Lewis raid

    So picking up somewhere around where I left off, I’ll describe our raid. Here’s the general idea: each floor does one raid a semester. Since my floor has two sister floors, so each of our three floors (4 east, 4 south and 4 west) all raid two floors at once and they get raided twice during the semester. So our floor decided to have a C.S. Lewis themed raid. Those of you who know me may be surprised to know that it wasn’t even my idea, but this is Wheaton. Some people here joke about C.S. Lewis being the patron saint of Wheaton. So we decided on the theme near the beginning of the semester and we’ve been working on it ever since. So Bryce and Sam and I were put in charge of decorations. So Bryce and I made a few trips to pick up pillows and a comforter that we took the stuffing out of for snow, some curtain rods that he turned into swords, and some aluminum trays that we made into shields. He also got a lamp and taped a vase to the top of it to get the classic lamppost look. A sophomore on our floor named Ethan wrote a lot of the script with Jared and a few other guys.  We had a video of a bunch of us listening to Dr. Root give a lecture on C.S. Lewis in his basement (which happened to have a sign that hung in the Eagle and Child) and one of the guys on our floor nodding off, then falling asleep. The idea is that the rest of the raid was his dream. Next was an Inklings scene with Lewis (me), Tolkien (Alec) and Owen Barfield (Jeff). It started with a joke about no one knowing who Owen Barfield was, which I felt a little guilty about the next day when I was pulling articles for a researcher who was studying Owen Barfield at the Wade Center. Supposedly, the Inklings used to try to read awful poetry to each other without laughing, so we wrote the most awful, nonsensical poem we (mainly Jeff) could come up with and had Jeff read it. We named it “emoetry” although apparently we weren’t the first to invent that term. Then we played an autotuned song of the poem, which was somewhat Owl City-esque. A youtube version of the song is below. Anyway, there was also a C.S. Lewis Joepardy scene, which transitioned into a game show for the girls on our sister floor, a Screwtape Letters scene and we also had a hot-cold competition between the floors where they were given a certain task, then one of the guys dressed up as a faun came in and they had to get him to do the task by clapping when he was “warmer”. Then the other floor had to try to do it faster. Then we wrapped up with another Inklings scene and then a video of Stephen waking up in Dr. Root’s class and getting an assignment about looking up emoetry.

     I wanted to talk about the Wade Center here since it’s kind of on topic with the raid, but it’s late again, so I’ll tell you about the Wade Center and the Glee Club tour some other time…

Autotuned emoetry!

Sleep, or _____? Probably _____. Sorry Doc. Walters.

It has been a while since I last posted. These last two weeks have been a bit chaotic. Remember how I ended my last post by mentioning that I was going to try to get to bed earlier? Well, I think I have gotten fewer hours of sleep per week than ever before. I'll try to pick up where I left off last time. If you're interested in seeing the homecoming concert, go to http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/conservarchive.htm then click on "Homecoming Concert October 22 2010." The orchestra plays for the first half, and about an hour in, the choir comes out and sings the first and fourth movements of Brahm's requiem along with the orchestra.
Monday was my first low sleep night. I can't remember exactly how late I stayed up working on my paper, but I think it was around 2:00 AM which doesn't sound so bad until you know that I wake up at 7:00 every morning, and that I usually get at least 8 hours of sleep. Tuesday morning I turned my wellness research project in. I think after that I spent a long time working on my paper for Introduction to Spiritual Formation a.k.a. the Honey Rock class. At 10:30 I had a practice for my part in our floor's raid (if you don't know what that is, keep reading). Then I think I did my Physics reading. The next day was a regular Wednesday: Physics, Chapel, Microecon and work. I don't remember what I did that evening, but I know I was either memorizing my lines for the raid, studying for Physics, writing my Honey Rock paper, or studying for wellness until after 1 AM, Thursday I went to Wellness class. Of course, Dr. Walters, who is a really great wellness teacher, talked about the importance of sleep and rest... good timing. After that I went straight to a study session for Physics class, which I left early so I could take my pants from Amazon to CPO (College Post Office) to return them. Unfortunately, I needed to print a label for it and get my own packing tape, so I left that task unfinished and ate lunch, then I went to my Physics lab, in which I took too long, and was late for Glee Club (again). After that, I went to dinner, then back to my floor, printed my label, got some packing tape from Bryce, who was working on stuff for the raid, and then finished my task at CPO. After that I went to my room, picked up my guitar and went to a practice for Physics department chapel the next morning. Then I went straight from there to a lecture on the history of antievolutionism in America, from which I went straight to our team's last IM Ultimate Frisbee game. After that, I went back to my floor with just enough time to shower and go to a full run through for our raid... and now it is 11:00 and I actually have a chance to get a reasonable amount of sleep before my Wellness final tomorrow. So I will have to end with a to be continued...

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First off, we had a high in the fifties today. It was cold and windy. I think I will miss the sun. I recently realized that my three biggest projects of the quad (half semester) are due next week: a wellness research paper on the effects of extraversion on happiness is due Tuesday, my first big Physics test is Friday and my paper for the Honey Rock Passage / Intro to Spiritual Formation class is due Saturday, so I might not have time to post next week. The last few days have been pretty exciting. Homecoming was this weekend, so there have been a lot of alumni and their families on campus. Friday, after Physics and chapel I spent some time on Fischer’s lawn for chill day. The weather was great yesterday, and everyone just played volleyball and read and played with Legos. I couldn’t stay for very long though because I had to go directly from lunch to Microecon to the Wade Center to a reception for Dr. Hopper (the Glee Club director) who received the 2010 award for alumni who have contributed to Wheaton. Today (Saturday) I sang the  national anthem with the Glee Club at the homecoming football game against Illinois Wesleyan (we won). Then at 7:00 I got dressed in a tuxedo for the first time and went over to Edman chapel for the homecoming concert. During the first half, the orchestra played a Haydn symphony and two other pieces. After intermission, the choirs came out and sang two movements of Brahm’s requiem. I don’t know if they are going to post the video online. I’ll let you know if they do.

About the poll on the left side, I reset it because I wanted to change a few things. For one thing it looked like everyone was voting for all but three, which really doesn’t help me decide what kinds of things to write. But I do want to know what you all want to know about. Otherwise I’ll just keep rambling about anything. So I would appreciate it if you just take a quick look at the poll and tell me what you think would be interesting to see.

I thought it might be good to let you know about some of the people I spend my time with.The guys in these pictures are Bryce and Drew. The second day I was here they asked me for some help setting up their bunks and desks. Ever since I’ve just ended up hanging out with them a lot. I can’t say that there’s any particular reason except that they’re both really friendly and their room is perfect for hanging out in. You can see why. I eat breakfast and occasionally other meals with them. Drew is knitting. Bryce is wearing glasses. Notice the couch and the posters on the wall. Those are Bryce’s. In their room they have that couch, a big black chair, a little green folding chair that is used for a footstool, a “ghetto” chair, which is the most comfortable, and a thick wooden table with Taj Mahal like shapes around the outside. Bryce got them all for forty five dollars. The couch they’re on in the picture was forty dollars. You can do the math. The posters all over the wall were free. If you couldn’t tell already, Bryce is a bargain hunter. He is from California, a little south of L.A. I think.

Drew started knitting yesterday. One of the first few weeks he bought a big bag of balloons just because they are fun. I think it had a hundred balloons. We didn’t really know what to do with them. One of them was used for the spoons game I told you about to hid the last spoon in. Bryce was actually the runner up in that game. We filled the elevator with them and then threw some in the air and shot them with Nerf darts that had thumb tacks in the end for a sort of slow motion skeet shooting (I feel like I should put some sort of “kids don’t try this at home” disclaimer here…) Drew and I are in the same Wellness class, so when I lost my backpack he was the one who helped me study for the test, and he ran with me to Glen Ellyn once. He also plays guitar and piano and both Drew and Bryce are on our floor’s Ultimate Frisbee team. They live across the hall and two doors down.

It is late now, and I found out this morning that my internal clock does not like me sleeping past 7 AM now. That along with some advice from Dr. Walters has convinced me that I need to go to bed early if I want to sleep, so on that note, farewell.