DC Trip

THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR A POST ABOUT DC TRIP

You all know what that means =P

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I have been coerced to describe the trip to DC today. Unlike Sir Trashcan (btw, Happy Birthday and my condolences on your divorce =P), however, I have no discretion as to what people do or do not care about, so you get everything.

So I wake up and begin the rather long process of getting ready. I get downstairs at 9:45 and my mom is like, wtf, why are you so late. So I eat breakfast, get my stuff together and am leaving, when I realize I have no idea what the geo assignment is. So I run upstairs and scribble down the relevant museum exhibit, shove a pack of scratch paper in my backpack for "note taking", and run out. We get to the bus station, and at this point my dad is freaking out, because we don't know how often the buses run on weekends and its already 10:10. Luckily,

1. The bus shows up almost immediately after we get there
2. I am fairly certain everyone else will be late too >_>

My intuition happens to be right. As the bus is nearing West Falls Church, Kee Young calls saying he will be late. I get out of the bus and go to the other side of the station to wait. Tim calls at this point, saying he is feeling rather hung over and so will be late as well. He also asks whether or not anyone is bringing a camera, pointing out that we can't depend on Lily's camera abusing, as she was being a huge noppre and not coming. I tell him I don't know and then hang up to answer Ved's call. Ved says that he and Eric will be late as well, so me and Kee Young should wait inside the station at East Falls Church. Ved calls back 5 or 10 minutes later to say that he and Eric will instead be coming to West Falls Church. Kee Young shows up, and we wait for another 5 or 10 minutes before Eric and Ved show up. Ved blames his lateness on his father, claiming that his father tried to take them to East Falls Church and that his father tried to drive through do not enter signs. If Ved's father is anything like Ved, this is not all that unbelievable.

(Yes I spent that much space describing how we got to the metro. Maybe you will think twice next time before asking me to write about an outing =P)

So we get on the metro and start reading the onion, which Eric skillfully picked out of a newspaper stand before we went into the station. I will not describe the paper itself, though if you don't currently, you should make it a point to read the onion. It will likely be very helpful for gov.

We get to Federal Triangle and we call Tim, who is taking the Blue Line there. Tim tells us to wait outside, so we decide to ignore him and go inside the Reagon International Center across the courtyard. They have security, and they questioned our intentions (I blame Ved's license photo), so we told them we were waiting for a friend. Tim showed up, we wandered around, and then left, looking for all the world like no-good vagrants. David then showed up, and, very sensibly, he had a frisbee! We walked over to the museum using our excellent navigational skills and went in. We eventually found the right exhibit (at one point, I spent 2 minutes looking over a map in the musuem's booklet for the fossils exhibit before realizing that the map was for another smithsonian museum >_>). We went to the exhibit, skillyfully not greeting the other group of tj kids that we saw, and took a grand total of two pictures with Eric's camera. One of these pictures involves Ved performing a questionable activity, with or without dwang's permission/approval. This pic is shown below.







We then decided that we were done with the assignment, and arranged for the distribution of labor in writing 500 words of pure bs.

We left and walked to the post office, where there was a good food court. We were walking around, and we see this Indian place and this Arab place next to each other. Ved and I not so subtly walk away from the Indian place and towards the Arab place, where they are giving out free samples. Two members of our group accepted these samples: guess who. Anyway, we all ordered food and then realized that the place was completely packed, so we ate with table but without chairs. Eventually we got seats though. We had various interesting conversations (in particular, Tim brought up some points which I'll address later) and we discussed Ved's divorce and his and Jenny's plans for the future (apparently she was trying to trick Eric into marrying her as well =P). While I spent an hour and a half eating my not so big meal, people went and bought ice cream and coffee. Then we left the food court. We all got on the metro together, with Tim figuring out what he would do. His car was parked at the end of the blue line, but he was going to Longfellow for a church thing, so he was trying to see whether or not to stay with us or to get his car >_>. I told him to get his car, but Ved, always the reasonable one, advised him not to worry about it. We discussed why Falls Church is named Falls Church (Ved suggested that a church had fallen off a cliff and was originally next to a waterfall. He later removed his waterfall claim). We played contact, and then we left Tim at Rosslyn. We got back on the orange line, still playing contact, and soon after, we parted, Ved and Eric at East Falls Church, me and Kee Young at West, and Dwang continuing to Vienna. That was more or less it.

Sidenote: Tim makes the strangest suggestions. First, he commented to me that, given the trying economic times, it would be best to get ourselves jailed up. He was about to make this remark to the group at large, but luckily he spotted the cop we were passing >_>. Later, while we were eating he asked us if we ever thought about how to perform the perfect murder. He seemed surprised when we told him that no, we had not thought about it.

In short, this was much better than sci fair/any other excuse you might have had. Do not miss the next one, good noppres.

And don't ask me to post about anything else either >_>

Edit:

Jenny claimed Ved's statements were false and provided me with a fabricated chat as proof. Enjoy:

(07:53:13 PM) Ved: but seriously
(07:53:15 PM) Ved: gogo
(07:53:17 PM) Ved: marry eric
(07:53:17 PM) Ved:
(07:53:19 PM) Jenny: >_>
(07:53:24 PM) Jenny: why eric of all people? O_O
(07:53:33 PM) Ved: dunno, he's the other guy I know you talk to? >_>
(07:53:34 PM) Ved: lol
(07:53:45 PM) Jenny: <_< i talk to tim too :O
(07:53:53 PM) Ved: oh, fine
(07:53:56 PM) Ved: go marry tim then
(07:53:59 PM) Jenny: >_>;;
(07:54:00 PM) Ved: lol

(07:57:29 PM) Ved: well ... at least eric doesn't pull your hair!
(07:57:30 PM) Ved: there
(07:57:32 PM) Ved: perfect husband
(07:57:34 PM) Ved: gogogo >_>
(07:57:39 PM) Jenny: -_-;;
(07:57:49 PM) Jenny: it's like your a parent trying to arrange a marriage o.o

(07:58:05 PM) Jenny: anyway, back to engrish essay :O
(07:58:05 PM) Ved: now stop being a bad daughter
(07:58:08 PM) Jenny:
(07:58:09 PM) Ved: and go marry who I tell you to
(07:58:10 PM) Ved:
(07:58:13 PM) Jenny: oh, now you're my dad? >_>;;

Magic

So I've been reading MTG Books for a while now, but today I played the game again after 3 years. It was much fun. Particularly forestwalking Jared to death =P. You guys should all play. Actually, if you tell me beforehand, I can bring in decks for people who haven't played before to use.

"This rebellion is not mine. It belongs to every free man on Rath." - Eladamri, Lord of the Leaves

The quote initially was meant to stand alone, but as of 1:59 today, it held more concrete meaning. The decisions held good news and bad, as they tend to do in general. But that's irrelevant. Individual people might be hurt or happy. But it doesn't matter. It all comes down to whether or not they were fair as a whole. I don't really need to say whether or not today's were.

Of course, this only matters because of the harm it does. Opportunities denied, lives irreparably altered, and dreams ruined. Forever the references of another fate will pass you, and some resentment will always remain. In the long run, it probably won't matter. But you won't ever forget, and you will probably never be fully at peace.

We tend to assume that there are certain things that we cannot change in life. This is not one of them. I concede that here and now, we are not in positions to change anything. But as we proceed in life, we will each reach our own destinations, and then it will be we who make these decisions. When that time comes, remember these days. Remember that you act not to change any one decision. Not to preserve any individual's happiness. We fight not for any one man. This rebellion belongs to everyone. Make it yours too.

There are a lot of meaningful things to be said, but not now, not today. But I do feel like sharing this with all of you:

Despite my supposedly immense weight, I now own only one pair of non-dress pants which fit me without a belt >_>

A certain individual (who shall remain unnamed), on the other hand, is so immense that his/her sleeve ripped from the pressure of his/her very fat arm.

I rest my five.

Bike Trip

So yea, this was pretty fun. I would summarize it, but I'm pretty sure Lily will write about it too, so I won't bother.

Suffice it to say that we actually did make it to Ved's house from Herndon without any use of gas-powered stuff.

Ok yea I'm far too bored at this point to actually write a decent entry. Goodbye.

"Remember me, not as I was, but as I tried to be."

--Urza Planeswalker