Alright a couple of weeks ago a friend messaged me up and asked if I wanted to participate in the University of Ottawa’s sytle of “The Amazing Race”, organized by the International House. It sounded like an interesting idea, considering I am somewhat a fan of the show, and the endurance challenge was convincing enough to actually get me out of the house, and I did.
So on the day of the race my friend brough our costumes so to say, and we wore it while playing, it turned out that they were Japanese “Happi” coats. Now for all those who don’t know what they are, if you’ve watched MXC (Most eXtreme Challenge) then you’ve probably seen one before. Our’s were a neon green, and we were wearing headbands so it was awesome.
Now you probably are wondering, whats the “of Death” part Tony…huh? Well, the challenge consists of solving clues, riddles, and puzzles/games, and after you’ve solved the clue, riddle, etc. Then you have to make your way to the next station. Each of the stations was a city or a country, either in Canada, or elsewhere. So basically you’ve got a bunch of groups running around the campus finding these locations on the list. Now, I haven’t had a REAL cardio workout since the summer, so being all the awesome I am, I was out of shape, which was terrible. We basically ran for around an hour and a half to two hours straight, with very little resting. We were in first for a good chunk of the competetion, but then we took several wrong turns, forcing us to waste valuable time and energy. By the half of the competetion, I was almost dead, no joke. Like leaning against walls, gasping for air, legs about to fall off, it was the whole nine yards of death and destruction. We ended up coming in 5th place from our favourable 1st, but it didn’t matter, we qualified for the second day, and most importantly, I was still alive.
The second day was better even though my legs were still feeling the burn, and strain from the previous day, we couldn’t wear the Happi coats though becuase it was raining. So this day was a little better on the body, I wasn’t near death, even though I was still panting and gasping for air, it was more favourable for us.
Now we were first for a portion of the race. This day was the PRIZE day, where it didn’t matter what position you got in the last day, because the previous day was the qualifications.
So we were making good time, but then it came to a mathematical question, where the coordinates matched up with the longitude and latitude of a place in South America (we had a map of one)…for me math = death. So made my friend do all the math, and he was having trouble, so we ended up naively following the other groups out to a fake place on our location list, and ended up falling far behind the leaders. We finished the other clues with ease, but unfortunatly we didn’t end up in the top ten, but it didn’t matter.
So because we had the Happi coats the first day, the organizers from the International House asked us to do our cheer, but we didn’t have one. So we decided to rip off the MXC cheer and say “Don’t get Eliminated”. The funny thing was that my friend is asian, and so am I (well duh, are we blind Tony?!) so it fit perfectly for the cheer.
Anyways, it was great fun, and even though I almost collapsed from fatigue, we still kicked ass.
Other Things…
- I just finised my “Mid-Term Week of Death”, where I had a midterm on monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday, and I studied for 6 days straight. By the last day, I just couldn’t study anymore, but I still think I destroyed the exam that day. I now go into a transition period, which takes me from the “Mid-Term Week of Death” to “Essay month of Destruction”…Joy!
- Smallville is BACK, I am actually the happiest guy in the world, this season has been pretty intense so far, and this season has been better then the last season. This season is going to be amazing, I can’t wait.
- Our good friend Mark Wilson has been playing weekend gig’s at “The Thirsty Scholar”, and even though last nights gig, was overshadowed by some upper twenties rock band, whose lead singer’s hair looked like the guy from the 80′s band “Flock of Seaguls”, it was sad, but it made me happy when he sang some Green Day songs, a Rage Against the Machine song…but besides that, nothing too memorable.
Anyone who is interested should check out Mark play, usually Saturday evenings starting around 10PM. Also check out his website at www.markwilsonmusic.com
- I got out of bed today at 4:30…IN THE AFTERNOON, what a waste.
