playcity23's blog

When momma and I stayed in Philly for Admitted Student Day in April, we were taken aback at how the banking district lived side-by-side with streets that almost looked like a ghetto. I told her I was feeling exceedingly pale and female. However by the end of our trip, we concluded that Philly is what it is and we appreciated it. This opinion has not changed. Whilst playing in it with Ellen and Samantha, I found myself looking for run-down establishments and homeless people near the Rodin Museum, as if the scene is incomplete without them. When we were messing around on the giant monopoly pieces near the municipal building, Sam commented on how the city hall does not fit in with the rest of Philly. I agree with her; its majestic white marble put the surrounding skyscrapers to shame. 

And yet, these observations support the thesis in my previous paper. Philly is a concentration of American culture. This means that the facets of Philly are not supposed to necessarily compliment each other, but only to coexist silently. For example, I told Ellen that I felt like we were in Paris whilst strolling down the parkway. As soon as we stepped off it onto the Free Library Green, we were back in ‘Murica. Not just anywhere in ‘Murica, but in Washington DC. Washington DC likes to use lots of pillars like the ones at the Free Library; methinks it makes the elites feel more powerful. 

Aaaaand I'm the last one to post. I knew there was something I forgot yesterday night. Sorry Anne. Hope my tardy two-cents still are relevant. 

We talked a little bit in class about why scientists are cutting open dead rats' brains to search for the neurological implications of play. I think Agatha said that we must take play for what it is, just relax and stop trying to analyze it to death. Respectfully, and as the daughter of two hardcore scientists, I disagree. Scientists are curious creatures. When an answer eludes them, they would gladly sacrifice their spleens in the effort to understand the unexplainable. That, in my experience, is their play. They derive pleasure from the chase, the puzzle. 

I think the most interesting part of Sunstein's article was the bias that interfered with a study on play. Even though trained professionals were interacting with the children, somehow their desire for the players to do better permeated into their actions and rendered a false-positive. I love how we are so enamoured with play. 

Geneva

If I’m going to tell you what my definition of what a city is, my personal style dictates that I use an original and slightly unconventional metaphor for it. This one was thought up today whilst I was burning calories in the pool. 

Imagine a bowl half-filled with water. 

Now imagine this bowl with blue food coloring diffused coloring in it. It’s a pretty shade of lavender. There is no obvious nucleus where the color leaks from because you’ve stirred the bowl to avoid this. 

Next, you carefully place the vial of food coloring into the bowl of water. Being only half-full, it bobs happily on the surface. Since you spilled a little on the vial itself before putting it in, the immediate water enveloping it is a darker shade of lavender. 

The bowl is the border of a country, the vial with the food coloring is the only city, and the water is everything in it. Granted, I can’t think of any country that only has one city in it, save for the Vatican but they don’t count for the purposes of this essay. 

Anne said that we must introduce ourselves, so I guess I'll do it here. My name is Tessa, and I'm almost nineteen years old. I have lived permanently in Geneva, Switzerland since 2004 (before Europe was Chicago). It's always been the plan for me to move back to attend college in the States. My avatar is, at face value, an overfed ginger tabby sprawled out on a pink blanket. Said overfed ginger is one of my cats. His name is Merlin. I swear we haven't been giving him more food than his brother, Rémy. Merlin just prefers the sedentary lifestyle. I chose him because I was known in high school as the Cat Whisperer. I could get any stray cat on campus to snuggle up and follow me around. I love my kitties so much, I wrote my application essay to Brown about my tabbies (didn't help me get in though). Merlin is my spirit animal. We genuinely enjoy each other's company and always seem to know when the other is in distress and act accordingly. 

I miss him a lot. I know this all sounds odd, like I don't enjoy human company. That is not the case. I love humans. Just on some days, I enjoy cats more.