MAGNI 2011 (Quiz Bowl) at GMU

Quiz bowl...logistics: at George Mason University, at 9 in the morning until 7:20 pm. The night before, I went to bed at around 11 and got up at 3:55am. AS and I took the train to DC, took the metro to Vienna/GMU, and SP's mum drove us and SP to GMU. We were the B team. the A team got to drive there (a.k.a they left around 6:30 am instead of 4).

AS and I were supposed to take the 7:20pm train back to Penn, but as we were sitting in the library-food-court-thing (AMAZING! LIBRARY AND FOOD COURT ALL IN ONE!!) at 7:21pm, that evidently did not happen. We ended up getting to the train station at 9:00, just in time to take a 9:20 pm train... except that there wasn't one! The next train was at 10pm (and the one after that was at 3:15 am). Unfortunately, the train didn't actually arrive until 10:40 pm and we finally got back to Penn around 12:50am. It was terrible.

However, I did have a nice time (initially) and my organic chem and bio knowledge definitely paid off (but now I should relearn all that APUS that I used to know!!).

In 11 rounds, I got 15 toss ups, apparently. I think that I could've gotten at least 22 (or even 25, actually) if I wasn't so scared to buzz in. I apparently -5 only two times, so this means that I should buzz in more often. Also, there was a question (am I allowed to talk about questions if the same tournament is being played next Saturday at Brown?...guess not?) that I disagree with...but nevertheless, a good time overall. I like sandwiches. I can live on sandwiches! I really like jalapeno cheese bread...I got this at "subconnection", which, according to JL, is a knock-off of Subway. A sub-connection of Subway (har. har.). The black market version. I mean, they sell 30 cm subs for $5, just like Subway! I've decided that raw mushrooms are alright, if doused in chipotle sauce. Actually, raw mushrooms are pretty good even without the sauce. They're really umami!!

So, Starbucks sucks. I am not a fan of Starbucks anymore. I don't understand why it's cool to spend $2.50 on a slice of pumpkin bread that is possibly made the afternoon before using a Starbucks-distributed-flour-mixture-which-includes-egg (i.e. not freshly cracked eggs: do you see eggshells at Starbucks?) when I can get a whole loaf of equally delicious homemade no-maltodextrin-added pumpkin bread from the farmer's market for $3. Tasty, though.