Night of The Living RA!!!

What a terrible Blog title. I mean really, I think I came up with better stuff in the fourth grade. I blame my roommate, someone needs to remind me to never ask him for help with a title again. Still, I guess it was kind of appropriate, since the two things I told him I wanted to talk about were RA applications and...well...zombies.

I'll start with the important one, zombies. You see, I've noticed something rather peculiar, an almost frightening phenomenon around campus. Thankfully, no one is walking around with oddly rotting flesh trying to nibble on other people's cranium. However, I have become fully aware of what seems to be a bizarre trend of conversation and entertainment among college students. Maybe I was just lame and this was a big deal beforehand, but it seems like conversations of zombie survival are expected to take place here in a way I have never entirely been familiar with. I really have no idea as to the propagation of it all. I can only assume we've all been infected as if by a disease of some sort, possibly viral. Man, that's awful humor.

Seriously though, tonight, while writing this, my roommate is playing Left For Dead, some other friends are playing Dead Rising on my x-box, and just down the hall some guys are playing Call of Duty Black Ops...Nazi Zombies, of course. So I guess my only point here is that if any of you have extensive experience defending against flesh eating monsters, or are even just enthusiasts about the undead, college, or at least my hall in Clay at Transylvania University, might just be the place for you.

So, aside from this rather amusing tidbit, school has been going well. I started today working today as a Natural Science and Mathematics tutor, in calculus specifically, even though I'm only a freshman. I'm actually really glad to have the position, not only is it potentially rewarding, but I get paid to boot! I suppose I should thank my first semester Calculus teacher for recommending me, it was honestly really nice to hear that this early on in my education, one of my teachers already has some sense of confidence in my abilities and or potential.

Speaking of jobs, I just recently applied to hopefully spend next year working as a Residence Adviser. For anyone not familiar with this position, RA's are residence life employees whose job it is both to enforce and maintain campus policies and to foster a powerful and supportive community among residents. It's an involved position with a lot of work and time commitment, but I also see in it potential for a lot of personal growth and reward. Externally, it pays room and board as an incentive, and internally, it an opportunity to take up a role of leadership and responsibility around campus, which I think is always a good thing. With any luck, I will have the privilege of being hired as an RA for the next school year.

So for now, that's about all I've got. School's good, zombies are good, and RA's are, well, hopefully good. The title of this post, in fact, is about the worst thing I can say about school at the moment...it's so abysmal.

And We're Back!

Second semester, week one = complete. That only leaves me with, well, a lot to go. It's been an eventful first week back. Professors seem to be of a consensus that we are no longer meager first year students that require superfluous coddling; and so unless I'm an exception, workloads have increased significantly. Maybe I'm just a little sick, but for the most part, I don't mind the problem sets I'm being assigned in Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus, especially since some of the concepts we are getting to work on now are a little more interesting and novel than what I'm used to being exposed to. For example, in Physics we are studying electric field theory, or as I prefer to say, more generally, force fields. The mathematics of it is proving both constructively challenging and really quite intriguing.

Outside of academics, I spent this morning downtown making use of the Lexington Community's celebration of MLK day. As a result of originally innocuous conversation at dinner, I ended up agreeing to volunteer to help set up for an annual march downtown of a few hundred people. Granted however, setting up wasn't too terribly challenging, it mostly consisted of taping some papers, hanging some banners, and passing things out. Still, it feels good every once in a while to get out and see what non-Transy folk do with themselves, especially in commemoration of a great and historic figure. In many ways I think it's important as a student to try and put together that the work that we do in the community, or more importantly, our attitudes toward ethics and our ethical choices, are tied in a very real way to the abstractions we read, such as Letter from Birmingham Jail in my FLA 1 class by MLK himself.

For a short news video about the MLK day event I volunteered at, no more than half a mile from Transy, see this link -------> http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/Celebrations_Honor_Martin_Luther_King_Junior_113892304.html

In other big news, one of the more longstanding and significant advances in my status here at Transy has changed today. I am now officially an active member of The Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity, Beta Mu chapter at Transylvania University. I really just like hearing how long and official that sounds. But seriously, it's a major honor and milestone to say that I've come into brotherhood with so many amazing men. I know that even over the course of my pledge period, they have embraced me, and come to change me in ways that have only been positive. I can only hope that I can give back to my fraternity in the same way, and that this sort of symbiotic relationship may continue for the entirety of my stay at Transy.

By the way, aside from electric fields, I highly recommend looking into the history, politics, and pertinent philosophy behind the infamous Galileo trials. This is the current topic of my FLA 2 class "Mad Scientists 2.0" and consequentially is also the topic of my reading at the moment. I leave now to work on writing for it, and for I think it's fair to say that in this instance I'm excited about putting pen to paper. In fact, I'm excited about most everything to do with being back at school. It's good to be home, in a strange sort of way.

Wherefore Art Thou Romeo

I was lucky enough this afternoon to be able to see my third drama production here at Transy, my second since becoming an actual student. They performed, as you can probably guess by the title of this entry, the Shakespearean classic, "Romeo and Juliet." Between the thine's, thy's, and thou's, I was pleasantly surprised at how very alive the actors were able to make the story, especially given that it was all performed on a barren stage. Also very interesting, the production was student directed, and I must say quite well at that. I'm not typically a Shakespeare fan; and although I don't think that changed, I at least enjoyed the show more than I thought I would and found a little tiny piece of new respect for the most celebrated writer of the English language.

"Romeo and Juliet" actually continues the rather theatrical weekend I've had. Saturday night I had a chance to see Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" performed at the Lexington Opera House. It was an excellent professional production of the ballet, and I'm quite glad I was able to attend. Also at the Opera House, I will be going to see Spamalot during the beginning of the next semester, about which I am even more excited. In general, I really love taking advantage of the Opera House, given that it's only maybe a half mile or mile away from Transy.

Outside from the enjoyment of the arts, I should probably be stressing over the week to come, but I'm actually not all that perturbed by finals, at least not yet. Unlike most people, I don't have a final in my philosophy class or in my foundations of the liberal arts class; therefore I only have one for calculus 2 and physics. They are on Thursday and Friday respectively, so come Wednesday I'm sure I won't feel nearly as at ease as I do right now. However, fortunately my semester has gone relatively well in both of these classes, and the score I need to achieve in order to get an A is perfectly reasonable in both.

I'm actually rather enjoying the pre-finals period of time. Most of the true work of the semester is over, and while serious studying is definitely taking place, I find that I have at least a little more free time than I have grown accustomed to over the course of the semester. I've been making use of this time mainly to hang out with friends and enjoy people's company in a way I would have liked to have been able to do all year long. Between movies, rock band 3, and playing in the snow, I'm rather enjoying this right now.

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.

New York City!!!

I would have written about this last weekend, but unfortunately, I was gone the entire time. On the bright side, the place I was away at was New York City. The only thing that was better than being in New York was being in New York for the sake of intercollegiate quidditch. Yes, that's right, I personally took part in the 2010 Quidditch World Cup. Two days, forty-something colleges, and a lot of Harry Potter nerds make for one swinging good time!

Transy didn't come out entirely competitively, which isn't surprising considering that schools the size of Texas A&M and Purdue were present. With that said, we had a fantastic time having fun and representing our school. Time magazine, MTV, CBS, and an overall surprising amount of press were present for the gathering in the park just off the Hudson; even if certain desperate pleas for an appearance by Stephen Colbert were ultimately in vain. In fact, it is entirely possible that Transylvania Quidditch got more press for the school than any other sport has in quite some time, strange as that seems. Personally speaking, I greatly enjoyed getting a chance to seek against some amazing snitches who have been doing this for years. The quality isn't great, but this link should take you to a youtube video of one of our matches. If you see someone with a gold headband getting thrown to the ground by people dressed in yellow, that's probably me!
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXCLDmc6Wu8&feature=player_embedded

So what's been going on at Transy other than Quidditch? More prominently, we are definitely into the dead heat of the academic calender. The coming week is blissfully short for a Thanksgiving break; during which time I'm sure everyone, myself included, will be sleeping and recuperating as much as possible. I can't quite relax yet though, I have an exam in calculus 2 on Wednesday that may prove rather challenging. Consequentially, the rest of my evening will be spent working a couple of problem sets over power series; exciting, I know.

One of the other things, beside sleep, that I look forward to during the break is a chance to meet up with old friends. I have friends from GSP returning back to the commonwealth from Boston to Michigan, not to mention my high school friends. I guess I didn't realize it until I left all of them for college, but I actually do miss these guys and girls, a lot. Not to say that I'm lonely or don't like it at Transy, just that it's a rather abrupt shock of moving away from all of the friends you've grown so close to all at once. I actually think I may be planning to meet up with them for a rock band 3 jam session, about which I will openly admit, as a music/gaming nerd, I am quite excited.

One thing I've been looking at getting done before too late is starting to look at options for my summer. My ideal job would be either a REU (research experience for undergraduates) or a position as an office staffer or a residence adviser at the Governor's Scholars Program about which I have such fond memories. REU's are a great experience for students interested in graduate studies to get their hands dirty and find out what it really means to do meaningful research in a discipline. Many programs are located throughout the country and pay not only room and board, but a stipend as well. Unfortunately, I question whether I have enough educational and laboratory experience to be competitive for these programs as just a freshman, but I'm glad to know that such a cool experience exists for me as I move through school. I am super hopeful about the possibility of at least working in the office for GSP however. Until such a time as I can apply however, possibly over break, I must remain in question about my summer plans.

And now, I believe it is time for calculus. Problem set, here I come!

Scheduling!!!!!

I'm still a little astounded at what time of the year it is. At just over 2 months, so much has happened here at Transy, and yet it feels like so little time has passed. More disconcerting, we are past midterms, and it is officially registration week for winter and may terms. Not that I'm dying from the stress or anything, but choosing how exactly to structure my schedule is proving to be a more involved decision than I might have thought. It's a liberating freedom to be able to do more or less whatever I like, but it's also a little frightening.

I don't know how much information to this point I've provided so far, but I'm a math and science sort of kid. Granted, I like writing, I like reading, I like philosophy, I like music, etc; but ultimately my study of choice is in physics, chemistry, and calculus. Granted, the ability for these to coexist is part of the reason why I chose to attend a liberal arts college. But at the same time, I'm having trouble balancing my schedule, mainly because I'm afraid of falling behind in my math and science. It wouldn't be so bad if I knew which science I wanted to study, but unfortunately, trying to keep up with all of them is proving a daunting task.

So here's what I'm looking at so far: Physics 2, General Chemistry 2, Calculus 3, and Fundamentals of Liberal Arts 2. The general sentiment from people whose opinions I've asked is that while miserable, the schedule is probably doable, if not as varied as one might prefer. The problem is that I don't exactly know what I want my major to be, math, physics, chem, or biochemistry. As a result, I don't want to get behind on any of these subjects. Something tells me that I really do need to decide before sophomore year though, lest I wind up taking organic chemistry, classical mechanics, and differential equations all at the same time. If only I knew how to decide!

And then, of course, there's May term. Those not familiar with Transylvania's academic calendar may be somewhat confused by the term. Essentially, we are divided into two semesters and one short session called May Term. The semesters are just like one would expect from any other given university, while May Term is a little more special, consisting of a month where students only take one class, but take it every day, usually in a little more of an applied or special sort of topic. I have to register for this soon as well as winter term, and as of now I have a few options. A class on the psychology of marriage is being taught, which I'm interested in, although I'm not sure that I would be able to sign up for it, a senior psychology major friend of mine informed me that it usually fills up quickly. Alternately, an interdisciplinary studies class called, "creative disruptions" is being taught that absolutely intrigues me. The premise of the class seems to be to investigate the social construct of the world in which we live, and in our own way, disturb it. Not only for amusement, but out of pure curiosity, I have an interest in this class.

Ultimately however, despite my minor hysteria trying to decipher the correct delineation the next four years of my life which then in turn determine my career, I recognize that I'm probably a little more concerned with this than I need to be. Life will go on, and I'm sure that I'll do just fine with whatever schedule I end up with. Plus, there's always more than enough going on around campus to distract me from serious introspective concerns, at least for a little while.

It's Halloween!

I'll preface this by making an assertion which I have no intention of supporting in anything resembling a comprehensive fashion as I would be expected to in any FLA assignment. Halloween is definitely the best holiday ever. Just a few hours ago I walked into downtown to witness the annual "thriller parade." Essentially, a horde of choreographed people in zombie costumes parade down main street dancing to thriller. It just doesn't get any better than fake blood and guts grooving to classic pop music. Not that the Halloween spirit is a purely off-campus sort of a thing. Students were allowed and advocated to wear costumes to class on Friday; and while not overwhelmingly taken advantage of, I do appreciate the levity of the idea, as well as of those who participated. Also, some of the costumes I've seen around this weekend have been truly well done, like a Beethoven costume I saw someone dressed up in on their way to a sorority "Boo Ball."

More than just ghouls and goblins, I've certainly had an interesting weekend. Friday I had my second Calculus exam, which went went well, and after that, I was relieved to look forward to a great prospective weekend. I only have a final copy for a paper (already mostly finished) due Monday, and I told myself how much I would enjoy the experience of what I was about to embark on. Some readers may be familiar with the political satirists Stephen Colbert and John Stewart. The more stalwart fans among you may recall that these two hosted a "rally to restore sanity," and a, "march to keep fear alive" this Saturday, in Washington D.C. As insane as it sounds, I was planning on being in attendance.

Two fraternity pledge brother and I loaded up the car to head out Friday after our last classes. Everything was going great, we felt good and enthused, until about thirty minutes north of Charleston West Virginia. Here I would like to pause and do something I generally try to avoid: give advice. Never, ever, ever, stop paying attention on West Virginia roads, even interstates, not that the interstates really feel as such. Sparing any of the details, the car (I was not driving) wrecked and was inoperable as far as a continued drive to DC. Thankfully, no one was injured in the accident, but still, sometimes things just don't pan out like planned.

The important part of this, I suppose, is to note that if I had to be in a car accident, I don't think I could pick two better companions. We ended up spending the night in West Virginia and returning to Transy the next day; and I wouldn't ask to be stuck in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia with anyone else. Which is cool, cool to note how big of a deal friends are, and how amazing and supportive peers really can be, especially in this stage of initial independence in life. Also, at least I got to come back to Lexington to see the Thriller Parade, very important that.

To end on a lighter note, my fraternity pledge class recently went through the process by which we receive "big brothers." Basically mentors, big brothers act to teach and support pledges and later members by showing them what it means to succeed in the fraternity, socially, academically, etc. Also, beyond the functional aspect, they are generally people with whom one has a special connection, and are overwhelmingly, by some strange phenomenon, amazing people. I am proud of and happy with my big brother; and am even more excited to continue to get to know him as well as all of the other fraternity brothers.

So, to summarize, Halloween is awesome, don't wreck in West Virginia, if you DO wreck in West Virginia, try to take something meaningful out of it, and big brothers are cool. If you can pull a cohesive theme and message out of all of that, then you are a more effective analyst than I am, congratulations. But these are some of the things affecting me now in this Halloween season; and whether the good or the bad, I'm loving it.