Perfect Timing
Over the past certain period of time, I’ve had two incidents which can only be described as, “perfect timing!” The first of these took place over my past spring break, and was witnessed by Michelle. So here’s how this one went. We were both home on spring break, and there just happened to be a choir concert while we were home. I know you’re probably thinking that this is a stupid story, and that’s not good timing at all, and that I should never be allowed to write again. Well, before you load a virus into my blog and turn my crazy thought into something that probably would make more sense, allow me to finish. So, there was a concert, and I was hoping to attend, but it’s not as much fun to go by yourself. I also knew that Michelle was (and for the record, still is) cool. Well, being the math fanatic that I am, I put two and two together, got four, did some double integration, computed the areas of some regions with their corresponding heights, got a reasonable approximation for the ‘volume’ under a 3-d curve in space, and gave Michelle a call and asked if she would join me at the concert. (For those of you curious, two and two added together can actually equal five, but the twos must have abnormally large values). We decided to walk because it was nice out, so we walked to the school for the concert. Now that’s what I call perfect timing.

The second event which was quite amusing by some really lucky timing actually just happened. I got back from my home, which I visited because it was Easter, and I was sorting through my Easter bin. That’s right, my mom was awesome enough to make Easter baskets, though she didn’t used baskets. She used bins so we could use them for storage after we were finished with them. Now that’s good thinking. What do college kids need more than bins for storage. Anyways, I was digging through my bin when all of the sudden I found that my mom had included something truly awesome in my bin. However, before I reveal this awesome gift, I will finish the first story. Come on… walking to school… perfect timing?! What’s perfect about that? If you made it this far without confusion from the first story ending so abruptly, there’s something wrong with you, and you need to pay more attention to my stories. That is unless, of course, I managed to miss something, and I’m such a good writer, that even when I don’t mean to, my stories still make sense. This would be quite unfortunate, since most of my stories that I do try to make good, aren’t. That would make me a horrible writer, if the only time my writing makes sense is when I try to write horribly. But then, what if I try to write bad all the time. I could go through life not trying, and being shamefully successful. Perhaps that’s where the expression stinking rich comes from. I’d be rich, and it’d stink because I wouldn’t’ve tried or cared at all, but still managed to be a good writer. And if that did happen, what kind of an example would I be setting for our youth?! I’d be a horrible role model. Suddenly nobody would try in anything. Then, if it works for them like it’d work for me, they’d suddenly excel in what they’re bad in. Well, if we manipulate this to our advantage, we can try in what we’re good at, and not try in what we’re bad at. The only problem with this is what happens when what we’re good at coincides with what we’re bad at, such as me writing a paper about math. There would be conflicting patterns and stuff like that. It’d be harder than patting your head, rubbing your belly (with the occasional switches that are necessary), while playing Simon says. Perhaps even harder…. Hmm… and jumping rope… you can’t do all three of those at the same time quickly at all. So ha! Take that! So, now that you’ve forgotten everything in the beginning of what I’ve been saying, I suggest you scroll up, refresh your memory about my first story which ended nonsensically, and when you know where we’re at, return and read the rest of that story, which will now be continued.

Ok, so, we walked to school, and it was cool. We saw some friends, chatted while they passed out their programs like the good ushers they are. And for the record, Steven and Chris make an awesome pair of program passer-outers (Jeff is awesome too). You guys are awesome! So, after we hung out with them, we went upstairs to watch the concert from our newly renovated balcony. Not like it really mattered since they renovated the entire auditorium. So, Michelle and I were sitting upstairs for the concert. Well, as is tradition with our high school, the concert began with the middle school, and ended with the several different high school groups. Naturally, the middle schoolers weren’t quite as skilled and talented as the high schoolers, but this certainly isn’t their fault at all. They don’t have as much experience, and they’re still maturing, so their voices are still changing, and I think it’s even a required class, so even those not as talented are mixed in with the natural singers. Therefore, they weren’t as good as the other groups I had heard, mainly in high school, and at that point, a few times in college. Compared to college and high school’s vocal ensemble, along with their many other groups, the middle school choir seemed very casual. So I leaned over to Michelle and told her that it’d be really funny if at the end of their songs somebody would shout, “It’s over!” Now, this might not seem funny to ‘normal’ people, but if they said it the way Strongbad says it in his Teen Girl Squad cartoons, it would be hilarious. If you have no idea what the heck I’m talking about, visit www.homestarrunner.com and explore. If you’re only interested in the expression, visit http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgsmenu.html. Anyways, at that time, the choir was finishing up their song, and after it was over, everybody clapped, as is standard etiquette for a concert. Well, once that was all finished, the middle school left the stage, and half of the audience left.

Now I have certain thoughts about that. Parents who come just to see their kids and leave as soon as they perform shouldn’t even be there in the first place. If they come just for that reason, all they’re doing is supporting their son or daughter. Keep in mind, that their kids can’t even see them, so there’s not really much support gained by the kids. In actually, their main purpose is not for the music, but making their child happy so they don’t have to buy them toys to make them happy. It also gives them weapons to use against us. That way, in the future they can always say, “After I took so much time out of my schedule to come see you sing at the concert, you don’t even have the decency to take out the garbage?!” This is, of course, a general equation of guilt. The same could be said for anything they want us to do. They also use it in defense. If we ask for something, they can bring up the fact that they missed their work to see you sing. Oh what a tragedy, because we all know they wanted to stay at work for another 4 hours, since it’s just so much fun. Their reasons for going are mostly for mostly non-altruistic motivations, so they shouldn’t even be there in the first place.
On the other hand, we do have to respect the fact that they did come all that way, just for us. Even if they do it to make us happy, that’s still something. Furthermore, there are some parents out there who want to see us do our stuff. Additionally, if I really did believe all of those critical things just said, I’d be going against tons of people, including my own mother, and even myself! So it is important to note that despite the fact that I said some pretty harsh things previously, I do not necessarily believe them. And for the record, my family is almost always there for me, and I love them for it... so maybe they are doing it just for us.

Well, I just realized that by getting so off topic, if I continue, it either won’t make any sense because you’re forgotten what the heck I’m even talking about, or it’s been too long since I’ve been talking about the actual story that it’ll no longer be funny, so take this time to scroll up three paragraphs and reread it, and then continue.

So, I had just finished telling Michelle how funny it would be it one of the singers came out and yelled, “It’s over!” They finished, applause, parental departure, and then one of the kids sitting in the balcony runs to the edge, and yells out to somebody, “It’s over!” Oh, it was great! Now the kid just needs to work on his Strongbad imitation.

Ok, and now to finish the second story I started way back when…. So my mom was awesome and made us Easter baskets. One of the many fun toys I found was some silly putty! You all know silly putty. It’s the fun stuff that you can stick to newspapers and when you pull it off it has the text of the newspaper imprinted on the putty. Fun stuff. I also got the yellow M&M character on the commercials, a thing with straw that you stick this goo to and blow bubbles, and finally bubbles that don’t pop. These indestructible bubbles apparently do pop, so no need to fear a bunch of crazy bubbles roaming the planet that won’t pop. According to my mom, they use these at the nursing home on the patients. They see bubbles, but they don’t pop, so they start to panic. It’s quite evil, and not even close to having any truth whatsoever, but it’s still quite amusing. Back to the silly putty. As I said, it works great for newspapers, and I knew this, so I decided to show off the effectiveness of the putty. I pulled out a newspaper from a stack that has been accumulating next to my desk (Oh no! I’m turning into my grandma by having tons of random newspapers around). I showed Steven, my roommate, how it works. I put the silly putty on the part of the paper that has the title, “The Wooster Voice” Well, since it’s not big enough to cover the entire title, I just covered up, “Wooster” and I also got a bit of the surrounding text. Well, when it came time for the grand finale, I pulled off the silly putty, and sure enough there was “Wooster” printed on the putty. At that exact same time, Alex’s CD he was burning had finished, so as soon as I pulled off the putty and we both saw the success, Alex’s computer made a trumpet noise that fit perfectly! The kind of noise that would announce the sudden arrival of royalty. Lets just say that this noise makes a drum roll sound, at best, silly. (Hahaha, silly… as in silly putty. Oh my, now I’m just being ‘silly’… Hahahahahaha!!!). Steven and I had a great time with that one… uh… yeah. It was great…uh… yeah (this blog entry is starting to suck. Desperate times call for desperate measures). Oh! And then… it was crazy… after Steven left, I found a twenty dollar bill on the ground!!!