#3 from earlier: The katamari
Jun. 8th, 2008 06:57 pm[This is #3 from earlier. Still need to write: Tufts House vs. IHC. (I put up the 10th week house minutes yesterday. Will these finally be my last ones? None can yet say.)]
This is going to require a lot of background. (It also seems it's going to turn into a rant in a few places. Oh well.)
( Long background, necessary for this entry but cut for length, contains multiple rants )
But! (Now we get to the event I meant to actually relate.)
It happened last Saturday that as I was going out to find people, Youlian asked where I was going. And I explained. (Not at this length, of course.) And so, Youlian said he would come with me. And then Winston passed by and we got him too. And then we got Steve. And thenYoulian Steve did something interesting: He went doorknocking within the house.
Now this I would ordinarly consider, well, rude. Part of the reason going around town knocking on doors is OK is because, well, you have no idea whether they're available to come or not. But here in the house, it's a pretty simple signalling system, no? In public space, or door open: Here I am, potentially ready to do something else. Door closed: Leave me alone. Now of course the installation of door-closers screws this up, but enough people have doorstops you'd think it would be pretty reliable. (Of course, trolling for people like this is very "You're coming with us" anyway, so perhaps this is somewhat irrelevant to it.) (And of course, this isn't reliable in the case of, say, closed-door parties (which have to have the door closed for rules reasons, i.e., alcohol or being way too loud - which forces the question of why do so many people seem to consider alcohol essential to a party?))
But, whatever. We got me, Youlian, Winston, Steve, and Agnes. Now, that's 5. 5 isn't a bad number. If I could find 5 people in the lounge, I probably wouldn't even have thought to go trying to katamari up some more. (Except maybe I would have since it was really loud in the house. Whatever.) Not really a number to stop at, but not at all bad. But, firstly, Youlian had specifically told them we were going out to katamari up some people; and secondly, well, five almost certainly wasn't large enough considering the exact people we had.
And so off we went. Unfortunately, we were not at all successful - it followed the patterns of the other times this year. None of the five of us knew anyone's specific location aside from the three places we'd already mentioned, and so indeed, we went first northward to Grant's, then southward to the girls', then decided it wasn't worth trying to get Ian.
However, the reason for our failure this time was simply that we didn't even find anybody, except for Jim. We had 5 people, and Youlian can do a rather good "You're coming with us", and Winston certainly should help with that too (he had a large cardboard tube with him at the time...). So, something to try again in the coming year, it would seem.
So Agnes and I returned home, and the others wandered around doing who-knows-what, but apparently not first confusing drunk people and then beating with the cardboard tube, as Winston suggested.
-Harry
[0]Doug, Pavel, and Anthony's apartment, though Pavel wasn't there at the time. Also Grant tells me it doesn't exist anymore?
[3]Katy/Kate/Alex/Charlotte. Despite about half the population of Tufts being girls at any given point, among people of my year and the year after us, that it refers to these four is unambiguous. Probably not so among the first-years, though.
This is going to require a lot of background. (It also seems it's going to turn into a rant in a few places. Oh well.)
( Long background, necessary for this entry but cut for length, contains multiple rants )
But! (Now we get to the event I meant to actually relate.)
It happened last Saturday that as I was going out to find people, Youlian asked where I was going. And I explained. (Not at this length, of course.) And so, Youlian said he would come with me. And then Winston passed by and we got him too. And then we got Steve. And then
Now this I would ordinarly consider, well, rude. Part of the reason going around town knocking on doors is OK is because, well, you have no idea whether they're available to come or not. But here in the house, it's a pretty simple signalling system, no? In public space, or door open: Here I am, potentially ready to do something else. Door closed: Leave me alone. Now of course the installation of door-closers screws this up, but enough people have doorstops you'd think it would be pretty reliable. (Of course, trolling for people like this is very "You're coming with us" anyway, so perhaps this is somewhat irrelevant to it.) (And of course, this isn't reliable in the case of, say, closed-door parties (which have to have the door closed for rules reasons, i.e., alcohol or being way too loud - which forces the question of why do so many people seem to consider alcohol essential to a party?))
But, whatever. We got me, Youlian, Winston, Steve, and Agnes. Now, that's 5. 5 isn't a bad number. If I could find 5 people in the lounge, I probably wouldn't even have thought to go trying to katamari up some more. (Except maybe I would have since it was really loud in the house. Whatever.) Not really a number to stop at, but not at all bad. But, firstly, Youlian had specifically told them we were going out to katamari up some people; and secondly, well, five almost certainly wasn't large enough considering the exact people we had.
And so off we went. Unfortunately, we were not at all successful - it followed the patterns of the other times this year. None of the five of us knew anyone's specific location aside from the three places we'd already mentioned, and so indeed, we went first northward to Grant's, then southward to the girls', then decided it wasn't worth trying to get Ian.
However, the reason for our failure this time was simply that we didn't even find anybody, except for Jim. We had 5 people, and Youlian can do a rather good "You're coming with us", and Winston certainly should help with that too (he had a large cardboard tube with him at the time...). So, something to try again in the coming year, it would seem.
So Agnes and I returned home, and the others wandered around doing who-knows-what, but apparently not first confusing drunk people and then beating with the cardboard tube, as Winston suggested.
-Harry
[0]Doug, Pavel, and Anthony's apartment, though Pavel wasn't there at the time. Also Grant tells me it doesn't exist anymore?
[3]Katy/Kate/Alex/Charlotte. Despite about half the population of Tufts being girls at any given point, among people of my year and the year after us, that it refers to these four is unambiguous. Probably not so among the first-years, though.
