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Carnival
I feel like I should post something, but not sure what.
I went to CMU Carnival this year again, which isn't that weird a thing in itself. We were having the KGB 30th Anniversary party, which was pretty weird. I also brought Chris with me, which I guess is weird. I dunno.
I can't remember how long I spend in town for most Carnivals but this time was less than 48 hours, since Chris doesn't do redeyes. Normally I'd come in Thurs or Fri morning, but we got in Friday afternoon, just in time to get to campus for the Friday night event thing, which was in the weird Tartan pavilion thing that is growing off the back of Resnik dorm. There were a lot of people there and I talked to many of them. Just like last time, I didn't really talk to any of the younger current student crowd. I did realize, though, that several people who were at the 2008 one and were the younger people back then, are people I actually do bother talking to as alumni friend type people now. I guess we're all old or something. Welcome to Old Business.
There was an underground tour thing, and it kind of made me sad because all of the stories were basically assumed to either not be true or explicitly said to not be true. The dumb thing is, some of them I know to be true because they were about things that happened when I was actually at CMU and in KGB. So, WTF. I get the impression that sometime in the past 15 years, the stories we used to tell on the underground tour got so far removed from the current generations that they figured it was better to just make stuff up, but that sucks because we always thought the point was to tell the stories the administration didn't want you to tell, but that were actually true. The good part, though, was that we went to things I had never bothered going to before like the Kraus Campo, aka the number garden, up on top of whatever the fuck the thing is between CFA and GSIA.
Also silly: why is the Fence not a pokemon gym? It is a stop, sure, but it is the closest thing I can think of in real life to the embodiment of a gym: it is constantly changing hands, you have to take it over and defend it, and it changes colors all the time, and...
Anyway, after the tour we went to Mad Mex Shadyside (lol, shadyside) with Tim, and there were three other groups of younger KGB folks there as well. I stopped to talk to the circa-2011 group at the table next to ours, anyway.
Saturday I made Chris walk to campus and to Oakland for the other KGB event. The weather said 45 degrees out, but Kelli was like, it's sunny, you can do it -- and sure enough, it was sunny and felt downright balmy, despite being in the low 50's. (Oh yeah, we stayed with Roman and Kelli.) I stopped by the university store on the way, and then we walked to Oakland via the bridge behind Scaife, which means that I inadvertantly did kind of see buggy for a split second, and also, you can't just walk to scaife anymore because they have built so much crap down near Hamerschlag/Wean now.
The KGB lunch was good I guess. We got to sit with Mark Stehlik though and that was really great. And since I had donated a bunch of money to the reunion I got a fluffy hat, which I didn't keep, but did wear around all day, and I didn't know what better thing to do with it than to go around taking selfies with everyone else wearing hats. Also, they streamlined officer reports this time instead of having everyone say something. For the 2nd VP report I ended up talking regardless... and gave the report about this weekend's events. Faye or Ben or someone said I should end with "Thus ends the 2nd VP report... proving that after 30 years we're still doing way more work than the 1st VP." or something like that. I honestly have forgotten what I said.
It ended earlier than expected though, so we walked to campus and saw the new monstrosity in the Morewood parking lot, and walked down Craig on the way, and things like that. We met up with Jason on Midway and hung out in the number garden again for a bit, during which time we saw some guy from ASA celebrate his 21st birthday by popping a bottle of wine, among other things. Then we got a Lyft up to Squill and hung out at the cslounge BBQ; you know, it occurs to me I didn't set foot in Wean or Gates or any of the CS buildings this trip. Not sure if that's weird? We ended up going to dinner at Church Brew Works with Jason a bit later and that was good, and then chilled out for the rest of the evening.
Sunday was walking around Squill some, and then going to the pie party, and then getting to the airport and going home.
I dunno, I think in the end it would have been cheaper to rent a car, however, at least this way I didn't have to drive or park in Pittsburgh at all.
Lots of people have changed their names and/or genders since the last time I saw them. I'm cool with that and respect them and their identities, but I have always had a terrible time remapping people's names in my head (and some of you know I'm usually the only person who still refers to someone by their college nickname even if years later they totally don't use it anymore). I think I did a pretty good job this weekend of not screwing it up, but seriously, I was kind of worried about it.
I don't know if I'd rather have more time or less time of Carnival this year, it's kind of odd. I feel like I didn't really talk deeply with many people, but the weird thing is that due to Facebook and stuff like that, I don't even know if talking deeply with people even happens anymore since you sort of know what most people are up to? Though I guess there are plenty of people who don't post and I'm glad I did get to see them and all.
I went to CMU Carnival this year again, which isn't that weird a thing in itself. We were having the KGB 30th Anniversary party, which was pretty weird. I also brought Chris with me, which I guess is weird. I dunno.
I can't remember how long I spend in town for most Carnivals but this time was less than 48 hours, since Chris doesn't do redeyes. Normally I'd come in Thurs or Fri morning, but we got in Friday afternoon, just in time to get to campus for the Friday night event thing, which was in the weird Tartan pavilion thing that is growing off the back of Resnik dorm. There were a lot of people there and I talked to many of them. Just like last time, I didn't really talk to any of the younger current student crowd. I did realize, though, that several people who were at the 2008 one and were the younger people back then, are people I actually do bother talking to as alumni friend type people now. I guess we're all old or something. Welcome to Old Business.
There was an underground tour thing, and it kind of made me sad because all of the stories were basically assumed to either not be true or explicitly said to not be true. The dumb thing is, some of them I know to be true because they were about things that happened when I was actually at CMU and in KGB. So, WTF. I get the impression that sometime in the past 15 years, the stories we used to tell on the underground tour got so far removed from the current generations that they figured it was better to just make stuff up, but that sucks because we always thought the point was to tell the stories the administration didn't want you to tell, but that were actually true. The good part, though, was that we went to things I had never bothered going to before like the Kraus Campo, aka the number garden, up on top of whatever the fuck the thing is between CFA and GSIA.
Also silly: why is the Fence not a pokemon gym? It is a stop, sure, but it is the closest thing I can think of in real life to the embodiment of a gym: it is constantly changing hands, you have to take it over and defend it, and it changes colors all the time, and...
Anyway, after the tour we went to Mad Mex Shadyside (lol, shadyside) with Tim, and there were three other groups of younger KGB folks there as well. I stopped to talk to the circa-2011 group at the table next to ours, anyway.
Saturday I made Chris walk to campus and to Oakland for the other KGB event. The weather said 45 degrees out, but Kelli was like, it's sunny, you can do it -- and sure enough, it was sunny and felt downright balmy, despite being in the low 50's. (Oh yeah, we stayed with Roman and Kelli.) I stopped by the university store on the way, and then we walked to Oakland via the bridge behind Scaife, which means that I inadvertantly did kind of see buggy for a split second, and also, you can't just walk to scaife anymore because they have built so much crap down near Hamerschlag/Wean now.
The KGB lunch was good I guess. We got to sit with Mark Stehlik though and that was really great. And since I had donated a bunch of money to the reunion I got a fluffy hat, which I didn't keep, but did wear around all day, and I didn't know what better thing to do with it than to go around taking selfies with everyone else wearing hats. Also, they streamlined officer reports this time instead of having everyone say something. For the 2nd VP report I ended up talking regardless... and gave the report about this weekend's events. Faye or Ben or someone said I should end with "Thus ends the 2nd VP report... proving that after 30 years we're still doing way more work than the 1st VP." or something like that. I honestly have forgotten what I said.
It ended earlier than expected though, so we walked to campus and saw the new monstrosity in the Morewood parking lot, and walked down Craig on the way, and things like that. We met up with Jason on Midway and hung out in the number garden again for a bit, during which time we saw some guy from ASA celebrate his 21st birthday by popping a bottle of wine, among other things. Then we got a Lyft up to Squill and hung out at the cslounge BBQ; you know, it occurs to me I didn't set foot in Wean or Gates or any of the CS buildings this trip. Not sure if that's weird? We ended up going to dinner at Church Brew Works with Jason a bit later and that was good, and then chilled out for the rest of the evening.
Sunday was walking around Squill some, and then going to the pie party, and then getting to the airport and going home.
I dunno, I think in the end it would have been cheaper to rent a car, however, at least this way I didn't have to drive or park in Pittsburgh at all.
Lots of people have changed their names and/or genders since the last time I saw them. I'm cool with that and respect them and their identities, but I have always had a terrible time remapping people's names in my head (and some of you know I'm usually the only person who still refers to someone by their college nickname even if years later they totally don't use it anymore). I think I did a pretty good job this weekend of not screwing it up, but seriously, I was kind of worried about it.
I don't know if I'd rather have more time or less time of Carnival this year, it's kind of odd. I feel like I didn't really talk deeply with many people, but the weird thing is that due to Facebook and stuff like that, I don't even know if talking deeply with people even happens anymore since you sort of know what most people are up to? Though I guess there are plenty of people who don't post and I'm glad I did get to see them and all.
no subject
I suspect it might end up to be a profound disappointment, though, since it would be so far removed from what I remember, and since more and more of my friends have left.
I am not very interested in things like reunions. This might explain why i feel so disconnected, though.