Hallo everyone!!

Hallo!

My name is Miranda Gindling. I guess you all already know each other.

I am not in the Digital Cultures and Creativity program, in fact I’m a little unclear as to whether I’m really a UMD student. I am a home-schooled, high school senior and doing concurrent enrollment classes at the University. To make this even more confusing, I am not necessarily in this class, because we haven’t yet received word from on high about whether I’m allowed.

Anyhow, my passion is writing (stories, novels, very bad poetry), and this semester I am taking many, many English classes .  This fall, I am going to be applying to colleges (you’re all, done with this part, Is it really that bad??). My top choice is Cambridge, in England.

Now for the interesting stuff: I have two cats, the one with social skills and the other one. The first is named Pearl, seven years old, soft, white, beautiful, delightful… and stupid. Not that I’m saying she can’t get along. She’d be the one with a successful career, three broken marriages to rich New Yorkers, a few vacation homes. The fact that she has never quite understood the concept of corners does nothing to hamper her charm, her pretty voice, her propensity for cuddling. The older one, Carmel (without the “a”), is immensely fat, in such a way that when he lays down his legs disappear into the mass of blubber that is his stomach and torso.He’s not mean, exactly ( I mean, he’s always very sweet to me), he just has a curious habit of peeing on my dad’s clothes, suitcases, and, one very memorable time, his pillow.

My picture, although it is small and a little difficult to see, is the graveyard scene from the Fogler Theare’s production of Hamlet a few years ago. This goes with a wonderful story about the two characters in the pic. After the show’s run was over, the director noticed a peculiar thing, and hastened to inform his entire cast of it via email: the skull used for Yurik (“alas poor…”) seemed to have gone missing. A few days later he received a response from Graham Hamilton, who had played Hamlet, which read as follows, “Yurik and I are in love, and cannot bear to be separated. I have taken him with me to California. I am teaching him to surf.”