Today, was the day. You know, the one where you learn a valuable lesson from your senior project? Yeah, well today was my day to learn that oh so valuable lesson, and boy, did I learn it! But first, here's an inspirational quote:

" Oh, yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em."

                         -George Hansen.

Thank you Tony Stocks for making me watch Easy Rider, even if it was boring at times.

Actually I don't think that's very inspirational, but it popped into my head while I was walking to the office. Anyway, so today I interviewed a very nice girl named Ariadna, she had wavy hair, which is really unusual at FGHS, most girls have very straight, very long hair. And she was super cool, and we were midway through the interview when (like clockwork) the secretary barges into the library, comes up to our table and says:

"Are you Marina Alvarez?"

To my interviewee (Mind you, the secretary hasn't looked at me the entire time). To which my interviewee replies:

"No, I'm Ariadna."

The secretary slowly turns her face towards me. For a little she fixes me with her gaze, much as the eye of Sauron fixed Frodo with its gaze in The Fellowship of The Ring when he is in The Prancing Pony, and the ring "accidentally" slips onto his finger, and suddenly he is invisible and slipping through this black animated fog, and suddenly it's just him, and the red, pulsing, eye and a creepy voice whispering "I see you" (which is funny because it's a big eye talking, and it kind of sounds like a pun [ok, maybe only Mr. D would find that funny]), or like when Frodo's on Mt. Doom in The Return of  the King, and he and Sam are crawling up the face of the great peak, and suddenly the eye spots them, and they fear that all is lost (You know, I've been reading The Taking by Dean Koontz during my bus rides, and some of his comparisons are pretty ridiculous when taken out of context, though he's not a terrible writer, for example "regarding her work, Molly remained a Puritan, finding virtue in self-flagellation").

Anyway, after the secretary glared at me. She stalked off, and I continued with my interview.

I talked to the secretary 20 minutes after that, and she was all, I'd like you to run people by me. Why this insistence? I mean, I can understand her being concerned about my last interview but Ariadna makes the school look fabulous. She's a valedictorian! Other than that though the secretary didn't seem to upset about it, after I apologized and explained that Ariadna's parent's only had one break during the day and they don't speak english. I forgot to mention that it was crunch time and I had to get all my interviews in by the end of the week, so I didn't have time to wait around while she slowly went through my list.

Unbeknownst to me, the secretary called the paper after we talked and told them that both she and Jon O'Neill are very unhappy with us. Unhappy enough to forbid me from going on campus, (you know, kind of like what happened to that one girl from St. Mary's). So, Christian called and I had to run back inside and cancel my last two interviews which wasn't too easy. I found Jaimez right away but I could not locate Marina Alvarez, so I snuck into the counseling office, and talked to a woman there that I've befriended (her son wants to go to Catlin Gabel so we've bonded over that). And she said that she'd call Marina and tell her whatsup, which was very nice of her. Anyway, we talked about Catlin Gabel for a bit, and I told her it was an awesome place, and that her son would definitely fit in here, which is all true. And then I fled the campus on my noble Schwinn.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention what the oh-so-valuable lesson was: People are going to get sensitive when you're investigating things, and you can either try to please them and keep your contacts, or you can run your story.