2007 October Archive at Ben, ‘11

Archive for October, 2007

CHICAGO!!!!

October 28, 2007

I have just gotten back from a weekend trip to Chicago and it was a great time. What makes it even better was that it was free. I am here at the University of Richmond on the Oldham Scholarship. One of the perks of this scholarship is that each year, its recipients get to go to a city in the United States together and enjoy the city and some cultural events–for free. This year, we went to Chicago.

We missed part of classes on Friday and took off for Chicago. Even though it is six hours from home in Wisconsin, I was still happy to be closer. After we landed, a private coach bus took us to our 4 star hotel.

Leaving for Chicago

CHICAGO!!!!

Our 4 Star Hotel

Shortly thereafter, we went to see a ballet at Roosevelt University’s theater. It was called “Giselle” and it was actually rather interesting. However, I still fell asleep during Act 2. I had great seats in the fifth row and sat with my friend Buddy.

Buddy and Me at “Giselle”

The theater where we saw “Giselle”. It was a nice theater.

Our group walked back to the hotel in the rain, which was pretty miserable, and then took cabs to Second City, a famous comedy group. They had visited campus earlier in the year and they put on a great show. It poked fun at so many things and they had some great one-liners. One of my highlights of the night was when I attempted to find the restrooms. I went up the escalator with two of my friends, but my other friends were in a hurry and wanted us to come back. Being the genius that I am, I decided that we should all try to run down the escalators. It was quite amusing, but we did make it down safely.

Some of my fellow scholars at Second City

Chuck Norris went to see this comedy group, so you know they must be good

The next day was spent wandering the streets of Chicago. We visited Millenium Park and it’s awesome metallic lima bean structure. We also visited the Art Institute of Chicago, a world renowned art museum. I am not one for too much art, but I appreciated paintings I had seen in books and others that I simply found fascinating.

What says Chicago better than “CHICAGO”?

One of my favorite places in Chicago: Millennium Park

I actually recognized this painting and couldn’t believe how big it was

A quick lunch at a hole-in-the-wall hot dog shop provided authentic Chicago hot dogs. Speaking of authentic Chicago food, we went to Giordano’s for dinner. That had some awesome deep dish pizza with lots of cheese.

What a hot dog

True Chicago pizza. Look at all of that cheese.

Following dinner, we went to the Oriental Theater and saw WICKED. I had never been to a real musical by a professional group, so it was a great experience. It was simply amazing. I am still listening to music from it online. Even though the ticket was $76, it was already covered. To end the night, some friends and I walked to Navy Pier, a famous landmark in Chicago. Even though it was closed, we had a nice walk in the chilly air and made the most of it.

WICKED was, well…. WICKED cool

Making new friends with Matt and Matt

Me and my friends at Navy Pier

We flew home on Sunday and student life greeted us. I tried to get work done, but was rather unsuccessful. Through everything, I spent almost no money the entire trip. Because of the scholarship, a $1,000 trip to Chicago was absolutely free. Try to tell me that that is not cool. I was able to do stuff that I doubt I otherwise would have ever been able to do. I made a lot of new friends and I can’t wait for next year’s trip, which could possibly be New Orleans. As a follow up, I encourage you to apply for the scholarships at the University of Richmond. They offer 50 full-ride merit based awards. I didn’t think that I would get the one that I did, but I am now so glad that I applied. So, apply for them anyways. You never know. Best of luck in your college applications and scholarship applications.

Quote of the Week: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” -George Bernard Shaw

Thought to Ponder: If nobody buys a ticket to a movie do they still show it?

Shout Outs: The Oldham family for making this trip possible.

Published on October 28, 2007 in Breaks. 0 Comments

Symptoms of a College Student… Check

October 23, 2007

It is now Tuesday night and work has been frantic. I realize that I have become a true colleges student; I oversleep for classes, procrastinate, and eat pizza regularly at 3 AM. I had a 1-page paper, a 3-page paper, and a few tiny essays due for CORE on Monday for our Midterm. I thought I liked the class, but it was really frustrating writing about stuff that you didn’t really care that much about. Plus, the questions were really bad, you know “What are the similarities…” and “What are the differences…”. They’re now done and I’m past it. However, I am about 120 pages behind in that class. I’m supposed to be reading Nietzsche, but haven’t quite started. I’m supposed to be done with it tomorrow. I think the rest of my class is in the same boat.

I also had an 8-page paper due today for Public Policy. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but nothing was set in stone. I finally started it the night before it was due. I faded in and out of consciousness that night and got up early to start working on it. I finished it with fifteen minutes to spare but, due to printer problems, was still a few minutes late to class. The paper was on a Presidential candidate whose health care platform I support. I chose Mike Huckabee. Yes, he’s running for President even though you might not have heard of him. Anyways, I hope that it gets a good grade, It went a little long to ten pages, but it is done.

My social activities for this week have been fairly light. I did a Scavenger Hunt with InterVarsity and that was so much fun. We would have automatically won if we had captured the King Goose from our lake, but he barely escaped. I contributed the test with an A, a cell phone that hasn’t received or sent any calls that day (since I just got a new one), and a pay stub. We didn’t win, but it was one of my favorite events since getting on campus.

My Scavenger Hunt Team

The Bounties of our Scavenger Hunt

Friday night, I went to an electroacoustic performance with my friend Jimmy from Boston (who disowned and revered the Red Sox within a three day span). I didn’t really know what it was, but it was free, so I went. It wasn’t my kind of music, with wheelbarrows and flowerpots being used as some of the instruments and all of the music being interpretations of motion paintings that somehow dealt with math. Yeah, I was confused too. After that, I was a typical teenager and went to see “Transformers” at the Pier, which was free and sponsored by our Campus Activities Board.

The Electroacoustic Music Festival

Saturday brought the football game and I decided to put off my homework and go to that. We won handily and had a good time. Homecoming is next weekend and I can’t wait. Since the game, however, it has been mainly homework.

Last night, I chose my Class Cabinet to assist me in putting on social events. There were a lot of good applications, but I could only select nine of them to be a part of the Cabinet. I felt bad turning some people away, especially since some were my friends. I guess every leader has to do that at one time or another, though. We are up and running and who knows what we’ll end up doing?

Other brief highlights:
- I overslept for my Economics class for the fifth time this semester on Friday. I think I am just sleep deprived. To solve this problem, my alarm clock is now a foot farther away. Let’s see if this helps. I feel bad about not going to class, but an 8:15 AM class is not as easy as it sounds when it’s almost all lecture. Next semester, I don’t plan on having any 8:15s.
- I made another Sheetz run to get some food and take my mind off of studying. I think the total trips is up to six now.
- I turned in my Tour Guide application and had an interview for the position. I’ll see in about a week whether I get to be one.
- I went to Karaoke Night for InterVarsity. I didn’t participate, but the guys beat the girls.

The men dominating InterVarsity Karaoke Night

- I sat down with my CORE teacher for her to grade my first essay. She read it, made some marks and simply said for me to revise it when I had a chance. I don’t think this is very common, but I’m not complaining.

- I got my Public Policy midterm back and I got an A-. I was worried, but thought I did well. With only four grades in the entire class, this is huge for me.

- I joined the InterVarsity Intramural football team. We lost the game, and I didn’t play too well. I dropped one pass right through my arms that would have been a crucial play for us. I never was great at football, but I’m another body to help.

- I participated in a Psychology experiment. It earned me $5 and wasn’t hard at all. They wanted to identify my nutritional motivation. Basically, I told them that I haven’t been as healthy as I used to be and that I think that someone can lose a lot of weight. They also gave me a taste test with “healthy” M&Ms and regular M&Ms. I ate more of the healthy ones and I guess that’s what they were studying. Either way, I got $5 for eating some M&Ms.

- I attended Friday Free For All. This is a weekly occurence of free events on campus. This week had our comedy improv group “Subject To Change” perform. They were hilarious and are very talented. One of our acapella groups also performed.

One of our acapella groups performing at Friday Free For All

Even with a “slow” week, I have been pretty busy. My life is fairly typical for someone here, except maybe more active in the arts and organizations. I keep making more friends and I think some of my other friends think I don’t like hanging out with them. That’s not true. I just like hanging out on my own sometimes to get away and I can find my own sources of fun. This weekend, I am heading to Chicago with my scholarship group. It is free for us through the scholarship and I think it will be a lot of fun.

Quote of the Week: “In America, any by may become President and I suppose it’s just one of the risks he takes.”- Adlai Stevenson
Thought to Ponder: If a duck only had one leg, would it swim in a circle?
Shout Outs: My Cabinet: Jimmy, Jimmy, Grant, Pete, Buddy, Tim, Andrew, Chris, and Rachaphum. Alex (for saving my life by letting me use your printer to print my Public Policy paper)

Published on October 23, 2007 in Campus Events, Artsy Performances and InterVarsity. 0 Comments

Fall Break

October 16, 2007

Well, Fall Break has come to a close and I am no closer to being done with my homework than when I started. I had to read 300 pages of Public Policy, write two short papers for CORE, write a Spanish composition, and begin writing an 8-page Public Policy paper on Health Care. However, all that I got done was reading 150 pages. The weather here was amazing during the break, yet I barely left my dorm. Hardly anyone stayed on campus, there were only three of us in my hall and that is more than most halls. I had hoped to catch up on my sleep, but that wasn’t meant to be either. I fell asleep almost every night watching the baseball playoffs. So, these past four days have been very unproductive. Here is a brief recap of Fall Break:

- I took my roommate to the airport on Friday night and proceeded to get lost on the way home. I tried to find some stores in Richmond, but spent hours trying to find my way around. It was a rather frustrating experience.

- Since I stayed on campus, I decided to help out with the 1st Annual Down Syndrome Buddy Walk on Saturday. I helped to put balloons all around the lake as well as host games for the kids. It was a pretty fun time and I was able to actually do something productive during Fall Break.

Sarah and I helped out at the Buddy Walk by hosting games

The 1st Annual Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome

- Most people were gone by Friday night, but a few left on Saturday. I went to the Richmond football game on Saturday. When I left for the game, the student parking lot was basically empty. There were almost no students at the game, so my friend, Tim, and I had to cheer them on along with the hundreds of community members and alums. We won the game 42-0 and have some of the top players in the nation who are being considered for some national awards. As a team, we moved up to 17th in the nation for Division 1 AA.

One of our empty parking lots during Fall Break

The Football Game

- One of my friends invited me and some other friends to come to his home for a potluck on Sunday night. It was a great meal with some fun conversations. Afterwards, we joined his family and some of their friends for a Bible study. Coming back to campus, I’m pretty sure that I traveled on every single highway going through Richmond. I got so lost… again. It took me a half an hour to get to his house, but a full hour to get back.

Dinner at my friend’s house during Fall Break

- Monday was supposed to be a workday and I did get a fair amount of work started, but there are a lot of distractions here.

- I picked up my roommate and some of my other friends from the airport on Tuesday night. Most people were ready to get back to campus and see the friends who they had been apart from. We visited a Mexican restaurant in Richmond on the way home and had some interesting conversations.

- Baseball playoffs have dominated the social scene here lately. The game is on in most of the rooms and there are a lot of Boston fans here due to the high prevalence of students from the Northeast. Unfortunately for them, they are currently behind in the series and many of their fans are very angry.

- I had my first meeting as Class Chair with my advisor. I am in the process of choosing a Cabinet to help me coordinate events. It looks as though I am expected to put on an event during this first semester for the Freshmen guys.

Now that everyone is back, it doesn’t look like anyone accomplished a lot during the break. There is a lot of homework that still needs to be done for everyone, yet everyone wants to just hang out with there friends who they have been without for a long period…. of four days.

Hanging out with friends before returning to classes