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.

80 Prompts: 1. Name something that you lost or gave away that can never be replaced

I stumbled upon this journal writing prompt site the other day and I decided to give it a shot blog-style! Woohoo!

Here goes:

Name something that you lost or gave away that can never be replaced:

As funny as it may seem, this item would be a little rubber rat that I had in kindergarten. The story behind the rat goes like this:

When I was a little kid, my paternal grandparents lived in the same town as my family, so my brothers and I were over at their place on a near-daily basis. My grandpa was something of a prankster (to put it mildly). One of his greatest joys in life was teasing my grandma through various practical jokes. One day, he hid a little rubber rat in a house plant in their kitchen, hoping that my grandma would find it and that he would have the unparalleled pleasure of hearing her scream.

As luck would have it, I was vising my grandparents that particular afternoon. While I was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating frozen orange juice cake with my grandma, I noticed the little rat in kitchen plant. I pulled it out and showed it to my grandma. She was a little surprised by it, but I'm sure years of living with my grandpa had sort of dulled the shock of finding such little treasures about the house. We decided that the little rat should stay in the kitchen and that the house plant would be his home.

When my grandma died a few months later, I took the rat home with me; I'm not really sure what happened to it beyond that. It may very well have been confiscated by my parents, since I had the unfortunate habit of bringing the rat to school with me (it sort of scared the other children), but I can't really recall that happening. Now it's just one of those weird, childhood memories that pops up every now and then. So, yeah, an irreplaceable rubber rat.

So...what irreplaceable thing have you lost or given away?

Things I Have Learned or Need to Learn as a Senior Being an RA to Freshmen

So, I'm a senior this year, and a first year RA for freshman ladies. It's insane, awesome, painful, invigorating, sapping, exciting, and nerve-wracking all at the same time. All that I can say is that I love my ladies; they're a really great bunch.

There's a lot to learn, and a lot of fun to be had.

1. Everyone likes chocolate

2. Chocolate keeps people happy

3. Just because people say they are interested in doing something doesn't mean that they will

4. Everyone loves vanilla Tootsie Rolls too

5. Have patience and take your time to deal with a situation. Hasty decisions and words don't help anyone.

6. Remain calm, calmness goes a long way and is worth the energy.

7. Calmness takes energy

8. So does patience.

9. Both are necessary

10. Rules must apply to everyone

11. 10 can suck a lot, but it will be better for you in the long-run

12. Taking care of yourself is important.

13. Sleep when you can.

14. It's okay to lock your door for a little while if you need to.

15. Find safe people to talk to.

16. Don't bottle things up

17. Do your best to not procrastinate

18. Refresh yourself

19. Take the time to be a human being (that's what you are)

20. Be with your friends when you can

Linguistical Days and other stufff

Well, for starters...I am not a morning person, so 8am class is a little hairy for me at times. It's difficult to think about second language acquisition and it's related theories when you are basically a three-toed sloth. I make it to Articulatory Phonetics around 9am (the walk outside usually clears away the rest of the sleepy fuzz...although knowing that the phonetics classroom is infested with spiders keeps me awake as well). I listen to whoever the TA for that class is that week say words with phonetic sounds that I didn't even know I could make. Then I get to write the symbols for those sounds on the white board (all of this time I am also keeping an eye out for spiders...anything within a 6-foot radius of my body will die underneath my shoe, not kidding). Then I go to either Sociolinguistics or Syntax and Morphology, depending upon the day... Sociolinguistics is a really interesting theory course that explores the connections between language and culture. Syntax and Morphology is a pretty neat class too (it's basically grammar on steroids...just forget about English grammar, though...it will not help you very much...).

That's all for now.

~C

Early-morning madness...

The fact that I am a night-owl has never been so well rewarded as it was this morning: I was strolling into my bedroom and noticed flashing lights through the curtain on my window. I ran to the main room of my apartment to discover a flock of cop cars in the parking lot of my apartment. I promptly knocked on my roommate's door and we watched the scene unfold together. Not long after, I received a text from a friend, asking if she could come down to watch too. She and her roommate came down. At this point, my third roommate woke up and came out to see what was the matter. The five of us stood and watched the 10 cop cars arrest 1 guy. It was scary...and awesome! I am definitely not tired anymore...

a random memory...or the little girl with no shadow

There was this children's museum in my hometown that had all kinds of interesting things. One of them was this giant green box that filled the middle of a giant room. People would walk inside of this green box and pose while a person on the outside pushed a button. The light would blink inside of the box and the people's shadows would be frozen on the wall. I remember going in and leaving my own shadow on the wall. When I left the box, I was afraid that I would never get my shadow back. This made me sad, thinking that I would go through life without a shadow. Then I looked at the ground and it was still there.

Saturdays...

I've always thought that Saturdays were really weird days. They are like this strange, in-between day that you never really know how to spend. You feel like you waste the day if you sleep in too late, but you feel like you waste your resting time if you get up too early.

Since they are such weird days, I usually devote a portion of them to some sort of art or craft project, a portion to homework, and a portion to whatever else I feel like doing. Arts/crafts and homework are pretty standard, though...

Since it is April already, we decided that our window snowflakes should come down and something more colorful and season-appropriate should go up. Today my roomies and I are making coffee filter sun-catchers. They look pretty sweet, drying on their newspaper

Last Saturday I spent the afternoon dyeing some wool yarn fun colors with kool-aid. It worked out pretty well, as far as I can tell. It isn't bleeding color when it gets wet, which is really great. I attempted to dye some cotton with kool-aid as well. That did not turn out so well, since you need a special kind of fiber-penetrating dye for it to work.

Here's a lovely photograph of how it turned out...I'll post pictures of the mitten-things when I finish them. :)

A few Saturdays ago I made a kite...that was interesting...I haven't gotten it to fly yet, since I have decided to only fly it on weekends, and there hasn't been a windy-enough-weekend-day yet. Soon, though...very soon...

So, now you have a picture into my Saturdays...sort of... I'm going back to dishes, dinosaur mac and cheese, sun-catchers, and homework. Hope you have a great day too!

P.S.

What do you do with your Saturdays?

Unphotographable

I found this really neat website called "UNphotographable." It's this really cool web page by a person who is both a photographer and a writer. This site is dedicated to the moments when this person didn't have a camera, but wanted to capture a particular moment that he or she experienced. I think it's wonderful!

http://www.unphotographable.com/archives/2010/03/foreclosed_fron.shtml

MEPs

Military Entrance Physical...

This is the second time in my life that I've heard that acronym and felt like I got hit in the chest with a baseball bat full-swing. Don't get me wrong, I will support my little brother and his decision, no matter what it is. I am just deeply sad about the whole thing right now. At least he told us in advance that he was planning on going into the military...not like my older brother. He just came home one day and he was in the Army, leaving for basic training at the end of the summer. None of us had any idea. It's tough to keep a secret like that from 5 people who live in the same house with you and have known you for either their entire lives or your entire life, but he did it.

Please forgive me if I don't seem like myself this week, I have a lot on my heart and mind.

Pro-cras-tin-a-tion

I just now realized that the word "procrastination" fits into the Pepto Bismol jingo...

Some days I have the hardest time focusing on my homework. I just find myself drifting far away in the oceans of my mind, sometimes, while my eyes are still glued to the article I'm supposed to be digesting for class...

Oh homework! If only I had more time in the day, I would enjoy you more. I really DO like homework (if you haven't figured out how much of a nerd I am by now...you should re-evaluate your views of me a teensy bit).

I just destroyed my February resolution as well. I definitely did not get 1 blog post in a week. In fact, this is the first blog post I have written since my February resolution. Silly me! I would say that rules are made to be broken, but I don't believe that is true. I like rules...and straight lines...and organized books and papers (this is why I am purposely not looking at the floor of my room right now...a veritable hazard-zone for paper cuts, I tell you!)...

So yeah...that's all for now...back to the Preuss article(it's actually a really great article...I'm just not focusing right now...) and plotting the Nepal presentation!

~C

A Poem in a Dying Pen

A Poem in a Dying Pen
by carolyn walsh

You're a silly thing
Just like me
More confusing than either of us
Would like to admit
Where have you been?
What have you said?
Who are you?
Now both empty...


I thought it would be fitting to have the font in orange, since the pen was orange. I found it this afternoon while I was working. I am having a poetry-feeling day today, and a friend suggested that I write some myself...so here you are! Fresh from the vaults of my own mind 5 minutes ago.

;)

Billy Joel and a "Theolo-Day"

I recently realized that I have not been listening to my Billy Joel album on Sundays...I don't know what that means. I used to listen to Billy Joel every Sunday afternoon. For some reason Sunday was just listen to "The Stranger" on repeat day. I miss "Vienna"...*sighs*...

Anyway, I was brushing my hair, listening to Billy Joel (despite the fact that today is not Sunday...) and I started thinking about theology. I remembered the time that one of my friends and I had our first theological discussion over something that we agreed upon. We declared it "Theolo-Day." It was a good day...we probably celebrated it by eating chocolate (I know part of the celebration involved us scribbling diagrams of what we agreed upon on our other friend's white board...she thought we were drawing Mickey Mouse...anyway...). I think we need to celebrate Theolo-Day again, I'm just not sure how to go about it. Maybe a visit to the Russian Tea House for some proshki and pecan cookies...perhaps a party involving cake and crepe streamers...maybe Chipotle....Yes, I do love food, okay? Yeesh.

Knitting thoughts...

I often find myself knitting when I have things to think about and have the time to knit. There is some sort of psychological connection (for me, anyway) between fiddling around with something and thinking through something else. I don't know why that is...

The world just seems so much simpler when I am sitting here going "knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one..." with my hands while my mind is somewhere else. It's like the fact that I have this simple little thing in my hands that I can create makes the fact that I can't control life and that things out there can get so complicated a little bit easier to not stress out over.

Anyway...I am currently in the middle of a few knitting projects at home (heaven only knows how many I have started at school but haven't finished yet...). Sometimes when I get frustrated with one project, I start another one. Working through the new one often helps me fix my problems with the old one...for example, I was getting very frustrated with my mitten project, so I stopped working on it and began to do some stuff with double pointed needles and yoga socks. By the time I finished the first yoga sock I understood what my problem with my mitten was...happy day!

I think this sort of has a lot to say about how life works. Sometimes you run into problems and it's like you are bashing your head against a brick wall, trying to knock it down. Sometimes a step back from the brick wall shows you the toe-hold that you didn't see before that will help you get over it. Cheezy, yes, I know...

Soda-Pop Fiasco

So...today when I was on break I decided that I wanted to have a soda of some kind or other. I went to the machine in the break room to pay the $.35 that a can of soda costs (I was particularly hoping to have a Dr. Pepper). When I got there, there were little signs semi-covering the regular decals that indicate what kind of soda each button dispenses. They had varying messages such as "Usually Mountain Dew." Another one said something along the lines of "Sometimes Sprite, Sometimes Lemonade." No where did I see a Dr. Pepper button, which made me a little sad, so I pressed the one with the tag "Usually Cherry Coke." I got a Dr. Pepper...I win!