chasing power

I drove most of the way to work, my father preventing me from scraping his right side-view mirror onto a mailbox or telephone pole. Taking a 5,000 pound machine on the road felt like the most natural thing in the world, except when turning or trying to stay in the middle of the lane. In all seriousness, though, I like controlling objects beyond what a human should. I’ve always wanted to learn to play the organ, because the organist is in charge of the entire church building, responsible for filling it with beautiful harmony.

a treatise on fixing

To fix the buzzing refrigerator: slam the door, then close the freezer door which has popped open.

To fix the stalled washing machine: slam the lid once, wait for a click, then slam the lid again.

To fix the darkened lights: whack with a wooden plank.

To fix the unresponsive safe: hit the door with a hammer.

To fix the massive loss of blood: apply pressure.

To fix the stopped heart: pound vigorously.

i'm a person, now

I am now officially licensed permitted to (learn to) drive. I woke up at 6 so I could eat a nice breakfast, and we got to the DMV by about 7:30. A line had already formed. Luckily, it wasn’t too long yet, but by about 7:45, it was snaking around the cars in the parking lot. I didn’t actually have to wait too long; the DMV opened at 8, and I was out by 9 o’clock. I think learning to drive will be fun, but I’m leaving for school soon (official countdown: 12 days), so my learner permit’s main function is now as a form of government-issued identification.

Of course, going to the DMV couldn’t have been so easy…today was my second journey to under-under-staffed land. On Thursday, I went to the DMV…only to find out that I needed two pieces of mail, and my actual Social Security Card. Apparently, having memorized the number doesn’t cut it. So, my mother and I drive home, and try to open the fire safe. It doesn’t work. The keypad accepts the PIN, but it won’t unlock the handle. Customer service tells us to HIT THE SAFE WITH A HAMMER. (Seriously, why is this an official fix?) However, the woman on the line wasn’t very specific about where to hit, so it didn’t work. After briefly looking up local locksmiths, I happened upon an article about the very type of safe that we were trying to open. It turns out that, yes, you have to hit the safe with a hammer in a very specific spot. Great. After that, it was about an hour and a half of searching to find the actual small piece of cardboard I desired, and then I had to go to the optometrist, so I had to postpone obtaining my permit until today. But now I have a Social Security Card and a learner permit, so I guess I’m a real person in the eyes of the government.

happy birthday, world wide web

Today is the 20th birthday of the World Wide Web! The very first webpage (http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html) was published by physicist Tim Berners-Lee (a professor at MIT) on 6 August 1991. Who would have thought that in twenty years, the web could go from a single text-and-links page to full-out HD video and Flash (unless you're on an iOS device...).

In other news, two weeks until school. This summer has gone by much more quickly than I expected. At graduation, two and a half months seemed long, but then I remembered how quickly my entire senior year had passed, and now, here I am, in the month of August.

It worries me that three years at Exeter seemed so short. Is MIT going to feel as transient? Does time just keep speeding up? I guess I'll find out soon enough. I'll probably blink and end up at my MIT graduation.

vignettes from 3 august 2011

“What are you doing?” asks the child, gesturing at the tangled strand of labels overflowing the table.

“Upgrading your folders,” I reply. “Nicole doesn't like having to look on the sides to see the names, so I'm labeling the tops.”

“People these days,” he sighs.

A girl at the next table asks what sales tax is. Somehow, the United States debt “crisis” and Congress's inability to function are mentioned.

“People these days,” he sighs.

I turn away to help find a misplaced math book. When I return to sorting folders and labeling, the child is texting under the table instead of continuing to fill in bubbles on his practice SSAT.

People these days, I think to myself.

***

I walked down the street, hoping the gray sky would keep its moisture to itself until I'd reached shelter. A hand holding a cigarette between two nicotine-yellowed fingers stuck itself out the window of a banged-up silver Toyota, and the smell of tobacco and hot rubber brought me back to China. I'd forgotten how the long walk between the hotel and the university smelled, though I'd traveled it twice a day before moving in with the professor.

***

The official countdown starts: 18 days until I start college.

Why start with 18? Well, why start with a “nice” number such 20? It's only a nice, round number because we count in base 10.

back from unannounced hiatus?

I decided my summer was kind of boring so I stopped writing about it...

So what's happened recently? Ummm...I took a lot of hipster pictures...

Also, I got my dorm for MIT. I will describe it thusly:

1. It is a castle.

2. It has food, such as lunch. More importantly, it has brunch, so that I don't even have to leave to get breakfast.

3. It is close to class. So, no waking up late and sprinting long distances to make it to class.

About three weeks until I get to campus and then head off to FLP. This summer has gone by especially quickly. I hypothesize that my repetitive daily schedule and lack of stimuli outside of my house has made the days blur together.

I'm getting excited for MIT, but I noticed that I'm starting to remember events from Exeter as though they took place in the very distant past, or in a dream. Are experiences so very transient? How long will it be until I forget?

Speaking of dreams, I think I had a lucid dream. I think I realized I was in a dream and made a Korean guy I know turn into a blond guy I know and then back. The problem was that then I forgot I was in a dream and thus couldn't control the rest of it. I've been remembering that I've dreamed much more than I previously did. Strange.

*That makes it sound worse than it is. It just means that I work at home, and then I work at an actual workplace, and then I go swimming. Over and over, in varying orders, with repetition.

self-separation

For some reason, I've been consciously separating myself from my hometown. I wear my Exeter t-shirts and my class ring everywhere. I went to the town high school's graduation to cheer for my friends, and I wore my Exeter math club sweatshirt. I'm not really sure why I'm doing that. I guess it's because most of the kids in this town share the same high school experience; they have stories about teachers that everyone understands as soon as they're being told; they have stories that I never would have expected about people I used to know. I have three friends with whom I regularly hang out, but one of them goes to Catholic school out of town, so the other two, who happen to be sisters, are my only source of information about my old classmates, and I usually want to talk to them about their lives, not other people's.

I guess I'm just pointing out that experiences outside of this town had the major part in shaping me. I know downtown Exeter much better than I know downtown Guilford, having spent more time in the former during the past three years than in the latter in the thirteen years preceding that. I have awesome stories about wandering around outside between four and five in the morning on the last day of classes of the year (getting Dunkin' Donuts or being accosted by a strange man in Walgreen's). I had less adult supervision than probably was healthy between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, but now I am not afraid of college because I've already had a similar experience. It isn't my first time away from home, and that's significant. I think it allowed me to get into a good university in the first place.

I definitely don't think I'm better than anyone here. I'm not raising myself above the other kids. I went to my friend's graduation party and I was just another kid. But I was probably the only one who looked only slightly, or not at all familiar. I am different. I'm awkward at parties because I don't want to just talk about my fancy school up in New Hampshire, but I also don't have anything to say about the local high school. I think it'll probably get better at MIT. There, everyone will be from a different place, and we'll all have different stories to tell. And soon, we'll have MIT stories to tell. I'm excited for that.