Talkative
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
- Mark Twain
Justin's this seventh grade dude at Cabin John who goes to Dr. Li's for homework help. He asks me if I have a girlfriend, and what kind of music I like, and if I play basketball, and if I like Linkin Park. He asks me where I'm going to college, and where is it, and if it's a good college. Justin does all these things before I can tell him to do his homework. If he had more persistence with his study than with trying to find out who I am, I'd only have to work one hour a day.
When he writes a sentence, he drops commas and omits colons, and forgets to mention his verb. He says, "Dang, John, you study a lot," and IMs me to say, "Still writing? boring..." Sometimes, when wrapping a compound-complex sentence around his head is harder for me than wrapping a lump of a birthday gift. But I suppose he says all he needs to say.
I still like him - he's a funny guy. One day he punched a kid on the bus for pulling his pants down. The next day he insisted he didn't have a girlfriend named Vicki, who he was taking pictures for on his Sony Ericsson T610 (and I only have a T300). The next day he can't come up with an idea for his creative story. I always guessed that creativity and sociability were separate intelligences, but now I know for sure.
Ning whines when he finds out who his roommates are. "Why'd I get put up with Michael and Julian?" Michael's the naive sophomore whose world is It's Academic, to date (he's going to a quiz bowl summer camp); Julian's the "How'd he get on?" member of the team.
I get to stay with the two 'mature' seniors of the team. We check out the resort arcade; in the gaudily neon-lighted scene the only worthwhile entertainment is air hockey. I suck it up big time. :-p That night, they go out to the pool, while I stay in and study. No one wants to be seen as too "tool"-like, that is, no one who hangs around with Adam and Kannan. I'd rather detach myself from them, and do it as painlessly as possible.
Before I go to sleep, I notice that three wallets are on the table; concerned about someone getting locked out, I sleepily walk to the pool, chewing gum for energy. When I meet them at the pool, they're lounging by the side, just talking, not even in the pool. Yes, they have a key, and would I care to join them? No, I'm calling it a night, the gum's the only thing keeping me awake. Convenient excuse.
After we handily win our first game handily (we put up the highest score of the whole tourney, 350 pts, and ran away in the last round) we have a free hour before heading to Epcot Center (Oh! It's even boring from far away! - Homer Simpson). My roommates and I decide it's too nice to be stuck in the room, so we sit out on a bench under a side door portico. Adam pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking, and Kannan takes one from him. I ask "Can I have one?"; he says "Sure", and I respond, "No thanks, just testing." They know it's stupid, I know it's stupid, and to tell them it's stupid would be like saying, "It's hot out here."
In the meantime, Kannan is having some trouble. I watch him light a match, only to have it blown out before it gets to his cigarette. Another one blows out, and yet another. The fan overhead mocks his habit, extinguishing five matches in a row before he gives up and lights up from Adam. I'd laugh if I weren't so disenchanted, but I laughed anyway. =/
Someone should tell what "designated smoking area" means. I'm with them at Epcot to eat some Moroccan food (worst dining ever) and they smoke during the after-meal walk back. I ride with them on the Rock'n'Roller Coaster, and they light up after exiting the ride. Michael the innocent happened to be riding with us - it was his birthday, but he was too scared to try the ride, but I lied and told him it was at least as tame as Space Mountain (which he didn't ride) and didn't go upside-down (which it did) =D. He loved it. What he didn't love was Adam and Kannan taking a hit afterwards. Michael started berating them disappointedly on how they were ruining their lives, how he didn't want anything to do with it, and they brushed him off until he huffed away.
The two went through three packs for five days - not too bad, but they had to pay for it at Disney World (!? their wallet took a hit). After we were narrowly (unfairly?) edged out of the championship round, they took to smoking in the room, and swiped an air freshener from the maid's cart to mask it. I could smell it anyway, and so could the coaches, but they didn't say anything either.
I remember Adam mentioning in conversation how his parents knew, he'd love to quit, but he couldn't because he was a teenager and just got started, couldn't quit while he still liked it. He mentioned how high the cigarette taxes were in MD, and how expensive it was to keep the habit. I wanted to grab him by the arms, rant and rave at him about willpower and responsibility and getting out while you're still not too far behind, and shotput his pack in the pool . But his frankness with me said it would all be futile.
Perhaps the simplest of the touristy traps of the Disney repertoire is the Mickey Mouse pool. Wavy palms cool the browning tanners on deck chairs and swimmers are refreshed by fountains in the pool, right where the ears and mouth should be. Unlike the parks, the pool never closes.
At night, the park-weary families leave the pool to retire and the teens come out to play. I forgot my trunks (silly me, I'm remembering them to CA), but I dip my feet in the pool anyway. Rarely anyone sits on the deck chairs at midnight, save for a few delinquent smokers.
But the last night, about 2AM, all the socialites and I are in the pool, roommates included. Kannan generously lent me some trunks after I whined a bit =} After a dip, I decided I'd rather chitchat than play dunking games and Marco Polo. I join a circle of a dozen deckside, sitting next to a girl I'd met earlier during the tourney, Teresa, who's handsomely pretty. She talks at least half the time as the conversation flows, first about her school, then about swim team and lifeguarding, then about her successful matchmakes and romances. I say comparatively little, like playing a tight game of Hold' Em, until most of the others cash out on too little sleep.
At about four students left, she starts exposing her own failed trysts. (In case you're wondering, I behaved the whole tournament, securing early that she had a happy relationship. It's Academic girls ain't my type. =} ) She says she makes the best couples, and helps so many people, but has a bad track record herself. Her friends call her "Mother Teresa". I can't help but notice some parallels between her hellish breakup story and mine. But I suppose we aren't all so different.
What compels a person to reveal their life story to complete strangers at late-night-last-night academic events like this I never know for sure. It's as if the moon and stars conspire to loose the self-revelatory inhibitions of a kindred soul, as if the celestial bodies convince impressionable people that they're the only ones hearing the tawdry secrets of the past. And in a way, they are the only ones - people rarely remeet after departing nights like these. All the storytelling is soon forgotten without reinforcement. Still, it's a matter of propriety. I think it's more so the teenagers and younger people. I sure hope every of my dates won't begin with embarrassing details like lists of past SOs. =P
I didn't take her e-mail; I didn't want to be haunted by keeping in touch with someone's past, much less one too resonant with my own.
Welsh accents are soooooooooooo coool.
- Mark Twain
Justin's this seventh grade dude at Cabin John who goes to Dr. Li's for homework help. He asks me if I have a girlfriend, and what kind of music I like, and if I play basketball, and if I like Linkin Park. He asks me where I'm going to college, and where is it, and if it's a good college. Justin does all these things before I can tell him to do his homework. If he had more persistence with his study than with trying to find out who I am, I'd only have to work one hour a day.
When he writes a sentence, he drops commas and omits colons, and forgets to mention his verb. He says, "Dang, John, you study a lot," and IMs me to say, "Still writing? boring..." Sometimes, when wrapping a compound-complex sentence around his head is harder for me than wrapping a lump of a birthday gift. But I suppose he says all he needs to say.
I still like him - he's a funny guy. One day he punched a kid on the bus for pulling his pants down. The next day he insisted he didn't have a girlfriend named Vicki, who he was taking pictures for on his Sony Ericsson T610 (and I only have a T300). The next day he can't come up with an idea for his creative story. I always guessed that creativity and sociability were separate intelligences, but now I know for sure.
Ning whines when he finds out who his roommates are. "Why'd I get put up with Michael and Julian?" Michael's the naive sophomore whose world is It's Academic, to date (he's going to a quiz bowl summer camp); Julian's the "How'd he get on?" member of the team.
I get to stay with the two 'mature' seniors of the team. We check out the resort arcade; in the gaudily neon-lighted scene the only worthwhile entertainment is air hockey. I suck it up big time. :-p That night, they go out to the pool, while I stay in and study. No one wants to be seen as too "tool"-like, that is, no one who hangs around with Adam and Kannan. I'd rather detach myself from them, and do it as painlessly as possible.
Before I go to sleep, I notice that three wallets are on the table; concerned about someone getting locked out, I sleepily walk to the pool, chewing gum for energy. When I meet them at the pool, they're lounging by the side, just talking, not even in the pool. Yes, they have a key, and would I care to join them? No, I'm calling it a night, the gum's the only thing keeping me awake. Convenient excuse.
After we handily win our first game handily (we put up the highest score of the whole tourney, 350 pts, and ran away in the last round) we have a free hour before heading to Epcot Center (Oh! It's even boring from far away! - Homer Simpson). My roommates and I decide it's too nice to be stuck in the room, so we sit out on a bench under a side door portico. Adam pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking, and Kannan takes one from him. I ask "Can I have one?"; he says "Sure", and I respond, "No thanks, just testing." They know it's stupid, I know it's stupid, and to tell them it's stupid would be like saying, "It's hot out here."
In the meantime, Kannan is having some trouble. I watch him light a match, only to have it blown out before it gets to his cigarette. Another one blows out, and yet another. The fan overhead mocks his habit, extinguishing five matches in a row before he gives up and lights up from Adam. I'd laugh if I weren't so disenchanted, but I laughed anyway. =/
Someone should tell what "designated smoking area" means. I'm with them at Epcot to eat some Moroccan food (worst dining ever) and they smoke during the after-meal walk back. I ride with them on the Rock'n'Roller Coaster, and they light up after exiting the ride. Michael the innocent happened to be riding with us - it was his birthday, but he was too scared to try the ride, but I lied and told him it was at least as tame as Space Mountain (which he didn't ride) and didn't go upside-down (which it did) =D. He loved it. What he didn't love was Adam and Kannan taking a hit afterwards. Michael started berating them disappointedly on how they were ruining their lives, how he didn't want anything to do with it, and they brushed him off until he huffed away.
The two went through three packs for five days - not too bad, but they had to pay for it at Disney World (!? their wallet took a hit). After we were narrowly (unfairly?) edged out of the championship round, they took to smoking in the room, and swiped an air freshener from the maid's cart to mask it. I could smell it anyway, and so could the coaches, but they didn't say anything either.
I remember Adam mentioning in conversation how his parents knew, he'd love to quit, but he couldn't because he was a teenager and just got started, couldn't quit while he still liked it. He mentioned how high the cigarette taxes were in MD, and how expensive it was to keep the habit. I wanted to grab him by the arms, rant and rave at him about willpower and responsibility and getting out while you're still not too far behind, and shotput his pack in the pool . But his frankness with me said it would all be futile.
Perhaps the simplest of the touristy traps of the Disney repertoire is the Mickey Mouse pool. Wavy palms cool the browning tanners on deck chairs and swimmers are refreshed by fountains in the pool, right where the ears and mouth should be. Unlike the parks, the pool never closes.
At night, the park-weary families leave the pool to retire and the teens come out to play. I forgot my trunks (silly me, I'm remembering them to CA), but I dip my feet in the pool anyway. Rarely anyone sits on the deck chairs at midnight, save for a few delinquent smokers.
But the last night, about 2AM, all the socialites and I are in the pool, roommates included. Kannan generously lent me some trunks after I whined a bit =} After a dip, I decided I'd rather chitchat than play dunking games and Marco Polo. I join a circle of a dozen deckside, sitting next to a girl I'd met earlier during the tourney, Teresa, who's handsomely pretty. She talks at least half the time as the conversation flows, first about her school, then about swim team and lifeguarding, then about her successful matchmakes and romances. I say comparatively little, like playing a tight game of Hold' Em, until most of the others cash out on too little sleep.
At about four students left, she starts exposing her own failed trysts. (In case you're wondering, I behaved the whole tournament, securing early that she had a happy relationship. It's Academic girls ain't my type. =} ) She says she makes the best couples, and helps so many people, but has a bad track record herself. Her friends call her "Mother Teresa". I can't help but notice some parallels between her hellish breakup story and mine. But I suppose we aren't all so different.
What compels a person to reveal their life story to complete strangers at late-night-last-night academic events like this I never know for sure. It's as if the moon and stars conspire to loose the self-revelatory inhibitions of a kindred soul, as if the celestial bodies convince impressionable people that they're the only ones hearing the tawdry secrets of the past. And in a way, they are the only ones - people rarely remeet after departing nights like these. All the storytelling is soon forgotten without reinforcement. Still, it's a matter of propriety. I think it's more so the teenagers and younger people. I sure hope every of my dates won't begin with embarrassing details like lists of past SOs. =P
I didn't take her e-mail; I didn't want to be haunted by keeping in touch with someone's past, much less one too resonant with my own.
Welsh accents are soooooooooooo coool.