pokemon tournament

Living in Stith has a lot of advantages:

1. Across from Lucille/Kelliann = baked goods and always someone awake for me to talk to
2. Beneath Katie/Lauren = easy to communicate with someone silly (I can just hit my ceiling)
3. In general surrounded by friends = good times - (that's a minus) having to see people if I don't want to (I can hide in my room) + Marigene doesn't have to hike across campus to visit
4. Bryan camaraderie with the rest of the fire alarm-ousted residents
5. Close to Zable!
6. Building is connected to the building with the laundry so I don't have to go outside
7. Those things above the closets = excellent storage capabilities

I could go on - I love Stith. But aside from these great advantages and the funness of its name, probably the best part so far has been this Stith Pokemon Tournament. Basically, our RA is the coolest person ever and devised a dormwide competition in which everyone who participates gets a Pokemon of their preferred type and then completes tasks in order to raise their Pokemon's stats (think of this like battling wild Pokemon or Bug Catchers). In order to win you only have to be the last man standing...because the scariest thing is that you can battle each other and whoever has better stats will win. In order to evolve you must eliminate a set number of other Pokemon (it differs by person), which is frightening to me because I don't want to attack people...I play defense. Thankfully this all worked out okay because I turned out to be the nice one in the competition and some people ended up attacking me just so that I could level up because I had already proven that I was committed to doing as many tasks as possible. Anyway, in approximately one hour the competition will be over and I'll have come in second place. Before then, here are some of the highlights:

• Becoming friends with Mo, my main competition. He's a really nice guy but I can't help but be a little bit miffed that he got to start with Mew and I started with Pidgey, which is by all accounts a pretty dumb but not entirely useless Pokemon (I did avoid getting Dodrio and Farfetch'd, so there are some bullets dodged).
• Keeping my type advantage against Dan a secret until he attacked me with five witnesses and had to shamefully run away from battle, only to be killed by me the next morning after I had gained some speed points.
• Eating breakfast in my car to avoid being attacked in my room (this was when Mo had committed himself to eliminating me). Also, taking a nap on a couch in Miller to avoid returning to my room (though this one was slightly more attributable to my laziness as a person and not my fear as a Pokemon trainer). Also, random trips to the grocery store to stall returning to my room.
• Pokemon baked goods - Pokeball cupcakes, Venonat cake and normal brownies all in the same night! (Watching boys bake is very silly but still has delicious results.)
• Random adventure to the Muscarelle for pictures by the lights...only at William and Mary are people so into late night adventures.
• Getting our area director's signature and exploring Tribe Square while at it - IT IS SO PRETTY.
• Trying out Pilates...not really a highlight, but it was an interesting experience.
• Reading epic poems about the Bryan Complex (to which Stith Hall belongs)...lolol.
• Strategizing with Katie and Amy.
• Explaining the game to everyone I have seen in the past two weeks.
• Competing against someone on e-team (Dan) made our team much more fun (not that it wasn't already)...also I think Nate was just as into this as I was.
• Meeting all but five of the residents in my building!

Pretty epic for a hall program in an upperclassmen dorm. Basically I have the best RA ever and some really legit neighbors, including Katie who died not once but twice in battle against me.

bed attack

My bed is currently resting on what are known as risers...plastic cones about 7 inches tall with flat tops so that the feet of a bed can sit on them. This may be really gross or really normal to you (I don't care which), but last Friday was the first time that I changed my sheets since I got to school. Granted this means I slept on them for four weeks, BUT in my defense I did the whole top sheet trickery whereby I slept on top of my top sheet for two weeks and then slept under it for two weeks. I actually have no sense of how often sheets should be changed but I feel like a month is a long time. Usually I just wash them when I need to do laundry and I know it's been longer than I would like to calculate.

Anyway, last Friday I realized how difficult it was going to be to make my bed. It was easy enough to pull out the sheets and mess up my multiple mattress pads/toppers/foam, but it was going to be a difficult feat to tuck my sheets in since two sides were against walls, the end was against my desk and half of the remaining side was against a wall (I'm in The Nook). So I did what seemed natural...I pivoted away my desk (it doesn't actually slide, it actually tilts back and forth when you try to move it) and began pushing my bed away from the window wall. This would have been fine if the risers were somehow attached to the feet of my bed. Unfortunately, as you may have surmised by now, they were not.

The bed naturally came crashing down as two of the risers toppled over due to friction. In attempting to pick the bed up again, I lost another one of the risers. So then my bed was lifted up by one corner, and partially resting on all of the boxes underneath my bed. It was at this point that I noticed that my bed frame was becoming detached. I decided that I should probably leave this job to people stronger than me, aka boys.

This plan would have worked out if I were patient, but I really wanted my bed to be fixed (it was around my usual nap time and it was also raining and all I wanted to do was lie down). Abby and Isabel and I figured that we were as strong as any boy and more crafty to boot, so we (mostly they) worked on reattaching the bed frame. We also thought it would be good to remove my mattress (at this point with new sheets attached) so that the rising of my bed would be easier. This did work out, but only after making a mess of my room what with all of the things that belonged under my bed, plus my newly cleaned sheets, plus my mattress, plus my pillows, plus my nightstand, plus the air conditioner all spread across my floor. Anyway, the bed is fixed and very comfortably separated from my window so that I never have to deal with this again. Catastrophe managed!

Although this is a hilarious story and I'm sure would have made for a classic Friends moment, it was not super fun for me and brought up a lot of things that I don't like to think about; namely, I like doing things by myself, I like being self-sufficient, I like fixing problems, I can have a terrible attitude because of a very silly thing and I hate asking for help. For at least an hour I thought about asking for help but decided to push through with my own efforts; after all, I got myself into this predicament and when I live in the real world I plan on solving all of my problems without a bunch of 20-year-old guys (or any other sort of friends) at my disposal.

Usually when I think about selfishness, I think about other people. I think: I am so good at not being selfish! I am always giving up my comfort for others! I'll get meals at strange times to accommodate someone else's schedule, I'll share my flex, I'll listen to anyone's complaints...how could I be selfish?

But recently I've been realizing that self-absorption can take more forms than not sharing your flex points, or your cookies, or your time. Self-sufficiency is just a sneaky way to glorify yourself. Thinking that I don't need other people only feeds my ego, and thinking that my ideas are better than other people's (even when, occasionally, they are better) reinforces my superior sense of self which is totally false. There is literally no way that I am better than everyone at everything...and even when I limit my scope, throw out sports, music, meeting people and other things that I am professedly not good at...there is no way that I am always better than everyone, let alone anyone at the things I do excel in. Just because I like to organize my life does not mean that other people's methods of organizing are terrible. But these facts do not stop me from thinking that I am amazing at everything.

I need people and cannot live in isolation; nor can I live with self-elevation or even self-preservation. I'm called to live in Christ and to die to my "self," including all of my ego, self-sufficiency, selfish desires and self-fulfillment (the idea that I can make myself happy through my own efforts). Any little bits that I want to hold onto - how good I am at picking the best prices at the grocery store, or how easy it is for me to motivate myself - are fine in practice but they do me no good when I fail to recognize the strengths of others and the weaknesses of myself and my approach to life. I'm not saying I shouldn't have a personality or personal goals, but starting by ditching myself and taking up the cross, it becomes a lot less threatening to ask for help fixing my bed and a lot less rewarding to offer my help to others - because the reward isn't in the esteem I gain from others but in my heart, words and deeds aligning with Christ.

sick warrior

I am so good at fighting off sickness. I like to think that if I just try hard enough I can avoid being ill - like it's some sort of psychological battle and if my will is strong enough my body will never be weak. But when I do become infected, as usually happens at both the beginning and end of a semester, I have a pretty good strategy at recovering and minimizing my sick time.

1. Sleep. I sleep so much that sometimes I think I spend more time asleep than awake. I take naps whenever my head starts to hurt too much to read or whenever I take cold medicine (always the drowsy-inducing children's liquid variety since I don't swallow pills). I sleep for as many hours as I can a night and then sleep some more in the morning. I don't miss class...that's the point of sleeping so much...but between classes and eating I can usually be found with the lights off, curled up in bed (Abby can attest to this). Thursday-Monday this week have gone by extremely fast, mostly because I was asleep for 50% of the time.
2. Vitamin C. On the first hint of a sore throat, I quickly find the nearest source of Vitamin C (usually in orange juice) and spend as much flex as I can on it. Today I had a Naked power-C, which contains 2000% of the recommended amount of daily Vitamin C intake. I also have Vitamin C gummies and am not afraid to use them.
3. Liquids. When I'm not guzzling orange juice, I still have a 24 ounce water bottle with me at all times so I can keep hydrated. I also drink 2-3 cups of tea a day when I'm sick as this makes my throat feel better. Even when I'm not thirsty, I have to have a drink...you can't have too much water when you're sick.

Perhaps I go a little bit overboard for a sore throat, but I don't want to overexert myself and find that I'm even sicker than before. Just like Justin Bieber in Never Say Never (the movie, not the song), I have to take preventative measures at the beginning of an illness so that I don't have to cancel even more events in the future. You may think I'm crazy, but I haven't missed a class due to illness, I haven't missed any important meetings and I'm well on my way to recovery. It's also pretty easy for me because I live a mostly sedentary lifestyle, but on the flip side it takes me a while to force myself into activity once I've deemed myself sick. You can always tell when I'm making myself feel healthy again because I'll make myself go to the rec center or I'll reestablish my ban on naps...but I will still take that Vitamin C for the rest of the fall because people only get more sick as the semester progresses.

afternoon dreams

Afternoon dreams are the worst. I was trying so hard to avoid napping but today I just crashed (partially because I didn't get to sleep until 2:30, partially because I didn't have any caffeine even though I had coffee every previous day this week).

First, I hadn't read this mega popular book series that everyone else had read but I was pretty sure I could guess the plot spoilers anyway. Everyone went to see the movie and I was like, oh that guy in the movie who they think is their evil dad, he's actually a good guy, right? And everyone else was like SPOILERS. And I was like, well, this movie is just terrible at foreshadowing then.

So then we went to play a game. To get to the place where we were playing the game I had to throw a bunch of letters at a giant fish balloon and then they all fell down a slight waterfall and began sinking. I didn't want the letters to get soaked so I jumped in after them, but as soon as I was submerged, I was in a tree house and feeling a little bit damp but my letters were all in tact. Some other people followed me. There was definitely something Peter Pan going on and I didn't understand, but I think that Captain Hook and Mufasa were somehow combined to be the "evil" dad from the movie even though he was secretly a good guy (and his family had abandoned him when the kids were little and now it was the prince's job to reunite his family and avoid a war). He was definitely on a pirate ship but he looked more like King Triton, minus some of the beard, but he had that really good guy quality of Mufasa about him. Anyway, he was both in the movie and somewhere on my mind during the tree house ordeal (I think there was a pirate ship outside and some magic going on in the way that we got to the tree house).

Anyway, there were two things going on in this tree house. First of all, one of my cousins was trying to get all of the rest of my cousins to sing a song with him. This somehow went with the theme because I think he was supposed to have been lied to about his family history and fed only unhealthy food and basically just had a terrible childhood (this is not true in real life). So maybe he was the prince in the movie. Anyway, he looked like my cousin and none of us wanted to sing along with him so he was sad and frustrated because that wasn't what he had come to expect.

Secondly, we had to play a card game. We were trying to fit as many people in the jungle-y tree house as possible so I think it was one of those dreams where I was both in the tree house and not in the tree house. So some version of me sat down to play this game with these strangers who resembled the friends of Hugh Grant's in Four Weddings and a Funeral, which I just watched. And they would NOT explain this game to me. It started off as normal Pokemon but then I kept getting cards with people I knew on them, or weird vines that were "action" cards, and also some new Pokemon that I didn't recognize. Also, some of the cards were portrait while some were landscape which really frustrated me. People went around and drew a card from the center ring, and they could get rid of a card from their hand. But the thing was, there was no real skill to this game: some cards were always good and some were always bad. There were low and high point values but they weren't explicitly mentioned anywhere, you just had to know them.

So it got to be my turn and I admitted that I didn't know what was going on. A guy told me that I should draw a high card and a girl encouraged me to do so, because she might not lose by 65 points again. I said no thanks and I drew a low card, which I think was a bad low card but at least it wasn't a bad high card. Then I asked why there were people I knew on some of the cards and how I was supposed to know what to do with them and then everyone got really angry. So did I. They turned into people that I recognized (like my best friends at school) and they asked me how I didn't know about "Ace Heart Network" which is the fictional group that put these cards together. I said I hadn't heard about them. They said that they were like the biggest group on campus and we'd been playing this card game for like two years and how come I suddenly forgot how to play? I said I was sorry and that I wanted to quit, so I threw down my cards and stood up. But they said that my cards were important so they started looking at them and said I hadn't even arranged them right but they could understand why I quit because they were so bad. Then I was like I still don't understand what this group is, but it sounds like they do good things, and my friend thought I said that it sounds like a bad metaphor which he found hilarious. I tried correcting him but he wouldn't have it so I decided that he just didn't speak English very well, which was little consolation to me. So I started screaming in a RAWR way and everyone started talking louder and trying to give me their opinions but I just tuned them out and sat on the floor.

I woke up wondering who this Mufasa/Captain Hook guy was and where I could find him.

tree friends

When I'm walking around campus sometimes I get really distracted by our trees. They are pretty fantastic-looking and fairly old and sometimes they are just so interesting to me. Sometimes, however, this gets me into trouble. Sometimes I walk right by someone I know and then I figure that they think I'm ignoring them but really I'm just trying to figure out what a particular tree reminds me of - whether it's another tree or a face or an object...whatever it is, it's way more interesting than saying hello to an acquaintance of mine. But then I feel rude if they say hi to me and I have to stop looking at the trees.

There is one tree in particular that I noticed yesterday that I had never really seen before - sure, it was always there, but I didn't notice it until I started looking at the trees on the way home from...well, I don't remember where I was going or coming, I just know that this was one really great tree. It reminded me of people who are always kind of there in my life - but when I really take a good look at them, they suddenly take on a new and exciting appearance. It's like getting a new friend! I guess it is getting a new friend. But back to the trees, I tend to do this with clouds too, though of course clouds change all the time and it's way more exciting to look at trees for this reason: you can always come back to them.

A really tragic thing happened when Irene came through - there was a lot of power lost, but we also lost one of the best trees on campus. While power comes back, this tree isn't going to ever be seen or enjoyed again. I'm talking about the big tree behind (in front of?) Jamestown North. It was perfect for picnicking and provided some great cover to me every time I walked home from campus escort (about a 1 minute walk, but still). It was like a friend that I never took the time to appreciate - never once did I just stare at it and seal its image in my memory. I guess friends are more important than trees, but there's something really great about a tree in that you assume it will always be there for you, and that when it grows it only becomes more useful and can provide you with more shelter, space for contemplation and perspective. I like to think about who planted trees and who watched them grow and who hit them with frisbees and who counted their branches. Especially on this campus, with old buildings, it can be cool to see something that is living and has changed over the years, adapting to new construction and new students every year: a testament to constancy and growth.

Anyway, now every time I pass the really cool tree I'll be happy, but I'm kind of sad that I can't have that special kind of affection for every tree on campus, let alone every person. God has a pretty big job if my feelings toward this one tree (that I just noticed) are any small indication of how he feels toward all of his creation.

friending

I am a huge fan of friending people on Facebook. I didn't used to like it - I was strongly in the "wait to be friended" camp of people which I assume comprises most of the internet. If someone wanted so badly to be my friend, they could just find me themselves; otherwise, they weren't worth the social validation of being my friend online.

College started and I friended a few people, then got a bunch of friend requests as a result of this - so I assumed that it was a fair way of breaking into a group of people. You give a little, you get a lot. I met some people who had never friended a single person in their life, and I realized that this was a very silly group to be a part of just by the way they talked about it. I personally don't think I'm more important than the rest of the world, but sometimes I start feeling like I'm pretty hot stuff...and I think that yielding and friending other people is a good way to combat those feelings that I'm a better class of human.

Now that I'm an upperclassman (again) this is especially true. To me it's like nbd to be friends with a freshman but to them it's like omg a junior I'm so cool now. (Or so I assume, based on the way the way I perceived the world as a freshman.) I also realized that this can be explained through economics! (As can anything.)

So, utility can be thought of as the enjoyment or value you get out of an object, or in this case an action. My change in utility in friending someone is now pretty low. I might have a moment of anxiety where I wonder if they'll think that this is premature in our relationship and that we should have some more awkward encounters before becoming facebook friends, but I've gotten over it so many times that my utility goes down by some arbitrary small amount, which we'll call -1. It takes some sucking up of my ego, but it's not terrible and I'll forget I friended them until I get the notification that they accepted my request; nbd.

I will now estimate the average change in utility someone gets from receiving a friend request from me. Lest you think that my pride is raging right now, I'm doing this from my experience of getting friend requests. There are a couple of situations to consider:

1. We met at a large gathering or are part of a large group. This could be +1 all the way to +5 depending on how brief our encounter was (+1 for just introductions) and how awesome they think I am (+3ish if they think I'm amazing) and how many other people were there and thus the likelihood that they got a lot of friend requests at the same time (so mine is worth +1) or are impressed that I remembered them (+3).
2. We have a ton of mutual friends but have never met in real life (or were introduced but never conversed). This is basically just a +1 because yes it's a friend but it's not really exciting.
3. We've met several times. This is basically a +2 to a +5, depending on if they just love making other people request them or if they actually don't like me but have met me so many times they can't help but expect a friend request (but they don't want to be friends so they didn't initiate it, but they still are happy with the knowledge that they don't need me in their life but I seem to need them). Or they could have just forgotten about facebook. It's an extremely unpredictable variable.
4. We just met once but actually became friends in real life and I went home and immediately friended them. This is a +5 situation, no doubt. They would have friended me if they got to facebook first, and we're both just happy to be friends that it doesn't matter who friended who...it just matters that we write all over each other's walls that we're glad we're actually friends.

I assume that for most people, they don't just friend people as willingly as I do nowadays that I want to be inclusive of everyone, so friending people is probably a -2 to a -5 for them depending on their own sense of pride and/or laziness. Some people also probably get a positive change from friending people but I'm assuming that this is untrue for most people (except in case #4 where we all have the highest utility).

So in conclusion, overall welfare is highest when people actually become friends and then become facebook friends but this isn't always worth waiting for. I estimate that the change in total utility is between 0 and +4 when I friend someone at a time which other people may call premature, but between -4 and +3 when I wait for them to friend me.

Remark: I think that this may only apply to my school/generation because we're really into facebook creeping and it isn't all that weird to be friended before you really feel like friends.

payment

Though money itself doesn't make me happy, the ability to pay for food, movies, gas, etc. makes me feel pretty secure. If I had the bare minimum of money needed to survive, I would freak out and I would be so jealous of people who got to eat Chipotle - but mostly my quality of life wouldn't be any different at this point, because my parents would still be there to provide for me. I've had a pretty good life so far and I've never been in need of anything that I couldn't have (except for power/control, but that's a need that I'm okay with putting off for a few more years). I wouldn't call myself a poor college student, but I'm definitely not going to pay to see a dumb movie and I consider myself fairly money-smart. (I don't go around saving up money to spend it on frivolous things like doilies or new cars.)

Before there was really standardized money, people could still be considered poor by their lack of possessions/animals/land. On that basis I am worth way less than I am with my money - which is really just a promise of future buying ability based on my faith in the American economy. So when I put my trust in money (which is as simple as the feeling of security I have by looking at my bank statement), I am really trusting our society to not collapse. This seems like a pretty risk-free assumption...for now. I would still venture to say that my security is much more firm in my identity in Christ - i.e. that I am the father's creation and that I am loved by him.

But there's a hiccup I must get over before I can say that my security is not in securities.

In the Pentateuch/Torah/Moses's books in the Old Testament, there are a lot of references to uncleanness (mostly in Leviticus). If you get a skin disease, touch road kill, have your period, eat a rabbit/camel/pig/gecko/owl/etc. or touch objects that unclean people have touched, you are unclean. This equates to unholiness - you are not good and not fit to contact other people, let alone God. BUT you can be made clean by making sacrifices. Yay!

Now wait for the connection...it's almost here. So, let's look at Leviticus 14 which is about "cleansing from infectious skin diseases." [Aside: reading this section kind of skeeves me out, but it's required reading for Christian Origins, so I sucked it up. End aside.] There's this whole sacrificial ordeal to go through to make atonement and become cleansed with male lambs and oil being put on right earlobes and so on which seems very silly to me but which I'm sure made sense at the time. Okay, that's all fine and good, but not everyone has two male lambs and a ewe lamb and three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil and one log of oil. Solution?

If, however, he is poor and cannot afford these, he must take one male lamb as a guilt offering to be waved to make atonement for him, together with a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, a log of oil, and two doves or two young pigeons, which he can afford, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. (Leviticus 14:21-22, NIV)

Cool. So to me this begs the question...why on earth would you sacrifice three lambs when you could just be all like, oh I'm poor, I can only afford to sacrifice one lamb? The only logical conclusions that I have are: a) you would feel guilty for lying; or b) you would probably feel less unclean if you had the full sacrifice. We also have the issue of people who could just barely afford the full sacrifice and would have to decide whether or not it would be worth it to become poor, but I'm assuming that most people could spare three lambs and if they couldn't they would be so poor that they wouldn't even have one lamb and they would have to borrow it from a rich person anyway. I don't know the wealth distribution or average standard of living in ancient Israel so I'm going to say that this exception is probably only for the very, very poor and that it wasn't an ideal sacrifice and that people would be willing to use three lambs to cleanse themselves, because I feel like cleanness is worth any cost.

Regardless of that, I'm really glad that my cleanness doesn't depend on how much I can afford. I really don't have anything to offer that God wants - which works out well, because all he demands is my heart. My money and security are his too, but they, like everything else, come along with my submission. When Jesus died on the cross, there was no need for lamb/blood sacrifices or grain sacrifices anymore. This makes things easier because I don't have to go see a priest or wait seven days but it makes things harder because I have to be very intentional and instead of giving up only my possessions I have to give up my authority, pride, plans and, yes, my security and identity in my talents and possessions.

But on the brightest end note of all, I have the greatest identity ever (as God's child, not as Marisa) and in giving up all of those extraneous things to him, I don't have to worry about money or my future or my salvation.