MAGIC!!!!!!!

Okay, I totally forgot about my blog today. There was a lot of stuff going on and I'm not used to this blogging on Saturdays thing. There was a welcome week party at Trinity house this evening, the intentional Christian community house, our school's version of a frat house, where there was food and wine and singing and much connect four playing. We had a grand old time.

As I was playing connect four, and losing, with one of the new first years, named Daniel, we discovered our mutual love of the Magic: The Gathering, that wonderful collectible card game that I've mentioned once or twice on this blog. Daniel just happened to bring a ton of Magic decks with him to school, so we made a quick escape to Holy Grounds and dueled it out until 3 in the morning. The last game, which lasted probably about an hour, was one of those truly epic games that only a Magic player can understand, so I won't bore you with the details here.

Thus far, the new students seem like a really really great bunch and I can't wait to see what they have to bring to our school community. All I can say is that I need to get ready for another awesome year at SFTS!

Day 300 (The Magic of Magic)

If you've been reading this blog, then you know about my love affair with a little card game called Magic. When I come to my parents' house, I will often bring some decks with me so that I can play with my brother. Well, my nephews see this an they want to play, but the game is a little bit advanced for them. They're only 8 and 7.

To help solve this problem, as well as to introduce various other people to the game, I made 5 beginners decks to teach people how to play, one for each of the colors in the game. Only for some reason, I didn't bring those decks with me this time.

I'd been debating back and forth about whether or not to go to a game store and buy starter decks for each of them so that they could play with some less complicated cards, but I decided that would be a waste of money. I have more than enough cards to do this myself; it's just that I left all my cards at my apartment up North. Still, I decided I should save my money, make a couple of decks when I school starts, and when I come back to my parents' house, give them to my nephews.

Having decided that, my brother tosses me two beginners decks that his roommate had somehow gotten his hands on. His roommate doesn't play and knew that I did, so he gave them to my brother to give to me. That's kind of random, right?

Now, if only God would send me a boyfriend like that...

Day 276 (Finals Week: Day 3)

Okay, I have to apologize for the self-indulgent blog that I'm about to write because not that many people may understand it, but I may have just possibly played the best Magic game ever in my life.

I was playing my Transcendence deck, which is a kind of annoying blue/white control deck that wins by Donating the Transcendence to my opponent. In order to win a Magic game, you need to reduce your opponent's life to zero, but Transcendence flips the rules and makes you lose if you have 20 or more life. My deck also has mechanics that allow me to hurt myself and to make my opponent gain life.

Russ was playing a green/black zombie deck and was at 14 life. I had already Donated the Transcendence to him.

I played Soothing Balm, which made him gain 5 life, putting him at 19. He played Naturalize to destroy the Transcendence, and I responded by activating Browse which let me look at the top 5 cards from my deck, keep one, and remove the rest from the game. I only had 11 cards left in my deck, and you lose the game if you have to draw a card and there are no cards left in your deck. I needed to find a Counterspell to cancel his Naturalize, otherwise I would lose the game.

Browse turned up a Fact or Fiction, which I played for 4 mana, leaving me with 3 possible mana left to use. Mana is what you need to play cards in the game.

With Fact or Fiction, Russ had to take the top 5 cards of my deck and separate them into two piles. I would get to keep one pile and discard the other. After this maneuver, I only had one card left in my deck.

Luckily, my last Counterspell was one of those 5 cards, and Russ put that card in one pile, and he rest in the other. I chose the Counterspell, and used 2 of my remaining 3 mana to cancel Russ's Naturalize.

He had no response to this, so the Transcendence lived. I had one card left in my deck, one mana left to use and Russ was at 19 life.

With my last remaining mana, I activated my Tonic Peddler, and Russ gained 3 life, putting him at 22 life, thus causing him to lose the game.

I know a lot of you reading this have no idea what I'm talking about, but trust me, it was EPIC!!!!

And yes, I realize I am supposed to be studying for Theology right now.... and I have no excuse. I did some studying today and I will study more tomorrow. I understand the material, but I'm having a little trouble remembering which theologian said what. Oh well, I'm sure it'll work out somehow.

Day 254 (Rise of the Eldrazi)

Epic gaming today! Doug bought a box of the new Magic: The Gathering set that came out a few days ago, Rise of the Eldrazi, and six of us split the cost of the box and did a weird sealed/draft/tournament thing. Click here for more info: Magic: The Gathering.com.

I'd write more, but my sick body is screaming at me to get to bed.

Night, all!

Day 249 (Magic Extravaganza)

The Marshmallow finally asked to play Magic today. Usually, when I teach someone, they're pretty much done for a while after the first 2 or 3 games. Marshmallow took to the game rather quickly, he is a gamer after all, and we proceeded to play for 8 hours. Yes, you saw that right, 8 hours. Now I have to admit that when many people play Magic, they tend to lose track of time. But, this doesn't usually happen with first time players. It was really fun though, cuz I got to play a bunch of my decks that don't normally see the light of day.

Afterwards, I also got to teach Terra how to play! It's a good thing that I built those beginner teaching decks! I'm gonna go to bed now and see if I can get up at 5:00 am to watch the meteor shower later, but I don't know how wise that would be as I am still sick. But, I love meteor showers!

What to do, what to do...

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 164 (4 am)

Stayed up way too late playing Magic. Will do real blog tomorrow.... hopefully. Night!

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 156 (Rain)

The whole city (and apparently many outside of the city) was woken up at 3:45 this morning by a monster of a thunder roll coming off of a lightning strike that must have hit incredibly close by. I was jolted awake by the shock wave passing through my body and for a few minutes was afraid that the lightning might have hit one of the cars parked along the side of the building because the explosive sound was so loud. I tend to have very irrational thoughts when jolted from my sleep, and my mind was likely drawn to the lightning struck car theory because of the car alarms that were going off. Yes, the thunder was so loud that it set off people's car alarms. Getting back to sleep was difficult as the rain seemed to come in waves and the wind was whipping up a frenzy through the trees right outside my window. Getting out of bed this morning was not easy...

I did good on the Hebrew quiz today thanks to the 6 1/2 hours of studying I did yesterday. I'm gonna have to get the address for that website so that I can look at it later. I can't believe we're over halfway done with the class! We have a take-home quiz for the following weekend and then the final the Wednesday after that. Then it's a four-day weekend and Spring term starts. I haven't looked into what books I'll be needing. Should probably do that soon...

The rain is coming like crazy. We don't get anything like this where I come from, although my family's house IS at the bottom of a hill, so we have a fair amount of experience with minor flooding. Marin county put out a weather/flood advisory for the people up here. I hope it doesn't flood again like it did 4 years ago. I'm assuming they learned their lesson from what happened and took steps to prevent it from happening again, which of course is no guarantee. I've heard that every time it starts raining, the news stations send reporters out to San Anselmo, just in case...

Wrapping up the night with some Magic playing and Hebrew studying. Trying to keep things low-key...not sure why exactly. Still waiting to hear from my presbytery about where they want me to go for my psychiatric evaluation, the next lovely step in my ordination process. I hope they don't figure out I'm crazy...

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 152 (Halfway Point)

Thus ends the 2nd week of the Hebrew intensive. Blogging super late today because I was super distracted. Went for a super long walk with Tom & Kimberlee after class, collected pine spike and candy cap mushrooms, although I am going to do a little bit more research to make sure the mushrooms I think are candy caps actually are candy caps before I eat them. Then I showed Tom The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, and he showed me The Bear, which is a ridiculously anthropomorphic movie about bears for anyone who hasn't seen it. Wrapped up the day with lot of Magic: The Gathering with Rus & Tom.

Tomorrow morning's the bid "coffee date" with the Baptist minister. Not sure what's going to happen, but I'm sure it will be interesting. I'll keep you posted. XD

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 118 (Dorkness Rising)

So, I played my first D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) game tonight. Totally not what I expected, but it might have been because half of us were n00bs <----newbies <---- new players. It's so strange that it has such a horrible reputation because it's basically a math game. Hmmm... kind of like Magic!!! I guess people just like to form opinions about things that they know nothing about.

For anyone that doesn't know, when you boil it down, it's a dice game. You roll to see if you hit the monster, then you roll to see how much damage you do. Of course, there are certain parts of the game that modify these rolls, but that's the basic structure. I kept thinking about how it was like an extremely slow version of a video game, because a video game does all of the calculations for you, where as we have to basically do the calculations ourselves when playing D&D. It was still a new fun way to interact with people that I had never done before, and as we get more comfortable with the game play, it'll probably go more smoothly. I guess all of the questions we kept asking slowed everything down. We're supposed to play again on Tuesday. I just think it's funny how my character ended up being very noble and good, but also very stupid, so I'm always making him agree to everything and running off by himself without thinking things through.

The above picture is of a D&D character named Sir Osric from the movie The Gamers: Dorkness Rising that my character is pretty much based on. It's a really low budget movie about a group of friends playing D&D. I saw it a few months ago before I ever played D&D, but it makes me laugh. Probably because I understand the stereotypes. D&D and Magic are both made by Wizards of the Coast, so they're kind of like cousins.

Also went to a concert tonight. I was a kind of symphony/opera kind of thing telling the story of Elijah. It was nice, but I think I tried to do a little too much today because I'm feeling a little bit worn out. Still not 100%, but definitely getting better. Guess I better cal it a night so I can get some studying done tomorrow. 3 finals next week O_o

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 113 (Magic 2010)

2nd Magic post, please excuse me all those who are not interested in this kind of thing, but I didn't really have too much else to write about today. Magic 2010 is the current expansion where they changed a lot of the rules. There has been a small revival of Magic: The Gathering here at SFTS, but most of us are not familiar with the current rules, or even the rules that came before the current rules change. (I'm looking at you Russ) So, this has been an interesting learning experience for all of us.

I'm going to come right out and say that I am probably very likely addicted to this game. I love to play it, which should come as no surprise, but I also love looking at the art on the cards, I love finding out about the new things that the designers are doing with the game and I love reading about Magic online. I will sit at a table and spend hours shuffling through cards trying to figure out what kinds of decks I can make, testing new decks and organizing my collection. I haven't counted, but I have thousands of cards. They have taken over my room. Late, but not least, is my collection of angel cards. It is a binder of almost ever single angel Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes the game, has ever printed. I collect these cards because I have a natural tendency to collect things and the angel art is usually really cool. There are some angels where the art is kind of questionable that I decided did not belong in my collection.

So, the question must be asked, "Does it really matter if I am 'addicted' to this game?" I'm asking in all seriousness for all you jokesters out there itching to post a snarky comment. I would venture to guess more "yes" than "no." Part of the reason I didn't get anything done over Thanksgiving break is because I spent so much time playing Magic with my brother. And, right now, I am waiting for Russ to get done with his reading so that we can play a quick game before we call it a night. I, of course, have a ton of homework to do as well, but this always takes a back seat to Magic. I mean, I can always stay up until the wee hours of the morning just so that I can play a few games, right?

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 100 (100th Post!!!)

In honor of the 100th blog entry for Jesus High for the Gay Guy, I offer 100 things I have learned so far while in seminary.

In no particular order...

1. Seminary is hard.

2. Making new friends is always cool.

3. If you cook it, they will come.

4. The Bible may not be exactly what you think it is.

5. The Bible is exactly what you think it is.

6. Magic: The Gathering is still one of the best games ever invented.

7. It's easy to be away from home when you are too busy to think about it.

8. Procrastination is part of who I am; there doesn't seem to be any sense in fighting it.

9. As much as I would like one, I may need to accept the fact that I do not have a green thumb.

10. SFTS is one of the most liberal places on the planet.

11. San Francisco Presbytery is not.

12. While it seems like I am able to drink large quantities of alcohol, all it takes is one glass of wine for me to feel tipsy.

13. In certain instances, you can substitute apples for onions.

14. Mace is essentially nutmeg on crack.

15. If you don't do laundry on a regular basis, you have to start wearing clothes that you don't usually want people to see you wearing.

16. If you put off refilling your prescription for too long, you come dangerously close to not being able to take your pills.

17. Just because you can ditch class, doesn't mean that you should.

18. Straight A's are not worth the trouble.

19. God is not as much of a stickler as I thought he was.

20. The Holy Spirit just might be female... what that means in "divine" terms, I have no idea.

21. Living next to a bell tower that goes off at 8:00 in the morning sometimes sucks.

22. Living next to the dumpster when the garbage truck come by at 6:00 in the morning sucks even more.

23. Service at a cafe will be less than stellar if the cook does not show up for work.

24. Grocery store bakeries suck.

25. A good burger is a wonderful thing.

26. Everyone worships a different way. God is still God.

27. Baptists are not as scary as people would have you believe.

28. Neither are pagans.

29. A light saber should be nowhere near a pagan ritual.

30. Neither should fake candles.

31. If there is a ghost at SFTS, it is most likely benign.

32. It is physically impossible for me to read 300 textbook pages a week and still be able to do everything else.

33. Chicken fat makes the best chicken soup.

34. Sometimes, when people are telling you their problems, the best thing to do is just listen.

35. People have issues and you just need to accept that.

36. The kitchens at Oxtoby may be small, but you can still cook wonderful food in them.

37. If someone drinks a bottle of wine or more a day, they probably have a multitude of wine corks lying around waiting for someone crafty to use them.

38. You can never predict when the mail will come in San Anselmo.

39. People in Northern California are "idiosyncratic" drivers.

40. Mt. Tamalpais only looks like a sleeping woman if you are looking at it from the right angle.

41. The Bay Area is one of the most stunningly beautiful places I have ever seen in my life.

42. The ferries from Larkspur to San Francisco are slower on the weekends because they use the older ferries.

43. Taking the bus is not any faster or cheaper than the ferry, or so I've heard.

44. Pawpaws taste like mango.

45. $30.00 chocolate doesn't really taste much different from $10.00 chocolate.

46. A 5 second video really can be one of the funniest things you've every seen. (I'm talking to you "dramatic groundhog.")

47. People say they will visit you, but they won't.

48. People visiting is fun, but it totally kills your study time.

49. Living on the 4th floor gives you a really great view of your surroundings.

50. Living on the 4th floor makes it hard to do laundry.

51. If you leave rice in a rice cooker for 2 weeks, it will become dry, brown and hard.

52. That stuff that cleans mildew off of grout actually works!

53. Compost buckets smell really, really, really bad.

54. Just because you think something is really cool/fun/beautiful doesn't mean that other people will think the same.

55. Decaf still has caffeine in it.

56. If you really focus, you can write a 5 page paper in 2 or 3 hours.

57. If you don't, it will take the whole day.

58. Driving in San Francisco sucks.

59. Parking in San Francisco sucks.

60. The public transportation is supposedly good, but I haven't really tried it yet except for the ferries.

61. facebook can and will take over your life. (This means you farmville, even though I've never played you.)

62. So will Magic: The Gathering. O_o

63. The longer you put off doing the dishes, the harder it is to start them.

64. A dryer sheet in the bottom of a trash can will only help so much.

65. You will not get a ticket for smoking marijuana in Marin County. (Disclaimer: I do not know this from personal experience.)

66. Bigotry is alive and well.

67. Large corporations are by and large evil incarnate. If anyone has proof to the contrary, please let me know.

68. Even when you think there is a slight possibility you may run into someone you know when you go somewhere, it is still shocking when it happens.

69. The only way to get comfortable speaking in front of people is to just do it.

70. When you need to print something to turn in 5 minutes before class, the printer will not work.

71. Just because someone calls themselves or is referred to as a bishop/priest/father/pastor does not necessarily mean that they are.

72. When someone says that Disneyland is not the happiest place on earth, this has no effect on its actual status as the happiest place on earth.

73. Just because a guy wears a certain type of shoe, it doesn't mean that he's gay... or does it???

74. Tickets for the Winchester Mansion are WAYYYYYY overpriced.

75. Price matters, even if someone else is paying for you.

76. If a place offers free food to veterans on Veterans' Day, then that place will probably be busy on Veteran's Day.

77. Just because a person is old, that does not give them an excuse to be rude.

78. Learning is easier when it's fun.

79. You really can relate bunnies to most things.

80. If store employees see an underage person touch your wine bottles, they will not sell the wine to you.

81. But, you can always go back to buy them later.

82. Books/articles will not read themselves.

83. If a person's beliefs are strong enough, they will often be incapable of hearing anything contrary to those beliefs.

84. They will also think you are stupid/unreasonable/crazy.

85. Just because a church body is in California does not mean that it will be liberal.

86. Just because people are from the South does not mean they will be conservative.

87. Niacin will make you sweat profusely.

88. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a cheap and quick breakfast.

89. If a group of people is of any kind of decent size, you will find people that like Firefly.

90. A dot is a lot more significant in Hebrew than it is in English.

91. People thought EXTREMELY differently about things 100/500/1,000/5,000 years ago than we do now.

92. Drugs have as much to do with the context within which they are used as their chemical component.

93. Icons are not as strange as protestantism would have you believe.

94. You cannot plagiarize yourself.

95. If you study long enough, you will get a study high. (Thank you ketones.)

96. A new wool rug will shed like crazy. (I have yet to figure out when it will stop shedding.)

97. If the wind blows something off of your balcony once, chances are it will do so again.

98. Although $5.00 for lunch isn't that bad, it's a lot of money when the food isn't that good.

99. Real falafel is green.

100. It's called "breaking the seal" for a reason.

LOL, when I started this post I was totally prepared for going back and changing the title because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to think of 100 things. I could probably make the list longer, but I won't torture you all. On the bright side, you don't even have to go to seminary to learn any of this, now! So far, this seminary thing has been an amazing ride. Let's see what the next 100 days bring!

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 099 (Bakla)

Super crazy busy day (if anyone is curious about today's subtitle, I'll be getting to it in a minute) Went to Church History, which was unfortunate. Not really into history, but I think you all know that by now. I had breakfast at the Sunflower Cafe, as per usual for Monday morning. I had the eggs florentine, which was really good.

It was 11:00 by the time I finished eating. Although I normally stay until it's time for Intro to Ministry, I decided to get some new tires in anticipation for the drive back home. $530.00 later, I was at the bead shop to pass some time as I waited for them to put the tires on. Went to Gameplace, the local gaming store, thanks Ian, and bought some Magic booster packs for the thrill of it because it's been so long since I've done that. Wouldn't you know, I opened a $15.00 card in the second pack! Sweet!!! Now I just have to figure out how to sell it on ebay...

Got the car back, went to class, you know my other favorite class. Then had dinner with Faith, turned the beads into bracelets, did a butt load of dishes, then learned about bakla.

Bakla, to put it in simple recognizable terms, if the Filipino word for "gay". Tom and Faith had informed me that they were going to have a "gay Filipino" speaker in their Cultural Psychology and I thought to myself, "How many times am I going to get a chance to listen to a gay Filipino speaker in a seminary class?" So, I went. This is the video that he showed us to start the lecture:

Fun, huh? He started talking about Filipino culture and I learned all kinds of things that I am ashamed to say that I knew nothing about. Apparently, there's this Filipino concept of the essence of a person being on the inside, and the outside of a person being more amorphous, something you can play around with. Basically, until very recently, there hasn't been a concept of "gay" in the Philippines. Instead, you had the convention of the "bakla" who is someone who has the heart of a woman, but is physically male. It is an idea that persists in the culture to this day, even as Western gay culture has been on the rise. "Bakla" is almost like a third gender, but a man who is "bakla" is essentially seen as female. Because of that, their partners are inevitably straight men. Or, what people in the Filipino culture would consider straight men. It's all very convoluted when you look at it from a Western perspective, and I know I have a lot more to learn about it.

He also showed a video clip of 5 bakla men working as caregivers in Israel. They were supposed to do a drag show at a gay club, but the person in charge of entertainment dressed them up as geisha's instead and had them bowing at people as they entered the club. They were so shocked at what they were expected to do, they had no idea how to react and ended up just going along with it. It was one of the most racist things I had ever seen in my whole life, and the fact that it was perpetrated by a gay Jew makes it even more shocking. Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach. As imperfect as life in the United States is, it's things like that that remind me of how lucky I am to have been born in Southern California. SoCal rules! NorCal is just jealous!!! I have to do my part to perpetuate the rivalry between Northern and Southern California, even though people in SoCal HAVE NO FRIGGIN' CLUE THAT THE RIVALRY EXISTS!!!!! But, that is a blog for another time...

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 087 (Mushroom Chicken)

Tom and I had a food experiment today. In typical chinese restaurant fashion, I just called it Eggplant Chicken, but the eggplant disintegrated so for now it's going to be Mushroom Chicken. I was going for a really spicy dish, but Tom kept telling me to stop adding the hot chili oil. It turned out really good; Faith, Tom and I had a wonderful meal.

Lectio Divina was good today; it was a little different because we were using a piece of art for our focus instead of scripture. The picture we focused on was actually of some kind of nebula or galaxy and towards the end I started to notice this creepy grinning goblin thing in the glowing swirling gases. It was a good thing I hadn't noticed it earlier because I had a hard time concentrating after I saw it. I have to lead the group next time using nature as the focus. Should be interesting.

I finally brought my car in for service. While it was at the dealership, Ryan, Faith, Ian and I went to Applebee's because they were giving free entrées to Veterans for Veteran's Day, so Ian got a free burger. I can't believe how rude some people are!!! This older man asked the host how long the wait was, and when the host told him it would be about 20 minutes, the man said, "You guys aren't worth 20 minutes." OMG!!!

I got my car back and then Faith and I watched some heart-wrenching episodes of Grey's Anatomy. We're only a month behind now! XD

Played some magic with Tom and Russ, had to explain all of the new rules to Russ cuz he's been out of the game for a while. He kept talking about this weird "interrupt" thing? I think he was making it up...

Anyway, fun day. Tomorrow shouldn't be too hard. Things seem to be slowing down a bit; we're actually able to take a breath or two, but I'm worried it may be the calm before the storm.

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 074 (Mystic Pasta)

All you out there reading this, I need help coming up with a name for a new pasta dish I invented.

Mike generously gave me 4 HUGE tomatoes that I think his parents grew in their backyard. I happened to have some dates that my parents brought me when they came to visit, but they weren't the soft squishy kind that are good for eating... they were kind of dry. I remembered when my family was here, my sister, brother and I went to La Coco's for dinner and my sister got this dish with a tomato sauce that had currants and pecans and eggplant in it. It was SO GOOD! So, I had a little bit of kitchen inspiration and decided to put the tomatoes and dates together, along with some pine nuts, olives, onion and garlic. Then I spiced it up with cardamom, turmeric, nutmeg and cinnamon to give it a kind of exotic flavor. It was pretty good, but I think a little too sweet. I had added a tablespoon of gooseberry preserves because that's all I had left of it and it had been sitting in the fridge for almost two months. I figured it was now or never. Next time, I think I'll let the tartness of the tomatoes play off of the sweetness of the fruit, but I might opt for golden raisins next time. I also like the idea of eggplant in the sauce, but I didn't feel like going to the store. I think with those few tweaks, the sauce will be AMAZING!

So, any ideas for a pasta dish with raisins, pine nuts and exotic spices? I thinking some kind of name that evokes the mysteriousness of the middle east would be good...

In other news, I continued Tom's education with magic cards and almost finished Silence.

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 22 (Settlers of Canaan)

Last day before classes start. It was pretty lonely today actually; I guess I'd gotten so used to running around like a chicken with its head cut off that I forgot how to be by myself for a longer than a few hours. I've always thought of myself as an introvert, and I suppose if I had to categorize myself, that's what I would be, but I actually do need to have people around me. It can't be too crazy, like when I'm trying to host a party of over a hundred people, because that gets me wound up for sure, but it's nice to just have people around.

I found myself getting really drained actually around 5 o'clock. I knew the Labor Day party was at 6, and I was looking forward to actually doing something active. Just before the party, I was totally going stir crazy, but I think because I knew the party was coming, it was like my brain wasn't able to deal with anyone until the party actually started. A few of my friends had come down with a cold, so I made wild mushroom soup for them, which I was glad to do, but for some reason it was like the social interaction part of my brain had been shut off and I forgot how to make conversation when I delivered it and when one of them brought the mug back. I guess it's like I hadn't activated that part of my brain yet because I knew I had thought I wouldn't need it until later.

When I finally got to the party, I was my normal self and was able to interact with people very nicely, which was good because I was starting to get worried that I had become socially retarded. Afterward, a couple of us played "Settlers of Canaan" which is a version of "Settlers of Catan," neither of which I had ever played before or even heard of. We got totally wupped by our seminary friend from Hawaii, who apparently plays this game all the time. It was really fun though, and I look forward to playing it again. Plus, I learned that one of them is a former Magic player, so I just might get the chance to break out the ol' Magic decks. I'm getting way more excited about that than I should, but I truly love that game and it has been way too long since I dueled someone.

Alright, that's enough of me being a nerd for tonight. Four classes tomorrow, I'm gonna need my sleep. Keep me in your prayers everyone!

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 18 (The SFTS Seraphs)

My incoming class just might be a little psychotic, and I'm not helping (BWA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!)

We've been talking about this whole quidditch thing for a while and we found out we have a soccer team and a ping pong team. Our soccer team is called the "sacramentals," and as far as I know, the ping pong team does not have a mascot. This is unacceptable. If we are going to have a quidditch team, we need a proper mascot. We talked to the Greek professor and she said that we could come up with one, so we decided that we are now the "STFS Seraphs." A Seraph is basically a warrior angel, much like in the picture above. Yes, that picture is Serra Angel from Magic: The Gathering, and yes I knew exactly where to find a picture like this because I am that much of a nerd. Although I haven't played a game of Magic in years, I still maintain that it is one of the best designed games ever invented. I did bring three or four decks with me just in case...

I'm supposed to come up with a seraph logo that we're going to put it on sweatshirts to sell as a fundraiser.....we'll see, LOL.

I had to explain the quidditch rules to a girl we might tap to be the snitch.

We're planning phone and email lists, weekly lunches gatherings and Grey's Anatomy dinners. And, a big group of us decided we're all taking a class together at the Unitarian Seminary. I can't wait to see how they react to a bunch of SFTS kids all showing up at the same time!

I love how well we're gelling together, but this might make studying an homework a little difficult. Oh well...