Follow, Follow! #3

We hold these truths to be self evident, that giant eyes and itty-bitty mouths are really cute, within reason...

Anyway, I promised a post about Pinkertons, and sadly, I know actually very little about them. The truth is, I only found out about them this year. My history teacher was telling us about Carnegie (whose name, much to my profound annoyance and frustration, is not pronounced CAR-negie, like they say on NPR, but car-NAY-gie, which is crazy and weird and crazy, but anyway), and he was going on, and then he was like, "... so he hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency." And of course, at that point I perked up and was like, "Detective agency? With sinister implications? What what?"
( it gets better! )

So, today! I went to graduation.

• Graduation, or as our principal insists on calling it, "commencement practices." Or, "commencement exercises." I think it's the latter. Anyway, she should either just call it graduation or commencement, because the seniors have to do so much practicing and exercising prior to the real deal that calling the real deal "practices" or "exercises" is a bit confusing.
• So many of my friends graduated this year, even more than last year, and I will miss them profoundly, I'm sure.
• My friend in my grade was there too, so I got to hang out with her, and two kids who had graduated last year. It is always good to hang out with people.
• I got to wear my summer dress! I was so excited and happy. I must get more dresses (some day, when I magically have that strange, intangible idea, "disposable income") because they are comfy and easy to wear, like shorts.
• The graduation song was "World's Greatest" by R. Kelly. One little corner of the students graduating was doing the whole swaying-back-and-forth thing. I wish everyone had done it, because if they were REALLY the world's greatest, they'd know that such songs demand silly, hippie-style swaying.
• A couple of people threw their caps at the end. At college graduations, that's when people throw their caps en masse, right?

After that, I went to a friend's graduation party, which was pretty nice, although I sadly was leaving before many people showed up. We did get to play some murderous badminton though. MURDEROUS, I tell you.

Also, everyone's favorite (read as, my and my friends' favorite) history teacher will finish her 10th year of teaching this year, so a friend and I got her a card and a Che Guevara doll, because if there's anything history doesn't have enough of, it's Che Guevara icons.

• Why don't politicians have nicknames like "Old Hickory," "Old Rough and Ready," "Old Oak," "Old Tippecanoe," "Young Hickory," and "His Rotundity" anymore? Pretty lame to lose those, America.

• Why did presidents suddenly decide it was a good idea to smile for their portraits? It makes them look goofy and harmless! I think the old-fashioned, totally badass, "I am staring dead on, at you, right into your soul" approach is far and ahead better.

• The Aroostook War was the best thing in history because it involved lumberjack gang turf wars. Think that over in your mind, and you will realize there is nothing cooler than lumberjack gang turf wars.

• Is there anyone more awesome than Kazimierz Pułaski? No, I don't think so.

• Barack Obama needs a nickname. Only YOU can properly nickname our president something properly bizarre and difficult-to-comprehend-the-meaning-of-without-explanation-from-a-history teacher.

• Only I can construct sentences as befuddling as the one above.

• Bear State, Don't Tread On Me Snake: What other animal flags are there?

• I'm so going to bed right now. I haven't slept properly in forever.

Recently in Latin, we learned about defixiones, or curse tablets. Apparently, people made a lot of them back in the day. Basically, you wrote down, in dedication to some god/goddess/evil spirit, what you wanted to happen to a person who you were angry at. This person could be anyone from a lover who jilted you, to an unknown thief who stole your precious cloak. (There was one defixio about a stolen cloak.) One angry defixio is crazily intense in its vengeance against some girl: May burning fever seize all her limbs, kill her soul and her heart. O Gods of the Underworld, break and smash her bones, choke her, let her body be twisted and shattered - phrix, phrox. The two words at the end are nonsense, "magic" words like "abracadabra" to give the defixio more evil magic power. o.o Other things that gave a defixio more power: writing it backwards; including an illustration; putting a nail through it, throwing it down a well, or both; starting at someone's head and describing all the bad things you want to happen to them, from there downwards.

Aaaaanyway, we have to make a defixio as an assignment in class, which feels sorta creepy in a "we're doing crazy Roman voodoo in Latin!" kind of way, but I guess it's fun. Unfortunately, our limited vocabulary, combined with the requirement that we include genitive phrases, gives us phrases such as "sim caput Vilbiae plenus murum," or, "may Vilbia's head fill with mice." ...yeah.

( if you'd prefer to skip the Latin info dump, the photos are below here )

I have suddenly been struck with the idea of researching my family history. I know I have an aunt on my mother's side who has a lot of the history on that side of the family, but I don't know it and I'd like to. Plus I have no idea about my family history on my dad's side, save a generation or so up.

This partially struck me because of someone saying they were related to Dick Turpin (who was actually a jerk, and not a dashing romantic highwayman, but oh well), and because Mr. Hawthorne was rather obsessed with his family history (Judge Hathorne, one of his ancestors, was a judge for the Salem Witch Trials!).

In conclusion, I need to work on my NaNo.

Today the song lyric that is resonating with me is from that new song, and it goes, "over the line, can't define what I'm after." That's where I'm at right now. I think the song is called "Shattered" or "Turn the Car Around" or something.

I think I'll go down to the university tomorrow and read some Hawthorne and possibly biology. Mostly I just need a change of scenery really badly. I'm looking forward to the Hawthorne short stories, though. Rappacini's Daughter was such a good movie! And I'll feel more honest about knowing the story once I've read the actual book.

Also, I hear that in the Hollywood movie of the Scarlet Letter, Hester sweeps Dimmesdale up into a cart pulled by horses and they go riding off into the sunset? Uh bwuh what now? I... I don't know if I would've loved or hated the book if it ended like that. I like how it ends well enough. Pearl is my favorite character by far. (I'm not sure if I can write an essay about her though. Hrm.) Also, at the ending, I was thinking, "Oh, Hawthorne, be careful! Your sexism is showing!" I guess a guy in the 1800s can only be so feminist before he draws a line.

US History today was CELL-PHONE SMASHING FUN! :D Seriously, my history teacher took the cell phone of a kid who was texting, and said, "Do you know what I think we should do with these?" And then he hurled it at the ground and it shattered into about fifty pieces. In the end, it was all a prank, because the kid had gotten a new phone and had agreed that the teacher should do that to his old one, but the kid did act for a while like he didn't know what was going on, and it was funny. He had his eyes all bugged and was yelling "That was a $260 phone!" And then he just held the screen, which had broken off, and sort of looked at it all plaintively. Lots of fun.

Hemingway wants to write a six word story? Well, I can try too!

It rained too hard; they drowned.

She learned to fly before walking.

View from window: not for sale.

Okay scratch that plan. Six word stories are only interesting when you elaborate on them in your mind. Anyway...

I'm back from vacation! We stayed at a camp site and went swimming, and it was quite fun. Today, we went to a museum and saw some exhibitions of Japanese and Chinese antiques. I was slack-jawed for a great portion of the viewing. (Well, metaphorically speaking. I was actually talking a lot about how amazing everything was.) I think one of the most fantastic things about seeing the boxes people were carried around in (I can't remember the name, but I'm sure wakanomori knows), or the elaborate cups and bowls, or the big dressers or jewelry boxes made of carved ivory; what's so fantastic about all that is to think people actually used those things. As my sister remarked (or maybe it was my mom), I wouldn't be able to use any of those, because I'd be too busy staring at it going, "Woah!" I wish I could find some pictures of the stuff... Perhaps I will in the morning.

Also, there was an exhibit on Maori moko, their traditional tattoos. Patterns like this one were very common on the women, and simpler versions of something like this were on a lot of the men.

It was a very fun vacation, but I'm glad to be home. Camping makes you appreciate a bedroom which is separated from the outside by more than just some nylon! (Or are tents made of something else? I should check on that...)