Ramble ramble 2-23-13

So here we are. 2/3 of the group sitting in my room. Mattie being the one present. It's slightly weird with her being here, but it's absolutely splendid. She's sitting behind me and says that she will proof read what I am writing. She's not sure what to say about the 3rd sentence about herself. She thinks it doesn't makes sense. "What about the more than normal or the extra" she says. It seems perfectly normal. She sleeps in my bed, sings with me, eats with me, etc. But at the same time it's bizarre because we aren't at Conserve. There aren't the check ins or any other time constraints. There is also a lack of my lovely suite mate Maia on the other side of the door every morning. We are actually listening to Mumford and Sons Pandora radio currently and Eddie Vedder is play which makes me think of English class. Mattie's proof reading skills just kicked in. Perhaps this is a good system after all! When I started the post I wasn't sure whether she should read along as I was writing because it'd be too strange but it turns out it's an added bonus. Mattie just asked me if Stefan, the headmaster of Conserve, still reads the blog. I know he read it during the semester when we were at school. Is he using it as some sort of marketing tool? Like a "come to our awesome school! See there's this girl Mei-Jing who rambles on about her daily life. Oh and by the way her blog is mostly about her semester and it also happens to use the name of the school in the title!" He Stefan if you are reading this. :D There's always those people that you can talk and talk and talk to about the most bizarre things yet never get tired of each other. Even after two and a half months without the added drama of school there's still lots to talk about and discuss. Just now Mattie was reading behind me and thought that the word bonus was the word bombs. Ah yes Mattie having you read behind me is like a bomb. Because you are the bomb.com as the lovely Maeve would say. We spent a gray day in East Atlanta Village with Laurel and her boyfriend Tristram walking and walking. It doesn't help your chilly situation if you are drinking a mango peach smoothie that makes you either cough like me or shiver like Laurel. Why do people eat ice cream in the winter? There should be some type of counterpart to ice cream that's warm or at least makes you feel warm. Or should there? After all the United States doesn't really need ANOTHER sweet food to consume. Good lord.... If you go to a world farmers market and you look at the desserts they are all so colorful and pretty and they look like they might make your teeth fall out, but in all reality they are really not that sweet! Perhaps because they are smart and don't use the oh so fake high fructose corn syrup in EVERYTHING! Take Mexican desserts. There are rolls with pink sugar slapped all over the place in great designs. You bite into it and sugar does everywhere, but it's more like a slightly sweet bread as opposed to something like a doughnut! Mattie just asked me a totally legit (as spell checker would like me to say) question. Are there really any warm desserts? There's hot coco, cookies when they come out of the over, baked Alaska ("Isn't that a flaming something or another?? I'm not sure what it is exactly"). "But actually there can be a lot more warm desserts so long as you eat them when they come out of the oven!" Speaking of all this sweetness... I finally learned how to spell dessert correctly. You always want more dessert so therefore there are more s's in the word. As for a desert, you want less of it so therefore less s's! It's like the spelling trick about parallel. The word has two parallel lines! The l's that is. That's all for now, but more later. Or maybe not because I'll be spending a week at the Yates' house!! :D

An exceptional home 2-21-13

The terrific Mattie will be arriving at my place of residence tomorrow. I'm sitting on pins and needles full of joy. Silly grins keep sliding over my face. I'm sitting here in my room listening to a playlist while I was at Conserve. It features all the songs that we listened to over and over. They are the ones that we sang at the tops of our lungs on the edge of a dock. They are the songs that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Every one of these songs has an image for me. It's just a quick flash. But it's enough. It'll be strange to see her because I've only known her at Conserve. I can only imagine us there together, but now she'll be here! At a home where the paint colors confuse the visitors. Where the neighbors take out their trash at strange hours of the night. The house with a dog who's more like a cat. A home where two sisters are polar opposites but would die for each other. A home of unique circumstances. A place where we break every preconceived notion. She'll be back in my life again. She'll fill the hole that she left the last time I saw her. So it's time to start the day and listen to the singing.

Questions 2-21-13

Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like you might explode? Your brain hurts form over use and your eyes droop like those of a child up past her bed time. When you just can't go any further. Like you are running at a brick wall repeatedly. Like there's a sound barrier between you and correct functionality? Do you ever wonder why someone will go to the ends of the earth for you? Do you ever wonder why there isn't ever a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Do you ever wonder if there's someone sitting in the clouds looking down at you wearing a Hawaiian shirt? Do you ever wonder why people sit in bars for hours on end? Why is it that you can't stand that one thing that sound? Why does your skin crawl when you see all of those legs? Why is it that people can sit for hours on end in silence reading? Why is it that many adults lose their childish imagination when the grow up?Why can't we ride whales? Why can't we just have gills? How come people don't write letters more? Why can't we travel through time? Shouldn't we have the capabilities to apparate like Harry Potter now? Why are we such a materialistic society? Why is it that it's the littlest things that mean the most thing? What's so satisfying about puddle jumping? But in all seriousness my biggest question is: Why don't people pursue happiness? After all it's in the Declaration of Independence. Everyone is supposed to listen to that right? Patriotic and all... Everyday I see people who are not fulfilling any of their dreams. Not even the small ones. The simple pleasures are pushed into the corners because of the really big ones. If you sit and talking with someone long enough then you may or may not find out that they have this giant aspiration to go and explore. So why do people not go for what they want? Is it that they are stuck in the monotony of money? What if you took that variable away from the equation? Would people be brave enough to take the leap? Would they still go out on a limb? Or would they dream up something else? Would that ever so brilliant cashier come up with the cure to some rare form of cancer? Just think about it. The population could be happier and more fulfilled. Life could take a turn for the better! Or would it?

 Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

              We Wear the Mask

    WE wear the mask that grins and lies,

    It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

    This debt we pay to human guile;

    With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

    And mouth with myriad subtleties.

    Why should the world be over-wise,

    In counting all our tears and sighs?

    Nay, let them only see us, while

            We wear the mask.

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

    To thee from tortured souls arise.

    We sing, but oh the clay is vile

    Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

    But let the world dream otherwise,

            We wear the mask!

The Importance of Details 2-18-13

Fingers rough and sliced
hash marks of black
sand papery digits
grappling with tools
shredded skin
snaggle tooth cuticles
cracked knuckles
greasy and black
sometimes
minuscule items
slipping through my fingers
struggling to hold on
not to lose it
them
everything

Countdown 2-18-13

There's a reason that I live for the weeks of robotics. It's the time and of course the cliche answer, the people. It's a day before bagging day. It shoots and climbs and hangs. It's a labor of love. It's a child. We've sacrificed hours and hours for this chunk of metal and wood. We've passed up school, sleep, and other alternate realities. We have ripped our hair out, eaten metal shavings, and taken various objects to the face. Some top things from this build season in no particular order are:

1. Putting casting putty being put into our shooter wheel and hearing the following yells of alarm at yellow goo slings everywhere including into some fans and into faces and onto heads.

2. Jordan telling the team that attaching washers with a zip tie and hearing the following yells about how they flew off and Jordan's eyes were saved with a face shield and a piece of scrap plastic.

3. Seeing the shooter and shoot and watching the robot hang.

4. Staying up for 29 hours straight and watch/making the size of the bot grow.

5. Talking and laughing with people.

6.Watching/ going mad trying to live and work in uncontrolled chaos.

7. Seeing Ben run around for half an hour looking for a phantom hex key.

8. Narrowly missing possibly severe head trauma multiple times.

9. Pranks.

10. Dancing/bouncing to the techno and dubstep.

11. Hearing that Casey broke a cinder block by gently placing it on the floor.

12. Sleeping.

13. Talking about magic, devils, and snowed in bots.

14. Laughing on the floor with Jasmine about goodness knows what.

15. Bubbles on the generator.

16. Halo vision.

17. Being as happy  as I was at Conserve. Though the happiness is in a totally different form. I don't know what I would have done without it.

*Note that this was actually written on beginning of the 19th*

Chocolate and Desks 2-14-13

It's the big day folks. The day when chocolate and flower prices are grossly overly priced. It's also 5 days before the last day of build season. It's time for late hours and basically late everything. Time for rage and time for fun. I saw students walking around the Georgia Tech campus walking around with roses sticking out of their backpacks walking with goofy smiles on their faces. It's funny what you can assume about a person. You can look at theirs cars (if they have them), refrigerators, and other stuffs. One thing that people forget about though is the desk.

A rectangle
a square
a circle
homemade
store-bought
a hand me down
clean
dirty
crumby
logs of pencils scattered everywhere
tepees of pens
cliffs of CD's
mugs of coffee and tea
half finished drafts
Time frozen on surface of such small proportions

Hypocrisy 2-14-13

This is a lovely poem written my the spectacular Maeve.

Hypocrisy 

My fingers are clean

And the scabs

Localized around my nail beds

Torn and flapping

Ripped apart by my teeth and nervous fingers

Are red, devoid of ink.

These hands once covered in blotches of blue

Red, black, charcoal

Not stiff anymore from holding pencils

My fingers are clean

And they seem to have grown longer

And paler, like reclusive spiders

Flexible white legs with highlights of blue

My veins show like sapphire filigree

Easier to reach the exclamation point

They say I can type 40 words per minute.

My eyes, I’ve noticed

Have begun to grow larger

I glanced in the mirror and saw the startled

Yet strangely confident

Look on my own face

I know where I am going

Those eyes seem to say

Luminescent, unfocused, bugged

Looking vacantly at a image

A screen that brings me the world

A world I care little about

And even now my fingers

These overworked spiders fly across the keys

Typing out the words you read

And your eyes have started to gloss over

If I knew what to do

I would tell you

I would say, run away. Get off the computer

Learn to feel.

But I don’t put much stock

In hypocrisy.

Time 2-14-13

I know it's a bit delayed, but as you know the pope will be retired effective the end of the month I believe. As usual there's been a whole lot of meme's springing up about it. Simply sear "pope vs wind" and you will receive a photo montage of memes. When do people do this? What spare time do the have lying around? My robotics team has 5 days left to  finish a whole robot. Call me if you can figure out how to add time to a day. I could sure use some right now!

"As I recall, he has a particular proclivity for pyrotechnics." McGonagall
"I can bring it down!" - Seamus
"That's the spirit. Now away you go." - McGonagall

Special Days 2-13-13

Oh Valentines Day. It's tomorrow in case you are trying to push this date out of your mind. The frenzy of roses and flowers and random spurts of incredibly mushy forms of public displays of affection. I can't decide whether I am completely repulsed by this holiday or should just push it out of my mind. I actually think that some people fear this day. Why can't we as people, be equally caring and affectionate everyday of the year? Why is it just this day?  Or is this day around to help all the people in the world trying to propose to their significant others? I wonder how many marriages and or proposals actually occur on the 14th? In China on 8-8-08 8:08 there was a massive amount of weddings. I actually saw some pictures of mass weddings in giant courtyards in China. See, 8 is a really lucky number and no one wanted to pass up the opportunity. Dates are a curious ting. It seems like there is a holiday or anniversary for everything and on everyday of the year. For instance not long ago there was a National Pancake day. Why isn't that a bigger celebration? It's a party at IHOP, but that's obvious. Shouldn't we take pleasures in the smaller things too? Like eating pancakes with your friends?

Speaking of which, wouldn't it be absolutely perfect if we could have a thirteenth month? Then we could have 13-13-13. But then not everyone fears this date... or rather number...

Xinnian Kuai le 2-11-13

Are you Chinese? Do you speak Chinese? Can you do my math homework? Driving really isn't that hard. Oh I have a Chinese friend, do you know him? Why do Asians date other Asians. No, but really, where are you from? Your English is REALLY good. 

Above are all things not to say to an ABC also known as American Born Chinese. It irks us. I know sometimes it's an honest mistake about the race and the language, but the other ones are just minorly offensive. Just stop it. If you are interested in more things that Asians don't like hearing youtube it. But back to the main topic of what I was saying. Yesterday was the beginning of the year of the Snake. For those of you who don't know there is a totally different zodiac and calender system for the Asians. The story goes something like this:

There are several legends about how the animals were chosen for the Chinese zodiac. This is one of them. The Jade Emperor is the name of the Emperor of Heaven.

Long ago, in China, the Jade Emperor decided there should be a way of measuring time. On his birthday he told the animals that there was to be a swimming race. The first twelve animals across the fast flowing river would be the winners and they would each have a year of the zodiac named after them.

All the animals lined up along the river bank. The rat and the cat, who were good friends, were worried because they were poor swimmers. Being clever they asked the strong ox if he would carry them across the river.

'Of course' said the kind ox. 'Just climb on my back and I will take you across.'

The rat and the cat quickly jumped up and were very excited when the ox soon took the lead in the race. They had almost reached the other bank when the rat pushed the cat into the river leaving him to struggle in the water. Then just before the ox was about to win the race the rat leapt on his head and on to the bank to finish first.

'Well done,' said the Jade Emperor to the proud rat. 'The first year of the zodiac will be named after you.'

The poor ox had been tricked into second place and the second year of the zodiac was named after him. 

Shortly after the exhausted tiger clawed his way to the river bank to claim third place. Swimming across the river had been an enormous struggle for him against the strong currents. The Emperor was so delighted with his efforts that he named the third year after him.

Next to arrive was the rabbit, who hadn't swum across at all. He hopped across on some stepping stones and then found a floating log which carried him to the shore.

'I shall be very happy to call the fourth year after you,' the surprised Jade Emperor explained.

Just then a kind dragon swooped down to take fifth place.

'Why didn’t you win the race, as you can fly as well as swim?' the Jade Emperor asked.

'I was held up because some people and animals needed water to drink. I needed to make some rain,' the dragon explained. 'Then when I was nearly here I saw a poor little rabbit on a log in the water and I blew a puff of wind so that the log would float to the river bank.'

'Well that was very kind of you and now you are here you will have the fifth year of the zodiac named after you.' The next thing the Jade Emperor heard was the sound of the horse’s hooves. Just as he was thinking the horse would be the next animal to arrive, a sneaky snake wriggled out from around one of the horse’s hooves. The horse was so surprised that he jumped backwards giving the snake a chance to take the sixth place in the race. The poor horse had to be satisfied with seventh place.

Not long afterwards a raft arrived carrying the goat, the monkey and the rooster. They explained to the Emperor how they had shared the raft that the rooster had found. The goat and monkey had cleared weeds and pushed the raft to the shore. The Emperor was very pleased that the animals had worked together. He said the goat would be the eighth zodiac animal, the monkey the ninth and the rooster the tenth.

The next animal to finish was the dog.

'Why are you so late when you are one of the best swimmers?' asked the Jade Emperor.

'The water in the river was so clean that I had to have a bath on the way,' explained the dog.

His reward was to have the eleventh year named after him. Now there was one place left in the zodiac and the Emperor wondered when the last winner would come. He had nearly given up when he heard a grunt from the boar.

'You took a long time to cross the river,' said the Emperor to the boar.

'I was hungry and stopped to eat,' explained the boar. 'After the meal I felt so tired that I fell asleep.'

'You have still done well,' said the Jade Emperor. 'The last year of the zodiac will be named after you.'

As for the cat who had been pushed into the water by the rat, he finally crawled out of the water but was too late to have a year named after him. He felt very cross with the rat and since then cats have never been friends with rats.

From that day to this the Chinese Zodiac has followed this cycle of years named after these twelve animals.

There are so many variations of this story that you could spend years finding them. You can easily google what year you are in the zodiac. Just like the Western version there are personality traits that go along with each one. 


新年快乐!

Overuse of Words 2-7-13

Is it bad to have a love hate/relationship with a blog? Doe sit mean that I am too in tune with the social media. Its the Conserve School blog after all so I think it makes me sound more rational. Not some stranger's blog. They have over 2 feet of snow and I have short sleeves. Not complaining about the sunny days but shouldn't Georgia have a tiny bit of winter. I think the season is a myth here now. I used to hear these stories from my moms about "the blizzard." When there was actual snow and it was cold. There was slick ice that you could actually do damage with. Mother despises the term "back in the day." It's apparently over used in today's society. I don't notice it much bu them I suppose we all use "like" way too much. That's of course including myself.

But when you think about it aren't there some terms that are just used way too much? Awesome, adorable, like, and cool are just a couple to name. Not to worry I suffer from over use too. Listen to a typical conversation. Not one of those stereotypical ones that your brain imagines where there's a blonde girl who's really obnoxious and a truly unsavory creature. No I'm talking about your typical person. Think about how many times we use like in a conversation. Truely appalling don't you think? Why do we use like as a filler when we could use um or ahh? Like is a functional word whereas umm and ahh aren't! Words, words, glorious words. They feed thy soul!

Woolgathering - 1. indulgence of idle fancies and in daydreaming; absentmindedness.
                          2. gathering tufts of wool from a sheep

I personally prefer the first :)

Molly Rose Freeman 2-3-13

Grey walls are on my brain. I've been seeing some interesting things popping up on the streets of Atlanta. Apparently there's an art conference called Living Walls: The City Speaks. There's a mural in Kirkwood (a neighborhood in Atlanta) that I pass a lot.

It's names after comes from a poem called "The Souls Bright Anchor" written by the 2012 U.S. Poet Laureate and Atlanta native Natasha Trethewey. I can't find the poem that inspired these, but I learned that this particular one inspired by the vital organs in the human body because the neighborhood is "pulsing with life".

It turns out that these are all over the place!

The four pictures are of a mural in Asheville, North Carolina put together by the RITES organization: http://ashevilleritesproject.blogspot.com/

Charleston, South Carolina

Part of chART Outdoor Initiative

Miami, Florida 2012

Miami, Florida 2012

Cover the walls 2-3-13

This is a tunnel in London reserved just for graffiti. It's located on the south bank. Don't you think every wall should be full of feeling an expression? They can come alive and you can feel them breath. They can show pain and joy and they can dance and sing. Should there be more color on those dull, dead grey walls? Thanks for showing me these Maeve.

What's in a month 2-3-12

Has it snuck up on me already?
That short month.
The one preceding the first
Full of lesser days
Bounding with singing cards
Painted red and gold
pink hearts adorn the shops and stores
Brides, grooms, and flirts are everywhere
scenes of candles and rings
chocolate is on the minds of some
prickly roses of many colors
while Hallmark stacks their bills

The month of the year
spelling it took me years
The month of the year
that forgot my grandpa's birthday sometimes
The month of the year
when everyone forgets their new years resolutions
The month of the year
the one that comes after
the first