Deus ex Machina

misc, personal

Having determined that we are unable to deal with my cough using regular means, the doctors have loaned me a new and exciting piece of machinery to combat my illness: the nebulizer. The nebulizer is a little blue tube that hooks up to an air compressor and spits out a thick cloud of asthma-fighting smoke. Additionally, they have nearly tripled my dosage on the other inhaler, and have ordered me back first thing tomorrow morning. Lucky me.

If I have to spend another week out of the water I think I may go insane. I have nothing to do with my excess energy, and nowhere to go after school except directly home to read and mess around on the computer. I haven’t even spoken to the coaches to let them know where I went, and I’ll have at least a month of recovery before I’m back where I was before this happened.

Still, I find something really interesting about sitting there, breathing medicine and compressed air out of the machine rattling away on my desk. Having a physical connection to the compresser has really made me think how empowered, and yet limited we are by the technology we create. It’s extremely unlikely that this cough would kill me, even without medicine. By downing codine-laced cough syrup to sleep better and hooking myself up to this box to make the cough go away faster, am I really doing myself a favor? For the most part, things like dialysis and cancer treatments do amazing things for people who would have otherwise life-threatening diseases. For myself, though, I have to wonder: Four doctor’s visits, two inhalers and a bottle and a half of cough syrup later, I’m still sick – am I really better off than when I started?

The answer is probably yes, but it’s interesting to think about.

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ASB Elections 2006: Campaign Update

misc, personal

The heated battle goes on. Stuart continues to release goodies (hair ribbons today, must remember to get one for my sister), and no sign of activity from the competition.

After some research into his funding sources I have determined that the Hon. Mr. Thompson has not exceeded his campaign spending limits, as his dad has connections with the shirt manufacturers and he’s getting them dirt cheap. See – it’s not about money, it’s about influence.

Polls have determined that there is still nobody at the school that gives a damn about ASB elections.

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Re: “Sold into Slavery”

misc, personal

Sending out the signup list for a Scout camping trip last night, I added some crack at the end about selling all of our senior scouts to Ceraldi as staff. I woke up this morning to find a series of angry emails about the comment – Daddy doesn’t think it’s politically correct; Mr. Scoutmaster doesn’t want to get flack for my comments; Sonny’s eyeballs have been liquefied by my offensive comment. Well.

Went to school this morning feeling so embarrassed I was a little queasy, but it wore off as the day went on. David said it was the fault of the dad who complained. Looking at it this afternoon, I still think I should be punished for that email – that was a terrible joke.

Anyway, it all worked out. Pretty amazing the way our thinking changes depending on the time of day.

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Vote for Stuart!

misc, personal

Piedmont High School Student Body Elections have begun again. It’s really pretty remarkable how much effort all of the candidates put into this, given that nobody else really gives a damn. Still, I’m happy to donate my body to the cause and be a walking billboard for Stuart this week. It would be great if he won, but I don’t know if he can pull it off – time to see just how much clout the nerd crowd carries at this school. God knows the T-shirts were popular enough today. I shudder to think about how much he (or his dad) spent on getting those printed, but if he wins it will definitely have been worth it. And if he loses – free T-shirt! He just needs another clever campaign idea – big signs in the hallways or burning tires on the quad or something. Forget Anyone but Bush – now it’s time for Anyone but Kwok. Vote for Stuart!

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It’s about the journey….

misc, personal

I was hanging out on the roof with my friends last night when Andrew decided that we should go look at the fireworks over the bay from above Hampton. An easy hike up, he insisted, and a great view. So (in spite of the fact that both Davids insisted that they were too tired from the track meet for board games) we decided to follow Andrew up the hill to look at view he knew about.

What he neglected to mention was the fact that it was a nearly vertical hike up to the spot, and that the trail was completely overgrown with nettles. Somehow, by the light of our cell phones and David G.’s house key, we managed to make it up the hill. Only David K. sustained any serious damage. And he was right – the view was pretty spectacular. Of course, by the time we got to the top the fireworks had ended, but we agreed that it was still worth the trip. David G. thought that we should do something stupid in honor of the occasion, so we all made use of what is possibly the most breathtaking toilet to be found in the Bay Area (the hillside, that is). And fortunately, there was an easier way down on a paved road. Or so we thought.

Coming to the end of the grassy area at the top of the hill, we realized that we were in fact fenced in by a locked gate and barbed wire. We could only imagine what the signs on the other side of the gate said – “Trespassers will be shot;” “Danger – Superfund Site.” At any rate, we were now cold, tired, and ready to go home. Though unable to find the path we had come up, we knew we could just head down the hill and we would come to Moraga. Oops.

We spent about forty minutes stumbling around in the brush, with periodic interruptions from my sister and David K.’s. “Hi, we’re at Fenton’s right now. Should I get chocolate or strawberry?” “Gee Christine, I don’t know. I’m pinned to a bush right now – can I get back to you?”

Eventually the drainage we were following dumped us out above the skate park, and then all we had to do was hop a couple fences to get back to the road. We stumbled into my house around eleven, covered with dirt and sweat, bleeding and itching where the plants got us. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

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What’s this thing for, anyway?

misc, personal

So, yeah. I have a blog now. Pretty cool.

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I don’t know why I bother with this since I rarely have anything to write here. Which is odd, because I’m generally pretty busy. I guess I just need to get into the whole blogger, write-whatever-comes-to-mind mentality.

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This might be an appropriate time to vent about the AP Spanish exam. Which I was completely unprepared for. In the end something like this was bound to happen – you can only skip so many classes before you get in over your head. On the other hand, I don’t know that another year of Spanish would have prepared me any better. I hope Dennis was right and I did better that I expect. Oh well – salsa and children’s books for the rest of the year!

The Hungeetsepoppi Dance Team (i.e. myself) might actually get off the ground this year, if I can just drag my ass out to the fabric store and get some materials. Something seems really perverse about the idea of (mostly white) Boy Scouts dancing around in Indian regalia, but people really seem to get something out of it. I guess I do, too, but for Poppi it all boils down to the points. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.

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