Notes and News

Well, hello.
Here we are, almost two weeks out of the whole TASP thing, and I'm still trying to figure out what the heck I've been doing all this time. I've realized that it basically boils down to a readily enjoyable movie-watching-book-reading-chipotle-eating-tons-of-sleeping comatose that I'll be very sad to say goodbye to when I start school next week. But in the meantime, a few highlights-

1. I've started volunteering for Bill Ritter, the democratic candidate for Colorado Governor. I'm currently on phone call duty, though I'm assured that if I stick around long enough I may be upgraded to making copies or stuffing envelopes or something. The two days I went in this week, I called close to 200 people (!), most of whom were either a) not home or b) hung up on me mid-sentence as soon as I said where I was calling from. The job has its entertaining moments, though. One woman had an entire psalm at the beginning of her answering machine greeting. Another house I called, someone picked up, and before I could say anything I was greeted by 20 seconds of loud, clear techno music, after which the person abruptly hung up. Oh, and one of the people I talked to was named Bunnie. No joke.

2. I continue to subject individuals and groups of people alike to my many TASP photos whenever I get the chance ("chance" being perhaps dubiously defined as "whenever we are in the same room and they're not running in the other direction"). Response has been overwhelmingly positive in favor of both your general hottness and pose choice ("why does that girl have a duck on her head?" -my sister). Just thought you'd like to know :-)

3. I begin the mind numbing ordeal that is school in five days. For the fourth and final year, my guidance counselor has, like Manasi's, completely messed up my entire schedule. It's not worth going into; it should suffice for you all to recall that this is the same counselor who told me that if I wanted to demonstrate to colleges an interest in political science, I had better start taking more science classes. Welcome to the wonders of public education.

4. Today is my sister's 11th birthday. Unlike T.E. Lawrence, she doesn't have 85 thousand different names. And my mother does not claim a different date of birth for her (although, because she's adopted, that would probably make more sense in this case than TEL's). She is also very much less involved in the Middle Eastern theatre of the first world war. However, as Miranda can attest to, she is very cute, and quite good at tetris. So it all evens out. Or something. Anyway, if you leave a comment on this entry, a "Happy Birthday, Zoey" would be much appreciated. She gets a kick out of any attention by my friends.


On a more TASPly note, this morning the entire front page of the Denver paper was filled by reports on the discovery of the killer of JonBenet Ramsey. It immediately made me think of Bob Hansman (sp?) and what he said about how we only pay attention to the deaths of children when they are people like JonBenet- rich, white, privileged, and how many poor, inner city kids in trouble slip through the cracks at the same time. Sure enough, when I turned to the local page of the paper, there, on an inside page, was a tiny article about the search for the killer of a 16-year old girl in a poor Denver neighborhood. Different levels of coverage, much? I just found that interesting.

Also, I'm sure many of you have already heard about this, but I just read today about Virginia Senator George Allen and the racist comment he made at a rally last week. You can read more about it here, but basically he made an ethnic slur against an Indian-American (the only non-white person in attendance) in the audience. And this man may run for president in '08. Oy vey. I don't know much about the guy, but apparently he has a history of fairly bigoted behavior. Perhaps the Virginians among us can add to this?

Well, that's it from the home front, folks. I hope everyone is enjoying school/end of summerness. Call me anytime. Voices of TASPers are always a welcome diversion from not hearing the voices of TASPers.



P.S.- Manasi! Apparently Left Handed College Graduates make 15% more money than right handed college graduates, BUT, get this, only the MEN. We, the left handed females of the world, are just average. Woe is me. And you. Because you all know how Manasi and I conform to expectations :-)