Lucky Underwear

          With minimal studying beforehand, my E. Science midterm went pretty well(?) Immediately afterward, I remembered that the B&T midterm was a take-home, so that became a two hour rush job. I completed it on time and enjoyed another day off from class. AWPL was a fascinating look into the narrative properties of coherence (does the narrative make sense? does everything fit?), correspondence (how well does the narrative match traditional story arcs?), and fidelity (on a personal level, how does the narrative match one's culture and beliefs?) With these in mind, we examined Raytheon v. Hernandez, a case about a drunkard fired by a defense contractor. I saw it as one-sided, but perhaps that's just due to the fidelity of Raytheon's argument.
          Alaric and I shared drinks before heading to the last women's hockey game at home, versus our semi-rivals, UNH. No one was able to score in the first or second periods. UNH finally got on the board in the third, and the outlook was bleak until the Huskies pulled a 2-goal comeback in the last two minutes. This was the second game in a row where I was advising them to pull their goalie the whole time, and the second in a row where they listened, and the second in a row where it was too late. A came home feeling triumphant, and collapsed after a very successful all-nighter.
          Quote of the day:
"He never had any disciplinary problems, except for the two that he had." - Caroline

Wikiventures On Steroids

          I spent nearly all of today -- and tonight -- reading about SCPs and Cabin In the Woods on tvtropes, which everyone knows is virtual crack. SCPs are a particularly deep hole to climb into, and each one links to several others. Iris came over to hang out for a little while before I took on another all-nighter.
          Quote of the day:
"We tried to watch porn, but we settled on Winnie the Pooh instead." - Iris

"You will come to see things my way."

          Another pep band rehearsal in Blackman ended in an amusing council election for next year. Three or four of the positions were uncontested, so those became fights to vote for the most interesting non-candidate. (See: Joseph Aoun, Paws, Obama, Donald Duck, JL, Rebecca Black, Kanye.) I ran for Events Coordinator and defeated Katie E with a campaign promise of ice cream and laser tag. In the evening, Iris, Sabrina, Peter, John, Alaric and I had a meeting of the joint chiefs of staff and watched Cabin In the Woods. This is one of the best movies I've seen this year -- a simultaneous love note and takedown of the horror genre that's 1/3 horrifying, 1/3 funny, and 1/3 bizarre. It's colorful, twisty, and fun from beginning to end, and I urge you to watch it if you haven't already.
          Quote of the day:
"While we were watching the video, my head was compressing." - Sabrina

Good Morning America

          E. Science was mainly interesting because Prof. Helmuth shaved his walrus mustache. In between classes, Sabrina and I hung out and smoked; I then discovered that B&T was canceled for the day, which was perfect. The day took a crappy turn soon enough when my phone auto-updated, or something, in my pocket and wiped all of my notes again. The universe is definitely committed to fucking me sideways this week. I stayed up late to study for the U.S. Congress midterm and went to bed feeling almost as dismal as yesterday.
          Quote of the day:
"Where's the part where the hero goes to court?" - Danny

Life Goes On

          Today was frustrating. I woke up and dove into finishing my U.S. Congress presentation, somehow churning out a vaguely finished product by class time. I was basically shell shocked by the time I got to the library to print up the supplemental materials. There, I was advised by a library attendant that "the queue is shorter" at the other printer. Of course, she was wrong; the queue was equally long at the other printer, which is to say, of ungodly length. In class, I struggled through my presentation but managed to approximate a semblance of knowledgeability. Prof. Beauchamp used "waffler" in a sentence and I was instantly, ravenously hungry. After class, I found out that Alanna and I were ripped off on a joint venture. Discouraged and angry, I went directly to sleep on the couch.
          Quotes of the day:
"He's 87 now, and it was expected that he could win again. Basically, all he has to do is be alive at this point." - Prof. Beauchamp, re: John Dingell, Jr.
"John Ashcroft lost to a dead guy." - Guy in class
"Remember, Wikipedia is a game for those who play it. Wikipedia is a video game where the goal is not to get your edit reversed." - Prof. Beauchamp
"Yeah, I'm sorry, that was not English." - Another guy in class
Re: Keystone XL...
Nicole: "They're gonna have to get individual approval from every property owner in Nebraska, which is impossible..."
A third guy in class: "That's like 3 people."
...
Yet another guy in class: "What if he decided to run again? And it was election day and he died, but his campaign staff didn't want to tell anyone? And he won?"
Me: "I know what you did last November."

Training Day

          In an excellent week for Northeastern athletics, today's women's basketball game against Drexel stood out. This was probably the best women's game I've seen in my time. Drexel was leading us by 17 points, some tiny flame ignited in the Huskies' brains, and they neutralized the lead. They forced a tied game into overtime, held their own, carried it into a second overtime, and finally won 78-73. Iris and I finished A New Hope, and Peter joined us for The Empire Strikes Back, my favorite in the series. Nathan also appeared during the first scene where the Emperor appears and prequoted throughout it, which aggravated me to no end. I went for a run in the Fens and then tried to put in work on my own U.S. Congress presentation, but quickly fell asleep.
          Quote of the day:
"Come on, girls, this is what we trained for!" - Jake

High Times In Havana

          A satisfyingly productive council meeting was followed by the best women's hockey game I've ever seen at Northeastern. The Huskies came back from a series of one-goal deficits to beat UNH and their intimidatingly named goalie, Vaattovaara. There are five A's in that name! Five! Throughout the game, I repeatedly called on UNH to pull their goalie, and they finally did, but to no avail. Alaric, Sean and I traveled to Brookline to sign a lease for a place on the Hill, which was a whirlwind effort but hopefully is the solution to our housing problems. We got home, scrambled for an hour to get ready for the dance party, and got down.
          The party was a wild success, if somewhat lacking in dancing; it's the most people we've played host to at a given time, and crises were handled well. The TV was moved into my room, which was designated as the "botany lab and Super Smash Sanctuary"; the main room was cleared for dancing purposes, and was used as a floor for lots of people to converse and drink; and Alaric and Sean's room was the "Havana Club," with a full bar and couches for relaxation. I've been on my Samus game in Super Smash Bros., and have become quite proficient. The night was not without its thrills, including some unconscious dude outside getting picked up by the police, a host of uninvited and unlikeable +1s, and a small flock of sorority girls who were clearly at the wrong party but asked to enter anyway. ("Is this Kappa Sig?" "No..." "Oh. ...Can we come in?") In the scariest incident, an unknown, robustly built, belligerently drunk guy with a few inches on me came in through the front door. It took me, Alaric and Malcolm's combined efforts to get him to leave, including a horrifying moment wherein he grabbed both of Malcolm's wrists. ("Don't touch me.") Outside of that, the entire night was a blast.

Absalom! Absalom!

           I was passing out in E. Science, but the fun level of yesterday was worth it. I also did one of those stupidly long Northeastern surveys. For a question asking what the university needs, I replied, "more flatscreens, a Beanpot win and a flagrant archway to excess." Serious up and consider that the archway by Snell Engineering probably cost upwards of six or seven figures. That's the full tuition of multiple students. What we really need is to chop a wedge out of the president's salary and force a 90% reduction in the pay of retired school officials (like the former president, for instance.) We need to stop throwing up expensive new buildings, stop over-accepting students, and focus on refining what we have at the moment. As an institution that has declared its dedication to social justice, we need to make conscious decisions on our investments in energy exploration, our administration's heavily anti-Palestinian bent, and our contribution to the destructive national fever for "security" by way of the Kostas Research Institute. In reality, the university may be a vehicle for profit, but it must fulfill its purpose as an agitating, questioning influence. The first step toward accomplishing these ends is to give the student government an ounce of meaningful power.
           Professor Jimenez cut short today's installment of B&T since he wasn't feeling well, and announced that the midterm will be a take-home exam. Once classes were out, we drank and watched the score of the men's hockey game versus Maine, which ended in a nailbiting 4-4. We attended a fun party at Jake's afterward, where Alaric, Jake and I hung out on the balcony just shooting the breeze.
           Quotes of the day:
"The U.S. not paying its debt would absolutely destroy the financial sector. It would just be totally not fun." - Guy in class
"Fuck your binary logic." - Sean
...
Prof. Jimenez: "Your taxes will pay for the deficit. Let's just accept that fact."
Another guy in class: "I don't accept that fact."

Master Luke

Notes for this entry were lost. Hopefully this is the last such entry for some time.

          Towson came back from a deficit and swatted our men's basketball team 70-79, but they're the second seed in the NCAA so it's all right. We had a small victory with one Tiger who shot an airball early in the game. The band chanted "Airballlll" every time the ball was in his possession, and it clearly threw him off his game, both in the paint and on the foul shot. For dinner, Iris made amazing steaks without any prior experience (this includes eating steak.) Alaric, Iris and I watched Star Wars: A New Hope together, also a first time for Iris, and invented the following game to go along.

Star Wars: A New Hope Drinking Game

Drink every time:

• Luke says something bitchy
• Obi-Wan is wise
• Vader is a badass
• Han Solo delivers a one-liner
• HARD MODE: Leia says something bitchy
• HARD MODE: Dramatic orchestral swell
• GOD MODE: Take a shot when Obi-Wan communicates via the Force
• GOD MODE: Waterfall while C-3PO is talking

          After the movie, I went for another late-night run through the Fens, and stayed awake to do work for once.

Beauchamp's Run

Notes for this entry were lost.

          I had restless, vivid dreams, waking up multiple times with an all-consuming paranoia and falling asleep again. The only one I remember started with Alaric, Nathan, Alanna and me drinking out in a neighborhood not unlike Beacon Hill. We all left together, but I chose a different path down the hill and found myself stumbling down an insanely steep staircase. A fall was inevitable, but I managed to catch a railing on the way down and avoided splattering on the cobblestones below. I sighed in relief and looked at the midnight sky, then woke.
          I slept late again, but at least I made it to U.S. Congress on time. I booked it out the door, through the snow, and made it to Richards in less than four minutes, arriving just as Prof. Beauchamp got there. We debated the implications of an increase in the minimum wage, and there was a silent sigh of relief when someone asked for a clarification of correlation coefficients. The way things are going, I'll see more data sets in this class than I did in Quantitative Techniques. We also saw a presentation by one of the students, who used the word "linkages" twice in ten minutes. Thanks, but it's "links." Aside: I was amused by a Politico article on the upcoming Mississippi Senate election, which read:

"For national Republicans, a defeat for Cochran would be another sign that the party is still in the throes of a 'Logan’s Run' phase — that the base is determined to terminate any older, relatively complacent, politics-as-usual incumbent that it can get its hands on."

Punch It

Notes for this entry were lost.

          I slept in through E. Science again -- entirely avoidable, but no regrets. In any case, the class is one of those wherein the professor simply rehashes the reading for an hour and a half; requiring attendance for that should be a felony if the class is scheduled before 11 a.m. Prof. Helmuth only checks sporadically, so I think I'm okay. B&T was fascinating, if enraging (I find that the two go together more often than I'd like.) I learned that the Iraq War had been funded almost entirely through emergency appropriations, not the standard budgeting process. The implications of this are: (1) the war was considered an "unexpected emergency" for some years, which is a false assessment beyond the first year of the war; (2) the money was all borrowed and thus directly contributed to the deficit, and will be subject to massive interest; (3) the military was essentially unrestricted in terms of how to spend the funding, since it fell outside the normal process; and (4) the appropriations didn't show up in the official spending figures, meaning they existed as a sort of fiscal time bomb for the next administration.
          In the evening, Nathan, Alaric, Haley, Molly, Iris and I squeezed into Nathan's car for a shopping trip. We spent about two and a half hours in Target and Stop & Shop, and by the time we were done the car was unbelievably full. In a strange analogy, Nathan designated me as the Chewie to his Han, though I think that his gregariousness disqualifies him from that position. Everyone agrees that Iris is R2-D2, though.
          Quote of the day:
Prof. Jimenez: "Why are you interested in who gets what, when, and how?"
Guy in class: "Because I want to get what, when and how."

Drunk Proofreading

Notes for this entry were lost.

          I must seem like some kind of lush, with all the recent posts about drinking and smoking. I assure you, that assessment is almost completely valid (at least in the short term.) After much sleep, Alaric and I went on a cleaning frenzy. When evening rolled around, Alanna came over and we baked a pizza. We drank and played Thomas Was Alone, and I managed to put the finishing touches on a paper for AWPL. By this point, we were quite drunk, and I left the job of proofreading to Alanna (it took like an hour, but went well.) Once the paper was submitted, we played the mysterious and beautiful Dear Esther, watched Ok Go do their thing, and talked for a long time. For a Monday night, this was better than most.

Who Is Tyler?

Notes for this entry were lost.

          The women's hockey team obliterated UConn in a 5-0 shutout this afternoon, which put me in a positive mood for the rest of the day. Alaric, Malcolm, Iris and I went for a post-game Tasty Burger stop; Iris had the Butta Burger, but somehow showed no ill effects. Next came a party at Peter's, where I met John's crazy little brother Tom, got punched in the stomach by Alanna, and made a Witt-level save of Molly's falling brownies. We shared these and brownies of another sort, and spent an hour or two convincing a drunk Tom that everyone's middle name was Tyler. (Not to mention Malcolm actually being "Alcomb".) The rest of the party was highly amusing, and I spent some time pondering "artificial reality." (Apparently. I wrote this in my notes, but have no idea what it refers to.) I returned home to decorate, clean, organize, snack, and go through letters from PBP.
          Quote of the day:
"Case closed." - Alaric
"But who is Tyler?!" - Tom, many times

Brownie Points

Notes for this entry were lost.

          Tonight was also a night of revelry, but thankfully less frenetic than yesterday. I went to Ariel's for her 21st birthday celebration and had a remarkably fun time, mostly thanks to Ariel being super cool. I played slap cup with several UniSons (much more successfully than last night) and just made conversation with people. I excused myself early to stop in at Peter's, where we shared brownies with Elizabeth, John and his buddies and played Donkey Kong 64.

College Story

Notes for this entry were lost.

          By some act of God, I woke up on Valentine's Day with no hangover whatsoever. After skipping E. Science on a rare whim, I had a Velma moment and spent twenty minutes hunting for my glasses. ("Jinkies!") I put up the art day materials in the living room and did some general cleaning. In the evening, I went to Harrison's with Alanna for what I believed would be a typically well-attended Harrison party. Instead, we walked into a monster of a rager; the apartment was packed full of people and boomed with noise. After I played a disastrous round of slap cup, Alanna and I danced to "Hey Ya" and then took shelter in Harrison's room. We shared conversation and waited for him to show up so that we could smoke, but he was MIA for some time, and eventually the noise level trickled down to silence. We emerged to find everyone gone, all of the lights off, and Harrison completely incapacitated on the couch. Apparently, the police had come to clear out the party, but they missed us.
          Quotes of the day:
"Executive orders aren't as cool as people think." - guy in class
"Most of my office hours I'm sitting there, reading my email, eating chocolate..." - Prof. Britt
"Future lawyer of America right there. Best response I've ever heard." - Danny, re: Scott's solution of canceling a graduation banquet outright
"There's no benediction at the Grammys, but half of the people thank God anyway." - Mike
"I'm trying to start a BDP. Big Dance Party." - Eliot
...
Prof. Britt: "But what about the students that didn't win awards? They don't get to speak."
Mike: "They have nothing to be thankful for. They didn't win."

Smash Mouth

Notes for this entry were lost.

          JL is testing out assigning smaller bands for the perennially unpopular women's basketball games, and it worked out great today. The small but proportional sound is crisp and controlled, and a dream team of Nathaniel, Claire and me had the trumpet section on lock. The game itself was a massive 78-57 victory over William & Mary, unusually exciting for a women's game. Georgia was briefly the cruelest person on earth after I knocked her phone off a music stand. I turned it over to find the screen crushed, then met her shocked expression, which she maintained for a few moments before laughing and telling me it had already been that way. Evil walks among us.
          Jake threw an "all-band" party after the game, and after some hedging I decided to go, accompanied by Alaric, Sabrina and Peter. Par for the course for parties at Jake's, matters got very loud and very drunk in short order. I spent an hour just sitting by the bathtub, feeling uncomfortable; and by the time I was back to health, Sabrina, Peter and Alaric had all ditched. I took the long, cold, slippery walk down Parker with Popeo and Chris P, who at least provided conversation. Stumbling into bed feeling like crap is not my usual style, but tonight was exceptional.

Notes for this entry were lost.

Salt the Wound

Notes for this entry were lost.

          The women's hockey team also lost Beanpot to BC, also after losing a lead. Iris, Alaric and I watched my favorite Christmas movie: A Christmas Story. "That is the ugliest lamp that I have seen in my entire life!"
          Quotes of the day:
"There's always something wrong with Texas." - Prof. Jimenez
"Mike, if I'm selling you my car, I'm not going to offer to throw in my kitchen stool. This isn't a senior lawyer giving something to a baby lawyer." - Danny
...
Danny: "I don't really like Wydick anymore."
Guy in class: "Let's go find him, teach him a lesson."

Coach Badigan

Notes for this entry were lost.

          I attempted to catch up on U.S. Congress readings today, but failed spectacularly. In the hour or so before round two of men's Beanpot, several of us girded up with face paint and vodka. When we got to TD Garden, Harvard was whipping BU 6-2, which is something everyone can be happy about. Our game was a torturous 2-1 loss that morphed into a 4-1 beating right at the end, and I felt extremely shitty afterward. Madigan pulled Witt from the goal with more than two minutes left. As I saw it, that was still enough time to score a goal without the extra attacker/danger of an empty net goal, which is, of course, what happened. I tried to kill the misery with another group expedition to Wings Over Boston, followed by a smoke session, but it lingered on. "Guys always take sports so hard," said Julia.

We're Making Waffles

Notes for this entry were lost.

          The morning after Iris's party, life moved at a predictably lethargic pace in our apartment. Alaric, Iris and I went to Subway for breakfast (BMT with mayo for the win) and played Super Smash Bros. for some time. In the evening, Iris and I shared a birthday dinner at a restaurant called Gran Gusto, curiously located deep in a residential district of Cambridge. It was recommended by Prof. Binetti last year, and did not disappoint. We shared a subtle and flavorful appetizer of beef carpaccio while marveling at how abnormally empty the place seemed. Iris ate a pizza with truffle oil (not bad at all), and I enjoyed a wonderful (and huge) serving of gnocchi. After a great deal of prodding, Iris consented to purchase her first legal drink in a restaurant and ordered limoncello. She then drank it like a shot, which reminded me of the scene in Shrek where the eponymous ogre drinks from the handwashing basin. After dinner, John and I smoked in Iris's company and unwound.

If You a Dick, Get Out

Notes for this entry were lost.

          Alaric, Sean and I toured three or four apartments with a personable realtor based out of the Hill. One was horrifyingly dirty, with black mold in the bathroom, trash and dirt all over, and a giant hookah in the kitchen; the others were mediocre. Afterward, we cleaned and decorated in preparation for Iris's 21st birthday party. The party was pretty wild, including a quick fistfight between Alaric and Iris and an appearance by Eric.
          Quote of the day:
"I'll scrap you! I'll scrap you so hard! I'll scrap you into your 22nd birthday!" - Alaric

On the Case

Notes for this entry were lost.

          Night and day, I put in work on my case analysis for AWPL. I have to thank my E. Science professor, who made it easy for me by subbing out for the day. The project came down to the wire, but I managed to finish it in the ten minutes between B&T and AWPL. After a brief distraction in the form of a shoulder tap from Prof. Jimenez, I sprinted to IV to get the damn thing printed in time. Nearly all of the work I've done this semester has been accomplished more or less in this fashion.

Saved By the Bell

Notes for this entry were lost.

          After a minimal amount of sleep, I got up to volunteer with Laura at the Greater Egleston High School. We got off at the Stony Brook station and tramped single-file through slushy sidewalks, and I was happy to get inside. The volunteering supervisor is a strange guy, slightly alienating though not unkind. We basically sat in a computer lab waiting for students in a special program to ask for help, and when they did, it was a game of "tell me the answers to this online test." I did my best trying to spark a ~17 year old girl's interest in the differences between Sumer and Babylon, and her French test was a straight up disaster. Once the bell set us free, I went to Matt's for a much-needed catching-up session. (His dorm at Emerson is pretty rad.)
          Quote of the day:
"I feel like the Middle East would just explode in a vortex of cum." - Sean

Puck, the Wise Knave

Notes for this entry were lost.

          We were surprised by a snow day, so Peter, John and I took advantage of it. Previously underutilized technology made the day interesting, and we shared a dramatic moment around the Mission: Impossible theme.

If I Had Eyes

Notes for this entry were lost.

          I dreamed that I was sheltering from a hurricane in some kind of inn, run by a grizzled old bartender. The building was a sort of A-frame lodge with tall columns and a tremendous wall of glass on one end, with a deck hanging out over the water beyond. Rain and leaves lashed against the glass, and the building itself shuddered from the wind, but the bartender unconcernedly continued to wipe glasses with a rag. For some unknown reason I decided to leave with Brian F, Alexis, and Nathaniel, and we took off into the storm in a bright red car. We drove past a huge, fallen tree and had gone a few hundred feet when something clicked. I asked Brian to stop the car, jumped out and ran toward the tree. A young girl was crushed beneath it, still alive but barely breathing. The car and my companions were gone, and I managed to move the tree on my own. I picked up the girl and ran for help, both of us soaked to the bone. Softly, she began to sing a lullaby. I woke up wondering what was going to happen to us.
          Quote of the day:
"Were you born to pay taxes?" - Prof. Jimenez

Beat'n Down the Block

Notes for this entry were lost.

          With the support of the pep band, Northeastern's men's hockey team smashed Harvard 6-0 in the first round of the Beanpot. We left TD Garden in high spirits and headed for Stetson East, where I shared dinner with Becky, Griffin, Alaric, Malcolm, and Rachelle. I then went home and fell asleep immediately.
          Quotes of the day:
"Saying she hangs out at BU a lot is like saying Abraham Lincoln got a little bit assassinated." - me
"Malcolm, I will take out out!" - Becky, getting romantic

Notes for this entry were lost.

Notes for this entry were lost.