Scooby Dooby Doo, Where Are You?

I did many things last week, most of which were very routine and therefore undeserving of mention herein. However, it is my belief that at least a couple of them were slightly less routine and consequently worthy of note, for what is the purpose of this blog if not to expound upon the triumphs and travails of the collegiate week (phrase taken from our 11th grade history textbook, as in "The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic), even if they are none too triumphant when compared to other triumphs, nor travailent when compared to other travails. Not to be confuse with trivalent. Because one is a word, and one isn't, and in any case I haven't taken a chemistry class since tenth grade, and do not intend to break that trend any time in the foreseeable or unforeseeable future.

And that, my friends and hidden stalkers, is how you talk about talking about your week without actually talking about your week. Let us (as if you had any say) now commence a discussion of the week itself, lest we get a little too meta.

See that little sign to the right of the wardrobe?

I'll begin with a pair of pictures that I took. I did not discover this curiosity recently, but it only occurred to me to include it in this account recently. I think it is amusing, and that is reason enough for it to exist, both in this blog and in world. One of these pictures is an inset of the other, which is trivially obvious to me, but if I omitted from this blog everything that does not fall

Middlebury: Where the cool kids are.

into that category then I would have nothing to post about. And that wouldn't be very fun at all.

I had quite the dream last week, and I know this only because I scribbled its synopsis on a piece of paper immediately after it ended. I know Rachael doesn't like reading about dreams (though I can't figure out why), so I invite her to skip the following paragraph, although I am sure she won't take me up on that offer.

I was competing at an indoor track meet in San Diego, which doesn't make any sense because there are no indoor tracks at southern California schools (because we have awesome weather all the time, unlike some states I could name that start with 'V' and end with 'ermont'). Anyway, Zach Asdourian (who was suddenly on my team again) was running the mile, but I never saw him finish. I do remember, however, that the race starter (that old fat guy with a gun) had to delay the race because Zach had a tough time getting his spikes on. And then my current history professor, a Canadian with the last name Monod, starts lecturing on how the UK is presently turning into a Christian fundamentalist country where everyone adheres to a literal interpretation of the Bible and people who don't are killed, and I walk over to a computer (still at the track) to write a paper on this subject, although I feel as though I can't possibly finish it on time. The computer I'm using, incidentally, is the same exact old Windows that I wrote my actual history paper on in the library. I became so distraught about the paper that I woke up, which led to a great sense of relief, quickly followed by un-relief because I realized my dream was telling me that I really need to get cracking on that paper. Also, it was 8:24 and my class started at 8:40. So I got up, got dressed, walked to Proctor, ate a banana, and made it to class with time to spare because that's what I do.

I did, by the way, finish that history paper. We had seven (I think seven) topics to choose from, and I chose to write about William Hogarth. Mr. Gunnin would be proud. Maybe I'll show him the paper. Seven pages on nothing but "Marriage a la Mode". Not the most interesting thing in the world, but hey, there can only be one most interesting thing in the world, and someone's probably already written about it. WHICH MAKES ME THINK OF BORGES' "LIBRARY OF BABEL'. I didn't even plan that transition, but it works, so yeah, let's pretend I did plan it. Of course, that's going to be tough now that I've just announce to the world that I didn't plan it. Hmm. Hmmm. I don't like the fact that I don't get a red underline for "hmm" but I get it for "hmmm". There, it happened again! Of course, you won't see it because that goes away when I post. Unless . . . Okay, almost. I tried to underline it with red, but the best I could come up with is coloring the whole thing red and underlining it. And now you probably thought those were links. Hmmm. Funny how that works.

So let's talk some 'bout Borges. I finished reading Ficciones, all seventeen stories. Some of them are a lot better than other. One of them is a story-ization of the infinite monkey theorem, which is, believe it or not, a thing. Kinda like how that is, believe it or not, a link. I just finished a paper on a Borges story (not the monkey one), by the way. Only, it wasn't just on a Borges story. It was a comparison between three works: Genesis, The Way to Rainy Mountain, and "The Babylon Lottery" (a story in Ficciones). And I used the word "smorgasbord" in it.
Hopefully it doesn't suck.

My physics professor doesn't suck; maybe he'd have something to say about it. Last week he told us that he needed to get a new computer, so he asked the class what type he should get. The unanimous response was "a Mac", to which he replied, "Well, duh. But which type of Mac?"
Another thing about him: At the beginning of every class period he says, "Ho, time for class." I think he just felt he needed to be quirky to fit in with everyone else here, so he developed the habit of saying that before every single class.

That's some hipster stuff right there.

In my last Biblical Lit discussion everyone said a little something about what they had taken out of the class, and one girl said that she had expected her Christian faith to grow, but after actually reading the Bible she became confused and unsure. Which really makes a lot of sense, given the nature of the stuff we've read.

On Friday afternoon the band "Guster" played a concert on campus. I hadn't heard of them before (surprise, surprise), but this one dude in the back played the bongos with his hands, which made him a badass, which made the experience enjoyable for all spectators, myself included.

I took a walk along Otter Creek on Saturday. Prove it, you say? Very well.

Eventually I came to a place along the river where a fallen tree (from Hurricane Irene) had dropped into the river. As is my custom with trees, I climbed it, but rather more easily than I normally do because it was sideways. When I took out my phone to take a couple pictures (below), I discovered that Nicole had texted me a while ago, so I texted her back and told her I was in a tree. I bring this up for Nicole's sake, so she can identify the tree that she was texted from, which I know must be terribly important to her.

I hope you guys didn't stop checking this blog just because you're home. If you did stop, you should stop stopping and read this instead. You should also read my post next week, unless you don't care, in which case you shouldn't. Next week I'm going to attempt to give a comprehensive review of my school year; if that fails, I'll at least tell a couple of knock-knock jokes or something.

For now, I'll leave you with one last item of stuff. And it is this: I recently remembered my first grade time capsule. Allow me to explain. In June 2000, all the first graders in Miss Woods' Eastbluff Elementary School class made time capsules, and they were instructed not to open them until 2012. I, being one of the few and the proud, the first first graders (We actually were the first first graders; Eastbluff re-opened in the fall of 1999.), have such a time capsule on one of my shelves in my room, and I completely forgot about it when I was home in January. Therefore, I will open it in May. That should be fun. I also ought to mention that one of the items inside the capsule is a little card that reads something like, "My favorite cartoon is", and I scribbled in the blank something (exactly) like "Scooby-Doo". I also remember thinking to myself, Gee, when I'm in college (I was good at math back then) I'm not even going to remember what Scooby-Doo is. Well little Derek, you were WRONG, weren't you? I still remember what Scooby-Doo is, and even remember that I wrote it down on a little slip of paper twelve years ago, and I even even remember thinking that I won't know what Scooby-Doo is twelve years hence.