THE BIG GAME

Yo Yo Yo peoples what's happenin. I beeze busy with school and am bored at the library so i'll tell you alls a little bits about my week.
This friday is the biggest football game of the year. It's against our rival Hoover who is ranked in USA Today(check it out this week) at #4 in the country!! And we beat them last year but lost in double overtime in the playoffs which sucked so this year we're out for blood. Last year at the play-off game our measly 6,000 person stadium held 11,000 that night and this year it's at Hoover which is sooo big it's basically a College. The football team plays at the Hoover Metropolitan Stadium which is where the Birmingham Barons play(Michael Jordan) so the stadium is designed for a minor league baseball team. In other words it's huge and SamGoody High School Rivalry thingy ranked our school and Hoover's rivalry in the top 10 in the country and Sam Goody is hosting O'Ryan(some new but famous R&B singer) to come sing at a pre-game show so this game is HUGE I can't wait although we are probably gonna lose it's all gravy cuz i'm in the band and it's gonna be AWESOME. OHHHH YEEAAAAA neways I LOVE AND MISS YOU GUYS LOVE THEO (has anyone talked to Andrew, he never posts)

Pining for the Moon

First of all, thanks to everyone for the birthday wellwishes. The only experience comparable is coming downstairs at the T-House to find my ship-home package filled with little messages from my fellow Taspers. Most of your lovely letters arrived exactly on my birthday. It was like freakin' Christmas.
My birthday at home was probably the best I've had in a while. Everyone I know somehow ended up at Chuck E. Cheese and I got to finally experience the childhood memory I had never had. We spent an absurd amount of money on tokens, slamming them into machines like gambling addicts on a high. Occasionally, the entire arcade would give a nervouse jump as the group of seventeen year olds in the corner shouted with glee at hitting the ticket jackpot. Finally, my friends had enough tickets to get me a surprise: six packs of Smarties and a glitter lava lamp.
Afterward, we moved to my friend's house and just talked for a while about phonographs and how much we hate Economics class. Such is the nature of large group conversations. I had the pleasure of driving my very best friend home late at night. I love talking in the car. Then, it was time for me to head home myself.
You all know me well enough to know that I can never truly be happy. Moonlight washed my thoughts in melancholy and I began to feel alone. I think Minyang and Robin said it best in two different conversations. You always are a writer, even when you aren't writing. And being a writer means being alone all the time, even in a room full of screaming ten years olds and your best friends.
I put on some Counting Crows and some REM, rolled the windows down in my truck, and turned on the heat. Someone once told me that this was like a having a hot fudge sundae. The fields near my house were dark and beautiful, the moon backlit the clouds, and I felt a bit better, like it was all manageable if you just took it bits at a time. Then, this song came on, perfect:
...

A long December, and there's reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin' Now the days go by so fast And it's one more day up in the canyon And it's one more night in Hollywood If you think that I can be forgiven....I wish you would The smell of hospitals in winter And the feeling that its all a lot of oysters, but no pearls All at once you look across a crowded room To see the way that light attaches to a girl And it's one more day up in the canyon And it's one more night in Hollywood If you think you might come to California...I think you should Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m. And talked a little while about the year I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower, Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her And its been a long December, and there's reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself To hold on to these moments as they pass And it's one more day up in the canyon And it's one more night in Hollywood It's been so long since I've seen the ocean..I guess I should.

...

Thanks everyone for making my birthday beautiful. It was, really, and so are all of you. A year ago today, I was itching to get my license, hanging with a different crowd, and had never heard of TASP. Wow. It's amazing what can happen in a few

hundred thousand minutes.

"Don't let the days go by, glycerine."

love,

josh

Because I haven't posted in a while...

First, after their fourth hurricane in six weeks it's high time for another check in from our Floridian friends and parents-of-friends.
Jean Chretien came to speak at the U of M a week and a half ago (has it really been that long since last I posted?), so I struck a deal with my geography teacher that allowed me to catch the second half of the talk on the condition that I find some way to relate it to class material and give a brief oral report on the appropriate day (ahh, British expatriot economic geographers--so flexible). I may not be so lucky when Garrison Kiellor comes to my high school this November as a special favor to the neighbor of my tenth grade English teacher.
I took my second sick-day-because-I-was-kinda-sick-but-really-just-had-to-finish-my-math-homework day in the last 6 years last friday. Self-imposed long weekends are nice--even though I still went to all my University classes.
Our high school decided to name the auditorium after one of our most capable superintendants who was misfortunate enough to have to preside over half a dozen school closings. Accordingly, there has been a lot of construction work redoing the entrance facade, but no touch-ups for the actual stage (how fitting!). My brass quintet was chosen to play a rather stunning piece for the opening ceremony as representatives of the band department. That's pretty much the only really positive thing going on in my music career. I got put in the third chair for the full band and was I-fear-not-erroneously left off the orchestra winds roster. Jazz has presented a similar story. I never should have admitted to my limited summer practice schedule.
Way to not die after being pushed out of the womb, Josh!

Adieu,
Michael

Random notes on life

These last few days have been pretty exciting in Ben-land. For the first time since freshman year I went to a football game, even though in the first two games of the season our team had been outscored 73-0. We're not exactly a sports powerhouse any more. This time, however, we somehow managed to dominate (it must have been my pressence: we were up 35-7 in the fourth quarter). Anyway, I resorted to cheering for Will Wu, #77, a friend of mine who plays on the right side of the offensive line and on kickoffs. He misses a lot of blocks, but he's cool. One time I yelled "Go Will Wu" really loudly when he was on the bench and his parents, who were sitting a few rows ahead of me turned around and started cheering with me along the lines of "yes, go Will Wu". I felt a bit awkward but just waved, smiled and tried my best to give the impression I wasn't making fun of him (I wasn't and I really did cheer for him when he was playing).

The night before I went to a Yale presentation with Stacey. Now I am really uncertain where I want to apply early. Oh well. It was nice to see Stacey again, but it was kind of weird because a school friend (the one who had been at Cornell) was there too.

Lets see... then there was the cross country league meet on Thursday which got canceled because the host school forgot to do the paperwork for the city to arrange for the use of the park that we run in. That was really lame.

Um...we began a new learning strategy in calculus which involves singing mathematical stuff really loudly with our hands clasped behind our backs in the hallway of the school. The teacher is a brilliant, absent minded mathematician type who is really spirited, energetic, random, and hillarious. He runs 10 miles on the track every day (at least during track season), as marathon training.

Then there was a cross country invitational today. The course was downhill and fast: I ran a personal best time of 18:20, good enough to earn me 48th place in the Division 3 senior boys race. I got sunburnt.

Then there was the opera at night. I saw Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos which was a blast. We listned to The Wasteland in the car on the way to LA (the drive with light traffic takes almost exactly as long as it takes Hughs to read the poem). The production was really amazing accompanying the most off the wall libretto imaginable (brilliant poetry by Hofmanstal, by the way). Nagano's conducting impressed, as usual.

I think I've just said everything there is to say about what I've been doing these past few days. Haha. GO JOSH: YOU ARE THE MAN. Anyway...


VISIT ME, DAMN IT

a cheery new england hello

I am at Amherst, and I will be until early afternoon on Monday. There are all sorts of somewhat sad TASP reminders. I met two guys from the UMichigan TASP here, both very cool, and as they told me about some of the crazy things that happened (the TASS kids ambushed the TASPers in the basement of the Michigan Telluride House with waterguns, whereupon the TASPers retreated to the stairwell using a kiddie pool as a shield) and we reached a consensus on how great it all was, I felt this really fierce longing. For TASP, yes, but mostly for all of you.

I also met this guy named Francisco (I'm fairly certain that's his name) who said he attends school with our very own Jordan Jacks and met Sophie last weekend. So exciting. Less than six degrees of separation!

I think I ate the exact same kind of sandwiches today that I had on that first crazy arrivval Sunday at the Telluride House.

So, that's all the news except for...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH! Go gorge yourself with soup and the neverending pasta bowl, and be truly happy.

Think hard, talk fast

I just returned from the debate tournament at Wake Forest University (which was really beautiful, by the way). Ivan caused about a six hour delay in Atlanta, so on Thursday, I woke up at 4:30 Pacific time and got to bed at one in the morning Eastern time. Not fun.

I dropped in Octafinals, one round before the TOC bid. Another debater got our school its second bid ever by losing in the final.

Our school's coach is probably going to be appointed the coach of the US Parliamentary team, and I might be able to compete at the World Championship Tournament in Canada later in the year. We might also travel to Germany in October.

Anyway, I really need to make up sleep now.

I found a banana split in my hair today

Some things that have been on my mind from this morning:
1) How do you prove that each real number has a decimal expansion?
2) How can the White House lie so much, get routinely exposed by the press, and still be highly rated by the general public?
3) Why does David Brooks still have a job?
4) Why does David Brooks still have two jobs?
5) Why does David Brooks have two of my dream jobs (NY Times editorialist, News Hour with Jim Lehrer news analyst)?
6) What is the color of angst?

If you have any answers, please append them as comments to this post.
That is all,
Michael

my ode to ivan and oral surgery

In the spirit of Robin Myers:

1. I have a face that is now both square and chipmunk-like.

2. I have eaten nothing but soup and chocolate milkshakes over the past two days.

3. My power is back.

I miss you all very much. I would urge you to come and visit, but I don't know if you could subsist on ambiguous, liquefied substances and derviving amusement from the throngs of people fighting over flashlights and chainsaws.

One-liner of the day

Disclaimer: I know this may offend some of you, and, to be quite honest, I'm patently unapologetic. If you can't imagine forgiving me, don't bother reading until after the ***, at which point I will admonish everyone for their lack of posting.

At the University of Minnesota, student organizations can claim tables at the Student Union from which to hawk their ideologies. There are three things most such tables have in common: 1) mailing lists, 2) pamphlets, and 3) bite-size candy. The goal, of course (and this applies to Scientific Symposia as well, so it's not just an isolated phenomenon) is to get as much of 3 while landing on as few of 1 and taking as little of 2 as possible. Today, the campus christian organization (I forget their exact name) had a table which I happened to pass on my way to my math class. In order to optimize my 1,2,3 ratio, I went up to the table, gestured toward the candy, and inquired:
"Are those just there to represent the false promises of theism, or may I take one?"
Needless to say, it worked.

***
It shouldn't take a hurricane to get y'all to post on here (read: Ted, Alex, Andrew). If just one interesting thing happens to each person every week (and it doesn't even have to be interesting, as the body of this post should demonstrate) that amounts to four posts per day to keep me company. Exchange of personal stories is a two-way street, folks. Get on the bandwagon.

IVAN the Teirrble is ravishing my homeland

I hope Alex and Anderew's parents survived Frances. Although I do not live anywhere near the beach that damn Ivan is still coming for me he's just 1 hr away look at it's path and you will see that he has destroyed me ahhhhh. I should be alright for those of you who care but having no power sux but I guess having no school is a whole lot better but flying cows are no fun haha. Have a nice day Love you all have fun in school and BYE-This is new age terrorism and sadaams true weapon of mass destruction he probably has a giant weather machine off the coast of Africa and is hurling hurricanes at the US AHHHHH LOVE AND BYE

Mary Douglas just keeps popping up

In my geography class this afternoon we watched a 40-min video titled "Orientalism" featuring a lengthy interview with Edward Said. Near the end, he talked about the notion of national purity and the instinct to abstract notions of "racial infection". I couldn't help but raise my hand at the end of the film and point out that Said's mandate can't possibly succeed in a world where the same notions of purity and contagion are accepted parts of our body-discourse. Good fun--thought I'd share it.
Michael

Remembering 9/11--you know, the one three years ago

i had
,once,
a Caliphdom in the sea
but it
,clearly,
escaped me
and i have
,now,
a Serfdom in the sand

I thought that one up when I was trying to fall asleep last night, and it really grows on you--especially if you go through the standard AP list of "how does form mirror content" etc. I was able to make connections to Islamic fundamentalism, US hegemony, the linguistic construction of violence, scapegoating, the Iraq invasion, the dissolution of Afghanistan, and a whole host of other tangents.
Please comment with your own addenda and/or interpretive insight.

Michael

p.s. I made it safely back to Minnesota, despite being on a nine hour flight with a swarm of Evangelicals and sitting in front of a heavyset Czech man whose first drink order was a vodka and who imagined he could hear the sounds from my headphones from his seat. School is starting off nicely, but, then again, I don't have to deal with high schoolers nearly as much as the rest of you (thank you lost MN democratic administrations!). I'll be writing letters to those of you who graced me with your pens, but I'll have to wait until my schedule settles down a bit.

Life...

I will actually keep it short this time...I think.

I went to the LA Opera today. On the way there, we drove into a beautiful smog produced sunset on a long streak of some cumulus type clouds (?). Returning, we primarily heard the fireworks show at Dodger stadium, although while walking to the parking garage we could see some of the show. I know I've said this before, but this one was really like the show at Cornell because we couldn't see anything. I guess the relationship ends there though. Mozart's Idomeneo, with Placido Domingo and conductor Kent Nagano (General Music Director in Munich -- yeah yeah), was fairly boring from a operatic standpoint but quite good from a strictly musical view of the individual arias (and the first real dramatic quartet in opera). There is not much to be gained by actually seeing a three hour opera sereo (?) though, because, simply put, there is nothing to see. That being said, I still enjoyed the production.

I'm going to North Carolina next weekend. I hope I will be able to see Jessica, but I think she lives about three hours away so its not exactly practical.



Jessica we need to talk.



Actually that goes for all of the rest of you, too, but not as urgently.

Untill then, enjoy life and homework.


Oh, by the way, what I would consider one of my best friends at school wore an "I CARRY NO CASH" shirt today. Jordan, you pull it off way better, although I might not be a very objective source about these things.

music inspired by acorns falling from the giant oak tree overhanging my driveway

Have any of you listened to anything by A Silver Mt Zion? You should if you haven't, and I think it is important that I tell you so on this particular day, at this particular momement. "He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts Of Light Sometimes Grace The Corner Of Our Rooms" is their first CD and my favorite, but the recent stuff is great, too, albeit a bit different. Listen to "Movie (Never Made)" which is sublimely tragic...actually, all the stuff on "He Has Left Us Alone..." is sort of sad and ruminating because it's dedicated to Wanda, the lead guitarist's dog who died of cancer. The last half of it is especially good (including 13 Angles Standing Guard 'Round the Side of Your Bed, Blown-Out Joy from Heaven's Mercied Hole, and For Wanda).

Listen, if you like. But if you listen at all, you must try out a few tracks from a couple of their albums. A Silver Mt Zion is epic in scope, deliberately and amusingly pretentious at times (they're also known as The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-la-la Band), but good if you like this sort of music and/or are in certain moods. I don't know. Enjoy. Don't. Whatever. But do feel free to reciprocate.

Photos

I have yet to develop my TASP photos. I haven't finished a single letter to anyone, though I've started and half-finished about ten. I have yet to read Greg's comments on my last paper. I don't know what to do with myself right now.

I got the photo today, the one we took on the house steps.

Even if I can't come to terms with TASP memories, I can't deny that I miss you.

Take it easy.

urvesh

Prague

Got into Prague on Friday. Saw Nabucco at an old opera house that night. Visited Charles Bridge (after Emperor Charles IV)--will post pictures eventually. My talk is in less than an hour, and I'm the first overall speaker in the entire European Peptide Symposium. I'll give a full report later.

UPDATE:
Talk went well. Many distinguished audience members have given me their congratulations. It's been somewhat disheartening trying to recover from a serious illness when I was supposed to be enjoying some tourism, but I'm feeling alright now. The last thing to return, aside from gastrointestinal regularity, is the appetite, so I've been trying to steadily shovel down the myriad small pastries available on several small tables outside the lecture hall. I sat through a couple other talks and understood most of the chemistry. You can tell when you're acclimated to a field when you can start to distinguish between legitimate science and snake oil. I'm almost at that point. Some of the other talks sounded like those skits people do of "what to avoid". Got some good internal laughs from that. The other hard part about talking chemistry in Prague is you have to deal with the world's most popular language: broken english.
Adieu,
Michael

Another marathon

Sorry for another really long post. You probably won't get much from reading it but it felt good to write.

Before I get started, I would like to anounce that I have finally sent off postcards, to most of you at least. Jim, Matt, Kim, and Hannah have been neglected because the addresses in the book were messed up. I might just be dumb and think they were messed up when they really weren't, but I am not really sure and don't really remember. Anyway, if you four could just send me your addresses or post them in a comment to this post, I would be happy and you would get a postcard.

Today, I had to register for school and I had a debate meeting where, to my dismay, our coach announced that, unless I could construct a persuasive argument for the contrary, our team would not be travelling to Manchester in Massachusetts. Considering my reasons for wanting to go (that I would not be attending the tournament the weekend before and that when we got there, all I wanted to do was ditch the team to hang out with Urvesh and others) I decided not to complain. I guess the fact that my coach and his partner got second place at the World Debating Championships in 2000 or thereabouts, and is therefore somewhat intimidating of a debating adversary, didn't help my cause. I apologize if I got anyone's hopes up and I am just as disappointed as any of you could be.

I also thought a bit about what debate meant to me. As I was AIMing with Julia, I decided that I really owe debate a lot. Before Cornell, debate had been my TASP. During my sophmore and junior years in high school, I began to blow off school for debate, because it was just so much cooler. It's not really a big deal, but I just felt obligated to at least recognize debate before I blow off school and debate for TASPers, because you guys just trump all on the coolness scale.

Today was also a day that made me "happy". It wasn't fun, proper, because I don't find much entertainment with many people here and, of course, registration is a depressing reminder of what is coming next week, but nevertheless, I may go to bed satisfied (as long as I don't talk to too many of you before that).

I know I have told some of you about the anual cross country mystery race that our team puts together. Well, today, all the grandious plans that the seniors had for torturing the rest of the team, were to be put into effect. First problem: just yesterday, we announced that we had changed the time from six to five. Merely the fault of incompetent planning, but not, therefore, any less problamatic, as several runners hadn't shown up yesterday. We finally did get started with a good portion of the team, even though some ASSHOLES refused to stay with the partners with whom we assigned them and ran it with each other. Oh well...

Then we had a tough time getting them to dance at the first stop on our busy street. I was surprised by how un-"liberated" some of the freshmen were. I guess it was understandable though. My next stop was a round of charades. They were all really bad, but it was really fun to watch the ASSHOLES act out "STD". I think at this point, however, we were having more fun than they were, and I was beginning to get a little worried that nothing was going as planned and that the team would hate me and that the police would come and arrest us for playing loud music and disturbing the peace (which must be illegal in San Marino) or making obsene gestures on the side of a road (which must also be illegal).

Of course, we then relized that by the time the last runners finished their acting, we would have to rush to get to the next stop. So we jumped in the car and sped a little, although our drive-by shooting with water guns, while rushed, was still quite fun (I wouldn't be surprised if it were also illegal to stick your head out of a sunroof, or stick any gun out of a car in any way, or for that matter, be in possetion a gun of any kind in the first place without a lisence...oh well, you all know I hate where I live). Sure enough we had missed the first two teams and they were pissed that they had run about half a mile further than they had to, just to run the half a mile back. Luckily one of the other cars had seen them before they had gone further than that. It was pretty embarrassing.

The water-balloon toss was pretty straitforward, though probably also illegal (littering maybe?). By this time, the ASSHOLES and some other really nice people who are just seriously out of shape and very willing to resort to less trying exertion, were walking at the back and were so far behind that we had to leave one of the seniors (a particuarly hard-ass, foul-mouthed character) behind. In retrospect, that was probably not a good idea if the event is supposed to be anything but demoralizing.

Even so we were late to the tapioca ball shooting escapade and the first three groups had already been to the stop and had been sent on (once again the other car had saved us), but unfortunately, the runners missed the great opportunity of shooting tapioca at each other. I think they were, once again, pissed that we were late, as they well should be. This stop was actually quite popular, though not very successful. No one was actually able to shoot a tapioca ball into the cup held in his/her partner's mouth, but everyone seemed to enjoy the plan, at least in theory. One of the ASSHOLES tried to shoot and hit the other with two balls simultaniously (it was hard to isolate a single ball in the straw) on the front of his pants. They laughed pretty hard, and, even though they were ASSHOLES, I was glad they were enjoying themselves. I tried to keep the tapioca off the neighbors lawn to avoid a complaint to the police (wouldn't be the first from those neighbors -- jerks).

When finished, my group of seniors was quite scared of the legacy that we would be leaving with our horribly planned race, but when we got to the final destination (one of the seniors' house with a pool), we found most of the seniors and a few of the racers having a great time throwing and sling-shotting water balloons at the hard-ass, foul mouthed senior's car. Don't ask me why this was so much fun, because no one was in the car and, due to the insane heat even in the evening, the balloons left no mark of their own, except for comparatively unimpressive scraps of rubber (compared, that is, to the 450 water ballons we had filled).

In the back, around the pool, people were enjoying themselves as well. For the first time in three years, a pool had actually become a desirable hang out spot of one of the team parties, instead of merely a target into which to push unsuspecting victims who would then curse. Not being much of a pool person myself, I kept my dad's precious digital camera well away from the pool, fearing the runners with no respect for authority and a lot of respect for schadenfreude. When the seniors with the balloons in the front joined the party in back -- incidentally, fleeing before the rath of the hard-ass, foul mouthed friend who had apparently not taken kindly to the bombardment of his car -- they had a blast with the dreamcast located with an enormous TV (50, 60 inches, maybe? I really have no sense for that, except that I know it was supposedly too big to fit in the house, so they the family bought another one for there) in the guest house of the establishment. Again, not my personal cup of tea, but they enjoyed it. Then there were dives and flips off the diving board, and, considering I wasn't thrilled to hang out in the pool in the first place, I was most defenitely not jazzed by the notion of jumping in head first (or not head first as the case may be and probably would be for any of my attempts).

When it got dark we lit a gas powered camp-style fire next to the pool and endevored to determine how each of the surrounding objects would react to the open flame. Further scientific experimentation involved smearing petrolium jelly -- which must have been brought out specifically to test in the fire -- on people and seeing how long it lasted as a barrier to fire and whether it was truly water resistant. I'm not exactly sure what the word is on those because I wasn't exactly the guiny pig, and had no interest in becoming one. WHAT THE FUCK IS PETROLIUM JELLY FOR ANYWAY? The only thing anyone there could tell me was that it was used as a weapon in the Vietnam War. Thanks for the help.

Once the non-driving folk had left, the seniors planned a post-dinner dinner. You all know I like eating, but I was even more drawn by the prospects of sleep and not at all drawn by the prospects of their company (obviously, the sleep was only a prospect in the abstract or just a roundabout way to say talking to TASPers and spending a shitload of time writing all this crap).

After all that, I am really happy. I am sorry that my happiness equates into your suffering if you have made it this far in this post and realize I am not going to say anything really interresting. It is funny because I had virtually no fun at the entire event (between stressing about the law and putting up with non-TASPer company) but still felt the day to be the first wholy pleasing one since TASP. I was happy about a particularly strong turnout (last year there was an abismal four or five teams worth of people that showed up). I was happy about the best team dinner since I had been on the team. I was happy about a new group of runners who looked like they wanted to make the activity fun again. I was happy for the future of a program that looked like it had been run into the ground.

I will never be a star runner, our team will never have the kind of legendary coach it used to have, and we will probably never go to state again, although we have won it at least a dozen or two times in the past. In fact, we may never run more than seven or eight miles again. Ever. But maybe, just maybe, the team can be a real team again, a real community. The thought makes me happy, even though I would pick the TASP community over the best of cross country communities or the best of San Marino communities any day.

I really wanted to say all that. I don't often find a need for expressing something, so I enjoy having this blog where I have a captive audience of really cool people, at least some of whom will read whatever the hell I want to say.

Also, remember when you are cursing me out that I have had fewer days at a computer since TASP, so my need to communicate with all of you is still at the point where your need was two weeks ago. I'm not sure if that is actually true, or if I am simply trying to justify my long-windedness and my forcing of all the boring details of my life on all of you (I mean, who the fuck cares about my cross country team that I don't even care about?). Whatever...

It feels really good to say something -- anything -- knowing TASPers are at the other end. I love you all.

Back From The Hospital

First, thanks for the well-wishes. I'll be off my game for another week and won't reach 100 percent for about a month, but my fever's down and I can handle liquids, if not solids.
The hospital was a time of firsts for me: first extended hospitalization, first internment for a disease, first hospital shower, first use of controlled substances to control a cough, first rectal thermometer, and first suppositories.
On the last two, I figure that the Swedes are one step up on the whole Freudian oral, anal, sexual scale when it comes to medicine. Kinda makes me worry about getting sick in an even more medically advanced country.
The whole experience smelled pleasantly of Mary Douglass, from the countless holes being poked in me (most blood drawn, first IV drip) to the fixation on skin cleanliness and drugs through various boundaries (IV drugs are presumed to be best received).
I had a really strange dream last night. It was a follow-up on the previous night's dream (does anyone else have follow-up dreams over consecutive nights?). The first dream had been about the first day of school. For some totally non-budgetary reason, my school had ballooned into something resembling a giant shopping complex. I had an impossible time finding my classrooms (a surprisingly common dream for me), and had to ask some teachers for help finding my locker--which is funny because I hardly ever use my locker in real life. The teachers summarily laughed, consulted a clip board, and pointed me in the right direction. The next night/dream/school day, I was in the same building. (Another question: how many of you repeat locations in dreams and recognize them from previous dreams while you're still sleeping?) My school has this fickle attendence policy that carries mandatory grade reductions for every three tardies or one absence (recorded, unexcused). Anyway, I was searching for my locker and couldn't find it after 20 minutes. I could feel the A-. Compounding my troubles, there was nobody in sight to help me find my class. Just as the bell for second hour was about to ring, I woke up, sweating. I suppose that makes me really nerdy, right?

Swedish television is interesting. They spend less time on commercials, for one. The olympics included coverage of athletes from countries other than the US. They have tons of American shows, including several soap operas and The Simpsons, all of which are perturbingly subtitled. They even carry some of the crappy FOX reality shows.

That's enough for you to read for now.
Thanks again,
Michael

p.s. My one bit of sightseeing this afternoon was to visit a room named after the first (and hopefully not last) Barany to win the Nobel Prize. He was an ear researcher who won the Prize for putting people in chairs and spinning them until they vommitted. He's not directly related, but apparently he came from the same Hungarian town as my grandfather, who, as I explained to some of you, changed his name to Barany after the war. He got it from his maternal grandmother, who is possibly related to this Laureate.