Another marathon
Sorry for another really long post. You probably won't get much from reading it but it felt good to write.
Before I get started, I would like to anounce that I have finally sent off postcards, to most of you at least. Jim, Matt, Kim, and Hannah have been neglected because the addresses in the book were messed up. I might just be dumb and think they were messed up when they really weren't, but I am not really sure and don't really remember. Anyway, if you four could just send me your addresses or post them in a comment to this post, I would be happy and you would get a postcard.
Today, I had to register for school and I had a debate meeting where, to my dismay, our coach announced that, unless I could construct a persuasive argument for the contrary, our team would not be travelling to Manchester in Massachusetts. Considering my reasons for wanting to go (that I would not be attending the tournament the weekend before and that when we got there, all I wanted to do was ditch the team to hang out with Urvesh and others) I decided not to complain. I guess the fact that my coach and his partner got second place at the World Debating Championships in 2000 or thereabouts, and is therefore somewhat intimidating of a debating adversary, didn't help my cause. I apologize if I got anyone's hopes up and I am just as disappointed as any of you could be.
I also thought a bit about what debate meant to me. As I was AIMing with Julia, I decided that I really owe debate a lot. Before Cornell, debate had been my TASP. During my sophmore and junior years in high school, I began to blow off school for debate, because it was just so much cooler. It's not really a big deal, but I just felt obligated to at least recognize debate before I blow off school and debate for TASPers, because you guys just trump all on the coolness scale.
Today was also a day that made me "happy". It wasn't fun, proper, because I don't find much entertainment with many people here and, of course, registration is a depressing reminder of what is coming next week, but nevertheless, I may go to bed satisfied (as long as I don't talk to too many of you before that).
I know I have told some of you about the anual cross country mystery race that our team puts together. Well, today, all the grandious plans that the seniors had for torturing the rest of the team, were to be put into effect. First problem: just yesterday, we announced that we had changed the time from six to five. Merely the fault of incompetent planning, but not, therefore, any less problamatic, as several runners hadn't shown up yesterday. We finally did get started with a good portion of the team, even though some ASSHOLES refused to stay with the partners with whom we assigned them and ran it with each other. Oh well...
Then we had a tough time getting them to dance at the first stop on our busy street. I was surprised by how un-"liberated" some of the freshmen were. I guess it was understandable though. My next stop was a round of charades. They were all really bad, but it was really fun to watch the ASSHOLES act out "STD". I think at this point, however, we were having more fun than they were, and I was beginning to get a little worried that nothing was going as planned and that the team would hate me and that the police would come and arrest us for playing loud music and disturbing the peace (which must be illegal in San Marino) or making obsene gestures on the side of a road (which must also be illegal).
Of course, we then relized that by the time the last runners finished their acting, we would have to rush to get to the next stop. So we jumped in the car and sped a little, although our drive-by shooting with water guns, while rushed, was still quite fun (I wouldn't be surprised if it were also illegal to stick your head out of a sunroof, or stick any gun out of a car in any way, or for that matter, be in possetion a gun of any kind in the first place without a lisence...oh well, you all know I hate where I live). Sure enough we had missed the first two teams and they were pissed that they had run about half a mile further than they had to, just to run the half a mile back. Luckily one of the other cars had seen them before they had gone further than that. It was pretty embarrassing.
The water-balloon toss was pretty straitforward, though probably also illegal (littering maybe?). By this time, the ASSHOLES and some other really nice people who are just seriously out of shape and very willing to resort to less trying exertion, were walking at the back and were so far behind that we had to leave one of the seniors (a particuarly hard-ass, foul-mouthed character) behind. In retrospect, that was probably not a good idea if the event is supposed to be anything but demoralizing.
Even so we were late to the tapioca ball shooting escapade and the first three groups had already been to the stop and had been sent on (once again the other car had saved us), but unfortunately, the runners missed the great opportunity of shooting tapioca at each other. I think they were, once again, pissed that we were late, as they well should be. This stop was actually quite popular, though not very successful. No one was actually able to shoot a tapioca ball into the cup held in his/her partner's mouth, but everyone seemed to enjoy the plan, at least in theory. One of the ASSHOLES tried to shoot and hit the other with two balls simultaniously (it was hard to isolate a single ball in the straw) on the front of his pants. They laughed pretty hard, and, even though they were ASSHOLES, I was glad they were enjoying themselves. I tried to keep the tapioca off the neighbors lawn to avoid a complaint to the police (wouldn't be the first from those neighbors -- jerks).
When finished, my group of seniors was quite scared of the legacy that we would be leaving with our horribly planned race, but when we got to the final destination (one of the seniors' house with a pool), we found most of the seniors and a few of the racers having a great time throwing and sling-shotting water balloons at the hard-ass, foul mouthed senior's car. Don't ask me why this was so much fun, because no one was in the car and, due to the insane heat even in the evening, the balloons left no mark of their own, except for comparatively unimpressive scraps of rubber (compared, that is, to the 450 water ballons we had filled).
In the back, around the pool, people were enjoying themselves as well. For the first time in three years, a pool had actually become a desirable hang out spot of one of the team parties, instead of merely a target into which to push unsuspecting victims who would then curse. Not being much of a pool person myself, I kept my dad's precious digital camera well away from the pool, fearing the runners with no respect for authority and a lot of respect for schadenfreude. When the seniors with the balloons in the front joined the party in back -- incidentally, fleeing before the rath of the hard-ass, foul mouthed friend who had apparently not taken kindly to the bombardment of his car -- they had a blast with the dreamcast located with an enormous TV (50, 60 inches, maybe? I really have no sense for that, except that I know it was supposedly too big to fit in the house, so they the family bought another one for there) in the guest house of the establishment. Again, not my personal cup of tea, but they enjoyed it. Then there were dives and flips off the diving board, and, considering I wasn't thrilled to hang out in the pool in the first place, I was most defenitely not jazzed by the notion of jumping in head first (or not head first as the case may be and probably would be for any of my attempts).
When it got dark we lit a gas powered camp-style fire next to the pool and endevored to determine how each of the surrounding objects would react to the open flame. Further scientific experimentation involved smearing petrolium jelly -- which must have been brought out specifically to test in the fire -- on people and seeing how long it lasted as a barrier to fire and whether it was truly water resistant. I'm not exactly sure what the word is on those because I wasn't exactly the guiny pig, and had no interest in becoming one. WHAT THE FUCK IS PETROLIUM JELLY FOR ANYWAY? The only thing anyone there could tell me was that it was used as a weapon in the Vietnam War. Thanks for the help.
Once the non-driving folk had left, the seniors planned a post-dinner dinner. You all know I like eating, but I was even more drawn by the prospects of sleep and not at all drawn by the prospects of their company (obviously, the sleep was only a prospect in the abstract or just a roundabout way to say talking to TASPers and spending a shitload of time writing all this crap).
After all that, I am really happy. I am sorry that my happiness equates into your suffering if you have made it this far in this post and realize I am not going to say anything really interresting. It is funny because I had virtually no fun at the entire event (between stressing about the law and putting up with non-TASPer company) but still felt the day to be the first wholy pleasing one since TASP. I was happy about a particularly strong turnout (last year there was an abismal four or five teams worth of people that showed up). I was happy about the best team dinner since I had been on the team. I was happy about a new group of runners who looked like they wanted to make the activity fun again. I was happy for the future of a program that looked like it had been run into the ground.
I will never be a star runner, our team will never have the kind of legendary coach it used to have, and we will probably never go to state again, although we have won it at least a dozen or two times in the past. In fact, we may never run more than seven or eight miles again. Ever. But maybe, just maybe, the team can be a real team again, a real community. The thought makes me happy, even though I would pick the TASP community over the best of cross country communities or the best of San Marino communities any day.
I really wanted to say all that. I don't often find a need for expressing something, so I enjoy having this blog where I have a captive audience of really cool people, at least some of whom will read whatever the hell I want to say.
Also, remember when you are cursing me out that I have had fewer days at a computer since TASP, so my need to communicate with all of you is still at the point where your need was two weeks ago. I'm not sure if that is actually true, or if I am simply trying to justify my long-windedness and my forcing of all the boring details of my life on all of you (I mean, who the fuck cares about my cross country team that I don't even care about?). Whatever...
It feels really good to say something -- anything -- knowing TASPers are at the other end. I love you all.
Before I get started, I would like to anounce that I have finally sent off postcards, to most of you at least. Jim, Matt, Kim, and Hannah have been neglected because the addresses in the book were messed up. I might just be dumb and think they were messed up when they really weren't, but I am not really sure and don't really remember. Anyway, if you four could just send me your addresses or post them in a comment to this post, I would be happy and you would get a postcard.
Today, I had to register for school and I had a debate meeting where, to my dismay, our coach announced that, unless I could construct a persuasive argument for the contrary, our team would not be travelling to Manchester in Massachusetts. Considering my reasons for wanting to go (that I would not be attending the tournament the weekend before and that when we got there, all I wanted to do was ditch the team to hang out with Urvesh and others) I decided not to complain. I guess the fact that my coach and his partner got second place at the World Debating Championships in 2000 or thereabouts, and is therefore somewhat intimidating of a debating adversary, didn't help my cause. I apologize if I got anyone's hopes up and I am just as disappointed as any of you could be.
I also thought a bit about what debate meant to me. As I was AIMing with Julia, I decided that I really owe debate a lot. Before Cornell, debate had been my TASP. During my sophmore and junior years in high school, I began to blow off school for debate, because it was just so much cooler. It's not really a big deal, but I just felt obligated to at least recognize debate before I blow off school and debate for TASPers, because you guys just trump all on the coolness scale.
Today was also a day that made me "happy". It wasn't fun, proper, because I don't find much entertainment with many people here and, of course, registration is a depressing reminder of what is coming next week, but nevertheless, I may go to bed satisfied (as long as I don't talk to too many of you before that).
I know I have told some of you about the anual cross country mystery race that our team puts together. Well, today, all the grandious plans that the seniors had for torturing the rest of the team, were to be put into effect. First problem: just yesterday, we announced that we had changed the time from six to five. Merely the fault of incompetent planning, but not, therefore, any less problamatic, as several runners hadn't shown up yesterday. We finally did get started with a good portion of the team, even though some ASSHOLES refused to stay with the partners with whom we assigned them and ran it with each other. Oh well...
Then we had a tough time getting them to dance at the first stop on our busy street. I was surprised by how un-"liberated" some of the freshmen were. I guess it was understandable though. My next stop was a round of charades. They were all really bad, but it was really fun to watch the ASSHOLES act out "STD". I think at this point, however, we were having more fun than they were, and I was beginning to get a little worried that nothing was going as planned and that the team would hate me and that the police would come and arrest us for playing loud music and disturbing the peace (which must be illegal in San Marino) or making obsene gestures on the side of a road (which must also be illegal).
Of course, we then relized that by the time the last runners finished their acting, we would have to rush to get to the next stop. So we jumped in the car and sped a little, although our drive-by shooting with water guns, while rushed, was still quite fun (I wouldn't be surprised if it were also illegal to stick your head out of a sunroof, or stick any gun out of a car in any way, or for that matter, be in possetion a gun of any kind in the first place without a lisence...oh well, you all know I hate where I live). Sure enough we had missed the first two teams and they were pissed that they had run about half a mile further than they had to, just to run the half a mile back. Luckily one of the other cars had seen them before they had gone further than that. It was pretty embarrassing.
The water-balloon toss was pretty straitforward, though probably also illegal (littering maybe?). By this time, the ASSHOLES and some other really nice people who are just seriously out of shape and very willing to resort to less trying exertion, were walking at the back and were so far behind that we had to leave one of the seniors (a particuarly hard-ass, foul-mouthed character) behind. In retrospect, that was probably not a good idea if the event is supposed to be anything but demoralizing.
Even so we were late to the tapioca ball shooting escapade and the first three groups had already been to the stop and had been sent on (once again the other car had saved us), but unfortunately, the runners missed the great opportunity of shooting tapioca at each other. I think they were, once again, pissed that we were late, as they well should be. This stop was actually quite popular, though not very successful. No one was actually able to shoot a tapioca ball into the cup held in his/her partner's mouth, but everyone seemed to enjoy the plan, at least in theory. One of the ASSHOLES tried to shoot and hit the other with two balls simultaniously (it was hard to isolate a single ball in the straw) on the front of his pants. They laughed pretty hard, and, even though they were ASSHOLES, I was glad they were enjoying themselves. I tried to keep the tapioca off the neighbors lawn to avoid a complaint to the police (wouldn't be the first from those neighbors -- jerks).
When finished, my group of seniors was quite scared of the legacy that we would be leaving with our horribly planned race, but when we got to the final destination (one of the seniors' house with a pool), we found most of the seniors and a few of the racers having a great time throwing and sling-shotting water balloons at the hard-ass, foul mouthed senior's car. Don't ask me why this was so much fun, because no one was in the car and, due to the insane heat even in the evening, the balloons left no mark of their own, except for comparatively unimpressive scraps of rubber (compared, that is, to the 450 water ballons we had filled).
In the back, around the pool, people were enjoying themselves as well. For the first time in three years, a pool had actually become a desirable hang out spot of one of the team parties, instead of merely a target into which to push unsuspecting victims who would then curse. Not being much of a pool person myself, I kept my dad's precious digital camera well away from the pool, fearing the runners with no respect for authority and a lot of respect for schadenfreude. When the seniors with the balloons in the front joined the party in back -- incidentally, fleeing before the rath of the hard-ass, foul mouthed friend who had apparently not taken kindly to the bombardment of his car -- they had a blast with the dreamcast located with an enormous TV (50, 60 inches, maybe? I really have no sense for that, except that I know it was supposedly too big to fit in the house, so they the family bought another one for there) in the guest house of the establishment. Again, not my personal cup of tea, but they enjoyed it. Then there were dives and flips off the diving board, and, considering I wasn't thrilled to hang out in the pool in the first place, I was most defenitely not jazzed by the notion of jumping in head first (or not head first as the case may be and probably would be for any of my attempts).
When it got dark we lit a gas powered camp-style fire next to the pool and endevored to determine how each of the surrounding objects would react to the open flame. Further scientific experimentation involved smearing petrolium jelly -- which must have been brought out specifically to test in the fire -- on people and seeing how long it lasted as a barrier to fire and whether it was truly water resistant. I'm not exactly sure what the word is on those because I wasn't exactly the guiny pig, and had no interest in becoming one. WHAT THE FUCK IS PETROLIUM JELLY FOR ANYWAY? The only thing anyone there could tell me was that it was used as a weapon in the Vietnam War. Thanks for the help.
Once the non-driving folk had left, the seniors planned a post-dinner dinner. You all know I like eating, but I was even more drawn by the prospects of sleep and not at all drawn by the prospects of their company (obviously, the sleep was only a prospect in the abstract or just a roundabout way to say talking to TASPers and spending a shitload of time writing all this crap).
After all that, I am really happy. I am sorry that my happiness equates into your suffering if you have made it this far in this post and realize I am not going to say anything really interresting. It is funny because I had virtually no fun at the entire event (between stressing about the law and putting up with non-TASPer company) but still felt the day to be the first wholy pleasing one since TASP. I was happy about a particularly strong turnout (last year there was an abismal four or five teams worth of people that showed up). I was happy about the best team dinner since I had been on the team. I was happy about a new group of runners who looked like they wanted to make the activity fun again. I was happy for the future of a program that looked like it had been run into the ground.
I will never be a star runner, our team will never have the kind of legendary coach it used to have, and we will probably never go to state again, although we have won it at least a dozen or two times in the past. In fact, we may never run more than seven or eight miles again. Ever. But maybe, just maybe, the team can be a real team again, a real community. The thought makes me happy, even though I would pick the TASP community over the best of cross country communities or the best of San Marino communities any day.
I really wanted to say all that. I don't often find a need for expressing something, so I enjoy having this blog where I have a captive audience of really cool people, at least some of whom will read whatever the hell I want to say.
Also, remember when you are cursing me out that I have had fewer days at a computer since TASP, so my need to communicate with all of you is still at the point where your need was two weeks ago. I'm not sure if that is actually true, or if I am simply trying to justify my long-windedness and my forcing of all the boring details of my life on all of you (I mean, who the fuck cares about my cross country team that I don't even care about?). Whatever...
It feels really good to say something -- anything -- knowing TASPers are at the other end. I love you all.
posted by Ben at 1:21 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks. I guess I am just a dumbass after all. Haha.
Why is it that so many debaters are also cross country runners? In my school, the two groups' practice schedules are the same, so the debate team loses a ton of good prospects to the short shorts patrol. I, too, have debate angst--most of which Stacey can fill you in on, as I am not an AIMer.
Adieu,
Michael
Post a Comment
<< Home