Okay, this'll be another (relatively) short one, since I gotta go to Physics soon, but I still have a little bit of time to kill before I go over there. I never did find the Fencing Club at the Activities Fair yesterday (by the way, YoImErin, I go to University of Toledo, but I'm still a Denisonian at heart). I did make note of the fact that the College Republicans table was at the opposite end of the fair from the environmentalist group, the gay rights group, the Muslim student group, and most of the charity/service groups. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but it was rather ironic (the College Democrats seemed to be right in the middle, next to the National Guard's rock wall). What I found amusing was that the Republicans were right next to a table staffed by a girl wearing a banana costume (I have no idea what group that is).

Other observations:

1. Denison's Gaming Guild has NOTHING on UT's equivalent (which I believe is called UT Bash, but I don't know what that means so they're still the Gaming Guild to me). For one, they have their own lounge, which is kind of sad. Okay, they share this lounge with the Anime Club, but you'd have to believe there's a major overlap there (they also share it with the Egalitarian Society of Pagans, and I'm not sure whether to take that seriously or not). The UT Gaming Guild seems to be especially in to live-action role playing (something that was not very popular at Denison), because their table was decorated with foam-covered PVC-piping weapons and the staffers were dressed in fantasy-style costumes (and the most the Anime Club could muster was a guy in a pirate hat; I'm not sure what pirates have to do with anime, but there you go, and let's not forget the banana girl). And people wonder why I don't hang out with these guys...

2. I was kind of wrong about the Titanic thing. It wasn't a slide. It was a whole obstacle course. I got to see it in action on my way back from Physics yesterday. Two students raced against each other. They started off by climbing the iceberg as if it were a rock wall (there were little handles to grab onto). Then they slid down the other side of the iceberg. After that, they did that running-through-tires thing that football players do, only there were life preservers instead of tires. They crawled through one of the funnels of the Titanic and then somehow ended up "inside" the ship. Presumably they climbed up the inside of the ship and then crawled back out (they were now on top of the ship), and slid back to the ground on the outside "deck." Needless to say, I did not try this myself, because I'm already pretty good at making myself look like an idiot without stuff like Titanic obstacle courses helping me along.

Now I should probably head to Physics, so that's it for today (I have work later on so the possibility of me getting on here again in the next 48 hours is rather slim).

This'll be a short one (hopefully), as I've got class in about 90 minutes and I still gotta get lunch. I'm surprised I even found an available computer, since the chances of finding any of those on this campus seem to be zero most of the time. The Student Activities Fair is going on outside, and for a college of this size, it's kind of sad, cuz it's much smaller than Denison's. I can't seem to find the Fencing Club table (and I know there is a Fencing Club). Mostly the tables are for a bunch of fraternities (not so much sororities). Also, they hired a DJ, but the campus radio station has a table of its own, so you get to hear Linkin Park and "Jessie's Girl" at the same time, which is...weird. And the WTF moment of the Fair is the Titanic ride. I kid you not. There is a giant inflatable slide in the middle of the quad made to look like an iceberg and a sinking Titanic. There's also a rock wall that the National Guard has set up, but so far they don't seem to be letting anyone climb it except each other. No one's riding the Titanic thing either, though.

That's it for now. I'm gonna go see if the Fair's gotten any bigger in the last fifteen minutes. I might be back later today to talk about the Tigers and the Emmys, if I can get my homework done in a timely manner.

I just realized something: Even though I got them all at different times, I am wearing the same shirt in the photos for my driver's license, my MUO Volunteer ID, and my UT student ID card.

I'm in the middle of adding a new (temporary) look, so for the next few months, the Phantom will be replaced by my way of celebrating my Tigers FINALLY having a winning season for the first time that I can remember. Yeah, I know they lost tonight, but they're still on fire, and they've still got the best damn record in all of baseball this season. Wow, that's a new feeling for me. Now all they gotta do is figure out how to beat the White Sox on a regular basis...

I know it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted, and thus I’ve missed my 23^rd birthday and my fourth Xanga anniversary while I’ve been gone. Work is keeping most of my time, but I’ve also started on a new venture. Yes, I’ve finally sold out and given in to the dollar signs dancing in my head, and to that end, I’ve decided to go for a Doctor of Pharmacy degree, so yesterday I started classes at UT (University of Toledo for the rest of you). There’s still some undergraduate stuff I gotta take, plus there’s a few classes my advisor wants me to retake since I got Bs in them at Denison and you need a 3.8 GPA to be competitive in getting into Pharmacy school (now I did graduate from Denison with a 3.55 GPA/Cum Laude/ranked 88^th in the class, but the big contribution to that seemed to come from classes that are of no interest to the Pharmacy people…which kinda sucks, cuz I did get As in a few science classes, but apparently the Pharmacy people don’t care about Biochemistry or Astronomy). At any rate, my schedule:

 

Monday

General Chemistry II 10:00-10:50

Introduction to Physics 1:00-1:50

Biology II 4:00-5:40

Biology II Lab Lecture 6:00-6:50

Biology II Lab 7:30-9:20

 

Tuesday

Introduction to Physics 1:00-1:50

 

Wednesday

General Chemistry II 10:00-10:50

Introduction to Physics 1:00-1:50

Biology II 4:00-5:40

 

Thursday

General Chemistry II Recitation 10:00-10:50

Introduction to Physics 1:00-1:50

 

Friday

General Chemistry II 10:00-10:50

 

Yeah, Monday’s a long day, but I’ve got breaks in between everything except the Biology stuff, so it wasn’t that bad, at least yesterday. Plus, I don’t have to take the Gen Chem II Lab, cuz I already took Gen Chem II at Denison (I did get an A in Gen Chem I at Denison, which is why I’m not retaking that). I’m still not quite sure what a Recitation is, because we didn’t have those at Denison (We also didn’t have lab lectures; they were just part of lab itself), but my guess is that it’s some sort of review session.

 

Other observations thus far:

 

1. Some things are very similar to Denison. I saw a good amount of flip flops and popped collars (hell, one guy even had a pink shirt with a popped collar). Cell phones are also abundant, though the UT students seem to prefer text messaging to the Denison method, which consisted of yakking between class (Text messaging is not included in my Verizon plan, so to send a text message would probably cost me a bazillion dollars, which doesn’t make it a very attractive method of communication to me).


2. Some things are obviously very different from Denison. For instance, at Denison, the two largest classes I had (namely, Organic Chemistry and History of Cinema) consisted of about 40 people. My Physics class here has 200, maybe more (and what’s really sad is that my Biology class has about 80 people and the professor considers that to be a “small class”). However, my first real bit of culture shock came when I was trying to buy my books. I walked into the student union (which doesn’t seem to have a name other than “Student Union”) and right in front of me was a Starbucks. Denison students would never stand for such a thing. For them, it was all about independent coffee shops and Fair Trade Coffee, and Starbucks was like the Evil Empire (not being much of a coffee drinker, I never really had an opinion on the matter). Also, thus far I seem to be the only one with a button on my backpack (it’s from my Denison days and it says “Kiss me. I’m a Democrat.” The guy sitting next to me in Biology seemed to like it).


3. Contrary to what I thought was gonna happen, my classes seem to all be taught by professors and not TAs. My Physics professor won’t be in until tomorrow, so we’ve got the TA until them. He’s a dorky-looking British guy, but he seems nice enough. The students seem to be less than attentive though. We’re in this big auditorium with really sucky room acoustics, and the TA wasn’t wearing a microphone. On top of that, someone down in front of me had a radio on the whole time, without headphones, and there were numerous conversations going on behind me. The TA seemed oblivious to this.


4. The only class that is 100% taught by a TA is my Biology lab. My TA is an Indian guy who can’t seem to be able to teach (there was another TA there last night who was a lot better, except for his tendency to say “jeweler” instead of “ruler”).


5. My Biology Lab TA has two thumbs on his right hand.

 

That’s all the observations for now. I’m sitting in Physics class (which should begin in about 10 minutes) and I think I hear the radio again. At least this time I’m sitting in the second row instead of the sixth. I also have to miss Biology tomorrow because I got scheduled to work and the store manager won’t change the schedule. My work schedule’s relatively light this week, but I have a strong feeling next week is gonna see me having shifts crammed into any free time I may have (since I usually get two days off and I can no longer work on Mondays or Wednesdays, you do the math).

 

I shall try to update again soon. If work doesn’t kill me first.