Night, Beverly.

Rio (RIO!), he's quite a famous Israeli writer. He's pretty young, but quite influential - wrote in a very "thin" langauge, mostly very short stories that seem simple (often told from the point of view of kids), mostly with a punch in the end (emotional one, I mean, but sometimes also a 'twist'). Lots of young writers try to adapt his use of language (and he's quite young, himself, still). When he's good, he's excellent.

(This was written by Nilly, not her keyboard. The keyboard can't read, of course! Nilly had to check the results of a simulation, and then who is still awake at that hour).

timelies.

I had to share this cake with people. Doesn't it look real?

Description: First, I made a regular box cake. Then I ripped chunks of it out to look like it had been partially eaten.

Then, I covered the remainder of the cake in icing and decorated it all boring-like. I pinched the icing at the edges to look bitten.

I made the rats out of brownies sculpted in the shape of rats. Then I covered them with rolled fondant (a kind of icing) and painted them with icing color paste.

Finally, as a last touch, I made little rat turds out of brownies. She LOVED it. It's my first real decorated cake. What do you think?!

Megan, that is freaky. I wonder if people could actually eat it. I mean, it's kind of amazing, but I don't think I'd be able to eat it.

I think I'd have to close my eyes and think happy thoughts while eating it.

Oh man, those rats look a little too real for me. Yeee!

That's why you'd have to close your eyes and think "I'm eating brownies, I'm eating brownies, I'm eating brownies."

Sue, we will be picking you up in the Matrix though I don't think we'll be buying it. I think we're going with the Mazda 3 Sport. It's silver.

They're pet rats, though, so that would remove a lot of the ick for me. It's pets being bad, not vermin infestation. And that's a damn good job with the decorating, even if it's a little odd.

I just took the first quiz on my traffic school thingy, and I'm already irate (the material seems to be confusing what's legal, and what's suggested -- I can drive legally with a blood alcohol of .09, but somehow they seem to be glossing over that).

But not at that. At 7 minutes and 7 seconds in, the material says

THE LEADING CAUSES OF MOTOR VEHICLE CRASHES IN CALIFORNIA

unsafe speed
driving on wrong side of the road
improper turns
violation of right of way rules
violation of stop signals and signs

How, then can the answer to "Identify a leading cause of traffic collisions" of "speeding" be incorrect? Is there some implication that enough of the "unsafe speed" crashes are due to going too slowly that speeding by itself isn't actually a leading cause?

I should stop overthinking this, and go teach krav.

Try and not violate the right of way rules.

I did an internet course for driving school. It was completed. Nothing more can be said for it.

So. I think I'm finished with the paper. Both answers aren't as good as I want them to be (even I can see this, and I'm far from remembering how actually one should write a 750 words answers to questions, that should not contain one single equation), but I won't be able to make them any better in any time frame that is humanly possible (they're due today, and it's 7:30pm). I'm going to leave them aside for a while, not think about either of them, try to work do womething else, and then give them a good read, and send them out. Then, I'll sigh in relief. Then, of course, I'll remember how crazily behind I am on actual work, but that will only happen after the sigh of relief, which didn't happen yet.

And now, the tenses are confusing me. Oh, well.

[Edit: 4+3+1=8]