After the introducing of the contestants, we were off. At first, nobody got the idea of actually attempting to walk the straight line. Then, finally, Berlin started off. She got distracted a few times into kicking some of her competitors, but only because they were uneducated ponces who had no concept of real poetry. [Note: Once again, I referred to myself in the third person while in character.]

Horace immediately got lost.

At the second event, Berlin awakened the roommate by strangling her with red crepe paper. Trotsky awakened her with his sword. Hirum dumped her out of bed. Lord Dennis pretended he was a monster under the bed. I forget what else was done.

[Note: This was the second year I awakened the roommate by strangling her, though I was playing an entirely different character. Megan Jeffery had a thankless job as the roommate.]

Then we all tried to get directions from the T.A. Not an easy task, since he was from one of those Eastern Block countries and couldn't understand a word we said or communicate to us. We all ganged up on him, and Berlin punched him in the kidneys. Finally, losing his temper, he led us to the next event, rather forcibly.

[Note: You'd think that after punching him in the kidneys, I would have bothered to make note of his name, but it appears in neither my journal entry nor the newsletter.]

Killing the squirrels was fun. Berlin twisted the neck of one of them off and made it eat its own flesh. Then she wrote a poem about it on the spot and recited it to the few spectators we had (who for the most part were being ignored, somehow). I think the poem was something like:

Squirrel!
On a fine spring day,
I watch you
as you eat your own flesh!

Stealing the fresh fruit was fairly easy. Berlin stuck a bunch of them in her shirt and insisted she was pregnant, then began pounding on her stomach and squashing the fruit. She took a pear and smashed it on Oliver Rosemary Neville's shirt. I'm not sure what some of the other tactics were, but I remember Cathy [Nelson], the dining hall worker, saying, "Only one piece of fresh fruit, please."

The last event was killing FROH. Trotsky fenced it, Hirum smashed its groin with one of the judges, Berlin gnawed at its supporting cable, and the others attacked it with fruit.

Then we had a dash for the finish line.

When all the results were in, there was a three-way tie between Hirum, Attila and Trotsky. We had a Twit-Off. Each of the three winners chose another twit to run for them. The idea was get your twit to the other end of the field and back by any means possible.

We were off! Berlin ran and the others got into a fight, trying to hold each other back. About three-fourths of the way to the fence, Hirum caught up with Berlin. He started swinging her around by her arms, and she could barely keep her balance! Then he picked her up and carried her around!

The results were that Attila won, Trotsky was second and Hirum was third.

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While we were cleaning up, I told people my idea for a publicity event to be held this Wednesday. We'll pull the Spanish Inquisition on the Willard Preacher. I took the names of interested persons and their phone numbers.