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| Well, here's an interesting story that might amuse you.
So you all know that I did 4 years of Speech and Debate in high school. After the "get-kicked-off-the-team-for-not-staying-for-awards" debacle and subsequently coming back and being given the something-something award for overall team dedication and excellence at the awards banquet, I thought I was done with debate. But after doing 2 years of Model United Nations at UCLA, I got really bored and missed debate.
So what did I do? I went to a speech and debate meeting on a Thursday night, and there was this angry sounding guy who has national championships in a buncha shit and went to Western Kentucky (one of the best college debate teams) on scholarship to compete in their team, and he's one of the UCLA coaches now or something, and at first, I was reluctant to stay and listen to him talk about not wasting his time, but for whatever reason, he grew on me, although this isn't really an important point to the story.
So we filled out these forms that listed our information and debate experience and stuff and I go to turn in the form to the coach/adviser (who's this old professor who's been the adviser for 31 years or something). Anyway, he looks at my form, sees I have experience, asks me about it, then asks if I want to compete in a tournament that weekend (i.e. two days from then). I'm reluctant, and he says he'll call me later if he can't find anyone, and I just go along with it. [Basically, there was a tournament at Claremont Colleges and they asked UCLA to send one team to fill it in, but only one person wanted to go? And he needed a partner? Yeah.]
I'm pretty sure you can see where this story is going. So I get a call that night, and I don't really want to seem like a pansy, and I don't have anything better to do, so I say yes. So on Saturday, I get up at 6 AM to go to Claremont to debate in a form of parliamentary called British Parliamentary, not that I'd ever even done regular parli. Anyway, Joe Witte goes to one of the Claremonts, so he was there, and we caught up, which was cool. So this debate format, BP, has 4 teams of 2 in 1 round... 2 teams on the affirmative/government side, and 2 teams on the negative/opposition side.... but you can't talk to the other team on your side, because you're competing against them as well, BUT you can't contradict them either. Makes it tricky. And since it's parli, you get the resolution 15 minutes before the round starts.
But anyway, here's the kicker of my weekend: The guy I was partnered with who told me he'd done this before knew pretty much nothing. He didn't watch or read or keep up with the news, and he's a 4th year philosophy major, which pretty much says it all. He didn't know who the Lockerbie bomber was (one of the topics), he didn't know about that cartoon of Mohammed that was published in Denmark that caused all those riots in Muslim countries (another one of the topics), he didn't know about the Blackwater mercenary abuses in Iraq (another one of the topics), he didn't know what the International Criminal Court was (another one of the topics)... if you can't see where this is going, he didn't know much, so I had to fill it in for both of us by explaining to him what these things were. Fun. The funniest part? He was surprised when I told him North Korea is a communist country. I don't even want to know if he genuinely didn't know that or not.
Enough about that though. I think the funniest part was probably a resolution that reads as follows: "This house opposes net neutrality." My team was the 1st government team that round, which means we get the 1st and 3rd speeches (out of 8 speeches). I had to do the 1st speech, but I had no idea what net neutrality was. Needless to say, neither did my partner. AND THE REAL FUN PART? That was the round I hit Joe. He pretty much crushed me. It's hard to argue a case when you don't know what the topic is and you have to ask mid-speech for a point of information (that's when another debater stands up and can ask you a question or say a statement or whatever they want) telling you what the topic is.
And that was my exciting weekend. I guess it's more eventful than sitting at home doing watching UCLA lose to Stanford.
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| Do you ever feel like you missed out on something that everyone else had? Like one of those life-setting experiences that define a typical American life? Sometimes, I feel like my childhood is just missing some common elements that everyone else's childhoods have. Like The Little Blue Train That Could, or whatever that book is called. Everyone's read that... or most everyone. I haven't. Am I any different though for not reading that inspirational kindergarten book? And there's also Sesame Street. I don't think I've ever seen more than 5 minutes of Sesame Street, much less an entire episode, yet lots of kids grew up watching Sesame Street. Clearly, the kids watching Eureka's Castle missed out  .
It's not like I feel like I'm different, and I know I'm not different, but bonding over childhood memories is always something fun to do :-<
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| I have a friend. Let's call him Jim.
Jim claimed a few months ago that he's proud of the fact that he conserves and helps the environment.
It really irks me that either he's just a blatant liar or he doesn't realize that many things he does on a daily basis goes against that.
FACT: He always turns on the air conditioner. It doesn't matter what temperature it is outside, or if it's raining or shining, or if his roommate has a cold. He'll go back to his room, after walking up 2 flights of stairs, be overheated from being so out of shape, and turn on the air conditioning. If it was already set at a low temperature, he'll set it even lower. And then when he leaves the room, he'll leave the air conditioning on, even if THERE'S NO ONE LEFT IN THE ROOM. Waste. Of. Energy. He'll even turn on the air conditioning if the windows are open, and won't bother to close the windows. Dumbass.
FACT: He really enjoys using the bathroom fan. He enjoys it so much that whenever he goes to the bathroom, regardless of what he's doing, he'll turn on both switches (1 is the light, the other is a 2nd light + the fan). Washing his face? Turn both on. Brushing his teeth? Turn both on. Taking a shower? Turn both on. That last one's OK. But here's the kicker: He'll leave it on and leave the door open, pretty much making the fan kinda obsolete. AND WHEN HE LEAVES THE ROOM TO GO TO CLASS OR SOMETHING, he leaves the fan on. So much for conservation.
FACT: He showers two-three times a day. Not short showers. Long, drawn out showers. Once at like 2-3 PM, and once at like midnightish. If he were a particularly sweaty or smelly person, maybe I'd understand, but I guess he just really likes showers. I really enjoy my showers too, but showering twice a day goes completely against the whole standard of "conservation", especially when California is IN A FUCKING DROUGHT, MORON.
FACT: He just left the refrigerator door open before going to bed.
FACT: He takes the elevator down sometimes (and this is relevant because we're on the 3rd floor, not the 8th floor.)
FACT: Back to the air conditioning....... he turns it on before he goes to bed, then puts on a THICK, HEAVY BLANKET. Here's the kicker: WHEN HE WAKES UP, HE TURNS ON THE HEATER. What the hell is wrong with people in southern California anyway? Most the SoCal people I know are in love with their cooling/heating units.... when the temperature here is pretty moderate most of the year.
I'm out of facts. Back to studying.
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| Living in a mountain in isolation sounds so nice right now.
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| It sucks to be omni-aware.
And by omni-aware, I don't mean omniscient. Hardly. Being omniscient (all knowing) would probably suck too, but the omni-awareness I'm describing is something completely different.
In Brian-speak, it would be:
omni-aware: the state of constantly feeling and observing one's surroundings
You can't turn off your surroundings. I am completely and utterly jealous of people who can shut themselves off completely from the world. I can't do that. Maybe that's what makes me a good multitasker, the inability to focus on one singular task. What I mean is, I can be doing one thing, like working on a paper or jogging, but I will notice everything around me. I'll notice something fall, or the pictures on the TV move, or people coming and going. I hear conversations, noises, happiness, sadness. Sometimes, people having a discussion think I'm not paying attention or I'm completely zoned out, but what they won't realize is that I'm completely and 100% clued into their conversation because there's no way I can't not listen. I'll be reading a book or working on my computer, but I'll be fully doing that task, but I'll also hear the conversation. I can't tune it out. Most everyone else has the ability to tune stuff out, but the best I can do is ignore and not react.
Emphasis on: I CAN'T TUNE ANYTHING OUT.
Sometimes, it proves to be a gift.
Sometimes, it just sucks balls. Hardly a day goes by where I don't notice what seems to be the complete and emotional depressional state my roommate is in. And I know that there's nothing I can do about it. So I just ignore.
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