Greeting etiquette 101

You’re walking along the corridors of your dorm room and you see someone you know…

Hey [insert name], how are you?

I’m good! How are you?

Good!

or…

Hey how’s it going?

It’s going good! How about you?

It’s going good!

 

You call someone you’re friends with (for whatever reasons)…

Hey, what’s up?

Oh I’m just [insert activity]. What are you up to?

[start real conversation]

You’re in the dining hall and you’re picking out food from the desert station and someone you know comes along…

Dinner

Hey! [insert name].

Hey! [insert other name].

So how was your day?

Oh it was great! I had like two classes. Well actually I had three but the first was like at 9am.

(nods) Yeah early classes suck.

I know. How was your day?

It was ok. I had a chemistry quiz. It sucked.

Aww, that’s too bad…(nods emphatically)

 

Breakfast

Hey.

Hey.

Note: Make sure you sound happy or interested

Plans, plans and plans.

Long term

I have finally registered for all my classes with minimal complications. And being a pseudo-analytical freak, I decided to draft exactly what classes I will take till Spring 2009 (Summers included). However, after a few minutes of staring thoughtfully at my in depth scribbles, I became slightly annoyed. I’m not getting ahead fast enough even though I’ve planned to take classes for two summers. Thoughts of how am I supposed to become an RA, study abroad at Sweden for a semester and still live off campus in senior year flashed through my mind. I want to apply for RA in junior year, which means I have to study abroad during sophomore year, so that I have a year free to live off-campus and host parties. I don’t know if the last two sentences made any sense, but to put this shortly, my plans are important. Honestly, I’ve almost always had what I wanted, especially if I think about it long enough but unfortunately I have doubts about my plans this time.

Short term

There’s less than 3 days left to the coveted Thanksgiving break! I’ll be volunteering on an ASB trip to Memphis for the first half of the break helping out at the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, doing good things in the day and being a good ol’ tourist at night. And a week from now, I’ll be in Chicago where the real fun begins. I’m definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving week especially after a very mediocre birthday weekend. Yes, I’m an unsatisfied reveler.

Before the fun begins, I am obligated to decide in a couple of hours if I would want to apply to become a site facilitator on another ASB trip in Spring. Applications are due in 3 days and six essay type questions await me if I decide to do it. It sounds oh so tempting but I suck at writing and there’ll even be an interview! Decisions, decisions…

And another wave of midterms and FINALS are waiting for me after the break.

Then, home 🙂

Signs that you’re an official college freshman in the US of A

1. Freshman 15 -You gained 15 pounds (around 7 kg) or so
2. You have a stack of unwashed dishes hidden at a corner of your dorm room
3. As November sets in you start to stop showering everyday
4. You can’t imagine a life without Facebook
5. You look forward to weekends when you can get high on life (and other things)
6. Sunday is your homework day
7. You have breakfast at 12 pm on weekends
8. You gasp when you hear someone says that he or she has an 8 am class
9. Your life is dictated by the dining hall’s meal times
10. You do laundry only when you run out of clean underwear or socks

Rebels at heart.

Busy week ahead?

Monday

Larissa’s birthday dinner – 6.30 pm

CHEM102 review session – 7.00 to 9.00pm

Heroes Season 2 – 8.00 to 9.00pm

“Happy Birthday October!” party – 8.00 to 10.00pm

(Notice how everything overlaps)

Tuesday

MATH221 quiz – 3.00 to 4.00pm

PHIL101! (lol.)

GE101 written test – 7.00 to 8.15pm

Wednesday

GE101 Modeling Lab (Inventor tutorials)

CHEM102 hour exam – 5.50 to 6.45pm

Alternative Spring Break Orientation – 7.00 to 9.00pm

Thursday

PHIL101 again! (double lol.)

GE101 – scrambling for extra credits and writing an interim report on the reverse engineering design project (super cool eh)

CHEM103 – laboring on the lab report and pre-lab quiz due tomorrow

Friday

Day starts at 6.50am

CHEM103 – Finding molar mass of but-something (Lab)

Cycling to the Transportation Building to handover homework

Laboring in the gym -ahhhh yess…

Laundry

The weekend better be good.

T.G.I. Friday?

Friday = gym and laundry day lepak day.

This is what happens when you have to wake up at 6.50 am to go for an 8.00 am lab session. Not to mention a chemistry quiz at 12.00 pm.

I’ve taken a nap, read my emails and I’m itching to do something else. I’ve knocked on doors, no one was home (or awake). Well one was but whatever. I went to the front porch, nothing was happening. I even checked “the bench”. Not a soul. I wanted to reply my dear friend’s email but I’m too spaced out to think.

I should be at gym, or doing my laundry. But nah.

So here I am back in my room.

Nasib baik lab is every other week.

Die-in protest

College not combat — troops out now!
This is what democracy looks like!
Hey Bush what did you say? How many kids did you kill today?

Campus Anti-War Network (CAN) organized an anti-war die-in today on campus. It was suppose to start at 5pm but my class ended early at 3.45pm. So I practically waited around the Union by myself the entire time. I just love covering events with my Canon and it felt like something that I just had to do. And of course I just had to join in with the little red armbands they were giving out.

At around 5pm people started standing around around the Alma Mater. The whole thing started with a few speeches made by the participating organizations like CAN, The Green Party, Iraq Veterans Against the War and a few others (Sorry, I’m not exactly a journalist). The first picture below is actually one of the leaders of CAN and he happens to be my roommate’s friend. Yea Pete!

Before we marched into two groups for the planned die-in, everyone of course started shouting anti-war chants to get the anti-war mood going on. Then of we go! There were like around fifty of us (or more?). I suck at estimating the number of people in a crowd.

The die-in basically happened in two different areas of Green Street. First was just a block away from the Alma Mater and as we approached the next road, everyone stopped to basically lie down on the sidewalk as the rest of the protesters chalked everyone’s silhouettes and chanted anti-war slogans to passing cars. I was snapping away. Some pedestrians were literally walking over some of the protesters as they lay on the floor. There were also cars honking in approval with their drivers giving us thumbs ups. It was great.

As soon as everyone lying down was chalked, the protesters had their eyes on another area to “die-in”. The intersection of Green and Wright. Every few minutes (maybe was it a couple?) all of the traffic lights would turn red and the pedestrians (or in this case the protesters) had exactly 28 seconds to go to the middle of the road, lie down, and maybe get chalked, rise up again and scramble back to the safety of the sidewalk. This was definitely the best part. To take some of the pictures, I had to literally lie down amongst the protesters. I love the picture marked “Hardcore” below. He truly was indeed.

However, they were still at it at 6.15pm and I had to answer a couple of nature’s call. So I rushed back to the lovely bicycle Larissa gave me to use and managed to take a picture of the Alma Mater with red bands on both her wrists on the way.

An evening (or is it afternoon?) well spent.

I was at my first ever public protest. I’d like to join one at home.

Phil101

has just been canceled for the day. I feel liberated. Who cares if our physical world is just being played out by an evil genius in our brain? Live life to the fullest. I think, therefore I am. True that.