Tool Update: In Which the S*** Hits the Fan

Penn has left me with mixed feelings in life. On one hand, it gave me OMP and Maury, two of the most influential men in my childhood. On the other hand, it gave me Twitchy McBarfight and Tanner O'Tansalot, two the most influential men in my early death from stress. Also, I hate their basketball team, but that's another story for another day. Last night was our final Penn class in which we gave presentations. Our group......well...let me just outline the past few days to give you a better idea of the giant chucklefuck that is my project. 

Saturday

It is decided that we should take a group visit to Camden. This was the first of the string of 90 degree days and I was less than eager to spend it wandering around the concrete wasteland of a city that is Camden. I take the train into the city before texting Twitchy to ask where I should meet him. His car is parked at 40th and Pine. I'm currently at 30th St Station. 10 blocks in the heat would be annoying to begin with. 10 blocks in the heat on Penn Relay day is a nightmare. Yes, I had been wondering why the Villanova and St Joes track teams had both been on the train in. Apparently traffic is so terrible during the Penn relays that to take a team bus to the event would be near impossible. It was actually a better idea to take SEPTA and then walk 5 blocks than to take a bus. Apparently Nova still did pretty well. Traffic was completely stopped leading into Penn, swarms of people moved up the sidewalks creating even more heat. 

I managed to break free of the pack once we reached the stadium and continued up to 40th and Pine. There I stood on a street corner for 20 minutes waiting for Twitchy and Tanner. Finally after calling them did I find Twitchy waiting in his apartment. He was upset that I didn't drive in as he wanted someone to save his parking spot. I didn't respond to this. Tanner was mysteriously missing, and when told we called he gave a vague location but said he was on his way. After waiting for him we finally him to stay put and we'll pick him up wherever he is. 

On our way to mystery location I recieved a call from the Bryn Mawr health center frantically trying to locate a person who was not in my dorm nor did I even know them. I explained that I was in the city and thus couldn't be of any help and they asked me to call any other HAs that I knew. Screw this, I hung up and called Public Safety, I wasn't playing phone tag all day. Meanwhile Twitchy is yakking away in my ear. I try and emphasize the words HEALTH CENTER and PUBLIC SAFETY but he still doesn't respond. After settling the matter I hang up. 

Twitchy is angry that I didn't pay any attention to him when he was talking to me. 

We locate Tanner on a random street corner near Drexel and finally the group is all in one place at the same time for the first time ever. We head for Camden and are at a loss for discussion topics. Unfortunately Twitchy is the only one to come up with anything and we were all treated to a 15 minute talk about his paper on merchant economics of the 15th century. I really wish I was kidding. 

We note that there is a lot of traffic on the bridge heading into NJ. Tanner wonders if they're all going to the Camden waterfront. No. No they are not. We head into Camden city and go off in search of sites for our project. We stop at one abandoned lot and get out to look at it. I should mention that Twitchy's car is a brand new Saab with lots of tricked out electronics and such. It was begging to get stolen. Twitchy and Tanner discuss the site while I stand back and wonder why I'm standing in the middle of an abandoned lot in Camden in 90 degree weather with two massive tools. That's sort of the dictionary definition of hell there. Tanner doesn't like the site because it's not close to the water. I don't like the site because it's no where near commerce. Twitchy hates all of us because he thought he had a surefire idea here. 

This story is getting long so let me sum it up. We spent the next hour driving around vacant lots before deciding "screw it, let's just develop on the waterfront". All plans of mix income communities and neighborhood revitalization were thrown out the window. We were going to build luxury condos. I couldn't have been happier, as much as I'm usually for neighborhood revitalization, in this project I wanted something simple and to the point. We pick the spot with relative ease, go to a nearby condo developments leasing office to discuss what the logistics of that building were and shake on it (not actually, but you get the idea). Given the rough start to the day, I was impressed with the final result. 

We got back in the car and Twitchy decides to take the Walt Whitman bridge back to Philadelphia rather than the Ben Franklin to avoid traffic. He misses the exit and we end up heading towards the shore. I'll take anytime I can in New Jersey, but I wanted to get home. I groan and lean back in my seat to express my discontent. Twitchy turns around at the next exit then floors it while merging nearly killing all of us in the process. I openly yell at him to express my discontent. As we cross the bridge I look back to New Jersey and sigh, only 3 more weeks and I'll come back, I say to myself. As if they were reading my mind, Tanner and Twitchy start making Jersey jokes. I spring into action and start yelling back my usual "it doesn't matter because you still are going to hate Jersey but here are some great things it has given you" list. Surprisingly both responded positively to the news that New Jersey is home to the blueberry capital of the world. Even I was shocked when Tanner said 'Wow. I love blueberries. Maybe Jersey isn't that bad'. First time that's worked, ever.

Twitchy had promised he'd drop me off at 30th St Station so I wouldn't have to walk. As we pulled into Philadelphia he suddenly said "oh, looks like we won't be near 30th St. You should probably get out here". For the record, we were at 38th and something that's no where near 30th St. We were also at a stop light. He didn't even pull over. I muttered some curse words and climbed out of the car. I really dislike that boy.

Sunday

I sent roughly 5 or 6 e-mails to them today regarding our project. I got one reply

Monday

I send more e-mails asking when people can meet AS THE PROJECT IS DUE TOMORROW. I mention that I am free ALL DAY and can come in WHENEVER. No one responds until 6 at night when they decide that tomorrow (the day the project is due) would be a better time to meet to DO OUR ENTIRE PROJECT. I'm fuming and let them know that I'm not free until 3:30. They decide to meet at 10. 

After I came back from squash that night I had to go to Senior Week sign-ups in the Campus Center. Those were far more stressful than they ever needed to be. I swear to God you could tell Mawrtyrs that there was going to be an apple on the green but that no one could touch the apple until noon and EVERYONE would show up 2 hours before noon just to make sure they got to touch the apple. Point of the story is that I'm in a bad mood when I get back to my room. It's almost midnight, I have a ton of work to do and I open my e-mail to find a message from Twitchy. The message begins "I really have no idea what I'm doing, so I'm just going to make stuff up tomorrow, is that ok?" 

I sit in stunned silence for a good 3 minutes. I run to Ari's room and release a rant of epic proportions. I run back to my room and send him an e-mail that basically says "if you make shit up I will kill you". I was going to work on my other project but instead spend the next hour and a half looking for any sort of information to help him with his part of the project. Around 1 am I get an e-mail back that basically says "thanks for trying, but for a budget like ours none of this is really important". I let out a string of curse words, shut my computer down and go to bed. I have all the information I need and have no problem sending that e-mail conversation to our professor should our project go awry. I don't need this.

Tuesday

10 am. I get a message. "Where are you". It's Twitchy. I text him back to tell him that if he read his e-mail correctly he would know that I am in class from 8:30-2:30 on Tuesdays and that I won't be in the city until 3:30. He wants to know where Tanner is. It should be noted that Tanner hasn't responded to any of our e-mails over the past few days. I send him Tanners number and go back to class. Twitchy sends confirmation that he and Tanner are meeting. Good, I'm glad for them. Tanner later sends me a message saying that he could meet me at 3:30 to finish the project up. Hey Tanner! Nice to hear from you! Great! See you then!

I book it from my Haverford class to the Haverford train station only to find out that the ticket office is only open from 11am-2pm (wtf?!?!?!) and that I need cash to buy my ticket on the train. With 5 minutes until the train gets there I race down the block to the bank and back just in time to catch it. That was close. Unfortunately Septa has been experiencing problems this week due to "excessive heat" so we ended up stopped in between Overbrook and Philadelphia for what seemed like an hour (and was probably no more than 10 minutes). Allow me a moment to rant. Yes it was hot yesterday, but it was by no means excessively hot. If they're this delayed now, how do they even function in the summer? Also how does heat affect a train?!?! So many questions. 

I meet Tanner at the library where he is less than pleased to meet. We wander around for 15 minutes because he reserved us a room at 4 and it's not ready yet. I ask if we can just sit somewhere and start and he says "nah, let's just wait". For those of you keeping track we have an hour and a half before this thing is due at this point. As we wander people stop Tanner and ask questions like "what the hell are you doing here". Tanner sighs and points at me before saying "group project". Apparently Tanner has a reputation of not going to the library. Great. 

Once our room opened up I was shocked to see that Tanner had actually put together a stellar powerpoint presentation in between meeting with Twitchy and myself. I put together my slides, Tanner put Twitchy's information into some slides and bam, project. Actual honest to goodness project. I couldn't believe it had actually come together and that I was actually impressed with it.We went through it, fixed it up, then raced off to class just in time for the first presentation. 

The first group got the coveted first spot due to the fact that one of them had a sorority formal that night that she needed to get ready for. I wish I was kidding. This was their honest to goodness reason and the professor was perfectly fine with it. I'm not one to judge clothing, but they looked like hot messes. One girl was wearing a Springsteen concert shirt and short cutoffs, another was wearing one of those mens Hanes undershirts and short cutoffs and the guy was wearing an oversized Janis Joplin t-shirt. Unfortunately he decided against the cut-offs that the rest of the group was wearing. If you're giving a final presentation that is designed to be a marketing pitch.....look respectable. Come on now. 

Their presentation was terrible. It promoted a community garden in Kensington. A project that has already tried and failed. Their defense "ours won't fail". The worst part? IT WENT ON FOR 47 MINUTES! 47! These were supposed to be 15 minute presentations. 47 minutes! Then to pour salt on the wound, the professor berated them from 15 minutes about how their presentation was too long. That's an hour. AN HOUR that was spent on that group. We still had 5 groups to go and only an hour and a half to do them

The next group went and their presentation was fantastic. Really well done, really well rehearsed, great presentation. Afterwards they opened it up for questions and here is where you got to see the ugly side of Penn. The students went for the throat trying to get the presenters to screw up. I looked over at Twitchy and noticed that he had made a list of places where they hadn't provided enough information. He and others proceeded to ask questions at rapid fire pace. There was no doubt about it, they wanted blood. Adrenaline was rushing through me, this is kind of fun! 

If I thought that was fun then I was in for an amusement parks worth of fun for the next presentation. It was the tool group presentation, remember, the two that ditches us? They had handouts and as their partner handed us the hand out she said "oh, you guys are probably doing the same project". We looked at the pamphlet and realized they had stolen Twitchy's original idea (which we were no longer doing). I thought it was hilarious, Twitchy was outraged. He started fuming and cursing, which made me laugh even harder. Everything about it was exactly the same. Epic. Their presentation was fine, one of the better ones in the class, but Twitchy was intent on drawing blood during the question and answer section. His hand shot up before they were even done presenting and he went on the warpath. Cue me laughing again. The question and answer section ended with one of their group members calling him an elitist jackass. As Twitchy's questions were actually legit and didn't warrant a insult like that, I tried to stifle my laughter. All efforts were fruitless, however, when I got a text from Ari (who was sitting two chairs away) that said "Wow, Twitchy's going to take his anger out on some poor unsuspecting bar patron tonight...). Touche, Ari, touche.

After World War III ended Ari's group was supposed to go. Unfortunately Penn doesn't have an honor code and another group openly stole their spot. You could cut the competition in the room with a knife. It was great. At this point we had a half hour to fit in 3 more groups. Ari and her group were outraged that they had lost their spot and even more outraged when Twitchy went up to the professor and told him that he had to leave at exactly 8:15 so we had to go next. When Twitchy got back I asked him where he had to go and he said "I haven't been back to my room since noon, I can't stay any longer". I was stunned. I also had not been back to my room since noon and I had an hour of traveling ahead of me but I intended to stay. I sensed trouble.

We're not going to discuss the fourth group as their idea was crap and totally unreasonable. They also took the full half hour we had left to present. After they were done I got up to present. Or at least I thought I did, until Twitchy stood up and said "I have to go and so does Tanner". Tanner woke up from his nap to say "wait, what? Where do I have to go?" I said "I'm staying, let's present". But Tanner and Twitchy ganged up on me and asked the professor if we can present to him during office hours next week.  I was appalled. I was supposed to be done by next week. Done forever, done with EVERYTHING. I CAN'T PROLONG THE PAIN! The professor says that's fine and Twitchy runs out of there. I ask if Tanner and I can just present right then and Tanner says "nah, I'd rather do it next week" and leaves. I try to muster up the words to ask if I can present by myself but I'm too upset. I can't even form words, I'm just looking around the classroom astonished to make sure everyone else realizes how I was just dicked over. I could have done a fantastic presentation by myself. I do great presentations, hilarious ones. I could have joked about Twitchy's douchiness and Tanner's alcoholoism, it would have been great! Instead Ari and her group go up there, thus ending Ari's pain, while I sit still and fight back tears. I was supposed to be done.

As I'm leaving the professor calls me over. He apologizes for not stopping the first group when they ran long. I'm usually good at mustering up fake forgiveness, saying 'yea, it's fine, don't worry'. I can't bring myself to do that. I just stood there trying to get the words out before saying "yea. This sucks". I've definitely won the sympathy vote in that class, that's for sure. 

I got back to Bryn Mawr and told my story to the crew. They're all outraged as well. Nicky suggests I send my professor a link to this blog with the message "it's all outlined here". I laughed, but a strongly worded e-mail is in the works, don't worry. We laugh it off and I go to bed, completely bummed out that it's not over. God I hate Penn.