Ambiguous Headline

On the UTC webpage there is a headline that reads "UTC Department of Justice sponsors hate crime forum." What I understood was that "sponsors" was the subject and "hate" was the verb. I clicked on it expecting to see a story about controversy. Alas. "Sponsors" was the verb. "Hate" was just an adjective describing the forum. (Which it probably deserves.) So instead of a story about sponsors hating a forum, I get a story about a department sponsoring a forum. Booooring.

Tween idols

You know what are hilarious? UTC Echo articles about Twilight. There are a lot of them. For example, one I read had this snappy headline: Cullen challenges Potter. There's a boring headline if ever I saw one. Here's a better one: Who is Hotter? Cullen or Potter? Anyways, the most recent article was titled "Men not immune to Twilight's bite." Pfffft. Ha ha ha ha ha. What a bunch of losers. Don't these undergraduate journalist wannabes have anything better to do with their lives? Anyways, the journalist pretty much wandered around asking guys whether they had read twilight and which one would they rather be: a vampire or a werewolf. Here were some answers:

Dr. Sligh: I would be a vampire simply because there is so much history to be learned. (Alexie is taking this guy's British Literature class next semester. Ha!)

J. Blake: Edward scares me and Jacob is a classy dude. I would want to be Jacob because he is ripped, seems cool and is pretty hardcore. (According to them, neither this guy nor Dr. Sligh have actually read Twilight.)

J. Petty: I would defiantly be a werewolf because I think I look like one already. (This guy was in my Latin class. He doesn't actually look all that wolfish.)

Anyway, newest poll: Which totally tween idol would you be? Edward, Jacob, Harry Potter, or Dr. Sligh?

Deserted

In honor of Thursday, I'm putting up a poll. Here's the attached scenario:
If you were deserted at school because your sister was taking the Classics Club out to dinner, instead of, oh say, taking you home for dinner, which of the following things would you be sure to have:

1) Food, so you won't starve while waiting for someone to just kill you already.
2) Homework, so at least you can pass otherwise useless time studying for finals! (Pansies)
3) Shorts, so you could go work out in the ARC without being chased away by interns with pitchforks
4) A Nuclear Bomb, so that when you get really bored you can cause the Nuclear Holocaust in Chattanooga (NHC)

More Work than Completely Necessary

Does it ever seem to you that you do more work than is really necessary? Last Tuesday, MyChelle from Choices sent me a message on Facebook asking me if I could find out for her who puts together the Welcome Packages, the packages that are given to all the people who are getting a dorm for the first time. Anyway, I waited until Thursday so I could ask Tyler, the SGA president who took care of those. He advised I see "Val from the Housing Department" with my questions. Anyways, I struck out from the computer lab today towards the "Stacy Town Center" until I realized I had no direction where it was. I got directions from a random handy passer-by and successfully found the Housing Department, down on the crook of University Street and McCallie. Alas! They told me I had to go the Admissions Department because they were the people who put those together.
"OK," I said, "Where is the Admissions Department."
"Uh, hold on," the lady dialed a number, assumably the Admissions Department's, "Hey, where are you guys at?"
Inaudible speaking from the phone.
"They're in the UC, right across from the computer lab. You know where the UC is, right?"

Groooooooooan... I can't believe I had to walk all the way to McCallie and back when all it took was for me to walk across the lobby. Blaaaaaaaaah.

Vintage Dance!

Alright! Last night's vintage dance was a success! Woo hoo! There were circa 30 people there. It was great. I called pretty much every dance. It was a lot of fun. Everything was terrific. For a while, people kept showing up at the wrong room so we had to keep running out there to check the room for lost stragglers. That was A-OK. Of course, even the family who provided the sound was lost. I was quite worried that they wouldn't show up for a while, but fortunately they were just in the other room the whole time. Phew. Anyways, the biggest success of the evening was the Hat Dance. For some reason, everyone really liked it. Anyways, I'm glad it was a humongous success. Hopefully UTC will let us meet over the summer, although I have a feeling there will be some condition preventing this.

Zanier Mocsnet

I have been religiously checking my mocsnet account every day anticipating the addition for Fall 2010 class registration. Hasn't happened yet. However, if you go to UTC.edu, you will see that they changed the login button to something bright blue, theoretically a computer monitor of some sort. Why they made the login button a computer, I do not know. Anyway, my eye is immediately drawn to it since it is bright and blue and off the norm. As I stare at it, I realize it is too small to replace what was there formerly. At least it is zanier or something.

Confirmed Ball

I got an e-mail this morning asking me to confirm the Chattanooga rooms on March 22nd for the Vintage Dance Club. If anyone has any qualms with it being on the Monday before Heather's wedding... Too late! I confirmed. Now it is definitely happening. So now I'm just throwing around ways of getting the word out: E-mail, UTC-MEMO, Posters, etc.

Oh yeah, and before I forget I booked the room for 5:30 to 10:00 so I can hold an one hour long refresher course/workshop for newbies right before the actual ball begins. I am pumped. I hope I get a million people.

Planning Ahead

Last night, at about 9:00, I asked Andrew whether he was going to his friends' house the next day.
"Oh, I dunno. I haven't heard back from them," he replied.
"Hold on a minute! There is no way you are going to hear back from your friends before I go to school tomorrow at 8:00! They'll still be asleep!" I replied.
"Well, yeah," he said.
"Well, should I ask for a ride from Luke then? Or are they still sick so I should go home with Alexie?" I said.
"I dunno. I'll know tomorrow," he said.
This is not what I needed. I needed some information. As it turned out, Alexie figured that I was hitching a ride so she was going to leave without me without calling. Of course, it wouldn't make any difference because I discovered upon getting to school that Mom had borrowed my cell phone and never returned it. Great! Just when I need a communication route to both Alexie and Andrew, my cell phone goes missing! What good is a cell phone if it isn't around when you need it?

Anyway, I called home using the courtesy landline at UTC and got all pertinent information. Sheesh. So exhausting. I need to plan for communication crises better.

Weekend Snow

Hey, is it just me or does it invariably snows on the weekends? Seriously, it starts Friday afternoon and melts sometime on Saturday or Sunday. I think UTC paid whoever controls the snow not to make it snow during the week so no more classes are cancelled. Or maybe there is a really boring awful class on Friday afternoon that whoever controls the snow wants cancelled. That's probably the more likely one.

Unwelcome Love

I was working on my Physics Report and my appetite in the computer lab when I received a call from my Dad.
"Hey ho buddy! Heather has made a delicious dinner especially for you so if you want to come home, you may!"
Now, I knew that if I left campus, I wasn't coming back. Naturally I declined. The only problem being that I was extremely and ravishingly hungry and all I had to eat were two sandwiches with peanut butter that had gone bad that morning. (I knew it had since the one I ate before my Genetics Test tasted really funny.) Unfortunately, knowing that there is good food somewhere only makes bad food taste worse. I'm going to have to eat these monstrocities at some point, but I'm holding off because I hear that hunger is the best sauce. I'm trying to drown the sandwiches in it.

Oh yeah, my Physics Report still sucks and it is only one page long. The last two reports have had points taken off for being too short so I literally copied the same sentence and pasted it 12 times with all my different results plugged in. (You do the same experiment twelve times in this lab. Oh the pain.) Yes, even with all that it is still only a single page long. AAAH!

Groundhog Day

I actually have so many commitments on Feb 2. that I have e-mailed all of them to myself. I have the Banner test, Fencing, Lacrosse (I wanted to swing by and see what was up and since they sent out a UTC memo pleading for members, I figured it was now or never.), and a possible Pro-life club meeting (It looks like it will fall through, but I decided to remind myself anyway.) Also, Groundhog Day could be the day of my first test if my Physics Teacher decides to move the test back because of the snow day at the beginning of the year. Sigh. Looks like it is going to be a long winter.

Banner Project

I got a UTC memo today which says, and I do not quote: "If you help us test this thing, we will give you priority registration for Fall 2010." This made my heart go PING!!! A~HA! No more being beaten out by honor students for me! I'm going to test this new Banner Project thing and I will have all the classes I want! I will have the best classes... IN THE WORLD!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Of course, it could be someone trying to hack my mocs account using my name and UTC ID or maybe UTC performing evil experiments to conquer the world using unsuspecting college students, but hey! This is Priority Registration we're talking about!!

Abandoned

Boo hoo. I was abandoned at school today. Physics ended fifteen minutes late so when I showed up at the UC turnaround, no one was there. I walked down to the parking lot but our car was gone. I called home twice. Finally, Mom called back and told me that Alexie had gotten home and then taken Andrew to driving class. Groan. A friend called and told me that Alexie had left a message telling me to wait in the UC turnaround. I did that for about ten minutes until I got bored of people coming up to me to check to see if I was alright. Mlah! I can't believe Alexie gave up on me when I have spent the past two Fridays lying on top of the car as people come up to me and ask if I was locked out of my car. How come it seems that lately all I do is sit around, wait for Alexie, and stare at people as they ask if I need help!?

Agenda Bust

Every day when I go to school I always have a plan for things I want to get done. Today at 3:30 I asked Mom if I could go to the RUF flag football "cereal bowl" to play some flag football. She said that would be fine. For the cereal bowl, you are supposed to bring a box of cereal to donate to the Chattanooga Food Bank and then you play.

Anyways, I brought three boxes of cereal: All banana nut cheerios. Dad had bought them because they were on sale months ago and we were trying very hard to get rid of them. Anyways, Dad drove me over to Challenger Field. The place was deserted. I then suggested that they might be on the new intramural fields. Being the trooper that he is, Dad drove me over there. Of course, I had no idea where it was since I had never been there but I had Carl Ware's "directions." (Note: Don't trust college interns bearing directions.) We finally found the intramural fields after accosting Trip, who also had no idea but gave us some more vague directions. So we arrived. No one. We asked a security officer who was sitting in his car at the field where there would be flag football. He called his buddy and then told us Challenger. We went back to Challenger: still no one. Anyway, my last hope was Chamberlain so Dad dropped me off and I ran there. No one. I decided to check the computer lab and re-read the facebook message from Carl telling me when it would be. The Computer Lab is closed on Saturdays.

Anyways, I was dejectedly trudging through the UC trying to call Carl when I saw this huge banner in the cafeteria that said: "CEREAL BOWL! RUF VS. THE HOUSE VS. WESLEY VS. THE OTHER HOUSE VS. THE CHRISTIAN STUDENT CENTER!! FRIDAY, NOV 20th!" So I realized that I was exactly 24 hours late. Bummer. And Dad was gone. And I tried to turn my paperwork for becoming a TA in to Mrs. Tolar but the Chemistry Annex is also closed on Saturdays. Ugh. So I called Dad. Fortunately he was at Choices so I ran over there, watered the daisies, and went home.

Maybe God just wanted me to water the daisies.

(Or maybe He wanted the Criminal Justice club to have at least one donor to their pathetic non-perishable food drive. Ha ha! Goodbye Banana Nut Cheerios!)

Anon(ymous)

Tonight I'm going to see a play! Hoorah! I've been doing Parking Appeals Committee for an hour and a half (longest meeting I've had yet), so a play will be a welcome change of pace. It'll be Anon(ymous) and starts at 7:30, about two hours from now. I lent Alexie all the cash in my backpack so that she could go see it and then realized I didn't have enough cash so that I could go see it. Supposedly we have money from work, but liquid assets (cash) are hard to come by.

P.S. To Grandma: If you are reading this blog post, the money I got from the thanksgiving card this morning really helped!

UTC's Red Tide

I'm not sure why UTC randomly stinks every couple of days. It just does. When I step outside and take a deep breath, I suddenly realize that people aren't paying too close attention to the "No Smoking Within 40 Feet of an UTC door" rule. So I hold my breath and run a couple yards until I step outside the 40 feet of the door mark, because after all who would smoke in such a faraway inconvenient place like that? Anyways, I take a huge breath since I had nearly been killed by second-hand smoke and realize the entire air smells like dead fish. Aaagh! I suppose we are near a river, so occasional river stink should be typical, but why does this only happen every now and then? Blech. It smells like the Red Tide always did back in Florida. Makes me gag. Perhaps instead of dying of second-hand smoke, I'll die of second-hand dead fish.

Uhon Students

GARGH! Both sections of Microbiology have filled up and the Seniors aren't even signing up yet!! I don't think even the graduate students are signing up yet! It's only the Uhon students! Come on, you pasty nerds! What is so exciting about Microbiology that it is in such high demand!? Now, I'm going to have to FORCE ADD my way into this class which is irritating because it requires paperwork and people skills! GARGH!!!

I'm melting! MELTING!!!

Bomb Threat

Today there was a bomb threat on campus directed at the EMCS. I had gotten myself psyched up about a Physics test for nothing. I hope it really is cancelled because otherwise I'm skipping it and I've led many of my classmates who asked me if class was cancelled astray.

That brings me to my second point. The only thing creepier than the fact that the EMCS gets bomb threats is the fact that the entire class knows my name. Some blond chick I didn't know from Adam shouted "Duncan! Don't go in there! There's a bomb threat!" Apparently she's in my Physics class.

Then while sitting under a tree another blond chick came up and asked me whether I had talked to Bob Marlowe about whether class was still on. (Yes, people probably assume that because I speak in class the teacher and I are best buds.) I told her that I hadn't spoken to Dr. Marlowe but that he would probably not blame her for not attending class during a bomb threat.

Lastly I was walking along the street to the UC when another chick (brunette this time) asked whether I had heard about the bomb threat. I told her I had and that class was cancelled. The freaky thing is that every single one of these girls addressed me by first name and I, even though I've now spoken to all of them, still don't know their names.

Even stranger is that everyone in the first and second rows know my name and address me by first name for questions even though the only thing I know about them is where they sit! Weirder still is that the guy directly behind me (who might or might not be named Rob) refers to me as "Big D" like Matthew. I must have given my name out at some point during Physics... hmm.

Well, this post was labeled "bomb threat" but it was actually about my Physics class. Improperly named posts should be outlawed.

Class Schedule is Up!

Finally! The day you've all been waiting for! The day when the classes offered in Spring '10 at UTC are announced! Hurrah! I've gone ahead and made two potential battle plans. When I showed them to Andrew he said that I didn't need to choose immediately, that I could wait until Mom comes home. Shows what he knows. Ha. Here are the plans with the classes listed in the order that I take them on that day.

Plan 1:
MWF: (starting at 8:00) Scientific Writing, Microbiology, Latin. Microbio lab on Monday, Physics lab on Wednesday.
TT: (starting at 12:00) Physics, Western Civ

Plan 2:
MWF: (starting at 8:00) Anatomy, Scientific Writing, Latin. Physics Lab on Wednesday
TT: (starting at 8:00) Western Civ, Physics. Anatomy Lab on Tuesday.

Both plans clock in at seventeen hours.

Bah, Rain.

Last night was the second time in a row that flag football has been canceled for rain. It is starting to become very problematic! I haven't even played one game yet because the only game that wasn't canceled started at 10:00 pm. I don't think my parents/drivers are as bummed about the run of cancellations as I am, however. Hm.