Your Reputation is on the Line

Have you ever played the game "Things"? It's a popular game that is sold by some game publishing company. It's played with a group of people where one person is the moderator, a job that rotates every turn. The moderator picks a card from the pile and reads it aloud. Cards are categories like "Things You Can't Google in China" or "Things You Wouldn't Want Your Grandmother to Know about You". Each player, including the moderator, puts an answer on a strip of paper into the communal pot or hat. Then the moderator reads all the answers aloud, and going clockwise, players try to guess who wrote what. If you get guessed, you're out for the round, and if you guess wrong, your turn is up and it's the next person's turn to guess. Whoever is left standing at the end of the round wins a point, and the game rotates to the next moderator.

I played this once at a friend's house and realized how it could easily be replicated without the cards if you throw in a little imagination. I find my version even more fun: instead of picking cards, the moderator has to come up with their own topic, so much more hilarity ensues. Earlier this evening, I had a group of friends over and we were playing "Things". The topic was set by the moderator: "Alternate Uses for a Pair of Pants". Sniggering commenced, and people wrote answers and one by one put them into the bag. The moderator shook them up and then read them aloud; "A Tupperware container", "Measure wind velocity", "Food", "Condom", "Spinach casserole ingredient", "Party for 2".

An intense round of guessing ensued until it was just Jesse, the moderator, and me who had not yet been guessed. The answers left were "A Tupperware container", "Food", and "Party for 2". Jesse was guessing, and of course he knew which his was, and it wasn't "Party for 2".

"Okay, in five seconds I'm going to have much less respect for one of you, and I have to guess who I think that is," Jesse remarked. "I'm going to go with...party for 2, Sachi?"

"Nope!" I replied.

Jesse turned to Marena, and we all cracked up. "All respect lost, all respect, Marena."

Sachi

Inspirational Story

Having finished my biology test, I quietly left the room and walked down the hall, looking for a nice spot to sit and read Walden until the next class started. As I was walking by a chemistry classroom, I saw a strange-looking movie being played on the projector. It was a cartoon, with not very detailed animation--the people had round heads and simple features and everything, not like a fancy Disney movie like the jungle book or something. I was rather curious as to what the movie was, but I assumed it was probably FernGully or something, which I've never seen.

So I sat down relatively close to the room with the movie and began trying to read Walden. As I began to become bored of Thoreau's descriptions of how the water level in the pond rises for about 15 years and then recedes and all that, I started to listen to the dialogue of the movie.

"But Pierre, you can't give up your experiments!" said a female voice. Hmm, I thought. What if the movie was about Pierre and Marie Curie? I continued listening, and I heard a man say something about, "Marie, you must not abandon science!"

I figured I must have been right. After all, it makes sense, seeing as this was a chemistry class. As I continued to read Thoreau, every once in a while I overheard a line from the movie:

..."She discovered a new element!"...

... "The theory of radioactivity! A leap of genius!" ...

..."But no woman has ever recieved a doctorate degree before!" ...

And then of course, the dramatic ending:

"The dream of the true scientist is to help mankind. No matter how hard and how many obstacles, he--or she--must never give up."
*Dramatic music begins*

Has anyone ever seen or heard of this movie?

-Rebecca

The Sound of Those Whales

I was in my ancient Greek history section, and we were talking about the Peloponnesian War. When we were discussing the end of the war, in which Athens was defeated by Sparta, I mentioned something that I had read (I think it was Xenophon) in which supposedly when the news of the defeat got to the the port near Athens, a wail was heard progressively along the route from the port to the city of Athens itself, a route which was surrounded by the so-called Long Walls. So I started talking about how a wail was heard moving along the Long Walls, when I noticed that everyone was looking at me strangely.

"A whale was heard moving along the Long Walls?" asked an incredulous student.

At this point, I could not stop myself from laughing. "No, the people were wailing," I said. "Lamenting. Because Athens lost."

"Oh," was murmured throughout the room.

I was subsequently subjected to periodic bouts of uncontrolled laughter as I pictured a whale slowly, but surely, moving and moaning as it made its way along the wall from Piraeus to Athens.

-Philip

The Light at the End of the Tunnel is Canada

"I am halfway to the middle of nowhere", I texted Thomas last night around 6.

"You'll get there yet" he replied.

"If Zeno was wrong, anyway" I told him.

Zeno might have been more right than I thought...Or maybe he had nothing to do with it. My mother and I had set out around 4 PM from Boston, heading to visit St Lawrence, one of my top college choices. A daunting six hour drive, and I had had no dinner. Getting my energy from almond Hershey's Kisses, I stayed awake for what would be an eight out car drive.

As we were heading up, there were many wonderful town names—"Mechanicsville" and "Schenectady", among many others. We tracked our distance from Montreal, heading north, 170 miles, 165 miles, 145 miles, 132 miles, 140 miles...did Montreal just get farther away? And what exit were we supposed to be taking anyway...one set of directions said Valley Farm Road. Only later at around exit 35 did we read the second set of directions—exit 23! Ugh. We were nearing the Canadian border, and there was no quicker route within the US that we knew of, not having a map. So we headed back, running low on gas, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.

Finally we found a gas station open late, around exit 28. "It's closer to go right up to the boarder, at exit 42" the people in the store told us as we bought a NY map and peanutbutter bars. So back up we went... Exit 42 was right at the edge of the Canadian border, and we were getting worried as we approached the border that we wouldn't find the exit before we got to Canada. Suddenly both the border and the exit came in view. In front of us was a truck, and beyond that truck was a glowing red light. "What is that?" "Canada?"

We never figured out why Canada was glowing, as we turned westward to travel through many quaint little NY towns in the pitch black (except for glowing red Canada to our right). In Mooersville we mooed, saying that though it was late we were still mooooving. We tracked our progress to Potsdam, which seemed to periodically get *farther* away rather than closer, making me think the distance was measured in a straight line rather than by the road.

We did finally get to Canton, at one AM, when I got to sleep.

Sachi

The Not So Famous

Today I was at a 'high tea'. Called so, apparently, because the tea is done on higher tables so one can eat. The person hosting it and I were talking, and she invited me:

Her: Come to my high tea birthday celebration!
Me: Ooh fun! I don't like tea, is that okay?
Her: Yup! I don't like tea either, I just like the idea of it.
Me: Me too! It seems like it would be such a nice thing to like.

So at the party we played a game called 'pot' where you put a bunch of names in a bowl, and then different teams take turns to have one person describing a name that was picked randomly out of the bowl, and the rest guessing, while being timed. A few of us being math dorks put some mathy names in....


Person: It's like the Microsoft thing! The Microsoft word one?
Team: Paperclip?
Person: No, one of the menus.
Team: Uh....file? Format?
Person: Yes! But with a different vowel.
Team: Fer-mat!

Another Person: Ok, first name looks Middle Eastern... Um. First syllable...the clock tower in London?
Team: Ben!
Person: Second syllable...like when you hang around outside a place?
Team: Loiter?
Person: Yeah kind of, but just the first syllable of that. First syllable of the last name...Like the thing you turn on a door. *makes motions*
Team: Handle!
Person: Yes! But with a different first letter. So um...last syllable....to take something with you somewhere...
Team: Bring?
Person: Past tense.
Team: Brought!
Person: Yes! Put it all together.
Team: Ben-loyt Mandel-brought.
Person: Yup!

Sachi