MTH 153

47

No pictures today. But I got 47 out of 50 on my homework in my crazy math class!!!!

Bloomsburg Fair

This is Shaky. He is a Texas Longhorn steer. He is GIGANTIC. And people ride him up and down the road.
I saw him at the Bloomsburg Fair when I went home for the weekend. I saw a lot of people this weekend, my family, Laura, Erica, Aaron, Laura Dazhuzhu… It was really nice. I didn't want to leave.

It's a beautiful day. but...

As you can see, after all the rain we've had it is an absolutely gorgeous day. Sunshine, blue sky, whispy clouds... but it is cold! Really cold. Like 50-some. I sat ouside typing for 20 minutes and I was wishing for gloves.

Mudsliding Is A BAD Idea

I did not go mudsliding. I did not know that anyone else did either: I was not awake at four in the morning... But at eight, this is what I woke up to. Imagine a whole bathroom just as bad as that and you'll have some idea how I felt when all I wanted was to take a shower quickly and meet with Liz on time. So off I strode with my towel and my shower caddy in search of another, non-muddy bathroom. No punishment has been handed out yet, but it's rumored that it'll be a $50 fee to cover the cost of the cleaning and (!)replanting the grass(!).

After Liz and I had breakfast and went to the comic book store, I went to Lockwood to do homework. Yay! for peace and quiet.

Gracer at Urban Outfitters

Last Wednesday I got an email from Urban Outfitters saying that they would be having a concert last night to celebrate the store's one year anniversary. Liz and I went, and we saw this band for the first time. They were VERY good. And they're a local band, so we're going to try and see the again sometime.

Lockwood Library

I had to go to Lockwood Library to get a book today and I didn't even know where it was. I had previously only been to Capen Library (which is nice but LOUD). I found out where Lockwood was and headed over there and found this. The library has a cut out space in the middle and a little courtyard there, it was so pretty and quiet. Then I went into the library, which has special designated quiet study floors. Let's just say it is my new favorite place on campus.

West Side Community Collaborative

As part of my Colloquim project serice-learning activity (wow, that's a mouthful), I was passive aggressively told that I "should try to attend" a meeting of the West Side Community Collaorative in Buffalo. It started at the exact time I got out of class, and it takes roughly a half hour (50% of which is spent at traffic lights) to get there, but I went anyway.

On the way home, though, (one way streets strike again!) I found a castle. About 100 meters down the street from the community center above, I encountered this:

and pretty much stopped the car and stared until someone came down the street behind me. Which is when I pulled over, got out, and continued to gawk and take pictures.

It was like someone decided to drop Redwall in the middle of a somewhat sketchy area of Buffalo!

Niagara Falls

I took a field trip with the Dean's Scholars to Niagara Falls tuesday afternoon. I wasn't looking forward to going because I had so much homework, but I ended up being really glad that I went. The pictures can really speak for themselves.

But besides water, there were stairs. Scary stairs. Scary slippery stairs. But I wasn't afraid... I believe that that is called growth.

UB at Night Part 2

I like these lightposts a lot. They always look really pretty at night when I'm coming back to the dorm from lab.

Prank Wars

My roommate stole a guy's key card for 2 mintues. He thought he lost it, but when he found out... Let's just say that he redecorated our room. It's been going on ever since, but the lines are constantly shifting as to who's pranking who.

West Buffalo Tour

For Honors Colloquim, I have to do 20 hours of community service in West Buffalo, so they took us on a tour of areas that have been or are beginning to be revitalized. It was interesting because one street would have lovely old houses worth roughly half a million dollars and two or three streets down would be streets with rundown houses worth less than $10,000 and neighborhoods that just recently were reclaimed from drug gangs and prostitution rings.

If they succeed with all of the things that they have planned for the area, it should be beautiful.

These pictures are all from the really nice street. Amazingly, even this street was a questionable place to live a few years ago.

All-Night Movie Night

Last night was all night movie night. We meant to start at seven (it was a lot closer to eight) and keep going until six AM. I didn't make it. I think a few people did.

We started with I Am Legend. Not a huge fan. It wasn't nearly as awful as Laura Dzienius said it was, but it certainly wasn't great either. It was an action movie with a stunning and unacceptable quantity of screentime given to panning over empty landscapes. Another case of a screewriter forgetting that he wasn't writing a book.

Next up was Beerfest. Very explicit, somewhat funny. At about 12:30, we started Sweeney Todd. After that, I went to bed because I had a bunch of homework to finish today.

West Buffalo

Despite the rumors, West Buffalo is beautiful. I had to drive there to find the bus stop for a school tour on Tuesday, so I combined it with a trip to Delaware Park and the Albright Knox Art Gallery.

First up was Delaware Park, which was lovely, as you can see. There were a lot of people there, but it is a really big park so it was still secluded and nice. Especially for being in a city, especially a city that built a highway down the middle of it.

Next up was the art museum... I couldn't take a lot of pictures there, understandably, but I got a few. Especially of the giant, shiny orb outside (one of the coolest things I have ever seen).

I did take one picture inside, just because I really liked this painting and wanted to look it up. The museum was all big empty rooms, high ceilings and marble tile floors, which was really cool.

There was some kinetic art that I would've loved to get pictures of, but they wouldn't have come out. They were pictures that moved as you moved due to tricks of the light. I did, however, get a picture of my beautiful artwork.

This is called a Buddha Board, it's a sheet of paper that changes color with water and dries in a few minutes so that you can start all over again. I drew a few squiggles and walked away, and when I came back, two dots and a straight line were all that remained. It looked a bit like a face, so I added hair. I really liked this. I could paint whatever I wanted without worrying about messing up or wasting paper, because in a few minutes it would be gone.

My Day of Adventure

I woke up at eight this morning and took a shower, then went to breakfast with Ryan. We went back to the suite and hung out with Christine and Erica until 10:30 when everyone except me had to start heading to class. I'm supposed to have chem labs on Tuesday mornings at eight, but they don't start for two weeks, so I was free all day. As you can see above, I took advantage of this wonderful opportunity to do laundry. Let me just start by saying that high efficiency washing machines are stupid. Yes, they use less energy per cycle, but you need to run them through DOUBLE the cycles you would have to otherwise. There's so much less water to dilute any dye that leaches from fabrics that you have to wash VERY similar colors. No mishaps yet, but they're coming. While I was waiting three hours for my laundry to be done, I did my chem and EAS lab homework.. Hopefully I'm enough ahead to have a nice weekend.. Sunday night into Labor Day, Animal House is having an all-night movie marathon.

When I got back to the room after doing laundry/homework, Christine gave me my mail. I got a notice card telling me to pick up a package in the dorm office, which I did, and on my way back I found a piano!!! I was so happy, I've been looking for one and whining that the only one I could find was in a locked room for DAYS. So I printed out some sheet music and made my way down there. Five minutes later, I took the picture above.

We had a fire drill. I was irritated. It was a very long fire drill.

But when I got to go back in, I got about an hour of uninterrupted playing in. I might have annoyed a few people, because I was in a rather public lounge and I wasn't playing very well, but I really didn't care. I discovered that I'm still capable of playing "A Thousand Miles." Actually, more than capable. I was able to play parts that I never could pull off. I guess I do have something to thank all of those annoying sonatinas for.. This song used to seem impossible, now it is almost laughable.

It was an interesting day, all in all. I'll probably watch the Doctor tonight, and try to get to bed at a half decent time, because class starts at eight tomorrow.

UB at Night

I got out of class at 8:15. I wasn't happy about that. It was supposed to be over by eight, but everyone was held hostage until they managed to get every single algebra problem right. But when I did get out, the sun was starting to set and it was beautiful. It's funny how cameras can never quite capture it, especially cell phone cameras..

I got back to Governors and went to "The Cellar" for dinner. "The Cellar" is a restaurant. Not a particularly good one, but the dining hall closes at eight, so I was stuck. They gave me a hard time about eating there, even though I had already had it arranged. Mondays and Thursdays are not going to be fun if I have to go there.

After I ate, I went back to Animal House. Each suite has their own lounge, but we all kind of adopted this one. Everyone who comes in has to write their name and draw an animal on the white board, thus "Animal House." Crazy card games go on here. But tonight was "Fight Club" movie night, because a bunch of people had never seen it.

My Dorm Room

My bed is the brown one against the wall, Christine's is the pink on the left. We have a lot of stuff.

I have a lot of posters...

INTERNETS!!!!!

My books, movies and music are all under by bed. I have one more set of shelves, and there are two rows of books on just this one.

UB Interlocking Photo

We got free t-shirts and stood on dots and hash marks....

And made a big UB!!

Tshirt making part 2

EXTERMINATE!!!! My awesome Dalek shirt. I can't wait to wear it. It totally looks like it's trying to exterminate my belly button.

Don't mind the waffle, I was kind of in a hurry...

This is the Tardis t-shirt I made. It didn't come out as nice as my last one, but this one actually fits. And it has K-9, which is always a plus.

Big Picnic

There was yucky bean soup (and Jessica unintentionally giving the disinterested model look).

There was Uncle Jimmy grilling.

There was Laura scrambling over rocks.

It was a great Big Picnic. Not quite as many people as usual, but pretty much everyone I was expecting to see was there. Laura was there for a while and we walked to the "big crick" or the "scary bridge," depending on who you ask. It was very pretty, I hadn't been there all summer.

In other happenings, Katie, Kyle, John and I freed the frogs Julia and Tessa had captured and were holding hostage. By having Matt tell them to have a frog catching competition in order to distract them...

Saturday Morning Breakfast

Katie brought her boyfriend to Grandma's for everyone to meet, and Grandma didn't want to make Katie embarass herself in front of him in her attempt to make waffles so I took over.

Last Friday at Grandma's

We went to Tom's for lunch after we picked Dana up at Jessica's house (volleyball again).

Ruthie and Dana fought over who was the rotten egg i.e. last one in the car.

Friday night in the grove. EVERYONE was there because of the Big Picnic on Sunday. In this picture are my mother, my aunt and my grandfather going from foreground to background.

Tessa, Julia and Dana catching frogs in the creek.

Packing

This is about 90% of my college stuff. Not kidding. I totally know where it's all going in my 12' by 12' room.

My room this morning. Sadly, not much has changed even though I worked on it for a few hours. Now it's just as messy- only emptier.

T-shirt Making Party

Me in my Torchwood shirt! I made it at Laura's house when we were having a T-shirt making party. I bought a roll of freezer paper that was a bit bigger than I would have liked (what on Earth am I going to do with 150 square feet of freezer paper?), so we all made shirts. We cut stencils out of the freezer paper with Xacto knives, ironed them on to our shirts and went over them with fabric paint. They came out pretty awesome.

This is my Tardis shirt before I pulled off the stencil. I did aTardis complete with a silhouette of David Tennant as the Doctor. The Tardis is blue as you can see, the silhouette is just the brown of the T-shirt. Some of the freezer paper stuck on, so it isn't quite right yet.