Dancing Archbishops and TASPer Reunions: A brief synopsis of the life of Ryan

Top of the morning to you, my TASPers.

This is your dearest diabetic vegan, reporting live from the fertile lands of Colorado.

Life here is pretty good. It snowed on Tuesday, just in time for my return from Ithaca (more on that later). It's mostly melted now, and things are back to their usual between-seasons state of being (read: hot one day, freezing the next...that kind of madness).

Like everyone I'm sure, I've been very busy lately. School and work sap a significant amount of my time, and when they fall through clubs, an internship at the Denver Post, and the madness of college applications jump in to take their place. All in all, pretty crazy. More than ever I'm glad that I went to TASP this summer because I've discovered just how little sleep I can subsist on before retreating into insanity (although I guess whether or not I was sane at TASP remains to be seen).

Anyway, I realized I never wrote a proper update about PeaceJam, the conference of Nobel peace laureates I went to back in September. I suppose it's a little late for it now, so I'll just stick with the obvious and say the whole thing was incredible. We did conferences with the laureates, as well as attended public speeches by all of them. The only thing that was really lacking in the weekend were worthwhile people to spend it with. We were randomly divided into small groups between the events, and mine made me absurdly nostalgic for TASP. That is to say, we spent a good part of one break discussing how the Dali Lamma was boring because his english was hard to understand. To that I can say only, que en el mundo? (speaking of which, Spencer is going to El Salvador at the end of this week to see Gerardo! not fair) Anyhow, something you all would have especially appreciated was seeing Desmond Tutu dance. It was pretty hilarious stuff. Also, there was a group of students there from South Africa and they spoke Xhosa and did the clicks and everything. By the way, did you know that the click is notated in English with an exclamation point? I kind of like that. More words should have exclamation points in them. R!yan. Adds a little something extra, don't you think?

Alas. I digress. Enough on PeaceJam and the Professor Vinson speech click and all things South African. On to important points of news- CBTA interview weekend.

It. Was. Awesome.

That house is incredible. In some ways it's not very TASPy; I mean, you can actually speak with people beyond the ones you're living with.But in a lot of more important ways it very much is like TASP. Late night discussions and quirky senses of humor and an overload of intelligence. I loved it.

Also, I got a chance to meet a couple of Lynn's former TASPers who live in the house, and they clued me in to one of the great mysteries of our summer. Where did that fake Focus on the Family letter come from? Turns out Desiree, who's the UT '05 person from Pueblo, CO, sent it. All the mail in Pueblo is routed through Colorado Springs. Clever, no? But anyway, that means it wasn't actually from the Cornell kids like we thought. All they sent us was the rotting fish. Hmm.

Speaking of other TASPs, the seminar topics for next year were just posted. WashU is (for the 2nd time in three years) about the American City. Bob Hansman is one of the professors. I wonder what it would be like to be around him for six weeks. Pretty intense, I'm sure.

Anyway, enough of these tenuous segues into random topics. I think this entry has been sufficiently long and rambly. And school calls.

I hope you all are well, and remember, our cluster of nine-months-after-valentines-day birthdays are quickly approaching. I'm thinking we should celebrate with a dramatic recitation of a Bobby Kennedy speech.

Okay. That is all.

The end.
Really.