SPRING BREAK

2-25-10

After 5:00 PM today, I will officially be on Spring Break. Does that mean I shall be departing the Internets? No, it does NOT. I am busy and poor (mostly poor, but very busy) and so I shall be staying here at Southern during break. That's so I can practice my bass clarinet, write the first or so draft of my 19th Century British Literature term paper, do some other projects that I won't have much time to do after break, and do some chilling. I might even get to go over to the Coopers' to watch The Office, which I would love dearly.

MY TEAM WON THE COLLEGE BOWL! I'm so excited. I was playing for fun, but it was quite awesome to win. I get my name (along with my teammates' names) on a plaque in Brock Hall, I got $100, and people have said congratulations when they saw me. It's sort of cool. Even if most of the answers I gave when I buzzed in were wrong (for example, saying "dog-eat-dog" when the answer was "might is right") but even then I gave some good answers when I spoke by myself ("Ben Franklin" for "Who said, 'We must hang together or else we'll all hang separately'?"). However, I did really well on bonus questions, and it was fun.  Joel actually memorized the entire current Cabinet (since we'd had lots of those questions in previous games) ten or so minutes before the game. Thomas can do math in his head (I don't even touch the buzzer on math questions; I do well when I study, but recalling it? Nothing). Ryan is like an encyclopedia of history, especially on wars and presidents. Bjorn knows the most random things. I know some stuff, too. :D That stage was buzzing with smartness. :D

And the other team were very worthy opponents; they were ahead at half time, and we did have to work to win. That made it more fun. All very nice people. :D

Also, I IMPROVED IN FITNESS FOR LIFE! When we did the first assessment, I got 3 1/3 laps. Today I got 3.5 laps. It was awesome. I hope it also means that my heart rate went down because that's what they are measuring.

Grades come out next week; I hope I did well on my midterm in BritLit. I wrote an essay on how to change Pride and Prejudice into a Romantic novel (it's already a romance, but not Romantic; there IS a difference).

More later.

College Bowl

2/3/10

I participated in my first-for-this-semester College Bowl game. We, the team called The Olympia Academy (supplied by one of the members, not me), won tonight with a score of 240-80. I'm a bit rusty with the whole quiz bowl format, having been gone for a year, but it was fun. I got some answers in--and one of the bonus questions I knew for certain (the answers were that Aeschylus had written Prometheus Bound, which I had just read and written an essay on, and that Shelley had written Prometheus Unbound, which I had known but would know anyway because we're studying the English Romantics in literature class. Anyway, it was a fun match. Our next game is next Monday.

More later.