time to catsup...

that is, time to "catch up" for those of you who can't make the simple connection.
THURSDAY
we (the senior class) went to see the play Othello at Vangaurd. now, i am not a professional play critic, but the play was rather... um, amusing and scary at the same time. seeing how the play is supposed to be a romantic tragedy (keyword tragedy), amusing should not be one of the descriptions. lets just say Rodrigo's mustache kept on falling off and he had a nice trip on his way up the stairs. Due to Othello's perfect pronunciation, the front row got more wet than a group of kids sitting in the spash zone watching shamoo. there were dancing... well, they were women in full body leotards, painted one color, and they danced around the characters whenever the characters were contemplating an evil act. i think they were supposed to be symbolic of temptation and evil, but all they did was distract and scare me.
that night we (wilderness challenge) left for j-tree. i slept the whole bus ride out there. after getting stuck in a culdesac and after a quick stop at a rest area, we made it to j-tree and put up our tents... then slept.
FRIDAY
it wasn't too cold in joshua tree. it was actually my taco tent's maiden voyage... or trip, whatever. but ya, first time it has been used outside the comfort of my room. i had fun layering up. i had a nice warm hat, you know, the kind with ear flaps. i also had my home-cut fleece scarf, and lots of layers. somehow i managed to pack all black and green clothes--kind of weird.
usual stuff for a friday on a wilderness challenge trip: taught systems, put together a collection at short wall, belayed, fell asleep in the sun (not while on belay of course)... good stuff.
after dinner, i went to sleep nice and early. i woke up in the middle of the night to hear somtehing really cool: nothing. not a car, not a cricket, not radio... nothing. the sound of silence is pretty crazy, and pretty rare when you live where i do. even right now, i hear a plane flying by. the silence didn't last long, though, because a pretty gnarly snore started up. after checking out the stars one more time, i dozed off.
SATURDAY
for the big MIGZ challenge, i was in charge of the pup-tent relay station. basically, each team member (about 4 members on each team, and 3 teams... ya, small group) had one minute to work alone on setting up a tent, and then after the minute would go and tag their team mate to go. after going through two rotations of one person at a time, they could start going two at a time, still for one minute. after putting it up, it had to be taken down and put back in the bag.
you've got to understand something though... this was the fielshouses' tent, and this thing is no ordinary tent. poles are crossing in funky ways, and there is no picture to help them out. there are instructions, only words, on the tent bag, but it took each team more than 20 minutes to realize that they were ther. however, the instructions weren't too helpful.
after seeing how long it was taking the first time, i had to add a change to their challenge and told them that they could have me help them for any two minutes they wanted (this is after about 30 minutes has gone by).
so in short, it took every team OVER 40 minutes to put up the tent and take it down. it was a lot of fun to watch, especially since i knew how to put it up :)
on the bus ride home that night, i got to talk with the bus driver a lot and hear some pretty crazy stories. from the stories i heard, all i could think was, "how in the world have i not seen this guy on the channel 5 news yet?" not in a bad way, just he's been a part of some interesting things, and pretty much been the heroe of a few things... could totally picture him on the news.
when we got caught in some pretty crazy traffic, i heard my friend brandon call my name with a rather urgent request... "stavro, will there be a, um, rest stop anytime soon... i kinda gotta go." there were others who had to go as well (myself included) but not as bad as brandon. we finally creeped up to an exit (the traffic was horrid) that we thought was good, but as we got driving down the streets, nothing was coming up. brandon frequently expressed the urgency to me, and i had to keep telling him to hold on (by the way, there weren't teachers on the bus... i was kind of in charge, so that is why i kind of was the one dealing with this). ok, continuing. i kept on telling brandon to hold on, telling him that there would be something at the next light. but after 15 minutes of driving up and down streets, we weren't finding anything. i looked down the street and saw that the next light was a little ways down and told brandon that if there wasn't anything at that light, he could jump out of the bus and, well, you know. i was serious, and he was serious. we got to the light... nothing. so we turned and slowed, i warned the bus driver that he was going to bolt off the bus, and as soon as the bus stopped brandon was off the bus. the bus pulled down the street a little to give him privacy, and as we did so, we saw that there was a Walgreens and a gas station 50 feet down the road. everyone busted up at the irony, and after brandon got back on, we drove 50 feet down the road to let the rest of the bus go.
oh the adventures life takes us on.

i am going to stop there and post about my triathlon later. pics will be later too.