Room 103 and More Monkeys
After another house backed out, the powers-that-be in Teach For America Baltimore asked the boys of 103 South Washington to throw the definitive TFA party (only to be rivaled by Jeff's housewarming party tonight, I'm sure). This past week was pre-induction for the next batch of corps members, and they were ending a busy week of interviews, training, and fun things like urine tests and fingerprints. So take the eh-nubian-eh-newbies, my year of corps members, and the second year corps members who are almost finished with their two years - you've got a total corps number that hovers around 250. Everyone was invited to our house on Thursday night (and yeah, we did have to teach the next day).
You may remember our Halloween Party, where Nick's "Spooky Punch" rocked everyone who came in contact with it and Joe Manko came dressed as a cow. That was considered by most to be the best TFA party of 2002, so we had to try to one-up ourselves. Our theme was "Room 103," so we turned the house into a classroom. Vocabulary words, drinking stations and a tequila shot process chart graced the living room walls, while snacks and punch were in the cafeteria (kitchen). Then people went upstairs to the principal's office (Tammer's room) before making it up through detention (my room) to the keg on our deck outside. We just put (working) Christmas lights back up on our rooftop deck and the weather was perfect, so most people spent a good portion of the night up there. Mike and I played a short three-song set around 11. It was good to meet all the incoming corps members (I was the greeter at our door most of the night), but they had a lot of questions about why I was leaving after one year. I think that Mike and I successfully scared a group of people on the deck with our combined collection of stories, but these new kids on the block still seem as energetic and young as we all were a year ago. Overall, the party was incredible and we kicked the keg before eleven, and Nick didn't even do any card tricks! ("There are two types of girls in this world, diamond girls and heart girls...")
Our nightly multiplayer matches of Super Monkey Ball 2 have now been replaced with a Gamecube game called Timesplitters 2. It's out for every next-gen system, and I'd definitely recommend it. It's made by the same people who made the Goldeneye game for N64, which I think I played once at a friend's place. I've never gotten into these shooter games like Unreal, Half Life or Quake, but now I can see why they're addicting. In TS2 there are 126 unlockable characters to play as, including our favorite: a monkey. After a long day at school, there's nothing like seeing a monkey do a backflip while shooting a rocket launcher (but the bear somersaulting with a flamethrower comes in a close second). One of the coolest features is a mapmaker, where you can design your own levels and then play in them with your friends.
Thirteen days of school left...except I think I'll probably be teaching summer school. The final 5 TFA Chronicles are coming every Monday starting June 16.
Saturday, June 7 at 9:45 AM
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