jonnyd

That's a relief. Everytime I began an entry I had to move my cursor to the bottom right part of my computer screen to see what the date was. I feel pretty good most of the time about being able to remember (most of the time) the day of the week it is. I gave up figuring out what the actual date of the month was a few years ago.

Anyway, not much exciting has happened within the past week. I do think, though, that for my professors, homework is a drug. The amount has slowly but surely increased from the first week of classes till the very moment at which you are reading these words, with the section of my daily activities pie chart for homework growing to resemble Pac-Man (there's my one pity reference to your generation, so you better eat it up). Okay, so homework is not really that bad. I just thought of the Pac-Man reference, had to figure out a way to get it into this note, and so came up with a way to do it. There is a fair amount of homework, but that's expected with college, though I wouldn't mind my professors pulling up on the reins every once in a while (or more than once in a while).

I hope everyone is doing well and I'll talk to you all later.

Jon

Posted by Jon Delperdang at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, it looks like I'm lagging behind on the update scedule again. I apologize to all of you hanging unto the final words of my last note that you had to wait this long. For the few of you who weren't hanging unto the final words of my last note, I forgive you. I have a fair amount of things that have happened since my last note, so I'll try to include everything, but I can't guarantee that I won't miss some things. From the little interaction I've had with the outside world compared to some of you, one thing I have learned is that life is not fair, so if I miss some things, maybe a few things I forget to mention or other things I "forget" to mention, just realize it's apart of life.

Two weeks ago I was leaving eating one of the cafeterias here on campus after eating dinner with a couple of friends and I saw a strange sight: my four professors were all sitting down at a table there, having a friendly conversation; or so I thought. I found out later they were planning to give me the chance at experiencing a homework spree for the next two weeks, which I couldn't really say that I appreciated the opportunity to have. However, there's currently a slight lull in the storm, so I'm thankful I can stay on my raft now. The homework alone really wasn't as bad as I described it there (suprise!), but with everything going on, I have been dang busy the past two weeks.

With being on the community council, I was pushed into doing things for homecoming (which still isn't for at least two more weeks), so I volunteered to play on the water polo team and was pulled into doing cheer, though I think it'll actually be fun. We have no plans for water polo practices, mainly because we don't need any practice, but apparently (despite everyone's assessment in my dorm) we need practice for cheer, because there have been about 10 scheduled practices so far (note: scheduled practices and actual practices are two different entities; we've had about 5 actual practices). Anyway, it should turn out pretty good.

I did interview for the Metro Internship Program a couple of days ago, which is an internship coordinated through a YMCA on campus. The firms, both for-profit and non-profit line up at the Y to get students, to which students respond by dashing to the Y in a big mob, piling into the building, and banging on the bars, asking politely to get internships. That may be less dramatic than what actually happens, but you get the picture. Anyway, I think my interview went pretty well and I'll find out pretty soon if I'm in or not. If I get in, I'll go and do some site visits to check the places out and see what I would do for those internships and see which one is the banana for my peanut butter (those are actually pretty good sandwiches if you haven't had them). I would work 10 hours a week from November till the end of spring semester (unincluding J-term, of course) and at the end of the program receive a scholarship worth a thousand dollars (the actual internship is "unpaid", but a thousand dollars seems like being paid to me). The only two problems I see w/ it is that the internship comes with a 6 credit seminar (in which we would discuss all things dealing w/ working), meaning that would take away a class or two that I would take otherwise in spring semester, and that internships go out into the metro area of the Twin Cities, meaning biking to some places would be 1) hazardous to my health and 2) a very long bike trip (I didn't say "bike ride" because it's a fact that a bike trip is longer than a bike ride, so I was just emphasizing the long distance). I have an appointment w/ my academic advisor on the 30th, so we can figure out what's best then.

But basically, I really haven't done much except for eat, sleep, go to class, work (flag football reffing; I think I mentioned it in my last note), and doing homework the past two weeks, so that's all I have to write. But to please all the people who want to be hanging unto my last words, I will write something that ended with my keys getting stuck up on a tree branch last week after finishing this sentence. On the other hand...maybe not. Talk to you all later.

Jon

Posted by Jon Delperdang at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok. So I didn't do my whole once a week update to start out. Don't panic, I was just waiting to have enough things happen to keep you all enthrawled for days after you read this. So after that buildup, I would suggest not looking for anything to back it up. Sorry, that's the way it goes sometimes.

Homework really wasn't that bad until lthis past week (oh, yeah, that's the reason why I didn't update last week; I remember now), but this past week was crazy with two midterms, a speech, and a paper due all within four days (if you thought I was going to say one or two days, remember, I'm in college). That always seemed to happen in high school, too, with everything happening within a couple of days and then everything dying down. Two weeks ago I had a couple of readings to do and one short paper, and this coming week I have a couple of readings to do and one paper, but you already heard about the past week. I guess that's life, right? (Cue the lecture and ten mile walks in a blizzard with six foot high snow, in bare feet, with only one glove, when you were two years old).

The sports scene here has been, well, was better than the best word for 'best' you can think of about two weeks ago, and is now worse than the worst word for 'bad' that you can think of. If there was a Minneosta bowling leauge, two weeks ago we would've bowled a 400 (yes, it's impossible, but that's how good it was), with the Wild having made a bunch of good off-season moves, the Gopher hockey near the top of the rankings, and, most importantly, the Twins making their run to win the Central Division on the last day of the regular season, coming from a place more remote than Pluto (that, on a further note, sadly wasn't even good enough to stay a planet and apparently shrunk to become a "dwarf planet"). Now, we would not only scored a zero, but our bowling balls would bounced over to our opponet's lane and given them the chance to bowl a 600. The Twins got swept by Oakland, the Gopher's football team lost to Michigan last week and lost 28-27 to Penn State in overtime (we got the ball first and got a touchdown, but missed the extra point, and then Penn State went and got a touchdown and converted the extra point), and the Gopher hockey team lost their opener, after losing their starting goalie for three games for breaking team rules. Oh, and the Vikings lost last week too. Yes, the Wild did win their opener (in overtime), but they scored too soon, because everyone there wanted to see it go to a shootout (which happens now in the new NHL if the score is tied after overtime). I'm not that affected by it, I can live on, but a fair amount of these 'kids', specifically my roomate, are taking it pretty hard. If you know about Facebook, there are now a handful of groups with college kids saying the Gopher coach should be fired and stuff of the like (if you don't know about Facebook, disregard my last sentence and anything else about current technology I might write).

Moving on from that rant...

Two weeks ago we had Community Council elections and I got voted in as the Food/Facilities Chair. We had our first meeting, and, to my surprise, we did not talk about homecoming (one month away) for an agoning ten minutes. I'm not sure where to go after that, so I'll just write this sentence and see what happens. I still don't really know what I'm going to do with my position, but it does have something to do with food, I'm told. I'm not sure yet.

For the most part college has been...(it's not possible to capture the college experience in one word, so I'm not even going to try). It's cool being able to meet so many new people. There is literally always someone wanting to go do something, which is good and bad (good that you can go do something when you have free time with someone, bad that if someone is looking for something to do at 3 AM, they might let most everyone on your floor let you know about it). But, yeah, it's definately interesting (no, this is not that one word that describes college life; sorry to get your hopes up).

Anyway, I really should go and visit the top of my bed for a while, so I'll talk to you all relatively soon, I think.

Jon

Posted by Jon Delperdang at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)