Docu Night V!

Due to poor scheduling, I wrote what is probably my favorite blog entry ever only 2 hours before Docu Night. Now I'm forced to relegate it to the second position so that I stick to schedule. I've been weighing the pros and cons of delaying the posting Docu Night all day.  

Pros-I don't think any of my readers other than Megan and Nicky actually care for Docu Night postings, thus no one would miss them

Cons-If I don't stick to the schedule then I'll feel guilty. And I'm already feeling guilty about too many other missed deadlines. 

Moral of the story? If you haven't read my one act play, please continue on down after you're done with this post. If you have read my one act play, please read it again. You're not getting gold like that for a lonnnnnnng time. Also I apologize for the formatting. I don't know how to fix it.

On to Documentary Night V! Tonight's choice? Spellbound, the 2002 flick that follows 8 contestants in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee. What you should know before reading this? Megan used to do spelling bees. She never made it to the big show. This is quite possibly the most defining failure of her past. It made watching this movie that much more fun.

10:00-Lets go! I give my speech. Quite possibly the best speech ever given at a Doc night. I playfully pretend that we're going to watch the 1945 classic Spellbound starring Gregory Peck. I then make everyone participate in a spelling bee. No one spells correctly, not even Megan, spelling bee extraordinaire.

10:04-Paige announces that her future husband is in the movie. We throw a few pedophile jokes around...even though these people are actually older than us by now.

10:06-It starts with some facts on spelling bees. We all start teasing Megan that she was never good enough to go to the national bee. This teasing will not stop.

10:08-Someone tries to passive agressively take over the tv by standing behind us and calling her friend mentioning that "she's in the common room but Top Chef isn't on the TV even though they reserved the TV room". Nice try, we've reserved it for every Wednesday night

10:10-An old couple comes on TV, hilarious. The room decides that's me and Nicky in 70 years. They're being offensive to Mexicans. Apparently not ALL Mexicans are bums and trannies. 

10:12-There is a teacher on the screen holding without a doubt the LARGEST teddy bear I've ever seen.

10:13-They're at the regional spelling bee right now. Bitter Megan over here, speller 1 I should mention, went to the regional spelling bee in Arizona. She lost. If you can't even win the Phoenix regional spelling bee..that says a lot about you. Megan is clearly having flashbacks to 'nam everytime they ring the bell. This is going to be a long night

10:15-Megan brings up an unfortunate 8th grade spelling moment. I question her and she snaps. 

10:16-I should mention that there is a giant cardboard and tin foil model of sputnik sitting behind the TV. We don't ask questions. 

10:19-They interview the three boys that Nupur (spoiler alert, she wins) beat in the school bee. Three CRAZY nerdy guys standing by a fence. This might be the highlight of my life. I'm pretty sure I saw all of them at Haverford the other day.

10:20-The Hooters restaurant in town puts up a Congratulations sign for their speller. Irony of ironies...they spelled congratulations wrong

10:21-Paiges future husband appears. His names Ted. He looks like a douche. But so is Paige...so it'll clearly be a happy marriage. We decide to Wikipedia him. To our horror we discover that he died in 2007, possible suicide. Oh. Paige is distraught.

10:26-This movie now takes on a whole new tone now that we know Ted committed suicide...one of those "how did we not see this coming" situations.

10:29-We're on the Emily.  She's from Connecticut. She was appalled that her mom didn't invite the Au Pair to the spelling bee, then was so surprised that she actually enjoyed hanging out with her parents. Oh Connecticut. 

10:36-We meet Ashley from Washington. Not too memorable but Wikipedia tells us she had a teen pregnancy but later went to Howard. We all consider making a teen pregnancy joke before deciding against it.

10:39-Now we meet Neil. His Dad has a creepy smile. Neil is very into physical fitness. He's apparently 12, he looks and sounds like he's 40.  He discusses seeing white flashes for a day after the regional bee....he said it was excitement, that sounds like a stroke to me. His house has hypoalergenic trees. That's too cool

10:40-Nicky's laughing at other people's religion. She's been shunned

10:44-Now we have April, she's from Ambler...that's not too far from here

10:46-April likes to ride Roller Coasters and is a vegetarian. Her dad works at a pub, we decide to search it out soon.

10:48-Nowwwwwww here's the star of the movie, Harry from NJ. He's the poster child for ADHD. We all want to be his friend...immediately.

10:53-We're in Washington now. Let's watch them interact

10:54-Alex Cameron, the announcer for the spelling bee, makes an appearance. He is VERY full of himself.

10:55-Nicky and I discover that we have BOTH stayed at the Embassy Suites that the participants are staying at

11:00-Paige want's to know how they knew to follow the girl that's going to win (we cheated and wikipediaed it) I suggest that they rigged the spelling bee. Ted just got out, we're all depressed. I love his family. 

11:01-The word Wheedle has just been given. Megan declares it to be a "classic spelling bee word". One more reference to her former glory days as a spelling champ and I'm going to punch her in the face.

11:02-"Thank YOU Dr. Cameron". I can see that becoming the quote of the night

11:04-Nicky makes fun of the same kid's religion...again. She does not learn.

11:05-Megan made another reference to her glory day and tried to spell the current contestants word. Unfortunately, like the contestant, she spelled the word wrong. Says Paige "HA! Now you both lose!" I decide against punching her in the face due to Paige's comment

11:06-We wonder if any of them ever drop the F-bomb when they lose

11:10-Nicky makes another inappropriate reference to a contestant, different from the last one though. I give up. 

11:13-We meet former contestants. Says Megan of one "He's covered in children!"

11:14-We take this time to razz Megan about how any of these people "could have been her". Wow, what a failure Megan is. 

11:15-Nicky's still talking about the time she spent at the Embassy Suites

11:16-Poor Harry. He's being yelled at to turn towards the microphone. He fails. Megan empathizes with him. 

11:23-The remaining spellers have made it to the ESPN live broadcast. Marking the only time they will EVER be associated with anything sports related. 

11:28-The girl who brought us "Thank You Dr. Cameron" just brought us an over done bow. We've decided she goes to Bryn Mawr, she's just that kind of girl. Tomorrow we will find her.

11:30-They've thrown a new kid into the mix. His name is George and he pronounces his R's funny (I've been there buddy, I feel ya). We're now on the edge of our seats whenever he spells hoping they give him a word with an R in it.

11:32-The girl from CT is finally out. We did not like her. No reason given, we just didn't.  Paige thinks it's because she acts like she's 40

11:33-Nicky notes that one girl is a Lefty. Nicky can tell you the names of every left handed person ever.

11:34-Our favorite is out. She got 4th. Not too bad

11:36-George gets a word, he pronounces it Coodle. I get upset because there are no R's in that word. Turns out the word is Curdle. He gets it wrong.

11:37-Our last view of Ted. We all sigh.

11:38-Dr. Cameron is giving us a speech about the American way. I don't like his tone

11:40-Nupur wins. 

11:41-Nicky: I would like to apologize for my actions tonight.

Next week Ari will be presenting "My Architect" a look into the life of architect Louis Kahn. I will be late, but hopefully will make the second half.

Prepster Love

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet on my blog, but hipsters drive me insane. Even worse is the preppy hipster, the prepster (use definition number 2). The prepster, let's call him Will, went to prep school, lets say Lawrenceville just to piss Caroline off. He was popular but never the big guy on campus, was the manager of the girls LAX team in order to fulfill the mandatory sports requirement, that sort of thing. Next he went to a liberal arts college because he didn't want to be like the man and go to the Ivies/was rejected from the Ivies. For the purpose of this story let's say Amherst, still fairly tooly, but near Hampshire which gives it hipster cred. During college he got a little too involved in artsy extra-curriculars and stopped going to class. At risk of failing out, withdrew and convinced his parents that he needed a year off to "find himself". He started the year in Europe, backpacking through London, Paris and a random city that sounds off the radar of most people but actually is really popular with all American's in Europe...we'll go with Budapest. After running through most of his money by August he moved back to the states. Too scared to move to hipster central in Brooklyn, he instead settled for Philadelphia, bunking with his house buddy from L'ville who's a senior at Penn. During the day while his buddy, let's call him Andy, goes to management classes at Wharton, Will wanders the city taking pictures and being "inspired". The year of fun ends and rather than heading back to Amherst to finish his degree in english literature, Will stays in Philadelphia. By this point Andy has moved to New York to start a job at, uh, something that's still in operation there. Will is thus faced with a money shortage and a lack of housing. So he moves to a Northern Liberties row home with some guys he met at a bar on South St and earns some bucks "writing". His mother also sends him a monthly allowance for his secret J. Crew habit, but shhh, don't tell the roommates. He and Andy videochat on their respective Macs every night...well, every night that Andy isn't living the dream at some trendy bar, so basically once a week. Andy tells Will of the lunch meetings with Donald Trump, the never ending flow of champagne and vodka, and his apartment overlooking Central Park. Will is beginning to wonder if he made the right decisions. His hipster friends are really starting to piss him off. He doesn't really want to spend the night at another Rock Paper Scissors tourniment, and truthfully he was never really a fan of excessive cocaine usage. He's too stubborn to admit that he was wrong, however, so he deals. Every morning, while his roommates sleep off their hangovers on the mattresses spread around their cigarette butt littered living room, Will put on his khakis, pulls on his topsiders and throws a backward baseball cap onto his head before biking downtown. There he does some freelance writing for a blog about unicycle usage in the city. The tragic world of the prepster, hating his life, but too proud to go back to being a slave for the man. 

What is the point of this? The point is that I spent the other day hanging out at Remedy Tea in Center City, trying to write my thesis, but instead I watched the most tragic love story between a prepster and a hipster. Fascinating. I will now present "Of Trustfunds and Irony" a one act play describing my morning at a tea shop. Starring Will. 

Scene: Remedy Tea, 10:00 AM. Will walks into the tea shop with his laptop bag slung across his shoulder. The shop is empty, except for an extremely bitter young woman in the corner muttering something about the "God Damn Irish". Will orders a small iced tea and sits down by the window and begins to write. Shortly after a young hipster woman comes through the door. She orders a tea then goes to sit down at a table. 

Woman: Oh hi! Will right?

Will: *blank stare*

Woman: Ellie...we met at Troy's rager last week?

Will: grimacing at the reminder of the awful party ohh....hi! Uh, how are you doing

Ellie: sitting down on table next to Will I'm fantastic! How can you not be fantastic after what happened last night! I mean, after all these months of work it's so hard to believe that Obama is actually finally our President. I mean, I have my hang ups with him, but in general I just feel so alive this morning. What are your feelings on universal healthcare?

Will: silence

Ellie: I just think that it's something that not one even wants to talk about. Just look at Canada, why aren't we more like Canada? Everything is better in Canada. Have you heard the newest "Of Montreal" CD

Will: no....I haven't....but, uh, Canada's great wistfully remembers sophomore year Spring Break he spent there with his buddies. Able to drink legally before they were able to in the states. Oh college.....

Ellie: Oh it's fantastic Coldplays "Fix You" comes on the intercom oh WOW, I LOVE this song. This one really speaks to me.

Will: excited he can finally contribute Yea! Coldplay's great! I love Yellow too, that's a great one.

The two continue to name generic Coldplay songs that are on all of the Top 40 lists

Ellie: Well, I need to go do work. I brought ear plugs so that I can get stuff done, I hate it when everyone tries to talk to you while working

In the corner, the young anti-Irish woman guffaws loudly. Both characters get back to work. After about an hour a shy young woman carrying numerous art sketches enters

Woman:.....hi will...

Will recognizes the woman as the one he met at Duncan's art gallery opening at the McDonalds last week. He had been meaning to call her.

Woman: I'm sorry, you probably don't remember me, I'm Sara

Will: no, no, of course I remember you! folds laptop down how, uh, how are you?

Sara: oh, I'm just fine, what are you doing? Do you work?

Will: hesitant well....I write. How about you

Sara: I'm trying to get into art school

silence. Will desperately wants to ask for her number, but is too afraid dive further into this hipster thing. 

Sara: well, I uh, better be going...

In the background Ellie has removed her ear plugs and is starring at the two

Will: WAIT! Are you going to Fiona's electric violin concert tonight? It's to benefit victims of...oh I forget what...but are you going?

Ellie: WHAT!?!?! unable to take it any longer she runs up to the table I'll be at Fiona's benefit! I'm running the cash box actually. I care deeply about the cause

Sara: What's the cause?

silence

Sara: umm, yea...I guess I'll be there

Ellie:glaring at Sara Good. Because Will and I are going

Will: Rolls eyes Um, Sarah, can I have your number so I can call you with more details

Ellie: Do you want my number too?

Will: sighing yea.....

Numbers are exchanged. Sara excuses herself to continue her wandering of the city. Will opens laptop to begin writing again. Ellie retreats to her table, and begins text messaging Will now that she has his number. Fake laughter ensues. After a few minutes a guy wanders by, spots Will and bangs on the window to get his attention. Angry anti-Irish woman in the corner openly exclaims "WHAT THE HELL!"

Will: Troy! Hey! packs up work and wanders outside to say hi 

Ellie:Banging on window TROY! TROY! HEY! IT'S ME! ELLIE! HELLO!?!?!

Troy and Will walk down the street, leaving Ellie starring out the window. Ellie turns and notices the angry woman who mutters things starring at her with a big smile on her face. Ellie gives a nervous smile back and sullenly returns to work. Ten minutes later Troy and Will walk by. Ellie bangs on window to get their attention

Troy: Through window HEY! WE'RE GOING TO THE STORE TO GET FOOD FOR TONIGHT! WHAT KIND OF APPETIZERS DO YOU WANT!

Ellie: I LIKE NUTS!

Troy: WHAT?!!

Ellie: I. LIKE. NUTS! NUTS! GET NUTS! I LOVE NUTS

Troy and Will shrug, Will runs into shop quickly to see what girl wanted

Ellie: Nuts. I want nuts tonight. lowers voice umm...have you noticed that the girl next to us only types when we talk.....?

Will: Turns and gives girl a big "yea...I know, we're tools" smile uhh, no...you must be paranoid.  Walks away before Ellie has the chance to say anything else

Annnnnd Scene.

Maybe I don't hate prepsters more than hipsters. I just hate their life choices. Can I turn this in instead of my thesis?

Gone Thesising

Major deadline coming up. Might not be conscious this week. Amuse yourselves by watching the forgotten gem of my childhood, Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain (guess what I watched last night).

When you're done enjoying that, amuse yourself further by reading the Wikipedia page.

It was clearly written by a 12 year old for 7th grade English class.

Back soon, hopefully.

Documentary Wednesday Post!

This post is being written from Remedy Tea in Philadelphia. Wooo, field trip. I decided that if I shelled out some money to get into the city and buy a beverage of some sort (very delcious Earl Grey tea in fact) that might force me to write my thesis out of guilt. So far it's going well. The place is deserted, has delicious tea, and other than the angry cashier who keeps starring at me as I'm the only person here, very comfortable.

And now for my diary of Docu-Night IV (I've missed two documentary nights...sorry)

Documentary Night 11/5
10:00-Tonight's movie is Grey Gardens, a documentary about Big and Little Edie Beale. The Beales are the cousin and aunt of Jackie O. They lived together in a dilapidated mansion in the Hamptons. They were effing insane. Apparently this movie is hilarious, let's see.
10:01-Showdown for control of the TV room. Seniors win, as always
10:04-Catherine gives the opening speech dressed as young Edie from the movie. Fun fact: Jackie O had to donate $32,000 to clean the Beale house up.
10:06-Showdown over the party mix and Nicky's birthday cookie. The rest of us are pissed because we didn't get birthday cookies in our mailbox this year, we thought they had stopped that. Nicky somehow got one. Now she has the balls to make fun of the party mix that we're chowing down on while she eats her precious cookie. This got very hostile very fast.
10:08-I can't understand a word they're saying
10:17-I honestly have no clue what's going on
10:18-The phrase "Fake Mexican Divorce" was just used. In related news we had Mexican Orange Torte at dinner tonight, best dessert ever!
10:22-the people we just fought for control of the room are making noise in the next room over. Paige turns the TV up really loud to drown them out. I cover my ears and demand that it be turned back down....I don't like loud noises
10:30-We decide that we really don't like this documentary. These people are clearly mentally troubled.  This isn't funny like Grizzly Man. BOOOOOOO!
10:33-"She's not mentally disturbed, she's just old"
10:36-We discuss a friend who is related to the Kennedy family. We're noticing some eeiry similarities between her and the Beales.
10:40-Ari claims the oldest documentary in existence is about a coal mining town in PA. Nicky want's to know if that documentary is the 1983 Tom Cruise classic "All the Right Moves". Drew agrees with me that it's a quality film, everyone else just groans.
10:45-Gah, stop yelling!
10:56-I'm making my powerpoint rather than watching. I've given up. I need to start becoming more proactive about picking the documentaries
11:02-Ari: Have any of you ever seen cats do it? Everyone in room: Of cour...actually....no.... This is a mystery that will haunt me for the rest of the night.
11:05-Paige announces that she has a documentary about the documentary in case we're interested. We all decline
11:07- The Beales are talking about someone named "Golandsky" (Chiz, this one's for you)
11:12: The Beales have a sign that says "In Bathtub" that they put on their door. I need one of those
11:32-This is still going on?
11:39-Seriously, this has to end soon right?
11:40-It's over, time for post-documentary discussion. Paige is trying to get us to watch the documentary about the documentary. I refuse.
11:42-Time to choose next weeks, I've thrown Spellbound back into the ring. It goes! I get to give next weeks speech. Megan gets angry because she suggested it last time and was denied the opportunity to give the speech. This might get ugly. Stay tuned for next week.

Election Day

A few of my favorite moments from Election Day returns

What is your top patriotic moment?
Megan: Singing patriotic songs for Barry Goldwater
Nicky: Singing National Anthem at school olympics
Shannon: "I'll get back to you"
Megan wins this round

-The Extreme Keys sing National Anthem. I am the only person I see to stand up. OMP taught me well. After standing amongst the crowd of chairs for a few moments the girl next to me mutters "she's right you know" and joins me. That was a quality moment. I then sat down and reported my terrorist pinko commie friends to homeland security.
-Poll workers send word that we were all lovely today and that they would love for us to vote again. We all give ourselves a cheer, we really think highly of ourselves. I wonder what would happen if they didn't think we were lovely. Would they take away our voting rights?
-People start cheering because Philadelphia is on the news. What they don't realize is that we're watching NBC10. Dawn Timmeney is not some hot shot new network anchor...just a Philly news anchor (and George School grad!)
-The CNN guy with the pedo 'stache uses his magic pen to write Bush Bush Bush all over the map. Giggles ensue
-MEGAN WON A RAFFLE! Our streak is over. It's an election day miracle
-I WON A RAFFLE! There are rumors that the raffle was rigged so that I'd win. I will not address those rumors *shifty eyes*, alright fine, I had the raffle rigged, so sue me. Best part was right as they called my number Brian Williams announced that Ohio had gone Obama. Place went nuts, I assumed it was going nuts for me...nope, not at all.
-We switched locations. We are now at Paige's friend Ursulas apartment. She has beer, food and cable. I'm extremely disappointed in the Daily Show coverage right now. Ursula's dog is trying to eat my thesis. I'm doing little to stop her.
-Obama Wins! We decide to do a shot. All Ursula has is Peach Schnaps. It'll have to do. Sweet Jesus that was awful. Says Nicky: It tastes like hope! Hope tastes a little like burning.
-We debate whether or not Chris Matthews was correct to say that we've "changed history". I claim that you cannot change history, Megan claims it's a non-issue.
-Word comes though that all the gay marriage bans have gone through. Our mood drops. Obama better have a quality acceptance speech.
-Ursula-"Man, Obama must be really psyched" uhhh....yea, one could say that
-Obama's girls are getting a puppy. That's all I needed to hear, I'm sold.
-Walk back to Bryn Mawr, people drive by and honk their horns. It's very reminiscent of the Phillies winning. I hope this becomes a regular event, it's fun! This walk is longer than we imagined it would be
-We hear cheering in the distance, as we get closer we make out Annassing (Bryn Mawr's special cheer)...and fireworks....is Bryn Mawr...celebrating? Are they actually....having fun? A police car drives by us, good God! Is Bryn Mawr rioting? Answer? no. We get to campus and we just hear the faint sounds of cheering and annassing through the trees. It's almost poetic. A small group of underclassmen gather and shout O-BAM-A. In the distance I see some Obama streakers. Still, nothing of the riot that I could have sworn I heard. Rumor has it we missed quite the spectacle when world first came that he had won. Around me cheers emerge from the darkness, faceless cries of hope and dreams yet to be crushed. The underclassmen wonder aloud if any seniors are around to start the annass. Nicky walks by with a smile and casually throws out an ANNASSA! The gathered crowd, unable to start the Annass due to their underclassmen status, follow suit with KATA KALE! IA IA IA NIKE! BRYN MAWR! BRYN MAWR! BRYN MAWR! OBAMAAAAAAA! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! It's a moment. It's a start of something new.

The Most Dangerous Weekend Ever

On Friday afternoon my e-mail inbox overflowed. E-mail after e-mail from the deans reminding us of proper safety procedures. Most of these were pertaining to our Halloween party, which is widely agreed to be not only Bryn Mawr's best party, but our only party. I had to give a laugh when the final safety e-mail came up "White Hot Lantern Safety". Last night was Lantern Night (we'll get to that later) and this was an e-mail about how to handle your lantern without getting burned. Nicky was a bit overwhelmed and deemed this the "most dangerous weekend ever".

So what happened?

I don't really know how to accurately describe Halloween without ruining my chances for post-graduation employment. So I'll just put up this picture instead

Remember when I said that Grizzly Man inspired my Halloween costume? Nicky went as Grizzly Man and I went as the bear that killed him. We took some creative license. I went as "Mr Chocolate" from the film. Mr Chocolate was not the bear that killed Grizzly Man, but he definitely had the best name. I apologize for slandering the name of a good bear. I live in fear that we're going to end up on one of those college websites that call people out for inappropriate Halloween costumes. Also, funny story. My friend Shannon has a job making videos about college life for Unigo.com. She was interviewing us for a movie about our Halloween costumes when Nicky gave this gem

Nicky: Well, this Halloween costume was pretty easy to make. I just took a white t-shirt and put some paint on it to look like blood. Last year I was a derranged nurse so I just....took a white t-shirt and put some paint on it.....

For someone so good at crafting you would think she'd be a bit more creative.

Last night was Lantern Night, one of our 4 major traditions. Every student gets a lantern in their class color (mine is red). They're really pretty and it's nice to have something that every graduate of Bryn Mawr for the past 100 years also has. Last night the Frosh recieved their lanterns. As much as I love to bitch about Bryn Mawr when I'm up to my ears in work, I can't lie, the traditions are fun. Lantern Night is hard to explain as you're all going to think I'm crazy. So I'm going to put it this way, have you ever seen The Skulls? Then you've seen Lantern Night. Robes, greek chanting, darkness and candles (in the lanterns)...if it wasn't so poignant it would be hilarious. I'm having a problem here because I really want to make fun of Lantern Night, it's just that creepily crazy....but it's also really beautiful. For a good half hour I loved Bryn Mawr. Then I remembered the paper that I was writing that was due last week and the rough draft of both my thesis and my research paper that are due next week and I promptly started swearing again. 

It's crunch time. I'm not allowed to have any fun for the next month and a half. If you see me having fun or hear that I had fun, slap me. It's all downhill after that. 

Link of the Week

Nicky and I stumbled upon this today while trying to find Halloween costumes

Nicky: "Does that say....omg, is it really called that?"