out of the blue

Well, I'm sitting in the Portland Airport, waiting for my flight (delayed about an hour, so far). I'm off to London to study abroad, but first I have to live in airports for a while. I wasn't able to get a good deal on a direct flight, and all the multi-stage flights were either an hour margin or 7+ hours. So, I went for the 7 hour ones. This is fine, because I won't risk missing the flight (unless all Dante breaks loose), but it means I spend far more time in the airports than on flights. For an international journey, that's pretty atrocious. If I have consistent internet access, I'll be online as much as possible until Monday early morning (when I'll arrive in London).

No offense to all you friendly Portland-people out there, but the thing I like most about being back in Portland is the rain.

Just took my first final, for Honors Economics. On it was the following question:

Draw a Laffer curve for the relationship between tax rate and actual tax revenue. EXPLAIN why it looks that way.

I skipped class for couple weeks once, and at least once a week throughout the term. I had no idea what a Liffer curve was. Here is what I gathered from the question itself:

• tax rate (probably along the x-axis)
• tax revenue (along the y-axis)
• it is a notable curve (why might it be notable?)

This is less information than is usually on questions that I don't know, but I can go at it anyway. Luckily economics is a somewhat intuitive field.

My answer: There is a certain point at which a higher tax will discourage people from working to get into a higher tax bracket. The reward is not worth the extra effort. After that point, people will work less, meaning that the actual pie from which the government takes its cut is smaller, resulting in less total revenue.

And the Wikipedia entry on the Laffer curve. Completely right, with no prior knowledge.

I stayed up until 4:00 last night reading Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. It is amazing, and moving. I was profoundly affected by the time I finished.

Tom Stoppard is by far my favorite playwright, but I hadn't read Arcadia since we put it on during my sophomore year of high school. I had been meaning to for years. It put me in mind of Arwen and Ian, Rowena and Jules, and all those old drama people. I wonder how many of them will be at alumni day….

The assignment was to use the following elements in a story. We didn't have to use all of them, but I did anyway.

theme: a good death
objects: spaceship, shoe, watch, mirror, antique iron
dialogue: "Lose the hat." "Where d'you come from?" "Don't you hate it when that happens?"

version 1

The Lost Cause was primed and ready to fly. I gave myself one last check in the mirror. "Lose the hat," it said, and I did. Not as rakish, to be sure, but a good deal more respectable. The mirror's AI wasn't as cutting-edge as I was used to, but that's what you get when you travel. Hotel tech wasn't up to the level that you could get on, say, your standard wristwatch. I had left mine at home.

I didn't want to be late, so I kicked the door open ("Where d'you come from? Were you born in a barn?" the mirror remarked in tired, halting idiom as I failed to turn the lights out) and made it out to the flight deck. I realized belatedly that I still hadn't closed the deal on that antique iron on ebay, but I figured it shouldn't matter much to me, right? Hell, I didn't even need my shoes. I kicked them off. The honor guard failed to look at me strangely, although I know they wanted to. Formality, it gets me every time. I wonder what the commentator would say. There goes Jerry Warner down to his waiting ship, Glory Bound, to save the human race. How noble he is, how taciturn. Look at that, he's kicking his shoes off to honor the gravitas of the situation. He won't need them where he's going.

Such reminisces are pointless. Here I am, about to save humanity for the nth time. Except this time I won't be coming back. Don't you hate it when that happens?

version 2

Jon looked at his refrigerator in disgust. Upon it, in gleaming ceramic green, clung a spaceship. Not a real spaceship, thank God, but the magnet was bad enough. He wished Janet were the sort of freak who would reminisce very frankly about the aliens she saw twenty years ago during an acid trip. Instead, she was subtle, coming back from her stupid sci-fi conventions in some ridiculous getup, tin foil and sunglasses. "Where the hell d'you come from, Jupiter? Lose the hat," Jon had yelled once. She'd responded, insanely, "Sorry I'm late. Got stuck at Phobos in a traffic jam. Don't you hate it when that happens?" And then grinned. She held an antique iron, probably an impulse buy from a garage sale, but at that moment he hated the very idea of antiques. Just another backwards brand of futurism. He resented the past, couldn't stand the future. If only he could live in the present. But everywhere he looked there was something to remind him. A wristwatch in the shape of a Star Trek communicator badge. A shoe once worn by Harrison Ford (Blade Runner, not Star Wars). Philip K. Dick's goddamn mirror, of all things. To top it off, she read nothing but science fiction, wouldn't even look at his latest work. Called it "depressing." But the New York Times had called it "a starkly imaginative treatise that weaves into one tapestry the disparate strands of teen pregnancy, wanton gang violence, and the scourge of AIDS in war-torn totalitarian regimes… both moving and profoundly prophetic." Spaceships and morlocks, pah. She could live in her fantasy worlds, but he'd stick to solid, comforting reality. He penned the first sentence of his new novel, A Good Death. Not satisfied, he scribbled it out and tried again… and again… and again.

Here is a comparison of the original with an edited version and a version where I applied a colored gradient to it.

I have to say, Sarah has stunning eyes. Especially in natural morning light. No editing in this photo.

If you did not go to high school with me, feel free to ignore this message.

In the nrsst livejournal community, a message was posted about alumni day:

Dear NRST/SST Alumni,

NRST/SST is once again having an Alumni Day! It is scheduled for Thursday, December 20. We would love to see you all again, so please come. We ask that you arrive at 12:00pm and go to the "Big Room" (220-222). Once there we will have a sign in sheet for you, please be sure to sign in. Pizza will be available for $1.00/slice. You will all have until about 12:30 to visit and hang out with friends. At 12:40 there will be an All Group in the Fitness Room. The day will end around 2:00pm, at which point students can just chat with you all informally.

There will be an Alumni Day Social from 2:00-4:00.

We hope to see you all! Be sure to spread the word to those we might not have contacted. All NRST/SST Alumni are invited!

Please RSVP to Wendi_Wise@beavton.k12.or.us

Sincerely,

The SST staff

Going to Seattle with Aaron and Sarah to visit Soren and Alice. I'll be completely out of contact on Thursday and Friday, when I spend a night in Victoria with Sarah.

On Thursday, we will have high tea when most Americans will be eating their Thanksgiving dinners. It should be very exciting, and arguably unpatriotic. More when I get back.

Made delicious food with Aaron today, feeding Sarah and Anne. We made a lamb korma, garlic naan, and rice pudding. It'll be one of my substitute Thanksgiving dinners. *goes to rest in a stupor*