Journal May 6, 2000

(Retrospection)

This is another Retrospection by request. Sorry it took me so long to post it. I was working my way around to it.
I'm not sure if this is the specific waterfight you were refering to Kellie, but it is at least a waterfight. And it happened to be among the journal entries I brought with me to Japan.


Woke up and went down to Eastern Avenue Church to help tutor immigrant workers. I carpooled down with Graham Reeves. On the way we discussed various issues of the Calvin Social Justice Committee. Because the Calvin Economics department is hosting a speaker from the world bank, I agreed to draft a letter on behalf of the SJC asking that speakers critical of the World Bank also be invited to speak at the college.

The actual tutoring itself was a complete waste of time (which is frustrating after getting up so early on a Saturday morning). There were more than double the amount of tutors needed, so Graham and I and some other girl were all assigned to tutor the same student. I mostly just sat and watched as Graham and the other girl did most of the tutoring.

Once I got back to my apartment I promptly went back to sleep and slept until 2. When I finally woke up there were two people I hadn't seen for a long time hanging around.

First of all Jonna Vanschepan, who was talking to Brett in our living room. She and Brett were having a long conversation. I said hi to her, and that was as far as my interaction went.

The other person we hadn't seen for a long time was Brian Schraeder, our old RA from last year. He was outside visiting everyone, and Brett and I went out to talk to him. As with all old friends you haven't seen for a while, once you get past the "Good to see you, what have you been up to lately?" stage of the conversation, the conversation can begin to lag and it can be slightly awkward. To help keep the conversation moving I brought out my photo album and showed Brian pictures of what we had been up to this past year.

A bit later on, just as Brian and his wife were leaving, Rob and I came out and threw water balloons at them. We didn't get them really soaked, but we got them a little wet, and everyone had a good laugh about it.

Once we had the water balloons out, Rob began making other plans. Rob had actually gotten in a water fight the day before with Melissa Essenburg. (I had missed out on this because I was at Michigan State University yesterday joining their protest against the World Bank commencement speaker). Apparently Rob had come out the worst in the water fight, and Melissa had soaked him. Now he wanted to get her back.

After we had gotten all the water balloons ready, Rob made a phone call to Melissa to let her know we were coming after her. In retrospect this probably wasn't our best move, because then Melissa just locked herself in her apartment and refused to come outside.

So we recruited Joel Hoort to our side. Joel Hoort was of course a good friend (and one of Rob's campus safety buddies) but not normally someone who participates in our pranks, so we thought Melissa wouldn't suspect him, and we could use him to trick Melissa into coming out of her apartment.

Bear, once he found out what we were up to, asked to be included on the prank as well, and Bear recruited his friend Dan Schewe.

Hoort telephoned Melissa and tried to get her out of her apartment, but she was too smart to fall for it and guessed that he was helping Rob, despite his attempts to tell her otherwise.

When this failed, Hoort went over to her apartment in person to try and get her to come out. He had an embarrassing picture of Michelle, and he told Melissa he needed her to take him to Meijers to make copies of the picture, so he could post it around campus. Melissa was intrigued by the idea, but still wary of leaving her apartment.

While this was going on, the rest of us were able to gain access into the apartment building because Rob Wieringa let us sneak in through his apartment. Melissa had her door open because she was talking to Joel Hoort, so once we got in we were able to get Meliisa and drag her outside. (We took advantage of Rob Wieringa's apartment on the way out as well).

Once Melissa was outside the fun began. We had 2 garbage cans full of water waiting which I doused her with. [The small apartment sized garbage cans, not the big road side collection variety. But still she got pretty wet.] And then we bombarded her with the water balloons.

Afterwards it was Melissa's turn to try and get revenge on us. She tried various tactics to try and get Rob and I, but at each turn we were able to turn the tables against her and just get her more wet. Eventually she gave up, but warned of revenge.

Rob and I hung out for a while after that. Eventually we ended up going to Reeds lake for Melissa’s surprise birthday party. A bunch of old Boer-Bennick people were there.

Rob had to leave early. I wanted to stay longer so I just gave him the keys to my car and told him I'd hitch a ride with someone else.

Many people were talking about throwing Michelle in Reeds Lake, and finally we did it (Jared English, Jori Murchi, Joel Hoort and I).


Michelle tried to get us back after that. She tried to get frosting from the cake on Jori, but instead Jori ended up getting it on Michelle.

Then Michelle made peace with Jori, and the two of them teamed up on me. They attacked me with cake frosting. I was able to evade them for a while, but Jori eventually succeeded in smearing me with frosting, so I chased Jori down and got frosting on her arms.

Eventually this generated into a free for all with all sorts of spur of the moment alliances being formed and everyone going after everyone else.

While all this was going on, by chance I happened to run into an old high school friend Dan Luke, who was taking a stroll around Reed's lake with his girlfriend. (I don't remember her name, but I had met his girlfriend before at Phil Ratchz's open House).

Dan is a student at MSU, so I mentioned I had been at the protest yesterday, and mentioned my surprise about how little political activity and organization there seemed to be at MSU. Because it was a big state school, I had expected massive numbers of students to be at the demonstration, but after the sparse turnout the impression I got was Calvin College (small, religious, conservative college) was more politically active than MSU. Dan agreed with me about the lack of political activity at MSU.

While I was talking to Dan, Jared English and Paul Steen got in an epic wrestling match. Jared got Paul in a super wedgie and tore off the elastic strap on his underwear. Afterwards Jared wore it as a head band for a while(kind of as a trophy I guess) before giving it to me. I used it like a big rubber band and stretched it out, then shot it at the girls. After being thrown around and shot at different people, it eventually ended up in the cake.

Afterwards everyone went to Steak and Shake. Since I had already let Rob take off with my car, I had to catch a ride with someone else, so I had to cut short my conversation with Dan Luke.

I got a ride with Paul Steen to Steak and Shake, and everyone hung out there for a while. Jared was on a mission to drink as many Root beers as he could,　and told the waitress to keep bringing him free refills. She brought out six. Jared made a valiant attempt to drink them all, but ended up getting sick and going into the bathroom to puke.

Paul took his opportunity for revenge and took what was left of his underwear and threw it on Jared while he was puking.

Maria Gort shot ice through her straw at various people, especially targeting Michelle. Michelle threatened revenge.

After Steak and Shake, we all ended up back to Theta 21. I hung out there for a while, and they taught me how to play the Nintendo 64 version of Tetris. I gave Kathryn a back rub upon request, and otherwise just talked to people. Jared showed a video from the April 21 trip to his uncle’s farm. I was slightly hurt that I never got an invitation to this especially when I saw the video and it looked like everyone else in our circle of friends was there. Then again, maybe it was for the best. I tend not to have a lot of patience for these big group outings especially ones that involve long drives.

Before bed I went back to the courtyard and hung out with Bork, Buma and their group. They had seen the movie “Gladiator,” and were telling me about it.

Brett got back from his night out, and I talked to him for a long time. I tried to convince him to stay in Grand Rapids for the summer, and I think almost succeeded. I told him he could live with me and the rest of the boys in our apartment, but the real attraction for Brett is that Sara Schipper is planning on living in Grand Rapids during the summer.

Link of the Day
Losing the War in Afghanistan One Civilian Massacre at a Time