Magic and Time Passing

Hello! Time seems to pass at a staggering rate. I'm just about to begin week 10 of 12 of my internship at Sun Microsystems-- and when I last wrote, I was in week 8. What happened in the last week and a bit? Well, I did four days of training at ActivIdentity, learning to use their Card Management Software, which, if not precisely enthralling entertainment for most people, was certainly an interesting experience for me-- especially given my previous internship at VeriSign, doing much the same work. I also went to San Francisco to see some friends from my high school. I also made a portrait of myself using a creation tool, in the style of a famous TV show-- much to the chagrin of my parents, who think I should have more formal pictures of myself on my website. Also, a variety of other small things, some of which will no doubt be blogged about eventually-- but right now, I wanted to put something in here about Magic. Magic: The Gathering is a card game that has been going on for more than fifteen years at this point, more popular now than ever before. I used to play it, but gave it up more than a decade ago-- for reasons that were no doubt good and wholesome at the time. So why does it come up now? Well, as some of you may know already, a lot of my friends at Hopkins play it. And clearly, my group of friends are the cool people. 'Cause I'm not friends with uncool people. :-) So I thought, I want to be cool like my friends: I want to get back into Magic. So I had my parents dig my old collection out of my closet, and send me a time capsule from my eighth-grade self. Now, eight months later, I've learned a lot more about Magic, played in a lot of tournaments, gotten at least one friend newly addicted, and met a lot of new friends-- which has happened through getting to attend a number of fun tournaments. Since the beginning of the summer, I've attended:

• Eight Friday Night Magic Events
• The California Regional Championships
• Pro Tour - San Diego
• Worldwide Magic Game Day
• One Summer of Magic Event
• And, just today: 1 Grand Prix Trial at Eudemonia

And had, generally, a huge amount of fun doing it. I've also gotten beaten savagely by twelve-year-olds, fifty-year-olds, a Level Five Judge, two Level Four Judges, a large number of Level Three and Level Two judges, and, just on Friday, the Chief Interrogator of Abu Gharib. (This last, unfortunately, is not a joke. While I'd hoped to be able to win a match, as at least some sort of symbolic statement for freedom and democracy, it turns out that being on the correct side ideologically cannot make up for a lack of skills during a Draft at a Friday Night Magic. Oh well.) I also got to meet the new National Champion of Magic at the tournament today, where he was a competitor; nice guy. So what is all this leading up to? Well, on Wednesday, I took and passed my Tournament Organizer test-- which will allow me to run "real" Magic tournaments at Hopkins, should someone want to play in them. With luck, I'll be able to expand the rating to T-2, which will let me run certain additional types of tournaments, as well as make them occur more quickly. And hopefully, one day, I'll be able to actually *win* at Magic, not simply be effective at assisting its play (as a TO would). With luck, there will also be more interesting things happening with Magic in the next few weeks; I'll keep the blog updated, as much as I can. (And I will get to posting the pictures from Three Rings soon!)