Dr. Stonjev Departs, Smolyan Viper Flu Ravages Forum

It has been called the "debater-eater," the "devil's revenge" and the "reason no one showed up for Bill's lab yesterday," but scientists are calling it the "Smolyan Viper Flu." Official reports state that over 80% of the Forum attendees have been hospitalized at some point within the past week. Forum organizers are considering moving classes to the hospital building, stating that "more students will attend class" and "the food is better there." This clearly indicates that our last hope is gone: Dr. Marjan Stojnev has left the camp.

Those of you who have never lost consciousness during a debate, only to awake upon Stojnev's back en route to the infirmary, may be unfamiliar with Dr. Stojnev. The man is both IDEA's resident technology coordinator and unlicensed doctor. He is the first person staffers look to when the shit hits the fan, literally and figuratively, and has saved the lives of countless debaters. Last Friday, he saved a girl from a seizure just by looking her sternly in the eyes.

On Monday, he performed surgery on a debater with his left hand while tabbing the Karl Popper tournament on his laptop with his right. During the 2006 Youth Forum in Romania, a girl was attacked by a bear. Stojnev came to her rescue, wrestling the bear to the ground, reasoning with it, befriending it, and riding it to the hospital as he held the girl in his arms, simultaneously giving her an emergency transfusion of his own blood.

But our guardian angel is no longer here to save us. On Tuesday, Stojnev departed for his homeland of Macedonia to remove Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's gall bladder and "maybe sleep for an hour." Since his departure, cases of Smolyan Viper Flu have increased by 6,000%. Said one hospitalized student, "I don't know how I got sick so quickly! All I did was drink four Red Bulls, some beer, and no water. It's a good thing I didn't sleep at all, otherwise I might not have known I was sick until it was too late." The Director of the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC), Julie Louise Gerberding, noted that with Stojnev’s departure from Smolyan, “there is a high probability of a hybrid outbreak of the Bubonic Plague and Whooping Cough.” Regardless, at the current dropout rate, the mixed teams tournament is expected to consist of only one round, judged by a group of local squirrels.