FALL BREAK 2008

Today is the start of something wonderful.

Fall Break 2008.

Thats right. Today starts a chain reaction of fun events that come in many different forms for many different people. Some people left earlier this week, choosing to skip classes to fully enjoy the long weekend. Others have decided that a long weekend at school doesn't constitute skipping classes and have chosen to stay here at school. I am more in the camp of the latter, but just because we've decided to be more responsible doesn't mean that we still can't have fun! My roommate headed back to Bolivia for a week, so from my room alone i feel like we have the entire spectrum of Fall Break activities covered. 

So let me do a little bit of explaining of this coming weekend. 

Thursday- Today is the beginning of all of this insanity. Starting later this afternoon, we most likely will be playing a board or two of Lord of The Rings Risk, which by the way is awesome. After that, Julie Coddington, a fellow PA from English hall, will be possibly making some of us privileged individuals pies and cakes and the sort. We get to be the official taste testers! (SO TIGHT) After these things take place, other mayhem will ensue, but it won't be planned, which is probably the best kind of mayhem. :-)

Friday- Friday we will wake up and begin the day in a lazy manner. Friday is our official Board game day. Risk, LOTR Risk, Settlers of Cattaan, Heroquest, and many others will all be played tomorrow. This is the true root of our geekiness and we are going to relish in it, so be jealous. After all of the gaming has gone on, we are planning on heading over to a neighboring dorm and making root beer! I ordered Root Beet Extract (from zatarain's, the people who also make rice) and Brewer's Yeast (from swanson's, the chicken broth company). I was very confused as to the sellers, but its no use to fret over it. :-) This is set up to be a major event, so a lot of us who are sticking around are planning on heading over and learning this obscure art! Who knows, maybe one of us will find our true calling.

Saturday- Saturday is set up to be another slow start to the day, but then we have a lot of plans. The plans of our overall group deviate a little bit more on this day because of other responsibilities that we have. One guy, Ben Aalderink, will be headed up to Fort Wayne to see some friends from home. Ryan Gates and Dustin Friesen are going to Indianapolis to shop at the Apple store, considering Dustin's computer is on the fritz. *moment of silence for dustin's mac...* I personally will probably be trying to watch seasons 1 & 2 of heroes. I will blog about my reasonings for watching Heroes some other time because this is already a long enough blogpost and you probably wouldn't be interested anyway. :-)

Sunday- Finally, the final day of fall break. On sunday, many people will be coming back with crazy stories of what happened over fall break, all of whom thought they had the best break. Unbeknownst to them, I know that everyone who stayed would have had the most fun. This day we will be doing homework and hanging out with other friends, all of whom realize now that fall break is over that responsibilities have come back to bite them in the butt. 

Its okay though, its college. This is where we are weaned away from childhood and thrown into the cold world, holding onto only our weak presuppositions of the way things are and what we are told we have to do to be good people. Its a bleak and dismal outlook on everything, but that really is all you have in the world.

at least, thats what you think if you didn't spend fall break at Taylor University. :-)

The History of Heroquest.

Ahh, friday. The day when everyone gets to loosen up their ties and shoelaces, all in expectation of the wondrous weekend. Everyone loves the weekend in the words of Loverboy. The lounging, the lack of schedules, the pandemonium that occurs, and Heroquest.

Ahh, Heroquest. Let me explain this game to everyone.

It all started around 3 or 4 years ago in lexington Kentucky, the homeland of Heroquest. It had been a cold, cold winter and spring was wanting to break out of winter's icy grasp. Jack Frost was willing to let up on all of us, but only if he could have one last blast of winter weather before he left. This blast came in the form of a monstrous ice storm which dumped three to four inches of said ice over the entire bluegrass. Any of you readers would know of what i speak, nod your head at your computer screen in confirmation.  Trees and power lines were falling daily, roads were un-navigable, and power was removed from thousands of homes. In Firebrook, there was only two or three streets that had power, and mine was one. Across the neighborhood, Dan Marino's house (not the football player, but the Mormon EMT driver) did not. 

Despite the lack of power, my mormon friend and his cronies were sure to find ways to entertain themselves as they always did. During the 2 week period where they had no power, this desire for entertainment manifested itself in the form of Heroquest, an 80's boardgame that is like a mall madness version of dungeons and dragons. Now here, there is a small aside that i must state. I realize that this is very dorky and nerdy, but i promise that it is worth your time to continue to read. If you are saying on the inside of your head, "Oh Pish Posh! Why should I, a nobel prize winning all american athlete, continue to read about silly board games?"

You should.

Anyways, they taught themselves how to play the game and they actually beat every single mission that they could! With the power still out and the game complete, they did what any other group of mildly bored, ethically sound group of high schoolers does: they started making their own rules and missions. Dan was givn the coveted title of Zargon, the dungeon master (DM) and everyone else was able to create their own specific character. My good friend Thomas was Nigel the hollister Elf. He was wearing trendy clothes and rode on a plaid cloud. 

Oh, the dorky revelry. It was so awesome.

Time continued on, the ice melted away. but the heroquesting continued. More people were joined to the fold (aka me) and the game grew in size and in hilarity. Rules were removed and ludicrous situations were commonplace. Once, a hero kicked coals into the eyes of multiple orcs, successfully burning out the eyeballs of each orc, and then successfully killing the orcs (somehow). 

Ohh, those were the days. The classic days of Heroquest, with all of the original pieces and all of the original players. These were the times that really shaped the way that i saw the game and how i played the game. Yet alas, all good things must come to an end. The end of high school came upon our merry little group of board game adventurers, and the group was disbanded. Sigh...

College! The excitement of living in a dorm with hundreds of other smelly, hormone driven twenty somethings! I came to college and enjoyed the first semester of my schooling at Taylor University greatly. School was fun and all, but the one thing that i talked about regularly was this ridiculous game that i played in high school called Heroquest. I could see the sparkle in other's eyes as I explained it to the excited listeners. Everyone would say, "why don't you bring the game up! We need to play this!" I wish that I could've brought it up, yet i didn't own it! With that, i really lost hope...

Until January! It was J-term and my birthday happened to fall within J-term. Unbeknownst to me, my good friend Steven Stevens bought Heroquest on E-Bay and had it shipped to Taylor. Now the fun could really begin! With that, hilarity and pandemonium has occured in Samuel Morris hall, but i can't really explain it and do it justice. I would recommend that you come and see for yourself... Midnight on Saturday nights... Come enjoy! :-)