ANOTHER GIRL, November 24, 1967

[UNIT: CONICS]

I didn’t expect to be so welcomed and taken care of in a new place, especially by strangers. I did what I came here to do. I jumped ship from Liverpool to America to see the man who abandoned my mother and I when I was just a wee bun in the oven. I browsed for a Wesley Huber via army records in the archive at the library. As I said, it led me to a Princeton U address. I had it in my head that he was some kind of Einstein, and automatically assumed he was some big-shot ivy-league professor now, but that’s foolish of me. I see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. It turns out that he’s just a working stiff like meself. It was okay though. I told him how I felt growing up without a permanent father and he tells me how he’s grown into a man without knowing he’s had a neglected son. I threw a couple of impulse insults at him, blaming him for being alone, but generally I knew I still loved him. Why did I come all the way here to do just that? Merely to let us know that both of us exist.

In no particular rush to go back to shipyard work and English pubs, I stuck around for a while. Like I mentioned, the hospitality and newfound warmth had to come from somewhere. His name was Max Carrigan. He looked pretty clean cut, but who knows, he could’ve murdered his granny with a hammer. We were cruising around the roads for a bit before we picked up his sister. I was well aware I had Molly in Liverpool, but there was just something about her— about Lucy. She was as radiant as a diamond with her sky blue eyes. They invited me over as a humbled guest for Thanksgiving, a holiday we Brits don’t have back home. It was sort of like a new life, it was. It was very different and rich with family members who spent their time passing the stuffing from one end of a table to another. The Carrigans argued about politics and education, but most importantly they made a huge debacle in regards to Max’s current status at Princeton. As they predicted, he was just getting by, having fun playing golf around campus and so on. They pestered him with questions complaining about tuition fees and what he intends to do for the rest of his life. Typically Max was annoyed and in his defence asked, "Why is it always about what will I do? Why isn’t the issue who I am? It’s not what you do that defines who you are but rather who you are that defines what you do."

Honestly, I myself have never had to ask these questions before and then they call upon me. The only reaction I get is intensified silence. "Surely, it’s not what you do…but how you do it."
Since it’s just me and me mum, my education itself is rarely a topic of conversation. My only job was to make sure that food made it to the table.

Feeling intolerable about the Thanksgiving dinner, Max and Lucy took me bowling as a treat on them. Ten-pin to be precise. It wasn’t the most romantic place as it typically would be, but it was enough to realize I had fallen for someone new. Really, Molly I am remorseful for having it happen, but there was nothing I could do. Honestly, I Should’ve Known Better.

Since it was such a heated topic at the dinner table, Lucy teased me throughout the night and was curious whether or not the English education differed. I insisted that it wouldn’t make a difference, but I guess there was nothing that stopped Lucy from trying.

She spent a couple of minutes thinking of something to stump me with, as I did nothing else but watch her. That’s what people do, It’s Only Love.


I was told that the arrangement of the ten bowling pins formed a parabola. The division between the carpet and the wooden floor is the x-axis. The pins were placed in four rows where the number of pins in each row was equal to the number of the row. The central and only pin in the first row acted as the vertex that lied directly on the y-axis. The distance from the vertext to a focus point in the fourth row was 4. The focus point on the fourth row was situated at (0, 8). Lucy handed me paper and demanded an equation and the sketch of the graph. She found that the question was too easy so she told me to justify whether or not the parabola passed through the point (4, 5).

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She was satisfied with my answer, but then she challenged me to hit the pins that I spent so much time drawing on paper.




It was later that night that Max asked me to move with him to New York. But what was the rush? I was starting to like it here, especially with her here and all. I guess I made it boldly obvious that I had a thing for his little sister as he automatically became defensive.

MAX: She has a boyfriend, you know. He’s just stationed in the war right now. His name is Daniel.

It’s okay…I have a girlfriend. Her name was Molly.

Labels: DEV question, journal entry, Jude's Drafting Table