Love You To

Well, another year of quiz bowl is officially over (until Ms. Greene calls us to remind us to study and write frosh-soph tournament questions over the summer). Nationals went well, I guess, although all of us were pretty mad about Adam being excluded from play when John, at the last minute, told Ms. Greene that he could come on Monday, after all. It wasn't John's fault; he said that he was expecting just to come and watch, since it had already been agreed that Adam would play. Ms. Greene was just being oblivious again. Not that John didn't get a few tossups that day, but we lost anyway, going down to Scripps Ranch in the first round of the playoffs. Overall, though, it was fun.

The tournament provided a new experience for me: being hit on by a guy. All right, so it was pretty creepy, but it was a significant step up from Donald (this guy actually seemed nice, not out to insult me). I am so glad that Patrick wasn't there (Ms. Greene wouldn't let him come because he missed some practices for baseball games, but that's another story). He's already made my life miserable enough since the Donald episode, and Siva and Michael (these two freshmen who came along) were pretty bad alone. They somehow found out about the Phil thing during the weekend, and they took every opportunity to say things like, "Hey, Colleeen, how's Phiiiill?"

Although I'm pretty happy about the tournament's end, life hasn't been exceptionally interesting these past few days. I've just been lying around the house and reading "Calvin and Hobbes," mainly. Yesterday I went to see Star Wars: Episode III with Sonya, which was pretty good. It had minimal fighting in space, which is the worst part of Star Wars movies (random pilots saying things like "Roger, Gold Leader" and "Artoo, check the something-or-other"), and it connected to the original Episode IV: A New Hope (the classic Star Wars), with Anakin Skywalker (played by the gorgeous Hayden Christensen) getting the Darth Vader mask and starting that trademark breathing. Since we just watched that first Star Wars movie in world history, I got really excited about some of the stuff it brought together. I'm still not a big Star Wars fan, though; I don't go crazy over the movies. The dialogue was definitely as bad as everyone said; one of Yoda's lines was, "Not if anything to say about it I have," and Natalie Portman, who I think is a great actress, was wasted by doing a lot of walking around draped in big cloaks (her character was pregnant) and saying things like, "I'm scared" and "Oh, Ani, I wish things could be like they were on Naboo." And I kept thinking about Mrs. Longhenry talking about people who like movies just because of the "special effects," which she cackled while rubbing her hands together in mock glee.

I'm still looking forward to our trip to Italy (two days!), but I'm kind of worried. Not to be a party pooper, but it seems like there's a lot of things to worry about, a lot of discomforts. Like pickpockets, for example, which everyone talks about and warns us about. To some people, maybe, that's part of the fun of being away from home, but I'm pretty attached to my own bed and a hot shower and clean water from the tap whenever I want it. And even though I know there will be a lot of great stuff to see, I realize that I hate vacations when we walk around and look at sights all day. (Gettysburg comes to mind; it's gone down in Powers family history as our worst vacation of all time. Of course, there's also the fact that we got lost and it was raining, but even in perfect weather it would have been the most boring place ever because it's nothing but big fields with grave after grave.) On the other hand, this is ROME, not the stupid Crazy Horse sculpture in South Dakota (they never finished it, so it's basically a big hole in a rock, with a little museum that shows you what it's supposed to look like).