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May 31, 2004
Mike & Kevin's Graduation
Okay, I know I haven't posted in almost a week, but there's good reason. Since I haven't posted in awhile, this might get a bit long, but please bear with me. Wednesday and Thursday during the day I just sat around, relaxed and read, which was quite enjoyable. Wednesday night I went to the Bible study down in Taylors Falls with my parents, it was pretty good. But on Thursday night I went to Janelle's house, and hung out with her, Brooke, Karen, Troy & Lindsay. It was great to see all of them again and catch up on everything, I hadn't seen any of them in quite some time. And it'll be the last time any of us will see Janelle for a long time, because on Friday she left for a year of study abroad in Tianjin, China, a city of 9 million people. She's really excited for it, although she's a bit nervous about her rusty Chinese language skills, as she wasn't able to take a class in it the last semester or two. I'm excited for her too, that she's getting this opportunity to study abroad, but I'm gonna miss her, as I won't even be able to see her when I finally return, until a few months later. And we got a couple pictures of us on my camera, and I would've put them up on the web too, except the disk got corrupted somehow before I could get them onto my computer. Argh! Sometimes I hate technology. I sooo need a new digital camera.
Friday was my first day of work (well, first day of my third stint) at Marketplace. I worked 8-5 that day, and Scott's being true to his word and scheduling me full-time, which is quite nice. Friday evening I went to the high school in Cumberland for the graduation ceremony because Mike & Kevin were both graduating. It was a pretty good ceremony, although it was hot as could be in the gym. Mike and Chris Olson gave the commencement speech together, and it was a very nice speech. It even quoted heavily from "the well-known author Dr. Seuss" and his book Oh, the Places You'll Go!, hehe. I saw a few other people there at the ceremony that I hadn't seen in quite some time, so that was fun too. But congratulations to Mike & Kevin! I made a photo album of photos from the graduation ceremony and afterwards, and I have a link to it on my Photos page. Although I must say that I was surprised at Mike & Kevin's role reversal -- Kevin was posing for pictures and Mike was camera shy. Very strange. :-)
Saturday I got up really early and worked a shift at the radio station from 5am-9am, and then Marketplace from 9-2pm. Then I zoomed over to Cumberland for the last bit of Mike's graduation party. He got quite a bit of cool stuff, I must say (in addition to a nice load of cash!). After that was over we both made our way over to Kevin's party, and the picture at right of the three of us was taken there. I stayed for quite awhile, but Mike didn't, as he had several graduation parties to try to hit at least briefly. I think one of the coolest things at graduation parties is seeing the picture boards that get made. After seeing both of them (but especially Kevin's), I was just amazed at how both of them have changed so much since the beginning of freshman year four years ago when I first got to know them. And it's so hard to believe that it's already been almost four years since I first got to know those two cool dudes, it doesn't seem like that long ago when we were playing basketball every day in the gym during lunch break, and then after school on days when we wouldn't have anything going on. Man, how time flies. But I do value both of them as friends very much, that's for certain. Oh, and in addition to graduating this weekend, Kevin also finally turned 18 on Sunday! Happy Birthday KG!
After Kevin's party I rode down to Taylors Falls with my parents and brother Nathan again, this time to hear a guy from Scotland named Berrisford Jobe speak on the topic of "The Church As Family," which was quite fascinating and insightful. He also had some very interesting comments on how church has been traditionally done for most of the last 1900 years, and how it's completely antithetical to the design laid out in the New Testament by the Apostles, which has led to problems throughout the history of the church.
Sunday morning was another very early morning for me, as I had to work at the radio station again from 5am-10am. I came home to take a nice two-hour nap before heading back over to Rice Lake for my 3-11pm shift at Marketplace. Ugh, what a long day. And then to top it off I had to be back at Marketplace at 8am this morning, for a shift that went until 5pm. And I work 8-4 each of the next three days too, meaning I won't have my first day off of work until Friday. My first taste of full-time work is really tiring me out! At least I'm still finding time to do fun stuff occasionally, like tonight I went into Cumberland to watch the Wolves-Lakers game with Kevin at his grandpa's house. That was cool, even though the Wolves ended their season with a 96-90 loss. I also had been hoping to hang out some with Greg tonight, since he was up from Dallas this weekend, but he was apparently too busy. He's heading back to Dallas tomorrow, and so I won't see him until sometime after I get back from Australia. Oh well, I guess I can't have everything my way. I should get to bed, but I'll try to post more often now that I'm through this weekend's murderous work/sleep schedule.
Posted by Jared at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2004
Done With Finals!
I'm DONE with finals! Woohoo! My Japanese final yesterday went pretty well, it took all of 35 minutes to do. Then it was time to struggle to find any motivation at all to study for Adv Math Methods. Oh gosh, all of us were so tired of studying that by yesterday we didn't care anymore. All any of us did was make our notepage that we could take into the test. We just didn't feel like doing one iota more of studying, partly because we just couldn't wait to be all done with finals, and partly because we didn't feel like we knew what we could possibly study to prepare for it. We were just all in a fog most of the semester in that class. And the math final this morning was HARD. Holy cow, it was one of the hardest tests any of us had ever taken. But I think I actually escaped the final with a reasonable grade. I don't know how, but somehow I managed to do alright (I think). I know, it's amazing for not caring about it at all. I got so fed up with studying last night that I even played Halo for over an hour when I got back to my room. :-)
So then I got everything moved out of my room, and said goodbye to a few of my friends. I didn't get a chance to say bye to as many as I would've liked, but oh well. Hopefully I'll see many of them again before I leave. But the drive back was fairly uneventful, apart from a $230 stop at Galyan's in Bloomington, hehe. It was primarily stuff for Australia -- a new and bigger backpack (for school and camping), a laptop case that fits in the backpack, a sleeping bag and travel/camping pillow that both fit in really small bags, a nalgene, and a carabener. At least signing up for a Galyan's card took 10% off, to ease some of the financial pain... I still have some other stuff to get, like new shoes and stuff like that, and now that finals are over I can actually have time to think/worry about all that.
Sigh, tomorrow I have to start unpacking all my stuff. I don't know where I'm gonna put it all, since I technically don't have a room anymore here at home. And hopefully I'll get to hang out with Janelle tomorrow night! She's studying abroad for a year in China, and she's leaving for that on Friday, so time's running short.
I'm sure most of you have seen previews for the upcoming movie, "The Day After Tomorrow," or heard so-called 'news' stories connected to it about the 'impending/inevitable' global warming 'disaster.' Well, in case it wasn't obvious, the movie is based 100% on junk science. Patrick Michaels, who has conducted some amazing research on global warming, had an op-ed in today's USA Today in which he laid out just how ludicrous this movie's scenarios really are. Bowling-ball-sized hail? Hurricanes hitting Belfast? The Gulf Stream stopping? Oh please, give me a break. Anyone that's pushing this movie as actual science (and that includes Algore, George Soros and the people at MoveOn.org) is either out of their mind, completely ignorant of the laws of physics, or willingly trying to deceive the public (or all three).
I still can't believe that my junior year is over. It went by so fast. But I'm done with finals! That's reason enough for celebration!
Posted by Jared at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2004
2 down, 2 to go
Well, I'm in the midst of finals season yet again, it's a bittersweet time of year. On Thursday a bunch of us took a study break and drove up to Pizza Ranch in Le Seuer for the final Pizza Ranch run of the year. **tear** I spent most of the day writing my paper for my art final, I chose to write it on this really cool 1st century B.C. Greek bronze sculpture called "Lo Spinario."
Friday morning it was time for the E&M final, which actually went fairly well. I only biffed on one of the five problems, but I think I got enough points to at least salvage it. So I think I can realistically hope for a high B/low A on the final! In the afternoon it was time to go to Prof. Pat Freiert's house for the Visual Experience final. Let me tell you, that was the coolest final EVER! All nine of us discussed a bunch of slides as a class, it was money! The most stress-free final I've ever taken, bar none. Pat even made tea and had cherries for us! That's why we love having Pat as a prof. :-) Friday night was time for a well-deserved study break, which consisted primarily of Starcraft.
On Saturday afternoon my parents came down to take some of my stuff back up to Cumberland, like my carpet and my bookcase, so that I'd for sure be able to get everything else into my car on Tuesday. I still have a fair amount of stuff, but it'll be much easier to pick up and go on Tuesday, especially now that I've sorted through a bunch of junk that I had sitting around all over. Saturday night after a bunch of us watched "Shrek 2" here in the section (which was quite good, by the way), it was time for more Starcraft and Halo, yay!
This morning it was time to actually start studying again, sigh. So much Japanese vocab to review... But then this afternoon it was time for the annual Physics Picnic, which got moved from Swede Park to the Interpretive Center because of the persistent rain most of the day. But before the actual picnic several of us went over to D.C.'s house to see his model train collection and track setup down in his basement. It was pretty sweet! I got some pictures, but unfortunately I can't put any of them up because my digital camera has started eating floppy disks and causing them to have format errors, argh! Maybe I'll get my new camera a bit sooner than I was originally thinking... But anyways, D.C. also has a pretty cool vintage 50s pinball machine. Let's just say real pinball is far more difficult than pinball on the computer, sigh.
Then at the picnic, the seniors celebrated by burning one of their copies of Weber & Arfken from last year, and we juniors burned everything that had been put into the Failure Hole in our office. Man that felt good! Unfortunately, I didn't win the "Positive Derivative Award" for the third consecutive year, as Brendan nabbed it this year. Oh well, it was time for a new face up there anyway, hehe. (For those of you unfamiliar with the award, the physics department awards the positive derivative award to one student from each class every year for showing the most consistent upward trend in grades throughout the course of the year.)
Since the picnic it's been a little bit of studying, a whole lot of T'Wolves-Lakers action (tied 1-1 now!), and a fair amount of Halo. I've played far more games the last three days than the entire rest of the semester combined, it's been awesome. Seth came over for the second half of the Wolves game, and Cory and Carl showed up for the fourth quarter, so it was pretty fun to watch the Wolves 89-71 triumph over the hated Lakers. BEAT L.A.!
Congratulations to Mike for getting a $1000 scholarship this morning from his church, First Lutheran! Way to go Mike! In other scholarship news, I found out that I was not selected for the Datatel Scholarship. Sigh. I had been nominated by Gustavus for it back in February, and I thought I had a really good chance at that one too. Oh well.
Check out this article to see how Bill Cosby showed some real moxie in a speech that had NAALCP president Kweisi Mfume stone-faced! And check out the story of this soldier telling his story about his experience in Iraq. Since the mainstream media is refusing to cover the truth of what's going on over there and are thus misleading the American public, we're fortunate that we have other people who have actually been in the middle of firefights over there that are willing to set the record straight like this soldier.
Well, I suppose I should actually start studying or just go to bed. My Japanese final is at 1pm, and then as soon as that's done it's time to start studying for the Advanced Math Methods final, which is Tuesday at 10:30am. Once that's done it's time to pack up and move out of Gustavus. I doubt that I'll have time to post tomorrow, so this is in all likelihood my last post from Gustavus for quite some time (like until at least January 2005). But no worries, I'll still make sure I post at least somewhat regularly from home.
Posted by Jared at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2004
Last Day of Class
Apparently I enjoyed not doing homework so much on Sunday that I just carried that over into Monday. Instead of, say, studying for E&M or doing research for my art paper, I went to see "Troy" in Mankato with Josh, Erin, Nate, Andy, Amy & Johann. I really liked it actually, despite the discrepancies with Homer's "The Iliad." Perhaps the most maddening discrepancy was when in the movie, Agamemnon died at Troy at the hands of Prisaeis (spelling?). Ach! But all in all, I thought the movie was pretty well done. The movie is pretty sympathetic towards Hector and Priam, as their characters were likable and noble. It wasn't as good as "Gladiator," but it was still a good movie, I'd recommend it.
Tuesday it was study study study for the E&M test. I didn't really do much else, apart from go to the last Proclaim of the year in the evening as a wonderful study break. It's sad, no more Proclaim for me until next spring. And it was the last Proclaim as Gustavus students for quite a few people, including my friends Nate and Tasha, which was also kinda sad. But they ended it with singing a lot of people's "favorites," so that was pretty cool.
This morning it was time for the lovely E&M test that I biffed. It was frustrating, because I knew it wasn't that hard of a test, either. I just didn't recognize a couple of the tricks that made the problems extremely simple. Argh. I expect I got somewhere in the C range. At least I'm fairly sure that I didn't continue the pattern established by my first three tests, a 90, 53 and 90. But on the plus side, today was the last day of classes! It hasn't quite sunk in yet, but I'm done with classes here at Gustavus until Spring 2005. Kinda scary, yet kinda cool. But I took advantage of a few minutes of free time to finally turn in some important paperwork to the registrar, including my application for graduation, and my approval form to register for classes while abroad. Very important pieces of paper.
This afternoon I went down to MSU-Mankato for a chat with Cecil, and some advice on Australia and academics while I'm there, since he's been to Australia many times (his wife Colleen is from there). He was quite happy to see that I'd purchased a Macintosh 15" PowerBook. :-)
And then just about as I was to head down to the Proclaim BBQ Picnic at Swede Park with Erin, there was a sudden deluge of nickel- to quarter-sized hail for about 2-3 minutes. Kind of a freak storm, but then it poured for awhile. We ended up walking to the picnic anyway, and got soaked in the process.
After that I came back to the section to watch Game 7 between the Timberwolves and Kings with Seth and John. Man, what an exciting game! I can't say enough about Kevin Garnett, and what an awesome player he is. He really put the Wolves on his back and carried them to the 83-80 nailbiter victory. KG proved tonight why he's the MVP. Bring on the Lakers!
After the game it was time to buckle down to homework, right? Well, not quite. I got involved in a few conversations that successfully distracted me from the majority of the homework I was hoping to accomplish, hehe. Namely, get all my research done to write my paper for my art final that's coming up on Friday. Hopefully I can get that done in the morning, so that I can have all afternoon to study for Friday morning's cumulative E&M final. Deep breath. Don't panic. But tomorrow's also the day of the last Pizza Ranch run of the year, so that'll be fun. Hmm, if I had put this effort into writing my paper, maybe I could've gotten somewhere... Nah.
Posted by Jared at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2004
The Brothers Montgomery
So today was a really unique day. What made it so unique was that I was able to finish my homework by -- gasp -- shortly after 3pm this afternoon. I can't remember a weekend where I was done with all my homework by 3pm on Sunday, so it felt really good. I spent the first part of my care-free afternoon watching the Timberwolves-Kings game, only to see the Wolves lose a very testy game to the Kings 104-87. It would've been nice to close out the Kings today in Sacto, but at least Game 7 is gonna be at Target Center on Wednesday night. I think I'm gonna try to get some people together to watch that, it should be a great basketball game.
Once the game was done, I headed over to Alumni Hall to see the Festival of Dionysos. It was originally supposed to be in the Arb, but it was moved inside due to the threat of rain. Anyways, the Festival of Dionysos is an event that the Classics department here at Gustavus puts on once every two years, where students put on short Greek and Roman plays (or modernized variations of them). There were also three judges, to decide which were the top three plays, and award prizes to the cast of each. Anyways, the best play by far was an adaptation of a comedy by Plautus that was called "The Brothers Montgomery." I knew a few members of the cast of that one, including Tasha, Michelle and Kaija. It was an absolute riot! They all had masks on, and they modernized the play so that it was basically making fun of St Olaf, it was great!
After we found out that Tasha's group won 1st place for the Montgomery play, and that her other group also won 3rd place for another play at the festival, she and I headed over to GYO's annual Points of Light service (well, the last part of it anyway). I haven't been able to make very many GYO (Gustavus Youth Outreach, one of the Christian groups here on campus) events this semester, so I was glad I at least made this one, the last of the year.
And then tonight I also went to the Evening Eucharist service at the Chapel with Erin &Javen. Brian Beckstrom from the Office of Church Relations was the speaker tonight. I always enjoy talking and listening to Brian, he's a really cool guy. He was my Admissions counselor when I was a prospie too! Anyways, a student organization on campus, SFA (Student Faith Advocates), has been trying to get a weekly service started here on campus that's a bit more contemporary than the very traditional (and too rigid, I feel) Lutheran service every Sunday morning. So last Sunday night and tonight they put on this service, Evening Eucharist, as an experiment in conjunction with the Chaplain's office, to see if it would be feasible to have a semi-contemporary service every Sunday evening, in addition to the traditional service in the morning. I wasn't able to go last week, but the response both weeks has been extremely positive. I really liked it tonight, and I hope that it becomes a regular event next year here at Gustavus. It's definitely something that I'd try to go to on a regular basis.
Only three days of class left! Let the countdown (and finals apprehension) begin!
Posted by Jared at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2004
Christmas in May
It would appear that I'm falling into a habit of posting only about three times a week, which is pretty sad. Some interesting stuff has happened since my last post, so here's a quick summary. On Wednesday I went up to the Twins-Mariners game at the Metrodome with Al, Jolene, Joni, Mike Phillips and Josh Jacobson. It was student night, so upper deck general admission tickets were only $3, and it was dollar dome dog night to boot. The seats we got in the upper deck of left field weren't bad either. The game was pretty good too, as the Brad Radke took a shutout into the 9th inning, leading the Twins to a 4-3 victory. Some of us physics people are hoping to go back to another Twins game before everyone goes across the country for their various research internships in late May, that'd be fun.
Thursday was pretty much taken up by getting my Picasso presentation ready for art class on Friday, which actually went pretty well. I also had my Japanese oral interview/final on Friday morning, where we had to have a 10-minute conversation with Sakuragi-sensee entirely in Japanese. I definitely blanked out a few times, but I think I recovered enough to get a decent grade.
Friday evening was also the annual frisbee game between SPS, the physics club, and MCS, the math/comp sci department. We were all pumped up to defend the Olin Frisbee (the trophy that goes to the winner of this annual grudge match), but MCS apparently was all fired up about the game too, because unlike last year, they had a whole ton of people show up, three of which are actually on the Gustavus Ultimate Frisbee team. They jumped out to a quick 6-1 lead, but then we fought back and actually started playing quite well. We started dominating the game and stymieing MCS, but the hole we dug was just too big, and we wound up falling short 11-8. At least we made a game of it, because for awhile it looked like we were gonna get blown out.
After the frisbee game it was time for the annual Physics Christmas in May party at Al's house. That was pretty fun too, a bunch of us were hanging out (and not talking about physics for a change!), playin' foosball, pool and blackjack, and it was cool getting to watch the T-Wolves game with a few other fans too.
Today's been a homework day, except for when a bunch of us went to Zach &Jolene's recital this afternoon. They both played well (Zach on violin, Jolene on viola), and it was an enjoyable concert. I know they had both been stressing out a bit over it recently, so now they're both really glad to be done. Great job Zach & Jolene!
And in response to the controversy that my last post generated, I stand by what I said in my original post and in my comment that was in response to Josh. Let me reaffirm that any attempt to say that there is a moral equivalence between what a few American soldiers did in abusing some Iraqi prisoners is offensive to me. I still haven't seen or listened to the video of the Al-Qaeda execution of Nick Berg, but that doesn't change my feelings about how repulsive that act was. It is ridiculous to assert that the prisoner abuse photos are to blame for the slaughter of Nick Berg -- it's the five terrorist subhumans in that room that are to blame. And all this hand-wringing over what we can do to make the terrorists not hate us anymore is also totally backward thinking. They hate us for who we are, and that will never change.
Posted by Jared at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2004
Go Green!
Well, it certainly felt good to get some sleep last night. I've still been pretty tired most of the day though, particularly this afternoon and evening when I was trying to do some research for my presentation on Pablo Picasso that's coming up on Friday. The plus side is that I finally found at least a couple of works that are based directly on the classical tradition. Since that's supposed to be kinda the main point of what we're talking about with our artists that we're presenting, I was a bit worried with Picasso, since most of his stuff is so strange it's hard to find classical influences. But at least now I have a bit of a starting point to go off of.
Tonight I went to Proclaim again, and it was good as usual. Afterwards I went to Ruttles for a little while with Erin, Javen, Leah, and Erin's friend Jason from UW-Superior (who actually knows a girl named Amy who I graduated with in high school ... small world!). Anyway, somehow the discussion got onto some personality test that they all took recently, where they were assigned a certain color that corresponded to certain personality traits. Erin was "blue," meaning that she typically gets all emotional about things and hangs out with friends over doing homework. Meanwhile, Javen was a "green," which means that he's a perfectionist that needs to get all of his work done before he goes to have fun with his friends. After hearing the description of green, I definitely knew that I was a green, even before I heard the other colors, hehe. So let's just say that Javen & I had some fun ganging up on our blue friend. :-) And then on the way back to campus we played this game called "Stating the Obvious," where as you're driving down the street and you see a random person, say, pumping gas for instance, you would shout out the window "PUMPING GAS!" Okay, so maybe it's not the greatest game in the world, but it can be pretty amusing, especially when people totally stop what they're doing and get all confused at what we just shouted, hehe. As an example of that, we were driving by Patrick's, and this guy was taking a bunch of garbage out or something, and Javen yelled out the window, "HANDS FULL!" The guy completely stopped and turned around to try and see where the shout was coming from, it was awesome. So tonight was actually pretty fun. :-)
I'm sure all of you out there have seen all sorts of pictures in the media illustrating the humiliation that a few American soldiers were putting a few Iraqi prisoners through, but I can probably guarantee that you haven't seen these refreshing photos of American soldiers in Iraq from the Drudge Report. It's safe to say that the mainstream media isn't going to show these photos to the public, because they portray the fact that not all American soldiers are evil torturers, and that some Iraqis even welcome the Americans into their homes as heroes. Was what the few Americans were doing to Iraqis reprehensible? Yes. But where was the outcry and the outrage over Saddam's actual torture of prisoners? Where were they when his thugs would use power drills to drill holes through prisoners' hands, cut out their tongues, dip their bodies in vats of acid? Where were they when Saddam would line up 312 kids under the age of 12 and execute them all? Where were they when Saddam would bury people alive in mass graves? Where were they? So yes, what a few of our soldiers did was wrong, but it wasn't torture. It isn't even in the same league as the atrocities the Saddam Hussein's regime committed on a daily basis. And in case we needed more proof just what we're up against, there's a video out on the internet of Al-Qaeda terrorists beheading an American civilian who had been kidnapped in Iraq in recent weeks. (WARNING: the link contains very graphic footage, view it at your own risk ... I haven't yet, and I don't know if I will.) I thought it was important to include the link to that, because the American media is refusing to show it, even though they gleefully parade around all the photos of the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. This is a war against evil, and evil must be defeated. We must not back down, because that will only embolden the terrorists, put Americans at greater risk, and allow evil to win. And despite what Al-Qaeda claims, this most recent slaughter of an American civilian is not in response to the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. Al-Qaeda beheaded Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl a year ago. They hijacked planes and slaughtered thousands of innocent Americans on September 11th, 2001. They have been committing reprehensible acts of terror against Americans for years and years before this prison story even broke. And you want to know another difference between the USA and all these terrorist Islamofascist nations such as Iran, Syria and the Sudan? When we found out about the mistreatment of prisoners, we ensured that it would be swiftly dealt with, and that those guilty of the crimes would go on trial. Those other nations openly torture their own citizens in much more grotesque ways, yet there is next to no outrage from the international community over that. It's all so frustrating. But I repeat, this is a war against evil like the world hasn't known before, and it must be defeated.
Well, it's definitely time for bed. I'm never gonna make it out of my sleep deprivation hole that I've dug myself! But I'm excited about tomorrow night, because I get to go to the Twins-Mariners game at the Metrodome with some physics friends for just $3! We'll probably be sitting in the upper deck in left field, at least to start. We might consider trying to move into the lower deck in the middle of the game, but we'll just have to see. Go Twins!
Posted by Jared at 12:58 AM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2004
Lightning Frisbee & an All-Nighter
Well, I know I haven't posted in about five or six days, but there's good reason for that, believe me. Here's a quick recap of what's been going on. On Thursday night I took some time out from studying to go hear another great message by Gary Gilbertson at Prepare Ministries. I'm really glad I've gotten the chance to hear him speak three or so times this semester, it seems like every time I hear him, he has something to say I needed to hear. Also, it was the last time that this guy John was gonna be able to be at Prepare for awhile. He's in the Marines, and will be deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, sometime in the next month or two. We're all praying for his safety, and that the hearts of some of the other Marines and Iraqis will be opened to his message.
Friday was the really sucky Adv Math Methods test. Enough said there. At least we had a fun game of softball Friday evening with the physics club. Other than that I was basically doing homework all afternoon and much of the evening. Crappy.
On Saturday John, Liz &I went back up to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to finish our museum worksheets for Visual Experience class that we didn't get finished when we were there a couple weeks ago. John &I wound up being up there for almost four hours, but it was nice to be able to wander around the museum at a leisurely pace to finish the worksheet, and even take some time to admire some other artwork that wasn't on our list of stuff to check out. And since MIA is completely free, I'm gonna try to make sure I go there a bit more often, it's really a great place. The downside is that I got a $33 parking ticket while I was there. Argh! Neither John nor I saw the no parking sign until after I noticed the ticket under my windshield wipers. Grr.
After doing a bit more homework and watching the first half of the Timberwolves thrilling Game 2 victory over the Kings, it was time for foam sword capture the flag! Gustavus Gaming Society always plays CTF at least once or twice per semester, and it's always a great time. The first game was a draw, but we lost the second game pretty quickly. We hid the flag in an unusual spot in the back corner of our territory, and left it unguarded, gambling that they wouldn't find it, but we gambled wrong. Oh well, you win some, you lose some, it was still fun.
Sunday was mega-homework day. From when I woke up at 10am, it was work work work on assignments for E&M, Adv Math Methods, Japanese, and a presentation on Velazquez for Visual Experience. The physics assignments were pretty crappy, and I didn't get done with those until about 3am (and I even boycotted two of the nastiest math problems). By the time it was all said and done, it was around 6:30 or 6:45am and I had pulled my first all-nighter of the semester. Sigh. The downside (apart from getting only a half hour of sleep)? I didn't even end up giving my presentation today, because Prof Freiert was a bit long-winded in class this morning. Oh well, at least it's all done now, meaning I can start my research for my Friday presentation on Picasso.
The best part of Sunday came in the evening when a very strong line of thunderstorms rolled through the area. When the high winds and heavy rain first began, Zach, Seth & I went outside in our bare feet and ran from Olin to the Fine Arts building and back. Man alive, some of those puddles in the parking lot were a bit deeper than they looked! When we got back, a few of us juniors and sophomores went outside in the raging thunderstorm to play some frisbee. It was awesome! The lightning show was absolutely spectacular and beautiful, and it was really cool having everything illuminated in a flickering and incredibly eerie purple light! We were a bit nervous whenever the frisbee would go under a tree though, hehe. It may not have been one of the smartest things we've ever done, but it was certainly one of the most fun!Fr
So after taking a two and a half hour nap right before supper this afternoon, I've basically been taking it easy and taking a break from homework. But my heart certainly wasn't getting a break, because the entire time I've been typing this I've been watching the Timberwolves-Kings game. Man, the T-Wolves were up by 15 with just 4 minutes left, and Sacramento came back and tied it. Argh! Fortunately the Timberwolves hung on to win a thrilling nailbiter in overtime, 114-113, to take a 2-1 lead in the series. I'll have to take awhile to wind down before I can fall asleep, that's for sure. Go Timberwolves!
Posted by Jared at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2004
Admissions BBQ!
Well, today had a bit of weather for everyone. It started out nice and sunny, then it got all dark and rainy for a couple hours in late morning, and then it got hot, sunny and windy for the afternoon. It turned into such a wonderful day though, that I couldn't resist going out and taking some more photos of campus. I also finally got around to making an album this afternoon of all those spring pictures that I've taken around campus on Monday and today. Should I have been doing some homework instead of that? Perhaps, but photos are so fun! I have a link to them on my Photos page. If you like, leave a comment to let me know what you think of them! :-)
This evening was the day of the annual Admission Office BBQ, where all of us student workers and Admissions counselors get together at Mark Anderson's (the Dean of Admission) house for some great food, great company funny senior stories and prizes. Last year I wasn't able to go for very long because I had to get up to the Cities for a Twins game, but this year I was able to stay for the whole thing. I'm glad I did, because there were some pretty funny stories from the seniors. :-) The picture at left is of Tasha Genck, myself and Meghan LaVelle. They're both seniors this year, and I'm gonna miss hanging out with them in the back room next year. Meghan will still be at GAC next year completing her triple major (but not working at Admissions), and Tasha will be attending Luther Seminary in the Cities. Best of luck to both of them!
Other than that, I've really been procrastinating a ton, and not getting a whole lot of homework done. Not as much as I should have been doing, at any rate. But I was able to have a fun debate with my friend Richard and I was able to help give Mike some ideas of what to talk about in the high school graduation speech that he's having to give in three weeks. Chatting with both of them was certainly more fun than doing my actual homework, no mistake! I'll probably pay for it this weekend though, le sigh.
Posted by Jared at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2004
Too Dang Windy
Not a great deal has been going on the last couple of days around here. Yesterday I found out that I've maxed out my work study hours, and so can't work anymore for Admissions this school year (I'm almost out in Physics too). It's not really a bad thing, because I was trying to earn every last penny of my student employment award this year, and this means that I'll do that. I need every dollar I can get with studying abroad and all that. Also, even though I do enjoy working at Admissions, it's not a bad thing to have a bit more free time this time of year, what with end-of-semester tests/projects coming up, and finals starting in just over two weeks.
We had another intramural frisbee game this afternoon, and we lost this one 10-4. We played alright, but the wind was a killer yet again. We have yet to play an IM frisbee game this spring where it hasn't been extremely gusty. Hopefully we'll get some calm days coming up, because it would be nice to actually be able to throw deep, and not worry about the wind catching short passes and driving them way off course.
At Proclaim tonight there was a foot-washing ceremony. It was just a really nice service, they sung a few hymns as well, which I'm always a fan of. I had been hoping to play piano at Proclaim sometime this semester, but I've just always been too busy to even get over to the music building to practice some stuff for an hour or two. Sigh, I guess playing at Proclaim will have to wait until next spring.
Posted by Jared at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2004
Kelly's 21!
Man alive, we've got physics majors turning 21 left and right here! Yesterday was Dave Fowler's 21st birthday, and today was Kelly Younge's big day. So to celebrate, last night a bunch of us junior physics majors went out to Applebee's in Mankato to celebrate. Good times, good food, and a free Twins ticket to boot! Happy Birthday Dave & Kelly!
Yesterday afternoon I also went to the Gustavus Symphony Orchestra concert. Zach had a really nice solo on the Mendelssohn, with which he won the Concerto-Aria competition. Way to go Zach!
But apart from both of thos fiarly fun things, yesterday was all homework all the time. In fact, I didn't leave Olin until 12:30am last night. I hate my life sometimes. But then when I came back to the section, I was persuaded to play a couple games of Starcraft until 3am. Believe it or not, apart from the games I played on Kevin's & Mike's PlayStations over touring week and spring break, these were the very first video/computer games of any sort that I'd played since January Term. Yikes!
And alas, today has been yet another day of all homework. I just recently got done with my E&M and Adv Math Methods homework (and holy cow were they crappy), and now I get to start a kinda lengthy Japanese assignment. So I'll be in Olin for awhile yet. And I haven't even started researching my art projects, the first of which is coming up on Wednesday probably. At least there's only another two and a half weeks of class to put up with this crap...
Posted by Jared at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)