Day 27, 10:45AM: I see it coming towards me, I jump to the side narrowly avoiding a collision. Reacting as fast as I can, I jump to the floor and grab more ammo before leaping behind the barrier. My heart is racing as I peek out just long enough to assess the situation and figure out my plan of attack. I poke my head through the metal bars and throw a volley of projectiles at the enemy. Quickly, I gather strength and grab ammo as fast as I can while trying not to think about the injuries I sustained so far. Right about now I think to myself, “Wow, this has to be the best Corporate Strategy class ever.”
I thought that I’d try a new format (yet again) where I start with something interesting that happened to captivate your interests before moving on to the more mundane and boring parts. This way you’ll wonder what I’m talking about and keep reading. Tricky, huh?
I had set my alarm for 8AM thinking I could fight off my desire to sleep and actually catch up on some blogging. I failed. I managed to pull myself out of bed in time to check email and get a little reading done before class at 10:30. When I arrived in my class, half of it was gone. Not the room of course, but half of the desks and tables were missing, including the table I usually sit at. I sat down wondering what to expect and awaited instructions. On the projector was a list of group numbers and student names, which I gathered meant we were doing something in groups.
My professor begins by telling us that today in class we’re having a Paper War. Yes, a Paper War, the sort where you throw crumpled up pieces of paper at people for fun. I have no idea what to expect at this point, but I can tell it’s going to be fun.
My mind begins to race. He instructs groups 1 and 2 to line up in the empty part of the room (I’m in group two) and we all walk slowly over. He tells us to fight and have a paper war while handing up paper. Nothing happens. Then he starts yelling “FIGHT, FIGHT!” and the other team starts to crumple up paper into balls and throw them. Now, those of you who know me can attest to the fact that I’m not competitive in the slightest and I never think before I act. Obviously both of those are lies. When I said my mind was racing I meant it, because he just gave me a puzzle to figure out: What is the objective of this, what does he want to see, and how can I think outside the box? To begin we both start throwing paper at each other and nothing much is happening, but slowly people start to get into it and actually aim and dodge the paper balls. My first thought comes to me: he didn’t give us any rules to play by. So I turn to him and ask what the rules are and he says there aren’t any. Ok, well he told us not to hit the audience, but I considered that an oversight on his part. Well, he said no rules, so I ran over to his desk and grabbed a huge stack of papers on it. I then looked at him and he just smiled at me, so I ran back and threw the stack at the other team. It hit the ground and they started to grab it and crumple them up and throw them at us. My intent was not to destroy those papers, but rather to throw them in a stack and then return them to demonstrate my creative thinking. Oh well, he said no rules and if they were important he would have stopped me.
So the fight continues as I try to think of the next rabbit to pull out of the hat. By now both teams were into it and grabbing and throwing as fast as possible. Then it comes to me: why not steal their ammo? So I run behind their line of people and start to grab their ammo when it hits me: I’m I’m grabbing their ammo there, why not just throw it at them? So I start chucking the paper balls at their back before they notice I’m not on their team. Then they all turn and start throwing them at me, at which point my group now has easy shots at their backs. After grabbing lots I run back to our side when my next great idea hits: Why not use other objects in the classroom to help us? So I run over to where the tables were piled up and start grabbing one when the professor rings a bell and says the round is over. Disappointed, I put the table back in place as he gives me a very surprised look and asks what I was doing with the table. “Build a fort” I respond. What else would one do with a table? We ten gathered up all the paper balls and put them in a bag, as per the professor’s instructions. Exhausted, we all sit back down and I strike up a conversation with the only other guy on our team between gasping for air. It was quite the workout!
In these photos, I'm the guy wearing the green shirt:
In this video, I'm wearing my black USC sweatshirt for the first few, and i'm the guy using the table.
It wasn’t long before the professor walks over and tells us to go again. Yes, he wants us to fight again. We’re exhausted at this point and I’m trying to figure out why he wants us to go again, when I see that there are 7 teams, meaning one team must go twice. Lucky us. To be honest, just because we were sitting down doesn’t mean that I stopped thinking of creative things to do to give us an advantage. So we line up again, and this time the ideas are flowing nicely. First, I discuss my plans with that guy I was talking with and he agrees that they’re good ideas. So I slowly make my way to the other side of our line next to where he had set the giant bag of paper from the last round. They hand both sides new paper to crumple and say GO! At this point I smile at him, grab the bag and run to the center of our team where I proceed to dump the entire contents onto the floor for our use. Now we have tons of ammo and they don’t.
Next, I run over and grab the table I wanted to use in the last round and make myself a fort. This is the part I wrote about in the beginning where I was literally running, jumping, leaping, and dodging the ammo being thrown at us. Now, I realize that although my table shield is nice, it’s not as fun. So, I decide to use the table as a harvester and start to drag the table through the center of the room to use it as a giant scoop. This brings back very large returns of paper balls and I try to do it again. By now the other team is starting to adapt and grab the table from me. A tug of war ensues and they end up with the table because they had two guys pulling it. We keep throwing more paper balls and I eventually run over and manage to get the table back. Shortly thereafter the rounds stops and we clean everything up again. This time the professor takes the paper bag and puts it behind him. (I also considered using either the professor or a bystander as a shield, but decided against it.)
Even more exhausted we sit down again and that guy and I really start to talk now because we were the most into the game and both did very well. It’s now that I realize I might have pulled the inside muscle next to your quad on both my legs as well as my left thumb. A small price to pay for victory. So the other teams went, and the most interesting development was that one team tried to make paper airplanes to be more accurate, which failed miserably. After it was all over my professor walks over to me and my new friend Hon (I think) and tells us to have a 1v1 paper war. Oh great. So now my remaining ideas come into play. This time I use a table and the projector screen to create a fully defended fort that he can’t hit me, and we begin our war cautiously. At one point it turned into a game where he tried to bat my paper wads out of the air like baseball, but we basically just ran and dove behind things while throwing paper balls. He made a fort out of the trash can and chairs, and at one point tried to raid my base while I was running at him, but the real fun was when I counted down 3, 2, 1, NOW! At this point we both grabbed paper balls and started to throw them at our professor. In my foresight I had planned with him to do that while we were still sitting down. To no one’s surprise, the professor ended the round.
This is the video of our bonus round. If are reading this on Facebook, you'll need to go to my actual blog to watch it.
So now we rearranged the room and got back into groups for discussion. This is where it gets dicey because he goes to get his printouts of the discussion questions. Remember that stack of paper I grabbed in the beginning that the other team started to tear apart? Yeah…
At this point he asks us where they are and I tell him. The TA then says angrily that she wants to kill me. I’m not joking; the TA said she wants to kill me. So, I feel very bad at this point because they have to dig through the paper balls to find some sheets to pull out and give to the groups. Yeah, I feel terrible right about now.
My next fun experience of the day came in my next class. Because the other story is so long I’ll cut to the chase: I won money from my professor. Basically to teach us about expected utility theory he had us gamble with him in class where he would draw 3 cards from a normal card deck and pay us $4 for every heart he drew. We could offer him any amount of money to play the game and then play. I was the first one after doing some quick math and offered $2.50. He said no. Then I offered $2.90 and he said no again. The expected value from this is $3, so I could tell he would only take offers above $3. Someone finally offered $4 and lost. Then the next person did the same and lost. One person even offered $5. In other words, everyone lost money. Then I thought about it and said, “even if I lose money, it will be fun to say I gambled with my professor in class.” I then offered him $3.50 and actually drew a heart, so I ended up earning $0.50 from him. Yes, I gambled with my professor for real money in class and won. I was happy. To answer your next question, at the end he gave everyone their money back and I gave him back the fifty cents as well. I also spoke to the professor after class to ask if I could move the final so I could stay and travel in China after my marathon there, which he said I might. He is actually a USC grad and we talked for about 20 minutes about running and random things, so I think I’ll actually be able to do it. Yay!
Besides that I also finally convinced myself to go running and start marathon training, so I ran about 8km and had a very enjoyable run. Specifically, I enjoyed thinking while I ran and observing everything around me. But, this post is too long and I’ll talk about it more in other posts.
Yeah, i have palm trees and an ocean view while i run!
My artistic shot of the day
For those of you who are wondering, the reason we had a paper fight in class is that he was trying to show us how as time goes on groups begin to actually use strategy and how much of an advantage that gives one side over the other. And in my Judgment class we gambled because we were learning about expected utility theory. All in all, a very fun and memorable day.
