Friday, November 18, 2005
Potter
That's right, I saw the new Harry Potter movie today, only 16 hours after it was released. I have never done such a thing before, but a lot of Mystic people are really into Harry Potter, so we all went together. It was a good movie. I have not read the fourth book, and that was what the movie was about, but it was a perfectly good movie without having seen the book.
This morning Jim lectured in Policy. It was really interesting.
Today Hilary made cranberry sauce for dinner. It was really delicious.
Yesterday afternoon I was doing science in preparation for meeting with Lisa, but I was not particularly occupied, so when Christie called and asked if we (Albion House) were busy, I said no, because none of us was actually busy. So we went over to Labaree House, because there was a --
Fashion Emergency!
I put this in bold and offset it because I don't have fashion emergencies, ever. So Christie needed someone to model W-M attire to go online so that people can order W-M apparel online. So, Albion House plus Ariel will soon be featured online, modeling vests, T-shirts, frisbees, jackets, etc. I will link it and then you will see the brilliance of this.
Last night was Ashley's night to cook and she didn't want to cook, so we considered getting takeout, but then we decided not to, so we drove to New London and had dinner at a Thai restaurant, because we have enough excess house money to do that sort of thing. This was the first time in my life that I have ever had an appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert at a restaurant. I had green tea ice cream for dessert. Mmmm, green tea ice cream. Everyone else had fried green tea ice cream with whipped cream. Whoa.
I hadn't gone running for three days. The last time I didn't go running for three days was on Cramer and immediately afterwards. It sure makes me antsy. My legs sort of ache in the sense that they want to be challenged and, essentially, they want to sprint. So I went running today, but it wasn't enough. Ronit showed me this article a while back where they bred mice to like to run, and then when they didn't get to run, they experienced the symptoms of withdrawal from addiction. See here, and an excerpt:
We took our class picture today, by the really big anchor by the church. It was probably a nice picture. We shall see. That's all for now. I'm going to bed early tonight.
This morning Jim lectured in Policy. It was really interesting.
Today Hilary made cranberry sauce for dinner. It was really delicious.
Yesterday afternoon I was doing science in preparation for meeting with Lisa, but I was not particularly occupied, so when Christie called and asked if we (Albion House) were busy, I said no, because none of us was actually busy. So we went over to Labaree House, because there was a --
Fashion Emergency!
I put this in bold and offset it because I don't have fashion emergencies, ever. So Christie needed someone to model W-M attire to go online so that people can order W-M apparel online. So, Albion House plus Ariel will soon be featured online, modeling vests, T-shirts, frisbees, jackets, etc. I will link it and then you will see the brilliance of this.
Last night was Ashley's night to cook and she didn't want to cook, so we considered getting takeout, but then we decided not to, so we drove to New London and had dinner at a Thai restaurant, because we have enough excess house money to do that sort of thing. This was the first time in my life that I have ever had an appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert at a restaurant. I had green tea ice cream for dessert. Mmmm, green tea ice cream. Everyone else had fried green tea ice cream with whipped cream. Whoa.
I hadn't gone running for three days. The last time I didn't go running for three days was on Cramer and immediately afterwards. It sure makes me antsy. My legs sort of ache in the sense that they want to be challenged and, essentially, they want to sprint. So I went running today, but it wasn't enough. Ronit showed me this article a while back where they bred mice to like to run, and then when they didn't get to run, they experienced the symptoms of withdrawal from addiction. See here, and an excerpt:
"All mice run on wheels, and, therefore, have a motivation to run," says Justin Rhodes, a postdoctoral fellow at Oregon Health & Science University who completed the study while a graduate student at UW-Madison. But he adds that the specially bred mice have a genetic predisposition to run longer distances. "They represent those few extreme individuals in the population with an intense desire or compulsion to run," he says.So, yeah. Withdrawal. I've never been addicted to anything else, obviously, but I am probably addicted to running. Well, there are certainly worse things to be addicted to.
On the seventh day, the researchers blocked half the mice in each group from the wheel while giving free access to the other half. "In the high-running mice, certain brain regions displayed extremely high levels of activity, more than normal," says Rhodes. "These were the same brain regions that become activated when you prevent rats from getting their daily fix of cocaine, morphine, alcohol or nicotine."
We took our class picture today, by the really big anchor by the church. It was probably a nice picture. We shall see. That's all for now. I'm going to bed early tonight.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
History
Today I was doing some last-minute research for my history paper, trying to find some instances where people asked after each other's health. This is all over the letters that I have been reading, so it should not have been difficult. But the collections that I was looking at were just business documents. This one did have correspondence, but it was all correspondence that the navy had sent to him on Navy Department stationery. I only found two letters the whole time, one where he explained to his dad what they were doing in China for five pages, and another one where he wrote to his mom to say his brother had died. So, it was pretty disappointing, since you only get the kind of thing I'm looking for with correspondence within a family.
Then again, he was also the captain of the U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides), and I was reading the letters he received and carefully saved. The Secretary of the Navy wrote him a letter, and signed off "your obedient servant."
We had the first day of motorboat class today. This guy that used to be the sailing instructor at the Coast Guard Academy is teaching us. Today we went over the parts of the boat once again, except that it was a motorboat this time, and for the last 20 minutes we got to drive the boat. The five skills kids were out rowing in the whaleboat. When they passed the first time, we were on the dock, so we just shouted and waved. They were rowing totally out of sync. When we finally got both motors started -- not that it took a long time, just that we had to very slowly get guided through the process -- we went out and Evan and I in our boat went in circles around the whaleboat. A few times. Matt was steering, and I don't think he was amused, but I think the skills kids enjoyed it. Right, Hilary? We made fun of them for having old technology. Evan laid down in the bow with his hands behind his head.
Valerie made delicious chowder for dinner.
Our heat is fixed now. My room was really warm last night and the rest of the house was cold, but now it's fixed so the whole house is pretty warm. Today it was warmer outside than in until they fixed the heat, but it was really warm outside. Now it's really windy and I hear it'll get cold tomorrow. That's all right. It's supposed to be November. At least, that's what I hear.
Then again, he was also the captain of the U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides), and I was reading the letters he received and carefully saved. The Secretary of the Navy wrote him a letter, and signed off "your obedient servant."
We had the first day of motorboat class today. This guy that used to be the sailing instructor at the Coast Guard Academy is teaching us. Today we went over the parts of the boat once again, except that it was a motorboat this time, and for the last 20 minutes we got to drive the boat. The five skills kids were out rowing in the whaleboat. When they passed the first time, we were on the dock, so we just shouted and waved. They were rowing totally out of sync. When we finally got both motors started -- not that it took a long time, just that we had to very slowly get guided through the process -- we went out and Evan and I in our boat went in circles around the whaleboat. A few times. Matt was steering, and I don't think he was amused, but I think the skills kids enjoyed it. Right, Hilary? We made fun of them for having old technology. Evan laid down in the bow with his hands behind his head.
Valerie made delicious chowder for dinner.
Our heat is fixed now. My room was really warm last night and the rest of the house was cold, but now it's fixed so the whole house is pretty warm. Today it was warmer outside than in until they fixed the heat, but it was really warm outside. Now it's really windy and I hear it'll get cold tomorrow. That's all right. It's supposed to be November. At least, that's what I hear.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Brilliant
I say that a lot -- "brilliant."
It's a really bad idea to run into exhibit boats. Then again, it's kind of cool to almost run into an America's Cup boat. "Oh, Brilliant."
Katy didn't like my policy paper. She wrote all over it and gave me bad ratings on the rubric. But I liked talking to the Deer Isle people, so it's all right. I'll make it much better in the final draft anyway.
We had dinner at Lisa's house tonight. We also prepared the bottles that we are going to release, with notes in them, to study currents. People who find them call (or write, or e-mail) us up and say where they found them and then we know where the current goes and how fast (at minimum) (think about it) it was going. She made us chowder and really good anadama bread.
I am glad my room has separate heat. The rest of the house is cold, but I can turn up my own personal baseboard and then I will be warm.
It was really warm today, 65 degrees. I went for a six-mile run, and actually experienced the symptoms of running in heat. When it's really hot and I go running, I get tired a lot sooner and my muscles hurt a lot more. It was only 65°, but it happened today. Weird. I did run all six miles, though, out 'n' back on the River Road.
Oh yeah. My mom brought key lime pies for the dessert table at the family day lunch. There was one left over, so we brought it home, because key lime pie is delicious. Then we were trying to figure out if there were nuts in the graham cracker crust. Ashley and I looked very closely at it and decided there weren't any. So she ate a piece of pie. Then I got two pieces of nut shell, and she found a bit of nut that had not been ground up so much. Luckily Ashley can just take a pill and then she won't go into anaphylactic shock, which is good because we didn't want to go to the hospital; we just wanted to eat pie. So now Ashley can't eat it. More for Valerie and me. (And Hilary, but she isn't as vocal about her fondness for the pie.)
"Do we have raisins?"But today I did something really brilliant. It was the last day of sailing, so they made me steer and do the main sheet, instead of squatting and doing the jib sheet, which is what I had been doing the other times. Now, I had not yet mastered the skill of switching hands when coming about by putting the tiller behind my back, because I had not done it much before. So the second time we came about, I let go of the tiller to switch hands with the sheet, and the tiller accordingly went all the way over and stayed there, and thus the boat continued to turn after we had tacked enough. And where did we head? Yup, straight towards the Brilliant. I grabbed the tiller and pushed it all the way in the opposite direction, and we missed the hull by less than six inches. That was really lucky, because I was going way too fast for the instructor to be able to stop us from hitting it.
"Yes."
"Ah, brilliant."
It's a really bad idea to run into exhibit boats. Then again, it's kind of cool to almost run into an America's Cup boat. "Oh, Brilliant."
Katy didn't like my policy paper. She wrote all over it and gave me bad ratings on the rubric. But I liked talking to the Deer Isle people, so it's all right. I'll make it much better in the final draft anyway.
We had dinner at Lisa's house tonight. We also prepared the bottles that we are going to release, with notes in them, to study currents. People who find them call (or write, or e-mail) us up and say where they found them and then we know where the current goes and how fast (at minimum) (think about it) it was going. She made us chowder and really good anadama bread.
I am glad my room has separate heat. The rest of the house is cold, but I can turn up my own personal baseboard and then I will be warm.
It was really warm today, 65 degrees. I went for a six-mile run, and actually experienced the symptoms of running in heat. When it's really hot and I go running, I get tired a lot sooner and my muscles hurt a lot more. It was only 65°, but it happened today. Weird. I did run all six miles, though, out 'n' back on the River Road.
Oh yeah. My mom brought key lime pies for the dessert table at the family day lunch. There was one left over, so we brought it home, because key lime pie is delicious. Then we were trying to figure out if there were nuts in the graham cracker crust. Ashley and I looked very closely at it and decided there weren't any. So she ate a piece of pie. Then I got two pieces of nut shell, and she found a bit of nut that had not been ground up so much. Luckily Ashley can just take a pill and then she won't go into anaphylactic shock, which is good because we didn't want to go to the hospital; we just wanted to eat pie. So now Ashley can't eat it. More for Valerie and me. (And Hilary, but she isn't as vocal about her fondness for the pie.)
