the ravings of the questioning
It seems that the way to get me to make icons again is to post some lovely photos from David Cleary. These icons are all from his photos and include stills from the new independent film “Once” by John Carney and assorted photos of The Frames from over the years. Enjoy!
It’s the back-to-school season. Not the back-to-school season where little kids clog the aisles in search of a new box of Crayolas, though. No, the back-to-school season I speak of is more of a To-College season, where stores are filled with moms pushing shopping carts with two crates and a desk lamp while their teenage flip-flop-wearing child examines every piece of bedding in the store for the sacred marking “Twin XL”. Those checklists give it all away. That and the fact that they’re spending their time testing different chairs to find the most comfortable one because they fail to realize that whatever tiny room they get shoved into won’t be large enough for them to have said chair or half the crap their checklist calls for. I can understand this eluding the average recent high school graduate, but why Mom and Dad have deluded themselves into believing that their college room was twice the size it really was I don’t know.
This is funny to me partially because I was one of those checklist-toters four years ago. These days, however, I know that I have room for that chair. The question is, rather, do I have the money for it? That remains to be seen.
As I cruise the aisles of these department stores and spot the soon-to-be college kids, I find myself wondering what kind of students they’ll end up as. Sometimes it’s easy. Some people just scream Future State School Frat Boys of America. And sometimes, just sometimes, you can catch people practicing for what they clearly hope to be their future clique.
I stepped into the electronics section at Target today to check for some CD jewel cases only to overhear a gem of a comment. Two guys are standing there contemplating the shelf of hard drives and DVD burners, presumably discussing how impressively large some hard drive is when one says to the other, “They’re making ones now that have, like, tetrabytes of space.” I had to stop myself from laughing aloud because I figured that it would be a little hard to pretend that CD-R prices are that funny. But, wow, kid, you’re not going to fool any geek alive with that stuff.
It’s really too bad that I wasn’t wearing my Google shirt at the time.
While up in Ithaca, I suffered a real shock. As my mother and I were taking shelter from the heat wave in the local Chili’s, I found myself singing along to the song playing over the speaker system. This in itself is not all that odd. The shock was when I realized that I was hearing “7 days, 7 weeks” by the Belgian rock-group dEUS. I wrote previously about their most recent album, Pocket Revolution and have no doubts that it would be popular here in the States if it got some play, but, frankly, I was used to never hearing my favorite songs playing except when instigated by me. This is the first time I’ve heard any of my favorite foreign groups play on the radio. Are the winds a’changing?
Back in April Josh Ritter told me at his concert about filming a video for “Lillian, Egypt” when I told him it was one of my favorite tracks from The Animal Years. I finally got around to watching it today, and it’s terrific. I bet the band had a blast filming it. I especially love picking out band members among the extras, though it’s a bit tough with the low resolution.
Since I managed to find an apartment in just one day of hunting, that left me a bit of time to enjoy Ithaca and Cornell on Friday. After a bit of a late start–thanks to the sleepness from Wednesday night’s Hotel Room From Hell–I got us to campus without too much trouble from the local construction and one-way streets. My mother and I located appropriate parking, left Remy, and started walking toward the Engineering Quad to meet the professor who will likely be my advisor.
Even with oppressive heat, humidity, and hills I wasn’t quite ready for, I enjoyed visiting Cornell immensely. I don’t think that I’d completely realized how much I missed being at a university until I stepped back on campus, but, even as a visitor, I felt immediately at home. I don’t know what it is about the atmosphere surrounding research campuses, but I must be addicted to it. As promised, Ithaca was gorgeous during the summer. After our meeting, we wandered toward the Arts and Sciences buildings so that Mom could see McGraw Tower (still photos) and Cayuga Lake. Virtually every building was dubbed beautiful–unsurprisingly the Engineering buildings were the only ugly ones. On Cornell’s website for virtual tours, I’ll note that only the pretty Engineering buildings are featured. 
If you’re clever, though, and look at the Rhodes Hall panorama, it also shows a yellow building called Upson, which is where I’ll be spending my life.
We had to hit the campus bookstore after that so that Mom could pick up some Cornell merchandise to decorate her classroom. She tries to advertise universities outside of North Carolina for her students and so far has decorations for the University of Arkansas, Case, and Cornell–i.e. all the universities our family is connected to. We may have gone overboard, however, because we came back with Cornell shirts for everyone in the family. As I was wandering through the bookstore, serendipity struck in the form of the Piled Higher and Deeper comic books, which I’ve been looking for since April. Naturally, I snapped up copies of them and kept interrupting Mom’s sudoku puzzles at the hotel later with, “Oh man, you’ve got to read this one!” Now she wants a poster of Newton’s Laws of Graduation for her classroom. Personally, I’m thinking about a Women of Valor poster for the apartment. I think it’s a must-have for any female engineering grad school geeks.
I had more of a chance to see Ithaca this time than I did when I visited before, and I felt very at home there. Mom kept mentioning how much it reminded her of Fayetteville when she and Dad were at the University of Arkansas. Downtown Ithaca is filled with lots of little shops and restaurants of all kinds–and it’s about a five minute walk from my apartment. There’s a bumper sticker that seems to describe the liberal-leaning college town atmosphere pretty well: “Ithaca - 10 square miles surrounded by reality”. Another t-shirt saying that I rather liked is a take-off on the infamous “Ithaca is Gorges” saying: “Ithaca is not George’s”.
In short, I think I’m really going to love living there. And, in one month, I will.
Tips for finding a great apartment in a tight market late in the season in just one day:
1. Get a little help from your friends.
2. Do your research.
3. Be kind, courteous, and upbeat.
4. Wear your Google swag. The shirt says it all.
Today has been a busy, and, unfortunately, unpleasant day. I’m getting ready to leave for an apartment-hunting trip to Ithaca with my mother tomorrow. We’ll arrive late Wednesday and spend until Sunday there. Between preparing for that–laundry, apartment listings, route planning, calling (*shudder*) people, etc.–I had a physical at the doctor’s office. The doctor was nice, but some of the things she did to me were not so much. And now my arm hurts from the tetanus booster I got. Hoping that that won’t last tomorrow because it could make driving unpleasant. Can anyone tell that “unpleasant” is my person Word of the Day?
I’m going to need lots of happy thoughts coming my way this week because I’m pretty much going to be picking at the bottom of the housing barrel. I can’t tell you how many people have told me that I’m late to be looking for housing in Ithaca. Thanks, people, I knew that. I knew that months ago. So if anyone can send enough happy thoughts my way to add up to a well-priced, well-located, apartment in good condition, you will have my eternal (read: as long as my lease lasts) gratitude.
Thanks, guys!
By the time we woke this morning, the ship was already in St. Thomas. The skies started out pretty overcast, but soon brightened, although the heat and humidity didn’t let up.
Breakfast was had in the Galaxy Dining Room with each of us ordering our choice of items. After that we gathered together a bag for the excursion to the island. St. Thomas itself is relatively small and rises quickly to a decent height. I was somwhat surprised to see that so much of the island remains forested. When we got off the pier, we were immediately beset by taxi drivers. Once we escaped them, we found ourselves in an outdoor mall filled primarily with jewellers and souvenir shops.
We found a watch–a Fossil–for me so that I could stop asking everyone else the time and wandered through a few other places before going back to the pier to meet for our Atlantis Submarine excursion. Once everyone arrived, we walked down the pier to the Subquest, the ship that took us out to the dive spot. The ride out was quite pleasant, and the co-pilot’s narration was generally amusing.
When we got out to the sub and its on-the-water companion, the Subconscious (!!), at their berth near Buck Island, we transferred ourselves to the sub. Inside quarters were tight but not bad. Down the center of the sub was a line of outward-facing seats with a 2-ft-diameter porthole in front of every two spots. Beneath each was a card with pictures and names of some of the fish we could expect to see.
After submersion, things got interesting. We left a sandy area for a deeper ridge and valley where many types of corals and sponges could be found. Fish darted through them and around us. Among others we saw yellow-tail snappers and yallow-and-black-striped sargent majors. We also spotted a couple turtles, a hermit crab, and two nurse sharks. The other side of the sub saw a ray, but we sadly did not.
Once we were back on land, we caught a taxi downtown so that we could check out the Del Sol store where we got shirts that change color when they’re in the sun. Wandering down an alleyway, we found a Cafe Amica where we could eat. At the waitress’s suggestion, Mom, Dad, and I ordered vanilla banana coladas, wihch while not as good (according to my parents) as the act advertised, were very good. Along with that, I ate a “Romanian pizza,” an Italian-style pizza with garlic sauce, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, sausage, capers, and corn. Though it was quite salty, I enjoyed it.
Another taxi ride brought us to the ship where Kelley and I showered the salt water off ourselves before resting. We got up and headed to the pool shortly before the ship left port at 17:00. Kelley and I got in the pool for only a bit before the annoying kids drove us back to the sun chairs. After an additional shower, we readied ourselves for the “Welcome Aboard” show, which included singing, dancing, and the comedian Al Romero. I personally found the ship’s cruise director funnier, but whatever.
At dinner we were somewhat disappointed to find that our assigned table is only for four; we’d been looking forward to some socializing. All the same, we had a good time with duck and beef wellington and various seafood. Our waiter is a nice young man from Indonesia. I think Kelley’s made an impression on him already. Later along, the maitre d’ stopped by. We noted that he was from Turkey and started to tell him what a wonderful time we’d had there. He seemed shocked to find Americans who had been to such a little place as Side.
We ventured to the karaoke bar only to discover that the crowd and some of the singers were…. rather disturbing. Kelley didn’t want at all to perform there, and I can’t blame her.
We then attempted some stargazing out on the Lido Deck, but it was far too windy and too light. It’s choppier tonight, too. Taking refuge in our rooms, we discovered the first of the infamous Towel Creations waiting on my bed. “What is that?!” I demanded. “It’s a monkey,” my mother informed me. To me, it looked more like something grabbing its groin. I spent some time star- and water-gazing on Mom and Dad’s balcony before Kelley and I started brainstorming alternate titles for the monkey. (I’d share some here, but I would hate to see the kind of scary search keywords that would start showing up on my records if I did.)
Things are winding down now, and it’s time for my shower.
More pictures: St. Thomas
It’s been a long day. Dad woke me up at 03:20 this morning, and we got off shortly after 04:00. All the early morning hocus pocus was nearly for naught, though, because our flight out of Greensboro got delayed by a missing flight attendant. We got to Atlanta with just enough time to be worried about our bags and for me to run several times through the entire terminal in order to find an available restroom. As we settled into our seats in the back of the Boeing 737-300, I spotted a baggage cart with our bags in it getting hauled away.
The flight from Atlanta to San Juan was long enough to warrant an inflight movie: the new Pink Panther film. I haven’t had much interest in that one because I felt like the Peter Sellers version really didn’t need to be messed with. I did watch it, though, and it wasn’t terrible, but I do still prefer Sellers over Martin (and monkeys over hamburgers).
I spent most of the rest of the flight staring at cloud formations over the Caribbean. As we got close to San Juan, though, things got hazy and cloudier.
After enough standing and queueing and shuffling to make me feel thoroughly British and completely exhausted, we made it onto the Carnival Destiny. Since then we’ve spent some time exploring and acclimating ourselves to the environment. We had a lovely dinner with a married couple from Houston and a newly-wed couple straight out of college in Missouri. I was feeling somewhat ill at that point–most likely due to too little food and rest, and only had beef and barley soup and a salad for dinner. The others had some terrific steak and a Black Forest dessert, both of which I tried.
We headed up on deck after dinner for some photos and watching the lights of San Juan (pictures). It may be the cloudy, hazy day, but I think I prefer the city in the dark. Before departure, we held a lifeboat drill, which, as I stood on deck with my orange lifejacket, I thought would never end. After that, we returned to the upper decks to watch as the ship left port. Seeing the fortress lit up at night was nice–which I’d had my camera then.
My sea legs are developing. There’s not much noticeable sway and only a little vibration. Nothing much to speak of.
Best end here so that I’m rested for St. Thomas tomorrow and our Atlantis Submarine tour.
Maybe I’ve been misled all these years, but isn’t hydracortisone supposed to stop itching? Because this stuff isn’t doing squat for the gifts San Juan left me.
Forgive me for not having gotten around to any serious posts about my trip. May this peace offering sate you for now. It makes a great wallpaper all by its lonesome.
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