The Agrinautica

   So yesterday I went up to visit the dashing Mr Matt "Papa Smurf" Wilkerson up at UCLA. It turns out he lives across the street from where my dad lived when he went to UCLA, and across a different street from where my mom did (its an intersection see) .. and just two or three buldings down from where I stayed there when I visited the UCLA Swedish department. Clearly this intersection is the cultural epicenter of the world.

   Anyway, shortly after we got there, Matt's roommate Arya came in and announced he was going to the UCLA Democrats vs UCLA Republicans debate, since he was speaking there. Matt & I decided to tag along as it was early and we didn't have anything else in particular to do. There we rendezvoused with Swati "Swat Team" Srivistava.
   While I'm a fan of intellectual discourse, I am not generally a fan of campus debates like this. Usually both sides manage to completely avoid eachothers points while hurling criticisms at eachother and everyone comes out a loser. This time didn't really appear to be an exception, although it didn't help that the moderator, the President of the UCLA Dems, frequently let "15 second response"s go on for as much as 45 seconds. I couldn't discern whether he was using such shoddy time keeping to his team's advantage or was just generally taking a lax approach to moderation, but I didn't think it boded well for the seriousness of the debate.

   We departed the debate as soon as Arya had spoken. Later we met up with Afshin Haghgoo, who had also staffed with Swati, Matt & I at AMPAC.
   We went to a party down the street, which happened to be in the same building I had stayed at when I last visited UCLA (!). There we ran into Nick "Luxurious Hair" Anduze, who had staffed with us at SDHSMUNC 2007 as well as been in Mara & I's committee at AMPAC 2006, as well as of course, been on MTV's Date My Mom.
   Also present was the Secretary-General of the upcoming UNA-USA MUN Conference that Matt's chairing and Swati is the Chief of Staff for. Incidently it has come to light that Swat Team has chaired no less than SEVENTEEN (17) conferences THIS YEAR. I previously thought my 23 chaired conferences was a pretty unassailably large number, but she's well-nigh caught up to me in a single year!! And to think it all started when she was a wee high school delegate in my committee at the first SDHSMUN Conference in 2004. I'm all for lots of MUN and all but.. someone should hold an intervention here!! (=

   Also I called my former roommate Grodecki, who lives in the area, but she was busy with a "Wrap Up Party" since they just finished shooting a TV series she was working on or something. Damn people and their real jobs.


Random Trojan Tangent
   In the morning I hopped on over to UCLA arch-rival USC. Now to go on a quick tangent about USC, USC's mascot is the "Trojans" right. There are also several high schools and such with the mascot of the "Trojans." What are Trojans famous for? GETTING TRICKED! That is ALL. They are the most famously bamboozled people in history! And academic institutions find it fashionable to portray them as role models?
   What else comes to mind when you think of "trojans?" Thats right, objects which nefariously insert soldiers within otherwise impregnable city walls with disasterious results. Which of course, is a brilliant thing to name a brand of condoms after, no?
/ Random Trojan Tangent


   Anyway, some 15 or so members of Phi Alpha Delta UC Davis had come down to tour USC and UCLA law schools, so I joined them for USC. By the time of their UCLA tour however I would be well on my way down to San Diego for the weekend. This evening the Davis delegation may join the so-cal delegations at the formal hosted by Cal State Northridge, which is being attended by most of the other so cal chapters.


   After USC I set forth to journey back down to my HQ in MV.
   However, I happened to get a call back for the paralegal position I had applied to in Long Beach. "When can you come up for an interview?" they asked "well, I'll be passing Long Beach in 15 minutes" says I. So I randomly took a job interview detour, and I think it actually went pretty well.


   Finally, Mara and I met up at MV HQ and carpooled on down to San Diego. And now I'm here.

   So.

   I went a week without updating. Gotta keep it all up in your face!

   Last Wednesday there was finally an Aggie Article about Case 31. I'm trying to resist the urge pick it apart, but I don't know where these references to "Student Court" came from. There hasn't been any references to a "student court" in more than an ASUCD-generation.

   I spent most of the week in hermit-like seclusion working on a paper about the decline of the Roman Empire.

   Then Friday was Cinco de Mayo. I celebrated by drinking by myself in my room.

   By Saturday I desperately needed a change of scenery. So I headed down to San Francisco, to visit Mara (blueashes).
   Now the thing with San Francisco, is driving around there is always a hellish experience. They have these street signs you find nowhere else in the world. Some lanes are reserved for trollies, or something ... taxis seem to obey their own rules entirely. Streets are set up like a grid, but somehow through the use of one-way streets and unholy magick, the entire thing is a labyrinth.
   In addition to getting directions from Mara , I pulled up googlemaps and examined the area in both the map mode and with satellite overlay so as to get maximum familiarity with the cursed roads of SF I'd have to navigate.
   As soon as I came off the Bay Bridge onto the SF penninsula it was out of control though. Almost immediately the freeway unexpectedly split in two with no indication which side was which. I chose the right side but it soon became apparent that I had chosen the wrong one as I ended up too far south without passing the exit. I had to exit, travel parallel to the freeway a few blocks to find an onramp in the other direction.. get new directions from Mara. Then key streets definitely didn't have signs identifying them.. anyway, I survived.
   Anyway, she lives in the Mission District. We walked down Haight Street, visited "Hippie Hill" at a park at the end of the street (golden gate park?). Then as we returned we came upon Mara's flatmate with her dog at another park and hung out there for awhile (where Megan --who came to Davis with Mara that one time and on picnic day-- caught up with us). Sasha is a pretty awesome doggie. Her repetoire of tricks include licking sleeping people's faces on command and giving people hugs.
   Then we returned to Mara's place and played Settler's of Catan, because we're awesome like that.
   That evening we went to some of the bars in The Mission and caused a ruckus. Most noteworthy of all though, is my estranged former best friend Alberto, who hasn't answered or returned any of my calls in four years, actually textmesseged me in response to the messege I left him saying I'd be in town. It read "stop calling me asap" -- no not really! he actually told me where he was working, implying I should stop by, but I didn't realize I had messeges until the very end of the evening.

   Kritsy was also in SF on Saturday, hanging out with her sister.

   On Sunday Kristy went to "Rock It" at The Grad, and totally rocked out.

   Monday marked two and a half years since Kristy and I began dating. When I met her she had a boyfriend of three years -- it seemed like they'd been together for ever. Then they broke up ... and eventually we started dating, and I still felt like I'd never rival her previous relationship .. but now, holy crap I'm catching up. Who would have foreseen such epic lovered?

   Tuesday (today) I worked at the courthouse. It looks like I might get moved up to working on case management conferences directly under a judge. Also there was a bit of a ruckus today.. some guy was being arraigned on bomb threat charges or something and the place was crawling with reporters. They kept trying to sneak recording equipment in, much to the angst of the guards.
   I happened to be coming out of the Courthouse when I see a reporter interviewing people, a reporter who is none other than Stan Obklodzija!
   Not quite sure what was going on but presumably it'll be in the paper tomorrow.

Picture of the Day

Megan & one of Mara's neighbours

Highlights From the Case # 31 Hearing
   On Tuesday we had our hearing for Case # 31, Van Schoelandt v. ASUCD Senate. The Defence was represented by Greg "the big city lawyer" Russel, while Hanging Chad Van Shoelace represented the plaintiffs. I was taking the minutes, so of course they are excellently recorded. Due to my inability to properly prioratize however, my attention to the minutes probably had an inverse effect on justice in general.*
   Anyway, without giving away any secrets, I thought I'd share with you some highlights from the hearing.
Witness Thomas Lloyd: "Unfortunately [Senator Ari Kalfayan] had the floor, and was probably the most confused of all of us."
Witness Avi Singh: "[Senator Ari Kalfayan] has a demonstrated history of not doing things correctly"
Court: “Was anything damaging said [during the Closed Hearing?” Singh: "I don't remember. ...so my girlfriend, she had a job. We were very terrible for this association. She had to work at 6am. Got soup thrown on her while she was here, said she wasn't going to come anymore. But if she didn’t show up she’d get checkmark on her background. You gotta keep your head up. I have no idea where I’m going with this [pause] I'm going to Harvard law school!! [applause]"
   "...I feel bad because I told Greg I'd prepare for this but I don't really remember..."

   Also of note was how other justices were going back and forth with Lloyd about what it means to be a co-author and then I read him our definition of co-author from Case 22 ... which was followed by Singh saying he thought our definition of co-author was completely bogus, to which I read him the conclusion of Case 22, which asked the Senate to redefine co-author.
   Then he pointed out that he was unlikely to know of a 2003 case since he wasn't involved in ASUCD back then. A good point which inspired me to write Judicial Directive 11 later that night. It lists the orders of the cases since Fall 2003 ... and establishes that all are responsible for knowing them.

See Also: Plaintiff witness Jonathon Leathers posted an account of the hearing. We of course take no responsibility for the views expressed by this plaintiff witness.

*Actually the minutes probably suck and it would be a compliment to justice if there was an inverse effect.


Wiki Adventures
   So I have to be ready to give a 5-7 minute informative speech on something cultural tomorrow for my introduction to public speaking class. I've chosen to do it on Daviswiki. I need at least three sources, one of which comes from something scholarly like a book or scholarly journal article (any suggestions?) and at least one visual aid. For the visual aid I'm thinking of trying to wrangle powerpoint into displaying a picture of the front page of Daviswiki or something.

   In related wiki news, Daviswiki's sister wiki, Rocwiki, which is hosted on the same machine and uses the same code, recently surpassed the 2,000 page mark.

   In more sordid wiki news (which don't worry I won't be covering in my speech), it seems just when we thought things had quieted down, contention has once again broken out on the Halema Buzayan page. Previously unknown user "NancyGrisby" has burst onto the page with guns blazing, vehemently defending Officer Ly. E-detectives have determined that the IP address of all NancyGrisby's edits has come from the Sac State campus, which interesting is where Officer Ly's brother goes.

   Also, curious as to the excessive amount of comments to "Charity Classic" I investigated and found there to be a raging debate about the water shortage in Africa. Interesting.


   On the subject of Africa, yesterday while I was marauding the Farmer's Market I was waylaid by someone who was going around handing out flyers for a protest of the genocide in Darfur. And not just passively handing out these flyers but very energetically seeking out everyone she could find to flyerize them.
   Now the thing is, the genocide in Darfur is caused by the ethnically Arab Janjaweed militia, not-very-secretly backed by the Sudanese government, trying to drive out the non-Arab native inhabitants of the region (which isn't to say there are no Arab native inhabitants). This conflict is of course intricately linked with the Chad/Sudan conflcit I've been covering. Pretty much everyone, the United States included, agrees that the Darfur conflict is a Bad Thing and put the utmost pressure on Sudan to behave itself. And so, my point, is that it is utterly useless to protest the situation here. No one here thinks its not a bad thing. There is NO chance that even the 7th cousin of someone who once was the roommate of someone who is responsible for whats going on there is EVER going to know there was a protest at UC Davis, much less care. And so this falls firmly into the category of things I find infuriatingly dumb.
   At least its not actively counter-productive like the movement to cause the UC Regents to divest from Sudan.

Picture of the Day

This is what AMPAC ESCWA 2006 might have looked like discussing water access in Africa
and its affect on the Darfur Conflict

   Mara recently got some pictures from our committee's Lebanon. As you can see, MUN is FUN. Note in this one the tall blonde guy -- he (Iraq) was totally on MTV's "Date My Mom." And Mara & I causing a ruckus at the dias.
   Also, it turns out Mara's friend Megan ended up falling madly in love with the lad she met when they visited Davis, or something, so she's coming up for picnic day & dragging Mara with her -- so Mara will be here for picnic day!

In Other News
   So Kristy works as a kitty technician at a feline nutritional research lab. Basically they feed cats stuff and observe the results. Nothing weaksauce. Anyway they were supposed to get a shipment of this raw meat cat food the other day ... only employee Olivia opens it to find LIVE LOBSTERS!!?! It was suspected that an order had gotten mixed up and somewhere a fancy restaurant was opening a box of Wild Kitty Cat Food.

   On Thursday evening Kristy & I caught the tail of Jenn de la Vega's birthday pubcrawl at G Street Pub.

   On Friday Mara, my co-chair from AMPAC, happened to visit Davis. Her best friend Megan has been accepted into the graduate Art History department here, so they came up so Megan could meet the professors.
   It quickly became apparent that Davis is very different from USFCA*, when for example immediately upon reaching campus they exclaimed "there are DUCKS just randomly wandering around here?" and then saw a squirrel: "omg wildlife!"
   Anyway, I gave them a quick tour, that included such Davis must-sees as "the Deathstar," The M.U. Basement (with its newspaper HQ, radio station, bowling alley, & barbershop), ARC, & James Schwab.

   Kristy met us for dinner at Plutos, & then I left them to their own devices -- Megan had some friends from high school or junior high to see.

   Friday evening Kristy and I went to "pretentiousness" themed party hosted by our friend Liza (officially "Cafe Pretentieux"). I wore a suit-jacket with otherwise normal clothes (well my New Amsterdams shirt that says "New Fucking Amsterdams"). Kristy came up with a brilliant outfit to resemble some posh opera-goer. Sloshie wore denim. Coleman um ... wore digital camouflage (actually I think that was how he was dressed anyway, you have to understand the Coleman).

   On Saturday morning I took the Foreign Service Exam in Sacramento. That evening Sashie joined us at Kristy's place in watching the movie "Kids."

*Acronym from facebook. Univ. of SF, CA?

Completely Unrelated: I forgot to mention we saw the actor who plays Mini-Me while in Vegas. He was gambling.

Picture of the Day

Sashie, Liza & Kristy at the pretentiousness party

Previously on Emosnail
   04-03-24: Finals Two Years Ago - My brother Tobin comes to town, hangs out with Philip Neustrom.
   04-03-27: Spring Break Days 1-3 - My cousin Holly (bobolly) & her then-boyfriend Eric Shamay (shamster) randomly show up at Diedrichs. I meet Alex's friend Oi Kelly and we all have some shenanigans.
   04-03-28: Spring Break Day 4 - Went to a show in Corona with Alex & Oi Kelly. Fight breaks out there. Return.
   04-03-29: Spring Break Day 5 - AA meeting
   04-03-30: Spring Break Day 6 - I visit Tiffany Lee Woffington Zoumer, & the cobbler (& hang out at Diedrichs, which should be noted for each of these days). Lee Wofft has been in France fordays now.
   04-03-31: Spring Break Day 7 - Took Mike Kemp to jail, considered staffing AMPAC 2004. Kristy gets two rats, we brainstorm names.
   04-04-03: Spring Break Day 10 - Went to Laguna Beach, hung out with Jessie Lawson. Kristy's rats are officially named Leia & Delilah.
   04-04-05: Last Day of Spring Break - Made a brief appearance at AMPAC 2004, among other adventures.

   This weekend my friend Mara & I discovered a series of secret passageways, which led us to a helipad on the 13th floor of a building in downtown Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, however, we were cornered by secret service.

   the AMPAC 2006 Model UN conference was held in the historic hoity toity Biltmore Hotel, where simulteniously a conference on "The War on Gangs" was taking place. In fact, this was taking place in the room immediately next to one in which Mara & I were presiding over the Economic Committee for Western Asia, & was attended by the mayor of LA, & the California Attorney-General. Consequently, the hotel was swarming with guys that looked exactly like the president's secret service: big guys in suits with earpeices. I'm not sure if they were the Mayor's or the A-G's. Having almost joined the Secretary of State's secret service, I knew that such agents can be differentiated from private security by little pins on their left lapels, so I checked & sure enough these agents had them, but I couldn't make out the emblem on the little pins.
   There was also a Governor's Ball one of the nights, and there are some reports that Laura Bush was sighted (amid more swarms of actual secret service).


   I have been appointed the Secretary-General for AMPAC 2007. I'd sworn I'd never do MUN secretariat again after being a Davis MUN Under-SecGen in 2003, but this position will encompass most of the areas of experience that I think the diplomatic security division was concerned I lacked, so I think it may be an invaluable addition to my resume.


   Once again this is only a cursory update in lieu of a lack of the time necessary to effectively report recent shenaniganry. I have yet to process most of my pictures from Vegas, or write an entry about those adventures, and there's more to say about this weekend.

Picture of the Day

"cats go here"
from the belated St Patrick's Day Party I missed this weekend

   Alright now I'm about a week behind in the livejournal. Hopefully now that I finally have a functional computer everything will go much more smoothly. There are currently two MIT students, one South African, my brother (nibot), and his girlfriend (roxymartini) on my livingroom floor. But I'll get to that eventually.


I. AMWEST - Las Vegas
   From Saturday till Tuesday afternoon I was in Vegas representing the international power-house of Guinea-Bissau in the Organization of Islamic Conference (an organization not actually affiliated with the UN). Qur'an and briefcase in hand, I headed out with low expectations and apparently shockingly little luggage.
( Fear and MUNing in Las Vegas )

II. Back in the ASUCD
   Returning home I immediately had to start getting ready to preside over the first hearing for ASUCD Court Case # 22. Some confusion arose over evidence and further action on the case was postponed until a hearing next wednesday (the 3rd). The aforementioned information is public knowledge and of no partiality to any real or potential plaintiff or defendant, so please leave me alone about it.

Newspaper Articles About the Court and Removal Attempts:
First Removal Attempt Against Me - Back page with reference on front page.
About the Court in General - Front Page, upper right side
Second Removal Attempt - Front Page, upper right side
Editorial Condemning Removal Attempts - Opinion Section

( I eat judicial review for breakfast )

III. Thanksgiving
   Having two aunt/uncles living in the city of Davis, plus various other relatives, we decided to have thanksgiving in Davis this year. Yes I have relatives that went to UC Davis and never left. Frankly I'm terrified - NOT gonna happen to me.
   Wednesday night we got internet operating in this apartment, then about an hour later my parents arrived in town. Today (Thursday, Thanksgiving) we had a huge dinner at Auntie Bev and Uncle Ben's place. Both my grandmother and the other grandmother (Auntie Bev's mother) thought my mohawk was very nice. There was also discussion of "that incredibly beautiful girl Kris has been escorting around town." Such sauce.

   My brother Tobin, as mentioned, brought two MIT students, a South African, and his true love Diane (yes, pocketbookannie's cousin), and they are now gesleeping on my living room floor. I informed them that cuddling is strictly forbidden in my apartment however.


( ADDENDUM )

   Alright well once again I shall be updating for like.. the previous week. Hopefully henceforth updates will once again proceed in a more or less daily manner.

WEDNESDAY (02/26/03)
   School, work 5pm to like 2am. Good times. Got a ride home with Jennifer the Server.

THURSDAY
   School, work 5pm to like 2am. Good times. Don and Jennifer the Server and I got our drink on at Don's after work...

FRIDAY
   ...woke up at 10am on my livingroom floor. I was supposed to catch a 7am bus into San Fransisco for the UC Berkeley Model United Nations (MUN) Conference (UCBMUNC). Presumably I was trying to get to my room when I passed out five feet from my door the night before. Reflecting on these things I declared myself straight edge (sXe) and drew Xs on my hands with sharpie.
   Took the 14:15 intercampus shuttle to Berkeley, and the BART into San Fransisco. Total trip cost me like $7 and three hours tops.
   Committee is kinda bogus; everyone is already in final stages of working out resolutions on the topic of small arms trade in the Caucasuses (I'm representing the United States on Disarmament and Internat'l Security Committee (DISC)).
   Hung out with Sally (whom I met at the CALMUN conference last quarter) and her friend Mara (Kuwait in my committee) from Saddleback College in the evening ("you've only been here two hours and you ALREADY have women???" - Janet). Saddleback College being of course the JC that 56% of my High School went to after graduation, two members of their delegation (Shab and (Sn)Ackbar) had been in MUN with me in HS. We wandered from room-party to room-party as the various parties got broken up by hotel security and new ones formed up. Being the dedicated sXe boy that I'd newly become I shocked myself by being sober all night, though admittedly a succumbed to the temptation of a small amount of wine while at my Chair's party. Sally, Mara, the rest of the UC Davis delegation and I ate at a cafe before retiring for the night; and by acclamation we all declared that Paul Amnaypayout is henceforth forbidden from drinking.
   In true MUN style there were eight people in a room and four people in a bed. Admittedly usually we keep it at three per bed, but these four people were all skinny enough..

SATURDAY
   MUN all day pretty much. MUN is so wonderful. No really.
   During lunch, while marauding for food with the Saddleback crew I ran into Alberto. Alberto the ONE person I know who lives in San Fransisco. Alberto the guy that was my best friend from 2nd grade to 12th. Completely uncoordinated, I hadn told him I was coming to town and didn't have any idea where in the town he habitually lurked. Crazy.
   As the end of committee grew near of course things became less serious. I declared myself to be the "Imperial States of America" with the motto "Sovreignty is just a matter of manifest destiny." When it came time to nominate people for "superlative" or "joke" awards at the end of committee, I think I was nominated for every single one of them; "most likely to be under the table at saturday night activities," ("if they only knew why you missed half of committee" -Israel (In MUN one tends to refer to the other delegates as the countries they represent)) I almost won "Most Evil" but Iraq and I both lost out to Australia...
   Saturday night activities took place at this place called Sinbad's down by the warf. Once again I proved my awesome dedication to being sXe by succumbing to a madori sour that Mara was drinking. Can you blame me, it was a madori sour, I mean come on! Even Sally was drinking which was crazy cause she like.. NEVER drinks. Hung out with the Saddleback kids again that night.

SUNDAY
   Closing ceremonies at UCBMUNC in the morning. Proceeded home via automobile. Was home for half an hour before I had to leave for work. Discovered via email that I'd been selected to moderate the North Korea forum that the Internat'l Relations Student Assn (IRSA) will be putting on on Wednesday the 5th.
   Ran into my uncle Mike (who lives about a hundred yards from me) as I walked to work. He was riding his bike to the UC Davis Airport to help Uncle Ben unload parts of an airplane he'd just gone on a roadtrip to pick up from somewhere else. My family is so weird.
   So after an hour walk arrived at work. Rather than the usual tremendous understaffedness, we were somewhat OVERstaffed, on account of a large number of personnel having been transferred from the Vacaville IHOP. I made sandwiches, it was good times.
   Though I had been quite clear in both talking to the manager Paul, and in what I wrote on my availablity sheet -that I could only work two days a week and not before 5pm- Paul scheduled me five days the upcoming week, all 3-11. I therefore quit at 11pm. He never ever gave us breaks either.. I didn really care cause I'd eat enough while working to remain content, but its all part of a larger pattern of a you-can-go-screw-yourself attitude toward employees on the part of management.

MONDAY
   School, worked on paper for CRD1 (Community and Regional Developement) "The Community." My paper was about the underground music scene in Davis. Good times. Interviewed Stan Oklobdzija, Amy, and Annie for the paper, as it required at least one interview.

TUESDAY
   finished paper just in time for class. Was actually late for class on account of the line in the computer lab. Psha on that.
   Five of us arrived at the ASUCD Supreme Court meeting, I guess a sixth was in the building elsewhere, I ran into him right after the meeting dispersed, so we were only really missing two people. One of those two was the interim chair however, and the rest of the Court couldn decide whether we were even able to meet without the interim chair. Yes, the other justices are shining beacons of decisiveness and initiative. Returning home much later I found an email from the interim chair that read "Hey, ya'll! Because Jade has failed to get me any of the information necessary to hold a productive meeting, tonight's meeting is cancelled. I expect to have everything for next week's meeting. Thanks, Sarita."
   Proceeded from the Court meeting to the IRSA meeting to be briefed on the North Korea forum.
   Kristy from CRD Discussion decided we were going to become good friends today. Officially. Silly Kristy.

   Now I am totally going to sleep.

*A "Belshaw Gun" is used to make pancakes.