Random Update (11.19.12)

Thank goodness Halloween is over, that is such a silly holiday for college. It's outstanding for little kids (free candy everywhere) but for college students it simply strikes me as silly. We can eat candy for dinner whenever we want! It was kind of funny how Halloween comes right before the presidential election. Let's chow down on some candy and wear costumes of gorillas and faeries five days before voting on who the most important person in the world should be. Seriously? America is so weird. 

I watched the election over in Edmonds hall with some friends from last years honors seminar. My friend Paul popped some popcorn (in a pot, on a stove, with oil) and it was very yummy. Boston College was pretty overwhelmingly democratic. Or maybe the democrats were loud. I'm not sure. But I was expecting more Romney-ers here. Also, Donald Trump is hilarious on Twitter. And by hilarious, I mean it's hilarious that what I read is actually what he thinks: "This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!". He's right about the second part. We're a federal republic!

Daylight savings time is always so awesome. Just so awesome. 

Unrelated to daylight savings time but related to daylight was the all-nighter I pulled on that Thursday to finish a Spanish paper. I always think those are much faster to write. But that's not correcto, I learn time after time. I did write the essay well, though. Hopefully that is returned tomorrow.

So I've been trying my best to use the services that Boston College provides, because they cost a good bit to have for only four years. There's this thing called "Sophomore Quest" run by the career center which was basically a bunch of programs to make you think about your career and then to help you get a move-on with what you might want to do. Also, if you go to these programs, you might win an iPad or some cash or something in a raffle. Surprising that not more people did it, but better odds for me! And so anywhos right now there is an overload of things I am looking to do. One of the programs was about Advanced Study Grants. These are summer grants for independent study on topics/research of the students design and fancy. Which looks awesome. I want to do something with the stars and physics in an observatory or something. But that deadline is early next semester. I also had an outstanding conversation with two of my soccer friends, Both and Ethan, about their time abroad during their junior year. Both went to Barcelona and Buenos Aires; Ethan went to Valencia. The stories and amazing experiences they had have convinced me wholeheartedly to try to go abroad for a full year. Ideally, I would be at Pompeu Fabra University all next year (my economics advisor holds it #2 behind LSE in Europe for economics). So I would fine tune my Spanish and take some Economics classes over there. I am meeting with the Study Abroad Advisor right after Thanksgiving break, and I am very very very excited to make this work. Finally, I would like to get some sort of internship at a small start-up business this summer and see how that sort of business works. I like the idea of starting your own business. Actually, finally, my friends JM and Alex both have a place to crash in Sao Paulo during the world cup in summer 2014. So that would be the icing on the cake if I can make some dough to buy a ticket to Brazil. It's a lot to plan and sort out, but it's exciting and worth it. 

Spotify is a great invention. I've been using the free trial, and it's great. Basically, I can see what songs my Facebook friends listen to, subscribe to playlists they make, and send them songs to listen to, all for free (with commericals) or for $7 a month (no commericals + iPhone app). I'm on the month of free trial stuff and it's great. I'm really into folky-chill stuff right now. 

And at last, I cannot wait for Thanksgiving. However, after getting back a physics test that I did well on and then realizing I have minimal work for Monday and Tuesday class, I'm enjoying these last few days before break immensely. Last night, I went with Angela, Alex, Christine, and Pat to "El Habibi", a hookah lounge (wow that sure was interesting!).  Blowing smoke rings and chilling on couches is fun, but light-headedness and nausea are not. I'd only go once a year maximum, and only if invited. Today we had a quarterfinal game for intramural playoffs... we lost (3-0 down at half, lost 3-2 after so much pressure! Angry we didn't pull off the comeback). Tomorrow all the roommates are going out to dinner at Fire and Ice (delicious Mongolian stir-fry cooked-in-front-of-you restaurant). And Tuesday I am watching all of season three of Lost before flying Wednesday morning with JM to Baltimore!

Random Update (10.31.12)

First, some catching up. On Wednesday the 17th I went to see a band called The Wombats with Jeff and Hannah, which was a blast. They're from Liverpool! And this was their last show before shipping off, so the opening band thought it'd be grand to dress up as the Ninja Turtles, Gandalf, and Robin, run onto stage after the encore, and have a ten minute alcohol-induced jam session. It was pretty crazy, I must say. Unfortunately I also missed out on an intramural derby match against some senior friends of ours, which we won, 1-0. We are tied for 6th place going into the post-season. And this is the big leagues, not the lily-livered freshman outdoor soccer league. It's very competitive. 

Two days later, around 2:17 PM, the BC club soccer teams departed to Downington PA (male and female teams, that is). It was a long ol' bus ride, full of witter banter, interesting and new smells, and sleep cycles that varied like sin and cos curves. We arrived late at night to the Sharaton or Hampton Inn, I forget which, to find out that we were playing the best team in our group at 8:00 AM the following morning! So we slept quickly after we settled into the rooms, and in the morning we got up and bused out to the fields at a local high school. We had an amazing start again UConn (6 seed), we scored off a free kick midway through the first half and went into halftime up 1-0. All our hard work went down the crapper with one mistake from our keeper, though. He came out to punch a lofty ball from a free kick, missed, and the ball trickled into the net to tie the game. We pressed to get the lead again, hit the post, had a lot of shots, and got counter-attacked to lose 1-2. That really sucked, I hated losing that game. We had worked really hard and now our chances at advancing from our group were slim indeed. Losing the afternoon game to Johns Hopkins confirmed our early departure. Bill and Sue showed up though! That was great to see them, they dropped off some food as well, which quickly disappeared. Unfortunately they had to watch my (and our) worst game this season! Men's co-champions: Navy and Harvard (we crushed Harvard 3-1 the previous weekend... so upsetting). Also, the women's BC club team were co-champions too. We had a long bus ride back.

Monday the 22nd was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits: Demetri Martin live-tweeting the presidential debates. My roommates and I were in stitches. He is so funny. Last weekend was the beginning of Halloweekend v1.0. Since Halloween falls on Wednesday, that is license to party in style for seven days and two weekends. People are funny. There were some costumes I appreciated a lot. Top Three:

1) Replacement Refs: referee shirt + blindfold

2) 70's Gameshow host: ugly plaid coat and tie

3) Elton John: swag red fuzzy zebra trim shirt + swag red fuzzy zebra trim pants (Pat's costume below)

This Monday a hurricane named Sandy hit the East coast. There was a lot of wind and water; I had purchased lots of Brie and smoothie materials so I was set. We played cards, played risk until risk-overload, watched terrifying movies (like Insidious), played FIFA 13 (fantastic game), and basically just had a good time on Monday, because classes were cancelled! It was great. I felt guilty for not doing school work... but not for too long.

Left to right: me, Erik, J.M. (coming to t-giving!), Veb, Jim, Zach, and Pat in the middle thinking he's cool