Today, October 1st was the FINAL deadline for submitting the official MP proposal. I got mine in, at 4:55PM, a full five minutes early. So now it's official, I am writing an MP.

This past weekend was also basketball camp-out weekend for graduate students. Any graduate student at Duke who wants the opportunity to buy a Duke basketball season ticket is required to "campout" in the parking lot behind the track for 36 hours and endure at least 30 random "check-ins". During check-ins signaled by the blow of a whistle, all campers must sprint to the designated check-in area to have their names marked down. If more than 2 check-ins are missed, you're out! It's supposed to be fun I guess. I did the full-on camp-out and got tickets last year, so this year I felt content to just show up for a little bit Friday and Saturday evenings to check out the craziness. Everybody seemed like they were  having so much fun that I regretted for a moment not having signed up. But then I remembered how wiped out I was Sunday morning. I'm also pretty content to watch the games from a bar.

Before heading out to camp-out on Saturday night, 2nd year Environmental Economics and Policy MEM Carl Chamberlin and his fiance Laura Harvey invited the Knox Box over to share a 1.5 liter bottle of very nice Japanese sake that a friend had given to me and that I had then re-gifted to them. Very complicated. Along with the sake, we had some delicious edamame and pan-fried veggie gyouza (dumplings) that I picked up at the "Oriental Market" over on 15 / 501 Business. I'm still not sure that I'm a big fan of sake, but this one was definitely better than most I've had and it had a name meaning "snow falling" in a poetic way. It was a good thing there were so many of us sharing it because drinking a large bottle using tiny glasses takes a long time.