nawl

Kucinich came to speak on campus on Friday. I wish I had had my camera, but I didn't see the posters until I was walking to class. To set the scene: I walk down to lower Sproul, there are drummers and people doing capoeira on one side, a crowd of people around the stage with signs, a series of Berkeley-esque performers on stage. Among the pre-speech entertainment was a white guy who rapped about Iraq and Bush and a lot of other things that I couldn't quite make out. My favorite line of his: "Cuz Kucinich's good like a can of spinach..." and after the speech "Why is he good for hip-hop? Because his first two initials are DJ!"

The actual speech was pretty fun. One of the campaign people pointed out the painted bus they were touring in that they said ran on bio-diesel. He was definitely on home territory: "I want you to say what this war is about in one word" "Oil!" "Louder!" "Oil!" "They can't hear you across the bay!" "Oil!" and so on. Promises to withdraw from the WTO and NAFTA, troops out of Iraq immediately, to sign all the international treaties that the US has been ignoring, repeal the tax cuts on the rich, universal health care for all, and so on. Threats that this sort of constant war can't continue without reinstating the draft. After the speech there was a "question and answer" session which mainly consisted of people from the audience giving a long rant about why they liked Kucinich or how they felt about some subject or another, and Kucinich responding with a discussion of his policy on whatever topic was closest to what the audience member seemed to be talking about. "I'm a single mother on welfare trying to get through school... I performed a spoken-word piece at your rally in North Carolina... you're the only candidate who really stands up for what people like me are concerned about..." (and so on without a mike for quite a long time) and Kucinich replies "The question is about welfare reform..." Another guy from the audience ranted for quite a long time about how the Israeli army should be destroyed, and Kucinich actually responded with something along the lines that the terms of peace should not be decided before they're worked out between the two sides, and that one side shouldn't be singled out for punishment. The guy from the audience stomped away, looking displeased.

I agree with most people that Kucinich probably shouldn't be president, but I'm almost tempted to vote for him in the primary just to show more support for the left.

Later in the afternoon, I got asked out by an entirely random person on the street. I was walking past north gate, and this guy takes off his headphones and says "Hey, I've seen you around campus a lot," and we exchange names, and he continues, "Would you like to get lunch sometime?" To which I respond, "Like a date?" "Yes." "Um, I have a boyfriend." "Too bad." And continued attempts at small talk result in nothing, since apparently he was only interested in a date. Well, at least he was up-front about what he was looking for.

I ditched the second half of linguistics lecture to go listen to a talk on "commutative and non-commutative polynomial identity testing" (I think that was the title) with a bunch of theory grad students. I think I managed to understand what was going on up until some details of the proof, but didn't feel too bad about it since a significant portion of the room also seemed confused and was pestering the guy giving the talk with questions. And since the talk was about polynomials and ended up involving stuff about fields and matrices, I felt totally vindicated for taking all these algebra classes.

Afterwards I ran across campus to Raleigh's to catch the end of Stammtisch, and accidentally stumbled into a birthday party for someone I have never met populated by a significant number of people I knew. Kevin and I had dinner at the Blue Nile. Afterwards, we waited to pay as the woman at the cashier acted super-nice to a family who was leaving, and chatted all familiarly with them, and they gave her a chocolate heart that she sounded so happy to accept. As soon as they were gone, she turned around and offered it to us, saying she didn't like sweet things. I took it, but decided that it needed to be passed on.

Later on we went to a very nice gathering at the alexf place of residence, which featured hoserchat projected onto the wall. This later changed to alexf's email and then the web page of a guy who later showed up, rather bewildered to see his site being projected large-scale on the wall. Kevin fell asleep almost immediately, I gave the chocolate heart to Karen, and enjoyed many retellings of in-jokes.

I woke up at 7 am and noticed that the sky was full of fluffy pink clouds. I caught it after its prime, but here you go: