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Sunday, January 26, 2003
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Ahh this weekend has been so fun! Especially yesterday. First I met up with Archana at 3:00 to go play badminton. I hadn't played it since I was a wee one in Pittsburgh when we had our own set (I wonder whatever happened to our badminton set?), so naturally I was pretty bad at first.... Well I'm getting ahead of myself. It was an epic event to get to play at all.The court had been split in half by a heavy plastic ugly green curtain; one side was dedicated to a single volleyball net with three players on each side, and the other side had 4 badminton nets. Every net was taken and there were even people waiting! Who knew that badminton was such a popular sport? So we sat down, waiting for a net to free up.... and we waited and waited.... Finally, when we had waited 45 minutes, I went down to the front desk to ask if there was a time limit to how long people could play (I was grasping at straws here). I said in the saddest voice I could conjure (without trying to seem forced... a very nice balance of worry and disappointment. ...where's my Academy Award?) "we've been waiting for 45 minutes for a badminton net to open up. I was just wondering if there was a time limit of some sort?" The guy there was very nice but didn't really know. It seemed as if he felt sorry for me (unless he was working for his Oscar as well), so he asked this crusty old guy if there was a time limit. The crusty guy got up from his chair and said "sorry. If they want to play, they can play." Rude old man. Anyway, I went back and Archana and I continued to amuse ourselves, devising different ways to get a net free (such as, they should have a little timer set up so that if anyone went over an hour, a little catapult would shoot them over the heavy plastic ugly green curtain. I imagined a little "piff!" as they landed on the volleyball team on the other side, just for fun). Every once in a while, the group playing at one net would take a break and leave it open, so we would rush over and ask (just to be polite) if the net was free. And they'd say "ahhhh... no, we're going to play a few more rounds." I think we should have just started playing instead of being all nice about it and if they had asked us to leave, say "HAHAHAHA! Survival of the fittest! Survival of the fittest! You left it open, it's ours now!!" And I would quote the rude crusty old man and say "if we want to play, we can play." Maybe stick my tongue out.I got off-track... where was I. Oh, yes. One of the teams we asked to leave seemed to be comprised of rather shy, polite people (besides the fact that they were hogging the net). So I decided to take advantage of their weakness. Archana and I waited until they took another short break and ran over to ask a more pressing question: "Sooo... How much longer do you think you'll be playing?" And the girl looked over at the guy with a stupid scared look and the guy took over and said "just two more rounds." I only later remembered the twinkle in his eye when he said that. But I looked over at Archana and we both said "yay!!" It seemed as if our patience and slight nudging for others to leave had paid off.Yeah, well, "ha-ha" to our optimism. After the vollyball team got tired of playing, in other words, when the risk of being smacked by a huge volleyball had been reduced enough to come of of hiding, we played on their side of the ugly green curtain (minus any badminton net, of course. We were just playing with the lines of the court, i.e.- let's pretend this black line marking a boundary line for basketball is our net...). That's when I realized that I had gotten rusty over the years. Every once in a while we would peer around the net to see if anyone had left yet, but no. Then we said: "badminton net.... Vollyball net...." So we played badminton over the huge volleyball net. It was ridiculous; here we were trying to hit the shuttle over this towering net. Sometimes the shuttle went through the gaping holes of the volleyball net, which cracked up the opponent and let the person who hit it through the net gain a point. Usually it was me laughing. Well, now that I think about it, we weren't the only ones laughing; any badminton players that wanted to take a break and stroll around the court (while their cronies were hogging the nets) would point and laugh. Some of the people waiting to use a net also laughed at us. Yeah well, who's playing and who's not, buddy!? bwahahaha. We realized we needed a little bit more power to get the shuttle over the net, so Archana vowed that next time we would use tennis rackets instead. We call it Volleymintontennis.
Before I finish the badminton story, one last point. The girls from the Shy Team finally appeared in the locker room just as Archana and I were leaving.
After badminton, I went to Archana's cool apartment and I ate her delicious food and took her little book. Whee!
Fast forward a little. Archana and I got to the HUB a bit early so we sat around and made fun of things like fine art and ASUW. Bin was a little late, but it turns out that we were sitting right by the group of guys she had invited without knowing it; neither Archana nor I had ever met these fellows, so how were we supposed to know? Anyway, we also ran into Peter, Laura's friend. So the (quick math in my head) 8 of us headed up to the ballroom on the second floor thinking we were late and found... nothing. Not even the band was there yet. Apparently when they said 8:00 they meant it in latino-time. Not even any students or dancers were there yet! So everyone else got that it was latino-time except us. So we went back out and wandered around the HUB and made fun of the Ombudsman and the Assistant Ombudsman (in case the "real" Ombudsman isn't there to carry out his/her duties, I guess). Then we found a little plaque that read "Ombud of the Year" which was the end of it all.
Fast forward again to the dance itself. I think Archana had a lot of fun learning how to dance salsa. Well, it was hard not to have fun. And I haven't heard a live band play in such a long time. And I'm sure Bin had a good time except that she left with the guys to have bubble tea. Which was okay because I truly think she's in her element with their kind of quirky. They were a little too hyper for my taste, personally; the kind of immature hyper that often makes me lose my patience.
Well as the dance started I realized "hey there's Laura!" She and I were the only two from both her group of friends and mine that stayed till the end. I have never stayed at a dance so long that I actually heard the band say "alright we're out of here, have a good night everyone!" So that was cool. And what was most fun was that when I wasn't dancing with someone I was just dancing by myself. Usually it would happen that Laura and I both had (or didn't have) partners at the same time so we didn't feel weird dancing all by our lonesome. And when that happened that she had a partner and I didn't I would take a break outside, have water and even sit (which didn't really help much because I'm still really sore today). After the dance I went to Laura's and had ice cream and a brownie which hit the spot because I'd been so hot from continually dancing. I actually danced nearly non-stop from 8:30 to midnight! yay. Scratch that off from my list of things to do in this lifetime. :)
Also, check me out on the web: me at the Burke Museum. Click on my name under "students" about halfway down the page. It's really out-of-date though....
posted by Andy* |
3:15 PM
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