Gold Rush (Or, Absentee for Two)
Hey Gang!
Phew, things here at Conn have been insanely hectic, but at least it's a fun kind of hectic (I guarantee somebody will write a crappy country song called "It's a Fun Kinda Hectic" within 12 months). As you may recall from my previous post, two weekends ago was Camelympics here on campus, the annual event where dorms compete against each other in a variety of athletic and decidedly not athletic contests. Mitch and I were lucky enough to be adopted by Plant and Branford respectively as their official staff member competitors, and it was an honor that we did not take lightly. I'm happy to report that, as expected, we both dominated our events! Mitch continued his streak from the past two years by snatching up first place in the 1-mile race in a brisk 49 seconds (running a mile for Mitch takes about as much effort as lifting a butt cheek to fart), I grabbed gold for the fourth time in crossword puzzles, and we tied for the top spot in arm wrestling (we're exactly equally matched because we practice arm wrestling against each other 2-3 hours per day). We were so excited by our ever-expanding mountain of gold (okay, plastic) medals that we decided next year we're going to get official residence hall status for our apartment so that we can win Camelympics ourselves instead of just helping some dorm. I'll let everyone know how that goes...
....On Thursday I headed up to Boston to staff one of our annual Welcome to the City parties, where young Conn grads get together to meet other alumni in their area. There was nice turnout with strong representation from the greatest class ever, including but not limited to Megan Glendon, Sarah Felch, Matt Magida, Andrew Glenn, Adam Romanow, and fellow blogerator Marissa Velarde. Special thanks to our hostess Ianthe Hensman '06 as well as all the alumni who hosted in San Francisco, Chicago, DC, and New York!
After the event I headed over to Somerville, where the other three members of Welcome to Florida share a house with Nate Staub '05. I got there just in time to watch the second half of the Vice Presidential debate. I was pleasantly surprised both that Biden didn't come off as boring as I had predicted and that Palin did not come off as dumb as I predicted (clearly I had really high expectations). As with most public statements by politicians, however, no one said anything that actually deepened my understanding of the campaign, the government, or the world (although both candidates do have great smiles, so that was something).
On Friday I met with a few Conn alumni to discuss plans for their upcoming reunions, which will take place May 29-31, 2009 (in case you were wondering). After work, I returned to Somerville, where we all had a quiet night of playing Scrabble and talking about ways that we can help orphans and single mothers (there certainly was no drinking or staying up until 5am).
On Saturday, we headed to the Harpoon Oktoberfest, where we sampled beers, ciders, bratwurst, and German music (fortunately they went with oom-pah, not techno). The weather was absolutely perfect, and the crowd was huge, so we had a great time. I spied a number of CC alumni as well as pretty much everyone I had gone to high school with (while drinking with my high school friends I kept having to suppress my latent phobia of our study hall monitor coming around the corner and giving us detention). We decided to take off at around 5:30, when things started to get a little bit too crowded and the idea of waiting ten minutes in line for a beer ticket then another ten minutes in another line to trade that ticket for an actual beer started to lose its appeal. We regrouped and rehydrated back in Somerville, ate some Thai food, then broke out the ol' checkers board and a bottle of Sunny D and giggled 'til sunrise (go with it, my mom might be reading this).
On Sunday I head a delish brunch with a couple of friends, then buckled down for a long Welcome to Florida rehearsal (it was as long as it was mainly because Wes kept leaving the room to check on how his stock in Playskool and Mott's was doing with the economic crisis). Fortunately, we learned some great new tunes, so I'm very excited about our concert this Saturday night at Johnny D's in Boston. If you're in town, definitely check us out from 9:30-12:30, it will be a great show!
On Monday I finally received my New Hampshire (shout-out) absentee ballot, which I mailed in yesterday. Aside from being about three feet long because there were so many local elections to vote for, it was a pretty straightforward, chad-free form ("Chad: Freeform" sounds like a terrible new-age solo ballet by a confused prep school sophomore). Since I had already voted, I opted not to watch the debate last night (and by that I mean I completely forget that it was happening) and instead had a nice heart-to-heart with fellow '07er and New Londonite Laura Brown. I have to say, however, that voting really felt good, especially since New Hampshire is probably going to be a pretty close race. JZ is also voting by absentee ballot in Virginia, another tight state. I encourage everyone out there to vote next month! Find out more about registering to vote here.
Well, that's about it from my neck of the woods. Have a great fall, everybody!