The Impenetrable Ether
The Impenetrable Ether 1
Chapter 0. Where Charlene Discovers Who Has Been Leaving Her Nasty Blog Comments. 1
Chapter 1. Where Charlene Goes to School. 3
Charlene Takes The Bus 3
[] Charlene Goes For Sociology Class and is reminded to write a term paper due in two weeks time 5
Chapter 2. Where Jacen Does His Homework and Discovers Charlenes ITunes Library. 5
Maurius pisses off Jacen 5
[] Jacen recollects his decision to not take up a government scholarship. 5
[] Jacen looks up iTunes and discovers Charlenes library. He finds it strange that they both like Dante Allegris Miserere Mei, Deus, and that they have very similar tastes in music. A cappella, smooth jazz, Smetana, Prokofiev, Stravinsky. 5
Chapter 3. Where Charlene Does Her Homework and Discovers Jacens ITunes Library. 5
Charlene Sits in the Union South Courtyard and watches the world go by 6
Charlene looks up iTunes and discovers Jacens library. She finds it strange that they both like Dante Allegris Miserere Mei, Deus, and that they have very similar tastes in music. 8
Chapter 4. Where Charlene Gets an Upsetting Letter From Home. 8
Letter From Home 8
Charlene recollects the events leading up to her ending up in UIUC 9
Charlenes Tale of Woe with American Admissions Letters 12
Charlene Wrestles with decision to go home and buys a ticket online 12
Charlene Checks her email to see Jacens email for a rendezvous at the Cosmopolitan Club 12
Chapter 5. Where Charlene and Jacen Meet at Cosmopolitan Club. 12
Cosmopolitan Club, what is it? Pick a country. 12
Chapter 6. Where Jacen Struggles to Balance Girlwork, Schoolwork and Housework. 12
6.1 Mrs. Burnthorpe, Jacens Landlady, gets upset at late payment. 12
Chapter ??. Charlene Discovers She Has Multiple Personality Disorder 13

Chapter 0. Where Charlene Discovers Who Has Been Leaving Her Nasty Blog Comments.
Charlene Hartwell stirred at the first chords from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte emanating from her <Bose Wave radio. Her usually languid eyes flicked wide open as Anne-Sophie Mutter launched into her rendition of Der Hölle Rache. She was not a morning person, but today she sat up before the second line of the aria was finished, fully awake and tense with anticipation.

Was today going to be the day she was finally going to nab him?

She got up from her poster bed and irritably flicked the mouse attached to her Powerbook. The screen flickered to life and she was faced, fullscreened, in front of her blog. Half-tinged with anxiety, she scrolled through the comments left on her most recent blog post.

And there it was again, yet another one of those freaky comments, from that person who seemed to be everywhere she was:

“Of course you would complain about it. You always complain about everything. Especially since you got so piss-drunk last night at Joe’s, it was such a hoot! You know, your boobies really look like they need cosmetic surgery or something; your left cup always sags lower than your right one and it’s so goddamn noticeable!”

Charlene bit her hip and grimaced. She noted the time stamp: 2.49 a.m. Excitedly she scrolled through the list of recent IP addresses which had logged on in the last six hours or so since she checked it just before going to bed, trying to figure out who posted that dastardly comment. If Jacen had wrote it, he’s gonna have hell to pay today, she swore. That stalking freak is not going to get any slack from this girl.

And there it was on the blog log: 34.192.89.201, ward83-121.reshall.uiuc.edu. 2.48 a.m. That just had to be it.

In the frenzy of the moment she dialled 9-11 for campus police.

A gruff voice answered: “University campus police, Officer Stewart.”

“Officer Stewart, it’s Charlene. It’s about that crazy stalker who’s been leaving all those comments on my blog. I finally got an IP address for you.”

The voice on the phone perked up immediately. “Oh, that’s great! That evidence will be really useful when you decide to press charges.”

“No need, I think I know who he is. I just need your help looking up which dorm room that IP address comes from. If it is who I think it is, I think I can deal with it myself.”

“Are you sure? I…”

“Well, why don’t you tell me where this IP address is and I can decide if I turn out to be correct.”

“Erm, well, OK, I guess it wouldn’t hurt. What’s the code?”

“34.192.89.201, ward83-121.reshall.uiuc.edu. The sick freak left a message on my blog at 2.48 a.m.”

“Two in the morning, huh? Well, if this person is anywhere as messed up as you make him out to be, I’m not at all surprised. Midnight’s the best time of the night for night stalkers to seek prey. Anyway I’ll let you know when campus network security gets back to me.”

“Thanks, goodbye.”

Charlene sat down, breathing heavily. Forehead feverish with anticipation, she decided to take a shower. I’m gonna nail this bloke once and for all and shove all his fancy theories to his face with this, she thought. Cynics, bah. A whole bunch of pap as a thinly-veiled excuse for commiting felonies.

A few minutes later she came back from the communal shower and noticed a voice message left on a phone. Still wrapped in a towel and toting her shower caddy in her left hand, she hit the play button as she stood by the phone, transfixed with curiosity and jittery anticipation.

“Hi, is that Charlene? It’s Chuck Stewart from campus police. Regarding that IP address The Campus network office says that IP address belongs to a port in 942 Wardall. Give me a call back to let me know what you want to do next.”

In mute horror, Charlene dropped the handset and it thudded harshly on the throw rug. That couldn’t be possible, she thought. He couldn’t have gotten past the front security door without help.

Unless…

No, it couldn’t possibly be right…

Charlene sat down heavily on her bedside, weighted down by her sudden epiphany. I couldn’t have been more wrong, she thought to herself.

Chapter 1. Where Charlene Goes to School.
Charlene Takes The Bus
November 2, 2005 was a beautiful fall morning in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. Charlene Hartwell was on the 8:38 bus to campus from her apartment on Church and Grove. On the way, the bus stopped to pick up two dozen preschoolers at a park several blocks away from school. Guarded by an aloof graduate student and a matronly black lady, Charlene found herself wistfully nostalgic while listening to the melodic strains of J. S. Bachs Sleepers Wake cantata (BWV 140, she noted to herself, glancing momentarily at the display of her iPod). Her mind drifted back to her days when she was a young girl in Suffolk, England, where her parents enrolled her in St. Catherines Catholic kindergarten. She had very fuzzy memories of once being berated by a Sister for having brought a toy windmill into class and playing with it instead of learning that O stands for oranges, and ending up in a huge tug-of-war with the Sister (was it Sister Mary? Charlene wondered) to maintain possession of said windmill when Sister Mary tried to confiscate the toy. Several tearful struggles latter and successful attempts at avoiding several half-hearted attempts at a slap of the wrist, Charlene ended up victorious in the battle to keep her windmill at hand.

Charlene had always found windmills intriguing objects of fascination ever since that fateful day when she watched that Disney cartoon on TV way back when she could ever remember. Was she three or four back then? Charlene wasnt sure, but it was that one five-minute clip playing some strain of classical-sounding music while on screen, a frenetic Mickey Mouse was trying unsuccessfully to save a windmill caught in a thunderstorm from disintegration. Since then, she had turned her thoughts and fancies away from idle brainrot sessions in front of the boob tube (as they called it here in America sometimes, she noted wryly), but the memory of the unfortunate windmill stayed with her still. That was how she ended up in the University of Illinois majoring in renewable energy sources, and particularly in the technological and economic aspects of developing wind power. Being an engineering powerhouse situated in the middle of nothing but thousands of square miles of flat cornfield, and right in the tornado belt in the heart of North America, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign seemed a fitting place to devote four years of her time to the study of wind power.

The brief reverie was momentarily interrupted when the matron, in a casual, businesslike manner, lifted a toddler unceremoniously from the floor and plunked her right next to Charlene. Hi Ashlee, said Charlene smilinglyas she read the handwritten name tag pinned ever just-so meticulously above the toddlers left breast. Ashlee didnt respond but just kept on staring at her. Charlene didnt care too much for young children, particularly those of the spoilt, screaming variety, but Ashlee with her wide, innocent eyes, brimming with curiosity and shimmering with wonder, was quite the cherubim of a child.

Charlene allowed herself to divert her attention yet again from her iPod, which was vainly trying to get her attention back on track with Yo-yo Ma playing Laß mein Herz die Münzen sein (BWV 163), and daydream about what Ashlee would grow up to be. Did she also share her love for windmills, Charlene wondered, and did she share the same revelry in falling fall foliage, with the golden leaves of dogwood and the crimson fires of maple trees that reminded her so much of the English countryside around Suffolk? What would she grow up to be like in the future? Children were such intriguing creatures, for who would know what the future held in store? They were just like cute cotton-candy clouds, in the prime of youthful innocence. Yes, they would soon develop into nimbuses and run their course through the rain of adolescence. But who knows what kinds of rainbows would be waiting around that corner, bursting forth from the dormant silver lining underwriting the storms of raging hormones, acne and prepubescent crushes?
Springfield and Wright, announced the bus driver over the intercom. Charlenes daydream disappeared into the ethereal stream of her subconscious as she motioned to Ashlee that she wanted to get off. The matron stirred into action and tried to protect Ashlee as Charlene walked in front of her seat. It really wasnt necessary, thought Charlene, Ashlees tiny legs barely extended beyond the seat itself despite her constant fidgeting. And like Id be mean enough to do something evil to her. But I guess it doesnt hurt to be prepared for any eventuality.
Charlene reached her station and disembarked to the tune of Air on a G String. But the bus ride, for Ashlee, had just barely begun.
[] Charlene Goes For Sociology Class and is reminded to write a term paper due in two weeks time

Chapter 2. Where Jacen Does His Homework and Discovers Charlenes ITunes Library.


The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water
John W. Gardner, Science News, 2 Mar 1974, p. 137.

Maurius pisses off Jacen
Its simple, Maurius Phan told Jacen Lee. Just substitute this equation into equation (7.45) from the textbook and use the result to transform the data.

Jacen remained unconvinced. I dont understand. Why use Parsevals Theorem? The function isnt even periodic!

Maurius stared at Jacen as if he had just been told that the world was flat. Because, he replied, slowly and superciliously, you get the answer! Why bother to think so much? I have better things to do with my time. If you dont want my help then dont waste my time, OK? He strutted off in a huff.

Jacen was somewhat taken aback at the curt reply. Here was a government scholar, supposedly one of the best and brightest from Singapore, telling him something that showed that he obviously didnt understand the premises of his solution. He expected better than someone who was on the national team for the International Physics Olympiad and boasted loudly of coming to the U of I to do theoretical physics. Condensed matter physics is number one, and thats what Im here to do, Maurius once lorded as he was asked why he picked the University for graduate school. What else is here thats worth anything?he continued dismissively.

Oh, not much else, Jacen thought sarcastically, just that the University is also well known around the world for its studies in educational psychology, neuroscience, chemistry, number theory, urban planning, agribiotechnology,computer science, materials science, the renowned Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and just about every discipline of engineering in existence. Just to name a few things. But he said nothing. Why even bother to challenge the conviction held by somany government scholars that non-scholars are just party animals who rip off their parents to lead the bohemian lifestyle in the Land of the Free, and oh by the way pick up a degree en route to the plane out of Willard Airport?

It was not by far the first time that he had felt disquieted after talking to a scholar. Jacen had kept a low profile on campus, particularly within the Singaporean community, but everyone who knew him would have sworn without a doubt that he was by far one of the most intelligentpersons they had ever met. Yet when pressed for more details, nobody would elaborate but make some noncommittal remark about his weirdness. Jacen thought he knew why they were unable to be more specific. Jacen was, quite simply put, a deep thinker, and easily the most philosophically inclined Singaporean on campus. It was almost as if nothing had changed in the course of two millennia of history, Jacen thought wryly. Ever since the ancient days where Socrates was sentenced to death by hemlock for his blasphemous teachings, people throughout history who questioned too much were at best ignored, or at worst imprisoned and summarily executed à la Socrates. It seemed that he was fated to follow in the footsteps of such foolhardy people.

One of Jacens pet peeves about Singaporeans, at the risk of stereotyping and overgeneralizing, was that they tended to be just so damn superficial about everything and nothing in particular. Crass materialism such as chasing after the five Cs was simply unsatisfying as a reason to live, yet so many Singaporeans seemed to yearn for nothing else. Jacen once looked around his peers and was struck by the uncanny similarities in peoples life decisions, especially those regarded as the best and brightest. The lives of so many such top students was practically formulaic: go to a top five junior college, find a pretty girlfriend (or boyfriend, depending on said hypothetical students gender and sexual preference), apply and get a government scholarship, go study engineering or life sciences at a prestigious university in the United Kingdom or the United States, come back after collecting as many academic accolades as possible, start a cushy job in the civil service, get married and have children, send them only to the very best schools to maximize their future chances of success, and in so doing perpetuate the cycle. Jacen found this reduction of the human condition to a textbook-perfect life cycle to be nothing less than absolutely terrifying.

[] Jacen recollects his decision to not take up a government scholarship.

Jacen Lee was once disappointed at being declined a government scholarship. As one of the better students of his junior college, everyone expected him

[] Jacen looks up iTunes and discovers Charlenes library. He finds it strange that they both like Dante Allegris Miserere Mei, Deus, and that they have very similar tastes in music. A cappella, smooth jazz, Smetana, Prokofiev, Stravinsky.
[] Jacen decides to take the night off after doing homework and getting all worked up. He buys a ticket for Die Zauberflöte at Krannert for Thursday night

Chapter 3. Where Charlene Does Her Homework and Discovers Jacens ITunes Library.
Charlene Sits in the Union South Courtyard and watches the world go by
After her morning class, Charlene walked out of the Union basement food court after an uneventful lunch, and paused by a portrait on the campus Union wall where an elderly gentleman on the Board of Trustees seemed to have a particularly brilliant specimen of Reflective Forehead. Sheenjoyed staring at portraits in galleries and on walls, even if nobody else seemed to care too much to see them. Wondering how those people were like, if they were still alike, and what they were like as college students like she herself provided frequent vacant interludes between class and lunch.

Which reminded her: she had to start writing her term paper on A Comparative study of Examination Cultures in Modern Societies. Sociology was never her forte, but in the opportunity to look at the influence ofmodern educational infrastructure on present-day society was something she felt like she couldnt pass up. She resumed her steps in the middle of a Gregorian Antiphon, her flat-soled shoes clicking resonantly through the east corridor of the Union.

Charlene paused mid-burst in the creative pulse of her paper writing as her iPod whirred into action and served up the College of Trinity Choirs rendition of Allegris Miserere Mei, Deus. She lifted her head, feeling for the first time the warm sensation of sunbeams splaying down on her classic Hellenic golden tresses, and turned the volume down on her iPod momentarily as she briefly absorbed the sound of the burgeoning human flows on the Main Quad. She could just barely make out, above the haunting melody of Miserere and the increased chatter all around her, that the carillon of Altgeld Hall was announcing the time to be a quarter to two.

This was perfect people-gazing weather, mused Charlene, and the perfect mood to do it in: a bright, sunny afternoon, with gold and carmine leaves basking in the light while maintaining a perfectly decent shade temperature of eighteen degrees. (Celsius, of course. Charlene found it an affront to her sensibilities that the United States, so advanced in many respects, still decided to use the antiquated Imperial system. Charlene found amusement in the historical irony that despite the American Revolutionary War and all the bluster about American ingenuity in the following centuries, Americans were still clinging to artifacts of their English legacy, even as the English decided that, for once, the French really did have the right idea in the SystemèInternational, which was living up to its name everywhere except in the United States. Charlene sighed as she did the mental calculation to arrive at sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit. When in America, do as the American do, she reminded herself. Sixty-five degrees, then, even though that sounded more like a soothing soak in a Jacuzzi than perfect autumn weather.)

The ten-minute intersessions between classes at the University of Illinois end on the hour and provide rich opportunities to people-watch on the main Quad. Charlene surveyed the streams of human traffic. There was a cluster of freshmen scurrying from Altgeld Hall to the Noyes Laboratory of Chemistry, participating in the time-honored ceremony of chanting to themselves No, yes, no, yes, no, yes, …as they ascended the flights of steps up the historic monument. Rumor had it, as generations of I-Guides told prospective freshmen on campus tours, that part of the magic of Noyes was to split his name into the binary choices of affirmative and negative and alternate between them up the steps in order to decide, by the time they reached the top, whether or not they should go for lecture that day. I bet they dont do it on test days, mused Charlene wryly. And here was a gaggle of Xi Zeta sorority girls coming out of the English building and walking up the steps to the Unions South lounge. (So-whore-ities, she remembered her labmate Jason once snort derisively, when she asked him one day about the Greek system of fraternities and sororities. The Illinois of today turned out to boast the most number of Hellenic chapters of any American university. The most airheaded of all? The Triple Betas,according to Jason. He once did the most comedic imitation of a vacuous sowhority girl picking up the phone and responding in that characteristic faux bubbly, bimbotic voice: Beta, beta, beta, may I help-ya, help-ya, help-ya?)

Charlene looked wistfully at a bunch of people in T-shirts and shorts as they installed tightropes between several trees on the Quad. What is it about American tertiary education, she wondered, that allows such a miraculous transformation in the quality of the minds that went into it? She knew from talking with a bunch of newly-found American friends, and by reading in her own spare time that high schools in America can be vastly different in terms of the quality of the students, not so much in that they were intrinsically motivated or otherwise, but in that there was a great disparity between various school districts in terms of the available resources to students. Some districts were served by tiny schools whose entire K-12 enrolment would only number to a hundred or so, and werestaffed by a mere handful of students. In stark contrast were famous schools such as the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in the Chicago area, or the Peter Stuyvesant public school in New York City, where armies of teachers wielding doctorates ineducational methodology, if not PhDs in their subject areas of expertise, taught in nearly a hundred classes over all four high-school grades. Many students could even set up extra time after school to pursue various academic interests ranging from teamingup with a nearby liberal arts college to build their own chemical spectrometers to writing and staging an entire musical production at a community theater. Yet somehow all the students, be they from such reputable schools or from the little schoolhouse on the prairie in Podunk, Iowa, somehow get thrown into a gigantic egalitarian machine that turns them all into a massive population of more-or-less comparable qualifications when they graduate.

The miracle, thought Charlene, as she watched boisterous sophomores try their skills on the tightrope, must lie in the premises and effectiveness of their university education. Be they the world-famous Ivy League schools, the gargantuan Big Ten schools of the Midwest, or the numerous small liberal arts colleges scattered from coast to coast, there has to be some common factor that binds them all together to perform this collective demographic wonder. Was it the sheer diversity and flexibility of the academic course structure in these universities?

More fodder for my paper, more things to look up and ponder over, Charlene mused, her expert pianists fingers floating smoothly over her Powerbooks keyboard, as she performed her sonata of words.
Charlene looks up iTunes and discovers Jacens library. She finds it strange that they both like Dante Allegris Miserere Mei, Deus, and that they have very similar tastes in music.

Chapter 4. Where Charlene Gets an Upsetting Letter From Home.
Letter From Home
Charlene flung the rest of her mail on her bed and sat down on the mattressheavily in impatience as her hands clutched her mothers lattest missive to her from home:

38 Several Road
Saxtead Green
Suffolk, UK

November 8, 2005

Dearest daughter

I quite hope that these recent days as a university student have proven to be, at the very least, quite enlightening, if not the least entertaining. From what Ive heard, Champagne, Illinois does not quite offer the comforts of a proper collegiate city, such as those we have here in Great Britain. You really must tell me if you cant find your favorite Bovril beef bouillon over there; I really dont think the Americans have quite forgiven us for our mad cow scare of the previous decade, or should I say, the previous millennium.

Surely you remember your great-uncle Weatherby Croswell, whom if you recall the last time I pointed him out on our family tree, was descended directly from the long line of Bixtons who served as butlers in nearby Framlington Castle since the late 17th century or so, where the Norfolk family took up residence after King Edward II bequeathed the castle upon them in 1635. Hes been recently discharged and allow to go home as a convalescent after his triple-bypass surgery. Hes celebrating his eightieth birthday in late January and your father and I were hoping that we could visit him in Brampton as a family. You know how he doted on you as a little child. What better birthday present than to have his favourite grand-niece show up for his big day! Who knows, dear, that might be able to speed up his recovery.

Do let us know the return date of your flight home, so that Mr. Grimes can make the necessary arrangements to pick you up.

Lovingly yours

Amanda Rayleigh-Hartwell

Charlene recollects the events leading up to her ending up in UIUC
Mother still cant figure out how to spell Champaign correctly, winced Charlene. I really should point out champaign in the dictionary. Its a legitimate word! I hope that will honestly stop her incessant whining about my choice to not go to Cambridge. Even despite her huge and famous row with Mother late last year, which family and relatives near and far witnessed first hand during her great-aunt Magdalene Croswells Golden Anniversary last October, where Charlene nearly came to blows with her mother over her application forms for universities in the United States.

And it had started all too innocently, too, with Great-aunt Magdalene asking her grand-niece about her university plans over a pre-prandial spot of tea in the drawing-room. Back then, Charlene had her sights on Harvard and Princeton, and told her that she was working on her application essays in her guest-room on the third floor. Things turned ugly when Amanda overheard her saying so, and uttered her disapproval.

For heavens sakes, daughter, one of the worlds best universities is but an hour away by motorcar. Why on earth do you wish to jettison yourself halfway around the world to be in a foreign land, givingup friends and family to party your time away at some frivolous American campus?

First of all, mother, I am most certainly not going to be partying my time away at some frivolous American campus, to use your distasteful choice of words. Judging by the quality and quantity of scientific research and technological innovation, Americans apparently do learn something in school before they graduate. Second, the United States is definitely the place to major in science or engineering in todays world. Much of the twentieth century was invented there.

I dont agree at all, Charlene dear. Cambridge has such a wonderful history and tradition of achievement in science. Why, didnt just about every famous English scientist of the eighteenth and nineteenth century read science there?

Charlene winced at that not-too-subtle correction to her choice of American idiom, which naturally made her preference of education obvious to any attentive listener. No, mother, actually George Green was an autodidact before he enrolled as an undergraduate at the age of forty. But this kind of argument doesnt prove my point, whichis that tradition is not everything. Innovation is really the buzzword of our modern era, mother, not tradition. I really cannot see how a society such as ours, which places such a strong emphasis on traditions, customs and other such historical baggage can compare with other societies who have learnt to look forward.

Historical baggage, indeed! Our ancestors would have flogged you for being so brazen. Being English is, if nothing else, a recollection of our great and noble traditions. They have kept English civilization alive and thriving since the beginning of recorded history.

And where is that civilization now, Mother? The British Empire is so twentieth century. Why cant you see that the engine driving the world forward no longer flies the flag of the Union Jack, but that of the Stars and Stripes?

A flag who gave the world Coke, McDonalds and Hollywood films. How creative.

Yes, and the aeroplane and Internet. Mother, stop being an idiotic ostrich. Charlene could not resist snapping back at her mothers sarcasm-loaded invective, which was beginning to bordering somewhat on the histrionic.

How dare you talk back to your mother like that! Look at what your precious United States has given you, a foul mouth and a healthy disrespect for your elders. Ostrich in the sand? Well, for your information, Ms. Daughter of an ostrich, you are explicitly forbidden to apply to any university in the U.S. I will not endorse anything but the UCAS form.

How dare you, mother! This is my life and my choice of education! I shall go wherever I like!

And its my money in your university fund. You will go to Cambridge or Oxford, and thats my last word.

Well, the last word is not yours to speak, mother.

Wait till I tell your father about your insolence. Brutus!The last dregs of her self-composure finally consumed in rage, Amanda stomped out of the drawing room, barging through the little clot of relations who had stood in the doorway, agape at the ensuing brawl.

Charlene fumed inwardly at the mere recollection of that painful episode. Charlene had also caved in after struggling to maintain her composure during her confrontation with her mother, who throughout her life had been prone to histrionics and managedhere life with more than a flair for the dramatic. Blinded by her own tears, Charlene remembered little after that apart from wandering aimlessly from room to room, and somehow ending up on Great-Uncle Weatherbys knee, getting her eyes petted gently with a lacy handkerchief. (Who uses hankies nowadays? thought Charlene.)

Things got better for Charlene after she had returned to her room after dinner (Be happy for Great-Uncle Weatherby and Grand-Aunt Magdalene, coaxed Aunt Agatha) and found her application envelopes bound for Harvard and Princeton torn into pieces on her study table. She had brought down the pieces to the spacious living-room where the grown-ups were and confronted her mother with evidence of her hysterics. Amanda of course denied any wrongdoing but to the relatives gathered therein, the interpretation of Charlenes evidence was rather self-evident.

When Charlene and her mother were about to leave for home to Saxtead Green, Great-Aunt Magdalene later pressed an envelope with a few hundred quid into Charlenes hands, whispering: Go ahead and apply anyway. Great-Uncle and I insist on supporting you. She waved away Charlenes apologies for ruining her anniversary celebrations. Inspired, Charlene tolerated the unnaturally quiet drive home with her mother.

A few days later, Amanda brought up the subject of university applications again, wanting to look over her applications to Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College and Warwick, Charlene was only all too happy to tell her, nonchalantly, that the envelope containing the UCAS forms, application essays school report cards, and written testimonials from her professors at St. Felixs, had already been torn up. Amanda was naturally quite livid to so have seen her darling child defy her wishes in such a ground-shattering act of defiance, and she sent Charlene to Coventry for her disobedience, over the Brutus protestations. Charlene sometimes wished she really could have just booked a hotel in the real Coventry, not too far away, while her mother fumed that her daughter would refuse her dearest wish to have her darling child graduate from Cambridge or even Oxford. Ironically, Charlene got a perfect A level certificate when the results were later announced later, with distinctions across the board in English, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics, prompting yet more grumbling from the maternal branch of the family even while the paternal branch was bursting with pride at his daughters magnificent achievements.

[] Charlenes Tale of Woe with American Admissions Letters

[] Charlene Wrestles with decision to go home and buys a ticket online
But back to this letter, thought Charlene, shaking herself out of her brief reverie.
Tickets are so much more expensive in America than in Europe, where discount airlines have ruled the skies since they were first introduced.

[] Charlene buys a ticket for Die Zauberflöte at Krannert for Thursday night
Chapter 5. A Night at the Opera
[] Describe the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Tryon Festival Theater.
[] Charlene and Jacen both show up separately at the wine tasting at five. They notice each other, but only casually
[] Charlene and Jacen go for the pre-show Libretto. Jacen asks an intelligent question which catches Charlenes eye. They speak momentarily before going into the show
[] During the show, Jacen is unusually distracted and flustered, and keeps wondering where Charlene is seated. He asks his usher friend for directions during intermission and ends up being distracted, almost missing the famous aria Der Hölle Rache
[] Charlene and Jacen go for coffee at Espresso Royale Café and talk the night away about everything and nothing. Opera, music, Ensemble William Byrds performance of Allegris Miserere, iTunes, iPods (they both bought a video iPod),
[] Jacen walks Charlene home and gets a goodnight kiss
Chapter 6. Where Charlene and Jacen get to know each other a little better during Thanksgiving Break.
[] Jacen goes on a date with Charlene to a Jazz Bar and gets laid.
Charlene and Jacen meet each other by discovering each others iTunes library. They find out that they know each other by meeting in the Cosmopolitan Club weekly coffee hour and somehow end up discussing Allegris Miserere Mei, Deus. They discover that they both checked out the same copy of EnsembleWilliam Byrds performance of Allegris Miserere as ornamented and transcribed by Bai.Both were impressed by the solo that floats above the rest of the sound, buttressed by the harmonies of the main choir. They go out to a jazz bar. Charlene gets drunk and Jacen gets some action. Jacen wonders if all ang moh girls are so easy.
[] Jacen and Charlene take the Amtrak to Chicago
[] John Hancock Skydeck bar
[] Night cruise and Saturday night fireworks from Navy Pier
[] They check into a room at the Best Western opposite Congress Avenue and Buckingham fountain.
[] Jacen gets laid.

Chapter 7. Where Jacen Struggles to Balance Girlwork, Schoolwork and Housework.
[]The week after thanksgiving break is very hectic. Jacen forgets to pay rent and neglects to pick up his apartment. The apartment begins to stink and Mrs. Burnthorpe, Jacens Landlady, gets upset at late payment.

Mrs. Burnthorpe was worried. For the second month in a row, Jacen had forgotten to pay his rent. If it were any old student, Mrs. Burnthorpe would have felt no restraint in banging on doors demanding payment and threatening to post eviction notices. But she was a discriminating landlady and screened all her prospective tenants meticulously for their academic records.

Stream of consciousness: this is really, really sketchy.

I dont agree with your methods of picking tenants, argued Jacen. What should grades have anything to do with a persons penchance for cleanliness? This is discrimination of a far more nefarious sort than just simply looking at skin color or gender.

Mrs. Burnthorpe muses about the bad old times before Rosa Parks

Upon hearing this, Mrs. Burnthorpe suddenly had a flashback to her teenage years, before the emancipating power of Rosa Parks historic act of civic disobedience in Montgomery, Ala. Get up

Fast forward three decades, and here she was in Urbana, Illinois with her husband and three children, working odds and ends in a real estate agency to make ends meet and feed her children.

But to Jacen, she merely blurted out, lapsing into the vernacular that she thought she had forgotten a generation ago: If you dont like staying here, you can go move your ass somewhere else. I dont want to put up wit no nonsense no more and I wanna see my rent check tomorrow or else theres gonna be hell to pay! And she stormed off to her apartment to pour herself a glass of gin and tonic. God knows she deserved it.

Charlene types her essay
In Japan, examinations form an integral part of the modern childs sociological landscape, typed Charlene. Even for pre-school, the best schools with the most illustrious alumni charged exorbitant fees for admission and administered their own tests for …

Chapter ??. Charlene Discovers She Has Multiple Personality Disorder

It all made sense now, Charlene thought. The fainting spells, the lack of

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