Dinhternet

Went on my sec­ond white-water raft­ing trip on Sat­ur­day. This time, I went with Eddie C, Michow, James S, Joe M, Alice H, and Rachel Loh.

We were pre­pared for more near-death and lost shoe sto­ries like from our first trip, but it actu­ally went really well. No one was knocked out of the raft this time, no one lost any equip­ment or cloth­ing, we did not get embar­rass­ingly stuck at the photo spot for sev­eral min­utes, and we did not have to hitch­hike to get home.

After a rough start at the early Class IIIs where we got knocked around a bit, we all set­tled down and got a sys­tem going, thanks to a “guardian angel” kayaker who gave us some pro trips as he passed us. Here’s a video of us shortly after that on some smaller rapids:

(There was a bet­ter video later on the river when we hit another Class III, but I’m again hav­ing some prob­lems with my cam­era. I think the bat­tery may not be charg­ing properly.)

Over­all, we did so much bet­ter this time, I think every­one who went on both trips was a lit­tle shocked. I’m a lit­tle sad, since our first raft­ing trip will always have bet­ter sto­ries, but you can’t com­plain about a smooth trip. We were say­ing that it’s prob­a­bly a bit of expe­ri­ence on our part, but prob­a­bly has a lot to do with the river’s flow being a lot greater this time. More water means less rocks to give us trouble!

Oh, and the kayaker told us to think about send­ing some­one to guide school so that we can hit higher class rapids, and I’m giv­ing it some thought now. Maybe some­thing to do next summer.

One of the things I miss about Assas­sins is the elab­o­rate obit­u­ar­ies that God would make up for each kill. They would get posted on a blog of some sort for every­one to fol­low, and it was a lot of fun, even when you weren’t play­ing the game. It was par­tic­u­larly hilar­i­ous if you knew how a kill actu­ally went down and com­pared it with the grandios­ity of the obituary.

But yeah, my pri­or­ity this time was to get the game over as quickly as pos­si­ble, so I was wor­ried about mak­ing up 20 kill sto­ries in one night. Instead, I asked peo­ple to send in their own kill sto­ries for a chance at a prize. Here are those stories:

Show Green Crossbow ▼

Show Tran­quil Claw ▼

Show Deadly Crotch ▼

Show Deadly Chrysanthemum ▼

Hope you all enjoyed! To the next God of Assas­sins, if you have the time for a slower game, def­i­nitely do obit­u­ar­ies, they make it a lot more enter­tain­ing for every­one.

Please visit my Assas­sins album on Face­book and vote for your favorite weapon. All prizes will be dis­trib­uted tonight at the CAPS meeting.

Hey Name­sakees,

Plex­Comm (Pledge Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee) elec­tions are com­ing up soon, and I want each of you to run for office! Nom­i­na­tions will be dur­ing the meet­ing after Pledge Retreat, and elec­tions will be the week after that. Plex­Comm varies slightly each term depend­ing on what offices PPs and ExComm want, but here’s a gen­eral run-down:

• Spokeper­son
  You are the leader of Plex­Comm, and are respon­si­ble for mak­ing sure every­one else on Plex­Comm is work­ing hard, help­ing all your pledge broth­ers cross, and orga­niz­ing the pledge class t-shirt. Also, it’s not a require­ment, but it is a tra­di­tion for the pledge spokesper­son to inter­view every­one in the pledge class. You usu­ally run alone for this position.
• Pledge Ser­vice
  You work closely with SVPs to make sure that your pledge broth­ers ful­fill their ser­vice require­ments. This can mean help­ing to plan or track ser­vice projects, check­ing up on your pledge broth­ers to make sure they will be able to fin­ish their ser­vice hours, or mak­ing sure that the pledge groups get their pledge ser­vice projects done on time. You usu­ally run in pairs for this position.
• Pledge Fel­low­ship
  You work closely with FVPs to make sure that your pledge broth­ers ful­fill their fel­low­ship require­ments. This can mean help­ing plan or track fel­low­ships and check­ing up on your pledge broth­ers to make sure they will be able to attend their required fel­low­ship events. You are in charge of plan­ning Snake and mak­ing sure that every pledge takes part in it. You usu­ally run in pairs for this position.
• Pledge Finance
  You work closely with FiVPs to make sure that your pledge broth­ers ful­fill their fund-raising require­ment. This can make help­ing plan or track fund-raisers and check­ing up on your pledge broth­ers to make sure every­one will be able to par­tic­i­pate in a fundraiser. You are also in charge of the pledge funds (half of all mug money), which you can use towards any­thing you want — Snake, PP gifts, even a pledge pizza party if you wanted. You usu­ally run in pairs for this position.
• Pledge Sec­re­taries
  This posi­tion changes greatly from term to term. In gen­eral, you will be work­ing closely with the four sec­re­tary posi­tions. This could mean help­ing to take roll or min­utes at meet­ings for the Record­ing Sec­re­taries, orga­niz­ing rides to IC events for Cor­re­spond­ing Sec­re­taries (and mak­ing sure that all your pledge broth­ers meet the IC require­ments), help­ing Press Sec­re­taries make ban­ners or write press releases for our big­ger events, or hunt­ing down elu­sive alumni with the Alumni Sec­re­taries and get­ting them to come out to events. This posi­tion usu­ally has groups of two to four run for it.
• Pledge His­to­ri­ans
  You work closely with His­to­ri­ans to make sure that as many events as pos­si­ble are as well doc­u­mented as pos­si­ble. This means going every­where with a cam­era in hand, ready to take pic­tures of your pledge broth­ers being awe­some. You will prob­a­bly also help His­to­ri­ans make slideshows and assem­bly the term scrap­book. You usu­ally run in pairs for this position.
• Pledge Sergeants-At-Arms
  You work closely with SAAs to make sure that meet­ings are quick and smooth. This means mak­ing sure peo­ple are not dis­rup­tive and could also mean pass­ing out food. Some SAAs ask their pledge SAAs to chair meet­ings, too. You usu­ally in threes for this position.
• Pledge Mas­cot
  This is not really a Plex­Comm posi­tion, but it is voted on at the same time as Plex­Comm offices. You nom­i­nate any­one or any­thing that you think exem­pli­fies LFS and explain why in a short speech. The win­ning mas­cot is a sym­bol of the pledge class and usu­ally goes on the pledge t-shirt.

With such a vari­ety of posi­tions, I’m sure at least one of them sparked your inter­est. Being on Plex­Comm is very reward­ing! You will develop closer bonds with your pledge broth­ers as you work with them to make sure they are doing well. You will get a taste of ExComm and hope­fully get some expe­ri­ence you can put towards being an active offi­cer after you cross. You’ll be help­ing the chap­ter by bring­ing fresh ideas about how we can bet­ter do things.

On top of that, Plex­Comm can be very fun. I was pledge his­to­rian when I pledged, and one of my favorite sto­ries about being pledge his­to­rian actu­ally took place at Pledge Retreat. (In my day, we had elec­tions ear­lier in the term, so I was already pledge his­to­rian by the time we had our retreat.)

Plex­Comm and PPs went down to the retreat loca­tion early on Fri­day to set up tents and every­thing for our pledge broth­ers. As we were fin­ish­ing up, but before any­one else really got there, one of my pledge moms (yes, I had two pledge moms) decided to claim a tent for her­self and put her stuff in it. Being the jok­ers that we were, another pledge brother and I stole her bag out of her tent and hid it in another tent. She pan­icked and started a tent-to-tent sweep to look for her bag. Before she looked in the tent where we had stashed her bag, we moved it to a third tent that she had already searched. My pledge mom ended up never find­ing her bag. Each day, we took pic­tures of her look­ing slightly more disheveled. And then we made a slideshow of it to show every­one who wasn’t there at retreat.

Sure, it may seem a bit mean, but we were actu­ally very nice to her dur­ing retreat (and for the rest of our lives). She shared toi­letries and we even got the whole pledge class to ser­e­nade her. Over­all, I’d like to think that she bonded with us more because of the circumstances.

Not that I’m sug­gest­ing that you do any­thing to your pledge par­ents dur­ing this retreat. I’m just say­ing that being on Plex­Comm put me in a unique posi­tion to bet­ter enjoy my pledge term. So with that in mind, I hope you’ll all think about run­ning for office. I’ll def­i­nitely be ask­ing every one of you what you’re run­ning for when I next see you, so be pre­pared to answer!

If you have any ques­tions about Plex­Comm, I’ll be happy to answer.