Cults, Societies, and So Forth

It has recently occurred to me that I am the member of many a cult/secret society/not-so-secret society/what-not. Without further ado, here they are in order of creation (I am, was, or will be a charter member of all of these societies).

SSC:
It's a super secret cult, but that's not what SSC stands for. If you ask what it does stand for, we tell you that it's a super secret conundrum, but that's not what SSC stands for either. There have been a wide variety of guesses about what SSC really stands for (mostly things starting with "super", such as "super secret crew", "super special crew", "super (p)sycho crew", and some others), but all of the suggested meanings are much more interesting than what SSC really stands for. It's actually a rather boring and unexciting name, considering the strange people that named it.

The SSC started close to show week of St. Xavier's production of Miss Saigon. The very impatient and somewhat unreasonable director decided that the reason running crew didn't get the cues perfectly right on our first run of Act II was that there were too many crew members in hte wings. This wasn't the real issue, as others would discover later, but she took it into her own power to winnow out the ranks of the running crew without consulting crew heads about who was actually useful. I was cut along with several other very experienced and helpful crew members, so we formed our own backstage crew. Another guy, Brad, and I organized a crew of the people who were booted plus some others who were never nominated for running crew in the first place (it's a high honor), and we rotated set pieces in and out of the wings so that the actual running crew wouldn't have to. We even wrote up a detailed list of what needed to be where and when, complete with illustrations of Trogdor and other barely relevant pictures.

The High Order of Dipodism:
I already wrote about this. For review, click here.
My position as founder and High Priestess of Dipodism will probably be included in my title for the next cult on my list.

The Chivalric Order of the Sword Organum:
Approximately one third of the three semi-regular readers of my blog is very well acquainted with The Chivalric Order of the Sword Organum (originally called the Brethren of the Sword, but that was changed due to the facts that not all the members are brethren and Brethren of the Sword would have an undesirable acronym). In fact, this reader is the founder so he knows much more about this cult than I.

Assembly of the High-Fiving Shark and Gorilla - Nice:
This actually came into existence before I received my official invitation to the previous society, but I had a better transition for the dipod-to-sword organum jump. This group has technically perhaps been around for ages, by the way we refer to it. In this society, the "we" refers to my siblings and I. Over winter break, my family got the delight of driving nine hours for some quality extended family togetherness. with that side of the family, togetherness always results in fierce subconscious competition over the most unreasonable "accomplishments". It can be quite maddening. Anyway, back to the explanation of this cult. On the drive up there, we passed a sign for Nunica, a city in Indiana. Nunica spontaneously became a holiday in memory of a the day a bus full of blind nuns holding baby refugees was driven off the edge of a cliff, exploding at the bottom (based on an utterly purposefully ridiculous song that was written by some of my dad's brother's classmates for a contest that they won). There are various rules, traditions, and the like associated with Nunica, but I will not enumerate these details at this time. With Nunica in existence, it needed a cult/religion to support it. Based on a pre-existing t-shirt from the Dr. McNinja, the Assembly of the High-Fiving Shark and Gorilla - Nice was created. So far the only purpose of the Assembly is to support Nunica and place its seal of approval (usually a leopard seal, sometimes harper seals will do) on random deeds, sights, or sounds.

Native American LSD Ritual Cult:
This one doesn't have a real name yet, but one day in French class my friend randomly invited me and some others to join her in creating a cult based off of Native American rituals involving hallucinogens. She hasn't really gotten very far yet. We're working on it.

Herbivore-Omnivore Alliance:
Several of my classmates, most of which are my friends, are vegetarians. They want to start a vegetarian club, but they'd like us non-vegetarian friends to be part of it too because that would make it more fun. Essentially, it would just be an excuse to make up some random collection of people who already hang out together and talk on a daily basis, which we could then write on college applications. A couple of my friends are already trying to find ways to "pad their resumés" as people say. Us omnivores refuse to give up meat, so our club needs to have a way to include everyone anyway. One girl came up with the idea that if there's a Gay-Straight Alliance, we should form a similar group called the Herbivore-Omnivore Alliance. The idea still needs some tweaking, especially in the name category. One of our more sarcastic friends who is completely opposed to the idea was quick to point out that the original name would end up being the HO Alliance for short. We quickly dropped that moniker. I will say, I'm more inclined to agree with the sarcastic friend though. What on earth would the society do?

Angsty Girls Society:
This final cult was first thought of yesterday. It was inspired partially by a YouTube video that makes fun of how much of an angsty, moody drama queen Harry Potter is in the 5th book. Such a cult wouldn't require much organization. After all, we're all so angsty that nobody in our cult could really understand what anyone else was going through. Our cult's t-shirts would be all black with black writing on them. Both blacks would be blacker than the blackest black times infinity (but not dealing with coffee in any way), so nobody could really read our shirts, another symbol of how much nobody understands us. Our shirts would have meaningful slogans such as...

• got angst?
• Don't talk to me. You wouldn't understand.
• I ♥ nothing
• I can't ♥ anything anymore because my ♥ has been cruely torn out and trampled into the dust
• you can't see my eyes because the windows to my soul are so filled with pain that you wouldn't understand
• I am filled with angst, even unto overflowing
• and other deep and marvelously angsty phrases that "could be turned into some pathetic emo song on the radio" as my mom puts it

Sadly, most of these societies haven't gotten very far. I fear that the most successful group (the SSC) may have already crumbled, but I'll find out in April if not sooner.

Please note that I am not actually a member of any real cults. We have given up the red-pen ritual of dipodism, neither me nor any of the people in the hallucinogen group have ever done elicit drugs and I don't plan to, and neither me nor my friends are really filled with angst even unto overflowing.

I Am Iron Woman!

Unfortunately, it's hard to say "I am iron woman" in the same rhythm that the words "I am iron man" are sung to in the song.

This weekend, after having to leave the LAN party early (my innards were tied in knots, plus I was dizzy and disoriented and felt like I would end up fainting before the night was over), my mom suggested a possible explanation for that problem, as well my constant exhaustion: iron deficiency.

My issue is not lack of iron intake so much as an inherited issue with properly absorbing iron. Iron facilitates the transport of O2 to cells by forming iron oxides (aka rust, which explains the red color of the oxygenated red blood cells found in the arteries carrying blood away from the heart). Cells use O2 to help run the Krebs cycle and the electron transport chain that result in the synthesis of ATP via substrate-level phosphorylation and chemiosmotic phosphorylation, respectively. I'd love to go into detail, but it would become tedious for readers. Not to mention the amount of time it would take me to type it all out. ATP is the energy currency which runs all anabolic metabolic processes. As common sense would probably tell you, when you have less energy currency, you have less energy in general on the organism level as well as on the cellular level. This is why anemic people are so tired: they lack the proper amount of red blood cells to carry the Fe to carry the O2 to their cells.

I know have to take iron supplement pills daily for a month or so. I was not exactly excited about the idea. I have a disdain for medicine in general (probably stemming from the fact that I'd rather be in control than depending on something else, however unreasonable that can be at times), and am inclined to think that it won't really make any difference whatsoever. In addition, my mom warned me that the pills make your insides unhappy. Fortunately, they don't do much harm, and they actually work. They may even reach that monumental level in which they can be considered - dare I say it - even more effective than Omega 3 Fish Oil, so original it was awarded a U.S. patent (now in fun and fruity flavors with no fishy aftertaste!). For the first time in a couple months, I can honestly say that I'm not exhausted! In fact, I don't even feel tired today, much to my shock. It's really rather exciting!

Academia Nuts

Today I was an honorary member of the Academic Team! Half the varsity team was at home puking, so the other half decided I should join them. It didn't go so well. We had two matches and got utterly smoked at the first and pretty much gave up on the second. In the first one, we would've done a lot better if the other team wasn't so trigger-happy, but the second round was just flat out bad. Both teams scored extremely low. Our advisor said that the questions for the second match were harder than he's ever heard. The math questions were about computing numbers in base 8, hexadecimal, and all that other fun stuff. I was the only person out of both teams who knew what it meant, but I couldn't do the problems in 10 seconds. In the life sciences category, the questions were about calculating changes in entropy, which is totally not my definition of life sciences. The fine arts questions were all about where certain famous pieces of art were kept, and quite honestly, who cares? One question was actually about the city where The Scream by Edvard Meunch is located, but unfortunately my team didn't get any points for the fact that our captain pointed out that the question was invalid considering that the painting is actually somewhere on the black market right now. For the American Literature section, we were told that the answers all contained the word death, so the other team tried suing "The Death of a Salesman" for every answer, even though I pointed out that it was a play and the questions were about books. I'm fairly proud of how I personally did, considering that it was my first experience with the academic team. The JV team lost too, but that's mostly because two of them are ignorant, annoying freshman and the only girl on the team hates them with a burning passion. Plus she was bitter that our advisor chose her best friend to fill the other slot on the varsity team rather than herself.

There were some good points to it too. I got to sit on a window ledge and stare out over a garden, and from there I solved the Mystery of the Newly Cut Ornamental Grasses. Halfway through the first match, the scorekeeper's dry-erase marker stopped working, but I was there with my magic purse to save the day, even offering two different colors of dry-erase marker. That was pretty much the highlight of my day. Going between matches, the other three varsity members and I all linked arms and skipped down the hallway while Anna and I sang songs from The Wizard of Oz. On the bus ride back home, I got the privilege of staring out at the slowly darkening cloudy sky with practically no intrusions on my reveries. Once we reached the school, I got to feel the cold wind toss my hair around and rush across my bare feet and arms while I waited for my ride. It could have gone better, but it could've been much worse too.

Unfortunately, my friend Joe now thinks I should just join the academic team, and he doesn't seem to understand the idea that I have more things to do than I have hours to do them in.

Well, my friends, I must now bid thee so long, farewell, adios, and goodnight. And perhaps adieu, adieu, to you and you and you (or would "yeu" be better, rather than "you"? They pronounce it weird in the song so that the rhyme works). I now get to work on a biology lab report! *grits teeth, twitches, and makes that smile/grimace expression...you know what I mean* Our results are... interesting. I've actually called all the members of my class, and we're pretty much agreeing to all make the same mistake since our data doesn't work. We aren't fudging the data, mind you, just making and assumption that we know is incorrect. And we all know what happens when you make assumptions. We'll just have to keep our underhanded collaboration under wraps.

The Sky's Seasons

What a lovely day. The snowflakes are falling lazily down and the world is muted on this first day of the year. To be realistically pessimistic, a lot of the lack of activity is probably due to hangovers in a significant chunk of society. But that's not a cheery wintry thought, now is it? Last night was marvelous as well. The wind sighed and blew and whistled about the trees and houses with a sorrowful yet simultaneously soothing and invigorating sound. Today is the kind of day when you want to read old books, play old piano songs, and drink strong chai tea. Once again, reality is a downer and truthfully, today is the day that I realize I have two days of break left and quite a bit to finish in that amount of time. I still get my tea though (plus I found some gingerbread cookies to eat with it, yum!), and my streak of unsuccessful tea-brewing has come to an end, thankfully. I started typing this yersterday, but I felt like adding this little bit today. Now on to the part that pertains to the title of the post.

I looked up at the sky yesterday and noticed how incredibly lovely it looked. Then I realized that it was the first truly winter sky I've seen yet this year. There are two types of blue skies: summer and winter. During fall and spring, you just get some days with summer skies and some with winter skies. Richard Adams does a wonderful job of describing the two kinds in one of my favorite books, Watership Down: "It was a fine, clear evening in mid-October...The sky, too, was void, with a thin clarity like that of water. In July, the still blue, thick as cream, had seemed close above the green trees, but now the blue was high and rare..." It was a delight to find that little passage at the end of the book when I first read it several years ago, because I thought I was insane for thinking that there were different blue skies for different seasons, but as you can see, if I'm out of my mind, at least I have good company. Yesterday's sky was distant, as if separated from the world by a thin but completely transparent sheet of ice, if that makes any sense at all. In the summer time, the sky and the earth are one everywhere, but in the winter they're only united at the distant horizon, and only barely even then. It gives a more dream-like quality to the world.