Aleksandra the Great’s Exploits

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I suppose it might not be tricky for number people to understand, but it’s taken me five months to figure out what the constantly-changing red numbers on the outer wall of the Circuit City on 14th St. meant. It’s pretty impossible to miss—a string of fifteen numbers with the middle few rapidly changing and affecting the outer numbers [Note: My representation of the middle ones may not be entirely accurate; it’s difficult to see what they say since they change so quickly]. It had always seemed like some sort of clock, but it distrubed me. Not knowing what it really was, I imagined that it counted something morbid, like deaths versus births (though I had no idea in what part of the world or over what time period). I’d considered asking the people in Circuit City what it meant, but I never did. Once I was fortunate enough to overhear some boy telling his female companion that it counted the hours in the day. Still, for several more months after that I could never get it to work out right.

Then tonight! I finally got it. The left side counts how many hours have passed in military time; the right side tells how much time remains until midnight. The thing is, the right side doesn’t read backwards totally. The two digits on the very right count hours, the next two count minutes, etc., but within each two-digit segment the numbers must be read left-to-right to make sense. I think I had so much trouble with the clock because I expected a greater symmetry.

I don’t think I’ve been out of my dorm for more than three hours since Friday despite the lovely weather we had yesterday. I managed to finsih this week’s homework for all but one of my classes, though. Friday was quite busy—a class of Seido (it should have been two, but I overslept), Japanese, another class of Seido, and anime club, all back-to-back.

The main purpose of this post was to show Stephen in his gear:

He’s really excited to start sparring. That’s a bit surprising, considering how gentle he is.

Sorry the picture is so small.

Since the high school where I tutor on Mondays and Wednesdays is having testing this week and next, I had off today. My one class wasn’t canceled, but it wasn’t bad, either. I got to sleep in a bit, too, because the class doesn’t start until 9:30. I’d been feeling really weak and unknowledgeable in the blue belt classes as Seido, so I decided to go to the early afternoon class that I’m usually never able to make. Kyoshi Akira taught the class; I’d forgotten how much I like him. I’ll have to make an effort to go to more of the classes he instructs.

Ricky and I are very pathetic sushi-eaters. We went to my Japanese restaurant to take advantage of its last customer appreciation $1 sushi $2 rolls day (there were three total). A review I came across online said that the place has the best sushi in lower Manhattan, so I had pretty high expectations, and I am happy to say that they were met. Granted, I haven’t tasted all of the sushi in lower Manhattan—in fact, I don’t believe I’ve had sushi since coming to New York—but it was probably the best sushi I’ve ever had. Normally I don’t have much of a taste for sushi for a while after having some, but I think I could get sushi from there again soon. Despite its being really good sushi, Ricky and I had to pick it apart to scrape out the tiny bit of wasabi hidden under the fish, and though neither of us used the soy sauce, I did manage to dip my hair in it. [Note: I do know the name of the restaurant, I just chose not to disclose it. And Christina, Ricky’s iced green tea had a little tree in it; there’s a picture on my phone to prove it.]

In the free time after lunch I was able to finish all of the work that’s due tomorrow (so now I have nothing to do in my boring 8am class). Then I went to two classes of Seido, and I felt great afterwards. Recently I’d only been going to one class Wednesday nights, but doing two gives me so much energy and puts me in a very good mood. I’m glad nothing bad happened tonight to ruin that. I’m just about able to do modified (girl) knuckle push-ups pretty well! It’s very exciting; three and a half hours after the class ended and my knuckles are still red. Funny, three months ago that would have been a complaint.

So I had a very enjoyable day off. I only regret that I have to go back to school tomorrow.

A somewhat related subject: My little brother got his letter of invitation to MKA’s Black Belt Club yesterday. He was very pleased, though not necessarily excited. Being a confident optimist, he insisted that he would get invited.

In an attempt to be more careful with my money and to consolidate it a bit, I closed my savings account and transferred the money from there, as well as the cash my parents gave me and a paycheck, into my checking account. I figured it would be easiest to keep track of it all that way. Not even an hour after I finished at the bank, I walked up to the front desk at Seido to sign in and was told that they’re canceling the pay-by-month plan that I’m on. Now they’re only accepting payments taken directly from checking accounts. Blah.

My mother and I thought it best if I opened a new savings account and just transferred funds over when I needed to. This would be most inconvenient, though—having to make sure I have enough in my savings account to switch some over into checking and still keep enough in the savings to avoid the $2 fee if the balance falls below $100. I have decided, instead, to open a second checking account just for Seido. I suppose they just had to make things difficult.

It appears I have been robbed. On Monday last I had $189 in my wallet. Today when I opened it, I had $3. I spent $52, which leaves $132 unaccounted for (allowing for the change I’ve left out of the equation). I’ll be damned if I ever give money to a beggar. I suspect one of the ones I encountered took my money. Although I didn’t think I was doing anything stupid, apparently I’m a very foolish girl. Well, never again. I’ve got some more lamenting to do now.

Edit: And please, no comments about how losing money isn’t the worst thing in the world.  I’m quite aware of that, but probably only my roommate, who had her wallet stolen, is in a position to lecture me.

I finally got my blue belt at Seido tonight. It tied much better than I thought a stiff new belt would.

I’m feeling a bit sick. I hope it doesn’t progress to what my brother, who is now recovering from two days with a fairly high fever, had.

I discovered in the World Cultures recitation this morning that a girl who went to maybe two classes of the Speaking Freely Japanese is taking my WC as well. I think she lives in my dorm, too, but I haven’t talked to her since my first failed attempt to ask her about anime (her reason for taking those two Japanese classes). Anyway, this means I know three people in one class. Neat

Not that anyone cares, but Palladium had fish tonight. And they’re out of apple peach juice.

Ricky and I had World Cultures: Chinese and Japanese Traditions bright and early today. The professor seems to be a pretty cool person—he’s moving the lectures off campus until the administration becomes more sensible, and he changed the structure of the class so we have two tests and no papers; we only have to do one-page responses to all of the readings. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stay awake in the class without other entertainment, though; he’s one of those teachers that like to read passage after passage in front of the class.

I’m going to be a New Critic, for the semester, at least. My Literary Interpretation course, which I figured, since it’s required for English majors, would suck, is actually very cool. It’s more of a discussion than a lecture course, and it really has the potential to be like Connelly’s class. After all, I read over a fourth of the poems in high school, and I recognize most of the names from his class. The professor is young and has a nice accent, but admittedly she doesn’t compare (yet) to Connelly. Although we have six papers to write and discussion questions due every week, I predict Lit Interp (as she put it) will be my favorite class.

Calculus is very long—half an hour longer than any other course—but we get a break in the middle just like we used to in Mr. Miller’s. I didn’t have too much trouble following the class today (except for when he tried to show how Archimedes discovered pi); I guess even if I did throw out all of my notes I couldn’t rid myself of my knowledge of calc two years ago. I’ll probably keep the course, but I have to go to one more class to be certain. Reports on ratemyprofessors.com warn that he doesn’t teach and instead expects students to learn on their own from the book; we shall see.

Physics is more fun than biology. The professor for NatSci II: Brain and Behavior is from New Zealand and, like Olga from Lit Interp, has a nice accent. He isn’t nearly as engaging as Professor Adler (NatSci I professor), though, and he puts up outlines in a Power Point (or similar program) display. Not to mention there’s homework and classwork.

All in all, though, second semester seems rather good right now, but that’s probably because I’ve just done some English homework and, surprisingly, I enjoyed it very much. At the bookstore today I bought the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms—although I had intended to just look up words online—because the professor said we needed to buy it. I’m glad I did. It’s actually fun (No, it isn’t nearly as humorous as, say, our old AP Euro text book, but it’s got so much information). The other books were all pretty expensive; and I had to buy my calculus book packaged together with two books for levels of math I will never take, just to increase the price (and, I guess, make a nice purchase for the math majors). A girl from my summer orientation is in both World Cultures and Lit Interp with me; amazingly, I know people in three of my classes.

Discovery: I like ramen. I’d never had it before lunch today (when I copied off Dave and ate ramen while watching Naruto) because I worried that I wouldn’t like it, but apparently I needn’t have been so hesitant. Tonight before dinner I bought three more cup noodles; when I actually do go to the Asian Convenience Store I’ll see about getting some more authentic-seeming ramen.

In other news, Palladium has pleasant new apple peach juice, which is an improvement from the old kiwi whatever juice. It goes nicely with the salads I’ve started having for dinner to protest the damn nightly rotisserie chicken.

I’ve been cut off from the world for a few days since my internet’s been out, but today as I was taking a nap the cable fairy came and fixed it. You would think after several days of not being able to check my email, and with our leaving for Canada on Sunday, the ski club people from NYU would have sent something, but sadly the most important emails I received were from Facebook. So, break:

I was beginning to think I’d lost my ability to watch movies in the theater when both Brokeback Mountain and The Producers bored me. I think now that they were both just too long and drawn out for the stories they were telling. Memoirs of a Geisha was, I am happy to say, much better, although there were some deviations from the novel. And of course it’s completely implausible. I read that book and Flowers for Algernon over break. I went to Borders Monday night and spent an hour and a half combing the Fiction/Literature section looking for something pleasant. There are very few really nice, pretty books that don’t make you feel worse after reading them (like Matilda, but that’s for kids, or The Princess Bride). I was shocked to see that there is an overwhelming quantity of “fiction” (terrible-seeming books written for single middle-aged women about, for example, Sex with the Ex) taking up shelves where real literature is supposed to be.

Tuesday we went skiing. Oh, wait, we didn’t go skiing, even though the weather in the Poconos was perfect and snowy and it didn’t rain at all back home. So instead I went to a bunch of stores with my mother, including an anime shop that opened on Baltimore Pike that’s just like a video store.

Christmas was pleasant. I’ve got an MP3 player and a PSP, so now I don’t have to talk to anyone if I don’t want to. Those will be especially nice on the subways going to and from work and New York. I also split the cost for new ski boots with my mother, and we got my skis tuned. This is what I’ve been up to (besides the group parties about which everyone knows) over break. I’m going back to school Saturday to leave on the ski trip Sunday.

The title really says all I wanted to in this post. I feel really guilty about not posting in so long. Soon I will write about the first semester of college and break thus far, but not tonight.

What a nice way to talk about the weather—it snowed!—and the Rent movie. The streets are perfectly clear; they were clear when I looked outside at 10:30 this morning, but a thin layer of snow settled on the roofs and rooftop furnishings and on the cars that haven’t moved today. Although my weather information service tells me that there’s a 100% chance of precipitation now, it isn’t snowing. I suppose that’s for the best, though. Snow would just be one more distraction to keep me from doing homework.

And now, Rent. My ideas were not settled enough upon first seeing it to post, so I had to wait until I saw it a second time (Friday night as a hall outing). Since we who saw it Wednesday night talked about it so much afterwards, I won’t bother repeating all that we thought. I did think, and the second viewing confirmed, that the film offers a very negative portrayal of Benny. In the play he gets the chance to redeem himself by paying for Angel’s funeral. In the movie, it seems Collins has enough money and doesn’t need Benny’s help. And then, unless I wasn’t able to follow this twice now, Benny just disappears. At least in the play they make it known that Muffy found out about Benny’s affair and had his location switched.

I had a problem the first time I saw it with the fact that Mimi intentionally went to Roger about the candle. The second time I realized why I disliked it, and it has to do with something else that bothers me—the cutting out of several key songs. Before I get to that, though, I think the film did a nice job of showing that Mimi and Angel knew each other before they knew any of the other characters. In the play it’s kind of hard to tell when they met. It seems from the things she says at Angel’s funeral that Mimi met Angel at a different time than everyone else, but there isn’t any proof in the play. In the film, at the end of “Rent,” Angel points his drumsticks up as a greeting to Mimi, so it makes sense that they were friends.

Back to the problems. When would Mark ever have gone to the Cat Scratch Club? He was dating Maureen for a while before the play/movie takes place, and it just doesn’t seem like something a person like Mark would do. And why does he know enough about Mimi to affirm that she’s going to Maureen’s performance? In the play, Mimi doesn’t know Maureen; she isn’t part of their group of friends at all except perhaps if she knew Angel previously. All this is described in the “Christmas Bells” song that was cut, not to mention the humorous bit in which Roger simulates Mimi’s dancing while she’s talking to Mark to tell him what she does.

“Halloween” describes how chance-dependent the last year was. Instead of Mimi’s just needing her candle lit and knocking at any random door, in the film she intentionally goes to Roger. Is that why “Halloween” had to be cut, because Mark’s questions were easily answered? The Mimi-Roger relationship is far too romantic and friendly in “Light My Candle.” Stage Mimi just wants a light, and then she tries to leave. Film Mimi hangs around Roger’s apartment, already suggesting what isn’t supposed to come until “Out Tonight.” And Roger almost immediately gives her his coat! Roger is supposed to be withdrawn and not interested in socializing. What good is staying in his apartment for however long (seven months? a year?) if he’s that chivalrous to the first woman he meets? [When Mimi climbs into his apartment at the end of “Out Tonight” he smiles a little. At first I thought this was going along the same lines that he’s just looking for a nice girlfriend, but I realized that it works well with “Another Day.” He is interested in Mimi, but he isn’t prepared for a relationship, especially not one with another drug addict. Good acting on Adam’s part.]

After the movie on Friday a few of the students and the faculty fellows who sponsored the outing went out for pizza and to discuss the film. Everyone agreed that the Santa Fe part was ridiculous, and some of the kids brought up a Britney Spears music video that looks like it shared the same set.