Fire hazard

Did you know that wearing headphones in school is a safety hazard?

It’s true. See, if the fire alarm goes off, you won’t be able to hear the, uh, piercingly loud alarm. And… you won’t be able to see the flashing lights. And you won’t… um… notice… that people are leaving the classroom… because you’re wearing headphones…

That’s how my school sounded today when they announced (or restated) a ban on headphones inside and outside class. The safety argument simply doesn’t hold water. It’s just a diversion from the one real reason, which is that it keeps people from learning in class. I suppose the bright folks down in the office anticipated that one reason to ban headphones would not be enough:

“But oh,” you might say, “we shouldn’t have headphones in schools.” At what point does the ban go too far? Yesterday my friend Brian brought a small shortwave radio so that he could tune into numbers stations at lunch. He had it taken away, even though there were no headphones to take.

Another example of the school’s strange policies came up again today. The school building was designed so that people could enjoy their lunch outside. As a result, the cafeteria doesn’t come close to holding all of the people who have the same lunch period. Keep that in mind as I explain another school policy.

If the ass. principals find too much garbage outside after lunch, they decide to take it out on everybody by refusing to allow people to eat lunch outside. Today was one such day, so I had to eat lunch inside, contrary to my usual routine. They actually had ass. principals standing at the doors with evil looks on their faces, watching for anyone attempting to bring food out. (Apparently everyone who eats outside litters!) That cafeteria filled up fast, and I’m almost positive that the maximum capacity of the room was exceeded. Amid the jostling of people moving about, I spilled taco meat on my jeans and on my “Not Responding” shirt that I was wearing for the first time.

Reactions to the whole thing were universally negative. I saw that one person managed to smuggle out a drink in the leg of his pants. Others were sharing popcorn that had to have been popped in a microwave inside the cafeteria. My friend Evan had the best reaction to the affair. He and the people ate lunch with decided to leave a nice present for the ass. principals: a table covered in trash.

He also half-jokingly suggested calling the Fire Marshal to report the hazard of packing the cafeteria beyond capacity. But in order to do that, you’d have to risk using another nearly contraband device: a cell phone.

There are a lot of things named after Ronald Reagan, apparently. Was he even that good?

Have a question about coffee? Read the Coffee FAQ.

One year ago: “If anyone could fall in love with a fairly affordable pen, I did so.”
Two years ago: “‘They were multiplying,’ he quipped.”

Things revisited

To the untrained eye, things may seem to have quieted down between me and the girl with whom I’ve been kind of been infatuated sort of since the beginning of 9th grade. I last mentioned Her ten days ago, and my friends have suggested that I take action instead of let Her reject me. So I put my thoughts together the only way I knew how: with words and music.

A week ago I wrote a long letter explaining what I’ve always thought about Her — that She’s a really nice person, someone I’d like to get to know better. Included with the letter was a CD. The first track was a February 2004 recording of a song I had recently wrote for Her. The second track was an August 2005 recording of the same song from my band’s last gig. (I invited Her to go, but She didn’t show up.)

I immediately regretted it. It seemed like such a stupid, foolish, inane, asinine, dumb, and quite lame idea. I regretted it when I wrote it out on three sheets of paper, careful not to make a mistake. I regretted it when I burned the CD. I regretted it when I tied the letter to the jewel case with a rubber band. I regretted it when I saw the curious, quizzical look on Her face when I handed it to Her passing by on Tuesday.

I’m afraid I don’t like Her as much as I thought. She’s nice (there’s no doubt about that) and She’s good looking (also undeniable), but I don’t feel the same way around Her. Maybe it’s that I now actually talk to Her with the intention of getting together — what I’ve pretty much always wanted. I don’t know if that makes sense, but maybe right now I’m afraid of Her, or rather, what She’ll say. I really do want to love Her. I can’t see me loving nobody but Her for all my life. So, as you can imagine, this is bothering me. Has anyone else ever felt this way? If so, what happened?

Yesterday I talked to Aaron, my friend Michelle’s boyfriend. I mentioned the letter and that I hadn’t received a reply. He told me to be direct about it. So today I asked Her, “What did you think of the letter?” She told me that She was going to write me back. (She didn’t have time to say much else; the only time we really get to speak to each other is when we’re passing by in a crowded hallway.)

So it’s all down to Her reply, whenever it comes. It seems most likely that She’ll reject me, and that I won’t feel as bad as I might have if I were more smitten at the moment. There’s always a chance that She’ll somehow give in to my pleading, and I guess that would make me happy. I’m sort of in the middle right now, and I guess that’s a good thing. But if She’s going to take me up on my offer, I want to be sure that I like Her as much as I once did. I hope that if I do get a chance with Her, it’ll make me tremendously happy and I’ll fall in love with Her all over again.

I think it will. I remember that other time I almost had a date. While I still thought it was going to happen, I felt indescribably happy. And in this case, I’d have to be at least as happy.

Some months ago I wrote about Skype, the free Internet telephony service. (I love that word. Telephony.) Now Skype 2.0 has been released, and it supports video. As it happens, I have an old webcam that I’ve never really gotten to use to its full potential. Well, now I can use it. Awesome, man. Awesome. Did I mention that Skype is available for Windows 2000/XP, Pocket PC, Mac OS X, and Linux; that PC-to-PC calls are free; that the sound quality is crystal-clear; and that up to five people can talk in a conference at once?

Although Skype is awesome, it’s useless if you have no one to talk to, and, well, I have no one to talk to. For a while I left my status on “Skype Me” and got a lot of weird calls, mainly from people who didn’t speak English very well. My friend Gilbert downloaded Skype one time, and we were carrying on a pretty good conversation (although his connection appeared to be slowing things down). Do any of you readers have Skype? I’ve added a link to the sidebar for you to call me. For the record, my Skype name is fanofthefabfour.

And of course, if you don’t have Skype, download it now at Skype.com.

Leave it to Wikipedia to have an article on home cheesemaking. Directions included!

Here are some Monopoly home rules that really seem to spice the game up. I’ll have to try them out with Kevin and my sister. We’ve been playing Monopoly quite a bit lately.

One year ago: “She apologized, I guess, and, with her oxygen tanks and team of Sherpas, proceeded to hike toward the running board of her tank, which had actually started to pull small dogs into its orbit.”
Two years ago: “Tonight I’m going to see the much-hyped film The Passion of the Christ.”

[sic]

Junior high school, usually sixth to eighth grade, marks a big change in your education. For the first time, you’re taught by not a single teacher, but by many. And having many teachers means that you have to get to know each one. Each has her or his own quirks. Some are mean, some are funny, some get tongue-tied a lot, and others are a combination of the three.

When I started sixth grade in 2000, what I feared most was the history teacher, Mrs. Albert. I had heard things about her, you see. From what I understood, she was like the teacher from the black lagoon. So there I was in her class at the beginning of the year, and she asked me, “Where is the Tropic of Crapricorn?” Yes, “Crapricorn.” I tried not to laugh as I told her it was in the Southern Hemisphere.

Soon I realized that more than one of my new teachers were prone to such verbal slip-ups. I started keeping track of these “teacherisms” by scribbling them down as I heard them in class and adding them to a text file on my computer. The list grew until 2003, when I finished eighth grade and started high school. I was expecting more teacherisms in ninth grade, but my new teachers actually seemed to have their heads screwed on straight.

Since I started this site I’ve meant to post this list of classic junior high teacherisms, but I hadn’t really been reminded of it until this semester, now that I have a teacher who makes similar slips of the tongue. (I intend to start collecting quotations from him, so maybe I’ll post them someday.) Without further ado, here are a few of the funny and sometimes bizarre things I heard my teachers say in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.

Have you seen the famous Patterson-Gimlin film of “Bigfoot”? Here’s a stabilized version (very wide, 4 MB animated GIF) that corrects the shaking of the camera, making it clearer than ever (but in black and white — you can’t have everything, you know).

Here’s a list of the 10 most beautiful experiments in the history of science, as chosen by physicists. (Insert physicist joke here?)

Premio Lo Nuestro

Yesterday Kevin took me, Lisa, and my sister to Premio Lo Nuestro, a Spanish-language music award show. I had some doubts about going, and illness almost prevented me from going, but somehow I was well enough to go. So we drove all the way down to Mee-AH-Mee, where we had just gone last month. Instead of relying solely on public transportation, Kevin drove us there, and it took less than an hour. Once we were downtown, we spent about fifteen minutes trying to drive a few blocks (thank you, traffic), finally settling in one of the parking lots between the lanes of Biscayne Boulevard (US 1).

It was kind of weird seeing places that we had conquered in a big day last month. We decided to get a quick, cheap dinner at the Burger King on Calle Ocho (Southwest Eighth Street), where we ate at our last trip. The guy there must have been new, because a manager was showing him the ropes of taking an order. Naturally, they screwed up the whole order, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I did learn something: You can’t give a fast-food worker your whole order at once. They enter the first thing you say and don’t get a chance to hear the rest. Anyway, I guess that that Burger King is going to be our hangout for any future Miami trips.

Anyway, we went back to the American Airlines Arena in time, and made it into the show. The whole thing was pretty nice. There were lots of people I’ve heard my sister and Kevin talking about. And the whole thing was televised live by Univision, so we taped it at home. Surprisingly (to me), it didn’t seem to be much of a problem that the whole thing was in Spanish. Having taken a lot of Spanish classes didn’t seem to help me much, except that I got the gist of at least one bit of banter. Also, the big screens were showing the cameras’ views of everything — what the viewers on TV were watching. The sweeping, constantly changing camera angles made the whole thing look more exciting. I think the cameras made the arena look bigger too.

Kevin and my sister were curious about what they would do during the commercial breaks. While we were watching the red carpet thing outside on the monitors, they basically had the big screens turned to Univision, complete with commercials. Once the show started, the screens switched to a “Premio Lo Nuestro” graphic during commercial breaks. On the floor, people shuffled around, and on the stage, people were setting up the next act. Then the announcer would count down (“cinco, cuatro…”) and the show would resume. Now you know.

Apparently there’s some controversy over how to pronounce “GIF.” The GIF Pronunciation Page clears it up. You’re supposed to say it with a soft “g,” but that doesn’t stop me from saying it with a hard “g” like I always have.

The Fight Goliath Fund is working to protect one Patti Santangelo from a file-sharing lawsuit levied against her by Big Music. Why won’t she just settle with them? Because she’s being accused of a crime she didn’t commit.

Two years ago: “I hated blogs back then, but I didn’t realize that they’re all not written by depressed teenagers pouring their souls out.”

The Beach Boy(s) and other weekend adventures

On Friday, Kevin and Lisa accompanied my sister and me for one of our typical Friday nights out. We started at Tijuana Flats, a quasi-Mexican restaurant. The service is fast, the food is fresh, there are a lot of hot sauces, each person can easily have a separate check, and you don’t have to tip. That makes it a great place for a group of friends with no money to go to.

After that we drove to the beach. We parked next to the border between Broward and Palm Beach Counties. We walked around the area a bit, including on the beach. Looking back toward the shore, on the left you could see some shrimpy apartment-type buildings. That was Deerfield Beach, Broward County. On the right were colossal condo towers as far as the eye could see. Boca Raton, Palm Beach County.

We meandered south toward Deerfield Beach, past the pier. All of a sudden, I heard music. I had forgotten that the Beach Boys were playing that night — by the beach, no less. (Actually, it was just Mike Love and some other guys.) They played all the favorites, and I knew all the words. I don’t care what you think about that. I saw someone who goes to my school there, and she was having a good time. So ha.

Walking back to where we had parked, we saw a huge orange figure out in the ocean. After examining it for a few seconds, it became clear that we were watching something I’d never really seen: moonrise. That moon was rising fast, or so it seemed. It was pretty awesome. And after that, we went to a Starbucks, and then we went home.

Saturday was another day for doing things. Kevin came over to our house, and we rode our bikes around and stuff. At our house we played Monopoly with us, and at his house we ate some guava-flavored ice cream. Then we decided we would get together with Lisa and do some stuff in her neck of the woods.

Before we met at Lisa’s house, Kevin gave me a video he had found at a thrift store: it was the Beatles’ movie Help!, which I’ve hardly seen because I’ve never owned it. Then we picked up Lisa at her house and looked for a place to eat. We saw a few good places, but they were pretty expensive, so we ended up going to McDonald’s. I had a Big Mac, and it was good. Good sauce that Big Mac has. But I don’t like that McDonald’s burgers are really small compared to what you’d get at a sit-down restaurant with weird things on the walls. “Small Mac” isn’t as catchy of a name.

After that, we went over to a Starbucks. Drinks in hand, we walked to a nearby Barnes & Noble to check out some books. We spent about a million years in there and left when it was time to close. But while we were there, I saw some interesting books, including an illustrated version of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. Or is it “Strunk’s and White’s”? If I had bought the book, I would know. I can console myself by saying that I probably wouldn’t have had enough money.

When we dropped off Lisa at her house, she gave me a copy of the movie that her friend had me play a part in. The resulting short film, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Killer That Kills, has a lot of funny bits. Unfortunately, there was no bonus material like bloopers or our in-character trip to Subway (including a mindless car singalong), but it was still enjoyable. I had a lot of fun doing that movie, and I’d work with that bunch again.

Yesterday I didn’t do much except go to the St. Coleman’s Italian Festival with my dad to hear Hello Goodbye, a Beatles tribute band. They were really good, but the drummer (who was also a singer) shined above all. He was amazing. In spite of the fact that the band took their name from a later Beatles song, they really only play the early stuff — the danceable but slightly less critically-acclaimed material. Still, they had every song down well, and they played with a lot of enthusiasm.

Ever heard of SETI@home? It’s a distributed computing project in which users like you download a program that analyzes radio signals for signs of intelligent life in the universe and sends the results back to a central computer. Distributed computing projects such as these lead to much faster calculations than the fastest supercomputers can handle. Long ago, I had SETI@home, and then I got rid of it. The other day I downloaded Folding@home, which actually puts your computer’s time and energy to good use. It basically analyzes proteins to see how they work when they’re folded correctly, and how they cause diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, and Parkinson’s when they don’t. Right now my PC’s analyzing variations of collagen, the most abundant protein in the body. Hopefully, the information that scientists learn from this project will provide cures for diseases.

If some yahoo messes up your monitor by holding a magnet up to it, here’s how to fix it.

One year ago: “Such an endeavor would probably require having a database, but I don’t have any real experience with that.”
Two years ago: “2004 has been declared the year of the search engine wars, in which one search engine will climb up over the rest and declare supremacy.”

School on Friday

It’s been a busy week, owing to the fact that I’ve been getting mountains of homework over the past few days. Now, I can normally tolerate that because my school never has classes on Fridays. But today, a Friday, is a normal day of school in order to make up for one of the days lost to Hurricane Wilma. Of course, if you take a bunch of students used to having Fridays off and make them go to school on a Friday, many of them just won’t go. And that’s the situation today as I write this in programming class. (Hey, no one’s here, so we’re not doing anything anyway.) Let’s recap what’s happened since my last post.

Valentine’s Day was uneventful.

On Wednesday the story broke that a clerk who worked in the school was stealing her co-workers’ credit cards. Most people, myself included, had no idea who the lady was, but it was still the big story of the day. (Seeing your school on the news is usually a bad thing.) The Sun-Sentinel was among the media outlets to cover the story.

Yesterday there was a pep rally at school. It was our first pep rally since the beginning of the last school year, in October 2004. I had almost forgotten how bad they were. It took forever to get the entire school out onto the bleachers (apparently they’re still working on the gym; we should have had it in there). After the coldest temperatures of the year earlier this week, it got to be sweltering just in time for the pep rally yesterday afternoon. I think it’s ceiling fan season again.

That brings us to today. Early this morning, Michelle left a comment on my last post, in which I mused about ways to woo the girl I’ve liked forever. Michelle said I should play the “other chick card” by pretending to be in a relationship with someone “10 times hotter,” which would supposedly make Her jealous, causing Her to try to steal me away. Of course, that argument is based on the assumption that there is someone hotter than She, and that I would be willing to lie to Her.

I talked to Michelle about this at school today, and she still seems convinced that it would work. I’m not so sure about that, but she did offer an interesting morsel of advice. She and Megan told me not to worry about the fact that She seems to be interested in another guy. Apparently girls like a different guy every other week. From my observations, this is true, but for much of the time I’ve known Her, She was with the very same guy. Now I suppose I could do something romantic/stupid to show Her how much I care. That seems to be the only way to go. Ideas, anyone? It could be something as simple as showing Her this blog, in which I’ve taken to worrying over Her incessantly, but maybe someone has a more romantic/stupid idea.

This Johari window thing is all the rage at the moment. The aforelinked site defines the Johari window this way: “The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.” If you know me in person, pick some adjectives that you think best describe me for my own Johari Window.

High-speed photography on Flickr. More Flickr-related fun: Retrievr, a tool that searches for Flickr images that resemble a sketch you provide.

One year ago: “Now, as I was saying, I really need to get in shape.”

That’s the nicer thing to do. That’s what I would do.

Yesterday I went to a surprise birthday party for Megan. Michelle had the party at her house. Megan didn’t really seem surprised, but it was fun anyway. Man, Michelle has a cool house. At least a dozen pinball machines, a pool table, and several jukeboxes are the makings of a cool house. And I didn’t even see the garage.

Alas, I thought I was done with this storyline, but somehow we got onto the subject how I got turned down by a girl I’ve pretty much always liked; she says she’s “talking to” someone else. Michelle’s boyfriend Aaron seemed really interested in my situation. (That Aaron, he’s a cool guy. We got along like old friends, kind of, although he’s probably going to think I’m weird for saying it.) He, Michelle, and Luke recommended that I do something about her instead of just sitting there and taking the rejection. Some of options they discussed included:

1. Calling her a bitch. Whether yelling (or even strong words) would be required wasn’t made clear. I wouldn’t do it anyway.
2. Playing the “other chick” card. In theory, if she can say she’s interested in another guy, I can claim I’m interested in another girl. But in practice, I can’t lie about something like that.
3. Playing the guitar and singing at her window. That would be an excellent way for me to make a massive fool of myself among everyone I know.
4. Stealing her away. I think that’s what Aaron said he did to Michelle, and they’ve been together for how long? One or two years?

Of those options, I would be most likely to carry out the fourth if I knew how. Maybe “stealing” her isn’t the best terminology, but you all understand. The fact of the matter is that I never act; I’m used to getting stomped on all the time. Can anyone offer some tips on making her fall for me in spite of the fact that she doesn’t seem to want to? Michelle? Sean? Luke? Aaron? Darkerday? Anyone else? Please leave a comment and help me out.

In other news, I got the results of my iFlurtz questionnaire today. Instead of feeling enlightened as to which girls are supposedly the best for me, I felt like I got ripped off. (Needless to say, the aforementioned girl wasn’t among the results.) Here’s where I mention how tests can’t really tell you anything important. More entertaining was the fact that they seem to have very recently changed their name to “eFlurtz” now that Apple Computer has trademarked the letter “i.” Somebody better tell the square root of -1 to watch out.

Here’s a planning page for Firefox 2.0. Be sure to check out the weekly status meeting notes. It’s interesting to see a discussion of cool new features that they’re planning on adding.

The village of Baarle is one of Europe’s most perplexing territorial anomalies. Basically, it’s a village in the Netherlands, and part of the village consists Belgian enclaves inside the Netherlands, and inside some of the Belgian enclaves are Dutch enclaves. Whew! (See also: a photo gallery of the town.)

One year ago: “Is it possible that deviations in random numbers can detect or even predict major world events?”

A Fourth Serving of Cruel Joke Soup for the Already Gloomy Soul

The girl whom I asked to the dance that got cancelled never called. As I said I’d do, I sent her a message asking if she wanted to do anything next weekend. Here’s how she replied (but with lower standards of punctuation, grammar, and spelling):

Besides the obvious point that this is sad for me, it’s also really weird because she implies that she knew I liked her all along. I don’t know how she knew, but I let it slip at least once before. It’s weird to think that while I was thinking to myself, “If only I could ask her out,” she might have been thinking, “When is he going to ask me out?” (Not like she wanted me to, of course. She was just trying to be prepared for that eventuality.)

In my reply, I asked how she knew that. I also told her that I don’t think I can be “just friends” with her. You’re friends with people who you think are good. But when you think someone is too good, you can’t settle at that level. And that’s where I place her: she’s too good to be just a friend, and so she’s too good for me. If I’ve only said one true thing in my life, then that’s it.

Not so long ago, I had to let go of Nacole. Now I have to let go of the girl I’ve had feelings for since I first saw her two and a half years ago. That’s why I wouldn’t mention her name here until something good happened. I don’t want to be remembered as the boy who liked ______ and got turned down when he finally asked her out.

The more cynical of you might be saying, “Oh, so what? He effectively got turned down by two girls. There are others, y’know.” Well, for the past two and a half years, they have been the only ones to me. Though it’s really weird mentioning both of them in the same sentence like that, it’s true. Whom do I have now? No one. And it’s not like I’m going to meet anybody anytime soon. The little hope I have left is contained in a few unknowns:

1. Some unknown girl, who, a couple months ago, said I was cute.
2. My ten best matches in that romance questionnaire thing I did a while ago (assuming that any of them are single).

Failing those options, I have no idea where I’ll turn my energy. Who will be on my mind? I don’t know. I need to love somebody.

It’s going to be another bad Valentine’s Day.

Hey, speaking of worrying, here’s a short article on how to stop worrying. I actually read it. It provides a useful tip that I may use in the future.

Rubik’s cube Mona Lisa.

One year ago: “People with weird names shouldn’t run for office.”
Two years ago: “Unfortunately the hero and heroine don’t die at the end, but hey, it’s for kids.”

A cruel joke or two (or three)

Yesterday in European History class, I was busy reading the chapter that we had to read (which I wasn’t supposed to be doing, according to the incompetent substitute teacher). Meanwhile, Luke, Brian, Michelle, and Megan were talking among themselves (which I guess was okay). All of a sudden, they asked, “Did you hear what we were talking about?” I replied, “No,” and they said, “Good.” They then started to talk about some sort of plot against me. Now, I can get really paranoid at times, so it freaked me out.

At lunch, I talked to Gilbert about it. He knew about it but claimed not to know much. I went over to where Luke and Brian were hanging out, and there they were with Dan C. and Dan W. I was hoping that I would at least interrupt their conversation about a plot against me (if they were even talking about it). “We haven’t forgotten about you,” said Luke. “When will it be?” I said. “We were going to do it tomorrow, but we’ll have to do it today,” he said. He asked me when I would like them to do it. I told him it should be as soon as possible. Then he decided it would have to be next week. Whatever it was, that is.

I walked back nervously to where I usually eat lunch, out of Luke’s sight. So I was just standing around when Dan C. comes up and says, “We haven’t forgotten about you, Jordon Kalilich.” and walks away. “What are you going to do? What do you want?” I shouted, but he didn’t turn around. It was pretty weird. Back in class after lunch, I was working diligently when, all of a sudden, I heard: “We haven’t forgotten about you, Jordon.” It was Dan W., who was sitting next to me. I asked him about the whole plot. He assured me that it was an elaborate joke, so I eased up after that.

Later I walked into Mr. Weigel’s class, my last class of the day. All of a sudden, there came the sternest voice from Mr. Weigel: “I haven’t forgotten about you, Jordon.” By that time, I told Luke, who is also in the class, that I knew it was all a joke. He revealed that they were talking in class about how or whether you can convince someone that they’re schizophrenic. Since they needed someone paranoid to try it out on, and since I hadn’t heard what they were talking about, they picked me. Well, they picked a good target. I can be quite paranoid, so maybe I am going to be schizophrenic.

Today was to be a normal, joke-free day. But as we left our classrooms to go downstairs for lunch, we ran into a slight problem. The doors between the hallway and the staircase seemed to be locked. So we would have to use the other doors, all the way down the hall, that would lead to another staircase. I could see those other doors at the opposite end of the hall. They were closed too. People were spilling out into the hallway but not getting anywhere, causing it to be pretty crowded. Some people were trying to push on the doors and found that they were tied shut with thick wire. Attempts to break the wire continued until a teacher came out and stood around to make sure those rowdy teenage hooligans didn’t break the doors or something.

I loved this prank; I couldn’t stop grinning at the idea of a huge crowd of students unexpectedly being made late for lunch while trapped in a hallway. Even though I usually hate being late for lunch, I thought it was brilliant. It was definitely a better prank than the old crickets in the hallway routine that the seniors pulled last year. Oh, by the way, they managed to cut the wires eventually, and everyone got to lunch.

Later today the principal made an announcement to the school, but it was about another matter. Due to a lack of tickets being sold, the Valentine’s Day Dance, which was supposed to be tomorrow, has been cancelled. The tickets were only $7 in advance, but a lot of people expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that the dance was only open to the school’s own students. So it was hardly surprising, in a way.

Also hardly surprising is that I now definitely don’t have a date. So my possible date, who still hadn’t called me about whether she was going to go, is probably breathing a sigh of relief. I can just tell. Otherwise she would have called me to say yes. So I came home today with $14 still in my pocket.

Ironically, this is not the first time I’d have a school function/date cancelled. Hurricane Katrina foiled what would have been my first date. Apparently I need to get better ideas for where to go. Movies don’t get cancelled. Bowling alleys don’t get cancelled. Restaurants don’t get cancelled. My house doesn’t get cancelled.

I guess I’ll give it another try. Luckily, this past week I finally found her MySpace after months of searching. I’ll ask her if she wants to do anything else, and in the unlikely event that she says yes, I’ll try to think of something.

What goes into the making of a “Simpsons” episode? Find out.

Have you ever felt like you haven’t accomplished anything? Then don’t check out Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age.

One year ago: “Oh, right, I’m a confused teenager.”

100% Grade A angst (we’ve trimmed the fat)

She hasn’t called. We’ve caught glimpses of each other around school on a couple of occasions this past week, most recently today. I managed to hand-phone and mouth the words “Call me.” Even though people look cool when they do that, I shouldn’t have to do it. Will she say yes or no? It’s been almost a week since I asked her to the dance, which is the day after tomorrow. She must have made up her mind by now. How is she planning on breaking it to me? I don’t know. The phone is silent.

I feel more afraid than infatuated. In a way, I’d be relieved if she turned me down. It seems like I asked her on a whim, and I’m now regretting it. Maybe I don’t like her as much as I thought. Or maybe it’s just because I’m not sure of what she’ll say. Perhaps it’s just that I seem to be standing under the world’s eye. It’s like everyone’s watching me, but I don’t know any of the moves. I might have thought that preserving her anonymity would help out, but some people know who she is. What’s more, I’m subjecting myself to the world’s eye by telling you this right now; I feel like I have to tell someone, though.

I feel very uneasy just thinking about it. Right now my insides seem to be tied in a knot, and I can hardly breathe. Have I done the right thing? Is the foolish thing the right thing? I could say to myself, “Why do I care so much, anyway?” And then I could answer, “Because I care about her.” I guess it’s the only explanation. After all, I want to like her, even though it’s not showing through right now because of the anxiety. Hopefully this nervous feeling can be brushed aside with a simple “Yes.” Whether that answer will come is a different issue.

On to the links.

A site about a flag. Specifically, the Don’t Tread on Me flag.

I think 153 is my new favorite number.