Items, items, items

So, like I mentioned earlier, I'm going to profile a couple of the items from this year that I really enjoyed. There were nearly 300, but here are my favorites:

76. Spend a night in a major Chicago museum, a la From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. [24 points]

Sneaking into the Oriental Institute was easy ... getting the judges to count it as a major Chicago museum was not. Either way the experience of walking around centuries old artifacts with a flashlight & video camera was amazing.

3. PIE FIGHT!! Bring ten cream pies and prepare to prove your superiority old-timey comedy style [Scav Olympics]

This was a mess, an incredible mess. I think everyone got splattered!

89. Greetings, Aperture Science Test Subject #3252613. You need a friend, one that cannot speak, and thus will never threaten to stab you. Please construct a fully-functional weighted companion cube. For the best one, there will be cake. [9 points] The companion cubes had a birthday party! The cake was not a lie!

8. Life-size Battleship . We’ll need six human boat pieces from you, to be divvied up and placed as you wish. You’ll need a goodly supply of water balloons. [Scav Olympics]

I have to admit, the perfectly placed wall here made the event what it was. It was hilarious to watch and had so so many close misses & dramatic direct hits. My only wish is that I would've been warmer out, I definitely want to see this again in the future.

225. Make a dollhouse of your dorm. Please include as much detail as possible. Why should Queen Mary have all the cool stuff [81 points]

Pretty close, no? We even had mini textbooks on the desks in each room.

51. A De Lorean. We’ve got seventy-five bucks riding on this one.

So we didn't get this item. But several other teams did, the Judges' blog has a nice write up of this (and took the photo pictured above). We did manage to fake some fire tracks though ... y'know, you just missed it!

259. Scavbarnraising! By noon Friday, erect a barn around a CTA bus stop. [X28 points] Just plain awesome.

Scavenger Hunt 2008

The University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt for 2008 just ended. It's my second year participating in it, but I still haven't been able to get over the insanity of the whole event. Even now it seems bizarre to me that just the other day I was watching people swing chickens covered in razor blades at one another ... or helping to hang a gigantic spider web across Hull Gate ... or covering a high-chair with aluminum foil and skulls at 3 in the morning. But that's the essence of Scav and it couldn't have been better!

MacPierce at Scav Olympics

Our team placed fourth, the same as last year, and while we were really hoping to get third I think we had a great run. We had a huge turn-out and people were really excited to participate. A lot of groups branched out and took the initiative on larger projects like the dollhouse dorm or the CTA bus stop barn-raising, and we had many first years get really involved.

While we had the enthusiasm, I think our downfall probably lay in organization and generally losing points on the large-showcase items. We had a new Scav server set up for list management, but it was somewhat difficult to navigate, and the lack of dedicated page captains (like Max and Snitchcock's) put a lot of pressure on the Small-med-large items captains. Also, while we were able to pull together last year's big items in the night prior to judgement: the clown bed and the strandbeest, this year's items were difficult to get together in such a manner. Building the monowheel and zeusaphone boiled down to expertise not will power, and while last year half a dozen individuals could really move things along, this year the smallest thing seemed to be able to bring down an item. What's more, a huge rainstorm the night before judgement disrupted a lot of construction that just couldn't happen inside - like a gigantic paper mache volcano ... though it did rain out FIST, so we're not complaining.

The road trip's car (decorated as the house from Wizard of Oz) caught fire ...

The points boiled down to just a 120 point difference between us, MacPierce and 3rd place - which went to Burton-Judson. The complete breakdown is as follows (you can also check out the video of the final results).

1. Snell-Hitchcock, aka Army Dillo
2. Max Palevsky, aka The Audacity of Pope
3. Burton-Judson, aka The War of Southern Aggression
4. MacPierce, aka The University of Chicago School of Engineering
5. Shoreland, aka The Untouchables
6. The Grad/Alum Scav Hunters, aka FOGIES
7. The Federation of Independent Scavhunt Teams, aka Heroic Furry Gut Monks
8. Broadview, aka Vandelay Industries
9. Hoover/Breckinridge, aka Scav Trek V: The Vinyl Frontier

Overall, I think the experience of Scav will be what I take away from the four days. Both this and last year's judgement left me with some conflicted feelings - sure we were getting validation for doing all of these insane things, but seeing 6 clown beds in a row and having to be evaluated on them, somewhat diminished the kind of unbridled, spontaneous element of Scav that I love. Though ... all right, I will add there were plenty of random outbursts during judgement (like our amazing flute drumline), and seeing the amount of variation possible on any one item was great ... but everyone was so sleep deprived and tired by that point that I have to admit, Sunday just flew by. Now the whole experience seems quite surreal and distant, but I'll try to do a quick write-up on the little items that I really liked.

Either way, I can't wait to do Scav again next year! Check out the 2008 list for all 269 glorious items (not counting the list the Vegas Scav Warriors got), as well as the Judges' blog. Finally, since Scav is all about the little things that celebrate our quirks, here's a video of everyone Rickrolling the judges:

Tags: Scavenger Hunt, Scav, University of Chicago, UChicago

Katamari Winter

We had our first snowfall of the season earlier this week quite apart from making finals week even more strenuous, it was actually pretty sweet. There was a huge cross-campus snowball fight in the middle of the night, with everyone letting their pent up stress over finals devolve into sheer flurry snow fury. But in addition to this, there was something that I think clearly needs to be shared with the Internet as a whole.

A couple of Tuftsians went out and made Katamari snowmen in the middle of the quads! Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari are pretty much staples in our house lounge, so this made complete sense. Plus the results are fantastic.

Photos from the night before, stolen off of Facebook:

This is why I love my dorm!

If I'm not mistaken, the snow sculpture has been up in front of Eckhart (the math building) for most of finals week. So hopefully this cheered up some people in the midst of the finals funk. Plus, now that break is here I can look forward to playing We Love Katamari at home - having finally located and bought my own used copy! Thanks Gamestop?

Finally, if you're in need of some snowy Katamari goodness, here's an official Katamari desktop background. And there's more where that came from.

Tags: Katamari Damacy, snowman, snow, UChicago, wallpaper

Poland: Day 8

Work on the dig in Igołomi – Wawrzeńczycach has started!

These are just some introductory photos. Digging has already started to a depth of 25 cm and is turning up a lot of material. You can spot me working over the piles of dirt that have come out of the dig site - even a second time around I was still able to get two bag fulls of clay fragments, flint, and scattered bones. Though the work is rather grueling. I'll try to get some more non-copywrite infringing photos when I can.

For now, bask in the awesome power of the Polish sun.


My legs are finally tan ... unfortunately the socks posed a bit of a problem. Haha, so cool.
Hopefully a month of work in the field won't leave me too crisp!

Tags: Archaeological dig, Poland, Igołomia, Wawrzeńczyce, sunburn

How To Survive Finals

Good morning dedicated readers. As you may have noticed, I've been absent from the blog for a while - yet never fear, thankfully Finals are almost over and spring break will finally give me the time I need to clean up my backlog of old drafts and bloggable bits of the web.

So why have I been so preoccupied you might ask? Well ... it's finals week, and staring at a Neuroscience text for 12 hours straight in various small enclosures (cubicles, study rooms, etc) is rather harrowing!

Of course, this might be a rather appropriate time to segway into my involvement with the 'Where Fun Comes To Die' shirt sales at the University of Chicago (see right) ... but I think I think the fact that I still take that statement as a joke implies there is something inherently wrong with regard to the student body here, or else we all love self-deprecating attire. But hey, I'm all for profiting off of misery, so if you do want to buy a shirt or hoodie feel free to contact me. They're a great piece of UChicago tradition, and sold at prices that're way more affordable than any of the official bookstore swag.

Either way, this post is going to be devoted to my tips for surviving finals week - and as a U of C student you'd better believe they're worth something ... (something more than the procrastinative value I got from taking random photos in the midst of studying, that is)

First, check to see where you are in terms of the Agnes Review Inventory™:
- read through class resources & the text
- take notes on these (hopefully in class)
- then to review, look through the notes, paring down information into key processes, definitions and diagrams ... yes, essentially taking notes of your notes!

Next, make sure you have these notes, reading materials, class resources (power points, lector notes, etc) in order. Organizing things by date or topic is a good way to go as it allows you to focus in on specific areas of the topic! Even though it takes a bit longer and may makes your desktop look a bit cluttered, this method is really great for moving from a wast swath of knowledge into bit sized ways to review notes that can help you recall the big picture.


* Also, if you take and review notes on your computer, programs like Winroll become indispensable, as you can easily have many, many windows open but have them scaled down into just the title bar (a la Mac) - this makes switching between windows a breeze (and it looks cool, just look at that screen shot!)

And well ... what else can you do to study? I mean that is basically it. It just takes a lot of review and in some cases, a lot of cramming. But refreshing this material in your mind with the aid of notes and a lot of time is really the principal thing to do.

Actually forcing yourself to get into this mode of study is really the main thing you have to grapple with for this method to work. For some people, music helps move the process along - others find depriving themselves of any and all outside stimulus (thanks to libraries, cubicle-like desks, or study rooms) to be key. But this is going to differ for everyone ... I personally wound up sitting in a prison-like study room, but jamming to Royksopp


But regardless of where you study - if you are going for a cram session and know you're not going to be getting any sleep it is really important to have a plan and take periodic breaks. Have an outline of topics for review set up, and in between these topics try to do a little to take your mind off of the studying (make a snack, build up your caffeine levels, play some Smash, or surf the web for a bit - just don't get distracted from your goal!) This is actually a good habit to get into (as long as it doesn't happen too frequently) as it lets your mind rest for a bit. When you get back to studying this is especially helpful as you can test yourself on how much of what you've just read actually retained (try to think back to the key words, or describe the process you just read about as thoroughly as possible). See, gaged procrastination can be good for you!

Tags: Neuroscience, University of Chicago, Finals, Where Fun Comes to Die, Study Tips, Winroll

Whirl + Ball = Whirlyball?

At first hearing the name Whirlyball, one might assume that a game with such a seemingly benign name would be nothing more than one whose goals involved the whirly-ing of a ball, much like the ever loved bases-ball. But no, my friends, this game is something else indeed.

Defined as Whir-ly-ball (hwur lee bol) noun. (1) "The second most fun thing in the world." (2) For all ages, women & men. (3) Beyond description.


A hybrid of bumper cars, lacrosse, polo and basketball - this game has everything one would ever want or need in a game, from the violent crashes of NASCAR (albeit at a top speed of 4mph) to the fast paced excitement of a curling championship (I'm not joking, curling is a sweet game)! It definitely is an amazing experience that'll pit the bumper buggy maneouvring skills of some against the intensity of whiffle-based sports enjoyed by others. And while it may seem that only in a bar setting this game could thrive, it actually prohibits play while intoxicated, pregnant, or short ... so there.

As an introduction to the famed pastimes Chicago has to offer to the world, the Tufts House inaugurated us first years to the joys of this traditional game, made all the more appealing thanks to the ever constant flow of pizza and pop. The photos speak for themselves.




If you ever want to experience the joys of whirlyball for yourself there's pretty much one place in the Midwest that has games in a couple of different locations. You can find more info at whirlyball.com Additionally, the Wikipedia entry on Whirlyball, while somewhat sparse, is still pretty informative.

Technorati Tags: Activity, Whirlyball, Bumper Cars, Lacrosse, Chicago

Senior Year Nostalgia

With college approaching in about two weeks or so, it's been fun making the most of the time I have left -- not only has blogging been great, but I've had a lot of time to catch up on some of the perks of being a summer sloth. Hanging out with friends and reveling in favorite pastimes has definitely made my summer a restful one, yet the prospect of college, new experiences, and all of that great academia is so close by I can almost taste it. I can't wait to see what the future will hold - and while that sounds cliche - I'm glad to have had such great experiences in the past to warrant this surge of optimism/naivete.

So hey, seeing as I need to break in my new Compaq Presario V3015NR notebook, and I'm still too wholly captivated by a borrowed box set of 24 (season one) that I'm watching in the background -- here are some screencaps of the past year too keep me nostalgic enough to put aside my college woes and focus on what's important - Jack Bauer!

Fairchild's Advanced Computer Art Accelarated Class

EF Bell' Italia Trip, Spring Break with the Italy Crew

Maxwell's Eighth Period AP Themes in English Class

Prom Night (lookin' So Good!)

Senior Lock-In (Cruisin' Class of 2006)

D.C. National History Day (Sen. Barack Obama's office)

The Aca-Family at our regular Starbucks Hangout

Technorati Tags: Update, Photos, Album