Getting My Sports On

I finally caved to the peer pressure and showed up to band basketball. Everything was going great, for about five minutes, at which time a kid twice my size slammed into me (more specifically, my face), causing me to bite through my bottom lip. A touch painful, but it's healing up nicely. Plus, I got back in the game that day and went again the next day. Injuries aside, it was a pretty good time.

But, trumpet playing was a little out of the question for the Yale trip. I had to play cymbals, and consequently had to take crap from some Yalies about how they wanted to hear more cymbal and how they played cymbals too...in middle school. Furthermore, the basketball team lost (as usual), adding to the crappiness of the road trip. On the other hand, the bus trip was a lot of fun. Sandhya and I were both shoved into overhead storage compartments (long ones, not the separated ones they have on planes) and had a race to see who could shimmy down the length and back the fastest. She beat me in a really close race, but we agreed that I'm still an Ozeki.

On Saturday, I went to see the Harlem Globetrotters. The guys were very talented, and did some super impressive stunts, but the organization of the show was a little wacky. It just didn't flow well, and it caused them to lose the crowd quite a bit. Maybe it wasn't as great as I thought it would be, but certainly worth seeing if you haven't.

I followed that up in the evening with some BoI bowling--the kind where they have party lights, play loud music, and throw in colored pins so that when the pins make certain patterns, you can win money if you roll a strike. It was wild fun: insulting each other parents (especially mothers), making up sumo dance moves, staring each other down, and accepting any prize money by thanking the three gods of sumo.

Masu.

My Funny Valentine's Day

Let's face it. It's a holiday made up by greeting card companies to take the public for a crap load of cash. But it seems like most people who say that are bitter about their lack of Valentine's Day attention. My strategy, then, is to enjoy the holiday without giving the retailers a dime. This year, I was pretty successful.

My first project was a set of four cards for the four members of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council, chock full of inside jokes, Homestar Runner references, and some random poorly translated Japanese pop lyrics. Great stuff, like, "Your two eyes look like sunflower seeds," and "I'm painting myself the color of you." They were a thing of beauty, really, and they were well received.

Next, my brilliant and creative roommate, having bought a box of Looney Toons valentines, bestowed upon me the honor of receiving the extra special teacher's card contained in the box. Naturally, I had to come up with a way to express my gratitude, simultaneously showing her up. The obvious course of action, then, was to write "Happy Vday Jenny" on our ceiling in duct tape. Worked like a charm.

And my final Valentine project, completed a mere ten minutes ago, was to email Sarah a picture of Miyabiyama. Why? I quit asking that question months ago.

"Back to Battle"

You can tell I'm back to the grind when the frequency of posts dramatically decreases suddenly. Oh well. Can't say that I haven't been enjoying myself in spite of all the work.

Classes have been going well so far. I immediately dropped a couple, namely hard physics and architecture, both of which I felt ill prepared for and unwilling to exert the effort to keep up. And since I'm feeling pretty good about my other physics class and the econ class with which I replaced architecture, I think I chose wisely. Plus, giant lectures equals more sleep. Wink.

And of course I've found some random fun things to do between all that knowledge-gaining. There was the Ozeki Ball, at which I became an official oyakata. Very exciting. I've been attending the band gigs and watching Princeton basketball get owned by four out of five Ivy schools, dropping to the bottom of the conference faster than I can drop Physics 106, simultaneously wondering how the hell we were so overestimated before the season. So tonight, after watching the Tigers blow an eighteen point lead over the stupid Quakers in the last five minutes of the game, I celebrated the Chinese New Year (the year of the Cock!) by salting Fort Dod. In preparation for this day, Sandhya and I salted (and consequently purified from evil spirits) many campus locations, including the Dod elevator, the Wilson quad, 232 Pyne, Dillon Gym, and the doorsteps of all eleven eating clubs. Who will challenge the BoI's newest members?

I'd have to say the coolest thing to happen since class started however, would be drawing a room. Jess across the hall applied to be an RA next year and got accepted, which means she gets double the living space and gets to choose her room first (before everyone else goes through the potentially giant hassle of choosing a draw group, praying for a good draw time, and possibly ending up with a crappy room). So she invited Jenny and me, lucky dogs that we are, to get a triple with her next year, and we end up with one of the best quads in Wilson for a triple, and we didn't even have to deal with room draw! Sah-weet!