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Minutes from the Meeting of the Bryn Mawr Masochists

Plenary is a bi-annual meeting where we all like to feel like we accomplished something. We submit motions in order to enact change in ways we see fit on campus. We all arrive bright eyed and bushy tailed, we all leave feeling like we've been hit in the face with a shovel. It's really no different than any other weekend at Bryn Mawr when you think about it. I love Plenary because it's one of two times during the year when a large portion of the school (one third if I'm not mistaken?) gathers together in one room, making it easy for me to make fun of them. I kept a blog throughout the million hour marathon for your entertainment. Plus a few pictures and videos! Multi-media entertainment.

A few facts before we begin

-We had three resolutions to discuss. Plenaries of yore have had between 3 and 11 ( I made that last number up, but it's around there) so this is looking good for our chances of getting out

-Quorum is 423 people. That means in order for any vote to pass, 423 people must be in the gym. 

Everything else may sound crazy and confusing, that's because it is. Try and hang on for the ride.

Hooray for Plenary!

11:00: We arrive....no one is here
11:05-We get a quality seat near the con mike. Excellent for mocking people.
11:30-In retrospect sitting next to the trash can was a poor decision
11:47-Megan: Oh no. Acapella...God save us all!
11:55-The first Annass of the day, could it be...yes, we have quorum. Hey now, not just quorum but 5 over quorum! Awesome.
12:02-What's your favorite part of Plenary? Megan likes when we vote to vote
12:03-I've already lost my voting card. This does not bode well
12:08-RAFFLE TIME!
12:10-I didn't win this round. 4 years of perfect Plenary attendance...never won a raffle. That streak will end today. Mark my words.
12:12-First resolution. Releasing of room draw numbers a week early. Yes. These are the things we vote on.
12:15-No one wants to discuss this issue. Straight to vote
12:20-RAFFLE TIME! 

Nicky: Commmme onnnn, Nicky needs a new free t-shirt!
12:21-We're shut out again. I will not leave this room without a free item of some sort.
12:25-The 5 of us are the only people to vote against the resolution. For those of you keeping count, thats 418 Mawrtyrs vs. the 5 of us. This is without a doubt my favorite Plenary moment ever.
12:29- Plenary dance off. I'm not even going to begin to describe the motley crue of Mawrtyrs up there. It really is awkward. Wow. This isn't dancing. This is hopping. I object. 

Paige: This is the saddest thing I've ever seen.

We've decided to exercise our right to abstain from voting. There is nothing more awkward than when you vote and no one cheers for a participant.
12:37-A new resolution. People are openly not caring.
12:39- Our first usage of "With all due respect" at the mics.
12:44-For those of you who are interested, we're discussing whether or not we need hardcopy course guides or if we can just save paper by doing away with them.
12:47-Someone just called the Bryn Mawr population lazy. love it.
12:49-An amendment!

12:53-There's bad coffee, there's rancid coffee, and then there's dining services coffee. I think I just drank battery acid
12:56-Some of the deans are here watching this chucklefuck. I wonder what they think while they sit there. I wonder if it's hard for them to keep from cracking up at our hopes and dreams
1:00-An amendment to the amendment!

Ari and Marianna discuss the amendment to the amendment

1:05-RAFFLE TIME!
1:06-Vintage plenary t-shirts!
1:09-We wrote out a dirty word on our plenary cards with each one of us being a different letter. We're 5 years old and we're proud of it.

(The camera on my computer does everything backward...I am aware that the N is backward, it wasn't in real life)
1:10-This just in, cake has been reduced to 75 cents a slice. Spread the word. In related news bagels and fruit are free.
1:13-RAFFLE TIME! If you're confused as to why I haven't written about anything resolution related for the past 15 minutes....that's because nothings happened.
1:17-There is one boy in a room of 450 females. What a great boyfriend he is. We can smell his fear.
1:26-NO CLAPPING! Don't you DARE show your support for your fellow Mawrtyrs opinions.
1:30-What's your favorite part of Plenary? Nicky likes it when people cry.

1:35-The first resolution to divide the group. And our dirty word. I should also note that we're at the point in the day when they take away our food. Things are about to get ugly.
1:37-It's taken us 2 hours to pass one and a half amendments, we have one and a half more to go. Haverford isn't starting their Plenary until late tonight and they have 13 resolutions to pass.
1:41-We just lost quorum. Here's a video to give you an idea of the Plenary process

1:45-I just tried to avoid the woman's room line by going to the bathroom in the men's room, as per suggestion. Just as I was about to walk in, a man walked in. So I detoured into the wom en's locker room. There i was met face to face with a stark naked elderly woman. It wouldn't be Plenary without a naked old woman.
1:53-RAFFLE TIME!
2:05-The angry phone calls to friends have begun again. "IT IS YOUR DUTY AS A MAWRTYR TO BE HERE!" love it.
2:06-I think I've lost the will to live...but on the plus side, RAFFLE TIME!
2:10-There's awkward, there's dance off awkward, and then there's Mawrtyrs dancing to Kanye awkward. I do believe that we've finished with Plenary and moved on a Friday night middle school dance
2:16-I whip out my cell phone to call my friends, as was demanded. I realize that very few of my cell phone contacts attend BMC. Consider calling Chiz and asking her to come to Plenary and pretend to be a Mawrtyr.
2:20-We were just told that we're "technically here by choice".
2:24-Someone almost just won the dance off by default. Everyone else didn't even bother to show up to the finals. They mana[ged to pull everyone else up like a dentist pulling teeth
2:32-Still no quorum
2:42-Moment of the day, people making phone calls to friends on their cellphone and having the entire room demand that they come. We do things as a team here. still no quorum
2:53-Annnnnnnd now for the Soulja Boy-ing....I think it goes without saying that we still don't have quorum
2:57-QUORUM! Thank god. For those of you keeping count, that was an hour and sixteen minutes that we didn't officially have quorum.
3:10-I'm going to lose power before Plenary ends. Start imagining your own ending.
3:11-WE PASSED A RESOLUTION! One more to go. The option to uncover credit/no credit grades. This is going to be a debateable one.
3:16-The toilet won't stop flushing. I want everyone to take a moment and consider the irony of us voting to conserve paper at the same moment we're flushing gallons and gallons of water every second.
3:17-Unnecessary questions. Unnecessary questions. Totally irrelevant
3:20-Oooo, Darby's talking
3:21-Our second usage of the day of "with all due respect" ironically by the same person who used it the first time
3:22-A woman just had a debate with herself over the microphone over whether she is class of '10 or '010. It's hard to be a not-senior. '09! '09!
3:25-This resolution is apparently in the spirit of "Bi-Co Cooperation".....right-o
3:30-Ooooo, Andrea's talking.
3:33-RAFFLE TIME!
3:40-We are so.close. to being allowed out of here. so.close.
3:44-In case you're wondering...we still haven't settled the dance off
3:46-RAFFLE TIME
3:47-WE'RE DONE!

Conclusion: I didn't win a raffle, I went 1-2 on my votes (One thing passed that I was for, two things passed that I was against) and my leg fell asleep. Dinner better be good tonight

Cozying Up to the Best Bar In Town

My computer invited me out to a bar today. The Apple genius bar that is. It's been trying to get me out there for the past two months, refusing to charge until I agreed to a date. The month before I went to school it was just a matter of making our schedules work. I would have to drive out to Ardmore by six. Between work and simply not caring enough, I politely declined. Once I got back to school, there really was no excuse. It was becoming increasingly annoying to make sure it was plugged in at all times, and I wasn't able to take it anywhere outside my room. So I finally agreed to go to the bar with my computer. I made it clear to the computer, let's call him Mac, that I was not looking for this to become a routine thing. Mac and I jumped in the car after work today and headed down Montgomery Ave for our date at the bar. We arrived a little early (we had called ahead and made a reservation....well, I did. Mac's not the chivalrous type) so we wasted a little bit of time trying to mow down Main Line teens in the mall parking lot. Truthfully we didn't even have to try. It was like a video game where they just jump out at you. After that got old we sauntered into the store and up to the bar. We were still a little early, so we flirted with some other Apple goods. I tried to make Mac jealous by looking at some new computers, but he's not exactly old meat himself. Just as I was getting friendly with some snazzy speakers, they called our name. We pulled up a stool at the bar and a bartender came on over. There were three of them, each representing three stereotypical Mac users. The one to our left was California-surfer-esque. Cool, collected, he could fix your computer just by smiling at it. The one to my right was small and fidgety, pierced in any spare piece of skin. Our bartender (or genius as they preferred to be called) was the hipster. Faux-hawked, black plastic glasses, he looked like he had come straight from Haverford. "What can I get for you" he asked, whipping out his bar rag to give Mac a quick dusting. "Err, sorry about that, he's a bit dirty" I muttered as the genius began to panic about the amount of dust on him, "I live on the top floor of a very old building, lot's of dust". "oh?" he looked up "You live in Philadelphia?" He was interested, hipsters love Philadelphia, it's their mecca. "No....what? When did I say that? I live up at Bryn Mawr". "Oh." He looked back at the computer, angry, hipsters hate elitism. I explained that we were looking for just a little bit of juice for Mac. He needed a drink, if you will. He needed a new battery. The genius started pressing buttons. It soon became clear that he hadn't listened to what was wrong at all. I looked to the left. Surfer boy was charming the pastel pants suit off of the Main Line mother with the broken computer. I looked to the right, Mousy pierced guy was cracking up over a joke with the Asian girl who didn't know how to use Adobe. I looked ahead. Hipster was sighing at my computer. "Looks like your battery is dead" he finally replies. "err....yes?" I reply "Can I get a new one....?". "Yea, yea, sure.....can I clean your computer?" he abruptly asks. "uhhhh, of course...." I look around at all of the shiny white computers gleaming in the florescent lighting. I scramble to make up an excuse for why Mac is covered in crumbs and dust. "This guy's been all over for the past year" I try, "Europe, New Jersey, now here". Genius looks up "New Jersey? Really?". I can't tell if he's mocking me or honestly excited about New Jersey. After the events of my class the other day, I firmly believe that New Jersey has a cult following amongst Pennsylvanians. While they openly despise it, secretly they love it for our cheap beer and gas. He sets to work giving Mac a good cleaning, until he too shines like the freshly opened computers. I can't hold back a smile, he looks gooooood. The genius cracks a smile "Ahhh, there's really nothing like a sparkling white Apple product". My face must have twisted into some sort of judgmental smirk because he then sheepishly looked down at the ground and muttered "well...at least to me". He sticks a new battery into Mac and tells me that this ones on the house (I wish real bars had warranties). I shake his hand and ask his name, "Nathan, I'm Nathan". His name would be Nathan, such a hipster name. I wonder if he changed it to match his haircut. Mac and I skipped out of there, ready to begin a long week of thesising.  Sometimes a trip to the bar really does help your productivity.

Just a simple quote

Professor: I need these forms TODAY! You must hand them in TODAY! I will not accept them after TODAY!

Student: Can we turn them in tomorrow?

Professor:.....yea, that would be fine I guess. 

Not sure what it was about that quote, but I have been cracking up for the past 24 hours whenever I think about it. 

Without a Coach and Players....Are We Still a Club?

I spent my weekend ignoring my work. I felt that supporting Penn athletics was clearly a better idea. In addition to Saturday's football game, I also went back to Penn on Sunday to watch a volleyball game against Seton Hall (although this time I was rooting for Seton Hall and my friend on the team). The drive back from Philadelphia after the game took 2 hours. I'm not exaggerating. I left Philadelphia at 7:30 and didn't arrive home until 9:30. For those of you keeping track at home, Bryn Mawr is 10 miles from Center City. I repeat. TWO HOURS! Apparently the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is run by Shipley parents, continuing in their efforts to keep me from getting home. By the time I made it home my head was throbbing and lights were flashing in my eyes. I stumbled into bed the minute I got home.

Why am I telling you this? Because this meant I didn't get any of the work I had to get done this weekend done. So I had to wake up crazy early on Monday morning and spend the day cranking out papers. I actually think I might have put more effort into them than anything else I would have spent the time on. Needless to say by 5 o clock, when I submitted the final one I was pretty beat and stressed out. I was excited, though, because we were having our first meeting of the squash club that night! I hadn't played since December and was anxious to get going again. Lots of people signed up at the activities fair and it was looking like it was going to be good. I got down to the bus stop to meet people. I waited. and waited. Evan, our treasurer, came down. We waited. The bus came. The bus left. It was just the two of us. Failure. We have no coach (let's not get started on that story), we have no players....we're not a club. Evan and I drop off the giant equipment bag in my room and head over to Haverford to play by ourselves. After about 15 minutes someone shows up looking for the club. We're overjoyed! A member! But we don't have any equipment.....So we rent a racquet ball racquet from the front desk....whatever works I guess. Now we're faced with another problem, Evan and I have to teach the girl how to play. After three years the responsibility has fallen on us. We don't even know where to begin. So we just start hitting the ball. Through the grace of God...the girl can play! She's making contact with the ball, she's understanding the rules....this is a miracle. I can't even describe the ridiculousness that is the first day that people are trying to learn the sport. It's usually chaos. But...she can play! About 20 minutes before we were about to leave, another girl shows up. She said she had played last semester. Evan and I decided to give them the two squash racquets that we had and watch them, just to see what they could do. And they could both play! I mean, we're by no means competition ready, playing publicly is not exactly on our horizon anytime soon. Evan and I high five. Maybe this club won't be as much of a failure as we thought it would be. 

Saturday Was Supposed To Be My Working Day...

I was enjoying some Scottish music last night. Feeling classy, doing a little singing, a little dancing (if bopping counts as dancing), it was good times. Then my cell phone started a buzzing, it was Ch'nel! She wanted to know if I wanted to do a 6 mile walk for autism the next morning. This had many plusses for me.

1. See Ch'nel, always good times

2. Walk for Autism awareness, something I support

3. Charity. I could use this as leverage when getting in a moral battle with someone this week. 

4. 6 miles. Counts as exercise, can be used as an excuse for why I'm too tired to be productive this weekend.

I'm in. 

I get up this morning and realize I have to get myself down to Philadelphia. I had plans to go to the walk, then go to a football game with a friend, then go out to dinner with some other friends. I was popular and I was going to milk it for all it's worth. I get to Citizens Bank Park, where the walk is, find Ch'nel, get to walking. Yea, by 6 miles, Chiz meant a stroll around the parking lot. If anyone asked, I walked 6 miles. You hear me? 6 miles. So while I had set out a good portion of time for this, we were done within a half hour. But whatever, Chiz and I just hung out in the ballpark for awhile. Very odd experience, sitting in an empty baseball field just shootin' the breeze. The early end meant that I could head back to BMC, drop off my car and shower. Which led to Saturday afternoon part II.

Remember last week when I went to Princeton? This week I chose Penn as my "sometimes I like to pretend I go to other colleges" location. Perhaps next week I'll hit up a mixer at Columbia. Penn was playing Villanova in football. As Nova is right up the street and Penn is technically connected to BMC through some shady consortium of some type, we figured this would be a good game to go to and pretend that we had a football team. When Alex and I got there we had to make a quick decision as to which team we would support. As some overly tanned Nova kids stumbled by us, we decided to head over to the Penn side. The game was pretty bad, but enjoyable none the less. Lots of Penn students showed up, as well as lots of other football less area college students (Drexel). The game ended in a tie and a very intense overtime began, ending with an anti-climatic fumble for Penn. I'll tell you though, if you had told me four years ago that I would be standing up cheering LET'S GO QUAKERS! I would have thrown whatever piece of orange colored Princeton clothing I had at you and called you a damn liar. I wish we had a football team around here. I really do. 

A few other friends were in the city as well, so we met them for dinner down at the Marathon Grill. While I had heard great things, lets just say it rivaled JL Ivies for the award for worst service ever (if this blog had any pull, I would have just ruined the reputations of two delicious restaurants...some day, that will be the case). At one point the very annoyed waiter threw the order book down on the table and said 'Alright, alright, let's go'. We then practically had to send up flares in order to get their attention again. But the food was good....

The reason for staying in the city passed 6:30 was that SEPTA was free today. Woo. We, of course, arrived at the train station 5 minutes after the train had left and had an hour to kill before the next. So we decided to walk up to the other train station which at least had a Dunken Donuts to amuse ourselves at. This of course meant a walk through the business area of Philadelphia at night, which was significantly depressing. Hopefully after I'm freed from here I'll be idealistic enough to try and fix this city up. After catching the train back we all strolled back to campus, playing our "favorite" game, who deserves more pity for having the most work to do tomorrow. Luckily the night didn't end on that depressing note, as we were able to play our actual favorite game, mocking Nova students as they ran from the cops that were busting up their parties. High comedy right there, apparently the best place for drunk under agers to hide is not the college campus next door that has no alcohol policy, but rather the extremely uptight and rich private day school. Let it be known...it's not. 

Never Let Me Loose in AC Moore

President: So what does the school do for Halloween? Anything special?

Dorm Resident: Let's just say there are a lot of ambulances involved.

President: *look of horror*

And this is why open forums with the new president are probably not a good idea...

Anyway, the hall had started to demand cookies so I knew that meant it was time for our first "tea" or hall party. Usually these involve getting some snacks and drinks and coming up with an activity. So I took myself down to AC Moore and decided that I would do whatever "inspired me". Never, ever, go to AC Moore without a plan. If you do, you will end up like me, and decide that having a "Mad Hatter Tea", complete with make your own newspaper hats, is a brilliant idea. I snagged  ton of pom poms, stickers, pipe cleaners, you name it. Then I went next door to Giant to buy snacks. Hoping to save money I only bought Giant brand goods. The cookies were just fine, but everyone was a bit miffed at the "Main Street" Root Beer and Cream Soda as well as the "Diet Rally" soda. 

I got back to my room and thought about what I just did. I stared in horror at the bags of brightly colored crafts and just thought "oh God, oh God, oh God" over and over again. How would I tell a hall of non-frosh that I fully expect them to make newspaper hats. I don't think I've ever accepted "newspaper hats" as an acceptable activity, even when I was five. Why did I think that would be appropriate now? 

When it came time for the tea I couldn't look anyone in the eye. After the initial shock of hearing my idea, some people warmed up to it, while others preferred to just eat the cookies and watch the madness. But you know what? That damn tea lasted for two hours. That's a long tea. By the end we had some masterpiece hats, we had an award ceremony where I made awards to give out. I rigged them so that I got classiest. As we were cleaning up, someone pulled an ad out of the New York Times to show me, that's right, it's Hat Week in New York. 

Good hall citizens humoring me 

My hat, it won classiest. Some claim the competition was rigged...that's because it was
Nicky, Megan and Paige celebrate Hat Week

Kira works on her "Most Colorful" award winning creation