Why today is a Good Day
A Tale of Obscure Words, Interesting Dozes, Diagrams, Unusual Weather, an Umbrella, Engaging Debates, a Silent Dialogue, Smoke and Mirrors, and Intercarcadine Warfare in Many Inventive Forms
(To be honest, I could leave this entry as just that, because any day which can be described even in truncated form with all of those things must be several kinds of awesome. However, not describing it any further would be unfair in the extreme, so I shall soldier on. Ah, it's a hard life...)
My day, it has to be admitted, did not start very well, because I was fractionally late for school, and feeling ill-ish. However, this was redeemed by the fact that the speaker in BLR today looked like a clone of Neil Gaiman. Really. (He was actually incredibly boring, and told the story of the golem (pronounced the Hebrew way, 'goh-lehm', not the more pleasing Anglicised 'goal'em') very badly and in such a way that I was the only person who was able to work out the parallel that he was trying to draw with it, and even I was falling asleep. On the other hand he seemed to be completely stoned, which amused us greatly.) I struggled my way through the next couple of lessons without quite sleeping, and had perfected this technique by English so that Mr Pedroz prodded Sam awake and not me and I still made sensible comments. I also discovered that the Creative Writing competition is still on (and probably prompted Mr Pedroz into realising that he should organise it) and also that I would be allowed to submit the play that I'm writing despite the fact that it's an adaptation of a piece that won a prize last year, mwuahahahaha. However, the real highlight of the lesson was the rediscovery of the word 'artificer', which seems to be mating with the word 'noctuary' in my brain in an attempt to conceive some kind of cyberpunk plot-bunny.
This can only end in tears, steam, or electrolyte fluid.
Maths sucked, and I'm pretty sure that Ashley and I both failed that logs test, but it did lead to the first instalment of intercarcadine warfare, which involved Ashley pretending to attempt to murder me with his gigantic pair of psychotic scissors - think the kind of implement that a mad axe-murderer might use to cut out paper-chains, and you'd not be far off - and almost succeeding, and also much wailing and gnashing of teeth and kludges.
Also, Ashley seems to be of the opinion that Helen stole my beard over the weekend. Bwa? (There is a reason for this; apparently I am very, very closely shaved today, which happens very rarely, because I am a lazy boy and not a fan of mornings and tend to shave at the weekend and then leave it as long as I can get away with. As I said, I'm lazy.)
This was when the day began to get good. On the way to get food, Paul made a comment about Communion that made me very confused as to his religious beliefs, making me wail and ask for an explanation 'with diagrams!' ('What?' 'Or a flowchart? Flowcharts are good!' 'What?' 'I just want a diagram that I can understand. Is that so wrong?') I'm not entirely sure how this was turned to porn, but it was, which was very strange; eventually it was put back on its original track, and thus began the theological debate that took up most of my lunchtime. After ironing out Paul's beliefs, which took a little time (alas, no pictorial explanations were provided) we began talking about the Trinity with
stripyglove - 'Why three?' 'There just are.' 'Why not seven?' 'Can you think of seven different parts of God?' 'The aunt, the cousin, the family dog and the goldfish?' (and then much giggling) - which then meandered onto the precise status of Jesus re God and the immaculate conception ('So he's basically a clone?') and a brief side-trip into the land of scientific ethics and the Euphyro Dilemma (if God is allowed to clone himself, then why can't we?) and then a long debate about the logic of the crucifixion and the constrictions that omniscience and omnipotence places on theology, and then ended up talking about just what makes an individual an individual and then about souls, by which point Todd and Charles had joined the fray.
It was during this that the second incidence of Intercarcadine Warfare occurred. In the midst of this highly intellectual debate (which involved me throwing a balled up paper bag at various peoples' heads to try to prove a point, honest) approximately more than half a very strangely shaped orange landed by my foot from the other side of the common room. After calculating the trajectory, I picked it up, walked over to where I had enough room, and hurled it back in the direction from whence it came. I thought no more of it, and returned to the cut and thrust of the debate, wherein I was becoming astonished at just how many of my friends professed to believe that they possessed some form of soul, and then
-- A super-sonic hemispherical blur of fruit smashed into the side of my face, and exploded.
Okay, maybe that's a bit of an over-exageration, but it certainly spurted juice absolutely everywhere. It was hurled with enough force that I was very surprised not to have a bright red mark on my cheek afterwards and to cause me to apologise to those around me 'for any splatter damage incurred as a consequence of my actions'. A less violent battle was promptly rejoined, although it was cut short by the end of lunch-break.
On my way out of the common room, I asked my friend Nick the Android whether he had a soul, which somehow lead to my being imprisoned behind a door.
This ensoulment business continued all through registration, leading to Michael selling me his for fifty pee, which leaves me in the bizarre position of owning a piece of paper signifying that I own a metaphysical concept that I do not believe exists and which is simultaneously owned by Callum.
Mike also offered to sell me his sense of self-worth or his conscience, which was discounted to twenty-five pee because it was defective.
In my free period today I had a wonderful conversation with Paul on a piece of paper that began with 'Hello', 'hello, toto', 'How are you, bluebell?' and contained things like dragonfly and harpsichord lollypops, and also spoke to Tim about Smoke & Mirrors and Neverwhere and Messers Croup and Vandemar.
Then I went home and then, later, went out to the bus stop with an umbrella to meet Sisterkin because her lift hadn't materialised and it was snowing and cold, and have decided that watching the lights of traffic approaching and speeding away from one's position in the snow through a scratchy perspex panel is one of the most mesmerising and strange an beautiful things that one can watch.
Also, I should never be allowed to do strange spinny dances on the spinny chairs to Arctic Monkey songs, no matter how much I love them, because I hit my knees on table-legs and things. :D
(I would stop there, but I feel obliged to post the emo-post that I wrote on paper last night at some point between 23:32 and 23:49 but probably should have manifested itself on Saturday, because I rather like it, in a funny sort of way:)
sitting there in
silence, in
the liminal spaces, somehow in
the space between the space between
two stars so far apart they don't
have names,
still,
silent,
a psychic shivering at midnight in
a room somewhere that is
a dustmote in
the darkness, just
a bubble in
the ocean,
fragile,
alone;
stepping in
the cracks between
the paving stones and
knowing it. what's the difference
between
standing on the ground and
freefall in
the cracks between
the space between
two names so close they cannot touch?
(To be honest, I could leave this entry as just that, because any day which can be described even in truncated form with all of those things must be several kinds of awesome. However, not describing it any further would be unfair in the extreme, so I shall soldier on. Ah, it's a hard life...)
My day, it has to be admitted, did not start very well, because I was fractionally late for school, and feeling ill-ish. However, this was redeemed by the fact that the speaker in BLR today looked like a clone of Neil Gaiman. Really. (He was actually incredibly boring, and told the story of the golem (pronounced the Hebrew way, 'goh-lehm', not the more pleasing Anglicised 'goal'em') very badly and in such a way that I was the only person who was able to work out the parallel that he was trying to draw with it, and even I was falling asleep. On the other hand he seemed to be completely stoned, which amused us greatly.) I struggled my way through the next couple of lessons without quite sleeping, and had perfected this technique by English so that Mr Pedroz prodded Sam awake and not me and I still made sensible comments. I also discovered that the Creative Writing competition is still on (and probably prompted Mr Pedroz into realising that he should organise it) and also that I would be allowed to submit the play that I'm writing despite the fact that it's an adaptation of a piece that won a prize last year, mwuahahahaha. However, the real highlight of the lesson was the rediscovery of the word 'artificer', which seems to be mating with the word 'noctuary' in my brain in an attempt to conceive some kind of cyberpunk plot-bunny.
This can only end in tears, steam, or electrolyte fluid.
Maths sucked, and I'm pretty sure that Ashley and I both failed that logs test, but it did lead to the first instalment of intercarcadine warfare, which involved Ashley pretending to attempt to murder me with his gigantic pair of psychotic scissors - think the kind of implement that a mad axe-murderer might use to cut out paper-chains, and you'd not be far off - and almost succeeding, and also much wailing and gnashing of teeth and kludges.
Also, Ashley seems to be of the opinion that Helen stole my beard over the weekend. Bwa? (There is a reason for this; apparently I am very, very closely shaved today, which happens very rarely, because I am a lazy boy and not a fan of mornings and tend to shave at the weekend and then leave it as long as I can get away with. As I said, I'm lazy.)
This was when the day began to get good. On the way to get food, Paul made a comment about Communion that made me very confused as to his religious beliefs, making me wail and ask for an explanation 'with diagrams!' ('What?' 'Or a flowchart? Flowcharts are good!' 'What?' 'I just want a diagram that I can understand. Is that so wrong?') I'm not entirely sure how this was turned to porn, but it was, which was very strange; eventually it was put back on its original track, and thus began the theological debate that took up most of my lunchtime. After ironing out Paul's beliefs, which took a little time (alas, no pictorial explanations were provided) we began talking about the Trinity with
stripyglove - 'Why three?' 'There just are.' 'Why not seven?' 'Can you think of seven different parts of God?' 'The aunt, the cousin, the family dog and the goldfish?' (and then much giggling) - which then meandered onto the precise status of Jesus re God and the immaculate conception ('So he's basically a clone?') and a brief side-trip into the land of scientific ethics and the Euphyro Dilemma (if God is allowed to clone himself, then why can't we?) and then a long debate about the logic of the crucifixion and the constrictions that omniscience and omnipotence places on theology, and then ended up talking about just what makes an individual an individual and then about souls, by which point Todd and Charles had joined the fray.
It was during this that the second incidence of Intercarcadine Warfare occurred. In the midst of this highly intellectual debate (which involved me throwing a balled up paper bag at various peoples' heads to try to prove a point, honest) approximately more than half a very strangely shaped orange landed by my foot from the other side of the common room. After calculating the trajectory, I picked it up, walked over to where I had enough room, and hurled it back in the direction from whence it came. I thought no more of it, and returned to the cut and thrust of the debate, wherein I was becoming astonished at just how many of my friends professed to believe that they possessed some form of soul, and then
-- A super-sonic hemispherical blur of fruit smashed into the side of my face, and exploded.
Okay, maybe that's a bit of an over-exageration, but it certainly spurted juice absolutely everywhere. It was hurled with enough force that I was very surprised not to have a bright red mark on my cheek afterwards and to cause me to apologise to those around me 'for any splatter damage incurred as a consequence of my actions'. A less violent battle was promptly rejoined, although it was cut short by the end of lunch-break.
On my way out of the common room, I asked my friend Nick the Android whether he had a soul, which somehow lead to my being imprisoned behind a door.
This ensoulment business continued all through registration, leading to Michael selling me his for fifty pee, which leaves me in the bizarre position of owning a piece of paper signifying that I own a metaphysical concept that I do not believe exists and which is simultaneously owned by Callum.
Mike also offered to sell me his sense of self-worth or his conscience, which was discounted to twenty-five pee because it was defective.
In my free period today I had a wonderful conversation with Paul on a piece of paper that began with 'Hello', 'hello, toto', 'How are you, bluebell?' and contained things like dragonfly and harpsichord lollypops, and also spoke to Tim about Smoke & Mirrors and Neverwhere and Messers Croup and Vandemar.
Then I went home and then, later, went out to the bus stop with an umbrella to meet Sisterkin because her lift hadn't materialised and it was snowing and cold, and have decided that watching the lights of traffic approaching and speeding away from one's position in the snow through a scratchy perspex panel is one of the most mesmerising and strange an beautiful things that one can watch.
Also, I should never be allowed to do strange spinny dances on the spinny chairs to Arctic Monkey songs, no matter how much I love them, because I hit my knees on table-legs and things. :D
(I would stop there, but I feel obliged to post the emo-post that I wrote on paper last night at some point between 23:32 and 23:49 but probably should have manifested itself on Saturday, because I rather like it, in a funny sort of way:)
sitting there in
silence, in
the liminal spaces, somehow in
the space between the space between
two stars so far apart they don't
have names,
still,
silent,
a psychic shivering at midnight in
a room somewhere that is
a dustmote in
the darkness, just
a bubble in
the ocean,
fragile,
alone;
stepping in
the cracks between
the paving stones and
knowing it. what's the difference
between
standing on the ground and
freefall in
the cracks between
the space between
two names so close they cannot touch?