Woo-hoo!!! I have no idea how this happened, but I finally was able to log into Blogger! Ye-HAW! Skanky British computers refuse to let me in. ::thwaps evil computers:: So I suppose this is Cambridge: Part One. Muah! This extends all the way to July 19-20th.

26.7.01

My sister's birthday! Joy of joys!

Scientific discoveries was oh-so-cool, as we learned about brain and spinal chord repair. It was fascinating! The British history was rather disheartening -- only 324 -- but I'm sure he'll regain his footing. We watched the first half of "Rear Window" in Hitchcock today, which was awesome. Afterwards, I stopped by a bookstore and picked up the British editions of CoS and PoA, which caused me immense satisfaction. I didn't have to worry about others mocking me for my literary tastes! Muaha!

25.7.01

The British History teacher never ceases to amaze me. In roughly an hour, he managed to say "um" over 930 times. That's no mean feat!

In Hitchcock, we watched the second half of "Strangers on a Train", which rocks. Hurrah!

In the SAT course, we finished the SAT. I got a 1380 (640V, 740M), which is fairly decent, as I got a 1240 when I took it in 7th grade. Still, it was amusing to find that I was either highest or second highest in the class. ::snicker::

The evening activity was a trip to the movie theatre to see "Bridget Jones' Diary", which was hilarious. Even more amusing was imagining Hugh Grant with curly blonde hair in the role of Gilderoy Lockhart. ::snerk::

24.7.01

As we enter our week-long slog, we begin to repeat a great deal of events in the daily schedule. Therefore, several days will have little or no entry. Basically, the only thing differing from yesterday is that the Scientific Discoveries class was boring as heck and the British history course was incredibly amusing, as I spent the lecture couning the number of times our lecturer said the word "um". The count was approximately 753. ::evil cackle::. However, no um-count could liven up my SAT course. It was still mind-bogglingly dull, as we worked the first three sections of a real SAT. I just hope that the questions are that simple when I take it for real during my Junior year!

Redeeming the day was my ever-amusing Hitchcock class, in which we viewed and discussed the first half of "Strangers on a Train", a fabulous movie that I would highly reccomend.

The evening activity was lasertag, which was incredibly amusing. I befriended a guy named Greg -- a much-needed kindred spirit. He was interested in computer graphics, theatre, and science fiction. Unfortunately, I haven't seen him since. Drat.

23.7.01

A landmark day, as I discovered the Phoenix Computer Lab, along with the gift of the username and password of one of my teachers for the Cambridge Scientific Discoveries class. The class was fabulous, as it covered Nanotechnology -- an incredibly cool field of study. Also, the lecturer-of-the-day looked a bit like Professor Lupin, which is always a plus. In my glorious internet romp, I got to see what the Fictionalley mods did with the Starling collaboration, and I was incredibly pleased. It looked fabulous! I also read the first 1/5 of DS15, which was indeed groovy. I can't wait for Draco Veritas!

The British History lecture was possibly the least interesting thing I've ever been forced to sit through. He rivals Professor Binns in terms of interesting class lectures. I spent most of the class doodling whilst the girl next to me took 5 pages of notes. I have no idea what she was writing down! It was a joyous occasion when he dismissed us and we were free to go to lunch. Instead, I spent my time in a CD store buying a copy of Abbey Road, which had been tragically left at home (there's no way I could survive 3 weeks without Abbey Road), and the White Album. I was thoroughly amused by the obviously drug-induced lyrics, including "Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey" -- an instant classic in my sketchbook. For lunch, I grabbed an ice cream cone at the last minute. Gotta love street vendors!

In a definite contrast to British History, the Hitchcock class was fantastic! I sat next to Krista, a girl I had befriended at breakfast, who lost the ability to walk due to cerebral palsy. We got to be great friends. The class was spent coming up with our own directorial ideas for filming a sequence in which "a teenage girl comes home to tell her father she is pregnant". It was so much fun.

22.7.01

We went to London again to visit the British Museum, which was fantastic! Everyone agreed that we should have had more than 1 1/2 hours there. Anyway, I got to see the Rosetta Stone, which was thoroughly disappointing, as I envisioned a towering, 10-foot-tall monolith and the real thing was just about 2 feet tall. Much to everyone's disappointment, we went shopping again in the same place as yesterday. Rather pointless, in my opinion. We spent the two hours (!) we had there eating dinner and trying not to order alcoholic beverages by accident. I kept insisting that we go to a bookstore, but because I was the only one, it never happened.

21.7.01

The next day, we drove to London. I was a bit disappointed, because it said we were taking private coaches. I envisioned rattly, horse-drawn carriages, when what we got were ordinary buses. Bah. Anyway, we went to the Tower of London, which was oodles of fun. Waiting in line at a gift shop, I heard this weird French guy speaking in rapid French to his wife behind me and pointing at my back. I twisted around to make sure that there was nothing on my sweatshirt or anything wrong with my braid, but there was nothing to be concerned about. Still, the French man gestured obviously at my back and spoke to his wife. I turned to my friend Kellie, who was standing next to me, and said "C'est tres amusant quand les Francaises pensent que les Americains stupides ne peuvent pas comprendre sa langue!" (This means "It's really amusing when the French think that the stupid Americans can't understand their language"). I don't think he heard me. I bought a Lockhart-worthy quill and a bottle of ink for use on the first day of school. I'm far too amused.

Afterwards, we went to a fabulous art museum, where Kellie and I drooled over gorgeous paintings by Delacroix, Picasso, Turner, Monet, Van Gogh, Degas, and more. I was especially amused at one painting's reference to Väinämöinen, which is the last name of Tanja's Mary Sue, Procent Hydronium-Väinämöinen. ::cackles:: Another amusing point was when another Cambridge student started hitting on Kellie -- rather obviously, in my opinion. Good times, good times.

Later, we went to a shopping area, where I bought a multitude of postcards and made a point to find a cybercafe. Joy of all joys! Afterwards, we all went to see Buddy, a "musical" about Buddy Holly. I think it was more an homage than a musical, though, because there were no original songs -- just a bunch of Buddy Holly songs and a slight semblance of plot. Oh well. I was incredibly amused by a billboard in the show with a cigarette ad that read "When you want the true American flavour", spelled the British way. I wonder if anyone involved was aware of it.

20.7.01

After getting little to no sleep working on my horrible Government disk and my glorious Starling collaboration for Fictionalley.org, I got onto a plane bound for North Carolina. Joy. I thouroughly amused myself for the four hour layover, including such joyous activities as taking 45 minutes to eat an orange, listening to my mom play one of those airport pianos no one is supposed to play, and eating the last beef I would get for three weeks due to my parents' paranoia over the British beef scare. Such fun. The plane ride consisted of an incredibly odd movie about a mother-daughter con artist team targeting old, rich, unmarried men. I fell asleep in the middle. The next morning, when I woke up, I was living off a total of 6 hours of sleep from the past two nights together. I was sleepy, to say the least. Anyway, we took a cab to Cambridge (about an hour and a half), where the Cambridge people realized that I had no dorm room. They said they would sort it out while I was at Ely Cathedral, so I didn't give it much thought. Ely was gorgeous! It had the niftiest dome; I'll have to scan in pictures when I develop and print them. I also met a guy that looked surprisingly named Draco Malfoy, named Mike. I was certainly amused. My mom and I kept giving each other knowing looks and laughing.

Yes, I got photos.

Shortly afterwards, my mom left for her hotel so that she could get prepared for her flight to Italy, as she was going to take a week-long photography workshop in Tuscany. Meanwhile, I got together with the other girls in my hall to go shopping (blech). We dragged Mike along, which was amusing, because the other girls were mostly concerned with buying female undergarments. Unfortunately, I had to leave the fun early to go to my SAT class, which was the most dull experience thusfar in my life. The only source of amusement was the fact that I got every question right in the sections we did. Amusingly, the only vocab word I couldn't decipher, "hedonism", appeared that night in my Discworld book. I laughed. "What's so funny?" my hall-mates asked me. "Hedonism!" I responded.

I think this is why they decided to leave me alone from that point.

That evening, we had a pizza party in one of the girl's rooms, where I made the further mistake of using the word "extrapolate" in cold blood. I unwittingly created a mental image of "hermit-genius" for myself. Bah.