Welcome to my page!

A couple years ago, when I worked at an elementary school in New Hampshire, I was teasing one of the kids on the playground by pretending I didn't see her on the swing. I acted like I was going to sit on her and flatten her, because seven-year-olds find that sort of thing hilarious. I pretended to sit on "my surprisingly cushy swing" as she giggled and shrieked, and then, amazed that she was not immediately crushed, she exclaimed "you're so light!"

"Well of course," I answered. "I'm filled with helium. What did you expect?"

She frowned disapprovingly at me, and you could see the wheels turning in her first-grade brain as she sought to catch me in my lie.

"If you're filled with helium, how come you don't float away?" Touché, little kid. 

"I'm also filled with pudding. It keeps me from floating like a balloon, and makes me all squishy."

She thought about that for a minute... and then licked my arm.

"Ewww! What'd you do THAT for?" I yelped, wiping the toxic child-slime off my arm.

"I wanted to know what flavor of pudding."

I'm fairly certain there must be more than helium and pudding, so I've set off for the Peace Corps, to find out what I'm really made of. Probably just the standard fragile bones in a meat-suit, but maybe we'll all be surprised and there will be something worth writing about in there too. In the mean-time, if you're reading this, be prepared for the musings of a slightly terrified grad student with no clue what she's doing, and only a vague idea where she is.