Days 16 & 17 - Ups & Downs
Feb. 1st, 2008 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironic16. College
The summer after L. and I got together, we were hanging out at another mutual friend's house, R., along with most of the regular crew of guys and I think R.'s new girlfriend. R.'s mother had a friend over, and they were watching us as we ate and debated in the dining room. I was being fairly quiet that day; R. & company were very opinionated consumers and reviewers of indie music and movies -- a few of them write for magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone now -- and I found it more comfortable to listen than participate when they got going, while L. mostly inserted biting bits of commentary and insults. Apparently -- L. told me this afterwards -- watching this, the friend said to R.'s mother that L. could do much better than me.
(I was quite surprised and offended, although after a while it became sort of funny; my friends and even a few teachers were always wondering what I saw in him. We each saw quite a lot. That was part of why we fit.)
17. Elementary School/Middle School
Fifth or sixth grade, our enrichment program did a unit on Voyage of the Mimi, which I only remember in pieces. At the end, we took a field trip to ... somewhere on Long Island, I don't even recall, but wherever it was had some big wooden boats we explored, and a guy showed us how to wear a wetsuit and SCUBA gear, and on land in a hut there was some kind of demonstration of how to quickly and properly tie up rope on a fixture, maybe for when you're hauling in a ship. The demo turned into an activity/contest, where kids on the trip were chosen two at a time and challenged to tie the rope as we'd been shown as fast as we could on a pair of the fixtures. I volunteered or was chosen (I suspect the second), and to my surprise I turned out to be really good at it, and beat whoever the other kid was. I remember the onlookers being surprised and laughing and maybe cheering me on, watching this little girl whipping the rope around the ties and winning. I remember it being like a dream, where you don't remember learning what you need to know and you're suddenly being put to the test, except instead of panicking and failing, I did it as if it were an ingrained habit. A crew was there from the LI news station and filmed it, so my family watched the news that night to see if I made it onto TV.
The summer after L. and I got together, we were hanging out at another mutual friend's house, R., along with most of the regular crew of guys and I think R.'s new girlfriend. R.'s mother had a friend over, and they were watching us as we ate and debated in the dining room. I was being fairly quiet that day; R. & company were very opinionated consumers and reviewers of indie music and movies -- a few of them write for magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone now -- and I found it more comfortable to listen than participate when they got going, while L. mostly inserted biting bits of commentary and insults. Apparently -- L. told me this afterwards -- watching this, the friend said to R.'s mother that L. could do much better than me.
(I was quite surprised and offended, although after a while it became sort of funny; my friends and even a few teachers were always wondering what I saw in him. We each saw quite a lot. That was part of why we fit.)
17. Elementary School/Middle School
Fifth or sixth grade, our enrichment program did a unit on Voyage of the Mimi, which I only remember in pieces. At the end, we took a field trip to ... somewhere on Long Island, I don't even recall, but wherever it was had some big wooden boats we explored, and a guy showed us how to wear a wetsuit and SCUBA gear, and on land in a hut there was some kind of demonstration of how to quickly and properly tie up rope on a fixture, maybe for when you're hauling in a ship. The demo turned into an activity/contest, where kids on the trip were chosen two at a time and challenged to tie the rope as we'd been shown as fast as we could on a pair of the fixtures. I volunteered or was chosen (I suspect the second), and to my surprise I turned out to be really good at it, and beat whoever the other kid was. I remember the onlookers being surprised and laughing and maybe cheering me on, watching this little girl whipping the rope around the ties and winning. I remember it being like a dream, where you don't remember learning what you need to know and you're suddenly being put to the test, except instead of panicking and failing, I did it as if it were an ingrained habit. A crew was there from the LI news station and filmed it, so my family watched the news that night to see if I made it onto TV.
no subject
Date: Feb. 1st, 2008 09:30 pm (UTC)I've been to a ridiculous number of colleges and never fit in anywhere: when I was younger I was far too naive (and the film students were seriously pretentious) and when I was older I was the only one married, and then I was the only one married and with a kid. :-) The funny thing is that I used to be very, very under-educated in comparison to my peer group (based on number of movies seen) and now I've swung the other way and nobody's seen the movies I have. <3 <3 But I try not to be a jerk about it. (Although my girlfriend gave me a Seattle International Film Festival membership for our anniversary, and she said that my peculiar taste in films is one of the things she loves about me. I guess it all works out. It's just peculiar.)
Elementary/Middle School:
When I was in 8th grade I was in a rocket competition: the idea was that we had to pack a raw egg in such a way that it was both light and durable, send it up in a model rocket and then have it come down unbroken. We called our rocket The Dying Dutchman, because we could never get the fins to stay on reliably.
On the day of the competition it was /seriously/ windy, and we ended up winning (against university level physics students, no less) because we got lucky: our launch was in the one window of time all day that didn't have any wind, so it came up and down again no problem. (the fins even stayed on). Everyone else's just kind of went up so far, the wind caught the fins and it crashed.
It was super fun. In the early stages we got to drop eggs from the top of the stairwell. I think the space blanket was what provided the optimal amount of padding vs. lightness.
no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 01:04 am (UTC)And as for your college tale, I think many of us who congregate in fandom are sadly used to not fitting in anywhere, for whatever reasons. You definitely have my sympathy! That's cool that you've ended up surpassing your peers, though. What sort of peculiar films do you like? Or is it more a peculiar combination?
no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2008 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 4th, 2008 01:30 am (UTC)My favorite one of the ones I listed was probably The Taste of Tea: largely because of the little girl character, who is followed around by a giant version of herself that no one else can see. It's a really cute and yet utterly surreal family film.
Sunflower was fabulous - I hope you enjoy it. <3
no subject
Date: Feb. 4th, 2008 01:38 am (UTC)There's a fantastic theater in Brookline, MA I used to love going to when I was at school, the Coolidge Corner Theater (http://www.coolidge.org/about), also a restored theater with plush seats, curtains and a high Art Deco painted ceiling. When 2001: A Space Odyssey was re-released, they kept in the intermission, with the curtain closing over the screen and everything. ♥
no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 4th, 2008 01:30 am (UTC)