2 quick things. One, I got my chem test back, with a 72 on it. The median out of the entire class was a 72. I am the epitome of average. Bow before my mediocrity!
Yay me...
On much, much happier note, football game today! Watch it! Look for the people raising the flag! Or just watch it because it's Michigan's chance to turn their season around! Go Blue! But not Penn State Blue! Hurray!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Turn on Your TVs tomorrow!
If you happen to turn on the Michigan vs. Penn State and they show the flag being raised... look at the Color Guard for the guy in the row on the left (away from press box) nearest to the people raising the flag.
That'll be me.
That'll be me.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Stuff to talk about
Well, there's quite a bit to mention in today's update. We'll start with last Friday. Originally, I had planned to finish up my classes and head home for Homecoming, which also coincided nicely with having Monday and Tuesday off this week for a 'fall break.' This would let me go to my homecoming game Friday night. Then I got the joyful news of an Engineering exam that day, and even better, it was at 6. I'd be getting done after the game started. Luckily for me, my professor offered an earlier time for people with conflicts, and I gleefully took my test at two. Compared to my Calc exam, I thought that went much, much better. I'll have a grade by next Monday on it.
Next up was my Fall Break. I spent a nice homecoming game, and the following day after with friends, as I decided to come back to the homecoming dance. It was nice seeing a bunch of people I haven't seen in a couple of months. Sunday I hung out with Mike and my friend Steve, where we did our traditional Heroscape, Board Game, and Video Game day/night. That was highly enjoyable as well.
And finally, today. I had the wonderful pleasure of a Chemistry exam on the day I got back to school (today.) I have spent the last 3 days studying for this beast of an exam, but I think it went pretty well. It was multiple choice, and set up to be scanned in, so no random points off for work like in math. I think with the added bonus of guess and check, I did quite well on it, or so I hope.
Well, that's been my week. For a final post, I just wanted to bring up something that has been in the News recently.
/begin rant
I'm sure by now you've heard of Barack Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, I was a little surprised and mildly ticked off when I heard, as I didn't really think he deserved it. However, with some new information and debating that I've been party to, I've come to accept that it was generally a good thing. Sure, there were politics involved, but I'm sure Barack Obama didn't go out and apply for this. Basically, from what I've heard, he was just as surprised as we were. If that's true, then he made the correct choice. It's not like he could have refused it... that would only tick off the Nobel Prize committee, and all the European countries he spent the first 100 days of office smoothing the feathers of, because of residual Bush-hate in many of these countries. By accepting the award, he appeases the various countries over there, and has something to use as a bit of clout should he attempt further Foreign Policy... things. Not sure of the word there. Essentially, from what I've heard, most Peace Prize awards were given well before the winners accomplished anything. Martin Luther King would be an example of this, as he won his before his passage of the Equal rights act.
Now I'm not saying that Obama is anywhere close to Martin Luther King, nor am I saying he particularly deserves. I just now see why the committie gave it to him, and why he made the right choice by accepting the award (he also gave the money to charities, if that accounts.) Plus I think he deserves it more than Al Gore did...
Sorry for bothering you all with my politics, but I just wanted to point this out, because I thought it was interesting. After hearing people's arguments, I flipped 90 degrees on my support of the award's existence. It doesn't raise my opinion of the Prize Committee any, but hey, they're not my problem.
/end rant
Next up was my Fall Break. I spent a nice homecoming game, and the following day after with friends, as I decided to come back to the homecoming dance. It was nice seeing a bunch of people I haven't seen in a couple of months. Sunday I hung out with Mike and my friend Steve, where we did our traditional Heroscape, Board Game, and Video Game day/night. That was highly enjoyable as well.
And finally, today. I had the wonderful pleasure of a Chemistry exam on the day I got back to school (today.) I have spent the last 3 days studying for this beast of an exam, but I think it went pretty well. It was multiple choice, and set up to be scanned in, so no random points off for work like in math. I think with the added bonus of guess and check, I did quite well on it, or so I hope.
Well, that's been my week. For a final post, I just wanted to bring up something that has been in the News recently.
/begin rant
I'm sure by now you've heard of Barack Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, I was a little surprised and mildly ticked off when I heard, as I didn't really think he deserved it. However, with some new information and debating that I've been party to, I've come to accept that it was generally a good thing. Sure, there were politics involved, but I'm sure Barack Obama didn't go out and apply for this. Basically, from what I've heard, he was just as surprised as we were. If that's true, then he made the correct choice. It's not like he could have refused it... that would only tick off the Nobel Prize committee, and all the European countries he spent the first 100 days of office smoothing the feathers of, because of residual Bush-hate in many of these countries. By accepting the award, he appeases the various countries over there, and has something to use as a bit of clout should he attempt further Foreign Policy... things. Not sure of the word there. Essentially, from what I've heard, most Peace Prize awards were given well before the winners accomplished anything. Martin Luther King would be an example of this, as he won his before his passage of the Equal rights act.
Now I'm not saying that Obama is anywhere close to Martin Luther King, nor am I saying he particularly deserves. I just now see why the committie gave it to him, and why he made the right choice by accepting the award (he also gave the money to charities, if that accounts.) Plus I think he deserves it more than Al Gore did...
Sorry for bothering you all with my politics, but I just wanted to point this out, because I thought it was interesting. After hearing people's arguments, I flipped 90 degrees on my support of the award's existence. It doesn't raise my opinion of the Prize Committee any, but hey, they're not my problem.
/end rant
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
My brain... is like a bowl of pudding.
*SPLORT*
That's the sound pudding makes when it gets poked.
Aside from that discovery of the day, here's Paul news! All Paul, All the time.
Two things of note recently... one was FTX, my ROTC trip to Alpena, and the other was my Calc Exam that took place an hour and a half ago. Let's... do the Calc first so we end on a good note, shall we?
I studied hard for the last couple days, writing a notecard to use during the test, and summarizing the chapters the exam was on. I was feeling pretty good about myself, because I was working through the problems decently on the practice exams, and I felt like I understood the concepts.
Until today...
The test I just took was a Math test on steroids, protein shakes, and LSD. None of that means anything, I just felt like comparing it to things that make it sound ridiculous. Essentially the test WAS the basic concepts I learned, but worded so difficultly, that my brain overthought things, made me work too hard, made me forget simple formulas until minutes later... essentially it ate a bit of my soul. Or so it feels like. Out of the 9 problems on the test, I did not finish 2-3 of them because I ran out of time. I ATTEMPTEd all of them but... ran out of time. Time time time. And here I text Mike after the test where he is, and he's already back in the room playing Computer games. O.o <-- Picture that as a face I would make. I sincerely doubt he did any better on the test than me, even if he did get the concepts better. There's no way to finish that test that quickly, accurately. We'll see when the scores come out. Luckily the grading is strongly in my favor... some of the past exams had 60s being Bs. I'm thinking that if all the parts I actually answered were fullycorrect, I'm gonna get very low 80s. It was that bad. I don't even think studying would have helped me more here, it was just time that got me. *sighs*
On to a happier note though, my previous weekend. FTX! Field... Training Exercise... Or something like that. Basically, we went up late Friday night, stayed through Saturday, and left at 5am Sunday morning. However, being the military, we went to bed at 9-10 both nights, so we got enough sleep. Basically, Saturday, we woke up at 630 and were marching by 7. First item of the day was a briefing on M16s. We learned how to take them apart, some basic safety issues... we spent about an hour or so on that. From there we split up, and my group moved to the MOUT course.
MOUT stands for Military Operations in Urban Terrain. Basically, they taught us how to clear buildings, cross streets, and the like in Urban Terrain. It wasn't too in depth, but it was fun, and once we had the basics down, we ran through three scenarios. Our group was split up into three squads of five. On the first scenario, our objective was to raid a building and capture a 'terrorist' for interrogation. My group was the actual infiltration squad. I was on point. We went into the building with our only 'intel' being that someone on the first floor most likely had a weapon. I went into the building, and we cleared the first room pretty quickly. I moved in, weapon up (These were airsoft rifles by the way, replica M16s that shot small plastic pellets on Semiautomatic or automatic. Officers got to use automatic. Guess what we used?) I rounded a corner, and there was a terrorist, I pointed my weapon at him, and he started asking questions and the like, asking what I was doing, why I was here, trying to convince me to lower my guard. Eventually my squad subdued him, then went upstairs and captured the terrorist. We cleared out that scenario in less than ten minutes, without a shot fired. It wasn't till after I found out the guy I had found HAD a rifle, he just didn't grab it because I had him in my sights. Nice ego boost there. Second scenario was similar, but with actual hostiles. There was a helicopter crash with two pilots. We were supposed to retrieve them. We found one, then had to clear out a building to find the other. That also went really well, but we had one casualty because my squad leader stood directly in front of an open window. I shut it after he 'died' so no one else would. Smart thinking, am I right? The third scenario was the worst for us. Basically, there were lots of hostiles, and we had to evacuate to a building, clear it, and hold out for 15 minutes. Little did we know that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the officers was in there. We got slaughtered. I was on cover duty outside, waiting to get the ok to move in, when I get drilled in my facemask. Dead. We fell to pieces, I don't even think anyone made it to the second floor. We were told after that if that was a real mission, the Army would use a whole BATTALION to secure tha area, then send in Special Forces, if they wanted the building. Otherwise they'd just airstrike it. Us, with semiautomatic rifles and no grenades, didn't stand a chance. The 4th scenario was just for fun, cadets vs. officers. I was one of the survivors. It was fun.
From MOUT, we ate MREs (Yum...?) then went to the shooting range. I'm purposely NOT talking about the MREs because we weren't allowed to heat them up, and they weren't too pleasant. In the shooting, range, we shot stuff. First time shooting a rifle for me... needless to say I didn't do all that well. Well, I did DECENT but... not enough to qualify for Expert. I was in the middle-low range of our group, with 27 out of 40 hits. The people who hit 35 got to shoot a 50 cal. sniper rifle. It was RIDICULOUS. Shockwave, cloud of dust... Several inch long used shells... sheesh.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Totally worth it. Now though, I need to eat thsi sandwich that has been sitting here for the last 20 minutes while I typed. Bye!
That's the sound pudding makes when it gets poked.
Aside from that discovery of the day, here's Paul news! All Paul, All the time.
Two things of note recently... one was FTX, my ROTC trip to Alpena, and the other was my Calc Exam that took place an hour and a half ago. Let's... do the Calc first so we end on a good note, shall we?
I studied hard for the last couple days, writing a notecard to use during the test, and summarizing the chapters the exam was on. I was feeling pretty good about myself, because I was working through the problems decently on the practice exams, and I felt like I understood the concepts.
Until today...
The test I just took was a Math test on steroids, protein shakes, and LSD. None of that means anything, I just felt like comparing it to things that make it sound ridiculous. Essentially the test WAS the basic concepts I learned, but worded so difficultly, that my brain overthought things, made me work too hard, made me forget simple formulas until minutes later... essentially it ate a bit of my soul. Or so it feels like. Out of the 9 problems on the test, I did not finish 2-3 of them because I ran out of time. I ATTEMPTEd all of them but... ran out of time. Time time time. And here I text Mike after the test where he is, and he's already back in the room playing Computer games. O.o <-- Picture that as a face I would make. I sincerely doubt he did any better on the test than me, even if he did get the concepts better. There's no way to finish that test that quickly, accurately. We'll see when the scores come out. Luckily the grading is strongly in my favor... some of the past exams had 60s being Bs. I'm thinking that if all the parts I actually answered were fullycorrect, I'm gonna get very low 80s. It was that bad. I don't even think studying would have helped me more here, it was just time that got me. *sighs*
On to a happier note though, my previous weekend. FTX! Field... Training Exercise... Or something like that. Basically, we went up late Friday night, stayed through Saturday, and left at 5am Sunday morning. However, being the military, we went to bed at 9-10 both nights, so we got enough sleep. Basically, Saturday, we woke up at 630 and were marching by 7. First item of the day was a briefing on M16s. We learned how to take them apart, some basic safety issues... we spent about an hour or so on that. From there we split up, and my group moved to the MOUT course.
MOUT stands for Military Operations in Urban Terrain. Basically, they taught us how to clear buildings, cross streets, and the like in Urban Terrain. It wasn't too in depth, but it was fun, and once we had the basics down, we ran through three scenarios. Our group was split up into three squads of five. On the first scenario, our objective was to raid a building and capture a 'terrorist' for interrogation. My group was the actual infiltration squad. I was on point. We went into the building with our only 'intel' being that someone on the first floor most likely had a weapon. I went into the building, and we cleared the first room pretty quickly. I moved in, weapon up (These were airsoft rifles by the way, replica M16s that shot small plastic pellets on Semiautomatic or automatic. Officers got to use automatic. Guess what we used?) I rounded a corner, and there was a terrorist, I pointed my weapon at him, and he started asking questions and the like, asking what I was doing, why I was here, trying to convince me to lower my guard. Eventually my squad subdued him, then went upstairs and captured the terrorist. We cleared out that scenario in less than ten minutes, without a shot fired. It wasn't till after I found out the guy I had found HAD a rifle, he just didn't grab it because I had him in my sights. Nice ego boost there. Second scenario was similar, but with actual hostiles. There was a helicopter crash with two pilots. We were supposed to retrieve them. We found one, then had to clear out a building to find the other. That also went really well, but we had one casualty because my squad leader stood directly in front of an open window. I shut it after he 'died' so no one else would. Smart thinking, am I right? The third scenario was the worst for us. Basically, there were lots of hostiles, and we had to evacuate to a building, clear it, and hold out for 15 minutes. Little did we know that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the officers was in there. We got slaughtered. I was on cover duty outside, waiting to get the ok to move in, when I get drilled in my facemask. Dead. We fell to pieces, I don't even think anyone made it to the second floor. We were told after that if that was a real mission, the Army would use a whole BATTALION to secure tha area, then send in Special Forces, if they wanted the building. Otherwise they'd just airstrike it. Us, with semiautomatic rifles and no grenades, didn't stand a chance. The 4th scenario was just for fun, cadets vs. officers. I was one of the survivors. It was fun.
From MOUT, we ate MREs (Yum...?) then went to the shooting range. I'm purposely NOT talking about the MREs because we weren't allowed to heat them up, and they weren't too pleasant. In the shooting, range, we shot stuff. First time shooting a rifle for me... needless to say I didn't do all that well. Well, I did DECENT but... not enough to qualify for Expert. I was in the middle-low range of our group, with 27 out of 40 hits. The people who hit 35 got to shoot a 50 cal. sniper rifle. It was RIDICULOUS. Shockwave, cloud of dust... Several inch long used shells... sheesh.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Totally worth it. Now though, I need to eat thsi sandwich that has been sitting here for the last 20 minutes while I typed. Bye!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Hectic Morning
Well, today's the day I leave for FTX (Don't ask me what the acronym means, I couldn't tell you.) Basically we're heading up today (ROTC) at 3ish and getting to Alpena around 10ish. We'll spend Saturday doing various PT things, Urban Warfare with Airsoft guns, and attempting to get our M16 qualifications. Gonna be a blast.
Anyway, though I'd post before I left because it's been almost a week now... and I figured I should let you all know how things have been going.
Basically, this week has been cramming in as much homework as possible to try and clear enough time to study for my Math exam. It hasn't been too effective so far. I'll be bringing some math stuff for the long car ride up North...
As for the title of this post, I did indeed have a hectic morning this morning. I got up at 630 or so, packed my stuff, and left for mornign PT (I usually go in the afternoon.) I had Chemistry immediately after, so I brought my book bag. As soon as I closed the door, I realized I had left my room key and ID in the room. I shrugged, and went to PT. When I was done, I went to Chemistry, onyl to realize I left the USB device with our groups Presentation on it in my dorm room. I told my teacher, and sprinted back to Markley, where I realized I didn't have my ID to get in the building, or my room key to get in my room. Several bits of help later, I was springting back to class, just in time to find out I didn't have my pre-lab done, it wasn't in my book. (Luckily it was, I found it later.)
It all turned out well, I just ended up getting a good run in AFTER PT was done...
Bye all! Talk to you after FTX!
Anyway, though I'd post before I left because it's been almost a week now... and I figured I should let you all know how things have been going.
Basically, this week has been cramming in as much homework as possible to try and clear enough time to study for my Math exam. It hasn't been too effective so far. I'll be bringing some math stuff for the long car ride up North...
As for the title of this post, I did indeed have a hectic morning this morning. I got up at 630 or so, packed my stuff, and left for mornign PT (I usually go in the afternoon.) I had Chemistry immediately after, so I brought my book bag. As soon as I closed the door, I realized I had left my room key and ID in the room. I shrugged, and went to PT. When I was done, I went to Chemistry, onyl to realize I left the USB device with our groups Presentation on it in my dorm room. I told my teacher, and sprinted back to Markley, where I realized I didn't have my ID to get in the building, or my room key to get in my room. Several bits of help later, I was springting back to class, just in time to find out I didn't have my pre-lab done, it wasn't in my book. (Luckily it was, I found it later.)
It all turned out well, I just ended up getting a good run in AFTER PT was done...
Bye all! Talk to you after FTX!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Pictures from Dine-In
Realized I forgot these... here's the few pictures I took at the military dinner I went to yesterday.
Before that though, here's a quick summary of the night.
It was pretty cool. Met with the ROTC people who go to MSU and surrounding colleges (Just like Michigan includes Eastern and some others) Started with a meet and greet, followed by dinner. Dinner was interesting, because during the whole affair, peopel called each other out for breaking' 'rules' of the mess, so as to send people to the Grog bowl, which basically was a bunch of random stuff mixed so as to be disgusting. The trick was, you had to speak in rhyme. It was pretty funny. Someone would call you out, and you'd respond back, and then they might get one more, then the President of the Mess would decide who goes to the Grog, or both. I didn't get sent, but I had a rebuttal ready, and I was going to get my friend Schroeder, but I ran out of time. Dinner was pretty good. Salad and Bread, Followed by a steak dish with vegetables and rice, and some sort of... custardy dessert. After food, we had a Colonel speak about his job for a while, then we were done.
Here are the pics!
At the meet and greet before dinner.
Me and Cadet Kouroupas, another of my friends from ROTC. (He's huge!)
Here's me with a bunch of people during meet and greet. I'm the one blocked by Cadet Ford's gigantic head...
Another group of Cadets. The guy in the suit is from MSU, then from left to right it's Cadet Hildebrandt, Guy whose name I forget, Gannon, then me sneaking in from the right.
This particularly blurry picture includes myself on the left (would be my best one of me, but it's blurry...) but also happens to include some of the 2nd Year Cadets. (In the front, looking silly.)
And that there is Colonel Mattson (Madison? Matson? *shrugs* ) Deputy Commander of the 732nd Air Expeditionary Wing. I think. It was late when he speaking.
And that's all folks!
Before that though, here's a quick summary of the night.
It was pretty cool. Met with the ROTC people who go to MSU and surrounding colleges (Just like Michigan includes Eastern and some others) Started with a meet and greet, followed by dinner. Dinner was interesting, because during the whole affair, peopel called each other out for breaking' 'rules' of the mess, so as to send people to the Grog bowl, which basically was a bunch of random stuff mixed so as to be disgusting. The trick was, you had to speak in rhyme. It was pretty funny. Someone would call you out, and you'd respond back, and then they might get one more, then the President of the Mess would decide who goes to the Grog, or both. I didn't get sent, but I had a rebuttal ready, and I was going to get my friend Schroeder, but I ran out of time. Dinner was pretty good. Salad and Bread, Followed by a steak dish with vegetables and rice, and some sort of... custardy dessert. After food, we had a Colonel speak about his job for a while, then we were done.
Here are the pics!
At the meet and greet before dinner.
Me and Cadet Kouroupas, another of my friends from ROTC. (He's huge!)
Here's me with a bunch of people during meet and greet. I'm the one blocked by Cadet Ford's gigantic head...
Another group of Cadets. The guy in the suit is from MSU, then from left to right it's Cadet Hildebrandt, Guy whose name I forget, Gannon, then me sneaking in from the right.
This particularly blurry picture includes myself on the left (would be my best one of me, but it's blurry...) but also happens to include some of the 2nd Year Cadets. (In the front, looking silly.)
And that there is Colonel Mattson (Madison? Matson? *shrugs* ) Deputy Commander of the 732nd Air Expeditionary Wing. I think. It was late when he speaking.And that's all folks!
So Very, Very Sad
For those of you watch the obscure North American Sport of Football, particularly in the Midwestern Region of the Continent, surely you have heard by now of Michigan's loss to Michigan State. In Overtime. After driving 90 yards down the field to tie it moments before.
[Sounds of frustration echo through the internet]
Anyways besides that wonderful game, life has been going pretty well. Exams are beginning to peek around the corner with their beady, beady eyes, and preparations are beginning ever so slowly. At least I have no major projects this week to do. For now at least, I hope to enjoy a small bit of free time.
Happy Saturday everyone!
[Sounds of frustration echo through the internet]
Anyways besides that wonderful game, life has been going pretty well. Exams are beginning to peek around the corner with their beady, beady eyes, and preparations are beginning ever so slowly. At least I have no major projects this week to do. For now at least, I hope to enjoy a small bit of free time.
Happy Saturday everyone!
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