Operation Foxtrot (not the comic)

So, what’s been going on lately around here? Let’s just say I have a feeling this could be a long post…

Ok, first up: Operation Foxtrot. For those of you who don’t know this already, I’ve decided to start using the phonetic alphabet to keep track of my evil plots and large-scale creative-type-things (Creative dates, talent show skits, etc), otherwise things just get too confusing. A couple of weeks ago, it was my friend Tiffany’s birthday. Now, I was going to get everybody at Prayer & Praise on Sunday (her birthday was Monday) to sing to her, but I wasn’t able to yell loudly that night and the person I had gotten to agree to yell for me (Shane) chickened out at the last minute. So I had to think of something else I could do instead. As it turns out, some of the Mer’dith guys were able to get the entire dining room to sing to her on her birthday at both lunch and dinner, so that part was covered.

So, here’s what I did: I was planning to “arrange” for Tiffany to be out of her dorm room for about an hour, but I couldn’t get a hold of Bekah Jones or Carey Edwards to help. The good news was that they must have somehow subconsciously known what to do, because they invited her over for a movie night in their room on their own. I enlisted the help of Rebecca (apprentice #3) and Amy Chen to help carry out the plot. Amy’s task was simple, get us to Tiffany’s room (I didn’t know where it was and Meredith is one of the most confusing buildings on campus). When we first stopped by Tiffany’s room, we discovered that her roommate was not around to let us in. So we decided to head over to Bekah’s and Carey’s room to say hello and hopefully (subtly) find out where her roommate was. We had two problems when we got there. First, Amy wasn’t too terribly subtle about finding the information we wanted (thankfully, Tiffany didn’t even think to be suspicious). Second, she opened the door to their room all the way (and there was a mirror on the hall’s opposite wall), I was in serious danger of being spotted. I was able to cling to the wall and in the shadow of the elevator’s entryway and narrowly stay out of sight, but it was too close for comfort. Then we went to Tiffany’s room and her roommate (who had just gotten back from an exam) let us in. We immediately set to work saran-wrapping her bed and other miscellaneous items in her area (chair, keyboard, Ipod, etc) and Rebecca stretched purple yarn all over the place in an intricate web. I also pulled a couple of computer tricks out of my hat to change her background to say “Happy Birthday Tiffany!” and make her Minimize/Maximize/Close boxes (at the top-right of a program window) super huge. Then we (and some of the Mer’dith guys) went into hiding around the room and Amy went to get Tiffany (she “wanted to borrow” a CD or something like that). When Tiffany got back, she was, to say the least, surprised at all the decorations around her room. I’d post the video we took of the whole thing, but it was shot in Portrait orientation (on its side) and I can’t edit QuickTime videos to rotate it. However, here are some pictures of our handiwork:

In other news, the Romania team is reportedly doing well as of yesterday. Michelle Snow was feeling pretty sick for a while (and others’ stomachs weren’t so great), but apparently she’s feeling better. Head over to the link I gave in my last post for more details.

I’ve also recently recruited my 4th evil apprentice, but I won’t be mentioning his/her name just yet to protect the innocent (I’ll rectify that situation soon, jk). This one is in need of a lot of training (that’s normal), but also has a great deal of enthusiasm and untrained potential (example: already knows how to strategically employ interpersonal networking skills toward a desired end). I’d say more, but I won’t for fear of giving away too many clues as to the individual’s identity.

As for the exams last week: The first one (727 Systems) went pretty well, although I’d like to have done better. The second (Music) didn’t go very well at all. I had a lot of trouble identifying the exact compositions because he played mostly 2nd and 3rd movements, which are harder to identify than their well known 1st movement counterparts. Then on Wednesday, my King Air Ground exam seemed to go a little too well. I won’t get the score until this Wednesday, but I’m concerned because it seemed a lot easier than I was expecting and I was the first one done in the class (usually a bad sign). The first half was all a data-dump of memorized numbers (I know I got one wrong, but I think I got the rest right), and the second half was all working performance charts. Some of the others say they thought it wasn’t too bad either, so I’m just hoping they’re right. It’s one of those things where I either aced it or really botched it and there’s no way to tell until I get the score.

I’m not really sure how to update Perelandra at the moment. Last I mentioned it, we had just gotten a lead on a new band (now officially designated “Betry”) but hadn’t yet made any attempts to establish contact. Well, we still haven’t. Yeah, not much of an update, I know. To expand on that a little farther, we’re still in discussions with the Station Manager on if we should even try on this one or not. The problem we’re facing is that where (for example) Naples, Chray, and Arbes were all transmitting (either intentionally or as a malfunction) when we were concerned with them, Betry is utterly silent. Based on what we know so far, we’re convinced that Betry has a lot of potential for a strong, wide bandwidth connection, but we’re going to have to wait until we get at least a flicker of signal (and Manager approval, of course) before we can do anything. We’ve also recently learned that there’s another competing station in the same position we are, but they haven’t received anything either and are reportedly also waiting for the go-ahead from their Manager.

Anyways, this has been a huge update. Fall Retreat is the next thing to talk about, but that’ll be a long update in and of itself, and I have to go in 10 minutes, so I think I’ll stop here. Quickly, Fall Retreat was seriously awesome and God worked in many powerful ways (including a few people coming to Christ and a huge answer to prayer for me). So I don’t know when I’ll be able to do it, but that’s an update to look forward to.