re the scene that vexes P-C:

Hm. You have a point, Strega.

After the second time he said, "Hey, I noticed that there's kind of a romantic story going on there." He was watching it for the WW2 stuff. Seriously.

Ha! He should read the book. Like I said, every time I read it, I found a new layer.

The best, though, is that one afternoon, my AD advisor and I struck up a conversation about the different meanings of the title of The Remains of the Day. We were just talking after school; I don't remember why the topic came up. I'd never really thought about it, but we came up with some interesting ways to interpret the title.

Guess what one of the essay prompts at Regionals was?

That's a good story. I have a similar one. My speech Senior year - which rocked - was about the Frankenstein complex, as named by Asimov. The first body section was on the Prometheus story, and it's significance as a Frankenstein-type precursor.

The novel that year was Frankenstein. Guess what the essay topic at Nationals was?

I had a working introduction, first body paragraph, AND conclusion already written before going in, and barely needed to adapt it. Good thing, too, because the essay grading that year was a complete fiasco - the best writer on our team got a 500 for some reason, and one girl won five(!!!) objective medals but got a 400 on Essay, and ended up not making the top 3 overall because of it. Whereas I ended up medalling in Essay that year, by pure luck - I'm really not that good a writer.

Reading is good, though. I'm gonna read Kavalier and Clay soon, I think. When I"m done reading a bunch of reference books that will help me run an improv theater club at school.

The novel that year was Frankenstein. Guess what the essay topic at Nationals was?

HA! Awesome.

Guess what one of the essay prompts at Regionals was?

That's a good story. I have a similar one.

Heh. I was on vacation in Jamaica my senior year (when there was still an Eastern Airlines) and ended up stuck for like 36 hours at the airport due to some major fuck-ups by several airlines.

Ended up getting home just in time to go straight to the State Ac Dec, where the essay question was...airline deregulation.

That's a good story. I have a similar one.

Me too! Except it was a sentence by Nietzsche that I spent about an hour unpacking while on the phone with a friend. Because, well, we had nothing better to do. A few weeks later, it was the extra credit question on an exam.

It was especially nice because that was the class I kept sleeping through. It should be illegal to have a philosophy class that starts at 9 AM.

Unless it's on Gödel's incompleteness theorem. That's exciting.

A few weeks later, it was the extra credit question on an exam.

One day, I walked into English class and decided I was going to memorize the names of all the main group bunnies in Watership Down. It was a good day to do that, because it was the bonus question on the quiz.

My funny story is a whole-class story. We had a teacher who was maniacal about us learning and understanding Emerson's transparent eyeball metaphor from "Nature" (it's a transcendentalism thing), and we all read and reread the metaphor and talked it over and blah blah blah. Come the spring, and we've long since moved on, and the AP US History exam rolls around, and the whole class takes it.

At break, we all come clustering into the break room going, "Did you correct it? Yeah, me too!" The transparent eyeball metaphor was quoted in toto on the exam, and it was quoted incorrectly, and 80% of the class had corrected the quote in addition to answering the question.

Nerds do best when they are in packs, don't you think?

Ha ha ha ha ha.

That's a great story.

Nerds do best when they are in packs, don't you think?

Well, until we are pitted against each other.

Signed,

Knowledge Bowl is a Blood Sport, Damn It.