Here is the secret-not-so-secret online Nunnian shrine made by the loving 05 UMich TASPers. Enter our homology. We are Triumphant in Turquoise--and all other colors. WORRRRD.

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Time and Tribalistas

Some people think of names that they want to give their children when they start a family, but I think of lullabies I want to sing them when I put them to bed. New on my list is this song by the Tribalistas called Mary Cristo. Other than this one perfect lullaby, the rest of the songs on their self-titled album are pretty awsome and normal in the sense that they aren't songs you necessarily want to fall asleep to when you're four years old.

I'm listening to the cd right now while I sit with a bag of frozen peas on my right ankle. My dad hit me pretty hard with a softball when he fast-pitched it to me at the park near our house. It hurts like hell, but it's certianly nothing to compare with Sam's broken nose. As a result of my limited mobility I find myself suddenly with a lot of time and very little to do, so I'm alternating between scanning the internet and scanning the houses edition of Fine Homebuilding magazine. I'm within the last twenty days of school now, and everything's winding down rather nicely. Last night was senior banquet, my school's equivalent of prom. I went without a date, and I decided that's the best way to go to a school dance. We have it at a museum downtown, and there's dinner ahead of time with the dance floor under a blue whale skeleton and free rides on the old carousel that overlooks the river. Not having a date made it easier to dance with lots of people, and fortunately for me and the friend I went with, all of our guy friends' dates disappeared when the dancing started so we still had guys to slow dance with. Maybe I'll post some pictures later. Anyhow, it made me think that prom really is something not to miss, even if it is just a shameless show high school-ness.

I really think it would be fun to have some sort of inter-tasp forum, and I think we should try to help set one up in any way possible. Well, I haven't got anything else to say, so I'll have to find some way to kill some time while these peas thaw...

Top five lullabies:
1. Adieu Foulard, Adieu Madras
2. Mary Cristo; Tribalistas
3. Sweet Baby James; James Taylor
4. Slumber My Darling; Alison Krauss
5. The Day You Gave us, Lord, is Ended

Saturday, April 29, 2006

"Oh, and Soph is going to Princeton."

-Ridley, a couple of days ago

I know this got sucked down the page pretty quickly, so... care to elaborate?

Sorry to seem pushy, but that certainly was an unexpectedly interesting bit of information dropped out of nowhere.

Jason

Something for us to consider. Any thoughts?

Inter-TASP Proposal

Jason

Thursday, April 27, 2006

I sincerely apologize

to all I offended with my comments on Sam's post.

I told you it was going to be bad.

I writing you becuase it is four in the morning and I am supposed to be working on three massive health units, all of which have to be done by friday or I don't graduate. Anyway, I have writers block, so I thought I'd talk to you all for a while.

Just got back from the weird cross country trip. Spent the first three days in Ithaca (which was beautiful) and then after getting back tuesday evening, left at 6:00 wednesday morning with my band for seattle. It's feeling a bit surreal. Band tour went as well as could be expected--we had a couple workshops with colleges; some of which were more effective than others; we got to see the group Stomp, I found the worlds most wonderful crumpet shop, had one fight with my roommates, couple kids got drunk, nobody got pregnant. All in all a fairly good trip.

At long last I know where I am going to college. I liked cornell, but the financial aid when it came made it not even an option. My dad and I did the numbers and figured it out to be that if we ignored all costs such as travel or books and my parents paid a third of their gross yearly income, I would graduate with a 40,000 debt--assuming I did not get sick or go to graduate school, neither a good assumption.

So I'm going to St. Olaf. Its a good school and I did like it, I am just a little bummed that it doesn't really have a jazz program. On the plus side, because my sister went there, a lot of the professors--in particular the music faculty--already know me to some extent. And, because of national merit, I will be able to graduate from there debt free which will be a major load off my back. And yes, like Emma, I am writing this in part to convince myself that I made a good choice.
I'd better get back to my health. Nothing like an impending deadline to really make you lose sleep. I really dig junk that nobody, not even the teacher, likes. We're required to do it because some idiot over in the salem legislature has decided that we, as students, have obviously not heard the phrase "Abstinence is the only..." enough times and we should have it pounded into our skulls a few thousand more before we graduate.

miss you all

-bern

Hey hey, how's it going? I know it's been a while since I last posted, but I haven;t had much to say while I've been so busy lately. But I've kept a close eye on everything that's been going on. It's so great to hear about everyone going to their respective colleges.

I just got back from Washington D.C. from a trip with my girlfriend, Andrea, which was short-lived but very educational. We checked out the the Air and Space Museum, a couple Monuments, and mainly, the Holocaust Museuem. I spent 8 hours in that building, and by the end of it my knees were wobbly and my brain overloaded. This museum is such a large source of information, and the way it presents everything to you is so effective for instillment. I learned a crapload, but thankfully I wasn't as shocked/overcome by emotion as I expected. Friends and others told me that it was too intense for some to bear, but I I wasn't so shocked because I had known pretty much everything that happened beforehand. It's main effect on my perspective was detail: while I understood the gist of everything before hand, I know get the chronology much more and understand it on a political, social, religious, racial, cultural and economic level (you can probably tell I've been through a long year of AP World). I recommend it to all of you who have not been, for it is quite moving nonetheless. In the end, there was a video of interviews with survivors. The stories these people had to share were so powerful and grippingI was moved to tears.

But on a lighter note, it's vacation! With two AP Classes, that means that after the exams next week, school is essentially over. I still have to tread through the tiresome Spanish 3, but oh well. School has been going well, otherwise. I've been studying my butt off for the 4 AP tests I signed up for, which was a big mistake, considering AP English has been a joke this year. Our original teacher, who was a self-centered, biased yet hilarious intellectuall challenged in the area of teaching, her rest-of-the-year sub (the original had surgery) has never before taught high school kids, let alone AP, and therefore decided to give us the same curriculum as the American Literature students. So the two English exams are pretty much worhtless to me, because I'm definitley taking an introductory English course in college: in no way am I prepared. But it has been quite the learning process in the meanwhile. Seeing the prep books for the Literature one, it seems I may still be able to score a 5 when referring to the practice tests I've taken: perfect example of how knowing the test is way more effective than knowing the subject when it comes to corporate education (one of my teachers put the college board into perspective for me with that term, and it almost makes me wanna place it right up there with McDonald's and other corporations that replace the stars on the American flag.)

In other news, once those tests are over, I'm gonna take on three major projects hopefully before school's out, which I have been planning. I hope to renoavte the waste system in the school as head of the compost commitee, get the National Honor Society of my school to plant a Riparian Buffer System on a nearby riverbank, and finally schedule a concert for all grades and all cliques of my school. It will be an event where musicians of all ages and all sectors will perform, including some older people, in an effort to unite a small community of students that is dividing increasingly by the day, especially by age.

I hope it I can make it all work befor e graduation and Bonnaroo, and then the wonderful trip to Europe with Andrea afterwards (no one told me in my previous post, is anyone gonna be there? I hope so, It would be great. Come on now...show your voices my friends!). But, you may find this funny, all of you, it probably will if I continue to read the post. I find that much of my motivation comes from staying in touch with all your wonderful, vibrant lives. It's really encouraging to make that extra step towards my goals when I know I'm affiliated with all you Yalulians, Princtonites and MITtens, etc, etc. You all are and always will be inspiration to me.

So while I study and prepare for what I'm calling the compressed month of may, I hope everything runs smoothly with you guys, and may the best of luck go your way. As you can probably expect, I'm not gonna post for a while, but I'll keep in touch.

1. Uninvisible - Medeski, Martin and Wood
2. Sailing On - Derek Trucks Band
3. Jacksonville - Sufjan Stevens
4. Subterfuge - Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
5. Dance Lesson # 2 - Karl Denson

Herb

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

My favourite word at the moment:

adj. infundibuliform
It means: shaped like a funnel.

Talk about verbiage.

Jason

Monday, April 24, 2006

Overdue news

OK, I should have passed this on a while ago, but I kept on forgetting. My family is moving to Africa this summer! My dad got a job doing court restructuring work with the UN Mission in Sudan. The post is in southern Sudan, which is not that safe for UN workers' families, so my mom and my siblings will live in a different city and my dad will come home for the weekends. They'll all be shipping out within the next 2 months. I will probably go straight back to the States to get a job or something, so don't look forward to any juicy eyewitness accounts of East Africa. But it's pretty cool anyway.


Two physics jokes I made up while studying today (scary, I know):

If you can go out on a date with any of the four fundamental forces, which should you choose?

- Gravitational force, because it's always attractive.

Why is it a bad idea to try to study while traveling along an equipotential line?

- Because no work is done.

Heh heh . . .

Groetjes,

Sam

New Band!

So my new favorite band is The Subdudes. They're a band from New Orleans, and Katrina hit New Orleans right after they finished recording their album, Behind the Levee, irony of ironies. They're sort of an everything-fusion with funk overtones. The album is pretty strong overall, no one song that makes me want to gouge my ears out. I listen to them while I'm painting, and it gets me really pumped up.

Bulldog Days was wicked fun, but the TASP reunion was sadly nonexistent. There was stuff going on at all times, and I had to meet my host when we were supposed to meet up. I did end up running into Dylan and Emily independently though, which was neat. It was almost cruel to make me to back to high school after enjoying no curfew, free time and streetlife.

Top Five:

1. Papa Dukie and the Mud People - The Subdudes
2. Ladies Night - Kool
3. America?, (Who Discovered) - Ozomatli
4. Beautiful Wreck - Shawn Mullins
5. Pass That Dutch - Missy Elliott

The Last College Post

I swear. So humor me.

It's almost May, so I assume most of you have already, like Ridley, decided which college you will be gracing for the next few years. For curiosity's sake, do help complete the following list, either by leaving comments or directly editing the post.

Bern - St. Olaf
Charles - MIT
Chris - hmm?
Christina - UC Berkeley?
Dylan - Yale?
Emily - Yale?
Emma - Calvin
Henrik - Idyllwild
Isaac - not so soon?
Jason - Princeton
Lisa - UC Riverside
Matt - Duke
Meredith - Yale
Nestor - umm... ?
Ridley - UMich
Sam - ... ?
Sanj00 - Emory
Sophie - Princeton

Adam - ?
Jenny- ?

Once it's done, I'll figure a way to transfer it somewhere more permanent than a blog post that'll soon be dragged into the archives. Perhaps on our homepage.

Jason

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

on turquoise.

As I was once again reading through the little blue box at the top of this blog, I noticed myself unconsciously snapping along with the comment about our triumph in a certain shade of green. Then it hit me--the background color of this blog is so completely appropriate. Jason (or whoever chose that background), you make me feel so inexplicably content.

In a side note: did you know that the blogger spell check does not recognize the word "blog"? huh.

Um...

... I have trouble expressing just how fascinating this video of traffic in India is.

Apart from the chaos of it all and the apparent fearlessness of everyone involved, there are some moments that deserve mentioning, such as when a pedestrian at the bottom right waits, sandwiched between a passing motorbike and van, or when a white car enters the view from above and proceeds to drive against oncoming traffic.

Enjoy.

Jason

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Look, a new post!

The number of posts on the blog has dropped alarmingly. Shame on us.

I don't really have anything to say, so instead, here are some photos taken on the last day of school that I just received from a friend:

The orangey cast of my hair isn't the result of wonky lighting. It was caused by someone attacking me with coloured hairspray.















A bunch of us after taking over the staff room, gratis coffee triumphantly in hand (the vending machines there spit out beverages for free, which I thought was neat).
















Wrapping the high school principal up in toilet paper...















... and carrying him down the stairs.
















Before you jump to any conclusions, no, my school is not populated by skinheads. We were meant to dress up as prisoners, hence the signs

"Vienna State Penitentiary, IB Candidate Prisoner Number 114-***"

that you can see taped to most seniors' clothing. As you can also see, most of us failed to make the effort. Luckily, the two guys above decided to actually go through with it, because without them, the day would have been really boring.

Finally, my math teacher, dumped onto another teacher's desk, much to our amusement, and that of the seventh graders who were having class then.















Jason

Sunday, April 16, 2006

this title feature bugs me out

Hey there,

I am having identity fears. I have such a recognizable name on the internet, and honestly if you blog-search me, or simply type my full name in Google, I'm basically the only hit that you'll get. Aaaaaah!! Therefore, I have changed to Sanjukta (which is also a real name, by the way) and I would ask you all to not refer to me by my full name as well. I do realize that the Web has saved files under the cached name of Samyukta, and I can't help that now, but still.

Anyhoos: congratulations to everyone who's heard felicitous news from colleges, Matt, Yousef, and Isaac. =]
I've heard from alot of places too, and though I've gotten into most of my colleges, I haven't received scholarships or honor program placements in all, so that narrows down my list considerably. (I really don't think that Brown is that much better than say, NYU; after all, this is just undergrad) My top three choices are Amherst, NYU, and Emory.
Amherst is offering me $30000 for the first two years (guaranteed scholarship or something), NYU is offering me around $20000 per year with an acceptance to its presidential honors program, and Emory has laid down $15000 per year with no honors program. I think it'll end up being NYU, but I'm not sure yet. I'm visiting Amherst on the 23rd and 24th, and perhaps Emory the same week.
Life is going well.
Or at least, it'll be fine for the next two weeks - then the dreaded AP's! oof.
But starting from May 15th, I'll be starting an internship with this realtor agency for a month, and obtaining an actual realtor's license in that time! I can't wait, I'm so excited! And this internship means that I don't have to go to school anymore, my credits are done with.
And then, of course, the prom, which is another story in itself.

I think that's all for now.

See you,
Sanjukta

Fun with panicky juniors

From a forum taking about the wait for TASP decisions (very soon, btw):

The other night I had two nightmares about TASP. In the first, I got to TASP, and everyone was snotty and mean. They all thought I was a stupid country bumpkin because my only exposure to Russian poetry is a few translated works by Pushkin. I kept on saying that I don't like poetry--I like novels.

In the second dream, I was waiting in the hallway while the committee debated my admission. My English teacher (who wrote my rec) comes out of the room and glares at me, yelling that I forgot to write two of the essays. Later, she reemerges to tell me that I might have gotten into the Civil Rights seminar, but only because so few people applied, "TASP has really lowered its expectations."

And this is my vacation!


Oh my.

Did you guys ever stress out about the program? I never thought about it after my interview; in fact I was quite surprised to see any notice at all from TA.

Oh, and quick top five violin concertos:
1. Wieniawski No.1 (still love it)
2. Tchaikovsky
3. Brahms
4. Sibelius
5. Shostakovich No.1

Plethora of New Things to Check Out

Hello, lovers!

Happy Easter.

First off: there is to be a mini-reunion in New Haven this week, which should provide pictures and joy and laughter, etc. Not much has been going on up in New Hampshire. The weather's improving, people are trying to tan under the weak sun rays we get up here, and seniors have divorced homework. One of my friends has downloaded twelve episodes of Desperate Housewives and devoted her time to watching that, rather than ever working during senior year again. For me, the "good enough" point is creeping to a sooner and sooner point. And I just can't bring myself to feel bad about it. I've been devoting most of my energy to water polo this term, and some to my English elective, Spring in Love. We're reading unconvential love stories and books, and my section of the class is all female, which makes it sort of wild, in a good way.

Good new thing I've discovered: James Hunter.
He's kind of a retro R&B/soul in the best kind of way. I first heard his single, "People Gonna Talk," (good first song to check out) and I honestly thought it was an old song I'd just never heard before. He's got an amazing voice, makes you want to dance around your room with your hands up and hips swaying like you've got a dance partner, even though you don't. Just all around feel good music.

Also, I readingasmed when I discovered that my school has a history section devoted entirely to popular music. I checked out Can't Stop Won't Stop : A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, which I remembered seeing lying around the house in Michigan. I have undecided feelings on it as of yet, but I liked the introduction from DJ Kool Herc about keeping it right. So, given that we are, in fact, the musical TASP, I think you might enjoy And It Don't Stop : The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years. It's pretty damn good, and goes a lot into hip hop's relationship with popular media. I think people could get into it even if they're not enamored of hip hop.

Top Five:
1. People Gonna Talk - James Hunter
2. Strawberry Fields Forever - Ben Harper
3. The Book of Love - The Magnetic Fields
4. Start Wearing Purple - Gogol Bordello
5. Party and Bullshit - Notorious B.I.G.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Friday, April 14, 2006

My last day of school...

... was yesterday.

No interesting senior pranks this year. The administration decided to crack down on all the water fights, flour bombs, and general destructive mayhem, so all we had was a small farewell concert, and lots of running around school throwing hard candy at the kids and wrapping up certain teachers in toilet paper and bodily ferrying them to different parts of the school, amidst lots of cheering and noise-making.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Tasper Mastercard Commercial

Duke University Tuition: $160,000

Summer Study in Oxford and European Tour: $12,000

All of these nice things plus warm weather for a change: Priceless. (Literally)


Hey, I got the AB Duke scholarship! Okay, so I have to pay room and board, but whatever. That'll probably equal my pizza cost.


Just so you guys know, there were SIX people from RSI at the finalist weekend thing, and I was proud to represent us, and even solve some crazy hard logic problems that they were offering each other (who says humanities people can't do math!)

Oh, and Charles, I met Luyi, and he was supposed to say hi to you for me, but regardless, just thought I'd mention that.

Congrats to everyone on all of their success and may TASPers continue to dominate the post-secondary market!

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Cambridge/NYC joint adventures

Sorry I haven't posted recently, but I'm still recovering from two almost back-to-back trips: One to NYC with my orchestra and one to MIT to visit. I'm just barely recovered sleep-wise now (I went to sleep at 7:10AM on the airplane the day I flew back from MIT), so I shall finally update.

Short note on NYC, as I'm not going to write too much about it: I really love New York City, even though it is massive and sketchy at times. We actually lost a girl in our school group on the subway, and it took quite a bit of frantic cell calling and running about in Manhattan to track her down again. We told her it was an April Fool's joke :) The NYC pics are from me, and I'm most proud of the Carnegie Hall snapshot, as that was taken very surreptitiously. I also discovered the joyous wonder that is Jamba Juice, and if you ever run into one, I highly suggest you stop in. I'm not quite addicted like some of my friends (one can recite the whole menu), but it is damn good. So that happened (we won our competition too!), and four days later, I was on plane (delayed) to Boston.

If I haven't said it, MIT was by far my first choice school, but I had never actually visited the place before the weekend. Of course, that meant that I had a preconception in my head of a place really special and really fitting my personality and the danger was that I could have been let down completely, leaving me in limbo for where I wanted to be next year. Luckily, MIT rocked my socks off!

MIT is roughly split between two cultures: West Campus, which is where the "normal" nerds hang out, with alcohol and frats as the main sources of entertainment (gross generalization alert) and East Campus, where the really interesting people are, and where fire and elaborated hacks (pranks) are everyday occurences. Guess where I ended up :-P The floor of the dorm in which I stayed built a Jacob's ladder, which is basically a really high voltage spark gap that produces streams of plasma. Not content with the danger of 10,000V ionizing air, we decided to spray denatured alcohol into it, producing small fireballs. Essentially stupid? Uh-huh. Potentially lethal? Oh yeah. Incredibly fun? Like you wouldn't believe!

The prefrosh also got a tour (Tangerine Tours) of the campus from a hacker's (prankster) perspective. That is, from the rooftops and tunnels. So at midnight we crawled up the domes and down the hot steam tunnels and all around MIT without ever leaving a building. I will have to draw up a map sometime of the tunnels; they are so practical if you want to escape the New England chill/snow.

More importantly, I got sooo much free stuff. Among other things, I now possess a capture the flag T-shirt, two bouncy balls (they dropped hundreds off the roof of a dorm), an exploded capacitor (we microwaved it), a red frisbee, a geological sampling thingy, and an a capella CD of the MIT-Wellesley Toons (Jason, any interest?). The Institute also gave us money, ostensibly for food. Instead, of course, I scored some free gear at the Coop instead. Thank god for free food, is all that I can say.

Of course, since I was in Cambridge, I visited Dylan, who lives just two T stops away from MIT. I ate dinner with his family when I arrived, and we checked out Harvard's sumptuously appointed campus. Of course it was infinitely older-styled than MIT, but much better in terms of complementary architecture. Shockingly, we actually ran into a '04 Michigan TASPer (He was wearing their TASP's T-shirt), and we chatted it up for a while. They stayed in ADG as well, and he told us of the high volume of TASPers in the big H. Unexpected, but it's a small world after all, and I suppose the number of TASP alumni (which we are!) is much higher in Cambridge. Some days later, we also cruised through Harvard Square, where I was introduced to the joys of Burdick's hot chocolate and the cool air of the Charles River. We talked, gossiped, shared stories of college prospects and generally shot the shit. I love you TASPers, and I'm even more convinced that we need an East Coast reunion in the fall.

Between climbing up the fire escape at 4:30 in the morning to get into my dorm and the LN2 everywhere (EVERYWHERE!) and climbing the Caltech cannon (take that, Sam!) and playing capture the flag at midnight all over campus and drinking cocoa with the
coolest nerds in existence, I KNOW that MIT is for me. Really, what a place!

Well, I'm off now. In the MIT tradition, I'm writing a letter to ask my girlfriend to prom as a big puzzle involving alternately Morse code, the Battle of Trafalgar, and 8-bit binary. I hope this doesn't end up being too frustrating....

PS: Congrats all on your decisions and future plans; I know it's an exciting time for all of us.
PPS: I'm told that there was a St. Louis TASPer at CPW, and since we heard the same story on Tangerine Tours, I may have been mere feet away! Adam Higuera, I demand satisfaction, or at least that we can hang out during orientation (wink, wink). And dude, sign up on the MIT guestbook at least.
PPPS: Where is Emily Jenda?
PPPPS: No reason, I just like PS's. What does PS stand for anyway?

Monday, April 10, 2006

Knowing

I know where I'm going to college! And it's a pretty sweet feeling.

I visited Carleton and Macalester over spring break, and now I've finally made a decision. I liked Carleton: everyone was obviously very serious about school, the campus was beautiful, the people were nice. But I got waitlisted, so that poses a bit of a problem. I liked Macalester: everyone was obviously very serious about school, the campus is right in St. Paul, the people were interesting, engaged, and really active in student life. But it wasn't the multicultural utopia they sold me in the brochures. The environmental group, whose ambition and effectiveness almost did sell me on the place, said they felt that a lot of people were narrow minded and to quote one kid, "they used the word hegemony a lot to discribe things on campus." They still loved it of course, but I didn't like what they said. Does every campus have a similar situation? Definately. But I decided instead of Carelton or Macalester to take option three: Calvin College. I don't like that it's so near home (and the 25% of kids in my graduation class who will go there). I don't like that it's not Georgetown. But there's plenty I do like as well. It's still a pretty good school with a kickass philosophy department and a decent poli sci department. It's got tons of study abroad options, which I will certainly take advantage of. And it's going to be virtually free because I have 80% off tuition since my mum teaches there, they gave me a $10,000 renewable scholarship, and Michigan will give me $2500 if I stay in state.

Alright, that last paragraph was mostly to convince myself that this was the right decision, and I really think it is. I put in my housing application yesterday to try and get into the Mosaic community, which is mostly international students, and I'm looking forward to it. Along with orientation I'll be going on a 12-day canoeing/backpacking/climbing trip in Ontario in the summer, so that's something to look forward to as well. So I think I'm happy? Yes, I'm definately happy. ^__^

I hope the decision goes well for everyone else!!

Promised FinAid String

Post your financial aid info/rants/rejoicings as comments here.

And by the way, people, enter comments on Jason's post of Friday March 31, How goes the college hunt? I really want to see a complete list of everybody's college admissions results.

- Sam

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Weeell crud

So a downside of getting into Cornell (not really a downside, I guess, but an unfortunate side effect) is that I need to visit the campus before deciding (reasonable). But...
Care to guess which is the only weekend that I have "free" between now and deadline?

Right. Prom night.

poop.

anyway, Ill be there sunday the 16 and monday the 17. Any of you up in that neck of the woods and we could meet up?

miss you

-bern

Friday, April 07, 2006

Dear MIT

http://www.bazza.com/~sj/humour/MIT_Advertising.html

: )

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Top 100 (or so) Things...

... to do if one of us were to ever take over The World:

For future reference.

Some choice bits:

# 130. All members of my Legions of Terror will have professionally tailored uniforms. If the hero knocks a soldier unconscious and steals the uniform, the poor fit will give him away.

# 139. If I'm sitting in my camp, hear a twig snap, start to investigate, then encounter a small woodland creature, I will send out some scouts anyway just to be on the safe side. (If they disappear into the foliage, I will not send out another patrol; I will break out the napalm).

Jason

WOOOOOO!

POST 500! Okay, here's what I think of worthy of post 500...
Check it out. It's possibly one of the best thing's I've ever seen. I flipped out when I first saw it, I'm not even kidding.

Top 5 of Right Now:
1. Crazy Train - Tufts Beelzebubs
2. No Children- The Mountain Goats
3. Jamie - Weezer
4. Could You Be Loved - Bob Marley
5. Bombs Over Baghdad - Outkast

Monday, April 03, 2006

Very nice addition to the blog (light blue rectangle above)! Hmmm, I think this was the work of Dylan. Was I right? Was I right?

www.stumbleupon.com

Has a little plugin for your web browser that's wonderfully simple and useful. Specify the kinds of sites you're interested in, click a button, and poof! you're transported to just one such site. I swiftly discovered this hilarious page as well as...

THE BUNNY SUICIDES!


Remember us chuckling and cringing over it in Borders on Harry Potter Night?

Finally, this family's photo calendar is flat-out cool.

Jason

A Ruther Eventful Weekend

First of all,

YAY! WE'RE GOING TO COLLEGE!

Many congratulations on the multitude of acceptances! You are all awesome! As for rejections, pooh on them. No mere form letter will ever dull the brightness of your TASPly intelligences.


OK, now the news from over here.

Bad news:

I broke my nose. In the proud TASP tradition, I was playing a game of Frisbee in the dark on Friday night, and as I made a dash for the glow-in-the-dark disc, I ran smack into another player. After a little adventure in the Dutch medical system (involving two separate hospitals), I emerged with a bandage resembling the facemask of an Etruscan warrior and an injuction not to participate in contact sports (including, presumably, frisbee-in-the-dark) for six weeks. Picture(s) will be arriving on the photobucket soon, I hope.

Good news:

Many fat UPS packages arriving on my doorstep (sound familiar?) from the halls of academe. I have been accepted (yay) to Harvard, Duke, Stanford, and Cornell, as well as CBTA. The CBTA preferment letter also noted that "you have been named the Bedell Scholar as our top incoming foreign student." This mysterious title (do you pronounce it like "beetle," I wonder?) appears to involve being from oversease and receiving some kind of stipend from TA - perhaps I will also get to officiate in certain secret rituals of the Cornell House (they do have secret rituals, I hope). I have requested more information about this.

As for where I'll end up going, um . . . ? My clever strategy was to apply first and wait to see which schools rejected me so my decision would be easier. Instead, I now have 18 days to choose 1 of about 6.

Sometime in the last couple of weeks I watched part of this killer documentary called American Roots Music. I think it was a PBS series? Anyway, it is, like, a total TASP nostalgia-trip, with all sorts of great live footage and recordings of Chicago blues, early bluegrass, folk-revival stuff, plus some interesting sections on Cajun, zydeco, Tejano, and Native American styles. Perhaps the coolest part is the interviews with all sorts of great musical figures - everybody from BB King to Flaco Jimenez ("probably the greatest Chicano accordion player in the world"). My sincere recommendations.

Also, I noticed a financial aid thread on the St. Louis TASP blog. I know that compared to the admissions question, financial aid is kind of an ugly, unglamorous, and awkward topic, but I think a TASPly discussion could be helpful and productive. Can we set up a financial aid thread of our own? Any feelings one way or the other?

Groetjes,

Sam

Sunday, April 02, 2006

I'VE MISSED YOU!!

Hello, Everyone!!

Oh gosh, how I've missed all of you! There's a little story about why I haven't been on the blog for AGES...

The story is: I've been super stressed out about colleges, and I've been emotionally unable to view any talk of college. At all. Not really a story, I know...but the truth, nonetheless.

Anyway, now that I've got the whole college thing worked out, I'm ready to come back and join the PAR-TAY!!

I'm going to UCR (the University of California, Riverside). It's a nice, smallish college with a fabulous honors program (which, happily, I have been accepted to). Plus, they gave me a 75% tuition scholarship! That's happy. They have great programs, and majors I really like...and lots of creative writing and dance, which I'm super excited about.

In other news, my show choir is traveling to Las Vegas this week for our big competition...which means, as president, I have lots of work to do...but it's all fun stuff. Mostly shopping, hehe.

It's so good to read about everyone's lives...it brings real tears to my eyes. I miss each and every TASPer so much...so much.

I'll keep up with the posting and I hope you're all doing well!

Love,

Lisa

Youtube...

... is amazing at wasting my time.

This guy is like something out of an arcade game.

This guy and his violin sound beautiful, even if the video and audio are a little out of sync.

This guy does awesome things with coins. And is Isaac. I swear. Or maybe I'm just delusional and the video quality's bad.

Jason

Bonjour!

I am writing from a tiny internet cafe in Nice, france and I dont have many euros so Ill have to keep it short.

First peice of news:

Chirac decided to sign a law making it easier to fire young workers in france. major protests ensued with most of the french populace supporting the protestors. SO: out of all the train stations in france that a thousand angry high school students could have chose to barricade they picked... yep, the one we were trying to use to get out of town. It was actually mad fun--we just waited on the platform )they were 200 metres down the tracks) and then every once in a while an angry gaurd would come over and bark at us or another boatload of gendarmes would unload and head down the line. eventually the evacuated us "for our own safety" and apparently tear-gassed the protestors. Upshot was that we spent another night in paris.

for those of you that havent been, France is lovely. You need to come. My personal favorite part so far is the city of nimes. feels like everything a small french town should be, wonderful gardens, beautiful town square, Complete roman amphitheatre AND it is right in heart of wine country. Ill be posting photos eventually.

Saw Monoco today. Yay for having lots more money than you know what to do with.

And now, the big news

I GOT INTO CORNELL!!!!


now I just have to see if they give me enough money that I can afford it.

But, on that note, I head off to dinner to eat some wonderful french food and drink some french wine in celebration.

Au revoir,

miss you

bern