Taniith’s Relto

So I’m sitting here in school with my stupid project a few feet away from me and I’m totally beat! It has just been problem after problem this week, and I really feel like smashing the whole damned thing! At this point, the whole setup is done, save for the oven. Now, I bought one sheet of cement board because I was lead to believe that I wouldn’t need any more. Well, it looks like I might have to RESTART THE DAMNED THING, which would mean getting a whole new sheet.

so, Mr. Brooks made me a frame for the oven, though it is slightly off. Whatever, I can deal with that, so I spent a whole day shaving half an inch from the cement board to get it to fit. Then I spent about a day wiring the damned thing, which was trouble because I cut the board about a month ago, and I didn’t realize the complications at the time. I laid out my wiring design before realizing that I needed more than an inch off the edge to clear the steel frame (that goes in by an inch). Well, I managed to fudge it enough to get it to work, and it is all wired…. Now all I need is to make the sides/cover from the remaining cement board.

Well, I screwed up the first cut of cement board, so the walls are going to be a quarter inch shorter… fine. Then, I managed to cut the rest of the board into the strips I needed while saving a piece big enough for a cover… but barely. Then a wasp started harassing my work area so I had to move back inside where I almost fainted from overheating/lack of oxygen from cutting the cement board. I was set back to today… when I thought I would have it done. Well, Marty thought I should hold off on cutting my limited stock of cement board, and start with a wood mock-up instead. Well, I did that, and it was working out fine to fit it in the frame. Then I put the wired base back into the frame, and the screwed up wire spacing came back to haunt me AGAIN! I can’t get the sides in at the right angles (starts at 28″ at the base, tapers to 24″ at the top) because the wiring posts are too close to the edge!

So now I have no idea what to do save buying more stuff and starting again (which I REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO!) or giving up and swallowing the $300 dollars I’ve spent, since I doubt I can get paid back if I don’t finish it.

ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I want my summer!

-Taniith

I know a few people (besides family) who will be happy to find out that I actually went swimming today. I was told that I was coming to the bbq at our tennis/swimming club today, so I figured I might as well see if I still had anything where I used to keep my swimming stuff. So, I dug to the bottom of the drawer (it has since become a second t-shirt draw), and found two pairs of bathing suits, along with a pair of goggles and some flip flops that ‘almost’ fit me. By ‘almost,’ I mean size 9 for my size 12 feet. I can get my feet in, but my toes go to the end/they hurt after about ten feet/my heel is not totally on the flip flop.

I took the stuff, though I had little intention of using them. I pretty much gave up on swimming a while ago because whenever I went to the pool, I would end up with my dad swimming laps while I sat there in an empty pool… it was no fun so I stopped going. So of course, by the time I decided to put on my stuff today, we were only in the pool for like ten minutes (and really just standing there because my family sucks apparently ;p) when they all decided they were going to go to the Israel festival in Boston, and they all left. I got out about a minute later because I didn’t feel like hanging around since I had a feeling that the kids in the pool wouldn’t let me join their games ;d

Gee, sounds just like what made me stop going in the first place, eh? If only they would get rid of this idea for building a new ‘platform tennis’ (I think it was vetoed in the end though), and throw in a couple of fencing strips instead. But I guess that aint gonna happen any time soon. :(

-Taniith

So, I’ve been a high school graduate for just over a week (a few hours over that is). I still can’t believe it. As I’ve been telling various people/classmates as it comes up, they are going to have to have me forcibly evicted from that campus. Its just been too much of my life for the past seven years! Of course, I guess I’m referring more to a few departments/faculty members than the entire school itself, but still… It had its ups and downs, but in the end it was a good place for me while I was there.

In the week leading up to graduation, I kept saying how I was never going to leave… how I was going to come back next year a lot while in Waltham, and then help out with tech stuff. Well, I have to say that it is far less interesting to be at Beaver when the school is so empty. Last week was so different from the weeks that preceded it, despite the fact that I was still just working on my machine for fun. Before, there were other students when I walked the halls, instead of the occasional teacher now; and Marjorie and I kept distracting each other from our respective projects, while now if I stop working I just feel like I’m wasting my time. Its really different and not as fun. Hmm, maybe I should recruit people to ‘help’ me finish the project… aka distract me while I try to work ;p

But gee, a week. I can’t decide if it went by fast or slow, but it certainly went by. I still have no idea what I am going to do with my summer… I’m thinking about looking into something at Harvard summer school or the like. Of course, I have to make sure it doesn’t interfere with Siggraph, and I can’t get credit without applying to WPI again as a transfer student (or so they said about the CDIA program for next year). Either that or try to do this theater stuff as a more immediate commitment, like just saying to someone “Hi, I know how to hang lights, I’m available, I’m volunteering, and don’t try to tell me you can’t use free and experienced help.” Or something to that effect.

Otherwise, maybe I’ll just do some more work on the fiction I started for Ms. Zuckerman. She gave me some good feedback, and I agree that a couple have some potential. Also, maybe working on some 3D stuff to keep my mind ready for next year, or trying out the programmer’s version of 3D… POVRay. Of course, first I have to write that letter to Marty in thanks, along with an idea he gave me. He suggested, based on something he heard at a graduation speech recently, that I (well, graduates in general, but he was talking to me) write a letter to myself that is not to be opened till I’m 30 or 35 or something. I like the idea… just gotta sit down and do it.

Oh well… stuff to ponder.

-Taniith

So, for a little while now, I have been thinking about doing some community theater tech work next year while I’m at the CDIA. Well, my mother thought it was a bad idea, but I think her reasons are a tad nuts. I stopped thinking about it until just recently, and I finally started looking into it. Well, I asked Marty about his thoughts, and he told me some interesting stuff, as well as the story of how he first started doing community theater. It was at a place called the Footlight Club in JP. In the end, it started to look like I might just decide to put my hatred of a certain theater near me aside, and try it out.

Well, my sister is taking me to a production of Hot Mikado at a theater near her (I love that show by the way). (Oh, and as a sidenote…. its amazing how hard it is to find a fourth person to take to a play on short notice, even between 3 people looking! Stupid friends having jobs/college trips!) Well, guess what the name of the theater is…. the Footlight Club in JP. I lost it when I heard that, because the conversation with Marty had taken place about a day earlier. Now, I have no sense of maps beyond the areas I tend to travel. To me, JP is this random place that is relatively far away and a pain to get to. Since the play is tonight, I decided to check out the location of the theater on Google Earth so I could find it, and what do I learn? It’s about 5 minutes from Beaver! I like how no one felt it necessary to tell me this fact!

*sigh*

Well, I’ll see how the place looks tonight, and then I might just throw in an application to volunteer. Apparently they are looking for a production crew for next season’s first show, and it opens before I have to be at the CDIA. That means that it would be the perfect time to get my foot in the door (with a steel-toed shoe on of course) without too much schedule trouble. Even if I only get on the hanging crew, it’ll be something. I guess it’s time to go continue work on the resume that my brother is pushing me to make. At least the formatting is already done for me and I just need to fill in the blanks with pretty words ;p

-Taniith

Hmm, I guess this poast doesn’t read all that easily…. but too bad because I’m too lazy to change it ;D Just pretend that the extra time spent reading it is really due to me actually updating more regularly.

Here’s the short version of today (I will hopefully write a longer version soon). It was final assembly today, and I won 4 awards: senior science award, one of two people for senior performing arts award, senior mathematics award, and senior “faculty” award (whole faculty votes on someone to win it in each grade). I left my “gifts” (read books in blue paper with my name on a sticker and no other markings) outside the scene shop, as did Marjorie leave her “gift” (the shop was locked when we got back, and even though Marty had unlocked it after I got my yearbook, I was too lazy to bring my pile inside… 20 20 hind-sight and all that). Well, I came back after graduation rehearsal, and Marjorie and I opened are blue paper together. It took me a little while (since one of them had two books instead of one) to realize that the math award was missing. I then figured out why it looked like my pile had been tampered with while I was gone… apparently someone STOLE my math award thing. The strange thing is, there was no way to know which award was which, and yet the pile looked like it had been searched. Must have been a strange form of random searching.

*sigh*

What to do… I guess I’ll ask Mr. MacDonald what the book WAS when I see him next week.

Oh yeah…. I am sooo not ready to graduate. I cried at Dr. Who tonight, which then set me off for crying about graduating. I’m not ready, at the very least, to leave the theater department…. its like a third home!

*tear*
-Taniith

So, the guy at Kabloom knows me now. First I went in there on the final night of Les Mis, and asked for two dozen red roses with water tubes on them. While he was dealing with that (ran out of tubes and roses when I was done ;p), we got to talking. He wanted to know what they were for, etc. Nice guy.

So I go in there today to get a dozen roses with tubes for… erm…. something, and after a minute, the guy asks if I was the “musician” who came in a while back to get all the roses for individual people. I corrected him, but was amazed that he remembered me. He commented that he “knows [his] customers,” and then commented that most guys don’t actually care about the flowers (with regards to the water tubes). Most guys just want them to look pretty for a few minutes, and give no thought as to their longevity without water.

I guess that makes me special :D

-Taniith

So, with the announcement of URU Live’s return, we at the Great Tree felt it necessary to hold another meeting. There is a grand project beginning, and they wanted to spread the news/get some opinions on it.

The short version of the Great Tree is that we were the voice of opposition in the Cavern back before it closed. The D’ni Restoration Council (DRC) was holding back information and ages from us, and we felt that they shouldn’t have done that. So we tried to rally the people to not be complacent…. to ask for what we rightly deserved.

Well, I was at the meeting last night, and I look down at my shirt (at the keyboard, not in the cavern) and see that I’m wearing a DRC shirt…. to a Great Tree meeting! I mean, I got the shirt to show that I’m willing to work with the DRC if they are willing to work with us (that’s the in character version ;p), but I still probably shouldn’t have worn it to the first Great Tree meeting in roughly two years!

Oops ;p

Oh, but I finally finished my portfolio DVD. The file for my old one refused to open, so I had to start from scratch….. I hate Adobe Systems Inc.

-Taniith