Hallelujah, It's Raining Tea

Medical school is dangerous.

No, I'm not talking about inadvertent needle sticks, patients with tuberculosis, homicidal drug seekers, or angry nurses. I'm talking about foosball. Yeah, foosball.

This afternoon after classes were over, three friends and I decided to get in a quick game of foosball like we often do before heading home for the day. My teammate and I were winning (as usual), when a giant insulated beverage dispenser fell off a ledge and plummeted down to the floor below where it violently came to rest next to the foosball table. Covered in iced tea and very confused, we slowly glanced up to see a caterer peering down in horror.

Luckily we were all okay, despite our unexpected yet surprisingly pleasant newfound lemony aroma. We cleaned off the foosball table and decided to call it a day.

The Art of Bagel Theft

Before me stands a mountain of bagels so magnificently grand that God himself would be jealous of my handiwork. As the big man stares down from above with his mouth gaping and his sacred drool cascading gently down through the clouds, the villagers of a small Indian seaside town run in terror from the impending monsoon. The sesame seeds glisten in the light of a hundred gently swaying incandescent light bulbs, and the poppy seeds simultaneously snuff out the glow like tiny pinpoint black holes strewn across a universe of flour and sugar. There is an ovarian tumor on a large screen in the distance. I sit in class amongst the sound of scribbling pens and the soft scrape of highlighters across freshly photocopied notes still warm to the touch. I take a large bite and sit back in my chair to cherish the flavor of cool cream cheese and soft dough dancing around my taste buds. I look to my left and see a similar towering peak of taste. My friend gives me a thumbs-up as we both continue chewing.

Medical school is a time of discovery. Here we discover our strengths, but more often than that, we unwillingly unearth our greatest weakness. For many of us, that weakness is bagels. Is there anything on this earth so perfect? I don't claim to know who invented the bagel, and I refuse to believe Wikipedia when it says it was the Polish. I mean, come on, they've already got Chopin, so stop being greedy.

Anyway, regardless of who did or didn't invent the bagel, they remain a staple of any medical student's diet. Obtaining bagels, however, can prove difficult. Admittedly, there are many bagels in medical school, but finding them is the key. More often the not, the bagels in medical school are not for you. They are for somebody else. But much like the ninja of feudal Japan, as medical students we must utilize unorthodox methods of, shall we say, "warfare" in our struggle for bagels.

Last week there were bagels in the student activities center. They had been placed there for the first-year students who were taking a series of exams that week. We swooped in along the rafters and infiltrated the heck out of those bagels.

This week there were bagels for the fourth-year students as they learned important skills for their upcoming transition into residency. Using a slight diversion, we pounced upon those bagels like hundreds of parched wildebeest on a small puddle of muddy water.

The scene is always the same: In a matter of seconds we are upon them, and in a matter of long awkward minutes we are gone. Seriously though, it's hard to make a decent getaway with your pockets and arms full of bagels. But no matter -- we never fail.

Counting Down To Med School

Once I start medical school in a couple of weeks, this may become a blog about medical school.  Who am I kidding, though?  It probably won't.  However, as I have yet to reach that point, the blog will remain a kettle in which my deepest thoughts, ideas, and questions can stew. Eventually I shall feed said stew to a hobo and move on into a blog full of purpose.

For now, however, I will continue along in my traditional fashion...

I recently downloaded the iTunes exclusive "Live from SoHo" album by the Counting Crows. I like the Counting Crows, and I like SoHo because it's a neighborhood in NYC named after one of my favorite food stops in DC, The SoHo Cafe. Longtime stalkers of this blog would recognize that name as the aboveground counterpart to the Mutant Food Court (see Mutant Food Court and The Return to Mutant Headquarters). As a small tangent, I cannot express how refreshing it is to know that this little restaurant has had such a significant influence on The Big Apple.

Anyway, the album is great, and it's live which makes it even greater. However, the most significant mass of greatness lies in an accretion disk surrounding the final song of the album, "Rain King". Sure, everyone and their gardener knows "Rain King"; but only really music savvy gardeners know that in the middle of the song, Adam breaks out into a rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road", before returning to the song at hand in time to close out the jam session. Essentially what we have then is a "Thunder Road" sandwich, which, admittedly conjures up images of a very agonizing lunch period. However, the effect is quite the opposite. The song is probably one of the greatest things I've ever heard.

So download the album because it's awesome.

Acoustical Sightings

The title of this entry is an oxymoron which have been successful in drawing your attention towards my ramblings of the day. Even now, my inappropriate conjugation of the verb "to have" has pulled you deeper and deeper into my sticky web of shibboleths (no, that's actually a real word).

But whatever.

Now that we're on the subject of excellent movies (see previous post, Arnold and Me), I'd like to draw everyone's attention to some recent sightings around campus that have gotten me quite giddy.

While out on a stroll, you may be lucky enough to come across a man playing his guitar. His specific location on campus seems to be highly variable, but I implore you to consider looking both high and low in your quest to find him. The search itself is not unlike "Where's Waldo?" except much, much easier because you'll be able to hear him if you're close. Also, you've got it pretty easy because he doesn't have a tendency to hide out at large conventions which span the temporal spectrum from the prehistoric to the metallic future, and where people stand very close together and wear curiously similar red and white striped shirts which, I can only imagine, is utterly "coincidental." The man has, however, been known to hide out among bushes, in trees, or upon some Allegheny art, which are all sanctuaries eerily similar to those of the guitar guy in "There's Something About Mary."

Happy searching.

Talking To Children

I'll be the first to admit that a lot of things in life intimidate me. I know, I know, it's probably hard to believe considering how arrogant I am in my blog entries but whether you believe me or not, it's true. I am at heart a very anxious person and I often find myself feeling very uncomfortable when faced with certain situations. But I told myself that I'd stop this introduction before it went downhill so far as to become a suicide note so let's just leave it at this and I'll just move it along.

A few days ago it was my cousin's third birthday and before everyone else arrived, she asked me if I wanted to go on a walk. I eagerly agreed because everyone knows there's no other adjective that can be used to modify the word "agreed" when dealing with small children. But similar to the way college grads entering the real world with big dreams and a glimmering outlook on life get kneed in the crotch by reality, my "eagerness" for this little walk was quickly crushed like a pair of testicles when I realized how amazingly awkward a walk with a three year old really is.

Nobody really knows how to talk to a three year old but nobody admits it. I spent the entire walk desperately trying to keep up a conversation with little success. I tried every child conversation opener in the book.

(walking around in an awkward silence)
Me: ...Boy...those leaves sure are big. You could probably wear one as a hat.
3-Year Old: ... ... ...
Me: ...Look at all those birds. I guess they must really like flying because...they're...always...flying.
3-Year Old: ... ... ... ... ...
Me: What's your favorite kind of bird? I like ostriches.
3-Year Old: ... ...
Me: Are you sure you're three?
3-Year Old: ......Yes.
Me: Oh...good. Just checking. Haha...that would be pretty funny if everyone thought you were three but you really weren't...haha...you'd have tricked everyone...funny, huh?
3-Year Old: Let's go back.
Me: Oh...okay...yeah...this was fun don't you think?
3-Year Old: ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Also, I don't think I mentioned this but, my cousin is from China. She's adopted. They adopted her from China. She is Chinese. It's pretty noticeable and stuff, but I'm thinking that over time she may forget where she came from. One of my favorite restaurants is Panda Express ("It's finger Ling-Ling good!) because they serve drive-thru Chinese food and eating orange chicken in a Volvo stuck in rush hour traffic on the Capitol Beltway even though it's 11pm is just heavenly. There is no panda on the menu but pandas must have something to do with China so I was determined to ask my cousin about it if I ever take her there.

Just think, if I had a real life Chinese person in the car they might give me some sort of communist discount.

Boy Scouts 4Eva

I've been wandering in a state of utter confusion this entire day and even now, as I sit at my desk and type these words, my mind is twisted in knots knotted by the best Boy Scout knotter who ever lived. The reason? My watch says it's April 31 but everyone else thinks it's May 1.

I used to be a Boy Scout but I quit because I enjoyed indoor plumbing far too much. Over the years I simply became less and less thrilled with how wonderful it was to have a breakfast of oatmeal mixed with hot chocolate in a cup that was the same cup I used to dig a hole in the ground to shit in as well as used to hold the creek water I brushed my teeth with. But honestly, I had some good times as a Boy Scout. I learned how to light my hand on fire without it hurting and I learned that the crazy kid whose dad made him join even though he didn't want to must always win at late-night poker because he's got the biggest knife and you and the baby fox from the previous day know he's not afraid to use it to kill baby foxes. But despite what I learned, I quit all the same. And the fox, well, if he knew what he was getting into, he would have done the same.

But it's funny to think about the things that boys do when their parents aren't around. I mean, there are a thousand million things to do when you're in the woods with civilization hundreds of miles away and all you have is a picnic table and a spider infested outdoor bathroom where the toilet is just a hole cut in some plywood. But even in this rich environment filled with possibilities, the activity of the day always comes back to lighting your body on fire.

This in turn makes me wonder why there are no more freak shows. I honestly believe that Boy Scouts and more specifically, Boy Scout camping trips/summer camps, are the breeding grounds for freaks. It's not as much that boys become freaks from attending these events (though little Sammy Willis would beg to differ, what with the fact that he's missing the middle finger on both of his hands) but that they discover their own personal freak-itudes as they're desperately trying to find things to do. For example, on one of my first camping trips I learned that I was really good at not being able to get my towel when somebody threw it into a tree. On a second trip I found out that I had the innate ability to smell feces on the bottom of a shoe anywhere from 0-67 feet away. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.

I guess the whole point of this rambling ramble is that I want to go to a circus where they invite me out into the ring to hold a hula-hoop or something while a dog or elephant or clown or something jumps through it.

San Francisco: If You Were A Robot You'd Be Home

Dim Sum. It's Chinese and translates literally to "pushy waiters bringing you food you don't want to eat because it's a chicken foot." I partook in this "Dim Sum" today while in San Francisco and I must say it was traumatic to say the least. I refuse to think about what I may have unknowingly consumed.

There is this street in the city that is ridiculously crooked. It is probably the worst tourist attraction ever because it was created to be a tourist attraction and the only point of the road is to be a tourist attraction. I can imagine the thought process that led to the creation of this crooked street. Some guy in the San Francisco Bureau of Tourism thought one day, "Hmm, the Golden Gate Bridge is not enough of a reason for people to come to see our city. Perhaps we should create an exaggeratedly crooked street that has absolutely no purpose and is completely impractical and useless." I just don't understand why San Francisco didn't just do what any other self-respecting city would do if they wanted more visitors--bake the world's largest pizza.

In other news, I rode a cable car for the first time ever. I have come to realize that San Francisco is the closest thing this world has to a mechanical city because of the cables that constantly run beneath the streets. This of course, leads to the question of why there aren't that many robots in the city.

And what is the deal with the San Francisco homeless population? First off, I saw maybe three homeless dudes and that's pretty sad. You can't call yourself a real-deal city without an overflowing street-dweller population. And the hobos themselves, Jesus, it's almost as if the city puts actors on the streets who pretend to be homeless people and who make sure to appear happy as not to depress the people driving by. Honest to god, ALL the people on the street had signs that had some variation on the phrase:

Any little bit helps, even a great big smile.

They even drew a smiley face at the bottom. If that doesn't just make you throw up, then there's something seriously wrong with you. Where's the guy with the sign that says:

I'm tricking you into thinking I'll use the money you give me for food and clothing but I really just need to replenish my illicit drug supply and hire a prostitute.

Honesty is important...even when you sleep in a box.

Anamorphic Politicians Wear Holographic Sunglasses

Oakland International Airport smells like a mix between an old-folks home and an indoor swimming pool and I haven't the slightest idea why. Stranger even, is the fact that nobody notices it but me. I asked the man at the Sunglass Hut as I was browsing their selection of shades, none of which I would ever buy because sunglasses are a waste of time. It's common knowledge that the only good sunglasses are the ones I had as a kid that had a skull hologram on each lens. My friend had the same type of thing but instead of skulls he had fish. I asked the man working there if he had any of these and he said he didn't know what I was talking about but I suspect it's because he is a Pakistan man and everyone knows that Pakistan has yet to discover the power of the hologram. India has. But for some reason these two nations fight relentlessly which I suspect is quite a sight because I assume both countries fight while riding on elephants.

There are no elephants in North America. I can honestly say that this has many implications into all sorts of different areas of society. For example, if we had elephants, George Bush would not be president. You might think the opposite would be true since the symbol of the Republicans is an elephant, but think of it this way. I don't know why Republicans have the elephant and Democrats have that ass thing, but I assume it's because these are the animals that each political party can morph into in emergencies such as if the other political party gets too powerful and then use them to cleanse the world and start anew. Since this is undoubtedly the case, the presence of elephants would cause the Democrats to think that the Republicans had already morphed which would lead them to morph in response and the result would be the end of the world. Case closed.

What's important though, is how awesome it would be to live in an underwater retirement community. I would never have to bathe and my grandchildren would actually want to come visit me because they could swim.

They would want to bring their friends.

Heaven In A Tuba Box

Oh man, I don't usually write in here more than once a day but this is what intelligent people with large, flowing vocabularies call an "extenuating circumstance." However, my vocabulary is not quite as immense so I'm just going to call it "weird."

Anyway, when last we spoke I was going to go get some nachos from the food place and as it turns out, I did. On the way, though, I took a detour through heaven on earth. Now usually people see heaven as a place full of shiny-ness and cloud things and people with little wings and white pantsuits. While that is close to the truth, it's not quite right. It just so happens that heaven is a giant box in which a tuba was shipped but which has had the tuba removed and now all that remains is an ocean of packing peanuts.

Needless to say, I swam in these packing peanuts. The box must have been five to six feet long and two to three feet deep. It was incredible. The box was filled to the brim with packing peanuts and I swam and swam and swam. Eventually, someone came by and told me to stop. I think it was a music professor.

I just thought I'd let you guys know.

Figgle-Eyed Crow

Today was a good day in that I did not forget to wear pants to class. In fact, there has never been an occasion where I have done otherwise so I think that it is safe to say that my entire life has been quite good.

I also made my hair look awesome today. I don't know how I did it but I did it. Unfortunately I messed it up shortly after I styled it because I went in for a closer look in order to bask in its textured goodness and accidentally hit my head on the wall and squished my hair against the mirror. I hadn't the time to fix it so I left the dorm with it as it was and have neglected to attend to it all day.

I also became suddenly very itchy as I left the food court at lunch and I don't know why. This sometimes happens very often.

In genetics today I answered a question regarding regulators and repressor proteins. It wasn't a very difficult questions but the rest of the people in my class are dumbasses and did not know the answer. I'm like the dark horse of the class in that I am a physics major in a crowd of biology majors and I score better than them on exams.

Oh yeah, on the way to class today I saw an old man curse out a crow because he was "figgle-eyed." I don't know what this means exactly, but in my opinion the man was quite figgle-eyed himself. Perhaps he and the crow are brothers. And what about those shirts you used to wear in elementary school that computer nerds in college still wear with the giant picture of an animal like a wolf or a tiger on the front? Supposedly the proceeds from the sale of them goes to helping keep the animal on the shirt from being endangered, or if it already is, keep it from becoming extinct. The trouble with these shirts (and the reason I never got one as a child or as a computer nerd) is that the animals aren't grateful for you donation. No. They are just as likely to eat you if you have one of their shirts on or not. A bear does not care.

Hmm, "A Bear Does Not Care," that's a pretty good title for a poem. I will write it out in it's entirety tomorrow and post it here on my bloggidy blog.

Anyway, tonight I get to go over to the freshman dorm and take part in a membership review board meeting. It's exciting because we get to kick people out of our club. It's sort of like in that Berenstain Bears book "No Girls Allowed" when Brother Bear had that drawbridge he used to keep Sister Bear out of his secret clubhouse. The only difference is that our club doesn't have a drawbridge. And we let girls in. In fact, the president is a girl and so are 90% of the club's members.

Damn. I need to get me a moat.

Flashback Friday: Dick Cheney Stole My Internet (10/15/04)

Haven't done one of these flashbacks in a while, so here goes:

On Wednesday Dick Cheney was here at Allegheny College. He was here to talk about how awesome he is or something. Supposedly Pennsylvania is something called a "swing state" and that means that people here like to hear lies more than people in other states. Wow, that last sentence was actually kind of politically charged--I don't think I've ever said, written, or mumbled under my breath anything politically charged before. Better log this day in my JOURNAL! WOW! That's what I'm doing right now! Holy crap! This is awesome! I'm recording events to be reexamined at a later date! Sweet! So anyway, I thought that the event would be worthy of one of my poems so here it goes. I've been toiling over this one for about three minutes now and I think it's turning out a-okay. Enjoy it or leave:

Dick Cheney came to my school,
Dick Cheney came today,
He brought his thirteen buses,
And then Dick went away.

But nigh before he sped off,
Into the sunset there,
He gave a heartfelt speech here,
and then his pants did tear.

Alright I faked that last one,
But hey it sort of fit,
I couldn't help it sorry,
I'll get on with this shit.

So Dick was here on Wednesday,
The cops were by his side,
This guy had some cool trailer,
Kerry givin' Bush a ride.

The day was not all fun though,
It was no cup of tea,
I had to walk 'round Edwards,
'Round Edwards just to pee.

They closed all of the roads here,
Not one not three but two,
I could not get to class then,
Nigh God could not get through.

I got back to my room then,
My room all warm and snug,
I tried to get my email,
But Dick had pulled the plug.

That's right he took our access,
He took our Internet,
Of course that's just conjecture,
But I'm willing to bet.

Who does he think he is, huh?
Is he so great first rate?
I wish I had a name-gun,
"Dick Cheney" meet your fate.

You might not get that last one,
That stanza's pretty vague,
Unless you're Seth or me my,
Or if you have the plague.

There was this sweet ass protest,
Outside the gym doors lined,
The liberals had these big signs,
And chants that blew my mind.

How could a human think these,
These chants that rocked my world,
"Drop Bush, not bombs" they shouted,
My hair it almost curled.

That's it that's all they've got here?
That's all that they can say?
At least shout out some curse words,
"Hey Bush F*** you, bay-bay."

Of course I am no liberal,
I ain't no Commi none,
Conservative no nothing,
I'm Rob just Rob my son.

But all and all that day was,
Sweet sweeter than sweet sweet,
My poem's almost done now,
Can't b'lieve I kept a beat.

So you know what they say there,
They say just what they say,
The walrus and the carpenter,
In all had one fine day.

Well, that's my poem and I hope you liked it. I have to say that I don't actually know what the word "nigh" means but I like to use it as some kind of negation or a one syllable "nada" or "nothing" or something. When you get down to it though, it doesn't really matter because it's poetry and honestly, how can you criticize something that is defined as "a pile of day old puke not fit for a dung beetle to die in"? That's right--you can't. That's poetry for you. Vomit. Brown, chunky vomit. Take that poetry.

Missiles By Metro

Before I start writing this entry, I just want to make it clear that I am a huge proponent of surface-to-air missiles. Honestly. I believe that there are many tasks where these babies are without a doubt the best suited for the job. Tasks like:

• Blowing up things in the air from the surface.

• Blowing up things in the sky from the ground.

• Blowing up things in the firmament from the earth.

• Blowing up things not on the ground from not in the air.

• The opposite of blowing up things on the surface from the sky.

• Blowing up things in the air from the air and when I say "from the air" I mean "from the ground."

Yeah, surface-to-air missiles = important, especially in this day and age when it's just way too easy for terrorists to yoink airplanes from pilots. Oh, and off subject for a moment, did you know that the word "yoink" actually has a formal definition? Yeah.

Yoink: An exclamation that, when uttered in conjunction with taking an object, immediately transfers ownership from the original owner to the person using the word regardless of previous property rights.

Pretty sweet, huh?

But anyway, the meat of the entry. Regardless of how awesome surface-to-air missiles are, don't we all agree that they should remain in the hands of people we can trust? Yeah, I think so too. So wasn't I surprised when I was riding home from work on the Metro this summer and saw Stinger missiles located at every above-ground Metro station. Does this seem odd to anyone? Does it seem strange that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is in possession of surface-to-air missiles with a firing range of 5 miles, a sophisticated tracking ability using infrared radiation sensors, and the ability to hit almost any target with a heat signature with an altitude under 11,000 feet all from a man's shoulder?

Sure, I guess I don't know for sure if these large metal cases with the word "Stinger" written on them in big red block letters actually contain missiles. I suppose they could just be housing giant first aid kits for bee stinger removal in case the entire solar system got stung by bees at the same time. And did you know that killer bees are no deadlier than regular bees!?

But seriously, let's assume that the cases do have Stinger surface-to-air missiles in them. I have to admit that I don't like the idea that our nation's last line of defense against terrorists who want to blow me up are Metrorail drivers. I guess this is in large part due to the fact that Metro drivers do not actually drive the trains. They're kind of like the Queen of England or the King of Spain. Sure, they have fancy names, large, elaborate hats and a seemingly important and influential position, but they don't. They just sit there, smile at people, and walk around a little bit. Sometimes they throw a medal at you if you did something special but when you get down to it, they are the most useless, lazy, good-for-nothing, people in their entire country. I mean, think about it, nobody in their "royal bloodline" has had a real job in hundreds of years.

Do you realize that all Metro trains are controlled by a computer down at Metro headquarters and that the only reason they even need a human being "driving" the train is to open and close the doors and announce what the stops are? That's right. And if you've ever been on the Metro you'd know that these guys can't even do that. I ride the Metro home every day and every day there are at least five people that get crushed by the doors because the driver closes them on them. And what about the other 50% of the driver's job description? They must have that portion mastered, right? Wrong. Have you ever been able to hear what the Metro driver is saying? You know he's supposed to be saying Farragut West so why is it that you could have sworn he just said "Orange Town"? And since when does Smithsonian start with a K? I mean, I can understand screwing up L'Enfant Plaza because that's French. And who really knows how to speak French? Nobody.

The point is, if the government is going to hand out free missiles why did they decide to give them to the WMATA? Getting back to royalty for a moment, isn't it obvious that giving missiles to Metrorail drivers is as stupid as giving them to the Queen of England? I mean, they don't know what to do with them. Queen Elizabeth would probably sit down and have tea with it, put it in a parade, and then give it a medal.

A Little Out Of Our League

This is a conversation I had with a friend the other night. I decided to color code everything. Pretty.

JOHN- rob
JOHN- rob
JOHN- rob
JOHN- rob
JOHN- rob
ROB- what?
JOHN- you need to hook up with this girl (long link #1)
ROB- that's nadine njeim
JOHN- sweet name. how'd you know it?
ROB- john, that's miss lebanon 2004
JOHN- really? i had no idea
ROB- yeah, that's who that is
JOHN- well you're from lebanon
ROB- no i'm not
JOHN- well your family is
ROB- so?
JOHN- that means you've got a pretty good chance
ROB- do you know the population of lebanon?
JOHN- yes
ROB- well?
JOHN- about four million
ROB- lucky guess
JOHN- thank you cia world factbook
ROB- john you need to hook up with this girl (long link #2)
JOHN- that's the chancellor of germany
ROB- you're german
JOHN- i'm going to bed
ROB- goodnight

Sorry! I've Been Promoted!

My reign as the Ultimate Sorry! Champion lives on after a grueling five game series last night. The evening began with Jon coming out to a 2-0 start, but I skillfully rebounded to pull off the overall win by sweeping the last three games.

I must say that Sorry! is quite the amazing board game. It combines the mystique of Parcheesi but succeeds in liberating it from it's Yahtzee-like dice rolling, while integrating the colorful magnificence and superficial apologies of say, Pop-o-matic Trouble, and the space-age translucent playing pieces reminiscent of, well, space.

Anyways, I am now a teaching assistant (TA) for the Physics Department for the second semester in a row and I must say I am quite excited. Last semester was spectacular but the mechanics labs that I led were a little dull. Professor KB was a good guy and I'm somewhat sad to see him go, but I realize I'm now going on to bigger and better things.

Yes, and so it is with great pride that I say goodbye to Introductory Physics I, and give a hearty hello to Introductory Physics II. So long mechanics, pleased to meet you electromagnetism and optics. Nice knowing you Professor KB, and let me introduce to you now, the greatest of all the physics professors at Allegheny College, and the man who will supervise the labs I run.....

Ph.D. from Dartmouth...
Enjoys nuclear physics and sprinkled doughnuts...
Walks with a limp...
Fan of homestarrunner.com...
Thinks I'm awesome...

You guessed it, it's DR. DAN WILLEY!!!

Well I'm too excited to write anything else so...

Rob out.

Fast Times in Claim Area G

Most of yesterday was spent hiding in the corner of an abandoned baggage claim at Pittsburgh International Airport while watching episodes of The Simpsons on my laptop. I stopped briefly to pick up a $10 wrap from the refrigerated shelving unit at the Pennsylvania version of Au Bon Pan, which distinguishes itself from other Au Bon Pans because of the fact that the Pennsylvania version decided not to upgrade to the fully functional, working model of a restaurant. The actual sandwich making service was unavailable because of understaffing as well as because the ovens, breads, cheeses, and other essentials were all cardboard replicas of real items. Not unlike what you find in Ikea, where they furnish their office settings with plastic televisions and computers that are merely painted to look like their functional counterparts and which can be lifted easily without effort and tossed back and forth between good friends on a Saturday plagued by unexpected rainfall, boredom, and a lack of individuals who can come up with good activity ideas. These situations are usually free of mishaps but on the off chance you pick up a real computer used by employees and drop it due to the unexpected weight things can get a little messy, in which case (when it happened to me) I fled and skipped my usual $1 vanilla ice cream cone from the snack bar.

Nevertheless, the wrap was tasty enough and it was accompanied by a large blueberry yogurt made crunchy by the complimentary granola presented to me at time of payment. Uneventful, though, my lengthy stay at the Pitt'n'Port was not. My mysteriousness coupled with the fact that people often mistake me for an A-rab, which, when occurring, I kindly explain that their racial slur was perfectly valid because my family does in fact hail from Lebanon, caused me unwanted attention in the form of a security guard stationed in my vicinity and a strange "old woman" who asked me where the baggage claim to "retrieve lost sweaters" was located.

I had my bag searched again. I really think I should have been given a "Frequent Searchee" card by now but perhaps it was lost in the mail. They say that the searches are random but I've taken my fair share of logic and probability courses at both the high school and undergraduate level and I think that being searched 16 times out of 16 (that's in the past two years) is just slightly unheard of considering the vast number of people who travel by air in any given time period and the fact that none of my friends or family of friends have ever been searched.

Well, I have nothing more to say at this point in time. Perhaps at a later date I will return.

Ushapti

It Seems Like Everyone Knows How To Ice Skate These Days

Thanksgiving was uneventful. The food was decent but nothing spectacular, and I spent most of the time playing the piano while everyone talked around the table and had coffee and pie.

I've spent a lot of this break over at Fairfax Hospital with my cousin. It's not really fair, one minute she's a typical sophomore at Virginia Tech and the next she's spending her 20th birthday and Thanksgiving in the "Living with Cancer" ward on the 9th floor. She likes it when I push her chair around the hallways really fast, and I'm proud to say that she says I push her better and faster than both her mom and her dad. Sometimes I steal soda for her and I from the kitchen when the nurses aren't looking and we like to get Starburst from the vending machine and watch movies to pass the time.

Today some of us peoples went to Pentagon Row to get dinner and watch people fall down while ice skating. It was fun, not that many people wiped out but we had a good time anyway.

I don't really have any plans for the last couple days of break but I'm sure I'll find something to do. I really need to get my Alexa Warden fix because I'm starting to go into withdrawal and I think I want to see the Wallace and Gromit movie if it's still playing. I also need to get my watch fixed before I go back to school.

Well, that's all I've got. I'll be back in the big rectangular state they call Pennsylvania soon enough, I guess.

Adieu.

Haircuts, Hail Storms And Other Words That Make This Title Alliteration

I got a haircut today and I must say it looks mighty fine. It looked even mightier fine before I got hailed on, though. I saw Josh Nolan and he was standing under a tree by Bentley to get away from the deadly chunks of ice. As I walked by him I told him that it didn't sting that excruciatingly bad and he just laughed. Also, I went to Reis Hall today to write down my comments on the preceptorship hospital visits and it's not even funny how much candy I swiped on my way out. Seriously, I now have more Starburst and Kit Kats than I know what to do with.

In other news, thermodynamics class is over. That means I'm done with classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday by noon. Isn't that magical? I should probably use that time to go to the gym or study but I'll probably just end up using it for napping and an excessive amount of video game playing. Of course, what this means is that I won't get to see Shafiq wear his gorilla mask to class for Halloween. If I'm lucky he'll have it on at Physics T today!

Finally, Jon (the roommate) has a new girlfriend. Her name is Brenda and she likes country music and is a feminist. I didn't want to tell Jon but I'm worried she might try to cut off his penis while he's sleeping. She's coming over for pumpkin carving tonight so I might confront her about it. You have to protect your roommate, you know?

Slurp.

Who You Are And Where You Belong

I miss the mutant food court.

I miss the homeless guy in the corner eating his club sandwich and stroking his thick, scratchy beard.

I miss the stairs and the way they creaked on the way down but not on the way up--perhaps a kind of alerting system for the mutants as to detect intruders.

I miss the table I always sat at and the cryptic poetry scribbled all over it in ink so thick that even after years of being there it still got on your arms.

I miss the little old lady at the juice bar that no one ever went to.

I miss the walls with the peeling paint, the floors with the deep, black scuffs, and the windows that looked out over nothing at all.

But most of all I miss the companionship. I miss the simple fact that none of us really belonged there. Despite the fact that we were all outsiders we always came back. Maybe we just wanted to see that the place was still there. Maybe we needed to know that there was somewhere in the world just for us. But maybe, just maybe, the reason we always came back was to see those we knew would always be there. To see the people who we might never have seen--who might never have existed--if we hadn't peered down into the darkness and decided to find out what was below. But we knew. We all knew. What we would find--what we all eventually found--was the one thing we always knew was there.

And I miss it.

Chocolate Milk = Love

My roommate won’t get me chocolate milk. He’s going to McKinley’s and he won’t get me chocolate milk even though I want some.

In other news, physics lab today blew. The whole thing was slightly interesting except for the fact that it wasn’t. I mean, getting to see that equipotential lines actually exist and aren’t just a figment of Dr. Petasis’ imagination was cool and all but I think I understood the concept after about q = +4.00 nC. By the way, nC is not a unit of time but I figure if Han Solo got away with saying a parsec was a unit of time I can work it like that too.

But today wasn’t completely bad. Jon, Sarah, and I spent ample time at the playground north of Crawford Hall after the fantastically awesome picnic in Brooks Circle. I rode on the purple dinosaur for a good portion of the time but split the remainder of my time evenly between the fire chief car and the airplane that looks like a whale. I also rode the swings for a bit but decided to get off when a family came to the park to have an outdoor meal (I would normally just say “picnic” instead of “outdoor meal” but I already used the word “picnic” once in this thing so another time might be slightly awkward). The family had a little boy and he was really good at golf. He had this big, blue, plastic golf club that I doubt was regulation size by PGA standards but I’ll let it slide.

I also learned today that the dopamine producing neurons in the substantia nigra that are killed resulting in Parkinson’s disease are destroyed by means of laser death ray. While this may seem far-fetched at first, when you really think about it it’s not that crazy of an idea.

Well that’s all I have to say at this point in time.


P.S. My roommate just got back from McKinley’s and he brought me chocolate milk!!!

"The Colors, Duke! The Colors!"

It didn’t rain at all today. It was nice.

The All College Celebration was yesterday and I didn’t go. I did, however, sneak over to the shindig at around 8:00 and swiped myself a few popsicles. They were those really good popsicles, you know, the ones that are long and cylindrical and have layers that are different colors and flavors. I’m pretty sure that they’re called “Lick-a-Color” and are made by Popsicle which is a subsidiary company of the Good Humor corporation. In fact, I’m not just “pretty sure,” I’m actually “completely confident” that this is true because I just finished researching it on the Internet.

The outside doors on my dorm are locked because there is nothing of interest here for non-residents such as a dining hall or super-fucking-sweet ping-pong table. We do have a ping-pong table but it is by no means super-fucking-sweet. We also have an air-hockey table but Vince lost the paddles last year and now we have to use our hands which tends to get painful. Sometimes we use ping-pong paddles instead, but that gets the ping-pong dudes kind of angry and I end up hiding behind the Pepsi machine, which used to be a Coke machine but was changed because Pepsi offered the college a better deal on soda which up here is called pop, in order to escape their wrath. Anyways, since the doors are locked, it’s very difficult for people who don’t live in this dorm to get access to the building. That is, unless somebody sticks a small twig in the outside doorframe by A-Tower which is often the case. So today I was in my room, which looks out over the hill leading up to B-Lounge, and I saw these two people trying to climb in the window. The first guy got in pretty easily because he was really scrawny. He also had a goatee. Have you ever noticed that a lot of little scrawny guys have goatees? Well, he got in fine but his girl friend which could quite possibly have been his girlfriend, was a different story. This girl was normal sized but she couldn’t quite get the hang of climbing in. She lay halfway through the window with her legs hanging outside for a little while and it appeared as if she was giving up. I, of course, didn’t want to see that happen so I opened the window to shout some encouragements and advice in her general direction.

“Pull with your arms!”
“Flail those legs!”
“Don’t give up!”
“Retrieve your purse!”
“Go! Go! Go! Go!”
“Stop, drop and roll!”

All in all I couldn’t quite understand why her friend couldn’t have just opened the door for her from the inside and bypassed the whole window struggle.

I had Sloppy Joes for lunch today and they were amazing.