| The Chronicles | Donkitude | ||||||
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That's a paraphrase of something I hear all the time that pisses me off. It doesn't make a shred of sense, and it's a reference to the title. Left for Dead After three or four weeks, I'm sure most of you have written this place off as dead. In fact, I recently read a report that most blogs are dead - a huge percentage never even get beyond the first entry. Regardless, I'm back now. I should be stressing about school, but somehow I'm not. Well, on with the recap... Sportsmania  It's sad, but one of the ways I can orient myself is to remember significant sporting events and classwork. In short, the Cubs and Red Sox blew it (though the Marlins somewhat redeemed the postseason by shutting down the Yankees). Auburn beat Mississippi State and then blew the season (again) by getting killed by LSU. The following weekend, Auburn smashed Louisiana-Monroe for homecoming (73-7). In summation, Baseball was exciting (despite most people wanting different teams) and football has been fairly lopsided. Let me go on a short rant...what the hell is up with people leaving football games early? If you want to support the team, watch them win or watch them lose. What's the point of showing up to the game and missing the last quarter? This is actually one of the reasons that timed sports piss me off. Baseball...there's always a chance of a comeback. It keeps you in the game. I'm sure you've heard me extol the virtues of baseball before, but let me reiterate...it is a superior game because it's so different from most other sports in which a ball moves back and forth between two symmetrical fields of play. Enough sports talk...on to more pressing matters... The Grindstone In the scholastic world, I managed to pull an 84 on my Electromagnetics test. I don't recall being so happy with a low B in a while, but after the 63 on the first test (which will thankfully be dropped), I can use it. In Linguistics, we spent a great deal of time learning how to make a website. Here are the results. Consequently, class attendance wasn't required. After a couple of class periods of that, my group got together to prepare our presentation on language death (a.k.a. obsolescence). We waited until the night before, but it wasn't very difficult. Turns out, in a rush to get out the door that morning, I didn't notice that my teacher e-mailed everyone telling us that she was sick. So, I got all dressed up in a suit for nothing. Once the next class period came around, I didn't feel as motivated. Regardless, the presentation went decently and we came away with a B. I also had a presentation in Spanish American Civ that hung over my head for quite a while. It was just a three minute overview of scientific expeditions. You can see the results here. The only difficulty was speaking in Spanish for an extended period...I'm pretty rusty. I did better than I thought I would though. That class is hard to figure out. She gives really basic work that you get gold-star grades on and then tests that eat your brain. Eh well. Overall, I feel like I'm somewhat limping to the end of the semester. I haven't really accomplished much work these past few weeks.  Nosegrab to Late Method MadnessPart of the reason I've been so distracted is that I picked up SSX 3 last week. Ray and I were a bit obsessive about SSX Tricky, and this game is even bigger. I normally hate sports games and avoid "extreme" sports games, but for some reason, SSX has this soothing but action-packed dichotomy to it. The mountains are epic, and the music is either adrenaline-pumping or relaxing depending on what you want. I've managed to almost complete the game with one character. In other video game news, I get the feeling that Mario Kart and Mario Party 5 will eat up a lot of time once they come out in the next several weeks. Saturday Night Fever Three weekends ago, Saturday night was crazy big. Ray's people actually showed up and we squeezed well over 20 people into a game of Mafia. I don't recall anything else particularly eventful about the evening though. The next Saturday was more subdued. There was some miscommunication between several groups which resulted in a smaller turnout. Basically, Andy called on Friday and wanted to have people over for the game and afterwards. It wasn't a big deal, but up until that point, it had been assumed that Ray and I were having people over. My dad and his girlfriend also dropped by for a visit, so that further confused matters. It turned out that each of us had medium-sized crowds and most of us met up for some HAGSIC (Hide & Go Seek In Cars) later. Justin also came in town that weekend and stayed at our place. He seemed to have fun driving off-road on campus.  Oh, that reminds me...Brian, Kevin, D, and I stopped by the baseball stadium to see if we could find a good hiding place amid all of the construction. We pulled off to the side of the road, and Brian and I went out to explore. Turns out, we could walk right into the stands. We also noticed an elevator that opened to the outside. Upon saying "No way", I pressed the button to find that it was in fact working. Thus, we looked around the offices and suites briefly. I also took a detour to the restroom. About this time, police cars stopped outside to figure out why the car is there. Kevin and D attempted to explain why they were sitting in the backseat while the driver had run off to "look for friends". Brian and I opt for the straight-forward approach and mosey out of the stadium to declare that we were "just looking around". The stories contradicted a bit despite Kevin attempting to distract the officers from our exit, but upon checking my license and assuring my sober state, the officer apologized and let us go. We played a bit more after that but eventually wrapped up the night. That should bring us up to last week.  MunkeysMost of you recall me mentioning Model UN (MUN). It's a mock version of the international body, we've got a team of about a dozen at Auburn, and we hold a conference each spring. Well, during the summer, they informed us that we'd have the chance to attend a national conference in Washington DC (Georgetown specifically). Seeing as the airfare and hotel were free, we jumped at the chance to miss school with a university-approved excuse. Despite all the forewarning, it snuck up on us...or at least me...though we managed to do some last minute research on Bulgaria, the country we were representing. We drove up to Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon and stayed at Amerisuites. We were happy to find that there were network ports in the rooms; we were unhappy to find that access required money. Therefore, we set to "hacking" - though it was mere finagling to figure out that it allowed some ports free access (AIM worked without a hitch). Daniel and I spent a good portion of the rest of the evening playing Heather and Katie in Spades. I tried to teach them Mao, but they weren't too fond of the game (as if newbies ever are). Touristing We flew into DC the next afternoon and after checking in, made our way to the Smithsonian museums. I overruled the prevailing indecisiveness by insisting upon the Natural History museum. When I was last in DC (in 8th grade), we didn't go, and I'd really wanted to see dinosaurs. Yes, I really really loved dinosaurs...still do actually. After taking a couple of pictures of people getting their heads eaten by fossils and seeing the Hope diamond, there wasn't too much of great interest left, so we moseyed over to the Space & Rocket Center. Was anyone aware that they don't sell 'space pizza' anymore? They've still got the ice cream but not the pizza. Debatin' From there, we returned to the hotel in order to prepare for the conference's start and read up on the specific rules (proper procedure for points and motions). The opening ceremony made the size of the conference apparent - hundreds of college students. When we opened debate in SOCHUM (Social & Humanitarian), the situation got rather heated. As Bulgaria (Hurley and I) and Croatia (Shrenik), we'd prepared to speak about child labor. Unfortunately, the committee got railroaded into talking about pharmaceuticals as our first topic instead. We hadn't done a lot of research on the topic and initially tried to fight the discussion a bit. Delegates kept calling 'point of inquiry', 'point of information', and various other non-existent points. Eventually, we called a 'point of order' and asked the chair about these imaginary points. I guess we were sticklers for the rules as outlined in their rule book. Well, this question promptly pissed off a lot of people. The committee devolved into hushed discussion, the delegates from Alabama turned around and gave us the evil eye, and the inexperienced chair was quite perturbed. She didn't answer the question. Instead, she proceeded to ignore us for the next two hours despite our pleas to speak. She'd look straight at us and then call on someone else. After the session, we apologized, saying that we didn't intend to be malicious...that we really just wanted clarification. The next day went much better. We got called on with some frequency and managed to co-sponsor a resolution with India, Algeria, Nepal, and several other nations. We slipped in wording about encouraging major pharmaceutical companies to move into developing nations. Lots of people considered that to be exploitative ("testing drugs on poor people"). We saw it as a way to help developing nations and put in wording to ensure that the people weren't being exploited. As a result, the resolution passed, and Win owes me a McDonald's apple pie - he didn't think we could get it passed.  More TouristingThat night (Halloween), several of us decided to take a walking tour of Washington DC. We hopped on the subway (that conveniently had a station under our hotel) and headed over to the memorials. Unfortunately, the Washington Monument had a fence around it so that we couldn't get too close, but it was still neat to see lit-up. On our way to the Lincoln Memorial, we noticed that the reflecting pool was drained, so we walked most of the way while inside of it. From Lincoln, we passed the spooky Korean Memorial on our way to the Jefferson Memorial and stumbled upon the FDR Memorial on the way. I suppose I should make some inspiring and insightful statement about our country at this point, but I'm really at a loss for what to say...so I'll move on. More Debatin' Saturday's committee was very similar to Friday's. And, to give you an idea of how long this process takes, we started discussing the resolutions on Thursday night, debated them on Friday, and didn't vote until late on Saturday afternoon. Might sound boring to a lot of you, but it's good fun. It also probably helped my public speaking skills. Oh, I should also mention that I flirted with our committee's director (who switched back and forth with the chair). I wrote a note somewhat along the lines of "Hey, sorry for the conversation and you probably hear it a lot, but you've got a really pretty nose." Yes, I'm a freak, but there's something about unique noses that really draws my interest. I mean, we can compliment someone on their eyes, their hair, their smile...why not their nose? Anyway, it elicited a smile and a laugh, and I hoped provided an 'in' for later that evening at the "delegate dance". Clubbin' That night, Daniel, Heather, Shrenik, Katie, and I decided to hop on the subway and head over to the dance club. I believe the name was Polly Esther's. Anyway, we stuck around for a couple of hours. They started out playing euro-house (which you can't find in Auburn), moved on to hip-hop (which you can), and bizarrely transitioned to "Sweet Home Alabama" (don't get me started). I actually found Katie (our committee's director) and asked her whether the note was okay. She said, "Yeah," and proceeded to turn around and ignore me. Cold, very cold...downright frigid in fact. After that, I got a drink (rum and Red Bull). I think I like rum, but I refuse to drink Red Bull or any other energy drink again. If by "Gives you wings" they mean "Hurts your kidneys", I guess it worked. After that, I danced with a couple of other girls before we headed back. Katie (from Auburn) complained that we took her away from several guys. Let me take a moment to go on a small tangent. I'm sick and tired of hearing girls complain about relationships. I feel like I've been inundated with it for a few weeks now. I'm tired of hearing girls lament about the jerks not liking them...or about not having someone. I fear that there's past irony in that statement, but I think I'll choose to ignore it. "Moderate her caucus?" Back to the conference...the next day was fairly short. A group of us attempted to rush a simple resolution through, but the committee fell into bedlam after a "crisis" was announced. Apparently, the kids of the world had "taken over" and were demanding less vegetables and more candy. It was a pretty hokey scenario, but it did lead to some funny speechifying. Towards the end, the director was requiring that resolutions be introduced through song. One guy did opera, the next rapped, and unfortunately, they called us after that. Sadly, our resolution was actually serious, but they insisted. One other problem with this particular situation...I can't sing. Being relatively uninhibited though, I attempted to belt out a love ballad with my co-sponsor. We basically got booed off stage. hehe. Oh, I suppose I should explain the title for the section. A 'caucus' is a period of debate...it can be moderated or unmoderated. Anyway, during the middle of the bedlam, a guy representing Iran and sitting next to a girl representing Algeria raised his placard and said, "Motion to moderate Algeria's caucus." Algeria promptly blushed, the delegates laughed, and the director laughed but said, "I'm sorry, but that's too far. You'll have to leave." She made him leave. Spain got up and said, "Moderate her caucus? What does that even mean?" Ahh...geek humor. Gotta love it. Okay...there was going to be more to come, but at this point, I've got to close out this entry. It's gone on long enough. Look to the next entry for the continuation.
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