Heebie Jeebies

We left the hotel we'd been staying at this morning and drove to Volcano National Park. The weather was cold and rainy--it's apparently like that all the time there. The volcano was pretty neat, particularly after dark when we could see it glowing, but I'd really like to be there with someone who actually knows what they're talking about as far as the geology goes. As it is right now, it's rather like watching a movie that happens to be right in front of you--there's not interaction, and beyond the whole improved visibility thing (which barely exists in my case, as rain + glasses != improved visibility). I'd like to make the trip with a geology geek and be able to listen to them spout off all the exciting facts about the place.

Later, we drove around more of the island to the bed and breakfast we're staying at for the next two nights. I'd copied down directions from google maps before we left the hotel. The directions mentioned that we would be using "condition restricted roads," but I'm from New England, and when I see "condition restricted roads" I think "snow." And it's summer, so there's no snow, so it wouldn't be a problem (the fact that we're in Hawaii and there is never any snow didn't occur to me). As it turns out, they weren't closed due to these restrictions--but we were sent down winding backroad after winding backroad, including a four mile stretch of dirt road where the turn at the end--to a different, unmarked dirt road--was identified solely by the fact that our car's mile marker had changed by the amount that it should have. Then, about a mile later, the dirt path changed abruptly to a paved single-lane road, and a small sign pointed the way to the inn.

When we arrived, there was a well-lit "Welcome" sign that had our names underneath the names of the rooms we had booked (each room had the last name of the resident written in expo marker underneath). We were still somewhat confused, though--after all, what kind of hotel wouldn't require you to check in?--so we walked around looking for someone to check in with. We managed to end up in the kitchen of the people who run the place; we said "oh, we wanted to check in," and they looked at us like we were completely insane.

"Didn't you see the Welcome Board?" they asked.

"Yes, we did," but the board didn't say anything about going directly to ones' room.

The keys had been left in the doors for us, and we were apparently just supposed to go right in and make ourselves at home, information be damned. When we got to the building we were actually staying in--called the Pagoda, or something like that--there was a sign directing us to take off our shoes before entering, and a considerable number of shoes were already outside.

It was completely nuts. Sure, this is in the middle of nowhere, but people just leaving their stuff around (there's no safe in the room, naturally), and leaving the rooms unlocked, and just dropping one's shoes with no compunction for whether or not the other guests decide they look like fair game--maybe I've spent too much time compulsively locking my bike up, or just too much time in Boston and not enough in Hicksville--but it just seems crazy to me. I have no idea what I'm going to do with my laptop tomorrow (probably bury it in my suitcase so it's unobtrusive (did I mention that there aren't enough shelves to actually unpack?)), but I'm way to paranoid for this place. I keep expecting them to break out into new age "feel the healing power of the waterfall" stuff (they haven't yet, thank goodness, but one never knows). It gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Speaking of creepiness, Cammie posted a fun zombie apocalypse chain thingy. As far as I go, my sidekick is Nyx (though I strongly suspect that, in actuality, she would be the one doing the ass-kicking and I'd be the one standing on the sidelines and flipping out). Vanessa will be providing the heavy weapons (I'm pretty sure she wouldn't actually do that, but it'd be pretty fucking awesome if she did (or "ducking awesome", as my phone would say)). Gopika is the idiot who survives (ironic, given that I count her among the most intelligent people I know). Hyunmi is the sniper (yeah, I can't really see that happening...). Jared is the one who loses it (yeah, gotta say I could see him in any of the "kill the zombies!" roles much more than I see him in this one). Zsa is the brains (valid) and Zorah is the first to die ( =( ). Quite the learning experience, wasn't this?

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.

RSI vs. PROMYS

This is one of those posts that probably would have been more fun to write before I developed this miserable dissatisfaction with a certain boy (note: not the one who went to RSI).

Anyways, on this particular morning, I slept until, if I remember correctly, 10:30, or something along those lines. We were having a counselor group breakfast, leaving at 11, because that was pretty much as early as you could possibly get all of us to be awake. (Didge? Tem? This is why your 9 am Breakfast Club Farewell was a failure. At least, I assume it was a failure. I wasn't there, since I was sleeping off my sleep deprivation).

Well, that assumes that all of us were awake. I got up showered, got dressed, then proceeded to stand on one of the strange blocks that came with our room and jostle Leila enough for her to tell me that she'd get up in five minutes.

I went downstairs. Keyuri and a few others were there. Keyuri and I went on a search for the rest. Miles and Vito didn't answer the door, so we walked up a floor and checked for Miles in Ava's room. A tired looking Zorah answered the door, and informed us that nobody--not even Donny--was in her room. We went downstairs, banged on Vito and Miles's room a few more times, until eventually one of them emerged.

They'd had, for once, the good sense to hide Ava (I say 'they', but Vito was more passive about the whole situation, since she's Miles's girlfriend). On one particularly memorable occasion, Ava and Miles had only just woken up when Becton knocked on the door. Ava, who was closer, opened it before remembering that she was not supposed to be cohabitating with Miles and hiding behind it. Miles, who was then standing inexplicably six feet from the now-open door, waved at Becton, who said "wow, that's creepy," before getting on with his life. Anyways, on this day, they were much better behaved.

Then we went back up to my floor, and I dragged Leila out of bed, and Keyuri bothered Kareem, until, eventually, enough of us were assembled that we figured we could go to breakfast. I ate pancakes. They were extremely delicious.

We took a bus back to campus, and then rushed over to Killian Court, where PROMYS students and the rest of RSI had already arrived. By this point, I had a massive caffeine-withdrawal related headache (I hadn't had a coffee in about two days, and it was two days too many), but was fortunate in that PROMYS wasn't in the mood to play girls, so I could go in search of said coffee. Hyunmi came with me, and we berated Bart for hanging out in W20 instead of cheering before rushing back to the game.

When we got back, Keyuri was in full force, yelling very, very rude insults across the field. Most insults involved either the fact that PROMYS guys couldn't get girls, that they were too ugly to take their shirts off (our team was playing skins), and that the only reason that they were at PROMYS in the first place was because they couldn't get into RSI. While watching the game, I made a joking comment to Nicholas that the entire affair would be better if both teams were shirtless, and he proceeded to make fun of me for this for the remainder of RSI.

Eventually, when they were kicking our asses by a lot, we decided to play girls, in hopes that our girls were better than their girls (which I say they are. I think we scored more points than they did, anyways). We did a lot of running about, but it was eventually decided, when some of their girls didn't want to play, that we wouldn't make them match all of our girls, so they added in some guys and scored on us pretty quickly. Gopika and I stayed in for a little while after that, but we eventually ended up on the sidelines again.

At some point, Livny, who was playing with a shirt on his head to add to the intimidation factor of his extreme muscular definition, got into a fight (there was one slight violent incident followed by a lot of yelling/intimidation attempts) with someone on the other team. Rube continues to believe that Livny takes steroids. I also have vague recollections of some loud noisemaking device from their team, an invasion by our girls into their audience, and someone from their team petting Hyumni's hair.

Regardless, they eventually won, and then the counselors played. I left around the time that Rube did, but, reportedly, we lost that game too.

We continue to contend that we're so busy having lives and doing real research that we didn't have time to practice, and are therefore better than they are. We still haven't decided whether the research or the lives argument is more persuasive.

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.

New England, Rediscovered

By the time we'd finished our own cooking (while attempting to ensure that the midwesterners didn't give anybody food poisoning), we were twenty minutes late, so Chao, Maxwell, Gopika and I raced (well, walked quickly) to 6-120 for presentations.

Now, I'm going to walk you through a presentation on the Northeast.

\begin{frame}{Title Slide: The Northeast}

aka Winners of the Civil War

Clearly the best region of the US

RSI 2010.

\end{frame}

When this slide was first displayed, Vito counted down 3,2,1, and we all simultaneously popped our collars.

We stood, in this order: Chao, Sarah, me, Patrick, Gopika, Zorah, Stratton, Livny, James, Maxwell. If there was anyone else, they're cropped out of my picture. We looked, if I do say so myself, polo-tastic.

\begin{frame}{Some Geography}

\begin{figure}

Map of the U.S. with New England + Pennsylvania + New York + New Jersey highlighted

\end{figure}

\end{frame}

James talked through the above slide.

\begin{frame}

Some History

-1775: Revolutionary War -- started in the Northeast.

-1789: Capital of US was in NY, then PA
-1804: Northeast started abolishing slavery
-1848: Seneca Falls, NY convention first discusses women's suffrage
-1865: Civil War - won by the North(east)
-1865: Northeast forcibly abolished slavery in the South
-1920s: Jazz popularized in NY
-1945: United Nations established, headquartered in NY
-1969: Woodstock music festival in NY
-2010: RSI 2010 held in MA

\end{frame}

James discussed this slide as well. The southerners started booing when he read the line about jazz, though. Poor form on their part, if you ask me.

\{begin}{frame}{Some People You Might Know About}

-Benjamin Franklin
-John Adams
-John Hancock
-Paul Revere
-Mark Twain
-Alexander Hamilton
-Theodore Roosevelt
-Franklin Roosevelt
-John Kennedy
-Carl Sagan
-Hillary Clinton
-Joe Biden
-The cast of Jersey Shore

\end{frame}

Maxwell took this slide. He got through all of them up to Carl Sagan, who he didn't know. Jersey Shore was also mysterious to him, so he finished by saying that whoever they were, they couldn't be cooler than Patrick.

\begin{frame}{North and South}

N: 55 million people.

S: 55 million opossums (before Sunday dinner)

N: 8 of the 13 original colonies

S: 12 of the 12 Confederate States

N: John Kennedy

S: George W. Bush (although he was born in CT)

N: Snow

S: Hurricanes

N: White collars

S: Rednecks

\end{frame}

I discussed that slide, and I got to make a lot of jokes at the expense of southerners (eating roadkill, lowbrow politics, etc.). It was almost enough to make me think that I'm funny.

\begin{frame}{Politics}

Map of the U.S. with Obama and McCain voting states mapped out.

Large image of a colored donkey.

\end{frame}{Politics}

I think I made Patrick take over at this point. Or possibly Stratton.

\begin{frame}{GeoPolitics of the Northeast}

If we look at a series of nations, we begin to notice a disturbing conclusion about the Northeast of each one. Now let's generalize...North Vietnam? Rebellious. North Korea? We beat them hard and good way back when. Anarchist Catalonia? We all know what they're up to. Thus, it is only a matter of time before our Northeast, too, falls to the rebellion.

\end{frame}

That bit was Vito's baby. I still don't quite get it, but the Catalonians seemed to find it funny.

\begin{frame}

Colleges in the Northeast

\end{frame}

Chao went up and listed about a zillion schools. Then we all tried to talk about our individual states, and we got cut off for time-related reasons.