Julie's 17th Birthday!

This morning I set my alarm at 6:15 AM because I was supposed to be running with Stephen again. However, at 6:00 AM I get a text from Stephen saying that he was too tired and couldn't run. Apparently he never learned the runner's rule that you don't cancel on a pair-run at 6:30 AM in the morning, the day of. Maybe if his dog died or he broke his leg that could work as an excuse. But saying that he was too tired was probably not his best excuse. For the next 12 hours I never let him forget his cancelling on me. As Thao would say, "Helen is still very salty."

To put it simply, I'll be finding a new running buddy in the morning. However, this morning I still got up and went for a really short run around Beebee Lake. It was lovely out, although a bit warmer than yesterday, and I thoroughly enjoyed my solo run. Emphasis on solo.

I came back to my room, showered, blogged, and read until 11:00 AM. Then I walked to the dining hall for lunch before my class. I walked to class early because I had nothing else I had to do, so I had the pleasure of being the first one in the lecture hall. I took advantage of this opportunity to sit down and do absolutely nothing for a couple minutes which was lovely. Soon Justice and others arrived though, so my quiet peace was only a brief moment in time. 

The first part of class was interestingly odd. Rodney had Manuel act as the professor for the first hour and it was equal parts hilarious, embarrassing, and valuable. Since Rodney is Irish, Manuel started off by writing "Ireland" on the board and then underlining it. I think it's pretty obvious how the class went after that, although we did get into claims, warrants, and data which is valuable debate knowledge. Claims are basically conclusions that the writer draws from facts, evidence is just the support or facts for the arguments, and warrants are the logical connection between a claim and a supporting fact. 

A solid 30 minutes of class was spent on claims, warrants, and evidence, which was good and very helpful. After that, six students total took part in a practice debate on whether or not professional American football should be banned. This debate went much better than the previous two, which was probably because we went over claims, warrants, and evidence previously. There were a lot more rebuttals and good counter-arguments. In the end, the proposition side won (the house that believed American football should be banned) because they had good arguments that were backed up with logical reasons.

After our class I went back to my dorm to work on homework. At about 6:10 PM I went to Thao's room and waited for her to be ready to go to dinner. We were meeting up with the rest of the ILC cohort and some other friends because it was Julie's birthday (17!) and we were going to give her a card. At the dining hall we met Reese, Joe, and Nick, along with Shanti, Julie, Justice, and Stephen. Dinner was great, there were some fascinatingly weird conversations about salad, ice cream, and roommates. After dinner as over we briefly met with Chan-Law to give Julie her card, and then take a group photo. Joe and Reese were not the best photographers and needed multiple tries to get good photos. However, we eventually got at least on good photo. 

After the photos were over, all of us except Joe, Shanti, and Julie went to play frisbee and/or volleyball in the grass. I played volleyball for awhile, before switching to frisbee. I met Dina who also plays frisbee, as well as some of her friends, and for almost two hours I got some really good practice in on my hucks (long throws) that I haven't practiced in awhile. When it started to get dark we had to call it quits, but I thoroughly enjoyed my evening!