It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to put on a warm coat and walk into the middle of a cornfield and spend the night there? Well, I have . . .

Note: I didn't actually spend the night in a cornfield, which would have been very difficult this time of year considering the harvest has come and gone, but I think it would be kinda fun. But maybe I'm just weird. Yeah, that's probably it. Does anyone remember that cornfield you have to run through in Left 4 Dead 2? That was fun. And this isn't the last reference to zombie video games in this post.

Rich's story about the Doyle owl reminded me of a somewhat similar ordeal that goes on 'round here. You see, one of our biggest rivals is Williams, and their cross country team has a tradition concerning a bear . . . Let's back up a little. A few of you have some experience in cross country, and for those that don't, this shouldn't be difficult to piece together. A few minutes before the gun goes off, each team will partake in a huddle. Now, at the varsity levels for both high school and college, these huddles almost always involve first a little talk by the captain(s), and then a loud cheer of some sort. Now I had seen some interesting displays during my high school career, most notably El Camino's song-dance-cheer thing and the unforgettable parody of it that was carried out by another school at the line of a CIF race that EC had failed to qualify for, but until this season I'd never seen anything quite like what Williams does. Despite the fact that their mascot is the Purple Cow (No, that's not cute or funny. It's just dumb. I, i.e. we, don't like Williams, remember?), their cross country team always brings a stuffed bear of magnificent size to the line, and their huddle always ends with them tossing the despicable beast up into the air and then catching it, all the while screaming something that I don't think is supposed to be utterly incoherent but is anyways.

Williams' top runner was a real animal.

Naturally, everyone wants to steal it. Stories have been passed down about glorious attempts, both successful and otherwise, to steal the bear. Suffice to say, there is no more fiercely-guarded object present at any given meet than the bear. A couple of weeks ago a brawl broke out when a few people made a run at it; as far as I am aware of, nobody has successfully carried it off this season. The difficulty, of course, lies not only in the fact that the bear is guarded by anywhere between a half a dozen and a couple dozen people at all times, but also, and perhaps more significantly, in the fact that almost all of them can run at four-minute pace for half a mile or five-minute pace for three to five miles, depending on the type of chase.

Well, that's your briefing on the Williams bear. In case you are wondering, the Middlebury team has not made any serious attempt on the bear this season, and I doubt we will in the next couple of weeks. 'Course, we still have indoor track, outdoor track, and, in my case, three more years after that. I'll keep you posted if and when something notable happens in that department.

Something notable did, by the way, happen concerning the physics department today.

Winkler sent out an e-mail today, as he so often does, about astronomical phenomena that are occurring throughout the semester. Most of these are relatively pedestrian happenings, like solar flares and NASA projects, but the e-mail he sent us today alerted me to something that I actually thought was pretty interesting, and more than a little bit frightening. A small asteroid, only about 400 meters apart, will pass between the moon's orbit and the Earth tomorrow night, coming closest at 23:28 UT on the 8th, which as you presumably know (supposed to sound pretentious) , is 6:28 pm for us Easties, and 3:28 for you Westies. The series of images directly below this block of wordiness delineates the asteroid's predicted trajectory, and alas, Armageddon does not appear to be in the forecast.  Concerning observations, the moon's getting pretty close to full, which means it will be very difficult to see the asteroid through most telescopes, and impossible to see it with the naked eye, unless your name happens to be Legolas.

There is no way out. Just sit down and cry.

What's not impossible to see with the naked eye, regardless of elvishness, is how much a particular room that I stumbled upon while exploring Bi Hall (to the right) looks like a room in one of the early levels of Doom 3. Now, I realize I'm not reaching an audience that is very familiar with Doom 3, but I know that I've described it to Rich and Jason as far scarier than the comparatively meek Dead Space, and I stand by that statement with as much conviction as ever. Now, this particular room is simply laid out almost exactly how one particular room in Doom 3 is laid out, which is just plain scary, 'cause I remember exactly where that Martian-demon-imp-zombie-thing is hiding.

Bi Hall, clearly designed by Daedalus.

Can I type in here? Yes I can. Yay!

Last Saturday saw the running of the ECAC meet at Williams, so I hopped in Schmidty's (that guy who won that race with one shoe) car with a few other guys and we drove down to the course. I mention this drive because a couple of things happened that I consider worthy of being mentioned in this post. First, I realized that I have no love for Taylor Swift. It's commonly known that Schmidty is unconditionally infatuated with one Ms. Swift and her music, and seeing as it was his car, he played her music for the entire two-and-a-half hour drive. Now I don't have anything against the woman, but I'd like to make it clear that were Schmidty to have made a playlist of four of her songs and put it on repeat for the duration of the car ride, I would not have noticed. In fact, he may very well have done that and I simply didn't notice. Every single song just sounds exactly the same, much in the same way that every single Hiles lecture sounds exactly the same, the difference being that I was awake for the entire car ride. [Disclaimer: I love Mr. Hiles, not just because he's a Ducks fan and he's read The Name of the Wind, but because . . . well maybe that's why I love him. Does that mean I like him more than I like Rachael, seeing as she doesn't meet either of these criteria? Hmmm . . . (That was a joke. No need for us to start another sass battle.)]

I could have sworn . . .

The other notable thing of notability that transpired between Middlebury and Williams on Saturday was a little less fun for our driver. You see, Schmidty likes to go fast, and not just on two feet. In the words of fellow runner and car-mate Jack Davies, "Dude, you were going 80 in a 45 zone." I think that may have been an exaggeration, but I suppose it might also have been spot-on. Either way, the cop said we were going 70 in a 55 zone, which isn't as bad, but definitely still worth a ticket. And, in case you were wondering, he fulfilled every stereotype: horrid moustache, very overweight, and really condescending. Yes, Schmidty deserved the ticket, but no, he didn't deserve to be talked down to.

Let's see, what else? I turned in a five-page paper for my seminar today. I guess that's not very exciting. My take-home midterm (a ten-page paper) for the Odyssey is due tomorrow, and I'm almost done. I think it's pretty good so far. Hopefully I'm not alone in making that assessment.

Tomorrow I register for my J-term class, and as I type this I realize that, for the most part, that doesn't mean much to you. Allow me to explain. For a four week period between fall and spring semesters Midd students take only one class, and that's called your January term, or J-term. Regisration opens at 7:00 am tomorrow morning, so I should know what I'm taking by 7:30 if I get up when I plan to. I'll add that in as an edit at the end of this when I find out, assuming I remember to.
EDIT: I'm in a poetry class. Yay, poetry.
RE-EDIT: After realizing that I'm probably gonna take a writing class in the spring that involves a lot of poetry, I've decided to switch my J-term class to "Debating International Literature," but I'm still not sure if that's what I'm going to keep it as. Also, I'm pretty sure nobody is going to read this edit because Jason's already posted, so I eagerly await your confusion in a couple of months' time when I start talking about a class that isn't poetry. Unless I switch back. Which is a distinct possibility.