September 2002 Archives

I did a lot the last few days; I just haven't gotten to posting.

Friday afternoon a friend and I wanted to go to a local mall and go to Wal-Mart. Well, there was supposed to be a shuttle bus going there. But when we finally saw the bus, the guy driving it told us that the mall service hadn't started yet. So we called a cab, and the guy told us twenty minutes, which is already a lot. But after thirty minutes there still wasn't a cab, so I called again. Turns out the driver who was supposed to pick us up refused to because he had just recently visited Utica College and the people he was supposed to pick up hadn't showed. So, finally after an hour some cab came.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it was raining like hell, as you can see on this radar:

Yesterday I worked for like five hours for my maintenance job. It was tons of fun. Gah, I was so horribly tired after five hours of scrubbing sinks and windows. Plus I hadn't had breakfast or lunch. But don't worry; I had three meals that day. Yep! I had three dinners! At 4:30, 6:00, and 7:00. I have to work today from six to nine for my Phonathon job, so I'm going to get dinner now.

I don't even remember when I last posted... Oh well... It was during the weekend sometime. Anyway, Monday I got a letter back that I had sent to Austria a week earlier, marked "insufficient postage." Turns out international letter are up to 80 cents. Great, and the letter I sent a week earlier with the same postage hasn't come back. So either they let it slide or they threw it out.

Tuesday I took the letter back and found the above out. Yeah... Now my legs hurt horribly. Right now I'm listening to Viennese radio over the internet. They're talking about fall depression. I don't have that yet. Then again, it still pretty warm here, compared to there at least.

Great, I've done absolutely nothing today. And I'm horribly tired as well. And it is raining out! Wonderful!

Yeah, so, I woke up this morning around ten or so and went to get some breakfast. But thanks to "Alumni Weekend" the dining hall was closed because they had outdoor festivities. This meant hamburgers, hot dogs, and barbeque chicken. Yeah, great breakfast. Not much else happened today.

Whooo! UC... What a party school! Or not at all...

Yeah... So... I haven't written that much lately. Sort of been busy... You know... Anyway, here's something I wrote for one of my classes, so I posted it so you at least have something to read...

"Teachers won't care about you anymore. You're gong to have to become independent." This is what my fifth grade teacher told my class about how middle school was going to be like. "Independent," I thought... Sounds nice! Well, I got to middle school and it seemed like nothing had changed. Teachers would come after me for missed assignments and they talked to me when they thought something was wrong.

Then my eighth grade English teacher told me a similar tale. She said that in high school we would have to become a lot more independent. Once again, this sounded good. When I got to high school, however, once again nothing had changed.

Many times during my junior and senior year of high school I was told about how different college would be from anything we had seen before. When I step into my classes here at Utica College I don't notice any difference. Yes, some of the professors are better educated and some have higher degrees than my high school teachers, although two of them had doctorial degrees as well. But the classes are often made up of less than twenty students. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but do you really need to have seventeen students in an English 101 class?

I don't think there's anything wrong with having two hundred students in a building block class such as English 101. That's because it is just a class to gain a few fundamentals, and most students are in it because they have to be. Why waste money on classes that have these kinds of students in the majority?

Great, I'm supposed to have three essays done tomorrow, but I'm way to lazy to start. Guess I should pull an all-nighter...

Whatever...

Yeah...

Well, there's not much new to write about. Saturday night was fun... Party in the halls! Yeah... Last night nothing happened. And tonight nothing will happen...

Whoo! Finally some action here at UC! Gah, where should I start...?

Well, anyway, there were all these posters around the college for this party organized by a fraternity at this local club called The Warehouse. Since I didn't want to spend the night in my room horribly bored again, I decided to give this thing a try. So... the posters said "free shuttle bus," but didn't give any specifics, so a friend and I just sat outside of our hall for forty minutes or so until we finally saw a bus. The trip was horribly short, and we were there in less than five minutes.

Well, anyway, we paid the $5 to get in and said we were underage. Not that it mattered, because everyone was able to get drinks right at the bar, whether or not they had an "X" on their hand.

Hmmm... Well my conscience told me there was something wrong here, so I just sat around for a while.

All of a sudden the DJ starts yelling, "Underage cop bust, if you're underage put your drink down." After repeating this three or four times the first cops were to be seen, along with the liquor authority. I didn't think much of it because I just assumed they were having a quick look at things. Well they started picking people out and taking down their information.

Then there were these funky German guys who kept chanting stuff. I decided to say "hi" to them, and I talked to them for about five minutes or so. Then they started chanting again so decided it would be smart to distance myself from them. Good thing, because they got in a little trouble shortly afterwards and were escorted out.

Well it took about an hour before they decided to let people leave. After having my driver's license scanned, I was allowed to leave.

Well, my friend and I decided to walk back, which took us about fifteen minutes.

Yeah... great... That was way too much fun. Now I probably have "was at a club that got busted for underage drinking" on my criminal record. And for what? Because a few eighteen to twenty year-olds drank a little. Great... And the police could have been out there preventing who knows what, but instead they ruined a harmless little party. I love this country. (See "Alcohol" entry)

Well... There's really nothing to do at all...

Great, I love being horribly bored! But boredom is probably keeping me working harder academically. Actually, most of my classes seem horribly easy. The only one that's bothering me a bit is Government and Politics. It sort of reminds me of IB Economics. I'll read the texts, and everything will be defined using terms that make just as just as little sense to me.

Oh well, right now I'm listening to mangerbabies while random people run through the halls screaming. I'm having wonderful-tasting Gevalia Stockholm Roast and soon I will work on the front page of newkai.com a bit to match it a bit more with my funky-looking menu.

After two days of 90É+ (32É+C) weather it decided to get horribly cold yesterday. Today it was a little warmer, but not much. Gah, I woke up horribly freezing this morning, because I had left a window fan on, and it made it horribly cold in the room.

Check this out:

Mark - You really need to update your weblog.
...
Mark - I feel as though the day hasn't really begun if I check it and it's not updated.

Yeah... I sort of forgot. But when you're spending the weekend in Rochester with two wonderful girls your first priority is not your weblog!

Yeah... Rochester was fun... Where should I begin...?

Yeah... So... Friday night the train was forty minutes late... That was great. And it was horribly frustrating because all these other trains went by that ended in Syracuse, so I sort of felt like getting on them, but that wouldn't have helped. Plus the loudspeakers were playing this really sad "don't go, I'll miss you, you have my heart" type music... Great for a train station!

When the train finally did come though it was pretty cool because although I was traveling coach class, the seats were horribly big and no one sat next to me.

Then for some reason the train stood at the Syracuse station for like ten minutes. Then the conductor guy was like "we can catch up some time now" and floored the thing. Then, thirty seconds later he stopped the thing so hard we all like flew forward. Reason? We had to wait for another freight train. I guess we did go pretty fast then, since we ended up "only" forty minutes late.

I went right through the station (a little hut) and got into a cab. The cab driver was this Jamaican reggae-type guy and after I told him where I was going he said "all right mun!" and floored the cab through the streets of downtown Rochester while playing really loud Bob Marley tunes. After nearly getting me killed (when some car in the right lane decided to suddenly make a left turn) I arrived at Lauren and Danielle dorm complex after about ten minutes.

Then we randomly decided to go to random fraternity houses, which are located in the middle of the campus. They all smelled like old beer. I think we got to sleep around four.

The next morning... or I guess afternoon, we got up around 12:15. After some wonderful dining hall food we got on some free bus to the Marketplace Mall. There we randomly walked around for an hour and then went to some second-run movie theater where we saw Minority Report. It was a funky movie, and afterward we took another free bus home.

Then we ate more wonderful dining hall food, upon which we watched home videos and then The Wedding Singer. For some reason it was already like two, so we fell asleep.

The next morning we got up around 11:30 and then we ate at some alternate location on campus. Then, at two or so, I got in a cab to the train station.

This time the train was on time, and it stayed that way all the way to Utica. There I called a cab and got this nasty thing with old socks lying on the floor. Oh well, I was only charged three dollars, so I guess it was all right. Then I ran to the dining hall and got food a few minutes before it closed.

Eventually my roommate came back, and we watched A Bronx Tale. Then we slept.

Today was pretty booked up starting with my GOV101 class. Afterwards I had work and then FIA246.

Damn... Now I'm going to do some history homework. I hope this satisfies you Mark! Gah, I wrote like 600 words! That's got to be a record... or at least in the top five.

Great, according to an Old Spice commercial, men think of women every 5.3 seconds! Great! That doesn't horribly dwindle my ability to learn. Imagine myself trying to learn vocabulary words...

Word 1
Word 2
Word 3
(Random Girl)
Word 4
Word 5
Word 6
(Random Girl)

But supposedly if I use Old Spice soap, women will think of me every 5.3 seconds. That will definitely work! Well, I got to finish a history assignment...

Great, I'm sitting here watching a Spanish talk show, and I'm waiting for some action. However, there is no action currently. Oh well...

Great day today! My sunburn's fading!

Famous Kai Quote During Senior Trip: "You ruined my sunburn!"

Yeah... I start work tomorrow. I met my boss today. He seems funky. Wednesday is like my "hardcore" working day because I only have one class, so I can work maximum hours. Monday and Friday I work for like an hour.

Well... Dave's snoring... He randomly fell asleep. I better "catch" some sleep as well.

Great, I have a horrible sunburn! Yesterday a friend and I decide to walk around because we were horribly bored. This Ames guy offered us a job. We each held up a sign that said "Going out of Business! Ames... Up to 50%