Lots of Stuff

Hmm, a lot of things to write about. First, some random pictures that I really don't feel like incorporating into anything else:



Ramya is umm.. I don't know. Confused? Really weird?
Trying to solve the rubik's cube. . . and doing pretty well actually.
FREE candy that somebody was tring to get rid of.
Abby in the dining hall.Late night studying... always improved by the introduction of food.

Moving on...

I got to host an overnight student for the first time... that was pretty cool. To make it even more cool, the guy I hosted was actually my friend from high school... he is considering Hiram, and I got paid to host him for the night! It was legitimate though, because he really is considering Hiram, and he did visit classes and meet with faculty members, etc.

The same night was the "Computer Science and Math Departments Nth Annual Donut Party." It's a strange but fun time. Basically it's an event hosted by, believe it or not, the Computer Science and Mathematics departments to give people a chance to have fun doing nerdy things. They make homemade donuts and have tons of puzzles for people to play with... some of which are fairly easy, and some of which have never been solved before.

Nerdy people hanging out, eating food, and solving puzzles.Ian.My friend Phil attempting to solve a puzzle which has never been solved before.

Some dudes.

Later that night I was working on finishing up a Calculus project.... which, though I had been working hard on it, wasn't going so well. My friend Phil actually graduated from HS with me, but is looking at colleges now because he's doing an Americorps program this year -- meaning he's taking a year off to do community service. At any rate, he took Calculus with me in high school, so he was able to help me. It was very funny because most people assumed that he was in high school, since most overnight guests are high school seniors. When he was helping me, people actually commented along the lines of "what the hell? how does a high schooler know Calculus III?" It was amusing, and probably helped boost his ego.

In the end, I had to stay up all night to type up the results of my project. It kind of sucked. However, when it was done (at 9.00 in the morning, right as I needed to get ready to go to class), I was fairly happy with how it turned out. I didn't end up getting quite the grade I wanted, but whatever.

The next day, I went to bed around midnight, without taking a nap in between. I slept for 14 hours that night. It was glorious. I woke up at around 3 PM the next day (I know this would be 15 hours.. but I was up for about an hour in between)

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Hmm, what else. Well, a few days ago someone pulled the fire alarm in my dorm. That wasn't very much fun. We were out of the building for an hour or so. I stood outside (in the rain, and the cold) for about a half hour, until I finally decided to go to a different dorm to keep warm. The fire department is required to go through and check every single room... so it takes a long time and is very annoying.

Then, a few days ago my roommate saw an offer for a "Dogbone pizza", which is basically this enormous pizza in the shape of a dog bone. He thought this was pretty cool, so we bought it and had a little party. Being from Buffalo, he didn't know that the dog bone was actually promotional for the Cleveland Browns, who he hates (he's a Steelers fan). He was EXTREMELY angry when he found out that he had bought a pizza that was supporting the Browns. All of the Browns fans made sure to rub that in his face for quite a while :) Dogbone pizza!
Me drinking cider (yes, that is my own gallon of it.. no need for a cup)
Ya I don't know what this one is... I guess my roommate likes wrestling with girls. I think he claims they were playing floor hockey in the hall.. I don't see any hockey sticks though. I decided to post it since I think it's funny, even though it's not really relevant to anything.

Another great thing that happened to me was that a friend of mine was at Walmart the other day when she saw this enormous coffee mug (well, it's not just for coffee.. and probably wasn't designed for that at all.. but that's ok). She recalled me saying that I wanted to buy the largest coffee mug that I could find, so she bought it for me! I paid her back, but it was very amazing of her and it made me EXTREMELY happy! What could possibly be better than knowing that you can carry around 52 ounces of coffee whenever you are tired (like in class)???
I've made good use of it thus far... I always get interesting looks when I go to fill it up in the dining hall. That reminds me, though: Hiram needs better coffee. I'm quite dissatisfied with the quality of the coffee that they provide. Granted, the cappucino tastes good (it's like candy), but that still doesn't cut it.

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This week is finals week. It sort of snuck up on me, and I made the unfortunate mistake of leaving all of my work to the last minute. Last monday I wrote 6 pages of a paper, mostly between the hours of 2.00AM and 5.00AM, because a rough draft of our final papers was due in my Colloquium. Probably not the best time to write a paper, but the truth is, I was quite happy with the way it turned out. I have since added more to it, and it is currently 11 pages long. It's due in a few hours... (I really should be finishing it up).

Yesterday was my calculus test... I studied fairly hard for it, and am disappointed because I totally blanked out on of the questions.... and the question was one which didn't actually involve any calculus! My grade was borderline (a 90% or so), so I needed to get above a 90 on this test in order to get an A. I don't think I did, and I'm not very happy about that because I've always been good at math and I actually did all of my homework (WELLL, by that I mean all of the things that were to be collected :), and studied for all the tests. Eh, whatever.

Today I took my Goverment test, but I don't really care how I did because the test cannot affect my grade really. I was also up until 4.30AM last night studying, which is probably a bad idea since the test was at 9.00AM. OH, and when I walked out of the room after the exam, I was talking to 2 of my classmates. Someone asked "which essays did you answer?" In discussing this, I realized that we actually were supposed to write 4 essays, and I only wrote 3. I will not repeat what came out of my mouth (though I don't remember it exactly, either).

Luckily, I went back and told the Professor what I had done, and he just let me finish it. I hadn't gained any new information while talking to my classmates, nor had I looked at my notes.. and even if I had, I wouldn't have gone back and changed any of my answers.

Anyhow, in a couple hours, my dad is going to come pick me up and I'm going home for Thanksgiving!

As soon as I turn this paper in, I'm officially done. It'll be nice to go home, I'm sure.

--David