Finals Week, Part 1

There are two large snakes housed in the Science Building at UMM. The boa constrictor is named Ramses, and the ball python is 8 Ball. I held 8 Ball once in late October. I happened to be passing by as some of the biology majors were lifting him out of his glass tank. "Why don't you hold him?" a boy asked enticingly, draping the snake about his shoulders as if it were a scaly shawl.

My first inclination was to say no. My second inclination was to say well okay.

8 Ball was heavier than I expected; his long body was thick and muscular. His dry skin slid against mine as he twisted his head around to look at me. He flicking his tongue periodically, me hardly blinking at all, we regarded one another.

He must have decided I was all right (for a human), because he soon resumed wrapping himself tightly around my arms.

Now it's December, and I'm back again to stand in the Science Building and gaze at the snakes. Among the rocks in their enclosures, they hardly move at all. Ramses has a large lump near his throat, and I know that while he lays placidly, inside he is digesting his Sunday dinner. I pity the mouse that didn't have a chance.

I sit down beside the tanks to work on a paper that should have been done yesterday, and suddenly I would give everything good and dear and wonderful about my life to be a snake. To doze inside a warm rectangle all day, only disturbed to eat and drink and to be held by curious students wearing black glasses and hooded sweatshirts. To creep around on my belly, not concerned about getting up or lying down or hurrying or tripping or letting anyone down.

I'd like to be a snake, so I can simply be.

It's Only a Nightmare

I've decided that in lieu of posting about the nightmare that is finals, I'll post an actual nightmare that I had last winter (while sleeping).

I have to say though, for a nightmare, this one's actually pretty cool:


February 19, 2010

I had a nightmare last night. It began when I took a trip to India with some of my friends from Morris (Tim, Ally, Evan, Miles and Brockman were there for sure I remember). We were in this sort of room playing a traditional Indian game, when all of the sudden some of my friends from elementary school (Mara, Katie, and Colleen) walked in. I was really surprised to see them and we were all hugging and talking until my group had to leave.

Then the dream switched, and Tim, Ally, Evan and I were walking through a mall when we decided to stop at Barnes and Noble. We were disappointed to find that they had very few books; instead they were selling mostly Christmas decorations. I got really upset about this, and decided to untie the bow around a stuffed bear’s neck, even though the lady working there specifically warned us not to, as the bow could not be retied properly. After doing the deed, I hid the bear and we all ran out of the store and out to the car.

Not long after we had left, I felt really guilty about what I had done, so I went back in and offered to pay for the bear. While the worker lady was ringing it up, I wrote a nasty note complaining about the store’s lack of books and was about to put it in the suggestion box when the lady came up behind me and was reading it. She looked sort of sad and said that she agreed with me, but that the decorations would be taken out soon and replaced with actual books. I felt bad and threw the note away and left the store with my bear.

Back in the car (I don’t know who was driving, but Ally, Evan and I were squished in the back seat), we decided to go to a fancy restaurant, but we didn’t know how to get there. Someone remembered that Maggie Smith (yes, the British actress) lived in town, and suggested that we go to her house to ask for directions. We pulled into the road in front of her house, and saw that her chauffer was washing a black Ferrari in her driveway.

I decided to be the one to go up and ring the doorbell while everyone else waited in the car. The house itself was rather small and dumpy, and when Maggie Smith came to the door and invited me in, she went and sat down on a small footstool in front of the TV and offered me one beside her. I could see two comfortable-looking armchairs across the room, and asked her why she didn’t move those in front of the TV. She just shrugged.

All of the sudden, Maggie Smith sort of tensed up, and the chauffer came running in. They both started speaking in frightened voices about something that was coming, though they wouldn’t tell me what it was. Then they tried to tell me where to go hide, but I was having trouble understanding them. I finally got out of them that they wanted me to run across the backyard and into the backyard of the house across the way. I was to lie facedown on the neighbor’s porch steps, and it was very important that I DIDN’T OPEN MY EYES no matter what.

I did as they told me to, running as fast as I could, though it was uphill and I kept tripping. Once I got to the porch steps, I saw that there was a small child playing on them. I threw myself on top of her and covered her eyes with my hands so she wouldn’t peek either. She struggled, and I felt like a monster holding her down, but at that point I could feel the presence of something, and I was scared to death.

I was telling myself so hard not to open my eyes that I couldn’t help doing so, and as soon as I did I knew that I was in trouble. I felt a rush in the air, and as I began to run I was lifted up several feet, and the very sky seemed to turn purple. I remember knowing that I was about to be killed by this sort of monster…and then I woke up.

Imagine Again

Thirty years ago today John Lennon was shot and killed in New York City.
Earlier that day, Lennon had kindly stopped to sign an autograph for his murderer, who traveled all the way from Hawaii just to do the deed.
John Lennon was shot in the back by that man, who carried a copy of The Catcher in the Rye.

The other day, I came across a few quotes by Paul McCartney about John Lennon:
"I definitely did look up to John. We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest."

(when asked if he missed sitting knee to knee with John Lennon, writing songs) "Are you kidding? Of course I bloody miss it. I'm sitting in the room with John, him with me. Believe me, we're both pretty good editors. We were young turks. We were smartasses. And we did some amazing things. I would love him to be here now, saying, 'Don't bloody do that!' – or, more wonderfully, 'That's great!' So yeah, I really had the greatest writing partner."


And I decided to look for other places/ways John Lennon is remembered:

Here (Strawberry Fields, NYC)



Here (Imagine Peace Tower, Iceland)


Here


Here (A CD of my mom's; I grew up listening to it)


Here (The movie Nowhere Boy, about a young John Lennon)


Here (The Beatles)



And Here (John Lennon and his widow, Yoko Ono)


Finally, I just have to post the lyrics to that beautiful, beautiful song itself:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

1 a.m. Guitar

It's about 1 in the morning
And someone next door
is playing on a guitar
something that sounds Italian
or perhaps Spanish.
She continues to stop and start
trying to reach a difficult chord, maybe
but I don't mind.
I sit in the quiet in my room
listen to my roommate breathe
listen to the guitar
next door
and suddenly
finals seem very very small
the world is small
compared to the cold night
the soft guitar
and me.

Cinderella

Right now I sort of feel like Cinderella, for the following reasons:
1. There's a ball going on, and I'm not going.
2. Because I have to do work.
3. And I'm sitting here watching the girls on my floor get dressed up.
4. And I wish I were going with them.


I'm unlike Cinderella for the following reasons:
1. I have no adorable rodent friends.
2. It's a not a prince's ball in the palace; it's a Yule Ball (that's right-Harry Potter style) in the Student Center.
3. There are no hideous step-relatives preventing me from going.
4. My 'work' consists of papers, and presentations, and general studying, not chores and laundry.

You know, Cinderella used to be my favorite story growing up. According to my parents, I used to beg them to read it to me. Unfortunately for them, it was quite a long read, for a picture book.

Nowadays, I'm not such a fan of old Cinderella. We still own the Disney version on VHS, and whenever I watch it I'm struck by what a weak character Cinderella is.

First of all, she's not very proactive. Instead of fighting to improve her own life, she relies on mice, and a dog, and a horse, and a fairy godmother to help her win her prince. She's constantly singing about the importance of dreams, but does she ever really take any risks to make her dreams come true? Nope. She goes to a ball and dances one dance with an incredibly shallow prince, who doesn't speak two words to her, and probably only likes her for her beauty.

Furthermore, what were her dreams in the first place? To fall in love? I mean, this girl has pretty much been locked up in a manor scrubbing floors her entire life. Doesn't she want to see a bit of the world? Get an education? Make some friends? Actually live a normal life for a bit? Apparently not.

To be completely fair to Cinderella, however, I decided to google her. See if she's really just all fluff. Here's what I found out:

The story of Cinderella is actually thought to have originated around the 1st Century B.C., when a Greek history named Strabo recorded this story about an Egyptian girl:
They tell the fabulous story that, when she was bathing, an eagle snatched one of her sandals from her maid and carried it to Memphis. While the king was administering justice in the open air, the eagle, when it arrived above his head, flung the sandal into his lap. The king, having been stirred both by the beautiful shape of the sandal and by the strangeness of the occurrence, sent men in all directions into the country in quest of the woman who wore the sandal. When she was found in the city of Naucratis, she was brought up to Memphis and became the wife of the king...[3][4]

Nothing else I found led me to believe Cinderella has any depth, although I do admire her longevity. I guess everyone likes a little blind romance.

And she does have some good qualities, I'll admit. What do they call her? "Ever gentle and kind." Certainly admirable, but not exactly my kind of heroine these days.

Manna

Poetry Friday is here again, and with it comes a snow-themed poem that quite eclipses the one I wrote earlier this week:

Everywhere, everywhere, snow sifting down,
a world becoming white, no more sounds,
no longer possible to find the heart of the day,
the sun is gone, the sky is nowhere, and of all
I wanted in life – so be it – whatever it is
that brought me here, chance, fortune, whatever
blessing each flake of snow is the hint of, I am
grateful, I bear witness, I hold out my arms,
palms up, I know it is impossible to hold
for long what we love of the world, but look
at me, is it foolish, shameful, arrogant to say this,
see how the snow drifts down, look how happy
I am.

-Manna, by Joseph Stroud

The Consequences of Folly

While writing the majority of a 10 page research paper at about 5 a.m. this morning (after having pulled at all-nighter), I was suddenly reminded of a certain chapter in Betsy Was a Junior, entitled "The Consequences of Folly:"

"We bought the paper covers and the glue and things ages ago."
"But then we forgot all about them."
"And now he wants them turned in tomorrow and he says they will count for one fourth of our year's marks! It's awful!" said Betsy, summarizing. "It's a perfectly awful situation!"
The rest of the Crowd had gone riding in Carney's auto, but Betsy, Tacy and Tib had not been able to go. They had come face to face at last with the matter of herbariums.
"'A herbarium,'" said Betsy, "'is a collection of dried and pressed specimens of plants, usually mounted or otherwise prepared for permanent preservation and systematically arranged in paper covers placed in boxes or cases.'"
"You know the definition all right," said Tib. "But you can't turn in a definition tomorrow."
"How many flowers did he say we had to have?"
"Fifty."
"We might as well tell him we haven't made them and all flunk the course," said practical Tib. "At least we can all take it again together in the fall."
"But we'll be seniors then!" cried Betsy. "I don't want to be in Gaston's biology again with all the juniors! Why don't we try to make the herbariums tonight? There have to be at least fifty kinds of flowers up on the Big Hill! We can label all night long."
Tacy's eyes began to shine. "Let's try. It would be fun."
"All right," said Tib. "I'm willing if you are. You can come, I think, but we can't let Papa and Mamma know we're awake all night."


After a long night of picking, drying, pasting, and labeling, along with discovering that there was a reason the herbariums had been assigned way back at the beginning of the year, Betsy, Tacy and Tib come to the very realization I came to at around 3 a.m. this morning:

"I think," said Tib, as they walked down Hill Street, "that this was an idiotic thing to do."
Betsy and Tacy grunted.
"Why, I realized last night that I would have enjoyed making a herbarium. I like to do that sort of thing. I could have made a good one."
"So could I," admitted Tacy.
"Well, I couldn't," said Betsy. "But I should have been interested at least. I'm crazy enough about flowers."