New People

Here are some of the people I've met who I have or likely will become friends with.

Julia is my roommate. She's an engineering major from Dayton, and it would have been hard to find a better roommate. She's adorable and we have a lot in common. We're both geeky, goofy, artsy, environmentally conscious Christians. We also have similar sleeping habits, which is nice when you're living with someone.

Justin was in my orientation group. He's from somewhere in Indiana, and he hasn't chosen a major yet. Whenever we got bored at the free-for-all scheduled social events during orientation we ended up talking to each other. He loves free stuff whether he'll ever use it or not. By the end of the week he had acquired fifteen cups, three water bottles (including the engineering one...even though he's not in engineering), three backpack bag things, and much more.

Aurash was also in my orientation group, and he's also an engineering major. He's from Texas and his parents are from India, but he has no accent whatsoever as far as I can tell. He wears Threadless shirts - a good way for anyone to instantly improve my impression of them. We also share music tastes and played in orchestra in high school.

Kevin went to high school with Justin who introduced us when we were sitting around at our night of fun and frivolity at the sports/recreation facility (co-rec or RSC). He is yet another engineering major from Indiana. He's sweet and nerdy and has some sort of slight to moderate physical disability that I couldn't identify. If all goes according to my plans, when I join the orchestra in the spring and he'll be there in the oboe section.

Margaret is a public horticulture major I met at the ag picnic. She seems sweet and hopes to operate a botanical garden someday. Since she's in the landscaping/horticulture department, we'll probably have some classes together.

When I met Margaret I met the guy who is the only other LAHD (landscape horticulture and design) student I found during the entire week... but I forgot his name. He was originally going to come here on a football scholarship, but then he blew out his knee and permanently ended his football career. He looked into horticulture and forestry, chose LAHD, and likes it so much that he doesn't regret that he had to give up football to find it.

I actually met Michael earlier in the week when I went to an interest session about the honors programs. When I first saw him, for some reason I sensed a "pretentious jerk vibe," but that proved to be a hasty and inaccurate judgment. He's majoring in horticultural science, so we had a nice discussion about aeroponics while we waited to go hiking on the honors retreat. We continued to talk along the way and made jokes about the designer who didn't make the canyon trail handicap accessible. He might be in the orchestra as well, so I'll be seeing a lot of him in the future.

I also met Kayleigh at the honors interest session. She's majoring in biochemistry in the college of ag. I knew the minute I saw her that we would likely become friends, but that it might take some effort for us to get to know each other. On the honors retreat we got off to a good start working on a jigsaw puzzle together.

Elizabeth and I literally ran into each other finding seats during the opening ceremonies of the honors retreat. Later we ended up sitting next to each other at dinner, and we discovered that we have a lot in common. We both like horses but not the all-too-often snobby people that ride and show english, we want to do volunteer work with the environment, we enjoy being outside, we like taking pictures, and we're awkward around people. Since the retreat we've eaten together twice, and we're bound to continue to interact. Her major is engineering, and she's from the Chicago area.

Allyson became my Facebook friend back in January, but we didn't meet each other until the honors retreat. She's from Indianapolis and is majoring in food science with a minor in dance. Since we're both in UHP and ag honors, we'll be seeing a lot of each other. She's friendly and just a bit sarcastic, and I love sarcasm in moderation.

Kilian was helping Kayleigh and Mary (she's next) with the jigsaw puzzle when I met him on the honors retreat. He's in engineering - hopefully aerospace, so he likes to call himself a future rocket scientist. Since he's in UHP and the orchestra (violin I think?) and will be attending the call-outs for the outing club and the medieval club, I predict that we will have plenty of opportunities to continue becoming friends.

Mary was the other girl who helped with the puzzles. She's going into pre-vet if I remember correctly, and that's pretty much all I know about her right now. She's very shy, but nice.

Dr. Chris is the person in charge of the UHP. He's a retired entomology professor who never misses an opportunity to encourage us to consider entomology. I instantly took a liking to him because he reminds me so much of Uncle Reggie. He's an enthusiastic, intelligent, friendly, old man of Chinese heritage. I hope to talk to him about entomology. Maybe he knows more about millipedes.

Whenever we go to a meal, Julia and I look for a lonely person and sit with them, and that's how I met the next two people. Wa is an exchange student from China who is here to study psychology education to become a professor back in China. She was so adorable! She's struggling with English and very nervous about it, so she asked us the words for a lot of thing at the table and then wrote them down in a little journal.

Just a few minutes ago we got back from lunch with Jeff. He's from Indiana and he's majoring in economics and will hopefully go on to law school afterward. It was awkward at first because it took us a while to find anything we had in common, but then we discovered that all three of us did theater in high school. The ice was finally broken and we had a nice little conversation about theater in our tiny high schools. I might try to find him later for the opening convocation I'm supposed to attend about our summer reading. Julia has an engineering honors thing, but Jeff and I are both scheduled for the same convocation and it would be nice not to go by myself.

My Groovy Purse Pins

I was writing an article for my school's literary magazine (which is really just a collection of odd surveys, thoughts, lists, and articles written by myself and some friends of mine) when I realized that it would do just as well as a blog post. I know I've been silent for several weeks, but I've been rather busy. I currently have four other posts in progress, and I hope to publish them over winter break.

My Groovy Purse Pins
by: gwendolyn maple

Most people in our high school have seen my fabulous purse at least once. You may even have taken the time to look at the pins covering it. But you may find yourself wondering… what do they all mean? The time has come to answer that question.*

• pirate flag: Do any of you remember the boat project from seventh grade? I worked with Christina McGuire, Courtney Dennis, and Sara Crowell to make The Black Pearl. The Jolly Roger on my purse once flew proudly from the main mast of our little boat.
  
• “dots” label: I love Dots . I don’t actually like eating them all that much (they get stuck to one’s teeth), but I like some of the flavors and I like looking at them. They have nice colors and shapes.
  
• orange duct tape with writing: It says “Hey Band! Watch out for my flag!” and was given to me by Megan Menke during band camp 2006.
  
• blue-scale: There really is nothing more to this strip from a paint sample other than the fact that it looked lovely.
  
• Halloween doughnut: My youngest sister gave me a sticker with a Krispy Kreme doughnut dressed up as a cowboy saying “Howdy goblins!” The letters and parts of the doughnut glow in the dark.
  
• Purdue ticket stub: My family generally tries to go to a Purdue football game every year. Both my parents went there (along with countless other relatives), and I plan to go there as well. I feel the need to emphasize that I’m not planning to attend Purdue just because my relatives have. The school fits me very well.
  
• dutchman scrap: Dutchmanning is a set-building trick in which tape or glue-soaked canvas is laid over seams between flats to conceal the cracks between them. In Cinderella, the 2005 musical, we used canvas to dutchman, and I filched a piece that I had painted to look like wood.
  
• sparkly smiling clover pin: Hopefully that was self-explanatory. I am proud of my Irish heritage. Along with my German, British, Scottish, French, and Native American heritage. I’m a mutt, and this pin shows a part of my mixed ancestry.
  
• cutie tangerine sticker: There are these delicious little tangerines (or maybe they’re actually clementines) called “cuties.” They have little stickers on them that say things like “cutie” or “I’m a cutie” or “kiss a cutie.” The one on my purse says “I’m a cutie.”
  
• shapes sticker: I found my old purse from seventh and eighth grade, and – lo and behold – there were stickers all over the underside of the closing flap. I found where it all began. One of the stickers said “I learned my shapes.”
  
• Grool/Gruel: We never decided how to spell her name, but Grool/Gruel is a drawing created by myself and several others (I know I’ll miss some people if I try to remember everyone) in tenth grade English class. We were bored, so Megan Menke started to draw a girl, and she passed it to someone else to add something. They passed it to the next person and so on. She wound up being quite interesting, but I don’t have room to describe her here.
  
• security sticker: I save the stickers that come on the inside of watches and some other pieces of merchandise. I assume they’re supposed to set off an alarm if you steal them. I think they look nifty. The one that is currently on my purse is bright blue and transparent.
  
• tree-hugger pin: It says “hug a tree” and depicts a panda climbing some bamboo. It came to me from Target via a friend of mine. Hurrah for Target!
  
• no hunger: At the Community Service Leadership Conference this year, the Freestore Food Bank was handing out pins that had the word hunger encircled and crossed out in red.
  
• Dove chocolate wrapper: Whenever I’m having a crappy day, I find at my elbow a piece of Dove chocolate (courtesy of Courtney) with a pleasant word inside. My favorite wrapper yet is the one on my purse that reads “Go to your special place.”
  
• green rectangle: There is no significance to this green paint sample other than the fact that it’s a swell color.
  
• orange star: This puffy little star that I often refer to as a starfish is yet another decoration on my purse that has not deeper significance than its aesthetic appeal.
  
• leaf mask half: Once upon a time last year, Katie Schmidt (Le Phoque Volant de Neige) made me a leaf mask. She drew two leaves connected by a mutual petiole and made them rather colorful. However, the mask was not very useful as a mask, for it lacked eyeholes. I took the only logical alternative course of action: I taped the mask to my upper lip and wore it as an outrageously gorgeous moustache for the rest of the day.
  
• water cycle: Layla Owens used to bring these water bottles with nifty labels displaying an illustration of the water cycle. I cut out the illustration from one of the bottles, and it has lived on three different purses since then.
  
• Crush label: My Crush outfit has reached the level of notoriety. Not only do the shirt, earrings, bracelet, and shoes coordinate, but my purse also has a bit of Orange Crush spirit.
  
• Ireland triangle: And here we have some more Irish spirit. This groovy triangular sticker came from a Highlights magazine and has on it a Celtic knot and the word “Ireland.”
  
• tidbit from box of chucks: “This box deserves another chance to hold a pair of Converse shoes. Please recycle.” (and yes, I did recycle the rest of the box)
  
• “go green” button: It says “go green” and has a green viny background. It also hails from Targét.
  
• happy frog: This smiling amphibian actually belong to a Hello Kitty mobile one of my sisters got years ago, but she doesn’t know that.
  
• ninja penguin: Originally an ordinary penguin, this sticker deserved a little more pizzazz. I added shuriken, a headband, and some Japanese sandals. You may recall that I also have a pirate flag on my purse. I am in fact a pinja (a pirate-ninja hybrid). I can’t pick a side, so I choose both.
  
• tato: The technical name for the windmill-esque origami thing on my purse is “tato.” I have no idea what that means, but it the thing looks cool and it was fun to make.
  
• “support the separation of church and hate” button: It says what I just wrote (minus the word "button"), and my youngest three sisters got it for me in Chicago. I will proudly admit that I am a Christian, but I’m ashamed by the fact that the church sometimes attacks people before trying to love them.
  
• MS button: I got this button from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for participating in the MS Walk this spring.
  
• fortune cookie paper: It reads “You find beauty in ordinary things. Do no lose this ability.” Anybody who has known me for any length of time should be able to testify to the truth of this statement.
  
• photo booth picture: While on a mall-wandering adventure, Anna Worpenberg, Courtney Dennis, Emily Christenson, Sara Crowell, and myself all crammed into a photo booth. I love this picture.
  
• Germany sticker: As I mentioned before, I’m part German. I’m more German than anything else except Irish. This sticker also came from a Highlights magazine. It depicts a black eagle.
  
• evil smiley: This button provokes more inquiry than any other button on my purse. It was also the first button on my first hand-made purse. I found a plain red smiley face button in my basement three or four years ago and decided it needed a little personality… hence the fangs, crooked front teeth, and sharply angled eyebrows. People often believe that it is angry, but this is clearly not the case. Its broad smile should make that apparent. It is merely mildly deranged.
  
• R.I.P., my beloved art button: I would like to take a moment to recognize a dearly beloved pin that only lasted for a few months before disappearing. Life on the outside of my purse is hard indeed. This button came from my sisters along with the “separation of church and hate” pin and boldly called out “Doing strange things in the name of art.” I have been known to collect pine sap, wire a scarf to the wall while wearing it, create an abstraction of advice for reading poetry, search for lovely leaves, and write out literally hundreds of words by hand in meticulously straight lines in different sized fonts for the sake of art. And this only touches the tip of the iceberg. Rest in peace wherever you may be.

*The decorations on my purse are likely to change without notice. Do not consider this list to be by any means a comprehensive list of the various pins, buttons, and patches that have adorned or will adorn my purse throughout the years.

Musical Pictures

Blogger isn't wanting to let me post a photobucket slideshow, so I'll just put all the pictures from the musical here. The spacing is a little rough in some spots, but if it's all the same to you, readers, I'd really rather not go through all the messy steps to make it fit together smoothly.



Light-up roses like one used as a special effect in the prologue of the musical were sold during intermission, and some cast/crew girls got them. In real life, the roses glowed red, not orange.






Here's a clearer view of the people in the last picture. From left to right we have Beth, Rachel (good luck telling the difference between Rachel and Beth), Becky C., Becky H., and Ellen.






Here's Sara Christenson with her rose. I couldn't find her for the group picture.







Malia wearing Alfred's hat and cape.








Amy taking a picture of Sara Crowell scowling in a pirate hat (it's hard to see the hat, but it's there)







Amy and Sara Christenson in the front with Anna's head in the back







Amy, Beth, Sara Crowell, and myslef in Gaston's chair








Becky H. watching Rachel and Bree shake each other while Becky C. laughs







the antlers from Gaston's chair








The Beast's crest, painted by Christian. The banner at the bottom reads "Disney mange les ames" which means "Disney eats souls" We wanted it to say "Disney mange les ames d'enfants" but it wouldn't fit.





And now for the gorgeous "stained glass windows" This is the stage right window. Overall, it probably has the strongest composition and may be the best looking.















I couldn't get a clear shot of the middle panel because I'm not very good at levitating yet. This one is the worst. The colors don't jive with one another or the desired mood of the piece. Plus it's slanted and off-center at the bottom. The person who started it was painting it as a punishment, and I doubt he really wanted to at all.













This one, the stage left window may be my favorite. Either this or the stage right window, I have a hard time deciding.

It's Over...

Yay!

Boo!
Mixed feelings.

The musical is over. Last night was closing night, and today we struck the set. It's a relief to have more time on my hands (mostly to do homework... blech...), but I really do miss doing the show already. Sure, tech messed up fairly obviously at least three times every night and there was almost nothing to do backstage for this show, but it was still fun.

In my opinion, the painting aspect of this show may have been my favorite so far. The new seventh grade girls are possibly the best group (overall) that I've ever dealt with. Only one of the five is a problem. I have issues with the eighth grade girl sometimes, but we've sort of become friends this show.

In addition to the joy of painting, there's also the people to enjoy (yes, I do enjoy the company of a good many people, although I'm often sick of people as a whole). I was around the crew all the time, I got to socialize with my pit friends during intermission, and I had plenty of time to talk to cast members that I hadn't been around for a while. I even made a new friend of one of the cast members.

The hidden pretzel tradition continued, this time bringing an interesting quote that may result in me receiving yet another nickname. Since I had very few jobs backstage, I got some homework done, much to my relief. Well, for now it's done. I actually remembered my camera on closing night, so here are the pictures I took:

I can't resist making a report on the current weather here next to the Central Baptist Bog/Moor (yesterday it was a river, and on Tuesday it was an ice field). The wind is rushing so swiftly and with such force that our front door keeps flying open and our poor deteriorating white pine has lost another limb. The rain lashes our house. There is an occasional moan of thunder. I think the elements are protesting the fact that the air was 55º F today. On the whole, the weather has quite a mournful tone, and I love it. This has been Maria the funny-looking pretzel telling you about how I feel about the weather... again.

Snow Day!

The roads here in the land-locked hamlet of Finneytown or covered in snow and ice, so we get a snow day! To test out the ice, our five-year-old neighbor, my friend J.T., decided he was going to ride his bike down the hill on our street. He got down just fine, but when he tried to get back up the hill, he kept on slipping. It took several minutes for him to get anywhere, because at first, no matter how hard he tried to walk, his feet would just slide back on the ice and he wouldn't get anywhere. But JT has great perseverance, so he eventually made it back up the hill.

Thanks to my teachers (well I guess it's partly my fault for choosing the classes I did and caring way too much about the hardest two), my free day has been spent doing homework. My life is pretty much spent doing homework.

Unfortunately, canceled school doesn't mean canceled rehearsal. Since we're behind schedule, the director of the musical have decided that we need double rehearsal every day if we're to open a successful show on Thursday. This means that snow or no snow, we come to school at three, rehearse until 5:30, take a one hour dinner break, and come back until roughly 11 pm both today and tomorrow. Depending on his mood, we may have to stay after school on opening night for additional rehearsal time.

My one opportunity to go home after school for the first time in three weeks was yesterday, but that plot was foiled. Rehearsal wasn't scheduled to start until 5:30, so I decided to help the varsity academic team out again. Yet again, one of their members was sick. After playing two matches (both of which we lost, but one was close), we returned to the school at 6. I had planned on taking a playing test for orchestra at 5:15, so I had to go take that as soon as I got to school (I did well enough that I better get at least third chair, if not second). Upon showing up forty-five minutes late to rehearsal, I discovered that we hadn't really started yet, so it didn't matter that I was late. Hell (aka rehearsal during hell week/opening week) lasted until 11 pm. Cast, crew, and pit banded together like never before as we checked outside every few minutes for snow. When we had still only gotten a few flakes by 10, we began to despair. However, at 10:30, two of my tech friends and I looked out and beheld a glorious sight: it had finally begun to snow in earnest! We danced and jumped out in the snow, and Sarah took several good pictures.

Tale As Old As Time...

Beauty and the Beast. Finneytown's musical opens this week, whether we're ready for it or not. We normally pull the shows off moderately well even if it looks like an impending disaster during tech week, so it won't turn out horribly. In fact, it still has a chance to turn out splendidly.

The set is done being built, and almost done being painted. Only detail painting is left, and if the head painter and I ever see each other (he missed two practices this week and three last week because he gets sick easily), we should be able to significantly simplify what the original plans were. Besides, it's not uncommon for some of us to be finishing up the set on opening night. Our biggest obstacle in finishing the only task we have left is the fact that we need to be painting on the stage, but the actors are there during rehearsal. Since rehearsals are in the evening this week we can stay after school to put details on the castle walls.

I had hoped to be in the pit orchestra during the actual show, but the score we ordered lacks a viola part, and all the violin slots were taken up so I couldn't just transpose one of their parts. So now I'm on running crew once again. This will be my eighth show backstage and seventh show backstage at Finneytown. Learning backstage cues will be a bit complicated this year. Three of the six people with me on stage left have been painting during rehearsals for the past two weeks, so we don't know what our cues are. Of the three others, one is possibly the most annoying crew member. The freshman guy is okay, he's just bitter that the new freshman gets to do more than he does, even though he's been part of two other shows. He now tries to take over and be knowledgeable and "helpful" in every circumstance he comes across. At least he doesn't pout about it. The last person on our side is an asset to stage left. He's been able to watch rehearsals so he knows what's going on, he's competent, and he knows how to be quiet. We were supposed to do a dry tech run today, but we did some finishing touches instead, so we get to come in tomorrow. We've never been this far behind on running crew. This could get interesting in a stressful sort of way.

We rented many of the costumes from Disney, and they came in this week. They're amazing! If nothing else, the actors will look wonderful. They had an excellent rehearsal yesterday. I actually had to leave my secret painting corner to go check if they were just playing a recording - it was that good. If they keep it up, the major musical numbers will be successful. The cast can be a bit squirrely, but I think they'll take the show seriously once they're performing for a real audience.

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.