High School Memories
High School memories
you’re dangerous cause your honest
you’re dangerous, you don’t know what you want
you left my heart empty as a vacant lot for any spirit to haunt
you’re an accident waiting to happen
you’re a piece of glass left on the beach
you tell me things I know you’re not supposed to
then you leave me just out of reach
I remember the day this album came out. U2, Achtung Baby. I remember because I had just made a new friend, and she bought the CD the day it came out. We were making a movie for a grade 12 English project; her house was right across from the school, so we used it as a set. There were about 10 of us, one camera. We couldn’t all make the movie. So most of us just hung around. I didn’t know anything about U2 when this album came out. But my new friend (I can’t remember her name, but I remember her face, and her hair…she had red hair) was so excited about it, so I pretended I understood. But I really did like the album eventually…I listened to it sometimes on the way to the library, or walking around on the canal in Ottawa when I was at Carleton. Why don’t have listen to this anymore? I just downloaded a couple of songs off it because something somewhere reminded me of the song ‘One’, reminding me of how much I like that song. Ah, the memories…
The one I just transcribed of course is ‘Who’s gonna ride your wild horses’, a song I totally didn’t understand in high school, but I completely get now.
Whole
Most of us like to think we are consistent, intact and solid wholes. We’re comfortable seeing ourselves as either simple or complex, but not as being in conflict with ourselves. Perhaps that makes us like the world around us full of uncertainty, confusion, and conflict in a society where certainty, decisiveness, and resolution are valued terms and anything less is perceived as weakness.
from NetAuthor’s E2K
Joy
My adviser and the assistant chair of the history department stopped in to ask me if I was needing a little extra cash. I asked him what he had in mind. (You never know with these assistant chairs, after all.) Turns out he wants someone to work on the department pages…he wants a series of information about a dozen or so different classes to go online. All text, he says. Apparently someone somewhere is working on a template for these, and that almost made me cringe, since you know there’s nothing I like better than making a template for a webpage. But he wanted to know if I could do it, and aside from the fact that I’m not sure how the department server works, and how I would ftp stuff to them, I jumped at the chance. I think that’s outrageously great. I can html any ole thing you like. 🙂 So, my little dalliance with the world of the web pays off all over the place…
God, I feel great today. I mean, I can’t even explain it. I just do. I work up feeling great, and I think I went to bed at close to 4am. But I woke up at 8am absolutely overflowing with joy. And then I let myself sleep in a bit, figuring I’d need to after all that, but I would wake up every fifteen minutes feeling like I’d just had another wonderful night’s sleep.
I did manage to steal a coat from home while I was in Guelph this weekend; a blue LL Bean coat that my sister probably picked up at Value Village. (Do you mind, Melissa?) It’s really nice, and I’m liking it more as I wear it around. I also picked up a pink scarf to go with it. Thank God, because no doubt it will get colder shortly…
Ah, what a love in…it’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks, and I’m still busy, but now I’m joyous and busy.
Does This Look Like Me?
I asked them to make me look a LITTLE less morose, and they took me really seriously. I’m just a TOUCH less morose than the original. Perhaps they’re just catching me as I look up. Maybe. Am I cute? I look like a geekazoid.
The Faithful
Remember to put out the garbage, pick up the dry cleaning, defrost the pork chops (the ground beef, the chicken thighs, the fillet of sole). Remember to feed the dog (the cat, the hamster, the goldfish, the canary). Remember the first smile, the first step, the first crush, the first kiss. Remember the bright morning, the long hot afternoon, the quiet evening, the soft bed, gentle rain in the night. Also remember the pain, the disappointments, the humiliations, the broken hearts, and an eclectic assortments of other sorrows. Take these tragedies in stride and with dignity. Do not tear your hair out. Forgive and forget and get on with it. The faithful look back fondly.
They are only passingly familiar with shame, guilt, torment, chaos, existentialism, and metaphysics. The consciences of the faithful are clear. They are not the ones spending millions of dollars on self-help books and exercise videos. They know they’ve done the best they could. If and when the faithful make mistakes, they know how to forgive themselves without requiring years of expensive therapy in the process.
In the summer, remember the winter; snow sparkling in clear sunlight, children in puffy snowsuits building snowmen and sucking icicles. Remember hockey rinks, rosy cheeks, Christmas carols, wool socks, and hot chocolate with marshmellows. In the winter, remember the summer: tidy green grass beneath big blue sky, long-limbed children playing hide-and-go-seek and running through sprinklers. Remember barbecues, sailboats, flowers, strawberries, and pink lemonade. The faithful can always find something to look forward to. The faithful never confuse the future with the past.
Diane Shoemperlen, Forms of Devotion
Oh Dear
For the record:
1) Catsy finds holes in achieve for a living. A minor living, but a living. The fact that she is so good at this has helped us to make Achieve stronger, better, and safer. I personally have lots of important stuff on Achieve, and a malicious hack would be disasterous for me.
2) Catsy has long been capable of hacking my wiz bit. One day, while trying to work out some of these ins and outs, I told her to hack my char and she did it in 15 seconds. But not one second before I asked her to. She won’t try anything without explicit permission, and I feel absolutely sure about this point.
3) She did NOT hack someone else’s MOO. She hacked ours. First she tried to get my wiz char to churn out a wiz bit for her, and then she tried it on Rhonna. Both of us were online at the time, and both of us gave our permission. The hack worked. Catsy’s first act as a wiz was to unset her own wizbit.
4) We realize this hack program compromises ALL the encore MOOs. that’s why we gave a heads up, and that’s why we’re working on patching it. It’s not the only hole, those all of them are fairly complex. Catsy will no doubt find them, and as this happens, we will continue to give heads up about them. And we’re commited to helping to fix them all.
5) I’m utterly saddened that Catspaw is being painted as a cracker, when in reality she is going to help all of us create better MOOs. MOOs do best when lots of eyes are looking at them and lots of hands writing code. The EnCore group is an interesting and dynamic bunch. We can continue to be so. I hope we do.
Let’s Talk about Online Communities
It all starts with a girl who tried to kill herself on her webcam. This particular page is NOT flattering to the poor girl, and I don’t particularly agree with the ‘reviewer’. But his collection of comments is interesting.
She writes:i’ve been in love twice. both times i’ve been told at the end that i was not enough.
this is it. i’m not going to do it again. i’m in a world where people aren’t even kind to each other. i think it’s just time to check out. i’m not worth loving even when i try with all my might to be someone else. even when i say, “i would give you anything. i love you so much.” This is the point when she decides to give the suicide thing a shot. Which I think we can all understand. What’s different, of course, is that she decides to do this while her webcam is running. What results:
This is familiar territory to most of us, I’d say, if not something we’ve experienced ourselves, something we’ve considered, or something we’ve watched others experience or consider. The only difference here is that we get to see pictures, we, strangers, get to watch. Now, where things start to get interesting is in the comments. Here’s a few:
If anyone knows Stacy’s mailing address or how to get ahold of Glenn, please call 911 or Glenn. Stacy has taken pills and is lying on her bathroom floor!!
I called the Brooklyn Police Department a few minutes ago. I don’t have her address, but I gave them her phone number.
oh my stacy! You dont want to do this. I know you are going through one hell of a time right now.. but NOBODY is worth taking your life for.
I just said a prayer for you.
Please hang on
She did make it to a hospital, and when she came out, she was a lot more lucid. Her take:this is not interesting. trust me. not only is it not interesting, it’s over, finished, kaput. never again will i drink activated charcoal and have it pumped out of my stomach via my nostrils. not for love, money, sex, sex toys, cats (okay, maybe cats), ex-husbands, current husbands (if i were living on a planet where THAT might ever happen again) or even for skinny beautiful sexy geeky boyfriends no matter how much i love them or obsess over them or whatever you want to call it. nope, nope, nope. nope. not gonna happen. so this is it: this is as close to the news-of-the-week as you’re gonna get from me. now let’s talk about flower arranging or something.
The fact that this is all documented online is what’s so cool. A process that used to be so private is now so public. This is very much the same and the precise opposite of Kaycee Nicole.
Piece of History
I’m looking at a page of a Huron-French dictonary, evidence that the French, unlike the Spanish, tried to get to know the people they were trying to convert. Marie de l’Incarnation tried to learn it (I think it was Huron) but she said it was like stones rattling around in her brain.
Net Library
This is interesting. Will be useful, I think. Maybe. Strange, but useful.
Making Evil Look Innocent
Here we go again.
Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged: Making Evil Look Innocent
Millions of American schoolchildren have a new subject in school: witchcraft!Through the Harry Potter series, the ancient occult religion of Wicca is being introduced in almost every public school in America. This video explains how Scholastic Inc., the largest publisher of children’s books in the world, is supplying Harry Potter materials to millions of schoolchildren. Scholastic Inc. is using its unrivaled position in the educational system to flood classrooms and libraries with witchcraft, repackaged as “children’s fantasy literature.” Teachers are encouraged to read the Harry Potter books aloud in class, and millions of children are being densensitized to the dangers of the occult spirit world.
Some books I need to know this week
Harris, Cole. Vol. 1. Historical atlas of Canada.
Ray, A. Indians and the fur trade.
Nash, G. Red, White, and Black
Salisbury, N. Mantiou and Providence
Cronon, Changes in the land
Lafitau, The customs of the Indians of North America
Sayer, Gordon. Les sauvages Americains.
De Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies
Seed, V. Ceremonies of Possession.
Eisenbichler, Konrad, Jacqueline Murray. Desire and Discipline
Riddle, John M. Eve’s Herbs: A history of contraception in the West
Wood, Diana M. The Church and Childhood
Protected: Celebrity Chat Transcripts
Crazy Salad
Quote of the moment
It’s certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Protected: One of Those Days
Forms of Devotion
The faithful are everywhere. See if can spot them: in the bank lineup on Friday afternoon, at McDonald’s having hamburgers and chocolate milkshakes with their children, in the park walking the dog at seven o’clock on a January morning, at the hardware store shopping for a socket wrench and a rake. The faith may be right in your own backyard.
The faithful are thankful for small pleasures and small mercies.
The faithful are earnest.
The faithful are easily amused.
The faithful do or do not know how lucky they are.
The faithful frequently cry at parades.
The faithful are not afraid of the dark because they have seen the light.Nothing is lost on the faithful. As far as they are concerned, wonders will never cease. The faithful are convinced that they best is yet to come.
Concerning matters both big and small, the faithful have always got hope. Their whole lives are forms of perpetual devotion to the promise which hope extends. The faithful breathe hope like air, drink it like water, eat it like popcorn. Once they start, they can’t stop.
Hope for world peace. Hope for a drop in the crime rate, shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, rehabilitation for the deranged. Hope your son does well on his spelling test. Hope your team wins the World Series. Hope your mother does not have cancer. Hope the pork chops are not undercooked. Hope your best friend’s husband is not having an affair with his secretary. Hope you win the lottery. Hope the rain stops tomorrow. Hope this story has a happy ending.
The hope of the faithful is infinite, ever expanding to fill the space available. Faith begets hope. Hope begets faith. Faith and hope beget power.
The faithful lean steadily into the wind.
–Diane Schoemperlen, Forms of Devotion
First Picture from Mars
Well, we got our first picture from Mars, and here it is:
Are you disappointed? I am. This looks like photoshop to me. Dammit. Nice to know that Mars has the same pretty colours that we have. Feh. Boring.