My Laptop is Put to Work, or Day 68 in Doha

I've decided that the ECQC people (*cough* Varun *cough*) owe me a t-shirt for my kind and thoughtful lending of my laptop for displaying the slideshow during the event today.

Someone get on that.

I was sitting doing nothing (well, actually laying down, thinking about napping, but not actually able to) when I get a call from Varun. I had taken my computer to him yesterday about not being able to access the internet, and it was a stupid proxy problem that I should have been able to find myself. Anyway, he noticed it was a Toshiba, with an S-Video socket, and so asked me to lend it to him. I said yes, and that I'd be at uni in less than 30 minutes.

I hop in the shower, and by the time I get out, I have a missed call. I called back, and it was two of the ECQC crew, waiting outside the dorms to get the laptop! I dressed and hurried it downstairs, then ran into Daedri on the way up. We had a chat about our spring breaks as she had some of my cookies.

Meanwhile, I got to be laptop-less for an hour before ECQC, which forced me to find people to hang out with. Shaza and Amal and a few others were in the library courtyard, so I chatted with them until Sidra and Abdalla and Maria and Fatima came up, so we could all sit together during the show.

These event are just big EC reunions; they bring together all the colleges and you get to catch up with all sorts of people.

Did I mention that Zaid was the emcee? And Varun was the head of it all... such an amazing job he did!

Not only was every institution in EC represented by a team, but there were sponsors so the production value was very high. The winning team (which was Cornell by the way) got flat screens! Each of the three people on the team!

The questions were pretty good, though some were very hard and some were less so. One of my favorites was showing a clip of this Youtube video and asking for the singer of the original song or the instrument the kid was playing on.




The correct answer is, of course, Jason Mraz or the ukulele. I think the team that didn't answer it correctly was a little too focused on the artist, because I would think they would've gotten ukulele. (That is also one of my favorite videos, for the record.)

ECQC lasted 3.5 hours (which is a bit long... that is one major criticism I had. Though part of it might have been because my computer crashed, so by proxy, my fault. But hey, they were running Windows!) After, there was a buffet, and I said my goodbyes to the IMPAQT group. There is a chance I will see them tomorrow (since they've wanted to see my dorm room to compare it to Pittsburgh) but I'm thinking they will have enough wrap-up stuff to keep them busy.

After talking with them, I'm very, very glad that I came here for an entire semester. A week is just not enough!