Evitaphobia

I have a rare, and possibly unique, condition that I call Evitaphobia. That is, I have an irrational fear of the former Argentine first lady Eva Peron. Actually, I’m not really scared of her, I just find her vaguely creepy, but the fact remains that this is an irrational thing to think.  Over Christmas break last year, my sisters and I became obsessed with Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical Evita and we memorized a significant portion of the soundtrack, which was a lot of fun, but it probably was not a good idea for me to frequently stay up late reading online biographies of someone who I inexplicably found creepy.  There was one specific night that I recall going to bed and then lying awake for a while with the face of Eva Peron wafting disturbingly through my brain.

I can think of worse images to have stuck in my brain. There’s nothing particularly horrifying about this.

There’s something fascinating about things that are vaguely creepy. I have to admit that I very much enjoy a good ghost story, and at one time I spent a lot of time reading and writing them. I don’t think much of horror movies (although it’s not like I’ve actually seen many), but that’s not because they’re too scary, it’s because, as I said in this post from last June, they’re not scary in a particularly intellectual way.

Because of my obsession with classifying and quantifying everything, I have determined that there are three different types of fear. (Anyone who knows more than me about psychology can feel free to roll their eyes at this, because I admit that I totally made it up.) First, there is the awareness or belief that you are or might be in danger. This kind of fear is never an enjoyable thing. The second kind is the emotional response to danger, which can be elicited not only by genuine fear but also by things such as scary rides, thriller movies, or the sudden noise when a large object unexpectedly crashes onto the floor. Some people must actually find that type of fear enjoyable, because scary rides and thriller movies are pretty popular. As far as I know, there isn’t an especially large fan base for large objects unexpectedly crashing onto the floor, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, the third kind of fear is the kind of fear associated with things that are vaguely creepy for no readily obvious reason. My sisters and I made up a very lovely adjective for those kinds of things, but I’m pretty sure that word’s a secret that I must not reveal. I can say, though, that we defined it as “Creepy, eerie, and spooky.”

The reason that creepy, eerie, and spooky things are (at least in my opinion) fun to think about is that they’re scary in a way that makes you think. The reason they’re scary isn’t that they startle you and try to make you feel as if you’re in danger. They’re scary because they’re somehow metaphorical for a disturbing idea, and the creepy, eerie, and spooky thing that makes you feel afraid is drawing your mind towards that idea. For an example, here is something else I posted last May.

Here is a picture of my window last Halloween, to prove that I’m not always as much of a partypooper as I am this Halloween. Also, it was not that long ago that I used to always celebrate Halloween by mutilating a pumpkin and putting a candle inside of it, then disguising myself and roaming the streets demanding candy from people.

In case it isn’t obvious, the reason I’m writing this today is that it’s Halloween. Sadly, I’m not doing anything for Halloween because Wednesdays are my busy days; it’s 9:25 and I wouldn’t have had a chance to do anything special before now. Although I didn’t mind that ahead of time, now I am annoyed with life about it. But anyway, every costume idea I had has already been claimed by one of my sisters. So I’ve decided just to tell people that I’m being a space alien disguised as an Earthling. Maybe I should have been Eva Peron, though.

It’s time for another episode of random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

1. Today was Reformation Sunday, and speaking of Reformation Sunday, I will be very interested to see what my college’s student newspaper does with the thingy I wrote called ‘Happy Reformation Day!’ I have written stuff for my college’s newspaper before, but it’s always been something kind of silly and generally semi-science fictiony. Let’s just say that my college is not a Lutheran school and I’m not sure if the newspaper really wants to print anything that’s religious without being deliberately vague. I avoided using the kind of sarcastic tone that I have used in other contexts, but that might not have been enough to make my thingy neutral enough for their standards. I didn’t want it to be neutral anyway.

This picture has significant symbolic meaning. I just can’t decide what that meaning is.

2. It is worth noting that I am wearing argyle socks today. The reason that this fact is notable is that argyle is an interesting word. I looked it up and it comes from Argyll, a place in Scotland. Now I’m trying to think of a way that the pattern known as argyle can be considered a metaphor for something really intellectually deep. I can offer no reasonable explanation for why this matters.

3. There’s a certain book that I’ve decided to start reading today, despite the facts that a) I don’t really have a lot of time for leisure reading, b) I’ve read that book a gazillion times already, and c) it’s written for a younger audience.  In fact, the only reason I particularly want to read this book now is that I’ve come to associate it with this time of year, which is odd because a) It takes place in May and June, b) the first time I read it was in September, and c) I used to read it every December.

4. If I had a kitchen, today would be the sort of day that I would want to cook something.

5. I have a question. Is it morally wrong to enter a building through a door marked exit? (Or vice versa) It seems like the answer should be no, because no harm comes from using the wrong door. There are some exceptions to that, but in those cases, the rules are enforced a little more strongly. I’m talking specifically about places like grocery stores, where it technically doesn’t matter. But even if there is no reason for designating a door to be an in or an out door, the fact remains that using the wrong door constitutes breaking a rule. I’m not saying that the moral aspects of walking through doors are necessarily issues that require much attention. I’m just wondering if there are moral aspects to walking through doors.

6. Don’t get me wrong; I love having a car. But car problems are so incredibly stressful. My car recently broke down and needed an engine replacement, and now I’m living in constant fear that my car will either spontaneously explode or suddenly break down again. On the way to church this morning, it started shaking and making a scary noise that was disturbingly similar to the noise it made before it broke down last time, and I had to pull off to the side of the road and park the car. While I was waiting for the panic to fade enough that I could make a rational decision about whether or not it would be safe to start the car again, a couple policemen showed up, took a look at the car, and assured me that it would be okay. Needless to say, though, this incident did little to relieve my distrust of my car’s safety.

7. I’m performing The Nutcracker with a ballet school where I’m taking classes this semester, and one of my three roles is a parent in the party scene. Yesterday, one of “my” kids randomly hugged me and told me that I was the best mother ever. ‘Twas the highlight of my week.

8. I consider myself much more of a language arts kind of person than a mathematical or scientific person, but in most semesters, the class that I feel I get the most out of is something like a social science or math class. This semester, it’s logic. There’s something about a subject where there are objectively clear right and wrong answers that makes it more comfortable and, in a way, more enjoyable than a literature class, which tends to be more abstract and subjective. According to those points of view, I should like grammar, but I actually find it kind of boring.

9. It has reached the time of year when I must make a choice about whether it is better to keep the window closed in order to keep the temperature comfortable, or if it is better to leave the window open and to be extremely cold but to have fresh air. For the time being, I have decided in favor of the fresh air.

10. Last night, for no particular reason, I stayed up until two in the morning making lists of stuff, trying to precisely define all of my priorities, and categorizing my opinions about various things. At the time, this all seemed absolutely necessary, but the only remaining result of this project is a ridiculously long document saved on my computer under the title ‘Rules of Life’, which still needs to be organized much more thoroughly before it actually makes any sense.

11. Tonight, there’s a place downtown that is showing the Luther movie, and I’d like to go, but I don’t think I will because I’m scared of driving my car. I feel like I’m starting to get a little too accustomed to sitting at the side of the road with police officers looking under my car hood. This is not the type of situation that one wants to be in habitually.

Pictured above: a fascinating tiny critter that I wouldn’t want to see in my room

12. I do not think I will ever be too old to enjoy flipping over big rocks or dead logs for the purpose of seeing what fascinating insects and other tiny critters live under them. This does not necessarily mean, though, that I like it when fascinating insects and other tiny critters get in my room.

13. The world is so full of stuff to know, and even after twenty-one years of constantly learning stuff, I still know so little of it. I hope I live to be extraordinarily old, because that’s the only way I’ll have a chance to actually accomplish anything.

14. Happiness, it’s time to do my logic homework. I love doing my logic homework. Also, I am excited about the logic exam that we have on Thursday. And I dislike it when we get out of logic class early. These are all things that are probably not true of most of my classmates in logic class.

15. I had an odd dream a couple nights ago. I was at my house and a large group of kids came trick-or-treating. We thought that was odd, considering that it was several days before Halloween, but we happened to have Halloween candy on hand anyway, so we gave them some. Then they stole all of the candy, along with several boxes of books and papers. Somehow, we got those boxes back, and we spent the rest of the dream sorting through all of them and finding cool stuff that we hadn’t seen in years.

16. My refrigerator just made a funny noise and then stopped making the quiet humming noise it usually makes. Sheesh, refrigerator, I’ve got enough to worry about what with my car threatening to break down. If you’re going to die too, it’s your own problem, and I’ll just have to do without you. It’s your choice. I’m beyond caring.

17. Here is something I have always wondered: Does a person’s eye color have anything to do with their identity in a more general sense? In other words, if my eyes were a different color, would I be a different person? Actually, I think it’s pretty obvious that the answer is no; eye color is a superficial feature. But how can we know that? Maybe eye color does reflect certain aspects of a person’s personality or something. I read somewhere that people with blue eyes can consume more alcohol without getting intoxicated than people with brown eyes can. I’m not necessarily saying that’s true, and I don’t think I got that from a reliable source anyway, but maybe it is true, and in that case, couldn’t that mean that there are other distinctions between people of different eye colors?

Self, you’re weird. Be quiet and do your homework.

18. Note to my refrigerator: I didn’t mean it like that. Please don’t die.

19. I’ve had a keyboard for well over a month now, and I still haven’t learned how to play it, except the melody line of hymns. I ought to be working on playing with both hands at the same time, because that’s the way one is supposed to play the piano, but I’m having more fun messing around with key signatures in the melody line. If you play “A Mighty Fortress is our God” with B flats, it sounds totally different.  Also, “Come Thou Almighty King” is a fun one to B-flat-ify. (According to the internet, that’s either F major or D minor. I’m confused; what’s the difference between F major and D minor, then?) Clearly, at some point in my life, I need to learn something about music. Specifically, how to do it.

20. I think the refrigerator is going to be okay. The problem was nothing that couldn’t be solved with a little cleverness and a few dirty looks.

21. I am making hot chocolate because it is now the time of year when it is right that one should have hot chocolate on a Sunday evening. And I am making it with milk and an excessive amount of hot chocolate mix because that is what awesome people do. And I am spilling hot chocolate mix because sometimes, that is another thing that awesome people do. But they don’t do it on purpose, and they promise to clean it up before their roommate has to see it.

For the record, here is what today looked like before it got dark.

22. I have seen 7, 723 evenings in my lifetime, but it never ceases to surprise me just how quickly it becomes dark when you’re not paying attention.

23. Here is another thing I have wondered: Where did the last part of the Lord’s Prayer come from? (I mean the part that goes “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever”) In the bible, the Lord’s Prayer ends with “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:13) and even in Luther’s small catechism, which was written hundreds of years later, the conclusion to the Lord’s Prayer is just “Amen”. So when and why did the other bit get added?

24. The book I’m writing about for my senior seminar paper apparently has a movie loosely based on it, and I ought to see that movie so that I know whether or not I ought to mention it in my paper. I found the trailer on Youtube, and it looks like a really sad and sappy movie. Normally, I’d be glad to use schoolwork as an excuse to watch a movie, but I can think of many movies I’d rather watch than this one. For example, Labyrinth is a cool movie, and one that I like to watch around Halloween. And lately, I’ve really felt like watching some Doctor Who, but haven’t found the time. (For the record, the episode that I especially want to see is Pirate Planet, which is my second favorite episode with Tom Baker. My very favorite episode with Tom Baker is State of Decay, and my very favorite is Blink.) Anyway, I guess I don’t have a choice.

Logic dictates that I should vote for a third party candidate

One problem with the political system and the way campaigns work is that candidates are expected to make grandiose promises, most of which are things that they couldn’t actually accomplish. For example, almost any candidate will claim that he/she will reduce taxes, either for everyone or for low-income families, but that’s not something that an elected official, even the President of the United States, can do just by deciding to do it. Candidates promise to abolish things that their supporters dislike and to favor causes that their supporters like. They paint beautiful pictures of a world in which they are in the office they’re running for, and don’t acknowledge the fact that the position they want doesn’t give them magical powers. Unfortunately, all candidates have to make these claims just in order to attract voters’ attention and to get people to vote for them. A candidate is only as appealing as the scenario he or she can describe of life under his/her leadership, and any candidate who is realistic in making promises will not be able to win an election.

Therefore, I would like to propose the following premise: All political candidates make promises that they are incapable of keeping.

Figure A

Now, these campaign promises follow the form of conditional statements: “If I am elected, I will do XYZ” where “If I am elected” is the antecedent and “I will do XYZ” is the consequent. In symbolic logic, that can be expressed E horseshoe thingy XYZ. This is helpfully illustrated in the accompanying diagram, labeled Figure A. You are welcome. Logic also dictates that a conditional statement can be true in three ways: If both the antecedent and the consequent are true, if both the antecedent and the consequent are false, or if the antecedent is false and the consequent is true. The only way a conditional statement can be false is if the antecedent is true and the consequent is false. That means that any conditional statement with a false antecedent is true, which seems weird, so I have cleared that up with another helpful diagram, labeled Figure B. Again, you are welcome.

Figure B

This, along with my first premise, leads to my second and third premises: All elected politicians have lied. All candidates who have lost have not lied.

My fourth premise stands on its own: I want to vote for a candidate who is not a liar.

And here is the conclusion: Therefore, I should vote for a candidate who I know will not win.

It’s a stupid argument, but technically it’s logical, right? (This point is illustrated in yet another helpful diagram, labeled Figure C. Once more, you are welcome.)

Figure C

Note: I do actually intend to vote for a third party candidate, but this isn’t the real reason.

Random Stuff: A story that doesn’t deserve a subtitle

This picture was taken more than a year ago, but it’s the same classroom

This morning, even though I was only a few minutes early for class, I was the first one there. This happens to me quite frequently, and I have two different ways of using that kind of time. One way, which is probably the better one, is to read over the notes from last class or to start rereading the reading for that day. The other way is to start writing something random, like a poem that I will never finish or a to-do list that isn’t any different from the one I was already following or the moves of a chess game that I won’t get very far in because it’s really tricky trying to play chess without actually seeing the board. (I haven’t done that for a while, which is too bad because I probably have thereby lost my ability to do it.)

Today, the random thing I wrote was a list of stuff I think I should write about in my blog in the relatively near future. (Lest ye think this means that I will start posting stuff on a daily basis, I will inform you that I actually make lists of future blog posts more frequently than I write blog posts.) I came up with sixteen of them, which conveniently happens to be the same as the number of lines on a page of the notebook I was using. The problem is that, as class started, I continued to think of more things to add to the list. I had to keep quickly pausing my note-taking in order to add a line in the little blue notebook. In my defense, many of these things were directly related to something the professor had just said.

There was some kind of event for prospective students today, so there were seven high school students visiting that class. I am amused to wonder what they thought about me. First of all, I was the only person sitting in the front row, and I was in fact sitting in the only desk in the front row. The desks had been rearranged at some point since class on Wednesday, but I felt that it was necessary to sit in my usual spot, so I moved a desk there. Before class started, I had explained my reasoning to my classmates and the visitors alike, and probably convinced everyone in the room that I was very strange. Then, because I was alone in the front row, the professor kept calling on me or randomly mentioning me.  At one point, he informed the visitors of my name for no particular reason. This made me so conspicuous that I am sure everyone noticed the notebook that was not-so-subtly hidden underneath the desk, a space which other people normally reserve for illicit cell phone use.

This little blue notebook is a recent addition to my life which aims to fill a similar role as the little red notebook that I filled up with random stuff during the spring of 2011. Most of the random stuff in that notebook was telephone numbers that I needed to call, to-do lists, and phrases written with my left hand in an effort to become ambidextrous, something which I still aspire to do someday. The random stuff in my current blue notebook, on the other hand, consists mostly of random thoughts inspired by things said in class, and the beginnings of really, really bad poems. It’s not that I intend to ever actually do anything with them; it just seems like a good idea to have a notebook on hand so I can write them down.

Having a notebook of random stuff seems to be something that labels me as the kind of person who is less likely to pull out a cell phone and text someone than to pull out a pen and make a hasty note-to-self that Dante was fascinating and that I must remember to be obsessed about him sometime when I’m not otherwise busy.

He looked kind of funny, though. Just sayin’.

 

This is what free verse poetry looks like to me

Maybe the pen is mightier than the sword, but it would be better if it didn’t get those annoying air bubbles in the ink.

Milk

A loaf of bread

shampoo and toothpaste

and, if they’re on sale, a notebook or two

I’m trying to remember if I’m out of sugar

Yeah, I should probably get more

 

 

Oh, the Memories! An Incomplete List of Really, Really Awesome Children’s Books

Earlier today, I was thinking. This is something that I do very frequently, although my sisters may argue against that assertion. I thought to myself, “Remember those books that were really hilarious that I used to read all the time?” The answer was yes, I did remember, but I didn’t remember the name of the series. In fact, I hardly remembered anything about those books except that they were hilarious and that I used to read them all the time. As I thought about those hilarious books, it occurred to me that it would be fun to make a list of all the storybooks that impacted my childhood greatly, but that I have since almost (but not quite) forgotten. So I started making such a list, and then I realized that it would end up being ridiculously long. As it is, this incomplete list took me a really long time to write.

It is worth noting that my childhood consisted of much Dr. Suess, Nancy Drew, American Girls, Golden Arch books, and various classics such as Alice in Wonderland, Heidi, The Hobbit, The Wizard of Oz, and The Secret Garden, just to name a few. These did not make the list because I did not almost forget them.

1. The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner

As much as I enjoyed Nancy Drew, I would argue that the Boxcar Children books are the ultimate children’s detective story series. Not only are they interesting, but unlike Nancy Drew, they each have a unique plot. Sometimes you know ahead of time who the bad guy is and sometimes you don’t, but it’s always a fun read in the meantime. Besides that, the characters are very likable. Here’s a link to one of them that I owned, although I don’t actually remember it very well.

2.The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids, by Debbie Dadey and Marcia T. Jones

Technically, these books aren’t really of the same caliber as most of the other books on the list, and I seem to recall that my parents didn’t entirely approve of them, just because they weren’t very intellectual books. But they were interesting. The protagonists are four elementary school kids who keep on encountering odd people who they suspect to be some sort of mythical creature.  The books never make it entirely clear whether or not the kids are correct, but there usually is evidence that seems fairly conclusive. There’s only one book in the series that I remember very well; it’s called Gargoyles Don’t Drive School Buses.

3. Linnets and Valerians, by Elizabeth Goudge

I remember my father reading this book to me and at least one or two of my siblings when we were little, but unfortunately I remember very little about the plot. The protagonists were children who had run away and end up staying with an old man who I think was their grandfather or uncle or something. And there was an owl and a character named Emma who was either an evil witch or somebody really good, I don’t remember which. And someone- either Emma or someone else- did voodoo. That’s it; that’s all I remember. But it was a very interesting book.

4. The King, the Mice, and the Cheese, by Nancy and Eric Gurney

There’s this king guy, and he really likes cheese. The problem is that the mice keep stealing his cheese, and they’re driving him crazy. So he calls in his advisors and they bring him cats to chase away the mice. That works out nicely, except that then the cats are driving him crazy. So he calls in his advisors and they bring him dogs to chase away the cats. That works out nicely, except that then the dogs are driving him crazy. So he calls in his advisors and they bring him lions to chase away the dogs. That works out nicely, except that then the lions are driving him crazy. So he calls in his advisors and they bring him elephants to chase away the lions. That works out nicely, except that then the elephants are driving him crazy. So he calls in his advisors and they bring him mice to chase away the elephants. That works out nicely, except that then the mice are driving him crazy. “Goodness gracious,” says the king, “This is the same problem as I had before!” So he and the mice decide to share the cheese and get along like friends, and they live happily ever after. The end.

Or something like that.

5. The Golden Goblet, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

I had completely forgotten about this one until just now. Great Camaduka, I loved that book. It’s about a boy who works for a goldsmith in ancient Egypt. I actually remember more about the plot of this, but I think it was a mystery, and I can’t remember which parts are supposed to be a surprise, so I’m not going to say any more about it. But it’s a great book.

6. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, by Jean Lee Latham

I don’t remember much about this one, either. The protagonist, Nathaniel Bowditch, was a real historical person, if I recall correctly. He was a 18^th century American sailor who made great contributions to navigation. But this book isn’t really a biography; the story is told in novel form.

7. The Gymnasts series, by Elizabeth Levy

‘Tis a sad thing that these books are out of print. They were already out of print when my sister and I were reading them, which made it very difficult for my parents to find them and give them to us as birthday/Christmas gifts. But somehow, they did find most of them. I spent several years of my life being very fascinated by gymnastics. Here’s a link to the first book in the series.

8. The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments, by Arnold Lobel

This book tells the story of a wizard who lived in a world where there was no such thing as color, which was kind of boring. This is a problem, so the wizard invents blueness and paints everything blue, and there is great happiness. But alas, blue is a sad color, so the world becomes a sad place. “Goodness me,” says the wizard, “this is not cool.” So he invents redness and paints everything red, and there is great happiness. But alas, red is an angry color, so the world becomes an angry place. “Goodness me,” says the wizard, “this is not cool.” So he invents yellowness and paints everything yellow, and there is great happiness. But alas, the yellowness gives everyone a headache. “Goodness me,” says the wizard, “this is not cool.” But he has run out of clever ideas and has no more colors to invent. Then he accidentally kicks over his buckets of blueness, redness, and yellowness, and they mix together in a giant colorful whirlpool. “Awesomeness!” says the wizard, and proceeds to paint everything in a variety of different colors. “How interesting,” say all the people. And the world is full of color and everyone likes it and lives happily ever after. The end.

9. The Anastasia Krupnik series, by Lois Lowry

I can’t remember exactly what it was that I liked so much about these books, but I read them all, some of them many times. There are a few particular scenes that randomly come to mind every now and then. Just the other day, I was thinking about one part of the first book where Anastasia is talking to her father about a Wordsworth poem. The series isn’t as intellectual as that one scene might make it seem, but the characters are intelligent and slightly nerdy people, and that is probably one of the reasons I like those books.

10. The Clue series, by A. E. Parker

These books are loosely based on the board game, and when I say loosely, I mean very loosely. The characters have the same names as the characters in the board game, and the books are (kind of) mysteries, but there the similarities end. I actually remember almost nothing at all about the plots, except that most of the chapters of each book were fairly independent of the other chapters and could be read as short stories in their own rights. What I do remember well is the personality of each of the characters. They were all very exaggerated and silly, and I think that I was subconsciously influenced by them when I characterized some of my favorite dolls.

11 Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar

It is absolutely necessary that I find this book and its sequels and read them. I really loved them. Each chapter was essentially a short story of its own, and every single one was extremely entertaining. They were also very, very weird. But, most importantly, they were cleverly written.

12. Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol

Another really awesome children’s detective story series. Each of the Encyclopedia Brown books consists of several short stories in which the title character solves a puzzling case. The story doesn’t explain his thought process, though; you have to turn to a separate page in the back of the book to find that, which gives you an opportunity to think it through for yourself.

I shall write more

I think it’s about time for me to get back into the habit of writing things in my blog frequently. There are several reasons for this. First of all, it’s fun. Secondly, multiple people have pointed out to me that I haven’t made much use of my blog lately, and this leads me to believe that there are people besides me who would like it if I got back to it. Thirdly, I am fascinated by the concept that I have the capability of writing words and making them instantly appear on the internet where the world can see them. I have great power, I tell you. And finally, I fear that my sister’s blog has become more interesting than mine, and this is a thing which must not happen. I assure everyone reading this that, at least as long as my sister has a blog, sibling rivalry shall keep mine alive and well.

Towards this end, I have rewritten a schedule of my life that requires that I shall post something at least once a week, and (hopefully) sometimes more frequently. When the semester ends, I shall perhaps have more time for such endeavors. To be honest, though, I’m not sure that time is really the issue. I stopped posting things mainly because I stopped putting the phrase ‘blog post’ on my daily to-do lists.

For some reason that has always puzzled me, the internet is full of pictures like this that are supposed to be evidence of ghosts. Those circle things are supposed to be ghostly orbs.

I would like to conclude this by relating a random fun fact. It’s about ghosts, or rather, it’s not about ghosts.  Researchers have found that there is a certain sound frequency that causes people to experience a feeling of dread and foreboding, as if the place is haunted. If, for some reason or another, such sound frequencies are often present at a certain place, that place will seem like a creepy place and may very well end up with a few ghost legends. In fact, people can be so disturbed by the sound that they are easily mistaken into thinking that they’ve seen a ghost. Here’s the weird part: that sound frequency is too low for the human ear to hear. It can mess with your brain without you being aware that there’s a weird sound. ‘Tis true; here’s an article about it. That’s not where I first found this random fun fact, but I can’t find the place I saw it first, which is sad because that was a much more detailed article. For some reason, I actually find this random fun fact pretty creepy, even though it ought to be very uncreepy. It decreepifies the creepiness of creepy places.

*Sarcasm* Goodness gracious, look how haunted this place is!

The Case of the Mysterious Shadow

Here is a fairly irrelevant optical illusion. Incidentally, I zoomed in and checked, and it is false that the squares labelled A and B are the same color.

On most weekday mornings, I am in the dance studio at about eight in the morning. Due to the position of the windows and the time of year, that is the time of day when the sunlight is most intense in there. When I walk into the room on a sunny day, I can see my shadow on the floor, my reflection in the mirror, the reflection of my shadow, and the faint shadow of my reflection.

That last one is the weird part.

How, I frequently ask myself, is that possible? How can my reflection cast a shadow? Shadows are caused when something is blocking the light, and my reflection can’t do that. It’s just an image, not a physically real thing, and besides, it’s behind the floor where the shadow is, and things that cast shadows are supposed to be between the light source and the shadow. So why, in that particular room at that particular time of day, does that particular reflection cast a shadow?

I could easily have spent a good deal of time pondering this question, but in these situations, it generally has seemed to be a better idea to ponder other things, like, for example, dance, which is what one ought to be pondering when one is in a dance studio. Thus, despite my confusion and curiosity, I hadn’t put much thought into the issue of the mysterious extra shadow, and I hadn’t figured out why it existed.

And then today, I realized what was happening. When the sunlight comes through the window and shines on the floor, on me, and on the mirror, the light that hits the mirror reflects off of it. That sunlight has therefore become mirrorlight, and it heads towards the floor to join the sunlight already there in a joyous reunion of all floorbound light. But some of the mirrorlight doesn’t get there because, you see, I’m in the way. There is thus a roughly me-shaped light hole on the floor, and, of course, light holes are more commonly known as shadows.

Thus was this puzzling mystery solved.

Some Tragically Missed Opportunities

1. Four years ago, when I was applying to colleges, my least favorite part of the application process was writing personal statement essays. It’s very hard to write something that advertises myself to a school, describes who I am, is completely honest, and sounds good. Sometimes I wasn’t sure what they were looking for, and when there was a prompt question, that was even worse. One prompt question that I specifically remember said, “Describe the biggest risk you have ever taken”. I was very tempted to write, “The biggest risk I have ever taken was when I applied to college with only this as my application essay.” I didn’t do that, but ever since then, I’ve been very curious to know what would have happened if I had.

I took this picture out of the airplane window during that trip to Tampa. The girl sitting next to me got a picture just like it.

2. Last spring, I went to Tampa, Florida for an academic conference with several other students and a couple professors from my college. We traveled by plane, and my boarding pass was 2B. Unfortunately, I utterly failed to make a single ‘2B or not 2B’ joke.

3. When I took the test to get my driver’s license, I did not turn to the person giving the test and say, “If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour…”

4.The first time I gave blood, it left an enormous bruise that drastically changed color every couple days. The best was when it was green. It wasn’t just that greenish yellow color that bruises sometimes are; it was actually green.  I was at college, so my sisters never saw it. It was a waste of a perfectly good bruise.

5. There have been several different occasions when I’ve been helping out backstage at a performance or something, and have called a kid by name, and that kid has asked me how I knew his or her name. Usually, the answer is that I asked someone else or saw it written on the hanger for his/her costume, or something like that, and that’s what I tell the kid. I have never tried to claim that it was telepathy.

6. Once, I dropped a scotch tape dispenser. It hit my desk, fell to the floor, somehow bounced off something, flew back up into the air, and hit me in the hand at just the right angle that the sharp part left a fairly deep cut on my finger. I did not catch this incident on camera.

7. I have never ended a presentation by saying, “Moreover, Carthage must be destroyed.” But once, I did end an exam essay question that way. The professor liked it.

Moreover, Cato the Elder advises that Carthage must be destroyed.