80 Prompts: 8. What is your favorite chess piece?

What is your favorite chess piece?

Hmmm...All of them? Rooks and knights are my favorites on the surface because I count on them most in strategy.

I like rooks because I like to castle my king, and usually that keeps me from losing a little bit longer (my older brother was a pretty good chess player when we were younger...chess became a game of breaking my move-record for staying alive rather than winning).

I love the knights, however. I like that they move in a really different way than other pieces. This makes them really useful at times, but really frustrating at other times. I always feel really defensive about the knights because some people are of the opinion that knights are useless. This is an utterly false claim. If you find your knights to be useless, then you are obviously not using them properly. User error should not reflect on the character of the piece itself.

Pawns! Pawns are amazing. They can become queens if they make it across the board alive. They can block strategies and defend other pieces, even though they are arguably the least valuable and most expendable pieces on the board (unless you are of the sick opinion that knights are less valuable).

Bishops...I like the fact that they have to stay on one color. It turns the chessboard into an elaborate game of the white or black squares are lava. They are useful, but slightly overrated, I think.

The queen. The only piece that the queen cannot match maneuvers with is the knight (which is probably another reason why I like knights so much...they are the only piece not like the queen in any way). I appreciate her versatility, but she is always in danger, no matter where she goes because she is the "most valuable", supposedly. This makes me not like her as much. She's easy to lose sometimes, and I always feel crummy when I lose my queen.

The king...well, if you lose him, you lose the game, so you're sort of forced to like him. The ultimate object is not only to protect your king, but to capture your opponent's king as well...so by the end of the game you want two kings. If you play chess, you must like the king enough to want two. Therefore, everyone who plays chess must like kings. :)

Edible chess!

80 Prompts: 7. What were your best and worst subjects in school or college?

What were your best and worst subjects in school or college?

There are several ways that I could answer this question...I've never really done poorly academically, so I don't really have anything to say about having a "worst" subject. There were subjects that I enjoyed and subjects that I didn't enjoy very much, however.

Best:

Art, language classes, linguistics, lit classes, theology classes, geometry, earth/environmental sciences, biology, and history. Basically anything that has large amounts of reading or writing interesting things and/0r useful things associated with it . Also, if I can practically apply it to my life somehow (like geometry and biology), I will enjoy it and do well in it. I like courses that have complex thoughts and ideas about life and I love metaphor (I really do love metaphor, I'm not just using the word "love" here to sound cool).

Worst:

Algebra and chemistry. Balancing chemical equations and solving x in complex equations has never been useful to me in real life (aside from helping me understand xkcd comics from time to time). At least geometry is helpful with craft projects and designing and arranging things, algebra does very little in practicality. I appreciate algebra and chemistry and understand that they are useful in the areas to which they apply, but my life doesn't intersect with those areas very often (well...on a level where I am required to know what's going on in a technical sense...chemistry and algebra are always going on around us, we just never really realize it...).

80 Prompts: 6. What is the most annoying sound you have ever heard?

What is the most annoying sound you have ever heard?

There are so many! Aside from nails on a chalkboard, rap, heavy metal, country music, out of tune orchestras and bands (especially out of tune saxophone sections...I just can't handle them for some reason), Sid the Sloth's voice in Ice Age, and various high pitched noises, I would have to say people talking really loudly in libraries...particularly people who talk loudly on cell phones in the library. Seriously! What makes it acceptable in any way to interrupt everyone else's peaceful studies by yelling at your mom about (insert personal problem here) on your phone for 15 minutes? I don't mind quiet, 5 minute phone conversations, no one can really avoid those, but long rants about bodily infections are slightly disturbing and socially unacceptable.

As for people talking loudly, most libraries have areas for quiet study and areas for reasonably-toned conversations. I don't mind people having meetings, working on projects and studying in group sessions in the library, kudos for using the resources available for your studies! I do mind people who shout and make a ruckus and laugh loudly for long periods of time. I understand that sometimes things are funny and you just have to laugh, but braying like a donkey for 10 minutes while the people around you are obviously disturbed by your presence and incessant noise is simply rude. Maybe I've just contracted the librarian low-noise-tolerance virus, but maybe I'm not the only person this bothers.

So, there's my rant on annoying things for the day. There will be two posts today, since I missed yesterday. A week before finals joy to you all!

80 Prompts: 5. What comes to mind when a person uses the phrase "prolonging the magic"?

What comes to mind when a person uses the phrase "prolonging the magic"?

An intense fight scene involving wizards, creatures, crumbling bridges and flavors of Gandalf and Sirius Black dieing...all at the same time. I get this mental picture of this really intense fantasy scene where there is a troupe wizards fighting nasty, 8-legged volcano creatures over a pit of lava for some obscure, but important reason or other that no one can really seem to remember. At some point the bridge starts to cave and all of the wizards are about to die, but one uses his telekinetic powers to keep the bridge from falling into the boiling lake of lava and their imminent deaths. One of his comrades takes a hit from one of the creature and is dangles from the bridge by his wounded left hand. The telekinetic one almost breaks the spell on the bridge to save the falling guy, but the guy shouts, "No, you fool! Prolong the magic! The Obah Cypt is in the cavern of the griffin-chimera-snake-sphinx-thing! Do not fail!" After that incredibly cryptic and unhelpful "hint" that no one (character or reader) can figure out because the author has failed to mention any of that stuff before, he falls to his fiery death (only to show up two books later, to everyone's relief because they can finally figure out what in the wide world of Waldo he was talking about in the first place, minus his right arm and with a bionic left eye).

It broke my heart when Gandalf died, and I definitely cried when Sirius Black died (I'm still a little sad about that one). Sorry for all of the run-on sentences. That happens when I get really excited about something, like boiling lakes of lava...and I don't really edit these posts, that's not really the point of this blog.

+5 awesome points to anyone who knows where the "Obah Cypt" shows up in popular fiction (author and book title, please...AND if you can name the folk story that the book is based off of, you will receive an extra 10).

80 Prompts: 4. What is on your calendar for tomorrow?

What is on your calendar for tomorrow?

Tomorrow is Friday!

12:00am: Homework/anxiously waiting for my tie-dye shirt to set so I can wash it.

12:30am: Productivity declining slowly, probably a random article hop through Wikipedia

1:00am: Homework! Finished paper!

1:30am: A significant amount of thought devoted to dinosaurs, poetry, pirates, Star Wars, tea, and/or art.

2:00am: A long conversation with myself about stuff that happened today.

2:30am: Tie-dye set completely! :D Wash shirt.

3:00am: Another long conversation with myself about whatever I feel like saying.

3:00am: Try (unsuccessfully) to sleep.

6:00am: Awake, because my body likes to be awake at 6:00am lately. :(

6:30am: Convince body that sleep is a good thing.

8:00am: Wake up for real.

8:30am: Don new tie-dye shirt!

9:00am: Do something cool because Hebrew is cancelled today (I'll probably eat, or something equally exciting)/Homework

10:00am: Shelve books and obsessively clean the circ desk.

11:00am: Receive or send obnoxious text message about getting food.

12:00pm: Actually crawl to the dining hall to get said food.

1:00pm: Homework.

1:15pm: Be an evil mastermind/homework.

1:20pm: Homework.

2:00pm: A meeting, or something important like that.

3:00pm: Find random stuff for people I don't know/wonder about people's interests and research projects.

5:00pm: Shoo people out of the library.

5:05pm: Send obnoxious text messages about food.

5:10pm: Wait for dining hall to open.

5:20pm: Decide what to eat.

5:30pm: Eat.

6:00pm: Long conversation in the tunnel about random stuff, probably plotting a peaceful take-over of the world, or survival strategies for the zombie apocalypse.

6:45pm: Homework.

8:00pm: Tea.

8:15pm: Homework.

11:00pm: Seek out other forms of life (it's Friday!), or go to bed early.

There you have it. This is pretty much what my day will look like, from some skewed perspective, anyway. Disclaimer: It is right before finals, so my Fridays usually have less homework and more random stuff...my life is not usually this boring.

80 Prompts: 3. Have you ever done something just to "feel the danger", or to "feel alive"?

Have you ever done something just to "feel the danger", or to "feel alive"?

Of course I have! I have an inner-adventurer under my reserved and *cough*cough* classy exterior. I like to indulge my curiosity by planning little explorations for myself. For example: I sent a friend a postcard that featured the Landmark Center, which looks like a castle to me (so I call it "the castle"). I promised this particular friend that I would visit the castle and take pictures for her, since she lives far away and will probably never get the chance to explore the Landmark Center herself. After a particularly stressful week last semester, I decided that I wanted to get out for a while, so I hopped on my bike and went downtown alone, dressed in my pyjamas and armed with a camera and hand sanitizer. It was a wonderful adventure! I found a "secret" pathway, uncovered a plot to undermine the Galactic Alliance, and I also slew a dragon. All in a afternoon's work! ;)

So, what are your adventures?

80 Prompts: 2. Share a secret about yourself.

I'm randomly choosing numbers off of the list to add a little bit of mystery to the prompt sequence.

Today's prompt:

Share a secret about yourself.

I'm not really in to sharing secrets about myself, but here goes:

I have a secret desire to join a circus. I'm thoroughly convinced that the life of a circus performer is one of the most "legit" existences on the face of the earth. I would, of course, have some reservations towards the circus costumes; I'm not much for wearing "bedazzled" and/or flashy things on my person, with the exception of my sequined zebra flats (zebras make everything cooler). Flashy attire aside, working for the circus would be pretty nifty. Who wouldn't want to run around with clowns, elephants, stilted people, and bearded ladies all day? Also, imagine the stunned and disbelieving looks on people's faces after a conversation such as this:

Stranger: "What do you do for a living?"

Me: "Oh, you know, I'm a mime at the circus."

Stranger: [insert priceless facial expression while trying to find something nice to say that isn't awkward here]

If I were in a circus, I would be either trapeze artist or a mime. Trapeze people are totally hardcore. They pretty much spend their lives flying about over other people's heads and doing insane, death-defying things that their audiences cheer for, AND they get paid for having fun! No one else can jump through flaming hoops, dragging another person without some sort of legal action following. It's one of the best gigs I've ever heard of!

On to the subject of mimes: mimes are great. Perhaps my introversion finds something sort of peaceful about a person entertaining people with silence. Talk about Jedi mind-control powers! I think mime jokes are really just acts of jealousy, since it takes an uncontrollable amount of coolness to be one. Don't despair, mimes, your pain has not gone unnoticed!

Also, people who picket circuses make me angry (as a side note). Do they really have nothing better to do than stand around and pick apart an institution invented for the enjoyment of children? I could understand picketing a circus in the 1800s when animal rights weren't really an issue that crossed anyone's mind, but in 201l, I don't think circus-haters have all that much to be concerned about. A person can hardly even take his or her own dog on a merry afternoon walk without enraging some maniac about the dog having feelings, and the inhumanity of collars and leashes...blahblahblah. When human trafficking, clean water, education in third world countries, starvation, child armies, deforestation, and genocide are no longer issues, I may begin to care a little bit more about whether elephants prefer to sleep on down-feather pillows or hay. I love animals and care about how humans treat them, I just don't think circuses in America should be a pressing issue on our consciences. If you do picket circuses, however, don't picket on April Fools Day. This happened near my school and I was confused for the rest of the day about whether the protest was all an elaborate joke that I was missing, or if it was actually a serious event. Dates are important, people.

Well, I hope this has been enlightening for you.

Share a secret, if you want, or tell me what you think about circuses, mimes, and/or trapeze artists.