I always forget about Carnival until it is right upon me, even this year when little ooze-shaped paper advertisements showed up everywhere from dorm doors to the back pockets of unexpecting launderers returning to fold their clothes from the dryer.

Carnival is awesome. It’s a big festival with live music, endless supplies of free cotton candy, snocones, and popcorn, and large inflatable play devices. You know, the kind of big bouncy things you played in as a kid, only they’re more awesome because they’re college-student-sized (and even MORE awesome for little kids, since they’re twice as gigantic).

Anyway, I thought this year’s Carnival was getting off to a bad start, as my stomach was upset all day. However, I decided to have fun in spite of this. I challenged Strother to a race in the Safari Challenge (a large, inflatable obstacle course with a plastic palm tree for setting). In my frantic scramble to win the race, my back bent in a way it was not supposed to. It was one of those injuries that didn’t hurt right away, but you FELT it, and you knew it would hurt like nothing else in a matter of time.

As all people are entitled to make ridiculously poor decisions every now and again, I thought to myself “Well, my back’s going to stop working here in a bit, I’d better use it as much as I can before that happens,” and proceeded to play on the inflato-bungee course (on which I promptly injured my head and neck).

In spite of the fact that today I can barely hobble without some sort of pain, I had a fun time at Carnival. Chalk Circle was also awesome. David Flora is a musical genius. That is all.