Insurance

I recently received an email from USA Water Polo. I'm a member, of course, because it's required in order to compete in USA sanctioned games, which are the only ones that matter. It was telling me about a deal on renewing my membership, and it also listed the benefits I currently have. Among these benefits is insurance for injuries sustained while playing polo. One of the categories is distinctly disconcerting.

"Accidental death or dismemberment."

Death I can see--drowning is a possibility if you're an idiot. But...dismemberment? I'm not sure how safe I feel playing polo anymore if they expect cases of dismemberment.

Ring Nebula

Here are the fruits of my labors from last night. The pictures were taken with a CCD camera mounted on a 16" telescope, and I played with the images in, er, some program that can combine three or more images from the various filters on the telescope. The picture on the upper right corner is what the nebula actually looks like when you combine blue, red, and green visual light filters.

Question

Background: after my date on Friday, I was going to invite the guy inside my apartment while we ate our ice cream until I saw (through the window) that my roommate was having a movie night. Before completely deciding to stay outside, I asked if he was cold (he's from Georgia, and he was in shorts, and it was a bit nippy if you're not crazy like me, so it was a valid question). He repeatedly told me he was not, and we sat out on the stairs to talk and eat ice cream.

Skip to twenty or so minutes later.

Is it bad that, when I saw his jaw muscle shivering, I laughed inside? In addition to not repeating my offer of going indoors? Heck, if he's too proud to admit that his comfort level is several degrees higher than mine, I think I almost have a right to be gleeful at his discomfort, but a little voice inside (curse you, Avolin) tells me I should have been kinder.

Fact

Random fact for the day:

In the Roman Empire, it was a mark of keen eyesigt when one could discern both stars in the binary system that makes up the middle "star" in the Big Dippers handle.

Just in case anybody needed a trivia fix. In other news, I had thought about posting my Ruling Council's opinions on a certain recent event (i.e. last night), but alas, Maylene's comments are again unprintable, and Ayliel is so uneasy with the whole thing that I don't want to embarrass her further. But Suhayda has a sort of benevolent apathy going on, Avolin is just being his usual sweet little self, and Cal won't shut up about how boring softball is. Oh, and Brennan hasn't stirred a whit.

Ironic Response

Today I found out that my submission to the university literary journal was rejected. More than that, it was rejected without a discussion. And I am absolutely elated.

Of course, this response requires a bit of delving into. The reason I gave the girl next to me was that I had written the essay in one night and sent it...and regretted the sending two minutes later. Admittedly, that is part of the reason: I was in no way proud of this submission, except in the vein that it is the first essay I've written that fits into the genre of essay that is published in the lit journal.

The heart of the matter is a bit deeper. I have never, in all my life, submitted something I was truly proud of to any sort of publishing establishment. Call it a chronic fear of failure, but I've never wanted to take a risk on anything I cared about being rejected. However, even with this reining in of the quality of work I send, I have never truly been rejected. (To be fully truthful: two of my submissions to my high school lit mag this last year were rejected, but I submitted seven or eight pieces, so the rejections don't really count.) Outside of the high school scene, I have had several poems published (and I am not a poet), one essay, I've been invited to publish one other essay (I declined, because it was a pathetic, writhing thing), I've written last-minute essays with no soul that got me thousands of dollars in scholarship money, etc., etc.

I could take this as a vast complement, the idea that work I don't consider up to snuff is being accepted for publication. Yet I have never really felt that way. The concept that lurks in me after an acceptance letter is one of being cheated. I should have to try. Life should not be easy. Even something I love as much as writing should not, I reason, come so easily to someone who is so obviously not a genius. Robbing me of motivation to grow, to excel through hard work, is a crime I cannot forgive.

In essence, my experience in writing has been the opposite of my experience in swimming. In the pool, I gave everything I had, plus more, every single day for four years--more, even. Yet my results were meager: I qualified for state every year, but only barely; I was captain because there were only two senior girls; I was rewarded with some of the closest friends I've ever had (the latter is the greatest reward ever, but it didn't come because of my efforts in the pool). With writing, my half-hearted attempts have been accepted with open arms, even praised.

How wonderous it is to be so soundly rejected. Thank you, Inscape, for validating my firmly held belief that I am mediocre, that I have loads of work to do.

This is such a liberating feeling!

Angel Food Cake

So I pretty much ate most of a big angel food cake (like, my roommate ate one slice) all by myself. My roommate said she needed to get rid of it, so I slowly started munching, one piece at a time, every time I stood next to it in the kitchen. It took me several days, but today, the angel food cake disappeared. My roommate thinks it's hysterical and she gave me a hug for it. Silly, if you ask me. She also thinks the juxtaposition of my Vanilla Wafers, ramen, peanut butter, and apple cinnamon oatmeal is pretty funny.

And I've decided that I should be banned from playing Cranium. I have waaaay too much fun.