It was the last lecture ever for a Plan II program that was called Perspectives - it was a panel discussion, featuring lots of high-profile profs from differing fields - that had a different theme every semester. This one was 'creativity.' So for one night, a math prof would talk about what creativity meant to him, and the next night would be one from a psych prof, and so on. Today had 3 lecturers. One was a musician, interestingly the guy who had been my brother's mentor during his Ph.D. stay here. The other was a poet and the head of something at the LBJ Presidential Library, and it was cool to see that put to use - we got to hear recordings of LBJ wheeling and dealing, and even planning strategic stuff with MLK himself. Very cool stuff. But the really interesting part was when she played a clip from former Senator Bill Bradley's radio show on XM. The story was amusing in itself, but at the end, she said, with little adieu, "and here's Senator Bradley himself!" All of us were in shock. God damn, it rocks being in Plan II.For the uninitiated: Bill Bradley, former senator from New Jersey, 2000 Democratic presidential candidate, former pro/Olympic basketball player and Rhodes scholar. In every sense of the word, a baller. So he gets up and decides he'll chime in on the creativity theme. He decides he'll tell a few sample stories from his basketball and political lives as examples. The best one is as follows:Going into the Olympics, the US was expected to go up against the Soviet Union in basketball, which was a highly anticipated matchup. Before leaving, Bradley asked a Russian prof at Princeton (where he attended) for a phrase to give to the Russians in case the Russians were ruffians. The phrase he got in exchange was roughly translated as "Hey, big guy, watch out." The match came around, and Bradley was matched up against a 6'7" guy who wasn't afraid to throw them 'bows. Once, this elbow caught Bradley right between the collarbones, and it knocked him down, and along with it he lost his wind and his voice. He collected himself, got up, and very sternly said his line in Russian to the guy who knocked him down.This threw the Russians in for a loop.Not because them was fightin' words, but until that point in the game, the Russians had been communicating their plays verbally. They took it to mean that Bradley understood all the Russian they had been saying, so they had to stop communicating their plays. The Americans proceeded to win the gold medal.Between attending the class like usual, seeing Bradley 35 feet away, singing my lungs out in a room full of awful musicians, talking to a P2 alum who had lived in Japan, and getting a date with a salsa dancer, I had a fantastic Wednesday. How was yours?