Old Schoolyard (7-16 April 2003)

Old Schoolyard
(7-16 April 2003)

16 April 2003
-Today I learned that, like flourescent lights & insufficient coffee intake, jamming a letter-opener into the region around my eye is a migraine trigger. Fortunately it missed my eye, & the swelling has yet to seal the eye shut. It does, however, hurt a lot. It was one of those fun events that about 3 nanoseconds after it happened, I realized all the ways I could've been just slightly more intelligent & avoided it. Much like rolling down that hillside in San Diego a couple years back, or walking into the ER for my pulled muscle/heart problem. I just need to THINK more about the physical world. It's all so foreign. Ow.
-The usual Monday updates are done on Wednesday. Not bad for Nats week.

15 April 2003
-After a pretty lousy series of flights, we are home again. We showed up at the Providence airport (good old TF Green) 5 minutes before the scheduled take-off, & I've never been so thankful for any sort of delay in my life. So we made the flight against all odds, then were in for 3 rather bumpy & unsettled airborne excursions. Nearly 14 hours after leaving Greg & Clea's this afternoon, we are home. & Pando doesn't even seem mad at us.
-Pure exhaustion at work. So quickly, I am unaccustomed.

14 April 2003
[from Waltham]
-After almost dying from laughter at Luke's on a night where we besieged his place with about 12 distinct people, we wound up at Greg & Clea's. After a startlingly deep conversation regarding my past & my nightmares. & now the 5 days that seemed like they would be an eternity have passed in a blink. I wouldn't trade here for there, but I would trade some people here for people there. As though there were that many people there at all.

13 April 2003
[from Waltham]
-First time I've squirreled on APDA.
-Make no mistake, the new Shapiro Student Center is the prettiest color of building that I've ever seen. It's TEAL! Who has the guts to make a teal building? I don't care what anyone says, I think it's the most amazing-looking building built in a long long time.
-& just like that, it's over. All very over.
-As I told some people tonight, I think that team dinners, almost always 3-hour monstrosities at Uno's, are some of my very favorite events of all-time. So many good people, so much discussion, so much joy. & this one feels like the end of an era.

12 April 2003
[from Waltham]
Happy Birthday to Clea Emerson-Farley & Colleen Garin
-Well, it didn't make that list, after all...
-Joni Mitchell (via the Counting Crows) would have you believe that you don't know what you got till it's gone. I might have you believe that you don't know what you had till you see it again.
-New hardest round to judge ever.
-Dinner vs. Senior Speeches: an easy choice to make, but still a painful one to follow through on.
-The ever-shrinking list of people who wouldn't sell me up the river for a joke...
-It's just bizarre to hear a break announcement that doesn't give one cause to be nervous.

11 April 2003
[from Waltham]
-See, I knew that someone would put us up...
-Seems like old times again.
-How I missed this team! How I missed tab! How I miss debate!
-Hardest round to judge ever.

10 April 2003
-Well, time for summer vacation. Or I guess it's more like Spring Break. Regardless, it's time to hit the Beans for the first time since I left last summer, & quite possibly for the last time in a goodly long while. This is going to be a great tournament.

9 April 2003
-It's back. Check May Madness II. Just for fun.
-Palestine Hotel Targeted for Threatening Name... rather than admit they had mistakenly attacked a hotel housing exclusively journalists & civilians, the American military yesterday justified their missile attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. 2 journalists were killed & many others badly wounded. Initially saying that they had taken fire from the Hotel, they then were refuted by the testimony of every single journalist in the building. As one reporter (actually) said on the BBC, "I think in a building full of journalists, someone would have rushed to see who was firing." But Rumsfeld, Franks, & Co. were adamant about their Jedi-mind-trick-propelled precision weaponry. "We felt the name 'Palestine' to be very threatening," said Franks at a press conference, "One officer might have said it was like taking fire. In either case, it posed an imminent threat to our military security." Rumors that the Hotel will be renamed the Ariel Sharon Hotel are unconfirmed.
-As has been known for a long time, I have no business being placed in charge of assembling anything larger than a bread-box.
-The last time I had consecutive days without work was in early February, about 2 months ago. This trip is going to feel like a whole summer vacation.

8 April 2003
-The 8th of April always seems to be a BIG day. More on this later.
-Daylight savings time is trippy. Mostly I wasn't prepared to drive home in daylight yesterday. & it's only going to get lighter. Between this & now starting work at 10 am instead of 9 am, I almost believe I have a reasonable work day schedule.
-Iraq to Be Returned to the (Foreign) People... a series of announcements this past week have revealed that control of Iraq will indeed be returned to the people. The non-Iraqi people. Jay Garner, a random US business executive appointed to control the post-Hussein government in the country, clearly represents the will of the people. "It's little known that Garner placed second to Saddam Hussein in the last election," said a Pentagon spokesman, "he represented the dissent of those willing to stand up to Hussein." But insiders know that this is just a temporary fix to restore order, & eventually a transitional government of Iraqi expatriates is set to take over. "Clearly these people have the support of the Iraqis," said another unidentified Pentagon leak. "No one would think to question the patriotism of someone who fled Iraq. Surely the Iraqi people wouldn't resent the luxury they lived in outside of Iraq while they suffered. In fact, I'm not sure Iraqis will EVER support someone who actually lives in Iraq. Foreigners really reflect the will of the people, don't they?"
-Exclusive of the opening week, which was only a day or two, the Country Quiz has garnered an EXACT average of 1,380 quizzes taken per week over 11 weeks. That's pretty spiffy. But arguably more spiffy is this week's Search winner (without quotes), that made me burst out laughing in the middle of the CU-Fairfield Library. I am 99% sure that someone I know searched for this when very bored. But then again, one never knows. I think it's hysterical.

7 April 2003
-Looking forward to Nats a whole lot. So many great people to see in so little time. But five days off will feel like eternity... I'm accustomed to getting five days off roughly over the course of 35 days.
-Running behind on the Stats/SOTW update... will probably be done tomorrow. This rare delay brought to you by administering the MAT, the first day of the CU term, becoming an official JMMC employee, & seeing an MD. Basically, I ran out of letters to do any more.
-Iraq Uses Chemical Weapons Against Its Own (Insect) Population!... US officials today admitted that the chemical agents they had found in storage near the Baghdad metro area were not in a weapons deliverable state & were probably pesticides. Meanwhile, CNN's website is still running the headline "Chemicals found". Reports that President Bush is trying to spin WMD into "Weapons of Minute Destruction" are unconfirmed, as lobbyists from major chemical manufacturers in the US are concerned about the impact of such a move on their business. "They shouldn't worry," said an anonymous White House aide, "it's not like we care about open hypocrisy when it comes to owning weapons... large, small, or planet-destructing!"

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