uuuugggggh

that's how I feel right now.

am ridiculously sick.

will update when I'm not running to puke every few minutes.

some pictures.

Turkey-Part 1

The Rabid Bostonian Travelogues.
Day 1.
Left Logan Airport with little incident. Unfortunately, I was not able to exchange any money into Turkish Lira, and because I was distracted by that fact, I didn’t even think to exchange anything into Euros. Mistake, big mistake…for here I sit in the Zurich airport, surrounded by delightful chocolate and fine drink, and cannot obtain either. Or tea.
It just occurred to me that I left the Euro change I had left over from last years’ visit to Ireland (and some Euros I won in a bet one night, which probably amount to about €10) at home. In Boston. Argh.
I went through the change in my backpack and the sum total is €0.87. Yippee. Looks like I better find a good exchange rate in Turkey.
You know what else I forgot? My debate notebook. Yeah. Now, granted, it’s full. There’s not enough pages left for this tournament and I would resent it if I used it at all. But still, it irritates me that I don’t have the notes from last year with me. I KNEW I forgot something important!
I’m waiting for my connecting flight to Istanbul. I keep hoping I’ll see someone I know. I wore my debate hoodie and everything so anyone that’s going to the tournament ought to know I belong there too. And last year, when I got on my connecting flight from Dublin to Cork, there were like 10 people from the American debate circuit on the flight. I think that should happen again.
I then have a 10 hour bus ride from Istanbul to Antalya. Ohhhhh fun.
Things I have learned thus far (and highlights):
-Switzerland is a BEAUTIFUL country.
-The Swiss Alps are absolutely breathtaking.
-The Green Fields of France are green even in December.
-A lot of people speak English, and then mock people that don’t speak English. For example, I’m sitting at this gate that just finished boarding a flight to London-Heathrow. The last little family to get on was Italian, and didn’t have any English. Once the ticket-taker passport-checker dude was finished with them, he said, “Dunno what they’ll do in London without any English! Italian! HA!”
-I sat next to a girl my age on the flight over. She was pretty cool – student at UMass, visiting some friends in Hannover. We called each other “Single serving friends” and both understood the reference. Awesome.
-Unfortunately, I knocked over my entire cup of water about an hour and a half before landing; it went straight into my lap. We laughed for a long time about it – and it’s a good thing we laughed because I just would have cried otherwise. I’m mostly dried out now, but it was chilly and I cursed not packing another pair of pants into my carry-on.
Not sure when I’ll get a chance to post this or when I’ll have internet. I hope to include some pictures (thanks for the camera AND MEMORY CARD lura!). But as I write this, it’s 12/27/09, 5:40AM Boston time…making it 11:40AM Zurich time.


[posted 12:20pm boston time, from a starbucks in istanbul. off to catch the bus to antalya!]

Y'know how I have a lack of foresight?

My achilles heel is my lack of foresight. I have issues with this and I know it and yet it's really really hard to rectify.

Well, this lack of foresight was 2-fold:
a) Options I did not think of re: THE GAMEPLAN
b) others would inevitably find out.


As I walked into dinner Friday evening, a friend turned to me and said, "You know what's scary? We're in a room filled with the future of our country. Can you imagine these people becoming president, judges, and senators?"

"Why yes," I responded. "I plan to be all of the above."

"But..but...THE YALIES!" he responded. We hate the Yalies.

"Well, we could always get elected first and make it illegal for Yalies to become president. When was the last time we had a good president from Yale?"

"Dude. Clinton," he said.

"False," I respond. "Clinton was a republican in disguise -- he enacted DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell!"

"Oh yeah," my friend responds. "You're right, nothing good comes from Yale."


So let's address point B first. I'm in this room with all these smart people, right? So OF COURSE someone is going to figure out what's going on. Why this never occured to me, I have no idea.

Everyone heads back to the main meeting room to wait. Our name-protected Sam comes over and talks to me (I'm sitting with a couple of other friends), we chat for a bit until his partner grabs him so they can go do some preparations.

The same friend from earlier turns to me. "He was cute. Who was that?"

My intelligent response: "Uh. Sam."

"From...what school? He's so adorable!"

"From REDACTED."

My friend looks at me. I'm surreptitiously watching Sam, who's at a far corner of the auditorium. We're towards the back. My friend sighs and says, "He literally might be the most adorable guy here. What do you think?"

"Um." I respond.

The friend looks back at me once more. "Wait. You...him...?"

"What?" I say.

"You like him!"

"Um."

My friend erupts into an evil combination of giggling and cackling. Curse my inability to lie!

AHHHHH.


So. Problem A)foresight. I thought there were only two options for this weekend: a yes or a no. The problem was there was a third, I didn't think of it. That now that Sam's school has approximately 12 bajillion freshmen he helps not get lost, he was never really alone. Or if he was, I wasn't. Thus, THE GAMEPLAN was forced to abort for lack of opportunity. Curses!


Now, I'm going to put all this silliness behind me. The upside is there's no tournament till halfway through January, so this will all have blown over. Now, back to studying for finals.

And now, for your living vicariously pleasure -- THE GAMEPLAN

Dearest readers, for some time now, I have been enjoying the fruits of being legal. I enjoy going out to my bar, getting discounts from the bartenders that know my name, and getting in free on weekends rather than having to pay the $10 cover. I like coming up with terrible, terrible pick-up lines to use on guys because I find it hilarious. And if they use a bad pick-up line on me, I compliment them on it. My roommates and/or friends from work often go to the bar together and it's almost always a good time.

But lately, I've had a bit of a problem.

And his name is Sam.*

And by lately, I mean 2 years, 1 month, and 3 weeks. I think I fell for him the moment he turned to me and said, pointing to the movie ticket stub sticking out of my backpack, "Was it as good as the book?"

And while I see this particularly intelligent young man every week or two, and while every time we part I kick myself for a)making a fool of myself while talking to him as I inevitably always do; and b) not actually asking him to, you know, hang out or something.

The time has come and I have a plan. The MIT debate tournament is the last of the semester. I will very, very likely get some time to talk to just him and not a whole group of people while walking to the T. And I'll ask him if he wants to get a drink sometime.

Now, he could say, well sure, I've been waiting 2 years, 1 month, and 3 weeks for you to say something, and of course! Or, he could completely turn me down. Which makes the timing critical: I don't like rejection, but the semester'll be over and I'll be leaving the country for 3 weeks. By the time I'm back, and school's in session, and we actually see each other again, it shouldn't be awkward at all.

This plan, by the way, took three hours for me and a friend to come up with. He wanted me to be more daring. I kept vetoing his ideas. So hopefully something good can come from this.


And if not? Well, there's always the boys and the bar.





*names have been changed to protect THE GAMEPLAN

"Talk nerdy to me"

I have a collection of tshirts that I adore, and affectionately refer to them as shirts to piss off my father. Now, it's not my fault he and I disagree on everything except baseball. And it's not really my fault that I've matured past wearing dumb tshirts all the time to only a small collection of really witty ones.

My newest additions are from a dear friend of mine that goes to Smith College. As you know, this is a womens' college in the hippie enclave of Northampton, Mass. Also, I am of the strong opinion that Lura should move there because she'd totally fit in with all the theater/culture in town and the schools are great/my nephews are going to be well-educated. Anyway, the Smith debate team raises money by selling tshirts every year to debaters around the league. I bought one and my friend threw in an extra for free. The one I bought says "Talk nerdy to me." This is especially awesome seeing as we were watching Star Trek whilst discussing the shirts. She also gave me the popular "My girlfriend goes to Smith" to wear when we partner for tournaments (did I mention how awesome we did at the Brown debate tournament? Cause it was WICKED AWESOME). The league favourite is a James Bond throwback: "Everyone loves a cunning linguist."

A few weeks ago I attended a lecture by Howard Zinn, author of "A People's History of the United States" amongst other things. He was touring with the History Channel peoples to advertise for "THE PEOPLE SPEAK," a documentary that will be airing the first week of December. I was pleased to acquire, for free, an all-organic cotton shirt that says "Democracy is not a spectator sport!" Indeed.

My favourite shirt is, of course, the one that says "Karl Marx: Sharing is Caring."
A close second is an Economist shirt that says in a bottlecap: "Think Responsibly."

The problem with all these awesome shirts is I don't really wear tshirts anymore. I never did like wearing them to class, and I have become uncomfortable without wearing a collar out. As a friend of mine said, aghast, when I took her to the pub I frequent "This is a bar for people that wear collared shirts on purpose!" She intends to take me to a goth bar in Cambridge to broaden my horizens, but not until after finals.

Speaking of which, see that last post that discussed that wicked hard writing class I'm taking? Well, guess who's first in the class.

Now guess who the professor called "one of the most brilliant students I've ever taught."

Might I remind you this was a tenured professor who has spent over 30 years at my elitist institution? And yeah, I had to share that. I'm pretty proud. I've worked REALLY hard, but I'm pretty proud.


On Facebook I regularly post news articles and videos in a series I call "This is what's wrong with America" (I know, I've never been good at titles). I'm thinking about posting everything here too. We'll see.

I've never been so happy to get a B.

So Harvard has this one writing class that everyone has to take, even transfer upper-classmen such as myself. You MUST pass this class with a B- or better to stay in the program. I'm in the class with a bunch of other kids in the same program as me.

The class started out with 21 students. And one TERRIFYING professor who announced this would be the hardest class ever.

Week 1: Writing proficiency test.

2-3 people drop out/are asked to leave afterwards.

The professor continues to push us harder and force more work upon us. Student hang on, but just barely. We lose a couple more.

Drafts of the first paper are turned in. We're required to meet with the Prof about the papers outside of class.

So my time to meet with him arrives. I'm scared. I brace myself. And----what? He's wicked awesome, 1-on-1. He likes that I went to BU. He used to teach there and knows some of the professors I had. He likes that I was a Core student. He doesn't particularly like my paper, but he likes my writing.


The next week, I arrive to class confused. Is he awesome or terrible? As he would say, is he the Tiger or the Lamb?

Well, we turn in the final version of our 15 page papers. He announces approximately 40% of the class failed.

Once again, I shake with fear.


But we joke around during and after class. He says things that are so BU it's ridiculous, and glances at me knowing I understand. When no one speaks up in class, he calls on me to answer whatever he's asking.


Papers returned. I got a B! WOOHOO! I think that's just about the highest grade he gave out. He said I used "thus" too much. Prof. Ricks would be horrified that I used "thus" at all.


11 people are left in the class.

We discuss short stories of Thomas Wolfe today...and I am called on to play devils' advocate when needed, and to answer a couple of theory-type questions.

I realize, I've become the class pet.

Now, that's a terrible thing in grade school, I suppose. But you know what? I think this professor is cool. He's the kind I'd grab a drink with one he's not actually my prof anymore, and one I'd add to my thesis advisor commitee. So if I'm a sort of class pet, so be it. At least I get to stay in Cambridge.

As much as I love being an elitist Ivy Leaguer...

My classes are HARD.

Well, not hard hard. Just intensive. And I don't have that much time in my day.

But, for fun, I shall write briefly in Gaelic to show off my sweet skills (also, I'm going to be dribbling in gaelic here and there for practice. Deal with it):

Cad é mar atá tu? Tá mé an-tiersach. Tá mé i mo chónaí i mBoston. Tá scéal agam maith!

Ready?

Cause it's awesome news.


I'm working on a Senate campaign! WOO! Tá, I have very little time for it. But it's going to be iontach go breá anyway. I'm supporting current Attorney General Martha Coakley for senator for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 'Bout time we had a female senator. I guess that's the absolute only good thing that can possibly ever come from poor Teddy being gone.


Anyways, I must get sleep, for as I said, I'm rather tired. But it's nice and chilly here, and I have the introduction of my paper written, so I believe a nice cup of hot chocolate is in order.

Slán anois!