Reflections

I wanted to write about why I gave my friends their names, but as I was looking through past entries in search of their first appearances, I noticed several things.

One, aside from Mom, Dad, Sis, and Bro, I've only started naming people relatively recently.

Two, I've realized how much changed over the course of this year.

Three, there is one very important person I would like to present to you.

***
ONE:
The recurring cast of my life (the crowd of my close friends) mostly received their names all at the same time.

Bookish Friend - attends Hayloftes & Regal (chain of bookstores, renamed) more religiously than church
Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglasses - out of all my friends, she is the one with the most conventional fashion sense. There are (were) at least five pairs of sunglasses in her car at all times
Childish Booksmart Friend - she knows many things she read in books, and is very wise in some ways yet strikingly childish in others
Fiendishly Intelligent Friend - sharp as a razorblade
Artsy Friend - has arthritis in her right wrist from overexertion due to constant drawing
Crazy Redhead Mathematically-Inclined Friend - crazy, a redhead, likes math
Tiny Russian Friend - has the smallest hands of anyone I have ever met, speaks Russian beautifully
Friend Who Likes Science Fiction - Star Wars, Star Trek, all of the Internet, you name it, she's seen the movie(s) and read the fanfiction
Internet-Savvy Friend - knows everything about the Internet, down to the darkest corners

***
TWO:
So many relationships evolved this year.

I'm glad that the issues I had when I first began writing this blog have mostly cleared away. In hindsight, I see that most of it was caused by distance and by the--to me--still incomprehensible American laziness that submerges groups. Whatever it is, I understand that it won't entirely go away, but that next year will probably be much better as we will all be living in the same dormitory complex.

College is a time for making new friends, and I am immensely grateful for new and old alike. I am so lucky to have both at the same time, who all share incredibly strong bonds.

The Boy and I have recently begun a rather broad but oh so intense discussion of our relationship. There is so much time to catch up on, all these years when we could, we should maybe have said more than we dared. I feel that we are living this time now. Despite our familiarity, there were--and still are--many things under the surface. One by one, they come to light and are explained. This feels like a breath of fresh spring air and sunshine and hope.

***
THREE:
She is so very important to me, in many ways.

The First Reader. I created this blog with the intent that it be read only by those who stumble upon it, not by acquaintances who want to keep up with my daily adventures. Aside from two exceptions, I have not broken this rule. She was the one who first introduced me to the idea of a blog. Once I had begun writing, she asked to read it. Although I never explicitly gave her the URL, I gave enough clues that she succeeded in finding it.

The Fellow Musician. I first met her at a violin recital. Through her, I have learned so much. She is an incredibly talented player, and has given me advice and music. She supported me and comforted me through my ordeals in the musical world.

The Good Student. Not only is she talented musically, she is also one of the most intelligent people I have met and without doubt one of the most brilliant students to have ever attended my School in City Back Home. Reading her English essays about books I've previously read often provides much deeper insight than I would have been capable of.

The Gamer. She was the one who introduced me to Silly RPG. Once again, she shines in her knowledge of the odds and ends about the game.

But, most importantly, the Friend. For sushi and birds and frisbee games in the park, I will be forever grateful.

I've tried before, but I just can't find a name for her.



I'll keep looking.

Swine flu

All that hype about swine flu is going around.

The University has already sent out six emails. Posters about avoiding contamination have been hung in hallways and elevators everywhere. There is one case reported in the City, and a preschool has been shut down until May 11th.

I don't really know what to think of it and, frankly, don't subscribe to the hype and panic.

The US are well prepared. There are ample reserves of Tamiflu, and they know what to expect.

True, living in a big University does increase the risk of an epidemic exponentially.

Well, we'll see how it turns out. In the meantime, I've got finals to worry about.

World Flooded by Rain

Germany in the rain.

In tenth grade, we had to write a poem with a different format for each line. One of the lines had to be in newspaper headline format, one of them in a different language. I don't remember the exact guidelines, and I don't remember my poem entirely, but it was about rain.

It was pretty.

I need to find it.

Love bite

Beautiful teeth of gracefully carved wood gently bite, leaving a little purple bruise on my skin.

A manifold beauty of sight, sound, smell, and softness purrs beneath my hands as horse meets steel.

Ages collide. A ditty from long ago mingles with the curves of ancient wood, the blood of a faraway tree, and the hair of long-gone equine.

On the first day, it is painful. A raw spot. Gradually, it bruises, like the delicate skin of a blushing lover. I look at it from every angle, rubbing it, marveling at the texture.

I have grown to love it, this love bite, this badge of honor I had lost almost a year ago.

My music is beautiful. My violin is beautiful.

Next semester, I will study under a professor at the University, a professor with a soft voice and kind words and beautiful music. Under his guidance, I hope to learn what I never really did and finally become a real musician.

I am back, for real this time. I won't put you down again, you exquisite instrument. I won't let the music stop.

Gelati, Eeyore, and Tribbles

Childish Booksmart Friend and I took a trip yesterday.

Ever since we explored the City last semester, we had been thinking of going to the Gelato Place of Awesomeness. Yesterday, finding ourselves with nothing to do and no friends to do it with, we once again took a bus downtown.

After fifteen minutes of indecisiveness, we decided on three flavors each. The next half hour was spent in delighted silence punctuated by "Hm, delicious!" and "This cherry was really good!"

We did not feel like going back to the dorms yet, so the shopkeeper suggested we go to the City celebration of Eeyore's birthday. A couple overhears and points us to the park.

We set off cheerfully. The air is hot, muggy, and sticky. It feels like we are walking through molasses. We cross the river, turn right, and keep walking.

It takes a long time, but we eventually get there.

In the springs, people are swimming, swans are floating, canoes are drifting. It is a peaceful and happy afternoon. We walk through the park, looking for the celebration. A small train passes us by.

We begin to suspect we may be in the wrong location. I call Tiny Russian Friend, who knows everything about anything that is happening in the City.

We are indeed in the wrong park. The celebration was much closer to the University. But there is no time, my friend must be back in time for a foxtrot workshop she is attending that night.

We catch a bus back and make it just in time for her to eat really fast and run over to Student Building for the workshop.

For the rest of the evening, I am by myself: Childish Booksmart Friend and Crazy Redhead Mathematically-Inclined Friend are a the workshop, Friend Who Likes Science-Fiction is writing a term paper for a philosophy class, and Bookish Friend and Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglasses are in Crazy City for a friend's birthday.

So I watched a few episodes of Star Trek.

It was quite a lovely day.

Completely batty

I saw Mexican free tailed bats flying around catching insects tonight.

It is not surprising, the City is home to the largest urban colony in North America.

Still, it is always a welcome surprise to see a small bird pass you by and then realize that it's not a bird at all because it is flip-flopping, furry, and is making noises like a creaky door in a bad horror movie.

The City colony eats between 20000 and 30000 pounds of mosquitoes every night.

That is very good news indeed.

With a little help from my friends

This is my story for today:

Several days ago, Tangobaby posted a story about a young woman and her children she had met on the street in San Francisco.

photo by tangobaby

That woman is Kelaya, and her children are Dorian, Kameko, and Marcus.

They are beautiful, but they are alone.

That is, they were.

Since that day, a veritable storm, prompted by Tangobaby's capable hands and bottomless heart, has risen to help this family.

I know not everyone can do something to help. But people know people who know people, and together we reach far. If you can help Kelaya and her family, here is how. And even if you can't, you can probably find someone like her close to you and do the same thing for them.

I know this is a lot to ask, but these are real people, just like every single person on the Earth.

Maybe we can't solve the world's problems all at once, but starting small does makes a difference.

Oh, I get far with a little help from my friends...
-The Beatles

Pale blue dot

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us."
-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Have you ever seen anything quite as beautiful as the Earth? Anything quite as complex, quite as alive?

Patterns of dazzling blue and green and brown and white, home to countless myriads of living beings each more intricate and exquisite than the last.

And yet, it is nothing compared to the vastness of the Universe. To us it is everything.

We must take good care of it, it is our only home.

Happy Earth Day!

Hell Week and questionable morals

This week, I have two midterms scheduled.

On the same day.

At the same time.

I discovered this a short while ago when I was reading through the Ochem website for homework help.

***

We had a lecture on scientific ethics today. It was quite interesting and, frankly, perfectly timed.

It turns out that any research involving human or animal subjects must be approved by the Institutional Review Board.

I remembered this from last semester when I was handed back a paper in my Research Methods class with the words "Ethics, -8 points" scrawled in red across the top. Dumbfounded, I went to the professor, who explained that I should have gotten my survey approved and was surprised that I got any responses back at all, considering that the questions were very personal (I was researching the alignment of menstrual cycles in female communities [aka my dorm] related to degree of familiarity). She also said that I couldn't possibly have known about that law beforehand, so it was all right, and that it was a fascinating topic (it was, I really need to do a complete study on it someday). So I didn't get into any trouble, but that was my warning.

For my statistics class, we have to conduct a research project and analyze the data statistically (shocking, I know!) My groupmates and I had come up with the idea to correlate various data we would collect from students at The University.

During that lecture, however, I was struck with sudden doubt. At the end of class, I asked the professor. He immediately told me to strike down the idea. The Doctor, who co-teaches the class, overheard us, ran over, and looked horrifiedly at me. "Whatever it is, don't tell me about it, but please don't do it!" he gasped.

I know he was putting on a bit of a show, because it is what the Doctor does, but there was at least some genuine fear.

I now need to come up with an experiment, perform it, and analyze it in the next two weeks.

That's just dandy, I was wondering what to do with my free time now that rehearsals are over...

Grass mirror

The Laboratory's windows projected a perfect image on the grass underneath. The sunshine was so bright that even the wooden frame where the glass panes join was visible.

How strange.

Breaking news!

I have just received an email from the President of Geeky Science Organization telling me that I have been elected Chair of the Research Shadowing Committee!

This means I will have the responsibility of organizing and conducting lab tours as well as placing undergrads into their labs of interest next year.

I am quite excited!

***

No, seriously, this is ridiculous. It is much too late. I need to go to bed now.

Clear day

It's sunny outside.

You can see all the way to the bottom of the Turtle Pond.

I wonder if it bothers the turtles to have so many strangers witness every moment of their lives?

I saw a cat and tried to pet her, but she ran away.

I have a yellow flower in a teacup.

Late-night mishaps

Opening night was a success.

Everything went as it was supposed to, and except from the times when Frau Gabor spilled lemonade and loudly exclaimed "Ach!" before mopping it up with her apron, the Vermummte Mann tripped over his own feet, Frau Bergmann ran over the grave, and Ernst and Hänschen were slightly taken aback by the size of the grapes they were supposed to be eating and looked like hamsters for a short minute, there were no accidents.

Being college students, we went out to celebrate afterwards.

The rest of the night was, to say the least, interesting.

It was my first experience with alcohol outside of a family environment. After half a glass of beer, I was giggling helplessly at every sentence. My German improved dramatically.

As the rest of the cast got progressively drunker, someone suggested that, as I had only had half of a beer, I drive everyone home. Lacking a legal license and considerably more inebriated than is proper when one is technically underage, I refused and suggested that we call a designated driver service to take us home safely (although now that I think about it, my permit requires a 'licensed operator over 21' in the front seat, which could have made it a last resort possibility, but in any case it would not have been a good idea for several hours at least). Fortunately, another cast member and a friend arrived late and were immediately requisitioned to relocate the bunch to someone's apartment close to campus.

After several drives to and fro, everyone was safely sitting on a couch in a living room. Bottles appeared, and soon we were back to debating the grammatical structure of the German language and the merits of various adaptations of the play.

When a baggie of green leaves made an appearance, however, I stood up, grabbed, despite his protests, the other young'un who lived on campus, bid good night to the company, and walked home.

When I arrived back to my dorm, in severe need to answer the call of Nature, I was greeted by a surprise: the bathroom door wouldn't open.

I typed in the code again. The red light blinked back at me. I pressed the star, then slowly repeated. Nothing. Thinking that maybe the vapors were making my brain go funny, I went to my room, looked up the university housing website, wrote down the code on a piece of paper, and went back to the bathroom.

No success.

I gave up. I ran downstairs and across the street into the nearest building, which happened to be the business school. I finally found a restroom.

This morning, I told Roommate about my mishap. She told me that the code had, for some reason, stopped functioning that evening. And then she pointed out that the other bathroom down the hall used the same code, which worked.

I felt very silly.

And I probably won't repeat that experience for some time.

Miracles do happen

D-day minus one.

Rehearsal went almost without a glitch today. The lighting was almost perfect, scene changes happened without major catastrophes, and no one forgot their lines.

The music, however, is still awful (Ella Fitzgerald, no matter how wonderful she is, is utterly inappropriate after a rape scene in a late 19th-century play).

We learned how to do stage makeup, and immediately all of the boys shot us nervous glances. They looked more terrified of those brushes than if a rabid bear had shown up in the dressing room. They surrendered to our slightly more knowledgeable hands, and everyone managed to look more or less presentable by the time we were called onstage (except for someone's mustache, which didn't want to stay on and was half-on, half-off and therefore needed to be held in place.)

It was rather hilarious.

Especially when the decanter which someone had brought from home as a prop was found to be still half-full of Scotch. The owner took it upon herself to see to that problem and consequently was slightly cheerier than usual during her performance.

Mom, Bro, Sis, German Neighbor, and Very Smart Neighbor are coming from City Back Home Saturday night to see the play.

You were right, GB! It may turn out fine after all!


(Whew.)

Don't Panic?

D-day minus two, and rehearsal was a complete mess.

We started an hour late despite showing up two hours early.

We finished an hour late.

The set isn't done.

The props aren't all here.

The lighting comes on at all the wrong moments.

The music is awful.

An important scene has been cut out.

Actors forget their cues and their lines.

No one has any idea about what to do for hair and makeup.

The director gives orders and counterorders every five minutes.

Everyone is exhausted.

In the last hour, everyone was hysterical.

And to top it off, I look like a walking doily in my costume.

It will be a miracle if this show even happens.

The Sock Chronicles

While reading Project 355, I happened upon this picture and realized, "Hoo boy, I may be in just a spot of trouble."

The truth is, ladies and gentlemen, I own a grand total of four pairs of white socks. Gym socks.

And about twenty of the more, er, eccentric kind.

So, in solidarity with the rest of the rebel-socked world, I have decided to live up to my blog name and extensively report upon my collection.

Sock-lovers, prepare for glory! (And plain-sockers, prepare to maybe, just a bit, be horrified.)

The bells of Rome

Mother, Sis, and Bro drove to the City to visit me yesterday.

They brought with them an impressive basket of victuals: apples, oranges, chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks, apple-flavored candy grass, applesauce, chestnut spread, Petits Écoliers...

We spent the day eating, walking around campus, and talking. Bro discovered a very large snapping turtle in the Turtle Pond. I had no idea it was there before, it is so slow and so completely blended with the algae that you can barely see it.

It's a long way from the hunts around the farm as a child, where the bells hid eggs for me to find, in the trees and shoes and between the stones of the old wall, when the aunts and uncles and cousins gathered to go to church and then ate lunch on a big table outside, but it was a beautiful day.

Apologies

I apologize for the sparseness and lack of quality of my postings recently, but I am overwhelmed with work as the end of the year approaches. I barely have time to sleep, let alone breathe or think.

I will get back to writing once the rush is over and done with, but now I have to prioritize.

Starting with that vicious statistics assignment, and then the nine hours of sleep I have to catch up on.

Brave new world

I love waking up in the morning and finding it has rained.

The ground is wet, the air slightly chilly.

When you breathe in, you smell a thousand different things: the wet earth, the new leaves, the clear sky.

Birds everywhere chirp and whoop and squeak, in a melodious cacophony.

The world is clear and new, just like after the first snowfall of winter, but alive instead of dead.

I love those days.

The flip side of life

Ever since Heather Armstrong (dooce.com) announced that she planned on visiting the City for her book tour last semester, I'd been planning to go.

I'm a fan--of her writing, her humor, her photography, her dog.

Unfortunately, last week, Crazy British Theater Professor announced that we were scheduling rehearsal from six to nine every day for the next two weeks.

Therefore, I was unable to go.

I won't complain, though. This week has turned out to be one of the most wonderful weeks of my life. One of the busiest, too, and it did start on an almost-nervous breakdown. But it has turned into one of the most wonderful.

***

Rehearsal went well, too. Somehow, being on the actual stage in the actual theater, not a cramped and stuffy classroom liberated everyone. The acting was wonderful. I still can't talk loudly, and the TA is taking me aside tomorrow for training, but I'm getting more and more confident.

Word has gotten around campus, and when I was putting up posters this morning, a couple of passers-by had apparently already heard of the production and sounded very excited. Word is that high schools all around the district and even as far as Big City are planning to come!

Star Trek: The Movie

Holy crap, you guys! I was at the world premiere of the new Star Trek movie.

And saw Leonard Nimoy. FOR REAL.

And almost got run over by his car.

For the past two days, I have been Googling "Star Trek" every hour to see what comes up. Eventually, the news made it to the New York Times and the BBC. Which means it's more than official--it's worldwide news.

***

It all started with Science-Fiction Friend's suggestion that we go see the free screening of "Wrath of Khan" at Local Theater. Crazy Redhead Mathematically-Inclined Friend, an inveterate fan, immediately agreed. Childish Booksmart Friend and Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglasses were both moderate followers, and Bookish Friend and I had both seen one episode in the past. The date was set.

As it approached, excitement mounted and plans were made.

Monday night, at 8:50 pm, we piled into Bookish Friend's car and drove to the theater. When we arrived, the line was already sizable for the small theater. We took our places and began to play word games to pass the time.

Soon enough, the line started to move forward. Geeky Movie Festival pass holders were called to the front and shown to the entrance. The line grew smaller and smaller. Suddenly, an attendant exclaimed, "We'll take one more!"

We looked at each other. And then at Sci-Fi Friend. By immediate and universal consensus, we pushed her toward the theater. The attendant took her through the door, then came back. "We may have some more seats, I'll come back if I do."

With five remaining, we established an order should there be too small a number of seats. Crazy Redhead would go next, then me, then Childish Booksmart, then Sunglasses, and finally, Bookish Friend, who had the car and was needed to drive everyone else around.

Fortunately, the news were good: eleven seats remained. The rest of the hopefuls were turned away.

We filed into the antechamber, where brisk security guards asked us to place cell phones, cameras, and other electronic accessories into plastic bags. We were swept over with a magnetic wand and, having been declared safe, were ushered into the theater. We looked at each other--the level of security was surprising for such a simple thing as a movie. But then again, they would be showing the first ten minutes of the new movie, and probably didn't want to have it all over YouTube before the release.

There were barely any seats left, and only two together. Obligingly, we left Bookish Friend and Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglassess sit together and hunted for empty chairs. I wandered to the front, and all I could see was a spot in the middle of the front row. I sighed. My neck would be killing me by the end of the movie. I sat down.

Almost immediately, the lights dimmed. A man walked onstage with a microphone. He greeted the enthusiastic crowd.

Three men were introduced onstage: the writers.



Finally, the movie began. The quality was bad, shockingly so for a supposedly new print. There were green stripes running up and down the screen. Suddenly, the image split, then disappeared completely.

"Get on stage and stall! I'm going to fix this"

The three writers ran onstage and talked nonsense for a couple minutes.

Then, a man in a long coat and hat walked onstage. He put down the silver case he was carrying and took off his coat.

There was a second of stunned silence, of disbelief. Then, thunderous applause. The audience leapt to their feet, shouting, screaming, whistling, holding their hands up in the traditional salute.

It was Leonard Nimoy. Spock himself.

I turned around to try to catch a glimpse of Sci-Fi Friend's face. I knew she would be crying and hugging the closest audience member wherever she was sitting.

I could tell you what happened next, but he can tell you himself better:



Well, here we are. The lights dim again, and the movie starts. For real, this time.

I am blown away. The theater is blown away. It is magnificent.

To me, a complete newcomer to the world of Star Trek, it is a spectacular introduction. To the fans, who laugh and clap at references I do not understand, it is a masterfully executed new opus. And to everyone else--it is a fantastic movie.

When the credits begin to roll and the lights come up, everyone stands and applauds. And applauds. And applauds.

A final word, a final salute, and it is over.



(You can very definitely see my outline at the very end. I told you, I was sitting front row center!)

I find my friends. Like the group of teenage girls we are, our instinctual response is to emit squeals audible only to dogs and bats. The rest of the audience passes us by, giving us bemused looks: not only do we seem to be the only college students in the room, we are also all girls.

At the door, we retrieve cell phones and cameras. Before I can even begin to breathe normally, I call The Boy. It is late, and with the time difference he is most likely asleep, but he is a huge fan. I leave a nearly incomprehensible voicemail. Around me, others are doing the same: Crazy Redhead calls her parents, Childish Booksmart her brother, Sci-Fi her best friend/rival.

At the front, badge-holders are handed out signed posters and teeshirts. We look wistfully at them, then walk outside. We stand on the sidewalk, hugging each other and occasionally screaming.

We head toward the parking lot when a car comes to a sudden halt before our group. We weren't looking, and it almost hit us.

It was Leonard Nimoy's car.

It is going in the same direction as us. We follow it, a car behind. It turns at an intersection, and we sigh.

I run from the garage all the way to my dorm. I want to hug everyone I see and tell them what just happened. I meet a friend in the elevator. He is relatively unimpressed. Oh well.

It doesn't matter, I shall Live Long And Prosper, and be a Star Trek fan for the rest of my life.

***

It has been two days, and the adrenaline still hasn't worn off. Crazy Redhead, Sci-Fi and I are planning to stand up during the Highly Selective Science Program Friday lunch, when Man In Charge asks for announcements, and tell our story again. In a room full of geeks, it's probably suicide, but the world has to know.

Plus, they'll all be jealous.

Also, I have since found (and read) many articles, mostly rants of disbelief from the millions of fans worldwide, and all the pictures of the event... Several of which I am in!

Blistering barnacles. This is unbelievable.

Mystery picture: the answers

Ameise is the German word for "ant." There is a book about ants on the dashboard. This is the campus Antmobile, parked in front of one of the Bio buildings! They have recently discovered a new species of ants in the Amazon rainforest. Yay science!

Also, (as noted by GB) there is a couple of turtles driving the car. Um. I can't explain that one. Let's leave that as a one of the great mysteries of the Universe.

This is what happens to unsuspecting college students who go see movies late at night

THEY GET AMBUSHED BY THE SCREENWRITERS OF STAR TREK AND LEONARD NIMOY AND GET TO SEE THE WORLD PREMIERE OF THE NEW MOVIE.

Even though it was supposed to be in Australia.

HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.

I am a Star Trek convert for life.

(Sorry about the expletives, but if there ever is an occasion in my life to use them, this is it.)

Mystery picture

What's funny about this picture I took today?


(You might want to click on it to look closer)

(A lot closer, it's hard to see.)

Guess away! I will post the answer tomorrow.

Sunday night

I decided that I couldn't take yet another loop of my roommate listening to Britney and singing along (there is only one set of circumstances in which I will listen to Britney Spears, and that is by a group of German guys singing a capella and dancing along), so I got up, took a shower, put on my pretty dress, and am leaving for an Itzhak Perlman performance in fifteen minutes.

Looks like, despite the concert I missed last semester in City Back Home, I will still get to see him perform.

Once-in-a-lifetime twice in the same year!

I'm off to conquer

the dastardly Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test.

Not that it's difficult or anything. In fact, I quite like statistics. It's just a funny name (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test? "When he wasn't making vodka, Smirnov spent a lot of time working on statistics" --quote my Professor)

In other news, the play might actually be going well, even though I am missing rehearsal tonight because of the test.

And then I'm going to see The Bond in Quantum of Solace, which I have not yet seen (last night was The Fifth Element, which I have seen something like seven times already yet never get tired of.)

I've also discovered that Building With Funny Windows has more than one floor, and that there are a lot of student-friendly services and offices up there. Glad I found those.

To finish off the day's news, my bacterial transformation didn't work (again) (bummer) (I'm becoming increasingly blasé about this...) so I will have to do another ligation in lab tomorrow and come back on Saturday.

Busy busy.

While shepherds watched their flocks...

I was aimlessly wandering around YouTube today when I happened upon several interesting videos.

The first one, clearly, is amazing. To think of the time and effort this required! I feel sorry for the sheep, they must be exhausted by the end...



The second one is also amazing. What's even better is that I found this on one of the Google hoax pages. And to top it off, this was filmed at Geeky Festival The Boy and I attended last semester. While we were there.



And the last one was also at the same festival, witnessing the performance in person is, um, rather unsettling. And very memorable.



Well, today was a fun day. No fish, unfortunately (I miss that tradition, but it's unlikely anyone would understand were I to stick a paper fish in someone's back here.), nor any pranks pulled off in class (you'd think, with 300 people, someone would think of something...), but otherwise a very nice day.