It was said yesterday that they might postpone Field Day tdue to suspicion of rain, as they did last year. Everyone had come unprepared, expecting Field Day, but what with the actual rain, which was bad enough that we heard a warning on the bus radio about it, people began expecting that Field Day would be canceled, and that they would be unprepared for class and with no lunch.
Still there was something of a Field Day mentality. In the hall outside Dr. Penev's room, someone put on loud music and John Ahn started breakdancing. He challenged me to a breakdancing contest; I just conceded immediately without even trying. Colin apparently was going to have a carrot-eating contest against Jeff Bogdan (on a day Tom wasn't here... :P ) to extend throughout the entire day... don't think it really happened, though. Nobody turned orange, anyway.
Then came IGS and the truth was revealed: Once they decided yesterday not to postpone Field Day, they had to go on with it. The food was already being delivered, they couldn't afford to do a second one, and besides, everyone thought it would be Field Day, so nobody would be prepared for class (or have a lunch).
So, naturally enough, it rained.
Now, any sensible administration would have gone on with the indoor events and just delayed the outdoor ones. This is not what was done. Instead all events were delayed and we had to stay in IGS. Nobody I know has yet come up with any explanation for this other than the administration simply being stupid.
So, back in Mr. Demeter's IGS, we started watching Ghostbusters. They had announced that IGS would be extended to mod 3; mod 3 had long ago come and gone when they announced that IGS would be extended another 10 minutes. After 10 minutes (at least I assume it was so; I did not keep time) they called everyone down to the auditorium. The tape was stopped. We went to the auditorium to find that we had been called there to... be shown another movie! Well, for us it was another movie. For most other people it was just a movie. The movie was "Miracle". Most of the time everyone watched it quietly, but every now and then "We want Field Day" chants broke out. At one point Bonnie got on the PA (I actually didn't hear this) and said, "Chanting 'We want Field Day' will not make the rain go away." It worked.
Finally the sun came out - and they stopped the movie! It was getting towards the end, too. Lots of people didn't like the movie, but everyone I've talked to seems to agree that stopping it before it was finished was stupid. Still, now Field Day began.
Everything was compressed, events were canceled (including ping pong, which I was supposed to play). Food was served in the two cafeterias instead of outside. At 12:30 I went to go play Scrabble. There was a bit of confusion as to which team I was on, as my shirt was red rather than green, but I did in fact play for green. Amazingly, JT was playing[0]. I only played one game, against someone from red, which I won 250 to 188. That was about 14:00, maybe as late as 14:30. Don't know how we did overall there.
Now, of course, I had counted on having lots of time today, not just being stuck in IGS, and had planned to play at least one game of Illuminati. Also with me I had Carcassonne, SoC, Munchkin, and my Icehouse pieces. Now I don't have much time to play any of them. Asaf told me before Scrabble to come down to Mr. Kurz's room, as he and Mike would be there. I did, and - I played DDR for the first time. Only once, and I failed utterly, despite it being ridiculously easy. This had a lot to do with the fact that I kept missing the buttons. Anyway, after that, I was explaining to a bunch of people how to play Homeworlds, but by the time I finished, they called us back to IGS, because it was raining again. Why can't they just let us have our free time wherever we want?
I tought Marshall how to play Carcassonne and started a game against him while others watched the rest of Ghostbusters. We were interrupted, though, by being called down to the final assembly. (Ghostbusters still wasn't finished.)
None of the bands were all that good, although I may think this largely because it was nearly impossible to hear them over all the ear-breaking shouting. (My ears don't seem to be bothering me anymore - not in the way they were yesterday, that is. Hm. They still hurt from today, though.) Then the infamous song-dance-skits, which were actually better than usual. The theme was supposed to be old TV shows. Red's was... bizarre. They made fun of both "Miracle" and the step team.[3] Yellow's was, essentially, about how great yellow is. :P Blue's was by far the greatest - a drumming-on-trashcans thing, and absolutely great - unfortunately it was cut short due to time constraints. Green's was something with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - except Leonardo and Michaelangelo were missing, and the music they played was... well, asking later, apparently it was from the original show[4], but not something I recognized. Not that I really remember much from it. Why they didn't just do the theme song, I don't know. I shouted out "Heroes in a half-shell - turtle power!" at one point during it, though.
Finally the video. There were video problems at first, but eventually they got it working. The best part was seeing Mike and Asaf play DDR. Apparently they managed to convince the tapers that it was an actual event. It was cut short, though, due to it being 4:30, so we didn't get to see me playing Scrabble, if that would have been included anyway. And that ended Field Day.
Oh yeah, and yellow won. How surprising.
-Sniffnoy
[0]This is a story in and of itself. See JT once mentioned to me that he doesn't play board games. This put me in such a shock[5] I started listing everything I could think of, down to the simplest card games - he played none of them. He said he had played ERF once, IIRC, but that was all I got out of him. Since then I have tried, whenever I have had the opportunity (which is not often), to teach him any game at all, but of course there is no way I can actually do so if he's not interested. So I was very glad to see him playing Scrabble. He said it's not really so much of a board game, it's a word game. It's a board game, I said, and after we finish I'm teaching you to play Carcassonne. No you're not, said he. Well he was certainly right, as as soon as I finished my Scrabble game I went down to Mr. Kurz's room[6] without waiting for JT's game to end.
[3]Exactly what the step team does the rest of the year, I don't know, but when they perform at whatever assemblies they perform at, they always put on the same show...
[4]I'm told there's a new show with a different theme song.
[5]It wouldn't be so bad except apparently he doesn't really play video games either....
[6]See main entry.
--
"Rincewind always assumed the purpose of running away was to be able
to run away another day."
-Terry Pratchett, _Interesting Times_
Still there was something of a Field Day mentality. In the hall outside Dr. Penev's room, someone put on loud music and John Ahn started breakdancing. He challenged me to a breakdancing contest; I just conceded immediately without even trying. Colin apparently was going to have a carrot-eating contest against Jeff Bogdan (on a day Tom wasn't here... :P ) to extend throughout the entire day... don't think it really happened, though. Nobody turned orange, anyway.
Then came IGS and the truth was revealed: Once they decided yesterday not to postpone Field Day, they had to go on with it. The food was already being delivered, they couldn't afford to do a second one, and besides, everyone thought it would be Field Day, so nobody would be prepared for class (or have a lunch).
So, naturally enough, it rained.
Now, any sensible administration would have gone on with the indoor events and just delayed the outdoor ones. This is not what was done. Instead all events were delayed and we had to stay in IGS. Nobody I know has yet come up with any explanation for this other than the administration simply being stupid.
So, back in Mr. Demeter's IGS, we started watching Ghostbusters. They had announced that IGS would be extended to mod 3; mod 3 had long ago come and gone when they announced that IGS would be extended another 10 minutes. After 10 minutes (at least I assume it was so; I did not keep time) they called everyone down to the auditorium. The tape was stopped. We went to the auditorium to find that we had been called there to... be shown another movie! Well, for us it was another movie. For most other people it was just a movie. The movie was "Miracle". Most of the time everyone watched it quietly, but every now and then "We want Field Day" chants broke out. At one point Bonnie got on the PA (I actually didn't hear this) and said, "Chanting 'We want Field Day' will not make the rain go away." It worked.
Finally the sun came out - and they stopped the movie! It was getting towards the end, too. Lots of people didn't like the movie, but everyone I've talked to seems to agree that stopping it before it was finished was stupid. Still, now Field Day began.
Everything was compressed, events were canceled (including ping pong, which I was supposed to play). Food was served in the two cafeterias instead of outside. At 12:30 I went to go play Scrabble. There was a bit of confusion as to which team I was on, as my shirt was red rather than green, but I did in fact play for green. Amazingly, JT was playing[0]. I only played one game, against someone from red, which I won 250 to 188. That was about 14:00, maybe as late as 14:30. Don't know how we did overall there.
Now, of course, I had counted on having lots of time today, not just being stuck in IGS, and had planned to play at least one game of Illuminati. Also with me I had Carcassonne, SoC, Munchkin, and my Icehouse pieces. Now I don't have much time to play any of them. Asaf told me before Scrabble to come down to Mr. Kurz's room, as he and Mike would be there. I did, and - I played DDR for the first time. Only once, and I failed utterly, despite it being ridiculously easy. This had a lot to do with the fact that I kept missing the buttons. Anyway, after that, I was explaining to a bunch of people how to play Homeworlds, but by the time I finished, they called us back to IGS, because it was raining again. Why can't they just let us have our free time wherever we want?
I tought Marshall how to play Carcassonne and started a game against him while others watched the rest of Ghostbusters. We were interrupted, though, by being called down to the final assembly. (Ghostbusters still wasn't finished.)
None of the bands were all that good, although I may think this largely because it was nearly impossible to hear them over all the ear-breaking shouting. (My ears don't seem to be bothering me anymore - not in the way they were yesterday, that is. Hm. They still hurt from today, though.) Then the infamous song-dance-skits, which were actually better than usual. The theme was supposed to be old TV shows. Red's was... bizarre. They made fun of both "Miracle" and the step team.[3] Yellow's was, essentially, about how great yellow is. :P Blue's was by far the greatest - a drumming-on-trashcans thing, and absolutely great - unfortunately it was cut short due to time constraints. Green's was something with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - except Leonardo and Michaelangelo were missing, and the music they played was... well, asking later, apparently it was from the original show[4], but not something I recognized. Not that I really remember much from it. Why they didn't just do the theme song, I don't know. I shouted out "Heroes in a half-shell - turtle power!" at one point during it, though.
Finally the video. There were video problems at first, but eventually they got it working. The best part was seeing Mike and Asaf play DDR. Apparently they managed to convince the tapers that it was an actual event. It was cut short, though, due to it being 4:30, so we didn't get to see me playing Scrabble, if that would have been included anyway. And that ended Field Day.
Oh yeah, and yellow won. How surprising.
-Sniffnoy
[0]This is a story in and of itself. See JT once mentioned to me that he doesn't play board games. This put me in such a shock[5] I started listing everything I could think of, down to the simplest card games - he played none of them. He said he had played ERF once, IIRC, but that was all I got out of him. Since then I have tried, whenever I have had the opportunity (which is not often), to teach him any game at all, but of course there is no way I can actually do so if he's not interested. So I was very glad to see him playing Scrabble. He said it's not really so much of a board game, it's a word game. It's a board game, I said, and after we finish I'm teaching you to play Carcassonne. No you're not, said he. Well he was certainly right, as as soon as I finished my Scrabble game I went down to Mr. Kurz's room[6] without waiting for JT's game to end.
[3]Exactly what the step team does the rest of the year, I don't know, but when they perform at whatever assemblies they perform at, they always put on the same show...
[4]I'm told there's a new show with a different theme song.
[5]It wouldn't be so bad except apparently he doesn't really play video games either....
[6]See main entry.
--
"Rincewind always assumed the purpose of running away was to be able
to run away another day."
-Terry Pratchett, _Interesting Times_
