A Party for the Holy Days, pt. 1

For the past few days, I've been in D.C., preparing the RSI christmas party. We had a buttload of people come (and, unfortunately, a lot of people who didn't (miss you Leila, Zsa, and everybody else)). Apparently there's a number of people who want more mentions here, who I'm going to need to talk about, but I haven't had a good sleep in a considerable number of hours, so it's hard to keep track. I'm also going to have to share the spreadsheet...I'm starting to think it'd be a good idea to compile RSI nicknames separately, but, well, effort. Meh.

Anyways, I went in with Hyumni and Gopika--though I've pretty much been with Hyumni nonstop, since she's staying with me--and Gopika was, per usual, completely and utterly exhausted. Hyumni and I came bearing unnecessary chocolates, but the trip was fun (including the $20 cab fair *insert emoticon involving Html-prohibited characters here*). We arrived in a relatively punctual manner, and then I, at least, proceeded to spend a good long while trying to reacquaint myself with everybody.

I had no idea how awkward it was all going to be (I love that you're all going to see this now and be like "lol, Tea's awkward", but that's hardly news). It's weird to see all of these people and assimilate the changes in the social structure--i.e. who I've been talking to online along with who I used to talk to in person. It turned out to be alrgiht--I ended up in a crew of ten-ish people fighting over couch space. We spend a solid quantity of time ignoring Ash because he had skipped Rocky Horror to sleep (laaaame), as he was planning to skip the majority of this event. Ash decided to rebel by trying to steal James's spot, which, naturally, involved forcing James horizontal, lying down on top of somewhat-horizontal James, wedging James's head into my collarbone (ouch) and Ash's head into my skull (double ouch), and me into Iditri, who was actually relatively untroubled by this complete invasion of personal space.

Ash caved before James did, so we all managed to keep our spots, but our ability to keep Ash from sleeping turned out to be very, very limited. We eventually left the couch--videogamers took over the TV, and it's very difficult to resist the lure and remain in the same room, so we moved first to the third floor (we here refers me, James, Greg, Hyunmi, Iditri, Zorah, and Tramar). We spread out on the fantabulously plush carpet, and Zorah started fiddling about with her laptop. James, Tramar and I spread out under the table, and I continued making Greg pass me things (he's very useful like that), and I don't totally remember this portion of time, other than that I recall being very comfortable.

This shall be finished at a later date, because I am so goshdarned tired.

Buddy Reading and Real All-Nighters

Immediately after the frisbee game ended, I went back to the dorm (oh, how much lovelier life would be if I possessed a bike) to get my paper, then went to W20 to meet my peer editing group. I was with Dill and Anwar, both bio people. We started off outside, shooting glares at Vanessa and Ash's group because they had stolen our idea to experience the great outdoors. Anwar read his out loud first, and I lay down and stared at the clouds and focused on staying awake, then offered a very short list of constructive comments (his paper was phenomenal; very clear, highly technical, about using stem cells to grow retinas or something like that). It's fun to listen to him talk, because he's Singaporean but speaks English with a very good English accent; basically, the cross between Asian and british is entertaining. Then I read mine, which they both gave criticisms on while acknowledging that they didn't really understand the subject matter, since, as I mentioned, they were both doing biology.

At that point, the hammock freed up, so we ran over there and then spent about five minutes arranging ourselves so that we could all fit. Dill and I were on the ends, and Anwar was in the middle, and he's heavy enough that he was basically sitting on the ground. I'm sure that we looked rather silly. Dill took forever to read, because he had a lot (and I mean a lot) of typos and grammatical errors that he hadn't noticed until he read it out loud, so every two sentences he had to go back and change things, and then he'd go back a couple more sentences and read them all again. I was ready to scream (I have an extremely low level of pickle tolerance), and even Anwar was getting annoyed, and I was getting hungry and didn't understand the paper anyways, so Anwar loaned me his meal card and I went to get a bagel, as I was sick, and still operating on a diet where the primary foods were oranges, orange juice, and toasted bagels.

I ran into Olive and Hassan at La Verdes, and Olive advised me to "be assertive!" when ordering sandwiches. I need to work on that assertiveness thing. I got my bagel and went back outside, where we sat while Dill read until it got so dark that we couldn't see, so we moved inside and began passing the papers around for grammar markups.

That evening, I made those changes and went to bed. The next morning, I assembled a draft of slides so that I could give a practice talk for my mentor. I used Beamer. It was epic. I gave said talk. It went badly, very badly. Then I realized that the final draft of my paper was due the next day, and I was not even close to being done.

At 3 pm, I went to Simmons, showered, and assembled my supplies. At 4, I sat down to work. I got up occasionally, but I did not truly stop work until 9:30 the next morning. It was torture. It was bliss. It was so much fucking work.


I started out sitting next to Sadie, but then Bashir came over and started talking to her and moaning about how his paper was being so difficult, when the issue was really his very limited grasp of English language mechanics. I found the talking so annoying that I got up and moved next to Grace, who, despite having finished her rough draft two weeks in advance of the due date, was working quite diligently.


The next few hours are lost in a swirl of very focused work as I made edit after edit, including massive structural changes to my introduction and diffusion sections. Some time around 2 am, when I finished said changes to part four, I noticed a major hole in my analysis: I'd never definitively proven that products would not diffuse, I'd merely illustrated that they'd diffuse less than they would out of a standard reactor. I looked panicked, so one of the very wonderful nobodies, Rocky (so christened because somewhere in the annals of livejournal, there are photos of him at seventeen, all dolled up for the midnight showing), came to help me. He worked magic with mathematica while I cracked open my can of caffeinated beverage, and some forty minutes later, the image, the oh-so-perfect graphical representation of an equation that I'd hastily derived in the margin of an old draft, was done.


It was beautiful, and it is 86% of the reason that I printed my paper in color. Not that I had anything in the way of a legend to explain what color went with what element. It was just so darned pretty.


Soon after that, I was approaching my non-functioning stage, so I drank some more caffeinated beverage and went to take a twenty minute power nap, moping about my cold, solitary loneliness. I eventually woke up and stumbled back to the lab, where I started working again. I soon got a number of zephyrs from Kaylee and Hannah, who were trying to get together a late-night (well, early morning) fake Chinese food order. I zephyred (is there some other word for this?) Hyumni, and she reluctantly pulled herself from braid theory (I would love to watch her tear down anyone who saw the whole 'braid' thing and went "look, when girls do math, all they do is talk about hair") to help pick out food.


I finished the work-through on the redesigned diffusion section and left to take another nap, passing by Didge, who for some reason enjoyed working on the couch, with piles of papers surrounding him. We agreed to proof each others papers later (not that we ever actually did so), and then I went to get some sleep (well, fifteen minutes of sleep, but they were lovely minutes nonetheless).

By the time I stumbled out, Hyunmi had already obtained and paid for our veggie/tofu noodles. We ate them, and they were delicious. Something about tofu drenched in soy sauce and salty pasta is just very, very delicious.


I went back to work, after that. People gradually trickled out. By morning, the ranks were thin. Hassan was still present, as were Jasmine and Comrade Vito. I needed to wake up enough to move, and to clear out the stuffy morning feeling from between my ears.

I don't remember who suggested it, but a bathrobe-clad Vito and I ended up running laps around the lab for at least a few minutes, until I felt prepared to proof my paper. I printed it, then went about trying to find people to read it; if I remember correctly, Tramar was agreeable, and I read his as well. It was without doubt one of few that was written so clearly that it really made sense, though it's frustrating how, too frequently, clarity is confused with a lack of difficulty.


I had a donut and a coffee for breakfast, printed a copy of my paper, emailed another copy to Kaylee, then went back to the dorm and slept for four hours. When I woke up, I showered, then proofed the entire document before heading out. I made my changes at the Simmons cluster before going to W20 and having a second breakfast. Around two, I finally got Kaylee to myself, and we spent the time I should have been at my last meeting with my mentor frantically making changes to my paper. I then went to mentorship, proofed it one more time, just myself, then emailed it to my mentor's phenomenal assistant for color printing.

At five, when others were panicking, I had been done for over an hour. Which was fortunate, because W20's printers were not being cooperative. Many, many people did not have printer success, but they were fortunately (and most likely due to sheer volume) not disqualified from the competitive paper analysis.

Huzzah!

I only later heard the story of those who did not work with the rest of us. Susan, for example, stayed holed up in her room, working to devise the optimal method for preventing high temperatures and wind-related paper organizational losses. Bing did the same, though his room was less breezy. He also later informed me that he did not move from his chair for the entirety of the night, not even to use the bathroom. I responded with a "TMI" look which he took for confusion, and began explaining that since he wasn't eating or drinking during the time period, it wasn't an issue. At the very least, he's logical.

Blown All-nighters, Italians, and Proms

Every time I write one of these, the memories I'm writing about feel more and more distant.

I suppose this is what I get for writing up most of my RSI-related posts as backlogs.

The night before the first draft of the final paper was due, I prepared myself for a long haul. I stocked up on food (a giant bag of tostitos and a box of double-stuffed oreos. I am nothing if not classy), packed up my bag, and settled myself into the Starcraft section of W20 to get working.

Notably, even during this very tense night, Ash and Luke managed to play said computer game. This is because Ash is one of those people who believes he can't work when he's too tired (so, like me before RSI), but rather than sticking it out, he prefers to go to sleep, so he'd finished up his paper a day ago. Luke is just obsessed.

I settled down between Ash and Nicholas and took my now-sorted work (thank you for the file folders, Didge) and went through it, one folder at a time, compiling all of the information that I had into a cohesive whole.

I'm losing cohesive loosely, as there have been a lot of edits since to add to the cohesive nature, but regardless, I was pulling everything together. My big goal here was to make certain that I'd used all of the information that I had.

The first folder took me over an hour. I had twelve folders. I got through the second and third faster. Then I hit the fourth.

I needed a diagram.

I spent about half an hour wrestling unsuccessfully with Gimp before Nicholas took pity on me and helped. He, then, spent about an hour wrestling with Gimp for me, while I found an empty computer near Bashir and Sadie and worked my way through the extremely imposing "diffusion" folder.

When Nicholas had finished and I got the computer back, I blearily walked around the cluster, taking note of Olive sitting up on a computer divider, typing away on her laptop.

I kept writing. Some time after Ash had left, I sent some zephyrs back and forth with Bing, and soon after that he came over from the dorm and took over Ash's computer. I'd offered him oreos for the company via zephyr, but after his arrival, he declined.

About a half an hour after Bing arrived, I was done. I looked at the paper before me, completely shocked, but elected not to complain. I printed a copy, brought it to the dorm, and slept until nine thirty the next morning. Less than five hours, but better than nothing.

My alarm went off, Leila made groaning noises, then I showered and proofread the entirety of the paper before going downstairs to the Simmons cluster, making changes, freaking out that I couldn't find me key, realizing the key was next to the computer, going to W20 for breakfast, experiencing disappointment that W20 was not selling breakfast at this early hour, walking upstairs to the Athena cluster, finishing the changes, printing off another three copies of my paper, and handing it in.

I was, overall, quite pleased to have garnered a few hours of sleep, but still rather tired.

By this point, it was 5 pm. I know, a lot of hours going by really fast, but that's what happens when I'm working. Soon after that, we left for the Italian food trip.

When we got there, we were sent off on our own to find somewhere to eat. This was, of course, highly difficult. I was running around with Minette, Tal, Dexter, Donny, Zorah, Susan and Norman. At some point, Zorah and Donny slipped away to eat something that I'm certain was highly romantic, and then Susan and Norman got so sick of us looking for Italian places that they went and got Chinese food.

The four of use remaining eventually found a restaurant. We were led in, then to a set of stairs. We went down the stairs, through a room of diners, then turned left, passing through a second room of diners, its ceiling slightly lower than the first. We then passed through the kitchen and into a third room, with still lower ceilings, and, in place of windows, two TVs, one displaying a video of an aquarium and the other scenic portraits of the Italian countryside (and associated freeways).

It was, all in all, entirely bizarre. I'd meant, here, to talk about prom, but, well, it wasn't a particularly awesome experience.

I walked over with Susan and Carlisle, danced briefly, then spent a good percentage of the time sitting outside, talking to Carlisle and Ravi about our respective high schools, and with Bing about how terrible the music was. Then Nicholas and Joseph, completely covered in black, meshy clothing (yes, faces included) showed up, and proceeded to act weirdly.

By that time, I was feeling exhausted, so I left early and walked to W20, where are number of starcrafters had ensconced themselves. Even that, though, just seemed rather pointless, so I went back to the dorm, chattering with the gangstered up Jared and Gopika on the way.

So, fake proms, like real proms, are, all in all, not worth the effort.

Astronauts

On this evening, an astronaut came to speak with us. This was almost as awesome as when D.E. Shaw gave us free t-shirts.

It was really neat, but she kind of kept going on and on and on, and then Teresa started asking her all of these questions about how you go to the bathroom in space, and Lady Astro gave really long answers, and I tried really really hard not to fall asleep, and this may have been the lecture where I sat next to Bing, and he would drift off (and by drift off, I mean his head would fall into his lap as he crumpled into sleep) and then I'd elbow him.

Anyways, that was that lecture. I feel like there's meant to be more detail than that, but, well, ehhhh.

Instead, I will use this post to discuss mentorship awesomeness.

Every so often, Bashir would actually show up in mentorship, as opposed to going to W20 and moaning about how he didn't have anything to do, or sleeping on the couch, or making his phone do this really annoying beeping thing which I disabled midway through my second mentorship week when he wasn't paying attention.

On one particular day, Bashir wanted to hear about New Jersey. I believe this was triggered by the time he spiked his hair up for the WTP dance and I said he shouldn't try to be DJ Ronnie D from Jersey Shore (I just googled the cast of characters to see which one had the spiky hair, I have never watched the show). I drew him a map of the East coast, then did a squiggly line and dropped California on the other side of the board, indicating all relevant portions of the U.S. When Bashir asked about everyone else, I drew Arizona and Colorado in, then dropped dots for Andy and Dawson indicating their respective Mid-Western states.

Bashir then took over and taught Didge and me a lesson on Lebanese history, geography and politics, which I promptly forgot almost all of, aside from that there is some major division between North and South Lebanon, and there are beaches on one side and mountains on the other, and whichever North/South side Bashir lives in thinks the fighting is stupid because it scares the tourists.

Didge said something about Australia, but I forget what. 'Twas quite fun.

On a different mentorship day, I was feeling rather stressed out. This is not that surprising, as my emotions tend to always be in either "really, really happy" or "completely and utterly freaked out," although I often manage to freak out and be happy at the same time, but that's completely irrelevant to this point.

I was in a state of panic over RSI-related work, college-related work, and Dawson-and-Rube-related issues (those boys have caused me way, way too much emotional stress). I also wasn't eating or sleeping properly, because I kept forgetting to and my mind was really busy, and Didge, who had spent the last week teaming up with Ash and refusing to leave lunch until I'd had cold-healing soup, was not pleased.

Our plan of action was for us to go get office supplies so that I could organize my research materials and feel better about that, and then come back to the Undergraduate Chateau and let me talk or sleep, depending on which would help more.

So, we took the art budget supplied by our mentor (twenty bucks) and walked ourselves down to the student union, which turned out to be mostly a really souped up Barne's and Noble's, including a random barbershop in the back.

I'm still not really sure what's up with that, but we went downstairs for school supplies and textbooks, passing on our way an absolutely ginormous bin of extremely fuzzy and fluffy pillows.

We each pulled out a large blue pillow (the blue ones are always the best), then spent twenty minutes walking around the store looking for file folders, which we eventually found in rainbow, and dry-erase markers, which were also rainbow.

We returned the pillows, and I made an impulse purchase of purple earbuds and a paperback copy of Tess of the D'ubervilles.

Then we went back to the Undergraduate Chateau, and I ranted for two hours, interrupted by him telling me really adorable stories about his girlfriend, and then I went back to the dorm and he went to W20 to work more.

Then we saw the astronaut.

I should probably put those in a more chronological order, but, meh.

Not happening.

Second Milestone Presentations

Milestones are far more work than they should be.

On this particular Milestone Morning, I was very tired. I was also rather annoyed, because A) only my group and one other group had presentations this morning, and B) our presentations were combined, meaning that I was going to have to sit through four hours of presentations.

I was also rather happy, because, as I told both Vanessa and Sadie that morning before class started, I'd had a very interesting midnight phone call the night before, and half of my mental processing power was devoted to "did he really say that?" and "whaaaaa?" but we shall ignore that for the purposes of this post.

Well, I tried to tell this to Vanessa and Sadie. My attempts were interfered with by my rather terrible laryngitis. The worse bit was that whenever I laughed, I would squeak all over the place, and then start laughing at myself laughing and make it worse. I am not good at resting my voice.

Sadie had her own interesting story as well, and hers centered around the RSI prom. I can't recall if, at that point, she had a date (though she ended up going with Aziz, and I think that she was one of the earlier askees). Anyways, she was talking to Ash about the prom, and was all "do you have a date yet? Who are you going to ask?" etc.

Ash, who had very limited interest in asking anybody, responded by saying "I'll go with this beef," gesturing at his lunch.

At this point in the retelling, Sadie started laughing, although I didn't quite get it.

Sadie apparently asked whether the beef was willing to go with him, and his response was "I'll ask" followed by "the beef said yes."

For some reason that I still don't quite comprehend, she thought that last line was basically the funniest thing ever, and proceeded to repeat the story whenever there was much in the way of funny story sharing.

I'll admit that, after a while, it did become rather funny.

Regardless, we went in, sat down, and prepared for presentations. I sat with my geographically convenient friends (Gopika and Sarah), and behind Ashley (remember...Ashley=Ash=guy with girly name) and Maxwell. This seating arrangement is irrelevant but for the fact that Gopika got to eat some of my cheetos (I see nothing wrong with bringing snacks to a four hour presentation block), and Ash had cool looking doodles.

I sat through a lot of talks, and got up to go to the bathroom rather frequently, so as to keep myself from displaying my boredom overmuch. The bathroom breaks caused me to miss both Ava's and Gaea's talks, which was probably fortunate, since they were both about (I think) colon cancer, and Ava apparently used very, very graphic images in hers, as she was blackballed for the next two days until she could get a cleaner copy of her presentation to her tutor.

Gopika, Sarah, and Vanessa all had super intense presentations. Maxwell's I don't remember (sorry dude!). Anwar's was also rather beastly. I would like to note that Anwar was in my peer editing group, so therefore some of his beastliness should be credited to me (note: this is a bold-faced lie, as Anwar is just naturally extremely good at giving presentations and writing papers and doing science in general).

As far as my own lab group goes, I am proud to say that I got through mine rather well. It was three hours in by that point, so my voice had recovered a teeny bit, so I squeaked my way through the basics of nuclear reactors and an outline of my project. I thought Didge's presentation was fine, but apparently it lacked basic effort, or something, so he got dumped on probation with Ava. Bashir used the photo of nuclear reactor towers with giant yellow smiley faces on them again.

Eventually, after 4+ hours, the presentations ended. We went back to W20 to eat, and Ash said that I sounded like a Southpark character, and he and Maxwell got annoyed with me for trying to talk, so I went and walked with people who had smaller "must take care of others" complexes.

Cooking for America Night

I talked about International Night briefly, way back here. Now, we've moved on to something bigger, and better, and probably mostly just fatter and less diverse, but we'll ignore that statement.

For America Night, we divided into regions. I was, of course, with the Northeast, and my group included myself, Chao, Gopika, James and Patrick (male, IMO (as in math, not as in the chat abbreviation), OMG (as in the chat abbreviation), among others.

Chao decided we were making Indian pudding. Frank and I decided that we didn't know what that was, and therefore it would be gross, and James told us that Chao was at least putting in an effort, so we shouldn't complain, and we should instead start showing up for meetings.

I, naturally, got caught up in something that I'm sure was very important at the time (probably showering) and showed up rather late in the cooking process. Chao and Gopika were running around somewhat purposefully but with much haste.

The southerners had stolen our kitchen. Ash had, as ever, taken charge, and he decreed that their group was making roadkill burgers. Thus, the southerners co-opted all of the pots and pans and spent four hours of the afternoon broiling meat that, even when done, still looked plenty pink. They stuck it in bread with some condiments and called it a day, and then we Norther Easterneres, and Mid-Westerners, and the Out Westerners finally got a look at the kitchen.

I, of course, missed all this, and arrived when the east and the west were battling it out for stove space, with the east primarily winning, as even though Jared tries to be and occasionally manages to be intimidating, Chao, when she puts her game face on, can take on even him. Anyways, Chao and Gopika ordered me around, and I frantically tried to find things. Jared, a member of the midwestern crew, 'cooked corn.'

By that, I mean that he put water in a pan, stared at it for thirty seconds, said "okay, looks hot enough," ignored Chao and I disagreeing, and dumped about half the corn, since it didn't all fit, into the pot.

He left it in for approximately two minutes, then reached over Chao, who was stirring the chocolate for the Boston Cream Pie she'd finally decided on, grabbed some tongs, and pulled it out.

We objected that it wasn't cooked. Ravi (male) came over, looked at the plate of corn, and said "that is some raw ass-corn," as we'd all gotten into the habit of making the hyphen swap.

Jared said "it's FINE. Okay?" in his standard, overly punctuated speaking pattern.

We were going to object further, but then we noticed the hotdogs that a few other midwesterners (Luke and possibly Carlisle (though of Carlisle wasn't actually there, he will accuse me of discriminating for his asian-ness, like he did every time anyone caught him sleeping in lecture ("I have asian eyes it's not my fault")).

The hotdogs were virtually raw, and they declared them done.

Please don't blame me for not eating them.

The Beach

I discovered today that Caleb's profile picture is now of him surfing.

On that note, I'm going to recount beach day.

On this day, we had to awaken early. Possibly before seven. So, like, really early, not just early by RSI standards. Leila and I awoke. I quickly brushed my teeth and washed my face, by which time she'd managed to get herself awake.

I made a half-hearted attempt at packing a beach bag, then ran to W20 in hopes of getting a few minutes to eat breakfast. It is likely that I ran into Chao along the way, since she and I are frequently breakfast buddies, but I have a vague recollection of rushing along with Gabriel, Leila's little spanish friend, on this particular morning.

I inhaled my breakfast while standing around with my counselor group, waiting for Kareem, who was late as usual, and Leila, whose hair was being difficult.

We then walked to the t-stop. In order for me to give you all a complete impression of how long this takes, I'm going to give mini-bios of a few more members of my counselor group, since that was who I was walking with. We covered a few people here, and now we'll discuss a few more.

Leila and Gabriel: Leila is my roommate, and Gabriel is the roommate of my friend on the eighth floor of my tower (hint: the one who doesn't have a single). They both love skype, although they kicked their addiction somewhat the last couple of weeks. They are from Cataloonya, which is where Barcelona is, and is not actually spelled like that. Leila is so short that her head fits under my chin when we hug. I'm not really sure how tall Gabriel is.

Kareem: Kareem is from Saudi Arabia, and he lives on my floor. He isn't really bothered with rules, so he does things like sneak off campus and buy really expensive laptops when he's supposed to be at mentorship, which our counselor, Keyuri, never yells at him for, because she thinks that all Saudis have connections to the Taliban and she doesn't want to make the wrong people angry.

Veer: Veer has a girlfriend (and she doesn't live in Canada. I said hi to her on skype once. It was fun). He actually rarely talks about her, so it's silly to introduce him as such, but whatever. Veer is Indian and occasionally accuses other Indians of acting white. I didn't really talk to him that much, to be perfectly honest, so I can't give you much better than that.

That's good enough for a wait, I think.

I most likely talked to Arthur and Dawson during the walk, because I tend to do that, but regardless, we eventually arrived, and met the other counselor groups, then took the tube to...

A BOAT!!! WE GOT TO RIDE A BOAT!!!!

It's really remarkable that I still get excited about these sorts of things, considering the number of boats I've been on in my life.

I stood between Dawson and Bing (Bing is a guy) for the ride over, and I have vague recollections of talking about Arkansas, then learning that, contrary to my previously held belief, Singapore is an island. Who knew?

We got off of the ferry, and, soon thereafter, Ashley (male), James (male), and Chao (female) gathered together a Contact-playing group, and we got so intent on our game that we missed the first ferry.

When the second ferry came, a "particularly smart" group of us decided to wait in the shade until the last possible second to get on the ferry. Naturally, it was full, and the five of us got stuck on the island.

We wandered off to a grassy area and, of course, played more contact. I also got my first semi-explanation of what Starcraft is from James while Ash was looking for some sticks to turn into sandcastle building tools. I also got to lead my first round of contact; I used magnolia as my word, screwing over my science-geek friends who couldn't get magnets out of their heads, although Bing eventually figured me out.

An hour later, we boarded the ferry and went to island number two. Here, at last, was the beach.

I swam, first with Nicholas and Gopika, who spent the entire time attacking each other, because Nicholas derives some great enjoyment from stealing her stuff, then with Bing, who declared the water to be rather chilly, and then with Kareem, Nicholas and a few others who were trying to play beach volleyball in chest high water with a soccer ball.

Then, of course, it came time for frisbee. It was still warm out, so I figured I'd just play in a swimsuit--it wasn't until I'd walked all the way up the great big hill and started playing that I realized that Nicholas and Livny were the only other ones in just swimsuits.

Gopika and I, naturally, took a moment to discuss Livny's shirtless state.

Gopika: Livny has bigger boobs then I do.

Tea: Me, too. Although, yours are bigger than mine, so I suppose that's just a logical continuation.

Gopika: I'm not sure they are, I think it's just the combination of the swimsuit and the dress.

Tea: You're still plenty sexy and curvaceous.

At the last line, Luther (big Chinese guy) turned around and gave us the absolute dirtiest look, so we dissolved into hysterics.

We played frisbee for a bit more, and I borrowed Dawson's spare shirt so I felt a little more comfortable, then uncomfortably returned it with some various interesting wet spots left by my bathing suit.

When walking back down to the beach with Gopika, I ran into Arthur, and I recounted our little tale and Luther's shocked reaction. Gopika said I'd probably gone into too much detail, and Arthur said it was funny, but still awkward.

Then he promptly forgot the entire event, and a while later, when he heard mention of some awkwardness that had occurred involving Gopika and I at the beach, he bombarded me with instant messages asking what the hell it was, and insisting that I hadn't told him anything at all.

Anyways, back to the beach: it rained copiously, so we hid in the main building and played more Contact, which is, as I've said, the best game ever. Then, rain and all, we went on the ferry and rode back to shore.

Gaea tried to talk me into coming on some dinner trip with her, then changed her mind at the last minute because she was apparently avoiding someone on said trip.

Instead, we went back to W20, and I stood around with her, Maxwell and Abe and tried to decide what to order for dinner. Then Abe hug-attacked me, and then Gaea licked me, so I freaked out and went to eat with other people. No pizza for Tea.