Poppy

Avogadro, center

We called him Avogadro because of his large size.

But I called him Poppy.

His lips sucked in and out in a forever hunt for food. I liked to imagine that if I hung, silently with my eyes closed, suspended in the water next to him, I could hear a faint pop! every time he opened and closed his toothless mouth.

He was charmingly plump and when he swam his whole body endearingly wiggled back and forth. His favorite food was thawed peas and duckweed, which he gobbled and eyed us like a boy in a candy shop, asking for more.

His stout body had the deceptive appearance of sturdy health. When we returned home from vacation last year, he bobbled at the top of the water like an inflated balloon. We rushed him to the aquarium where he spent a couple weeks recuperating back to health. A man offered a hundred dollars for our Avogadro, but we declined and took him home.

Over the next few months his health came in spurts. We tried everything we could - antibiotics, less food, colder water - but in the end it was lack of stomach that killed him. His, literally, as goldfish have a single, long intestine in place of a stomach. Us, figuratively, as we could not bear to see him suffer.

Poppy lived a well-loved life.

buttery sunshine

Dear Summer, you are mine. the sky is pregnant with clouds and raindrops fall like the damp tip-toe of small feet. Your back arches with meadows, the grass is soft and sweet and glows. Flower stretch their vermilion heads, their petals laced with perfume. oh summer, how you smell of half-baked earth and cool stone, warm sticky honey and fresh corn, sweet smiles and lips stained red with watermelon. oh the watermelon, juices run down your chin like tears, the green and cream rinds ferment in the backyard compost.

the rain has ceased, the clouds crack open like time-worn granite, revealing a shattering blue sky. slowly they melt away, traces of the storm dry up like snail tracks left on a hot sidewalk. you and I are standing with our toes tasting puddles and our minds hugging the buttery sunshine.

all images by me, pre-dslr.

family of four takes turn around lake! spots wolf and prisoner!

Don't you love it when you're just walking along and - OH MY GOD there's a prisoner's mitten on a tree!!

In other words, the family and I went for a walk around one of the lakes last Sunday. We were originally going to go to Purgatory, but we decided that it would be to far of a drive.
Aww.
That's right, Didi doesn't walk around lakes - he glides.

When I look at this photo I think snow! desert! oasis! and angels in my head belt out a chorus of "Silent Night."

Lone dog runs on frozen lake.

The CUTEST chimney EVER! I'd be happy to live in the chimney, except they probably have chicken wire in each of the "windows" to prevent birds for getting high on chimney smoke.

When I was looking through photos I thought, Gee that must be mom and dad walking off into the distance. How cute.

Upon closer inspection it turned out to be Didi. Yikes. He really is growing.

Don't you hate it when you're riding in a car and - OMG a cute doggy pokes its nose out the window! And then you feel obliged to pull out the camera, take a photo, and upload it to your blog. Sheesh.

Note the juxtaposition of the street signs: ONLY turn left into the MAC store, but don't actually enter it or park next to it.

Next time: Pizza Luce's stomach-turning pizza! (that's where this dog is headed.)

NEDC Blog Post 3

Here are the details about yesterday!


After Kai, Peter, and I checked into the hotel, we immediately assessed our device and determined what needed adjustments/fixing. It ends up quite a bit of reworking on the device was necessary, so Kai hunkered down for some serious programing and debugging.


In case you are not aware of what our device actually is, click here. This is our submission for the semifinals of NEDC - it gives a nice overview of our product.

Here's Kai at work in the hotel room.

The glove itself was not finished, so Peter's mom, my mom, and I went to the mall to find supplies - cloth and sewing kit. The NEDC is located in the perfect place - literally 5 minutes away from a mall, the metro, and a kinkos.

When we got back Peter and Kai were still at work on the programming. The fact the device was not ready and didn't even work was concerning. Kai and Peter eventually figured out that the input and output were plugged in the wrong places, but there were still bugs that needed to be worked through.

Unfortunately, I am not much of a programmer, so I hung out in my hotel room and practiced what I do know - violin - until the programming was completed enough so I could work on the glove.


After about an hour, we decided to go grab some dinner and then continue to work on our device. While we waited for Trevor to show up, Peter, Kai, and I chatted via skype in the hotel's lobby with an OHS alumni who graduated a year early. It was great catching up with her.

After Trevor showed up, we went to eat at an Italian restaurant. The restaurant's set up was weird - you receive a card and then walk up to different stations to order. They put the price on your card, and then on your way out you pay at the front desk. But it was nice to fuel up and get to know Trevor, since he had just arrived. He's actually leaving Thursday after the competition to compete in a race-walk competition in Mexico. I'm always impressed with OHS student's extra curriculars.

Peter's mom at dinner.

I told the guys to "act normal and chat amongst themselves." Not quite sure what Kai finds so hilarious.

When we got back from dinner, we immediately worked on our presentation and our device. I finished the glove, which basically included sewing the disk motors in place and repairing some of the seams.

Kai got a better program running and continued to improve it. Eventually Sophia should up and very enthusiastically gave us hugs. Peter and Trevor reviewed her papers for the poster board and corrected mistakes.

After I finished the glove, I took Sophia for a brisk walk in order to give the boys peace and burn off some of her energy. When we returned they were still working, so I turned in for the night.

NEDC Blog Post 2

Hey from DC!

Technically we are in Virginia, but we're just ten min from Our Nation's capitol.

Post will be brief-on Mom's pre, which is annoying to type on. Will publish better post tomorrow.

Woke up at 4 am to catch flight. One stop along the way. Met Peter, our amazing team capt, and his mom at baggage claim. We took the metro to the hotel, and found Kai along the way.

Checked into hotel @ 1:30, then went to Potbelly's for lunch. Came back to hotel and worked on our device (which included the ladies going to mall to find supplies.)

Kai worked on programming, so I couldn't do much with the glove (explanation to come), so I practiced violin.

Hotel lobby-skyped with old OHS friend, then Trevor arrived. We all went to dinner, came back to continue work on device. Sophia, with all her exuberance, showed up. We finished up the device and editing our presentation

Now I'm all cleaned up ready for some zzzzs.

more details tomorrow.

NEDC Blog Post 1

OK, all you nonexistent friends who read my blog with whole-hearted devotion. I'm going to Washington DC tomorrow for the Junior Engineering Technical Society's (JETS) National Design Engineering Competition (NEDC). I plan to update this blog with pictures and words while on the trip.

The past few weeks have been crazy. I would liken it to a death spiral, except instead of spiraling downward it goes upward, culminating in the NEDC Adventure with little plastic models of thumbalina, ramen noodles, and all the horrendous mementos from my childhood swirling around me, representing the everlasting circle of eat, homework, practice violin, and sleep.

(Please forgive my weird, sarcastic, and cynical descriptions. I've been sick and I'm just getting better. I think the evil little viruses have concentrated their missiles on a few of my precocious brain cells.)

Today mom and I sashayed our way to the Banana Republic for a little last minute shopping. I had a suit, but no shirt. The problem with Banana Republic is that there definition of "color" is a small splash of pink mixed with tonal greys and purples and tans. I'm as white as wonderbread, so bolder colors look better on my skin. Eventually, we found a top. It's blue and white, almost just like the shirt I bought with the suit years ago for my Bat Mitzvah.

I have to pack tonight, which I've barely started (DON'T tell my mum!), but that's OK since I'm a master at last minute tasks. Though secretly I'm masking a gnawing worry since mom and I leave tomorrow at 5 am.... no time at all to think of forgotten items...

I'm going to run. Mom knows I haven't started packing.

每逢佳节倍思亲

Love Song to Prufrock

Originally this scene was going to be all in pencil, but I couldn't resist a little color.

I've decided not to organize this blog by days, but other than that everything will be the same. My goal is still to have 201 posts by the end of the year 2010.

Today in English class we are reading TS Eliot's "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock." The poem read merely for enjoyment is beautiful and provoking. Eliot has a wonderful way with concrete imagery. Some of my favorite lines:

"Like a patient etherised upon a table"
"sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells"
"The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes"
"as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen"

I love how a surprising description sits in my mouth like candy. For class, of course, our reading is more cerebral. Here are some of my notes:

"Prufrock" criticizes and confronts modernity. Although the poem's form is a dramatic monologue employing stream of consciousness, Eliot has modernized the dramatic monologue by concentrating on Prufrock's interiority, rather than the audience. It is unclear who Prufrock is addressing, but it could be an interior monologue.

In "Second Empire in Baudelaire," Benjamin explains how Baudelaire is a hero of modernity. The hero's task is to define or come to terms with modernity. However, Prufrock claims that he is not a hero; instead he is the Fool (from Shakespeare's plays). Prufrock wans to obtain the ideal - a woman - but the pleasantries of modernity (tea and cakes, petty criticisms of appearance) are distracting and get in the way.

Prufrock is frustrated with the modern individual. He views the world as beauty with little substance ("sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells"). Instead, he wishes to be a crab, the scavenger who finds beauty in trash. This is similar to Baudelaire, who finds beauty in ugliness and is able to both praise and criticize it. However, Prufrock is stuck in limbo between two worlds - modern life, where his desires (the woman and aesthetic) exist but he is unable to move to get them and the world in which he is able to move, but is old and ugly.

Read entire poem here.