Confession

I was laying on the couch, trying to decide if I wanted to work on physics or AP US history....and I decided that I wanted to blog.

I went to the Vanderbilt quiz bowl tournament. It was horribly unorganized and our team didn't do very well. (It was 80% of my team's first tournament. Cut us some slack.)

But just being there and playing--hearing a question about Tetzel and another about Gustavus Adolphus--made me nostalgic for Michigan. I miss my team there. I miss working with them, winning with them, losing with them, laughing with them. My team here is fine, I like the people....but it's not the same. It's really difficult for me to adjust to a new team. It's a new feeling, a new experience. I'm not entirely sure I like it so much.

I find myself relating to Holden Caulfield quite a bit lately. Minus the whole "excessive swearing" bit....Ahhh, angstangstangst!!!

A Poem

I should write poetry

‘Tis easy as two, three.

I’ll write using couplets,

Then throw everyone off when I don’t rhyme

Or maintain a regular metre.

(Yes, the British spelling.)

And all conventional aspects of poetry

Will never be the same again.

What will all the critics say then?

Keats, Keats, Keats

"Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon their pulses: we read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author."

--John Keats

Seriously?

This morning in seminary, we were talking about unpardonable vs. unforgivable sins and murder came up. We were talking about different situations, and one girl (Paige) pointed out that some children in the Congo are forced to kill their parents as a part of war. Some other girl in my seminary class pipes up and says, "Yeah? And what are we supposed to do about it?" After she said this, some kids in my class started laughing, but I just sat there...slightly shocked and incredulous.

Did she really just say that?

It was probably one of the most insensitive things I have ever heard someone say. To treat others' misfortunes with such a flippant, sarcastic attitude is beyond rude. Maybe you can't do something about it right now (although I would disagree) or it's difficult to prevent people from committing such heinous crimes, but at the very least you should be aware as opposed to ignorant. You should be sympathetic, and that kind of knowledge should arouse within you a desire to make the world a better place. I was appalled at her remark, her nonchalant and stagnant attitude towards the trials others face, and I regret not saying something to her about it. It was not funny and I'm disappointed that some people laughed at her remark.
Gosh. Seriously?

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

--Edmund Burke

Quiz Bowl Terms!?

I found. A list. Of quiz bowl terms. If you are in quiz bowl and are reading this, I would urge you to assimilate these terms into your ever day q.b. vernacular.

Cadbury's Creme Egg: a good, well-crafted question.

Clubbing baby seals: Playing teams far below your level, e.g. Berkeley going up against a sophomore high school team.

Cult of Speed: belief that moderators, esp. in timed tournaments, should read as fast as possible and that the more questions read in a round, the better. Also, see Samantha M.

Dark Side: the evil aspect of the Force; knowledge acquired solely through studying for quiz bowl

Go, go Gadget: a phrase uttered to conjure up helpful spirits to answer a question

Gogol, Nikolay Vasilyevich: A Russian playwright and author whose full name was required at the 2001 Riverside tournament; overzealous underlining by packet writers

Gunfighter reflexes: quality or skill demonstrable by being the first to hit the buzzer when an easy clue reveals the answer to everyone at once. A person with gunfighter reflexes is a gunfighter and a question where everyone slaps their buzzers is a gunfight.

Knee-Jerk: someone who pays no attention to the question but only buzzes because of a single word or phrase, e.g. saying Erasmus when hearing the word "folly"

Ride the Pony: a strategy for achieving some points on a bonus where the team has no idea on the actual components, but has a general idea. Problems emerge when: 1)the answer is correct, forcing the team to come up with another answer, and 2) none of the answers are the chosen "pony," causing extreme consternation.

Using the Force: correctly answering a question through apparent pure luck, blind instinct, or supernatural intuition without any real knowledge.

And for the record, I was trying to find a witty quote to put on our teams' shirts. All suggestions appreciated.

Frabjous

"Like fabulous, but with a lemon twist."

--The Urban Dictionary

I'm kind of in love with this word. It's in Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky" and it's pretty much amazing.

Page 87

I have this prompt for a scholarship essay that asks me to write page eighty-seven of my autobiography and imagine where my life would be at that point.

Uhh...I do know that I want certain things accomplished by then, whenever "page 87" is--I interpreted it to be age twenty-nine. But... I don't really know? For all they know, I could have an extraordinary childhood full of interesting details that led to my psychological development later on in life and by page 87 I would only be 10 years old. Or I could have a really short autobiography--because, let's face it, if I ever deem myself important enough to write a book about my life, it would be very short due to a severe lack of exciting circumstances--and I would be like 80 years old.

I really want to cut my essay off mid-sentence, like they would have to turn to page 88 to find out what happened next.

Also, is it appropriate to use the phrase "geeking out" in a college essay?