You know, I really hate winter time. I get sick, it’s cold, and there’s snow everywhere that ALWAYS manages to get into my shoe. There’s no sunshine, no vegitation, just a gray deathscape as far as you can see.

At first it’s really cute, I admit. I love the first snow of the season. I love to catch snowflakes on my tongue and look at the little buggers when they stick on my coat. The snow comes and covers up all the dying grass and the waking world is silenced by a thick covering of powder. Snowball fights are fun, sledding, all that stuff. It’s great.

Too bad it only lasts for like 3 days.

After that, the plows come pile it up, it gets dirty, the ground is wet and you slip whenever you walk into a building. Bah. Penn state is just a big dirty snowball right now. And we’re getting more.

Fun. Who’s up for moving to someplace warm?!

Actually, to snow’s credit, I did have some fun with it lately. A few friends got into a car and slid around campus for about a half hour before getting home. There was a massive snowball fight in east halls this year (there was one in pollock last year) Despite living off campus, I went. Essentially it was a big snowy riot / mardi gras party. Videos exist. People got completely tossed around by the football team, lasers (among other things) were flahed, the cops came and an ambulance was waiting for the inevitable. Nobody got hurt, at least too bad, to my knowledge. It was just insane, and a bit of moral decay, but sort of funny to watch.

Later that week it all turned to the dirty sludgy stuff though.

So yeah, does California sound good? Ecuador? Australia?

Since my last post, I’ve kept quite busy. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the stuff I’ve been up to.

• Applied for Study Abroad: If all goes well, I’ll be in Freibrg for a whole semester starting this upcoming fall. I’m told that Freiburg is Germany’s warmest cities, which I certainly hope applies while I’m there. Well, before I go on rambling and talking about Germany, I’ll stop myself. Leave it at, “I’m excited”. I know I don’t write as often as I’d like to, but when I’m in Germany, I’ll have tons to write about, and I’ll be starting a photoblog around that time too, so yeah, it’s gonna be great.
• Started to investigate Summer internships: Everything that IST gives me is sort of lame. Consulting is great, and there’s money there, and it sounds like a blasty-blast for everybody who does it, but nothing really jumps out at me. Like, I feel like if I were a consultant, I’d be one of the bobs from Office Space who just goes into other offices and, I dunno, consults. It just doesn’t sound fun to me. IST, on the other hand, has decided that it’s the most fun thing that can ever be done, and I hear it every day. Please IST, get into some developer positions?

  Needless to say, I’ve been on my own. I’m investigating research(!) opportunities in several universities around Germany — working on all sorts of interesting projects from cognitive modelling, to HCI, to New Media. There’s also a sort of a techy-marketing internship that I heard about and need to look into. It’s all that fun viral marketing that we never know we’re exposed to. Other than that, I have no idea what I’ll actually be doing. These are all possibilities, not realities yet.

• Wrestled with IST: Ah, I wish I could’ve wrestled with a few of the staff members. I think that a cage-match pitting students against their teachers would be a great way to support the school, or something. I had to wrestle the faculty for over a week concerning a class I didn’t want to be in. I took an intermediate java programming course in high school, and recieved four college credits for it. This semester, I was told to take a four-credit course in introductory java. IST never accepted those credits, every time I asked them, for over a year. I finally whined enough (and had some faculty help) to get them to accept it. I filled it’s spot with a neat design-based class instead, and I’m really happy I did.
• Celebrated the 2-year anniversary of my relationship: I won’t get all sappy here. But 2 years is quite the accomplishment, she’s been wonderful, and it’s been peaches and gravy the whole time.
• Saw an amazing show: We went to see Iron & Wine (one of my favorites, ever) at Messiah College in Grantham, PA. It was absolutely fantastic, Sam played a bunch of music from his new album that’s not due out until autumn, and a bunch of old favorites (some were updated too!). His opening act, David Bazan (formerly of Pedro the Lion) was also really great. I feel that it is tied for first-place in my list of favorite concerts, with Ben Folds @ Pitt last year. Sigh, I need to go to more concerts. Oh! and before I forget, here’s some videos from the event that have been turning up on youtube:
  • Jezebel (updated, different!)
  • Sodom, South Georgia (wow)
  • The Trapeze Swinger
  • The Trapeze Swinger (again, slightly closer/better)
  • Resurrection Fern (Not from the Messiah show but it’s BRAND NEW and this is the only video of it)
• Crashed my car (sort of): On my way to celebrating said anniversary, My car started to not obey me. I slid into a ditch (picture here, you can actually see where my tires rested, look for where the dirt is all pushed up, a few feet from the mailbox post, and the ground in the base of the ditch below, *shudder*). The passenger side of my car touched the bottom of the about-4-feet deep ditch, with the driver’s side still on the higher ground. I slid in at about 15mph. Miraculously, my car is fine. The body, the engine, the axles, the wheels, they’re all okay. I have no idea how. I had to climb out of my car, as it sat nearly sideways in this ditch. I watched it being pulled out by the tow truck, whose tether kept the car from tipping over on it’s roof. But sure enough I got in it and drove it home that night, and have driven it since without problems. I guess I got lucky. Hans (my car’s name) lives!
• Been Web Designin’: Not too much out of the usual, I’d say. I’ve been doing some collaborative things with other groups, hopefully more will come of it. I’ve been learning a lot lately, too, but I won’t stoop to talking shop, unless I cook up a nice tutorial or something.