Blood and Burmac!

Donating blood. As mentioned in previous posts, I think I've tried to donate at least seven or eight times, and only done it successfully once. Each time, my iron level is too low to donate. Yesterday, surprisingly, it wasn't. I sailed through iron levels, filled out my forms, had my blood pressure and temperature taken, asked about prostitution, coke, needle-related drugs, and Africa, and made it all the way to the lawn chairs. I had a very nice nurse helping me. Was swabbed with alcohol and iodine. And the needle went in. Alas, it didn't go into the vein. My nice nurse wiggled it around a little bit, withdrew and went back in, but couldn't seem to find a vein. "I'm sorry," she said as she eventually took the needle out. "But you have veins like spiderwebs. Thanks for trying." I still got to sit there for five minutes, for some reason, and I still got cookies. And I still got to walk around with a cotton swab band-aided to my arm and a pricked finger, looking like a good person. But once again, I didn't get to donate. At least I'm not O- or anything. Just A+. They probably have tons of A+ sitting around, and have to throw it out, and say, "Why do people with A+ even bother donating?? They're so regular. We need more O-!." So I guess I shouldn't feel bad, based on that incorrect and fictional A+/O- scenario.

BURMAC= Burke (residence) + MacIsaac (residence) hockey game

Every year, residences compete with each other in a hockey game. There is a huge rivalry between my dorm from last year, MacIsaac, and Burke. Burke's smaller than MacIsaac. Each residence creates their teams from people living only in the residence. Tryouts start very early in the school year, practices occur all year, until February, when the action begins. Since Burke's smaller than MacIsaac, there are a certain number of positions that they're allowed to fill with players from other dorms, to even things out. Anyways. For this one game, there are new jerseys every year with the players names on the back and stuff (sounds very expensive to me), and a whole lot of pomp and circumstance. Oh, and the teams are coached by students in the respective dorms, too.

As many people will tell you, though, BurMac is an excuse for people from Burke and MacIsaac to get insanely drunk and throw things at each other. All year, each house plays pranks on the other, and has snowball fights with each other and stuff. There are some very unoriginal cheers that can be heard around campus all year.

***Warning, unedited profanity below. In case you care. :-P***

Some Mac cheers/taunts:

Burke is a pussy

Burke chicks have dicks

Party in Burke's mouth: Everybody's cumming

We're MacIsaac assholes

We're raiders of the night

We're dirty sons of bitches

We'd rather fuck than fight

We carry wooden nickles

And trojan condoms, too

We're MacIsaac assholes

So who the fuck are you?

4, 3, Double OT (score from two years ago)

6, 2, fuck you (score from last year)

Whalebone! Whalebone! Whalebone!

The whalebone is Mac's sort of...mascot. Burke's is the big stick. Accordingly, Mac has two big pieces of a whalebone (don't ask me where they came from, they look ancient), and Burke has some very large looking stick, painted orange (their colors are black, white, and orange) that I've never seen up close. Some other dorms have more normal-seeming mascots: the bulldogs, the panthers, ...but one of them is the Box. I have no idea what the Box is all about.

Anyways. So I went to Burmac last night. Last year, we fairly destroyed them, but I was drunk and don't really remember the game. This year, the game was awesome!! In the first period, Mac was down 0-2, and Burke was playing really well, while Mac was looking shamefully unimpressive. In the second period, Mac scored, and on the next drop of the puck, Burke came back to make it 1-3. We tied it up by the beginning of the third period, so it was 3-3!! Then, with 1:07 left in the third period, Mac scored. The next play, with one minute left, Mac scored again, making it 5-3.

Now, having seen a hockey game in person, I have much more respect for it. I've been watching a fair share of professional hockey games. After seeing how professional hockey players play, and then seeing very decent hockey players from our residences, I'm amazed by how much of a gap there is between skill levels. I mean, of course there should be a gap. But it's BIG. I was very impressed with how both Burmac teams played. I'm amazed with the speed that players have to change direction and stay standing with other players checking them. I'm also amazed with the speed that they crash into the walls, with other players flying straight into them. I'm impressed with how, even when a player is knocked to his knees, he can still continue forward handling the puck until he gets back onto his skates again. At one point, a Burke player checked a Mac player, both went down. They were sliding together towards this other Mac player, who at first didn't see them. At the last second, he saw them, and just jumped straight up into the air, they continued sliding by beneath him, he landed on the other side, and continued playing. It was insane!!

And the craziest part of hockey: It's all on ice!!

So, Burmac. It was good. and I had Subway afterwards, which made me very happy.

I'll finish writing this later (class is beginning) and will also add some silly, perhaps relevant, perhaps not, photos.