Solution: Hang Out With Ugly People

Benjamin Button

It's been a rather relaxing week-- of course, that IS the point of breaks.

Christmas was on Thursday. I'm not really sure that we made it outside the house that day. Ate lots of delicious food, opened presents, hung around. All the makings of a good day.

Friday we went to the mall for some shopping (clothes from urban outfitters!) and then we all went out to see a movie (the Curious Case of Benjamin Button) Overall we decided that we really enjoyed the movie, however, it was a tad long. But definitely worth seeing if you haven't already. Friday night we ate dinner and then I got a text from Eric saying he was on his way home! He had a 14 hour plane ride back from South Korea where he and some other ABT members were performing the Nutcracker with the Korean Ballet. Surprisingly enough, he's still alive and kickin' despite the enormous amount of jetlag that plagues most travelers.

Today we took a walk through the back alleys of northern NJ to the bank (just kidding about the alleys..), ate some more good food, played balderdash and now we're all getting ready to go out to dinner!

This video is just something I found on my random intraweb searchings.. thought it was interesting.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! 

Christmas Eve

Every time I come home for break my blogging abilities take a turn for the worst. Oops!

Anyway, I flew home really early last Friday morning. It was a rather uneventful flight, however, I appear to have amazing luck because this was not the case for everyone. Roughly an hour and a half after my flight took off (on a dry run way) it started snowing and didn't quit until sometime on Saturday. RIT ended up canceling classes after 2 pm on Friday which never happens. My friend was posting videos from the Rochester airport since her flight was delayed indefinitely and it was a complete white-out with snow. So, moral of the story.. sometimes it pays to only get 50 minutes of sleep and take a really early flight! 

Friday night we put up ornaments on our fifteen foot Christmas tree. Yeah, that's right, fifteen feet. I guess without my supervision they go wild! 

The rest of break has included eating enormous quantities of delicious Christmas cookies made by my mom, hanging out with Alison, doing last minute Christmas shopping and other random things.

Alison and Megan slept over last night and then this morning we woke up and drove up to New Jersey where we are now! Eric should be getting here tomorrow night (our time) I think. He's been performing the Nutcracker in South Korea for the past ten days or so. 

Merry Christmas Eve to all and to all a good afternoon!

On the First Day of Christmas

What the Twelve Days of Christmas Really Cost

Blog Blog Blog

So, I've got this nifty job at admissions which not only allows me to fold hundreds of letters and input millions of names but I get to blog!! 

As of tonight, I've officially started blogging on it. Don't worry, this blog will not die off. The admissions blog is for incoming students to get a taste of college life and ease the waiting process for decisions to come out. This blog will be for, well... everything else. Occasionally I'll blog the same entry on both (sorry! spare time does not come in an abundance around here) 

I've got to wake up in less than 4 hours for my flight so, for tonight, I'll just post the blog on both as well as the link to the RIT admissions site. <--- click the word link.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away when I was much younger and had more free time on my hands….

Oh wait, that was last year… It’s almost mind-boggling thinking back to this time last year when I was sitting at my little desk at home pushing the refresh button on my trusty laptop just hoping for a reply from any college. I remember visiting schools wondering if I would fit in or ifthe program was “just right” for me. I remember waiting until almost the last minute (like literally 5 minutes before the server crashed…) to submit an application online because I was convinced that I’d screw up my name or something really silly like that.

Well guys, I managed to spell my name right, pass a few classes and guess what?! I got into college! I even managed to survive the wait for the decisions to come out. When it came down to it all, I think I actually had it relatively easy. I got into all of the places I wanted and when I took a second look at them I realized that RIT was the only school I was really in love with (of course, I did my fair share of pro/con lists beforehand). But, RIT won by a landslide.

The college application process can be closely related to getting a shot at the doctor’s office. While the sheer thought of both events is overwhelming and intimidating at first, the actually duration of either is short in comparison to most other things in life. As a bonus, once they’re over you either get to attend a really awesome college/university OR get a supercool band-aid! Okay, that was a really lame comparison..

Don’t get me wrong though, the application is slightly harder than getting a shot. But still, you’re basically just “interviewing” colleges to find the right fit foryou. Ask questions, explore your choices, talk to people but ultimately the decision comes down to you. [Note: Pro/Con lists and lots and lots of patience are key in the application process.]

So, here I am, a second quarter freshman (if there is such a term?). I’ve been working in admissions now for about two months, give or take a few weeks. I spent my first quarter getting to know the campus becoming adjusted to my newly acquired college life-style. Nowthat I’ve managed to figure out a schedule that allows me to get a full eight hours of sleep a night while still finishing homework and going to class, I’ve decided to start branching out and try something new.

This blog’s purpose is basically to give YOU a first-hand account of life at here at RIT. Like most things in life, it has its definite ups and downs and we’re all here to show you a little bit about life beyond the glossy covered booklets. Sure, those give you a good look at the major aspects of college life, there are some things like finding out when the best time to do laundry is or figuring out how to class while spending the least amount of time outside as possible that you need to find out directly from the source. Cold weather and all, RIT is a pretty awesome place to be spending four years. Of course, that’s my opinion so make sure to check out allof the other bloggers if you haven’t already

And don’t worry, the wait will be over before you know it!

I'm Coming Traveling Buddyyyyy!

In twenty hours and fifty-three minutes I will be waking up my lovely roommate and we will be jetting to the Rochester airport! 

In one day and seven minutes, I will be landing in Baltimore!!

In twenty two minutes I will be late for work if I do not leave now! 

See ya :) 

(thanks to facebook countdown)

GOOD

Mr. Weatherman

Dear Man Who Creates the Weather,

For the sake of us poor students, would you please, please, please, make up your mind about this silly weather that you are currently dumping on us. Seriously, 12 degrees one day with SNOW and the next is 53 with pouring rain. If you so feel the need to precipitate, please make this in the form of tiny little ice crystals (aka snow). This nasty, wet, rain junk is getting a tad old and what the heck are we supposed to do with it anyway? Have you ever heard of someone making a rainman? I don’t think so.

Also, this wind has got to stop. You’ve tempted us with this warm weather to wear skirts and then you go create wind tunnels to annoy us with. Honestly, none of the art kids appreciate walking down the quarter mile with our portfolios, large papers, etc and needing to hold down our skirts with the other hand so that we do not flash half of the school.

Finally, in case you’re in cahoots with the little man inside my Ipod, please inform him that I do not like when my Ipod refuses to turn on at 7:30 in the freaking morning before my class. It’s not very helpful and does not make me particularly happy.

Sincerely,

A Drowned Rat with an Uncooperative Skirt

Skeeter on the Move

It seems as though there is never a minute of downtime anymore. 

(alpaca at the downtown market)

Thursday worked from 8:30 until 1:45, had class from 2-5, went out to dinner and class with Ashley until 8. After that came back and did homework and watched Grey's Anatomy before bed. 

Friday morning I had a meeting at 9 am, worked from 9:30 until 3pm, another meeting until 4, did some homework, went out to dinner at the Sportszone, hockey game until 9:30 then we went to a comedy night at the Ritz to watch Drake do stand up comedy until 12:30 (he won! and is going on to the finals in January). 

Saturday morning worked from 10 until 2pm, did some homework, got a quick dinner, went to another hockey game until 9:30, watched a movie until we fell asleep. 

(sleigh rides with santa)

Woke up this morning and drove downtown to see the Holiday Market in Rochester, grabbed some coffee and bagels from a Dunkin Doughnuts downtown except we felt kind of uncomfortable in that sketchy part of town so we drove to the mall to eat our breakfast/lunch. Walked around the mall and did some Christmas shopping and now we're back here! Ashley's taking a nap while I work on a little bit of homework and then I think we're making a gingerbread house in the lounge before dinner and more homework. We also have some floor holiday shenanigans at 9:30 tonight. 

It just never ends! Good thing it's all fun. I still have a few projects to finish/start on tonight before classes from 8 until 5 tomorrow. This week doesn't look too bad, we have a holiday luncheon thing for work on Wednesday that I'm probably going to. I think Ashley and I are doing some birthday/christmas something or other on Wednesday night. Working most of the day Thursday, two classes and then I get to fly home super early Friday morning!!! 

Speaking of nothing... You know you're used to cold weather when you walk outside in just a sweatshirt and remark about how warm it feels... when it's 38 degrees outside! haha Ashley and I agreed that today felt like summer, we didn't even need winter coats! 

Gooooo Tigers!

Not only did I attend my first RIT ice hockey game this weekend but I managed to go to TWO. Impressive, I know. Turns out hockey is the new greatest thing to do on Friday and Saturday nights. Of course, we're still working on the whole understanding of the game thing but that'll come with time. It's the first place where there is real school spirit, complete with a pep band, "corner crew" cheering section, and lots and lots of ORANGE. 

RIT won both nights 6-2 and 5-3. 

start of a fight. ashley and I have figured out that we like the games better if they really beat the crap outta each other =) 

we had pretty excellent seats right behind the bench.

tiger face paint!

santa driving the zamboni!

Loosing My Head

I'm usually an organized person.. slightly more of an organized chaos, but still organized. 

Within the past twenty four hours I have not only managed to misplace my keys (with all of my meal stuff on them, room key, house key, mailbox key, flashdrive.. kind of important...) but my ipod and my hat too. 

Not to worry, all items have been found... in my backpack. I only slightly feel like a moron. 

In other more organized news, we moved our room around again!! We've finally created a solution that allows us to have an entire free corner (very rare thing in a 10 by 10 space...). I apologize for the horrible pictures, it's really difficult to give a sense of the room when there is no good place to stand to take the picture. 

The Rundown

So it's a whole new quarter which means, new classes!
(it's technically the start of week two now but I never got around to finishing this post last week...sorry!)

Design Survey- New class that sort of replaces design survey from last quarter. It's a class with 113 people so it's very personal... just kidding. Takes place at 8:00 in the am which seemed a tad early when it changed from it's original 7:00 pm time slot but it's actually working out relatively well. We basically just come to class for an hour every week and hear from different designers and what not. Every other Wednesday the class is online which means I get to view youtube videos from the comfort of my own dorm room.

2d- My favorite class ever, partly because of the professor and partly because of the projects we do. This class is a continuation of last quarter with generally the same people. Only difference is that this quarter we're using color in all of our projects instead of b&w.

3d- New professor, new time, new class. I decided against the late time slot for 3d that I had last quarter so I now have it at 9:00am on Monday mornings. This class is working out fantastically well so far, I'm liking the people in it and I'm enjoying working on the first project. (pictures to come later).

Drawing- Also a continuation of last quarter. Same professor, etc. Lots of homework but it's worth it :)

Vector Imaging- A last minute addition. I was previously unable to register for this class and I happened to check on Monday for some reason and there was a spot open. It's required for graduation so it's nice to get it done with now. It's basically just a 1 credit course on how to use Illustrator.

Sign Language- I'm taking this one with Ashley!!! It's Thursday nights from 6:00-8:00pm so it's a nice end to the school week. Our professor is deaf which is definitely really helpful in forcing us to sign. It's asl 1 so it's just covering the basic 300 signs (which we've already learned) but it'll be good practice anyway!

FYE- First Year Enrichment. Also a continuation from last quarter. This class basically just covers all of the information that we could possibly need about getting by at RIT.

Food, Papercuts and Work

Today it is a whopping 22 degrees outside (okay, so it did eventually get up to 27 but still... ). The cold is surprisingly not that bad, if you dress correctly for it that is. Hat, gloves, scarf, ear warmers, coat, etc. Definitely necessities around here. In fact, not only do I have an entire bin by the door that is dedicated to just that but I keep an extra set of everything in my backpack. You never know when you'll find yourself standing in a wind tunnel for an extended period of time.

Anyway, enough about that.

Yesterday morning was what the admissions office likes to call Open House (or what it should be called... Feed-Students-Really-Good-Food-For-One-Day). Woke up at 6:45 to make it over to Gordon Field House by 7:45 for check in. Check in basically involves standing around welcoming people, handing out packets of information, and making sure people go where they need to go. Once everyone is checked in all of the ambassadors get some coffee and muffins! Mmmm. From there we break everything down and bring it back to to the office only to turn around and carry more over to the SAU. It involves golf carts, etc so it's actually quite fun. After that was all done I went back to the office to work on mailing and such. This time of year gets crazy in the mail room because we're in the middle of early decision and regular decision time. It's lots of mindless tasks involving folding, sorting, labeling and the likes. They fed us some pizza for lunch too which is a plus because I guess I kind of lost track of time and didn't realize it was 3pm already!

Ashley is gone for the weekend *insert giant sad face here*. It's rather quiet in our room, despite the people down the hall playing music from sesame street (?) loudly on repeat. I watched Christmas with the Kranks last night and some other random TV shows that I don't remember the names of. This morning I woke up around 8 and got ready to head over to the admissions office yet again for acceptance packet stuffing! Woohoo. Six hours and a million painful papercuts later we managed to get roughly 1300 packets stuffed.. guess I know what i'm doing next week :) Went out to dinner tonight (well.. to gracie's) with some friends and then went to the RHA to pick up some chick flicks for tonight and tomorrow! I think I may go over to NRH (a dorm building) later to watch a movie with some other friends. We'll see.

Tomorrow looks like homework, homework, homework!

Waiting for a Bus

Ever stop and figure out how much of your life you waste away just waiting for things to happen? 

I mean like, here I am sitting on the computer talking to people online and facebooking my life away for an hour until my next class at 6 pm. Wouldn't it be really nice if we could just cut out the waiting time and stockpile it for later so we could take one super long nap? Or use it for vacation time? It's hard to motivate yourself to do something productive when there is a short time restriction. I'm not exactly suggesting that we should all book our days solid without a minute of freetime but I know at least for me, I tend to waste away time in the middle of the day when it comes in awkward chucks like this. I'm just imaging the number of paintings I could get done or the extra hours of sleep I could get or the large number of people I could hang out with if I didn't spend my life waiting. 

On the topic of complaining about things I would like to change... 

Why is it that, no matter the time of day, the wind direction, or the place or direction in which I'm walking, the wind is ALWAYS IN MY FACE? Hmm? Yeah, there's something to think about. 

The Swing of Things

While breaks are fantastic, the reality is that eventually you have to jump right back into the swing of things. Which is exactly what tomorrow is...classes.  

After a 14+ hour trip we made it to Rochester yesterday from Green Bay. Alison slept over in my dorm last night-- which she discovered is ridiculously small! Took a walk around campus to show her around and then hung around with everyone who was already back from break. This morning we woke up at 6:45 to go to IHOP with my parents and Sarah before they all headed back down the road. Unpacked and such until Ashley woke up and then we went out to buy some of her books for next quarter and get some juice from Wegmans for her. Came back and then got invited by Drake to go to the mall so we walked to the Library and caught the shuttle over to the Marketplace Mall. Walked around the mall for a few hours just looking at stuff for fun and then came back here for dinner and a movie (The Holiday) in our dorm room. Now we're listening to christmas music and making snowflakes for our door and windows! 

I've been absolutely horrible about updating over break and I apologize again for that. However, my justification is that I was having so much fun relaxing and seeing people that I didn't even have time to slip away and write about it. And you know what, that's just fine with me. These are afterall my memories and this is simply a way to share some of those with you. I think we'll go with a nice photo wrap up of the break and leave it with that. Hope you all had a great thanksgiving! 

We had an excellent time in Green Bay, as always. It's always nice to catch up with family and hang around for a week. On the way up we stopped in Bloomington Indiana to see a volleyball game and also look at where my dad used to live. I'm pretty sure I ate more this week than I did all quarter (just kidding... sort of =) ) Uncle Dan has become master chef and lives in the kitchen starting each meal just minutes after we finished the last one. Uncle Mark and Aunt Barb made the trek to get 11 delicious pies (which we got to start eating earlier this year!). And, of course, Grandma's cookies and rolls! Yummy. There was lots of pool playing, air hockey-ing, swimming, walking, biking, movie watching, reading, and general hanging out going on throughout the week.

news

It's a Wrap!

I'm home! I guess i've been a bit sidetracked because I've actually been home since last Friday morning! 

While most other people were sleeping,  I got a taxi to the airport around 4:30 am. Small airports are amazing. I made it through security in 10 minutes or less. In fact, we had so much extra time that Drake and I were able to watch an entire episode of Stella and STILL had a good hour and a half to wait. Made it home by 8:30 ish-- before Drake's plane had even left Rochester =)

Alison came over after her class at 11, it was really good to finally see her after THREE months! Went to Chipotle for dinner... mmmm, boy did I miss that stuff. Since Friday it's just been a lot of relaxing and hanging out! It's so weird to go from working all of the time to doing absolutely nothing. My mom has been making me deliciously tasty food -- mashed potatoes, pasta, broccoli! Mmmm.  It's nice not having to eat in a dining all all of the time. Sunday morning we went to church at 9 and then went out to brunch at Eggspectation with Alison and her family.  After breakfast I went over to Alison's house to help her clean her room and see Gali!

Monday afternoon I went over to River Hill to see Mr. Molfino and some other old teachers. It's so weird going back, I kind of felt like I was still in high school. Yesterday afternoon Sarah had volleyball tryouts for MDJRS down in college park so I rode along to go see Corey and Jenni! Helped with volleyball check in and then met up with Corey so I could see their dorm room and catch up. Walked down to rt 1 after Jenni was out of class and met her at Chipotle! It was really good to see them although it was really weird to be on a college campus that I didn't recognize! It's too bad there aren't more chances to see each other.. three months is a long time. Alison slept over again last night-- I believe that she's slept over every night except one since I've been home! 

Home James

Waking up in less than 4 hours to head to the airport to GO HOME!

I guess I should go to bed so I can actually do the whole... waking up thing. More posts when I get home.

Awareness

350.org

So, last Thursday I went to see Bill McKibben give a lecture at Ingle Auditorium on global warming and other issues facing our planet. I thought he gave a really good lecture and afterwards my friend Evan and I got to talking about what we could do... while we have not quite figured out what yet, I thought I share the email he sent out to everyone because I thought it gave a good impression of what 350 is about.

Hey guys.

Last night I went to hear Bill McKibben speak. He's the author of Deep Economy, which was our required reading as RIT freshmen. I thought it was fascinating, others thought it was boring. McKibben spoke about global warming for a good part of his time, and he brought up 350.org. 350 parts per million is the maximum amount of carbon dioxide we can have in our atmosphere without having the world, basically, end. I exaggerate only slightly. This issue is really important to me. Global warming is not some liberal hoax--there is mountains of hard evidence and a scientific CONSENSUS supporting humanity as the main cause. We also have only a few years--as in around four--to do something about it before chain reactions get set off. If you still don't believe me, pop me an email and I will find plenty of experts to talk to and papers and books to read.

Some of you getting this are my closest friends. Others I haven't talked to in few years. So I'm sorry if this seems like spam, but we need a lot of people to make a change. If any of you feel as strongly about this as I do, I sugeest you do the same as I am and pass this on.

Now I'll let 350.org tell you what you're being asked to do:

Here's the deal: The United States has historically contributed the most to global warming, and over the past eight years it's done the least to stop it. In fact, the U.S. has actively tried to block progress on a global climate deal.

The new President has a lot of work to get the US back in the game--and their very first test on climate change will come even before Obama takes office. That test will be the next UN Climate meeting coming up in December.

IF the next president goes and makes a strong statement about the U.S. rising to the challenge of the climate crisis, it could dramatically alter the course of the negotiations. But Obama will only go if he's invited.

That's where we come in. It's crucial that citizens from around the globe put pressure on Obama to ensure he attends the meeting, and plays his part in getting the U.S. to be a leader on global warming.

Please visit www.350.org/invite to send your personal invitation to Obama today.

Thanks for all you do.
Evan

One Hit Wonder

The second link I would like to share was one that I ran across on Anna's blog. It's called One Hit Wonder and they are trying to collect one dollar from everyone in the world and then use that money to give to the world's poorest communities.

If you'd like to find out more about them... click here!

Life in a Nutshell

Well, classes are officially over!

My last class ended at 4 on Friday and now all I have to do is write an essay by next Friday and go in for a final tomorrow morning at 11. Hooray! This break is much needed. We've all been joking that it feels like we're getting senioritis all over again with the end of the quarter. Luckily I managed to plan far enough in advance that I only had a few touch ups to make on a couple projects last week.

As for life outside of classes..

Work
I've been working A LOT. My first official day of work was Tuesday morning from 8:30 until 11:30 and I've worked everyday since with the exception of today. I think i'm working Monday-Thursday too from 8:30 until 4:30. It's nice because I don't have any finals really so I can get a lot of hours in. I'm actually finding the work to be rather fun even though it's super monotonious. There's something about it that's kind of relaxing because I don't really have to think while doing it. It's a lot of stuffing envelopes, putting address labels on and typing names and other information into the computer.

Friends
Today a group of us drove into downtown Rochester to meet up with our drawing professor at Spot Coffee. It was really funny because there were 10 of us and we all sat in huge comfy chairs around a table, drank coffee and listened to Cliff tell stories.. I felt like we were in kindergarden during story time.

I think this afternoon is pretty open with the exception of writing my paper. I think there was loose talk of going mini-golfing? but it's kind of wet and nasty out. Last night Ash, Drake and I went to the library and checked out 7 movies... they have a 3 day return policy so we'll be watching a lot of those before Tuesday =) This week is just going to be a lot of hanging out, relaxing and working. I think a group of us rambunctious art kids are going to hang out on Wednesday or so before we all leave for break.

Volunteering
Yesterday Ashley and I went downtown to volunteer at a place called foodlink. It's a food distribution center that takes in 8 million pounds of food a year from local grocery stores and such and then distributes it to local food banks and homeless shelters. Aside from the brief panic since we had absolutely no idea where we were, things turned out just fine. It was basically us two and about 15 frat guys (who are forced to do community service) sorting and boxing huge stacks of food. The guy in charge seems really nice and we talked to him about coming back in early December.

News
Remember that Peanut butter and jelly thing that I volunteered for a while ago? Well, it made the local Rochester News... here's a clip from it.. you can actually see me for parts of it (well, sort of) I'm cut off the screen wearing a blue plaid shirt when they're interviewing the guy.

PB JAM

I'm getting pretty horrible at updating. Oops.
I'll have some pictures and such later tonight when I get around to uploading them.

OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA

I've never seen so many people excited about politics. You know the right guy is elected when the decision can be called long before all of the votes make it in.

I think this election is what the US needed.. we finally have a guy that can get a job done. While I disagree with some of his policies, McCain would not have been a bad choice for president, however, there is just something about Obama. He has the ability to motivate people in ways we have never before seen. Let's hope that he's able to turn his words into action starting in January of 2009.

The fact that we have an African American president for the first time is not the big deal. The big deal is the fact that, for once, millions of Americans who would normally not be moved to vote did. You know all this nonsense with voting line horror stories, I think it's good. I did not personally partake in this three hours of waiting because all I did was walk downstairs and drop it in a box. But this is how it's supposed to be, there should always be huge lines to vote because we all have the right to.. so why not? I'm sorry this is coming so long after the election.. I actually typed this up a few days ago. It took forever, I don't really think there are words to describe it well enough so anything I wrote kept getting deleted.

Room Change

Unless I am completely losing my mind.. I started a post about our new room and never updated it. Whoops.

Anyway, a week or so ago Ashley and I decided that it was time for a change and we completely redid our whole room.. took a tiny bit of effort and about 4 hours of our time-- perfect way to procrastinate :) These are horribly unattractive pictures of it. With the way our room is shaped it is awfully hard to get a good shot of the whole thing. We've switched where our beds and desks are so that it's not so cold in bed and we can sit at our desks and look out the window. Plus now I have more room to stuff all of my art junk.

(this last picture I just thought was funny.. greg is painting ashley's nails.. he got so into it too what sillys.)

Woohoo!

I would like to take a commercial break to point out that the weather in Rochester, New York is currently 71 degrees while it is only 57 degrees in Clarksville, Maryland.

Yeahhhhh baby.

Top Ten

According to my poll (top right) you all are spectacular US citizens & are already planning on going to vote... but in case you need a little push...

Top Ten Reasons to Vote

1. You can complain for four whole years. If the candidate you support loses and you did not vote, you therefore forgo all rights to complain about the president for the next four years.. simple as that.
   
2. It's easy. Seriously guys, how long does it take to fill in a tiny bubble?? They're not asking you to take the SAT's here.
3. It's your right. We're all able to vote, so why not do it? Every underrepresented group complained about not being able to vote previously and now we can... so do something about it.
4. Strictly for fashion reasons. You get to wear that awesome "I Voted" sticker-- although this priviledge is taken from you if you vote by absentee ballot.. (perhaps I will call Obama and ask him to mail me a sticker).
5. Everyone counts. Elections can get really close.. what if it's YOUR vote that prevents a candidate from being in office.
6. They will take all of your money. It's your money, do you want some dude taking all of your money and putting it towards slot machines? Yeah, probably not.
7. It's the cool thing to do.
   
8. I will be mad at you. No explanation necessary.
   
9. The penguins are melting. If something is not done about this environmental prediciment by the year 2050, it's almost hopeless. Carbon emissions need to decrease over 80% by then and if we get a dumby in office, the penguins will all be gone =(
   
10. Something will FINALLY be done about the current economic state of our government. We've now wasted the past eight years of our lives..so let's move on and do something about the next four. Who really cares which party is elected, we just need a change.
    

Also, is this really how the United States wants to be viewed by other countries...

"How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind’s closest living relative to spend two terms as president?.....

It wasn’t always like this. The founding fathers of the republic - men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton - were among the greatest thinkers of their age. They felt no need to make a secret of it. How did the project they launched degenerate into George W Bush and Sarah Palin?.....

On one level this is easy to answer. Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is notorious for its failures. In the most powerful nation on earth, one adult in five believes the sun revolves around the earth; only 26% accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of US voters cannot name the three branches of government; the maths skills of 15 year-olds in the US are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries of the OECD(3)...."

Source: George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK). For the full text click here.

Seriously guys? I'm moving to the North Pole.

Mysterious Ticking Noise

Ashley and I have been writing papers all day and all of a sudden out of no where, our heater started gurgling and it sounds like it's spewing nonsense everywhere. I think our room is going to flood and we're going to drown but it's okay, I wouldn't mind because at least I wouldn't have to write this paper and do all of these projects by tomorrow...

Just kidding =)

Halloween Weekend Shenanigans

I think it would be best to sum up this weekend mostly in pictures.. These are the shenanigans that went down this weekend. I didn't end up dressing up because I didn't feel like going to a party. Ended up staying here and playing hangman, uno, mash and watch scary movie 4 with Andrew.. haha yeah, I know, we're lame college kids =) I did get to help everyone with their costumes and, of course, take tons of pictures.




Today was a giant black hole of homework, I still have tons for tomorrow. I was hoping to get some done last night but there was too much other nonsense going on. Went to Acappellaween with Ashley tonight, it's an acappella concert on campus which was pretty awesome. Got to see Eight Beat Measure again. After that we came back and went to Sol's to get some dinner. There was some "Adult Circus" in Ingle starting at 11 so Drake, Ash, Johnny, Karissa, Noah and I went to that. It was actually really worth going, despite the cold walk there, the show was great. It's two guys from NYC and they do magic, juggling and mind reading. We even got there autographs afterwards. CAB (college activities board) puts on these events which only cost a dollar and theyre pretty small scale so we're able to just walk onstage afterwards and meet with the people. Came back here and watched Prom Night (some scary movie one of the guys wanted to watch).

Well, without the time change it would be 3:04 in the morning... so I should probably go to bed.

One week of classes to go!