One possesses many traits that would be admirable in the leader of a country, the other wears lipstick.

Well, hello.  Here I am again, and I have an important message:
It's about time Facebook apps started doing something useful.
I'm tired of logging in to facebook to find that I twelve completely random requests which I have to subsequently click "ignore" for each one.  Do people ever think who is on the receiving end of "Zombies!" invitation, or do they just hate me that much?  No, I don't want to be a vampire.  They suck.  I don't want to be a zombie or a werewolf or have a virtual pet.  I don't care who is better, pirates or ninjas, because pirates were were scurvy-ridden toothless brigands that didn't bathe, and ninjas have been obsolete since 1854 (or the invention of gun powder, which pirates use quite a bit).  Although pirates have managed to stick around for another 154 years, now we have another name for them: terrorists.
Facebook apps do nothing but clog your facebook page and annoy your friends.  If you really want to play a facebook prank on someone when they leave their laptop for half an hour, don't make them join a dozen stupid groups.  Pranks like these have become common enough that people understand what is going on, and no one cares.  A much better prank is to add as many facebook apps as you can, and then send invitations to all their friends.  Everyone, as they click "ignore," will feel a tick more annoyed at said person, and there's no way to explain to the whole world the real reason you were sending everyone stripper requests.  As a bonus, removing all of the applications is a complete pain in the neck.
But don't take my word for it.  Please: add every trite application there is.  There's no surer way to alienate your friends and annoy others that doesn't involve a chainsaw.  But even a chainsaw has nothing on the "Top Friends" application.  The person who coded this ought to be tried for treason or something, because nothing has terrorized the internet this much since Bananaphone.
These apps have been around for, what, two years now?  When will they learn to do something useful, for a change?  I want there to be a "scratch my back" application, where I add the application, and then whenever I use it, someone comes and scratches my back.  Or a "hot chocolate" app, where I click "dispense" and a steaming cup of hot chocolate pops out of the cd drive.  Or maybe a "click here to punch Bill O'Reilly in the face,"  Except that instead of punching some .gif image of Bill, a pair of boxing gloves would arrive in the mail three days later, along with a round trip ticket to LaGuardia and a stack of Franklins so you could post bail.
Please excuse me if this post sounds bitter, but I must cut it short to go ignore app requests.

Well, if you want to know if I have been spending my reading period productively, the answer is below.  While everyone else was studying, I spend just about every day from Saturday to Thursday agonizing over this essay.  The prompt was "Why Write?", and since I had to suffer through it for five days, I see no reason why you shouldn't have to as well.  I considered handing in a six page essay with one letter of "Why not?" typed on each page, but since I get the feeling that wouldn't go over well, I didn't.  Instead, my peer editor (great guy, btw) counseled me to make it funny.  All I can say is: I tried.  Without further ado:

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"Why Write?" by Gilan Salehi

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The trouble with writing is that you must first find something worth saying. Which is more difficult than it seems, because unlike dust bunnies and tax collectors, things worth saying don't just show up if you wait long enough (and they also don't take your money when they do). The trouble with writing from a prompt is that you must find something worth saying about something you may not know much about, or have little reason to contemplate.

“Why write?”

What an odd question. One might as well ask an actor, “why act?” a painter, “why paint?” or a doctor “why doct?” They will probably say, “because I'm good at it and I like it,” to which the doctor might also add, “and it pays the bills.”

Ultimately, however, such answers are very broad and don't actually reveal anything worth saying. After all, you can find reason enough for anything between those three phrases (except, perhaps, watching an episode of “Survivor”—but some things are better left unexplained). However, many people are still able to make a living writing badly, to the dismay of English teachers everywhere, and others write regardless of whether or not it pays the bills, much to the horror of their parents. In fact, most of the people that write aren't professional writers or journalists, and write only because they like it. So, in an effort to extract something useful from these musings, I must change the question to “Why do people like writing?”

The reasons for writing are so numerable and various that any attempt to address them all is bound to fail. Additionally, there are always exceptions, so examining the general case tells you little more than a politician at a press conference. Therefore, the only case that will teach you anything that is worth examining is yourself.

So why do I like writing? Great writers have tried to answer this question for me. The most common answer to such a question is “to express myself,” but since the great majority of those who gave this answer blend together, I conclude that they were either unsuccessful or simply not unique. Since I aspire to be uniquely successful (and have a certain aptitude for statistics) I feel as if this isn't the best response.

Others say they want to be remembered after they die (at least someone did, though I can't recall who). But writers come and go like leaves in a stretch of New England wood, and we all die one way or another, either composting peacefully on the forest floor or hanging from a tree (for those few writers who aren't deciduous in nature). But, since I am neither foresightful nor macabre, I am not yet concerned with my epitaph.

Some cynics try to be original by saying that they write “for the money.” However, given the wits and determination it takes to become a successful writer, one would be far better compensated by pursuing a different profession, such as financial accounting or being Bill Gates. Furthermore, it isn't writing that they like, but money, which defeats the purpose of the question.

Many believe they are on a quest to make the world a better place. What, then, do writers add to society? Something to read on a rainy Sunday afternoon? Companionship by the fire? Kindling (the newspapers—not the writers)? They certainly don't build bridges or feed the world's poor (although reporters, journalists, and newspaper columnists do a great job keeping the homeless warm). They write to reveal what readers are too caught up to notice; the problem being that when they do, readers are often too caught up to care. Since I have yet to find some world-changing, profound truth, I'll pass on this reason as well.

In his essay “Why I Write,” Orwell isolated four reasons that he believed were present in every writer: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. These motivations are fairly self-explanatory, apart from historical impulse, which Orwell explains as the “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts”—as opposed to untrue facts, or, for that matter, useful facts—“and store them up for the use of posterity.”

Orwell is certainly right, though, for these motivations do exist (the proof: the other day I was writing a Petrarchan sonnet in my journal protesting the policies of the van Buren administration from 1838-40). He even mentions how these motivations change over time in any individual writer. But for me these motivations change from project to project—even from page to page—so that none of them is permanent enough to constitute a general motivation for “why write.” For example, the previous paragraph I spent ridiculing other writers to soothe my ego (I normally just feed it beef jerky, but I was feeling generous), whereas I will soon find myself in serious contemplation of the nature of love (hint: it's not motivated by political purpose).

Further reading reveals Orwell states he does not think “one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development.” Ignoring the fact that Orwell assumes all writers are male, one can see that looking to the past may reveal something useful about my motivations for writing.

I remember pretending to be able to read. My mother read Curious George to me so often that I had memorized it, and so I would recite the story aloud while paging through the book. It was painfully obvious what I was doing, however, because I sometimes forgot parts of the story, and oftentimes I would not be reading the words on the page, but rather the words from the previous page or the next. Nonetheless, I liked reading, but more than that, I liked stories, because they were invariably more exciting than whatever I happened to be doing at the moment. It was this interest in tales and storytelling that segued into my enthusiasm for writing.

My first proper literary endeavor was a story I wrote in the fourth grade about a pair of ocelots, which I have subsequently lost. To this day, however, I am convinced that it is a work of unparalleled genius, the likes of which I have never been able to reproduce. I enjoyed writing that story, so I did what I do every time I have fun: I did it again. However, I soon discovered that copying my story word for word wasn't as exhilarating as I had anticipated, so I thought I'd write something different—a sequel. I still didn't know why I liked writing it, but I was hooked, and I have written ever since.

It was not until this year that I had written proper nonfiction essays, and in many ways, it was a new experience. I felt like Sherlock Holmes, investigating myself (for some petty, nonviolent crime, of course), with clippie as my hapless assistant (“It looks like you're writing an introspective essay!...”). Each essay was a mystery waiting to be solved, and to succeed I had to look inside myself for the answer (there is an organ just above the pancreas where the answers are stored).

After all, that is the nature of writing: exploration (Except without the disease, shipwrecks, and imperialism commonly involved in old-fashioned exploration). When you write, you explore your own thoughts. You take the ideas in your head and put them in solid form so that you may scrutinize them and find their flaws and nuances. The easiest essays to write were the ones where I trod over ground I had previously investigated. Conversely, the ones that I struggled with were the ones where I explored the most new ground. Writing an essay was a process through which I could uncover some kernel of truth about myself. At the end of five essays I had accumulated quite a bit of knowledge, for each time I went through the writing process again, repeating it redundantly, I learned something more about myself. From the writer's perspective, then, each essay is a chance for self-reflection (however narcissistic the thought) and self expression, limited only by the precision of one's own eyeglass. For some this is the point, but for me this was part of the process. The goal is not the journey, but the destination: what you get when you add each step along the way. Analogously, this conclusion can be applied to the question, “why do I like writing?”

What, then, is the sum of egoism, enthusiasm, impulse, and purpose? What is it that excites an of irrational, untraceable fondness (besides brownies and kittens)? It is more than liking, because when I like something I can you tell why I like it (brownies: they're delicious; kittens: they're delicious). What form of affection defies explanation, driving writers to do crazy things like toil endless over a sentence or write Ulysses? It is love. They love writing¹.

The problem with the previous explanations is that none of them alone was able to satisfy the question, yet as a group they were ridiculous. But one must realize the difficulty in explaining away why you love writing, because inherent in that proof is the explanation of love, which is naturally a feeling without a rational explanation. Thus, I see now why my earlier attempts were futile: love is absurd. It is an utterly senseless, irrational emotion. It makes as much sense as this simile. It cannot be explained, which makes it a form of insanity.

Thus we are left with the only conclusion: I write because I am insane.

I'm tired of this double-standard for racism in comedy.

Perhaps I should explain. Today in the YDN (Yale Daily News) I saw an article which described how the blue-blue (the course list for freshmen) is taken and turned into a list of fake courses and distributed as a joke. In it, the paper described a letter to the editor where a student had written to protest the joke course, “Spanish for WASPs,” which taught 'practical phrases' such as “Rosa, are you stealing change again?” The course was very personally insulting to this person, because it was a racist joke. The newspaper article then went on to say that this year, the comedy featured in the joke blue-book would be more tame, and the fake Spanish course had been replaced with “Introduction to Terrorist Arabic,” in which student would be taught how to follow “simple bomb-making charts” and the like.

Now, don't get me wrong, I find these both pretty funny. But to assume that one is somehow less racist that the other is what gets me. Let's analyze the jokes here. The first makes the assumption that all Spanish speaking immigrants are day laborers who work in rich people's gardens and steal quarters on the side to make ends meet. The second makes the assumption that Arabic speakers (word-wide) are serial killers. Excuse me? I'd rather be accused of filching pocket change.

It's not that I'm against the jokes, it's that I'm against the hypocrisy. Anyone who can't laugh at themselves doesn't deserve the right to make a joke about anyone else. I don't want to hear whoever wrote the paper to complain about the Spanish jokes to ever tell me the one that begins, “There are two muffins in an oven...” Hey, that reminds me of the holocaust, you insensitive douchebag.

What am I trying to say here? They're just jokes. The point is that they make fun of something. Might I suggest “Taking-the-stick-out-of-your-ass 101”, with a side of “How-to-recognize-a-joke-for-idiots”? Every joke is going to insult somebody, but I don't hear blondes getting nearly as pissy about blonde jokes, or lawyers writing the editor about lawyer jokes, or even Satan (who makes up 1.67 x 10^-9 of the world population while appearing in an appalling 20% of jokes) sending demons to devour the souls of comedians everywhere.

The fact is that jokes are socially acceptable depending on how many people they piss off, and to what extent. Make a Mexican or black joke? Hell no. Together, these minorities make up a good 30% of our population. Besides, they're overused and not that funny anyway. Make an Arab joke? Go for it! This oppressed minority only makes up a paltry .05% of Americans, and they're all so tied up in selling oil and flying planes into buildings that they won't notice anyway. As a plus, this ethnic group hasn't been the butt of jokes except for the past five or six years, so you can be racist and original! (Note: sarcasm)

I've worked out an equation to describe whether or not a joke is socially acceptable, and it is:

S = -e^k ∫ [x^2 sin^2(πb) (dx/dt) / ln(y)] dy

where x is how funny the joke is, t is time, b is the bias (political, gender, hair-color, etc.) neutrality of your joke, and y is the number of people you've insulted (integrate over y to get the net social acceptability). The constant “k” happens to be the Chris Rock factor: if you are Chris Rock, k=1000, if you aren't, k=0. Chris Rock can say anything and get away with it. Good luck using this in any practical application, however.

I hope that the editors of the YDN and the blue-book jokers for next year can make good use of this equation, so that all the jokes are 100% PC. That is, if it displays properly.

I'm a little nervous about the state of things in the world, because I feel that George Bush is overdue for another disaster. The War on Terror has sort of lost its luster and the levees in New Orleans have been rebuilt. Dick Cheney hasn't shot anyone lately, and the white house is curiously devoid of pretzels. Even the DC Madame story has been off the airwaves for a while.
All this means that something terrible is about to happen. Perhaps I'll fail my math midterm. That would really suck.
Or maybe Britney Spears will make a comeback tour or something similarly horrible, and I'll pass the midterm. Oh, hey, I'm saved!
Actually, not really. This update is just a way for me to procrastinate working on stuff. I got on IM to help procrastinate as well, and I realized that I didn't know half the people on my buddy list. Like, I know the people, and I see the screen names, but I don't know which screen name belongs to who. Why can't people just put "Tom.Smith" as their screen name? Or "Tom.Smith.13108," in case someone else is named Tom Smith? Then I could actually tell who I'm talking to. The oddest thing is when someone I knew from high school IMs me, but I'm not sure who it, and the screen name is gender-neutral.
It's almost as bad as when distant relatives call, but don't introduce themselves. Except less awkward, because you have time to think about how to chat in general ambiguities that avoid most awkwardness.
The other thing is that it gets really cold here, really fast. Its a good thing I have a warm jacket.

I just recently saw Mike Birbiglia of Comedy Central fame perform a stand-up routine as part of a college tour he was doing. It was pretty sweet. The guy is hilarious! Stand up is great on tv, but it's even funnier live. Several people opened for him, including this one really good comedian with a really witty sense of humor. All in all, it was definitely worth the ten bucks it cost to get in.
Earlier today I went jamming with some other guys who play guitar. One of them is also a big Interpol fan (he saw them live!) so we share some common ground. That is one of the things that I need to do now that I'm nearby New York. I need to go to an Interpol concert. Or a concert of any kind, for that matter.
Also, math is hard. I have a midterm for this class next friday, and I'm going to study for it tomorrow. If I'm good and work hard, then I think I'll relax later that night. I also have this essay for english that I have to write about some commonplace object that tells us a lot about ourselves and our culture. I think I'll write about clocks and wristwatches. Isn't it odd that we eat lunch at noon, for example, and not whenever we feel like it? Or that we feel we ought to go to bed at time x, regardless of whether or not we feel tired? I sort of feel like that right now, although I am a little legitimately tired. Or that we need to get up in the morning at a certain time? I don't know what's up with that. If we just woke up when we were rested, I think the world might be a better place. At least, a better place for sleeping.
Speaking of which, good night.

Holy shit. I'm being ridiculously irresponsible but I have an excuse. I just figured out what my livejournal password was after I had not typed it in for like, two years or something. They tell you not to use the same password for everything, but if I didn't, I would never have been able to update this again... As for the few people who know what my password is, they probably won't read this and realize that it's the same for everything. I spent the past hour and a half reading my old entries, laughing at my own jokes, being lame, and wishing I could edit some of the stupid things I'd said. But, I guess that would defeat the purpose of a true chronicle of my existence, not that this is at all for a number of reasons.
But first things first. College. I have the biggest double on my floor, I have a great roommate, I'm taking four point five courses (multivariable calculus and linear algebra, introduction to physics, reading and writing the modern essay, a seminar on nanotechnology, and a lab for physics, if you must know). What am I doing these days? Besides class, I'm in the chess club, I'm trying to find out what's up with the debate team so I can join that as well, and playing far too much guitar.
Randomness: It will be a shame for everything that happened between my last post and this most recent to be lost to the annals of history, but I'll have to fill in that information when I have more energy.
Talking to old high school friends over IM was great. It's good to catch up on everyone and know they're doing well (or sometimes not, but know this: looking back, all the stupid things I did are far less painful now than I thought they were at the time. Time makes everything better, unless you're dead, in which case you don't care) .
I wish I could write more, but I'm tired and need to go to bed so that I can comprehend multivariable calc at 925 tomorrow morning (or, rather, later today).

It has been forever since I've posted. I know. I just don't have the motivation or time to update this all that much any more. I'm kinda surprised that my account still works. I wonder if they get deleted if they are left idle for too long. In any case, life has been normal since I last posted. I had a socks Christmas, but that's all good; I spent a lot of time holed up in the computer room doing college essays. It feels like they never end. I thought I was done on Jan. 1 when I sent most of them off, but there were two more due the next week. Then, after that, some of the colleges didn't get the letters, so I had to send those again, and then all the interviews, and then there's the FAFSA... too much! But I managed somehow to get all that done on time.
My New Year's resolution was that I was going to be perfectly organized for 2007. It's working out alright, but I still have to build up the motivation to not do homework 2nd period. Plus, I can't find my math book as of right now. I think I may have left it in the classroom, turning it in to the closet 'cause I forgot it was mine.
I recently got back from ACE Regionals, which was cool. We got 3rd place and qualified for districts (barely) and so if they pair high-low we'll have a tough time in our first round at districts. While I was doing that, Kia and Katie got 1st place in the 4th CFL: way to go!
Schools going alright, but now the work all seems kind of pointless. I guess I'm just tired. I was good for 3.578904207 years of high school, but now I'm worn out!
Also, we haven't had a true snow day so far this year. Two years ago, we didn't have a full week of school from winter break to march because of the snow. Global warming, man. It's coming to get you. It's the middle of January. Where's the snow? It's so lost that it should air on ABC on Wednesdays at 10. Maybe if I went to sleep earlier, I'd be less tired. In which case, I'm going to bed. Ugh...
Peace.

Pre-TG: The debate tournament was the only thing of note before the thanksgiving break, where we lost to Maggie-Lee-Walker and got third. I don’t understand why we can’t beat MLW. It pisses me off. Yes, running T was a bad idea, but I don’t see how their advantages o/w the Politics DA, especially after we read about three turns (which they dropped) on their CMR advantage.

Thanksgiving break: we left after school on Tuesday and drove all day up to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where my cousins Kumars and Katayun live (and Dana Alqadi too, if you’re keeping track). We arrived at about midnight on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, and my uncle Hadi and aunt Neelufar were there to greet us and let us in. They had a new room added on to their house since the last time I visited, and we slept there, it was pretty cool. Unfortunately, Kumars and Katayun had school the next morning so they were asleep and we didn’t get to see them until noon on Wednesday. That wasn’t so bad though, because I slept in until noon anyway.
Kia and I got in the car with Hadi to pick them up from school (Uni-high, as it’s called). We got to see the school a little bit, and I found out that Dana’s locker was right next to Kumars’ (it is a really small world), and we got to say hello and catch up a little bit. After that we drove home and chilled with them. We went and played soccer in a small field near their house, which was a lot of fun. We all returned a while later and waited for my uncle Hojat to arrive, but unfortunately his connecting flight had been delayed, and he didn’t arrive until some time after nine. It was around this time that we watched Serenity.
The next day was Thanksgiving, and we messed around all morning playing foosball and ping-pong and some random card game we decided to make up. The cards were sheets of notebook paper we’d divided into eighths and cut out, and you could make up rules and write them on the cards and play them. They were things like, “The last player standing loses 5 points,” or “Name a player. That player may not touch the floor for the rest of the game. Every time they do, they lose 5 points.” Kia made up one that said, “First player to smack Gilan in the face gets 5 points.” I smacked myself. It was a really fun game.
That day Hojat was also up and around, and we played a lot of guitar, and tried to get everyone to play something together. We ended up looking up tabs for Death Cab and the Shins and I played the guitar parts as Kia and Katayun sang. I also played guitar for Under the Bridge (RHCP) and Kumars sang the lyrics to that one. It was fun because Hojat didn’t like to hear just segments of songs, so he said that if we played a song all the way through, we got a quarter. I tried to play Stairway to Heaven, but I didn’t know the solo and got some verses mixed up.
Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, and we ate it with some other Iranians in the area. Afterwards I had obscene amounts of cherry pie. I missed my good old pumpkin pie (they forgot to add the sugar while baking it, unfortunately).
Friday we went to see 007. We went first downtown and walked around the campus of the U of I. We went to eat lunch at some Korean place, which was pretty good. Hojat was being funny, making several memorable comments. My favorite was, “There are two types of immigrants: white ones and dark ones. I hate them both. But the dark ones piss me off more.” After lunch we returned home for about an hour, then went to see the movie. I still maintain that Daniel Craig is not as good as Brosnan, but the movie was very entertaining. Bond dropped several good one-liners that I’ll have to remember. “That last hand nearly killed me.” Also good was the fact that the woman was useful. She saved his life at least twice. My favorite part was the black dude doing parkour. Gotta love parkour.
Saturday we woke up late and played foosball and soccer and stuff until the afternoon, when we’d set up a time to meet up with Dana and Nora and catch up. The parents were going to a dinner party, so we had about an hour and a half to chat. Dana dropped off her sister and then left for something (I don’t think we ever figured out what it was) but returned in the last half-hour to talk. We didn’t talk about anything of note—just the good old times in Blacksburg and people we know.
We had to go away to the dinner party, which was actually pretty fun. We had some tongue of some sort which was very tender and tasty. They had a kid in college that we knew from a long time ago named Zhubin (think Jew-bean) who was a pretty cool guy. After dinner we went upstairs where there were some computers and we played Doom (the original!). When we got bored of that, I added Zhubin to my facebook. We’ll have to keep in touch.
This morning we got up at five and left at about the same time Hojat did. It felt like a debate tournament. I actually wrote this in the car as we’re driving home, just as I said I would on the previous post. I know, I know… I’m pretty shocked myself.

Ah, the good old break. I left after school on tuesday to drive ten hours to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois to have Thanksgiving with my cousins Kumars and Katayun. Man, the good times we have/are had/having. We play foosball, pingpong, cards, watch movies, and play music together. It is ridiculously fun. Letsee... the first night we watched Serenity, which was unfortunately a little lost on that crowd. Thanksgiving dinner itself was quite satisfactory, and delicious blend of American Turkey and Iranian rice dishes. We had some people over for dinner, but it was mostly just the family. We saw 007 on Friday after Thanksgiving, which I thought was a pretty good movie, but I didn't think it was the best thing ever. Oh, and I got a facebook (profile:gilan salehi), so if I haven't yet found you to friend you, feel free to hit me up. Saturday we met up with Dana and Nora at some bread-shop and spent an hour and a half catching up and talking about the good old days. Man, that was fun. Good to see you guys. Um, tired right now (playing the original Doom) and I don't have the energy to really do this long weekend justice. Of course, every time I say that I end up never updating on that subject. So hopefully this will suffice. I might write something up about this on the twelve hour car ride home (adjusted for time-zone). I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!

Ah, yay. This weekend was a fantastic mix of awesome and sort of ok. We'll start from the beginning, because you can't really start anywhere else. The beginning is friday at 2:25 pm, when the weekend offically starts. Of course, I had an SATII in Physics the next day, so I spent that afternoon studying. Not much fun, but I felt productive. I went to sleep at 10:30 (sleep is important before big tests).
I woke up Saturday and took a shower at 6:30 am, had a delicious omelette and toast, and then drove off with my dad to Pamplin where they would be doing the SATs. I got there at 7:45, the recommended time, but of course by the time they actually got started it was 8:45. They sent us all to a room in Williams Hall where we took the test. It went quite well, although it started sometime around 9:15, I'm guessing. Those tests have generous room for error, which was good because I had no idea what the work function for metal was and some other weird quantum stuff like that, although it was cool reading about it in the review book. Something about Planck and photons and kinetic energy. Anyway.
I think it went well. I was only taking one test so I was out of there by 10:15, went down to my dad's office in Pamplin and we went to the Farmer's market downtown. Picked up some apples and lettuce and the world's most delicious scones, which I am having right now. They have raisins and just perfect with some herbal tea. Then my dad left me downtown to hang out, and I waited around for Owen and SB and all to get out of their tests (they were taking three, but I thought Owen was taking two, so I called him at 11:30 to see where he was. Luckily, he had his phone off, or they would have confiscated it). I sat around in Squires and played around with the photo warp feature on my cell phone for about an hour (I'm easily amused). I always wondered what I'd look like as a girl, so I gave myself long hair and thin lips and stuff. It wasn't pretty... so I guess it's a good thing I'm a guy. I saw Sarah Will downtown but she didn't see me. I thought she was off in W&M... must be back in town.
I went and got a subway sandwich, and *then* everyone got out of the tests and wanted to eat lunch downtown. First we played around a bit in the Breakzone and Owen berated me for not being able to kill things in that shooting game. Then we went to More Than Coffee where we were joined by my sister and Deanna. I was full, but everyone sort of shared a large pizza and cheese sticks.
After lunch, we had a philosophical discussion on the corner in front of Squires before going to Owen's car and driving back to his house. I fooled around on Conor's computer game, and then my sister and I went over to SB's house to play DnD. That was quite fun. We did that from about three to seven, and then SB parent's ordered dinner from a Chinese place (the one out by Food Lion) and my parents came over and we had an impromptu dinner party. We painted some of SB's 40k models for DnD, although the five-minute paint jobs were pretty crappy.
Then we went home and watched a movie. I wanted to see V for Vendetta (I still haven't. Heard it's good though) but my Mom got the whole family to watch Matchpoint, a romantic comedy. Then the DvD skipped on us and we watched Bill Maher instead. I realized that Ben Affleck is a really smart and eloquent speaker and that he might run for political office some day. I bet he'd beat Ahnold. And that was just Saturday. It's amazing what you can do in one day when you wake up before noon.
Sunday was a little less successful. I woke up around 10:30 and went to the Quaker meeting, where we had a philosophical religious discussion about living up to Quaker ideals. That was interesting. Afterwards I spent the afternoon on my pilgrimage, which was to go up and down church street and talk to the church people about religious diversity and what they thought and blah blah blah. Unfortunately, Chruch's have the unfortunate habit of finishing before the Quakers, so only one church was open. I spent an hour waiting for a Rwandan lady to finish her dialogue (about her writing a book on the genocide, it was really quite interesting) and then talked to the minister. I saw Courtney there, so now I know what Church she goes to. It's a small town.
After that I went down to the Masjed off of North Main and talked to a couple of guys there about relgion and diversity, and then came home. I spent the afternoon writing a Coston Analysis and doing my homework and trying to get some stuff done for college that I should have turned in two weeks ago and then write this up. Whew... my tea is getting cold. Peace out.

It's been a long, long time since I last updated. Well, I guess it's about time. Let's see how life has been lately.
School started, meaning I have stuff to do now, but it's not really stuff I want to do. At this point, updating is kind of like my way of not doing my Coston analysis for the next ten minutes. I spent Saturday and Sunday lazing about, not really doing much work, which makes Monday the work day, for everything in school. It's kind of funny to think that everyone else in the US won't start school until tomorrow. Our school system is so messed up... just take a look at the new wellness program. Basically, they are making you healthier by giving you the same crap in smaller servings. Wow, if only everything were that logical. I'd have to kill myself.
My classes are alright, it seems to be plenty of work. E-commerce is pretty much sucking, but I have some friends in there and that makes it alright. Apart from that, I have good classes, but they are high-pressure classes. And I have this SATII in physics coming up, and I need to review everything ever, plus learn some new topics like optics, thermodynamics, and nuclear chemistry. It is going to be ballsy. Plus, it's only four weeks away.
Sunday there was a debate meeting and I went and got a bunch of files and now I have to sort them out and stuff. The topic this year isn't as good as last year, and Neg will have a tough time winning debates because the topic is so broad.
My phone got fixed; not that you knew it was broken, but anyway. The number is 239-4103, if you need to call me.
Arg. This Coston paper is on the antifederalists. Don't you hate it when both sides of an argument are wrong? It's like two people arguing over who's better, N'Sync or the Backstreet Boys. They both sound like I'd rather kill kittens with a vacuum cleaner. Oh, and if Lindsay Lohan were a food, she'd be eggs and ketchup, because some people like her, but I just think she's disgusting.
Anyway, I better get back to doing stuff. Hope you enjoyed that. Peace.

Well, hello everyone. Summer is over, in T minus twelve hours. It was a good summer, can't quite complain. The crazy killer dude wasn't really welcome, just a little too much excitement before the school year starts again. I was at the beach recently for a week, which was quite enjoyable, but that seems to be receding into the mists as the eternal penitentiary looms everpresent </poe>.
I got my schedule, for those of you who want to compare. Tell me if you have any classes with me. Not that I won't find out tomorrow. But, whatever. Here we go:

1st. AP Comparative Gov with Cdawg.
2nd. E-Commerce. Hopefully this will be more interesting than it sounds.
3rd. French 1V. Bonjour, mes amis.
4th. AP Calc BC.
5th. Lunch.
6th. AP Lit & Comp. Hobeika.
7th. AP Bio. Hopefully I'll have this with a few friends.
8th. AP Bio. Still. (it's a 2 period course).

Alright. That's it for now. I didn't update much during the summer, I'm sorry. There wasn't all that much going on. Hopefully there'll be more during the school year. Oh, and I heard a good joke:
Two Middle Easterners come to the United States. Years later they meet, and have both become thoroughly Americanized. The first says, "Hey, I'm about to pick up my kid from baseball practice, then go home and watch some NFL. You wanna come along a share a Bud Lite?"
The other replies, "Screw you, towel-head."


Peace out.

Well, I'm back. The French Academy was very fun. I thought about trying to write this entry in french, but then it would be very short and no one would understand it. I now have about sixty new people to add to my buddy list, and I have made about as many good friends. It was pretty incredible. My favorite part was learning all the french slang. It was pretty crazy, because all the french you learn in school does you no good, because in French every other word is slang. I'm not even kidding. We watched in clip of a French sitcom in one class, and it was incomprehensible, even for the kids in French 7. So learn french slang before going to france. Right now I don't have the energy to do justice to three weeks of awesomeness. I'll come back later. Peace. (Au revior)

Bonjour everybody. In less than nine hours I will be on my way to Richmond to speak only french for three weeks. So, in case I never see you again, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
But if I do, you'd probably want to hear how my summer is going (ok, probably not, but I'll tell you anyway). It's going pretty well. I work mon-fri from 9-3, and I like my job (there's a table with free candy. And there are icecream bars in the fridge! And the best part? Instead of your normal office water cooler, they have a keg!). The world cup is fun to watch, but my teams got eliminated (US and Iran both went 0-1-2). Now I have to root for England and France. Hopefully they'll let us watch the World Cup in the Academy. After all, France is playing!
Lemme see... apart from that, I'm playing tennis at the country club until five-thirty-ish. Then I come come and do nothing in particular. I feel like I should be having more parties and hanging with people more... summer is so short when there's a three week chunk taken out of the middle. Then again, most things are shorter when you take a chunk out of the middle. Like sticks. Most of the time they're half as long. But there's two of them. Unfortunately I don't get two summers. Ah, the irony.
Anyway, that's life for now. I won't be available to do anything for the next three weeks, so this is kinda the hold-over post until I'm back and I have all my adventures to relate. Peace.

Well, the first couple of weeks of summer are now solidly in the rearview mirror! My summer has settled into a rather unfortunate schedule, as I have work Mon-Fri from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. I'm getting paid $10/hr, but it prevents me from hanging out with friends whenever I want to. After three I am going to that tennis clinic with the tennis team guys. That lasts until six, Mon-Thu, but it can it can be skipped. I want to be doing so much more with friends that I am not because I have work and stuff.
Weekends are free, which is good. Sometimes I watch the World Cup matches. I want to jam with Gerin and Michael some time in the next couple of weeks (after that I am off to speak french!). Hopefully Gerin's burns get better soon (Get well soon, Gerin!). Then we can jam. That would be cool.
Oh, the main event of the past week (besides the Iran-Mexico match) was that I got a new cell phone. It's pretty cool--plays mp3s. It holds only 47 megs, which doens't make it an mp3 player by any stretch of the imagination, but I can switch out the ten songs every so often to keep it fresh. I like it. Mmm.
Anyway, that's all that's going on right now in my life. Haven't been spending any time at the pool or anything. Just work and tennis. Well, I've got to go watch a world cup game. Peace.

It's the last day of school! It's OVER! It would be better if I didn't have SAT2's on Saturday, which I'm kinda nervous about. Right now it's raining, so I'm going to stay inside. Maybe I should be studying for SAT2's. I guess I'll go do that. I'm taking US History and Math 2, so it shouldn't be too bad, though. Well, that was kind of a pointless entry. Bye.

Before I even begin, I can tell that this will be a humongously long post. In case you don't know already, I spent the weekend at NCFLs in Chicago, debating. So, as per request, I will recount in detail my misadventures.
*note: if you want to skip over the actual debate rounds, they're in brackets. Aren't I a nice guy, making reading this an easier and more enjoyable experience for you? Don't everybody thank me at once, now.
But, before I begin, I must announce:

The Top Ten Worst Things About NCFLs:
10. The Top Ten Worst Things About NCFLs.
9. T's and the Speed K.
8. Had to get up early all the time.
7. Glenbrook S lost in the Finals.
6. Our flight got delayed for four hours.
5. Is it just me or are National Circuit debaters stuck up?
4. Even the tap water was $6.00
3. Owen getting teabagged.
2. No one broke.
1. A certain paranoid person who will remain unnamed.

The Top Ten Best Things About NCFLs:
10. Nanites!
9. I got a bed to myself.
8. Chicago Deepdish Pizza.
7. Just being in Chicago and out of school was great.
6. Playing President for hours on end
5. Boondock Saints.
4. We got some really good experience debating.
3. Nitin getting conned was hilarious.
2. Pranks!
1. A fitting end to an awesome debate season.

Alright, well, I'll start at Thursday and progress from there. Thursday morning I got all my stuff to school alright. AP US we watched Dances With Wolves, English we watched LOTR. French we had a history test, which I got back today and got a 95 on, which is good. After lunch, Nitin, SB, and I got a ride from Squires to his house, where we actually ate lunch. Squires packed some last-minute sort of things, and then we watched the second half of Man on Fire. We finished it and drove to the airport around 2:30.

The car ride was uneventful, the airport less so. Owen had unfortunately gotten pink eye, which was kind of nasty to look at because his eye was all swollen pink and crusty. We checked the tubs in and got all our tickets sorted out and that sort of thing. Emerson and I bought a deck of cards at the airport gift shop and everyone played 99 (the new cool game) downstairs for a while.
At this point it was announced that our flight had been delayed to 4:30 because of bad weather in Chicago. We decided to go through security and hang around at the gate, at which point it was announced that our flight had been delayed to 5:30. Everyone settled down to play cards, and I learned a couple of really cool new games, mainly Rummy (at which I suck) and President (at which I am fairly good). We played that the rest of the time, during which our flight got pushed back to 8:30. The best part of this was that Mr. Saunders suggest holding a damp teabag over Owen’s eye to help his pink eye. This, of course, was a recipe for disaster. Not only did the teabag do nothing to cure Owen’s pink eye, it tinted his left eye and cheek a sickly yellow, adding to the disgustingness of it all. Best of all, now we can say that Owen got teabagged. Haha. OWEN GOT TEABAGGED!

We had some subway sandwiches and then got on the plane and flew to Chicago, which was a pretty uneventful flight. In Chicago we all piled onto a shuttle that took us to the Chicago Hilton, and we checked in for the night. Cullen, Emerson and I got a room together, and Sbown and Squitin got a room. The first night, however, Cullen spent in the other room watching Goodfellas, so Emerson and I each got a bed to ourselves.

The following morning we toured the city. First we ate breakfast at a little café where Eggs cost $8.00. Toast was $7.00; $7.50 if you wanted butter.

After paying about ten dollars each for breakfast we trekked over to the Chicago Art Museum, which was reasonably priced given the cost of breakfast (I gave them some toast and they let me in). The Art Museum was both cool and kinda boring. We saw an Arms & Armor exhibit, which had all kinds of weapons, suits of armor, and things like that, which was pretty cool. Most of the other exhibits weren’t as interesting. Except the one where a 1,000 page book indexed every single engineering and architectural detail of the building, which attracted Owen like a moth to a light. I found it hard to detach him from the giant drafting book, so I set off on my own through the European Art exhibit. Owen eventually caught up to me and we meandered through the exhibit. I think the sculptures were better than the paintings, because the mason had managed to make stone look like flowing cloth, hair, leaves… you name it. The paintings weren’t as impressive, but they were very nice.

Around 2:30 we all left for the Navy Pier. I don’t see why it is such a hyped attraction, through. We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then wandered around the pier for a while before sitting down to play cards. The highlight of the Navy Pier was perhaps the Dippin Dots, which probably means that the Pier needs some new management, or at least some fun rides that don’t cost an arm and a leg. I ended up playing President with SB, Squires, Nitin, and Emerson.

We left the Pier around 4:30 and returned to the hotel, where Squires played the Shawshank Redemption on his portable DVD player (it is a really good movie). We only got partway through before we left to eat dinner at a Thai restaurant, but we finished it once we got back.

The next morning we got up at 5:00 am to shower and dress. We had a meager breakfast of mini-wheats and nutrigrain bars. Rounds started at 7:00, and Cullen and I were Aff against two guys from Kansas.
[[We ran the BCS 1AC, and they read a Speed Kritik in the 1NC, as well as putting some ink on the solvency flow. Cullen did a good job of answering them in the 2AC. The debate wasn’t particularly exciting, because there wasn’t a lot of clash. Against the Speed K it said that you wouldn’t stop a tennis player from hitting hard serves or running fast, so why would you stop the Aff from talking fast? That was about it. There were no real impacts on the Speed K and we carried our solvency through and won the round.]]

[[The second round was posted almost immediately, and this time we were Neg against two white guys running a strange Aff. They said that Congress should pass a law saying that it is illegal to use the words “enemy combatant,” and “terrorist” in a court. They claimed a perpetual war impact by saying that the discourse on terrorism leads Bush to continue this never-ending War on Terror. Cullen ran India Politics, Pres. Powers (w/o counterplan), and some solvency attacks, saying basically that people would just use another word, like “foreign militant” to say the same thing. The 2AC talked about how the courts would see how foreign militant was the same thing as enemy combatant, and wouldn’t allow it. I got up and said that there is no way to legally classify the concept as illegal, because someone could always claim some minor distinction while keeping the main idea intact. Then I talked about how even if they ruled out the use of the words in court, tv pundits and bloggers would still use the word, and they would not stop the discourse on terrorism and thus couldn’t claim any of their impacts. I thought we did a good job against them, but we lost on a 3-0 decision. They were obviously the more experienced debaters.]]

The third round was power paired off the first, so we had to wait around a while before they got the next posting out. Then we hit a pair of National Circuit debaters.

[[We were Aff. During the 1NC they ran four T’s, each labeled “Time Bitches” at the top, which really pissed me off. I don’t know if I should have done an RVI, given that they were running four T’s clearly labeled “Time Bitches,” which was just abusive, but I didn’t think of it at the time. They also ran a Stadism K and an Immigration DA. By the 1AR they had dropped two T’s and the K, and had 2 T’s and an Immigration DA. I did some analytics on the Immigration DA—1. The guest worker plan will not lead to an influx of immigrants and 2. even if it did, it would not cause an oil crunch, which wouldn’t cause nuclear war even if it did happen. However, I got sort of overwhelmed in the 1AR and dropped a T which I could have easily answered if the sheet hadn’t been buried underneath a pile of evidence. Arg. We lost on a 2-1, I think.]]

Lunch was pretty lame. We had to go to a different building to get our bagged lunches, which included a six inch sub, a soft drink, and chips. SB, Squires and I went down to the park to eat our lunch, then we went back to the room and fooled around. The next round wasn’t until 3:30, so we watched a game of Lacrosse.

[[The next round we were Neg. I forget what the Aff ran, but we ran Pres. Powers/CP and India Politics, and carried those DA’s through to victory.]]

[[The fifth and final round was later that day, against a pair of girls. They won the coin toss and ran a material witness case. We did the old Pres Powers/CP with India Politics, but they answered them fairly well, and the judge felt that the Aff won a link turn battle over India Politics. I thought I answered it quite well. Anyway, we lost that round on a 2-1 ballot. One judge said that if I’d have spent more time on the l/t then he would have voted Neg. Oh well.]]

In the end we went 2-3. Squitin and Sbown both went 3-2, but nobody broke. After rounds we hung out at the pool table in the lobby and played pool with some people from Georgia who were there as well. Eventually Owen, SB, Nitin, and Squires showed up, and they wanted to go get some pizza. We got a recommendation from the hotel, but after walking about 14 blocks to the pizza place, it was closed. On the way, Nitin got conned.

This deserves a paragraph unto itself. We were walking along when some guy came up and asked us if we were from Chicago. Thinking he wanted directions, I said no, and kept walking. But Nitin, of course, stopped to talk to him. The man said that his Lexus broke down, and that he needed some money for a ride to meet his wife across town (WTF?). At "needed some money" I could tell it was a con, and hopefully you could too. Otherwise, I'd stay away from any city larger than Roanoke. Anyway, SB says, "Hey Nitin, we'd better get going," (HINT HINT), but Nitin says, "Hold on a sec, lemme give this guy some money." Ah, Nitin, Nitin, Nitin. He's so oblivious sometimes. He gives the guy a ten and gets six dollars in change. Not that four dollars is much to lose, but still... NITIN GOT CONNED. Haha. The best part about it is that Nitin still wouldn't know that he got conned if SB, Owen, or I hadn't told him that he had.

When we got there the place was closed, which pissed us all off, because we'd just walked for twenty minutes to get there. I bought Owen a milkshake to make up for all the bad hosting that has gone on at my house before CFLs, and we returned to the hotel and ordered three pizzas from Dominos. I think we watched a movie that night. Maybe we finished up Shawshank Redemption or something. I can’t quite remember.

Sunday morning I woke up around nine and got some donuts with Squires, SB, Cullen, and Emerson. We returned to watch rounds the rest of the day, interspersed with playing cards and watching movies.
I recall that the first round we watched was quite one-sided. The Glenbrook North team lay down a significant beating with their Military Contract Aff. There was a lunch break, after which we returned to watch Glenbrook South take out Glenbrook North in a debate that hinged precariously on T. It was the best round of debate I think I’ve ever seen. In the finals we watched a less stellar debate between a team that ran the searching of private businesses, and Glenbrook South ran a nano-bots DA against it. Rockin! The debate came down to T and Solvency. The Aff won, which was a real shame because they were clearly not the better debate team.

That night we watched Boondock Saints, which was a really good, really fun movie. We also played a whole bunch of pranks on people. I shortsheeted Squitin’s bed, SB cut off the bristles of Nitin’s toothbrush, and SB filled one of Nitin’s debate tubs with water and dumped a bunch of useless paper in there so that it looked like there were a bunch of files. It was hilarious. Everyone was in Squitin and Sbown’s room watching Boondock Saints when Nitin walks in and sees that his tub is in the middle of the room. He bends over to pick it up, and everyone hears the water inside slosh around. Nitin’s expression was priceless. Everyone burst out laughing. You had to be there.

We interrupted the movie to go eat dinner at the pizza place that had been closed on Saturday. I had the famous Chicago Deepdish Pizza and fully enjoyed it. Man, that stuff is good.

When we returned to the hotel, Landon and Ben took us back outside to read us “The Top Ten Reasons Why NCFLs Sucked.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t up to their usual par. The best one was about Owen getting teabagged. We returned to the hotel room and finished Boondock Saints, which, in case I haven’t said it yet, is an awesome movie. That night there were several good pranks played. For one, SB shaved Cullen’s leg, so there is a one-inch-wide, foot-long bald spot running down his leg. If you see him in school, make him show it to you. The best part was that he didn’t figure it out until we were actually on the plane coming home. In the airport, he found a small, inch-square spot on his other leg that SB has used to test the prank on. “Dude, this is so weird… I’ve got a bald spot on my leg…” Of course, everybody who knows what’s going on starts laughing, at which point Cullen goes, “Dude, why are you all laughing? What’s so funny?” He figured it out about an hour later on the plane, where he crossed his legs so that he was staring at the shaved strip. “What the f…” That, I think, was the most hilarious prank played on the trip.

The shortsheeting prank worked exactly as I had predicted, but with more hilarity. Nitin got into bed, but couldn’t figure out why he can’t extend his legs down under the sheets. So of course he started kicking and flailing until he finally realized what was going on. Also funny about the shortsheeting prank was that Squires, who was helping us shortsheet the bed in the first place, forgot that we’d shortsheeted it and tried to get in while we were watching Boondock Saints. He looked confused for about five seconds, then realized what was going on and got out. Unfortunately the toothbrush prank wasn’t as funny as we’d hoped.

All in all, it was great. The return trip was uneventful, and Squires drove me back to SB’s house, where my mom picked up and brought me back home. Monday night I just chillaxed, and tried to write this entry, except it got deleted about two pages into it. So here I am on Tuesday writing it.
That’s it for the debate trip. I got into the French Academy off the waiting list, so I’m happy about that. College Night is tomorrow at six, so you better be there! Which reminds me, I need to put up another announcement tomorrow morning. And check up to see if everything’s going smoothly. Man that was a long post. I didn’t even put everything in there. But, I’m done. For now, at least. I probably got a few things mixed up in my story, but I don’t have the energy to go back and fix them right now.

Alright, peace out y’all.

It's been a while since I last updated, so I have a lot to say.
I went up to Philadelphia the weekend before last to visit colleges (Haverford, Swarthmore, and Princeton). I took a flight up to Philadelphia with my mom, and we stayed at my uncle's for four days. The first day we visited Haverford, the nearest, where my uncle was is head of gift-giving (it is an awesome job). He showed us around campus for while before we met with the head of admissions, who talked about college life, why Haverford was really good, and stuff like that. He was a really nice guy. He set up a meeting for us with an astrophysics professor that afternoon, so we went to talk to him too. He showed us around the observatory, where they had a four-foot long telescope mounted inside a dome.
The next day we visited Princeton. The first thing we did was jump on the end of a tour group and go through the Princeton tour. I wonder if that's what life's like at Princeton all the time, with random tour-people walking around. I'll have to ask Tim. Anyway, after that we ate lunch, then we went to one of the Admissions people, and talked about Princeton, APs, how they decide who comes to Princeton, and all that jazz. It was really helpful. Then we talked with a Mathematics professor who made me feel like I have no idea how to do math, and then with a amiable String Theorist with a cold. I learned some good stuff, and it was cool, 'cause he said that Princeton was the "world capital of string theory." Cool stuff.
After that I went to Swarthmore for an admissions seminar, where they basically told you how to write an essay and what to do/not do during an interview. I learned a lot, I have some cool sheets, and hopefully I'll be able to use some of that information for college night. Which, by the way, was postponed until the 31st.
Prom was really fun. I had a great time, and I hope everyone else did too. I would say that Robin looked lovely, but I only point out the unusual. We went to Burrus Tavern, where I had a delicous Shrimp and Chicken Fetuccini, and Robin had some Asian Pot Stickers, which probably explains why she was acting sort of delirious the rest of the evening. We arrived fashionably late (at ten) with a large group: Nic Wilder, Gabby Anderson, Matt Howie, Vicky Betzel, John (or Jon) Kaiser (I think that's how you spell it), Erin Sexton, some random guy from College, and Erin Hiller. I saw practically everyone at prom, which was really fun. Unfortunately the DJ's taste in music was a little on the so-popular-its-bad side, which included some pretty tired songs by the BEP. The Sean Paul songs were good though. I had a lot of fun, even though I can't dance. W00t!
After Prom was really fun as well. I had fun a variety of places, from the race/obstacle course and the pillow fight arena to the 'gambling' tables and generally everywhere. It's hard to single out any one thing that I liked best. A whole night of good times!
Anyway, I drove Robin back and then came home, slept until noon, then recuperated the rest of the evening, relaxing and feeling sleepy and stuff.
Well, that is my life for the past couple of weeks. More fun than I've had in two weeks since I can remember.

Well, we have here another debate trip on which a LOT happened. But, first:
The Top Ten Worst Things of the Debate Trip:
10. General Tso's Chicken Dinner: an ancient Chinese Samurai assault on your tongue!
9. No sleep.
8. The bus ride was lame. It was only like, 2 hours. What's up with that? I want a five hour bus ride, otherwise I feel cheated.
7. What was up with our bus driver? I bet he has never said a curse word in his life.
6. Nitin gave the teams 2nd place trophy away just because the other girl was hot.
5. K: The Gift. 'nuff said.
4. Just York in general.
3. Moh and Ann's last debate tournament! We'll miss you guys.
2. Coming in 2nd overall. But we'll get 1st next year.
1. I think Squires and SB said it best: Fuck Broad Run!!

Top Ten Best Things of the Debate Trip:
10. Getting out of school after 3rd period, missing French.
9. That random movie we watched after midnight with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage.
8. The snack room. Why don't they have snack rooms at every tournament?
7. That Judge. Cullen knows what I'm talking about.
6. The "Top Ten Worst Things About VHSL States," as presented by SB, Squires, and some congress people.
5. The Rap Battle in the back of the bus on the way home. Killa! I've been practicing, I'll bring my A game next time.
4. C-DAWG!
3. SB won 3rd speaker. Well done, my friend.
2. Our team came in 2nd. Not bad, not bad. Next year, we'll get 1st.
1. Squitin is state champ! (Squitin is singular)

...And now for the drawn out version, if you're into that. If not, just skip it.
I'll start at 10:15, because that's when it started. Nitin and I had just come from printing out some files at the Library, we piled into the bus, and Moh was late. He came in five minutes, though, and the bus driver gave us a really serious speech about what we should do in the case of an emergency. Then we got rolling. On the way there Cullen and I mainly highlighted cards. I played some blackjack rap with SB, Phillip, and Emerson (poor Emerson. He always wins normally, but when he has to rap...).
We went first to the hotel, got checked in, and then hung out for an hour before going to the site of the tourney. We arrived, sat down, rounds got posted, Cullen and I were Neg. We got off to a shaky start, but we won the round. We went to the snack room after, and lost track of time. We were almost ten minutes late for our second round. I think this is the one where we had The Judge. We were Aff, and I got high speaks. We won the round, it wasn't a pushover, but we weren't in trouble.
Third round we hit Broad Run. This one was closer. We were Aff again, and Broad Run ran the exact same Solvency block as the previous team had. We used the same arguments as we did to win the previous round, but Broad Run were just better debaters that the team we faced previously. In case you're wondering, we said, "Morality framework means you must vote for the team with the most morally preferable option. Our side is clearly the more preferable because we solve at least *some* prison dehumanization, whereas they don't solve any." It was really close, and in the end Broad Run won (try saying that ten times fast). We didn't find out until later, though. We called it a "too close to call." Next we played York as Neg. They had a Korematsu Aff, we ran Hollow Hope, solvency attacks, and inherency attacks. In the end, York won because of a card that listen recent cases that used Korematsu as a precedent.
Then we went back to the hotel. It was about ten by the time we got back, relaxed and did random stuff. We ordered pizza and Chinese food at ten-forty, but it didn't come for another forty minutes, which sucked. I didn't think the food was too bad, I just didn't have any liquids to wash it down with. It was kind of overpowering. After all, it was GENERAL TSO'S KUNG FU CHICKEN! or something like that. After dinner we watched a random movie called "The Rock" until one a.m., at which point we decided to sleep.
The next morning we played to easy teams, and it turned out they were pairing Hi/Lo, so we had advanced to the semis. In the easy rounds, it was really funny because I kept saying how "Grandpa Joe" would not bomb the Federal Building, but in "Hassan Ibn Al-Said" you have a potential threat. I didn't get high speaks, but it was funny. The judge dude laughed.
The on to the semis. We were playing York as Aff. SB and Owen had played them, and had hit something called "The Gift" Kritik, which was really, really stupid. I just refuse to explain it, but take my word for it, it was really dumb. We had to argue against their crazy legal theory that is obviously not true, which made for a less than stellar round. Then ran T and a Terror DA, which was terribly generic and didn't link at all. Their links were specific to wiretapping, and instead of a snowballing card they just had an analytic. I think if we'd spent more time on the Terror DA we would have won, just explaining how their cards don't link to our case (because they are specific to wiretapping) and how there won't be any snowballing (take history as an example... rights victories have not led to the end of the world). In the end it was a 2-1 ballot for York.
I was tired of debate by then, so instead of watching the last round I took a stroll around the campus with Squires and Owen. It made me appreciate the campuses of colleges I am thinking of applying to. We returned for the awards ceremony. SB got 3rd speaker, Nitin got 1st speaker, Squitin won 1st, and the team overall got 2nd place in states. Nothing to be ashamed of, but not what we were hoping for.
On the bus ride home we had lots of fun. First, we stopped at Macadoes and had dinner and interesting conversations about life, the universe, and everything. Which reminds me, Cullen, you owe me like, five bucks or something, and Nitin, you owe me some money as well. Give it to me some time. Emerson won a little dog from the crane game thing, and we dubbed it C-Dawg, the team mascot.
Later, the guys presented the "Top Ten Reasons Why This Debate Tournament Sucked," my favorite of which was, "Deanna and Owen... just DO it already!"
Letsee, I think the coolest thing was the rap battle at the back of the bus. I didn't exactly "bring it," but there's always a next time. I guess I just wasn't in the rapping mood. Moh was doing well, and Landon was spitting like 50 Cent.
When we arrived back where we started, at the teacher parking lot, at eleven p.m., it was all over. We had gone to states and we were back, with our triumphs and disapppointments. Moh and Ann gave a little speech, it was their last tournament with us. We'll miss you guys. Then, I drove Nitin home (my parents left the car in the parking lot with the key hidden in the exhaust), and then drove home myself and collapsed in my bed. Well, I've certainly written a lot, I better post it before my computer crashes or something.