Last Saturday, October 10, 2009, we had our final exam in Automata. It was quick and short (but still a bit hard) and we only spent less than an hour answering the exam. Maybe because we are quite excited to play the next activity, The Sipser Wars.

The Sipser Wars is a game thought about by our professor for us (modeled from Mafia Wars daw). Well, maybe for us to relax and enjoy the last formal week of classes before finals week will butt in. Sipser is the author of the text book we are using in class. It is the “tradition” of our batch to use the author’s name in the title of a culminating activity (e.g. Rosen’s Idol). The Sipser Wars’s rules are simple:

• Prepare 5 sets of 5 water-filled plastics (like the ordinary ice water but we used 5×9 instead)
• Two player per team per round
• One, the gunner is blindfolded. The gunner is the only one who could throw the “ammunition” on other gunners. If a gunner is hit by another gunner from other teams, that team is out.
• The other is the defense. He/she will take on the attacks (that meant getting wet) directed to the team’s gunner. He will also be the one to guide the gunner where to throw and attack.

I took on the defense role the whole time while my group mates were shifting in the gunner role. The game was like a riot. Nobody got out. Everyone played till their ammos run dry. I got wet head to foot, receiving all the flying water-filled plastics and running on bare foot in our soccer field. Here’s a short proof:

In the end, we all enjoyed the game even if it meant for the players including me to be wet, whole body. Our professor gamely joined in the next part of the game wherein we used larger plastics for ammo. The Sipser Wars is truly a memorable game. Made me think about trying more mature war games.

Next story. Last Monday, October 12, 2009, is our final activity for PI 100: The Life and Works of Rizal. We call it the Rizal Amazing Race. Instead of doing it in paper, we decided to do our finals physically but using our head. We all know what “Amazing Race” is so we did it the Rizal way. There are 5 teams and there are pit stops. Our team is the purple team.

Our team and another one started 3 minutes behind the rest because we were all absent on one day where half of the class is absent lol. Here are the pit stops:

• Enumerate the whole Rizal family in chronological order – we were so much “losers” even in the first pit stop. We were having extremely huge problems remembering Rizal’s sisters. We were VERY left behind. We managed to finish this task just because we were given silly clues. And we thought of silly answers.
• Combine four lines to make one stanza from a work of Rizal – one of us went and read I-don’t-know-what but all I know is that it has stanzas. Probably one of Rizal’s works. Then from there we went to a shuffled cartolina cuts of poetic lines and have to arrange it. We did it in less than 30 seconds.
• Determine who’s who, the ladies of Rizal – more like of a matching type. We did a bit good.
• Charade – I did the charade and again, it was fast. Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararating sa paroroonan. Tama ba?
• Find a copy of Mi Ultimo Adios – everyone went to the library. Our group being dominated with CS students thought of the internet cafe. And we were first!
• Have one person each memorize a stanza of Mi Ultimo Adios in Spanish in freakin’ 5 minutes – I had to deliver first and so the pressure was on me. This is the last pit stop and we lost.

What amused me is that I managed to memorize one Spanish stanza of Mi Ultimo Adios in just a few minutes. Phew! Here’s what I memorized:

Ora por todos cuantos murieron sin ventura, Por cuantos padecieron tormentos sin igual, Por neustras pobres madres que gimen su amargura, Por huerfanos y viudas, por presos en tormentos, Y ora por ti que veas tu redencion final.

Nosebleed? I memorized that under pressure. It was fun knowing I did it. But anyways, we lost. Black team won and they get to eat the Spanish paella in a restaurant in Cebu City. Mag La Tegola Cucina Italiana nalang ko. Joke.

That was the kick-off part of the finals week. I am currently into it and I just hope I could cope up with all the pressure! See you all on Philippine Blog Awards (Visayas) this Sunday!