Ben, ‘11

September 19, 2008

I’m back. It’s been a crazy week (with spectacular weather I might add). It’s late Thursday night/early Friday morning at 2:30 AM. I just finished a project that took me three hours. It was for Software Tools and taught me how to use the library’s online databases. So now, if anyone needs for me to tell them where to find the industry report for ice cream in Italy in 2005, I can tell them where to go. Yeah, pretty ridiculous. I apologize if some of this doesn’t make sense. It’s late. I’ve already caught myself typing December instead of September as the month.

Since I’ve been crazy busy, I’ll jump right in. After I left you last, I had a busy weekend ahead of me. I went to the Cellar, our on-campus pub/restaurant, on Friday night and listened to the live band and hung out with a good friend and one of his freshman friends. Then, we headed back to our dorm and watched some TV before turning in at 12:00. It was early, I know. However, there was a reason for it.

Last weekend was InterVarsity’s annual Virginia Beach Sunrise Trip. We all get together and drive to Virginia Beach at 3:00 AM to watch the sun rise over the ocean. It was quite amusing to see so many people still out and about on a Friday night as we were getting ready to leave. Both I and them were calling it a day, just in very different ways. They were heading back to crash and I was waking up for the day. I didn’t sleep at all in the car and this would continue the period of 43 hours in which I only got four hours of sleep. I’m a college student, so I can still put that off. I did meet some awesome people along the way to Virginia Beach and we had some very fun conversations. In all, we had 120 people go and we really reached out to some other organizations on-campus in the process. While the sunrise was partially blocked by all of the clouds, it was still a great trip.

Arriving to Virginia Beach in the pitch black night (5:30 AM)

Watching the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean with friends

Having fun on the beach

InterVarsity joined other groups and we had 120 people go.
It was an incredible turnout

Upon returning to school, we had a home football game that I went to. We won handily, mainly due to our five interceptions. Sadly, my driver wanted to leave early, so I missed some of the best parts of the game. Because of our great performance, we have now risen to #2 in the nation in the rankings for the Football Championship Series (D1-AA). We’re really excited. This week we have another home game for Family Weekend.

Kickoff of Richmond vs. Towson

I wrapped up the weekend on Sunday by attending church, watching the Packers’ game, attending a Council for Christian Unity meeting, and speaking at Investiture. Investiture is the annual event in which all of the freshmen men are officially accepted into Richmond College. I wrote a speech for it and represented the Class of 2011 in giving reflections on my experience here thus far. I thought it went quite well.

The hanging of the Class of 2012 flag

You are probably wondering when I actually do my homework. Well, I have had to become meticulous with my planning. I now have a fully-packed calendar with me at all times. Additionally, I’ve started keeping track of all assignments and when they will be do. So, I try to work ahead and save myself some stress of last-minute efforts. As you can see in the photo, I have every assignment due for the next two weeks available for me to check at any time.

My schedule, assignment tracker, and to-do list

Generally, I am on top of my assignments, but there was one last week that got the better of me. It was a rhetoric paper on “What is rhetoric and why is it important”. I experienced some of the worst writer’s block in my life. I just could not get it written over the weekend. Finally, after hours and hours of wasted time, it started to come to me. It was due Wednesday and I finished it Monday night. At the time, I was very pleased with it. After the last word, I refused to look at it until the next day. Well, I spent a lot of time on it the next day, but never read it. The work was for citations and technical aspects. Before I knew it, it was late at night and I was utterly exhausted. I wanted to do one more final proofread to make sure I was pleased with it still, but could not stay awake. I woke up at 7:55 AM on Wednesday. The computer was still on my lap. Oh yeah, did I mention the class started at 7:50? I had overslept. So, without having the chance to read it and ensure I hadn’t typed a string of nonsense letters on it while sleeping, I printed it and rushed off to class. Can you imagine running to turn in a paper whose content and quality you are unsure about? Yeah, it’s 15% of the grade for the class as well. I did get to read it again and it was fine, but that experience was not pleasant. I am so glad that paper is done.

InterVarsity also consumed a lot of my free time. I met with both staff workers this week for one hour each just to check in and see how I was doing as well as get a feel for how the group was doing this year. I also had to work with some alterations for the social calendar for IV. Somehow, I’m expected to work magic and it’s not always as easy as some people think. Still, I enjoy it. Other side notes include my Campaigns class helping with a voter registration drive. I also established my work site for Justice and Civil Society. I visited Tuckahoe Middle School and will be volunteering there on Tuesday morning with the English as a Second Language program. It’s part of the 30 hour service requirement for the course.

The United Methodist group had our weekly lunch on Thursday afternoon. I arrived and realized I was quite hungry for the Chinese food they had brought. It was at that point I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything except honey mustard pretzels and granola bars for 24 hours. I had those foods count as dinner since I was in a huge rush and then I slept in the next day, thus missing breakfast. Anyways, the Chinese food was great and the fortune cookies were even better. They said, “The star of riches is shining on you” and ” You will be successful in everything”. That was encouraging to hear. Being on the topic of food, I absolutely must mention something before I forget. Our dining hall has some new options this year and one of them is a Latin American Bar. It is INCREDIBLE. There is beef barbacoa, chicken cacciatore, fried plaintains, and so much more. I can’t say enough about it. I had it for dinner tonight and I don’t think I will ever get sick of it.

The last thing to mention is a Modlin Center event I went to this evening. Reduced Shakespeare Company came and did “The Complete History of America… Abridged”. It was a fantastic show, but slightly more inappropriate than I would have expected. They were very funny and definitely made my night. It’s nice to have some comedy in your life and to just be able to laugh. I went with one of my freshman friends and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company

Clips from the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s show on American History



Reduced Shakespeare Company’s version of the Bible



Reduced Shakespeare Company on Jeopardy

That week is now over. This upcoming weekend is very busy. It’s Family Weekend and, though my family will not be visiting, I have tons of things to do. I still have plenty of work, but I ‘m just trying to keep up this method of working ahead as much as possible. I should get some sleep now. Sorry for the chaos in this week’s post. Like I said, it’s late. Good night.

Quote of the Week: “Avoid making irrevocable decisions when tired or hungry.” - Robert Heinlein
Thought to Ponder: If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
Shout Outs: Any prospective international students
YouTube Video of the Week: