The Better Part of Wisdom
(13-22 March 2002)
22 March 2002
[from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania]
-This day has been horrendous. Good thing we got my car outta towing before the weekend, though. Crud.
-Yet
again, the tourney starts over an hour after arrival. & that's with EVERYthing going wrong prior to leaving, delaying us greatly. This isn't a knock
against Swat, it's a knock against people who insist on leaving at ungodly early times & pressuring an on-time arrival. Nine years of experience honestly
doesn't lie.
-At least we had two really good rounds after the generally awful day. & I think Kevin had a good time.
21 March 2002
-To Lauren (& anyone else interested), Kraft =
Philip Morris. For more info on this, look here.
-I
actually went to my Music section today! This was a first all year (not of attending the class, but of the
TA-led section). I collected a few random quotes & discovered that both Mesco & Lauren (Russ's girlfriend
Lauren, as opposed to any other Laurens I might mention, like in the entry above) are in said section! Who knew?
We listened to "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima", which may be the freakiest piece of wordless music
ever.
-So now there's an APDA webring. If this scares you,
press one. I may just have to sign up for it, though, as long as this doesn't mean that I have to put some cheesey
logo or link on my site. I try to avoid collecting such things. Bleh. Anyway, methinks Amy's just way too
bored these days. But it could be fun.
-Swat should be lots of fun, & I'm really looking forward to the
16-team bracket & betting on that. I just hope that they aren't letting judges bet like they did my freshman year
when I last attended that tourney.
-Lots of responses have been forthcoming about my discussion of the Kraft boycott.
Schneider notes that they've recently been spun-off, Kate notes that the name is changing, & others wonder what's
so wrong with the corporation. I guess I should herein make a couple things clear. First off, I think it's
interesting that they're working so hard to change PR since it's been so bad. But another thing: while I
personally support the boycott, because I think it'd be a good activist move for 'Deis, I don't trust any corporation more
or less than Philip Morris. I assume as I go through my day that all corporations are acting with the same motivations,
all trying to addict the 3rd world to whatever their product may be, & all being generally manipulative & awful.
This is what the capitalist motive instills in things. When profit & wealth accumulation is seen as an end
in & of itself, all ethical or moral considerations are thrown out, or only considered as the PR angle of the profit
motive. This is why capitalism devolves into hedonism in about 2 seconds flat & why those that have money to spin
things however they want get away with murder, literally, on a daily basis in the corporate world. But I'm starting
to pretend I have a long ranty blog instead of a short cryptic one, so I'll close this entry & actually go pack for the
trip...
20 March 2002
-Almost no one showed up to yesterday's public
debate on the Kraft Referendum, but people thought I was okay. Crack was really good at opposing the boycott, though
the main "everyone in corporate America is evil" argument didn't come up in the round, or even in floor-speeches.
The infinite faith people have in corporations that aren't publicly blasted sort of baffles me.
-So I'm ditching
some more class, eventually to get work done, since class today was just a library research session anyway. I've
sometimes wondered if any of my professors read this page, or what they would think if they did. Ah well. I'm
really tired of all this school. & now it's snowing again, which is awesome, so I'm watching as much Weather Channel online as I am doing work. It looks to be a big storm if it stays
cold enough.
-I've been meaning to put up this link for some time.
Go support hunger relief & the school of your choice! This has been Brandzy's project for years, finally
coming to fruition.
-I need to stop procrastinating!
19 March 2002
-For the record: sending me mean e-mails is not
a good way to get me to respond, or if I do, to respond favorably.
-Also for the record: this has been a rough week
to try to get ahold of me. & I've been absolutely swamped mentally. In all sorts of ways. I don't like
March. I guess this is just sorta a blanket disclaimer.
-Sigh.
-Okay, I've FINally updated the
Dylan list, so go see what Fish's impact on the total was. I'll preview that
"Tangled Up in Blue" was knocked outta first for the first time, & now there's a tie for first with other
songs! Also, I don't know one of the songs he submitted, but maybe someone else can help me out? It's currently
tied for 51st.
-Just 4 wins away...
18 March 2002
-So many good people around these
days.
-The good news is that my Religion paper is one of the first in years that I'm actually proud of as a work, not just as
academic tripe. I'm really glad I chose not to write it in the haze of last night's procrastinatory binge & thus
put it off till today when I was feeling more focused. The exceptionally bad news is that the attachment sent to me
for my other big assignment due today is un-de-codable & thus I can't process anything for said assignment. I'm
feeling way too tempted to just ditch everything tonight as a result, since I'm tired & fed up & can't actually do
the work no matter what. & it's snowing a lot. What do I do?
17 March 2002
-Happy St. Patrick's Day! Pinches for
everyone!
-People saying ridiculously nice things about me makes me feel sheepish.
-Good news: basketball; bad
news: groin-pull.
-Time is so slow these days. Painfully.
-My fiction-reading interest really goes in
cycles. Maybe I'm just not into "Those Barren Leaves", but it seems I have little taste for reading of late.
Sometimes I'm insatiable, though. Maybe I'm just fickle.
16 March 2002
[from Middlebury, Vermont]
-5th round in the same room with the same stuff on the line. Crazy.
-Everything's going wrong.
I have infinite anger.
-Relief.
-A poor semis decision, but Beth is only the 3rd 'Deis novice to break before
ProAms. Pretty sweet. Plus we broke as the #2 seed. & 'Deis was half the break. All told, I'll
take it. Wish we'd gotten a qual, but Dom did!
-1/2 again. But I never want Em to argue that I'm better than
her again.
-This is a great group of kids.
15 March 2002
[from Middlebury, Vermont]
-Not as much fun as last year. But really, that'd be tough.
-Civil war! Why are they
forcing us to hit another 'Deis team? This is questionable at best.
-My frustration seems inescapable, but slowly,
slowly might be fading.
14 March 2002
-Exhaustion. Ay, later today, it will all be
better. It has to be.
-I know March is good for being bad, but has it always incorporated this much ANGER?
Argh!
13 March 2002
-Today is the TWO-YEAR ANNIVERSARY of this page!
Though the address has moved & much tumult has built up in the past 2 years, Introspection, My Worst Friend has
brought you my life in 3 colors for the whole time, daily. So there you have it. Hard to
believe.
-Double-bleh on some counts of behind-ness.
-People are just crazy. Darn near all of them.
-Well
it's 6:30 in the morning & after
working straight through the night, I've finally finished all the updates humanly possible on the APDA website. You'll have to keep in mind that Pat Nichols is responsible for
tourney postings & contact info these days, so I did what I do. Anyway, I still have to update my debate stats
& the Dylan page (Fish's picks) locally, plus all sorts of other more important things for school & people &
everything else. Sigh. If anyone complains about where my time expenditures have been, I have some recommended
time expenditures for them. We'll leave it at that.
-So little of the world is open when I'm most inclined to
be awake. Then again, maybe that's WHY it's my favorite time.
-Drew may be the most irreverant person I
know.
-I hate school. I hate class. I want so desperately to be done with it forever. It's mandated
boredom than I just can't take. BLAH!
-I think, as one might be able to glean from the above, this is the most
restless day in ages. Thoughts on this, anyone? I'm thinking this disruption might have, as the Weakerthans
would put it, "a higher pitch & broader scale". Also, no more flack. Please. Really.
The same logic that Drew was using about a particular brand of flack applies here too.
Introspection, My Worst
Friend* (Current)
Ye Olde Archive (Past)
The Blue Pyramid (Source)
Tell me this is not the end...*
*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old
Frontiers",
by SWClayton.