Secrets of the Superoptimist

Today Nat Whitten, author of "Secrets of the Superoptimist," came to speak at Fordham. He gave a really good lecture. His book seems really funny.

Apparently I fall into his description of an "optimist" as I am always happy - lol who would've guessed!

Afterwards Becky and I went to the USG Candidate Forum, which was kind of boring... and left around 6:30.

I then pretty much bummed around the dorm the rest of the night.

RHA meeting in a few!

Princeton Tournament & APDA Elections

This past weekend was Princeton and APDA Elections.

The tournament was a lot of fun. We got to travel with the lovely Stanford boys. Rich Boltizar was nice enough to pick us (Gareth, Jayme and myself) Friday morning in his minivan. We chilled for a little while, in my room, then headed to Newark Airport to pick up Anish and the rest of the Stanford Team. When we got there, it turned out that one of the kids had poison oak... which was contagious.

We then dropped the boys off at the hotel, and Rich then dropped us off at the tournament. We got there super early, around 3-ish? in fact we were the first people there! Crazy huh?

This weekend I debated w/ Gareth, who was surprisingly quite calm this weekend. The tournament was loose linked (Dan Rauch had come up with the links)

As round 1 was about to be released, my new expansion school UAlbany came!!! Crystal, who I had been emailing, and I sorta gave each other that "are you her..." look and sure enough we were right! The UAlbany kids were super nice, and very willing to learn. I took them around to meet everyone, which they seemed to enjoy.

Round 1
We hit Jake (Campbell) and his partner Evelyn, with Dan Rauch as our judge
THW ban the bomb (we would ban cluster emissions)
This round was a lot of fun, Jake and I had talked a lot over the week, and it was nice to finally debate him. UAlbany watched our round, and really liked it - I even got to teach them how to flow before the round.

In round 2, we hit a MIT/Brown(Josh Lo's hybrid from NYU) hybrid
Over turn the courts decision in the 2000 election between Gore and Bush
This round was pretty awful as it was so unclear and just boring

In Round 3, we hit Jordan (from NYU) and his partner w/ Jason Herron as our judge
Beauty - allow graffitti in designated public places
This round was fun, Jordan and his partner were really good, and it was awesome having Jason as our judge. This was his 2nd time judging me at the tournament (he had judged me and frank my freshman year)

Round 4
We hit MIT Novices w/ "Marty" as our judge (apparently he was TD of the Princeton Tournmaent last year)
THB that we should save the schools - abolish no child left behind
Meh, that's all I'll say about the round

Round 5
We hit Jim and Tyger (who apparently likes to be called Tuff) from WP w/ Treavor Gleason as our judge
Get rid of indefinite detention
This round was really fun, I got to debate with some of my really good friends on the circuit. I had never hit a WP team, so that was cool. The case was stereotypical WP, but it was a good round, but I guess Treavor didn't think so - he was falling asleep in the round.

In between rounds, I got to see and hang out w/ everyone. This is one of the few tournaments that everyone goes to, because APDA weekends were this weekend.

Elections
Elections went on til 5AM!!! How? No idea, we startd at 1:30 ish, however VP Operations was unopposed, and no Member speeches/questions were given/asked (which annoyed me since I had been freaking out about my speech all night and had spent a lot of time on it).

The first election was for president between Adam, Sam and Cyrus. Cyrus was very ill with Mono, it was hard core as he was in the hospital and on mandatory bed rest. Goldstein had surprisngly won... Sam had won the house, however Goldstein had all of the proxy votes, thus outnumbering the in house votes, winning presidency.

Next was VP Ops, in which Alex Taubes was unopposed, remained unopposed and won the position.

VP Finance was up next, it was a race between Sam who had dropped down, Zayn, Rich, and Ali. This was an interesting race. Sam won this position.

Next was the Member race, it was me against Will, Pam, Leah, 25, Rich, Ali, and Cyrus. All of the candidates had agreed not to give speeches, so not wanting to be "that girl" had to comply, which I think hurt my chances.

Unfortunately I did not win. :( However my team was there to support me, dinos included, which really meant a lot to me (unlike the WP boys... cough cough). Not to mention that I had WP's full support. Ben said if I had a shirt he would wear it, and Lupo said he would only go to elections to vote for me! :) Unfortunately Adam was being mean and wouldn't let them vote. They had paid on Friday, they just did not email him in time, so they couldnt vote; meanwhile other teams who had emailed him by Thursday and paid on Friday could vote.... not fair.

The next day everyone was exhausted to say the least. I got to hang out w/ Jason Herron, and he claimed that he was really mean, which is a complete LIE. I also got to hang out w/ my favorite boys on the cirucit. They were mean to me on Friday for some weird reason, but it was all resolved when we chilled.

More of UAlbany came on Saturday, the rest of them were super nice.

Funny story: This was a conversation between me and Sarah Hom, yes I was lucky enough to see Sarah, when she had saw my team.

Sarah: "you have some really good looking boys on your team, you should date one of them"
Me (shocked): "WHAT?!? who?"
Sarah points at the UAlbany Team - LOL

As soon as breaks were annonced, I bounced outta there w/ JH, Boma, Sean and Rudy, and picked up Shinjini (one of Stanford's novices). And later picked up Liz Holmes and Treavor Gleason. I just wantd to get outta there ASAP.

That essentially wraps up the whole tournament.

Back to Fordham

Spring Break's over :(

I didn't do anything worth while or productive over break. Aww well, at least I got to sleep in, relax, and see some friends! :)

Let's hope I can wake up in time for class tomorrow!

Dinner w/ Garvin

Today I went to work as usual, it was a slow morning, followed by a busy afternoon. Max was out for the day, and Jim left relatively early - around 1 ish?

At 11 AM, I met with Paul Sinclair VP of Digital Media at Atlantic Records. He spoke to us at one of the intern events, however I wanted to speak to him individually as we have simliar backgrounds, and I figured he could help me figure out what I want to do with my life. When I got there, I couldnt get into the floor so I just stood around hoping someone would open it - AWKWARD... Eventually I got in and got to speak with Paul. I was telling him abut my background, and asked about his, we had a lot more in common than I had thought. He had a lot of questions about CHORUSS, the department/project that I'm working on. He had a lot of insight into the real world, and we had a lot to talk about in general. He even had a book suggestion for me. Unfortunately he had a meeting he had to get to, so we had to cut our meeting short. All in all, talking to him was very beneficial.

When I got back to work, it was still pretty boring. I later come to find out some of the guys that work at WMG that I had become friendly with were moving to the 7th floor (we're on the 12th).


Eventually Jordan came in, with cases that Jim wanted me to read. Jack also had the document that he wanted me to work on as well... Eventually I got all of that done by 5. I was supposed to meet Garvin for dinner at 7PM, and it takes less than 30 mins to get there, so I had to find something to occupy myself. Unfortunately 5:30 rolled around and I was bored out of my mind. I texted Garvin asking if we could meet at 6:30, to which he said was fine.

After work I met up w/ Andrew aka Garvin (my lab leader from camp) for dinner at S'mac. I got there 25 mins early, and he was a bit late, so I awkwardly stood outside for a while, then awkwardly sat inside alone waiting for a while, but when he came all was good again! Garvin actually picked the location. I didn't know he was the mac and cheese type! Dinner was awesome, we both ended up getting the Napolita mac and cheese, it was essentially pizza mac & cheese. We talked and caught up for a while, then headed out.

Garvin had us chasing a "Desserts Truck" for a while. Never thought I'd see the day when I was chasing a dessert truck, with Andrew Garvin of all people! The desserts were pretty awesome though! After we got the desserts, we ate them while walking to Garvin's place. On the way there we had the randomest conversations, one was about puppies vs kittens, and the other simply about how he was leading me down a dark alley way. The place looked a bit sketchy from the outside and lobby, but his studio was pretty nice.

It was a great night, and tons of fun!

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Today Caitlin and I went to the St. Patrick's Day Parade. We met at the Met around 2 PM ish. Caitlin is one of my favorite people on the APDA circuit! We had always talked about meeting up, and I'm glad we finally did. The parade wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be but it was a lot of fun. I had never seen so many bag pipes in my life! I even saw Fordham marching in the parade!

After the parade I met up w/ Ganesh. As we were leaving the parade, we bumped into Jim - yes, Becky's Jim. That was interesting to say the least... Ganesh and I, 2 of the most indecisive people ever, could not figure out what we wanted to do and just walked around aimlessly. We passed soo many bars, filled with tons of cops and firemen. Caitlin mentioned how Ryne, her boyfriend, wanted to get green beers, so as we passed each bar, I looked in hoping to get a glimse of some green beer. We were pretty convinced it is just food coloring.

Eventually Ganesh and I started talking about Pi Day, and how neither of us had real pie on Pi Day, so we decided to look for pie. On the way we passed Dylan's Candy Bar, suprisingly I had never been there and suggested we go. The place had so much candy, and was AMAZING!!! I ended up getting some Pop Rocks and Mint Chocolate Chip soft candy. We were a little skeptical of the Mint Chocolate Chip candy, but it was really good, and actually tasted like the ice cream! :)



After some more walking we came across a Johnny Rockets, and knew they would have apple pie there! We went in and got some chilli fries and apple pie a la mode! yum!!! :)

Happy Pi Day!!!

Happy Pi Day!!!

Black Knight Invitational

This past weekend was West Point's tournament the Black Night Invitational (BKI)!

Day 1
It started off with me leading a group on the Metro North to the Garrison, proceeded by Micah picking us up and driving like a crazy person!

We finally got to the hotel, or should i say motel, we were staying at the West Point Motel. The motel, reg, everything was a bit sketchy. The boys were conducting reg from the confines of one of the rooms... it was a bit weird to say the least. Once we were done we checked out the rooms, which smelled kind of funny, and were kind of gross. Eventually the rest of the crew had come, apparently Andrew somehow ended up in Jersey... while West Point is north....? Oh Andrew.

Then we went to "post" and I got to see everyone! :) It was good to see the whole WP ensemble, as you don't see them all together very often. You'll never guess who one of my judges was... ROSS! What are the chances of that? He was originally supposed to judge us in Round 1, but that got messed up, and here he was in Round 3 judging us.

We had a few rounds, dinner, and then went back to housing.

Day 2

Around 6:50 AM we get a wake up phone call. Me thinking it was one of our teammates calling Jayme and I cuz we were late, run across the room 1/2 asleep to answer the phone. Turns out it was Jim thinking he was being funny, not cool Jim. After a short breakfast we headed back to post.

After round 5, we went on a tour of the campus led by Kyle and Joe, which was tons of fun, as I knew them both. The tour was good, but definitely not as extensive as the one I had been on last year or the one w/ Jim a few weeks ago. Soon enough we were at the banquet. We had the pleasure of having Tyger Tuff Lyons sit with us at our table! I love that kid, hes awesome!

Before breaks were read, I handed Kyle (equity officer of the tournament) my EOF violation.

It stated:

There were three sketchy guys at the West Point Motel, they invited me into their room which was dark, creepy, and sketchy...

It was 3 West Point cadets...

conducting reg

They loved it, well Mrs. Meyer did at least! ;)

After breaks were read, we rushed back to GA to get out of there, but had missed the train and had to wait for Micah to drive us. Eventually he got us and drove us to the station, and we were on our way home.

On the way home we had to transfer at the Harlem station. While we were there, you'll never guess who we saw... CONNOR! What are the chances of that? Apparently he was coming back from seeing his friend, and was getting on the train back to Fordham w/ us.

U2 at Fordham

U2 is coming to Fordham in <12 hours!!! I'm super excited!!!

**EDIT - POST U2**

Today I was woken up at 4:45 by a call from Jenny, who was online at the time. I told her I would be there ASAP, once I got the call. I slept a few more mins, woke up at 5 AM, quickly got dressed and such, and headed out at 5:15. The line was already HUGE by the time I got there. Luckily Jenny and Ashley had gotten there early. They were standing near the gym/mile-stones, if I had left the time I did, I probably would have been standing near where Keating ends.

We stood around for a while, eventually around 6:30ish they finally let us in! They had this guy do crowd control and try to entertain us... it was interesting to say the least. Finally around 7 people started to come out. U2 finally came out around 8 and performed some songs. They were awesome!!! Then they came out again and did somem songs that we actually knew!!! They were really awesome.

However, as soon as they came they were gone.

I tried waiting for U2 to c ome out of Keating but after 2 hrs and 40 mins they had still not come out. :-\ I had to leave as I was meeting the team at 12:15 to lead a group to West Point.

At 11:45 I timidly left, rushed, took a 5 min shower, packed, and headed to the Metro North Station.

GW II Tournament

This weekend was GWII, I rode down with Jayme, Lil Greg, Caitlin and Sarah. It was a fun ride, minus Jayme being a tad hung over and wanting to kill me for eating Reese Pieces - LOL. Apparently the other car - Andrew, Greg, Gareth, Robert and Emillie, didn't have such a good ride...

Friday

There was so much traffic on the highway that we got to GW just in time for Round 1. Lev was at the tournament, which was awesome, as I havent seen him since... convocations last summer?

Apparently Emillie was going to try to hook up w/ Michael Baer if he was to her standards... this could not be good...

I pro-am'ed with Jayme this weekend, which was a lot of fun! :)

Round 1
We had a pretty awesome chill judge, it was a dino named Ari, who really liked Boy Meets world and Jayme ;) That was a very fun round.

After Round 2, guess who showed up... MICHAEL! Apparently he did not meet up to Emillie's standards, she oddly enough did not think he was attractive... at all.

Then it was time for dinner, we went to this pretty good sandwich place, while Jayme had dinner w/ her friend Keggie - lol.

Round 3 rolled around and Jayme was nowhere in sight, not to mention my cell had died. We waited around for a while, but had to start the round. I was beginning to worry that I was going to have to iron man, make that I was worried. Eventually we just started the round, at least I was LO-ing. Finally, in the middle/end of my speech she finally came.

Finally it was PARTY TIME!!!!

Dan had gotten us a frat house, however the party was only ok. Rustin had come, so I got to chill w/ him for a while! :) Leave it to me to attract the 1 sketchy campus judge at the party... (the party was just APDA debaters). He kept trying to get me to drink some weird looking shot that looked like puke, then tried to get me to leave w/ him! "It's getting kind of loud, want to go somewhere?"

The story does get better... so after a while, I see Andrew frantically run outside followed by Gareth and Robert, apparently Emillie had left with JOHNNY MATHIAS... and was hooking up w/ him.... It was so ironic, as Emillie had said Michael Baer, who was ranked #1 on the Hott List and wanted by every girl and even straight guys on campus, was not up to par, and yet Johnny was... (No offense to Johnny, he's awesome!) After a while the team left, but I stayed. However Dan who was supposed to walk me back was going to Robbie's to party more... and I was not going to walk back alone to Dan's, especially since it was so far and i was not 100% sure where the location was. Luckily Adam, who had judged me in round 3, was nice enough to walk me back.


When we finally got back, Dan's roommate had all of his friends over in the living room area, so Adam and I just chilled in his room for a while. It was kind of weird as we didn'tknow who's bed we were sitting on... After a while, the rest of the team had finally showed up. Adam, left and we still awkwardly continued to chill in the bedroom.

Finally they left, and the roomie turned out be pretty cool.

Saturday

Kind of dull, none of our teams broke, however Michael did promise a visit to Fordham since he broke our lunch date ;)

We headed to dinner at Sarah's house. Her mom made us lasagna :)