It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The act of walking up the hill that leads to Stewart Hall often induces a shortness of breath, even for an exemplary cardiovascular specimen such as yours truly. Luckily for the 3:40 p.m. EST Friday April 6th incarnation of the aforementioned, he was walking down the hill instead of up it, and his lungs were therefore about as full as they have ever been. This circumstance, namely his being in possession of large quantities of oxygen-containing air, would prove to be of invaluable significance in the minutes that followed his descent of the Stewart hill; in fact, it could be argued that he would not be here today to type out these very words on a shitty Dell computer with a squeaky 's' key in the bottom floor of the Armstrong Science Library of McCardell Bicentennial Hall in Middlebury College halfway between Rutland and Burlington, were it not for the surplus of air that had taken residence in his soon-to-be grateful lungs, much as he himself had taken residence in the rather less grateful Stewart Hall. You see, within a few dozen seconds of completing his descent of the Stewart hill, this once lonesome soul found himself in something of a vise-grip, and were his lungs not so luxuriously occupied he may well have suffocated on the spot before the instigator of said vise-grip could detach her arms (and legs, incidentally).
Luckily, I repeat, he had been walking down the hill instead of up it.

I suppose it was only a matter of time until Middlebury hosted a debate tournament this year, an event which, were I unacquainted with one Miss Danser, I would likely still be unaware of, even during and after its passing. But, as you just might remember, I am acquainted with one Miss Danser (Well, I guess I'm acquainted with two Miss Dansers, but I don't know the other one well at all. Although I do remember her making an excellent Spongebob joke in the Norton Simon museum about a year ago.), and as such, I was made aware not only that Middlebury was hosting a debate tournament, but that it would be attended by the younger of the two Miss Danser that I am acquainted with, i.e. the one that did not make an excellent Spongebob joke in the Norton Simon last year.

Please allow me to condense those two rather verbose paragraphs into a significantly less verbose statement: Nicole was at Middlebury last weekend, and she hugs hard.
Why didn't you just say that? Why, O Purveyor of Misery, did you drag out the story like it was some kind of Mt. Doom-climbing strawberry festival?

Anyway. Nicole's visit.
She arrived Friday afternoon and left Saturday afternoon. She was busy judging debates for pretty much the entire time, and when she wasn't, I was busy racing. Result: We didn't spend that much time together. Given more time, I would have shown her around campus. Given a single dorm, I would have shown her around that. But neither of these things were given; consequently, we didn't have a jolly good time indulging in one another's company. I fully intend to rectify that over the summer, with the added bonus of the rest of you guys. Perhaps on Wednesday you'll learn more about Nicole's time in the Green Mountain State. Perhaps I will too.
And no, we didn't take any pictures. Sorry about that.
Or at least none that I remember.

One more thing about Nicole. Or rather, one thing directed at Nicole. Have you been on Google today? They are honoring someone we learned about in Gunnin's class with a Google Doodle.

I mentioned a race. I will now mention it again, in greater detail.
By the decree of smiling fortune, Middlebury's debate tournament was scheduled for the same weekend as one of the two home meets during the entire track season, from January to May. The result of this particular upturning of the corners of fortune's mouth, as I have just described in the last several paragraphs, was the fact that I remained on campus for the one weekend that Nicole spent here. This was a Good Thing.
My race, as if you cared, went okay. I ran 16:12 in the 5k, which isn't as fast as I should be running, but it also isn't so slow as to be discouraging.

Sometime between me starting to write this post and now, I took a physics exam, which seemed easy . . . too easy. But the last one seemed too easy, too, and I got a 59/60. I guess the thing about relativity is, either you get it or you don't, and if you get it, well, the tests are pretty easy. Which leads me to a my next point: People Who Don't Get Relativity.
Now listen, I don't have a problem with these people. I know some of them, and they're nice, caring, intelligent, thoughtful, and in more than a few cases attractive. It might not even be their fault that they don't get relativity. Maybe their brains just have a tougher time conceptualizing it. I hold nothing against them.
Until they waste a week's worth of lecturing by asking the same questions using different words.
And I do feel for them. I really do. I just wish there was a way to separate the class into two separate rooms, one for explaining the underlying principle of relativity again and again until everyone gets it, and one for pressing onward into the more interesting areas of study that result from relativity. Because we have been talking about the same few things for the last few weeks, and I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting my time.

This is not the case, however, with my British history class. That guy can really lecture. In every other lecture-based class I've taken, what you learn in class simply clarifies the reading, which is where you get the bulk of your information. Not with Professor Monod. No, he is the textbook. I seriously think he knows every single thing that happened in the British Isles between the second coronation of James I and the Battle of Waterloo. He skips no detail, botches no name, bypasses no date, ignores no event, spares no thought for ending class on time.

I am equally happy with my Biblical Literature class and professor, who is also my academic adviser. His soothing Alabama accent, which I have mentioned before but not nearly enough, would be enough to give Katniss Everdeen sweet dreams. (Speaking of which, I'm a little over halfway through Mockingjay.) In the past week, we've read a multitude of the Bible's shorter stories, notably those of Ruth, Esther, Job, Daniel, Jonah, Tobit, and Judith. Esther is definitely my favorite story that I've read in the Bible thus far; its plot is complex and logical enough to be a work of classical Greece. What's not logical, however, is how poorly my copy of the NOABNRSVA4E (New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, Fourth Edition. Yes, that is really what it's called.) was put together. Well, now it's being held together with Scotch tape. In the words of the Flying Dutchman, That'll do.

I may as well say something about my fourth class, seeing as I've covered the other three. Um . . . oh, right. Intro to World Lit. We're reading poetry now. The following is a list of poets we've read or are going to read, which I have provided on the off-chance that I've read any of your favorites.

Elizabeth Bishop

Catullus

Constantine P. Cavafy

Mahmoud Darwish

Emily Dickinson

Bob Dylan

Nazim Hikmet

Giacomo Leopardi

Eugenio Montale

Ovid

Wistawa Szymborska

Giuseppe Ungaretti

Yesterday I learned that New England accounts for slightly less than 2% of the total area of the United States. This did not surprise me, but I hope to bring it up next time someone displays the sort of mindset behind the strikingly accurate cartoon you see below. Also, California's San Bernardino County is larger than each of the nine smallest states, and larger than the four smallest combined.

This is exceedingly clever. Please acknowledge it as such. Thank you.

It's that time of year when we have to start thinking about next fall, both for courses and housing. Course registration is next week, so as always I have to sift through a massive pile of classes that I really want to take and narrow it down to just four. They're offering "History of Geography" next semester, by the way. Yeah, that's right. Otherwise known as What Sounds Like The Best Class Ever.

I can, however, tell you a little more about housing. Namely that, in each of the five commons, rising sophomores are given a random number and you pick your rooms in the order of the number you get. There are 161 rising sophomores in Brainerd (my commons). My random housing number? Two. Which means I'll be living in a single that's closer in size to the double I currently inhabit than it is to the average single size. Muahahahaha.

But registration and room draw, is that what makes this time of year so wonderful? Of course not. Is it the weather? Hardly. Perhaps the promise of impending summer? Not a chance. Ladies and gentelmen and Simmon, drumroll please! April means Stanley Cup Playoffs!

Please try to contain your excitement. I know how difficult that must be for all of you, but trust me, it's for the best.
The playoffs begin this Wednesday, and they won't be over until the second week of June. Unfortunately, everyone's favorite team declined to play this year (translation: the Ducks didn't make it), and, also unfortunately, every single game is to be broadcast on national TV which mean they'll all be blacked out online so I'll have to spend a few hours every night from Wednesday until school gets out in front of the nearest cable-receiving television, which is in the next building over.
But at the end of the day, playoffs are playoffs, and that's good enough for me.

I realize my quizzes are losing the little popularity they once had. I considered putting up the Hollywood Sign or Half Dome to see if I'd get a few more guesses, but I suppose that wouldn't be much fun. If I get another lackluster showing for this week's quiz, I'll stop doing it next week.
And Cole, I know for a fact that you know the answers to A and C. So I'd appreciate it if you waited until a few days have passed if you want to answer. Thank you.

A

B

C

EDIT on Wednesday, April 11: None of you care about this, but it needs to be recorded so I can point to it later when people question my incredible foresight. My predictions for the 2012 Stanley Cup Conference Quarterfinal Round:
Rangers over Sens in 6
Caps over B's in 7
Devils over Panthers in 5
Pens over Flyers in 7
'Nucks over Kings in 6
Sharks over Blues in 7
'Yotes over 'Hawks in 7
Preds over Wings in 7