Death of a Blog(man)

Seems to me we've all settled in, to a new place, a new crowd, a new routine. And thus, the blog begins to die. Really, that's perfectly fine. It's a good symbol of our collective adjustment. I thank everyone for participating, and if anyone ever wants to stick something up here in the future, feel free.

TMNT

A combination of the fact that roomy loves the song and they play it at all UMD sporting events has the theme song stuck in my head. So I decided to foist it upon all of you as well:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heroes in a half shell -
TURTLE POWER!

There - it's been foisted, enjoy! (And root for UMD tonight as they open the basketball season against Hampton.)

Of COURSE Mock Trial trips involve eating contests!

So I'm in Normal, IL, which is a real city's name, for our first Mock Trial tournament, at ISU. We've had our first trial and we'll have more tomorrow and Sunday.

BORING.

So tonight a bunch of us went to Wendy's for dinner because all the places that serve, you know, food, were closed. And one of our attorney coaches, Mike, came up with an idea: The Wendy's Value Meal Challenge: To eat one of every item on the dollar menu/ Also, you can't go to the bathroom or throw up for the entire duration plus 5 minutes afterwards. You also had to order by asking for "the third board from the right" where the value meal was listed. If all of these happened (you can see I'm still speaking in Mock Trialese) then you would get the respect of everyone there and Mike would pay for the meal and give you a dollar.

Needless to say, I'm an idiot who gives into peer pressure.

So I ordered it. They didn't have any orange cups left, so I foolishly replaced it with a hamburger.

I started with a burger. They put a lot of stuff on it - tomatoes, onions. Stupid deluxe burger. I drank my Dr. Pepper the who time, saved my Frosty for the end ate french fries as I went a long. Chicken fingers I ate towards the beginning and they were awful. I was a little thrown by the yogurt - it was thinker than I thought. Not to mention having to eat the granola.

What's that you say? Could I possible demean myself further? Why, yes! I also spilled honey mustard sauce on my shirt.

Also, all the other guys spent the whole time talking about puke. Which was considerate.

Anyway, in the end I did it. The hardest part was the chicken sandwich, because it was towards the end and tasted god awful. But I did it all, with "all due speed" as was stipulated, and I got the money - a total of $10.76

Do I regret it? No. Was it a mistake anyway? Probably. Am I proud? Undoubtedly.

So now I need to change my clothes, brush my teeth, go to the bathroom and get ready for a big day of Mock Trial and personal ridicule tomorrow. But mostly go to the bathroom.

Ahhh....I'm not sure why this is rotated but it's my finished work.

Hail to the Chili Peppers!!

So to argue over whose school is better than everyone elses, I have a story that will put Michigan in the running, if not at the top.

So last week, in Columbus (for those of you who do not know where that is, that is where Ohio State University is BOOOO!!!) anyways, the Red Hot Chili Peppers played a concert there for Ohio State as well as other people in Columbus. At the end of their concert, they came out and played an encore and to finish up their encore, they played Hail to the Victors. The moment this happened, the entire place errupted in Boo's and and they were booed off the stage and as they were leaving they said if you want an encore come talk to us in a few weeks.

The moral of this story is that the great Red Hot Chili Peppers played our song in Columbus and my guess is that right now, there are very few people in Columbus who like the Chili Peppers, but there are 40,000 people in Ann Arbor who LOVE THEM!!! GO BLUE!

In other news, it is cold.

To continue the debate of whose college has cooler famous people associated with it:



I believe that is Bill Clinton wearing the Wellesley class of 2010 scarf, is it not?

hi guys, I'm still alive

It's been far too long since I've posted. Lots of things are going on, so there's really no excuse for the hiatus. College thus far has been quite the trip.

Classes are wonderful (I'm taking a writing course on civil disobedience, intro to political philosophy, hebrew and intro macroeconomics). I'm even learning things, but by far the most valuable pieces of information from the last 7 weeks are how to iron a shirt and how to do laundry. I learned both skills from my roommate, he's very domestic. The room is in pretty much ship-shape all the time- but when all the parents came in for parents weekend they wouldn't believe that it was like that normally and that we hadn't just done it for them.

I've been going to hillel every week and playing intramural soccer (its very intense and Harry Potter-ish, the residential colleges all play against each other the entire year, and at the end the college with the most points from all the sports together gets the Tyng Cup). But by far the biggest time-consumer has been a capella. Singing basically takes the place of Greek life here- the frats are a joke, but there are 18 acapella groups and a month-long tryout process that they even call "rush." There are concerts and rush-meals and auditions and callbacks and singing desserts up the wazoo. After the whole ordeal I ended up on this all-men's group called the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus (affectionately the SOB's). We tour for a weekend in November and then for most of Winter break and all of Spring break, so there's a decent chance that I will be able to visit people. Unfortunately, the SOBs have a tradition to tell the freshman almost nothing for the whole year. I went to a weekend retreat blindfolded in the back of a car. My mom didn't like that so much. So, I will not know where we are touring until I'm quite literally on the way, and I won't be able to give anyone much advance notice.

Nonetheless, the a capella experience has been amazing. We have two practices and a concert every week, and we just had a big concert at parent't weekend. The guys on the group are an amazing bunch, so I'm willing to put a little faith in the 'all will be revealed' system.

Other than that, I just got my first claim to fame (right.) in the form of being quoted in the Yale Daily News www.yaledailynews.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=33894. It's nothing to compare with being the stat guy on Maryland basketball radio, that is extremely cool.

NATHAN!!!

That's right, peeps - we got a guest blogger all up in the hiz-OUSE! I'll let Nathan (William and Mary) take it from here:

The College of William and Mary - an unpredictable land

From the first day at W&M, I knew it was not going to be a breeze. It was far from a breeze. The 100 degree days and the 5 showers a day to stay cool, where just the beginning.

The first week of school I was being recruited by Aepi for fall rush. I thought the whole idea was cool because I would show up to their events and I would essentially "use" them. However on one dark night, they caught me off guard and attempted to force me to sign their pledge paper. To set up the scenario, they drew me into a little room which contained two aepi recruiters sitting on a bed and they locked the door behind them. They had my name all typed up nicely with signatures of their president, secretary, etc. I became a little reckless and I said some choice words. To paraphrase my comments I said: you guys have a great recruiting strategy - you can only get your recruits to sign if you get them inebriated. Me being my stubborn self, I held my ground and told them hell no. Then when the investigation was over, the dudes were like: I hope this doesn't make things awkward. OK, yea... Basically Aepi here sucks, there are about 20 jews and all of them aren't too socially with it.

Now for a bunch of my favorite stories (not in any particular order):
1) Whenever one of my hallmates sees a cop, he jumps into a bush.

2) One night a drunk varsity swimmer was told by a cop to suck into a breathalyzer, then the smart swimmer pointed to his dick and said suck on this... he was kicked off the team and went to jail for a night.

3) Last night a random sophomore wandered into our hall at 3am and peed on a kids printer.. yea I know wtf. Then he woke up and one of my friends and was like: You have a friend outside. And he feel asleep in his bed!! So we kicked him out.

4) I have been injured many times at W&M, I don't know what this means. I got a minor concussion when we played tackle football and some dumbass decided to headbutt me in the back of the head when i was play qb. Then I was playing soccer and I wasn't paying much attention and I got the ball kicked right into my eye and I fell down and like blacked out for a second. Then I was playing basketball the other week and some kid accidentally stabbed me above the eyebrow with his nail. Then last night one of my roommates was embarrassed that I beat him in an arm wrestle so he wanted to wrestle me. Him being from Brooklyn and me being a white kid, this wasn't good from the start. He accidentally flipped me over his shoulder and of course there was an edge of the door there to cut my back and gave me a large boo boo. But I'm all good, I played tennis today in the 80 degree weather!!! Sucks for you if you're in the North - the South is the way to go. I hope everyone else is doing good and my little stories brought you some satisfaction. Adios for now...

Mr. Nathan (W&M)

"The best thing to do in college is make friends with a bunch of slackers"

I was going to post before, but then I read Matthew's post. First of all, that is quite awesome. So, I see your Stephen Colbert and raise you Wang Dan (who led the Tianamen Square protests), Julian Bond (chairman of the NAACP), and the Capitol Steps (duh). We're so intellectual. Hah!

This week has not been that eventful. There's a "party" with Olin kids tonight (7-10 with 3 acapella groups? Sign me up!). We call that "movie night" here on campus... And on that note, allow me to remind something to the general male population. There are no male students on campus. However, being in possession of a phallus does not make you a god upon earth the minute you step off the bus. You may have been confused by those axe commercials and thought that the more you spray it on, the more girls will flock to you (and after all, there are over 2,300 of us). In fact, we have developed a sensitive sense of smell which causes us to flee once we recognize the combined stench of axe and beer. The Wellesley campus does not magically turn you into a hot, sexy stud in the eyes of all women- just as it does not turn us into naked wood nymphs. Erase that smirk off your face and take 5 steps back. Take your hands with you. And I swear to god that if you walk around my hallway yelling at 3am one more time there will be a pitchfork-carrying mob. (Now, I'm sure that plenty of nice guys come on campus. However niceness gets lessened as arrogance and alcohol rise. Plus I think most of those guys hide in a dark wooded area until the bus comes to take them back home.)

Ahem. Now I must return to my women's studies paper (with the words in the title, which- yes- were actually said on the wellesley campus, in mind).

PS: if anyone is in the area next weekend: Munger Mash. Friday night. 10-2. Come in costume. Crazy Wellesley sex not guaranteed.

And Singing the NU Fight Song, Tonight's Musical Guest...

Two stories in this post there will be.

On Wednesday this past week, a CA (community assistant) was walking around our dorm, yelling: "I have extra free passes to go see Borat! Who wants them?!" Naturally I bolted out of my bed and grabbed the passes.

The movie time was 7:00, so I figured, get there at 6:30, I'll definitely get in. Well, at 6:30, they said they weren't letting anyone else into the theater. They hadn't been for at least 10 minutes. Depressed, my friend and I turned around to go, when we ran into an administrator at Hillel named Andrea. After exchanging hugs, she said, "I think I might be able to get us in. I have connections." Now, I thought to myself, there is no way are we ever going to get in to see this movie. We waited around for 10 more minutes, and I was about to leave, when I guy storms out of the theater, goes up to Andrea, and gives her a hug. Turns out, he's the FOX representative that she has been texting and calling inside the theater. He says, "I have some extra seats, come on," and proceeds to barge his way through everyone and get us into the theater. In summary: Borat is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.


Alright, the second story explains the title. Yesterday, Friday, was our homecoming parade, and we were having a special guest come in as our grand marshall for the homecoming parade ( you'll find out soon). So, after eating dinner at Hillel, I met up with some friends, and we wait d for the parade to start. Now, I was anxious to see the grand marshall, and NU alum, and I was hoping that we had the perfect seats. The parade starts, the NU band goes past us, and then, driving up in a car, is the grand marshall:
STEPHEN COLBERT!
Me and my friends are yelling, "We love you Stephen!" As he gets closer and closer, until he is finally 5 feet in front of us. He then turns over to our side of the street, and the car stops. He makes eye contact with me and my two friends, and he says, "Do you know the fight song?" We yell, yes, and proceed to sing the Northwestern University fight song with Stephen Colbert. It was un-fucking-believable. It was one of the coolest things ever. It was as if time was frozen, and for like 2-3 minutes we were alone with Stephen Colbert, one of the funniest men alive.
And, most importantly Ezra, it finally settles our debate and answers the question: even you must now admit, NU is better than UC.

Treatise on Totem Poles, and the Climbing Thereof

There have been a dearth of blog posts lately. I take that to mean we're all settling in and have been busy and really haven't viewed this as a priority. At least, that's my excuse. I had some time, so I decided to check in...

From everything I've read and heard, if you're ambitious in any field, the key to getting to where you want to be is networking. You need to know the right people, who can help you when you need it. That was true with the Google guys and was probably true of almost any successful person.

That's all well and good, but the obvious question is where do you start? It's not like you can walk up to the President of the United States and ask for a job, or Sergey Brin (one of the Google guys), or Gary Williams. So you have to start small - on the bottom of the totem pole, and work your way up.

That's what I'm hoping will happen, now that I have gotten the position of statistician for the radio broadcast of the Men's Basketball team here at UMD. It's not the most incredible job in the world, but it lets me go to every game (and maybe even travel on the road to a lot of the games - I'll see you at DUKE, David) and more importantly, get to know the influential people at the radio station and among the coaching staff. It's my first in, and hopefully it will lead to bigger things, like getting in touch with the UMD coaching staff or being able to do play by play for the games on the radio sooner.

Meanwhile, roomy and I had our second radio show yesterday. It went very well, proving experience really helps. Above is my view from the station, of the mic and sound board. If you have time on Thursdays at 2:30-3:30, you can tune in by going to http://www.wmucsports.com and following the Listen Live link. Alternatively, we're making efforts to record the shows and then put them online afterwards, but the sound quality isn't incredible.

--

And here's the teaser...Coming up next post: Nathan (William and Mary) weighs in! It's too much of a pain to set him up with an account, so I'll just post what he emailed me. And trust me, it's hilarious.

MSU (Sucks), Pregaming, and A Little Surprise (Just Such A Good Week)

So last weekend was the Michigan - Michigan State weekend. It was also the weekend that my mom and aunt came to visit Ann Arbor and to see me on my birthday. Given what an important weekend it was, I was trying to figure out how to spend some time with my mom while spending time pregaming and going out. So this problem was solved when my mom and aunt were walking down Frat Row on game-day. Lets just say they got a taste of what we do on a game-day. The frats had live bands, there was some grilling going on, and as usual, lots and lots of beer.
After visiting some frats, I met up with my mom about an hour before the game started and we walked down to the stadium. Once inside, we found a couple of seats in the student section and watched Michigan beat MSU (thats right GO BLUE!!). She said she enjoyed the atmosphere (111,349 people all screaming), but the thing that blew her mind was when the Detroit Tigers score was announced and the cheer that followed. The cheer that followed the score was "Fuck the Yankees..." repeated many times. She commented that it's not that she doesnt agree with this, it was just that she had never heard that many people saying at once (I thought it was incredible).
The game ended and we walked back to campus. She had a good time and it was a good weekend.
Now comes the little surprise.
As I write this post, on Thursday October 12th, 2006, i am looking out my window and guess what, yea you guessed it, its snowing! It is the middle of October, and it is snowing!! This has been a great week becuase of the game, the weekend and it was topped off by snow, in mid October. So anyone who wants to get a taste of winter early on in the season, stop by michigan, ill show you a great time and you can get some snow!

Funny Florida Follies: Part I

Last night I returned from fall break. Normally, I would have gone home for those five days, but instead it was time for a Duke University Improv road trip. There are many stories from the amazing trip so I’ll break up this sure to be long-ish entry into chapters. I guess that makes this paragraph the Prologue.

Chapter 1: Baby You Can Drive My Car

Because of complicated circumstances only half the group drove down to Vero Beach, Florida. I was lucky enough to drive down and fly back. We packed the car at 1:30 PM and headed down south for what was supposed to be a 10-hour drive. In the car was me, Scott (freshman), Matt (junior), Brandon (junior) and Steve (senior). At first to kill some time we played the mileage game where Steve took out a map, named two cities and we had to guess the mileage Price is Right style (closest without going over). I stunned the car by guessing 2 distances exactly and earning two tiebreaker points. However, Brandon made a strong comeback in the “Double Jeopardy” round and ultimately won the game. OK, one hour down…9 to go.

Then we played two truths and a lie where you name three personal events and the others have to guess which one is a lie. One of my truths, and a story they found particularly weird, was that one of my friends attempted to commit bestiality. Of course, now they think Michael F (you know who) is the fake name I use when I describe something disgusting I’ve done. With many hours still to go we moved onto the meat of the car ride…the telling of life stories. My family seemed kind of normal compared to the other members’ stories of bipolar mothers, wives hiring private eyes to spy on husbands, bloody anal cavities (don’t ask), phone sex with cousins (ask me later), and one member told us that he “did” his girlfriend in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

After this life story fun, it was time for dinner. The upperclassmen told us that we had to eat at a road trip staple…The Cracker Barrel. The food was terrible but the meal did produce a funny moment. Keith was training waitresses and one of his trainees, Meredith, came up to him and showed him a $50 dollar bill. “Look at this tip I got,” Meredith exclaimed in a southern droll. “I guess it’s good,” answered Keith. Then Meredith uttered the priceless, “My ass it’s good, it’s fantastic!”

We hopped back into the car with about 4 more hours to go. With five manly guys fit snuggly into a car, we did what any group of guys would do…we put on Natasha Benningfield. Things got weird as we sang along to her music (we did a great rendition of “Unwritten”), Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy/Back,” JoJo, and Nelly Furtado…it was weird, but fun…in a weird way. Luckily this girly singing took up enough time to help us reach Florida without a boring moment. We arrived at 2:30 AM to find the 5 other members of the group already at the house. However, there was also something at the house we didn’t expect to see at all. It was…

To be continued. (Because I’m tired right now)

Today was awesome

For many reasons. In chronological order:

1- Music Theory was particularly fun, because our teacher wrote a 6-part Latin jazz song and we performed it as a class, with some people singing notes, some people tapping desks and some people sliding pens across the spiral binding of a spiral-bound notebook. It was cool.

2- My humanities teacher cancelled our class on Wednesday for so reason at all, though we still have to turn in essays.

3 - I read a book for Democracy and the Social Sciences and I actually understood it.

4 - I heard a talk by Steven Levitt, U of C economics professor and author of Freakonomics. The room (it was actually in the lounge of another dorm) was totally packed and I was practically standing outside - that's outside the building, not just the room - but it was very interesting. He talked about a few topics; the one I fond most interesting was about the Dictator Game to study altruism, and why it is a pointless test.

5 - I wrote, with Daniel Green, my first article for the Chicago Shady Dealer, the satirical newspaper on campus. It will be published sometime in around 3 weeks, I hope.

6 - I had my first cup of Ramen soup as a college student.

In summary, today = yay.

Oh yeah. I also asked Professor Levitt what it was like to be on the Daily Show. Two things you may have wondered - Jon Stewart writes all his questions for the interview, nothing is done for him; and he reads all the books that authors go on the show to discuss.

Bigger IS Better

I meant to post this a couple weeks ago. Between being busy and just not carving out the time to do it, it's languished in the back of my mind. But here it is - I'm finally turning it into reality. Words to the page, thoughts to pixels, keystrokes to the scree--man, I'm tired. WARNING: This could be really very quite rambly.

The point of the post, and what the title is hinting at, is that when I was looking for a college, I was incredibly wrong in what I was looking for. I maintained I wanted a small school - but after being at UMD, a campus swarming with around 25,000 undergraduates, for a length of time that seems longer than it has been I can see I had not a clue.

It's not just the different social mentality. I don't know about being anywhere else, although I have a feeling it's similar at most colleges, but with a place this big, you get the feeling that there's always someone out there who would be enjoyable to hang out with. There's so many people how could there not be someone who's going to share your interests? And if you make a complete fool of yourself with one person, you're probably never going to see them again - so who cares?

My guess is that feeling is present in most places - especially coming from a small high school. But what I feel is unique about the size of UMD is the opportunities the campus presents. I already wrote about my then upcoming trip to the Nats' game and meeting Bob Carpenter. Well on top of that, there's a host of other things going on...

On the Wednesday following my post, I went to the game. We sat between Carpenter and his color commentator as they called the game. We went down to the producers truck and saw how they queued up the instant replay, and how they warned the announcers ahead of time when they were putting a graphic on the screen. We even stopped in on the radio booth.

Earlier that morning I had attended a rally for Ben Cardin's campaign for Senate. Senator Barbara Mikulski and Senator Barack Obama came and spoke to a crowd of about 500-1,000. The next day I attended a lecture by the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon. When I got back, I got an email that said there was something called the Sadat Lecture for Peace coming up. You could get tickets for free - the lecture would be given by Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA (the international body that inspects countries' nuclear activities) and the winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

All that in the space of 2 days...and that's not to mention the opportunities I haven't been able to cash in on because of schedule conflicts - like attending a lecture by Dr. Maxine Singer, a winner of the National Medal of Science, who was talking about intelligent design vs. evolution, or attending another seminar entitled "Entrepreneurship in a Flat World."

The opportunities are coming faster than I can handle them, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Obviously a lot of the prestigious schools have similar opportunities, but not as many or as wide a range. All this is made possible because of the sheer size of the University of Maryland. And although I wasn't looking for this, I'm happy I ended up involved in it.

Fall Break

Fall break is upon us. Almost. I have one more class, and then I'm free until wednesday morning. My plans for the weekend are as such: sleep. eat. study. sleep. eat. sleep. study. shower? sleep. go into boston. sleep some more. One class cancelled today, as did work, so today is the freest schoolday I'll have all semester pretty much. Wasted, of course, on being sick.

Hillel has started stalking me. They're organizing a first-year shabbat, and were looking for people to lead prayer parts, help set up, serve food, and clean up. They repeatedly posted this on the conference, with a new post for each person who signed up for something. It's been there for a while. I guess me not replying and volunteering for anything did not give them a big enough hint that I don't want to sign up for anything (or even come, actually, since I might be away). There is no need to personally email me to make sure that I know I haven't volunteered. I came to one shabbat and rosh hashanna dinner. That's all it takes apparently.

I found someone here who went to AMHSI. She had the unforgettable David Mitchell. Maybe they should look into how girls who have Mitchell later go into all-women's institutions...

If any of you guys (and here I mean actual guys, not "you guys") think you're interesting enough, I might need to interview you for my paper. I need a 3rd guy, and your masculinity will be put on the spot. So hit me up [yo].

My Roommate Is LOST

During the first week of school, I told Ben online that my roommate reminded me of the TV show Lost. I said that when Season 3 of Lost finally premieres in October I would write an entry detailing the similarities. Well, today is Wednesday October 4, 2006 and at 9 the new season will commence. So, here it is…an entry about my strange, mysterious and short (he represents the Lollipop Guild) roommate, finally.

All I knew about my roommate, Elad, upon arriving at Duke was that he was from Clayton, Missouri (near St. Louis), he liked 24, he played football in high school and he was most likely Jewish. The truth is, this is still the main info I know about Elad. Like LOST, I really only have about 1 hour of encounters with him a week. It’s not that he’s anti-social or unfriendly…it’s just that our schedules are completely out of sync and he always gets up really early in the morning. This early rise is due to the fact that he’s one of the managers of the football team. He actually believes that if he works really hard this summer, then his 5’ 4’’ 140 lbs. frame will get a spot on the team. He truly believes that by next year he will somehow be able to single handedly turn Duke’s football program around. (Maybe he’s been watching too much Jack Bauer) Of course, just this would make him a small kid with big dreams. There’s more…

He works out at least twice a day and takes about 4 showers over the course of the day…changing into the same clothes (orange mesh shorts, white shirt) each time (at least they look the same). He makes my boring solid-color-only wardrobe look like a hip Gap ad. He never folds or puts his clothes away after washing them, instead choosing to spread them out all over his side of the room. Still, I don’t consider any of these practices weird…just out of the ordinary.

Just like LOST, it’s when you pay closer attention that you observe some of the stranger eccentricities.
1. He does this weird mumbling thing where he’ll start a sentence clearly and by the end it turns to gibberish. Example: “I’m gonna go to the dining hall to hava sat grando frew ababameit…” What?!
2. He refuses to do work IN our room. Rather, he hauls his laptop, charger, books and food directly outside our room and sprawls out in the middle of the hall. I can’t imagine that he’s getting work done because every time I take a break from my own work INSIDE the room, he’s chatting it up with one of our neighbors.
3. He has a loud short laugh that sounds literally like HAH! and calls everyone “Babe!” Example: “OK, yea I finished the paper, babe, hah! Alright, Babe. I’m gonna go to the gym to hava sat grando frew ababameit…” Again, what?!
4. He has a bizarre post-Duke football game ritual. Every time Duke loses a football game (which IS every time) he comes back to the room looking all depressed. He plops himself down on the bed and falls asleep…eating Cheerios!

Each time I encounter Elad I pick up new quirks and mysteries, just like the TV show. OK, so maybe like with LOST I’m looking hard for strange clues and things to talk about. But maybe, as with LOST, this is only the tip of the iceberg. As always, UNC sucks, but at this point that’s a given…so why emphasize it?...because they REALLY suck!!!

First Mid-Term

So tonight i took my first mid-term. WOW!! That sounds really scary. It wasn't. The test was a chem test and I'm not going to lie, it was easier than JDS tests. It was all multiple choice and we had an hour and a half. So all of you out there who are worried about mid-terms...dont be. They are over rated. Now heres a little joke to leave you with.

"What did the Michigan State Grad say to the University of Michigan Grad?"

"Welcome to McDonalds, may i take your order"

BOO STATE!! GO BLUE!!! 6-0 Here we come!!!

Its gonna be a good weekend.

A Story for the books

This story was told to me by a friend, about a friend of a friend of his, so while details are punchy, this is basically as I understood it. Danny (Wesleyan) heard part of the story, and he suggested I post it. Anyways, I don't really want to reveal this kids name in the post, so I'll just call him ERTS.

Anyways, so ERTS hadn't drinken that much since he'd gotten to college, but not by choice. So, he was invited to a party on Friday night by a fraternity, and decided to go. He also decided that for the first time, he was actually going to get drunk. Well, beforehand, he was hanging out with some friends from the frat, pregaming, which he'd never done before. But, while pregaming, he had about 3-4 shots of scotch and a shot of vodka, all over the course of an hour. Well, he was slightly buzzed by that point, but not that bad. He did learn, though, that Skittles were a good chaser, and after about an hour, he showed up at the party with friends about half an hour after it started.

So, once at the party, he really went overboard with the alcohol. He started with a solo cup (the big red ones) filled with a lot of vodka and some pineapple/orange mix. Even after feeling the effects of the alcohol, and dancing slightly drunkenly, he proceeded to have two more cups of Jungle Juice, which has who knows what in it, but alcohol and some juice. However, this wasn't alcoholic enough for him, so he pored vodka into each of these drinks. After finishing off those drinks, it was at that point that his memory of the night was starting to go, but he still gathered some facts from friends the next day.

As the story goes, he went out for a walk with some friends at the party, came back, and was practically falling on people and saying hi to all the random people he knew. He then played a game of flip cup, but when he realized he couldn't flip, he just drank some more while other people flipped for him. Anyways, people realized he was really drunk, so they got him out onto the balcony, where he proceeded to throw up for a while, and then got him a ride home.

Now, this is where the story gets interesting. After he was dragged up the stairs, he said he had to go the bathroom, and he took a fifteen minute dump, with people banging on the door he whole time to keep him awake. Now, after the dump, he didn't really feel like pulling up his pants apparently, so he walked back to his room where to the surprise of his roommate, he stumbled in with his pants around his ankles. Now, his roommate and two friends knew they had to keep him up, and keep him drinking water, so they asked him all these random questions, like how were Jew services, which he responded to by speaking in Hebrew, and whats your favorite song, which made him sing Shaniqua by Little T and One Track Mike. After finally getting him to bed, he then later woke up at 6 in the morning and started apologizing profusely to his roommate, took off his contacts, and then immediately passed out again. It was only later the next day, when he realized that he forgot almost everything that happened the night before, he knew how serious an issue it was. This was especially apparent after he apparently talked to some close friends, who said they spoke to him at the party, and he didn't even remember.

Anyways, the point of the story is similar to an earlier post by Daniel (Michigan)-yay for drinking, just not too much. I hear the kid is alright and didn't really have a hangover, but he definitely learned to monitor his alcohol ingestion better.

Getting In Touch With My Inner Black Man

Apparently it’s already mid-term week here at Duke…and I just thought I randomly had a lot of tests and papers. So, I decided to take a break from this “busy” schedule to speak about something that happened to me last night. Before a Thursday Improv performance, one of the sophomore (not sophomoric) guys in the group said that he couldn’t wait for Friday’s step show. He’s an Asian hip-hop dancer and said that the annual step show is amazing and a must-see. Now my fellow DUI members have become my “brothers” and I look to them for “advice.” So, I decided I’d check out the step show on Friday night at 8. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

I arrived at 8 to the show, which was being held in the largest auditorium on campus. Tickets were $10 but I figured it would be worth it. As I took my seat in the theater I began to realize that I was a bit out of place. I hadn’t noticed until I opened the program that the step show was put on by all the black fraternities on campus. I looked around a saw I was 1 of only 3 white guys in attendance. I sat next to a guy from my dorm floor that said he was only there because he was expected to “represent.” Oy!

A DJ at the front played loud, hip-hop music and the crowd was dancing in their seats (like at Mama Mia!), oblivious to the fact that the show was already starting. The “hosts” came out and said some stuff that was incomprehensible to me but the audience seemed to understand because they laughed and shouted back more incomprehensible noise. Not to be racist, but it was like the Vibe Awards crossed with Showtime at the Apollo. I thought that I might just sneak out but I did pay a “hefty” $10.

The show began and I was glad I stayed. “Stepping,” for all of you white-Jews reading this, is like Stomp but without the household objects. It’s basically rhythmic dancing mixed with fraternity/sorority cheers. They danced to Jay-Z, Outkast, Beyonce and James Blunt…just kidding, they didn’t play Jay-Z. It was fun, enlightening and ultimately very entertaining. So, the moral of the story is if there is a step show at your campus, go…but be sure to go with a big group of Caucasian friends. And finally, as the audience at the step show might say, “UNC wack balls, beeotch. Slap mah fro!”

This Title is Funny, Trust Me

The University of Chicago from above.
Pierce Tower should be circled in red if you click on the picture.

So I've survived my first week of college classes, which is reassuring. And yet, it still doesn't feel like I'm a college student. I have the little laptop bag across my shoulder, I've discussed how we know whether a given object is real, I've spent 80 minutes in Media Aesthetics talking about a single painting (Las Meninas). But I don't feel any different.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it hasn't happened yet. I still am spending half of my brain power thinking about whether sentences I hear contain puns and/or double entendres. I am still wearing different colored socks. Perhaps next week my life will dramatically change. But I doubt it.

Maybe I should talk a bit more about my classes. I am in four - the aforementioned Media Aesthetics, which is for my Humanities Core requirement; Calculus, which I was really hoping to avoid but the humor of my teacher (Professor Smuckler) getting chalk all over his shirt on a regular basis makes up for it; Democracy and the Social Sciences for my Social Science core; and Music Theory which is an elective and so far is the best of the four.

We also had our RSO (Registered Student Organizations) fair today, and now I'm on about 10 more mailing lists than I was this morning from juggling to music to politics to mock trial. I spent about an hour and a half juggling with the juggling people. I also got enough free candy to make an entire meal. Dinner. I ate candy for dinner. Anyway, We'll see how many of those RSOs I can cram into my schedule, in between writing papers about Las Meninas and calculus homework.

Also, Chicago is the only place I have been to where there is a restaurant that serves you from behind bulletproof glass. It's Harold's Chicken, and it's really good, but you order from a person who's behind bulletproof glass and they give you your order in a rotating bulletproof glass thing. See the picture. Also, they have a sign saying they won't take your order if you are on a cell phone.

Birthday festivities

So today I am legal. No, I haven't bought any porn, cigarettes, lottery tickets, or infomercial stuff yet. I spent most of today studying for my 2 tests (Women's Studies and Calculus) and writing journal assignments for Jazz class (it's amazing how many paragraphs one can pull out of one's buttocks about 10 seconds of music). However, I did party today. The college brought in a DJ, moonbounce, giant inflatable slide and free food just for my birthday, and a lot of people skipped classes (I even got off work) to party with me.

Ok, maybe not.

Today was Lake Day, the annual day of Blue spirit celebration (no, we don't have a mascot. It's just "Go Blue!"). There was merriment and rejoicing all around. And fried dough (oh the goodness!). However, thanks to Ronnie, my First Year Mentor [FYM], half the campus knew it was my birthday. She posted it on a couple of boards, and I guess it spread. Either that or the frisbee team started with the stalking and they were just everywhere I went.

Also, in keeping with Matthew's revelation about his true academic passions, I had an epiphany 2 days ago. As I was sitting in Women's Studies class, discussing heterosexuality and hegemonic masculinity, I realized something. I want to be a Women's Studies major. I came in thinking I'll do Media Arts & Sciences, because it looks pretty cool and it's quite practical. But then I started thinking, and am I really going to love it and be passionate about it? I like art and I can do computer graphics/layouts well, but intensely for 4 years? Women's Studies is continuously blowing my mind, I want more. And I can go abroad with it, and it's just as great for business school (MBA in marketing, anyone?).
Basically, it has made me re-examine the past 4 years and almost every single friendship I have. It's wonderful, and I've had several revelations already.

Relationships, Neuroscience and Phemerones

Most people think of me as a math/science guy, and I've chosen to post this to basically dispel that notion, which I previously thought was correct.

The first part of my post will dispel the science part of that statement. While I always thought I was one, college leads to discoveries, the first which was made last night. As I sat through a mandatory lecture entitled, "Venomous Fish and Vicious Snails," essentially on neuroscience, my mind started to wander. It was at that point that I realized: I'm bored out of my mind. In fact, I've felt the same way in my chemistry and physics class, and that I'm always zoning out constantly. Since I've been here, the only homework I've done has been my calculus and computer programming homework, while my Physics and Chemistry has sat idly by untouched. It was at this point that I asked myself: if I couldn't pay attention, I didn't want to do the work, and I wondered why I took the class, then do I really like science? And when I realized the answer was no, I laughed to myself. As some of you know, the name of program is the Integrated Science Program, which means that, as long as I stay in, I'll probably be bored in 50% of my classes in college. Well, that's what college is about: finding your true interests.

The second part of the post is a part of my personality that often stays hidden. As some of you may know, my mother is a therapist, and I this made me think, during the same lecture, as to how my relationships and friendships have begun at college. The first interesting one is a girl named Lina, whom I manage to see all the time and I thoroughly enjoy talking to. How we met is an interesting story. My first night on campus, I was talking to a girl whom I liked talking to a lot, but I stopped talking to her to go play ultimate Frisbee. While I was going to talk to her when I came back, I couldn't find her, so instead I started up a conversation with two people who happened to live in my building. A week later, I ran into one of those two kids, Brian, at a president's convocation, and I met one of his friends, Neena, who happened to leave on my floor. We had lunch, along with some more new friends, including Tapasia, and later exchanged numbers with all of them. Later, I became friends with Neena, and I invited her to a Jewish party with me. She invited Tapasia, and we went down to the lobby to wait for her. As we were waiting, we saw one girl doing her Physics homework in the lounge. Her name was Lina, and I believe we are in the process of becoming close friends. Which basically means, that through five people I met one person.

The one other brief thing about relationships I want to say is to talk about phemerones, or something like it. There are three people I met at college: Neena, Aanad, and Jess--that with fifteen minutes of meeting them, I could tell that I wanted to be friends with them. Now, they didn't say that much, but I believe the reason is phemerones. When I met them, I could just tell that there was some part of their personality that I wanted to get to know better, and since that moment in time, I've gotten to know them better. Now, theoretically, it would seem impossible to know such a thing after such a small interaction: however, I believe they felt the same way, and I'm pretty sure that they will become some of my closest friends here.

Anyways, hope the rest of your college experience is going well. Remember to post, and as my good friend Evan always says: its curtains for you!

Why You Shouldn't Order Things Off the Internet

I know, I know. I haven't posted anything, so this is my inaugural post. It's a story, which I think is kind of funny. All the pictures are big enough to see what the text says.

So, my friends around the dorm have taken to calling me George Michael, not after the singer-songwriter, but after the character in Arrested Development. I got the feeling that this nickname was not going anywhere any time soon, to I decided to embrace it by buying a signed photo of Michael Cera, the actor who plays George Michael, off eBay. Well, I had been waiting anxiously for it, and it finally came today. Or at least I thought it did. The package did say "Daniel Koblenz" on it, and the receipt did say "Quantity 1: MICHAEL CERA hand signed 8x10 photograph," however, when I looked at the next page, I saw a letter, on which the first line read:

Hello Daniel. Here is the Katherine Hepburn strand of hair you have recently purchased from me through eBay.

I looked at the next page, and saw a piece of paper with a few pictures of Katherine on it, and in the corner, what looked liked a pubic hair under a transparent sticker. As soon as I realized what I was holding, I burst out laughing so loudly, the kid in the room next to me (who by the way slept through a class this morning he is supposed to be in with me) woke up.

It only got better from there.

I took the hair out of the bag and found the certificate of authenticity, signed by John Reznikoff, who holds the Guinness world record for the largest celebrity hair collection. Plus, to prove it is real, there is a xerox copy of a letter in which somebody named Bob Alles describes how he used to rummage through the dumpster outside her house (244 East 49 street, NYC) to find memorabilia such as hair, fan mail, and clothing. He mentions how he is sure the hair belonged to 'Kate' because over his four year career of garbage digging (1988-1992), he never once found any other type of hair in the dumpster.

So now, I think i am going to keep the hair, not only because Katherine is now dead and the hair will be worth thousands in a few years, but because I think it is much funnier than the George Michael autograph, and maybe I'll start a celebrity hair collection to try and dethrone John Reznikoff.

30.4368499 Days (That’s The Average Length Of A Month or A Possible Title For A New “Rent” Song)

Long title—I know. It’s all I could think of. But I digress. I’m sitting in the Raleigh/Durham airport waiting for my flight home for the (high) holidays and normally I’d just be listening to some music pre-flight. However, my 5pm flight has been delayed 2 ½ hours…it would have been faster to drive. Naturally, I bought some Internet time and figured this would be a good time to write a “reflective” blog entry.

Being that I was the first person to depart for college, I am also the first person to spend exactly one month in college (I left on the 22nd and I am going home on the 22nd). It’s probably been one of the craziest months of my life (as documented in my many posts), but really when I think about the first month, it has just been the “prologue” for the rest of my college career. Trust me I hate “novel” analogies, or anything having to do with books…but hear me out:

Everything up until this point has been a set up for the next four years. I have established a good group of friends, joined a major co-curricular club (apparently we have 3 shows next week, plus practices…Oy!) and have gotten back into the swing of classes and work. In fact, today was my very first test of college and on Tuesday my first short term paper is due. In other words, I actually have some semblance of a routine.

Sorry, I’ve gotten all mushy. Of course, not everything is perfect. Duke couldn’t win a football game against our former high school even if “that school” forfeited. I speak less to my roommate than Helen Keller spoke to Anne Sullivan. I can’t stand drunken people trying to give me hugs…actually I can’t stand hugs in general (especially 10-foot ones…Ben knows what I’m talking about). I use my food points way too often, rather than just eating in the marketplace off my meal plan. I’ve become dependent on my iPod to fall asleep at night and have created a playlist for everyday of the week (a little obsessive, right?). But really, none of the above “complaints” are all that important. I’m just trying to kill time in the airport. Maybe I should stop typing so fast.

Hopefully, there’ll be more “interesting” things to talk about during my second month at Duke but so far so good. I’m actually feeling so good that I won’t make a degrading remark about UNC…just kidding, they will eternally suck!

Onto Thin Air

The UMD activities fair finally took place, yesterday and today, and I went to it twice hoping to get a more in depth glance at what I could participate in at Maryland. Often, when I asked college kids on my prospective college visits what they would have done differently if they could do it over, they'd say: "I just wish I had gotten involved earlier." I didn't want that to be me. I also had read about the exploits of David (down at the unmentionable school that starts with a D), and wanted something similar. Improv is a great activity for him, but what could be the counterpart for me?

On Wednesday I went the "First Look Fair" and was quite overwhelmed. There were a lot of tables with everyone hawking free stuff, or trying to get your attention. Problem was, there wasn't too much I was interested in. There was some cool stuff, but nothing that really made me say: "Oh! I want to sign up for that!"

I came back to the dorm, and Jonathan the roomy pulled out a flyer and said: "Did you see this? An open house tomorrow night. We should go to it." I nodded. "Sounds cool."

"Oooh, but there's also this free comedy show the same night," he said.
"Good point."
"Whatever, let's go to the open house. That might actually lead to something."
"Yeah, you're definitely right," I said, and it was decided.

Today I went back to the fair, but there wasn't that much new to see. I got some free stuff (2 frisbees and a keychain, not to mention roomy got a flag and a bunch of posters), signed up for some more stuff that I was lukewarm about, and then took off for a class. As the time was approaching for the open house we were getting a little more excited. This could be cool.

Well, that went out of our mind when we saw the meeting room. It was attached to the side of the diner, but had plaster all over the walls, and was quite bare. There wasn't much too it, and it seemed a little run down. But we found the room we needed to go to by following the bubbling sound of voices, and were ushered into a very crowded room. "I'm sorry we don't have more applications," said someone who was quite obviously in charge. "We'll try and run some more off quickly."

Roomy and I were looking around with wide eyes, trying to figure out what was going on, when someone came into the room and asked: "Anyone here for sports radio? Raise your hands." Roomy and I raised our hands, and looked around the room. We were the only ones with our hands up. "No competition," we shrugged to one another.

Off we went, following someone named Adam. "MAN of the HOUSE" read his nametag. "We're in the middle of a Q and A session with Bob Carpenter, actually," he explained to us. "We'll slip you in, and afterwards, let you know the deal about radio." He led us to a room, but before we went in, we ran into a couple people standing outside of it. "Umm, we need this room," they said to Adam. "We have to move again? Damn..." They shrugged an apology and we walked in. "We're gonna have to go out into the hall, sorry," Adam announced.

"You know, there'd be a lot of announcers in the business I know who wouldn't be happy about this, but I'm not one of them," he joked. Bob Carpenter, if you don't know, is the play by play guy for the Washington Nationals on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN). For the next hour we got to stand in the hallway and ask questions of a guy who's worked for ESPN, and has done baseball play by play games for over 20 years. And if that wasn't enough, here's the kicker:

"By the way, if you guys want to come down to a Nats' game next week, and watch how we call it from inside the press box, or inside the producer truck, we'd love to have you. Not too many kids, but maybe the 10 to 15 of you that are here now could come down, and we'd get you press passes."

An incredible experience, and when it was over, we learned more about possibly getting a show, or broadcasting games. "You can start out almost immediately with your own sports talk show, that'll go out over the internet. We just need you to pick some time slots. And if you want to work some games, that'll be tough, but if you put in the time producing games, help us out when we need help, and prove yourself a good announcer, you'll definitely move up the ranks quickly."

"When I was a freshman," the sports director continued, "this place was a dump. Sports radio was very low on the radar. And now, here we are with Bob Carpenter coming in here, we're broadcasting every major sport and even starting to do softball next semester...this place is on the rise. It's an exciting time to join WMUC - I wish I was a freshman now. So feel lucky."

If this night was anything like what my further experience will be, I sure as hell will.

Tradition

This past sunday I experienced my first Wellesley tradition. Actually it was my second (the first was jumping into the lake on our first night here, but that was more of an unofficial one). It was Flower Sunday, where I met my big sister, who gave me flowers, and then all big and little sisters went to the chapel for a mutlifaith service. Theme: stars. It was long and random. They had a dramatic reading of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Oh, traditions. I haven't really met or seen my big sister since then, even though she lives downstairs. I'm just too damn busy (and people keep telling me "oh, it'll get worse." Thanks!). But I now have flowers.

Our first frisbee tournament is on the 30th, at Yale. It's getting harder, especially after pilates/yoga in the morning when my abs and back hurt a lot. I thought that was supposed to be all relaxing and meditative... But anyway, since everyone is posting about their college's football victories and we don't have a football team, I'll post about our frisbee victories. Like how we kicked Brandeis and MIT ass.

Right now the work doesn't seem to be that much more than jds. Then again most people around me have to write papers every week and none of my classes require that so I sort of lucked out. Of course this means that I'll have 10 papers due next week since I wrote about it, but this is for the sake of the internet. Tubes! The only intense part is having math and women's studies tests on the same day.

This past weekend we had our first big on-campus party, Remix. There used to be something called Tower Court, which was a huge yearly party that everyone went to and anyone you talk to will know what it is. However, due to some problems that were completely blown out of proportion, it was cancelled. They had Remix this year, aka the party formerly known as Tower Court. There were boys!!! Actually, I stayed in the dorm, watched movies, talked, made origami and smores, and just hung out. At first I felt like a hermit, but then as people returned (within an hour of going to the party) I realized I spent my time well. It was nothing but very loud music and very drunk guys rubbing against very uncomfortable girls. Plus I got to meet many cool new people from my dorm. For future reference: if you are a man on the Wellesley campus, saying "you go to Wellesley, you know you want me!" will not get you very far. In fact, it will send to backwards toward the wall. Also getting drunk is stupid.

French verbs await.

Making It Up As I Go Along

When it’s raining, it can mean only one thing…possible flooding. Actually, two things…possible flooding and a new blog entry from David (DUKE). The past 7 days have been intense. Since the activities fair I have been going to different groups to check them out, but some of them require that you audition. The one group that most appealed to me was DUI (Duke University Improv—the only improv group on campus). It’s seven guys who perform on average one show a week including during orientation, parents weekend and a huge show at the end of the year. I saw them perform during Orientation and thought they were really funny, so I signed up to audition last Tuesday afternoon.

Well, there were 70 people total who auditioned and in my timeslot there were 3 others. For half and hour, we played some games like “Change,” “Emotions” and “Freeze”—the type of stuff you see on whose line is it anyway. I thought it went pretty well. At one point we had to randomly pick an adjective and noun from some cards. I got “Salty” and “Nun” and played it like I was a nun literally covered in salt. They seemed to like that.

Well, the next day I got an e-mail inviting me to a callback. 10 people were chosen to come to a 2-hour call back on Sunday, but first DUI had a 3-hour workshop on Thursday to teach us some improv techniques. See, very intense. We learned to always agree, say “Yes And…” and always justify your actions. It was exhausting but really fun and there was lots of laughing.

Well, Sunday rolled around and after lots of driving around North Carolina the previous night (see: “The Last Exit”) I was very tired but ready. DUI said we had to prepare a monologue for our call back to show our range, but I decided to try something different and write a song parody about the group members to the tune of…Do You Hear The People Sing? (…naturally) They seemed to like it but I was still very nervous. I thought the callback went well, but I just wasn’t sure about whether I’d make it. It was all a blur. I remember at one point playing a gay detective living in Paris who takes a road trip to Praha, but that’s about it.

Well, Monday all I could do was refresh my e-mail to see if I got anything from DUI. By 8 PM still nothing. I was sitting in my room after dinner just surfing the web when the seven guys from DUI come walking into my room. They asked my roommate to leave and closed the door. One of them, Matt, began, “Umm, we like to talk to all of the callbacks to tell them about some positives and negatives from their audition. We really liked you and thought you were funny, but unfortunately there’s just not enough room to take you this year…

“…Just kidding, you made it man. Congratulations!” I was shocked to say the least and staring rattling off some expletives. The group took only 2 other guys and we all went to tell them about the “bad, but really good” news. After getting the 9th and 10th members, the guys drive us off-campus to a sports bar where they told us all about the group and we discussed our auditions. It was fun, hilarious…my best moment so far at Duke. Tonight is our first practice from 10-12 PM and, at this point, there is nowhere else I’d rather be…of course, that includes UNC!

check out DUI at www.dukeuniversityimprov.com

Gameday with the claw, and other fairy tales

Alright.

Everyone else has told stories of their school that sort of represents who they are, while my last blog entry was me moping about in a depressed state of confusion at the start of classes. But after Ezra's crack about Northwestern (I hate to say it, but US News and World Report has got to be wrong), I figured I'd make a crack in return, and share a few other stories from Northwestern.

First off, on Saturday was Northwestern's third football game of the year, another one at home. Of course, the party started 3 hours before the game, at 10 a.m., when someone was banging on my door. While I was perturbed by the disturbance, I was curious as to its source. Low and behold, in the hallway are 2 seniors.
Their title: the travelling bar.
Their job: to give Freshman a shot of vodka at 10 in the morning.
The lesson: on an empty stomach, at 10 a.m., vodka is not the best way to wake up.

The second story comes from Northwestern's football game. Now, I know Daniel goes to Michigan, which played like a professional football team when they slaughtered Notre Dame. Northwestern, on the other hand, played like a high school football team and eaked out a victory against the awful Eastern Michigan. Of course, cheers at the game included sticking our hand up as a claw and yelling before every play, as well as shaking our keys before every kickoff. The reason: apparently, one day they'll be driving our cars, though according to Ezra, they will now be driving Ezra's cars.

Now a quick bash at Chicago: when a traveling group came to talk to us about sex, they had a joke as follows:
Aw man, I can talk to girls. I go to Northwestern, not Chicago.

The third story occured at 2 a.m. this morning. After watching a hypnotist and partying, everyone came back to the dorm of Elder, and talked in our hall. And talked. And talked. At about 3 a.m., we all moved into mine and my roommates room. Now, the dimensions of Northwestern's rooms in my hall are 12 by 15, but without the closet, drawer space, and big box next to the window (purpose: unknown), its about 12 by 12. Now, this meant, that for 23 people, each person had about 6 square feet of space. Now, including desks and the beds, this meant that we were all sitting on top of each other. Now, that's a party and a bonding experience, and that's why Northwestern beats out UChicago any day.

And finally, as I wind down and prepare for my first day of classes tomorrow, I want to leave you with some valuable advice that a wise man, named Evan, gave me before leaving for college.

"Be good to your teeth, or their be false to you"

O Say Can UC (Ezra UChicago)

I have had the most insane few days. Awesome, intimidating, tiring, exciting - I don't even know how to feel.

Saturday was a whirlwind of running around campus to get our IDs, a bunch of free stuff (shirts, frisbees, bagels) and of course, moving in and meeting our roommates, housemates and dormmates.

We had Convocation, where among other speeches, Dean of Admissions Ted O'Neil said something to the effect of:

As you may know, U of C is now ranked number 9 by US News. This is a 36% increase from 14th place, where we were only a few short weeks ago. What does this mean? Well, it means that we are now 36% better, and accordingly, will raise tuition by 36%. It also means that 36% of you are no longer qualified to be here. Don't worry, there's another college out in the suburbs that I hear has some new openings.

(I just had to continue the tradition of making jokes for Matthew alone.)

There was the Official Separation from our Parents where we officially crossed under a gate and became Chicago students.

Since then we have had a scavenger hunt around downtown Chicago that lead us to the Cheesecake Factory in the basement of the John Hancock building, lots of meetings about classes and the Core requirements, a game of midnight Clue to fit with our house theme (according to the sign on my door, I killed someone with a wrench. Also I am Professor Plum). We had a flood on the west side of the 8th floor of somehow avoided my room:



We've had calculus placement tests and Spanish placement tests. I take the infamous swim test at 8:40 tomorrow morning. In less than an hour we are going to the Kingston Mines blues club which I am very excited about. To reiterate, it's been and intense few days.

So far I really like it here. In between a Chicago Life meeting and our calculus test yesterday a few of us were just sitting on the grass, reviewing concepts like the Chain Rule that we had all forgotten about, surrounded by amazing ivy-covered neogothic buildings. The weather was perfect, and it felt so college-y.



I'm so tired.

Hail to the Victors

So I am writing to tell you of my weekend. This weekend has been the best so far for numerous reasons. The first of course is that we beat the bloody hell out the the so called "no. 2" team in the country. This was a very big win for Michigan because we moved up to no. 6 and the fighting Irish fell to a measley no. 12. Also, we beat them when we were away...they were expected to beat us by over 40 points (We tought Duke Lacrosse should take a lesson on what it means to be rape someone)...thats not funny. Anyway this weekend was also excellent because I am finally unpacked...yes it took me two weeks to unpack. The reason is I just moved rooms into a double out of the triple I was in (I am sorry, there will be no more Harold and Kumar jokes). Anyway, I felt that I had to talk about how Notre Dame sucks and they are all hype - GO BLUE!!

The Last Exit

It’s late. I’ve finished all my work. I have an 8:30 class tomorrow, but…no! I feel possessed to write another blog entry. Why, you ask (or maybe you don’t). Well, I guess it’s been a while since I last posted and it’s depressing to open the blog and see an entry about not being in college. So, here I go:

Friday was an important day for me…it was the opening of “The Last Kiss” starring Zach Braff and Rachel Bilson (both Jewish), a movie I had been anxiously anticipating. Luckily, one of my new friends, Samantha, was also anxiously anticipating this movie. So, we decided that, no matter where it was playing, we would go see the movie together on Saturday. I say “no matter where” because Sam brought a car. Some background: She’s from El Paso, Texas and is big on George Bush (but I forgive).

I found a “nearby” theater in Durham, NC (same city as Duke) that was 20 minutes away and playing the movie at 7:55. I printed off directions from Map Quest and decided I’d navigate. Now anyone who knows me, who I assume are people reading this, knows I have a terrible sense of direction. Fun ensues! We headed out at 7:25 leaving “ample” time in case we got lost…and of course we got lost. It was already 7:55 when we got back on the right highway and I was freaking out because I can’t miss the beginning of a movie…never ever! By some miracle we got to the theater at 8:05 just as the previews were ending.

The movie was great, by the way—Funny, but also very dark and realistic. However, the fun only continued once we got back on the road to head home. We were about 10 minutes away from Duke when we went to the wrong exit on a freeway split. We figured that we’d be able to get back onto the freeway if we just kept driving and driving and driving.

Sam asked if there were trees near me back home. I answered, “Of course.” She then proceeded to tell me that she’s nervous driving here because everything looks the same because of all the trees. Where she lives you can see for miles—no trees, just tumble weeds. This obviously made me very comfortable driving in a car with her.

After driving and getting nowhere, we pulled into a bar as it was closing. I asked politely how do I get back to Duke. The waitress laughed at me and said, “You’re in Cary, NC—30 minutes away.” I felt like I was on Lost and she was an Other (Matthew will get that reference). I got directions back and after 30 minutes we actually arrived back to Duke. However, it was already 11:30. That’s right, a 20-minute drive turned into a 1 ½ hour drive. It was some nice, if not very tense, bonding and we learned our way around North Carolina. So, anything for a good movie, right? Thankfully, we never ended up in Chapel Hill (Home of UNC)—that really would have sucked!

Why am I not in college yet?

I am sitting in a hotel room in Sturgis, Michigan, a small town just north of the Indiana border off of Route 80. We had dinner in Shipshewana, an Amish town in Indiana, and drove back alongside horses and buggies.

We spent the day driving through Pennsylvania and Ohio, with lots of time spent looking out the window and taking pictures like this one. Luckily we were prepared; we brought a good supply of folk music to carry us through the heartland of America.

We were going to try to make it work out so that Daniel (UChicago) and his family would stay in the same place as us tonight, but apparently his dad is obsessed with getting to Chicago as soon as possible and refused to ever let them stop the car so they could get to Chicago by tonight (or so claims Daniel). Tomorrow we will each show up at the University of Chicago and finally, finally be in college. It took long enough.

I doubt I have anything new I can add about how it feels to be going away, I imagine I'm feeling what you all felt when you were on the road to your school. The only difference, I suppose, is that I'm doing it so much later than everyone else, so I have the benefit of learning from everyone else's experiences. It's scary to think about how much responsibility I am going to have to take. I've been making jokes about how I'm scared the RAs (or whichever acronym it is) will be coming around at 10:00 telling us to go bed. But the truth is that I don't know how I'm going to get myself to go to bed at all, let alone early enough to not be totally dead the next morning. I don't know how I'll get myself up in the morning, something I have always been bad at. I don't know if I will do all my homework if it never gets checked. I suppose everyone else has been able to manage it so I probably will be fine, but I still feel nervous.

I'm nervous about everything. How is the food? Am I going to get addicted to coffee? What am I going to do if everyone is smarter than me? Will all my classes be full of pretentious kids who keep saying things like "I think what Plato meant was that we are all subject to the ephemeral injustice of the human condition as it applies in a thoroughly neolithic media-based community-centered society. Paradigm."? How will I watch "The Office", aside from on the DVDs I bought myself as a going away present? What if it's true that Pierce Tower rooms are actually smaller than a prison cell?

Of course, I do have Chicago's legendary 9 day orientation (can you imagine how late in the year I'm going to start next year?) to get used to things. Hopefully I will not spend the entire time curled up in a ball under my bed making incomprehensible noises.

I am very glad that Daniel is going to be going through this with me.

And now, I am going to eat my chocolate and peanut butter pie from the Blue Gate Restaurant ("Where if it ain't fried, we don't got it!").

Ezra supports cholesterol research!

It's Raining

Yeah. It's raining outside. But inside Wolman 6th floor, the sun always shines!!!!!

Okay, so, I've been here for what, almost 2 weeks? 2 weeks! And classes have started, you know, I'm having a lot of fun (what? hopkins? fun!? yes my friends, lots and lots of fun...) I'm getting emails from these random groups I signed up for, etc etc. I think Ben (UMD) mentioned this regarding sept. 11, but I am going to expand. In college, you really are responsible for your own learning. The professors don't tell you the homework--you are expected to read the syllabus! And you don't get an assignment book. So right now I am copying all my hws from the syllabi (sp?) into my little freshman planner. And here's another big difference from high school. Professors generally don't care what you have to say, especially in intro classes. I mean, its totally understandable. I'm just not used to the teacher NOT going over something a few times, the confused and pained looks of my classmates and I, waving arms, you know. You just kind of sit there, mark if you have a question, and go over it at your TA session, if you have one. But if you don't, I guess you just make an appt with a professor.

Which brings me back to my point about taking initiative--you have to seek out everything for yourself here, because no one is doing it for you. But I am lucky enough to be in two small classes, and one 30 person class. One is a freshmen seminar and one is just a section for majors (writing seminars) even though I'm undecided about my major. The first question everyone here asks is" what's your major?" I am seriously in the minority here, not knowing. Nope, chief, I am truly undecided. Another thing: so far, the people here are just really fascinating. On our floor, there is someone from basically every part of the country, and everyone has a really unique story. An example: there are people who've lived in another country for 8 years. Most people are just really engaged and interested and curious about everything.

Okay folks, time to get back to work before shabbat, hillel, you know, the good stuff...
peace, love, biomedical engineering,
Lauren

Ultimate

Today was the first actual frisbee practice (there was one on tuesday, but it was more like "woo, flying discs!"). This is like... an actual sport. First of all, year-round training (outdoors then indoors then outdoors). And actual running and conditioning. 2-hour practices 3 times a week. It's quite awesome, if hard. I think we get some sort of PE credit for it, too.
School, on the other hand, is becoming crazy. It's only the end of the 2nd week, dammit. I have 2 tests on one day on the 28th (math and women's studies), and I'm basically teaching myself music theory for Jazz. I don't get calc II, I just hope I pass. And WOST, well, it's all theoretical so it's what you make of it. Plus work. I'm pretty much out of the room from 9-6 every day. But it's cool cause we just had practice so I'm all endorphin-happy.
Other things I've done lately include: joining the WRITE project, which matches us up with pen pals from a local elementary school (one hour a month to make a little kid happy? woot.) Last night we had our first Munger Tea, which was actually a lot of fun. The House President (HP) is pretty cool. There were cookies, and we were ladylike by playing Would You Rather. Hint: go straight to chapter 2.

Now I have laundry waiting to be dried. 2 loads!


ps: The pipes here are so loud. Last night (2am) we thought our upstairs neighbors were dropping desks. It's supposed to improve... Or at least out sleeping skills will.

A NU Life

First, I'd like to say I'm trying to satisfy David with an interesting post title (play on words, NU is like new and northwestern university), but I'm not that original.

I officialy began my stay at Northwestern University at 3:00 p.m. on September 11. The place: Northwestern University's own Hillel building, at an overnight program known as Freshman Fest. Basically, me and 100 other clueless freshman spent the night in the Hillel building, meeting people, making friends to last a lifetime, and having tons of fun.

Well, thats the goal at least.

In truth, I spent the first half feeling awkward, not being able to make conversation with a single soul, and feeling generally miserable.

But, things got better. I played Ultimate Frisbee, and met a few kids that I became friends with. None of them were the greatest people I've ever known, but I talked with one girl for over an hour (new Facebook friend), and I played Frisbee and got to know a couple of other kids for about an hour and a half. However, by moving in day, I haven't spoken to any of them, I forget half their names, and I don't know where they live. Ah, the difficulties of college.

Anyways, the plan was to meet even more new people today, after moving in. Instead, I still know...no one, I'm in a cramped room, and I brought way too much stuff. However, from the positive side-everyone is hopefully in the same situation, and I'm sure I'll meet a bunch of people.

I hope.

9 + 11 + 06 = 5 Years Since

September 11th opened my eyes to a big difference between college and high school that I hadn't really thought about before. In high school, things are brought to you. There is virtually no necessity for students to seek out their academic experiences - it is the job of the high school to force you into them. With only the notable exception of extracurricular activities, every student in a given high school will have more or less the same experience regardless of how much time outside of classes they put in. This changes radically in college, and I think there's no better example than on American holidays. In high school, you have assemblies to help remind you about what the nation is celebrating on that day, and to focus your thinking. But in college it doesn't work like that. To make something meaningful, you have to go after it yourself - set aside time to think about what the day means, or find an activity that will remind you. College is a lot about freedom, and freedom is a lot about what you do with it.

That being said, I was lucky enough to get an email about a speech taking place today. I don't think I would have done anything unique for the day if I didn't get the email, but instead I attended a seminar by one John Brady Kiesling. He's the author of a new book, called Diplomacy Lessons, and was a former member of the foreign services. He resigned his post in Greece in 2003 prior to the US invasion of Iraq, saying:

“Until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.”

Apparently the fact that he was speaking on September 11th was simply serendipitous - it just happened to be when he was in the area and free to speak (he's been on his book tour). But because it was 9/11, he said he decided to center his talk around "How 9/11 Changed Diplomacy." Centered is a loose term, however, because he didn't really center his speaking around anything in particular.

I was a tad worried at first, that this was not at all what I was expecting, that it was a waste of my time. He didn't strike me initially as the greatest public speaker, and his rambling style put me off. There was no way to leave without being incredibly rude, however, so I stuck it out - and I was glad I did. What I was left with, after his unfocused talk and answers to various questions was a startling impression of the world that I hadn't encountered before. (By unfocused I don't mean to imply that there was a problem with the content, it just was a series of very interesting anecdotes that I had to put together into a larger picture myself.)

Kiesling downplayed the threat of Iran, saying that the picture we're getting from the media is hyped up. We don't have an embassy in Iran, he said, so the information we get on them is based on the intelligence we've gathered, on their most dangerous political figures. We don't get an accurate view of what their society is like, what it supports and what it doesn't. You could do the same thing with us, Kiesling said. If you selected certain people to monitor, it would look like we're an unstable, warmongering nation.

And example after example, this is what he seemed to be saying: Americans have hugely distorted views about what foreign nations are like - and for the same reasons, foreigners have hugely distorted views of what Americans are like. When you boil society down to its bare bones, it's simply a collection of individuals, who make decisions in much the same way we do. And foreign policy seems to forget this. It treats situations as black and white, it labels countries and peoples, it simplifies things without justification.

To fight a war on terrorism, Kiesling said, means to fight a war you are going to lose. Terrorism will work as long as it is successful, and it succeeds because of the goals of those who employ it. They aren't trying to achieve a political goal, they're trying to create a polarized world where extreme doctrines, such as their own, flourish. And terrorism is the perfect means to accomplish this. So to decide to wage a war on terror is ignorance. You don't put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. You make sure it doesn't have anything to feed on. You have to create a world where citizens will not tolerate terrorists among them, a world where understanding is promoted among the most diverse of people, a world where extremism cannot and will not live. You don't fight terrorism. You make it irrelevant.

It's been 5 years since terrorism took center stage, and made itself relevant. The United States simply seems to have decided to combat the blaze by throwing logs at it. And predictably, all it has done is feed the fire.

My one wish, for this day, is that 5 years from now we will have learned from our mistakes and grown, as individuals and as a nation. We will have grown towards understanding, and grown towards a world where nothing like what happened 5 years ago today can ever happen again.

(And if you want to read a wonderful and moving novel that will really hammer home the impact of what happened, pick up Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safron Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated.)

Yea for drinking...just not too much

Hey so this post is dedicated to all those amazing parties that Michigan has...and to highlight some of the brutal sights at these parties. So last night (Saturday) I was walking around with Eitan (Michigan) and some of his friends and we went to a few parties. After about an hour and a half we ended up at Delta Chi...a Frat where people were just chilling and playing some beer pong. When we walked in, this girl was lying on the couch just as you can see in the picture. She was completely passed out. Don't worry she is ok because as we were leaving, she was walking (more like stumbling) around. There were many people taking pictures of her (yea its a bit cruel but what can you do) so I joined in. I've see people who are drunk before but I usually do not see people passed out in garbage cans. I just want to let everyone know (I dont really know what the point of this post was, but mainly to have a reason to put this picture online) that college life is going well and after a week of classes everyone should party hard...just not to hard.

Also, everyone should check out this link. It shows you what U of M people are doing/did. By the way did you guys know that Michigan is the only university to have a flag on the Moon? Yea thats pretty cool. Enjoy

http://www.umich.edu/pres/psa/

Check it out.