Watching Republican debate on FOX.

I think I'm gonna be sick.

Winter's here

What's everyone doing for break?

Finals Week

O-Chem, Ecology, Environmental Studies.  Three hours each.  This will be fun.

Done with finals

awwww yeahhhhh

Funny People

SSgt- I now wait in the wardroom for SSgt to walk in and then immediately bring up a controversial topic so he can talk about it. He will go on for hours if we let him. Recently he dissed the hell out of China and how they take care of their people, and said once he's President he will find everyone wearing communist shirts and put them in jail.

Physics Prof- is a strange strange man, who decided the last lecture shouldn't be about anything on the final. Instead he gave a lecture on what his mind thinks about when he is teaching us. He basically did a lecture on what one episode of Morgan Freeman's "Through the Wormhole" was about (the one about black holes). ANY WAYS, I took a nap but before that he mentioned nonchalantly that "given enough time, the center of the Milky Way would suck the galaxy up, including us, but we're not concerned about that now..." and proceed onto his other tangent...

James Kornowski is addicted to skyrim, he cant control himself so now I hit him every time i see him playing, and Amis turns of the Xbox whenever he is playing. It's sad every night watching him heat up his frozen dinner and eating it, he doesnt cook, and he feeds off of other people's stress, which isnt helpful when he is studying...This apartment is turning in to a cluster fuck due to our oldest roommates girl issues. girls who are involved in ROTC just like he and everyone else in the apartment is...

Responsibility

Clearly there has been a huge mistake because, propelled by the incredibly convincing words of my advisor, I somehow got myself put on the list of Bio 40 tutors and now I'm expected to help some poor kid get ready for his genetic translation test.  So, on top of preparing for my own ecology test, I have to relearn the lac and trp operons, genetic transfer between prokaryotes, and other stuff I haven't looked at in over six months.  Worst of all, I've lost all faith in the tutoring system because if they let someone like me teach then who knows what other maniacs and incompetents are posing as academic role models.

 

On a funnier note, our star running back, Luke Sweeney (read this LA Times article for more info http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/19/sports/la-sp-elliott-20111020), went to a Wiz Khalifa concert in LA with my friends Peter, Jordan, and Ari.  However, upon arrival he was already blackout and belligerently drunk and the bouncers wouldn't let him inside.  Stumped, the group went to find some food in the hope that Luke would sober up enough to get in.  But they got distracted waiting at a stoplight, and when it turned green Luke was gone, disappeared into the night.  They wandered around downtown LA for several hours looking everywhere for him.  They even called everyone back at school who had his number (including me) and asked us to call him to see if he would pick up for someone.  But he didn't, and the search went on without results until about 1:00 AM when Peter got a call from the hospital saying an ambulance had picked the missing football player up off the streets.  Worried, the three searchers rushed to the hospital where they found a disheveled but light spirited Luke.  According to him, he had successfully snuck into the concert, but was later kicked out by the same bouncer that wouldn't let him in initially.  Outside the venue, he once again began looking for a way in but got lost.  A while later, he found himself in a sketchy neighborhood and, nervous, started running in no particular direction and jumping fences and stuff.  Eventually he lay down in someone's front yard, and presumably someone called the cops and an ambulance was dispatched.  This story, although a little farfetched, was much more believable given Luke's condition.  He was still very drunk and, due to his clumsiness while climbing fences, gashed in his left arm and right leg.  On top of that, he was shirtless and his shorts had been torn down the middle such that his dick was hanging out, a fact he was very eager to pass out to every passing nurse and hospital visitor.  Eventually, his parents called to give the hospital permission to let their son go under Peter's care and someone found him some extra pants so the group drove back to school.  A great night had by all.

FOOD!

finally went shopping after living off of toast and honey, water and sandwiches for the past 1 and a half weeks...
son nice having milk and OJ again!

Debate Tournament

We flew up to stockton and went 5-1 in prelims and eventually lost to UCLA in Quarter Finals.

I will never forget the round I saw in Semi-Finals.

UCLA's captain (here is an article on him http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/headline-here-218270.aspx) has a hearing problem and has an incredibly difficult time hearing in general, let alone the fast speaking that is a norm in Debate. Here is an example of speed in a debate round http://vimeo.com/23771538.

His disability is well known across the entire debate community and the team he faced in semi-finals knew this and despite Nick's protest the other team basically spoke as fast as they could and sat down with time left to intentionally exclude him.

As expected, Nick gets up in the next speech and runs an argument called a Speed K, which is basically him saying why going fast on him in particular is exclusionary and oppressive and a reason for the other team should lose the round.

It turns, out that team prepared for that and in the next speech they responded with 8 minutes of a counter narrative saying that they are black and have ADHD and they don't want to make this a debate about who is more marginalized (but they run these arguments extremely quickly so Nick still cannot understand these arguments). It's like the team intentionally did this to exploit his disability.

After the round when Nick heard that UCLA won the round on a 2-1 despite the huge difference in speed, he cried. The judges were basically enraged at the fact that the other team intentionally tried to exclude. We were helping UCLA prepare for the final round and Nick was in no mood to debate, he wanted to concede the next round and turn it into a 45 minute discussion on speed in debate.

While they decided to debate and lost the final round it is one of the few times in my life where I have seen someone overcome something like that and still fight into the final round. It's a really awesome story, he was born with a with a hearing disability and has given his all to be extremely successful in an activity that place him at a huge structural disadvantage. Even when people intentionally try to exploit his disability he still is able overcome every speed bump in the way.

Halloween

Got pelted with snack size candy bars by another class while in Bio today.

Picked three up to throw back.

Ate all three instead.

So worth it.

Headphones

Lost my headphones

Purchased them two weeks ago

Ryan Sad.

Went to book store today

Blue headphones were not in stock

Rasta colored were the cheapest ones left

they were purchased

BEST NIGHT EVER

went to sports authority to get wrist bands to put our plays into them!

weston draw up some plays for 7 on 7 for offense, our defense seems solid but some help with that would be legit! thats your assignment.

btw one of the wrist bands is nike pink, for breast cancer. the little tab said "Dedicated to: " with space to write something. Wrote "2nd Base."

Then! went to "The little door"
http://www.thelittledoor.com/tldhome.html
Had reservations at 10, they were running late so told us "why dont you have a glass of wine at the wine bar while you wait?"
So we did. I chose some south african wine, damn good if i say so myself.

Then for dinner had some Italian Anna Maria. mindy drove home, all is well, she didnt kill anyone. she just cant navigate, even if she isnt driving so that was fun.

For dinner: Mindy: Apple duck ravioli, Trout (AHHMAZING!), and white chocolate and dark chocolate mousse.
Keenan: Salad arougulalala, with blue cheese and apple, nothing special, Chicken with polenta (not as good as mothers or italian but still good) and then delicious vanilla ice cream with hot fudge sauce and like cream puff dough on top and on bottom.

so with sports authority ($40) and dinner ($120) my stipend flew out the window in one night....

The perils facing a small school football team

After a slew of injuries against the nationally ranked Redlands Bulldogs the Pomona-Pitzer football team has been further reduced to 29 active players with 11 out because of injury.  Luckily we're playing the smallest Occidental team in many years with only 57 active players.  This is a big improvement over the 121 players on the Redlands roster.  As the most trustworthy corner left standing I have been moved from the weak side to the strong side to replace the injured second string strong side corner.  I haven't missed a snap in practice since last Wednesday and haven't missed a game snap since September 17th.  With 12 tackles I'm the fourth leading tackler on the team, something most corners couldn't (and wouldn't want to) say.  I only have a single pick though so I guess I have to step up my game this week.  That should be easy sense I have such fresh legs.

 

To finish things up on a politically correct note ...

 

Justing Meng (Middle Linebacker) to Coach E: "Hold on coach, I gotta look good so I practice good."

Coach E: "What are you, gay?  You better not be."

 

Also, check out this new video by the guy who made the Greg Jennings video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/demetryjames86#p/a/u/1/FqnWqQyC3GI

Life

bit by a lady bug today.

did color guard, photos to be uploaded on facebook

they are going to make us pay to go to the birthday ball.... lame. 130 for me and the date. que malo.

CRUSHED!

Had a scrimmage against ArmyROTC! they were practicing plays and defenses before the game, and we lost our wrist bands so we had no plays or any organization to begin with. i thought we were gonna get crushed. however...

42-0 at least. in our favor of course!

IM FOOTBALL

signed up NROTC for this crap. BUT I CANT FIND MY GLOVES!!! whered they go? did weston steal them. i think so....

Anybody heard of

the band Radical Something?  Listen to their song "Escape."

SOME BODY LOVES ME

WESTONS family sent me a care package full of candy and MAC and cheese and protein bars and jerky.

tho i must admit holding a billet for ROTC and taking LS2 Math 33A physics 17 and 4BL really makes working out not a priority, especially since its a goal to actually stay awake during lecture.

Orientation Week

1st day
A lot of fricking admin, uniform issue and pointless drill. No guidance in the drill so we did mostly non-applicable shit.

2nd day
PT run briefs by XO CO and other random people that took foreverrrrrrrrr. in fact im still in the brief. headed to Pendelton and Trained them through yelling repetitive actions and holding uncomfortable positions for long periods of time. and giving them 1 min to change out of one uniform to the next. sick this day cuz freshmen and 4/C mids are fricking nasty and gross. probably got some weird fungus on me.

3rd day
Pistol shooting, i cant believe we give these unstable crazy ass irresponsible kids guns on their 3rd day. i shot too it was fun. headed to SD and made them scream knowledge the whole time. very boring. Conte was able to practice his intensity cuz he is too nice so i sat back and made suggestions and shouted occasionally. SD we had them do a SUB tour and Wet trainer, Squad Leaders knocked out for those 4 hours and then we went back to Pendelton and did more training. Squad Leaders got to Train them on our owns with shouting and more holding sea bags at shoulder height and making them do the same thing repeatedly but better and faster each time. 2 mids opened their MREs on the way back and used the Heaters (which produce CO gas) in the Van which had no windows open and the air was on circulate.... not good Lt Orozco (recently commissioned) was pissed. Each drive shot the shit with him and learned alot, funny stories difference between hazing and training and talking about other things equally awesome.

4th day
O-course-was good, midn were tired and it wasnt their first time so they didnt do that great. Squad leaders instructed to do it after they got their gear back on, Matulionis and I flew threw, other 4 still at first obstacle by the time we ran back to the start. great leadership by example...
Leadership Reaction Course-a lot of Training. Made them pick up ammo cans repeatedly and run about 50-75 yards through sand a lot. twas a good time, voice gone even more by this point.
Infiltration course-no tactics at all, grouped shoulder to shoulder loud noises good intensity but if they assaulted a bunker like that they would all be dead with one burst from the machine gun.

Overall- I was sick, tired the whole time, stood up and didnt eat or drink around the Midn so was dehydrated and hungry the whole week. I thought going thru O-week was "tough" but incredibly fun. this was fun but incredibly tough because taking care of 5 people (2 dropped within the first 2 days) was tiring, you screamed more at them than they had to respond to you, you had to be awake longer, think more instead of just do what you were told and we were running around as much as the mids and did the O-course with them and PTed with them. I smoked my squad which was funny made them do high knees until the last one caught up.

quotes:"Life isnt so bad here, you dont have fricking IEDs blowing up in the fucking bushes on your way to class"

"dont fucking do something stupid like try and hook up with some chick you found online, drive to some place in the fucking middle of no where by yourself and then have some dude in a spiderman costume rape you."

"Dont do any thing stupid like punch one them in the face if youre angry, and no funny shit like getting them all naked and putting them in the showers together."

"Dont lock them in the footlockers or steal their shit. And dont fuck with their uniforms and cut off the buttons or some shit like that"

-"Deep throat the banana, Deep throat the banana, Deep throat the banana!" (quote by DI at OCS this year according to recent OCS graduate)

Ms. Sepulveda some how got to Ms. Sepulvader.

my squad was cool, very locked on and all knew their knowledge and it was no fun fucking with them. conte was angry at his squad cuz they didnt know crap. didnt know my knowledge, used my squad to study by asking them questions and remembering what they said. ha. slacking off ftw.

tired. inspection tomorrow. cant think straight. cant remember anything more.

First Day of Classes

But I don't have classes on Tuesday so I slept, watched movies, and listened to Dave Matthews Band instead.

Camp

Long, hot, and painful. Just like it should be.