Tomato Soup

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Friday, January 30, 2004

I think it finally stopped snowing.
Not that I disapprove of snow—actually, it's been fairly magnificent this week. (I put on my boots before I go to class, then tromp gleefully across the snow instead of sticking to the paths.) However, it did sort of get in the way of me driving into town yesterday to pick up my new prescription.

The inner ear Thing is back. (Oh, what joy!) I got some samples on Tuesday, but they ran out so I had to get a real prescription, and I couldn't pick it up because it was really yucky...I shall have to go after class today. I did figure out that the active ingredient in Antivert (marvelous stuff—it lasts for nearly seven and a half hours), meclizine hydrochloride (take that, Google ads!) is the exact same stuff that's in Dramamine II. Perhaps, if I am really lucky, that means that I won't have to spend the entire morning/early afternoon feeling ill.

So, here is my schedule:
10:10 - Guitar lesson.
11:10 - Thermodynamics.
12 - 1 - Physics lunch.
1:10 - French.
2:00 - Drive into town and get prescription.
6:00 - Be at chapel ready to go to retreat.

I am still trying to figure out how to handle my guitar. It's going to be a very long day if I have to lug that big, heavy thing all over campus. (Well, okay, all over this end of campus.) If I drop it off in my room before lunch (note: my room being very much out of the way), I won't make it to the dining hall until ten or fifteen minutes after the hour, and it's almost impossible to get food at that late point. What I'm hoping is that I'll be able to leave it in my professor's office, but that depends on my being able to get it out again afterwards. :\ I am not simply leaving it in the physics library—too many people have access to that room and there have been too many petty thefts. (My guitar is not inexpensive. It is worth stealing.)

Oh, and I have to make morning prayer copies. Mustn't forget those...and, considering the fact that I won't step foot in my room (or actually stop moving) for the next four hours, I should really be getting dressed and packing up my books and such.
Sarah - 9:48 AM - 0 comment(s)

Thursday, January 22, 2004

I have all sorts of interesting things to report.
But I am feeling tired and lethargic and cannot be bothered to actually write about any of them. :P

I got the astronomy job, which is something else to talk to people in the physics building about tomorrow. This also makes me think that becoming too tired to function by ten o'clock is not going to be a workable option. I also need to find out what I do next concerning my senior talk thing (I picked a topic—something to do with computer generation of musical sounds—but I'm wondering how the advisor thing works there, since my advisor will be out of town the week before my talk). And yes, "talk thing" is the technical term.

I bought books and milk and cheese yesterday afternoon (in that order). It was pretty cool, actually: the little bookstore in town had exactly what I wanted. (I got the whole Belgariad set very cheaply at the used bookstore in Yellow Springs, mostly because they did have all five and it was too tempting. Note: They are original paperback editions, one of which sold for approximately $2.50 in 1982. Think about book prices today and do the math...not exactly on par with inflation, is it? Uhm, anyway, I was going to borrow the second five from my brother, but he lent out the first two so I had to buy them because by that point it was too late to change my mind.)

The dining hall has a decaf coffee machine. Heaven.

Tomorrow, in French, we're going to attack our first song/poem ("attack" was what the professor literally said). I am actualy really looking forward to that, but it's going to be a busy day. (Class-physics lunch-class-hour free to call contact at synod office-physics talk-bells-dinner-stuff. Where "stuff" means "do nothing all evening, but behave as if we might possibly do something instead".) It has occurred to me that I really oughtn't to wait until tomorrow morning to finish my French homework, under the circumstances. ::sigh::
Sarah - 9:57 PM - 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Fun with Provençal dialects!
Or not. This French class I'm taking is looking to be quite a challenge (oh, goody, I needed more of those). What really drives me crazy is that it looks like I should be able to understand it, but it's even worse than trying to read Italian or Spanish.

We had the first class for the scientific computing seminar this morning. Pretty much the only content we went over was basics that I already know, but it's going to start getting very challenging very quickly, because we're working on a problem that will stretch the limits of our computing power, and I haven't written C++ in two years.

Halfway through I got a headache (I don't know if was tension or because I didn't take my allergy medicine), so I spent the afternoon warping my loom. (Come to think of it, that wasn't a very reasonable thing to do.) It took a very, very long time, mostly because the string became hopelessly tangled and I think I spent about two hours sorting it out.

Meanwhile, the PCS is swamped with visitors because they've got the search offline and they're sending people our way. I appreciate the thoughtfulness, but I would appreciate it more if the people who came to visit would actually read our rules. (Most of them do, it's just that when there are 120 people visiting at once, the small percentages that don't pay attention really start to add up.)
Sarah - 9:14 PM - 0 comment(s)

Saturday, January 17, 2004

Fun at the grocery store.
So, we're at Kroger (which is unusual, because I never get up that early), and there is an elderly gentleman behind us in line in one of those cool little motorized carts. He asks if Salli and I are twins (people do that) and theorizes that I am the older one (I love that), so I helped him to get his groceries out of the cart (I have no idea how one is meant to do that in one of those things—they are too close to the ground for that).

It turns out he was the former pastor of the Lutheran church down the street, who also happens coincidentally to have been a former air force engineer. How cool is that? It's the first time I've actually met someone with my rather peculiar combination of interests. (I mean, there's apparently a very old tradition of physics majors from my school going to seminary—as in there was one in the 40's or something.) And he also told me that he is partial to Southern. I feel like maybe God is trying to tell me something. (Gee, do you think?)

So far, my pastor at school tells me that all of his seminary professors have "retired" to Southern, my father says it has the best reputation, the pastor I talked to on Tuesday used to work there and highly recommends it (he informed me that he was going to try to talk to me about it before he even knew I was already interested), and then I meet Pastor Glaesner randomly in line at the supermarket and he mentions the place. Furthermore, just a few weeks before I realized that there was a seminary in Columbia, I was looking for excuses to visit South Carolina. Not to mention the fact that I have family in the area and I haven't been down there in ages, so I really ought to visit anyway. (I've even got a great-aunt in North Carolina?who I may or may not have ever met—who has apparently been pastor of her own "non-denominational" congregation for years. I really want to talk to her about women in the ministry, because I'm pretty sure it's something she has dealt with, and in a more conservative political climate than today's.) Coincidence?

Also, it's snowing.
Sarah - 11:27 AM - 0 comment(s)

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Character post! (Okay, not really.)
This is Alania of Darea. She's been Queen since her parents died, so she doesn't normally look this relaxed (I wish I were that relaxed). She has, however, trained her government to function without her (the monarchs of the Seven Kingdoms have made every single decision there was to make for as long as anybody can remember, so having a Council with any authority at all is quite revolutionary and modern), which is occasionally quite convenient.

Considering that this particular storyline has so far been cursed with regards to the dolls I've been able to produce for it, I'm quite pleased with this one.

I finished The Physics Book yesterday. This afternoon, I took one of the practice tests. I am now fairly confident in my ability to at least score a 790 (out of a max 800—if you remember from high school, it's in ten point increments) on the physics SAT II, which is a rather good thing, considering that it's a high school test and I'm (hopefully) about to graduate with a bachelor's degree. Now I have to work on that nagging sense of guilt that lingers even though I know I have six weeks to deal with this thing.

The only thing I really need to do right now is online stuff (e.g. work on doll contests—I am so taking a break next), so I should probably get to that sooner or later. Oh, and I also need to deposit some checks, find my credit card bill so I can pay it, go grocery shopping (so I will have something in the cupboard—okay, actually, it all goes in my closet—for next week), and do one more load of laundry, not to mention clean up my room and watch two more episodes of FarScape.

Oh, and arrange three appointments for interviews and psych testing (I HATE making phone calls), email my camp employer (for references), sort out where I'm applying, and write that blasted candidacy essay. YEARRGGHHHH!
Sarah - 10:09 PM - 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

I only have one chapter left in the physics book.
Of course, it's the chapter on "modern physics", which is really a rather broad topic. It seems to be mostly special relativity and atomic phyisics—I really need to brush up on relativity but every other lab last semester was on atomic physics, so I should be pretty well set for that. Then I am going to take one of the practice tests, and then I am going to stop studying physics.

I checked the dates (finally) for all this stuff. The test is the last Saturday in February, which means that I have six weeks, which means that I ought to be in really good shape to start with a study group when I get back to campus. (I seem to have gotten a bit overly worked up about how "little" time I have, but it's not a waste, because I'll be able to study with my classmates without making a total fool of myself. I have a much harder time remembering stuff from previous classes than some of my classmates.)

I really need to check my school email. Sheesh. (Crap, I hope I can remember my password. I had to change it right before we left for break.)

Anyway, as soon as we return, there will be a box of articles for us to pick through. Each of us has to choose a different topic for our talks, so the sooner I get in there, the better. (Still, I don't know of anyone else with any particular interest in acoustics, so I'm not too concerned.) The talks start on Fridays after spring break—the dates will be randomly assigned to us.

I talked with the previous intern from my home church over lunch. Apparently, trying to go through my church at school is very weird—my situation makes this complicated, though, because we have been between pastors for a while. Anyway, he told me a bit about some of the ELCA seminaries. I have to admit that Southern keeps looking better and better—I even checked online today and found out that they have internet access in their dorms! Yay! (It's almost a given today...but only almost, and it's not entirely a matter of convenience, since I like my internet job and I'm going to really need those paychecks.)

Yikes. 1003 new messages. Excuse me. I have work to do. :P
Sarah - 9:11 PM - 0 comment(s)

Saturday, January 10, 2004

Thank you all very much!
I love you all! Yay!

Well, the good news is that the PMS is over. (And yes, it was PMS.) I still feel kind of tense, probably because break is grinding to a close and I find myself having way too much to do.

I am on page 243 in the physics book today. Of course, I'm getting into the harder material, the sort where I will have to go back later and look up the calculus versions of everything. (And three chapters is a bit much for one day. My head gets kind of fuzzy.)

I am taking my loom in to my mother's class on Monday (they have a book that is related, apparently, and besides, it's pattern skills-related), which means that I have to get it warped by then. I only just managed to sley the reed, and then I had to start adjusting the harnesses because they are all a little low and I think that's part of why the tension was so bad the last time I did this. Anyway, I have to finish that tomorrow. I also have to watch three more FarScape episodes from the DVD collection we rented last week (I thought there were only five). I really enjoy that show—Salli insists that she can't stand any of the characters and it really isn't very good, but I find it generally entertaining (but not obsessive-inducing, so it's relaxing), and it has a special place in my heart, probably having to do with that first night by myself in Montréal when I discovered the science fiction channel.

Wow, that was a really long sentence. I am rambling because I am tired and I want to go to bed. (Recall that part of my Big Tension Relief Plan is to get to bed at a reasonable time.) I cannot go to bed, however, because I am waiting for my pajamas to dry. They are not dry because I left them just starting in the dryer before we left for the theater.

We have seen three movies the past three nights. I think my dad is trying to make up for lost time. First Salli and I saw The Last Samurai (after I pestered her every night for a week). Verdict: Good, but what the heck was up with the tactics of that last battle? Everyone I know has already seen this one. Last night we saw Big Fish (not my idea). Verdict: Nice. It's about stories, really, which means that I approve in a general sort of way, but as Salli says, they don't ever really engage you in the story properly. See it if you like Ewan McGregor.

Tonight we saw Calendar Girls, which you should definitely see. Remarkably—considering that it's about a bunch of older women who pose for a nude calendar—it manages not to be at all about sex, and to be funny in ways that I can actually enjoy.

I redid my old Reyl doll for Salli's "Before and After" contest. I kind of like her again now. I've fine-tuned my faces for smaller dolls a bit, and I really like the results.

Only ten minutes. Darn it. Uhmmm....check out my blinkie tutorial. If it's not clear enough, please let me know. Blinkies are really easy, and you can make really good ones with just MSPaint and the itty-bitty freeware program Unfreez, so anybody who wants to make them should be able to. :)
Sarah - 11:51 PM - 0 comment(s)

Friday, January 09, 2004

PMS sucks.
At least, I think this is PMS. I'm feeling unusually depressive. I really can't tell the difference between PMS-induced depressiveness and the regular kind, except by observing outside evidence, usually having to do with where Salli is (right now we're in sync with her a little ahead) and whether I can actually remember when the last time was (if I can't remember, it's about time).

Anyway, in furtherance of my theory that the only thing to be done about PMS is to do things to make me feel better, I want everyone who reads my blog to stop everything and assure me that you are not ever intending to disappear off the face of the internet in the foreseeable future. This will make me feel better. I am feeling very emotionally tired and in need of reassurance at the moment.

Studying physics doesn't help. I am on page 185 in my book. There are about 377 pages, before the practice tests. If I can keep up the rate of two chapters a day, I might be done by the middle of next week. If I really put my nose to the grindstone and do nothing but study physics tomorrow, I might get whole day off. The trouble is that I can't just sit down and do it all at once, because I have to stop periodically to keep my mind clear, or else it's pointless.


I am now going to ignore anything and everything of substance, because I am tired, I have been studying physics all week, and my brain can't take it anymore.
Sarah - 11:07 PM - 0 comment(s)

Monday, January 05, 2004

The Saga of Sarah and the Internet
We shall consider this part of my discernment process. The more than I think about it, the more that I think that is seriously true. My relationship with the internet—I don't capitalize it, we're on a first-name basis ;)—is complex and a key part of shaping who I am today and who I am going to be. That's not really a socially acceptable thing to admit to (kind of like my equivalent to Mir's chickens), but the truth behind it is that the internet, to me, is only a mask, an illusion spun of electrical signals and silicon processors. Behind that mask, there are people, real human beings, and that is the real power source.

That's very nicely metaphorical, I suppose, if a bit disorganized. But where the story really starts is sometime in very early March, 2001.

I used to refer to those two weeks as "The Spring Break from HELL", though I have long had other theories about its origins. It was, in a word, miserable. We spent the entire time waiting for my grandmother to die, then going to memorial services and driving to North Carolina for even more. In the midst of that, I had a sinus infection and I saw my doctor about "carpal tunnel", which resulted in a referral to a specialist and then to a physical therapist, who had me do things that had no immediate effect except to send excruciating pain lancing through my neck, shoulders, and arms (and these were supposed to be good signs). I was also extremely nervous about my approaching interview (which I bombed, for good reason).

The only good thing about those two weeks (aside from the fact that they eventually ended) was a little email I got from the good people at ezboard. I had been volunteering some help (acting on the theory that I could help people with stupid mistakes because I had made them all myself), but I was one of the relative newcomers. When they offered me a job, I didn't know how to react. I was the youngest of the initial moderators, barely nineteen, and I had been around for months and months less time that any of the others. (I also had to enlist my parents—who had never heard of "ezboard" and did not really have a clue what I was talking about—in order to send and receive faxes.)

The first thing that needs to be clear is this: other people have sort of a nebulous, insubstantial idea of the internet. Mine is very closely tied to reality by way of nearly three years of little blue pieces of paper with my name on them. They send me Christmas cards, too. I've never met them, but I take ezboard just as seriously as my camp employers here in Ohio (actually, ezboard pays better).

Those first few months on the job did wonders for my self-confidence (which had previous reached near-negative levels). Something rather substantial changed between that first disastrous interview in March and the wildly successful inverview with the day camp folks in June. If it weren't for my work with ezboard, I would not have gotten to that job. (And considering what an impact those three summers have had on my life, I am profoundly grateful.)

The novelty and the thrill wear off rather quickly. It's a job. It gets boring. It isn't glamorous. People seldom say "thank you" and occasionally they hate you for no apparent reason. You develop a thick skin and a tendancy to speak with the authority you have got to wield if you want to be able to get the job done. The tedium and the random attacks have also shaped my perceptions of the internet.

It is, however, primarily a people-oriented job. The minute you forget that, you get in trouble. You have to conciously force yourself to think, not of users, but of the people on the other side of the digital mask. The ones that are really impossible might be seventy-year-old grandmothers getting on the computer to talk to their grandkids, and the ones that hate you are probably insecure thirteen-year-old boys. People are used to bad customer support, usually the type that gives generic replies of no relevance to the problem, and if you start giving out answers without a trace of humanity, they will sense that instantly. You have to be professional, you have to be human, and you have to remember at all times the person you are working with.

When I went to Montréal last winter, I was very concerned about whether I would be able to get internet access. I wasn't terribly afraid that I wouldn't be able to play neopets (although that is probably the thing I should kill in order to save myself some serious wasted time). I didn't want to lose my job, not so much because I didn't want to lose the income (although that became increasingly important as it pretty much paid for my food and shelter) as because I didn't want to lose the relationship with my co-workers. (We've been through some pretty rough times together, and there is a community there, even when we are all tired and disgusted and sniping at each other.) I needed their support, and I also needed the support of all of my friends from my various other message boards. The blog was a revelation—I used to spend whole days thinking "oh, I need to tell so-and-so about that", but I never could, until then. I was terribly isolated, living so far from campus. I needed to interact with people.

When I go to camp, there is definitely more than enough going on to keep me busy. When you are at camp, your entire world has to be camp. The staff are your best friends, your support group, and the campers are the focus of your entire existence. I miss the internet, though—not the thing itself, the technology, but the people.

The internet is a tool. It's a marvelously powerful thing, and it has the potential for great harm. People are afraid of it when that is all that they see. It is, you see, a lot like "real life": you can get in trouble if you walk in the wrong neighborhoods, which is why people don't walk in the wrong neighborhoods and few people let their eight-year-olds walk downtown alone. (And your information is probaby a lot safer on the internet than your purse is on the subway in New York City.)

People forget that computers are not magic. They can only do what some human being has programmed them to do. All that the internet does is facilitate communication between computers—and the computers are nothing without the people behind them.

Maybe the person on the other side of the mask is pretending to be younger or older or a different gender. I've known people who have done each of these things, and I say, so what? It's not really deceitful—it's a giant masquerade ball, where all of the revelers are on equal footing. The remarkable thing about this mask is that you craft it yourself. Like an artist's self-portrait or a person's handwriting, it is unique to you, and who is to say that it reveals less about you that your physical body or the bare facts of your "real" life? A person's "online" persona is a subtle, supremely human work of art, sometimes impersonal and sometimes curiously intimate, and always evolving.

I was going somewhere with this, I really was, but I got lost in the imagery.

Sarah - 7:23 PM - 0 comment(s)

Friday, January 02, 2004

Yay.
We went to see Cold Mountain, the Nicole Kidman/Jude Law movie set in North Carolina and filmed in Romania (go figure). I would tell you all about it, except I can't do that without giving away Major Plot Points (not that any of them would come as a surprise to anyone), and we can't have that. You might actually want to see the movie, after all—it's pretty, or so I am told, especially if you like watching one or both of the stars.

There was something else (completely unrelated) that I desperately needed to say, but I totally forgot what it was.

I think I'll go to bed early.
Sarah - 11:09 PM - 0 comment(s)

I had better get started...
...or else I shall never get anywhere at all. Falling behind in my blogging is not a happy thing!

My head hurt so badly on...uhm...I dunno, Tuesday, or something, that my mother went and called the people at this health spa downtown (yes, fellow Springfielders, I meant to say "downtown") and they had an opening half an hour later so I went and got my one-hour Swedish massage. Oh. My. Goodness. It didn't really help the headache, but she recommended this place in Xenia that apparently does homeopathic stuff and there's a doctor there who she thinks could help me.

It was bad enough that I came home and sat down and looked up relaxation techniques on the internet, and now I have a plan, of sorts. It involves cutting back on caffeine and going to bed on time and stretching out my muscles a bit every now and then, among other things.

On New Year's Eve, we went to church (because it was a Wednesday night) and afterwards there were games, which were not supposed to go very late, but we started playing Trivial Pursuit. We quit a bit before 11 p.m. Sheesh. We played partners, and mine was Kat's mother. (I swear, I don't do these things on purpose.) We spent the first hour hovering over the green pie space (it's sports, our nemesis), and there was much rejoicing when we finally got it on a baseball question. Then, of course, we spent the rest of the game hovering over the orange pie space and never landing on it. (That's Trivial Pursuit for you.) We came back home and had baked brie and (very small amounts of) bot mulled wine, and then I went to sleep.

Salli has been closeted in her room reading and won't even watch bad television with me. It's very sad. We did go to this massive grocery store on the other side of Dayton that has lots of organic/natural/specialty products. I got some more Burt's Bees stuff, so now my collection is almost complete!

I finally heard back from the guy at the synod office today, and apparently he's got to talk to the committee about me on Monday. I'm trying to do this whole candidacy in a way that is slightly irregular, since my home church is between pastors and I really know the pastor at the church I attend much better than the interim at home. (I also have some reservations about the ability of the council at my home church to really assess my call or lack thereof objectively. They still think of me as the high school kid whose parents they all know—they don't really have any experience with me as an adult.)

So, I appear to be proceding with this whole crazy thing. (I still think it's crazy, or maybe I just say that to convince myself that I retain some shred of sanity.) For those of you with any concerns, you should be aware that the Lutheran understanding of a call to rostered ministry (which does not necessarily mean ordained ministry) is both a personal and a community experience. It has to be examined and endorsed by any number of people who are not me. Now, even if only about half of the people involved are taking this seriously (let's be conservative and cynical, shall we?), I figure that they are praying about this, and someone somewhere ought to get an inkling if this is horribly wrong. I just hope that I don't screw up my part!

Anyway, I have to write a five-page essay in which I cover basically my entire faith story and every single fact that could conceivably be of any relevance. So expect a lot of rambling reflection while I try to get my thoughts in order, and also a lot of complaining. (Because, really, my whole life in five pages? What were they thinking? Is this their way of weeding out people who are liable to always give really long sermons? ;)
Sarah - 6:47 PM - 0 comment(s)

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Archive (leftovers)

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