Valaritas

Exactly one month from today, I will wake up in Newport Beach for the first time since February. That should be enjoyable. Also, I'm listening to KUSC right now. The answer to today's Great Composer Quiz was Beethoven. Real original, Dennis.

I think my memory will allow me to organize this post chronologically, so I'll go ahead and try it out.

At 7:00 am last Tuesday morning, the day after my last post, I registered for next semester's courses. Bear in mind that none of these decisions are set in stone until September, when we carve them into the rocks by the creek. All that registration really means is that I am guaranteed a spot in the classes I am currently signed up for; whether or not I change them in the fall depends on . . . whether or not I decide to. And without further ado:

GEOG 0100: Place and Society. An intro class, required of majors, joint majors, and minors in Geography. You gotta do what you gotta do.
GEOG 0239: History of Cartography. Everything I hate is not in the title of this course.
RELI 0258: The Qur'an. This way I can be like, cultured and stuff, ya know?

UVM

RUSS 0151: Russian Literature's Golden Age. Geez, I'm gonna be like, super cultured, yeah.

Probably the only semester I won't take a course in either the history department or the English department. Well, I've already taken a few of each and I haven't taken any Geography, so I need to catch up.

Tuesday, in addition to being registration day, also was the day that the University of Vermont (look right) held their first meet on their new track. Middlebury, being the only other college in the state with a track program (I'm not kidding), engaged in this midweek dual meet. I ran the 3k. I didn't run all that well. If you're looking for that trend to reverse, keep reading this post.

We're wrapping up the poetry section in World Lit, and I thought I'd leave you with one of my favorites. The original is in French, but inspired by Chinese culture. Yes, this is the whole thing, without any cut off at the bottom.

Victor Segalen's Steles

In physics, we've finally moved on from special relativity to general relativity. I can only describe the stuff we're learning as stretchy.

In Biblical Lit, we're now reading the Gospels. Which brings me to the recruit visit.
We had three high school senior runners spend some time with the team last week, two of which are named Mark and Luke, and we've already got a John on the team, so we'd love to get a Matthew somehow. The third's name is Brian, so he doesn't help much with the theme.

Back to chronology. Friday afternoon. I'm writing a paper in Armstrong (the small library in Bi Hall), incidentally one that compares Segalen's poem, featured above, and Elizabeth Bishop's "Questions of Travel", and I realize I need to use the restroom. Now there is nothing particularly exciting about this, and if I had simply proceeded to do my bodily duty and return to paper writing, I would not have brought this to your attention. But that was not the case, and as such it deserves to be mentioned.

So I'm walking up the stairs, and it becomes apparent that a large crowd of people is milling about in the great hall that lies between my present location and the loo. I know that the spring symposium (just some event of little consequence to me) is taking place, so I correctly assume that this crowd of people

Like this, except FREE.

owes its existence to the symposium. What I do not assume is that this crowd is being served FREE SUSHI. Well, it's not long before I realize that indeed they are serving FREE SUSHI. So I eat some FREE SUSHI, and then I eat some more FREE SUSHI, and then I eat a little more FREE SUSHI. I see a group of weak-palated runners (because they're from New England, duh) standing around eating FREE SUSHI and I convince one of them to try some wasabi with his FREE SUSHI and he said it was painfully spicy and then we ate more FREE SUSHI. After eating a substantial amount of FREE SUSHI I went back to Armstrong and wrote the rest of my paper, with a stomach full of FREE SUSHI.

On Saturday we had a home meet, and I ran 15:56 in the 5k, which made me happy. I am a simple man, and simple things make me happy. Next Saturday, Illuvatar willing, I'll be running the 5k at NESCACs, which takes place on both Nicole's birthday and campus.

Saturday night wasn't too bad either. The rapper Wale was doing a concert on campus, and since I A) had never heard of him, and B) wouldn't have liked his stuff even if I had heard of him, I didn't purchase a ticket. But things change. Allow me to spin you a story.

After devouring what was at best a decent dinner, Patrick, Charlie, and I made our way back to the Chateau, where the former lives. Through the front door, make a right, make a left, up the stairs, left, right, open the door to Patrick’s dorm. Martin was already inside when they got there. Once inside, we began to discuss the night that lay ahead, and it became apparent that a little more foresight would have made the upcoming night a little easier to plan out, as is usually the case. Of the four of us, sitting in that second-story room in the southeast tower of the Chateau, only Charlie and Martin had bought their Wale tickets in advance, which means for them it only cost $15. Patrick and I, on the other hand, were ticketless and none too excited about paying the $20 that it costs to buy tickets at the door.

After some deliberation, however, something resembling a plan emerged. Martin, apparently, no longer wanted to go to the concert. A night with his girlfriend sounded more appealing, and for that he can hardly be blamed. In fact, he ought to be thanked, because he was consequently able to hand his ticket to Patrick, whom he already owed from previous exchanges. And thus a picture of the night ahead began to emerge. Patrick, Charlie, and I would walk over to the concert, I would swallow my dislike of the musical genre at hand and buy a ticket at the door, and our trio would proceed to have a good time. And this is exactly what we set out to do.

It must be noted that the concert was to take place in gymnasium, and the gymnasium resides in the athletic complex, a building that any three members of the track team ought to be very familiar with. This will be important later on in the story, but you must not rush my telling of it.

Ten minutes or so after we had set out from Patrick’s room, our three musketeers found themselves at one of the entrances to the athletic center, specifically the entrance that is closest to the gym and was therefore the entry point for all, well, almost all, concert-goers. But before they could go in, there was the small matter of acquiring a ticket for me. Small matter indeed.

Finally resigned to the reality of burning $20 on the concert, I approached the counter and asked if I could by a ticket. Half a dozen seconds later, he turned back to the other two and informed them of the seemingly unfortunate truth that I had just discovered; namely that the concert had sold out.

At that moment, an small idea hatched itself in my brain. An idea spawned from a past experience. An idea that just might make a difference.

So I pulled Patrick and Charlie aside and spoke my mind.

“Remember the very first cross country race? Dartmouth? Well, the day before that race, I left my running bag in the locker room, and the bus was leaving at 6:00 am, right? When I figured this out at 5 something in the morning I ran over to the athletic center and tried to get in, but it was locked. So I snuck in through the back, through the hockey rink. Point is, I know this building.  I can get in. You two, get inside, go to the concert, and let me know where security is, alright?”

So they went in, and I went out. I walked around the exterior of the building, surveying it, looking for a chink in the armor. A few minutes into this search, I got a call from Patrick.

“Pat, you inside?”
“Yeah. Do you know where the ski locker room entrance is?”

“Yeah, I’m standing right there.”

“The combo is [a number that does not need to be on the internet]. There are security guards at each interior door. Good luck.”

The plan is taking form now. Unfortunately, two cars and a group of people, some of them security, are standing around near the entrance to the ski locker room. This gives me pause, but I know it’s dark and I know that nobody is expecting a ski-locker entrance. So I wait until they’re looking somewhere else, slink around to the door, press my body up against it, thumb the four-digit combination, and disappear inside.

It’s dark, far too dark to see, so I takes out my phone and uses it as a flashlight. After a minute or so of making my way through the locker room, I find my hands on the doorknob that will take me to the main interior hallway on the first floor. There I hesitate, put my ear to the door, and hear only the muffled sound of the concert, still several layers away, deep in the labyrinthine building.

If anyone is in the hallway, they will see the door open immediately, and there can’t be anything worse than looking sneaky, so I decide to open the door quickly and confidently. Best to look like you know what you’re doing.

The corridor is empty and almost as dark as the room he just emerged from. While this seems like a good sign, I know I will have to do some talking at some point.

I make a left and then a quick right, headed toward the gym. On his left another hallway stretches out towards the fitness center, where a security guard is sitting down, looking the other way. Making a mental note to avoid that side corridor, I press on.

When I reach the solid metal double doors of the backside of the gym, I know that there must be a guard on the other side. But seeing as I don’t have much of a choice, I pull the door open, see a guard standing two feet in front of me, and prepare for some quick thinking.

When the guard turns around at the sound of the door opening, he sees nothing but a skinny college kid, presumably so drunk he somehow ended up in the hallway. I see no reason to play the part any differently.

“You trying to get in, kid? You have a ticket?”

There’s no way he’s going to let me pass without a ticket.

“No, just looking for the bathroom. Sorry.”

Without waiting for a response, I turn around and walk the other way down the hallway. Walking toward me, however, is another student, apparently someone working backstage.

“What are you doing here? You can’t be in this hallway?”

And that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.

“I’m just trying to get out.”

“Okay, follow me.”

The backstage worker leads me back to the door where the security guard had earlier turned me away, and the guard lets us pass, apparently recognizing my guide. Once I'm inside with my escort, the latter turns to me and says, “See those bleachers? Walk up those, take a left, and there’s your exit.”

Then he turned around, presumably to resume his duties, leaving me alone to carry out his orders.

So I walked up the bleachers and took a left, but I didn’t go out the door. I walked straight back down into the concert, found Charlie and Patrick, both of whom were appropriately excited about the success of our plan, and proceeded to have a pretty good time despite the low-quality music.

All in all, 'twas a very enjoyable experience, and one which I won't soon be forgetting.

This would be nice to wake up to.

After the concert, we ate at the Grille, watched the overtime period of the Phoenix-Chicago games, which the Blackhawks ended up winning on the strength of Toews' pinpoint accurate shot, and made our way back to the Chateau. Since my dorm isn't anywhere near the Chat, and since Martin was spending the night at his girlfriend's, I slept on Martin's bed.

I woke up at 9:00 the next morning, tried to get Patrick up for our run using conventional methods, failed, and therefore resorted to playing "Circle of Life" at full volume in his ear, which worked splendidly.

In other news, by NHL bracket isn't going so well. Go Blues.

While scouring the (Google) Earth for locations for this week's quiz, I happened upon a marvelous little spot. So marvelous, in fact, that I decided one picture wasn't going to cut it. So here you have it. All five photographs were taken within a few miles of each other. For your guesses, I ask only the name of the country because not even Cole will be able to narrow it down more than that, provided he hasn't seen this part of the world on GE already. Give it your best shot.