Brrrrr...

Sorry I've been gone awhile, I've just been trying to keep up with other things. It's starting to get chilly out now, and I can only hope we're not in for another winter like last year's. Don't get me wrong, I like the change of the seasons and all, but I'm an outdoor guy and I can only take the cold for so long. Last Sunday, I played in a pick IM Frisbee tournament on Aldrich Field (a large field outside one of the dorms) and it was unbelievably cold and windy tipping us off that it's time to move things into the field house from here on out. Nonetheless, it was still a lot of fun, and I'd do it again despite the weather conditions. Following that, my roommates and our friend Parker headed to the Slow Food dinner to warm up; Slow Food is a campus club that advocates eating food which has been produced locally and with minimum processing, and let me say the only thing easier to swallow than their ideology is their home cooking (delicious).

Anyway, I've just been working hard in my classes as usual, but in Creative writing we're moving into the fiction unit for the semester which has been a lot of fun so far. I mean, I like poetry fine, but for me, it just can't compare with a good story. Speaking of good stories, on Monday night I watched the movie, "The Fall" with Joe, Luke and friends, and it was amazing. I'm very critical of movies (although I like them a lot) , and it's been awhile since I've watched one that didn't make feel like tracking down the director and demanding that he or she return the last two hours of my life to me at no charge. However, "The Fall" was a welcome change, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys movies that are actually good.

Hmmm...what else is there to say?I haven't had time to exercise at all lately and I feel like I'm deteriorating, but on the upside I'm looking foreward to Halloween and this weekend quite a bit; Joe, Luke, and myself went down to Salvation Army yesterday to purchase medical scrubs, clipboards, and a stethoscope (Joe dropped $9.99 on it, sucker) for our male nurse costumes. We plan to run around campus spouting meaningless medical jargon, scribbling out bogus forms on our clipboards, and declaring people legally dead. We'll I think that's all she wrote (actually it's all I wrote) , I don't have any news for you today because I live in a box and am entirely absorbed in the day to day trivialities of my own life :) Welcome to college. (It's pretty fun).

Jacy's Jam: "C'mon C'mon" by the Von Bondies

Break is over and all that

Well it's been a surprisingly uneventful couple of weeks. As you may have gathered from my last frantic post, I spent the last week before Fall break rushing around like crazy to get all my papers done, and you'll be happy to know that I did. However, you probably don't want to hear much about that, so I'll move on to the events (or lack there of) of my break. As usual, I returned home to scenic Michigan (it actually is really nice this time of year) to unwind and spend a little quality time with my folks. Instead of flying, this year I took the Amtrak home; it's way cheap, and although the ride is long, it's relaxing, you can sleep and listen to music without a small child kicking the back of your seat. Anyway, it was great to see my parents and my sister, Shandra, who is now a senior at Swarthmore College (she had a break too). However, most of my friends were either still at school, or too busy working to do much of anything, so for the most part I just hung out and relaxed, and took care of odds and ends. Highlights included eating real food, hanging out with my family, sleeping in, reading A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold for Botany, getting back on my 4 mile running regiment, and the purchase of plaid sidewalk surfers at American Eagle for $14.95.


The Saturday before I returned to Beloit (the 18th) , I did catch up with friends Nick and Andy who had recently moved into to their own apartment (which now smells terrible due to careless disregard for trash and dishes) and we watched many hours of blissful college football. What could be better? Well, winning is nice every once in a while. Although I still enjoyed the games, it seemed like nearly every team I pulled for ended up 28 points in the hole the end of the first quarter. I don't want to any names, but seriously, Michigan State/Missouri, C'mon! It turned out the best game I watched was the classic match up between Texas Tech and A&M, and despite the fact that I am nowhere near, or remotely affiliated with either of these institutions, I found myself really voting for A&M, needless to say they too lost.

I returned to Beloit yesterday via a combination of train and bus once again, although this time I was nearly stranded at Union Station, but that's a whole other thing. As soon as I got back to my room, I did some laundry, got in a long overdue shave, and then went out to grab some dinner at local eatery Dominico's. Then we watched a mildly disappointing World War II themed Family Guy and parted ways for the evening. At this point, I did a little Aristotle reading for Ancient Philosophy , and then I caught up with Joe, Luke, and our friend Alex in the Pearson's (our student union) TV lounge and watched the Sox loose to the Rays. Joe is a die hard Red Sox fan and naturally I mocked him incessantly for the rest of the night.

I think that about does it, although I will mention that I got back a Philosophy paper today and I was pretty pumped to receive that A this time. Ok, until next time.

Jacy's Jams: "Move to Newlyn" by the Subways

News Flash: Joe the Plumber does not in fact posses a plumbing license and he owes $12oo in back taxes, lol.

Ahhhhh!!#?

Oh boy, things are getting crazy up in here, I can't wait for fall break. Stuff really went south this last week; I've got a big Environmental Ethics Paper due Thursday and another one for Ancient Philosophy due Friday, not to mention the daily work from my other classes that just keeps on coming. As you might have begun to suspect at this point, I didn't do to much of interest to you, the reader, this last weekend. Friday, I played a little pick up Frisbee before dinner where I got in most of my socializing for the night, and then I worked on papers until around 11:00pm. After that, I decided just to have a chill night, so I watched 28 Days later with a few friends (whoops) and then headed to bed. Saturday, I spent roughly 9 hours in the library and finished my Ethics paper, (Which I feel is an excellent defense of Regan's stance on Animals rights), and then I went out with everyone for a bit to let off some steam. Sunday morning found me back in the ol' library reading Plato's Symposium in its entirety, and then moving on to proof read aforementioned paper. Later, I got together with classmates to work on our Botany experiment proposal, ever wonder if plants can grow upside down? That's not really what our experiment is but good luck with that. After that, Luke I enjoyed two and half hours of blood-drenched, flag impaling, Mel Gibson in "The Patriot"....classic. Oh yeah, I hope you all , (I'm assuming someone is reading this? Maybe...like, like maybe one or two of you? Common!), watched the VP debates last Thursday, but for those of you who didn't, you heard it here first: "John McCain is a maverick." I wonder if he's ever seen a Mig 28 do a 4g negative dive? (Top Gun is the greatest thing ever to come out of the 80's). Ok well thats enough of that, I don't thinks there much else to say at this point, no photos today due once again to technical difficulties, my bad.

Jacy's Jams: "Do the Panic" by Phantom Planet

New Flash with Jacy BP: I got nothin, no time for the news this week.

On the Weekend and other discourse

Alright, it's been a little while, but I'm back baby! I think my last post was Monday of the previous week, and a lot has happened since then, so I'll try to lay it out. Tuesday, I don't really remember what I did, but I'm sure it involved studying a lot and being sick, oh yeah and the economy collapsed somewhere in there. I'm considering requesting a bail-out my own personal finances at some point in the near future, so watch for that in the news :) Oh, and I also watched the movie "Snakes on a Plane" for the first time on Tuesday night with some friends, and I've got to say, it was pretty hilarious if only because it captured the overproduction, mediocrity, and general absurdity of the film industry oh so well, also everyone loves Samuel L. Jackson (Shown upper right with a snake, on a plane). I've also heard that there is actually a sequel cleverly entitled "Snakes on a Train" but I've yet to verify this claim.

Ok, moving on, Wednesday night I attended a rush event at local fraternity Phi Kappa Phsi, (I think that's right). It was a formal cheese tasting, (Yes this is Wisconsin), and needless to say I ate sooo much cheese. I think I'm safe in saying a good time was had by all. And no, I'm not joining a frat, but that doesn't stop me from living the good life (That's me in the red and blue tie for those of you who remain unsure of my identity).



Anyway, I'm pretty sure nothing happened Thursday, although the weather did start to get nice again about then, and that's a pretty major event for me. Wisconsin weather can be beautiful, and it is often made more so by the contrast between the good weeks and the awful ones- Boring...sorry about that digression. Friday was great, I had gotten so much homework done on Thursday that I actually had a little time to kick back, oh and for those of you who have been on the edge of your seats, I pulled an A- on my Ancient Philosophy exam. Sadly, my academic buddy Peter managed to get an A causing my A- to appear inadequate and impotent (just kidding Peter, I'm happy for you, but seriously...). Friday morning we went on a botany field trip to Newark Road Prairie, a restored ecosystem owned by the college. It was great to be outside and all, although I was entirely covered in some kind two pronged burr, turns out its primary mode of dispersal attaching to animals as they walk by, oops. Later that afternoon, Joe, Luke, our friend Dan who is known for his smooth radio voice, and myself got out to the old Indian mounds on the academic side of campus and played some Boccie Ball, (that's right, I got someone to play with me), it was a beautiful day and there were lots of people out and about. That night we all got together to watch the debates which was both entertaining and horribly depressing. I also enjoyed shouting out various logical fallacies at different points during the debate and I can only look forward to seeing Palin and Biden go at it, a proverbial clash of the titans I'm sure. Over all a great Friday. Below are some pics going left to right of friends Parker and Misha, and myself at Newark Rd, the great Boccie Ball Game, and a group of us generic college kids watching the debates.



Saturday and Sunday were pretty good as well, although a lot of my friends including Joe, Luke, Dan and Parker were absent a large part of the time at a Frisbee tournament (hopefully I'll go next time). Sunday afternoon I spent cramming for the hefty Botany exam I took today, but I think it went ok. Sunday night, Joe, Luke, and I tried to watch a weird Jone of Arc movie called "the Messenger"that we naively rented from the library , but it was terrible and I would rank it among such classics as "the New World," "Beowulf" starring Christopher Lambert, and "Alien 3000." Also at this point I feel obligated to tell you that I took a picture of Joe and Luke playing Magic the Gathering today and only technical difficulties have prevented me from posting it. Well, I think thats about all for now, but from now on I'm going to end every post with a music recommendation, (because I try to incorporate alternative rock into everything), and hopefully a news related fun fact, here goes:

Jacy's Jams: "Drinking in LA" by Bran Van 3000

News flash with Jacy B.P. : Researchers at UCLA discovered a new prime number that is 13 digits long this week!

About my weekend...

I’m back after a great weekend. As I alluded to in my last post, the previous weekend was parent’s weekend and my folks made the six hour drive from good ol’ Michigan to come and see me. It was the first time they had met Joe and Luke, and it was the first time I had met Joe’s and Luke’s families so it was a lot of fun. We all went out and had a nice dinner together on Friday night at La Casa Grande, a Mexican restaurant downtown (this is free publicity), but anyway we enjoyed showing off our decked out room and all of that. On Saturday, my parents and I drove up to Madison and walked around the farmer’s market and State Street, what a great city! Madison has everything one could ever want from a big city minus a lot of the mess, (and it’s only an hour from Beloit, hint hint). We actually spent a lot of our time there looking for gluten-free restaurants as I just recently found out I have Celiacs Disease (look it up if you care), but basically I can’t eat any grain type products as indicated by the depressing Celiac Sprue Association Logo shown here:

Anyway, when I returned from Madison we got in a game of pick up Frisbee of course (there’s one every Saturday at 4:30), and then the parentals cleared out and we got down to the business of Saturday night.

Sunday was a big study day for me as usual and there’s not much that can be said about that, although I did manage to get in a little r&r in here and there. That night, Joe, Luke, our friend Parker, and myself also squeezed in our nightly Air Alert work out which felt pretty good after having missed it on Friday. For those of you who care at all, Air Alert is a series of exercises completed in a certain order on certain days of the week consisting of various jumps, stair steppers, leap ups, burn outs, raises, ect that are intended to increase one’s vertical and is popular among some athletes at Beloit. I was ridiculously tired on Sunday night as usual and got to bed about midnight, but Joe, Luke, and I spent another 45 minuets or so making fun of each other and throwing stuff from our bunks/leaping out of bed and pummeling one another so I didn’t really fall asleep until 1:00 ish, but I managed to get up and run this morning which was nice.

Monday Monday Monday, not much of interest today, although I did have an Ancient Philosophy Exam worth 20% of my grade so I hope that went well…eep. On an unrelated note, I’ve been listening to Albert Hammond Jr. a lot lately, so for any of you who dig alt rock check out these albums (he’s a member of the Strokes btdubs):

A Puzzling Update

Ok second post, just a quick update today (not that much has happened in the enormous time span between Monday and Wednesday). Anyway, the highlight of my day on Tuesday was making it to ultimate practice for the first time in a week or so. I love playing, its good exercise and it’s a great way to unleash a little after six hours of class. Right after practice we went to commons for a nice dirty, sweaty dinner, and I’d half to say that the highlight of that meal was definitely butterfingers mixed with soft serve ice cream, delicious. I’m always trying to come up with new ways to utilize the soft serve machines, past efforts have included root beer floats in little Commons cups, various baked goods with ice cream on top, ice cream in cup, ice cream in a bowl, ice cream in cone, and ice cream mixed with the other flavor of ice cream.

Moving on, I had a lot of homework last night so I spent the hours of 8-11:30pm studying moist terrestrial biomes and reading Anaxagoras. Then I managed to get a quick game of ping pong in back at 810,( the dorm I live in, it use to be a frat and now it’s just named after its address, 810 college st.), with Luke. I lost badly due to his excellent technique and propensity to spin. I had planned to go to bed immediately after that and catch up on some much needed sleep, but instead Joe decided to take his online geology quiz that he had put off until 12:30am. It turns out the Philippines have greater potential for a deep focus earthquake than either Kenya or Hawaii.

I set my cell phone alarm for 7:45am (my awesome retro twin bell wind up just broke, total bummer) Wednesday morning (today) so I could get up and run before my 10:15 class as usual, but it just didn’t happen. I couldn’t quite make it out of bed so I rolled over and went back to sleep. At 9:00am Joe’s ipod alarm went off and we made it through one and a half listens of “The Funeral” by Band of Horses before I got up to turn it off. I spent most of today in class and racing to get homework done, my folks are coming up for parents weekend this Friday and I don’t want to get behind. Also, those big midterm assignments are starting to drop like bombs so I’ve been trying to prepare my proverbial bunker as it were (I’m sorry that was terrible, but it’s alliteration at least). We did have great lunch conversation today about black holes and quantum mechanics (I know that sounds pretentious and stereotypically collegiate, but those kinds of conversations do come up). It all started with my friend Eli posing the following analogous riddle: Möbius is to strip as bottle is to what? Anyway, I feel like we all have those days when we wish we had gone into theoretical physics, and today was one of mine. If you’re curious about the riddle, wikipedia “Möbius”. We’ll that’s about all for now, I’m going try to get some more photos and what not going from now on so hopefully that’ll spice this up a bit. Oh yeah one more thing, we’ve been studying Zeno’s paradoxes in Ancient Philosophy and some of them are pretty good, here’s one for you to consider, it called Dichotomy (keep in mind there is no “right” answer or interpretation) :

If you are at point A and you want to reach point B, presumably you will have to first walk half way to B, but in order to get halfway to B you must first walk one quarter of the way to B, and so on and so forth to infinite regress. So how can we ever get anywhere?

This cartoon humorously characterizes the dilemma.

Here we go...

Yeah, so this is it, my first blog entry. I've never really done anything like this before so we'll see how it goes, thus far I've managed to turn on the computer and find this website so I have high hopes for the future. Anyway, the semester is in full swing now and so is that Wisconsin weather, it's been raining pretty consistently all week and it’s starting to get colder. On the upside, all the wetness has afforded me the opportunity to get in a good game of rain-football on Alrich field last Saturday (I'm so sore), totally worth it. Speaking of football, I've gotta say I'm pretty thrilled it's back in season, although nowhere near as much as my roomies Joe and Luke (more on them later) who are obsessed with fantasy leagues. But anyway I'd just like to say that although I hold no particular allegiance to the Packers, you've gotta hand it to Aaron Rogers, good job buddy!

Ok enough said, back to Beloit. I've been here since early August now, so what've I been up to? Well, I was an Orientation Leader for first year students during this year's new student days week, and it was seriously a blast. For starters, I got to move in a couple of weeks before everyone else and enjoy the beautiful summer campus before fall weather started to set in. It was prime time for soccer, ultimate Frisbee, and other outdoor pursuits. Oh yeah, and I got to set up our huge triple dorm room before Joe and Luke showed up, needless to say I took all the best stuff *snicker. However, for the most part it was just a great opportunity to get know some returning students better, and to meet the freshmen before they disappeared into the student body. I had a great time working with my group [I know you guys aren't reading this but here's your shout out :)], and professor of Philosophy Heath Massey, very cool prof.

Well moving on, now that’s all come and gone and I'm back in the thick of academics. This semester I'm overloading credits with five classes including Ancient Philosophy, Intro. to Literary Studies, Botany, Creative Writing, and Environmental Ethics, and I can't lie, it's not easy. They're good courses but what have I gotten myself into? My day consists of a run in the morning, six hours of class, an hour and half of BUFF practice (Beloit Ultimate Frisbee Family, which I've missed a lot due to a perpetual cold), dinner, and then homework or internship depending on the night(ok and maybe a little ping pong). It's pretty intense, but I like it most days. Yeah so that’s a crash course in the semester up to thus far, 10 points if you read all of that. Hopefully future entries will be a little more interesting now that I've got a little of the background info out of the way. Until next time...