10/23

Brother Mart wrote. I made the double mistake of informing my parents of this before I left for class and then refusing to print it out for them till I got back. Erg.

Fred Savage gave me an A on my test. I say "gave" because I really hadn't read the chapter too well and I think it showed. In fact, he may have been mocking me with that A. Bastard.

In other wildly exciting news, next week's going to be a bitch and a half, with a midterm Tuesday and a presentation Wednesday. Both are critical because I screwed up the last midterm and the last presentation. Well, I thought I screwed up the essay test and I actually got an A so maybe I got an A on the last presentation too. In that case I'd happily swallow another shot of mockery, I mean, what's a little more? Please give me another A, I promise to earn the next one.

That whole class is a Six Degrees network. Aside from all those other people I've discovered have MHS roots or K-School tendrils, tonight I met a girl who used to work at Kiddiepark, in fact she quit the summer before I started. She asked who was still hanging around. She asked about Eugene's Brother. I tried not to get all riled up but I really wanted to say "You have no idea what it was like!!" because, I think, no one did. (Parents who ask, though, when I run into them around the valley, I tell them unchecked: He was a horrible boss because he knew his employee verbally and physically abused the kids but wouldn't lift a finger to change this. Yeah, I give them the short, sweet answer.)

Gotta go socialize with Shumai now. I think he's a happy turtle. (Oh, the things that keep me going.) Also have to decide what kind of dessert to make for Eugene's Brother who is making me pasta with a nice bolognese sauce on Saturday.

Finally: stripeypants.com is back up and (oh! so! soon!) its new improved self will be unveiled in all its purple splendor. Oh! So! Soon!

10/24

Brother Mart wrote again. He's having a swell time with his exchange student housemate, James. He and his fellow traveling classmates are being naughty -- and the fact that he probably censored the letter so as not to give me a heart attack doesn't make me feel much better. He's so far away. I wish I were there to rip the beer out of his hand but I guess that would embarrass him. I am not looking forward to parenting a teenager. Being an older sister is stress enough. Suddenly (really, suddenly) -- I know what they were going through. Letting a teenager out of the house means relinquishing all the physical control you have to protect them from their own naivete. I'm not saying teenagers are stupid, just that it's hard to be one (or love one without causing him to hate you.) There are still a million things I wish they had done differently when I was my brother's age, even now that I can see the bigger picture. But I know now what the realization that it's out of your hands feels like. (Oh sure, it's still coming straight from the heart out of the mouth, but face it, it's out of our hands.)

I'm trying not to be a doofus, I mean I don't want him not to tell me stuff. I don't want him to tell me everything either, but I do want him to call me at 3 a.m. if God forbid he's still out and all of his friends are drunk. And I want to know how to say "You screwed up" without having it sound like "You're screwed up." Don't I sound just like one of those "parents: the anti-drug" commercials? I'm not even his parent; I'm his sister. (So naturally I know more about him than they do. Wouldn't YOU be scared?)

Okay, self, don't be a doofus.

10/26

it is 6 a.m.
welcome to my saturday.
it is dark outside.

12.30 pm. -- Class was ok. And it's very bright outside now so that's good. There is physical pain in waking up for this class -- more so than for weekday work, even, because my body knows that torture of this magnitude is generally reserved for Monday-Friday. Saturday at 6 a.m. feels like a huge insult, and I really want to cry when the alarms go off and I realize it's no mistake.

The quiz was silly. We have weekly quizzes now -- today was our first one. I stressed all week about it, I even made a retarded column study guide for developmental theory stages and terms. there were FIVE questions on the quiz. five items covering (or not) three chapters of material. Plus two bonus questions. I think I will not stress this week about next Saturday's quiz.

I've started thinking of this class as Construction (as it's constructive, emphasizing proactivity, etc.) and the Wednesday class as Destruction (as it's un-constructive, laden with conspiracy theories, very paranoid, very negative.) Yeah yeah labeling and self-fulfilling prophecies and sucky attitude, yada yada, Destruction's goal is to instill paranoia and a sucky attitude toward public schooling. But Fred Savage does have one strength, which is never insulting our intelligence, whereas Miyashiro will spell everything, and I mean everything, out. If he would realize that he's teaching adults, we could probably shave an hour off each class.

Good correspondence with Brother Mart ... have to edit the letters before I pass them on to the 'rents ... he's very tight-lipped on the phone, though, so I dunno why they insist on calling him so much.

Last night I was drinking cranberry juice out of a crown royal glass (from one of those Christmas box gift sets) and out of nowhere it cracked in a perfect circle around the middle. The bottom detached from the top and landed on my plate. The top was still in my hand. I got a cranberry juice bath and a physical science lesson at the same time, the latter being something like don't pile too many ice cubes in your juice if you're drinking out of a cheap, thin tumbler. I don't understand too well the physics of why my glass broke so now I just feel very paranoid. I've switched to a plastic cup.

Oh well, I was due for a shower, having gotten Good Housekeeping shoyu sprinkled on my lap earlier in the day as well. E's B and I tried Manoa Sushi @ Manoa Marketplace -- sushi is one of the very few things I enjoy shoyu with. So the sushi was unremarkable, but then I tend to order things like cucumber and california rolls so what do I know about remarkable sushi?

Somebody stole Eugene's Brother's First Love. That is a gardenia plant. He had 14 gardenia plants in a row in front of his yard. Somebody came along and stole two First Loves. His grandma put a curse on the thief/thieves. What? Oh, she cursed at them. In effigy. (He's in his car right now on his way home from Home Depot where he purchased materials to make an electrocution device for the next thieving hand that tries to steal flowers from his yard. Uh, I mean, where he bought steel cables and 30-lb bricks to foil any future attempts to steal flowers from his yard.) They were one year old and we miss them very much. The funny thing is if he walked around his neighbors' yard long enough he would find his plants. Now he's mad that I said it was funny so I had to explain to him that I didn't mean funny ha-ha, just that

what? now he's yelling at me because I'm trying to think positively about the gardenia situation. I realize how this might be irritating so I'll shut up now.

But anyway (we hung up) stealing plants is a terrible thing to do. Stealing anything is pretty terrible but plant thievery is personal. Too bad he can't tie Ping to the mailbox. But then Ping would probably get stolen and eaten.

7:44 pm. -- here i am at the scene of the crime. Well, that would technically be outside, where I am not, but close enough. I am in Palolo. Eugene's Brother is in the kitchen, cooking dinner. Pasta! Yumminy pasta! We eat entirely too much pasta, and that's not a complaint. I was in charge of dessert but I forgot about it but i managed on the fly to make a deluxe dessert called Golden Citrus Sunlight Cups. hehe that would be lemon jello quick set in midori melonball glasses.

Anyway E's B went to Home Depot and got steel cables and big bricks, oh wait I already mentioned that. But yeah when I was outside I saw his handiwork. the plants are cabled to huge heavy bricks which are buried in the ground.

Today was a strange day.