so I walked over to the nearby Circuit City. After five minutes of looking, I see boxes! Wii boxes! Then I call Diana excitedly, and get no answer. Drat. I hang around for a little while longer, and get a call back. Thus empowered by her approval, I ask if they have any Wiis, the polite hint to please please please get one or two from the back. "Ah, no, sorry." My eyes narrow. Lesson learned: displays lie. At least they got one later on that day.
Then lunch! A Taste of Thai was more disappointing than normal. I ordered a 4 on the spicy scale, but it wasn't spicy at all. Ginger chicken, too! Ah well. We talked a lot about school, and her going to Morocco in a couple of weeks to study Arabic. Afterward, I was restless, so I went to Best Buy all wistful-eyed. No Wiis there either.
Then, as I was leaving the parking lot, I saw Leslie in her car, coming off of work from Firehouse. That was basically what I was waiting for, so I went to the apartment. Becky and Derek were starting to set up for the party on Sunday. Leslie came back (she went to the bank), and we pitched in, helping set up a game for tonight, preparing the vegetables and meat for shish kebabs on Sunday, and so on. I believe I was a good assistant chef anyhow, even though those onions made me cry a whole bunch.
Aftiel (Derek's friend) and Sarah (Becky's sister) eventually showed up, both bundles of sarcasm in their ways. We ended up playing a game of Heroscape (a miniature game that Scott actually has). We were playing in teams, but I was pretty much controlling Leslie and mine's; she was too tired to do anything but watch. I ended up decimating Becky and Sarah's team down to three or four people in one turn. But the glory was short lived, and Aftiel/Derek weedled the win out of it. I thought I might manage a stalemate, but my dragon died.
Sunday came along, and with that, pirate party!
It started with a scavenger hunt. There were about thirty pictures of things around the apartment and the building, closeups. It was like I Spy, going around trying to find them. I ended up on the two-person team with Jessica, but we still made a good effort. Leslie and her team, with their better division of labor and her acuity, won. We got honorary second because, though we missed more than the others, we made up creative places for the ones we couldn't find. ^_^ On the moon! In the underground gnome cave! They may as well have been... I think I learned where all of the things were except for the metal vent.
After that, we went to this park in front of a church. They had a pavillion and everything. Robbie brought his awesome grill, and we charcoaled the heck out of those kebabs. Pork, beef, and chicken were in an amazing marinade Leslie prepared, and we had mushrooms (I cut them!), onions (both me and Aftiel I think), bell peppers, and pineapple (Leslie again!). There was a man hanging around that wanted to eat too. We were probably too xenophobic about it and uneasy, but he had his share too, and now I'm glad we did it. He seemed out of his luck.
Next came the s'mores, and then relocation. Sadly, most of the people had to leave then, but we still had a decent enough group, so we watched Muppet Treasure Island, internet movies, and Ernest Goes to Camp while eating pizza and drinking some rum (it was a pirate party). And no, I didn't get drunk. I may've gotten giddy, but I could hardly tell a difference, probably because of the Coke.
Monday was a more relaxed day. Leslie and I went to the Lost Savant, a cafe in northern Knoxville. They had mainly sandwiches with disagreeable ingredients, but I managed to find a good lasagna that suited me. She seemed well-suited with her sandwich too. The teas were excellent, if chosen correctly. She got a kind of green tea that was sweet in a gentle way, while I got Earl Grey, and drank it like Captain Picard. (She won.)
The atmosphere was good, like an extended dining room, with agreeable art on the wall (though not quite generic). The service was good at the start, and decent in the middle, but the server came by less often as the meal progressed, which would've been fine if Leslie hadn't wanted a Coke to balance out the tea.
Then came a pleasant stroll and frisbee toss in Fountain City Park. They had top-notch playground equipment, enough to where we had to try the monkey bars and slides once, just to say we could. They had some plastic stuff, but enough was still that good metal that would scald the skin. Mmmm. Luckily we were wearing pants.
As we went to UT to take care of a couple of things there, Leslie's mom called. We knew she would be visiting, but didn't know when she'd get done with work. Well, it was earlier than we expected. So we soon met her, went around the mall (I found a present for Diana), and then headed over to the apartment to play Rummy and decide where to eat. We originally decided on Kalamata, but Leslie suggested Peerless instead perhaps. But the atmosphere and prices weren't suiting what we were looking for, so Kalamata it was, Leslie's mom's treat!
It was a Greek and Japanese restaurant blended into one. Warning sirens? No need. We didn't try any of the sushi, but instead stuck with the souvlaki and other Greek fare (well, I assume). Souvlaki is tenderloin on skewers (wait, I've had this recently). They didn't do it as well as Leslie, but it was still good. And the vegetables were actually quite satisfying, not overcooked or underwrought.
And Tuesday morning I left. Sarah, Becky, and Leslie were going camping, and I might've gone, if Angelica wasn't having a graduation. They were going to Cades Cove, so I bet they're having a blast.
After this, there's Angelica's graduation on Thursday (and Diana's birthday, and Taylor's late birthday). And then Friday Leslie is coming up. Quite soon, right? Never too soon. We'll be heading to the Ren Fest either all day Saturday or Sunday, for sure, as well as spending time together in general. After that, it will be a while before I see her sometime in June.
And now that Scott's out of school (and Mom), that means I won't have a quiet house part of the day. I'll find a way around that at least a day or two a week. Need to find a coffee shop to grow roots in. Suggestions?
May 23, 2007
May 17, 2007
Mulling
Leslie just did a survey of her high school experience, prompted by a New York Times article about the experience not preparing people for college. Hers was less positive than mine, from what I can remember. Let me think...
Math:
Mixed. There was some rigor there. The quality of the teachers above, say, Algebra II level, was good. We had to perform proofs in Geometry, even if they were very basic angle rules. I learned how to factor quadratics (and more) like a madman, and even in Precalculus, the most motley collection of mathematical concepts seen in this galaxy, the work and the effort was rewarding, even if some of those concepts have hardly ever come up again, like those trigonometric shapes. (What shape does cos(3x) give? I don't know!) At the time I found that teacher rather dull, but at least we learned. Mostly. I had to teach Ben behind me. It could've been more productive. And seeing as they had no higher math my senior year, there was nothing but physics to sate myself... and free-study Calculus. Free-study Calculus started with the best of intentions, but it's impossible to prioritize it when there's no grade or tangible reward for doing it (the learning doesn't count as tangible). So when I got all the way to integrals somehow, my foundational knowledge was low and on the AP test, I scored a 2 because I couldn't prove to save my life.
So the math department serviced those who were competent and even smart, but not those who were ambitious. Not consistently, anyhow.
Social Studies:
World History was lackluster, and I suspect that the other non-advanced classes were the same. It was all factual, with little correlation. Our teacher skipped China, Japan, India... every culture I would've liked to study, because he wanted to get to the good stuff, and he didn't have a feeling for those ones. Ah, Western-centric learning... I actually read those on my own. Then again, there were only three or four people in that class that gave a whoop about history.
But then AP US History and AP Government were better. The former was very rigorous, to the point where I could pop out an essay on any topic between 1607 and 2003. It was also enthusiastic; when we got to Andrew Jackson, we took a day out to talk about him and his wife, Rachel. At the end of the year, we watched several movies, and one of them... was about that one. The latter was more candid, and more rushed (we didn't cover everything we should've), but was overall satisfying enough. If I had had to take the regular class... I wouldn't have been as ready or as understanding of any course involving American history or contemporary politics.
English:
... no. My experience may be a specific one though. Freshman year we had a slow teacher who managed to stretch out Romeo and Juliet over a long stretch of time. There were a couple of good things that year (Walt Whitman for a project, The Odyssey abridged), but very little writing, very little thought beyond the obvious.
Sophomore year was good. Encouraging. Did everything to make me love English... started me writing with earnest. Read some of my favorite plays ever, especially Cyrano de Bergerac. Studied Emily Dickenson. Worked on vocabulary consistently. The formal writing wasn't much, and it wasn't that rigorous, but it was refreshing.
Then came the year of disaster. We go from having the most demanding boldest teacher yet to having a string of subs from October to May, some staying for weeks. At first we had been blazing, with creative but structured assignments. She was the English savior, going to whip us into shape for our writing assessment. After she left, we got some critical analysis from two subs in particular, but both eventually left, leaving us with a woman who read Raisin in the Sun and demanded nothing more than page-rooting from us.
And senior year was okay again. We had to write some more, but it wasn't major. More reading, more assignments, more discussion. It was good. Not great but good.
And then I came to college, wrote a paper, and got a C+ on it. I improved after that, but I'd had Governor's School and took the AP English test. For anyone who did less than me, I can see how they would absolutely need those intro English courses, at the very least.
Science:
Ah, the exception! At least with the teachers I had, the science courses were the best ones. Biology and Chemistry were both action-packed and sufficiently introductory and yet thought-provoking. And AP Biology was the best class I took. Oh my. Oh yes. It was awe-inspiring. If someone didn't feel up to that, there was Physics and Anatomy and Physiology. The former was good, the latter... was mostly alright. It was light on the Physiology bit, which describes how the body works, but still good.
With the exception of forcing every person in advanced science to do a science fair project.
Mine were always lackluster, though impeccably written up and presented, because I didn't care beyond the grade. A few people did, and they did wonderfully. Many cared less than me, and performed accordingly. It is probably a focus I've underappreciated, but... one has to care for the whole process and more. I was too short-sighted to see it that way.
And there's French, and noncore courses, and they did their part... I even enjoyed them, though not many would say the same about French, sadly. Ah well.
I guess, overall, the point is that, from where I was, it seems like the basic classes were too basic, and the high line was sometimes good (Social Studies, Science) and sometimes not (Math, English). The classes were good for introducing concepts, but as far as preparing for college, they could've done more. This is probably somewhat different in other schools, but I wonder by how much it is.
Math:
Mixed. There was some rigor there. The quality of the teachers above, say, Algebra II level, was good. We had to perform proofs in Geometry, even if they were very basic angle rules. I learned how to factor quadratics (and more) like a madman, and even in Precalculus, the most motley collection of mathematical concepts seen in this galaxy, the work and the effort was rewarding, even if some of those concepts have hardly ever come up again, like those trigonometric shapes. (What shape does cos(3x) give? I don't know!) At the time I found that teacher rather dull, but at least we learned. Mostly. I had to teach Ben behind me. It could've been more productive. And seeing as they had no higher math my senior year, there was nothing but physics to sate myself... and free-study Calculus. Free-study Calculus started with the best of intentions, but it's impossible to prioritize it when there's no grade or tangible reward for doing it (the learning doesn't count as tangible). So when I got all the way to integrals somehow, my foundational knowledge was low and on the AP test, I scored a 2 because I couldn't prove to save my life.
So the math department serviced those who were competent and even smart, but not those who were ambitious. Not consistently, anyhow.
Social Studies:
World History was lackluster, and I suspect that the other non-advanced classes were the same. It was all factual, with little correlation. Our teacher skipped China, Japan, India... every culture I would've liked to study, because he wanted to get to the good stuff, and he didn't have a feeling for those ones. Ah, Western-centric learning... I actually read those on my own. Then again, there were only three or four people in that class that gave a whoop about history.
But then AP US History and AP Government were better. The former was very rigorous, to the point where I could pop out an essay on any topic between 1607 and 2003. It was also enthusiastic; when we got to Andrew Jackson, we took a day out to talk about him and his wife, Rachel. At the end of the year, we watched several movies, and one of them... was about that one. The latter was more candid, and more rushed (we didn't cover everything we should've), but was overall satisfying enough. If I had had to take the regular class... I wouldn't have been as ready or as understanding of any course involving American history or contemporary politics.
English:
... no. My experience may be a specific one though. Freshman year we had a slow teacher who managed to stretch out Romeo and Juliet over a long stretch of time. There were a couple of good things that year (Walt Whitman for a project, The Odyssey abridged), but very little writing, very little thought beyond the obvious.
Sophomore year was good. Encouraging. Did everything to make me love English... started me writing with earnest. Read some of my favorite plays ever, especially Cyrano de Bergerac. Studied Emily Dickenson. Worked on vocabulary consistently. The formal writing wasn't much, and it wasn't that rigorous, but it was refreshing.
Then came the year of disaster. We go from having the most demanding boldest teacher yet to having a string of subs from October to May, some staying for weeks. At first we had been blazing, with creative but structured assignments. She was the English savior, going to whip us into shape for our writing assessment. After she left, we got some critical analysis from two subs in particular, but both eventually left, leaving us with a woman who read Raisin in the Sun and demanded nothing more than page-rooting from us.
And senior year was okay again. We had to write some more, but it wasn't major. More reading, more assignments, more discussion. It was good. Not great but good.
And then I came to college, wrote a paper, and got a C+ on it. I improved after that, but I'd had Governor's School and took the AP English test. For anyone who did less than me, I can see how they would absolutely need those intro English courses, at the very least.
Science:
Ah, the exception! At least with the teachers I had, the science courses were the best ones. Biology and Chemistry were both action-packed and sufficiently introductory and yet thought-provoking. And AP Biology was the best class I took. Oh my. Oh yes. It was awe-inspiring. If someone didn't feel up to that, there was Physics and Anatomy and Physiology. The former was good, the latter... was mostly alright. It was light on the Physiology bit, which describes how the body works, but still good.
With the exception of forcing every person in advanced science to do a science fair project.
Mine were always lackluster, though impeccably written up and presented, because I didn't care beyond the grade. A few people did, and they did wonderfully. Many cared less than me, and performed accordingly. It is probably a focus I've underappreciated, but... one has to care for the whole process and more. I was too short-sighted to see it that way.
And there's French, and noncore courses, and they did their part... I even enjoyed them, though not many would say the same about French, sadly. Ah well.
I guess, overall, the point is that, from where I was, it seems like the basic classes were too basic, and the high line was sometimes good (Social Studies, Science) and sometimes not (Math, English). The classes were good for introducing concepts, but as far as preparing for college, they could've done more. This is probably somewhat different in other schools, but I wonder by how much it is.
May 15, 2007
A Week!
Now I know I earned all A's. One year to go to keep that up for undergrad. I don't pick classes based on what I think I can get A's in, so it's good when I think I'm going to be wiped out (oh, to condescend to a B) that I still get it.
And darn well I should, in Restoration Literature. Aced that final. It's possible but unlikely for a math one. For an English one, it's even more improbable. There're so many ways to potentially be wrong. All of it was identification or explication, but bring out the wrong thing, make an incorrect assumption... which happens all the time, even outside tests.
But now I've been out of school for a week this Wednesday, and as of 2:25, without any exam. It feels pretty good.
Anyway, what I've been doing with my mornings and afternoons off:
7-9 - Wake up, read paper, all of that.
9-11 - Read Chaucer for a while (I'm most of the way through the Knight's Tale, the first one of The Canterbury Tales... I average about 700 or so lines a day) and then read something more... modern. (Just finished a Star Wars book, not sure what next).
11-1 - Play an RPG (Kingdom Hearts 2 is my current project. See below.)
1-1:30 - Lunch! (Pizza today.)
1:30-3 - Study for GRE
And then after that I either read more, play games with Scott, play games on the computer, or go out. If I go out earlier I can normally get things done around that. It's very flexible and times often change, but I still get most of this done, at minimum.
Now, Kingdom Hearts II. It's a game with both Squaresoft characters (a game company) and Disney characters. So you control Sora, a fifteen year-old on a journey with Donald and Goofy to cleanse the world of Heartless and Nobodies, both dark entities with their own instincts or purpose. All this time you're trying to find King Mickey, who is more covertly fighting them. Using a gummi ship, you travel through different Disney-themed worlds. So far there's been Mulan, Pooh, Beauty and the Beast, Hercules, Steamboat Willie, and there's about to be Pirates of the Carribean. In addition, there are popular characters that come around often, like (I'll list the Disney ones) Merlin, Chip and Dale, that one wizard from Fantasia, Malificent, Pete, Minnie, Daisy, and others.
A lot of the charm of the game is nostalgia, but the gameplay is also fun, if you like slashing around quickly with a keyblade. It also has a coherent story, as I mentioned earlier, though I can't say much about it yet. In any case, I enjoy it.
And finally, Saturday evening I went to the Beachhaven Winery with Katie, Diana, and Jon for Jazz on the Lawn. I discovered that I like sweet wines far more (even peach!), and Katie's friends weren't scary, but interesting. I didn't talk too much, but I did dance like a blazing fool. Afterward I went to Books-a-Million and scoured the books for an hour. I could've spent more time, but it was past 10 by then, so I decided to just head on home.
And darn well I should, in Restoration Literature. Aced that final. It's possible but unlikely for a math one. For an English one, it's even more improbable. There're so many ways to potentially be wrong. All of it was identification or explication, but bring out the wrong thing, make an incorrect assumption... which happens all the time, even outside tests.
But now I've been out of school for a week this Wednesday, and as of 2:25, without any exam. It feels pretty good.
Anyway, what I've been doing with my mornings and afternoons off:
7-9 - Wake up, read paper, all of that.
9-11 - Read Chaucer for a while (I'm most of the way through the Knight's Tale, the first one of The Canterbury Tales... I average about 700 or so lines a day) and then read something more... modern. (Just finished a Star Wars book, not sure what next).
11-1 - Play an RPG (Kingdom Hearts 2 is my current project. See below.)
1-1:30 - Lunch! (Pizza today.)
1:30-3 - Study for GRE
And then after that I either read more, play games with Scott, play games on the computer, or go out. If I go out earlier I can normally get things done around that. It's very flexible and times often change, but I still get most of this done, at minimum.
Now, Kingdom Hearts II. It's a game with both Squaresoft characters (a game company) and Disney characters. So you control Sora, a fifteen year-old on a journey with Donald and Goofy to cleanse the world of Heartless and Nobodies, both dark entities with their own instincts or purpose. All this time you're trying to find King Mickey, who is more covertly fighting them. Using a gummi ship, you travel through different Disney-themed worlds. So far there's been Mulan, Pooh, Beauty and the Beast, Hercules, Steamboat Willie, and there's about to be Pirates of the Carribean. In addition, there are popular characters that come around often, like (I'll list the Disney ones) Merlin, Chip and Dale, that one wizard from Fantasia, Malificent, Pete, Minnie, Daisy, and others.
A lot of the charm of the game is nostalgia, but the gameplay is also fun, if you like slashing around quickly with a keyblade. It also has a coherent story, as I mentioned earlier, though I can't say much about it yet. In any case, I enjoy it.
And finally, Saturday evening I went to the Beachhaven Winery with Katie, Diana, and Jon for Jazz on the Lawn. I discovered that I like sweet wines far more (even peach!), and Katie's friends weren't scary, but interesting. I didn't talk too much, but I did dance like a blazing fool. Afterward I went to Books-a-Million and scoured the books for an hour. I could've spent more time, but it was past 10 by then, so I decided to just head on home.
May 6, 2007
Conquered!
I spent the morning preparing for both my Feminist Literary Criticism (English) and Emergence of the Modern American Woman (Women's Studies) classes.
Then I eat lunch, come back, and read the email. I already have an A and won't have to submit a final essay for Women's Studies? Whaaat?
I'm totally prepared for that essay now. Today was where I pulled it all together. Nonetheless, this will be two hours saved, and a smaller amount of time saved for the professor who grades it.
What did it? I checked my grades... ah, I've gotten an A on my paper. The first and only paper I've ever had that had no minimum but a clear maximum, 6 pages. I filled those six pages with the substance of marital surname adoption, detailing the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and nontraditional methods (change to husband's, keep maiden name, hyphenation, middle name, change to mother's maiden name, mutual change, blend the names, and so on).
But even then, this is the first time that this has happened when I wasn't expecting it to happen due to exam policies (like in Psychology 110 - the final counts as an exam, and the lowest exam is dropped). It is a pretty sweet feeling.
Then I eat lunch, come back, and read the email. I already have an A and won't have to submit a final essay for Women's Studies? Whaaat?
I'm totally prepared for that essay now. Today was where I pulled it all together. Nonetheless, this will be two hours saved, and a smaller amount of time saved for the professor who grades it.
What did it? I checked my grades... ah, I've gotten an A on my paper. The first and only paper I've ever had that had no minimum but a clear maximum, 6 pages. I filled those six pages with the substance of marital surname adoption, detailing the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and nontraditional methods (change to husband's, keep maiden name, hyphenation, middle name, change to mother's maiden name, mutual change, blend the names, and so on).
But even then, this is the first time that this has happened when I wasn't expecting it to happen due to exam policies (like in Psychology 110 - the final counts as an exam, and the lowest exam is dropped). It is a pretty sweet feeling.
May 5, 2007
Japanese and Rome
Quote of the Moment: When marching, a little girl - "Are they from Narnia?"
Well, took my Restoration Literature exam on Friday. I felt darn good on that one. It was mainly identification, explication, and connection. Some of those connections were "out there," but I think they'll liven things up a bit. Also, I got away with using a naughty archaic term (useful for the Earl of Rochester, that swiftly-embered libertine).
And getting my paper back... A-. And it was the most positive A- I've ever gotten. She said pages 3-5 were a little weak (they were), but the argument still held together, I raised the bar in the class, and to not hesitate to ask for recommendation letters for graduate school! The last part made me skippy for the rest of the day. She's the second one to either implore or implicitly assume that I'm aiming to be a starving scholar. It makes the starving part insignificant.
(By the way, if you want to write like a bad literary scholar, just write that last sentence as "It insignifcantilizes the starving part." Because "diminish" is used too much.)
Anyway, because I was feeling so skippy, and I was already dressed up (ah, laundry day, you bring me out in ties), I decided to take Leslie to Misaki's!
Formerly Miyabi's (they apparently just felt like changing their name), we entered early and got an instant seat at a table. Seven year old and mother at the left. Two college guys on the right. Leslie and I in the middle, gazing expectantly at the hibachi where the cook would soon spin his pepper shakers.
It's standard Teppanyaki fare, which is quite delicious for the most part. Steak, shrimp, chicken, rice, zucchini made somehow edible, onion, other vegetables, and onion soup rounded out the selection. All tantalizing. The salad wasn't personally appealing, about a class 2. The waiter had a good rapport with both the staff and us, and was always there when the glass was half-empty to make it half-full and more again. The chef seemed less experienced, and he had less flair for most of it... until the end, when he twirled those pepper shakers in a tremendous display of ambidextrous passion. He made the food succulent, which is what mattered most to me.
After that, Leslie went with me to the mall, where I got Scott's present. He should like it. With few exceptions, he's the easiest person to shop for. Just get him what I want.
Anyway, yes, Rossini. It's an Italian festival in downtown put on by the Knoxville Opera. Good food, great shopping, fantastic music.
I get there Saturday morning, and two tents are already set up. Which is good, because it's... well, pouring outside. The tunic keeps me relatively warm, but it gets dry fast. When it clears up a little bit, Robert (our centurion) orders us into armor. I end up taking the lorica segmentata, the armor most often associated with Roman gear, even though hamata (chain mail) was used for the duration of the Republic and the Empire. After accidentally putting the shoulders on backwards, I'm able to get my balteus (belt) on, a good gladius and scabbard, and a shield.
Sadly, it wasn't my shield. We weren't able to get the bosses on yet, because we didn't get any electricity, due to the rain. Maybe I'll have it sometime this summer.
We marched for a while, in a few small (5 person) parades. There were a couple of orators that went with us, though they weren't loud enough, their sandals weren't authentic, and ... well, okay, they were still good, and they did know what they were talking about.
However, we couldn't earn any money or get much attention because we weren't even along the main strip at Rossini. Thus, we ended up leaving a little early.
Best part was probably walking around trying to sell t-shirts. We only sold a few, but it was fun to get out and see the other vendors.
Salad classes:
Class 1: No dressing, desirable vegetables (lettuce, croutons, onions, other greens). Safe to eat in moderation.
Class 2: No dressing, undesirable vegetables (tomato, cucumber, most zucchini). Avoid.
Class 3: Dressing, desirable vegetables. Make the obligatory effort to try the dressing, and then try to markedly eat around it.
Class 4: Dressing, undesirable vegetables. Bitterly sip a drink and stare, betrayed.
Class 5: Cannot identify more than fifty percent of the ingredients - destroy immediately.
Well, took my Restoration Literature exam on Friday. I felt darn good on that one. It was mainly identification, explication, and connection. Some of those connections were "out there," but I think they'll liven things up a bit. Also, I got away with using a naughty archaic term (useful for the Earl of Rochester, that swiftly-embered libertine).
And getting my paper back... A-. And it was the most positive A- I've ever gotten. She said pages 3-5 were a little weak (they were), but the argument still held together, I raised the bar in the class, and to not hesitate to ask for recommendation letters for graduate school! The last part made me skippy for the rest of the day. She's the second one to either implore or implicitly assume that I'm aiming to be a starving scholar. It makes the starving part insignificant.
(By the way, if you want to write like a bad literary scholar, just write that last sentence as "It insignifcantilizes the starving part." Because "diminish" is used too much.)
Anyway, because I was feeling so skippy, and I was already dressed up (ah, laundry day, you bring me out in ties), I decided to take Leslie to Misaki's!
Formerly Miyabi's (they apparently just felt like changing their name), we entered early and got an instant seat at a table. Seven year old and mother at the left. Two college guys on the right. Leslie and I in the middle, gazing expectantly at the hibachi where the cook would soon spin his pepper shakers.
It's standard Teppanyaki fare, which is quite delicious for the most part. Steak, shrimp, chicken, rice, zucchini made somehow edible, onion, other vegetables, and onion soup rounded out the selection. All tantalizing. The salad wasn't personally appealing, about a class 2. The waiter had a good rapport with both the staff and us, and was always there when the glass was half-empty to make it half-full and more again. The chef seemed less experienced, and he had less flair for most of it... until the end, when he twirled those pepper shakers in a tremendous display of ambidextrous passion. He made the food succulent, which is what mattered most to me.
After that, Leslie went with me to the mall, where I got Scott's present. He should like it. With few exceptions, he's the easiest person to shop for. Just get him what I want.
Anyway, yes, Rossini. It's an Italian festival in downtown put on by the Knoxville Opera. Good food, great shopping, fantastic music.
I get there Saturday morning, and two tents are already set up. Which is good, because it's... well, pouring outside. The tunic keeps me relatively warm, but it gets dry fast. When it clears up a little bit, Robert (our centurion) orders us into armor. I end up taking the lorica segmentata, the armor most often associated with Roman gear, even though hamata (chain mail) was used for the duration of the Republic and the Empire. After accidentally putting the shoulders on backwards, I'm able to get my balteus (belt) on, a good gladius and scabbard, and a shield.
Sadly, it wasn't my shield. We weren't able to get the bosses on yet, because we didn't get any electricity, due to the rain. Maybe I'll have it sometime this summer.
We marched for a while, in a few small (5 person) parades. There were a couple of orators that went with us, though they weren't loud enough, their sandals weren't authentic, and ... well, okay, they were still good, and they did know what they were talking about.
However, we couldn't earn any money or get much attention because we weren't even along the main strip at Rossini. Thus, we ended up leaving a little early.
Best part was probably walking around trying to sell t-shirts. We only sold a few, but it was fun to get out and see the other vendors.
Salad classes:
Class 1: No dressing, desirable vegetables (lettuce, croutons, onions, other greens). Safe to eat in moderation.
Class 2: No dressing, undesirable vegetables (tomato, cucumber, most zucchini). Avoid.
Class 3: Dressing, desirable vegetables. Make the obligatory effort to try the dressing, and then try to markedly eat around it.
Class 4: Dressing, undesirable vegetables. Bitterly sip a drink and stare, betrayed.
Class 5: Cannot identify more than fifty percent of the ingredients - destroy immediately.
May 3, 2007
Last Math Exam for the Forseeable Ever!
Well, save the mathematical portion of the GRE.
I just took Probability. It wasn't difficult, so much as it was specialized, and one problem in particular had... wait for it... 8*6+5=53 operations just to find one variable. It took a few moments to find the respective bits to put into there. It ended up taking a whole lot of moments. I feel like I did pretty well though.
And it was my last. I left there feeling like I could major in it, get a master's, a PhD... but I can't get the English out of me. Maybe next year I'll have some mind-crushing epiphany and come back to math. But right now, the soul isn't there for me. Not like in English. It's tough to describe.
For something non-exam related, my air conditioning still isn't on. That's because it's probably broken. I'm going to see about getting it fixed, because the past couple of nights I have hardly had to use the covers. Let alone the blanket, which is stifling. Part of me wants to put up with it in a stubborn fight against necessity, but that would be silly.
I just took Probability. It wasn't difficult, so much as it was specialized, and one problem in particular had... wait for it... 8*6+5=53 operations just to find one variable. It took a few moments to find the respective bits to put into there. It ended up taking a whole lot of moments. I feel like I did pretty well though.
And it was my last. I left there feeling like I could major in it, get a master's, a PhD... but I can't get the English out of me. Maybe next year I'll have some mind-crushing epiphany and come back to math. But right now, the soul isn't there for me. Not like in English. It's tough to describe.
For something non-exam related, my air conditioning still isn't on. That's because it's probably broken. I'm going to see about getting it fixed, because the past couple of nights I have hardly had to use the covers. Let alone the blanket, which is stifling. Part of me wants to put up with it in a stubborn fight against necessity, but that would be silly.
May 2, 2007
Exams in Rome!
Dr. D wished us great success on our exam. It was grueling.
It wasn't that it was difficult so much as that the things he tested on were sometimes obscure. The subject matter was beneath the surface, so instead of going, "I've got a method and I'm going to use it," it was, "Well, I can see a few things going on here/I'm utterly lost/I'm going to stare at the chalkboard for ten minutes puzzling through the minute facets of my professor's entangled thought process until I know just how to answer." It took nearly the whole two hours to answer 16 questions to my satisfaction. 16! About half of them stuck me in some way, which means that I spent an average of, say, 12 minutes on those questions! I could've wrote 4 essays in that time. Eaten a bucket of ice cream! Seen a short movie! Walked the greenway around to the agricultural campus and back!
Also, I've been working on the Fifth Legion's Roman gear, getting ready for Rossini fest. It's held yearly by the Knoxville Symphonic Opera, or something like that. They'll have both civilian and martial Romans there, as well as a load of street vendors and other activities.
We're getting some shields ready. We've been working on them for two months now. I wasn't able to help in the early part, the shield pressings and the application of the leather face and cloth backing, but I painted almost all of them, did the detail work on the wings (all freehand), hammered out a few of the shield bosses, and sewed on 1.7 leather shield rims. It makes the fingers quite prickly, but it was fun. Our shield page is here. Robert has researched their historical authenticity fairly well. I just think it's really cool.
And of course, as I'm studying for Restoration Literature, I run over Dryden's An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. Ah, he uses Latin phrases, which are of course glossed, but it's still slightly frustrating that I don't understand them.
"Si melira dies, ut vina, poemata reddit,
Scire velim, pretium chartis quotus arroget annus?"
The translation?
"If poems improve with every passing day, as wine does, I should like to know which year is best for literature." (Horace, Epistles 2.1.34-35)
Oh Horace, you're after my heart, just a language or several too soon.
It wasn't that it was difficult so much as that the things he tested on were sometimes obscure. The subject matter was beneath the surface, so instead of going, "I've got a method and I'm going to use it," it was, "Well, I can see a few things going on here/I'm utterly lost/I'm going to stare at the chalkboard for ten minutes puzzling through the minute facets of my professor's entangled thought process until I know just how to answer." It took nearly the whole two hours to answer 16 questions to my satisfaction. 16! About half of them stuck me in some way, which means that I spent an average of, say, 12 minutes on those questions! I could've wrote 4 essays in that time. Eaten a bucket of ice cream! Seen a short movie! Walked the greenway around to the agricultural campus and back!
Also, I've been working on the Fifth Legion's Roman gear, getting ready for Rossini fest. It's held yearly by the Knoxville Symphonic Opera, or something like that. They'll have both civilian and martial Romans there, as well as a load of street vendors and other activities.
We're getting some shields ready. We've been working on them for two months now. I wasn't able to help in the early part, the shield pressings and the application of the leather face and cloth backing, but I painted almost all of them, did the detail work on the wings (all freehand), hammered out a few of the shield bosses, and sewed on 1.7 leather shield rims. It makes the fingers quite prickly, but it was fun. Our shield page is here. Robert has researched their historical authenticity fairly well. I just think it's really cool.
And of course, as I'm studying for Restoration Literature, I run over Dryden's An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. Ah, he uses Latin phrases, which are of course glossed, but it's still slightly frustrating that I don't understand them.
"Si melira dies, ut vina, poemata reddit,
Scire velim, pretium chartis quotus arroget annus?"
The translation?
"If poems improve with every passing day, as wine does, I should like to know which year is best for literature." (Horace, Epistles 2.1.34-35)
Oh Horace, you're after my heart, just a language or several too soon.
Leslie posted her wikipedia trailings online, a response to this comic.
After my exam today (which went decently), I decided to wander around wikipedia for an hour, after looking up the answer to a question I had involving principal ideals (I think I was wrong).
So I came up with this string of queries: Chaotic flow chart time!
(It's a .doc file)
The highlights - I went from principal ideals, went through thirteenth century history, through firearms, veganism, TV, and Scottish clothing trends, and ended up with the following terminating points:
Swage, Alasdair Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry, Highland Games, Kimmy Gibbler, Ashley Judd, and Q.
Not as impressive as Taft and Wet T-shirt Contest, but really, I don't have that much time. ^^;;;
After my exam today (which went decently), I decided to wander around wikipedia for an hour, after looking up the answer to a question I had involving principal ideals (I think I was wrong).
So I came up with this string of queries: Chaotic flow chart time!
(It's a .doc file)
The highlights - I went from principal ideals, went through thirteenth century history, through firearms, veganism, TV, and Scottish clothing trends, and ended up with the following terminating points:
Swage, Alasdair Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry, Highland Games, Kimmy Gibbler, Ashley Judd, and Q.
Not as impressive as Taft and Wet T-shirt Contest, but really, I don't have that much time. ^^;;;
May 1, 2007
Exam Tomorrow
Tomorrow is the beginning of the end, the one coming after a hundred other beginnings and before a hundred more ends.
Exams.
Tomorrow I have Algebra, which sounds innocuously easy, though it's the (theoretically) hardest class I've taken. Some of it is easy, when it touches on concepts that Scott knows (integer factorization), but then it shoots off into the stratosphere and then you have factorization in a PID (Principal Ideal Domain), which can always be formed from an integer domain with the Euclidean algorithm, or a field, though we can have a PID in an integral domain without a Euclidean algorithm, like in Z[(1+sqrt(19))/2], though we learned that fact without proof. It's things like that, things I learn that would take long to explain... they don't make me feel smarter necessarily, just disconnected. I hold worth in it, of course, as a mental exercise, an intriguing object of the mind... but it's not like anyone else has to. I suspect many people wouldn't be any happier or sadder knowing that fact. Well, they might if Scott (brother) said it, he can still do things like that passably well.
So here's how I plan to spend tomorrow morning.
Wake up whenever I wake up, between 8 and 9. Shower, get dressed moderately well, buy a newspaper, go to breakfast. There I'll have sausage, a biscuit, and cereal like normal, with cranberry juice. I'll do the Sudoku, and the Jumble, but I'll skip the crossword, at least until after the exam. Then I'll spend time reading... anything. Online news stories, poems, anything to keep me occupied. Finally I'll go to class, take one last scan over my notes, and go into zen mode. Just empty the mind. I'll probably be talking to other people, but there'll be that knot tumbling around in my tummy, ready to blossom into a butterfly (if I'm prepared) or mush into a grub (if I'm not... thank goodness, these don't happen often). By the time I walk out, it'll be lunch time. Then I eat and spend the afternoon studying. If I did terrific or horrible, I'll celebrate or console with an Italian soda at the Golden Roast. Otherwise, I'll probably sit outside somewhere.
Why so much focus on an exam? Because I grok exams. I love them, in a geeky, nerdy, strange way. They are a playground. No matter how complex the question is, the task is simple - complete it. Instantly. No meandering for a few weeks on a paper (though meandering is good sometimes), just a semester of learning and days of active studying focused in this one, two-hour final exertion. Cathartic. The competitor in me loves winning the A, the academic in me loves knowing enough to earn the A, the rest of me pats the other two parts on the head, going along with it because, well, there's no pleasing those two sides otherwise.
And then summer! I get to go home! Time to get things done! Family to see! Time to relax! And some more time spent on the road, mainly because even if (a big, highly doubted if) I miss Leslie no less than last summer, I will be more able to drive, barring anything as horrible as mono.
Exams.
Tomorrow I have Algebra, which sounds innocuously easy, though it's the (theoretically) hardest class I've taken. Some of it is easy, when it touches on concepts that Scott knows (integer factorization), but then it shoots off into the stratosphere and then you have factorization in a PID (Principal Ideal Domain), which can always be formed from an integer domain with the Euclidean algorithm, or a field, though we can have a PID in an integral domain without a Euclidean algorithm, like in Z[(1+sqrt(19))/2], though we learned that fact without proof. It's things like that, things I learn that would take long to explain... they don't make me feel smarter necessarily, just disconnected. I hold worth in it, of course, as a mental exercise, an intriguing object of the mind... but it's not like anyone else has to. I suspect many people wouldn't be any happier or sadder knowing that fact. Well, they might if Scott (brother) said it, he can still do things like that passably well.
So here's how I plan to spend tomorrow morning.
Wake up whenever I wake up, between 8 and 9. Shower, get dressed moderately well, buy a newspaper, go to breakfast. There I'll have sausage, a biscuit, and cereal like normal, with cranberry juice. I'll do the Sudoku, and the Jumble, but I'll skip the crossword, at least until after the exam. Then I'll spend time reading... anything. Online news stories, poems, anything to keep me occupied. Finally I'll go to class, take one last scan over my notes, and go into zen mode. Just empty the mind. I'll probably be talking to other people, but there'll be that knot tumbling around in my tummy, ready to blossom into a butterfly (if I'm prepared) or mush into a grub (if I'm not... thank goodness, these don't happen often). By the time I walk out, it'll be lunch time. Then I eat and spend the afternoon studying. If I did terrific or horrible, I'll celebrate or console with an Italian soda at the Golden Roast. Otherwise, I'll probably sit outside somewhere.
Why so much focus on an exam? Because I grok exams. I love them, in a geeky, nerdy, strange way. They are a playground. No matter how complex the question is, the task is simple - complete it. Instantly. No meandering for a few weeks on a paper (though meandering is good sometimes), just a semester of learning and days of active studying focused in this one, two-hour final exertion. Cathartic. The competitor in me loves winning the A, the academic in me loves knowing enough to earn the A, the rest of me pats the other two parts on the head, going along with it because, well, there's no pleasing those two sides otherwise.
And then summer! I get to go home! Time to get things done! Family to see! Time to relax! And some more time spent on the road, mainly because even if (a big, highly doubted if) I miss Leslie no less than last summer, I will be more able to drive, barring anything as horrible as mono.
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