I can understand the desire to recapture one’s youth, but I’m not sure I’d want to go through high school again. So what are we to make of the story in the NYT today of Hyejeong Shin? Shin, who is 29, came to the U.S. from South Korea to attend a boarding school in Massachusetts at age 16. She later graduated from Rutgers with a degree in Poli Sci and Chinese. She was divorced two years ago. In January, she used false documents to enroll in New Brunswick High School. She attended classes, met with counselors, and “wandered the hallways” for several days before the kimchi hit the fan. Harmless? She faces up to five years in prison if convicted of the falsified documents charges brought against her. Setting aside the question of what would be worse — five years in prison, or four years in high school — what the hell is going on?
One of her lawyers conceded it might be hard to understand but she was just trying to recreate the sense of safety she felt at the boarding school when she first arrived in the country. The pain of the divorce and the long separation from her family caused her to act “uncharacteristically.” The police stated there was no evidence she intended to bring harm or violence to anyone in the community. She had fallen behind by roughly $20,000 in her rent — there is that. But her lawyers said that was likely linked to the divorce.
In a personal statement she wrote a while ago she said she practiced meditation and enjoyed singing “when no one is around. I can be very quiet, but I do slowly open up and start talking more as I become more comfortable.” She is in the U.S. legally and hopes to return to her homeland when the case concludes.
What a sad and unusual story. Owl Chatter hopes things start taking good turns for the troubled woman. Here she is with her lawyer, right before running off for an algebra test.
The puzzle today was a delicious pile of nonsensical wordplay. The theme called for phrases that repeated the last part of a word three times. Here are the four theme answers:
1. Injury that’s so embarrassing no one is allowed to mention it?
TABOO BOOBOO
2. Result of forgetting to pack a toothbrush for a Doha vacation?
QATAR TARTAR
3. Cuban dance performed at a Russian villa?
DACHA CHA CHA
(BTW, “dacha” is pronounced with the ch as in cheese, not with a K sound. I took Russian for a few years but don’t remember that. Don’t remember anything, actually.)
4. Indistinct muttering from a ring-tailed primate?
LEMUR MURMUR
Commenters suggested others:
VISCOUS COUSCOUS wasn’t bad.
Same for the colorful bird dance: TOUCAN CAN CAN
And these three:
Malian ballerina’s attire?
TIMBUKTU TUTU
Nebraskan’s response to a joke?
OMAHA HAHA
One who fails to pick up on sly hints?
INNUENDO DODO
My favorite was:
“Barrier constructed in the style of a city in Washington.”
Answer: WALL ALA WALLA WALLA
Here’s a shot of that DODO:
Wordle came up in the commentary. The word yesterday was CREDO and someone mentioned he guessed DECOR, thus getting all five letters, but all out of position. The two words are anagrams where none of the letters share the same position. He wondered if there was a term for that, but no one came up with one. I’m guessing there isn’t. Someone else noted that a puzzle answer today forms another duo like that. The answer was DOULA, and you can anagram it to ALOUD.
Endlessly fascinating and brain-numbingly boring at the same time — how does that happen?
Rex’s take on the puzzles is often way different from most people’s. It’s part of his charm, or terribly annoying. (Owl Chatter is in the former camp. We are fans.) Anyway, on Sunday, commenter Joaquin put it nicely, thus:
“I almost never agree with @Rex (about anything). But you know what they say: ‘Crosswords make strange bedfellows.’ And here Rex and I are today – fighting over the covers.”
Rex posted the following recently. If you are a puzzle person, you may enjoy following up (by clicking on the link). I did so last year and it was fun.
“The ultra-successful “These Puzzles Fund Abortion” fundraiser is back for another round with “These Puzzl3s Fund Abortion” (This Time, There’s a “3” In The Title). As before, the idea is that you donate at least $15 to one (or more) of the five abortion funds they’re supporting, and you get 16 puzzles from top-flight constructors like Ada Nicolle (who made yesterday’s stellar puzzle) as well as Brooke Husic, Rafael Musa, Natan Last, Rebecca Goldstein, and many more.”
It all comes down to one game tonight — the U.S. vs Japan for the World Baseball Championship. This pretty cheerleader will be rooting for her countrymen, no doubt.
According to UNESCO, it’s World Poetry Day today. Let’s see if Owl Chatter’s poet laureate, Ted Kooser, has something for us.
This is from Winter Morning Walks.
Fifty or sixty small gray birds with crests
in a bare hackberry tree this morning early,
not one of them making a sound
or even the neat black silhouette of a sound
against the rising sun. They let me
walk up close, then one by one
they leapt from their perches and dropped
and caught the air and swung away
into the north, becoming a ribbon first,
and then, in the distance, confetti,
as they sprinkled their breathtaking silence
into another bare tree.
Good night, everybody. Thanks for stopping by!
The Wellington Files 