10/2/05

PSU smoked Minnesota this weekend and we are now ranked 16th!!! This is the real thing, although it hasn't quite hit me yet. When I decided to come here I knew how popular football was, but I never thought I would be coming to a school where the football team would actually be good! This is so incredibly huge and it is going to make the game this weekend so much more fun and exciting! One of my friends from high school is coming to visit. He goes to Syracuse and one of his friends from school is from about five minutes away from Ohio State so he wanted to come to the game, so my friend, Jason, is coming too. They think they are going to wear OSU jerseys in the Student section. Are they crazy? I told him he was going to get attacked and he told me that he was going to put his arm around me so I look like the bad person! I told him that was absolutely NOT going to fly. I'm really excited for him to come though. It'll be good to party with him. I have a lot of pressure on me though because he told me that I have to show him how we party here at PSU, I hope I can do it!

10/3/05

This is going to be a great week of sports. As we all know, there is the huge Penn State game this Saturday night, but more importantly, in my mind, the Red Sox begin the play-offs tomorrow. They got the AL wild card spot and will be playing their ALDS against the Chicago White Sox. This past weekend, they played their last regular season series against the Yankees in Boston. We won the series 2-1, and were technically tied for first in the AL East, but for some weird reason that I still don't understand, the Yankees were declared AL East Champions and we were given the Wild Card Spot. I can't complain too much only because it really doesn't matter, as long as we are in the play-offs. Matt Clement is pitching game 1, Wells in game 2, Wakefield in game 3, and the rest will be decided if necessary. I am very confident that the Red Sox can win this series easily. Although the White Sox have good pitching, our offense is unstoppable most of the time. One of the most important things that I think will make or break the series is if our bullpen shows up. We'll see!

10/4/05

A week or two ago I was reading in the “letters to the editor” section of the Daily Collegian. One letter that I was reading, which I found very interesting, was written about a student who had written an article about how main campus wasn’t what it was made out to be. In the article the student, who transferred here his junior year from a branch campus, said that main campus, University Park, was overrated and not as prestigious and fun as he had heard. The article written in reaction to this kid’s thoughts basically said that your college experience is what you make it and no matter where you are going to school, you have the opportunity to make it as good or as bad as you want it to be. I completely agree with this response. Although I do not love it here at Penn State University Park, I am making the best of it. I am trying to meet as many new people as possible, I am playing club lacrosse, I am studying hard, and I am taking advantage of all the facilities. Also, although I haven’t decided if I’m going to transfer to a school closer to home, I am making my PSU experience the best I can make it. It’s not because I don’t like it here at PSU, it’s just that it’s too far away from home. I feel that this kid cannot say that University Park is overrated, he has to put in just a little bit of effort to make it worth his while.

10/6/05

One of the front page articles in the Daily Collegian was titled "Student scalpers face fines". I think that this is absolutly rediculous. If the demand for these Ohio State tickets is so high and people are willing to pay so much money, why not let the person sell it for what the buyers will pay? I know it is the law, but i feel that it is so unnecissary. The cops should worry about more important things other than kids selling their tickets. Yes, the kids do earn around 125-175 dollars, but they also lose the chance to go to the game. They arn't going to experience what use attendees will experience. Coming from my point of view, a buyer of a 150 dollar Ohio State ticket, I feel that it is completly understandable for these people to charge a great deal more than the face value. Don't worry, the money didn't come out of my pocket, it's for a friend of mine, I'm not that crazy!!

10/6/05

Does it really matter what traditions us "penn staters" practice in celebration of our currently 5-0, #16th ranked Penn State Nittany Lions? There was an article in the Opinion section of the Daily Collegian that was saying that we are stealing traditions such as raising people in the air. People are apparently angry that we arn't practicing our traditional celebrations, such as throwing marshmallows in the air after a touchdown, and not looking at the alma marter lyrics and making them up ourselves. Things change over time and these people need to understand that whatever we want to do to celebrate our football teams achievments we should be allowed to do. Enough with the bitching, lets just cheer our team on!

10/7/05

Right now I am waiting for my friends to arrive for the weekend. They were supposed to get here at 5:00, but they hit traffic and won't be here until around 6:00. This should be a very exciting weekend. I can't wait for the game tomorrow! I'm a little aprehensive to let them both stay in my room. It is sure going to be crowded! My friend is a little intense, so I hope he doesn't piss me off too much. Haha, I don't mean to be a bitch, but I can only take him in small doses, mainly because he is all about partying and going out. When I talked to him on the phone earlier today he was already asking me if I had found a party for tonight. I was just like chill coop, it's early and plus there is the OAR concert tonight, so a lot of people are going to be there. It should be fun though because I'm really excited to see someone from home. He's coming with someone from school, so I hope he is a nice kid, I'm sure he will be. We'll time to go pick them up!

10/14/05

I LOVE being home. I can't even explaing how good it feels. Yesterday was a long day though. Our bus left at 3:15 and the drivers were clueless and kept stopping at these random places for 15 minutes. It was really annoying because all I wanted to do was be home. Once my parents picked my brother and I up from the bus, we were driving to Boston and there were soooo many detours. It was the biggest pain in the ass because we just kept going in circles and were ending up back where we started. We finally got home at around 12:30. My best friend was home too, who goes to school in Colorado, so I stopped over her house for an hour or two to see her and my other friend who is still a senior in high school. It was sooo nice to see them, I forgot home much I miss them and their craziness. Today I spent some time with my mom. I was awoken at around 10:30 by my brother who was running up and down the stairs getting ready to go surfing. He came home at a good time because he got to surf because of the stormy weather. My mom and I went out to lunch and then did a little shopping. She then made a HOME COOKED DINNER for us. It was amazing!!!! I forgot how good it tastes!!! I have to take advantage of it while I'm home!

10/17/05

Stigmergy Remix:

Stigmergy describes the indirect communication bttween individuals in social insect societies. Grasse's definition originated from the reconstruction of termite nests. How smoothly the building activity was didn't depend on the workers, it depended on the nest itself, which eventually triggered a response of a termite worker, which then triggers an action by another termite. His formulation didn't cover how these stimuli were organized enough to preform these tasks. Overall, his definition makes sense and the consequences are yet to be explored. Not only is stigmergy important to understand evolution and the maintenance of sociality in animals, it may also become important for such things as artificial intelligence, robots, or social, political, and economic sciences.

10/18/05

This is going to be a very hard week. Friday, October 21st, is the two year aniversary of Robert Bradley's death. Rob was a year older than me and a friend of mine. We wern't best friends, but we knew eachother and hung out in the same big "group". Unfortunatly he got involved in drugs and drug dealing. He was into really hard drugs like cocaine, oxycontins, etc...He ended up overdosing on 10.21.03. I will never forget that day. I was in my C Block History class, and all of a sudden my principal came on the intercom and annonced it. I was speechless, didn't know what to do, and broke down. I ended up going home with my friends right away and we all just hung out. We didn't know what to do. It was the worst day of my life. If you knew this kid, you would understand how horrible this was. He was nice to EVERYONE, no exceptions. He was the most genuine person I have ever met. That night we all held a vigil for him at a local park. The rest of the year was blah. The day the seniors graduated was his 19th birthday. I can't believe that it has been two years. It has gone by so fast. I am just thinking about his good friends and I hope they are all doing okay...

10/19/05

Evaluation argument #1

Google shares soar

This article is saying that google now is not only an online search engine, but a money making machine. Google, which is now worth about 100 billion dollars, is an indespensible part of the internet that is becoming more and more popular as more people are becoming more comfortable with "surfing" the internet. Google gets paid for each advertisement on it's homepage, and then each time someone clicks on one of the advertisements, they get paid again. Many people are anticipating that google will continue to make more and more money and it's worth will continue to rise into the future. Google has already outpreforming yahoo, one of the biggest money makers in the internet advertising network. Due to it's explosion, Google is currently hiring an average of 10 employees per day to keep up with its growing productivity.

10/20/05

Evaluation argument #2

Toshiba's new mini laptop is almost perfect

Toshiba came out with a new, tiny laptop that may look appealing to most people. It is about half the size of a standard laptop, much more sophisticated than its previous model, and has a CD/DVD port that attaches to the bottom. It is very speedy, holds lots of memory and comes with Windows XP pro. The 7.2 widescreen is beautiful and is perfect for a portable dvd player, all you need is some earphones. On the downside, the mouse is a pain in the neck to use due to the fact that you can't easily press the left "clicker". Many times people have found themselves having to stop what they are typing due to the fact that they cannot find the place where they need to click. Another downside to this new tiny computer is the very small keys on the key board. People have found that it is very hard to type and almost impossible to use your thumb to type. Many think that if this one flaw was fixed it would be even closer to perfect.

10/21/05

*r.p.b. always in our hearts...*

ASSIGNMENT WHILE KEM IS AWAY

1. Definition of Plagerism

Plagerism is presenting something as your own when it really isn't, it was taken from someone else or something else. It is taking someone or somethings ideas or work and claiming ownership to it. Plagerism is becoming more and more of a problem with the increasing popularity of the internet. People are becoming more and more lazy and are deciding to steal someone else's ideas instead of thinking or writing about thier own. Most students in schools have already or will sometime in the near future commit an act of plagerism. Whether the person does it on purpose, plagerism is plagerism. This can be easily avoided by citing the source from which the information came from. If it is not your idea you should immediatly realize that you should cite where it actually came from.

2. Evaluation Argument taken from CaitSky

Evaluation Argument - - The Truth about Chocolate

In the article, it is being proven that chocolate can have positive affects on one’s heart and mind. clAIM: It can lower LDL which is bad cholesterol and raise levels of HDL which is a measure of one’s good cholesterol. Research is also proving that dark chocolate can lower blood pressure and help prevent Type II diabetes. Because certain types of chocolates contain flavonols and antioxidants, they are recommended to become a part of a person’s daily diet. The article also confirms that dark chocolate has five times the amount of antioxidants as blueberries. Many will contend that chocolate cannot possibly help one lower their cholesterol; how can something that so many steer away from in dieting help improve one’s health? With new research, science is able to prove that consuming small amounts of dark chocolate can indeed have positive affects.

10/24/05

My parents are coming this weekend!I cannot wait. I miss them so much. It should be really fun because they have tickets for the purdue game and they are bringing up a bunch of food and we are going to have a tailgate. I cannot even tell you how excited I am to have real food. I think we are going out to dinner on Friday night and then my mom is making chili, wings, and other grill foods for the tailgate!!! My mom is the best cook ever, I can't wait. I think I'm going to sleep in the hotel room with them Friday night just because if I don't I won't get to spend enough time with them and I really want to because I've missed them so much. As you can probably see I'm a real "home body" and I hate being this far away from my family. Being so far away is one of the main reasons why I'm thinking of transferring, so we'll see, I think I'm just going to apply for next fall. I'll probably just apply to University of New Hampshire and maybe some other "smallish" schools in Massachusetts. The one thing that I am sort of worried about with transferring is that I will be so out of the loop and everyone will have all their friends already and I won't be able to meet anyone. Hopefully that wouldn't be a huge issue, but we'll see, that is if I do really decide to transfer.

10/25/05

The movie that I decided to do my review on is "Blow". It is with Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz. It is based on the true story of George Jung, who became the largest importer of Columbian cocaine into our country in the 1970s and 1980s. He worked with one of the most dangerous drug lords in history, Pablo Escobar. I think that this will be a good movie to write a review on because first, it is one of my favorite movies and I have seen it so many times, and second, because it is based on a true story. I think that it will be easy to write a review on a movie that is based on a true story because you can critize how accurate it really is. It is a very intense movie and it is also very sad. You see how George's family is affected by his life long job. He breaks his daughter's heart so many times, which is the most depressing and influential part of the movie. You also see how cocaine negativly affects a person and their family in such a big way.

10/26/05

I hate having a communal bathroom. I didn't have my own bathroom at home, but I'm still not used to sharing a bathroom with 40-60 other girls. THere is absolutly no privacy because there is no curtin seperating the outside of the stall for you to get changed in, so you have to go in the shower stall, take off your towel and hang it over the door. To do that you have one of two options. You can turn the shower on before you get in, which results in your towel getting wet, or you can go in the shower stall, take your towel off, and then turn the shower on, but that results in the water being freezing cold at first, which sucks. Just the fact that I can go into my bathroom at home, get undressed with no worries is greatly missed. I never thought I would have such a problem with it. If they only had a better set up in our bathrooms, the problem would be solved. Another thing they could improve on is putting lights in the shower. For us girls who shave our legs, we all know how much of a pain it is to shave in the dark. Is it that hard to have our showers well lit? I didn't think it would be, but I guess that's just how East Hall bathrooms are.

10/27/05

I was studying for economics tonight with a few girls, and I was starving, so I asked my friend Taylor if she wanted to go to dinner at 6:30, and a few other girls wanted to come too, which was fine. Taylor and I were waiting outside the elevators to go down and the rest of the girls wern't ready yet. An elevator came so we told them we'd be downstairs and we'd wait for them. We waited downstairs for a few minutes, and when the elevator opened 75% of our floor came pouring out. I don't know why, but I really don't like going to dinner with a million people. I don't like it to be a big production and I like it to be low key. This was really annyoing that they were all coming. I didn't want to be a bitch so I just went with them and sucked it up. Next time I'll know that I shouldn't make plans to go to dinner with more than a few people, otherwise it might get a little out of controL!

10/29/05

Today was one of the most fun I've had in a really long time. First of all, my parents are here visiting and they brought up all the stuff to have a tailgate for my brother and his friends and me and my friends. In the morning I went with my parents to help set up and then my daddy fired up the grill. He made wings, burgers, and sausages. We also had chips, veggies, and all sorts of stuff. It was SO GOOD!!! Everyone had a good time. I was nice to have some good food, not sketchy dining hall meat! We all went to the game, which was really fun, although it wasn't the most exciting game. It was kind of chilly too, but it was fun because we won! I can't believe we are 8-1. It's so cool, but it hasn't really hit me yet. After the game I met back up with my parents and we hung out for a little while where there car was. We didn't want to leave right away because the traffic was absolutly rediculous and it would have taken us hours to get out of the parking lot. We just warmed up in the car and talked for a little. I just got home now, and I'm about to go get ready for tonight!

10/31/05

Happy Halloween! I have never really been a big fan of halloween actually. This weekend I dressed up just because I didn't want to be the odd man out. I'm not going to go out tonight though because I have some work to do and also because I just don't feel like dressing up again and dealing with all the stuff. Last night was the Patriots game and they won, thank god. I would have cried if they fell under .500. It was a scary game though, we almost lost to the Buffalo Bills! This season has been so different for us, I'm really not used to watching such close, bad games. We are just suffering so bad with injuries. Richard Seymor, Rodney Harrison, Matt Light are three very important ones and there are still a bumch more too. Thank god we still have Tom Brady or else we really would be in trouble. Plus, he's cute :-). We were losing to begin with, but we were able to come back. They have had such a hard schedule and it is only going to get tougher because we are playing at indi next week! They are good this year, but Belicheck always has something up his sleeve for Peyton!!!