Call Me By Any Name, But a Rose...

Cami, Millie, Ca-MULE, Camel, Camillio, Chamomile Tea, Chamillionare, My Camille-cal Romance, Spider, Camille of House, Chameleon, Camillo, Ca-MILK, Camilla, Carmen, Cameo, Cam-zill-e.

Every person I've met has tried to come up with a new nickname for me.
I ask you,
what is SO hard about the name Camille?

By the aunties' definition, I'm "the perfect daughter" and "so payato" (skinny).

I'm Papa's "baby", Mama's "sweetie", and Chuck's "kid".

According to my demonic little cousin, I'm "an annoying bitch", but he'd probably say the same of Mother Teresa.

And of course there's always: dorkus, nerd, and fool.
Gifts bestowed upon me by my big brothers.

If you'd like to define me in terms of activities, it comes up like this:
a photographer,
a cartoonist,
a writer,
a poet,
a singer,
a pianist,
a composer,
a lyricist,
a gamer,
an artist.

But most of the time, there's a "but not quite" attached to it.

I'm a dabbler. A jack-of-all-trades. Or maybe, you could call me a Renaissance woman.
Or maybe they're all just euphemisms for "good at nothing a'tall"
?

O Sir Fever, You Are a Wily One.

I've come to the conclusion that my immune system has a pretty cruel sense of humor.

Let's begin with the fact that I never get sick. Not even sniffles. But then there was that two-year period when I got bronchitis THREE times (luckily the antibiotics still fought it off).

But now THIS:
Why is it that whenever I get one of these little numbers (phlegmy cough, runny nose, galloping sneezing, and a fever + headache), I get the fever and headache AFTER class, during study hall? I expend enormous amounts of energy to fight off slumber. When I wake up in the morning, I am exhausted from coughing, and tossing and turning all night.

But lo, and behold! That damn fever has skulked off into the night, slipping back down the rabbit hole to hell. Bereft of the mark of the affected, I am turned away from the Health Center doors. I shall wheel through another day, except with a miserable, drunken exhaustion, far exceeding the average sleep-deprivation. Utter complaints, but without that scurvy knave, Fever, by your side, it "can't be that bad."

Oh but nobody, nobody knows the trouble I've seen.

The Green Cup Challenge

So Deerfield is currently taking part in the Green Cup Challenge: an energy-conservation competition among several boarding schools, born of the Green Revolution.

After monitoring energy consumption for a month, the Green Cup Challenge begins and students are offered all sorts of incentives to reduce energy-useage. At DA, the dorm that reduces consumption by the greatest percentage is awarded $500.

Sounds great, right? And by-percentage ranking ought to make things fair.
But that's really not the case.

One of the leading dorms, Ashley, has about 6 girls, and one resident family (and it just so happens that the father is the head of the Green Cup initiative).
Compare that to my dorm:
50 girls, 3 floors, 4 resident families (one of which has two children).
Now, even if I study in the dark, my decision to turn off the lights has nowhere near as much weight as an Ashley-girl's decision.
We were bound for failure.

But the competition as a whole is flawed:
Rather than using this time to make students more environmentally aware, this is a time of fanatical extremities, when girls are doing their homework by flashlight, and we are sent tripping down dark hallways (Though, judging by the bathroom ventilator, which I hear through my room wall at all odd hours of the night, this might not be the case).
As soon as this competition ends, people will go back to leaving their lights on, the ir Ipod speakers playing tracklists to the deserted halls.
Furthermore, why are we holding this challenge in February? Isn't it more important that students develop good conservation habits at the beginning of the year? Why aren't we doing this competition when there's natural light?

I do applaud Deerfield for its efforts to be "green", contrived though they may be.