The Agrinautica

   It all started at UCIMUN 2000 (that is to say, the Univ of Ca Irvine Model UN Conference, 2000). Actually, I suppose it began the day before (Friday, May 5th, 2000), when Elena told me she couldn't go to prom with me (I forget why)(also, we had long since broken up by this point). That was pretty weak, since prom was only two weeks away. But the next day was UCIMUN.
   I represented Libya on 6th Legal Committee, with the topic of defining terrorism. Now this was before Libya had finally decided to renounce terrorism (which didn't occur until Dec 19th 2003), so arguing about the definition of terrorism was good times. Needless to say, the chairperson hated me.
   And when I didn't win an award, several members of the committee who did flipped off the dias on my behalf. (=
   But I had fun (even if I did have to climb in my second floor window to get back home after the first day, having been locked out without a key), and I sat next to an attractive young lady who represented Kuwait. Here's a picture of us at homecoming the following Fall, but thats getting ahead of things. Anyway, her name was Jessie Lawson and she was awesome. In fact, I was totally crazy about her ... for the next three days. O=

TO BE CONTINUED!!!


Jessie, the following year, at UCIMUN 2001

   Tuesday October 26th, 1999: the day after the day I'd set about becoming the new best friend of the girl my best friend Alberto had a crush on -- After school Alberto convinces me to go with him into the band-room, which was known to be Oakley's habitat. The band-room immediately steals my soul and I am cursed to not go a single weekday without entering the bandroom for several weeks thereafter.
   In what may be a direct precursor to this livejournal, I end up writing a "weekly band-room rat report" on the weekly antics of the band-room rats. This report was compiled weekly through extensive interviews and research (really), and published in the weekly SWO Newsletter, which had a circulation of 700+. Though SWO stands for "Simpsons World Order" I got away with writing nonsimpsons-related articles for maybe a year before editor-in-chief Matt Mullen told me I needed to write about the Simpsons or get canned. Senior year I also wrote a weekly column on "the World According to Mr Drinkworth," who was a history teacher who would very routinely try to pass of retarded things as fact, such as "cold air rises, thats why there's snow on mountains." I also started writing a weekly Futurama report, since Futurama is awesome and kind of Simpsons-related. Anyway, eventually Mullen canned me, and the whole enterprize immediately went under. In preparing for this entry I searched for the archives but they're no longer on the internets. Mullen says he has them on a computer at home somewhere though so maybe someday they will be resurrected.
   I immediately launched my own weekly satire newsletter called the Chosen Echidna, which continued for a short time, and I reserve the right to resurrect at any moment.

   Anyway, enough of that tangent. So Alberto and I ventured into that dank cave known as the Band Room. There I ran into bassoonist Elena Jordanov again. The next day we hung out with them there at lunch. By Thursday evening Alberto called me:
Him: "Dude!" (which translates to "you're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you")
Me:  "Dude!" (trans: well tell me already)
Him: "Dude!" (trans: no really I have a great idea)
Me:  "Why are you calling me? we were talking on AIM"
Him: "Hey we should try to get Oakley & Elena to go trick-or-treating with us"
   And so we proceeded to work out some devious overly-complicated plot to ask Oakley and Elena to spend Halloween with us (which was the upcoming Saturday)
   The next day as we were standing on the band-room entrance ramp getting ready to put our devious plan into action, Oakley pulled out a "so, you guys should hang out with us on halloween."

Previously on Emosnail
   Previously on the Prehistory Series: Meeting Oakley & Elena - Which takes place immediately prior to this.

   Continuing the Emosnail Prehistory series...

   I spent what would have been my sophomore year of high school in Sweden -- summer 1998 to summer 1999. I stayed with the family of Tony Bjuhr, the Swedish exchange student who had stayed with my family for the previous year. They lived in Kristinehamn, a small town of 25,000 on the northeastern corner of Sweden's largest lake (fig.1).
   Kristinehamn (literally, Port Kristine) was known for most of its history as "Bro" ("Bridge." The town was named Bridge. Wtf) until someone finally decided it needed a real name. It was used for loading iron on to boats on Lake Vanern. Now its main industry is production of turbines -- ship propellors and hydroelectric turbines.
   About an hour away from Kristinehamn is Karlstad ("Car-shta" to those in the know, Charleswood for those with a penchant for literal translation. It has 80,000 people, at least four McDonaldses, and an airport. When I arrived I came in on a Fokker 50 (yeah Fokker, the German WWII manufacturer) turboprop from Stockholm.
   Also of note is the small town of Bjorneborg ("Byee-orna-bor-E," or Bear Castle) about 8km to the where several of my friends lived. There we'd hang out in a small cafe, in which anyone can work for an hour or two for a free meal. The church in Kristinehamn had two tours, normally churchs have one tower and anything with two is a cathedral, apparently, but the second tower was actually the Bjorneborg tower, making it not a cathedral. Or so I was told.

   That year I attended Brogardsgymnasiet ("Bridgeyard (a yard in this sense is like a neighbourhood I think, a subsection of a city) High School" I was disappointed to learn it wasn't named after someone named Brogard, cause thats a tight name). My class's head teacher was named Erling (teachers go by first names there). He had also been my host-father's teacher! The school's headmaster looked exactly like Santa Claus, and in contrast to the Kilkenny College headmaster, was jolly and amiable. I think his name was even Niklas. I'm pretty sure that when not involved in his christmas duties, Santa Claus is the headmaster of Brogardsgymnasiet.
   Now thanks to the miracles of socialism, the school had an overly inflated budget (did you know not only is college free in Sweden, but students receive a stipend to attend... they get paid to go to school!). Unfortunately, when you take money out of the hands of the people and put it into huge bureucracies, it gets spent less efficiently. Thus, though Brogardsgymnasiet probably had a bigger budget than MVHS, it lacked the fancy things MVHS has like a video productions department and fancy auditorium and suchforth, but instead the walls were repainted every year and the floors cleaned EVERY DAY, among other things. Also there were couches in the hallways. MVHS in contrast looks a little like a prison. No walls are painted, no floors are cleaned...
   Best of all though, whereas at MVHS they start lowering your grade after the third time you're late, and incarcerate you if you miss a class, in Sweden its your own loss if you miss class or are particularly late, and presumably will be reflected on your tests if its really a problem. (In Ireland they incarcerate you if you don't turn in your homework)
   In Sweden all the girls are named Erika. The most common boys name is Daniel, but there are also a lot of Stefans. The funniest name that is common there I think was Pontis. Pontis is a fairly common name there. Pontis!

   Tony has four brothers. Andreas, the second oldest, was an exhange student in Costa Rica for the first half of my stay. Stefan was my age, we were in the same class. He managed to graduate two years later than me though. Ola was about 11 and already a ladiesman. Eric was five and taught me Swedish.
   Really. 70% of Swedes can speak english, so a lot of people resorted to speaking english to me when swedish didn't work. Eric couldn't speak english and never gave up trying to speak swedish to me, so I think he really is significantly responsible for teaching me Swedish. Once he pounded on my door saying he wanted to hang out with me, but I was busy. But I didn't know how to say "busy." So when he asked why I couldn't hang out with him instead I said (in Swedish) "I can't I'm... eating spiders!" to which he said "I want to eat spiders also!" ("jag vill ata spindlerna ocka!" I think the conversation is funnier in Swedish) so I had to say "but... the spiders are all gone" ("spindlerna are slut" ("sloot")).
   On that note, I was shocked the first day I walked into the school cafeteria to see the sign next to the plate dispenser flashing "slut" as people walked by. "Slut," pronounced "sloot," means gone or empty. Also on the subject, lunch was free in the cafeteria.
   Tony's father Sven-Goran was the head of the "Erection Department" at Kvaerner Turbine, the local hydroelectric turbine plant. His mother was a nurse.


Previously on Emosnail
   Previously on the Prehistory Series: Freshman Year - 1997-98
   Next on the Prehistory Series: Sweden II - Angsty Situations - 1998-1999

   I went to Kilkenny College, City of Kilkenny, County of Kilkenny, Ireland. It was basically the American grades 7-12. Fortunately for me it was co-ed, a lot of schools in Ireland aren't and "you just have to make do" if you happen to go to such a school. There was also an "experimental" school in town that was actually ::gasp:: multidenominational, but this was a crazy experiment and many were very skeptical that a nondenomenational school could function.
   The Headmaster of Kilkenny College is (until this August apparently) Canon Jack Black, AKA the Black Canon. He billows around like Darth Vader in a cape (seriously a black cape!) and will not talk to anyone without an appointment (not even teachers I think). Kilkenny College, founded in 1538, boasts of many Lords of the Admiralty and other ostensibly famous people who attended it, but makes no official mention of their most famous graduate, Jonathon Swift, because he was a satirist and that we all know is not an honourable profession.
   Three times a week they had "assembly" in the gym, so we all herded into the gym, usually making cow noises to illustrate the similarities between our herding into the gym and the herding of cows (aomething you cannot but be familiar with in Ireland). The gym doors had a sign that said something along the lines of "no shoes other than gym shoes allowed in the gym," yet three times a week the entire school was herded in wearing their black non-gym shoes, I never really understood that. School uniforms (seen here) consisted of grey slacks, light blue dress shirt, tie, and a grey pullover for guys -- (substitute grey skirt for girls, subtract tie). So basically your usually wearing the pullover so everyone is grey and grey most of the time.
   Anyway, once I was tromping into the gym along with everyone else and my tie apparently wasn't tied right. Darth Headmaster Black, who was guarding the gym entrace like the ogre of darkness he is, pulled me aside and pointed at my tie. So I retied it and asked him if it was good. But god forbid he actually talk to a student -- he stared off over my head like I wasn't there, so I started walking into the gym again -- and he used Vader powers to strangle me yanked me back and pointed at my tie again. So I retied the tie and asked him again, but of course received the you-don't-exist response, so I slowly stepped away to see if he'd kill me with a lightsaber pull me back again but he didn't so it was kosher I guess.

   Another incident that highlights the difference between school in Ireland and in America was the time there was a brawl between the "Day People" and the "Boarders." In American HS, if people so much as look at eachother funny everyone comes running and the supervisors come speeding over in golfcarts to haul them both to the re-education camp office. During my time at Kilkenny College, a brawl once went on for the entire hour of lunch. Staff must have been aware of it but there was no attempt to stop it. About two dozen people would converge in a melee of fists and violence, pause to regroup and insult eachother, and rejoin in combat. For an hour. Then we all went back to class and got over it.

   So yeah. That was school in Ireland. I returned to the United States shortly after the 4th of July 1997.

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