Crabbie's ginger beer is delicious and I will be trying more ginger beer in the future. Quite sweet, quite gingery. Image heavy post ahead!

--

Some IRS prank highlights:

Civils


Always


Win


Mac1ve beam5 4eva


The beam is the only one still up. I assume because plant ops can't figure out how to get it down safely. And because civils build things that LAST. HOOAH.

Civils always win. Also penis.

My absolute favourite prank though, was the reorientation of all the chairs tables in CPH 3607 to face the side of the room instead of the board at the front. Elegant, and nondestructive, but so, so, so annoying. I saw DJ Brush teaching in there and people craning at the neck to keep up with him.

Fo realz. (context: Professor D. J. Brush teaches water quality engineering. Including acids and bases.)

--

I was going to write about existentialism - I had, like 200 words written out about it, and that mildly cryptic title - but I got my iron ring and I'll write about that instead, and existentialism is really boring.

The Iron Ring didn't solve my existential crisis but I didn't expect it to. The ritual had some cultish overtones and silly bits, though it was impressive how they administered the oath and personally ringed 300 people in half an hour, with pre- and post- speeches. For how little my brain thinks it's worth ($20) I have an intense aversion to taking it off right now.

The iron ring, also starring Illamasqua Scarab. My bottle is on its very last legs and it's no longer being carried at Sephora. Still theoretically in stock at the Bay though. Also the DSLR is so clearly made for right handed people. The tyranny of handedness!

The ring I thought was too tight during the fitting (size 3.5) turns out to be just right for clinging to my pinky while sprinting through the hallways in 3-inch heeled boots.

Then we went to Boston Pizza.

Some readings I remember:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one.^[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Martha & Mary

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their work when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand.
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's days may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat:
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that:
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they know the angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see how truly the Promise Runs:
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons.

The Sons of Martha, Rudyard Kipling

And this one wasn't a reading:

"Some men aren't meant to be happy. They are meant to be great."

Scandal


Sadly instead of getting royally smashed at IRS (shouldn't a "stag" be before the ceremony, rather than after?) I am in the office, putting the paper together... :(

--

Also it always felt like UW's REAL engineers were the ECE and ME and TRON kids... especially with the focus on entrepreneurship. There are reasons that there are so few civil startups. It was nice to feel that Kipling wrote the Obligation with Civils in mind.