I disagree that you shouldn't test drive cars before you buy them. You should absolutely go in and test drive, but you should leave your payment method at home so that you can't be pressured into making a commitment on the spot.

This comment makes me so happy because I wouldn't be able to do that kind of job, either. I can barely keep it together in an introductory chem lab; there's no way in hell I could ever manage to work with anything truly dangerous. It's nice not to feel alone. :)

Vg jnf yvxr fur jnf qrnq, ur ernyvmrq jvgu n fuhqqre. Yvxr fur jnf qrnq, naq fbzrubj oebhtug onpx gb yvsr.

AB V'Z FPERNZVAT V ARIRE ABGVPRQ GUVF

"Briar, it's got leaves, it's yours"

"Until sunrise, he's your son"

Sound familiar to anyone?

Sorry I missed out on Tris's book; I had a really busy semester. Hopefully I can weigh in more on Daja's book. Probably won't be around much for Briar's, though, 'cause I didn't like that one quite as much. For now, though, it's good to be back!

Okay see this just makes you sound even more adorable. You keep being you! It sounds like you're doing a great job. :)

Why are you apologizing? Your sound effects sound adorable :)

Oh, certainly, I agree! I mentioned in my second paragraph that it would've been great for one of the teachers to say something along those lines. I actually really like your premise. It would provide an interesting challenge to have her have to learn to discern between voices on the wind and voices in her mind (look, it's a visual rhyme!). I just think it's very understandable that Tris was so freaked out, and and I guess since this section featured only her perspective on mental illness, that's what I focused on. But you're right; it would have been really wonderful if one of the teachers had said that to her. It might have even made my own mental illness seem less scary to me, since I think I read these books before my therapist said anything.

Hmm. I understand wanting mental illness to be treated with more nuance -- it does seem to be a bit of a weakness in most Tamora Pierce books -- but I think it's very realistic for Tris to be so terrified of the idea of having one. I first found out I had depression when I was somewhere around her age, and it terrified me. I completely flipped out on my therapist at the time when she brought it up, and it took me years to come to terms with the idea. I didn't want to be "broken"; I didn't want there to be something truly, honestly "wrong" with me in such a big way. Now that I'm older, I understand that it's just a word for something that would've been a part of me anyway, whether I labeled it or not, but as a kid being confronted with this huge idea for the first time? I was every bit as scared as Tris. And depression is considered relatively "normal" compared to hearing voices in your head. That's got to be pretty terrifying for an eleven-year-old kid who doesn't understand what's happening to her, particularly in a culture that might not even have a word for those things apart from "crazy."

But at the same time, it might've been nice for one of the adults to tell her that even if the voices had been all in her head, they would've helped her learn to deal with it somehow. I don't know what's generally done about that apart from medication they probably wouldn't have in this world, but y'know. I've never understood why the voices thing is always portrayed as so terrifying; surely the mere fact that you hear them isn't enough to guarantee you'll do everything they say no matter what, right?

That would be an excellent question for my physics professor. I don't think I actually wrote that one down, as it's been completely irrelevant to every problem we've done. I might have even misheard him.

I've been studying electromagnetism all day today, and the bit with drawing the gold wire made me start thinking about the effect this process would have on the resistance of the wire. Unfortunately, I came up short when I realized I'd only be able to work it out if we assumed the density of the wire remained constant throughout the process, which (according to my physics professor) it wouldn't, necessarily. Ah well.

This is what happens to your brain when you take physics btw. Run away! Run awaaaaay!

“Only the smith was visible, her body outlined” Her body. HER body!!! I shouldn't be surprised to see these things in the narrative but it's just so different from what you normally see, especially in fantasy.

When I was younger, I thought this business of wearing the same color clothes for months on end after losing someone sounded tedious. Now that I've lost someone, though, I kind of wish that was a thing in our culture. I think part of the reason I keep dwelling on my brother's death is that I felt like I was expected to move on so fast. Just a couple of weeks, and then suddenly it was business as usual. Nobody had time for my grief anymore; I doubt most people outside my family even remembered what we had lost. I can pinpoint a few who definitely did: my band teacher, my AP Gov teacher, my AP English teacher... They did things like tell the other kids it was my birthday or give me good grades I hadn't earned that quarter. I used to stay and talk to my English teacher twenty minutes into my lunch period every day; they were usually just starting to close up the lunch line by the time I came down. She understood me better than my peers.

I remember feeling like I had to hide what I was going through because no one would want to be around me if I didn't. I could remember so clearly what it was like to be one of them, not really knowing what death was or what it did to people, and I couldn't be angry because I hadn't wanted to deal with those kinds of things, either. I hadn't known how. I had felt as uncomfortable and afraid as I knew they would. But maybe if we had more ways of showing grief in our culture, it would be more clear to all of us that it's everywhere. If we could walk down the street and see exactly who is grieving, who has lost someone recently, instead of just knowing abstractly that these things happen, maybe more people would be comfortable dealing with these things. Maybe if we still did the whole mourning period thing, mourners wouldn't have to feel as alone as I did.

Jvyy bs gur Rzcerff vf tbvat gb or RIRELGUVAT gb Znex, V'z pnyyvat vg evtug abj.