24 August 2001 - 10:57 p.m. - omnis1

All right. New date format: but I asked the powers that be for a different one, so we'll see if they grant my wishes. I promised a book-by-book listing of my fall semester textbooks (dry as heck) and a description of my first day of school (ick) and also some stuff about my family (interesting, at least to me). So:

Estrous. That's the best adjective for me at the moment, although I'm not a non-human female mammal - but how else to explain? I'm getting sick of this state, really (although I know it comes of being young and hormonal and perhaps a bit foolish yet-) and I wish it would just go away- actually, I don't, but it would make thinking clearly much easier. Watch me bite my tongue later in life:

Back to my cryptic notes: ah, Queensland. Immigration policies are liberal and the Thief-Executioner isn't the president. What more could you want? Some of the benefits of escape without having to move (something that will be popular with those of my classmates who threatened to move to Canada if Bush won, then did nothing about it.)

My family: I don't know much about my father's side yet. I know my father's father died (heart attack) when my father was thirteen; I never met the man (you think?) but I've visited his grave. I've been told that, as a male descendant, I will be stored (ashes... interred? I always forget) near him, back in Taiwan (some place outside of Taipei). I'm not sure I want that... my ties are here. But: my grandfather's family came from Guizhou province, from a village near Guiyang. The conflict (time out for a moment) between my mother and my paternal grandmother comes in part from our families' traditional occupations: my father's side is the one with the businessmen (preoccupied with money) and my mother's side is the one with the scholars (and thus the government jobs, at least until 1949). So I come from scholar blood: another reason I was one of the lucky ones, indirectly through my mother. My family through my grandfather was connected with the Nationalist government (KMT) and thus we were able to get to Taiwan. My family fit neatly into almost all of the categories that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had it in for: we were scholars, KMT officials, moderately wealthy, and we owned land. When my grandparents fled to Taiwan, they could have bought land (and we'd be rich now), but they never thought they were going into exile. One year, two years, they thought, not... twenty. My grandfather never planned to die in the United States. It's been... fifty? years of exile for my mother from a homeland she no longer remembers, sees only in dreams. It's lucky we got out: we would have been sent for reeducation, would be in Xinjiang or Heilongjiang or Ningxia or Hainan, would not be allowed beyond grade school...

We were the lucky ones.

And: my maternal great-grandfather (grandmother's father) was in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. He was an official in the puppet city government. He stayed as long as he could after the surrender, waiting for my grandmother to come - but she couldn't come quickly, being pregnant, and so he had to leave before a man he had hid during the war informed on him. He disappeared completely.

My maternal great-grandfather (grandfather's father) was once an official for the KMT. He then retired to his home village, where he was a doctor; he owned much of the land there. He was a good man, from what we know of him - his peasants saved him from death when the CCP marked him. At his funeral, so many people came to mourn from his village and beyond that five rolls of black armband cloth were used.

And that's what I've learned about my family...

Ah. Today is a festival in the Chinese calendar - Lovers' Day, when the Oxherd and the Weaver-woman cross a bridge made of doves, cross the Great River and are allowed tonight together.

Today was... hectic at school. I don't like a lot of the people I have classes with, and as usual the scheduling gods gave me almost no classes with my friends. This takes a lot of talent, with a grade of only 106 people. I've got no free periods this year because I have to fulfill my PE requirement; not only that, but Latin AP goes over into my free period, so I'll be quite busy. I have, from English, a Bible, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Oedipus Rex, and (hopefully soon) a poetry anthology in addition to my grammar books from last year. In History, I have a history, art, and music textbook, the last of which comes with six CDs. Math is just my precalculus book; Orchestra has no books (yes!); Science is both my chemistry and biology textbooks (Heath, in case anyone was wondering, but this is tedious anyway.) In Latin, I have: the Iliad in English translation, a Latin review book, random books of the Aeneid in Latin (the AP curriculum skips around), and the Aeneid in English translation. That's all, but as I don't have any "free" periods until 7th, it means that I have to lug around four periods' worth of books, as my locker isn't near any of my classes. Of course, those four periods are the ones with the heaviest books...

I'm not looking forward to the rest of school. Way back when, I mentioned that school would bring a drastic change...

I think I should prepare for a downward plunge, and this just when I thought I'd reached bottom...

Course not. The abyss is bottomless.

J

Oh, does anyone know how to get rid of corns? I have a big one on my right foot and it's very painful.

If you know how to get rid of corns or are experienced enough with HTML to be able to show me how to make a couple more tables and links within those tables... please write me, link at the bottom of the page-ish.

I will be beholden to you.