Today Wachovia got bought out and Charlotte has no gas. Not a good day for my hometown.

On the bright side, I'm taking a test on Wednesday, and the grading scale he showed us stopped at C+. That's rather encouraging when you're taking a class pass/fail.

ND 38 Purdue 21

Today was another great day. I woke up around 7:30, watched an episode of Colbert, then I went down and hung out with Drew and Charles. Packy showed up after 9, and by 9:45 we were heading over to Warrick Street to go to to a big off campus party. It was hosted by some of my friends, so it was great. They had Natty Light on tap, which was surprisingly okay. They also had eggs, so it was a legit kegs and eggs. I came back to my room around 2, passed out for an hour, watched UNC beat Miami, then went to the ND game. They played really well today, which was great and exciting. An actual running game on the team was especially great. Also, we noticed NDSP has their own helicopter. Tuition money at work, apparently.

Now Alabama is beating UGA. Bama is my favorite ESS EEE CEEE team, so that's good.

Here are some pictures from today

Yay pictures!

So we did not beat Sparty after all

Pictures from yesterday will be coming later. Here's the rundown:

I woke up on my own at 5:30 in the morning; I must have been excited. I watched an episode of the daily show, and then at 6:30ish I went down to Drew and Charles's room to make sure they were up. Packy joined us at 6:45, and at 7 we went across to fill up the cooler with ice in Badin. By 7:30 we were on the road.

We took a slightly longer way up to avoid the toll road. After getting off US-31 to get onto I-94, we saw an "American Waffle House" sign and stopped there for breakfast. It was delicious. I had a pecan and banana waffle, everyone else filled up on some good hearty stuff, and we went off.

We arrived in East Lansing at 11. There was no good parking available, and we were totally bummed. For some reason, one of the biggest parking lots for the game is alcohol free, which is pretty unAmerican. This isn't BYU, dammit! Anyways, we parked about 15 minutes from the stadium in the furthest public lot. At least we were allowed to drink. And drink we did. We lounged, threw the football, and drank American beers for a few hours. I broke off and met up with Patrick and Colin at around 2. Patrick was with his girlfriend and Keegan (I think?), a friend from Marshall. We had a pretty good time going into the stadium and whatnot, and surprisingly I didn't take all that much harassment from Sparty fans, which made life a lot better.

The game? Not so good. We lost 23-7, though there wasn't one aspect of the game where they looked really bad. It was entertaining, and we were having a good time all around. Packy and I were next to each other in the corner of the end zone, and Chad, Durst, Gorsche, and many others were around as well. Good times, good times.

We took off with about 2 minutes left in the game. I had entertained some thoughts of staying in East Lansing for the night earlier this week, but I wasn't really in the mood after the game. We managed to get out and on to the highway really quickly, which was great. The drive home was painless as well. We took a nice detour through Kalamazoo for food, and we ended up getting a little confused and drove all through town. A good life experience was had, I suppose. We got back in time for the end of the LSU-Auburn game and SNL. SNL was lame. A bad day for entertainment, I suppose, but a good day in general. Away games are fun. That made a UNC roadtrip much more likely.

Weekend begins now

This is why I am excited for this weekend. Technically my weekend begun half an hour ago, as I have no more classes until Monday, but my life is kind of weekend-less, as I just have different blobs of work every day. Fridays are a real 9-6 job, but outside of that work is hectic. But this weekend is a real weekend, in that the slate is clear Saturday and Sunday. Why? Away game.

This will be my first ND game off campus. And I can't think of a better place to go, mainly because I suspect that going to MSU as a football opponent is the closest thing (excepting Ohio State. Obviously) to being an SEC away fan. It will be great. Michael Reeve talked about guys throwing piss on the band. I believe that.

Plus, ND has a nice history of beating MSU at MSU (at ND stadium? Not so much). Not that I expect a win. But it should be fun.

The plan as of now is to take off early in the morning, get beer and tailgate for hours, watch the game, and then ???? Maybe head home, maybe stay in East Lansing. If I do that, there will have to be enough room in one car to go back for all the people going with us. We'll see.

As for the rest of the week? Same shit, different week. I tried to contact the Speaker of the House for Indiana to ask him some questions about gambling legalization, but he was out of town. I got one of my teachers to agree to write a law school recommendation, so that's good. She's an Italian teacher and seemed thrilled to write it, so yay for that. I need to ask one more. I also wrote my "Why Duke" and "Why Michigan" application supplemental essays. I have one more supplemental essay, a 250 word essay for Yale Law which is going to be incredibly difficult, and then my main "personal statement," which is going to be about Higgins Lake I think. I'm putting that off a bit, but oh well. I also got a bunch of fee waivers recently, but not to U of M, which is disappointing. I did get one to Columbia which is nice. Free money!

Great week

This has been a very exciting week for me, in many respects. I got a bit of work done, both in school and out, over the course of the week. For my thesis, for example, I met with a resource librarian who gave me some potentially useful advice. I also started meeting my freshmen for peer advising, which is going well.

Then on Friday my parents came in for the big Michigan week. Or, at least, they tried. They were scheduled to arrive at 2 on Friday, but the weather was terrible (it has rained here almost nonstop since Thursday and won't stop until Tuesday), so they kept getting pushed back. Eventually they flew to Chicago, but they chose to rent a car for a day and drive in to South Bend. They arrived around 6:15, and we went back to their hotel. It was the same one that we stayed in three short years ago when little Jamie was moving in to Dillon Hall for the first time. That was a quick three years.

We ate Friday dinner at Ruth's Chris in Mishawaka, and they stayed back at their hotel while I went to bed before Midnight Drummers Circle. I woke up at 7 AM on football Saturday, and we returned the rental to South Bend airport. After that we went to American Pancake house, and discovered the best breakfast place in the area. Delicious apple pancake thingy. So good we went back this morning.

And the game? It was wet, and it was awesome. ND beat Michigan 35-17 in a surprise beatdown, not the anticipated cripple fight. So much excitement among the fans and the team. It was probably the best win I've been to as an ND student (that or UCLA 2006). I'm really excited for next weekend and Michigan State.

And then today the Panthers were on here and they beat the Bears! What a weekend!

We beat San Diego State!

I believe I called that whole Michael Floyd thing. Actually, during the game I correctly called our punt block and the Michael Floyd touchdown pass right before they happened. My friends thought I was insane, because those were the only two play predictions I made all game. I saw the punt block formation and the one on one coverage, so it wasn't so hard, but my seatmates were amazed.

Anyways, Notre Dame beat San Diego State by eight points yesterday. They were favored by twenty one. I don't know what to think about it, other than THROW MICHAEL FLOYD THE FOOTBALL MORE. Thrown to: one time. Total number of catches: one. Total number of touchdowns: one. When we were losing at the end of the third quarter, the time when we usually do our cheer for our coach, less than ten percent of the seniors were doing it. I symbolically turned my back to the field. I was angry. I feel a little better this morning.



Also, here are some pictures of the weekend, plus some other stuff. Max came up yesterday, and we did the campus tour followed by the game. I think he had a good time.

Football returns

Tomorrow ND plays San Diego State, a makeup game for San Diego State changing its schedule to accommodate ND's moving a BYU game in front of a Michigan game my senior year. It is a boring opponent, but we could use one after an awful season last year (I say we like I'm on the team, of course).

Despite being a 21+ point favorite, I could not be more excited. Actually, I know I can be more excited, because USC freshman year happened, but this is pretty close. Hearing the band beginning to play out on God Quad got me pumped, and I ran down with my camera to get pictures of Reevie and others (I will get some picture links up after the football weekend).

The campus is so alive on football weekends. Proud parents come back, little children run around on South Quad, football players who wear sweatpants and a sweatshirt simultaneously at all hours during the school year wear suits, etc. Excitement doesn't even begin to describe it.

The team is going to be incredibly exciting, but not necessarily in a good way. The defense is going to blitz blitz blitz, which will probably mean we will get two sacks followed by giving up a 55 yard touchdown pass because we're not quite talented enough. But we're young, and the football players at ND (save a few, of course) are really nice guys, so it's easy to get excited. Plus, I've seen Michael Floyd around campus a bunch (#3 on the field, which is a number long in ND lore), and he looks like the man. I have a new Samardzija, and he's only a freshman.

Oh boy am I excited.

Quick school week

Another quick school week. Here's the synopsis:

Monday- First monday of classes. I decided to take my On War class Pass/Fail, which precludes me from making the dean's list this semester because I am only taking 9 graded credit hours, but oh well. Not too much else memorable from Monday.

Tuesday- First peer advising class Tuesday afternoon. Tomorrow I get my list of kids I'm expected to interview. That should be time consuming and awkward, but maybe I'll make a difference in a few kids year, so that can be rewarding. I also had a meeting with the Teach for America ND guy, but I essentially told him thanks but no thanks.

Wednesday- My "busy" day, with two afternoon classes and then an hour honors thesis class with kids presenting their research (or what will be their research). The classes were fine. I actually was the first presenter. I signed up because I figured I was as far ahead as anyone else and I wanted to get it out of the way early. I was surprisingly nervous. Despite being in a ton of plays, I still get flushed during public speaking. I guess my presentation was kind of off the top of my head (maybe I should have made a powerpoint), so that may have had something to do with it. People didn't seem to mind, though. And they asked interesting questions, but that's probably a function of the subject (gambling). Also, I got in a plug for The Wire in there. Success. Also, last night Sarah Palin spoke at the Republican convention, so my friends and I drunkenly poked fun at Rudy Giuliani and then noted Cindy McCain's not-so-excellent plastic surgery or Botox (her facial expression did not change once during Palin's 45 minute speech) and then made fun of how uncomfortable the guy who knocked up Palin's daughter looked (understandably). And then Palin knocked her speech out of the ballpark. This is going to be a really interesting two months. And I'm one of the ever-so-valuable "undecided" voters.

Thursday- Today I woke up, got dressed up in my suit, and went over to interview for an internship position at the office of U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly (IN-02). I decided to apply to work there because I enjoyed my time at Sue Myrick's office and I have free time this semester. After that I made a beer run, then came back and somehow the day slipped away. I did some writing samples for the internship and went to the gym and then ate a few times and somehow the time goes. Then I started to write this post and my computer died, but luckily I saved a draft, so now I'm finishing it at the computer lab.

I have yet to hear from Max about his travel plans, which is worrisome.