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Fire & Ice
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Politics, culture, and other oddities.
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Thursday, November 16, 2000
Today is one of those days I should have just not gotten out of bed. Unfortunately, I did, and I had one of those frumpy-grumpy days where you'd be hard-pressed to catch me at a moment when I wasn't annoyed, complaining, or moping. Be glad you didn't cross my path today. Be very glad.
There were, still, some high points of my day. For one, *gasp* math class. Shocking, I know. Calculus is hardly scintillating, especially for a right-brain girl like me, but today I could hardly stay in my chair as my inner (or not so inner) geek reared its lovable face. Essentially, the class was on topology (not to be confused with topography, the study of the Earth's surface). This was probably not the best thing to bring up in a blog, since it's almost impossible to explain in words, but this attempt should be an interesting experiment in abstract thinking! It was almost like a Ripley's Believe-it-or-Not type of thing. I'll try to give an example: If you take a strip of paper, loop it around & tape it, you get a ring, like a link in one of those paper chains. Cutting down the center of the strip of paper will then give you *surprise!* two skinny rings. Here's the geeky little "twist" (pun very intended): If you take a strip of paper, loop it around, then give it a half twist before taping it closed, you (of course) again get a ring, but this time with an awkward little half-twist in it. The fun part comes when you cut down the center of this ring, the one with the half-twist. Instead of getting two small rings, you get one large ring, all totally connected! It's the most bizarre thing. Why does it work? I have no idea. But I must admit this (along with other similar things) was much more exciting than your average calculus class. What does this have to do with calculus? Again, I am completely clueless. But it was cool. And I'm okay with admitting that calculus class was cool today. Let them laugh!
The other high point came in anticipation of my school's upcoming "Senior Options." (Footnote: I'm a senior in high school.) For five weeks at the end of the school year, we get to work on whatever sort of project we devise instead of going to classes. The "project" can be a variation on an independent study, an internship, or anything in between. People in the past have traveled to Scotland and stayed in a monestary, studied the physics of pool, worked for dot-coms, worked on congressional campaigns... one guy even built a boat. The possiblities are, in every sense of the cliche, practically endless. The problem for me isn't "What do I do?", but, rather, "What don't I do?" There are too many things I'm interested in and only 5 weeks (or a lifetime, depending on how you look at it) to occupy. Ay, me. We'll see where this goes. It really has the potential to be so memorable and educational -- I want to seize this opportunity!
Anyway. Hopefully, I'll be in better spirits tomorrow. Tomorrow's Friday. YES.
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