I knock La Verne, but they are a Worlds powerhouse. They've been going for years and always do very well. En route to Scotland I was on the same flight as many of the La Vernians, and sadly like you would expect from the jet setting debater types, we made friends in a JFK waiting area. Additionally, while in Cambridge one year, James and Adil were both gunning for a "hot blonde Irish chick," you'll be interested to know that over both of them, she picked a suave fellow from La Verne.

Don't know of any welcome back parties... you'll have to do some investigating, FB. Once I get on campus and we figure out our meeting schedule, I know you wait with bated breath, I'll announce the details surrounding the Eddie Izzard / trivial pursuit night, (it's definitely a weeknight kind of thing).

Oh, and as far as the break goes, our admirable Canadian friend, Aaron Rousseau, broke and made it to semis, that's swell. His major is something like international conflict resolution - so let's see where this leads him.

You'll all be happy to know that Brandeis sent their registration check, so our tournament (shy of Brown and what MIT owes us) was fiscally successful. If Brown doesn't pay, we'll just withold our registration, but this is good going into next year.

Check out the phorum... for half a second, people thought we were the only American team to break. That would be something... just the same, no American teams broke (just La Verne, a Worlds powerhouse and community college near LA) - perhaps reason enough for APDA to hold a real world's prep, although it would probably take more convincing than that. See the results on the CUSID page, Americans were apparently too ashamed to report back themselves.

If someone sends me a poster / several posters as a word document, I'll see that they are printed before Sunday night. 9 or so works for me Dan if anyone else wants to meet to divy them up.

Question - does anyone know when we're allowed to come back after break? Can we come back on Saturday? - or do we have to come back on Sunday?

Hot Damn, Happy New Year all!

Taking a little break from the Sex and the City marathon. Dan, just curious, did you catch Missy Elliott on ABC, she was singing your favorite song. (And by your favorite song, I mean my favorite song... ba bomp ah bomp ah).

1. Worlds Prep is a bad idea. I wish it weren't and I denied it for a long time - but Michael, sometime, I promise to tell you all of the personal ruin, near-ulcers, and "no-contact orders" that resulted from my pushing for Worlds Prep with such vigor.

2. I agree, we need magazines but Charlotte will give us flak. In the meantime, Dan and I can make an effort to get to the school store more often and charge newspapers / news magazines directly to our account. She doesn't ask about those. Also, my family subscribes to Newsweek, I'll try to remember to pick some up and donate them to our stash. Everyone should go by the mailroom more often and pick up whatever is on the marble ledge, those are freebees. Sadly, it's usually something like "Sportsman Weekly" or 3 issues of "Glamour." Also, if Shaw's has magazines, we can charge things directly to our account there. So after I am long gone, you'll have to get Jeremy to buy you a weekly supply of cheese, soda, and the economist.

3. The one thing I learned about Winter Carnival, we actually held our first APDA tournament that weekend, there is a big emphasis on the ski races and the ball, and it's hard to turn attention away from that. We had a very hard time also getting spaces / catering help because it considered a "black-out" weekend and no one else is allowed to book anything. I won't be here, so I'll just warn you to clear adequate facilities and then leave it up to you youngins.

4. I like the idea of open debates, but I think maybe we should start practicing more often (if even taking debates from Michael's website or my
"pro and con" book just to go through the motions) and pitch all of our mock debates as "open debates." We'll need to pump up our visibility more, but this won't require much more planning to designate certain debates "open" and others "closed." If we want to do this, we should probably ask to get a little blurb in the poli sci newsletter and take out some Campus ads to pump the first few. Posters are good, but word of mouth still brings people in better than any other recruitment strategy.

5. The other thing to keep in mind, just as a warning, too much planning / too many events have always diverted attention away from improving our debates. Whenever we have a lengthy business meeting, no one wants to / can stay for mock debates. We haven't done mock debates (religiously) since before our tournament, so I propose we concentrate on this during Jterm. Any thoughts on the schedule? What time is good for people? I think we should try to meet at least twice a week, for case prep and mock debates (maybe we should meet a little earlier in Jterm, like 8 and work on cases for a while then debate, out by 9:30 or 9:45) Monday / Wednesdays?? Tuesdays / Thursdays?? I don't care.

6. Also, anyone with a driver's license who doesn't have a college license should sign up for class and get one, it doesn't hurt and everyone will be covered if ever an accident happens again. In the process of clearing up my little damage incident, I learned that mine actually expired last June. (In giving me the form, they assumed I'd graduate last May). Just the same, it isn't an issue and won't affect my coverage / what happened at MIT, but I can't drive again. Not like I was planning on driving... but I am officially out now. Also, we need to get some more people TIPS trained. In order to register a party, you need to take that dumb role playing class and learn important other things, I don't know ~ I've never taken the class, but this year we cut it very close and we were lucky that Yoshi could take the class. If they offer this during Jterm sign up, it'll be more informative than 3 hour refugee camp.

7. Feel better, Dan, even though you don't appreciate us, snively bastard.