Let's start with the good part: Puerto Rico, EAC (and I'm going to get the 2004 promo cards, so I can have the über-complete Chrononauts deck), my replacement Fluxx 3.0 deck, and Inns&Cathedrals arrived today.
(Say, if Nick can't find someone who wants his extra I&C, I should ask if I can just get one tile from it, to replace my missing one... if it contains that one... nevermind, it doesn't... in fact, it doesn't include any tiles also in the original... which means that, really, as long as this is my only expansion, I can add them directly in without having to mark them! Yay!)
I also got many packing peanuts, which are yay.
Now the bad part: That annoying plastic baby.
For those of you not from BCA, in senior year, in health, we have to do the baby project. We are given a "baby", which needs to be fed, have its diaper changed, annoy people, etc. Thankfully, it is only for several days, and we have a partner, so we can split the load. Also, says Mr. Symons, none of them have been set to go off in the middle of the night. Still, it will cry very loudly during class, or whatever it is you're doing, and you have to take care of it or lose points. Although, it cannot tell its diaper from its bottle, so the easiest way to feed it is actually to put its diaper on its head. You will lose points if someone reports you doing this, though I think the only teachers who care are the health teachers and Mrs. Dr. Crane. The project started back when the school was Bergen Tech, and it was not uncommon to have about a dozen (real) babies present during graduation. It has carried over into BCA. You can choose to not do it, but then you have to write a long, annoying paper instead (about taking care of babies). Naturally it is just the bad parts of raising a baby, though thankfully not the worst parts[3]. No, saying that you don't want to have kids anyway will not get you out of it.
Anyway, so my partner is Choketsu (because he's the only one in my class that lives nearby). I have it today, he'll have it Friday and Saturday, and I'll be taking care of it again Sunday. (Also, whenever someone asks me who the mother is, I say "Choketsu".) The baby is, interestingly enough, black[0].
It's a girl, though this is essentially impossible to tell from the face. I was convinced it was a boy until I had to change its diaper. (Yes, they're anatomically correct down there. But not on their chest: I must say I've never heard of a person with a speaker over there... (it also has the number 5 written in blue marker on the soles of its feet, as it's baby #5. Sydney asked me what I had done to it; I insisted that it's a birthmark.)) (That it's wearing pink never occurred to me until someone pointed it out.)
I lost the sheet I'm supposed to record stuff on. That could be bad.
I actually almost forgot it during CS today. As I was leaving the class, someone (I forget who) just said, "Harry. You fail." "What?" "You fail." After a bit I realized what they were talking about and went back to get it.
Its name? That's not quite agreed upon... Choketsu has his own name for it, which is a racial slur, and which naturally nobody else uses (not that they refer to it by name much). My name for it (suggested by Yasha, IIRC), which what few people who refer to it by name (other than Choketsu) do use is "Number Joannie 5".
So far, I would say there have been two good parts to this project:
1. It's not quite so bad as I had expected. (Well, I suppose that can't actually be counted as "good", but still...)
2. I can use it to scare Chris the Sophomore. He was immediately scared of the baby when he first saw it, saying "Aaah! They're everywhere!", so I told him it was going to eat his brains.
Now to get back to what I was doing, and hope it doesn't cry for a while.
-Sniffnoy, his arms tired
[0]Sure, sure, were it actually our kid, we'd have to have adopted it, so this wouldn't be strange, but still...
[3]Mom to Elana (approximately): This thing's crying is annoying. Your crying was torturous.
--
"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president,
and that one word is 'to be prepared.'"
-Dan Quayle
