Sunday 2/07

(Robert Francis)- 03:40

Guess what! That's right. GRACE! So there I was asleep in the tent. Using Hannah's sleeping bag since mine is wet (thanks btw Hannah!). I have at this point gotten two solid hours of sleep when what should happen but the tent check siren rings. Once we gathered around we were told we had grace for the evening due to freezing-ness. I was comfy, cozy, snuggly warm but I'm not complaining. Nick drove us back to East and we slept in peace. Yay!

(Claire McIlvenny) - 14:44

Last night was ridiculous. It was so cold. It doesn't help that I'm pretty sick right now, but it was UNBELIEVABLE. My sleeping bag was wet, but I got into it anyway, which then proceeded to make my clothes wet. Bad move when the temp. was 27 degrees. I couldn't sleep anyway, so I shivered in my sleeping bag for two hours, listening to the drunk people next to us and their conversation:

Tent Person 1 - Man, you smell of liquor so badly. Haha.

Drunk Guy (stumbling) - It's fine, I just came back from Taverna Nikos! WOOO. You know what, man? I just wanna run and jump on someones tent. You know, just completely destroy it. When there are people inside. Haha that would be so funy. Hey, dude?

Random Guy Walking past - Yeah, what?

Drunk Guy - Can I just come and run and jump on your tent?

Random Guy Walking past - If you do that, I will beat the crap out of you.

Drunk Guy - Oh, ok then. (quietens down and goes back into his tent).

So, Random Guy Walking past. Thanks for that! If he jumped on the fortress, the drunk guy would probably not be alive right now, that was how annoyed I was.

When we woke up for the tent check at 3, my hair had FROZEN to the condensation on the tarp. YES, frozen. I had to pull it off. Thankfully we were allowed to go inside. I couldn't have lasted any longer!

Now, from the cold to the glorious day in K-Ville right now. I am here from 14:00-17:00 today (I should be here till 18:00 but they're calling grace for the Superbowl. I only found out what sport the Superbowl was 2 days ago, they really shouldn't have to call grace for it. I'd be happy to stay in K-Ville). The sun is shining and it's a nice day, I'm sitting outside in a chair that that tent next to us kindly lent us, generally taking in the sun and catching up with my friends back home.

They just called a tent check, and tents 1-5 did not show up, at least when I was there, so here's hoping some people missed the check today. Not in a mean way, just merely to prove that the Fortress is, indeed, the best tarp-tent structure in all of K-Ville.

(Esther Showalter) - 21:16

Everyone needs to know one simple fact: My Mom Is Always Right.

(Introduction) I was in the tent on Thursday night (I think) and my toes were freezing the whole night long. I would wake up at odd hours and they would still be freezing in spite of being underneath 4 pairs of socks and two sleeping bags.

(Rising Action) My mom has told me several times in my life (usually during the winter season) that if you ever want your extremities to warm up in cold weather, put on a hat. This is because your body pumps all your blood up into your head to keep your brain warm when it's cold outside, so your fingers and toes miss out on the warmth. Apparently although I appreciate my toes very much, my body knows what's best and thinks my brain is more important. Maybe people wouldn't complain about fingers and toes being frozen when it's cold out if their brains got cold first and their fingers and toes stayed warm. That could be the premise for an interesting story. So Saturday night I came to the tent at 1-ish (although Laura showed up later and took my night shift) and prepared to try to fall asleep.

(Climax) On Saturday night, I put on a hat.

(Falling Action) I was toasty! (well, toasty like the way toast would be if you toasted it then dunked it in hot tea). My toes in their 5-sock bundles were warm and squishy instead of frozen and numb. My fingers in my fluffy gloves could actually feel the other fingers around them! I actually fell asleep within 20 minutes before Laura came to replace me! (And I'd woken up because someone was talking loudly next door, not because she woke me up when she and Claire came (or I think it was Claire. I was sort of half-asleep) ).

(Denouement) Mothers are the secret weapon to defeating the Terror of K-ville. They make you impervious to the worst that K-ville can offer, overcoming every obstacle and inconvenience with wisdom, common sense, and more layers. ("tent-moms" also partake of the secret arts of bolstering feeble-willed Tenters with dedication and determination to see Tenting through to the end . They give you delicious monster cookies when you stay in the tent - what amount of puny weather could ever be stacked up against a monster cookie?)

And my mother is always right.

PS. The picture below is from Thursday's game against Georgia Tech. I didn't put it up and it has nothing to do with my above post, but I'm sure if my mom had anything to say about it, she would be right about that, too.

(Tim Lin) - 23:17

So...today, Josh Cho (who is not part of Team Fortress) and I (who am part of Team Fortress) were discussing the concept of tent grace. We decided that the definition of grace is to "get something you don't deserve." The definition of mercy, on the other hand, is to "not get something bad that you do deserve." Therefore, we decided that tent grace is the wrong term. We deserve to be in the tent. Letting us off would be mercy because we are not having to do something we do deserve. So it should be tent mercy. Except that doesn't sound as cool as tent grace. So that will never catch on. Whatever.

I wish my head was a little to the right in the picture below. That would accentuate my dazzling hair. Yeah.

Uh...I was going to say something. But I forgot. So o well.

"I can feel the adrenaline moving through my veins..."

(Lewis Purcell) - 23:21

This evening was the superbowl. But more importantly UNC lost, again. We can't even tell them to go to hell anymore, so I composed a short ditty that goes like this, "Stay in Hell Carolina, Stay in Hell."