December 2008
39 posts
Finance
Today, since I’m 18!, I got myself my own checking and savings account. Had I ordered checks, only my name would appear on them. But this is the 21st century, kids, and I didn’t get checks. I have two debit cards—One with the L.A. Dodger logo and one with some sort of link to Habitat for Humanity.
Have been listening to the Postal Service and related bands on last.fm a lot. I...
Merry Christmas!!
It's A Wonderful Life
I forgot how long this movie is. I’m watching it with our (Jewish) neighbor and my (non-religious) parents. I’m so tired.
Heartwarming detail: Eddo’s family has had 203984 get-togethers over the last few days, ranging in size from 10 to 200 family members. It’s awesome, but I’m sort of glad my own family is more spread out than his. In a way I wish I could see what...
Wouldn't it be nice?
Home from 4 days with Grandma and family in Northern Virginia. I am so glad to be back, and that has, honestly, little to do with the 25° weather there.
So good to be home!
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Sexy secrets of the... →
Reminds me of when I read Geraldine Brooks’s Nine Parts of Desire.
Eighteen Candles
In reverse chronological order, my last few days: make chicken noodle soup, fail awful physics final, practically sleep through religion final, wake up 18, go to bed 17, study physics (in vain, clearly), eat dinner, hear that Eddo got into MIT, try to study restlessly, place sticker proudly on rear windshield, get official acceptance letter and Brown crest bumper sticker for car, go to class, end...
Shiny toy gunzos
I feel romantic when I hear Eddo’s music on my computer. Really romantic. I have Latin homework for which I brought home no books. On Friday he came over and we studied radial motion from my physics text-CD-rom. Then there was the most hilarious ComedySportz at school. Yesterday was creative writing at Mrs. Reed’s house and then Eddo’s hockey game followed by his little...
The Redwoods
My school’s valedictorian, N.D., just got into Stanford with a heck of a lot of money.
The prestige tally (top 6 students at my school):
Stanford
? Will probably get into Notre Dame in a few days, wants Penn
Will probably go to Wash. U
Brown
Harvard
???, wants Brown
This is going to be the “smartest” year ever at my school in terms of fancy colleges. Wow.
“Dear Elizabeth, Congratulations! I am delighted to inform you that you have been...”
– James S. Miller, Dean of Admission
Odd
Today I got into college. It’s a binding program. I will be attending college there. For four years. I will graduate from there. My life beings… today.
Sort of?
When I found out, in Mrs. Reed’s room surrounded by a few random classmates and Kilizzle and Rakel, I saw the first words (Dear Elizabeth, Congratulations!) and slammed my hand down, and said “I’m going to...
An easy countdown
If the time as of writing is 17:43 PST, and results are released 17:00 EST tomorrow, that leaves me with 20:17.
Numbers, numbers too much! I’m struggling through a Calculus webassign that somehow covers material from months ago, easy material, and yet that is melting by brain.
Eddo hears from teh MITz at 6 on Monday. He’s freaking out. I’m freaking out. We would be so...
Anonyme
Random people are now subscribing to my Twitter and I know not why.
“One of you spelled ‘much’ with a ‘t’…”
– K-Yontz
Squeeze ball
At loose ends, my mind is led to wandering:
For example, if an author sees a compelling sentence from some stranger on Twitter, and must incorporate it into his novel somehow, is that a violation of intellectual property? Is there such thing as uncopywritten intellectual property?
Also, I unrolled my yoga mat this afternoon and popped Rodney Yee into my DVD player for an hour or so of good...
Warm in California
Today was another of those floating days. My religion teacher wasn’t here so I couldn’t hand out the 400-some copies of my religion survey that I need completed by, oh, say, Wednesday after school. Whatever, I’ll take what results I can get, and I’ll do the survey over next semester if I have to. The devious plan is to evaluate all the surveys and finish my Religion...
"...Make me read the Iliad"
After I read my mother this thread on CC, she said there will be a little part of her that would be disappointed if I didn’t go to UChicago.
It’s true, I really would fit in there. So my morning exercise—that is, lying in bed, envisioning both getting accepted and getting deferred (and both scenarios convinced me I should have a puke bucket nearby)—were unnecessary. I’m going to...
“I love you, I love you, I love you.”
– “Say Hey” by Michael Franti & Spearhead
Correction: Rice no longer has Interim Decision. Thus I have no way of getting acceptance into college until March if I am turned down or deferred by Brown. Great.
I think it's about time I fall in love...
…with another school. I feel deferral coming upon me. Self-doubt right about is healthy and useful. I think I can get into the University of Chicago. Going there would be truly awesome. “Where fun comes to die,” but really that depends on your definition of fun. I think mine is somewhat, mostly, compatible.
Other schools worth some serious consideration:
Rice University in...
I forgot about the earthquake
We were eating dinner, pesto pasta, and the house shook for 15 seconds, very gently.
In other and hopefully unrelated news, my weekend is stuffed, gagged, saturated with homework; yet I am here watching What Not to Wear while on Tumblr. Sitting on the coffee table in front of me is Camus’ The Stranger for AP Lit. I am going to finish that and also my translation of Catullus 22, which...
“Love because it is the only true adventure.”
– Nikki Giovanni
Listening to last.fm
I cried last night when my grades started to overwhelm me—comparing myself to Eddo, I felt like a slacker, a waste of time, a failure. Therefore this afternoon I camped out and studied my brain away for an AP Latin test tomorrow on Catullus 12, 13, 40, 45, 65, and 68 (thru line 40). That’s 135 lines of Latin, 40 of which I translated from scratch today.
The whole time I’ve been...
Ivy League Admission Statistics for Class of 2012 →
Some part of me is indebted to Michele Hernandez. The other part of me wants her (or her company) to die.
“It’s West! Unless you’re facing North. …No, wait, it’s...”
– Larkin
Jolly green giant
Today, I came home and checked my mail and RSS feeds, and then turned on the world’s most restrictive and liberating application, Freedom. It shuts off your Mac’s networking ability (local and global) and thereby isolates you from the world for a predetermined amount of time.
And in this predetermined amount of time (120 minutes) I finished an essay for English on A Doll’s...
I wonder if they had an accent
It was barely 7:30 this morning when my college counselor received a call from those perky folks at the Brown admissions office: they wanted my midyear grades. Let’s review the implications of this request.
Firstly, and most superficially, they are seeing my non-permanent-record grades, which is so unfair I could throw a tantrum. They are seeing my grades go down in two classes.
But the...
Yale Daily News - Student discovers intruder in... →
What the heck?!?!!?!? That’s horrifying.
Bragging rights
I shortened Jer’s college application essay from 708 to 576 words over 2 hours of teamwork and collaboration. It’s a great essay about video games, it’s very him. The dude’ll get in.
My friends and I are all crazy about college right now. It’s all college all the time. And yet I managed to finish literally none of my homework yet tonight. None. I deserve a prize for...
Found in Providence
Today the Brown website registered Nish’s recommendation. Apparently the admission committees up there in Rhode Island start reviewing applications today. What I’ve heard is that from November 1 to December 1, they go through all the applications and put the “Heck no”s in the trash pile, and the rest (which is almost all of the applications) into a “Maybe” pile....
“We are always getting ready to live but never living.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson