straw poll

Who's going to the reunion? Edit this post to put your name in the appropriate category:

Yes:
Henrik

Maybe:
Emma

Unfortunately Not:
Jason
Charles
Bern

CHRISTINA!!!

happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy birthday! (sung to the tune of the batman jingle)

A few quick things. I saw P of the C the other day. I'm sorry Meri--I still love pirates, but it was awful. I burst out laughing when the orcs from lord of the rings showed up as crew members on davy "jello boy" jones' ship.

Another anouncement:
at long last, Bern had absolutely nothing to do on a saturday afternoon and SET UP A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT. Unfortunately that's all he did. he has no clue how to use it or what it does or how to find people. Bottom line: if you want to talk to him via facebook, you're going to have to teach him how to work it.
p.s. I'm listed as a umich alum of 05.
I think.

miss you all

-bern

Adam and Jenny go Hollywood

On IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417658/

Plot Outline: This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of "Factotum" author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don't interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.

And I always thought women, drinking, and gambling were the primary attractions of the factotum lifestyle...

Ahh!

Whoa. I have been in the wilderness for a week and a half, and clearly I missed a lot of reunion planning. It was a totally sweet super fantastic kayaking and rock climbing trip in Ontario with my college, and there were no computers, no cell phone reception, and very little toilet paper, so please forgive me. Anyhow, I'm up for it! I totally want to come, and I think my parents will let me, so give me more details and I'm there! Ahhh! So excited about everything! Oh, and I shaved my head again.

Now I have to go take a shower.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINA

(Christina's unsuccessful attempt to dodge my digital camera in that Indian Restaurant)

Al-tareekh al-melad Christina

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINA!

(Haha, beat you Jsn!)

This isn't really a new post...

... more like a collection of replies to previous ones.

Sam, your family is too cute for words.

Henrik, I can't make it to the reunion at your house because of pesky border control regulations that allow me in the country, earliest, on the 14th of August. Anyway, it turns out I'll be flying in with my parents and will be in New York from the 27th to around the 30th, then in Boston till the second, then somewhere in Pennsylvania. It'll mainly be sight-seeing, so if anybody is around at that time, we have to meet.

Remember that story Jenny once told us about her TASP's sole reunion, that had something like one guest? That will not be us. We should try and have a big one soon-ish.

Meredith, I heard Lizz Wright on the plane recently (Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight) and fell completely in love with her voice, so I agree, Lizz Wright (and Cassandra Wilson) is amazing. By the way, I sampled some Madeleine Peyroux at a record store last week... her voice sort of puts me to sleep. Maybe there's something I missed.

It turns out that five (of six) '05 TASPers at Princeton have been put in the same residential college. In fact, we live in something like a 50 meter radius. Coincidence? Hah. Apparently something similar happened at Yale.

I got a new little camera in Malaysia (Canon IXUS 800, if anyone's interested), which is great and I wholeheartedly recommend, except that I somehow managed to lose/corrupt a crapload of photos from China... *hand on cheek*.

By the way, it's Christina's birthday this Friday.

That's all for now.

Jason

Talk like an Egyptian

Hey! It looks like I'm coming back to the motherland a full month earlier than expected. Stanford has this summer program for a few dozen incoming freshman interested in engineering, which involves some classes and lab modules, meetings with engineering professors, etc., plus free room and board on campus. I found out this week (after a mildly embarassing episode revolving around the fact that I hadn't figured out how to use my Stanford email account) that I got in. So I'm headed for California at the beginning of August. Unfortunately, it starts August 6, and since I won't be leaving Africa until around August 1 anyway (with probably 2 layovers, one in Cairo, and one in Holland, where I have to retrieve my double bass from temporary storage to bring with me as checked baggage), a TASP reunion in Vermont is not really feasible for me. Tant pis! But kudos to Henrik for his willingness to undertake such a daunting cause. And hey, being on the same continent as you guys (well, not you Jsn) is sort of a reunion in and of itself.

Life is clicking along here. Arabic is OK; although I haven't quite finished learning the alphabet, I can sound out most things (reading a Pepsi sign has never been so fun!). Unfortunately, it turns out that some of the language materials we picked up in Europe are based on Egyptian Arabic, not that of the region we're located in. So we probably have some kind of weird Egypto-American accent. Eh bien.

Best of luck with your reunionicking!

Groetjes,
Sam

So...

Here's the deal, I've heard from Isaac and Bern, who canot make it. Dith and Rid are maybes for August 8th, and Charles and I might be able to see each other the following week.

I've left messages on multiple answering machines, but I need phone numbers of the following people. Anyone know how I can get a hold of these fugitives?

Jason
Sam (Since you're in Africa, Sam, and likely to read this, I feel your attendance seems improbable. But let me know!)
Emily J.
Adam
Jenny
Chris
Christina
Samyukta
Nestor
Sophie
Matt S.

I hope it works out guys...

Henrik

Back in the U.S.S.A.

Hey guys, I'm back! The trip felt like it lasted months, but now that I'm back it seems as if nothing has changed in this stagnant town called Middlebury.

With only one bag, a Mastercard and a Eurail Pass, Andrea and I went from Madrid to Barcelona to Geneva to a town outside of Zurich to Stuttgart to Paris. We saw everything from Gaudi's Parc Guelle to the vendors of the Montreux Jazz Festival to the homeland of 'Heidi' to German soccer fans to the Centre de Pompidou. I'll post some pictures at some point, when my laziness subsides and I revert to a somewhat productive summer. And any questions of interest are more than welcome, just email me, make a post or gimme a call.

Oh yeah, which reminds me, we checked out Tubigen (I'm not quite sure that's how you spell it), a German town outside of Stuttgart which is the home of a 500 year old University. My parents lived there for a while, so my dad decided to show Drea and I around (we met up with him briefly in Germany). And in the middle of the streets, I ran into this kid who graduated from my high school 4 years ago! I knew his family pretty well, it was incredibly weird just seeing him walking down the street as a foreign exchange student learning German. At first, I imagined the probability to be off the charts, but of all the people I know from Middlebury (about 8,000 people), he would be more likely to be seen. After all, he was Italian, had a love for learning languages and travelling Europe, and had the family background of taking excursions to the Western part of the Old World. I wonder...

But, all in all, the main purpose of this blog is to inform all of you:

TASP Reunion, Henrik's House.

I understand that many of you, possibly all, will not be able to make it (let alone read this blog). But I will contact all of you individually by email or phone to get the concensus of your plans and more information. August 7th is the planned date for about 3-4 days, and everyone can stay in my reasonably large house. But if it turns out a later or earlier date would work better, I'll see if I can change plans. Anyhow, for those who can make it, let me know as soon as possible.

Henrik

P.S. Anyone heard of Madeline Peyroux? and Rid, did you get the package?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEREDITH, BRINGER OF DRY HUMOR INTO ALL BLOGS

Done anything that was illegal 24 hours ago?

Happy

Birthday

Meredith!

Happy Birthday

Hey, I beat Jason, does that mean I get to use the big yellow letters? I won't but since you won't be picking out a cake for yourself, I'll choose one to celebrate for you!



Oh great, I can't remember if it's anyone else's birthday, too. The truth is, I wouldn't remember any birthdays at all if it weren't for facebook. So, if it is anybody else's birthday (Christina, perhaps?) HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Ahhhh...

Its so good to be back in civilization. I spent the last three weeks in WV, where we had slow satellite internet so long as there were no clouds. Which in West Virginia means approximately ten minutes every 9 days. Hence my not blogging.
I was there for the national youth science camp. As corny and nerd-campish as that sounds, it actually was pretty good. No TASP, but there were still some majorly chill people there. And there were some nerds. And I mean nerds. Guys who kind of redefined the noun. Guys who considered it a dating asset to be able to quote the first 20 digits of pi, e, sq rt 2, sq rt 3, sqrt 5, 7 and 11.

I'm not joking. I could give you his phone number if you would like it.

But to give you a brief rundown of what I did--
I sequenced my own DNA
I learned how to make biodiesel
I saw the largest fully mobile radio telescope in the world
I developed a crush (kind of to be expected)
I learned to juggle
I went caving
I met Barak Obama
I cheered for Italy in the world cup match (even though I really wanted Germany or Portugal)
I learned the math behind fractals
I took down kids twice my size in ultimate
I taught a few guys the difference between ultimate and penis frisbee
I taught several guys how to tie a tie (you're 18 and you never learned?)
I got to see several million dollars worth of original MC Escher prints
I developed a taste for chamomile tea

All in all a pretty productive three weeks.

But I'm back home now. Six more weeks. Six, and then I can go to college and stop fighting with my parents. We got along for all of two hours when I got back. Then it was back to normal and we were all reminded of why I need to get out of La Grande. I just realized that I have not produced a complete sentence in this entire post.
Except that last one.
Yay for fragments.
OK bye.

miss you all

-bern

Pirates renewed

By a dint of a god(s) angry at me, I was cajoled and bamboozled into seeing Pirates of the Caribbean 2, which, if you will remember my aversion to scalawags of the sea, thoroughly disgusts me. Which got me to thinking, why not a movie "Ninjas of the Sea of Japan"? Let's examine the benefits.

+No crappy, nonsensical dialogue. When have you ever heard a ninja talk, ever?
+Saves on film costs. Ninjas move so fast that you only have to shoot 5 minutes of film; just run it slowly to make it last TWO AND A HALF FREAKING HOURS OF AWESOME!
+Plot simplicity. Ninjas flip out and kill things. It's easy. Pirates wear too much eye makeup and all aspire to look like women. But really, inanimate objects don't need their own plotline.
+Ninjas have a sense of direction. Pirates spend TWO AND A HALF FREAKING HOURS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING THEY DON'T EVER FIND.
+Ninjas have fashion sense. Black is well, the new black. Tricorner hats were stylish when Napoleon was a teenager.
+Ninjas aren't affected by that magic shit. Never heard of a ninja getting cursed? It's because they're like Jabba the Hutt in the Return of the Jedi, where he tells Luke that the Force doesn't work on him. Whatever, Davy Jones.
+It's for the children's sake. Ninjas are role models: humble, law-abiding citizens who happen to assasinate political leaders for a living. Pirates curse and drink all day and defecate off the side of stolen ships.


But of course, this movie will never happen, because it wouldn't sell so well. Ninjas are elites, and bear a mark of unpeered distinction. The ninja undergoes years of training and hides behind the shield of secrecy to learn his craft. Any drunk asshole with a peg leg can become a pirate, and apparently everyone in Pirates of the Caribbean is. And so, Hollywood is yet again subject to the whims of the unwashed masses, who would rather watch some boozy hemaphrodite than a upstanding band of black-shod ballers. I just don't get it.

Alive and kicking

I've returned from whatever abyss I was sucked into, and ready to blog. This week, I was down in North Carolina at a friend's beach house. It involved a lot of salt water, tanning and Marco Polo showdowns with her 13-year-old brother and his posse.

My life so far this summer has been pretty tame, rather boring, really. I've lazed around watching VH1, pretended to exercise a bit, eaten ginger snaps and gone out at night.

The college mail in preparation for the fall has started coming in earnest. The one chink so far has been my student ID. All three photos I've submitted have been rejected for ridiculous reasons, even the one I had taken at a passport center. I kind of feel like if they won't tell me exactly what kind of photo paper and what quality image I need to use, it's not my fault if they have hernias. My favorite part was when I called the office and the automated response told me not to call. The woman insisted that they only had two photos, even though I'd received three rejection emails for three separate photos. I have to call them back and heckle them, perhaps leave some anonymous, flaming, sack of dog poo on the doorstep.

I saw The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep stole the movie, and it was pretty mindless, good mid-afternoon fare overall. My mom and went to see it together, and she did this thing where she jabs me in arm and looks at me when there's something she feels needs special attention or commiseration. My dad does something similar when I'm listening to headphones in the car. He gives me a good elbowing and yells (as though the ear phones make me deaf) that we're passing such-and-such very important monument, piece of American history, or Dairy Queen. The point isn't the scenery so much as annoying me and making sure I still know he's there as my dad, not just a chaffeur who happens to share some DNA with me.

My dog practically ate her arthritic back paws off and got them infected. Now they're wrapped up in purple bandages. She's taken to bunny hopping up and down the stairs and looking at me pathetically, asking me with her eyes why I insist on hurting her so. I sometimes find dogs to be rather like small children. They can't talk, but they say all they really need to say without speech. It's always clear when she's hungry, annoyed, disgusted with me or a combination of all three.

Life is good.

Zidane is my new hero

'Nuff said.

Wtf Zidane?!

Well, Italy win the World Cup.

And I thought that Zidane's headbutt was hilarious.

Your thoughts welcome.

Jason

Have fun being 18

Happy Birthday

Lisa, Sam, and Dylan!

whoa.

France is in the final!

Now. I thought I had accepted the fact that, you know, TASP is over for us. But. I'm facebook friends with a couple of UMich '06 Taspers, and it's really difficult to see the sacred rooms of our Alpha Gamma Delta in new configurations and haunted by new faces. Case in point: the cult room is now known as "the basement hangout room." Dear me. See for yourself.

Is this the same room in which we discovered "stressy" and "flashy" and Chris's music? Surely not.

Yes, that is a board game on the table. I'm not sure if I should be disgusted or proud that the next generation managed to overcome our superstitious fears.

And what's this? Painting the rock in broad day light?! The audacity! And is it just me, or do they look short?

Well, on this disturbingly unfamiliar note, I'm off to carry on our tradition of making a fool of myself by dancing in public, musicking at Blues on the Mall, a Grand Rapids version of Top of the Park. See you!

A Blast from the Past

So I was browsing through Jason's 1285 (!!!!!!!!) pictures from TASP and I realized, TASP is so much better in full motion video (with sound, no less). Therefore, I bring you a collection of the most attractive faces in the world, in glorious Technicolor:
House Meeting Mayhem
Hey Sugar!
A Product of Soviet Gymnastics
AND THE NEW CHAMPION OF THE WORLD
So the hand says to the face... SLAP!
Henrik Fu + bonus rape sequence
Oompa Loompa outtakes
Oompa Loompa Loodedoo
The shaving commences
Munch would be proud
I have no idea what's going on here
Girl's got some moves!
Girls have some moves!
and last but not least,
THE TRUTH

Yet more World Cup news

First, we got our visas! Still a few more administrative hurdles to pass, but we should be able to leave Cairo by the end of the week. *breathes sigh of relief* Now on to the really important stuff.

France-Brazil last night, 1-0. The best World Cup game yet, possibly the best this year. Anybody else see it? It was the first time I'd seen the Brazilians play, and Charles is right, there really is something exceptional about the way they move the ball. But they didn't manage to score somehow, and France put on an amazing show, with all sorts of improbable offensive breakaways and ball wizardry by Zidane. Still, I couldn't quite believe it when they won - what a dramatic show by an underdog! I'm behind France all the way for the final now.

Also, I have come to the conclusion that the Portuguese player Ronaldo looks just like an Anime character.

That is all.

- Sam