Neil Gaiman

As I write this now, it occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.

Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds’ eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas—abstract, invisible, gone once they’ve been spoken—and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.

Neil Gaiman

As I write this now, it occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.

Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds’ eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas—abstract, invisible, gone once they’ve been spoken—and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.

(no subject)

Why?

Why does Sir Kent feel the need to text me that OJ and Jer just won Intel?

(no subject)

Why?

Why does Sir Kent feel the need to text me that OJ and Jer just won Intel?

a love letter

Dear Calculus,

So it ends.

We both know that this is where the ten months we have spent together have been leading to, but still. During those ten months, I have learned a lot- I won't deny it. I learned how to integrate functions, how to get their derivatives, how to study- really study, not just try out a few problems just to see if you can still solve them- for math. How it feels to get an over-perfect on a math long test, how you should never forget the "+C" part of the integrated function or else, how to maintain a modicum of common sense even though you have absolutely no idea how a 256/15 popped up on your paper, how to laugh when you see a 4/25 score, in red ink, on your own paper instead of someone else's. I have learned a lot. Maybe I can even say that I am beginning to understand you, after all this time.

It had to end, if only because that is the way that life will always go, if only because if nothing did we would all be stuck doing STR for the rest of our lives. But maybe, if you had made yourself even just a little more comprehensible in the first place, it wouldn't have had to end like this.

a love letter

Dear Calculus,

So it ends.

We both know that this is where the ten months we have spent together have been leading to, but still. During those ten months, I have learned a lot- I won't deny it. I learned how to integrate functions, how to get their derivatives, how to study- really study, not just try out a few problems just to see if you can still solve them- for math. How it feels to get an over-perfect on a math long test, how you should never forget the "+C" part of the integrated function or else, how to maintain a modicum of common sense even though you have absolutely no idea how a 256/15 popped up on your paper, how to laugh when you see a 4/25 score, in red ink, on your own paper instead of someone else's. I have learned a lot. Maybe I can even say that I am beginning to understand you, after all this time.

It had to end, if only because that is the way that life will always go, if only because if nothing did we would all be stuck doing STR for the rest of our lives. But maybe, if you had made yourself even just a little more comprehensible in the first place, it wouldn't have had to end like this.