The Topic of Great Randomness

[seabiscuit1009]

So...yesterday at work I got to dress up in a fireman's suit-they came to show the kids that firefighters are good strangers and all that stuff. It was quite fun, even though I was boiling hot (it was 90 degrees outside, and the suit was really heavy material) and the whole outfit in total weighed more than half my body weight. My coworkers were surprised I could move in the thing. XD I love proving them wrong. Oh, and I had to breathe through the oxygen tank too, to show the kids that firefighters sound like Darth Vader. It was hilarious...yeah.

I'm home sick from work today, which stinks a bit. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow, so I can earn more money for college...lol. That's really the only reason I'm even working this summer is to earn money for college. I hate having to think about this kind of thing-college is still 2 years away, and everyone already expects me to know where I'm going, and what I'm going to do in college...gr.

I'm so bored! I wish I could go back to work almost.

My friends tell me that my life is messed up, and I should go on that MTV show Made. I laughed in their face-that's not the kind of thing I'd ever do. Crazy people, my friends are. I mean, yeah...at times I wish my life were different, but that's totally not the way to do it. XD crazy friends.

There's absolutely nothing good on TV at 11 in the morning. Wow...this is a first. Normally I can find something to watch. Oh well.

[Gryphon]

I know what you mean. At the end of the school year, we did this huge project where we did a personality analysis test or two on the comp and then tried to pick out jobes and colleges to go with. Almost everyone I knew BSed it, no lie, because we thought this project was ridiculous. No one knew what they wanted to do, and we weren't going to discover it over night -- which was pretty much my teacher's idea. All I know is that I am not going to go into biomed... A lot of adults that I talk to still don't know what to do. Even my mom has second thoughts about chemistry. At karate, we were just talking, and someone asked me what I wanted to do. When I said I had no clue, he was like, "join the club." Makes life seem pretty depressing.

But life can be pretty cool sometimes.

[Tuttle]

You guys luckily at least have time .
I know the feeling too well. I don't know what I want to do, don't know what I want to major in. Where I wanted to go to school I didn't know, and that worked out luckily, but that was because the safety for me I fit into really well...oh and well they gave alot of money and weren't a normal safety school. . But now I'm going through and it feels like everyone else knows what they want to major in. Looking through facebook group, there's a thread on who's majoring in what. Talking to people on AIM who want to get to know their classmates, people ask major. And I really don't know. I mean, its almost that I'm in a disadvantage for the ability to do anything. I could go anywhere I wanted, so am not forced into a major because its all I'm good at, but that means I need to make a decision and I don't know.
I have until like December or something. Its an incredably early major decloration. Eh, I don't want to have to worry about this.
At the moment its looking like double major Math/something bio based. But I don't want to go into a pure science I'd rather go into more of the engineering side of it. So Math/bio-based engineering double major? Eh, thats what its looking like. I know that its a strange thing too XD. Usually people if they're doubling with Math it either goes Math/CS or Math/Physics. But I want to go into a science based engineering, not a pure science, because of the differences in focus.
Eh, and then there's adding robotics into it, and knowing what I did in that, so basing off of last year then it'd look like double Math/Biomechanical.

Ick, I hate major selections. I don't know what I want to study. I mean I'm only taking required classes because I don't know what I want to go into XD.

Why did people have to talk about that same time that I have to listen to parents? heh .

Anyways, yeah, really you guys think you're lucky that you have a few years to decide. Most people do get a pretty good idea of what they want to do, but it can always change. And if you have no idea there's no way that you're alone.

Anyways, major selection aside, there's so much stuff coming up. I want to know where I'm living next year and who my roomate is. I really hope I get into my first choice...I did put in my application really early, and it wouldn't be a common request, but at the same time its so small that its not likely to get what you want. Ick, thats the problem with your first choice for housing being a place where only 17 people dorm...yes 17.
Those are announced July 4th. Of course I'll not be home then, but at least its coming out soon. Alot of people already know though for their colleges making it kinda annoying.

What else? Well we're starting looking for stuff for my dorm. Like we ordered the extra long twin sheets and stuff, my dad's looking for a specific printer to go on sale, because its the perfect one for me, just happens to be rediculously expensive, because its a new one. Most stuff's waiting for housing information to go out though.

I know at least one of my classes A term one of my friends are in, so that's good. .
I'm hoping that another friend gets into my Chem class, for both of our sakes. He's a friend from my old high school, and I told him to get into that class if he decides to take chemistry, which is pretty likely. I'm pretty sure he's going into pre-vet, which requires chem 1-4 plus orgo. And I got into the best chem professor's class, but I want a good lab partner, so I'm hoping to get a friend who I know I can trust for work .

One of my classmates is going to be younger than my sister. Thats so weird. I mean, its wicked cool, but at the same time will be really weird, at least I'll not feel so young . I had long enough being the youngest in a school.

Umm...yeah, I think thats all I have to say for the college update for now.

-Tuttle

[Mel]

First and foremost: I like B&N, like just going there. Hungry: It sucks that the one near you is ageist. (or at least the employees are. Weren't they our age once? Don't they just hate that??!) I like Borders, though, for online.

Angel: I chipped a tooth, too. Actually 'two'. One minorly, one has that fake stuff on it. The thing is, until I chipped the other tooth, I couldn't remember which tooth I chipped majorly. Funny. Besides that, I seem to have like four really sensitive teeth. Actually more than that. Four are just like that I guess, and my back two molars are because of my old orthodontist and my pallet expander. Also, I had an extra tooth. So, when I was in like first grade (or kindergarten. Something like that. Prolly the latter, cause I chipped my adult teeth before I moved, which was third grade.)I had to go into surgery. They took out my two front teeth, went into my gum, took out the extra tooth, and I got stitches. It took forever to get my adult teeth in!

Ewww! No way! I have to read To Kill A Mockingbird for this year! (Wait...is there something wrong with this? You're in HS, right, and I'm.. er, not...huhn)

Alla: I've had a similar experience. With my pre-eight class thingie, we went to a museum to see "Greece: Secrets of the Past" in Imax. (Woot!) On the way there, we got caught in Rush Hour, so my new-found friends and I had discussions about World Events, and Oil, and Saudi Arabia, and the Koreans trying to nuke us, etc. It was really weird.

You know what's amusing? Go ahead. Guess.
...
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I'm taking organ lessons. It's really fun, but it's really hard too 'cause you're using your hands and feet at the same time, and there are three keyboards, and peddles to control volume (I just spelled that 'voume'). Wow. I need sleep.

Urk. My mother has been making us clean like all week. A lot. It's evil! And I'm so tired, I could've fallen asleep three hours ago. It's 6:40, for God's sakes! The reason is this: Yesterday. I had that pre-8th thingy, then organ practice, then I mulled around for like an hour or two, talking, attempting to read (and failing), and then resigning to watching my brother play "Sim Theme Park". Then I went outside with my dad and weeded my vegetable garden for like three hours (there were some monstrous weeds in there. My poor cantaloupe nearly died!!) Then my mom, dad, dog, and I went for a walk in the woods to see how the Creek was doing after all this flooding going on. It's crazy; this is like the worst flood we've ever had in my state. They're saying we might get hail now (??!), and so many towns have been evacuated. So, after that, we came home, I took a shower (I wasn't dirty. I was caked) and by the time I came out, it was like 10 or 11-ish. I finally got to bed, but I was woken up at 4 a.m. because there was this crazy thunderstorm going outside. Normally, I like T-storms, but, I gotta tell you, this one scared the crap outta me.
When I finally got to sleep an hour later, I had to wake up in two hours to get ready for school. Oh, joy. So I'm wiped.

Hungry: Singing safety songs??character that it's refreshing.

I was thinking of reading "The Odyssey". Any comments?

I have a new obsession book series: The Sisters Grimm. It's for a younger reader (I guess), but it's just so good! A new view on fairy tales. That's what I entered that contest for... I think I posted about that. *looks back* no, I didn't. I hadda write a fairy tale for some contest *crosses finger*. You win a chance to go to New York, meet the author, Michael Buckley, help name a character, get a $1000 savings bond, go to the fairy tale convention thingy (or something like that), and get two tickets to Wicked. Well, that's grand prize. Cross your fingers for me!
If anyone would like to read it, please e-mail me at iluvorlandoandchad@yahoo.com

[Kathy Li]

Originally posted by Mel:
I was thinking of reading "The Odyssey". Any comments?

Well... you do realize it's a sequel to The Illiad, right? The English translation that was recommended to me by a friend who got her masters in Classics, and who specialized her study in Homeric Greek, is the Richmond Lattimore one. But she was faintly disapointed I wasn't going to learn greek so I could read it in the original, like she did.

[Mel]

Kli:Well... you do realize it's a sequel to The Illiad, right?

Actually, no, I didn't. But I learned about the Illiad, however. That was the whole Helen of Troy episonde, correct?

Hah, my brother's learning Greek...however, I don't really think he'd be interesed in reading anything in Greek. The only thing he does with it (that I've noticed) is puttingg insults in Greek on the smartboard to my other brother and my dad. Anyother class gone to waste.

(even though, apparently, he chose to take it...I'm confussled!!)

[Kathy Li]

Originally posted by Mel:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Kli:Well... you do realize it's a sequel to The Illiad, right?

Actually, no, I didn't. But I learned about the Illiad, however. That was the whole Helen of Troy [episode], correct? </div>[quote]Trojan War, yup. (Although I'm weird and I sometimes prefer the comic book or Shakespearean versions to Homer's.) Odysseus got stuck for ten years fighting that war, then it takes him another ten years to get home. The Odyssey is Odysseus's voyage home, and what he has to do to reassert himself as the rightful king of Ithaca when he gets back.

You don't have to read the two back-to-back, and The Odyssey is (imho) more fun to read, since you don't have list after list of ships, soldiers, and armor to plow through.

[Peter Murray]

Of course, Homer started a very bad trend. I mean, we're still waiting for the third volume in his great fantasy trilogy, and I'm beginning to think it'll never appear! I may have to give up and read my mother's old copies of just the first two. But I've read so many spoilers for them by now.

Oh, and then Aeschylus wrote the fanfic about Agamemnon and his family after the Trojan War.

[Birdhead]

The man from Dover for the win. *so, so amused*

I agree, though, the Odyssey is way more interesting than the Iliad.

[MonkeyMum]

... Some days I wish summer was 4 months long. Others, I wish it was only 1 1/2 months long. Right now, I am for the 1.5 months long. I am soooooooooooo stinking bored!!! I NEED MENTAL HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *dies*

http://img100.imageshack.us/my.php?image=buddhadottie20iq.jpg\

Buddha and Dottie playing around. Aren't they cute?

I feel like I am dead.</unentusiastically>

*sigh* Why, after 1 month of summer, do you get bored?? I've got a million (exageration!) other things I could do but don't do. I seriously need some mental help!

Here is a little story for all you males out there to read.

One morning a husband returns to his lake cabin after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, his wife decides to take the boat out.

She motors out a short distance, anchors, and reads her book, enjoying the peace and quiet. Along comes a game warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning Ma'am. What are you doing?"
"Reading a book," she replies, thinking, Isn't it obvious?

"You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry officer, but I'm not fishing, I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.



MORAL: Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.

[seabiscuit1009]

The Odyssey is...so much better than the Iliad. Hands down, just so much better. I had to read them both for school last year, and...yeah. Odyssey=good. Iliad=good, but nowhere near as good as Odyssey.

My brain totally hurts. I'm just...like dead. And I don't even have any homework that's making me feel so bad...it's just because there's so much going on now.

Ew...I'm watching Made on MTV, and there was this picture of a girl with a REALLY gross black eye. Ew...sorry, but bruises gross me out so bad, which makes no sense because I have bruises almost all the time.

OMG! I forgot to tell what I did at work on Thursday! The firemen came to Safety Town, and they were looking for a counselor to dress up in the firemen clothes, so I volunteered to do it. The whole outfit weighed 65 pounds, which is...like half my weight. Also, it was 90 degrees on Thursday, so...yeah. I also had to breath through the oxygen mask, so I sounded like Darth Vader when I talked. It was the most AWESOME thing I did all week. I'd never want to be a fireWOMAN, (not man) but it was still awesome to just do it for one day, you know?

My cousin is staying over my house for 2 weeks. It's a bit crazy here. Oh well. Here we go...everyone's home. And they have food. Great! I love food. This post is so weird, of course, but all of them are. I guess it's time to go eat now...so yeah. XD snack time.

[Angel_Star]

Well, I'm back from Florida.

I actually did get a tan. It's not extremely dark or anything, but it's rather noticable. It's kinda funny, 'cause my arms are tons darker than my neck...so it looks odd. My dad made fun of me. I got a _lovely_ burn on my nose. It blistered. And hurt. Now, it's just kinda tender, but it's okay. I had a little burn on my face (besides my nose), but it went away. I also burned my back. That killed. Right where my clothes rubbed, of course. It's pretty much gone now, though it's still a little red.

The beach was gorgeous, as was the scenery. The fish...hehe. My friend and I looked for "fish" everywhere we went. We even got my mom in on it. "Seen any fish?" "Naw, just whales." So, yeah. It was extremely amusing. There were three main amazing guys there...of course, we never worked up the guts to even say hi. I smiled at "music guy" a lot, especially while they were playing football near the pool and we were looking out of our room. He was a total show-off. A very nice looking show-off. And then there was the guy that looked kinda like him, and "everywhere guy", named so because we saw him well, everywhere.

Ah...gotta go. We're going to the park to go to some celebration thing. I'll talk more about my wondrous adventures in beach land later... *gets dragged away from the computer by a murderous beast*

[S\'ree]

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Seabiscuit1009, as a tip for when you next wear the firefighter stuff, most people don't wear that stuff unless they're trained to. Firefighters are trained to carry weighted dummies out of fires, and each of the dummies weigh at least 200 pounds. I know how much the outfit weighs, because my stepdad is a firefighter, and I've had to carry his bunker gear on many occasion, and the Scott packs (oxygen masks and tanks) weigh a lot too. Did you know riding in a fire truck with all the sirens blaring isn't as fun as you think it would be?

[Sean L.]

That reminds me of the EMS interview that I have coming up this Wednesday, to join the local rescue squad. Mostly just a formality; I'll probably start Friday or something.

Skip if squeamish -

I'm kind of apprehensive though; I've lead a relatively sheltered life and haven't seen death up close and personal. Heck, I haven't even broken any bones in my body, and haven't gone to the hospital in about six years. I don't really know how I'll react when I come to a situation where someone really needs help - will I freak out? Throw up? Run away? What happens the first time when I come across a crash and have to carry the dead body of an 8-year old out of the car, because the parent was drunk? Am I good enough of a person to hold someone who's vomiting all over me for forty minutes in a New York subway waiting for the damn ambulance to come, trying not to get trampled by traffic? Both are occasions that have actually happened and been described to me by EMT friends.

And if I can't handle it, there go my hopes of becoming a doctor - what doctor can't stand the sight of blood? At the same time, however, the physical ability to tolerate this is only the first step. After you get past this (and medical school), there are issues of ethics and empathy and tolerance...all of which you can't say for sure how you'll react until you're actually put into that situation.

Say a drug company offers you fifty thousand dollars a year to prescribe their drug fifty times a year. If it's the end of the year, and you have a person who has symptoms that are borderline of what the drug treats, and you're only one away from that fifty thousand, do you take it?

A good doctor has to empathize with his patients to project a manner of knowing how thus being able to keep them calm. At the same time, however, you have to disconnect so that you don't become too attached, because feeling too much will completely ruin a doctor. How do you strike that kind of balance, where you can confort a person with a 20% chance of survival, and then immediately get professional and get to work without even thinking of the person beneath the knife?

And then I wonder sometimes how people actually manage to do it all and not collapse from the strain. Psychs are overbooked to four weeks, last I checked, and every day they meet with four or five people. Four or five sets of problems every single day...where they depend on you to make them better, and with psychology at such a newborn stage, you don't know much more than they do. And what happens when you try to talk a person out of suicide and fail...?

---

It's just been on my mind, the trial by fire of becoming a doctor.

Of course, with the recent C I got in neurobiology, god knows if I'll even get _into_ medical school...so maybe I'll never have to answer those questions.

[EWizard11]

Well, Sean, I wish you luck...I can't help thinking it's courageous just to seriously consider becoming a doctor, because I know I could never do it (for various reasons). I hope it all works out for you.

On a lighter note...I just saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time in my life (not in a theatre, unfortunately, but I can't wait until I can do that) and it blew my MIND. Just thought you'd all like to know that.

Let's do the time warp again...