Christmas!?! Oh...Finals

Time has absolutely flown by here during these last few weeks here at Transy. One thing that I've decided from my freshman year is that Thanksgiving break is a total tease. You get two days off and then realize you have 3 papers, 2 tests, and 2 finals all in the next three weeks before Christmas. With that said, I've finally completed (and hopefully done well with) all of these assignments except for my finals, which will take place this next week in Calculus 2 and Physics. So, aside from everything else, I can finally bunker down and study for the big tests.

The weather has changed rather abruptly to one of brutal cold; and I must say that before my day to day routine involved walking outside to go to class and eat meals, I never quite realized how much I absolutely despise winter. The only semi-redeeming quality about it is that the campus has been blanketed in a lustrous cover of snow for some days now. On Sunday I actually participated in a Quidditch match for charity (trying to collect books for the nearby Carnegie Center) where we played on a pitch of snow. I was fortunate enough to be able to serve in the capacity of snitch for the match, which I must say is one of my favorite things ever. Regardless, the best part of the experience was probably the lot of us frostbitten Harry Potter nerds hiking over to Third Street Stuff, a nearby coffee shop, to thaw over some stimulating conversation.

My other recent experience with the cold came while working on my fraternity's pledge class service project. One of the more admirable and philanthropic of pledge class activities, my fraternity requires that we all complete a service project together to build comradery and aid the community. My group chose to work together with the Catholic Action Center to help them prepare for their annual Christmas event. We worked out of a Lexington Warehouse, sorting, boxing, and packing donated Christmas presents to be given out to families not fortunate enough to be able to afford gifts for their children. Despite the numb fingers and runny nose from the unheated warehouse, the experience was definitely rewarding enough to be worth it.

In general, I'm finding that it's nice to know that I really have made friends, I really do have places to go hang out, people really do care about me, and I really can be quite involved. Basically, it's nice to know that more or less all of my social fears from high school are largely unfounded. My pledge brothers, the quidditch team, and all of my other friends have done a better job that I could have ever anticipated making me feel at home here at Transy. Now I just need to focus and get through the rest of this semester; happy and glad to be here doing so.