At the risk of boring you all to tears, I must yet again apologize for the ridiculously loooong interval between blogposts. Suffice it to say: MIDTERMS. I’ll leave it at that. But now they are over. 
Well, over except the unpleasant taste they have left in my mouth–namely the lowest grade I’ve ever gotten on an exam handed back to me today. 
Part of the reason why my day sucked! But today is just one day, and there have been at least 14 of those since my last post, so I’ll ignore today’s shittiness and tell you about what’s been going on…
Video games!
I finally decided to set up my game console, um, set-up in my room, including my N64, PS2, Xbox 360, and Wii. Mostly I’ve been playing Chrono Cross, which I left unfinished at the end of the summer. I’m close to the end of it now, and it’s really a fantastic game–pretty, WONDERFUL music, a fantastic battle system, and I actually ended up loving the number of playable characters (44 total) even though I thought I would feel overwhelmed by it.
Also it’s inspired me to pick up prequel Chrono Trigger (on DS) again, which I’ve never finished but have gotten about 2/3 of the way through twice. And obviously it’s a great game as well. (Lots of people like it better, but probably just for nostalgic reasons–the two games both have their ups and downs, but are both overall amazing in different ways. 
)
Oh, and I’m also playing Zenonia, a surprisingly awesome iPhone game on which I’ve somehow logged 12 hours so far… Damn! How I missed gaming!
Turkeyshoots!
No, you didn’t miss something–unless you’re one of my Spec friends/lovers (hi guys!), there’s no reason for you to know what turkeyshooting is. But because it will be consuming my life until the first couple weeks of December, I should probably let you all in on the secret. (Not actually a secret.)
Turkeyshooting is the process by which the next year’s Spectator positions are chosen. It’s pretty grueling, especially when you get up toward the top–people applying for top positions have to write a 20-page proposal, not to mention like a gazillion other things (timed “challenges,” an ethics test, etc. all totaling to closer to 40 or 50 pages in the end), complete a set of shadowing requirements, and sit for an hour-long interview. 
As it goes on down the bureaucratic line, candidates have fewer and less-taxing requirements.
For the past three years, I’ve been turkeyshot–this year, I get to be the turkeyshooter! I’m very excited. It’s still really time consuming: Along with my co-editors, I have to coordinate the schedules and interviews over 150 candidates for various positions. At the beginning of December, this will culminate in a two-weekend-long interview fest, at the end of which we’ll decide who the 134th board (this year is 133) of Spec will be, from the top down.
And that’s pretty much my final responsibility as Managing Editor, besides handing over some institutional memory and advice to the next one. 
Oh, and…
The Phillies lost the World Series ( 
) but I was at game five, which they won spectacularly!! Here’s my mom/stepdad and me on the way to the game:
