05 II 2002 - 21:37 - vita22

All right, I don't know ifwhen a Diaryland outage is going to happen, so I suppose I'll just keep typing until something bad happens. Oh drat, I think I just jinxed myself. Onward:

I went to the computer lab today to write an entry and got it written, but for whatever reason, it didn't get posted. I hate it when that happens, especially because whenever it doesn't post, I'm late to class. The clocks in the computer lab, I discovered today, are slow. Rather than knowing, "oh God, it's 12:15 and class started at 12:10," today, I thought, "Oh, it's 12:07. If I run, I can make it." My watch timed my run at two minutes... and when I got to the classroom, it was 12:09. I'd like bells for the school. But it's not going to happen, so maybe I should just stop writing entries at school. What annoys me the most is that I was late and have nothing to show for it - the entry went poof! into entry hell. Or heaven, maybe. I don't know if diary entries believe in heaven or hell. Moving on...

I'm always amazed by how warm other people can be. This isn't even a comment on character (although that surprises me too) - it's just body heat. Never fails to amaze me. Although my trunk is usually warm, my extremities are cold (never good when playing an instrument; fingers stiff, ack!) Noticed it in Latin class today (wow, that must be where I do all my thinking), brushing up against the person sitting next to me.

Al suggested that I do an independent study in Ovid or Livy my senior year. I'll have to see if my teacher would support that - if so, I'm doing that instead of taking first year French or Spanish. Thank you very much, Al.

Moving on to reconstruct my previous entry:

I found out the other day that my preschool was really cheap. Would you like to set off ominous bells in your head? Listen to its name: "Child Study Center." Doesn't that smack of men in white lab coats? All right, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it was perfectly innocuous and I'm overreacting. Except, not really. Because it was full of one-way mirrors through which children could be observed, and was affiliated with the local state university, and served as a training field for a) budding teachers (harmless enough, sort of) and b) budding developmental psychologists. Care to laugh now? I think it's hilarious. And then I remember that they all though I was "developmentally challenged" because I wouldn't touch fingerpaint. My reason? I quote: "It's too dirty." Well, it is! It's this communal thing in which everyone is sticking their fingers into this same substance which is made of god knows what, probably some really great bacterial breeding ground, and these are preschoolers, and GOD KNOWS WHERE THEIR FINGERS HAVE BEEN! Excuse me. I like to think that that was my rationale for not liking fingerpaint. However, it's much more likely that it was me being antisocial and prissy, choosing instead to retreat to a corner and read.

Oh, and about reading: they thought that my mother just read to me, and that was why I could read the books. I must have memorized it. Because there's no way a three-year-old could read.

It was a great place, really it was, and there's no proof to the contrary because it's since been torn down. Thus has it gone with almost all of my childhood memories.

I took my father out to eat Ethiopian food for his birthday. It was Eritrean, actually, and the only reason I've left the first sentence up is that I am shamelessly padding the length of this entry (go me!). I was surprised that he enjoyed it, but also pleased; the reason I'd chosen Eritrean in the first place is that mom and dad wanted this to be "a birthday to remember" and looked to me for suggestions. The place was empty - what else do you expect for Super Bowl Sunday?

For me, however, eating with my hand was halfway to excruciating pain, because the spices used are sort of irritating when they come in contact with wounds. Which I had. You see, I was volunteering at the store that day. They've gotten a lot of donations from the Fancy Food Show (which was recently down Moscone Center way) and as a result have boxes and boxes of food - stacked three deep and about 10 feet high in an alley about 12 yards long. These boxes of food need to be priced for the Presidents' Day Sale. (Go to 547 Castro Street, San Francisco, over the Presidents' Day Weekend! There's lots of good stuff...) I was doing relatively well until I hit the box of minute rice.

Now. Minute rice is nasty. It's gross and gives real rice a bad name. But I have to price it anyway. So I set the little tag-gun to $2 (hey, it goes for $2.50 in the supermarket) and started pricing.

Somehow, the cartons of minute rice sensed that I hated them, and decided to retaliate for such dislike by cutting me. By actually pulling my finger away from the fingernail. It was probably for the best; I had to go anyway, so I put everything down, being careful not to bleed on the boxes, and retreated to the bathroom to tend to the wound. Which is sort of better now, but made eating Ethiopian food a pain, and also makes playing piano, using my cello bow, and, in some cases, typing, somewhat painful.

I should cut this short soon, as I still haven't practiced and I also have three pages to write about Wuthering Heights. I was going to complain about chamber orchestra again, but my irritation has evaporated since Monday. Don't you worry, though, it should be back in full force by Friday, as I have three straight days with the class. I'm going to a concert (Naumberg Competition winner) tomorrow night, which should be nice.

Oh! Something amusing: in Chinatown, at the offices of the local Chinese newspaper, a good Chinese-English dictionary goes for $52. A good English-Chinese dictionary goes for $63. I took a look at the prices and thought... "hmm, maybe not today." So I went home with my mother, and suddenly, she says, "Aunt Karen [a family friend who lives in Taiwan] is going to spend the night with us on Saturday... why don't you ask her to buy you the dictionaries?"

My reaction was, "WHAT!?" See, I thought this was basically asking me to hit a dear friend up for gifts.

Nope. Although that would have been amusing, coming from my mom. She clarified: "The dictionaries are much cheaper in Taiwan..." and trailed off so that I could supply "because they're printed and published there, and you don't have to pay shipping costs."

Oh. And guess who I now have PE with? Because there's nobody left in my period (D-block Tuesdays) to play badminton with... I get to do "weight training/fitness training" = treadmill work. With: someone from my Latin class, someone who I have to keep reminding myself is straightstraightstraight and not at all gay, which I for one find a pity, someone who might annoy me from one of my English classes last year (to be sure, it's not his fault he annoys me... but that's another story) and two of my science teachers. This makes for some awkward moments. You can bet we have some great, awkward, conversations.

The farthest we got today (which was my first session) was, "Is the music too loud?"

"No, thanks for asking."

Ooh. Which reminds me. I don't listen only to classical music. I listen to a rather eclectic bunch. They Might Be Giants and the Indigo Girls and the Police are currently in the CD box by my CD player. Just to clear up any misunderstandings, like the one in which people believe that my ears will explode if I'm exposed to rock music. (Well, they will if it's Metallica. But that's something different altogether.)

Aaagh! I almost forgot: Click here to go to Mechaieh's diary - she not only writes well but is also the featured writer for this month on the Alchera project.

All right, I'm done now. Really.

J